riverogue

Completely and utterly shocked at how judgemental many of these comments appear; those comments and rational behind them seem to be pharisaical and anti-christian.

Be honest and you will be on the right path, regardless of the harm that others may do to you, and what losses you suffer. I dont think Slam Jets judgement about you are at all accurate or in the least bit christian .

In my speedy path through atheism, I opened myself up to study a little about other religions and how they are interconnected. I also studied, enjoyed, and have previously agreed with the philosophy of transcendentalism, and learned about figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thoroue? , and some others. I learned that in ways they were inspired by the writings of Immanuel Swedenborg. Swedenborg was an incredible scientist and a very friendly, humble, and kind man. Eventually the focus of his scientific studies grew around trying to prove the existance of the human spirit through scientific experimentations. After many years he gave up, frustrated and fell into depression. One day circumstances led him to see a vision of God. For the remainder of his life he wrote about 20 large volumes about spirituality and the visions he had of angelic messengers. Yesterday, I began reading his most popular book "Heaven and Hell". The introduction had many parts that struck me. One of them from the intro by Colin Wilson reads, "Science not only destroyed the religious myths, but also their deeper meanings. If man beleives in nothing but the material world, he becomes a victom of the narrowness of of his own consciousness. He is trapped in trivialty. Religion gave man a reason for trying to reach the stars-for creating the magnificent spires and arches of gothic cathedrals, the great masses of mideival composers, the stained glass of the Chatres, the mosaics of Michelangelo. Where there is a distance between heaven and earth there is also a great vault in which the spirit can soar, When heaven descends to earth poetry has to crawl on its hands and knees." Wilson later explains that we do not know whether Swedenborg actually was visited by angels and the things they taught him about heaven are real, but Swedenborg truly beleived that he saw angels, was taught by them, and visited Heaven. Perhaps he was carried away by his imagination. But one impression I felt for sure,"Didnt you know? God speaks to us through our imagination." This I can apply to my own thoughts, imaginations, and desires. I can look at the great works of others, at their love, and faith, and know that there is a god. Recently I had the opportunity to attend the baptism and confirmation of a new close friend of mine. She was impressed with the divinty manifested in the humble beleivers here in comparison to ehere she had moved from. A few months back I had shared my testimony in writing with her despite my own serious doubts. She said that what I had said helped to move her toward her conversion. I found that I found much more peace in promoting others religion instead of tearing it down. I had arrived early to attend her baptism. Do you know what was the most spiritual part of the whole service was to me? It was watching the faucet of the baptismal font turned on and the font filling up with "living water", just as my body felt an upwelling of Gods spirit within me. I know that just as the noble christian god came down to sacrafice himself for us and was a steward for us, we too must must sacrafice ourselves caring for needs and happiness of others. This is a lesson that even an atheist can learn from the atonement. I am glad that I am going back to the followers of Christ.

Even if The Church Of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints is Gods inspired true church, I was not in God's true church, even if I was baptised, and active, and everything. But now I no longer believe. And It hurts to not have an afterlife to look forward too, and I do not know what I am going to do with my life. Whether to stay within the church as a nonbeliever and try to glean what I can from the moral principals that are taught, or stay away?

You may wonder why am I so concerned about this? Have you ever been used as a pawn in the extermination of anothers life in the name of your religion? I want to take down my photo with my uniform. I hate it when people tell me that they appreciate that I went to war for the country. I only agreed to join the army for the money. I was willing to kill others who were merely being used as pawns by those with power in Iraq, just so that my now exwife and I could live comfortably. And I felt justified in it because my beliefs were that I was serving god and man. Not only that, but I had a spouse leave me because I was fundamentalist and hypocritical in my religious beliefs. And now here I am leaving my religion. So yeah I do feel crappy about what went down.

I never said that atheists don't have love. I can think of an occasion where an atheist has cared for someone else who is dieing so that the person can enjoy the last few years of their existance, among many other ways they have shown love. I said that religion can instill love as well.

"aqge" I mean against. Do you know of atheists who leave any "true religion", due to scientific logical reasoning, feel that atheism brings unhappiness? My definition of a "true religion": A religion that inspires love, and its innocent believers are not used as pawns for some immoral purpose, but for a moral purpose instilling happiness, regardless of how untrue or scientifically illogical the doctrines of said religion are. So, is leaving "true religion" as one deciding that god doesn't exist, then considered illogical, even if god really doesn't exist? P.S. My posting infraction about the Book of Mormon and it's origins from those various manuscripts were ill researched. Later, I spent about an hour browsing through the Spaulding document and could find no real ties to the Book of Mormon other than what I understand as a theory of the time explaining burial mounds and artifacts of the region. I read somewhere today that the historical record tieing Rigdon to the family of the deceased Solomon Spaulding's family's community was a forgery by Mark Hoffman. Could be true, or not; I do not know. But I will be more sensible next time and not post stuff like that.

Read for yourself the sources that some claim is the inspiration of the Book of Mormon. If anything, if is really interesting reading. [mod edit - violation of site rule #1: Do not post, upload, or otherwise submit anything to the site that is derogatory towards The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its teachers, or its leaders. Anti-LDS Propaganda will not be tolerated anywhere.]

obviously urim and thummim is Hebrew, it is in the Old Testiment. I'm trying to research the context and origin of the other words as they were used outside of mormonism. Also, the NGram viewer is also case-sensitive, which can give much different results.

interesting words not unique to Mormonism before 1830 urim and thummim Google Ngram Viewer Deseret Google Ngram Viewer Kolob Google Ngram Viewer

I was asked to perform an exorcism during my mission. I recognized it as schizophrenia. I just did my best to give her a blessing to comfort her, that god loves her and will help her through it. I have seen plenty of people who have appeared to be possessed by demons while working with and living around people with mental illness. but I know that there really is no such thing as demon posession.

Dont worry im not going to twist this. I just want to read whay people have learned

What lessons about faith, morality, and decision making have you learned from the story of the fall of adam and eve?

Why is there no such thing as "gay rights"? Because being gay is unnatural? Supposing it is unnatural, shouldn't everything that is unnatural not exist? Everything that is unnatural already does not exist; the fact that it exists means that it is in-fact natural. Hence, being gay is natural. Is there no such thing as "gay rights" because the perceived consequences affecting society is unacceptably harmful to the whole of society and/or to those who can directly be associated with gay marriage, eg: adopted children of gay wed couples? Setting aside the fallacy that clergy are forced to perform marriages, what excessively harmful outcomes may arise which has been demonstrated in societies among various states in the US and nations throughout the world that have already legalized gay marriage? These societies do in fact exist, Denmark has been an example for the last twenty years. Before we determine whether we should make gay marriage legal, we must study the results of gay marriage in these societies. If the "weight of harm" of "gay marriage consequences" was measured in those societies to be more than the weight of harm suffered by those gay couples who otherwise would not be permitted to be married, then we should choose to keep gay marriage as illegal. Albeit we are not Denmark, who has a different culture than we do, but we do have states within the US that have allowed gay marriage. Let us see what kind of affect gay marriage has in those states. If it proves to be not harmful overall, or even beneficial to their society, then we should adopt the legalization of gay marriage within our own state.

Elder Oaks declares in a church published video at, People of Faith Should Defend Freedom of Religion, Elder Oaks Says that, "religious leaders should always be cautious and thoughtful that they are not advocating enactment of their own religious doctrine or their own religious practices into law" (min 13:10). This is not what the church did with Proposition 8. Does this show that the the general authorities were inspired by the Lord in learning that they were wrong by advocating law against gay marriage, whose position was based on our religious doctrine?

I was wondering how come young single adults who had a baby but are no longer in custody of the child due to adoption, etc, are not permitted to go on a mission, (Church handbook of instructions, 2010 edition). Does anyone know why?

Im not sure how animals will be resurrected. When I'm fully resurrected into my original state, hopefully it will be as a furry naked pygmy. :) I wonder of what use animals physical and mental adaptations developed to maintain their place in the food chain will serve them if everything will be immortal. I'd accept reincarnation before resurrection for this reason. But I cannot say either is true. It may not be important though, if one is a humanist.

Just thought of this: I remember teaching from the discussions book as a missionary that sinning is knowingly going against the will of God. If sin is knowingly going against the will of God, what if you sincerely don't believe in God, are you then sinless? Is a new definition in order? or is it already here, and I'm just behind on the times? I thought maybe sinning is going against what you feel is wrong. But what if you are a moslum and felt guilty for prostrating yourself before Allah while praying towards Mecca 2 or 3 times each day instead of the required 5 times each day, or were a woman and failed to wear your Burqa. Are you then sinning? Maybe sinning is simply going against the will of god, but where does that put people who do not know gods will? You might say that we all have an innate ability to know what is ethical and going against that is sin. But there are plenty of things that we do that are unethical but do not realise it. EG: Thousands of "worthy" mormons crowding into a rodeo ground to watch entertainers tackle and tie up livestock and and then riding a bucking bull why its testicles are getting pinched by a rope yanked my a bull rider causing excruciating pain to make it buck. That's virtually the equivalent of thousands of mormons gathering to be entertained by profound child abuse, as those animals go through just as much pain and mental anguish as a little child. So just what is sin?

I mean those who live ethically and serve others without any thought of eternal rewards (Heaven, eternal marriage and families etc) or punishment whatsoever. That is awesome! So, what makes them surpass many recommend holding mormons, without having received the gift of the holy ghost? Do you think people with this selfless perspective is rarer or more common in their atheist demographic than in the LDS church? If an openly atheist person wants to serve within the LDS church what ways are there for him/her? Being of such caliber, would positions of leadership or instruction still be off-limits for them. Is it sinful for them to be a baptised as a closet atheist mormon for certain desired areas of service?

I've been perplexed because when I attend church, I often hear people baring testimony about literalness of the stories in the scriptures. Sometimes they say that God would not deceive us so those stories have to be literal. I see it as a two way street, though. The way I thought about it yesterday, either the stories in the scriptures are literal and God is allowing us to be deceived by certain theories of science, or that God has allowed us to be deceived by certain stories of the scriptures written by man but include moral inspirations from God,but which are historically false, and that science that contradicts it, are for the most part true. For an example of the latter: writings in the scriptures include the fall of Adam which brought death into the world, but that we are deceived by whatever righteous intention of God in all the evidence he created about death in the world before Adam. In contrast, the thousands of feet of limestone above Provo is all due to calcium carbonate shells and skeletons of dead sea life accumulated over millions of years. You can actually look at different limestones under a microscope and see the fossils. When you look at those mountains your actually looking at trillions upon trillions of compressed fossils. I think there is no way that could accumulate in a few thousand years. One also sees the thousands of fossil remains of primitive hominids with evidence of a successive line of development into homo Sapiens. For the case of excessive but interest oriented ramblings, let me say I like birds. Did you know that we can inject their eggs with a type of hormone activating genes that lay dormant, causing them to grow teeth like dinosaurs. (I wonder if scientists could do something similar in humans, like grow a tail). Anyway, dinosaurs are classified into two main groups the latter to develop in the Mesozoic are called ornithosaurs which have beaks, low bone density, hip bone structures, young ones living in nests being waited upon by their parents, and sometimes downy feathers like birds. Peleontologists now almost universally agree that birds are actually living dinosaurs, descended from one particular type. They are not much different from the dinos we dig up, than whales are from the 4 legged mammals they derived their homogenous hip and leg bones from. However, it seems to some as if God created that false evidence so that we can rely on faith in his revealings within the scriptures about creationism, and the mortal fall of mankind along with other life. I've been thinking that isn't really faith as it is dare I say ignorance. I wonder how lost early man might have felt if God didn't inspire some type of explanation of their mortal beginnings that they were able to understand, then throwing in inspired morals to help them live happy. But I think God's best definition of faith is for example: the student finally passing is algebra class after failing it twice, a unemployed father finding a job to feed his family after a long time of earnestly searching, or for the methadone or porn addict overcoming their addiction. Just some things I've been thinking, and I've I rambled long enough, so I'll let ya'll go.

So my scenario goes like this- Suppose an otherwise penitant, dedicated, loving professor of anthropology, who believes that God created humans by intelligent design through evolution. He believes that God indeed called Joseph Smith to restore the church along with the living prophet Thomas S. Monson. However he believes that God reveals his doctrine to the church line upon line, precept upon precept, hence the Lord may be weening his children off of certain divinely inspired moral stories through recent inspired scientific discoveries so that they can more fully understand his ways. This professor converts to the LDS faith and wants his endowment. Must he reject what he believes in human evolution, accepting literally the Adam and Eve teachings learned in his endowment ceremony, as apposed to it being a divinely inspired parable, to receive his endowment, temple marriage, and exaltation? Can he no longer teach anthropology to his students so as not to be apposed to currently held doctrines?

When I did the 6 month basic training/AIT thing and a year in Iraq I was told it was up to me whether to wear my garments. I brought mine along but found it wouldn't work out because a half dozen times a day my whole battery would see me in them. I have had sergeants tell me not to wear them. I stopped wearing them, but not because of my sergeant. When I went to Iraq, I had the army brown garments. I chose not to wear them after they got mixed up in the laundry. One day my platoon sergeant put on my garment top thinking it was his normal undershirt. When he saw the symbols he went before my whole squad and asked whose they were, I piped up and told them they were mine and he went off on how kinky weird they were in front of everyone. I also had a pair of bottoms blow of the line and was picked up by an Iraqi who was wearing them around! So obviously there are times when it is up to the person to decide whether to wear them or not. Also, I don't see anything wrong with buying a similar undershirt with your fabric of choice, as a soldier can just mail his army undershirts to the church for them to sew the symbols on for him/her. Obviously military women wearing their bras underneath their military temple garments is ok. Also temple patrons mistakenly tell women that they have to wear them under their bra even though the official stance is that whether wearing them under or over the bra is up to the individual. Probably be a big relief to a lot of LDS women if they actually knew that.

Sexual assault education I received in the army taught that most rapes are actually committed by men the women knows well, ie. boyfriends, spouses, friends, and relatives. 80% of those involve alcohol. It goes to show why one should choose moral friends and stay away from alcohol. Despite all the media coverage, men prowling the streets at night, or breaking into homes looking for women to rape is like one in a million.

Well I've been in the church my whole life, 30 years, and I still feel out of place. So your not alone.

Yeah, the whole kitchen knife thing creeps me out.