Stormy Waters wrote:I often wonder how the average LDS members deals with the standards that they are burdened with. Do they all feel inadequate? Or have they just learned not to take it seriously?
I would venture to guess rationalization plays a big role.
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)
Hades wrote:When you leave the church you are supposed to descend into misery. TBMs are the only happy people in the whole world.
That just hasn't been my experience. Leaving the church was the best thing I ever did for my own happiness. Nothing warms my heart more than knowing I can roll out of bed whenever I want to on Sundays. I won't be dressing up and I won't be spending three hours wishing I were somewhere else. I can enjoy the football game guilt free. That's happiness.
My wife thinks her colleague's atheism means she's not happy - her lack of eternal perspective about not being able to have kids means she doesn't have the comfort available to a Latter-day Saint. And yet my wife has had some panic attacks very closely related to certain LDS doctrines about children and salvation.
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.
It's interesting how people in the church say that if you weren't happy in the church or felt any sort of guilt, it was your fault. You didn't understand the gospel, didn't keep the commandments, were too pharisaical, took it too seriously, etc, For some reason, it's impossible for them to understand that the church doesn't work for everyone.
I spent a lot of years telling myself I was happy in the church because I defined happiness as keeping the commandments, having a family, and feeling the spirit. I don't know that the church necessarily made me unhappy, but I was so focused on that definition of happiness I never noticed that I was dealing with serious depression. I knew something wasn't quite right, but I couldn't put my finger on it, and I couldn't acknowledge that I was unhappy and depressed.
Life is much better than trying to live by some artificial rules.
I find it inconsistent for bcspace in the last week to say that the Word of Wisdom is about obedience, not health (given the studies that show no problems from caffeine or that one to two alcohol drinks a day is health). Then bcspace comes into this thread and says that those of us that crashed on the rocks of trying to be obedient were taking it all too seriously.
Really, which is it?
ETA: Actually, I know bcspace's answer--in whatever context, the answer is whatever makes the Church look good, and not have to answer for its absurdities.
Buffalo wrote: Right. So it's more of a theoretical righteousness. Not something you need to obsess over.
Of course, I would disagree with your representation that it is theoritical. I believe it to be quite real.
Nonetheless, from your perspective, yes.
And I don't obsess over it at all. I rarely think about it other than in the context of meditating on what it means and why I received imputed righteousness. I certainly, in no way whatsoever, consider that it may be removed to any degree. It is what it is. It's there. It will always be there.
Buffalo wrote: Right. So it's more of a theoretical righteousness. Not something you need to obsess over.
Of course, I would disagree with your representation that it is theoritical. I believe it to be quite real.
Nonetheless, from your perspective, yes.
And I don't obsess over it at all. I rarely think about it other than in the context of meditating on what it means and why I received imputed righteousness. I certainly, in no way whatsoever, consider that it may be removed to any degree. It is what it is. It's there. It will always be there.
Your version is much healthier than the LDS version, for sure. Yours is a completely foreign concept to us.
Parley P. Pratt wrote:We must lie to support brother Joseph, it is our duty to do so.