[swimordie]

I have to agree with jmb (that’s new, huh?) that just because it’s obvious to everyone that something is a good idea, doesn’t mean that this is “groupthink”. I think the smoking thing is a great example. 50 years ago it was propagated that smoking was good for you. Was it groupthink to foolishly follow the WoW? How about now? Everyone knows smoking is bad, is that now groupthink?

I feel that groupthink by definition is always bad because the point of it is to formalize the rejection of anything that goes against the thinking of the group.

Also, conformity is necessary in certain circumstances, however, it would be fascinating to see what the causes of those circumstances really were at their core. I’m feeling the devilish itch of potential discovery! 😈

[swimordie]

Actually, I agree with you on the “band together” part. The church wouldn’t exist today in its present form without that unity through lots of adversity.

However… this is not one of those times.

As jmb has pointed out several times, the church is under no threat, real or imagined. At least, not by the SSM issue. They ARE, however, putting themselves in the line of fire for their political activism. The Supreme Court for years has given broad license to religions being very politically active. So the church is most likely safe there. But, spending actual church funds on a political campaign forces the church to open itself up to lots of inquiries. If someone can find a plane ride that some GA took to CA that wasn’t reported and a court sees this as campaign expenditure and it wasn’t reported then a set of legal dominoes starts playing itself out. This happened famously in the late 80’s to Arizona Gov. Ev Meacham, who was LDS. His brother was campaign manager and money wasn’t reported properly and ultimately, he was impeached. The church is putting its tax-exempt status in danger by activating the extremely strict political contribution statutes both state and federal (especially CA).

And, this is where jmb’s question becomes so relevant. For what? Massachusetts has had SSM for almost six years now and what’s happened to them? Is there a rash of homosexuality breaking out in all of the elementary schools? Are people now marrying their dogs and horses? Are churches losing their tax-exempt status for not marrying gay couples?

I know everyone thinks that inter-racial marriage is a totally different thing. But why? When Loving v. Virginia was going through the courts, all of the same arguments against SSM were being used in that case. We’re all so proud of ourselves that we’re so racially sensitive that we now recognize how utterly preposterous those arguments were against inter-racial marriage. “But this is TOTALLY different.” Is it? Really? Why? (Sorry for the passionate sarcasm, I’m on one tonight )

The only threat to the church is self-imposed. We don’t know, really, the role of gender in the next life. 25% of heterosexual married couples can’t have children. Should their marriage be annulled for inability to procreate? Children raised in same-gender parent households identify as homosexual at the same rate as children in opposite-gender parent households.

I could go on but the illegitimate claims that were used 50 years ago against inter-racial marriage, and are now being resurrected, speak for themselves. (The above examples were asol used in the miscegenation debate, there were even clinical, medical studies commissioned by some white churches that showed that inter-racial couples were unable to procreate.)

I thought I was getting out of stage 3 too. Darn it! Oh, I know, “This is all just IMHFO”. There, back to stage 4.

[swimordie]

This is astonishing that you put this up Ray because I’d been thinking about this exact parable the last few days.

I was thinking about it in contrast with the Tree of Life parable/vision. For some reason, in my mind and heart, I see these two parables as polar opposites; one of unconditional love and the other of eternal life (and the love of Christ) being contingent on obedience (I know this is a narrow interpretation but it was used constantly in this paradigm my whole life in the church).

I think the story of the prodigal’s son is one of the most important insights which demonstrates to me the divinity of Jesus Christ.

[swimordie]

Makes perfect sense and I’m guessing most of the people here on this forum are here because of all of those questions you raised.

[swimordie]

Heber13 wrote:

What is this group’s take on this posting?

I’ll bite. (I think you do like to push buttons Heber )

The issue was not the “mormon vote” and the fact that this author would use that as some important aspect exposes his irrational bias.

The issue is the fact that over half of the money raised by the “Yes on 8” campaign/s was donated by members of the church. It’s hard to nail down a specific amount total as there were at least three very prominent “Yes” campaigns and the church did not direct members to a specific one, but did give the contact info to at least two of them. In CA, the number is somewhere between $7m and $12m (that can be documented, probably a much bigger number as many watchdog groups stopped counting on donations smaller than $5,000) And the church finally released it’s direct spending (in-kind) on the campaign and that number was $189,000. That’s from the church, not the members, but the actual CoJCoLDS.

Heber13 wrote:

The irony here is that had prop 8 lost, you would not see the kind of protests from the frustrated pro 8 folks.

This is not Heber’s quote but the “gentleman” that he was quoting.

Not sure if this writer is trying to seem unbiased or objective but this conjecture is insulting, at best. “The irony is that had Prop 8 lost, you would be writing about how horrible the world is, and these are the last days, and God will condemn the US like Sodom and Gommorah, etc., etc.”

His logic is absurd. (I swear I’m trying to be fair)

Heber13 wrote:

(I hope it doesn’t appear I’m trying to push any buttons or bash one way or another on the topic…I honestly find the whole set of events and the meaning behind them completely fascinating…I enjoy reading others’ comments on this).

Heber, now that the church has released it’s spending amount, how do you feel about it?

[swimordie]

Heber13 wrote:

Since I never lived and experienced this in CA or AZ, can you elaborate on how the church made you feel you would be a bad mormon if you voted against this? This is very interesting to me.

It definitely wasn’t that I would be a “bad” mormon (since my questioning of lots of “doctrine” already made me feel branded a “bad” mormon), although I’m sure this was the dilemma for lots of members. (at least the ones I talked with about it)

Rather, it was the choice I felt in my heart: follow Christ or follow the leaders of the church.

My decision to resign was much more a response to the politicizing of religion; I feel deeply the importance of keeping religion out of political public discourse. This separation guarantees religious liberty which is ironic because when religions become active in politics they are actually putting themselves at risk, especially in a representative republican form of government which guarantees individual liberty and sovereignty. Religion impugning on individual sovereignty through the machinations of politics is about as dangerous as it gets (Saudi Arabia, Soviet Union, et al).

Thus, I felt morally compelled to resign, and felt empowered by my knowledge that I was following Christ in this action.

As for protecting marriage, there is an option (which jmb elaborated on in an earlier post) that would guarantee both individual and religious liberty. By not choosing this option, the brethren are being cynical, ignorant, duplicitous, bigoted or some combination of these.

Cynical: they know of the option but don’t care.

Ignorant: they don’t know that this is an option.

Duplicitous: they know of this option and they know the doctrine of polygamy is still practiced yet choose to focus on opposing another version of “marriage”.

Bigoted: they know of this option but choose to deny it based on the idea that they feel that homosexuality is a sinful “choice”, therefore the concept of homosexuality makes an individual “bad” or unworthy, similar to the “sinful” choice of miscegenation or the “curse” of the dark skin. Hence, the official church stance of SSA being a type of “curse” or “disability”.

Lastly, this issue was driven home to me after finding out the story of Stuart Matis. http://www.newsweek.com/id/83973

This is an emotional story and, unfortunately, one that is being played out again and again in LDS communities all over the country.

[swimordie]

Sorry to double post but I just got this quote from a work email and thought it was fascinating and applied to this thread and probably others and would love to hear comments as it relates to this thread (and any others for that matter). It might not be a new idea to some but it really touched me, spiritually and intellectually.

“In Japan something can be right and wrong at the same time, something may be right in itself but wrong under the circumstances, instead of right / wrong there is the concept of fit, running from poor fit to a very exact fit.”

Edward Debono, I am right you are wrong, 1991

[swimordie]

mr_musicman wrote:

So the discussion is, when does “group think” go too far and where does it help? And, are “protests” really helpful in making a point about dissaffection?

Your question goes to the heart of why I resigned from the church. Obviously, in my case, (and in my mind) the “group think” around Prop 8 was devastating. As an example, the day I resigned our ward had stake visitors come to a combined PH/RS third hour and essentially hold a campaign rally/training for Prop 102 (same as Prop 8 but in AZ).

No one spoke up in dissent though apparently there were dissenters. I didn’t feel it was appropriate for me to speak up as I was holding my letter of resignation to give to the bishop at the end of the class/training/rally/whatever.

My “protest” was much more involved but I don’t think it made any point. I have the same question: Are protests helpful?

[swimordie]

Heber13 wrote:

jmb275 wrote:For me, if something is true it belongs in the church. If it’s false, it should be rooted out. But our method for determining truth (spiritual experiences, and revelation), IMHO, doesn’t have a real good track record in the history of the world.

Heber13 wrote:

In other words, maybe it is the practice that doesn’t have a good track record, not the truth which is understood more and more as we progress as a church and individually.

The two of you are WAY too smart for your britches! 😆

Doctrine that is “true” probably shouldn’t change but the interpretation thereof, may change…. I’m liking this.

Our finite understanding of eternal truth (whatever that is) should change with the advances of the human experience and species. It is adherence to a static belief system that tends to stunt this growth (along with a lack of free time to think about big philosophical things in hunter/gatherer societies or a lack of civic diversity and discourse in other cases).

But, if all truth can be made one great whole, this argues for a fluid, changing idea of the great whole of truth (not to be confused with the black hole of truth). Certainly truth cannot be made whole all at one time. This idea of being made whole is also the interpretation for ‘be ye therefore perfect”. Maybe it’s all a big test of how open we are individually to the fluid, changing idea of the great whole of truth. Is that being perfect?

[swimordie]

Valoel wrote:

Religions exist they way they are because they serve a purpose. They exist because people want them to be that way. They don’t have to be. I don’t think religions cause people to be in them. I think people sustain and cause religions to exist.

I think this is an excellent argument, at least from my perspective, because I see alot of people “thrive” in the TBM model or other orthodox model. It’s more about benchmark achievement than it is about spirituality though and the black and white view is reinforced by the religious system, “chosen people”.

This is still an outcome of tradition imo, when you have polls that say something like 60-80% of Americans still self-relate to the denomination of their parents and that most of the world is divided up into no more that five “religions” (with lots of variations in that): muslim, hindu, catholic, buddhist, non-catholic christian. Non-catholic christians are the only relatively “new” religion, with less than 1000 years of tradition. These five groups collectively make up well over 80% of the world’s population. (Might be closer to 90%)

I think that some of the founders of the U.S. saw the great experiment in government and self-rule that they were creating as a way to transcend this “tradition”. As children of the enlightenment, they sensed a potential for humans to get “past” religion as the exclusive purveyor of morality and, even, spirituality.

Perhaps some of us here at staylds.com are just as naive about these prospects as Jefferson, Paine, Franklin were. Not bad company though.

[swimordie]

I’m not gonna say anything about Books of Moses and Abraham, I just want to point out that one of the things that makes this forum so great (imho) is that everyone seems to recognize the proper context of their beliefs relative to reason. That may sound like an underhanded complement but it’s not. I really mean it and it’s amazingly refreshing.

Thank you all.

[swimordie]

johndehlin wrote:

We also need Judaism because of democracy itself does not create ethical behavior, nor does education alone make people moral. As recent American history has shown, being smart doesn’t make a person good and being free doesn’t make a person responsible. Conscience doesn’t function automatically.

I wonder if this is not an argument for tradition. Just because democracy and education aren’t enough to “make people moral” does that really mean religion is the only way? I’m sure this is only a part of the argument, but I feel like in some ways it’s a solution trying to find a problem. Like “Look, we have this whole religion with 3000 years of tradition from Moses to Sandy Koufax and it’s chock full of all these great ideas to get people to act ethically and morally, let’s just go with this so we don’t have to try to get people to move with something new”.

Just my thoughts, with a little “Big Lebowski” thrown in for good measure. 😆

[swimordie]

Alexia wrote:

I am just leery about being taken in by a false spirit of love, which is more of immediate pleasure or relief. If truth did not matter, some Peyote or Ecstasy, or a good fling may feel beautiful. Maybe the rules help people not make that mistake in the forming years.

I’m tempted to go into some dangerous waters here, so I’ll tread lightly. Alexia, I’m very sensitive to your plight right now, as I mentioned in a previous post, someone extremely close to me is going through it all at the same time too: divorce, bankruptcy, job loss, leaving church, all in the last six months.

There was a time in my life when I discovered that the truth for me, was completely internal. In a sense, it felt like it was just me and God. Literally, everything else took on a level of importance for me as I let it.

I chose the truth for me, I chose the love I would share, I chose what was right and wrong, I made all the rules.

I let myself accept and believe that I am a good person. As such, I would never choose to harm anyone or offend God. I’m not saying I’m perfect or I’m going to be perfect, but my intentions are always for the loving, for the sharing, for the joyous.

I know that God loves me and knows my heart. So, why shouldn’t I be the one who makes the rules? I’m not going to make them wrong. I’m not going to make them for selfish reasons. I’m going to make them as a part of my journey, to mark the path that I’m following, partly to show where I’ve come from but also to recognize the moments of love, joy, peace, intimacy, or depression, angst, bitterness that teach me how to better calibrate the rules I give to myself.

What I’m trying to say is, embrace the good, embrace God, embrace life, embrace yourself. You know what works for you. Make your own rules. Break all the other ones that you didn’t make and wouldn’t make. Go crazy. Sometimes, I think God wants us to just say WTF.

For me, truth is personal, internal. I’m irreverent by nature and God loves me for it!

[swimordie]

asha wrote:

I for one have heard all of these before… like you I am just getting better at tuning it out. There also seems to be a great fear in the church that if you leave your life will be miserable and unhappy.

I don’t know if this is appropriate to say but… if you want a counter example:

Since I resigned last year, I’ve felt more peace, joy, contentment, happiness, intimacy, and love than I did in the previous 12 years of TBM, temple marriage-dom combined. It probably has nothing to do with the church , but that’s been my experience thus far.

[swimordie]

Old-Timer wrote:

I agree, but I also think individual leaders need to do a better job of listening, reading, and humbly accepting in areas such as this. It’s amazing the difference between those who do and those who don’t.

Sometimes it just sucks to be human and have to deal with other humans.

Truer words have never been spoken. Maybe the listening, reading, accepting part is what the training should be about instead of leaving it up to the local leader to just figure it out in time, hopefully, God-willing, etc.

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