manol

Imo this controversy is not a bad thing. My guess is that there are people whose minds are not closed on the topic who will make some effort to reach their own conclusion as to whether the LDS Church is a Christian church or not. And I think that will work to the Church's benefit.

Thank you for that! I'd forgotten about that quote. It is fascinating to me how the same idea shows up coming from very different places, like the same truth being declared by multiple witnesses. A few days ago I was taking notes while listening to YouTube interviews of near death experiencer Jonathan Ashford. From my notes, and therefore a paraphrase rather than an exact quote: "Our attempts to intellectually define Love or God actually block out true understanding. God is experienced, but not by the intellect. Love with a capital “L” is experienced, again not by the intellect. It is the EXPERIENCE. It is not the definitions that our intellects attempt to put on the experience, and in doing so, lose it. Our identification of what we think IT is is the very thing we will need to transcend before we reach that space." To me that sounds like the same idea as in your quote from the Tao: "The Tao that can be explained is not the true Tao." I don't recall whether it was from this interview or some other, but here's a link just in case you might be interested in the NDE of a guy who would probably win an Orrin Porter Rockwell look-alike contest:

I can't think of any, but LDS is no longer my category. I sometimes say it privately, my understanding being that Christ told us to, therefore presumably it's beneficial. I see it as a way to quietly be in unity with everyone else who says it. And I tend to use Pope Francis' version, with "do not let us fall into temptation" instead of "lead us not into temptation".

I cannot speak for anyone else, nor am I sufficiently familiar with why other people have left the LDS Church to comment usefully. But if "secularization" means "separation from religious or spiritual connection or influences", then I don't think it has been part of my journey. That being said, I applaud your interest in understanding why people leave the LDS Church and what to do about it. Neither of those are questions I have good generalized answers for.

No, I was my unrestrainedly-weird self. Edited to add: And actually it was kind of nice to not feel obligated to post "in my opinion" disclaimers at regular intervals, even if my audience was an AI algorithm. There was a question about which is more important for exaltation, beliefs or actions. My reply was something like, "Our souls are not at stake, but our trajectory and therefore our timeline is. We are actually Love Incarnate and are here to wake up to that and to live from that perspective." Now I have been "out of the loop", so to speak, for a while now. If ^^^THAT^^^ ticks the current "orthodoxy" checkbox, then I need to reconsider my assessment of Mormonism!

I scored 69% Terryl Givens and 66% Progressive Mormon. Don't know who Terryl Givens is, but maybe I should find out. Edited a couple of hours later to add: I scored 100% "orthodoxy" and 0% "orthopraxy", the two being put at opposite ends of a continuum in the AI's analysis. I don't see myself as "orthodox", and imo pitting them against one another is a false dichotomy. Also, there is this lesser-known thing called "orthopathy", which would be "correct affections". "Orthopathy" seems to be an area where Givens and I have some common ground, so credit to the AI for placing me in the "Terryl Givens" category, even if its analysis did not explicitly include "orthopathy".

Thanks for posting. At the risk of over-simplifying: It seems to me there are two "plans of happiness" within Mormonism, the more modern and well-known being the Covenant Path. The other being the Pure Love of Christ, which is the culmination of Mormon's magnificent sermon (and arguably the capstone of the Book of Mormon's thought system), as recorded in the 7th chapter of Moroni.

I don't disagree with that. But could the Southern elites have instigated the civil war, including the fielding of multiple large armies, without the consent and support of the Southern non-elites? Seems to me a good idea well-argued (and Joseph Smith was a good orator) would have had a chance of swaying enough hearts and minds to divide the South along lines unfavorable to those who preferred war. That being said, recognizing my own tendency to be more optimist than realist, that's not a hill I'm willing to die on.

I often use LLMs for research in my day job, which is in a technical field. It can be a great time-saver, BUT ime you need to know enough about the topic to be able to spot when the LLM is giving incorrect information. Ime sometimes it is incorrect more often than correct on something that should be easy, such as looking at on-line data sheets and selecting parts that have a particular feature listed (numerous time-wasting false positives). And unfortunately it never indicates uncertainty, so if the results matter, it should be double-checked, because it is not really trustworthy. But yes it can save a great deal of time. I have also found that, on topics where opinions and viewpoints and interpretations come into play, LLMs tend to generate responses that align with what its algorithm thinks you want to hear. LLMs try to "read between the lines" and take a position you're likely to agree with. I tried it with gun control and found that I can "steer" the response via the wording of my question. So, relevant to this conversation, how can I trust that the LLM didn't try to "read between the lines" and tell you what it thought you wanted to hear, based on the wording you chose? Not that YOU deliberately tried to steer its responses, but once again the net result is that I don't trust the LLM. If there is such a bandwagon, it's not something I've paid any attention to. My opinion that LLMs are not trustworthy is based on my own experience. That's a fair criticism. I failed to find a way to express my opinion without coming across as rude. For that I apologize to you, Emily. Maybe you're right and I should have said nothing, instead of saying something that could come across as rude.

@Emily, thank you for posting that this is AI-generated content. I think there are a fair number of posts on this site that are largely or almost entirely AI-generated content but there is no such attribution included, such that the poster is acting as if the AI-generated content is their own words. Pardon me for being a species-ist, but I'm far more interested in the actual thoughts and analysis of my fellow humans, as opposed to the word sequences generated by a large language model's algorithm. I would read and might even respond to YOUR analysis, whether or not AI is your background source, but I lack the attention span to read multiple AI-generated paragraphs.

Not that this is "proof" of anything, but here's my anecdote as a descendant of slave owners: First, a bit of background - I was probably about ten years old when this conversation with my grandmother, who lived in New Orleans, took place. This was years before my conversion to Mormonism, and she was not remotely LDS nor did she later express any knowledge of or sympathies towards Mormonism or Joseph Smith. Her grandparents had been slave owners in Kentucky, and after the war they had to sell their farm and move to Mississippi. Three or four generations lived under one roof so she grew up hearing about the war from multiple first-hand accounts. One day I guess she decided to tell me what would have averted the war. She said that if the Southern slave owners had been compensated for their financial loss, the Civil War would, or could, have been averted. For whatever reason that made an impression on me, and then years later when I learned about that aspect of Joseph Smith's campaign platform, it seemed to me that he was either inspired or wise or both. I'm not historian enough to argue whether my grandmother's opinion was right and whether Joseph Smith's plan would have worked. Was compensating the slave owners ever a serious topic of national conversation and debate, and thereby given valid opportunity to change people's minds? Again, I don't know. Seems to me it was an idea that really should have been given the best possible chance to win over support, and perhaps Joseph Smith could have provided it with that best possible chance even if he didn't win.

Agreed. And there are other yardsticks that might be used to gauge whether we have made progress. How much cruelty are we comfortable with, be it towards marginalized individuals or groups, or animals? We still have a long ways to go, but our trajectory is in the right direction.

Agreed. Neither the LDS Church nor any other individual, group, or religion is appointed gatekeeper. Christ employs no gatekeeper (2 Nephi 9:41). Nor is it the job of those who consider themselves wheat to decide who is wheat and who is tare. That is not our job, and ime our spirits rise a bit when we let it go. We are here to be lights, not judges. In my opinion.

Agreed. Wish I was allowed to "like" your posts. Agreed - good point!

Arrrgh meant to "edit" and instead "quote". Again. I have a long ways to go!!

Notice that he (or she) who overcomes sits with Christ in his throne, just as Christ sits with his Father in his throne. Not separate, nor in a separate throne. My point being, this scripture indicates that union (or perhaps re-union) rather than separation is what we are progressing towards. It doesn't say those who overcome get their own throne; rather, it says they sit with Christ, as Christ sits with the Father, in their throne. Maybe I misunderstood, but the paradigm I was presented with in the LDS Church seemed to be a paradigm of ever-increasing separation: First the premortal division; then the three postmortal kingdoms; then the top kingdom being further subdivided into three degrees; and perhaps this pattern is continued, with those who progress faster increasingly leaving the others behind. I'm no longer convinced that progression happens in the direction of ever-increasing separation; I think it more likely that progression happens in the direction of ever-increasing union (or re-union), in plurality rather than in sameness. From the 88th Section of the D&C, verses 12, 13, and 44: "Which light [the Light of Christ] proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space — The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things... He [God] comprehendeth all things, and all things are before him, and all things are round about him; and he is above all things, and in all things, and is through all things..." Imo there is a perspective from which, right here and right now, we may perceive Christ in everyone, and likewise we may perceive God in everything. Imo this is not about our fundamental reality being separation (despite the preponderance of telestial evidence supporting a paradigm of separation); rather, imo it is about our fundamental reality being union with God in/with/through Christ. Of course, I could be wrong.

That has changed? I've been out of the loop for a while. What do the missionaries encourage investigators to do now? Edited to add: Back when I was active LDS, growth rates (in the US at least) supported the view that the LDS Church was the "stone cut without hands" rolling forth to fill the whole earth. My recollection is that, among US religious groups of significant size, the Pentecostals were the only ones with a similar growth rate. Today, my understanding is that, among those self-identifying as religious or spiritual or both, "spiritual but not religious" is not only the largest category (Evangelical Protestants being the second-largest), but also the fastest-growing by a significant margin. One might even posit that, for now at least, this category seems to fit the "cut without hands" part of Daniel's prophecy pretty well, as it has no leaders and no organization and no formal set of beliefs and no particular text. Ime it seems to be mostly just seekers seeking, which makes it a far-from-homogeneous category. My recollection is that there is a series of logical conclusions implied, or claimed to be implied, when someone receives a spiritual witness of the Book of Mormon. Something like this: IF the Book of Mormon is witnessed to by the Holy Spirit, THEN the Book of Mormon is true. IF the book of Mormon is true, THEN Joseph Smith was a true prophet. IF Joseph Smith was a true prophet, THEN Christ restored the one and only true church through Joseph Smith. IF Christ restored the one and only true church through Joseph Smith, THEN the modern LDS church is that church. And IF the modern LDS church is that church, THEN you should join it. Somebody please correct me if I've got that wrong.

There is a local family-owned business that is a shipping location for Fed Ex, UPS, DHL, and the USPS. The area is well outside of the Mormon Corridor. The husband called me "brother" the first time I came in to ship something. This was unexpected, and it felt very inclusive to me. I have no idea what his belief system is - does it really matter? - he and I are now "brothers".

The more I learn, the less I “know”. Many's the time I think I've arrived at the highest concept I can conceive of, and then the next thing comes along, and I have to re-draw my map, or at least that part of it. So at this point in my journey, I think in terms of “utility” rather than “absolute truth”. I think it would be a mistake for me to take any particular idea and carve it in stone; I do not want to become fossilized at that level of thinking no matter how enlightened it seems at the time. Imo this is the problem with a belief system based on a set of carefully thought-out creeds: Those same creeds can hold us back when we are otherwise ready for whatever lies beyond them. So I could probably list several ideas in which I find “utility” at this time, but I don't feel qualified to claim that they are the highest level of truth on the subject. Nor do I feel qualified to prescribe them as necessarily having similar “utility” for someone else, as I don't really know what anyone else's curriculum is, nor what classes they are taking at this time.

I'm not saying this concept is exclusive to Mormonism, but one of the things I like therein is this rather aspirational teaching of Christ, found in 3rd Nephi chapter 27 verse 27: “What manner of men [and women] ought ye to be? Verily I say unto you, even as I am.” So if Christ is the Vine and we are the branches, and if we are to become the same manner of men and women as Christ, then imo who we are to be looks like: The Vine showing up as Navidad The Vine showing up as blackstrap The Vine showing up as longview The Vine showing up as let's roll The Vine showing up as anonymous mormon The Vine showing up as manol The Vine showing up as JAHS The Vine showing up as Kenngo1969 The Vine showing up as why me The Vine showing up as Tony UK The Vine showing up as Tacenda The Vine showing up as smac97 The Vine showing up as calm The Vine showing up as MiserereNobis The Vine showing up as Rain The Vine showing up as bluebell The Vine showing up as Amulek The Vine showing up as Senator The Vine showing up as Pyreaux The Vine showing up as 3DOP And he hasn't posted in this thread yet, but just in case: The Vine showing up as The Nehor. I think these and however many billion other branches, all of us still Works in Progress, are ways in which The Vine is in the process of showing up. And imo our differences are “features”, rather than “bugs”. How boring it would be if we were all the same! Let us see and honor in one another the highest potential that can be seen.

Hope you don't mind if I pull a quote from your imo excellent article: "The Parable of the Sower teaches us that good seeds can yield good fruit in Catholic ground, in Protestant ground, among the non-Christian religiously devout, and even among the nonreligious. The Savior’s admonition to judge people by their fruits teaches a similar principle. His admonition to “ask, seek, and knock” tells us that His Father gives good gifts to all varieties of people who ask Him, irrespective of religion. The Parable of the Talents teaches us that the Lord is displeased only with those who fail to live the best they know how according to the light they’ve been given. Modern revelation teaches us that the more we have been given, the more will be required of us, and that we will be rewarded for the good we do, likewise irrespective of religion. John the Baptist’s warning to the Pharisees teaches us that we ought not become too provincial in our possession of truth nor too secure in our own salvation. And finally, early leaders of the Restoration remind us that, while much good can be found in the Church of Jesus Christ and among its members, we have no corner on “goodness.”"

For context, I'm no longer LDS and not affiliated with any religion. Here are my thoughts, with the numbers corresponding to the numbered items in your post: 1) I'm not in a position to judge which baptism(s) are pleasing to God. I respect your beliefs on the subject, and I respect the LDS beliefs on the subject. 2) I think your fence-vs-well analogy is valid. Personally, I tend to think in terms of “circles of inclusion”, and favor a really big circle which does not exclude anyone, be they Christian or non-Christian or Atheist or whatever. 3) I can accept the idea of basic teachings being readily accessible while higher teachings are reserved, as the higher can be counter-productive if presented before a person is ready for them. 4) I too am uncomfortable with “othering”, whether the circle is drawn at the borders of Mormonism or Christianity or Theism or wherever. That being said, it would be laughably hypocritical for me to draw a circle that excludes those who participate in “othering”! That (and so much else) is simply part of our journey down here, individually and collectively. 5) My concept of life after death is dominated by the first-hand accounts of those who have been on the other side and lived to tell the tale, rather than by religious teachings. The impression I get is that how we behave towards one another is vastly more important than which belief system we subscribe to. Aha! You my friend are dangerously close to drawing a really big circle too! Agreed! Imo Mormonism produces very good people.

Thank you. Those names ring a bell, but the details of who played or did not play what role is the sort of thing I'm likely to have mixed up.

Thanks for the link. About three decades ago this topic was of great interest to me. One of the factors I came across wasn't mentioned in the video. This will be from my highly fallible memory: The Manifesto and the subsequent Second Manifesto resulted in a schism wherein a fundamentalist movement continued to practice plural marriages. They claimed valid priesthood authority for doing so and my understanding is that one or two Apostles had passed on this sealing authority to members within the fundamentalist movement. My understanding is that the mainstream LDS church did not dispute their claims of having received valid authority, but rather took the position that exercising this authority without the approval of the President of the Church was inappropriate and therefore invalid (as well as being grounds for excommunication). So the question was not whether the fundamentalists had been given the proper authority; the question was whether they could use it. The mainstream Church took the position that the priesthood lines of authority are what matters, and therefore the approval of the President of the Church is necessary. The fundamentalists countered with the example of LDS women giving blessings as evidence that the authority to act in the name of God was not constrained solely to the Church's priesthood lines of authority. So the practice of women giving blessings became a sore subject of sorts in the dispute with the fundamentalists over their use of priesthood authority to perform plural marriages without the approval of the President of the Church. It was in the interest of the Church's position on the outside-priesthood-lines-of-authority performance of plural marriages for the practice of women giving blessings to be downgraded or discredited, and discontinued. Personally, I do not think the practice of women giving blessings is or ever was "wrong" in the eyes of God, regardless of the then-current position of those in ecclesiastical authority.

Agreed on both counts. This person has interviewed many near-death experiencers and here she's warning us about fake NDEs: BEWARE: Fake Near Death Experiences are FLOODING YouTube - Here's How to Spot Them! - YouTube Briefly, you're generally safe with YouTube channels that have been around for a long time and that show interviews or video clips of the actual person speaking, especially if that same person shows up in other interviews on other channels when you search for them.