Quote:
Originally Posted by UtahDan
Right, because silence usually implies consent. :-)
Seriously, I have no problem with the conclusions you have reached. I think that this one set of conclusions that the "evidence" permits.
I think that I and others simply choose to live in a world where God speaks to man and where each individual has access to the divine on some level. It gives us purpose, comfort and direction. As I have said before I don't think we are compelled to do this but rather choose it for a myriad of reasons.
I think you are correct in identifying that a belief in God may have something to do with the impulse of the explorer and inventor, I would add just as importantly the impulse of the artist, the architect and the composer. Interestingly it seems that ever since humans have lived in communities that we have needed to express ourselves artistically and this has most often taken the form or worship of some kind whether of Elohim or Jesus Christ or of Baal or Anu. So regardless of the source of it, the impulse is there. As I say you have you choice of explanations for it.
I don't think I an agree with your characterization of what Brown or Roberts believed. I guess I would put it this way: for most of us the fruits of the tree are good which allows you to over look, or exercise faith with respect to, things that might bother you more if they were not. There are personal and cultural issues there too, as you say.
I think that for a person who is raised LDS but who doesn't stay in, you have no choice but to define yourself in large measure in contrast to your former belief system which is what I think your post does in part. That is not a critique. I'm not sure how you could do otherwise considering what you have come to believe.
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Good post. But I think you overstate the extent to which my apostasy defines me. I think Mormons who have been close to me are more guilty of this than myself, which doesn't make me too happy. Maybe we do the same thing to gay people vis-a-vis their sexual preference. Some over-define themselves in terms of sexual preference, but I bet th emajority of times its heterosexuals doing the defining.