Analytics

I finished watching American Primeval last night, and this morning I listened to a two-hour Mormon Stories podcast featuring Barbara Jones Brown (Turley's co-author of Vengeance Is Mine: The Mountain Meadows Massacre and Its Aftermath published by Oxford University Press) and Darren Parry, an expert on Shoshone history. Here are my thoughts on the show: The show is not about a comprehensive, nuanced view of Brigham Young and the Latter-day Saints. Rather, the show is about what happens when you take otherwise civilized people with different cultures and allegiances, put them outside the edges of civilization, and see what those circumstances reveal about human nature. The main storyline is about how a civilized lady from Pennsylvania slowly learns that her civilized sensibilities just don't work in the wild west. The show takes real people and real events and liberally rearranges them in time and place so that a fictional story about human nature holds together. However there were many, many details of this that were meticulously accurate; for example, the vast majority of how the Shoshones were portrayed was spot-on: everything from their dress, villages, language, and tribal governance were all precisely accurate. There were a few details that weren't accurate (e.g. the Shoshones weren't into scalping as the movie implies, they weren't interested in kidnapping white women, the Nauvoo Legion at this time didn't have uniforms, they didn't wear potato sacks on their heads in the MMM, the real Fort Bridger was smaller than the fictional Fort Bridger). Nevertheless, a lot of the minute details used to create the overall ambiance was exactly correct. And like I said, the time and place of the historical events are severely scrambled. In terms of how fairly various groups were portrayed, they may have been a little too negative in how they portrayed the natives, and they definitely made the army soldiers appear more virtuous than they really were. But regarding the Mormons and mountain men, I think that in aggregate they hit the right overall tone for that place and time. One of the main plots of the movie was that a handful of the MMM victims escaped, and thus the perpetrators needed to hunt them down and kill them in follow-up battles so that there wouldn't be any witnesses to the fact that the MMM was executed by Mormons and not by natives. In the movie, Brigham Young is accurately depicted as not having ordered the original massacre and being lied to about who did it. He is then depicted as only reluctantly condoning the surviving witnesses being taken care of (this isn't historically accurate, but it doesn't seem out of character, either). But what actually happened was much more violent, horrific, and sinister than what was portrayed in the film--in the film it took them a handful of battles to kill all the witnesses; in reality, they efficiently killed all of them at once. When you look at the complete, actual history, which includes Brigham Young's violent and provocative rhetoric that led to the massacre, his strategy of helping the Paiutes steel cattle from non-Mormon pioneers, their other tactics in the Utah War, and the Mormon direct and indirect involvement in not only the MMM but also the Bear River Massacre, the Circleville massacre, the Provo River massacre, and perhaps most damningly, Brigham Young's extermination order against the Timpanogos People in Utah Valley (i.e. Brigham Young ordered that the Timpanogos had to leave their native lands of Utah Valley or literally face extermination by the Mormons), and its easy to imagine a 100% accurate movie that would have portrayed Brigham Young and his people as being much more vile than how they were portrayed in American Primeval. Of course this is just the darkest chapter of Mormonism's history and isn't at all representative of other chapters, but it is still something that happened. A relevant insight into human nature is that both individually and as groups, we tend to judge ourselves by our intentions and to judge others by their actions. That's just something to keep in mind when thinking about these things. That all is my personal take, but it is informed by and generally in harmony with the view of Barbara Jones Brown:

I don't know what members believe these days, apart from what I read on this forum. That said, I think you nailed it for a lot of people. The stories of the creation and the fall are just ancient myths and their value is in whatever beauty and meaning they bring us. But here's the rub: if the creation and the fall are meant to be interpreted metaphorically, does that mean the atonement and the resurrection are intended to be taken metaphorically, too? According to 2 Nephi 9, these events are all interconnected. And what about spirits? Is that metaphorical too?

An article written by BYU biologist Dr. Steven Peck and published by the Interpreter Foundation says "that our bodies are descended from apes is scientifically beyond dispute" (see here, p. 354). This is in fact true. In addition to the three people you cited and Dr. Peck, there must be at least tens of thousands of other Latter-day Saints that understand this scientific fact about reality. Simultaneously, the Church has doctrines about things like the creation, the fall, the resurrection, the nature of resurrected bodies, and the nature and provenance of spirits. It is not clear to me what these doctrines are claiming, if they are intended to be believed in a literal manner, if what the scriptures, prophets, and apostles say about them is doctrine or merely the (false) opinion of man, what is official doctrine that must be believed or what is optional, and how the official doctrine should be interpreted. I honestly don't have answers to those things--Church authorities will say certain words in certain contexts, and what they say tends to change over time. But the nuanced details of what people go home actually believing is a different story. So while it's great that many Latter-day Saints are scientifically literate about evolution, that doesn't mean any of them have congruent beliefs that square scientific truth with religious truth claims. What I suspect they do is compartmentalize, put issues on the shelf, live in a state of cognitive dissonance, or quietly disregard core doctrines on these core issues. Dr. Peck's paper focuses on explaining to a naive audience how we know that evolution by natural selection is true, and that "intelligent design" is false. He concludes by saying: "Keep in mind that a firm evolutionary consensus has been increasingly established over many decades using evidence across a wide variety of scientific disciplines. We have to deal with it. We may need to adjust how we think about creation. However, in my view, evolution does not negate by one iota the idea of a purposeful universe that was organized by a loving, intelligent God. Nor does it play havoc with any other of our cherished religious doctrines. Indeed, a vigorous commitment to scientific investigation of evolution--as well as every other aspect of the natural universe--is enjoined specifically in our belief that "truth is knowledge of things as they are, as they were, and as they are to come" (D&C 93:24)." The sentence I bolded is what I take issue with. While I agree that embracing evolution is consistent with D&C 93:24, I have no idea how it could be consistent with the doctrines of the Creation, the Fall, the Resurrection, and spirit bodies. While I personally like Dr. Peck and am thankful that he speaks clearly about the scientific reality of Evolution, his claim that this scientific reality doesn't "play havoc with any other of our cherished religious doctrines" rings hollow--it sounds like using a Jedi mind trick. The overall message is, "Stop embarrassing yourselves by aligning yourself with the 'Intelligent Design' crowd. Evolution is true and accept it because we embrace all truth. That's wonderful and there are no contradictions between that and our doctrine. I swear. There is nothing to see here. Don't worry about it. Move along, move along." The reason I quoted Harari is that despite being the opposite of Carmack regarding believing in the supernatural, they both agree that "one must either reject theism or organic evolution," and they believe that for the same reasons.

Yuval Noah Harari, a history professor at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and an avowed atheist, agrees with something tangent to this: he argues that it is impossible to reconcile the concept of humans having a "soul" (i.e. spirit) with the theory of evolution. The theory of evolution asserts that like all life, humans evolved in tiny, imperceptible increments. In contrast, various theories of souls all claim that souls don't change and can't change (i.e. they are "rigid, exclusive, and theologically meaningful"). Thus, the two theories aren't compatible. According to evolution, there was never a clear line where Homo erectus parents gave birth to the first Homo sapien child. The dividing line is very blurry and tens-of-thousands of years wide. So did God come down and arbitrarily say this child is Homo sapien and gets priesthood, eternal blessings, etc., while his parents are mere animals? How and where could God possibly draw such a line? Quoting Harari:

From my perspective, virtually all foods and drinks have both benefits and risks. For example, orange juice provides valuable nutrients like vitamin C and potassium, supporting immune and heart health. At the same time, its high sugar content and lack of fiber can lead to blood sugar spikes, especially when consumed in excess. The key is moderation. For one person, a small glass of OJ can be a healthy addition to their diet, while for another, frequent overconsumption could contribute to metabolic issues. This balance between benefits and risks applies to virtually everything we consume. Even something as essential as water demonstrates the importance of moderation; do you remember that story of the mother in Springville who unwittingly killed her 4-year old child by making her drink too much water? This underscores the universal truth: everything is harmful in excess. The same principle applies to alcohol—it’s neither entirely good nor bad, but its impact depends on how, by whom, and how much, it is consumed.

In this report, "never consuming" means people who have never ever used alcohol, not those who stopped drinking. Some of the underlying studies control for diet, but not all of them. The studies controlled for factors like age, sex, smoking, physical activity, and sometimes diet. This means they adjusted their analysis to account for these variables, aiming to isolate the specific effect of alcohol on health outcomes. This study didn't look at this. The wine-has-health-benefits-other-alcohol-does-not hypothesis has been studied in the past, and as I recall, all alcohol lowers mortality, not just wine. Not specifically in these studies. On page 44, it goes into some pretty technical detail about how alcohol can be beneficial entitled "Biological Plausibility." That section is very technical, but as far as I can tell, what it says, with several references to recent papers, is that moderate alcohol consumption might lower mortality rates through several mechanisms. Biologically, it can increase levels of "good" HDL cholesterol, reduce blood clot formation, and improve blood vessel function, all of which support heart health. These effects may help explain the lower risk of heart disease observed in moderate drinkers. Beyond biology, there are potential social benefits: moderate drinking often happens in social settings, fostering stronger social connections and reducing stress, both of which are linked to better overall health and longevity. However, the report emphasizes that these benefits are specific to moderate drinking and don't extend to heavy or binge drinking, which have clear harmful effects.

I know that is a hypothesis that has gone around for a while, and I recall reading (perhaps 10 years ago) about a study that debunked it. Regarding this paper, I skimmed through this section, and it seems this isn't the issue. The comparison they are looking at is people who never drank to those who drink moderately. I don't know exactly how they categorize somebody who had been a drinker and then stopped once they became mortally sick, but I'm confident they aren't categorized as a "never drinker." It's worth pointing out that this study is done based upon research that was published between 2019 and 2024, and these results are consistent with the results from the research 5 years earlier, and 5 years before that, and 5 years before that, and 5 years before that. This consistency of seeing the same results across time is one of the reasons they say they are "moderately certain" about this result.

Yet the fact remains that we know with moderate certainty that compared with never consuming alcohol, moderate alcohol consumption is associated with lower all-cause mortality. If alcohol is as toxic as you imply, why do moderate drinkers outlive teetotalers?

To add some context to this, in 2023 Congress asked the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine to undertake an independent review of all of the research that relates to the relationship between alcohol and health. They wanted to do this because alcohol consumption is discussed in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans, which is the primary source of dietary guidance used by the Federal Government. After about 18 months of study by a large team of superlatively qualified medical researchers, their report, Review of Evidence on Alcohol and Health (2025), came out on December 17, 2024, just two weeks before the surgeon general said alcohol should have a warning label like tobacco's. The Consensus Study Report has many findings, including many research gaps. But the biggest finding is that, "the report concludes with moderate certainty that compared with never consuming alcohol, moderate alcohol consumption is associated with lower all-cause mortality. All-cause mortality refers to the total number of deaths in a population due to any cause." This suggests that for people who consume it moderately, the benefits of alcohol can outweigh the risks.

Is relying on inspiration better than attending theological seminary? I suppose the answer depends upon how you measure success. In terms of growth and vitality, the Church might be doing okay compared to many traditional protestant sects, but many evangelical "non denominational" churches, charismatic churches, Pentecostal churches, and mega churches are doing better than the Mormons, to say nothing of the rise of the nones. Regardless, is that the point? It turns out that my most formative years coincided with the years when the apostles and prophets were most dogmatic about young-earth creationism. I was taught that the purpose of prophets and apostles was to tell us the truth about important things. According to Ezra Taft Benson: If one takes President Benson's approach, it becomes crystal clear that there was no death, neither physical nor spiritual, before the Fall. If the Book of Mormon is right on this point, then organic evolution by natural selection is relegated to the bin of "current false theories and philosophies of men." Do you think people like Joseph Fielding Smith, Bruce R. McConkie, and Ezra Taft Benson were under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit when they taught their interpretation of the Three Pillars of Eternity and the importance of accepting their interpretation as true doctrine? Do you think they were right when they classified such things as "doctrines required for our salvation"? Does it matter?

Does the Church teach that the Brethren can’t be relied on to correctly interpret the scriptures because they aren’t biblical scholars and have no training whatsoever in that field?

I agree. It’s ironic that it is against board rules to comment on the posters who spread malicious disinformation, but apparently, they are free to use this board to slander strangers.

So your efforts to explore limiting principles consists of ignoring posts made in good faith that talk about limiting principles, searching the world for an anecdote that supports your fear mongering, finding a story that took place in another country over a year ago, misrepresenting that story, and then using this misrepresentation to support your need to believe there are no "limiting principles." If you wanted to make a good-faith effort to understand these limiting principles, you'd note the following: RHAC acted appropriately in hosting the competition according to Swimming Canada and Swim Ontario policies and procedures, including the Swimming Canada National Registration Procedures and Rules Manual and The Swimming Rules of Swimming Canada” that ensure “all athletes were registered correctly and eligible to participate accordingly” in an “open competition” with athletes seeded by entry time, regardless of age” with “instances of adults swimming in the same heat as minor swimmers, again within the swimming rules permitted in this competition.” So if you really have a problem with Swim Canada and Swim Ontario's policies and procedures, you'd do a little bit of research to find out what they are. This would lead you to Swim Ontario's statement on inclusion and gender diversity in swimming, which is based on the IOC Framework on Fairness, Inclusion and Non-Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity and Sex Variation. From there, you'd find out that: https://stillmed.olympics.com/media/Documents/Beyond-the-Games/Human-Rights/IOC-Framework-Fairness-Inclusion-Non-discrimination-2021.pdf This document is full of limiting principles. Since you claim to be interested in such things, will you acknowledge that the principles in this framework exist? And if you have a problem with the culture and rules of Swim Canada, you are free to nominate yourself to join their board so that you can advocate for the changes you think would be most appropriate.

According to your source, she swam in a competition for ages 16 and up. 50 is in that category. What age are you alleging she “identifies” as?

I’ll answer for @smac97. Smac97’s intense focus on issues like gay pride parades and transwomen in sports likely stems from his media consumption habits. Propaganda-driven outlets like AM radio and Fox News excel at manufacturing outrage over social topics that don’t directly impact most people. These issues are framed as existential threats to traditional values, creating a feedback loop: the more Smac97 consumes this content, the more he internalizes these narratives as urgent problems. Over time, this kind of media consumption shifts priorities. Smac97 might feel like he’s defending morality or fairness, but his concern is largely a reflection of the issues chosen by these outlets to generate emotional engagement. This process turns individuals into unwitting amplifiers of a specific agenda—spreading the narratives they’ve absorbed without questioning why these topics were elevated in the first place. It’s less about genuine personal stake and more about being swept up in a carefully crafted cultural war. He is a tool.