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Bill, I wish badly that everyone in the Church really understood those verses. Sometimes, I want to shake people and say:
Quote:If we can’t expect everyone to have some kind of knowledge about something as basic as the nature of Jesus’ role, how in the world can we expect everyone to have some kind of knowledge about anything else?
cesc101 wrote:my motto to: live as if there is a God (that includes accepting the church as true), at least i’ll get rewarded in the end; and if there’s no God, then i’ll have nothing to loose.
A classic application of Pascal’s Wager:
DBMormon wrote:For me and this is only me. If I came to find [a literal LDS church foundation story] not the case it would make the church as a certainity no more beneficial to me then the universalist church down the street. Not that there is anything wrong with any other faith, just that truth then becomes realtive to what an individual needs rather then God putting in a general guideline applicable to everyone.
Yup, this is where I am. And if the Universalist Church down the street is a viable option – the question remains, “Why make the church work?”
If truth becomes relative to what an individual needs then what does the LDS church offer that fulfills my needs?
The church has a great sense of community and service to each other.
The church has a clear set of moral expectations that are helpful especially for establishing standards during the tumultuous teenager and young adult years.
There is a heritage and a way of life associated with my place within Mormonism. My extended family is Mormon. The sacrifices of my pioneer ancestors (I use the term pioneer for the first generation in the church and not necessarily to mean having crossed the plains) have already been made to establish this heritage, it is now a part of us.
For better or worse the church is clannish. This is part of the “barriers to exit.” I am concerned that the very same extended family support system would turn on us with varying degrees of pity, tolerance, and rejection if we were to stop participating in the LDS church or join any other church.
DW knows how I think and she knows where I am coming from. She also believes in a more literal foundation story for the church. As part of my love and support for her, I will make the church work. If another church would offer me more or less a similar pro/con list than the LDS church then why not make the decision that establishes the greatest amount of good (at least from my limited ability to perceive and foretell “good”) for the largest amount of people that I can.
Part of me would love to immerse myself in a church and doctrine that I could feel was more of a natural fit to how I currently see the world. But I also see this journey as a (necessary for me) step of growing up and figuring myself out somewhat alone without taking as many communal shortcuts. This does not mean that I operate in a vacuum, but it does mean that I seek after various ideals from various inspirational sources and cobble them together as parts of my future self. Rather than borrowing my identity from a communal ideal, I am me. I can’t say exactly who I will be in the future, but I trust that (even if I’m no longer following a well defined map to my ultimate self) there is a purpose to my journey and that a loving HF is able to turn the aggregate of me and my experiences to His glory.
This is why I StayLDS!
:thumbup: Awesome.
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