spotlight wrote:I can agree with this but it doesn't negate my point. If I would try to present data that contradicts someone's beliefs, the data necessary for the task is different for each individual who nurses a collection of disproved beliefs. While true for all people as you state, the LDS religion does have some commonly held theological beliefs and truth claims shared by all of its members, supposedly. The fact that this is not true in practice was referred to derisively as "cafeteria Mormonism" by one of my institute instructors years ago.
What those beliefs are tend to vary though. I'll be fully upfront and admit that CES staff's knowledge doesn't exactly fill me with confidence in trusting them. For too long they held to a rather naïve dogmatic set of expectations largely arising out of a limited selection of extra-scriptural writings (BRM, JFS to the neglect of all other figures) It's gotten better the last few years. My friends still at BYU say the religion department has improved dramatically since I was there. But the point remains while I agree there are core doctrines determining what they are can be problematic as there are different groups.
If religion is so fluid that it cannot be pinned down, then how can it be of any utility to its disciples?
That presupposes that the purpose of religion is primarily dogma rather than praxis. By and large from what I can tell the Church honestly doesn't care what you believe so long as you aren't doing certain things. Usually apostasy is seen less in terms of doctrine than in what one teaches and in how one teaches it. Even in what I'd call the core defining beliefs where one gets ones temple recommend from a Stake President most of the questions are questions of practices. Only a few are belief oriented and the questions are asked in a vague way where the responsibility is on the individual. So what it means to pay a full tithe, for instance, while talked about a fair bit, is ultimately the individual's responsibility.
My perception of Mormonism is that most of what the Church does is provide opportunities for service and ritual with the onus put on the individual to make use of it. We work out our own salvation. Even learning at church is, as someone put it at Church this morning, largely an adjunction to the teaching and learning that should be going on in our homes at our own discretion.
How can any make the claim that they are on the right path that leads to any promised blessings if something as common as diverse beliefs is capable of steering us down the wrong alleyway?
But ultimately within Mormon thought the only person who can tell if they are on the right path is the individual themselves. Now the rest of the community may give feedback but outside of stripping away priesthood blessings, we are expected to guide ourselves. We get a lot of feedback from the scriptures, from conference and the like. But responsibility is always on the individual. Further outside of broad guidelines regarding certain practices (honesty, chastity, etc.) and a few doctrines (atonement, etc.) we are expected to find out what to do by the spirit ourselves.
You're right that this comes with it risk of a sort. But I see that as a feature not a bug.
Being free to modify religious beliefs as one does their scientific theories with new knowledge that comes to light makes religion at some point along that path something other than "revealed religion." Or at the very least it makes that which is "revealed" so obscure as to be useless non-communication.
Again I see that as a feature not a bug. I see it as a strength that we recognize there are false traditions and we get wrapped up in them. The ability to discard something as false if well intentioned so that over time we correct is a good thing. As to whether things are too vague to be useful, again we have to unpack what we mean by useful. We have what we need to achieve the part of salvation we're responsible for right now. In the future as we individually progress we'll get more information. Undoubtedly some things we believe now we'll find out were wrong. But so what? So long as we can know if we're in the right path we'll get to the truth.
