199 replies to this topic

[wenglund]

reelmormon, on 27 April 2012 - 04:10 PM, said:

If your speaking to me, I have no problem with it but many have left the church when finding out that almost all nonmormon scholars identify it as having nothing to do with what Joseph gave as a translation and instead say it is a standard funeral text as you know.  And yes I know it is likely some of the papyri are missing... again... not an issue to me but it is to many

Okay, but what, where, and when do you propose be said about this subject in the Church curriculum that isn't already being said? What more needs to be said about it in order for you to think the gospel is being presented in a more "realistic way"?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[why me]

reelmormon, on 27 April 2012 - 04:10 PM, said:

If your speaking to me, I have no problem with it but many have left the church when finding out that almost all nonmormon scholars identify it as having nothing to do with what Joseph gave as a translation and instead say it is a standard funeral text as you know.  And yes I know it is likely some of the papyri are missing... again... not an issue to me but it is to many

I think that most mormons know that we don't have the original papyri. And we don't. I think that the abraham thing is simple: we have a book. The book contains words. How did these words come about? There can be two ways: Joseph made a translation from a text or he wrote it himself. And these are the two choices that members need to make. As I understand it much of the papyri is lost in a fire. If so, how to prove it one way or the other? Now it would be great to have a papyri that matched JS's translation. That would be a real faith booster and many exmormons would be in the fold because there would be evidence and people seem to need evidence these days at the expense of faith.

Edited by why me, 29 April 2012 - 01:42 PM.

[DBMormon]

Quote

Anyway, I do appreciate the exploration you are doing reelmormon, but I'm just throwing out my experience here, too, for it's two cents or less .

Thank you for your words

[DBMormon]

Quote

Okay, but what, where, and when do you propose be said about this subject in the Church curriculum that isn't already being said? What more needs to be said about it in order for you to think the gospel is being presented in a more "realistic way"?

I don't know wenglund.... I don't know how in a faithful way and without getting on a tangent, you allow members to see there is another side of this issue and you be the one to present it so later on they don't feel hoodwinked.  Book of Abraham has been a testimony killer for many... and yet if we only tell the faithful side of the story people will continue to feel like the church is shielding them from having all the info.   I wish I knew a perfect solution.... I only know that I hate seeing some leave the church over an issue that seems preventable..... I know preventable how?  We shall see the church's attempt soon at better telling it's history as new manuals come out and a better framework
arrives.

Edited by reelmormon, 29 April 2012 - 04:42 PM.

[Log]

Maidservant, on 29 April 2012 - 09:00 AM, said:

*** i.e. I am made to feel that being a Mormon, and choosing to be a Mormon, is an invalid experience

Please don't lose heart.  We are paying a dear price to know God, and the price we pay is looking foolish in the eyes of the worldly, bearing their scorn and censure.  Sometimes, even, this scorn and censure comes from those who style themselves brothers and sisters in Christ.

Remember the barbs of the Adversary when the Savior hung upon the cross, bearing the sins of all mankind, in his hour of faith crisis: "If thou be the Son of God, save thyself!" That is, they made out as if his knowledge of his divinity was invalid in his greatest trial.  As he bore the stripes, slurs, insults, and arrogance of his brothers and sisters whom he was there to save, and endured in faithfulness to the end, so should we likewise bear the cross of the world.

Edited by Log, 29 April 2012 - 04:54 PM.

[wenglund]

reelmormon, on 29 April 2012 - 04:42 PM, said:

I don't know wenglund.... I don't know how in a faithful way and without getting on a tangent, you allow members to see there is another side of this issue and you be the one to present it so later on they don't feel hoodwinked.  Book of Abraham has been a testimony killer for many... and yet if we only tell the faithful side of the story people will continue to feel like the church is shielding them from having all the info.   I wish I knew a perfect solution.... I only know that I hate seeing some leave the church over an issue that seems preventable..... I know preventable how?  We shall see the church's attempt soon at better telling it's history as new manuals come out and a better framework arrives.

A key to find a good solution, let alone a perfect one, is to correctly understand the problem--which includes, as previously intimated, accurately accessing where the problem actually lies and the cause thereof.

I submit that those who claim to have been "hoodwinked" by the Church, or not sufficiently informed, and who blame the Church for their loss of faith, either don't correctly understand their problem, and/or they are looking for a scapegoat. I hope to demonstrate this by pressing the point with those, such as yourself, who are advocating the "hoodwinked" or "lack of information" position, using Dehlin's list you suggested.

So, please describe for me exactly how the Book of Abraham has been a "testimony killer," and let's dig deeper into those supposed claims to see what and who may really be the problem. Once we rationally ascertain what and who are the real problem, we can then test your proposed solution to see if it is what is best. Deal?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[DBMormon]

when one encounters for the first time that the Book of Abraham is a standard funeral text and sees that those outside the church see Joseph translating to known unrelated egyptian document into some religious christian book.  The member who has an issue with  this issue sees joseph faking a translation and history showing that the document he worked with was not a record of Abraham at all but some standard funeral text burried with numerous egyptians.  Don't defend the issue as again not something I struggle with.... We are simply dealing with the perception others have who do have a faith crisis here.  I believe this is addressed by the church stating in some way along the way that the record we have is a standard funeral text and regardless of what we have there is an inspired document that has come from it.  I also think we need to do a  better job helping people see the difference between translation and transmission  and help them see that in transmission it is possible to have an object create the question that god answers through revelation without the onject having a direct correlation.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Log wrote:

Quote

RM's issue, as he said in the other thread, was that his spiritual witness - the manifestation of the Spirit to him - was that what he was being taught about the Church was true: all of it. And yet he found out subsequently that the Church's version of history is, to his appreciation, vastly oversimplified.

This seems to be a mess of confusion for me. Part of the problem that I see in this idea is that it is based on the notion that the church is somehow different. Not different in that the church is true (more on that maybe in a moment), but different in that somehow the church becomes completely foreign to the rest of our experience. Our entire lives we go through this process. And its not just true of things like religion and faith. We learned in grade school about Newtonian physics, only to discover later that this is in many ways a vastly oversimplified explanation (particularly if we encounter relativity and quantum mechanics). Yet, we don't hear that this is the great failure of our educational system, or that, because we were taught that Newtonian physics is accurate, but we find out later that it is vastly oversimplified, suddenly everything we learned in grade school is now suspect. There is, of course more going on than what you are portraying. (I might even suggest that reelmormon's own portrayal of himself and his experience is "vastly oversimplified").

We also have the clear reality that not everyone who discovers that the church's version of its history is vastly oversimplified is affected in this way. In fact, many people who encounter this seem to accept it in much the same way that we accept this kind of issue in other places in our lives. We incorporate the new information into our knowledge without it having these kinds of implications. So either there is something inherently different about reelmormon and others who respond in the same fashion, or reelmormon is encountering the information in a different way (or both).

My suggestion has been (quite consistently) that reelmormon's encounter with history hasn't just been an encounter with history, but also an encounter with a narrative of how to understand that history. And he has adopted the narrative as well as accepting various historical interpretations. This comes through very clearly when, for example, he described a faith crisis as cognitive dissonance (a term that is used and abused in this same way w  frequently among certain groups of people - but never at all among certain other groups - i.e. you would read it all over the place on Shade's board, but never hear it in church). At the same time, we get these lists - and these lists are also quite popular in those same circles. And then we couple this with the response - which is the kind of demand I can find in many places from this same group of people. This implies that these demands are also a part of the narrative. In a sense, his being here, and making these demands (without being able to do more than tell us that something must be done) is simply a way for him to reinforce his idea that this narrative is accurate.

In these situations, the issue is never really about the facts. Reelmormon seems almost disinterested in discussing individual issues. He does like to bring them up in certain ways, but that is, for him, often the end of the discussion. It's not about defending a fact or an interpretation, its about defending the narrative. As I note from the last post that he provided:

Quote

Don't defend the issue as again not something I struggle with.... We are simply dealing with the perception others have who do have a faith crisis here.

What is inescapable in this scenario is the notion that the church is being a hindrance, a stumbling block and a problem for people's faith because it doesn't reveal the other side. How is the church supposed to respond in these models when we dig down and discover that the other side is a fictional misrepresentation of history? How should the church respond to this narrative when it wants to make things seem of the essence that are in reality trivial and inconsequential?

Ben M.

[wenglund]

reelmormon, on 30 April 2012 - 10:07 AM, said:

When one encounters for the first time that the Book of Abraham is a standard funeral text and sees that those outside the church see Joseph translating to known unrelated egyptian document into some religious christian book.  The member who has an issue with  this issue sees joseph faking a translation and history showing that the document he worked with was not a record of Abraham at all but some standard funeral text buried with numerous Egyptians.

Obviously, the Church doesn't view it that way and even teaches to the contrary and has provided a spiritual means, consistent with the Church's intent and purposes, to confirm what it teaches.

Clearly, then, if certain members views things this way (which is their prerogative), it is nevertheless in contravention to what the Church teaches and provides as a means for growth in faith.

In other words, if certain members view things this way, it is of their own making, and a result of their departing from Church teachings and their following their own ways (man's ways).

Since they are the problem, and not the Church, then the solution should focus on them, and not the Church. Right?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

Benjamin McGuire, on 30 April 2012 - 10:29 AM, said:

My suggestion has been (quite consistently) that reelmormon's encounter with history hasn't just been an encounter with history, but also an encounter with a narrative of how to understand that history.

To me, this is a critical point that can't be emphasized too much. The difference between those who grow in faith and those who may lose faith isn't so much a function of exposure to certain historical data as it is a function of how we each individually process the historical data.

The question may then become: "Is there something the Church might do better to help certain individuals learn to process the data in a faith-promoting rather than a faith-demoting way?"

I don't know, nor am I in a position to say or do anything about it.

However, a more relevant question here may be: "Is there something each individual might do and learn for themselves, if they wish, to better insure that they process the data in a faith-promoting way?"

I believe there is.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Darth_Bill]

From Ben M.

At the same time, we get these lists - and these lists are also quite popular in those same circles. And then we couple this with the response - which is the kind of demand I can find in many places from this same group of people. This implies that these demands are also a part of the narrative.

Not necessarily. It may be that the same things bother certain people. The lists are based on the church. You wouldn't necessarily see transubstantiation on these lists, because that doesn't bother many LDS. I might have some things on my list because they are unique to the LDS church's history.  I have a problem with Abraham trying to sacrifice his son. That would go on the LDS list and christianity in general. My list has more items on christianity's "list" than anything LDS.

From Wade:
The question may then become: "Is there something the Church might do better to help certain individuals learn to process the data in a faith-promoting rather than a faith-demoting way?"

Sometimes you will still get someone to say "You know, this is crazy." at some point. I accepted a lot of what JS did but now, I have some problems with it. The narrative didn't really change, just my acceptance of it.  That doesn't mean I blame the church for it, other than it really doesn't talk about it.

[wenglund]

Darth_Bill, on 30 April 2012 - 11:19 AM, said:

Sometimes you will still get someone to say "You know, this is crazy." at some point. I accepted a lot of what JS did but now, I have some problems with it. The narrative didn't really change, just my acceptance of it.  That doesn't mean I blame the church for it, other than it really doesn't talk about it.

Hi Darth,

I appreciate your thoughtful response.

If you don't mind, I think it might be instructive to examine your narrative (i.e. your response to the historical data). Could you pick one example from the history of Joseph Smith where you said to yourself, "this is crazy," and tell us:

1. What criteria you used to deem it "crazy"?
2. What impact, if any, the "craziness" had on your view of Joseph as a prophet and the verity of the restored gospel of Christ?
3. And, could you explain why it impacted you in that way?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[Maidservant]

Log, on 29 April 2012 - 04:50 PM, said:

Please don't lose heart.  We are paying a dear price to know God, and the price we pay is looking foolish in the eyes of the worldly, bearing their scorn and censure.  Sometimes, even, this scorn and censure comes from those who style themselves brothers and sisters in Christ.

Remember the barbs of the Adversary when the Savior hung upon the cross, bearing the sins of all mankind, in his hour of faith crisis: "If thou be the Son of God, save thyself!" That is, they made out as if his knowledge of his divinity was invalid in his greatest trial.  As he bore the stripes, slurs, insults, and arrogance of his brothers and sisters whom he was there to save, and endured in faithfulness to the end, so should we likewise bear the cross of the world.

Thanks .

Darth_Bill, on 30 April 2012 - 11:19 AM, said:

I have a problem with Abraham trying to sacrifice his son.

I like how mercyngrace approaches this, and it helped me tremendously.  I cannot remember what thread otherwise I would provide the link.  But mercyngrace expressed that the Abraham story can show a transition from a God that asks for blood sacrifice, to the God that provides for us without such a thing.  This is my very bad paraphrase, she said it much better.

= = = = =

[Darth_Bill]

wenglund, on 01 May 2012 - 07:39 AM, said:

Hi Darth,

I appreciate your thoughtful response.

If you don't mind, I think it might be instructive to examine your narrative (i.e. your response to the historical data). Could you pick one example from the history of Joseph Smith where you said to yourself, "this is crazy," and tell us:

1. What criteria you used to deem it "crazy"?
My disaffection didn't start with JS. It started with a some personal events and my investigation of the logic and rationality of the atonement. The problems (like Abraham and Isaac) became more problematic because if that happened today, we would call Abraham crazy and he would be hospitalized. What JS did with polygamy would be investigated by several federal agencies and also be termed inappropriate. Yes, I might be guilty of presentism, and I'm okay with that. I live in the present. If God tried to interact this way with me today, I would run to counseling. Ultimately, I just became tired of the excuses and justifications. I know what they are, as I've been here for a long time. I just don't want to deal with my own unbelief among the believers anymore. (And yet, here I am....looking for something interesting.)
2. What impact, if any, the "craziness" had on your view of Joseph as a prophet and the verity of the restored gospel of Christ?
I lost faith in the gospel as a whole, in that I couldn't accept the premises of christianity any longer. Without the premises, restored or not doesn't matter.
3. And, could you explain why it impacted you in that way?
Not sure, as I've tolerated it for many, many years. It just wasn't making my happy any longer, nor could I convince myself that I was happy any longer. My life has not changed at all, other than I don't go to church all that much. No major "sins", no desires to "sin". My mind is a lot quieter now.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[DBMormon]

It is amazing how each of us are pogrammed, or how we individually see the world.  Faith is such a tricky thing.  I could share multiple spiritual experiences I have had.  Each demostrating to me in a very real way, that God lives and loves us.  I have had some that dealt directly with the truth of Mormonism.... and yet I find myself almost daily asking "help thou my unbelief" and he does... and then a day later I am right back to the same problem.  to me there is a spiritual and logical side to things.
Spiritual
- my life is blessed as I serve in the church
- I feel really good when active in the gospel
- I feel a real relationship with God
- answers to prayer do come and have been answered.
- real spiritual experiences such as audible answers to prayers, very specific dreams that had to be from God.
- see the direct correlation between moving towards God and blessing and happiness that come from it
- I could list dozens and dozens more

Logical  (for me, I know some of you see this in an absolute opposite way)
- my expectations of the church are continually lowered to provide a faithful setting in which to continue (perhaps spiritual growth, perhaps nessacary, perhaps useful, but still hard and difficult, and troubling)
- while many evidences for me in the BOM, I also see major issues that must be shelved till later
- several failed prophesies by JS and other early leaders.
- doctrine is much, much more flexible then what I was taught and what I had come to understand still leaving much confusion in my mind over what a man must do to be saved.
- struggle with coming more and more to understand that while the church teaches a prophet is one thing, compares chruch president to Moses or  Noah in the missionary discussions... that prophet in the sense of the president of the church is much less like an old testament prophet and more like how I would view Peter in the new Testament ... leading the apostles in moving the church forward with relatively small chunks of inspiration along the way.  No mighty miracles that compare to those of Old testament prophets (parting red sea, killing Goliath, building an ark...ect....) though Peter had a few of them himself
- I could list dozen and dozens more

but in the end, it is all about faith....  I have always felt if I wanted to prove the church true to someone, I could put enough evidence together to at least make them think it was worth the investigation.  But I also can prove the church false with just as many items so as to dissuade anyone from looking into it.

I wish it was easier, but that obviously is not part of the plan.  and I wish I could simply rely on spiritual occurences, but my mind demands a reasonable framework to work within......   In otherwords while God reaffirms his existence and making known to me I am in the right place, I also struggle daily with fitting all the round pegs in the square holes.

My deepest desire would be to get to a place that didn't require such a daily struggle.  It eats at me.  It is hard.  Lots of stress, anxiety, ..................

Edited by reelmormon, 03 May 2012 - 10:15 AM.

[wenglund]

Darth_Bill, on 02 May 2012 - 12:20 PM, said:

1. What criteria you used to deem it "crazy"?
My disaffection didn't start with JS. It started with a some personal events and my investigation of the logic and rationality of the atonement. The problems (like Abraham and Isaac) became more problematic because if that happened today, we would call Abraham crazy and he would be hospitalized. What JS did with polygamy would be investigated by several federal agencies and also be termed inappropriate. Yes, I might be guilty of presentism, and I'm okay with that. I live in the present. If God tried to interact this way with me today, I would run to counseling. Ultimately, I just became tired of the excuses and justifications. I know what they are, as I've been here for a long time. I just don't want to deal with my own unbelief among the believers anymore. (And yet, here I am....looking for something interesting.)
2. What impact, if any, the "craziness" had on your view of Joseph as a prophet and the verity of the restored gospel of Christ?
I lost faith in the gospel as a whole, in that I couldn't accept the premises of christianity any longer. Without the premises, restored or not doesn't matter.
3. And, could you explain why it impacted you in that way?
Not sure, as I've tolerated it for many, many years. It just wasn't making my happy any longer, nor could I convince myself that I was happy any longer. My life has not changed at all, other than I don't go to church all that much. No major "sins", no desires to "sin". My mind is a lot quieter now.

So, your lose of faith and disaffection wasn't a product of the Church not disclosing aspects of its history (which is what this thread is primarily about), but more on philosophical grounds--which the Church can't likely do anything about. Right?

From what I can tell, your narrative (i.e. response to the data) wasn't "hey...the Church never told me about X, Y, and Z, and has thus breached my trust, causing me to lose faith." Instead, your narrative appears to have been: "hey...according to certain modern standards of men, some key aspects of the Church are 'crazy,' and in a gradually increasing way I couldn't have faith in craziness."

I can respect this, though I have a different narrative.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[wenglund]

reelmormon, on 03 May 2012 - 10:13 AM, said:

It is amazing how each of us are pogrammed, or how we individually see the world.  Faith is such a tricky thing.  I could share multiple spiritual experiences I have had.  Each demostrating to me in a very real way, that God lives and loves us.  I have had some that dealt directly with the truth of Mormonism.... and yet I find myself almost daily asking "help thou my unbelief" and he does... and then a day later I am right back to the same problem.  to me there is a spiritual and logical side to things.
Spiritual
- my life is blessed as I serve in the church
- I feel really good when active in the gospel
- I feel a real relationship with God
- answers to prayer do come and have been answered.
- real spiritual experiences such as audible answers to prayers, very specific dreams that had to be from God.
- see the direct correlation between moving towards God and blessing and happiness that come from it
- I could list dozens and dozens more

Logical  (for me, I know some of you see this in an absolute opposite way)
- my expectations of the church are continually lowered to provide a faithful setting in which to continue (perhaps spiritual growth, perhaps nessacary, perhaps useful, but still hard and difficult, and troubling)
- while many evidences for me in the BOM, I also see major issues that must be shelved till later
- several failed prophesies by JS and other early leaders.
- doctrine is much, much more flexible then what I was taught and what I had come to understand still leaving much confusion in my mind over what a man must do to be saved.
- struggle with coming more and more to understand that while the church teaches a prophet is one thing, compares chruch president to Moses or  Noah in the missionary discussions... that prophet in the sense of the president of the church is much less like an old testament prophet and more like how I would view Peter in the new Testament ... leading the apostles in moving the church forward with relatively small chunks of inspiration along the way.  No mighty miracles that compare to those of Old testament prophets (parting red sea, killing Goliath, building an ark...ect....) though Peter had a few of them himself
- I could list dozen and dozens more

but in the end, it is all about faith....  I have always felt if I wanted to prove the church true to someone, I could put enough evidence together to at least make them think it was worth the investigation.  But I also can prove the church false with just as many items so as to dissuade anyone from looking into it.

I wish it was easier, but that obviously is not part of the plan.  and I wish I could simply rely on spiritual occurences, but my mind demands a reasonable framework to work within......   In otherwords while God reaffirms his existence and making known to me I am in the right place, I also struggle daily with fitting all the round pegs in the square holes.

My deepest desire would be to get to a place that didn't require such a daily struggle.  It eats at me.  It is hard.  Lots of stress, anxiety, ..................

Sounds to me like the tension you are experiencing is the tension between the ways of God and the ways of man. As I understand things, the tension will be relieved by making your eye single one way or the other, by choosing to serve one master.

For your physical health sake, please get off the fence and pick either hot or cold.

And, for your spiritual health sake, I hope you choose to make your eye single to God, and in full trust follow in his ways unto the end he, as a loving Father, desires for you.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited by wenglund, 03 May 2012 - 01:43 PM.

[DBMormon]

Wenglund,

This comes very natural for some... I wish it did for me.  Many of those who see things the way I do are not those who cared the least about Christ and the Church, many of them cared as much as anyone.  It is about my mind having to know to the Nth degree what is truth and needing to follow truth regardless of what direction it takes me.... I know it sounds strange and perhaps in a one on one face to face one could better understand another and make sense of all of it.

[DBMormon]

Best way I can say it is this.  I have an expectation that the True church will be apparently and obviously true to an honest seeker of truth.  The honest seeker will know beyond a doubt that the Lord's church is the Lord's church.  All the dots will connect and one will live in the spirit each day building the kingdom, growing in grace, in knowledge, and in truth.... When I joined the dots connected almost perfectly and my understanding of the church seemed perfect.  Now, as I get older and am forced to think about things more deeply, I realize that not everything is as simple as it used to be.  There are major complications within LDS history and theology that no longer fit so easy into my expectation of the true church, of prophets, and apostles.  Instead of my understanding being more and more  complete it becomes somewhat unraveled.  I become less and less sure of the things I was told were true.  Almost to a T every facet of the gospel has become less and less definitive, more and more gray area, more flexibility needed to allow for faith.  There is one exception - My understanding of the Book of Mormon.  Though as my understanding of Doctrine of Christ within the Book grows it matches up less and less with the wording and methods church leaders have used to describe the doctrine of Christ.   So even that is an issue.  
I wish it were easier

Edited by reelmormon, 03 May 2012 - 03:54 PM.

[Log]

Reel,

The standard advice I give out is "ignore the Church."  

What I mean by this is focus on becoming one with God, rather than harmonizing Church history or the opinions of the Brethren with your expectations.  Focus on what you do actually know, and not on what you merely believe, or have been taught.  Once you are one with God - and you may be, if you seek it with all your heart, might, mind, and strength in prayer - you will see clearly how to relate to the institutional Church, and things will become a lot less uncomfortable.  It won't matter so much when you're filled with the Spirit and are communing with God continually.

This is the test of your faith and sincerity.

Edited by Log, 03 May 2012 - 03:59 PM.