The Nehor

I think that would be more a situation where this person was more of a “probable” or “almost definitely” sexual predator and not merely a potential one.

You clearly don’t remember the incident that well. It happened in 2007 and wasn’t part of a campaign stopd. The backlash from the left was in 2007 and 2008 right after it happened though there were some who said it was more a form of empathetic code-switching (I doubt this explanation). It was resurrected again by right wing media in 2016 for some reason (seems an oddly specific year, did something happen that year?) and yeah, the Left didn’t feel the need to castigate her for it again almost a decade later since they already had and the people “on the left” don’t spend a lot of time watching right-wing media playing their greatest racist hits. I suspect the outlets you were listening to were playing fast and loose with the timeline and suggested that this was a very recent event. Might want to distrust those outlets in the future. Also, why the sudden “whataboutism”? Was it wrong for Hillary to dow what she did? Was it wrong for this Seventy to do what he did? Trying to create some kind of equivalence with a political figure is just defensive. Does Hillary doing something bad somehow make what the Seventy did less bad? I mean, what the Seventy said was much more offensive but even if, for the sake of argument, we make them equivalent how does this exonerate this Seventy? Can’t you just say they were both bad? And if you are trying to play some kind of culture war equivalence battle well….. ……you brought a toothpick to a gun fight.

I have no idea what this secretary would do. They’re probably not attending Stake leadership meetings as except for the larger stake council meetings or those with other organizations they tend to be gender-segregated. Buildings don’t need someone to answer the phone anymore. I have no idea what this calling would even involve.

It is also worth noting in the Code of Hammurabi that debt slavery was allowed but they could not be held in bondage for more than three years. The Torah allowed for over twice that. It is hard to see this as God softening the institution of slavery. It is in question whether the Torah was ever actually the law of the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah and even if the ancestral texts that came to be the Torah were around they likely weren’t the law “on the books” that were enforced. It might be more of an aspirational thing. To be fair there weren’t social safety nets available pretty much anywhere in the ancient beyond family and friendship bonds and the vertical networks the subsistence farmers had with the “big man” that ruled the area. Debt slavery was the safety net and it was brutal and horrible. You can find a reference to the system itself in work in Genesis 47 during the seven years of famine where Pharoah (and Joseph) acquire all the herds of the people first in exchange for food. Then they give up ownerships of all of their land. Then they give themselves into slavery for food. So God’s salvation plan for Egypt was to enslave all the Egyptians…..yikes. It also seems a little horrible that the food they sold to the people was taxed out of them during the years of plenty (sort of). So they bought back their own food in exchange for their freedom. Joseph was sold into slavery and then rose to power to become the enslaver. What a heartwarming story. There was a provision in the Torah that when you let the debt slaves go you had to liberally provide them with resources to start over. This was almost certainly aspirational and not how things were practiced. More likely they went back into debt trying to survive. In the Book of Nehemiah we have stories of the Israelite aristocracy using a famine to consolidate lands and enslave the poor. Nehemiah forces them to stop it and let them go. There is also a story of freeing slaves as commanded by the Law and then kidnapping them and forcing them back into slavery and being stopped. I have no idea if these accounts are historically accurate but the anxieties behind them are very real. The powerful tended to push the subsistence farmers down to bare subsistence and try to leech off any surplus. They would also use tricks to acquire more lands and enslave their peasants to try to increase their ability to extract from them. In the Old Testament many of the prophets railed against these practices where the poor were oppressed so the wealthy could consolidate land ownership and deny the poor any hope of an inheritance. The ancient world was an unforgiving place. I am not trying to suggest that Israel was some kind of regressive state surrounded by relative utopias. It wasn’t a hellhole polity (that would be Sparta actually). Things were rough everywhere. Israel was also not substantially better morally or economically compared to other nations unless you listened to their own propaganda that insisted they were. Just like the propaganda of all the other nations.

Sounds like a custom calling, meaning it is probably only in the one stake.

I am not impressed with this guy’s grasp of history. I really really wonder how you are on the cusp of saying something like that and as you are about to do a racist caricatured accent to represent a white guy doing a faked Black accent and no alarm bells start going off in your brain. And I’m an impulsive git who says stupid stuff all the time. It makes me wonder if he vetted this “joke” first with friends or something. There is a cultural problem when you imagine saying something like that will be innocuous. I’ve had way too many times when LDS people thought I was a safe space for racist “humor”. Also, we really need to stop politely laughing at horrible jokes. Even if this was somehow not racist the joke isn’t even funny. Also it is mean-spirited to the local leader he was mimicking who has almost certainly heard about it now and may have heard about it in any case. Also, why is he having this imaginary conversation in his head with this local leader imagining this interaction? What kind of screwed up attitudes lead to that kind of conversation? If the ostensibly faked accent was offensively bad it should be more of a cringey discomfort. Instead this guy’s imagination is amplifying the racism for comedic effect and he thought that was funny and worth sharing. What the hell man? Yeesh.

Indentured servitude/debt slavery was used as a way of temporarily enslaving fellow Israelites. This existed in parallel with regular lifelong chattel slavery inherited by your children slavery that was (usually) limited to foreigners. Debt slavery is a common feature of the ancient world and is not Israel or its God showing a ‘better way’. Debt slavery predates the Law of Moses. What you shared is an apologetic to try to defend God by trying to make debt slavery a humane institution (it wasn’t). Another common apologetic is to focus on this form of debt slavery and then try to politely ignore the lifelong slavery God tells the Israelites to practice on foreigners. Ignoring the more harsh form of slavery is a much more twisted and unbalanced review of scripture. Debt slavery is still going on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_bondage Debt slavery is not a benevolent alternative to slavery. In some cultural contexts it is less harsh but it is still an evil and an offense to human dignity. God prescribes both debt slavery and chattel slavery in the Law of Moses and endorses their use. The Law of Moses is also inconsistent on the seven years thing. One account has seven years be the norm for all debt slaves while in another it only applied to men. Women sold into sex slavery were exempt from being freed after seven years. So you have to specify whether you are using the code from Exodus or the code from Deuteronomy.

So your plan is to assume that all women who believe this are inherently dangerous and avoid them. So you will treat all women as potential threats to your safety because some might be a threat to you? And yet when the threat to women is potentially sexual assault this mitigation strategy is somehow deranged and unhealthy? Are you trying to be ironic and self-deprecating here? I’m going to yoink this and quote it back to you regularly. Thanks in advance. I suspect that last bit was the main reason. So you are already isolating yourself from women. So what changes if you have to treat them all as potential threats as per above? Where a large part of it is about you and protecting yourself. Honestly if the men who are going to take offense at this “Go their own way” and don’t interact with women that might be for the best. Also I don’t take seriously the incel/MGTOW/Red-pill/Nick Fuentes followers and others of that ilk. It is just misogyny and homophobia mixed with a very unhealthy amount of homoeroticism and homosociality. It is probably more self-damaging than women proactively treating men as a potential threat and is much more toxic and unnecessary but somehow the whole thing is the fault of women. If women would just behave and not make any man ever feel bad there would be no misogyny. It is all their fault. You are showing more empathy for these creeps than you are for women who face threats of sexual assault and that should be a cause for serious self-reflection as to why you value the well-being of men over the well-being of women.

Its ardent establishment of slavery as a good and allowed institution?

The Torah has a command for human sacrifice of the firstborn humans but there is an escape clause to get out of it. A lot of biblical scholars see in that a strong possibility that human sacrifice was practiced and then phased out. Then you have Jeremiah speaking on behalf of Adonai and saying that he never ever ordered human sacrifice. Why would Jeremiah be saying this if no one thought God was commanding it. Complicating the problem you can turn to Ezekiel who failed to compare notes with Jeremiah and Ezekiel says that God gave laws that ‘were not good’ to punish Israel and this is while discussing human sacrifice. Sounds like Ezekiel was trying to explain away a history of human sacrifice. And a hearty LOL at the idea that a Jephthah’s daughter could appeal to the priests for mercy. Also, the story of Jephthah does not suggest in any way that what he did was wrong. After he sacrificed his daughter he continues to enjoy success. If the writer wanted to condemn this act he could have. He didn’t and if the story is to be taken as literal God approved of the sacrifice. That is the text. It is an uncomfortable text but insisting that we can yank it out of context and rewrite it to make that act bad is just an attempt to make the text palatable to us and not a genuine desire to understand what the author was saying.

Well, that is all pretty much wrong.

In romantic situations: Ask for consent. In casual group settings: No need to change anything. In one on one: Don’t do anything that could be construed as threatening (physically or verbally) even as a joke. Also, defend women. A few weeks ago I went to an event with a bunch of people I knew well and some I don’t. When I parked saw a woman I know in her car with her window rolled down and a guy talking to her. That had a really bad vibe. Walked over to her and was going to ask her if she needed anything but another mutual guy friend showed up just before I did and gave the guy a death glare and asked if she needed anything. I just stood next to him and watched. The guy blustered a bit and then walked away loudly announcing that he “wasn’t that kind of guy” and that “this is ridiculous”. I was about to text the biggest guy I knew at the event if he could come join us right before the guy retreated. He was a recent ex who knew she was going to the event and planned this ambush to try to force a conversation that would hopefully get them back together again. No doubt he saw this as some kind of romantic gesture but she felt trapped because she in many ways was. Another guy and I stayed outside after she came in to make sure he left while the first guy walked her inside and took her to some of her closest friends and then rejoined us. She gave us both hugs later and said that this group was the first group she has felt safe around in a long time. So treating women as some kind of incomprehensible ‘other’ that you can’t connect with was your strategy? Why? Were you worried they were going to make false claims against you or something? And how would your wife being around help? You need a witness? This seems like it is more about your hurt feelings than any sense of reasonable caution. And then complain about the male loneliness epidemic?

No, it is really difficult because this kind of “I’m personally hurt” response when women or other marginalized groups try to communicate is the norm. It is why many give up on trying to communicate. There are defense mechanisms in place to prevent having to rethink things that come way too close to someone’s identity.

Considering the psychological downsides of sexual assault and rape I am not convinced that this tradeoff is worth it. Also I would suggest that we instead change our culture to mitigate and hopefully remove that threat so women don’t have to live their lives so defensively. This sounds aspirational but really it is telling the potential (and actual) victims that it is just best not to think about it. That sounds nice until you are abused and then a bunch of guys will come up with reasons for why you (at least partially) deserved it or how you could have avoided it. I have seen this advice given in the past by some people who in this very thread have posted that this kind of anxiety isn’t good for women’s mental health. Pick a lane. Also, how about we work to create a society where the whole thing isn’t necessary? I get very tired of the complacency of people who think things can’t be improved or that it is some massive imposition on them personally if someone tries to improve things.

Presumably you just pray for rain and hope for the best at that point.

I didn’t mean to suggest that the stuff I posted was the only take. In theological pronouncements the early LDS tended to be absolute but in practice they interacted with and sometimes liked people of other faiths and there was a lot going on. And, of course, a lot of the other churches were making similar categorical statements about the LDS faith leading to damnation and the like. Some of them still are actually.

There is also nothing in the Garden of Eden story to indicate that they were immortal which is something some Christians added later. I would note that gnosticism isn’t one religion. It is a complicated mixture of beliefs over an extended period. There are some generalities that are usually true but always be wary if someone tells you what ‘the gnostics’ believed. Most gnostics believed the world was evil and corrupted which was a contrast to Judaism and the philosophy of the Greco-Roman world. The latter was that the world was good but necessarily imperfect because of the nature of matter.

Sort of. I mean the Church’s history is long enough that it isn’t consistent but you do have some saying or hinting that Christians aren’t Christian or just outright calling other Christians brute beasts or devil worshippers and profoundly ignorant fools and the like. "The Christian world, so-called, are heathens as to the knowledge of the salvation of God" -Brigham Young The “so called” directly implies that they are wrongly called Christian. "...all the priests who adhere to the sectarian religions of the day with all their followers, without one exception, receive their portion with the devil and his angels." - Joseph Smith in the Elder’s Journal Yikes on bikes! "…the devil could not invent a better engine to spread his work than the Christianity of the nineteenth century." - John Taylor "Brother Taylor has just said that the religions of the day were hatched in hell. The eggs were laid in hell, hatched on its borders, and then kicked on to the earth." -Brigham Young “Believers in the doctrines of modern Christendom will reap damnation to their souls.” - Bruce R. McConkie "After the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was organized, there were only two churches upon the earth. They were known respectively as the Church of the Lamb of God and Babylon. The various organizations which are called churches throughout Christendom, though differing in their creeds and organizations, have one common origin. They all belong to Babylon." - George Q. Cannon "With a regard to true theology, a more ignorant people never lived than the present so-called Christian world." - Brigham Young "This is not just another Church. This is not just one of a family of Christian churches. This is the Church and kingdom of God, the only true Church upon the face of the earth..." - Ezra T. Benson Not as inflammatory but suggests we aren’t Christian like everyone else and that everyone else are either lesser Christians or not really Christians depending on how you read it. And President Hinckley when asked about the statement of Jesus in the First Vision where he talked about the creeds being abominations and everyone being corrupt: “We accept that as a statement which came to him which is printed, of course, and published in his history as a statement. But we go forward with a friendly relationship, with a respect for people everywhere and with an effort to accept them as we meet them and, where opportunity exists, to talk with them and explain to them what we believe.... We don't criticize them for what they believe. We accept the good that comes of that understanding which they have, but we feel we having something to offer beyond what they have.” The times they are a changin.

True, I was paraphrasing Joseph Smith’s account of the First Vision where the resurrected Jesus said that the creeds were an abomination in his sight and that those professors (the other religious leaders Joseph listened to or all the professors of Christianity everywhere depending on how you interpret it) were all corrupt.

We do now. We didn’t so much in the early days. They were all apostate and were going to hell. Plus this is still in D&C 127: “It is an imperative duty that we owe to God, to angels, with whom we shall be brought to stand, and also to ourselves, to our wives and children, who have been made to bow down with grief, sorrow, and care, under the most damning hand of murder, tyranny, and oppression, supported and urged on and upheld by the influence of that spirit which hath so strongly riveted the creeds of the fathers, who have inherited lies, upon the hearts of the children, and filled the world with confusion, and has been growing stronger and stronger, and is now the very mainspring of all corruption, and the whole earth groans under the weight of its iniquity.” “For there are many yet on the earth among all sects, parties, and denominations, who are blinded by the subtle craftiness of men, whereby they lie in wait to deceive, and who are only kept from the truth because they know not where to find it—“ So the view of the rest of Christianity was: And they are the mainspring of all corruption. We acknowledged that others professed to be followers of Christ and that the other Christian churches blind sincere seekers of truth through deception. I know the Church now is focusing much more on camaraderie and a kind of ecumenicalism but that is not how it has always been.

Creeds are an abomination. Those professors are all corrupt.

This was explicitly about defying parental expectations. None of the other kids did that. Except in those homes where it isn’t a respite. You know, the kids that don’t believe the gospel but playact to get along. Or the queer kids who live in perpetual fear of being found out. So defied parental expectations with church support which, again, is the opposite of what I described.

The title “son of man” goes back further than Enoch. It is all over Ezekiel. The title “Son of Man” used in the New Testament is a really awkward Greek grammatical construction that doesn’t map directly to the usage in Ezekiel or Enoch. I don’t know what Jesus or the writers of the New Testament thought of the Book of Enoch. I don’t know what I believe anymore. I have a lot of doubts about scripture in general and many specific parts of scripture. I think the main argument against this being a reference to any kind of premortality is that none of the commentators took it as one in the ancient world. I have a lot of skepticism about the concept of scriptural “easter eggs” being inserted into the text that purportedly teach great hidden truths but no one noticed at the time. Also parts of the Torah are at least as old as Jeremiah and if there were a concept of premortality there were plenty of places to insert that in the text. The general scholarly consensus is that the Book of Daniel was written between 167 and 164 BC and was an ex eventu prophecy which was a pretty common genre where the writer puts words of prophecy into the mouth of someone in the past to add legitimacy. It is also a good way to hide revolutionary though. If the Seleucids got a copy of the Book of Daniel it is old ravings of a local prophet from centuries back unless they were pretty literary and picked up that Babylon in that text was a code for them The reason the dating is so tight in terms of years is that the prophecy of Daniel in the book maps up perfectly with the lead up to and the beginning of the Maccabean revolt. Up to then the prophecy is accurate and then it stops being accurate and the revolt doesn’t bring about the messianic age or the redemption of Israel. So later Jewish and Christian scholars started coming up with much more far reaching interpretations. Assuming all that is true the writer of Daniel probably took the term from the Book of Enoch so bringing in a Watcher more likely means the author had read what we call 1st Enoch. The Book of Revelation is a similar composition.

Because it is clear what the original language was by comparing the two versions. You also have to explain why this Book of Enoch was unknown for at least several centuries previously. Also some of the philosophical and theological concepts in the Books of Enoch weren’t around yet. You also have multiple books of Enoch so were they all lost? Even if it was a lost book (very unlikely just by how it was written) that was somehow rediscovered that doesn’t show that it goes back to Enoch. It could still be something that was purported to be from Enoch or a text with no author and someone slapped the name of Enoch on there. The latter is how most scholars think the gospels got their purported writers.

That it will be testified of “in due time” suggests it is not talking about the already extant Book of Enoch. Also none of the extant Books of Enoch seem to contain what the description in the previous verse says is supposed to be in them. Also a work being pseudipigrapha doesn’t mean it is fake. It just means it wasn’t written by the purported author. The Zohar, one of the key books of Jewish Kabbalah is purported to have been written twelve centuries earlier by another author. It wasn’t and one Jewish scholar tracked down the wife of the ‘translator’ and she said it came entirely from her husband. That scholar (and many others) accepted it as roughly what LDS would call an ‘inspired’ text. It is dangerous to tie your faith to very dubious historical claims. Especially with something like the Book of Enoch which even contemporaries were saying wasn’t written by Enoch.