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Oh, gosh, you just have to feel sorry for some of these poor suckers who will be sealed to a dozen or more wives. Hah! Honey, get me this, honey get me that, I need, I want,
My great great grandfather was Samual Rose Parkinson who had 2 wives. He would count every single cherry in the bag to make sure that each wife got the exact same amount of cherries. One year, a business friend gave him a turkey for Christmas. He nearly died trying to figure out what to do with that turkey.
Don’t worry, Bridge. They’ll have eternity to count cherries.
There are so many parents, grandparents, younger siblings, friends and loved ones that are excluded from Temple Weddings that I would recommend that all those you truly love their parents, follow Christ’s commandments and “Honor thy Father and thy Mother”. To truly honor thy father and thy mother, one must sometimes defer to their wishes. I would have gladly delayed a Temple Wedding and gotten married in a field just so that my parents could have been there. As it was, I was married in the Salt Lake Temple – alone. As I went into the dressing rooms in the temple basement to put on a rented temple dress, the lady temple worker totally forgot that I was in the dressing stall. She had actually collected my clothing and locked it into a locker. I stood in that little dressing stall for nearing an hour, crying and hoping that someone would just remember that I was even there.
If I ever had to do it over again, I would never consider a Temple wedding where I would be so totally alone. Never. I can’t even think of my wedding day without sobbing my eyes out.
This is absolutely NOT church doctrine, but many historians believe that Joseph Smith suffered from a type of epilepsy that later leads to Geshwind’s syndrome, a post-seizure condition that causes the brain to be exceptionally sensitive to spirituality and is manifested by prolific spiritual writing. As a person with epilepsy, I have had to except that their are periods of my life where I just have to live half way between the living world and the spirit world. If a seizure lasts more than 4 1/2 minutes, I can almost feel myself passing across into a different realm. When I return to earth, there is a great need to write about my experiences. My brain possesses a certain clarity that it normally does not. They problem with Geshwind syndrome is that if epilepsy is not treated and controlled, it will surely lead to permanent brain damage and insanity later in life. Thank God for anti-epileptic drugs, none of which JS had access to when he was alive.
JS is now formally listed amongst others who had this, “gift”. Take a look at the list, it includes Saul of Taurus (Apostle Paul), the Prophet Ezequiel and many more.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_with_epilepsy Here is a brief description of Geshwind’s Syndrome (also known as “Midnight Disease”) taken from Wikipedia
Geschwind syndrome, also known as Waxman-Geschwind syndrome or “Gastaut-Geschwind” is a characteristic personality syndrome consisting of symptoms such as circumstantiality (excessive verbal output), hypergraphia, altered sexuality (usually hyposexuality, meaning a decreased interest), and intensified mental life (deepened cognitive and emotional responses), hyper-religiosity and/or hyper-morality or moral ideas, that is present in some epilepsy patients. This syndrome is particularly associated with usually left-side temporal lobe epilepsy. For identification, the term “Geschwind syndrome” has been suggested as a name for this group of behavioral phenomena.
I have collected some writings about the possibility of JS having severe Grand-mal seizures later in life. I think he hid it because people associated seizing satanic possession in those days.
I so understand how you feel. One of the very first concepts that I let go of was that “other churches were not true”. I had been taught that they were, “all wrong” and that they “draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me”. For most of my life, I had stayed away from spiritual writings that were not published by the LDS Church. It was a very strange change that came over me.
After I returned from my mission, I found myself in the Primary. I had been called several times as Ward Nursery leader, in several wards actually. Sometimes, this was difficult because I had 3 small children and was also a licensed family home daycare provider at the time of my first nursery calling. I often felt a need for a bit of quit time to just contemplate Christ without having to attend to so many small children.
About 18 months ago, I was cleaning up the nursery and preparing to take out the garbage. Years ago, we fired the ward janitors and just had members clean the church. The nursery area has always been a problem. Food, dirty diapers, broken toys and crayons can make the nursery look dirty and smell bad. We have 3 to 4 wards in the same building, so each nursery leader has to really clean up before the next ward comes. There was no sink to wash ones hands and no closet to store things in. I was starting my third year in the nursery. One day, I just garbed the giant bag of smelly garbage and stared down the trash can. I felt as empty as that trash can! I would hurry and clean the nursery, try to make sure that all of the children were safely reunited with parents and that the library materials were returned. This would always make me late for sacrament meeting and other ward members would give me cold stares as I slipped into the back, always a few minutes late.
I realized that my spiritual needs were simply not being met, so I turned to other sources. Sometimes I’d find things on the internet. Friends would give me books and I’d listen to spiritual music on you-tube. I began to absorb and embrace so much of what I was learning. I could no longer limit myself to just LDS materials. This was when I started to question some of the things I had learned in the Church. Well, I ramble, sorry. I hope you can understand.
One of the best films I have ever seen is entitled: Unlocking the Mystery of Life. I bought it at Amazon.com The film explains how intelligent design is essential to create the conditions required for genetic adaptation and change over time (evolution). They will show you examples of intelligent designs and then demonstrate how these designs can adapt to the environment. This is a science film, not a religious film. It is used as a training film in our laboratory to help understand the nature of genetic change.
Evolution and intelligent design go hand-in-hand, they are inextricable bound forever. Once cannot occur without the other – simple as that. If you create a being that cannot adapt to its surroundings, it will go extinct and cease to exist. If you never create a being, it cannot evolve.
Welcome and God Bless, I love your honest approach. I’ve tried for so long not to lie to myself. I guess I like to sneak sweets and then pretend that I haven’t gained any weight. Deception only works for so long.
So learning to tell the truth is hard, really, really hard. It is amazingly difficult to come to terms with history, Church History, U.S. History, State History – you name it. There is far more violence and corruption than we like. The problem comes in deciding how much to tell our children and how soon.
I’m so glad you have decided to tell your children the truth or at least not lie to them. Good luck.
|might just add that the church has excelled in other areas of science such as seismic engineering (building structures that can survive earthquakes). Church buildings in Haiti, Chili and New Orleans actually did very well. The Church office building in Salt Lake was built to withstand earth tremors and was a technological marvel at the time it was built. Primary Children’s Medical Center has consistently been in the top 10 for children’s hospitals and I know many LDS health care workers who have pioneered life-saving surgeries and treatments for children. They should be proud.
But, we do need to be vigilant. There is a small but growing number of LDS and other Christian families that are removing their children from public school and homeschooling just so the children won’t be taught geosciences and biological sciences. We could pay a price if this trend is not reversed.
Often times, God allows truth to be revealed through scientific methods. This is actually a great blessing and gift from God. Our creator has bestowed upon each one of us a natural curiosity and a yearning to investigate. You really see this in young infants and toddlers as they investigate their surroundings and explore the world. Sometimes, we punish this great instinct out of our children by scolding them for touching things and taking things apart. We are afraid that they will destroy our homes (sometimes they do). Sometimes, religious institutions are afraid that investigators will destroy their churches. They needn’t fear. Science and technology can actually enhance, advance and improve all religious experiences and promote faith. Because of airline travel, missionaries can reach the far corners of the earth. We can now do missionary work on-line – more people than ever will be able to hear the gosple.
What we need is an ability to constantly improve and upgrade as these new advances become available. The Church does this very well with communications technology such as broadcasting General Conference to millions of viewers worldwide. They upgrade computers, genealogical databases, communications networks etc. This is great.
Another area where the church excels is in agriculture and irrigation technologies. Ezra Taft Benson was an amazing leader in this area. He worked to improve food production in starving nations in Africa, but was sadly ignored. Had these nations listened, millions of people may not have starved to death.
But, sadly, we fail in other areas. I don’t mean to be so harsh, to use the word fail, but I have to be honest. We are behind in certain areas. Many LDS mothers have joined the Eagle Forum which does not believe in immunizing infants. Children in Provo have become ill with whopping cough. I fear that |Utah could have an a Tetanus death if we are not careful – it is coming. I worked for the Utah State Department of Health and attended an epidemiology meeting once per week. Utah is slipping and we are one of the few States that still has infant deaths from totally preventable childhood illnesses. Remarkable, GBH actually praised the Eagle Forum and this group uses GBH’s Proclamation on the Family as their official Facebook icon for Utahn’s for Traditional Families.
(Brian, please don’t delete). We have to face this truth. We owe it to our children to confront this issue head-on and not let the next generation suffer from our neglect.
We simply cannot afford to let any student fall behind in the study of biology, earth science, evolution, geology and in developmental biology. We have to teach about topics such as disorders of sexual development and differentiation. We must. I refuse to raise ignorant children and grandchildren. I will buy books and supplement their education. The Doctrine and Covenants actually commands us to study the sciences. (See Section 88 of the D and C).
One thing I know is that science requires that we be willing to CHANGE our beliefs. One must be ever ready to “unlearn” old truths and relearn truth to a newer, fuller understanding. This is growth. One example: I was working in a Virus Laboratory when my boss walked in and explained that a patient had been hospitalized for rabies. He went on to inform me that hospital staff had been instructed to treat this patient and sustain his life for as long as possible. The victim of rabies survived and is alive today. “Rabies is no longer to be considered a fatal disease”, he proclaimed! We are learning how to treat these patients with antisera and life support. Our entire procedure for their care had changed. Now, with religion it is “stay the course”, “constancy amid change”, “being ever-lasting to ever-lasting”. I have noticed a tendency for modern day church leaders to “hold to the iron rod” and resist straying into new paths. This worked in the last century. There simply wasn’t a lot of change. Now the world is changing minute by minute.
The question is “can be grow and adapt with it”? I have been thinking about this lately. One example: I was looking at a file of hundreds of names that had been extracted and indexed in order to prepare them for baptism for the dead. About 50% of these people had died of tuberculosis. Well, there was no way for anyone to treat and cure TB effectively at the time. The most one could do for these people who were doomed to die was to lovingly perform vicarious ordinances on their behalf. I was working in a tuberculosis, biosafety level 3 laboratory at the time. This little light when on inside my head. I’m not a prophet, I don’t lead the Church, but science has changed the world so much. “Switch the emphasis from baptism for the dead to healing and curing the living”. We are so blessed to live in a day and age when we can actually do this. The idea sounded amazing to me, but, can the church actually change?
Mankind cannot be saved in ignorance. “We cannot be saved until we have risen above all our enemies, not the least of which is ignorance.”
Joseph Smith
“The glory of God is intelligence”
D &C Section 93
I believe that truth is truth regardless of its source. I love Lucretia Mott’s testimony:
My conviction led me to adhere to the sufficiency of the light within us, resting on truth for authority, not on authority for truth.
I believe that all science and nature testify of God and His divinity.
I agree that the Church tries to project a vision of the “infallible Prophet/Leader of the Church. Years ago, Gordan B. Hinkley’s doctor advised him to “carry a cane”, fearing the GBH was a little unstable on his feet. GBH bought a cane and “carried it”, but refused to use it for support as he walked. I think that he wanted to appear strong and stable and allow the Lord to uphold him instead of relying on a cane for support. Honestly, there were many times when I feared that GBH would literally be a “fallen Prophet”.
Truth is, we can all fall. We can all mess up and big time!! “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us”.
From the Book of Mosiah, Chapter 1, here is King Benjamin|:
0 I have not commanded you to come up hither, that ye should fear me, or that ye should think that I, of myself, am more than a mortal man;
[SNIP, large text cut out by moderator]
King Benjamin considered himself “of the dust”, but confessed that the “dust” belonged to “Him who created it”.
Prophets exist as servants unto the Lord. Some are more faithful than others. Our challenge is to emulate Christ, not man, serve God, not men.
If you log onto Youtube, look up Whitney Houston’s rendition of “Amazing Grace”. Whitney prefaces her song with a story about the author. She explains that the song-writer had been a slave trader. One day he walked by a church and felt a deep desire to repent. He went home and wrote, Amazing Grace. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JksJXjaKesg Now, I think of the Grace of God as being taught to us in Solomon’s Temple. The Priests would sacrifice the lambs as commanded by the Lord. This was in similitude of the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, the Only Begotten. The Priest would then was themselves in the bath or basin which sat atop 12 oxen. The Priest would literally be covered with the “blood of the lamb”, having just sacrificed the innocent little animal. The basin would wash them of the “blood of the Lamb” and cleanse them. (a similitude of baptism).
I often pondered this and then realized that the Lord was willing to forgive even those who crucified him and where stained with His blood. There has never been, nor good there ever be a greater willingness to forgive for the greatest sin ever committed was the crucifixion of the Son of God, yet He stands ready to forgive.
This was the message of Saul of Taurus, who changed his name to Paul. Paul confessed to being present at the crucifixion and to being one of the chief persecutors of Christ.
It is only through Christ’s willingness to forgive us that any of us can be saved. He does not have to forgive, it is through His Grace. But, in order to accept His grace, we must confess our sins, believe in Him and repent, just as Paul did.
You know, I LOVE Mormons too! I think that is the reason why I can’t just walk away from the Church. I still hold out fantasies that I could teach them, nourish them, and help them overcome some of their fears. So stay in the Church, dear. I am sure you will be able to do a lot of good.
P.S. some of us dissidents have even introduced cherry jello at funerals instead of green jello – ahhhh, for shame!!
I think that the Missionary program and language training missions are one example of continuing revelation. I remember Spencer W. Kimball admonishing us to learn Mandarin Chinese way back when China was a Communist country, the cold war was on and no missionaries where allowed in mainland China. Same thing with Russia. The Church began to prepare translations of the B of M and other missionary materials in Russian and Chinese, under the direction of the Prophet. We really thought this was ridiculous in my era because there was no way we could ever have imagined missionaries in the Soviet Union. Nobody went behind the Iron Curtain and the Russians would kill any Americans who tried to get into their country with a B of M. Times change.
