NOM

How do some of you maintain faith in Jesus as Savior after concluding that the church is not "the one true church" with all authority, most truth etc.? Faith in God would help me maintain family relationships, but I am having a hard time accepting the whole atonement/resurrection as plausible. My journey through Mormon history has led me to accept religion as a human construct without basis in the real world. I have read through some Bart Ehrman books including "Misquoting Jesus" that demonstrates how unreliable our current bibles are based on analysis of existing biblical manuscripts. Stories of Jesus's life are all removed from original sources and OT stories contradict current understanding of the world (Noah's ark, tower of babel, evolution of man etc.). The bible seems to be too unreliable to accept as true.

Can any of you give me a reason to remain a Christian apart from "it feels good" or "it teaches good things"?
Are most of you atheist/agnostic now?
How do I explain to my TBM wife that our children won't grow up as immoral heathens?

This is a very complicated topic. Mormonism is less than 1% of Christianity and LDS members tend to be stuck in their own ways of thinking about the doctrine of Christ. In short, there a lot of ways that you can be a follower of Jesus and many of those ways loudly conflict with each other.

I'm guessing that you desire to not believe or teach anything that is nominally "false". You could simply be a basic, universalist, non-denominational Christian who has beliefs that extend little further than a desire to be kind to others. The culture of Christianity is complicated and you can find doctrine that works for you no matter where you fall on the spectrum of liberal and conservative.

There are theories that Christianity is an integral part of sustaining western civilization. Numa Pompilius (753–673 BC) was the legendary second king of Rome, succeeding Romulus. Numa's reign was unusually peaceful for Roman history and he firmly instituted religious traditions that lasted and evolved over the next thousand years until Christianity took over. There is no question that Numa's reign is likely mythical at some point. But it was a story that bound together one of the most influential empires in history.

This is not a bad model for moving forward after Mormonism. Stop worrying as much about whether something is true. Work on having something useful as well as kind. A basic belief in Jesus can be followed and taught to your family as a core of teaching morality along with critical thinking, the Golden Rule, and how to live happily. Keep what you want of Christianity. Nobody "owns" Jesus despite claims of the LDS church (and most others). Find the Jesus that works for you, if that will make your life better.

I like the Corsair philosophy - two thumbs up.

For me this was big concern: Where will I land when I jump off the Old Ship Zion?
I tried for a time to just immerse in the NT, but the deeper to got into reading historical facts, the more the rest of the scriptures and any other religious man-made BS unraveled for me. I went back to science and understanding the origins of the universe and life on this planet, which was fascinating and wonderful to do without wearing the dogmatic spectacles of the LDS church and without the angle and devil on your shoulder.

I've found that when I'm still around TBMs, I can still easily stay respectful and even participate to a degree, because it's what I did most of my life. I can compartmentalize those things into tradition that makes social settings more comfortable.

I understand your concern to find a religious believe that harmonizes enough with your environment that it works for you mentally and the rest of your TBM kin. There's also the concern about the kids, socially and the moral teachings and foundations. There's just no right answers here. It's a fight between your own mental well being and the harmony in your marriage, family and social state. At times it just sucks!

So, in answer to the topic, I did not keep the LDS Jesus or anyone else's version of Jesus. I kept those basic altruistic principles taught in the NT, which is basically the golden rule. There are still parables and analogies there that are dear to me and I am grateful to my religious upbringing for the foundation. My kids are older, so I honestly don't know what the outcome would be for my kids I've I'd never had the church. Statistically the world is trending positive in things like war, violent crime, longevity, property, education, equality, etc. It's also trending away from religion and that gives me hope in the human race that we'll actually be better off without it.

My god is still out there, someone or thing that kicked off the big bang, but it's not a white haired old man that meddles in the affairs of the beings on this planet and gives just .02% of the population special status.

Corsair wrote:Find the Jesus that works for you, if that will make your life better.

This is pretty much my philosophy these days.

After dismantling and then failing to reassemble my belief in Mormonism I started down the path of Christianity. Then I realized the result was probably going to be the same. So I stopped thinking about it and became an apathetic agnostic.

For me, I believe all people are inherently born with moral character that over time develops and matures with the loving nurture of another human being. It also devolves and matures into evil when circumstances eliminate the loving nurture.

As a parent of a few human beings, it's my responsibility to see that they are loved and nurtured, never sit too long in a poopy diaper, fed, educated, and at the right time gently nudged from the nest. With love they will be grow up to be productive human beings.

I don't worry about Jesus anymore. If he decides to come back while I'm alive, I'll worry about him then. Right now, I'm only going to worry about what I can control.

I consider my self a spiritual person so have tried to transition into a more universalistic belief approach visiting different church's. We went to a candlelight vigil on Christmas Eve at a Lutheran church and it was beautiful. My problem with transitioning to another sect of Christianity is I can't fathom or worship a God who sends people to a burning hell for eternity for not finding him in this life. There is no crime we could commit here that would justify an eternity in a fiery hell. This is one area I loved in Mormonism, the idea that most are saved into some degree made more sense to me. Once you've applied so much critical thinking to Mormonism it's impossible to turn it off. Mormonism creates a lot of atheists.

I'd say believing in Christ as a symbol of hope and a model for the kind of person we aspire to be is a good place to start. You don't have to literally believe in him but can embrace the idea or symbol. I look at all religious worship now as a way to connect to others and approach the divine, whatever that is. But any belief that is toxic or puts a middle man in the middle of that relationship I quick to reject.

didyoumythme wrote:Are most of you atheist/agnostic now?

I went from TBM to agnostic athiest in the blink of an eye when my shelf crashed. My faith crisis had nothing to do with church history though, it was started by realizing that having faith in anything was essentially priming yourself to have confirmation bias. Then looking at my beliefs while trying not to have confirmation bias.

didyoumythme wrote:Can any of you give me a reason to remain a Christian apart from "it feels good" or "it teaches good things"?

I can't give you a reason to believe in Christ as the Savior of mankind, I don't believe that anymore. But there are plenty of good teachings, though the main one in the bible, that He is the Divine Son of Jewish (and only) God, I disagree with. But the love others and charity stuff I can get behind. If you can consider someone who likes some of Jesus' teachings a Christian then that might work for you. But if you feel that to really be a Christian, you need to believe in Christ as the Savior then it sounds like that would conflict with your new worldview (and mine).

didyoumythme wrote:How do I explain to my TBM wife that our children won't grow up as immoral heathens?

That is a tough one, especially if your DW grew up in Utah or another predominantly mormon area. I think the best way to explain it is with examples. Does she have any nonmember friends, or people she looks up to? If not, there are plenty of good people who aren't religious that you could talk about. I wish I had some examples off the top of my head, but I don't.

I think the idea of jesus as the literal son of god born of a virgin, who is the only one who can get you to salvation (what ever that means), is as likely as JS actually seeing them in person as the correlated story goes, that all the correlated info is exactly right and all the scripture stories are 100 per cent accurate.

Once you decide the literal approach doesn't work for you, everything becomes a choice between ideas with very little evidence to ideas with almost no evidence to help you decide about religious things.

For now, I am trying to enjoy the things I can understand in the world around me. (That is proving to be a small list) and beyond that I have decided to be calm and patient to see what happens. Life is good. Enjoy it and maybe someday we will find out who, what and why about jesus.

My new foundation is believing in a God of Truth and Love. This works for me, because the Spirit of Truth is now a real or metaphorical (either way works for me) entity that leads me to Truth. I love to hear the stories of Jesus and his teachings, because they have brought me to a pretty good place in life. Jesus helps me see God as a God who can have real authentic compassion.
I don't need the New Testament to be 100% true. The people who wrote it may have gotten some things wrong. I am convinced Jesus was a historical person, as does Bart Erman. I also have faith that Jesus was the most extraordinary person who ever lived, but if I'm wrong, I will still fall back on a God of Truth and Love.

I stayed in the Jesus camp. I don't believe that Jesus of Nazareth was raised from the dead. However, I embrace the myth that is Jesus Christ being raised from the dead. I find the beatitudes and much of the teachings of Jesus to be worthwhile and wonderful (while because I don't literally believe I can reject what I find bad), and I participate in a church that doesn't care that I'm not a literal believer.

I'm very happy with where I am, it does allow me to speak as a religious person to my family (all still LDS), I have zero cognitive dissonance when it comes to religion (because I don't literally believe it is true), and more than anything, I enjoy the pageantry of high church.

Find what is right for you, but believing in God doesn't have to mean literally.

document wrote: ...believing in God doesn't have to mean literally.

I don't understand this idea of believing in God non-literally. Isn't literal the only option? Otherwise I might as well say I believe in Frodo Baggins as my God. I understand the idea of spirituality and trying to connect with "the divine"...if you find fulfillment in such things, however, I don't see a reason to call the divine Jesus just for the sake of fitting in or just to call yourself "Christian". There are many fictional characters that can used as examples of goodness.

For me, I view Jesus as someone who (in the new testament) taught good things to live by. I gave up the metaphysical jesus and all the supernatural claims and literal bible teaching of actually being the son of some dude up in space sent here to sacrifice himself for his brothers and sisters. Its all just mythical traditions. Same with all other religions and cultural traditions. But his supposed teachings are good things to live by for anyone. So that part i dont give up. But the metaphysical claims really have no meaning to me at all anymore. You really dont have to give jesus up at all. You can still ebrace his philosophy of how to live a good life without all the nonsensical claims that go with him.

didyoumythme wrote:

document wrote: ...believing in God doesn't have to mean literally.

I don't understand this idea of believing in God non-literally. Isn't literal the only option? Otherwise I might as well say I believe in Frodo Baggins as my God. I understand the idea of spirituality and trying to connect with "the divine"...if you find fulfillment in such things, however, I don't see a reason to call the divine Jesus just for the sake of fitting in or just to call yourself "Christian". There are many fictional characters that can used as examples of goodness.

I call Jesus divine as I use much of the teachings of Jesus (as presented in the gospels) to create a personal code. I call Jesus divine because I find value in the ritual and the communal nature of worship. I read the gospels regularly, I participate, I bow, I kneel, I take communion, I pray daily, and I visit the sick in the hospital and pray with them.

There isn't much else in the United States to participate in ritual like Christianity. There are a few (Masonry is a great example), but as a person who loves ritual, I settled of the Jesus myth. If there were a high liturgical ritual surrounding Middle Earth over 1st Century Judea, I could very well be part of that.

So I guess "belief" truly is the wrong word. "Embracing God doesn't have to mean belief" would be a much better way of saying it.

I don't really care about the title "Christian", and as most people in Washington state don't attend church (we are among the most unchurched states in the US), I don't really do it to fit in, either. I do it because I love the ritual, and I love the story.

How to keep Jesus?

In the hollow of thy hand, of course!

I just got through mentioning on another thread that Jesus is my favorite philosopher. The teachings of Jesus are very useful and have shaped Western Civilization as we know it. These teachings help add an ethical center to our existence via being hopeful for an acceptably best outcome as well as the view that we should extend love and kindness to all.

This philosophy is not contingent upon the veracity of Joseph Smith nor upon the divinity of Jesus. When Jesus asked his followers to stay on his path, he was speaking of the virtues he had taught them and not some checklist of organized religion. He put love at the top and then added sub-virtues like mercy, forgiveness, and avoiding a rush to judgment.

didyoumythme wrote:

document wrote: ...believing in God doesn't have to mean literally.

I don't understand this idea of believing in God non-literally. Isn't literal the only option? Otherwise I might as well say I believe in Frodo Baggins as my God. I understand the idea of spirituality and trying to connect with "the divine"...if you find fulfillment in such things, however, I don't see a reason to call the divine Jesus just for the sake of fitting in or just to call yourself "Christian". There are many fictional characters that can used as examples of goodness.

I've got to say, personally I find documents views on this really refreshing.
I'm not surprised people find it hard to swallow though. In Christianity you still find plenty who take hard, at times precarious, stands on certain beliefs. CS Lewis, that famed christian defender, took issue with those who viewed Jesus as simply a "good moral teacher". He felt Jesus could only be one of three things - Liar, Lunatic or Lord. He forgot one possibility - Legend.

Speaking for myself I can only say that the Jesus I was following in the Church wasn't the "conditional grace" LDS Christ but I was working from a full on "Grace is the shizz" Jesus model. I simply dropped the works and hung onto the faith. Remember all the funky stuff in the LDS church isn't even in the Book of Mormon so if you're not D&C-centric you can really focus on Christ. I was lucky enough to have a Pop who was more interested more interested in Jesus than Joseph. Shedding the Works business was pretty easy.