[greenapples]

Heber13 wrote:

I’ll just say, I think there is a difference between a deceptive emerald city with a wizard purposefully deceiving the masses, and the LDS Church which tries to teach truth from their point of view. I dont like to think of the middle way as accepting dishonesty and making the most of it. I like the apex of the triangle which is on another level then the two extremes which represent the bottom corners of the triangle.

I believe the middle way is finding the honest truth that exists, and not being bogged down with the misunderstandings that others may have about it, on either end of the spectrum.

Sure I suppose there are some truths in the teachings. However there were many purposeful deception from the beginning of the church.

For the record as of right now I enjoy Thomas S. Monson as being the current prophet. I enjoyed his talks before he was the prophet. Since he has been prophet I don’t feel that he has said anything that is a commandment other than upholding the standards. Perhaps right now he is not purposefully trying to deceive everyone. However he is the 16th prophet. I feel that the first few prophets did purposefully deceive. TSM has to pretend like there was no deception.

Maybe the deceptions were just “certain points of view.” for the sake of allowing the LDS church to live. Had they been open and honest the church wouldn’t be as strong as it is today. The LDS church might have fizzled out or struggled to survive like so many of the other Mormon groups that split off after Joseph Smith was shot.

I have my own middle way. You all have your own middle way.

My middle way is to no longer have literal belief in the scriptures. I read the scriptures and find the good morals and teachings that are in them.

Finding your own middle way is the best way to go.

[greenapples]

I’ve been finding my own way the past few years.

That way is a very nice way —->

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It’s pleasant down that way too.

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Of course people do go both ways

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Wizard of OZ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yejtZgzB5Ik” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yejtZgzB5Ik

I think it’s important to remember that the emerald city is a kingdom of deception. In the movie the “wizard” hides behind the curtain.

In the book he is even more deceptive. He tells all the people entering into the Emerald City to wear special protective goggles. The Emeralds are so bright that it would cause anyone to go blind without the special green goggles. :ugeek: :geek:

In reality the emeralds are glass. The glass only appears to look like green emeralds because of the green goggles. :sick: :shh:

Once Dorothy realizes the wizard was just a man who got lost in a balloon she loses faith. The kind old idiot offers to take her home in his balloon but he of course floats away before Dorothy could get in. It was probably for the best anyway that sad old fool probably didn’t know where he was going anyway.

In the book the magic slippers were Silver. (Ruby in the movie) Glenda the good witch of the north reveals to Dorothy that the slippers have the powers to transport Dorothy anywhere. In the book she is told to click her heals together thrice and command the slippers to take her wherever she wants.

SO… congratulations you have had magical slippers on your feet all along. You can take your adventure anywhere.

Just remember there is no such thing as a cookie cutter faith.

Even a TBM will have a different personal belief than the next.

You will have a different belief of how to run things in your life.

I choose to stay in OZ.

I think the wizard is a fun guy who tells some great stories.

Some of the members seem brainless, others not at all understanding and heartless and some don’t have the courage to listen to a thing you have to say. “NO NO NO I DON’T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT THAT!”

That’s just life though.

If I feel that the fake Emeralds are no longer pretty

If I get tired of hanging out with brainless, heartless, cowards.

If the current wizard dies and I don’t like the new one

I can always tell my magic slippers go take me some place else.

I might just hang out at the creepy old witch Castle and dance with the wing monkeys. (if you have the magic wing monkey helmet you can command them to do anything you want withing the borders of OZ)

Do what you like and good luck :wave:

[greenapples]

SilentDawning wrote:

“you have to be IN the Church, but not OF the Church”.

How very fun

I recall going to Seminary, Sunday School,priesthood and they would always say

Quote:

“Be IN the world but not OF the world.”

Now we are being in the church but not of the church.

It’s true though.

Quote:

“The code is more what you’d call guidelines than actual rules

A small clip from the first Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6kgS_AwuH0” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b6kgS_AwuH0

[greenapples]

Quote:

Church officials say the growth of the sites does not point to a corresponding growth in the number of Mormons leaving the church, whose membership has burgeoned to more than 6 million inAmerica. “Those leaving the church are a fraction of 1 percent each year and it is a trend that is decreasing rather than increasing,” said Michael Purdy, a church spokesman.

http://www.staylds.com/[/url] is not contributing to people leaving.

Quote:

However, said another spokesman, Michael Otterson,“anti-church groups . . . have become more aggressive and outspoken.” And the church has acknowledged on other occasions that it has had difficulty retaining young Mormons, in particular, and has generally lagged in dealing with doubt — perhaps the largest challenge not only to Mormonism, but also to modern organized religion as a whole.

I don’t feel like the Anti church group portion of the quote really fits in with the spirit of this article. It kind of suggests that we are an outspoken aggressive site. If they had cut that part out and left the rest I think it would have been fine.

[greenapples]

Humans being a slave race reminds me of Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic (A game I once played nearly a decade ago.) There was once a super powerful species known as the Rakata. They conquered the entire galaxy (maybe more) They built droids to be slave masters over all the other species in the land. They had a powerful space station where they continuously built everything they needed to stay in power. The hunger for power eventually caused the Rakata to go into Civil war. One day a lethal virus began killing all the Rakata through out the galaxy. This virus only did harm to the Rakata. The virus may have been made by one of the species the Rakata had enslaved.

If we were a slave race perhaps we found a way to do harm to the Masters. Perhaps they left to save themselves. Maybe they came back to check up on us only to find that we are an even more dangerous species than before. Perhaps the most common cold virus could be the most lethal to the E.T.

Perhaps they are just waiting for us to destroy ourselves before they attempt to rebuild and re-establish another species to breed to be workers.

[greenapples]

There were a few times that I did fall asleep in church though. It’s interesting to see how incredibly observant people are in the YSA wards. People seem to feel the need to wake me up. To avoid this embarrassment I made it a habit to take a small note book with me in church. Sometimes I take notes of what the speaker is saying. Other times I will just write notes to myself to plan out my week. Sometimes I draw little doodles and stories or poetry.

I think the main problem is that most speakers don’t give talks in their regular voice. They have a tendency to fall into that monotone hypnotic church talk voice. It’s always funny for me to see the bishopric and stake representatives pretending to pray as they sleep through sacrament meeting. It’s always refreshing when someone gives a talk in a happy conversation voice. I think if more people talked like that it would make church more interesting and less people would fall asleep. [img]http://im-smiley.com/imgs/aloof-and-bored/aloof-and-bored002.gif[/img]

[greenapples]

Ah I see. Perhaps I am stage 4 and stage 5-ish :clap:

[greenapples]

I’ve been thinking about the Fowler stages for quite some time now. For the past few years I’ve said that I was in stage 4. then I started saying that I was a stage 4 who was well on his way to stage 5.

Today I began to wonder where I am now. perhaps I am nearly a stage 5. Perhaps I already am a stage 5. I have spoken to some people who feel like I was in stage 5.

Reason being that I no longer believed and yet I find that there may still be some good in the old teachings. I do not go to church to get into heaven. I go to church because good guidelines are taught.

Quote:

NO church is true so absolutely GOD CAN NOT EXIST That is stage 3 thinking.]

I would think that would be a stage 4 thought process. They become a skeptic of their religion and all religion. It is easy to become less religious or totally nonreligious without the belief of God.

[greenapples]

Knock Knock Who’s There? Joe Joe who? Joe MaMa

[greenapples]

I read through this a couple times it’s a very interesting quote.

The opening paragraph is very interesting theory. It reminds me of mission to mars and other science fiction. Maybe our ancestors were a highly evolved technological people who chose to colonies here.

If that was the case I think it would be interesting that they chose to remain here. Maybe they came from a dying planet or found this world more relaxing and didn’t want to go back to the old way of life. It’s like they went on a permanent vacation

Of course this maybe somewhat out of context and he could just be calling the Americas the new world and the other countries the other worlds.

Aside from all that:

I suppose in some ways we are owned by something.

Even if every person had his or her own private island rich with natural resources, water and food supply we would still be owned. We would be owned by the laws of gravity and other constant laws here on earth and in the universe.

When we chose to join organizations we become somewhat owned by the order of that organization.

No one is truly free but some are more free than others.

[greenapples]

My brother was a cook for years. He has told me countless times that the majority of the alcohol in the wine is cooked out. You can’t get drunk off a dish that was cooked with wine.

There are plenty of health benefits in tea. I drink white and green tea very regularly. I will on occasion drink Irish/English Breakfast tea.

I do drink coffee from time to time but not very often. My only concern with coffee is that a person could easily become addicted to it if becomes a party of their daily routine. I’ve known plenty of people who need their coffee every morning or else they are rather grumpy.

I’ve noticed that most tea drinkers don’t absolutely need it. If they skip a day they will not have any major withdrawal issues.

As mentioned by others Herbal tea shouldn’t even be a discussion there is nothing wrong with that. I will drink teas containing chamomile to help me relax at the end of the day. I enjoy drinking teas made by Celestial Seasonings. since it contains the name Celestial it makes everything okay right?

[greenapples]

Here is a story that is kind of funny.

Today I quickly put on black shirt, a good tie and my suit Jacket. I grabbed up my scriptures and headed out the door. I got into my car and started to drive up to the church.

I realized after a few short miles that I forgot to put on my suit pants. I looked down briefly and saw that I was wearing my black underpants. 😳

I looked at the watch and I saw church was going to start in less than nine minutes. I was tired of being late and I wanted to be onetime so I continued on to church. :crazy:

As I got out of the car I saw the reflection of myself in the window and decided that my black underpants was almost the same color as my suit jacket. I figured nobody would notice unless they looked really close. :shh:

I spent all of Sacrament, Sunday school and Priesthood in my black underpants. Nobody seemed to notice and nobody laughed. :wave: 😆

I suppose I should explain further. :think:

I lost a great deal of weight. My suit no longer fits me just right. I noticed that my suit pants fit better if I put on some black slacks underneath.

I sometimes just wear a T shirt underneath my black shirt, sometimes I wear jeans under my suit pants. That way I am like superman; ready to change anywhere and anytime. It comes in hand when there is a family dinner shortly after church. I just just take off my suit really quick and I’m dressed like it’s a Saturday afternoon. Then I can drive to the dinner party within a few moments. Sometimes I change in the bathroom at church and place my suit neatly in a box I have in my trunk. :angel:

[greenapples]

I enjoyed this response to the video. It is by a guy who calls himself the Amazing Atheist. Although I do retain a belief in God I feel he makes a pretty good analysis of the Why I Hate Religion, But Love Jesus poem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBo7Z_abiLE” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBo7Z_abiLE

FYI there is a bit of cursing.

[greenapples]

I really didn’t like the apologetics who tried to defend the horses in the Book of Mormon by stating that the Nephites might have been riding on deer.

When I read that I thought ” Well these guys are really stretching here and it’s like they aren’t even trying anymore.”

There have been plenty of Archaeological evidence that supports Horses being in the Americas before the Spanish ever stepped foot on her lands. Why not just show that evidence instead of theorizing that people were riding deer like Santa Clause.

I feel their half attempts to defend the book of Abraham had too many theories and not enough evidence. Even if there were extra scrolls or pages this still doesn’t excuse the fact that what pages have been copied into the pearl of great price doesn’t say what JS claimed for them to be saying. I’ve known those pages to be part of a funeral ritual since I was in the 4th grade. Nobody told me this I came to my own conclusion when I saw something almost just like in a book on Egypt. In this book everything was labeled differently than it was in my scriptures. I honestly haven’t taken the Pearl of Great price as serious scriptures since Elementary school.

Stop trying to defend what really can’t be defended.

If members of the church want to believe that Joseph Smith used these scrolls as a catalyst to see a vision of Abraham they can. They can also believe that a Fairy God Mother will rescue them from a trashy wardrobe before a ball with Mr. or Miss right.

[greenapples]

I think the complete Matrix Series has many spiritual parallels.

I know the movies are rated 👿 R 😈

I see a lot of references to Christ. It’s a good story of community and sacrifice for the good of humanity.

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