What does it feel like to be wrong about your religion?

[_Gadianton]

The questions is:

What does it feel like to be wrong about your religion?

The answer is, just ask anyone who has a religion how they feel.

hahahahahahahahahahahaha

[_mocnarf]

The problem is that Mormons, and other true believers, really do think they're special. In fact, belief in personal "specialhood" is a pre-requisite for this type of belief.

When it's obvious that God does not answer all prayers, that he fails to intervene in millions and millions of cases, despite fervent pleadings from the faithful, why would anyone expect God to answer them? It's because at some level, they believe they are special. For some unknown reason, God will ignore countless others, but he will intervene on their behalf. There's no rational way to explain it, it ultimately devolves down to a perception that the person is, for whatever reason, an exception, possessing a certain special status such that God, though he ignores millions of others, will answer his/her pleadings.

The assumption of specialhood, for example, is implied every time a believer who is sparred a tragedy that befalls others thanks God for her safety.

Nehor is an example. Billions of people have traversed this planet without God so much as taking a notice of them, while our good friend Nehor claims an intimate, sure knowledge; not only that, God regularly talks to him and reveals to him God's will. Why Nehor? Why not the billions of other people inhabiting this planet?

Why you Nehor, what makes you so special?

I don't know why he bothers with me. I don't think I'm that special though though he does answer my pleadings. I honestly and sincerely believe that others can do the same things I have and experience the same things I have experienced. If me, why not everyone else?

Nehor, my friend, you need to get back on your lithium.

[_The Dude]

What a post, Seth. I'm honored and humbled that you still have my words in your signature line.

The comparison you make between the JWs and the Mormons is really worth considering, in my opinion. I have always been struck by the real similarities between the faiths, from the two dozen or so lengthy encounters I had with them as a missionary in south america. An apostate JW once made the same point to me, about how he knew exactly what it felt like to believe like we did, and to be, in fact, completely and utterly wrong about the real rules of the uncaring universe. It was a powerful counter-testimony to my whole purpose at the time.

[_The Nehor]

Nehor, my friend, you need to get back on your lithium.

People keep demanding my medical history. Fine, again, I have used pain-killers for a kidney stone earlier this year, antibiotics for a bronchial infection and once used a mild sedative for a headache. That's it.

I'm not bi-polar. Sorry.

Edit: I forgot, my one current medical condition is scoliosis.

[_dartagnan]

Don't Catholics believe they are the one true church with the priesthood and the Vicar of Christ? Didn't the pope just emphasize this?

Yes, but the elitist mentality isn't the same. Catholics accept the baptism of other Christian denominations but the LDS Church doesn't accept baptism from any of them.

Don't baptists believe they have the truth?

Again, believing you have the truth is not the issue. What you do with that belief is. Mormons are very arrogant and prideful of their status with God. The baptists don't consider the Baptist Church the Kingdom of God. Mormons call the LDS Church this quite frequently, and often they even go to extremes like calling all non-LDS, no matter their Christian affiliation, Gentiles!

Oh sure other True Christians can be found in other places but you have to be Christian-then you are saved, a child of God, and only then. The rest are toast. Why would this not generate just as much elitism as is found in the LDS idea of being the true church?

It doesn't generate to that, and that is for a reason. Mormonism is different. What other faith teaches that its adherents are where they are today because they were good in the prexistence. All others were not blessed to be born into Mormon families because they were rebellious - but not as rebellious as the negro.

And this ridiculously dreary view of Christian soteriology is always presented in the worst way by Mormons- but that is due to conditioning. As a Baptist or Catholic I never once looked down upon others with pity because I "knew" they were going to burn for eternity.

In reality this kind of thinking rarely occurs in Catholic or Protestant thought. But Mormons like to represent it this way because it helps make the Mormon view seem more plausible. I don't respect that.


PS: Shades, I grew up an army brat and lived overseas as a child. When we were living in Germany (1973-1977) I attended Catholic school. I then became Baptist when we moved back to the States. I was 12 or so when I "converted" to Protestantism. I was 19 when I was baptized LDS, after three years of investigating.

[_huckelberry]

[quote="Jason Bourne"][quote="dartagnan"]What I always find interesting is that the apologists and other LDS like to think they are just like any other Church that claims to be true, but there is a subtle difference. Mormons feel they are elite in a sense I have never felt as a Baptist or Catholic. Mormons are the [b]only[/b] true Church, which means everyone else is "wrong" about their religion. It is also a New Religious Movement which many people grasp onto for psychological and sociological purposes. It gives people a sense of purpose and good feeling, without any concern for whether or not its truth claims are true. This is a recipe for arrogance and confirmation bias. This elite status is what sets them apart from other faiths. Therefore, there can be nothing "wrong" about Mormonism or else it is just like the rest. Whenever flaws are pointed out in the Church, the usual rationalization kicks in. You know, things like "the Church is still perfect even if the people aren't."

It took me a while to realize how dumb this comment really is because the membership = the Church. The Church is only as perfect as those who comprise it.[/quote]

Don't Catholics believe they are the one true church with the priesthood and the Vicar of Christ? Didn't the pope just emphasize this? Don't baptists believe they have the truth? Oh sure other True Christians can be found in other places but

you have to be Christian-then you are saved, a child of God, and only then. The rest are toast. Why would this not generate just as much elitism as is found in the LDS idea of being the true church?[/quote]

The others are toast. As a Christian believer I find this concept revolting and I do not believe it. I do not believe it is what is taught in the Bible. Instead God is no respecter of persons. I think Chrisian would be closer to the truth and a better influence for good if people accepted faith as a call to help other people who God cares as much about as for you. I think a concept of we are the special saved group and others are not is poison.

[_Scottie]

Of course you know the standard apologetic response is that they have elements of the truth and that is why they feel the spirit and think they have the truth.

[_Ray A]

Each person should really be able to humble themselves to the point where they can face this fact, and take seriously the possibility that their own beliefs, as impossible as it might at first seem, aren't really true after all, just like for others it's impossible to them for their beliefs not to be true, and yet they aren't true.

Does that include your own "secular" beliefs, whatever they might be? Many people have been wrong about many things, not just "religious" people. I find much of the secular approach to "truth" sometimes quite arrogant and cocksure.

[_Mary]

I don't know that I can add much to this thread. One of my (I made a list of reasons to go and reasons to stay before I finally left) reasons to go was that I believed that the dogma fostered elitism within the rank and file membership, though I can't honestly say that everyone acted in an elitist fashion though some did. Some used the gospel as a tool of spritual superiority or a bat with which to whack others, some used it as a tool of compassion, humility and understanding. So the ultimate truth claims effected people in different ways.

I'm not sure which category Joseph Smith or Brigham Young would have come in... Difficult times.

I kind of disagree with Dartagnan on the extent to which other christian religions foster the same type of elitism.
I've known evangelicals, Presbyterians, Catholics and Church of England and family church members who have had the same type of arrogance based on their belief that they are most close to God's will, and have shown little humility towards others of a different religion, particularly Mormons. Mormons are actually a bit more generous to the dead and their possibilities in the afterlife than most evangelicals for instance. (not talking about the uniquely American kind here, whom I know little about) Though I do accept that many of these religions are more willing to tie themselves together ecumenically.

My husband, and son and I sat in a C of E service and were horrified when our really good female vicar, said that the child who had just been christened had a passport to God. Mike and I both looked at each other as if to say...you think that a christening, which the child being so young isn't cognisent of, is really going to make a hoot's difference in the afterlife, compared to our son who hasn't been christened, baptised or any other ordinance because we want him to make up his own mind about such things when he is old enough to make a choice.

I don't know that the wrong/right thing is particularly useful in the model Seth used. I might have been wrong about Joseph Smith, but I wasn't wrong about everything. Most of the ethics within Mormonism are pretty useful and sound I think. They share that with the rest of the world, (at least those trying to live good ethics) even if they put a little too much stock on the importance of the authority and priesthood in validating ordinances etc.

Just my twopennyworth...

Mary

[_Sethbag]

Each person should really be able to humble themselves to the point where they can face this fact, and take seriously the possibility that their own beliefs, as impossible as it might at first seem, aren't really true after all, just like for others it's impossible to them for their beliefs not to be true, and yet they aren't true.

Does that include your own "secular" beliefs, whatever they might be?

Yes, of course it does.