The Folk Prophet

By using the term argument I was expecting/implying that not everyone would necessary agree with all the details once it was made...     However the core point was that I think skalenfehl could of reached the point he was going for without the attack on leaders.  And that is what I understood you to mean when you said "My thoughts exactly"

The trouble with the "mean old conservative Mormons" line is liberals Mormons as described by TFP can be as bad. If you aren't looser with your beliefs and faith you are pitied, sneered at, and considered uneducated/stunted in your intellectual and philosophical growth. Many of these people desire to rid the Church of many of its core doctrines and despise anyone with a traditional testimony.

I am kinda disappointed....  There can be an argument made about the decanonization of the Lectures of Faith and why it should concern us.  That does not require any of the Leaders of the Church to have "Made a mistake/gotten it wrong/been in error."  In fact such an argument would presume both groups where one hundred percent correct in their action and reinforce what our leaders have always taught us while doing so.

I read the OP as talking about liberal Mormonism, rather than liberal politics.
Of course there are semantic issues involved. What is actually meant by "liberal"? Like some of the stuff anatess was saying is liberal... What? I'm clearly not in sync with whatever she's thinking.
My view is that being liberal as a Mormon usually means prescribing to a looser idea of belief than is standard in the gospel. It refers to those who disagree with basic, common tenets such as "follow the prophet". Liberals tend to excuse away ideas they are uncomfortable with. They tend to put their thinking and ideologies above the teachings of the leaders of the church.
Such thinking is, in my opinion, off the correct path. It may not be turned around heading the opposite direction. But neither is it straight and true.
There is only one way, only one truth, only one path, and only one method of thinking that will lead to salvation. That is complete and absolute submission to He who is mighty to save. Complete submission to Him. Complete consecration to His church and kingdom. A total and absolute sacrifice of self.
And that's a pretty conservative-Mormon thing in my view.

Hi,
 
I'm LDS and I have a "mostly-conservative" mind.  This means I consider myself 25% liberal and 75% conservative.  Over the past few years, nearly everyone in my immediate family who has a "mostly-liberal" mind has fallen away from the Church (and I'm not exaggerating.)  
 
Before they fell away, some of them put forth great effort to convince me that you can be liberal and a member of the LDS church.  Needless to say, now I am almost completely convinced of the opposite.
 
This whole situation troubles me greatly and I find myself agonizing over it regularly.  I wish my family could all just be happy members of the Church so we could continue to have that in common.  At this point, I never even talk to my family about the Church except maybe mention that I gave a talk or one of my kids gave a talk.  It feels weird because we used to talk about the gospel all the time.  
 
This is going to sound bad, but my experiences with my family has given me an extremely negative and tainted view of being "mostly-liberal."  I guess the way I look at it is that if being "mostly-liberal" means you reject and get offended by the great things taught by the Church, being "mostly-liberal" must be a bad thing.  I do not understand the hostility towards the Church from my family in recent years at all and I think they are just being manipulated and misled.
 
Is my conclusion wrong?  Is it possible to have a "mostly-liberal" mind and be a happy member of the Church.  
 
Brad O.

If asked directly, I would actually state quite concisely that we see it as an abomination.  But would follow up with a description of agency and accountability, as well as our rejection of Original Sin.  The goal would be to show that, given our assumptions, calling it an abomination is logical.  
 
Tone carries more in this situation.  If you speak with sterile tone and without judgment, the message is usually well received.

Which is top priority?
 
And I did not include "both" as an option on purpose. Clearly, if and when "both" is an option then "both" is the right option. I am asking concerning those times when speaking the truth will offend. And saying nothing is included in the never offend side, to my thinking.

Seems strange to me that some are so quick to judge other's testimony efforts as invalid, in need of correction, or otherwise wrong.
 
Beam in our own eyes, indeed.

Yep. Anatess, as always, is the Grand High Poombah of Most Right.
Strive to speak the truth, but I have met far too many people who feel that the excuse "I was just being honest" covers for "I was just being mean."
If you meet someone on the street and you say, "Wow! Your face is as ugly as a jarful of smashed, dirty buttocks." when they are, in fact, as ugly as a jarful of smashed, dirty buttocks - You are not 'Just being honest'. You are being hurtful. Even if it's the truth, it is a truth whose sole purpose is to be a bludgeon.

Faith is a choice. We do not lose it. We abandon it.

What is with the recent fad of dismissing ancient thinkers and writers as "wandering Jews" or "Bronze Age shepherds"? How is their being "wandering Jews" or from the Bronze Age (which in any case is factually incorrect -- the Bible as a history of Israel is based firmly in Iron Age culture, which is precisely the basis of our own culture and technology) relevant to the truthfulness and insights into the human condition that they had? What sort of mindless hubris convinces people that we today somehow have a better handle on what it means to be human than the ancients did?
 
I have seen this attitude a lot in the last few years, and it utterly baffles me. Are people really and honestly so blind that they think our ability to make DVDs means we understand the human mind and soul better than the ancients?

I know I'm replying to your reply to Vort...but...my thought:
 
I don't see it that way. What God want us to know about the Holy Ghost He has revealed and is plain and easy to understand. What He does not want us to know, He does not want us to know, and there are probably few exceptions to this. There may be some select cases where someone with enough faith and righteousness has enlightenment on the matter beyond what God has given to the general. But in those cases, that revelation is for that specific person, and they would not share it with the masses, and would likely be commanded not to share it with the masses.
 
I believe (he can correct me if I'm wrong) that is Vort's point.
 
As far as the answer to your question, it is unknowable. Only those who have said information revealed to them would know if it is explainable or not. The rest of us are guessing.

The scriptures could be referring to literal light or figurative light(Light illuminates and makes plain, banishing shadows. Dark is simply the absence of light. You cannot force darkness in to a lit room).
But light, as a literal thing, is a strange and peculiar item.
If you have two cars travelling at 20 miles per hour towards one another, they are moving 40 miles per house relative to one another. If two beams of light are travelling towards one another, they are moving the speed of light relative to each other. Not 2* the speed of light. If someone is watching light and expecting it to behave as a particle, it behaves as a particle. If they are watching light and expect it to behave as a wave, it behaves as a wave.
So it could be literal or figurative. Either way, as long as you're getting the lesson's point, I'm sure God is happy.

Faith is a choice. We do not lose it. We abandon it.

To my thinking the flaw in logic being employed is to equate the reality of some post-consequence choices as equal to the pre-consequence choices.
 
Making one decision may not eliminate the possibility of making another...but it does potentially eliminate the possibility of making some others.
 
Pregnancy is an ideal example. Once pregnant, there are choices that are gone and cannot be made concerning the matter any longer. One is stuck then with one of two choices. Have the baby or abort it. The decision to do otherwise has been removed.
 
 
This is conflating agency with freedom.

Faith is a choice. We do not lose it. We abandon it.

If correct on point 2, I find that very disappointing.
The health/life of the mother I understand.
Rape/incest... I do not understand.
You do not punish the child (with a punishment of death no less), because the father of the child was a criminal.
Politically, I am a Libertarian.
I believe in, promote and fight for individual rights.
How great the violation of individual rights it is to end the life of a child in the womb.
It matters little that pro-abortionist may not see abortion as killing child.
What matters is that it actually IS the killing of a child.
In honesty, it is not the killing a child... it is murder.
I do believe abortion should be a crime.
However, it is not.
And even if it were, cruelty and hatred directed towards those who have an abortion, is (in my opinion) a degree of evil itself.
I do use strong words often when speaking on, or about abortion.
I use those words no matter if I am talking to a pro-life individual, or a pro-abortion individual.
But that does not mean these conversations cannot be had in a loving manner.
Abortion is the greatest horror America has ever engaged in.
If ever there were something that cried out for national repentance, abortion in America is that thing.
 

There is only one right side. And that is God's.

It's all word play. By their definition of "Christian", we aren't. So what? It amounts to name calling. (Which is, I'm sure, exactly how they feel about being called anti-Mormon...though....if the shoe fits......)
 
Anyhow...sticks and stones and all that.

And I can hardly be held to blame that He agrees with me.

In my hurry to respond to the "revelation is capricious" comment, I neglected to respond to what came before and after.
  I used to believe both of these things, and I am certainly willing to believe the first with regards to those engaged in this particular conversation. But it has been a revelation (so to speak) to me that many people are not engaged in a search for truth at all, but rather a search for gratification and pleasure. And such people appear not to constitute a mere tiny minority of the populace. As for your supposition that all truth is divine truth, I will grant that in the largest and most comprehensive sense. Brigham Young, the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, expressed a similar sentiment, saying that all truth of every type ultimately formed a part of the gospel of Jesus Christ. But such a sentiment is surprisingly useless in actual application. For example, the particular size, shape, location, and mineral makeup of a small stone resting on the surface of a rocky planet orbiting a star in a galaxy 100,000,000 light-years away from us is a piece of truth, yet it has not the least relevance to us and never will, nor to our descendants. Much closer to home, there are any number of facts that constitute "truth" in this broad view, and yet are of no consequence whatsover to us. For example, many and perhaps most scientific models and "facts" fall into this category. We are specifically concerned with truths that lead us to God, or in other words, that help us to be happy now and in the eternities to come. In my experience, the Spirit of God rarely or never testifies to the truthfulness of such useless and mundane facts, unless they happen actually to be relevant to something important.  
 Yes, humility is indeed a virtue, and in our world it seems in short supply. But I am willing to bet you that no one undertakes philosophy for the purpose of being humbled by ignorance. On the contrary, the purpose of philosophy is to try to systematize, understand, and explain the world around us. In this sense, philosophy is not unlike the gospel. It is, in fact, an ersatz "gospel", and is popular solely because its practitioners do not recognize a better way to achieve what they imagine their goal to be. (Okay, not "solely". There are those who practice philosophy in order to further their personal, social, and/or political agendas, with little regard to "the truth". But such people are not worth discussing further than to mention their existence and warn against them. I am speaking only of basically honest people, which many of a philosophical bent are.) One important message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ is that every honest and humble seeker after God has access to this "big divine truth" of which you speak. It is not limited to the educated elite; on the contrary, the educated and proud are very often the blindest and least susceptible to such truth. BUT -- This does not mean that everyone gets an equal say in what God teaches. As has often been noted, truth is not established by majority vote. We all have access to divine truths, and thus we all may (note the word!) become prophets. But we are prophets to ourselves, not to the world. You cannot work your way into being a prophet who speaks to others in God's name. God himself, and only God himself, chooses such prophets. Volunteers are not accepted. In fact, you may not even teach in God's name without being duly called and authorized to do so by one with God's authority to call you as such a teacher.  I have already addressed this, so I won't say more than to repeat: I very strongly disagree. This statement shows a lack of understanding of what constitutes divine revelation.  The problem is that such scholarly philosophical debate cannot find any but the most self-evident of truths.   Again, this betrays a lack of understanding of what revelation is. Divine revelation does not "feed into" a debate; it ends the debate. When God speaks, it becomes senseless to suppose that maybe he's wrong.  
A perhaps sincere but ultimately cynical (and futile) point of view. In fact, I suggest that no true theist who understands what "revelation" means would propose such an idea, which is why I believe you don't understand what revelation means.

There is only one right side. And that is God's.

There is only one right side. And that is God's.

Absolutely...by demonstration, and without words. 

My past has some similarities here.  I left the church at age 19 (basically, as soon as my mom couldn't make me go any more).  I didn't believe.  I had never believed.  I had rarely tried to believe.  
 
By age 26, I was a few credit hours away from a minor in philosophy (but hadn't found any answers there).  I wanted what my LDS friends had, but wasn't willing to lie and pretend and attend a church or worship a God I didn't even know existed.  So I started reading the BoM and praying to know.  Before I would budge in genuine church activity, I needed to believe.  And before I would believe, I needed to know.
 
Anyway, here I am as a moderator of lds.net, so you can guess how it turned out.   From my perspective, when I got my genuine testimony I would need to be rebaptized.  They told me "nope - just pick up the covenants you already made and start keeping them".  That made sense.
 
God bless you Bini.  Stay true to your sense of right and wrong.  I came through my experiences with the notion that the only truly valid reason to be a Mormon, was you believe God wants you to be one.  The book promises that sure foundation if you jump through the hoops in the right way.  I did, and it was worth it.
 
Oh - did you ever kiss the guy from Walking Dead?