JVW

No, that's impossible.

Faith is a principle that applies to every aspect of life, and the older I get the more I believe in the statement "seek and ye shall find, ask and it shall be given you". And, relating to what @Pyreaux said in most, if not all, of my seeking I consult sources produced by a hierophant of some kind. Whether it's a religious or scientific expert, or a loved one or friend who I trust in whatever matter I'm dealing with. In a recent thread in this forum there was a discussion about Joseph Smith and treasure digging. I learned a lot from that thread, but what I learned most of all is that whatever someone wants to believe about Joseph they have sufficient evidence to support them in that belief. This is the case with Jesus Christ's divinity, the authenticity of the Bible (is it an embellished myth, or not?), the Book of Mormon, any given church or religious sect around the world, any political or scientific movement, etc. Now, there will always be people on either side of a given issue who appear to be certain about their position and treat opponents as if they are idiots. This is on both sides. In their own way they are following the command to doubt not after having arrived at their personal destination of truth. The problem with this is that a lot of people believe that they've discovered truth when really they've only settled deeply into their own personal belief system. Covid was the time in which I learned a lot about the power of faith. As one who values thinking critically, and understanding that in order to do so I need to be exposed to conflicting views and seriously consider each, I came to discover a personal guiding principle that I think would work well for anyone to adopt. Choose to focus on, and build, a belief in whatever causes one to experience the least amount of anxiety, depression, pain, suffering, and/or cognitive dissonance. I choose to believe in Jesus Christ because I feel better about my life when I strive to follow Him as I understand Him from the scriptures and teachings of my church. Do I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and that Islam or Hinduism are wrong? No. Do I think converting to a sect outside of Christianity will bring me more fulfillment out of life than I currently already have? No. Do I think there are others with personalities who jive better with non-Christian beliefs? Yes. Whatever desire someone seeks to fulfill, they will naturally be inclined to agree with any data they come across that supports their desires. It is a natural part of life, but it can be a really sucky part of life if either A) The desire sucks, like a desire for self-destruction or B) They aren't cognizant of their true desires. My sister's life is a wreck and she has no idea why, and it's impossible for me to tell her that it's because she wants it to be. Subconsciously she feeds off of the suffering and the drama. She prefers to win the argument of who has it worse instead of who has it better. But she doesn't recognize it and what she is seeking is ultimately self-destruction.

From what I understand baptism is required to enter the Celestial Kingdom (exaltation) and be in the presence of the Father forever. Baptism is not required in order to be in the presence of the Son forever, only repentance and faith in the Lord. I'm not sure what the official doctrine is for the meaning of the word "salvation". If it means being in the presence of Jesus eternally in the afterlife, then there are requirements or faith and repentance. If it means receive any degree of God's glory than it is as free of a gift as the resurrection is, because one can reject Christ and live wickedly and still receive a degree of glory after suffering in Hell before final judgment.

I agree with this statement with a slight asterisk. This is how I view it. The Bible is a collection of texts written by ancient prophets who had authority from God to speak on His behalf. Those texts were compiled (as the Holy Bible) and preserved by the Catholic church. Without the Bible (and the authority preserved in it) nobody would know who Jesus Christ is. Without knowing who Jesus Christ is there is no salvation. So for the modern Christian it is safe to say that "our salvation is contingent upon our belief in the dead prophets and adherence to their words." To reiterate, without even one "true" prophet (authorized representative of God), there would be no knowledge of Christ, how to accept Him, how to follow Him, or the Good News of salvation. Now there are some Christians who believe that salvation comes only through a belief in the dead prophets, but not in adherence to their words. But they are foolish. They can talk a lot but any Christian who has been down on their luck, or been desperate through a trial, or been through a 12 step program, etc. will naturally go down on their knees in humble prayer, open their Bible to read God's word, and/or go to church seeking relief. These are all actions encouraged by the dead prophets, and when a believer does any of these things they are "adhering to their (the dead prophet's) words". Now comes the slight asterisk part... How does this translate to salvation being contingent on a belief in the living prophets when salvation can come from belief in the dead prophets? I don't know. My current best guess is somewhat cynical. It's that I personally believe that many Christians are fooling themselves into believing they have been saved when they are not. If I take Christ at His word and "by their fruits ye shall know them" and a third of the world is Christian, then where is the fruit of peace in this world? I haven't done the research, but I'd imagine that Latter-day Saints as a population (granted it's a relatively small population) tend to exhibit more fruits of salvation than those populations who only follow dead prophets. Again, I don't know. But in a twist of irony it may be that many of my Christian brothers and sisters are the ones who have been deceived and follow a false Christ (i.e. prosperity gospel). Again, to be clear, I view Christians in a highly favorable light, and have many Christian friends who I actively encourage to walk in their faith. I don't care if people convert to my church or not, and I don't judge them any more negatively any more than I do people in my own church.

I don't think corruption means what you think it means... Also, I don't think you understand the purpose of financial audits and what it means to have no irregularities. I certainly don't, but my wife does and she's even worked professionally with LDS internal financial auditors and Managing Directors. Her boss's boss was the guy that reads the audit report in conference. She met with him several times. And she never mentioned any serious legal concerns with the way they run their audits or the results of their audits.

That quote is a bummer because I think it's quite beautiful to think of Adam as being created of a combination of God's saliva and the Earth's dust. Just as Jesus healed the blind man by spitting in the dirt and making clay "completing" a creation that had a flaw using the same material. We have God's DNA from His saliva and our bodies have all the elements found in the dirt. I don't know what's "baby" about this idea. Anyways, thanks for elaborating, I understand the general principle Brigham Young is alluding to. I actually view the Christian world as the "milk" world and the Church as the "meat" world. It seems, to me, that the Lord has prepared many, many people by first bringing them into the Christian fold and then bringing them to the Church from there. The Christian world is very, very good at hammering home the idea of Jesus dying on the cross for us and our free gift of salvation. Our Church has so much other stuff that the message can be more implicit than explicit, if I'm making any sense here. ETA: No offense please to my Christian brothers and sisters. I don't have any problems with Christianity and attend a few local Christian churches periodically throughout the year to enjoy what they have to offer.

I have two unrelated questions and thought making one thread would be easier. 1) Has the Church ever shown any signs of corruption? I had a colleague accuse the Church of being corrupt in the same way that a government or corporation is corrupt and it stopped me dead in my tracks because I'd never heard of the Church being corrupt before. I know there's Ensign Peak stuff, but from what I understand the complaints around that are: lack of transparency, possible fraud, and a disagreement in how a global entity manages their money. But, as far as I know, the Church doesn't pay or accept bribes of any kind, and they don't plant people in positions of power around the world in order to open up countries to missionary work or to make money or whatever. Can anyone here confirm or deny this accusation? Is my innocent little church actually becoming a wolf in sheep's clothing? 2) I saw in a video last night someone mention that the pipes that the Elders in the School of the Prophets tossed into the fire immediately upon hearing the Word of Wisdom for the first time were found preserved in ashes. I searched online (and my wife used AI) to try and determine whether this guy, Don Bradley, was speaking out of both ends about these pipes and I couldn't find any information on the topic. Here is the link and the claim is at 5:04. I didn't finish the video after that claim and don't plan to. https://youtu.be/3JyzVCpGuo0?si=Pj_RgWPUmH6f2-l1 Thanks for your consideration of these questions, any and all replies are appreciated. Thank you Forum members.

That's a good quote and I understand what that brother is saying. There are many things I've learned that I can't properly convey. And I have a difficult time truly understanding some of the experiences others share. In addition to that, I've learned that when I frame a question I often come across emphasizing a different point than I anticipated, or people hear the wrong part of what I'm saying. An obvious example on this very thread is that my question is "How can I overcome my trepidation to fully commit to, and trust, God within the context of the "inflictions", "scourgings", and "cups" He most assuredly has in store for me if I choose to follow Him?" But what came across was, "I feel like my life is hard and it's all too much, and my crying baby broke my figurative back." (I will note that when I started this thread, I did not have my thoughts crystallized enough to distill my question in the manner that I just did and that speaking with you all has helped me immensely.) But this kind of thing happens in Church class all the time. Just this last week I made a comment about how weakness is a gift from God so I don't think we need to repent of it. And a brother responded to that comment by quoting from Ether 12, "I give unto men weakness, that they may be humble" and that it's not bad to be weak and it's ok, I don't need to feel bad about myself. I was so confused because I literally just said that, but this brother thought I was unnecessarily suffering for some reason. Anyways, I must be in a good mood today because this was a huge tangent. You're leaving out the biggest, glaring example of God being mean, that I think this is beyond dispute. Consider this (from Wikipedia) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cup-bearer The Father was Jesus' cup-bearer. Jesus knew that the cup was poisoned when He received it, and even asked if there was any other way. BUT the Father gave him a cup, filled to the brim, with the most bitter poison ... on purpose. That was so mean. What kind of father would poison their own child, and furthermore, then as he is dying from the poison, turn his back on him? And Jesus did nothing to warrant this treatment except have full trust, faith, and love for His Father. He wasn't wicked like the people in the cities that God destroyed. On a side note, I think the Aaronic priesthood in wards severely underappreciate how much trust they are given in that position, especially the ones who prepare the sacrament. This idea of the cup-bearer also really makes me appreciate that the presiding authority takes the first drink. Interestingly enough it could be argued in this case that God wasn't mean because they made decisions that warranted that destruction. But I agree with you that this is a good example of God taking ownership of doing something we'd normally attribute to: the devil, natural causes, or a fallen world. What is a "baby story"?

I think there is a lot of truth to what you say. I would add that it took a long time for me to feel comfortable feeling content. My default state for so many years was to feel miserable, and if I didn't feel that way I felt like something was wrong with me. There is a part of me that is uncomfortable with the way my life is right now because it feels "lukewarm" or "too" comfortable. And that could very well be due to past trauma stuff. You raise some very good points though. And I will have to think on a lot of this. Before a few weeks ago I don't think I spent much time thinking about how things could go wrong besides like "large conspiracies trying to screw over the common people" type of stuff that I thought about more for fun than for stress. However, I may have just pushed a lot of my anxieties about the "next bad thing" down into my gut or subconscious. For example, I wasn't stressed when I had my first child, because I thought, and would tell people, "I don't need to worry about raising him right because no matter what I do I will be part of the cause for him seeking therapy in his twenties." Which, while it may or may not be true, doesn't that thinking inherently assume bad things happening? Also, I definitely have recognized that hope is one of my weakest attributes and it's something I've worked on while in my recovery program. I think that maybe part of my issue with what God could put in my path if I follow Him is that I haven't exactly gotten over the trauma from the past stuff yet. So while I am certainly a different, and much stronger person now; because I haven't fully overcome the past turmoil God has inflicted on me then maybe I'm worried about not being able to handle future stuff. Oddly enough, I've come to terms that as far as overcoming addiction goes, I have no hope of ever conquering it without God. But I haven't applied that same frame of mind to traumatic events because, perhaps, so far I haven't overcome any of them through God yet.

In the last 12 step meeting I attended (this past Saturday) we read from the book about betrayal trauma. What the spouse of an addict goes through, how they emotionally respond, signs that indicate they are experiencing trauma from the betrayal of their addicted spouse. But a funny thing happened while we were reading about it. Everything we were reading I identified with! Even though I'm the addict, I found myself identifying more with the one who was betrayed than the betrayer. It was so strange. As I reflected on why that may be, of course I thought about the times when I felt like God stabbed me in the back. (I now know that He wasn't betraying me, He was pruning me. But getting cut down to a stump hurts like the ****ens, and I do still feel some trauma from that.) But I also realized that in my youth and childhood that my parents betrayed me in very serious ways, and while they never drank or did drugs, I can see how each of them were addicted to different, serious things that impacted me and my siblings growing up. In any event, right now I am not going through any serious trials. My life is really good. I have a healthy, happy family. A good job. A good church. Some pets. Some friends. I am just worried about what God might do if I decide to commit fully to Him. One of my favorite General Conference talks of all time is "The Divine Gift of Gratitude" by Thomas S. Monson. Here's a brief quote from the talk.

Respectfully, you can be a real prick sometimes. Did you ever consider that maybe I'm an idiot and the way that I learn best is by trying to communicate with others what's on my mind and in my heart? When I have a problem I like to go to others for advice, and when I started to have this wrestle a few weeks ago and started wondering, "Who can I talk to about this? Where could I find the best advice on what to study, or how I could improve my perspective on this issue?" A little message board I hadn't visited in 6 months popped up in my memory. Maybe the question can be easily answered with minimal effort ... by you. If it was that easy for me I wouldn't have spent hours starting this thread and engaging with people in it. Talk about a lot of wasted effort! If the answer is so easy, then perhaps you would care to enlighten me? I may be a lot of things, but I don't believe that I've ever treated lightly the opinions shared by others on this message board. I understand there are some things that only God can reveal to me, in my heart. And I'm working on communicating with Him right now. Chatting with the board is just to help me maintain my sanity, gain greater understanding, and aid in my focus on the problem, until God decides to speak with me about it. Typically I expect a resolution to an issue of this magnitude in around 2 years. But I'm honestly feeling like I will be getting an answer within the next 1-4 weeks if I continue to put in the effort to find it. Please bear with me in the meantime, brother.

God is love. That is the one thing I do know about His character. And now I'm learning that being mean can be the most loving thing to do sometimes, because God does it. In fact, I was just reading this morning in the Book of Mormon, God is speaking here in 3rd Nephi 9 (pick a verse at random from the chapter), "And behold, that great city Jacobugath, ... have I caused to be burned with fire because of their sins and their wickedness, ... therefore I did cause them to be burned, to destroy them from before my face ..." That's kind of mean. I mean, if I did that to a city I'd be going to prison, just saying... But God is love, and destroying that city was the most loving thing God could do to that city at that time. To be clear, I am not making a joke here, or light of the situation. I believe everything that I wrote in this response. The more studying I'm doing, the more verses I am becoming aware of that indicate how mean God can be. It is not a difficult position to defend. And yet, I -know- that God is love. More surely than I know that I am currently alive and not dreaming. More surely than I know that God is the God of Israel. So the only way I can reconcile this behavior is either: Being mean can be the most loving thing that God can do at certain times OR the scriptures are lying and God is never mean and I need to find a different religion and holy text to study.

No apology necessary. I guess my wife isn't one for poetry. Her response made me chuckle a little. I thought your poem was nice.

The correct response here would have been, "No, you shut up!" I didn't mean anything by it. I like you and your posts. Have a good day brother.

I thought you might like this. I copy and pasted this poem and sent it to my wife asking her, "What do you think of this poem". Her response was "That's crap", "Makes me want to punch her".

Ok, so there are a ton of really good comments here but I don't exactly have the time to individually respond to them all so hopefully this response will work without quotes. After my 12 step meeting last night (funnily enough, the 12 steps are all about learning to humbly trust God) I chatted with the missionaries for a little bit about my current wrestle. They gave me two invitations and I'm going to follow them because I believe in the missionaries calling. One was to read a talk from Elder Holland from 1999 entitled "The High Priest of Good Things To Come" and the other was to study about faith. I haven't done either of those yet, but I had work today. Anyways, as I was speaking and crystallizing my thoughts I said something to this effect, "I am willing to give up most of everything I have. I can't say all because if God has in His plan that if I follow Him then He will cause death or intense suffering of some of my immediate family, but if I don't follow Him then He will leave them alone and let them live long and healthy lives, then I don't know that I'd have the strength to deal with that." Upon further reflection, I think I need to be honest with myself and really consider how much am I willing to give up, or humbly allow God to take away from my life as He chooses the most "loving" way to scourge, inflict, and give me the poisoned cup. I am fine if I lost my health, house, job, career, reputation, money, stability, etc. But I don't know if I could handle losing a child as a consequence of following him, or losing my wife. It is possible that He would not require anything like that of me, period. It's also possible that He wouldn't require anything like that of me until He built me up enough to bear it (a la Chris Williams who lost his pregnant wife and two children in a drunk driving accident). And it's also possible that something like that will happen regardless of my choice to choose God, and that I could be shooting myself in the foot by not following Him now in order to prepare for such an event. Regardless of the unknown future, the mysteries of God, and how unknowable His mind is, if I am not willing to give up everything for Him now, I don't know if my mind would change in the future. I am still studying and pondering about this. I am very glad that God is communicating with me very clearly about the gravity of the situation, and the magnitude of the decision I'm making now, because if I choose to go all in, then I'm going to go all in and I'm sure God will have all sorts of delightful ways to break my heart and bring me into the depths of sorrow as He purifies my soul. Lord knows I need a lot of purification after the kind of life I've lived! Regarding my baby... that moment at 4AM was just the straw that broke the camel's back. After she went back to sleep and I went back to sleep, when I woke up I was back to normal. I do believe that God knows best. But that doesn't mean that He hasn't hurt my feelings. As I'm sure many of you have, I have endured many terrible and damaging things in my walk with God, and I know for a fact that many of those things can correlate directly to my belief in God. Having a beautiful baby girl and not getting enough sleep is not one of those horrible and damaging events in my life, but the situation felt like a nice little middle finger from God, that's all.

Shut up.

That is a beautiful chapter and hits directly at the heart of the matter. "And scourges every son whom He receives" indeed. I wish I recognized this earlier, I would have been a little more thoughtful about my decision to initially commit myself to God. Nevertheless, I'm here now learning about this and definitely have some thinking to do on it. I know that God is love, but I don't know if I want to have a relationship with someone who will scourge me lol.

Nobody asks that question.

Yeah lately when people ask me "Why do bad things happen to good people?" My (serious, not joking) answer is now, "Because God loves them."

Well, that sucks. I'll think on what you've said but you are making a lot of sense to me. I'm also reminded of Ender's Game where the commanding officer does everything in his power to make Ender's life a living hell in order to build him into the commander he needs in order to save humanity. But on the other hand, wouldn't you think that, perhaps, life already has enough hard stuff and instead God would just be supportive and help you feel peaceful and happy all the time through the hard times?

The crying baby story was the context. I don't have any issues currently with my crying baby or being woken up in the middle of the night. It was just that one particular moment for some reason. I don't want to talk about crying babies in this thread. My thread wasn't entitle "Crying Babies" it was called "God is Mean". I want to hear from you about that.

If I'm in a sacrament meeting and a dad goes up to give a baby blessing I have three pet peeves. One is if they say a prayer, "Dear baby, here is your name, we pray that you will have a happy life, amen." Two is if they "bless" the baby to get married in the temple one day. Three is if the circle has more than like 8 people including the Bishop. If you're a dad, and a disciple of Jesus Christ, act like it. Choose select men to participate with you who you like and believe are worthy, not just random people b/c you chatted with them before Sacrament meeting started. Show a little bit of strength. Think about what the best kind of blessings are that your baby could have and bless them with it! If you think being poor is a blessing, bless them to be interested in career paths that are fulfilling, but not lucrative. If you think having a lot of friends is a blessing, bless them to have a popular demeanor. It's not quite the same as patriarchal blessings, but seeing how Lehi or Isaac did it is inspiring.

Some blessings are "this person is sick and/or dying, be healed" and God says "OK". Other blessings could be "You are comfortable now in Nauvoo, but your enemies are going to kick you out and you have to trek 2000 miles. Oh and your baby is going to die on the journey. Turn to the Lord for strength and comfort." and God says, "OK".

Hi everyone. I haven't been around lately because I was getting to distracted from working and had the network admin block the site from my work computer. Anyways ... onto the discussion topic. Several nights ago I was woken by my crying 6 month old at 4 AM. My wife had a migraine and I really wanted to get her back to sleep quickly because of how exhausted I was. Nothing I was trying was working so I said a sincere prayer asking God to just help her fall back to sleep. His response was, "No". His response kind of broke me a little. I got really angry with God because I rarely ask Him for anything and I've recently decided to start a path to return to the temple as I strive to get a good relationship with Him again. As I've reflected on my walk with God, it's ups and downs since I met Him in my early twenties, I've come to realize something. The more effort I make to get close to God, the more mean He is to me. I was reminded of this verse in the Book of Mormon (Mosiah 3:19), "...willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to INFLICT upon him..." I decided to express my anger to God and study the scriptures to see if He'd communicate anything to me, and He did. Right after the garden suffering, when Jesus is being arrested ... John 18:11, "Then said Jesus unto Peter, Put up thy sword into the sheath: the cup which my Father hath given me, shall I not drink it?" Jesus was sinless, blameless, compassionate, and loving. And God gave Him a cup filled to the brim with the most potent poison. Talk about being mean! If I am trying to follow Jesus, of course I should be expected to drink a similar cup, with poison tailored for me. So here is my question. Do I really want to walk the path of Christianity if God is going to treat me like this if I intentionally choose to follow Him? What are the pro's and con's? I know that life will involve suffering whether or not I choose to follow Jesus, but why would I want to experience additional God-given suffering when I could just ignore God and deal with regular stuff instead? Hopefully this post makes sense and I look forward to learning from y'all about this topic.