[creekster]

I am feeling dumber and dumber as I read your posts. I have absolutely no idea whatsoever what you are talking about here. I have been an active member of the mormon church for the largest part of my adult life, and was active for the largest part of my pre-adult life, and believe an apostasy occurred, and I have never felt as though I turned a blind eye to any aspect of history nor do I lack familiarity with any of the historical trends and events you refer to in your post. Moreover, I have never felt or perceived any effort by anyone in the church to discourage me form study of those issues and events in history, nor do I find my reading about them to undermine my beleif in an apostacy. To the contrary, and as a small example, I just finished a book about Pope Silvester II, aka Gerbert, who was on the papal throne in Rome at the turn of the first millenium following Christ and I found his story and the description of the western Roman empire, as well as the situation in Byzantium, in that time frame to be entirely consistent with my understanding of the apsotacy.

What am i missing here?