I Like My Crow Medium Rare

[Craig Paxton]

I've been banned from my own thread for reasons that still are unclear to me...But I want to eat my crow and acknowledge that I was too fast to conclude that there was no truth behind the Milk Strippings story. Although I still contend that apostacy is much more complicated than presented and taught...it appears that I was wrong in thnking that the milk strippings story was an invention of George A Smith...I'm here to eat my crow/hat... whatever you place on my plate.

I wish to apologize to 'Deborah'...for me its mere entertainment to joust with you...its never anything personal and although we may disagree on many things...I do respect your right to your beliefs. I want to thank Okrahomer for his/her links. I do feel that although not conclusive...there is enough information to concude that there is truth behind the story. I would prefer a link to the actual church court records, but you have made your point and I acknowledge that on this subject...there is enough evidence to suggest that there is truth in the Milk Strippings story. My sincere apology to all concerned. Consider it a good day for defenders of the church...the evil apostate has been vanquished. Drat...foiled again...

NOW in all sincerity...can someone please explain to me why I was banned? Seriously I don't get it...I was dishing it out as much as it was being dished. I understand the need to be civil to fellow posters...but what exactly did I say that was out of line? Can someone help me understand?

Cheers,

Craig

[Calm]

From the other thread...

Hestia: Craig Paxton is no longer on this thread due to continuous insulting remarks.

---

You want to know why, you need to take it up with the mods, before you do or discuss it more like this, I would suggest you read the board guidelines again.

[CV75]

I still contend that apostacy is much more complicated than presented and taught...

Please see what is taught:

Apostasy: http://lds.org/study/topics/apostasy?lang=eng

Apostate: http://lds.org/study/topics/apostate?lang=eng

How is it more complicated than turning away from the principles of the gospel or seriously contravening or ignoring cardinal Church teachings (publicly or privately)?

All it takes is to turn away from the principles in letter or spirit.

[ERayR]

I've been banned from my own thread for reasons that still are unclear to me...But I want to eat my crow and acknowledge that I was too fast to conclude that there was no truth behind the Milk Strippings story. Although I still contend that apostacy is much more complicated than presented and taught...it appears that I was wrong in thnking that the milk strippings story was an invention of George A Smith...I'm here to eat my crow/hat... whatever you place on my plate.

I wish to apologize to 'Deborah'...for me its mere entertainment to joust with you...its never anything personal and although we may disagree on many things...I do respect your right to your beliefs. I want to thank Okrahomer for his/her links. I do feel that although not conclusive...there is enough information to concude that there is truth behind the story. I would prefer a link to the actual church court records, but you have made your point and I acknowledge that on this subject...there is enough evidence to suggest that there is truth in the Milk Strippings story. My sincere apology to all concerned. Consider it a good day for defenders of the church...the evil apostate has been vanquished. Drat...foiled again...

NOW in all sincerity...can someone please explain to me why I was banned? Seriously I don't get it...I was dishing it out as much as it was being dished. I understand the need to be civil to fellow posters...but what exactly did I say that was out of line? Can someone help me understand?

Cheers,

Craig

I will say up front you deserve some credit for your apology, although it was not clear what all you were apologizing for. On the other hand I do not have much respect for someone who will disparage someone elses dearly held beliefs just for entertainment. Pretty cavalier and shows a high state of disrespect for your fellow man.

[urroner]

Please see what is taught:

Apostasy: http://lds.org/study/topics/apostasy?lang=eng

Apostate: http://lds.org/study/topics/apostate?lang=eng

How is it more complicated than turning away from the principles of the gospel or seriously contravening or ignoring cardinal Church teachings (publicly or privately)?

All it takes is to turn away from the principles in letter or spirit.

We know what apostasy is, but what are the root causes of it?

I have ADHD and its bigger, meaner brother, depression. The result of them are very well known, but what the cause of them isn't so well known nor understood.

This next part is not directed towards anybody in particular, but everybody in general, especially me.

Sometimes we see the symptoms of a problem and think that we know exactly what the problem is and how to fix it, when in real life, we don't have the foggiest idea of what the real problem is nor how to fix it. Even when we know what the problem is sometimes, we still don't know how to fix it, but some of us are more than willing to pretend we do.

In my case of depression, I was told that if I would just listen to the Spirit more closely, prayed more, and attended the temple more often, God would relieve me of that burden fairly quickly. A stake president told me that. I told this to a a counselor in the LDS Family Services not long afterward, and he went and told the SP not to start diagnosing mental illnesses and giving simplistic remedies. Mental illness is a nasty illness and, if left untreated, can only make things worse.

What would any of us say to a missionary who promised a person who is suffering from diabetes or cancer, that if that person would only get baptized, God would cure him quickly. Would any of us agree with the missionary and encourage the person to quickly get baptized so his suffering would end? I don't think any of us would, but why do we do that exact thing when it comes to mental problems.

Sometimes when a person loses his testimony, it's not because he's gone and committed some heinous sin or he's been offended, or that he is lazy and doesn't want to come to church anymore, or he doesn't simply want to keep the commandments. Sometimes it's because a mental paradigm shift has happened and how he views life and understands it has also changed.

Mental paradigm shifts are not bad nor good, they just are, and they can sometimes happen very quickly.

I try not to judge those who left the church for whatever reason just as I try not to judge those who stay in the church for whatever reason. I have seen those whom I believed to be the pinnacle of righteousness turn out to be the ultimate scallywags and then there were those whose theme song I believed to be AC/DC's song "On The Highway To Hell" and they turned out to be some of the best people I have ever met.

[Calm]

We know what apostasy is, but what are the root causes of it?....

Sometimes when a person loses his testimony, it's not because he's gone and committed some heinous sin or he's been offended, or that he is lazy and doesn't want to come to church anymore, or he doesn't simply want to keep the commandments. Sometimes it's because a mental paradigm shift has happened and how he views life and understands it has also changed.

Mental paradigm shifts are not bad nor good, they just are, and they can sometimes happen very quickly.

I try not to judge those who left the church for whatever reason just as I try not to judge those who stay in the church for whatever reason. I have seen those whom I believed to be the pinnacle of righteousness turn out to be the ultimate scallywags and then there were those whose theme song I believed to be AC/DC's song "On The Highway To Hell" and they turned out to be some of the best people I have ever met.

Well said.

[Hestia]

It wasn't due to remarks to one person but a body of remarks that were provoking and rather insolent to other individuals. Disagree with the point but don't make disparaging remarks about a person's intelligence or education.

[CV75]

We know what apostasy is, but what are the root causes of it?

Involuntary impediments such as mental illness, mental faculty and mental paradigm shifts are not apostasy, nor are they the causes of the kind of apostasy in the definitions I provided. However, their effects may be treated as apostasy might be--sometimes unfairly in ignorance, and sometimes in expediency to protect the individual and others. Like sin, apostasy can be caused willfully, involuntarily, or in ignorance and is addressed accordingly. Mental difficulties seem to contribute to the involuntary or ignorance types of apostasy.

[Calm]

[N]or are they the causes of the kind of apostasy in the definitions I provided.

I would disagree.

One of your links describes apostasy as:

Latter-day Saints who have seriously contravened or ignored cardinal Church teachings (publicly or privately) are considered apostates, whether or not they have officially left the Church or affiliated with another religion” (Encyclopedia of Mormonism [1992], 1:59).

I know of at least one case where a member's depression caused him to feel God had deserted him (he saw things as negative when others saw them as very positive, such as a healing that occurred....his position was if God was with him, the sickness would never had occurred in the first place, when he was having financial trouble, where others saw God's intervention in protecting his family from hardships, he felt it was unjust and therefore ungodly for him to have the trouble at all.) He intellectually could present the outcome as positive and an example of God's work in his and his family's life, but when he opened up and talked about his emotional view of what had happened...dismissing anything positive as irrelevant, concentrating (as depressives do) on even the tiniest of negatives as evidence, it was always "God abandoned me" so it seems to me highly likely that it was his emotional state due to his developing chronic depression that created this attitude which then led to him rejecting the Gospel completely and teaching against it to his family members and others.

[CV75]

it was his emotional state due to his developing chronic depression that created this attitude which then led to him rejecting the Gospel completely and teaching against it to his family members and others.

The links I provided are about apostasy, not mental illness. It appears you have concluded that your friend's attitude was an expression of mental illness, and presumably involuntary. Some may consider this apostasy, but I don't agree that the links I provided require it to be so. Like sin, apostasy is willful; while things done involuntarily or in ignorance or without accountability may superficially mimic some indicators of actual apostasy, they have to be identified and treated for what they really are.

[Calm]

The links I provided are about apostasy, not mental illness. It appears you have concluded that your friend's attitude was an expression of mental illness, and presumably involuntary. Some may consider this apostasy, but I don't agree that the links I provided require it to be so. Like sin, apostasy is willful; while things done involuntarily or in ignorance or without accountability may superficially mimic some indicators of actual apostasy, they have to be identified and treated for what they really are.

While I would say his negative attitude was most likely involuntary, it was his personal choice imo that he turned that negative attitude upon God and the Gospel. I know some depressives who find comfort in the Gospel (more in fact than who don't) because they choose to look at the teachings in that way while others suffering from the same mental disorder take the opposite stance, a few eventually blaming the Church and one or two even have begun to teach against it. The mental disorder is involuntary, how they choose to look at the Church in the context of that experience is voluntary from what I've seen to a great extent.

Everyone has hardships in life, one can choose to use those hardships to draw themselves closer to God or one can choose to allow those hardships to interfere with one's relationship with God. I 'lost the spirit' for 3 years due to medication, I could have chosen to accept the lack of feeling of the Spirit as evidence of its nonexistence, instead I chose to rely on past experiences as factual and looked for spiritual evidences externally...and I found them. I probably could have as easily found evidence for the nonexistence of the spirit if I had gone looking for those and that choice might have brought me to apostasy, not the actual experience of losing the spirit through drug induced depression.

[urroner]

The links I provided are about apostasy, not mental illness. It appears you have concluded that your friend's attitude was an expression of mental illness, and presumably involuntary. Some may consider this apostasy, but I don't agree that the links I provided require it to be so. Like sin, apostasy is willful; while things done involuntarily or in ignorance or without accountability may superficially mimic some indicators of actual apostasy, they have to be identified and treated for what they really are.

The problem is how can we know what are the causes for somebody leaving the Church or even fighting against the Church. If somebody fights against the Church, that, to me, is apostasy, but how can I know why that person apostatized. All I know is what his actions are, not what is causing the actions, but there are some people who claim to know why and they will say it's simply because that person sinned and the Spirit left him.

Life is always a simple black and white. In fact, it rarely is.

[Bernard Gui]

I've been banned from my own thread for reasons that still are unclear to me...But I want to eat my crow and acknowledge that I was too fast to conclude that there was no truth behind the Milk Strippings story. Although I still contend that apostacy is much more complicated than presented and taught...it appears that I was wrong in thnking that the milk strippings story was an invention of George A Smith...I'm here to eat my crow/hat... whatever you place on my plate.

Now that your concerns have been resolved, let me be the first to welcome you back!

Bernard

[CV75]

The mental disorder is involuntary, how they choose to look at the Church in the context of that experience is voluntary from what I've seen to a great extent.

So you would agree that authentic apostasy is a personal choice and is not caused by mental illness?

[CV75]

The problem is how can we know what are the causes for somebody leaving the Church or even fighting against the Church. If somebody fights against the Church, that, to me, is apostasy, but how can I know why that person apostatized. All I know is what his actions are, not what is causing the actions, but there are some people who claim to know why and they will say it's simply because that person sinned and the Spirit left him.

Life is always a simple black and white. In fact, it rarely is.

That is why the links I provided are so helpful. They define apostasy in straightforward terms. Discernment on how to apply the definitions is a gift from God to those who need it. Discernment can be used to help those in apostasy and to help those who only appear to be in apostasy, and if the cause is relevant, it will also be given to those who need to know so they can help. Discernment can also be used, if needed, to address any problems created by those who claim to know the cause but who really don't or who don't help the situation with their so-called knowledge. But discernment, like apostasy, is not a complicated process, either.

[Calm]

So you would agree that authentic apostasy is a personal choice and is not caused by mental illness?

Yes to personal choice, but I would suggest that "causes" include environmental conditions that lead to the setting up the situation where the choice occurs.

[CV75]

Yes to personal choice, but I would suggest that "causes" include environmental conditions that lead to the setting up the situation where the choice occurs.

...which is traced back to The Fall!

[Calm]

...which is traced back to The Fall!

Even before that, lol.

[CV75]

Even before that, lol.

May you enjoy a relaxing environmental condition the rest of the evening!

[Calm]

May you enjoy a relaxing environmental condition the rest of the evening!

I think I'm going to go turn on the air conditioner and curl up with a good book.

[Craig Paxton]

I will say up front you deserve some credit for your apology, although it was not clear what all you were apologizing for. On the other hand I do not have much respect for someone who will disparage someone elses dearly held beliefs just for entertainment. Pretty cavalier and shows a high state of disrespect for your fellow man.

To clarify...What I find entertaining is the testing of my own beliefs by jousting with a firm believer. To flesh out knowledge one must be willing to throw ones beliefs on the altar of examination to see if they can stand up to scrutiny. You will note that I also said that I respect Deborah's right to her beliefs. And as evidenced by my apology, I am willing to reject a belief IF I find that it does not stand up to that scrutiny. Which is also why I am no longer a believer in all things Mormon...for me and for me alone...when tested my belief’s did not stand up to critical examination. I say that knowing full well that others have also subjected their LDS faith and been able to reconcile it and perhaps even strengthen it ...but for me that was not the result.

It is never my intent to disparage anyone’s beliefs...if that is somehow how my posts have been interpreted...forgive me that was not my intent.

[Log]

To clarify...What I find entertaining is the testing of my own beliefs by jousting with a firm believer. To flesh out knowledge one must be willing to throw ones beliefs on the altar of examination to see if they can stand up to scrutiny. You will note that I also said that I respect Deborah's right to her beliefs. And as evidenced by my apology, I am willing to reject a belief IF I find that it does not stand up to that scrutiny. Which is also why I am no longer a believer in all things Mormon...for me and for me alone...when tested my belief’s did not stand up to critical examination. I say that knowing full well that others have also subjected their LDS faith and been able to reconcile it and perhaps even strengthen it ...but for me that was not the result.

It is never my intent to disparage anyone’s beliefs...if that is somehow how my posts have been interpreted...forgive me that was not my intent.

Let's make it sporting, then. Put up what, exactly, you DO believe, rather than simply what you DON'T believe.

[juliann]

The problem is how can we know what are the causes for somebody leaving the Church or even fighting against the Church. If somebody fights against the Church, that, to me, is apostasy, but how can I know why that person apostatized. All I know is what his actions are, not what is causing the actions, but there are some people who claim to know why and they will say it's simply because that person sinned and the Spirit left him.

Life is always a simple black and white. In fact, it rarely is.

I don't think "apostate" should ever be used other than to describe those who fight against the church.

[juliann]

To clarify...What I find entertaining is the testing of my own beliefs by jousting with a firm believer. To flesh out knowledge one must be willing to throw ones beliefs on the altar of examination to see if they can stand up to scrutiny. You will note that I also said that I respect Deborah's right to her beliefs. And as evidenced by my apology, I am willing to reject a belief IF I find that it does not stand up to that scrutiny. Which is also why I am no longer a believer in all things Mormon...for me and for me alone...when tested my belief’s did not stand up to critical examination. I say that knowing full well that others have also subjected their LDS faith and been able to reconcile it and perhaps even strengthen it ...but for me that was not the result.

It is never my intent to disparage anyone’s beliefs...if that is somehow how my posts have been interpreted...forgive me that was not my intent.

We will always welcome civil non-believers here. You are looking like a good addition.

[Stargazer]

I don't think "apostate" should ever be used other than to describe those who fight against the church.

Agreed