Another What's the Alternative Thread

[Guest]

Some time back I started a thread going with title, I think, "What's the Conscientious Alternative to the LDS Church?" I believe I was asking for ideas on which way I would go in my life in a direction other than devoting my life to the LDS Church, if I were to come to the conclusion that God didn't want me in the LDS Church.

Aristotle Smith complained that I wasn't really sincere, because in another thread I had declared my intent to investigate another approach, in that case Biblical Christianity, and yet I wasn't willing to follow his suggestion and attend a Biblical Christian group to find out by attending whether or not God might want me there.

My response was that I was willing to give Biblical Christianity a fair chance, but I didn't find it reasonable to give it more than a fair chance, and that therefore if I needed to attend a Biblical Christian group to find out if God might want me there, fairness would require me to attend every faith group in existence, and there are far too many of them to make such an approach feasible. It doesn't make any sense to attend one group in particular unless I have some reason to believe God might actually want me to be a part of that group, some metadata so to speak, some reason to believe there's something special about that group that would give me some reason to believe it was a better approach to finding out about God than the LDS Church was.

Furthermore, the approach of just attending a Biblical Church is kind of problematic in my own situation. My wife is an active Latter-day Saint, and is not willing to humor me in an active investigation of any Biblical Christian group. There's no way in the world she would condone me attending any such group. And it's hard to imagine me getting away with attending one without her knowing I was doing something, even if I had a desire to do something like that on the sly, which I really don't.

On the other hand, I would have no problem at all reading websites with information about other faith groups, provided that reading material isn't too huge, or reading persuasive e-mails favoring one group over another.

I also got a lot of responses from atheists and agnostics telling me the alternative to the LDS Church was simply to do nothing, to have no belief in anything at all.

The problem I had with that approach is that I am LDS because I have a firm belief that some good things must last forever. I see God as a being who knows how to preserve forever some good things and is actually acting to preserve forever some good things. If I were to stop believing in God, that would not take from me the need that some good things be preserved forever. My conscience requires me to work toward the preservation, forever, of some good things.

Some posters have contested that viewpoint, asking me why my conscience would be that demanding. But it seems to me that for my conscience to be otherwise there would have to be some statute of limitations, so to speak, of how long I was obligated to care for future generations of humanity. My conscience would perhaps require me to care for my children and my grandchildren, but my conscience would perhaps not require me to do anything for my great-grandchildren. Imposing that cut-off point, between my grandchildren and my great-grandchildren, just seems kind of arbitrary to me. I don't see how anyone can in clear conscience draw such a line between the generations of humanity they will care for and the generations of humanity they will not care for. It seems much more reasonable to conclude that one has the responsibility to care for all future generations of humanity.

I'm not talking about an all-consuming obsession here. All I'm saying is that a conscientious person owes it to future generations of humanity to take some time, even a few seconds a week or a month to think about what would be required to preserve some good things forever.

At any rate, for atheism or agnosticism to be a valid approach, such a way of thinking would have to include some way to work toward preserving some good things forever, and so far nobody has been able to explain how atheism or agnosticism would successfully do that.

So I ask you again, what alternative is there to the LDS Church for a conscientious person?

[Guest]

Brawndo. It has electrolytes.

Flds or rlds, depending on how you feel about polyandry?

[_just me]

At any rate, for atheism or agnosticism to be a valid approach, such a way of thinking would have to include some way to work toward preserving some good things forever, and so far nobody has been able to explain how atheism or agnosticism would successfully do that.

You haven't been able to explain how LDSism will successfully do that, either.

[Guest]

JM smacks the nail on the head. Now add the thought that this thread is an exercises in futility as you up front state that between your own biases and your wife's influence, you are unlikely to research anything, then I stick with: brawndo cuz plants crave elecrolytes.

[_Fence Sitter]

At any rate, for atheism or agnosticism to be a valid approach, such a way of thinking would have to include some way to work toward preserving some good things forever, and so far nobody has been able to explain how atheism or agnosticism would successfully do that.

You haven't been able to explain how LDSism will successfully do that, either.

And what does "preserving good things forever" even mean?

[_Tobin]

Thank you for your post Kevin.

I think it would help you if I may if I offered a suggestion.

I personally do not believe in the absolute "truth-i-ness" of the LDS Church. I believe it has as many problems as any other Church does in fact. So, I try to avail myself of all good and worthwhile causes, no matter who the sponsors of the activities are. Now, as far as discovering that truth (which is essentially seeing and speaking with God and learning it directly from him), I don't believe the LDS Church is going to necessarily get you there any faster than anything else can (such as studying science, mathematics, other philosophies and so on). It requires an openness and willingness to embrace a range disciplines and lines of thought. And it requires patience, dedication, persistence, self-control, exactness and all the other -nesses that we attach to being our best. In this way, we emulate God - through being our best, serving and loving our fellow mankind, and doing all good things possible to improve the lives of those around us and the world in general.

In doing that (and embracing a number of organizations and people), we truely become like God and temporal and spiritual saviors of our fellow mankind by leading a good example and showing them the way to be closer to our Father in Heaven.

[_Aristotle Smith]

I think you should check out The Church of Jesus Christ Who Hates the Use of Bolded Italics.

[_just me]

I think you should check out The Church of Jesus Christ Who Hates the Use of Bolded Italics.

I legit LOL'd

[_KevinSim]

You haven't been able to explain how LDSism will successfully do that, either.

If there is a God, then preserving some good things forever is, as far as I'm concerend, just what God does, and by trying to live my life under God's guidance I believe I'm heading in the direction of doing my share of the work that needs to be done to preserve some good things forever.

Atheists and agnostics, on the other hand, don't appear to even be trying to work towards some good things lasting forever. Clearly one has to have some idea how good things are going to last forever, even if that one simply believes God will manage it, in order for any good things to last forever.

[_Drifting]

Kevin, you need to decide what you mean by 'good things'.