People have their own views and tend to convert to and from one religion to another for reasons that are important to them. There also are those who have lost faith in all religions, including ancient Christianity (which, by the way, was considered by both Jews and Romans to be a “cult.”)
The people who made the video of the Mormon who used the Jehovah's Witnesses to realize that his own church was essentially the same in its hierarchal structure, claims and expectations clearly have an agenda.
Qcmbr writes that “The common factor between all religions is faith. All that changes is the order the ingredients are mixed and the presentation of the final product.”
But there is more to it than that. The LDS faith puts family first. We don’t shun, nor do we try to dictate who our members associate with; we don’t dictate what our members read or don’t read, and we encourage education and learning. We have a top-down organization where people are called to positions from upper levels, as done in the ancient church. And while the JWs speak of “new light” revealed by Jehovah, they deny revelation via angels, visions, prophecy and other means. The problem is, “new light” is revelation, no matter how one looks at it.
Again, the issue is not the few superficial similarities between the LDS and JW sects, as the video purports. It’s the differences. No argument is made in the video on why the LDS faith exerts mind control, or how.
In short, the video was a puff piece. Slick, nice voice, music, script, editing and absolutely no substance or value other than to demean Mormonism.
Qcmbr also observed that “Mormonism and Witnesses are cut from the same cloth simply because they are a product of the same culture albeit separated by a few decades.” Even here the differences are overlooked. Certainly both originated in the U.S.; however, the JW and Adventist movements have more in common that the JW and LDS. The doctrines are closer, and even some of the same people were involved. But the greatest evidence backing up the LDS not only was the Book of Mormon, which no one has explained or debunked, but the many witnesses. Just as with Moses and the ancient Christian church, the LDS have many witnesses—people who not only witnessed the many miracles of the dead raised to life, the blind made to see, but the appearances of angels, like Moroni, but the conferral of keys of authority by Elijah, Moses, John the Baptist and Peter, James, John and others. It wasn’t just one guy making all sorts of fabulous claims in his time, but many other apostles and prophets—men who bore witness to the events of the Restoration.
You don't need to tell a forum of ex-JWs that their former religion is different to that of Mormons. ... What is the same, between both groups, is that vocal opponents are stigmatized as representing satanic persecution of the one true faith. Also, both groups use mind control techniques to varying degrees. If you can't see that, maybe you are under the influence of these techniques.
Okay, point one about the stigmatization of vocal opponents is true. In the early days of the church, vocal opposition always led to contention and contention always led to violence. Our people were driven from place to place, from state to state, often leaving their homes and wealth behind. We also had an extermination order issued against us by the state of Missouri. Our people were raped and murdered, including children. Even pets and livestock were brutally killed. I think applying the term “satanic” to these things isn’t over the top.
I suppose any religion can be accused of using mind control, even the ancient church. I’ve watched Darren Brown do incredible things, as well as the Amazing Kreskin, but I haven’t seen mind control used within the LDS faith.
