pushka

Well, with all the differences of opinion upon the genuinity (is that a word?) of the BofM, and the whereabouts of Hill Cumorah, and the U-turns in church doctrines upon receipt of revelations, I just wondered whether there might be some members who are doubting their whole belief in the Church and its origins, and just choose to stay with it as the W.O.W seems a healthy lifestyle to follow, and obviously the church does do a lot of good, 'christian' things... Can anyone give any more than a one word reply to this? :)

This will appear to be a totally silly question to ask of you all...LDS members I mean, however it might clarify why I was so interested in the strength of Cal's testimony...I suppose I was asking about his belief in the fact of the Church being the Only True Church, the True Restored church. My question is this...Is it necessary to believe all that Joseph Smith said happened to him...ie. visitations from God, angels etc. Finding the BofM and translating it, and further revelation? Is it necessary to believe that the current prophets are receiving/have received current revelation....some of which has altered church doctrine? In order to follow the Church's general teachings which you find useful, good, and healthy...and ignore those which you disagree with...Is that possible? Would anybody say they could do that, or would they fear excommunication because obviously (to me anyway), in order to still believe that the LDS church is the True church, it would be necessary to believe all those things, and if I didn't I couldn't be a member of the church, but I could still accommodate some of the good things from the church into my lifestyle, and not belong to any particular religious denomination.... Thoughts please??? :)

Congratulations Strawberry, I'm really happy that the surgery was a success, and wish Nick a speedy recovery too! :)

He will be in my thoughts...along with his family.

I know what you mean, Cal...I must say I look at a man's face first, before hearing him speak or whatever...but in spite of how attractive or not he may appear outwardly to me, I would not stay with him if I found his personality stank! I would hope that that would apply to all, male or female

You sound like you are suffering. Care to share? How old are you? Married? Children? How many? Single? lonely? What is it that is making your flames? Amillia...Can't you remember Mark44's other topic 'I'm In A Hole I Can't Get Out Of..' on which you have posted many responses??? That explains his current 'situation' very well...

To you, maybe. But you shouldn't be laughing about some new thing just because you have never heard of it before. There's this thing called the World Wide Web, you should try it out, give it a spin, even discuss new ideas with others on it, it can expand your horizons if you just put in a little effort. And use Google to find out about things you never heard of before. A little self-education never hurt anyone. You would be surprised what's out there to learn if you just ask the right questions in the right places. So go on, ask your mom if you can explore the WWW just a little bit. I think as long as she knows you're not going to spend all your time on porn or hacker sites, she may just let you do it. LOL...well said, John Doe!

Please send on my best wishes to your daughter and her family...I hope that if she goes ahead with the test it will be successful, and a happy result. Should her baby be found to be Down's Syndrome then you are there to support her and educationally Down's Syndrome children are taught much better than they were when I was a child, so he/she has every chance to grow into a 'fully functioning' adult...

Thank you Strawberry...I must admit when I look back on those incidents I feel a sort of dread of what might have been if my friend hadn't have insisted on visiting, and a sense of how lucky I was to have survived... Best wishes to your son, Nick xx

Strawberry, I was shocked on seeing the scan of your son's skull...the damage was enormous and I am very happy for you all that he has recovered so well. I had to have an emergency brain op. back in 2002. Not on the scale of Nick's by any stretch of the imagination, however I felt very lucky to be alive following it. I had previously fallen and caught the left side of my head on my living room wall as I went down. I take warfarin to keep my blood thin, due to heart trouble, and the fall/knock to my head started a bleed between my skull and my brain. For the next week I suffered more and more headaches, started to lose consciousness, and slept loads. I was too scared to go to the hospital and just took more and more pain killers and sleeping tablets so that I couldn't feel anything. Eventually at the end of the last week, my friend rang me and insisted on visiting me in spite of me saying, 'no, I don't feel like company, I've got headache'. He came to visit and noticed that I was 'out of it' all day. At this point the alarm was raised and I was taken to casualty. The blood clot was not discovered until the next day when I was given a CT scan. I was then moved to our area's neuro hospital and just watched over for a few days...asked the questions, what day is it? what year is it? (I replied 1992) who is the prime minister? I was given large doses of Codeine to keep the pain at bay and told to lie very still. After 3 days, I believe, my condition suddenly worsened and at 7.30am my mother was called and asked to give permission for an emergency op to remove the blood clot which was now behind my eye socket. She gave her permission and the surgery went ahead. Fortunately, I was conscious...albeit still dazed, within a short time of the op. and just remained in hospital for a further 3 weeks. I didn't need any rehab, and a follow up visit to the neurologist said that I was in the clear. The most frightening thing for my mother was that the staff had had to take me off my warfarin before the operation and were afraid to put me back on it in case it caused another bleed to occur. I was not told about this. So, yes Strawberry, I empathise deeply with you regarding the trauma that you and your son, and the rest of your family went through...he certainly has been very, very lucky, and I wish you all the best for the future and for his surgery on 2nd February.

I'm really pleased that this topic has been raised again...it is one that I think about often...this and the turn around on polygamy being allowed within the church and then banned because the USA govt. of the time deemed it an illegal practise. Therefore the church had to appear more presentable to the masses in order to avoid further persecution. I feel that these 'revelations' that the prophets received wherein they changed the churches stance on these 2 issues both occurred at a time when it was deemed necessary to conform to the more acceptable views of the USA in general, and so was not revelation at all... Snow, I can accept your reasons for justifying the changes that were made, and the reasons for not criticising the church for the opinions of its prophets prior to those changes being made, however, I wonder if there will be a time where other issues that the LDS church has with say homosexuality become so far removed from what is the accepted view of the USA govt. that another prophet will receive 'revelation' regarding the church's opinion on this matter...or others...that is where the danger lies in not acknowledging the mistakes of the past and repenting of them if a non member approaches you with questions about it.

Thank you Cal :)

Cal, thank you for bringing up this topic for discussion, and thank you for highlighting the points made by the study of identical twins separated at birth. I agree with you that genetics plays a major role in people being gay. I agree with your points regarding the harmfulness of acting upon being an alcoholic, adulterer etc. As I am not a religious person, as such, I cannot see any sin in the act of homosexuality either...perhaps someone could provide a quote from Jesus where he stated that to act upon your homosexuality is a sin?

Thank you Cal...I'm sorry if I put you 'on the spot'...I think your testimony was very reasonable. Lindy, I thought that your reply made good sense too... Thank you both! :)

Perhaps its the words themselves you are reacting to and not the actual concepts. So tell me what it is like in England that makes things so different there. Well, as you can tell by my addition of LOL and the Englander bit wasn't supposed to be taken seriously... I still maintain that the idea of reducing people to numbers seems somewhat distasteful to me, sort of like going into a department store and choosing your ideal partner by the size/state written on the coathanger!!! I'm sure there are men/women all over the place who do treat their prospective partners this way, I would have hoped that it is not the norm, but as long as it isn't happening to me in my relationships then I shouldn't worry if that's what other people are choosing to do...and they will bear the consequences of the choices they make. Perhaps I've been 'off the scene' for too long to know what the selection methods are these days...I tend to spend my time mingling among socialists and anarchists, and trying to change the world to take any notice of how big a man's wallet is, or how finely turned out and pretty a woman is....like I said...it's all ALIEN to me, more like the toffs down in London

Thanks for coming back on the things I said Cal...Sorry I didn't take 'kick her to the curb' literally!! I understood what you meant, it sounded awful tho, not the sort of wording I would have used, but I didn't take it as meaning abuse. When I referred to discussing any sexual problems before any commitment being made, I was specifically speaking about any woman, or man even, that had suffered some sort of childhood sexual abuse which might have left them with a problem about having any kind of sexual relations...I was not referring to normal couples because, like you said, if you haven't had sex then you have no idea what you are going to feel about it until you do. I am sorry that there are so many shallow people in the world, marrying for looks or money alone, and all this talk of California 10 etc. is so alien to me, and ridiculous! Maybe it's because I'm an Englander!!! lol.

I think PD has a good point...and I think that the Church should recognise it's mistakes of the past, and repent of them now instead of at the last days.

As far as I can remember, 'original sin' was the sin of Adam and Eve when Eve had her dealings with the snake in the garden of Eden...are you talking of another disobedience that was committed?

DisRuptive, I can see where you are coming from here. When I divorced I did not expect to receive any payments for myself from my ex husband...it was mentioned by the solicitor that I could, but as far as I was concerned the only requirements were that we split equally the 'spoils' of the marriage, furniture, etc. and that he pay his maintenance money for the 2 children...in fact he never had to do that either because under our law if the children stay overnight with him 3 times a week this cancels out the requirement to pay maintenance...so I didn't come away with a windfall from my marriage...I do feel that once the man and woman have parted ways and all the commitments regarding the children have been sorted, what they then earn/don't earn is to do with as they will...the are completely independent from each other.

Perhaps it would be better to just accept the 'original sin' theory and stop all the arguing!!!

I'm sorry to have been so vague Cal...I suppose I was referring to the old 'this is my testimony..' saying...I have read your answer in another post where you say that you choose to believe some things and not others? hope that is what you meant! I was just thinking that your whole belief in the LDS church being the 'true' church might be a little shaken by your doubts over events/reforms etc.

It has been over a year ago, so I would have to start over, because all I have left in my memory is my impressions and distaste for the fashion in which they handled any rebuttles. I will say this, they do have a spirit of convincing. There works are based upon actual happenings and journals of disgruntled saints, but their understanding is darkened and their agenda is totally about destroying the faith the members have. Now if it were all about truth and light and discovery of a higher way, I could see their dedication at tearing down the church through the mistakes of those who went before us. But it doesn't give a higher way, it is only about digging up the dirt on a specific organization. When in history have there not been errors made by great men and women? And when did we throw away the constitution or our country's freedoms because of the mistakes made by them. In the world we tend to over look the bad that good men did, and enjoy the good that came from their beneficial works. When you read the site by the Tanners, all you get is a wallowing in the dirt and this is supposed to invalidate all the good. These weaknesses of men are ever present. The apostles of Christ showed these weaknesses continually. Okay, I will stop with the defence and just state that after all the dust is settled, the thing which is most important to have and hold sacred and dear is the Spirit of Christ. The teachings held within the BofM on this point alone is priceless. The BofM is the most complete instruction manual, and correct manual for telling us how to come to Christ, surrender to Him and reap the most precious gift given to man on earth; the pure love of Christ, charity. Charity is the power to endure (Moroni 7:47-48) and what is more necessary in today's world than the power to endure? Charity is more than this, as taught by the BofM, it is the power of the atonement, the power to become like Christ and it is only gained through praying to be filled with it after you have fully become submissive as a child, as taught in Mosiah. You won't find the total and complete instructions for this process anywhere else in the religious world. Joseph Smith the man and prophet was the instrument through which God gave us this marvelous work and wonder. But some can only see the weaknesses and throw away everything good and great. I have done many things that are good. But quite often I am totally rejected because I was arrested once for disorderly conduct. The public record on this matter is totally wrong. The man who arrested me and wrote the false report, only did so to cover up his own wrong doing. Will future generation come upon these documents and invalidate all the good I did because of it? I see many of the things the Tanners have done as doing just that to JS and the church. Thanks Amillia... I appreciate your point of view regarding the Tanners' site. I note that they are Christian, ex-mormons...perhaps they are 'tearing down' the LDS church because they feel that it let them down and they wish to enlighten others, or support others who feel the same way as they do...and wish them to explore other spiritual doctrines.

Jenda...I notice that this is your only contribution to this thread...what would you suggest as being a good way to help Mark44 with his problems over being gay? Whether you believe that he is gay because of biology or because of satan or 'problems bonding with his parents'? Do you think he should rely on prayer or exorcism only or should seek some sort of medical help too?

How did it 'constantly' needed to be altered? The original printings where full of printing errors and mistakes, which needed to be changed. After that, there were no 'alterations' to the BoM. Oh really--just recently the church changed the wording of a scripture dealing with a controversial section that refered to the Lamanites saying the would become "white" and delightsome (I think it said)..... the church changed the word to "pure".... for the obvious reason to deflect the accusations that the church considered the lamanites somehow inferior if they weren't white. Look it up for yourself---you can find lots of references to it on the internetm and then read it for yourself. There are plenty of sites that are more than happy to point out the other changes. Cal...thank you for addressing this question back to Huma17...I must admit, having not read the BofM for a while, nor visited those sites you refer to for a while either, I was relying on my memory regarding changes that had been made...thank you for acknowledging them. Huma17 I am sorry that I cannot argue whether there are further alterations which change the doctrine or not, so I shall keep away from this subject until I am in a better position! :)

LOL...good examples...I read the last one as God is nowhere!