Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Yeah, fast and testimony can be really good or really bad. Rarely in the middle. I think we need to train the heck out of our bishops on this and have them remove people from the stand who can’t give a talk or bear a testimony. I think every ward needs to have two or three people tossed off the stand for incompetence. Once that happens, I think the members will shape up a good bit. I think if it were less faith promoting, nobody would buy it. There aren’t too many sort-of-Mormon-but-not-Mormon-enough types to buy it otherwise. People who are really disaffected won’t buy it and if you lose the TBM audience, there’s really no point in trying to make a profit. If you were doing a book about a Catholic, it might be different. I can say that I know that the shortcomings of the Church are matched in myself and in other organizations. That doesn’t give them a free pass, but I know that the Church inspires good and won’t do me harm if I don’t let it. Yeah, I agree with you on that and wish I could feel that way. It’s very difficult for me because I can easily see how “revelations” that I feel I have received can be traced to my self interests, and I see the same thing in others. I do believe there’s an ideal better than my experience, I just don’t know how to get there (or get closer) right now. I definitely agree with that. I’d just make sure that I’m actually worn out at the homeless shelter and not doing things that aren’t really helping anyone. The lost 116 pages – Religious experiences can’t be reproduced on demand, which is a powerful argument for taking them with a large grain of salt. Brigham Young – A dynamic leader who did what was required.
Mountain Meadows – We actually have apologized, JMB. Unless you want an official acknowledgment that it was ordered from the top down, which isn’t certain and certainly won’t ever be admitted.
Spiritual Eyes vs. Actual Vision – Sometimes, actual vision doesn’t produce the results you need, whether it actively contradicts what you want or is just silent. I’ve never heard someone have a revelation that actually causes them to rethink anything of much importance.
The fact that prophets no longer testify of actually talking/seeing/speaking with God – I think this is because they lie less now.
Jackson County – Well, Zion is where you make it, and that’s where they were at the time.
Different Accounts of the First Vision – I don’t see how this is all that damning an argument except insofar as it shows what we should already know: you simply can’t trust uncorroborated memories, regardless of who comes up with them.
Priesthood restoration – Our view of this doctrine actually makes sense, if you’re willing to accept the idea of divine messengers ordaining anybody.
The means of translating the BOM – This issue doesn’t matter to me. The Church-approved vision and what actually happened are basically the same: JS got the book through supernatural means. Either you believe that or you don’t.
JMB – welcome to the forum. My view on this (as one who has no children) is that if I have children, they’ll probably be raised in the church. However, they’ll also be raised with the idea that most people have no interest in being smart or thinking things through and they’ll be told that they’re going to be different. Church is going to be the same way. Where thinking and church collide, and they sometimes will, I’ll counsel my children to defer to thinking every single time. There’ll be costs to this, but there are costs to doing it any other way as well. It seems like you’ve got more than a little problem with the Church socialization experience. So my advice more than anything is to raise them in the Church, but not of the Church. Don’t let them get on the church assembly line. If you’re really concerned about it, I’d take them to sacrament meeting and consider skipping primary. In my experience, it’s the other meetings where the ridiculous ideas and slavish obedience start. If you do send them to primary, it would be with the same instruction that I’d give them going to school: there are lots of people who don’t try hard to be smart and you won’t be one of them.
Hawk, I think that’s right. I also think we bring it on ourselves as an organization. For any large group, all three of those patterns that you identify are adaptive. People asking for more, saying no less, and constantly feeling like they’re not good enough is necessary to get people to do stuff that’s not good for them, but is good for the group. There are two reasons to pay taxes: because they’ll beat you up if you don’t or because you feel like it’s the right thing to do. Since the Church has limited access to the first remedy (with the exception of excommunication/disfellowshipping), they’ve got to employ the second. As individuals, we’ve got to be aware of these things at a personal level and do the things which are necessary for us. We’ve also got to get used to the idea that the Church has pretty much never asked anyone to reduce their level of commitment and never will. It won’t stop with that nursery calling, it won’t stop with giving them ten percent of your money. It won’t stop until you tell them firmly to jump in a lake. Sacrifice – yes. Self-immolation – no.
I’ve heard the kid being prompted, but I haven’t heard it often. Maybe my wards have just been better about it, but that’s not been a huge issue. It bugs me to death when it has happened, though. I think this may have more to do with parenting styles than with anything that goes on at church. LLL, welcome to the forums. I hope to hear more of your thoughts.
Heber, I can generally agree with most of that. The only quibble I’d have is that with the idea that church leaders are going to push us for our own good and that it’s up to us to set the limits. I definitely think we shouldn’t attribute evil intentions, but I also don’t know that we should attribute good intentions either. I’ll never forget this quotation from “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” (horribly paraphrased) “Whenever I see something that used to be human and isn’t now, or ought to be human and isn’t, I watch my step and feel for my hatchet.”
I feel the same way about any institution that wants me to do something for my own good that also happens to be in their interest. I really do think the leaders of the Church care about us, but I also think “lengthen your stride” really means “serve the institution with all your heart, might, and mind”. In that sense, I don’t think they really think serving the church will directly make us happier. I think they believe that our service is necessary to create a stronger church, and a stronger church will then make us happier, creating a virtuous circle. That’s true to some extent, but I find it more accurate to determine the extent to which being involved in the church is a reasonable sacrifice on my part and then give only that much. There is no limit in my mind to what any institution will claim to be in your interest as long as it’s remotely possible that your sacrifice will enrich them.
I know that’s a pretty negative view, but it’s not just the Church. It’s any corporation and we’re not good and pure enough to be any different.
This is a tough topic for me. Most of the time it’s just that I don’t have anything to say. I don’t really have much faith that God will help me and I don’t think I have much to offer him. I realize my relationship should be much deeper, but this is probably the most honest statement of how I feel day to day. Quote:I like this, and the essay that you refer to was enormously helpful to me when I was at a real low point a couple of weeks ago. I guess lately I have been asking myself the question, “Is it really all worth it?”. My Sundays have been a nightmare for years now, as I usually have to go with my five kids alone and wrestle with them alone throughout SM (the three younger ones are a real handfull). My husband is usually on call for the hospital he works at twice a month, so his only free Sundays are taken up by his calling on the Stake High Council – in other words he is rarely (never!) at church with me. I teach every Sunday, and am responsible for at least two Wednesday night activities a month, and visit teach four sisters every month. Believe it or not, I was even busier when I was in Primary. It is not really an option to not have a calling here, as many people have two or three. Due to my husband’s career, we have very little time together as a family because the church takes up all of his free time, even on Saturdays and Sundays. Now I am facing the prospect of my eldest daughter starting early-morning seminary in September which means I will have to drive her to the stake centre every morning Monday to Friday for 6:30am.
👿 I can certainly now see the importance of having a testimony from a purely practical standpoint: why go to to so much time and effort, often at the expense of your family’s time, unless you know that it is all “true”?
Maybe I am just tired.
Asha, I do not envy you. I think you’re showing a remarkable strength and I hope those in your life can perceive the same. I think your understanding of the practical importance of a testimony is dead on. The only way I can be a buffet Mormon as I now am is if my investment in the institution is relatively limited. I’ll help people move, I’ll teach a class or two, I’ll offer my skills (to the extent they’re present), but I cannot be like your husband precisely because I’m just not completely sold. I just couldn’t give up all of my other interests in order to be a stake president, mission president, or any other “power calling” because I would be doing some things I don’t believe in and would spend a lot of time affirming principles in which I do not believe. In your situation, I’m simply not sure what I would do: you’ve got a family that sort of depends on a heavy church investment, you’ve got a ward where it’s tough to hide………it is not easy.
Asha, your story is very touching. I hope all goes well. As far as the Book of Abraham……I don’t have any easy answers. I’m pretty sure it’s not the way the official story tells it (papyri, sealed book, translation=authentic). My hunch is that Joseph basically made it up, although I don’t think there’s anything in there doctrinally that is crazily different from what’s in other sources. The basic question as I see it is whether that would independently undermine one’s affiliation with the church (conceivable) or whether that would impeach other LDS scriptures/revelations (more than conceivable).
I can’t honestly say that I have a testimony of the historicity of the Book of Mormon or even of the validity of the revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants, and this is largely due to the Book of Abraham issue. If you consider the Book of Mormon alone, it really is a pretty major undertaking, and the apologetic “how on earth would he do this?” argument has some credibility for me. But if you have a strong reason to suspect that something else is a fraud, then I don’t see why you’d believe in the Book of Mormon’s historicity without at least a preponderance of the evidence, and I don’t think we can show that.
I think a lot of things in the LDS scriptures are good ideas, but that’s about it. I don’t rely on them as infallible guides or as a source that would trump a scholarly book. As far as staying in the Church with that belief, I think the essay on the front page says it better than I can. I would only add that I think it’s totally legitimate to leave over that concern and I don’t necessarily think staying is always the best option. But it sometimes is, and if we’ve invested heavily, it’s worth thinking over.
Hawk’s approach makes a lot of sense to me. It’s just that the Church can’t do it because we then have to admit that there’s truth beyond our perspective and that just blows up the Stage 3 approach. We can say “there are lots of things yet to be revealed, we’re not perfect, etc.”, but we basically have to tell people that while maintaining their real belief that we are perfect, we have all that is to be revealed, and if there is anything else left, you can count on SLC to get it first. Sure, that sounds patronizing, but that’s Stage 3 for you: it’d be that way whether we were Mormons or Unitarians. Just a different orthodoxy.
