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LDS would not typically say hell is a subsection of Spirit Prison. Spirit Prison is hell. One of two hells. It's an actual place and a state of mind while in hell.

I, for one, welcome our new robot overlords! ROFL! I don't think there's much reason for the church to get into it, actually. What aspect of relationships with robots is worrying you?

I never paid any attention to the podcast; never watched even one of the episodes. I only said what I said because the attorney in the video stated this. I take him at his word.

And these are the easy ones. What if Andy and Abagail only enjoy o*** and a*** sex in their marriage. Is this ok? Most women can't reach orgasm from reproductive sex. Are acts that help them orgasm ok? Even though they have nothing to do with reproduction? What about Jackie Blankenship. She is a male according to SMAC. Born with internal testies and complete androgen insensitivity. Assigned female at birth. Married her husband and used surrogate to have a child. Is she depriving her daughter of a mother (since in your SMAC’s world view she is male)? @smac97 "reasons" are a paper thin wrapper around a religious edict.

Let he who has never had sex with the only reason for doing so was to produce offspring cast the first stone

Wow. I feel a whole lot of relevance to this as a vegan. Other people get so uncomfortable around me that I usually don't say the "V" word to them at all and instead say I'm "plant-based." It would even be worse if my grandparents were still alive. (They once fed my cousin, a young kid at the time, his own pet duck that he raised from a chick and that they killed — without telling him until it was on his plate in front of him. They did that purposefully, as they believed that it's good for kids to have any attachments to animals be broken. If they were still alive I might still be a closeted vegan.)

I believe the Church has stated previously, "there is no list of rules to guide every decision we make about technology and media. Instead, we can learn principles to help guide us as we make choices." That being said, the current handbook, Section 38.8.48.2 does mention that, "Interactions with AI cannot substitute for meaningful relationships with God and others." I mean, technically, that doesn't say, "Thou shalt not marry a Roomba," but I don't seriously think that is really a legitimate (theological) concern. Relatedly though, Elder Gong gave a great address here just a few months ago that touches on some of what I perceive are some of the more dangerous issues surrounding AI - especially with youth. Particularly, his comments about the potential for people to become emotionally dependent on AI chatbots, and his observation that: "None of us is as attentive, as willing to please 24/7 as an AI chatbot. And that’s the reason we need human (They) belonging with each other. Real human relationships are not solipsistic – us talking to ourselves. Real relationships are human relationships."

I found a new LDS-related YouTube channel! Not unusual, since I hunt for these. But this one is just MUSIC! It's called Mormon Tube. Unfortunately, it is moribund -- all 26 videos were uploaded 6 years ago, but nothing since. But it's got some nice music on there. Here's the most recently uploaded, which is an hour of LDS hymn arrangements.

Since the church likes to be directive and since members like the rules spelled out, I’m surprised there has been no revelation or directions regarding relationships with robots. Or has there? AI will be the biggest revolution humankind has ever seen. It’s right around the corner. the church often refers to the proclamation as ahead of its time regarding gender issues as if it’s evidence of its prophesy skills (imo) - so where is the directives on bot issues?

Just saw this AI tool recommended by one of the doctors that pops up on FB for me. Any opinions?

That makes sense. I can see the confusion increasing and more reporting that directly to the Church when it went from “I expected Mormonstories was about Mormons (meaning active ones)” to “wait, this looks like the Church’s website and it isn’t!” with some indignation plus those who continued to be confused because they weren’t familiar with the Church well enough in doctrine, etc, but knew the promos, website look, and logos, etc..

The lawyer in the video that Stargazer posted kind of gives that idea. And in the latest filing from the church, they talk about laches (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laches_(equity)). Dehlin argues that the case should be thrown out because it came too late (Mormon Stories started in 2005 and the lawsuit is 2026). But the church argues back that: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.utd.163775/gov.uscourts.utd.163775.71.0.pdf - pages 21-23

72% of self-identified LDS say their faith is very important. Relatively commendable. But not enough. My Catholic religion is middling at 44%. What does it mean? Then there are Americans who self-identify as Jews, Buddhists, and Hindus but only about a quarter of them find their religion very important. Religions seem too demanding to me to be anything but at the least "very important". But there has to be a sociological reason why many people self-identify with a religion, that isn't even merely "very important" to them. I didn't have any religion in my family unless you count Christmas trees and Easter eggs. If it wasn't even very important, I know I wouldn't identify, and I am sure wouldn't submit to the obligations imposed. I am an older guy who remembers some kids at school on Monday talking about church. I would be quiet. I developed a sense of awe about religion; it was a mysterious unknown that I wondered about. Maybe it is different when in one's youth you were something instead of nothing. Maybe those who had something still feel identity with what they don't think much about or practice for the time being? Sometimes an experience like a death or love can draw one back to what was unimportant in a less thoughtful and distracted period.

Are you sure? Is that it what was stated, what you observed over the years or a guess? My memory is people have been confused for a long time about it, but I don’t trust my memory.

You are right, thank you.

Maybe they think there are better solutions? Such as adoption. If that were true, it would make sense though to say “we encourage exploration of other options, such as …., …., …. first in the decision making process.” Another possibility is they think it can work with certain personalities in certain circumstances where all involved come away from it feeling positive about it, but the costs are too high for most people. I think it would be helpful to state why they discourage it though, so people don’t make up their own reasons and judge others by that unfounded assumption. Added after doublechecking language: The current language states they discourage it just because it doesn’t match the ideal of biological father and mother caring for the child. Husband and wife implies the family raising the child even if technically surrogacy where both a husband and wife produce a child and then give to another to raise can also be inferred from the official statement since it just address providing bodies, not caring for them. It’s other comments that tell us how leaders most likely mean raising as well as creating children in this statement. “The pattern of a husband and wife providing bodies for God’s spirit children is divinely appointed (see 2.1.3). For this reason, the Church discourages surrogate motherhood.” There have been women who chose to have another bear their children with their husband (concubines) because of health risks as well as fear of pain or wear and tear on their bodies similar to having wet nurses and nannies by choice and not for necessity of actually unable to care for the child. I can see preferring surrogacy as being a reasonable option if one lived in a culture where a childless woman was discarded or had no one to advocate for them when older, but one’s current status depended on keeping their husband’s affection and that depended on their keeping their beauty (as measured by their culture, which often meant pre pregnancy bodies). The woman was stuck between a rock and a hard place. I imagine in many cases this led to a weaker emotional bond between the official mother and child.

Here's the thing. Over the last several decades, science has learned a ton about how the mind works, and the evolutionary theories about why it evolved this way. A couple of things our brains naturally do are confirmation bias and motivated reasoning. We have a very strong tendancy to make choices first based on sociological and psychological factors, and then use "reasoning" to rationalize these beliefs. If you read the "experiment" in Alma 32, it is designed to help somebody believe what they are trying to believe, and is a textbook example of relying on cognitive biases to achieve the desired beliefs. This faith-based approach is the polar opposite of the skepticism-based approach of the scientific method and bona fide reason in general. The "reasoning" you've laid out on where to draw the line between what sexual activities go into X and which go into Y has been so unpersuasive it comes across as offensive and not worth responding to. But maybe I misunderstand. So let's engage it. To help me understand where you draw the line and why, consider two hypothetical, similarly situated couples: Couple A: Andy and Abagail are a man and a woman. Abagail has no ovaries, so they cannot conceive a child together using their own sperm and eggs. Couple B: Bob and Brady are two men. They likewise cannot conceive a child together using their own sperm and eggs. All four are 30 and have never married. Both couples love each other deeply, have mature, healthy, honest, committed relationships, and live together in legally recognized domestic partnerships. As I understand your position, sex between either couple would fall into Y (unethical sex), even if its purpose were to express love and strengthen their relationship. If Andy and Abagail legally married, however, sex for that purpose would move into X. But if Bob and Brady legally married, sex for the same purpose would remain in Y because they are both men. Is that an accurate description of your position? If so, why does marriage make sex ethical for one couple but not the other? Both relationships involve the same love, commitment, legal marital status, and inability to conceive a child together. What morally relevant difference justifies treating them differently? What is your principled, reason-based rationale for drawing the line there?

He isn't wrong. Stuart Matis would still be alive today if he weren't indoctrinated with false beliefs about sex and was allowed to be with somebody he loved. Only if we re-define "biological imperative" to mean "anything that anyone strongly desires to do." I can't go along with that. I won't comment on your rhetorical exploitation of a suicide, except that I find it manifestly beneath you. Emphasis on "your view". Just because you think those are the only valid purposes of sex and just because you think "strengthening the marital union" between a man and woman is a valid thing but "strengthening the marital union" between two people of the same sex is not doesn't mean the place you draw the line isn't an ad hoc rationalization of your own prejudice. If I say "The First Amendment right to Free Speech is, in my view, an extremely important provision of the U.S. Constitution," I am reiterating and endorsing a principle. I didn't create it. It's not an "ad hoc rationalization." “In my view” means I am stating a position, not hiding behind a committee. It does not mean the position is a private taste. The two purposes—generation, and the bond of a husband and a wife—are the Church’s teaching and a teleological account of the act. You may reject both. You do not get to translate “I hold this” into “I made it up to cover prejudice.” That's just conclusory laziness. The line is not “strengthening a union is good, except when the pair is the same sex.” That would be "ad hoc." Rather, the line is that the union in view is marriage, and marriage, on this account, is a man and a woman. “Strengthening the marital union” is not a floating good that attaches to any two people who are fond of each other and then gets yanked away from one couple out of spite. It names a kind. Two men can have loyalty, consolation, and a household. That is companionship. It is not the same kind of union, and it is not the same use of sex. If that is wrong, it is wrong as an account of marriage and of the act—not because I needed a pretext. The same closed set also puts heterosexual fornication, adultery, and casual use in Y. A rule that constrains my side of the line as well as yours is a poor candidate for “ad hoc rationalization of prejudice.” Prejudice is animus toward a people. A principle about what sex is for can be mistaken without being a mask. And your baseless and conclusory accusations don't move the needle for me in terms of showing me that I am or may be mistaken. If anything, it further bolsters my overall impression that folks like you and SU use the "Bigot!" ( or "Prejudice!") schtick so frequently because it's all you've got. I can articulate a reasoned basis for my position. I don't think you can, either that or you are so immersed in your own worldview that you cannot accommodate the possibility that viewpoints divergent from yours might be reasonable. So you retreat to name-calling. You prefer a different purpose (consent, companionship, well-being as you define it). Then say the purposes are incomplete. Do not say that drawing a principled line, and admitting it is my view, proves the line was never principled. Fallacies Poisoning the well. “Ad hoc rationalization of your own prejudice” attacks motive instead of the two purposes. Equivocation. “Marital union” is treated as any committed pair, then the restriction looks arbitrary. Question-begging. Assumes same-sex pairs are already the same kind of union, so excluding them must be prejudice. Straw man. “Just because you think” as if the claim were an unshared whim rather than a taught, general rule. A Mormon friend of mine who is a widow just got married to another Mormon man who is a widower. They were both sealed to somebody else--according to the dogma, she'll be with her first husband in the next life. "Dogma." Pejorative framing like this does not advance your argument or position. It weakens it. It is said in lieu of substance and reasoning. No. That is not what the argument says, and it is not what the Church says. First, I have been speaking in categories and kinds. Opposite-sex couples as a category have procreative capacity, and same-sex couples - whether viewed one at a time or as a category - entirely lack procreative capacity. I did not say marriage exists only to produce a new baby this year. I said two purposes: generation, and the bond of a husband and a wife. A widow and a widower who marry are still a husband and a wife. They are the kind of pair whose union is ordered to children even when, in this season, no child will come. Menopause, prior families already raised, a hysterectomy—those are facts about this couple’s body and calendar. They do not turn the pair into a different kind of pair. A same-sex couple is not an infertile widow and widower. They are not a man and a woman at all. You are treating “cannot conceive this time” as identical to “not a generative kind of union.” That is the same false equivalence as menopause and vasectomy. Frequency and impossibility in a particular case do not rewrite the kind. Sealing. Yes: in the ordinary telling she remains sealed to the first husband, and the second marriage is for time. That does not make the second marriage pointless, and it does not make it a same-sex marriage, and it does not mean there will be authorized extramarital sex. It makes it a present-tense covenant between a man and a woman—care, fidelity, a shared household, lawful sexual union under the Law of Chastity. Companionship in that covenant is the second purpose I already named. You dropped that purpose so you could force “kids only,” then declare the remarriage illegitimate. I did not give you a kids-only rule. “Exactly the same reason a same-sex couple presumably does.” No. They married as husband and wife. Whatever mix of comfort, love, and practical help moved them, the form and kind and category they entered is still the form the law and the Church call marriage. Two women can want comfort and help too. Wanting those goods does not make the form/kind/category the same. Friends want those goods without anyone calling it marriage. So: their reasons are not illegitimate. The farm-that-is-not-harvesting-this-year is still a farm. A same-sex pairing is not a farm with a bad season. It is a different plot. And if "harvest" = generation/procreation, then that different plot is intrinsically barred and will never produce anything at all. Ever. Fallacies Straw man. “According to you there is no reason to remarry.” False equivalence. Infertile opposite-sex remarriage = same-sex marriage. Suppressed conjunct. Drops “strengthening the husband–wife union” so only babies remain. Reductio gone wrong. A conclusion I do not hold is forced onto a distinction I do hold. Thanks, -Smac

One thing I don’t understand about the topic is what “discourages” actually means. Surrogacy is obviously not wrong or they would say that, so if it’s not wrong then why discourage him? Is it because they think it could be wrong but they don’t know for sure?

Analytics, As a preliminary matter, I appreciate you taking the time and effort to substantively respond to my list of propositions. While neither of us may be able to fully persuade the other, I find value in listening to what you have to say. From the perspective of objective reality, everything you say here is false. Well, that's interesting. You are perched on "the perspective of objective reality," with no biases or other impediments, and from there can definitively declare that God does not exist? I think not. I previously said this to SU: "I can articulate a reasoned basis for my position. I don't think you can, either that or you are so immersed in your own worldview that you cannot accommodate the possibility that viewpoints divergent from yours might be reasonable." Your pronouncements about what reason can and cannot lead to are not self-evident, so this is just an assertion. What you think about the Atonement of Christ is a subjective and conclusory value judgment (and one that is based on a rather facile caricature). You have not engaged Proposition 1. You have declared it false from “objective reality,” attributed it to manipulation, called the Atonement sick, and waved at Miracle of Forgiveness. That is a worldview speaking. It is not a demonstration. “From the perspective of objective reality, everything you say here is false” assumes the conclusion. If God does not exist and prophets are not sent, then yes, those sentences are false. That is not a finding. It is your starting point restated as a verdict. Question-begging. “Reason doesn’t lead to these beliefs; sociology and psychological manipulation do” is a genetic fallacy even if some people are badly taught. A belief can be socially transmitted and still be true (or false). How a person first heard Moses 1:39 does not decide whether the Father has a work and a glory. Would you accept the reverse?: “Atheism is what certain faculties and friend groups produce, therefore God exists.” I'm genuinely curious. I am not asking you to share the premises. I am saying they are doing work in the argument. If God is involved, if He sends prophets, if living apostles can teach and correct, then the Law of Chastity as taught now is not a whim I invented to be unkind. If those premises are wrong, say that and we argue authority. Merely declaring them wrong, or relabeling them as pathology, is not that argument. On the Cross: Latter-day Saints do not teach that the Father tortured an innocent bystander to soothe His feelings about me. We teach that the Son offered Himself, that we are accountable, and that mercy and justice meet in Him. You may still find that offensive. Calling it “sick” is a moral reaction, not a proof that no atonement occurred. Health of a feeling and truth of a claim are different questions. “Following false prophets is a bad idea” is a tautology. The live question is whether these men are false. You have not shown that. You have assumed it. Miracle of Forgiveness is not Proposition 1, and it is not the current Handbook statement on same-sex conduct. If you want to criticize that book, criticize that book. Do not use it as a stand-in for “everything you believe about God and sex.” If you want to talk sexual ethics without God, say so and we can stay on nature, marriage as a kind, and children. If you want to say my first proposition is false, then the burden is the same as mine: give reasons that are not “your team is manipulated and your cross is icky.” Fallacies, short list Question-begging. “Objective reality” = your naturalism, therefore my sentences are false. Genetic fallacy. Social/psychological origin is treated as disproof. Category error. “Unhealthy to believe” is not “false.” Straw man. Atonement reduced to “an innocent man was murdered because of your sins” as a guilt charm. Poisoning the well. Prophets = false; Kimball = the whole ethic. Ad hominem / tone. Sick, manipulated, bad idea—aimed at the believer, not the proposition. Sex is important for some people. It isn't for others. It depends upon your own life's situation. Ideally, many things are much, much more important than being raised by "both a mother and father.": Protection from abuse and neglect. Warm, responsive relationships with dependable caregivers. Material security. A stable home with little destructive conflict. Good physical care from pregnancy onward Adequate nutrition, medical care, sleep, and physical activity Caregivers who can regulate their emotions and function reliably. Consistent, constructive parenting. Rich opportunities to learn. A safe, healthy neighborhood and physical environment. Social belonging and support beyond the immediate household. Those are goods. I did not say they were not. Proposition 2 is not “the only thing a child needs is a mother and a father.” It is that sex is a powerful part of the human probation, that it is how the species continues, and that the hoped-for pattern is a child raised by both. “Sex is important for some people, not others” answers a different sentence. Some adults have low desire. That does not make sex a minor feature of the species, of marriage, or of how the next generation appears. A person can live without much interest in food and still not get to rewrite what eating is for. Your list is also not a rival to a mother and a father. It is mostly a description of what a decent home does. Protection from abuse, warm caregivers, material security, low destructive conflict, competent parenting, belonging—those are not an alternative family form. They are the work of adults who stay and care. The ordinary way a civilization tries to attach two sexually complementary parents to that work is marriage. Pointing at abuse in some two-parent homes, or virtue in some other non-two-parent homes, does not make “mother and father” a small thing. It makes abuse bad and virtue good. Both can be true at once. “Ideally, many things are much more important than being raised by both a mother and a father” only works if we are forced to choose: either a mother and a father or safety, food, and no screaming. That is a patent false dilemma. The design I named is a mother and a father who also protect, feed, and keep the house from becoming a war. When a home lacks a mother or a father, the remaining adult can still do many of those things well. That is not the same as saying the missing parent was never part of the design. So: yes to every bullet. No to what I think is your hoped-for inference that sex is optional in the human story, or that generation-plus-mother-and-father is a fake concern because other goods also matter. In the end, I think we both agree with the basic concept here: Sex is important. Fallacies Straw man. Treats “sex is important / mother and father” as “nothing else matters.” Equivocation. “Important for some people” (individual libido) vs. important in the human pattern. False dilemma. Safety and nutrition versus a mother and a father. Moving the goalposts. From what sex is and what the institution is for, to a checklist of child-welfare inputs. Non sequitur. A good list of caregiving conditions does not show that two people of the same sex are the same kind of union, or that a missing mother or father is morally irrelevant. The "law of chastity" did not come from "the Lord". It came from inherited Christian sexual morality and American cultural norms. Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing depends upon the individual who is indoctrinated with it. If you are well suited for it, then that's great. But you aren't dealing with reality if you imagine waiving a magic wand and it working for everybody else. But people have literally committed suicide because they were indoctrinated with these beliefs. Think about that. I take suicide seriously (I also find polemical exploitation of it rather offputting). I will not score points off it. I also will not accept “people have died, therefore this commandment is not from God and must not be taught.” That is an appeal to consequences dressed as compassion. Grief does not decide provenance, and it does not decide whether an ethic is true. Source. You say the Law of Chastity came from inherited Christian morality and American norms, not from the Lord. That is your theory of origins. It is not a disproof of mine. Proposition 1 is doing work here: I think God speaks through prophets, including about sex. If that is false, the commandment is only a tradition. If it is true, tradition is how a lot of revealed law arrives in a culture. “It resembles older Christian teaching” is what you would expect if the same God had been repeating Himself. Genetic fallacy either way: even a fully human custom can be wise or foolish; even a revealed law can be preached badly. “Good or bad depending on who is indoctrinated.” That turns an ethic into a personality fit. Fidelity, honesty, and not stealing also do not “work” equally well for every temperament. Difficulty is not a test of source. I have already said the constraint is harder for some people than for others. That is true of almost every serious moral rule. It is not a license to dissolve the rule into “whatever suits you.” “Magic wand.” I did not claim a wand. I claimed a standard. Standards fail in practice every day. That does not mean there is no standard. It means people are free and life is costly. Suicide. People have taken their lives in the orbit of religious sexual teaching. People have also taken their lives in the orbit of family rejection, mental illness, isolation, pornography, and a culture that tells them their desire is their self. Correlation is not a single cause, and “indoctrinated with these beliefs” skips every other factor. If a particular book, bishop, or parent taught someone they were irredeemable for an attraction they did not choose, that teaching was wrong by the Church’s own present light: attraction is not the sin; conduct is. Cruel application does not prove the Lord never spoke. It proves some of us have spoken poorly. If your point is pastoral—do not heap shame on people who are already despairing—I agree. If your point is “therefore there is no Law of Chastity from God,” that does not follow. It is a tragedy used as a gavel. So what is your perspective on Proposition 3? Are sexual ethics important or not important? Fallacies Question-begging. Assumes no revelation, then treats culture as the only source. Genetic fallacy. Christian/American pedigree is treated as disproof. Moral relativism smuggled as psychology. “Depends on the individual” replaces true/false with fit/unfit. Appeal to consequences / emotion. Suicide is used to close the question rather than to discipline how we speak. Causal oversimplification. One set of beliefs is loaded with deaths that have many causes. Straw man. “Waving a magic wand” is not what was claimed. Sure. You can use a Venn Diagram to represent ethics. Okay. But do you agree with the concept? That everyone differentiates X from Y? Not just the Latter-day Saints? The issue isn't merely whether living in box X is a healthy way to live. But that is certainly a fair inquiry. Is living in accordance with the tenets of the Law of Chastity "a healthy way to live?" Two different questions are being taped together. Proposition 5 posits that every serious ethic divides sexual conduct into permitted (X) and not (Y), and that Latter-day Saints are, or should be, allowed to draw that line at husband-and-wife. Do you agree or disagree? “Between consenting adults” is another line. It is not the absence of a line. That point stands whether or not someone once heard a badly-formulated and cruel object lesson in Sunday School. What you listed is baggage, and some of it is real. Feelings are not the same thing as conduct. Current Church teaching does not make same-sex attraction, or a passing surge of desire, into sin. If a teacher said “your feelings make you unworthy of God,” that teacher misspoke. If someone used the chewed-gum image to tell a kid they were used up forever, that was a bad image and terrible packaging of important gospel precepts. Repentance exists because people are not gum. I will not defend poor analogies and object lessons. No need. That one has long been set aside, and I am glad of that. There are plenty of ways to meaningfully and accurately characterize and describe the Law of Chastity, repentance, and so on. “Pluck out your eye” is Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount about lust, not a uniquely Latter-day Saint invention. You may think He was wrong. You do not get to hang that sentence on “Mormon indoctrination” as if Matthew 5 were written in Salt Lake. The Atonement is not “you glanced, therefore the Father tortured His Son.” That is a caricature of guilt. We teach that sin is real, that the Son offered Himself, and that mercy is offered to people who fail—including sexually. If the version you heard was only shame and no pardon, that is a pastoral failure. It is not Proposition 5. So: yes, some religious speech about sex has been harsh, sloppy, and damaging. No, that does not mean there is no rightful X / Y differentiation, and it does not mean BCA is the neutral default. You can scrap the gum and still say sex belongs in a marriage between a man and a woman. Those are not the same claim. If the fight is “teach desire as damnation,” you are barking up the wrong tree. I don't believe that, and the Church doesn't teach it. If the fight is “therefore the Church may not distinguish X from Y,” that does not follow. Bad packaging does not erase the box. Again: Proposition 5 posits that every serious ethic divides sexual conduct into permitted (X) and not (Y), and that Latter-day Saints are, or should be, allowed to draw that line at husband-and-wife. Do you agree or disagree? Fallacies Moving the goalposts. From “you may not have an X/Y” to “your X/Y is tainted by ugly extras.” Straw man. Current teaching (attraction ≠ sin; repentance available) is replaced with gum, unworthiness-for-feeling, and a cartoon Cross. Guilt by association. Worst youth-lesson rhetoric is treated as the content of the Law of Chastity. Non sequitur. Some beliefs attached to the line have been harmful → therefore the line itself is illegitimate. The question isn't whether they are reasonable. Well, I can't agree with you there. But regardless, could you just humor me and address the issue? Is the Law of Chastity a reasonable basis for sexual ethics? A lot of ground covered here. I appreciate the effort. You have, it seems, stopped contesting whether the Law of Chastity is a reasonable basis for an ethic. That was the proposition. “The question isn’t whether they are reasonable. The question is whether they are healthy” is a new exam. Health matters. It is not a magic replacement for reasonableness, and it is not a single number we can read off a study. Can I construe your statements here as an implicit acknowledgment that yes, the Church's Law of Chastity is a reasonable basis for sexual ethics? If "No," please elaborate. Shared ground. Fidelity, honesty, no coercion, responsibility for children, contraception and infection as real goods in a secular frame, “nobody owes anybody sex”—I can agree with most of that as part of treating people well. The Church already teaches several of those points. You said so. What “healthy” is doing. You want an ethic judged by well-being: treat each other well, informed choices, satisfying lives. Fine. That still requires a picture of what sex is for. Your picture is consent, consideration, and harm-reduction, applied the same way regardless of sex. Mine is a closed set: husband and wife, with generation and covenant union as the point. Those are different accounts of health, not a lab result versus a superstition. “Evidence should matter more than whether a rule is called sacred” assumes well-being as you define it is the highest good. That is a value. Science does not hand it to you any more than it hands me a temple recommend. Ordinary development and bad teaching. Masturbation as adolescent development, the gum metaphor, “touch yourself and you’ll turn gay”—I will not defend the scoutmaster. That causal story is false, and it is cruel. Feelings are not sin, and the Church has taught that for a long time. A passing arousal is not a crucifixion. If someone taught a child that ordinary development made them dirty forever, that was a failure of teaching, not the core of “X is husband and wife.” You can throw out the bathwater (unhealthily-expressed folklore) without throwing out the baby (the merits of the Restored Gospel). Scrupulosity, survivors, unmarried adults. Religious OCD is real. Survivors who already feel contaminated need care, not more contamination language. Unmarried adults and spouses worn down by vigilance deserve pastoral sense. None of that proves that any closed sexual ethic is unhealthy. It proves that law without mercy, and worthiness interviews run like a panic, can injure people. I have already said the Church’s own present distinction is attraction versus conduct. I think we need to acknowledge that distinction. Do not treat every clumsy youth talk as the doctrine. Also, see this thread for some interesting notes about "maladaptive perfectionism." It may have some relevance. Same-sex members. Yes: the Church does not offer an approved sexual relationship with a person of the same sex. That is the hard edge. It is not a secret. Similarly, the Church does not offer an approved sexual relationship with a person to whom the Church member is not married. Also a hard edge. Also not a secret. For someone whose durable desire is only for the same sex, obedience means forgoing that sexual life. I do not call that costless. I also do not accept that the only “healthy” resolution is to bless the relationship. Many ethics ask people to forgo a desired sexual life—married people, priests, anyone who keeps a promise. Difficulty and distress do not, by themselves, make the rule false. Research that links stigma with distress tells you stigma hurts. It does not tell you whether the underlying moral claim is wrong, any more than distress among people who leave a faith proves the faith was true. Temple, cleanliness, worthiness. That framework is how this church talks about covenants, not how it writes the criminal code. You may think purity language is an extra tax on the psyche. Latter-day Saints think the body is sacred and that some uses of it affect standing before God. You are free to reject that. You are not entitled to say a church may not have sacramental boundaries unless those boundaries match comprehensive-sex-ed plus BCA. Proposition 6, still. I posit that the Law of Chastity is reasonable and defensible as a code. Other people may draw a larger X. Pluralism is the right to do that—not a duty on Latter-day Saints to treat their line as uniquely illegitimate because some applications have been harsh, or because some people would feel better if the line moved. “Earn its reputation for being healthy by how it affects people” is a fair pastoral demand. It is not a proof that only your ethic is allowed to speak. Fallacies Moving the goalposts. Reasonable conceded; the new test is healthy-as-you-define-it. Persuasive definition. “Healthy” is loaded with BCA, same-sex partnerships, and comprehensive sex ed as if those were outcome measures rather than the ethic under review. Anecdote as doctrine. One scoutmaster’s false theory of homosexuality is treated as the Church’s sexual ethics. Causal overreach. Stigma–distress correlations are asked to do the work of a moral refutation. Straw man. “Feelings are sinful / development is filthy” in place of attraction-versus-conduct and repentance. Special pleading. Every community may have an X/Y unless it is this one, because this one talks about worthiness. "Principled and reasoned disagreement" about whether consenting adults who love each other should be allowed to have a consenting, committed, loving life together because of the reasons you've outlined (e.g. the plumbing doesn't fit) are neither principled nor reasoned. That sentence only works if the dispute is “may two adults love each other and share a household.” That is not what I argued, and it is not what the Law of Chastity is. People may love each other, keep house, keep commitments, and be treated with decency. I have not said otherwise. The question is whether sexual conduct and marriage are the same thing when the pair is two men or two women as when it is a husband and a wife. “Allowed to have a loving life together” smuggles the sexual and marital conclusion into the description of the life. That is the point at issue, not a fact you get to treat as already settled. Moreover, "allowed" here doesn't even make sense. The Church has no secular authority to enforce the Law of Chastity in any sense, and only has as much authority the individual(s) choose to cede to it. In other words, the relationship is bilaterally voluntary. “Because of the reasons you’ve outlined (e.g. the plumbing doesn’t fit)” is a synecdoche. Dimorphism was one sentence in a stack: what sex is for, what marriage is as a kind, mother and father, living prophets, a closed set rather than BCA. You plucked the blunt biological line, ignored the rest, and announced that the whole disagreement is unprincipled. That is not a rebuttal. It is a refusal to read and engage. “Neither principled nor reasoned” is also circular. You reject the conclusion, so the reasons cannot count as reasons. A principle is a stated standard applied to a class of acts. “Sexual relations belong in marriage between a man and a woman” is that. You think the standard is wrong. Wrong is not the same as unprincipled. BCA is also a principle. I think it is a thin and problematic and manifestly insufficient one. I do not call it bigotry or “not reasoning.” If your claim is only that the "plumbing point" standing alone does not prove a complete moral theory — I grant it. Biology describes the generative act; it does not, by itself, write a church handbook. I never said it did. I said a moral view in which sex has that purpose will treat same-sex sexual conduct as Y, not X. You need a different purpose, or no purpose, to get a different result. Name that. Do not rename disagreement as the absence of principle. Fallacies Straw man. “Loving committed life” in place of sexual conduct and marriage as a kind. Synecdoche / cherry-pick. One biological sentence treated as the entire case. Question-begging. The reasons fail because the conclusion is already disallowed. Equivocation on “allowed.” Civil permission, church teaching, and moral truth are not distinguished. Ad hominem lite. “Neither principled nor reasoned” attacks the quality of the person-as-thinker instead of meeting the standard. Thanks, -Smac

I agree with this. Our biology operates in the framework of our own circumstances. While in some cultures the survival of the lineage was all and the family having no children, not even nephews and nieces (who could have husbands who were adopted in to carry on the family name as well as the bloodline) to support was a disastrous outcome, that’s not our culture today, thank goodness….which means sexual reproduction doesn’t not have to be the end all of our individual existence. We even have other options for our old age care besides our own biological children. Smac appears to me to be appealing to biological survival as one of the measurements. If he is going to that, he needs to look at the entire system and not pull out individuals because individuals or even couples don’t survive by themselves, but in their extended communities (whether family, tribal, or other), so it’s illogical to treat one type of individual/couple behaviour as the source of genetic survival. It’s a combination of individual behaviours that matter. And if we want to know what behaviours contributes to genetic survival, the most logical way to do it is to look at what behaviours have been persistent over time. Communal caring seems to be one of those (respectful burials of multiple families together; respectful burials of older disabled individuals that most likely could not have contributed physically much to family survival, yet were not abandoned in childhood; explosion of population with permanent communities, not just nuclear or even extended families). Persistence of homosexuality would suggest it is another behaviour that contributes to the survival of the family genes. There may be other valid reasons for arguing against same sex behaviour nor should biological drives rule our moral behaviour these days. Just saying claiming biology negates homosexuality as a healthy, functional behaviour is not correct. It actually supports it as promoting survival in a variety of circumstances. PS: I am not addressing anything but scientific claims and only doing so because sloppy science bugs me.

Only in the individual sense, not in the lineage sense where a combination of heterosexual and homosexual behaviour (if by such we mean any behaviour that varies between homosexuals and heterosexuals even if not related to sex, in the evidence I found it was caring for children, there could be others) can promote survival in a biological sense of genes (see above for the science). And if you are focusing on the individual as paramount when it comes to actual survival…that is a genetic dead end as nuclear families are less likely to survive than an extensive family network. You need to look at the characteristics of the extended family to see which are most successful genetically speaking….and we have the real life result in front of us that shows homosexuality was not bred out of our genetic pool, thus likely contributed to survival. But do you really want to use genetic survival as your measure here given the likely result of elevating that to is promotion of what we would call today very immoral behaviour, including killing any children from a different father that a woman had or turning those children into slaves and the sacrifice of needs of less promising or lower caste children for the needs of the children families saw as their future…such as giving less food and care to weaker or less intelligent children.

I think it's important to carefully frame what we mean and I likely did not do that. From a certain perspective, every organism is just a machine built around a set of unfeeling uncaring genes. These machines are the result of a never ending arms race whose sole "purpose" is reproduction. I use purpose here loosely. Whichever genes evolve the best machinery reproduce and survive into future generations. Those that produce poor machines don't survive. I don't think that is a view that any person or organism holds day to day when viewing and deciding what has meaning in their life. For me sex is about fun, closeness, intimacy, love and connection. Are these things evolutionarily advantageous? Probably, but I don't really care. And I don't think most people do. My biological machine has evolved apparently to care very much about those things and care very little about the survival of the species. On a personal note, sex's purpose in my marriage would be very poorly described as about reproduction. have six children. Due to fertility issues only three were conceived "naturally". The other three were produced in ways that were very divorced the sexual act.

He isn't wrong. Stuart Matis would still be alive today if he weren't indoctrinated with false beliefs about sex and was allowed to be with somebody he loved. Emphasis on "your view". Just because you think those are the only valid purposes of sex and just because you think "strengthening the marital union" between a man and woman is a valid thing but "strengthening the marital union" between two people of the same sex is not doesn't mean the place you draw the line isn't an ad hoc rationalization of your own prejudice. A Mormon friend of mine who is a widow just got married to another Mormon man who is a widower. They were both sealed to somebody else--according to the dogma, she'll be with her first husband in the next life. Because of some biological realities, it is impossible for her to have any children. Therefore, according to you, there is no reason for her to have gotten remarried, right? It is as biologically impossible for her to have children with her husband as it would be if she were married to another woman. And according to the dogma, she won't have children with him after they are dead, either. So according to your logic, there is absolutely no reason for her to have gotten remarried, right? The purpose of marriage is to have and raise kids. They can't have kids, and all their existing kids are raised. Were their reasons for getting married illegitimate? Consistently applying your logic, they must be, because they got married for exactly the same reason a same-sex couple presumably does.

From the perspective of objective reality, everything you say here is false. Reason doesn't lead to these beliefs. Sociological drivers and psychological manipulation do. Furthermore, I don't think it is healthy to believe that an innocent man was tortured and murdered because of your sins. That is a sick, unhealthy belief. And I think following false prophets is a bad idea in general. If you want to understand reality regarding sexual ethics, the last thing you should do is read Miracle of Forgiveness. Sex is important for some people. It isn't for others. It depends upon your own life's situation. Ideally, many things are much, much more important than being raised by "both a mother and father.": Protection from abuse and neglect. Warm, responsive relationships with dependable caregivers. Material security. A stable home with little destructive conflict. Good physical care from pregnancy onward Adequate nutrition, medical care, sleep, and physical activity Caregivers who can regulate their emotions and function reliably. Consistent, constructive parenting. Rich opportunities to learn. A safe, healthy neighborhood and physical environment. Social belonging and support beyond the immediate household. The "law of chastity" did not come from "the Lord". It came from inherited Christian sexual morality and American cultural norms. Whether it is a good thing or a bad thing depends upon the individual who is indoctrinated with it. If you are well suited for it, then that's great. But you aren't dealing with reality if you imagine waiving a magic wand and it working for everybody else. But people have literally committed suicide because they were indoctrinated with these beliefs. Think about that. Sure. You can use a Venn Diagram to represent ethics. The issue isn't merely whether living in box X is a healthy way to live. What also matters is all of the bagage attached to it through the false religious beliefs. Beliefs that feelings are sinful, it's better to poke out your eye than be aroused by looking at somebody, that doing so is a sin which caused Jesus to be tortured and killed, that having those feelings makes you unworthy of God, that if you experimented with something you are a chewed up piece of gum, etc. The question isn't whether they are reasonable. The question is whether they are healthy. I think sexual ethics should be judged by what they do for actual people. Do they help us treat each other well, make informed decisions, and build satisfying lives? Science cannot decide our ultimate values for us. But if we care about human well-being, evidence should matter more than whether a rule is called sacred. That points toward an ethic built around freely given, informed consent, honesty, mutual consideration, and responsibility for consequences. Consent requires the capacity to choose, freedom from pressure, and the ability to stop. It is essential, but it isn’t the whole story. The same standards should apply regardless of sex or sexual orientation. Keeping commitments matters. So do emotional readiness, contraception, preventing infections, and the welfare of children. Nobody owes anybody sex, including a spouse. Pleasure and intimacy are legitimate goods; freely chosen abstinence is legitimate too. Children need accurate, age-appropriate education about bodies, boundaries, and relationships. As they mature, that should include contraception and sexual decision-making. Comprehensive sex education does not make young people more sexually active and can improve safer behavior. We can encourage patience and self-control without withholding information or making sexual development frightening. The Mormon Church teaches several things that fit this approach: fidelity, commitment, respect for others, and opposition to sexual coercion, including within marriage. It recognizes marital intimacy as an expression of love, not just a means of producing children. Those are healthy teachings. But the Church goes beyond that and says that this is all a matter of moral cleanliness, purity, and worthiness before God, and then proceeds to rack on on incredible amounts of unnecessary guilt for things that are parts of normal, healthy sexual development, to say nothing of making rules that say if you are sexually attracted to somebody of the same sex, then you are precluded from ever having a sexual life, even one based on fidelity, commitment, monogamy, and respect. The surrounding framework matters: sexual conduct and thoughts are evaluated through moral cleanliness, repentance, and worthiness to enter the temple. Masturbation is a typical part of adolescent sexual development. Treating it as a nasty sin that makes you impure and unworthy is an evil thing to teach. When I was a Boy Scout, my scoutmaster/deacon leader taught that the problem with touching yourself is that you'll soon get board of touching yourself and will then want to touch other boys, and that it would thereby make you gay. Can you see the problem with teaching false things? The difficulty is especially clear for gay and lesbian members who want a loving partnership. The Church offers no approved sexual relationship with a same-sex spouse. It teaches that for them, obedience can mean lifelong abstinence from the kind of relationship they desire. Research links religious sexual stigma with psychological distress through internalized stigma and religious struggle. Other people can struggle with this framework too. Someone with religious OCD may become trapped in checking thoughts, confessing, and seeking reassurance about purity. That is a recognized clinical problem. I would also worry about survivors who already feel contaminated, unmarried adults who want intimacy, and spouses who struggle to reconcile pleasure with years of vigilance against lust. Their needs deserve individual attention. I don’t think these teachings are universally healthy. The evidence gives good reason to believe some people would be better off never having internalized the idea that ordinary sexual behavior, or a loving relationship, makes them spiritually unclean. We cannot rerun somebody’s childhood and measure the difference, so that remains a reasoned judgment rather than a universal experimental finding. I want an ethic that teaches people to be responsible and considerate while allowing them to feel at home in their own bodies. A religious rule should have to earn its reputation for being healthy by how it affects the people expected to live it. "Principled and reasoned disagreement" about whether consenting adults who love each other should be allowed to have a consenting, committed, loving life together because of the reasons you've outlined (e.g. the plumbing doesn't fit) are neither principled nor reasoned.