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I don’t know about 1971, but iirc (I no longer have the book with the info in it), for a time after switching to mass produced garments, they allowed members to still make their own based off of the garments they already had, it looks like patterns were not provided by the Church according to the link marineland provided (thanks for that as my memory was wrong). It was stopped, again iirc, because some took liberties with not following the pattern sufficiently. This may have been reality, may have been perception (a few reported cases may have given the impression of widespread noncompliance). Can’t recall if the chapter commented on the reality or not.

In order to be responsive to your point, I did some more research on Lilly Tino. I'd never heard of her until you repeatedly brought her up as a source of daily discussion, debate, and news here. Here is the big question: is "my side" somehow trying to leverage her content to make trans issues "a source for daily discussion and debate and news"? I just can't imagine that you were minding your own business and she suddenly showed up on your Tik Tok feed, much less that the New York Times or Huffington Post brought her to your attention. Lilly is clearly trying to be an provocative influencer, but by herself she is only reaching a few hundred thousand people. In absolute numbers that is impressive, but it's a tiny percentage of the population. So why are we talking about her here? To research this, I made a list of the top 10 right-wing news/editorial sites, and the top 10 mainstream/liberal sites, and then, with the help of AI, searched all 20 for content on Lilly. Here is what I found: BOTTOM LINE: Among 20 major news organizations I searched, right-leaning outlets produced at least 13 substantive Lilly Tino stories/segments. Mainstream/center-left outlets produced 1. For the 2025 Disney controversy specifically, the score was 10–0. I searched the same ten large right-leaning outlets and ten large mainstream/center-left outlets for both “Lilly Tino” and “Lilly Contino,” counting only pieces substantially about her. On the right, I found coverage from Fox News, New York Post, Breitbart, Gateway Pundit, Townhall, RedState, Daily Wire and PJ Media. Breitbart and RedState covered her repeatedly. On the other side, I found nothing from the New York Times, CNN, Guardian, USA Today, NBC, Reuters, AP, Washington Post or NPR. CBS had one 2023 story—about Tino being the victim of anti-trans harassment. This doesn't mean Tino herself isn't seeking attention. She obviously is. Some of her TikToks have received tens of millions of views. But that's different from secondary amplification: Who finds this transgender TikToker, decides her behavior is socially important, and puts it in front of millions of people who don't follow her? On that question, the evidence is overwhelmingly one-sided. The major mainstream/left outlets largely ignore Lilly Tino. Conservative media repeatedly tells its audience about her. So using Lilly Tino as evidence that “liberals are shoving transgender issues in our faces” seems almost exactly backwards. The people working hardest to make Lilly Tino part of the broader political conversation are her critics on the right.

@quietcanon, do you believe that "God does now reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God"? If so, how might we recognize them? And, how would they fit into your "canon first" theological hierarchy?

Part 2 of 2 I was wondering if "my side" is "moving heaven and earth to make trans issues a source for daily discussion and debate and news," I decided to go to FoxNews.com and see what issues they were talking about there, and compare it to what is in the New York Times. Fox News had multiple top stories about trans issues, and I couldn't find any in the New York Times about them. I decided to enlist AI to help me conduct my research. ChatGPT could easily access FoxNews.com, but couldn't access NYTimes.com. So, I printed off the launching pages of 4 sections of the Times (Headlines, Sports, Lifestyle, and Editorials), and uploaded it to GPT, and asked it to compare what is in the New York Times to what is in Fox News. Here is what it found out: On August 22, I took a simple snapshot of what two major news organizations were actually putting before their readers. For The New York Times, I looked not merely at its homepage but at four separate pages: the main news page, The Athletic, Lifestyle and Opinion. After eliminating duplicate appearances of the same article, those pages contained 281 unique stories. Not one was about transgender issues. The Times certainly publishes stories about transgender people and policy when it considers them newsworthy. But on this particular day, across hundreds of opportunities—including sports and opinion—it wasn't pushing the subject at all. Fox News was quite different. Its homepage contained 145 unique articles, of which six—4.1%—were substantially about transgender issues. They included transgender athletes, the WNBA, “XX-XY” messaging, a teacher disciplined over a chromosome T-shirt, and a family involved in a dispute over a transgender teacher. Fox also placed “WNBA CONTROVERSY” in its “Hot Topics” banner at the top of the homepage, giving the subject prominence beyond the individual articles. This doesn't prove that liberals never emphasize transgender issues, nor can one day's webpages establish what every person on either “side” does. But it is difficult to square this evidence with Smac's assertion that my side “is moving heaven and earth to make trans issues a source for daily discussion and debate and news.” On this day, the supposedly trans-obsessed New York Times offered zero transgender stories among 281 choices. Fox News offered six among 145, while separately promoting the controversy as a Hot Topic. If the question is who was working harder to keep transgender controversies in the daily news cycle, the evidence from this snapshot isn't ambiguous. It was Fox News.

Part 1 of 2 Let’s do a deep dive onto this with a case study: the specific events that led to this thread being resurrected, which is you raising the issue of transgender women competing in the WNBA. As background, the WNBA started in 1997, and has had about 1,300 players between its first game and now. Of those players, one has been transgender: The transgender player was Layshia Clarendon, who played in the league from 2013 to 2024. Layshia’s original birth certificate says “female”, and she is 5’9” tall, 158 pounds. In 2020 she said she now self-identifies as “non-binary” and had chest masculinization surgery. Other than that, zero transgender athletes have played. The Collective Bargaining Agreement with the player’s union says “only players who are women are eligible to play in the WNBA,” and it assumes that the definition of “woman” is self-explanatory and doesn’t need a special definition. With regard to transgender athletes playing in the WNBA this was a non-issue as it had been for 30 years. If, hypothetically, a transgender athlete said she wanted to play, at that point the league and players union could work out how to apply their CBA to that situation. But until that were to happen, this would be purely hypothetical. Then on August 7, 2026, Fox News released a Fox Exclusive news story: two hard-core MAGA Republican ex-NBA basketball players were going to try and get into the WNBA. They were in fact on “your side”—they are card-carrying Republicans, speakers at the Conservative Political Action Committee (CPAC), frequent guests on Fox News, attending Charlie Kirk’s victory party for Trump’s 2025 inaguration, etc. One was a Republican U.S. Senate candidate. Objectively, this is a cheap publicity stunt and a non-event. So why are we talking about it? I did some digging, and the story made the New York Times. The Times didn’t think it deserved a fully story, but it did describe it in three sentences in an editorial about some bigger issues in the WNBA. Here is the totality of what the Times has published about it, quoted in its entirety: New York Times “Now we have ex-NBA players Enes Kanter Freedom and Royce White mockingly declaring their eligibility for the WNBA Draft. These far-right flamethrowers, these retirees thirsty for attention, these unserious stunt artists are here only to condemn the theory of inclusivity and taunt the women of this league. Please, let me off this ride.” Again, those three sentences are everything the New York Times has said about this. I then tried the same thing at FoxNews.com. There were hundreds of hits about this story. I enlisted ChatGPT to summarize them. Here is what it came up with: Fox News Fox News didn’t simply report the Royce White/Enes Kanter Freedom WNBA stunt once and move on. It repeatedly promoted and repackaged it for nearly two weeks. I can document at least 22 distinct Fox treatments between August 7 and August 19—including news articles, opinion/analysis pieces, Fox TV segments, video clips, interviews, and full-show discussions. That’s a conservative count because I excluded later WNBA stories that merely mentioned White/Freedom or embedded earlier coverage. Fox covered the initial declarations, the WNBA’s response, supposed “loopholes” in league policy, White’s formal draft submission, Matt Gaetz’s involvement, and repeated interviews and discussions on Fox & Friends Weekend, Outnumbered, Fox News @ Night, Fox News Sunday, and OutKick programming. Fox also kept cross-promoting the controversy through related-story links and embedded White/Freedom videos. As of August 22, “WNBA CONTROVERSY” was still one of only four “Hot Topics” promoted at the top of FoxNews.com. So this wasn’t a story Fox reluctantly covered because transgender athletes were dominating the news. Two conservative former NBA players deliberately created a publicity stunt about a hypothetical issue, and Fox turned it into an ongoing news cycle—at least 22 separate treatments in roughly twelve days. Summary Using the New York Times as a proxy for “my side”, this is a total non-issue. Using Fox News as a proxy for “your side”, this is a huge issue where Fox is going out of there way to create multiple stories about it every day and is creating links across the site saying this is a hot issue that its readers and viewers need to be thinking about all the time. After Fox News convinced its readership that this was an important topic for daily discussion and debate and news, you raised the topic here to discuss and debate it here. So given how it is you personally and right-wing news sources who are pretending this total non-issue is a HUGE news event that deserves intense coverage and debate, it is very much mind-blowing that you somehow think “it is very much your side of the debate that is moving heaven and earth to make trans issues a source for daily discussion and debate and news.”

That's not the current policy.

Thank you for your thoughts. One of my divergences with the Church is doctrines and commentary can contradict canonized revelation. It is bad theology, detracts from the spirit, and causes our teachings and lessons to lack power. If instead we quoted, parsed, and analyzed Class 1 (quoted word of God) for every ounce of meaning, the Church would be far stronger.

"Individuals who have received their endowments who desire to make garments for themselves or a family member may do so" (Letter of the Office of the First Presidency, March 9, 1971). https://mormonstudies.as.virginia.edu/princes-research-excerpts-temples-mormonism/bergera-garments

Yes. Your assertion that LDS women in Gilbert wear workout gear specifically to deceive their bishops out of laziness or hypocrisy, that is an assumption about their internal motives, not a verifiable fact. I cannot "disprove" your cynical interpretation of another person's heart because motives aren't visible. You treat your cynical guess as a fact and then demand we disprove your guess. That isn't truth. Full of loaded phrasing ("what all the cool kids do") and hostile framing, you construct a deceptive narrative. You certainly don't know why every individual wears what they wear, so asserting they are all lying isn't 'truth', it's just your preference to assume the worst. We don't have to disprove your bad-faith interpretation. The fact that you always frame everything in the most hostile way possible speaks to your bias. It’s interesting how you demand strict literal proof from everyone else but expect everyone to accept your unprovable assumptions about Church members as absolute fact. People who operate this way rarely want an honest dialogue. They want to score points.

Ok . Well good luck to you

Hi Bluebell Although the Catholic Church, in principle, may accept Protestant baptism, making their Church members Christian. It is partly due to the understanding of Second Vatican Council in the sixties. Which Calm in previous post has touched on. The only Baptism fully recognised by the Catholic church, is by the Catholic which then makes you a member of it. If that makes sense. I think 3DOP can give a fuller explanation than me.

https://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19641121_unitatis-redintegratio_en.html

Well, that's debatable. The two fellows are claiming to "identify" as women. And per standard trans orthodoxy, "woman" is an undefined or infinitely malleable term, and nobody is allowed to question anyone's declared identity anyway. Fallacy of relative privation (also called "appeal to worse problems" or "not as bad as"). Even if this were relevant, it would not really work as a basis for accusing me of hypocrisy, since I have frequently spoken at length about protecting children, including from other predatory Latter-day Saints, and I have utterly condemned any and all such abuse. I have never condoned any abuse of children, whether it be the sexualized/grooming antics involved in some drag queen story hours, drag shows, Pride parades, and on one, or whether it be a Latter-day Saint exploiting access to Latter-day Saint children. Again, I'm happy to discuss any concerns you have about bishops interviewing children, but not as a means of distracting from the topics under discussion in the last several pages of this thread. Again, you persist in attempting to distract from the topic and criticize me as a person. Classic ad hominem. I hope you can get past it. I acknowledge that the discussion of trans issues amounts to a straying a bit from the original topic of this thread, and that I introduced this straying topic into the thread. Fortunately, I contacted the person who started the thread and got his specific permission to talk about trans issues in it. He has no problem with it at all. Thanks, -Smac

We’ve had a lot of TULIP Calvinists who have posted here over the years. I’m aware of their doctrine. It doesn’t translate into a belief that a specific Calvinist church is the only true church though. Not as it’s been explained to me anyway. There is probably one out there somewhere that does believe it. Lots of independent Calvinist churches out there. Catholicism is probably the closest mainstream church to our views on one true church. The biggest difference is that they accept Protestant baptism as valid (if I understand correctly. Probably best to let one of the residents Catholics speak on that)

I had to go back and review what the topic of this thread actually is. You resurrected this thread a couple of weeks ago because a couple of conservative men decided they wanted to draw attention to a WNBA policy they don't like. The controversy is entirely hypothetical at this point: there is no identified transgender player currently seeking to enter the WNBA. Rather than let this non-issue lie, these conservatives announced that they were going to make an issue of it. And rather than ignore their stunt, you decided to resurrect this topic. I'm reminding you of the context because you said, “I think it is very much your side of the debate that is moving heaven and earth to make trans issues a source for daily discussion and debate and news.” This thread—and the news event that precipitated it—is a small example of the larger pattern. It is your side that keeps insisting that these issues become subjects of daily political discussion. I certainly don't claim that Grok's analysis of the issues I raised was perfect, nor that my prompts were. And more fundamentally, I have no idea whether you'd consider a lengthy response to all of that on-topic or another distraction. But I will reiterate my main point: if you are genuinely worried about children being sexualized and groomed, you might want to pay considerably more attention to your own house before worrying about whether some parent somewhere takes their child to a library event you don't approve of.

Excellent webbles! Thanks.

They don't say everything is unknown. There are somethings that are known per the scripture. But the parts that the scripture doesn't explain is the Mystery. So, if you try to force other Christians to define things in those mysterious parts, you are either going to get their own personal ideas or the answer "it is a mystery". Similar to asking us to explain how God came to be God. Is He the original one or does He have a Father? Was He a savior of His world like Christ or not?. These are things we don't know and only have speculation on. It also kind of defeats your statement of "God helps us understand Him by continuous revelation through living prophets". Even for us, there are limits on what has been revealed. I think the normal response for us is that it is not important to our understanding of God, and I would expect that is also the normal response for other Christians as well. The things defined for the Trinity do allow theological disagreements between trinitarianism and us. And it does also show that we "believe in a different God/Jesus". I'm not saying that the entire belief of God is a mystery. Only the details about the Trinity are a mystery. For the Catholic church, the declaration of what is heretical or not would be called continuous revelation to us. They have the public revelation, which is all of the revealed scripture. And then God continues to give inspiration to make sure that it is understood correctly. So the Nicaean creed is pretty much the same thing as our document "The Living Christ" (the one from 2000 signed by the 15). The first is from leaders of the church who got together, discussed, argued, and came to an agreement and wrote to the world. The second is also from leaders of the church who got together, discussed, argued, and came to an agreement and wrote to the world. And both groups believe they were inspired. We (LDS) accept the inspiration of the latter but not the former. Catholics (and other trinitarians) accept the inspiration of the former but not the latter.

Your "gotcha" attempt relies on a false equivalency between literary framing/genre and theological truth claims. Who even wrote the Book of Job and when? Job himself? Did he himself enter the council of the sons of God to witness Job 1 happen? No. Mainstream biblical scholars generally agree that the Book of Job is a piece of wisdom literature and dramatic poetry, not a transcript of the event. Latter-day Saints recognize Job himself as a real individual who suffered immensely (Ezekiel 14:14, James 5:11). Thought to be a patriarchal era figure, but the "book" of Job seems to be penned by an anonymous scribe after the fall of Jerusalem to answer why bad things happen to good people. Come Follow Me seems to be trying to help readers look past a somewhat jarring image of God making a "bet" with Satan, and instead focus on the doctrinal takeaways. To your question, if the prologue is poetic, then God speaking in chapter 42 must also be poetic (i.e., made up)? No, you can use a dramatic literary device in the beginning to set up a real spiritual resolution at the end. Concerning truth, even a made-up story can teach the truth. Is it not true that Satan and the rival sons of God are our adversaries*, and suffering is not always a direct punishment for sin? Are Jesus' parables "true" stories? No, Jesus' parables were not literal, historical events. He made them up to teach spiritual principles. * Job 1:6 "Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them"). The "to present themselves" (yatsal contextualized in council settings) is the exact same root used in places like Psalm 2:2 "The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord". That the assembly wasn't just a peaceful, harmonious meeting of angels standing at attention. Instead, imply a scene of confrontation, rivalry, or dissent, where heavenly beings are taking counsel against or challenging Yahweh.

...says the man who is obsessed with starting threads on these topics. You persist in attempting to distract from the topic and personalize this thread. I hope you can get past that. I've been trying to better understand your perspective and to challenge my own biases and to that end, I've licensed Grok as a thinking tool that doesn't share my biases. I think I've made my perspective and assessment quite clear. That you disagree with it is fine, but I would prefer to discuss the topic rather than me and my motives, as I see that as a combination of ad hominem, appeal to motive, and fallacy of relevance. Okay. But I'm not really interested in arguing over who is doing what and why. This analysis presupposes that safety is the only concern. While it is an important one, it is not the only one. I have noted this many times in this thread. Moreover, "no prosecutions" is not, I think, a useful indicator for prevalence of the problem. From a legal perspective, the basis for a statute does not need to be empirically demonstrated. This may have some relevance to the constitutional scrutiny, though. The "personal autonomy" right under the Kansas Constitution is somewhat unique, so legal challenges to the statute will be interesting to watch. The law is defensible if courts accept that sex-separated spaces serve a compelling privacy interest and that a biological-sex criterion is narrowly tailored to that interest. The law may be vulnerable if courts expand personal autonomy to encompass a right to have one’s gender identity govern access to intimate facilities and identity documents. The outcome will turn heavily on how broadly Kansas courts define the autonomy right beyond the abortion context. We'll see what happens. Rather than engage the points I have made, you are going to Grok and asking it to speculate about motives. I don't think that does much to advance the discussion. Fallacy of relative privation (also called "appeal to worse problems" or "not as bad as"). Again with distractions from the topic at hand. I hope you can get past this. FWIW, I uploaded your questions to Grok and asked it to identify logical fallacies and flawed reasoning. The results: I agree that your question was loaded a bit. Same here. Many trans folks and advocates are actively courting attention, and they are getting it. Again, safety concerns are not the only ones. This was my assessment as well. Please note that the foregoing critiques your posted arguments, not you as a person. I am happy to discuss issues pertaining to bishop's interviews, but not as a distraction from the topic at hand. Thanks, -Smac

Job is based on an older Sumerian legend which provides the main framing beginning with chapters 1 and 2, and concluding with 42:7-17. This is the standard story and part that people generally only read. The rest is an Israelite poem calling into question the very premise of the story, rejecting it, and even has Job announce that someone would avenge him by punishing God for such an injustice.

...says the man who is obsessed with starting threads on these topics. For my part, I'd be oblivious to these issues if it weren't for you. I've been trying to better understand your perspective and to challenge my own biases and to that end, I've licensed Grok as a thinking tool that doesn't share my biases. As an example, I asked the following question to both Grok and GPT: Q: Which side of the debate is moving heaven and earth to make trans issues a source for daily discussion and debate and news? Grok: The gender-identity side. They drove the institutional and media push that turned a once-low-visibility issue into constant public controversy. GPT: In current U.S. politics, the political right—especially Republican politicians and conservative media—has done far more to keep transgender issues in the daily political and news agenda, through legislation, campaigns, litigation, and sustained media attention. The left is often responding to those initiatives, though progressive activists and institutions also contribute to keeping the subject visible. There is clearly a bias somewhere. As I've thought about this, here are some of the prompts I gave to Grok and the responses I received. Q: Is the 2026 Kansas bathroom law a good law? Treat this as an adversarial evidence review. Don't infer the answer from progressive or conservative conventional wisdom. Separate empirical facts from value judgments. Identify the strongest evidence against the conclusion you initially favor. Prefer primary sources, quantify things where possible, and tell me explicitly where the evidence doesn't support a confident conclusion. Grok: The 2026 law’s empirical case is weak: Kansas had no documented rise in restroom assaults or voyeurism that it addressed, and post-enactment data show almost no prosecutions. Its strongest justification is definitional—it restores a verifiable sex-based rule after institutions began treating self-ID as official—rather than a response to measured local harm. The main costs (edge-case mismatches such as masculine-presenting females in women’s rooms, plus reported avoidance of public facilities) are real but unquantified. Evidence does not support a confident claim that the law either prevented a breakdown or improved net safety in Kansas. Q: Have the law's supporters really thought it through? They *say* they want female privacy from biological males, but perhaps what they really want is to not have to go into the restroom with people who *look* like they don't belong there. Grok: Many have not fully. The law uses birth sex, so it sends masculine-looking biological females into women’s rooms and feminine-looking biological males into men’s rooms—the opposite of “people who look like they belong.” That mismatch suggests the real driver for a lot of supporters is visual and social discomfort, not a consistently applied biological principle. The following questions are intended to put into perspective accusations of sexualizing and grooming children Q: If a Mormon leader--be it a bishop, teacher, scoutmaster, or anybody else who has the trust of members through his affiliation with the church--hurts a child, what are the chances that it will reach the news outside the church? Grok: Low. Independent trackers have compiled hundreds of cases in which LDS bishops or similar leaders allegedly abused children or failed to report it, yet most never become secular news; they typically surface only years later through lawsuits, court records, or investigations such as the AP’s, not through church disclosure. Q: What are the chances that a bishop will "sexualize" children in worthiness interviews by asking him or her questions about their sexual activities at an inappropriately young age? Grok: High. Thousands of documented accounts describe bishops asking 11- and 12-year-olds explicit questions about masturbation, touching, and sexual acts in one-on-one interviews; the church later advised against probing but implementation still varies widely by untrained lay bishop. Q: What are the chances that the bishop sexualizing children in interviews will make the news? Grok: Low for any single interview, which stays private; the broader practice reached national news only after a 2018 campaign collected thousands of stories and prompted church policy changes. Q: If some sort of drag queen story time at a library or whatever does something that is inappropriate and sexualizes children, what are the chances that this event will make the news? Grok: High. Public library events are filmed and promoted, so documented cases of sexualized performances or convicted sex offenders reading to children have repeatedly gone viral and drawn national coverage. Q: In terms of both the frequency and severity of harm to a child, which is more dangerous--exposing a child to storytime by a drag queen at a library, or exposing a child to Mormon church leaders in worthiness interviews and other church settings? Grok: The Mormon interviews and related church settings are more dangerous. They are systematic and repeated for millions of children in private with an authority figure who can impose religious penalties, producing thousands of documented accounts of explicit sexual questioning plus hundreds of abuse or failure-to-report cases; drag story times are optional public group events whose isolated problems, while real, reach far fewer children and lack the same power imbalance or secrecy.

In the Torah, the Book of Job is included in the "Poetry" section, not the "History" section. I think the whole story of Job is a work of allegorical prose/poetry literature, and not a true or accurate history of a man.

I don't think I like the metaphors of "losing" and "battle." But that is how a lot of folks on all sides look at it. I this situation I love the principal slogan of the Moravian Church: “In essentials, unity; in non‑essentials, liberty; and in all things, love.” In the words of the song, "And the world would be a better place for you, for me. Just you wait and see!"

Except it isn't a "redefinition". It is the logical conclusion to our theology. "God" being a status does not in any way conflict with the idea that God the Father is both "a God" and "the God" or that Jesus is also "a God" but not "the God". My army can have two generals. Both are referred to as "general". However, one can be senior to the other and thus be "the general" in matters of decision-making. Boiling down the Trinity to "a Mystery" effectively renders any theological disagreements Nicaeans have with us (or anyone else) on the nature of God moot. If God "can't be fully explained with our human understanding", then there is no logical or theological basis for saying that the LDS church "believes in a different God/Jesus". It also provides some of the strongest support for a "Great Apostasy", as it shows how the various schisms in the post-Apostolic church were all based on man-made nonsense. It's almost like God helps us understand him by continuous revelation through living prophets. John Calvin had Michael Servetus executed for denying the Nicene Trinity. If it is indeed a mystery, how was that act justified? How are concepts like partialism or modalism considered heretical if the Trinity is ultimately "a mystery"?

That also isn't accurate. Reformed/Calvinist denominations believe in a concept of unconditional election. What this means is that God chooses who to save and that humans, based on the concept of total depravity, are unable to choose God on their own. Therefore, it doesn't matter what you say or do as God will ultimately decide your fate for you. They even believe in two churches. The visible church that comprises all those who profess belief, and the invisible church that is made up of God's elect. Catholics have historically believed that formal heretics receive some form of divine punishment. This would include many Protestants, as they not only engage in theologies that the Catholic church considers heretical (see sola scriptura, the priesthood of all believers, sola fide), but reject certain Catholic dogmas (see Immaculate Conception, transubstantiation). Your story even backs up my assertion. If the ruling council did not believe that their church was the one true church, the pastor would not have been removed over merely expressing thoughts that the council disagreed with. There would be no formal censure at all for merely expressing a theological or socio-political opinion. If I'm coming off as "snotty", that's entirely on you. Accuracy is important to me as well, and you aren't accurate. You're having to ignore both the formal theologies of these groups as well as their behaviors, both current and historical. If none of these groups considered themselves to be "the one true church", what was their rationale for justifying the murder of dissenters? The very concepts of heresy, schism, and apostasy require a belief in the singular truth of one's group over the others.