[doug]

Dang. Sorry to hear that, but I can understand where you’re coming from.

[doug]

SilentDawning wrote:

… personal truth has to take over. And a working definition of this personal truth, for me, is “belief in ideas which motivate the person to action”.

Well, I really like that. I’d be comfortable talking about personal truth (by your definition) all day long (figuratively speaking). The idea of faith being ‘that which motivates us to action’ is a great one. Didn’t Fowler spend some time with that? Maybe it would be a good idea for me, while at church, to learn to mentally insert ‘of a personal nature’ into every sentence containing the word ‘truth’.

BTW, your Ben Franklin quote in the thread about his autobiography was simply fantastic … and relevant to this one.

[doug]

This is a practice that needs to stop. I sometimes hope I might be able to pull off a simple refusal without causing too big of a stink. So far, I haven’t had to attempt it. I will probably chicken out, though.

[doug]

I am inclined to believe that these things do happen, but I tend to bristle when I hear others claim that such and such wonderful thing happened as a result of such and such expression of faith. That probably says more about my personality failings than anything else.

For instance, recently my wife was relating a third-hand incident in which a certain local priesthood leader had a visiting general authority in his home. During a routine family prayer by the GA, knowing that an event was about to take place in the extended family, he asked that it happen soon and without incident, et voilà! Upon investigation the following day, said event occurred at just about the time the prayer was offered! Unfortunately, I let an ‘oh, please’ escape my lips before I realized what I was doing and ended up regretting it.

I don’t deny that there might have been a correlation, that maybe God staged the whole thing so that certain people would learn to have deeper faith in the power of prayer, or that GAs have a particular ability to get God to do things they want done, but it seems doubtful, particularly given the number of times it doesn’t work out that way. If it happened to me, I would of course wonder about these things and be grateful, but I would like to think I would have the consideration to keep it to myself and my family.

Does anyone else struggle with these kinds of thoughts? Maybe that’s the point of the thread.

[doug]

SilentDawning wrote:

For me truth can be defined as “a knowledge of things the way they really are”.

The Wikipedia article on truth is interesting. There, SD’s definition of truth corresponding to an objective reality is described as ‘Correspondence Theory’. Since (in my opinion) even if it exists, there is no way to know about this objective reality, the best we might be expected to do is to construct a rough, and very subjective, approximation of it. Therefore (again, in my opinion), since it is unknowable, it makes no sense to even talk about objective reality. So while I’m not sure which, if any, of these theories I would feel comfortable with, ‘Correspondence Theory’ isn’t one of them. I say this to to give context to my next comment, i.e. ignore it if you think I’m nuts.

Instead of

Quote:

Unless the institution cares not for its own existence, it has already ceased to embody ‘things the way they really are’

how about the following:

Quote:

Unless the institution cares not for its own existence, it must give up completely honest and open inquiry into whatever ‘things the way they really are’ might possibly mean.

Of course, institutions, by definition, don’t do that anyway, since they are … well … institutional, so the point is probably moot.

[doug]

Steve-hpias wrote:

… the Strengthening the Members committee

I really, really, really hope you made that up.

[doug]

SilentDawning wrote:

Quote:

Unless the institution cares not for its own existence, it has already ceased to be “truth”.

I was wondering if anyone could expand on this idea idea in quotes a bit. I can give my own interpretation, but I’d like to hear the interpretations of others — more detailed that what we’ve already said in this thread so far…I find the idea fascinating.

To me it means the following: A person or an organization can be dedicated to the ‘truth’, or to discovering the ‘truth’, but that is a single-minded endeavour. Any other considerations such as, “gee, baptisms are down, we need to do something about that” lead inevitably to conflicting goals. In the fight for survival, the pursuit of ‘truth’ usually loses out. Is that kind of what you meant, Tom?

By the way …

Quote:

A mind stretched by a new idea can never go back to its original dimensions. –Oliver Wendell Holmes

I can’t remember where I read this the other day, but apparently it wasn’t here. I thought it was relevant.

[doug]

Heber13 wrote:

Doug, isn’t the middle way kind of embracing your opinion and applying it? In other words, it is not giving up and saying there is no truth so therefore leave the church because it is false…but instead stating (as did Obi-Wan) that truth can depend greatly from our point of view, so therefore…stay in the church and make it an experience that works for you and your truth, regardless of what others think? The church’s institutional truth doesn’t have authority over my personal view of truth in my home or my head, as Elder Oaks taught us in conference.

Heber, you’re quite right. And on a good day, it’s no problem to imagine doing just that, “regardless of what others think”, or what I think they think. The reality is that it’s a difficult, tedious, slog, and some days it doesn’t seem like it’s worth it. Interacting intimately with people who think so differently is taxing, and requires you to be constantly evaluating your own position … which in some way is probably a good thing. Maybe I didn’t express it accurately, but the fact is there is conflict, and conflict can be tiring. Definitely stage 4 today.

If I were king, I would strike the word ‘true’ and its evil derivative from the non-mathematical lexicon, thereby forcing people to give some consideration to whatever it is they would have used those words for.

[doug]

Brian Johnston wrote:

The LDS Church is as true or false as a ham sandwich.

I may try that in fast & testimony meeting. I’ll report back.

[doug]

‘Truth’ is overrated, in large part because truth is subjective. I see no way around that, nor do I see it as a problem necessarily. I am suspicious of any organization that lays claim to truth, since the instant it becomes institutional, it ceases to be ‘truth’. That sounds a little more radical than I intended, and I’m not sure I’m comfortable with the implications. Now I have to go think about it some more.

[doug]

I think prayer is irrational if there is an expectation of a specific outcome, and perhaps even if there is an attempt to make an a posteriori correlation between what I prayed for and what happened.

[doug]

No, I don’t get it either.

The temple prayer roll takes it one level deeper, I think. Somehow the fact that my loved one’s name is on a slip of paper somewhere and people unknown to them are offering generic prayers on their behalf is supposed to accomplish what, exactly? And, so the logic goes, other perhaps more deserving people will be denied similar blessings because nobody happened to put their name on a slip of paper? How many times have I heard stories like this: “I’m so glad I put my (insert relationship here)’s name on the temple roll. Just hours after I did so they were run over by a car, but survived.” Uh, okay.

Yet, I still participate. The only reason I can think of to explain my seemingly irrational behaviour is, ultimately, that I love my family. If there is a purpose to life, I think it must be to learn to obey the two great commandments. Prayer, while it makes no rational sense, is the only way I know of to invoke my Creator’s help in doing that, and to plead on behalf of my family. I think prayer can take many forms, and that we needn’t feel it necessary to only use the method prescribed in church. I don’t know where God is or what He looks like, but I suspect that He is, in some sense, inside of me. So, in that sense, for me prayer is a bit like talking to myself.

[doug]

SilentDawning wrote:

Joseph Smith is also purported to have asked other men to give up their wives as a test of obedience. And then, when they gave them up, he gave them back to them (an instructor in the MTC told me this years ago).

That’s what purportedly happened to Heber Kimball (who was later reported to remark ‘I think no more of taking [another] wife than I do of buying a cow’) and his wife, Vilate.

Quote:

During the summer of 1841, shortly after Heber’s return from England, he was introduced to the doctrine of plural marriage directly through a startling test-a sacrifice which shook his very being and challenged his faith to the ultimate. He had already sacrificed homes, possessions, friends, relatives, all worldly rewards, peace, and tranquility for the Restoration. Nothing was left to place on the altar save his life, his children, and his wife. Joseph demanded for himself what to Heber was the unthinkable, his Vilate. Totally crushed spiritually and emotionally, Heber touched neither food nor water for three days and three nights and continually sought confirmation and comfort from God.” Finally, after “some kind of assurance,” Heber took Vilate to the upper room of Joseph’s store on Water Street. The Prophet wept at this act of faith, devotion, and obedience. Joseph had never intended to take Vilate. It was all a test.

Apparently the Kimball family is/was proud of this story for what it says about the obedience of their progenitors. Not having been there, it’s difficult to judge, but I really never quite knew what to do with that story. On the one hand I can admire people with that kind of dedication, but I could never empathize with them. One part of me wonders why on earth the church or anyone else would promote such an obviously twisted story, but then again it speaks to some people I guess. As for me, I have no doubt what my answer would have been, and it wouldn’t have taken me overnight to figure it out. Am I therefore not as good a person? Does God appreciate rationality?

Speaking of sacrifice as a principle taught by the church, I am reminded of our stake’s involvement with … the orchard. Thankfully it was sold a few years ago but while it still belonged to the church, our stake was expected to participate in the thinning, pruning, picking, etc. For us, it was a two-hour drive each way. According to the guy who superintended, it would have been more profitable for the operation if he were to simply go hire temporary laborers. So really, it would have made more sense for my stake to organize the digging of holes and the filling them back up again, locally, and then maybe to ask us to donate half of the gas money we would have spent getting to the orchard in order to hire a few people who actually knew what they were doing to do the real work on the orchard trees. At least we wouldn’t have had to drive four hours in order to do it … and we’d have had half of our gas money back. My hope is that at least part of the reason the orchard was sold is that somebody recognized that fact. I think the church is improving in this way, i.e. trying not to ask people to do meaningless stuff just for the sake of ‘sacrifice’. Did anyone ever see that church movie from, oh, I’d say sometime in the sixties. It starred Johnny Whittaker and the message was, basically, if your dad is the bishop and you ever had any fantasies about spending time with him, you’re screwed, and you might as well learn to live with it. You won’t likely find it on your local ward library video shelf today. I think we’ve come a long way.

[doug]

SilentDawning wrote:

I also think our Church MLS system should have some functionality that allows us to accurately track people who want to stay on the records but who don’t want contact so we can respect their wishes.

That seems like a good idea, but how would that work? If they’re still on the records, then it becomes someone’s responsibility to decide when to move them back to the ‘standard’ category, which would be ascertained by … a visit! Practically that wouldn’t be much different than the current system of someone maintaining a ‘do not contact’ list … or moving them to ‘address unknown’ . Otherwise, if the status is permanent, it wouldn’t be any different than name removal.

[doug]

flowerdrops wrote:

This however really bothers me for some reason!… http://scriptures4kids.com/

That is a bit creepy. And the link isn’t ‘a link to what he said’, exactly. Well, maybe the video link is, but I’d rather not have to watch it again to find out.

[Author]

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