There are many contradictions between many different religions and the consensus of many is that the belief should not be based on the feeling but on the wisdom of the word and the individual’s interpretation of that word. Caution is often raised in that many religions will work on feelings and these throughout history have caused followers of some cults to commit suicide just to get their pathway into heaven. Their faith is not what is questioned it is what they base their feelings on as being non-objective obviously.

If one really wants to make their opinions about Mormonism then they should take a look at where it came from which was Joseph Smith and the writings that they base their belief on. In addition as to what their doctrines are and what support they have for these particular doctrines. and what historical events have come through the centuries that give credence to their beliefs. The big problem here is that there doesn’t seem to be any historical proof of any kind that the doctrine of the Mormons existed back in the biblical days. There are many aspects that must be looked at when it comes to what the Mormons are teaching. First of all one has to look at their writings which is the book of Mormon that first was published in 1830. Compare that to the publication of today and you are going to see almost 4000 changes albeit not all to do with the meaning of the text although there is some that has been changed as well. According to the Mormons the translation of the book done by Joseph Smith was in perfection.

When it comes to plagiarism there is no doubt that one will find a great deal that has been taken from the holy Bible itself.

Lamanites According to the book of Mormons centuries ago there was a great war, where the only tribe left was the Lamanites. These are the Ancestors of the American Indians which means they are also direct descendants of the Isralites led by Father Lehi who went to America. The story ends with these decedents breaking into two groups one good and one bad, and the American Indian happens to be bad so they were cursed with black skin. It must be remembered that when the Book of Mormons was written slavery was still in effect. It is interesting to note that according to the Mormons this book of theirs was written from sacred gold plates. Yet they carry the tone of the era they were translated in.

Changes in the Doctrine and Covenants It must be noted that the belief is that the doctrine and covenants abided by the Mormons is actual revelations. However, it would seem that over the years these have been changed, omitted or added to.

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A funeral is a reflection of a person’s life and it must be carried out accordingly. Most funeral homes are willing to compromise upon their basic method of funeral services for incorporating certain cultural or religious preferences of the deceased and of his or her family.

Visitation is the first stage of the procedure and it can extend from a period of a few hours to many days. In this, family members and acquaintances get together in memory of the deceased. The second phase is formal funeral proceedings at any site like a church, a chapel, a mortuary or at some other place that had a special significance for the deceased person. A hearse or funeral coach would need to be booked if the funeral is to be held in an outdoor venue.

After this service, the family and friends go to attend the graveyard service at the selected cemetery. This can be managed by either a relative of the deceased or a priest depending upon the decision of the family. You also need to take care of several other things like the kind of flowers you would require for the service, if you want to display an image of the deceased and who will ultimately lead the service.

The burial is the final part of the ceremony, and its site depends on the family tradition or personal liking of the deceased. The deceased can be buried in plots owned by the family or in mausoleums, or be cremated and have their ashes spread where they had desired.

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Josephs upbringing was that of a poor family. Education wise he only had actually three years of school and as part of his daily living it included instruction in the Bible as well as being taught to read and write by his parents.

Joseph certainly showed signs of bravery when as a youngster he ended up getting typhoid fever even through complications ended up meaning that the doctors wanted to amputate his leg. Joseph as well as his parents refused to have this done and requested that just a piece of the bone be removed. He would not take any type of alcohol to dull the pain and only asked that his father hold him down while the procedure was being done. His belief in the Lord at that time was great and he walked on crutches for three years but ended up with his leg healing.

When Joseph was 14 years old there was quite a religious campaign going on throughout New York and this campaign was by many churches looking for recruits Joseph was not sure just where to go so he prayed about it and this is where the conception of the first vision took place that Joseph is claimed to have had. Joseph purports that after this first vision he received many visions from other divine messengers besides God and Christ.

Tragedy still continued to follow Joseph even after he married. They ended up having nine children which included adopting two. Out of all these children only four survived and in fact the last child born came into the world five months after Joseph himself had died.

The Church of Mormons believe that Joseph was led to a hill in New York where he received some documentation in the holy records from an angel named Maroni and this was to have given some historical history about the Americas.

During Josephs leadership of the Mormon church he witnessed it grow from a mere six members to over 26,000. This was not without having to endure great persecution from other people. Joseph claimed himself as being a prophet of God and there is no doubt that his congregation and followers believed this as well. His death came about when he was murdered by a mob in 1844 this was done in prison where the claim is that he had been jailed for false charges concerning riot and treason.

It\’s easy to see though that the religion that Joseph Smith started did not die when he and his brother did. The Mormon church is very strong in the United States and other countries as well.

It\’s hard to get a handle on just want the actual doctrine of the Mormons is their church is officially called the Church of Latter Day Saints.

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An article was published in The New York Times named, \”Husk Power for India\”. Current, which is routinely available in the lives of most in industrialized nations, is an unimaginable luxury in out-of-the-way corners of emerging countries. What was once fodder for cattle is now used to produce current – rice husks.

Raised in the rural state of Bihar, Manoj Sinha understood what it was like to sit in darkness. Being an engineer with Intel Corporation he had all the ability to bring alive the dream of a lifetime. He led the advancement of his power equipment that produces electricity from rice husks and other farm wastes and now he trades it to hamlets across India.

Sinha is what could be called a reformative businessman because he feels business is the answer to major social problems. \”Business leaders must realise that the world\’s poor need investments more than handouts,\” he says, adding, \”these are customers, not victims.\”

The article inspired me to think about giving in a different way leading me to ask myself, \”what is the most effective form of giving?\” Is it education, commercial activity or disaster relief? There are so many ways to make a difference. One way of giving can seem more effective or sustainable than other ways depending on the way it is expressed, looked at or implemented.

I then came to define there were eight parts to giving as a way to look at this. So, let me map out the eight distinctions; which in effect are often \’stages\’ of giving as well.

Phase one: Exigency – salvaging and helping others who are suffering due to natural calamities, epidemic diseases or other insurmountable problems.

Stage two: Relief – providing relief from long-standing hunger, poverty, diseases, handicaps or discrimination which otherwise would continue or worsened because of the lack of information, education or resources.

Phase three: Curing and defending – morally, bodily and spiritually. Many people carry scars that may be invisible but strongly constricting their lives. Giving the cure to release the long-standing suffering creates more chances for them while giving necessary defense gives them a feeling of security.

Stage four: Education – giving better education, information and skill training to create empowered and creative solutions to resource generation while supporting individuals to discover their unique talent to thrive.

Stage five: Inspired investment – giving a help, capital or resources to those who have great talent to alter the situation. This gets used many times as the resources become more and passed on to other people who again produce more out of the prospects given.

Phase six: Maintainability – working collectively involving the people in the local surroundings, creating maintainable society – ecologically and communally.

Phase seven: Empowerment – enabling and motivating the people to release their true ability and power to make a change. In this group of sharing, the aim of giving changes from \’giving to the people who want\’ to \’giving people a chance to give to others\’ and to the society.

Stage eight: Loving – just doing whatever we feel to do to love and care for others. No strategy or expected outcome exists in this stage of giving. \’Giving\’ does not even exist here in the traditional sense of the word, as there is no sense of possession or judgment or desire to change anything. This is where we do not even have to think about anything, we give as a part of our own joyful experience.

What we also see is that at each of these eight phases of sharing there are many things that the giver gets in return.

One: Sense of connection

Two: Sense of comfort

Three: Relief from pain (our own)

Four: Gratitude for our own knowledge, skills and circumstances

Five: Long-term sense of commitment and contentment for our own life

Six: Improved atmosphere for our own life and for the lives of all those we value and cherish

Seven: Soul rewarding stimulation and commitment to our own purpose

Eight: Affection

Sharing has many stages and sensations based upon the donor and getter. And the \’phases\’ do not detail which one is of more importance than the other. All are mandatory.

I was gifted with an experience early in 2008 while travelling with a group of dedicated entrepreneurs through India to see how we could be more effective in our giving. I was blessed to have one particular experience that made me think about what \’effective giving\’ really meant.

We were in a little town one day. Four of us had just booked a taxi to take us to another town nearby. We negotiated with the driver carefully as our hotel staff had warned us in advance about the rip-off we might experience seeing we were not local.

We stopped in front of the local train station for a short break on the way. While the others disappeared off to use the bathroom, I started a conversation with our taxi driver standing next to the taxi. With very limited English and a full smile exposing his blackened front teeth, he told me that he had a house on the outskirts of the town and he had a young wife and two children who went to the local school – I started to feel connected to him.

I patted him on the back for having an affectionate family and told him that I also had two kids of the same age as his. When the others came back the driver instantly asked us to come to his house for food. I thought it was just a formality he wanted to convey at first. However, after leaving us at the centre of the town, he was particular that he would wait for us till we were done with our traveling around the town. And he actually did. I was in fact quite taken aback to see him still standing by the side of the road next to his taxi even after an hour. We hopped back into the taxi and he whizzed off up the road to where his home was.

When we reached there we were really quite taken aback to see how he was living. It was more or less similar (if not worse) to the standard of people dwelling in slums we had visited before. From the gleaming new taxi he was driving, who could have thought this

As he reached the narrow open street in between shanties that were made with rough concrete blocks and mud walls, we felt guilty about accepting his invitation. For a brief moment I was nonplussed. \”How could I accept the hospitality of this man who didn\’t seem to have anything at all and I didn\’t even bring any gift that could be a help to his family\”, I told myself.

As we got into his house, we saw a small pot and a stove on the mud floor. His shy sweet wife smiled and blushed at the sight of visitors and vanished into the cupboard sized storeroom of the house. As I looked around, I saw the man\’s neighbours giving the woman a few cups over the crumbling concrete walls. They simply didn\’t have enough cups in their house. There was just a single small room that had a lone cot and an old galvanised trunk adjacent to it.

The driver hastily drew out three hand-woven mats from the trunk and spread them out on whatever little space there was on the mud floor and put one on the bed.

Steaming cups of tea and hot snacks arrived soon. Both his kids as well as kids from the neighbouring houses came to see us and remained at the doorway. The six of us could just squeeze into the tiny room. I was curious to know where his children were sleeping. I thought maybe they had another space somewhere. To my astonishment, he just pointed at the chest and said with his happy smile that it was their bed.

He gleefully told us that he was a dancing champion in town and pointed to some trophies on the shelf above the bed. Keen to show us his dancing skills he suddenly dashed outside. From nowhere music filled the tiny room. He didn\’t have any music system in the house, it was coming from outside. I was curious so I stood up to see him reversing his taxi right against the back wall of his house with the doors wide open with car radio on full volume!

The time moved fast (with his dancing and the many more cups of tea that followed) and very soon it was time to thank them for their great warmth and courtesy and make our move. As we got ready to leave and express our gratitude to him and his wife, he pulled out the best of all the rugs he had, and just gave it to us. It was one of the very few things he owned. It was impossible to believe that he was offering it to us.

We all courteously begged off his gift and moved out waving goodbye to all the people waving back at us. We got real baffled about the whole affair. Should we have paid them something as they surely had only too little money? Should we have consented to take the cherished gift he made us?

As I was thinking about this life-changing experience a few days later, I thought about the refusal of his gift. He looked disappointed that we didn\’t take the gift. It wasn\’t just about saying no to the gift that stuck in my mind.

I understood that the sense of unease I felt was really ensuing from viewing him as unfortunate. I was perhaps thinking that I couldn\’t possibly accept something from a person who had very little.

But did he really have so little? Maybe he had more – a lot more.

Maybe the real present we could have given him then was to receive his present in utmost deference and thankfulness.

All actions of gifting and getting are essential for us to fill our world with plenty and contentment equally for both giver and getter. We can begin doing this instead of assessing and defending one over the other. The perfect act of gifting and getting needs no further clarification.

Manoj Sinha\’s words resound in my mind once again, \”these are customers, not victims.\” I can visualise the eager faces of the village people who are now thrilled to have current in their hamlets and their little ones who now can now read and write and learn even at night.

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\’Mormonism\’- what comes to your mind?

For many people, images of dry, puritanical communities living in the dusty surrounds of Utah seem to conflict with stories of Mormon \’tribes\’ practising polygamy as they roamed the deserts. What is the reality of this undeniably different and controversial religious affair?

To many people, Mormonism is something of a mystery. It\’s a relatively new religion, as religions go – founded in America in 1830 by one Joseph Smith – and one that\’s received a lot of bad press. But like any religion, it is split into many different branches, each with their own different beliefs and practices – the largest, and most well-known, being that of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (the LDS movement).

Differences aside, what do all Mormons believe?

It may surprise you to learn that the very foundation of Mormonism is not that far from that of Christianity. Mormons believe that the Bible is the Word of God, and that the apostles were His chosen representatives in this world – like many Christians, they also believe that the death of the apostles at the hands of the Romans took that word from us. However, whereas Christianity believes that the Word of God was restored in the modern Christian Church, Mormonism states that the Word was entrusted to Mormon, a citizen of America thousands of years before the arrival of the Pilgrims. His son Moroni buried the gold plates for safety, and returned in 1830 as an angel to show Joseph Smith where they were buried.

The key belief for all Mormons is that humans, through living a holy life, can become like God. To early Christians, this was heresy, and Mormons suffered great persecution for it. Mormons argue that becoming like God is not the same as becoming God; they believe that mankind can take on the attributes of God but must always be subservient to Him.

Aren\’t Mormons really fundamentalist?

The teachings of the Book of Mormon are largely based on those of the Bible, but are often stricter; Mormons do not drink alcohol, and some do not even drink hot drinks! The passage in question says that \”The hot drinks are neither for the body nor the belly\”; depending on interpretation, this can refer to any hot drinks, but many believe it refers to drinks containing lots of caffeine or only to the hot drinks available at the time. So it\’s easy to see why many perceive them as fundamentalist, but there\’s more behind it than that!

Famously, Mormonism was vilified by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, at the end of his novel A Study in Scarlet. He describes the Mormons as practising polygamy – and it\’s true. Joseph Smith did in fact advocate plural marriage, and while it was not originally an official part of the religion it became doctrine in 1852. What most people don\’t know is that this was partly because, due to Christian persecution of Mormon pioneers, there were few Mormon men left and the pioneers desperately needed children.

Many people still have a hazy image of today\’s Mormons as polygamists, but it\’s not true! The doctrine allowing polygamy was later rescinded, and since 1904 the LDS movement excommunicates anyone who still practises it.

So there you have it – the truth about Mormonism. Was it anything like the image you had? What was once a secretive, persecuted religion continues to grow, with a total of 13.5 million members worldwide in 2008? Hopefully now you understand a little more of what it represents.

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Most of us started on our journey when we were young. Sometimes we didn’t even realize that the words we heard cut so deeply because they were actually about us. Sometimes we did.

As time went on many of us started searching outside the church for answers. Social justice and a strong desire to move our community into the light became more of our church than the buildings with pastors and priests.

There are all kinds of ways that one may try to find spiritual answers. When gay spirituality was first even mentioned, there was no such thing as an open and affirming church. Instead, there were a few select individuals who saw the plight of our spiritual journey and went out of their way to reach out to the community. Some turn toward that effort and others still turn away, looking for validation in the eyes of their childhood church.

For those of us that were born in very religious or religiously strict families, the spiritual journey can be difficult and even painful. The idea that we could pray ourselves straight of that the head of the church could “fix us” was not only uninformed, but outright damaging to a young person’s self image. There will probably never be an admission from such churches that their practices were damaging, and looking for one will not lead to the confirmation you want.

You do not have to go to an organized church or even claim a religion in order to mark your spiritual journey. You are able to move through your questions and find your own answers whether it be through actual religious study or it becomes more of a silent quest along the beach. However you go about looking for your spiritual self you are simply not alone. The truth is that the GLBT community has been hit rather hard when it comes to spiritual acceptance, which is why it is important to understand what you want from your journey.

Historically, religions and spirituality do not even have to mean the same thing. While we make the associated connection, spiritual beliefs are of a totally different make and model. Religion is a taught belief system. Spiritual beliefs are a felt and internal belief system. Bringing the two together can be an interesting challenge but one that can be done in your own way. Having the option to figure out what works for you is really the key.

You can join the open and affirming churches and learn to grasp your gay spirituality if you choose. It can be a great place to debate and discuss. Or you can create your own private moments that offer you a reflective chance to decide for yourself. The journey simply never really has to end.

Howie Holben thoughts on gay spirituality. Spirit Journeys has concentrated spiritual travel since the early 1990′s. They plan special spiritual journeys for gay men.