Calm

I was thinking of restricting access to nonmembers or members without recommends; this is instead more like protestors at conference not sticking to the designated areas, being too aggressive, etc

Does this affect restricted religious sites like temples? I am not sure I understand you.

It is not a bad thing to experience some of the bad that others in the world do. It can motivate us to care and try and change things for the better. Not saying the Church shouldn’t reasonably care for those under its stewardship, but missionaries are not the only ones who are. When my son went out in 2001, it was said to be safer for young men to be on a mission than at home generally speaking, but I wonder if that stat applied to LDS youth who were less likely to drive drunk or be involved with drugs.

I don’t know if I picked up on many of them, but it was definitely visually interesting as well as a fun watch overall. Could have skipped a few overly done things by the villain (felt a bit lazy actually), but understand why they did it that way at least in part, bringing the main character to his limits. The groups involved have always felt stereotyped to me iirc….though that may be more a result of memory than reality since it’s been awhile; this one seemed even more than I remember the others being. Probably should go back and rewatch to compare and contrast as I like to do.

I just learned three of our friends who stop attending (I know two didn’t resign, don’t know if the third did, but think it unlikely) not long after we left Canada are attending again. (Left in 40s, back in their 60s)

I have wondered why this is so if this means we can’t do good unless the Spirit is first there helping us instead of doing good draws the Spirit to us. (Most people seem to interpret the scriptures as meaning the first in my experience, we can’t even think good thoughts unless the Spirit pushes us that direction.)

Given the level of vetting I have heard the Church doing for long term partnership, it wouldn’t surprise me if it partnered with such organizations if this was the only access to very high need areas. I also wouldn’t be surprised if there were areas of the world where the only large organizations functioning able to get supplies to the people were these. I think the Church’s humanitarian efforts would test the waters, be sure that such supplies were delivered and not sold for cash, which does happen at times with charitable donations. I am aware of LDS members run charity organizations who didn’t have the ability to vet as well as the Church does and who got tangled up with corruption in Russia when they worked with small charities like orphanages (in one case, the man in charge of the orphanage took donated clothes and toys meant for the children and sold them and pocketed the cash). That was 30 years ago, so hopefully with the Internet allowing for some checking, it happens less, but it can’t be that hard to change a name, location and start the scam again unfortunately. There may be gratitude from the people which receive these donations to the extremist groups (I am speaking generally if there is ever a case the Church does work with the humanitarian arm of such a group, not saying the claims here are accurate) if they connect the political side with the humanitarian side. I don’t believe we should let people who did not choose to be put in dire circumstances die because they may be grateful and therefore more aligned emotionally with alleged or even real terrorism groups.

Seeing a lot more activity today, so am guessing we weren’t the only ones frustrated. Thanks again, Nemesis. And thanks Rain for bringing it up. I was trying to pretend I was stoic and waiting for it to load didn’t bother me, but now it’s back up to speed, that was a lot more frustrating than I realized, lol

The board has been working great today for me. I assume you did something, so thank you!

That is the one for me. Much prefer it to the spam, so didn’t report it.

Remember I am solely talking about purely cosmetic procedures and solely top surgery for gender affirming surgery, so when you go to necrotizing tissue removal you are no longer talking about what I am talking about, so to say you disagree based on something that is outside the limits doesn’t make sense to me. I am trying to comprehend what the fundamental differences are for you between cosmetic surgery for gender affirming when it’s for support of one’s biological sex and for when it’s not supporting biological sex. I am narrowing it to this limited, very similar in medical, physical impact so I can focus on what is seen as different…similar to how in an experiment all variable are openly the same because then when one changes just one variable and the results shift, you can confidently focus on the variable as what caused the effect and then start looking at why. Few things in life outside the lab allow for such precise examinations and greater context is important, but sometimes too many things getting examined at once confuses the picture for me, so that is why when I want to get to the core, I try to limit the number of different variables.

Would make sense to see similarities in the Book of Mormon as the Bible if both are inspired by the being (God) and both are from similar time periods with even location overlapping in the beginning, so shared roots.

Is this just a thought experiment like randomly adding words that mean the opposite or do you see it as possibly adding insight? I am not comprehending why you are asking this (not saying the question is meaningless or not worth our time, just not understanding the purpose behind it).

English, being English, meaning ambiguous, I think there is an alternative reading and that is we must be saved before we can do anything at all (I assume that would get interpreted as before anything good or of value to God) It isn’t a reading I would be fond of and I don’t see a need to alter it to “before” as it does not seem to me to clarify, but changes context…no matter how it gets interpreted. “After” is not the same thing as “before”, after all.

I now understand how he was using heavenly banner, which is why I asked.

You are not saying that this is the American flag, correct? It is just the “Constitutional Republic” preceding it makes that connection possible, but I am assuming and want to be sure I am understanding you correctly that you don’t equate the Kingdom of God (which the Heavenly Banner would most likely stand for) with the “Constitutional Republic”.

But Christ was baptized himself, so he doesn’t need someone to be baptized for him. With English allowing for multiple usages of “for”, could you be more explicit on what you mean here so I can be sure I understand you rather than having to guess, please?

Are you sure you want to put their motivation that way? Last organization standing? As if there’s a competition going?

You didn’t look at the stats I linked to? It’s more prevalent than gender affirming surgeries. We are in general agreement here if it’s significant tissue amount for the boy and not just mostly a weight issue. I would also want both to be encouraged to undergo therapy because there would be emotional needs that aren’t being met if they are willing to get cut to improve appearance in their view and chances are the surgery won’t get rid of them even if it corrects a current obsession. I have a close relative who was anorexic and is still so obsessed with weight she has to limit food she has in her home, this impacts her health to some extent because her diet isn’t as varied as it should be as she has a limited income (she probably still eats better than most people as we were taught good nutrition by Mom). I have several other relatives with body image issues that have weighed on them all their lives. I have three things that occupy too much space in my head, including having a skull on the large side (my youngest brother has photos where he looks like a bobble head doll, my dad was tall and could carry it, I am 9 inches shorter than he was and proportionately having his size of head throws things off…besides being only able to wear extra large men’s hats). Would have been great if this had been addressed in our youth. But none of us were tempted to go so far as surgery, so I suspect issues run deeper at that point for those who turn to surgery even if surgery itself is much more commonplace. Hope I am wrong, but seen so many lives burdened over what were unnecessary body worries, even shame.

I would have preferred he wait till he was an adult unless there were other issues involved such as a deviated septum. No one should feel the need to cut themselves imo to make oneself closer to the norm/ideal. I would prefer therapy to help teens to learn to accept themselves rather than surgery. I think in the long run that is much more helpful as there will always be something that doesn’t measure up. If something creates physical impediments such as a cleft palate, then it makes sense to operate when young…and the parent and doctor should be closely supervising to ensure correct care and caution is being used by the youth. It is not a time to see how independent a kid can be, imo. I am getting interrupted a lot, so rereading and deciding to respond where I didn’t before, so things may be out of order. The claim that one is primarily concerned with the medical, physical consequences of the surgeries I am discussing and not using what they see as moral, religious, or emotional judgment in promoting laws be made to restrict surgeries as a treatment for certain disorders. For minors as well? Because I am only discussing minors when it comes to law making.

Cutting off healthy breast tissue whether that’s too look skinnier or too look more manly whatever the biological sex. No, addressing only surgery right now, so that would be biological males who use breast implants to appear more feminine in their own eyes.

Being closer to match one’s preferred appearance. Again, I am focusing on basic cosmetic surgeries.

Look at my comments as only dealing with procedures that have the same medical outcomes for essentially the same purpose…making one look more like the sex one wants to appear as, at least culturally speaking as I don’t believe bigger breasts make a woman look more feminine nor do I believe bigger muscles make a guy look more masculine, but that is the way our culture has been presenting sexual appearance for quite some time. I am not talking about reconstructive cosmetic surgeries nor am I addressing in my last couple of posts genital gender affirming surgeries as I am not aware of comparable cosmetic surgeries (there are cosemetic surgeries that involve these areas, but I don’t believe they are as extensive in impact, but haven’t studied them either, so guessing here). I am comparing purely cosmetic breast reduction done to gender affirming breast reduction and cosmetic breast augmentation (not reconstructive such as after a mastectomy) to gender affirming breast augmentation and might use other examples if I think of them that have similar issues. Unfortunately the desire to get nose jobs, breast implants, liposuction, etc has risen among teens. There are likely many more such purely cosmetic procedures done for teens than gender affirming ones. (Messed up formating, link is below this quote) https://premingermd.com/blog/the-social-media-effect-understanding-the-rise-of-teen-plastic-surgery-in-the-digital-age/#:~:text=The intersection of social media,not just aspirational but expected. https://www.plasticsurgery.org/news/briefing-papers/briefing-paper-plastic-surgery-for-teenagers (this goes with the quote) When done to reduce actual physical discomfort, such as overly large breasts, or bullying, such as removing birthmarks or scars or ear pinning, I don’t have an issue with it. If it’s to make oneself closer to the ideal social image, I do for medical and psychological reasons. I would love to see regret rate for purely cosmetic procedures like breast augmentation for biological females broken out for teens vs adults. I suspect it’s higher for those who had surgery as teens, but can’t be sure. Many cosmetic procedures for teens have no underlying physical pathology. Based on this reasoning, should breast augmentation for female teens and breast reduction for male teens when breasts are not large enough to affect the back, etc be discouraged or banned in your view? If this is the primary reason for the push for legal restrictions, can you find a comparable response pushing for bans for purely cosmetic surgery for teens given its rise most likely due to social media along with the rates of dissatisfaction in general for such procedures? I think the evidence for adults that purely cosmetic procedures like augmentation have long lasting positive effects generally speaking is on the weaker side, so I am assuming evidence is even weaker for teens. Why this should be a major concern to the public and lawmakers is that are a lot more boys and girls becoming ashamed or dissatisfied with their appearance because of social media than there are those becoming desirous of transitioning, so potentially there are much greater numbers to be harmed. Not saying this diminishes the need to push for bans on teen gender affirming surgeries (I still would prefer it not to be totally excluded legally as a possibility at this point given the uncertain science, but I would like to see extremely thorough requirements created by the medical oversight boards to ensure such surgeries are of the true very last resort after trying others over a significant amount of time and I would like to see comparable treatment for purely cosmetic surgeries with the same level of physical impact). I would also love to see something done about the culture that pushes teens to think they have to look like 20+ year olds to be attractive, but that ain’t going to happen. I most definitely agree.

Rereading your comment, I think I understand now where you are going with this, repeating the same category error as before. Since I was specifically referring to procedures with similar medical outcomes and not different and not lumping all/any random gender affirming surgeries into my comparison with purely cosmetic surgeries, your comment is a non sequiter to mine.

I don’t understand your criticism. What reproductive function is lost by inserting saline or silicone implants? Most women can still nurse even because they are careful not to damage the mammary glands and ducts.