Sister Mary Lisa wrote:Which implies that a person like me, married to a non-member, isn't striving for the righteous things God would have me strive for. See? This is exactly what I'm talking about when I say people find you lacking. People automatically assume that you are not one who places God first. Sad.
I give up. You win. I am a hateful judgmental person like the rest of 'em and prove that the Mormon church is wrong and should support gays, etc. etc.
You may very well try to place God first, but you do not believe that the LDS church is the only church with all the priesthood keys. That was what I meant when I talk about putting God first. I really see the church and the priesthood keys as an extension of God. Since you don't, we are unable to communicate effectively.
On the contrary, I think we are able to communicate effectively just fine. I don't think effective communication is only found when one agrees wholeheartedly with another, do you?
I once believed as you do that the church and the priesthood keys were an extension of God. And then I considered why I'd want to place all my faith in a God who would choose to keep women subordinate to men for eternity. Why would I revere a god who created gay people in his image, and created sex as one of the greatest joys found on earth, and who is then content to punish them with damnation unless they remain celibate for their entire lives? I have no use for a sadistic god like that.
Abman, you're not hateful and all that. You're actually forcing yourself to conform with that paradigm out of a misguided belief in a manmade church.
Do you not see the pattern of excuses and rationalizations you have to go through? You have to rationalize why so many people don't get the revelation you claim to belief they ought to. You have to make excuses for why so many people who do claim to get this revelation get revelations which are contradictory and/or mutually exclusive. You have to rationalize away why the Prophets, Seers, and Revelators don't get the revelation one would expect, why when they do teach things they so often have appeared not to have been inspired after all, etc.
You didn't bother to rationalize away the spiritual witnesses and revelations the FLDS and other non-LDS believers get - you just wash your hands clean of them and say hey, not my problem. But it is your problem, because they're claiming the same kinds of manifestations that you and your co-religionists claim, and you can't give any sort of coherent accounting for them, nor offer a reliable and consistent means by which someone would tell the "true" revelations from the ones people merely made up in the own minds.
This is so obvious, Abman. It doesn't work. The method of personal revelation from God about anything but trivial crap (which you admitted) like finding one's car keys simply does not work. It's as obvious as the sun at noonday. And yet you persist in your rationalization and excuse-making.
You have to make so many freaking excuses to keep believing as you've determined to do. Don't you ever get tired of it? Doesn't this pattern of having to make excuses make you think maybe there's really something wrong with the belief system after all? You know, that it might be well-intended but ultimately manmade, just like the religions the other 7 billion people on Earth subscribe to?
Aside from your need to make excuses for the unreliability of "revelation" from God, you have to make excuses for everything else associated with the LDS church.
You've got to make excuses for why Joseph Smith sold his services as a scryer of treasure by the means of peering into a magic rock to his neighbors as a youth.
You've got to make excuses for why he got caught shagging Fanny Alger in the early 1830s, years before "plural marriage" became his big rationalization, or the "sealing power" was claimed to have been restored, and why he faux-married dozens of other women behind his real wife's back.
You've got to make excuses for why Joseph Smith actually told married women that they had been given to him by the Lord.
You have to make excuses for why the Golden Plates are gone, but before that, you have to make excuses for why Joseph Smith apparently didn't even really use the Golden Plates for his translation at all!
You've got to make excuses for why the Egyptian Papyri don't contain the story of Abraham.
You've got to make excuses for why Zelph, the great white Lamanite general known from the Rocky Mountains to the Atlantic Ocean, was a thousand miles too far to the north of where the scholars of Mormonism say the stories really had to have taken place.
You've got to make excuses for the retarded explanations like "two Cumorahs", horse-tapirs, "steel bow" actually meaning wooden or bone bow with brass fittings.
Tight like a dish. Enough said...
You've got to make excuses for why Joseph Smith is both the first, and apparently the last latter-day "Prophet" who claimed to have regularly communed directly with heavenly beings, in person, and to have been willing to go out on a limb and make concrete, non-platitude declarations of substantive things he had learned through these claimed interactions.
You've got to make excuses for why LDS priesthood holders don't seem to heal anyone, except of the common cold, or the tummy ache. Why the dead aren't being raised, the blind being restored to sight, the amputated limbs being restored, etc. There's a reason why LDS avail themselves of the best "arm of flesh" medical care they can get, when they've got the power of God to heal, if only they'd have faith the size of a mustard seed.
You've made posts in the past making excuses for why you were having to take bigoted stances against homosexuals that were clearly against your own nature, all for the sake of conforming to the dictates of the men who usurp power over you, and to whom you willingly cede it.
You've got to make excuses for why the Prophets have taught a natural history of the Earth for thousands of years, and ever since the days of Joseph Smith, that is so utterly contradicted by, and incompatible with, the natural history of the Earth as we now know it to be. There was no Adam and Eve as first humans a few thousand years ago. There was no Noah's Ark saving the only 8 human beings to survive a global, catastrophic flood. There were 100,000 to 200,000 years worth of homo sapiens who never heard of Yahwe, or Jesus Christ, or Elohim, who the LDS cosmology simply cannot account for.
The native Americans seem to come from Asia, and at least ten thousand years earlier than the Book of Mormon time frame. You've got to make excuses for that. You've to rationalize the population problem.
"Others".
Kirtland Bank.
Henry Jacobs having his wife appropriated from him by not just one Prophet, but two.
Utter lack of discernment with respect to Mark Hoffman and his forgeries.
Nada from the Prophet to the Whole World from Elohim about the tsunami, or any other cataclysm or pressing need in the world except whether a few percent of the population who are programmed to be attracted to their own gender are legally allowed to formalize their relationships using the word "marriage", and how many earrings people should have. Oh yeah, and what rating of movies they should watch.
Dude, we could go on and on, all day long, finding an even more exhaustive list of all the things you have to make excuses for to keep believing the LDS claims. Do you really not see this? Do you really not see what you're doing?
To the extent that I even knew about some of these things, did this too. The difference between you and me in these things is that I recognized what I was doing, and made the conscious decision to stop doing it. Stop making excuses. Stop rationalizing away failure, evidence of manmadeness, contradictions in the claims, etc.
Mormonism ceased being a compelling topic for me when I finally came to terms with its transformation from a personality cult into a combination of a real estate company, a SuperPac, and Westboro Baptist Church. - Kishkumen
Sister Mary Lisa wrote:On the contrary, I think we are able to communicate effectively just fine. I don't think effective communication is only found when one agrees wholeheartedly with another, do you?
Uh, no. Earlier I Somehow had the impression that you did consider priesthood keys et al to be an extension of God since you seemed to actually care about the revelation the prophets received about the proclomation and seemed to have a spark of hope about it. That assumption has led me down the wrong path of attempted communication. My bad.
That's General Leo. He could be my friend if he weren't my enemy. eritis sicut dii I support NCMO
Sister Mary Lisa wrote:On the contrary, I think we are able to communicate effectively just fine. I don't think effective communication is only found when one agrees wholeheartedly with another, do you?
Uh, no. Earlier I Somehow had the impression that you did consider priesthood keys et al to be an extension of God since you seemed to actually care about the revelation the prophets received about the proclomation and seemed to have a spark of hope about it. That assumption has led me down the wrong path of attempted communication. My bad.
I have a spark of hope that the men who created and promote the Proclamation recognize sometime very soon that listing such a narrow ideal that fits only a small percentage of the membership of the church is a harmful message to the countless people who struggle under the realization that they will likely never "measure up" and achieve this idealized family life that's promoted.
Sethbag wrote:You didn't bother to rationalize away the spiritual witnesses and revelations the FLDS and other non-LDS believers get - you just wash your hands clean of them and say hey, not my problem. But it is your problem, because they're claiming the same kinds of manifestations that you and your co-religionists claim, and you can't give any sort of coherent accounting for them, nor offer a reliable and consistent means by which someone would tell the "true" revelations from the ones people merely made up in the own minds.
If by reliable and consistent you mean "scientific", then you're right.
This is so obvious, Abman. It doesn't work. The method of personal revelation from God about anything but trivial crap (which you admitted) like finding one's car keys simply does not work. It's as obvious as the sun at noonday. And yet you persist in your rationalization and excuse-making.
No, it is more than the trivial. D&C 76 is anything but trivial. Big revelations must come through the proper channels. Furthermore, what job to take or where to move isn't necessarily trivial to the person receiving such guidance (and no, God won't tell everyone those things, but He does it occasionally).
You've got to make excuses for why
You've got to make excuses for why
You've got to make excuses for why
No, I don't. I simply put them on the shelf. As far as I can tell, many of those things are not as you seem to think whether in subtle detail, or important detail.
Do you really not see what you're doing?
Trying to be faithful?
To the extent that I even knew about some of these things, did this too. The difference between you and me in these things is that I recognized what I was doing, and made the conscious decision to stop doing it. Stop making excuses. Stop rationalizing away failure, evidence of manmadeness, contradictions in the claims, etc.
Sorry, but I cannot do that without rejecting what I know to be true. I may wish the universe was different (or at times non-existant), but I think it's better to do the best with things as I really understand them.
That's General Leo. He could be my friend if he weren't my enemy. eritis sicut dii I support NCMO
Sister Mary Lisa wrote:I have a spark of hope that the men who created and promote the Proclamation recognize sometime very soon that listing such a narrow ideal that fits only a small percentage of the membership of the church is a harmful message to the countless people who struggle under the realization that they will likely never "measure up" and achieve this idealized family life that's promoted.
That's what the afterlife if for. It let us attain the ideal when it was not possible on earth (given that we fully repent and do our best).
That's General Leo. He could be my friend if he weren't my enemy. eritis sicut dii I support NCMO
Sister Mary Lisa wrote:I have a spark of hope that the men who created and promote the Proclamation recognize sometime very soon that listing such a narrow ideal that fits only a small percentage of the membership of the church is a harmful message to the countless people who struggle under the realization that they will likely never "measure up" and achieve this idealized family life that's promoted.
That's what the afterlife if for. It let us attain the ideal when it was not possible on earth (given that we fully repent and do our best).
I'd love to hear your thoughts on the ideal afterlife for a woman who fully repents and does her best and earns her just reward...
Sister Mary Lisa wrote:I'd love to hear your thoughts on the ideal afterlife for a woman who fully repents and does her best and earns her just reward...
I'm wise enough to know what every woman wants: her way. I'll leave that between God and the woman. But if it's any consolation to you, talks about parents with wayward children give me hope that other non-ideal sitations can be worked out in the end if we are faithful.
That's General Leo. He could be my friend if he weren't my enemy. eritis sicut dii I support NCMO
Sister Mary Lisa wrote:I'd love to hear your thoughts on the ideal afterlife for a woman who fully repents and does her best and earns her just reward...
I'm wise enough to know what every woman wants: her way. I'll leave that between God and the woman. But if it's any consolation to you, talks about parents with wayward children give me hope that other non-ideal sitations can be worked out in the end if we are faithful.
Come on, seriously. What would your ideal afterlife consist of? Do you think your idea jives with the Mormon ideal afterlife women get to look forward to?