Found the truth, what next?

[_KevinSim]

Here in America we enjoy freedom of religion, unless you're Mormon. Mormonism is like the mafia, once you're in there is no leaving "The Family".

That's not true at all. I know how it works. I write a letter to my stake president. He holds a court that I can either attend or not; I have no idea whether I'd want to or not. And then I'm excommunicated. It's not that complicated a process.

There are people here who say that Mormonism isn't a cult. Really? Then why can't people leave?

As I said above, people can leave. It's happened in the past, and will most likely keep happening in the future.

Why would anyone feel that living a lie is the best option?

I'll bite. What's the lie I'm living?

There are people here who say the Mormonism isn't harmful. I guess if you don't mind living a lie, surrounded by brainwashed family members and paying for it all with time and money, then Mormonism isn't harmful.

I read the definition for brainwash on "www.dictionary.com", and it doesn't fit what happens in the LDS Church at all. So what exactly do you mean when you say "brainwashed"?

[_gramps]

KevinSim wrote:

That's not true at all. I know how it works. I write a letter to my stake president. He holds a court that I can either attend or not; I have no idea whether I'd want to or not. And then I'm excommunicated. It's not that complicated a process.

That is not how it works.

One can send a letter, avoid all court procedures and resign. There need be no excommunication, at all.

You obviously don't have a clue.

[_schreech]

One can send a letter, avoid all court procedures and resign. There need be no excommunication, at all.

You obviously don't have a clue.

Correct - I hate it when momo's don't even know/understand what their own church teaches/requires....It leads me to believe that, quite often, online defenders of the LDS church are the most clueless...

[_KevinSim]

The problem here is that some member want to think God didn't institute the ban, but make no sense why if this is so that God would not correct people like BY. It would
be easy to do, and it would not mean going out and preaching to black communities.

Themis, why do you think it "would be easy to do"?

People tend to think that God can do anything, and that therefore all sorts of things should be "easy" for God to do. I share Paul's confidence he expressed by saying he can do all things through Christ which strengthened him, but I don't see how that means that the things God can do are easy for Him to do. I tend to think that on the contrary, they might be very difficult.

God can't just snap His fingers, and suddenly make everybody instantly happy. God certainly can't just snap His fingers, and thereby send a message to Brigham Young telling him to allow interracial marriages, and another one telling him to let blacks hold the priesthood.

It might just be much more difficult than you have imagined. God may very possibly have to pick and choose what things he works for and which things He can't afford to, or which things He needs to postpone doing for significant periods of time.

[_KevinSim]

If his wife thinks the same way, all the better reason not to open up all at once till she has time to digest the information. This type of person would most likely leave
them.

Themis, there's merit to what you say, and I think you've persuaded me in principle. But I have a very bad history of having tried to keep things secret from my wife in the past, and ending up with her figuring it out on her own without me telling her anything. Believe me, it would be better for me to tell her than for her to eventually come to the conclusion that I was keeping something from her.

[_KevinSim]

If God let's his church have all kinds of human-driven errors in it then why is the church so resistant to change?

The LDS Church certainly is slow to change, but that's not the same thing as resistant to change. I think the Church is extremely willing to change, provided it's convinced that God wants that change. I've seen it change, over just the fifty-two years of my life.

Why do members believe that the priesthood ban on women is from god? For the same type of reasons members believes the priesthood ban on blacks was from god.

The important thing is not to know for certain that anything "is from God"; the important thing is to know whether or not God wants to use the LDS Church to teach us His message.

God may very possibly know ahead of time that that teaching might involve a lot of dead ends that need to be retreated from. That doesn't mean that the route he's chosen isn't the best one from among the routes God had to choose from.

[_Themis]

If his wife thinks the same way, all the better reason not to open up all at once till she has time to digest the information. This type of person would most likely leave
them.

Themis, there's merit to what you say, and I think you've persuaded me in principle. But I have a very bad history of having tried to keep things secret from my wife in the past, and ending up with her figuring it out on her own without me telling her anything. Believe me, it would be better for me to tell her than for her to eventually come to the conclusion that I was keeping something from her.

No one is saying you should try to keep secrets. At least not important ones relevant to your wife. My advice was based on the idea that one has already keep something secret. These kind of secrets can have bad results if one is not careful how they go about telling their spouse.

[_Themis]

Themis, why do you think it "would be easy to do"?

I thought I had already presented tons of evidence that God can do it easily enough. Just open up your D&C, POGP, Book of Mormon, etc. Are we really going to argue that maybe God has a hard time communicating what he wants to his supposed prophet on earth?

People tend to think that God can do anything, and that therefore all sorts of things should be "easy" for God to do. I share Paul's confidence he expressed by saying he can do all things through Christ which strengthened him, but I don't see how that means that the things God can do are easy for Him to do. I tend to think that on the contrary, they might be very difficult.

So he can create the earth, he can do many miracles, healing, etc, but communicating to his prophet might be hard. I am certain this line of reasoning would be laughed at if you brought it up at church, and really should be if you believe the church is true.

God can't just snap His fingers, and suddenly make everybody instantly happy.

And who argued that he could?

God certainly can't just snap His fingers, and thereby send a message to Brigham Young telling him to allow interracial marriages, and another one telling him to let blacks hold the priesthood.

I am not sure why God needs to snap his fingers, but I still don't see why he couldn't easily send a message to his prophet. He did with Joseph all the time if you believe Joseph.

It might just be much more difficult than you have imagined.

You seem to be the one creating all these silly imaginations to protect a belief that is opposite of what the church teaches.

God may very possibly have to pick and choose what things he works for and which things He can't afford to, or which things He needs to postpone doing for significant periods of time.

I really have to laugh at some of the silly reasoning people do sometimes to defend a belief. A belief I admit the church does not teach. I can understand why some don't want to see God as the raciest though.

[_Jason Bourne]

Themis, why do you think it "would be easy to do"?

People tend to think that God can do anything, and that therefore all sorts of things should be "easy" for God to do. I share Paul's confidence he expressed by saying he can do all things through Christ which strengthened him, but I don't see how that means that the things God can do are easy for Him to do. I tend to think that on the contrary, they might be very difficult.


It might just be much more difficult than you have imagined. God may very possibly have to pick and choose what things he works for and which things He can't afford to, or which things He needs to postpone doing for significant periods of time.

Kevin please stop while you can. This attempt at a defense is just making things very bad for yourself.

This is nonsensical. God sends an angel with a flaming sword to make Joseph Smith institute polygamy but he could not tell Brigham to fix a mistake that was discriminatory? Come one. Also Themis also noted that God gave lots of instruction in the early Church on all sorts of stuff and some of it that got in the D&C is seemingly trivial.

I believe it was a mistake too. But the fact that God did not correct means he really does not speak much to LDS prophets or they are running things on their own agenda and ignoring God.

[_KevinSim]

Lets stop the BS. The Bible itself has a story of correcting Peter with his ideas that only the Jews should get the gospel. If he can correct him, it wouldn't be that
hard to correct BY, and would be important to do so.

So Themis, are you implying that you've got it all figured out? You know what God should do, with His power and with His time?

Then let me ask you, how old were you in June 1978? If you were an adult, then in view of God's inaction why didn't you step in for Him, and, impersonating God, tell Spencer Kimball or his predecessor Harold Lee that you, God, wanted the priesthood ban to stop several years prior to 1978? As you said, it "wouldn't be that hard" and "would be important to" do.

The answer someone would ordinarily give to such a question would be for that someone to say s/he doesn't have God's powers. But that presupposes that God actually does have significantly greater powers than ordinary human beings. Has God ever actually said that He does?