[Ruthiechan]

Mine is sort of a combination between two and three, but I ultimately went with two because I don’t think the church is in complete apostasy. The early church was what it claimed to be but after Joseph Smith died some major errors crept in and have been perpetuated to one degree or another since then. I believe this because women healing by the laying on of hands was taken away as well as blacks holding the Priesthood.

[Ruthiechan]

To be number one means someone else has to lose out because it’s me and against another person. The only person you ought to compete with is yourself. That way, if you win no one else loses. And if you lose you can always try again, over and over, like a boss fight in a video game.

[Ruthiechan]

Thanks for the update Roy.

[Ruthiechan]

You got me all choked up too. That’s what mourning with those who mourn is all about.

[Ruthiechan]

Reading the entire story instead of just the snippet changes the entire thing. It’s an excellent story. Note how his Dad wasn’t magically “fixed”. Note the focus on the positive and on Christ like behavior which is to just love and be grateful. Note how much growth Marc had at the end there and how much more Christlike his behavior was. My kiddo definitely needs to read this story. My husband is not Mormon and sometimes that’s very hard on her.

[Ruthiechan]

Ya know, back to this quote:

Quote:

“Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it.”

I think the only way this can at all apply is through Joseph’s restoration of saving ordinances for the dead. Without those ordinances the dead would be screwed and before he came along no one was doing them. Corrections and a continuation of that work will happen during the Millennium, but for some reason God wants us to start now. Outside of that context Joseph Smith is no greater than other prophets of old.

I think the thing here is that he’s much closer to us, we can relate to him more, we can imagine the kind of life the early saints had to live because it really wasn’t all that long ago. The prophets before that have been dead and gone for over a thousand years, and spoke differently and the context of their lives is so different from ours that they’re harder to relate to. I think that’s why people go over board with revering Joseph Smith and those after him. There’s also the added complication that they are removed from us so it’s easier to paint a false perception of modern day prophets. We don’t see their faults. We always see them at their best. Hinckley’s conference talk about working on being a little kinder really helped me see that modern day prophets are people too, flaws and all. I’ll always be grateful to him for that.

What I find interesting is that during my reading of the Old Testament the other day I noted that the footnote regarding “fear of the Lord” said, “Reverence”. This makes sense to me because reverence means deference as well as profound adoring awed respect. You honor God by showing deference to the will of God. That’s what living in the “fear of the Lord” means. To apply that same level of reverence to a mortal human is clearly fallacious.

Anyway, I’m sorry about what happened and I love how you handled it. I wonder if Joseph Smith handled his faith journey in a similar way when he first started being persecuted by priests and pastors as a boy. *hugs*

[Ruthiechan]

The problem is that to most people anything that questions the Church is an attack on their faith. Me? I see such things as the refiner’s fire. I come out the other side stronger and with more faith in my GOD.

Anti-Mormon sites are terrible. I’ve been to some and it’s all just biased “we hate Mormons” crap.

I like places like this. And the blogs “Pure Mormonism” and “By Common Consent”.

I like FAIR (except for their message boards because their terms of service cause me to lose my intellectual rights to what I post there, no thanks).

The site Mormon Think works really hard to be objective. I also like ReligiousTolerance.org for the same reason.

I like the Joseph Smith Papers available online, put out by the church, and other church sites that have things like the Millennial Star from the early days of the church for all to see. It helps me see the differences between then and now, and to get to know Joseph Smith Jr better.

Heber13, that makes no sense, since the church has more websites than that!

[Ruthiechan]

Well now, see, the scriptures do talk about studying things out in our minds first and then talk to God about it. So I think if we’re ONLY following our feelings we’re skipping the reasoning part of the equation which is not a good thing.

[Ruthiechan]

Tobin wrote:

mercyngrace wrote:

Ruthiechan wrote:

Mercyngrace

Joseph Smith said that paradise and spirit prison are the same thing. It’s the Spirit World, and it is one’s state of mind as they go from this world to the next that make it a prison or a paradise.

Yup. :thumbup:

One of the common themes I have noted of interest in the near-death experiences I have studies is the idea that in the life to come, we can think a thing and it becomes real to us. But there is more to it than that. We can sense the thoughts of others as well. And as such, we will tend to group with others who THINK as we do. So if we are mean, arrogant, spiteful, cruel, sadistic, and so on; we will associate with those that are like we are and they and our thoughts will form our prison. To liberate ourselves, we must put off our self. If we wish to truly be free in the life to come, one must seek to be kind, liberal with all one has and giving to all comers, loving, accepting, nurturing, and full of goodness. It is very much as the scriptures say that our thoughts will betray us. We must master ourselves and exceed our natural impulses to liberate ourselves from such shackles.

Yes. I noticed that too in NDE’s. It makes the admonition to watch our thoughts in the scriptures make a lot more sense.

So the question is, how do you control your thoughts? I start to make progress, at least I think I do, and then I just seem to get worse at it. I dunno. o_O

Heber13 wrote:

Tobin wrote:

we will tend to group with others who THINK as we do.

I agree with that, Tobin. I think it also is told in the scriptures for us to become like God, so He will know us as His friends. It is who we become, and like you said, how we think that we take into the next world.

It certainly explains how He’ll know us as His friends. It’ll be through our thoughts.

[Ruthiechan]

Pure Mormonism has a blog post about why he abandoned polygamy and touches on Section 132 not even being a revelation by Joseph Smith.

The trouble is, this sounds good and so does the story above which makes me think that perhaps we have it because the people wanted it not because it’s what God wanted. Kinda like the how God, in the Old Testament, did not want the Children of Israel to have a King over them but the people kept wanting it and God finally said okay, fine, here ya go.

But, where’s the supporting evidence for it?

[Ruthiechan]

Mercyngrace

Joseph Smith said that paradise and spirit prison are the same thing. It’s the Spirit World, and it is one’s state of mind as they go from this world to the next that make it a prison or a paradise.

[Ruthiechan]

DarkJedi wrote:

Ruthiechan wrote:

Why are you all just saying fine to this guy? You got permission from lots of people. Go over the SP’s head on this. I mean seriously this is ridiculous.

And who would that be? The Quorum of the Twelve? First Presidency? They’re not going to be sympathetic, from what I know they would not even respond directly to the member but might send a letter to the SP, but not to tell him he’s wrong or to do anything differently. The instruction would be to the member through the SP and basically would have the SP guilt the member.

I dunno. It feels like everyone who gave permission ought to confront him, Bishops and everything. Brother, you making a pleasant event turn into a stressful one. Please soften your heart toward this. The man needs rebuking. Anyone who supports it. This is supposed to be By Common Consent, everyone is cool with it except this guy. He ought not to have that much power. He needs to know that he’s hurting people. Write a letter of grievance, have everyone involved with the baptism sign it, have the Bishops present it to the stake. Find the area leader and lodge a complaint. See if you can get any previous Stake leaders to also agree. Or see about getting the Bishops to flat out tell him it’s not his jurisdiction and DO IT ANYWAY. That last part probably not gonna happen but it’s still an option.

[Ruthiechan]

SilentDawning wrote:

And in my experience, this often leads to neglect of the flock. Imagine a shepherd who only tends sheep part-time while he runs a busy mercantile business. Jesus dedicated himself full-time to his ministry, and expected that of his apostles as well.

If the Relief Society President had equal standing with the Bishop then the burden would be shared and we’d no longer have a problem with part time flock devotion.

[Ruthiechan]

Why are you all just saying fine to this guy? You got permission from lots of people. Go over the SP’s head on this. I mean seriously this is ridiculous.

[Ruthiechan]

Oh shi-.

I lied in my introduction. I did have a very serious faith crises. But it’s all wrapped up in some very dark history.

There *was* a time where I felt no God and lacked a spiritual ear. I looked in my journals to verify, to make sure I wasn’t crazy. Nope, not crazy (at least not about this). Before the dark I had spiritual experiences but I did not recognize them for what they were until I was much older. I had forgotten that I had no recognition. I had forgotten the dark where I felt no God and no spirituality. I spent all day yesterday mulling it over, which was very difficult to do emotionally. I’m still thinking about it. It hurts to remember, but I need to.

Thank you for this post. I copied it and saved it on my computer. I hope you put it up on your blog for others to see.

[Author]

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