Could you give us a brief overview of Mormonism?

Mormonism, like many cults, is an incredibly toxic and controlled environment that preys on people's minds. Like citizens in North Korea, Mormons are restricted from accessing outside literature that may not be "faith promoting". This is just an abusive tactic the Church uses to control their deceptive narrative about the Church's history and who Joseph Smith really was. Essentially, Smith was a conman even before he founded the Church. He was known to dabble in gold-digging and folk magic. Then he lied about seeing a heavenly being and then beings in several convoluted stories about a supposed First Vision. Then he duped Martin Harris into paying for the publication of the Book of Mormon which Joseph claimed he received from gold plates that were given to him by an angel named Moroni. Just like in the South Park Episode about Mormons, Lucy Harris suspected Smith was full of it and hid 116 pages to test whether he could duplicate his translation of the Book of Lehi. He couldn't because he was making it all up.

Anyway, the entire religion is based on these gold plates that Smith claims he received. It tells of a Jewish family that left Jerusalem around 600 b.c. and travelled to the Americas even though there isn't a shred of DNA evidence that links Native Americans to Jewish ancestors. Mormons teach that just like in the middle east, God established prophets in the Americas that would testify of Christ. After Christ resurrected on the other side of the world, he came and visited the American Continent. Mormons believe that because they believe in both scriptures from both sides of the world that their concept of Christianity is pure and complete. They believe that God provided the Book of Mormon to reestablish Christ's one true church, the same one that was destroyed after all of the apostles had been martyred.

Mormonism became popular because Smith understood what was popular at the time i.e. folk magic, local fascination with Native American artifacts, the true origin of Native Americans, the Second Awakening or religious interest that had been sweeping across the Northeast, and he smashed all of these elements together with some cherry-picked Protestant teachings creating a weird, occult-like Christian hybrid religion that appealed to the masses. He was a marketing genius and capitalized on that.

Mormons believe that we can know if something is true if we feel the Holy Spirit. Problem is the way they identify feelings of the Spirit is inconsistent and not verifiably true. Missionaries are taught to relate Smith's First Vision in a really overly sentimental way so they can evoke emotions from investigators. When investigators feel something, really because of the missionary's performance, they trick people into thinking that what they felt was the Holy Spirit and therefore what the missionaries were saying must be true. This is the hook and that is how they get their mark.

Really this type of emotional manipulation sets the standard within the Church. Leaders will continually lie and manipulate members into believing the Church is true. They gaslight and create a bubble that does not allow members to actually know the truth about their own religion or its history.

truthfinder23

Mormonism is a cult that sucks as much time, money, attention, and identity out of it's members as possible. They try to present this squeaky clean image to the public, while doing their best to sabotage any cultural connections the members might be able to form with non-members. From the smallest things in life like what beverages one chooses to imbibe, to defining what clothing members wear, what words they say, and what thoughts they think, the cult maintains strict control over nearly every aspect of member's lives, making it difficult for many members to ever be comfortable maintaining relationships with non-members. The church fosters an "us vs them" attitude between members and non-members.
Nominally the church worships Jesus, but instead hordes resources and reigns over Utah like it's their own little kingdom. As much as the federal government will stay out of their business, the church shapes Utah culture and politics to their liking.
The church continually focuses it's members to devoted study of their own modified stories of church history. Members learn of important stories in the church's past, but with important details and events left out that give the church a favorable or sympathetic view, effectively inoculating members against the truth because they've already heard those stories from their trusted sources (a classic pattern being that people were angry at Joseph, and always excluding or changing the WHY people were mad at him).
For the entirety of the church's existence, it has been a grift that enables church leadership to funnel funds into their own pockets and live happy, comfortable lives, on the labors of the members. The temple industry is largely a mechanism to project strength, manipulate real estate markets, and hire companies owned by church leadership to build expensive structures to boost property prices that have been bought up by church leadership prior.
The apostles of the church have been grifting members from the beginning, just like Joseph.

layhandsondeez

Mostly good people trying to hear the voice of the Lord and live good lives. Man-made, God-inspired...just like all of the other religions.

Brandon Shumway

The basics of the church's doctrine claims that a boy named Joseph Smith was seeking Christ's church, and during his quest he prayed. God chose him as a prophet to restore and re-establish the church as it had been in Christ's time. Since then, God has given mankind the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and The Pearl of Great Price as divine books of truth. After JS, other prophets have followed, and there's one today. The church claims to be Christian and that at the center of all they do is Christ and the family. The doctrine of eternal families and becoming like God/Christ is most people's motivation for joining/staying in the church.

BW

At its best: a very tight-knit community that provides a rigid structure for someone's life that can bring them hope and a little happiness. For the right kind of people, mormonism can be a great experience. At its worst: a man-made cult designed to feed off of the hope and money of believers.

Anonymous