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Ok. I understand the difference between the two disciplines. I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree on the higher or better part. Heiser was a professor in the distance program at Liberty. He was a graduate of Bob Jones University. He died of the same cancer that killed both my parents and according to odds, will also take me some day. Many Bob Jones graduates have an uncanny knack of navigating its Fundamentalism, transitioning into Evangelicalism, and appreciating academic scholarship. It is a unique place with a unique history. Ditto for Liberty. I simply don't think he would react well to being thought of as higher or better than his counterparts who are equally Evangelical, with an added (not better or lesser) belief in the need to understand the role of the Holy Spirit in Old Testament transmission and hermeneutics. In today's Evangelicalism, one can be committed to academic scholarship in the study of the transmission and interpretation of the text and an Evangelical . It isn't one or the other. I am not talking about Fundamentalist inerrancy. There is a wideness in today's Evangelical tent that hasn't always existed in the past. He represented that by his engagement with Liberty. Traditional Evangelism has widened. I apprecite that as I admire your posts and engagement in the study of the Old Testament. Best wishes.

Random post on FB came through today. This guy is part of a FB page called “Christian’s vs lds vs atheists.” Check out the last sentence of the post title of post is : differences between Christianity and the church of Jesus Christ … im cutting down the text of the post as it is a bit long…  “so called Christian never tells you their Religious beliefs , ever , we constantly hear negative propaganda mud slinging at the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, …The just aren’t UNIFIED, like The LDS, I’ve even heard Many say they don’t like organized religion, ? Do you think God‘s church is a chaos church? It’s not, it’s very well organized with prophets Apostles Bishops all non payed” APOSTLES AND BISHOPS ALL NON PAID (payed) Wonder where he got that idea.

He did not speak in a representative capacity for the Church when addressing the NAACP? It sure seems like he was doing just that. Could you elaborate on that? This presupposes A) that only the Presiding High Priest can speak on behalf of the Church, B) that the Church should issue "apologies," and C) the Church's "apologies" will only be valid if they use "the particular word 'error.'" I'm not sure any of those presuppositions is warranted. Well, that's an arguable point. Brant Gardner addresses it here: What Does the Book of Mormon Mean by “Skin of Blackness”? Some relevant excerpts: I would be happy to listen to what you have to say regarding Gardner's analysis here. Could you elaborate? I'm not sure I understand the "doubt" and who is casting it. Latter-day Saints have received a number of exhortations to A) refrain from expecting perfection/infallibility, and B) avoid condemning others (including, I think, prophets and apostles, both past and present). Some examples. The Title Page to the Book of Mormon: "And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of Christ." Mormon 9:31 states: "Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been." Joseph Smith said, “I never said I was perfect, but there is no error in the revelations.” Joseph Smith said: "I will give you one of the Keys of the mysteries of the Kingdom. It is an eternal principle, that has existed with God from all eternity: That man who rises up to condemn others, finding fault with the Church, saying that they are out of the way, while he himself is righteous, then know assuredly, that that man is in the high road to apostasy; and if he does not repent, will apostatize, as God lives." From then-Pres. Uchtdorf: "And, to be perfectly frank, there have been times when members or leaders in the Church have simply made mistakes. There may have been things said or done that were not in harmony with our values, principles, or doctrine. I suppose the Church would be perfect only if it were run by perfect beings. God is perfect, and His doctrine is pure. But He works through us—His imperfect children—and imperfect people make mistakes. In the title page of the Book of Mormon we read, 'And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of Christ.' This is the way it has always been and will be until the perfect day when Christ Himself reigns personally upon the earth." From Elder Andersen: "The leaders of the Church are honest but imperfect men. Remember the words of Moroni: 'Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father … ; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been.' Joseph Smith said, 'I never told you I was perfect; but there is no error in the revelations.' The miracle of God’s hand in the history and destiny of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is understood only through the lens of spiritual inquiry." Latter-day Saints who follow this counsel and abstain from notions/expectations of infallibility/perfection from the leaders of the Church will, I think, do just fine in weathering controversies and difficulties. Well, not really. First, you seem to be equating "lead us astray" with infallibility. With the Brethren never making any mistake to any degree, ever. Second, the governance of the Church has multiple safeguards in place. The First Presidency and the Quorum of the Twelve. The general requirement for unanimity. The Standard Works. The oversight of the Presiding Bishopric. Third, we should attune ourselves to the checks and balances that are built in to the Restored Gospel: See also here: Fourth, the notion that leaders of the Church should pretty much be followed without question with unquestioning loyalty is, in my view, misguided. As I have previously noted here: The generalized statement of "When you are in the Army you are obligated to follow the orders of your superiors" is not incompatible with the foregoing "duty to disobey." Virtually every law or moral principle allows for exceptions in extraordinary or very unusual circumstances. Similarly, the generalized statement of "the prophet will never lead us astray, meaning that we can always trust them" is not incompatible with the foregoing statements from Joseph Fielding Smith, Harold B. Lee and others. Fifth, we have been given prophets and apostles for the express purpose of following them: The problem is when we rely on them too much, and/or when our reliance on them is predicated on tacit expectations of infallibility. Brigham Young really nailed it here: These sentiments have come to mind in the past when I have raised my hand to sustain new leadership in the Church. When Pres. Monson passed away, I was saddened for a time. He was a good man, even a great one. He will be missed. However, a bit later I raised my arm and sustained Pres. Nelson. Prophets and apostles are good and decent men. But in the end, they are servants. In a way, I am happy to see them pass on to the next phase of their journey, as I fully expect for the Atonement to apply to them, to wash away their sins and weaknesses, leaving them for what they really tried to be. "Well done, thou good and faithful servant..." My job is not to sustain them unless they have weaknesses. My job is to sustain them despite their weaknesses. And meanwhile, I should look to see that my own house is in order. I think I'm in the Church, come what may. I believe any member of the Church can be led astray, including leaders (witness the many who apostasized in the early days of the Church). I also reject the notion of inerrancy (though I note that it is quite possible for a church leader to make a mistake, or even many mistakes, and yet not be "astray"). However, I subscribe to the position that the Church and its leaders, collectively, will not be led astray. I believe in the prophecy found in Daniel 2 and in how it has been interpreted. I agree with Wilford Woodruff that "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the programme. It is not in the mind of God." I think that's right. I believe in The Book of Mormon, in its testimony of Jesus Christ, and of the implications that are associated with the prophetic mantle involved in its production, preservation, and transmission to us. I believe the sentiment expressed here (attributed to Joseph Smith): "‘I will give you a key that will never rust, —if you will stay with the majority of the Twelve Apostles, and the records of the Church, you will never be led astray." The Church is not perfect. But it is, in my view, overwhelmingly good. I love it a lot. Again, "that verse" was not speaking about humanity in toto, but rather about "the wicked" (v. 2). And not just any old sinner, but those who, facing the "{just} judgments" of God, will "shall have cause to howl, and weep, and wail, and gnash their teeth; and this because they would not hearken unto the voice of the Lord; therefore the Lord redeemeth them not." The category of unredeemed "wicked" persons referenced here seems to be . . . sons of perdition (see, e.g., here). So could you elaborate What is it that you think merits an apology? Are you suggesting that "the wicked" being referenced - that is, sons of perdition - are not "carnal and devilish"? I understand the distinction people sometimes draw between “regret” and “apology,” and why the word choice matters to them. A few thoughts on why an institution might deliberately use the language of regret rather than a formal institutional apology (such as, for example, when the Illinois House of Representatives drafted a written statement to the Church about the privations and abuses the Saints endured in the 1840s, and in which statement they changed the word "apology" to "regret") : First, a formal apology from an organization often carries an implication of ongoing collective guilt that attaches to every current member. Most people reject that logic in other contexts. We do not expect every living Japanese person to apologize for Pearl Harbor, every German for the Holocaust, every Chinese citizen for the Great Leap Forward, or every American for slavery or the internment of Japanese Americans. Moral responsibility is personal. Expressing deep regret for past wrongs while declining to place perpetual guilt on people who had nothing to do with those decisions is consistent with that principle. Second, institutional apologies can become performative or endless. Once an organization starts issuing formal apologies for historical actions, the demand rarely stops at one statement. Such faultfinding demands, at in some quarters, are less about encouraging amends for misdeeds and more about hectoring and moving the goalposts, over and over. That may be the closest we get to a Perpetual Motion Machine). Critics often treat any subsequent disagreement on other issues as evidence that the apology was insufficient or insincere. Choosing precise language of regret can be a way of acknowledging real pain and error without turning the institution into a permanent defendant in a historical grievance process. Third, the Church has in fact used strong language. Leaders have spoken of past theories and practices as incorrect, disavowed them, and expressed profound regret for the suffering they caused. The 2013 Gospel Topics essay on race and the priesthood, for example, is explicit that the explanations once offered were wrong and that the restriction was not of God. See also the Church's 2007 public statement of regret about the Mountain Meadows Massacre: These statements are stronger than many institutions manage when confronting their own histories. Whether one prefers the word “apology” or “regret,” the substance—repudiation of the old justifications and sorrow for the harm—is present. Fourth, an exclusive focus on the precise verb can obscure the larger record. The same institution has spent decades teaching against racism, expanding missionary and leadership opportunities across every nation and people, and emphasizing the equal worth of every soul. Evaluating that longer trajectory matters at least as much as the choice between two English words. None of this denies that real harm occurred or that people who experienced it are entitled to have that harm recognized. It simply suggests that “regret” is not necessarily an evasion; it can be a deliberate choice about how responsibility, continuity, and language interact. People of good faith can still prefer different wording, but the distinction is not automatically evidence of bad faith. False teaching leads people in the wrong path, to worship a false God. For example, Joseph Smith teaching that God is not God from all eternity. This is not the God faithful Jews or the majority of Christians worship. Thank you for clarifying. You are pointing to Joseph Smith’s teaching (in the King Follett discourse) that God became God, and that humans can follow a similar path. You’re right that this differs from the classical theism held by most Jews and the majority of Christians, who affirm that God is eternal, uncreated, and without beginning. A few observations: Disagreement is not automatically “leading people astray” in the sense of deception. If every departure from post-biblical creedal formulations counts as leading people to a false God, then the early Christian debates over the nature of the Godhead, the later split between East and West, the Reformation, and countless other theological developments would all fall under the same charge. Latter-day Saints understand themselves to be restoring truths that were lost or obscured, not inventing a different object of worship. We worship the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob—the Father of Jesus Christ. The disagreement is about the nature and history of that God, not about substituting a different being. “God from all eternity” is itself a philosophical development. The absolute timelessness and pure actuality of God (actus purus) as later articulated in classical theism is heavily shaped by Greek philosophical categories. Biblical language is often more dynamic—God “becomes,” “relents,” “remembers,” and enters into time with His people. Latter-day Saint theology leans into that biblical dynamism and rejects some of the later philosophical overlays. One can view that as a recovery rather than a corruption. The practical fruit matters. The charge that this teaching leads people to “worship a false God” needs to be tested against what Latter-day Saints actually do and teach: faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God, repentance, baptism in His name, receiving the Holy Ghost, and enduring in covenant relationship with the Father and the Son. If the accusation is that we are directed toward a different being, the lived religion doesn’t match that claim. You’re free to believe the classical view is correct and the Latter-day Saint view is wrong. That is a fair and reasonable theological disagreement. But equating a different understanding of God’s nature with “leading people astray to worship a false God” assumes that only one post-biblical philosophical formulation can possibly refer to the true God. That seems to me too narrow a standard. I’m happy to keep discussing the doctrine itself if you’d like to go further into the King Follett material or the relevant biblical texts. I think it would help if you explained and demonstrated, rather than merely asserted that a revelation was not needed. Could you elaborate? It seems we have different meanings for the same term. What does leading people in the Church astray mean to you? When I speak of someone “leading people in the Church astray,” I do not mean: Making an honest mistake in doctrine or history Holding or teaching an incomplete or imperfect understanding of a gospel topic Getting a policy, a timeline, or a historical detail wrong Expressing a personal opinion that later turns out to be incorrect Struggling with questions or publicly acknowledging difficult issues Human beings, including prophets and apostles, are fallible. Error, incompleteness, and the need for correction are part of the mortal experience. Those things, by themselves, do not constitute leading people astray. What it does mean is something more deliberate and more serious. Leading people astray means using influence, teaching, or example to turn people away from Jesus Christ, away from the covenants of His gospel, and away from the Church He established—persuading them to abandon faith in Christ, reject prophetic authority, break covenants, or leave the path of discipleship. It is the active effort to draw people off the covenant path and toward disbelief, bitterness, or competing systems of belief that separate them from the Savior and His restored Church. In short, it is not the same as being wrong. It is the work of pulling people away from Christ. Well, that's a point that has been debated for a long time. A manual is entirely fallible if it contains no truth. Okay. But you have not claimed that the manual "contains no truth," but rather that it contains an error (which error the Church has caught, corrected, and about which expressed regret). If you are truly saying the Church's manuals contain "no truth" at all, then please elaborate. I would like to hear what you have to say. No LDS teaching manuals are "entirely" fallible. Okay. I'm glad we cleared that up. Thanks. But surely not in equal measure. There are vastly more items in the former category than the latter. Do we agree on that point? We really need to pin down what you mean by "astray." I'm not sure this statement is part of the canonized text of OD1, but I nevertheless accept it as substantively prophetic, revelatory and correct. The "idea" being "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray." I think we need to have some clarity as to what Pres. Woodruff and his predecessors and successors have had in mind on this issue. We still need to clear up what you think "astray" means in the context in which the leaders of the Church have spoken. Consider, for example, this quote from Joseph Smith: I sense that you carry implicit expectations/requirements of infallibility/perfection in prophets and apostles. And when - as they inevitably do - make a mistake, you use this implicit notion to nullify their claims of prophetic/apostolic authority. I just don't think that works. Thanks, -Smac

Like I have often said, holding God and his servants to one's personal standards of what is Ideal and Perfect, by definition makes disappointment and perceived imperfection, and only that, significant and decisive. And that, consequentially moves the only God worth noticing from the heavens to the Mirror. Asking whether Joseph Smith's inspiration was Real, by nature of the question involves a very different, method, problem field, and standard of solution than asking whether it lives up to my personal desires and subjective expectations. On this topic, I have often considered some implications of this comment, in the first chapter of The Older Testament, Barker citing Steiner's Death of Tragedy: I personally have enjoyed the transformation of my personal vision and understanding, fostered by a great many insights from a great many scholars, that have changed my views on a great many topics relative to the Book of Mormon, including racist stereotypes. Alma's words are "enlightenment", "expansion", "enlargement" and as well as "delicious" and promising. I have noticed that most mis-readings of the Book of Mormon on race (among other things) come from reading it against nineteenth century popular culture, rather than against the various cultural environments that it claims for itself. Jerusalem 600 BCE and Mesoamerica. Close reading in the claimed context has transformed the book, which makes it more a revelation another, very different world, than an expression of pop culture. Would I have been better off, as a growing human being, if all my leaders and teachers over the years had been correct on all matters from the start, placing me in a position in which these experiences of enlarged understanding would be denied to me? Not only would I have nothing transformative to learn, but also, nothing to contribute. All Hail the Big Book of What to Think. I would, like the unhappy inhabitants of Jack Williamson's "humanoid" stories, have nothing to do but sit "with folded hands." Should I protest that the seed planted in 1829 has sprouted roots and shoots and branches and leaves and fruit that have transformed the form of the initial seed, and were demonstrably not there at the start of the experiment, but demonstrably retain the genetic instructions inherent in the seed? The word "sustain" as applied to Latter-day Saint leaders and bureaucrats quite crucially, and deliberately I think, includes meanings, of "suffer," "allow" and "endure." I could cite the Perry Scheme again, which is all about how a person processes information and how they deal with imperfection and uncertainty and authority, while developing faith commitments and identity. And I can appreciate the difference in followings developed by William Blake, a visionary Romantic Poet, who did have some notable social connections but who for a long time, despite his profound genius, had his works mostly forgotten and ignored, and Joseph Smith, whose writings had a profound effect on not just a few books in some libraries, and some scholars at a few Universities, but created a notable growing society. The imperfect soil in which it was planted, human and cultural, did allow it to thrive long enough find its proper context, and improved readings and therefore, transcend its culture. I am personally impressed with how God managed such a thing, with the human resources at hand. I think of D&C 3, one of the oldest documents in church history from 1828, when Joseph Smith had nothing going for him but utter failure, declaring this: What has happened since, is, I think, remarkable. Rather than being disappointed in a God who could manage that, using imperfect humans and frustrating human societies, I stand all amazed. FWIW, Kevin Christensen Tooele, UT

They are the Sons of El who were allotted the nations as the lot of their inheritance from their Father, El Elyon, the Chief God of all the Semitic nations, El Baniyu (the Begetter), or as we would call him, God the Father. Deuteronomy 32:8 "When Elyon gave the nations their inheritance … he fixed the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the sons of God. But Yahweh's portion is his people, Jacob his allotted inheritance." What is "the number of the Sons of God"? The Sons of God divided the people of Babel into 70 nations in the days of Peleg. Genesis 11:7-8 "And the Yahweh said, ... look... let us go down and confuse their language there... So the Lord scattered them abroad from there over the face of all the earth" The number of nations created after Babel are the 70 listed in Genesis 10, because that is the "number" of divine beings. The Bible repeatedly identifies specific gods by name, and each associated with specific peoples. Moab has "Chemosh your god" (Judges 11:24) The biblical scribe doesn't explain who Chemosh is. He assumes his audience knows. Ammon "Milcom the detestable god of the Ammonites." (1 Kings 11:5) The Bible speaks naturally about Chemosh, Milcom, Dagon, Baal, Ra, Marduk, and the "sons of God" without any need to pretend that these were merely fictional characters. To get more identities we can try diving into Ugaritic/Ancient Canaanite El/Baal material. Other foreign gods are in Haazinu (Deut 32:17). "They shall sacrifice to demons, gods which they did not know". Then they are named in 23-24 "They shall be) wasted with Hunger, fought by Reshef, and Qeteb (and?) Meriri." Resheph is a known name of a Canaanite god, who is known in the Bible as a demon shooting arrows of disease (Hab 3:5, Job 5:7). The others appear again in the Bible (Hosea 13:14, possibly also Job 3:5). I can take this further. Like how Gad and Asher were named after Canaanite deities, or Jesus acknowledging Baal exists.

Ancient Near Eastern scholars are specialists focused on context, what the words meant to the ancient audience who original wrote and heard them, using surrounding cultures, archaeology, and historical languages as a decipher key. Theologians focus on application, how that text fits into a broader or modern religious doctrine or system of faith. The ANE scholars are going to be better at interpreting Psalm 82 because it uses imagery common across the ancient Near East, like the divine council. Near Eastern scholars analyze the language of psalm using surrounding Ugaritic and Akkadian texts from that exact era. This helps untangle what phrases like "bene elohim" meant in the Bronze and Iron Age Near East, rather than filtering those words through centuries of later doctrine and imposing later theological assumption onto it.

Also all the passages saying God is better than all the other gods become silly and pointless if the other deities aren’t assumed to exist. The kind of God stands alone and is greater than all else is also a common trope in polytheistic praise texts. You will hear the same things said of Greek and Egyptian gods.

I blame God for this one. If you want to not feed into racist stereotypes you need to give your prophet a more explicit and explanatory translation instead of using language that suggests modern racist tropes.

They were quite fun.

I am pretty sure it’s not in terms of at least links either he or others have posted. I have recently read an article or two (can’t remember if one article contain multiple stories or each article had one) where the individual describe where every case now they share the experience of others seeing their ID now and recognizing they are transgender and has transitioned, etc. I don’t believe I went looking for articles on this on my own lately, so it would have been here I got them. The number of transgenders who has access to medical treatment wasn’t that high in the past and just because society didn’t care at the time to protect this type of information doesn’t mean we shouldn’t. There is more reason to have my opioid use marked on my license as that could affect driving and issues with incarceration if I didn’t have access to my medication. I still don’t want that info to be on my license as I get enough looks from doctors and other medical professionals when they learn that I take them. If doctors have had a problem with seeing me like a drug addict (thankfully none of my long term ones treat me that way…they probably would not be long term if they did, then I really don’t want anyone else who has no clue on why or how I take them (20years at same prescribed or lower dose, tried every other med recommended and a few just suggested as possible for my disorder that my doctors offered me). I am sharing the above as an example of why I don’t believe sensitive and/or controversial medical information should be required on a license if the more relevant medical info like blood type and drug that affect driving use isn’t.

Excellent point, imo. Especially with the real world example of the confusion it caused. Smac, do you have any actual examples, not just hypotheticals where having the sex on a driver’s license helped clarify anything other than someone’s biological sex? I remember some general hypotheticals you posted, but can’t remember specific real world examples. If you have posted them, no need to repost as extremely long posts actually make it harder for me to remember details. I would prefer just a link to your post that has that info. The medical info is the only one I can think of that might be helpful due to the person being unconscious and unable to supply info themselves. I asked Chat if a biological sex marker on an id could prevent confusion for first responders in an emergency. Blood type seems more relevant to me to have on an ID to save crucial time, so it doesn’t seem like medical necessity is a valid reason lawmakers insisted a biological sex marker be on an ID or they would be including blood type as well.

I recently got to rewatch the first two Superman films with Christopher Reeve. The third and fourth films in that specific series was shown on consecutive nights on TV. The first two are those I prefer to watch, and still enjoy them as much now as when I first went to see them at the cinema when I was a youngster.

Spider-Man: Brand New Day I've got a teenage boy, so yeah, I've seen the latest spider-man flick. There were things I liked about it - things I didn't. Pros: While I personally prefer installments where we get more of Spidey's sarcastic humor, a core part of Spider-Man also tends to run more on the emo (borderline depressed) side of things, so I liked that they were willing to experiment with leaning into that a bit here in this film. It wasn't all just action sequence to action sequence. Also, we got more screen time for Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle / The Punisher; love that for him. Cons: Meaningful pacing / plot issues. Lots of clunky cameos - whether that be Florence Pugh's Black Widow, Mark Ruffalo's Bruce Banner / Hulk, or Sadie Sink's "mystery" character that the press were all sworn to secrecy over prior to release - they tended to add little to the story and served more as a reminder that, hey, remember that there are more movies coming up soon! Yes, the setup syndrome was strong with this film. And I really didn't like the fact that we basically got an entire movie without the core friend-group being around to do their thing. It just wasn't the vibe (as the kids are wont to say). Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the movie; it's just not the best version in the series.

Elder Stevenson does not speak for the entire LDS Church. Let me know when an LDS President issues an apology with the particular word "error". I don't think they will as the teaching (the dark skin being a sign of the curse) remains present in the Book of Mormon. Indicating it was an "error" casts doubt on Joseph's supposed translation and it also dismantles a belief that an LDS President will not be allowed to lead the church astray. There is no racial component in Mosiah 16:3. But I was wondering if the LDS Church would issue an apology for people being hurt by reading what it says about them (either the unbelievers or believers) in that verse or others. I am not aware of any LDS elder making an apology for any other teaching by LDS Presidents over the last 200 years or so that may have caused stress to people. Ok. The elder had this apology in his pocket all his life and wanted to issue it at an appropriate time. The LDS Church disavows this "theory" (taught as truth by LDS leaders for decades) but make no indication it was an error. Why? Because doing so shows LDS leaders have led their followers astray. As I've noted before, the teachings about dark skin being a sign of the curse were not presented as conjecture, opinion, theory, or speculation. False teaching leads people in the wrong path, to worship a false God. For example, Joseph Smith teaching that God is not God from all eternity. This is not the God faithful Jews or the majority of Christians worship. Take another example the Jesus of the Jehovah's Witnesses. He is Michael the Archangel, not God. This is a false Christ. They are being led down the wrong path. Another example: LDS Christians believe the Godhead is three Gods. Evangelical Christians believe in one God, eternally existent as three personages. You believe the later teaching leads believers astray. The pressure to remove the priesthood ban would not reach its zenith until later. You don't need a revelation from God if the priesthood ban originated with men. But as shown before, the ban originated with God as per LDS teachings. It seems we have different meanings for the same term. What does leading people in the Church astray mean to you? I don't believe God allows his "entire Church" to be led astray but he allows false teachers into the church, thus leading some followers astray. A previous LDS teaching says His church was destroyed when errors crept in. That teaching is a false teaching. This false doctrine is more formally known as The Great Apostasy. A manual is entirely fallible if it contains no truth. No LDS teaching manuals are "entirely" fallible. LDS Seminary manuals contain both truth and error. So they can and do contain teachings of former and current LDS Presidents which are leading their followers astray. Some of these teachings just passed down since Joseph Smith supposedly had a vision that he saw both the Father and the Son. Maybe I should add some clarity to what I said about a false teacher and false teachings. For my prime example, I'll use the Early Church Fathers and their teaching about deification. The church is repeatedly instructed to correct, teach, admonish, and restore people who are wrong. For example: • "instructing his opponents with gentleness" (2 Timothy 2:25) • "teach what accords with sound doctrine" (Titus 2:1) • "restore him in a spirit of gentleness" (Galatians 6:1) That assumes that not every doctrinally mistaken person is automatically an enemy of Christ or a false teacher. There are people who need correction, people who are immature, people whose understanding is incomplete, and people who are genuinely deceptive and destructive. "I don't have to deny the existence of false teachers in the New Testament church simply because I believe some early Church Fathers were mistaken about particular doctrines such as deification. Scripture clearly teaches that false teachers would arise within the church. But Scripture also gives us examples of genuine believers and teachers whose understanding was incomplete and who needed correction, such as Apollos. Therefore, 'teaches something I believe is erroneous' and 'is a false teacher in the full New Testament sense' are not synonymous categories. I can reject a particular teaching of a Church Father as unbiblical without making the much broader claim that the Father himself was a false teacher." A person can be a historically important Christian theologian while nevertheless being wrong about particular doctrines. I can respect the Fathers historically while maintaining that their writings are subordinate to Scripture and therefore subject to correction. My standard for identifying a false teacher is ultimately the apostolic teaching preserved in Scripture, not whether someone later became influential in church history. But I see a contrast with what is coming from LDS leadership. Wilford Woodruff, the 4th president of the LDS Church, said "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray". He continued that if a president attempted to lead the Church astray, "the Lord would remove me out of my place". This statement is included in Official Declaration 1. There are other LDS leaders who repeated the idea. For example, Harold B. Lee and Gordon B. Hinckley. Ezra Taft Benson even gave fourteen fundamentals in following a prophet, one of them talking about being led astray. Basically, following a true prophet will never lead you astray (Teachings of the Living Prophets). Others are mentioned in AARONIC PRIESTHOOD Manual 3, chapter 24. A false teacher can teach both truth and error. Example: God exists (true), but God is not God from all eternity (false). Jesus exists (true), Jesus is God (true), but Jesus is the first spirit child of heavenly parents who became a God (false). Worshipping a false god does not bode well. Another example is the Jehovah's Witnesses. Their teaching of Jesus being Michael the Archangel or he returned invisibly in 1914. Their Governing Body, who teach themselves to be the faithful and discreet slave, believe what they teach is true doctrine so they don't understand they are leading people astray. Worshipping Jesus is blasphemy in their theology. Add to this all their false prophecies over the last hundred years.

I am uncertain as to what you mean. In what way are these scholars "above" such theologians who take a different perspective? One precursor to conflict is ranking. This reads a lot like ranking. Help me understand. Thanks.

Who are the divine beings in Psalm 82 which are being condemned for dealing unjustly to the weak and fatherless?

Two different questions are being collapsed (that seems to be happening a lot in this discussion). First, existing criminal laws against voyeurism and exhibitionism address conduct. They do not address the prior question of who is entitled to be present, unclothed, in a space that exists precisely because of sex-based differences in privacy and vulnerability. A rule that keeps intact males out of the women’s locker room is not redundant of a statute that punishes someone only after they have already exposed themselves or surreptitiously watched others. The entry rule is preventive; the criminal statutes are reactive and require proof of specific intent or conduct that is often difficult to establish in the moment. Second, the ongoing demands for documented, prosecuted “examples” in Kansas before the law took effect sets an unrealistic bar. Sex-separated spaces exist because the material differences between male and female bodies create predictable privacy and safety interests. Those interests do not suddenly become illegitimate the moment someone asks for a pre-law incident report. We do not require a body count before recognizing that prisons, shelters, and locker rooms have long been separated by sex for reasons that predate any particular statute. The claim that “no law will prevent every bad act” is both true and irrelevant. The same could be said of every entry restriction, age limit, or sex-based classification. Rather, the policy question is whether the classification is rationally related to the privacy and safety interests that justify sex-separated spaces in the first place. Recording and applying biological sex is directly related to those interests. Treating self-identification as the operative criterion is not. Existing criminal laws remain available either way; they do not make the classification itself unnecessary. Thanks, -Smac

In effect, you are obliterating sex-segregated facilities. Anyone can go into women's bathrooms for any reason or no reason at all. And if challenged, they can just say "I have the right to choose which restroom to use, and I have taken other people's sensibilities into consideration, and I am a 'reasonable person.'" And since there is no functional limiting principle in your regime, they'll get away with it. Thanks, -Smac

The 1926 provision you’re citing is from the Uniform Vehicle Code, a model act recommended to the states — not a binding federal statute that standardized driver’s licenses nationwide. Licensing has always been primarily a state function. Two important points from that era: The application for a license under the 1926 Uniform Vehicle Code explicitly required the applicant’s sex (along with name, date of birth, and address). The license itself was required to contain a “brief description of the licensee for the purpose of identification.” In practice, that description routinely included sex, height, weight, eye color, and similar identifying characteristics. Sex was treated as basic identifying information from the beginning. More relevant today is current federal law. Under the REAL ID Act regulations (6 CFR § 37.17), a driver’s license or ID card that is to be accepted by federal agencies must include the holder’s "sex" on the face of the card (as determined by the State). You already have to radically re-define "woman" to make the ideology work. Your proposal would now require that Kansas also re-define "sex" to include "gender identity." So the historical record does not support the idea that sex was ever regarded as irrelevant to identification on a driver’s license. It has been part of the identifying description for a century, and modern federal standards continue to require it. States remain free to decide how they determine and record sex, but the category itself has never been treated as optional for identification purposes. That is certainly one purpose of the identifying information on a license: confirming that the person presenting it is the same individual who was issued the license. Height, weight, eye color, photo, and signature all serve that function. But it is not the only purpose, and it does not explain why sex has been included from the beginning. A “brief description for the purpose of identification” has always treated sex as a basic, observable characteristic of the person, just as height or eye color is. It is not merely a temporary password that can be changed at will. When an officer (or anyone else relying on the license) looks at the document, the sex marker is part of the overall description that helps establish who the person is. If the only goal were photo matching, we would not need height, weight, eye color, or sex on the face of the card. Those fields exist because identification has historically included a set of stable physical descriptors. Sex has been one of them for a century, and current federal REAL ID standards continue to require it. The question is not whether the license helps an officer confirm identity — of course it does. Rather, the question is whether sex is a legitimate part of that identifying description. History, practice, and current federal rules all treat it as one. I think those comparisons miss the point. No one is claiming that a driver’s license = medical alert bracelet or birth certificate. The question is simpler: Is sex a legitimate piece of identifying information on a government-issued ID? For a century it has been treated as one. The 1926 Uniform Vehicle Code required sex on the application and a “brief description” on the license itself. Modern REAL ID regulations still require sex to appear on the face of the card. Height, eye color, and date of birth are also on the license even though no committee of ophthalmologists or vital-records officials demanded it. They are there because they help describe who the person is. You are correct that a driver’s license is not required to use a public restroom. That is beside the point. The license is an official identity document used for countless purposes — police encounters, age verification, air travel, financial transactions, and more. When the state issues an ID, it has historically included sex as part of the basic description of the holder. The debate is whether that long-standing practice should be abandoned so the marker can reflect self-identification instead of biological sex. Saying “doctors never required it on a medical bracelet” or “you don’t need a license to use the restroom” does not answer that question. It simply changes the subject. Yes, it does. I respectfully disagree. Simply saying “Yes, it does” doesn’t engage the distinction. A government ID that records biological sex is not “outing” someone in the ordinary sense of the word. "Outing" implies revealing private information that the person has chosen to keep hidden. Biological sex is not private information of that kind — it is an observable, documented fact that has long been recorded on official documents for public purposes (identification, law enforcement, medical response, vital statistics, and access rules for sex-separated spaces). What would be novel is what you are proposing, namely, that the state rewrite its own records to reflect a subjective identity claim instead of the underlying biological fact. Declining to do that is not the same as forcing a private disclosure. It is the state declining to falsify its own records. If the argument is that any official record of biological sex constitutes “outing,” then every birth certificate, every passport, and every driver’s license that has ever listed sex has been “outing” people. That is not how the term has traditionally been understood, and it collapses the difference between recording a verifiable fact and compelling the disclosure of something genuinely private. The original purpose was identification, that is, confirming that the person presenting the license is the same individual who was issued it. That purpose has always included a set of relatively stable physical descriptors, not a real-time description of current appearance or presentation. Sex has been one of those descriptors from the beginning, alongside height, eye color, and (historically) weight. It was never intended to be a field that changes with clothing, hairstyle, or self-identification. The fact that a mismatch can occur when someone presents differently from their recorded sex does not mean the category itself was a mistake. It means the person’s presentation has changed relative to a longstanding identifying marker. A driver’s license is not a vital record, but it is still an official identity document. It has never been designed to function as a continuously updated physical description. If it were, we would update height, weight, eye color, and photographs far more frequently than we do. We don’t, because the document records relatively fixed identifying characteristics rather than momentary appearance. Requiring the sex marker to reflect biological sex is therefore not a radical departure from the original purpose. Treating sex as mutable self-identification is the departure. The older approach treated sex as a basic, observable fact about the person; the newer approach treats it as a statement of identity that the state is expected to affirm. Those are different theories of what the document is for. This is the rare developmental condition argument, and it does not do the work being asked of it. Also, I have repeatedly acknowledged that there may be some need for exemptions to account for DSDs: Androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) is a disorder of sex development. In complete AIS, the person has XY chromosomes and testes, but the body does not respond to androgens, so the external phenotype develops along female lines. These are medical exceptions — extremely uncommon — that have always existed and have always been handled as such. They do not redefine the ordinary categories of male and female, nor do they turn sex into a matter of self-identification. A law that records sex on the basis of biological sex is not “defeated” by the existence of rare DSDs any more than the category “height” is defeated by people with rare skeletal disorders. Hard cases and developmental anomalies are real; they are not a warrant for discarding the underlying binary or for treating ordinary males who identify as female as equivalent to people with AIS. In the specific example you raise, someone with complete AIS is typically raised as female, has a female phenotype, and has been treated as female for practical purposes. That is a medical and social accommodation to a developmental condition. It is not the same thing as a male with typical male development who later claims a female identity. Conflating the two is the error, and apparently a deliberate one. This isn't the first time where advocates have conflated people with DSDs with men whose sex is unambiguous but who nevertheless "identifies" as a "woman," and vice versa. Sex-segregated spaces exist because of the material reality of the two sexes in the overwhelming majority of cases. Rare disorders of sex development require careful, individualized handling. They do not supply a general rule that sex is whatever is written on a birth certificate by mistake, nor do they require the law to treat self-identified sex as the operative category. Two separate claims are being mixed together. First, the privacy claim: This is a new argument from you, which appears to be made up out of whole cloth, apparently so that you can fit it under a rubric of heightened constitutional scrutiny. As it is, though, I think this argument is of the "pounding a round peg into a square hole" variety. Sex has appeared on driver’s licenses and similar identity documents for a century. It has never been treated as sensitive medical information on the order of a diagnosis, treatment history, or private health condition. It is a basic identifying descriptor, like height or eye color. Calling it a “privacy violation” that triggers strict scrutiny simply because the document is shown in ordinary transactions rewrites the longstanding understanding of what these documents contain. Height and date of birth are also revealed every time a license is shown; no one seriously argues those disclosures require strict scrutiny. AFAICS, courts have not treated the sex marker on a driver’s license as a disclosure of intimate medical information subject to strict scrutiny. I think one of the many reasons I think you just made it up, but I am certainly open to correction, so feel free to point to case law where courts have "treated the sex marker on a driver’s license as a disclosure of intimate medical information subject to strict scrutiny." I found a case that sort of touches on this: Corbitt v. Sec'y of the Ala. L. Enf't Agency, 115 F.4th 1335 (11th Cir. 2024). A Grok summary: I think Corbitt v. Secretary of the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency is fairly on point (though in a different circuit, and analyzing federal - not Kansas State - constitutional arguments). It upholds a state policy that ties the sex marker on a driver’s license to biological/surgical criteria (amended birth certificate or proof of sex-reassignment surgery) rather than self-identification. The court held that the policy is not a sex-based classification triggering heightened scrutiny, applies the same objective rules to everyone, and survives rational-basis review because the state has legitimate interests in consistency of identity documents and reliable information for law enforcement. It also rejected due-process and First Amendment challenges, treating the license as government speech. This supports the position I am advancing fairly well: the sex marker is an official identifying descriptor grounded in biological sex (or a closely related medical standard), not a vehicle for affirming subjective gender identity, and requiring it does not violate equal protection, privacy, or free-speech rights in the way opponents claim. The more ordinary framework is rational-basis or intermediate scrutiny for sex-based classifications, not strict scrutiny for the mere presence of the marker. Second, the line-drawing claim: Rare disorders of sex development create difficult edge cases. I acknowledge this now, and have done so many times in the past. But the old legal idiom has some relevance: "Hard cases make bad law." Edge cases do not erase the underlying binary or make the ordinary category unworkable. Almost every legal classification has hard cases at the margin. The existence of those cases does not require the state to abandon biological sex as the operative category in favor of self-identification, nor does it convert a longstanding identity field into a constitutional privacy violation. The state’s interest in recording sex on an identity document is the same interest it has always had: basic identification and the administration of sex-based rules where they exist. That interest does not disappear because a small number of developmental conditions require careful handling, and it does not elevate ordinary disclosure of the sex marker to a strict-scrutiny event. I think your argument here overstates both points. Yes, a driver’s license is not a full vital-records extract. It does not carry birth weight, birth length, or a baby photo. No one is claiming it should. But that does not mean every field on the license must be limited to whatever helps an officer match a face to a photo in the moment of a traffic stop. The license has always contained a short set of relatively stable physical descriptors — height, eye color, and sex among them — precisely because identification is not limited to a single snapshot comparison. Officers use the listed information when querying databases, checking warrants, making arrests, booking people, and determining housing or search procedures. Sex has been part of that identifying description for a century, and current federal REAL ID standards still require it. The claim that the only purpose is “ascertain that the person presenting the license is the person who is licensed to drive” is too narrow. If that were truly the sole purpose, height, eye color, and even the address could be omitted once a current photo is on the card. They are not omitted, because the document serves broader identification and administrative functions. Sex has historically been treated as one of those basic descriptors. Insisting that the marker must instead reflect current self-identification (or appearance) is the newer claim. The traditional approach treated sex as a stable identifying characteristic, not a field to be updated whenever presentation or identity claims change. That is the distinction at issue — not whether the license should also display birth weight. You are treating “description of the licensee for the purpose of identification” as if it means “whatever the person currently looks like or claims to be.” That is not how the field has ever functioned. The 1926 Uniform Vehicle Code and the long practice that followed treated sex as one of a short list of relatively stable physical descriptors (alongside height and eye color) not as a real-time appearance field. Those descriptors were chosen because they are objective and do not change with clothing, hairstyle, or self-description. An officer (or a database query) can rely on them as fixed reference points. If the standard is simply “what does this person look like right now,” then height, weight, and even the photograph itself would need constant updating. We do not do that. We accept that the license records durable identifying characteristics rather than a continuously revised physical description. Calling the biological-sex entry “objective data” and a self-identified marker “because-I-say-so” is therefore accurate in this context. One is a recorded biological fact that has long served identification purposes; the other is a subjective claim that the state is being asked to treat as controlling. Nothing in the original “description for identification” language requires the state to substitute the latter for the former. Although we continue to disagree, I appreciate both the vigor and the generalized civility with which you have participated in this thread. Thanks, -Smac ETA: I just found a Kansas Court of Appeals case that may have some relevance: State ex rel. Kobach v. Harper, 65 Kan. App. 2d 680 (Kan. App. 2025). A Grok summary: This decision does not hold that biological sex may not be required on driver’s licenses, nor does it endorse self-identification as the controlling standard. It is a narrow ruling on the standards for a temporary injunction: the Attorney General failed to make the required preliminary showings of irreparable harm and substantial likelihood of success. The underlying statutory question (whether K.S.A. 77-207 forces the sex marker on the face of the license to be biological sex at birth) remains open for a full merits determination. In this conversation, this case may be seen as a procedural setback for the biological-sex position at the preliminary-injunction stage of a lawsuit. I'm not sure that's much. And it leaves the substantive policy and statutory arguments (consistency of identity documents, law-enforcement utility, privacy/safety interests in sex-separated spaces, etc.) still live. It does not resolve the deeper dispute we have been addressing about whether the marker should track biological sex or self-identified gender. Thanks, -Smac

I think God desires our closeness, in our hearts if not in physical proximity, and I think it's wonderful that Catholicism has a way for its members to experience the Presence of God in both ways. My understanding is that the Divine is present where two or more are gathered in his name (no mention of a requirement that they agree about everything), and perhaps that gathering "place" can even be an internet forum.

There are longstanding laws against voyeuristic conduct and sexual exhibitionism that can apply in locker rooms. The fact that someone has a right to be in the locker room does not give them a right to engage in otherwise illegal conduct once they are there. In Kansas, for example, exposing yourself to a nonconsenting person is criminal if it is done with the intent to arouse or gratify sexual desire; merely being naked while changing or showering obviously isn't enough. Kansas also criminalizes certain invasions of privacy, including surreptitiously observing someone in circumstances where that person is entitled to privacy. (Kansas Secretary of State) Of course there are fuzzy cases. Incidental looking isn't voyeurism, and incidental nudity isn't exhibitionism. Someone might even get sexual gratification from looking or being looked at and never cross the line into provably criminal conduct. That's an inherent feature of communal locker rooms, not something created by allowing transgender people to use them. But when the line is crossed, these offenses do not suddenly become unprosecutable merely because the defendant was entitled to enter the locker room. The larger point is that I'm criticizing a Kansas law that went into effect less than six months ago. I've looked for examples in Kansas where a victim or police said that someone was engaging in sexually inappropriate conduct in a restroom or locker room but could not be stopped or prosecuted because Kansas lacked this new sex-at-birth-based entry restriction. I haven't found one, and nobody I've asked has produced one either. No law will prevent every bad act or make every difficult case provable. The relevant policy question is whether this new law solves a demonstrated problem—and whether the problems it creates outweigh whatever benefit it provides.

I certainly don't want to tell people to disregard real threats or potential assaults. While I believe people have the right to choose which restroom to use, I also think they also have a responsibility to take other people's sensibilities into consideration. I think a "reasonable person" test can be applied here, and the right to choose the most appropriate space for a urinary emergency isn't a license to assault or intimidate others.

I've done some research on this, and going back to 1926, a federal law that standardizes drivers license doesn't say that "sex" needs to be shown on it. Rather, it says "Every such license shall bear thereon the distinguishing number assigned to the licensee and shall contain the name, age, residence address and a brief description of the licensee for the purpose of identification, also a space for the signature of the licensee." That is the real purpose: to help a police officer ascertain that the person who presents the license in fact the same person who was licensed to drive. A group of doctors never said the most important piece of information on a medical alert bracelet is the sex listed on your original birth certificate, and therefore that needs to be displayed on everyone's ID. A group of vital records registrars never got together and said that vital record information needs to be placed on a drivers license and carried around with people. And you don't need a drivers license to use public restrooms. Yes, it does. Actually, it defeats the original purpose. The NYT article that was too long to read tells the story of somebody who was pulled over and the cop was quite confident the drivers license was invalid because it said "Female" with the driver was obviously "Male." The real purpose is to help cops verify that the driver that presents the license is the one licensed. It isn't a vital record. That's why it doesn't show weight at birth, name at birth, place of birth, and have a baby photo. Insisting that the licence contain biological sex rather than an accurate description of what the person looks like is a radical departure from the explicit original purpose. If that were the case, then you should oppose the Kansas Law. Emily Quinn is, objectively, a male. She he has testicles and XY chromosomes. When she he was born, her his doctor incorrectly put "female" on the birth certificate, not knowing she he is really a male with androgen insensitivity syndrome. But now in Kansas, it is against the law for Emily Quinn--a biological man--to use the men's restroom because of a mistake made by a doctor about 35 years ago. I've tried to illustrate with photos why the place where you want to draw the line is in fact defective, and why drawing the line there creates more problems than it solves. We have to weirdly agree to disagree about whether the people I've shown belong in the men's room or the women's room. My point in this post and the last is about Constitutional scrutiny. If "sex" is defined as biological sex or the sex assigned at birth (things that aren't necessarily the same), it is a violation of privacy to put that personal medical information on a document that needs to be shown to others every time you vote or cash a check. I'm arguing that regularly requiring this disclosure to others in contexts that are totally unrelated to bathrooms is a violation of the individual's personal autonomy. That doesn't mean the state doesn't have an interest in putting birth certificate information on a driver's license, but it does mean that this need needs to withstand strict Constitutional scrutiny. You don't put birth length, birth weight, and baby photos on a driver's license. That is because the purpose of the drivers license isn't to summarize vital records about an individual. The purpose is to help police officers ascertain that the person presenting the license is the person who is in fact licensed to drive. Again, "sex" is on drivers licenses to help an officer ascertain that the person presenting the license is the person licensed to drive. The Federal 1926 law I linked to above says it is intended to be a "description of the licensee for the purpose of identification." If we are going to meet that explicit, original purpose, an accurate description of this person is a man, not a woman.

I miss Mark, too.

At our parish, we try to have adoration of the Blessed Sacrament 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This means that someone volunteers to keep our Savior company as He shows Himself in His chapel under the appearance of consecrated bread for each of the 168 hours of every week. I think most of us do it once a week. That is what I do. My hour is 3:00 every Wednesday morning. It seems like the least I can do as a retired guy who can grab a nap any time almost every day. One main idea behind this practice is to remember how it seemed like Jesus desired fellow company with some of His Apostles during His agony in the Garden. The Heart of Jesus is unfathomable. He doesn't need us...and yet He expresses these desires for us. Before the Last Supper, wherein Catholics believe that Christ celebrates the first Mass He says, "With desire I have desired..." What? I guess that means He wants to do this thing with an intensity that we might find hard to relate to? "...to eat this Passover with you before I suffer." (Luke 22:15) This is why the Mass is also named the Paschal (Passover) Mystery. The time went so quickly this morning. I could not get over the idea of God who creates out of nothing is about six feet away, out in the open, easy to see. The same eternal God has been waiting for me this morning in this humble manner, so unimposing? There is a natural doubt that man can attain to a union with a Being so far above us. I understand the appeal of God being a man. But I also understand the appeal of God being infinitely more. The Incarnation of Christ gives us both. One author puts it this way speaking of Christ assuming our nature: "...it strengthens our hope all the more since it brings the excellence of our nature home to our consciousness, and shows us that we, elevated as we are above all creatures, can and ought to achieve perfect happiness in closest union with God." ---The Mysteries of Christianity, Matthias Scheeben, B. Herder Book Co., St. Louis, MO (1947), p.417 Sometimes my differences of opinion with my LDS friends can make me ponder delightful beliefs, as happened this morning in pondering over again some of the beliefs that we agree upon and those we don't. At the end of my hour, I was thinking about how different it might be if mfb were here. I might be frustrated, but I miss him very much. I hope Mark is okay. He made me think so much harder than I ever would have without his opposition to my transcendent God. I would be happy if he could poke his head in here, and offer his misgivings...and then I would probably get angry! Heh. May the good Lord bless our absent, but well remembered friend/adversary Mark Bukowski, and may God draw him to his His loving heart, even if God created ex nihilo. Yeah, I know Mark, it doesn't make sense unless God has a heart. (I am speak anthropomorphically. Of course. That is the only way we know how to express ourselves, and that is why God speaks to us that way too, Mark!) Sorry for taking the last word, my friend. I know you would have more to say.