How do you balance your spiritual, religious, philosophical and political (gasp) beliefs?

[nuclearfuels]

Tips would be appreciated

[MiserereNobis]

In America at this time, put the political beliefs at the bottom of the list. The very bottom. 

[Calm]

48 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

In America at this time, put the political beliefs at the bottom of the list. The very bottom. 

And better yet, only adopt any political beliefs after you are sure they align with your religious and moral beliefs. 

[Kenngo1969]

I'm a political junkie, which makes this a fascinating time to be alive.  As much of a political junkie as I am, and as fascinating as this time is, however, I try (and I emphasize that I try ) to leave my politics at the church house door.  A few months back, on another forum where I also participate (not, primarily, religious, but it is pretty wide-ranging) someone asked (in Spanish, ironically), if Jesus Christ were here today, whether He would be a Republican or a Democrat.  Neither one, I said: When Christ returns, He will return as King of Kings, and Lord of Lords.  What He says, goes, and He will likely p!$$ off both (all) sides.   And our politics, whatever they might be however tightly wedded we may be to them, won't save us.  Of that, I am absolutely certain.

Christ didn't say, "Be ye, therefore, a Republican," and He didn't say, "Be ye, therefore, a Democrat."  What He did say is, "I say unto you, Be One, and if ye are not One, ye are not Mine."  Doctrine and Covenants 38:27.  We must cast aside whatever prevents us from Becoming One, whether that is politics, or sports, or philosophy, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum.  A lot of people don't like President Ezra Taft Benson's Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Prophet, because they have this pet pursuit or that pet theory that, perhaps, is at odds the teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/ezra-taft-benson/fourteen-fundamentals-following-prophet/

Would it be too much of an overstatement, and would it put too fine of a point on the real issue, to retitle President Benson's address, Fourteen Fundamentals in Following the Savior?  Would we say, "Oh, I'm perfectly willing to follow the Savior, I'm simply not willing to follow [President (Fill-in-name-here)]"?  I might tell such a person, Well, goodness, gracious!  Doesn't that miss the whole point?!  For heck sakes, where, and to Whom, do you think President [Whomever] is trying to lead you?!  And if you don't think he's trying to lead your stubborn carcass to Christ, why else are you here?

Once, years ago, I saw a sign in a Seminary Building I visited that left a lasting impression upon me.  It said (and, ironically, I believe President Benson said this, as well) "The day obedience becomes a quest and not an irritation is the day we gain power."  While obedience, perhaps, isn't yet quite the quest that, for me, it should be, and while, perhaps, still, it is too much of an irritation, I do find that the more time passes, the more of a quest it becomes, and has become.  As for Christ's prophesied return, I'm quite sure it won't happen today, tomorrow, next week, next month, or next year.  And I'm quite sure that whether He returns to me or I return to Him, I won't be ready yet.  But I have lived to see prophesied events I never thought I would see (both for good and for bad).  And, as I said, I will be the last to say that I am anywhere near ready, so ... my quest continues.  But, with John, the Revelator, I say, "Come, Lord Jesus."  Revelation 22:20.  Again, our politics won't save us: Only Christ can do that.

My $0.02, actual value, as always, much less.  Likely, your mileage varies.  Whatever the case, I do wish you well.

Edited January 18, 2024 by Kenngo1969

[Tacenda]

I recently listened to the following podcast with Jim Bennett, that I feel is worthy for every US citizen to listen to. He is struggling big time with seeing how his LDS fellow members can love Trump. He said upfront at the beginning that it wasn't a political thing. It was a decency thing. He didn't understand it. And neither do I. He shared talks by our leaders about them saying to pick good moral and decent candidates no matter which side. Now I don't remember exactly their statements, but Trump would not be on that list. And Jim mentioned LDS scripture as well about the importance of choosing good people. According to Bennett that would not be this man. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/se/podcast/a-trumpy-trial-of-jim-bennetts-faith/id1682941294?i=1000641224279

Edited January 18, 2024 by Tacenda

[Rain]

I don't try to balance them. It's all spiritual to me. Love God and love neighbor. That doesn't mean I vote for anything goes because sometimes love means limits. It just means that I keep those 2 commandments in mind when I decide on issues. 

I ignore the political parties completely. No political party is 100% good. Rarely do you find a candidate that falls 100% with their party. So I try to find the best candidates for what I feel is good rather than which party to vote for.

[The Nehor]

We’re supposed to balance them?

Oops.

[BlueDreams]

Spiritual comes first followed closely by religious. I don't think consciously of having philosophical underpinnings but know that I do. We all do. I think of those more as either ethos I see the world with or biases that I need to keep tabs of. my political views are often informed by the above. At this point in my life I don't see them as integral and essential as the others. 

But I think more than anything, they keep my interest and passion for political concerns in check. I'm cautious of become so idealistic that it becomes untethered from the greater whole of a social group. I don't want to assume my way is THE right way. I think that's partially what is keeping us in the mess we're in as it is. We become so sure about our views it becomes intolerable to live with other ones or to find a middle space to live in. 

 

With luv, 

BD 

 

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Tacenda said:

I recently listened to the following podcast with Jim Bennett, that I feel is worthy for every US citizen to listen to. He is struggling big time with seeing how his LDS fellow members can love Trump. He said upfront at the beginning that it wasn't a political thing. It was a decency thing. He didn't understand it. And neither do I. He shared talks by our leaders about them saying to pick good moral and decent candidates no matter which side. Now I don't remember exactly their statements, but Trump would not be on that list. And Jim mentioned LDS scripture as well about the importance of choosing good people. According to Bennett that would not be this man. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/se/podcast/a-trumpy-trial-of-jim-bennetts-faith/id1682941294?i=1000641224279

My experience is there are plenty of Saints who agree with him, but who also recognize the only viable candidates for President are either Democrat or Republican….and they see the recent candidates as both highly corrupt, not much to choose between them morally speaking.

[MustardSeed]

How I do it is not necessarily the way others should - 

With just the four you listed, religion and spiritual flipflop for first.  I’d rather that spiritual was first always but I am admittedly indoctrinated and can’t always see clearly what is man and what is God. 
 

Next comes philosophical.  I categorize this with opinion and preference.  
 

Politics is a category I avoid as much as possible.  My interest is zero. I can live a moral decent life and never think about politics.  I can take any social issue and apply it to my life as I see fit and not make it political. 
 

I might be wrong about that but so far it’s working for me. 
 

 

[Tacenda]

7 hours ago, Calm said:

My experience is there are plenty of Saints who agree with him, but who also recognize the only viable candidates for President are either Democrat or Republican….and they see the recent candidates as both highly corrupt, not much to choose between them morally speaking.

I think there is a difference in the two, but I've probably gone too close to the line or crossed it as far as politics. But do want to say the church leaders have mentioned choosing the person over the party. Thanks for the input Calm. 

 

6 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

How I do it is not necessarily the way others should - 

With just the four you listed, religion and spiritual flipflop for first.  I’d rather that spiritual was first always but I am admittedly indoctrinated and can’t always see clearly what is man and what is God. 
 

Next comes philosophical.  I categorize this with opinion and preference.  
 

Politics is a category I avoid as much as possible.  My interest is zero. I can live a moral decent life and never think about politics.  I can take any social issue and apply it to my life as I see fit and not make it political. 
 

I might be wrong about that but so far it’s working for me. 
 

 

I want to be you!! I'm obsessed with what's happening in politics right now, and can't stop worrying. I will try to learn from your example. 

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Tacenda said:

I think there is a difference in the two

They sin in different ways and one brags about it while the other is intelligent enough to try and hide it.  Who is worse probably depends on personal experience with different kinds of betrayal and feelings about arrogance.  I lean towards liking the braggart less, but when I hear the reasons for rejecting the other, it makes just as much sense to me.  A plague on both their houses…

Quote

I've probably gone too close to the line or crossed it as far as politics

I probably crossed it before you did.

Edited January 18, 2024 by Calm

[CV75]

12 hours ago, nuclearfuels said:

Tips would be appreciated

Some things like covenants suport eternal ideals, and other things like manifestos adopt them as justification. Work harder at keeping the covenants to bind yourself to and become like Christ than at pointing to Christ to justify your way of doing things.

[mfbukowski]

17 hours ago, nuclearfuels said:

Tips would be appreciated

Wittgenstein.

They are all just somebody talking.

You get to figure it out for yourself 

https://www.quora.com/The-rock-group-the-Eagles-had-a-song-entitled-Desperado-One-line-And-freedom-oh-freedom-thats-just-some-people-talkin-Your-prison-is-walking-this-world-all-alone-What-does-that-mean

😳🤗

Edited January 18, 2024 by mfbukowski

[MustardSeed]

3 hours ago, Tacenda said:

want to be you!! I'm obsessed with what's happening in politics right now, and can't stop worrying. I will try to learn from your example. 

I walk away from political conversations, boldly change the subject, or directly state “i don’t talk politics”.  And I never ever listen to or watch programs online or on tv or radio with political agendas. 

[Tacenda]

1 hour ago, MustardSeed said:

I walk away from political conversations, boldly change the subject, or directly state “i don’t talk politics”.  And I never ever listen to or watch programs online or on tv or radio with political agendas. 

I am the total opposite, good for you!! Minus having conversations with family and friends. Just post occasionally on YouTube comments.

Edited January 18, 2024 by Tacenda

[rpn]

I don't think we DO balance them.    I think we have an obligation to study it all out, stack it up to gospel  teachings and prayerfully choose the Savior's way (and/or a way that doesn't trample on gospel principles), leaving behind all of the things that are inconsistent with that, not following those people/philosophies whose speech and actions fail to demonstrate that discipleship of Jesus Christ trumps everything else.

(

[Stargazer]

On 1/18/2024 at 5:14 AM, Tacenda said:

I recently listened to the following podcast with Jim Bennett, that I feel is worthy for every US citizen to listen to. He is struggling big time with seeing how his LDS fellow members can love Trump. He said upfront at the beginning that it wasn't a political thing. It was a decency thing. He didn't understand it. And neither do I.

I admit to being quite polarized on this subject, so I need to be very careful.

I recognize that Trump is seen as indecent by the media, and so everything he says gets filtered through the media. Those who listen to or read the filtered news will get the spin that the media wants to express. They are almost all against him. And who else listens to anything else? So I ignore what the alphabet soup media says about him. So I listen to Trump, unfiltered, and yes, he's a rabble-rouser. He speaks tough. He's quite unfiltered in his speech. I'm not sure that I would like him if I were personally acquainted with him. But that doesn't matter, in the end. Is he honest and wise enough? Would his policies benefit the country in ways that comport with the spirit of the country? Since he was already in power for four years, I use a variant of the Alma 32 test: how were things under him as compared to under his successor? Past performance does not always equal future results, but without a reliable crystal ball, I conclude that past performance is at least a likely predictor of future results. And then I look at his competitor in the race. There is plenty to dislike there. I am highly convinced, simply by listening to him, that Biden is not mentally competent to be President. And if he is not all there, who then is leading the country in actuality? I note that the alphabet media is suppressing all the talk about his personal and family corruption, almost in desperation. That's important, because if it were easily debunked, they would be willing to report on it.  If the negative things about Biden that the media is suppressing are true, then he is not at all decent.

And since absolute decency is not available, I conclude that I must rely upon relative decency. 

On 1/18/2024 at 5:14 AM, Tacenda said:

He shared talks by our leaders about them saying to pick good moral and decent candidates no matter which side. Now I don't remember exactly their statements, but Trump would not be on that list. And Jim mentioned LDS scripture as well about the importance of choosing good people. According to Bennett that would not be this man. 

https://podcasts.apple.com/se/podcast/a-trumpy-trial-of-jim-bennetts-faith/id1682941294?i=1000641224279

If Bennett listens solely to Trump's detractors, Trump should be in jail. But what if those detractors are lying, and lying horribly? And what if Trump's opponent is just as indecent as Trump's detractors say Trump is? 

This is not the place to get into all that. But if you trust a man's bitter enemies to be truthful about him, and do not seek alternative information, you will not be getting the full story. That goes for both sides.

[LoudmouthMormon]

I don't really see a difference between spiritual, religious, and philosophical beliefs.  I'm on a quest for truth, I wish to have correct and best principles running my life and everything in it.  When I was inactive and searching, part of my search was to come within a few credit hours of getting a minor in philosophy.  Those classes brought few answers, but helped me clarify the questions.  Upon seeking out and gaining a genuine real testimony based on an undeniable series of powerful spiritual experiences, my life was pretty set. 

Politics is one of the big ways humans go about trying to do their best.  My quest for correct and best principles have pointed me solidly into one particular camp, where I have been solidly entrenched for decades.  However, I have seen many examples of people holding similar principles and values, firmly entrenched in some very different camps.  One of my biggest and most powerful principles is "love thy neighbor", so I try to let that run all my interactions when going online to argue/fight/jab/converse/reason with my fellow humans about politics.   

I occasionally fail at putting love first, but I also do quite good at it much of the time.   My screen name comes from a time when I failed more routinely at putting love first.

Edited January 19, 2024 by LoudmouthMormon

[LoudmouthMormon]

18 hours ago, rpn said:

I don't think we DO balance them.  I think we have an obligation to study it all out, stack it up to gospel  teachings and prayerfully choose the Savior's way (and/or a way that doesn't trample on gospel principles), leaving behind all of the things that are inconsistent with that, not following those people/philosophies whose speech and actions fail to demonstrate that discipleship of Jesus Christ trumps everything else.

I'd agree there are an awful lot of folks who don't balance their beliefs.  There are even more who don't even know what they believe or why.  On one hand, I'm told some folks have the spiritual gift of believing the testimony of others. On the other hand, there are an awful lot of idiots out there who loudly proclaim some dumb unsubstantiated thing they heard someone else say.  People dig in and defend arguments they don't even understand all the time.  

It's part of the human condition.  I realized it was part of mine when I was 7 years old, and I've been on a quest to test and prove what I believe and why, ever since.  It what draws me to forums like this.  "Hi, I'm a critic of things you hold dear, and Imma go take my best shot."  "Hi, thanks - I'm pleased as punch to see your shot.  I've run it through my belief system, and noticed it has [bounced off my facts/doesn't qualify as a valid shot/has been found valuable and requires an adjustment in my beliefs.]"   It's really a no-lose situation.  If I can give up my human ego and desire do entrench and defend, I find I either have a good answer to every point, or I'm left a better person having internalized something new and have a cleaned-and-improved set of principles and beliefs.

[Stargazer]

You might want to incorporate other kinds of beliefs, such as scientific.

We've had some sciency types here who have made a big deal out of how they could trust science but not religion. One in particular, who went by the screen name Foxtrot44 (and is no longer even a whisper on the forum), and apparently lived in Utah somewhere, was very prejudiced against religious scientists. From what he wrote, he owned a company that hired scientists of some kind to do consultant work (I think). He bragged about how he preferred to hire atheists and agnostics, and kept a very close eye on the few in his company who belonged to the LDS church. I gathered he was worried they'd start having revelations about science instead of doing actual science. <- That's my own sarcasm. I think he was concerned that they might have a tendency to inject religion into their science in some way.

Anyway, the problem is that if you are a scientist, or very conversant with science, then the claims of religion might run smack into your science -- hard. Six days of creation. Creation, not evolution. Jesus bringing the dead back to life, or coming back to life himself.

Some believing scientists seem to fully compartmentalize the two sets of knowledge, and manage to hold one set at arm's length while doing the other. Like changing hats. And some other believing scientists can't do that, and it breaks the belief.

Keeping a balance can be a problem in this area of belief.

I've managed it by taking the Bible as figurative where it needs to be figurative in order to not clash with science. Some may call that a "coping mechanism," and perhaps it is, but even scientists have to cope with the paradigm shifts when they come. When it came to a paradigm shift in astronomy, famous astronomer Fred Hoyle was a huge proponent of the Steady State Theory, as opposed to the Big Bang Theory. In fact, it was he who gave it its famous nickname, which was intended to be derisory. <- He later claimed that it wasn't intended so, but most scientists didn't believe him.

Hoyle died in 2001, long after the Big Bang had become the accepted consensus among the scientific community. He maintained his conviction with respect to the Steady State Theory to his deathbed. One of the problems that Hoyle saw in the Big Bang was that it gave too much support to the creationists. 

And so it does, but physicists and astrophysicists do manage to come up with coping mechanisms for that. 

[LoudmouthMormon]

16 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

We've had some sciency types here who have made a big deal out of how they could trust science but not religion. One in particular, who went by the screen name Foxtrot44 (and is no longer even a whisper on the forum), and apparently lived in Utah somewhere, was very prejudiced against religious scientists. From what he wrote, he owned a company that hired scientists of some kind to do consultant work (I think). He bragged about how he preferred to hire atheists and agnostics, and kept a very close eye on the few in his company who belonged to the LDS church. I gathered he was worried they'd start having revelations about science instead of doing actual science. <- That's my own sarcasm. I think he was concerned that they might have a tendency to inject religion into their science in some way.

I think you touch on a big way a lot of people balance their s/r/p/p beliefs.  They do it by having and expressing problems with other people's beliefs.  

I've been told that LDS folk lack critical thinking/reasoning/logic skills, and therefore you can't find any smart degreed LDS folks.  This seems like an extension of that argument, just held on to by someone who was forced to admit their existence.

After 20 years, this link still befuddles and provokes a reaction from some folks: https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/testimonies/scholars

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Stargazer said:

recognize that Trump is seen as indecent by the media, and so everything he says gets filtered through the media. Those who listen to or read the filtered news will get the spin that the media wants to express

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html

In his own words…warning, vulgarity

Edited January 19, 2024 by Calm

[Stargazer]

38 minutes ago, Calm said:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/08/us/donald-trump-tape-transcript.html

In his own words…warning, vulgarity

Sorry, it's behind a paywall and I've already used up my freebie limit for the Times.

But I believe I've seen that transcript, if it's the one I think it is. 

I'd rather not continue to debate this publicly, since it's political and highly divisive. I've said my piece on the subject.

[Calm]

48 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Sorry, it's behind a paywall and I've already used up my freebie limit for the Times.

But I believe I've seen that transcript, if it's the one I think it is. 

I'd rather not continue to debate this publicly, since it's political and highly divisive. I've said my piece on the subject.

This part of it is a morality question, imo.  Unless you believe the transcript is fake where he is bragging about trying to get a married woman to sleep with him and what is sexual assault without consent…is this indecent behaviour or not?  That is all that I am focusing on here in response to your comment that judgments about his indecency were based on filtered news through biased media (which I agree with for much of what was and is reported, but this is his own words).

I don’t follow politics much.  But this could be coming from anyone, doesn’t have to be a politician and I would see it as indecent and misogynist.

And I am not suggesting this excludes anyone from being voted for, especially when other viable candidates committed immoral acts as well, though perhaps of a different category.

Edited January 19, 2024 by Calm