May I suggest Chapter 3 of the same manual scheduled for PR & RS the second Sunday in February. It has some good stuff on Free Agency.
I am teaching Chapter 3, and following are some supplemental quotes I have collected for it. Following is my mostly unedited material:
Dieter Uchtdorf, April 2013
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/ ... s?lang=eng
But while the Atonement is meant to help us all become more like Christ, it is not meant to make us all the same. Sometimes we confuse differences in personality with sin. We can even make the mistake of thinking that because someone is different from us, it must mean they are not pleasing to God. This line of thinking leads some to believe that the Church wants to create every member from a single mold—that each one should look, feel, think, and behave like every other. This would contradict the genius of God, who created every man different from his brother, every son different from his father. Even identical twins are not identical in their personalities and spiritual identities. It also contradicts the intent and purpose of the Church of Jesus Christ, which acknowledges and protects the moral agency—with all its far-reaching consequences—of each and every one of God’s children. As disciples of Jesus Christ, we are united in our testimony of the restored gospel and our commitment to keep God’s commandments. But we are diverse in our cultural, social, and political preferences.
Elder Todd Christofferson, May 2012, The Doctrine of Christ
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2 ... t?lang=eng
The Prophet Joseph Smith confirmed the Savior’s central role in our doctrine in one definitive sentence: “The fundamental principles of our religion are the testimony of the Apostles and Prophets, concerning Jesus Christ, that He died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended into heaven; and all other things which pertain to our religion are only appendages to it.”
Joseph Smith
History of the Church, 5:24
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?v ... &hideNav=1
“Christ was condemned by the righteous Jews because he took sinners into his society. He took them upon the principle that they repented of their sins. … The nearer we get to our Heavenly Father, the more are we disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls to take them upon our shoulders and cast their sins behind our back. … There should be no license for sin, but mercy should go hand in hand with reproof. … You must repent and get the love of God.”
http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/ldsnewsro ... n-doctrine
LDS Newsroom, "Approaching Mormon Doctrine," (4 May 2007)
Not every statement made by a Church leader, past or present, necessarily constitutes doctrine. A single statement made by a single leader on a single occasion often represents a personal, though well-considered, opinion, but is not meant to be officially binding for the whole Church. With divine inspiration, the First Presidency...and the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles...counsel together to establish doctrine that is consistently proclaimed in official Church publications. This doctrine resides in the four “standard works” of scripture (the Holy Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants and the Pearl of Great Price), official declarations and proclamations, and the Articles of Faith. Isolated statements are often taken out of context, leaving their original meaning distorted.
Joseph Smith
History of the Church, 5:24
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?v ... &hideNav=1
Christ was condemned by the righteous Jews because he took sinners into his society. He took them upon the principle that they repented of their sins. … The nearer we get to our Heavenly Father, the more are we disposed to look with compassion on perishing souls to take them upon our shoulders and cast their sins behind our back. … There should be no license for sin, but mercy should go hand in hand with reproof. … You must repent and get the love of God.”
Elder Uchtdorf
General Conference, Oct. 2009
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/ ... y?lang=eng
“Please encourage your families, your quorum members, everyone to learn and become better educated. If formal education is not available, do not allow that to prevent you from acquiring all the knowledge you can. Under such circumstances, the best books, in a sense, can become your “university”—a classroom that is always open and admits all who apply. Strive to increase your knowledge of all that is “virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy.” Seek knowledge “by study and also by faith.”
Elder Bruce Hafen,
“On Dealing with Uncertainty” Ensign July 1979.
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg\
"We need to develop the capacity to form judgments of our own about the value of ideas, opportunities, or people who may come into our lives.
We won’t always have the security of knowing whether a certain idea is “Church approved,” because new ideas don’t always come along with little tags attached to them saying whether they have been reviewed at Church headquarters.
Whether in the form of music, books, friends, or opportunities to serve, there is much that is lovely, of good report, and praiseworthy that is not the subject of detailed discussion in Church manuals or courses of instruction.
Those who will not risk exposure to experiences that are not obviously related to some Church word or program will, I believe, live less abundant and meaningful lives than the Lord intends.
We must develop sufficient independence of judgment and maturity of perspective that we are prepared to handle the shafts and whirlwinds of adversity and contradiction that may come to us.
When those times come, we cannot be living on borrowed light. We should not be deceived by the clear-cut labels others may use to describe circumstances that are, in fact, not so clear.
Our encounters with reality and disappointment are, actually, vital stages in the development of our maturity and understanding.”
Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Parables of Mercy,” Ensign, Feb 1987, 20
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?v ... &hideNav=1
Any religious group that values purity and morality must deal with the problem of clannishness. However, clannishness can be largely avoided if the members of the group have a vigorous concern to share. There is a big difference between reaching out and shutting out—and Jesus steadily opposed every hint of the latter.
Note: The following quote is from a man who is not Mormon, but IMO gives the best description on a spiritual level of what free agency can be.
Victor Frankl
Man’s Search For Meaning
We who lived, in concentration camps can remember the men who walked through the huts comforting others, giving away their last piece of bread. They may have been few in number, but they offer sufficient proof that everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms — to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
And there were always choices to make. Every day, every hour, offered the opportunity to make a decision, a decision which determined whether you would or would not submit to those powers which threatened to rob you of your very self, your inner freedom; which determined whether or not you would become the plaything of circumstance, renouncing freedom and dignity to become molded into the form of the typical inmate.
About Victor Frankl from Wikipedia.com:
Viktor Emil Frankl, M.D., Ph.D. (26 March 1905 – 2 September 1997)[1][2] was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. Frankl was the founder of logotherapy, which is a form of existential analysis, the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy". His best-selling book Man's Search for Meaning (published under a different title in 1959: From Death-Camp to Existentialism, and originally published in 1946 as Trotzdem Ja Zum Leben Sagen: Ein Psychologe erlebt das Konzentrationslager, meaning Nevertheless, Say "Yes" to Life: A Psychologist Experiences the Concentration Camp) chronicles his experiences as a concentration camp inmate, which led him to discover the importance of finding meaning in all forms of existence, even the most brutal ones, and thus, a reason to continue living.
Re: A little venting, but a question about the need for faith
Unread postby eman » 2013 Apr 26, 22:38
Martha wrote:... Why do I even need to believe in any these things or in anything. I know who I am. I know the way I want to live my life. I am starting to wonder how helpful or important it is to try and develop faith again. Maybe its time to set all this aside and just live my life being as loving and kind to others as I can. i dont need faith to do that.
I'll take up the "for" argument...
I'll borrow heavily from "The God Who Weeps" by Terryl Givens. I'd highly recommend giving it a read.
First quote:
The call to faith is a summons to engage the heart, to attune it to resonate in sympathy with principles and values and ideals that we devoutly hope are true and which we have reasonable but not certain grounds for believing to be true
For me this is faith. I have absolutely no certainty that God exists. Yet I hope He does and to me, it is reasonable that He does. Sure we can explain away much of the creation of life, but yet there are some things for which science has no explanation.
Whatever sense we make of this world, whatever value we place upon our lives and relationships, whatever meaning we ultimately give to our joys and agonies, must necessarily be a gesture of faith.
This reminds me of a video I saw where Russell M. Nelson (Q12) relates the following: "I was in a small airplane and all of a sudden the engine on the wing caught fire. It exploded and burning oil was poured all over the right side of the airplane and we started to dive toward the earth. We were spinning down to our death. Oh, this woman across the aisle, I felt so sorry for her, she was just absolutely uncontrollably hysterical and I was calm. I was totally calm, even though I knew I was going down to my death, I was ready to meet my maker We didn’t crash, we didn’t die." He goes on to explain that "if you’ve got enough faith you can handle difficulties knowing that with an eternal perspective that all will be well." With this in mind, again, I choose to have faith in God and in life beyond this one because it is better than the alternative to me. I know there was a long thread about whether it would be so bad if there wasn't life beyond, but still, I choose to believe that my life has greater purpose for no other reason then that I want to. It is a pleasant thought.
Whether we consider the whole a product of impersonal cosmic forces, a malevolent deity, or a benevolent god, depends not on the evidence, but on what we choose, deliberately and consciously, to conclude from that evidence.
Early in my faith crisis I was convinced that everything about the church was fraud. I barely believed in God at all. I believed that the "evidence" compelled me to believe the church was false. Since then I've come to understand that the motive or truthfulness of something can't be determined by simply weighing the evidence. All known evidence can (and sometimes does) point to a defendant on trial as being guilty and yet after being convicted some piece of evidence will come to light that completely invalidates all the evidence of the conviction (such as DNA has done recently). Thus in most cases it is left up to us, imperfect people with limited understanding to choose for ourselves to the best of our ability what we want to believe.
Faith often asks us to turn a blind eye to the incongruities and inconsistencies of belief in the divine. But reason comes up short as well in accounting for those moments of deepest love and yearning, of unspeakable calm in the midnight of anguish, of the shards of light visible to the inner eye alone.
In the depth of my faith crisis I completely ignored all those things that can't be explained by science and reason (confirmation bias towards no divine intervention). Now however, I recognize that there do seem to be "miracles," things that happen that just defy reason. I don't know why it seems to happen to some but not others and seems so random. Nevertheless, I believe somehow miracles can happen.
The greatest act of self-revelation occurs when we choose what we will believe, in that space of freedom that exists between knowing that a thing is, and knowing that a thing is not.
I feel that since my faith crisis I understand a little better what we teach about the need to come to earth, outside the presence of God, in order to have choice. When I was...more orthodox in the LDS faith, I believed I had choice. Yet believing that I knew sort of compelled me to act in accordance with the teachings of the church. If not, I would suffer guilt until I repented and complied. I feared that poor choices would lead me to Hell. Now that I don't KNOW everything is the way the church teaches, truly have been able to choose for myself the path I would walk. I could leave the church tomorrow and never go back. I would not suffer guilt or fear of Hell and damnation. I'd miss my friends...probably....well, some of them
But I could still do it. So now I know a little more about my self. I know that I live the way I do because I want to, not because of some reward or fear of punishment. I want to be clear that I am NOT implying that should someone choose NOT to believe in God or the church that they are any less free or worse off. Nor do I believe that God will condemn them for it. I believe God will judge us based on the reasons why we do what we do according to the beliefs of our heart.
Faith is a choice. For me choosing to believe in more than this life brings me hope and joy. As Ray said, determine what would bring you the most joy and hope, justify it with reason, and choose to have faith in it.
I may not walk the straight and narrow, but I try to cross it as often as I can.
---J Golden Kimball
I do take issue with this one from the lds.org site about what is doctrine: