A Different God?

[RevTestament]

6 hours ago, Steve Noel said:

I assure you all that I have no ulterior motives here.*** I am a Pentecostal Arminian. I have experienced the arrogance, condescension, sarcasm, mockery, misrepresentation, etc. that sometimes comes from theologically/apologetically minded Evangelicals (especially online). So here I am. My desire is to get a true understanding of the LDS faith. 

There are some fundamental basics. The LDS "Quad" scriptures. Most of the writings of Joseph Smith, and I suggested in the other thread, the King Follet discourse. So things like baptism for the dead, and the preexistence of the spirit, I would say are essentially basic to LDS belief. When it comes to other things, later GAs have given a variety and what I believe sometimes conflicting opinions. So be aware of that. In an apparent effort to "mainstream" the church it seems to me that Pres Hinckley attempted to distance the church from statements such as those made by Snow: "As man now is God once was, and as God now is, man may become," which is probably a statement Evangelicals like to harp on in films such as "The God makers." 

As far as I can find, however, only Christ is the direct inheritor of the Father. Only Christ shall be called the Father at the end of this world. I don't think a single LDS could say they would be called the Father....Elohim yes, Father no. Anyway I am digressing into the much deeper subject of the oracles of God. IMHO, Christ is the revelator of the Father to us. It is really a fairly simple concept. Christ did everything He saw the Father do. I suppose it becomes a matter of how much one believes that, and how it is that He glorified the name of the Father up on the tree. In some senses I disagree with the "literal" interpretation of the Son as a "literal Son."  I have found a few "orthodox" who I agree with that the relationship of the Son to the Father is one of covenant - in other words it is a covenantal relationship - not a literal biological one. Where I seem to digress with them is that I believe the Son was actually begotten in time as the Bible says, and so there was a time before this earth when He was not the Son. Ironically even Tertullian, the progenitor of "the Trinity" said as much. 

I don't know if members of the LDS Church have as big a variety of beliefs as say Catholics, but I think it safe to say that there may not be a solid consensus on many topics as you may have thought before coming to this board. I of course not representing my own beliefs as anything official or even near "main stream." I am just trying to let you know that your search for "Mormonism" is at least to some extent illusory....

[salgare]

18 hours ago, Steve Noel said:

Lol. I didn't find it either. I just let it go.

I did not mean to imply that you are here for some ulterior motive.  This is not something you need to worry about here as no one would really care about why you are here.  As noted in this thread you are doing fine.

I feel bad that you would laugh it up with Calm, Russel etc. and simply let it go.  I did note in social to you some of my limitations.  I did assume that the use of G.I always being followed by Baby Boomers in speaking several times to the three generations (my children, millennials, me (baby boomer) to my parents (grand generation)) is cause of complex rapidly shifting Mormon apologetics followed by Church policy/doctrine (or lack there of).

I picked the first google hit that did NOT refer to it as G.I.  I assumed it was obvious.

Here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation

click on item 6.1 "List of Generations, Western World", then read the second bullet item.

I was put on limited status yesterday for resurrecting some Mormon apologetic history I was trying to share with you and which they want gone done the memory hole.

I'm not interested in contributing here under the tight limited restrictions they have enforced on me in order to silence my side of the "dialog and discussion".

Thus, you are likely done with me, which based on your lol appears to be a good thing.

God bless Steve, may things be well with you and your family.

[Bernard Gui]

On April 7, 2016 at 11:26 AM, consiglieri said:

It looks like the Origin of Man is a declaration by only the First Presidency. 

Because it does not include the Twelve Apostles, it would not be considered authoritative under the new and more rigorous standard promoted by the LDS Church.

 

Maybe you are right.

[salgare]

20 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

I categorically deny your characterization of me as a "Nuanced Mormon" and strongly encourage you to stop characterizing me as such.

Mark, I asked you one time if you ever share your true thoughts in HPG meetings.  You replied with something like you did once and they all looked at you confused and as if you were crazy.

Sure all of you in that  group are TBM, but "one of these things is not like the others"

Might there be some way we could possibly discuss these differences?  But perhaps you prefer ward members to refer to you by other labels?  I suppose this is why you must remain in silence to sharing your life's work and discoveries with them. 

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/67384-wishing-for-answers/?do=findComment&comment=1209612434

 

 

 

Edited April 9, 2016 by salgare

[salgare]

1 hour ago, salgare said:

I did not mean to imply that you are here for some ulterior motive.  This is not something you need to worry about here as no one would really care about why you are here.  As noted in this thread you are doing fine.

I feel bad that you would laugh it up with Calm, Russel etc. and simply let it go.  I did note in social to you some of my limitations.  I did assume that the use of G.I always being followed by Baby Boomers in speaking several times to the three generations (my children, millennials, me (baby boomer) to my parents (grand generation)) is cause of complex rapidly shifting Mormon apologetics followed by Church policy/doctrine (or lack there of).

I picked the first google hit that did NOT refer to it as G.I.  I assumed it was obvious.

Here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Generation

click on item 6.1 "List of Generations, Western World", then read the second bullet item.

I was put on limited status yesterday for resurrecting some Mormon apologetic history I was trying to share with you and which they want gone down the memory hole.

I'm not interested in contributing here under the tight limited restrictions they have enforced on me in order to silence my side of the "dialog and discussion".

Thus, you are likely done with me, which based on your lol appears to be a good thing.

God bless Steve, may things be well with you and your family.

 

[Steve Noel]

5 hours ago, salgare said:

I feel bad that you would laugh it up with Calm, Russel etc. and simply let it go.

Thus, you are likely done with me, which based on your lol appears to be a good thing.

Salgare, what are you talking about? I thought I was missing something when I read the link you provided because I didn't see G.I. mentioned. I let it go because it really wasn't important. I thought it might have been an LDS reference, but it is not. Mark's post made me laugh because it was funny. I realized it wasn't just me confused about the link. I do not share your history with the folks on this board so I am not reading things into their posts. I think you have been helpful to me, but several of the people here seem to think what you are saying is nonsense. I simply do not have enough information / experience to judge at this time.

On a side note, I did remember that there was 1 thing I have written online if you want to read it. It is a brief post from 2009 at the Society for Evangelical Arminians site on the inconsistency of Calvinsts when it comes to the warnings of Scripture and the possibility of apostasy. 

http://evangelicalarminians.org/robert-shank-on-calvinist-pastors-and-the-warning-passages-of-scripture/

Edited April 9, 2016 by Steve Noel

[flameburns623]

OK.

I don't believe Salgare will be able to answer but I PM'd him.

Meanwhile, will someone else be so kind as to attempt a reasonable analysis, with so little spin as your own biases permit, of the distinctions between Old Guard apologetics, New Guard apologetics, and Nuanced Mormonism?

No referencing of whatever intramural politics,gossip, or animosities go on amongst the groupings. Not interested, thanks

With a particular emphasis on Nuanced Mormonism? I suspect that my own understanding of Mormonism, at the time I elected to resign, instinctively approached what salgare appears to attribute to MFBukowski and others as "Nuanced Mormonism". But a clearer definition might help.

I suspect such a breakdown might be helpful to Steve as well. 

Thanks!

Btw, howdy Dr. Peterson. I doubt you recollect me from nearly a decade ago but we've interacted on this board a few times. You might've been one of those who engaged Richard Abanes, who may have followed me over here after he & I had interacted about his book over at the Catholic board.

Oddly, at the time I mostly defended Mormonism from misapprehensions by the Catholics "over there", whilst being taken to task "over here" for never quite getting LDS teaching correct. 

Edited April 10, 2016 by flameburns623
It's OK. Right thread after all

[Calm]

I think the question needs to be first asked if the first two exist.  I don't see them as existing myself at least in anyway where those actually involved in apologetics themselves would agree upon in any significant numbers.

As far as I know only salgare uses "nuanced mormonism" as a category of behaviour/thought system? And the person he uses as the best example disagrees with the description so I don't know where he is heading with that one.

[cksalmon]

On ‎4‎/‎8‎/‎2016 at 5:16 PM, Steve Noel said:

"I have experienced the arrogance, condescension, sarcasm, mockery, misrepresentation, etc. that sometimes comes from theologically/apologetically minded Evangelicals (especially online)."

Wait. What? My ears were burning.

Edited April 10, 2016 by cksalmon

[Steve Noel]

2 hours ago, cksalmon said:

Wait. What? My ears were burning.

Ah, a Calvinist. Take note that I qualified my statement with the word "sometimes." I have also had fantastic discussions with Calvinists online. Here is some humor for you: Cage-stage Calvinist

[mfbukowski]

11 hours ago, salgare said:

Mark, I asked you one time if you ever share your true thoughts in HPG meetings.  You replied with something like you did once and they all looked at you confused and as if you were crazy.

Sure all of you in that  group are TBM, but "one of these things is not like the others"

Might there be some way we could possibly discuss these differences?  But perhaps you prefer ward members to refer to you by other labels?  I suppose this is why you must remain in silence to sharing your life's work and discoveries with them. 

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/67384-wishing-for-answers/?do=findComment&comment=1209612434

 

 

 

You know I have a history with you, and it is my opinion that you distort my posts beyond recognition - everything I say for that matter and this is but one example.  I think this will be my last post to you.  You are confusing everyone here with your contradictions and showing the weakness of your arguments.

Every person has their own understanding of these matters and their own context for understanding.

My testimony has absolutely no relation of alleged "scientific" opinions-  for example on "evolution". or even a 6,000 year old earth.  I actually believe the scientific opinions on scientific matters but find them irrelevant to spiritual matters.   For all I know, I can imagine scenarios to make the gospel compatible with every possible scientific scenario of what "actually happened"- flood, no flood, new earth, old earth, literal bible or BOM, symbolic bible or bom, allegorical fictitious any of the above.

In short I can understand virtually any gospel "claim" in the same way as the speaker does and see multiple parallel interpretations at the same time, with no way of knowing which is exclusively "what happened".   What I see everywhere is compatibility- not conflict.  I see apparent conflict as semantic error.

Frankly there are very few here with the expertise in the philosophy of language to actually understand how Wittgenstein makes LDS belief as "true" as anyone wants it to be.  That is not my fault, and not my responsibility to explain to you or anyone else.

I find no reason to confuse people who have no training in my rather arcane and unusual understanding of these matters- folks who do not understand how many apparently conflicting propositions can all be "true"- due to different contextual understandings.  

I think it is inappropriate to lecture my high priest's group on Wittgenstein.

You find that odd, I do not.  You make it into some central contradiction in my position- I know it is not.

My "life's work" is not mine - it is out there for anyone who has read the right books and understands them.

Edited April 10, 2016 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

There are no "nuanced Mormons"- there are only Mormons.

[flameburns623]

7 hours ago, Calm said:

I think the question needs to be first asked if the first two exist.  I don't see them as existing myself at least in anyway where those actually involved in apologetics themselves would agree upon in any significant numbers.

As far as I know only salgare uses "nuanced mormonism" as a category of behaviour/thought system? And the person he uses as the best example disagrees with the description so I don't know where he is heading with that one.

I know I have encountered something called "New Order Mormonism" somewhere online. Couldn't sort out: are these LDS folk with a rarified understanding of Mormonism? Or apostates?

I assumed salgare is coining or employing the term "Nuanced Mormonism" to reflect the sort of otherwise-faithfilled Latter-Day Saint conversant prevalent on this forum: which is markedly different from ANYTHING ever experienced in a Sacrament Meeting or Sunday School or Melchizedek Priesthood Meeting.

Perhaps if salgare presented his categories as signposts along a spectrum rather than as system of mutually exclusive paradigms at war with each other, the conversation could move forward with less animus?

[Atheist Mormon]

On 4/1/2016 at 9:22 PM, bluebell said:

Yes, we believe in and pray to the same God, we just disagree about some of His characteristics. 

How can that be the same when Mormons attribute a Physical body to God vs a spiritual, invisible God of traditional Christianity?

[thesometimesaint]

40 minutes ago, Atheist Mormon said:

How can that be the same when Mormons attribute a Physical body to God vs a spiritual, invisible God of traditional Christianity?

Is Jesus not God? Does Jesus have a physical body? This on again off again Resurrection of traditional Christianity is confusing.

God and all his children are spiritual.

The Scriptures are replete with examples of individuals seeing God.

[salgare]

12 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

You know I have a history with you, and it is my opinion that you distort my posts beyond recognition - everything I say for that matter and this is but one example.

Mark, yes, I see the distortion now.   I did not ask you the question, I made an observation and you volunteered it!

Here is the statement I made that triggered it.

DNA vs Book of Mormon (Incredible new evidence)

Your response a few posts down:

Same thread

Interestingly enough that same post explains how the "memory hole" works in your words

Yes, I'd suggest Steve reads that whole thread … how about you?

[salgare]

15 hours ago, Steve Noel said:

...

Steve,

From my initial conversations with Mark, for the purposes of discussion, I've tried to get him or this group to put their own label on where Mark and the Givens fall at the extreme end of this spectrum of diversity where they exist.  After first reading his article published by the Interpreter (http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/?s=untangling&submit=Search) I noted to him that I was very surprised to see a spectrum/change from the extremes of "Orthodoxy to Humanism".  The following thread is worth following from the given link if one wants to see what I'm trying to label.  The only thing that Mark would have against changing the above quote to "Orthodoxy to Orthopraxy" is he would insist that Orthodoxy never existed in the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ (via Joseph Smith).

Philosophies of men

The above link references another thread which should be read on this same topic … see from this post down:

DNA vs Book of Mormon (Incredible new evidence)

To this day you can see that no one here is willing to acknowledge that there is enough difference in a swing from old school (i.e. jlhproh's flavor of fundamentalism) Orthodoxy to the other extreme of Mark's Orthopraxy to give that end point a label.  I expect that Mark would not object to the term "Orthoprax Mormon" but will vehemently deny that there ever was any "Orthodox Mormons".

This is where critics will start using the term "down the memory hole" where if we keep repeating and insisting that Mormons have always been Orthoprax, all we have to do is keep discrediting the jlhprohs of the world, or wait for them to die off (hence all my blabbering about generations).  The problem is that the acceleration of change has become faster than a given generation, leaving two living generations having been raised under orthodoxy but now a desire for the members to only think Orthopraxy.

My conclusion based on observing this unwillingness to acknowledge and label this extreme openly is because it is way too risky for the two living generations of Orthodox members to handle.  The potential losses in this majority base are too high.  The current losses of this base to "a crisis of faith" are already too high.  Orthodox members finding the capital T Truth they were taught and lived all their lives is full of holes.  This is where the Given's "rescue firesides" can suggest a small case t truth to them as an alternative which will hopefully be palatable to them and keep them in the Church.

Steve said: "I realized it wasn't just me confused about the link. I do not share your history with the folks on this board so I am not reading things into their posts. I think you have been helpful to me, but several of the people here seem to think what you are saying is nonsense."

I'd suggest Mark was not confused at all by the link but simply wanted to discredit me, Russell and Calm joined in.  As to all I am saying being nonsense, would you agree that I have been consistently saying there are three divisions of TBM's that I keep labeling old school, correlated and nuanced (progressive, humanistic, orthopraxy, postmodernism, I don't care just name it) and I've consistently related these to the three pushing into four generations of living members?  My intention of the Christian Apologetic Patterns thread was to overlay these two dimensions (member diversity spectrum, age/generation) with a third dimension, the Mormon apologetics covering those generations and diversity.  But I was discredited, accused of angry malice, ignorance etc. and instantly silenced.  Your reaction/statement here is a good example of how effective this method is.  You might ask yourself, if this guy is just the village idiot why did that happen in just under an hour's time?  What was the threat that the village idiot could present that would bring Julliann and Dan himself so quickly to that thread?    

Juliann is a well respected leader of this board and of FairMormon.  You might also ask yourself didn't she just acknowledge what the village idiot has been saying all along? Note that even she is unable or unwilling to give the orthopraxy, relativism, pragmastic, humanist extreme a label.

" Yes. He taught for a semester in the Claremont Mormon Studies program and I sat in his philosophy of religion class.

You will see the diversity of Mormonism on this board. We have those I would consider " fundamentalistic" in their thinking. In Mormonism that would mean that they think moving away from the teachings in the past century is disbelief or disloyalty.  We have those who expect accommodation of modern enlightenment....and then everything in between those two positions. Church culture is a leveler but we don't have that here so you will see clashes.  And we always have those who just like to nip and rip. You will not find a group of believing Mormons in a public forum that they don't invade. Ever. It may be the same for you (I assume you are Evangelical?)

I suspect there is a great struggle with religion in general given our tendency toward skepticism and distrust nowadays. Like Elder Ballard said, the old style teachings just aren't effective anymore but if there is a fix, we are just beginning to look at it. "

emphasis mine

And yet she does not pass up the opportunity to discredit me further as an invading "nip and ripper". 

Christian Apologetic Patterns

Note also Steve that this thread will shortly be locked.

 

Edited April 10, 2016 by salgare

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

How can that be the same when Mormons attribute a Physical body to God vs a spiritual, invisible God of traditional Christianity?

Like I said, we believe different things about Him (and one of us is wrong no doubt since some are contradictory things) but we are talking about the same God.

[flameburns623]

4 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

How can that be the same when Mormons attribute a Physical body to God vs a spiritual, invisible God of traditional Christianity?

Presume the best description of God possible is found in the mainsteam Christian creeds.

Not one single, solitary Christian has ever been 100% theologically correct, if so.

By dint of the fundamental ineffable and transcendent nature of God, by the very admission of the creedal Christians. 

If salvation depends upon humans having a full, complete, and innerant knowledge of the nature of God,  no human being ever has been, will be, or can be saved.

On the other hand: none of us can ever rightly say that we truly understand our earthly fathers, either: yet our father is still truly our father. 

How much more so our Heavenly Father. 

Edited April 10, 2016 by flameburns623

[salgare]

12 hours ago, flameburns623 said:

I know I have encountered something called "New Order Mormonism" somewhere online. Couldn't sort out: are these LDS folk with a rarified understanding of Mormonism? Or apostates?

I assumed salgare is coining or employing the term "Nuanced Mormonism" to reflect the sort of otherwise-faithfilled Latter-Day Saint conversant prevalent on this forum: which is markedly different from ANYTHING ever experienced in a Sacrament Meeting or Sunday School or Melchizedek Priesthood Meeting.

Perhaps if salgare presented his categories as signposts along a spectrum rather than as system of mutually exclusive paradigms at war with each other, the conversation could move forward with less animus?

 

Oldschool/fundamentalist, correlated/main stream, nuanced/"those who expect accommodation of modern enlightenment"

Julliann also used the term "main stream" in previously quoted threads.  Above is a mapping of the labels I have been using to hers.  And yet I will still be accused of nonsense and pulling categories out of thin air.

flameburns623,

Going way back NOM and "Cafeteria Mormon" were synonymous, with the concept that there were people who had trouble with the all encompassing, black and white  truth claims of the Church.  They were known for picking and choosing what doctrines/practices/teachings they wanted to be true and simply rejecting those which they did not believe. Over time, members of this group typically fell into the one of two newly evolving sub-categories "Cultural Mormon" and/or "Middle way Mormon"  In both cases the members of the categories being deeply ingrained via direct and extended families.  There main goal typically being trying not to end up in divorce, falling out of grace with parents, losing friends and community etc.  These are the original Fifth Columnist that William Schryver was famous for going after, true wolfs in sheeps clothing.  Where things are today, no wonder he has left the scene.  Anyway in answer to your question on NOM ... they run the spectrum from still Cafeteria, holding on to some beliefs, to total apostate.  The trend seems to be the former eventually becoming the latter over time.

As to me coining the term Nuanced Mormon, that is not the case it has been in common use on other boards for some time, used in the same context as I have used it. i.e. post-modernistic, pragmatic, relativistic, progressive etc.  I came here in hopes of finding out what it was they were really talking about.

 

 

Edited April 10, 2016 by salgare

[Vance]

4 hours ago, Atheist Mormon said:

How can that be the same when Mormons attribute a Physical body to God vs a spiritual, invisible God of traditional Christianity?

Simple,  "invisible" means "not seen" not "not capable of being seen", after all, the scriptures record accounts of a few people seeing the "invisible" God.

A being can be a spiritual being AND have a physical body.  Humans are spiritual beings with physical bodies.

Edited April 10, 2016 by Vance
clarity

[Steve Noel]

3 hours ago, salgare said:

Steve,

From my initial conversations with Mark, for the purposes of discussion, I've tried to get him or this group to put their own label on where Mark and the Givens fall at the extreme end of this spectrum of diversity where they exist.  After first reading his article published by the Interpreter (http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/?s=untangling&submit=Search) I noted to him that I was very surprised to see a spectrum/change from the extremes of "Orthodoxy to Humanism".  The following thread is worth following from the given link if one wants to see what I'm trying to label.  The only thing that Mark would have against changing the above quote to "Orthodoxy to Orthopraxy" is he would insist that Orthodoxy never existed in the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ (via Joseph Smith).

Philosophies of men

The above link references another thread which should be read on this same topic … see from this post down:

DNA vs Book of Mormon (Incredible new evidence)

To this day you can see that no one here is willing to acknowledge that there is enough difference in a swing from old school (i.e. jlhproh's flavor of fundamentalism) Orthodoxy to the other extreme of Mark's Orthopraxy to give that end point a label.  I expect that Mark would not object to the term "Orthoprax Mormon" but will vehemently deny that there ever was any "Orthodox Mormons".

This is where critics will start using the term "down the memory hole" where if we keep repeating and insisting that Mormons have always been Orthoprax, all we have to do is keep discrediting the jlhprohs of the world, or wait for them to die off (hence all my blabbering about generations).  The problem is that the acceleration of change has become faster than a given generation, leaving two living generations having been raised under orthodoxy but now a desire for the members to only think Orthopraxy.

My conclusion based on observing this unwillingness to acknowledge and label this extreme openly is because it is way too risky for the two living generations of Orthodox members to handle.  The potential losses in this majority base are too high.  The current losses of this base to "a crisis of faith" are already too high.  Orthodox members finding the capital T Truth they were taught and lived all their lives is full of holes.  This is where the Given's "rescue firesides" can suggest a small case t truth to them as an alternative which will hopefully be palatable to them and keep them in the Church.

Steve said: "I realized it wasn't just me confused about the link. I do not share your history with the folks on this board so I am not reading things into their posts. I think you have been helpful to me, but several of the people here seem to think what you are saying is nonsense."

I'd suggest Mark was not confused at all by the link but simply wanted to discredit me, Russell and Calm joined in.  As to all I am saying being nonsense, would you agree that I have been consistently saying there are three divisions of TBM's that I keep labeling old school, correlated and nuanced (progressive, humanistic, orthopraxy, postmodernism, I don't care just name it) and I've consistently related these to the three pushing into four generations of living members?  My intention of the Christian Apologetic Patterns thread was to overlay these two dimensions (member diversity spectrum, age/generation) with a third dimension, the Mormon apologetics covering those generations and diversity.  But I was discredited, accused of angry malice, ignorance etc. and instantly silenced.  Your reaction/statement here is a good example of how effective this method is.  You might ask yourself, if this guy is just the village idiot why did that happen in just under an hour's time?  What was the threat that the village idiot could present that would bring Julliann and Dan himself so quickly to that thread?    

Juliann is a well respected leader of this board and of FairMormon.  You might also ask yourself didn't she just acknowledge what the village idiot has been saying all along? Note that even she is unable or unwilling to give the orthopraxy, relativism, pragmastic, humanist extreme a label.

" Yes. He taught for a semester in the Claremont Mormon Studies program and I sat in his philosophy of religion class.

You will see the diversity of Mormonism on this board. We have those I would consider " fundamentalistic" in their thinking. In Mormonism that would mean that they think moving away from the teachings in the past century is disbelief or disloyalty.  We have those who expect accommodation of modern enlightenment....and then everything in between those two positions. Church culture is a leveler but we don't have that here so you will see clashes.  And we always have those who just like to nip and rip. You will not find a group of believing Mormons in a public forum that they don't invade. Ever. It may be the same for you (I assume you are Evangelical?)

I suspect there is a great struggle with religion in general given our tendency toward skepticism and distrust nowadays. Like Elder Ballard said, the old style teachings just aren't effective anymore but if there is a fix, we are just beginning to look at it. "

emphasis mine

And yet she does not pass up the opportunity to discredit me further as an invading "nip and ripper". 

Christian Apologetic Patterns

Note also Steve that this thread will shortly be locked.

 

Thanks for the links salgare. I am not stating that I think your divisions among Mormonism is nonsense. This is what other Latter-day Saints have said about it here. I simply do not have enough familiarity with the issues or with the folks here to make that judgment. From my current vantage point much of what you have shared makes sense. I appreciate the information and links you have given to me. I will draw my own conclusions as I continue to study and reflect. 

[salgare]

43 minutes ago, Steve Noel said:

Thanks for the links salgare. I am not stating that I think your divisions among Mormonism is nonsense. This is what other Latter-day Saints have said about it here. I simply do not have enough familiarity with the issues or with the folks here to make that judgment. From my current vantage point much of what you have shared makes sense. I appreciate the information and links you have given to me. I will draw my own conclusions as I continue to study and reflect. 

Fully understood Steve.  In this game the message is really not to you or them, its for the lurker and newer members who are trying to understand as well.  You have been the perfect guest here in more ones than one.  For a quick glimpse, the ugly foundation of this board reared its true nature and head.  And hopefully I've given others a quick glimpse of the next, "Not to be named" generation of apologists, of which the likes of "Elder Ballard said, the old style teachings just aren't effective anymore but if there is a fix, we are just beginning to look at it."  will eventually follow.

wow, Orthodoxy to Humanism ... just wow!

[Calm]

Still astonishing how different people see the same thing when it is right in front of us.

Shouldn't surprise anyone we end up seeing God so differently.

[salgare]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Still astonishing how different people see the same thing when it is right in front of us.

Shouldn't surprise anyone we end up seeing God so differently.

I believe the linked threads are still open.  Feel free to share some actual dialog and discussion.  Commit yourself to either naming and describing this endpoint or denying its very existence.  Commit yourself as to where you stand in this spectrum.  Commit yourself as to how you can maintain the difference does not matter and hence there is no spectrum.

thesometimesaint was not willing to commit. he said:

"Salgare:

I'm a GI and a Baby Boomer. Joined the Church when I was 20. If someone is uncomfortable with change the Church probably isn't for them.

Articles of Faith #9 We believe  all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God."

http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/67384-wishing-for-answers/?do=findComment&comment=1209612450

Perhaps instead of you continually rubber stamping a thumbs up on Mark and Robert's posts, you comment on how and why you agree with them in the linked threads.

Or perhaps answer these questions which sometime would not.

1. Are you clear and understand what MFB wishes for and works for the Church to become?

2. Do you believe there is no absolute or external Truth?

3. Are you familiar with relativism and pragmatism?

4. Do you believe there is NO doctrine or orthodoxy in the Church?

5. Do you believe that all that is involved in the above questions is being reviled by God to the FP to be distributed to the members?  If so, why are these concepts not taught at GC?

Stop berating posters. If you don't like board policies please find another forum you are comfortable with.