All Activity

From Grok: Traditional (genetic) surrogacy: The woman who carries the pregnancy is also the genetic mother. Her egg is fertilized — usually with the intended father’s sperm, sometimes donor sperm — by IUI or IVF. The child is biologically hers. At birth she is the legal mother in most places until she relinquishes or a court reassigns parentage. That is why these contracts are the legally harder ones: you are asking a mother to give up her own child. Gestational surrogacy: The carrier has no genetic tie. An embryo is made by IVF from the intended mother’s (or a donor’s) egg and the intended father’s (or a donor’s) sperm, then transferred to her uterus. She is a gestational host only. Intended parents are usually named on the birth process through a pre-birth order where the statute allows it. This is now the dominant commercial model in the U.S. Is this a correct summary? I can see reasons why the Church would discourage both forms. The Church's current policy (38.6.22) is short on purpose: the pattern is a husband and wife providing the bodies of their children; therefore the Church discourages surrogate motherhood; the couple may still decide; a child born to a surrogate is not born in the covenant and can be sealed only with First Presidency approval. Same grammar as the sperm/egg and IVF entries: divine pattern, discourage departure, leave it with a married man and woman. Gestational surrogacy also breaks that pattern. A third woman’s uterus is doing part of what, on this view, belongs inside the marriage. The child is still “born to” someone who is not the sealed mother. The sealing rule follows the birth, not the egg. So the administrative problem — BIC, whose child is this for temple purposes — is the same whether the carrier also contributed the egg. Traditional surrogacy adds a second problem (she is the genetic mother). The Church does not need that extra problem to discourage the practice. So perhaps one heading covers the shared feature: pregnancy and birth are hired out or given away. A few other reasons the distinction never made it into the book: Handbook style. These sections were shortened, not turned into a clinic manual. They also do not catalog every IVF variant. “Discouraged / husband and wife / First Presidency for sealing” is the whole toolkit. The couple in view is a married man and woman. Same-sex or single intended parenthood is already outside 38.6.9 and 38.6.22. Splitting traditional vs gestational would mostly matter for those arrangements, which the text is not trying to regulate in detail. Gestation is not a morally empty container in this theology. “Providing bodies” is not only gametes. Carrying and bearing are part of motherhood. Gestational surrogacy was invented in part so law could say “she is not the mother.” The Church’s sealing rule still treats the woman who gave birth as the fact that has to be cleaned up by First Presidency approval. History. Older handbooks said “strongly discourages” when traditional surrogacy was the usual form. The 2020 rewrite kept one noun — surrogate motherhood — and added the sealing sentence. They updated the adjacent fertility section and still did not create two surrogacy boxes. So the non-distinction is, I think, consistent. If the objection is “a child should be conceived, carried, and reared by the same married mother and father,” both kinds ostensibly have challenges. A good point. I wonder if this is part of why the Handbook went from "strongly discourages" to "discourages." I wonder there are a variety of factors that have played a part. Which of the ones Grok itemized do you think might have been in play? Thanks, -Smac

Dear sister, whether fossil fuels are a good idea or not, whether climate change is real or not, I was responding to the silly reprimand of Pyreaux's "failure to mention climate change" in his post. As if this would somehow help anything if he did. I have come to hate virtue signaling. Which is what The Nehor's post was, nothing more. Do you really want to blow the thread completely off-topic onto climate change? It might be fun, but the signal-to-noise ratio would get very low.

Curious. It seems the Church's policy doesn't distinguish between traditional surrogacy and gestational surrogacy. If IVF itself doesn't alter a child's “born in the covenant” status, I'm having a hard time seeing why the result would be different when the embryo is genetically the child of the sealed husband and wife, but another woman provides the gestational environment. I mean, if we replaced the human surrogate with an artificial womb or a vat for the gestational phase, would that child likewise not be considered “born in the covenant”? In other words, is it really the genetics that matter, or the gestation and live birth? If it's the latter, I'd be interested to know what doctrinal principle makes the location of gestation significant enough to change the child's covenant status.

Speak of the Stargazer, and there he is! A few days late, and possibly a dollar short. Sorry, I've been busy writing a book! (Seriously) And I've actually written two books. So, @Tony uk, you are thinking of writing a book! That's really neat! If you know how to write I definitely encourage you to give it a try! Do you have an idea how you're going to publish it once it's done? You can either self-publish or try to find a traditional publisher. Self-publishing might be something you have to try if you can't interest a traditional publisher in your project. The advantage of a traditional publisher is that you don't have to worry about promotion of your book, because they'll have an advertising budget to do that, as well as distribution channels to put your book into shops. The downside of the traditionals is that they can be very selective about what they'll print, and they will of course get their cut first, and I have no idea what your "cut" would be, but for a hard-cover book I believe it is typically 10% of the cover price. Your subject vaguely resembles the subject of the book I wrote and self-published about Bramber Castle, a ruined castle that I can see from my backyard. Since I had made three videos about it for my YouTube channel (playlist HERE), I had enough material for a book, I thought, so I went and published one in 2024: Bramber Castle and the Rise and Fall of the House of Braose. This was self-published through Kindle Direct Publishing. But I ghost-wrote and self-published another book about 12 years ago. It was my mother-in-law's story of her three and a half years in forced labour in the Soviet Union after WW2. That one is out of print. I far from an expert on the subject of book writing and publisher, but I can answer questions to some degree.

I am looking for input on the Church's policy on surrogacy: I have never given this matter much thought. As I am curious about the Church's policy of "discouraged, but allowed," I asked Grok to summarize the the moral, legal and ethical arguments typically cited in relation to surrogacy. The results: I struggle with this. No child consents to anything, not to being born, not to being adopted, (in younger years) not to which parent gets custody, and so on. While I think the child has a "right to life," talking about an in utero baby's "consent" seems odd to me. The law already treats children as the subject of other people’s decisions. The distinctive wrong, then, appears to be pre-conception contracting for delivery of a child to paying strangers. Commercial surrogacy makes a child’s coming-into-being and first placement the performance of a contract between adults, rather than the consequence of a pregnancy that is not for sale. Adoption and custody respond to a child who is already among us. Surrogacy orders a child into existence so that someone else can take delivery. Lack of consent is shared with all births. Being the specified object of a paid transfer is not. I think these points are stronger. Yep. I think these are valid points. I need to think about this one. Single motherhood after a breakup or a death is a loss the child suffers inside a story that was not written to exclude a parent. Planned single parenthood, or a same-sex couple using a donor and a surrogate, is a decision that by design means that a child will likely never have a mother or a father as a parent. The adults chose the gap before the child existed. Regarding father absence / single-mother households, the literature is large, long-running, and not subtle. Children raised without their father, on average, do worse on schooling, mental health, and later family formation. Better studies try to get past raw correlation; the pattern survives a lot of that work. Early absence is worse than later. As with most controversial sociopolitical and moral issues these days, I am concerned about the evaluation of data without one side or the other (or both) trying to put their proverbial thumb on the scales. For example, an article published by Cornell University, What does the scholarly research say about the well-being of children with gay or lesbian parents?, sounds fairly persuasive: "{O}verwhelming scholarly consensus" about a controversial sociopolitical issue doesn't really carry much cachet these days. Apparently last assembled around 2015 (!), the articles criteria are wide: small convenience samples with no control group still “count.” Seventy-five papers are filed as “no worse.” Four (cited as Regnerus, Sullins, Allen, Sarantakos) are characterized as tainted because, the site says, they sampled kids from break-ups. That move is the thumb. If a same-sex household often begins after a heterosexual union ends, then “we only count stable planned two-mom homes” deletes most of the real population and most of the instability that family-structure research treats as part of the treatment, not a nuisance. Vote-counting also cannot answer the question I think we should actually care about. “Does this paper’s abstract say the kids are fine?” is not “does planned father-absence cost the same as a dad who died?” Seventy-five abstracts can be true in their own samples (selected, parent-reported, age 8, high SES lesbian moms) and still fail as a test of designed absence of a father or a mother. Here is a Grok-generated summary of several studies I have looked at in the past: The jury still seems to be out, I guess. The legal complexities are a real difficulty. Anyway, looking for thoughts/input on the Church's policy. Thanks, -Smac

Did the LDS version of Jesus have these attributes before he became the first spirit child of heavenly parents? Compared with the KJV of John 1:1, the JST changes the meaning. "In the beginning was the gospel preached, and the gospel was the word, and the word was with the Son of God, and the word was the Son of God" (JST). In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" (KJV). "The Word" → "the gospel preached" "The Word was with God" → "the word was with the Son of God" "The Word was God" → "the word was the Son of God" There is no support for the JST changes in the Greek. Ἐν ἀρχῇ ἦν ὁ λόγος "In the beginning was the Word." καὶ ὁ λόγος ἦν πρὸς τὸν θεόν "And the Word was with the God." Here τὸν θεόν has the article and refers to God with whom the Word was. καὶ θεὸς ἦν ὁ λόγος "And the Word was God." Here θεὸς has no article. So if someone argues that "ὁ θεός always means God the Father," John 1:1 itself does not use ὁ θεός for the Word. It uses θεός without the article. Some other examples: • Matthew 5:33 — τὰς ὁρκωμοσίας σου τῷ κυρίῳ (related constructions, though not the exact phrase ὁ θεός) • Mark 12:29 — κύριος ὁ θεὸς ἡμῶν κύριος εἷς ἐστιν "The Lord our God, the Lord is one." • Luke 20:37 — ὁ θεὸς Ἀβραὰμ καὶ ὁ θεὸς Ἰσαὰκ καὶ ὁ θεὸς Ἰακώβ "the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." • Hebrews 1:8 — πρὸς δὲ τὸν υἱόν· ὁ θρόνος σου ὁ θεός "But concerning the Son: ‘Your throne, O God...'" The key point for your question is that ὁ θεός is not a special grammatical form reserved for the Father. Also, you seem to interpret John 1:3 differently than other Christians. John is saying that everything that was created came into existence through the Word. Nothing that was made came into existence independently of him. That is why I believe Jesus created Satan. By the way, when Thomas addresses Jesus after the resurrection, the Greek of John 20:28 reads: καὶ ἀπεκρίθη Ὁ Θωμᾶς καὶ εἶπεν αὐτῷ ὁ κύριός μου καὶ ὁ θεός μου If you translate the Greek as literally as possible, you get: "The Lord of me and the God of me". The Greek has two definite articles—ὁ κύριός and ὁ θεός If you're comparing traditional Christianity with LDS theology, these verses raise the question of how Jesus can be called God while simultaneously having God as his God and remaining subject to the Father. Traditional Christianity generally answers this through the distinction between the persons of the Father and Son while maintaining that both share the one divine nature. By the way, who does the LDS Heavenly Mother refer to when she mentions "my God"? Several LDS teachings portray this "God" you refer to above as achieving godhood. Yes, he may have been a God before he became God in relation to us, but he has not always been God. A being who needs to achieve godhood has not always been God. In your July 13 2026 post, you said "I don't think anyone denies that God the Father is an "exalted man". He has "achieved Godhood" and "progressed to Godhood" in that he was once a man who is now exalted. But that's not the same thing as him "becoming God". God the Father received exaltation (his body was exalted)". From what I know of LDS theology, exaltation involves much more than getting an exalted body: • Becoming a heavenly father or mother (D&C 132:19; D&C 131:2–4). • Becoming a God (D&C 76:58–60; D&C 132:20). • Receiving a fulness of glory (D&C 76:56, 70; D&C 93:28). • Receiving a fulness of joy (D&C 138:17; D&C 93:33–35). • Being made equal in power, might, and dominion (D&C 76:95). • Receiving thrones, kingdoms, powers, and dominions (D&C 132:19–20; D&C 121:29). • Having eternal families (D&C 132:19; D&C 131:1–4). • Having a continuation of posterity / "seeds" (D&C 132:19). • Living in God's presence (D&C 76:62; D&C 130:3). It should be noted that both the LDS Heavenly Father and Mother also passed their tests and received a fulness of joy. But you didn't say who you believe formed Heavenly Mother into a God. These LDS teachings show a being becoming a God, not using only your definition of getting an exalted body: Maybe you'll want to acknowledge which you believe are not true. [1] "Through a continual course of progression, our Heavenly Father has received exaltation and glory; and He points us out the same path" (Religion 430-431 - Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual). It's much more than receiving an exalted body. We are not on the same path if the LDS Heavenly Father was already a God when he became a man. Likewise, we are not Gods now. [2] "His work and His glory, He told us, is "to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." He has already achieved godhood. Now His only objective is to help us—to enable us to return to Him and be like Him and live His kind of life eternally" ("But If Not ...", By Elder Dennis E. Simmons Of the Seventy, April 2004 General Conference). [3] "Less well understood, however, is the fact that God is an exalted man who once lived on an earth and underwent experiences of mortality . The Prophet Joseph Smith refers to this as "the great secret." (Times and Seasons 5:613, August 15 1844). See also Joseph Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 345.) The progression of our Father in heaven to godhood, or exaltation, was strictly in accordance with eternal principles" (Achieving a Celestial Marriage Student Manual). [4] Joseph Smith taught in the King Follett sermon that God was once a man and lived on an earth. Other than the Prophet's statement in that particular address, this is all we know. When and how and in what manner he became God is unknown (God and Man, Robert L. Millet). Maybe he doesn't know how, using your definition, Heavenly Father received an exalted body. [5] "Mormon prophets have continuously taught the sublime truth that God the Eternal Father was once a mortal man who passed through a school of earth life similar to that through which we are now passing. He became God—an exalted being—through obedience to the same eternal Gospel truths that we are given opportunity today to obey" (The Gospel Through the Ages, Salt Lake City, 1958, p. 104) Nothing here about exaltation meaning only getting a glorified body. Scripture does not portray God as a being who became God before becoming God in relation to us. For example, you could also say that the LDS Jesus was God before he became God in relation to his future spirit children, but this doesn't mean he has existed eternally as God. LDS leaders taught he became a God in his pre-mortal existence. He was not God before being born to his heavenly parents. The LDS Heavenly Mother is a God before Jesus is even born to her. Scripture portrays Christ as eternally God: "from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God" (Psalm 90:2). God Himself says, "Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me" (Isaiah 43:10), and "beside me there is no God" (Isaiah 44:6). In LDS theology, Gods are formed after Heavenly Father. It's not pointless to discuss things that you believe have not been revealed. Some in the LDS Church supposedly believe the doctrine of Heavenly Mother has been revealed. One elder of the LDS Church considers the doctrine revealed. For example, Dale G. Renlund's said in the 2022 General Conference, "The doctrine of a Heavenly Mother comes by revelation and is a distinctive belief among Latter-day Saints". But he doesn't say who received the revelation. But then, the LDS Church seems to walk it back. The historical page is particularly explicit: "there is no record of a formal revelation to Joseph Smith on this doctrine". So let's open up pandora's box for this supposed doctrine - is Heavenly Mother the offspring of a God? Are all her other spirit brother and sisters on the world she supposedly grew up on the offspring of a God? And which God? John 17:3 says, "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent". Trying to comprehend that in simple fashion would lead one to conclude that Jesus is not a true God. Jehovah's Witnesses also run into this problem, as they refer to Jehovah as the Almighty God but Jesus as the Mighty God. Add the LDS version of the Holy Spirit and Heavenly Mother and you have four Gods – only the Father being the true God. Saying Jesus and the Father are "two Gods" doesn't make the Bible easier to understand—it changes what the Bible says. Jesus calls the Father "the only true God"), and Paul says "there is but one God" (1 Corinthians 8:4). Yet the Bible also calls Jesus God (John 1:1; John 20:28). So the biblical teaching is that the Father and Son are distinct, but there is still one God, not two. Saying there are two Gods simply avoids that tension rather than explaining it. And then you also have tension with other Old Testament passages: Deuteronomy 4:35 - "the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him." Deuteronomy 6:4 - "The LORD our God is one LORD." Isaiah 43:10 - "Before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me." Isaiah 44:6 - "I am the first, and I am the last; and beside me there is no God." Isaiah 45:5 - "I am the LORD, and there is none else, there is no God beside me." Isaiah 45:22 - "I am God, and there is none else." These are particularly strong against the idea that there are two or four separate Gods. Who is the only true God in the above six verses? Who is Heavenly Mother's God - her husband or her literal parent? I read that link. https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04165.htm It does not portray Origen teaching the Father and the Son are two separate Gods. Also, there's no mention of a heavenly mother (the third LDS God) or the Holy Spirit (the fourth LDS God). The key phrase is: "by the term ‘second God' we mean nothing else than a virtue..." So Origen is not simply saying: "There are two Gods, the Father and Jesus." "We worship, therefore, the Father of truth, and the Son, who is the truth; and these, while they are two, considered as persons or subsistences, are one in unity of thought, in harmony and in identity of will. So entirely are they one, that he who has seen the Son, who is the brightness of God's glory, and the express image of His person, has seen in Him who is the image of God, God Himself". https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/04168.htm

Joseph Smith taught, "It is the first principle of the Gospel to know for a certainty the character of God. He was once a man like us; God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did". He was not alone on his earth. He apparently lived with a woman, who would later become his wife, and with millions or billions of other people. How did Heavenly Father become a God in relation to "her" and "them"? Was she and the others offspring of Heavenly Father (the God of our Earth), or were they the offspring of some God who came before Him? It seems you are trying to cloud what the term "offspring" means. Both "Gospel Topics – Heavenly Parents" and "The Family – A Proclamation to the World" state we are spirit children (offspring) of heavenly parents. Are you moving away from the LDS Church teaching that we are the offspring of a heavenly mother? If no, what does it mean to you that we are the offspring of heavenly parents? Not defined? Exactly how are you the offspring of your earthly parents? Were you solely made by your father and then you were brought up by only your mother, or were both involved to form you and rear you up? I think there are Latter-day Saints who believe in a God who has always existed as God. They cannot identify who he is though. After him came the formation of many Gods and Goddesses; an infinite regression of Gods as LDS leaders have taught. So it's not from zero to one but rather from one to many. LDS leaders, including Joseph Smith, taught many Father Gods existed before a being becomes the Father of our Earth. Don't forget the LDS concept of becoming children of heavenly parents in a physical sense. After all, you believe they have physical resurrected bodies of flesh and bones. How did Heavenly Mother become the offspring of Heavenly Father? I agree that Hebrews 12:9 calls God the "Father of spirits," but I don't think that necessarily means that our spirits are literally offspring of God in the sense of being spiritually procreated by him and a his spouse. In the biblical context, "Father" can describe God as our Creator, source, and rightful Father without implying that He physically or biologically fathered our individual spirits. The verse itself doesn't say that God and a heavenly wife produced us as spirit children. So I think there is a distinction between saying that God is the "Father of spirits" (Hebrews 12:9) and saying that we are literally "spirit sons and daughters of heavenly parents." The latter is a much more specific theological claim, and I'd want to see that established from Scripture rather than assumed from Hebrews 12:9. You never show that Paul or the early Church Fathers had "heavenly parents" in mind. Do you believe Paul was associating the God of the Bible with Zeus? That would mean all non-exalted beings (those who don't become Gods) are not children of the New Covenant. They are not the "sons of God". Whose sons are they? They are of the devil (John 8:44; 1 John 3:10). Joseph Smith said, "Why, what the Father did. The answer is obvious—in a manner, to lay down his body and take it up again. Jesus, what are you going to do? To lay down my life, as my Father did, and take it up again". So, if Heavenly Father was not the Redeemer and Lord of those on the planet that he grew up on, then who atoned for the sins of Heavenly Mother and all the other millions or billions of people which grew up with Heavenly Father on his earth? Who are the parents of these offspring; of Heavenly Mother and all these other co-inhabitants of the earth, where Heavenly Father laid down his body? It seems you believe Paul was equating Heavenly Father with Zeus and omitted mention of Heavenly Mother; the goddess Hera. Do you believe this "woman" of Proverbs 8:22-25 is a literal man, Jesus Christ, as the Jehovah's Witnesses do? If so, who are the women in Proverbs 7:4? "Say unto wisdom, Thou art my sister; and call understanding thy kinswoman". Who are the woman and her maidens in Proverbs 9:1-3? "Wisdom hath builded her house, she hath hewn out her seven pillars: She hath killed her beasts; she hath mingled her wine; she hath also furnished her table. She hath sent forth her maidens: she crieth upon the highest places of the city". Wisdom is not a literal man in one place but figurative women in other places. Proverbs uses distinctly feminine language for a divine/abstract figure, but the passage itself doesn't say that Wisdom is a literal female deity or a Heavenly Mother. In fact, the Hebrew word for Wisdom is grammatically feminine, and Proverbs poetically personifies Wisdom as a woman. Also, it's different from explicitly teaching that God has a female consort. In the 1844 discourse, Joseph Smith taught God the Father had a Father. "If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also". Joseph Fielding Smith explicitly interpreted Joseph Smith's teaching as meaning that Heavenly Father had a Father, and that this continued backward. In Doctrines of Salvation, 2:47, he wrote "Our Father in heaven, according to the Prophet, had a Father, and since there has been a condition of this kind through all eternity, each Father had a Father, until we come to a stop where we cannot go further, because of our limited capacity to understand" (Doctrines of Salvation). Do you believe these teachings? Noted. In that April 1971 New Era article, then one could attribute the following statement to Kent Nielsen: "One among these, it is presumed, was a savior for them, and through him they obtained a resurrection and an exaltation on an eternal, celestial world". Nielsen's statement is a presumption. However, Brigham Young's statement is itself unequivocal. "Consequently every earth has its redeemer, and every earth has its tempter; and every earth, and the people thereof". https://scriptures.byu.edu/jod/pdf/JoD14/JoD14_0071.pdf In both statements, we are still left with a question: who atoned for the sins of a woman (later to become the LDS Heavenly Mother) when she was living with a man (later to become the LDS Heavenly Father of our Earth) and with all her other spirit brothers and sisters on some other world? Nielsen also explicitly brings in W. W. Phelps's hymn "If You Could Hie to Kolob." "Do you think that you could ever, Through all eternity, Find out the generation Where Gods began to be?" "The works of God continue, And worlds and lives abound; Improvement and progression Have one eternal round". The significance is that this hymn, written in the early LDS period, expresses the idea that Gods, creations, worlds, and progression extend backward and forward without a discoverable beginning. Nielsen uses this cosmological framework immediately after his discussion of God's previous existence. I mentioned previously what was taught by President Marion G. Romney, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, in 1974: "Saved as here used means resurrected and returned as a sanctified, celestialized, immortal soul to the presence and society of God, there to pursue an endless course of eternal progress. Man is a soul, that is, a dual being, a spirit person clothed in a tangible body of flesh and bones. God is a perfected, saved soul enjoying eternal life". Firstborn does not necessarily mean first born or first created. It depends on the context. You've never shown from scripture where the context clearly shows Jesus is the first born spirit child of a heavenly mother. However, we do have scripture where firstborn is first born, in relation to a female (Exodus 13:2; Deuteronomy 21:15–17; Luke 2:7). Doctrine and Covenants 93:21 says, "And now, verily I say unto you, I was in the beginning with the Father, and am the Firstborn". The verse itself does not say "firstborn spirit child," nor does it identify Heavenly Mother. The LDS interpretation adds those concepts from its broader theology. So if the question is "Does D&C 93:21 clearly say Jesus was literally the first spirit child born to Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother?", then the answer is No. It says Jesus is the Firstborn, but it does not explain what "Firstborn" means in that passage or say that Heavenly Mother gave birth to him first. The three biblical verses I mentioned above do not establish that "firstborn" in D&C 93:21 means Jesus was literally the first spirit child born by a Heavenly Mother. That's an LDS theological inference. How do you understand Ephraim (Jeremiah 31:9), Israel (Exodus 4:22), and David (Psalm 89:27) being the firstborn? Based on the context of those three biblical verses above plus the one from D&C. The Bible's creation account does not describe God creating mankind as the offspring of a heavenly father and heavenly mother. It describes God Himself as the Creator of both male and female. If I'm not mistaken, from what I understand of LDS theology, man and woman are uncreated, eternally intelligences; later formed somehow into spirit children. The LDS canon distinguishes between "intelligence" (which is eternal, uncreated) and the spirit body that God organized (Doctrine and Covenants 93:29 - "Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be"). Therefore, if I'm arguing from the LDS system, I wouldn't quite say: "Male and female were created by God." I would need to distinguish between: (1) the eternal intelligence — uncreated (2) the premortal spirit person/body — organized/begotten by Heavenly Parents (3) the physical body — created in mortality. Is that a fair analysis? What does Joseph Smith's teaching God the Father (of Earth) having a Father mean to you? In what way is that Father the father of Heavenly Father? In what way is that Father the father of Heavenly Mother? Also, in what way is that Father a Grandfather to Jesus and yourself? It seems you use the terms "head God" and "most high God" in the context of only Heavenly Father and his spirit children. Let's go beyond this context for a while. Is God the Father higher than his Father God? Is Heavenly Mother higher than her Father? Is that even a valid question since you haven't identified who her Father and God is? Do you believe Satan is a powerful angelic being? If I'm not mistaken, LDS theology puts the cause on Heavenly Father. It was part of his plan – no fall, no progression. [1] In Doctrines of Salvation, Joseph Fielding Smith stated: "When Adam was sent into this world, it was with the understanding that he would violate a law, transgress a law, in order to bring to pass this mortal condition which we find ourselves in today." This quotation is reproduced in the official LDS Doctrines of the Gospel Student Manual. That's one of the strongest statements for your question because it doesn't merely say God knew Adam would fall. It says Adam was sent into the world "with the understanding that he would" transgress. [2] Brigham Young — God designed that Adam would fall Brigham Young said: "The Lord knew they would do this, and he had designed that they should". The Book of Mormon Student Manual identifies this as Brigham Young, Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 103, and uses it specifically to explain that the Fall was part of Heavenly Father's plan. That's particularly significant because "he had designed that they should" goes beyond merely foreknowing the Fall. [3] Joseph Fielding Smith — the Fall was part of the plan The official LDS Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Fielding Smith says: "It was a part of this great plan, that he should partake of the forbidden fruit and fall..." It then explains that the Fall was an "essential part of man's mortal probation." "Therefore, it became essential to their salvation and to ours that their nature should be changed. The only way it could be changed was by the violation of the law under which they were at that time. Mortality could not come without violation of that law and mortality was essential, a step towards our exaltation. Therefore, Adam partook of the forbidden fruit... It had to be". [4] Bruce R. McConkie / seminary manual "The Fall was a purposeful step in God's plan of salvation." It then cites Joseph Fielding Smith and Brigham Young for the statements above. [5] Russell M. Nelson He likewise taught that Creation, Fall, and Atonement are the three pillars of God's plan. He said that Adam and Eve's partaking of the fruit was necessary for them to become mortal and have children, and concluded: "Adam fell that men might be." The seminary manual presents the Fall as necessary for the plan to be fulfilled. "Ordained to fall" is a fair summary of these statements. No fall, no progression. The Pearl of Great Price Student Manual, under Moses 4:11, quotes Joseph Fielding Smith saying of Adam and Eve, "for it was something that Adam and Eve had to do!" That's why the Latter-day Saints "informed by revelation, celebrate Eve's act and honor her wisdom and courage in the great episode, called the Fall", a quote found in the same manual. God knew Satan would become evil when God created him. Did God make a mistake? I would say no. Are you evil knowing that you want to have children who could potentially become drug addicts or mass murderers and you still decide to have a family? I would say no. Was Satan created as a good or evil being? I would say he was created a good being. Do you believe there was a time when Satan was not evil or that he became evil when he rebelled against God? Do you believe Heavenly Mother and Father made a mistake by forming him into one of their spirit children knowing the evil he would do?

Since it’s for current spending why adjust for inflation? In 2015, baby boomers and the silent generation were spending more of what they spent on entertainment than millennials or Gen X. GI is 1901-1927, silent is 1928-1945, baby boomers 1946-1964, Gen X 1965-1980, millennials 1981-1996.

Inflation adjusted? It would be nice if the AI would add span of birth years next to the generations.

Something like retractable casters would probably be the way to go. I don't see the need to be moving it frequently, but it would be nice to easily accommodate doing so should the need arise. A recessed plate in the floor could also hide the microphone/electrical connections and keep everything nice and clean.

I wanted to add one more thing: The apostle Paul taught that we are all literal offspring of God in Acts 17:28-29 (the Greek word translated as offspring in those verses refers to the "kind" of being, in a literal way), and given the context of his remarks that word cannot be misconstrued to mean that we are merely created by God (as that would totally destroy Paul's main point about not worshipping gods of gold or silver or stone, which are also created things). Given what Paul was teaching in those verses are you saying you believe he meant that we are all literal Gods right now? And remember, this is a Bible teaching, so if you are mocking and ridiculing Paul's teaching that we are all the offspring of God then you are just mocking and ridiculing this Bible teaching.

My immediate reaction was to invoke the idea of progressive revelation and divine accommodation. In many apologetic discussions around slavery and/or the priesthood and temple ban, the idea gets suggested that God temporarily accommodates our human foibles, progressively revealing higher truths to gradually get us to grow out of evil. In a thread whose starting point is the priesthood and temple ban, my example might be slavery which we practiced for thousands of years, somewhere in the 18th century (or thereabouts), enough people started to become uncomfortable enough with the practice that abolition began to become a thing. In fits and starts, we eventually abolish slavery, and we then become more aware of the racism and tribalism that were often the basis of slavery, and we start to question those and seek to eliminate those injustices. Nowadays, as we've largely suppressed overt racism, some are pointing systemic ways that racism might still exist and we debate what, if anything, we should do about it. The main point being that, as we eliminate social injustices, we find ourselves better able to recognize social injustices adjacent to the eliminated injustices and seek to make society progressively more just. Some might even say that this is how God guides humanity to become better. The flip side might be that, as we eliminate one legitimated social injustice, we might imagine up some new injustice that really doesn't exist rather than just be satisfied with our improved state. On short notice, I don't come up with a ready example, but I'm sure it's just a matter of someone thinking about it long enough. The tricky part is in discerning what alleged injustices are truly unjust, and which ones are hyped up to stir up societal unrest. One possible discussion question, then, would be how do we feel about this kind of "progressive revelation?" How do we feel about the notion that God waits for us to recognize injustice rather than outright tell us about it through prophets or scripture? In a church that tends to be conservative, how do we feel about this model of how God slowly and progressively causes us to grow as a people?

They learn what the older generation teaches them. They are targeted as youth and taught the best way to have fun or to be somebody is through possessions and popularity (often through being the first to have whatever) because the older generation wants to make money off of them. The advertising to promote consumerism by businesses (whose owners are often indeed obsessed with making as much money as possible since it would be difficult to use what they already have) makes it difficult to not have the mindset that more is better when that is all that entertainment and many public figures promote. If you want to see hedonistic, go look at the videos many public figures put out on their homes. if the older generation wants a more grateful and less hedonistic younger population, then they the older generation not only needs to model such behaviour themselves, but stop pushing consumerism/materialism, bigger is better, etc. Younger people use less of their spending for entertainment than almost all of the older ones….the oldest ones (“Greatest or GI generation, born 1901-1929) probably have limited mobility and possibly control over their money, so hardly surprising they aren’t spending that much. Generation Entertainment spending Total annual expenditures Entertainment as % of spending Millennials $2,186 $47,113 4.6% Gen X $3,231 $66,981 4.8% Baby Boomers $3,286 $59,646 5.5% Silent $2,276 $42,348 5.4% GI $885 $29,041 3.0% BLS stats pulled up for me by chat

If it’s not elevated, it should be placed on wheels so as to be moved out of the way for other meetings. Or even after the sacrament.

With some gothic organ music playing. We had kids always trying to ride the pull out the very loooong chair dollies that fit under the stage as they got pushed back in…also the problem of hiding in that space….had a few tears when not noticed.

I would like to hear any thoughts you all have about this stuff. The more blessed and prosperous the American Experience grow, the more hedonistic and ungrateful succeeding generations become.

Shoot, I was hoping Box Elder was off the list. And I don't like these others either. Data centers to perform for the help to cure diseases or help humanity, great. But the data centers to create our demise, with Robots or ? coming at us, or hacking our system in order to wipe out our money at our banks etc, will cause us to become helpless and maybe even fight each other for survival. That will be the day I want a little pill and just hopefully meet my maker.

Climate change is real, deal with it. Fossil fuels, not a good idea.

Similar to the more we get the more we want? ETA: I think our world will go backwards and I guess we will not have too much to know what to do with it, our focus will change to survival according to a few YouTubes I've watched.

Imagine a "transformer" podium. After the bishopric announcements are given, the podium recedes backward and downward. Then the ALTAR moves forward and upward. The sacrament hymn begins as the priests get into position to break bread. The bishopric remains visible off to the center left side with a clear view of the proceedings. The ALTAR will be slightly off to the right. The only disadvantage will be wandering little tykes that might get too close to the moving apparatus. Surely kids will want to catch a ride on the rising table. ☠️

Not according to you (posting as theplains): We currently don't have all those attributes, even though we all are (as the Bible says) the same kind of being as God (Acts 17:28-29). Those are attributes that can be obtained through the cleansing power of the atonement of Jesus Christ and by our willingness to follow and emulate him.

You can’t from the opposite side of the chapel. It sits on the floor and back in a little alcove.

I would say the literal offspring of a God is a literal God, albeit less developed. Congrats. You are a God right now.

I think "activism" these days is often quite susceptible to the March of Dimes Syndrome / Mission Creep phenomenon. This includes activism in the Church. Back to the Tierney article: I wonder if activist calls for an apology from the Church are borne of this "March of Dimes Syndrome" mindset. Any progress/success the Church has made/had relative to condemning racism, fostering goodwill, etc. is a threat. In the minds of some activists, they can never declare "mission accomplished." Mission Creep happens. "So activists have moved the goalposts once again." Yep. If the Church were to issue a formal institutional apology, would self-appointed "activists" accept it and move on? Or would they deem it insufficient, move the goalposts, and demand more? Yeah, the SPLC has really had a lot of mission creep. I can't help but wonder if some of the activists calling for the Church to issue an apology see Mission Creep not as a bug, but as a feature. That is, these folks want the Church to issue an apology so that they can, in true "Mission Creep" style and form, deem the apology insufficient, move the goalposts, and demand more. And the "more" would, in my view, almost certainly - and perhaps almost immediately - take us to demands that the Church "apologize" for the Law of Chastity, for its prohibitions against same-sex behavior, for its past opposition to same-sex marriage, for its current non-recognition (in an ecclesiastical sense) of same-sex marriages, and so on. And I think the calls would not stop at just an apology, but for alteration of the Church's doctrines, so as to ratify same-sex marriages, to allow temple sealings between persons of the same sex, to allow same-sex behavior, etc. Additionally or alternatively, I wonder if this is a pretext for calling for women to be ordained to the priesthood. And perhaps disavowals of claims to prophetic/priesthood authority, the Book of Mormon, and so on. The Tierney article goes on to explain a third label for this phenomenon (in addition to "March of Dimes Syndrome," mentioned in the article, and "Mission Creep," commented on by me) : "'The more things improve, the louder become the exclamations about their badness.'" Might this be said about the Church since 1978? "First is the negativity effect, or the brain’s innate bias to pay more attention to the negative than the positive." Might this be in play relative to how some folks treat the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? "As the world gets better—as people become richer, better educated, and longer-lived—we find new things to worry about and have more disposable income and free time to spend curing humanity’s woes, real or imagined." Again, are black people in the Church better off now than they were in 1978? If so, why is it that folks of an "activist" bent seem fixated on characterizing the Church in the worst possible ways? Further to the foregoing evaluation of the "March of Dimes Syndrome" and "Mission Creep" and the seeming paradox in play ("As the world gets better—as people become richer, better educated, and longer-lived—we find new things to worry about and have more disposable income and free time to spend curing humanity’s woes, real or imagined"), I just recently came across another term: The Tocqueville Effect From Wikipedia: I would like to hear any thoughts you all have about this stuff. Thanks, -Smac

Based solely on the diagram: uncertain. But my suspicion is that they wouldn't place it on an elevated platform because then you would have to deal with additional accessibility concerns.