NOM

I read this recently, and it's quite engaging even if you don't really relate to her situation.

Her Mormon Stories interview is also worth a listen:
https://www.mormonstories.org/podcast/tara-westover/

It's hard for me to imagine some of my family members going through a faith transition. The idea of my having a part in kicking such a transition off has always made me nervous. But I also wonder whether one or more of them have already reached that point but, like me, don't ever bring it up due to ...

At this point, it may be mostly because I am resistant to change and I can't imagine not identifying as Mormon (at least in an abstract/tribal sense). Also, not wanting to deal with the potential consequences of drifting any further than I have outwardly (damage to relationships that I value). That ...

My favorite of Haidt's books is The Righteous Mind, though I also enjoyed this one and The Coddling of the American Mind. The latter primarily for its discussion of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), which I was not really familiar with.

In short, I would recommend all three books.

Those books culminating with Urth of the New Sun would make for nice twenty episode HBO series, eh? I've thought about what a potential film adaptation might look like, and it's hard for me to imagine anyone taking a chance on it without seriously compromising the story to make it more accessible t...

moksha wrote: ↑

Thu Feb 07, 2019 3:33 am

Favorite sci-fi/fantasy author - Gene Wolfe.

I'm with you on this one. Book of the New Sun is amazing. I can only assume that you've also read some Jack Vance.

I don't suppose the jaguars are "useful" enough to be cumoms.

I've been under the radar for so long that I don't even know how I'd handle a confrontation anymore, though I still suspect I will find myself in that situation one day. Since it wasn't the laundry list of LDS issues that really got to me, I don't think I'd even bother bringing those up. It's possib...

Good discussion. I suppose truth matters if you can manage to convince yourself that it's a valid concept, that it's something you can identify when you find it, and that you care. One of my favorite LDS talks before I started going astray was President Kimball's Absolute Truth . That type of certai...

I've never gone back and read my mission journals, but I still have them. That's the only time I've really ever kept a record like that, unless you count NOM posts. I remember one conversation with another missionary in which we (mostly) jokingly concluded that we'd "proved the Church false." But I ...

Hagoth wrote: ↑

Fri Jan 11, 2019 10:53 am

It's getting pretty long (sorry). But it's action-packed!
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Logow ... qOhleGrdc

I think I have seen this before, but I enjoyed reading it (again?) just now. Thanks for sharing.

It's nice to see your update, LaMachina. I can sympathize with your feeling of not fitting any anywhere, and also with your experience of losing family members. Good luck if you return to read this thread, or even if you decide to post again one day.

Oh, this is good news. I'd hoped that he'd return to the scene one day.

Another post responding to those posts: https://bycommonconsent.com/2018/11/06/on-my-middle-way-mormonism/ Author: We're all middle-way Mormons. Commenters: No, we aren't. If you equate "middle-way" with "cafeteria" then I'd agree with that statement. And, of course, you argue that everything is on ...

Thanks for sharing your thoughts on the book. I always enjoy your Web log posts. I'm about halfway through the book, myself.

I find it interesting how much variety there is in motivation and perspective among those in the "middle way." I suppose there's just as much variety between believers, but perhaps it's not as noticeable there. Although I find myself firmly in the middle-way camp, I rarely see a take that I can rela...

When I was a missionary, we used a particular apartment just for meetings and teaching sessions. The story was that missionaries had lived there at one time but were harassed by unseen entities. Those entities were driven out at one point, but the mission decided not to have missionaries live there ...

When I was a missionary, another missionary told me that a local church leader had once confided in him that the gospel plan is ultimately selfish. That idea stuck in my mind. I couldn't help asking myself whether I would care as much what God wanted me to do if an attractive afterlife with family a...

I hope it's okay if I continue to treat this as a general thread about movies that deal with issues of faith. I recently watched Apostasy , which is about a family of Jehovah's Witnesses who have to deal with the consequences of their doctrines. Not an especially happy story, but an interesting wind...

I've assumed that a lot of flat earth talk on the Internet is more about getting a reaction than about sincerely-held beliefs. I can also imagine that some would overthink the questions in such a poll and select Other because they had heard that the earth is not perfectly round. I can also imagine s...