Family asked about my religious beliefs, finally

[Moliere]

Based on your own experience and the content of his post, why do you even entertain the possibility that it is his MIL? I'm asking you because I thought this was an interesting comment, but the question is the same for the multiple people in this thread who have assumed he's talking about his MIL.

I too have a great relationship with my MIL (crazy though she may be), but I have never and will never call her mom - hence the reason I never would have guessed he's talking about his MIL. I'm surprised so many are assuming such a thing. Is it common for people to call their MILs mom?

I only entertained it because of the response in this thread. When I read TKD's post I thought it was his mom, but then the responses in the thread confused me as if I had missed something. I was just covering my bases

If it is his mom, I'm also interested in knowing her 40 time.

[smokymountainrain]

I only entertained it because of the response in this thread. When I read TKD's post I thought it was his mom, but then the responses in the thread confused me as if I had missed something. I was just covering my bases

If it is his mom, I'm also interested in knowing her 40 time.

Ahhh...makes sense.


I'd like to know this as well. C'mon, TKD, when she was in prime, what do you think she could do?

[taekwondave]

So you have been married for a month and are already calling her Mom? I have been married ten years and I still can't get it to roll off the tongue. I call my in-laws by their first name.

It sounds like you have an open candid relationship with your mother-in-law and that as long as you respect her opinion and take care of her daughter she will eventually come around to your way of thinking or at least bump you up to the telestial kingdom.

Oh, hell no. My mother in law doesn't know jack, and we intend to keep it that way. This was MY mom.

[taekwondave]

Ahhh...makes sense.


I'd like to know this as well. C'mon, TKD, when she was in prime, what do you think she could do?

Hahahahahahaha, actually, she once bragged to me about how fast she used to be. I first beat her in a race when I was ten; after that she never ran again. But she swears that when she was young she never lost a race to anybody. I guess we know at least ONE thing (if not speed) is in my gene pool

[taekwondave]

In my experience, people love it when you go full Socrates on them </sarcasm>

Come on, guys. You know I like to spice my stories up a LITTLE bit for ya

[taekwondave]

So I have no idea...what actually are your religious beliefs that prompted this?

Mormons make a distinction between Jesus and themselves that I consider unnecessary; that we are ONLY human and that he is a God, and that really is supposed to matter somehow. My problem apparently is that I just don't believe there is a difference between the two. Anything Jesus can do we can do. Not that we DO, but that's not because we CAN'T, but rather, because we don't see enough reason to try yet, we don't believe enough that we can yet, or we just don't know how yet. If his list of things that fall into one of those categories is shorter than most people's, it doesn't mean he's more than human, but simply approaching nearer to that potential which belongs to all of us through faith.

[The Rambam]

First of all, "Hell" is a state of mind (the natural consequence for violating natural laws) and if anyone told me I was going to Hell in the next life, I'd ask them what the hell they believed that to mean.

If they were LDS, I'd read them DC 132:16-17 which says:

16 Therefore, when they are out of the world they neither marry nor are given in amarriage; but are appointed angels in bheaven, which angels are ministering cservants, to minister for those who are worthy of a far more, and an exceeding, and an eternal weight of glory.

17 For these angels did not abide my law; therefore, they cannot be enlarged, but remain separately and singly, without exaltation, in their saved condition, to all eternity; and from henceforth are not gods, but are aangels of God forever and ever.

I would point out that it is Mormon doctrine that those who don't make it live in their parent's basement and help mom and dad around the house (metaphorically speaking). That all families are going to be together forever and parents will see more of their bone-headed disobedient kids then they do the high-achieving ones (much like it often is here on earth).

So the idea of someone going to Hell is just silly and pointless in the LDS theological framework. It could only mean that your mom believes you are going to be a son of perdition and head to outer-darkness (meaning that she doesn't understand the sin against the Holy Ghost and needs to study DC 132:27 and do a scripture study of the term "innocent blood") or that she is saying that you won't qualify to become a God yourself--and maybe she will be right on that last point (or maybe not).

I tend to end these type of discussions by pointing out that when discussing the sons of perdition, the worst of the worst, the ones we are told have committed the unpardonable sin, Christ himself says this:

DC 29:28 Wherefore I will say unto them—aDepart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting bfire, prepared for the cdevil and his angels.

29 And now, behold, I say unto you, never at any time have I declared from mine own mouth that they should return, for awhere I am they cannot come, for they have no power.

30 But remember that all my judgments are not given unto men.

We shouldn't think that we have such a clear handle on God's judgments. They are not all given unto us. And even when discussing the unpardonable, who God has never said can return, we should be humble enough to admit that all his judgments are not given unto us. There are things we don't know.

Elder Faust spoke in the Nashville Stake Conference in the summer of 1991 and said: "The older I get, the more merciful I find I become. And the more grateful I am to realize that God is a very very old man."

[The Rambam]

Mormons make a distinction between Jesus and themselves that I consider unnecessary; that we are ONLY human and that he is a God, and that really is supposed to matter somehow. My problem apparently is that I just don't believe there is a difference between the two. Anything Jesus can do we can do. Not that we DO, but that's not because we CAN'T, but rather, because we don't see enough reason to try yet, we don't believe enough that we can yet, or we just don't know how yet. If his list of things that fall into one of those categories is shorter than most people's, it doesn't mean he's more than human, but simply approaching nearer to that potential which belongs to all of us through faith.

I think your position is mainstream Mormon doctrine.

[Sullyute]

Oh, hell no. My mother in law doesn't know jack, and we intend to keep it that way. This was MY mom.

Thanks for clearing that up. In all of the previous post that I have read of yours you were generally talking about your in-laws, so in my quick read I just assumed you were talking about the in-laws. Sorry about the confusion.

[taekwondave]

I think your position is mainstream Mormon doctrine.

Yeah....not really. I mean, I wish it was, I really do, but people in our church for the most part agree that even though we are "children of God" that in some fundamental, genetically-disposed, pre-destined-couldn't-have-happened-any-other-way-or-by-anybody-else kind of way, Jesus HAD to be "the guy."

According to the etymology of the word atonement, it means to put back together, to fix, to make one again, or something like that, right?

Well, Mormons believe in both a spiritual and physical separation from God, which is what the atonement...a..tones...

But I don't believe that we are separated from God, but that we THINK we're separated from God and this contributes to our unhappiness.

The atonement for me, then, is that doctrine which saves us from such a notion; the notion that we are fallen beings and cast out of God's presence and unworthy of his company without a friend in the club. And I think there is plenty of evidence that suggests that Jesus was trying to get people to see just that.

Not exactly mainstream Mormonism, bro. Downstream, maybe. But not mainstream. I can't say that in GD and Priesthood. No way.

[jay santos]

I think your position is mainstream Mormon doctrine.

No, it's not even close to mainstream Mormon doctrine.

[falafel]

How did this conversation with your mother come about Dave? You say they "finally" asked. Have you been dropping hints about your beliefs for a while, hoping they'd ask?

[taekwondave]

How did this conversation with your mother come about Dave? You say they "finally" asked. Have you been dropping hints about your beliefs for a while, hoping they'd ask?

ehh... kinda? Well, my family and I have always had week-long (it seems) religious discussions. Every family dinner we'd talk about some new thing we'd learned that we were excited about. Eventually, the usual suspects of conference talks and standard works stopped capturing my enthusiasm; and then it was on to apocryphal stuff for a long time. Not "the apocrypha", actually, but pseudepigraphal stuff and what-not. My passion was finding evidence of our true gospel in other writings. Always got me jazzed up. But I was hungry for more and the more I searched, the more my vocabulary began to change, and the nature of my insights changed, and my family pretty much started freaking out.

So one day she and my stepdad both wrote me letters, letting me know how scared they were for my soul; that they wanted me to stop my spiritual pursuits, put all my "other books" away for six months and read nothing but the standard works. Said they'd feel a lot better if I did. I told them it was pouring through the standard works that put this hunger into me in the first place, but, you know how it is, "Where I go, you cannot follow" and all that stuff. We can't expect to take a highly active interest in something, far more than most people you normally interact with like friends and family and expect to stay on the same page with them on all things doctrinal. Inevitably, somebody is going to think someone is either stupid, or wicked, or both. Just the nature of the beast, I guess.

And since they wrote me those letters I haven't shared a whole lot of my thoughts with them. I think they've noticed and realized they'd been scared to ask and decided that was wrong. I got the best family. I don't care that we see things differently. I just wish for their sakes that they didn't either.