The Evil World

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

…The biggest threat to marriage today is bad marriages and their effect on marriage – meaning actual bad marriages, the divorces that occur as a result, the divorces that DON’T occur that should, the infidelity that occurs from bad marriages, the negativism and cynicism toward marriage of the children raised in bad marriages, etc…The biggest threat to marriage, imo, is heterosexuals who are lousy spouses and parents…It’s easier, however, to blame others for our problems than to see, recognize and fix our own problems – so we tend to blame others and not realize that “an enemy from within hath done this”.

I don’t know, maybe I am taking this differently than the way you meant it but to me that sounds a little too much like the old game of, “blame the victim” for my taste. For example, it looks to me like many people will give up on marriage all too easily because they escalate fights or grudges completely out-of-control over some rather petty and stupid things sometimes, they think the grass is greener elsewhere, etc. In fact, the whole point of “no fault divorce” is that there doesn’t need to be a good reason for it, all it takes is for one partner or both of them to not really be feeling it anymore to end a marriage these days. That doesn’t necessarily mean either of them is a lousy spouse, they’re only human. Even if one spouse acts in an unusually selfish and/or thoughtless way that doesn’t mean the other spouse could have done anything to change or avoid this outcome, sometimes it’s just bad luck.

In my specific example of LDS couples where one spouse loses faith in the Church I think both of them could typically be called victims because the believer is simply reacting the way they have been heavily indoctrinated for years to think because they are given the expectation that this should never happen, that it is vitally important to have a testimony and be temple worthy and if not then it’s not alright, etc. and the non-believer starts to feel like the idea of pretending to believe the rest of their life is unbearable so they simply want to share their true feelings. Church leaders could easily get through to many of these members in a way that their non-believing spouses cannot because of their position of authority and trust. They have already occasionally made vague comments like, “don’t judge” and published obscure articles about this in the Ensign but it seems like it gets completely drowned out by all the harping on obedience, worthiness, priesthood, etc. so that’s why I would like to see a Church president or apostle specifically address this topic in detail because the problem is not going to go away on its own and is one area where the damage done to Church members that don’t really deserve this at all is significant.

[Anonymous]

LookingHard wrote:

…It troubles me that they don’t talk much about some of the real serious issues – like human and child sex trafficking. I feel that for many the world is getting better – better health (minus obesity in the US), less wars and threats of war and crime, less government corruption, etc. I wish the church would turn a bit of attention on some substantive issues – like allocating more time for our missionaries to give no-strings-attached Christian service to others.

One thing that bothers me about what Church leaders typically choose to focus on the most is that if you really think about it priesthood, the Celestial Kingdom, etc. could easily be imaginary for all we really know and here we have people acting like all this is more important than real-life considerations that are undeniable. I could see taking a leap of faith and speculating about the unknown to some extent but to elevate ideas like this to the point that they are treated as if they are more important than what we know for sure and see everyday just doesn’t make much sense. For example, some gay Church members have actually committed suicide apparently largely because of the constant guilt-trips and disapproval from the Church and their families. At the very least Church leaders could easily just mind their own business and let God be the judge if anyone ever will be in cases like this instead of acting like the fate of civilization as we know supposedly hinges on aggressively defending their hard-line views about marriage and chastity because it has already backfired by giving the Church a bad PR image and alienating many Church members that know gays or lesbians themselves and don’t feel like it is fair to judge them this way on top of all the pain and suffering caused to members that don’t feel like they have any choice but to be who they are.

[Anonymous]

I agree with you, DA, and that was part of my faith crisis and transition – transitioning away from such speculation and supposition. We know so little about the pre-earth and post-earth lives, most of what is taught is not scripturally based. All of us, from the top on down, are much better off focusing more on what we do know and what is actually in the scriptures.

[Anonymous]

My comment about divorce and bad spouses was meant to say only what it said. I didn’t mean to imply any victim blaming or imply that anyone who divorces is a bad spouse. I don’t believe that or anything remotely like it. I tried to make that clear, but if it wasn’t, I want to make it clear now.

I believe strongly, however, that the heterosexual population and its actions regarding marriage are the biggest threat to marriage, not the homosexual population.

[Anonymous]

Old-Timer wrote:

My comment about divorce and bad spouses was meant to say only what it said. I didn’t mean to imply any victim blaming or imply that anyone who divorces is a bad spouse. I don’t believe that or anything remotely like it. I tried to make that clear, but if it wasn’t, I want to make it clear now…I believe strongly, however, that the heterosexual population and its actions regarding marriage are the biggest threat to marriage, not the homosexual population.

As far as I’m concerned same-sex marriage is no real threat to heterosexual marriage whatsoever. Seriously how many gays and lesbians are actually going to marry someone of the opposite sex nowadays? I’m sure there are some but the few I have known about ended up getting divorced eventually anyway so all the pressure to conform basically backfired because they became more real-life examples that show that heterosexual marriage is simply not the one-size-fits-all plan of happiness the Church is trying to make it out to be and it compounded the situation by adding innocent children to the equation. Maybe beyond the actual numbers involved some people feel like legitimizing same-sex marriage will somehow tarnish the meaning of heterosexual marriage but personally I see that as mostly the product of prejudice, bigotry, and superstition because marriage already means different things to different people so I don’t see the point in insisting that it should mean exactly the same thing for everyone when that is never going to happen anyway.

Certainly cohabitation and people never getting married for whatever reasons are possible “alternative lifestyles” that directly compete with marriage but even in these cases it looks like the number that willingly choose these options long-term are minor compared to the number of divorces. One more thing I forgot to mention before about the relatively new challenge to the Church of an increasing number of unexpected mixed-faith marriages than in the past is that sometimes it isn’t just the believing spouse that will react by seriously considering divorce in some cases their family, friends, and even bishops will encourage and support this kind of intolerant reaction as well. So in some cases the lack of a strong statement to discourage this reaction by top Church leaders is just as good as if they had directly endorsed the idea that not believing in Nephites and the like is already an irreconcilable difference by itself. I think this also shows that some threats to temple marriage are not the same thing as the most common threats to marriage in general because in addition to the typical threats there are the added expectations about needing to be married to another “worthy” Church member, tithing, the WoW, etc. that make it hard for active and obedient TBMs to get along with less faithful members or non-members as well as possible or even find someone to marry to begin with in some cases.

[Anonymous]

We agree with each other about this, DA, in almost every way.

[Author]

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