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Thanks. I think CB's and Calm's repeated references to "other people" agreeing with them to be kind of weird. It's argumentum ad populum. Other people like my posting style, so where does that leave us? My take: It takes us to a return to discussing the topic, with each of us at liberty to ignore posts we dislike. Thanks, -Smac

Really sound like a problem in the making.

Figuratively. It's not an "excuse." It's an illustration of a principle, which is this: There may be circumstances in which it is moral to disobey civil law. For Latter-day Saints, who are commanded to obey the laws of the land, this can create a moral conundrum. Here's another illustration: If you and your husband were moving to another country, and if that county conditioned your entry and residency on you getting a divorce (because the country has laws against same-sex couples/marriage), would you obey that law? Or if the county required you to affirm under oath that you are not in a same-sex marriage, would you make that affirmation? Yes, you stacked the deck there. You are free to speak as you like. As am I. Yet again, someone is conflating disagreement with misunderstanding. I understand that some people dislike my posting style. I disagree with, and reject, requests that I alter my posting style to suit your preferences. Do you see the difference? Thanks, -Smac

Bingo. I think if we all remembered this, the forum would go much smoother. For the record, I don't agree with the sentiments recently expressed about you. There is far too much nannying going on...

You’ve received similar feedback from multiple participants and you ignore and defend. I am the world's leading authority on what I think. That more than one person imputes motives and sentiments onto me which I do not hold does not validate those imputations. Instead, you go passive aggressive and indirectly accuse me of being immature. Classy. And ad hominem. Sure would be nice to discuss the topic instead. We are each at liberty to proceed as we see fit. But yes, if you key your participation on this board on how much you can control and dictate how others participate (such as myself), I think you are setting yourself up for disappointment. I think there is a substantial mismatch between my reasons for participating here and your expectations of my reasons, and of my participation. My posts do not conform to your expectations (which apparently involve "socializing"), and I am not inclined to change my posts to conform to them. If that frustrates you, then perhaps you are better off ignoring my posts. I wish you well. Thanks, -Smac

You literally sliced and diced my post as an excuse to still use the Nazi in the attic when THIS situation is nothing like lying about a Jew in the attic. As I said in the post, "I know it is a game you like to play, but it does erode trust that you are engaging in a good faith discussion like Mustard has pointed out." Do you seriously don't understand why multiple people complain about your fisking technique on a board that is suppose to be discussion based?

When you refuse to answer questions that might clarify your position, there is not much else we can do. I generally respond to inquiries, quite a bit in fact. In any event, the imputation of ill motives is, in my view, a form of ad hominem. I have questions not responded to all the time. It's just the way these boards work. We're not obligated to each other. We lose track of discussions. We may lose interest in discussions. I may not want to respond to questions about me instead of the topic. As for "not much else we can do," I disagree. We could return to discussing the topic rather than the participants in it. Hard to keep track of every thread and every discussion within each thread. And it's not like any of us is obligated to each other. Take, for example, Nehor. I regularly let him "have the last word" because I find his provocateur schtick and frequent lack of substantive commentary/insight and dialed-to-eleven sarcasm and personal hostility to frequently detract from discussion of the topic at hand. Rather than dwell on Nehor, though, I generally try to get back to discussing the topic. Similarly, I find your tendency to personalize discussions frequently detracts from discussion of the topic. I would prefer to focus on the topic. If I misunderstand something, that can be pointed out and demonstrated (rather than, say, simply assumed and followed by lectures). Most of the time, though, I think I do understand, I just disagree, and that disagreement is then construed by some as, and publicly declared to be, me "misunderstanding" something, which is another form of ad hominem. I don't come to this board for "connection." That's an expectation I have, I think, repeatedly rejected. As I noted to Mustard a few weeks ago, I don't come here to "socialize." I come here to discuss and debate topics pertaining to or touching on the Church and the Restored Gospel, quite often difficult ones. As for "concern for the other," I really don't know how to respond to that. None of us knows each other. I am generally quite civil and respectful in my comments. You are, of course, free to board nanny and personalize threads, as you frequently do, but I wish you wouldn't. My sense is that I have ruffled some feathers and outright offended some (and others have done that to me). As you say, online text communication is never perfect. More to the point, though, is that many of the topics raised here are controversial, which means participants will understandably have differing viewpoints on them. When that happens, disagreement can become less about the topic, and commentary can devolve into various manifestations of ad hominem and other forms of fallacious reasoning. I think communication is hindered when discussions become personalized, when terrible motives are imputed (and rarely demonstrated), and where logical fallacies overwhelm substantive interaction and focus on the topic. More mindreading and tone policing and board nannying. Sure would be nice to focus on the topics of discussion, rather than endless personalizing of threads. How about this: I will let you say what you think, and in ways that you deem fit (within the parameters of the board rules and general civility), and I'll ask that you reciprocate that accommodation. And this: If you don't care for the content or tone or format or style or whatever about my posts, you can ignore them. I would prefer that, as I don't answer to you and don't feel obligated to conform to your expectations and preferences. But again, you are free to say what you like, and participate in ways that you like. Argumentum ad populum. The valuable thing about a message board is that if a misunderstanding arises, it can be clarified and corrected. For example, you regularly impute things onto me that I think just are not so. I often - though not always - respond to clarify my perspective, often to seemingly no effect. If you still think I am "misunderstanding," then perhaps we can just be okay with that and move on. No need for ongoing lectures and tone policing. Okay. I disagree. I think big ideas and topics are often worth parsing out in ways that I like. While you sometimes (frequently? always?) take that as me missing "the whole picture," I don't think that is the case very often. It's just you making assumptions (and negative ones), or else just grousing about other participants and detracting from discussion of the topic at hand. Again, I don't come here to "socialize" or to "connect." That you and Mustard and others may come here to do that is all fine and dandy, but I would ask that you stop faulting me for not joining. I come here to discuss topics, not me. So in the end, I don't really care to discuss your armchair psychoanalysis of me, your imputing motives to me, your critiques of my writing style and supposed "misunderstandings," your lectures about me and my supposed moral failings ("real connection or concern for the other..." "I go by the rule every man a potential rapist") and whatever. I would prefer that you discuss the topics, not me. There may have been times in the past when there was a sense of camaraderie and conviviality on this board, but those days are, in my view, long gone. I participate here because I am interested in discussing the Church and the Restored Gospel, and particularly to listen to those who have viewpoints on these things which vary from my own, and who are willing to explain their viewpoints. Thanks, -Smac

You’ve received similar feedback from multiple participants and you ignore and defend. I’m tempted to be immature and respond the way you typically respond. Instead, i will say, this site is no longer of interest for me. It’s so frustrating, in fact, that I dislike how I participate. I need to change my interactions or stop participating at all.

And you know this how?

When you refuse to answer questions that might clarify your position, there is not much else we can do. You do go missing from threads at times though after someone has asked you something. I don’t believe you intentionally misconstrued what is being asked or set up your analysis style for that purpose, but your method of answering (breaking into small parts and apparently not reading to the end of a post before answering and then not adjusting at least what you have written when you do read the rest of the post) tends to cause you to misconstrue what the other is saying as you seem to fill in gaps unnecessarily—some questions you ask at times aren’t much related to what was said, it comes across as if you are having a different conversation to me—and that can lead to incorrect assumptions or inferences…most unnecessary if the post was treated as a whole, though communication is never perfect. And since many posters have pointed this out to you, how your method makes you misunderstand rather than comprehend what they are saying (it’s not just disagreement as you disagree with stuff they weren’t talking about at times) and yet you still continue to use it, I can understand why some might see you as just looking for a platform for your own ideas without any real connection or concern for the other. I think there may be another possibility….you have a process that feels right to you and likely works well in other areas of your life and not to use it is creates a sense of discomfort, disorder, incompleteness perhaps. If I am right, it’s unfortunate because the process is preventing you from understanding in many cases (based on what I have experienced of your analysis of my own posts and others’ similar comments of theirs). In essence, I think you are using the wrong tools to examine details….mental scissors (that cut apart and isolate ideas and even phrases from the greater context) vs a magnifying glass perhaps (where one can look closely, but that type of temporary isolation of details still leaves the construction of the comments intact so when one pulls back, one can look at the whole picture so as to put the details one identified together in the original pattern rather than create a new one filled more with one own ideas than the other.

I have edited my previous post on this sleepless Thursday morning. The reason is that I felt that upon re-reading it, I could make more plain to Teddy and other LDS what I was trying to say. I will add here that it is almost necessary to at least somewhat "like" a teaching before giving any faith claim a fair hearing. If you read this Teddy, I appreciate your remark above that you liked the LDS plan "better". Do we know of anyone who believes reluctantly? Who knows of someone who is familiar with a belief system that they like better than another, but have forced themselves to embrace something for which they have less preference? I know I haven't done that. I came to believe in Catholicism only after I began to like it first. Over the years, I have become familiar with this passage somewhere in the Book of Mormon (BOM) which appears to assert that if Christians believe in infant baptism, it is because that means that they also believe that unbaptized babies will be damned to an unjust Hell. If that were true, who could like it? I understand opposition to such a cruel doctrine. Thankfully, it is a teaching that St. Augustine has had to retract in spirit prison or in Heaven! He taught that at one point in his life, maybe assuming the reasoning that appears in the text of the BOM, as the reason why in ancient America, infant baptism was practised. But everybody should recognize that it doesn't necessarily follow that infant baptism implies what Augustine once taught. The Catholic Church never accepted it, probably sensing that it would be impossible for anyone to love God and proclaim His goodness, if He approved of that to happen to dead babies. There is little said directly about the condition of unbaptized children in our deposit of faith, EXCEPT, that we are always to trust in God's goodness. God is definitely good. That is enough for the Church to reject Augustine's teaching, and that problem is resolved. We haven't talked about infant baptism for a long time. For some time now, whenever we have, I have suggested a solution to the dilemma that solved my indignation at being thought to hold that dead babies go to Hell, without declaring the BOM to be false in asserting what some in ancient America believed. Since the BOM is not considered a revelation of what was happening in present day America, I said it was plausible that such a horrendous teaching had taken root in ancient BOM America. At the same time, I also insisted that Latter-day Saints would be mistaken if they thought that infant baptism necessarily implies that a baby that is unbaptized necessarily goes to an horrible Hell. As I briefly explained in my previous post, the Catholic faith insists that God is not limited to salvation through the Sacraments. That solution I have offered about distunctions between infant baptism in the old world and American in ancient times, does not enable us to believe the same things. But it seems to me like it can resolve tensions about whether the Catholic belief outside the historical BOM times and landscape, could begin to be thought somewhat likable, and certainly without despising it as evil, before we could even discuss it. I fear that what we have seen in this current thread is a similar situation where an LDS party, who is probably one of many, not knowing the Catholic teaching perfectly, is hindered from even considering embracing a religion that has a teaching that they find distasteful compared to what they already have. If one religion has a teaching so inferior to another as to perceive belief in a God that does not give everyone sufficient grace to be saved, one would be rightly inclined to dislike it, and refuse to even consider its teaching. If even one doctrine is repulsive, the whole religion is impossible to embrace. I will also say this with all sincerity. To be misinformed about another religion is not necessarily a culpable offense. It can be. But God alone knows. God will never punish anyone for hating horrible teachings that have been mistakenly attributed to whatever true religion there is. To sum up, I recognize that no one can embrace a religion that they do not at least like. I am not dogmatic about it, but I think most intellects are not so disciplined as to be capable of such an activity, and will almost always work out ways to find an unlikable proposition to be false. I do not merely like the Catholic faith in its totality. I love it. I believe that it is the best news that the poor children of Adam, could ever hear. It is better by far than if Adam had never fallen, and I think we sort of agree with LDS on this? Adam's fall, becomes in Christ, Adam's felix culpa, a "happy fault", for which we should rejoice continually in gladness, wonder, and adoration! I will appreciate and try to reply to any comments, unless I dislike them. J/K. Heh. Rory Disclaimer: I am not saying my attachment to the Catholic faith is superior to that of anybody in another religion. I am just in a moment of praise that comes irregularly. I do not compare likes and loves. But I think "like", after long years of meditation and life experience, may be properly expressed as love. Everyone's journey is unique. Perfect for a particular soul that God loves in a particular way. For me, it is because I have truly been such a bad Catholic, that I think I recognize now much more than ever, that my failure may have contributed to how and why my "like" has become love. I doubt I should tell how bad I am. That is between my good God and me. But that He loves us and no matter what we do, always pursues us? Drawing us to Himself. According to our particular purpose in His will. Until the moment of death, He will come. He is perfectly wise and wonderful, and tender, and everything...and He knows us better than we know ourselves. I have to shut up. I need to take the grandkids to school pretty soon! What a wonderful life. May we all be saved and have more time to talk on an even better day.

Nor did the wives have the option to marry each other or to marry another man. It is because polygyny is misogynistic. You do realize that you ascribing licentiousness and embedded infidelity as an assumed motive and purpose for poly/enm is exactly what the rest of the US did about plural marriage right? There is no real difference there. Also that is not what poly is “mostly about”. And saying that sincere religious beliefs somehow makes it better is just asinine and you know it. The Mormon fundamentalists, Islam, and the growing (but still small) return to polygyny by some Christians does not somehow make what they are doing morally better or purer. Divorce rates are down and still falling. Why are you screaming about the sky is falling? Pregnancy is down but the biggest decrease has been in teen pregnancies. What is the problem? Do you just have a need to blame the gays or the asexuals or the poly people or the furries or the childfree or whatever outside of the mainstream weirdos your culture war masters tell you are the problem this time? If marriage is falling apart most marriages are cishet ones. Why are you targeting the “freaks” who have minimal impact? This is an ongoing pattern for you. To quote President Uchtdorf: “STOP IT!”

Yes. I think that could happen. Not sure it will. I don't think so. Polygamy was very different from polycules. The wives were not married to each other. I have elsewhere explained my difficult in viewing marriage as divinely instituted (though in the end, I do believe it). One is mostly about licentiousness and and embedded infidelity, and the other was not. One is not based in sincere religious belief, and the other was. I see a number of differences. I think much has been done to deconstruct and damage marriage as an institution. Severing sex from marriage. Severing sex from children. Severing marriage from God. Severing marriage from children. Radically re-defining marriage. Thanks, -Smac

That's a fair question. I think the members of the Church genuinely believed that they were following God's law. Eventually they stopped, but only after much pressure and tribulation and - in my view - revelation. I think that can be a reasonable inference, but I'm not sure I can competently speak as to God's expectations on this matter. I think God commands us to do, or not do, certain things. Broadly and overwhelmingly, these things are congruent with the laws of the land. There can, of course, be exceptions. Like most Christian traditions, Latter-day Saint teaching can perhaps accommodate the idea that if a civil law directly conflicts with a clear command of God, God’s command takes precedence (classic biblical examples include Daniel, Shadrach/Meshach/Abednego, and the apostles in Acts 5:29, and then there are the "Jews in the Attic"-style questions). This principle was explicitly invoked during the polygamy period, when Church leaders and members argued that plural marriage was a divine commandment that superseded anti-bigamy statutes until the 1890 Manifesto discontinued the practice. To my knowledge, there is no other comparable episode in which the Church as an institution promulgated or practiced a general divine command for members to disobey civil law. So polygamy was very much an outlier, perhaps comparable to Abraham's Sacrifice. Why not? Isn't this situation a moral dilemma? Obey God or obey the law of the land? If secular law prohibits a moral thing (hiding Jews from the Nazis), or compels an immoral thing (disclosing the whereabouts of Jews to the Nazis), then people of good conscience have and can run into this sort of problem. The Fugitive Slave Act. Jim Crow. Apartheid. Some good historical examples of this. Apart from polygamy, I can't think of a time when this has happened to the Latter-day Saints. Happy to consider examples. I think folks like you and Mustard often impute motives and sentiments onto me which I do not hold or harbor. I think disagreement is often construed as not "listening." I think nuanced answers and assessments are sometimes seen as evasive. Sometimes, though, the question suffers from the "complex question fallacy" (also known as the fallacy of many questions, plurium interrogationum, or a loaded question), which occurs when someone asks a question that builds in an unproven, disputed, or false assumption. A direct "yes" or "no" (or any straightforward reply) forces the respondent to inadvertently agree to the hidden claim. I think I try to answer directly and honestly and clearly in most circumstances. I have attempted that here. Thanks, -Smac

We really shouldn’t be giving you advice on your own spiritual experiences, even identifying whether or not it was spiritual or a result of biology, whether drugs or brain chemistry (I have had both spiritual experiences—no angels, but revelation—and chemistry caused, the medical one was very intense and left me terrorized). Maybe talk to your bishop about it or someone else you trust. If you have any medical issues, maybe talk to your doctor to rule out possible issues there. Also look at what the results of this experience was. Did it cause you to desire to do good and forsake any sins you might have or simply be more focused on seeking God (I am assuming you are not particularly rebellious given your post)? The results, what it motivates you to do can be a clue of the source perhaps…including if you are confused and not particularly focused on anything, quite possibly a biological, physical experience rather a spiritual ones. God has our physical bodies to use to communicate with us, which can sometimes lead to confusion. Think of a radio…maybe what you are hearing is a message being sent from someone else even if it’s not clear enough to decipher yet, but maybe it’s static created by the radio itself as both can happen to the same radio depending on the circumstances.

Good morning everyone in the forums, I have recently recieved a revelation that i believe to have been from possibly an angel? It was terrifying and I hated it. Anyone else know about this? I am not sure if this one was an angel or maybe a devil? It was an very horrifying apparation to my eyes. Sorry for the confusion to my fellow LDS members, Thank you - I didn't want it (Drawing of my experience attached blow)

Define adamant. 🤣 Hes not going to return to answer this without a runaround. Why we try is a mystery to me.

I think in this day and age when we have had examples of polygyny on reality TV it’s obvious that it’s very complicated, more so than monogamy. I think LDS often had this image of a husband that can manage effectively however many relationships he has because his romantic relationship in each moment is only one woman, also committed to the principle, either isolated from the women and therefore experiencing marriage as pretty much a monogamous one with her husband’s attention fully on her, giving the family his all while there or living in a community of loving and cooperative women who take care of everything, including other wives’ children so they can have a career, with the husband’s contributions is making money, being a father to all his children in the home, and rotating nights through his wives…in both everything is well regimented, the husband never showing unequal affection, etc, because that wouldn’t be fair. There can also be a mix….but again everything can be agreed upon and balanced because the marriage relationships are predictable and ordered and it’s only one person moving from one spouse to another. Basically, it’s just a man who is in multiple traditional, monogamous marriages, the relationship between the women uncomplicated by sharing the same man, not much different than a group of sisters living with their families in a family home. Not saying there wasn’t recognition that there were issues for many, but that would be because they weren’t doing it right, not because issues are inherent to the system. I remember sharing very few details about daily life outside a superficial, pretty idealized version, but we were proud and excited because it made us different (not growing up in Utah) to have ancestors participating in plural marriage. OTOH, in my experience LDS imagined polyamorous relationships as a free for all, unpredictable and disorganized with expectations all over the place and therefore prone to conflict, jealousy, neglect, etc. The kids wouldn’t even know who their parents were or at least their father (paternity testing was already at 80% accuracy in the 60s and 70s apparently, so I guess that was more emotional knowledge that biological or maybe it was still expensive and hippies would never have enough money or care enough to test). It was also grouped into hippies and free love and seen as highly unstable, people coming and going. Onlookers can’t easily determine who belongs to whom….meaning for many which women and children belong to which man. Turmoil for adults, trauma for the kids. There is also the still existing nonsense bias that men are less emotional*** and inherently more rational, more clearheaded, big picture than women, so having multiple relationships won’t be overwhelming for him or unfair to the women while women at their core only want one deep, romantic relationship and as long as they have that, they are willing to sacrifice anything for it, including sharing their husband. So one man in many relationships with women can be workable, but allowing the women to have multiple relationships isn’t what they actually want or can handle and therefore is doomed to failure. Add in any homosexual hints and massive eewww factor in the past, which still hangs around for many. Perhaps some LDS still see such a significant difference between the two styles. *** as opposed to less socially expressive about emotions than women…except for when it comes to anger and aggression that is and then they are the ones that shine…at least in social, traditional relationships.

SMAC started this thread about a city that recognizes weddings to multiple partners and warning that it could lead to more legalization of group marriages and what he believes could be the possible outcome of such a law. I find this interesting given that the Church once commanded such marriages. I was simply trying to understand how he could be so concerned about multiple marriages, though slightly different, and his own beliefs about the nature of polygamy. Everything you brought up could have been expressed in his first answer. Instead he answers the question saying that polygamy was illegal at the time. (I think he could have realized that everyone reading my question knew that already. Personally, I find little daylight between group marriages and polygamy. I am trying to understand how a member of the Church could be so adamant against the possibility of a group marriage enough that he would start a thread about it and issues warning about what this might lead to.

Well at least you made an attempt to answer my question. It does bring up other questions that I would like your thoughts on. If it was against the law to practice polygamy and one of the basic tenants of Mormonism is to honor and obey kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates (do I have to reference the Articles of Faith here or do you know what I am referring to so you will know how basic that belief is/was?) When polygamy was against the law, why didn't the Church just stop practicing it since the Church expects us to follow the law of the land. Did God expect the members of the Church to directly go against the law of the land? Does God, at times, command us to continue to break the law? I'm not talking about lying to the Nazi hiding a Jew or other moral dilemmas. I am talking about a direct commandment that knowingly goes against an existing law of the land. Please try not to look for an answer that doesn't address this directly. I know it is a game you like to play, but it does erode trust that you are engaging in a good faith discussion like Mustard has pointed out.

Here I go again, and the current count is 249 channels. Something I have found interesting is that I started getting more such channels being recommended on YouTube after I pared down my very long list of channel subscriptions, eliminating most of those who post videos on political topics. I suppose this increase is due to my seeing more recommendations, with political ones being crowded out. I also started getting more anti-LDS channel recommendations, too!

My list of pro-LDS channels has now grown to 249 channels! Here's a recent channel discovery of mine: The Convert Devotionals, 109 videos, 860 subscribers. Host is Clare Thomas, whose spiritual journey started as a member the Church, left it, and came back -- then brought her non-member husband into the Church.

I was reading the list of posts and as I read the title of this thread I suddenly remembered a post in distant past by a man who hasn't been on the forum for several years. I can't quite remember his screen name, unfortunately. Though it may come to me later. Anyway, he's a member of the church who lives in a part of the world with a lot of religions, including Islam, Christianity, Buddhism, and what have you. It seems like it is a country in southeast Asia. He posted once that he had been traveling on a subway route and on one of the platforms he found a man who had been seriously injured just laying on the platform and nobody was helping him. He went to the man to see what he could do, and did what he could to arrange transport to a hospital. While waiting for the ambulance, he spoke with the man who was in a great deal of distress, finding that he was a Muslim. Since the man was a believer in God, our poster asked him if he would like a priesthood blessing, to which assent was given. So he gave the man a blessing. I can't remember if in his post he said he knew the outcome of the blessing or the man's condition, since after he was taken to the hospital that was the last he saw of him.

'It’s time for us to move on’: Fairview mayor speaks on temple dispute as LDS church expands That's the title of the article, not mine.

A genuinely great person, who stepped up to the mark.