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I see what you guys are saying. If not literal then much of the power is gone. I remember a quote from the Discourses on Faith attributed to JS that said something like a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things cannot create the faith necessary to stand with confidence before God.
Does the LDS church still have value to me. Yes, but I am no longer willing to make significant sacrifices on its behalf. Sacrifices that have no ROI in the here and now.
I contribute to the level of value that I receive. That is sustainable for me.
I like InquiringMind’s approach:
Quote:So far it’s been more of the experience of a disinterested 3rd party observer combined with a sympathy for the human condition. Instead of being obsessed with whether the Church is true or false, I’ve started to see church as a place where people go to respond to a call from within and to talk about ways to make sense of the world and of their experiences. Religion evolved as a way of making sense of the world and explaining the unexplainable, among other things. It’s interesting to listen to people try to make sense of their experiences and and to try to weave meaning into the tapestry of their lives.
Here is my take: The majority people in Old Testament times were preliterate. With the exception of the ruling and scribal classes, nobody else could read or write. They relied on myth-making and storytelling to transmit ideas and values of their culture to the next generation. The more vivid and possibly fantastic the stories, the more likely they could be remembered and perpetuated. They lived with ways of knowing the world and the cosmos that had different underlying assumptions than our literate, pragmatic, empirical epistemology. So where does that put us? I think the scriptures require more than just a translation into our language, but also translation into our ways of knowing and being–our empirical epistemology, our sociology, our way of transmitting knowledge, etc. So I think if we take those things literally, we miss the point. I know this isn’t taught this way in the Church, however.
I also believe the scriptures are exaggerated stories at best, or more likely completely made up. There are a few that I really like and get a meaning out of, like I do with other important works of fiction that I have read. I love the story of Joseph, for example. The New Testament stories of Jesus are especially powerful to me. Mostly the teachings of the sermon on the mount. It’s clear that someone wrote those words, and whoever did, I think hit upon some very true and good teachings. So in my life, whenever I encounter good teachings, I accept them as such and apply them in my life. I think it can be good from a cultural standpoint to teach some of the bible stories to my children. It’s hard at church though when the stories are presented as literal without room for interpretation. (Or when my parents teach them to my children that way too. . .) I will be sure to open the possibility of seeing these stories differently with my children, but I don’t know if I should do that at church with my primary class. That’s where the “myths” of the bible become frustrating to me. If taken literal many of them teach of a God that seems evil to me. I don’t want my kids to be confused like I was about the inconsistencies of God. I feel bad in my efforts to keep the children in my primary class from being confused too, since I don’t know how far to push it with them.
journeygirl wrote:I don’t want my kids to be confused like I was about the inconsistencies of God. I feel bad in my efforts to keep the children in my primary class from being confused too, since I don’t know how far to push it with them.
I would much rather my kids be confused and develop answers that make sense to them individually than to be presented with one and only one version of the truth. I figure my kids are pretty smart and emotionally resilient enough to find their own internal compass.
As far as primary … I teach 4 year olds. God loves them with all their quirks and foibles – and I tell them so.
As a history teacher at heart, I first want to second what turinturambar said. That historical foundation is important to understand – and FAR too few people understand it. Quote:We believe the BOM to be the Word of God.
Just to say it, that doesn’t say, “We must believe the Book of Mormon is a word-for-word translation of a literal history.” It simply says that “we” believe the Book of Mormon is the word of God – and, to be picky but accurate, it doesn’t capitalize “word”, which is important only because of the Protestant use of “Word” to mean exclusive and imbued with divinity in and of itself.
Thus, Elder Holland can say, rightly, that the apostles won’t ask someone to leave the Church if that person can’t take the Book of Mormon as literal history – that they can accept any form of good that someone can take from it and remain in the Church. If you look at the actual quote, he doesn’t even require someone to accept the “word of God” description.
I think that’s an important principle. I believe the Book of Mormon to the word of God – but, while I am open to an inspired translation model (and others), I define that phrase very differently than most members do. Fine. Elder Holland won’t ask me to leave over it – and I haven’t heard any apostle disagree with him about that.
Curtis wrote:Thus, Elder Holland can say, rightly, that the apostles won’t ask someone to leave the Church if that person can’t take the Book of Mormon as literal history – that they can accept any form of good that someone can take from it and remain in the Church. If you look at the actual quote, he doesn’t even require someone to accept the “word of God” description.
Go reread his 2009 Safety For The Soul conference address, that talk makes a very very different statement about the BOM than the one you are quoting from him. I am not suggesting that he advocates anyone leave the church, but he absolutely doubles down on the fact that the BOM came about in the exact way JS said and is what JS claimed it to be.
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2009/10/safety-for-the-soul?lang=eng I hear what you are saying Curtis, but your position is not the position the church teaches or advocates, IMO.
Roadrunner wrote:Cadence wrote:For me when it was literal it was true, when it was not it lost its value
This is exactly my conundrum. The value I get from “believing” is that it provides me with hope and inspiration that there is something bigger and better out there. Whether or not it’s large in scope (e.g. a loving Heavenly Father cares for us) or smaller in scope (parting of the Red Sea), a symbolic story loses meaning for me because I know it’s not factual. It becomes a crutch, an aid, an opiate. For me at least – someone perhaps too practical. Perhaps it doesn’t lose all value, but much of it.
I am there with you because I look around and wonder how a literal belief contributes to pushing us forward as a church or even as a species. If I take the more nuance inspirational fiction approach I can apply this meaning or that to a story and maybe get some comfort, but my believing it is inspiration does not change the reality that it probably is just my brain wandering about. I actually believe we need to move beyond the metaphysical and to start to approach things rationally. It will be better for the human race going forward. We need to get rid of the crutch because our leg is not really broken.Quote:I hear what you are saying Curtis, but your position is not the position the church teaches or advocates, IMO.
Origami – Your point is good. One thing I like is having as many of those various quotes in my pocket. When a discussion, talk, lesson comes up – you can use them and it validates whichever point you want. Yes it can be conflicting, but that’s the story of Adam & Eve all over again, conflicting choices. It is a challenge because the majority of members have chosen theirs and have no interest in another one, but we who don’t have such a conviction, have every peaceful right to attend, participate, etc. We don’t even have to believe the Book of Mormon to get a temple recommend.
My husbands answer when someone asks “Do you believe the Book of Mormon to be true?” He points to a copy of it and says, “Yes, there it is – The Book of Mormon.” No more needs to be said. Now if the other guy wants to push – the answers become different. But the book is real. It does exist. End of story.
Origami, I never said or implied that Elder Holland believes anything but the traditional view. He believes passionately what he believes, and I am fine with that. I said he said there is room in the Church for those who see it differently than he does. That is a very important statement, and we ought to have it available for people who don’t get it.
Curtis, I agree it is nice to have those kinds of statements to use as support for something other than belief in the traditional literal truth position that is predominant in the church.
Lots of food for thought in this thread for me. I appreciate the comments everyone had made here. Curtis wrote:Origami, I never said or implied that Elder Holland believes anything but the traditional view. He believes passionately what he believes, and I am fine with that.
I said he said there is room in the Church for those who see it differently than he does. That is a very important statement, and we ought to have it available for people who don’t get it.
I think there is room in the church for the unorthodox if we make room ourselves. It is not going to be given freely.
Curtis you make many fine remarks about how you make things work and that is great for you. But really you are way off of what the mainstream church says. Your comments in my HP group would cause heart failure. You would be branded an apostate. But I suppose it is best to keep up the fight if you want things to change.
Cadence, exactly where in this thread have I claimed the mainstream church believes the heterodox things I believe? I think the point of labeling them as personal and heterodox is to avoid that claim – and I often add, “if I had a chance to talk with them personally and explain what I mean,” when talking about things I think most members believe that aren’t quite orthodox. Often, it’s just that they have never heard something expressed in “acceptable” terms by someone they respect as fully active and believing; some times, they don’t agree, but, in those situations, they generally smile and let it pass. For example, just this past Sunday in the HP lesson about the Atonement, I mentioned that I love to hear different interpretations of Biblical stories, including the Garden of Eden (since that topic had come up in the lesson). I then explained that my current favorite interpretation was that the story refers to the decisions we made in the pre-existence – and I mentioned the multiple similarities between the Garden narrative and the War in Heaven narrative. The lesson moved on without any discussion about my comment, largely because few if any of the people in the group had ever thought about it, didn’t believe it or didn’t care enough to argue, but I can make comments like that because they know, respect, trust and like me and my delivery method – and, after almost two years in the ward, they are used to it by now.
In that light, one thing I do whenever I move is blend in or make non-disputable comments for long enough to let people get to know me as an individual. I laugh with them, clean the building with them, etc. I even wear a white shirt and suit every week for the first few months. There is no way I would make some of the comments I make now in the first few weeks after starting to attend a new ward. That would be stupid, politically and socially – and I try hard not to be stupid at church.
I am confident I could share Elder Holland’s quote about accepting people in the Church who don’t interpret the Book of Mormon literally in the vast majority of wards and branches without causing heart attacks, if I had lived in them for any decent length of time – and it would help that, in this case, I would be quoting an apostle in doing so. A softly worded reference to an apostle helps a lot in situations like that. Of course, I’ve had 40 years of practice expressing heterodox opinions, so I’ve gotten pretty good at it by now.
Cadence wrote:When I was a believer especially when I was young I believed everything literally. Adam and Eve lived in the garden. Noah built an ark. Moses parted the Red Sea The stripling warriors really never lost a man. Then I became aware of science and critical thinking.
I realized none of these things really happened.I lost my belief in the literal nature of the scriptures…So if not literal then what? If we take the literalness out of the story what do we have left? We have just stories. They may teach a lesson or maybe even inspire you but how can they be any more valuable than that? How can we chart a course on that?… I know many turn to mythology when their shelf collapses and the have to face the fact none of these things they were taught actually happened. I guess I can not make that leap. If I were living long ago and I needed mythology to explain things perhaps, but today we have something called the scientific method that takes care of that…For me when it was literal it was true, when it was not it lost its valueIn the case of the Bible, at least some of it did happen. For example, it sounds like King Nebuchadnezzar really did destroy Jerusalem and the temple and took many Jews captive into Babylon in 587 BC. Also I see little reason to doubt that Jesus was crucified or that Paul was convinced he was still alive after this. Sure skeptics can suppose that Paul was mistaken for whatever reason but personally I prefer to give him the benefit of the doubt as much as possible. To me, not having to take everything literally as a package deal mostly makes things better and more interesting overall.
Instead of feeling obligated to believe all this at the same time and make excuses for things that sound highly questionable mostly because everyone else does and because of the idea that it supposedly came from God now I feel free to judge for myself and believe whatever makes sense to me on a case-by-case basis. Many questions people care about the most especially regarding politics, morality, philosophy, religion, etc. are never going to be answered to everyone’s satisfaction by raw facts and data but instead mostly depend on judgment calls and what people value the most in a personal and subjective way.
I appreciate the question, it makes me think deeply about where I’ve been and where I am. I enjoy trying to find my value in everything that is taught, strictly literal interpretations seem so shallow and even empty. Yes we should use plenty of sound logic to make sense of the world.
Cadence wrote:It also begs the question why God supposedly has to use fabricated stories to make a point. He could have just told us straight up how things work.
To me the “straight up” lessons fall a little flat. Yes they are fine for some applications, math problems etc. but when we move into judgment lessons and how to apply personal values and ideals in life a parable can teach volumes more. I would much rather learn about a model that I can reexamine as my knowledge and experience grows, something that I can always find new meanings in as I revisit with new perspectives.
I will agree literal lessons make obedience focused points more compelling, but when we move toward a goal of Love, personal discovery, self-motivation, and growth in knowledge and wisdom then the less literal and more encompassing lessons (the type that Jesus taught) are the ones that can hit a home run.
Maybe the point is a literal lesson lets someone else chart a course that we can follow, while a figurative lesson can help us chart our own course. If we are to grow into godly attributes which one should we eventually embrace? The stages of faith fill a purpose, as we let go of our feelings of certainty we have an opportunity to grasp something greater.
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