Calm

Do you mean a leadership calling because LDS interpret being missionaries as a calling and I don’t see why it couldn’t have been the same initially, as in before being sent out they were ordained to the work?

If apostles were primarily defined as “special witnesses of Christ” “sent out” from the Church to witness of Christ, I think it would be relatively easy to appoint women as apostles while reserving (assuming no revelation had come to give priesthood office to women at the same time as naming them apostles was revealed since I don’t see a change with the label except through revelation) membership in the 12 for men ordained to the Priesthood.

Definitely the second. There will be those who end up in the Telestial Kingdom imo. But I also believe there is progression between the kingdoms if anyone over time has a softening or opening of their heart and want to embrace Christ and his grace and God’s love more. (While it seems from the way some leaders talk they believe there is no progression, I am pretty sure the Church does not have a position on it; there have been leaders who said they believe there is.) Not sure what you mean by the first unless you mean they accepted the baptism, but did not work further on accepting the Gospel and the Atonement. Generally it’s talked about as accepting baptism as hand and hand with accepting enough of the Gospel and Christ’s atonement to join the community in paradise, so I am not sure there would be a case such as you describe where they accept baptism but have no desire to enter paradise. Paradise is not viewed as the ultimate destination, but more of a waiting/learning and serving place till judgment and one’s resurrection. Personally I have thought of accepting the proxy baptism as received after accepting the Gospel and therefore being worthy of paradise even if perhaps they don’t press on to fully accept Christ’s Atonement and all the blessings God offers them culminating in exaltation during the period where they are in paradise and learning more of the meaning of the endowment and other ordinances (as Joseph said it would be a long time before we comprehended such things, see quote in my signature).

I forgot I wanted to respond to this earlier. More like baptism and ordinances are like a learner’s permit, a necessary but not sufficient requirement to first learning how to drive and then there comes the part of actually choosing to get in the car and go somewhere (though for some it’s probably retroactive since the choice and journey have occurred to a great extent already)

I suspect if you had experienced this, that is not the metaphor you would choose, lol.

I think it’s better than giving the impression we believe they are infallible. Look at what’s that has done to our own community. I am not making any judgement about the will of God except perhaps he is willing to let us stumble at times while finding surer footing on the way.

Yes. I was concerned you might just be pointing members to the CES letter because you felt in one area it was useful, but that opens up the whole letter as a source to them. Seems unlikely someone would stop with just one. Your approach with the letter is good. I have found it useful to find out what criticisms are out there, but it would always be the beginning of research for me as I know enough about it (including that he changed his story from how he presented it in the beginning to make it appear like sincere questioning rather than a critical challenge, I don’t know if you can still find the conversations of him crowdsourcing finding issues on reddit or not) not to trust it. I would never suggest it to a person unless I knew they were a decent researcher and wouldn’t be satisfied without doublechecking the sources etc.

Explain the difference please.

For what reason would you hand it out if any and how if there is one?

Not a trick question. Something you said made me wonder how you applied your standard (iirc one prophet in error was one thing, more than one was another, I see the Ban as more than one prophet being in error, but because later ones followed the first who made the mistake). I thoroughly believe the Declaration removing the Ban was revelation. Now we have documented evidence of how Brigham Young approached limitations of priesthood and lack evidence that Joseph instituted it except from a man (Coltrin) who most likely lied about the details, the timing and place of announcement, what was going on that likely impacted it, Brigham’s actual language, as well as the numerous debates of leadership about it that went on for decades, I see the Ban itself as something thought to be in accord with revelation as in not contradictory, but not revelation itself and then because details of the origin of it got lost, was assumed to be revelation.

My opinion is it doesn’t even if I can make suggestions of how it could if you ignored implications

I very much agree.

There are a few things I think my husband is an idiot about (he is a psychologist, but he thinks labeling different ways of thinking as inappropriate rather than helpful in exploring the inner process…granted his degree is in organizational psych and he worked in the business school, but he had the same basic psych classes as I did even if he avoided the clinical ones I immersed myself in). He is also brilliant in other areas, so I don’t see an occasional idiocy as a dealbreaker even if it causes major frustration at times.

Indeed. Any deceased woman can be sealed to multiple men. Iirc the explanation that only one sealing is actually meaningful (she will be making a choice of only one after death) has been removed, but it seems most members still understand it that way. Since the explanation these members typically give justifying multiple spouses for men is it is wrong to make them choose among all they love, it makes sense to me if that is the logic, it must equally apply to women as well…unless we also believe that a man’s love is more important or meaningful than a woman’s and I suspect everyone would think that nonsense (at least I would hope everyone in the Church believes that; I have seen some men say things about women online where it makes it obvious that women’s experiences are pretty meaningless to them, so no doubt there are those who do see women’s love as trivial unless it’s about them). There are also confirmed reports that living widows have been allowed to be sealed to multiple men (a deceased husband and a living husband). I have a friend who as a bishop sent in a request for this to happen and it was approved, but to know you can do this seems to be a word is a word of mouth thing. The option needs to be put into the handbook if it is truly okay. If it isn’t okay, then why would they be allowing it? I think making the sealing protocol the same for men and women would clean up a lot of mess, multiple sealings allowed as long as only one of the sealings is to a living spouse or multiple sealings allowed for everyone.

But how the next life is taught in the here and now must always use the language of the here and now and that’s likely going to involve some false assumptions. The language has in the past was often seen ime as implying that a woman would not have a direct relationship with God, but through her husband (she listens to him, he listens to God)…which seems to me like it removes women from the immediate family of God (like always being considered in-laws rather than children and siblings).

I agree.

Even if they were mostly right in other ways? (Not insisting one has to accept that they were even if that’s my belief). Especially in cases the major error likely wasn’t independent, the later prophets most likely assume the first one’s interpretation was correct.

Do you accept the Priesthood Ban as revelation?

It might have been my professor’s idea of respect, viewing it similar to sightseeing or distracting from the real work.

I had some time to pass just now while waiting, so I read her periodic table rant. She must have had a bad experience in chemistry class somehow. And with doctors. She is a registered nurse so I assume her chemistry class taught the same things as mine so I really don’t understand why she is making the false generalization about the what and why of the table. Everything gets seen through her conspiracy filter though, so while some stuff is sort of right, it gets used in the wrong way. And a lot of stuff is wrong. Right, because uranium and plutonium have their own shelf of medicines and supplements in every pharmacy and health food store I have been in… Arsenic used to be used in cosmetics and ‘medicines’, but isn’t now and the reason for that is chemists doing basic chemistry. It being next to phosphorus on the periodic table is a hint to why it can be so dangerous (arsenates can replace phosphates where they shouldn’t). The periodic table is very useful in explaining why things happen in nature, not only in the lab. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21719071/#:~:text=Abstract,in many orders of magnitude. Chemists figured out the toxicity issue with lead paint and lead in gasoline.

Some aspects can be altered, hair can be colored and straightened or curled, skin can be lightened, patterns of speech can be altered, contacts can be worn, cosmetic surgery can change eye shape, etc. Passing as white has been possible for many. And since race is more social perception than biological fact, attitudes changing can change race as well. The Irish didn’t used to be thought of as white, they were basically black savages at heart. https://medium.com/@fazer4541/the-irish-had-to-ask-to-be-white-602c78696545 https://history.howstuffworks.com/historical-events/when-irish-immigrants-werent-considered-white.htm https://sites.pitt.edu/~hirtle/uujec/white.html

Yeah, I seem to be in that full on mode today, be grateful I cut a massive amount out, lol…added: not that anyone has to read it, but even if they don’t, it takes up an embarrassingly amount of space. I need to learn how to feel okay to explain my POV without also explaining how I got there…

I was listening to Scripture Central and Come Follow Up BYUTV podcasts on Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel, Hosea from 2022 a few days ago (Amos, Obadiah, and Jonah I am a bit stuck on, may have overdone it on videos) and they mention the symbolism in Ezekiel maybe, might be Jeremiah, that indicated God was leaving the temple (because of it being defiled, etc), but also taking up residence in Babylon with the exiles. They were still his people in God’s heart and he their God even if they refused to be in their own and he was there for them wherever that there was. Also the emphasis on the names in the scriptures and when names are changed, it is a sign of a relationship changing (in the scriptures typically between God and man)….that was in the one on Hosea where his children are named pretty awful names at first …or maybe it was in the Come Follow Up Footnotes for that book. They are kind of blurring right now. Lo-Ruhamah…Ruhamah means mercy, but Lo being added means the opposite, so the name means no mercy. Israel will have no mercy because they have completely rejected God. And therefore Lo-ammi means not my people. Since Israel rejected God, refused to be his people, he cannot be their God. But then the next chapter, Hosea drops the Lo for both. And the names indicate a very different relationship with God. With the additional info of this and other symbolic language, the books become a lot more loving and hopeful in my opinion. So seeing what was the message for the ancients at that time can definitely inform our understanding. It was just the way it was phrased, I read it as knowing the message for them was where it stopped because it would be an identical message for us and I don’t think it is that case every time.

Iirc, you aren’t supposed to look up names out of curiosity, only your own lines and possibles, but that maybe just from my professor’s POV in my genealogy class (yes, I am old enough it was called genealogy, I still sing in odd moments “genealogy, I am doing it, my genealogy, and the reasons I am doing it are very clear to me….”, but that is as far as I get). I am not even sure that was official policy back then. Also exceptions for if you are a paid genealogist or helping someone else do their work….though do they allow professionals to track temple work if a member is asking them to do it for them or just volunteers? I ask because my grandmother paid for someone to do her husband’s line…probably now I think about it because she didn’t like his parents much (the dad for good reason as he was very cold to Grandpa who was a decent guy, very loving and overly indulgent to his brother) and my mother’s family had a professional take over when the line took off for Scandinavia, so I grew up thinking lots of people did that.

We use the word primarily because of Peter (1 Peter 3:19) “By which also he went and preached unto the spirits in prison” There is also the sense of restriction because of inability of being able to do things (righteous desires) because of needing ordinance work, but I have my doubts even if that is current doctrine (which Imam not sure as the scripture isn’t jumping to mind and I have to go decorate a Christmas tree)