tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486390395644579022.post1112444379405281512..comments2020-01-16T14:24:54.513+03:00Comments on Youthful Follies: Does God Exist? Why I Don't Care.vacuus viatorhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07511253135488142808noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486390395644579022.post-34322598825289364352013-01-16T23:05:30.929+02:002013-01-16T23:05:30.929+02:00"Some of us just grew up and realized we were..."Some of us just grew up and realized we were no longer welcome." That is exactly how it feels to me. I didn't lose faith. I lost a little bad theology, a little poor reasoning that I trotted out as a kid when people asked me why I believed and I felt a rhetorical response was necessary (because I was told it was). But that is not faith. Faith and doubt are fundamentally the same thing, I think. I can have doubts about a friend even as I trust him (faithfully) to do the right thing (maybe I doubt that his understanding of right coincides perfectly with mine; that does not destroy my faith in his integrity).<br /><br />The god I believe in exists outside reasons I might give for or against his existence. In my life, he does not speak with clear moral directives applying broadly across all contexts, among all people everywhere (regardless of time and circumstance). How can I proclaim the truth I do not know, the life I do not live, the faith that I do not have? How can I cheapen my faith, making it a rhetorical proposition (something liable to be knocked down tomorrow or even ten minutes from now when some new words come to me)? Real faith is not about words. And yet the LDS church (and some other churches too) continues to make it more and more about words, which means that deeds fall by the wayside (and masturbating somehow becomes equivalent to rape--such absurdity!). The modern church is a church of words, and mine just don't belong, so I don't go. But that doesn't mean that I have nothing to say, that I am worthless, that I should erase the messages God has given to me and pretend that he told me whatever people want to hear. To do that would be to betray my faith truly and utterly, perhaps irredeemably. That is denying the Holy Spirit, as near as I can tell, and I don't need any institution to warn me off of it: the mere thought of doing it makes me sick to my stomach (as I often felt during the last year I attended church meetings regularly; since then, I have moved on, and over Christmas I was able to attend LDS meetings without feeling bad at all! that made me happy).Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3486390395644579022.post-61592773043608876912013-01-15T10:20:18.296+02:002013-01-15T10:20:18.296+02:00"We believe in being honest, true, chaste, be..."We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."<br /><br />If that were all that was required to be a faithful Latter-day Saint, I might still be a member of the SLC Church. A real Christian, or even a real Mormon, is one who seeks after the good, without necessarily defining what "the good" is. Joseph Smith said Mormon simply means "more good".<br /><br />I think my God is more personal than the God you envision, but perhaps that is beside the point. The point is that you and I are "nothing", "empty"--asking questions rather than assuming we have all the answers. How can one grow spiritually, mentally, emotionally, etc., if he is already "full"? That is the crux of the issue.<br /><br />I have no dogmas, no rigid conclusions, but rather I am an entertainer of thoughts and ideas. The LDS Church, on the other hand, will supply you with a set of conclusions and guarantees--which is ironically all Lucifer had to offer in the Temple narrative. This is a group of people that think entrance into heaven is contingent upon abstaining from coffee, tea, beer, and profanity. Many people who leave the LDS Church are anti-Mormons in much the same black and white way that they were Mormons. Some of us, however, just grew up and realized we were no longer welcome.The Arkwelderhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03156847150929492694noreply@blogger.com