Why Saying “Latterday Saints Aren’t Christian,” Is A Lie | Maddy Packer

Talmage sits down with Maddy Packer, a passionate LDS apologist and history buff, for an insightful episode. Maddy grew up in New Mexico, attending Catholic school from seventh through twelfth grade, and later studying archaeology and history in college. Using both formal education and self-study, Maddy has become well-versed in several historical topics that they discussed today. 

They talked about:

1. Disgruntled ex-members who paint the church as tyranical patriarchy
2. Non-LDS christians who demonize the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. And why they’re wrong when they say we’re not christian. 
3. Evidence/Arguements of the Book of Mormon’s Authenticity

This Episode was recorded on November 5th, 2025

Timestamps:

00:00 Mormonism: Faith, Criticism, Misconceptions

06:20 "Faithful Choices and Ridicule"

12:22 Questioning Faith and Belief

15:31 "Questioning Doctrine's Significance"

25:42 God's Gender Discussion Tactics

27:39 "Questioning Christ's Physicality"

34:42 Social Media: Anxiety and Escape

39:52 "Personal Life and Opposition Insight"

42:47 "Equality: Equal, Not Identical"

51:03 "Marriage, Culture, and Gospel Values"

53:54 Defending Public Perception of Faith

59:07 "Debating Trinity's Biblical Basis"

01:06:19 Defining Official Doctrine Challenges

01:08:23 "Debating Jesus' Resurrection Accounts"

01:14:34 Joseph Smith: Genius or Inspired?

01:22:42 "Choosing to Be Like God"

01:24:39 "Renewing Faith and Testimony"

Maddy’s Links: 

https://www.instagram.com/thesurefoundation/

https://www.tiktok.com/@thesurefoundation?_r=1&_t=ZT-91IfGXMd3hF

Talmage/Released’s Links:
https://www.instagram.com/talmagethayne/
https://www.instagram.com/released_thepodcast/
https://www.youtube.com/@talmagethayne21
https://www.tiktok.com/@talmagethayne

Remember, God is good and is planning on your success. And though you've been released from your mission, you haven't been released from your ministry.

Transcript

0:00

I went to Catholic School, 7th through 12th grade. During this time you had your faith crisis. You know, the spirit speaks to us in many ways, but for me, I definitely feel like logic is a way that the spirit speaks to me. So you're addressing a lot of these anti Mormon talking points. I would say one of the biggest ones is this idea that because the church is run by mostly men, that it therefore makes it appear patriarchal system and patriarchy is inherently disempowering to women. But there's also a lot of push back, I think too, just from people that are not of our faith or have never been part of our faith too, that are real problems. For example, the Michigan shooting. The FBI did confirm that his motive was anti religious bias towards the Mormon Church. I haven't talked about this a lot yet, but I definitely want to dive into the Book of Mormon and archaeology and all that kind of stuff. You're just, you're not going to find what we believe and what we know anywhere else. Welcome back to another episode of released. In this episode, I got to have on Maddie Packer. She's awesome. She grew up in New Mexico, went to Catholic school from seventh to 12th grade, and then studied archeology at BYU and then history at BYUI. She ended up getting married in 2018, has a little boy. She loves to ski, spend time with her family and then learning as much about history as she can. Her favorite time period is the Middle Ages. She loves Anglo Saxon time period as well as early Christianity. And her favorite movie is Lord of the Rings. In this episode we talk about her upbringing, why she started doing apologetics, and some of those topics that she's been focusing on in her content. So let's get into it. Maddie, thank you so much for being on the podcast. Yeah, thanks for having me. So let's just jump into it. Who is Maddie? Where, where are you from? How were you raised? Tell me a little bit about that. Yeah, so I mostly grew up in New Mexico. I moved around a little bit when I was younger, but spent most of my youth in New Mexico. Santa Fe. I went to Catholic School there, seventh through 12th grade, which was a very formative experience for me for sure. Yeah. Dang. Yeah. And. And you're not a Catholic? I'm not Catholic. I'm not a convert. Okay. Born and raised in the church. My family comes from pioneer ancestors, so it runs deep. So what was your parents kind of reasoning for put putting you in Catholic school? Yeah, so when we moved to New Mexico, just the situation at the time. The public schools that were available weren't necessarily the best. And so my parents just wanted to give me a little bit better education, and so they put me into a private school. And the one that we picked just happened to be Catholic school. It had had a really good reputation. Yeah. In the state and in the town, so. Nice. Yeah, nice. What was that like as a non Catholic going to the Catholic school? Yeah. So what's funny is you didn't have to be. Obviously you don't have to be Catholic to go to the school. So there were lots of different kinds of beliefs that people held going there. I. Not a lot of my friends were like, actually necessarily practicing Catholics, if that makes sense. Yeah, lots of people that were just living life, maybe with God and with no God, trying to figure out what they believed. But I think I got the most interaction with, like, Catholic doctrine and history from my teachers more. And so that was kind of where like, that dialogue of, like, religious differences and stuff happened on a theological level. But with my friends and my peers, it was mostly. I was like one of the only members at the school. There's like one ward in the whole town of Santa Fe. So just not a lot of members of the church to begin with. And so going to this school, I was for, for many of my friends, the first member of the church that they'd ever met or even heard about. What? Yeah. Oh, what are Mormons? What's that? You know, back then, that's what, you know, we all said. So with my friends, it was actually more of trying to teach them what I believed and why I believed it. And the pushback from that side was more of like, well, it's kind of just stupid to follow these rules and these commandments in general. It wasn't necessarily like, oh, you believe in the wrong Jesus or you believe in the wrong doctrine of the Trinity. It was more just, why are you even religious at all? Why do you. Yeah, why are you religious at all? Yeah, like, even though they're at a Catholic school, they're like. Yeah, I would say most of my friends weren't like, strictly religious. Yeah. Okay. So lots of. Lots of drinking, lots of drugs, lots of sex. Yeah. So that was just normal crazy. So at a Catholic school, do they have some sort of honor code that you're supposed to live by? In a way? I mean, obviously the illicit things are illegal for you being underage anyways. But there was just more of like a. We follow these standards of Christian tenets of being inclusive to all, putting Jesus and God at the forefront of our lives. And did they teach that in school, like, even putting Jesus at the forefront of our lives? Yeah, we had. I think it was called. It was a Lasallian Catholic school. Just a very, like, specific type of Catholic school. And the five, like, they have, like, five core principles of the Lasallian Catholic education. I don't remember all of them, but I know one of them was inclusion, Meaning just that we love everybody, you know, as Christ loves everybody. Not necessarily inclusion of all belief systems or anything like that, but just inclusion of everyone as a child of God, a service to your fellow man, and then just above all, glorifying God, those kinds of things. So, yeah, like, we very much learned that stuff in school that. That was supposed to be important. What's funny is the official motto of my school was enter to learn, go out to serve. Oh, nice. And I thought that was hilarious as. Yeah. As a member thinking that's. That's the same motto as byu. Like, that's funny. Yeah. So you go back and you're like, okay, which one started first? I know, right? Who copied who? Yes, seriously, that's funny. So, yeah, so I would say with my friends, like, I said, that was where I kind of had to understand why I believed what I believed and why I lived the way I lived, you know, why I refrained from swearing, why I refrained from drinking or doing drugs or. Or dating in the way that, you know, a lot of the secular world dates. And so I received quite a bit of ridicule for that. And. And, you know, I. Not that I didn't have friends that respected me, but just. You could just tell that the overall kind of feeling of Maddie as well, she's just one of those naive, kind of silly. I don't know why she lives like that, but. Oh, well, yeah, don't invite her to this particular party because we're going to be doing a lot of. Yeah, don't be invited to any of the parties. Yeah. Dang. So. So what was that like on your personal testimony? Were you already sure of it at a young age? I think that everyone who grows up in the church is somewhat sure until they reach that point where they're kind of pushed on it. Like, well, what do you think? Are you just following this religion because that's what your parents told you to do? And I would say, my, my. I don't know if you. Faith crisis is the right word, but, yeah, I would say, like, that moment where I asked myself, do I actually believe in the church and in the gospel? Probably was in ninth grade. So I don't know how old that is. Like 14 or 15. Yeah. Yeah. And that's when I just. With some of the pushback I got from friends and from teachers and then just the personal, you know, struggle teachers too. Yeah. Just, you know, just kind. Well, you know, your church claims this, but that's not true. Or so they're, they were more doctrine and then your peers were more like the lifestyle's just stupid. Yeah. Kind of thing. Yeah. And not all my teachers were even Catholic either. But I had to go to religion class every semester or trimester, however we did it. So I was attending like a Catholic religion class every day in school. Dang. So you interact with that and then you have teachers that are Catholic and, and it's very much part of their class. Whatever the subject would be, whether it's philosophy or religion or English, like they'd incorporate it. But not all my teachers would. But my Catholic teachers for sure would, you know, kindly, but still make, make a kid feel like. Oh yeah, I guess I do need to think about that, I guess, you know. No, I think that's great. I, I think it's so cool. Even though like we, we don't believe in all of the Catholics creeds and everything. But I think it's so cool when inside of our education we put education of religion and not just like in a non biased way, but also from people that like truly believe it. I think you'll, you'll learn more. Well, you'll learn differently. Yeah. Than if it was just an objective history of the Catholic Church and what they believe. Um, and so. Yeah. Yeah. From coming from like a con. A point of conviction for sure. Yeah, yeah. Well. And yeah, I mean it's just interesting. Like thinking back on my experience, I'm trying to remember some of the funny things that like you just do at Catholic school. But I mean uniform is one of them. Uniform, like classic. Like a little bit, it was maybe a little bit more modern. Like we could wear khaki pants. Like I could wear pants, but definitely still wore skirts and oxford button up shirts and things like that. We attended mass regularly in school. Like they would set up our gym like a makeshift chapel and we'd go to Mass often, you know, in school. We'd pray before every class usually. And at the beginning and end of the day like the principal would come over the, the speakerphone and we'd do like a prayer to end the day and to, to start the day and things like that. And like Friday was the Special day where we did St. Michael's Prayer, because my school was St. Michael's High School, so St. Michael was like our patron saint or whatever. So, yeah, just kind of. Those funny things were included in that experience. So I went to an LDS private school for a while, and so we had. What school? Leahona. Oh, I don't know. I've heard of that. Yeah, there's. There's a scandal. It was. It was bad. Oh. But yeah, like, collared shirts, khakis, no jeans. On Friday, you could wear jeans. Oh, really nice. That was spirit day, so you could wear it. Maybe we had something like that. Yeah, you could wear like a St. Mike's T shirt. So if it was like a soccer, I played soccer so I could wear, like, my soccer T shirts. Nice. And jeans. Yeah. On game day, we could play. We could wear our soccer jerseys. Yeah, yeah. I'm trying to think of what else. Just funny things like that. We'd start the classes with a prayer. It's been a while. Holy cow. That's funny. But yeah. Yeah, it's kind of fun. Yeah. Well. And what's interesting about being in a private school setting, especially like a religious private school setting, is you actually, where the public school kind of avoids talking about certain things in context to God and religion. For example, you're not going to really talk about. You're not really going to be debating abortion in public school through the lens of God or anything like that. But, like, those kinds of current events in, like, cultural topics we talked about on a regular basis because we could, because it was private school. And then also bring in the lens of, like, from a Christian perspective, how we view abortion, how we view, you know, racism or all these, like, hot topics of current events. We talked about quite a bit. Marriage, like. Yeah, it was very interesting. That is interesting. I love that. Dang. Okay, so during this time, you had your faith crisis. Yeah. What. What was that? Like, what was the parts of your faith that you were starting to question? Yeah, well, I guess what happened was I just kind of came to a point where I was realizing that what people were saying to me of, like, well, why are you. Why are you Mormon? Are you brainwashed? Like, is it just because your parents told you to believe all this? Like, have you ever heard of this in your history? Have you ever heard of that? Did you know Joseph Smith? Smith did this? Like, and I think I had somewhat of an understanding of these, like, controversial topics just because I lived outside of Utah and people talked about them, but not in any depth. I mean, I was like, 15, right. So that kind of stuff just made me take a step back and go, whoa. Because if it's not true and I don't believe it, then I don't want to sacrifice these, you know, social aspects that I'm giving up in a way, to live the gospel. Yeah. To be cool, to fit in, you know, just some of those things that we definitely stand out. The word of wisdom and, you know, things like that. I was like, I don't want to go through all this persecution and mocking and ridicule if it's not true. And I don't believe it, you know? And so I think that was just the point where I decided I needed to, like, know if it was true. Because if it was true, then I was willing to take the, you know, the mocking or whatever it was. I was willing to go through that if it was true. Because obviously the truth should be above all else. Right. In my mind at that age. That's what I thought. But if it wasn't, then I was kind of doing it for nothing, I guess, if that makes sense. Like, definitely. The social pressure really made me think. Especially at that age. Yeah. Because, I mean, everyone just wants to fit in. I mean, that's what high school is all about. You're trying to fit in, you're trying to not stand out like a weirdo. Or trying to be cool, all that stuff. Yeah. And so. And. And with boys too, you know, and like, dating and just that world of like. Well, I don't want people to think I'm weird. I don't want people to judge me. So if it's not actually what I believe, then I don't want to just do this for enough, like. Yeah. For nothing. Yeah, I guess. So I decided, though, that if. If. If I needed to find out what was truth and I needed to kind of do the searching. Right. Like, you have to go out and find what's true if. If you're looking. So I kind of just thought about all the different things and theories or theologies, I guess, that were being presented to me, like atheism, I consider a theology. Yeah. You know, I need to consider that premise. I need to consider this Catholic premise, or is it Protestantism? Even though that one we didn't really talk about a lot in Catholic school. Right. Yeah. So between that and then, I would also need to play out the Mormon premise or the, you know, the restored gospel premise. Something that actually helped me understand why the restored gospel was the. The truth was studying the Catholic theology alongside Mormon theology. It, it just makes you look at the paradigms of those two worlds in a very different way. I think a lot of times, especially if you're raised in the church, you just don't understand the gravity of some of the doctrines and theologies that we hold. Like, what they actually mean in like, a bigger context of like, you know, why we're here, what's our purpose, Is there anything happening after this life? Like, those kinds of things, I think we just take them for granted because we think that that's just second nature. Like, of course, you know, Jesus and God are separate. Like, duh, you know, you know, like we don't think, we don't think, we, we don't realize that that's actually an extremely unique point of doctrine. And what's the point in having that doctrine? Like, if the rest of the Christian world doesn't think that God and Jesus Christ are separate? Why do we think that? Like, what's that? What's the significance there? Yeah. So kind of breaking down some of those restored, unique truths that we have in our religion in comparison to what maybe mainstream Christianity believed was really eye opening to me to realize that. Wow. Like, these things that some random farm boy in America claimed actually have really significant ramifications when you play them out philosophically and theologically. Yeah. So that really stood out to me. That is cool. So the biggest one that like, you just mentioned is our understanding of God. Yeah. And who he is. Were there any others that were. That were interesting to you? Yeah, I never really knew when at the age of 15 through 18, I didn't necessarily understand, like, our stance on how we believe God created the world, for example. Yeah. Where that's just a very, like, significant and normal point of doctrine to talk about in the, in the mainstream Christian world of God created everything from nothing. Like, that's a big, like, belief. Like, it's up there with like, important beliefs. I wouldn't say we talk about the way the world was created on a daily basis, like in church and stuff. Yeah. Not usually. We just don't really, you know, talk about it because it's like, I don't know, maybe we just don't understand that it's significant. But when you, when you see that point of doctrine, like, okay, we believe God created ex nilo is the Latin that they say created out of nothing. Our scriptures actually specifically reject that idea. And we believe that God actually organized and created everything from existing material. Yeah. And it's like, why, Again, it's like, what's the point in having that such drastically different doctrine? Well, it's because it actually has really significant consequences if you play it out. If God created the world from nothing, you could argue that God is not a just God because he created evil. And the problem of evil is one of the hardest things for Christianity, mainstream Christianity, to answer. Like, atheists will push that a lot on Christians. Like, how can you answer why there's gratuitous suffering, like meaningless suffering in our world? If God is all loving and all powerful and all just, why does he allow evil? Well, if you take the stance that he created the world from nothing, then you have to take the stance that he designed evil and he designed the world to be that way and he's okay with suffering. Right. And it's not just a natural law. Correct. It's just he designed it. And it's interesting because like Adolf, Hitler, like in our theology, we are eternal beings. Right. We, we were intelligences before we were spirits, before we were humans. Yeah. And yeah, in mainstream Christian Christianity, they're saying, no, we were just created out of nothing. That means he created the devil, he created Hitler, he knew exactly what was going to happen. And also, it's kind of interesting, mainstream Christianity almost feels like they treat God in like these weird paradoxes where he's absolutely all knowing, but he somehow made the mistake of putting an Adam and Eve right next to the right. Like, why would he design them to break his laws if he didn't want them to? He could have kept them from doing that. Right. Yeah. And to the rest of the world, that's like the worst thing that ever happened. Is Adam and Eve correct? Like it was a mistake. It was a horrible mistake and everyone's cursed with original sin because of it. Yeah, yeah. That the original plan in, in mainstream Christianity was that we all lived happily in the garden. Yeah. So, so interesting. So, yeah, so that's what's interesting is when, so when I'm taught that premise of God created from nothing. And I think, okay, is that what we believe? Let me go look, let me go check. So I'd study. What do we believe? What does, what does my faith believe? Well, we don't believe that. We believe that God created the world out of existing matter, which implies that there is, there is a natural reality in law that exists independently from God. So that paradigm allows God to remain a just God and a perfectly loving God, because what it's telling us is that there are just natural, like you said, natural realities of just existence that God isn't necessarily controlling. Yeah. That he works with those natural realities to provide us the best possible way to become like him, we can say it's the best way. It's the only way to navigate what's already inevitably there. And evil just being a natural consequence of the power of agency. Yeah. To a lot of Christians, that sounds like we're demeaning God. Yeah. That he didn't design everything, that he didn't create everything out of nothing. It's like, oh, no, God is. God can do that. He's outside of space and time and all this stuff. And once you get to that point, like, if you. If you believe that, then you. You cannot wrap your mind around it. And so therefore, of course, God is unknowable. There's no way we can know somebody that can create something out of nothing. Right. Which kind of just distances him way more than it would for our theology, because we're seeing somebody that's working within the bounds that he has set also who is constantly looking for progression. Because the mainstream Christianity, God is. There's like, no real progression. Yeah. Like you said, like, they're just. They just sit in the Garden of Eden for eternity. Right. We just have a very different understanding of what the purpose of everything even is. Like, why are we even here? Why. If God created us and our. And we begin at conception, you know, we don't have this eternal aspect to who we are, then why did he create us? You know, and I. I've never really gotten a satisfactory answer for that. Like, they. They definitely have answers for it, but. They say, like, to glorify God. Yeah. Things like that. And just like, he. He loves us, he wants us to be happy, but, you know, he could have just not created us. Yeah. Why did he create us at all? You know what I mean? Like, what's the point? So our theology answers those questions in ways that others just really don't or can't. Yeah. You know, so another interesting thing is he creates. If we're going from their perspective in theology and not to bag on their theology, but. Right. It's mainly to, like, look at our theology and their theology and see what one makes more sense. Yeah. In a way. Like, just logically, obviously, we need to go on to get that witness from the Spirit. Yeah. But if there is no progression, he creates us out of nothing. We are. We're created at conception. We die, and then we sing praises to him for eternity. I don't know. That just sounds boring. And. I don't know. There's just no progression. Like, what's the point? I'M sure God has better things to do than to listen to us sing to Him. Yeah, well. And another big difference is understanding who we are to God. That was another huge thing that really stood out to me was we are not. The word they use is ontological. I don't know if you've heard that word. It basically just means, like, being like we are not. Or. Or mainstream Christianity believes that we and God are ontologically different. Our being is, like, completely different. We are not the same type of. Interesting. So we are. Even though we are made in the image. Correct. Of God, we being made in the image is almost like we just have some of his characteristics or attributes, like love and kindness and beauty and things like that. It doesn't necessarily mean. For them. It doesn't mean, like, a direct likeness where. Where we would kind of say it's 100. A direct likeness, including gender. Like, God is passionless, partless, unknowable in He. Exactly. Yeah. And for us, gender is very much an important part of your identity and eternally. And God is a man, and we are not ontologically different from Him. We are the same kind of being as Him. So it's a very unique doctrine as well. I love that. Did you ever watch the Charlie Kirk Jubilee? I think I did. 25, like, atheists against a Christian. Yes, it sounds familiar. Super good. But he kept getting hung up on that part. There's a guy that would get up. Oh, maybe it was just like, liberals versus conservative. But this one guy kept turning it into a theological debate. Okay. And he kept saying, why are you against transgenderism? Like, because, remember this? Yeah. God doesn't have a gender and all this stuff. And, like. And he kept kind of stumping Charlie, and Charlie kept having to do, like, some tactics to kind of, like, sidestep the conversation and kind of redirect it. But if he had this eternal truth, it'd just be so easy. It would just be like, no, no, he does. He is a man, and he is our father, like, legitimately our Father, and we are his children. And it would have just made it so much more simple. It would have made more sense. Yeah, way more sense. And I. I feel like, you know, the Spirit speaks to us in many ways, but like Elder Bednar said, sometimes it's. It's in really simple and small ways that the Spirit witnesses truth to us. And for me, I definitely feel like logic is a way that the Spirit speaks to me. When something makes sense, it speaks truth to me. And so I feel like with a lot of this kind of theological searching. That's where I was getting my witness of the Holy Spirit. Yeah. Yeah. And you're like 15 at this time. I mean, I wouldn't say all happened with, like, in my 15 year, like, Mark, but it was. That's where I started, I think, that journey. And I would say definitely by my sophomore senior year, I was much more certain. And so I wouldn't say it was slow or. And it wasn't also all at once. Yeah. But maybe within a year and a half. Did you ever get into any debates as a kid against teachers or other students? Huh? Okay. I would get into debates about things. Like, I remember asking my theology teacher who was like, he was one of my, like, bestest friends. I don't know if the right word, but he was kind of like a mentor. I just really respected him and looked up to him, and I had like, a really unique, like, just kind of connection with him. We just could really jive. And he really respected me, which was super awesome. But obviously very staunchly Catholic, so he wasn't going to budge theologically. Right. But he. He totally respected having these dialogues and he enjoyed them. But I remember one thing asking him about as. I guess maybe I was like, 16, was if God is not physical, he doesn't have a body, then. Then he was. They call it the Incarnation of God. Jesus Christ becoming God becoming man. It's called the Incarnation. If he became a man and he had a physical body, and we believe a very important part of Christianity is that we believe he was resurrected with an eternal glorified body, where did that body go? Is he now physical after Christ? You know what I mean? And I don't remember the. The exact reason he gave as to why God's still not a physical God, But I remember thinking that made no sense. It was probably something having to do with, like, Aristotelian or Platonic philosophy as to, like, essence and substance and all. Those Aristotelian, Like Aristotle. Yeah. And Plato, Greek philosophy. Would that be kind of like, how would that tie into this, into what he was explaining to me? Just because, like, I understand, but the audience might. Right. So just because a lot of Christian theology rests on the Greek philosophy, just because back in the early Christian church, it. It became so heavily. The word is Hellenized. It basically just means Greekified. The Greek world influence and the Greek worldview just really heavily influenced Christianity as it kind of spread east. And so many philosophies that were held in understanding God and matter and nature and. And good and Evil and things like that were meshed into Christian doctrine really early on, including things like the Trinity and, and just these ideas of, is God physical? Non. Physical. Because the Greek worldview believed that the physical was inherently evil and corrupt and the spiritual or like the metaphysical nature of something was uncorrupted. So if God is God, he. There's no way he could be physical because physicality is almost like inherently evil. Just things like that, just ideas like. And, and I'm totally oversimplifying, like, a ton of deeper, you know, conversation. But yeah, there's a lot of nuance and it kind of goes. It's interesting, actually. We'll probably get into this later. So. Okay, so you kind of got into these kind of theological discussions, kind of debates with these, with these teachers of yours, and that's great that they respected you enough to kind of listen to you, hear you out. And I love that. I love a good theological debate. Yes. And I have a lot of, like, I love learning about ancient Christianity and just like the history of Christianity throughout the ages. And I have a lot of love for it just because it is so fascinating. And so I definitely don't ever want to like, disparage, you know, like, oh, it's so dumb. It makes no sense. But at the same time, in contrast to the restored gospel, it obviously falls short. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever watch this is another Jubilee? Alex oconnors? I did, yeah. Yeah, that one was great. That was he first off. He kind of destroyed everyone. He did. It's unfortunate. Until, until a Latter Day Saint got up there, two Latter Day Saints. And they had the best, like, logic and reason talking to him about it and, and the nature of God and who we are. And like you said, when we're growing up and this is just part of our lives, we might take it for granted, our theology and, and our doctrine. And we're just like, oh, yeah, we're all children of God. Yeah, right. Doesn't everybody know this? Doesn't everybody know this? It makes total sense, but a lot of people don't. And, and so Alex o', Connor, he's, he's debating a mainstream Christianity, this creedal Christian theology and perspective. And when a completely different perspective of Christianity was presented, he, he was stumped in ways. And he even like took a step back and he's like, that is a great point. Which, like, props to him for being like the. What's it called? Just intellectually honest. Yeah. And being like, oh, yeah, that's a great point. And so, yeah, it's just so interesting. Well, and, and even I'm. I think it was Jacob Hansen that told him on that show. Like, if you look at he. He called it the cosmology of like the Restored Gospel or just kind of like that. That theological paradigm that we hold is so different from the mainstream Christian paradigm that you can actually engage. Like Jacob Hanson was basically saying, you can engage with these hard topics in a much different way because of what. We believe, that we can actually answer the question of like, or at least. For bad in the world. Or a better or better answer. Yeah, a better answer. Why, why is there pain in the world? Why. Why do animals have to have suffering? Right. Like that was his main, main point. Yes. The gratuitous suffering is a huge. And just the problem of evil is a really big argument against Christianity that atheists use. Man. So cool. Yeah. And so you're kind of like study of all this stuff started in high school. Has this been a thing even past high school? Yeah, I mean, like my. So I studied archeology and history have kind of always been my favorite topics. And I've just kind of been a nerd my whole life. Yeah, that's. And so I started like my college, whatever adventure started at BYU Provo and I, I did archeology to begin with. It wasn't very long before I transferred to byu, Idaho and I did history there. They didn't have archaeology, but I, I really enjoyed history and it's always been something that I love to continue to like, dive into and learn more. So. Yeah. That's so sick. Yeah, history was my favorite subject back in the day. It's so fun. Yeah. Okay, so it's kind of always been with you and more recently. Well, so just for everybody, you didn't go on a mission? No, I did not. But in a way you have your own mission. You just barely started posting about all of these thoughts and apologetics online just a month ago, right? Yeah, pretty much a month. Yeah. So what, what prompted you to start speaking out about this stuff and defending the faith? So it's interesting. I've actually had like such a love hate relationship with social media forever and it's the worst. It's the worst. So good. It's so good. It's the worst. And I think just as a woman and a mother, like a young mother, I just was having so much anxiety over, you know, the comparison and the, oh, I'm, I'm doing such a bad job compared to this girl or that girl. And so I actually got off Social media for, like, over a year. Just, like, totally off the grid with it. And I loved it. It was super nice to just not worry and not, I don't know, like, get sucked into that world. But in the recent, like, few months, there's just been a lot happening in the world. There's been a lot happening in our church. I. I just had a really strong prompting, kind of just creep up. I guess you'd say that I needed to maybe start sharing my testimony in a little bit more of a public space, because I've always had a passion for talking about these topics like we're talking about. I've always had a fire of defending why I believe what I believe just because I had to do it from such a young age. And I've always been very unafraid to, I guess, offend people with that kind of truth. And I've been very unafraid. It's so hard. It's hard. Good for you. But when you realize that the truth is more important than all of it, then you and you align yourself with Christ, who walked the loneliest road. You're like, if he is willing to do that for me, then I can do this for him. Yeah. And so for me, that's always just been a passion of mine of being able to say what I believe and why I believe it and not be scared that I'm. I'm not going to be liked for it. I guess I learned that. Were you on the debate team? No. No. Okay. I was not. We did debates in school, but I did not actually do. I was. I did sports. I was like soccer and track and. But maybe, like, now, looking back, it would have been fun. Yeah. I just. Yeah. I. I, like, went to a couple, like, because it was like a club. I went to a couple of those, which was fun. But when I was at uvu, I think that's when I noticed that I was willing to kind of speak up when nobody else was. Because I'm like, everybody else. Not everybody else, but a lot of other people are thinking exactly what I'm thinking. Right. But nobody's saying it. Yeah. And so I remember one time, my philosophy professor, he was talking about how we need to start doing reparations to African Americans and how we need to start giving them money. And I was. I was like, okay. And then he started talking about Utah and how racist Utah is, and I was just like, at this point, I was like, this is so dumb. Yeah. Like, no one's challenging him. Right. No one's saying anything. Okay. If you're not going to say it, then I'll say so. I, like, raised my hand. I'm like, how are we racist? Yeah. And he's like, oh, well, you know, like black neighborhoods have like bad schools. They don't have great schools. I'm like, okay, well, let's do school choice. Like a lot of us are for that. Right. And he's like, ah, well, we also just need to do reparations, you know? And I'm like, I, I don't think that that's the answer. Yeah. And then he was like, you don't think we should. And I was like, do you think we should always give reparations to persecuted groups? And he's like, yeah. And then I think he saw where it was going because I was about to be like, what about LDS people? Yeah. They are the only group in the history of America that had an extermination order. Yeah. For them. Out. Out to get them. And. But I think he saw that coming and so he was like, we're going to end class early, everybody. He ended class and he like kind of sent everybody out. I was like, that's insane. But like, it was, it was scary. But it was also cool to know that I'm willing to step up and say something that a lot of other people are thinking. Totally. But like, I'm willing to take that. I'll take it for the team. Take it for the team. Yeah. Even if I look stupid. Yes. Like, because I'm probably going to look stupid debating a philosophy professor adult when I'm just a kid. Yes. And so not a kid. I was an adult. Yeah. But you know, he's in a position of authority. Yeah, totally. So that's, that's awesome. That was just kind of naturally kind of like who you were, you didn't mind speaking up, all that kind of stuff. I didn't. I, I, my, my friends were so outspoken about what they believed politically and otherwise. And obviously I had a lot of left leaning friends and I was more conservative and so pressure just really taught me like, well, it's almost like you have to speak their language in a way. If they're willing to be so outspoken about xyz and I know that they're wrong, like, I know this is wrong, then I need to be willing to do the same thing, but with my beliefs. Yeah. You know, so. And they probably respected that. A lot of them did. And I've also lost a lot of friends too. Yeah. Yeah. So since you've been posting, have you seen that More with my friends. Friends or. Yeah, I would say there's probably been like a handful of people like, like from my personal life that maybe have, like. Okay, I don't want to listen to her. She's crazy. No, no one, like, that's been super, like, close or important to me that it's like a significant loss, which is good. It's not like my best friend isn't like disowning me or anything like that. But I would say that I've seen a lot of people that I thought. Thought the same way as me show that they were actually in opposition to me, which has been really interesting and eye opening. Yeah. Do they do that in private or is it like. Or more like. You see. You see that they'll like so and so's post, but won't follow you and like, your stuff. Yeah. And it's like in direct opposition to what you're talking about. Yeah, it kind of hurts at first. You're like, oh, so and so liked Julie Hanks post and. Yeah. Not mine. She clapped on her post. I'm like, oh, okay. That's interesting, I guess. Yeah, no, that. That makes sense. Yeah. Okay. So you're. When you started, you started. You started addressing certain topics. What were some of the topics that you started doing apologetics for? Well, I think the. One of the most, like, contentious areas, especially with our church, is people who leave the church. Ex Mormons, I guess, as we call them, famously. I had a guy on, he said, since our church's name is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, they're not anti Mormon, they're antichrists. I was like, oh, in many ways, yeah. And it's like, it's like you don't want to. And I don't, I don't want to label them that. Right. It's like you don't want to label them that. But at the end of the day, when you break it down to what they're trying to do, many of them, you know, not all of them, but yeah, many big prominent voices. If you ask them what are you trying to do? And you pick it all the way apart, down to the bones, it's trying to undermine the teachings of Jesus Christ. Yeah. So yeah, yeah, yeah. When you, when you break it down, it's just kind of that simple. Right. So. So you're addressing a lot of these anti Mormon talking points. What were some of those? I would say one of the biggest ones, especially from just like a women's perspective, is this idea that because the church is run by mostly men that, like men, hold most of the positions of leadership in our church. That it therefore makes it a patriarchal system. And patriarchy is inherently disempowering to women, no matter how benevolent the men might be. Just the fact that it's men running it means women are automatically at a disadvantage. That's the narrative that is being pushed right now for women. And what is your response? My response is that if you're talking about equality in the way that the world kind of talks about equality, which is sameness, you know, or maybe like numbers based, like, oh, there's a hundred men doing this and only 20 women doing it, then that's what. That's what not equal means to a lot of these people or even just some of the roles that we have, because we're not doing the same thing. We're not equal. But I would say to that, that we don't believe that men and women are the same. Same. I don't think we are unequal, but we're not the same. If anything, Christianity and especially our church empower women, men and women both as equal, inherently equal. Our souls, our potential, everything is 100% equal to God. He doesn't favor men or women. But just going back to this idea that he did create us as different people, like women and men are different and it's something we believe and it's important that we're different. But what we contribute is the same. And that's never been a question for me growing up. I've never been told that because you're a woman, your influence and your opinion and your spiritual contribution is going to be less because you're not a man and you can't be a bishop, so you're not going to be as important in God's kingdom. Like, I was never taught that. Me neither. The only people that are pushing that narrative are women. Men are not. Men are not going around telling women, you guys are not equal to us and you can't have as much influence as us and we will just always be better than you. Just sit down and make us a sandwich. No one is telling us that, saying that. And in a lot of ways, it's kind of. At least when I was growing up, I got the opposite message because a lot of people said, like, us guys, we. We need the priesthood to, like, be on the same level as women. Oh, we need the. There's a lot of truth to this, but elders quorum is not nearly as good as Relief Society. There is some truth to that. And so like, I kind of got the impression that women were just naturally more spiritual, which I reject that as well. I think that it's not a competition. It's not a competition. Yeah. And maybe, maybe women are just more. I mean, I think men and women each have their unique spiritual gifts. Yeah, yeah. Amen. Amen. And they complement and you can share spiritual gifts. Men and women can both be nurturing. You know the famous words from the proclamation, men and women can both be nurturing. Women can be, you know, providers for the family. But what we do believe is that we are inherently wired for certain things that we're just naturally good at. And that compliment. And that's not something that means that we're not equal. And to, to pit men and women against each other is actually what Satan wants. So I would just say that we need to understand how God views us, not how the world views us. And I think it's also hypocritical of women. And this is in and out of the church. Like this is a problem that feminism just kind of causes in society in general is that we have upheld the traditional male virtues as the standard for what success means. Yeah. And what power means in status and influence. Totally dismissing what femininity brings to the table. Which like dismissing and demeaning it so much. Exactly. It's. Feminism wants to give women power and opportunity. And I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but I think you can believe that men and women should have opportunity. Without labeling yourself a feminist. I would say, because I'm a disciple of Jesus Christ, I believe men and women are equal and should have equal opportunity or whatever it is, but in alignment with God's plan. And you know, I'm not going to be demanding that I hold the priesthood because that totally negates what the, what the gifts that God has given me are as a woman. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. One of the, A good example of this kind of like sameness theology or like just perspective that a lot of current people have nowadays is reflected in our movies. Yeah. And you'll see like this 85 pound woman just beat up this 220 pound man, flip him over and all this stuff. And it's just like nobody to make a point. To make a point. It's like, oh, she's a boss babe. It's like, no, no one's saying she can't be. Yeah. No one's saying she can't be. But she doesn't have to act like a man or like destroy this like, guy that would obviously beat her like in a physical fight. Right. But one of my favorite depictions of a strong feminine woman in a movie is a quiet place. The mother is awesome. Yeah, she is such a good point. She is so feminine. She's motherly. She like, she's teaching her kids how to read and write and how to do all of these cool things for homesteading and survival. Right. And she's pregnant and then she has a baby while she's getting hunted by these alien monsters and then she ends up killing them too. But she's never putting on this masculine role. Right. She is a woman and she's strong as a woman. She's strong as a woman. She doesn't have to pretend to be a man to be strong. And it's so much easier to take that more seriously. Oh yeah. And respect that when somebody steps into that role as a woman and when a man steps into his role as a man. Yeah. And so, yeah, just one of my favorite depictions of that in like modern movies. Yeah. Yeah. And I don't remember who gave this talk. I really should because it's a good one. But it's someone in the 70 or something. He talks about how women are inherently given priesthood power. I mean, we know this just because of the unique calling of bearing children, I think. But women inherently have a power to be saviors of men, he says. And I think that's through the world of motherhood and nurture and influence. Women have a unique gift for influence as we've seen in our world especially. But men, they are given the power to be saviors of men. And that's not saying one's better than the other, it's just saying it's different. It's just different. And let's tap into our unique God given gifts and instead of, you know, competing against each other, let's try as we try to come closer to God and understand ourselves as God sees us, we will become better towards each other too. We'll treat each other with more respect. Yeah. And I think that that's the goal, you know. So like you said, like Satan's goal is to separate the genders. Yeah. Destroy families, separate us from Christ. But as we like go closer to Christ, like me and my wife, if we have our goal on Christ, we're going to come closer together. Yeah, Inevitably. And I just pray for those people that like the hardcore feminists that they can know that men aren't against them. Like we're on the same team and these, these guys that have been Black pilled that. It's like, hey, women aren't bad just because you've had some bad experiences and maybe have been rejected. Yeah. It's like they, they should be on your team, like, and you should be looking out for them. Yeah. As a man. And so. Yeah. And instead of prescribing to these, you know, secular and really fickle ideologies, trying to improve, you know, conditions for women, because it's like, look, I get that the idea behind it is you're, you're, you want to help women. Okay. Like, I get that. But instead of like prescribing religiously to ideologies like feminism, let's prescribe to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Let's become better disciples of Christ and know what he is telling us to do. And that will help all of us. You know, generationally. We've made lots of improvements. Just the cultural idea of how we view men and women in marriage and these things, that's detached from the church, but in the church, you know, I mean, we're products of culture and there's so many things that influence our culture. Being in North America, being in Utah, all of these things. Totally. You know, that's fine. And we can improve culturally in those ways. But I don't think it's by prescribing to things that are in contradiction to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Is by following the gospel of Jesus Christ and his teachings better. That will come to be better towards each other. Yeah. And that takes a lot of faith because when you are maybe aligned with a certain political party and then the gospel of Jesus Christ is kind of contrary to one of the points of that political party. Yeah. It kind of draws a line in the sand and you kind of have to make a decision and like, you're like, is my religion politics or God? Right. And I think that's something everybody needs to consider. Yeah. Because I've, I've met a lot of conservative, conservative people that almost view politics as like, greater than their religion. They are so much more willing to defend it. Yeah. To, to fight for it and all of this stuff. Yeah. But with that being said, what were some of the other things that you. That you saw come up from these anti Mormons? Yeah, Well, I would say that. So we have a lot of that from like, members who've left the church. But there's also a lot of pushback, I think too, just from people that are not of our faith or have never been part of our faith too, that are real problems, especially as we're Seeing like, for example, the Michigan shooting. Yeah. I mean, that's a real problem. And he was never a member, right? Yeah. Crazy. So one of those things is this demonization. Evangelical, right? I think so, yeah. And they did. The FBI did confirm that his motive was anti religious bias towards the Mormon church. Crazy. Right. And so I think it is important to be aware of that demonization happening towards us and what we believe. And so one of those main points is that we are not Christian. Right. And I think a lot of. I think a lot of members are like, who cares? Like, why are you battling them? Like, we don't need their validation that we're Christian. But it's not necessarily getting their validation. It's having them understand that when they say we're not Christian, the alternative means that we're like worshiping something false, like a demon. Yeah, right. And that's where it gets dangerous because then they're saying that we're like another. We're an antichrist almost. And so it's like, you guys don't have to. Or, you know, Christianity doesn't. That's like a blanket too. It's not just a specific person, it's just like this church as a whole. Yes. They're demon worshipers. So that narrative, I feel like for the public perception, it is an important point to talk about, to defend so that we are not demonized in that way publicly and in that perception of who we are from other people, people who might want to find religion, people who might not know about the church. If they're hearing that, well, they're not even a Christian church, then those people that are searching out there might not even ever consider our religion as an option. You know what I mean? Between that and then just adding to the. The hatred of our religion in the sense that it would lead people to violence towards us. I think it was the who was the other podcast you went on this week. Holy Rebellion. Holy Rebellion. I think it was one of their videos. They were talking about how the LDS church is the most hated religion in America right now, which is wild. I. I didn't think that that would be the case. But we're also the most loving towards other religions. Like, hands down, oh yeah, you have such great faith, Right. Oh yeah, you Muslims have. I like your family unit. Right. Maybe not all of it, but like, I like a lot of good things about that. We value truth as an objective thing. And so when people exhibit Christ like virtues, we'd say those are good things, even if you're not of our faith. Living a good life. We, we praise that. And we're grateful. Especially we're grateful to people who, you know, purport Jesus Christ as their savior. We're like, that's a good thing. We see them as Christians. We do. We legit do. We're like, oh, yeah. And we do worship the same God. Brothers, you know, in the same fight almost. You'd say. Because the fight should not be against believer against believer. It should be believer against the forces of Satan that want to totally erase Jesus Christ from our lives. What. What was it that 170 said he called them are Christian cousins. Is that what he said? I'm not sure, but I loved that because it's like, no, they're family. They're. They're. They're doing their very best. Yeah. And it's kind of. Kind of goes back to Gordon B. Hinckley when he was on that talk show with Larry King. And Larry King's asking him all these questions. He's like, well, what about these other churches? Like, are they not true? And Gordon B. Hinckley, he's like, this is our message to everybody. That's not, that's not of our faith. Get everything good. Everything good you have, and bring it and let us add to it. Exactly. And I do think that a lot of members feel that way towards other religions, towards. Even if it's not a religious topic, like just truth. Like you said, we. We inherently value truth. Truth no matter where it comes from. Correct. Yeah. So to the point though, of where that kind of like, you're not a Christian comes from, it's mostly that they'd say we don't worship the same Jesus as they do. And it. Which I think is a cop out. It is. It's. It's a total cop out. They don't like us. So they have to come up with. Totally. Because I would say that the point that they use to describe that is such an arbitrary point. Yeah. Considering theological debates that have happened historically within even mainstream Christianity about the nature of God and Jesus Christ. Exactly. So I would say let's pick a different point of commonality, which is. Should be centered on Jesus Christ. Right. Not necessarily understanding his nature as that's, that's, that's what they would claim, that we don't understand him in the correct way or the correct form. So therefore it's a different Jesus Christ. And in their opinion, they can't even understand him. So that, that. But, but it comes down to. But, yeah, mostly the trinitarian formulation. Right. Yeah. And. Which is really an interesting topic because the, the verbiage and the phrasing and the way they use to describe the nature of the Godhead, Jesus the Father and the Holy Spirit is completely post biblical. They use the Bible to support the claim. Support, but. But it doesn't come. It's not derived from the Bible. It's very much a post biblical idea that, like we were talking about earlier, that has a lot to do with that Greek influence of metaphysics and philosophy. The word that's used in the creeds that describes the nature God is homoosius, which is a Greek word which just means of the same substance. And that's where we get that the one being three persons in one there, it's one substance, but somehow they're three in the one. Yeah, but we would say, okay, maybe they share the divinity. Right. We'd say they're, they're one in will and purpose, in authority, but they're not the same exact physical being. Yeah. And that's basically the distinction we make. And because of that, we are like barred from basically being saved because we don't believe in the trinitarian formulation. A great argument I heard to kind of fight this way of thinking is especially when you're talking to somebody that really understands who's like a biblical scholar and they understand that the Trinity is actually never taught in the Bible. Correct. So when I forgot who it was, but they were, they were talking to this biblical scholar and they're like, okay, is the Trinity taught in the Bible? He's like, no. And then he's like, okay, if the Bible is the end, all of Revelation, then it should have everything in there, like a prescription of how to be saved. Right. And they're like, yeah, it's like, but it's. The Trinity's not in there. And so Jesus or the prophets failed at their purpose to have this one book for a complete prescription for salvation. And they're like, oh, well, they can't say that. They can't say that the Bible's infallible, but then again, it doesn't have the Trinity in it. And so I thought that was a really good argument against that, that perspective. Yeah, yeah. If the Bible is the end all, be all word of God, but it doesn't even have the formula for salvation equaling belief in homoosis as the nature of God. Then it's like, why are we arguing over this being the salvation point for Christianity? Let's pick something else. Let's pick baptism. Let's pick, is Jesus Christ your savior? Is he the only name by which you can be saved. You know what I mean? It's like, let's focus on that. Yeah, but obviously, I mean, this has been standing for millennia, so. Yeah, it's not like you're just going to change it by saying, that's not fair. We don't like it. No. But you can just do your best to explain why maybe our thinking needs to shift on this. Yeah. You don't have to change your belief in the Trinity. I'm fine. If you want to believe in the Trinity, that's fine. But let's pick a different point of agreement on what it means to be Christian so that we don't have to demonize one another for being a believer or not being a believer, because we disagree. In fact, I'm sure you've heard of Mark Driscoll, this famous evangelical pastor who's got a huge following. He wrote a book. Well, wrote a book. He released some weird little ebook that was basically trying to talk about why Mormons aren't Christian. And what he says in that book is so funny because he's talking about all the other Christian denominations, which are so many. Right. How can there be so many different denominations and yet they're all Christian? And he explains that by meaning that he says we are. He's like, we're united in our agreement and we're like, not united in our disagreement. I forget exactly his wording, but saying like, we can. We're united as Christians because of the things that we do agree on. Okay. And then we're different because of the things we don't agree on. And in my mind I'm like, like, okay, and why. Yeah, that, that. But okay. And so Mormonism is on the outside of that. Yeah. Because there's a ton of stuff we all agree on. Yeah, yeah. With mainstream Christianity, maybe like even most of what we agree about, most of what we believe we can agree about, you know, and so it's like, let's. Fine. We can disagree about tons of other theological issues. You can totally think that the Book of Mormon was a fraud. Yeah, whatever. But we believe Jesus Christ, the Jesus Christ that lived, walked, died and rose again. That's the Lord that we worship. Why can't we disagree on that? Yeah, 100. Anyway, it's so, so I, I served in Scotland and Ireland and when, when was this? I think I was in Scotland at the time and I had a lot of born again Christians on my mission who, who were like versed in like debating us. They. Yeah, they were given pamphlets and Taught like, I even was, like, ambushed because I was invited to a. I bet. What's it called? It was. I was invited to speak at a college. Okay. It turned out to be this class was about cults. And so they invited us. Good. So, like, I had a lot of experience with these born again Christians. Yeah. And there's this one time, though, this lady comes up to us in the street and she's like, are you guys Mormons? And I'm like, yeah. And she's like, I'm a born again Christian. I'm like, okay, okay, let's do this. Let's do this. And she's just like, I just got to thank you for what you're doing. And I'm like, oh, I. I was completely taken off guard. Yeah. I was like, yeah, thank you. And she's like, we believe in the same Jesus, and you, while we might not agree on everything, you're doing a very good thing. Yeah. And we have bigger fish to fry than fighting each other. 100. Like, there's. There's way worse things going on in this world. There's real evil. There's real evil. Yeah. Why don't we team up against. Yeah. That. And so. And she said that to me and I was like, dang, I love you. You're the best. Like, it was so relieving. And also, like, I just. She just knew. She just understood. Yeah. Like, who Christ is, who we are. I don't know what missionary or what member or whatever content she was reading that gave her the understanding that we are truly Christian. Yeah. But I am so grateful for that person or that content. Yeah. And so, like, I'm really grateful for you who you're not just saying, you know what? I'm gonna just teach my family and friends like, that are already members of the church that we are Christian and we're not going to worry about the outside world. But we are in the world. We need to worry about it. We need to be the PR for our beliefs. We need to let them know, like, no, we are Christian and we. We don't worship the devil. No, we are good. Let's. Let's team up to fry these bigger fish. Yeah. Well, and I think you bring up a good point that a lot of, like, practicing Christians don't all think that way. Yeah. And a lot of practicing Christians don't even understand the Trinity themselves, which is funny. Yeah. You might ask some random Christian what they believe about the Trinity and they might describe something a lot more similar to what we think. So I just Think it's interesting. And we need to remember that there's a diversity of that belief across the entire spectrum of Christianity. And a lot of Christians do view us as their brothers in Christ. Yeah, I 100 agree. Another one of these points before we move on that these kind of staunch evangelical Christians that believe that we're not Christian need to wrestle with is the. The fact that by their definition, they're ruling out all of the early saints. Yeah, it's true. Like, like you said before the Hellenization of Christianity, this is what they believed. It's. It's what we believe. Yeah. Yeah. You find a lot like, so the Council of Nicaea, famously, 325. That's kind of where a lot of these doctrines were solidified, like, almost like codified in a religion, like an organized religion. Because before there was really no organized Christian religion per se, There were just a ton of believers, and a lot of them had different ideas of what things meant. And you're right by. By basically saying that. 325. That point of introducing that doctrine as an official doctrine, like, yes, people might have believed it before it was official, but the point of it becoming official is then that's where you mark what is now heresy. And you do now discount tons of Christians that lived between Christ's death and that point as not being Christian anymore. And yet they were closer in time to Jesus Christ and the apostles. And how can you condemn them when there was no official church until that point? So it's just problematic. Yeah, in many ways it is. It is so interesting. Okay, so we've kind of covered some of the EXMO talking points with gender equality. We've. We've covered some of the more evangelical talking points of us not being Christian. Are there any other subjects that you find yourself responding to? I haven't talked about this a lot yet, but I definitely want to dive into the Book of Mormon and archaeology and all that kind of stuff because I feel like it's a huge point of, like, total. This is just totally. Forget the Book of Mormon. There's no archaeological evidence. So it's like, totally not true. Yeah. And I would say to that, like, yes and no, there's not archaeological. Archaeological evidence. But I would also say that not a lot of times is it ever an argument about the actual content of the Book of Mormon and, like, the actual story or the actual, you know, crazy parallels to ancient world theology and understanding and connection that the Book of Mormon has, and we don't know how to explain it other than Some type of miraculous intervention for, for translating that book. You know what I mean? Yeah. So I definitely say like with the Book of Mormon, it's 100 a faith thing because you have to read it and you have to understand it through a faithful perspective to believe that it's true. But I do think that there is really compelling evidences to support the claim that it is true. Yeah. First of all, especially from a Christian perspective, maybe not an atheist perspective because they just kind of discount Christianity and God and miracles all together. But if you're talking to Christians and you might ask them why they believe Jesus Christ was real, one reason they'll give a lot is that there's written account, there's first hand accounts that prove that Jesus Christ rose from the dead, that he was resurrected. Those are like kind of up for debate for how many of them there really are. Yeah. You know, just because it was so long ago. Do we have original. Yeah. First hand witnesses of him walking out of the tomb? I mean, you know, so there's definitely some that, that scholars will say are considered authentic of just being a first hand witness. But there's maybe three. Yeah, maybe. And that's debatable. You know, whether there's more or less. There are like at least 11 plus firsthand accounts, witnesses of the golden plates and the angel Moroni showing them the plates. And you'd say to Christians you'd at least say why is that less miraculous or why is that less trustworthy of a, of a witness than these ancient witnesses of Jesus Christ resurrection? We have way more. So I think that's a really interesting point. I've seen atheists use that as an argument against Christians being like, hey, like you, you're arguing this way but then you're telling us to rely on faith for your perspective. Yeah. And so they, they mainly do it just to point out the like kind of double standard. Correct. But it is so, it is so interesting when you dive into the history of the church, when you dive into, I don't know, just different personalities. Like some of the witnesses left the church and hated Joseph Smith, but they never denied. It's like that. That's really, that'd be really tough to do if it was false and if. They were all just con men in on the same thing and yet didn't benefit in any way from it. What's the point in keeping. Got killed for it. Yeah. Crazy. Yeah. Yeah. I, I think it's interesting that people love to use that, that perspective of Joseph Smith and the saints of, you know, he was a con man. He was in it for gain. He, I would argue he risked everything and lost everything. Yeah. Doing what he did, he really didn't gain anything. Yeah. So I think that argument is. Yeah. To me, what were some of the things in the Book of Mormon besides like the witnesses that you're going to be talking about that kind of provide a type of evidence for the Book of Mormon's truth? Well, one thing that's really interesting, maybe. Not proof, but evidence. Yeah. And I'm, I'm, I'm still kind of like looking into a lot of these because I've, I've definitely heard them and I've been fascinated by them and I just want to become more of like versed on them myself by looking into every single thing. But one of the things that I thought is really interesting is this finding over in the Middle east of this area called Nahom. Oh, yeah. Being on the documented Franken Frankincense trail that's, you know, historically known. And the Book of Mormon describes following that trail Exact. Almost exactly. And then this resources that the Book of Mormon describes being in this area, you can find over there. Like that's, that's provable. And then on top of that, the place where they say that they buried Ishmael in the, in Nephi, they have found a burial like, tablet thing that has an inscription of a name that is Ishmael. That's crazy. And you can't say this is the Ishmael, you know, from the book. There's no way to prove that. But the fact that it exists shows at least a plausibility of it being the same place, the same people, the same time. I mean, the fact that there was a burial, archaeological finding in that same place. Yeah. I mean, I just don't think it's coincidence. You know what I mean? And people can say it's coincidence, but I would say, well, why don't we look at it through a faithful lens. Let's, let's try it. You know, for people who want to. Believe and it's really that way, it's really hard to deny it, even from a logical lens. Yeah. I mean, you still have to come up with an explanation. You have to come up with an explanation because it's like, oh, they just mapped out. They say in the Book of Mormon we started a point where we can all agree on, okay, Jerusalem. Okay, Sweet, sweet. Now they explain in detail where they went and what they did and what they found. And we found all of those things. Yeah, those things are provable. Like, did Joseph Smith have all of these? How would he have known? Yeah, how would he have known? And that's what I think is. So the other really interesting thing about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon is that he's either a genius when it's convenient for the argument or he's a complete idiot when it's convenient for the argument. It can't be both. Right. He's either a literary genius or a complete farm boy idiot. And they always go back and forth depending on what thing they're trying to refute. Yeah. Did you. Have you listened to Tad, our Callisters, talk about that? I think so. For the Book of Mormon. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So good. So good. But, yeah, basically just going back and forth, like, and he talks about the progression of these antis talk, trying to justify where the Book of Mormon came from. Started from he's an idiot. He has no idea what he's doing. To he's a genius to know somebody else wrote it. To he's an idiot. Again to he's a genius. And it just keeps going around in a circle. But like Jeffrey R. Holland said, said, if you want to leave this church, you're going to have to do it crawling over or under or around the Book of Mormon because you can't do it going through. You can't. And I, I mean, I understand that. Like, a lot of people say, well, the burden of proof is on you to prove why it's true. But at the same time it's like, well, you want to dismiss this and you want to dismiss this and you want to dismiss this. How about you explain how Joseph Smith wrote the Book of Mormon then? And I just feel like I've not gotten, like, a satisfactory answer for that. No one can do it. No one can. How did he understand these complex societies? He created an entire religion within the Book of Mormon that's half Jewish, half Christian. He has complex timelines that overlap with multiple records happening in one record. Like, I'm just like, how did he do that then? Do you think he really was a genius? Did he go to school? Did he study ancient Near Eastern religion, language, naming places? Like, it's those things where I'm like, okay, well then you at least need to provide me a logical way that he would have been able to just guess those things. Right? And then that's on top of the content of the Book of Mormon, meaning, like the theological premises that he's, like, demonstrating or offering that he just came up with, and they happen to work super well with the rest of our understanding of how the world works or that they match ancient documents that weren't found till after Joseph Smith's death. Like apocryphal texts, things like that. Like the story of Adam and Eve, Our understanding of that being a positive, where the rest of the Christian world believes it was a negative, that doesn't really match any other Christian or known theology at the time of Joseph Smith's life. But we have found apocryphal texts, meaning, like texts that are extra biblical, that aren't included in canon, that describe the story that Joseph Smith describes, or it was revealed to him in almost the exact same way. And it's like, how can you account for it? Yeah. So I don't know. There's. There's another one about the. Is it the Book of Enos? Yeah, crazy. Like Joseph Smith, in the Pearl of Great Price, like, wrote about Enos. Enos. Enoch. Oh, sorry. Yeah. Enoch. Enos is in the Book of Mormon. Wait, I'm saying that wrong, but Enoch, yes, the Old Testament prophet. And he. He, like, laid out all of these things and events and even geography. And then later on after Joseph's death, they found these apocryphal texts and then it aligned. Exactly. Even, like the verbiage. Yeah. Like the word. I think one of them was, like, calling Enoch a lad. It was like one of these very specific, like. Like textual, like choices of word or whatever. That's, like, so unique. And it matched directly with these ancient documents. And it's like, how would he have just guessed that or. Or done that, you know, not knowing. And then on top of that, just one more point. Yeah. On top of that, if you actually want to talk about, like, archeology, like hard evidence. The interesting thing about North American, well, South American archaeology is that we don't have a ton of it done. Like, something like less than 1% of the South American continent has actually been archaeologically excavated. Yeah. Mostly because it's like dense jungle. And then the climate is that which it doesn't preserve anything very well. Like, paper wouldn't be preserved. Organic material wouldn't be preserved very well. Where in the Near East? Dry arid sand, that's going to preserve things like papyri a lot easier, which is why we do have so much archeological evidence coming out of that region. Right. Yeah. So. And then on top of that, even just in the field of archeology, when you discover they call it, like, material culture, just these things that are laying around that you find that belonged to culture. But when you're just looking at for like a pot, for example, you can't really tell a lot about the people that use the pot just from the pot itself. The thing that provides the context for what you're actually looking at archaeologically is often coming from extra context through written records and things like that. Not always, but a lot of times, especially trying to differentiate between certain groups of people that shared space. Yeah. A lot of times you're not gonna be able to say, well, a Nephite used this or a laymanite used that, unless you're able to somehow have an extra context that's adding that in. Like a. Like a written record. Yeah. So the other interesting thing about that is in the Americas, there aren't a ton of ancient language and records that we've found or can decipher. Yeah. I think there's like half a dozen. Maybe. Like. Don't quote me on that. But there's only, like. There's like less than 12 ancient languages that we found like pre 400 AD like. Like ancient. Yeah. That we can one decipher. And then to find like. Like in plenty to like, put a story together. The only one I think that we know how to fully decipher is Mayan. Oh, interesting. So, honestly, a lot of fines are gonna need, like, we're just gonna need to understand ancient Mesoamerica in general much better. Before. Before we just say this didn't happen and this didn't exist. Don't. You can't. You can't equate the absence of evidence as evidence of absence. Yeah. You know, love that. So. Yeah. And even, like, the anachronisms that were. Yeah. Listed way, like there's a ton of anachronisms. I don't know, 200 or something. And they've. They've cut at least half of them down. Yeah. Down to like 60. Yeah. Or something. As research has gotten better. It's. It's just wild. It's like, oh, no, there was no concrete. Sorry. They found. Exactly. Oh, they Jewish people or Middle Eastern, whatever. They didn't know how to work in steel. Actually, they did. And there's been swords that have found steel. Steel swords. And even the horse thing. This is still up for debate. Totally. But there's a lot of Native American tribes that were like, no, we had horses before the Spanish came. That. And I'm. I believe they're finding DNA evidence of. Of things like that. It's starting to come out more that. That's more plausible. Yeah. That there could have been horses here pre Columbus Dang. So that's crazy. It's like, that's the thing with archaeology is you can't just say something has. Isn't true until you actually fully look into it or. Or realize that you've found everything. And I don't know when we're going to find everything, but, you know, for example, the city of Troy in the backdrop of the Iliad. Oh, yeah. The famous battle, the Trojan War, with the horse and everything. It was believed up until the 1800s that that city was a complete myth because no one had found it. And then archaeologists discovered it and said, oh, it actually was a real place and this war likely was a real war, not just a story. So it's like we just. We don't know what we could discover next, you know? And I would rather be someone that has an open mind. Like, I want to know and I want to find. Yeah, I want to find. This is real. Right? That sounds like. Great. Maybe it is. Who knows? We can't know until we find out, you know? So it's like, I don't know. That's why faith is so important, because it's. It's wanting it to be true and just in that waiting that the Lord has for timing and. And in many ways, we might never find this conclusive evidence that the Book of Mormon is 100 authentic. Just because if it. If we did. If we did, it would change. Make it too easy. Exactly. It would be like, Well, a hundred percent Joseph Smith was a prophet then. Yeah. And 100% the Church of Jesus Christ, Latter Day Saints. And it wouldn't take the faith, the true Church, in. Exactly. Yeah. So faith is actually super important because it makes us have to willingly choose something. If we do something with a sure knowledge, it's not really a choice. Yeah. Which is interesting. And God values our free agency above all, and he. He can't coerce us to believe. We have to choose to believe. And faith is what allows us to choose to believe. Man, that's beautiful. Oh, man. I'm trying to think of it like a analogy for that. Like you cannot choose unless you're unsure. Exactly. Because it's like. It's like the analogy I like is if you're at work and your boss is in your corner and your cubicle or whatever, watching you work, it almost is forcing you to do what you're doing the right way. Right? Yeah. Because he's watching you directly right there. If he's not in your cubicle or whatever, he's not watching you. You have to make the choice from within yourself to be working and being productive and doing the right thing. That's kind of how God is with us. If God just showed us everything and gave us everything and it was, you know, a no brainer that this is right, this is wrong, we would actually not have a real choice because it would be obvious. And if we're not, the whole point of becoming like God is learning to choose to be like God. It can't come from someone forcing us. We have to choose to change, to be. Be like God. Yeah. So it has to be a willing and free choice. Faith allows us to make the willing choice because we can choose one or the other. It's not a forced, obvious decision. I would say people who practice having faith, these things become obvious. You know what I mean? Like, we see truth as being obvious when we choose to believe and have faith. And I think that's part of what the Spirit witnesses to us. But overall it's like we still have a hope. Hope. A hope and a faith that it's true because we want it to be true. Because we want to be like God. Right? Yeah. So. Yeah. And Alma 32 just keeps coming to mind, just that. Yeah. Parable of the seed. Exactly. Eventually growing into a sure knowledge. But like, you just gotta try. Yep. You gotta, you gotta try. Hope for it. And. Yeah. It's beautiful. Yeah, man, I love it. So since you've been kind of diving into it more and I'm guessing organizing your thoughts to put it into a video has been super beneficial for you. Yeah. Just in understanding the stuff better. Yeah. And so as you've done that, how has it affected your. Your personal testimony? Just like what I've done so far. Yeah. Just so far. I know it's only been a month. Yeah. What has the effect been? The effect has been. I mean, I would just say that it's always powerful when you can just remind yourself of why you believe something. Just search your heart, search your memory, search those. Those experiences that you've had that are personal between you and God and remember why those things that he witnessed to you were so significant and so meaningful to you. So for me it's been kind of like relearning or re. Remembering why I believed what I believed in the first place. And of course it's always strengthening like we should always be continually learning and continually strengthening our testimony because it is easy to forget. And so for me, it's just been that reminder of how beautiful the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is and how much it does offer us in terms of happiness and peace in our lives. And, and I think we sometimes equate happiness with like, being like life is easy or like life is just always good. And that's not what happiness means, at least not in the gospel perspective. In fact, people who choose to be disciples of Christ honestly face a ton of. Of trial. Yeah. And it takes a lot of sacrifice and you have to endure a lot. I mean, I think that's why the commandment is endure to the end. It's not like you're gonna just have rainbows and butterflies because you believe in Jesus Christ. You will take upon yourself enemies and you'll take upon yourself trial and burdens that come with following Christ. But the promise is that Christ carries those burdens with you. And if you can endure to the end having that steadfast faith in him, your reward will be eternal peace and eternal happiness. So. Dang. Yeah. Well, before we wrap up this, this podcast is for return missionaries, helping them transition home successfully. If you had any advice for these returned missionaries that are coming home who might be facing a faith crisis, what would that advice be? I think the unique thing about being a missionary, like set apart and going on this two year or 18 month journey is that you, you witness a lot of conversion that you don't necessarily get to just being a normal person every day. Right. And I would just say from a missionary perspective, if you're ever doubting or having, you know, a crisis like you say, try to remember what it was that you gave to those people that made them so excited or willing or, or happy, grateful that they were introduced to the restored gospel. What was it that you shared with them that made, that changed their life? I mean, it's life changing. Yeah. You know, so just try to hold on to those and remember that that's for you too, that the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is 100 life changing in every way, and that it ultimately is the best and the most reliable way to follow God and to find your potential and your happiness. And I just know from personal experience, like, you're just, you're not going to find what we believe and what we know anywhere else. You're not going to find that place of just peace and comfort that comes from understanding who you are and why you're here. Better than the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Yeah. If people want to follow along with your content and learn more from you, where, where can they find you? Yeah. So I'm, I'm hoping to get a YouTube channel up and going, but right now I'm just on Instagram. The sure foundation is my handle. My name is Maddie Packer and I also have a tick tock same handle, the sure foundation but hopefully I'll be able to put out some more content on other platforms. So awesome. Yeah. Well Maddie, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you. Hey guys, thanks again for listening to this episode. It was so much fun having Maddie on. It was a great conversation. So again if you want to follow along, click the links in the description to go to her Instagram and TikTok. If this episode has been meaningful to you in any way, please share it. Subscribe Leave a Comment it would mean the world to me to know that it's actually reaching the people it needs to reach. And remember, God is good and is planning on your success. And though you've been released from your mission, you've not been released from your ministry.