YellowLight

I have a question and I may be hijacking my own thread...LOL. At any rate, the whole speaking as a man or a prophet thing that has been discussed ad nauseum got me thinking. Qedd said above that you can know whether or not what the prophet says is true or not through the spirit, what if you feel the spirit telling you something different? Would this be a case of something that may be beneficial to the church, but not neccessarily for you? I mean, everyone is different.

I will have to see if I can find any official statements from the church stating whether or not they possess either the seer stone or the U&T.

It seems that there has been a fairly diverse range of discussions regarding following prophets and such lately. This got me thinking of what the prophets of the church are sustained as every GC, mainly as The prophet, seer, and revelator. I have been trying to find recent prophecies, revelations, or times when current (let's say the last 20 years) prophets have used their seer abilities. President Hinckley said once that we don't need much revelation since much of it was received during Joseph Smith's life. So, this has me ask the following three questions, and I am asking in all sincerity as I have stumped myself. 1. What is the last prophecy received from a modern day prophet? (Is it the 1978 revelation on blacks and the priesthood?) 2. President Hinckley said "We don't need much revelation. We need to pay more attention to the revelation we've already received." While this may be good advice, what is the most recent revelation given? 3. If the prophets are sustained as seers, why do they not use their ability to translate valuable documents such as the dead sea scrolls, the Book of Joseph from papyri, or finish the inspired translation of the Bible? The church is even known to possess Joseph's seer stone and Urim and Thummim.

Rule #1: Don't Feed the Trolls...they won't go away!!!

I know when we requested to have our names removed from church records, the local bishop had to send the records to SLC. However, I think it was more of a verification thing than anything.

"... many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a WHITE and a delightsome people." (1830 Edition, p. 117) "... PURE and delightsome people." (1840 edition) "...WHITE and delightsome people." (All later translations until 1981) "... PURE and delightsome people." (1981 translations , II Nephi 30:6)

I concure. However, do you think His priorities would be right if he were more concerned about earrings or tattoos versus the larger issues at hand? IMO, being a father of several children, basic needs of all my children would need to be met before I got down to that level of scrutiny.

What one person describes as defiling, another may describe it as art. It goes the same with earrings. One pair of earrings is President Hinckley’s personal choice, but it surely is not doctrine. Personally, I have no tattoos, but would get one if I knew of something I wanted on my body for the rest of my life. Again, it is strictly a personal decision and President Hinckley’s talks at GC don’t mean much to me, because he was simply speaking as a man…you know, it isn’t official doctrine or anything. How do I know this, because God I know would not be giving personal revelation on the number of earrings while 28,000 children die every day from starvation alone. It seems he has bigger problems on his plate.

How would you be able to differentiate between the two? If you were having a hallucination of some sort, you would not be in a reational state of mind to make any other conclusion. Many people who kill their own children or others have said they SAW God or was directly told by Him, so how do you combat that?

Ok, here is my take on this. There is absolutely no possible way to “prove” that the Book of Mormon is not true. I believe this to be true in regard to the Bible, Koran, Kojiki, and every other holy book you can find of every religion. If it were so, no one would belong and the religion would self destruct. Even with strong evidence against these books, there will always be people who will say, “there is a possibility and I have seen miracles, so it must be true.” So, do I think that one can prove away any religion…no. But I do think that we should always examine and re-examine the evidence for and against in order to make an objective opinion. It seems that we are unable to do this with our religion of choice, but are able to pick away at EVERY other religion out there. It is simply the cognitive dissonance that keeps us from really looking at ourselves from the outside in. That is why I am here…not to pick a fight as an ex-LDS member, but because I am still looking at everything on both sides.

If you are talking about extreme anti-mormons like the garment waiving, 10 foot tall sign weilding, satan costume wearing people at GC, I think they are literally crazy. They fall under the Westboro Baptist Church segment of crazy christians. However, I think there is a full range of people that get stamped with the anti-mormon tag which may be more damaging than the crazy people at GC. It seems that there is an increasing divide on the "us vs. them" attitude of the church lately. Little lessons like "Beware the Bitter Fruits of Apostasy" is just one example. Just my outside observations.

Obviously my family gives me the most meaning. Besides that, there are so many things. The warmth of the rising sun in the morning on my way to work to the beauty of the stars at night and everything in between. It seems that people are always on the go and never stop to appreciate all the natural beauty in the world, whether you believe in God or not, it is difficult not to be in awe.

Agreed. I think in heavy populated places, it would be extremely difficult to create your own culture and identity after leaving. I also think it is relatively easy to leave the church, whether just being less-active or actually leaving. However, as I stated before, the difficult part of leaving is the torrment that happens to the active extended family. The mother is left to feel that she didn't do enough as she is told repeatedly that it is her responsibility to raise the children in "these latter days" and the eternal family is seperated forever. Not believing in it anymore, the only anguish that I feel is knowing the grief period, if you will, of what will be said by other members to them along with the feelings in their head. That is the difficult part.

This is for the benefit of everyone involved. And you ask how hard is it to just live and let live, unfortunately it is quite difficult when the church teaches that we are breaking up our eternal family unit, the MOST important thing above all. After all, that is what the temples are for. So, either you are extremely unfamilar with the amount of difficulty in leaving, or you are just naive. Either way, we don't want to live a lie, but I guarantee there will be "drama."

I believe the names would remain on the record that our parents receive as we are their children. But, the way I understand it, we will not have the membership number by our names. I know what you mean. It really is the elephant in the room. DW still dresses modestly so my parent's never notice the missing garments or anything, and if you saw us, you might even say "that family is mormon." :) And yes, we do not want them finding out at their tithing settlement, I could not imagine the shock if I were in their shoes. In the letter that we typed up, we discussed that we did not leave for the typical reasons that people leave and we have given this much thought. We also mention that we would or would not discuss any doctrine with them as long as their were no hidden motives, I would want to know. We also mention that we have no problem dearing of discussing church callings, activities or attending church functions such as baptisms. I know our siblings will have children and we are still family. Thank you for your advice as it will not be thrown to the wind.

BJW, in my opinion one of the most important things you can do is to be honest with yourself. If you do that, you will be happy. The reason I say that is because if you really feel the church is true, then individual people and their poor decisions should not stray you away. The bishop is right in that people are not perfect anywhere you go. So, my advice, follow your heart and fully commit yourself to what you feel.

I was reading through the thread started by Godless, "Coming Clean" and realized that sooner or later both DW's as well as my parents will find out about us leaving the church. The reason, we will not have membership numbers next to our names at tithing settlement. DW's parents already know that we DO NOT attend church. They asked me one time, and I told them and that was the end of the conversation. I think they will be the least affected of the bunch. My parents on the other hand are "TBM" if you will, even though I would consider my mom to be a social mormon. However, I think my father will try to argue doctrine with me and show that he is right, that is just an assumption, but it is just his personality...can't ever be wrong kind of guy. So, the dilemma. DW's parents are many miles away so it will be the letter approach or through a phone call. My parent's are close so it would be the letter or face to face. I guess the big question is this...if you were to find this out about one of your children, what would you prefer the delivery method to be and why? We both know that our parents will be upset regardless, but we are adults and the decision is ultimately ours to make. Still, for this reason, we have held off from telling them and know that it WILL cause contention. Also, if anyone thinks it appropriate, I could post the letter that would go to my parents here so you may have a better understanding of what they would receive. Thanks!!!

Hey, I totally agree with you. I could just see them saying HA HA, we got them whether or not they want it. But at any rate, I think once the lights go out, they are out for good. You are right on.

I know that was the official stance of the mission president, which took orders from the GA's. However, I think the "official" stance of the church is members can speak with them about the gospel but unless they are willing to change the missionaries shouldn't waste their time. That is just in my experience, I can't say that is accross the board.

That is true, however, there is a very real distinction between knowing something and simply believing it. If I immersed myself and simply chose to believe that Islam is true and lived according to its rules and belief system, over time I might receive a witness of the truth. There are around 4 million active members of the LDS faith while there are many more millions if not billions of people of different faiths who believe and know that their faith is the one true path to God. So, that logic doesn't fair too well with me. Believing something does not make it true.

Ok, not to highjack the thread, but my family just recently had our names removed from the church records and we were discussing whether or not we can keep relatives from baptising us after we die. If our children say no, can either my DW's or my siblings still perform this, especially since we had our names previously removed? I mean, let's face it, we are apostates under the control of Satan. :)

Actually we don't. When I was a missionary in San Francisco, the Castro district was a red zone "do not enter" and we were specifically told not to teach homosexuals. And you ask what else can you do, I can think of lots of things, the Sermon on the Mount and the two great commandments come to mind to name a few biggies.

You can also search for one in a well. :)

If instead of Angel Moroni visiting Joseph Smith it was a pink unicorn, would you adorn the Temples with pink unicorns on top? Your statement comes off as rude, arrogant, and ignorant of other's views.

That would be such a waste of time and money with such a motive...I doubt anyone would ever do that.