harmony wrote:So you think your SIL is of Satan? Every child of God has a spark of divinity, charity.
No. He does not teach his unbelief to his children. He does not enjoy his non-belief and wishes he could be believing again. Which I think he will at some future time. When he and my daughter married they made promises to each other, and one of them was they would raise their children in the Church. He keeps his promises, as an honorable man will.
Every child of God has a spark of divinity. And some of them let their sparks get pretty dim.
Last edited by Guest on Sat Feb 09, 2008 6:48 am, edited 1 time in total.
Jason Bourne wrote: And the Church has a system in place for this. One can be ex'd for apostasy. What constitutes such and action is not up to you or Will unless he is a bishop or SP. But one who has some unbelief or even entire unbelief but participates for whatever reasons he/she has and is not a pot stirrer should be left the hell alone. Everyone has their own utility they get out of the Church and it is their business and not yours. Busy body members that thing they ought to go about purging, correcting and accusing seed more discontent in a ward then the quiet so called apostate.
Good grief, Jason. I think I believe the same you do on this. IF they are not pot stirrers, leave them alone. Will said this too. Not in the fragment runtu posted, but in the entire post, which I cut and pasted. And if they are pot stirrers, it is not my calling to do anything about it.
Jason Bourne wrote:
Move their spouse and children out with them? There is no reason why their family relationships can't stay the same (unless there is dysfucntion going on anyway), and wives and children have their own agency. No one should interfere with another's agency.
Aren't you and Will talking about interfering with one's agency. Does and unbelieving spouse or Father then have the right to share is disbelief with his family? Should Runtu try to yank his family out because activities like Will's will cause one like Runtu top move down that path. Better to leave him alone, let him vent on a message board where 99% of all active members will never read what he says and then let him work his own peace with his wife. But were I he and some fool like Will made an issue for me I would resign and then I would do all I could to take my wife and kids with me. And guess what? The effort of one like Will would play in my favor with my wife and Kids. This is what I call perilous piety and Will, and you Charity, ooze it. It is a dangerous thing.
I am being branded undeservedly. I agree with the help and support part of Will's post. And please read what I said earlier. I have never said anything about the quiet non-believer. The quiet, sneak around and try to recuirt is a different matter, but I haven't seen anyone here who fits that description.
Jason Bourne wrote:
Go to Church to keep the family together? There is major dysfunction going on it a believing spouse makes that a condition of keeping a marriage together. The believing spouse does not respect the non-believer and is exercising unrighteous dominon. There should be counseling for that if that is the case.
And what is the root of that dysfunction Charity?
Control issues. Entitlement issues. He/she owes me. This is not limited to Church members. And has nothing to do with Church issues, except that the control and entitlement issues are applied to Church matters. I have seen non-member couples with these same kind of relationship problems which had nothing to do with church of any kind.
Talking = teaching is an absurd contrivance. Moreover, Will (and I believe you) have stated that posting on the internet is the equivalent of teaching and trying to destroy the church. So any closet nonbeliever who posts critically about the church on the internet is at risk for being "exposed" by brown shirts like Will.
Will is NOT the only Mormon with this attitude - RFMers occasionally share stories in which some TBM recognized who they were by their posting and "reported" them to their bishop. This is exactly why most critics post anonymously. If given a CHOICE, of course they would just leave the church. But the fact is they don't have a CHOICE for a serious reason - their spouse. So the brown shirters want to force them out, no matter what the risk to family and children.
Such extremity bespeaks of fear and cowardice. Will already made this obvious when he mentioned "soft spoken" critics in particular. Will knows that the soft spoken critics make more sense than the defenders of the faith, and that's why he views them as such a threat.
Contrast this fear and cowardice with early Mormons who challenged the WORLD to prove Mormonism a fraud, and who stated that if Mormonism were not exactly what it claimed to be, it was an outrageous fraud that DESERVED to be exposed.
Of course, they could afford such courage, because this was prior to all the mess that Joseph created, and prior to the Book of Abraham and Book of Mormon problems.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.
How incompetent to some folks think God is anyway?
I mean seriously don't believers think God could handle the situation?
Why do some think they must take matters into their own hands?
If God can destroy the whole world except Noah and his family, he can certainly take care of a handful of loud critics, no?
Unless of course some apologists think God is directing them to be cruel, mean, and nasty; destroy families, and lives, judge others. I do realize this wouldn't be the first time believers use God as an excuse to hurt others, still haven't folks moved beyond this?
Isn't God more powerful than Satan? Why this need for apologists to step in?
I don't even believe in a personal man/being God but certainly God could handle a handful of angry non-believers. A random accident here or there wouldn't be a big deal. ;-) Or maybe these folks have a special mission to fulfill and will one day be like Paul, or the sons of Alma? (smile)
~dancer~
"The search for reality is the most dangerous of all undertakings for it destroys the world in which you live." Nisargadatta Maharaj
Charity doesn't get how offensive she (repeatedly) is because she's compartmentalized her religious thinking in a separate box from her thoughts and knowledge about human beings and interactions.
This made me remember back when I was still attending church, still a member, still trying my darnedest to find a way to continue believing. My journey began when I learned uncomfortable facts about how Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. In my attempts to help resolve this issue, to get more information, to figure out what in the heck this all meant, I talked to several sisters in my ward about the issue. Of course I talked to my visiting teachers, but other sisters as well. Most had no idea what I was talking about (yeah, they were all "lazy" Mormons who didn't educate themselves, according to the MADdite philosophy), but one referred me to another sister who'd read about it, too, and seemed to have come to a resolution. I contacted Sister S and asked if I could visit her to discuss this, and she said sure. I drove thirty minutes to her home to talk to her one day. It wasn't exactly what I was hoping for because she basically told me what I learned was true, and she'd resolved it by deciding even if the church wasn't what she once believed it to be, it was still a great place to raise kids. This was unsettling to me, because it as an admission that what I'd been learning was correct, not "anti Mormon lies".
So if a brown shirter like Will had been in my ward, and had heard me talking to other sisters, would I have been a target for exposure and forced expulsion? How about Sister S?
I guess, in the long run, since I eventually left the church of my accord, it wouldn't have made much difference, although it would make me regard my "real life" Mormon ward with the same disdain I hold for internet apologists because it would have forced me before I was ready. But Sister S has remained in the church to this day. Her family would have been torn apart by her "exposure".
Jason is right. This type of nonsense would simply result in a divided, angry ward. Yes, I know Will flatters himself and imagines he has some sort of Super Duper Spirit Detector in place, but consider how even the past prophets of God failed miserably at that little "test" (see Mark Hofmann with Hinckley, John Bennet with Joseph Smith), this self flattery is borderline delusional.
We hate to seem like we don’t trust every nut with a story, but there’s evidence we can point to, and dance while shouting taunting phrases.
harmony wrote:So you think your SIL is of Satan? Every child of God has a spark of divinity, charity.
No. He does not teach his unbelief to his children. He does not enjoy his non-belief and wishes he could be believing again. Which I think he will at some future time. When he and my daughter married they made promises to each other, and one of them was they would raise their children in the Church. He keeps his promises, as an honorable man will.
Every child of God has a spark of divinity. And some of them let their sparks get pretty dim.
So first you say your SIL is honorable, and then you say he's let his divine spark get pretty dim (I'm assuming you think he's one of the "some". And if he's not, why isn't he?). So you're saying a good person, kind, charitable, loving to spouse and family, hard working, happy, sincere, full of integrity has let their spark of divinity get pretty dim because they left the LDS church? That makes no sense, charity. A man is what he is, a child of God, whether he is a Mormon or not. His spark of divinity, his soul, his personality, that which makes him what he is, is the same, whether he is a member or not. Same with a woman.