All or nothing?

[Anonymous]

Shawn wrote:

Cadence wrote:

I find it easier for me to believe nothing about the church as opposed to trying to believe things that there is no way to verify. I could be wrong and God may set me straight someday but until then it seems to much energy to try and believe all or part. There is A much bigger world than Mormonism out there to get involved in. If we spend our life trying to nail Jell-O to the wall so to speak, we will wake up one day and our life will of passed us by

What about spiritual verification as opposed to scientific verification?

Someone can be be Mormon and get involved in the bigger world.

If I actually found spiritual verification to be valid or work I could accept it. In my experience it is to abstract and hit or miss to be something you can use for more than a general feeling of peace. To determine the truth of anything by spiritual means is unlikely.

God must know who I am and how I work. If so I am sure he knows how to communicate with me and it is not by vague feelings of a spiritual nature.

A few Mormons get involved in the world but for the most part they remain separate and naive to how the world really is both the good and bad. They approach the world from a position of fear which leads to isolationism. It’s not their fault really. It is what they have been taught all their lives.

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

If I actually found spiritual verification to be valid or work I could accept it. …To determine the truth of anything by spiritual means is unlikely. …God must know who I am and how I work. If so I am sure he knows how to communicate with me…

I realize many members may be trying to pound nails with a paint brush, that doesn’t mean that I or you have to follow their lead. Use a hammer to pound nails, use a paint brush to explore an entirely different form of creation. I don’t look to spiritual methods to discover or confirm physical truths, letting go of that idea was a major key to me learning how to comfortably stay LDS.

Learn how God communicates with you and go with that. In my book that is what a good Mormon is supposed to do.

Some people may say a paint brush is an entirely useless tool because it can’t create anything that you can really use. That is one way to look at it. Others may say that the works of great artists make life worth living and they love to get lost in appreciating the art. My feeling is most balanced and happy humans will learn to appreciate both the utilitarian and the artistic aspects of life.

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

A few Mormons get involved in the world but for the most part they remain separate and naive to how the world really is both the good and bad. They approach the world from a position of fear which leads to isolationism. It’s not their fault really. It is what they have been taught all their lives.

I have found this to be generally true and certainly was for me. Through my faith crisis, I feel like I have finally joined the human race. It’s nice. But I don’t feel like I have to leave Mormonism behind. That would just be a different form of exclusion.

Cadence wrote:

I find it easier for me to believe nothing about the church as opposed to trying to believe things that there is no way to verify. I could be wrong and God may set me straight someday but until then it seems to much energy to try and believe all or part. There is A much bigger world than Mormonism out there to get involved in. If we spend our life trying to nail Jell-O to the wall so to speak, we will wake up one day and our life will of passed us by

I wanted to share a spiritual experience that was not an emotional one. I think these times are pretty rare. It happened at a time in my life when I was most religious. I was truly “thirsting” after truth and righteousness by reading scriptures and praying. I don’t know if that mattered to the experience or not, but that is where I was.

I had my best friend from graduate school visiting me from Pittsburgh. She had come to see me, look for work, and see my children. She is someone I felt I had been prompted to share the gospel. One day during her visit, we had many activities planned in town and we both had Polaroid cameras to take pictures. She had an expensive Polaroid camera she had borrowed from her dad. We visited the zoo and the botanical gardens and in the evening we went to the visitors center at the temple. I believe the Christmas lights were up. I distinctly remember a thought come in my head as we were pulling our cameras out of the trunk that said that we should leave the cameras in the car and that taking them would “detract from the evening.” While it was my own voice in my own head I clearly recognized it as not coming from me, but from Deity. No emotion, just fact. While I knew I should follow this, I didn’t know how to communicate this to my friend and while I remember, kinda sorta saying maybe we should leave our cameras in the car, my friend couldn’t see any reason we should and ultimately we took our cameras. I didn’t want our cameras to “detract from the evening” so I didn’t take any pictures. I remember that clearly. I thought God was telling me that taking a bunch of pictures would detract from the spirit of being at the temple. After walking around a bit, we went into the visitors center to watch one of the films. We parked the baby stroller and our cameras along with many others outside next to the Sis. missionary just outside the viewing room. When we came out, our cameras were gone, stolen right from the visitors center while the missionary tended to other things. It certainly did detract from the evening. Since my friend had borrowed the camera from her dad, it was especially upsetting to her and we spent the next day finding and paying for an expensive replacement. I failed in following this prompting, but I am grateful I did because of what I learned through that failure. First, only because of the failure did I have that confirmation that the prompting was real and not just a random thought in my head. Second, I learned that if I were to ever have a prompting of that nature again, that the Lord’s admonitions should be followed to the letter and not reinterpreted by me.

No tingly feeling, just direct guidance on really a small thing. It cling to that memory. It is special to me and I rarely share it. It doesn’t prove the church is true, but it is a proof for me that there is someone up above who actually has a personal interest in us. All other spiritual experiences have been of the “tingly feeling” variety, which are not necessarily less valid or important or less faith strengthening. I don’t know why I had that experience and others don’t.

I don’t believe the church in its entirety is true. I think it’s possible that is was once just a nutty cult created and led by JS, but somehow, someway some beautiful things were written and are now truths for me. So for me, all or nothing doesn’t work and the middle way is what works for me now.

[Anonymous]

Martha wrote:

It doesn’t prove the church is true, but it is a proof for me that there is someone up above who actually has a personal interest in us.

Thank you for sharing such a special experience Martha. I too believe that there is a god above that loves us personally. For me and my life, I have had to disconnect God’s love from the circumstances in my life (including blessings, miracles, good fortune, intuition, and promptings).

Because of this it is helpful for me to believe that God sometimes works with what is to form what is hoped to be. From this perspective, it is possible that the impression you described did not come from God but that you and God together were able to use the experience to build a meaningful, beautiful, and lasting faith – something useful and “true.” I am ok with others reaching their own conclusions in whatever way is most useful to them. I also recognize that the person that has the experience (You) has exclusive rights to interpret for themselves what that experience means.

[Anonymous]

I see styles of Cafeteria Mormonism that are very different.

1. One style says to choose which dishes to partake of and which to pass up.

2. Another style is to accept every dish on the table of official church doctrine and practices. Even though it is not eaten all at once, everything is put on the plate. The meal is eaten at a pace one can sustain.

I am pretty sure I don’t reject any official doctrine or practice, despite what I wrote in my “Stuff That Is NOT Doctrine” thread. That depends on whether “The prophet will never lead the Church astray” is doctrine. Elder (not President) Ezra Taft Benson gave that address to students at BYU, so it was not even given at General Conference. It was later taught by Claudio Costa. It does not appear that the First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles counseled together and established this as doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publications. However, it might be that it is consistently taught that a testimony should have certain components.

I may not exactly be a Style 2 Cafeteria Mormon right now, but I see many of them around me.

[Anonymous]

I do not believe in an all of nothing statement. I believe GBH was wrong when he made that comment in regards to JS and the LDS church. I choose to not accept that statement as prophetic.

IMO, the church is just another divine pathway, one of many, that some people can embrace and follow to find peace and the gods in this life, and perhaps the next.

[Anonymous]

Martha wrote:

I wanted to share a spiritual experience that was not an emotional one. I think these times are pretty rare. It happened at a time in my life when I was most religious. I was truly “thirsting” after truth and righteousness by reading scriptures and praying. I don’t know if that mattered to the experience or not, but that is where I was.

I had my best friend from graduate school visiting me from Pittsburgh. She had come to see me, look for work, and see my children. She is someone I felt I had been prompted to share the gospel. One day during her visit, we had many activities planned in town and we both had Polaroid cameras to take pictures. She had an expensive Polaroid camera she had borrowed from her dad. We visited the zoo and the botanical gardens and in the evening we went to the visitors center at the temple. I believe the Christmas lights were up. I distinctly remember a thought come in my head as we were pulling our cameras out of the trunk that said that we should leave the cameras in the car and that taking them would “detract from the evening.” While it was my own voice in my own head I clearly recognized it as not coming from me, but from Deity. No emotion, just fact. While I knew I should follow this, I didn’t know how to communicate this to my friend and while I remember, kinda sorta saying maybe we should leave our cameras in the car, my friend couldn’t see any reason we should and ultimately we took our cameras. I didn’t want our cameras to “detract from the evening” so I didn’t take any pictures. I remember that clearly. I thought God was telling me that taking a bunch of pictures would detract from the spirit of being at the temple. After walking around a bit, we went into the visitors center to watch one of the films. We parked the baby stroller and our cameras along with many others outside next to the Sis. missionary just outside the viewing room. When we came out, our cameras were gone, stolen right from the visitors center while the missionary tended to other things. It certainly did detract from the evening. Since my friend had borrowed the camera from her dad, it was especially upsetting to her and we spent the next day finding and paying for an expensive replacement. I failed in following this prompting, but I am grateful I did because of what I learned through that failure. First, only because of the failure did I have that confirmation that the prompting was real and not just a random thought in my head. Second, I learned that if I were to ever have a prompting of that nature again, that the Lord’s admonitions should be followed to the letter and not reinterpreted by me.

No tingly feeling, just direct guidance on really a small thing. It cling to that memory. It is special to me and I rarely share it. It doesn’t prove the church is true, but it is a proof for me that there is someone up above who actually has a personal interest in us. All other spiritual experiences have been of the “tingly feeling” variety, which are not necessarily less valid or important or less faith strengthening. I don’t know why I had that experience and others don’t.

I don’t believe the church in its entirety is true. I think it’s possible that is was once just a nutty cult created and led by JS, but somehow, someway some beautiful things were written and are now truths for me. So for me, all or nothing doesn’t work and the middle way is what works for me now.

Martha, thanks for sharing this. It reminds me of a comment someone else here made about the church maybe not being God’s own church to begin with, but that somewhere along the line, He sort of adopted it.

[Anonymous]

Kumahito wrote:

Mate, I don’t think I’m picking and choosing what to believe and what not to believe based on convenience. I accept, believe and draw comfort from those principles of the Gospel that my heart and mind tell me are true. In that regard I think I’m doing exactly what Moroni 10:3-5 would suggest, and exactly what JS would tell me to do were he her – I take the doctrines of the Gospel, I ponder them, and analyze how they make me feel. If they make my heart feel good and satisfy my mind, I take them on board. If they don’t, I discard them.

+1. alma 32 teaches us to deconstruct our “all or nothing” thinking into specific tests. i explored this in a blog “on being an agnostic mormon“. i firmly believe that the “all or nothing” false dichotomy is the single most harmful detriment to authentic faith. it is not “pick and choose”: it’s a considered path to seek truth.

here is another relevant blog: Is the Church true?

[Author]

Posts