[Stephies]

The trailer alone gives me goosebumps. Very much looking forward to watching that. Thanks for the tip!

A movie that also covers the same topic (sort of) is “Kreuzweg” (“Stations of the Cross”). It’s one of my favorites. Not sure how similar it is to Apostasy, or how relatable it is to LDS, though. Was quite a while ago that I watched it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DeHiT4e4LZ0

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3465916/

[Stephies]

They even posted it on the LDS FB-page (or, do they do that with every blog post?). I don’t always delve deep into everything they post on the LDS FB-page but, I tend to :clap: quite often just by looking at the titles/what they post.

The comments on it weren’t all that bad either. Many people seemed to agree with the article (although some didn’t).

:clap: :clap: :clap:

[Stephies]

I like it, a lot (everything at suicide.lds.org).

As someone who’s currently dealing with suicidal thoughts (and have racked up 6+ attempts in the past 2 years, most of which I survived from by sheer “luck”… or divine intervention… I don’t know)… I can’t help but think “meh”. I’ve had “random church people” try to “help” me in the past with my mental health issues. I’ve mostly felt worse after their “pep talks”. Because it’s usually the same sh*** people outside of church say, with some “Gospel-sprinkles” on top.

Oh well. I’m grateful that people care, regardless of what they say in their “pep-talks”. And I’m happy that the Church cares enough to do stuff like this. I guess there’s not much more church/random church people can do. At least they’re trying.

[Stephies]

I’m not sure how I will act in priesthood-meetings and such, but I’ll try my hardest to “speak up” with respect to the orthodoxy. A few days ago someone posted a long quote from RMN in our wards facebook group. He quoted some passage in the Book of Mormon where Jesus says “those who do not follow my commandments will never come to heaven” or something like that. I didn’t read RMNs speech or listen to it, but I replied anyway.

I pointed out that there are “contradicting” verses in the Bible, in Romans, for example. But I ALSO pointed out that the Bible has some parables which pretty clearly says “some people do not go to heaven”, and I finished it all with saying “I’m not saying RMN is wrong, and I don’t have any “answers” on this “issue”. I just want to “raise a thought” ”

I think that would be my approach on things such as this. Because in reality, I try to “conform” to the group. I try to be “agreeable” because I’m afraid of conflict … but simply saying nothing, feels like it’ll do little benefit in the long run. The people who will dislike me for having differing opinions are probably not my friends anyway. If me “saying what I think” leads to “disciplinary action” (“warnings”) I’d have to reconsider my approach, but… Eh.

I haven’t been to church for months (95% sure I’m going tomorrow though, for the first time in a long time)… But from what I remember, I found the priesthood meetings where people “disagreed” to be more interesting than when everyone just sat there and nodded for 45 min. Our quorum president did try his best to make people “say what they think”, but I think many people have a hard time saying what they think. The Church is definitely “authoritarian” in many ways (which is both a good and bad thing), which probably encourages “yes-sir” behaviour and discourages discussion.

The problem with “yes-sir”-behaviour on a large scale is that we’ll never develop as a group. We’ll just stick to our old ways, because everyone is too afraid of “getting kicked out”. On doctrinal issues this might be a bit complex, but the behaviour seems to exist even when it comes to non-doctrinal things. I remember some discussion regarding home-teaching (or whatever it’s called nowadays). Some people had some very good ideas on how to make the system better (not “as a whole” but rather how we did things locally), but there was a lot of conservatism in the group as well. But I guess that’s how every group works. There’s the progressive people and there’s the conservative people. Everyone is needed in the greater scheme of things, because the conservative person and the progressive person complements each other. At least… if they are able to “negotiate”, or if there are people “in the middle” who can negotiate.

Feels like I de-railed a lot now but… Eh. It’s a tough topic. I’m more inclined to stay silent than to say anything in class situations, but I’ll try my best to open my mouth more often… Because I do think I have good things to say. But I guess that’s easy for me to say now, perhaps not so easy to do tomorrow… 😆

[Stephies]

dande48: Thanks. To be honest I don’t really feel like I have much spare time on my hands. I probably have plenty of time, but I always feel as if I have no time. I’m studying to become a nurse (I’m in a non-english speaking country, but the equivalent would be “RN/Registered nurse”… 3 years of university studies, I’m about half-way through), and the constant pressure of having to study for exams drains a lot of my energy. I have a very hard time keeping a schedule and sticking to it when it comes to studying on my own, since well… “Depressive episodes” hit pretty regularly, and I get caught up in doing other things, and then I feel even more stressed out about the upcoming exams… Oh well.

(Might undermine depression as a diagnosis to call my “low-mood-episodes” “depressive”, but… Eh. My moodswings can be quite extreme… “life with BPD” can be rough sometimes)

I go to the gym regularly, I try to spend time reading the scriptures, I spend way too much time on YouTube… Eh. In short: I feel like I “don’t have time” for actual hobbies, yet I spend tons of time doing non-productive things anyway. My “actual hobbies” (“that I don’t have time for”) would probably be… writing on Wikipedia (on my “local Wiki” I’ve made over 5000 edits), playing accordion / singing / writing music, creative writing, politics, “culture-consumtion” (anime/movies/music/theatre/art/dance/…), video games… I have WAY too many interests. Since my life has been “lonely” forever (bullied when I was young, and a very complicated/unpleasant family situation led to me being a “shut-in” until I started university) my way of dealing with life has been to “flee” from the world and delve into (non-social) hobbies. Nowadays it’s a bit tougher though. It was easy to “flee from the world and delve into hobbies” when I was younger, but nowadays it’s not so easy anymore.

Thanks. Don’t think my computer can run DS3 though, I don’t even have a GPU 😆

But MANY thanks, anyway! I really appreciate it.

Roy: Thanks for the reply. Unhappily married seems like a nightmare. Being single might not be the ideal way of lving, but I guess it could be worse / I guess there are “upsides” to being single too… I’m not much of an optimist though. Or rather: I struggle trying to be optimistic about things. But oh well. I’m trying my best.

Old Timer: Thanks. That poem surely is some “food for thought”. I’ll have to re-read that many, many times before I can “comment on it”, I think.

“Constantly searching” feels like the title of my life, in a way.

[Stephies]

Thanks for the replies.

You have a good point, nibbler, regarding “true testimony”. “No true Scotsman” was a new thing to me – thanks for sharing. I think what I’m thinking of is “I need to be comfortable with my own faith, instead of simply being a ‘yes-man'”. I don’t know what kind of view I have/will have regarding the core LDS beliefs, I just hope I’ll get to a place where I can believe most of it, and “accept” the other things. Maybe not as (100%) truthful, but as useful.

I remember watching Andrei Tarkovsky’s movie “The Sacrifice”, and early on in the movie there is some kind of discussion around “truth”. One of the characters says “it’s an absurd idea to think that humans could ever comprehend ‘truth'”. I guess it’s a no-brainer (and although I haven’t read it yet – isn’t the book of Job centered around this topic too? The human inability to understand God? Ah, whatever.), but the context in which it was said made it feel like it was “mind blowing”. The movie is somewhat christian (IIRC) but it’s rather strange (like all other Tarkovsky movies). /somewhat off-topic

You’re probably right that “testimony” = “loyalty to the church”. I sometimes wondered, when someone recieved a calling and the ward was supposed to have a “vote”… How many actually asked God about it? I think most people just raise their hand out of loyalty, rather than belief. Maybe it’s a bit similar when it comes to testimonies. People say all those nice words moreso out of loyalty than out of belief (but it’s probably a mix). Which is probably not such a bad thing. If all members stay loyal to the church, the unity of the church stays strong. At least I feel like it would make sense for it to work like that.

DarkJedi, I’ve thought about that too (the “church-wide” tendency to baptize people quickly)… It probably has more to do with tradition/culture than an actual “belief” that ASAP is the best way to go. Or maybe there is some theological reason behind the tradition. I dunno.

Regarding the BoM-thing, yeah, you’re right. I haven’t read all that much in the Bible yet, but I’m definitely far from comfortable with everything I’ve read so far.

Dande48: I met my ex through church. Had never seen her before. Us getting to know each other was pretty much as simple as her being very friendly to me, me falling in love with her almost immidiately, and then we started dating. It was far from easy though, even when we “got together” she probably had tons of doubts regarding me. Oh well. I think she made my FC more difficult than it already was, due to her being very agnostic regarding many things. She still remains active though, so her beliefs remain a mystery to me.

Laughed quite a bit to your “Bible summary”. Thanks 😆 :clap:

Yeah… Humans will be humans. You’re right.

Roy: Gosh, that was a very striking parable (orphan dating a girl with a big family) 😥

Many thanks for the advice. I definitely “should” take things easy, but unfortunately my emotional mind is seldom as rational as your advice. In a way I can’t “avoid” my tendency to fall in love with people/get attached to people, nor can I avoid my tendency to get attached to other “external things”… But I can try to do the best of the situation I’m in, try to “manage my emotions” as best as possible, try to be patient, live a decent life, etc… I can try.

But it’s definitely difficult. I can “learn to live with my loneliness”, but I don’t think I can be “fully satisfied” living like this. One of the things I “learned” from being in a relationship is that… No matter how hard it was, it was still a million times better than not having anyone. Ugh. My PoV on things like these shift a lot from one day to another. Right now I’m about to burst out into tears over everything. Tomorrow might be better. Or worse. One day at a time…

[Stephies]

Even during my (brief) “swallow everything that was told”-period, I couldn’t really buy the whole “good feeling” = “The Spirit”. Because, well… I’m “hypersensitive” emotionally. I’ve been diagnosed with BPD, even (although I’d argue I’m 60+% “cured”), so I rarely trust my feelings very much. In DBT (the “go-to” therapy form for BPD), we learn to use our so called “wise mind”. Instead of relying only on emotion in a given moment, we try to conciously “plug in” our rational thinking as well, so that we can make better decisions.

I don’t think I can effectively learn how to distinguish The Sprit from my emotions and/or “wise mind”. But I don’t think it matters. Just like I don’t think it matters for me to be able to distinguish blessings from luck/results of my own effort/randomness/etc. I still believe in The Spirit and blessings, though.

The quote is nice. I think it’s fine if people think of good feelings = the spirit, but it’s problematic if that “norm” leads to some people feeling like they’re being “left out” / “doing something wrong” / etc.

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