A Breath of Fresh Air: "Do not diminish the peace and happiness many church members enjoy"

[smac97]

An opinion piece in the Tribune: 

Quote

Bart S. Croxford: Do not diminish the peace and happiness many church members enjoy

LDS Church is not alone in expecting much of its followers.

I would like to respond to the article by Tanner Call of December 7, entitled “LDS Church gaslights the world and manipulates its members.”

The Tanner Call article was a pretty ugly piece of work.  

Kudos to Bro. Croxford for politely, yet clearly, standing up to defend the Church.

Quote

I think it would only be fair to allow a member of the church to present an opposing view.

He claims that, for many of us, the church “didn’t uplift us; it tore us down. It didn’t help us become our best selves; it broke us so that we would be obedient members who gave of our time, money, and energy at the expense of ourselves.”

One could make the same claim against any organized religion or discipline if it didn’t accomplish the results one desired. Any discipline, religious or not, makes demands of its participants, whether it’s physical, emotional, mental, etc., exertion.

Even a gym membership requires that its participants exert themselves physically, even perhaps to exhaustion to accomplish the desired goal of being physically fit. I guess Mr. Call thinks the church should guarantee its members that they will be happy regardless of any efforts put forth its believers.

Yep.

Basic Training at Fort Leonard Wood and a 1-year Russian Basic Course as the Defense Language Institute were really difficult for me, and I am very grateful for the experience.  There were, however, others who could not finish Basic Training or the language course for a variety of reasons, and who therefore may have a different perspective on these challenges than I do.

The same goes for law school and taking the bar exam.  Pretty hard stuff, but very worthwhile.

And getting married.  And having and raising six children.  Tough, but edifying.  Challenging, and therefore rewarding.

Quote

The church’s founder, Joseph Smith, famously stated “A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.” The Savior in Matthew 16:25 stated, “whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

Being a member of the church requires the believer to sacrifice much of their time, talents and efforts if one would like to have the desired results, namely happiness in this life and exaltation in the world to come. The Catholic Church requires much of its believers as well as many other Christian and non-Christian religions do.

Good thoughts, these.

Quote

All the “techniques” that he lists are not unique to the church he is criticizing. “Treasures in heaven” are promised by the Savior in The Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5:12, which is believed by all Christians that I know, yet he claims the this is “one of the most insidious ways the LDS Church controls its members by conditioning them to focus on a promised future instead of the actual here-and-now.”

“Blessed be the peacemaker” is another Beatitude that he criticizes the church as using to “teach its members not to rock the boat.” I guess he ought to take this up with Jesus Christ himself, because this is a basic tenet of any Christian religion, not unique to the church he criticizes.

“God’s ways are higher than our ways,” he says, and “the church is nothing more characteristic than the overarching idea that God is omnipotent and, therefore, his servants know more than the average person.” This scripture is taken from Isaiah 55:19 so he is demeaning not only all Christians but all Jews as well.

“A peculiar people,” he says is a psychological manipulation to enforce an “us vs. them mentality.” No member that I know believes that anyone who leaves the church is of the devil, as he claims. On the contrary, our church believes that all but a handful of people that have ever lived will receive some level of glory, depending on what kind of life they lived.

Good stuff.

Quote

The church does claim to be restored to the earth by God the Father and his Son, Jesus Christ, through the prophet Joseph Smith, and is unapologetic about it. It either is restored or it is not; there is not halfway about it.

A point that bears emphasis and repetition.

Quote

There are plenty of mistakes made by its members but, as the Savior himself said in Matthew 7:20, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The church does not boast about all its humanitarian aid it provides throughout the world and most of its almost 17 million members around the world live by its precepts and have thereby enjoyed joy and happiness that cannot be quantified in this small space. The church has a strong program for youth and aims to build strong character traits and unselfishness in all members.

I am sorry that it didn’t work out for Mr. Call, but he cannot diminish the peace, joy and happiness that many members of the church enjoy.

Thank you, Bro. Croxford, for standing up for us.

-Smac

[The Nehor]

Why would you be concerned that the peaceful and happy will have problems with this article? Their lives would seem a refutation of the Tanner piece. Wouldn’t you be more worried about the troubled and unhappy?

[Teancum]

12 hours ago, smac97 said:

It either is restored or it is not; there is not halfway about it.

And that is the crux of it. For those who have concluded it is not the Tanner Op Ed may make sense really.  Many do feel lied to, deceived and gaslighted-is that a word?

 

Also then we have this quote:

Quote

The church’s founder, Joseph Smith, famously stated “A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.” The Savior in Matthew 16:25 stated, “whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

Personally I find such statements manipulative and controlling.  And it puts a lot of power into the hands to the religious leader promoting such ideas.  Why does religion/God require total devotion and obedience to put one it good favor with God? Really it seems more about power and control IMO at least.

[bluebell]

7 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Why would you be concerned that the peaceful and happy will have problems with this article? Their lives would seem a refutation of the Tanner piece. Wouldn’t you be more worried about the troubled and unhappy?

I was thinking that Smac was concerned with people who had no actual experience with the church being influenced by the article, more so than members who can form their own conclusions completely absent of Tanner Call's opinions.

[Tacenda]

I now don't think the church is as demanding as other faiths, in a different way. I think other religions demand loyalty to believing everything the bible says sometimes. I'm so glad that members can still believe what they want unless they outwardly disparage the church publicly I guess. I also love that the church is pretty laid back on many things compared to other faiths too. In fact I think members get away with a lot, and get to think for themselves. The church is quite accepting of all members, it just has a few rules such as those for attending the temple but other than that, I think it's pretty simple to be an LDS. And it's a great social organization and it may just be those that have scrupulosity disorders that will have trouble in the church, honestly. 

[bluebell]

14 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

I now don't think the church is as demanding as other faiths, in a different way. I think other religions demand loyalty to believing everything the bible says sometimes. I'm so glad that members can still believe what they want unless they outwardly disparage the church publicly I guess. I also love that the church is pretty laid back on many things compared to other faiths too. In fact I think members get away with a lot, and get to think for themselves. The church is quite accepting of all members, it just has a few rules such as those for attending the temple but other than that, I think it's pretty simple to be an LDS. And it's a great social organization and it may just be those that have scrupulosity disorders that will have trouble in the church, honestly. 

I do appreciate that for all the church's lofty beliefs and calls to action (and they are lofty and there are a lot of calls to actions that can be difficult and time consuming), members are able to do what they want in almost all but the most serious regards (like adultery, etc.), and still maintain full fellowship in the church.

[3DOP]

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

And that is the crux of it. For those who have concluded it is not the Tanner Op Ed may make sense really.  Many do feel lied to, deceived and gaslighted-is that a word?

 

Also then we have this quote:

Personally I find such statements manipulative and controlling.  And it puts a lot of power into the hands to the religious leader promoting such ideas.  Why does religion/God require total devotion and obedience to put one it good favor with God? Really it seems more about power and control IMO at least.

Teancum, hi.

Not surprisingly, being Catholic, I had never seen the quote from Joseph Smith you cited here:

“A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.” The Savior in Matthew 16:25 stated, “whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

---I will agree with you so far as to say the kind of religion you describe has the potential to be manipulating and controlling, understood in a negative sense. One can think of examples of this where religious leaders take advantage of their victims who have been persuaded by their charism into being true believers of whatever they say. The leaders of these false religions should be recognizable to those not psychologically dependent. When the "prophet" starts taking your women (daughters and wives) or your money for purposes of personal aggrandizement, it will "raise many eyebrows" to question the veracity of the religion. Bad and harmful religions can use Joseph Smith's axiom to their advantage.

---But I will disagree with you so far as to say that a religion that is not worth dying for, is also not worth living for. Joseph Smith didn't start this idea. The One who claims to be the Son of God started it. His Apostles and disciples repeated it. "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service". (Romans 12:2) It is unreasonable to give our women to any apostle or religious. It is unreasonable for people who have not freely taken vows of poverty to sacrifice a single penny for some guy to drive a Rolls Royce and have an Olympic size swimming pool. Christianity is reasonable. To put it colloquially, it is a good deal.

---I think it was reasonable to think that the testimony of Christ and His Apostles was true, if they were observed gaining no fleshly or temporal benefits from their preaching. They, as Joseph Smith affirmed, were examples of why their eyewitness accounts of the life, passion, death, and resurrection of this Jesus were taken so seriously through the first centuries of Christianity. In those times in the Roman Empire, depending on the laxity or severity of the emperor or even an individual magistrate, to be denounced as a Christian was always a trial that might bring torture, death, and "sacrifice of all things."

Yesterday was the feast of St. Lucy, a native of Sicily. After her mother was miraculously cured of an illness at the tomb of Agatha, another Virgin Martyr, whose names have been recalled for century after century, everyday, to this very day in the holy Canon of the Mass, Lucy begged her wealthy matron to bestow upon her the fortune which was intended for her after her mother's death, for the purpose of distributing it all to the poor. This, Lucy's happy mother allowed, and so did Lucy embrace a measure of poverty. Whether calculated or not, it provoked the man to whom Lucy was unhappily promised in marriage to denounce her to the authorities as a Christian. Without going into details, St. Lucy defied the prefect, Paschasius, when he ordered her to deny her faith, by bowing down to worship some idols. It is reported that the more the prefect threatened pain and promised gain, the more she became inflamed and adamant in her profession of faith. She was killed with a sword thrust through her neck.

One cannot think that my much abbreviated story has any truth to it without wondering what could make a young lady behave as she did. She got nothing from this life. Christianity is a religion for a next life. The story of Lucy, and hundreds of others, are what made an idol worshipping empire worship a crucified Jewish man who claimed to be God, and who was claimed by dedicated followers to have been seen alive again. Mormons say that the Church had already apostatized. This was already a few centuries after Christ had lived and died. St. Lucy, while her life was waning away from the piercing of the sword, predicted the peace of the Church which would shortly come after the cruel reigns of Diocletian and Maximian. People were inspired by stories like this which then, resulted in the conversion of an empire to Christ, and centuries later, are still recounted day after day by her Church in an era when "news" is true, but what is old seems unworthy of belief. If this is apostasy to modern, Latter-day people, so be it. Today, I don't care about anything except what St. Lucy had. I want to believe what the martyrs believed. If I am misinformed about what they believed, I will be forgiven. My faith comes from the testimony of selfless souls who began to die for their faith 2,000 years ago, without a single worldly advantage. If I am wrong about their being Catholic and the martyrs preached much more like LDS (no miracles), Jehovah's Witness (Jesus isn't God), Baptist (Once saved, always saved), or whatever? I protest, I am not so much convinced by what the martyrs said. I believe in what the martyrs DID. I want the religion of the martyrs of pagan Rome, wherever it leads, and whatever it says.    

No religion is far better than a religion that is not worth dying for. Truly. Let's watch the 49ers get back to the Super Bowl! I have cares about inane things like that on a Sunday. A lot of us did not grow up religious and could live without it. A lot of us don't like feeling unfree. Unless it is important enough to die for, I could not care less about a religion. But shoot, I die to self every Sunday, and get up for 5:45 Mass most weekdays before work. Its dark and black and cold and gloomy out, especially this time of year. Is that what I want? Some might think so. Most irreligious people have no idea the similarities they share with the so-called religious. 

 

Edited December 14, 2022 by 3DOP

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I now don't think the church is as demanding as other faiths, in a different way. I think other religions demand loyalty to believing everything the bible says sometimes. I'm so glad that members can still believe what they want unless they outwardly disparage the church publicly I guess. I also love that the church is pretty laid back on many things compared to other faiths too. In fact I think members get away with a lot, and get to think for themselves. The church is quite accepting of all members, it just has a few rules such as those for attending the temple but other than that, I think it's pretty simple to be an LDS. And it's a great social organization and it may just be those that have scrupulosity disorders that will have trouble in the church, honestly. 

Biblical fundamentalism is mostly an American thing.

[Stargazer]

17 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Biblical fundamentalism is mostly an American thing.

Yeah, maybe now. But the people who burned heretics at the stake in Europe were not American. And American biblical fundamentalists as they currently exist aren't burning people at the stake. Though perhaps some might wish they could.

One of my stepsons married a non-member lady whose father was a baptist preacher. He once told my stepson that if saw a couple of Mormon missionaries bicycling down the road and he thought he could get away with it, he'd feel no compunction against running them over. 

But similar things happened to LDS missionaries and members in Europe back in the day, too. 

[Kenngo1969]

7 hours ago, 3DOP said:

I ... get up for 5:45 Mass most weekdays before work. Its dark and black and cold ... and gloomy out, especially this time of year. Is that what I want? Some might think so. Most irreligious people have no idea the similarities they share with the so-called religious. 

 

How long is Mass?  (Just curious.)  Thanks.

I [might've] answered my own question.  Thanks (again!) 

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/length-of-a-weekday-mass-4785

Edited December 15, 2022 by Kenngo1969

[3DOP]

37 minutes ago, Kenngo1969 said:

How long is Mass?  (Just curious.)  Thanks.

I [might've] answered my own question.  Thanks (again!) 

https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/length-of-a-weekday-mass-4785

Wow, Ken. I did not read all of that. On weekdays, I am home around 6:30 depending on the priest, and how long communion takes. Sermons are only on Holy days, and we don't work. There are other days that more people or less people show up. I need to be out the door of my house by 7:15 to make it to work before 7:30. It is not a good thing to be mad because more people are at Mass than usual. But leave it to good old Rory to be grumpy because too many people are going to communion and making me late. Pray for me. I am awful. Heh.

[Kenngo1969]

1 hour ago, 3DOP said:

Wow, Ken. I did not read all of that. On weekdays, I am home around 6:30 depending on the priest, and how long communion takes. Sermons are only on Holy days, and we don't work. There are other days that more people or less people show up. I need to be out the door of my house by 7:15 to make it to work before 7:30. It is not a good thing to be mad because more people are at Mass than usual. But leave it to good old Rory to be grumpy because too many people are going to communion and making me late. Pray for me. I am awful. Heh.

Sorry for any confusion.  The link was to a Q&A, the question was the first paragraph and the answer I was looking for was immediately following that, in the first paragraph of the answer.  Like you, though, I didn't read the whole thing.

I will pray for you, gladly, but also, I'll point you to 1 Corinthians 10:13, pointing out the "money phrase" (my term) here: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man ..."  I rather suspect that even with whatever flaws you have, already, you're a better man than I'll ever be.  

Warm Regards and Best Wishes,

-Ken

Edited December 15, 2022 by Kenngo1969

[The Nehor]

5 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Yeah, maybe now. But the people who burned heretics at the stake in Europe were not American. And American biblical fundamentalists as they currently exist aren't burning people at the stake. Though perhaps some might wish they could.

One of my stepsons married a non-member lady whose father was a baptist preacher. He once told my stepson that if saw a couple of Mormon missionaries bicycling down the road and he thought he could get away with it, he'd feel no compunction against running them over. 

But similar things happened to LDS missionaries and members in Europe back in the day, too. 

They didn’t burn heretics because either side were biblical fundamentalists. The people being burned were probably further along the spectrum as being biblical fundamentalists than the Catholics but neither truly were.

[carbon dioxide]

14 hours ago, Teancum said:

And that is the crux of it. For those who have concluded it is not the Tanner Op Ed may make sense really.  Many do feel lied to, deceived and gaslighted-is that a word?

 

Also then we have this quote:

Personally I find such statements manipulative and controlling.  And it puts a lot of power into the hands to the religious leader promoting such ideas.  Why does religion/God require total devotion and obedience to put one it good favor with God? Really it seems more about power and control IMO at least.

God demands obedience and compliance to enter the Celestial kingdom.  If one chooses they want a lower kingdom, they don't need as much obedience.  It is a fair system God has set up.  One can call it power and control.  I would just call it justice and common sense.  If you want the best, you got to put the work in.  If one does just wants a semi nice place to spend eternity in exchange for no obedience or devotion, God will engage that desire as well

Edited December 15, 2022 by carbon dioxide

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, carbon dioxide said:

God demands obedience and compliance to enter the Celestial kingdom.  If one chooses they want a lower kingdom, they don't need as much obedience.  It is a fair system God has set up.  One can call it power and control.  I would just call it justice and common sense.  If you want the best, you got to put the work in.  If one does just wants a semi nice place to spend eternity in exchange for no obedience or devotion, God will engage that desire as well

Ummm…..pretty sure that, doctrinally speaking, it would be fair to chuck everyone into hell even if you put the work in.

[Stargazer]

8 hours ago, The Nehor said:

They didn’t burn heretics because either side were biblical fundamentalists. The people being burned were probably further along the spectrum as being biblical fundamentalists than the Catholics but neither truly were.

I'm sorry, but I am not quite following what you mean here.  

Perhaps explaining the "spectrum" might help...

Edited December 15, 2022 by Stargazer

[Teancum]

8 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

God demands obedience and compliance to enter the Celestial kingdom. 

Will no. This may be what you believe.  But it is just a statement of faith not fact.  And one might wonder if a being the DEMANDS such things even really exists or is worthy of worship.

8 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

 

If one chooses they want a lower kingdom, they don't need as much obedience.  It is a fair system God has set up. 

I don't find the need to comply with a myriad of made up rules to get the highest reward in heaven and very fair. Nor merciful.

 

8 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

 

One can call it power and control. 

It is power and control and it comes from the men that say God is telling them these things.  The question becomes can you trust the person who is telling you God is saying this.  For me at least Joseph Smith is not deserving of my trust.

8 hours ago, carbon dioxide said:

 

I would just call it justice and common sense.  If you want the best, you got to put the work in.  If one does just wants a semi nice place to spend eternity in exchange for no obedience or devotion, God will engage that desire as well

Well we could debate whether it is common sense or not. I guess if God is really a perform rewards type of being sort of like a business man and his employees then sure.  If God is really a benevolent loving merciful being not so much.

[Scott Lloyd]

19 hours ago, 3DOP said:

Teancum, hi.

Not surprisingly, being Catholic, I had never seen the quote from Joseph Smith you cited here:

“A religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation.” The Savior in Matthew 16:25 stated, “whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

---I will agree with you so far as to say the kind of religion you describe has the potential to be manipulating and controlling, understood in a negative sense. One can think of examples of this where religious leaders take advantage of their victims who have been persuaded by their charism into being true believers of whatever they say. The leaders of these false religions should be recognizable to those not psychologically dependent. When the "prophet" starts taking your women (daughters and wives) or your money for purposes of personal aggrandizement, it will "raise many eyebrows" to question the veracity of the religion. Bad and harmful religions can use Joseph Smith's axiom to their advantage.

---But I will disagree with you so far as to say that a religion that is not worth dying for, is also not worth living for. Joseph Smith didn't start this idea. The One who claims to be the Son of God started it. His Apostles and disciples repeated it. "Present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, and acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service". (Romans 12:2) It is unreasonable to give our women to any apostle or religious. It is unreasonable for people who have not freely taken vows of poverty to sacrifice a single penny for some guy to drive a Rolls Royce and have an Olympic size swimming pool. Christianity is reasonable. To put it colloquially, it is a good deal.

---I think it was reasonable to think that the testimony of Christ and His Apostles was true, if they were observed gaining no fleshly or temporal benefits from their preaching. They, as Joseph Smith affirmed, were examples of why their eyewitness accounts of the life, passion, death, and resurrection of this Jesus were taken so seriously through the first centuries of Christianity. In those times in the Roman Empire, depending on the laxity or severity of the emperor or even an individual magistrate, to be denounced as a Christian was always a trial that might bring torture, death, and "sacrifice of all things."

Yesterday was the feast of St. Lucy, a native of Sicily. After her mother was miraculously cured of an illness at the tomb of Agatha, another Virgin Martyr, whose names have been recalled for century after century, everyday, to this very day in the holy Canon of the Mass, Lucy begged her wealthy matron to bestow upon her the fortune which was intended for her after her mother's death, for the purpose of distributing it all to the poor. This, Lucy's happy mother allowed, and so did Lucy embrace a measure of poverty. Whether calculated or not, it provoked the man to whom Lucy was unhappily promised in marriage to denounce her to the authorities as a Christian. Without going into details, St. Lucy defied the prefect, Paschasius, when he ordered her to deny her faith, by bowing down to worship some idols. It is reported that the more the prefect threatened pain and promised gain, the more she became inflamed and adamant in her profession of faith. She was killed with a sword thrust through her neck.

One cannot think that my much abbreviated story has any truth to it without wondering what could make a young lady behave as she did. She got nothing from this life. Christianity is a religion for a next life. The story of Lucy, and hundreds of others, are what made an idol worshipping empire worship a crucified Jewish man who claimed to be God, and who was claimed by dedicated followers to have been seen alive again. Mormons say that the Church had already apostatized. This was already a few centuries after Christ had lived and died. St. Lucy, while her life was waning away from the piercing of the sword, predicted the peace of the Church which would shortly come after the cruel reigns of Diocletian and Maximian. People were inspired by stories like this which then, resulted in the conversion of an empire to Christ, and centuries later, are still recounted day after day by her Church in an era when "news" is true, but what is old seems unworthy of belief. If this is apostasy to modern, Latter-day people, so be it. Today, I don't care about anything except what St. Lucy had. I want to believe what the martyrs believed. If I am misinformed about what they believed, I will be forgiven. My faith comes from the testimony of selfless souls who began to die for their faith 2,000 years ago, without a single worldly advantage. If I am wrong about their being Catholic and the martyrs preached much more like LDS (no miracles), Jehovah's Witness (Jesus isn't God), Baptist (Once saved, always saved), or whatever? I protest, I am not so much convinced by what the martyrs said. I believe in what the martyrs DID. I want the religion of the martyrs of pagan Rome, wherever it leads, and whatever it says.    

No religion is far better than a religion that is not worth dying for. Truly. Let's watch the 49ers get back to the Super Bowl! I have cares about inane things like that on a Sunday. A lot of us did not grow up religious and could live without it. A lot of us don't like feeling unfree. Unless it is important enough to die for, I could not care less about a religion. But shoot, I die to self every Sunday, and get up for 5:45 Mass most weekdays before work. Its dark and black and cold and gloomy out, especially this time of year. Is that what I want? Some might think so. Most irreligious people have no idea the similarities they share with the so-called religious. 

 

Thank you for this background on the feast of St. Lucy. “Lucia Day” is a well-observed national holiday in Sweden, where Lutheranism is the state religion. I became acquainted with “Lucia fests” when I served my mission in that land nearly 50 years ago. We still observe it at our house, even if, these days, it is nothing more than to remind each other of it every time Dec. 13 comes around. When our daughter was younger, we would have her wear a wreath of electric candles in her hair and bring baked goods to relatives and friends in observance of the day, while we sang or listened to the Swedish translation of “Sankta Lucia.” 
 

But I had never heard the detail you give here, and I’m  grateful to you for presenting it. 

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, Stargazer said:

I'm sorry, but I am not quite following what you mean here.  

Perhaps explaining the "spectrum" might help...

Neither the early Protestants or the Catholics in the ‘burning era’ were biblical fundamentalists but Protestants were closer to being biblical fundamentalists than the Catholics.

[mfbukowski]

On 12/15/2022 at 7:09 AM, Teancum said:

Will no. This may be what you believe.  But it is just a statement of faith not fact. 

This may be what you believe. But it is just a statement of faith not fact.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Think about this please. Positivism is dead, there is no evidence for it.

This seems to be YOUR faith, without evidence it is true. 

I am still trying.  You need to meet with the Postmodern Missionaries.

Watch 2 Rorty videos and call me in the morning.

 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2022 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

This may be what you believe. But it is just a statement of faith not fact.

There are no facts, only interpretations.

Think about this please. Positivism is dead, there is no evidence for it.

This seems to be YOUR faith, without evidence it is true. 

I am still trying.  You need to meet with the Postmodern Missionaries.

Watch 2 Rorty videos and call me in the morning.

 

 

 

Incidentally Rorty is an atheist, but he actually understands his reasoned beliefs for being so, yet his children were raised as believers, and his wife was raised LDS.

Atheism can be justified as a faith position, but not your way.

"Facts" have nothing to do with religion.  Testimony IS religion.

Hitchens would agree with that

But I don't want to

" diminish the peace and happiness you enjoy"

https://scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/dial/article/43/2/131/251772/Hermeneutic-Adventures-in-Home-Teaching-Mary-and

That link goes to an article written by Rorty's home teacher

"Hermeneutic Adventures in Home Teaching: Mary and Richard Rorty"

Edited December 16, 2022 by mfbukowski

[smac97]

On 12/14/2022 at 3:13 AM, The Nehor said:

Why would you be concerned that the peaceful and happy will have problems with this article?

I don't understand your question.

On 12/14/2022 at 3:13 AM, The Nehor said:

Their lives would seem a refutation of the Tanner piece.

I don't understand this statement.

On 12/14/2022 at 3:13 AM, The Nehor said:

Wouldn’t you be more worried about the troubled and unhappy?

I can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Thanks,

-Smac

[Dario_M]

I have enjoy my peach and rest with my church brothers and sisters. 

Amen. 🙏

Edited December 18, 2022 by Dario_M

[smac97]

On 12/14/2022 at 10:45 AM, Tacenda said:

I now don't think the church is as demanding as other faiths, in a different way. I think other religions demand loyalty to believing everything the bible says sometimes.

The Church can and does allow for diversity of thought and belief as to all sorts of things.  However, the Church can only survive if there is substantial "unity" on fundamental principles.  I admire the Brethren for trying to balance these two concerns.

On 12/14/2022 at 10:45 AM, Tacenda said:

I'm so glad that members can still believe what they want unless they outwardly disparage the church publicly I guess.

I'm not sure what you are referencing here.

On 12/14/2022 at 10:45 AM, Tacenda said:

I also love that the church is pretty laid back on many things compared to other faiths too.

I don't know that "laid back" is apt.  The Church is still teaching some fairly stringent ethics, but is doing so in the context of individual choice and liberty.  Consider 2 Nephi 2:27-29:

Quote

Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself.

And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit;

And not choose eternal death, according to the will of the flesh and the evil which is therein, which giveth the spirit of the devil power to captivate, to bring you down to hell, that he may reign over you in his own kingdom.

"Free to choose" is front and center here.  But the Church is not indifferent or "laid back" about which choice it is presenting as the better and correct one.  

On 12/14/2022 at 10:45 AM, Tacenda said:

In fact I think members get away with a lot, and get to think for themselves.

I'm not sure what you mean by "get away with a lot."

On 12/14/2022 at 10:45 AM, Tacenda said:

The church is quite accepting of all members, it just has a few rules such as those for attending the temple but other than that, I think it's pretty simple to be an LDS.

Fairly simple, yes.  "Eat Less, Eat Better and Exercise" is likewise simple in theory for an obese person looking to lose weight and develop a healthier lifestyle, yet this can be challenging to implement in practice. 

So it goes, I think, with the simplicity of the Restored Gospel.  The Church expects quite a bit of time, effort and means from its members.  It remains a pretty "high demand" religion.

On 12/14/2022 at 10:45 AM, Tacenda said:

And it's a great social organization and it may just be those that have scrupulosity disorders that will have trouble in the church, honestly. 

Are you referencing OCD here?

Thanks,

-Smac

[The Nehor]

19 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I don't understand your question.

I don't understand this statement.

I can walk and chew gum at the same time.

Thanks,

-Smac

Those were general comments addressed metaphorically to the article.