This is a new beginning for a now-closed topic.

It is interesting to me that the name of our group, "RFM", would seem to indicate that most(?) of us who use this board to express themselves are Christians--as they are members of the LDS church--including the inactive ones, such as myself.

This, of course, holds no bearing on whomever wants to join the group of posters, as all are invited---within the limits set by our competent Board of Directors---to whom we all owe much thanks for taking on this difficult task.

Are we for purposes of navigation dividing the world with lines of latitude and longitude?
Endeavoring to make certain the forum is safe and free of infidels, non-believers, free-thinkers?


Sincere question (no critique) because the impulse behind "Christian? Or no?" is of greater interest than the question itself.

Compatriot Dorothy once offered:
https://www.beliefnet.com/entertainment/quizzes/beliefomatic.aspx
from which I popped out "Secular Humanist" (which puzzles, for humanism seems a bit optimistic for me)

My posts are pretty free-thinking rollicking, hoping to stir questions/thought/response, stirring questions/thought in me.
But perhaps these are miscalculated.
A forum that is constrained, brittle, might experience these as rambunctious. That would not be useful for anyone.

So yah, if the majority of the forum is indeed ensconced in Christianity, it would be very useful to know

Even if they are atheists, since secular humanism is just Christianity without Jesus. Kind of like beer with half the calories.

I can’t really get away from the Mormon lens I see the world through, although it’s a weaker lens than it used to be. I definitely believe in a metaphysical Christ. I could go either way on the historical Jesus. Or the historical Han Solo. These stories seem to be as old as time. Bedtime stories, like the Adam Sandler movie.

Talking with Christ, I might be, but it depends...

Talking with anyone else, I am ME. I don't compare... and usually don't care.

pollythinks Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> It is interesting to me that the name of our
> group, "RFM", would seem to indicate that most(?)
> of us who use this board to express themselves are
> Christians--as they are members of the LDS
> church--including the inactive ones, such as
> myself.

Interesting. I get the opposite out of it. Or at least that there are not many, if any, active Mormons here. Even if they haven't formally resigned, people are not Mormon if they don't consider themselves to be. And on this board I don't see a significant number of exmos who are now Christians. As was mentioned on the other thread, many in that category started a different board.

I don't see how the name RfM indicates that most posters are Christian. Could you explain?

Many have fully exited the church, or are still in, but mentally out.

Those who come here run the gamut. You have a variety of Christians, some active, and some not. You have deists, agnostics, atheists, and those who don't think about it all that much. You have UUs, Jews, Buddhists, and eclectics.

It would be a mistake to label everyone here as Christian. Yes, most were Mormon/Christian at one point, but that may not reflect who they are at present.

I’ve seen pagans here. I see Mormonism in its early form as a pagan flavor of Christianity, with its priesthood and magical worldview. Magic has fallen by the wayside, leaving Mormonism rather bland. Correlation further removed spices from the soup until it became a tasteless gruel.

Muslim or no ?

Pastafarian or no ?

Scientologist or no?

As I have written elsewhere recently, I spent probably a decade after leaving Mormonism with a very skeptical filter in order to not be bamboozled ever again. I read multiple atheist books and read through the sciences and considered myself an agnostic atheist and humanist. After 9/11 I continued to be an atheist and became even more anti-theist and then I ran into atheist writings that were even more anti-christian and then I discovered Nietzsche and began reading biographies and scholarly commentaries on his philosophy and the last year have been reading Nietzsche's most read books and then I started to be open-minded to reading and listening to this new breed of philosophers who are not Fundamentalist Christians but nor anti-christian type atheists, those like Jordan Peterson and Tom Holland (author of Dominion), including several atheist books defending Christianity and religion. What I began to realize is that I am not supernaturally a Christian but the Christian ethos is deeply rooted in my cultural DNA which I now see very clearly and so I now consider myself a Christian Atheist or Christian humanist. I also agree with the person above who said that secular humanism is basically Christianity Lite. Or Like Bud Lite! I have made that analogy myself. So while I think there's a huge difference between Christian-atheism and Fundamentalist Evangelical Christianity (which I reject), I've grown to realize that my conscience and cultural ethic are clearly Christian.