All Activity

I think this argument is really over what the definition of 'Christian' is. You seem to be saying that a Christian is someone who will be saved and go to Heaven. We don't use Christian in that sense. A Christian is someone who is trying to follow Christ to the best of their abilities. If their understand of Christ is incorrect, that doesn't matter. If they don't have priesthood authority, that doesn't matter. If they believe in falsehoods about Christ, that doesn't matter. It is possible for an LDS member to not be a Christian. Because it isn't membership of a church that defines whether you are a Christian or not.

The Bible has a historical record going back over 2 thousand years. At that point, we are in ancient history and we can use all sorts of mechanisms to explain away supernatural stories. Ancient historians are well known for modifying their history with the intent to tell a story. So, we can accept that the book of 1 King is a historical text but has all of the flaws of an ancient historical text. The Book of Mormon doesn't have that historical record. Its entrance into history is 1828. Comparing the origin of the Biblical text to the Book of Mormon text is not in the same ballpark. Smith absolutely could have lied about the supernatural parts and he could have gotten the book from anywhere, but that doesn't help your argument. Because why should the scholar spend all their time on the Book of Mormon when the known evidence points to either Joseph Smith inventing it or a supernatural event. Critics of the Book of Mormon have spent centuries to come up with some other author. Spalding manuscript, Rigdon authorship, Dartmouth college, etc. Fortunately/Unfortunately (take your pick), none of them have panned out. A scholar who wants to spend years of their life on the Book of Mormon is starting from a terrible starting point. Why try to argue that it is a historical document when the evidence points to a natural origin of 1828?

Did you view the link I posted above? It states that the church no longer existed on earth and it became a church of men. You can't say out one side of your mouth that you're Christians while out the other side you're saying Christ church was removed from the earth and only a church of men was left. Wouldn't it be more accurate to state that Mormons believe they are THE Christians and everyone else is a church of men like the link above spells out? I would respect Mormonism if that's the claim.

It's way more than other religions including Christianity not having a licensed bus driver. On an individual basis, everyone here on earth that isn't a member of the restored gospel will go to hell. You may not like that wording but it's true according to how Hell is defined on the LDS website. In the Mormon spirit world, Christians are assigned to Spirit Prison/Hell after death with all the other religions and atheist. One of the main requirements for entrance into Spirit Paradise is baptism, isn't that true? That's why I'm confused about how modern Mormonism views Christianity! Your doctrine teaches that all Christians that are not part of the restored gospel end up in hell, but for some reason while here on earth Mormons want to be considered part of Christianity.

Why the 40 year gap before Enoch is blessed by Adam? According to D&C 107:49, Enoch does not walk with God until after he is blessed, at age 65. "Enoch was twenty-five years old when he was ordained under the hand of Adam; and he was sixty-five and Adam blessed him. And he saw the Lord, and he walked with him, and was before his face continually; and he walked with God three hundred and sixty-five years, making him four hundred and thirty years old when he was translated".

LDS aren’t going to get with your analogy. We don’t judge everyone else as being broken down or as flawed. We just simply see the other bus drivers not having the state issued license

Let's simplify this discussion, shall we? For this analogy let's say each major religion on earth is a school bus. According to Mormon doctrine, the only school bus that is operational and on the road is Mormonism, all the other school buses including Christianity is in a junkyard for broken down school buses. The Mormon school bus has a powerful engine that allows it to be driven down the road by a bus driver with the proper authority to do so. This bus driver can swing out the little red stop sign because he's been given the authority to do so. It's a beautiful yellow bus with everything operating as it should. Lights are bright, windows go up and down, door opens and closes properly, all because the Mormon bus has been well maintained. There are other buses in town but they're all found in the local junkyard. These buses are ugly the paint is missing, rust is eating away at the metal, tires and rims have been stolen, windows are busted out, seats torn, and rats are living inside them. The red stop sign on the side of the buses in the junkyard have been removed and none of the school buses can move under their own power because the engines that moves the buses in the junkyard have been removed. It's a miserable looking junkyard with school buses that are hardly recognizable. And in the middle of these buses is the Christian bus, which is surrounded by the Jewish bus, the Islam bus, the atheist bus, the Buddhist bus, and multiple other buses. This simple analogy is how Mormonism views Christianity! I'm sure you will disagree so please answer this question. If my analogy is wrong, then why are Christians NOT allowed in Spirit Paradise without first being baptized into the restored gospel?

Not really, Joseph Smith could have gotten the book from anywhere. Of course the evidence points to Smith himself composing it. But this excuse that scholars can't evaluate it because Smith claimed supernatural origins is far too convenient by half considering the state of the evidence. Various books of the Bible have all kinds of claims of getting information from divine sources - academic Biblical scholars set those claims aside and evaluate the books critically in their historical context regardless. Smith could have lied about the supernatural parts. It doesn't make any difference in terms of the contents of the book itself.

Smac is there room for you to acknowledge that while there is not a lesson for the missionaries in the mtc directly teaching missionaries to pull children away from their parents and churches, that it is true that one of the realities of missionary work is that young people, teens will at times be taught and that there is not a pointed rule that missionaries must have express permission from parents first? Or if there is now, there wasn’t before? let’s bridge this conversation gap.

Some of these are bad translations, some are more about who Israel should worship and not claiming that there are no other gods, and some are rhetorical hyperbole. You can find hymns of praise to various other deities of the time that are part of a pantheon and it talks about their superiority in similar terms. You can find similar language in the Bible for other things such as having Babylon claim its supremacy and saying there is none beside it. That clearly means the city of Babylon is superior, not that Babylon is the only city that exists. There are a lot of obstacles to reading strict monotheism into the Bible and into the Old Testament in particular. Deuteronomy 10:17 “For the LORD your God is God of gods…” That is an incredibly stupid statement if Adonai is the only god that exists. You’re the best of the gods when you are the only god? No. Also you have Psalm 82 when Adonai breaks the divine council and expels the other deities because they forsook justice and exiled his people. So Adonai was expelling non-existent deities? And no, the traditional interpretation of Christians that this is about mortal judges failing doesn’t make sense. That is a rationalization that was imposed on the text to preserve monotheism. And then there is 2 Kings 3 where the King of Moab sacrifices his son to a Moabite deity and divine power intervenes and the Moabites win. Apologists do all kinds of gymnastics to dodge the plain meaning of that text where the God of Israel lost to another deity.

They are not asked to subvert parents. YES. No. You are telling falsehoods. You are bearing false witness. Missionaries are not instructed to subvert parents. Thanks, -Smac

Can confirm that missionaries in my mission routinely taught discussions to minors without parental permission and that was the norm worldwide when I was out. Smac is trying to do some kind of revisionist history thing.

This is EXACTLY what I am talking about. You got it exactly right. See, not all that difficult to understand my point. SMAC doesn't want to get it, so plays dumb and ignores that I actually stated about parental permission required of minors in order to be baptized. I should have read your comment first, I would have skipped my response. I don't think what I was saying is all that difficult to acknowledge happens all the time in missionary work.

You must be in such denial you can't even see what missionaries are asked to do. Their job is to convert others to the LDS church. That also means leaving their former church in the past. So yes, missionaries are encouraging people to leave their former church and join a new one. Do missionaries teach the discussions to youth without receiving permission to teach their children from the parents before starting the discussions. I think you are being particularly dense on purpose. I'm pretty sure what receive was referring to. But you gotta pick things apart, sentence by sentence until you no long have the context of what people actually say. YES. We were never told to get parental permission to teach youth before beginning the lessons. Most often, those lessons were given in the members home whenever possible. Whether the youth told their parents or not before taking the lessons depended on what the youth wanted to do. Can you honestly tell me you were required by your mission president to get parental permission before giving the discussions to the youth? Can you show me church policy that states missionaries will only give the lessons to youth after getting signed parental approval? YES. I'm stating that missionaries give lessons to minors all the time without getting any parental approval before starting the lessons. Like the example of the child, who tried to convert his siblings to leaving the church without first asking for parental approval to do so. The missionary lessons are specifically designed to convince a person that his current religion is wrong, but the LDS religion is the right one. I never said that missionaries baptize minors without getting parental approval. That is not the issue we are talking about. We are talking about teaching youth to leave their current church and join the LDS church. We are talking about a person teaching. his siblings about what he feels are untruths about Mormonism. He is also not baptizing them into another religion without parental approval. Just teaching. If you can't see that the goal is the same in both cases, then I will leave you to sit in your denial and pretend there is some kind of subtle difference. To me it is the same.

I think California boy’s point is that Mormon missionaries and other Mormons engage in proselytizing to kids without parental permission. You keep emphasizing no baptism without parental consent. Two different things. both of those things missionaries and other members have no business doing unless they have parental permission. Iirc, church policy only says minors can’t be baptized without parental permission. Teaching the discussions without parental permission?? Have at it it seems.

You said there is no such thing as rape culture when there is. That is what the “wow” is about. I do think that having group sex while drunk is almost always a bad idea. Also that the guys almost certainly raped her based on the text conversation where they planned to rape her. It may not be legally actionable and that is fine but they’re rapists. They have openly said they are willing to rape someone. That should be worth some condemnation and not the equivalent of saying Jane Doe is equally culpable. I am gonna ascribe the need to hold that up as some kind of sticking point to misogyny.

I'm not sure what my hypothesis has to do with that. I don't see any problems with someone taking a critical look at the Book of Mormon or someone persuing a PhD in the Bible. Also, the Bible doesn't have a supernatural origin so there is no problem of treating it as a real historical text. I'm just saying that it is hard for someone to want to look at the Book of Mormon with a scholarly view as if it is a real historical text because of the supernatural issues. I'm not saying it threatens their beliefs. But that it is simpler to just ignore the Book of Mormon because it requires the supernatural. Why study the Book of Mormon as a real historical text when any positive conclusion about it means you'll now have to explain the origin of it and all of the complication around that. Imagine writing a paper in a non-mormon peer reviewed paper that argues that the Book of Mormon is a real ancient historical text. I would expect any reviewer would immediately point out that it can't be that because its natural origin precludes that.

Correction: I wasn’t reprimanding Pyreaux. I was reprimanding the Church leadership for not mentioning climate change in their statement. I apologize for not being clear there.

To test whether AI does this correctly you would have to do the whole process ‘by hand’ without AI so you might as well do that instead. You can’t test whether the AI works by asking AI to do the work and trusting it.

You hypothesis makes me think of David Bokovoy who says he was warned at BYU not to pursue a PhD in Bible because, according to Bokovoy paraphrasing what his BYU professors told him, Bible students always leave the church. Maybe Dan McClellan is the exception? In any case, I believe the reason non-Mormon scholars aren’t comfortable discussing it isn’t because it threatens their beliefs.. Rather, It’s because they don’t like having uncomfortable discussions with Mormons about why their religion is wrong. Just ask Robert Ritner about how fun it is lecturing Mormons about how the evidence doesn’t support their religious convictions.

I was going through the attachments for this latest filing. It has a nice document which lists basically all of the trademarks with Mormon in it that had opposition filed against it. See https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.utd.163775/gov.uscourts.utd.163775.75.4.pdf Interestingly, The Book of Mormon musical was attempted to be trademarked. A notice of publication was filed, the church filed an extension of time to oppose, that was granted, there were several of these, and then the trademark was removed. There is no actual opposition filed. I didn't think this musical would be trademarked because the church does own the Book of Mormon mark. But it was attempted and I can't see any reason why it was cancelled. My guess is that the Broadway company and the church came to some sort of agreement. Another interesting one is "Yes, I am a Mormon" filed in 2003. Really similar to the "I'm a Mormon" slogan from 2010. This was filed by some person and the opposition wasn't from the church. It was from owner of the trademark "Christian Man Yes I Am". They felt that "Yes, I am a Mormon" was too similar to theirs and that they don't want to be connected to the Mormons. I think it is an interesting example of a trademark application not from the church or opposed by the church and with two strings that really aren't that similar. The only commonality is the phrase "yes I am" which isn't that unique. The opposition was removed because the two entities came to some sort of agreement and then the trademark itself was abandoned a few months later.

More details, this time from the New York Times: Men Accused in Cornell Sex Assault Suit Give Varying Accounts of Night Some excerpts: I am curious as to whether @SeekingUnderstanding will express similarly acute outrage at Jane Doe, as she is now alleged to have committed sexual misconduct against one of the young men. If the allegation alone is sufficient... "Appearing intoxicated" seems like a very subjective thing. Some inebriated persons exhibit typical traits (slurred speech, lack of balance, etc.), but some people can look and act in ways giving no real indication of being drunk. "{L}et the process work." A good idea, that. Otherwise, Jane Doe is, by some folks' reckoning, to be condemned because someone has alleged that she engaged in sexual misconduct. Very troubling stuff, this. Yeesh. I am very grateful I grew up in the Church and had specific instruction and constraints given to me (the Law of Chastity and the Word of Wisdom), which I accepted and applied. Three beers and three vodka-and-Hawaiian Punch mixed drinks = "had not drunk that much" The Greek System seems to have a lot to answer for. Here is another potential accusation against Jane Doe of sexual misconduct: "Mr. Lopes said that she initiated their sexual contact and did not ask for his consent." Another allegation against Jane Doe: "Mr. Lee also said that Jane Doe initiated sexual activity without asking." “We were just checking out to see if everything was OK, and it was.” "And if she wasn’t, I’d like to think that I would have helped out and did something about it." I'm curious as to how much credence will be given to these statements. And yet in her civil suit she accuses Kretzschmar of rape (not sure about Norris). What a terrible environment. Thanks, -Smac

I am talking about the typical candy counter American style we grew up with. Not speciality stores. The same companies in Canada use higher quality ingredients, though not as good quality European. The ‘how to’ to produce them is “American”, using a set of recipes that promote more sugar and cheap fat I’ve less more expensive chocolate and cocoa butter and high fat cream. Glad to see more dark chocolate in recent years, btw. For those who haven’t experienced the difference , here’s a site trying to be unbiased between German and American. Problem with saying one isn’t better than the other is the reason why American has less cacao and more other ingredients like sugar and flavorings and cheaper fats and that is it is cheaper than going with the real chocolate. Cheap ingredients do not produce a quality product even if someone’s taste buds get programmed to like chew better. There is something about the flat, tasteless McDonald’s hamburger my heart thinks I crave It’s because I didn’t like school much, each day was an oppression, but there were a few bright spots One was McDonald’s hamburger days. It codes comfort for me now even as it sits unhappy in my stomach. https://www.gourmetboutique.net/blogs/tasting-room/17250043-european-vs-american-chocolate-whats-the-difference Here’s a chat comparison which turns out follows my personal experience (google is making it harder to find less airy, more substance articles…urg). American chocolate candy: American candy chocolate, particularly mainstream milk chocolate, tends to be sweeter and more focused on sugar and milk than on a strong cocoa flavor. Some products also have a softer or waxier texture. Hershey’s is a distinctive example, with a slightly tangy flavor associated with the way its milk ingredients are processed. Canadian chocolate: Canadian chocolate is generally somewhat less sweet and creamier than typical American candy. Chocolate flavor tends to be more noticeable, although Canadian products vary considerably by brand. Some Canadian chocolate is quite similar to American chocolate, while others have a more European-style formulation. German chocolate: German chocolate tends to emphasize cocoa, cocoa butter, and milk flavors rather than sweetness alone. It is often smooth and creamy, with a clean melt and a more pronounced chocolate flavor. Dark chocolate in particular is often less sweet and more cocoa-forward. Comparison: In broad terms, you could think of the three as American = sweeter and more confectionery; Canadian = somewhat less sweet and creamier; German = more cocoa-forward and traditionally chocolate-focused. These are general tendencies, though—individual brands can differ substantially, and premium American chocolate can be very similar to European chocolate.

Wow I'm happy to listen to what you have to say. I can't do much with an unadorned "Wow." Thanks, -Smac

YES. That is exactly what missionaries do. I'm skeptical of that, frankly. We all attempt to persuade people to our point of view. You do that all the time on this board. In and of itself, there is nothing wrong with that. The concern arises when there is secrecy and subversion involved. The missionaries don't do that at all, let alone "exactly." When missionaries go online and start talking to youth who are not members of the church do they 1. Do it with the intent of converting them away from their faith and hoping they will join the LDS church? Yes. But that was not my question: "Your missionary efforts were framed to you as encouraging people to 'leave their current church?'" I just don't believe that mission presidents and MTC folks teach such a thing. "Receive" what? Again, the portion of your remarks I found implausible: Me: "Your missionary efforts were framed to you as encouraging newly-baptized members to subvert their parents' efforts to raise their minor children relative to religious instruction?" You: "YES." I just don't believe that. A high school student talking to missionaries isn't quite the same as your affirmation of "Your missionary efforts were framed to you as encouraging newly-baptized members to subvert their parents' efforts to raise their minor children relative to religious instruction?" I just find that very unlikely. Yes. Isn't that a significant point? You are accusing the Church of attempting to subvert parents, but the Church requires parental consent for a minor to be baptized. How is that subversive? And I suspect he was not baptized while a minor. In other words, the Church did not subvert his parents. Yes. And? What does this have to do with your accusation that the Church subverts parents? And parental consent is required for baptism. I did no such thing. And again, you are accusing the Church of subverting parents. I don't think that is happening. I don't think that is happening. I think the Church has required parental consent for minors to be baptized for quite a while. Subverting parents is a bad thing, and that is the accusation I found problematic. Thanks, -Smac