if BofM is inspired, does value and worth increase?

[Anonymous]

Heber13 wrote:

For what its worth, I think you’re still swimming in the BOM as the Word of God. That’s not a criticism.

i don’t take it as criticism at all. i know that i am. how could i not? even when i consciously decide NOT to do something based on how i was raised, i am then still acting in relation to mormonism. its all i know. and it meant a great deal, and still means a great deal… its the nature of what it means to me i am trying to sort out….

but i have no desire to leave mormonism. i think of how the people i know and love would react if they knew, and um… ya.. leaving the church is NOT the easy path. but i am struggling to find the meaning again. and let me clarify, mere days ago i was angry and frustrated and urgent. i have had some answers since then. not to all, but some. and further, many of you here, even those now gone from the site, have really and truly halped me understand some of those answers.

it has helped me see a purpose and course on my path. but i am not eager, nor set on that path leaving church at all. indeed, the church has given me a great deal, and i would love to be able to keep finding answers to my questions in a manner allowing me to do that. i have 3 young daughters who do not need another parent changing their entire life-paradigms again… they are strong enough to handle it, but i don’t think i could do it again–not in the traumatic way when their mother left.

so, ya… forcing myself to be patient, caution and faith and careful steps are my mantras.

and mike and forgotten charity, thank you as well. i hear you. simple and not. and again, it is not my answers in youth i question, not that i received them, not that i felt them and they were from a spiritual place…. only questioning some of the meanings of it all… enough that i can sleep at night as an active, participating mormon, or sleep at night as something else. either way, i just want my sleep people!!!

[Anonymous]

mrtoad4u wrote:

Heber13 wrote:

For what its worth, I think you’re still swimming in the BOM as the Word of God. That’s not a criticism.

i don’t take it as criticism at all. i know that i am. how could i not? even when i consciously decide NOT to do something based on how i was raised, i am then still acting in relation to mormonism. its all i know. and it meant a great deal, and still means a great deal… its the nature of what it means to me i am trying to sort out….

but i have no desire to leave mormonism. i think of how the people i know and love would react if they knew, and um… ya.. leaving the church is NOT the easy path. but i am struggling to find the meaning again. and let me clarify, mere days ago i was angry and frustrated and urgent. i have had some answers since then. not to all, but some. and further, many of you here, even those now gone from the site, have really and truly halped me understand some of those answers.

it has helped me see a purpose and course on my path. but i am not eager, nor set on that path leaving church at all. indeed, the church has given me a great deal, and i would love to be able to keep finding answers to my questions in a manner allowing me to do that. i have 3 young daughters who do not need another parent changing their entire life-paradigms again… they are strong enough to handle it, but i don’t think i could do it again–not in the traumatic way when their mother left.

so, ya… forcing myself to be patient, caution and faith and careful steps are my mantras.

and mike and forgotten charity, thank you as well. i hear you. simple and not. and again, it is not my answers in youth i question, not that i received them, not that i felt them and they were from a spiritual place…. only questioning some of the meanings of it all… enough that i can sleep at night as an active, participating mormon, or sleep at night as something else. either way, i just want my sleep people!!!

Sleep? Is that where you go to bed and pretend to rest? Ya I do that a lot lol. I jest(partially).

The meaning to me, has ment weather or not a book is wholly true is irrelevant to me. An example is that my fiancé has a deep love for the romanticized version of Pocahontas. Because it represents strongly our situation to her and well to me as well. What she doesn’t realize and I do is just how off the romanticized version is even if it is based on a truth. She finds happiness and meaning on it do I let it be. Likewise, my most cherished books when I was young were the “value series books”.

Quote:

Each book gave a simplified and fictionalized biography of a historical figure as an allegory, illustrating the value of a positive characteristic

So maybe you understand we’re I am going with this now. The books had very high value to me even if they were simplified and fictionalize. The traits and values that they taught were ones I adhere to stronger then anything. Likewise I take the same approach to the BOM. Wether it is true, wholly true or completly fictional. As a historical book and reading it as such, it would serve no value in that in my life just as other history books serve no value to me in my life other then to make a statement of observation. Because I am a here and now type person that looks to the future. Those that are always busy looking at there past will miss the present and stumble as they walk backwards to the future. That’s how I look at it when I watch societies that focus a lot on thier past to those that don’t.

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

If it is as it claims then the church is likely true, if it is fiction then the church is not what it claims to be.

Whenever I hear this statement I can’t help but think to myself “The Church” itself really doesn’t claim much of anything. People IN the church make all kinds of claims. As we’ve seen with our current understanding of our black brothers & sisters and how that differs from all the statements made by church leaders in the past – people claim all kinds of things, and they can be very wrong.

We always have the ability to change our view based on further light and knowledge, continuing revelation, etc. Nothing is set in stone.

True, everything in the church is not what I imagined it to be in my youth. The problem as I see it was in MY expectations. My view was wrong, plain and simple. I don’t see much value in placing blame, yes obviously I didn’t come up with my view in a vacuum, but nothing is chaining me to old erroneous ideas. I am not only free to learn and grow, I am expected to learn and adopt views based on my best understanding. This defines my Mormonism.

Can I stand up in church and proclaim my new insights? Not always, but I see it more of a social problem than a doctrinal problem. We cannot make out brothers run faster than they have strength, we must be charitable in our expectations of them and the burdens that we wish to place upon them.

[Anonymous]

Brian Johnston wrote:

Cadence wrote:

My problem is it is not just a book. It leads to so many other things. It leads to obedience to the church, temples, tithing, the WofW and a whole host of things in the modern church.

It doesn’t have to lead to all those things, in part or as a whole. It only leads to those things because we choose (or choose not) to connect the dots that way. There are hundreds of thousands of “Mormons” that don’t connect the dots from the Book of Mormon to obedience to the LDS Church headquartered in SLC (i.e. fundamentalists, reorganized, etc.)

Sorry Brian but I think it does lead to all those things. I am not saying there is a direct connection but the BofM is the symbol that the church uses to manipulate the members. Sure you may be able to shrug it off but so many people are caught in situations with family that it is not that simple. What I am really saying is that it really is the keystone of the religion. Almost all of it hinges on the book. Take it away and Mormonism is lifeless. So if it is a lie we should know about it.

As I have said more than once my brain does not work that way. I can not nuance belief and mold and manipulate it to fit my current paradigm. It is either true or it is not. If it is not I think it best we say so and get on with picking up the pieces the best we can. I could be wrong and maybe this whole inspired lie idea will catch on and over time members will use it as a stepping stone to see it as purely inspired fiction and eventually as just fiction.

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

As I have said more than once my brain does not work that way. I can not nuance belief and mold and manipulate it to fit my current paradigm. It is either true or it is not.

I am puzzled – in a way. I understand what works for you but I couldn’t make it work for me. If you can’t mold belief to fit into your current paradigm what do you do with it? I obviously come at this from my own paradigm. I don’t like being wasteful. I don’t like to discard useful things. I feel I must do something with it – not toss it aside, so what else am I going to do with it than mold it to fit where it will?

We all make decisions about our realities. We own what we are drawn to hold onto. That is true of physical as well as spiritual things. If you have a keepsake that means a lot to you are you concerned with what some expert may say about its authenticity? In the same way Moroni’s promise IS the authentication. No other opinion is needed. That doesn’t mean if you pray to know the future and get it wrong your prayer didn’t work. If you apply a good tool to the wrong job you will likely be dissappointed.

[Anonymous]

i am no longer tied to the book’s absoluteness (or lack thereof) in my thinking. but in my feelings? i admit there is still part of me right there, exactly with Cadence. i mean, i get it. i do. or i think i do. in my head. but the book was never just in my head. my whole life it was in my feelings too. and again, not going with my intellect, but my gut, my heart, my feelings… it almost feels like the argument of the lie of commission versus a lie of omission…

so no the church never said it was a historical document. they also never told me it wasn’t. and i testified it was. in front of god and bishops and stake presidents and parents for years and years… and no one said it wasn’t that.

so then, when it shows signs of not being all we were led to believe (by omission), then yes… i understand where Cadence is coming from.

I am still trying to separate those feelings out a bit too. And i think for me it just needs a bit of time and patience and i am feeling a light somewhere off in the distance, but i am okay with that… i think. for now.

but i get it. i do. my gut still says, “whether overt lie or not, deception occurred.”

i get that feeling. it was very close only weeks ago now.

[Anonymous]

Cadence wrote:

As I have said more than once my brain does not work that way. I can not nuance belief and mold and manipulate it to fit my current paradigm. It is either true or it is not. If it is not I think it best we say so and get on with picking up the pieces the best we can. I could be wrong and maybe this whole inspired lie idea will catch on and over time members will use it as a stepping stone to see it as purely inspired fiction and eventually as just fiction.

My ability to bend things probably gets me in just as much trouble, just different trouble. It’s all good Cadence. The world needs people who think your way too. Seriously. It keeps the folks grounded in a good way. And the tension between opposites (or differences) is very productive energy that propels social and scientific evolution.

Yesterday’s science fiction becomes tomorrows science technology, which promotes people to dream up new science fiction.

[Anonymous]

I have thought about this issue a lot. I have tried to find an explanation other than the book is an actual record of actual peoples. I can’t do it. It may not be the “most correct of any book on earth.” That was just a “single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion.” It’s not perfect in portraying what really happened and in punctuation and language, but its teachings are correct

[Anonymous]

This might seem confusing to many but I have found growing up that the stories or movies I reread or watch tend to be ones with strong friendship, honor, integrity, compassion, protecting the innocent and overcoming adversity etc. watching films based on a true story or reading books didn’t make me more I te rested in them. Talking with my fiends I realized that watching or reading a true story didn’t connect with me anymore then a fictional story even when running the same themes. It was all solo on the values and imagination only I realized. I find the BOM to be no different. Weather it true are not( I care not) doesn’t give it any more or less value. Like all other books or movies I read the parts that give me meaning and value while not focusing on the parts that don’t. A books value (to me) rest solo on the teachings or and the ability to captivate the imagination.

[Anonymous]

Good point FC — and for many “True stories” that are made into movies, often, there are strong liberties taken with the characters and facts to make the movie inspiring and effective. These movies bring people to tears, uplift them and invoke all kinds of inspirational thoughts, just as scripture does. So, literal factual truth, while interesting and powerful, isn’t necessarily even more powerful than a good fictional story.

[Anonymous]

One of my favorite children’s authors, Patricia Polacco wrote something to the effect of: Just because something never happened doesn’t mean it isn’t true.

She expanded on that at a book signing I went to. She talked about how the truth of a story or a book is in telling of it. When you sit by your grandfather and he tells you about his younger days, the truth of the story is in the relationship that is built as he tells you, the ideas that he inspires in your mind as you listen, in the value the grandfather feels as the story progresses. The literalness of the events that happened is not relevant to the truth of the story.

Many of her books are autobiographical or historical. They are all true, even if some of them didn’t happen.

I think as a church we put too much emphasis on the origin of The Book of Mormon, convincing ourselves that it really happened, searching for historical traces of it. Instead we should look for the truths in it. Some find truth there, some will not.

[Anonymous]

SilentDawning wrote:

Good point FC — and for many “True stories” that are made into movies, often, there are strong liberties taken with the characters and facts to make the movie inspiring and effective. These movies bring people to tears, uplift them and invoke all kinds of inspirational thoughts, just as scripture does. So, literal factual truth, while interesting and powerful, isn’t necessarily even more powerful than a good fictional story.

rebeccad wrote:

Many of her books are autobiographical or historical. They are all true, even if some of them didn’t happen.

One of my pet interests is seeing how people of faith make sense of adversity. I was reading an autobiographical book about this one man’s experiences and I was struck by 2 things:

1) That he seemed to recall dialogue word for word even when he was in emotional shock situations.

2) That metaphors seemed to come to him to help him understand his feelings at the exact moment of emotional shock.

I found this difficult to believe because 1) no one has that good of a memory and he doesn’t ever mention taking notes or having a tape recorder 2) It took me quite a while to understand the emotions that were happening to me in my moment of crisis – it didn’t seem quite fair that he always had a metaphor handy to understand his emotional process.

So after getting suspicious, I flipped back to the beginning of the book and found the following language bellow the copyright information. “This story is true. Quotations and remarks are adapted from actual conversations and statements. Some minor events and conversations have been fictionalized for the sake of narrative texture.”

Yes, being able to “adapt” a conversation that you mostly remember is helpful. Yes, being able to add minor events and conversations that never actually happened to help dramatize internal emotional struggles could also help to frame the narrative of these experiences. I have no doubt that these writings truly reflect this man’s hindsight perspective of what his experiences meant – even if they didn’t happen the way that he describes. I accept them as “true” for him.

[Anonymous]

One of my favorites is the 300 Spartans. Only it gets left out quite frequently that they also had 7000 other Greeks with them. Well over a thousand other Greeks with the 300 Spartans after most of them fled. And Themistocles, the biggest factor into winning the battle and preventing the spartans and Greeks from outright getting flanked gets entirely left out of the common telling or story. I have to say of someone where watching at either location they wouldn’t get quite what happened when writting it down at the other location. Other then second hand information. Mistakes are made this way in history, no one can see the full picture. Although they can try and do thier best to give a honest and forthright account of what they saw/experienced. Of course the kicker is that that even after all those details left out. You still have a story being told for the purpose of displaying virtue of training and courage against overwhelming odds to inspire. We will never know the whole truth or whole historical accuracy of the battles waged thier. But that isn’t the point of why the story is told. Likewise for me the BOM/Bible. The point of the story isn’t how accurate or precise it is. The point is to treach us about god and Christ, learn the commandments and how to live a Christ like life. Anything else is over complicating it(for me).

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