? for TBMs. Do you cringe during gospel doctrine class?

[_truth dancer]

Hi Inconceivable...

The thing is.... in my opinion, most folks feel a resonance to teachings that move us to act benevolently and with compassion.

Most folks feel a sense of peace when we hear thoughts or ideas that speak of goodness and care towards others.

In the LDS church as in all others, there are those ideas that move us, as human beings to want to be better, to care more, to live kinder lives etc. etc. I feel quite certain even the most ardent non-believer or critic would agree with this.

in my opinion, this has NOTHING whatsoever to do with the church being true, or a truth restored, or the Book of Mormon being true, or Joseph Smith being a prophet, or anything else.

I think True Believers are those who find ways to remain believing in however way they can. They only have one choice. Believe. How or what they actually believe is less important than the belief that they do believe.

Also, talented public speakers can capture an audience with anything.. true or not! ;-)

~dancer~

[_The Nehor]

That would be the whole Spirit thing. The best gospel teacher I ever knew said that the greatest thrill was when someone came up to you after the lesson and thanked you for showing them something that you'd never mentioned at all or even alluded to. At that point you know you're teaching the right way because the Spirit can take what you say and personalize it so that they get what they need.

This is actually a common function of the brain. All the information we process is done so through the filter of our own thoughts and experiences. It's the only framework we have to work with. A person could have a "spiritual experience" watching a movie if something in it addressed an issue that happened to be on the viewer's mind at the time. You could read ads out of the yellow pages and it could provide an epiphany for someone. Of course, the believer will claim that the spirit moved them to pick up the yellow pages.

And around and around we go...

When did I say the experience was limited to a gospel classroom? Of course it happens elsewhere. I'm saying that the key to a good teacher is to get that experience into the classroom.

[_The Nehor]

Nehor,

You have an uncanny awareness of seeing what I saw as a TBM. The difference is that you have not stepped back after becoming aware of the troubling lives of it's founders as well as some of the doctrine.

In all seriousness, would you be willing to start a thread to explain as best you can how you can be aware and still maintain your peace?

Not sure what you're asking for here.

I realized long ago that I'm not going to let the actions of Joseph or Brigham or John or Wilford dictate what I'm going to do. Were they the vile monsters the critics seem to take it as proven they were. I doubt it. Were they squeaky clean demigods like some literature would suggest. I doubt it. Give someone my journals, interviews with all my friends and myself and they could construct a picture of me as a misogynistic, hateful, hypocritical, falsely pious deceiver bent on world domination that loves to be adored and make people into his puppets for his own amusement. I know they could do this because I could do this. It's not the whole story.

Joseph and the rest have gone on to their reward. I do not subscribe to the concept that Prophets are required to live on some higher level. Nor are Apostles, Bishops, etc. The standard is the same for everyone. All require the atonement of Jesus Christ. I will be grateful to Joseph forever for enduring the things he endured to bring forth the Gospel to the world. I have a testimony that he brought forth the true Gospel because I have a testimony that the Gospel I have is the true Gospel. When I do find something confusing or disconcerting I talk to God about it. When I talked to him about some things I'd learned about Joseph he gave me some information about him that I probably shouldn't share. Other times he has just spoken peace and basically said, "What mattereth it to thee, follow thou me."

I know Christ lives and I know his atonement works. I expect it would be silly and pathetic if I show up at the Judgment Bar at the Last Day and want to justify my not using it to it's fullest because of what other men did. At least as silly and pathetic as someone showing up claiming they left the Church because one of the other members offended them 20 years ago.

[_wenglund]

Most TBMs on internet message boards appear intelligent, understand the issues, but have figured out a way to make Mormonism work. For example, the limited geography theory which accepts the Behring Straight migration to the Americas. And most internet TBMs believe in evolution, a local flood for Noah, and a billions of years old Earth. So my question is directed at the so called "Internet Mormons." How can you stand to sit through gospel doctrine class, or any sunday church meeting where the "Chapel Mormons" teach a literal Adam and Eve, a global flood, and a Hemispheric model for the Book of Mormon? Your tongues must get bloody from biting them for three hours straight.

Having scored as a "Chapel Mormon" on Shades' dubious internet test, I am not sure the question in the OP is being directed to me. But, if interested, I can't recall having ever cringed during Gospel Doctrine class, nor feeling much of a need to bit my tongue--except to respectfully avoid taking the discussion off-topic (my mind has a tendancy to generalize the principles under discussion to a broad range of things, and to head in a multitude of directions).

Perhaps that is because I may be more inclined as a student to be taught rather than to teach.

Thanks, -Wade Englund-

[_Inconceivable]

Nehor,

I guess that's what I'm asking about. I respect that you have the capacity to overlook the weaknesses of others, identify what you believe to be the upside of their character and teachings and make that your focus. I'm amazed in a good way.

[_mocnarf]

According to Shades's questionnaire -- I've worked my way through it two or three times, with the same result each time -- I'm a "Chapel Mormon," so I'm not qualified to answer this, I guess.

Thank you for sparing us your hot air.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Thank you for sparing us your hot air.

And thank you, in turn, for your kindness.

I'm touched.

I can't understand why faithful Latter-day Saints aren't flocking to this board, where civil, substantive, and mutually respectful dialogue flourishes so beautifully.

[_Sethbag]

Daniel, the problem is that you have a reputation for coming into threads like this and denying that there's any kind of problem or discrepancy at all (for example, you might come into this thread and say "actually there's nothing at all that is ever taught in sunday school with which I would really disagree"), when the rest of us all know there is a colossal difference between your average chapel Mormon's beliefs and your average internet Mormon's beliefs, and that some chapel Mormons' beliefs are known by internet Mormons to just be complete crap. So statements like yours come across as just totally incredible.

I personally wouldn't cringe in Sunday School anymore because I haven't been to Sunday School in probably over six months or more. But I do recall that the last few months I went I just shuddered and cringed, having to sit there respectfully as this woman stood up there and talked about what Abraham did and said, and what Noah did and said, and what Adam did and said, when I'm 99.9% confident that everything she was talking about was just pure mythology. It was as if I were sitting in an episode of the Twilight Zone. It's really something else when someone goes through a dramatization of how think things might have gone down as Noah pulled up the ramps and sealed the doors to the ark, and the rains started coming down, and his neighbors came, pounding on the sides of the ark, crying, screaming, and begging for him to open up and let them in, but he had to sit there through it all and let them die. And the lady's practically in tears as she tells this story, and yet it's pure mythology. I might as well be in a class where otherwise intelligent adults learn and discuss the doings of Aragorn and Gandalf as if it were real.

[_SatanWasSetUp]

Daniel, the problem is that you have a reputation for coming into threads like this and denying that there's any kind of problem or discrepancy at all (for example, you might come into this thread and say "actually there's nothing at all that is ever taught in sunday school with which I would really disagree"), when the rest of us all know there is a colossal difference between your average chapel Mormon's beliefs and your average internet Mormon's beliefs, and that some chapel Mormons' beliefs are known by internet Mormons to just be complete crap. So statements like yours come across as just totally incredible.

I personally wouldn't cringe in Sunday School anymore because I haven't been to Sunday School in probably over six months or more. But I do recall that the last few months I went I just shuddered and cringed, having to sit there respectfully as this woman stood up there and talked about what Abraham did and said, and what Noah did and said, and what Adam did and said, when I'm 99.9% confident that everything she was talking about was just pure mythology. It was as if I were sitting in an episode of the Twilight Zone. It's really something else when someone goes through a dramatization of how think things might have gone down as Noah pulled up the ramps and sealed the doors to the ark, and the rains started coming down, and his neighbors came, pounding on the sides of the ark, crying, screaming, and begging for him to open up and let them in, but he had to sit there through it all and let them die. And the lady's practically in tears as she tells this story, and yet it's pure mythology. I might as well be in a class where otherwise intelligent adults learn and discuss the doings of Aragorn and Gandalf as if it were real.

Did you also cringe when she mentioned that Noah did all these amazing things when he was 600 years old? That's one tough old man. I knew a TBM who said that the reason people lived so long before the flood was because there was so much water in the atmosphere that helped us live longer. All this water came to earth for the flood and we don't have that watery atmosphere anymore so now we don't live as long. These are some of the cringe-worthy ideas that I expect Internet Mormons to bite their tongues over.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Daniel, the problem is that you have a reputation for coming into threads like this and denying that there's any kind of problem or discrepancy at all (for example, you might come into this thread and say "actually there's nothing at all that is ever taught in sunday school with which I would really disagree"), when the rest of us all know there is a colossal difference between your average chapel Mormon's beliefs and your average internet Mormon's beliefs, and that some chapel Mormons' beliefs are known by internet Mormons to just be complete crap. So statements like yours come across as just totally incredible.

Excepting the fact that I haven't actually said anything of the kind, and wouldn't, your explanation could almost be plausible.

I realize what kind of a reputation I have in certain circles. I read about it pretty constantly, and I receive e-mails expressing it with some regularity. It's taken on a self-replicating life of its own, quite unrelated to my actual beliefs. I routinely learn that I hate science, am a fundamentalist, don't really believe in Mormonism, believe that the earth is 6000 years old, hate all non-Mormon faiths, am an apologist for Islam, am totally unknown among scholars, am an international academic laughingstock, am vicious and nasty, am a postmodernist, and so on and so forth. It's pretty comical, on the whole.