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1. I’ve listened to both interviews and I think johns contributions are insightful. Most of us born in the covenant and being very active all of our lives , have an extremely difficult time with the idea that the sausage is actually made in this manner. Many of us are sick of temple building, we are sick of the shunning and the treatment of our teenagers when they pose a simple question to their seminary teachers , and when we find out they are being paid twice what the secular teachers make with a benifit package that far outweighs what we as full tithe payers have . It’s a terrible crash to become vilified because you became aware that the truth you built your life on was conjured from a rock and a hat . Way too many suicides for my liking. I’ve listened to most of Scott’s podcasts and I really appreciate his integrity and his clarity. We are all broken in our own way . The New Testament is all about an individual who gave his life to change the religious sacrificial ideation of the time . Our church sacrifices relationships , lives , and it’s own identity, to try to keep the money flowing into s l c . In other words as long as they get their 3 pieces of silver they don’t really care where the other 30 came from . For those of us who gave up such a big chunk of our lives , it is truly disheartening. Keep up the great work Scott , you too John , the temples you two are building really are the ones within, spoken of in the New Testament. The church promises a better way. Not a better perspective. It always goes back to the wizard of oz , the curtain gets moved and explanations come out . In the end oz really never gave the tin man what he already had . We are finding exactly what we didn’t come to look for in this church.

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   1. What are you talking about?

      Most Mormons are happy with more temple building.

      No one is being shunned for asking questions in seminary.

      The idea that people should be angry that full time seminary teachers get paid better than public school teachers is truly bizarre as it gets the problem with the pay of public school teachers backwards. Of course private organizations pay better and have better benefits. I should be angry that the church takes care of its employees?

      I’ve yet to understand how anyone could have a problem with a glowing rock in a hat but be perfectly fine with glowing glass crystals in a hat/under a cover/behind a curtain/etc. They’re more or less the same thing.

      There is no actual evidence that Mormonism is causing anyone to commit suicide. That claim is just rampant Internet nonsense as has been proven. https://thelatterdayliberator.com/did-the-churchs-november-2015-policy-cause-lgbt-teens-to-harm-or-kill-themselves/

      In fact there is ample evidence that being active in religion actually helps homosexual kids. religious activity actually decreases the likelihood of suicide among people. There are multiple studies that show increased religiosity helped teens and decrease suicide risks. Here are a few:

      https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16924349

      https://health.utah.gov/wp-content/uploads/Final-Report-UtahEpiAid.pdf

      https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamapsychiatry/article-abstract/2695329

      Third, in specific relation to homosexual kids and people, religion still decreases the likelihood of committing suicide, or attempting to do so.

      At least one study in Austria that indicates that religious affiliation and activity may act as a protective against suicide even for homosexuals and other “sexual minorities.”

      >Religion is known to be a protective factor against suicide. However, religiously affiliated sexual minority individuals often report a conflict between religion and sexual identity. Therefore, the protective role of religion against suicide in sexual minority people is unclear. We investigated the effect of religion on suicide risk in a sample of 358 lesbian, gay and bisexual Austrians. Religion was associated with higher scores of internalized homophobia, but with fewer suicide attempts. Our data indicate that religion might be both a risk and a protective factor against suicidality in religiously affiliated sexual minority individuals.

      https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10943-012-9645-2

      Fourth, this prove true for Mormons. Being Mormon and gay actually makes you less likely to try and commit suicide. Another study published in the *Journal of Homosexuality* examined LDS who identify as homosexual had very similar results, finding that those who had left the church had more struggles with depression than those who stayed.

      >A nation-wide sample of 634 previous or current members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS), non-heterosexual adults (ages 18–33), were surveyed to examine how specific aspects of minority stress are individually and collectively associated with depression, and how such associations differ across sex, sexual orientation, and level of affiliation with the LDS church. When five stressors were examined simultaneously, need for others’ acceptance (NA) was the strongest predictor of depression, followed by internalized homophobia (IH). All minority stress factors were found to be individually predictive of depression and did not differ across sex or sexual orientation subgroups. Differences were observed, however, when considering current LDS status, such that participants who were no longer affiliated with the LDS church reported stronger relationships between some minority stressors and depression. Implications of religious identity salience as a potential mediator of relationships between specific stressors and depression are discussed.

      https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2014.969611

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