I guess that my problem is that I don’t find the vanquishing of what I see as rather silly straw men to be nearly as important, profound, and liberating as you do. So Kenny found out that is is possible to leave Mormonism and still be a good and decent person. My problem with this insight is two fold. First, it is banal. Second, focusing on this banal insight allows one to dismiss discussions and concerns about apostacy and a loss of faith as little more than vacuous ad hominems. There is, I think, more than a little glib dishonesty involved in this position.

He’s right – there’s an aura of evil around the word “apostasy” and everything that accompanies it. Charles was pointing out that these kinds of discussions might lead to ugly places. I’m merely suggesting that for some of us, maybe that isn’t the abominable, desperate place he and so very many others like to portray it as.

As I harp on everywhere, because the faithful make up Mormonism, the faithful therefore control the discourse. In their discourse, people who travel a different path aren’t merely taking a different faith journey; instead they have “lost” the faith, they have “apostatized.” Those are powerful words that bring up powerful images. But as you can well imagine, the people who have moved on from some things in Mormonism probably won’t define themselves that way. And what’s more important – how a critical group of people who find fault for not believing the same way they do define you, or how we define ourselves and see God as defining us?

For sure, some people lose when they leave or go down a different road. But I believe some (and Scott Kenney is one of them) end up better off. You (Nate) feel a sense of loss at the empty room. Scott (and to a lesser extent, myself) feels liberation, freedom, and a greater sense of who he is.

I personally do all of my blogging with a cigarette in one hand and a bottle of vodka in the other. ;->

Perhaps you should rephrase that, to say that you blog with “brandy in one hand and sherry in the other.” That way, the reader is left to wonder whether you’re talking about two drinks, one drink and one woman, or two women; and to further wonder, if you’re talking about two women, whether you are talking about Keith Richards hedonism or Tom Green fundamentalism.

I find Joseph much more compelling that Sartre. Or Scott Kenney for that matter…

I think Scott Kenney, in his essay, “At Home at Sea: Confessions of a Cultural Mormon” responds well to this sort of thing.

“If I no longer believed that God lives, that Jesus is the Christ, that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and Ezra Taft Benson is a living prophet today—if I no longer believed those things—I would fall into apostasy, and there is an incredibly powerful aura of “evil” surrounding apostasy. Apostasy is a black hole. If you fall into apostasy, everything will come crashing down and your whole life will be in ruins. Apostates lie, cheat, and steal; apostates fornicate, adulterate, and do drugs. . . Have faith to doubt. Liberals gesture at doubt. They “question.” But few dare to really doubt. Jesus said, “Seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.” In search of truth I came up against doubt. I knocked on the door. It opened. I walked in and found nothing. Nothing. Just me. No bogeyman to drag me down to hell, no slippery slope to crime and debauchery, just me. I continued to the next door. I knocked. It opened. I walked in. Nothing there either. Just me. And so on, door after door, opening windows and portals, letting the sun shine in and fresh breezes blow. Doubt produces nothing, and that is a valuable contribution. It cleans out the clutter.”

The problem with the truck-driver analogy is that it assumes we are engaged in a dangerous activity. That questioning can be dangerous–which I think all here agree is true–doesn’t mean that it is in itself dangerous. What makes this particular discussion–a question of how we understand and use the story of Joseph’s refusal of brandy–into a dangerous discussion?

I would add that in several of my posts here as well as at other threads and blogs, I have never endorsed the “all faith, no reason” approach. I have often believed very strongly that discovering for yourself through prayer or reason or whatever to determine if something is true. This is in my opinion different from using reason to pick apart something. I did use reason and intellect when determining that this church is true before I joined. I did that coupled with prayer and a strong personal feeling that I should join, even when doing so was completely against my character to do so. These things led me to believe even more that the church is true.

But I did not use that same reason to decide what things of the church I would and would not beleive in. There are things that even now I do not fully understand. I pray about them and I ask those with more experience and I appeal to the words of the prophets and apostles when possible.

I think there is something to be said however, for something that was instituted a long time ago. ex WoW was done at a time when we understood less about it than we do now. Now we have a better understanding that those who adhere to it can, in general, enjoy better health because of the benefits. Hindsight allows us to better understand some doctrine. Sometimes we have to be patient.

Nate, my second sentence was an attempt to include the caveat mentioned in the primary post of historical context. What I meant is along the lines of why one person might question something said by a prophet in light of how that prophet acted. I intended to mean that understanding the context of why one thing is different from another is important in understanding how it might relate to us in our day. This may still not be as eloquent as I would like it to be but I am trying to think out of my normal paradigm. Normally, I believe most everything can be broken down into categories of good or bad. I don’t believe there is as much room for the gray area as many others would argue. Consequently, I don’t see much difference in discecting a law, commandment or counsel for understanding of the intent of that law as I see in doing so to circumvent. Sometimes Leaving things simple is the best way to let everyone understand it.

I am in no way saying that the people here are bad or will fall away from the church but I find myself reminded of the story of the 3 truck drivers interviewing for a mountain journey. One right up to the edge, one with the wheel half over, and the other far away from the ledge.

Apologies, all.

John H.: I think that this is a bit of a straw man. I don’t agree with what Charles is saying here, but it seems like one can criticize what he says without imputing to him something that he doesn’t say. I doubt that Charles or Renee think that faith is belief in the absence of any reason to do so. Furthermore, there IS something to the concepts of faith and hope that is rather crassly dismissed in your analogy.