NOM

I ran across something on the community of Christ website latterdayseekers that said they were of one faith but did not all believe the same !!! I thought that was a wonderful statement. My own belief is that we are all in different places on our faith journey so outside of the basics why do we all have to be cookie cutter believers ? The days of GbH of it is all true or none of it is true are over dead and gone !! Anyone else think like me ?

Part of the comfort Latter-day Saints crave is absolute truth and absolute truth means uniformity; there cannot be two truths. Certainty is a bit of an opiod because it simply delivers that warm, safe feeling. Evangelicals have a saying something like "We can disagree and not have to divide". Latter-day Saints don't. Can't. Won't. It's a bit of a 'my way or the highway' in matters of conformity to doctrine.

I mean--there can only be ONE truth right?

Well members of the same religion don’t each have to believe the same thing. Like how some Mormons believe we should stay away from caffeine and others believe it’s ok. There are differences between people of the same religions in general.

A good example of this is Hinduism. Some Hindus believe in one God, some believe in many, and some don’t believe in any God.

I think the church wants us to believe that we all believe in the same thing. But how many times have you heard someone defend the church just because that’s the church’s stance and they haven’t even formed their own opinion? How many members or missionaries are bearing testimonies that they don’t have, but only hope to have? See, we appear to believe the same but we aren’t really thinking for ourselves, but for the church, aren’t we? There’s unity, then there’s blind following with control.

Hopebeat wrote: ↑Fri Jun 01, 2018 11:40 pm I think the church wants us to believe that we all believe in the same thing.

It arises from a combination of two things I think. The first is the authoritarian nature of the LDS church, priesthood authority is severely weakened if the prophet says X, and people are free to go, "Nah, I don't believe X.*" A religion that focuses more on a personal rather than an institutional relationship with God (and truth) can have more slack with that regard though you'll find there tends to still be limits there is just a larger space for personal beliefs. The second is the institutional approach to truth, the church, it's doctrines, and it's claims are objectively true, it isn't that believing Joseph Smith spoke with God is a truth in the same way as finding a book a great example of the human spirit and chock full of great moral beauty that helps you be a better human being. It's true in the same sense that Donald Trump is the current US president or that trying to drink molten iron is bad for your health. Believing differently isn't a difference of opinion or a different perspective on the world but is ignorance at best and delusion at worst.

That said, Mormonism is not homogeneous on belief, the space may be smaller than some other religions but there is room for difference. Of course the idea of absolute objective truth can create a fair amount of friction in that space. I mean, sure the church doesn't have a stance on X, but if God told me you shouldn't do Y he should be telling you the same thing too. Even the idea of individual adaptation tends to fall prey to the competition of righteousness and often those differences tend to fall into an internal scale of righteousness, so that your difference isn't necessarily sinful but you need to get on my level. In a way it is quite brutal.

*And this is reinforced with punishments if your heterodoxy grows too great on key issues.