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I’m happy to be a part of your community. In the past year I have become an agnostic, yet active member of the LDS church. My experience is likely similar to many of yours. For years I put a number of heavy question on my “shelf”. It finally became too much and I no longer felt that I could honestly accept that the LDS church is the one true and living church. I must state right off that I do have a bad taste in my mouth, but I try to be understanding and still find great social value in the church. I was part of another popular lds discussion community but felt the stalwart saints there to be more interested in attacking the speaker’s intelligence and character than the argument. I see very little of that here and look forward to many healthy discussions with you all! Thanks for letting me join! Welcome! It is a great community here. It has helped me and I’ve only been on the site for a couple of weeks. I think you’ll like it.
Welcome. We don’t agree with each other unanimously on anything, but I really like that. I hope we can learn from each other as we discuss things.
wl44 wrote:I was part of another popular lds discussion community but felt the stalwart saints there to be more interested in attacking the speaker’s intelligence and character than the argument. I see very little of that here and look forward to many healthy discussions with you all! Thanks for letting me join!
This is a good place. Glad you’re here, too!
Welcome! I think I have a pretty good idea of which discussion forum you are talking about. I did a search on my username there a while ago, and at least one of the most offensive, judgmental people there acknowledged his shortcomings in the respect you mention above. As Ray said, people don’t always agree, but they sure are open minded. Welcome….
I’m new here too. Glad you are here. It is a great place to get and give support. I appreciate everyone’s input and ideas. Welcome WL44. I am relatively new here myself, but I am so gald I found this site – quite by accident as it were. I thik I also know the other site to which you refer and if you find any of my posts there you will note I have been “banned.” I don’t know why, but that’s neither here nor there. You will find freedom of respectful expression here and I really appreciate that. In my crisis I also went through a stage of being agnostic, which came after the stage of being essentially atheist and before the stage of being deist. I think we’re all at different places in our journeys, many of us are in similar places to others, and we have all been to many places. Sharing where we have been, where we are, and where we’re going has been a great support to me and I hope you find the support you seek here – it’s pretty likely you will.
SilentDawning wrote:As Ray said, people don’t always agree, but they sure are open minded. Welcome….
I really appreciate the open-mindedness. It seems people here are at least willing to see things from a few alternative perspectives, even if they don’t agree with those perspectives. You guys are great!
wl44 wrote:
I really appreciate the open-mindedness. It seems people here are at least willing to see things from a few alternative perspectives, even if they don’t agree with those perspectives. You guys are great!Yes, I get frustrated in “real life” when friends refuse to acknowledge that there is more than one way to look at something. Everyone has to stand in their own shoes, they have no other choice. The assumptions that they bring due to their own unique set of experiences will give them a unique perspective. If we all stand in a circle around any object we will all have a different perspective of it. It may only be slightly different from the person next to us, or it will be completely different from the person across from us. We can try to imagine what their perspective looks like, but unless there is a way for us to get into their shoes we will never fully know what they see.
There are two ways we can get into trouble: 1) If we expect others to act as if they share our unique perspective. 2) If we assume our own perspective is inferior and we try to act as if we see things exactly as someone else describes.
Welcome wl44. I think one thing I have learned is that I’m safe to express my ideas here. But I think even on this site, there is a common background or understanding of what we are trying to say…that there are real things that are heavy on the shelf that cause it to break, but there is a real desire for some to try to make it work in the church still for those other things that are not problematic, and in fact are worthy of continuing to fight to believe and participate in.
Trying to have that discussion with others that may not have the same common background or experience often can sound wrong, or scary, or dangerous. I have found some people just don’t have the time or patience to understand where I’m coming from. And so I need to respect that, and not force things on them that I think they should process from their point of view.
But I feel comfortable here. And I look forward to learning from your posts.
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