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Because we are a social media generation, the church should expect to be questioned, by member and non members
Wouldn’t it be great if sometime the church realized this and decided that it was time to address some of the big questions head on instead of hoping no one will notice?
In case you are curious…she ended up going because the boy she liked was going…but he slept in so he wasn’t there. Life is so funny sometimes. Quote:as a parent, i believe we have the obligation to teach faith in the context of critical thinking. i believe it is very important to encourage our children to recognize manipulative behaviors, to question bogus claims of satanic influence, and to seek appropriate spiritual experience.
I have told people before that I would rather have my children choose to do wrong than be forced to do right.
Yes, they are pushing pretty hard with this experience, for exactly the reasons you state, although they would frame it in a different context of teaching and giving them positive experiences about the temple.
Quote:But if they were doing this before the internet, how did they gather their information then?
About 15 years ago I got a call from Salt Lake asking me about my sister in law; where she lived, if she went to church, and other questions I can’t remember now. I happily gave them all the information I had, because it was SL. I have not idea if it was the Strengthening Members Committee or some other office, but I was more than happy to tell them anything. I suspect the committee could work in the same way.
I have heard very good things about the classic “Mormonsim” By Jan Shipps. She is a preeminent academic about Mormonism. The best book I have personally read is “Religion and Sexuality” which isn’t what the title sounds like. It goes into a few religions that have similar beginnings and put them into a historical and cultural context; Mormonism, Society of Friends and other groups. I read it in an anthropology class at BYU that studied familial relationships in their anthropological setting. I read it years ago so I don’t know if it is still in print.
Quote:I’ve heard it said that if there is a devil, there must be a God. I can buy into that.
This is along the lines of what I am thinking about. It is sensible to me from a perspective of opposing forces. Macroscopically, a magnet can’t have a north pole that is stronger than its south pole. If you think of “good” as a force, it makes sense that there is a balanced, similar force “evil”.
Quote:But the story of the third of the host of heaven following Lucifer’s plan in the pre-mortal life has been sounding less plausible to me. How ineffective of a father must God have been to have a third of his children commit an act that was so evil (following Lucifer) that they didn’t even qualify to get a body? If that story were true, each one of that third must have been far more evil than Ted Bundy. What kind of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother have that many spirit children who are that evil?
This is an interesting story, and it requires a far more literal interpretation of God than I am ready to believe yet. But in a thought experiment that God and Satan are about matched forces of Good and Evil, this makes some sense to me. Both had good ideas, both were persuasive, and all of us chose. Or maybe not, maybe we that are hanging out on earth with the undecideds. Maybe 1/3 chose Satan, 1/3 chose God, and 1/3 couldn’t decide. So we were sent to earth to be exposed to both so we could see both good and evil up close, witness them, experiment with them and then figure out which one we want.
I don’t know anything about it, but I have heard of it. Other than that, I have to say your blog post was hilarious.
A few times a week. In our house we say the traditional prayers over meals. Other than that, sometimes before I go to bed at night. But I see it more as focusing and getting at peace with my own thoughts. I really don’t have any confidence that it does more than that. Even as a TBM I hated closing my eyes for prayers. In public I look down, but never close my eyes. I really love how self-regulating that is. No one can “catch” you with your eyes open unless they are doing it too. Too bad more things in the church aren’t like that.
This isn’t a fully developed thought, because it just occurred to me as I am reading through this thread: Quote:The Prime Minister gazed hopelessly at the pair of them for a moment, then the words he had fought to suppress all evening burst from him at last.
“But for heaven’s sake – you’re wizards! You can do magic! Surely you can sort out – well – anything!”
Scrimgeour turned slowly on the spot and exchanged an incredulous look with Fudge, who did manage a smile this time as he said kindly, “The trouble is, the other side can do magic too, Prime Minister.” -J.K. Rowling
(Yes I just used Harry Potter in pondering my personal theology. You gotta problem with that?)
Maybe God is more evenly matched with Satan than we want to admit.
A child thinks that their daddy is the strongest, smartest person in the world, in fact they rely on that so that they can trust that their father will protect them. But then a child grows up and realizes that their father is just a normal person with weaknesses and faults, doing his best not to conquer the world, but just to keep it together for one more day.
Maybe God is more like that. Someone who is powerful, and loving, but sometimes it is all he can do to keep the earth rotating on its axis for just one day.
Quote:realized that maybe, just maybe, we are all on our own in this life, and this life is perhaps all we get.
IMO this is why we need to help others. It is a terrible feeling knowing that there is no one there to help you, so we all need to help one another.
This week in church we were talking about the 2000 warriors, and the teacher was going on and on about how strong their faith was, how they were blessed because they believed, etc. I raised my hand and said: “I am more impressed with the faith of the Nephites. How do you think that they felt being told that God had protected these 2000 boys, yet God didn’t protect their sons, fathers, and brothers? Men who were also fighting for the right cause, men who probably also had faith and were believing but were still killed in battle.”
A sister in the ward responded with a story about how heartbroken she was when her baby brother died, even when she prayed constantly for him to live.
The next comment was about sometimes the answer to a prayer is no, but that doesn’t really do much for me. When you are asking God to protect your children from suffering, to keep someone from being abused, etc. I can’t imagine any reason that a loving all-powerful God would refuse.
This question is really central to my faith crisis. It makes more sense to me to believe either there is no god, or that he doesn’t get involved than to believe that there is a god that sometimes saves people, but lets others suffer.
I have no great perspective on this one because I am in the same boat. I haven’t had the courage to do anything about it though because I am afraid of just such a confrontation. I have been told many times that the first step toward cheating is taking off your garments, and if you do so you are leaving yourself open to that. Perhaps your husband has heard this as well. If so, I could see how he has a very real fear for his marriage with you because he has been taught that people that stop wearing their garments cheat more.
I still struggle with how to wear my garments, but right now I wear them frequently, and do it not as a religious symbol, but as a sign of respect to my husband, to whom it is very important that I wear them. I’m not sure how long this will last, but that is where I am right now.
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Frankly, I doubt it. Oh, I suppose someone up there might be aware of the different listservs and websites and discussion boardsHonestly, I doubt it as well. But I do see there is that possibility. Could someone in SL get a bee in there bonnet and decide they need to do some winnowing? I hope not, but it is a possibility. That is why I am keeping one eye on this situation. To see if it is an individual circumstance, or a harbinger of things to come.
Quote:And I don’t think that MormonThink and StayLDS are on the same level of apostasy as far the DAMU is concerned. But I am quite convinced that many many leaders don’t care…they think we are all wolves in sheep clothing, and that includes StayLDS, and would purge the entire DAMU from membership, in New York second. That is why I find this story sad and disturbing.
Most of you here do not use your own names because of fear of church discipline and creating riffs within your family. IMO, you are wise to do so,
Yep. It is the question of where the line would be drawn by whom that is disturbing. Knowing a few of the members on that disciplinary council, I try to guess where they draw the line, the majority of them would draw it in a way that would not only be against Mormon Think, but also against me, and against many people on StayLDS. Looking at my own Stake leadership, I think the same.
I can see a reasonable and fair arguement for why he should undergo discipline. But it does worry me that he has been asked to provide names of others. Is that because they are going to widen the net? In doing that, the net doesn’t have to get very wide before I am really uncomfortable with where it is going.
At the risk of sounding paranoid, I wonder how closely THIS forum is watched. Does Salt Lake know about it, do they observe it? If I posted my full name and my ward and detailed exactly where I stood about the spirituality and the teachings of the church would someone notice? Is there a scenario where someone from SL would see that, and inform my SP or Bishop?
I just found out that this guy is in my former stake. If the stake president is the same as the one who was there (likely, it wasn’t long ago). He is an interesting character, and a lawyer. I know many of the people that are on the high council and will probably be at the disciplinary counsel. The ones I know are very orthodox and big into obeying without question. God help him. I think that the mormonthink website clearly goes past the “just presenting information” to persuading people against the church.
I agree that the church has the right to decide the rules for membership.
This makes me nervous though, how far is the church going to go in setting the line for apostasy? They could easily set a line that I would be on the wrong side of, and that would be catastrophic to my family, and all of my sincere efforts to stay with the church.
