First time here

[Calm]

13 minutes ago, Chum said:

Your gut is mistaken. It's not a big deal. It happens to all of us.

Calm is in a direct position to know what's what and she has set us straight on this.

Thanks, Chum. That is a sweet end to the day. 

[AtlanticMike]

Yes calm I just looked at the email and the person at fairmormon emailed me back at 10.09 am yesterday and his initials are J M. Please thank him for taking the time to write me back. Now to bsjkki! Why did you put gut in quotation Marks?? Because if your a mormon you to live off your "gut" feeling everyday, it's called a testimony. Are you insinuating my priesthood powers only work when you want them to? To juliann, go ahead and run down Tom yourself! All you have to do is call church headquarters ask for the pr department, some nice lady answered for me and took my name and number and had Tom call me back on a unlisted number that came up private on my phone. So stop insinuating I'm a liar with your quotation marks. And RAINGIRL!! How dare you tell me I came here to attack the church! And I'm not deliberately choosing to ignore the facts. I said in a post yesterday that technically fairmorm probably isn't part of the church. That's on the corporation side but I hate to tell all you guys who are defending fairmormon, spiritually, fairmormon is part of the church! If they're a bunch of temple reccomend holding mormons who run that organization then their actions are a reflection of what the church believes. If you dont believe me go read Gordon b Hinckley's general conference talk called The Symbol of Christ. In the beginning of that talk he tells a story of a time he's talking to a Christian minister and the minister asked Hinckley why mormons dont use the cross as a symbol of their worship. Hinckley replied that the lives of our people must become the only meaningful expression of our faith and, in fact, therefore, the symbol of our worship.  So raingirl, there's a good chance your right that technically and legally fairmorm isn't part of the church but there actions are a symbol of our faith, thats what I'm talking about. And as a member of the church of christ I will not stand by and let an organization of mormons attack people by calling them out by name and using there picture online. Especially with a group of whiney little kids who come across as a bunch of spoiled little brats. Again, it's time for fairmorm to admit they were mistaken, take the videos down and move on. 

[AtlanticMike]

And by the way I spoke to my brother in law last night, the one who sent me the video link and he said if I keep talking to you guys and tell you honestly the way I feel, at some point you'll turn on me and make this about me and how I'm the problem. Low and behold I wake up this morning and there's people putting quotations, insinuating I came her to hurt the church, insinuating I might not of talked to Tom. My crazy brother in law who hasn't been to church in years is starting to seem like he knows more about a faith crisis and what happens way more than I ever could. Thanks a lot for proving him correct.

[Raingirl]

2 hours ago, Mike Livingston said:

And by the way I spoke to my brother in law last night, the one who sent me the video link and he said if I keep talking to you guys and tell you honestly the way I feel, at some point you'll turn on me and make this about me and how I'm the problem. Low and behold I wake up this morning and there's people putting quotations, insinuating I came her to hurt the church, insinuating I might not of talked to Tom. My crazy brother in law who hasn't been to church in years is starting to seem like he knows more about a faith crisis and what happens way more than I ever could. Thanks a lot for proving him correct.

Your agenda becomes clearer with every post. 
 

Had you come here with a legitimate concern and a genuine desire for the facts, you would see that your concerns were unfounded. But you are deliberately choosing to ignore the factual information being given to you and continuing on with your hysterical ranting. 
 

There is no point in talking to someone who refuses to listen. 

[bsjkki]

Sorry. Gut feelings and inspiration are not synonymous in my world. 
 

You will find on this board, and I’ve learned this myself, people need to debate their position using facts and sources. It is not people attacking you. It is people requiring you to defend your position. 
 

I am glad you have moved from viewing it as the Church attacking people by name to an ‘organization of Mormons.’

There are many ‘organizations of Mormons’ that I disagree with.  I don’t expect the Church to police them nor blame the church for what they do. 
 

I am not affiliated  with FM or a member of the group. I only know a few members from my participation on this board. 

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, Mike Livingston said:

And by the way I spoke to my brother in law last night, the one who sent me the video link and he said if I keep talking to you guys and tell you honestly the way I feel, at some point you'll turn on me and make this about me and how I'm the problem. Low and behold I wake up this morning and there's people putting quotations, insinuating I came her to hurt the church, insinuating I might not of talked to Tom. My crazy brother in law who hasn't been to church in years is starting to seem like he knows more about a faith crisis and what happens way more than I ever could. Thanks a lot for proving him correct.

Since this is your first time on a message board there are some things that you might not be aware of. 

First, it's not unusual (it's actually the norm) to have to defend or explain your position.  This isn't a board where people just accept what others say as fact.  People will want to have enough information to be able to validate what the other person is saying, and even after it is provided, they still might not believe it if it doesn't mesh with their own experiences or with other information.

Second, if you post on a discussion board you have to be ready to have your conclusions disagreed with without assuming you are being attacked. This isn't a place to come to have a testimony validated (though that can and does happen).  It's a place for discussion and disagreement.  No one is given a free pass.  It's not a church setting and that means that, while you will generally be given the benefit of the doubt on things, if someone disagrees with you or believes you are wrong they are going to tell you.

Third, sometimes we are the problem and if we aren't willing to accept people pointing out the possibility then message boards are not the place for us.

Finally fourth, people come on here with duplicitous motives all the time.  People come on here and pretend to be believing members and say outrageous things and then pretend to get mad and do the whole "obviously you guys are going to hell for not agreeing with me!" speel all the time.  It's called trolling.  For the most part, we pretend suspected trolls are being sincere and answer their posts as such because it's not worth the time or energy to call them out (dealing with adults who never matured passed the 7th grade isn't very exciting).  But because it does happen so often that means that sometimes sincere people are also suspected of being trolls.  I'm sure that's not fun but it's a reality we all have to deal with when joining a message board for the first time.   When it happens the best course of action is to try to be understanding, continue to post sincerely, and wait for our honesty to become apparent over time.  

[AtlanticMike]

Thank you bluebell that makes a lot of sense maybe I'm looking at it wrong. So here goes nothing. For one I have no agenda. Legally fairmormon probably isn't part of the church but spiritually it is and that can't be denied. If there's a organization of mormons offering positive answers to questions people have about Mormonism then that organization is part of the church, atleast in the spiritual sense. Because we are all representatives of christ. As soon as you got baptized into the lords church you gave up your individual agency, you turned it back in and became a representative of christ in everything you do on a day by day basis which means you now represent him, you have a representative agency that's not yours it's his, your just borrowing it. So if fairmormon is seen as positive then the brethren will leave them alone. But once fairmorm is seen as doing more harm than good, trust me!! They will find out really quick that they're part of the church no matter if they think they are or not. If there seen as shining a negative light on the church they'll be talked to by a church representative. If that doesn't work the head honcho will be meeting with his bishop and the bishop will ask him to take down any information that negative toward the church. If that doesn't work the bishop will threaten church discipline. If that doesn't work the church will excommunicate whoever doesn't follow orders. So legally probably no part of the church but spiritually they are definitely part of the church. Calm, if you dont believe , do an experiment, just go online and pull up the opening page of fair mormon and type, THE MORMON CHURCH IS FULL OF CRAP LEAVE AS FAST AS YOU CAN! BECOME A CHRISTIAN.  I guarantee you will hear from a representative of the mormon church by the end of the day. And there's a good chance that representative will be from kirton mcconkey law firm. Those people representing the church will tell you really fast that you are representing the church no matter if you think you aren't. My point is ,if the brethren dont like the content fairmormon is putting out, then fairmormon will change it or delete it. So you see, my point is the brethren dont need to own fairmormon on paper because if they want content changed I guarantee you fairmormon will change it. It's not as black or white as you guys are making it out to be. Does that make sense?

[bsjkki]

For presuming to not have had any doubts about the church before this instance, you seem to think the church controls private organizations and controls content. You also seem to have concerns of its corporate status. 
 

This suggests more issues.
 

If I denounce Dehlin or Renner on my Facebook page, I don’t think the church would care. If I denounce the Church, I think the Bishop has a right to be concerned. Especially because of my leadership calling. There is a difference. 
 

Could you explain how gut feelings are Priesthood powers? I’ve not heard those two things linked like that before. 

[AtlanticMike]

Bsjkki your funny. Your not getting what I'm saying. I agree the church doesn't control private organizations,  but private organizations dont make decisions, the people that run them do. And if 99% of fairmormon is made up of true blue mormons with a catholic sprinkled in every once in a while, then yes, the brethren do control fairmorm if they choose to. As of today they might not of had to step in but a guarantee you if fairmormon got out of line and started making stupid decisions that reflected negatively on the church they would step in. You might not like to think so but that's exactly what would happen. Then the fairmormon board of directors would have to choose between what the brethren want them to do or take a chance to standing up against their advice. How do think that would turn out for fairmorm, a 501c3 that probably gets 90% of its donations from believing mormons? My point being I personally think fairmormon went to far with these silly videos that try to cater to the youth of the church. And I believe if the brethren of the church see them they will agree with me and they won't give 2 hoots if fairmormon is a privately held organization or not,  they have a great deal of influence over the fairmormon board members and if they want the videos taken down the videos will be taken down, it's that simple. There's no way the fairmormon board will argue with the brethren of the church, no way in hell that will ever happen. So you see the brethren of our church do own fairmormon, just not in a traditional since like you keep mentioning. Does that help you understand where I'm coming from? 

      And to answer your question  about the priesthood and gut feelings. Yes gut feelings are tied directly to your priesthood power.  The stronger your priesthood the more confident you can be about trusting your gut because the lord is more willing to work directly through you, that's the appeal of Mormonism. Mormons have always believed we are rewarded for following the commandments and part of that reward is having a direct conduit directly to the lord and more importantly his influence. That influence comes in many ways. If your worthy that influence can come in many ways one being a feeling in your gut when something just isn't right, for me that feeling came when I watched the fairmormon videos they put out in the past week. The stronger the priesthood in an individual, and not just men,women to, the more you can trust that individuals gut feeling. 

      

    

[bsjkki]

So since I don’t hold the priesthood, do I not get these gut feelings?

Edited December 8, 2020 by bsjkki