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Old-Timer wrote:
We try VERY hard here to avoid personal attacks.
I’m sorry. I did not mean for my comment to be a personal attack in any way. I apologize for it coming across that way.
Peaceandjoy wrote:he sounded so mad! I still think he was talking about anyone, that even the elect could be deceived. I just felt like he could not understand how anyone could doubt the book.
I agree that it seemed to me he was addressing strong church members (the elect) who were having some doubts. I think this is supported by his statement of people needing to crawl around the Book of Mormon to leave the church (they can’t leave the church if they aren’t already in it) and by belittling some of the theories that inadequately account for the BoM, but which cause people to doubt, it seemed like Elder Holland was trying to shame people back into Stage 3 constructs. Perhaps I felt him talking to me in particular because 7 weeks ago I was TBM and now I am overwhelmed with doubts, some based on the BoM.
Old-Timer wrote:He then focused on the charge that it was “ALL fictitious”.
Again, from the Stage 3 construct that Elder Holland is speaking from, it is either ALL true or ALL fictitious. It is very black and white. Either JS brought forth the BoM exactly how he said he did, or he is a fraud. And I think the church and Elder Holland want us to view it in a very stage 3 perspective.
As for Elder Holland’s emphatic point that it must have come forward exactly as JS said it did, if the church is so sure it came forth as JS said it did, why do they not teach the well documented use of a rock in a hat for the translation? This would have been a great talk to lay out the historically accurate accounts of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon and then challenge the TBMs to leave after knowing the truth (just wishful thinking on my part
🙄 ).Yep. Welcome to the mormon cafeteria. I wouldn’t touch that dish with a 10 foot pole. It stinks to high heaven! For me, the question is how to get the cafeteria to stop serving this garbage!
seanhess wrote:the reality checks usually show you that the literalism you’ve been applying isn’t correct, so you can’t overcome them and continue to claim that everything you do is inspired by God.
I agree that you’re going to have to give up the idea that the church is literally true. It isn’t what it says it is and it isn’t what you thought/believed it was. But it is good, at least in its current form.
It can be a frustrating experience to go to church when everyone believes in the literalism. Hopefully this forum can help you to navigate the path of staying LDS when you no longer embrace the literalism.
Old-Timer wrote:Peaceandjoy, I would read Elder Holland’s talk slowly – focusing carefully on parsing exactly what he said and, most importantly, to whom he said it. Frankly, you weren’t his target audience. It’s really, really easy to feel attacked when some of the statements are isolated, but the overall talk was addressed to those who 1) don’t even try to understand the BofM on a spiritual level but dismiss and attack it anyway and 2) those who intentionally twist its words to attack Joseph and a fraud.
This is one talk that comes actoss VERY differently when it is read and parsed carefully than when many people initially listened, since it’s hard when listening to remember what he said along the way when a particularly blunt statement is heard. MANY people think he was talking to them when he just wasn’t.
I simply have to disagree with you here. Word choice is a very small part of communication and you are much more likely to misinterpret the message when you divorce it from the other elements of communication in the initial delivery. You are much more likely to arrive at the truly intended message of the sermon if you take into account all the aspects of communication (tone of voice, emotion, volume, body language, etc.). Rather than attempt to intellectually twist Elder Holland’s words to mean something other than what he meant, I prefer to remember that I am in the mormon cafeteria and I refuse to partake of an extra helping of apostolic guilt. This talk was carefully written, correlated, and practiced, down to how he would hold Hyrum’s BoM. Many people were bothered by this talk and it would be poor delivery indeed if everyone misinterpreted his intended message. This was a stage 3 talk telling people with doubts to get back in line with the church’s stage 3 teachings just because an apostle and the church say so. I absolutely believe this talk was meant for me and others like me with sincere doubts. However, I don’t have doubts because I want to sin or escape the teachings of the church, I wish nothing more than that the church was everything it said it was. My doubts are evidence of my sincere desire to understand God’s light and I refuse to be guilted back into line by a logically flawed appeal to emotion. I understand the intention of Elder Holland’s message, I just refuse to believe the message is from God.
That being said, I think you can find all sorts of greater goods and existential meanings in Elder Holland’s message, but Elder Holland didn’t intend for them to be there.
Old-Timer wrote:I prefer “nice guy” with the crazy ideas.
😥 Sorry to hurt your feelings. I think your a very nice guy.
Old-Timer wrote:Honestly, I think most people define me how I define myself – which is something to ponder, I think.
So you’re one of those wacky guys with the crazy ideas? Just kidding!
😆 hawkgrrrl wrote:It’s not “inherently” a cult unless you can’t leave it without your life being endangered (in a technical sense).
There is certainly some historical evidence that apostasy was preached as one of the sins that should be blood atoned and that at least occassionally someone was killed when trying to leave the church (according to Quinn). If it quacks like a cult . . .
Welcome Sean! You describe difficulties that nearly all of us have dealt/are dealing with. I, for one, am still dealing with these types of issues and constantly struggling to gain further understanding. It seems that the majority of people here give up on it being the “one True church”, but decide to stay in the LDS community for a variety of reasons. I’ve pretty much given up on this or any other church being the “one True church.”
I definately have times when I feel that Joseph Smith founded a cult (and I’ll admit that I have an increasingly difficult time believing there was any Divinity in its organization), but it seems that the cult evolved into a church sometime around when the church really gave up polygamy and decided to become mainstream. I think the church does a lot of good now and I feel that growing up in it was a good thing for me and that I’ve become a pretty decent person. I think the church is full of sincerely good people. I think there are a lot of sincerely good people in other churches as well and it saddens me that Mormons frequently are blinded to the goodness of others by their misguided insistence on being the “one True church”, as if they had a monopoly on goodness. While I’m here on StayLDS, I haven’t made a firm decision to stay LDS. A lot of my being here is because i grew up in the church, so it is familiar to me. However, my wife is a convert (now disaffected) and doesn’t necessarily feel this is “her tribe”, so we may go elsewhere to raise our child. I do want my son to have a strong moral upbringing, but we haven’t decided if the negative stereotypes perpetuated by the church outweigh the good. He is only 2, so we have some time to decide. In the meantime, he is in a Christian (non-LDS) daycare and we attended a Catholic family retreat over the summer (with plans to return next year), so he is getting lots of goodness from LDS and non-LDS sources.
Your struggles with trying to understand personal revelation vs. our own feelings is also familiar to myself.
How is your wife dealing with your struggles? If she is struggling and still a true believing mormon, I recommend you referring her to FacesEast.org, a forum for believing spouses of disaffected members. It is a very supportive community and could help her find some peace and support.
I’m exactly in your boat. I watched the PBS special “The Mormons” the other night. It was actually pretty good. I felt that they didn’t shy away from the real history of the church, although they didn’t have time to really get into a lot of the details. I thought that they also did a good job trying to portray the devotion of TBMs, too good, in fact. The TBMs they interviewed often came across as a bit overzealous and fanatical (although I realize TBMs are all those things, and I was too).
Segments on the devotion of mormons really increased my cognitive dissonance (missionary experience, importance of families). The program portrayed things how people outside the church view us (which was enlightening), while at the same time I was able to remember what it was like as a TBM. The segments reminded me of what is frustrating me – the church isn’t what it portrays itself to be. The beliefs of the church are beautiful and wonderful (mostly, minus a few pet issues, such as feminist issues and homophobia, etc.), but it isn’t what it promised it was. I want to believe it! Life was so clear and straightforward when I believed. But I can’t. . . It’s not “T”rue, not like they promised it was.
I’m struggling with how much to share with ecclesiastical leaders as well. My temple recommend recently expired and I know they are going to ask us to come in to renew it soon. DW has decided that she is going to try politely declining having her recommend renewed. Sometimes I think I’d like to just decline renewing it as well. On the other hand, I am ward financial clerk and the calling requirements are that one is worthy of a temple recommend, so I think it will turn into a big deal if I try to decline getting a temple recommend. So then I think about doing my best to rephrase the questions in my mind so I can answer the questions, but I’m not sure I can do it through two interviews, and the question is sure to come up as to why DW doesn’t want a temple recommend. On top of this, they are currently rearranging the Bishopric and we have no idea who the Bishop or counselors are going to be (something is fishy with the approval process, though, because we haven’t had a Bishop for nearly a month and we are currently functioning under direction of the Stake President. The Bishop was a graduate student who finished his PhD and moved on to a new position, so he had to be released.)
I understand where you are at. I had felt like I received answers to prayers and that I had felt the spirit. But then I noticed those same feelings at other, non-spiritual times. Then I started having some historicity concerns and I also felt the “spirit” when praying that JS wasn’t a prophet and there is no need for Christ. It leaves me confused and wondering if God has ever answered any of my prayers. I question the usefulness of these “spiritual manifestations” as a source of truth. I’m stuck right now in discerning if it is that God has never answered my prayers and what I thought were answers were just my own feelings or that God sends me lots of spiritual manifestations but they don’t really have anything to do with “Truth”. Welcome to the community. I hope you will find some support here. I would highly recommend the forum FacesEast.org for your wife, if she is having difficulties with your disaffection. It is a great, supportive forum for believing spouses of disaffected mormons. I think it will be helpful for your relationship and for both of you.
Thanks a ton for posting that! I really appreciate it! So the article itself does not support Quinn’s statement (not that I really expected the church to print that missionaries are assigned by computer in the Church News if it were really true). Quinn may still be correct, and it would make a lot of sense, given the complexity of coordinating 300 missions and 50,000+ missionaries. However, the process is probably a little more involved than just a computer spitting out assignments. I noticed that Quinn’s reference said the 1st presidency was not involved, but that does not exclude members of the 12 being involved.
Either way, it isn’t a testimony breaker. When I’m most optimistic, I trust that God can use computer algorithms to carry out his will (and hope he does when it comes to my medical match coming up). When I’m most pessimistic, having a computer assign mission calls is probably actually better than having “random” old men dictate where people will be assigned.
Thanks, Valoel. I appreciate the support. I realize that I need to let things play out a bit more naturally and just accept that I will get disillusioned and angry. It’s nice to think about Fowler’s stages to realize that I don’t have to stay angry, but I also realize that I need to accept my emotions and trust that I will move through stages of grief, etc. As was the advice for moving slowly into Stage 4 (although 6 weeks is not slow by any means, is it?), I also need to accept that I will move slowly through stage 4. And NOM may be a better place for dealing with some of the stages of grief until I reach acceptance.
Although it is our first GC since the challenge to our faith, MadamCurie and I will be doing a live blog of Conference this year. You are welcome to join us. Orson wrote:I apologize if in my mind I put you ahead of where you actually are, I was simply trying to boost your independence. I don’t think anyone has authoritative answers. I know it’s a difficult time, I hope you’ll spend time with us even if you want to explore points of view at NOM.
No offense taken. Perhaps you see more clearly than I do. Your post helped me realize that I am progressing from where I was 6 weeks ago and I think that I am entering an angry phase. I know that StayLDS is for people who have largely overcome their anger and have decided to stay LDS. I really appreciate this forum. I love the openness, non-judgemental character, fellowship, and serious intellectual striving that I find here. I intend to stick around, but I think some posts will probably be more appropriate for NOM and others may be more appropriate for StayLDS. I’m also on FacesEast, but there are definately some posts that don’t belong there that I have posted here, I anticipate it will be similar with NOM.
