Overcoming doubts and unbelief & grey area faith with Shiloh 

Thanks Dad! I think I owe my inquiring mind much to you. Love you!

Same man, it was really great! The last 40 mins just felt like chatting with a mate about church stuff!

Hey Shilo, what does apologetics mean? Also I listened to the whole conversation and it was awesome.

@@BranTheArmenian2 Hey man, I'm not sure what Webster's would tell you, but in my brain it means a logical or intellectual defense of an idea. (None English major here haha). Thanks for watching!

@@mormonismwiththemurph yeah that's awesome it was cool

@@grayareafaith3534 oh cool that's good to hear. I've listened to a couple apologetics channels they're fun

Amen brother. Best of luck on the journey.

Yeah. I am a recent convert and LDS just do Christian better. It isn’t even close. Some others talk it better.

@@Dunning-Kruger-effect haha nice!

Good for you! I tend to agree

My problem is my own in ability to be a part of a religion simply because of its utility. It is so deeply embedded in me that it must be True. I would feel like a fraud. I was never a member of the church for the community aspect (it was a benefit that I only recognized after leaving). I’m supportive of everyone doing what works for them as long as it doesn’t cause harm to others but unfortunately damage is done when people going back to church and bag on the exmo community, confirming all the standard narratives that are believed about them. It sure would be nice if people could start breaking those tropes down and lessen the animosity and paranoia that exists. It’s all so messy. I wish you all the best.

*testimony

You can edit your comments

Evidently not from the device I'm using.

They aren't intended to be a Mormon Story opposite, but I guess the usual Mormon Story is go through faith crisis, feel deceived and harmed and leave. Its good to hear the other stories of people finding faith again and coming back/staying in the church h

Based take. Thanks for sharing. Glad you were able to find community. The LDS church certainly isn't the only place to find it. I think in the modern world a lot of people do not have community and I think part of that is due to a moving away from organized religion. But your point is well taken😊

@@grayareafaith3534 One more thing that I’ve witnessed regarding community. My wife can be happy with her community being simply our family, kids, and grandkids. She simply has no desire to be part of a larger broader community of any kind (religious or otherwise), On the other hand I do enjoy larger diverse communities. I’ve noticed about 1/2 our kids like to lead very low key almost isolated lives. They do not enjoy larger community interactions. I guess everyone has their own preferences. My community happiness is another person’s anxiety and nightmare.

@@Zeett09 I get that. Certainly there are introverts, but I think we are social animals by nature just evolutionarily speaking. I think the point I was more going for is something like the phrase "it takes a village to raise a child." That being said, I have no doubt you are doing a great job raising your children. I just personally think there is some real benefit to an extended community. Certainly the degree to which that is true varies from person to person, as you pointed out.

@@grayareafaith3534 yeah I agree with you. It’s just interesting that my wife certainly used her definition of community (or village) to help raise the kids but it was just her immediate family and co workers (she worked full time) that had kids of similar ages. She was never a part of any formal community and really didn’t engage with the neighbors. Thanks for the conversation. I enjoyed your interview.

I saw the overlap between your two stories. You should definitely collaborate

@@ViajesdeFe Ya I watched your interview with the Stephen and really enjoyed your story! It's encouraging to see other people going through the doubt and coming out with faith.

Thanks for watching Phil and for sharing your thoughts 😊

Glad you enjoyed!

@@aBrewster29 Ya the debates about if intelligent design is a strong argument are interesting. Most people who deny the intelligent design argument have to appeal to an infinite multiverse to explain how a universe as unique as ours came to be. I don't know much about phenomenon 1 that you mentioned, but number 2, sometimes called the moral argument for God, is very strong in my opinion. Probably my favorite argument for God just behind intelligent design. Thanks for sharing!

@@grayareafaith3534 likewise. I enjoyed your takes. I’m sure you’re familiar with entropy. The idea is that if one were to trace it backwards to the point of origin, how would the state of that existence be explained? I suppose another way to put it is the question, what preceded and precipitated the Big Bang? I know many theoretical physicists are atheist, but many are believers, and that’s something in which I find comfort.

Currently listening to the episode, so maybe I'll get more context for your comment. But in general this comments seems to mistake a lack of teaching on the parent/teacher's part with a lack of listening/the humility required in order to listen, on the child/student's part. A good parent or teacher will never allow a child who truly is open, willing to change, and try, to fail. Yes, it takes some work to figure out what this particular parent is saying and how He is saying it, but He only wants us to listen to Him if we want to, not out of fear or duty. So it is on us to put forth that effort. If we want to learn on our own and not seek His guidance, He will respect that. I have often wondered 'Did I really have to go through this? Was there really no other way?' and I have built up enough of a relationship with God to have faith and to trust Him to know what He is doing, and that He is not setting me up to fail.

@@MalcolmLeitch1 I think I would need to dig deeper to fully grasp your comment. Your first paragraph seems to touch on "divine hiddeness", which is the question of why doesn't God reveal himself in a more obvious way if he truly wants relationship with us? And your second paragraph touches on "The problem of evil" as discussed in the video. If so, you have articulated the two strongest arguments against God haha. And to address those would be an undertaking not suitable for the comments section😄

@@Bobert72382 Ya that's an interesting topic. Not sure if you are asking me or Stephen, but my opinion in short would be something like that Joseph Smith could not translate in the traditional sense, but rather, the papyrus was a conduit to revelation, similar to how the plates were a conduit to the book or Mormon, or the Bible was a conduit to the chapters about enoch. How are your thoughts?

​@grayareafaith3534 I didn't ask the question, but wanted to see what you thought about those around Joseph Smith who believed he had actuall writings from Abraham and that he translated them. Have you looked at the Kirtland Egyptian papers and noticed the hieroglyphs next to the translations? If you were alive at that time would you have believed it was a translation? Didn't this show to people he was a translator and Prophet? It appears Joseph believed or lied that he was translating and both of these are problematic to saying he was inspired by God.

@@grayareafaith3534 Thank you for your thoughtful response. I actually hadn’t heard of the Bible being a conduit for the revelation of the chapters about Enoch. My thoughts are that it’s very odd that God would choose Egyptian papyrus that described mummification processes to reveal part of his word, especially when they aren’t based on God-inspired text (the Bible) or what seemed to be God-revealed plates. I know that God Can choose whatever he wants, but it’s a bit disconcerting that he would choose Egyptian papyrus that has no intrinsic holy value, that would sow doubt in people’s mind rather than strengthening their testimony. Again, thank you for the insights, I’m very much enjoying this conversation

@@rodneyjamesmcguire I respect that. I certainly don't claim to KNOW God is real. I think God is the most probable explanation for the universe, but you're right, everyone should have a bit of agnosticism.

@@grayareafaith3534 I think because of lack of evidence ( I shy away from saying there's no evidence ), the overwhelmingly more likely conclusion is there is no Deity. If you know of any actual evidence, let me know. It really seems weird to me that in the case of the Christian God, he is observably so absent from humanity that is defies the Christian claim of love and concern from him. I think Deity is a possibility, but cannot be probably asserted by any empirical evidence whatsoever. Contradictory data is not evidence of a singular conclusion or concept. That's the problem we face with the question of Deity.

and what are you doing?

@@lemjwp1756 This is their church which is swirling the drain.

I think it's only logical that if you're going to judge and condemn how a large organization spends their funds to help others, then your own personal endeavors in that regard should reflect your high standard. 10 to 1 says they don't...

@@lemjwp1756 If I donated $100 to charity today based upon my wealth it would be 1000's and 1000's of times more by percentage. Please don't be ashamed that they aren't charitable.

@@Mikha335 your right it is not explicit, but to my understanding even most mainstream Christians will admit verses like Jeremiah 1:5 are describing a relationship God has with a person before they are born. Another interesting question, does the Bible ever claim all truth is found in the Bible?

@@grayareafaith3534 In my experience, virtually all Christians will say Jeremiah 1:5 refers to God’s foreknowledge - one aspect of God’s omniscience. Interestingly, the one place in the Book of Mormon that is cited to prove it teaches the doctrine of pre existence is Alma 13, but in that passage, high priests are called before the foundation of the earth … “according to the foreknowledge of God”. Therefore, even the Book of Mormon cannot be said to necessarily teach the doctrine of the pre existence of souls. True, the Bible doesn’t claim to contain all truth. But it does teach that any further revelation must be in agreement with the earlier revelation. The problem I see with the doctrine of pre existence relates to what you said, that man was not ultimately created by God, because his spirit or intelligence is co eternal with God. But the Bible is quite clear that man is the complete creation of God who is the source of all “life and breath”, (Acts 17), in spite of the philosophical objection that you put forward to such an idea. I think that such an objection is only a problem if you think that God couldn’t have created man with the real agency to choose for himself and bear responsibility for those choices. But if God can and in fact has done such a thing, the objection holds no weight. Further, even the Book of Mormon explicitly teaches this very set of ideas, that God is the absolute creator of man and that it was also him that gave man the ability to be an agent for himself. So if one objects philosophically to the Biblical doctrine, he must also object to the Book of Mormon where it is even more clearly enunciated, as well as in the LDS lectures on Faith. In addition, it now becomes incumbent on the believer in the “restored” doctrines, to put forth the reason why the earliest revelations of Mormonism teach none of the distinctive doctrines of the traditional LDS faith, and contain very little more than 19th century Protestant dogma. And by the way, the idea that the wicked burn in eternal torment is not a biblical doctrine either, and I agree with you that such a teaching cannot be harmonized to the character of the biblical God. Peace.

I don't like to judge peoples motives or character. But I do feel that John's agenda or motivation is point out problems with the church- regarding truth claims, leaders, the institution, doctrine etc. I do think they come from a critical bias. I think they legitimately don't believe and do have critiques- but I don't see a balanced approach or an effort to engage with faithful perspectives.

@@Ian-ue6tx In short, by admitting that the egyptologists are right and Joseph Smith couldn't translate haha. On a more serious note. I don't think you have to claim Joseph Smith could literally translate ancient languages to claim he was producing inspired writings. When he was "translating" the Bible, we produced several chapters of Enoch that clearly were not related to the source text. I think the real questions is, do Joseph Smith's writings have strong correlations to the real ancient world, and I think there is some evidence for that. I could of course be wrong.