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Heber13 wrote:PressingForward wrote:SamBee wrote:
Even if someone with mental illness has some kind of spiritual experience I do not believe that it necessarily invalidates it.
Agreed! Let us not forget dear prophet Isaiah, who walked around naked for 3 years. I’m sure he was looked at as a complete lunatic back in his time.
hmmm…I struggle with this. We have experienced mental illness issues in our family, and it is disturbing and painful.I have a hard time placing my faith in the notion that spirituality comes from such a state.
I think that it has become so stigmatized in our society though that sometimes we don’t realise that it can have *positive* effects as well as negative. Our society’s attitude is either to sweep it under the rug, i.e. ignore it, or to just dope up the person in question.
And yet, some of the greatest people in history have experience mental illness. It can be painful, but as someone else here has pointed out, pain can be a symptom of growth, not just of disability. Sometimes mental illness is the mind’s way of saying not to continue along a particular path.
Great art and inventions have come out of mental illness, not just death and disability.
Well, amongst the similarities I can think of between Muhammad and Joseph Smith – * Both got turned away from various churches (and synagogues in the case of Muhammad)
* Both got given a book of scripture by an angel.
* Both advocated polygamy.
* Both led a group of their followers away from their original location.
* Both got involved in politics in some way.
* Both are supposed to have been relatively uneducated.
* Both became military leaders of sorts.
I think however Muhammad was much more violent, and made proper wars against his opponents. I read the Koran a long time ago, I have to say it didn’t make the same impression on me as the BoM. Both are quite Old Testament in their flavor, but the Koran has more blood and thunder in it.
I suppose a parallel could be drawn between the Hadith and the D&C too.
Quote:Other Muslims are appalled by these claims, and point to the extraordinary pluralism of the Qur’an, which condemns aggression and sees all rightly guided religions as deriving from the one God.
From my personal study and notes on the Koran (albeit in English), it’s fairly obvious that it’s completely in two minds about how Jews and Christians should be treated. At some points it refers to them as “people of the book”, and at others describes them less pleasantly. It also says that the idea that God could have a son is “shirk” and blasphemy.
Well, just saying that while I don’t doubt some people get something out of paganism, they’ve got to be more honest about the modern origins of a lot of it. I suppose i do have issues with some cultural appropriation as well… Even Mormonism says that Joseph Smith got/revealed etc whatever in the year 18..
I did hear that quote, but I can’t recall who said it. [edit to add – TC apparently from the above] I think sometimes it’s the other way round too. How many times do we hear right wing preachers in other churches preaching salvation, but condemning measures that might actually help the poor?
Social justice is an important thing, no doubt about it. I just hope he meant that people were taking a despiritualized Jesus, rather than a Jesus who is only begotten, resurrected etc. Arguably, he was crucified partly because of his stance on social justice (amongst other things)
Charity was mentioned a number of times, which IS a form of social justice. However, my view of social justice includes access to decent healthcare, education and freedom of expression.
Quote:Another unusual piece of evidence is the Anthon Transcript which has several characters that actually do resemble specific Egyptian characters although some critics see vague similarities to some form of ancient Irish script as well. So if you don’t believe the Church’s official story then it seems like they would probably have had to copy these characters from somewhere and then allow Martin Harris to ask Charles Anthon and others about them.
Yeah, it’s called ogham. However, I don’t think it explains the characters.
Include a page from the Book of Ballymote showing some ogham, by way of comparison.
[img]http://www.babelstone.co.uk/Blog/Images/RIA_MS_23_P_12_169V.jpg [/img] I was glad to see people like Uchtdorf and ?Koichi Aoyama giving such good talks. It gives me hope about the internationalization of the church. He talked about ?Buchsenmormonen (not sure what the exact German was here), i.e. tinned food Mormons who were Germans that took aid from the LDS in America after WWII. He pointed out that far from being mere parasites, the third and fourth generation descendants of some of these people are still in the church in Germany. although at the time some German LDS cold shouldered them. I liked the talk because it was about giving aid, without being haughty or judgemental. Very topical since we have had several awful disasters in the last year or two.
I do, however, have serious endurance problems. It’s really difficult physically sitting through all of it.
Jordan wrote:I saw the soderberg version, and, …. ok. It takes a mystic to really communicate mysticism, and soderberg has done some pretty rad stuff, but he’s no zen master.
You’ve inspired me to bring the old russian version higher up on my netflix queue.
One word of warning though, the early parts are quite slow. There is one section where a guy is in a car in Japan (I’d recommend the FFwd for that part!), but there are other parts I find extremely moving, and the music is beautiful (I think it’s Bach or Handel)
I’m skeptical of the whole pagan thing. Why? Paganism was never a religion. It was just a tag Christians gave to *any* non-Christians/Jews/Muslims. I don’t know why anyone would want to call themselves by a name like that. It’s like knowing yourself as an infidel, heathen or unbeliever (atheist comes close I suppose)
Modern paganism has little or nothing to do with ancient religions. It’s a po-mo hodgepodge of ideas taken from all over the world and cobbled together. With modern sensibilities added.
That said, I suppose people can get something of it spiritually, but for the reasons I say above, I think it’s not quite what it says it is on the tin. Particularly the Celtic and native American varieties.
findingmyownfooting wrote:SamBee wrote:Well, I think most people in this part of the woods know little about the church other than American guys in suits wandering around knocking on doors. And the Osmonds. Make of that what you will.
The other problem is our culture here revolves around drinking. And it’s hard not to socialise without pouring alcohol down your throat. It’s difficult to be sober amongst a bunch of drunks.
This sounds similar to the problems my DH faced being raised in England. His soulution was to leave the county😯 . I think that sometimes we just can’t do anything about the people around us. All we can do it make the best of what we have. It must be frustrating for you though.Even before I was LDS, I had issues with this. I’d try to get people to go to the cinema (not plays – that just wouldn’t have happened!), concerts, but it was hard to do sometimes. I also have a friend who’s unmanageable when drunk, but is good company when sober. Very difficult.
I don’t know how to deal with some of this without becoming “separate”. It’s healthy for people of different backgrounds to mix.
findingmyownfooting wrote:I’ve started taking a note pad to church with me. I write down any thoughts I have during the lesson (even if it’s not the conclusion the teacher was heading for
👿 ) DH and I have discussed later what I came up with which made for a good Sunday afternoon conversation. If you really want to get something out of the lesson I would recommend reading the lesson ahead of time. If you’re prepared maybe you could initiate a discussion that would be interesting to you. Chances of it happening are hit and miss though. I’ve enjoyed listening to the comments of others and noticing those who have “like minds” to mine. DH and I have talked about going for a walk while the kids are in primary once the weather gets better.I never had much problem with non-members before. I remember once in high school when I became the object of focus for a drug dealer and my friends all stood up for me. I was never an “in your face” kind of person with my religion. I find that most times when you show respect to others for their beliefs and choices they will often respect you. If they are open to you answering questions that would be a good thing. It’s unfortunate when people are negative towards others for being apart of a group. This had been the reason for much war and destruction in the world. I don’t know if there is much you can to about that. Sometimes if their prejudice is because of a negative experience they have had with Mormons in the past the best you can do is just be a good example and hope with time they will judge you for who you are and not for your personal religious choices.
The notepad is a good idea. I have done it occasionally, if only to read scriptures that have been mentioned. Bleeding chunks don’t always give the full picture (to mix metaphors), so we have to go back to context.
I have to admit, reading lessons ahead of time is sometimes difficult, particularly when they have a couple of dozen references to look up. There are some things I wouldn’t wish to bring up, to avoid sounding like a troublemaker, and others that I don’t think would be well answered in that particular context, although now and then when I’ve been at church, interesting things DO get mentioned by other people, which helps break down the more mechanical aspects and endless cycles. Helps stuff come alive in fact.
Quote:Sometimes if their prejudice is because of a negative experience they have had with Mormons in the past the best you can do is just be a good example and hope with time they will judge you for who you are and not for your personal religious choices.
A lot of it’s ignorance and sensationalism. (I once had someone go round saying that my dog was going to be baptised) I don’t believe the LDS is the same as Scientology or the Moonies, although it can come across as authoritarian and I sometimes try to work out where we have space to move and time to be ourselves. I’ve never served a mission, and to be honest, it’s not something I particularly look forward to, even if I find my beliefs strengthening again. My attempts at evangelisation include tongue tied phrases like “Acts of the Epistles”, and losing my temper, or getting completely unexpected reactions. And I’m not a robot.
Heber13 mentions the JWs. Now, in this part of the world, Jehovah’s and Mormons are probably viewed in a similar light. That’s mainly because they go round knocking on doors. I don’t know much about the JWs, other than they too disagree with the notion of the Trinity, and have their equivalent of the WoW (and they don’t eat meat or get blood transfusions either). I’ve heard other things about them which are probably rumor. I have to admit that I don’t agree with their attitude towards medicine at all (ditto Christian Scientists) I also find their notion of 144,000 getting into heaven distasteful (at least Mormonism allows you more chance to get into heaven – if only Heaven 2.0 aka Terrestrial Kingdom). On the other hand, I am extremely moved about how they stood up to the Third Reich and were martyred for it.
MWallace57 wrote:I enjoy reading the BofM, but don’t feel the need to have a conviction about its origins, just its content.
My daughter found our favorite cat in an alley about 10 years ago. She was abandoned, cold, wet, hungry and about 2 weeks old. Can’t I just love her without worrying about how she came to be?
I do know where you’re coming from on this. I have similar feelings about evolution vs creation debate. Doesn’t the present mean as much as the past? And if we get too hung up on minutiae of things we don’t know, might we be missing the bigger picture?
I’m putting two replies in for this thread… another coming in a minute. nightwalden wrote:You mentioned on another thread that it bothers you to see people texting on the their phones at church. I use my phone to combat the boredom. But I also have the scriptures and hymns and lesson manuals on my phone. I don’t take scriptures to church much anymore because I have them on my phone. I guess that for me boredom transitions to being annoyed really quickly. Regurgitating old standards obviously isn’t the worst of what is presented at church but it still irks me some. So then I feel like I can either leave the meeting so I don’t get pissed off or I can retreat to my phone and hopefully the lesson or talk will change direction so I’m not so annoyed. So you would probably think I’m being irreverent but I am just doing my best to get what I can from church.
Well, to be fair in the instances I was thinking of, it was teenagers doing it on very clackety phones sending stuff to each other every two minutes. This was a while back, probably before internet on the phones and manuals etc.
nightwalden wrote:I am just honest with “gentiles.” I don’t make a big deal about anything. The only time it is an issue is if someone I meet has a bias against mormons. Most people are really respectful but you get the occasional person who isn’t. The people with biases generally believe (sometimes accurately) that mormons have an issue with them. Once they get to know me a little and realize that I have nothing against them, they’re cool. I worked in Massachusetts once with a woman married to another woman. I could tell that when she found out that I was mormon her demeanor towards me changed slightly because it altered the assumption she had made about me previously. But soon enough she realized that I had no problem with her or the choices that she made and it wasn’t an issue. There no longer needed to be an assumption, she knew me.
Honestly, I have a much more difficult time dealing with Mormons who are new to the East than I do with “gentiles.” I think mormons should try to do a better job at assimilating into their community.
Well, I think most people in this part of the woods know little about the church other than American guys in suits wandering around knocking on doors. And the Osmonds. Make of that what you will.
If someone asks about polygamy I won’t deny it. Blacks and gays, a bigger problem perhaps. Suffice to say I’m neither racist nor homophobe, but neither is a big deal to me as a person, because I don’t fall into either of these groups. (Although of course I do know some of each) The 1978 declaration at least resolves a lot of the race issue, the rest is history perhaps. Or I hope it is.
The other problem is our culture here revolves around drinking. And it’s hard not to socialise without pouring alcohol down your throat. It’s difficult to be sober amongst a bunch of drunks.
I have similar feelings about my schooling. I don’t generally tell people where I went to grade school, since I find people react to me differently. It was private, if you see where I’m coming from. The irony is I’m actually quite left wing myself, but people don’t understand that. Like Mormonism, once they pigeonhole you, you get all kinds of stuff and supposed views attached to you which you don’t want.
“Oh, you could also meditate and whatnot.”
(I know you were talking to someone else here) Actually I did meditate (empty my mind etc) the other day, so that I could handle the experience of meeting so many people.
I can’t add anything to the above really except to say that if the church wishes to avoid accusations of cultishness, then it probably should act as Elder Holland suggests. Purging doesn’t look good to the outside world. I did try life coaching briefly – if that’s the same thing – it didn’t really work for me, and it was costing me too much money. (I’m afraid the LC seemed to be only interested in people with a lot of money. I was going because I needed means to get a better job – amongst other things) Quote:the truth is, most of us have the symptoms of virtually all mental disorders, we just have them in small, short quantities.
I wish more of us would realise this…
