How long/intensely did you believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon?

[Symmachus]

Planning every single person's country of origin and ethnicity would require absolute predestination.

Perhaps the planning is necessary only for the small group of very faithful Latter-day Saints. Maybe the rest of us are parts in a machine that needs to run only at an efficiency level sufficient for the most valiant spirits of the pre-existence and the choicest generations.

[MG 2.0]

As an alternative plan, what would you suggest?

An immediate lack of an alternative does not render the existing idea believable nor requires any - or even no - alternative proposed.

But, simply ‘knowing God’ - no test elsewhere required - also works.

canpakes and gadianton, thank you for your responses/thoughts. If I wasn’t a hopeful believer in a creator God whom I believe created us in His image I would be hard pressed to not agree with your general philosophy of:

‘What is…is’. We just are, and we’re making the best of it. That we create our own meaning and purpose…period.

But I’m of the same persuasion as John Polkinghorne in the sense that I believe the place we find ourselves within the universe is a result of a higher power than ourselves that created us to fulfill our destiny and purpose that He laid out for us.

A plan.

The fact that you don’t have an alternative except for “knowing god” and/or making something up of a secular bent that works for you makes me hesitant to take the same or similar route that you are traveling.

I prefer to put a creator God in the picture. And yes, that is a choice. But not an altogether unreasonable choice.

Your responses do help me to further understand where you’re coming from and the lack of confidence which you have that a God could, as the song tells us:

He's got the whole world in his hands he's got the whole wild world in his hands
He's got the whole wild world in his hands he's got the whole world in his hands

He's got the little bitty baby in his hands he's got the little bitty baby in his hands
He's got the little bitty baby in his hands he's got the whole world in his hands
He's got the whole world in his hands

He's got you and me brother in his hands he's got you and me sister in his hands
He's got you and me brother in his hands he's got the whole world in his hands
He's got the whole world in his hands

He's got everybody here in his hands he's got everybody here in his hands
He's got everybody here in his hands he's got the whole world in his hands
He's got the whole world in his hands
He's got you and me brother
He's got the whole world in his hands.

That’s a LOT to hope for, but I think that the Plan of Salvation as taught by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints provides an all encompassing framework that provides a path/way for ALL of God’s children to reach towards a greater good within the scope of a premortal, mortal, and post mortal existence. Purpose and meaning, now and forever.

Putting God in control and trusting Him.

Yes, it’s a hope. Even a dream of sorts. But I haven’t seen anything else remotely comparable to the theology of the LDS Church produced by anyone else. No viable alternatives. What I so see is folks trying to pick it apart without producing an alternative that includes a creator God that loves and cares for us.

canpakes, I do agree with you that “knowing God” is key.

“And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.”
John 17:3

Thanks for your thoughts. Others will probably be more in line with agreeing with your views. So it’s worthwhile to get them out where they are seen.

Did you have a child that died of cancer?

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

I’m not sure that there is any real agency in this plan to speak of, aside from some very rudimentary choices. Certainly, most of the circumstances that have the greatest impact on your terrestrial existence appear to have been decided for you prior to your mortal birth.

Granted, what may have come before would play a part in the here and now. But as I’ve mentioned, within the sphere of existence we find ourselves we have opportunity to reach towards a greater good…perfection. Completeness.

That is what ‘the plan’ is all about. Jesus was THE exemplar of exemplars.

Too bad a whole lot of folks distorted and corrupted His message. Crusades, wicked popes, creeds, etc.

Need for a restoration?

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

Both that body and that experience are non-applicable to the post-mortal life. In an eternal, post mortal life within an ‘optimized’ body - as Mormonism suggests - what purpose is served by the knowledge of disease? Physical suffering? Death? Flowers? Mental illness? The taste of baklava? Drunkenness?

Opposition in ALL things. We must experience the bitter to know the sweet. Growth occurs when spiritual muscles receive a constant and difficult workout. These muscles grow soft through disuse. We can take that learning process and its results with us.

And for those humans that have the blessing of enjoying the things the world has to offer while in their mortal existence, this is a blessing. Man is that he might have joy.

Unfortunately, from the outside looking in, we also live in a fallen world which can cause grief and heartbreak. That condition causes us to either look to a high power for guidance and relief or to look solely to ourselves as we tough things out.

Those choices we also can take with us.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

Does Jeffrey Holland’s decades spent trying to keep people devoted to and paying into a church that serves no purpose within the eternal afterlife count as more significant than the doctor in Senegal who has never heard of the Book of Mormon, but has spent most of his adult years fighting against disease, and for the health of his community neighbors?

As I mentioned earlier, the church teaches the it has the authority of God to perform essential ordinances that travel with us into the afterlife. Gateway contracts, covenants, and agreements, of sorts, that allow/permit us to travel one path vs. another.

Temples are the Holy Houses where these works are performed.

So, I would disagree with your proposal/assertion that the church serves no purpose in the afterlife. What I did say is that the church, as an organization, probably DIDN’T exist in a premortal world and will not be an organization as it is now in a post mortal world. It serves an essential purpose in the here and now, however.

One caveat, we do have references in the scriptures to the ‘church of the firstborn’. Whether this is or isn’t applicable to pre or post mortality is I suppose an open question.

Regards,
MG

[MG 2.0]

What prevented a spirit from being ‘exalted’ prior to assignment on a terrestrial plane?

This is a tough one. If we look at the Godhead and the third member, the Holy Ghost/Spirit, it seems as though we might have an example of a “God” before a mortal existence. Working through the nuts and bolts of this example of a God before mortality, in and of itself, could be a long conversation. Truth is, I’m not sure that your question can adequately be answered with what knowledge has been revealed.

What we have been told, however, is that “ this life is the time to prepare to meet God.”

So we go with that. This earthly probation, for the lion’s share of humanity, is essential as a training ground or school for our future progress. For some, that may include exaltation.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

Planning every single person's country of origin and ethnicity would require absolute predestination.

Perhaps the planning is necessary only for the small group of very faithful Latter-day Saints. Maybe the rest of us are parts in a machine that needs to run only at an efficiency level sufficient for the most valiant spirits of the pre-existence and the choicest generations.

well, it did slip out in a previous discussion (about needing a god to preserve humanity) that the preservation under discussion was for the lds only...

... Because I am a Latter-day Saint, I believe that a subset of the human race, that Jesus has transformed (over who knows how long a period of time) into good people, is the good thing God will preserve forever....

because you are LDS, you believe a subset "is the good thing God will preserve forever...." Do you believe this subset is comprised of those designated LDS?

after being asked about it, there was some backtracking of the No True Scotsman sort, along the lines of your point:

The "L" in "LDS" stands for "Latter." There will be many people in that subset who are not Latter-day Saints. And there are many Latter-day Saints who won't be in that subset. Every person in that subset will have been baptized by someone with God's authority, or will have died before reaching the age of accountability.

[Dr Moore]

Perhaps the planning is necessary only for the small group of very faithful Latter-day Saints. Maybe the rest of us are parts in a machine that needs to run only at an efficiency level sufficient for the most valiant spirits of the pre-existence and the choicest generations.

well, it did slip out in a previous discussion (about needing a god to preserve humanity) that the preservation under discussion was for the lds only...

because you are LDS, you believe a subset "is the good thing God will preserve forever...." Do you believe this subset is comprised of those designated LDS?

after being asked about it, there was some backtracking of the No True Scotsman sort, along the lines of your point:

The "L" in "LDS" stands for "Latter." There will be many people in that subset who are not Latter-day Saints. And there are many Latter-day Saints who won't be in that subset. Every person in that subset will have been baptized by someone with God's authority, or will have died before reaching the age of accountability.

This line of thinking might be the mount Everest manifestation of LDS othering. All the non-LDS are meaningless simulation NPCs in the game. Wow.

[Res Ipsa]

I left my mission.

OMG.

I had major cognitive dissonance on my mission, but the thought of bouncing was, to me at the time, impossible. Major props to you for having the internal character to leave your mission. If you don’t mind sharing, what was the fallout from that?

- Doc

I can’t make any claim to internal character. I was dysfunctional to the point of telling my companion that I was sick and lying on the floor in my sleeping bag all day. It felt like I was emotionally and spiritually dying. All I knew was I couldn’t go on like that.

I wrote down a list of everything that I thought didn’t add up about the church, went out to the middle of a rickety foot bridge that spanned the San Juan River, and prayed my heart out. After a while, I felt a feeling of calm and peacefulness come over me, and I knew I needed to get out of there and that everything would be okay.

There was all kinds of fallout, some of it self imposed. Most importantly for me, my immediate family completely accepted my decision. They were very supportive. My dad came and got me. We flew to Mexico City for a week or so so that I wouldn’t have to talk about what happened with all kinds of people. He was never a true believer and, unknown to me, my mom was getting fed up with feeling like a second class citizen in Mormonism. Out of my immediate family of six, only one sister ended up staying a believing member. The religious divide in our family did not affect our relationships in any significant way.

My family had moved from Washington to California while I was at BYU and had moved within California while I was on my mission. So, I literally knew no one in my ward in California. I met with my bishop in California once to be released, and I never saw him again. No one knew me or cared about me, so there were no attempts to fellowship me back to church.

The self generated part was that I cut myself off from all my LDS friends, including my closest friend who was serving a mission in Germany and the young woman I’d dated at BYU. I’d internalized the notion that there was something wrong with me that caused me to “fall away.” I didn’t want to screw up anyone else’s life, and I didn’t want to subject myself to feeling like a “project” for my LDS friends to work on. I was too young and immature to realize that I had LDS friends who would have supported me without trying to tell me in. As a result, I had absolutely no peer support, which I desperately needed.

My girlfriend really wanted me to come back to BYU (I had a free ride there, so financial incentives, too.) She came out to visit me for a week, which was both nice and painful. At one point she told me that her parents were friends of Dallin Oakes (who I think had become BYU President). They’d talked to him and he’d said he’d be willing to meet with me to help me with my problems.

That triggered the final break. I needed help — but not help back into Mormonism. I couldn’t bear the thought of being a” project” at BYU for the next three years. I decided not to go back, and that was the end of the line for the church and me.

When I meet with with my bishop, I told him I had a plan. I was going to read Mormonism: Shadow or Reality and any LDS book that he recommended. He gave me a copy of that year’s institute study guide, which was on the Book of Mormon. Of course, it didn’t address the many questions I had, while the Tanner’s book addressed almost all of them. So, in the weeks after I returned home, I went from having serious doubts about the church to being convinced that the LDS Church was not what it claimed to be: The restored church of Jesus Christ.

The fall after I returned home, I resumed my education at UC Davis almost on a whim. And I was exceptionally lucky to fall in with some pretty wonderful students who helped me figure out how to be a post-Mormon me.

[Gadianton]

Pretty intense story Res.

He gave me a copy of that year’s institute study guide, which was on the Book of Mormon.

Ha ha. How bad is your position when you know the last thing you can do is even broach the question? Merely uttering the words of the question is so damaging that the quality of any conceivable answer is moot.

Your bishop wasn't wrong, however. He knew there aren't good answers, and even if such a thing as FAIR had existed back then, he wouldn't have gone there either. He did the right thing. He maintained character. "Here son, here's the official party line..." The very best play that he had was to show that he was aware problem but yet stayed the course. Basically, you had to make the choice of whether to do your duty and play your role or move on.

My bishop was similar. I never brought up concerns, but he knew I was into FARMS, and he told me a story of a friend of his who was very intellectual and a devout member, a student of Nibley and had an impressive library. He reached a certain point where he slowed on his studies, and then one by one, gave all his books away. This same bishop was famous for terminating any conversation going anywhere and insisting on "faith and repentance". He was also a very loved seminary teacher. I learned shortly before my father passed that my dad had gone to this (former) bishop as I was slipping into inactivity, and begged this bishop to talk to me. He utterly refused.

I'd always kind of scoffed at this bishop and his superficiality, but years later, I came to realize that he was dead right. To be a good Mormon, you must live in an information silo. And if you don't, it's just way too much work to maintain the virtualized silo that folks like DCP live in.