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A correction….They believe they experience life as a woman. Since they cannot perceive what the inner world of a woman is like and how we in general react to the world, much of what they believe is based on assumptions. For example, I suspect they don’t approach life planning events and appointments around their monthly cycle only to be screwed up by it coming early or late. They may have fear due to being weaker and more vulnerable for a variety of reasons than most males, but they probably lack the cultural and social experIence that has come from eons of male dominance over females. Having said that, I have learned my assumptions of what it means to experience life as a woman can at times be dramatically different from another woman’s POV and my sense of what a woman needs to be includes so much less than a lot of others…for me, it’s a few biological realities and not much more. This fact that we as a biological sex are so varied makes it easier to understand why there may be those who do not experience those few biological realities, but still see themselves as women even if it frustrates me that we as a society are still so locked into gender roles that so many who are not biologically women still define themselves that way, which to me strengthens the box women in general are often forced into by their upbringing rather than destroying the boxes our culture has come up with to truly allow for recognition of individual expressions of being. (I am not sure if the preceding makes sense; I see it as similar to some women choosing to seek after being able to receive the same priesthood as men currently get, defining our potential by what men now have rather than expecting there may be something different waiting for us or that we already have we must learn to recognize.)

I am not disagreeing with you that spiritual authority, all authority in my view, has the potential to be abused. Joseph Smith agrees to. D&C 121: However, to avoid being misunderstood in the future you might want to alter your use of intrinsic as that is commonly viewed as stronger than just saying something has potential, it is saying something is necessarily that way. The potential for abuse is intrinsic to authority, but it is not intrinsically abusive as that would mean it’s always abusive. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/intrinsic

Now you tell me! 😛

I agree. But I was not speaking of "potential for abuse," but of "spiritual authority as intrinsically oppressive." See here: There is no question (in my mind, at least) that some usages of spiritual authority can be intrinsically oppressive. And I would expand that to some usages of any kind of authority can be intrinsically oppressive. A police officer's legal authority to arrest someone is not "intrinsically" oppressive, but it is capable of becoming so based on the circumstances. Effectively all human relationships "have the intrinsic capacity to be abusive." But spiritual authority having the capacity to be "oppressive" is, in my view, distinct from being "intrinsically" oppressive altogether. Sounds like we agree on this point. And in mine as well. There is only one perfect person who has ever walked the earth. The rest of us can and do make mistakes. Could you elaborate here? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by "violence." By this formulation any doctrinal disagreement between Party A and Party B is "violence." Without more, doctrinal disagreement is not "violence," it's just disagreement. I'm not sure I see the symmetry here. "Latter-day Saints do not believe in priesthood authority outside of that administered in their faith" is a qualitatively different statement from "Latter-day Saints do not believe in the 'Jesus' described in the New Testament of the Bible." The former is a true characterization of and statement about our faith, the latter is factually incorrect and and unfair and inaccurate characterization. Still not sure what "symbolic violence" means. As a Latter-day Saint, I anticipate Christians in other faith traditions will disagree and/or deny that John the Baptist and Peter, James and John descended from heaven and restored the priesthood to and through Joseph Smith. I don't see that as "violence," symbolic or otherwise. It's just disagreement. For me and my lawyer brain, "violence" has specific reference to the use of physical force. However, I can see how "violence" can be legitimately used in purely metaphorical ways. They help. Thanks. -Smac

When the muse speaks, I listen. I'm not always the most creative person, but this one practically wrote itself. Glad you enjoyed it.

I entirely agree. I am grateful to have in my life influences that are both external to me and "above" me. That way I can follow codes of conduct that I have not created for myself. Had I been the author of my own moral code, I would become the arbiter of right and wrong, and I think I am not good and decent enough to accurately arbitrate in that way. I have made many decisions which I now value, and avoided many decisions and value that avoidance, and have made bade decisions and repented. I believe we also have access to guidance from God, who is perfect, who loves us, who has our best interests at heart, and so on. There are few certitudes in life. The sexual binary is one of them. Biological sex in humans remains binary because gamete production defines biological sex, because there are only two types of gamete, and because chromosomal, gonadal, and anatomical variations exist but do not create a third sex, and instead only create variations within the male-female binary. While our ability to diagnose/classify it can be imperfect/uncertain, that imperfection/uncertainty does not create a third sex category. The biological reality here is that no human has the design to produce anything other than sperm or eggs, that there are only these two types of gametes, and that these two are the basis of sex. DSDs do not introduce new gametes, and therefore, do not create a new sex. I recognize that we disagree about the sexual binary. Tomboy, femboy, butch, femme, androgynous, “alpha,” and “beta” are personality and presentation. They are how some males and some females dress and act. They are not sexes and they are not a spectrum of sexes. Sex stays the binary that those styles culturally attach to. If “gender” only means those styles, I think we should say that and stop using “gender” on IDs, in sports, and in medicine as if it were sex. If “gender” means sex, then it is not a social construct and the costume/larping list does not apply. Using the word both ways in the same argument is the problem, not a “complex structure.” Interestingly, asking people to treat a male as a woman because he is femme is enforcing the stereotype (femininity = woman), not escaping it. The reality of the sexual binary is not about what I “want.” I may not want the earth to be an oblate spheroid. But it is one. Donald Trump is the current POTUS even though plenty of people don't "want" him to be. Sex in humans is the same kind of claim: a description of how the world is, not a creed I am trying to protect. In sexually reproducing animals, sex is the binary of two gamete types — small and large. That is the definition used in biology. There are two sexes. Developmental disorders and atypical chromosomes are variations within that system. They are not a third sex, any more than a person born with one kidney refutes the fact that humans are a two-kidney species. Calling that a “religious tenet” seems to sidestep the issue. The religious move is the one that says an inner feeling can rewrite the class. That claim is not observed in anatomy, gametes, or genetics. It is asserted, then insulated from counterexample by changing the meaning of “woman,” “man,” and “sex” mid-argument, and by attacking ("Bigot!") anyone who rejects the ideologically-motivated rejection of the sexual binary. I agree with Richard Dawkins on this point: sex is one of the few genuine binaries in biology: Things that cannot be proved or disproved — gods, souls, “gender identity” as an unfalsifiable essence — sit in another pile. Sex does not. If you think there is a third sex in humans, I would ask you to name the third gamete. If you cannot, you are not describing nature. You are describing an ideological rule you want other people to obey. You can grant the feeling and still refuse the fact-claim. That is the whole distinction they are erasing. I am not denying that some males have a persistent feeling they describe as “experiencing life as a woman” (and vice versa for some women). I have no access to their inner life. What I can deny is the next sentence: that the feeling about "being" or "identifying as" a woman transmutes those men into women. “Lived experience” is evidence of how something seems to the speaker. It is not evidence that the speaker is the other sex. People also report experiencing themselves as Napoleon, as younger than they are, as having been abducted, as being two people. The report can be sincere. The conclusion can still be false. In Arsenic and Old Lace, Uncle Teddy is not lying when he “experiences life” as Theodore Roosevelt. The other characters can treat him gently. They cannot put him on Mount Rushmore. Kindness does not require them to agree that he served two terms and charged up San Juan Hill. Same here. I can accept that the distress is real and still say: this person is male. Woman means adult human female. A male’s account of his feelings does not change that, and asking everyone else to speak as if it did is not “respecting experience.” It is demanding that we falsify a public fact so that a private feeling will go unchallenged. The question is not “why denigrate their experience?” I am not. The question is whether other people must treat a false identity claim as if it were a discovery about sex. We should not. The issue is not a shortage of paperwork. It is that bathrooms, locker rooms, and shelters are separated by sex because males and females differ in strength, crime patterns, and privacy. A rule that lets some males in after hormones or a waiver does not stop being a male-access rule. It just adds a clinic. “Pretenders” are not the main load-bearing concern. A man who wants to expose himself or get into a girls’ locker room is not waiting on a letter from an endocrinologist. Your proposal's screen will catch some and miss others. Presentation is not a background check. “Expand and open access to gender-affirming care, then require it” also does the opposite of what you think it does. It turns a facilities rule into a demand that more people be put on drugs, including people who would have desisted. A waiver for those who will not or cannot take the drugs puts you back at self-ID with extra steps. So the proposal is either more medicalization or self-ID plus a form. Trans advocacy groups have already answered this. Gatekeeping by surgery or hormones is what they call “transmedicalism.” HRC, GLAAD, and similar organizations treat self-identification as sufficient for facilities. A “minor level of scrutiny” to exclude “riffraff” is, on their terms, a denial of identity. You will get pushback from that side and you will still have males in female spaces. That is not a compromise that solves both objections. It is a policy that satisfies neither. “Letting people pee where they want” is not a workable design. The design I propose, which is to segregate by sex, means that males do not use the room set aside for females. If we want unisex single-occupancy rooms, we can say that and build them. I don't think we can call a males-in-the-women’s-room rule “easy,” and do not treat disagreement as panic about toilets. The limiting principle is, or ought to be, sex. Once you replace sex with identity plus a prescription, you have no principle left except whoever holds the waiver stamp. You comment here is not an argument about bathrooms. It is a verdict on my character, plus a conclusion that assumes the thing in dispute. You treat “presents as a woman” as the ticket into a female space. That is the claim under review. It is not a fact I have to grant before we talk. A male who presents as a woman is still male. The room was not built for "presentation." It was built for the female sex — including girls who did not volunteer to share it with males, however they dress. My position does not “force men into women’s spaces and women into men’s.” It keeps males in the male room and females in the female room. If someone hates that pairing, the remedy is a single-occupancy lockable room, not a male in the communal women’s room. Your rule is the one that puts males in the space set aside for women. “You don’t care about women” is an ad hominem. Caring about women here means caring about the class those rooms were created for: females, not a costume category. Society built sex-separated spaces because of male-pattern crime, strength, and basic privacy. That is not a sacrament. It is why the door says Women. My religious principles are, subject to constitutional constraints, as relevant to public policy as your secular principles. And my argument is not a matter of religious faith. A man does not "become" a woman by "identifying" as one. That is a statement of fact, not belief. Thanks, -Smac

Greetings, my friend. Perhaps we define "intrinsically" differently. That is ok. For me, "intrinsically" means something has within it the capability, roots, or potential for." So, yes, I agree that all authority, including spiritual authority, has within in the potential for abuse. Many aspects of religion have the intrinsic capacity to be abusive, in all religious groups. In religions we sometimes manifest the "all but mine" syndrome. We may either deny, rationalize, or justify toxicity based on our doctrine or dogma. Once we take possession of the truth, especially sole possession, the doors for abuse swing wide open, yes, even in my faith. Religious authority is filled with the potential for symbolic violence a la Bourdieu. It is, of course, easier for me to see in the LDS Church than it is for me to see it in the Mennonite Church. The blind spot is a core quadrant in the Johari Window. For example, if the LDS Church held that I have no spiritual authority to baptize in the LDS Church, that would make perfect sense to me. But when the LDS Church claims that my father had no spiritual authority when he baptized me in our church, hence my baptism is invalid according to Christ. Or when it is said I had no spiritual authority when I baptized the 100 or so people that I baptized; therefore, they all need rebaptized by someone with "proper" authority (aka an LDS elder). That doctrine extends to a denial of my spiritual authority, the Gift of the Holy Spirit, etc. in a way that does me and my spiritual condition violence. "But it is our doctrine;" it is nothing personal," you say to me. Well, ditto for when a Fundamentalist or an Evangelical, or a Mainstreamer claims the LDS are not Christians "It is their doctrine; it is nothing personal" Well, it often becomes pretty personal for the LDS Christian pretty quickly, doesn't it? Symbolic violence is both personal and violent in a non-physical way (even if said with a kind smile). I am a project on a journey. I try not to allow my doctrine to become a sling to cast stones, nor to justify the slinging, especially when I know that even doctrinal stones hurt. I think spiritual authority is laden with latent potential for violence, both in interfaith and intrafaith situations. I don't know if any of this responds to your thoughtful comments. Best wishes.

I unfortunately do not have time to continue participation in this thread this week, so you will have to make do with a general response. The human experience is broad, complex and hard to know and understand. All we have access to is our own lived experience. Sex, while idealized as a binary, as expressed in real life is complex, based on interactions between chromosomes, allele expression, hormone levels and bio sensitivity to those hormones. Gender, further, is a social construct, with norms not determined strictly by sex chromosomes, but by the broader set of genes one has as well as biology's intersection with culture and people's lived experience. This complex structure makes gender anything but a binary. You have tomboy, femboy, alpha male, beta, butch, femme, androgynous just to name a few. You want to boil all this down strictly to a binary. Someone is either a boy or a girl period end of story. This isn't some reasoned stance based on first principals. It's a religious tenet of your faith that you accept and then go about searching for the best arguments to support like any good lawyer supporting their client. When someone tells me they experience life as a woman, even though they were assigned male at birth, that is a foreign experience to me. In talking with trans people though, this is not unique or particularly uncommon. It's the persistent lived experience of a small community. Why should I deny their lived experience? Or attempt to denigrate or undermine it? People like you act like the sky is falling because everyone knows we have to protect the women! Won't someone think of the bathrooms? I happen to think letting people pee where they want isn't going to cause any issues, but others disagree. So how to keep out the pretenders (people like you say)? CB proposes and I endorse with minor changes a proposal that creates some friction or barrier to entry. Specifically, first expand and open access to gender affirming care. Second require some amount of gender affirming care, or apply for and receive a waiver explaining why such care isn't an option. After proceeding through this minor level of scrutiny strictly in place to keep out the riffraff pretenders, we allow people to use the space that matches how they view themselves and present themselves to the world. Could this proposal receive pushback from trans activists? Maybe so. I'd certainly be happy to have a conversation with some, but I'm certainly not going to debate your version of AI about it (what is with people on this board and AI - seriously). This proposal shows that it would be easy to address your supposed concerns about limiting principles and keeping out the pretenders. What this concession has shown conclusively, however, is that you don't care about women or women's spaces. This proposal would protect women's private spaces to those who present as women. Your proposal would force men into women's spaces and women into men. You don't care. You want to force your religiously driven principals on everyone else, consequences be damned.

There is no question (in my mind, at least) that some usages of spiritual authority can be intrinsically oppressive. And I would expand that to some usages of any kind of authority can be intrinsically oppressive. Could you elaborate on the "intrinsically" part? I agree that "spiritual authority" can be used to "oppress" someone, but the same can be said of any type of authority. As soon as we acknowledge that, as soon as we differentiate between legitimate and illegitimate uses of authority, then the "intrinsically" goes awy. Could you elaborate? If Person A denies that Person B has or can exercise "spiritual authority" over him (Person A), whom has Person A oppressed/abused? How did this oppression/abuse come to exist? I agree. But as soon as we parse out "some usages" of spiritual authority, we cannot say that spiritual authority is "intrinsically" oppressive/abusive. Some kinds are, some are not. Thanks, -Smac

Here leaving a door unlocked is a huge no-no. Like, bringing your calling into jeopardy at the very least. The keys are controlled and they are all on point. Though most of the Bishopric here also work for Pop-a-lock, so maybe we're just lucky it's never left unlocked. Hopefully insurance will cover it?

Beagles are really hard dogs. But super cute!

To be divine is to possess the nature or attributes of God—such as perfect goodness, wisdom, power, or holiness. I don't view humans as being divine in essence, though they may reflect God's image or be close to God. Don't forget the dual nature of Christ. He is both God and man. And as man, God is his father. That does not make Christ a lesser God. In LDS theology, Heavenly Mother is above Christ (a higher God than Jesus) because she became a God before Jesus was born to her. She would also be a higher God than her other son who also became God (i.e. the Holy Spirit). Then you have to consider a few other things. I'll just throw in some possible events. Supposedly Heavenly Father was a man who lived on another world. He was married in mortality and had physical offspring. Let's call two of his sons John and Peter. His two sons on that other world each married one wife (John married Mary, Peter married Martha). These four people (John, Mary, Peter, Martha) progressed into becoming Gods before Jesus is born as a spirit child to Heavenly Father and Mother sometime later. His other brothers are technically John and Peter. So, the four additional Gods would be above Christ (higher Gods). And this doesn't include all the other millions of people who lived with Heavenly Father on his world who would progress into becoming Gods too, above Christ (higher Gods than he). Think about all those millions of people who grew up with Heavenly Father on his world. Whose offspring are they? God is already God before he becomes our Father. Where in the King Follett Discourse does Joseph Smith say God became our God and Father when his heavenly wife (or wives) gave us some form of spiritual birth? Do you believe Heavenly Father is a heavenly father before some heavenly mother gives birth to her first spirit child in some celestial home and before his wife in mortality gave birth to a physical child on that other world? Regarding Hebrews 2:7 and 1:2, it makes it easier to comprehend when you realize that Jesus and the Father are not two Gods. The LDS Heavenly Father supposedly was the Redeemer and Lord of those on the planet he grew up on. Whose offspring are they? Who created them?

I remember. You said, "How he came to be our God was in our relationship to him, and him providing a way for us to advance and become like him. That is the way Joseph Smith taught it in his sermon". In the King Follett Discourse, Joseph Smith does discuss the eternal nature of intelligence/spirits, but he does not explicitly teach that God and a heavenly wife produced spirit children. It does discuss humanity's existence before mortality, but its language is more about intelligence/spirits being eternal than the later familiar LDS formulation of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother having spirit children. So in short, it does not discuss how "God came to be God" (a phrase used in the sermon) before becoming "our God" (a phrase not used in the sermon). This is only in the sense of a spiritual relationship. Once a person is a literal offspring of God, he or she remains a literal child. In LDS theology, God continues to be the God (the literal parent) or all those spirit children who supposedly rebelled against him in some war in heaven. In the Protestant and Catholic views, one God is responsible for creating all planets, stars, universes, and everything relating to them. Offspring in two ways – [1] being created by God, and [2] in a spiritual sense (being adopted into his family), not in the sense of being born literally as spirit children to a heavenly mother. The LDS Heavenly Father supposedly was the Redeemer and Lord of those on the planet he grew up on. Whose offspring are they? You're making progress. We don't become God's offspring by being birthed by a heavenly mother. God being God from age to age = God being God from eternity to eternity = God being God from everlasting to everlasting. But I see your point if you only want to apply "age" to a human's perspective instead of to God's perspective. Joseph Smith and other LDS leaders taught there were Gods before (above) the God of Earth. Let me know which of the following 12 teachings are false and leading people astray and/or have another intended meaning: [1] [Joseph Smith] says: "If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that he had a Father also". Then he asks: "Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son?" [2] [Joseph Smith] taught that our Father had a Father and so on. Is not this a reasonable thought, specially when we remember that the promises are made to us that we may become like him? [3] Evidently his Father passed through a period of mortality even as he passed through mortality, and as we all are doing. Our Father in heaven, according to the Prophet, had a Father, and since there has been a condition of this kind through all eternity, each Father had a Father, until we come to a stop where we cannot go further, because of our limited capacity to understand" (Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation). [4] "We were begotten by our Father in Heaven; the person of our Father in Heaven was begotten on a previous heavenly world by His Father; and again, He was begotten by a still more ancient Father; and so on, from generation to generation, . . . we wonder in our minds, how far back the genealogy extends, and how the first world was formed, and the first father was begotten" (Orson Pratt, The Seer). [5] "Like man, He had a Father; and he was ‘the express image of the person of the Father.' Here "He" is God, in the preceding discussion of the true God. Thus Pratt explicitly describes God Himself as having a Father" (Orson Pratt, The Kingdom of God). [6] "He came here, was born, had a father and mother like you have. Well, who was his father? Why God was His father; and who was God's father? Why God had a father like you and I have". [7] "Now, with this information children can begin to understand something about their Heavenly Father. They can see that if Jesus is His Son, and we are His sons and daughters, that He must be the Son of some other personage, for He could not beget Himself, but must have a father even as He is our Father" (Gospel Truths, volume 1, George Q. Cannon, page 128). [8] "Long before our God began his creations, he dwelt on a mortal world like ours, one of the creations that his Father had created for him and his brethren. He, with many of his brethren, was obedient to the principles of the eternal gospel. One among these, it is presumed, was a savior for them, and through him they obtained a resurrection and an exaltation on an eternal, celestial world. Then they gained the power and godhood of their Father and were made heirs of all that he had, continuing his works and creating worlds of their own for their own posterity—the same as their Father had done before, and his Father, and his Father, and on and on" (Brigham Young, in Journal of Discourses, vol. 14, p. 71). [9] "If Abraham reasoned thus—If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way. Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly, Hence if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that He had a Father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such a doctrine, for the Bible is full of it" (Teachings of Joseph Smith, 1938). [10] "We must be grafted into the true vine, and continue to partake of its fatness, and then we shall go back to our Father and God, who is connected with one who is still farther back; and this Father is connected with one still further back, and so on; and just so far as we respect our superiors and try to save our children, so shall we receive blessings from this time forth and forever, and shall become as numerous as the sands upon the seashore" (Journal of Discourses, volume 5, Temple and Endowments— Raising Grain and Building Storehouses—President Heber C. Kimball, April 6, 1857). [11] "Some people are troubled over the statements of the Prophet Joseph Smith. . . . The matter that seems such a mystery is the statement that our Father in heaven at one time passed through a life and death and is an exalted man. This is one of the mysteries. . . . The Prophet taught that our Father had a Father and so on. Is not this a reasonable thought, especially when we remember that the promises are made to us that we may become like him?" (Doctrines of Salvation, volume 1). [12] "Brother Kimball quoted a saying of Joseph the Prophet, that he would not worship a God who had not a Father; and I do not know that he would if he had not a mother; the one would be as absurd as the other" (Journal of Discourses, vol. 9, p. 286). I am not aware of better LDS sources today which show that the 12 teachings I provided above are false LDS teachings. If you have these better sources, then let me know. Those leaders did not express what you now believe they did. Latter-day Saints also don't understand what the Bible means when it says Jesus is the firstborn. Trying to divert people from how the early LDS leaders spoke or what the biblical characters wrote is a common tactic. If one doesn't agree with something the Bible says, it means the Bible was not translated correctly. Likewise, if the King Follett Discourse does not say what one expects it to say or how one wants to understand it, then it means it must not have been recorded properly or that the speaker had something else in his mind. On this "intending" or "not intending" to mean, let examine a few statements by Brigham Young before I move to Joseph Smith. What did he [Brigham] intend to mean when he taught the following: "When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him". He continued: "He helped to make and organize this world. He is MICHAEL, the Archangel, the ANCIENT OF DAYS! about whom holy men have written and spoken—HE is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do". This appears in Journal of Discourses, vol. 1, pp. 50–51, in a sermon titled "The Powers of the Priesthood". Do you understand his intended meaning or do you ascribe another meaning to what he is saying? In the sermon of July 24, 1870, titled "The Gospel—The One-Man Power," published in Journal of Discourses, volume 13, p. 271, Young said: "Who can tell us of the inhabitants of this little planet that shines of an evening, called the moon? … when you inquire about the inhabitants of that sphere you find that the most learned are as ignorant in regard to them as the most ignorant of their fellows". He then compared this with the sun: "So it is with regard to the inhabitants of the sun. Do you think it is inhabited? I rather think it is. Do you think there is any life there? No question of it; it was not made in vain". https://journalofdiscourses.com/13/31 Do you understand his intended meaning or do you ascribe another meaning to what he is saying? Now, Joseph Smith. According to Oliver B. Huntington, Joseph Smith described the inhabitants of the moon this way: "The inhabitants of the moon are more of a uniform size than the inhabitants of the Earth, being about 6 feet in height. They dress very much like the Quaker style & are quite general in style, or the one fashion of dress. They live to be very old; coming generally, near a thousand years". Huntington then wrote: "This is the description of them as given by Joseph the Seer, and he could ‘See' whatever he asked the Father in the name of Jesus to see". https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/SCMisc/id/27480/ A slightly different version was published by Huntington in the Young Woman's Journal in 1892: "As far back as 1837, I know that he said the moon was inhabited by men and women the same as this earth, and that they lived to a greater age than we do—that they live generally to near the age of a 1000 years. He described the men as averaging near six feet in height, and dressing quite uniformly in something near the Quaker style". Do you understand Smith's intended meaning or do you ascribe another meaning to what he is saying? We also clearly know what Joseph Smith had in mind when he gave the King Follett discourse. "I will go back to the beginning before the world was, to show what kind of a being God is. What sort of a being was God in the beginning? Open your ears and hear, all ye ends of the earth, for I am going to prove it to you by the Bible". Then, shortly afterward, he says: "These ideas are incomprehensible to some, but they are simple". Then, "God himself was once as we are now". and: "I am going to tell you how God came to be God. We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea". He then continues: "...God himself, the Father of us all, dwelt on an earth, the same as Jesus Christ himself did; and I will show it from the Bible". But he never shows these things about Heavenly Father from the Bible; even when one tries to use the words of Jesus in John 5:19. God himself was once as we are now – meaning we are not Gods now – meaning we are not heavenly parents now. Jesus is not getting married and having spirit children like he sees the Father do. Jesus is not an exalted man, meaning a man who becomes God. One can't make it any clearer than that. But I understand other passages teach the opposite – that God is God from eternity. It's one or the other; it can't be both. It's plausible that Smith originally held onto those biblical truths (and those recorded in the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants) but later changed his mind. I'll just focus on one. You quibble too much about whether one considers it a doctrine. Let's focus on whether it's true or false. This teaching of Joseph Smith leads no doubt as to what he intended to mean. There is no ambiguity. "If Abraham reasoned thus—If Jesus Christ was the Son of God, and John discovered that God the Father of Jesus Christ had a Father, you may suppose that He had a Father also. Where was there ever a son without a father? And where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? And everything comes in this way. Paul says that which is earthly is in the likeness of that which is heavenly, Hence if Jesus had a Father, can we not believe that He had a Father also? I despise the idea of being scared to death at such a doctrine, for the Bible is full of it" (Teachings of Joseph Smith, 1938). Are you scared to death at such a doctrine? He even used the word "doctrine". Don't change the focus as to whether this is official or unofficial. That's like saying one truth is official while another truth is unofficial. Do you view that statement by Smith as a true or false doctrine? Powers can be angelic beings with power. God foreknew Adam and Eve would sin and bring death into the world. The fall has had severe consequences for mankind and the rest of creation. In LDS theology, God actually uses disobedience as the way for Adam and Eve to begin their progression and have children after blood formed in their veins. Likewise, God supposedly foreknew his spirit children would rebel against him in heaven and he would need to send them to outer darkness. But first, he would allow these evil beings to deceive the rest of his children. Jesus did not create Satan in an evil state. He became evil. Does God's foreknowledge of evil make him evil? No.

@Amulek, Gamer's version of The Lord's Prayer? Clever! Very clever! I like it!

Nine-to-Five, with the absolute blockbuster cast of Lily Tomlin, Jane Fonda, Dolly Parton*, and Dabney Coleman. I was too young to appreciate this fully when it first came out, and, often, I've thought, in the years since, "Yes, absolutely, I get it: Women are oppressed in the workplace, and yes, it's absolutely awful, but—do I need to watch a movie about it?" I didn't realize how much I had been missing out. Maybe I'm just feeling sentimental and too charitable in light of Dolly's passing, but this movie is absolutely laugh-out-loud funny, and not [at least to me] in a "cheap laughs" kind of way, though it very well could have veered in that direction very easily. I think it's comedy that is clever in ways and to an extent that is not often seen today. ("Why work too hard to make a comedy? We'll make money hand-over-fist even if we just aim for the 'low-hanging fruit' and go over-the-top rather than for subtlety, anyway!") Certainly, I'll be the first to admit that I'm no connoisseur of comedy, but, surprising to me is that it is rated only "71% fresh" on Rotten Tomatoes, and has only a 7/10 rating on IMDB. I wonder if those will improve, now, with Dolly's passing, as she gains a new generation of fans (as often happens after a performer's passing). After the movie, 20/20 had a retrospective on Dolly's life (sorry for calling you by your first name so much, Ma'am, but ... that's what happens when you have that rarest of personalities that makes everybody feel as though he or she is your friend!) It's said that a lot of famous people "came from nothing" [my phrase], but she really did! My favorite well-to-do people are the kind of people you know would be exactly the same whether with the money or without, and, while I don't claim to be an expert judge of character in such matters (or in any matter), I think she's one of those. Maybe my favorite moment is when Barbara Walters interviewed Dolly and Ms. Walters came into the interview with the attitude, "I'm a real working woman, I'm going to put this country hick in her place!" It didn't work. Dolly wasn't having any of it, and she made that absolutely clear to Ms. Walters in absolutely no uncertain terms—politely, certainly, as was her way, but, still, crystal clear. As was the case with most anything involving Dolly, it was a thing to behold. RIP, Ma'am. The choirs of angels above have gained a new, absolutely stellar member! (And, of course, as always, sincerest condolences to family, friends, and [other] fans.) *As a neophyte actress, Dolly memorized everybody's lines. As a second-billed superstar in my high school's production of West Side Story as Doc, the drugstore owner, I had trouble memorizing my own lines—all three of them! Can you imagine?!!

The Comstock Act classified birth control products as “obscene” and this limited the ability to sell them. Other methods of birth control the government couldn’t realistically prohibit dominated the scene until later Supreme Court rulings chipped away at the law. While contraception is illegal it was well-known and practiced. Of course in the Victorian era it was something you didn’t talk about in public.

I would note that reliable birth control like condoms weren’t around when the counsel first came out. Before that most forms of consumed birth control were useless or sometimes poisonous and the latter sometimes worked but the mother often suffered and sometimes died. Birth control methods like abstinence or breast feeding were more effective and were practiced if children were not desirable at the time. Sometimes because the family was too large or their ability to acquire food wasn’t high enough or both. Families practiced forms of birth control throughout history to limit their number of children. The advice to not use birth control came to a culture that had a lot of open land to work so having four sons that made it to adulthood usually didn’t mean that there wasn’t enough farmland to go around.

Hi @manol Thank you for this careful reply. Your reservations are fair, and I want to address them directly. The hierarchy is not offered as a complete method for receiving truth or as a substitute for the Holy Spirit. It is a limited sorting tool for one kind of question: when later teachings or commentary appear to conflict with what is already in the canon, which source should carry more weight? Personal connection with God, the witness of the Spirit, and the fruits described in Alma 32 and Moroni 7 remain primary. If the tool ever starts functioning as a closed formula that crowds those out, that would be a misuse of it. On 2 Nephi 29:11: I agree that God can speak through many channels and in many places. The hierarchy does not claim otherwise. It does not say God is forbidden to speak except through one approved office. It only asks, when a statement is offered as Church teaching or as an interpretation of doctrine, how it should be weighed against material already received and sustained as canon. Revelation that comes through other channels can still be true; it simply would not automatically displace Class 1 or Class 2 material already in the standard works until it is received in the same way. On whether the hierarchy itself has Class 1 support: the three-class labels are not presented as a formal revealed system. The underlying priority, however, is visible in how Christ taught the Nephites. He distinguished “the words which the Father had given unto Malachi” from “the words of Isaiah” (3 Nephi 24:1; 23:1) and directed the people back to the scriptures rather than to later explanation: “Have they not read the scriptures?” (3 Nephi 27:4–5). D&C 1:38 and Joseph F. Smith’s later insistence that scripture, not prophetic commentary, is the standard when teachings conflict follow the same pattern. The hierarchy is an attempt to make that scriptural priority explicit. Competing paradigms can also find supporting verses. The narrower question the papers ask is: when two claims conflict, which class of source should be given priority? I do not assume that correctly understanding the canon and pursuing truth are identical. The canon is the Church’s received record of revelation; it is the starting point for evaluating later developments. Truth can be larger than any given reading of the canon. The tool is only meant to keep later synthesis from quietly overriding the higher-class material already there. Your emphasis on being filled with the pure love of Christ, as something felt and embodied rather than merely analyzed, is well taken. That is not what the papers attempt to replace. I appreciate the seriousness of the questions.

More than likely because sincere members asked for advice and given the doctrine that God is sending spirits to earth and the belief LDS parents can and should provide a good home for God’s children as well as the original greater cultural rejection of birth control by conservative (socially wise) Christian faiths when the directive first came out, it’s not surprising that such advice first came out as birth control was sinful. It’s one possible logical inference. While the basic doctrine of the Restored Church may be founded on revelation, I don’t believe every detail directed by the Church amounts to the same as I think the leaders take the Lord’s comment about good servants not having to be directed in all things seriously for themselves and possibly for others as I wonder how many directives we get simply because members aren’t relying on themselves to search for inspiration, but others…perhaps for some this is because one or some their (local and general) leaders insisting leaders’ direction trumps personal revelation to the point individuals don’t trust themselves any more. Back to birth control… Iirc, in 1916 the US had a no contraceptive rule of some sort. Took it to 1965 to get it fully allowed at the federal level. https://civics.supremecourthistory.org/article/griswold-v-connecticut/ “Comstock’s work significantly influenced American society. Twenty-four states passed their own versions of Comstock laws, and Connecticut’s was one of the most restrictive. In 1879, the state banned the use of “any drug, medicinal article, or instrument for the purpose of preventing conception.””

Yeah, we impulsed bought a beagle pup for my daughter due to the overwhelming cuteness of the breed, so adorable…I regretted it for much of the following 12 years as I couldn’t spare it the attention she deserved and my daughter couldn’t care for her, but it was too attached to us by the time I figured out it wasn’t going to get easier to give her away (she got sick even if babysat by others for just half a day, I swear she picked up anxiety issues from her master).

They should be required to clean the church weekly under supervision of their parents (assuming the parents are not abusive, the families should be investigated just in case, but it sounds mostly like bad decisions and getting carried away by adrenaline acting on undeveloped brains rather than full out maliciousness…though given the charge maybe I am wrong) for a year. It’s not going to be worth what they damaged, but consequences even at that age should matter. If only all crimes were so easily solved.

Since the church has taken the path of being not involved, your wish is granted

Idaho, Pocatello Stake Center Vandalized https://www.idahostatejournal.com/news/crimes_court/police-young-children-extensively-vandalize-pocatello-lds-stake-building/article_46dd379d-86e1-4e38-ac85-8e0d0c9c1693.html According to Police, Friday, August 14, 2026, at the Pocatello Stake Center on Bartz Way, located adjacent to Idaho State University’s Stephens Performing Arts Center. Sometime between 11:00 AM and 7:00 PM, three neighborhood children, two girls and one boy, ranging in age from 8 to 10, entered through an unlocked door and caused several thousand dollars in property damage. A case that may have begun as opportunistic trespass but escalated into very methodical destruction. What Went Down They found an unlocked exterior door and entered the unattended building. Once inside, the children spent many hours moving through the facility. Rather than a quick hit-and-run, the physical evidence pointed to sustained activity. The children deliberately stuffed materials into multiple toilets to clog them and left the water running to flood restrooms and spill into adjacent hallways. They located paint cans inside the building, tipped them over, and poured or smeared paint across carpeted areas. Beyond simply tipping items over, the children systematically broke numerous glass objects, decor, and internal fixtures, leaving shattered glass and debris scattered across rooms. The Cost A church member discovered the disarray Friday evening and called local law enforcement. Pocatello police officers who responded noted that the interior was in severe disarray, stating that while the damage easily topped the $1,000 threshold, the full restoration cost would be significantly higher once carpet cleaning and drywall/water remediation were evaluated. How They Were Caught The investigation proved short-lived due to physical evidence left at the scene. Officers arriving at the stake center noticed footprints leading away from the spilled paint and liquid inside the building. Patrol officers literally tracked the wet footprints out of the building and down the street directly to nearby homes in the immediate neighborhood. All three children (ages 8, 9, and 10) were identified later that evening. Because of their age, police released them directly into the custody of their parents, who officers noted were fully cooperative with the investigation. Each child was formally cited with misdemeanor malicious injury to property. Their identities remain protected under juvenile privacy laws. Not Targeted? While breaking glass and clogging drains can look targeted at first glance, investigators concluded it was an extreme case of unsupervised escalation, three young kids finding an empty, unlocked building, upon realizing they were unmonitored, and then progressively testing how much damage they could cause until they were finished.

I don't understand why the church even got involved and taught birth control methods (using condoms for example) was sinful.

I suppose. The complicating factor with respect to behavioral health is that, when speaking of physical health, it is much easier to determine when a person is healed or cured. Or, in my case, whether he's keeping the dogs at bay! I probably could make my point better by posting a picture of a ferocious Doberman or German Shepherd, but ... He was too cute! I had to do it! When I go to the doctor for a certain kind of pain (or for another symptom), it's a little easier for one to determine whether the objective in doing so has been met. Whatever treatment is prescribed, the benchmark for the effectiveness of the treatment is whether the pain (or the symptom) persists. I think you and I both know that the effectiveness of psychological/behavioral therapy is a lot more subjective, and I think neither of us would have to work very hard to find examples of therapists whose assessment of their clients' behavioral health would differ from that of the client. Every doctor, every therapist, every mechanic is going to have those "edge cases" or exceptions in which the hoped-for, worked-for, sought-for outcome, despite everyone's best efforts, doesn't materialize. That said, generally, a therapist (or anyone else) with higher ratings is going to have both more brisk business and better outcomes. True.