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There’s an issue that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. In your journey to discover truth, how do you prevent personal desires/fears from interfering? For me I’m still at the point of figuring out what I know to be true, what I believe to be true and what I believe to be untrue. However I find that human emotions are interfering with my objective ability to reason things out. For example, I fear that if I make a wrong decision I will go to hell and likely take my family with me. I fear that I could arrive at certain beliefs that make me want to NOT stay LDS. I find this fear keeps me from being able to deal with some issues that fall in the “no way to know if true or not true” category. I feel like I must give things like this the benefit of doubt so as to not jeopardize my soul (even if the new found skepticism in me wants to not believe such things). Then there’s things like tithing. I find myself WANTING to interpret it differently so as to lighten my burden financially. I.E. I want to buy into certain arguments that I never would before simply because there would be an immediate financial benefit to doing so. So again, how do you rebuild a structure of belief without being influenced by fear, greed, laziness, and other emotions? Thanks,
Eman
eman wrote:There’s an issue that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. In your journey to discover truth, how do you prevent personal desires/fears from interfering?
Unless you’re from Vulcan those sorts of things will always be a part of the things you do and believe and why you do and believe them. Being aware is the first step. The second for me was realizing I didn’t have to get it figured out today. The third was not letting the people and personalities around me get in the way. The last was not worrying about hell or the celestial kingdom or anything other than today. What happens after this life is a mystery, today I have to get the quarterly reports in, remind the branch president about tithing settlement, order curriculum materials, … You get the idea. You’ll get to the other side, no worries.
I totally get your concern. My wife and I were talking about this tonight. I have felt that from both sides. A couple years ago we felt we were guided to move west, a move that in retrospect has put us in a worse financial position. I feel like this was a manifestation of our desires more than anything else (and I don’t regret it). A far as what is right now, I concur that we don’t need to rush into things. If we sincerely do what we feel is best after careful contemplation I can’t see getting thrust down to hell. Since I have seen examples of it leading people in seemingly contradictory directions, I can accept that it may show me a different path.
To me this falls into the tithing category. Nobody but you can decide if you are doing the right thing…..and this is a conversation between you and your God (and you get to decide your God….a whole other conversation there).
I have been chided for selling a house below price by a few thousand dollars by a bishop, I did it to help the people out as I felt they needed the assist…this same guy would chastise folks for the paying tithing on NET vs GROSS. Thats his rule….not mine. I choose who I show charity to and as long as my conscience is clean I am good. My personal credo says to help if I can and feel regret when I can’t help.
Mosiah 4: 16-25 is a great approach for me in my life.
For you? Just keep trying…sometimes our emotions get in the way….our path to improvement is to learn to overcome selfish emotions and listen to positive emotions….of course then you have to measure circumstances where the two get mixed up…no easy solutions….I think as long as we keep trying then hellfire is not a concern.
Fear and guilt, resentments and anger….these are the dark side. If these are dominating your path, you cannot make objective decisions. In my opinion, the first principle of the Middle Way is to find the emotional centre. The Middle Way of Confucius is a balanced, centered life. The explicit statement, coming from the first chapter is as follows (my translation): Confucius wrote:
The mandate of heaven is called “Nature” (性 xing),Following nature is called “the Way” (道 Dao),
Cultivating the way is called “Learning”. (教 Jiao)
The Way cannot be departed from for a moment
If you could depart from it, it would not be ‘the Way’.
…
When one sets aside extremes, e.g. joy, anger, sorry, and pleasure; this is called ‘The Middle Way’ (中 zhong).
In the Middle Way, when one can express emotion yet remain centered, this is called “Harmony” (和 he).
The Middle Way is the root of all things under heaven.
Harmony is the realization of the Way.
When the Middle Way is actualized with Harmony, All things thrive.
eman wrote:There’s an issue that I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. In your journey to discover truth,
how do you prevent personal desires/fears from interfering?For me I’m still at the point of figuring out what I know to be true, what I believe to be true and what I believe to be untrue. However I find that human emotions are interfering with my objective ability to reason things out. For example, I fear that if I make a wrong decision I will go to hell and likely take my family with me. I fear that I could arrive at certain beliefs that make me want to NOT stay LDS.I find this fear keeps me from being able to deal with some issues that fall in the “no way to know if true or not true” category. I feel like I must give things like this the benefit of doubt so as to not jeopardize my soul…My take on this is that I don’t see why God should expect me to believe something different than what I already do given the information I had available to consider and only a limited amount of time to worry about it. If it turns out that I am wrong then I can easily live with the results either way. Also, the Church likes to try to tie everything together as if it all needs to be accepted as package deal but I would much rather separate each individual idea and evaluate things on a case-by-case basis. For example, belief in God, how the Bible should be interpreted, and what exactly will happen when we die can all be looked at separately without really depending on each other the way many people assume they do. Even Gordon B. Hinckley basically admitted that he didn’t really know what would happen when we die when Larry King asked him about it in an interview and he said the following about it:
Quote:“I’m not fully conversant with that.
I haven’t passed through that yet…those who walk in obedience maygo on to exaltation.” DA, your excerpt changes what he said significantly. Here is the full transcript of that part of the interview: Quote:KING: What happens when you die?
HINCKLEY: When you die? Well, I’m not fully conversant with that. I haven’t passed through that yet.
KING: Well, call me. Knowing you, I’ll be there and I’ll call you.
(LAUGHTER)
KING: But you do believe that something happens.
HINCKLEY: Oh, of course we do. But we believe that death is a part of an eternal journey, that we lived as spirit children of our father before we came into this life.
That we’re here in mortality as a part of an eternal living, and that we will go on living after this life, purposefully. And that through the redemption of the Lord Jesus Christ, men will be resurrected. There will come a time of resurrection.
And those who walk in obedience may go on to exaltation.
It is obvious from the whole discussion that Pres. Hinckley used the word “may” in it purest form – meaning “
are allowed to“, not “ might“. It also is obvious that he was saying he doesn’t know the details but believes in the ultimate end being exaltation. Having said that, I agree with DA about being comfortable being judged according to the dictates of my own conscience. I have to live as I feel I am supposed to live, and, while I give extra weight to the words of prophets, I have to act based on my own understanding. That is how I read the whole point of the War in Heaven narrative – that, ultimately, we chose to act as agents unto ourselves rather than have our actions dictated by even “a son of the morning” who was great enough at that time to volunteer to be our God.
Old-Timer wrote:DA, your excerpt changes what he said significantly…It is obvious from the whole discussion that Pres. Hinckley used the word “may” in it purest form – meaning “
are allowed to“, not “ might“. It also is obvious that he was saying he doesn’t know the details but believes in the ultimate end being exaltation…Having said that, I agree with DA about being comfortable being judged according to the dictates of my own conscience. I have to live as I feel I am supposed to live…That is how I read the whole point of the War in Heaven narrative – that, ultimately, we chose to act as agents unto ourselves rather than have our actions dictated… It just sounded weak to me compared to something more like, “Those who are obedient to God’s commandments will go on to exaltation.” Regardless of presentation style and whether or not they want to admit the reality of the situation my main point is that I just don’t believe Church leaders really know for sure what exactly will happen when we die any more than I do. So they are basically leveraging some hypothetical promised future that could easily never be realized to influence people’s decisions in a way that just doesn’t sound very reasonable to me anymore. Just because they have been able to get away with this approach so far that doesn’t mean they should continue to rely on this idea nearly as much as they currently do to justify so many heavy sacrifices.
I get that, DA – but it wasn’t a weak statement unless it is compared to something more in line with a traditional testimony in which someone says, “I KNOW . . .” That kind of interview isn’t a church setting where a traditional testimony would have been appropriate, while a “teaching” wording totally was appropriate – and many here would question that wording, if he has chosen it. ( We tend to want leaders to act and talk like traditional prophets until they do it.How many here want more Elder McConkies in the current leadership?) There are enough legitimate areas of concern available to us that I just don’t like making issues by stretching things out of proportion.
🙂 I also believe that they believe the sacrifices they request are “worth it” – and multipe statements from the top over the last decade or so have asked local leaders to be sensitive to over-burdening members.
The only way to change that quickly would be for them to demand detailed reports of what is happening at the lowest level possible – to micro-manage at the top even more than occurs at the mid-levels already, and I’m not sure any of us want that.
DevilsAdvocate wrote:It just sounded weak to me compared to something more like, “Those who are obedient to God’s commandments will go on to exaltation.” Regardless of presentation style and whether or not they want to admit the reality of the situation my main point is that I just don’t believe Church leaders really know for sure what exactly will happen when we die any more than I do.
FWIW, I am really starting to admire GBH’s word choices in that he gives the TBM enough latitude to continue with traditional and literalist beliefs without using absolutist dogmatic language that might make him (and the church) less approachable to NOMs or non-members. That is a fine line and I don’t think that he walked it on accident.
Now on to the OP. The following was taken from following Ray’s link on AA.
Quote:Usually my efforts go like this: I take the first step (Recognize) and acknowledge that I need to make a change in my life. I start to explore ways I can change and in that process I realize that the problem goes far deeper than I had first assumed, and that it will be much harder to change than I thought. At this point I take my own personal R step — Rationalize — and decide that the character attribute I started out to change really is a feature, not a bug, and go merrily on {my way}.
I laughed when I read this because this describes me so well…To the point where I have decided that my ability to rationalize and self-direct my path is in fact a feature and not a bug. So you may want to take what I have to say as just so much self justification.
I feel that it is in my nature to be strong in several areas. I try to play to my strengths and delegate tasks that I am not as comfortable with. I do not worry too much that I am not as good at X or Z, because I am who I am. Even if I applied concerted effort to grow those areas that are my weaknesses, my ability to make improvement is limited. I could never sing as well as professional singers or run as well as pro athletes. I do not see it a flaw that I leave the singing and running by and large to the professionals.
Perhaps ideally there is a balance – enough drive to be continually striving and enough contentment be reasonably happy with who you are and what you have done up to this point.
Now with the task of crafting my own beliefs moving forward, I rely heavily on the impressions left on my heart and mind by the divine. I recognize that my ability to interpret these impressions will always be limited by my own biases and experiences. For those things that are in the “no way to know if true or not true” category, I allow myself to believe things that I believe will further my goals of being a happy, compassionate, and loving individual.
DW and I had a talk about this last night. Essentially she is miserable with many aspects of the church and is just going through the motions out of obligation and fear. She is afraid that to do anything else might lose our claim on our kids in the hereafter. She is waiting for a clear answer from God – either that the church is not where she needs to be so that she can disentangle herself from it – or that it is true so that she can reapply herself with new meaning. When I asked what if God would be ok either way and isn’t going to send a sign, she said that she would just keep along the current path in the same unhappy way.
So yes, I see my ability to take a position based on the dictates of my conscience and my limited understandings of God – build a fortification for that position – and generally avoid the hand ringing and self incrimination as a feature – not a bug. A feature that I can direct (to a limited extent) to help live an internally consistent life that is not divided in on itself. I believe that I was born with a great capacity for rationalization, in some ways it may be my biggest asset.
🙂 To “rationalize” means to make something “rational” – and, at the most practical level, “rational” means nothing more than “understandable (and acceptable) to the mind”. What is completely rational to one person can be completely irrational to someone else – like those who call something “mental gymnastics” that is totally understandable and acceptable to the mind of person who believes it. We all rationalize, generally to the same extent. We just reach different conclusions than others do – and, because we can’t understand and accept others’ decisions, label others’ decisions negatively as “rationalizations” while not doing so to our own. Those who are more intellectual in nature tend to love the word “rational” but not the word “rationalize” – which is deliciously ironic to me. We also tend to make this criticism about conclusions that are the most removed from our own – which is why prophets / visionaries / charismatics / etc. tend to be loved or hated, accepted or rejected, praised or reviled and have very few indiffernent reactions. They usually inspire intense admiration or just as intense revulsion – and that is both good and bad.
I personally am wherever I am on each and every issue and topic, which has caused some people to complain that I am wishy-washy or too hard to characterize. They want me to be consistently on the same side of a line on everything, and I simply am not that way. If there is a line I try to recognize, it is the line between charity and judgmentalism – but even that isn’t always a bright line.
I recommend reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. I bet you will really like what he says on this topic. Two other great books are Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me and Adventures in the Margin of Error. Also Blunder. My method is simple:
– constantly evaluate my motives. Am I avoiding dealing with something unpleasant or trying to do what I secretly want to do rather than what will help me grow?
– own my choices, whatever they are. Don’t blame circumstances, other people, etc.
hawkgrrrl wrote:…- own my choices, whatever they are. Don’t blame circumstances, other people, etc.
I like this….Thanks Hawkgrrrl.
It reminds of a button My boss at work gave us. It says “There is no “They””
I try to remember that….whenever I find myself saying “I would be doing better if “they” would….”
Self empowerment….don’t hold back blaming someone else…I am using this as I evaluate my religious beliefs too
I no longer depend only on what “they” church leaders say…I am empowered to determine what I believe….so strange I didn’t do this earlier.
hawkgrrrl wrote:I recommend reading Jonathan Haidt’s The Righteous Mind. I bet you will really like what he says on this topic. Two other great books are Mistakes Were Made But Not By Me and Adventures in the Margin of Error. Also Blunder.
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Thanks! I’ve added them to my ever growing book list.
eman wrote:how do you rebuild a structure of belief without being influenced by fear, greed, laziness, and other emotions?
You don’t run from them, you embrace them, and try to see those feelings as they are. You acknowledge they are a part of you, because you are human, and that is beautiful. We are not beings of pure logic and reason. We do not function that way. We are part reason, and really mostly emotional decision makers. We don’t stop to do careful, controlled, scientifically verifiable analysis of most decisions and ideas.
As a wise person once said “When I finally stopped caring about Satan, he suddenly stopped caring about me.” Or to put it another way, when you stop worrying so much about failing, or feeling emotions, then your emotions will stop creating so much disruption. You are good as you are, totally loved and accepted by God. And you can become better too, if and when you want. When you want it enough, you will do what you want.
So build a belief structure. Don’t wait for it to be perfect, or to know everything. You have been wrong before. You will be wrong again. That I can promise! I am wrong about many things too. It’s OK to try again, and again, but hopefully each time a little wiser. Embrace uncertainty and ambiguity. Embrace being wrong. Our life isn’t a test. It’s an adventure.
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