Calm

Yeah, it was about conversion therapy. And then it got into the definition of queer. At which point you introduced the topic of drag queens. https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/113354-scotus-decision-ban-on-talk-conversion-therapy-is-unconstitutional/page/2/#comment-1210268870 I wonder how many board discussions follow this pattern as I don’t remember anyone else using drag queens consistently as part of their argumentation.

Great, I will no longer bother to go back and edit my responses if I impulsively respond to you before reading your entire post. I hate doing that for several reasons. In fact I will probably not try to get through a post before responding as it’s much more fun to just respond immediately than try to get the big picture of your posts…and sometimes that is massive. I am not being sarcastic here. It requires significant effort for me not to “interrupt” and go post before reading the whole, but I have tried to do so out of respect for the effort others have put into framing their thoughts because that is what I wish people would do with my posts. But I have been thinking this may not be the way you think about things given how often you don’t seem to have read and everything I wrote before writing your response, even after I have expressed my preference you would. And given others’ remarks, they are experiencing the same thing. I get that people process things differently, so not insisting you have to do this or it means you are disrespecting me. Since you have confirmed now it’s not a biggie for you, it will be nice not to have to worry about this, especially given the length of many of your posts where I may forget the way I wanted to say something before I finish it and it gets complicated to track where I am in your post if I pause to respond to something so I don’t forget. I appreciate you making this easier for me (seriously). There are a few in my family where we interrupt each other all the time midresponse and that just adds to the fun.

That answer still doesn’t address your hyperfocus on drag queens of the sexualized versions**** when the reality is kids are much more likely to be exposed on a daily basis to sexualized portrayals of women and men for that matter. How many music videos have drag queens, sexualized or not, in them vs highly sexual portrayals of women and men? How many magazines have drag queens on the cover, how many books in schools and libraries are about drag queens engaging in sexual behaviour vs the usual heterosexual escapades? How many tv shows and movies? How many billboards? How many dolls? What portion of each kid’s life has them exposed to drag queens at all vs heterosexual sexual portrayals? ***you should add this nuance because you just refer to drag queens often enough it seems the very act of biological males dressing up in glamorous women’s clothing is offensive to you. Glad to see it’s the sexualized version you have an issue with.

“Hypercritical” works too, imo.

But isn’t it about self perception? And kids don’t have the maturity of thought to separate what they do and experience as being somehow separate from who they are. Plenty of adults don’t either. After all, you seem to see being a husband and father is something you are. But isn’t husbandhood really something you experience? Being an American….seems more of an experience than who I am outside of a legal definition…and even there that affects what I experience and not who I am. When I lived in Canada, outside of paying taxes once a year and not being able to vote as opposed to not choosing to vote, being born in America had zip immediate effect on my day to day life. My daughter is a great example as an American and daughter and grand daughter and great granddaughter of American citizens…but she has lived only the first month of her life in the States and the rest up north outside of vacations and 6 months in Russia when she was five. Her lived experience was pretty much identical to her friends who were Canadian citizens. Outside of her legal status, what made her American? She lived in the same kind of houses, ate the same foods, was taught the same lessons, breathed the same air, watched the same shows, etc etc as her Canadian friends. There would be no way she could show anyone around her she was American unless she had a birth certificate. So how was being American part of her being at that time?

The murkiness comes because you suddenly don’t know what is in store for your child in the near or far future in one area that was pretty well laid out in your mind, even the obstacles and setbacks such as singlehood or childlessness, in part because you and your wife took that path yourselves (looking for a companion, likely marriage, likely children). Of course things become emotional. They often do when your kids face uncertainty and likely hurt. That their life may also now include (more of) bullying and discrimination, patronizing, dislike, even hatred sometime because of who they are. It’s not a happy prospect, especially if they are already facing significant struggles. Really? You don’t think those involved aren’t struggling to know what the right thing to do for the baby is? Will the child likely be safe in those parents’ custody? No. Will the child likely get its needs, emotional, physical, and mental…even social, met? Unlikely. So wouldn’t the moral thing to do be removed the child from the custody of the parents and place it in a safe and loving environment? Maybe… What about the parents though? Couldn’t such an act of taking their child away from them hurt them? Maybe even to the point they enter despair and spiral into total self destruction where if they keep the child, that responsibility may help them turn some of their life around and maybe eventually even become mature adults. But the trauma the child will most likely experience during the early years of their life will be a burden that child will have to deal with the rest of their life for the possibility of helping their parents. So is it moral to leave the child with the parents when not only is it guaranteed they will suffer trauma in that unstable and insufficient environment, but there is no guarantee things won’t get worse rather than better with the additional stress of caring for an infant? PS:. I realize now you addressed this almost immediately after the comment I quoted, but I hadn’t bothered reading that before I addressed it and since you often respond in this way, without taking into account clarifications that follow, I figured it wouldn’t bother you to have to read a response questioning something that you had already clarified. If by chance this is frustrating or annoying, then maybe you should reconsider your own approach of making comments and asking questions without taking into account everything someone has said. Honestly, I don’t see how that habit got started with you being a lawyer. If I saw my lawyer taking time to respond to something addressed in the next few lines of a document or conversation, I would at least think they were very inefficient and possibly wonder if they were trying to pad the bill with unnecessary hours. Why? Sincere question here because I have never understood this belief in unearned parental rights when it involves the safety and well being of others. Why should a mother have that right simply because she carried the child when she is demonstrating so little maturity and capability for making sound judgments for her child so far besides being willing to carry the child to term.

Possibly because you have never had to wonder about what people expect of you in this area. On a very basic and simplified level….. It means you don’t need to fear disappointing or angering someone because of your orientation.

To Smac: I’m trying to understand your position more clearly. Is your concern primarily about men wearing women’s clothing (and vice versa), or is it about the style of clothing and behavior being presented? I ask because sometimes it sounds like you view drag as inherently sexual. So to clarify: Would a man dressed as a princess, behaving respectfully and modestly, be acceptable for a children’s storytime in the same way a woman would be? And conversely, would a woman dressed and behaving in a way you consider typical of drag (if you see that as sexualized) also be inappropriate? For more concrete examples: Would you consider it inappropriate for Dolly Parton, who is a drag queen icon, to host a children’s storytime? Would you consider it inappropriate for Dame Edna Everage, who is a drag queen, to do the same?

You never flirted with anyone else when you were single?

Because it’s not something you have to negotiate with others. You know what is expected of you by others and they know what to expect. You don’t have to defend your sexual behaviour because it’s heterosexual and well within cultural norms.

I think most observant Latter-day Saint parents encourage their children to obey the Law of Chastity. I think many/most observant Latter-day Saint parents differentiate between divinely-authorized-and-mandated sexual relations (between husband and wife, for the purposes of procreation and strengthening the relationship between them) and other forms of sexual behavior (fornication, adultery, same-sex behavior, etc.). So to clarify, you just answered cb with an extended “No, they don’t tell their kids they don’t care about about the biological sex of their child’s romantic partners as long as no extramarital sex”….which seems to mean they do care if their child ends up in a same sex marriage. Is that correct and if not where did I miss the part that says LDS parents won’t care about same sex behavior after marriage as long as it’s within the marriage. “If at all” meaning what? They don’t talk about future relationships with their kids or about what the future holds for those with homosexual attractions? Or something else?

Usually framed in my experience as ‘the kid ran away because they refused to live by the parents’ standards’, equating it with using drugs at home, stealing parents’ cash and valuables, getting their siblings into drug or alcohol use.

Wiki claims it was more than just dictionaries and glossaries if I understand it correctly: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Chatterton Another source has him in possession of documents he could use and others he could borrow: https://www.davidcastleton.net/thomas-chatterton-poet-death-suicide-seventeen-forgery-medieval/#:~:text=This began to change when,the church some years earlier. need to resort to chat again to,summarize, sorry, but too impatient to wait for my brain to catch up with my curiosity… I asked it if there were comparable sources in Joseph’s environment for what Carmack and others had found in terms of archaic language Pulling out the bit on Carmack… Since I don’t view Chat as an authority, I am posting this to show where the search would need to be to,show a true parallel situation between Chatterton and Smith. I also noticed in my reading Chatterton’s description in his early and late childhood is dramatically different than Smith’s. Chatterton was recognized as gifted by his mother, was quite the reader (but not of “small books”) and was published by age 11. Joseph…not so much the reader or writer, though he was said by his mother to be a good storyteller (as in presenting material, whether he made it up himself or was presenting information he learned in his visions is what is debated).

Thank you for the suggestion. I might even pass it on back to my dietitian for her to pass on to her clients (she loved my advice on tofu I had picked up on FB…for those interested in a tasty, low calorie protein source but tofu is seen as blah in flavor and texture, I highly recommend this: freezing tofu—the firmer forms work best—changes its texture, dries it out some making the texture is closer to meat when crumbled, also absorbs marinade much better for stronger flavor; boiling in salted water is easier for better absorption of flavors, but I prefer freezing with the more interesting texture as well).

How do you envision avoiding or at least lessening the likelihood of people going off the rails when not getting feedback on their ideas? As in gospel hobbying or assuming their interpretation must be the correct one? The there are those who are too insecure about their learning skills and fear to even start without some face to face engagement.

How does this match up with similar maps?

We had a family of a professor colleague of my husband’s move in with us for several months due to a delay in their home being available. I believe my husband’s only prior direct contact with the husband was during the hiring process. My default position is that people are good, very good actually if I am being honest. I wouldn’t let them move into our home if I wasn’t. Still there is no way in hell I would have accepted financial advice or health advice and bought supplements or some unusual health device from him or even bought a vacuum after several weeks (in fact that would likely be the period I would be the least likely as it would be in the annoy me in every way stage 😛 ). And change my faith? I would need to see how someone operated over a long time, especially under pressure so I could see just how committed to their faith and what they actually taught they truly were. And while initially I might be a bit too willing to go with the group consensus or rather too unwilling to speak out against it being terminally shy in awkward situations (flashing back to my teen years), it would not endure because resentment would quickly build over the sense of pressure and at the very least if anyone asked me I would share my misgivings and belief of being manipulated. I get our culture is very different than theirs, but I am in a very comfortable financial situation where mistakes and trusting the wrong person isn’t likely to destroy me financially. Life was not as secure with safety nets back then, which makes me think they were likely prone to being less trusting. They might not survive trusting the wrong person (many people died because of their trust in Joseph, he deserves to burn in hell if it was a con….which I don’t believe it was). Certainly the criticisms that came out of that era shows gossip, destruction of reputation, and conspiracy thinking back then was deadly like the internet is now even if its was localized and slower to travel. There were immediately challenges to the families that trusted Joseph, they weren’t in some sort of bubble where no conflicting info was presented to them. There would be many reasons for them to reconsider over the years their commitment. David Whitmer showed he was capable of breaking with Joseph, after all. Others as well. Even if some kept their concerns about the Book of Mormon likely being a con quiet for whatever reason, all of them doing so seems highly unlikely given many distanced themselves from the Church and from any reinforcement of the need to stay ‘faithful’. The majority of the Witnesses were out of the Church by the time Joseph died, been excommunicated even. They were already questioning and making decisions to reject his claims, some of them being public about it. Why would all go so far, but stop before getting to the conclusion of fraud when it came to the Book of Mormon?

Going into detail about one potential problem with using AI as well as just throwing out a caution to those using AI for help with exploring and researching health issues like I currently am. The dietitian I went to yesterday for help with fine tuning diet and hydration informed me when I asked her how helpful Chat was cautioned Chat is great up to a point (she had recommended it for finding FODMAP recipes and altering them to match my preferences as well as calculating macros since I am mentally resisting using a food tracking app for some reason) as it tends to focus on one solution and match everything to that rather than reevaluate each time new info comes in. I have noticed a fixation on certain foods I have already told it I don’t eat. I also have noticed that with hydration questions. Almost all my symptoms are now being explained as “that makes sense given your sensitivity to…”. Apparently how likely Chat is going to do this varies with disorders. She says her heart drops when someone says they have been using Chat to deal with their kidney disease because its tendency to stay focused on the wrong things is actually dangerous. With my variety of issues it’s a mixed bag, but potentially dangerous because there is so little actually known about fibromyalgia. I have been surprised that fibromyalgia is now hardly ever included in its appraisal of how something is going to affect me. Normally I ask it for academic sources for anything it claims and then actually read them. I have found that a lot of its “academic” sources are not and that many articles do not support claims, so I was already cautious. Even so, we had to spend sometime correcting some mistaken ideas I had picked up from assuming Chat was at least in the ballpark….which was the purpose of the visit so very glad I gritted my teeth and went, especially because I haven’t been able to double check with deep dives lately because of ridiculously low energy levels…and the dietitian is pretty sure that’s on my fibromyalgia and not hydration levels unlike Chat, lol Bottom line…if you have kidney disease go to your doctor and dietitian to manage the disease, not Chat Not quite bottom line….relying on AI to evaluate when lacking expertise enough oneself to accurately judge that evaluation isn’t the best idea when bias and tendency to focus when it shouldn’t appears to be built in. AI is great for saving time. Using it to control for bias….that is problematic in my view. I get that better models are more effective, but if I understand correctly from discussions with my programmer son, it’s pretty baked in at this point. I would love to be corrected (correctly of course) on this, but the experts I do know that I have talked to about this are always preaching major caution over bias.

Jacob Bryant was from the 1700s, correct? If so, he lacked many of the tools they now used to examine texts. I am more interested in a modern appraisal of consistency, etc. The “its” applies to the archaic language, not the Book of Mormon, meaning was the EModE used as a person who spoke and wrote EModE as their own language would most likely use it. Chatterton’s work is very impressive, but is it a close enough parallel to be used to show if Joseph was equally precious, Chatterton’s method could explain what Joseph did? Did Joseph have access to such texts as he would need to find authentic examples? Was his works much the same patchwork that I have read Chatterton’s work was or is there more consistency in its structure and use of the archaic language? I am sure there are other aspects of the works that should be compared that champatsch and Ryan likely can come up with and hopefully can provide evaluations on.

Have you looked at Brant Gardner’s view of what was going on? I actually haven’t been able to read it, but he talked about his ideas on this board some iirc. His book was published in 2012, I think. Was wondering how much info at the time was available onEModE, etc in the text and if Brant interacted with it, what your response is. https://gregkofford.com/products/the-gift-and-power I haven’t kept up on his work since he hasn’t posted much on the board.

An interesting case. Chat said he had access to authentic records through his local church as well as the charity school he went to. But do the parallels survive the closest examination? Was his pseudo archaic language used consistently correctly? As I understand the claims for the Book of Mormon, the archaic language that is present is used correctly for its alleged time period. Were there these types of archaic documents available to Joseph? (Sincerely don’t know, makes sense for an old church in England to have documents from centuries before, less likely in the area Joseph was in, but still possible I am guessing).

I was thinking about changing teachers as a possibility (wasn’t sure how it could work), but how much interaction happens between YM and YW at church in other ways? Serious question as haven’t been involved in these activities for 20 years.

I don’t understand why you believe revealed thoughts can’t involve words. At least that is what I think you are saying here since names are words.

I love usage discussions, so will happily go down this rabbit hole with you. You are correct “someone else” is singular. I was thinking both of individuals, including God and a group of individuals…singular in purpose, multiple individuals involved. I often view God in the same way, as in the God I am referring to might be the Father or might be the Godhead, or might be the Council, or might be the Father and Mother, the Father and Son, or another divine community formed around the Father and Mother. I should have been clearer and stated “someone else or multiple someones “ This is actually what I think of ever since I first heard about EModE in the text. Dan Peterson as a FAIR conference iirc, it was yearsssss ago so may have been someone else (singular for sure here ). Given the range of time the various words were in use, it seems logical to me it was a collective effort of individuals from different centuries, whether together or building on each other; otherwise why bother with the variety? I get the idea of trying to make it sound like scripture by using archaic wording, but it seems awkward and all over the place. That’s committee work. 😛

The very name—converting a person from one thing to another—is wrong, imo.