lostinwater

This is true!

You have a good way of getting to fundamental issues very quickly. i think you beat around the bush far less than i do. So thank-you for that. i guess i don't believe in evil people. i believe there are extremely broken people. And i think God is awfully good at healing anyone who will be healed. And then i think that everyone, eventually will allow that to happen when they know everything. And by know, i don't mean having had it tossed at them in a pamphlet, or yelled at them in perverted form in a hellfire and damnation sermon. i mean, like deep, inner, can't deny this, knowing. And that's a kind of knowing that i don't believe is possible in this life. i think some will have a much rockier road than others, but that eventually, everyone will make it. But, that's a big difference in belief - and i'm certain neither of us will be convinced of the other's point of view. Definitely respect yours though.

Thank-you. Yes, i agree it was done intentionally. But i guess i tend to think there are layers of motivations. Like if they saw God in a different way, they wouldn't mock like that intentionally. i could definitely be wrong, but it seems like at the root of most 'bad and insensitive' behavior is just a lack of understanding, whose roots draw from experiences mostly, rather than any kind of malicious choice.

Just my opinion. But it's worth pointing out that the people who created that picture are not mocking God - at least not mocking God as anyone here thinks of It. They are mocking an image of hypocrisy, silence amid suffering that's been formed by completely different teachings, experiences, biases, etc., - which they define with the term "God". People are referring to two totally different ideas, with the same name. It doesn't mean it's not very insensitive, of course. It is. But the whole action springs from a place of skewed understanding - not a place of malice. Whose understandings are skewed in what places is anybody's guess. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say whose misunderstandings are skewed in what places is everybody's belief.

Thank-you. i don't really have an issue with religion any more than i have an issue with knives. They are as good or as bad as the person who uses them. Or perhaps as good and as bad as the person who uses them. Both geniuses and fools, Saints and bigots , chefs and murderers, all make use of them. That's beautiful. That describes God in a way i completely agree with, also. And while we may differ about other characteristics, i love when there is consensus - it brings people together. Anyways, the last thing i want to come across as saying is that religion is unilaterally bad. Most assuredly not. Just saying that i am not going to accept the belief in God as a multiple choice test - like choose between God-Muslim, God-Catholic, God-Mormon, God-Bhuddism, Gods-Hinduism, or atheism. To be honest, i think that's more or less the formula for how most "atheists" begin to see themselves as such. They are told that they must either believe in the God that can't decide if they want to bash the child's head against the rocks, or bless them, or no God at all. A God who wipes people's memories, tests them based on the information that was wiped, and then assigns them their spot in the eternities based on how much of that they were able to recall, as the spiritual equivalent of an infant, whose lifespan in the eternal realm was the equivalent of a blink of an eye, or no God at all. And i'm not saying that anyone here even tries to make anyone make a choice like that - or that this faith tells people things like that. i really don't think that happens here. i don't think that was what your post was saying either - just want to say that specifically. On the whole, everyone here is remarkably accepting of alternative viewpoints, where they can be - and are in no way obligated to even make the attempt. And for the record, i have feelings as to which viewpoints are right - but i'll be the first one to admit that my beliefs are almost guaranteed to be lacking in big ways. i hope that God is such that after i die, we can just laugh about how wrong i got a bunch of it, and then move along. Alternatively, i might burn in hell, or suffer in some dingy darker version of heaven for all eternity. But if that's the case, i likely would have just screwed up again in the next life anyways, and eventually would wind up in hell in the long run. And when one is talking about eternity - what's the effect of a few trillion years of lucky guessing going to matter, either way. For me, i guess i keep coming back to the common core of almost all the recognized religions. Kindness, love towards one's enemies, respect, etc., Your statement describe that in such a wonderful way. Maybe the decoration of that common core with all the things that differentiate the various sects - and allow them to exist as individual entities, as organized forces for a mix of bad and good - but mostly good for most people - is just the price of delivery of the common core - like the price one pays to operate and exist in the world. And if that is true, then people like me would do well to show a bit more compassion and appreciation. Regardless, i guess to a degree, one just has to place their bets for eternity as best they can based on the cards they were dealt, and let the chips fall as they may.

Thank-you, Sir. So i guess this depends on which God you are referring to. The God of the Muslims, or the Trinity, or Jesus, or God the Father. Or the Protestant or Lutheran, or Jehovas Witness version of God. And i don't think what you said is at all treating someone else poorly. Actually, i think it shows a lot of compassion and acknowledgment of another person's point of view. And that is something i definitely respect and appreciate.

i have wondered about the phrase "loss of faith". At least in religious contexts, it's almost always couched in negative terms. Like an active choice to depart from that which is good. Very often (not always), just using it presupposes the accurate classification (ie good) of the thing in which faith has been lost. But what is it that you are losing faith in? What is it really? What is it to you, and what is it to everyone else - and is there a difference between the two? Why did you begin to have faith in it to start with? And why have are you questioning now? Are you departing from it because it wasn't what it claimed to be but wasn't, because of what it claimed not to be but was, or because of what something else is or appears to be? And how much of your own biases and personal experiences is clouding your view of it all. Or a hundred other questions that are almost impossible to answer objectively. And to obfuscate the whole thing even more, thousands of sects take the spiritual heft of an idea (ie God or Jesus), modify it to their liking, and then market it as the real thing. And i'm not saying this is bad. If you are right, you ought to do it. Absolutely you ought to do it. Though how anyone knows they are right is beyond me. Is it because you've (or me, or anyone else) has had the same kinds of spiritual experiences that people who think exactly opposite to you have had? The ones that can cause a hundred different people to know the same thing in a different way - all absolutely? This is one excerpt from Love Wins: A Book About Heaven and Hell that really resonated with me. i like what @Jane_Doe says. You have to believe that other people really do believe what they believe because they think it's the best thing. Viewing the world any other way makes it incredibly easy to treat someone else poorly. Because not only do they disagree with you - but they *know* they are wrong when they disagree with you. And that, that's definitely a punishable offense!

i've noticed that facades of meanness or unreasonableness are usually very easy to crack - especially when you deliver a few well placed taps of kindness when they are least expected, and least deserved. You can storm the wall with logic and indignation - and it does nothing other than strengthen it. And it's probably worth pointing out that most people who react in ways we consider to be unkind have some darned good reasons hidden deep down for being like they are - and some very pure hearts underneath all that pain. Anyways, the old maxim that people who need kindness the most deserve it the least is usually true. And beyond that, i don't usually quote from the conference talks, but i think there was one that James E Faust gave that said something to the effect of 'none of us are usually as much the innocent victim as it may feel'. i've found that to be true quite a bit in my case. What's remarkable, is that no matter how many times i have it pointed out in ways i can't deny, i'm always surprised when it happens again the next time!

Hopefully someone here *hasn't* heard this one yet. It's always best the first time...

i actually usually hope BYU will lose too (especially to University of Utah). But mainly because i buy him season tickets for them and i hope that, after several years in a row of losing to teams like UofU, that the tickets will get less expensive! Note: the losing to University of Utah part i'm told has worked, the hoped for corresponding decrease in season ticket prices has not.

Thank-you. i don't know. i mean, the Catholics have answers to criticisms that could be launched about infant baptism, or purgatory, or their view of the trinity, or indulgences. And they'll say they are great answers also. From where i sit, you might be right. But the Catholics might be right. Or the Lutherans might be right. Everyone's got their own arsenals of scriptures, and doctrine, and examples of miracles, and spiritual experiences, and apologists that prove absolutely that they are the right one. i've sort of given up trying to figure it out absolutely. Since they all seem to agree that being kind is a good thing, that's what i attempt to follow as a religion of sorts (yes, you are right that i don't live up to it). When the hate and indignation fades away, that's where i usually see most people who've left end up, also. But you are right, while that initial pain is being processed, they are way too vocal about it from a member's perspective - in the comments sections, ex-member boards, etc., i wish they wouldn't do that. It just makes it all worse.

Thanks @JohnsonJones And your posts are never long-winded. They are thorough! i tend to think that most people who are members know that things happened. i did. But i didn't know how things happened. i tend to think that's the difference with polyandry. However, that's just one of a long long list that most people try to reconcile. But in a way, i think that even if members knew (assuming they don't, which may or may not be true) the how, it still wouldn't make a difference. People i think create reasons why what they feel makes logical sense. And in the spiritual domains, it seems like there are enough people supplying logical reasons to justify any conclusion one happens to want to reach. FairMormon and it's opposites both are quite talented in painting pictures that lead one to totally opposite conclusions. But i agree with you, the people who know the most absolutely are usually the ones who know the least about what they claim to know absolutely. The more i search for reasons for absolutes, the more i find mitigating circumstances. And really, the more i think that Pilate asked one of the best questions ever, when he said "What is truth?". PS - i asked my dad, and he said it was OK and totally sanctioned to talk about football in priesthood, as long as you are a BYU fan.... . Can you confirm this?

Thanks @Grunt. Very kind of you. There are bits of this that are my story, but this is more a portrayal of the average person i know who has left. And polyandry is just one tiny example of the things that combined, end up breaking someone's "shelf". And i didn't mean that post to come across with a 'woe are the people who have left' ring to it. Everyone has things that devastate them. But from what i've seen, it's feelings similar to this one that most people who have left are dealing with. And of course, most of them, like any of us unreasonable human beings would, deal with that pain in ways that just make it worse. (ie going out of their way to tell members how stupid they are for believing in X, Y, Z - and get upset when members don't agree with us).

i don't know. i take a very different view on MormonStories. When you leave - you leave a culture, a religion, a way of life, relationships - for whatever reason - and it is devastating. Devastating. And most people it's devastating for having absolutely no one around whom they can safely discuss their concerns. Try bringing up polyandry in relief society, see how well it goes. See if you are treated exactly the same way after doing it - especially if you don't accept the "answers" that make zero sense to you and feel utterly, blatantly, irreconcilably wrong. And here's the thing. There is no reason your bringing up polyandry in relief society should go well. No reason at all. There is no reasonable expectation that someone should pat you on the back for coming and telling them things whose implications if true would totally disrupt their lives. What should the member be expected to do? To let every single person hurt by an organization of millions of members come in and have a platform through which they everlastingly rub the dirty laundry of the history in the faces of the members for hours on end? Of course that's an unreasonable expectation. But what is the person to do? They were raised with this. Lived it, breathed it, believed it right down to their bones. And then things came along that ripped that whole thing right out of their souls. And they are just supposed to stay silent after they were giving answers that feel trivializing? Do what their friends/family suggest and double down and read the material that just reminds them of how wrong it all feels now? Tell everyone that the answers they got make it all better when it just makes it worse? Stuff the questions away and call that faith? Most people try all that. Most people try it for years. Eats them alive. And then they find something like MormonStories. People who feel the same way. Someone knows that it can't ever be the same - and isn't telling you that your knowing it can't isn't an indication of your being crazy or evil or deceived or unfaithful. It's like water in a desert. i've listened to a *lot* of the MormonStories. There are some where i think the attitudes are overly vindictive and accusatory. But the vast majority, in my opinion at least, tell the stories of very authentic people who are reeling and trying to piece together a view of the world and God after theirs was shattered into tiny little pieces. That said, it's not something i go around touting to every member i come in contact with. My parents - i don't want to destabilize how they feel about being members. That would hurt them - because they are fine where they are. And i have no interests in doing that. But i'll happily share episodes with people who are confused and hurting. Maybe the square answers they are trying to stick in a round hole should work. All i know is that they don't, and aren't - and the person is self-destructing in the attempt to make them work. And i tend to think that regardless of what the 'right' religion is - if there is such a thing - that it's made for people rather than people being made for religions. As far as anti stuff - my impression is that anyone who asks a question, gets something that they are told is an answer but doesn't come close to resolving their concerns or confusion, and then continues to ask question about it and/or cite reasons why the answer provided is insufficient very quickly gets labeled as someone who is spewing anti propaganda - by virtue of their citing the reasons why the answer provided is not sufficient. Are they? Well, i guess that depends on how you see it. Are missionaries spewing anti-Catholic propaganda, or anti-protestant propaganda when they go proselyting? They don't think so. But have you asked a pastor of one of these churches how they view our missionaries, and the message they are telling people? Do the ends justify the means? Even when demonstrably good people are in total disagreement about what the ends exactly are? And it's really sad - because i get why people perceive the initial, confused plea for clarification as an attack on their faith, and why people making that plea interpret the response as a rejection. And it's doubly sad because most of the time, what started out as a misconception very quickly becomes the reality of the relationship. i don't know if there are answers. This Church tangles itself up in the most intimate relationships human beings have with one another, in how people view themselves and everything around them. That's really, beautifully, wondrously good when it works, and entirely catastrophic when it doesn't. And @Jane_Doe - i only quoted you because you are the safest person to quote here.... not out of any anger or anything like that.

People bleed when they are cut - and those cuts tend not to heal very well when rubbed with sandpaper, or immersed in battery acid. i do think there are spiritual parallels. It takes a sort of emotional energy to hate one's self or one's actions - and that energy is definitely used better when redirected towards a hope that leads to change. It's never as simple in practice as it is to talk about it - but there is definitely pragmatism in not hating one's self - beyond just it being the kind thing to do. You can eliminate bad by gently correcting it, or by pummeling the thing that contains it (ie all of us) into submission. You, yourself, are the thousands of reasons why the former is so worth that effort. i hope you can find some peace.

Thank-you. So aside from something that borders on indignation i experience about the physical safety of some of his intermediary acts, and a desire that he'd filtered out some of the language unnecessary to the points he was making, i'd say the two takeaways for me are that beliefs are some of the most powerful sorts of thoughts - and seem to interact with what we call reality in a very real way. And that interaction was portrayed in a way that isolated it from the religious dogmatism i have such a hard time with. And then that our brains are much more like giant vats that hold all we've ever read, seen - and that so much of that just roils beneath the surface. And then perhaps just how those two things play off one another. Admittedly, a rather odd summary. Also, he goes out of his way to mock prosperity gospel tele-evangelism - so if that's an issue for anyone, you really shouldn't watch this. i hope nobody interprets this as some promotion as atheism. That, at least, was not at all what i was feeling as it finished.

So i wouldn't post this on a separate thread if i didn't think it warranted doing so. Judge for yourself, of course, but i find this utterly remarkable. Attempts to totally redefine just what it means to believe in something - and how what powers the legitimately miraculous doesn't exist outside of ourselves. I'm certain there is nothing exceptional in what *he* does - or even how he does it, but it is truly amazing how the people react - and the indications that perhaps none of us have as thick of a skin as we imagine we do. It gets most intriguing towards the end. Skip to that if you want, though you lose much of the context doing so. Seriously, worth a watch.

Just my opinion, but i think there are plenty of things i think the average member doesn't know that would make their hair curl. But that could be said about just about everything and everyone out there. People lie, cheat, steal, manipulate, get depressed, addicted, are bigots, are kind, loving, sacrifice, humble, charitable gentle, and honest - usually all in the course of a single lifetime. And then, if they can, try and doctor up the records to exclude either all the good or all the bad. Consistent, sensible narratives are so very alluring. Again, just my opinion, but if you believe that any organization or group of people didn't do things that were pretty much unacceptable by any yardstick imaginable, chances are, you just don't know them well enough, or are only listening to the history that one person with a very explicit agenda wants you to hear. And i think ex-members are absolutely affected by that also. i'm sad to see books like this one. It just reinforces the caricatured stereotypes members and ex-members have of one another.

Every child gets tons of good and bad information fed into them. Usually it can flow freely in and out - and what stays is what the person is able to absorb and use in healthy ways - and the other stuff flows away. One of my favorite quotes that i think applies here is from Tara Westover's book Educated. It gets at the heart of what i feel to be brainwashing. "He had defined me to myself, and there’s no greater power than that.”

Thanks. So i really didn't mean to label or pigeonhole you as anything. i thought the second paragraph tempered the first. That was my intent at least. But, knowing that you are a reasonable person, if it came across that way, then it was an flaw in how i expressed myself - and given that, i definitely owe you an apology.

Thanks. So you don't think that the liberals (modern progressivism, or whatever label you want to use) have contributed anything valid to the discussion? That the world would be a better place if people who think opposite of them had absolutely gotten everything they wanted? And i don't mean this to be one-sided. i readily admit that if people were to make the mistake of listening to me as much as i want them to at times, that we'd be in a horrible situation. Honestly, i'm not sure that people haven't *already* listened to me too much....

Thanks @Carborendum Could be. Though my guess is that if we were to transplant the 60s welfare system 58 years into the future (ie today), that we'd have one whale of a mess on our hands. i could be wrong though. Would be interesting to hear some perspectives of @JohnsonJones or others who remember that time. i guess i see liberal and conservative ideologies as two parts of the same solution. And that the longer that both parties try to destroy the other, the faster we'll continue to decline. Not saying that you do that - not at all. It just seems like both parties are bent on mutual annihilation.

A----men! It's worth pointing out that letting private markets and charity do their magic is wonderful - as long as those processes work. But the truth is that for a lot of people, private markets + charities fail - abysmally. What about the person experiencing homelessness who is having their legs incrementally amputated because of walking around in filth who needs to have their bandages changed? What about the person with paranoid schizophrenia who needs to pay for their medications? Do they go to the churches that refuse to help them because their charitable budgets are exhausted (or they say they are)? Or do they go to the corporations - those beautiful conscience obfuscating entities that make so much of capitalism possible - who care only about turning a profit for their shareholders? And i've nothing against corporations, for the record. Or to their families, who are so broken themselves that they can't possibly provide any meaningful help? Do they turn to people like me, who scurry by them, providing only superficial help because to do anything else seems far too daunting? If all those things fail, then what does one do? Write them off as an unfortunate bit of collateral damage? Blame them? Tell ourselves it's all their fault? Ignore their brokenness as it's effects spread like a cancer through our society. Do we tell ourselves that their brokenness is because they aren't believing in our god, or attending our church, or not working hard enough? i've certainly not proud to say i've tried all those things. i mean, what do you do when the only way our society (speaking generally) is willing to help them is through the inexpressibly corrupt and inefficient bureaucracy that we call government? Not help them at all?

Thanks. Good point. i definitely see what you are saying. i guess i am just trying to convey that one can take a "Live like you are dying" attitude too far. But balance is needed for sure. Appreciate you pointing that out.