Why can't you just believe?

[Jeff_Ricks]

I just got an email from my son who lives in Phoenix. He told me that the soldier who's walking across Utah in protest of the war is the same Marshall Thompson who once told my son in a Sunday school class in our last ward, "why can't you just believe?" That was about 13 years ago. I had left the Church by then but my kids were still attending, and have now also left. I remember clearly when my son came home and told me what he was told because I was proud of him for speaking his mind and asking questions. :) He still does and I still am. :)

Click here for news on News on Marshall's walk (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=535191).

[skeptic]

Jeff,

You didn't mention if your son responsed. If so I hope it was something like "I'm not a mobot".


SoUtSkeptic

[Jeff_Ricks]

Jeff,

You didn't mention if your son responsed. If so I hope it was something like "I'm not a mobot".


SoUtSkepticOh I'm sure he responed! But it was too many years ago for this old duffer to remember. :cool:

[Jeff_Ricks]

I just got an email from my son who lives in Phoenix. He told me that the soldier who's walking across Utah in protest of the war is the same Marshall Thompson who once told my son in a Sunday school class in our last ward, "why can't you just believe?" That was about 13 years ago. I had left the Church by then but my kids were still attending, and have now also left. I remember clearly when my son came home and told me what he was told because I was proud of him for speaking his mind and asking questions. :) He still does and I still am. :)

Click here for news on News on Marshall's walk (http://www.ksl.com/?nid=148&sid=535191).Here's a great article about Marshall Thompson's walk across Utah.
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_4573237?source=rss

Apparantly the Church isn't the only thing we put our trust in that manipulates the truth.
Army journalist Marshall Thompson, recently returned from the Iraq war, publicized his trek across Utah as a means to encourage those in the nation's "reddest" state to talk about ways to bring his fellow service members home...

...Stationed on a large, often-attacked base in northern Iraq, the Army propagandist traveled all over Iraq on orders to seek uplifting stories about fellow troops. Yet Thompson's experiences only further confirmed his fears.
Among U.S. troops he found low morale, brutal tactics and a dehumanizing distance from the people whose country they occupied. Among Iraqis he found anger, fear and distrust of the American occupation.
His superiors allowed him to write about none of those things.
"We wrote in code," Thompson said. "Like, when we would write, 'This soldier has overcome many obstacles', it meant he pretty much complained about his job during the entire interview."...

..."We had similar jobs," said Firstbrook, a former Army journalist. "We both saw, firsthand, how information was manipulated and suppressed by the military. We both had a part in it."

"...on orders to seek uplifting stories..." sound familiar?

"There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher Of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful." --Boyd K. Packer

Was Boyd ever in the military?

Jeff

[helemon]

"...on orders to seek uplifting stories..." sound familiar?

"There is a temptation for the writer or the teacher Of Church history to want to tell everything, whether it is worthy or faith promoting or not. Some things that are true are not very useful." --Boyd K. Packer

Was Boyd ever in the military?

Jeff

My parents have been doing a service mission scanning in pioneer journal pages doing just this thing; looking for uplifting and spiritual comments that can be placed in a database that their descendants can read. Why not stick in the hardships and statements of doubt as well?

[Jeff_Ricks]

My parents have been doing a service mission scanning in pioneer journal pages doing just this thing; looking for uplifting and spiritual comments that can be placed in a database that their descendants can read. Why not stick in the hardships and statements of doubt as well?It's amazing what the mind can rationalize when it needs to, isn't it? Webster defines "lie" as follows:

1 : to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive
2 : to create a false or misleading impression

While sorting through facts for the purpose of finding uplifting or faith promoting information to pass along can be justified as not lying according to definition #1 above, it certainly does does fall under #2. It's still lying. :lftl:

Jeff