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My wife came into the room and I was watching this on my phone and she made the comment (half in joking) about me on one of my anti mormon web sites and I explained it was a talk by one of the apostles and she just rolled her eyes. She knows my motives are not always pure. She gets a little upset that I spend so much time on this site. It’s so anti, isn’t it? I just remind her that I go to church every week, do my calling on the HC and am a better HT than she is a VT. That usually does the trick. I will admit that I spend much more time trying to justify my new feelings than I do studying the scriptures to get closer to God. These days the latter is almost nonexistence. church0333 wrote:My wife came into the room and I was watching this on my phone and she made the comment (half in joking) about me on one of my anti mormon web sites and I explained it was a talk by one of the apostles and she just rolled her eyes. She knows my motives are not always pure. She gets a little upset that I spend so much time on this site. It’s so anti, isn’t it? I just remind her that I go to church every week, do my calling on the HC and am a better HT than she is a VT. That usually does the trick. I will admit that I spend much more time trying to justify my new feelings than I do studying the scriptures to get closer to God. These days the latter is almost nonexistence.
That’s a very honest last couple of sentences. My hope is that when I work through the uncertainties I will be able to develop a better relationship with God. Wherever that may be. I hope it’s LDS.
church0333 wrote:I will admit that I spend much more time trying to justify my new feelings than I do studying the scriptures to get closer to God. These days the latter is almost nonexistence.
Perhaps the scriptures act as a prop or catalyst to help bring us closer to God. That is good but it is not the only way. I have had moments reading posting here that helped me feel the peace of the spirit. I have also felt the spirit in quiet contemplation or viewing a splendid sunrise. Then again, I am better at justifying then is typical – maybe I’m just more comfortable at it.
😆 I came across this address yesterday and it was very interesting to me. He asks “Is it really possible to know the truth?” I like the statement “The thing about truth is that it exists beyond belief. It is true even if nobody believes it.” So the truth exists, and is independent, but can I know the truth? Here is an indirect response:
Quote:The adversary has many cunning strategies for keeping mortals from the truth. He offers the belief that truth is relative; appealing to our sense of tolerance and fairness, he keeps the real truth hidden by claiming that one person’s “truth” is as valid as any other. Some he entices to believe that there is an absolute truth out there somewhere but that it is impossible for anyone to know it.
And what is the ultimate truth?
Quote:Now, what is this truth?
It is His gospel. It is the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is “the way, the truth, and the life.”
If we will only have enough courage and faith to walk in His path, it will lead us to peace of heart and mind, to lasting meaning in life, to happiness in this world, and to joy in the world to come. The Savior is “not far from every one of us.” We have His promise that if we seek Him diligently, we will find Him.
It is my obligation to know for myself:
Quote:The invitation to trust the Lord does not relieve us from the responsibility to know for ourselves. This is more than an opportunity; it is an obligation—and it is one of the reasons we were sent to this earth.
His testimony says to me that I can know the truth:
Quote:I add my witness as an Apostle of the Lord, that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of the living God. I know this with all my heart and mind. I know this by the witness and power of the Holy Ghost.
Dieter Uchtdorf wrote:The invitation to trust the Lord does not relieve us from the responsibility to know for ourselves. This is more than an opportunity it is an obligation my young friends, it is an obligation, it is one of the reasons we are sent to this earth.
Latter Day Saints are not asked to blindly accept everything they hear, we are encouraged to think and discover truth for ourselves. We are expected to ponder, to search, to evaluate and thereby to come to a personal knowledge of the truth.
Brigham Young Said; “I am afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not enquire for themselves of God whether they are led by him. I am fearful they settle down in a state of blind self security.
Let every man and women know by the whispering of the Spirit of God to themselves whether their leaders are walking in the path the Lord dictates.”
We seek for truth wherever we may find it.
There is so much here that needs to be part of LDS culture, but really isn’t.First, LDS often believe that asking, and getting a spiritual witness of something, trumps studying it out in one’s mind. Many TBMs accept the standard LDS pronouncements as more “true” than empirical knowledge. This is flawed thinking. unless we study something out in our mind, how are we to be sure that our spiritual witness isn’t just wishful thinking or confirmation bias?
as well, spiritual confirmation may be upon some aspect of a thing, but we often aggregate our assertion of truth inductively to the whole. this, too, is flawed thinking. i can obtain a witness, through prayer, that the book of mormon is true for me, in that it testifies of christ and uplifts. once, i believed it was what joseph smith claimed it was: the history of native americans. my witness, my deep spiritual experience was then in conflict with the facts. some solve this cognitive dissonance by a “limited geography model”, at odds with Joseph smith’s pronouncements to the contrary (see the wentworth letter). what i realized is that the book is completely inspired and prophetic without being literal. i disaggregated my summmary assertion of truth and found deeper truth in HOW the book is true for me.
many LDS summarily reject other teachings, especially scripture from other traditions. i see that Uchtdorf is encouraging us to open our minds to the idea that truth is everywhere we can find it.
shawn wrote:Quote:The adversary has many cunning strategies for keeping mortals from the truth. He offers the belief that truth is relative; appealing to our sense of tolerance and fairness, he keeps the real truth hidden by claiming that one person’s “truth” is as valid as any other. Some he entices to believe that there is an absolute truth out there somewhere but that it is impossible for anyone to know it.
i simply don’t buy the above statement in the least. truths come in all forms, includingnrelative truths, and absolutes are far less common than most LDS wish for. i find that devil-monguering like this is simply playing to fears, causing us to emotionally reject some very important things to know about epistemology.wayfarer, fwiw, I really do think the top leadership is trying to get the membership to accept things like what Pres. Uchtdorf said in this talk – and I see lots of examples of that effort. Even Pres. Packer, when he’s not talking about sex-related topics, teaches a lot of similar things regularly. I think the top church leadership as a collective body has moved away from the days of Pres. Benson and Elder McConkie in most areas and is teaching to the generations below you and me; it’s the older members, especially, who were weaned in the 60’s and 70’s who are fighting the change.
Shawn, wayfarer, that’s for the excerpts. I think they were some of the highlights 
If you get the chance it might be nice to add them to the ‘quotes library’ thread in Support.
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