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Here's another channel from a person I know personally. He is Austin Falter, and he was a member of my old ward in the US, and for a couple of years was my home-teaching companion before he went to serve his mission. Austin has also shown up in some other LDS-related YouTube channels, such as Ward Radio. Austin's dad Daren was my family's home teacher (along with Austin's younger brother) during the time I lost my wife to cancer and helped me cope with that event.

Here's a relatively new LDS-related channel called LDS Teaching Toolbox. This one is kind of special to me because the man behind the channel, Timothy Laine Carver, was a missionary in my own mission when I served in the Central German Mission, later called the Germany Düsseldorf Mission, and no now longer a mission. We did not serve as companions, but were for a time in the same missionary district in the city of Wuppertal, Germany. Here's the channel's most recent video:

All terrestrial and telestial inhabitants do not receive a fulness of joy even though their spirit and body are joined together eternally – not even those in the two lower divisions of the celestial kingdom have it. "Fulness of joy" and "eternal life" seem to be different things, and it's only reserved for exalted beings. "Neither is it enough to be a good, solid citizen, contributing to charities, serving on community boards, and in general living a good Christian life. Although commendable, this is not sufficient to entitle one to the fulness of joy and the eternal life that our Father in heaven has promised to those who love him and keep his commandments" (January 1975, New Era, Just for Today, President N. Eldon Tanner). Becoming a god (God) precedes obtaining a fulness of joy. Both Father and Mother obtained their fulness of joy. The LDS Father did not have a fulness of joy until he passed all his tests and became a God. "We learned that if we placed our faith in him, obeying his word and following his example, we would be exalted and become like our heavenly parents. We would receive a fulness of joy … We can be exalted as God is and receive a fulness of joy … If we passed our tests, we would receive the fulness of joy that our heavenly parents have received … Blessings of Exaltation: They will become gods. They will receive a fulness of joy" (Gospel Principles, 1997). The LDS Father is not always a God (in a state of godhood) before he fully progresses. "The progression of our Father in heaven to godhood, or exaltation, was strictly in accordance with eternal principles" (Achieving a Celestial Marriage manual). And none of this has anything to do with what I said in my last post about exaltation, which is that it is “the kind of life God lives”. But you reject the idea that some being progressed beyond what he was before and became a God then Father. This all goes back to how you define “God”. God the Father has always been the most advanced, the most intelligent, the “most high” of all other spirits regardless of the other things he did that were like what Jesus did. What I reject is the idea that this does not make him “God” in some sense, for no other being could compare to him. Yes. God the Father is above all the gods of the Greeks, Romans, Hindus, etc. What about Jesus? I asked about Jesus. According to the Bible, God the Father is the very God and Father of Jesus Christ (John 20:17, Romans 15:6, 1 Corinthians 11:3, 2 Corinthians 11:31, Ephesians 1:3, Ephesians 1:17; Hebrews 1:8-9, 1 Peter 1:3, Revelation 3:12), and Jesus is even said to be eternally subject to the Father (1 Corinthians 15:28). Do you believe that Heavenly Father is a higher God than Jesus like the Bible teaches? Or do you reject those Bible teachings too? As for the gods of the Greeks and Romans, those are false gods. They are “nothing” (according to the Bible). God is not a God of “nothing”. He is not a God of fictional characters. That would be like saying God is the God of the Easter Bunny and Santa Clause. It is demeaning and disrespectful to God to classify him that way, because anyone (me, you, or your dog) can be the “god” to fictional characters that don’t exist. But the Bible truth is that God is the God of other “gods” that exist in reality, “God is God of gods, and Lord of lords, a great God, a mighty, and a terrible” (Deuteronomy 10:17). A God of fictional characters is not mighty or terrible.

I checked your links but I see no place where you address the fact that you believe Joseph Smith, in his King Follett discourse, was really saying that "God was not OUR God (OUR Father) from all eternity" as opposed to "God was not God from all eternity". Remember, your question to me was this: In every one of the posts I linked above, I quoted the portion of the King Follet Discourse that addresses that question. Here’s a quote from my post on 10/30/2022: “Joseph Smith taught "what kind of being God is" and how he got to be the way he is, a being who created worlds, a being who created man in his own image. He described it this way: "The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits." Here’s a quote from my post on 11/10/2022: “And God the Father has always been above all others. How he came to be our God is explained in the statement from Joseph Smith that I quoted just a few posts ago (here) : “The first principles of man are self-existent with God. God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory, because he was more intelligent, saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself. The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge. He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits.” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, p. 354) "That is how God came to be our God.” And in my post on 11/11/2022 I reposted what I said above, and added: “Repeating what I said above, ‘God the Father has always been above all others.’ How he came to be our God was in our relationship to him, and him providing a way for us to advance and become like him. That is the way Joseph Smith taught it in his sermon.” I could post the same thing from the other posts (and others). This was all in direct response to the same question you asked me above. The God of the Bible has eternal increase, so why wouldn’t you accept that? Otherwise, what is God’s point in creating the earth? The “how God came to be our God” part is all contained in the same sermon. It was the focus of Joseph Smith’s overall teaching. Read or listen to the entire sermon in context. Joseph Smith explained it right within the same sermon. Do I need to quote it again? Let me break it down for you, phrase by phrase: “The first principles of man are self-existent with God” : Our spirits are self-existent with God. We were with God in the beginning of his plan. “God himself, finding he was in the midst of spirits and glory…” : God had more glory than others and he implemented a plan for the other spirits. “because he was more intelligent” : God was the most intelligent of all others, eternally so. This puts him in the position to be the “most high” of all others, always and forever. He has always been “God” in that sense. “saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself” : God the Father instituted the laws, nobody else did that. God the Father didn’t inherit those laws from some other God, he is the lawgiver. “The relationship we have with God places us in a situation to advance in knowledge” : We entered a relationship with God, this is where God became “our God”. “He has power to institute laws to instruct the weaker intelligences, that they may be exalted with himself, so that they might have one glory upon another, and all that knowledge, power, glory, and intelligence, which is requisite in order to save them in the world of spirits." : Because God is love, he wanted others to have the same knowledge and experiences that he has. God offered this plan to the spirits that were self-existent with him. It’s perfectly clear to me anyway. I understand that to be your belief, but believing that only God is self-existent is a doctrine that contradicts the Bible teaching that we are all the same “kind” of being as God (Acts 17:28-29). I prefer to believe the Bible doctrine rather than traditions that were developed later. That's self serving – a being, eternally existing as maybe intelligence, without a spirit or physical body, institutes laws by which he advances into becoming a God. You never show from scripture where some being instituted laws to become a God before he becomes a Father. How is it “self serving” for a God who loves others so much that he wants them to have the same experiences that he has and provides a way for them to receive everything that he has? And can you show me from the Bible what God the Father did before he created this earth? You can’t. The Bible doesn’t talk about that. No doubt you have some belief that you hold about what he was doing, but you can’t demonstrate any of it from scripture. We’ve already been through the verses that say, “from age to age thou art God” (like Psalm 90:2), but those don’t prove what you are thinking. I can show you from Latter-day Saint scripture where God has been creating “worlds without number”, but other than that we aren’t given any other details. Nor can you ever claim to receive “eternal life” that Jesus is offering us by the same line of reasoning. It’s really not “eternal life” because (as you believe) you didn’t have it eternally. But this shouldn't be an issue to you, since the Bible never refers to Jesus as the "Eternal God". The Book of Mormon does in several places, however. The fact that some taught that men could become gods or Gods doesn't make it true It wasn’t just “some men” who taught that men can become gods or Gods, it was the “heavy hitters” like St. Clement of Rome, St. Justin Martyr, St. Irenaeus of Lyons, Theophilus of Antioch, St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Hippolytus of Rome, Origen (Highly regarded as one of the most influential Christian theologians), St. Cyprian, St. Athanasius of Alexandria, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Augustine of Hippo, that all taught that men become gods in no uncertain terms. This is the widespread foundation of the teachings of the early Christian Fathers. The bottom line? “Christian” doctrine has changed through the years. It used to be one thing, now it’s something completely different. The difference here is that the earliest Christians taught that men become “Gods” far and wide, independently of one another. They didn’t get it from interpreting the words of one person in different ways, they received it as part of their basic teachings from the earliest time. Latter-day Saint leaders, on the other hand, were often trying to interpret some things that one scribe recorded (incorrectly in some respects) of a sermon that Joseph Smith gave without access to the original source, and with the assumption that what was first published of the sermon was an accurate account of what Joseph Smith said. This was not the case for the early Christian Fathers teaching that men can become gods. See above where I explained the difference. I believe they misinterpreted what these verses mean: Of course you do. Christian teachings have changed drastically since the first three centuries AD, and they have needed to reinterpret scripture to fit the modern teachings and ignore others, like the Biblical teaching that we are all the same “kind” of being as God (we are the very génos of God - Acts 17:28-29). They might say that you are the one misinterpreting what those verses mean. Is God the Father (the Father of the Gods as you say above) also the Father of Heavenly Mother (believed to be a God herself)? You didn’t answer the question I asked last time. I’ll ask it again: I quoted Joseph Smith directly. Joseph Smith emphasized that God the Father is the “head God” at least eight times in the King Follet Sermon, calling him “the head, the Father of the Gods”. He taught that he was “more intelligent” and “saw proper to institute laws whereby the rest could have a privilege to advance like himself”. Where is there any room in those statements for the idea that God has a God above him like you are asserting? I already addressed that sermon in great detail, and you didn’t even bother to read my responses, so why should I bother repeating myself again? I’ll just cut and paste things all over again. But I’m getting tired of the fact that you ignore my responses and pretend like we didn’t ever discuss this. Why should I respond to you at all in the future? See my recent post on 07/27/2026 where you quoted the same thing while posting as telnetd, which refers back to my post on 05/26/2025 where I addressed that sermon in detail. During the Sermon in the Grove, Thomas Bullock recorded Joseph Smith saying the following (right before the part that you quoted above): “I want to reason— I learned it by translating the papyrus now in my house—I learned a test. concerning Abraham & he reasoned concerng. the God of Heaven— in order to do that s[ai]d. he— suppose we have two facts that supposes that anor. fact may exist two men on the earth— one wiser that the other— wod. shew that anor. who is wiser than the wisest may exist— intelligences exist one above anor. that there is no end to it” The problem with this record is that it directly contradicts the source that Joseph Smith is said to be referencing. Bullock records that the “two facts” are that there may always be one that is wiser than the wisest (which is logically impossible, or otherwise the wisest is not really the wisest). And he also says that there is no end to intelligences existing one above another. But Abraham 3:18–22 says the following: 18 … if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal. 19 And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all. …. 21 I dwell in the midst of them all; I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to declare unto thee the works which my hands have made, wherein my wisdom excelleth them all, for I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, in all wisdom and prudence, over all the intelligences thine eyes have seen from the beginning; I came down in the beginning in the midst of all the intelligences thou hast seen. So, the “two facts” stated in the book of Abraham are that there is one who is the wisest and the most intelligent than all others, and that being is the Lord God. And it is the eternal existence of intelligences that have “no end”, because they have no beginning and no end, not that there is no end to them existing one above another as the Bullock notes indicate. So, Thomas Bullock gets it wrong. Furthermore, to re-quote what I said to you posting as telned: I see from Thomas Bullock’s notes of that sermon that the discussion of God the Father having a father was in the context of God the Father’s mortal experience on an earth. His notes show that the statements about God the Father having a “father” are immediately followed by “I want you to pay particular attention to what I am saying. Jesus said that the Father wrought precisely in the same way as His Father had done before Him”. In other words, Bullock’s notes indicate that God the Father’s “father” would have been either his earthly father when he was born into mortality, or that God the Father (as the head of all other Gods) would have appointed some other God to produce him in the same way that Jesus came into mortality. But Bullock also seems to have repeated himself in part of those notes, so it’s hard to tell if Joseph Smith was restating something for emphasis, or if Bullock recorded it incorrectly, or if he did get it correct, we need further information and context to draw any conclusions with certainty. Joseph Smith referred to him as the “head of the Gods”, not me. I was quoting Joseph Smith. I’ll respond to these questions as soon as you answer this question: What exactly was God the Father doing on August 9, 100 billion B.C.? Be specific. (And it wasn't a Sabbath day). I don't agree with Lactantius teaching Jesus Christ is the "Second God". Of course you don’t. Christian teachings have changed drastically since then, and you go with the modern interpretations. Neither of those verses say that Jesus created Satan. And John 1:3 includes the stipulation that without Jesus “was not anything made that was made.” In other words, Jesus didn’t make anything that was not “made”, like the spirits that existed with God in the beginning (they are called the “sons of God” and “morning stars” in Job 38:7), and the Bible teaches us that humans are the same “kind” of being as God (the génos of God - Acts 17:28-29). We need to include all the Bible teachings on this topic, not just a few here or there.

I am sure that the people writing your outrage porn will say there are a lot of them no matter how many there actually are. So no need to be curious.

Not a report. That is just taking their word for it on everything and even their side of the story has holes you could drive a large truck through. Then again this kind of report isn’t around to inform. It is there to generate hatred. No one will follow the case or change their mind if it turns out to be without merit.

The Book of Mormon does indeed assert the reality of original sin as a doctrinal concept, one that’s very similar to the original sin doctrine of the Catholic Church. Where the Latter-Day Saints part company with the Catholics on this point is we believe that the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ mitigates the utterly destructive spiritual and temporal effects of the fall, and does so by mercifully allowing every member of the human family to be endowed at birth with the indwelling and uplifting light of Christ so that each individual isn’t left utterly bereft of a spiritual connection with God While it’s true that the Book of Mormon does indeed testify that the fall, standing alone, would have left man in a state of total spiritual depravity, it’s just as true it testifies that thanks to the atonement of Christ the totally destructive spiritual effects of the fall are mitigated to the point that all accountable humans are free to utilize the inner light of Christ consciousness to freely choose good over evil. This means that while the fall would have truly been the worst possible calamity that could possibly befall the children of men, nevertheless, thanks to the atonement of Christ the fallen state is transformed into a wisely designed proving ground in which men and women are able to freely choose between good and evil and follow Christ on the covenant path to glory. Anything less than this makes God an unfeeling monster. 6 For as death hath passed upon all men, to fulfil the merciful plan of the great Creator, there must needs be a power of resurrection, and the resurrection must needs come unto man by reason of the fall; and the fall came by reason of transgression; and because man became fallen they were cut of from the presence of the Lord. 7 Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement—save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man must needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more. 8 O the wisdom of God, his mercy and grace! For behold, if the flesh should rise no more our spirits must become subject to that angel who fell from before the presence of the Eternal God, and became the devil, to rise no more. 9 And our spirits must have become like unto him, and we become devils, angels to a devil, to be shut out from the presence of our God, and to remain with the father of lies, in misery, like unto himself; yea, to that being who beguiled our first parents, who transformeth himself nigh unto an angel light, and strirreth up the children of men unto secret combinations of murder and all manner of secret works of darkness. 10 O how great the goodness of our God, who prepareth a way for our escape from the grasp of this awful monster; yea, that monster, death and hell, which I call the death of the body, and also the death of the spirit. 11 And because of the way of deliverance of our God, the Holy One of Israel, this death, of which I have spoken, which is the temporal, shall deliver up its dead; which death is the grave. (2 Nephi 9)

I love that movie. The book that Lovell wrote about the experience is really good too.

A compilation of the Nauvoo temple records can be found at https://archive.org/details/nauvoo-sealings-adoptions-and-anointings/. It is a really fascinating document. It lists all of the people who received their endowments, all of the sealings, and who they were sealed to (including both proxy and non-proxy). So, if we are going with contemporary documents, there is no evidence that Augusta was married/sealed to Brigham before 1846 either. If we go by the earliest contemporary evidence (the Nauvoo Temple sealings), she is quite late, being sealed in Feb 2 and over a dozen being sealed earlier in January. By the way, Augusta was actually sealed to Joseph Smith. Brigham stood in proxy for Joseph. So Augusta and Brigham were sealed for time only (that is how the sealings worked back then for proxy sealings). You can see that in the "Nauvoo Sealings, Adoptions, and Anointings". Augusta is listed under Joseph and Brigham as a wife. When Augusta went to Nauvoo the first time (1843), there is no contemporaneous evidence that she did it to marry Brigham. She arrived in Nauvoo in October 1843. She traveled back to Boston in August 1844 and then back to Nauvoo in November 1845. http://www.connellodonovan.com/essex_mormons.pdf The first evidence is 1846 in the Nauvoo Temple sealings. Then we get letters from her talking about her sister wives. Then we have a divorce case between Augusta and Henry Cobb where he alleges that she committed adultery with Brigham in August 1844. Then we get a "tell-all" book written by Catherine Lewis (1848 https://archive.org/details/CatherineLewisNarrative/page/n1/mode/2up) that says that Augusta told Catherine about polygamy when Augusta returned to Boston (so 1844-1845). Our evidence that she was married in 1843 is her affidavit from 1869. That is also where we get Lucy Ann Decker's marriage date. So if we don't accept one, then I don't see why we should accept the other. Without that affidavit, she is maybe married by August 1844 (per her divorce case) which would put her further down the line. I don't see why Lucy Ann Decker being married to her husband would have a factor in this since Augusta was also still married to her husband. They both have that. We can't say that Lucy got married later but not say the same thing about Augusta. They both were definitely sealed by 1846 to Brigham and apparently Lucy's earlier marriage date was actually written in the Nauvoo temple records. https://www.dialoguejournal.com/articles/determining-and-defining-wife-the-brigham-young-households/ says that but it is really hard to get access to the Nauvoo temple records so no way to prove it.

Okay so, I did some more digging and I discovered that Brigham Young's marriage to Lucy Ann Decker was not recorded until 1846 -- it was recorded as an 1842 marriage, but the record itself was not actually made until the year 1846. I think you might be able to find it in the Nauvoo 1846 temple records here: https://www.familysearch.org/en/search/catalog/285774 Since there wasn't any evidence before the martyrdom that they were married pre-martyrdom, those who espouse the narrative that Brigham Young introduced polygamy consider such back dates to be fabricated, or at least without proper evidence. We have contemporary evidence that Augusta Cobb, before the martyrdom, followed Brigham to Nauvoo to be a plural wife (but we find out from her letters later that Brigham forbid her to speak to Joseph Smith) so that would be why those who don't believe Brigham Young to disregard when he later said a marriage date was. Another piece of evidence against the LDS narrative was that Lucy Ann Decker was still married to her first husband William Seeley in 1842 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Brigham_Young's_wives), so that makes the back-dated marriage claim to Brigham Young a lot less credible too. I also found that even though no sealing record was made until 1846, they were definitely in a relationship earlier, as she gave birth to their first child together on June 19, 1845, (https://ancestors.familysearch.org/en/KWJH-DJZ/lucy-ann-decker-1822-1891) about a year after the martyrdom, but that still doesn't date their relationship as being before the martyrdom by any contemporary evidence, as Augusta's was. So as a whole, those who don't ascribe to Brigham Young's narrative of polygamy also don't necessarily ascribe to the LDS church's given dates when certain polygamous events happened either. I guess it would be great if there were to be a narrative timeline put together of the two sides so each side's proposed chain of events and their differences could be compared side-by-side, but I've never seen anyone put something together like that.

It's a trend, usually relying on revisionist history. No real historian doubts the established origin. Just a lot of internet warriors. Whether it's commanded by God is a matter of faith.

Firstly, you are confused by how we use the term "original sin". The Church has not changed its doctrine on this topic, it has always maintained a distinction between the consequences of the Fall and innate moral guilt/taint of humanity. When leaders use traditional Christian vocabulary, like "original sin" or "taint", to describe physical mortality and spiritual separation, they wouldn't be ignoring that the Book of Mormon rejects the concept of inherited moral guilt and infant damnation. Nor that the Second Article of Faith also explicitly rejects inherited moral guilt, "We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression." In classical Roman Catholicism or Calvinism, "Original Sin" carries two components. One, the physical/spiritual consequences of the Fall (mortality, physical pain, spiritual separation from God, inclination toward sin). Two, the inherited moral guilt/depravity (the idea that infants inherit the blame and corrupted nature of Adam's transgression, making them inherently sinful at birth and subject to damnation unless baptized). Therefore, Joseph Fielding Smith and Charles W. Penrose used the term "original sin" were strictly referring to the physical and spiritual consequences of the Fall. They defined the penalty of the Fall as physical death and spiritual death. The "taint" refers to inheriting mortality, physical weakness, and exposure to a fallen world, not inherited moral guilt. Penrose directly noted in the quote you provided that Christ's atonement covers original sin unconditionally. Because no individual is morally guilty for Adam's act, Christ automatically overcomes physical death and spiritual death without infant baptism. President Russell M Nelson and Church manuals state that the Book of Mormon refutes "original sin," they are rejecting inherited moral guilt and infant depravity. Traditional Christians historically argued that because infants possess "original sin," unbaptized infants who die cannot enter heaven or are subject to damnation. LDS doctrine rejects "original sin" due to historical baggage implying that infants are born guilty or unclean before God, modern LDS teachings generally avoid using the phrase altogether to prevent confusion with mainstream theology. Are you certain you are wanting to argue against the Church, over what is clearly a petty issue over theological precision and definitions, to the defend a theology where unbaptized babies are born guilty and spiritually damned?

That kind of strengthens my issue with the site. If WomenStats has the data, why not show it vs show a completely unrelated chart from World Bank. I'm not looking for a country-by-country chart. A chart 2 with two lines would be enough. 1 line for non-polygamous countries and 1 line for polygamous countries. And then I'd love an actual list of what are the polygamous countries. Because if they aren't looking at legality but are looking at prevelance, than that could mean the US could be included as we have a decent amount of polyamorous relationships. Since I can't tell exactly what the website is arguing and because I can easily find data that refutes how I read the arguments, it makes me not trust it. Because it feels like it is cherry-picking its data or the author isn't actually drilling into the data. I found a maps page in WomenStats that shows all the countries on the 1-5 scale One thing that is interesting is that US is yellow so is it polygamous or not? Depends on if we are only looking at the ones orange/red or if we also are including the yellow. I can see that Angola is marked with a 4 (I'm giving 1 to the dark green and 5 to the dark red). But so is Bahrain. So, if "polygamous countries" are all 4 and 5s, then the statement is false. But if polygamous countries are only 5s, then why did the website mention Haiti since that is a 4 (you have to zoom in but it is an orange color)? I also went through several of the red countries (the ones that are definitely "polygamous countries" by WomenStats) and Burkina Faso has been declining its extreme poverty. I also went through some of the green ones (definitely not polygamous) and found Kosovo which has increased its extreme poverty and been bouncing around at a higher level since 2016. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY?end=2022&locations=XK-BF-HT&most_recent_value_desc=true&start=1994&view=chart has Haiti, Kosovo, and Burkina Faso If the author of the website had instead said something like "Most polygamous countries are not declining in extreme poverty", than it would be fine. But the author is using an absolute ("every"). The data they are using doesn't use those absolutes.

What year did the church (LDS) decide that this "truth" was now false? Two significant leaders taught it, President Joseph Fielding Smith and Charles Penrose, counselor in the First Presidency. “It is most natural and just that he who commits the wrong should pay the penalty—atone for his wrongdoing. Therefore, when Adam was the transgressor of the law, justice demanded that he, and none else, should answer for the sin and pay the penalty with his life. But Adam, in breaking the law, himself became subject to the curse, and being under the curse could not atone, or undo what he had done. Neither could his children, for they also were under the curse, and it required one who was not subject to the curse to atone for that original sin. Moreover, since we were all under the curse, we were also powerless to atone for our individual sins” (JFS, Chapter 3). "There are two general divisions of sin, viz., original and actual. Original sin is that which was committed by the parents of the race, the consequences of which pass upon all of their posterity. Actual sin is that committed by each individual and for which he is personally responsible. Adam and Eve broke the divine law given to them in the garden, the penalty for which was death, natural and spiritual ; the first being the separation of the spirit and the body, and the second, banishment from the presence of God. The taint descended to their offspring" (Penrose, Mormon Doctrine Plain and Simple, Second Leaf, page 13). "He died not only to atone for original sin but for actual sin, and to become the mediator between God and man ... His blood was shed for the sins of the whole world. For original sin unconditionally, for actual sin conditionally" (page 14). The concept of "original sin" was then referred to as foolish, abominable, and erroneous in other teachings (Book of Mormon Seminary Teacher Manual and the June 2006 Liahona). One other teaching even says "The Book of Mormon refutes notions that the Fall of Adam tainted mankind with original sin" (President Russell M. Nelson, November 2017 Ensign). The Book of Mormon does teach this "tainting" aspect (Mosiah 16:3-4; Helaman 14:16; Ether 3:2). Even little children need to have the curse of Adam removed from them (Moroni 8:8). Original sin, rephrased as original guilt, is also mentioned in the POGP. "Hence came the saying abroad among the people, that the Son of God hath atoned for original guilt, wherein the sins of the parents cannot be answered upon the heads of the children, for they are whole from the foundation of the world" (Moses 6:54). The first instance of these parents is Adam and Eve, referred to as sinners (Alma 42:1-7). The Roman Catholic Church, in catechism, teaches baptism removes original sin and all personal sin and makes the person a new creature (CCC 1263, 1265, 1267, 1272, 1279).

Would you be ok with live performances requiring parents to be present if a minor is viewing the performance? Or do you think the state is in a better position to know and understand the children of their own parents.

Apollo XIII, is on my list of 100 favourite films. And like Kenngo, I watch every time on TV.

Apollo XIII, yet again. There are certain movies I'll watch any time they are on no matter how many times I might have seen them previously, and this is one of them. A few memorable moments: Blanche Lovell, Apollo XIII mission commander Jim Lovell's mother, who tells one of her worried granddaughters, "Don't you worry, Honey. If they could build a washing machine that could fly, my Jimmy could land it." When someone from the NASA press office has a disagreement with Jim Lovell's wife, Marilyn, she says emphatically [although the return of the astronauts is very much up in the air at this point], "You can take that up with my husband when he gets home!" Before the astronauts' departure on their mission, a reporter asks Jim Lovell about times he'd been in tight spots in the military, and he describes an occasion in which he was trying to find his way while flying a mission on a pitch black night with no points of reference when suddenly, all of the electronics on his aircraft cut out [including lights]. Only then [in the total darkness, and, in fact, because of the total darkness] was he able to see a ship below him because it churned up fluorescent algae in its wake, giving him a reference point to find his bearings. He tells the reporter, "So, uh, you uh, never know what events are to transpire to get you home."

Ouch!?! Eww!?! -Smac

Right, so the data analyzing overall GDP was country-by-country, and like all of the other WomenStats data, each country was "rated" on a five-point scale from least polygamous to most polygamous, with more factors taken into account than just whether or not polygamy was legal in a country or not. -- When I looked up the WomanStats project online just now, I saw that it was actually started by BYU, which I hadn't known: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WomanStats_Project I presume a greater factor involved in marking whether a country is very polygamous or not would be prevalence. I didn't know anything specific about Angola, but my wikipedia search just now says that even though polygamous marriages aren't legally recognized in Angola, they are very common, "Although polygamy is officially illegal in Angola, the practice is known to be widely socially acceptable and very prevalent among the Angolan population." Apparently polygamy is less prevalent in Bahrain, even though it is legal there: "Like many nations in the Muslim world, polygyny is legal in Bahrain. However, according to the Bahrain Center for Human Rights' write-up on women's rights in Bahrain at the present time, polygamy is only practiced by a minority of Bahraini citizens" The graph of course, even though it is by location, is by continent/region, not country like the WomanStats data, so it's a general visual showing overall performance of regions, with the more polygamous "regions" of the world showing to have significantly more extreme poverty. I understand that you would perhaps prefer to see a graph detailed country-by-country as that would of course be more accurate, but to me it still works to show the overall trend that the more polygamous parts of the world are the more impoverished parts of the world. The actual WomanStats data is much more nuanced than "polygamous" or "monogamous" and "impoverished" or "not impoverished", due to the five-point rating, and it shows that the 170 countries that they measured followed this scale, but all that might be more difficult to put into one graph unless the graph were to be interactive. All of the data for the WomenStats project is online so you can look it up there: https://www.womanstats.org/mobile/index.html — I don't happen to have an account there myself.

Ouch!?!

The presence of sexual content on television, streaming, and in movies is a real issue, and parental control over it is often imperfect. That does not resolve the narrower question raised by the Florida statute. The law does not attempt to regulate every form of sexual imagery minors might encounter. It restricts knowingly admitting a child to a commercial live performance that meets a specific three-part test: it predominantly appeals to a prurient interest, is patently offensive to prevailing standards regarding what is suitable for the child’s age, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for that age. That is the longstanding obscenity-as-to-minors standard. I keep saying this because it seems to not be getting much attention: Live, in-person commercial performances differ from mediated content in important ways. Parents can more readily limit or supervise what comes into the home through ratings, parental controls, and device settings. A commercial venue that knowingly admits children to a qualifying adult live performance is a different setting—one the law has long treated as subject to age-based restrictions. It may be that, historically, existing rules were largely effective at keeping children out of traditional adult venues such as strip clubs. In recent years, however, some venues have sought to present sexually explicit live performances in settings that are specifically intended to include children. The newer statute responds to that development by applying a clear, neutral standard to all qualifying adult live performances, regardless of the identity or orientation of the performers. It is not limited to any one type of event. Pointing to the broader problem of media exposure does not make a targeted limit on certain live performances incoherent. We already accept many age-based rules without first requiring that every other avenue of similar content be eliminated. The question is whether this particular restriction is justified on its own terms. The distinction is not simply “live versus filmed.” The statute targets a specific conduct: knowingly admitting a child to a commercial live performance that meets the obscenity-as-to-minors test. That is different from the separate (and imperfect) systems that already exist for broadcast, streaming, and theatrical films—ratings, parental controls, time-slot restrictions, and the practical ability of parents to limit what enters the home. Whether a particular drag show or Pride-related performance is more or less explicit than a given movie or television scene is a factual question that varies case by case, and in the end is immaterial. The statute does not depend on a blanket ranking of entire categories. It asks whether the specific live performance, taken as a whole, meets the three-part standard for material that is unsuitable for the child’s age. Some will; many will not. Broadcasting raises different issues under different legal frameworks. The statute at issue does not regulate broadcasting, and hypothetical questions about what would be permitted if the same content were only televised do not determine whether a state may set age limits on admitting children to qualifying live commercial performances. Those are separate regulatory domains, just as age limits on entering an adult club are separate from rules governing what may air on television. In short, the law draws a line around a particular commercial setting and a particular act (knowingly admitting a child). It does not require proving that every other form of sexual content is more restrained, nor does it turn on whether the same material would be treated identically if it appeared only on a screen. Thanks, -Smac

What is it specifically that you have seen happen at a drag show or a pride parade that makes you feel like the government should regulate it any more than it regulates explicit sexual acts, nudity and much more blatant immoral beavior in movies and on TV that is broadcast into homes of minors and are difficult for parents to control. After all, parents can choose to attend a drag show or pride parade with their children, but have a much more difficult time controlling what their children see in movies and on TV. Is the only difference is that drag shows and pride parades parents can make the choice and easily control what their children view as opposed to the graphic sex scenes and full frontal nudity that regularly occur in the movies and TV is that one is live and one is filmed???? Would you be ok with drag shows and pride parades being broadcast? Do you think that drag shows and pride parades are more explicit than nudity and sex shown on TV and movies? Could a drag show simulate sex acts as long as it was broadcasted?

I'd be happy to evaluate whatever analysis it was that led you to this conclusion. If so, doesn't that cut against the "Hey, this new statute is unnecessary because we already had one that covers this stuff" argument? I think there are plenty of heterosexual people who are prosecuted under obscenity laws, child-endangerment laws, and so on. Plenty of white people too. Plenty of Christians as well. Criminal statutes with differentiated application based on sexual orientation or race or religion would be unconstitutional. The Florida statute does not do any of that. The relevant decision is from the en banc Eleventh Circuit (not the Eighth), which vacated the preliminary injunction against Florida’s statute. The majority held that the law tracks the longstanding “obscenity-as-to-minors” standard recognized by the Supreme Court: material that, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest of minors, is patently offensive under contemporary community standards regarding what is suitable for minors, and lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for minors. The court rejected the claims that the statute was unconstitutionally overbroad or vague and concluded the challenger was unlikely to succeed on the merits. Obscenity—including material that is obscene as to minors—is not protected speech under the First Amendment. That is settled doctrine, not an “imagined” exception invented for this case. The statute does not ban every drag performance or every Pride-related event, nor are "straight" performances/events exempted from it. Instead, the statute restricts knowingly admitting a child to any live performance that meets the statutory criteria above. On parental rights, again, they are fundamental, but they have never been treated as an absolute trump card that disables every age-based restriction on commercial exposure of minors to sexual content. Neither Supreme Court nor circuit precedent in Florida requires a parental-consent exception for regulations of material that is obscene as to minors. States already limit minors’ access to certain live entertainment, alcohol, tobacco, and other categories without first proving that every parent would make the same choice. The “persecution of groups who aren’t straight-white Christians” framing converts a content-based restriction (tied to sexual explicitness relative to the child’s age) into a claim of viewpoint or identity-based targeting. The statutory text applies to any qualifying adult live performance regardless of the performers’ identities. Whether particular shows meet the criteria is a factual question; the constitutional validity of the underlying standard is what the en banc court addressed. In sum, the appellate ruling does not treat the speech as categorically protected, does not treat parental preference as automatically controlling, and does not rest on the identity-based persecution narrative. It rests on the obscenity-as-to-minors doctrine. Thanks, -Smac

What "other reasons" do you have in mind? Again, parental rights are important and broad, but they are not unlimited. The rights and interests of the child, and of society, may also play a role in justifying state intervention. I don't think "take over parental control" is accurate. Parental rights exist, but they have always had some constraints. I have previously provided extensive examples of sexually explicit behavior at drag shows, Pride parades, etc. which I find to be problematic, particularly in relation to children. Florida and other states have long allowed non-sexual social nudity in designated private settings such as AANR-affiliated resorts and certain clothing-optional venues. Those places operate under an explicit legal exception for nudity “in any place provided or set apart for that purpose,” and AANR clubs emphasize a family-friendly, non-sexual code of conduct. Simple nudity in that context is not treated as indecent exposure. The Florida statute at issue is narrower. It does not ban all nudity around minors, nor does it ban every Pride parade or every drag performance. It prohibits knowingly admitting a child to an “adult live performance” that depicts or simulates nudity, sexual conduct, sexual excitement, specific sexual activities, lewd conduct, or lewd exposure of prosthetic/imitation genitals or breasts when the performance, taken as a whole: Predominantly appeals to a prurient, shameful, or morbid interest; Is patently offensive to prevailing adult community standards regarding what is suitable for the age of the child present; and Lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value for the age of the child present. That is the longstanding “obscenity-as-to-minors” standard. It targets sexualized performances aimed at adult audiences, not ordinary social nudity or non-sexual public events. A family nudist resort where people of all ages are, it is argued, simply unclothed in a non-sexual recreational setting is not the same thing as a commercial show that includes simulated sexual acts, exaggerated sexualized dancing, or other content designed to appeal to adult sexual interests. I have some personal reservations about these things, but we live in a pluralistic society. In any event, the law already draws that kind of distinction in many areas (public indecency, age-restricted entertainment, material harmful to minors). Treating every instance of nudity as equivalent to every sexually explicit live performance collapses a distinction the law has maintained for a long time. I’m not “railing against” all LGBT events. The question is whether the state may set age limits on commercial live performances that meet the statutory criteria for being unsuitable for children. Florida’s statute attempts to do exactly that. Whether particular shows cross the line is a fact-specific question; the principle that some adult-oriented sexual performances can be restricted for minors is not novel. You are pointing to a legitimate issue: a great deal of sexual content is available to minors through television, streaming, movies, and advertising, and parental oversight of that material is often inconsistent. That is a fair observation. I'm less persuaded that it is a moral one. That we have allowed children to be exposed to sexually explicit context is not, in my view, a justification to throw off any and all constraints intended to protect children. It also does not answer the narrower question raised by the Florida statute. The law does not claim that live adult performances are the only source of sexualized material minors encounter, nor does it require that every other form of exposure be eliminated before any limit can be placed on commercial live shows. Most regulations work that way: We restrict minors from buying alcohol even though they may see adults drinking on television. We restrict minors from certain rated films in theaters even though similar content exists online. We set age limits on casinos, tobacco, and adult businesses even though the underlying themes appear elsewhere in media. And on and on. The existence of other, sometimes more pervasive problems does not make a targeted restriction incoherent or hypocritical. There are also differences in kind that matter. A live performance in front of an audience is an immediate, in-person experience, often commercial and specifically marketed. Streaming or cinematic content is mediated, usually subject to ratings systems, parental controls, and the practical reality that parents can (and frequently do) limit access in the home. Those distinctions are imperfect, but they are not imaginary. The statute targets knowingly admitting a child to a live show that meets the statutory criteria for being unsuitable for minors; it does not attempt to solve the entire landscape of media exposure. If the broader concern is that sexual content reaches children too easily across many platforms, that is a legitimate subject for separate discussion about things like ratings enforcement, parental tools, platform responsibility, and so on. It does not follow, though, that therefore no age-based limits should exist on commercial live adult performances. Pointing to worse or more widespread examples elsewhere is a classic “not as bad as” move; it shifts the focus rather than addressing whether the specific restriction is justified on its own terms. Again, parental authority over children is fundamental, but it has never been absolute. The state already draws lines around what adults may expose minors to commercially: material harmful to minors statutes, age-restricted theaters and clubs, restrictions on selling certain sexual content to children, and limits on public indecency. Those rules exist alongside parental rights; they do not wait for every other form of exposure (TV, streaming, billboards) to be eliminated first. The Florida statute does not outlaw all sexual content or strip parents of guidance over their own living rooms. It restricts knowingly admitting a child to a commercial live performance that meets the statutory test for being unsuitable for minors—appealing to prurient interest, patently offensive for the child’s age, and lacking serious value for that age. That is a narrower rule than the “state controls every sex act a child might see” claim suggests. Whether a particular depiction is pornographic does not depend on the medium alone. The law has long treated live, commercial, in-person performances differently from mediated content that parents can more readily control at home. Demanding that every other source of sexual imagery be banned before any limit can be placed on adult live shows is an all-or-nothing standard the law has never required. The statute we’ve been discussing does not single out LGBT events. It restricts knowingly admitting a child to a commercial adult live performance that meets a specific three-part test: it predominantly appeals to a prurient interest, is patently offensive for the child’s age, and lacks serious value for that age. That standard applies regardless of the sexual orientation or identity of the performers. A heterosexual burlesque show meeting the same criteria would fall under it just as readily. Do you agree or disagree with the foregoing paragraph? If not, I would like to hear about your disagreement. I’m not arguing that parents should have no role, or that every form of sexual content in media should be treated identically. I’m arguing that the state may set age limits on certain commercial live performances without first solving every other avenue through which sexual imagery reaches children. Pointing to television, streaming, or advertising does not make a targeted restriction on live adult shows incoherent. As for you speculating about motives: I have no animus toward LGBT people. Disagreement about where to draw age and content lines for minors applies to both the "gay" and "straight" segments of society (to the extent we want to divvy ourselves up that way), and is not the same as hostility toward a community. It seems an ongoing challenge for some folks to cope with disagreement about their worldview. I think some Latter-day Saints construe any and all critiques of their faith as "attacks," as "anti-Mormonism" (candidly, I have done this in some instances). Similarly, some in the LGBT community seem to construe too many things to be hatred or "hostility" (your word) rather than what they really are: instances of disagreement in a pluralistic society. Reasoned and principled and civilly-expressed disagreement is not hate or hostility. It's just disagreement. So when, as here, the response shifts from the content of the rule to speculation about my personal reasons for discussing it, the underlying policy question tends to get lost. I’m willing to keep discussing the merits of the restriction itself—what the statute actually covers, whether the line is drawn in the right place, and how it compares to other age-based limits we already accept. Thank you for sharing your thoughts and perspective. We seldom agree, but sometimes we do. And in any event, I find value in listing to perspectives which vary from my own. Thanks, -Smac

Plenty of ways to test whether their interpretation of the law is an anomaly or congruent with general principles of constitutional jurisprudence. Broadly, I think the majority opinion is more in line with those general principles. No, it means that legal analysis reliant or or derived mostly/entire from AI is fairly suspect. Thanks, but I'm not interested in exploring this in this thread. Thanks, -Smac