Jane_Doe

23 hours ago, MiserereNobis said:

In another thread, I responded to a quote from President Hinckley where he said:

I have responded to this quote before, but thought a thread devoted to it might be good.

Here's what I said:

I have an issue with President Hinckley's statement. It appears very open and inclusive. However, I doubt it as a practical matter. It seems rather rhetorical. This is something I've commented on before. He says to bring the good that I have and let the LDS church add to it. One of the "goods" I have is my devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. She has been with me from the beginning of my conversion to Christianity to the present moment. In a short post I cannot explain how much Our Lady has done for me. She is so good to me. I would not be Christian without Her intercession.

Yet, if I were to convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I would have to leave that behind. No more rosaries. No more candles lit to Her Honor. No more prayers to Her. No more devotion to Her.

How is my conversion to your faith taking the good I have and letting you add to it? It appears to me that a conversion to your faith means letting go of the things I thought were good but were actually contrary to your beliefs, and then adding your beliefs to what was left. In other words, the only "good" I bring is that which is already LDS.

I'm ok with that as a definition of conversion. That's what it definitely means to convert to Catholicism -- you gotta leave your non Catholic beliefs at the door. But President Hinckley's words seem to try to hide that fact in order to appear softer or more inclusive or more ecumenical. How can I bring non-LDS "goods" to my conversion to being LDS?

The difference is very big picture: LDS Christians believe that folks in other faiths do have the light of Christ & teach many good things (intermingled with not-so-good thing).  I know many converts from Catholics, and they bring many good things: their love of Christ, priesthood, scripture, tradition, etc.  But yes, they do need to bring some false things behind (such as the extreme glorification of Mary).  But there is still much good there & we celebrate that.

Versus: The Catholic church doesn't even acknowledge the fact that I'm a Christian.  What good does Catholicism see me bringing to the table?   (these are honest question, I'm asking for the purposes of listening to the answer).  

Howdy!

9 hours ago, GingerRed said:

Hello all.....I haven't posted here in a long time...but I wanted feedback from you guys. Your opinions I have always held in high regard.

 

I live in Utah. 10 months ago, a good friend of mine I've know for several years, ( I'll just call her Jane for privacy) who used to be a faithful Latter Day Saint, left the LDS church to join the Centerpoint church.  Her many LDS friends, including myself, tried to be understanding, kind and remained her friends to show we still care whether she was Mormon or not. We noticed that Jane had gone out and got a nose ring and some tattoos. Umm....okay. Going a bit rogue, much?  Ok fine we can handle that, not big deal.

Note: CenterPoint Church in Orem hosted a big "Faith After Mormonism" event.   Such might have played a role in Jane's behavior.   https://faithaftermormonism.org/2021-faith-after-mormonism-conference-south/

On 12/31/2021 at 7:53 PM, bsjkki said:

Do you know if their home made it? I hope so. Many, many of my friends are effected because their extended families lost homes. I live down south but would visit family in Boulder. It was unreal to see those neighborhoods go up. 

My family is ok, as are all those I know.  Thankfully.  There's a lot of clean up to be done...

Thank you @bsjkki.  That is my parent's area that went up in flames.  My hubby & I were just there over Christmas, and literally said "this is going to be a horrible fire season"-- but didn't except it so soon or.... admittedly right in the middle of town.  I know these neighborhoods... and this is very very rough.  

5 hours ago, Logan said:

Do you believe the church simply contains truth or is it the one and only true church upon the face of the earth?

Personally: I believe both.  That is contains truth and is Christ's only true church on the Earth.

I also acknowledge that other's have different views.  

1 hour ago, Logan said:

 

So I guess my question is with this great diversity of beliefs, why should someone join the church? What does the church today offer that can't be found anywhere else? 

My answer: ultimately a person should join because they find Truth in the Church and feel Christ calling them to join.  Other reasons are subpar -- including to make spouse / family happy, because it's a good community, etc.  

1 hour ago, pogi said:

The problem is that these students don't live in a BYU bubble.  They live in a community with low vaccine rates, and some of the lowest for the state, high case rates, high rates of children who are unvaccinated, and will be exposed to and potentially expose others in the outside world.  Being that BYU is located in Provo, Utah, it does not fit the bill to go without a mask, even if you are vaccinated according to CDC guidelines (which church guidelines suggest we should be  following).  Being a church owned school, they should be following church (and thus CDC) guidelines:

Provo fits that bill of high transmission area.  I am having a hard time posting the map, but all but 3 counties in Utah are red (high transmission) areas. 

 

I'm sure that BYU officials are also looking at the community numbers EXTREMELY closely.  

(Note: I do agree with you on the "yes we should be more careful" note too)

6 hours ago, pogi said:

The only part I don't understand is how a persons vaccination status would help inform COVID 19 mask protocol.  We now know that the Delta variant can be transmitted via vaccinated people just about as well as non-vaccinated people.  Shouldn't they be following CDC guidelines with masks as the church recommends for all its members? 

27 July 2021:

Transmitted: yes.   However, the chances of getting sick, requiring hospitalization, and death are all much lower for vaccinated people.  So you'd want to manage a population differently if they have lots non-vaccinated-higher-risk people, versus majority vaccinated unlikely to get very sick people. 

11 hours ago, HappyJackWagon said:

This past weekend I had a fairly negative experience with family members about church attendance. I had been invited by a friend to do some special music at a non-LDS church service and since music is my jam, I was happy to contribute. 

I invited my parents to attend since they live nearby. They said they couldn't go because it would be "inappropriate". They won't attend a non-LDS service. My mom said she has never been to another church except to attend funerals. I was pretty surprised and a bit disappointed.

I also invited my brother and his family who were staying with us from out of town. My brother's wife said it was "unacceptable" and actually became upset that the invitation was extended and that my brother briefly considered going. In any case, no one attended to watch my musical contributions. Fine.

But it quite irked me that instead of a simple "no thank you" I received more of an "absolutely not" kind of response. It strikes me as extremely rude and small minded to be that opposed to attending another denomination's services for a special occasion even when it would have had no impact on their own services. If they had invited a friend or family to attend their service and received the same kind of response I am quite sure they would have found the rejection of a simple visit, distasteful.

Are my family jerks or has the church somehow created a fear based mentality about attending other churches or experiencing "counterfeit spirituality" (my father's phrase). OR are they right in refusing to attend other churches and are appropriately indignant at the invitation?

 

Your mom and SIL are jerks (though that's not a good fitting word for it).

Most of the LDS Christians I know would have zero problem with what you describe and going, especially myself.  

I usually see boundary makers try to spread out the haves / have-nots across different wards -- speaking in terms of spiritually, economically, stability, etc.  Which frequently results in some very creative looking boundaries.  And the effectiveness of things may or may not work over the long term as folks move, neighborhoods change, etc.

On 5/12/2021 at 6:17 PM, Mohave Aviator said:

I wanted to introduce myself, and start off what I hope will be a fruitful relationship. My name is Chris. I am a 40yr old part time pilot. I have graduate education from Gateway Theological Seminary and thoroughly enjoy theology and history. Let me put you guys at ease and state right away, I am not anti Mormon. I have a step son who is a return missionary and current student at BYU. I believe in hospitable, truthful discussion with goal of mutual understanding/respect among people of various beliefs. In the future, I am going to be speaking under the assumption that I am correct ( on any topic). Likewise, I understand and assume the other parties feel the same way. Please understand, I am not here to argue, offend or convert anybody. I just enjoy robust theological/historical discourse and it is more rewarding if we dispense with the patronizing comments, ambiguous language or feigned agreement. I respect each of you enough to be honest and forthright with you ( at least as I see it 😉) and I trust you respect me enough to do the same.

Hi!

My "name" is Jane.  I'm a LDS Christian, and a theology nerd.  I love coming to better understand what different people believe, because it better helps me understand and love them.  Additionally, it gives me new perspectives on beliefs myself, and helps consider things -- whether that's "that's an awesome way of stating things!" or "....no, here's a list of reasons why I passionately disagree with you."

On 5/12/2021 at 6:17 PM, Mohave Aviator said:

Now, my question. As a Christian ( in the historic sense) I can walk into a church and ask any question I want. Matter of fact, questions are encouraged. It is my understanding ( correct me please, if I am wrong) that Mormons do not necessarily enjoy that privilege.  So, this leads me to ask. If the Mormon church is true and I’m taking part in the great apostasy, why do Mormons handle the church with silk gloves? Shouldn’t we be able to handle the truth as rough as possible? If truth scatters darkness and always defeats falsehood, why discourage questions?

As a person who literally walks into different churches and asks what and why people believe as they do, I actually find that LDS Christians are the MOST encouraging of questions.  Asking questions is foundational to faith development, and developing your epistemological methods is also encouraged.  

Other Christian churches... can be a mixed bag.  I've been to some that are great, some that tell me "just shut up and believe this because I told you to".    And frequent "I don't know what I believe, let me go get the pastor.".  It's uncommon for me to visit a mainstream Christian church and have a person who's able to discuss epistemological methods with me ("I believe the Bible because the Bible says it is true" isn't a epistemological method in my mind).   If it's a "hard" question (like "how are three persons one God"), I almost always get the answers along the lines of "stop asking questions and just believe it else you're burn in Hell".  

12 hours ago, poptart said:

So, what's the deal with them?  I've heard that the gender distribution is really skewed.  No offence intended here, are the women really picky or are the men just super self absorbed, aloof and/or varying degrees of anti-social?  I'd think two people from a belief system that encourages family and tends to have a lot of middle/upper middle class people would be happy to get married, strengthen family ties and make their own blood lines even more financially secure and powerful.   

The basic idea is having a congregation specifically set up for young single folks, so that their focus in life can be addressed (like college classes, finding job stress, and not things like "my kid is driving crazy").  And of course to help people meet each other and hopefully pair up.  It is a good theory, even if the practice sometimes doesn't work.

As to the gender distribution: yes, they can be very female dominated.  This is a result of two factors:

- women are more likely to be religious (this is true across all faiths)

- Women are more likely to be involved in social activities, especially in the 20's (like most college clubs are very female dominated).

As to people being awkward in dating: welcome to the twenty first century.   

On 1/30/2021 at 11:30 AM, rodheadlee said:

So when you put a name in your family tree that automatically goes into the main database? If you don't reserve it then someone else will do the temple work?

Yes, it automatically goes into the database, and somebody else can do the work.

It is better though to, if you or a family member can't go, ask a ward member to do that service.  It gives it a personal touch and connection, rather than some random person in Jakarta doing the baptism, Manhattan confirmation, San Paulo endowment, etc.  

I'm a person who's in a part-member family.  Between my side and husband's we have a variety of very orthodox LDS Christians, ex, anti, just generic Christian, atheist, etc.  Friends are a likewise mixed batch.    I'll speak to my answer in general, as I'm not on Facebook type places.

I don't say everything I think to everyone-- that's a horrible idea.  Whether faith, politics, science, or any other topic, somethings are best to talk with some people and not others.  When it comes to spiritual matters, what I say is very filtered around my anti relatives.  Some of the ex ones are totally indifferent with me talking about things, unless it's a view point they agree with and then they'll engage.  Some folks just don't want to hear anything that doesn't echo exactly what they think and hence I keep my mouth shut at times (that includes some LDS Christians I know).

The people I can be the most open with are those that we just have talk-about-anything relationships, and those folks include some generic Christians, some LDS ones, and a few atheists.  

So yeah... for my experience it's mostly an indicator of how open a person is talking about thing in general, more than their particular faith.  

4 hours ago, rongo said:

 

What has your school experience been like?

We've had full-in-person school for the 1st grader.  It's different: masks, everything distant, no group work, changes to schedule, they're scrambling for subs, etc.  But still a huge blessing.  Kids adapt.  She loves school, it gives her an outlet, and things are generally really good.  The transmission / infection rate for those which are in the schools is actually much lower than the general community here (the general community is not very cautious).   

4 hours ago, Gomezaddams 51 said:

I have gone through a lot of the LDS YouTube videos looking for information on mental health.  From what I can see the only mental health the church recognizes is depression.  There are no answers about any of the other forms of mental health.  I have grown up with a long laundry list of mental problems, yes depression is one of the minor ones but most of mine are more serious.  I cannot feel.  I have no emotion, no empathy, nothing.  It seems to me in order to "hear" from God or the HG you have to feel what God is telling you.  I get nothing.  I never have since birth.  I have gone to shrinks and been told I have or am::  A Sociopath, a Schizoid, Reactive Attachment Disorder, Asperger, Anti-social Disorder, Persistent depressive disorder, also called Dysthymia, etc.  None of the shrinks seem to be able to really pick what I am or what combination I am.    I feel alone, and I feel that if there is a God, he hates me and wants me dead by suicide.  I feel like God if he exists, has done everything he can to ruin my life.  Anytime I get to enjoy something, God takes it away from me.  Now God is taking away my physical health bit by bit.    I have only experienced real happiness a few times and every time it is taken away.  

Yeah I know I should pray and study the scriptures.  Did it, done it, bought the T-shirt.  I have never had a testimony of the church, because you have to feel it inside.  I was forced to go on a mission by my mother and peer pressure from the church.  How could I convert anyone when I was not converted myself.  Therefore my mission was two years of Hell for me.  At least my mother could portray the long suffering parent of a missionary.  I came back and basically dropped out of the church. 

Anyway, what I am wondering is how bad I am going to get screwed if the whole church thing is real?  God made my life a living hell here on earth, I can imagine the glee he will get when he sends me to hell or (if it is true) one of the two lower prisons.  Contrary to what everyone says, yes the two lower kingdoms are prisons where you are stuck forever with no chance of getting out.  Just another form of hell that God can laugh about as he enjoys watching the tortured the prisoners as they wish they could progress and cannot.

What I need is some sort of hope where there is none.

Are you wanting practical advice here, or just being angry?

44 minutes ago, 3DOP said:

I am unaware of having  expressed a belief that it is okay to be disrespectful or unkind. You disagree with me about what? I believe it is okay to be rude or obnoxious to those with whom we disagree? I think you have misunderstood me. I also, exclusivist though I am, see no reason to be ugly about it.

I won't try to be political here. But a long time ago, I followed Patrick J. Buchanan politically, before I joined his religion. I sent him this goofy book that explained how the Catholic Church was the Whore of Babylon and he had better come out. He kindly wrote back thanking me for the "little book". He was very gracious with someone who attacked what he loved. I do not claim to be able to as kind and respectful to those who hate what I love as good Mr. Buchanan. But I will always try to take him for a modern model.   

The below gave me that impression.  If I misunderstood, I apologize.  As to your personal behavior, you actually a generally very respectful and I enjoy your posts.  

4 hours ago, 3DOP said:

Let's quit trying to be the nicest religion. Would any of our founders have been trying to be the nicest? Not even those "churches" that thought to replace Rome were founded by people trying to be inclusive (nice). Being nice does not create the kind of motivational zeal that it takes to try to start a religious organization. The standard of being nice comes slower for some, Catholic and LDS?, faster for others ("churches" that try to replace Rome).  

On 9/10/2020 at 3:56 PM, Bernard Gui said:

For those who have returned to in-person Church meetings....

Has anyone in your congregation contracted the virus as a result?

Back in July, right as in-person meetings were starting up, there was a person whom tested positive in one of the wards.  They had attended the previous two weeks, but weren't showing any symptoms or had taken any test at that time.  The local wards suspended all in-person stuff for several weeks to be extra cautious.   I didn't hear of anyone catching it from this case.