Priesthood Ban Info

[koakaipo]

Katherine and other LDS like to believe otherwise by recreating the religion in an image of a multicultural tolerance that has swept across America the past 50 years. It is what every religious organization is pretending to be.

See, KW, that's where we need to politicize less. Multiculturalism isn't like a social trend. Look at the definition:

"a condition in which many cultures coexist within a society and maintain their cultural differences"

That's the gospel in action! Having people of all creeds and colors and cultures coming together to unite under the gospel. But that doesn't mean we have to give up that pluralism-it's that pluralism that gives us depth! I get so much out of seeing other Saints do the gospel in their own cultural context. My husband has Idaho roots-I go to that cultural context and find insights that didn't occur to me before. Same for me when I lived in Hawaii. Multiplicity isn't a bad thing when it's incorporated under the gospel. Pluralism that is united under the gospel gives us depth.

And this notion of inclusion is not a trend of the last fifty years either-it's found throughout our uniquely Mormon canon. Bond, free, black, white, male, female? All alike unto God. I think it's Joeson on the second or third page that gives a list of scriptural references regarding the inclusive nature of the gospel in this dispensation.

[Guest KW Graham]

== You seem like a very angry person.

Nothing like more psychoanalysis from the anti-psychoanalyst to make your day.

== Psychoanalysis is an important part of debate, no matter how one cuts it.

It is for those being psychoanalyzed, mainly because a psychoanalysis is understood as a weakness in an argument. If you were ever on a debating team, you'd know that psychoanalysis is a hige blow to your credibility. It is a huge NO NO. It says you have nowhere else to go with your argument. Why psychoanalyze when you can simply ask for clarifying questions? Jumping to conclusions with faulty psychoanalysis only makes the debate personal. It turns up the heat instantly because the person being analyzed is likely to take it personally.

== We're all trying to understand one's opinions, whether someone tells us or doesn't tell us specifically. There are certainly better ways to get to know someone beyond sharp assumptions (the painful part of psychoanalysis), but analyzing where someone's coming from is the essence of communication.

But where someone comes from doesn't add or subtract from the argument they present. Where they are going with their argument is what needs to be judged, and judged only on its merits.

== I'm asking for more than just a statement that "God wanted the ban lifted, end of story." I think this is Katherine's, Koakaipo's, and my argument.

Well you're asking it from the wrong guy, and I'm not sure that is their argument at all, nor am I confident you'll ever receive such a response from the Church.

== We want the brethren to say something more than simply that we're through.

And I want a million dollars.

== No one's going to take several punches to the face by a bully, and once the bully immediately stops his actions and walks away, take that kind of abuse.

Who got punched?

== I think it's fine and dandy that Hinckley wants to put this all behind him. Good for him. However, he needs to say something before expecting the rest of us to do so. We need an apology.

But the aren't sorry, don't you get it? The Church doesn't see the restriction against blacks as a doctrinal mistake. Same way Christians don't see the Law of Moses as a doctrinal mistake, even though it was consequently "lifted."

== Furthermore, I don't look at the 1978 lifting to be a stark apology, but every fiber of my being wants it to be.

Such is teh wishful thinking of many LDS, who seem to be quasi-LDS at best.

== One last thing: I think it's prudent to know how calling the ban a policy or doctrine means something to you.

It means nothing to me. Call it fruity pebbles if you want.

[GravyBoat]

It is for those being psychoanalyzed, mainly because a psychoanalysis is understood as a weakness in an argument. If you were ever on a debating team,  you'd know that psychoanalysis is a hige blow to your credibility. It is a huge NO NO. It says you have nowhere else to go with your argument. Why psychoanalyze when you can simply ask for clarifying questions? Jumping to conclusions with faulty psychoanalysis only makes the debate personal. It turns up the heat instantly because the person being analyzed is likely to take it personally.

I see. So in general debating rules, it IS important to call psychoanalysis one thing and clarification a different thing entirely. As you can see, I'm clearly not up to pace on debate vocabulary, but I meant it when I said that I am open to another opinion on the definition of psychoanalysis, though I am going to be bold and say that both it and asking for a clarification are inarguably related. It's a label attached to both, one being the correct way to gather the opponent's opinion, the other side a faux-paus.

== We're all trying to understand one's opinions, whether someone tells us or doesn't tell us specifically. There are certainly better ways to get to know someone beyond sharp assumptions (the painful part of psychoanalysis), but analyzing where someone's coming from is the essence of communication.

But where someone comes from doesn't add or subtract from the argument they present. Where they are going with their argument is what needs to be judged, and judged only on its merits.

Looks like we're agreeing more than we disagree, only now we're striving to agree on what is considered an unfair judgment.

== I'm asking for more than just a statement that "God wanted the ban lifted, end of story." I think this is Katherine's, Koakaipo's, and my argument.

Well you're asking it from the wrong guy, and I'm not sure that is their argument at all, nor am I confident you'll ever receive such a response from the Church.

== We want the brethren to say something more than simply that we're through.

And I want a million dollars.

That doesn't mean that it wouldn't be a better place.

== I think it's fine and dandy that Hinckley wants to put this all behind him. Good for him. However, he needs to say something before expecting the rest of us to do so. We need an apology.

But the aren't sorry, don't you get it? The Church doesn't see the restriction against blacks as a doctrinal mistake. Same way Christians don't see the Law of Moses as a doctrinal mistake, even though it was consequently "lifted."

Yet McKay is on record for calling it policy.

== Furthermore, I don't look at the 1978 lifting to be a stark apology, but every fiber of my being wants it to be.

Such is teh wishful thinking of many LDS, who seem to be quasi-LDS at best.

Whoa, wait a sec. I thought you said no psychoanalysis. I'm now Quasi-LDS?

== One last thing: I think it's prudent to know how calling the ban a policy or doctrine means something to you.

It means nothing to me. Call it fruity pebbles if you want.

There are many who would gladly worship with us if they could have some finalization.

[katherine the great]

I was refering specifically to Katherine's claim that humankind originated in Africa and that it was a black race. I'm content to say we don't really know. She isn't. She knows "for a fact" she says. After all, it says so on e.wikibooks.org.

I'm still trying to find the post where I said the first humans were black. Could you help me out? I did say that humans first arose in Africa. (I don't think anyone would argue with that.) I even said that the oldest dna in living persons are in the San Bushmen of Africa, and that they are dark brown skinned. If I said the first humans were black, I misspoke. In fact, I don't personally believe they were. I believe they were brown skinned like the Bushmen.

[Moksha]

Diamond J. 2005. Geography and skin color. Nature 435:283-284. Nature online

Diamond says:

Jablonski and Chaplin prefer a combination of two selective factors involving several costs and one benefit of UVR [ultraviolet radiation]. The costs involve the destructive photolysis of many compounds, of which Jablonski and Chaplin attach particular importance to the B vitamin folate. Everybody requires folate, so everybody would have dark skins (to screen out UVR and reduce photolysis) if there were no other selective factors. However, UVR also provides a benefit: catalysing the synthesis of vitamin D. Hence skin colour evolves as a compromise between skins light enough to permit UVR penetration for vitamin D synthesis, but dark enough to reduce folate photolysis (283).

Diamond discusses exceptions to the pattern of correlation of skin color with UVR intensity:

Of the 12 most negative residuals (skins unexpectedly dark), the highest and four others are for Bantu-speaking southern African populations that migrated from the Equator towards high southern latitudes only 2000 years ago. These populations have not yet had enough time for evolutionary loss of their equatorially adapted dark skins. Conversely, three of the nine most positive residuals (skins unexpectedly pale) are for peoples of the Philippines, Vietnam and Cambodia, who migrated towards the equator from high latitudes only in recent millennia and have not yet evolved appropriately dark skins. But why do the people of Bougainville Island in the South Pacific, and why did the Aboriginal Tasmanians, have such dark skins, after more than 10,000 years of in situ adaptation? (284)

So would Jared Diamond really support a curse as the answer for Dark skin, or even support anything K. Graham is espousing?

[Guest KW Graham]

== Whoa, wait a sec. I thought you said no psychoanalysis. I'm now Quasi-LDS?

I wasn't referring to you, as I wasn't even aware you were LDS. In any event, contrasting the difference between someone's professed beliefs and their own religion's claims is not psychoanalysis. Psychoanalysis is analyzing someone's personality, i.e "you're an angry person, a racist etc."

== I'm still trying to find the post where I said the first humans were black. Could you help me out? I did say that humans first arose in Africa.

Actually you didn't. I brought it up in concert with your comment about Africa. Your response was to the first part of the sentence, I should have clarified.

== (I don't think anyone would argue with that.)

Then you haven't been paying attention. I argue that it isn't a proven fact.

== I even said that the oldest dna in living persons are in the San Bushmen of Africa, and that they are dark brown skinned. If I said the first humans were black, I misspoke. In fact, I don't personally believe they were. I believe they were brown skinned like the Bushmen.

Then it seems you're at odds with the "scientific explanation" offered by the PBS scientists.

== So would Jared Diamond really support a curse as the answer for Dark skin

Straw man alert. I never once said Diamond believed or supported this. This is what I'm talking about. I used Diamond to undermine many of Katherine's statements regarding environmental adaptation as if it were the Law.

== even support anything K. Graham is espousing?

Yes, it seems you're not paying attention either. What I "espouse" is the fact that Katherine's preferred explanation of environmental "adaptation" is not at all conclusive. It isn't without problems. It is a highly debated issue, and Diamond highlights this fact with total clarity. By contrast, Katherine refers to it as "the scientific explanation."

OK, I'm off to my anger management appointment.

[katherine the great]

OK, I'm off to my anger management appointment.

I think you need a hug. (Where's Mrs. Graham?)

[Jan]

Color and skin pigment becomes a "marker" to judge one's character, one's ancestry, one's potential. That is the historical legacy of the implications of denying by way of race(but assuming that race can be interchanged with lineage).

Not only did our church put a ban on the priesthood, we did at one point of our history not proselyted to blacks. We discouraged any social familiarity with them. Why? Cause if you are friendly with them, the next thing you know, people start intermarrying and making babies and then curses start crossing racial lines.

These legacies of color coding in our church were divisive and created a hierarchy. It just did. I'm only 33 , but dealt with alot of the residue of these notions, even as a non-black and post-ban lifting.

Sorry- very busy so can't really contribute here in a substantial way -

My point was to say that there are many who believe today (and probably Joseph Smith back then) that our SCRIPTURES do not support the traditional notion that black skin is a curse. Black skin was a "mark". The curse was separation from God and is no longer.

Therefore, it was a mistaken notion to use scriptures to support the traditional idea (held by many Christians of the 19th C) that blacks are "cursed". The scriptures don't support that.

It was, however, interpreted that way and used for a rationalization/explanation for many things in the 19th and 20th centuries, including by many to explain/support the ban on the priesthood being held by blacks.

It's a notion that we have a duty to correct when we hear it.

[Moksha]

Actually, Jared Diamond thinks the idea of race is an artificial construct that came about from our innate distrust for groups different than our own. If true, then with the help of God, this curse of distrust has been lifted from from us, eh?

[GravyBoat]

Well, I went on a trip with my dad to see my uncle play world championship softball in Phoenix. It was a blast; everyone had a great time. Even though my uncle lost, his team has won dozens of times.

We drove to the field from St. George.

Along the way, my father found it prudent to mention that he felt that my testimony is hurting because I believe I didn't support the ban as relevatory. I didn't say a dang thing in retort.

The "debate" never happened. My father just stated his opinion about my current spiritual state and left it at that. No, I didn't further mention that there's excellent evidence that the ban was never relevatory in the first place. No, I didn't recommend that he read my David O. McKay book--he decided that he's going to do so anyway.

That's how it went.

[AKS]

Well thats better than a full blown dispute during your trip. I'm sure your father is reasonable, he'll come around.