café crema wrote:Monsons OpEd piece in the Washington Post is nothing like what I've seen from my local churches you can read it here:
I'm a little surprised by the generic quality of the piece. There isn't a hint of Mormonism in it. A Mormon reading it will find it totally familiar, reflecting the Book of Mormon teachings and the constant periods of faith and falling from faith, but a nonMormon will find nothing informative about Mormonism. It seems carefully designed to do exactly that, in fact, INHO.
That surprised me too.
I didn't sense any berating, but I did think the piece was uninspired-- his view doesn't fit with my experience or what I've observed from others around me. Mr. Monson and I must run in very different circles.
I think there's something distasteful about using 9/11 as a call to repentance. People are still mourning the loss of loved ones that day. Our world is forever changed and increasingly complicated because of what happened. 9/11, to me, is a day for memorializing people who lost their lives, of being grateful for rescue workers. It's a day of sober reflection. To suggest that we have somehow forgotten what that day was in our lives, how shocking it was, and how vulnerable we felt, is to underestimate the gravity of the experience, and the capacity of the human soul.
angsty wrote:I think there's something distasteful about using 9/11 as a call to repentance. People are still mourning the loss of loved ones that day. Our world is forever changed and increasingly complicated because of what happened. 9/11, to me, is a day for memorializing people who lost their lives, of being grateful for rescue workers. It's a day of sober reflection. To suggest that we have somehow forgotten what that day was in our lives, how shocking it was, and how vulnerable we felt, is to underestimate the gravity of the experience, and the capacity of the human soul.
The word that comes to my mind about this editorial is meaningless. The general jist I got was that God is really, really faithful to us, and we're ungrateful brats for not being comensurately faithful to Him. But really--what's he talking about? In what tangible way has God been faithful to us? I have no idea what Monson is talking about here. Does he mean God has been faithful to his promise of not drowning us all?
It’s relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don’t really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.
Analytics wrote:In what tangible way has God been faithful to us? I have no idea what Monson is talking about here. Does he mean God has been faithful to his promise of not drowning us all?
Yeah, it does seem a little wacky to talk about God being faithful to us after having seen a perfect example of grievous human tragedy that God purportedly has dominion over.
It would be nice if God would have protected all those innocent people 10 years ago. Then he wouldn't have had to go through the trouble of comforting us.
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.
Buffalo wrote:It would be nice if God would have protected all those innocent people 10 years ago. Then he wouldn't have had to go through the trouble of comforting us.
Buffalo wrote:It would be nice if God would have protected all those innocent people 10 years ago. Then he wouldn't have had to go through the trouble of comforting us.
Innocent of what?
Anything meriting being burned alive or falling thousands of feet to their deaths.
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.
Buffalo wrote:It would be nice if God would have protected all those innocent people 10 years ago. Then he wouldn't have had to go through the trouble of comforting us.
Innocent of what?
They were most likely innocent of any charge that might be punishable by death. And most likely their children and families were innocent of any charge which might be punishable by having a loved one ripped from their lives.
I'm unclear about the logic and reasoning that would have caused someone to become more faithful as a result of the attacks on 9/11/01. What about the murder of all of those people makes one think: "Hmmm... you know what? I really should be worshipping god more?" I don't get it. I was a fully believing and faithful Mormon on that day. I don't ever recall thinking that. It makes no sense to me.
"Sire, I had no need of that hypothesis" - Laplace