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Bountiful -> LDS Discussions -> Have you ever accidentally seen porn?
Post Info TOPIC: Have you ever accidentally seen porn?
Have you ever, either accidentally or otherwise, seen porn? [25 vote(s)]

I am male and I have, at some point in my life, seen a pornographic image
60.0%
I am male and I have never seen a pornographic image
0.0%
I am female and I have, at some point in my life, seen a pornographic image
36.0%
I am female and I have never seen a pornographic image
4.0%
hiccups


Future Queen in Zion

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RE: Have you ever accidentally seen porn?
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Ok, let's do a realistic hypothetical situation.

Mr X is a porn addict. He's struggled for years. He tries reading his scriptures and praying. He reads and reads. Hours a day sometimes. But he keeps struggling and keeps viewing porn. What does this mean? Does God not love him enough? Does the Atonement work for everone else except Mr X? Is Mr X just hopeless?

(Has anyone ever been cured of addiction by reading their Bible? I don't know. Arguing that it could work for me is like saying that God could take away all my extra weight if I prayed and read scriptures hard enough. If I said, "My plan to lose to weight is to pray and read scriptures and pray harder until God takes it from me." would you think I was nuts? Don't like that example? How about if I was a diabetic that said I didn't need medicine, that I was going to read scriptures and pray and God would take care of everything? Would you think that there are probably other actions I needed to take and that God was probably going to let me figure that out myself? There are neccessary actions to overcoming addiction. In general addicts have so many lies and self-deceiptions ratting around their heads that they cannot pull the neccessary actions out from the scriptures. Just because viewing porn is a sin doesn't mean that doing spiritual things is a cure for it.)

Now to those olden days when people just had their Bibles. Porn addiction wasn't defined back then. People caught acting out that way were likely just labeled as sinners. Or even more likely, it probably wasn't spoken about. It was the sort of thing that was kept hidden (and still is amoung those who consider it a bad thing.) So, even if someone was caught once, they'd say they weren't doing it anymore even if they still were.

We do know a bit about how alcoholics were dealt with before 12 step programs. It is not pretty. They ended up in sanitariums. And eventually when they were physically well enough to go back out into the world, they'd go back out and eventually drink and end up back in and eventually they'd manage to do enough damage to their body and/or spirit that they'd die. Physicians of that time believed that alcoholism was incurable.

Let's look at our diabetic who lived before insulin shots. Did he often die? Yes. God didn't save them just because there wasn't a treatment.

So, why do I care enough to keep posting in these threads when it is so painful for me to do so? Because I feel for the Mr X who might be reading this thread. Because God does love him and because the Atontement does still work for him. There is something that can work if you'll do the work.

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"The promptings of the Holy Ghost will always be sufficient for our needs if we keep to the covenant path. Our path is uphill most days, but the help we receive for the climb is literally divine." --Elaine S. Dalton
rayb


Hot Air Balloon

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My point is clearly not being made here. The hypothetical you're employing is contrived to suit your rhetoric. I know of what I speak, evidently, by means you're not familiar with... I am not arguing against your path, and see no need why you should shut down mine--but you're insistent and you have your rights to say what you like.

Ironically 12 step programs don't work for everybody either, but that's inconsequential to your point.

And though we're talking about porn addiction here, some folks want to bring up terminal illnesses, and alcoholics as though the types of addictions are the same.

Oh that you could be healed by simply looking...

The children of Israel wandered in the desert for forty years rather than entering the promised land... they received the law of moses because the law of the gospel was too tough for them... we've received the law of consecration, but we live the law of the Gospel. It seems to me that when it comes to excuses for not working, we all have plenty. There are those who stand in the Great and Spacious building pointing the finger of scorn and mocking, there will be some who are embarrassed by that and fall away into forbidden paths and are lost...

Scripture study is not simply reading the scriptures, but repeatedly I've seen my point reframed to mean this. Scripture Study is incorporating the Word of God into your life. In a 12 step program, there is nothing taught there in that could not be found within the scriptures. There is no one that physically takes the booze out of your hand, or turns off the computer when it gets to be a time of weakness. That change that choice is ultimately made by the individual--or there is no real recovery. Those things are replaced with something else.

Sure those sort of thing happens. They happen close to home.

It's a scary world out there, full of disease and trouble. You use whatever cures work for you.

A man healed by Christ, depends upon Christ. A man healed by science depends upon science.

--Ray



-- Edited by arbilad at 11:06, 2007-10-26

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Cocobeem


Keeper of the Holy Grail

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There were good points in both those posts... I think we're getting there...

What about an example, ray, where the porn addict, let's say, is a person who has a high calling in the Church and loves the Church and has no intent or desire to leave it? Perhaps someone more inclined to commit suicide than leave the Church? They have a firm testimony that they're going to hell and want to spare their wife and family misery and feel they'd be better off without him?

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Life is tough but it's tougher if you're stupid.  -John Wayne
Cat Herder


Understander of unimportant things

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I think the key here, regardless of method used, any real healing for anything, be it spiritual or emotional or physical, occurs through faith.

Faith as in action. Action as in doing based on sound principles and truth. Sound principles and truth inspire hope. Hope then cultivates faith. It is the opposite of a downward spiral.

And the source of all truth and light is Christ. Remember, "There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated."

The Lord does not limit the blessings of things like rain or sun upon the righteous... And likewise, just because a secular program has a great track record of helping people, it does not indicate it has a corner on being the means for helping all people change for the better. Truth and true principles are what they are regardless of where they are found or incorporated into other things. Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. If there is anything virteuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

smile.gif

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rayb


Hot Air Balloon

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Coco: Interesting hypothetical, Coco. What do you suppose is the answer for that person? Do you honestly believe there's a single solution for any of these hypotheticals?

Again I have nothing against any program or solution, but I don't think that you should dismiss one solution because it didn't work for you personally.

Clearly the woman who touched Christ's robes and was healed... though generally that's not how everyone was healed and many people brushed up against him all the time.

Why weren't others healed this way? Because they didn't believe like the woman did. Why must we state our skepticism about solutions that the brethren have in times past suggested helps someone, when there are some who merely need those simple changes in order to be free? 

What value comes in destroying a means of healing?  

--Ray

-- Edited by rayb at 18:51, 2007-10-26

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I'm not slow; I'm special.
(Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
Jen


Senior Bucketkeeper

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Christ also sent some to wash in the river before they were healed.There are many means given to heal. All of them are in and through Christ. Many take more than looking, or touching, though. Some are required to pass through work and trials to be healed. Some are not healed at all. Are you saying some are more worthy of healing than others, because they have better faith? It sounds like it to me. Where comes God's will? Who's destroying anything, ray? Who says you get to decide who and what is "good" enough?

Your view is very narrow, uncompassionate, and more hurtful than you realize. At least, I hope you don't realize how hurtful you are being.

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"There is order in the way the Lord reveals His will to mankind. . .we cannot receive revelation for someone else's stewardship." L. Tom Perry
rayb


Hot Air Balloon

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Jen: I've read your reply a number of times and find it astounding. The only conclusion I can come to is that you haven't actually read what I've stated.

Your above paragraph starts by making the point I was making. Then you suggest I'm talking about "better faith"?! Where the heck did that come from!?

How is my solution of including daily scripture study and applying the words that are read (rather than excluding it, as has been suggested by others) "very narrow"?

I am defending an additional tool.

--Ray


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I'm not slow; I'm special.
(Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
Jen


Senior Bucketkeeper

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I got that from this:

Why weren't others healed this way? Because they didn't believe like the woman did.


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"There is order in the way the Lord reveals His will to mankind. . .we cannot receive revelation for someone else's stewardship." L. Tom Perry
rayb


Hot Air Balloon

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I never made a value judgement about the woman's faith over anyone else's. My point was that she used a DIFFERENT means to be healed, and that her belief was key in her ability to be healed, and actions enabled her to be healed.

If we state here that the scriptures don't work, or that for whom scriptures worked, they don't REALLY have addictions, that is the equivalent of destroying a path of faith. When it is commonly accepted then it will be that much harder for those who could've been healed in that manner to be healed at all...

--Ray

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I'm not slow; I'm special.
(Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
fear of shiz


Profuse Pontificator

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Cat Herder wrote:

And likewise, just because a secular program has a great track record of helping people, it does not indicate it has a corner on being the means for helping all people change for the better. Truth and true principles are what they are regardless of where they are found or incorporated into other things. Prove all things, hold fast that which is good. If there is anything virteuous, lovely, or of good report, or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.


Just for the record, Twelve Step programs are spiritual in nature.  They focus on finding a higher power outside oneself to help oneself be restored to sanity.  Just wanted that to be clear.

Otherwise, great comment, Cat. 

 



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PollyAnna


Senior Bucketkeeper

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This has been an interesting discussion...

Personally I think several members of the forum are talking past each other...  Several are in many ways making the same "argument" (not in terms of arguing... but defending...)...  It might be helpful to take a breather and read the comments of others we disagree with, in a few days... I'll bet some will be surprised at how close we all come to seeing this in a similar way...

I have had (in mine and hubby's family) several loved ones that were VERY severe alcoholics/drug abusers... or caught in many other traps... Not one of them that is in the process of healing has "completed" the road to recovery... cause they all say that the road to recovery does not end in this life... No one I know used the exact same path to get to that "recovery road"...  I had an Uncle that served as a Bishop, while he was a life time member of a 12 step program, for prescription med addition...  He believed deeply in the value of 12 step programs, he did not believe recovery without a 12 step program had a chance... and he said that he did not believe the reverse was true, because he had seen many gain recovery success without much spiritual growth...  I never had reason to doubt his success or faith...

I have a cousin that is a recovering porn addict...  He uses both a 12 step program and serious self-controlled re-focused spiritual goals to work toward healing and recovery...  He will tell you that one without the other "cannot" keep recovery in place.  I have never had any reason to doubt his honesty in his methods either.

Contrasting those loved ones is my MIL who was healed through prayer and faith...  In fact, after many years of trying everything else... one day in desperation, she asked to have her desire to drink removed... and it was, in one moment...  It WAS a miracle...

Lest anyone believe she was not really an alcoholic... please believe me... she was not just a drunk... she was an extremely successful one, that kept a job and lived a double life, quite well... at least to the outside world... but to her sons she was not even a sometimes mother from the time they were quite young... and her partner in alcohol, was FIL so it was extremely hard to break the patterns...  By the time they quite drinking their sons were adults, and married...  But for years it was a sad fact that it was she that drank the food money, at the expense of her growing, and hungry children... It was she that sold the furniture to buy booze during hard times... She had tried AA, she had tried medication, but she simply abused those options too...  She had been trying for 20 YEARS to quit...  Some would say the odds were against her... she was a 4th generation alcoholic.

She had never been terribly religious... but one day she got on her knees and begged for intervention... In her words she finally admitted to God that if she had to keep failing and hurting her family she would rather die, and I believe she meant it...  She bargained for her addiction to be lifted from her and it was.  I was present as a very new member of the family... I saw the change... but I would probably not believe it if it weren't something I knew for myself... Still I can tell you is that she never once had another drink... she never once took meds or went to a meeting again... she simply quit and then replaced that addiction with scriptures and prayer, and a faith she had not had before...  For her it was the only answer that worked... That is what she says...  Oh and BTW... she is a member of another faith, not LDS... She is a person that does not have much faith in anything beyond the Savior's ability to heal anyone of anything...  Let's just not talk about her attitude about my disease, and why "I" the cult-member... have not been healed... 

Despite that, there is no denying (at least for me) that for her, faith and scriptures worked a miracle in her life...  Someday the Savior WILL work a miracle for me too...  That is something I too have great faith in.  I have to admit... neither my doctors nor my faith have been my answer... yet... I wonder... maybe I should try a 12 step program...  I am willing to try anything, actually...  (As long as it's not a miracle cure...)  biggrin

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rayb


Hot Air Balloon

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Thanks Polly. You've pretty much stated what I've been trying to say all along.

--Ray


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I'm not slow; I'm special.
(Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
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