[wonderasiwander]

This is exactly where I am caught. I cannot seem to find a middle ground: If there is a God and Christ is his Son, then Mormonism is true solely because it fills in many holes that are obviously missing from Biblical doctrine. Conversely, however, if Mormonism is not “true” then there is no God and EVERYTHING is a lie. Additionally, if the Book of Mormon is fake and made up (which I go back and forth on regularly), then Mormonism is NOT true and is ALL fake and made up.

I can’t seem to find my way around this. It really, really sucks.

[wonderasiwander]

Thanks for sharing this. I really enjoyed it and found comfort in the meandering path through faith that was taken in the life of the author. So many of us here have encountered the same obstacles and frustrations and I’m not sure that many have been able to have the patience that Sam MB had to work through them.

Quote:

My path from general theism to specific Mormonism represented a series of choices and commitments made, a network of relationships on which God’s seal rested.

Quote:

By acts of my divinely affirmed choosing, Mormonism has been my life these last two decades.

This idea–the idea that we CHOOSE what to believe–is one that I have come to terms with in the past few months. In the past, my faith was obvious to me; born not so much out of choice as an inevitable conclusion based on the way I was raised and the information presented to me at the time. Now that I have reached a point in my life where the evidences are not so clear and the presence of conflicting information abundant, I have realized that my faith is NOT inevitable–that I, in fact, must CHOOSE to believe it or not.

I would like to believe, like the author, that my choices are “divinely affirmed.” I’m not quite there yet. But I know that the choices that I have made so far–to remain in the Church and focus on what I DO believe rather than on what I don’t–has brought me peace at a time when peace of mind is very scarce.

[wonderasiwander]

It’s interesting that this is one of the main point that mainstream “Christians” use to point out that Mormons aren’t really one of them. Not believing that God and Christ are one and the same, we differentiate between the two and therein lies a HUGE difference. To mainstream Christians, worshipping Jesus IS the SAME as worshiping God. There is no difference. For us, we see them as two distinct and different personages and then it gets a bit tricky as to who or which one we should be spending more time cultivating a relationship with.

The way I see it–my Heavenly Father is who I pray to–he knows and loves me unconditionally and it is because of Him that I exist. But Christ is the key to our salvation–he will advocate for us. If we don’t have some kind of a testimony and/or relationship with him, then we are lost. Not only that, but if you believe in the Bible, it is Christ words (okay, so God speaking through Christ) that we look to for comfort and direction.

My belief in Christ is actually greater than my belief in God at this time (I know that sounds really weird) because at least I know that Christ actually lived on the earth and can be proven to have existed. Lame, but I’m going with what works right now. LOL

I actually feel that Mormons don’t focus ENOUGH on Christ and his atonement. We rely too much on our own works (and focus way too much on Joseph Smith, but that’s another post).

…Maybe it would be a lot easier if we just up and adopted the Nicene Creed and simplified the whole thing. 🙄

[wonderasiwander]

hawkgrrrl wrote:

Wonderasiwander – Check out the discussions on MBTI as well. http://www.staylds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=568&hilit=mbti” class=”bbcode_url”>http://www.staylds.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=9&t=568&hilit=mbti That might be helpful. Based on your description, you sound like an NT (rational type). This is a pretty rare type in society as well as at church (often labelled “intellectuals”) – you will find many of them here for similar reasons to what you describe. Yet, as an NT, I can also state that I really have come to enjoy church and am comfortable with my own level of belief. While there aren’t many people I relate to there (or lots of places), I do realy like some of the unique LDS doctrines that are quite intellectual for a religion (e.g. theosis, degrees of glory, etc.)

I agree with you about the intellectual LDS doctrines. It is another reason why I don’t think I would ever fit in any other church–it would feel like a “step backwards” for me. There are many tenets that I actually believe in, especially some of the “deeper doctrine” that no one talks about anymore. They have helped keep me active and given me hope during this dark time. It is hard for me to believe that those “pearls of great price” were just the result of an active imagination…

[Author]

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