The Nehor wrote:Yeah, I do. A few apostles and Institute Teachers and Seventies get together and decide whether to stamp 'LDS approved' on something. There are errors in them, mistakes, failings, stupid things, etc. You wouldn't believe the attention activity I was supposed to use in Gospel Doctrine last week (shudders).
Yeah, it was taught on the fringe like so many things. I bought it all when I was a kid. Then I learned to distinguish the hype that some people give stuff and avoid 'muddied water' to get to the pure sources of doctrine.
I will still ridicule adults who refuse to move onto an adult understanding of doctrine and instead focus on Seminary style hype. If that makes me a monster, then that is what I am.
Clearly, if people would just use an adult understanding of doctrine to recognize that apostles, institute teachers, seventies, and correlated lesson manuals are full of nonsense, they would come to realize how true it all is
Yes!!!! Now you understand!!! You have to use that Holy Ghost thing. There is no other way. Welcome back to the fold brother.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
Lucretia MacEvil wrote: And if an investigator is young enough, or desperate enough, or depressed enough, or superstitious enough to join the church on that basis, well, the church will probably be good for him. I suspect the church is attracting a fair share of dysfunctional people these days, although the only person I actually know who has converted in recent history did so for a Mormon woman and left a 25-year marriage to do so.
Now cowpie, lets be nice. I happen to know that many converts to Mormonism are not dysfunctional. However, regardless of the faith, people join religious faiths out of need too. It is not uncommon also to see that religion can attract broken people. After all, how many dysfunctional people followed Christ when he was ministering? I think quite a lot.
I know it didn't sound too "nice" and I even felt a little bad about that, but let's remember that we were talking about those who join because they are informed that the only negative information about the church comes via Satan, and that's pretty weak.
The person who is certain and who claims divine warrant for his certainty belongs now to the infancy of our species. Christopher Hitchens
Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. Frater
Lucretia MacEvil wrote: I know it didn't sound too "nice" and I even felt a little bad about that, but let's remember that we were talking about those who join because they are informed that the only negative information about the church comes via Satan, and that's pretty weak.
In a way you have a point. However, the way information comes from critics is one sided and never two sided. It is also presented at times in a very slanted and cunning way. And in most cases, apologists do have comebacks to critics claims.
No organization is perfect and that includes the LDS church since it is made up of human beings who can show imperfections. And critics can stress the imperfections.
I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the whole world. Joseph Smith We are “to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to provide for the widow, to dry up the tear of the orphan, to comfort the afflicted, whether in this church, or in any other, or in no church at all…” Joseph Smith
why me wrote:In a way you have a point. However, the way information comes from critics is one sided and never two sided. It is also presented at times in a very slanted and cunning way. And in most cases, apologists do have comebacks to critics claims.
No organization is perfect and that includes the LDS church since it is made up of human beings who can show imperfections. And critics can stress the imperfections.
I agree that LM's post was a bit snotty. That said, information from apologists is also "one-sided and never two-sided." And from my experience, the apologists' comebacks are pretty weak.
It's not the church's imperfections that show it to be false: it's the clear evidence that it's false.
The Nehor wrote:I also find it interesting how many ex-mormons here have psychological and emotional problems. Why are the broken people leaving?
That was one hell of a cheap shot. I suffer from depression, and I don't need someone like you making fun of that.
I wouldn't take too personally anything Nehor says. He's not exactly a bastion of mental stability himself, after all. And he's opening a huge can of worms by implying that "broken" people are leaving the church and healthy ones remain devout, but why go into all that. Anyway, I say that as someone who also has depression. It's congenital, the church didn't cause it, the church didn't help it, and I didn't leave the church because of it. Maybe it takes a little extra for us to get out of the church in spite of depression. Maybe we deserve a little extra credit!
The person who is certain and who claims divine warrant for his certainty belongs now to the infancy of our species. Christopher Hitchens
Faith does not give you the answers, it just stops you asking the questions. Frater
Lucretia MacEvil wrote:I wouldn't take too personally anything Nehor says. He's not exactly a bastion of mental stability himself, after all. And he's opening a huge can of worms by implying that "broken" people are leaving the church and healthy ones remain devout, but why go into all that. Anyway, I say that as someone who also has depression. It's congenital, the church didn't cause it, the church didn't help it, and I didn't leave the church because of it. Maybe it takes a little extra for us to get out of the church in spite of depression. Maybe we deserve a little extra credit!
Probably so. My depression is also hereditary: all four of us surviving children have been diagnosed with it, from me to my active LDS sister to my "less-active" brother and my Jewish sister. Depression is no respecter of persons.
The Nehor wrote: I also find it interesting how many ex-mormons here have psychological and emotional problems. Why are the broken people leaving?
Because the church does not serve their need anymore. Also, when people find out something that they didn't know, they become disillusioned. Some even become depressed and broken. However, since the LDS church has not been proven false, it is a false depression or brokenness. Now if the church was proven false by a manucript being found in Joseph Smith's handwriting complete with rough draft notes, well, then I would understand the bitching and depression much more easily.
Why me, as you are no longer active, would you mind explaining where it is you fall within the parameters you've described?
My guess is you fit somewhere around "since the LDS church has not been proven false, it is a false depression or brokenness."
As such, you are stuck with rationalizing your depression or brokeness as being false, until some scrap of paper undeniably from Joseph Smith Jr says it was all "false" or something to that effect.
Lucretia MacEvil wrote:I wouldn't take too personally anything Nehor says.
I wouldn't take anything I say generally either.
He's not exactly a bastion of mental stability himself, after all.
You don't know me! You don't know the darkness in my soul! Dark like society doesn't understand!
And he's opening a huge can of worms by implying that "broken" people are leaving the church and healthy ones remain devout, but why go into all that.
Because someone else opened the opposite can of worms. Lots of worms...but at least there is symmetry.
Anyway, I say that as someone who also has depression. It's congenital, the church didn't cause it, the church didn't help it, and I didn't leave the church because of it. Maybe it takes a little extra for us to get out of the church in spite of depression.
Sorry to hear that.
Maybe we deserve a little extra credit!
One gold star for the wolf lady for rejecting the gospel of....hey, wait a minute.
"Surely he knows that DCP, The Nehor, Lamanite, and other key apologists..." -Scratch clarifying my status in apologetics "I admit it; I'm a petty, petty man." -Some Schmo
AlmaBound wrote: Why me, as you are no longer active, would you mind explaining where it is you fall within the parameters you've described?
My guess is you fit somewhere around "since the LDS church has not been proven false, it is a false depression or brokenness."
As such, you are stuck with rationalizing your depression or brokeness as being false, until some scrap of paper undeniably from Joseph Smith Jr says it was all "false" or something to that effect.
Not exactly. I am not active because I don't have an interest in callings, giving talks, giving 10 percent etc. My inactivity is superficial and on the surface. It has nothing to do with history or doctrine.
I know what I know: there is a Book of Mormon. I prayed about that book and received a powerful witness. Now since we have the book, we need some explanation about how it came about. Did Joe write it from a superhuman memory? Did sidney write it and use Joe as dupe?and luckily for sidney, joe could read his manucript and memorize it and stick his head in a hat to recite it. Or is it what it claims to be? The first two seem farfetched. But who knows?
I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the whole world. Joseph Smith We are “to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to provide for the widow, to dry up the tear of the orphan, to comfort the afflicted, whether in this church, or in any other, or in no church at all…” Joseph Smith
why me wrote:I know what I know: there is a Book of Mormon. I prayed about that book and received a powerful witness.
What does that mean? I mean, what do you think it means that you "received a powerful witness?"
What was that witness? Was it only during certain portions of the book or did you receive it when you read about Shiz and Coriantumr? Did you read the entire book straight through and then pray or did you only read certain portions?
What does it mean for the book to be "true" to you?
I ask because it may mean something different for you than it does for me, and I am curious as to your answers to those questions.
