JVW

I'm inclined to believe that we are all wrong and that that is part of the condition of weakness that God has given us in an effort to turn our hearts to His Son. The Right and Left, the abusers and abused, the Orthodox and Progressive, all can be saved and face a pleasing judgment as they focus on the One Right Thing. The problem with this view is that it extends to LDS church leadership, policy, and structure, past and present, which can be difficult to reconcile with temple covenants. ETA: Anyone who disagrees with me is wrong and a stupid idiot. Cheers!

Did you just express concern about what other people do with their genitals? lol

I don't doubt that I'm probably going to hell, I definitely deserve to go there. I will also readily agree that I'm probably wrong or, at the very least, incomplete in my views. But my belief that the Book of Mormon is more correct than the Doctrine and Covenants and believing Jacob over D&C 132 was the result of a multi-year journey with lots of fasting, prayers, pondering, research, and study. I personally believe that where I'm at was a result of God's guidance and personal revelation, and I feel complete peace regarding polygamy in church history. I will defend every aspect of church polygamy excepting one thing: current church apologetics for it. God would never command Christ's disciples to commit adultery while using David and Solomon as excuses to do so. I don't believe it. That is exactly what Jacob was arguing against! I can't communicate very well regarding polygamy, so I rarely talk about it with others. I've never felt called to bring it up in conversations or make podcasts, videos, or articles on the topic. I don't even really talk about it with my wife. I understand that it's a heavy topic and that my views are radical in relation to it. I've participated in the conversation in this post because this forum feels like a very safe place to talk about crazy and interesting things. I also enjoy practicing and refining my ability to communicate. Writing has an effect on me; it helps me learn and grow as a person. And it's been lovely to read so many interesting perspectives on this forum. If I am wrong then several things logically follow, all of which are possible: - the peace I feel regarding polygamy and the historical practice of it isn't actually peace and I'm deceiving myself. - God inspired me and led me into a state of deception, or He refrained from guiding me and allowed the devil to do so instead. - What I've experienced as personal revelation wasn't actually revelation and was either from the devil or from my own mind. My question for you is, have you actually received a personal witness from God that He ever commanded polygamy? Have you actually asked Him and received an answer on it? How long did it take you to receive the answer? What was your journey like as you sought to understand the mind of God? In my case, due to the magnitude of the experiences I went through, which I could probably write an entire book about, I feel around an 8/10 in my confidence that I have not been deceived by God and that He answered my sincere prayers regarding this topic.

I agree that Joseph wrote section 132. I haven't personally come to a manner of how to reconcile that, but I think it shouldn't be regarded as canon. The way that section treats women is awful, I can't think of a single way to defend a text that reads, "And I command mine handmaid, Emma Smith, to abide and cleave unto my servant Joseph, and to none else. But if she will not abide this commandment she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord;" Could you imagine saying this to your wife? Either Joseph was a d**k or he honestly believed that this was God speaking to him. What happened to the fruits of the Spirit? Someone earlier in this thread mentioned that it may have been an unfinished draft. I'm more inclined to believe that it was a message from the devil. ETA: For the record, the more I learn about Joseph Smith the more I like him and believe that God did work through him to restore the church. I'm not anti-Joseph by any stretch of the imagination. I also believe that Brigham Young was not apostate, or fallen, or that he orchestrated Joseph's murder. Brigham Young is, in fact, my favorite latter-day prophet. Just to be clear because I imagine that people could read this response and think I hate Joseph.

If I make it into heaven it will be the greatest miracle of all time. If you die before me save me a place at the table in the Telestial Kingdom, brother.

Thanks for sharing this. I am about halfway through it. It sucks that people are getting excommunicated over this. There are much better reasons to get rid of members. If we pretend we live in a world where these people are right, then assuming that the church eventually changes its stance I wonder what the fallout would look like. I wonder if people would act like they always knew there was something off about it and that God had a purpose in letting the church believe as it did for so long. Or if people would dig in their heels and leave in a mass exodus.

I haven't read through the whole document yet (around 2/3 way through) but my favorite part so far has been: Sounds like the telephone game. I also liked the part where they reviewed how many subscribers different YT channels have. They do make some good arguments and present some interesting evidence, but I will note that it's all people reporting on stuff, there isn't very many quotes from Joseph Smith or what he said about polygamy. All in all, under the context that it's a "research paper" I give it a 4/10, I don't think it's very well written, it's incredibly wordy, and I doubt that the authors had anyone with opposing views read it and give them feedback, which is a shame because it would have improved their writing and arguments.

Thanks for the legal update, brother. I know it's a lot of time and work to summarize and communicate all of this for people who don't speak 'law'.

I'd watch his videos but the fact that the title of this thread aptly summarized an 11 minute video says something.

Yes, I do think there is a difference. Creating AI videos of recently dearly departed loved ones is taking advantage of those in mourning for money, and I view it as quite literally emotional, mental, and spiritual abuse. I don't know if science will ever be able to confidently discern what impact these kinds of videos will have on people, but I'm sure they are coming (see Charlie Kirk's "America's Pastor" doing this exact thing to his congregation. Nasty!), and it's not normal to see angels even if they're fake. When someone is dead, they are gone, and that is part of the human experience. To try and change that to make money is evil. One day they could very well create robots of the loved one trained on the myriad data that exists for each of us through Amazon Sidewalk and Flock, that's without even considering social media apps and gadgets; and sell these robots to those who are grieving. How will any of this impact the natural mourning process? It can't be good. AI video of dead prophets giving sermons mostly falls in the camp of what's usually wrong with AI: stealing, lying, etc. But due to the religious element and religions and cults having a lot of overlap there is an additional element at play here though I can't quite put my finger on what that is. For Joseph Smith, specifically, who founded a church with many members who behave as if they are in a cult (I offload my thinking to the brethren, etc). Joseph, who is regarded as a greater prophet than Moses, who is constantly cited by the Jews when they want to make any serious point about God. It just adds up to something negative in my gut. What do you think? It could be argued that there's a statute of limitations. Creating AI for King Henry VIII or the apostle Paul is different than creating AI for Walt Disney or Joseph Smith simply due to the amount of time the person has had to fade away. And what if someone makes AI of someone living today but they die tomorrow? My position is that nobody should have AI made of them, period. I think it's wrong by every reasonable metric. Especially if the one who died didn't give consent. On another derail since I'm on one about AI. Here's this lovely article (100% worth the read) about the relationship between AI and Venezuela https://substack.com/home/post/p-184044880. Long story short. America crashed Venezuela economy (2016-2018), AI tech companies paid Venezuelans 50c - $2/hr to train AI with captchas and stuff, then America used AI to capture Maduro and used AI to spread fake footage of what happened in Venezuela to sow seeds of confusion. AI is nasty, and none of us can opt out. For all you know I wrote this post using AI. Cheers!

This is kind of related, but not directly so. I think that this video is evil. I believe that it is wrong to use AI to enable someone to speak from the dead. I think it is exceptionally wrong for the funeral industry to do this (though I see it as an inevitability that a company will start who creates AI generated messages spoken by recently deceased loved ones). But I think it's wrong for AI to do this with any historical figure, regardless of how recently departed they are. I understand that actors will depict people to tell stories, or artists will draw or animate those who have passed on to communicate something. In these cases there is no deception. Unlike with AI which presents an impossible-to-prevent internal brain deception. It's like how with VR, even though I know its fake, my primitive brain still processes it as if its real. Try playing a scary game on PC vs VR and you'll know what I mean. I also understand that Elder Gong is a huge AI guy, and the church is really pushing AI internally at the COB. They used it at the recent Tabernacle choir Christmas concert and it was used beautifully (though I thought it was a bit tragic that the church decided to skimp out on paying artists to create images and short video clips for use). But in the case of using AI to allow the dead to live again, I think it's crossing a line and it is inherently an evil thing to use AI for. Thus ends my rant. Thanks for reading it.

Calm's analogy was really good. I'd like to add one thing here. In the church we believe that all except for sons of perdition will receive a degree of God's glory and dwell in the presence of at least one member of the Godhead for all eternity. If salvation is defined as this, then all will be saved, regardless of whether they accept Jesus or not. One caveat here is that those who were wicked will suffer for their own sins in hell for a thousand years before being saved, since they didn't accept Jesus' mercy. This doctrine is not biblically supported, it relies almost entirely on Doctrine and Covenants 76 and a few other sections. See https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/76?lang=eng&id=p64#p64 , the whole section is great, but from verse 81 on is the relevant part to this paragraph. If salvation is defined as dwelling with Christ forever, then those who confess Christ and keep God's commandments are the only ones who will be saved. This is because a true disciple of Christ follow Him and keeps His commandments. It is evidence of their faith and discipleship. See: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James 2:14-26&version=NKJV and https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew 25%3A34-46&version=KJV If salvation is becoming joint-heirs with Christ then baptism by one with God's authority is required. This depends on how one interprets the Bible. see here https://biblehub.com/john/3-5.htm . We interpret the verse according to this commentary from the Book of Mormon, which actually presents a really beautiful concept. 2 Nephi 31:5-10 https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/31?lang=eng&id=p5#p5 These verses indicate that the gate by which we enter into the strait and narrow path is baptism, and that to be baptized is to follow Jesus. These verses also reinforce the interpretation that unless one is born of water and of the spirit they cannot enter the kingdom of heaven. So there are a few different ways to define salvation and look at it. How do you define salvation and what do you believe is necessary in order to receive it?

You speak like rich people don't commit any crimes... Also, how does one fix poverty? I'm pretty sure govt has been working on fixing that since govt existed during the era of the dinosaurs and cavemen and no solution has been found yet. On a topical note I heard one of the men who died was the father of 10-12 kids and he had just popped outside of the church to get some formula from his car to feed his baby when he got shot and killed. Tragic.

He was gone for awhile but has resurfaced recently on a trans thread in the News section. I don't think he intends to actively engage in the forum anymore.

How have I been unkind towards those with other preferences?

If you're allowed to read threads in the other forums this one is a really interesting discussion about Apologetics vs Polemics It basically boils down to something like "many Evangelical Christians and Protestants don't define themselves by what they believe as much as they define themselves by what they don't believe resulting on spending time being overly critical of other faiths." In my experience, those who are working on discovering and refining their own beliefs are very friendly towards the LDS. Thank you for being one of those types of people. Another thing I'm being reminded of are several essays by this Early Church historian https://substack.com/@orthodoxchristian?utm_source=global-search . In his essays like https://kennethbwrites.substack.com/p/the-great-worship-cover-up-the-loudest https://kennethbwrites.substack.com/p/when-christians-didnt-accept-jesus there is a very, very clear picture painted that shows how different modern Christianity is from Christianity pre 19th century. Apparently the Second Great Awakening was a seismic event that impacted the way Christians worship and resulted in it being divorced from Christian traditions prior to it. This essay is also a really great one https://kennethbwrites.substack.com/p/the-bible-did-not-arrive-by-parachute which is especially fun to read if you didn't know ... Anyways, I digress. Members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are Christian* *Unless your definition of Jesus is different than theirs. Everything that is important about Jesus Christ, i.e. everything we are taught about Him in the Old and New Testaments both Protestants, Evangelicals, and Latter-day Saints are in agreement over. So where the Christian calls out the Latter-day Saint as believing in a different Jesus is in the following ways: - Jesus and Satan aren't brothers. - We can't become Gods in heaven and won't get our own planet. - Joseph Smith was a conman/you are in a demonic cult/we are all prophets and don't need any other man to gatekeep and approach God. - God is done revealing scripture. The book of Revelation says that anyone who adds to this book will be cursed, and the Book of Mormon is trying to add to the Bible. I'd venture to say that these are the most common jabs at my church. The first two aren't true. In the best light they are gross misrepresentations of LDS doctrine. Point three people can believe whatever they want, but I personally like Joseph the more I learn about him. I hope I can be more like him when I grow up. Point 4 is dumb. The book of Revelation wasn't even part of the Bible when it was written and first circulated, so how could it be referring to anything other than itself in that verse? Hopefully this addresses your OP. I hope you will stick around and that we can have many fun conversations together that result in all of us growing as Christian people and resulting in us being better disciples of Jesus Christ. Cheers brother!

Yeah, you got me. There's a reason I'm in therapy that has so far eluded me, but it's probably my overattachment to my genitals that's at the root of my personal problems. By the way, the previous statement was a joke, and the statement you quoted was also a joke. Except yeah, I do like being a man. I could deal with being a Eunuch, but having the whole thing removed and inverted is a bit too much for me. There's a chance I'd have to pee in a bag the rest of my life and that's not something I want to risk. And who knows what kind of potential chronic pain post-ops have to deal with??? Again, this is a joke. I recognize the contradiction in not wanting to pee in a bag but being ok in a wheelchair wearing diapers. I get it brother. Cheers.

Haha, you got pranked! I bet a penny that this is an AI bot advertising for visagesculpture company.

For what it's worth, Calm. I appreciate your contributions to the conversation on this thread. Thanks for participating! I think Longview is being unnecessarily short-tempered with you. I can't speak for the women parts, but as a man I'd rather choose to be blind or paralyzed than have my junk cut off and have butt hair growing in a cavity they created in me that I have to stretch with tools every day in order to prevent the wound from ever closing. I understand your point about the fallout from some operations being more extreme than others and it seems to me like you are basing it on a "burden to society" metric. That is, a paralyzed person needs ADA accommodations added to buildings, people to help push them around, specially manufactured cars and parking spaces, etc. Whereas someone without a thingy only needs to take medicine and meet with doctors periodically. I also believe that it is reasonable to consider the result of any elective procedure and its burden on society, especially when the government is trying to make policy decisions. However, to Smac's point I think that anyone who wants to have surgery for any cosmetic or identity reason has a mental health issue. And I don't think it's offensive or wrong to suggest that. I have a friend in her 30's who gets cosmetic botox, and I think she should see a therapist because it indicates an issue with how she views herself. I think that South Korea's massive plastic surgery industry (30 story buildings dedicated just to nose jobs, for example) indicates a serious problem with Korean culture and individuals personal state of minds. And I believe that if someone has a mental health issue they should get mental health treatment, not surgery, in an attempt to resolve it. However, because culturally the push has been that trans is not mental health related and that it needs "affirmative care" there are many who treat their mental health condition with surgery, which is a -relatively- extreme treatment for the condition. Especially when considering the cohort of high school girls. I don't know if you've ever read Irreversible Damage by Abigail Shrier, but at the time of that writing (2020) the rate of high school girls in the U.S. who identified as trans was 2%, 1 in 50. It very well could be higher now. That is not a natural ratio for trans identification in any cohort, let alone high school girls. She posits that, for that cohort specifically, trans is a social contagion like anorexia. Honestly, I don't know why so many teenage girls identify as trans, but going from 0 documented cases of gender dysphoria in *sometime after the 90s or 2000s probably* (I just did a search for "history of female gender dysphoria" and the first page didn't have any relevant articles) to 1 in 50, in the 2010s just for teenaged girls, is not normal.

You and me both, Calm. Though I'm not sure how much the law can change this. How much of this is due to moral degradation of individuals in society vs laws that are too lax on drug trafficking or single-mother homes or whatever the root cause is for violent crimes?

My experience has been similar to my experiences at work for various businesses. It follows in line with the Pareto Principle. 20% of the people do 80% of the work. In my ward's previous ward council they called it something like "the same 10 people" or something. The same 10 sign up for volunteer work, setting up chairs, cleaning the church, helping people move, and faithfully do their ministering. I view that idea of "the same 10 people" not as the 20% who care, but the ones who lead the pack of those who care. ETA: I believe that everyone "does their best to contribute". I don't want to sound like I'm overly harsh. But a lot of people's best doesn't involve caring about the church. For some it's just getting out of bed and going to church on Sunday that is their best. For others, they can't do church but they can let in missionaries or ministers when they visit. A person's best varies widely. But! If someone actually cares, the way they act and the choices they make are different. A lot of people just don't care.

You should check out some of her interview on Mormon Stories. I watched from around the hour 2.5-3.5 mark which is when she describes her experience with the excommunication process. If you even watch like 30 seconds of her speaking you'd understand what kind of person she is. She's one of the good ones. You know how there's only a few in each ward who actually care? She's one of those. She calls out John Dehlin several times (because he is pretty negative and cynical towards anyone LDS). She has no bitterness, no anger or resentment. She was extremely happy with how the council went, with her Stake President and other leaders. She felt God with her during her polygamy research, she felt God with her during her excommunication process, and after the council ended her Stake President came up to her and told her he didn't know how it would all work out but that he'd see her in the Celestial Kingdom. The day after she was excommunicated she helped clean the church and is currently peacefully and joyfully participating in her local ward. Before her second meeting with the Stake President (the third was the excommunication council) she felt that it would be the meeting in which she would be asked to give back her temple recommend. As an adult convert, never before having done temple baptisms, she took the time to do some in preparation for the meeting and had a wonderful experience. Based off of the opinions she expressed in the part of the interview I watched, I can say that I do not agree with all of her opinions. But that woman has a heart of gold and stands blameless before God. I'll die on that hill. She is an angel and handled her interview with that snake Dehlin incredibly well. I haven't seen her polygamy video yet but I intend to. She said it is 90% Joseph Smith papers and doesn't explicitly come to any conclusions and that the reason she was excommunicated was because she is promoting something that comes to a different conclusion than the church essay on lds.org even though it uses evidence published by the church.

I was too wordy. I do not believe that polygamy was divinely commanded. My experience with the Book of Mormon leads me to believe that it is God's word. I don't have any issue with the Book of Mormon. My experience with the rest of the standard works is a mixed bag and requires a lot of effort on my part to determine what is God's word in those texts. Because of my personal conclusion regarding D&C 132 I don't trust any of the D&C excepting section 76 and 138 (for personal reasons). So I don't read the D&C very often because I'm not interested in spending that much time and energy wrestling with each section to make up my mind about what's true and not.

Seeing as how all of the Holy Bible was written by Jewish prophets and apostles it stands to reason that the Jews could have more prophets called among them to call Israel to repentance. I'm aware that after 70 AD-ish when the Jews were scattered that prophets couldn't have been among the people because there wasn't really a people to prophesy to. But with the state of Israel being regathered in the mid-20th century and many Jews returning to their homeland it seems like the ground is ripe for the Jews to have prophets again and write more Bible. I don't think that the nation's level of righteousness or belief in Jesus Christ would be much of a factor since prophets have preached in Israel during times of righteousness and times of apostasy. Could a Jewish prophet exist without believing in Jesus Christ even though they would believe in the God of Israel and the Messiah? Also, I've heard LDS cultural rumors that the two witnesses prophesied of in the book of Revelation will be LDS prophets, and protestant cultural rumors that one of the witnesses will be named David, but I don't know where those rumors come from or what kind of merit they have.

It was started in the social hall and moved. I wonder if he can still reply to this thread even though it's not in social hall anymore.