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I watched it this week. The movie left me bawling.

I think the only reason there is so much confusion on this particular subject is because of what President Hinkley said during his Larry King interview so long ago. I found a transcript of the interview. Here is the dialog. CALLER: I was wondering about some of the guidelines in dietary restrictions Mormons live by, and how strictly members follow it. Because I was reading, once, the word of wisdom. My impression was that its major point was that one should respect all life, including animals and, as such, only consume them when absolutely necessary to sustain life, and to then eat them sparingly. But I've noticed that Mormon -- this is rarely followed by Mormons, and I'm wondering if this has anything to do with, as reported by "TIME" magazine. Larry King: OK, president? Gordon B. Hinckley: Oh, I don't know. You've read a part of the word of wisdom. The word of wisdom covers many things. It covers the excessive use of meat, as I see it. It covers, in a very particular way, the use of tobacco and alcohol. Larry King: By saying no? Gordon B. Hinckley: By saying, by proscribing those things. Larry King: No to caffeine? Gordon B. Hinckley: No to caffeine, coffee and tea.

Unfortunately it is that sensitive. Four people in my family have Celiacs Disease so we brought our own bread sealed up tight in a zip lock bag. It was blessed on the tray and brought to our family during the Sacrament.

Most alcohols have a really strong taste and 3/4th of a glass would not make you face numb unless you are super skinny and drank it on an empty stomach.

It is a hypothetical question with a real answer. Lots who leave do become agnostic or atheist (or somewhere in between the two). Lots do become just non-denominational Christians or Unitarians. I am now somewhat agnostic.

I don't like the direction that this thread has taken and I don't think it was good judgement on my part to post this thread in the first place. I want to apologize publicly to John and also say to Matthew that you don't have a right to say someone is or is not on the right path. In the church the that is the job of the stake pres or bishop. We are all here to progress the best that we can and we don't have any room to judge others. I requested this thread be deleted but if it is not I just want to apologize to John again.

I disagree. Just because his crisis of faith did not lead to the church's prescribed path does not mean he did not overcome his crisis of faith, and it does not mean he does not have faith because when it comes down to it we all walk by faith. It is very popular in the church to say "I know" but we don't actually "know". We believe.

Opps... the link did not work. Sorry. Here you go. Mormon Stories Podcast | Exploring and celebrating Mormon culture through stories I love him. I listen to him regularly.

I read a lot of forums and many forums are very familiar with John Dehlin and his podcasts on mormonstories.org/. He is pretty much never mentioned on here and I was just curious as to how many of you have even heard of him.

I am just curious as to why you are not a John Dehlin fan. He rocks!

I have acted on several such promptings... The most interesting prompting that I had was something that has gone unfulfilled. About seven years ago now my brother in law was sent to Afganistan. When a unit leaves they have a send-off/last good-bye for the family and the members of the unit. I remember being there feeling like I should join the military. The prompting to join the military did not go away for months. Over those few months I began to look into what it would take to join the military and found that with certain health problems I have I would never be accepted into the military. Over time the prompting faded away, but I often wondered how I would feel so prompted to do something and have it turn out to be not possible. I often relied on the story of Nephi and the idea that God will make a way for his children to fulfill his commands, but that was simply not the case with this prompting.

I don't doubt that you really love her. The one thing that I do know is that 18 is young. You are still figuring out who you are. All of my friends and family members who got married that young are divorced or have crappy marriages. I voted that you should go on your mission, but not because "all young men are supposed to." I think you should go because you learn a lot about yourself, the world and life by going.

The label "apostate" is such an interesting one. As someone else mentioned you can attend church or not attend church and be apostate. Apostasy really seems to stem from the motives behind your actions. Are you acting to worship and love God? If you attend church because you love God that is an action that moves you closer to God. I would dare say that if you attend church out of a sense of obligation you may actually be moving yourself away from God. I have met inactives that love God. I have met inactives that hate God. They do not really compare. Rebaptism? Nope. The doctrine would say rather repentance.

There is a certain process you have to go through to officially resign. I won't post the links but you can google "resigning from the mormon church" and there are several sites with instructions. The letter has to be specific and if you don't follow the process correctly it can take a long time. Mine took six weeks altogether and that is actually really fast.

The things that you are talking about are things that have been happening with language since the first language developed. Language is NOT a static thing. It is constantly changing and evolving.

I find it interesting that this entire thread is basically saying that a Mormon that swears is not a good Mormon. That is ridiculous. I have studied linguistics for quite awhile. Swearing is linked to dialect and judging someone based on their dialect is ridiculous. While poor language can be a mark of a lack of refinement or even rebellion it is not a mark of a lack of value or goodness... Or like the person who said "Swearing Mormons are the worst kind." Judge... Judge... Judge... There are lots of things worse than swearing.

I know a bit about this and if you really want to know how the process works you can google "resigning from Mormon church" yourself. Once you send in a letter asking for name removal you are basically saying that you no longer want to be a member. It is not the same as excommunication but you do have to be rebaptized. Standard church procedure and policy requires rebaptizm. So if your letter requested REMOVAL of your name from the records you are not a member. If your letter was just a NO CONTACT letter then you would still be a member. There is a big difference between name removal and just requesting to not be contacted.

I hear you. I am 29 and single. The church is just not built for single people. The basic unit of the church is the family. I have yet to go to a family ward that did not want to throw me in the primary. I always felt like I as an older single must have warts or something since they did not want to see me. Isolate the single slightly lonely person even more by removing them from all other adults... SIGH...

I'm currently make the decision about whether or not to be in the Mormon camp at all anymore (good or bad).

Quote: Not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine. A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole Church. With divine inspiration, the First Presidency (the prophet and his two counselors) and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles (the second-highest governing body of the Church) counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publications. This doctrine resides in the four “standard works” of scripture (the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price), official declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith. Isolated statements are often taken out of context, leaving their original meaning distorted. Thank you for the quote. It is useful. This would need to be an entirely different thread but my comment is that there are lots of things that would not be considered doctrine if we only looked at the standard works, declarations, proclamations, and the Articles of Faith. (Are tattoos ok? Are double pierced ears ok? For heavens sake, if we interpret the Word of Wisdom as written beer is ok. So are those really the only places that doctrine comes from?)

This is a tough question because it depends on a lot of variables. I would say that the family members that wrote to me on a regular basis were ones that I felt I was still close to while on my mission. Ones who did not write to me as often I did grow apart from them. Truly though, you are going to be out there on your own. The close, and supportive environment that family often provides is not available. When you are having a crappy day, week or month while on your mission you are not going to be able to go talk to your family or your friends. To be really honest you have your companion and other missionaries, but if you don't get along with your comp or are simply not close to them you will/do go through periods where you feel really, really alone. The other thing that is challenging is that when you get home you will have changed and your family will have changed, and you may not even feel close to them anymore upon returning. In reality relationships change. It would not matter if you went on a mission or not the relationships you have today with people in your life would not be the same in two years anyway. THIS IS A BRUTALLY honest answer, but I want to STRESS that I would not change a thing. I am not one of those RMs that says the mission was the best two years of my life, but I will say that it was a critical year and half where I learned a lot about myself, a lot about my relationship with God, and a lot about the world.

My wording in my post was not direct. I may have been told never to look at the history, but I have begun to look at the history. If you choose to look at the history and stick with FARMS and FAIR than you are sticking to more or less church approved means of studying the history. But I think that for many it would be hard to read even the FARMS and FAIR stuff and not begin to question. . . I am happy for you that you are at a point where nothing could make you question the church.

You should get it checked out, and I mean right away. My quality of life increase a by about 100 fold after getting diagnosed. I had a lot of unexplained health issues that almost immediately disappeared. I had depression, I was tired all the time, had lots of stomach/gastro problems, migraines, weight gain, and insomnia that all left within weeks. OH yeah- you mentioned bloodwork- not always reliable in diagnosis of this disease. They will have to do an endoscopy to check for villi damage in the small intestine... terrible procedure...

This is one of the topics in Mormonism that has always been interesting to me because it shows what you really believe about prophets. Members in general seem to fall into two camps. 1) Some members believe that every word that a prophet speaks is as a representative of God. As a prophet he represents God and thus all things he says are the will of God and thus commandments. 2) Some members believe that a prophet is only speaking for God when he is speaking in meetings like general conference, thus things that he says at other times, or in other places are not necessarily commandments nor the will of God. When I was a "good" member I believed number 1. In believing number 1 I felt that President Hinkley made it clear what he will of the Lord was with regard to caffeinated sodas and the Word of Wisdom when he was interviewed on Larry King Live. He basically said that we, as Mormons do not drink caffeinated soda. There is also some scripture, the exact location escapes me that says something to the effective of, "whether by mine own voice or the voice of mine servants it is the same." Now I bring this up not because I actually believe it, but because logic would say that if I as a member of the church believe that Pres. Hinkley was a prophet of God and said that Mormons don't drink caffeinated soda it would be like God said that we did not drink caffeinated soda. I however am not a "good" member. Therefore I don't think God actually cares whether or not I drink caffeinated soda. Nor do I believe that drinking it will keep me out of heaven.

Here - first hand, personal experience with illnesses that cause lots of weight gain - I had undiagnosed Celiac Disease for 10 years. This disease causes all sorts of symptoms, but basically your body reacts to to gluten (from wheat, barley or rye all of which are used as preservatives in tons of foods as well as being the primary ingredients in things like bread). Basically the villi in your small intestine are destroyed so that you can't properly absorb food. People with this disease react in two ways 1) they become completely malnourished and thing because they can't absorb enough food or 2) everything your body manages to absorb is immediately stored as fat because your body thinks that is starving. I was overweight with this disease yet I was hardly eating. Once I was diagnosed and cut gluten from my diet I immediately began to lose weight but was eating more calories than before. Hmm... Oh yeah, this disease - Celiacs Disease is one of the most undiagnosed diseases in the world. It is estimated that 1 out of 100 people have this disease and for every person that is diagnosed there are 9 others that are undiagnosed... Those sorts of stats tell me that there could be a lot of fat people that are fat because they have this disease.