why do lds believe that they have the "power of discernment"? do they actually believe they can speak to god? especially when their judgment is clouded.
As I understand it, the power of discernment is the means whereby Mormons can remove the clouds of confusion. Those who are sufficiently in tune spiritually are able to discern (tell the difference) between things that are of God and those that are not.
Those of us who are no longer Mormons understand that all the so-called power of discernment really is is intuition. There isn't anything supernatural or miraculous about it.
edmarc Wrote: ------------------------------------------------------- > Intuition, discernment...same thing. > > A lot of them use common sense. > > Some have self control and some don't.
have you been practicing your power of discernment on this board? Or should I ask, have you been able to find some form of compassion and empathy behind those fears of yours? Pretty much, intolerance is the result of fear of the unknown. What you don't understand, creates fear, fear leads to intolerance, intolerance leads to ignorance. ignorance leads to anger, anger leads to hate, hate leads to suffering. words from master yoda. I just had to add the last three in there from the movie which has some truth to it. but the first 4 I believe holds truth as well. something to think about. Don't ever judge until you've walked a 1000 miles in someone elses shoes.
the way I understood discernment, which doesn't have to have a negative connotation, is that it's just a fancy word that has been created, more than likely not by the mormon community, but someone else, which explains, how we can tell right from wrong, truth and lie, etc. unfortunately, I believe the Mormon leadership has hidden a lot of truths and lies about the church and has a lot of people confused. Followers I guess you could say who are easy to fall for Jedi mind tricks.
the perpatrator's mother and father used this one on us. "through the power of discernment they knew they son was telling them the truth".... im sure their little intuition was a little biased.
any real power of discernment by leaders. They are just giving their opinions and in every instance in my experience, they were way off base. No such thing as power of discernment. Does not exist.
My view is that the "power of discernment" is a fear tactic to scare kids, in particular to tell the truth and confess what the leader wants to know.
Totally pointless, useless and detrimental to the individual. It's spiritual blackmail in too many cases.
...was one thing that helped me on my way out of the church. Particularly when they went on and on about priesthood power, the Holy Ghost, the special gifts given to those called to lead, blah blah blah, yet couldn't "discern" some very obvious things. Other's would do boneheaded, even destructive things, claiming to have discerned something or other. I thought the horrendous batting averages were just limited to fathers, bishops and SPs, but I learned GAs were even worse at it. And my MP was absolutely horrible.
That is exactly what my dad said to me after the third or fourth time he saw the documentary on Hofmann just a few years before he died. I oftentimes think if he wasn't close to death, he would have left the church.
about the Power Of The Priesthood and what 'they' were capable of with this 'power'. The Bishop asked the group to list what the Power Of The Priesthood can do. The usual stuff cropped up like giving blessings etc and then one said "we have the power to resurrect the dead" !!!!
The Bishop said YES, thats why we need to keep worthy as we never know when we will be called upon to excercise Priesthood Power!
I started to feel abit uneasy after this session. lol
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/19/2011 05:03PM by zeezrom.
You mean the special power that allows you to tell the difference between a man with rare authentic documents and a con man? That kind?
You may be talking about common sense--as in, what are the odds?
Or maybe the power of discernment that guides your judgment to align with your values, that tells you to buy embarrassing historical information to make sure they are never seen by the public, to protect the lies your religion has told?
Beware of the man who continually points to his power and his judgment. Who was it that said, "The more he spoke of his honesty, the faster we counted the silver."
I still spend a huge amount of time with penisholders
Their judgement isn't any better than my pagan, horny, unworthy hungover point of view.
I can't say too much, but I will say, that there is lot of competition, and they do not like to look bad.
Clearly, and objectively, they do not have "more power than the president" they cannot raise the dead, some of them cannot adequately support the large family that discernment should have steered them away from creating!
Let me tell you about the power of discernment. My former bishop "required" me to disclose my ex-wife's sins to him, because she wouldn't meet with him. Naively, I told him about her affairs (never should have done that).
Then his power of discernment kicked in. "I can tell you as your bishop that she does not have a boyfriend, and that she loves you more than you know." Really? Well, my PI told me otherwise. But apparently my bishop could see things through his spiritual eyes that contradicted what my PI saw through his physical eyes.
That's the power of discernment. If I had challenged him on it later he would have told me that even though he was wrong, his statement promoted the keeping together of the marriage, blah blah.
I made some comment to my TBM wife about the recent Hoffman news. She replied something to the effect that his forgeries were really good and fooled the Church leaders. “Yes”, I said, “he was so good he even fooled God.” She was not amused, but maybe she got the point.
So much for discernment where you’d expect it most.
"And unto the bishop of the church, and unto such as God shall appoint and ordain to watch over the church and to be elders unto the church, are to have it given unto them to discern all those gifts lest there shall be any among you professing and yet be not of God."
So all the leaders from Bishop on up have this power to "discern all those gifts lest there shall be any among you professing and yet be not of God." This should definitely apply to the Mark Hofmann fiasco. Hofmann was an atheist since his teen years but found it profitable to profess to be a believer. He came to the highest leaders of the Church with forgeries and lies which directly affected the claims of the Church. If the "power of discernment" should ever have kicked in, this was the time for it.
However it wasn't until after two people were murdered and the police's forensic examiners had determined that the documents were forgeries that the Brethren started to discern things.
Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/2011 01:02PM by baura.