So, here’s the deal: a reality of being a Latter-day Saint in the 21st century is that each of us has either personally struggled with a crisis of faith or we have painfully watched people close to us struggle.
Many people want us to believe that this is a Mormon phenomenon. But it isn’t. Far from it.
A wave of secularism is indiscriminately mounting an offensive against all religion, doing everything it can to undermine faith in the authority of scripture, the calling of prophets, and the existence of God. Religions everywhere are buckling under the pressure and actually, according to the data, the LDS Church is doing a better job retaining members than other religions.
But even if that is the case, we still can’t help but ache for close friends and family members (or ourselves) who face a barrage of doubts.
This article is a humble attempt to turn the tables on the doubt that so many members struggle to overcome. We seek to reach the members who desperately want to believe but no longer know how they can.
In this article we use a logical approach to overcoming doubt. And you may wonder why. The reason is simple. People who seriously struggle with doubt have come across information that they find to be both disturbing and convincing. They often feel so compelled by the arguments against the Restoration that exercising faith in the restored Gospel seems about as foolish as exercising faith in a unicorn.
In a manner that may be difficult to understand, they have lost the ability to exercise that particle of faith. You see, while faith precedes testimony, you still need a reason to exercise your faith. That’s why you’ve never tried an experiment of faith on the Greek gods or the Hindu ones. You couldn’t sincerely do so even if you wanted to. And that’s because your reason tells you that it would be silly to even think about it. And it is perhaps because we need a reason to exercise our faith that Peter admonished us to “be ready always to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you.”
So, for those who may need a couple of reasons to exercise faith: We’ve got some.
And just to be clear, the evidence included in this article is not the type of ‘archaeological’ or ‘DNA’ evidence that is never really conclusive. We should avoid that type of evidence because it can quickly be invalidated by new evidence.
Instead, we focus on textual evidence because it isn’t refutable and you don’t have to be an expert to inspect it for yourself.
(Note: there are many links throughout this article. It would be best to read the entire article and then go back to the links you were interested in later. And please consider sharing–this article could help someone you didn’t even know was struggling.)
1. The Money System Described in the BoM Is Distinctly Ancient
READ THE FULL ARTICLE at HAPPINESS SEEKERS.
