You Can Believe Whatever You Want, You Just Can'T Teach It

[Libs]

The danger doesn't come from having other people in the Church that think differently than you do.

The danger comes from acknowledging that they might be right.

What if they are?

I just don't believe it is ever wrong to question, if you genuinely have questions. If you believe you already have the correct answers, then the questions of others won't be a "danger" to you. If you're not sure, then, perhaps, you should allow yourself to ask those questions.

[thesometimesaint]

Libs:

Questions are fine. We all see through that glass darkly. However questioning the foundations of the Church is a different kind of question. One that quickly leads to apostasy.

[Libs]

Libs:

Questions are fine. We all see through that glass darkly. However questioning the foundations of the Church is a different kind of question. One that quickly leads to apostasy.

Not always. But, even so, what if those are the questions you have? What can you do, really, but wonder and ask about them, and try to resolve them one way or another?

[mfbukowski]

I suppose I will stick my nose into this thread after all- I have just kind of been watching from the outside so far.

I agree with Blake Ostler that what we have in our church is, thank God, Orthoproaxis. That is a combined made-up word from "Orthodox" and "practice".

If you can pass a temple recommend interview or baptismal interview truthfully, you are a member in good standing.

That means you have a "testimony of the restoration", that Jesus is the Christ, the savior and redeemer, that you sustain the authorities of the church, and that's about it. That is what is required

And the entire point of the gospel is that EVERY principle be verified by your own testimony. That means that inevitably some people are at different points in their growth, and will have different testimonies of different points as we grow.

It could not be otherwise if we all grow at different rates. The church is here for ALL of us- and that means there is no rigorous dogma. We all grow from truth to truth from grace to grace, as even the savior did, and that requires flexibility and understanding FROM all of us TO all of us

[mfbukowski]

Libs:

Questions are fine. We all see through that glass darkly. However questioning the foundations of the Church is a different kind of question. One that quickly leads to apostasy.

So we should not question? Come on dude!

How can you know the foundations are true if you don't ponder and question them and thus get a testimony?

Edited May 27, 2012 by mfbukowski

[thesometimesaint]

mfbukowski;

I believe I said questions are fine. I'm the last person to claim absolute knowledge on anything let alone the Gospel. However I do believe that once we have a testimony of Jesus the Christ and the foundations of his Church it does little good to start questioning that testimony.

Edited May 27, 2012 by thesometimesaint

[Nevo]

Since no one has mentioned it yet, here is Elder Holland's take:

[Helen Whitney:] What about people who question the history of the Book of Mormon?

[Jeffrey R. Holland:] There are plenty of people who question the historicity of the Book of Mormon, and they are firmly in this church -- firmly, in their mind, in this church -- and the church isn't going to take action against that. [The church] probably will be genuinely disappointed, but there isn't going to be action against that, not until it starts to be advocacy: "Not only do I disbelieve in the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, I want you to disbelieve." At that point, we're going to have a conversation. A little of that is more tolerated than I think a lot of people think it should be. But I think we want to be tolerant any way we can. ... "Patient" maybe is a better word than "tolerant." We want to be patient and charitable to the extent that we can, but there is a degree beyond which we can't go. ...

http://www.pbs.org/m...ws/holland.html

[Libs]

Thanks, Nevo. I had not seen that. Interesting.

[Libs]

I know it sounds kind of far out there to say "you can believe anything you want", but to be fair to Scott Gordon, he said this in a discussion about evolution, and I don't think he really intended it to mean you can believe "anything and everything" and still be a member in good standing.

For starters, I think people whose views are really far removed from official church doctrine are probably not going to be members for very long or are already long gone.

It's just that this one issue, regarding Book of Mormon historicity, was of interest to me, because I still ponder that, myself..and, frankly, hadn't considered that there might be people, active in the church, who didn't believe in the historicity.

[ERayR]

Is it possible that you were receiving a witness that the book was inspired but the witness you received really wasn't testifying that the book was a historical account?

What is the definition of lying. I've seen what I believe to be less than the truth told at best and some untruths at worst accepted as good Mormon preaching by the leadership as long as it was faith promoting and helped to build up the kingdom.

If part of it is false then it is false.

[Pahoran]

Hello Libs...

I just gave a fairly detailed answer to this very interesting question, expressing my view... but I guess I took too long because this blinkety-blank board didn't print it but gave me that "checking my browser" and when it does that it doesn't print the post... Grrrr.

The same thing has happened to me more times than I can count.

However, I've found that when I try to post again, there's a little blue message in the grey border at the bottom of the edit window telling me about the saved content. If you click that message, it will pop up a window showing what it has autosaved from your interrupted post, and you have then the opportunity to attempt to recover it.

Keep that in mind next time the security system chucks you out when you've tried to post something.

Regards,

Pahoran

[Stargazer]

The same thing has happened to me more times than I can count.

However, I've found that when I try to post again, there's a little blue message in the grey border at the bottom of the edit window telling me about the saved content. If you click that message, it will pop up a window showing what it has autosaved from your interrupted post, and you have then the opportunity to attempt to recover it.

Keep that in mind next time the security system chucks you out when you've tried to post something.

Regards,

Pahoran

Thanks for that bit of info. It will save me in future, I hope.

[Libs]

Yes, thank you, so much for that, Pahoran. I have had that happen, as well. Very frustrating. Good to know the post might still be there.

[mfbukowski]

I nearly always at least select my entire post and copy it to the clipboard before I hit "post".

That way, if it doesn't post, all I have to do is re-paste it and re-send it as needed.

[Mariner]

I just finished listening to Scott Gordon, John Dehlin & Rosemary Avance, participating in a discussion panel at UVU (very interesting discussion, btw). Scott Gordon made a statement that kind of surprised me, and so I wanted to bring it here and see what you all thought about it, and how exactly this might work, in reality.

The statement was, something to the effect that you can believe whatever you want, in the church, you just cannot teach it. He further said, that you can even believe the Book of Mormon is not literal, and still be a member in good standing. I took that to mean you can believe the Book of Mormon is not literal history. This statement caught my interest because my own belief about the Book of Mormon leans in that direction. I do believe the book is inspired, but I'm not sure it is true history.

The problem I see, with holding that kind of view, and maintaining activity in the church is that, if you can hold the view, but not "teach it" (I would assume, not speak it), wouldn't that put one in a position of potentially having to lie? I was trying to remember if there was anything asked in the Temple recommend interview, about the Book of Mormon, that would cause one to have to lie, if their views were a bit unorthodox?

Comments?

Sounds a lot like Orwellian doublethink to me. If you were to tell someone about these unorthodox beliefs while claiming to be a faithful Mormon, that would constitute Orwellian doublespeak as well, would it not?

Edited May 28, 2012 by Mariner

[Garden Girl]

I nearly always at least select my entire post and copy it to the clipboard before I hit "post".

That way, if it doesn't post, all I have to do is re-paste it and re-send it as needed.

See, now that's just it... I don't have the foggiest how to select and post something to the "clipboard"... or how to re-paste or re-send something, or how to make a link. I get frustrated because... believe it or not... I'm a smart person. Yet when it comes to the computer I just am so lacking in skill/knowledge. I bumble along here and with email and that's about it.

I used to know how to paste a picture, but now have forgotten. I'm going to try to figure it out so I can paste some pictures of my cat, Bob...

Seems like quite a few of us have the same problem of getting cut off... can nothing be done about it?

GG

[Mariner]

See, now that's just it... I don't have the foggiest how to select and post something to the "clipboard"... or how to re-paste or re-send something, or how to make a link. I get frustrated because... believe it or not... I'm a smart person. Yet when it comes to the computer I just am so lacking in skill/knowledge. I bumble along here and with email and that's about it.

I used to know how to paste a picture, but now have forgotten. I'm going to try to figure it out so I can paste some pictures of my cat, Bob...

Seems like quite a few of us have the same problem of getting cut off... can nothing be done about it?

GG

To put text on your clipboard, you simply left click your mouse and drag your cursor over the text you wish to copy. Once the text is highlighted, click Copy from your EDIT menu, or press Control + C. EIther action will work. The text is now on your clipboard, and you can paste it wherever you wish by placing the cursor where you want the text to go, left clicking your mouse, and then pressing Control + V.

You have probably already been doing this and just didn't realize that the text was stored on a "Clipboard" from the time it was copied until it was pasted. The text (or image) copied will stay on the Clipboard, available for pasting, until replaced by new copied text or image.

[cinepro]

As far as losing posts goes, if you're using Firefox or Chrome this little add-on saves everything for you:

Lazarus Form Recovery

Then, if your computer or browser crashes, or you end up needing to recover the text for any reason, you just go back to the form and right-click and you'll see an option to "recover text". Couldn't be easier.

Edited May 28, 2012 by cinepro

[Garden Girl]

To put text on your clipboard, you simply left click your mouse and drag your cursor over the text you wish to copy. Once the text is highlighted, click Copy from your EDIT menu, or press Control + C. EIther action will work. The text is now on your clipboard, and you can paste it wherever you wish by placing the cursor where you want the text to go, left clicking your mouse, and then pressing Control + V.

You have probably already been doing this and just didn't realize that the text was stored on a "Clipboard" from the time it was copied until it was pasted. The text (or image) copied will stay on the Clipboard, available for pasting, until replaced by new copied text or image.

Thank you, Mariner... GG

[BCSpace]

The problem I see, with holding that kind of view, and maintaining activity in the church is that, if you can hold the view, but not "teach it" (I would assume, not speak it), wouldn't that put one in a position of potentially having to lie? I was trying to remember if there was anything asked in the Temple recommend interview, about the Book of Mormon, that would cause one to have to lie, if their views were a bit unorthodox?

That is correct. One would be lying in this case. Consider:

"Do you have a testimony of the restoration of the gospel in these the latter days?"

The historicity of the BoM is wrapped up in that question. While I think one can be a little nuanced about it, in general, if I knew one had settled (as opposed to still trying to believe) on the belief that the BoM isn't as JS and the Church report it, I think it unlikely that I would not be signing their recommend.

There is another question that applies here in the Dehlin case:

"Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?"

I would certainly not be signing a recommend for anyone known to affiliate or agree with "Nomism". One of the things I would be looking for on the repentance side of this, if someone had formerly agreed with Nomism and was ostensibly trying to come back, is testifying of the truthfulness and historicity of the BoM in F&T or other testimony bearing venue on multiple occasions.

Edited May 28, 2012 by BCSpace

[mfbukowski]

BC

What's Nomism as you understand it and why is that relevant?

The historicity of the BoM is wrapped up in that question. While I think one can be a little nuanced about it, in general, if I knew one had settled (as opposed to still trying to believe) on the belief that the BoM isn't as JS and the Church report it, I think it unlikely that I would not be signing their recommend.

So if i get the double negative right, you would sign their recommend, right?

I am frankly rather confused by this entire post.

Edited May 28, 2012 by mfbukowski

[Libs]

The historicity of the BoM is wrapped up in that question.

Really? I don't see why that would, necessarily hold. One could believe in the Restoration, I think, without having to believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon.

"Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?"

That question would seem to be more of a catch-all for unorthodox beliefs. But, even so, I do know, some active LDS, support SS marriage...for example (I saw Steve Young give a public talk on this issue, to our local Americans for the separation of church and state group) and as far as I know he is still a member in good standing. That group and Young's view would certainly "seem" to fall into the category above?

Edited May 28, 2012 by Libs

[Libs]

What's Nomism?

Thanks. I meant to ask that, as well.

[Libs]

As far as losing posts goes, if you're using Firefox or Chrome this little add-on saves everything for you:

Lazarus Form Recovery

Then, if your computer or browser crashes, or you end up needing to recover the text for any reason, you just go back to the form and right-click and you'll see an option to "recover text". Couldn't be easier.

Thank you for this, Cinepro. I have Chrome and that would come in very handy.

[mfbukowski]

For what it's worth, I believe in the historicity of the BOM but I think that has little to do with whether or not Joseph "restored" the church by renewing the beliefs of primitive Christianity