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What is God’s absolute commandments that we need to follow to please God? I’m sure some of you have discussed this in other posts but I can’t seem to find an answer that fits for me. Usually when a person asks my advice regarding this I say “follow your own conscience.” What I never say is my next thought, “but what if your conscience is not yours, but what others have taught you through conditioning etc.” So this same line of thought leads me to a very important question, “How forgiving is God?”
Some thoughts on commandments, teachings etc.:
1) Love (Yes I do! Easy commandment to understand. Not always easy to follow but at least I get it.)
2) Obedience (I read a thread on this but how do you live in obedience when you don’t know what to believe and don’t trust our conscience? In the past the church did this for me.)
3) Word of Wisdom (I’ve never had a drink. But with all the drugs out and energy drinks etc., a glass of wine periodically at night to reduce stress sounds like a viable option. But not as a mormon, why? I’m afraid that I would feel so much guilt that I just don’t do it. I don’t want to shock myself causing more guilt. But again I see no spiritual or logical reason for any wrong in having a modest drink periodically. I also don’t see any spiritual reason or commandment behind it as even JS and Christ had a drink. So why do we as mormons need to live a higher law then JS and especially Christ?
I’ve debated for a while whether or not I should ask the following, but why not!:
4) Sex (okay so sex is really tough for me to understand related to the gospel. What is bad sex? seriously please
😳 If it’s okay for straight couples, then why not same sex couples, polygamy, or now days just consenting adults? Please don’t be offended, JS and BY had so many women. Unlike those of us completely committed to a one-to-one marriage sexually, JS and BY could easily just go to the woman of their choice when they wanted to change things up. I feel guilty with the similar thoughts. hen I think, why am I feeling any guilt at all? The Church’s current position seems hypocritical but I could be wrong in my thoughts on this. My TBM friends would just say, “Oh no polygamy was all about keeping Gods commandments.” Really? You mean they didn’t like the idea of sleeping with more then one woman? (Again, I really don’t want to be disrespectful. Boy, I feel a little guilt in discussing BY and JS’s polygamy sex lives. It seems intrusive and too judgmental.)This leads me to my next thought, if life is about creation and the eternities are about creation of more worlds, then the natural order suggest that feelings and desires to having sex are natural and proper for all of us. In other words, sex is in fact a spiritual experience that should be engaged in, as it promotes God, good feelings, and creation. So why then must we be married or confined to sexual limits based on this? Okay here is the toughest one, if polygamy is in heaven (as it still is being practiced in the temples through being sealed to a second wife after one dies) then that means God is having sex with more then one person, based on the stage three opinion of the Godhead.
I know that sex is a tough topic for many of us in the church, it definitely is for me. I felt terrible guilt of having sex when I was first married because my whole life I was taught sex is bad until marriage. Sex still felt wrong after marriage.
I know that I’m going between my 3rd and 4th Stage point of view here by asking specifics but I am clueless as to emotions, such as sex, compared to emotions of spiritual feelings. I really struggle to separate them. I struggle much more with this now that I am questioning my belief system.
What are the absolute commandments we have to obey? The answer is simple: All of them. On the surface, I agree with and can say the same words as a more Stage 2 or 3 type of Mormon. Here is the question I think you need to start asking yourself … or in other words that you need to start asking God, instead of men … what commandments has God given to you? He’s given a lot of commandments to “prophets” throughout the ages. A good number of them conflict with each other making it impossible to be obedient. It seems like you are peering down this path, a path full of paradox. I say that we “should” act on the principles and ideas that we know are enlightening and will enlarge our soul. Look, life is messy. It’s ok to make mistakes. That’s the whole point of the experience, to explore and figure things out through trial and error. What does God expect from
you? (don’t ask what he expected of other people, even if they are seen as prophets) I find it interesting how many of us see the Word of Wisdom as about on the same level of moral turpitude as adultery or unrestricted fornication. It is such a very powerful culture identity, even among doubting Mormons.
Here is another suggestion on trying to sort out the very fine details of sexual morality vs Mormon theology. One resolution and reconciliation that I use is that we really don’t know what the afterlife is like, and we certainly do not know that anyone has physical sexual relations there. Look, I know early Church leaders loved to dive head first into this with the utmost confidence they “knew,” but as you are finding out, the logic and causal relationships quickly break down when we go too far with this idea. I see most (if not all) of this as symbol and metaphor. Don’t get me wrong, I think there is eternal depths of meaning there to explore. The ancient wisdom schools taught us “as above so below.” I really doubt the reverse is complete accurate. Just because we do things here a certain way doesn’t mean that is how it is. As below is not as above.
There are lots of ways to approach all these issues. You will find your own way, and it will be yours. It will be right.
It sounds like you picked up a heavy load of baggage from your parents as you experienced the Church through their eyes. I see you starting to realize this. We hold on to this stuff until we are ready to let go of the weight. Try not to blame them. We all do our best to screw up our children before they leave the house
😆 Valoel wrote:It sounds like you picked up a heavy load of baggage from your parents as you experienced the Church through their eyes. I see you starting to realize this. We hold on to this stuff until we are ready to let go of the weight. Try not to blame them. We all do our best to screw up our children before they leave the house
😆 Now THAT is funny! And so true! It really is interesting how much we teach our kids the same things we were taught — even if we don’t believe it. It’s just what we know.
My $.02…as we progress through the stages of faith, the commandments reduce to one. Love. Everything else hinges on that — and once we understand the deeper meaning, the specifics of the others don’t matter anymore.
As Valoel said, I believe we should strive to keep every commandment we believe is “valid” – every commandment that we feel can be attributed to God / inspiration / revelation. I just think we have to be VERY careful never to equate that with every commandment we like naturally. Without commandments that require we do what we don’t want to do naturally, we would experience no growth and change. To me, the concept of an Atonement / grace that bridges the gap between what we want to do / become and what we actually are able to do / become is the key – as long as it doesn’t rob us of the motivation to change. As far as sexual activity goes, it is powerful – both sublime and terrible – binding and destructive.
It is what you make of it.I have NO problem with some general constraints on such activity within the Gospel, particularly in our current society that leans toward no restrictions and, as a result, is full of really, really, really, really messed up people and destroyed relationships. Otoh, I am saddened by the general insistence on treating discussions of sexual activity as taboo – on a prudish, Victorian attitude that is as destructive as promiscuity.
Personally, I think we simply have to remember that we are not a collection of individuals – that the best standards for communities and societies are NOT the same as the best standards for some individuals – that communal standards tend to center around acceptable minimums for ALL – that what is NOT destructive for some persons often IS destructive for the collective people.
I’m on record as saying that I personally don’t believe spirit children are created in the here-after through any form of “sexual” activity, so this question relative to my next life is irrelevant to me. I don’t know with any certainty whether I’m right or wrong about that, but it just makes the most sense and feels the most right to me.
Finally, I try to be VERY careful about ascribing motives to others whose marital structures are different than mine. It’s easy to write off polygamy as the product of over-active libidos – but it’s just not true in many cases (and absolutely true in others), based on everything I’ve read about it and the polygamists with whom I’m talked.
People are complicated, and we do each other a grave disservice, imo, whenever we try to categorize everyone in a strict binary system where only two options exist – or, in many cases, only one.
From the “dark night of my soul”, I may not have much to offer. 1. LOVE. I agree that the commandment to love is probably the closest thing I can think of as an absolute commandment, if God exists.
2. OBEDIENCE. If you receive a personal commandment, then I suppose you should view it as a commandment to obey (as long as it doesn’t contradict the commandment of Love – no killing, that goes for Nephi too!). But if you are obedient to someone else just because they said so, that seems like moral weakness. Just because an LDS Prophet says something is no longer enough for me to feel I need to obey it. I think obedience fosters codependence and keeps us from developing faith.
3. WoW. By breaking WoW, I’ve been suprised at how little of a deal it actually is. Coffee tastes gross, but black and green tea are quite tasty with some sweetener. Alcohol isn’t even a big deal in moderation (and I’ve been suprised what constitutes moderation – I thought 1 drink and a person was flat-out drunk, but have learned that is absolutely not true, even for a first-time drinker). Coming back to the commandment of Love, I think keeping the WoW has actually made me break the commandment to love. I’ve been very judgemental and critical of Mormon and Non-mormons alike that break the WoW and that has driven love from my heart. There is a particular relationship with my Father-in-Law that has been quite estranged because I have always refused to drink with him. This is a situation I plan to rectify in the near future.
4. SEX. I’m fully supportive of same-sex marriage. I think sex should be more openly discussed, particularly in Mormon society. From what I’ve read about polygamy, it sounds like polygamy was against the commandment to Love, as it frequently resulted in hurt feelings in the other wives. I know that extra-marital sex would absolutely be against the commandment to Love and would be hurtful and unloving toward my wife. Sex within marriage helps to foster love, so should be engaged in regularly.
Love God and Love your neighbor. All other commandments hang on these 2 greatest commandments. That is what I focus on right now… because for most of my life I obeyed many many church commandments with the faith that happiness is most likely achieved for families when built upon teachings of Jesus Christ…which I equated with Mormon commandments (WoW, tithing, church attendance, temple, serving in callings, etc). But I think I have actually been obedient to many of these out of fear or out of acceptance by those around me. Because of this, I have denied myself the ability to really understand God’s love and how I can love others…I missed the point and the other commandments by themselves mean very little without having the right heart when doing any of them.
If obedience to any of these laws are not based on the 2 great commandments, they are not obedience to God’s will, IMO. Fasting without faith is starving, tithing without faith is giving money away, WoW without faith is a diet plan, etc etc etc.
Obedience is the dependent of the first principle of the Gospel, FAITH. So I must develop faith in finding God’s will
for ME, then obedience becomes clear to me what God wants me to do to find His acceptance and to find peace in this life. And it also means I can let go of some things others think are important but I don’t. I can find my own way, if I rely on the greatest commandments. I kinda agree with Ray about constraints are useful for people to grow…but I really think the constraints have to be meaningful and based on a true principle, otherwise it is just asking me to not do something that I could be doing anyway and not impact my spirituality. Constraints need to be based on the teachings of Christ…and I’m not sure all the constraints the current church places on me really have much to do with what Christ taught…they have been handed down by church leaders as good ideas…but don’t have real saving power in and of themselves (i.e. White shirts to pass the sacrament).
So to the original question at hand, I don’t think there is a straight forward list or answer. It is based on each individual person’s faith in God and what they believe God really wants them to do, not do, or sacrifice to do to become a better person. Many of us will share general things (baptism, fidelity in marriage, etc) but some things are more meaningful to others (drinking Coke, FHE, etc). That is my take on this wonderful topic. (I reserve the right to change my opinion tomorrow
I’m with Heber, I think it’s all about the love. There is another thread that entertains this idea (somewhere). In my mind it ALL hinges on love. If you love and respect yourself and everyone else (including God) where can you go wrong?
I like to consider the question “what action will show the greatest love?” when I’m faced with any decision. It’s an ideal, some situations are still gray, but I think it goes a long way.
This angle may take you past the golden rule to the platinum rule: “Treat others as they want to be treated.” Of course not to support unhealthy aspects, addictions etc. Deep down I don’t think they would want that anyway.
Heber13 wrote:I kinda agree with Ray about constraints are useful for people to grow…but I really think the constraints have to be meaningful and based on a true principle, otherwise it is just asking me to not do something that I could be doing anyway and not impact my spirituality. Constraints need to be based on the teachings of Christ…and I’m not sure all the constraints the current church places on me really have much to do with what Christ taught…they have been handed down by church leaders as good ideas…but don’t have real saving power in and of themselves (i.e. White shirts to pass the sacrament).
I feel like I have lived a life of constraints but based on fear. I think learning I’m codependent has freed me to truly think for myself. Now that I understand this I have started stripping away the old outer layer of the previous superficial me. It’s actually exciting to think that I’m rebuilding into my true identity. However, I am finding that I am a far more forgiving person and frankly it scares me. I have never felt social drinking moderately is bad, and can allow others to accept you more in business dealings and friendship. Drinking in social situations is very symbolic. I think the whole “tea” is bad is completely a joke according to my understanding of science, and in Asian countries is also very symbolic. I guess I could go on breaking down each item/belief/commandment and re-evaluating it. I think this is important for me to do. I feel like Adam leaving the Garden of Eden. As a stage three mormon I did what I was told, knowing that I was under the protection of God under prophets because it wasn’t my choice to own. If the prophet was wrong “god wouldn’t blame me right?” Now I’m in the dark and dreary world waiting for more knowledge and enlightenment, and though I have control over my thoughts and beliefs the world appears more barren, but it also gives me a chance to build a whole new city the way I like it. I just hope I recognize the difference between light and darkness, because the church I once knew doesn’t seem so light anymore. Yet it still has powerful teachings and light.
Being able to have discernment is a concern for me, as I don’t know how to trust myself. The stage 3 of me wants me back, I can feel it. A part of me wants to just return to the old ways, for the good and the bad. It just seems safer, more normal, and less stressful. But honestly, I can’t return to that anymore because I’ve been in that place and there is nothing new for me to learn. The new place is much more interesting but all of it seems foreign. I thought this was going to be a little easier… darn darn darn…
I guess I feel like God is telling me to go out and try some of my new beliefs in order to really know the truth; such as try a glass of wine or tea. I would rather God just tell me, but when I pray the feeling is try it out. I actually feel a nudge as if God wants me to walk this path. But this is contrary to my previous self. If I don’t try new foods I’ll never know if it tastes good. Sometimes the new food taste horrible and sometimes it becomes one of my favorite dishes, but I won’t know until I try. However, if in the end I find I’m wrong about all this will my road be so far from the church that returning could be too difficult? And if I’m right and the church is not “true” the way I used to believe and emphasized by the majority of stage 3 members, then I must accept this and lose a portion of my own identity. Now I think I understand the threat people in the third stage feel about studying history (outside the norms) and searching for ones true religious self. This road is not easily traveled, and much more difficult then many in the church understand. I just hope in the end it’s much more rewarding then being a robot. It’s strange, I find myself critical of some church teachings and doctrines but also find myself wanting to defend this to the outside world critics and opposition. Now that’s a paradox.
godlives wrote:Being able to have discernment is a concern for me, as I don’t know how to trust myself. The stage 3 of me wants me back, I can feel it. A part of me wants to just return to the old ways, for the good and the bad. It just seems safer, more normal, and less stressful. But honestly, I can’t return to that anymore
I feel the same way, my friend. I think about this often. I guess I have recently let go of more of the fear that I could be going down a path that I can never recover from, and instead trust that if I stay honest with myself…the truth will set me free. Free of fear, free of guilt, free of obligatory obedience. It is comforting to know others have walked this path I feel I’m on as well, so I really appreciate your comments. I think this path leads to something better…and I believe that “something better” will still include obedience to gospel principles…but with a greater understanding of the purposes for me personally. I think the unknown ahead of us doesn’t have to be scary, and it doesn’t have to be something completely different from what we were comfortable with in our Stage 3 safe environment. But we can’t go back…but need to go forward to see what we must learn.I do not let go of obedience to commandments…I just take it much more serious now. And I still think that means grounding them all in Love for God, Love for my neighbor. Thanks again for sharing your story.
godlives wrote:Being able to have discernment is a concern for me, as I don’t know how to trust myself.
I understand exactly how you feel. In Stage 3, I could trust my leaders and the prophets to give me direction. I could also pray and receive confirmation from “the spirit” that their counsel was correct. I could also receive promptings from the spirit to guide me, although I knew the Spirit would never give me direction against their counsel (see the latest General Conference for a reiteration of this principle).
I started a previous thread on this topic “How do you feel the Spirit?” because I was so confused on the subject and wasn’t sure I could trust myself to know what the spirit was telling me. Before my disaffection, “the Spirit” had confirmed to me that the church was True, JS was a prophet, BoM was true, WoW was a true principle, etc., etc. After my disaffection, I felt those exact same spiritual feelings confirming to me that JS was not a prophet, but rather was a fraud, Church was false, Christ is not necessary to my salvation, I should break WoW. I was left with what I saw were two choices (1) I had no idea what spiritual promptings actually were and I had and was continuing to just make things up for myself or (2) God is a liar because these two sets of confirmations were in complete disharmony with each other. Others on the forum suggested (3) that spiritual confirmations should not be viewed as a way to know truth, but rather that God is just giving me general encouragement or telling me to keep going.
I decided to compare it to teaching my son his colors. Sometimes we’d get to a tricky blue-green color and he would say “green”, when I would have thought “blue”. Rather than correct him, I would encourage him because it was close, even if it wasn’t exactly right. Sometimes, even if he was completely wrong, I would still praise him for saying the name of any color, just because he used a color word rather than some unrelated noun or letter. Maybe my feelings were God just encouraging me for trying.
I’m deep in the “dark night of the soul” right now and still experience your confusion. Lucky for me my wife is a deconverted mormon (she was a Mormon convert from Catholicism) who is now a Stage 5 Catholic. She is very supportive of my journey. I have basically abandoned all of my former beliefs in the hopes of freeing myself from anything/everything that keeps me from progressing in the way God wants me to. I am now waiting for God to guide me and rebuild my faith from the ground up. I meditate and pray (sometimes just trying to reach out with my soul to touch the Divine, sometimes using the Mormon pattern of prayer, sometimes reciting the Lord’s prayer, sometimes ending in the name of Christ, sometimes not). So far I haven’t received anything. But I’ve only been on my journey for 2 and 1/2 months and I expect the dark night of the soul to last a long time.
At other times I think that “faith” may be an evolutionary adaptation for a self-aware species to cope with a fundamentally chaotic existence without going crazy. In these times I think that self-awareness is probably an evolutionary disadvantageous trait that will probably be lost through future cycles of evolution. The spirit then, would be an irrational assurance (through some chemical process in the brain) of what a self-aware individual hopes, but cannot prove. It would explain why so many people can have such wildly divergent, but equally devout, beliefs, as well as the fundamental change I received with regard to the spirit with my disaffection.
I don’t know which is true, that the Spirit really comes from God, or that it comes from within with a perfectly “natural” explanation, or if it something else altogether. It’s the “dark night of the soul”. I trust that if there is a God, and if He is guiding me on this journey of faith, he will give me guidance when he sees fit. If he exists, he must know that I will latch on to any truth that He gives me. I was an honestly happy TBM, living the “principles of the Gospel” with all my heart. I will similarly happily abide by whatever truth he decides to give me in the future. Until He gives me such direction, I am trying to live by societally accepted norms and leave myself open to His instruction, if/when He decides to bestow it upon me.
MisterCurie wrote:At other times I think that “faith” may be an evolutionary adaptation for a self-aware species to cope with a fundamentally chaotic existence without going crazy. In these times I think that self-awareness is probably an evolutionary disadvantageous trait that will probably be lost through future cycles of evolution. The spirit then, would be an irrational assurance (through some chemical process in the brain) of what a self-aware individual hopes, but cannot prove. It would explain why so many people can have such wildly divergent, but equally devout, beliefs, as well as the fundamental change I received with regard to the spirit with my disaffection.
Excellent post, MC! Today I view spiritual experiences as the expected result based on what an individual has been taught. IOW, the Mormon lives by the paradigm of “read the book, ask if it’s true, if enough faith, get the burning, this is confirmation of its truth.”
This strawman is not at all unique to Mormonism. I heard an interview with a born-again EV yesterday where he said that he was not concerned with his risky behaviors (he is a base-jumper) because “he knows he is saved in Jesus,” but he IS concerned for his friends because many of them have not yet accepted Jesus as their Savior…. His confidence was as matter-of-fact as anything I’ve ever heard in LDS testimony meetings or GC.
So, like you MC, I see faith as a taught process of self-awareness, self-concept that keeps many with a clear hope and purpose of living day to day. The cog-dis that many of us go through at some point is a definite challenge as it completely alters the “story” we’ve grown up with; but once we adapt to a new, more congruent paradigm to our understanding, the confusion and hopelessness ceases, and emotional peace shows up in a completely different way than before.
At least that’s been my experience.
Rix wrote:So, like you MC, I see faith as a taught process of self-awareness, self-concept that keeps many with a clear hope and purpose of living day to day. The cog-dis that many of us go through at some point is a definite challenge as it completely alters the “story” we’ve grown up with; but once we adapt to a new, more congruent paradigm to our understanding, the confusion and hopelessness ceases, and emotional peace shows up in a completely different way than before.
I’m not quite sure that it is a “taught process” as much as an essential element of self-preservation of the species, but I suppose the principles we obtain faith in are taught principles.
I have found that the cog-dis disappears when we alter our expectations (I’m sure Ray would whole-heartedly agree). I can read historical church history without any cog-dis now. In fact, just the opposite, it is the faithful church history that causes cog-dis now
😯 .😆 I think that it’s all about love too. But I am not sure I completely agree with the Beatles that all we need is love. I think that its a process to becoming loving in the Godlike sense of the word which encompasses an incredible list of attributes and capacities. But just being loving doesn’t save us. We are fallen and must obtain the blessings of the atonement. So obedience becomes very important if you think in terms of being saved from sin and death and the nature of the natural man which is the opposite of love anyway. And I think the world and its philosphies misunderstand what love is and what it isn’t. God loves but he doesn’t disobey law in order to do it. God is perfectly loving and perfectly obedient. “If ye love me, keep my commandments.” That is what the Savior said. It’s difficult for me to separate the two because I believe they are synonymous. If ones loves, one will be obedient. If one obeys, one will learn and become love. And I think real love is born of sacrifice. If we don’t sacrifice, we won’t learn love. Some of our commandments are simply to teach us sacrifice.
With regards to the WofW, I think it is easy to miss the forest for the trees as one might stress over the caffeinne content of every substance one consumes and miss the entire point of the exercize. The end of section 89 refers to the early Israelites and their obedience in placing blood over their doorways. It was a sign between the people and God and because of it the destroying angel passed them by. It’s the same with us. Perhaps it is the substances themselves that are the destroying angel. Perhaps they are not. Perhaps we need to have wisdom about our obedience and keep a proper perspective about why we do what we do. And I think there is something to be said about doing it like Adam did the alter. He didn’t understand why but he did it anyway. I can’t believe the man didn’t gain some understanding over time about why he was doing all of it. I think it works the same with us. We obey even if we don’t understand and the understanding and vision comes and its ok that some of the understanding comes from hindsight.
Now about sex. It’s been a long time since I have talked to a member of the church that retains a victorian attitude about the subject. I do know some that are more conservative in which subjects they are more comfortable about discussing. But if my lesson on chastity last Sunday was an indicator, I would say that most people can discuss the subject openly.
Everything in the LDS gospel is about family. The law of chastity is most fundamentally there to protect the family. I am becoming persuaded that even the WofW might be there to protect the law of chastity and by extention the family. The power to procreate is a tremendous power and the natural man would do incredibly evil things with it. I think it is like any two edged sword. Because it has such capacity for good and evil, the rules around it must be stringent. Secondarily, I think it has something to do with love as well. If bridling your passions gives one the capacity for love, there must be something very important about self control. I find it interesting as well that the Lord isn’t talking about suppression. He is talking about properly guiding ones impulses. Whether you are talking about sex or emotions or biological processes, proper guidance and limits is the key to real happiness and health. It’s that way with children. It’s that way with adults.
I just listened to Elder Oaks conference podcast entitled “Love and Law”. I found it helpful in understanding, if anything, the LDS perspective on love and obedience in contrast to popular trends in thinking about it. It’s pretty direct, but I think it cuts to the chase about the perspective. Maybe this talk has already been discussed somewhere on the forum. I am trying to figure out how to provide a link to a podcast, but haven’t figured it out. I will try to find a few quotes.
I wanted to chime in on the topic of changing our practices and views as we shed baggage. It is vital to do a lot of soul searching, look honestly in the mirror and ask the all important question “Am I trading up?” A follow up to that is “What are the risks and potential rewards.” Sometimes that answer is yes. Sometimes that answer is no. Sometimes we don’t know.
Those are personal questions that only we can answer. And once our eyes are open, we should be willing to accept responsibility for our deviations from established and tested norms in our community.
I personally feel that I experience better health, and have not lacked in spirituality while living a non-standard interpretation of the Word of Wisdom. Nobody else should follow me. I do not have the new “right” answer for anyone else. I am on a journey that I must take, and this has been one of the hardest hobgoblins for me to shove back into the box since disaffection. It isn’t because I am suffering ill consequences. In fact, that is exactly why it is hard. I really have a hard time connecting and finding meaning in my old ways (orthodox).
So is this disobedience? Or is it obedience to what I learn from first-hand experience? I listen to my body to tell me what is “good” and “bad.” That has been working FAR better for me than only focusing on a “forbidden four” substances. I still believe in the Word of Wisdom. I do. It is a marvelous and inspired concept.
Valoel wrote:I wanted to chime in on the topic of changing our practices and views as we shed baggage. It is vital to do a lot of soul searching, look honestly in the mirror and ask the all important question “Am I trading up?” A follow up to that is “What are the risks and potential rewards.”
Sometimes that answer is yes. Sometimes that answer is no. Sometimes we don’t know until we
Those are personal questions that only we can answer. And once our eyes are open, we should be willing to accept responsibility for our deviations from established and tested norms in our community.
I personally feel that I experience better health, and have not lacked in spirituality while living a non-standard interpretation of the Word of Wisdom. Nobody else should follow me. I do not have the new “right” answer for anyone else. I am on a journey that I must take, and this has been one of the hardest hobgoblins for me to shove back into the box since disaffection. It isn’t because I am suffering ill consequences. In fact, that is exactly why it is hard. I really have a hard time connecting and finding meaning in my old ways (orthodox).
So is this disobedience? Or is it obedience to what I learn from first-hand experience? I listen to my body to tell me what is “good” and “bad.” That has been working FAR better for me than only focusing on a “forbidden four” substances. I still believe in the Word of Wisdom. I do. It is a marvelous and inspired concept.
Very well stated. I think this gets to the core of the “cafeteria” mormon approach. We need to look at everything in the church with the focus of keeping things that help us and tossing things that hinder us, evaluating if a trade would be an up or a down trade. Disaffection gives one a new perspective from which to make that decision. There are a lot of complex factors that go into such a decision and the balance of those will be different for each individual. Certainly someone else’s decision should not go into the balance for another individual. Once you leave Stage 3, you are on a very personal journey.
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