I honestly don’t remember when I first heard about it - it was probably at a pretty early age - maybe early teens? I wanted to learn more about church history in my early 20’s, and I asked some active folks (they’d fit into the TBM category). They suggested a bio of Joseph Smith (written by a mormon) and the Work and the Glory series (fictionalized history written for an LDS audience) - both of them contained accounts of treasureseeking, polygamy, the banking scandal, the failed trip to sell the copyright, and a bunch of other stuff. True, the material was presented gently by believers, in a context that attempted to explain from a position of belief, but it was there. I hear folks claim that mormons hide their history and refuse to learn or teach the hard stuff. I had the exact opposite experience.
Then I found FARMS book review, which responded to just about every criticism in print, and I found various online forums where believers and critics got together to argue. I spent 10 years on those forums interacting and arguing, and sort of reached my everest in two ways: First, the contentious folks at the UK-based Reachout Trust countercult ministry admitted the possibility that I might actually be a saved Christian. Second, the opinion-provoking personality Prof. Daniel Peterson called one my my points “salient”. (I know, the second one isn’t much of an accomplishment, but I accepted a little self-indulgent ego-boost in a moment of weakness.) After those events, I noticed I was doing little more than copying and pasting from my file of apologetics, and the love of the argument sort of left me.
There is absolutely much available online that I was never taught in sunday school. My experience was full of instances like “Ok, I’ve always assumed something was a certain way, but now I find out it’s not that way.” And yes, I find LDS folks who believe some things I know are not true. I would expect this state of affairs to be true with just about any culture and important aspect of it. For example, people tell stories of switching their political beliefs after having similar experiences. For another example, I read all sorts of threads in other forums on this website, where Catholics are arguing with each other about what they should believe about various things and why.
But I’m sure you’d agree, not every “online fact” is actually true. The internet is full of people claiming stuff, when they don’t know the difference between facts, belief, truth, opinion, and knowledge.
Anyway, these days, I’m not really interested in arguing or trying to persuade. When I am, I go to
mormondialogue.org. I came to these forums to understand my Catholic neighbor better, and answer the occasional direct question. I won’t be doing much more defending or aruging any more here.
