Faithful vs Less Faithful


Grunt
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Just now, Grunt said:

Of course, he's free to post where ever he likes.  It was a request, not an order.  If you think being a trolling jerk is a better solution, then advocate for it.  That's what the ignore button is for.

I love it when people I disagree with ignore me. Makes it so I can say whatever I want without the back-crap. ;)

Incidentally, in case it wasn't clear, I was trying to be funny. I don't really believe that's the actually proper response. (Though I have said just that to people before.)

Here's the "real" thought: Instead of asking someone to not interact with you, beat the snot out of them (following forum rules carefully, of course). I don't mean with rudeness and sarcasm (though they may take it that way). That doesn't work anyhow (I know). I mean with scripture, logic, quotes, etc. Why? Because if you ask them to not talk to you then you sort of set yourself up for not being able to address them either when they post something that needs to be defended against. Keep in mind, you're not defending the naysayer/anti/progressive against themselves. You're defending on behalf of others. It is the weak who need to see the defense. If you set it up so you can't defend then you're letting evil win.

Don't let evil win Grunt! We (the stalwart few) can fight the good fight. With God on our side we cannot fail.

A few hymns are suddenly springing to mind.

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1 minute ago, Vort said:

It means you don't purify the wheat field while the grain is sprouting. You can see the weeds (tares), but in general you don't do anything about them. Maybe when the tares start choking out a patch of grain, you have to go in their and pull some up—in modern parlance, you spray them with some Roundup. Then you wait until both the wheat and the weeds are grown up tall and the wheat has turned to a nice, golden ripeness. At that point (remember, we're talking in ancient times where you harvest by hand), before you harvest the grain, you first go through the field and pull out the weeds so they don't get stuck in your grain sheaves. Once that's done, you and your friends grab your harvesting equipment—hand-held sickles or sickle-like blades on the end of long poles, called scythes—and go to work collecting your grain.

We will not be rid of the apostates and naysayers and ne'er-do-wells at this time. Nor, let me point out, do we want to be rid of them now. In the first place, they are children of God, and may at any time repent from their wickedness and turn from a tare into a stalk of wheat. I realize that imagery sort of violates the paradigm of the Lord's parable, but I think we're supposed to infer that ourselves. Secondly, even if they do not repent, they play the important role of opposition. We ought not encourage or nurture such opposition—to do so is spiritual suicide—but we ought to recognize it when we see it. If we never have Mormons In Name Only trying to upsell us the latest miracle essential oils, harvest the ward membership list to get some people downstream on their pyramid scheme MLM position, and generally take advantage of all those wonderful brothers and sisters who don't need their own money as badly as the MINOs, we remain as children. Apparently, opposition is all part of the Father's plan for us.

Then why do they excommunicate apostates?

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59 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

For what it's worth, and to play devils' advocate to @Grunt a bit (this is for you @MarginOfError -- and your pro devil's advocate stance ;)) the correct response is, "You don't dictate where I post. If you don't want to reply to my posts, don't. I'll say what I want, when I want, unless it's against the forum rules. Deal with it!"

Lol. Well yeah, that was basically @Grunt's response to me over a year ago when I first made the exact same request to him. But I honestly don't want any contention.

Edited by clbent04
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The value of a soul is great in God's eyes. 

 

There are times to defend the truth and there are times to recognize that building a relationship of trust and encouraging your new friend to pray and study for their own revelatory experience is more important than correcting every misunderstanding of doctrine.  

 

If someone would have approached you demanding that you accept the doctrine of Eternal marriage and baptism for the dead before having you pray and receive an answer from God for yourself, how would you have accepted it? 

 

Line upon line, precept upon precept is how we all grow. Milk before meat. 

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1 minute ago, Grunt said:

It would seem so, but that isn't the feeling I get.

Actually, I think we are. At least from my POV, we are. What makes you think we think differently on this matter?

Perhaps it's a different understanding of what kind of Saint constitutes a "tare". I feel like I was a "tare" in my youth and young adulthood, and only from the age of about 19 onward have I slowly been edging my way toward true Sainthood. There is no doubt that, as a teen, I thought I was plenty smart, and had no problem voicing my disgust at the loudmouths like Elder Bruce R. McConkie (merely an apostle of Jesus Christ) and the pathetic sheep that followed him. Now I seek to be one of those sheep. I am happy the Lord gave, and still gives, me a space to repent instead of cutting me off for my hubris and idiocy.

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1 minute ago, Vort said:

Actually, I think we are. At least from my POV, we are. What makes you think we think differently on this matter?

Perhaps it's a different understanding of what kind of Saint constitutes a "tare". I feel like I was a "tare" in my youth and young adulthood, and only from the age of about 19 onward have I slowly been edging my way toward true Sainthood. There is no doubt that, as a teen, I thought I was plenty smart, and had no problem voicing my disgust at the loudmouths like Elder Bruce R. McConkie (merely an apostle of Jesus Christ) and the pathetic sheep that followed him. Now I seek to be one of those sheep. I am happy the Lord gave, and still gives, me a space to repent instead of cutting me off for my hubris and idiocy.

I suppose.  Maybe it stems from my belief that the lack of pushback to trolls, attention-seekers, and shady doctrine means that I might be wrong.  If I'm wrong, then I REALLY don't understand what the church believes or is about. 

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12 minutes ago, Grunt said:

I suppose.  Maybe it stems from my belief that the lack of pushback to trolls, attention-seekers, and shady doctrine means that I might be wrong.  If I'm wrong, then I REALLY don't understand what the church believes or is about. 

FWIW, when you post here, you often sound like a life-long member.   I think you should mostly trust your judgement, trust the reactions/replies of those you trust, and feel free to flat-out ask what others think of posts you find iffy or unsure - none of your friends will think poorly of you for asking, and it just might help us to recognize things we take for granted / don't think about.

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30 minutes ago, Grunt said:

I suppose.  Maybe it stems from my belief that the lack of pushback to trolls, attention-seekers, and shady doctrine means that I might be wrong.  If I'm wrong, then I REALLY don't understand what the church believes or is about. 

You know your wrong when @Vort tells you you're wrong.

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1 hour ago, Vort said:

And if you pull up the tares while they're still young, you uproot the wheat along with it, destroying both. The solution is to wait until the grain is ripe, then go into the field and gather out the tares by hand. When that's done, you can take your scythe and harvest the wheat.

That works even better.

 

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32 minutes ago, Grunt said:

I suppose.  Maybe it stems from my belief that the lack of pushback to trolls, attention-seekers, and shady doctrine means that I might be wrong.  If I'm wrong, then I REALLY don't understand what the church believes or is about. 

If I can do a tag team with Vort for a bit.  I think you get it.  Let me expound.

First, understand that the wheat and tares are obviously representative of people.  Real people.  And unlike wheats and tares which are completely different species, which cannot change from one to the other, people can change.  A person who is a tare today could be a wheat tomorrow and vice versa.

One warning we've been given about judging is that we must reserve "final judgment" of others to the Lord.  We have tools like excommunication as a protective measure against the evil actions of others.  But we do what we can to separate the sin from the sinner.

Now, the trolling, attention seeking, shady doctrine teachers are doing things that are wrong.  And it is important to protect against that as well.  But let's keep in mind what we're really doing.

If a storm were coming, would we want to destroy the storm?  Would we get angry at the storm?  No, we prepare for it.  We do what we can to prevent the damage, endure, and even thrive through the storm.  We would also do what we can to help others affected by the storm.  And we pray for the Lord's help to come out on the other side.

So, when trolls come.  And when people do a number of undesirable activities, remember that we're not really interested in fighting them or destroying them.  We're here to make sure that true doctrine is declared.  We make sure that the truth is told.  And this is not for their benefit.  It could be, if they so wish it.  But if you go about trying to convince them, you've already lost.

Instead, remember that we speak the truth simply because the truth needs saying.  We speak it so that the many lurkers around will be able to read the other side of the story.  We speak on behalf of those who cannot or do not speak for themselves.

Take clbent.  I realize you've had a more rocky relationship with him than I have.  I think he's ok.  He's just kind of out there on his ideas.  I told him flat out that he was bonkers on his Holy Ghost theory.  And boy was he ever.  But do you really believe anything anyone says here will convince him otherwise?  Well maybe.  Probably not.  But we speak the correct doctrine so that others will be able to read it as the foil to the false doctrine being spread.

Remember, there are millions of ways to spread false doctrine.  But only one way to spread true doctrine.  That may sound like they have the numbers in their favor.  But actually, the opposite is true.  Here's how.

At a youth activity, we did an experiment as an object lesson.  One person was blindfolded.  Three people were to guide them to another point.  The problem was that one was the "angel".  The other two were devils.  The blindfolded person didn't know who to believe.

The blind person realized that the one angel kept saying to go the same direction.  The devils kept changing what direction to go. Their only constant was to go away from the angel.

Why do you think the name of the Church magazine is The Ensign?  It stands immovable.  The whole world wants to pull you in all different directions.  But we do not move.

I hope that made sense.  I think I wandered a bit.

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3 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I hope that made sense.  I think I wandered a bit.

 

It made perfect sense.  Thank you.  I think the only thing I would add is that in this instance we don't have to prepare for the storm.  We can remove it before it damages more things in this location.  Sure, it may go to another location, but that location has a ton of storm damage already.  Why not eliminate the storms and allow those looking to avoid them a safe haven?  Why do we actually encourage storms at times?

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36 minutes ago, Grunt said:

It made perfect sense.  Thank you.  I think the only thing I would add is that in this instance we don't have to prepare for the storm.  We can remove it before it damages more things in this location.  Sure, it may go to another location, but that location has a ton of storm damage already.  Why not eliminate the storms and allow those looking to avoid them a safe haven?  Why do we actually encourage storms at times?

Do we?  I certainly hope we don't do that.

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23 minutes ago, Grunt said:

That's my perception.  It's often said, "what you permit, you promote".  

So give me some ideas.  What can really be done?  I'm kind of at a loss.  As long as they don't violate the laws of the forum, the moderators can't do anything.

And to return vitriol with vitriol is unChristlike.

We can declare the truth.  And someone usually does.  We can get into debates. And we do.  But there is a point where the back and forth is just repetetive.  It goes nowhere.

People who set themselves so high that they believe themselves to be more reliable than prophets will not listen to someone so lowly as other mortals.  So it's certainly not those individuals that we're talking to.

To find a bit of peace, the private forum that zil was describing may be a great idea.  But I'd consider it like Galt's Gulch...

Hey that's it!  You call your private forum "Grunt's Gulch".  @zil, make it so.

But we do have to come out some time to make a difference in the world, but be not of the world.

Edited by Guest
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1 minute ago, Carborendum said:

You call your private forum "Grunt's Gulch".  @zil, make it so.

I can do that.  It kinda sounds like something you get at 7-11, thought... :itwasntme:

Maybe I should start a poll to see if "the regulars" are interested in this / willing to do it to help Grunt out.  The forum software is installed and ready to go - it just needs members.  I'm just waiting for Grunt to check it out (apparently he's a bit busy right now) and decide if he really wants that.  If so, my understanding is that it would be strictly for discussion of the 2019 Come Follow Me curriculum for adults - one thread per week's assignment.  I can make the forum read-only for others, or hide it from all but registered users.

(NOTE: Lest anyone get confused, I'm not talking about this forum/domain.  I've set this up on one of my own domains.)

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1 minute ago, zil said:

Maybe I should start a poll to see if "the regulars" are interested in this / willing to do it to help Grunt out.  The forum software is installed and ready to go - it just needs members.  I'm just waiting for Grunt to check it out (apparently he's a bit busy right now) and decide if he really wants that.  If so, my understanding is that it would be strictly for discussion of the 2019 Come Follow Me curriculum for adults - one thread per week's assignment.  I can make the forum read-only for others, or hide it from all but registered users.

(NOTE: Lest anyone get confused, I'm not talking about this forum/domain.  I've set this up on one of my own domains.)

That could be fun.  I myself don't have many other LDS adults to talk with outside of this forum, and it'll be good to reach out.  I like our family here, even if there are some people I usually just ignore. 

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43 minutes ago, dahlia said:

Amen. While I am sure many here wish I would shut up sometimes, there are also many instances in which I take the better course and just keep scrolling. 

I'm with Gator here.  I figure that I've never heard you speak enough to think you ought to shut up.  You rarely post as it is.

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2 minutes ago, Carborendum said:

I'm with Gator here.  I figure that I've never heard you speak enough to think you ought to shut up.  You rarely post as it is.

Even if @dahlia did post too much or something you disagree with, you (generic)  should have this amazing ability to ::  gasp :: ignore it rather than bring everyone down with your (again, generic, not you meaning @Carborendum) negativity. 

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