mentalgymnast wrote:When you said, "I've had yet another revelation..." I didn't realize that your belief was that this was the HG. The HG leads towards truth and light. Each person discerns these things for themselves. How do resolve your disaffection with the church with receiving truth and light through the Holy Ghost? It's an interesting phenomenon.
Regards,
MG
Well, I sort of believed that before I realized there is actually LDS doctrinal basis for my belief, so I guess the revelation (in my opinion) was about direct communication with the divine, and the epiphany about there being doctrinal basis for it. In fact, I believed that before I ever joined the LDS Church. The idea of direct communication with God was actually what I found the most appealing about the Church. Of course, there are doctrines that I don't find appealing about the Church, such as God-mandated polygyny or patriarchy because I believe they are false doctrines.
And, of course, the LDS church is not the only denomination that believes in continuing revelation; Quakers also believe it, for instance. Not to mention many non-Christian religions.
So, of course, even if I resign from the Church (which I'm not currently planning to do, by the way; I'm currently a jack-mormon, I guess), it doesn't mean that would oblige me to stop believing everything the Church teaches. I'm not all of a sudden going to think it's okay to cheat on my husband or kill people, so why should I stop believing that direct communication with God is possible for me at any time? I know the Church would say that ex-mormons can only be influenced by the HG when the Holy Ghost is so disposed; well, that's not how I see it.
Of course, I'm also pretty sure that humans are completely solipsistic and that everyone lives in their own universe. So I don't find atheists or people who believe differently than I do to be a problem, unless they are doing something that I find wrong. I suppose it's possible that there are universes in which there is no God and universes whose God(s) is a polar opposite of the God in my universe. I don't just think people are faking it or choose to ignore the Holy Ghost, or however you want to call it.
I think it's important to understand what assumptions other people have. So, assuming that the above paragraph is true, both you and I are correct. But assuming the LDS Church has the fulness of truth, there is either a paradox in the nature of the Holy Ghost, or else at least one of the teachings of the church on the subject is incorrect.
Or else they think
omnipresent means something totally different from the dictionary definition. That would be another example of either solipsism or deception. This way, I can say "When someone is adopted into one of the 12 tribes, their blood literally becomes Israelite blood" and claim I said something other than what I actually said later, when DNA testing becomes available.