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Great, great thread by everyone. This is why I check in here every couple of days. Good stuff. My two cents:
Because of the complexity of the gospel, and of life, doubt is invariably going to be a part of anyone’s experience. There are aspects of the gospel that I have an almost-certain belief in – I believe in God. There are other things that I don’t have a certainty, but I’m willing to take on faith – probably more akin to hope. I hope there is an after life with our loved ones. I’m not certain there is, but I choose to have hope that there is. And finally, there are aspects of what is taught in the church that I doubt are true – I doubt that JS translated papyri into the BoA. I doubt that God really cares whether I enjoy a mild barley drink, or how far down my thigh my undergarments extend.
Because I think we all deal with doubts, it would be more healthy to address the reality of them. We ought to be teaching that it’s okay to be less than certain. We should actively fight the idea that if the brethren speak, the thinking’s been done. We are all capable, individually, of determining whether we believe something, whether we hope, whether we question, whether we doubt.
I don’t know if doubt can be taught. But I certainly encourage and teach my own kids to question and be skeptical of EVERYTHING. I am the quintessential Gen X parent. Rather than teaching doubt, I focus on supporting questioning minds. As has been mentioned on the thread already, the willingness to accept others are right too and you are not always right always for people to say “on the other hand…” regularly. It’s one of my favourite sayings and inspired the title of my blog ( http://manyotherhands.blogspot.com ).I explain in the first post how Tevye, in Fiddler on the Roof, was always willing to say “on the other hand…” in the face of family/religion dilemmas.
I want my children to develop the “questing spirit” and develop their own ideas, inspired by the words of others but forming their own perspectives.
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