chasingthewind

You don't know what you're talking about. The reason why she said our "friendship" has been a tremendous blessing is because she was responding to a comment of mine where I said it first. I told her 'I am so grateful to have you as a friend' and she agreed with me. You don't know me. And you don't know her. You don't know the times we've spent together and the conversations we've had together and the extremely touching moments we've had. You are not in a position at all to say I have been permanently 'friend-zoned' based off one freakin' comment. Try asking for more context before jumping to conclusions.

I am madly in love with a certain young woman I've known for a little under a year and I'm pretty sure she's in love with me too. She tells me she loves talking to me and our friendship has been a tremendous blessing in her life. We text each other a lot. We talk to each other on the phone for hours. I bore my testimony to her once and she said 'it filled her whole soul with joy' and she would be 'forever grateful for meeting me'. The only thing preventing us from being together is geography. She lives in the Salt Lake City area and I live in southern Arizona. I wish we lived closer together. :C She is going to drive down to my apartment in a few weeks for a visit and I want to pop the news to her (more like state the obvious to her lol). But the last time we talked on the phone she told me she is currently dating someone. This gives me pause about whether I should confess my feelings to her. Do you think it's appropriate to confess how I feel about her if she's already in the middle of dating someone?

I've been a member of the LDS church for a few months and I am starting to experience some growing pains in my faith that have to do with the church’s emphasis on marriage and family. I find it overwhelming to seriously consider the possibility of getting married and starting a family. Pretty much everything about it overwhelms me – the choice of a spouse, getting married in the temple, being a father, raising kids, etc. I guess my first concern has to do with my lack of desire for marriage and kids. I've just never had a desire for marriage/children. In fact, I have been pretty anti-marriage and anti-family for most of my life since I've always viewed wives/children as distractions from serving God. Another concern has to do with me being the only one on both sides of my family who is a Mormon, which means no one in my family will be able to attend my wedding. Not only does it deeply sadden me to think of my own parents being excluded from attending my wedding, I also think there’s a very real chance this will turn off my family from the church for good. I think this will alienate me from both sides of my family forever - not fun. I am also facing alienation of another kind from women at the church when I bring up the suggestion of doing a civil marriage instead of a temple marriage. Most girls I've dated so far just aren't open the possibility of a civil marriage. So either way I'm facing alienation - either from my family for a temple marriage or dating partners for suggesting the possibility of a civil marriage. Another concern has to do with the burden of being constantly concerned about the salvation of others. I find it overwhelming to be (partly) responsible for the salvation of my current family members and future spouse/children. I don’t want their salvation to depend on my proselytizing abilities (my proselytizing abilities are dreadful, btw). It is stressful enough to worry about my own salvation. I can’t imagine having to constantly worry about my family, spouse, and children’s salvation as well. I'm pretty sure I would lose my mind. The prospects for converting my current family members will be pretty grim once they're excluded from my wedding. And what the salvation of my future kids? What happens if I end up with a bunch of Laman/Lemuel-types as my kids? Basically, I just feel so overwhelmed right now and I don’t have anywhere else to vent. I don't feel ready for any of this. I guess the main problem here is I’ve always been a very independent person who likes doing everything on their own. But the Mormon faith just doesn’t allow you to do that. There are certain things you can’t do by yourself – like marriage and family – and I’m starting to question whether this faith is really for me…

What you refer to as 'religious OCD' I would call a 'healthy fear of God'.

ugh, why is there no preview option on this website

Again, I arrived at the conclusion that the Bible is the word of God in pretty much the same way I arrived at the conclusion that the Book of Mormon is the word of God: By reading the book and judging for myself whether I think it is inspired or not. In both cases, the inspiration of the book is something that can be *felt*. As a child of God I have some kind of spiritual faculty that allows me to discern inspired from non-inspired writings. Now the Bible paints a very different picture of God than the ‘god’ of the The King Follet Discourse. Thus, once the Bible is accepted as inspired, it can then be used to disprove the Joseph Smith's speculation. Consider the following scriptures:

By reading it...

Thanks for all the responses... Jane_Doe, thanks for the really thorough response. I am not going to respond to all your points, though, because this would make the thread too cluttered and confusing. I raised a lot of issues in the "con list" in the OP and I now realize that I should have created a separate thread for each issue. Carborendum, reading D&C 6:22-23 helped me a lot. Thanks... anatess, sorry I didn't mean to imply 'all Mormons must be racists because of 2 Nephi 5'. What I meant to say is that I don't see any way to read 2 Nephi 5 without concluding dark skin is a divine curse. If you can show me a way to avoid that conclusion then I'd appreciate it. But my ideas about the nature of God come from the Old/New Testament, not human logic. I also quoted scriptures from Doctrines and Covenants (your own 'God given faith') in the OP.

If I am confident that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God then how do I make the next step and conclude Young, Taylor, Woodruff, Snow, ...., Monson were/are prophets as well? What is the connection between them? What about when two prophets contradict each other? Brigham Young and Joseph F. Smith both taught that polygamy is essential for exaltation while modern Mormon prophets no longer teach this. What am I supposed to make of this?

· I am a potential convert and I've been in this category for some time. At this point I just don't know what to believe about Mormonism any more because there are serious pros and cons. I am just going to list the pros/cons here and see what sort of response I get. Pros: - I love reading the BoM (for the most part). As an avid follower of Christ, the more Christ I can get my hands on, the better. The canonical Gospels just aren’t enough to satisfy my appetite. I want more. And the BoM gives me more Christ to chew on. Yay! - I had a really strong spiritual experience while reading Joseph Smith's "history". The experience was so overwhelming and powerful. This experience is what some call "receiving a witness", as promised in the introduction of the BoM . This experience just won't leave me alone, no matter how many intellectual problems I encounter with Mormonism. - I really like Joseph Smith's teachings with respect to the pre-mortal existence and 'degrees of glory'-concept of the afterlife. I also like the Mormon emphasis on "agency" (free will). - I like the fact that Mormonism is a really active religion because I like having an active church life. So it looks like I have all the pieces in place to become a Mormon, right? But wait, here come the cons: - Even though I had a really strong spiritual experience while reading Smith’s “history”, I just can’t bring myself to believe in all of what Smith taught. I especially can’t bring myself to believe in the “plurality of gods” – the idea that Heavenly Father is the child of another god. And that god is the child of another god. And that god is the child of another god. And so on - forever. Infinitely many gods?! This is pure silliness. There is only one God. End of story. - I also can’t bring myself to accept the idea that God began his existence as a mere mortal and eventually became God. Again, this is pure silliness. God has been God from all eternity. He is eternal, in the sense that he exists timelessly. D&C 130:7 affirms this when it claims “the past, present, and future are continually present before the Lord." So to even suggest God had a "beginning" to his existence makes no sense. Joseph Smith really went off the rails with these teachings, in my opinion. If all Mormonism involved was accepting the BoM as another testament of Jesus Christ then I would gladly sign on. But Joseph Smith’s ideas about the nature of god are serious hurdles for me. But wait, there's more... - Eternal polygamy. Seriously, what gives? Polygamy is repugnant. Why is this repugnant practice going to continue into the eternities? What kind of god would actually grant creepy polygamists the highest level of exaltation, as promised in D&C 132:63? And it gets even worse when you consider the possibility that the Mormon god may even be a polygamist himself! This would make me out to be a potential polygamist-worshipper! YUCK! - God threatening Emma to participate in polygamy or get "destroyed". Seriously, what gives? What happened to agency? What happened to the loving god I've heard so much about? There's no excuse for this kind of nonsense. - Contradictions between the prophets on the topic of polygamy. So is polygamy required for exaltation or not? Men who are supposedly inspired by the same god have given contradictory answers to this issue. Brigham Young, Joseph F. Smith, and some others answer in the affirmative, while modern Mormon prophets do not. Prophetic reliability, anyone? - The racism in 2 Nephi 5:22 really bugs me. If I take the BoM seriously as the word of God, then I must conclude that dark skin is a curse from God. In short, I must become a racist. But I don’t want to become a racist. - God erased all of our memories from the pre-mortal existence. Seriously, what the heck? Ok, well, that's enough for now... Again, whenever I read the BoM, I get the feeling that Joseph Smith definitely had a connection to the divine that no one else had. Yesterday I read Alma 5 and I was just astonished at what I was reading. It is just awesome. UNFORTUNATELY, I inevitably start reading about other things Smith taught (plurality of gods, god was once a man, eternal polygamy, etc.) and I get the feeling that he was a total wackjob . At this point I am confused beyond belief. So - as a potential Mormon - do I have to accept *everything* Joseph Smith taught?! Prophets are supposedly fallible, right? Is there "essential" Joseph Smith that every believing Mormon must believe in versus "non-essential" ideas from Smith that can be rejected?

Creation is exclusively an act of God; not man. Humans do not create anything. They are themselves created beings. And yes, this makes all the difference in the world, because if the universe was not created then you basically have what amounts to atheism.

Your first mistake is your statement that it is possible for there to be multiple creators. A God who is truly omnipotent and sovereign must be the sole creator of the world. Your second mistake is the belief that there are any "creators" in Mormonism. Your 'god' didn't actually create the material that constitutes the world. Instead the material that constitutes the world existed alongside your 'god' from eternity, and your 'god' merely rearranged it in a new pattern. Thus, there are no creators in Mormonism. In fact, your 'god' - as a material body - is actually nothing more than a part of that pre-existing matter. Thus Mormonism entails that there is just matter re-arranging itself for eternity - a view known as materialism. So who is the real non-believer here? On closer inspection, Mormonism turns out to be form of atheism.

There is no creator in Mormonism.

Nothing can possibly be easier to understand and simple-minded than the belief that God is a really big human being living inside the universe.

Thanks for the responses but I've officially given up on Mormonism. The Mormon concept of God is just hopelessly confused. Judaism and Islam look far more promising.

I am thinking about converting to Mormonism based on a religious experience... So a few months ago I had a really strong religious experience while reading the Book of Mormon. I never had such an overpowering experience in my life. I just can’t stop thinking about that experience ever since it happened. It has haunted me every day since it occurred and I am sure it will continue to haunt me in the future. In addition to this religious experience, I also really like the practical side of Mormonism. I like the fact that Mormons have a really strong sense of community and have a far more active church life in comparison to the non-Mormon churches I visited. I've seen quite a few people complain about the fact that the Mormon Church is so demanding. But that's one of the things I like about it. I want a church that is going to play a large role in my life because nothing is more important to me than further developing my relationship with my Creator. I’m a little hesitant to admit this but I also like the fact that there's much less of an emphasis on Hell in Mormonism, too. Now the problem I have with fully accepting Mormonism is that I just can't bring myself to accept the Mormon belief that God is a 'perfected' human being who lives on another planet near the star Kolob. I personally believe in the classical theistic conception of God – a disembodied spirit who is essentially omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, and eternal. And unfortunately a big human being just doesn’t fit such a description. What’s even worse about the Mormon concept of God is that I can’t even call him my “creator”. Instead, my spirit is co-eternal with His. So if I am a Mormon then I can’t even say God is my “creator”, he's just the “molder” of my pre-existing “intelligence”. So my question is does a Mormon *have* to believe God is literally a human being? What is the Mormon basis for asserting that God is a ‘perfected’ human being anyways? I feel so conflicted right now. The religious experience I had and the time I spent in the church feels like it is telling me to do one thing that conflicts with my deeply held beliefs about the nature of God. I don’t know what to do other than to cry.