Found the truth, what next?

[_KevinSim]

The problem is that many members who find this stuff out don't inform their spouses of what they found or how they may be feeling about it. Showing doubts is very discouraged in LDS culture.

If showing doubts really is "very discouraged in LDS culture," then why haven't I ever heard about it? I've been exposed to LDS culture for 52 years. I told my mission president that if he didn't explain to me why some of Ed Decker's pamphlets weren't true I was going to leave the Church, for goodness sake! If that's not expressing doubt, what is? He never discouraged me from expressing doubt; he just gave his reaction to Decker's pamphlet and that was that.

[_sock puppet]

The problem is that many members who find this stuff out don't inform their spouses of what they found or how they may be feeling about it. Showing doubts is very discouraged in LDS culture.

If showing doubts really is "very discouraged in LDS culture," then why haven't I ever heard about it? I've been exposed to LDS culture for 52 years. I told my mission president that if he didn't explain to me why some of Ed Decker's pamphlets weren't true I was going to leave the Church, for goodness sake! If that's not expressing doubt, what is? He never discouraged me from expressing doubt; he just gave his reaction to Decker's pamphlet and that was that.

What was your MP's explano of the Decker materials?

[_KevinSim]

I stopped believing almost 2 years ago. I still don't know what the best course is. Best of luck to you! Unfortunately the church is only pro-family so long as families
share the same faith. When that changes, the doctrine and the culture becomes very anti-family and many marriages are dissolved as a direct result of this.

Are you talking about families where both spouses believe, and then one spouse stops believing, or are you talking about marriages where one spouse has never believed? If the latter, then why do you say "the church is only pro-family so long as families share the same faith"? My experience has been that there are many marriages the church has fully supported where one spouse believes and one does not.

And are you talking about one spouse simply stopping believing, or are you talking about one spouse openly disagreeing with LDS theology? Those are also two different things.

My wife got me the biography of Gordon Hinckley in the form of a book on tape, and while listening to it found out that Hinckley himself had a few years of doubt, where he wasn't sure what he believed. There's nothing wrong with that, and I certainly can't picture the LDS Church being opposed to Hinckley for those few years.

It's only when people or spouses start openly opposing the Church that the other spouse or the people around said person do anything to remove said person from their circle of influence, if they do it at all. I have a friend who left the Church back in the mid 1980s and who did openly oppose it, and I never did stop talking to him. Quite the opposite; he eventually stopped talking to me; apparently it was okay for him to criticize my theology, but when I started criticizing his theology, he called it abuse, and cut off communication about six months ago.

[_KevinSim]

These two paragraphs seem to comprehensively contradict each other.
In the first paragraph you strongly support the Church in fighting against making same sex marriage legal.
In the second you state strong support for making same sex marriage legal.
Am I confused or are you?

Perhaps a certain amount of both. But I'm pretty sure that any confusion on my part is mostly in my presentation, rather than in my thinking.

What I meant to say was that gay couples should be allowed to marry, but not before polygamous triples are allowed to marry. As I said, if someone were to propose a law that made it legal for any two or three adults of any gender combination to marry, I would support that law.

Laws in the State of California legalized gay marriage, but did nothing to legalize polygamous marriage, so I was in favor of the proposition that struck down those laws. There's simply no reason to legalize gay marriage and at the same time keep polygamy illegal.

[_KevinSim]

Some Mormons become Evangelicals and believe if they say "Jesus I'm a sinner, will you save me today?" you'll go to Heaven and sing with sexless angels for all eternity, occassionally looking at the Damned screaming in Hell.

I've never understood why someone would leave the LDS Church and then become an Evangelical. I can understand why someone can hear what some people say about Joseph Smith and early LDS leaders, and come to the conclusion that God could not have inspired it. But is it really more likely that God would inspire Biblical Christianity than that He would inspire the LDS Church?

Daheshist don't have a "church" but they can go to UNITY churches if they want. Unity School of Christianity. But you don't need to. Going to Heaven is not determined on making "men" like The Brethren happy. It's how one leads their life, with truth, humility, good works, and honor. I discovered long ago, that Mormons don't have enough of any of that.

Don't punish God because Joseph Smith lied to you.

Does God think that going "to Heaven is not determined on making 'men' like The Brethren happy"? Does God think that it's "how one leads their life, with truth, humility, good works, and honor" instead? If so, how have you found out that God thinks that way?

[_Jhall118]

Once again...
Religion poisons everything. It's sad that relationships get formed and broken over who believes in which fairy tale. Life is too short.

[_Themis]

If showing doubts really is "very discouraged in LDS culture," then why haven't I ever heard about it?

Monson

Consider the Face of Doubt. It too is one of failure’s many masks. Doubt destroys. It chips away at our confidence, undermines our testimony, and erodes our resistance to evil. Shun its winsome smile.
http://LDS.org/new-era/1977/09/faces-and-attitudes?lang=eng&query=faith+doubts+%28name%3a%22Thomas+S.+Monson%22%29

I suspect because you are playing apologist and cannot admit it. This is just one example of many. Many members will not express doubts publicly for fear of what others in the group may think. Monson teaches quite clearly to avoid doubts. Now this is true of other groups, and some like the JW are worse. Now even though it is taught specifically at times, it tends to be more of a cultural group thing used to protect members from leaving the group. Much of it is not even intentional, but due to group dynamics.

I've been exposed to LDS culture for 52 years. I told my mission president that if he didn't explain to me why some of Ed Decker's pamphlets weren't true I was going to leave the Church, for goodness sake! If that's not expressing doubt, what is? He never discouraged me from expressing doubt; he just gave his reaction to Decker's pamphlet and that was that.

I said LDS culture discourages doubt, not that no one will express it. I have been in the church all my life, and like you been on a mission. I know any doubts I have had I have kept mostly to myself for those reasons. This is true of many members. Some of course will be more open then others. I think members should express doubts from the beginning, if they have any from new information they may come across, with their spouses. It makes for a better marriage and better understanding. Since he did not, dumping it all on their spouse at once is not a good idea. It generally will cause a much larger crisis which could cause a divorce, especially if their spouse is like you, considers God as more important. This is of course taught in church.

[_quark]

I would try to make church as fun as possible. Why not? If you're stuck going to church and the temple, I'd just play it up. Buy a Transformers lunch box and take it to sacrament meeting. While everyone is partaking of the wonder read (or Granny's if you live in Utah), you whip out the lunch pale and crack it open. Don't forget your thermos! Those things rock! I love chocolate milk in the thermos but you might want orange juice since it has a bit more spice to it.

In between classes, I think it might be fun to go into the aptly named cultural hall and take your shoes off and have sliding contests with the deacons and beehives.

It would also be fun to have word-fitting contests with my wife. Tell her before church, "Code word: honey badger!" That means she needs to use those words in a response to a question in Sunday School. Can you imagine trying to fit "honey badger" into a response to a question about Saul's vision? How fun!

Next, I would look into setting up a game plan to see how high in the church hierarchy you could go while doing the least amount of effort. Then on the side, you could think of ways to help poor Mormon husbands and wives who are pent up sexually. You could give them advice that "came from a friend in a high leadership position." Just think, you would be saving marriages without anyone knowing a thing! You could discretely tell some sisters that it's okay to wear sleeveless dresses once in a while.

You could have tons of fun. Try it!

[_Ceeboo]

Wondering what has evolved (if anything) with the author of this thread?

Look forward to Winston checking in and offering an update.

Hoping all is well.

Peace,
Ceeboo

[_KevinSim]

So it is your belief that God will allow Prophets to preach false doctrine as long as all's well that end's well? You realise that is an apostate belief don't you?

It's a lot more complex than allowing "Prophets to preach false doctrine as long as all's well that end's well." God accomplishes the greatest amount of good that is possible by balancing humanity's long term needs with its short term needs. There's kind of a spectrum with concentrating on humanity's long term needs (the ends justify the means) on one end, and concentrating on humanity's short term needs (always making sure God's prophets always teach precisely correct doctrine) on the other end. What God does is somewhere in the middle.

It'd be nice in one sense if God would ensure that everything His prophets teach was always precisely correct doctrine, but to be perfectly honest I'm not convinced that's possible. I'm sure God has done the best that He can, but I don't think that rules out the possibility that some imperfections might creep into what His prophets end up saying.

God has His eye on the big picture, and makes His decisions based on what's best for humanity over all. Short term needs are important, and need to be considered, but do you really think that they outweigh long term needs? We're each of us typically going to spend ninety or a hundred years here in this life, and that's a significant amount, but eternity goes on forever, which kind of dwarfs that hundred years. So, as I said, short term needs are important, but I don't think they are more important than what is good for us in the eternal scheme of things.