Doctor Steuss

Somewhat related to the topic of surgeries to alter one's body. The American Journal of Surgery published a systematic review about a year ago. For breast augmentation, the regret ranged from 5-9%. For body contouring, the regret rate was as high as 33%. Prostatectomy regret rate was about 30%, and bariatric surgery was almost 20%. They even noted the regret rates for non-surgical life decisions, like having children (7%), and getting a tattoo (16%). One that I looked up recently (due to some funk I am dealing with) was the regret rate for surgery for degenerative conditions of the spine. About 6% of people regret surgery. Note that with a lot of these surgeries there's no going back from. Once the surgery is done, you are stuck for life with it. Yet, there aren't scores of internet warriors poo-pooing people's personal decisions to get bariatric surgery, or prostatectomies, or spinal fusions, demanding government intervention. The regret rate for gender-affirmation surgery (from the systematic review in AJS)? A whopping 1%

Hi Rory, my dear old friend. I hope you and your loved ones are well. From a Christian perspective (or more specifically, your tradition and knowledge) -- Given Christ's teaching(s) regarding those who are born eunuchs, do you think it possible that infertility isn't necessarily a defect, but a way in which God sets aside those chosen for higher purposes and eternal inheritance? Just musing. Big Squeezy-Hugs, Stu

Anecdotal, but my nephew just got home about 6 weeks ago from a stateside Spanish speaking mission (SC Charleston). His final few months, the branch was struggling quite a bit because so many people were afraid to leave home to go to Church. He also said tracting because an effort of complete futility because no one was going to open their door to a pair of 6-foot plus blonde dudes in suits. One man he taught was deported a few weeks after he was baptized.

I judge them the exact same way. To me, it's a moral constant that men shouldn't have sex with children. It was wrong in the past. It is wrong right now. It will be wrong in the future. I see no reason why we should shun away from applying our moral judgements on the past. There's no reason anyone should make excuses for chattel slavery, the Holocaust, sex trafficking of children, and the myriad of other things that people in the past felt morally justified in doing, just because they didn't live right now. My brain isn't superior to people who lived before me (if anything, it's a few rungs down), so there's no reason I should feel like every single person in the past had hobbled moral reasoning. We can and should try to understand why and how their place in history and society caused their reasoning to become twisted in a way to make vile and abhorrent things seem acceptable (both to understand their worldview and to prevent us from adopting their reasoning[s]), but we shouldn't withhold judgement.

If the judgment is that men shouldn't marry children, I'm totally ok with being morally abominable.

Hi Calm, Prior to my wedding, I probably would have bristled at the impersonal nature of cash as a wedding gift, but after my wedding, the cash was appreciated so much and totally changed my mind. We were able to apportion some to the little things we needed as a couple with a little rapscallion, and we were also able to use some of it to make our honeymoon so much more memorable. Instead of it being meticulously planned out financially (like it was initially), we were able to pepper in a few additional fun things, like an impromptu night at the Grand America in Salt Lake, and a fancy dinner (I had capers for the very first time). I have lifetime memories that I otherwise never could have dreamed of because of those little cash wedding gifts. There are a few physical gifts, that even in separation/divorce are still deeply treasured and meaningful, but the memories (and reduced stress with getting some additional furniture items, and appliances) from those cash gifts are absolutely invaluable to me.

I don't know if this board software has the functionality to grant limited moderation power/ability, but back in the FAIR days, a few of us that were pretty active were given limited moderator powers under the brand of "Spam Busters." We had the ability to delete posts and threads as well as ban users. It requires a level of trust, but I'm sure there's a few people who are currently active that there would be no objections to having that (limited) ability.

My younger sister is an MFT that works for a non-profit that provides resources exclusively to children in various stages of the system (in foster care, recently reunited with bio-parents, adopted, etc.). Gay couple foster parents and adoptive parents have been an undeniable absolute godsend for children in the system.

If enough CIA, NSA, DIA, MIC, NGA, NRO, etc., operatives were to have been found to be BYU grads in the intelligence profiles kept by Russia, that could be enough reason to flag the university as a whole. I don't know if the rumors about intelligence and federal law enforcement recruiting from BYU (in particular, from former foreign missionaries) are true, but if they are, that would provide a potential explanation on why it would be singled out.

Oh definitely. It's pretty standard fair where I work for wine and champagne to be the default holiday gift. I've never given a second thought to receiving them, beyond "that was thoughtful of them to get me something." If one of my close friends had given me wine as a gift, knowing that my (ex)wife was a recovering alcoholic, and I had told them on many occasions that I don't keep any alcohol in my home, that would be different. These weren't some benign gifts from coworkers; these were a specific gift, that had a specific meaning and connotation about a specific thing which the kids had specific feelings about, given to them by their parents. When I offer my perspective, context generally matters.

Hi Maestrophil, Please keep in mind that this is from solely *my* perspective, and if *my* parents had given *me* something similar (and just imagining it... if the actual situation happened, I might feel/react differently). I’d absolutely love and cherish the art, and the personalized note, but it would be like someone really loving football, knowing full well that I don’t like football at all (they invite me to games, and I decline, they want me to watch with them, and I decline, they try to talk to me about it, and I have no interest to, etc., etc.), and despite knowing what my feelings are about football, they give me a football jersey that they customized as a gift, and include with it a letter of how they respect that I don’t like football. It'd be weird (for lack of a better descriptive). I wouldn’t see it as judgy necessarily, but it would be like a passive-aggressive way of reminding me how much they like football, and that they are somewhat consumed by the fact that I don’t also like football. Obviously, I am in no way equating religious devotion to being a sports fan, but this is the metaphor than popped into my mind to best describe what my feelings about it would be. It can be hard with gifts to remember that it is supposed to be something that will be meaningful to the other person, and not necessarily what is meaningful to us (I'm really bad at this, and a terrible gift-giver).

This reminded me of something my grandpa said once (i.e. the juxtaposition of a drive for speculation, with the passing of loved ones). "If you ever find yourself hungering for the preaching of false doctrine, just go to a funeral."

At least it's a tacit admission that the law of chastity was kept, and leaving wasn't because of a desire to sin. Baby steps.

{dupe... sorry}

I ended up dropping seminary about half-way through senior year. I had early bird Chem AP labs, which meant getting to seminary at 4:45am. I'm surprised I made it for as long as I did. Sucked not "graduating" seminary with everyone else, but there was just no way I could've have kept going like that. Especially with Trig AP being an extra hour after school on top of that (and then theater, soccer, etc.). Up at 4:00 am, and home around 5-6 pm was the pits.