The Church

[JohnnyLingo]

Whose angry? I didn't think you were nosy either. I was just suggesting because an answer isn't the one you wanted doesn't make it vague.

There is no "answer I want" here. I admittedly do prefer specific answers to vague ones, but that's just because it's easier to discuss specifics.

[byu71]

There is no "answer I want" here. I admittedly do prefer specific answers to vague ones, but that's just because it's easier to discuss specifics.

Well in my case I can't get specific because I don't know what is coming.

Since the majority of members don't find anything that drives them away, it seems to me most rational and sane people can deal with the imperfections that are in the church.

[BigPiney]

Now is my name being used as an adverb or an adjective in this sentance? Hopefully an English major can clear that up. I look forward to the day thay my name will be used as a verb. That would be awesome.

I only use your name is vain. Sorry.

[Jarid in Cedar]

I only use your name is vain. Sorry.

I'll add that to the list. Expletive=JIC. Excellent!

[Jarid in Cedar]

There is no "answer I want" here. I admittedly do prefer specific answers to vague ones, but that's just because it's easier to discuss specifics.

I answered with a specific answer. yet no discussion, hmmmmmm.

[byu71]

I answered with a specific answer. yet no discussion, hmmmmmm.

I think your answer was more articulate, but I thought the same as mine. When the church no longer enhances your relationship with God. I don't think Johnny likes that answer.

[JohnnyLingo]

I think your answer was more articulate, but I thought the same as mine. When the church no longer enhances your relationship with God. I don't think Johnny likes that answer.

I know you hate it when people tell you what you think.

To answer your question, it comes when you decide that the church is not what it says that it is...

When you look at the failings of the LDS church, or any other religion, it is when they lose sight of that purpose.

Like 71 said, it's a fine answer, but it's vague. What things does the Church do that brings you to this point?

[Jarid in Cedar]

Like 71 said, it's a fine answer, but it's vague. What things does the Church do that brings you to this point?

A few specifics.

The multiple recantations of the "First Vision". Most were directly attributed to JS through the years, but the last one he described(furthest from the event in time) is proclaimed as the "correct" version. To me, it sounded more like he was making it up as he went along.

The translation of the BOM with the seer stone and the felt hat. This was the way the translation was performed based on the testimony of one of the translators(Emma) and a person who much of the translation occured in his home(David Whitmer). Elder Nielson of the Qo12 also quotes Emma in a Ensign article in 1994(April I believe). I concede that this method of translation would have some very spiritual basis if it did occur, but if that is how it happened why not say so? The elephant in the room with this version of translation is: If you could translate that way, where do the actual golden plates fit into the whole equation?

The temple ceremony and its origins. I will not discuss this in an open forum in deference to those who hold the temple ceremony sacred.

The origins of the Book of Abraham. Volumes have been written about this so I don't feel a need to expand this reason.

[byu71]

I know you hate it when people tell you what you think.



Like 71 said, it's a fine answer, but it's vague. What things does the Church do that brings you to this point?

Yes I do. That is why I said, "I think Johnny............." That denotes my opinion and not necessarily fact. If I were telling someone what you think, the wording word have been, "Johnny thinks..............". The difference is subtle but, you should have picked up on it unless you were just looking to criticize.


OK, since you are so demanding. If I had a hot wife and the prophet demanded she sleep with him and the other brethern said either I agree or leave the church, I would leave the church. The church would no longer provide me the opportunity to enhance my relationship with God.

[KillerDog]

Right, others on the board have espoused this theory, but it makes me wonder why God can't just reveal the new doctrine to His mouthpiece and be done with it? Would these men actively resist it? Would the prophet himself?

Wouldn't you think these men have a relationship with God, and would therefore be able to get confirmation from Him as to whether or not this new doctrine was from Him?

I hope it doesn't sound like I'm leading you anywhere... I'm just thinking and typing.

I'll see if I can verb it one of these days.

I think God could do that but I also think God interacts with his prophets in ways that encourage them to develop and grow. I also think God knows that sometimes people get stuck in their prejudices and those prejudices are difficult to defeat and not particularly necessary to defeat in this life. Using my previous example, I believe race is not eternal and therefore, God didn't bother to correct that misunderstanding in this life until is started to hurt his other plans.

[JohnnyLingo]

A few specifics.

So essentially it's stuff from Church history (and the arguments of people like SU), nothing the Church actively does today, and because the Church is built on its history it cannot be separated from it. I see.

A fairly common line of reasoning, I'll bet.

OK, since you are so demanding. If I had a hot wife and the prophet demanded she sleep with him and the other brethern said either I agree or leave the church, I would leave the church. The church would no longer provide me the opportunity to enhance my relationship with God.

Thank you for answering. Do you think God would punish you for leaving the Church under those circumstances?

[SoCalCoug]

I noticed a decided "thinning of the herd" in the general authority ranks in the years leading up to the declaration that every worth male could hold the priesthood. Some might say that the deaths of certain brethren caused a shift in balance that allowed for the vote to swing the other way. I prefer to think that God got tired of the mistaken belief that this was doctrine and he struck down those that needed to be struck down. One of the beauties of the "struck down" concept is also that we don't know what someone would have done if they hadn't been struck down. There have been many members of the Q of 12 who never became prophets. I don't know what they were planning to do but I assume some were going to lead the Church astray.

Ages at death:

Harold B. Lee: 74
Spencer W. Kimball: 90
Mark E. Peterson: 84
Henry D. Moyle: 74
Hugh B. Brown: 92
Alvin R. Dyer: 75
N. Eldon Tanner: 84
Marion G. Romney: 90
Gordon B. Hinckley: 98
Bruce R. McConkie: 69

No comment - just thought I'd look up some of the apostles and first presidency members whose names I remember figuring in the discussion of the issue in the David O. McKay book. I make no conclusions.

[KillerDog]

I don't think there's a smattering of rationality to belief that the LDS Church is "God's one true Church." It's utterly irrational. In fact, while I more than entertain the idea of a Creator or Supreme Being, and fully apprecitate religion's importance to who we are, and religion's contining enrichment of our imagination, I find the idea of one true church completely offensive, indeed a form of bigotry.

Take the Jews, the classic, the inventors of the one true church paradigm. The Jewish people, for all their hugely outsized importance to our culture, needed a symbiosis with our pagan side to really achieve their full flowering as a people (for all the oppression they suffered from the pagan side). The same is true for Mormonism, even more so. In fact, there's little or nothing original in Mormon practice or belief or doctrine (I can't think of an organization that is more of a magpie). Indeed, in the past 30 years Mormonism has become a more tolerant, loving, admirable, enlightened organization ONLY because of secular society's influence and pressure (though it has a long ways to go).

The human story has been much if not wholly about a given people or race or tribe having to learn that it is not the center of the world, sometimes in a very painful way, and becoming better for it. I think that's one of the purposes of religion, to set up the conditions for that lesson.

I'm sorry but I don't understand why you injected the "one true church" idea into a discussion on whether God is involved in the activities of man. If all you want to do is focus on your schtick, you need a different subject to talk with.

[KillerDog]

Ages at death:

Harold B. Lee: 74
Spencer W. Kimball: 90
Mark E. Peterson: 84
Henry D. Moyle: 74
Hugh B. Brown: 92
Alvin R. Dyer: 75
N. Eldon Tanner: 84
Marion G. Romney: 90
Gordon B. Hinckley: 98
Bruce R. McConkie: 69

No comment - just thought I'd look up some of the apostles and first presidency members whose names I remember figuring in the discussion of the issue in the David O. McKay book. I make no conclusions.

Sure is an interesting thing to observe isn't it.

[byu71]

Ages at death:

Harold B. Lee: 74
Spencer W. Kimball: 90
Mark E. Peterson: 84
Henry D. Moyle: 74
Hugh B. Brown: 92
Alvin R. Dyer: 75
N. Eldon Tanner: 84
Marion G. Romney: 90
Gordon B. Hinckley: 98
Bruce R. McConkie: 69

No comment - just thought I'd look up some of the apostles and first presidency members whose names I remember figuring in the discussion of the issue in the David O. McKay book. I make no conclusions.

At the present time the subject is a curiosity to me, but not something I will study. Therefor would you care to let me know if the brethern that appear to have died earlier were those that were more inclined to believe something like the fence sitting theory.