grandiose delusions?

[Angel]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grandiose_delusions

....about 10% of otherwise healthy people have grandiose delusions. Common delusions are fictitious beliefs about having power or authority over others, such as believing they are chosen by God. Grandiose delusions are sometimes accompanied by things such as visual and auditory hallucinations, and positive feelings of elevation. Until a healthy sense of self-esteem can be found elsewhere, cognitive dissonance will be used by those with grandiose delusions around anything which questions their delusionary authority or power....

what do you think?

[Hagoth]

Mormonism in a nutshell.

[moksha]

Even though he looked like the night janitor turning on the light, Elder Bednar knew that was God singling him out for greatness. He knew!

[Gatorbait]

There seems to have been from the beginning of Mormonism, a struggle between righteousness and self-righteousness. Certainly Joseph Smith got his leg caught in the self-righteous trap from time to time and had to deal with the consequences.

Recently, my TBM son-in-law shared something with me that he'd heard from his Stake President, which I found to be bold and spot on to the way that I suppose many of us have felt over the years. The Stake Pres. was addressing a group of leaders in the Stake at the time and he said that if anyone in the church says that they know the Church is true with "every fiber of my being" or without a "shadow of a doubt", they are likely going to hell. He used the word hell too. He went on to say that if you are that sure, why are you living the way you do? You should be practically perfect.

He went on to say that we all struggle, have our ups and downs and hopefully the ups outnumber the downs...but even if they don't- nobody knows for certainty that the Church is true, so please stop saying it and start living it, starting with loving everyone the way we should, regardless of their religion, political beliefs, or whatever else you may find fault in.

I thought this Stake President must be something special to "get it" like he does. Thought I'd share that.

[Angel]

Did they take down the gospel topic essay about becoming Gods? Are they changing the doctrine from becoming Gods with their own planet and harem yadayada to become "like" God, and whitewashing it all?

https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... d?lang=eng
↑ gone.

[Hagoth]

Did they take down the gospel topic essay about becoming Gods? Are they changing the doctrine from becoming Gods with their own planet and harem yadayada to become "like" God, and whitewashing it all?

https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... d?lang=eng
↑ gone.

Whoa. I wish I had made a copy of that essay to compare with what, if anything, will replace it. My guess is that it will eventually just go away and no longer be listed as one of the topics.

[Angel]

Did they take down the gospel topic essay about becoming Gods? Are they changing the doctrine from becoming Gods with their own planet and harem yadayada to become "like" God, and whitewashing it all?

https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... d?lang=eng
↑ gone.

Whoa. I wish I had made a copy of that essay to compare with what, if anything, will replace it. My guess is that it will eventually just go away and no longer be listed as one of the topics.

It would be good for people to make copies of all the essays, I'm guessing they will all be going away soon as more people have left over them than stayed.

[Hagoth]

I'm guessing they will all be going away soon as more people have left over them than stayed.

A whole new Dark Age where truth no longer merits even a tip of the hat. The Church of Jesus Christ of Doubt Your Doubts and Remain Standing Until the Senior Priesthood Leader Has Taken His Seat.

[blazerb]

I'm guessing they will all be going away soon as more people have left over them than stayed.

A whole new Dark Age where truth no longer merits even a tip of the hat. The Church of Jesus Christ of Doubt Your Doubts and Remain Standing Until the Senior Priesthood Leader Has Taken His Seat.

If they do go away, the CoJCoLDS against the world will be like cavalry charges against machine guns in the early days of WWI. They'll be using old techniques against overpowering weaponry on the other side. The aftermath won't be pretty. I hope I can help some who will be devastated by the realization that their world view was completely at odds with reality.

That said, I will guess that not all the essays will go away. That one regarding deification was especially embarrassing in the way that it denied doctrines commonly taught in the church. I would be stunned if any of the Q15 entertain doubts that they will not only have their own worlds but that they will create entire universes. They still want to slowly change the narrative to something closer to reality. I think they are playing a little longer game than some give them credit for. These are men who crave the acceptance of those around them.

[Hagoth]

I think the smartest thing the church could do is just embrace their weirdness as a matter of faith that doesn't require apologetics. You don't see Muslims trying to prove Muhammed rode a flying donkey with a mess of self-contradictory quasi-scientific prestidigitation. Or Catholics trying to convince you that they find potential evidence for the presence of Christ's hemoglobin in post-communion urine samples.

They should just own the deification doctrine since they can never honestly disown it. Besides, the members love it. Why are they so concerned about what other faiths think? "You don't think we're Christians? Whatever. We don't need your approval. Hit me up about it again... when I'm a GOD, and your wife has been given to me aftsr your genitals were deleted!" Like it or not, that's REAL Mormon doctrine.

[Angel]

Here is the original that was taken down.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210112055 ... d?lang=eng

Once on the internet, always on the internet.

[Hagoth]

Here is the original that was taken down.

https://web.archive.org/web/20210112055 ... d?lang=eng

Once on the internet, always on the internet.

I hadn't noticed this before, at the end of the article:

"The Church acknowledges the contribution of scholars to the content presented in this article; their work is used with permission."

The acknowledge that there were scholars involved, but no one is given any credit for actually writing the essay. Scholarly knowledge settled like dew and self-assembled into an essay. A miracle.

[Cnsl1]

I wonder why this was taken down.

It seems to be a pretty good overview of lds doctrine. I would think that church leaders would unanimously agree with everything written here.

Are we trying to deny our weirdness? Remember Steve Young saying that he liked being one of the peculiar people?

[Angel]

For whoever is a moderator, not sure how long web archives work, would it be ok to copy the essays into this thread to archive them?

[Angel]

I wonder why this was taken down.

It seems to be a pretty good overview of lds doctrine. I would think that church leaders would unanimously agree with everything written here.

Are we trying to deny our weirdness? Remember Steve Young saying that he liked being one of the peculiar people?

Yes, Alan Watts is still kind of a popular guys right?

"Jesus Christ knew he was God. So wake up and find out eventually who you really are. In our culture, of course, they’ll say you’re crazy and you’re blasphemous, and they’ll either put you in jail or in a nut house (which is pretty much the same thing). However if you wake up in India and tell your friends and relations, ‘My goodness, I’ve just discovered that I’m God,’ they’ll laugh and say, ‘Oh, congratulations, at last you found out.” - Alan Watts

There are a few groups who embrace grandiose delusion doctrines, it is one of the things that brings followers, to tell people how special they are for joining your particular group. It is a balance though, you want people to believe being a group member makes them powerful, but you also want group members to serve group leaders... Ideas of individual authority and power have to be squelched in order to maintain group-think mob mentalities.

[Hagoth]

Yes, Alan Watts is still kind of a popular guys right?

I love Alan Watts. He said some things that have really helped me. Like comparing religions to revolving doors. The job of a door is to get you from one place to another so you can move on. Churches are revolving doors that don't understand their purpose. They want to keep you rotating around and around as longs as possible and NOT let you move on in your progression.

[Hagoth]

I have a 1946 Melchizedek Priesthood manual. Two of the chapters are:

Chapter 15: Men May Become Gods

Chapter 16: "Then Shall They Be Gods"

The church should grow a pair and stop running from its fundamentals.

[Hagoth]

It's baaack.

They have restored the link. It's the same as the archived version. So much for my wacky theories.

[Angel]

Yes, Alan Watts is still kind of a popular guys right?

I love Alan Watts. He said some things that have really helped me. Like comparing religions to revolving doors. The job of a door is to get you from one place to another so you can move on. Churches are revolving doors that don't understand their purpose. They want to keep you rotating around and around as longs as possible and NOT let you move on in your progression.

"Anybody who tells you that he has some way of leading you to spiritual enlightenment is like somebody who picks your pocket and sell you your own watch" - Watts.

Yes, love Brother Alan Watts. The difference between Alan's version of finding divinity within, and the Mormon church's version is that Alan's version is for everyone.... the Mormon only preach it for white men...

Haha, funny they put the essay back up

[2bizE]

I had the most amazing, grandiose dream last night, not much unlike JS using mushroom. At some point in the dream, I was asking around if people knew about the Mormons and nobody had ever heard of them. Nobody. Just me. It felt liberating for a while as I could stop being Mormon and nobody would know. Now that I think about it, it reminds me of a movie I saw where everyone forgot who The Beetles were…
I want so bad for that dream to come true….queue music “ when you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are…”