Does it matter if it’s true?

If you want to believe it or even a portion of it then yes I think it matters greatly if it is true. Why spend the energy required to believe if it is not true. If you just want to participate at your leisure with no belief then no it does not matter if it is true.

… it all seems like a big fair tail. As far as your kids are concerned, just don’t lie to them. If you don’t think or feel something is true, tell them that.

L-I-k-E

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Hi HSAB great question, and it usually depends on the day of the week you ask.

Sometimes it matters deeply and painfully. The uncertainty brings in to question ‘why bother.’

But other days I accept that its ‘truthfulness’ is probably unknowable. In the end I realise I do this because I want to. I opened ‘pandora’s box’ on the premise that I wanted to stay.

If I weigh all the evidence, I would probably say there’s more that it’s not true, but not enough to be certain. And so I choose what works and I make mormonism work for me.

Just to say it again, the only options are NOT “truths” and “lies”. In this situation, the opposite of “truth” is “untruth” – and untruth is much more expansive than “lie”.

Breaking through that false dichotomy is important – critical, even.

This topic has been discussed multiple times over the years here. I will try to find some threads and bump them up again for everyone to read.

“The One and Only ‘TRUE’ Church” (http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=142&hilit=true+living) – 72 comments

“Is Shrek True? (How about the Good Samaritan)” (http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1535&hilit=is+it+true) – 29 comments

“Is the church the ONLY church . . .” (http://forum.staylds.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=575&hilit=the+only+true+church) – 28 comments

thanks ray…you’re a great site historian as well as the mod…

i have completely let go of any literalism in the church. i take none of church teaching as literally true.

yet i find a lot that is figuratively true, or “true for me”, and i intend on remaining “true” (ie “faithful”) to it, to the extent it is true (in harmony with) to the spirit within. “true” need not always mean “flawlessly accurate”.

Just to say it again, the only options are NOT “truths” and “lies”. In this situation, the opposite of “truth” is “untruth” – and untruth is much more expansive than “lie”.

Breaking through that false dichotomy is important – critical, even.

Untruths can feel an awful lot like lies, especially if we have always believed the source to be infallible. I’ll even say that spin or untruths or even omission of truth (where is that on the truth / untruth spectrum?) sometimes seems worse than lies. To me it matters if it is untrue.

I am just curious to hear everyone’s opinions on this. I have had quite a few conversations with people lately where one spouse thinks it absolutely matters and the other one doesn’t think it matters. I am not completely decided on this, but I lean toward thinking it really matters. I do think there are a lot of great values that are taught in the church, but I don’t want to lie to my children if I don’t believe that these things are really true. Thoughts?

It doesn’t matter that much to me whether Jesus walked on water or whether he was truly just another man or fictional character because either way I still like most of the things he said according to the Bible. The truth is that most of us don’t really know for sure what will happen when we die but as far as I’m concerned having a positive outlook about the possibility of life after death is already worth it simply based on the quality it adds to this life and to have an extremely skeptical and pessimistic attitude about it would clearly be taking a step down in my opinion.

As far as specific LDS claims I already don’t believe in prophets, the BoM, and the restoration story nearly the same way the LDS Church continues to teach. I think complete loss of faith in some doctrines usually matters and makes a difference but the real question is how much should it matter and why? In my case it mattered enough for me to resist accepting callings, paying tithing, and getting a temple recommend again but not nearly enough to resign and make a big stink about it. Once the direct costs to me of believing in the absolute authority and accuracy of LDS prophets and scriptures were already lowered then I found that it didn’t matter nearly as much as I thought it would when I was a TBM and first started to question what this would mean.