Would the world be a better place?

[elder_nomo]

As much as the Church's paradigm doesn't cohere with my spirituality, I'd really hate to see it go completely. I think it's good for social stability.

But I wonder, you out there in PostMo land. Would the world be a better place if Moism came tumbling down? Or, do you think I'm full of it, and that even if the Church admitted culpability and enumerated its convenient lapses of memory publicly, the masses wouldn't up and leave?

Flotsam, I hope you don’t mind me lifting this from another thread (P_M’s Rough Stone Rolling blog), but I thought these were such interesting questions, I'd like to bring them out again in a new thread.

Would the world be better off if Mo'ism completely collapsed? Does it do enough good to keep it around as it is? Or, if not, can it be transformed enough to be worthwhile?

Would a "clean slate" approach cause members to abandon ship en masse? Or would they embrace change? Or would they just be oblivious?

Here are my thoughts...

If GBH came out and said "We were wrong. The church is not true and is being dissolved," I would shed no tears.
Because whatever good the church does, is due to the good people who are its members. And for the most part, they would continue to be good people, with or without this wacky organization.

Of course, I am not predicting that will happen. I anticipate continuing evolution. How much and how fast are key. Too much/too fast and members could revolt, too little/too slow and the internet might cause some serious trouble. If change is careful and gradual, I think the members will go along.

What do others think?

[Born Free]

Flotsam, I hope you don’t mind me lifting this from another thread (P_M’s Rough Stone Rolling blog), but I thought these were such interesting questions, I'd like to bring them out again in a new thread.

Would the world be better off if Mo'ism completely collapsed? Does it do enough good to keep it around as it is? Or, if not, can it be transformed enough to be worthwhile?

Would a "clean slate" approach cause members to abandon ship en masse? Or would they embrace change? Or would they just be oblivious?

Here are my thoughts...

If GBH came out and said "We were wrong. The church is not true and is being dissolved," I would shed no tears.
Because whatever good the church does, is due to the good people who are its members. And for the most part, they would continue to be good people, with or without this wacky organization.

Of course, I am not predicting that will happen. I anticipate continuing evolution. How much and how fast are key. Too much/too fast and members could revolt, too little/too slow and the internet might cause some serious trouble. If change is careful and gradual, I think the members will go along.

What do others think?
Elder NoMo,

I am hearing you say that if good people have rallied around a questionable rallying point, and then the rallying point falls over, then they will be worse off.

Surely there is another possibility, and that is that they re-rally around a 'more-true' or more skillfull rallying point.

In my experience, the Church actively promotes the paradigm that in their absence there will be at best a vaccume, and at worse, evil.

Just go and look at Puffs thread about standing on his own feet. I find his story very typical of what people really discover when they let go of the faulty rallying point.

THat said, some people have not internalised their moral compass, and I am prepared to concede that some people may benefit from an external moral reference point, but if they must, I am sure they could do better than one build around deceit.

Daryl

[elder_nomo]

.....
I am hearing you say that if good people have rallied around a questionable rallying point, and then the rallying point falls over, then they will be worse off......

Well, no, that's sort of the opposite of what I was intending to say.
Aargh.. I wish I could express myself like Peter_Mary and Flotsam! :(

What I was trying to say is that I think many (most?) of the members of the church are, at heart, "good people" and they would continue to be good people, in or out of the LDS church.

I base some of this on my experiences here at post-mo. My sense is that most of us here were good people in the church and now we're good people out of the church. (Maybe even better ).

If the church, as a whole, does any "good" in the world (and here I'm thinking of things like helping the poor and the sick and comforting the lonely and the bereaved), then I don't think it's because of the Mo organization. I think it is is in spite of it. The good works are done by good people. If Mo collapsed tomorrow, I think these good people would still do good works.

[free thinker]

Nomo

Ostensibly mormonism is based on the truth. So what damage is done when the ostensible basis of an organization , truth, turns out to be untrue? What is the value of truth? Does it trump all or not? To me it does. I want the truth about myself and any organization I am involved in. All of the truth.

Let me put this quote in here again. I have posted this before but I think it is salient here. I have this on my refrigirator along with a quote from my pal Daryl, and a fortune cookie saying.

" FOR MY PART, WHATEVER ANGUISH OF SPIRIT IT MAY COST, I AM WILLING TO KNOW THE WHOLE TRUTH-TO KNOW THE WORST AND PROVIDE FOR IT" Patrick Henry

Truth trumps all. Everything bows down before it and pays obeisence. Everything. Any organization that is inherently dishonest with it's people will pay a price. It may not be today, but someday a price will be paid. All will be balanced out in time.

This web-site is a result of dishonesty on the part of the church. If they were honest this site would not exist.

So do I think the church is worthwhile? Only to the extent of it's integrity.

ft

[bobcat]

Yes, most of us here believe that truth trumps all, and should be the prevailing virtue. But there are a LOT of folks that wouldn't accept the truth even if became obvious (like GBH saying "we lied"). They'd find it easier to look for someone that WILL keep preaching what they know, rather than dealing with the new world order. I'd be willing to bet that even if the Church came clean on everything, there would be some apostle or Seventy willing to tell the 'faithful' that the devil was attempting a coup, and that they should follow him to safety.

Now, would the world be better if Moism collapsed? I think it would, if people could deal with it gracefully. Unfortunately, I'd anticipate a great deal of social upheaval, especially here in Deseret. Rather than see the great and spacious building that is modern Moism collapse into rubble, I'd like to see bits and pieces of it chip off and fall, and the final collapse not collapsing until it's nothing but ruins. And I think that this will happen. I think that although Moism is gaining steam now (what evangelical church ISNT), eventually the internet and scholarship and everything else will win in the end.

[miss taken]

Well, on this one I think the true/false paradigm is a misleading one. Like many organisations the LDS church has got things partly right and partly wrong in my honest and evolving opinion!!!

I would love to see them becoming more ecumenical, and to accept that other faiths are also doing their part.

I would love to see them allow for a greater diversity of opinion, and to be more tolerant of the validity and benefit of other faiths.

The first vision account where Joseph had Jesus saying that all other faiths were an abomination never ever sounded right to me, and I have been pleased to see that the first vision was not as cut and dried as many later made it out to be, indeed God may never have uttered those infamous words.

Mary