Went to Church

[1smartdodog]

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

How small the church has become in its scope of understanding to me. There is literally nothing of substance there. Just faith promoting fiction and emotional feelings elevated to fact

It was tedious.


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[slavereeno]

Yeah I have skipped EQ for a while, then went back when son came to visit our ward. Your summary above fits my experience.

[RubinHighlander]

I recently attended a TBM funeral in a ward house. May as well have been a sacrament meeting. I really hated hearing the words "God protects our children." I can't even remember the context because all I could think about were all those poor kids (me included growing up) who continue to get messed up by priesthood leaders drilling them with explicit questions about their sexual desires and behaviors, or worse all the kids that get sexually abused by leaders. Was it really God's grand plan to let innocent kids get abused by their spiritual leaders? It's like that messed up BOM story where the two prophets with the power of God have to sit there and watch innocent women and children get burned alive but it's okay because they'll go to Heaven.

[Corsair]

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 invasion plans, the sinking of Numenor, and establishment of the line of kings through Isildur and Aaragorn. Spiritual lessons would be drawn from this narrative. Would this be an improvement over your Elders Quorum?

[oliblish]

I stopped going to Priesthood meeting two or three years before I stopped going to Sacrament Meeting. I think I may be been a believer when I stopped. (I honestly can't remember the exact sequence now.) When the Polygamy essay came out in 2014 I thought I would go one more time to see if they would mention anything interesting. It was brought up, and yet it was not. It was actually kind of bizarre.

The teacher talked about it for about 10 minutes in an oblique way, but never actually said anything directly about polygamy. He just talked about Joseph Smith and how some things have come out recently that should not bother us. He also mentioned that there were some who lost their faith over some of these things. Everyone was kind of squirming in their chairs and were visibly uncomfortable with the topic.

I didn't say a word, but that was the very last time I have ever gone to Priesthood. I have gone to Sacrament Meeting and Sunday School occasionally, but that is mainly because my wife teaches Gospel Doctrine. But even then I have probably only been twice this year.

[deacon blues]

I attended Sacrament meeting with my wife, and then slipped down the St. Judas church in Draper. Honestly, there were uplifting parts in both services. The first Sac. Mtg. talk was an assigned Conference talk rehash , but the second talk took the old pop song "He Ain't Heavy He's My Brother, and focused on service. At St Judas, I had a great blueberry muffin and listened to WTFluff and others bear their testimonies.

[nibbler]

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 invasion plans, the sinking of Numenor, and establishment of the line of kings through Isildur and Aaragorn. Spiritual lessons would be drawn from this narrative. Would this be an improvement over your Elders Quorum?

Probably... until I got tired of hearing that same story for the 40th time after a year or so of attending.

Besides, we read general conference talks in EQ. Maybe a better comparison would be wandering into a discussion where people are taking turns reading someone else's interpretation of a poem about Goldberry. There wouldn't be any spiritual lessons, the main focus would be how Goldberry is literal, very much real, and how any interpretation other than the one being read is grossly incorrect and inspired by Sauron.

[wtfluff]

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 invasion plans, the sinking of Numenor, and establishment of the line of kings through Isildur and Aaragorn. Spiritual lessons would be drawn from this narrative. Would this be an improvement over your Elders Quorum?

Probably... until I got tired of hearing that same story for the 40th time after a year or so of attending.

Besides, we read general conference talks in EQ. Maybe a better comparison would be wandering into a discussion where people are taking turns reading someone else's interpretation of a poem about Goldberry. There wouldn't be any spiritual lessons, the main focus would be how Goldberry is literal, very much real, and how any interpretation other than the one being read is grossly incorrect and inspired by Sauron.

Haha: Correlated Goldberry Interpretations™.