Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
I’ve really enjoyed studying the history and compilation of the New Testament, but the more I’ve studied it, the more I start to wonder just how reliable this book really is. over 300 years of illiterate scholars making copies of copies of copies of copies 100’s of generations down the read before we even get to any professional scholars, (aka Constantine and the Roman Empire’s adoption of Christianity). I’ve heard the statement from many biblical scholars that i’ve read from saying that there are more errors in the new testament than there are words. So my questions would revolve around just how much can we rely on the New Testament. Obviously someone who has done any truthful studies into the New Testament to get to the point where they are a scholar, they have had to face these ideas and work them out in their own mind. Brian Johnston wrote:I love those kind of shows too (Ancient Aliens, etc.). Unfortunately, they’re just about as provable as the magic theories of God. I am totally open to God and Angels being advanced beings. “Aliens” just means “not originating from Earth.” So yeah, God is an “alien” in that regard.
That’s just the thing. God is an advanced being. He’s an alien, because he did not originate from this planet. He is from another place and dimension. I’ve often looked at the second coming of Christ as being an alien invasion where the wicked don’t stand a chance against these advanced beings.
The only thing we were missing is in these analogies is that these advanced beings are perfect in knowledge, power and all other things. It’s only magical until we understand it. Then it’s just reality.
cwald wrote:Are you sure? Perhaps these may be gross overstatements of years and years of LDS conditioning, and/or puritan conditioning?
All thing in moderation. All things in moderation.
I’m positive. Like a said, I think the church, for the most part, is incappable of addressing this growing issue right now. My studies and involvment with it have been in Non-LDS, non-Christian atmostpheres with people who truly want to get rid of this addiction. Even if I didn’t believe in God or the Church, I would not want that to be a part of my life anymore. I can testify first hand of the destructiveness that it caused to my life and those around me, not to mention models, etc. Everything we do has a rippling effect. The biggest fallacy people have about M word is that it doesn’t hurt anyone. They’re wrong. Every action we take in our lives has consequences and affects our bodies. That one, has the tendency to affect it in a negative way.
Let me add “all things in moderation, in their right place.” Sex between a man and wife can be very very constructive.
One site I’ve found very interesting on the topic of sex, and one that I tend to agree with more and more is http://www.ldssdf.org . (LDS Skinny Dippers Forum) The people at ldssdf.org are active members of the church who are nudists and have their own ideas on the topic. They believe that their actions and beliefs are 100% in accord with the church’s teachings and many of them are temple recommend holding members. Similar to this site, it’s a really good atmosphere, open!I unfortunately have a lot of experience in this realm as many men just might. Statistics that I’ve seen say that every male, with maybe a very, very few exceptions if any, has experimented with it at one time in their life or another. Statistics also show that 1 in 3 active LDS men are addicted to M & P. It personally has caused a lot of damage in my life. I’ve seen the damage that it causes in the lives of those involved. I’ve attended many sessions of sexaholics anonymous, non-LDS versions, and it’s always the same story. It’s worse that alcoholics and has bad effects on the person involved in it. It causes you to be a love cripple, unable to feel true love. It causes you to objectify women instead of seeing them for who they truly are. People who have successfully overcome this addiction describe life as being a whole lot happier and richer, much like a drug addict who overcomes their addiction to drugs.
Personally, I don’t believe the church is over reacting on this topic at all. I do believe that they seriously lack the tools to deal with the situation. I think that the lessons we have in priesthood or young mens are pointless because all they do is teach you how it’s wrong. Those who are already caught in the issue know it’s wrong and beating yourself up about it won’t help! In fact it makes it worse.
Yeah, I agree. I haven’t heard a lot of historical data that supports some of the bigger points of the story either such as the whole world being taxed, or even all the Roman territories nor anything like the edict of Herod. However, it doesn’t mean that parts or all of it didn’t happen. I just keep an open mind and think it’s probable that we don’t know what happened. Honestly, after studying a lot of the Bible and Christian history, I probably would have left Christianity all together if it wasn’t for the Book of Mormon. Like I said earlier, I find it funny when many Evangelicals point the finger at the Book of Mormon when the history of the Bible leaves far more certain doubt than does the Book of Mormon.
Anyhow, this post wasn’t meant to criticize anyone or any organization. For me, the lesson I learned as I studied the Bible is that my faith cannot be placed in any material object, book or organization unless it’s first placed on God and what I know about him. The rest is just supportive and adds to what I already know.
I think this conflict is awesome! I remember having this conflict often when I was in your situation and it turned into a big turning point in my life. It’s the time when you have to choose between The Church, or God. Who are you going to put your faith in and is it the same thing? My advice to you would be that if you know that the spirit that you’re feeling is truly God speaking, then believe Him. After all, the purpose of the church is to lead us to Christ, not replace Him.
I had the problem where, because of certain sins I was grappling with, I had certain members telling me that I couldn’t feel the spirit with me, and even that I needed to hearken to my wife’s opinion because she did have the spirit in her life. It wasn’t until a wise and knowing LDS counselor told me that I have every right to feel the spirit and receive inspiration and that I should follow that inspiration and not dismiss it. Once I started listening to that voice first, and making all other voices secondary, my closeness to God grew and so did my understanding. It was a HUGE step in the right direction. And guess what! It didn’t lead me away from the church. At first it created a lot of animosity for me towards the church, especially towards lessons based on following the Prophet no matter what. But with time and a lot of struggle and study and listening to the spirit and prayer, I finally was able to understand that lesson in a way that I never would have figured out earlier.
The truth is that, if you know that voice is God’s, then you need to follow it else you are in danger of losing it. Right? BUT, don’t jump to conclusions about what that voice is insinuating. I would be willing to bet that you heard something very different in those talks that I heard. I would be willing to bet that the feelings, ideas and messages that you heard from the talks were wrong, and that the spiritual confirmation that you felt about it being wrong was regarding the message that you felt.
I’ve had a number of times where I read something in a talk or in general conference that I have had a spiritual witness that is contrary to it. Of course that creates frustration at first. But in each time, It’s lead me to further study and realized that what I thought the leader was saying at first, was not actually what he was saying. Also, in many instances, it changed slightly the answer that I had previously gotten and improved it. The only reason i was able to get to those perspectives of higher understanding was because I did not jump to mere belief, but instead relied first on the spirit and then continued to ask for further inspiration.
You can know your source is true if the feelings lead you to more love and true inner peace. A calming. I have no problem at times with saying, well, I just don’t believe that right now. So I leave it at that. It has served me well. You do not know all things, and neither does Elder Packer nor President Monson or any prophet. They never teach their messages in a perfect manner, and to simply rely on the words they say is nothing less than relying on the arm of flesh! You must listen with the spirit.
Quote:Note to admins: please go and rescue (prune to a new thread) the orphan intro post by jamison on zadok’s Dazed and Confused thread. I want to welcome him/her properly.
Acarlton, What a story! I hope you feel welcome here.
Well, I’d like to ask you some questions, if I can just think of a few, and if you have time and energy to respond.
1. Can you describe your testimony of priesthood?
2. Can you express for us the value of the LDS Church for you?
3. Continuing question 2, can you explain why it would not be important for a Catholic, a Jew, or a Muslim to become LDS?
4. Can you give us some examples of how your behavior has changed since your faith first began to change?
1. For me, the definition given in sunday school, that the priesthood is the authority to act in the name of God makes sense to me. I’m not sure exactly how it works or what it does. But just like the Government only gives certain individuals authority to police or do other tasks, I believe that God has given the His authority or permission to one organization for the purpose of preparing for the coming of the Kingdom of God on earth. When it comes to healing or giving blessings, I’m not sure exactly how it works. I’m not sure how it differs from a really strong or faithful prayer. It’s not a big concern for me.
2. For me, the LDS Church is a big influence on my life because of the information that has been revealed through it. Knowing where I came from, why I’m here and where I’m going help me put into perspective the things going on around me. I try to read The Book of Mormon on a regular basis and it does help me a lot. I find peace in the church. Of all the religions out there, I like the LDS church the most. Even if it wasn’t the true church, assuming that there was no true church on the earth, I would still continue in it because of what I receive. I believe the religion, in general, helps people more than a lack of it does.
3. I, unlike many Mormons, do not believe that the purpose of every human on this planet is to find the LDS church and join it. After all, the scriptures repeated over and over again in the Old, New and current testaments that God would gather Israel in the last days. It does not say that he would gather all people in the last days. If I understand it right, the millennium is the time where all people will be gathered. But we are not in that time right now. So getting to your question, the only reason why I think that a Catholic, a Jew, an Atheist or anyone should join the LDS church is if they are moved upon by God to do it. I see God at work around me all the time in many different organizations and just like we believe that Christopher Columbus, George Washington, Martin Luther etc were not called to come down and be LDS, I believe that many others today are fulfilling their own missions as well. After all, Abraham Lincoln was alive when the church was upon the earth. His mission was not the join it, but to accomplish something else equally as important. I believe that the purpose of this life is to come down here and have a mortal experience that will challenge us in ways that we need in order to progress on our eternal journey. How we will be judged in the last day, none of us truly know.
4. This is a more difficult question, one that I’ll think about and get back to you on later. I have to leave for work right now!
Interesting… Then why is it that the south gets all the credit for having a strong christian influence? When I said godless atheists from the north, I was being very extreme. But the abolitionism being a Christian Movement was not something I was familiar with…. Let me add one more thing… Look at the difference between Ancient Israel under Moses and then the church under Jesus Christ. Do you think that Christ taught that Moses was wrong for being so hard and rigid with the people at that time, and was therefore correcting the law by being much more lenient? The people in ancient Israel were in a different state of mind at that point and needed a certain foundation to be laid before, as a people, they would be ready for a higher law. Jesus repeatedly said that he was not destroying the law, but fulfilling it.
I think it’s safe to say that we live in different times today and are therefore a different kind of people, than were our pioneer ancestors at the time of Joseph Smith, or even 20 years ago!
I don’t know the answer specifically. It could be that those men were wrong, however I tend to have a more orthodox on this view than I do on others. I tend to believe that there are certain things that Heavenly Father revealed or started to reveal and then it turned out the majority of the people were not ready for such a doctrine or it was reserved for personal learning but not something that would be taught in the general church. I have done some study of the Adam-God theory and I personally believe the doctrine to be true, from what I understand about it. It opens my mind to ideas and unifies God much more with mankind. But we don’t have a lot of information on the topic, so it’s impossible to look at it and say “Yup, we understand that doctrine 100% and we decided that it’s not true”. I don’t believe that’s what the church did. I think they realized we didn’t have enough information to speculate on it, there wasn’t enough revealed so they didn’t teach it.
It’s like polygamy. We know it was practiced early in the church, but it’s not something we practice today so there aren’t relief society or priesthood lessons on the topic. Nor do I believe the spirit is revealing a lot to people on the topic because it’s not something that we are called to live right now. I think if we were cursed with this practice
I don’t claim to know anything about polygamy and why or how it was practiced in the early church. It bothers me when I see members trying to share rationalizations of why it was practiced when we simply do not know.
Anyway… I guess I’m saying that just because the church has stopped talking about a certain doctrine on a church wide level doesn’t mean that they’re renouncing it. It might just be that, based on the current times, there are other doctrines that might be much more helpful to the people. I think the Lord prepares his people and then reveals more. It might very well be right for us to be a people with all the knowledge of these things that were previously covered up, and quite possibly have been a bad idea to talk about these things 50 to 75 years ago. Who knows? When I know all things… I will make up my mind then.. .lol
Old-Timer wrote:I lived in the Deep South for a few years a while back, and many of the churches there still are segregated. There are VERY few that have predominantly white or black congregations AND leadership members of the minority race – and probably even fewer with multiple minority races of any significant size AND leadership members of one of those races.
The scarcity of black members in many locations keeps the local units from having lots of black leaders, but it’s not uncommon at all in many other units to have someone of a racial minority serving in a congregation where the large majority of members are Caucasian. We still have a long way to go with regard to full integration, but the foundation is there – and the actual results in many units is quite progressive when compared with many Protestant denominations.
I was thinking about this thread today at church in sacrament meeting today and I started to wonder why it is, within a religion that is suppose to have so much good in it like Christianity, that slavery was such a problem and it was the godless atheists from the north that put it down and put the Christians in their place. Why were they, the Christians, the ones who found it so hard to let go of hatred of another race?
Quote:But my main point is this: just because one thing is wrong doesn’t mean that all “revelations” from Joseph Smith are wrong. And a single mistake in the past doesn’t rule out all future contact with the divine. We can find value and spiritual enlightenment in anything we want, anything the produces value for us. Don’t mistake my position though. I personally don’t have an orthodox LDS view of the nature of prophecy and revelation received from leaders. I see it in a much more fuzzy and non-fundamental perspective.
I like your answer. I just wanted to add one thing though. Just because we don’t understand something right now doesn’t make it wrong either. The idea that this one revelation could be wrong is a possibility. But that is not the only option here either. The revelation could have been correct and the way it was implemented was wrong, or…. it was implemented correctly, but the way people took it or understood it was wrong. Again, like you mentioned in your post, it is not an all or nothing option. There are so many perspectives that instead of saying, yup it was wrong….. we could say… I don’t understand it, and therefore I don’t agree with it. But I guess it could be right and I could be wrong… who knows… I don’t care… lol
😆 But it did offend you. So don’t lie about it. Don’t try to come off as different than you are. Let them know it bothered you. You don’t have to make a big deal out of it. Just let them know how you feel, or just correct the situation. But don’t say anything that isn’t true. What she said was deeply insulting and ignorant. So don’t lie about it! Yeah… I agree… I think that person was full of it. That is one thing about most Evangelical religions that really rubs me the wrong way. It’s like they think the best way to spread the good news is to rip the other persons faith apart as if though they assume that once their faith has been destroyed, they will immediately come join their church. Then they’re surprised with that person becomes an atheist. Intolerance of other peoples religions or beliefs really urks me!
