Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
“Saints” is also the name of an Orson Scott Card historical fiction novel about a woman from England who is converted but her husband isn’t. She becomes a secret plural wife of Joseph (whom she loves) in Nauvoo when polygamy was first getting started. Then becomes a plural wife of Brigham (whom she hated). Sound familiar? Card is a descendant of Zina Huntington. I think Card researched the history pretty well, but it was not well received among Mormons at the time (early 1980’s). Didn’t mean to derail the thread, but wondered if the name of the new church narrative will renew interest in Card’s nearly forgotten novel.
Old Timer wrote:
The stats I saw paint a simple picture regarding LDS marriages – and I think the simplicity is accurate:1) Temple marriages last at a much higher rate than just about any other marriages within Christianity. The actual divorce rate probably is somewhere below 10%. That doesn’t say anything objective about the happiness or quality of every marriage that lasts, but it is indicative of generally happy, well-functioning marriages.
2) Non-temple marriages of two Mormons end in divorce at the exact same rate as other marriages within the same religion / denomination. That rate is about 20-25%
Re#1: show me the data. In fairness, neither of us are showing our data, so I probably should go back and dig, but… In the interest of laziness, I’ll resort to fallible memory.
There was a relatively famous (among Mormons and LDS sociologists and psychologists anyway) study out of BYU in the early 90s showing temple divorce rates being about 4-5%, but later researchers uncovered a big fallacy in the study because they’d only counted temple annulments and failed to consider the couples who married in the temple, but divorced and maybe later married others but never bothered or cared to get the first sealing successfully annulled. When those were counted, the number rose much higher, well above 10% but not quite as high as those with shared faiths marrying outside the temple. (Similarly, Catholics used to claim the lowest divorce rates. Well, it was illegal in many countries so what are you gonna do? Not divorce, just live with someone else).
And when we talk of “shared faith” we probably should say “shared philosophy or ideology” because atheists and agnostics marrying one another statistically beat averages too (and edge the evangelicals, at least in some studies I remember).
I also think Heber has a great point. When we talk about these stats, there’s the implication that divorce equals failure. However.. while a marriage failed to persist, this might have been the very best thing for all those involved. Maybe the better stats to consider should be from positive psychology. What traits do the happiest people in the world share? Are they married? Not necessarily, but they do have romantic love. Are they rich? No, but they love their work. Are they Mormon? Sorry no, not necessarily. We’ll, are they at least religious? Not necessarily, but they have found a life of service. They give back in some way or another.
But when marriage is taught as a saving ordinance necessary for the highest level of heaven, getting one and keeping one can become paramount. This is why many believe Mormons may be somewhat more likely to stay in unhappy marriages.
We could eliminate Sunday school and not have to change anything major like temple rec interviews. It would help primary, which is far too long for most kids and most teachers. But, that’s the only hour with age and sex integration, which probably allows for helpful social integration. So, make priesthood/YW, RS alternate Sundays with integrated Sunday school. ?? Sounds good to me.
Old Timer wrote:
I did some research into marriage ages inside and outside the LDS Church a few years ago when the question was asked. The differences aren’t surprising, but a few things might be to many here. To the best of my memory:1) The average first-time marriage ages for male and female, active Mormons (in the USA) were about 24 and 22. For the general population, they were about 28 and 25. So, the average Mormon marriage occurs about 3 years earlier than the average American marriage.
2) The average ages indicated that the average male was roughly college-grad age, even accounting for a two-year mission, as was the average female (given much lower mission numbers).
3) The marriage age where eventual divorce dropped significantly, nationwide, was 20-21. (People who married in their teens were FAR more likely to end up divorced.) This means the average LDS marriage was after the largest ages for eventual divorce.
These numbers match what I remember from when I studied this stuff closely. I also remember some factors relating to marriage longevity were marrying after college degree, having good employment prior to marriage, and having a shared faith. Also, teen marriages are nearly all doomed to fail.
My oldest daughter married at 19 to a 21 year old guy. Neither had degrees or good jobs, but they did share a faith and married in the temple. They also waited 4 years before having a child, which helped them establish themselves a bit and learn how to be married. They now have a four year old and while they aren’t financially stable, they seem to be on a pretty good path and seem to know what they are doing. Second daughter finished some schooling, married at 21 to a 23 year old who was not a college grad but a smart, kind, hard working kid. Although worthy, they didn’t marry in the temple so younger sibs and other family could attend. My wife and I supported that decision 100%. Shared faith but neither had good jobs. Still married and seem very happy two years later with no plans for children anytime soon. Third daughter, college grad, engaged to be married at 20 to a 24 year old with technical school education and decent job. Shared faith and I don’t suspect they’ll marry in the temple for same reason as second sister, and also that they are less believing. They’re both quite spiritual but not so religious. Youngest two kids are still in HS.
My oldest three daughters all married (or will marry) Mormon guys but not RM’s. The first married in the temple, but that was more the expectation at the time and prior to our family’s mild to moderate disaffection. Interestingly, my kids score very high on intelligence tests (get that from their mother) and also so far have married (or engaged to) very intelligent guys. It seems like intelligence attracts. They’ve also so far married great, hard working guys that seem to fit well in the family.
I was 22 and my wife 21 when we got married. We got lucky because we were young, dumb, college students. I was an RM and we married in the temple like you’re supposed to, but what probably helped us the most is that we moved out of state for school and didn’t have kids until five years later. We forced ourselves to learn and grow together. We returned to live near family once we started having kids, which also probably helped us. Still, Our roughest time was during grad school when we had two small kids and I was going to school and working full time. If I could go back and change anything it would be to start on chosen career path earlier. It took me too long to figure out what I wanted to be when I grew up. Still, the journey probably added wisdom. That’s the story I’m going with, anyway.
I also think a big factor in marriage longevity that’s not talked about so much is the shared family history of marriage. That is, what do marriages look like in your family and your spouse’s family? Going back in both my wife and my families, I find just one great grandmother on my side who ever divorced (and she did it many times, but that’s another story). Maybe there is a gene or surely at least a tradition or expectation (even among non LDS families) for marriages to work out.
I also remember the stats regarding LDS divorce to be very close to what is seen among members of other faiths. Many years ago, there was some inaccurate information bandied about suggesting that only 5% of temple marriages end in divorce. The data, as far as I can remember, showed it to be closer to 20-25%, which is about the same as other shared faith marriages. Age at marriage was a much bigger factor than religion, as far as I remember.
I think young LDS men and women still receive the message that the temple is the goal. Marry in the temple and everything will be great. I think we’ve recently done better in helping teach the young women there’s more than this to being happy and productive, but the prevailing message, at least from my vantage, seems to still be: go to college, marry an RM in the temple, have lots of kids, and endure to the end.
Old Timer wrote:
It was a personal statement to one person. Period.We take WAY too much in the Church that is personal and try to make it universal.
While I completely agree, I think it’s a difficult sell. These verses are frequently spouted as a guide to discern truth and these verses have certainly, IMO, helped create the Mormon model of decision making–study it out, make a choice, and pray to God for confirmation, which is provided through feelings. This basic model is part of being or becoming a Mormon, right? Faith in the truthfulness of a book, then a prayer to ask if it’s right with the promise that God will provide the answer through the holy ghost. Now Moroni doesn’t say how exactly the holy ghost will manifest this but the model is through feelings, which is supported by D&C 9. Missionaries are even encouraged to teach investigators what their feelings mean (which sounds really silly at best and manipulative at worst). Now, maybe we’ve completely misunderstood the Moroni promise to be about the truth of a book full of theoretical contridictions rather than about the message that Christ is our Savior, but that’s probably a thought for a different topic.
My question is, how do we promote the idea that D&C 9 was written for Oliver Cowdry when it’s canonized for us? What’s not to say that God used this example to teach us how to discern truth?
And what if we used this model to discern whether or not this model was ubiquitous?
OK… So I studied it out and decided that D&C9 was supposed to be specific to Oliver Cowdry and not generalizable to everyone. I prayed asked God if this was right and felt my bosum burn with me. I felt it was right.
Then the universe exploded.
I think it’s easy to claim personal revelation and/or family hardship, but harder to pull off without repercussions. While I’ve never been in the situation, I’ve seen it a few times. Based on my experience, the church takes a pretty hard stance on attending your home ward. And, obviously, if everyone could pick and choose a ward, it could get chaotic and unstructured. They also feel that ward boundaries are established through some sort of revelation, and that doing what you’re supposed to do, attending your home ward will bring blessings despite any hardships. This has been my experience. Still, wards do not literally turn people away or make people leave. Everyone is supposedly welcome. So, you and your family can show up and attend any ward you want and participate like everyone else with the following caveats. First, since your records won’t be in that ward, no one in family can have a calling in that ward. Kids can’t be called into presidencies of their groups. Second, you will likely be denied temple recommends because attending ward leaders can’t interview you and actual ward leaders will say you don’t attend your meetings. They can force you to attend ward to keep your TR.
I’ve also attended a couple of LDS addiction recovery meetings as an observer from the mental health field. I thought it was okay. The group I attended was pretty small and focused on substance abuse. Apparently there was one guy who’s addiction was porn, but he didn’t say anything. It seemed very loosely organized and the appeal seemed to be the association with like-minded folks rather than the actual program, though some of the older attendees read from the manual and tried to address the ideas discussed in the manual. Obviously, I just got a limited picture. I agree that it’s probably not as helpful to combine all addictions into one meeting, particularly when many of the men reportedly attending now are ones sent their by their bishops due to porn addictions. Like some of you, I don’t believe that most of what we label porn addictions are actually addictions in the mental health sense. In our area, they also offer a porn-recovery help group especially for women whose husbands and/or sons are “addicted”. I’ve wondered what they talk about. I can only imagine, since our area leaders have promoted the idea that porn is “adultery” since Jesus said that to look upon a women lustfully was akin to committing adultery in your heart. We get a little nutty over naked people, in my opinion.
hawkgrrrl wrote:Well, you don’t toot a flute. I suspect she would know that if she had ever tried. It’s not a recorder. That comment alone wins her the Tobias Funke award.
She’s got some messed up crazy ideas. I know she has bona fides as a therapist or whatever, but her strawman caricature of what “worldly sex” is like is utterly ludicrous, and her ideas about spiritual sex are fetishist.
Quote:
fet·ish noun 1. a form of sexual desire in which gratification is linked to an abnormal degree to a particular object, item of clothing, part of the body, etc. 2.an inanimate object worshiped for its supposed magical powers or because it is considered to be inhabited by a spirit.
In short, she cray.I was gonna say just that but would have used more words and not said it as well.
I thought she was a mite cray after reading her book about marital intimacy, written before she presumably had any. I thought the book was prefect for Mormon women who really didn’t want to have sex and needed some excuses to get out of it with their husbands, but hogwash for anyone really trying to improve their martial intimacy. And the.. audacity for a person who’d never married to write a book on marriage? Even if the book and information was good, she loses some street cred.
Happy to hear it worked out. I think if more members would be clear about resigning, releases would occur quicker and the climate might change from the feel of an employee to more a volunteer. I understand how difficult it can be for leaders to try to fill callings, and also the push to have a calling for everyone. It takes a great deal of time.. in my experience filling callings ate up the biggest portion of bishopric meetings. I remember hearing lots of people say how they’d never refuse a calling, so I was a bit surprised at how many people do when it was my turn to be the guy calling them. We learned to view any calling through the filter of the family involved and make sure the person being called understood they obviously had their agency and always knew more about themselves and their situation than we did, even though we prayed and tried our best to rely on inspiration. Still, “we feel strongly HF wants you in this Calling” carries an inordinate amount of weight and borders on ecclesiastical abuse, in my opinion. No one wants to disappoint the bishop and thus disappoint God
I once felt I needed to quit a stake calling so I sent an email to the SP telling him I was resigning and why. I gave two months to get them through the end of the year, which I felt was sufficient time to find a replacement and wouldn’t put undue burden on others to do my calling while they were looking. The SP didn’t try to talk me out of it. It was a smooth exit.
In contrast, I have family members who’ve asked to be released, given reasons why, had leaders try to explain to them why those weren’t good reasons, how much they were needed, and implored then to post again, pray more, and basically change their mind. That’s infuriating.
Very interesting study that hopefully leads to several follow-up experiments. I love putting anything to the test, but I do have a science and psychological bias. I’d suppose that if brain reward centers are stimulated during a spiritual experience, it’s a little easier to understand why these experiences can be so powerful and hard to deny. Feeling something strongly does not make it true (obviously to many of us at least), but it does make it memorable.
I remember years ago learning about Gary Schwartz’s research on the sympathetic recording of others’ electro magnetic waves on your EEG and thought that might explain the vehicle of the spirit, or spiritual feelings regarding loved ones, in particular. Fascinating stuff.
It would be interesting to see further research looking at devout people from different religions, non believers or atheists, and the same group exposed to other types of emotion provoking stimuli.
Something I’ve learned in the FC/spiritual growth process is that confirmation bias is alive and well no matter where you hang your belief. It’s difficult to shake and we all do it to some extent. Something else that worked for me was to get away from trying to figure out what I could believe, what I thought was true, or what, based on the preponderance of available evidence and my careful study, prayer, and pondering, was true and what was hogwash. Rather, I’ve moved to just finding things I WANT to believe in, without worrying whether they are true or not. Sometimes things are just worth believing in… like love, eternal families, loving heavenly parents, a savior who cares about us. … and that good will always triumph over evil.
I hadn’t heard about online seminary. My youngest daughter might have chose that option so she could transfer to a HS that didn’t offer released time but was larger and had programs more suited to her interests. She enjoys seminary, and i did too when I was in HS, and for whatever reason, she wants to graduate from seminary. Graduating seminary used to be a piece of cake. Just attend or mostly kind of attend and behave yourself most if the time. A couple years ago, however, they upped the requirements or raised the bar. It was during another daughter’s senior year, when she was also taking 8 college classes. She did not read the required material, or lie like most of her class mates did saying she read all the required material from the past three years. Rather, she just said, fine, I don’t have to go to the dumb seminary graduation. She saw absolutely no value in it. To her, honesty beat a piece of paper. I was surprised that more effort wasn’t made from her teacher to get her to graduate, but maybe there was that I wasn’t aware of. It didn’t bother my daughter (who is very heterodox in her beliefs and far more mature cognitively and spiritually than I ever was at that age). She obviously had no interest going to BYU.
In my experience with four children who have or are attending seminary, one liked it, one currently likes it, one tolerated it but bit her tongue frequently, and one liked the teacher but got into disagreements frequently with the “closed minded, Molly types ” (but still graduated).
Based on my experience talking with students who’ve done early morning and released time, I think the instruction is far better with released time. They are professional teachers who are paid to teach, not called because they have some interest. I’m sure there are wonderful early morning teachers, but for the most part it’s like comparing a typical Sunday school teacher with someone trained practiced (at least based on what I’ve seen and heard). Released time instructors also teach about four or five classes a day compared to one in the morning, so naturally (usually) also get better at it. However, with the increased and increasing requirements for HS graduation, released time is becoming more and more difficult to do. It really limits what you can take and leaves little wiggle room in most schedules. Also, for students who struggle in HS and may fail a class, taking seminary makes it even more difficult to graduate.
I’ve wondered if it might be better as a lunchtime “devotional” sort of thing, rather than a full period class.
I’m sure it helps many kids. I think most kids like it because the teachers are usually young and energetic. As they get older, the teachers seem to move on to other positions like institute.
It’s hard to listen to the very obvious politically conservative rhetoric in HP mtg that so often bleeds out in a backhanded way. Like “yeah we’re not supposed to talk political in here but yeah we all know this is the right way and blah blah the Lord surely wants this guy blah blah blah and we all know it and blah blah the Lord is behind us blah we’re right yeah but vote your conscience”. It’s tougher in a very conservative community. It seems like no one even considers another thought or thinks any of his neighbors do either. It wasn’t so irritating when living in more liberal places. I guess that stands to reason.
Heber13 wrote:
Cnsl1…do you think there has been more “bad” done in the world in the name of God than there has been “good”? Should we throw out the baby with the bathwater?(reply) That’s a good question. I’m not suggesting throwing out anything good done in the name of God, I’m just questioning the goofy stuff, the things that just do not seem like good things to do. The stuff that most sane, rational people would frown on and say… “no, I don’t think that’s a good thing right there.”
Heber13 wrote:
Cnsl1 wrote:I just don’t accept or like the idea of using God to justify actions that clearly hurt people
This is a good point. But…is there a difference based on intent? I would say Korihor is an example of someone trying justify actions with ideas (of course…he was not using God’s justification but the opposite…but the same idea is at play). He knew what he was doing, and was using ideas to justify what he knew was wrong. People can use God in that way. And that is wrong.
Is it different when a person is trying to do what they think is right…and says God told them to do it. That isn’t justification. It isn’t really the same thing. Right? Or…how do you see it?
(REPLY) I see it as a type of mental illness, frankly. I believe that most people doing awful things in the name of God really think they are fulfilling or performing God’s will. I do not doubt their fervor or faith. I just think there is some craziness involved.
Heber13 wrote:
For example…is there a difference between these two things:1) Joseph Smith is unsatisfied in his marriage, and starting to feel power feeding his ego, and wants young brides to feed his desire…and therefore gives “revelations” to start to justify polygamy;
vs.
2) Joseph is reading the Old Testament, and wants to know about concubines and how that is allowed, and feels God telling him to restore all things…if it was good for the prophet Abraham, Joseph should also restore this principle. He doesn’t know how to do it….but he feels strongly God is telling him to live this law.
The outcome is 33 wives, some young women, some cover up at times, some manipulation to Emma, some mistakes, some repentance, some adoption in the sealing process, etc..
Does that outcome matter if it is rooted in #1 vs. #2?
Well, obviously it seems worse if Joseph concocted the revelation to fulfill sexual and power needs and told everyone it was of God, but to the lives of those negatively affected by these policies, the motivation probably doesn’t matter. Actually, it’s probably worse for a woman caught in the mess to believe God is asking her to do something she might find repulsive, rather than find out it was just a horny dude with a power trip. It’s easier to realign with God when you find out you’ve been duped, rather than force an alignment that goes completely against everything you feel is right. Just my thoughts.
For what it’s worth, I don’t know what Joseph’s motivation was. I see evidence either way.
And I apologize that I don’t know how to answer within quoted text.
I agree in that I don’t buy that God would do that, or direct his children to do those types of things. I think these scriptural stories are various men’s ways of teaching a concept and justifying their own morality by attributing it to God. When we get people to do things because we make them believe “God” wants it, we can get them to do some pretty horrific things. People can do some pretty horrific things just because a human authority asks them to (e.g., holocaust, Stanley Milgram’s obedience to authority experiments, Phil Zimbardo’s Stanford Prison Study, or Abu Ghraib), so when they think GOD asks something of them, the level of potential egregious behavior is raised even higher. I accept that others feel differently, and that some might believe God is the machine behind much of what happens in the world–good and bad–in order to accomplish his designs. I just don’t accept or like the idea of using God to justify actions that clearly hurt people unless it’s obviously in defense (but then you’re already justified by basic laws of most societies). I suspect that most of the wars throughout the history of humankind were justified by the belief that God was behind them. My understanding of Christ’s ministry was that he wanted people to stop that. (And I always found it odd that the God of the Old Testament–Jehovah–and the God/Jesus in the D&C acted and spoke so differently than did the guy in the NT Gospels. I used to think maybe the difference was related to actually being mortal, but then I decided it’s more about the messenger than the source. We’re getting “God’s will” interpreted for us by people with agendas… but that’s probably better for another thread).
