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What a great quote! Going along with the idea in this quote, I try to see joy in the journey of becoming more wise. Rather than being frustrated that I don’t have it all figured out yet, I try to focus on the joy I get from learning it. hawkgrrrl wrote:Being trusting has many positive aspects – it fills you full of possibility. What if faith is power in the way that affirmations come true? Things work out because you believe they will? I believe there is probably more spiritual power in being trusting and open to possibility than there is in being skeptical and closed off. Doubt, in relation to action, causes us to question what we should do. Loss of conviction equals loss of power. I think that’s the gist of the Peter walking on water story. He doubted he could, so he couldn’t. I can value that while realizing that I tend to be skeptical, perhaps robbing myself of some of that power.
Obviously, being trusting has a downside, too – lack of critical thinking, being subject to others’ manipulations, having a superficial understanding of things, etc.
I think I can fully agree with this. But here you’re really describing trust as an impetus to action juxtaposed with doubt as a reason for inaction. But trust is not gullibility is it? It seems to me that gullible, the word itself, implies a feeling of being easily deceived which I see as a negative by definition (unless being deceived has a positive aspect I’m not aware of). I think there’s a distinction between this, and trust. Or maybe I am reading your statement incorrectly. (I’m completely threadjacking here, so I apologize). Maybe you just meant “believing the best of people” is a good trait. But I wouldn’t say that is necessarily gullibility either.It seems like we might compare gullibility with disbelief as being the negative extremes of the otherwise positive traits of trust and doubt. As discussed in other parts of this site, doubt, and trust are both good things.
Man MH, how can I be more like you!! That what I wanna know. Every time I get to reading a church history book, I get sidetracked by about 10 other fascinating books. Hence I’m still only about 1/4 of the way into RSR even though I’ve been reading it for 10 months. Hawkgrrrl- I wish I was in a better position (academically) to answer the reality of the possibility of your question. I will simply have to speculate. In any case, I found it striking, after reading “The Power of Myth” how many similarities there are throughout religious traditions. The differences are all in the details, but the similarities are almost global. I tend to think that the “absolute truths” in this world are these very things – the global, overarching similarities that give insight into helping us become better people. Indeed, I view the purpose of religion in that vein – to help me become a better person. I no longer view it as a set of rituals, ordinances, rules, and techniques for obtaining some reward in the afterlife (although that’s certainly still possible).
What I think is interesting is to ask why many Mormons aren’t aware of these similarities. Maybe it’s not important to be aware of them. I think it is because it can help dispel the us vs. them type of attitude that is so prevalent. When I started my faith crisis, one of the discussions with a family member involved me explaining that many of the “truths” in Mormonism were not in fact unique to Mormonism. I cited a few other churches and some of the influences on Joseph Smith. She came just short of calling me a liar. I was quite disturbed at the narrow view this individual seemed to have.
Maybe if we had more exposure of these types of things, we would be less inclined to view ourselves as an exclusive club. (hint hint hawkgrrrl for an MM post!)
hawkgrrrl wrote:That’s made more believable because Mormons are notoriously gullible, willing to believe the best of people – which is a very positive trait in general, IMO.
I find this to be a curious statement coming from you. You seem certainly more skeptical than gullible. Could you elaborate on why this is a “very positive trait in general.” Like most things, I view it as positive only if also tempered by a good amount of skepticism. Either, taken to extremes, seems very dangerous to me.Bots are small, lightweight programs that go out and scan various websites for information. This is part of how Google, Yahoo, etc. build their enormous database of sites. phpBB, the forum engine we use here, has a specific group dedicated to these bots. This allows the posts and information on the forum to easily be read an aggregated by the search engines. Incidentally, you can prevent these bots from scanning a website by including a special text file in the directory of the web root. But we don’t do that here.
Oh, and they also have little red eyes, four legs, sharp teeth, and try to steal all your personal information as you type it in!!
Yeah, that’s pretty accurate Valoel. I’m a scout leader too, and have the same observations. However, with the fund raising portion we have a different experience out here. Maybe it’s because we live in a rather wealthy area. We do Friends of Scouting each year and we raise A TONof money. Of course, I will be the first to admit that this isn’t really fund raising, more like charity. Here’s what I see as part of the problem with scouting. When the church introduced Duty to God it was quickly elevated to must-do status and it was pushed like scouting. I was under the impression that DtG was for areas where there wasn’t a strong scouting program. But even in my ward, where we have an awesome scouting program, the DtG is pushed a lot. The point is, the church is sort of doing double-duty here and I just don’t think it’s necessary, or healthy, to be quite honest. Teenage boys have lots of things to do. The boys in my ward play soccer, baseball, swim, football, tennis, school, play instruments, etc. etc. Scouting already takes a back seat to most of those things.
In short, I’d like to see Scouting removed from church endorsement if DtG is the norm. Otherwise, de-emphasize DtG in favor of scouting where scouting is strong.
