Be Not Afraid

[ERayR]

Depends on whom you ask. Opinion runs from "fundamentally dishonest" to "the worst type of anti-Mormon there is."

 

I would say more like an old dog I used to have.  When you weren't looking he would sneak up behind you and bite your butt. Kind of kept you alert.

Edited October 9, 2015 by ERayR

[Derl Sanderson]

My wife and I get talking about the MeatSacks that "lead" government and business (see Nibley's Leaders to Managers - the Fatal Shift) and get pretty discouraged. But then we see our own children who marry, bring children into the world, make plans for the futures of their own families, and are so forward-looking and hopeful. That alone makes us a little embarassed for our obvious lack of faith and the need to re-adjust our outlook.

[jkwilliams]

I would say more like an old dog I used to have.  When you weren't looking he would sneak up behind you and bite your butt. Kind of kept you alert.

 

That's not the reputation I'd like. 

[ERayR]

That's not the reputation I'd like. 

Sorry.

[jkwilliams]

Sorry.

 

Not your fault. I'm working on it.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

I've been going back and forth on posting something similar this morning. On top of the weird health issues I've had this week, plus the usual money/uncertain-future stresses, I've been doing supremely depressing research for a book I'm trying to write, trying to get at the root of a lot of the division and hate in the world, so maybe I can help in some meager way. But it's definitely difficult, when you're reading the history of 6,000+ years of human warfare and violence and disease, to retain a shred of hope that there's a light at the end of the NDE tunnel.

 

For instance, last night I was researching the Luka Magnotta horror from last year (seriously, do not watch the video unless you enjoy PTSD), and before that I'd been watching some Hitchens and Dawkins talks on YouTube while eating dinner and feeling sad that Hitch is gone, and before that I was listening to some Rage Against The Machine, and y'know, this is the kind of world we live in, one with killers and mortal frailty and death. It is physically painful to witness the blithe willful blindness so many people have to the darkness and evil parts of existence; there is so much suffering and pain in the world every second of every day, and then we hear peppy talks about how it'll all be okay from people who have obviously never not been okay in their pampered, sheltered lives.

 

I mean, sure, I can listen to a Steven Pinker TEDTalk and feel a little reassured by the indicators that violence is going down, that we're getting better at being human, but it doesn't change the ultimate problem, which is mortality itself. If we are not even conscious of the problem, we cannot possibly create a solution. Ignoring it will not make it go away, so we should be exerting all our time and effort at becoming saviors in whatever small way we can; isn't that the point of being Christian? Patterning ourselves after Christ's life of service?  

 

But what hope is there? The omniscient omnipresent totalitarian-nightmare of God from traditional monotheistic Christianity obviously does not exist, and yet so many of us LDSs are still happy to quote specious arguments from that tradition as if they can be usefully applied to our model of anthropomorphic deity in any way. Needless to say, most of the supposedly-sophisticated western theology is an academic waste of time when there are starving people and refugees being turned away (and insane lunatics like Trump seriously being heralded as a Good Thing for this country).  

 

One of my very favorite passages in the D&C is part of Section 123:

 

7 It is an imperative duty that we owe to God, to angels, with whom we shall be brought to stand, and also to ourselves, to our wives and children, who have been made to bow down with grief, sorrow, and care, under the most damning hand of murder, tyranny, and oppression, supported and urged on and upheld by the influence of that spirit which hath so strongly riveted the creeds of the fathers, who have inherited lies, upon the hearts of the children, and filled the world with confusion, and has been growing stronger and stronger, and is now the very mainspring of all corruption, and the whole earth groans under the weight of its iniquity.

 

8 It is an iron yoke, it is a strong band; they are the very handcuffs, and chains, and shackles, and fetters of hell.

 

9 Therefore it is an imperative duty that we owe, not only to our own wives and children, but to the widows and fatherless, whose husbands and fathers have been murdered under its iron hand;

 

10 Which dark and blackening deeds are enough to make hell itself shudder, and to stand aghast and pale, and the hands of the very devil to tremble and palsy.

 

11 And also it is an imperative duty that we owe to all the rising generation, and to all the pure in heart—

 

12 For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it—

 

13 Therefore, that we should waste and wear out our lives in bringing to light all the hidden things of darkness, wherein we know them; and they are truly manifest from heaven—

 

14 These should then be attended to with great earnestness.

 

15 Let no man count them as small things; for there is much which lieth in futurity, pertaining to the saints, which depends upon these things.

 

16 You know, brethren, that a very large ship is benefited very much by a very small helm in the time of a storm, by being kept workways with the wind and the waves.

 

17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.

 

 

It is our imperative duty to wear out our lives exposing the things of darkness to light. Because God not only would not but cannot (in the long run) influence anyone except through meekness and persuasion and love unfeigned, I just don't buy all the misinterpreted apocalyptic stuff about God being the Absolute Ruler who's gonna come down from Heaven one day with a literal flaming sword to smite all the baddies. Blessed are the peacemakers, and An Eye For An Eye solves nothing. Those who want to command fire to come down from heaven, and consume their enemies even as Elias did, know not what manner of spirit they are of, for the Son of man is not come to destroy lives, but to save them. There is a a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated - and when we obtain any a blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated. Meaning I can't just wish the bad stuff to go away, because that would be contrary to the laws of physics and agency. I have to do something real, physical, tangible, material. 

 

So there are a few premises that have been working lately to keep me going through the craziness. Not that I know that they're true, but with Alma as a guide for what constitutes at least a 'cause to believe', if not final proof, they do help to give me some hope, at least for the time being. Namely:

 

The idea of uncreated matter and eternal intelligence and agency. In my opinion, this is one of the most important things Joseph Smith taught, and it turns everything in traditional western thought completely upside-down and backwards. D&C 93 is absolutely vital: "Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be." If intelligence/awareness is uncreated, if it has simply always existed, then it can never ultimately be destroyed, no matter how much pain and suffering we experience in mortality. 

1 Corinthians 15 says that "the last enemy that shall be destroyed is death." In other words, the pain and darkness is not some inherent necessary part of existence, and we really can hope to persuade the elements and fellowintelligences to be at-one and at peace. If intelligence and awareness and the elements are eternal, then no matter how fearmongering, racist, misogynistic, misandristic, classist, nationalistic, xenophobic, etc humans become, there is still a chance to learn and change for the better as we continue along in our eternal progression.

And if we're fundamentally innocent from the beginning, and Adam being made like an adobe is an idle tale, and Original Sin and a literal fire'n'brimstone Hell and penal substitution and all the other coercive tactics some religions [including our own, sometimes, unfortunately] use to scare children into obedience to their unrighteous dominion are nonsense, and humans are that we might have joy in this life, not just the world to come, then we can do our best to start redeeming the earth as a Garden of Eden and begin cultivating peace with each other. Eventually everything torn can be mended, all the pain can be healed, and turned into empathy for others. 

Edited October 9, 2015 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[Peppermint Patty]

JK, I've seen a lot fear in people too. My sister being one. She literally is counting the days for the Savior's return and organizing her food storage and stocking up on ammunition.

 

 We live in great times. No other time in the history of the world have we had more opportunity, better healthcare, more freedom and more blessings. We should be the happiest people on earth, not fearful and certainly not in despair.

[Tacenda]

• "A sense of relationship and copartnership with God involves the concept of universal brotherhood and that will help to develop intelligent tolerance, open-mindedness, and good-natured optimism. Life is really a battle between fear and faith, pessimism and optimism. Fear and pessimism paralyze men with skepticism and futility. One must have a sense of humor to be an optimist in times like these. And you young women will need a sense of humor if you marry these young men and try to live with them. Golden Kimball once said in a conference, 'The Lord Himself must like a joke or he wouldn't have made some of you people.' But your good humor must be real, not simulated. Let your smiles come from the heart and they will become contagious. You may see men on the street any day whose laugh is only a frozen grin with nothing in it but teeth. Men without humor tend to forget their source, lose sight of their goal, and with no lubrication in their mental crankshafts, they must drop out of the race. Lincoln said, 'Good humor is the oxygen of the soul.' And someone paraphrased, 'The surly bird catches the germ.'"^[9]

• "We are grateful in the Church and in this great university that the freedom, dignity and integrity of the individual is basic in Church doctrine as well as in democracy. Here we are free to think and express our opinions. Fear will not stifle thought, as is the case in some areas which have not yet emerged from the Dark Ages. God himself refuses to trammel man's free agency even though its exercise sometimes teaches painful lessons. Both creative science and revealed religion find their fullest and truest expression in the climate of freedom.

  "I hope that you will develop the questing spirit. Be unafraid of new ideas for they are the stepping stones of progress. You will of course respect the opinions of others but be unafraid to dissent—if you are informed.

  "Now I have mentioned freedom to express your thoughts, but I caution you that your thoughts and expressions must meet competition in the market place of thought, and in that competition truth will emerge triumphant. Only error needs to fear freedom of expression. Seek truth in all fields, and in that search you will need at least three virtues; courage, zest, and modesty. The ancients put that thought in the form of a prayer. They said, 'From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all truth—O God of truth deliver us'." ^{[10]  http://www.guidinglight.com/encyclopedia/H/Hugh_B._Brown.htm}

 

“I admire men and women who have developed the questing spirit, who are unafraid of new ideas as stepping stones to progress. We should, of course, respect the opinions of others, but we should also be unafraid to dissent — if we are informed. Thoughts and expressions compete in the marketplace of thought, and in that competition truth emerges triumphant. Only error fears freedom of expression.”

“Tolerance and truth demand that all be heard and that competing ideas be tested against each other so that the best, which might not always be our own, can prevail. Knowledge is the most complete and dependable when all points of view are heard.”

“We should continue to become acquainted with human experience through history and philosophy, science and poetry, art and religion.”

“One of the most important things in the world is freedom of the mind; from this all other freedoms spring. Such freedom is necessarily dangerous, for one cannot think right without running the risk of thinking wrong, but generally more thinking is the antidote for the evils that spring from wrong thinking.”

“We must preserve freedom of the mind in the church and resist all efforts to suppress it. The church is not so much concerned with whether the thoughts of its members are orthodox or heterodox as it is that they shall have thoughts.”

“Revealed insights should leave us stricken with the knowledge of how little we really know. It should never lead to an emotional arrogance based upon a false assumption that we somehow have all the answers — that we in fact have a corner on truth. For we do not.”

And to finish I will quote the unknown ancients prayer as Hugh B Brown did with this wise counsel to protect ourselves: “From the cowardice that shrinks from new truth, from the laziness that is content with half truth, from the arrogance that thinks it has all truth—O God of truth deliver us”

For a whole view of Hugh B Brown see his memoir “An Abundant Life” by Edwin Firmage. You can download a free PDF of the memoir with his whole “A Final Testimony” included for free at this website: https://byustudies.byu.edu/showtitle.aspx?title=7455

 

 

 

Edited October 9, 2015 by Tacenda

[stemelbow]

I see it as fear of others, more than anything. It seems at Church and with Church I hear too much fearing others, and hoping for their ultimate demise.

For many in the Church it rings true that the world is out to get our children. The suggestion is there are not only a few people but the majority of people out there are scheming to get our children in their grasps. We then tend to fear everyone out there, for whatever reason as long as it can somehow be applied to bad influence on our kids. Fear of others tends to make people do stupid things. Sometimes such fears start wars, sure, but more often it just builds enmity. The Church typically talks of loving others, but then builds up reasons to fear others. It feels like talking out of two sides of the mouth, or causing confusion among the members (which seems evident to me).

I think it's ugly stuff. I'd much rather people fear because they don't know what's to come, then to fear others because an authority convinces them to for some reason or another.

[Jeanne]

Does anyone think that religions are fear based anyway..all religions.  Damnation is quite a tool.

[pogi]

John, I do not see "fear" as much as I see 'concern'.  I would be willing to bet that the vast majority of the members on this board share your sentiment of positivity and hope.  Depending on your personal world-view, concerns may vary, but we all have them.  We do not stand by idly at the approach of perceived evil (I don't think latter day saints are unique in this regard).  We are not fearful of evil, but we do not welcome it into our home.  Don't confuse our stance against perceived evil as fear (we know who wins in the end).  I am not excusing all latter day saints as I know that some are indeed fear-based individuals, but I do not view that as a general problem in our culture. 

Edited October 9, 2015 by pogi

[Calm]

Does anyone think that religions are fear based anyway..all religions.  Damnation is quite a tool.

Atheism could be said to be fear based. Who wants to be held responsible for their actions by a higher power?

[Teancum]

When you have messages coming from Church leaders like Elder Bradley D. Foster of the Seventy, "Don't let the world claim our children", which is a message the creates fear, is it any wonder that people are afraid.

 

Many of the conference talks have the power to stir up fear in many, too.

I found that bothersome. I didn't feel up lifted or inspired. I felt scared.

 

 

An Us vs. Them message is a great way to keep the masses of believers in any religion in line.

[Teancum]

e

Eternity. The same gospel plan and pattern has existed from eternity to eternity. Never changed. The end result will come to pass regardless of our fears, disagreements, manipulations, and protestations. In the end Gods plan is guaranteed. That is all the hope I need.

 

 

Nah it really has not. Other than JS and the LDS Church claiming this the evidence in religious history and anthropology just does not back this up at all.

[KevinG]

An Us vs. Them message is a great way to keep the masses of believers in any religion in line.

 

It works well for the anti-Mormons I will give you that.

[ttribe]

It works well for the anti-Mormons I will give you that.

 

Will you elaborate on what you mean when you use this term?

[KevinG]

Will you elaborate on what you mean when you use this term?

 

Sure.  Opposed to Mormonism.

 

Pretty straight forward English.

[VideoGameJunkie]

The main thing I fear regarding spiritual matters is punishment from God for all my mistakes.

[ttribe]

Sure.  Opposed to Mormonism.

 

Pretty straight forward English.

 

Well, I think it's a bit more complex than that.  What do you consider evidence of "opposition"? Are we talking Ed Decker types of activities only (e.g. blatant lies to achieve a vindictive end)?  Or, does any criticism of the Church, its doctrines, its leaders, etc. merit the moniker, in your opinion?

[strappinglad]

We fear change and change has been the hallmark of the last 70 years. I get a few emails outlining the " old days " and how all the tech has changed. I watched a TED talk about how we have so much choice today that it doesn't free us but paralyzes us. We feel overwhelmed and without control. We receive so much info now about events and circumstances we can do nothing about. We look to leadership and find it also unable to really effect permanent change. What are we left with if not a desire for it all to be made better by some massive powerful event which ends all the bickering and strife. A metaphor for it showed up on Yahoo today about the 50 lane Chinese traffic jamb.

  The scripture about the people calling for the mountains to fall on them somehow seems appropriate as many would like to hide until it is all over. Why do you think there are so many " zombie apocalypse" movies in the last decade ? Is it because society is filled with hope and positive feelings?  

  We are told to lose our lives in the service of others. I suggest picking a service and do what you can in your little corner of the world. I can't stop ISIS but I can help my neighbor clean his yard.

[Teancum]

It works well for the anti-Mormons I will give you that.

Your comment is to broad to even consider seriously.

[Teancum]

Sure.  Opposed to Mormonism.

 

Pretty straight forward English.

So by this standard the Mormon church is anti most any other religion as well as many other things like secularism, gays, feminists, intellectuals, etc.

[Storm Rider]

An Us vs. Them message is a great way to keep the masses of believers in any religion in line.

 

How did Jesus handle that Us vs. Them scenario or did he just avoid it completely?

[carbon dioxide]

I am for the most part a pessimist.  I am not afraid of the future.  If anything I have just lost interest in a few things I used to care about.  One piece of advice I give is just assume that your day is going to be horrible.  Then if anything bad happens, you have already factored it into your mood so it will not bother you too much.  If nothing bad happens or good things happen, then the day ended as a net positive. 

[JLHPROF]

Well, I think it's a bit more complex than that.  What do you consider evidence of "opposition"? Are we talking Ed Decker types of activities only (e.g. blatant lies to achieve a vindictive end)?  Or, does any criticism of the Church, its doctrines, its leaders, etc. merit the moniker, in your opinion?

 

Anti = against

Anti-Mormon = against Mormons

 

Criticize can be "evaluating" or "finding fault".  The first may not be anti, but the second is.

 

So by this standard the Mormon church is anti most any other religion as well as many other things like secularism, gays, feminists, intellectuals, etc.

 

Yep.  So?