Daermon

Does anyone receive a vocal response?

So I need to practice faith, in order to receive it? I'll not allow myself to fall into a trap, and let myself believe in something my emotions tell me should be. I would prefer to have all knowledge to what I am pledging myself, so that I may make informed decisions, instead of realizing only after I have committed myself that there were unintended promises, or decisions made. Please understand, there is much I question about everything, not just the church and the faith of it's members. I am not trying to deny anything, but I need more than I have received. Religion is a difficult thing for me to open up to, for a few reasons. 1. I have lived in the United States my entire life, and my parent's raised me attending the church. If you go to a store, you'll find many items with a cross on it, or spiritual post cards, or bibles. If you open your wallet, your money will say "In God We Trust" on it. Everywhere you look you'll find reference to a singular deity, an all knowing God. Our entire lives we have had the idea of a single God blasted upon us, and it causes me to wonder if that is the truth. I rarely take anything anybody says as truth unless I can verify it by other means, why would I do so with religion? 2. With religion, and especially in the LDS church, you are supposed to feel the spirit guiding you. You pray, and the spirit tells you. You're about to do something wrong, the spirit warns you. You need direction, the spirit guides you. NOBODY has ever told me, how exactly the spirit affects you. Is it a certain muscle in the stomach that lets you know you've been contacted? Is it, an overly devine voice in your head that is clearly not your own? Is it a shaking, trembling experience? What am I supposed to feel? If you tell me I will know when it happens, I'll not take that as a correct answer. The reason being, if you want anything enough, and the only way you'll know it's happened is by an unexpected emotion, or feeling, then you are going to get it no matter what. I'll not suddenly have a testimony because my stomach cramped while I was praying, or that I feel like I did something wrong when I sin. 3. History shows us how the masses have been swayed to do almost anything based solely upon religious command. What that tells me, is that people are easily convinced of anything, and most are incapable of original ideas, or clearly individual thinking. I don't need a vocal response from God, I need an understanding however. If I need to find this, by learning everything ahead of time, how is that any less effective, or sincere than blindly following the word of another person?

Please forgive me if I unknowingly post something that is considered taboo, or some kind of question that nobody asks because it's considered inappropriate, I mean no disrespect of any kind, and only wish to find some answers. I have not had contact with anyone from the church in a couple years, but some of the things I learned/discovered last time I did, still intrigue me, and I don't think I will ever be satisfied, or be able to move on until I find some decent answers. Please correct me if I am blatantly wrong, or don't have the complete truth, I ask based upon what I know, believe, or have been told. I don't know if there are any rules regarding who can know what, or anything like that, so if I do something wrong, please delete this thread and at least let me know what I did wrong. If any of this seems a bit far fetched, I apologize, I just need some answers, or some direction. I was beginning to attend church again, and was spending some time asking questions to my bishop, and some of the things he and I discussed seem almost, contradictory, or even blasphemous to some of the main teachings and whatnot. I asked him several questions relating to our main purpose in life, and why we were being 'tested' or 'prepared'. I told him, I wasn't going to accept that all those who 'pass' are going to live for eternity in bliss, and that God only wanted to spend eternity with the righteous of us. I don't believe that God would spend the time, energy, resources, effort on testing us, just to hang out with us at the end. Could he be preparing us for an even greater task? If so, why the need to overcome evil, desire, sin, unless there is that same, if not greater evils in the next task? I asked him, why in my scriptures is there a copy of some papyrus showing something called Kolob, something about a governing body. Why would there be a need for a governing body? What the primary function of a government is? I asked him why the devil, satan, adversary continues to go against God? I told him I wasn't going to accept a scripted 'misery loves company' answer, and that any being surviving thousands of years has by now amassed enough knowledge to understand that he has no power over God, and is destined to failure. I asked him if God had parents. Bare in mind, that it has been a couple years, so some of the things I remember him saying may be out of context. He told me, that not many people are going to end up in "outer darkness", and that who is to say another being won't use satan in the same regard that our God did. As per the reason of life questions, I remember what he said quite clearly, "isn't that a scary thought, that there could be a being of power similar or equal to that of our God, that is evil?" Some of the things we discussed, while not confusing for me, seemed rather, well, like something I was maybe not yet ready for. I ceased going to church, and asking questions to him and the institute teacher, because I was afraid I was coming back to the church for the wrong reason. I didn't want to come back if I was only doing it for entertainment, as in, I find this sort of thing fascinating. There is much more I would learn, but I want to do it for the right reasons, and no matter how much I pray to find out if God even exists, I get no answers that I can understand. Can anyone assist me?