Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

Would you all mind defining NOM and TBM?

New Order Mormon (http://www.newordermormon.org/), Text Book Mormon (you and me)

What's a New Order Mormon?

heh, sorry, I just edited my answer to help out with that

I thought TBM was true blue mormon, or true believing mormon, or something, but I am really not sure what it stands for, but the idea is the same either way.

For the record, I consider myself a pretty religiously liberal individual (not as much as some, but certainly more than most) and I hate both the phrase TBM and NOM. Totally irrelevant and probably belongs in the soapbox forum. It's probably irrational of me too. I just think they're so ineffective at conveying any broad group's belief about the Church

wired wrote:For the record, I consider myself a pretty religiously liberal individual (not as much as some, but certainly more than most) and I hate both the phrase TBM and NOM.

I feel the same way. Most people would probably call me a "TBM" because I believe in the major doctrines of the church (at least as I choose to interpret them, which in some cases may be different from the mainstream). But I do not identify with that label, because it also implies to many people that I am politically conservative, that I am opposed to marriage equality, that I have not thought deeply about complex theological issues, that I am uninformed about church history, that I believe church leaders are infallible, and just basically that I either pretend that the controversies and paradoxes not just in Mormonism but in Christianity in general don't exist or that I am ignorant of them. None of those things are true about me. I have been attacked for what people assume my beliefs are way too often. (Not by anyone on here, but in real life. A lot of people have a big problem with religious scientists, it would seem.) I realize that it's convenient for the sake of discussion to describe people as TBM, NOM, post-mormon, etc, but I think that there are so many tangential things associated with those labels that it is impossible to accurately describe most people with them. As another example, when people hear that someone is post-Mormon or ex-Mormon, they tend to assume that that person has either been offended or wanted to sin. I know a fair amount of post/ex-Mormons, and while there are a few that I know who left because they were offended, they are a tiny minority and I don't know any who has left the church because they wanted to sin (well, maybe one. But he is a truly evil human being, and "wanting to sin" doesn't even begin to describe the things he's done to his family. And he only ever saw the church as an opportunity to control people in the first place. He didn't ever believe in it. I don't even put him in the post/ex-Mormon category, because it would be an insult to the decent human beings who use those terms to describe themselves. This really has nothing to do with anything, I just get so mad when I think about this person.) The labels just don't work because of all the baggage attached to them.

I'll try to explain how I can believe in the teachings of the LDS church despite knowing about the non-correlated version of church history. When I am confronted with two things that are seemingly true, but that contradict each other (this happens not just with issues in church history but with things in physics and astronomy), I don't automatically assume that one of the two things must be wrong. That may be the case, but it may also be the case that there is some underlying unknown truth that removes the paradox. I tend to reserve judgment on such things until I am presented with clearly convincing evidence that solves the problem, and even then I leave myself open to the possibility that future facts will come to light and again change what seems to be true. In the case of the church, I believe that Joseph Smith saw God and Jesus Christ. I believe most of what the church teaches. It makes sense to me. I've "tried on" other belief systems, and they don't work for me. I should note that I was raised by parents who are converts and who are also fairly religiously and politically liberal, and I don't feel that I grew up with a lot of cultural indoctrination into LDS beliefs. They just work for me. I should also note that there was never any attempt made by my parents or youth leaders to whitewash over the uncomfortable parts of church history. We learned about Joseph Smith's multiple wives and Adam-God theory and Brigham Young's statements about people living on the moon in Seminary. So I guess I've never actually had an experience where I discovered that the reality of the church was different from what I though, because the church was never presented to me as a perfect institution. It was always presented to me as an institution that was run by people who sometimes horribly screwed up, who sometimes had racist beliefs, who sometimes presented their own political beliefs as revelations from God, and who sometimes invented incorrect explanations for things where no explanations existed. But to me none of these things means that Joseph Smith could not have seen God. My approach to the teachings of the church is to pray about them and ask God if they came from him or if they are interpretations of man. I believe that the prophet is called of God, but that doesn't mean to me that he can't or won't make mistakes.

edit: fixed quote

Ditto on the labels conversation, please.

Yay I'm even more smart enough!

Yay! Thank you! I will get back to this.

Nerdgirl and wired, I appreciate this conversation, and for the most part I agree with you. I think that any label that we apply to people is ill-fitting and inelegant, whether these labels have to do with culture, sexuality, religion, preferences, personality, or anything else. In general, I don't believe in assigning people labels that they haven't assigned for themselves, so Nerdgirl, I wouldn't dream of calling you a TBM. Still, it seems like if you are going to describe groups of people concisely in conversation, your only choices are to use existing labels, keep inventing labels until they are so obscure that they don't mean anything, or...? What? No idea.

I've somehow fallen into the habit of using the phrase TBM in spite of myself, generally among, well, non-TBMs, in all their many forms. There are the less active believing folks, the less active non-believing folks, the active non-believing folks, the New Order Mormons, the ex-/post-Mormons, the non-Mormons, and people who I'm sure don't fit any of those categories. (But that's exactly what I mean.) Generally it's in passing, because there is no better, quicker way to say, "Werf believes strongly in church doctrine." I just don't see the harm in those labels as long as you aren't giving them to specific people against their will and especially if, when you are using the label to describe a specific person, you throw in some qualifiers for good measure.

Then again, I'm one who always tends to choose the murkiest labels for myself, like agnostic, post-Mormon, and queer. Maybe that's why broad-type labels don't bother me, because I figure that it's assumed that in broad labels like "TBM" not everyone is the same. I'm sure that TBM describes you specifically no better than post-Mormon describes me.

Still, I don't want to call people something that they don't want to be called, so what would you rather have?

To clarify, although I said I am sort of a New Order Mormon, I feel like that implies non-believing. I wouldn't consider myself a non-believer. There is still a part of me deep down that hopes that the important parts of the gospel are true. I'm more agnostic than atheist.

My lack of belief really has nothing to do with the difficult-to-explain parts of church history. If I had a strong belief in God, then I think I would also be able to accept that there are reasons things happened the way they did.

I'm simply skeptical when it comes to the supernatural, and believe that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. A warm fuzzy feeling when reading the scriptures or listening to someone speak simply doesn't cut it for me. Getting a nice feeling when going to church tells me I should keep going to church, but it doesn't leave me any more convinced that there is a god.

So that's what I mean when I say I'm a NOM.

Edit: replaced string with strong

I'm curious. I've long held the belief that God's existence cannot be proved or disproved, therefore faith is necessary. Do you agree, SMP?

I agree that God's existence cannot be proved or disproved in the usual, scientific sense. But it is commonly taught in the church that we through the power of the Holy Ghost, after prayer and pondering, we can know these things are true. And it is often claimed by those in the church that they know it is true. That's the part I have trouble accepting. Not that I am disputing what they know, but I don't see how anyone can claim to "know" these things. I don't think I will ever be able to say that I know them (in this lifetime).

Now, I hope these things are true, and I am willing to act on this hope, to a certain extent. That is one reason I still attend church.

SMP wrote: Not that I am disputing what they know, but I don't see how anyone can claim to "know" these things. I don't think I will ever be able to say that I know them (in this lifetime).

I feel you. This last Sunday at church was Fast Sunday, and one of the kids who bore his testimony claimed that he no longer needed faith because he knows for sure. That's a pretty bold claim if you ask me, especially because it implies that he knows everything he needs to know for salvation (beyond, you know, simple stuff like how to make humans out of monkeys... or something). But I'm not the one to judge that, but his certitude didn't seem to have all that much substance behind it. I've learned the hard way that dogmatism is never an indicator of spiritual maturity, because it means that the person with such a testimony hasn't really done enough soul searching or scouring of the scriptures to actually have such a sure knowledge.

My own testimony is harder to describe. It's a deep rooted rock somewhere deep down inside what crazy Cleon Skousen called your "I Am," far deeper than emotion. It's not knowledge... it's just deeply rooted faith. And hope. It's nothing like what I now recognize as the somewhat superficial burning bosom which made me so sure I knew during high school and much of my mission. Sure that type of feeling can be an indicator of the presence of the Spirit, but I believe that an actual testimony is much, much deeper than that.

I'm pretty sure I wouldn't say I "know" any part of my testimony, but there are certainly aspects of the Gospel that I feel are true with a surety. Things that are just so natural that it seems crazy to me not to believe it. That God lives and knows me personally and answers my prayers are all filed under that. All of those have been a given in my life just as assuredly as gravity and cows getting out when it's below zero outside. When I hear someone say that they don't believe God cares about them, it makes me so sad for them because I can't even fathom having that part of me taken away.

And sure, I suppose it could all be brainwashing and delusion. But if it is, I'm glad I have it. Because I have so much more confidence in my life, past, present and future than I ever would if I believed it was all in my own hands.

SMP, I identify with a lot of what you said, especially this part:

SMP wrote:My lack of belief really has nothing to do with the difficult-to-explain parts of church history. If I had a string belief in God, then I think I would also be able to accept that there are reasons things happened the way they did.

I think that often we get caught up in defining belief and knowing. Now there are lots of things that I have difficulty believing, but I know. Then again the difference to me is that I sometimes have trouble with the feeling part, although there is evidence to prove these things to me. And that evidence isn't something that I expect to hold water in anyone else's situation, but it does for me. And for now that's enough. to be belief is a feeling and knowing has evidence.

Well, TBS, replace that statement, for me, with the fact that I have a strong belief in God. This is why I have called myself a Christian first and a Mormon second; my testimony of Jesus is far stronger than my testimony of Joseph Smith (although I do have both.) By the way, as TBS alluded to, this entire argument can be had over just about any system of labeling; religious, gender, sexual preference, political ideologies, etc.