Rii Ramblings

asktheslendy:

theevilmuffintoaster:

pizzarash:

he-will-knock-4-times:

mycroftss:

theneverendingdrums:

skyfullofhat:

Tony

TARDIS

Sherlock aww yee

……Rainbow Dash

Ursula. 

DenjinHAL

((Jack. 
… It’s RED, sue me. ;u; )) 

(Source: susiebox)

I’m Rii. And I’m a Mormon.
Sorry. Sorry. The Mormon.org thing is a little infectious. Especially after trying to top high fiving a tiger YEAH! XD (kudos to people who got the reference. You may now high five the tiger.)

Anyway. This post is a specific reply to a different post but I don’t want to call out that person or their post, just make a polite response to it.

Why organized religion? Why get together, why go to church? Why not stay at home and quietly worship by yourself in a laid-back manner?

As I said, I’m LDS so I go to church for three hours every Sunday. I do this because my church is a social network and a support system - I am surrounded there by people who hold basically the same beliefs and values and, because we worship together, they teach me things I didn’t know, and I teach them. They allow me to see the world through a view other than my own and, particularly for me I think, even though we’re both LDS, the world through their eyes is very different than the world through my own.

Ooh, side note - skip if you know how it works already but It might be worth mentioning that LDS church is probably different from most Christian sessions - I admit ignorance - in that the first hour is sacrament meeting, where the talks given are not from our bishop or a pastor or anything but members like me called earlier in the week with a subject asked to prepare. Sometimes our bishop does talk and sometimes stake leaders (ward = gathering of nearby people, stake = gathering of wards, bishop is over a ward, stake leader is over a whole stake) will talk to us but mostly it’s members. (Side note - I swear I’m the only LDS member I’ve ever known who LIKES to give talks in sacrament meeting. o_o; ) Then the next hour is sunday school and the next, you go to one of several places based on your gender and age and have another lesson. Sunday school, divided by age (the adults are all in one place), is ALSO taught by a member, same one every week pretty much, who prepares the lesson before hand. We go through one book of scripture a year (Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants…) although the lessons may be more theme based or something and other scriptures drawn in. The final hour, I go to Relief Society - that’s the women’s organization in the church. Primary is the children’s organization, Young Men’s and Young Women’s the two teen organizations (12-18), and then the Priest Quorum and Relief Society are the two adult groupings. I love Relief Society. It gets that name for a reason! Anyway there we have another lesson by one of the members (of course, it’s now limited to one of the females, heh) and…uh…rotates between several teachers, I think? Okay, I admit, I’m a little foggy on how that works but anyway. These lessons are theme-based. Sometimes we have firesides or conferences where our leaders speak to us but there are at most a few of these a month, methinks.

How could I possibly get the enrichment I do at church if I just stayed at home? Who would I have to discuss the deeper doctrine with if I didn’t have fellow church members? How could I ever relate to anyone religiously without organized religion? It’s one thing to say, hey! I believe in thing! And have another person say, I believe in thing too! How cool! And another thing entirely to say, I’m a member of religion, which means I believe in thing, thing, thing, thing, thing, etc, and have value, value, value, etc, lifestyle blah, etc, etc, and another person say, I’m a member of religion too! There’s so many assumptions I can’t make if I’m just talking to someone who shares no more of the same beliefs as me than, say, that there’s life after death. And I will spend more time discussing borderline arguing about whose belief is more correct or better or heaven forbid right with someone of a different religion than talking about the beliefs themselves, which I’d much rather do. I don’t want to say, Jesus exists, no He doesn’t, yes He does, His miracles are hoaxes, your mom is a hoax (Side note - I wanted to put, -punches guy- here but that’s puzzling to me ‘cuz I know darn well irl I wouldn’t even ball my fist or get RIGHTEOUSLY INDIGNANT! like I’d have to be to punch anyone over just THAT. Theoretical self, y u so violent?). No, I don’t want that. I want to talk about the deeper implications of His parables. And that’s one reason organized religion is nice.

The other is communication. I believe there is a specific God with a specific plan of happiness - the Gospel - and that there’s a pretty specific way to go about living and achieving it. How do I know I’m going the right way? The scriptures help a lot, yes, so long as I can understand them and I’m just finally now learning to, but the scriptures are…old. Yes, there’s a LOT that was written even for me, in the latter days, but…Well, here’s where organized religion is fantastic. I can confer and make sure I’m not out of line. If I find myself stuck in a mistake, I have people to help me out of it. I have the prophets to say, here’s what you might consider working on and how and what you might aim to be, here’s what peeps seem to be having trouble with. Okay. Thanks to that, now I know where I ought to be.

And the social network and support system - Who HASN’T had a hard time being a member of their religion at one point or another? It’s nice to have other people who can pat you on the back and help you get up when others knock you around for your religion’s sake. Or just because you’re having a hard life! It’s another family for me.

I know there are a lot of wards within my church and a lot of churches without mine that contain people who are sharp and cruel and vindictive. I don’t think that, in general, you can honestly blanket blame organized religion for that, or any specific religion. There are a lot of specific Christian sects you can and that boils my blood. If you ask me, those people aren’t true Christians because the name of Christianity indicates that you follow Christ, and their vindictive, judgmental behavior clearly shows that they’re doing anything but that. But that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about other organized religion. Getting together to worship. Why? Because we’re stronger this way. It isn’t about all getting together to hate on something against our beliefs, not that kind of stronger, nor is it about enforcing our political views in a flock of voters, no crap like that. I mean spiritually stronger. I can’t get closer to God without the help of my fellows. I mean, yeah, there are a bunch of personal things I can do, personally, all by myself, to grow closer to God but there are oft more effective things I can do in a group. If nothing else, God wanted a day set aside for rest and worship. He didn’t say, the seventh day is for rest and leave it at that! I mean, it’s a commandment to keep it holy! So it’s a day of worship. I think it’s fair to follow that commandment by getting together and really going over the doctrine together for a few hours, which is a lot more fun when you put yourself into it. Yeah, I guess staying at home and reading a few verses while relaxing is technically worship and stuff but…it’s not the same. At all.

So hopefully this is a proper reply. Enlightening, not a rebuke. I just wanna wrap up - I love my religion and it is my truth. It isn’t because I was raised this way, heavens no - if I didn’t have a personal conviction it was true, I would have left it years ago and lived a lifestyle vaaaaastly opposed by my church. Super seriously. But I believe it. I’ve had my own witnesses - that’s plural - and I believe it with all my heart. People think I’m a bit of a sheep when they find dirt on my church and I don’t immediately question my religion but instead question their dirt - but why? Why should I immediately question the entire truthfulness of my religion, most of which has been proved good, when a little bit is shown to be bad? That’s dumb. You don’t do that with anything else! You don’t do that in science! If you have a theory and you have one counter example, enough to throw away the whole theory, you don’t instantly throw the theory away, you try and find an explanation for that exception, see if you can still make the theory work or maybe if the exception isn’t quite right. Why would I treat religion differently? And you know what? I’m right. Every time someone digs up any counter example to the truthfulness of the Gospel, if I start asking people in the spirit of, I want to figure this out because I’m sure this is true and not OMG EVERYTHING I EVER KNEW WAS A LIE!!! I always - ALWAYS - find out that the counter example was misconstrued or based on false doctrine or that there is an explanation, or something along those lines - and not the kind that are hastily laid down to keep the blinders on, but things that fall into place like a puzzle. So that’s why I believe in organized religion, and specifically, why I’m a Latter-Day Saint.

xxsofiex:

nativityscenegirl:

petition to remove the vocal cords of the people who say “trololol” irl

Well I guess my vocal cords just got torn out.