the narrator

Yeah, that was something I had never heard about and found delightful. There are a few pages dedicated to Edwin and Norma Morrell, and he is named a dozen other places in different chapters.

After Nelson's edict, there was a small panel at UVU on the topic that I was a part of, and following that there was an emergency meeting of heads/chairs/editors of pretty much every Mormon studies program, journal, association, and press to discuss the best way to go forward. At that later meeting, it was agreed upon that the proposal I gave at the panel was the panel was the best way to go, and it essentially expands on the distinction you make here.

This is the book for you then. The focus is local and non-GA members, which is the sort of Mormon history I find much more interesting and inspiring these days. Looking at a May release right now.

In early Mormonism it was understood as a simple matter of fact that revelations dictating that "all things shall be done by common consent in the church, by much prayer and faith, for all things you shall receive by faith” (D&C 26:2) meant that all decisions of leadership, policy, and doctrine were to presented the the membership to vote on. Over the years, this was abandoned to the mere formality of only accepting such things. This is a simple summary: Perhaps if Nelson's exclusion policy was presented to the membership (with a healthy understanding that In the end it was their responsibility as a community to determine whether or not it was the will of God), much harm could have been presented rather than it being imposed unilaterally by Nelson and eventually rejected by protest of the membership. Maybe a lot of good could happen if leaders trusted and put faith in the membership more instead of treating them like children who ought to be obedient to them and dismissed if in disagreement.

Yeah, one of the many ways in which the Church doesn't follow its scriptures.

Given the large percentage of Mormons (like Longview) who are predisposed to blindly and ignorantly swallow up Zionist propaganda for flimsy theological and theologically based reasons, there does seems to have some relevance.

BWAHHHAHAHHAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAAHHAA!

Wendy's comment about him being "unleashed" makes it pretty clear that Nelson had a list of priorities/grievances that he intended to address once he was in power. Regardless of whether you think his decisions were inspired, his "revealed" decision to push out the exclusion policy and later revelation to rescind it makes a good case for Church leaders to propose their ideas to the membership and have them decide by vote whether it was from God, as directed by scripture. I'm currently edited a book about LDS efforts to maintain and grow the faith in Eastern Europe and the Soviet bloc during and after the Cold Ward, and (despite my many and strong criticisms I have of Nelson) I am impressed and touched by the years of efforts he put into that area.

True story. A little over 2 decades ago, I had the opportunity to meet with Bonner Ritchie, who was tasked by President Hunter to make the BYU-Jerusalem Center. His experience in Israel led him to becoming a vocal defender of Palestinians and a critique of the evil Zionist agenda. He opened my eyes to the utter lie you are repeating here, and the reality of the lies you are sharing have only become clearer since.

BWHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHAHAHAH.

I was recently told by someone who regularly met with members of the FP and Q12 that Oaks is not shy about using "Mormon" and uses it frequently, so I imagine it will come back on it own, if not implicitly prompted by new leadership. (From this same person and others, I've also been told that there was some frustration from members of the 12 and Nelson's counselors with Nelson frequently acting unilaterally without consulting the quorums--as was the case when he pushed out the exclusion policy years ago as the Q12 prez.)

Middle East Forum is a right-wing Zionist and anti-Islamic garbage think tank. You can safely ignore them.

I came to realize last year that I was autistic after looking at my daughter and realizing I shared a lot of traits with her--though mine aren't as pronounced. Then all of the pieces fit, and I had an explanation for almost everything that distinguished me from my brothers and friends from birth to now. It also explains why Wittgensteinian philosophy resonated so much with me, as I can see now how both his earlier and later philosophies are essentially autistic examinations of the world and language.

ding, ding, ding

Lolz. Please show me where you answered my question: You can't show me, because you have never answered it. You've instead thrown out red herrings and answers to questions I've never asked.

That's fine, since you aren't capable of answering basic questions anyways.

Keep changing them goalposts I guess.

@ZealouslyStriving hate to come back to this, but something has been bothering me. There are uncontacted peoples/tribes today who are essentially living the same life for millennia. They have not developed "civilization," large-scale agriculture, codified laws (they don't even have writing), science, etc. Is it your view that these people are animals and not part of God's divine heritage?

The point here is that being a "literal child of Mommy and Daddy" means being a product of sexual reproduction--a material biological process that most visible material life forms on the earth participate in so that genetic material composed of adenine, thymine, guanine, and cytosine from each parent can materially combine to produce biological material instructions that biological cells materially read through a complex material processes to produce the biological material form of that lifeform. It does not make sense to say that divine material bodies free from biological processes used the same means to produce non-biological and non-material (in any way that talk about materiality) spirits.

As I have already indicated, it's pretty clear what someone means when they say that a baby is a "literal child of Mommy and Daddy." It's not at all clear what someone means when they say that someone is a "literal child of Heavenly Parents." In your example, the baby might not know precisely what it means, but every English-speaking adult in the room knows what it means. The problem isn't about knowing the mechanics of celestial reproduction; it's about using language in one way that has a clear understanding of what is being communicated (child of Mommy and Daddy) and applying that to something that NOBODY using the phrase understands what it is being communicated. Now, I would argue that the phrase is simply a religious declaration of the value of individual persons, which is generally what is actually being communicated when someone testifies (aka religious communication) using the phrase. The mistake occurs when someone thinks they are instead talking about celestial intercourse, divine sperm, heavenly eggs, glorious conception, and eternal labor.

I've acknowledged there are many differences between humans and other animals It is clear though that you are incapable of telling me what you mean by "ability to choose to act" and what it means to you to "choose to act" that distinguishes us (and God) from, say, my poodle refusing to come to me because she still wants to throw the frisbee more. Since that's too difficult for you, there is no point in continuing this.

This reminds me of early Christianity in Japan, which was largely just a form of Buddhism wrapped in Christian iconography, and this was largely because they did not have a concept of sin to which they understood they could be saved by Jesus from.

Thx!

Intelligence across species on this planet exists on a spectrum, with homo sapiens being at the top after billions of years of evolution. While neanderthals may not have had civilization, they had intelligence that was not too different from their homo sapien relatives. And those homo sapien relatives took several thousands of years to first develop civilization and several more thousands of years after that to "unlock the mysteries of science." Is it your contention than that pre-civilization homosapiens were not the same species as God? But you're still avoiding the question I've been repeatedly asking, so let me try again: What do you mean by "ability to choose to act"? I know what it means to choose something as a kind of causal act by applying my will and present disposition and needs to a particular situation presenting more than one option, and I recognize that such is purely deterministic (otherwise it would just be a random decision without any "choosing" going on.) What, though, does it mean to you to "choose to act" that distinguishes us (and God) from, say, my poodle refusing to come to me because she still wants to throw the frisbee more?

You could help me by explaining how a dog's "ability to choose to act" inherently differs from a human's "ability to choose to act." ...Unless, of course, you don't know what that inherent difference is, which your refusal to answer makes me think is the case. Let's simplify this for you though and take animals out of the equation: What do you mean by "ability to choose to act"? I know what it means to choose something as a kind of causal act by applying my will and present disposition and needs to a particular situation presenting more than one option, and I recognize that such is purely deterministic (otherwise it would just be a random decision without any "choosing" going on.)