Watered Down Mormonism?

[_thews]

I hate to be the one to tell you, droopy, but Jason hasn't left the church. He's still fully active, tithe paying, temple attending, faithful. His biggest problem is his integrity won't allow the Brethren to lie.

I hate to be the one to tell you, as misery loves company and your friends are leaving the island of misfit toys in droves and you're one of the only ones left claiming to be fully active, tithe paying, temple attending, faithful non-believer, but let's face facts harmony... you believe Joseph Smith was a fraud and still put up the plastic facade that you actually "believe" in Joseph Smith's truth claims. Wake up... put up your front and fake your beliefs, but don't speak for others who didn't ask.

[_Jason Bourne]

It turns me off because it is disingenuous, obfuscating pablum.

Nice linguistic work there. Well stated, although not stated about the correct phenomena.

Well we disagree. If you really think the answer the Newsroom gave about the LDS beliefs about becoming gods is just like what is taught in the Bible and sharing God's divine natute is not watering things down, simply milk before meat I can't help you. To me it seems one of two things. Either it is obfuscation by the church or the church really is backing away from the doctrine it has taught since the 1840s about humans becoming gods. Your are defending the indefensible.

There is simply no good way around it. I feel sorry for you that you have to defend such things. The best you can do is plead milk before meat.

Defend what things, exactly?

I found your entire comments about my post that shows the Newsroom watering down many long held LDS doctrines mostly "well it is milk before meat. It seems like the typical LDS defense of dodge and dance.

You don't know my spirituality nor my prayers. You don't know the personal angst it has caused me to arrive at where I am at. You don't know how I wish I could put things back to what they used to be. And you don't know me, nor my heart. I have dumped thousands of hours into the issues we discuss here. The sad conclusion for me it unfortunately much if what the Church claims and that which I used to defend seems not to be true. And that does make me very sad.

This is all a part of the standard "Why I left the Church narrative" that I've seen many, many times.

Haven't left yet Droopy though as I noted in the other thread there I days I think about it. But so what? What you call the standard narrative is in fact truth telling by those who go through the experience. Do you accuse me/them of lying?

I do not doubt that it has caused you pain.

Gee thanks.

The problem is not your suffering, as that may be, but your rejection of the light and truth of the gospel and the Lord's authorized Church and the authority within it, which indicates that perhaps, you have not yet suffered nearly enough.

Perhaps I have embraced light, knowledge and truth and you are the one bound down by tradition and an inability to see things as they really are. Two can play this game Droopy.

I was going to respond to your defense of the items I posted but really it is a waste of time.

Yes, it may be, and as your mind continues to darken, that even the light you had is taken from you, it will become ever more unlikely that I or any other apologist will be able to have a civil or reasoned discussion with you.

If you can offer decent defenses I am all ears. I just see so little of it from you and others. And no Droopy it is not darkness. It is enlightenment.

Take a look at Kevin Graham, and ask yourself it that is what you wish to become (because there is a long history in the Church of that pattern being followed to its sad end time and again).

I am not sure why you have to bring in the apostate you love to hate. Kevin may be an angry person at times but really not much more than you are on your side. I don't know Kevin other than from message boards. His style is certianly not one I have any desire to adopt. But I think of him like I do you. Neither of you are stupid, you both are very tenacious and even bullheaded in your views-religious and political, and you both can be bombastic. But I like Kevin and I like you except when you get personal with me.

[_Jason Bourne]

1. Intellectually, he's essentially left the Church, just as you have.

In some ways you are right. Or maybe the Church left me. See Droopy, so much of what I was taught is being tossed under the bus as speculation and not official. Apologists do it. The Church does it on unseemly issues. Then there are all the things the church just kept quiet about that you really had to work to find that is until the age of the internet. And even then I defended so much of this for years and years. It is just my integrity would no longer allow me to do so. If yours still does more power to you. I don't fault you for it. Life is hard and tough to figure out and navigate.

2. Next time you lie through your teeth in the faces of your priesthood leaders to obtain your Temple Recommend, think about the text I bolded above, and remember that, given your actual beliefs and perspectives as of the present, it is highly unlikely that you would, if you answered honestly, be able to pass a baptismal interview, let alone a TR interview.

This must really bother you man. See why do you have to get personal with people. Leave her alone. You are not her bishop.

Just keep that in mind, Harmony. Ahh yes, it is Satan, isn't it - the Slanderer - who brings railing accusation against the Brethren for lying, and who says they have sinned when they have clearly not sinned, while stewing in his very own broth of lies and deceit even as he casts his defamation.

Oh brother. :

You're as transparent as always, Harmony.

As are you Droopy. Why are you such an angry man?

[_Jason Bourne]

Perhaps you and Jason ought to get your stories straight first...

Well believe it or not Droopy even with all that I still, at this point, find much value in the Church. So I stay. The scale still tips in its favor for me.

[_Jason Bourne]

I hate to be the one to tell you, droopy, but Jason hasn't left the church. He's still fully active, tithe paying, temple attending, faithful. His biggest problem is his integrity won't allow the Brethren to lie.

I hate to be the one to tell you, as misery loves company and your friends are leaving the island of misfit toys in droves and you're one of the only ones left claiming to be fully active, tithe paying, temple attending, faithful non-believer, but let's face facts harmony... you believe Joseph Smith was a fraud and still put up the plastic facade that you actually "believe" in Joseph Smith's truth claims. Wake up... put up your front and fake your beliefs, but don't speak for others who didn't ask.

Harmony can speak for me any time she wants too. What she said is not incorrect. Hard as I know you find it hard to believe that someone like me or Harmony can stay LDS and navigate through it, it is what it is. And I understand your points that are not totally invalid. But like I have told you before, I do what works for me and me first. Next come my wife then my kids. After that not much matters to me. But I get your points.

[_Droopy]

A "faithful non-believer."

Interesting concept.

[_Jersey Girl]

A "faithful non-believer."

Interesting concept.

Loran,

I feel compelled to barge in here. Look, if you're referring to either Jason Bourne or harmony, you're clearly barking up the wrong tree. A "faithful non-believer" would be an interesting concept.

But it's not applicable to either of them no matter how much you wish it were.

[_Droopy]

Wow Droopy, I have to disagree with you completely. I am a Mormon, but I believe understanding and appreciating the truth should be paramount in our lives, at least as best as God gives the light to see it.

Yes...

Just because someone is not willing to put up with non-sense and dishonest statements of faith (such as "we don't know" why blacks were denied the priesthood when it is obvious to everyone it was a racist, man-made doctrine)...

At least make an attempt at some degree of subtlety and linguistic creativity when begging the question. Don't make pointing out incipient fallacies of reasoning so easy a caveman can do it.

...does not mean they do not believe in God or believe that Mormonism is based on the truth that there really is a God and we can interact with that being.

God exists and we can interact with him. Quite a broad brush, to say the least.

Actually it should be the highest ideal for a member to hold their leaders to account for what they do and what they say. If they are mistaken, that should be pointed out and corrected.

Wrong. The church is not a democracy and the members do not "point out and correct" official doctrine as it comes through revelation to those the Lord has anointed to receive such knowledge. The members themselves have no mantel or authority with which to take upon themselves that task.

That is how we all will eventually arrive at the truth together as a church.

That, however, is not the pattern at "arriving at the truth together" as found in the scriptures on in established and settled Church doctrine.

[_Droopy]

Loran,

I feel compelled to barge in here. Look, if you're referring to either Jason Bourne or harmony, you're clearly barking up the wrong tree. A "faithful non-believer" would be an interesting concept.

But it's not applicable to either of them no matter how much you wish it were.

Give me a single example, just one, of a core, essential truth claim of the Church, especially the claims as to its origins, that Harmony accepts as true and as traditionally taught by the Church.

Just one would do.

Jason has already admitted that most of what the Church teaches he considers to be false. As for Harmony, I cannot think of a single, clear instance of an official doctrine, unique to the Church, that she upholds and accepts as true.

The name of this is "apostasy," clearly and without ambiguity. I see little actual point in arguing the matter, as to the semantics of the case.

[_Shulem]

These are days of purging and throwing out the garbage.

Droopy is now on IGNORE. I've had enough of him.

Paul O