Found the truth, what next?

[_Jason Bourne]

It continues to go downhill quickly.

[_KevinSim]

So you're more committed to your imaginary friend than your flesh and blood wife? Here's hoping she finds that out and leaves your undeserving punk ass.

Won't ever happen. She's made it extremely clear that she is as committed to her imaginary friend as I am to mine!

[_sock puppet]

So you're more committed to your imaginary friend than your flesh and blood wife? Here's hoping she finds that out and leaves your undeserving punk ass.

Won't ever happen. She's made it extremely clear that she is as committed to her imaginary friend as I am to mine!

Wow, it sounds like the two of you need a party just for two, and leave your imaginary friends at home with your children under age 5 (for whom it is not weird to have imaginary friends).

[_KevinSim]

He said he'd accept a divorce as a consequence of his god belief. Did you miss that?

And harm has to do with more than just the couple. What if they have kids? His ridiculous priorities (based on a fantasy, no less) could potentially put their wellbeing in danger. This is what makes me hostile. It's the idea/attitude.

Some Schmo, do you realize what you're asking me to do? You say you despise theism in general, and yet to follow your advice I'd have to stay devoutly LDS for the rest of my life! My wife has made it clear to me that the thing she would divorce me for is leaving the LDS Church! You sympathize with my wife, but the thing she wants me to do is stay LDS! So do you think I should do the thing that would keep my marriage (and role as a father for that matter) intact or don't you?

[_KevinSim]

If you will stop painting all Theists with your enormously broad brush........
I will not attribute your posts to all atheists.

Ceeboo, what type of theist are you?

[_just me]

He said he'd accept a divorce as a consequence of his god belief. Did you miss that?

And harm has to do with more than just the couple. What if they have kids? His ridiculous priorities (based on a fantasy, no less) could potentially put their wellbeing in danger. This is what makes me hostile. It's the idea/attitude.

Some Schmo, do you realize what you're asking me to do? You say you despise theism in general, and yet to follow your advice I'd have to stay devoutly LDS for the rest of my life! My wife has made it clear to me that the thing she would divorce me for is leaving the LDS Church! You sympathize with my wife, but the thing she wants me to do is stay LDS! So do you think I should do the thing that would keep my marriage (and role as a father for that matter) intact or don't you?

How does it make you feel that your wife would divorce you if you were not LDS?

Personally, that would make me feel like crap. Like the only thing I was was a role to be filled. Certainly not loved or cherished as an individual.

[_KevinSim]

What was your MP's explano of the Decker materials?

Sock Puppet, what do you mean by explano? I tried to look up a definition on "www.dictionary.com", but it didn't have anything for it. Did you mean perhaps explanation?

The only thing I remember my mission president saying was that critics of the LDS Church tear down, and hardly ever (in his observation) build anything up, so he thought the LDS Church (which in his opinion did build up a lot) was much more likely to be inspired by God than its critics are.

[_KevinSim]

I suspect because you are playing apologist and cannot admit it.

Themis, thank you for pointing me to the Monson quote. But I assure you, I would have no problem admitting it if I could remember it ever occuring. I simply don't. I don't doubt that Thomas Monson ever made the statement you attributed to him; my point is simply that it's not something that's emphasized so much that it's caught my attention. So to say that showing "doubts is very discouraged in LDS culture" seems to be an exaggeration. Maybe I'm just not very observant, but I would think if doubts really are very discouraged in my culture, I would have noticed it.

I said LDS culture discourages doubt, not that no one will express it. I have been in the church all my life, and like you been on a mission. I know any doubts I have had I have kept mostly to myself for those reasons.

My point is that I did express serious doubts to my mission president, in terms that he could not have mistaken, and in response he helped me resolve those doubts, but at no time either when I was talking to him about my doubts or any point later in my mission, did he ever discourage me from having doubts.

I would think that in a culture where doubts are "very discouraged," I would not have escaped my encounter with the mission president without some kind of statement that discouraged me from expressing my doubts. If it really is true that doubts are "very discouraged in LDS culture," then how did I escape that encounter without hearing something counseling me to not have doubts from somebody?

[_KevinSim]

That is not how it works.

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

I knew it involved sending a letter somewhere! :) My point was that the statement that one cannot leave the LDS Church simply is not true.

[_KevinSim]

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.

If it was God's overarching goal to let the world know He is not a racist, then of course He could have told "Brigham to fix a mistake that was discriminatory." My point is that, until one knows why God makes all the decisions He makes, one isn't in a position to say, "God should have done thus and such." Maybe God had thought everything through and realized that for some bizarre reasons it was better to do things the way He did.

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.

If God isn't speaking "much to LDS prophets," then who is He speaking to?