mikbone:
Thank you very much for your reply and for apparently taking my message in the way it was intended. I try not to have the spirit of apostasy or to rant against the church. Such activity is just not productive in my view although I can understand why some do it from time to time. I may have ranted a bit once or twice in my frustration, but never very publicly, and I had/have no intention of doing so here. My own struggles have been hard enough that I have no desire to inflict such on anyone else by publishing my doubts all over cyberspace. Given that, I will only try to give some representative information that is responsive to your questions, but I am hesitant to elaborate in too much detail about the many points of doubt that I have about the church’s truth claims because in many ways (a) I feel I have exhausted those inquiries, and (b) well, there’s that whole contentiousness thing that I don’t want to provoke. I appreciate your zeal in wanting to “get down to business,” and I even admire it a bit, but I did not come here to debate. If you feel that the foregoing is my way of depriving you an opportunity to shore me up, so to speak, I apologize. Being shored up could be a good thing, but I am going about it other ways.
I have many shortcomings. I do continue to pray in spite of my doubts. However, to the extent that god is answering back, hearing him do so has never been my strong suit. I try to maintain faith and hope that he is there whether I hear him or not. Maintaining faith in a creator and in the immortality of the soul is the easier aspect for me. Maintaining belief that god directs the church in a proactive fashion and actively intervenes in our individual lives on a regular basis is one of a number of things I struggle with. I believe our church leaders are sincere in their efforts, but I do not believe they have a direct, open line of communication with god that amounts to sure and unquestionable direction from him on a regular basis as most members seem to believe which leads to a perception of the church being infallable. Leaders seem to be praying and asking and acting on what they perceive to be inspiration the same as the rest of us. Are they better men than I? No doubt.
You're right; I am not an atheist, nor am I wholly agnostic even. I may be becoming a mormon deist, however, because more often than not, I feel that we are largely left to our own devices here in life even though I want to believe that we planned things out in much detail and have help and guidance available in order to follow what we mapped out for ourselves.
I do not see myself affiliating with another religion ever in this lifetime either. God (or possibly chance, with which I will not disagree) sent me to a mormon family, and that religion will remain the formal, external structure to my spirituality, for better or worse, until I shed the mortal coil as they say.
As for where I believe prophets have led the church astray, perhaps I should rephrase or qualify just a bit. I don’t know that any prophet has made such huge errors in leadership that the church has been irreparably harmed, but some have certainly caused damage in varying degrees. Among instances of such damage for me are the Adam-god theory (espoused by BY as truth, later decried by Bruce R. as heresy—I side with Bruce on this one) and the view that people of black African descent were less valiant and unworthy of the priesthood. Both of these are poignant to me even though most apologists view these concerns as mundane and would say “Is that all you got?” I do realize that the present trumps the past and that both of these errors, as I choose to call them, have been corrected. That is great.
I still recall exactly where I was as an 11 yo boy when I heard over the radio that the priesthood ban had been lifted. What came into my heart and mind at that moment, I still consider a spiritual, even revelatory experience. What was spoken, more so it seemed from my soul, than from any outside source was “Thank God that horrible mistake has finally been corrected.”
Similarly, I still recall as an even younger lad overhearing my non-LDS relatives discussing the church and my uncle telling one of my cousins (thinking I was not listening) that the LDS church worships Adam. I thought at the time, "we don't believe that, what bunk!" only to discover that such had not been far off from the truth at one point in our history.
So, in my mind, both these mistakes have caused damage.
On a final note, both in agreement with you, but also by way of stating an additional concern, I would heartily agree with you that “blind obedience is nonsense.” Those who ascribe to and tout the mind set of “When the prophet speaks, the thinking has been done," scare me. As much as I hate to use the “C” word, such thinking borders on a cultish mentality. I refuse to forego using my agency without thought regardless of where the directive originates. Unfortunately, from my perspective, the church seems to be taking this approach more and more in recent years. Follow the Prophet! That is all. Teach only from the manual. We know what is best for you. Maybe you do, but I’ll reach that conclusion on my own after much study and inquiry, some of it even from outside the manual and standard works.
So mikbone, thanks again for your indulgent reception of my message. I appreciate it and to all you others who have replied with kinds words to my message, thank you much. Vort, yes, I was replying to your OP (and others that came after) more or less directly, and where I misinterpreted you, you have my apology. And again, my apologies for not allowing any of you the opportunity to “get down to business” as well, but even if we could defeat the Huns along the way, that was not my intent in coming here and I have not changed my mind on that front. So in closing, I bear you my testimony that I know how much I do not know. I know the amount of what I do not know is immense. I believe what I choose to believe, much of which aligns with the LDS gospel and some of which does not. I hope that what I believe will someday prove to be true.
Blessings to you all,
Beast
