And the nominees are . . .
And the nominees are . . .
“Groupthink” is what naturally happens when a group becomes sedentary and sluggish. When change is introduced or new people are introduced, they challenge the “groupthink.” I’ve never seen the word groupthink (when used correctly) as a positive. Does the church suffer from groupthink or just unity (“being one,” and “if ye are not one, ye are not mine.”)? You decide.
According to alexa.com, By Common Consent is currently the top ranked site in the Bloggernacle. Congratulations to our esteemed colleagues; you have earned the distinction of “top blog”! Not to toot our own horn, but Mormon Matters is also on the rise in the Bloggernacle (at #3), coming in behind #2 bloggernacle perennial favorite Times & Seasons.
I wanted to do a series of posts on aspects of the LDS church that I consider to be sheer religious genius. These are religous practices or concepts that have given Mormonism its staying power, and when compared to other religions are “best-in-class” (to borrow a term from business). The first practice I will address is full-time missions.
Today’s guest post is by jmb275. In my first guest post, I talked about intellectualism and faith. A few of the commenters pointed out that I had somewhat assumed that we had dual natures – spiritual and rational. The point was mentioned that the term “spirituality” could be loosely defined to be many things – not necessarily religious in nature. In this post I would like to address these issues as I have been pondering it for quite some time.
I’ve spent some time over the years thinking about questions that remain in regards to the logistics of the afterlife.
In a pro-family church, why doesn’t family always come first? We state that family comes before church, and yet there seem to be many in the church who don’t live as if they believe it. What do we need to do to get people to believe that family (and marriage) comes first?
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...
Based on my experience, I would guess that the majority of LDS women under age 65 would say that polygamy is NOT an eternal principle and that it doesn’t require any earthly worrying as a result. While the men are probably not worrying about it (although any of them who are married to me should think twice about expecting additional wives in the future), my impression is that a higher percentage of them believe it is an eternal principle that will be practiced long term.
I have to admit sadly if it came to push or shove Mormon Matter opinions and the Internet in the main override what information I would receive from a member of my congregation. Primarily because it’s a collective think tank that has looked at it from different angles and in more depth. Since Mormon Stories, Mormon Matters, For those who wonder.com and a plethora of others that have come into my view it has significantly changed my insights of what I thought was black and white dramatically.
Count up all the liberal Mormons you know. Now, compare that number to the number you knew ten years ago. Now multiply the difference between the two by the number of liberal General Authorities, then subtract from that number the number of anti-intellectual General Conference addresses you have heard in the last three years.