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Hello ajax18,

I've been picking up on some of your comments regarding faith and belief on another thread that wasn't designed for that purpose. Something struck me in one of your recent posts and I got the idea that I would like to engage you. It is a rare occasion (if it ever happens at all) when two believers discuss their faith and how they practice it in real life. And, since you are LDS and I am not, I think it'll be interesting at least to me.

If you'd rather not engage, just say so I won't press you. So here is a copy of your recent post and my responses to it.

ajax18 wrote: I never expected happiness in this life

I don't expect happiness, I seek to create it. Even in the worst of times, I somehow manage to seek the positive. I'm talking about authentic life and death situations. I can't say if this is part of my faith in practice or a feature of my personality or both. I'll discuss this more in another post.

but it helps me to know God will compensate me the damage done to me by my enemies and relieves me of the responsibility of seeking vengeance and getting even with people.

This looks like you are referring to "vengeance is mine". I completely get that belief and the hope that fuels it. When you say that God will compensate you for the damage done to you by enemies, are you saying that you hope that God will take out his wrath on them?

I see this differently. I fully admit that it's fully human to want to exact revenge on those who have harmed me. I try hard to pray for them and that is no easy task. I'm torn between the hurt they have caused myself or others, and the part of me that believes something is wrong with them and wants to see others do well. For example, I can even drum up a heart for Trump even though I feel like he's a complete jerk.

I think this is where my personality and/or temperament (very likely my early experiences) comes in direct contact (and sometimes direct conflict) with how I practice faith.

That's not very Viking of me but it turns out I'm not scandinavian at all, just britsh isles and germanic europe.

Just as a matter of reference. I am German, Scottish/Irish, and I might be Italian but I don't know that for a fact until I do my Ancestry kit which has been sitting on the shelf for a good 2 years or more.

Okay so off I go with this and let's see if anything good comes of it. Building on this exchange:

ajax18 wrote:I never expected happiness in this life

Jersey Girl wrote:I don't expect happiness, I seek to create it. Even in the worst of times, I somehow manage to seek the positive. I'm talking about authentic life and death situations. I can't say if this is part of my faith in practice or a feature of my personality or both. I'll discuss this more in another post.

So what I mean when I say that I seek the positive almost looks like counting your blessings but I don't think of it that way or set out to do it, it is just how I naturally think about things.

I mentioned life/death situations. Here's a sample dialogue. It's going to sound a little cryptic because I'm concealing details I don't wish to disclose here. Here is my inner dialogue during the worst situation I've ever dealt with to date. I'll probably use this event in another post because it's the most glaring head, heart and soul crushing event I've encountered where happiness was nowhere to be found.

At least she is alive.
At least we have enough money to get a plane out.
At least we have a decent car to get to the airport.
At least it's not snowing right now.
At least someone could come help me pack because I can't even think right now.

Later, I might recount these things and thank God for them, but I'm not actually thinking much about God at the time. I simply go on automatic like that. I actually think like that every time I feel pressured for whatever reason.

With regard to not expecting happiness. This is going to end up like a therapy session instead of a discussion--I don't care if it does. I'm hoping for communication with another believer that demonstrates how we each think and practice faith/belief.

Remember that you said you don't expect happiness and I said that I try to create it.

You can see all the positive things that I listed and that later I would actually thank God for those things. But I didn't expect happiness in that situation. I expected the worst.

Regarding that airport trip and the person being alive. When we arrived at the airport and were greeted by people picking us up, we were told that the person who was alive was waiting for us in a nearby area of the airport itself.

I didn't believe them. I was convinced they were taking us to that nearby area that was private to give us the bad news. And I didn't believe it until I had my eyes and hands on the person in question.

Now, there are people here who say that believers rely on God instead of science. I want to demonstrate something that calls that assumption into question. I think I rely on both God and science as resources in my life.

Within an hour of getting the news that would result in that travel by air, I started trying to line up resources. I managed to line up two therapeutic resources. One for the person I mentioned above and one for myself.

So in this worst situation that I've ever encountered, where no happiness was to be found, I tried to identify positives, lined up therapeutic resources, and yes, I thanked God for them later. Why?

I don't expect God to orchestrate everything.

So, can you think of a worst case situation you are willing to even cryptically discuss and show me how you don't expect happiness, what that looks like and what you might do to get through it as a believer and someone with a science background? Do you do nothing at all, take it on the chin, and live with an expectation that God is going to rectify the situation later in terms of punishing the offender or exacting justice on your behalf?

(The above situation I've used involves someone seriously harming the person I mentioned above.)

I've got to dart out of here now. Take a look at what I've posted, see if you want to take part or not. I'm good with it either way and I don't mind if the discussion develops into something else than what I've started so long as it's respectful and no one uses it for bashing purposes. I'm just trying to get something off the ground here.

Your turn if you are willing!

I thought of another question already!

When you talk about enemies, what kinds of people are you actually thinking about? What does someone do to become your enemy?

I don't have what I think of as enemies in my life. There are some folks who I believe are toxic that I stay away from. I don't really think of them as enemies, just folks who I believe aren't healthy for me to be around or interact with.

When you say that God will compensate you for the damage done to you by enemies, are you saying that you hope that God will take out his wrath on them?

We had an excellent talk on this in sacrament meeting last week. Mormonism and I are starting to see eye to eye, at least in what is preached from the pulpit.

I don't really care if those who have mistreated me are punished or not. But I've always felt cheated in not being compensated for when this happens, not now nor in eternity from what I had heard before. I've heard more and more said from the pulpit that the atonement of Christ doesn't just grant us forgiveness of sins but also makes up for the injustices and unfairness of this life.

Think of the law of Moses. If one shepherd stole another shepherds goat, the law required the thief to pay back 3 goats to whom he robbed. But what if the thief didn't have 3 goats to pay back? Imagine someone is swindled out of $300k in their retirement account. A judgment is rendered for the thief to make restitution but what if the thief has spent the money? Whether or not the thief is punished, the victim is not compensated, at least not in this world. I now believe we will be compensated for all tragedies we face in life. It's been amazingly comforting to know this. So I seek to do what I can to make the best of my life situation and that of others but there is only so much I can do. I'm comforted in knowing God will do what we cannot do for ourselves.

When you talk about enemies, what kinds of people are you actually thinking about? What does someone do to become your enemy?

Someone who seeks to take my life, property, income, etc. Ultimately our real enemy is Satan and sadly this is who often inspires those who have done things to become my enemy. Satan does not believe in granting man his agency. For those of us who seek to protect this agency, he has an eternal hatred.

Jersey Girl wrote:I don't expect happiness, I seek to create it. ....

literally means the same thing...seeking to create it is expecting it.
one seeks because of the expectation of finding.

literally means the same thing...seeking to create it is expecting it.
one seeks because of the expectation of finding.

Sure but the point is that we do what is within our power to be happy while knowing we won't always attain that in this life.

I consider myself happier than I would be without the spiritual truths I've found. But I don't feel guilty for not being completely content or not always being happy.

I think I rely on both God and science as resources in my life.

I feel the same way. That's kind of what I was trying to tell Schmo. Science and reason can only do so much. And yet a simple faith in a simple spiritual knowledge (that we all as spiritual beings can access) can take you a very long ways ahead of what hard proven science can provide.

Just as a matter of reference. I am German, Scottish/Irish, and I might be Italian but I don't know that for a fact until I do my Ancestry kit which has been sitting on the shelf for a good 2 years or more.

What are you waiting for? At first I was very disappointed in what ancestry could tell me. But as more people submitted DNA the picture of my own ancestry became a lot more specific.

ajax18 wrote:

Just as a matter of reference. I am German, Scottish/Irish, and I might be Italian but I don't know that for a fact until I do my Ancestry kit which has been sitting on the shelf for a good 2 years or more.

What are you waiting for? At first I was very disappointed in what ancestry could tell me. But as more people submitted DNA the picture of my own ancestry became a lot more specific.

I have no blessed idea why I've procrastinated. I have my whole family tree done except for one individual--possibly the elusive Italian. ;-)

I'll get back to this conversation.

ajax18 wrote: Science and reason can only do so much. And yet a simple faith in a simple spiritual knowledge (that we all as spiritual beings can access) can take you a very long ways ahead of what hard proven science can provide.

Really? I'd comment:

(a) The trouble about accessing 'simple spiritual knowledge' is that the simple spiritual knowledge that a given human being accesses seems to depend in nearly every case on where on the planet that person was born, and what his parents happened to believe in. Thus a person born in Riyadh is vey likely to be bought up as a Wahabi Muslim, and thus will access the 'simple spiritual knowledge' that goes with that identity. Born in Salt Lake City? Joseph Smith rather than Mohammed, and a lot else different too.

(b) Poor dull unambitious old science, on the other hand, is pretty much the same for both people. 'Simple spiritual knowledge(s)' claim to go much, much further than science: the problem is that they all go off in quite different and often totally incompatible directions. At least with science you know, on the whole, where you have got to and where you haven't.