The church I was raised in values unquestioning obedience over critical thinking.
False. The doctrine is that critical thinking is necessary to obtaining spiritual guidance. I'm not great with scripture cites, but the one about Oliver Cowdery wanting to help translate the Book of Mormon is cited all the time. I do think people who are not intuitive decision makers can struggle with this concept. They either don't see it as a valid way to make decisions, or they may be constituting the inflexible elements in the church that alienate others.
But I struggled after realizing that Mormonism’s claims about anthropology, history and other subjects contradict reason and science.
It may be that this person is just older than me, but the church does not hold to specific interpretations of such fields. This person's experience may lack the salting of fact I got as an adolescent, that archaeology seldom supports a "Panama as narrow neck of land, Missississippi as River Sidon" geography. My mother told me a few wacky things over the years, but I'm pretty grateful she majored in Anthropology while I was growing up.
It also stifles efforts to openly question church pronouncements, labeling such behavior as satanic.
Uh, What? Satanic maybe in a particularly Mormon sense of just another spirit child of God who was consumed by hubris. But no, we don't think they need to be exorcised. Pfft.
Critics of Mormonism include geneticists, Egyptologists and even the Smithsonian Institution
I'm glad to know the author still feels reverence for something in this world. I was starting to thing she was just a general purpose iconoclast.
For example, mainstream Mormons banned polygamy in 1890 to obtain Utah’s statehood, but they continue to perform temple ceremonies that “seal” one man to multiple women in the hereafter.
Way to compress a very complex subject into a really misleading sentence. Case in point would be a man can be sealed to each wife he was married to in this life where a prior wife died. President Hinckley's father had 3 wives who died. All will be sealed to him. It is not the church's practice to just let me get sealed to women for the purpose of being polygamists in the afterlife. The only way this woman's nightmare scenario was likely is if she were contemplating marrying a widower, or if she is so jealous she is afraid her husband might marry someone after she herself dies. And there is a sect of Mormonism dedicated to this exact problem, so... what?
Those whose spouses leave the church are sometimes encouraged to get divorced and remarry a faithful Latter-day Saint.
Wow. I'm not saying it never happened, but I think it's pretty tacky, and it goes directly against Paul's counsel.
Many gay Mormons have been driven to suicide, deeply conflicted about whether acting on their sexuality is, as the church teaches, a sin.
This is sad, but it's also true of gay Catholics, Jews, Baptists, any other sect that holds to the scriptures as the word of God and believe that God has the authority to issue suggestions on moral behavior.
Mormonism needs a Luther of its own.
We had one. Joseph Smith's wife Emma. The Community of Christ (formerly RLDS) already has democratic governorship and a "nuanced" relationship with the historical record (that is, their assertion that Joseph Smith never taught polygamy has not borne scrutiny, and they have gotten over it.)
Mormons do need to learn to be charitable toward others, especially ex-Mormons (for whatever reason.) I had an experience last summer of running into a recent apostate with my impressionable children in tow, but I think they can more easily deal with a few ideas than if I had depersonalized them in order to dismiss their ideas. I hope, anyway.
