Crazy Mormonism

I have gone from “this is what we believe” to “this is what I believe”.

I have also concluded that what I believe does not need to be true or historical or verifiable in order to be helpful and useful. (although I have moved most of my beliefs away from items that rely on historical events that can be challenged or disproven)

I sure dont believe all of what is taught but all religions have good and bad, take the good leave the bad that’s my way

This helps me to have compassion on my fellow Mormons that may believe things that may not be true. Sure they believe stuff that may turn out to be objectively wrong, but so do I. To paraphrase the bumper sticker made famous by DFU, “Don’t judge me because my belief errors are different than your belief errors.” (Now that I think about it, that would make a horribly long and not easily understood bumper sticker.)

If only there was as much latitude shown to me by my fellow Mormons, it would be much less challenging for me to StayLDS.

Well I’m the first to admit that I am unorthodox mormon. I love the book of mormon but not the way the church claims it came into existence. I have no idea what J.S. was thinking when he wrote the Bom and I dont care !!! It is a high percentage of KJV bible . I find value in it and it is faith building in my opinion . Did the Nephites and Lamanites really exist, probably not !!! Do I care nope !!! I believe in Jesus Christ and the church is not a bad place to practice my faith . I sure dont believe all of what is taught but all religions have good and bad, take the good leave the bad that’s my way . Anybody else ?

This summary is quite close to my thinking.

Does the existence of Nephites matter? Well, let’s say they did exist… It still doesn’t make the BoM useful in itself. We have plenty of authenticated ancient manuscripts in this world which are of no interest except to archeologists and historians, and are extremely dry. For every Gilgamesh and Iliad, there is a list of things a merchant ordered, or an unreadable text no one can decipher at all. So the BoM must stand as a text, regardless of its origin.

I think the FP has been wrong in some ways about the “weirdness” of the church. Some of the weirdness is color in my view. I’m not a huge fan of the endowment but it works for some people, and I enjoy the celestial room. I’m not that keen on the racist aspect of the BoA, and think its origins are murky, but even in there one finds some cool stuff.