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To be clear, your sentiment is especially honorable. To address the OT sentiment, shouldn't there be a corresponding commandment - or at least shouldn't this one include the two-way obligation? I personally suspect that OT adults more comfortable (than I am) with seeing their children as material.

I wonder why they chose “Remnant”. It has for me an unfortunate connotation of some of the apostate groups. Great name otherwise.

I've thought about this. But that part of the Gospel is tied to the non-existence of any memory of those events. The notion of holding one accountable to an agreement made in an existence that no one has 1st hand knowledge of - this seems problematic at best. Binding my own children to it doesn't feel at all like good parenting to me. Personally, it feels like leverage and exploitation.

If it’s the noodles she doesn’t like, a good sauce is great on baked or roasted potatoes or rice.

I prefer using tomato paste with water rather than sauce. It’s more intense flavour with a nice sweetness. Canned tomato sauce is typically pretty bland.

In my household, spaghetti is not well appreciated, but I love it. Too much. I finally found a recipe for the sauce that I really like. Here it is: GARRETT’S MEAT SPAGHETTI SAUCE Author: by Sue Garrett Ingredients • 1 lb. lean ground beef • 1 onion, chopped • 1 bell pepper, chopped • 1 TBS. minced garlic • 1 TBS. Italian Seasoning • 1 tsp. basil • 1/2 tsp. oregano • 1/2 tsp. Montreal Steak Seasoning • 1/2 tsp. parsley • 1 (16 oz.) can of tomato sauce • 2 (14.5 oz.) cans of diced tomatoes • Salt & Pepper to taste Instructions 1. Cook ground beef, onions, and bell pepper together until done. Drain if needed. 2. Add the remainder of the ingredients and bring to a boil. 3. Turn the stove down and simmer for at least 30 minutes. (I kept mine going for almost 2 hours.) 4. Serve over cooked spaghetti noodles. Here in England I can't find "tomato sauce" in the same form found in US grocery stores. Imports from Italy are available, which I haven't tried yet. So instead of the can of tomato sauce I just added another can of diced tomatoes. It worked out well. Since I like my spaghetti sauce with a little more "bite," I added a 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne. The wife liked the sauce! Which was a plus, since she's no big fan of spaghetti. For myself, I topped off my portion of pasta+sauce with Cholula hot sauce.

To you. That's an important part of the equation that I think probably needs to be said more. Not about your opinions specifically but about all of our opinions. Feeling strongly about something, and having arguments that show it's reasonable and which back us up, doesn't make opinions canon. You feel a certain way about their choices. 100% valid. Also 100% not fact. I don't think anyone is saying that you should be indifferent. I just think that it's good to remember that no one else should care about our indifference regarding their choices. You can think he's very much in the wrong and he equally can know that what you think (or what I think) doesn't matter. True words. I would guess that Charlie Bird also agrees with them. You can definitely advocate for whatever interpretation of the gospel that you believe is most correct. Charlie and everyone else can do the same.

Exactly. We are told this, we don’t typically know it automatically. It is part of our cultural programming. It may be an intellectual belief, but it may not be emotionally accepted and therefore not be much of a or even any part of a child’s motivation through their life. It therefore may not have much effect on a child except to induce guilt, because they are told they should feel grateful but they don’t, or makes them feel manipulated. Even if it is true, it doesn’t mean the child consented to the way a parent chose to have them or bring them up. Their existence is still forced in that sense.

I gravitate towards a mixture of these two perspectives. I do think that children have some obligation to their parents, and I think that parents obviously have obligations to their children. I think the way those obligations play out (and what they are) change greatly throughout life. From my perspective, I feel like the commandment to honor thy father and mother is a reminder that the relationship is meant to go both ways.

I appreciate the support though. While human water diversion is responsible for the vast majority, roughly 60% to 80%, of the lake's historical decline.

You've been doing keto? Have the results been what you expected?

This is an interesting thought. Aren't we told that we chose to come to this earth and have a mortal probation? How then is any of us "forced {} into existence?" In the Latter-day Saint paradigm, our spirits preexisted prior to coming to this earth. That's another interesting thought. What debt do you owe them? I can discern the "state of servitude." "And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God" (Mosiah 2:17). This is particularly so relative to our family members. I agree as to the importance of consent, as it is an expression of the gift of agency. I am happy for you. Thanks, -Smac

Certainly tongue in cheek. Still quite unseemly and troubling. If he were not presenting himself as an active Latter-day Saint, I would be broadly indifferent. But he is, so I'm not. From Elder Holland: I'll leave divine judgment to God, but I think Latter-day Saints need to be on guard against the sorts of things Charlie Bird is trying to present as compatible and in alignment with the Restored Gospel. Thanks, -Smac

That more or less was my thesis. I was presenting some generalized observations and looking for feedback. Yes, maybe later. I also addressed this point: The child is the one party who never consented and is treated as the object of a deal. I also noted that I agreed with most of the others. Again, the purpose of the post was to open a discussion. Again, I would prefer to discuss the topic. Ad hominem impedes discussion. I didn't bring up Charlie Bird, but his association with surrogacy brought into sharp relief a number of the issues associated with surrogacy, the most obvious being the commoditization of women. Thanks, -Smac

Perhaps it is because this comes up at the same time as another thread talking about race, but the first thing that stood out to me was Br. Perkins "confidence" in what he is teaching here. Br. Perkins seems pretty confident that the ban wasn't based in divine inspiration (like many others), which I find an interesting contrast with what @smac97 said in the other thread that the church prefers a kind of we really don't know one way or the other. Considering this is FAIR (10 years ago), I find it Br. Perkins also contrasts with the late Sarah Allen's FAIR response to the CES letter where she tends to insist that we don't know and maybe can't know if the ban was divinely inspired. In keeping with the B. H. Roberts Foundation data that church membership is roughly evenly divided over the three stances, I can contrast Perkins and Allen with Bruce Porter's (semi-retired CES) youtube channel where he insists that race is real and that it traces back to Old Testament figures. Perhaps part of what makes this observation so interesting is that Perkins makes it seem like his conclusions that race isn't real and that scripture never teaches anything about race are clear and obvious to those who have a correct understanding of scripture. When he gets asked how 19th and 20th century LDS (leaders and members) seemed unable to understand these scriptures correctly, he attributes it to the near universal beliefs about racism in the broader culture, implying that, when such beliefs are ubiquitous, we can't expect even prophets to see past the cultural blindspots. I think the main conclusion I draw is that there is still room in the church for people who believe all kinds of different things race and the priesthood and temple ban. I'm inclined to agree with Br. Perkins, but there are plenty of others who seem to believe differently, and we're all members in good standing. That kind of diversity of belief seems to be the most interesting observation when discussing this issue.

I wasn't saying it was you or Pyreaux. I think you misread the exchange.

This makes much more sense to me than the more typical attitude I see expressed directly or indirectly that a child owes everything to their parents for the favour they did of giving them life and are in eternal debt to them. I get that aligns more with our doctrine in the sense that we need to come to earth to get bodies, but our brains typically don’t have a sense of the preexistence, so why should we expect our children to emotionally feel that obligation. And if life isn’t that great for them, why should they automatically be grateful for the experience. Maybe some day their experiences will lead to an appreciation, but expecting it of them is somewhat arrogant imo. I think it’s more natural to feel forced into life and if our culture wasn’t pushing the idea kids owe parents everything or kids are essentially possessions for parents to play with how they want or to fulfill their own ambitions with, I think our relationships between parent and children would be healthier. I think being realistic means even if as children, they are fully dependent on adults, it doesn’t mean they know they chose the conditions (maybe they did, maybe they didn’t) while adults chose to act in most cases to bring them into existence and therefore the adult needs to get over the inconvenience that it creates in their life….though the parent still needs to make choices for their own self care that allow the parent to maximize their care of their children until the child can truly start making choices for themselves and support themselves. This also should mean the parent should dump any idea of living through their children in any way besides being grateful and happy for them if the child has a life they are fulfilled by rather than mapping out the child’s existence from birth to death for them.

Virtue signaling is the act of publicly expressing opinions or supporting social causes primarily to show off your good character or moral correctness, rather than out of genuine conviction. Neither myself or @Pyreaux are doing this.

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. I have reconciled this in a way that seems to be driving the extraordinarily good relationship I have with (all 5 of) my sons. It is my choices that forced them into existence. They owe me nothing because non-existent beings are incapable of consenting to anything. I had all the power of consent and due to this extremely one-sided arrangement, I remain in their debt for the rest of my life. I reside in a permanent state of servitude to them. These are the defaults, our starting points. Respecting their consent builds abiding trust at a deep level. Consent is key to salvation, ethics, ability and love. It hangs out in the very best circles. The weight I place on consent flows from Church's teaching about Satan's premortal plan for us - which was based on a lack of consent and the resulting dearth of worthwhile redemption. Associating those two conditions with evil has changed my relationships with others, in ways that can be indescribably positive. Consent may outweigh even kindness in achieving our most valuable and fulfilling humanity. Plugging my parenting into all that has been ceaselessly good.

Here's a brand-new channel, Remnant Voices; it went "live" on 26 August 2026. So far 7 videos uploaded in less than a month! They describe their channel thus: "Remnant Voices shares Native perspectives on the restored gospel. Hosted by Anthony Rivera and Zander Sturgill. Presented by the Ancient America Foundation." This is their latest video, "Elder Gong Pointed to This Ancient Native Site. We Found Why!"

Eh, I’m fine with their process, I think they are doing it tongue in cheek. Maybe they are being more self-focused than they should be but so am I sometimes so I don’t feel like I can really judge them fairly. I agree that children have a right to a father and mother, but I also struggle with how often God is fine with taking a father or mother (or even both) to the detriment of the children. Mortal life seems to be set up to force us to deal with the less ideal. I’m good leaving this situation between them and God

Its simple semantics. Adam is a specific person in the Bible. But everyone reading this thread is a true and very real adam (a human). But none of us is the original, singular Adam of Genesis. Often Elohim means specifically Yahweh, but in some way angels are elohim, territorial spirits are elohim, and disembodied human spirits like Samuel are elohim. These are sons of God, they are adopted, those whom the Most High legally elevated, from whatever they were and maybe technically still are, into His court, delegating to them executive authority. In human exaltation, the humans adopted as sons of God, are no longer Gentiles nor sons of Jacob-Israel restrained by Mosaic Law anymore, but are also elevated. Scripture says human believers receive huiothesia ('adoption as sons' - Galatians 4:5) and become 'partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4). Calling an adopted entity a 'son' or a 'god' (elohim) acknowledges their covenant investiture and delegated authority. Adam is the progenitor of other adams. El is the progenitor (The Father) of other elohim. Covenant/adoption sonship with El renders a non-son a newborn son in every legal sense. Calling a heavenly entity an elohim is not a claim that they are the progenitor El Himself. Get it? Moab had Chemosh, and his Father is El ('Il), "Woe to you, O Moab! You are ruined, O people of Chemosh!" (Numbers 21:29). Ammon had Milcom / Molech and his Father is El ('Il). Edom had Qos and his Father is El ('Il). Tyre had Melqart and his Father is El. Sidon had Eshmun and his Father is El. The Philistines had Dagon and his Father is El (Elyon or Anu/Dagan). Babylon had Marduk / Bel and his Father was Ea, "Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach [Marduk] is dismayed" (Jeremiah 50:2). Assyria had Ashur and his Father is Enlil. Canaan had Baal-Hadad and his Father is El. Egypt had Ra and his father was Khnum, Joseph married Asenath, who was the daughter of Poti-phe-Ra, a priest of the Egyptian city of On. Everyone had a supreme Father God that stood at the head, while executive ruling authority over their nation is passed to a son (Ra, Marduk, Baal). The ancient world seems to universally understand the gods are a kinship network of divine beings operating in the same structured hierarchy. No, that is what you want it to mean. I already told you. In Roman Galatia was the imperial cult, who worshiped humans and their idols of humans, that claimed a divine status they did not possess. Paul tells the Galatian Gentiles that they were enslaved to mortal emperors, client kings, and political rulers and/or serving their images which possess zero intrinsic divinity. Divine Investiture is how a subordinate figure can speak and act with authority that is equal in weight and validity to the sovereign, while remaining lesser in rank or form. "Equal" does not mean being as "great". Hence, Jesus is made "equal" to the Father, while the Father is "greater" than Jesus, without contradiction. It's a scary notion, if you were a Gentile of another nation with no access to Israel or Christ, it would be incumbent on you to obey the laws of your nation which are from your deity, as though it was equal to God's laws and ignore the Lord of Israel. Obeying the commandment to honor the Sabbath is actually breaking the commandments if you are not an Israelite, and the Jews would put you to death, if they could. Then Jesus is not your God. If you exclude any subordinate or invested divine person, then Jesus cannot be your God. "And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." (John 17:3) Jesus says the Father is "the ONLY true God" (ton monon alēthinon theon), while distinguishing Himself as the One who was sent (an invested agent). Yes, by all accounts. To govern the laws and affairs of the Canaanites, for a time. I'm not imposing non-doctrinal theories from Mormonism here, you are the one imposing your beliefs on ancient Near Eastern texts that explicitly teach a populated, delegated hierarchy in heaven. Mormonism is allowing me to see the matter from outside of your tradition. Strict Monotheism is just your tradition, and nothing more, just as Infinite Regress is just a tradition.

I'm saying paragraphs on the pros and cons of each those could have been the thesis of your post. I'm sure you could find papers and studies and discussion on each. Each of those is infinitely more relevant to your supposed topic of the thread (Latter-day Saint church guidance to Latter-day Saints on the topic of surrogacy) than the single line item you choose to focus on: "Same-sex and single intended parenthood is sometimes opposed on those family-structure grounds." And you continue to ignore anything in the thread that could be related to the topic (Church views on surrogacy) instead focusing now on some Rameumptom level holier than thou fault finding with Charlie Bird. You are obsessed.

Glad you found it (member of FAIR here, though pretty dormant lately)

Revelation on valid baptism is D&C 22, received in 1830. It was specifically triggered by new members who didn't want to be rebaptized. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-16-april-1830-dc-22/1 has a bit of the history around it. For the Gift of the Holy Ghost, besides D&C 22 (which covers it because it talks about all "works"), I would say the two strongest is D&C 35 (1830 - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-7-december-1830-dc-35/1) and D&C 49 (1831 - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-7-may-1831-dc-49/1#historical-intro). D&C 35 is about Sidney Rigdon who had just been baptized. He was previously a Campbellite preacher and had baptized many people and believed they had received the Holy Ghost. In D&C 35, he is told that he now has proper authority to baptize and lay hands on them to actually give them the Holy Ghost. D&C 49 is about the Shakers. It says (among many things) that they need to be baptized and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Since the Shakers already believe they have the gift, this is evidence that God sees differently. Additionally to those 2 sections, it also follows logically with our belief in authority. To receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, it has to be done with proper authority after you've been baptized with proper authority. An early example of this is from a discourse from Joseph Smith in 1842 (https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-20-march-1842-as-reported-by-wilford-woodruff/4) where he discusses Cornelius I don't expect that to ever change. Proper authority is really important to us. We believe resurrected beings literal came to Joseph and Oliver and restored the priesthood. Every Melchizedek holder (which is pretty much every adult male in the church) has a "Line of Authority" which shows how their priesthood went back to those events. A non-LDS would have to somehow show that the authority was proper and that is a pretty hard argument. We don't even accept Catholic authority and they have a well documented line back to the original apostles. Edited to add the link about Joseph Smith's discourse about Cornelius.