gopher

Sounds like a rogue stake if the stake president is a woman. I just read the title so maybe you explain more in your post.

Listen to Teddy. This isn't the place. The church has 80,000 missionaries who would love to chat with you in person or online. Contact them to learn more at https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/comeuntochrist/lp/church-lesson/short

Hey, I was just having fun. I'm not looking to criticize or scold anyone here.

Why do these discussions always end with Nehor threatening to have a threesome or join an orgy?

Since my comments were only directed to Nehor and no one else, I will wait for him to let me know if he found the tone troublesome. My comments do not apply to the situations of anyone else here so I would caution anyone to not believe otherwise. Plus my response was to his earlier comments in this thread that had already run its course and I figured no one was following anymore. Nehor is also clearly not from Utah based on the language he uses so I felt comfortable speaking freely, bluntly, and directly with a hint of snarkiness like we do here outside the bubble. I had no problem with his responses, in fact, I appreciated his graciousness in responding to me. But, thanks, I'll consider myself sufficiently scolded.

Thanks, I was curious to get your opinions on what I felt were pretty basic assumptions about how God interacts with us. I admit I don't understand why communication between God and some of His children is so clear and precise, but the opposite for others.

yikes! snotty?? My interactions with Nehor over the years have all been positive and respectful. I find his experiences interesting because even though he has become a critic of not only the church, but also of how God interacts with us, he still clings to what's left of his faith and testimony. For now. My questions and comments were only directed to him, so maybe they can appear snotty to someone who has already left? Since I first started visiting here, I've seen more people abandon their faith than rediscover their faith and testimony, but I've been witness to some pretty cool stuff outside of this website. My questions and comments are based on my own observations and conclusions which are different than yours. I find these types of conversations interesting, but they are often difficult with many people. I appreciate Nehor's willingness to be open and honest with me in our conversations.

Good luck! It will be interesting to see how it works out for you. I didn't realize we can put a timetable on when God fulfills His promises. But it seems fair to abandon your faith and belief in God if you go your entire life without any promises from God kept. That seems like a much better reason than giving up because of historical accounts or social pressures. There sure are a lot of people in and out of the church that are convinced God has answered prayers and delivered promised blessings though. I wonder why you are an exception.

Have you figured yet out what will be the reason you leave? This isn't the first time you've floated that idea. I can't be the only one who has noticed your posts have become much more cynical and critical of not only the church, its leaders and members, but also of God. I figured it was mostly due to your disagreements over LGBT issues in the church, but maybe there's more. I think even most believers will have lots of questions to ask on the other side about God's dealings with His children throughout history. But when you have personal experiences of God's mercy and love for you, it's a lot easier to believe that when we get the full explanations of the "weird stuff" you mentioned, we'll learn that God was actually being merciful and just. But that's just my opinion, of course.

I guess I must have a different definition of cynical and sarcastic. I don't see much wisdom in abandoning your hope, faith, and love in God just because some people do harm while claiming to do it in His name. That doesn't automatically make them right and we are free to criticize them all we want. It's helpful to have those examples when you are looking to abandon your faith, but for those who are looking to draw closer to God, there is a lot to learn from the many more examples of believers who follow the example of Jesus, treat people with kindness, and serve without reward. I don't know what bad behaviors you attribute to God, but I hear from plenty of people who testify of His goodness and love. We don't live in the times of the angry God of the Old Testament. Someday we'll learn what really happened then which may be different than what's in the scriptures. I haven't figured how how much our own mental and emotional states influences our understanding of how God deals with us. It always amazes me to see people who have experienced horrible things in their lives still stand up and testify of God's love for them.

No. But I believe everything that a prophet of God says comes directly from God when it's consistent and in agreement with other prophets. If a prophet says something that is never mentioned by all other prophets, I don't feel as strongly about it. That's why I got two ear piercings in one ear.

Your last sentence is obviously false. I don't know what dots you think you've connected. No prophet has ever said that a marriage between two men is part of God's plan. President Hinckley said: "But we cannot stand idle if they indulge in immoral activity, if they try to uphold and defend and live in a so-called same-sex marriage situation. To permit such would be to make light of the very serious and sacred foundation of God-sanctioned marriage and its very purpose, the rearing of families" I don't believe that will ever change, but if it does, I'll accept it.

No, it's not like that. The prophets can change whatever God tells them to change. The issue here is will God consider us righteous if we disagree with His prophets and disobey His commandments? Shouldn't we wait until God declares something is no longer a sin before we start doing it?

I've found that rejecting the cynical, skeptical, sarcastic, disbelieving, unloving, etc interpretations of God's dealings with humanity has made it much easier to understand what God wants. But I realize that doesn't work for everyone.

If a future liberal prophet "might slip it through", why do you think God would wait until right before the second coming to permit it after instructing His previous prophets to preach against it? The progressive members may cheer, but it's hard to imagine it not causing a lot of confusion why God didn't just allow it since the beginning.

How do you see gay as the new black? Gay members today can hold the priesthood if they are male, attend the temple, serve in callings as long as they are faithful and keep the commandments as revealed to God's prophets. Black members during the ban couldn't hold the priesthood, attend the temple, and serve in many callings no matter how faithful and obedient they were.

"Why the time is ripe for Mormon mania" From the article at: https://www.businessinsider.com/mormon-reality-tv-influencers-fascination-anxiety-2025-12 (make sure you have your ad-block on) "I think there is a willingness to embrace Mormon culture from the outside in a way that did not exist 10, 15 years ago," said Talia Burnside, a philosophy and religious studies lecturer at Morgan State University. Did it really take reality shows, dirty sodas, and giant cookies to improve the public's perception of the church and its members?

I'm often wary of church apologists since some go on to become the harshest critics, but I think they've done a good job at providing plausible explanations (or more accurately, speculations) for some of the things prophets have said and done. It may be frustrating, but I don't believe the church has explanations for every moral ambiguity of the past. It's even more frustrating when we try to fill in the blanks and come up with wrong answers that sound reasonable at the time, such as with the priesthood ban. I feel for you and everyone else in a faith crisis. The people who I've seen come back didn't have all their questions answered, but were still able to restore their trust in God and His prophets. How that works may be different for others.

Lots to disagree with in your post, but thanks for your response. You've done a good job of showing how difficult it is to believe in modern day prophets, especially without personal testimony from God. At least we've been promised that someday everything will be explained to us. But in the meantime, we are commanded to trust God and follow His prophets. It's clearly easier for some than others, but that's always been the case throughout history.

No problem. It's an interesting topic for me and I've using your responses to help me organize my own thoughts. You've been gracious in responding to my comments.

Wow, President Oaks turned out to be a true prophet even in hypotheticals! Nice come back, BYU.

My opinion is that the more we focus on the infallibility of prophets, the more likely we are going to later hesitate or refuse the follow the counsel of prophets in the future. How will we respond when the prophet asks us to do something really difficult as has been done in the past? So even though we say we believe prophets are not infallible, will we ever agree on actual examples of errors by prophets? Especially when a prophet never admitted he was mistaken? That's why I'm content with having the opinion that I don't understand the reasons for everything prophets have done instead of declaring they were mistaken. I can also withhold judgment on the weird stuff especially in the Old Testament until we get the whole story someday. But I also trust the God won't allow His prophets to lead us astray today.

I warned it was a bad analogy. But haven't you posted here that you no longer believe and trust prophets today speak for God? What will it take for you to change your mind? It's been implied, but maybe not stated clearly that the discussion is really about prophets making mistakes in official, revealed doctrine. If President Oaks tells someone in the grocery store that the BYU football team is better than Georgia Tech, he would be mistaken (down at halftime and I'm not even a BYU fan). But if President Oaks publishes through the church that 18 year old young women can now serve missions, I'm not going to accuse him of being wrong or making a mistake.

I accept the definition of a prophet shown here: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/gs/prophet Yes, I feel modern prophets have been trustworthy. What would it take to convince you that they are trustworthy?

That's more like it. Years ago when you were somewhat defending the church, it was alway entertaining to see how confused and frustrated you would make the evangelicals that would come here confident in their talking points against the church.