First. I am not a mormon but I was born and raised in a lutheran community in an old european country. My english is bad. but I hope you get my dilemma.

Here is my dilemma.. It is cultural.

I hear this in my life:

- Do not live of this world! Gods grace can not be earned through works!

- But We forbid you to not make a living in the modern economy or do the best you can of your life God gave you! If you do not you do not contribute to the community.

If I would go 100% "off the grid" culturally or in frugal way I would not be allowed to "eat"/join the rank of decency because I did not live up to the norm.

But why do community force me to live my whole life for works that does not make me closer to God?

Why is the protestant work ethic so strong when it does not make any difference regarding the relation to God?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wh1VU-_OF98

Do you have more takes on this dilemma? I think you have because I have not.

The most important thing. Forgot.

It seems to me that I am damned whatever I do.

How can this be some kind of moral model for how a society should be run?

How would people understand christianity as a moral code in society? I have a hard time understand this.

IMHO, it's an unresolvable internal contradiction in modern christianity. And there are good reasons for that (see below).

Put simply, bible Jesus is clearly quoted as telling people that the VERY BEST THING they can do is to ditch all their worldly goods (sell 'em and give the money to the poor), not worry about what they'll wear or eat or where they'll sleep tomorrow, and let "god" take care of it all.

Yet, as you pointed out, if you try to do that in modern christianity, you're considered a lazy slacker and not accepted.

The reason for the lack of acceptance is simple: doing what Jesus said to do doesn't "work." If you do that, you WILL be (in modern society) a "bum." Nobody wants to feed your or clothe you or give you a place to live unless you work for it. And "god" doesn't take care of it.

As for the reason the contradiction exists: the people of bible Jesus' time (and bible Jesus himself) didn't think there would be any people 2,000 years after they lived. They expected the "end of the world" (the 2nd coming) in their own lifetimes. So they could get by ditching all their stuff, they thought, and waiting a few months or years until it was all over and none of that stuff mattered.

Trouble is...that didn't happen. Despite bible Jesus telling people it would happen in their lifetimes, or before the then-current "generation" had died off. Here we are, 2,000 years later, and no end of the world, no return of Jesus. Just us.

So the most basic tenets of "how to follow Jesus" don't work. They were based on the assumption that the 2nd coming would have already occurred. If you follow them, you'll be a bum and be considered lazy and worthless. So what to do?

Don't follow the most basic tenets of Jesus' teachings. They don't work. Ditch 'em. Find your own path, where you treat people kindly, do a job/service that makes you happy and lets you participate in a monetary economy successfully. That's my advice, anyway :)

Hello ificouldhietokolob!

A Very generous and rich post by you. Thanks! I will bookmark it and make notes. I will find great use for it in my heart and mind.

Since about two months ago I have been in a life changing process. Long story and not a nice one. Too much to write about, 10 years of trouble. before that twenty years of bullying in school and other emotional abuse.

I have been malingering for years but unaware of it, I have tried to skip everything "mandatory" because I have had this deep feeling in me that something is wrong. It is a game being played in which I can not win.

I can not leave it but I can understand it.

I am reading texts every day, taking screen shots of sections in online texts, bookmarking articles. My Ipad have over 600 screenshots of articles right now. On my computer I have text material around 2 gigabytes in a map on the desktop.

I read lots about Personality disorders, religion, emotional abuse. I read satire books from eastern europe, google texts about how life was living in East Germany (a socialist country with a lutheran mentality).

And that last thing about East Germany, that is the deal!

Living today in a progressive country with a lutheran mentality.

No one believes in God here but they are like stuck between a rock and hard place mentally. They are living of this world 100% and still act like they do not. In that sense it is our mental culture that lives its own life. People go around and do things because everybody else does them, they play a game.

If I ask someone if they are christian they would say yes but if I then would ask them if they believe he will come back very soon they do not understand what I am saying. I did not know that being a christian would mean believing such a thing.

So I started asking myself how many things do I and everybody else do without knowing why?

My biggest discovery was reading eastern europe satire books and reading about malingerers who tried to beat the game to survive against powerful masters. They do not exist in books where I live and in that way they do not exist in our mental or daily culture.

We have the word malingerer but here they have another objective. People here think the malingerers try to beat the game because they are parasites, do-no-gooders, bums, mentally ill. In eastern europe malingerers just wants to survive and live a life in inner peace and freedom and they are known for that. But here we have no clue about such things, we just have the lutheran norms, work, money and rigid decency, stupid but upright.

So I am here today. Stripping away layer of layer of norms trying to understand why I ended up malingering for years in my life.

Who is playing and in what degree am I playing myself?

I wish you the best.

Just FYI, some of my very favorite people have always been "outside the norm." Most found their way (meaning they are happy, can support themselves well, and have lots of friends)...but they refused to be square pegs in square holes.

I hope you find YOUR way. Whatever it is.

As to works....Christians say you will be changed as a believer and want to do works not HAVE to do works, because of all that God/Jesus has done for you. Personally I am a believer but still don't want to do works...maybe I am not a real believer???