Push the button or "Stay LDS"

I am a #1 – I would without a doubt press the button. Pre-faith crisis I may not have. Another home run by Kirby.

I’ve already pressed enough buttons in my life to have a good idea of what lies behind most buttons. My reality only exists in my mind, nowhere else.

Maybe my question is which buttons I’ll choose to unpress. These days I’m less concerned with what is truth and more concerned with what I do with whatever truths I currently cling to.

YES! Didn’t even have to think about it. Why would anyone NOT want to push the button? (No, seriously, why would anyone NOT want to press it!?!)

Your ward must be made up of a different type of people than mine. I can name several in my ward who are in Kirby’s third category. Likewise, I’d be willing to bet that there would be quite a few General Authorities who wouldn’t push the button and some who would tell us not to as either an exercise of faith or because it is of the devil (from a certain point of view they have already told us not to push it).

YES! Didn’t even have to think about it. Why would anyone NOT want to push the button? (No, seriously, why would anyone NOT want to press it!?!)

From the article:

I can also relate to the second group of people, those who wouldn’t push the button for fear of what truth would do to their lives. This makes sense because people want to be happy.

If you’re OK with the possibility of being wrong, you should stick with what gives you joy even if it means there’s a possibility that you’re going to hell. As long as it doesn’t involve becoming a nuisance or a threat to others.

What if the button told you that there is no afterlife, no lasting meaning, that it is “dog eat dog” and then we die, our entire planet and race to be eventually wiped out by some cosmic event? Every trace that we were ever here gone? Then would you still want to know?

For me it is uncertainty that gives me a sense of wonder and hope as I explore the possibilities. To lose that would be depressing.

What if the button told you that there is no afterlife, no lasting meaning, that it is “dog eat dog” and then we die, our entire planet and race to be eventually wiped out by some cosmic event? Every trace that we were ever here gone? Then would you still want to know?

When you put it that way, it pushes me more to “Push the button” and my thought is so that I don’t waste any of my limited life on things that don’t matter.

After that what truly matters? When you answer that question you’ll have the answer to the question of what buttons you are still unwilling to press.

What happens the next morning when you realize that the bills still need to be paid, the health of your youth is still forever gone, all the problems you had before you pressed the button are still right there dogging you, just as impossible to shake as they were before?

At least there’s the perspective of knowing it’s a hill of beans all the way down to comfort you as Job’s friends come along and talk of eternal payoffs.

Buttons don’t fix anything. Sure are fun to press though.

Perhaps I’m old and tired, but I think that the chances of finding out what’s actually going on are so absurdly remote that the only thing to do is to say, “Hang the sense of it,” and keep yourself busy. I’d much rather be happy than right any day.

It’s easy to see that my present context for religion is completely different from where Kirby is coming from. His proposal makes no sense to me, it’s like saying “if you could press a button to learn whether or not you truly love your wife…”

I know some people speak in other ways, but I have no context for what they’re saying so their words simply don’t stick.

The comment “they can’t all be true” is craziness. I can have a million bicycle wheels and every one of them in true.

Pitting religion against science is a no-starter. They are completely different realms. “Afterlife” in human terms is a model that helps us live until death, then we all get to see what happens. I love a good mystery. A button could never give us the truth of such things because I don’t believe a mortal mind can grasp it.

I understand that it wouldn’t solve all problems (and might actually create new ones). But I could then take a look at what both brings me joy and helps humanity. I have said several times I would rather be going to a widow’s home and helping on a todo list of help than go to just about any church meeting.

Exactly… but you don’t need to press a button to start doing those things.

I can have a million bicycle wheels and every one of them in true.

I never did learn how to tighten spokes properly. One day.