Franktalk wrote:The whole of religion rest on faith. The belief that the things visible were made by an unseen spiritual power and the head of those spiritual powers is our Father. Faith in the Father can move mountains. Faith in the Father allows one to see this world in proper context. Not with eyes that have limits and snare you with this crude reality. Faith takes away the sting of death. What the people have who are of this world is an attachment to death. They embrace death as the power that created them, an ever changing death they call evolution. A chain of death of which they are just the last link in the chain. To those who fear death I say cast death away and seek the power of life. Hold fast to the light of truth and transcend this physical world. Embrace the endless possibilities that lay just over the physical barrier. Don't be trapped by the world's logic and your senses. The barrier of the physical existence has no power over you unless you give it power. The powers of evil have no hold on you unless you allow them to rule you. Develop hope in what you can't see. Allow that hope to turn to love of the Father. We are His children, His spirit children who are on a very difficult path back to Him. Love Him as a child and trust Him with everything you are. Then live in faith as the world hates you and places before you treats and subjects you to trials, some even to death. Love all of the spirit children and see past the behavior of the physical body. Love the message of scripture but don't love scripture. It is God's message and He is alive. See the end which leads back to Father and hold fast to life in the eternities. Scripture contains all kinds of stumbling blocks and they will divert you to the world if you let them. Cast off anything which interferes with your path back to Father. Be strong in spirit and faith and don't allow yourself to be wise in the things of this world. Be a fool for Christ who is our guide and savior. Don't let death win you over, reject death and the net of entanglement which comes with death. Be the servant of your fellow man and a servant of God.
In faith all things are possible. The Church can be seen as an extension of the world or it can be a doorway to ordinances that are on the spiritual path. Remain focused on heaven and do not let scripture stand in your way. Let no man stand in your way. Let no leader stand in your way. Step over the bumps don't stop and ponder them, they will snare you with the earth. Embrace that you are not of this earth but just passing through.
Have faith in our God. Don,t think or use logic, just believe us. Now which God or religion are we talking about again? So many of them ask us to have faith in their claims.
Equality wrote:Back on topic: Joanna Brooks weighs in with some interesting numbers that shed light on the problem facing the LDS Church. I actually agree with some of the apologists who argue that ex-Mormons sometimes hyperbolize the problem. I'm somewhere in the middle. That is, I think the problem of people leaving the LDS church is worse than what the LDS church reports and what your typical faithful Mormon thinks (they think the church is the "fastest growing religion" for goodness' sakes) but not as bad as some breathless estimates from your RfMer types. The church is not going to collapse. I think the number of people who actually send in resignation letters in a given year, while higher than ten or twenty years ago, is nowhere near the 100,000 and up number I have heard bandied about in some ex-mo circles. The reality, I think, is that the church's growth has leveled off and it is currently stagnating. And the real problem is the trend--it's nothing like what Stark projected in the 80s. When Hinckley ascended to the President's chair, he said the church's biggest problem was rapid growth. Jensen, in his CYA comments following the publication of his candid comments at USU, reiterated that with the dubious claim that the church was growing so fast in Africa and Latin America that it had to put the brakes on baptisms. There is no way that "rapid growth" is the church's biggest problem. The church's biggest problem is its disappearing youth and the loss of stalwart members who discover the gap between what the church says about itself and its history and the reality (even if the numbers of such folks are not as high as some in the ex-mo world would like to think). All is not well in Zion, and even stalwart, faithful members of the church ought to be able to agree on that. What, exactly, the Brethren can or should do about it is, of course, open to wide debate. But that the problem exists should not be. If I were a faithful member aware of the facts that Brooks recites in her column, I would be extremely disheartened by the church's ostrich-head-in-the-sand article they ran in the Deseret News the other day. Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, and it sure as hell ain't a viable strategy to deal with a real and growing problem. The mainstream LDS church, it appears, has its own "Lost Boys" to try to deal with, the ramifications of which may not be fully realized for decades to come. http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/culture/5611/mormon_numbers_not_adding_up_|_culture_|_/
The church leadership understands there is a problem, even though they do not understand why it is a problem. They are to concerned about their public image though to say much about it. I agree with your assessment. The problem in areas like south America is that while many join, most never stay. Most converts never have their name removed, and I doubt most BIC do either. The church is not going to collapse anytime soon, and it will be interesting to see what happens as they lose active,members. This rally is where the main problem is. I suspect it will be the main impetus for change in the church.
Last edited by Guest on Sat Feb 04, 2012 6:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Themis wrote:The church leadership understands their is a problem, even though they do not understand why it is a problem. They are to concerned about their public image though to say much about it. I agree with your assessment. The problem in areas like south America is that while many join, most never stay. Most converts never have their name removed, and I doubt most BIC do either. The church is not going to collapse anytime soon, and it will be interesting to see what happens as they lose active,members. This rally is where the main problem is. I suspect it will be the main impetus for change in the church.
The church has always had some bureaucractic and cultural problem. They have this north-eastern puritan corporate culture that is maddening. The are BIG into secrecy and silent, BORING meetings. The more BORING the better. It is frustrating coming back to it and see how bad it is. The secrecy is the worst part. I don't see why they can't be open or honest about everything?!? Even the stuff that goes in the temple. It isn't like people can't go read about it on the internet anyway. In fact, I'd just ditch the funny underwear and let people buy decals that they can put inside their regular clothing to remember what it is all about and junk the whole stupid idea of magic underwear. Anyway, my bishop wants me to pay tithing for instance. I said sure, I'm happy to contribute provided you give a full accounting of where the money is going. I'm not paying for 1st class flights of the Mormon leaders around the world, a mall in SLC, or all the stupid monuments they put up. If 100% of it is going to go help the poor and needy, you can have however much you want. I'm still waiting to see that accounting, so I give my money to charity instead in the meantime. Seriously though - when a the church of god can't be as open and honest as a man-made charity, they have some serious structural problems.
"You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night.... Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful." -- Judge Doom
Tobin wrote:Anyway, my bishop wants me to pay tithing for instance. I said sure, I'm happy to contribute provided you give a full accounting of where the money is going. I'm not paying for 1st class flights of the Mormon leaders around the world, a mall in Salt Lake City, or all the stupid monuments they put up. If 100% of it is going to go help the poor and needy, you can have however much you want. I'm still waiting to see that accounting, so I give my money to charity instead in the meantime. Seriously though - when a the church of god can't be as open and honest as a man-made charity, they have some serious structural problems.
Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but tithing isn't intended for the poor and needy. Tithing is for the maintenance of the Church; essentially, it's to keep the Church running. Fast offerings are for the poor and the needy of the Church. And then there is a separate fund for humanitarian aid for anyone and everyone.
brade wrote:Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but tithing isn't intended for the poor and needy. Tithing is for the maintenance of the Church; essentially, it's to keep the Church running. Fast offerings are for the poor and the needy of the Church. And then there is a separate fund for humanitarian aid for anyone and everyone.
Tithes and offerings = tithing. Only in modern-day Mormonism do they make the distinction between funds for the poor and tithes, which is absurd. It is all meant for the purpose of building of the kingdom of God. Typically these funds have gone to helping the poor in spirit and poor in other needs (such as paying for places and resources so the saints can meet and worship, helping those that can't help themselves, need food to eat, and so on). You are suppose to be tithed by those called of God and asked by God to give of your surplus for this purpose. What I'm saying is IF these leaders of the Mormon church are men of God, they can give an honest accounting of what they are going to do with those funds. It is a two-way street. I would be shirking my responsiblity to hold them accountable for what they do with those funds if I felt it was not being used for the purposes of God. At this point, I am uncomfortable contributing to a broken organization that wastes these funds and acts in an unaccontable way and will, until I am made comfortable, contribute instead to those organizations that will do the MOST good with it.
I believe then Mormon church has not only preverted tithes, but worst wastes it. This is not only the fault of the leadership, but the members as well for not holding them to account for it and I feel I would be sinning by not demanding a level of accountability. I would have no problem contributing 10% or more of my surplus to any organization dedicated to helping the poor, but when you read what tithes have been used for in the past and presently - I have no confidence that the present-day Mormon church is such an organization.
"You lack vision, but I see a place where people get on and off the freeway. On and off, off and on all day, all night.... Tire salons, automobile dealerships and wonderful, wonderful billboards reaching as far as the eye can see. My God, it'll be beautiful." -- Judge Doom
brade wrote:Somebody please correct me if I'm wrong, but tithing isn't intended for the poor and needy. Tithing is for the maintenance of the Church; essentially, it's to keep the Church running. Fast offerings are for the poor and the needy of the Church. And then there is a separate fund for humanitarian aid for anyone and everyone.
Correct. It's simple:
Tithing goes to the Corporation of the President of the Church.
Fast offerings and the humanitarian funds go to the Corporation of the Presiding Bishop.
They are separate corporations with separate missions.
bcspace wrote:As for the John Birch Society, while I am not a member of it, I'll be willing to bet at this very moment you don't know a single thing it stands for besides being anti Communist. You can't even list a position of the JBS you might disagree with. But you will now be making use of google to see if you can find something so you can pretend you do......
What does the John Birch Society stand for that makes them Good Mormons?
Google? We don't need no stinking Google to pretend that we know something! This is the Shades' board. The knowledge (and its counterpart) was here all along - it only needed the ruby slippers as a catalyst.
Runtu wrote:As I said, it's not "large numbers," though obviously enough people are leaving that the brethren are taking notice. If there weren't a significant loss of members, Jensen's talk would not have made sense.
There's no Titanic wave of apostasy, but it's certainly more than a trickle. I received this anecdote from a friend on his way out of the church:
Well it turns out my stake president just wanted to meet with me to release me from my calling and thank me for my service (I have known him pretty much my whole life). somehow that turned into "the conversation" where I basically expressed my feelings about the church, in a respectful manner, and braced myself for what I feared would come next. he looked at me, took off his glasses, and said, " adam, I'm going to speak to you as a friend right now, not your stake president. and please, what i am about to say next doesn't leave this room. Adam, I'm a scientist (he's a tenured biology professor) and believe me, things really don't add up to me either."
he then went on to say that one minute he was just a dorky scout leader, and before he knew it he became a stake president. basically he's holding on to an experience he had long ago that has sustained him and kept him believing. he also said that my stake here in provo is saturated with people who are questioning things, so much so that jeffrey holland came and held a tri-stake meeting with leadership here a few months ago.
my wife and I decided to talk to our bishop, just to get it all out of the way and clear up any rumors that we've become satanists or something. i shared with him the same thing i did with my SP, and once again, he told me that a few years ago he was sitting where I was having the same conversation with the bishop at the time. he told us that there are several doctrines in the church that he refuses to believe, but he finds the church as a whole to be a good thing for his family, and leaving it would be too devastating for him (bear in mind that both of these men are professors at BYU). needless to say, I was pretty happy with both conversations
Is my friend's experience representative? Probably not, but I'm sure there are more people like him than the church would like.
If 99.99999% of the Church apostatizes, leaving only me and the newly rebaptized Kevin Graham, God will walk away and call it a success.
Nothing is going to startle us more when we pass through the veil to the other side than to realize how well we know our Father [in Heaven] and how familiar his face is to us
- President Ezra Taft Benson
I am so old that I can remember when most of the people promoting race hate were white.