NOM

Went to church after some months absence. Just so you know nothing has changed. Still boring as hell. Priesthood was still a debate of fictional characters treated as actual people. Suppose you accidentally attended a "Lord of the Rings" discussion group going over the finer points of Ar-Pharazon's...

It makes me think about a lot of the faith promoting stories you hear. Many of them, once you take a step back and look at the situation, it is either someone makes a mistake, or they do something stupid and manage to get out of it. Like Fanny Alger and polygamy? I don't think I would be telling th...

We look at these people and they show that they put on and feel bad about ourselves that we can't have the perfect life that we see other people have. I mentioned this in some other thread. This is pretty much what church leaders did with the history of the church and with their own self image. The...

Linked wrote: ↑

Sun Jun 23, 2019 3:30 pm

"If you keep opening the oven to check the meal it will never get done".

If you intend to wait until after you die before you open the oven you'll also never eat.

There's a balance. Living your life only to make others (church) happy isn't balance.

So maybe you need to work on your wife, husband, son or daughter rather than the entire church. That's certainly one approach but I know many people that are in a situation where the church has far more influence over their family and friends than they do. If a church leader says something it's met...

Angel wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 21, 2019 11:23 am

• Comments about how people only post their "high's" on social media

Sounds like a Sunday School manual.

Angel wrote: ↑

Fri Jun 21, 2019 11:23 am

• accept or reject as one chooses

Pesky agency. Everyone should be forced to go to heaven. Pros: no one would be lost!

Oaks is a smart guy. He will ride the anti-gay agenda for years to come in order to stay relevant to the old timer membership base then as soon as it dies down will switch to the next carrot to drive the existence of the church forward. That's an interesting point. Maybe restated, people in church ...

I think the rank and file members do cause change, but only indirectly. For instance, I don't think we'd see all the changes in the temple since 1989 if not for what was going on among the rank and file. The average member can cause leaders to get off their butts and change through agitation; Protec...

"New Order Mormons recognize both good and bad in the Church, and have determined that the Church does not have to be perfect in order to remain useful" My experiences come close to what alas mentioned. If I try to approach church meetings as a complete outsider, most meetings appear to have the go...

"We all need constant reminders to keep our testimony strong. We should journal and re-read our spiritual experiences regularly." Forget the history, forget the policies. This is one of the reasons it's so incredibly hard for me to stay active. All of our meetings, including our sacrament meeting, ...

Apologist hat.

Lehi left Jerusalem with his family.
Siege happens.
Zedekiah made king.
Plates updated.
Nephi et al return to Jerusalem for the plates.

It's funny how we spend so much energy in our actual lives preoccupied about a next life or what comes next. We live most of our lives outside the moment. I remember when that existential crisis hit. It stopped me dead in my tracks... pun I guess. I am finding it quite unsettling. If you find it uns...

4. Rank and file members start to realize that long standing policies that they sacrificed to obey can and will change. Something that would hopefully make them think twice about how much they are willing to sacrifice for other extant policies. Tired of waiting around for the church to "authorize" c...

Definitely option #3. 1) Has had calling and election made sure, aka the second comforter, aka I've got teflon Gs - the sins can't stick. 2) Is one of the three Nephites. 3) I'm not saying that I have seen Jesus but I'm also not saying that I haven't. ;) 4) Has successfully divided by zero. 5) I'm t...

JS seemed so manic in how he treated people: You're out! Then your in. Then you're out again! What you want back in? Absolutely, I will do you a favor by bringing you back in (just swear loyalty to me). That's one of the things that leads me to believe that JS had one of the "cluster B" personality...

• Packer’s quote: Not everything that’s true is useful. I’ve often thought this gets a bad rap in the exmormon realm. I think it is absolutely true. I could be completely wrong here, but I don't think the issue is the validity of the statement. I think people take issue because they feel church lea...

IMO Mormonism desperately needs a Pope Francis.

If I had a simple disagreement with a church policy would I face any social repercussions in my faith community? If I had a simple disagreement with a church doctrine would I face any social repercussions in my faith community? On that front there may be no difference between a policy and a doctrine...

Based on that, my guess is that the bulk of the 30K service missions are the couple that stays local to staff come calling. Not people that serve somewhere else that focus on stuff like what Mormon Helping Hands would do.

Maybe this is splitting hairs, but in Holland's defense he could have been talking about the combined proselyting and service mission total. Proselyting: 65,137 Service: 37,963 Total: 103,100 I have no idea what counts as a service mission. I see proselyting missionaries all over my stake. I don't k...