[doug]

Thanks, guys. I didn’t plan on following up with this, but just wanted to leave contact info. Should anyone wish to contact me directly, you can email me at lurvetheoneyourewith at gmail dot com. Thanks again! Over.

[moderator edit: altered email address so it can’t be harvested by bots]

[doug]

InquiringMind wrote:

But it might upset at least one of my roommates who, after I told him about my faith crisis two days ago, said that he wished he’d made church attendance a condition of all new roommates who’d move in.

Sigh … :problem: Yeah, sounds like you could use a break.

[doug]

Yep, some context would be helpful. What is your current motivation for staying connected? BTW, being in stage 5 and being or staying LDS are not necessarily the same thing, or even correlated. There are no hard and fast rules in the process of spiritual growth. For me this makes the journey much more meaningful.

Welcome!

[doug]

recent MS podcast on the topic here.

Quote:

I had always thought that the one year deal in the States was for legal purposes. After doing some searching on Google it appears that I thought wrong. You could get married in Washington State and then a few months later get married to that same person some place else.

There is absolutely no legal reason for the one year waiting period — temple sealing does not equal marriage (though the two are regularly conflated) so there could be no basis for a legal objection. The waiting period is a church policy, nothing more nor less.

[doug]

Been thinking about this over the past week. My heart hurts for you just thinking about this. Yeah, there are a lot of worse things that can happen to people, but a broken heart just plain sucks. Top that off with intimations that this was really the hand of god effectively stabbing you in the back, and, well … I don’t know how I would deal with that.

I guess I think that this kind of thing happens in all cultures, and while someone else might refer to it as getting cold feet or whatever, we have to invoke God … because that’s what we do. It’s how we process the randomness of the world that would otherwise be so scary. It’s an unfortunate fact that we don’t consider the consequences, as your post so clearly demonstrates.

Brian Johnston wrote:

I’ll give the more blunt and hard advice: You dodged a bullet, my brother.

Maybe, maybe not. I think we’re all victims when we adopt this world view and I’d like to bet that she suffered from the experience as well.

The rest of Brian’s advice was right on the money, though.

[doug]

Quote:

I would rather be in a Elder’s Quorum being taught over High Priests anyday.

QFT. I would looove to be able to go back to EQ. But I know what you mean. It does seem kind of arbitrary and unnecessarily hierarchical.

[doug]

SilentDawning wrote:

My daughter came out with something the other day that made me realize something. When she learns who I REALLY AM, she’s going to be really deflated. She has me on this huge pedestal. But when she learns I’m not what she thinks I am, I’m afraid it’ll rock her world. Any advice on how to deal with this phenomenon of children putting you on a pedestal you don’t deserve?

When your daughter learns who you REALLY are, it WILL rock her world, because she will be overcome by the beauty and humanity of the person that you are. Unfortunately, I think it’s seldom that we ever really get to know and appreciate ourselves, let alone those around us.

[doug]

Welcome from a fellow agnostic deist.

[doug]

To be honest, some days I wish the Strengthening the Members Committee would come knocking on my door. It would make life so much simpler.

[doug]

What’s prayer?

For me, I consider as prayer any and all attempts to commune with god. I do this as often as I can remind myself that this is the point of my existence.

[doug]

That change, I believe, was a direct response to recent DNA analysis which made the claim of “priciple ancestors” untenable. As I recall, there was a good discussion of this in one of the “Mormon Scholars Testify” series. I seem to recall it was a chemist from somewhere in Idaho. I’ll try to find it. Alternatively, if you look up Simon Southerton’s blog, you will find a lot more discussion about this, and other apologetics — perhaps more than you bargained for, so be advised.

As Southerton points out, all of the apologetic theories (including North American, Malay, and limited geography theories) have as their basis the unwritten law that the BoM is a historical document. Any evidence that supports that theory is automatically accepted, and any evidence that fails to do so is rejected. Not a good way to do objective thinking.

This makes finding objective opinion on matters such as these problematic. I am convinced that I can NOT find the kind of analysis that I’m looking for from FAIR, FARMS, or anyone else with an obvious agenda, so I am forced to go elsewhere. Everyone has some kind of agenda, but among apologists I don’t believe I can find frank or honest discussion. Hopefully I will be able to pick out those with an anti-LDS bias fairly easily.

In the end, I have to live with myself, so I take in what I can, try to sort the wheat from the chaff, and come home to what makes me feel at peace. Very few of us will ever be expert enough in any of the relevant disciplines that we can take our own knowledge as a point of departure, so I don’t know how else we can hope to approach these things.

[doug]

DBMormon wrote:

I don’t feel my question is leading.

A leading question is one that is worded in such a way as to elicit a particular response.

Quote:

When the (LDS Church/ Jeff Lindsay / FAIR )tells its own story its motives are to _________ faith. While (MormonThink) tells a story about the LDS Church with the Motives of ____________ faith.

I think that qualifies as leading.

Quote:

I think it is fair to establish that an individual who wants to remain in the church has to find a way to not lead others away from faith in that same institution that he wants to remain a member of. If out of the church then they are welcome to write whatever they want. But in the Church, they can not outwardly teach things that diminsh faith.

I get what you’re saying, but I can’t entirely agree with it. If we use the BoM definition of faith, i.e. that it’s only valid if the object of our faith is something that’s “true”, then building faith is inherently tied to seeking after truth. Neither you nor I, nor any other person has the prerogative of establishing what “truth” is, except for themselves. It is an objective process whereby we are presented with ideas and we decide what we want to believe is “truth”. No other person has the right to do that for me. I’m not a fan of MormonThink. I don’t particularly like their website, nor the way they present information. But while for some that site is all about destroying faith (there, I said it) for others it’s a gateway to another form of faith that they couldn’t find any other wayand I can’t see that being one of the website’s editors should automatically disqualify one for church membership.

[doug]

Welcome. Like all of us here, I’m sure, I feel your pain, anxiety and frustration, and at some level understand it because I have experienced it myself in one form or another.

Regarding participating in priesthood ordinances, the following blurb from the CHI should help.

Quote:

Only a Melchizedek Priesthood holder who is worthy to hold a temple recommend may act as voice in confirming a person a member of the Church, conferring the Melchizedek Priesthood, ordaining a person to an office in that priesthood, or setting apart a person to serve in a Church calling.

That’s pretty much the only restriction concerning what you can and cannot do. Note that you need not have a TR to do those things listed, just be TR worthy. And of course that’s up to your bishop to decide what that means and if you pass muster. In any case you can still participate, but not as “voice”. Any “worthy” (no mention of “temple worthy” here) priesthood holder can baptize.

So there are lots of ways you can continue to be involved if you want to. Do your best with what you’ve got to work with. You will figure out how much church involvement is best for you now, and now is not forever. I’m sure that for some people, taking a break from church is the healthy option.

I look forward to hearing about your progress, and I hope you continue finding hope and support here.

[doug]

I sent my son off not too long ago. While he’s a lot like me, I’m certain he wasn’t mature enough at the time to have done a lot of objective thinking and reflection about what his faith really means, so we never really went too deeply into those kinds of things. It would only have led to problems, and it wasn’t (and still isn’t) my place to do so anyway. So while I perhaps wasn’t the best spiritual advisor or the legendary missionary parent that we hear about from time to time, I made sure my son knew that I loved him, was proud of him for making the sacrifice he was making, and that no matter how his mission turned out, nothing would change that. And I tried to back it up with at least weekly expressions of love and support while he was away.

[doug]

DBMormon wrote:

Our complaining about this guy doesn’t fix it. He needs someone to talk to him. All the critical comments are doing is building her justification in being mad at him which leads to further trouble, not fixing it. While he is in the wrong he needs someone to tell him that, whom he trusts or at least will listen to openly.

I think you’re right about that, but maybe others are keying in to

Quote:

I mostly seek understanding and the knowledge that there are others experiencing the same trials that I am.

I think I kind of missed that the first time. Us guys always want to fix stuff. So let me add my voice to the chorus: Meoclew, your hubby was way out of bounds. He deserves a bitch slap for that one. But as you say

Quote:

he is being as supportive as he knows how to be, and our conversations on the matter have evolved from “I’m afraid I must insist that you wear your garments at all times,” to not mentioning it. Certainly an improvement.

So there’s reason to hope he’ll keep improving, and I’m sure that doing your best to keep your cool and not get offended (which can be tough if he keeps saying stuff like that) is the best way to encourage that. Hang in there in the meantime.

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