New Pew research shows LDS retention rate worsening for those raised LDS

[I Have Questions]

Is your belief in Christ driven by a need to make sense of this life because without that belief it’s hard for you to rationalise just existing, especially given your experiences?

What a great question. I mean maybe, yes. Clinging to God and forgiveness is a place to go to that is safe, protective.

To know that you are forgiven is powerful.

I suppose that’s how a confessional works, or seeing a therapist, or talking things through with The Samaritans etc. Enabling a person to offload their guilt, stress, anxiety etc in a safe space is good from a mental health/therapy perspective. Especially when that process comes with a perceived result of forgiveness. I believe ancient orientals used trees, or a particular favourite tree, to unburden themselves.

Sadly I think organised religion manipulates people into having more feelings of guilt or inadequacy as a mechanism for justifying their own existence. They place themselves between the individual and their Christ, as self appointed gatekeepers. But they get their authority to do so from people abdicating their own responsibility. Mormon leaders are only Mormon leaders when you choose to be led by them. If you don’t then you can see they know no more about Christ than you or I do. No special insights.

[MG 2.0]

What do you understand the resurrection of Jesus to mean?

I’ve been explaining the idea of the vine and the branches as an analogy of Christ living in the believer. So while the resurrection is bodily, physical, and shows that Jesus conquered death, it also means his life can be present in us now.

Yes. And we can always have His Spirit to be with us as we learn of Him and strive to become more like Him in very nature. But we're human. We don't always have 'Christ within us' and we repent, do better, move on, and become more of what He and the Father would like us to be.

Knowing/believing that He was objectively/literally resurrected opens up horizons that would otherwise be unknown and/or unrecognized.

We may be closer than you might think in our theology. And if not, we may be close enough to see each other as Christians who love and serve the Lord.

[Mormon leaders] know no more about Christ than you or I do. No special insights.

What do you know about Christ? For example, do you know/believe/have faith that He was resurrected? Your earlier post was, in my opinion, defective and showed lack of understanding in some respects. That's why I bumped it for you to come back to. It seemed to show a misunderstanding of the events surrounding the resurrection and how that might have affected the aftermath, etc.

Why do you feel so strongly that leaders of the LDS Church have lesser knowledge than you in the matter I just mentioned along with others? Is it because they're human and have made mistakes?

I'm an atheist, but if there were a god who created human brains, I think they would at the very least expect humans to use their own brains as much and as well as they possibly can.

I would think that this would be true even without having to emphasize it...but it doesn't hurt to do so. Thanks. This, of course, requires thinking deeply and over a period of time. Many things in life require time, experience, AND using our brains. My pet peeve is when people, including myself, may not always give the mind...and heart...a chance to look deeply, experience much, and let time be the teacher.

I'm sure our parents and other mentors may have had that same pet peeve about us way back when, right?

Regards,
MG

[Limnor]

We may be closer than you might think in our theology. And if not, we may be close enough to see each other as Christians who love and serve the Lord.

lol

[MG 2.0]

We may be closer than you might think in our theology. And if not, we may be close enough to see each other as Christians who love and serve the Lord.

lol

Or maybe not.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

I don't appreciate that mg excerpted a sentence of my post and used it out of context. I suspect we have rather different understandings of what my sentence means.

I agree with another poster in this thread who said to mg:

...If you have a point you’re trying to make, I’d prefer you just make it. This is part of the reason I don’t trust you...

Yes.

...Sadly I think organised religion manipulates people into having more feelings of guilt or inadequacy as a mechanism for justifying their own existence. They place themselves between the individual and their Christ, as self appointed gatekeepers. But they get their authority to do so from people abdicating their own responsibility. Mormon leaders are only Mormon leaders when you choose to be led by them. If you don’t then you can see they know no more about Christ than you or I do. No special insights.

I agree, especially with the part I bolded, and that's the point I was making with the sentence mg excerpted. In proper context:

...I'm an atheist, but if there were a god who created human brains, I think they would at the very least expect humans to use their own brains as much and as well as they possibly can. I don't see any conflict between that and a believer using their brain to be Christlike, or an atheist using their brain to be an ethical and moral person. Each is using the resources of their self to try to be their best self, as they understand it.

Following another who has declared themselves a prophet, even to the extent that you 'forgive' them their errors, see them as human just like you, and STILL just follow along doesn't seem to be a path that uses one's own resources in the best way possible.

I'm really liking IHQ's tree idea. You're really just working it out in your own mind but formalizing the process by taking advantage of the majesty of Nature. That's pretty appealing.

I was always partial to this plum tree depiction that used to be in the Metropolitan. The small image size below doesn't do it justice, as it is almost 6 ft tall by 16 ft wide. One whole room was devoted to it:

Old Plum
Kano Sansetsu
1646
The massive black trunk of an ancient plum tree stretches across four sliding panels, its gnarled branches twisting vigorously. Against the gold ground, delicate blossoms sprouting from the old tree suggest the chill of early spring and symbolize renewal. These panels originally formed one wall of a room in Tenshō’in, a subtemple of Myōshinji, a major Zen complex in Kyoto. Once visible in an adjacent room at Myōshinji and now preserved in the Minneapolis Institute of Art, their reverses depict the Chinese theme of the “Eight Daoist Immortals.”

https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/44858

[MG 2.0]

I don't appreciate that mg excerpted a sentence of my post and used it out of context.

Pot calling kettle.

I'm happy to let what I said stand on its own merits in response to the excerpt from your post.

Your point is taken...we should be looking at what any (I'd put myself in there) poster may be trying to say within a larger context. Been down that road before.

Healthy reminder though. Thanks.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

...we should be looking at what any (I'd put myself in there) poster may be trying to say within a larger context. Been down that road before...

lol

[MG 2.0]

...we should be looking at what any (I'd put myself in there) poster may be trying to say within a larger context. Been down that road before...

lol

It's healthy to be able to laugh at your own foibles now and then.

Regards,
MG

[Limnor]

What a great question. I mean maybe, yes. Clinging to God and forgiveness is a place to go to that is safe, protective.

To know that you are forgiven is powerful.

I suppose that’s how a confessional works, or seeing a therapist, or talking things through with The Samaritans etc. Enabling a person to offload their guilt, stress, anxiety etc. in a safe space is good from a mental health/therapy perspective. Especially when that process comes with a perceived result of forgiveness. I believe ancient orientals used trees, or a particular favourite tree, to unburden themselves.

Sadly I think organised religion manipulates people into having more feelings of guilt or inadequacy as a mechanism for justifying their own existence. They place themselves between the individual and their Christ, as self appointed gatekeepers. But they get their authority to do so from people abdicating their own responsibility. Mormon leaders are only Mormon leaders when you choose to be led by them. If you don’t then you can see they know no more about Christ than you or I do. No special insights.

I think there are similarities in your examples, sure. Except we’re talking about God, and there is nothing higher. Life can only come from God. If that life comes directly from him, like you, I don’t see what a human institution can add without eventually claiming some gatekeeping authority that doesn’t belong to it. There is of course a presupposition that there is a God.

I’m reminded of Isaiah 44, where a man cuts down a tree, burns part of it to warm himself, and carves the rest into a god before which he bows down. I wonder whether religious institutions sometimes do something similar. We construct an organization to serve God, then gradually elevate that organization into something through which God must be approached.

lol

Or maybe not.

Regards,
MG

This is one of many areas in which the gulf is too wide: “strive to become more like Him in very nature.”

I'm an atheist, but if there were a god who created human brains, I think they would at the very least expect humans to use their own brains as much and as well as they possibly can.

I would think that this would be true even without having to emphasize it...but it doesn't hurt to do so. Thanks. This, of course, requires thinking deeply and over a period of time. Many things in life require time, experience, AND using our brains. My pet peeve is when people, including myself, may not always give the mind...and heart...a chance to look deeply, experience much, and let time be the teacher.

I'm sure our parents and other mentors may have had that same pet peeve about us way back when, right?

Regards,
MG

A person can spend an entire lifetime thinking deeply about something and still be mistaken. Time, experience, and sincerity don’t make a belief true. Marcus seemed to be making a point about a willingness to apply critical thinking to authorities we’ve been taught to trust, especially when that thinking challenges their claims to authority.

[MG 2.0]

Or maybe not.

Regards,
MG

This is one of many areas in which the gulf is too wide: “strive to become more like Him in very nature.”

Why do think that a Father would NOT want His children to be come more like Him? You can’t literally become your father but you can become like him (assuming he was a father that you would want to follow in his example). If we are the family of God it seems to be a simple thing that God the Father would not want us to stagnate and remain the same as we are now throughout eternity.

Now, if this is true, I would…without any hesitation…admit that I don’t have an inkling of what things would look like 10,000 years from now (putting a time limit on it because we’re trapped in time and space and I don’t really have any other way to conceptualize an existence far into the future)…but what I am confident of is that we won’t be sitting around praising God and playing a tune on a harp ad nauseam. That, honestly, doesn’t sound like a whole lot of fun.

Do you not want to become more like God in the very nature of your being?

Our God will always be the One worthy of our worship. Latter-day Saints would not differ from a traditional Christians in that respect. And in the day to day life of a traditional Christian and a member of the LDS church the doctrinal differences don’t have to be a wedge.

Unless you let it be so.

We have more in common than what differentiates us. This might be where your ‘trust issues’ of Latter-day Saints might be worthy of some adjustment. That has to come on your end though. I mentioned earlier that I trust that you are a Christian believer. That much I can trust/determine in what I’ve heard from you.

Regards,
MG