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There have been several attempts over the years to categorize Mormon “belief-styles”: Orthodox Mormon versus Liberal Mormon, Iron Rod Mormon versus Liahona Mormon, and so on. In the online world of LDS blogs commonly called “the Bloggernacle”, Mormons are often categorized as being TBMs (True Believing Mormons) or NOMs (New Order Mormons).
One evening when my wife and I had the opportunity to reflect on the timeless story of Adam and Eve, it struck me that their different responses to God’s commandments, and to Lucifer’s “temptation”, perfectly exemplified the different mindsets of TBMs and NOMs, and symbolically portrayed the age-old struggle between Orthodox and Liberal in any faith. And as I meditated on their dramatic dialog with Lucifer, with each other, and with God, it donned on me that Adam and Eve were the perfect TBM-NOM couple.
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The ICM poll of 10,000 people in the USA, UK, Israel, India, South Korea, Indonesia, Nigeria, Russia, Mexico and Lebanon was carried out for the BBC Continue reading…
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I am an active member of the church, and a believer.
I am well aware of most of the controversial issues (Book of Abraham, DNA, Book of Mormon historicity, polyandry, etc.). Some of them occasionally bother me. Others do not. Although according to statistics I am very educated, I probably could not win an argument defending the church on any of those points. I could not support the church on Prop. 8, (if you want to specifically comment on that, please go here). I will probably never understand in this life why we are discouraged from praying to our Heavenly Mother, or why women are no longer allowed bless the sick. I am sure I could go on, and so could many of you.
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What do you want your funeral to be like? Do you care or do you figure you’ll be dead anyway? How do you feel about burial vs. cremation? Are you an organ donor? Continue reading…
I was reading BCC the other day, and I came across this post that just seemed like this tremendous threat to me. I know John C had nothing in mind and really, I’m just writing this for the melodrama, but as an ex-mormon atheist, it seemed to hit close to home. John just had it out for those militant atheists, but I guess they do enough to deserve some of it.
I wanted to make a qualification and…perhaps…a defense…of what he lambastes as a “consumer model” of religion…especially since recently on my blog, I’ve been talking about the need to find one’s philosophical “fit” (and others have written about similar issues).
Part of me wants to summarize John’s main points. The other part (perhaps that militant atheist one) wants me to tell you all to not be lazy and read that BCC post (the first link — it’s good) [partially because I'll probably botch things up in a summary and partially because I will make this post too long if I summarize here.] Continue reading…
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The church has a history of high level leaders making sweeping pronouncements that are later deemed incorrect, speculative, or unauthorized, yet in each case, church leaders are reluctant to make public correction of those presumptions. This tolerance sometimes results in dogmatic voices flourishing, drowning out those same tolerant voices that have graciously granted them access to the open mic. Continue reading…
I just read a book called In the land of invisible women: A female doctor’s journey in the Saudi kingdom by Qanta A. Ahmed, M.D. Absolutely amazing read. I’ve been recommending it to everyone I know. Qanta is a British-born Muslim physician, trained in the U.S., who takes a position at a hospital in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. She goes to Saudi Arabia feeling pretty comfortable. Not too worried about how it will feel to live there because, after all, she is a Muslim. However, once she gets there, she quickly discovers that many of the Saudis are practicing a different kind of Islam. She doesn’t fit in. She rubs people the wrong way. She is puzzled by their beliefs, practices, and customs. She feels like she’s suffocating underneath the abbayah. Continue reading…
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Often people have a hard time with intimacy (intimacy = “into me see”) because they feel vulnerable. They would rather deal with ideas than people, and they don’t want others to see who they are. They might feel insecure or care what others think of them. People who feel this way wear what we call social masks to hide who they are and present a facade instead of their true self to others. And sometimes, the mask people wear is the church. Continue reading…
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So over at T&S they’ve been having this discussion about the recent media report about the majority of America’s drifiting faith issues. And I know, you’re about to say, “Dude, this isn’t T&S. We do things differently at Mormon Matters,” and I understand. And while I discussed this a bit at my blog, I most definitely know we do things differently here than there. So I wanted to try to approach the subject differently here and add some value (well…perhaps I won’t be so successful at this latter endeavor.) Continue reading…
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My home teacher (who is very cool) came by yesterday to drop off some starter cables for my car and as one does in that short interlude we discussed the celestial kingdom and being Gods after this life. He believed that those who don’t make it to the highest kingdom in the Celestial Kingdom won’t have any sexual relationships and if you don’t have sexual relationships their will be no need for sexual organs.
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There is a strange parable in D&C 88 about workers digging in a field and their boss giving them the joy of his countenance for an hour during their shift. Read on to weigh in what you think this means. Continue reading…
“What if you weren’t a Mormon?” For some reason, this is something that I often wonder to myself. And this post is about how I would answer that question.
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I’d like to start a new feature showcasing stuff I read in the scriptures and getting your opinions on what the heck you think it means. Hope you like it. I just read D&C 88 and ran across an interesting passage we’ve all heard/read before in vv. 64 and 65 that begs the question: What’s expedient? Continue reading…
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“Faith and doubt cannot exist in the same mind at the same time, for one will dispel the other.” Continue reading…
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When I served a mission in eastern Canada in the early 90s, there were many things I was grateful for (warm boots, wool suits, fairly normal food). But above all, I was grateful that I was sent to a region with very few black people, as I was not looking forward to having to defend something in the Church’s past that had deeply troubled even a relatively immature teenager with a limited knowledge of Church history and doctrine.
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A whistleblower is someone internal to an organization who alleges misconduct. So, what if the organization is the church? Does the church handle whistleblowers effectively or not? If so, how? If not, why not? Continue reading…
I decided to spare everyone the full title of this article: Why Bearded, Blue-Shirt-Wearing African-Americans Who Support Extension of the Priesthood to Women who love Pr0n are Depressed. (And that title, if you can believe it, is actually culled from what the internal memos discussed).
I’m sure there are several writers on site who are busily searching through intellectual copyright law as I speak, so I must speak quickly before I get shut down (not to mention before the Bearded, Blue-Shirt-Wearing African Americans and Women who love Pr0n nab me for libel).
The other day, John C at BCC made another Monday Morning Theological Poll and asked: “True or False: If someone wishes to leave the church, it is because they have some grave, unconfessed sin?”
…I don’t know how representative BCC is of Mormondom as a whole, but if we can but abuse statistics for this one time, we can come to the conclusion that, overwhelmingly, Mormons do not believe such a claim. Just looking at the stats, more Mormons percentage-wise say “no” to such a claim than Facebookers hate the new Facebook design (drat, that’s a lie: Facebook’s current 93% hate [with millions of votes] tops the 91% of BCCers that say false. But if Obama’s 53% of the popular vote can be a landslide and Prop 8’s 52% can just be a “narrow victory,” then I’m game for anything statistic-wise.) I’ll add Obama supporters to the list of people coming after me. Continue reading…
The following are four approaches one can take when addressing another’s faith.*
Exclusivist – Believe in “the only true church.” Exclusivists may see the church or the restored gospel as the only means of salvation. They may not openly try to share the gospel with everyone, everywhere, but that is their goal. The most obvious members in this category often include “I know this is the only true church” in bearing their testimony. They may appear to be intolerant of other religions practices, or be accused of having an agenda in their relationships with non-members.
Rejectionist – Basic religious concepts (such as a creator) are denied, and religion is viewed as a crutch or a psychological defense. Rejectionists like to point out that spiritual experiences are invalid because they cannot be known objectively. They may have some disdain for religion and may think that we would be better off without religion because of all the conflict it has caused in the world.
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I’ve been thinking about Levi Peterson’s The Backslider lately (SPOILERS AHEAD). Continue reading…
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A recent article in Time discusses several studies about the correlation between faith and health. Does church attendance contribute to a healthier, longer life? Is Mormon culture more or less health-promoting than other faiths? Continue reading…
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Spending a week in the Pacific Northwest on vacation, surrounded by boats and the vastness of the sea, when I read this quote from Antoine de Saint-Exupery on my way home, I couldn’t get it out of my head:
If you want to build a ship, don’t herd people together to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.
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A while back, some of us had an interesting discussion on my blog called “The Faith Gene.” We were examining the possibility that certain people were born with such a gene, while others weren’t. Continue reading…
