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I don’t agree with the supposition of much of the Mormon dissentent is control. To say that the church is this big bad boogie man is false. Mormonism despite all the rhetoric and cynisim IS NOT a cult. Anyone can leave at any time. So then comes the speech about divorce and family, etc. If it is so controlling then why not get your family out? I think control is present on the part of many in the church but to blow it out of purportion as SOME do is rediculous. Especially on the part of those who are out of the church but seemingly come back for more, just to stir the proverbial crap for those of us who are truely struggling because we care about our faith and church. Cadence my statement isn’t directed to or at you. On the contrary I would suggest that many like all of us here get bombarded with BS from people with agenda further complicating matters of the heart, spirit and mind.
Cadence wrote:Take the whole earring and tattoo thing. It is not doctrinal or even scriptural, yet most devout members are going to adhere to it and expect others in the church to do so. They are going to make a judgment against you if you do not. It is just the culture we live in.
It does make a difference in
ourmind even if it does not control someone else’s perception and reaction. It makes a big difference to me when I show up to church every week with tattoos and earrings. Does this knowledge control other people? No. They will or will not make their judgments. They might even be so bold as to tell me I should leave because I am disobeying the commandments of God. I can tell them to shove it (in a nice way) because they are wrong! AND I
KNOWWHY THEY ARE WRONG. Without understanding the difference between gospel, doctrine, policy and culture, I am left to the whims and control of any jackass that decides to control and manipulate me by claiming their personal preferences are universal revelations from God almighty to the whole church.
The knowledge doesn’t change everyone else for our convenience. It changes us, so we are not buffeted by every wind of group preference.
Thank you, cwald, for asking – and for the way you asked. I will try to elaborate more precisely – even if that makes this comment quite long. First, it’s hard to “get my goat” – and Cadence’s comment didn’t do that. In reading my comment, I see that it’s easy to believe that happened, but I actually took a LONG time in writing it and tried to be very careful in my choice of words. I didn’t do as well as I wanted, so I will try again.
I was responding primarily to the following:
Quote:If you truly believe in the church then you should probably obey and do everything you are told. If you do not believe well then you get to make up your mind what is important as you go along.
I simply disagree strongly with both of those sentences.
I believe they set up a false and unrealistic dichotomy that is self-fulfilling.With those two statements, there is no way for someone who is constructing their own paradigm – their own personal faith – to succeed within the LDS Church. I reject that totally. I believe it’s a construction, again, that is self-fulfilling. Taking each statement one-by-one:
Quote:If you truly believe in the church then you should probably obey and do everything you are told.
WHY? There is nothing in Mormon theology that says any mortal is infallible. Our scriptures are replete with examples of leaders all the way up to prophets and kings who have made horrible decisions and “fallen”. It is Lucifer’s plan that says “do everything you are told”. Just because some members and leaders (a relatively small minority, imo and ime) say things like that, doesn’t make it right and what I “should probably do”.
I don’t know of a single member at any level who does (or even can do) “everything they are told”.It might make it easier from a conflict avoidance perspective to just shut down my brain and do what I’m told, but that’s not going to bring me the growth that Mormonism teaches as the ideal. I just couldn’t disagree more strongly. Quote:If you do not believe well then you get to make up your mind what is important as you go along.
This is even more . . . wrong . . . to me. It implies that those who are trying to “make up their minds as they go along” are not “believers”. They might not believe in everything that everyone says and does and asks, but to dismiss their efforts to understand personally as the result of unbelief . . . is a classic, stereotypical TBM response. It’s not what I think Cadence really believes, based on the body of what he has written here. It is a rejection of all we do here at this site – to show that we CAN “make up our minds what is important as we go along” and still be “believers”.
I refuse to be labeled as an unbeliever just because I believe differently about some things than others do. Period. Full stop. No debate. End of story. Ain’t happening.I hope that helps clarify what I said and why I said it.
Cadence,
I really like you and your contributions here.I just disagree adamantly with those two sentences – and there’s no way I am going to let them go unaddressed. I think they came from a place of frustration and bitterness, and I believe strongly that you have to come to a point where you really don’t believe them to find ANY degree of peace and joy – whether inside or outside the LDS Church, since the conflict they describe isn’t going away no matter what you do. That conflict is part of life, so I believe you are going to have to find a way to reach peace with it. That won’t happen for you (or anyone else) under the parameters of the two sentences you wrote and I addressed. Old-Timer wrote:Thank you, cwald, for asking – and for the way you asked. I will try to elaborate more precisely – even if that makes this comment quite long…….
Okay, I can live with that. I got a completely different message from your second response than I did from the first. Glad I asked for clarification.
I hope you don’t feel like we are dog piling on your too much Cadence. It seems like you struck just the right chord for lots of counter responses 
FenixDown wrote:I don’t agree with the supposition of much of the Mormon dissentent is control. To say that the church is this big bad boogie man is false. Mormonism despite all the rhetoric and cynisim IS NOT a cult. Anyone can leave at any time. So then comes the speech about divorce and family, etc. If it is so controlling then why not get your family out? I think control is present on the part of many in the church but to blow it out of purportion as SOME do is rediculous. Especially on the part of those who are out of the church but seemingly come back for more, just to stir the proverbial crap for those of us who are truely struggling because we care about our faith and church.
Cadence my statement isn’t directed to or at you. On the contrary I would suggest that many like all of us here get bombarded with BS from people with agenda further complicating matters of the heart, spirit and mind.
It’s easy to claim that the Church is mostly benign and that membership doesn’t often involve some level of coercive control as long as you still like the Church and believe in it to some extent or if you happen to have a family that is fairly laid-back about it. Unfortunately this is not always the case. Personally, I think that many “New Order Mormons” that don’t believe in the Church’s claims become increasingly frustrated and cynical about it precisely because of the fact that they don’t really feel like they can just leave any time they want much less get their family out of it even if they wanted to.
Sometimes it’s just not as easy as simply explaining to people that already expect you to believe in the Church forever that you don’t believe all this anymore. To many TBMs, seeing some members all of a sudden stop believing in the Church is simply not acceptable and they just don’t understand or respect this point-of-view at all but at the same time they refuse to really listen to the actual problems that people have with the Church.
I don’t think this kind of intolerance toward unfaithful members was really planned out by the Church in a sinister and malicious way at all; I think it is mostly just an unintended side-effect of some of the combined doctrines and culture that have developed and taken on a life of their own such as the idea of eternal families and assuming that you absolutely know things mostly by intuition and feelings (testimony), etc. If you are convinced that you already have absolute truth it only makes it that much harder to really respect any alternative beliefs that you don’t happen to agree with.
Yes, DA, I think you are correct. AND, I might have to respectfully disagree with the notion that the church ISN’T a cult. Really? I don’t know how one could see it as anything but…and I don’t mean this in a bad way necessarily. All religions are “cultish” and ours certainly is no exception. I mean this sincerely, which definition of CULT would the LDS church, or any religious organization, not fit under?
cult
/kʌlt/ Show Spelled[kuhlt] Show IPA
–noun
1. a particular system of religious worship, esp. with reference to its rites and ceremonies.
2. an instance of great veneration of a person, ideal, or thing, esp. as manifested by a body of admirers.
3.the object of such devotion.
4.a group or sect bound together by veneration of the same thing, person, ideal, etc.
5.Sociology . a group having a sacred ideology and a set of rites centering around their sacred symbols.
6.a religion or sect considered to be false, unorthodox, or extremist, with members often living outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader.
7.the members of such a religion or sect.
8.any system for treating human sickness that originated by a person usually claiming to have sole insight into the nature of disease, and that employs methods regarded as unorthodox or unscientific.
From Wiki….Cult – The word cult pejoratively refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are reasonably considered strange.[1] The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices. The narrower, derogatory sense of the word is a product of the 20th century, especially since the 1980s, and is considered subjective. It is also a result of the anti-cult movement which uses the word in reference to groups seen as authoritarian, exploitative and possibly dangerous. The word implies a group which is a minority in society.
While I understand the literal meaning of the word “cult,” it’s just too charged of a word in contemporary language. Let’s not get into that discussion and sidetrack the point of this thread.
Oh? Okay.
I echo what Brian said. My response — where I described areas where I think the distinction between doctrine/policy and cultural values ARE important, helped me clarify my own thinking….thanks Cadence!
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