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Exactly. We are told this, we don’t typically know it automatically. It is part of our cultural programming. It may be an intellectual belief, but it may not be emotionally accepted and therefore not be much of a or even any part of a child’s motivation through their life. It therefore may not have much effect on a child except to induce guilt, because they are told they should feel grateful but they don’t, or makes them feel manipulated. Even if it is true, it doesn’t mean the child consented to the way a parent chose to have them or bring them up. Their existence is still forced in that sense.

I gravitate towards a mixture of these two perspectives. I do think that children have some obligation to their parents, and I think that parents obviously have obligations to their children. I think the way those obligations play out (and what they are) change greatly throughout life. From my perspective, I feel like the commandment to honor thy father and mother is a reminder that the relationship is meant to go both ways.

I appreciate the support though. While human water diversion is responsible for the vast majority, roughly 60% to 80%, of the lake's historical decline.

You've been doing keto? Have the results been what you expected?

This is an interesting thought. Aren't we told that we chose to come to this earth and have a mortal probation? How then is any of us "forced {} into existence?" In the Latter-day Saint paradigm, our spirits preexisted prior to coming to this earth. That's another interesting thought. What debt do you owe them? I can discern the "state of servitude." "And behold, I tell you these things that ye may learn wisdom; that ye may learn that when ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God" (Mosiah 2:17). This is particularly so relative to our family members. I agree as to the importance of consent, as it is an expression of the gift of agency. I am happy for you. Thanks, -Smac

Certainly tongue in cheek. Still quite unseemly and troubling. If he were not presenting himself as an active Latter-day Saint, I would be broadly indifferent. But he is, so I'm not. From Elder Holland: I'll leave divine judgment to God, but I think Latter-day Saints need to be on guard against the sorts of things Charlie Bird is trying to present as compatible and in alignment with the Restored Gospel. Thanks, -Smac

That more or less was my thesis. I was presenting some generalized observations and looking for feedback. Yes, maybe later. I also addressed this point: The child is the one party who never consented and is treated as the object of a deal. I also noted that I agreed with most of the others. Again, the purpose of the post was to open a discussion. Again, I would prefer to discuss the topic. Ad hominem impedes discussion. I didn't bring up Charlie Bird, but his association with surrogacy brought into sharp relief a number of the issues associated with surrogacy, the most obvious being the commoditization of women. Thanks, -Smac

Perhaps it is because this comes up at the same time as another thread talking about race, but the first thing that stood out to me was Br. Perkins "confidence" in what he is teaching here. Br. Perkins seems pretty confident that the ban wasn't based in divine inspiration (like many others), which I find an interesting contrast with what @smac97 said in the other thread that the church prefers a kind of we really don't know one way or the other. Considering this is FAIR (10 years ago), I find it Br. Perkins also contrasts with the late Sarah Allen's FAIR response to the CES letter where she tends to insist that we don't know and maybe can't know if the ban was divinely inspired. In keeping with the B. H. Roberts Foundation data that church membership is roughly evenly divided over the three stances, I can contrast Perkins and Allen with Bruce Porter's (semi-retired CES) youtube channel where he insists that race is real and that it traces back to Old Testament figures. Perhaps part of what makes this observation so interesting is that Perkins makes it seem like his conclusions that race isn't real and that scripture never teaches anything about race are clear and obvious to those who have a correct understanding of scripture. When he gets asked how 19th and 20th century LDS (leaders and members) seemed unable to understand these scriptures correctly, he attributes it to the near universal beliefs about racism in the broader culture, implying that, when such beliefs are ubiquitous, we can't expect even prophets to see past the cultural blindspots. I think the main conclusion I draw is that there is still room in the church for people who believe all kinds of different things race and the priesthood and temple ban. I'm inclined to agree with Br. Perkins, but there are plenty of others who seem to believe differently, and we're all members in good standing. That kind of diversity of belief seems to be the most interesting observation when discussing this issue.

I wasn't saying it was you or Pyreaux. I think you misread the exchange.

This makes much more sense to me than the more typical attitude I see expressed directly or indirectly that a child owes everything to their parents for the favour they did of giving them life and are in eternal debt to them. I get that aligns more with our doctrine in the sense that we need to come to earth to get bodies, but our brains typically don’t have a sense of the preexistence, so why should we expect our children to emotionally feel that obligation. And if life isn’t that great for them, why should they automatically be grateful for the experience. Maybe some day their experiences will lead to an appreciation, but expecting it of them is somewhat arrogant imo. I think it’s more natural to feel forced into life and if our culture wasn’t pushing the idea kids owe parents everything or kids are essentially possessions for parents to play with how they want or to fulfill their own ambitions with, I think our relationships between parent and children would be healthier. I think being realistic means even if as children, they are fully dependent on adults, it doesn’t mean they know they chose the conditions (maybe they did, maybe they didn’t) while adults chose to act in most cases to bring them into existence and therefore the adult needs to get over the inconvenience that it creates in their life….though the parent still needs to make choices for their own self care that allow the parent to maximize their care of their children until the child can truly start making choices for themselves and support themselves. This also should mean the parent should dump any idea of living through their children in any way besides being grateful and happy for them if the child has a life they are fulfilled by rather than mapping out the child’s existence from birth to death for them.

Virtue signaling is the act of publicly expressing opinions or supporting social causes primarily to show off your good character or moral correctness, rather than out of genuine conviction. Neither myself or @Pyreaux are doing this.

I struggle with this. No child consents to anything, not to being born, not to being adopted, (in younger years) not to which parent gets custody, and so on. I have reconciled this in a way that seems to be driving the extraordinarily good relationship I have with (all 5 of) my sons. It is my choices that forced them into existence. They owe me nothing because non-existent beings are incapable of consenting to anything. I had all the power of consent and due to this extremely one-sided arrangement, I remain in their debt for the rest of my life. I reside in a permanent state of servitude to them. These are the defaults, our starting points. Respecting their consent builds abiding trust at a deep level. Consent is key to salvation, ethics, ability and love. It hangs out in the very best circles. The weight I place on consent flows from Church's teaching about Satan's premortal plan for us - which was based on a lack of consent and the resulting dearth of worthwhile redemption. Associating those two conditions with evil has changed my relationships with others, in ways that can be indescribably positive. Consent may outweigh even kindness in achieving our most valuable and fulfilling humanity. Plugging my parenting into all that has been ceaselessly good.

Here's a brand-new channel, Remnant Voices; it went "live" on 26 August 2026. So far 7 videos uploaded in less than a month! They describe their channel thus: "Remnant Voices shares Native perspectives on the restored gospel. Hosted by Anthony Rivera and Zander Sturgill. Presented by the Ancient America Foundation." This is their latest video, "Elder Gong Pointed to This Ancient Native Site. We Found Why!"

Eh, I’m fine with their process, I think they are doing it tongue in cheek. Maybe they are being more self-focused than they should be but so am I sometimes so I don’t feel like I can really judge them fairly. I agree that children have a right to a father and mother, but I also struggle with how often God is fine with taking a father or mother (or even both) to the detriment of the children. Mortal life seems to be set up to force us to deal with the less ideal. I’m good leaving this situation between them and God

Its simple semantics. Adam is a specific person in the Bible. But everyone reading this thread is a true and very real adam (a human). But none of us is the original, singular Adam of Genesis. Often Elohim means specifically Yahweh, but it also angels are elohim, territorial spirits are elohim, and disembodied human spirits like Samuel are elohim. These are sons of God, they are adopted, those whom the Most High legally elevated, from whatever they were and maybe technically still are, into His court, delegating to them executive authority. In human exaltation, the humans adopted as sons of God, are no longer Gentiles nor sons of Jacob-Israel restrained by Mosaic Law anymore, but are also elevated. Scripture says human believers receive huiothesia ('adoption as sons' - Galatians 4:5) and become 'partakers of the divine nature' (2 Peter 1:4). Calling an adopted entity a 'son' or a 'god' (elohim) acknowledges their covenant investiture and delegated authority. Adam is the progenitor of other adams. El is the progenitor (The Father) of other elohim. Covenant/adoption sonship with El renders a non-son a newborn son in every legal sense. Calling a heavenly entity an elohim is not a claim that they are the progenitor El Himself. Get it? Moab had Chemosh, and his Father is El ('Il), "Woe to you, O Moab! You are ruined, O people of Chemosh!" (Numbers 21:29). Ammon had Milcom / Molech and his Father is El ('Il). Edom had Qos and his Father is El ('Il). Tyre had Melqart and his Father is El. Sidon had Eshmun and his Father is El. The Philistines had Dagon and his Father is El (Elyon or Anu/Dagan). Babylon had Marduk / Bel and his Father was Ea, "Babylon is taken, Bel is put to shame, Merodach [Marduk] is dismayed" (Jeremiah 50:2). Assyria had Ashur and his Father is Enlil. Canaan had Baal-Hadad and his Father is El. Egypt had Ra and his father was Khnum, Joseph married Asenath, who was the daughter of Poti-phe-Ra, a priest of the Egyptian city of On. Everyone had a supreme Father God that stood at the head, while executive ruling authority over the earth is passed to a son (Ra, Marduk, Baal). The ancient world seems to universally understand the gods are a kinship network of divine beings operating in the same structured hierarchy. No, that is what you want it to mean. I already told you. In Roman Galatia was the imperial cult, who worshiped humans and their idols of humans, that claimed a divine status they did not possess. Paul tells the Galatian Gentiles that they were enslaved to mortal emperors, client kings, and political rulers and/or serving their images which possess zero intrinsic divinity. It's a scary notion, if you were a Gentile of another nation with no access to Israel or Christianity, it would be incumbent on you to obey the laws of your nation and deity as equal to God the Father, and ignore the Lord of Israel. If you were the Pharoh, you should obey Moses as he were equal to the Lord. Divine Investiture is how a subordinate figure can speak and act with authority that is equal in weight and validity to the sovereign, while remaining lesser in rank or form. "Equal" does not mean being as "great". Hence, Jesus is made "equal" to the Father, while the Father is "greater" than Jesus, without controdiction. Then Jesus is not your God. If you exclude any subordinate, invested, or generated divine person, then Jesus cannot be your God. "And this is eternal life, that they know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent." (John 17:3) The Father is "the ONLY true God" (ton monon alēthinon theon), while distinguishing Himself as the One who was sent (an invested agent). Yes, by all accounts. To govern the laws and affairs of the Canaanites, for a time. I'm not imposing non-doctrinal theories from Mormonism here, you are the one imposing your beliefs on ancient Near Eastern texts that explicitly teach a populated, delegated hierarchy in heaven. Mormonism is allowing me to see the matter from outside of your tradition. Strict Monotheism is just your tradition, and nothing more, just as Infinite Regress is just a tradition.

I'm saying paragraphs on the pros and cons of each those could have been the thesis of your post. I'm sure you could find papers and studies and discussion on each. Each of those is infinitely more relevant to your supposed topic of the thread (Latter-day Saint church guidance to Latter-day Saints on the topic of surrogacy) than the single line item you choose to focus on: "Same-sex and single intended parenthood is sometimes opposed on those family-structure grounds." And you continue to ignore anything in the thread that could be related to the topic (Church views on surrogacy) instead focusing now on some Rameumptom level holier than thou fault finding with Charlie Bird. You are obsessed.

Glad you found it (member of FAIR here, though pretty dormant lately)

Revelation on valid baptism is D&C 22, received in 1830. It was specifically triggered by new members who didn't want to be rebaptized. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-16-april-1830-dc-22/1 has a bit of the history around it. For the Gift of the Holy Ghost, besides D&C 22 (which covers it because it talks about all "works"), I would say the two strongest is D&C 35 (1830 - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-7-december-1830-dc-35/1) and D&C 49 (1831 - https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-7-may-1831-dc-49/1#historical-intro). D&C 35 is about Sidney Rigdon who had just been baptized. He was previously a Campbellite preacher and had baptized many people and believed they had received the Holy Ghost. In D&C 35, he is told that he now has proper authority to baptize and lay hands on them to actually give them the Holy Ghost. D&C 49 is about the Shakers. It says (among many things) that they need to be baptized and receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost. Since the Shakers already believe they have the gift, this is evidence that God sees differently. Additionally to those 2 sections, it also follows logically with our belief in authority. To receive the Gift of the Holy Ghost, it has to be done with proper authority after you've been baptized with proper authority. An early example of this is from a discourse from Joseph Smith in 1842 (https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-20-march-1842-as-reported-by-wilford-woodruff/4) where he discusses Cornelius I don't expect that to ever change. Proper authority is really important to us. We believe resurrected beings literal came to Joseph and Oliver and restored the priesthood. Every Melchizedek holder (which is pretty much every adult male in the church) has a "Line of Authority" which shows how their priesthood went back to those events. A non-LDS would have to somehow show that the authority was proper and that is a pretty hard argument. We don't even accept Catholic authority and they have a well documented line back to the original apostles. Edited to add the link about Joseph Smith's discourse about Cornelius.

Happens with dating too. Rating your potential partners with friends or family seems a very human tendency, if not typically so elaborate.

Not sure about that. Splitting genetic, gestational, and social parenthood on purpose is said to complicate identity, kinship, and the child’s claim to know and be raised by the people who made and carried them. If the intended parents separate, die, or reject the baby (disability, sex, “too many”), the child can be legally stranded. Medical risk is real and not fully transferable by contract (preeclampsia, C-section, infertility, death). Intended parents get the child; she keeps the body. Bonding and regret: law can order her not to be a mother after she has been one physiologically. Critics call that a forced alienation, not a clean service. Parentage: who is the mother at birth—the woman who delivered, the egg donor, or the people on the contract? States and countries split. Utah and others allow it under statute; others ban or tightly limit paid surrogacy. Contracts about a person: courts are uneasy specific-performing a pregnancy (force her to abort, or forbid abortion, or take the child against her will). If you cannot enforce the core promises, it is not an ordinary contract. Payment: many jurisdictions distinguish “compassionate” unpaid surrogacy from commercial; the latter is banned or capped because it looks like baby-selling, which is already illegal. International deals: intended parents can be left with a child no country will recognize; the surrogate can be left with a child no one will collect. Citizenship, birth certificates, and succession follow blood or gestation in ways a private contract does not control. Equality / public-policy: some constitutions and human-rights bodies have treated paid surrogacy as incompatible with dignity or with bans on trafficking in persons. Are you saying these concerns are just ideological? A matter of preference? It seems not that way to me. These are real-world effects. Given our past history, going back years, I understand why you might impute such a thing. But as with the endless accusations of "Bigot!", it's not really substantive. I find it a bad and troubling idea to deliberately deprive a child of a mother or a father. Both play vital roles. In any event, I would rather we discuss the topic, as endless ad hominem and efforts and diverting attention to the individual rather than his argument or the topic slows down meaningful discourse. Thanks, -Smac

So I found Charlie's Facebook post, with an embedded video of an event he and his husband used to select, from a panel of women, a winning "Egg Donor." And this comment from him: "Egg donor pageant." Also, on the TV in the room there is this: "Whose genetics will take the crown?" Apparently to clarify what they mean by "genetics," they also have a scoreboard for the "Egg Donors" (not "women," not "prospective mothers") : In the "Questions about donor night" section of the video, someone asked "What were the highest preferred qualities for you guys?" The response in part: They said this, but then proceeded to rank the prospective "Egg Donors" using these criteria. The event was, in their own words, an "Egg Donor Finalist Night" and "Egg Donor Selection Night," in the style of a "full scale egg donor pageant." From the OP: "Commodification: pregnancy and birth are not like renting a room; paying for them treats the woman’s body and the baby as market inputs." Grok in the OP presented this as one of the "moral, legal and ethical arguments typically cited in relation to surrogacy." Is that what Charlie and his husband are doing with their Egg Donor "Pageant?" They were literally treating and referring to these women as "egg donors" and ranking them according to specific criteria: Intelligence Health/Athlete Egg Yield Beauty Family Fit Vibes / 'It' Factor Logistics / Cost Charlie Bird: "We really didn't want it to {be} about ranking people or deciding whose genetics were 'better' (ew)." Also Charlie Bird: "{Which 'Egg Donor's'} genetics will take the crown?" I did not see, in the Instagram vid or the FB post, whether the winning "Egg Donor" will be involved in any way in the child's life. I find this troubling. Charlie wanting to be a father is understandable. What I cannot call consistent with what the Church teaches about family is treating a child’s mother as optional—or as merely one of a panel of potential “Egg Donors” to be evaluated based on "egg yield," "beauty," educational achievements, "genetics," and so on. The Church teaches that a child is entitled to a father and a mother in a covenant marriage, and that a husband and wife are the appointed pattern for giving bodies to God’s children. Charlie's plan specifically and intentionally chooses a course of action in which a child will not have that, and he then assembles a genetic mother and a separate birth mother as parts. If a married man and woman, or a lesbian couple, lined people up the same way, I would find it unseemly too. Thanks, -Smac

Well, that's why it annoyed me so much. It was irrelevant, and it wasn't just that he was pointing out a lack or gap (as if including it would have added anything). He was trying to rub Pyreaux's nose in his failure to mention it. Yes, we all know that climate change is (or might be) to blame, but mentioning would have added little or nothing. I could have ignored it. You could have ignored me. And we both might have been much happier for it. But how can your protest of my protest be virtue signaling if it's relevant to the discussion? Which it is, since the discussion has become one about virtue signaling. In 2016 Dan McClellan once accused me of being a racist because I failed to call Donald Trump a racist in a comment on Facebook, in a thread he started in order to argue against Trump's candidacy for President because he claimed Trump is a racist. My crime was that I replied to a commenter to correct a misstatement of fact (not even about Trump), but I omitted writing "Trump is a racist!" in my comment. In other words, I got called out because I failed to signal my virtue. When I then failed to profusely apologize for my horrifying lack of virtue, he appeared on my own Facebook feed and accused me of racism to all my actual "in real life" friends. When they fought back against him, he fled, and subsequently unfriended me. This unpleasant experience led me to hate virtue signaling with a passion. However, as far as I can recall, this is the absolute first time I have ever called anyone out for virtue signaling. He wasn't engaging. He was upset because "climate change" was not mentioned. He didn't disagree with the statement of the problem, he just didn't like the omission. An omission that didn't affect the facts. OK, maybe virtue signaling has levels. Level 1 - the signal has at least something to do with the topic, but doesn't really add anything other than that the signaler wants us to know that he or she cares. And maybe he or she does care, but instead of just adding it to the conversation, which might add some value to the conversation, he or she castigates the other person for failing to bring it up. Level 2 - the signal has no relevance to the topic or the purpose at hand, and the signaler just wants us to know that he or she cares about the thing being virtue signaled. Examples include the phrase "Nobody is illegal on stolen land" being tossed out at a music awards celebration after receiving a Grammy Award. In this situation, the reply under discussion was of Level 1.

No arguing necessary. They are active according to the metrics the church itself uses, and it was meant to share information and not debate a point.

Actually, I don’t believe the debate is closed because “single mothers” is not inherently equivalent to “no father figure” or “raising a child completely on their own”. Plus a lot of research on single parent families is based on situations involving trauma of children (divorce, deah, incarceration, relationship instability, etc) rather than the choice of a single woman or man to raise a child on their own while having the support of other adults, possibly even in the home. Those negative results could be more about the trauma and less about the single parent.

Maybe, maybe not. Depends on how relevant it is, imo. It is hardly virtue signaling if someone is writing an argument or explanation for something and you point out a major lack or gap in an argument or the information. One could look at your protesting of his pointing out of the lack of mention of climate change as virtue signaling too, just from a different perspective. I am not sure if my protest of your protest is virtue signaling. I do know I really dislike when people label others’ comments as virtue signaling because the primary purpose seems to be an easy way to not engage and just dismiss them. Talking about sustained above average snowpack as a solution seems to treat it as a serious possibility. If he believes that, it needs to be supported or why mention it? Pyreaux writes in a technical way, I think it’s respecting his effort to expect it to be substantive. Thinking about what could be done, if anything, I came across a paper promoting more cloud seeding (not treated as a total solution, but as a tool we should use more). Anyone have feedback on that idea?