My Recent Crash-Course in Modern LDS Thought 🧐

[Nofear]

On 3/8/2024 at 5:15 PM, smac97 said:

On 3/8/2024 at 11:11 AM, ZealouslyStriving said:

So... Over the last few days I have gotten a crash course on what has been going on in the Church while I have been on my wilderness journey for the last 20ish years. Whoa! 😮

LDS scholars using old anti- claims as authoritative (see "Rough Stone Rolling").

Could you elaborate?  What "anti-{Mormon} claims" are you referencing here?

I found his comment confusing too. I personally found Rough Stone Rolling very faith promoting and have read it more than once so I don't know what ZeolouslyStriving was/is trying to say.

[Calm]

5 minutes ago, Nofear said:

I found his comment confusing too. I personally found Rough Stone Rolling very faith promoting and have read it more than once so I don't know what ZeolouslyStriving was/is trying to say.

I like it very much as well.  My husband didn’t originally because he felt Bushman wasn’t willing to commit to belief, to the reality of Joseph and others’ spiritual experiences.  My husband wanted to see more affirmations of Joseph as a prophet, etc.  He might change his mind if he read it now as he has been more exposed to that kind of exploration for religious belief, but who knows.

Edited March 11, 2024 by Calm

[ZealouslyStriving]

3 minutes ago, Nofear said:

I found his comment confusing too. I personally found Rough Stone Rolling very faith promoting and have read it more than once so I don't know what ZeolouslyStriving was/is trying to say.

Apparently, in RSR the idea that Joseph Sr. was a lazy drunkard who didn't manage his family well, and that the family spent countless hours messing around with magic, is promoted. Are they incorrect?

[manol]

17 minutes ago, Nofear said:

I found his comment confusing too. I personally found Rough Stone Rolling very faith promoting and have read it more than once so I don't know what ZeolouslyStriving was/is trying to say.

Thirty-something years ago I embarked on a quest that included reading just about everything I could get my hands on about Joseph Smith.  This included books that some considered to be "anti", such as "Rough Stone Rolling" and "No Man Knows My History".  I was trying to find the answer to a question and therefore didn't pay attention to editorial slants. 

Edited March 11, 2024 by manol

[Nofear]

2 minutes ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

Apparently, in RSR the idea that Joseph Sr. was a lazy drunkard who didn't manage his family well, and that the family spent countless hours messing around with magic, is promoted. Are they incorrect?

Well, that is like chapter 1. Nicely, the book puts the answers in proper context that soundbite responses would fail to give.

[Nofear]

2 minutes ago, manol said:

I was trying to find answers and therefore didn't pay attention to editorial slants. 

One of the things that I loved about Rough Stone Rolling is that Richard Bushman attempted to tell us what the historical figures thought about things from their perspective, to the extent that the historical records allowed us to do so. He didn't try to "explain" this or that event so much as simply tell us what the people themselves thought, what the explanations they gave were.

[manol]

7 minutes ago, Nofear said:

One of the things that I loved about Rough Stone Rolling is that Richard Bushman attempted to tell us what the historical figures thought about things from their perspective, to the extent that the historical records allowed us to do so. He didn't try to "explain" this or that event so much as simply tell us what the people themselves thought, what the explanations they gave were.

I don't have any memory of those specifics, it was too long ago and/or that wasn't where my focus was. 

[Nofear]

Just now, manol said:

I don't have any memory of those specifics, it was too long ago and/or that wasn't where my focus was. 

He explained his approach (and it is what I saw) in the introduction to the book. Curiously one of his regrets is that he wasn't more explicit in his own personal faith and testimony of the legitimacy of Joseph Smith as an authenticate prophet of Christ. He tried to be more dispassionate about that. I wasn't bothered. The record spoke for itself.

[CV75]

50 minutes ago, Calm said:

And rights make sense in an environment where there are those who have things and those who don’t…but if Abraham had lived in a culture that had already given him the blessing he sought, there would be no need for him to call out a right to have it given him…it doesn’t make sense to request or demand something you already have.

A right that everyone has and everyone gets doesn’t not need to be identified as a right.

No one speaks of experiencing gravity as a right in our world because everyone experiences it and currently it is not something that can be taken away.  When something is inherent in the world, one does not have to demand or request it or do anything else to ensure one gets it, which is the purpose of defining something as a right.

We have to discuss and organize religion in mortality because it is not automatically present in our lives.  We have to actively seek the Spirit out and nurture it by creating vehicles of interacting and expressing it.

I think a good analogy is the difference between those who are raised in a language and those who learn it at school.

The vast majority of babies will learn to speak just by absorbing what is around them, observing what is natural behaviour in their families.  They don’t need structured lessons to learn, they just need to live the language like everyone else is in order to develop their ability.

A perfect baby wouldn’t even need to go to school to learn to fine tune language because they would be aware enough of the exceptions, etc due to the perfect communication that goes on around them.

And this organization is the natural outcome of a loving relationship.  There is no need to artificially set up and impose a structure on the relationship like we need to do with our Church because mortal, fallen creatures don’t already have the knowledge and authority perfect Gods do.

I would say that by virtue of conforming to the laws of righteousness, heavenly parents exercise the attendant rights granted them by their parents through the service of an only begotten son, and that some responsibilities and rights as heavenly parents are not outsourced or shared with other heavenly parents, though they may have them in common. The largely egalitarian environment of the Church of the Firstborn, in that all its members have all the requisite godly attributes and perfections, still has an order to it (e.g., D&C 77:81; 107:19).

Taking turns would mean they do not constantly have their own skin in the game -- literally -- when they do not employ their only begotten son to save the rest of their spirit children. "God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son..." Being so empathetically perfect they can have skin in the game even when they don't seems like an omnipotence paradox.

[Calm]

1 hour ago, Nofear said:

Curiously one of his regrets is that he wasn't more explicit in his own personal faith and testimony of the legitimacy of Joseph Smith as an authenticate prophet of Christ.

I thought he was in his book Joseph Smith and The Beginnings of Mormonism, so it was unexpected.  

[Calm]

50 minutes ago, CV75 said:

I would say that by virtue of conforming to the laws of righteousness, heavenly parents exercise the attendant rights granted them by their parents through the service of an only begotten son, and that some responsibilities and rights as heavenly parents are not outsourced or shared with other heavenly parents, though they may have them in common. The largely egalitarian environment of the Church of the Firstborn, in that all its members have all the requisite godly attributes and perfections, still has an order to it (e.g., D&C 77:81; 107:19).

Taking turns would mean they do not constantly have their own skin in the game -- literally -- when they do not employ their only begotten son to save the rest of their spirit children. "God so loved the world, that he gave His only begotten Son..." Being so empathetically perfect they can have skin in the game even when they don't seems like an omnipotence paradox.

I don’t think we will come to an agreement on this.  I see the use of the term “rights” as having the opposite connotation it should have for a perfect Zion community since I connect rights with territorial/property disputes.  You and me continuing to rephrase it isn’t going to resolve the differences in our perspectives.

I know dominion is a big thing between God and mortal man, I am talking though about the relationships between God the Father, God the Son and any other gods they interact with.  I think of talking about their rights is like expecting one of them to try and pull rank over another or take them to court to demand their rights.  Why would it ever happen when they are of the same mind, so they would chose the same actions?

Edited March 11, 2024 by Calm

[CV75]

49 minutes ago, Calm said:

I don’t think we will come to an agreement on this.  I see the use of the term “rights” as having the opposite connotation it should have for a perfect Zion community since I connect rights with territorial/property disputes.  You and me continuing to rephrase it isn’t going to resolve the differences in our perspectives.

I know dominion is a big thing between God and mortal man, I am talking though about the relationships between God the Father, God the Son and any other gods they interact with.  I think of talking about their rights is like expecting one of them to try and pull rank over another or take them to court to demand their rights.  Why would it ever happen when they are of the same mind, so they would chose the same actions?

Yes, the perception of rights has context. I understand and agree with yours in one context, and prefer mine the heavenly context. I never once thought of this in terms of pulling rank or lawsuits, so to me that demonstrates our respective biases.

As to your question (maybe it was rhetorical), the way I see it is, you and your husband share a two-way mind as do and my wife and I; the two couples are of one four-way mind for the sake of life in the Church of the Firstborn, but our covenant relationships with our respective spouses and spirit children, and the covenant path which continues from estate to estate and eternal round to eternal round (necessitating an only begotten son in at least one of the estates) are not. Our personal one-on-one covenant relationship with our Savior and His Father are not, though many have them in common and we are all of one mind.

Edited March 11, 2024 by CV75

[ZealouslyStriving]

A personal musing I've had:

Perhaps there is a specific line of Firstborn ->Savior->Father from which Heavenly Fathers emerge and that our sprits are born to heavenly parents who entered into the highest degree of Celestial Glory from the previous mortal cycle in which our current Heavenly Father was the Savior- and that our Heavenly Father is our father in the sense that He is more of a grandfather type. Meaning Jesus will be the Heavenly Father of our spirit children when they enter their mortal cycle.

*This idea came to me as I read and pondered over:

"But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified." (D&C 132:63)

[CV75]

10 hours ago, ZealouslyStriving said:

A personal musing I've had:

Perhaps there is a specific line of Firstborn ->Savior->Father from which Heavenly Fathers emerge and that our sprits are born to heavenly parents who entered into the highest degree of Celestial Glory from the previous mortal cycle in which our current Heavenly Father was the Savior- and that our Heavenly Father is our father in the sense that He is more of a grandfather type. Meaning Jesus will be the Heavenly Father of our spirit children when they enter their mortal cycle.

*This idea came to me as I read and pondered over:

"But if one or either of the ten virgins, after she is espoused, shall be with another man, she has committed adultery, and shall be destroyed; for they are given unto him to multiply and replenish the earth, according to my commandment, and to fulfil the promise which was given by my Father before the foundation of the world, and for their exaltation in the eternal worlds, that they may bear the souls of men; for herein is the work of my Father continued, that he may be glorified." (D&C 132:63)

I think this verse shows the eternal purpose of temple marriage. The wording in the rest of the Section and in the temple  fleshes this out more specifically, but we do glorify the Lord's (and our) Father by keeping this covenant.

[Stargazer]

On 3/10/2024 at 5:21 PM, MustardSeed said:

Not a lot of things are worthy of black and white, all or nothing thinking in this life.  Too much is impacted by human error.  Knowing and understanding this concept requires  lot of faith to remain plugged in to any ideology.  I’m ok with that. ❤️

True enough.