Thoughts On Church History And Faith Crisis Part 2

[mentalgymnast]

tempate

Oops, I meant "template". Isn't there an editing feature on this board so you can go back and change something that was in error?

[wenglund]

I think you are stressing yourself needlessly.

And, I don't think he is alone. I suspect that there are a lot of people in the Church who haven't figured out how to really enjoy the gospel and how to draw much joy from living the gospel. Even in my most intense and dark struggles, spiritual or otherwise, I could count on a warming ray of gospel sunshine to cheer my day and lighten my load, if nothing more than posts like yours and maidservant, where you genuinely whoop it up about being a daughter of God. It kind of put things into joyful and hopeful perspective.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited May 6, 2012 by wenglund

[Calm]

Oops, I meant "template". Isn't there an editing feature on this board so you can go back and change something that was in error?

When you get up to 25 posts, you can edit. This is to allow mods to catch spammers and trolls in action, I believe.

[mentalgymnast]

When you get up to 25 posts, you can edit. This is to allow mods to catch spammers and trolls in action, I believe.

OK, well I'm not a spammer and I'm not a troll, so it looks like I'll just have to be practically perfect in every way (thank you Mary Poppins!) so I don't make myself out to appear totally illiterate. Be forwarned, if I continue beyond twenty-five posts I'm going to suddenly appear to be much more in command of my grammer (oops!, grammar) and spelling.

Regards,

MG

[wenglund]

The point is that he should give into extreme confirmation bias?

Look for a "sign" that you can interpret as God personally manifesting his will directly to you that "The Church is True."

When you find that sign, you can go ahead and ignore any and all red flags which tell you otherwise.

If there is a God, and this life is test, where only those who make the "right" choice are rewarded with salvation, aren't you cheating when, instead of figuring it out for yourself based on fact, and reason, you ask God for the answer?

After a number of wonderful posts that came as a welcomed breath of cool fresh air, we are now subjected to this repelling blast of hot decomposed fish from someone minding other people's business.

I love it, because the contrast makes the cool fresh air all the more blessed and sweet.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited May 6, 2012 by wenglund

[Darth_Bill]

never mind.

Edited May 6, 2012 by Darth_Bill

[Calm]

If you want to up your post count fast, go into Social Hall and keep posting in the three word story thread. Or just start a new thread on something people might be interested in, a new movie or someplace to travel or anything (you can do that there even if not in this forum) and chat with people. Or just keep adding to the threads that are there. Since they are social threads, no need to say more than a few words.

[Log]

NOOOO I hate seeing fossilized threads getting bumped for no other reason than to pump someone's post count! NOOOOOOOOO!

[GingerRed]

And, I don't think he is alone. I suspect that there are a lot of people in the Church who haven't figured out how to really enjoy the gospel and how to draw much joy from living the gospel. Even in my most intense and dark struggles, spiritual or otherwise, I could count on a warming ray of gospel sunshine to cheer my day and lighten my load, if nothing more than posts like yours and maidservant, where you genuinely whoop it up about being a daughter of God. It kind of put things into joyful and hopeful perspective.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Thank you, Wade

Red

[Jaybear]

But...I find offense in those that say, like you, that those of us who know all about the church's past and make that 'informed decision' ...and STILL remain faithful because we've experienced our OWN witness to the truth, insinuate that we must be pretty stupid or crazy. You think that THAT's not insulting? It is to me.

Had I said or insinuated that, yes, I would agree, that would be insulting. All humans are subject to confirmation bias. Relying on a "spiritual witness" to support your beliefs makes you .... human.

After a number of wonderful posts that came as a welcomed breath of cool fresh air, we are now subjected to this repelling blast of hot decomposed fish from someone minding other people's business.

I love it, because the contrast makes the cool fresh air all the more blessed and sweet.

Confirmation bias. Its more pleasant to hear people say things that reinforce your own beliefs.

BTW, who's job is it anyway to tell God how or how not He is supposed to do things? Good luck with that. It seems to me that God is perfectly able to choose/delineate the way he goes about putting into place the organizational tempate for an ongoing eternity. It's up to us whether or not we buy into it or not.

Ah, but when you say baptism is "necessary" for salvation, you ... not me ... are imposing a limit God's power and abilities.

I don't see a just and merciful God, who is also all powerful and all knowing, demanding ritualism, when he can simply look into one's heart.

Nah. I don't think its a coincidence that when elaborate ceremonial rituals are deemed "necessary" for eternal blessings, the organization that controls the dispensation of these rituals become powerful (and wealthy).

Edited May 7, 2012 by Jaybear

[altersteve]

Baptism is archaic ritual. Again, hard for me to believe that an all powerful and all knowing God can't or won't award salvation to worthy souls without them first participating in an archaic ritual.

You seem to misunderstand the LDS concept of baptism. To us, baptism is not just a "ritual," nor do we consider it a "work" like many of our evangelical brothers and sisters do; instead it is an outward manifestation of one's faith in Jesus Christ and His atoning death and resurrection, which the act of baptism itself is symbolic of. It is a formal covenant (a two-way contract) with our Heavenly Father where He promises to have His Spirit with us as long as we always remember what His Son did (and continues to do) for us. This covenant, which is renewed weekly when we partake of the sacrament with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, is what is important, not the ritual itself. The act of being dunked underwater is really nothing more than the means by which this covenant is made "official."

Edited May 7, 2012 by altersteve

[altersteve]

Ah, but when you say baptism is "necessary" for salvation, you ... not me ... are imposing a limit God's power and abilities.

And once again someone tries to criticize our beliefs by looking at them through a lens that we simply don't see things through, and thus having the nerve to tell us what our beliefs really mean. That God's power and abilities would be limited by a requirement for baptism is your interpretation, not ours.

[thesometimesaint]

Jaybear:

We're not Calvinists so what we do is actually important to God. For the unbelievers baptism is nothing more than getting wet. For believers it is an outward sign of an internal agreement to do what God asks.

[Jaybear]

You seem to misunderstand the LDS concept of baptism. To us, baptism is not just a "ritual," nor do we consider it a "work" like many of our evangelical brothers and sisters do; instead it is an outward manifestation of one's faith in Jesus Christ and His atoning death and resurrection, which the act of baptism itself is symbolic of. It is a formal covenant (a two-way contract) with our Heavenly Father where He promises to have His Spirit with us as long as we always remember what His Son did (and continues to do) for us. This covenant, which is renewed weekly when we partake of the sacrament with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, is what is important, not the ritual itself. The act of being dunked underwater is really nothing more than the means by which this covenant is made "official."

No, I get that.

And once again someone tries to criticize our beliefs by looking at them through a lens that we simply don't see things through, and thus having the nerve to tell us what our beliefs really mean. That God's power and abilities would be limited by a requirement for baptism is your interpretation, not ours.

I said: "I don't see a just and merciful God, who is also all powerful and all knowing, demanding ritualism, when he can simply look into one's heart."

That is my belief. I invite you to disagree, break down, challenge, criticize my belief.

If you are not interested in learning that other people have different beliefs, or if you are easily offended when your beliefs are challenged, perhaps you shouldn't be in a forum where nonmembers are allowed to express their opinions.

Edited May 7, 2012 by Jaybear

[Jaybear]

Jaybear:

We're not Calvinists so what we do is actually important to God. For the unbelievers baptism is nothing more than getting wet. For believers it is an outward sign of an internal agreement to do what God asks.

I get that you believe that. I just find it inconceivable that an all knowing, all powerful God would place any value on an "outward sign" when he has the ability to look inward.

[thesometimesaint]

Jaaybear:

The omniscience of God has no effect on our Agency. The rituals are for our benefit not Gods'.

[wenglund]

I get that you believe that. I just find it inconceivable that an all knowing, all powerful God would place any value on an "outward sign" when he has the ability to look inward.

If you think the "outward sign" is for God's benefit (as implied in your post), then you obviously don't get it, and repeatedly claiming that you do, won't make it so.

However, this is tangential to the topic of this thread, and so I don't plan to say anything further about it--though since you seem interested enough to stick your nose in LDS business about baptism, perhaps it would be best were you to first educate yourself on the matter and later open another thread about it. May I suggest LDS.org for that education?

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Edited May 7, 2012 by wenglund

[Maidservant]

I think that lds history has a lot of attractions. I see uniqueness in LDS history and I find Joseph Smith to be an amazing character. Looking into LDS history and just how connective it is with US history, I see a history that is very american. And in their own way, the early saints built a portion of the United States.

I think that if members look at church history with an open mind and attempt to understand it as it was happening and being made, one can be proud to be a mormon. Mormon history is full of courage and with people who dared to be different.

I suppose that I have a problem: I don't see any red flags. But what I do see are early lds people who made history and did history their way. They were not afraid to live their faith and suffered because of it. What I see are men and women who were brave souls who joined a faith that was unique and different and did so, because they believed in it. And they made many sacrifices because of it and some members fell by the way side but those who carried on built sections of America. And their legacy still lives on.

Thanks, why me. I actually love this way of looking at the history of the early LDS church (when I do it). I did take a religion class at university where we talked about Mystical experiences, all the way from Hildegard from Bingen to Ellen G. White. So Joseph Smith was in that lineup, and his movement was presented as a challenge to the religious and social status quo of the time, and I really enjoyed seeing it from that point of view. I am a historian, so I am used to seeing religion through that set of eyes and it doesn't bother me. But as a historian, I just don't prefer American history (of which the Mormon movement is a part). I'm more into Gilgamesh and Islamic history .

I have never once said its not okay to be Mormon. You read that into my comments.

We have to live our own lives, and we have to make our own choices.

From my perspective, I see two good reasons for Darth to be/remain a Mormon, (1) it works for him; and (2) he believes it true.

CDowis, just an hour earlier: "I am glad that I did not throw away my salvation for a mess of pottage.."

Interesting perspective. But I think we are more alike than different. People need to make their own decisions. But, I am also in favor of people making informed decisions. In this case, I am simply warning Darth of the risk of confirmation bias.

I am a huge fan of the LDS doctrine of agency, in theory. In practice, .... that's another discussion.

I agree. Apologetics is not a good tool for winning converts.

I think that a worthwhile definition and great goal of apologetics. My experience, in practice, however, is that most apologists here are not interested in reasoned discussion of the evidence, but more often are looking to score imaginary point or "poison the well" by insulting those who disagree with them, like this post:

Ginger gets 5 apologist browie points for the gratuitious "we've been jaybeared" insult.

Confirmation bias? If the Church was breaking even, or struggling financially, I am sure you could find a reasons to see that as a positive. Jesus/money changers and all.

I don't have a problem with polyandry. My opinion is that people should be free to form relationships that give them joy, satisfaction and confort from life.

But at the same time, I am also suspicious of anyone claiming to be a prophet of God, who uses this "gift" to take other mens wives. Here is see a red flag.

I also think its hypocritical for Mormons to justify polygamy, tout free agency, yet oppose gay marriage.

To me, just another red flag, on par with crystal balls and tarrot cards.

The prophet that denied blacks the priesthood, also said that slavery was a divine institution.

I find it easier to believe that he was a fasle prophet, than to believe that slavery was a gift from God to humanity.

Global flood. Not plausible. Baptism is archaic ritual. Again, hard for me to believe that an all powerful and all knowing God can't or won't award salvation to worthy souls without them first participating in an archaic ritual.

If you believe that the Bom comes from God, based on the hard evidence, then there is really no need to discuss the role of faith.

I have enjoyed the discussion.

Thanks for sharing *your* answers. They make sense to me when you share them from your point of view. And if I saw them the way you do, I also would reject them. And heaven knows I'm a the-emperor-has-no-clothes-on kinda gal. And each of these things of course could be their own thread, so I won't continue to reply on them, and which is not the point of course, to the theme of the OP. But there is room for a lot of point of view on each of these subjects.

But my takeaway from this theme is that EVERYONE has faith crises on some matter or another. I actually don't see my viewpoints that I hold as a matter of faith-not faith. I don't frame it that way. For me, faith means waking up in the morning and starting again. Faith has nothing to do with holding a viewpoint. But the takeaway from what I hoped to bring across in my posts is that I think, I feel, I believe, I come to conclusions--but none of this was done lightly nor stupidly. It is real.

I actually have a lot of problems with different things. For example, I'm not sure I believe in marriage any more at all. I have my bullet points on that. Well, it's an interesting point of view to be at in a Church that says that marriage is my natural eternal state. So I just take this as a challenge, another mountain to climb, and to not rest in what I think I know, but to keep learning. Either I will come to understand what eternal marriage is and hold that even more precious due to my struggle on that, or I will end up looking God straight in the eye and saying, I simply can't ,participate in your idea and here is why. I would like to think that the former will happen, simply because, yes, I'd like to think I haven't misplaced my trust and that there really is a Person (heavenly Father) that has prepared all things for my benefit (1 Ne 11:17). So while that trusting feeling is valuable to me, and is the way I want to live, and yes, I will tend to guard that and let that be the last thing I reject if necessary (hopefully never), on the other hand, if it comes down to it and I think that my eyes have been opened, I will withdraw my trust. It can be a razor's edge to walk sometimes.

But I don't see that challenge leaving me even if I 'left' the Church. I would find some other struggle. I would continue to wonder why the heck we are all here and doing what. So at least having the doctrines of the Church (and other religious traditions) presented to me, gives me something to work with. The end product is going to be WHO I AM. Which I'm sure is what anyone can say with the path they have chosen in life.

[Jaybear]

If you think the "outward sign" is for God's benefit (as implied in your post), thenyou obviously don't get it, and repeatedly claiming that you do, won't make it so.

There you go again.

Jaaybear:

The omniscience of God has no effect on our Agency. The rituals are for our benefit not Gods'.

Who "benefits" from the ritual, is not germane to a discussion of the whether the ritual is "necessary".

So, for what its worth, no I have never said, implied, nor do I believe that the ritual of baptism is for God's benefit.

[GingerRed]

......Ah, but when you say baptism is "necessary" for salvation, you ... not me ... are imposing a limit God's power and abilities.I don't see a just and merciful God, who is also all powerful and all knowing, demanding ritualism, when he can simply look into one's heart.

Well.....it must be pretty important to God for everyone to be baptized because during the Millennium, anyone who hasn't been baptized, will be.

I agree God can "look into ones heart'...but its not always enough. Obedience to His commandments must be there too. That doesn't mean an un-baptized person is going straight to hell or anything like that. We will all be judged accordingly. I'm not quite sure baptism is totally necessary for salvation?..... but its defiantly a must for exaltation!

Red

Edited May 7, 2012 by GingerRed

[Log]

Fairblog just put up an article relevant to this thread.

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/57737-how-not-to-keep-people-from-leaving-the-church/page__pid__1209120178#entry1209120178

[zerinus]

Over the past couple weeks, I have done a lot of thinking. Trying to wrap my mind around thoughts on both sides of the isle.... here is my perception.

1.) there are two distinct sides who seem unable to understand the other side or even give them one inkling of credit or validation for how they see things.

A.) faithful believer - seems to reply on this board in a way that seems to discredit the thought that they ever struggled with the list of issues that trouble the biggest majority of those in a faith crisis and also seem unable to grasp how another got there. (for the list of issues see part one for the list) For instance those who are having cognitive dissonance/ faith crisis seem to have very few on the faithful side who will even state they understand how one got there to this faith crisis. They don't see how one traveled down that fork in the yellow wood. When what some find something as a troubling issue, the faithful believer seems to easily swipe the issue off to the side attributing it to some way of explaining it in wht is rational to them and that set of lens they see this through is the way they approach helping those in faith crisis. There is a lot of room on the believer's part for leaders in the church to make mistakes on a constant basis, that in essence we should expect no more from them then good people in any other walk in life. Any contradictions can be summed people being people.

B.) the former member/abandoned testimony person is also extreme in the sense that they see the faithful believer as irrational in their explanations and as making excuses for every troubling point in LDS theology and in History. The former member seems to expect a church that is lead by prophets and apostles to hold to higher standard. That's it's actual history will match with the God led rendition they were taught early in their church learning. They are not prepared to discover that in some sense their is a sanitized history one learns in developing thier original "less mature" level of faith and another that forces them to a "higher maturity" of faith or to abandon the church's claims all together.

I think you are oversimplifying things a bit. Category A has two subcategories; let’s call them A1 and A2. A1 are those who are having a faith crisis of some kind, but haven’t yet lost their faith altogether, or crossed the red line, and become “the enemy”. A2 are those who have lost their faith altogether, and turned against the Church, chosen to actively oppose it or fight against it, and thus become “the enemy”. How one responds to each of these categories is, or should be, different. Sometimes it is not easy to distinguish between the two.

Category B also has two subcategories; I will call them B1 and B2. B1 are those who are not very discerning of categories A1 and A2, and pull out a 16" gun when answering A1, where they should have been more conciliatory; or are too conciliatory to A2, when a 16" gun might have been more appropriate.

2.) While a lot of extreme dissagreement seems to occur from both extreme sides, is there a way to have a conversation in the middle? Where perhaps group 1 can better understand how Group 2 took the different road and where group 2 might better understand how group one rationalizes struggles and maintain faith?

Being kind of in the middle from my view (spiritually I have a strong testimony, Historically I really struggle at times) I would appreciate an attempt to handle this thread in a kinder nicer approach.....

I think your real difficulty here is that you have come to the wrong place to discuss and resolve your problem. Here you find all kinds of people, including some who fall into category B1, and some in category B2—neither of whom have the necessary priesthood keys, jurisdiction, or ecclesiastical authority (according to proper Church order) to help you with your problem. That would be like someone coming here to confess their sins rather than going to their bishop!

1.) Why do the faithfull seem to discredit ever looking at the church truth in a Hisotrical manner.

I don’t think that anybody actually does. They just don’t come away from it burdened with doubt, as you appear to be doing.

Not they they don't value history, just not as a mode of determining the possible validity of an event worth having faith in.

There is a contradiction in your statement. On the one hand you are talking about “faith,” and on the other hand you are talking about “history” as if it is “invalidating” faith. That is a contradiction. Nothing can invalidate real faith. Take the Book of Abraham as an example. All scholarly reasonings appear to demonstrate convincingly (to some) that it is not what it claims to be. Should that invalidate my faith? The fact remains that it doesn’t. You can take that any way you like.

In otherwords why can't faith ever be rooted at least in part in History. Ex: While one may have faith in Jesus or not, and though Historically we can never prove anything, it is a fact that Jesus was resurrected or he wasn't. While faith is a large part of it. That faith is based on a historical event.

Your logic here doesn’t work. While the resurrection of Jesus was a historical event, believing it is a matter of faith. There are millions of people who don’t. The “faith” is not based on “history,” but on the testimony of the Holy Ghost.

Is there value in trying to find out historically if things happened the way Jospeh Smith and others said, and if it becomes extremely obvious they are not factual or historical, is that reason to rethink one's testimony based on the historical opinion?

Again, your reasoning and thinking appears to be confused here. Is your issue with incorrect historical claims (which really didn’t happen), or with historical data which does not match your expectations? According to the wording of the above paragraph, it seems to be the former; whereas according to what you posted in the other thread, it appears to be the latter. I see either confused thinking or dishonesty here. Do you have historical data that the First Vision did not happen for example, or that the Book of Mormon is a forgery, or that the revelations of the Doctrine and Covenants are fakes? Apparently not. Your issue, according to what you posted in the OP of the other thread, were as follows:

1.) How do you handle repeated major doctrinal mistakes taught by prophets and apostles from the pulpit or in their books. . . .

2.) The lack of sharing historical and theological issues with everyday members. . . .

3.) the effort to teach everyone that we should all follow the prophet, that he can not lead the church astray, that we will be blessed for following him regardless of what he asks and then on the other hand being told to know that these are men and they make mistakes . . .

4.) lastly, . . . the church is forced to deal with much of the above issues . . . until their hand was forced . . .

None of the above are contradictions of important historical events of the Church, such as the First Vision, or the Book of Mormon, or the restoration of the priesthood etc., so you are not being really honest in your previous paragraph by equating it with whether the resurrection of Jesus relay happened or not. The only thing that would be equivalent to that would be questioning whether the First Vision happened or not, or the angel Moroni visited Joseph Smith or not, or the gold plates really existed or not.

2.) Can the faithful share how when these issues (though perhaps not troubling to them) were encountered, how they approached each one.

- what you thought of it originally

- how you approached it

- what was of help

- what wasn't

-Whether you ever really get past it completely or just recognize that you can explain it enough to move on?

The answer to that is easy. I recall Elder Marvin J. Ashton gave a talk at General Conference some years ago in which he told the story of a little boy who came to his mother crying. When asked why he was crying, the little boy replied, “I fell out of bed!” When asked, “How did you fall out of bed?” The little boy replied, “Because I was not in far enough!” Then Elder Ashton concluded, that those who “fall out of the Church,” it is usually because they are not “in far enough”.

Those “historical events” you have described pale into insignificance compared to reality of the First Vision, the visitation of the angel Moroni, the translation of the Book of Mormon by the Urim and Thummim, the restoration of the priesthood by Peter, James, and John, the visitation of John the Baptist, the restoration of various keys by the visitation of Moses, Elijah, Elias, and many other ancient prophets to Joseph Smith and others, the glorious visions and revelations recorded in the Doctrine and Covenants, including the vision of the three degrees of glory (section 76), and the vision of the redemption of the dead by Joseph Fielding Smith (section 138), and countless more that could be mentioned. If your faith is founded on those, the other things you mentioned become insignificant by comparison.

3.) For the former member - Why have you sought to give more presidence to your framework then the spiritual experiences you once had within the context of the church?

The issue at heart at least to me as I have reflected is the former member's inability to disregard the historical narrative in favor of faith. That in essence while they may have had spiritual experiences, those do not trump what seems to them as a historical narrative that places extreme doubt on the church's validity.

That is really irrelevant to the discussion. That is their problem, not your problem. You seem to have enough problems of your own to deal with, without having to worry about theirs.

While the faithful seems to hold onto faith in the face of History that seems to bring into question the church's truth claims.

To you it may do that, but to me it doesn't. See above.

Each side will develop good explanations to them why their approach is best in mending this dissonance and find their approach to be the most rational and real. Who is to argue over of the personal spiritual experiences of another and if real they do in reality trump questionable views on History. Then again regardless of how many spiritual experiences one has in Jim Jones or Heanven's Gate, it doesn't make them true.... quite a quandry

The problem I see with that is that you are trying to act as a neutral arbiter between the two groups, when in fact you are not qualified to do so, because you are not really a neutral arbiter. You are caught in the conflict yourself. As President Harold B. Lee used to say, you cannot lift someone else up, unless you are standing on higher ground. If you are in the same hole as everybody else, you are not going to be a lot of help getting them out of that hole! You need to get out of it yourself first, then you can give a helping hand to everybody else.

Edited May 8, 2012 by zerinus

[wenglund]

Who "benefits" from the ritual, is not germane to a discussion of the whether the ritual is "necessary".

More evidence that you don't get it.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[bu11fr0g]

All powefull to mormons does not mean can do anything a capicious Loki-like god might want to do.

[Jaybear]

More evidence that you don't get it.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

Here is what I said that invoked your latest neurotic retreat to condescension:

"I just find it inconceivable that an all knowing, all powerful God would place any value on an "outward sign" when he has the ability to look inward."

So, yes, I get that your snarky comment was premised on the assumption that when I said "place any value on" what I really meant to say was "benefit from".

I don't how I manage to function in life, when I don't have you telling me what I really meant to say.