A different Q15----------

[NOWmormon]

Church members are asked 15 questions (the Q15) during temple recommend interviews with church leadership.
But since you are essentially anonymous on this site, how would you answer those same questions here?
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Each day, for the rest of May, please share your honest response to each question, based on what you believe right now.
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#1
Do you have faith in and a testimony of God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost?

[Red Ryder]

Faith in... Yes, plus Bhudda, He-man, Obi Wan Kanobi, and all other protagonists in classic stories of good vs evil.

Testimony? No, no, not really. Probably not in any traditional mormon definition. I definitely don't anticipate ever again standing at a wooden podium expressing knowledge of such to a large group of neighbors. Of course unless I can recite the theme to He-Man and publicly confess my love for Princess Teela and Battle Cat.

[Mad Jax]

1. No. Although the historical personage of Jesus of Nazareth likely has some validity.

[Just This Guy]

Nope. By definition, god is unknown and unknowable. So asking for something that you cannot know if it exists is a unanswerable question.

[MoPag]

Oh this is fun!!!

Sure El and Yahweh can join my pantheon. I'll just pretended all the OT sketchy stuff was made up bullsh*t or terribly misinterpreted.

[Hagoth]

I believe that the universe was once a thin cloud of hydrogen and now it contains stars, galaxies, planets, bacteria, toads and Red Ryder. However that came about is god enough for me without the need to constantly declare my unworthiness before a dude on a throne. I believe that Jesus existed but we have no way of knowing what he said or did because none of his contemporaries wrote about him, although later people mythologized him. I think the Holy Ghost is any feeling to which we ascribe goodness and affirmation of goodness. I accept that we may have some sort of yet-to-be understood connection with each other, with the universe and with nature, and that together we are all components of what we call God.

[alas]

Yes-ish.

My concept of the Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost is not that same as theirs, and although I hope for some kind of God, and I do believe there is something (a intelligence that can communicate with us?) I can't say as I *know*.

I like what is written down as the teachings of Jesus, and it would be really nice if he does turn out to be the Savior. But even with that, my concept of him as Savior is different than the one taught in Mormonism. He would not just let sinners off the hook for sins, but I believe there would be restorative justice. Also, Joseph Smith got confused about the various names used for the God of Abraham, who was one God, not two as in Elohiem and Jahweh. Jahweh is God the Father. Elohiem is a group of Gods.

My concept of God as Father is that if he is Father, then there has to be an *equal* mother. Not what is portrayed in the Mormon temple where women are put below husbands in a hierarchy to leave room for the man to have many wives. And the word for Holy Ghost in ancient Hebrew is feminine and if you get into the ancient history of what was believed back in the time of David and Solomon, you will find that they believed God, El, or Jahweh had a wife, a son (who was to be Savior) and daughter. (Daughter's role has been lost) Basically, if there is a Holy Ghost, it would be our Mother. I just don't accept a holy family with two male parents. Not that I have the same issue with it as BKP did, just that I don't think that is the way it would be. See, if Mormons are right about the family being the eternal unit that goes on to Goodhood, then they are wrong about the gender of HG.

[wtfluff]

#1
Do you have faith in and a testimony of God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost?

1) No.

I know longer believe in any of the 3 beings as defined by mormonism: a mythical dude from another planet (alien) with superpowers, a dude who died and came back to life (lich) or any sorts of ghosts, holy, friendly, malevolent, or otherwise.

(Blind) faith is not a virtue, and to me is completely worthless, and an actual testimony requires verifiable evidence.

[Korihor]

No

But if there is a higher power, I hope they're cool.

[MoPag]

And the word for Holy Ghost in ancient Hebrew is feminine and if you get into the ancient history of what was believed back in the time of David and Solomon, you will find that they believed God, El, or Jahweh had a wife, a son (who was to be Savior) and daughter. (Daughter's role has been lost) Basically, if there is a Holy Ghost, it would be our Mother.

I love this!!

Also one time in my German class at BYUI I used a feminine pronoun for the HG and my teacher yelled at me.

[2bizE]

Yes I have faith, but do not really believe. Can you have faith but not belief?
Yes I have a testimony that I don't really believe much in god, Christ and the HG like other Mormons. Of that I testify, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

[Culper Jr.]

I constantly teeter between atheism and the hope that there is a God/Christ/HG. I like the idea of the HG being heavenly mother; I think I first heard of that notion from Fiona Givens. I like the idea that perhaps the loving and comforting feeling I have had at times in my life came from a mother in heaven, and that perhaps I have known this mysterious, only hinted at in doctrine, person all along. It's a big question mark for me, I certainly don't KNOW they exist, not even sure I believe, but it is a nice, comforting notion.

[alas]

And the word for Holy Ghost in ancient Hebrew is feminine and if you get into the ancient history of what was believed back in the time of David and Solomon, you will find that they believed God, El, or Jahweh had a wife, a son (who was to be Savior) and daughter. (Daughter's role has been lost) Basically, if there is a Holy Ghost, it would be our Mother.

I love this!!

Also one time in my German class at BYUI I used a feminine pronoun for the HG and my teacher yelled at me.

Also at one time BKP pounded the pulpit and literally screamed that the HG is, "male! Male! Male!" Me thinks they do protest too much.

Do they even comprehend that Mormon Doctrine teaches that the eternal unit is not a first presidency, but a family unit. Specifically, the first presidency is taught as an earthly form of government which will be done away with when we leave mortality. Therefore it would not be a first presidency presiding as the Godhead, but a family unit. This is what the church teaches when they push us to get married in the temple. Then in the temple, they suddenly switch doctrine and present the Father, Christ, and Adam (Michael) as a first presidency creating the earth. So, we have God married as a family unit first to Michael, then to HG, which of course support poligamy if God has multiple male spouses. The whole thing just twists itself into pretzels of male supremacy. They can't have it both ways. Either marriage is supper important because heavenly government is family (even if patriarchal) or marriage is not important because heaven is ruled by a first presidency. In their efforts to make women unimportant, they contradict them selves.

Even in the New Testament, in some languages, the dove who was the HG descended on Christ, the pronoun is feminine.

[Zack Tacorin Dos]

#1
Do you have faith in and a testimony of God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost?

Short answer--No.

That short answer assumes what I consider a traditional definition of religious faith--belief in them as deities and belief and trust in Jesus' role as Savior.

In a way though, I think I have more faith than most devout Mormons. I don't believe in the existence of God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, or the Holy Ghost, but if they do exist and are worth worshiping, I trust they'll not only understand my disbelief, but commend me for trying to be the best me I can be whether they exist or not. I can't fathom a God as petty and as puny as the God of Mormonism, offended that I don't believe in the words of his anointed who get it wrong on a consistent basis.

[RubinHighlander]

The LDS temple interview question is entirely irrelevant to me.

I don't believe that any man or woman can claim to know any of the three beings mentioned in that question in a way that can be used as dogma to be preached to the human family.

I believe there was a person called Jesus Christ, but that he was just a man in history that happened to be aggrandized into something supernatural that he was not.

I don't believe there's a God or any other supernatural being as described by any human who has or does now exist.

I believe there was and might be some power that kicked off the big bang, but I have no idea what the nature of that power is. Perhaps it's a cyclical process. Maybe we are doomed to eventual entropy; like Isaac Asimov's "The Last Question", perhaps our silicon based evolution will take some form of human consciousnesses to the end and eventually solve the problem.

I'm quite happy be on a path of continual discovery, liberated from any human-made dogma of the unknown.

[Charlotte]

Faith in, yes. If testimony implies rock-solid conviction, no.

(And if I'm going ahead with an anthropomorphic God the Father, then I'm only on board for a completely equivalent God the Mother. I'm honestly not sure where the Mother as Holy Ghost idea leads.)

[Corsair]

#1
Do you have faith in and a testimony of God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost?

I would like to, but I'm skeptical that I can rely on it for anything other than contemplation. Certainly I cannot get fully on board with the LDS version of the Trinity.

[achilles]

I believe that the universe was once a thin cloud of hydrogen and now it contains stars, galaxies, planets, bacteria, toads and Red Ryder. However that came about is god enough for me without the need to constantly declare my unworthiness before a dude on a throne. I believe that Jesus existed but we have no way of knowing what he said or did because none of his contemporaries wrote about him, although later people mythologized him. I think the Holy Ghost is any feeling to which we ascribe goodness and affirmation of goodness. I accept that we may have some sort of yet-to-be understood connection with each other, with the universe and with nature, and that together we are all components of what we call God.

This is essentially what I believe.

What I hope for? I hope that we will continue to exist after we die, and that we will be reunited with our loved ones. I hope that if there is a God, he is kind and cares about us.

I have a PhD. I don't know anything anymore.

ETA: I have been reading a history of Japan to prepare me for my trip there in two weeks. I just read about the introduction of Buddhism into Japan. The more I learn about it, the more I am spiritually drawn to it. Perhaps I am a Zen Buddhist deep down inside.

[DPRoberts]

The thing I dislike about the question it that it has embedded in it the conflation of faith and belief. Mormonism is really a belief system rather than a faith. I could answer the question by saying "I have faith" and leave it at that. What I would mean by that is something similar to Hagoth's post, below.

I believe that the universe was once a thin cloud of hydrogen and now it contains stars, galaxies, planets, bacteria, toads and Red Ryder. However that came about is god enough for me without the need to constantly declare my unworthiness before a dude on a throne. I believe that Jesus existed but we have no way of knowing what he said or did because none of his contemporaries wrote about him, although later people mythologized him. I think the Holy Ghost is any feeling to which we ascribe goodness and affirmation of goodness. I accept that we may have some sort of yet-to-be understood connection with each other, with the universe and with nature, and that together we are all components of what we call God.

[LostGirl]

If there is a god/gods I no longer believe that he/she/they are nearly as interested in our daily lives as I once did.

I also have serious concerns about where the polygamy doctrine leads in terms of the role of women in an lds heaven.

I have come to feel that I am ok with having no idea who God is and am open to new ideas and information.

Like someone else said I simply try to live a good life and if it turns out that there is some sort of judgement that my efforts are acceptable. If not then I don't want to be with the people that pass.