I'm getting confused

[_DrW]

I'm new here and I've been browzing for a while, and I just decided to make a topic on one of the reasons (one of the more important ones) I've joined the site. (I'm 16 and almost 17 just to make things clearer)
<snip>
I'm not at the point where I'm thinking there isn't a god, but I don't agree with a lot of what is being said and implied at the church or really any other religions.

TygerFang,

You are at an exciting and important time in your life. Over the next few years, you will be forming the basic worldview that you will fall back on to help guide your future. I have three beautiful grown daughters, all faithful members of the Mormon Church, so I know how important 16 or 17 can be.

From here, you can build your worldview based on reality, facts, and logic. Or you can build it based on myth, superstition, lies, and fantasy.

You can aspire to be like those who have contributed much to humankind through earnest study, observation, concern for others, and application of learning and logic - people like Curie, or Galileo, or Einstein.

Or you can aspire to be someone like Warren Jeffs or Joseph Smith, or Mohammad, or Jim Jones, or L. Ron Hubbard, or Jimmy Swaggard (or your mother), who claim to be in touch with a higher power such as God, or a deceased relative, in order to influence and control others.

Whether or not you choose to believe in God is entirely up to you. I hope that you will not choose believe in people like Joseph Smith or Warren Jeffs, or L. Ron Hubbard (the founder of Scientology).

I hope that before you commit your life to a belief system such as Mormonism, you will study it carefully. Do not study it by reading what Mormons say about themselves, but read what qualified researchers and historians say about the Mormon Church and especially its history. Be very sure the Mormons are correct and truthful in their claims that the Amerindians are descended from Semites, that Egyptian funerary texts were the Book of Abraham, that blacks would never hold the Priesthood, that men lived on the moon, and countless other of its "truths" and "revelations".

You might want to have a look at some of the post-mormon message boards http://www.postmormon.org , for example.

A site such as http://www.lds4u.com/lesson1/bayesian.htm might also help you. At sixteen, you should have the background and thinking skills that would help you to understand and appreciate the simple logic of this site. Take the test. Try it.

Remember, SWK said that Mormonism is all true or it is all false. GBH informed us that everything rests on the voracity of the First Vision (of which there are several substantially different accounts, so it is hard to be sure which one he was referring to). BKP (Boyd K. Packer) stated that "some truth is not helpful", and, in essence, that 'faith should be more important than fact', (the mantle exceeds the intellect).

Are these the kind of people you aspire to be? Do you want to be like Joseph Smith or Brigham Young? If you think that you do, then please read more about them. You will find that they were not as the Church would have you believe.

You are having doubts for a reason. It is because you are smart enough to not believe everything adults tell you.

You should not believe what I tell you, either, without checking it out for yourself. Please keep doing what you are doing. Think about how you want to live your life. And keep checking things out for yourself.

Good Luck

[_Tarski]

Believe me Bond, when you receive a witness of the Spirit, you know it. Its nothing I could trick myself into.

LOL
Why not? Your the one who subconsciously knows best what type of feeling would convince you. No one is better equipped to fool you than you.

[_badseed]

TygerFang-

Welcome.

Things probably seem pretty confusing at the moment so give it all some time. Look at all of the evidence and don't let anyone rush you. This is a process that is yours and yours alone and the decision of what and how to believe is extremely personal.

With all due respect to your mother, those experiences are hers, not yours. Consider them accordingly. Same with all you see here and on any other board. All of our experiences and advice are things to consider but in the end you have to make your own path.

Good luck. Feel free to ask any questions here you want. There are no bad questions.

[_mledbetter]

thanks for all the support, from every point of view. And Gaz, thanks and I agree with you partly. I agree that I should be reading the scriptures and asking missionaries and other church authorities what they think and for advice, but I also think that I need more than just that. I think that I can't really say I believe in the church unless my questions are answered, and if I agree with those answers. You can't really belong to a religion you don't understand or agree with. And part of understanding is looking at it from every point of view, not only from church authorities but people who don't agree with or believe in the church.

Hello TygerFang,

You seem like a very intelligent young person. I have many of the same concerns you stated in your OP.
I would add one point to this last comment, however. Should we be looking for a religion that we agree with, or should we simply be looking for the truth? If there is a God, would we agree with all of His ideas and purposes? Why not? Is it something wrong about our thinking or His?

I wish you the best in your search for truth. I'm a member of the Church, and still believe, but can't say I know anything. I'm still looking myself. I seriously doubt that a kind God would have a problem with you questioning Him and His ideas. Ask Him to help you understand, if you still believe in prayer.

Maybe someone can help me here, but who was the philosopher who stated in order to find truth, one must discard all their beliefs and start from the ground up? Can't remember. Perhaps this is where you should start. Start with God and go from there. If you are to question everything, honestly, you must also question your own ideas which conflict with truth you discover and question why you have those ideas to begin with.

The way I've come to recognize truth, even truth I disagree with, is the feeling of peace I experience when I ask God. I'm sure some atheist/agnostic here would describe that as my need to be comforted and I'm therefore weak. Remember that many of these same people's hero, Friedrich Nietzsche, said pretty much the same things about Jews and Christians. He stated many times that they should be institutionalized for insanity. It's interesting that Nietzsche himself was eventually institutionalized for insanity.
My point is that we're all pretty weak creatures if you want to get right down to it and be frankly honest with yourself. One could drive themselves crazy with these questions. Read Tolstoy's "A Confession." You'll find his experience with "feeling the Spririt" pretty interesting. Then read about how he died. I'd say he wasn't far behind Nietzsche.

Best of luck,

-Matt

[_mledbetter]

Dear TygerFang,

Since the time of Freud and Jung, it has been well known that dreams can be expressions of subconscious anxieties. Your mother might not even have noticed that you were straying from the righteous path at a conscious level, but if she even picked up clues at a subconscious one, she might have dreams of this kind. It should also be noted that even the most honest believers may omit or even deliberately forget details from their dreams that don't make sense, and may exaggerate how "real" they felt or how profound or specific the experience was.

The same can be said for "impressions". If you say or do something that seems to hint at your unbelief, your mother might well feel a sudden anxiety or insight or even have a waking dream in which a dead relative is speaking to her. This is much more likely to happen during times of exhaustion, intoxication, entrancement, emotional or physical distress, mental instability, or high fever, but it can certainly happen to normal people under normal circumstances, as well. Entrancement, moreover, can be induced by prayer or deep meditation: a sort of self-hypnosis.

As a Pentecostal, I had a vision and a half-dozen experiences in which I heard (actually "felt" might be a better word) God speak to me. I now believe that those experiences came from within myself, and looking back at them I can see indications of that that I wouldn't have shared with you back when I was still a true believer (even though I was and am a very honest person). For what it's worth, two of my experiences suggested that God doesn't particularly care what religion you're a part of, Mormon or otherwise. That's what I believe today, albeit on the authority of my own reasoning rather than of those seemingly supernatural impressions.

Good luck on your journey,

-Chris

Or she knows how to check browser history. :-)

Just mess'in around.

-Matt

[_Dr. Shades]

Maybe someone can help me here, but who was the philosopher who stated in order to find truth, one must discard all their beliefs and start from the ground up? Can't remember.

That was Rene Descartes.

[_mledbetter]

Maybe someone can help me here, but who was the philosopher who stated in order to find truth, one must discard all their beliefs and start from the ground up? Can't remember.

That was Rene Descartes.

Of course! My college philosophy lessons are becoming vague. I should refresh my knowledge on this when I find time.

Thanks!

[_Wayneman]

For one thing the way that they view that people should grow up to get married, have children, and that the woman should be home for the kids.

Tyger Fang, you can honor your parents and still recognize that they may be wrong about certain things. They may even be delusional. My own mom is a nut, with some pretty crazy ideas about things, but I still love her, and am grateful to her for teaching me about the gospel.

But, I take a lot of the "nutty" things she says with a huge grain of salt. It doesn't shake my testimony any. I'm not saying your mom is nuts. It's just that either those "visions" are real, or they're not. If they're not, it doesn't make the gospel less true.

It's just that I, personally had to sort of "re-learn" what the gospel is all about as an adult, because my mom's version was so messed-up.

Referring to your quote above, all I have to say is that my wife makes a heck of a lot more money than me, AND her patriarchal blessing (I probably shouldn't be sharing this here, but I think I need to for you), which she got when she was about your age, actually instructed her to have a career to help support her family.

While there are certain absolute truths, God knows all of us individually, and His solutions for our problems are tailor-made, just for us.

Oh, and one more thing: I happen to hold a degree in neuropsychology, and can tell you that we are NOT just a bundle of neurons. In other words, feelings are not just about chemical reactions and processes in our brains. What we can feel is often times every bit as real and valid as what we can see, hear, touch, taste and smell.

Best of luck to you.

[_Dr. Shades]

Oh, and one more thing: I happen to hold a degree in neuropsychology, and can tell you that we are NOT just a bundle of neurons. In other words, feelings are not just about chemical reactions and processes in our brains. What we can feel is often times every bit as real and valid as what we can see, hear, touch, taste and smell.

Hello again Wayneman!

This is quite an interesting point you make. I would've thought that a person with a degree in neuropsychology would say the exact opposite of what you did.

Will you kindly expound upon that?

[_Wayneman]

Shades. How goes it? Still eating all that wonderful sushi, of which I AM extremely jealous?

Before I respond, let me preface by saying that my intention is not to argue with anyone (though I am fairly certain that some will force the issue, which is fine by me), but to tell how I've come by my point of view.

Yes, I have a degree in neuropsychology, and my wife has one in biochemistry with an emphasis in evolutionary biology. Both of us obtained our degrees from non-LDS schools, but from very liberally-minded California universities. I'm not saying this to boast, just to lend a tiny bit (for it is indeed tiny) of credibility to my position, and to say that by studying such, our faith has already been severely tested.

So some "credible" source about what a demon Joseph Smith was, for example, isn't going to shake us one iota.

Sorry. But being a natural skeptic myself, I've already heard it all and have come to my own conclusions.

And yes, we are BOTH very active in the LDS faith, and believe that it is true. But what I'm about to say is not so much to try and convince anybody that Mormonism is true, but that there is some metaphysical design to our existence... whatever that is.

If we are a product of our neuronal firings (or misfirings), wouldn't that virtually destroy the notion of free will?

And if free will is nonexistant, why then are we constantly wasting our time and energy trying to convince one another that our paradigm or way of thinking is correct? Why am I writing this? Why would any of you fine people respond?

When one commits ethical behavior, a real chemical response occurs in the brain which makes us feel good. This is true indeed. But why wouldn't evolution choose to give us negative feelings instead? Some may argue that it has to do with the survival of the human race. Ethical behavior helps to ensure that. This would be a very good argument.

But my question to my virtual straw man that I've created (yes, I'm making fun of myself) is why? If there is no purpose to our existence, why would it even matter?

Finally, one of the great quandries in the field of neuroscience is of the chicken and the egg variety: Does our brain chemistry dictate our behavior? Or does our behavior dictate our brain chemistry?

The answer is both. Some might scoff at he notion of the Spirit, positing that the warm fuzzies we get are a result of wishful thinking, like WANTING to believe, or the result of ethical behavior.

My response would be, what's wrong with that? But why wouldn't God use our natural bodily processes to reinforce positive behavior. We do it with our kids as parents, when we reward positive behavior. Why wouldn't God do it for us as our parent? In this case, we have a built-in reward system to reinforce good behavior and weed out negative behavior.

But don't misunderstand me. I've had experiences in my life which I will not share here, not because they were earth-shattering, and I've never had a vision, but because I consider them sacred and very personal. These experiences very clearly have come from without myself and my neurons. In other words, my brain chemistry, in such instances was not dictated by my behavior.

I honestly don't see how people can cut God out after a thoughtful, careful, deep study of sciene. For me and my wife, it just reinforced our positions...

Or was that just our brain chemistry?