Easy to be Entreated

A lot of True Believing Mormons (TBM's) believe that people who no longer believe the Church is true should leave. I left immediately upon no longer believing, but there are a lot of New Order Mormons (NOM's) who no longer believe, but stay anyway for family, community, moral upbringing for their children, the feeling of elevation (AKA the Spirit), or because it is the best thing out there. I do not think that it is our place to judge, but to be understanding and let each person live according to the dictates of their own conscience as the 11th Article of Faith says. Here are two links. The first was my short struggle about whether I would fake belief at least through my son's naming blessing. I have an advantage that most newly non-believers don't have, my wife is receptive to the idea that the Church is not true. http://tinyurl.com/hnmsw The second is a link to the home of New Order Mormons: http://forum.newordermormon.org/index.php

[Last edited 1/28/10] I was a very deeply spiritual person and easily moved to tears when thinking of the Savior and the sacrifices I believed he made for me and the rich blessings he bestowed upon me. I was born in the covenant to convert parents who were very active in the Church and true believers. I had a strong testimony of Joseph Smith and the restoration even before turning eight for I had recognized the joy of the Spirit and the love for mankind I felt when reading the Book of Mormon. And after turning eight, I had an experience which I considered to be a visitation of an angel. When I was 14, my mother passed away. I felt very much alone and learned through that experience to lean on the Lord even more. I decided that I would do what was right because it was the path to happiness, not to please my dad or because of fear of punishment. I felt particularly close to Heavenly Father over the next few years, having had countless experiences of answered prayers, premonitions that w...

I admire sincerity. I am drawn to people who are earnest. My wife has told me that one of my traits that attracted her to me was my sincerity. I am not exactly sure why I find honesty and openness so engaging, and really...intriguing. I could speculate on why I have a preference for this, but I know enough about psychology to know that I can't really know why I like what I like. I don't have access to the part of my brain that determines things like that. The best we can do is create a model as to why we and others might have the preferences we do. Our common error is to think we actually discovered why when we have only come up with a reasonable speculation. An excellent article on how we don't have access to what motivates most of our behaviors is "Telling more than we know: Verbal reports on mental processes" by Nisbett, R. E. & Wilson, T. D. (1977) in the Psychological Review, Vol 84-3, pages 231-244. Back to the topic of sincerity. I have found many peopl...

I think it is helpful at the beginning of a new blog to allow the reader to understand the current world view of the blogger. This allows the reader to have some context with which to understand future posts. I am an active, faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I feel that I have a strong, personal relationship with my Father in Heaven and His Son Jesus Christ. I feel that I am very familiar with the doctrines of the modern Church. I have become acquainted with the challenges to the validity of the truthfulness of the Church. Some of which is still unresolved with me. I am capable of entertaining the idea that the Church is not true. I believe that it is possible to look at all the evidence, spiritual included, and come to the conclusion that the Church is not true. However, I do believe that it is possible to look at all the evidence, bar none, and arrive at the conclusion that the Church is true provided that one modifies one's understanding of a fe...

I believe that a great obstacle that stands in the way of our growth and development and our futher acquisition of knowledge is our tendency to believe we have arrived when we have barely begun our quest. I think it behooves us to delve deeper into everything that we think we know because there are often hidden treasures to discover. One example that comes to mind is the topic of faith. Up until about 5 years ago, I did not really think a lot about faith. I had previously read Lectures on Faith given at the School of the Prophets. From that I learned that faith was a principle of action and that faith in God comes from first being taught that there is a God, having a correct understanding of His attributes and perfections, and a knowledge that the life one is persuing is in accordance with His will. I also learned that everything we do requires faith in that we have an expectation of an outcome, but not a sure knowledge. What this blog is about is pushing against the condition I found ...