Can the LDS Church learn something from the Jews.

Post by **_karl61** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:29 pm

I was just reading a response from Sethbag and I was wondering what it would be like if you could make those kind of arguments in elders quorum meeting. whether it be the fall, evolution, atonement etc. I'm sure if people were accepting of those thoughts and open to discussion that maybe sethbag, thedude and others may step back into priesthood. I think this type of discussion goes on all the time in jewish houses of worship and it is part of the process - there is no weeding out the rebels....it's okay to have a heated discussion. Who knows maybe in five hundred years you may have orthodox Mormons and reformed Mormons each attending different chapels.

edit in:also, it's got to be civil - you can't call people a-holes ;-)

Post by **_Doctor Steuss** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:44 pm

I think we could learn something from the Unitarians.

Post by **_Sethbag** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:48 pm

I'd have a hard time returning to priesthood, so long as I know that the underlying premise of the whole thing is pure fiction. I have no mission or drive to "improve" the LDS church. It's simply a not-true (in the LDS sense of the word "true"), man-made church, whose founding claims are fiction, whose doctrines are fiction, and whose promised afterlife rewards to the faithful are fiction. How can you improve on that? Even if the LDS leadership hierarchy suddenly called me up and asked for my advice, nothing I could possible say would make Joseph Smith have actually been a true prophet of a God who actually exists.

Post by **_Sethbag** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:49 pm

Doctor Steuss wrote:I think we could learn something from the Unitarians.

What would we learn? That it's better to believe in any old fiction you want, than it is not to believe in fiction?

Post by **_Doctor Steuss** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 7:55 pm

Sethbag wrote:
Doctor Steuss wrote:I think we could learn something from the Unitarians.

What would we learn? That it's better to believe in any old fiction you want, than it is not to believe in fiction?

I didn't know that you were part of the "we."

Edit:
by the way, there is such a thing as Ecclesiastical Unitarians.

Post by **_karl61** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 8:13 pm

thanks for the quick response.

Post by **_Sethbag** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 8:18 pm

Doctor Steuss wrote:
Sethbag wrote:
Doctor Steuss wrote:I think we could learn something from the Unitarians.

What would we learn? That it's better to believe in any old fiction you want, than it is not to believe in fiction?

I didn't know that you were part of the "we."

Edit:
by the way, there is such a thing as Ecclesiastical Unitarians.

I get to be in both camps for now, being a critic and yet still being a member on the records of the church. So if by "we" you meant church members, I'm part of it. If by we you meant some unidentified group of which I'm not a member, then I apologize for stepping on your comment. At the very least, I was specifically mentioned in the OP, and hence felt at least a tacit invitation to participate.

Post by **_Doctor Steuss** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 8:26 pm

Sethbag wrote:I get to be in both camps for now, being a critic and yet still being a member on the records of the church. So if by "we" you meant church members, I'm part of it. If by we you meant some unidentified group of which I'm not a member, then I apologize for stepping on your comment. At the very least, I was specifically mentioned in the OP, and hence felt at least a tacit invitation to participate.

My apologies. I thought that you no longer self-identified as being LDS.

Basically, I don't think the thing "we" could learn from them is that "any old fiction" is better than "no fiction." More-so, I think that a setting in which the expression of differing views is not only accepted, but expected would be extremely advantageous not only to "the Church" but also to its individual members.

Post by **_Sethbag** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 9:47 pm

Well, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say I "self-identify" as LDS anymore, rather I point out that I'm still a member but I don't believe it anymore.

I see where you're coming from on the Unitarian thing, but I'm not sure that would be in the church's best interest as an institution. The church is where it is today by being an authority presence in peoples' lives, and by teaching that they have "the Truth" revealed in a top-down way through the prophets, to the local leaders, and then down, finally, to you and me. Promoting people challenging what comes from the top down would hardly improve their situation, and like I have opined in the other thread, surviving is one of any institution's prime directives.

Post by **_Doctor Steuss** » Fri Sep 28, 2007 10:02 pm

Sethbag wrote:Well, I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say I "self-identify" as LDS anymore, rather I point out that I'm still a member but I don't believe it anymore.

Groovy.

I see where you're coming from on the Unitarian thing, but I'm not sure that would be in the church's best interest as an institution. The church is where it is today by being an authority presence in peoples' lives, and by teaching that they have "the Truth" revealed in a top-down way through the prophets, to the local leaders, and then down, finally, to you and me. Promoting people challenging what comes from the top down would hardly improve their situation, and like I have opined in the other thread, surviving is one of any institution's prime directives.

Makes sense. It seems (at least to me) though that often there are things in which it acts as an "authority" where it really shouldn't. Also there seems to be many dogmas (Doctrines of Salvation would be an example) that aren't necessarily "doctrine," yet are held as the only acceptable possitions to publically espouse on certain topics in the Church setting.

Perhaps there could be a happy medium where survival was preserved through being an "authority" on core doctrines and preservation of the "priesthood," but while also acknowledging that there is a lot that well.... "we don't teach that..."