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I dont doubt that it happens on both sides of the political spectrum. i was only sharing experiences i have seen in my own life. No offense intended. and in both instances were people i cared about just as in Ray’s example. (as for Sarah Palin, well, she’s not close to me but i still think she’s hot !) 😆 this sounds like to me the fear-mongering that some republican supporters use to do anything and everything hoping to see that Obama will not get re-elected. i have seen that kind of mentality in other(some close to me) republican supporters saying or propagating all kinds of lies just so that Obama doesn’t get in again. it’s deplorable behaviour. that’s all i can say lol ! Sarah Palin is just one example of a public figure (i’m sure we can think of others lol) who tend to use this tactic to further the Republican agenda. not cool !
Dear Man in the Arena, I read your first posting in this thread. I don’t know if you had a chance to look at
http://www.fairlds.org . it is an excellent website that can answer some things in regard to claims by certain websites that certain things about the church are not true.i read how you cried when you finally came to terms with the “truth” about church history. i’m not going to make light of those things but i encountered an individual who read something on a website about the Pearl of Great Price. She said something about the book of Abraham facsimile being translated into a burial prayer or something or other.
i thought to myself “well anybody can say this or that…” and i might have even said that to her. it is unfortunate there are alot of refuters of the lds faith and it’s origins. that is just how it is.
what i love about the Pearl of Great Price is the account of Abraham speaking with the Lord about astronomy – a favorite of mine. i can’t say absolutely that it’s true, neither can i say the same about the Book of Mormon. but what i can say is spiritually these two books of scripture are special to me. just reading them indicate something divine and undevious in nature. they help us look to a higher power outside ourselves and can help us be more “Christ-like”.
that is all i can say about the LDS scripture i mentioned above.
I’m sorry to hear about your crumbling belief in the church and it’s questionable origins. it must be hard.
my crisis of faith happened years ago but it happened in a social situation in a ward i belonged to. i was very gung-ho about the church at one time until something happened socially in my ward. it changed me. i went through hell and back trying to figure out what i believed. at the end of it all i continued to believe what i had been taught at church. i still have a testimony of the standard works and church doctrine.
i know the church isn’t perfect culturally. even now i only occasionally attend church. but i still believe in it. why do i still believe in it ? because of my spiritual experiences with God and things divine. God wants us to know him(them) – whoever he is(they are).
Mike from Toronto
i guess the thing to ask is: at what point is masturbation and pornography harmful ? it’s like asking when is drinking alcohol harmful. and the ultimate answer is this: DEPENDS UPON THE PERSON ! some people can’t handle alcohol. some people are just genetically wired that way. most can handle moderate alcohol drinking and would never fall into addiction.
masturbation and pornography could be considered the same way. there are probably plenty of married men/women who masturbate and look at porn and would never cheat on their spouse.
Unfortunately some will and do.
Mike from Toronto
Aaron, been reading all the posts from everyone here and from you. all i can say is “WOW !”
it makes me shake my head and think “Gee, i’m so glad i’m not active lol !”
Cylon wrote:
Quote:It breaks my heart to see real families face the prospect of being broken up because of teachings of the church. I cannot understand how having a husband and father who can go to the temple every once in a while is more important than having a husband and father who is present in the home and loves his family.
I say a huge AMEN to that Cylon ! – a huge AMEN !Mike(BLC)
the girls should have been charged for poisoning their leader. sure there would be repercussions but you can’t tiptoe around that kind of issue. the leader could have died for goodness sakes ! i’ve heard of other issues that were serious in nature involving youth and police charges could have been considered – but instead leaders took the issue into their own hands and upset the victim and the family and no charges were laid.
i know of one case where a boy of about 10 or 11 reported an adult male masturbating around him (both from church). the man was reported to the Branch President and the BP discouraged the mother of the boy from pressing charges against the man.
years later, both the family of the boy and the man lived in the same stake in another Canadian province. the mother warned other’s about the man’s tendencies and eventually this man was ex’d for an unrelated violation(false teaching). it would have made things a whole lot simpler if the branch president didn’t interfere with the mother’s initial wish to press charges against the adult male – instead of letting a situation like that drag on years later.
i am sorry to hear about the bullying going on against your daughter. it seems very, very unfair. and you noted the two boys (young men) were sons of two wealthy high councilmen. this isn’t the first time i’ve heard of this type of situation. i once belonged to a ward where a couple’s son became inactive because the bishop’s son bullied their son. this happened before i got to the ward. the boy who was bullied was different but good natured.
and then there is Elder Bednar’s talk in conference years ago about “being offended”. i don’t think his talk addresses this kind of situation.
my heart goes out to your family SD. i hope things will work out. have you considered talking to the fathers(and mothers) of these two bullies ? it might help tremendously. the outcome i guess you would hope for is that the bullying stops – ideally having these two young men brought to your home to apologize to your daughter and hopefully showing remorse for their crappy behaviour.
Mike
p.s. not fitting in at church can really suck for anyone at any age. i believe that is why many go inactive.
thanks for your great honesty Scooter in your first post in your introduction. it sounds like you are being the best you that you can be. the church is like a good parent but in the end it is the children who grow up and decide how they choose to live their lives, and i think that is what we are all about in this forum – being the best “You” that you can be, in spite of the cultural failings of the church. i have read a few posts here and i’m reminded of what Christ said when he was on the cross after the 9th hour: “my god, my god, why hast thou forsaken me ?” (Matthew 27:46). i know in my own crisis of faith i felt God had abandoned me. i think the lesson i can learn from my own life and that of Christ is that life is about experiencing life in all its guts and glory moments. God (Father) leaves us to learn for ourselves and we get credit for what we endure – even if it sucks ! this reminds me of God’s reply to Joseph Smith in the Doctrine and Covenants after Joseph felt comfortless undergoing what probably felt like endless days of misery in a prison for false charges:
Doc & Cov 121:7-8
Quote:7 My son, peace be unto thy soul; thine adversity and thine afflictions shall be but a small moment;
8 And then, if thou endure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy foes.
after a period of time from the pain of my crisis of faith i feel better off for going what i went through. and i heard that similarly said by Joseph Smith, and even those who suffered as Mormon pioneers in the Martin Handcart company – one fellow who was quoted saying: (paraphrased)” just when i thought i had no more to go on, i felt as if some invisible force was pushing me along…”
in the end i think what i have discovered in my own life and my own crisis of faith is that you don’t always need a church to find God. a church can be a means in helping us find God and then after that we can find God anywhere – and to me that has been the greatest blessing the Mormon church has given me – that of knowing there is a God who loves us.
If there is a God, and his creations within the universe(or galaxy) are so vast then how could he make time for poor little ol’ me ?
my answer: i think if you can think of God as a father, then all that God is trying to do is bring up his children the best way he knows how – by providing this temporary existence called “mortality” so that we can know what life on earth is all about – and we will know how to bring up our own children in the future.
wow ! thanks for sharing. i look forward to your update for what happened lastnight. i hope it went well for you. in my own experience with “faith” and having gone through a crisis of faith myself – one thing that i noted being a member of the church or belonging to a faith is that nothing is “prove-able”. we teach this and that and though we may have special spiritual experiences sometimes it’s just plain hard to go about living life like all this is true without some kind of proof. sometimes you just have to jump off the diving board of life and jump in and do things outside the realm of “cultural expectation” and see where it takes you.
in my instance i felt “trapped” by my cultural life in the church and felt like i was having a loss of identity and i felt i had to go outside the “church expectations” to find my identity. and that I did and I am better off personally for doing it.
in the end i realized my spiritual experiences were real and authentic to me and keep me anchored in believing in the LDS church – even if, at this time, i just occasionally attend.
