I always felt that they purposely keep many doctrines as ambiguous as possible while still sounding threatening. That way you stay unsure and vulnerable. Always questioning yourself before the church. Because if you're righteous enough you will just know.

There's another thread about denying the Holy Ghost, what it really is and when you've really done it. I've been given more answers than I can count on this and many other issues. That, I'm convinced, are just there to keep you guessing as to where you really stand with the Lord.

Can you go to the temple if you masterbate? Should you take the sacrament if you just had an impure thought? Is it okay to drink an energy drink? All very simple questions with yes/no answers that the church will never tell it's members for reasons mentioned above.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/22/2013 09:01PM by Frightened Inmate #2.

Because a loving God would totally attach a penalty like "you'll go to hell for eternity" to a very loosely worded description of sin.

I know for a fact that the MTC does not hand out FAQ sheets to the missionaries. So when somebody asks the obvious question , "where are the gold plates now?" they have make stuff up like "the angel took them back to heaven", this making themselves look stupid.

It's sad when you have to dig pretty deep to find any of these things out. Even the "where are the golden plates now" question has numerous answers, there are multiple accounts of them being in a cave under the hill cumorah, even though Joe said that Moron i took them away so that more of God's precious children could be kept from the truth ;)

Indeed they do this! I noticed it early. There's a tangled mass of self-contradictory doctrine to be explored, but that's discouraged. Why? Because Mormonism never consolidated it's doctrine into a coherent narrative. They attempted this, but way, way too late... with Correlation. You can't fix it that way in a literate era. The old can't be erased as it could in the middle ages. Everyone knows how to read, and information is now essentially eternal. You can't solve it by burning books now!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2013 08:06PM by rationalist01.

Of course they remain ambiguous. And more to the point, they remain silent on issues.

No GA will respond to a question from a member regarding doctrine. Instead, the queries are redirected to stake presidents for response. That's not a matter of workload; it's a vehicle for not getting pinned down on doctrinal issues.

And that's why FAIRLDS exists: To give the GAs cover. If FAIR answers an issue that is seen as flagrantly stupid or revealed as provably false, TSCC can say "It wasn't us saying that!"

Yes, it's true. It makes it very easy for apologists as well, since they can point out that the church doesn't actually have an official stance on the issue.

I think sometimes church leaders won't specify the church's stance on something, because if they do, what they say could come back and haunt them later on.

Specifics may be ambiguous, but the grand design is not.

How to form your own cult:

1. Characterize the finest worthiest drives in humanity as rank evil.
2. Create an organization where the condemned must confess for forgiveness, and pay for it.
3. Maintain secrecy.

The specifics of doctrine really do not matter.