Leaving Mormonism

[Matthew_Light]

Mocking someone’s religion for the sake of mockery is extremely hateful because religion is so central to a person’s identity. It is comparable to insulting someone’s mother, only worse.

This is so very true. Thank you for writing it!

 

[Matthew_Light]

PRmerger:

Excellent. So we can see that there are some faiths/religions which are wrong.

I like Jesus’ explication on this theme:

"By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? " - Matthew 7:16

and Paul continues with this line of thought:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is, charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity. Against such there is no law.” - Galatians 5:22-23

PRmerger:

And it is a decent person who doesn’t permit another to persist in beliefs which are wrong, yes?

And should we turn people away from other beliefs that are wrong, not just necessarily because they are steeped in hate and fear–but beliefs that are false for other reasons?

In the realm of religion, the truth and falsehood of beliefs are known through their fruits, as the Lord Christ explained to us. If a religion believes in a flying purple cow, but leads its followers to love, generosity, the strengthening of family, the abandonment of racial and religious family, the acquisition of knowledge and the upraising of character, then that religion is, in truth, leading people to God and to spiritual life.

My own personal approach which I have come to over time is that I will never try to undermine anyone’s religious identity.

 

[PRmerger]

I like Jesus’ explication on this theme:

"By their fruits you shall know them. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? " - Matthew 7:16

and Paul continues with this line of thought:

“But the fruit of the Spirit is, charity, joy, peace, patience, benignity, goodness, longanimity, mildness, faith, modesty, continency, chastity. Against such there is no law.” - Galatians 5:22-23

In the realm of religion, the truth and falsehood of beliefs are known through their fruits, as the Lord Christ explained to us. If a religion believes in a flying purple cow, but leads its followers to love, generosity, the strengthening of family, the abandonment of racial and religious family, the acquisition of knowledge and the upraising of character, then that religion is, in truth, leading people to God and to spiritual life.

My own personal approach which I have come to over time is that I will never try to undermine anyone’s religious identity.

Matthew, would you mind not removing the names of the posters to whom you are responding?

Thanks.

 

[PRmerger]

In the realm of religion, the truth and falsehood of beliefs are known through their fruits, as the Lord Christ explained to us. If a religion believes in a flying purple cow, but leads its followers to love, generosity, the strengthening of family, the abandonment of racial and religious family, the acquisition of knowledge and the upraising of character, then that religion is, in truth, leading people to God and to spiritual life.

Are you familiar with the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, Matthew?

If so, you can see how this Emperor, believing the lies of some, is happy as a clam, benevolent, kind and magnanimous, parading around his town buck nekkid.

That’s not a good place to be.

Truth is important, Matthew.

Imagine if there were an adult who believes in Santa Claus–you know, the jolly fat elf who lives in the North Pole and delivers presents to all good little boys and girls. It makes her happy and good to believe in Santa…but the fact is…this guy doesn’t exist.

So, no, just because a religion makes someone happy and good, we ought not encourage belief in it if it’s…FALSE.

My own personal approach which I have come to over time is that I will never try to undermine anyone’s religious identity.

Really? So if your daughter joined a religion that made her good and happy, but also made her do this, you wouldn’t object?

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Matthew_Light]

Matthew, would you mind not removing the names of the posters to whom you are responding?

Thanks.

I didn’t intentionally remove your name, just neglected to put it in when I manually quoted some of your text using BBCode markup.

Fixed now!

 

[PRmerger]

I didn’t intentionally remove your name, just neglected to put it in when I manually quoted some of your text using BBCode markup.

Fixed now!

You removed not only my name, but you did it with some other poster as well.

 

[Matthew_Light]

So, no, just because a religion makes someone happy and good, we ought not encourage belief in it if it’s…FALSE.

 

[Matthew_Light]

You removed not only my name, but you did it with some other poster as well.

Like I said, I often manually write BBCode in my replies instead of using the reply button and usually don’t bother to include the poster’s name. I didn’t realize that bothered you and I’ll make an effort to correct that.

 

[PRmerger]

I have in fact found that alignment with Reality does in fact make people happy and good.

Very Catholic, this.

Our problem is that we are not in alignment with Reality, and so in those areas of a lack of alignment, we suffer and (intentionally or unintentionally) cause other to suffer.

This, too.

So the idea that a group of human beings would believe in something that is fundamentally not in alignment with reality, and who act in accordance with those false beliefs, and yet are happy and loving and pass on their values to subsequent generations - in my experience, that is the “null set”.

You are in no position to judge someone’s happiness, Matthew. Someone may indeed claim she is very happy indeed yet be following a lie, and how would you know she’s not really happy?

At any rate, we are agreed that someone’s faith should be based on Truth, not what makes her happy and good, so you can see why we Catholics do not embrace the false idea “As long as she’s happy following her religion, whatever it teaches, I’m good with her following that religion!”

 

[TexanKnight]

As someone who has lived in SLC for decades, the whole moving or living to SLC means God wants us to be Mormon causes me to go huh? Seems God wants me here, even though I question that idea! Hah. The way I see it, there is some reason for Catholics to be in SLC. Sure, the obvious reasons, but particular people, who are Catholic, are here, and we aren’t moving to Rome as a sign that God wants us to be Catholic.

I cannot speak for where you live, or why, or what that means. I guess it depends on your prayers prior and during.

The miracles that happened to me were after prayer and asking for guidance…

I trust you understand answers to prayers.