[Bill Atkinson]

Hi Daisy and welcome, if you have had time to look through some of the threads you will find that your unease with the Utah Mormon culture is shared by many and the general concesus is that you need to know that it IS NOT the ideal and that those of us fortunate enough to be out in the “mission field” whereever that is are profoundly grateful for it.

You will need to move into the other threads and start reading about and asking questions about the temple but just a quick one on the Masonic influence. First it is absolutely correct to understand that Joseph Smith was inspired by and borrowed from the Masonic traditions particularly their “learning method” of having people go through stage after stage to learn by an oral method the important information to be absorbed. All his life Joseph was attuned to revelation and Heavenly Father responded by opening to Joseph’s mind when Joseph finally asked on just about any question. Here is a link to an interview John Dehlin did with Greg Kearney a life long Mormon and Mason that pretty well answers most issues with Mormons and Masons: http://mormonstories.org/?p=14

Welcome and I look forward to sharing with you and learning from you.

[Bill Atkinson]

LaLa if it is possible, and it will be hard, you need to step back from this and realize that your Stage 3 husband is absorbing Stage 3 advice then giving that to you and then trying to have you respond to that. I think and I hope that what your are experiencing from him (from his point of view) is a very brave attempt to help you and help the marriage ( of course I don’t know this, he might have been very brusque and angry when he was talking to you, more self righteous than loving but I am hoping). Assuming the best he is getting advice from a source that he trusts and perhaps your best defense is to send him back to something like this from the same source:

Quote:

“Once you determine that a high priority in your life is to see that your wife and your children are happy, then you will do all in your power to do so. I am not just speaking of satisfying material desires, but of filling other vital needs such as appreciation, compliments, comforting, encouraging, listening, and giving love and affection.” (In Conference Report, Apr. 1981, p. 47; or Ensign, May 1981, p. 34.) Ezra Taft Benson

First recognize that this is a quote from the most Stage 3 prophet we have had in recent Church history but it is Christ like advice and it is the key. It is harder when the Stage 3 approach comes from a person that you love but if you can recognize his worry and respond to it with “appreciation, compliments, comforting, encouraging, listening etc.” then it will help to assure him that your spritual development and struggles don’t have to automatically lead to marriage difficulties.

As Swim said in essence, the only person you have control over is you but in my experience there is not much use in sharing this spiritual quest/journey/agony with your spouse unless they are actively on it too, it just upsets them and makes them feel bewildered.

However like you I expect I do make an exception for the gay issue, both with my wife and within any forum where I run into the intolerance. Essentially I just keep up a variety of, “This is not how Christ would act in this situation.” this gets me into enough trouble as it is but though the issue may take a long time the Church has to move to a move caring, loving approach.

[Bill Atkinson]

Thanks Ray, great quote and wonderful to think about.

I would like to add, tentatively of course , that defending the scriptures is not one of God’s top priorities either. He doesn’t think that our current version of the Bible for example is HIs sacred word in its exact form placed there by His finger writing in the hearts of His prophets and then placed in the absolutely correct order in the printed English Bible just the way He wanted. He seems to be OK with people even messing up the scriptures entirely, for example we have this in Colossians

Quote:

(Col. 4:16)

16 And when this epistle is read among you, cause that it be read also in the church of the Laodiceans; and that ye likewise read the epistle from Laodicea.

which seems to clearly suggest that there was an “epistle to the Ladoiceans” that should have been in the collection of Paul’s letters and should have been collected up and included with the canonical New Testatment BUT it was either lost or intentionally suppressed and God didn’t take a hand in order to preserve it likely on the overall grounds that He doesn’t interfere with people’s free ageny.

Just a thought.

[Bill Atkinson]

godlives your post makes me react like MisterCurie, “thank goodness I don’t live in Utah”. However for what it is worth I am a card carrying New Democratic Party member (the Canadian equivalent of your more liberal American Democrats) and have often been attacked by members in various wards as “consorting with evil” and various other comments less pleasant. I was also a lifelong member of a union and active in that process which was perhaps even more evil in the eyes of some people in the ward. So, though I think Utah seems to have a more virulent form of the problem it is a tendancy throughout the Church to move to a conservative political stance and then consider that to be the “word of God” in politics.

I am actually sorry to say this but I see the process exactly as part of the Book of Mormon cycle where a people who have been righteous then begin to experience blessing and prosperity and very soon start to think that they are the ones who are so good and righteous and begin the slow slide into major difficulty. This “culture of intolerance” that is building in the Church is NOT THE GOSPEL and NOT what the Church really teaches, nor what Christ would be pleased with. I personally think that people like you and people on this board are amongst the the core of members who will help to drag the membership back towards a more Christ like attitude and process of viewing their brothers and sisters. So don’t leave the Church, we need you.

On the other hand, as is clear from most of our experiences on the board there is little use in pushing our opinions and spiritual insights on to others. I think you are right to remain quiet , think of it as Ghandi like stoic acceptance of reality . From your post I am fairly sure that you are actually just visiting Utah, right, you are actually going to live somewhere else?

Quote:

The truth is I’ve experienced some incredible things. But I don’t share them with many. It does however help me to continue to believe in God. I guess this leads me to the question of “is it better to stay in the church and continue to run into problems with members that discover I’m not what they thought, or leave the church to those that fit the mold?” The last thing I would want is to get “kicked” out or punished. Especially if I chose to do something, like drink a little, that is contrary to the church’s teachings.

You MUST keep in mind that the “mold” such members are fitting is not Christ’s mold, it is much more like Lucifer’s plan of guaranteeing salvation by completing mandating behavior and thought, this mold needs to change and shift and become more Christ like, and even the leadership understands this with their recent shifting of emphasis towards a more Christ centered approach (I know lots of people see that as pure PR and attempting to warm up to the other protestant Churches but I don’t think so).

I do agree that I hate PPIs and have only had one Elders Quorum president in my entire life whom I even considered being completely open with and that was in a circumstance where I was in addition his first counsellor. He had the job right, we spent almost all of our energy helping and supporting members in a myriad of various ways rather than trying to police attitudes and church behavior. So when I get in those situations I simply concentrate on answering “Yes” or “No” to the questions with full sincerity and add as little as possible.

So a bit of advice coming from a convert of 40 some years. I was brought up in a totally alcoholic family, for some reason and I suppose it was Heavenly Father, I was very early on so angry about the behavior of all the adults around me that I told myself I would never do any of that, ever. It meant that I survived until I was converted at 21 but there is nothing attractive, cool or full of blessing in anything to do with alcohol, don’t even start down that road.

[Bill Atkinson]

Thinker, welcome and we will help you in any way that we can.

It seems to me that you have the core faith and testimony that some of us are still struggling to rebuild so you are starting from a good spot but you need to develop and focus on a new “meaning” for your life. Yes?

I would really suggest the James Fowler threads here and hop into wikipedia for the quick and quite thorough review of his material, the link is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stages_of_faith_development . His book is also quite good to read and is not at all expensive and I think his perspective will help you to reorient yourself at least a little bit.

I retired several years ago and in many ways faced some of the same issues of “now what do I do that is worth doing?”. Some of that did end up leading me onto a questioning the church and its history path since I started a very intensive study of scriptures and Church history but having worked through most of the anger (I think so , I hope so 🙄 , maybe we’ll see) I find that the intensive study which is now extending into the Old Testament has been quite exciting and interesting in its own right. So knowing more has its risks but might be of interest to you.

I know that it might seem simple minded but I am going to suggest that you might want to investigate some creative outlet, mine has been watercolor painting. I like the painting because it has taught me so much about actually, really seeing what is in front of my eyes and then considering how I can communicate the wonder and interest. Anyway, artistic work can provide a way to seek Christ, to seek spiritual ways of knowing that you can express in a way to others that is so very hard to say in words.

Just suggestions, welcome and please join in lots of discussions we all do better when we work together.

[Bill Atkinson]

andersonsrus I have thought about your issue during the day as it is very close to my own experience. So I think you need to consider a few things

[list]

[Bill Atkinson]

I am sorry that this has happened to you overit but it seems to be the common experience most of could say something like “been there, done that, didn’t work” I think that part of the psychology for the Stage 3 Mormons that you might want to discuss stuff with is simply protection and fear , they don’t want to hear about such things because they feel they might be vulnerable themseves.

So, don’t think of it as “artificial” to not talk about your concerns and ideas simply think of it as “realistic”. In some ways it is actually unfair to burden a Stage 3 believer with some of our issues and I am led to believe that once we have worked our way through Stage 5 and are once again more or less comfortable in our skin then we don’t even consider such approaches and appreciate the Stage 3s for what they are, the backbone of any Church (well maybe not backbone, maybe most of the bulk, hmm, i better not pursue this one). I’m not there yet but have a firm policy of keeping my mouth shut around TBMs, for conversation and thinking I come here.

[Bill Atkinson]

silentstruggle I sympathize with your frustration and agree with you quite a bit but my reading is coming from the “old” end of the scriptures which the more I read the more I understand both the problems and thankfully some very interesting insights into gospel.

You said:

Quote:

Two apostles, Ballard and Eyring, confirmed that my whole problem, as one who is experiencing a challenge to his faith, is that I need to study the scriptures. They cited instances of people who were having challenges to their faith coming to them. Restoring their faith had nothing to do with the doctrinal conflicts or issues they were having; it was simply a matter of going back and studying the scriptures more.

and I think we simply have to understand that they aimed this talk at Stage 3 (Sythentic – Conventional faith) the TBMs of the church who were just a bit wobbly and I think the advice also therefore carries with it an underlying message of “keep the discipline of the Church”. The “read the scriptures” message really means a) say your prayers, b) hold Family Home Evenings, c) fulfill your calling, d) do your home/visiting teaching, e) don’t watch or read bad stuff , f) pay your tithing , g) go to your meetings etc. For such a member it might well be enough to jog them back onto the path.

From a positive point of view they could well be right for all of us in a sense. IF we read the scriptures with real intent and with prayerful intent we are more likely to reach scriptural locations that suddenly “speak to us”, that give us a small spiritual nudge, that are in fact our own revelations, the witness of the Holy Ghost. If a person can build up enough of those it can give one a bit of life raft to cling to in a storm of uncertainty. I have certainly found this working with the Old Testament where I have more or less come to the understanding that the Documentary Hypothesis and its various other critical methods are probably correct about how the Old Testament was constructed and developed. But when you come to something like Exodus 15:1-18, the Song of Sea, and understand that it might well be the oldest fragment of the original oral tradition of Israel and simply feel its power and how it has helped to hold a people together for millenium then the study is worth it.

I am in full agreement that I would much rather the GAs were directly addressing the issues but perhaps they simply can’t, we “fully involved” questioners have to find our own way back, helping each other as we do here.

[Bill Atkinson]

MapleLeaf this is a very good question, thanks for bringing it up. For myself I am finding myself immersed in the Old Testament right now but rather than LDS sources for information I am up past my nostrils in academic, Documentary Hypothesis, form criticism, canonical criticism etc. Yes all of these outlooks almost all assume that there is no such thing as prophecy or even God but they do look very closely at the text itself and that is wonderful.

One thing is very clear to me at this stage and that is that the we should be dumping the King James Version of the Bible simply because we know so much more now about both the ancient world including Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek and even Ugaritic which that group of translators had no access to. In many ways of course the KJV influenced how Joseph Smith “translated” (transmitted is probably a better word) the Book of Mormon so the cadence of the Elizabethan English language will always be with us.

So for my preparation for teaching the Old Testament in Sunday School this upcoming year my base text is going to be the Jewish Study Bible recommended by Prof. Hayes of the Yale Course on the Bible that has a bit of a thread here. I won’t drag that into class of course (well maybe I will) and we will use the KJV as the core document but I will use the more current translations fairly often to illustrate some ideas.

So though I am moving outside of the LDS standard I do find myself often saying to these authors “What is so hard about believing in God?” (I always talk to authors when I am reading something, I’m sure they appreciate it 😆 ) and understanding that as nonbelievers they HAVE to decide that if Isaiah makes a prediction about conditions after the Babylonian captivity (when he was living at the time of the Assyrian crisis) that must mean that someone else wrote that material and inserted it into his book. So though I am gaining (I think) a lot of insight the LDS perspective and my own testimony of revelation still controls what I am reading.

[Bill Atkinson]

Thanks Valoel that is quite interesting. It is nice to know that we might be a source of “quality” information.

[Bill Atkinson]

HiJolly I am not sure if I should thank you or start screaming since now there is another book I really want to read and my wife is patrolling my credit card for Amazon.com charges because I have bought so many books over the past two months (she isn’t really too concerned 🙄 ).

Sounds like a great read and very important in understanding a little bit better how our minds do work. I really like Richard Dawkin’s works on evolution but his God Delusion does worry me since he seems almost intent on starting his own version of a “crusade” against religion but that would be another whole topic.

[Bill Atkinson]

Thanks HiJolly for that confirmation, I needed to ask as I am at the stage where I need my glasses to drive and see outside but have to take them off if I want to read and the computer monitor is in that grey zone where most of the time I can use glasses ( isn’t this just a bit pathetic, anyway, as they say growing old isn’t for the faint of heart).

So MH did you book club discussions ever come up with other footnotes that they found were as erroneous as this one we have just investigated? I am actually on your side here, I like reading Quinn too but now I am wondering just how loose he was with all those footnotes which afterall make up most of his books. It is a concern.

[Bill Atkinson]

Welcome Dash and don’t apologize for a long post it was a great read and a wonderful introduction. I think you will find a community here that is open to discussions that you can’t really have with other church members and it helps to know that this is possible.

Quote:

But the one-and-only-true church, Joseph Smith, Thomas S Monson, and BofM, are still on the shelf waiting for resolution. I absolutely do not believe the conventional Mormon wisdom on a variety of social and political issues. In fact I’m downright embarrassed by some of their stands. So along with many others in this forum, I have a lot of work to do.

You more or less end with this quote above and I need to tell you that you will NEVER be a TBM again and in fact it shouldn’t even be a goal. I suspect that you are a good Gospel Essentials teacher precisely because you have gone through a great deal of trial and struggle and honestly worked your way back to a testimony and that comes through both in your post and almost certainly in your teaching. So the work that you have to do is not to make yourself back into a TBM but to build your spirituality and deepen your understanding of the gospel.

Joseph Smith with all his warts is finally a vibrant and true prophet to me almost especially because he was human and flawed and yet Heavenly Father could use him to build the Church. It is possible to make that road back to a testimony of Joseph Smith but he will never be a “hero figure” (as we are discussing in another post here) to me but certainly a prophet, seer and revelator.

Again welcome and thank you for joining us I look forward to your contributions.

[Bill Atkinson]

Oops, MWallace, sorry I know the initial post was from you just got mixed up.

[Bill Atkinson]

DNA is always tricky and I appreciate you bringing this up MisterCurie. One aspect of Hispanic link must be a recognition of the history of Spain before and around the time of Christopher Columbus. For many centuries before this time Moorish Spain had been a tremendously open and vibrant society, the major centre of learning in Europe and welcoming to both Christians and Jews. The Jewish community in particular had flourished in Moorish Spain (I don’t have numbers but they were a lot of them at the time because it was a safe place). However as the Spanish kingdom developed and defeated the Moors AND the Inquisition was loosed life became impossible for the Jewish community and they either fled, were killed, or assimilated. The point is that quite a sizeable number of Jews, many with the Chonim marker no doubt, became Christians, married into Christians families and slowly lost their identity as Jews. This would however have given at least a small population of Spaniards who without knowing it carried the gene and went into the service with the King or moved to the New World for the opportunities offered there.

The Book of Mormon is likely still best served with a recognition that the Book of Mormon peoples lived in a limited geographic area, were never that large compared to the surrounding peoples, and that the likihood of finding their DNA traces is not impossible but likely very difficult. Keep in mind that Laman and Lemuel and their followers likely assimilated immediately into surrounding peoples probably becoming the elite and so adding some of their world view but instead of assuming that millions of people (the Nephites) were available to pass on their genes into the future (who were afterall completely killed out in the end) we have that first nucleus of perhaps 40 to 60 sharing their genetics with the surrounding already exisiting inhabitants of the land and it is from those 60 people that the DNA would have to be passed down.

Good post it is exciting to think about those priesthood genes showing up in that location.

[Author]

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