So Just What is it About This Topic of "Believe" that fails?

[_Quasimodo]

My serious question is... why doesn't this work anymore?

Once your belief in Santa fades away, you will never be able to believe in Santa again.

I think it's become apparent to anyone who has free access to the internet that there is no longer any reason to still believe.

[_Gadianton]

I searched for "boat" to minimize the ocean water I ingest and just read that part.

It's pretty circular if we assume the Church regularly provides eternal life just like the fishing boat makes that loop every season.

The dishonest church leaders know that the reasons to doubt the fishing boat are superficial and that nobody in that situation would think their chances are better going it alone in the water. The funny thing is, all the things the idiots telling the story offer as reasons to question the captain are generally validations of his narrative that he is a captain of a fishing boat that regularly takes that route, and so far, so good. The only risk involved is that its a small outfit on dangerous waters.

Staying with the Church is more like, you're on shore doing okay, and you keep getting hit up to buy expensive tickets for an overcrowded ocean liner that takes you on a boring journey, where, they claim one day you'll see Atlantis but for now, they just show you stuff you can see anywhere else and make promises one day the cruise will get better. What's the point?

by the way, promoters of faith are in a serious bind in deciding whether faith is risk-loving or risk-aversion. In the context of anything falsifiable, then faith is taking a risk on something you can't know is true in advance. In the context of anything unfalsifiable, such as the Word of Wisdom or chastity or tithing, then faith is "sticking with what you know". That's holding to the iron rod. If you're holding to the rod, then you don't get on that fishing vessel, which promises a quick fix.

[_mentalgymnast]

My serious question is... why doesn't this work anymore? I read this page three times and find it simply unpersuasive in any manner whatsoever. Even the cute little fisherman boat parable didn't move me at all. I mean when faith dies, is there any hope or way to revive it? Why emphasize belief when, in point of fact, it is evidence that destroyed the faith, and it is only evidence that can actually give faith its strength? If there was an iota of evidence for any of it, SURELY that is what this conference would have focused on the instructors showing the youth! LOOK at ALL this evidence we have for being right!!! But there was none of that that I read. Comments? Ideas?

Hi Philo,

Your post and the attached parable given by Elder Renlund and his wife were my 'food for thought' to chew on while out on my morning run.

Thanks for that!

It's interesting how a good parable can be interpreted and/or used as a baseline/springboard for a multiplicity of thoughts. One thought I had, among others, is that the boat is being used to safely deliver the lost soul to a safe harbor on shore. The fact that the boat itself was old and weathered didn't matter as much as the fact that the fisherman and the boat he was using was the means of getting back home. If the boat had been a new, shiny, and exciting boat to ride in, but was on its way to a different point on the shore or even to the opposite shore, the lost soul wouldn't end up in the same place.

So it's all in the destination.

That was just one spin off among a number of others that I had while I was out running. That's where/when I have most of my aha! moments.

Oh, and another. It takes a bit more faith to get into the boat Elder Renlund is describing than to get into a boat that by all appearances seems to be a bit more sea worthy. But I suppose if you're really out to sea and stranded and the chance of reaching shore on your own is minimal, it doesn't matter a whole lot what the boat and fisherman are all about as long as they can get you safely to where you want to go.

I could go on and on, but anyway, thanks for the reference to that talk. A lot of food for thought that can take one in many different directions.

It's not the first time recently that a boat/ship has been used to share a parable or provide an analogy. Elder Ballard seems to have a penchant for doing so.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/ ... n?lang=eng

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/ ... m?lang=eng

Regards,
MG