I want to try a thread for believers of any faith. This is not intended for sectarian debate or criticizing any religion or church. It's really a place for for believers, or people who want to believe, or for people who wish they could believe, to discuss their personal faith journey. I'm glad vBulletin allows us to set up these interest group-oriented threads. Let's see how this goes.
By way of introduction, as most of you probably know I am what I call a convinced Mormon. That means I believe all the church's restorationist claims and try my best to live its teachings. I'm unsuccessful in that effort daily, but I try. That doesn't mean I don't have questions or that I am blind to the church's warts. Meanwhile, having grown up in Utah and then lived for many years in L.A. I've come to appreciate, admire and even cherish the faith and traditions of others.
I'll start by borrowing the photo I posed in the astronomy thread of the Sombrero Galaxy:
As I noted there, this galaxy is 28 million light years from Earth. It has 800 billion suns and is 50,000 light years across.
The vastness of the universe always causes me to think of what to me is the most stunning teaching of my church (and, in different ways, other churches). One of my favorite scriptures is in Moses 7:30:
I choose to believe that God is the creator of all that vast universe, and yet still knows my name, and the name of every human being in all of history -- past or present. And that is stunning to me. It is a huge concept, and it's difficult to get my mind around it. But I try.
Dieter F. Uchtdorf:
These are the kinds of ideas that keep me going every day.