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My intro….Logistics First:Member of the church my whole life (nearing 50 years old…ick)
Active the whole time. Mission, temple marriage, kids, callings.
Not sure what to say next….I may ramble a bit so be patient…please.I have always wanted the church to be true. I also want there to be a bigfoot and Loch Ness monster and space aliens.
I am not trying to call true believers crack pots….I am serious. I think the world needs mystery and magic…or at least is better feeling like there is the possibility…
I have tried desperately to say the right things, feel the right things, believe the right things. This was fairly simple when I was young. Much like I avoid debunkers of big foot and Loch Ness and love to watch the “hunting for big foot” and “Chariots of the Gods” kinds of shows I have always avoided criticism of the church and joined in the normal reaction of any who question are without faith.
I recall wondering about some things that didn’t make sense but was able to “tuck them away”. Things like….whats up with Lehi’s descendants….they sure could repopulate fast….and would entire civilizations really fight down to the last man…and seems a bit dramatic to have the leaders be the last ones to duke it out…
I think my first struggle started with first temple experience…the old version involving penalties, etc….seemed weird. Also seemed strange then and still does that a person could live a great life but then needs to know certain secrets to get into heaven…seemed so “Kids clubhouse”. I then got a bit of a rude awakening on my mission….I was in a densely populated but small mission (about 30 miles x 30 Miles). Around 200 missionaries…and the mission president from the get go seemed to not like me….including occasional public humiliations. I had always heard your MP would be like a 2nd father…wow…not so much….then I saw the conniving and in-fighting politics…and then some of the stupid rules and ostracizing of elders who didn’t tow the “3 finger tie” line…..I also couldn’t help but wonder why the heck I had been such a law of chastity stickler when it seemed most of my Utah peers had been having some seriously advanced experiences…not sorry now and must say that if you want repentance in your life you need to allow it for others….but as a hormonal youth have to admit to being frustrated in more ways than one.
I eventually came home honorably….I married young…had kids, still love my wife and kids. Still happily married.
So, what is going on you say? I guess I am finally grown up enough to admit that maybe things are not as clear as I wanted them to be.
I still wonder about the mass killings in the BoM….
On top of that….some of the stuff about Joseph Smith bothers me…but I can handle a fallible prophet, I believe that the recent admission by the Church that there was no revelation saying blacks can’t hold the priesthood…not sure how that got started (by definition says BY was another fallible prophet and that several after him clearly let it slide)…I think this latter one really pulled me out of my blissful trance. Now I must admit to looking for other assumed doctrinal teachings…
President Hinckley (who I really loved) even seemed less “thus saith the lord” on some normal LDS beliefs when he was interviewed…the whole “we will be gods someday” is more of a “I have heard some stuff about this follet thingy…”. Now I wonder….how much of this is mans idea and how much is gods? Now so many things are not clear and some things really bother me…
My “what the heck” List:
Sexuality: This clearly develops early and childhood experiences impact adult tendencies…great, so when I am 8 I get baptized and now that I can sin I get a bunch of chemicals dumped into my system and I get to feel guilty and ashamed….sheesh…seems like a cruel plan …and for those given “abnormal urges”….the “proper approach” amounts to psychological torture in many cases….I find more comfort in this being biological in nature rather than some cruel divine plan
Some of the weird stuff about how we will populate our spiritual families strikes me as unbelievable….
Why is it some people get a pass? Why can Paul, Alma the younger and Sons of Mosiah get divine intervention yet many of us pray for our kids and get bupkiss? And Why can Abraham knock up whoever and be the chosen one but the rest of us need to walk around feeling guilty for every minor sexual thought.
Eternity Struggle 1: I struggle with the “this life is the time to prepare” and is the only time to prepare to meet god. We talk of Eternity. We talk of mortality. We admit mortality is not even a grain of Sand on the beach of eternity….so how can a loving god condemn us for eternity because we stumbled along during this nit of time.
Eternity Struggle 2: Forever…..really? I must admit that at times I hope there is nothing after this life because I can’t imagine eternal bliss. How can a person maintain sanity existing forever…especially with your being “all powerful” for a lot of it. I must say I find some eastern philosophies more comforting.
The whole idea of God listening to everything we say and do and every thought and that each will be shouted from the mountaintops if we don’t repent….oh yeah and if you repent because your dieing it wont count all seems strange to me….especially when Alma the Younger and Paul all got the preview of hell to help them change their ways….and how long will it take for all of the sins of the world to be shouted out? I guess if they shout them out all at once then it won’t take too long….but it will be noisy for a day or so.
For some reason….probably some flaw of my own…I have trouble handling President Monson…always have. I get the same feeling from him as I did back when Paul H Dunn was all the rage….something told me then that there was some prevarication happening…I think part of it is that the stories tend to self-promote a bit…not sure…I will call this one a personal problem.
Recently I feel like someone slapped me and I woke up. I now recognize that many of our normal church expected behaviors are very similar to brain washing techniques. The things we tell others to do is what we tell ourselves is a no-no. Should we attend other churches to try them out? Should we question our fundamental teachings? It is ok for our investigators but active members can lose their temple recommends for involving themselves with people actively working against the church. The peer pressure on conformity and how so often it is guilt, not love that we use to bring about change.
I am not sure that the prophets converse with god…I am not sure they are inspired by God to lead gods only church…I am not positive that the bible is true. I find myself less enamored of the BofM and sort of doubt its origins….not sure what to do with that.
I have had experiences where I have felt inspired. I have given blessings that had me and the person I blessed in tears and later had those people testify that how much it helped them, telling them things they had not realized. I wish the latter was not true because now I am really confused. I believe yet I don’t….currently I think I must say “I believe in inspiration, I believe in the power of God, I believe that when we seek Gods help to bring help to others that he/she/it listens and tries to inspire and there are things we can do to be closer to him….not sure I believe that closeness to god and righteousness are directly related….I think a deeply flawed yet humble person may be able to be more spiritually powerful than a stalwart judgemental prideful person.
So….where am I at? I can’t doubt the existence of God. Maybe I am a dreamer but I feel that the natural world alone testifies of divinity.
I feel that God doesn’t want us filled with guilt, I think he wants us to learn and grow. He wants us to learn good principals and many of those principals are taught in church though mis-applied frequently and used to judge one another. I love some of the teachings…I have really appreciated teaching some of George Alberts Smiths teachings this year.
I am not sure where I am at now. I can go to church and be happy…I just feel like the guy from the Matrix “why did I take the blue pill?” I feel jealous for those who are true believers….so I have no desire to crumble their world view. I will continue to teach classes that are based on good principals but not sure what to do when teaching about temples and such….life is so much less simple these days….and I don’t think there is a big foot…..and it makes me sad.
Sorry for the ramble
Johnh
Hi John, Really enjoyed your into. Few questions:
1) what is a 3 finger tie?
2) what is “Some of the weird stuff about how we will populate our spiritual families”? Like eternal seed?
johnh wrote:how long will it take for all of the sins of the world to be shouted out? I guess if they shout them out all at once then it won’t take too long….but it will be noisy for a day or so.
This part made me laugh out loud.
😆 Welcome to the site. If I am reading you correctly, I would say that your humor is helpful in this process. Heaven knows we LDS tend to take ourselves too seriously sometimes.
:thumbup: 3 finger ties My mission president and his wife felt that ties narrower than 3 fingers (held together) were not worthy of a missionary.
I remember one meeting in the mission home when the Presidents wife was bearing testimony and she got all choked up…we are all thinking “wow…something really spiritual is coming” she then says “Oh Elders…I can’t tell you how hurt and disappointed I felt when visiting the neighboring mission and one of the Elders there asked me if it was true that Elders in our mission
wore skinny ties!”. Needless to say I had to restrain myself from outright mocking this um..”dear sister” Weird Stuff about populating our spiritual families:
Basically it has been taught that main’ babies is had the same way there as here. I a guessing pregnancy is much shorter there or else it will take a long time to get enough to populate a planet…though the we get to make our own planets seems to be a bit up in the air as official doctrine now. Other thoughts: Lots more women than men so we get polygamy…eternal men will have perfect bodies so will not need sleep? Men get pregnant too?
If Adam had eaten the apple first, would women have gotten the priesthood and men been deemed the subservient ones?
Another Afterlife Question I have had is:
People have been told they will raise the children in the afterlife who die while young here. Seems a bit strange to me…and seems to fly in the face of the whole ressurected with perfect body, not growing old thing.
Also, if in the end, we want to “be together forever” and everyone in the celestial kingdom is sealed….doesn’t this really mean we are all just hanging out together? I must say that the concept of heaven in the Christian definition is a struggle for me right now. The more I think about it the less interesting it becomes.
I don’t have time tonight to try to respond to details, but I do want to welcome you to the group. I hope your participation is mutually beneficial. Like Roy, I too appreciated your wry sense of humour. Welcome to the forum. I’m fairly new here too, but have found a lot of comfort from the, relatively small, group here. I’m on my phone so it’s difficult to reply in detail to every question but wanted to make a general observation. Take it or leave it
A friend of mine stood up in sacrament meeting a few years back and opened his talk with “The gospel is true. The church is mostly true. And Mormon culture stinks!”
At the time I didn’t appreciate his approach with it being sacrament meeting (I was sat behind him as I was a member of the branch pres). But I think he’s onto something!
Much of what we consider to be the things that make us special and eternally special is not canonised doctrine. There are ideas and speculation in a lot of our conf talks and published books of the past.
I, like many others, have taken anything that’s said by a member of the 1st pres or the 12 as doctrine. I think most people in the church tend to. Gosh, sometimes people even quote a Bishop/Stake pres talk as doctrine!
I’ve come to consider a few things:
– Outside of canon, a lot of what we teach in SS/chat about with friends after dinner is no more than speculation or effective teaching tools.
– Even in canon, there are practices that are no longer applied to us (a lot of the Law of Moses)
– There are symbols in the gospel that are taught (or interpreted) as factual, actual events. This makes them more impactful as teaching aids. I think much of what we believe is symbolic, not factual.
– Being symbolic doesn’t eliminate their ability to teach us a principle of life. In fact I prefer them this way as I can let go of the illogical nature if taken literally.
You’ll probably see me saying this sort of thing a lot on this board. Apologies if I’m repetitive.
Again, welcome
What if… The LDS version of truth, like all other versions is incomplete?
Gospel=good news.
If something is old, how can it be new?
We are meant to continue learning… born again & again, line upon line.
“By their fruits ye shall know them”…
If you’re not sure what to think of something contraversial…
…look at the consequences & imagine it’s ripple effect long term- in the big picture.
One of the worst feelings is to feel fooled.
Yet, we are & will be fooled to our dying day.
We cannot help but think subjectively & with limited awareness.
So we have parents, & then we also have belief systems to think for us until we learn to think for ourselves more.
But we never completely think as god – all knowing.
So, ideally, we pick “
functionalillusions.” In church, to help my sanity, I keep it simple, especially when teaching.
I focus on what I believe in that is common to what the church teaches.
I try to facilitate a good spirit – a good experience for everyone, more than getting through the lesson.
I’m not perfect – nobody is. I know I could’ve always done better – live & learn.
I loved your comment on Brother Monsoon. I know in my head he is probably a good guy but my intuition screams at me “be careful with this guy!” I loved your post and loved your insight into mission life. (I didn’t like the MP wife either.)
Welcome!
Featherina wrote:What if…
The LDS version of truth, like all other versions is incomplete?
Gospel=good news.
If something is old, how can it be new?
We are meant to continue learning… born again & again, line upon line.
“By their fruits ye shall know them”…
If you’re not sure what to think of something contraversial…
…look at the consequences & imagine it’s ripple effect long term- in the big picture.
One of the worst feelings is to feel fooled.
Yet, we are & will be fooled to our dying day.
We cannot help but think subjectively & with limited awareness.
So we have parents, & then we also have belief systems to think for us until we learn to think for ourselves more.
But we never completely think as god – all knowing.
So, ideally, we pick “
functionalillusions.” In church, to help my sanity, I keep it simple, especially when teaching.
I focus on what I believe in that is common to what the church teaches.
I try to facilitate a good spirit – a good experience for everyone, more than getting through the lesson.
I’m not perfect – nobody is. I know I could’ve always done better – live & learn.
Thanks Featherina…i appreciate your perspective. especially the last part. I teach Elders Quorum twice a month and what you stated here is exactly how i manage it…Thanks so much for your input
Welcome John. I really enjoyed your post and appreciated your sense of good natureness. Many of your questioned made me smile. We are of the same generation and it is funny how much more we don’t know the older we get. We realize that there really are no simple answers.
You are the first person to describe President Monson like how I think/feel about him. He seams like a good guy but a little too phony for the grandfather figure I would prefer.
You seam like you will fit in quite well here. I look forward to hearing more from you.
Re. Pres Monson. When he first became prophet I remember being a little embarrassed initially, and really missed Hinkley. How could a man who gave talks about waggling his ears at kids be a prophet I wondered. Then, last year, I was listening to priesthood session and he was giving the final talk. I had a sudden impression of his pure spirit and realised he offered such a wonderful antidote the negativity that can pervade the media. His simplicity, dedication to human charity, service and uncomplicated faith seemed to be his main role as a church leader.
This was before my faith crisis and much about the church has become complicated. I’ve questioned the role of prophets and nature of their approaches to inspiration and revelation. Different prophets seem to have different purposes, priorities and objectives (perhaps motivated by personal priorities and heaven’s guidance). Maybe what we can learn during Monson’s presidency is how to be more kind, considerate and compassionate.
I certainly reckon we could all do with a dose of that spiritual medicine.
(It could be worse, we could be under Noah’s era and having to learn to swim… but only in a limited geographical area)
mackay11 wrote:
(It could be worse, we could be under Noah’s era and having to learn to swim… but only in a limited geographical area)Thank you for making me laugh at work!
Hi Johnh, Really appreciate your intro and your humour and insights. Welcome. I’m a newbie myself and find myself checking in once a day – this forum has been enormously helpful.
Eternal struggle 1: I’ve heard it a few places but have never really found it scripturally, but my understanding is that we will be able to repent after we’re dead, or in the millennium, or something. But regardless we’ll be advancing and changing later on. I wish I had references. But regardless, it might have come from the same talks and discourses that said other things we disagree with. I find it illogical that we have no hope whatsoever to become perfect in this life and simultaneously that we won’t be able to repent or change after this life.
Eternal struggle 2: Sorry, have to disagree with you a bit on this one. There are a few things I just can’t get enough of and hope I get to do for eternity. Won’t say more than that.
President Monson. I genuinely mean no disrespect here – I think his age is showing. I’ve seen him in informal occasions and I think that there’s some chance his presidency will end much like that of President Benson’s.
Prophets: Agree wholeheartedly. How can a prophet converse with God while at the same time teaching so many things that just don’t make sense. If revelation happens only a small percentage of the time, what’s the point? Perry strikes me as the one that seems sometimes seems think he’s a member of a very exclusive country club.
And finally, your comment about your Utah missionary peers really hits home with me. I start to get really angry when I think about people who get it both ways (no double entendre intended). Live it up as a teenager, AP on your mission, and bishop at 35. I genuinely struggle with that one and I think it means I don’t really understand repentance. Like you say very well “if you want repentance in your life you need to allow it for others.”
Glad to have you here.
Roadrunner wrote:Hi Johnh,
.. I start to get really angry when I think about people who get it both ways (no double entendre intended). .” .
Seriously…almost spit out my lunch laughing on this one. Sorry…used to be a construction worker and my inner gentile lurks close to the surface when it comes to my sense of humor
Johnh, Welcome to the site.
Regarding President Monson:
I used to think all his talks were just light weight stories. I preferred meatier talks like from Elder Maxwell of Elder Scott.
I really appreciate his talks now. The focus of his talks is the personal ministry to individuals in need. It’s a refreshing change to many leadership meetings where someone says “We want want to help [abstract group of people]. Let’s start a new program, or organize an activity, or have some meetings to discuss this more in depth.” President Monson’s focus has been on “the one.”
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