On Love and Lying

[Sleeping in EQ]

I've been in this mode for years. I appreciate when I find someone else who is in it too.

I should clarify; I don't go around lying. I do realize that the contemporary Church is not equipped to assess reality as I see it, and frankly doesn't even try to do so. If they thought they had "authority" to assess my sense of reality, they would be wrong.

Discussing some point in the BoM as "In Alma Ch-1 it teaches such and such" is not dishonest. It's quite honest, actually. It's just presented in a way that, unlike the lawyers and philosophers who frequent the Forum, the typical correlated Mormon is not going to consider carefully. Ironically, the mindset that correlation cultivates actually gives space for such statements.

Occasionally someone asks what I think of the BoM as a historical object. "I don't put historians, who have the tools and expertise to assess historical objects in charge of my faith," I say. "My faith is not a historical object. I respect and value historians, but I don't put them between myself and God."

That is almost always a satisfactory answer, even to the uber-orthodox. If pressed about the arguments concerning the BoM's historicity, I could say more about approaches and assumptions than any Church leader has the patience or knowledge to wade through (let alone, evaluate). Once they've had enough of empiricism, phenomenology, dialectical historical theory, the differences between various modernist and postmodernist approaches, narrative paradigm theory, process theology and so on, they might ask me "But what do you believe from all that?" I could always explain how I assemble the fragments, but I would remind them that in the end, it all comes back to my belief, to my faith. I've never had to do this, btw. In real life, few people are as obnoxious about these things as they are on the Internet.

In the end, it's about my faith and my actions in the LDS community. In all honesty, that is all any Mormon leader has any justification to evaluate anyway.

[ERCougar]

Occasionally someone asks what I think of the BoM as a historical object. "I don't put historians, who have the tools and expertise to assess historical objects in charge of my faith," I say. "My faith is not a historical object. I respect and value historians, but I don't put them between myself and God."

That is almost always a satisfactory answer, even to the uber-orthodox. If pressed about the arguments concerning the BoM's historicity, I could say more about approaches and assumptions than any Church leader has the patience or knowledge to wade through (let alone, evaluate). Once they've had enough of empiricism, phenomenology, dialectical historical theory, the differences between various modernist and postmodernist approaches, narrative paradigm theory, process theology and so on, they might ask me "But what do you believe from all that?" I could always explain how I assemble the fragments, but I would remind them that in the end, it all comes back to my belief, to my faith. I've never had to do this, btw. In real life, few people are as obnoxious about these things as they are on the Internet.

In the end, it's about my faith and my actions in the LDS community. In all honesty, that is all any Mormon leader has any justification to evaluate anyway.

I like your answer, but you lost me here. Do you really take people through all of this? I can't imagine most people are interested. What do you do when a close friend asks you what you really think about things?

I ask, because I had a strange experience last night with a friend at our ward BBQ. We talk a lot on every other subject out there but hadn't ever really hit religion when he starts asking me my thoughts on some pretty controversial topics. I was pretty surprised, because I try to keep my cards close on these things, and I sort of hedged around a little, although not so eloquently as your answer (which I just need to memorize). But at a certain point, I just felt like I wasn't answering his questions, which seemed sincere.

As a sidenote: It turns out, he's fairly unorthodox in his thinking and apparently, he's being called as the EQP this next week (he probably shouldn't have been telling me this?), this despite him sharing his views with the SP on most of these things during the interview where he received the calling. I'm more and more convinced that there are more silent borderlanders than we know.

[statman]

He wrote a book that is more of a commentary that I have in my kindle app. It's really fascinating and very different from any other commentaries on the bom that I've seen.

The readers edition is very similar in style to the more modern renditions of the bible-logical paragraphs rather than verse and chapter breakdowns. it's also much clearer who is talking where (particularly some of the sermons). You wouldnr think it would affect the experience as much as it does.

One thing that really simplifies the reading is that he separates all writing that is in poetic form out of the standard narrative format. The part of 2nd Nephi that rehashes Isaiah is a lot easier to read - and to understand - that way...

[Sleeping in EQ]

I like your answer, but you lost me here. Do you really take people through all of this? I can't imagine most people are interested. What do you do when a close friend asks you what you really think about things?

I ask, because I had a strange experience last night with a friend at our ward BBQ. We talk a lot on every other subject out there but hadn't ever really hit religion when he starts asking me my thoughts on some pretty controversial topics. I was pretty surprised, because I try to keep my cards close on these things, and I sort of hedged around a little, although not so eloquently as your answer (which I just need to memorize). But at a certain point, I just felt like I wasn't answering his questions, which seemed sincere.

As a sidenote: It turns out, he's fairly unorthodox in his thinking and apparently, he's being called as the EQP this next week (he probably shouldn't have been telling me this?), this despite him sharing his views with the SP on most of these things during the interview where he received the calling. I'm more and more convinced that there are more silent borderlanders than we know.

I almost always forego the academic gibberish in favor of examples. The people who understand the gibberish are already in my boat--or a similar one--anyway.

Over time, I've developed a kind of intuitive sense for the heterodox. Your friend may have had a similar intuitive spark about you. Regardless, he put alot of trust in you to open up like that.