Moniker wrote:THIS is why I went to MAD over a year ago! I was reading some stuff on FAIR and was beginning to recognize what precisely a prophet was for LDS. I was more than a bit taken back.
Husband and I discussed and we wanted to be reassured that questioning WAS encouraged. One of the first threads I made on MAD was about prophets and I tried to be polite while at the same time not being too mealy mouthed. It concerned me, it still concerns me when you may not question directives at all and taught to follow a prophet. I wanted to be assured that this thinking did not translate to being absurdly naïve and not being able to weed out "false" prophets (Helzer brothers,LeBaron, and the like) from those that were benign as seen in the Church. Although since researching more I'm not entirely convinced that the prophets of the LDS Church are in fact benign -- I find some "teachings" or "directives" in fact slightly frightening.
I understand the concern here - it
is a scary concept! It doesn't necessarily feel scary at all when you are 'inside' the belief (at least it wasn't for me - I saw it as a distinct positive to think that there was direct divine guidance in latter days...), but once you've stepped out of it and look back - you kinda think to yourself "Ermm - I believed that 'those' guys were the ones who, out of all the people on the planet - were the ones 'authorised' to speak for God on his behalf? Seriously?!"
...however, I also know that one can have this belief and yet keep it in reasonable perspective. I know, because I have too many people around me (Many family members and friends who are Mormon) that do exactly that. How exactly that works? Well - there's all kinds of words you can throw at the issue. "Compartmentalisation" etc. I'm not as confident about exactly how it works as much as - in many cases - it does.
I'll use my sister as a specific example. We're pretty close, and when I left the church it was a bit of a shock to her. In her words:
"If even YOU can leave the church, then that's scary".
We didn't really talk about why I left etc. for a long time. It was a subject we avoided. But after maybe I think 2-3 years, we just happened to get onto it. And there came a point in the conversation where we both said:
"OK - let's just both say exactly what we think, and just promise to not offend each-other!".
So I laid out all the reasons why I no longer believed. The way I now saw things. The various problems I had with believing not only in Mormonism, but in any God at all. We did get into a bit of back and forth on some points....
...but on
many points we both agreed that some things were 'problems'. I bought up something a past LDS president said - for example. (I'm not gonna say what, because I don't want this thread to get derailed over it). She thought about it for a bit and said: "Well OK, if they did say that, then that's wrong and I don't agree".
She believes that LDS leaders are inspired of God, and yet she doesn't believe everything they say. Both beliefs and attitudes go hand in hand.
My Sister believes that the current prophet is Gods chosen mouthpiece on Earth. But I don't believe for one second that she would literally go out and do anything the guy says - no matter what. The Mormon faith may make substantial efforts to try and get people to just 'follow along', but it doesn't necessarily succeed. Even on the people who actually believe it's 'true'!
Not to say there aren't more 'fundamental' LDS members. I'm sure there are plenty of them, and probably more proportionally than less 'regimented' religions. Should be noted, though, that my personal experience of Mormonism might be a tad different to others, being that it was here in the UK. From the sounds of it, we might be a tad more 'liberal' overall over here - in general...