Calm

I can often see how Smac interprets the way he does and sometimes it does seem to me the most reasonable interpretation, but other times not. Plus I typically see your ‘that’s not what I said’ as reasonable because you don’t attach the same meanings as I might, so I see it as always good to support interpretations by presenting the actual quote with enough additional material for context and then explaining how you got there so the other can point out where one goes wrong. People who say something are the authority for what they meant, imo, even if they don’t express it in a way that’s clear to me.

If you are not trying to be insulting, you might consider other word choices…you use assert elsewhere, why not stick with that?

And the Word of Wisdom is exactly the same for us all…but it’s going to mean something very different to a BIC who gets almost sick at the thought of smoking or drinking alcohol, etc (I overreact to foods…well, anything with the ‘wrong’ smell or texture, beans were my archnemesis) as opposed to someone who is an older adult convert whose family celebrates life with wine and fellowship at big family gatherings or whose favorite pasttime before joining the Church was having a cup of coffee with friends at a cafe catching up on what everyone is doing or perhaps drinking such cuddled up under a blanket with a good book on a day off when it looks like it does today (snow covering everything). Both substances are likely not that harmful to one’s body*** and therefore the only reason to view these as sinful is because of the covenant one makes. The rule of tithing is the same for all of us, but it means something very different to a family who chooses to pay tithing and let their kids go to school in third or fourth hand clothes or whose kids can’t participate in afterschool activities with friends, go on field trips etc because those won’t fit into the very tight family budget or whose grades suffer because they can’t put in the hours needed because they have an afternoon job to help out the family than it means to a family who not only have more than enough to support their children all the way through college including getting them tutors or paying for extra classes and providing them with extracurricular activities that look great on a high end college application, but can also send them on trips to Europe, buy them cars, etc. Of course those versions of giving up something that you love or that you want to do for another you love because of Church teachings pale in comparison to giving up a romantic loving companionship or potential lifelong marriage solely because the Church teaches that same sex relationships are sinful. PS: recognition of the immensity of what the Church requires here does not equate to a rejection of church teachings. *** alcohol in small or moderate amounts is looking more dangerous than once thought, but may still be less harmful than other things Saints happily do to their bodies without risking losing a temple recommend. Coffee and tea, otoh, may have some beneficial health effects depending on how they are used and by whom, so what we are requiring may only be based on a commitment to the faith as opposed to something any rational person would choose to do if they knew the science, etc. I was taught growing up that science backed the WoW, which is unfortunate because science has gotten better at observing what substances actually do to the body and conclusions can change based on new information.

Thankfully I have only heard a few, but the worst was in 2006 from a girl in Achievement Days repeating a joke she heard from a relative she thought was the funniest thing calling Blacks apes. Myself and the other leader quickly, but gently let her know that wasn’t appropriate. It horrified us that such was still be taken for humor in a devout LDS home. If I had known the family at all, I would have talked with the mother, but I was clueless about the home life and unless I know how parents are likely to react, I am not going to get a kid in trouble with them unless it’s absolutely necessary. (Living in BYU married housing exposed me to two or three parents that way overreacted to their kids’ mistakes that I would not have expected if I just knew them from church, also ran into the same thing a few times volunteering at schools, always a shock)

This is one reason why I believe the distinction between paradise and spirit prison is more a mortal concept than an eternal one born out of our need for categories and hierarchy. While baptism symbolically cleanses us of all sins, the first sinful thought (which might be as trivial as being resentful the heat isn’t turned up higher in the changing room) technically we have lost that purity the way our doctrine is taught, at least until we take the sacrament and then the process starts again. I don’t see why God would remove all trace of sin before teaching us why something was a sin in the first place, how it was harming us and others. To me that feels like being a puppet, without choice or awareness, not developing toward a purer, higher spiritual state. And since all have sins of some sort (our cultures probably load us down with many we are not aware of or don’t realize are sins if we are aware of them) throughout our lives, there is a high likelihood we carried many with us into the next life, no matter who we were. So people in paradise are going to be doing the same thing as people in Spirit Prison, learning the finer details of what is right and wrong and being cleansed of them in some fashion through the Atonement. So except for the Hell side of things, I don’t see much difference between Spirit Prison and Paradise…it’s a time of learning about sins including selfawareness of our own, choosing to forsake the sins to draw closer to God and redemption for all. If there is a significant difference, I would see Paradise as being of those who possess additional tools for learning and forsaking of sins received through baptism, confirmation, and temple ordinances. Perhaps also a mentality that predisposes us to accepting we have sins and desiring to be rid of them, but since I don’t have access to others’ inner thoughts and we appear to have plenty of arrogance in the Church as well as I’ve seen a lot of humility outside the Church, I have my doubts our predispositions in this area are any more advanced generally speaking than those outside the Church.

Unless they were oh so highly annoying, but then they could be the most devout member and they would be just as welcomed. 😛

But they can do baptisms shortly after conversions, iirc. Though can’t remember when this became policy.

But she was living with her siblings, so it seems likely they came over in a group surely (pure speculation).

I am adding a post on this because I think my error was significant enough I want to be sure anyone who read my previous post has a chance to see the correct info. Men did more religious volunteering hours than women….likely because of priesthood associated callings and activities, imo. They also did more community volunteering associated with the Church (I assume callings matter here as well): I wonder if California is more accepting of our church groups working with other church groups given the high density of LDS there (at least in the past). I know in Canada and Kansas we had some trouble with that, but when one group said “no way”, there was always another saying “yes, please”. Maybe it’s just with more LDS in California, there are more connections, networking, groups familiar enough to reach out and ask for help from us. There was no difference with secular volunteering hours…which actually surprised me but maybe the SAHM volunteering is much lower now (I know several mothers who volunteered at school now work there as aides). https://sp2.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/cnaan_lds_giving.pdf

The problem there is if a ton of food is delivered at once, that is more work for them than not having it delivered imo. It can be a big deal putting it into containers and finding room in refrigerator or freezers (one of the reasons I will often do a jar of good spaghetti sauce and a package of noodles and nonperishable trimmings so they have the option of when to have it and hopefully there is room on a shelf somewhere, but it can always slide under a bed for the time being). What the Church does very well in this case is spread out the wealth so it’s useful rather than overwhelming. Someone could take it on themselves to do that, but many would feel awkward using the ward’s email or social media and it might not reach everyone either. It needs to be coordinated somehow and the Church generally has that down pat (call the RS Pres). added: oops, see bluebell addressed this

I like AI for searching, including finding quotes, which seems to me Smac’s main purpose here, but even there best for detailed queries as its choices for authoritative sources aren’t always great. But using it for judgment, waste of time and effort, imo. I would not use its commentary unless it’s a trivial topic I am not interested in doing the work or not up to it at the moment….and I will put that disclaimer up when I use it (hopefully every time, but probably forget on occasion). I skip any such AI commentaries in threads like these as not interested….unless that is all someone else is doing and then it’s more teasing, lol.

That would have been sponsored by/affliated with the Church, which is category 3, not 4 4 categories… 1: For religious activities, people give on average 242 hours. 2: For church-affiliated volunteering to help meet social needs of people in the church, 96 hours. 3: For church-affiliated activities helping people outside the church, 56 hours. 4: And for activities outside of the church totally, 34 hours. From the pdf link: “The area in which most Latter-day Saints volunteer and to which most volunteer hours are dedicated is religious volunteering (94.4% of the respondents; 242 hours annually). Social volunteering of all sorts was also carried out by most of the respondents (95.5% of the respondents; 185.9 hours annually). One type of social volunteering was secular volunteering to meet social needs outside the church, with an average, church-going Latter-day Saint providing 34 hours per year. Latter-day Saints provide the fewest volunteer hours to causes independent of the church. Yet, even if this were the only volunteer activity of Latter-day Saints, it would equal the national average of volunteering of all Americans.” bold and italics mine While the questionnaire itself is not online, the researchers listed at least 200 (going from memory) examples of volunteer work they had collected from asking a number of Saints for examples. With that likely level of detail, I highly doubt they didn’t make it clear that they were interested in differentiating between social care in the community affiliated with/asked to participate by church leaders and secular volunteering done “independent of the church” or not requested by church leaders. If you are still assuming category 4 is a result of being asked by church leaders, what would category 3 then be since it seems to be the same focus of “helping people outside the Church”, so it makes sense to me category 3 is a result of being asked by church leaders and 4 not being asked by church leaders. I see it as possible a member may start volunteering with a charitable group through a church activity (category 3), but later on go back on their own (category 4). I have seen this happen quite a bit over the years. First exposure through the Church, but sustained volunteering self motivated. I think it’s also possible a lot of the secular volunteering is volunteering at their kids’ schools. I did that a lot and knew quite a few other LDS mothers who did as well. However, iirc men had higher hours of secular volunteering than women…which was very odd to me, so I wonder if women don’t see working in their kids’ classes as volunteer work, but child care. added: oops, memory is wrong, that was religious volunteering and given there are more male only callings with long hours, that’s understandable. Secular volunteering was the same across gender if I understood it correctly.

If it was in the Evangelical context, I think we would call it fundamentalist, so why not apply that label here? (Definitely not the FLDS version of fundamentalism of course, that is a very different approach imo, focusing on very different aspects). I think it’s different from conservative positions due to the rigidity and literal view of scripture, treatment of scripture as inerrant even if theoretically accepting of errors, the one voice view of scripture, etc. Joseph Fielding Smith and Bruce R McConkie didn’t preserve traditional LDS interpretations of doctrine and scripture imo, but altered it to the above. JFS even went outside of LDS thought to find views that more aligned with his own, imo. (I knew of the Seventh Day Adventist George McCready Price, but there was also James Orr, the author of The Fundamentals, and others.) Not to imply here or anywhere that people with this mindset are less righteous, charitable or anything like that. I have known fundamentalists who I put in the category of “best people in the world” outside of discussing the topic they hold fundamentalist views on….and the only real problem I had there was the lack of willingness to consider not only others’ ideas as potentially valid, but their own in new ways. Very hard to discuss anything once they have explained their thoughts.

Lovely to see you.

And let’s not forget who his father-in-law was and that he was also part of the 12 and the president of the Church. It was the two of them and their combined tenures imo as well as both had the personality to be in open disagreement to not only other apostles, but to the First Presidency. Elder McConkie wasn’t an apostle for that long compared to others (Marvin J. Ashton was called the previous year and lasted ten more, Pres Hinckley called ten years before and lasted more than 20 years more). The First Presidency was putting Elder Talmage in the Tabernacle and publishing his pro-science views in church magazines while Elder JFS was speaking to Daughters of Utah Pioneers, iirc (could have been Utah Genealogical Society…iow, not a church sponsored event) about his own less evidence based creation views. Brother McConkie was told the title Mormon Doctrine was inappropriate for his book by the First Presidency iirc, he still kept it. And the two of them outlasted others and stamped the Church with their own imprint. JFS became an apostle in 1910 and acting president of the quorum in 1950, BRM died in 1985 at a pretty young age of 69. That’s a 75 year stretch. If JFS hadn’t laid the foundation and started the structure that Elder McConkie strengthened and built on, I don’t think his 13 years as an apostle would have had near as much impact. But because of his relationship with Elder Smith and his books, he had significant impact even as a Seventy. I don’t remember anyone recently like that. I am out of the loop, but do books even have that kind of influence anymore? I wonder when we will get our first apostle who is a big social media influencer (among Church members at least).

What does it matter if he looks to you like he is white (I find it interesting that you discount intentionally or not Bluedream’s experience of what Latin Americans look like when they are a large percentage of her extended family) if he is Latin American with mixed race heritage? Is he less diverse than than someone with darker skin tone but the same genetic/ethnic background somehow? (Serious question as I am not sure about your reasoning and would prefer not to have to rely on guessing) ”blacks far outnumber Asians in the church. No black apostles.” And Asians of many nationalities have held the Priesthood for far longer in the Church. But it’s not a competition last I checked to fight for priority among the races in our faith and hopefully there are few members who see it as such.

Would a study qualify as a hard look? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2012/03/15/mormons-and-civic-life/ For comparison: Unfortunately they did not provide a breakdown of the four categories for American volunteers in general. I may be able to find it elsewhere. Still 34 hours in comparison to 48—if we assume all those hours for nonLDS are not church affiliated, which I find highly unlikely on average—is still quite significant in my view given we already were doing 393 hours of church affiliated work including 56 hours of community projects sponsored by the Church….so 90 hours total of service in the nonLDS community with over 1/3 of that self initiated. Also remember the 48 hours is not the average counting all Americans, but only for those already volunteering. The study cites it being 26-55% of the total population depending on the measure used where for self identified LDS it’s 62% volunteering for nonChurch affiliated projects, so percentage wise, more LDS volunteer for the community outside of church functions than nonLDS do, even if we are giving less hours (again assuming here the 48 are all nonChurch affiliated for the nonLDS which is highly unlikely). https://sp2.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/cnaan_lds_giving.pdf Maybe you just weren’t aware of what others were doing unless it was a church activity? Are you still going to believe that it’s rare that church members volunteer outside church sponsored activities? If so, why since the data shows otherwise? (Not a challenge or accusation if you haven’t changed your mind and I hope no one else goes there….though I think I have presented a persuasive argument if I say so myself 😛 , I ask because I want to understand your thinking) PS: I do believe members should be asking themselves frequently what they can do outside of church sponsored efforts. Maybe that’s what is getting the 62% out there. But wouldn’t it be great if it was 94% (the percentage who do stuff for the ward or church) or greater?

I had considered making the same comment, but it’s possible that was a special case. But you don’t have to go back that far to find other examples given only four of the original modern apostles remained in good standing from the moment they were first called. Later apostles had it much easier in my view in terms of knowing what would be expected of them and what they could likely expect. Not that many life changing surprises or unexpected challenges to faith, I am guessing.

and casual Friday wear is likely loosening the tie.

It does this staticky gimmick, like it’s an old film that has been played a lot. So annoying. And a lot of the angels have wings, so like AI generated.

Not recommending the channel (in fact I give it a thumbs-down for poor choice of visual and clickbaity language and speculation imo) as asking for someone else as I can’t find the info on the YouTube website, anyone know who is behind it? https://youtube.com/@sacredgroveinsights I do like the voice, lol. Or rather it’s totally nonoffensive to my ears.

Huh? So Asian and mixed race Brazilian don’t “look like some of the larger minority demographics”? https://www.sltrib.com/religion/local/2018/06/29/mormon-churchs-newest/

Not logical. Just because one man was chosen doesn’t mean that other men weren’t eligible. I would assume it is not a competition for righteousness, all must meet a certain high, probably very high standard, but after that it is likely qualities in speaking, administration, etc. that matter. So there may be thousands or hundreds of thousands in the Church, including many in Africa meeting or exceeding the righteousness standard that all potential apostles must meet. The most righteous man in the Church may never have given a talk on Sunday or any other time because he has a phobia about public speaking. Or maybe he’s caring for a disabled wife and daughter. Or maybe he has to work three jobs and barely knows how to read. Or maybe he’s got terminal cancer. Or one of a thousand other reasons or combinations thereof that very righteous men have who haven’t served in high visibility callings. My guess is there is a massive amount of men who would like to be apostles who don’t qualify for it by any standard and of the massive amount of men in the Church that do qualify, my guess is a good percentage or perhaps even the majority of those who actually qualify have no desire to be one. Who wants to wear a business suit with a tie all the time? Can they at least travel in casual? Can you imagine seeing an apostle on a plane in a tshirt and jeans? Or having to work until you drop dead or just want to be because of being too ill or worn out?

The report the committee suggested a standing committee on race, equity, etc. I am getting overloaded, so need to focus on something else for awhile. Does anyone know if they created a standing committee or not?

From the above: Later, when he give the DEI quote, there is a link to a positive article about BYU’s version, so I am thinking it was lacking nuance rather than condemning anything resembling other universities’ programs. https://www.thechurchnews.com/2020/7/22/23265056/byu-committee-race-equity-belonging-connecting-community/ “Rooting out racism, healing its wounds and building bridges of understanding is the responsibility of every member of the BYU community. “That effort begins with understanding and living the two greatest commandments given to us by the Master Healer, Jesus Christ: to love God with all our hearts and to love our neighbors as ourselves (see Matthew 22:35–39).”” However, the current version says nothing about race or equity unfortunately in my view, pretty generic feel good version, which could describe almost any community that pushes having a positive outlook about fellow members, even if they happened to exclude others for the wrong reasons. And that concerns me. It is not a brave, not of this world, but God’s kingdom and proud of it statement, imo. Would love to change my mind, someone point out I missed something. My reasoning….celebrating the differences among accepted students in the university does not mean they celebrate differences among those outside the community. Thankfully this isn’t so, but the mission statement would still be applicable if they only accepted students of white European heritage. https://belonging.byu.edu/statement-on-belonging Though maybe that isn’t the current version, but rather the result of the Committee’s work. Odd that race isn’t mentioned though if so. https://news.byu.edu/announcements/byu-forms-new-office-of-belonging They do have a multicultural aspect, it just isn’t that prominent imo, which I would have expected it to be given the department is apparently the result of the committee that was focusing strongly on race and equity. https://belonging.byu.edu/racial-minority-resources