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Christ didn’t treat non-members with any less love or respect. Treat your girlfriend the same way. Do what makes you happy! Matt, thanks for sharing your journey. I feel your pain very acutely. Its a heart-breaking, no-win situation. I too take my faith journey very seriously. If there is a God and this life is my only chance to find and live according to this truth, then I need to be able to find it! I need to question, weigh evidence, and try to prove it wrong in order to know if it is right. I have to find truth. If I can’t find it here, then I need to keep looking somewhere else. Eternity could be riding on this.
To be honest, I’m getting discouraged, and am starting to think that God either doesn’t exist, or doesn’t care what we believe or do. He sure doesn’t make it clear.
One more: Active Mormons comprise about 1/10th of 1% of the total world population or just 1 in 1000. Why do you think that God allows the vast majority of his children to be born and raised in ignorance to his true gospel and necessary ordinances? Why has that been the case throughout history as well? Ask whether they feel the peer-review process is the best way to find errors or problems with scholarship. If not, can they suggest a preferred method for vetting scholarship? With so many different religions full of people who regularly have religious experiences, how do we find truth? journeygirl wrote:Old-Timer wrote:That’s largely because I don’t belong to the Church; it belongs to me.
Love this, Ray!
I like this too. To be frank though, the problem for me is that being the kind of Mormon I want to be makes others look down on me and that makes me unhappy to be judged to be “less valiant” because I can’t keep my integrity and continue to teach and testify like I used to. I just can’t get excited about home teaching, missionary work, leadership training meetings etc. I guess I need to let go of my desires to be admired and be content with being looked down on by friends and associates.The other problem I am struggling with is, do I want this kind of life for my kids, being stuck in the middle? I can’t raise them to be TBMs. I don’t want them to have to go through what I am going through. If it would be better off if they were never LDS, should we just bite the bullet and pull out now?
Anyway, I think the church is good for kids in general. For now I am planning on staying solidly in the church as a non-believer who reinterprets temple recommend interview questions. I try to do damage control at home. But the above questions are always in my mind.
It is clear from the research that being gay is part of your DNA. Would God make you the way you are, then hate you for it? He loves you and wants you to be happy. Go, be free, find happiness. The church is clearly wrong on this issue, just like they were wrong about blacks and the priesthood. They will recant their position eventually, I’m sure of it. I’m also ashamed to admit that I was taught to be, and was biased for part of my life. I also apologize to you and others who I was taught to be intolerant toward.
Embrace being gay! Its who you are! God made you this way on purpose! He loves you how you are! You might think about moving somewhere out of state and trying to start a new life. Maybe start looking for a new job. Take the leap to reboot your life. I hope you find happiness, love, and even marriage someday soon.
Its ironic that their reaction to your talk was exactly what your talk was about. They are like the Pharisees, trying to strain a gnat and swallowing a camel. Keep up the good work brother. I hope to be as brave of a defender of truth as you are someday soon. He calls you to email someone? It would be easier to just email that person himself. Good for you for drawing boundaries where you need them to be. He can accept those boundaries or get someone else. You still have a big ward with plenty of people. Americans aren’t inherently more deserving of economic prosperity than Mexicans are. The heart of anti-immigration policies is that we need to protect ourselves by not allowing them opportunities. Let them in. I completely sympathies with your struggle. I don’t have any answers myself, but I’m glad your here. No judgement from us. None of us fit well in a true believing Mormon crowd. Christ put his arms around the sinners like me and you, and asked people not to judge them. He preferred to hang out with sinners to piously talking about people in Ward Welfare meetings. God loves us. Feel free to love yourself. If you hate yourself you make the whole process worse for everybody and you appear more guilty than you are. Choose to be cheerful, and redouble your efforts to be selfless and loving. Put your family first, your long term happiness is tied to them more than anyone else.
If I have a Heavenly Father, then I have a Heavenly Mother. If God is loving, kind, gentle, and vulnerable, my Heavenly Mother will be even more so. I trust that She will be nothing like the vindictive, jealous, needy, intolerant, and sometimes just mean God that is described in the Old Testament. I imagine She is nothing but peace, love, tolerance, and acceptance. Based on these definitions, losing my temple recommend would make my bishop, me, my family, and my friends unhappy. If I couldn’t attend my daughter’s temple wedding that would make everybody extremely unhappy and is therefore wrong of me to do. Therefore I have come to the conclusion that the least sinful and most moral thing for me to do is to be less than honest about my lack of faith with my bishop in my temple recommend interviews. I feel a little bad about it, because I try to have integrity, but I think the best thing to do is hurt the fewest people.
