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The Lanham Act is only for trademarks. A trademark can be a registered trademark or an unregistered trademark. Which trademark of the church (either registered or unregistered) do you see in that image that is causing the confusion? If there isn't a trademark, then there is no Lanham Act case, no likelihood of confusion. Here's my analysis. 1) The church doesn't have a trademark that is related to "Missionaries Coming Soon", either registered or unregistered. The term "missionaries" is a very generic term that lots of religions and use. Unlike Mormon which is both a registered trademark (in geneology and educational services) and an unregistered trademark (the church has used the Mormon term in a lot of different contexts). 2) None of the photos are copyrighted or trademarked either. They all appear to be personal photos. None of them contain temples. None of them contain missionary badges. Only one of them contains a Book of Mormon and it is really fuzzy and not easy to tell. No trademark or trade dress. 3) The church doesn't have a trademark on a blue circle or block font, either registered or unregistered. I don't know why you keep thinking it does. Is there a trademark filing that I'm missing that shows the church owns those trademarks. That would be impressive. So, since the only possible trademark/tradedress is the Book of Mormon that is really fuzzy and hard to read, I don't see how this would trigger a Lanham Act violation.

It isn't telling me "what I want to hear." It is summarizing what I've already said in these conversations. I have limiting principles, but they are intentionally a little bit blurry so that people of good will have some discretion to make good decisions in complicated edge cases. You want not only bright lines but also cops, judges, fines, and jail time enforcing where we pee. I don't think those things are necessary. That doesn't mean I don't have limiting principles. It just means you've failed to convince me that these laws are necessary. If you want to know what I believe, let's start with what I've already said. I asked GPT the following: Prompt: Go back to the list of 20 propositions. Please steel man each one so that they accurately represent the person or organization quoted. Then search all of the threads on this topic, and see if I have commented on that topic. Then very briefly explain my actual position. Do that for all 20 points. If I haven’t said or implied something on one, say so and move to the next. GPT: I kept Smac’s numbering, but separated what the cited source actually maintains from the additional implications in his wording. I searched across the related threads and your available post history, including older discussions of medical treatment, pronouns, schools, biology, and sports. Some pages were inaccessible, so “not found” means I did not locate a stated or clearly implied position—not that you necessarily hold no opinion. Where an original source was inaccessible, I used its quotation reproduced in the thread. 1. The reality and authority of gender identity Source position — HRC: Gender identity is a person’s deeply felt internal understanding of themselves. That self-understanding should be respected when recognizing their gender. This does not, by itself, establish a particular scientific theory about how gender identity develops. Human Rights Campaign Your position: You use gender identity to mean someone’s internal sense of themselves, distinct from sex recorded at birth. I found no specific commitment to a theory of its innateness. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" … 2. Recognition of transgender women as women and transgender men as men Source position — HRC’s Alphonso David: Transgender women genuinely belong to the category women, rather than merely receiving an honorary designation. He defines womanhood through an adult’s understanding of herself as female; that is not a claim that identifying differently changes chromosomes. Senate Judiciary Committee Your position: You recognize transgender people socially while distinguishing gender from biological sex. You explicitly reject making gender identity replace biological sex for every legal purpose. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 3. Recognition without mandatory medical transition Source position — GLAAD: Being transgender does not depend on obtaining a diagnosis, hormones, or surgery. People should not lose recognition because they cannot or do not wish to undergo medical procedures. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board Your position: For ordinary restroom use, you favor individual judgment and sincere identity, not mandatory medical qualification. You exclude insincere claims made as a pretext. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 4. Identity denial as a personal harm Source position — GLAAD: Deliberately invalidating someone’s gender identity can attack their dignity and social legitimacy, not merely dispute an abstract definition. GLAAD expressly connects targeted misgendering with denying who a person is and with broader stigmatization. GLAAD Brand Portal Your position: You advocate empathy and respectful treatment. I found no statement equating every disagreement about gender classification with denying that a person exists. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 5. Biological sex and the limits of rigid classification Source position — HRC: Intersex variation and medical transition demonstrate that sex characteristics are not perfectly uniform or immutable. HRC therefore rejects describing sex through rigid, exceptionless categories. Human Rights Campaign Your position: You explicitly argue that sex results from biological processes rather than an immutable essence, and that a strict binary model does not fully describe all variations. You expressly say this need not imply a third sex. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 6. The meaning of “sex assigned at birth” Source position — HRC/GLAAD: The phrase identifies the classification given to someone at birth, ordinarily based on observed anatomy, which may differ from their later gender identity. It does not inherently mean the classification was arbitrary. Human Rights Campaign Your position: You introduced definitions explicitly tying the recorded classification to observed genital anatomy, while recognizing that atypical development can require a more involved assignment process. You have not claimed doctors invent biological sex. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" … 7. Names and pronouns Source position — HRC/GLAAD: Use people’s stated pronouns and current names, correct misgendering, and respect confidentiality concerning former names. These are expectations of respectful treatment, not merely optional linguistic preferences in the organizations’ accounts. Human Rights Campaign Your position: You say you try to use requested pronouns as a courtesy. I found no blanket claim from you that every mistake is equivalent to a slur. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 8. Language that distinguishes sex without delegitimizing people Source position — HRC: Contrasting transgender people with supposedly “real” men or women treats transgender identities as inauthentic. Its objection is to that framing—not, in the quotation supplied, a comprehensive prohibition on describing anatomy or reproductive characteristics. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board Your position: You openly use biological-sex distinctions and have supplied definitions involving sperm, ovaries, chromosomes, and anatomy. You do not treat discussing those characteristics as inherently objectionable. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" … 9. Affirmation, exploration, and conversion therapy Source position — distinguish the organizations: HRC condemns the model called gender exploratory therapy as conversion therapy. WPATH, however, explicitly recommends open exploration without favoring a particular identity and distinguishes that from efforts predetermined to make someone identify with their birth-assigned sex. These are not adequately summarized as opposition to all exploration. Human Rights Campaign Your position: No specific position found on affirmation versus exploratory therapy or watchful waiting. 10. Medical transition as healthcare Source position — HRC: Transition-related treatment can be medically necessary and lifesaving; access should not be categorically denied through legislation. That is a claim about access to indicated care, not proof that every requested intervention is appropriate. Human Rights Campaign Your position: In October 2024, you explicitly said other people’s treatment belongs between them and their doctors, and whether an intervention is advisable must be assessed case by case. You did not endorse every intervention indiscriminately. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 11. Treatment and recognition of transgender minors Source position — WPATH: Some adolescents may appropriately receive transition-related treatment, subject to assessment of sustained gender incongruence, maturity, relevant mental-health concerns, and informed consent or assent. Parents ordinarily participate, with exceptions when involvement would be harmful or infeasible. NCBI Your position: You opposed government micromanagement of these decisions and expressly favored decision-making by parents and children, alongside your case-specific medical approach. No specific age thresholds or detailed eligibility protocol found. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 12. Detransition, comorbidities, and social influence Source position — distinguish the organizations: GLAAD rejects “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” as a misleading explanatory framework. WPATH describes adult detransition as uncommon but acknowledges regret, uncertainty about youth trajectories, and the need to assess co-occurring mental-health concerns. That is not a recommendation to disregard those concerns. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board Your position: No specific position found on detransition rates, desistance, autism, trauma, or social-contagion hypotheses. 13. Restrooms, sports, prisons, and other facilities Source position — distinguish the settings: GLAAD supports gender-identity-consistent restroom access. NWLC explicitly supports transgender women’s participation in women’s sports. WPATH’s institutional-housing guidance considers identity, preference, and safety—not identity alone. These are substantive inclusion positions, but not one identical rule covering every setting. GLAAD Brand Portal Your position: You distinguish restroom discretion from sports eligibility and prison security. You favor leagues deciding sports rules and have explicitly objected to claims of an automatic right to women’s elite competition. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 14. Distinguishing people by medical-transition status Source position — GLAAD: Someone who has not undergone medical transition is not therefore less genuinely transgender or less deserving of recognition. This does not itself establish that every treatment-related eligibility distinction in every setting is forbidden. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board Your position: Your restroom rule requires no medical test, but you allow context-specific eligibility rules elsewhere. No explicit position found on “transmedicalism” as a doctrine about who counts as transgender. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 15. Personal experience and empirical evidence Source position — GLAAD: Reporting should accurately represent transgender people and avoid amplifying claims it regards as false or dehumanizing. The quotations do not establish a principle that personal experience overrides contrary data. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board Your position: You demand empirical evidence, attention to limitations, separation of findings from value judgments, and specification of evidence that could change a conclusion. You do not assign personal experience automatic priority over data. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 16. Questions, debate, and harm Source position — GLAAD: Policy discussion can be legitimate, but GLAAD regards challenges to transgender people’s identities and legitimacy, and targeted misgendering, as potentially dehumanizing rather than neutral debate. It expressly distinguishes legitimate discourse from harassment. GLAAD Brand Portal Your position: You invite discussion of definitions and evidence. You explicitly oppose disciplining women merely for good-faith privacy concerns or accommodation requests. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" … Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 17. Explaining opposition Source position — GLAAD: Prominent campaigns against transgender inclusion rely, in its account, on stigmatizing stereotypes and misinformation rather than the neutral concerns they profess. That is its characterization of those campaigns—not evidence that every possible disagreement has the same motive. GLAAD Brand Portal Your position: You have attributed opposition to manufactured fear and political motives, sometimes broadly. But you also recognize good-faith concerns and explicitly say accusations of bigotry require explanation rather than substituting for argument. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 18. Expectations of allies Source position — GLAAD: Allyship should involve action: respectful language, challenging derogatory remarks, listening, and supporting inclusion. Its guidance nevertheless acknowledges that no single response fits every situation and that allies have limits. All Peoples UU Your position: You ground your views in empathy, limited government, and goodwill—not allegiance to an activist platform. No position found requiring allies to repeat slogans or endorse every organizational position. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 19. Women’s rights, gay rights, and competing interests Source position — NWLC: Including transgender women is part of advancing women’s rights, and exclusionary policies can harm both transgender and cisgender women. The supplied quotations do not establish an obligation for gay people or lesbians to change their attractions or accept particular partners. National Women's Law Center Your position: You explicitly count biological women’s safety, privacy, dignity, and competitive interests, rather than dismissing them. No position found requiring anyone to alter their sexual attractions. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board 20. Nonbinary and other gender-diverse identities Source position — HRC: Nonbinary and gender-diverse people deserve recognition and respectful treatment alongside binary transgender people. That supports including those identities; it does not establish an obligation to expand classifications indefinitely or accept every conceivable identity claim. Human Rights Campaign Your position: Implied: Your general pronoun-courtesy principle is not restricted to binary identities. No specific position found on xenogenders, an exhaustive gender taxonomy, or mandatory continual expansion of recognized categories. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

Do you like audio books? Most of the book is pretty conversational, so if that is a more accessible way for you to ingest information, you might want to consider listening to it. He says science is based upon "methodological empiricism", the idea that we can learn about reality by empirically observing it. He claims that if we carefully look at reality, a natural world is what we see. Naturalism is a result of the science, not a premise. Carroll talks about different "domains of applicability" of different theories, and "poetic naturalism" as the license to use things other than particle physics to examine more complex interactions, e.g. chemistry, biology, physiology, psychology, sociology, economics, etc., are all valid ways of looking at the world. It wouldn't be insightful to try to describe the economy in terms of a system of fermions and bosons. However, if you dive down deep enough,quantum mechanics is how the world works on a subatomic level. Throw in what we know about gravity, and we have the Core Theory. There could be and probably are crazy things going on at much tinier scales. And weird stuff we don't understand happens in, say, black holes. But on the scale of our lives, Quantum Field Theory explains reality very accurately. We can be confident that the Core Theory, accounting for the substances and processes we experience in our everyday life, is correct. A thousand years from now we will have learned a lot more about the fundamental nature of physics, but we will still use the Core Theory to talk about this particular layer of reality. From the perspective of poetic naturalism, there is one story of reality we can tell with confidence, in a well-defined domain of applicability. We can’t be metaphysically certain of this; it’s not something we can prove mathematically, since science never proves things. But in any good Bayesian accounting, it seems overwhelmingly likely to be true. The laws of physics underlying everyday life are completely known... The constraints provided by quantum mechanics and relativity make quantum field theory an extremely restrictive and unforgiving framework. We can use that rigidity to map out how well we’ve tested the Core Theory, the specific set of fields and interactions that governs our local environment. The answer is: really well. Enough to be convinced that we know what the relevant particles and fields are in this regime, and any new discoveries will involve phenomena that only manifest themselves elsewhere—at higher energies, shorter distances, more extreme conditions. But how do we know, even if we can’t directly see new particles or fields, that they can’t exert some subtle but important influence on the particles that we do see? Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (p. 186). (Function). Kindle Edition. That last question in bold is the one @smac97 doesn't understand. We do in fact "know" (Carroll's word) that any "new particles or fields" (which would include spiritual forces and spirit matter as imagined by Mormonism) "can't exert some subtle but important influences on the particles that we do see." This is a startling claim. "How do we know, even if we can’t directly see new particles or fields, that they can’t exert some subtle but important influence on the particles that we do see?" Carroll explains in detail how we "know" that. Sure. We can't "prove" that when we aren't looking, the toys don't jump to life and have eventful, dramatic lives, but then run back to where they were and pretend they are dead when we aren't looking. There is no way to prove that. All we have is the evidence based on the experiments. The Core Theory has been "spectacularly successful at accounting for every experiment ever performed in a laboratory here on Earth." (p. 176)

You might be shocked, but an unsuspecting non member who just sees hundreds if not thousands of pictures of lds missionaries, books of Mormon and background shots of temples just may think the site is owned by the Mormon church. I mean everyone knows what Mormon missionaries look like. besides that blue circle and block font just screams “ Mormon church.” Doesn’t it?

He doesn't qualify it that way. He kind of says this idea twice. One time, he is talking about the banner and basically says that it is obvious that the banner wasn't trying to deceive any one because it has his face and 10-15 of the most "well-known apostates". So, his picture and the other pictures are enough to know the podcast is critical of the church. The other time, he is talking about how the church is trying to protect the members from listening to him and how nobody would look at him with his beard and think it was run by the church. He says that any active faithful member of the church would only need 2 minutes to look at the title, thumbnail, or listen to the podcast to know it is critical of the church.

Can you be more specific on how you feel that causes "Likelihood of Confusion"? Which trademarks of the church is being used or mimic'ed? What trade dress of the church is being used or mimic'ed? I'm having a hard time seeing anything that would trigger a likelihood of confusion. If that was an actual church owned page, I would be shocked.

Very doubtful. Does he qualify that as “if they have heard of me, they know I am critical”? (Most won’t have heard of him, I bet.) Because that makes more sense to me and might even be right, though I suspect it’s more significant majority rather than absolute all. He had been used as a source by media and they don’t always present him as a critic or former member iirc, so it’s possible they don’t know that side of what he does.

They would have trouble with this icon as well. Is it affiliated with the church? I dont see these guys getting sued and they are obviously playing the Mormon ooops I mean the church of Jesus Christ of latter day saints card with all the missionaries and their name tags.

For the Lanham Act, it doesn't have to be 100% identical. The legal definition is "Likelihood of Confusion". And there are several factors that are at play. The fact that it is blue, has the word "Mormon", and has light rays that are angled similarly could cause confusion for consumers (both mormons and non-mormons). If you showed that list to a group of non-mormons and asked them to pick out the icon that is NOT affiliated with the church, do you think they would pick the "Mormon Stories" one? https://www.reuters.com/practical-law-the-journal/litigation/trademark-litigation-likelihood-confusion-2023-03-01/ seems to be a decent rundown on the mechanism. It isn't short but I think it explains the various angles that are involved. It is a bit complicated because they look at a whole bunch of things.

There's a podcast from Dehlin about the podcast that had the church's lawyer. I spent the time to listen to it. It was interesting to hear his point of view. But I think there were several things that were confusing. He and the guest (Meggan) talk about how they think the church was acting in bad faith. That when they sent the first email, they were already planning on destroying him but didn't want to announce it. He says he complied with the first email and was surprised by the request to go to mediation because he had already done everything that was asked. And then the mediation surprised him by asking for more things. And then the lawsuit was filed. Each time, he was complying and just feels like the church never was going to accept his compliance. His evidence is that the verbal disclaimer wasn't asked for in the initial email and since that is what they are demanding now, it obviously shows that they were acting in bad faith. The problem, I see, with that reasoning is that the initial email talks about all the marks, which includes "Mormon". The email asked him to "remove and discontinue" all trademarks (which includes "Mormon") and make it so that visitors know it isn't affiliated with the church. So, from the very beginning, the church asked him to rename Mormon Stories and do things to reduce confusion. His initial response didn't reduce the confusion. He only did a few minor updates. So the church went to mediation (at their own expense) to figure out what could be done to reduce confusion. My guess is that Dehlin and Meggan just assume that Mormon can't be a trademark and so don't see that ask in the initial email. You can see the entire email chain at https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.utd.163775/gov.uscourts.utd.163775.42.2.pdf and the final email after mediation https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.utd.163775/gov.uscourts.utd.163775.42.3.pdf. He talks about he never intentionally tried to mimic the church's design. He instead hired some designers to make his logo and banner. And that could be 100% true but it doesn't have any impact on trademark infringement. No intent is needed. He also talks about the Christus image in his banner and thinks it might not even be the church's logo and so it isn't copyright infringement. But the church does own that image. It has 2 versions of it. One that is in the logo and one that is by itself (https://publicrecords.copyright.gov/detailed-record/siebel_VA002486714). Yes, the physical Christus statue doesn't have a copyright, but any pictures or drawings of it have their own separate copyright. He also thinks the banner is obviously not trademark infringement because: it contains the word "Mormon", it has his face, and the faces of some of the most high profile excommunicated members. How could "anybody who has a brain" think that the banner shows that the church was affiliated with the podcast. But he is missing the point. He knows these people because he is in that circle. If I asked my wife and other family members if they recognized those faces, I doubt less than 25% would know them. And these are all LDS. If I asked a non-member, I would expect the number to be less than 10%. The word "Mormon" means the church in the common sense. So, a non-member who sees something with the word Mormon, a doctor, and some nice faces has no way to realize that it isn't connected to the church. He thinks the church is trying to protect members by adding the disclaimer. But since all members already know he is critical of the church (doubtful but I'll concede that), then there is no confusion. Except the consumers aren't just members of the church but non-members. And they don't know him. Dehlin is so focused on how the confusion impacts members, he is missing the vast majority of people that would be confused.

I believe this may be the droid your mother warned you about

The church cant even decide which shade of blue to use. Here are a few samples (with MS included) from the lawsuit. I suppose another questions may be about the light rays. Does the church feel they own a right to uses of any light rays or just rays that look the same as what the church uses in some of its logos? If that is the case, the rays on the MS logo do not match the ones used by the church. https://www.deseret.com/faith/2026/04/19/church-of-jesus-christ-files-trademark-complaint-against-podcaster-for-alleged-imitation-of-brands/

When I look at the icons from the initial argument (page 2 of https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.utd.163775/gov.uscourts.utd.163775.1.0.pdf), I don't think his color is that close to the church's logos. His is more blue compared to the others. But yeah, his color change after mediation does make it feel like the church felt the blue was important. I just don't think they have a trademarked blue and if he just had a blue logo that was identical color to one of the church's icons but said "Open Stories", I don't think the color would have triggered this response.

I was being a little sarcastic since your hypothetical was really extreme. You mentioned people that do this and then brag about it. So those people would be known. But I really don't see this happening at all. One, I doubt Dehlin would want to ban temple endowed people from the jury since that would ban people like you who would probably vote for him. I suspect that most of those that are for Dehlin once went through the temple. So banning on that pretext is a really bad idea for him. And discussing religion (such as temple covenants) in jury selection is not allowed. The lawyer would ask other questions to tease out if a person is for or against Dehlin from the beginning and that would be a much better way than doing a blanket ban on temple endowed people.

Dehlin did change it to orange iirc when he was working with the Church to settle. Just making that observation that it might have been mentioned by the Church in the negotiations. Would be interesting if they didn’t, but Dehlin changed it on hs own as that suggests o me he understood it as contributing to confusing. And given all the blues out there they could have chosen from, seems intentional.

I tried to see if the church owns a blue trademark but I don't see any. And going through the lawsuit papers, I don't see any mention of a blue related trademark. Just the names, light rays, and images. They do talk about the blue logo and how it looks similar but no mention of a trademark specifically around a blue color. I do agree that there is a blue tone range but I don't think the church can prevent anyone from using it.

How would anyone know why the juror voted the way they did? Unless they go around saying yea dehlin didn’t do anything wrong but I voted against him anyway fetch that guy I don’t see how a redo would be triggered.

There is a particular blue tone range as well I call Mormon blue. This website uses it. So does FAIR. I know FAIR got a license to use the stuff similar to the official site, both verbal and visual. I know several other LDS members’ sites that had to as well. I assume this board did as well, but can’t remember if Nemesis reported this or not.

I think you are right. Agreeing with everything the church does is different than consecrating our efforts to the kingdom of God.

I doubt the temple covenants would be brought up. But I would think Dehlin would prefer to have believing members on the jury. I think he would have a harder time convincing non affiliated people that he wasn't causing confusion. Also, if a voter did do what you say, it would just trigger a redo. And I really don't see why the temple covenants would be invoked. Because the worst that could happen to the church is that Mormon Stories continues as it is and the church pays lawyer fees. There's no protection needed for the church. Dehlin, on the other hand, could loose a lot. He needs more protection.

If this whole mess goes to trial, is there a chance Dehlin will be able to get rid of jurors who profess to be active temple recommend holding members? Reason I ask is because part of the endowment specifically has a person covenanting to consecrate everything to the kingdom of God...to include their very lives. Certainly voting in favor of the church in this case would be protecting the kingdom of god whether the plaintiffs prove their case or not. I know I have family members who would vote like that and also brag about voting that way. Lying for the lord comes to mind. Jury selection certainly can be an interesting show if it happens. I bet that temple script gets trotted out in selection.

I don't agree that the church would sue her if she had gotten a trademark. I don't really see why the church would sue her. Since the church filed an opposition to the USPTO, it is already trying to block the trademark. If the USPTO still granted that trademark, it gives her a really strong argument against the church. Any lawsuit they file afterwards is starting on weak footing. Anything that was already brought up at the USPTO would probably not be allowed in the lawsuit (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%26B_Hardware%2C_Inc._v._Hargis_Industries%2C_Inc. was a Supreme Court ruling that says issues argued in front of the USPTO are precluded from district court cases).

"You could argue that the church has dropped some of those marks, like "Mormon Tabernacle Choir", "Mormon Channel", "Mormon.org", but that is not as simple as pointing to the style guide or the rename." All three of these (bolded) are still trademarked by intellectual reserve. I dont blame them for MOTAB i mean that is a for-profit venture. The rest...meh So you didnt find any existing LDS trademark that resembles the "bad Mormon" one? So you agree they would have sued her if she didnt withdraw her application? Sounds like they were "going after" her.

I like it a lot as well. John Derbyshire, paraphrasing what Robert Conquest famously observed, said that "Everyone is conservative about what he knows best." Dern tootin'. @california boy is, I think, demonstrative of this. He now wants to "conserve" same-sex marriage. He wanted the definition of marriage "progress" and be re-defined as to gender, but I think he does not want it to thereafter "progress" to a re-definition as to number. Perhaps we could also say: "Everyone is liberal about a good he has seen withheld." For me, I tend to balance the two by looking at Chesterton's Fence, the rule that you do not pull down a barrier until you know why it was put up. The original image is a road with a fence across it. The reformer says it is pointless and should go. Chesterton’s reply is that you are not entitled to remove it until you can say what it was for. If you do not know, you do not yet know whether you are clearing an obstruction or opening a ditch. Once you do know — cattle, a boundary, a flood channel — you may still take it down. The point is not “never change.” It is “do not change in ignorance.” The fence therefore forbids two cheap moves. The "progressive" cheap move: “I do not see the use of this, therefore it is oppression.” Not seeing the use is your ignorance, not the fence’s verdict. The "conservative" cheap move: “It is old, therefore it must stay.” Age is a clue that someone had a reason. It is not a proof that the reason still holds. Used honestly, the test is sequential. First state the purpose of the existing rule (conservative work). Then ask whether that purpose is still real, whether the rule still serves it, and whether a different rule would serve the same purpose with less exclusion (liberal work). If you skip the first step, you get vandalism dressed as compassion. If you refuse the second, you get ancestor-worship dressed as wisdom. Everyone is conservative about what he knows best — he can explain the fence. Everyone is liberal about a good he has seen withheld — he can say who is standing on the other side of it. Chesterton’s rule is the requirement that both speeches happen before anyone brings a saw. I do find the sentiment in the video you like difficult to reconcile with the well that folks like you and SU so frequently go to, namely, "The only plausible explanation for you disagreeing with me is that you are a bigot." You seem to genuinely lack the capacity to allow reasonable minds to reach conclusions which diverge from your conclusions. Two problems with that. First. “Everything that interacts with observable reality is within the purview of science” is true only if you mean: if it leaves a trace in the world, that trace can be looked at. It is false if you mean: the only legitimate explanation of a trace is a current physical law, applied as if the universe were a closed box with no author. A signed document interacts with reality. So does a marriage, a crime, a resurrection claim, a translation of a text. History, law, and testimony are how we handle particular events. Physics is how we handle repeatable regularities. Those are not the same toolkit. “Science owns every interaction” is a territorial claim, not a finding. It is also self-undermining: the decision that only that toolkit counts is not itself a laboratory result. If a prophet claims God spoke, you can ask whether the claim is coherent, whether witnesses held, whether the fruits match the tree, whether rival explanations are better. That is inquiry. It is not the same as saying “unless this shows up as a new force in the Standard Model, it did not happen.” Second. Pinker and Carroll are not talking about revelation. They are talking about a soul or an ESP faculty conceived as an extra physical widget — a field, a particle, a brain that steers photons without a mechanism. Given that picture, yes: everyday physics is complete enough that you should not expect undergraduates to peek behind the curtain. Bem’s porn-curtain study is a bad analogy for Isaiah or Moroni because nobody in those texts is proposing a fifth force in the lab. Revelation, as I am using it, is not “the laws of physics failed in the undergraduate basement.” It is: the God who instituted those laws can address a person, or act in a particular history, without the universe becoming a different kind of machine. That is a claim about an agent who is not an item in the inventory. You can reject the agent. You cannot treat “we have mapped the low-energy effective theory” as a demonstration that no such agent exists. That conclusion was loaded into the prior. “The rules of physics rule out revelation” only works if revelation means a physical leak. I did not mean a physical leak. I meant that some questions — whether we are accountable, whether this record is from God, whether this commandment is His — are not settled by extending the same method that measures a charge-to-mass ratio. Science answers how the furnace burns. It does not tell you whether the owner of the house has spoken. If your view is that nothing can speak except what the current equations already contain, say that. That is metaphysical naturalism. It is not “science.” It is a philosophy that uses science as its branding. I think "Analytics the ardent anti-Mormon" has given us a menu of ways "Analytics the scentifically-minded 'squarely on the side of empirical realiity'" buy must find defective. Compartmentalization. Shelf. Ignorance of esoteric QFT. Cognitive dissonance. Apathy. Cultural religion with the supernatural filed off. Those things exist. They are not a proof that they are what is happening every time a chemist who goes to church walks into a lab. The fact I pointed to is narrower than you treated it. I did not say “LDS physicists exist, therefore Moroni is a theorem.” I said they do not have to check their faith at the door in order to do the work. That is an existence claim about compatibility of practices. You answered with a compatibility claim about metaphysics: if the current laws are true, revelation is false, so the scientist who believes both is fooling himself. That only follows if “the laws” already include “the universe is a closed system with no speaker.” That clause is not in the Lagrangian. “What the laws of physics are” and “what those laws imply” are two sentences. The first is: at everyday energies we have an extraordinarily good effective theory; extra forces and extra soul-particles are not sitting in the gap. The second is: therefore God cannot address a person or act in history. The jump is where the philosophy is doing the work. Carroll is entitled to that philosophy. He is not entitled to call it a measurement. If the only permitted stance is “QFT plus naturalism,” then yes, every believing scientist is compartmentalizing. That is not a finding about them. It is your definition of sanity. A man who thinks the Creator of the regularities can also speak is not required to forget how a semiconductor works. He is required not to treat the semiconductor as a sacrament. Those are different mistakes. You can still argue that particular LDS historical claims fail on historical grounds. Do that. “There are Saints in the hard sciences” was never offered as a substitute for that argument. It was offered against the idea that walking into a lab is an implicit oath of metaphysical naturalism. It isn’t. The oath is yours. No. Science and religion are in tension when religion makes truth-claims about observable reality that contradict science. “That formulation still treats the current naturalistic reading of the data as identical with ‘science.’ Science, as a method, is observation, measurement, and the search for regularities. It is silent, or at least underdetermined, on unique historical events, first causes, and whether agency can ever be a cause. Tension appears only after you add the extra rule that the only respectable explanations are those that stay inside Sagan–Carroll naturalism. That rule is a philosophical premise, not a finding of physics or biology. If a religious claim is about a repeatable, presently observable regularity and it is simply false, then yes, that particular claim is in trouble. Most of the live disputes are not of that kind; they are disputes about what counts as an explanation in the first place.” "Science" can't establish whether Caesar was stabbed to death on the floor of the Roman Senate. You are on record as accepting that event as historically accurate even though it is bereft of derived-from-the-scientific-method empirical verification. That's precisely my point. The Baloney Detection Kit is about subjecting your beliefs to the crucible of scientific thinking so that you stop believing false things. If you want your religious convictions to "survive contact with ordinary life", you should do the opposite of what the Baloney Detection Kit prescribes. The Kit is a good tool for one job: reducing error about repeatable, publicly observable regularities while treating personal, historical, and agent-involving claims as last-resort explanations. That is a legitimate project. It is not the only project. Wanting a conviction to survive contact with ordinary life is not ‘do the opposite of the Kit.’ It is closer to what every research program and every serious moral commitment actually does: protect a core while letting the periphery be revised by experience. Naturalists do this with the uniformity of nature, other minds, and the reliability of induction. They do not put those on the same footing as ‘this particular UFO report.’ The Kit does not start from equipoise. It already decides that first-person spiritual experience, testimony, and unique historical claims are the kind of thing that must be explained away rather than allowed to count as data. That decision is the premise we were discussing, not a result the Kit discovered. If the only goal is ‘never believe a false religious claim,’ the Kit is well-designed. If the goal is also ‘do not systematically ignore a class of evidence that millions of people take themselves to have,’ then applying the Kit without remainder is not neutrality. It is a prior restriction on what is allowed to count.” It isn't just for things that are fraud. It's for any new idea that could be fraud; for all "new ideas that are offered for consideration." In the words of Sagan: In the course of their training, scientists are equipped with a baloney detection kit. The kit is brought out as a matter of course whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. If the new idea survives examination by the tools in our kit, we grant it warm, although tentative, acceptance. If you’re so inclined, if you don’t want to buy baloney even when it’s reassuring to do so, there are precautions that can be taken; there’s a tried-and-true, consumer-tested method. What’s in the kit? Tools for skeptical thinking. Sagan, Carl. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark (pp. 209-210). (Function). Kindle Edition. Sagan says the kit comes out whenever new ideas are offered for consideration. In context those ideas are empirical claims about the world that are being put forward as the kind of thing science should accept or reject: a new particle, a cancer cure, a UFO propulsion system, an ESP result. The tools (independent replication, quantification, rival hypotheses, falsifiability) are built for that class of claim. That is not the same as saying every conviction a person lives by must enter the same protocol from a standing start. ‘God exists,’ ‘Christ rose,’ or ‘this book is what it claims’ are not being offered to a journal as a new physical mechanism. They are already-live options for people who treat testimony, history, and first-person confirmation as admissible. Using the kit on sloppy history or fraud is exactly right. Treating the kit as the sole gatekeeper for whether those options may remain live is an extra rule about which kinds of evidence count. Sagan is explicit that he wants that rule. That is the premise, not a finding the kit produced after a neutral inspection of every possible idea. Tell me you haven't read The Big Picture without telling me you haven't read The Big Picture. I am working from the pages you quoted and I have seen elsewhere, not from a pretense of having read the whole book. Those pages say the particle content relevant to everyday matter is settled, and that a soul that made a difference the way extra particles would have made a difference should have been seen. That is a strong experimental claim. I am not disputing it. What I am disputing is the next step: treating that inventory as a complete list of everything that can exist or act, and then assigning an infinitesimal prior to revelation or a soul. That prior is not a measurement. It is the probability you get once you have already decided that the only admissible causes are items in the Core Theory, coupling the way those items couple. That decision is physicalism. It may be correct. It is not something a detector returned as 10−3010^{-30}10−30. No. It isn't a philosophical position about physicalism. It's the laws of physics that have resulted from incredibly detailed and expensive studies that were conducted over the course of decades. The verdict is unambiguous: we’ve found all of the particles that our best current technology enables us to find. Crossing symmetry assures us that, if there were any particles lurking around us that interact with ordinary matter strongly enough to make a difference to the behavior of everyday stuff, those particles should have easily been produced in experiments. But there’s nothing there. There are probably more particles yet to be found. They just won’t be relevant to our everyday world. Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (pp. 182-183). (Function). Kindle Edition. I understand how you think he is merely saying that science hasn't detected how our spirits interface with our bodies, but if they looked more closley in the right place, they'd figure it out. In theory that could be true, but what you are claiming is "that modern physics is profoundly wrong in a way that has so far eluded every controlled experiment ever performed." Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (p. 212). (Function). Kindle Edition. Of course you are free to believe that God is so powerful that he can make modern physics profoundly wrong in a way that has so far eluded every controlled experiment ever performed. Philisophically, anything is possible. But if you are going to claim that Carroll is wrong about physics, at least have the common courtesy to read his book and not merely declare that he is wrong because the results aren't intuitive to you and contradict your religious beliefs. I have not read the book. I am answering the passages you quoted. Those passages are about the particle content of the effective theory that governs everyday matter. Crossing symmetry and the absence of extra light, strongly coupled degrees of freedom are real results. I am not saying the LHC missed a particle, and I am not saying the Standard Model is ‘profoundly wrong’ about the interactions it has measured. Carroll’s further claim is that a soul (or any influence that made a systematic difference to bodies) would have to be that kind of extra particle, and therefore either it does not exist or physics is profoundly wrong. That ‘would have to be’ is the philosophical step. It assumes that the only things that can act on ordinary matter are items already in the inventory, coupling the way those items couple. That is physicalism: the physical facts, so described, are the complete facts. A theist can accept the experimental record and reject that completeness rule. God or a soul need not be another field that should have appeared in collider debris. It can fail to be a fifth force, act rarely, or be the kind of cause the Lagrangian was never meant to list. Those options may be false. They are not the same claim as ‘modern physics got the particles wrong.’ So I am not declaring Carroll wrong about physics because the conclusion conflicts with my religion. I am saying the physics he cites does not by itself force the infinitesimal prior. The prior comes after you have already decided that the inventory is the whole story. You completely miss the point. Before the experiment was done, "it was a foregone conclusion" that psychic powers don't exist because that would break rock-solid laws of physics. Likewise, it is a foregone conclusion that spirits and revelation don't exist, because such things also break the same rock-solid laws of physics. The only reason I brought this Pinker quote up is to quote how National Academy of Science scientists such as Pinker interpret Carroll and the language they use when describing how much confidence science has in their scientific conclusions and what those conclusions imply. They use words like "foregone conclusion," "infinitesimal prior probability," "disproven the laws of physics", and "the laws of physics rule out precognition and [spirits and revelation]." I understand that you think claiming "God can do anything!" outweighs all this. But God could have an elaborate scheme going on to make it appear that the earth is round when it's really flat, couldn't He? How could scientists possibly know God isn't pulling that trick on us? Pinker’s language is the point I was already naming. ‘Foregone conclusion,’ ‘infinitesimal prior,’ ‘the laws rule it out’ — that is how you talk once you have read the Core Theory as a complete inventory of causes. I am not missing that. I am saying that reading is the extra step. Bem-style precognition is a proposed regular, lab-detectable channel from future public events into present guesses. If that channel existed as a natural capacity of undergraduates, it would conflict with the causal structure we actually use in physics. Failed replications are evidence against that hypothesis. ‘God can disclose something to a mind’ is not the same hypothesis with different branding. It does not predict a stable, quantifiable psi effect in a psychology lab. It does not require a new particle that couples like the electron. Treating them as one claim is what I called equivocation. The flat-earth trick does not follow. ‘God could in principle deceive us about anything’ is true in the thin philosophical sense that global skepticism is hard to disprove. It is not a reason to treat every particular religious claim as equivalent to last-Thursdayism or a fake-round earth. We still distinguish ordinary regularities we have mapped from unique or agent-involving claims we have not. Particle physics tightly constrains extra forces in the everyday domain. It does not, by itself, convert ‘no extra psi particle’ into ‘therefore no Creator can speak.’ That conversion is the physicalist prior, which is why the conclusion is called a foregone conclusion before the relevant kind of evidence is even admitted. Thanks, -Smac

It’s understandable how the phrase “generation upon generation” could cause some confusion here, but by reading verse 24 in the context of the following 20 informative verses it become perfectly clear that the previously mentioned righteous souls who were taken up to the heavenly Zion were contemporaries of Enoch who were lifted up so as to avoid the destruction of the great flood that would follow soon after the ministry of Enoch, which is the same ministry that was passed on to Noah after Enoch and his people of the city of Zion were taken up to heaven. 24 And there came generation upon generation; and Enoch was high and lifted up, even in the bosom of the Father, and of the Son of Man; and behold, the power of Satan was upon all the face of the earth. 25 And he saw angels descending out of heaven; and he heard a loud voice saying: Wo, wo be unto the inhabitants of the earth. 26 And he beheld Satan; and he had a great chain in his hand, and it veiled the whole face of the earth with darkness; and he looked up and laughed, and his angels rejoiced. 27 And Enoch beheld angels descending out of heaven, bearing testimony of the Father and Son; and the Holy Ghost fell on many, and they were caught up by the powers of heaven into Zion. 28 And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept; and Enoch bore record of it, saying: How is it that the heavens weep, and shed forth their tears as the rain upon the mountains? 29 And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity? 30 And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea, millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy curtains are stretched out still; and yet thou art there, and thy bosom is there; and also thou art just; thou art merciful and kind forever; 31 And thou hast taken Zion to thine own bosom, from all thy creations, from all eternity to all eternity; and naught but peace, justice, and truth is the habitation of thy throne; and mercy shall go before thy face and have no end; how is it thou canst weep? 32 The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; 33 And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood; 34 And the fire of mine indignation is kindled against them; and in my hot displeasure will I send in the floods upon them, for my fierce anger is kindled against them. 35 Behold, I am God; Man of Holiness is my name; Man of Counsel is my name; and Endless and Eternal is my name, also. 36 Wherefore, I can stretch forth mine hands and hold all the creations which I have made; and mine eye can pierce them also, and among all the workmanship of mine hands there has not been so great wickedness as among thy brethren. 37 But behold, their sins shall be upon the heads of their fathers; Satan shall be their father, and misery shall be their doom; and the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer? 38 But behold, these which thine eyes are upon shall perish in the floods; and behold, I will shut them up; a prison have I prepared for them. 39 And that which I have chosen hath pled before my face. Wherefore, he suffereth for their sins; inasmuch as they will repent in the day that my Chosen shall return unto me, and until that day they shall be in torment; 40 Wherefore, for this shall the heavens weep, yea, and all the workmanship of mine hands. 41 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Enoch, and told Enoch all the doings of the children of men; wherefore Enoch knew, and looked upon their wickedness, and their misery, and wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook. 42 And Enoch also saw Noah, and his family; that the posterity of all the sons of Noah should be saved with a temporal salvation; 43 Wherefore Enoch saw that Noah built an ark; and that the Lord smiled upon it, and held it in his own hand; but upon the residue of the wicked the floods came and swallowed them up. (Moses 7)