The Philosophy Of Leaving The Church Over Historical Issues-Like What Is It?

[Jeff K.]

LOL!

But seriously, Jeff, I don't understand why you don't engage me on the issues. Are you afraid that if you actually try to have a discussion you won't have much to say? Resorting to depictions of one's foe is always easier, I admit, but you really haven't shown you have much to offer a discussion in terms of valid, progressive commentary.

For what it's worth, I think you are doing an excellent job representing the church. Rarely do I meet a member of the church as rabidly pro-Mormon as you, my friend.

H.

What you don't know is that I am not "rabidly" pro Mormon, I am however "rabidly" anti dumb, and rabidly pro honest. Many of the arguments foisted have been very shallow, and dishonest in their intent. People who don't check their facts and people who presume that any spiritual content must be dismissed because "they don't feel it". Some of my best friends are atheists, but they are atheists that acknowledge they can be wrong, and I also can be wrong, but they do not deny or seek to steal or denigrate or shame any church.

Too often people who don't like the church go with the "how on earth can you believe that stuff" attitude. I don't like it, since I am more than happy to shovel back. Suddenly I am called rabid for returning the dubious gifts of rhetoric dropped on the bottom of the chicken cage in this forum.

I do nor resort to depictions so much as use analogy to show you what you have missed. You are the one presuming that it applies only to you.

I suggest you give it some thought.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Jeff K.

[Jeff K.]

I doubt ou

Hey, whatever floats people's boats. I feel best when I act the same here as I do in real life. But that's just me.

H.

I doubt you would do well in a debate in real life since it would require some preparation and knowledge. Also you have taken what might be considered embarrasing positions that people in real life would be shocked at seeing you take.

[Jeff K.]

But then what did you call it? Oh yes...

Resorting to depictions of one's foe is always easier

Hypocrisy taste buds must be dead....

I admit, but you really haven't shown you have much to offer a discussion in terms of valid, progressive commentary.

Interesting depiction.

Let me know when you reach the substance part.

Edited January 21, 2012 by Jeff K.

[Senator]

Jeff, sometimes I wish that you'd engage the actual discussion rather than saying I am incapable of grasping concepts and that I have deficiencies and other such pronouncements.

H.

You know you can always choose to ignore certain posters,right?

[rodheadlee]

To make clear - I meant that we could use my past experience. The church is my past, not my present or my future.

God's physical body is essential to my salvation. The details of that body can be left to fun speculation; the notion that he has a body is core to LDS belief because a perfected physical body is one of the promises of the resurrection.

If I discover that there are strong reasons to doubt that a perfected physical deity appeared to Joseph, then I have reasons to doubt that a perfected physical body is in my future.

Make no mistake - as I explained before, I felt that I had a relationship with god when I was a faithful believing member of the LDS Church. And yet, historical accounts are what made me see things differently.

This leads right back to where we started: personal revelation from god can not be relied upon to defend one from historical discrepancies because it the source of personal revelation is not necessarily from god.

One can claim they have a long-term relationship with god, but that really requires evidence in order for someone else to believe. If one claims they talk *to* god, that's one thing. But a claim that god talks *to* people, that requires some type of evidence.

H.

What kind of evidence? Evidence that God spoke to me?, Joseph Smith? Nephi?

[Jeff K.]

LOL! You admit the problem in your attempt to cut me down. You see, of course it would be silly for me to rely on a doctor who claimed she got all her medical training from god. I want my doctors trained in medical schools. Same as history; I don't want to trust my historical research to someone who claims she was told by god that one piece of history is true and another piece of history is false. I want my history from people who are trained in the field.

No, you made a ridiculous analogy. History, as most historians will tell you, is written and interpreted by people, most of whom were not there. So you trust your historical research to someone who wasn't there, and it is based on that you reject the church. I know doctors well enough to know their decisions are sometimes flawed. Will a doctor give you medicine because a pharmaceutical took him to dinner to sell it? Sometimes, yes. Will a historian give you history or will he give you his particular story? A Marxist will tell you one thing, an ethnohistorian will tell you another, both will look at the same facts, and both will give their slants regarding the facts. You want your historians to be trained? Trained in what? Psychohistory perhaps?

Facts in history never come to us in a pure undiluted form. They are refracted in the mind of the person recording the information. If that person has a negative position regarding the subject matter, you can bet the history will emphasize it. History should not merely be labled according to the facts as we see them, but also and perhaps more importantly, with the state of mind of the recorder who wrote it.

I would suggest that perhaps you place too much faith in history and not enough faith in yourself or in God.

[Jeff K.]

Make no mistake - as I explained before, I felt that I had a relationship with god when I was a faithful believing member of the LDS Church. And yet, historical accounts are what made me see things differently.

If you had a personal relationship with God, and some interpreted historical documents made you lose that relationship, one must question if you ever really had a relationship with God. After all, which is greater? An interpretation of a document? Or God?

When one reads the Old Testament with some of what might be considered genocidal warfare, did your relationship with God vanish? Or did you presume a misinterpretation or lost document that would have more closely explained the issue? Where was that relationship with God then? God did not abandon you, nor did the church, in fact you can say you abandoned the church and God, after all, historical records, those taught to you by trained historians make God out to be a bloody monster.

It seems to me people will believe the history that most closely justifies their positions. It is one reason Christ was crucified. Certain anti's simply could not abide his history, who he was and what he did was not respected in His own country.

[mfbukowski]

To make clear - I meant that we could use my past experience. The church is my past, not my present or my future.

God's physical body is essential to my salvation. The details of that body can be left to fun speculation; the notion that he has a body is core to LDS belief because a perfected physical body is one of the promises of the resurrection.

If I discover that there are strong reasons to doubt that a perfected physical deity appeared to Joseph, then I have reasons to doubt that a perfected physical body is in my future.

Make no mistake - as I explained before, I felt that I had a relationship with god when I was a faithful believing member of the LDS Church. And yet, historical accounts are what made me see things differently.

This leads right back to where we started: personal revelation from god can not be relied upon to defend one from historical discrepancies because it the source of personal revelation is not necessarily from god.

One can claim they have a long-term relationship with god, but that really requires evidence in order for someone else to believe. If one claims they talk *to* god, that's one thing. But a claim that god talks *to* people, that requires some type of evidence.

Why?

Both talking to God and hearing his answer are subjective experiences.

By the way there are many churches- Catholicism for example which believe in a physical resurrection but do not think God has a body.

[mfbukowski]

When confronting a conundrum I try to leave open the possibility that I'm the weak link in the chain of comprehension.

Sorry, that requires humility.

[LDSToronto]

What you don't know is that I am not "rabidly" pro Mormon, I am however "rabidly" anti dumb, and rabidly pro honest. Many of the arguments foisted have been very shallow, and dishonest in their intent. People who don't check their facts and people who presume that any spiritual content must be dismissed because "they don't feel it". Some of my best friends are atheists, but they are atheists that acknowledge they can be wrong, and I also can be wrong, but they do not deny or seek to steal or denigrate or shame any church.

Would you mind showing me where I have:

1. Not checked my facts

2. Sought to steal anything

3. Denigrated the church

4. Shamed the church

Thank you.

H.

[LDSToronto]

You know you can always choose to ignore certain posters,right?

Yes. Sometimes it's better to give people enough rope to make a swing and a noose.

H.

[Jeff K.]

Would you mind showing me where I have:

1. Not checked my facts

2. Sought to steal anything

3. Denigrated the church

4. Shamed the church

Thank you.

H.

You presume I am speaking about you specifically. Humble yourself and know that I am not. Sorry if this devestates you.

[LDSToronto]

You presume I am speaking about you specifically. Humble yourself and know that I am not. Sorry if this devestates you.

It's hard to follow when you mentioned these things in response to something I said. Oh well, I guess I can't be the centre of all your attention.

H.

[Grundelwalken]

For me it was a belief that if Joseph Smith and other church leaders were truly involved in some of the things that history told me they were involved with then I couldn't believe that the Holy Ghost could reside with them and thus they couldn't receive revelation. If they weren't worthy of revelation they the Church was man-made and not inspired. If the church wasn't inspired then it was a waste of a lot of time that could be spent elsewhere.

It is a little more complicated than that but that is the extremely short version.

I sort of understand why one would think history is irrelevant but I certainly don't agree with that.

When I read statements like this, I wonder if any of us are ever able to feel and understand the things of the Spirit. God does not expect us to be perfect, He only expects us to be seeking to be better. There have been many times when I felt unworthy but still was blessed with knowledge for a situation. Joseph, Brigham, et al were prophets and despite their weaknesses, they were able to lead by the Spirit of Revelation. MW

[why me]

What I stated was taken directly from the Pew survey report. What I am talking about in referring to the first vision is a fundamental truth claim of the LDS Church. What I am saying is that the overwhelming majority of those who hear this truth claim reject it. What part of this straightforward and evidence-backed argument do you not understand?

And why wouldn't they reject it? I can say the same for the visitations of mary. Believed by catholics and disbelieved by noncatholics. However, how many who disbelieve actively look into it? Not many. With JS and his first vision we see a steady progression to what became the book of mormon. The truth claim rests with the book and not with the first vision. If Joseph just had a first vision and that was all, well, maybe mormonism would be just a protestant sect with a different nickname.

But mormons have a book and it is there that the understanding must come from and also from the witnesses who had there experiences in seeing the book or in touching and investigating the book with their hands. In mormonism we are dealing with more than one man and one man's history.

[why me]

Are you an example of someone who has built a long-term relationship with god?

H.

I think that the bigger question is: can history help us build a long term relationship with god? Now with the early history of the lds church and with all the people involved and how they all held fast to their early experiences can certainly give us an example of it. Lets take oliver: he left, he experimented outside the church and came back with his dying testimony on his lips. Lets take david: he saw, he left, he could not leave it alone. He died requesting his testimony of the book of mormon be written on his tombstone. What can his history teach us about the book of mormon and our relationship with god?

Let me put it this way: the witnesses who gave deathbed testimonies did so for one reason: to hedge their bets with god. They knew what they saw and felt and they knew that they may come up short when they face their maker. So, they gave their final testimony on their deathbeds, just in case they should have stayed in the church.

Edited January 22, 2012 by why me

[selek1]

The philosophy of those who leave the Church "over historical issues" can be summed up in two statements:

damnant quodnon intelligunt

and

parva leves capiunt animas

[Brade]

The philosophy of those who leave the Church "over historical issues" can be summed up in two statements:

damnant quodnon intelligunt

and

parva leves capiunt animas

Yep, that's all there is to it. Very deep. Thank you.

[Jeff K.]

The philosophy of those who leave the Church "over historical issues" can be summed up in two statements:

damnant quodnon intelligunt

and

parva leves capiunt animas

Yes, definately.

[KevinG]

"Damning intelligent quotes" and "Parvo in the leaves is caught by animals"?

Darn Google translate!

[Jeff K.]

When I decided the Catholic Church wasn't for me. I was fully aware of its jaded history, and yes, jaded is an almost bland word for some of its actions. Whether it be the auto de fes or other picadillos of a awesomely powerful organization that had lost its way. Compare that history to the somewhat vague civil matters, of the beginnings of our church and you wonder at the focus of some of these people out there. The difference in scope and depth and number of years is incredible. Yet as a young man I knew that Popes, cardinals, bishops can be flawed and their organizations sometimes reflected those flaws. In fact there isn't one major religious organization that does not suffer from the shortcomings of some of its leaders. To presume a perfection in history is to presume stupidly that perfection exists in any mortal organization. Families are instituted by God, I think we can all agree with that, yet I doubt anyone has seen a perfect family with a perfect history. Bushman's "Rough Stone Rolling" and the "Joseph Smith Papers" provide all, and by (as one recalcitrant enemy of the church has implied) any standard, one of the best of trained historians. Do these historians leave the church in droves? Are they perhaps instead malicious, unethical and have sold out their morality in order to push the churches agendas? I know some of the historians personally, they are moral and they understand how history can be seen from many different points of view.

For me the question was doctrine to answer spiritual needs. The doctrines of Christ, the love of Christ, the understanding of Gethsemane, progress, a premortal existence, why we are here, where we can go. Such things spoke to me and those things brought out in me a spiritual growth and understanding which was the genesis of my deeper understanding. I never left the Catholic church saying "You guys don't understand your history, or listing and cataloguing the crusades, and how people were and how they reacted. I don't call the Catholic church a great fraud, because I know it isn't and I know too many intelligent and good men who know it isn't a fraud. I don't hang around Catholic board backbiting, and making miserable because I am no longer in their sphere, and telling Catholic the deficiencies which I might imagine they have. I in fact embrace Catholics as good people who strive to do great things, but do not have the doctrine I hold to be true.

Now lets look what I deem most interesting to those who know laugh and decry us. Mormon saw them and wrote in the eighth chapter.

Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that ^bmisery‍ which never dies—because of the ^cpraise‍ of the world?

I see these guys toss up all kinds of imagined slieghts, all sorts of anguished responses. They have chosen the praise of interpreted history over doctrine, they have chosen to be outriders in forums, people who sit on the periphery of the borders of membership, they complain, they cajole, and if it means that they can bring but one soul to their miserable state, how happy in their misery they can be, how great the evil happiness if they can drag many souls from that periphery.

I bet some almost convince themselves they are doing it for the right cause. More is the pity I hold for them.

[Deborah]

I see these guys toss up all kinds of imagined slieghts, all sorts of anguished responses.

It really bothers me when people talk about how the church withholds information, when we have been taught to seek out of the best books and to study and pray on our own. However, that seems to be a symptom of apostasy.

Example. My sister and some of her children have recently left the church as they have come to believe that the prophets are no longer receiving revelation. The compare them to someone like Brigham Young and because the church doesn't talk about the doomsday prophecies of the past they are somehow false. But here is the crux of the matter: they believe the church has suppressed the JOD which contains all these "prophecies" and "revelations" from the dead prophets. Even after I point out the quotes from the JOD in our lesson manuals and that the entire JOD is published on the BYU website they insist the church doesn't encourage us to read it and the insist the JOD is scripture. I can't follow the logic of it but I guess that's me. Prior to their apostasy they never would think such a thing, and in fact isn't it ironic that the very fact they found these writings and read them, contrary to the church "suppressing" them puts a lie to the claim that we are brainwashed and kept from certain things.

The rationalization that goes with leaving the church simply blows my mind. It's one thing to disagree with the teachings and doctrine but quite another to then put a negative light on all the history that they suddenly discover after years of being in the church.

[selek1]

Deborah, Jeff K, and Daddy G are hereby ordered to stop making good, salient points for twenty four hours.

I'm running outta rep points!

Edited January 22, 2012 by selek1

[Senator]

The rationalization that goes with leaving the church simply blows my mind.

So, a "mindblowing rationalization" is the depth of the sympathy and understanding you offer your own sister? Could there possibly be anything else she might be struggling with?

[Deborah]

So, a "mindblowing rationalization" is the depth of the sympathy and understanding you offer your own sister? Could there possibly be anything else she might be struggling with?

Are you serious? You know nothing about the situation. No, I don't have sympathy; I do have pity. She and her husband have made a deliberate choice and joined their apostate son in leaving the church. They were both temple goers and her husband was a former bishop. They made their choice with open eyes and just a year ago were speaking the exact opposite of what they are now saying. I personally think the fact that their son was excommunicated for his open teachings against the church has colored their decision. They keep talking about how someone is excommunicated for just disagreeing with the church when they know darn well he was openly preaching in church and asked by his bishop to stop. He wasn't asked to stop believing, but to stop trying to lead others away, which by the way he has including a younger sister and some of the other ward members.

It is interesting in light of this thread, that their problem wasn't with the history of the church, but the fact that we weren't still embracing that history, including still practicing polygamy and that the church seems to be more accepted and because it's not persecuted that some how it is the church that has apostatized and not them.

I do not consider all persons who leave the church apostate, only those who start openly preaching against it which now my sister and her husband and daughter do. It is heartbreaking to see them condemn that which just a short while ago they embraced and believed in wholeheartedly. They use the same old arguments all apostates give "I've been where you are, but now that I am enlightened I see things differently." "I've read and studied a lot and if you only would read what I've read you would see my point" and on and on. It is the same pattern we see over and over and the irony is they accuse those of us who remain of blindly following, and yet it is they who are following an age-old pattern.