Church's Policy on Surrogacy - Looking for Input

[smac97]

11 hours ago, Analytics said:

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Why should I believe you have transcended your cognitive biases and I have not? 

It isn't that I have successfully transcended my cognitive biases and you have not. I haven't transcended cognitive biases. That isn't my claim. My claim is that I am at least trying. 

That's not much of a difference.  You're mindreading and imputing motives either way.

Why should I believe you are trying to transcend your cognitive biases and I am not?  

11 hours ago, Analytics said:

I read books like Rationality: What It Is, Why It Seems Scarce, Why It Matters by Steven Pinker, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, and The Scout Mindset: Why Some People See Things Clearly and Others Don’t by Julia Galef. 

The core messages of those books are the polar opposite of how Mormonism teaches to gain a testimony through faith-based "experiments" (e.g. Alma 32, Moroni 10), praying, listening to testimonies, faith-promoting stories, daily scripture study, etc. One set of methods is based on trying to see the evidence clearly. One set of methods is based on trying to be successful at getting and strengthening your testimony. Two different goals. Two different methods. You have to choose one or the other.

Sean Carroll talks about this in detail, of course. Just because we don't know everything doesn't mean we don't know some things. There just isn't going to be a journal in Nature that says, "New Discovery! The Heliocentric Model of the Solar System is Disproven! The Earth Really IS the Center of the Universe!" And just because something seems not only plausible but actually intuitive doesn't mean it's plausible at all.

Well, no.  The Church would not sponsor its institutions of higher learning if principles of science, mathematics, and other inquiries were "the polar opposite" of how the Church teaches us to pursue knowledge and truth.  This is just a lazy caricature, and a further demonstration of why you are not a reliable narrator relative to the Church.  You just can't allow yourself to let the Church speak for itself, or to avoid glosses and disparaging terms.  It's strawmen and "Bigot!" all the way down.

I have read fairly widely, though with different emphases (I hew more toward jurisprudential lenses). Scout mindset, Sagan’s candle, Pinker on rationality: do not protect a conclusion from disconfirming evidence; do not treat intuition as a demonstration; do not confuse “I don’t know everything” with “I know nothing.” That is good advice. It is not a proof that Alma 32 and a lab notebook are two religions and you may belong to only one.

Two goals is a smear of one of them.

“See the evidence clearly” is a goal I share. “Get a testimony no matter what the evidence does” is a goal I reject, and not one the Church teaches, and yet that is how you characterize us . Those are not the only two programs on offer. A third is the Church's non-caricatured position: take historical, textual, and scientific questions as real questions, and also treat prayer, covenant, and moral experiment as real tests of a different kind of claim. You can botch the third program. People do. You can also botch scout mindset by deciding in advance that the only admissible evidence is the kind that already fits naturalism. That is not scouting. That is a filter.

Alma 32 is not “ignore the control group.”

The chapter is an analogy: plant a word, do not cast it out on unbelief, see whether it enlarges and enlightens. That is not a Nature protocol. It is also not “repeat the slogan until you feel it.” It is closer to try living under this claim and watch what it does to mind and life than it is to “choose feelings over facts.”

Moroni 10 is a request for confirmation of a specific book, not a ban on asking where the plates were, what the text looks like, or what 19th-century context can explain. If someone uses those chapters as a reason never to read an awkward document, that person is misusing them. Misuse is not the official method.

A few years back I introduced my wife to a phrase I had encountered on a blog: "Let us embrace the healing power of 'and.'"  There are a lot of people, including yourself it seems, who are prone to present false dilemmas.  An either/or choice when there are more options available.  Here, you say intellectual and scientific inquiry are "the polar opposite of how Mormonism teaches."  Again, that's just a lazy caricature.

Daily scripture, meetings, and faith-promoting stories are formation. Every tradition forms people: journals, labs, conferences, and “here is how a rationalist talks” form people too. Formation is not automatically self-deception. The live question is whether you will let a contrary fact in. I have already said prophets have been wrong about some sexual folklore, that Miracle of Forgiveness is not the current handbook, and that descriptive history is not a standing commandment. That is not the profile of “protect the testimony at all costs.”  

You do not have to choose one instrument.

Historians use documents. Chemists use assays. Juries use testimony plus physical evidence. People decide whom to marry with more than a regression table. “Only one method, ever” is itself a philosophical claim, and an unserious one. Pinker and Galef are not doing particle physics when they write about meaning and bias. Sagan was not doing particle physics when he wrote about wonder. They are arguing for a stance. I can take the stance—don’t lie to yourself, don’t confuse hope with a footnote—without granting that the only thing that exists is what an academic journal will print.

Carroll’s line is right and is being overworked.

Carroll is right when he says that we can know some things without knowing everything. The earth is not about to be put back at the center of the solar system. Granted.

Restoration claims are not in that bin. “Joseph was a prophet” and “the Book of Mormon is historical” are not heliocentrism. They are historical and theological claims with arguments on both sides. “There will never be a Nature article reversing Copernicus” does not mean “therefore Moroni 10 is intellectually disreputable.” It means physical cosmology is settled in a way that 1820s New York is not.

Intuition is not plausibility. Agreed. A burning spiritual impression is not a carbon date. I have not said it was. I have said that if God is involved and sends messengers, those claims are doing work in the argument. You say those premises are false. That is the disagreement. Quoting a style of rationality does not make the premises disappear, and it does not make “scout vs testimony” a forced choice.

If the books taught you to prefer clarity to slogans, use them that way here: state the claim, state what would count against it, and stop treating every religious practice as a plot to avoid the data.  Stop caricaturing people and ideas with which you disagree.  Stop with coercive "Bigot!" pronouncements and other logical fallacies.  Speaking of which...

Fallacies

• False dichotomy. Evidence-seeking vs testimony-seeking as the only two goals.  Again, we can and should "embrace the healing power of 'and.'"
• Straw man. Alma 32 / Moroni 10 as “succeed at feeling certain.”
• Category error. Settled cosmology used as a template for historical-theological claims.  Remember our discussion about Caesar (or perhaps that was not you, I can't recall)?
• Motivated-reasoning special pleading. Formation on your side = rationality; formation on mine = bias.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

16 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

The gender of the participants is not what marriage is. Your interpretation of your religious leader's interpretation of thier god says it's important, but that is not "reasoned”, it's declared and accepted.

You can say that. You have not shown it.

“Race is not what marriage is” is a description of the pair: a Black husband and a White wife are still a man and a woman. The color is an extra and irrelevant fact because they still have procreative capcity and can still provide a mother and father to raise children. “The sex of the spouses is not what marriage is” is not the same sentence. It is a redefinition. You are asserting that marriage is, at bottom, a romantic contract between adults, and that male and female are decoration. That is a view. It is not a discovery that my last reply was a sermon.

Declared vs reasoned.

If the only thing I had offered was “a prophet said so,” you would have a point about authority. But I haven't, so you don't. The public reason is this: marriage, as a social institution, grew up around the one sexual pair that produces children and attaches those children to the two people whose bodies made them. Sex is the feature that makes that pair that pair. Race is not. You can prefer a different institution—companionate licensing of any two adults. Preferring it does not turn sex into skin.

Every sexual ethic has a declared core. Yours declares that consent, love, and legal recognition are enough to make a marriage. That is not read off a telescope. It is, instead, a moral choice about what the institution is for. Calling my core “declared” and yours “reasoned” is just self-flattering branding.

Leaders and God.

Yes: I also think living prophets teach that sexual relations belong in a marriage of a man and a woman. That is not a secret. It is also not the only sentence in the argument. If God does not exist, the prophetic piece drops out and we are still left with the institutional and biological and legal pieces. You still have to say why the pair that can be mother and father is morally idle, and why a color bar is a good analogy for that claim. “Your church talks about God” does achieve that.

What would make the parody work.

It would work if I had said: people with trait T may not marry, and T had nothing to do with the kind of union. Black skin is that kind of trait. Being two men is not. Two men can love each other. They cannot procreate, nor can they be husband and wife in the sense the older institution named, nor can they be a mother and a father to the child they raise. You can call that unimportant. You cannot call it “because they have an arbitrary surface trait” without smuggling in the conclusion that sex is arbitrary.

If marriage is only a private meaning two people assign, then yes, sex drops out—and so does almost every public reason to have the institution at all, including the reasons the state used to give (which were centered heavily on marriage's association with procreation and child-rearing). That is a larger rebuild than “I don’t like your prophet.” Own the rebuild. Do not pretend it is the same move as Loving.

Fallacies

• Question-begging. Assumes marriage is already sex-neutral, then calls the older definition “unreasoned.”
• False analogy, second pass. Still treats sex as an add-on like race.
• Special pleading. Their declared goods count as reason; yours count as dogma.
• Straw man. Reduces the whole case to “my leader’s God.”

16 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

We've determined that procreative capacity has nothing to do with it,

Procreative capacity has nothing to do with marriage?  Are you sure you want to go with that?

16 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

because it doesn't matter if the couple engages in procreative sex, is past menopause, uses birth control etc. What is important to you, is your interpretation of your religious leader's interpretation of thier god says only opposite genders can marry. That is not reasoned but declared and accepted.

We have not determined that procreative capacity has nothing to do with it. We have determined that this particular act need not conceive. Those are different sentences.

A husband and wife past menopause, or using contraception, are still the kind of pair whose sexual union is the generative kind. The institution is built around that pair: the two sexes, the possibility of a child who has that mother and that father, and the same bond when a child does not arrive. Birth control and age limit an instance. They do not turn the pair into two men.

Two men never were that pair. There is no generative kind sitting underneath that is merely blocked this month.

16 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

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Skin color is not a constituent of the act or of the two parental sexes. Banning marriage “because they have Black skin” is picking a trait that has nothing to do with the kind of union. That is prejudice wearing a rule.

So is the reproductive status, acts and genders of the participants. Except, your interpretation of your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry. That is not reasoned but declared and accepted.

No. Those are not the same kind of fact as skin color, and they are not the same as each other.

Skin color is not a part of the sexual act and not a part of “mother and father.” A Black husband and a White wife are still a man and a woman. The color is an extra trait. Using it to ban the marriage is prejudice wearing a rule.

Reproductive status of this couple (menopause, contraception, no ovaries) is a fact about an instance. It tells you whether a child is likely this year. It does not tell you what kind of pair they are. I have already said that.

This or that act tonight (whether it can fertilize) is also a fact about an instance. Union in a husband–wife marriage does not have to conceive that hour. I have already said that too.

The sexes of the two people are not a third extra trait like color, and they are not “reproductive status.” They are what makes the pair a husband and a wife rather than two men or two women. You can say that difference should not matter to the civil institution. That is a moral claim about what marriage is for. It is not a finding that sex is as idle as complexion.

You keep running the same collapse: because I allow sex when this couple cannot conceive, generation “has nothing to do with it,” so the only leftover is my prophet. That only follows if the ethic was “a baby must result from this act.” That was never the ethic. The ethic is: the union of the two sexes, institutionalized as marriage, ordered to children and to the bond, including when this household has no child.

Declared and accepted.

Yes, prophets teach that. I have not hidden it. It does not follow that there is no public reason left. “Marriage names the pair that can be mother and father” is a reason you can argue with without opening Genesis. Your counter is also declared: marriage is the legal recognition of a loving adult bond, and sex is decoration. You did not derive that from a lab. You chose what the institution is for. Calling your choice “reasoned” and mine “accepted” is just a compliment you are paying yourself.

If sex is as arbitrary in marriage as race, show why a child having a mother and a father is like a child having two parents of the same skin color. Until you do that, the parody is still a parody.

Fallacies

• Equivocation. “Reproductive status,” “this act,” and “sex of the pair” treated as one idle trait.
• False analogy. Sex still treated as skin.
• Non sequitur. Non-fertile marital sex → generation irrelevant → only dogma remains.
• Special pleading. Their definition of marriage counts as reason; yours counts as a sermon.

16 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

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Sex is not like that. “Man” and “woman” are the two halves of the kind of pair the rule is about. Two men are not “the same marriage plus an extra adjective.” They are not a husband and a wife, and a household of two men is not a mother and a father. That is the claim you have to answer. Swapping in race assumes the claim is already false.

I have yet to see a distinction made that doesn't boil down to "your interpretation of your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry." It doesn't matter if the couple can have kids, wants to have kids or anything else. 

You have seen the distinction. You have restated it as a sermon so you do not have to answer it.

Here it is without a prophet in the sentence:

Marriage, on this view, is the institution that joins the two sexes and attaches children to the mother and father whose union can produce them. Two men can have a household, a license, and a deep attachment. They cannot be that pair. An opposite-sex couple who cannot or will not have children is still that pair. Fertility this year, desire for kids, and use of contraception are facts about a household. They are not the definition of the pair.

That is a claim about what the institution is. You can reject it. You can say marriage should be only a companionate contract. What you cannot do is pretend the claim was never made and that the only words on the table are “my leader’s God.”

“It doesn’t matter if the couple can have kids” is my point about instances, which you are using as if it were a confession that generation never mattered to the kind. I have said the opposite several times. Repeating “I have yet to see a distinction” after that is not scout mindset. It is a decision that the only distinction you will count is one that does not mention sex.

If your test for “reasoned” is “does not treat male and female as the two halves of the union,” then of course every argument I give will fail the test. That is a filter, not a rebuttal.

I also believe prophets teach this. That is an additional warrant for me. It is not the only sentence I have offered you. If you want to debate authority, say the premises in Proposition 1 are false and we will have that argument. If you want to debate the institution, answer why a mother-and-father pair is as arbitrary as a color bar. Those are two conversations. Collapsing both into “you were told” is how you avoid both.

Fallacies

• Straw man. Every institutional argument flattened to “prophet said.”
• Goalpost. Instance-level fertility treated as if it were the whole theory.
• Question-begging. “Reasoned” defined as already sex-neutral.
• Repetition as refutation. “I have yet to see” after the distinction was stated.

16 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

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“Children should be raised by non-Black people” is an invented end. Nobody is required by biology or by the structure of generation to believe it. “A child has a mother and a father” is not an invented end. It is a description of how children come to be. You can say that description should not control marriage law. You cannot pretend it is the same sentence as a color bar.

We've already demonstrated that you don't actually care about this. If science tomorrow created a way for gay people to have biological children it wouldn't change a thing. It boils down your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry.

You have not demonstrated that I do not care about mother and father. You have demonstrated that generation is not the only thing in the ethic, and that a science-fiction patch on one fact would not automatically rewrite the rest. That is ordinary. It is not a confession.

If tomorrow two men could mix their own gametes and produce a child, one sentence of mine would have to change: “same-sex unions are a biological dead end.” I have used that sentence. I would stop using it in that form. What would not automatically disappear:

• The child would still not have a mother and a father. It would have two fathers, or a lab and two fathers. “Biological offspring” is not the same fact as “this child has a mom and a dad.”
• The pair would still not be husband and wife in the sense the institution named.
• The Law of Chastity would still limit sexual relations to that marriage. For me that is an independent warrant, not a leftover after biology is exhausted.

Caring about an end does not mean it is a single lever that, if someone imagines it away, proves you never cared. A ban on sibling marriage is not shown to be “only religion” because gene editing might one day fix the medical risk. The medical risk was a reason. It was not the only reason. You do not get to delete every other reason and then declare the first one was theater.

“We’ve already determined” is doing too much work. What was determined is that I will not move two men into X solely because a lab gave them a baby. That is consistent with an ethic that has more than one pillar. It is inconsistent with your test, which is: the only honest reason I may have is the one that, if hypothetically canceled, would flip my conclusion. That test is designed so that any second reason counts as proof the first was fake.

Yes, prophets teach man–woman marriage. I have said that in the open. It does not empty the mother-and-father description, and it does not make a color bar a good analogy. If you want to argue that God has not spoken, argue that. If you want to argue that a child having two fathers is as complete as a child having a mother and a father, argue that. Do not treat a thought experiment that leaves the mother out as a demonstration that I never meant the sentence.

Fallacies

• False dilemma. Either one fact flips the whole ethic, or you never cared about that fact.
• Moving the goalposts. “Biological children” swapped in for “mother and father.”
• Motivated inference. Extra reasons treated as evidence the first reason was a cover.
• Restated question-begging. Still “only the prophet,” still unshown.

16 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

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The “I have Black friends” line is doing smear work. I have not claimed same-sex attracted people are less human. I have claimed a kind of sexual pair is not a marriage of husband and wife. If that is wrong, show that the kinds are the same. Do not swap the trait for one that is irrelevant and call the result a confession.

I don't think the genders or the race of the participants are important. They are on the same level to me. It boils down your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry.

"They are on the same level to me."

This is good.  That is the actual disagreement.

You think the sexes of the spouses and the race of the spouses are the same kind of fact about a marriage: extra adjectives, morally idle, interchangeable. I do not. On your view a color bar and a man–woman rule are cousins. On mine they are not, because only one of those facts is what the pair is.

Saying they are “on the same level to me” is honest. It is also a declaration. You have not shown they are the same level in the structure of generation, in the words “mother” and “father,” or in the history of the institution. You have reported your sorting. “To me” does not make sex into skin.

It still does not “boil down” to a prophet. A secular person can hold that male and female are the two halves of the marital pair and that race is not. Many have. A religious person can hold the same thing and also believe God has said so. Adding the second sentence does not delete the first. Refusing to hear the first because the second exists is your filter.

If sex and race are truly on the same level, then “the child has a mother and a father” is no more structural than “the child has two parents of the same complexion.” That is the claim you now need to defend. Repeating that my leader talks about God does not defend it.

I do not think same-sex attracted people are less human. I think you have put the wrong two traits on the same shelf. That is the argument. The parody only works after you win that argument. You have asserted it. You have not won it.

Fallacies

• Assertion as proof. “On the same level to me” offered as if it settled the analogy.
• Question-begging. Same-level claim assumes the conclusion the parody needs.
• Red herring. Prophet sentence used to avoid defending the leveling.

16 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

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Loving struck down a rule that used race to stop men and women from marrying. It did not hold that every restriction on which pair counts as marriage is the same as a racial ban. Treating sex as legally interchangeable with race is the move you need to justify. The parody assumes it.

The parody does assume they are interchangeable. Because they are. Marriage serves the exact same role for married lesbians as married straight people. It serves the same role for infertile and fertile people. It serves the same role for black and white people. It serves the same role for people that participate in reproductive sex acts and non-reproductive sex acts. Except for you because your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry.

Same for whom, and same as what?

If the role is “two adults get a license, companionship, hospital rights, and a public name for their bond,” then yes: a lesbian couple, an infertile couple, and a Black couple can all occupy that role. That is the companionate definition. Once you adopt it, every further distinction looks like a sermon. You have built that result into the word “role.”

If the role is the older one—joining the two sexes and attaching children to a mother and a father—then a lesbian marriage does not serve the same role. It serves the companionate role. It does not serve the generative one. An infertile husband and wife still occupy the generative kind of pair; they may fail at the fruit. Two women never occupied it. A Black husband and wife occupy it the same way a White husband and wife do. Race never left that role. Sex is the role.

So the list you offered is not four examples of one fact. It is one real parallel and three lumpings:

• Black and White spouses: same kind of pair. Race is idle.
• Fertile and infertile opposite-sex spouses: same kind of pair; different fruit this year.
• Reproductive and non-reproductive acts in that marriage: same pair; union as well as generation.
• Two women and a husband and wife: different kind of pair. Same companionate goods if you only count those goods.

“It serves the exact same role for married lesbians as for married straight people” is true on your definition of the role and false on mine. That is the dispute. It is not evidence that sex and race are interchangeable. It is you using the companionate definition as a measuring stick and then declaring that whatever does not fit the stick was only ever a prophet.

Loving fits the first three lines and not the fourth. It stopped the state from using an idle trait to block a man and a woman. It did not hold that every use of sex in the definition of marriage is a cousin of Jim Crow. Obergefell did treat the companionate role as enough. You are with that opinion. Say so. Do not treat “same role” as a neutral observation that my side has to swallow before the argument starts.

I also think prophets teach man–woman marriage. That does not make “same companionate role” into “same institution.” If the only role you will count is the one two lesbians already fill, then of course you will find no distinction except religion. You have defined the others out of the room.

Fallacies

• Equivocation. “Role” as adult companionship vs “role” as generative institution.
• Question-begging. Measures every couple by the companionate role, then calls sex idle.
• False grouping. Race, infertility, technique, and two women treated as one list.
• Restated dogma charge. Still used as a substitute for defending the leveling.

16 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

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Again: I think the "Bigot!" schtick is so frequently utilized because it's all you've got.  I can articulate a reasoned basis for my position. 

Still waiting to see it.

Go back a few pages.  I laid out 7 propositions.  I don't think you have addressed them.  I invite you to do so.  Please lay out which ones you accept and which you do not, and why.

16 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Here is what I see. You believe in God. God said each kid needs a Mom and a Dad and marriage and sex are only for opposite gendered people who are married. That's it. I mean we tried to go back and forth on the biology one. You said "as a reproductive act, it does not cohere" but apparently you have no problem with opposite gendered people participating in sex acts that are non-reproductive even if they do so exclusively. Further post menopausal woman still get to have sex even though as a reproductive act that doesn't cohere. Your fine with Jackie having sex even though she has XY chromosomes and as  a reproductive act that doesn't cohere. So what's left? Your religious leader's interpretation of their god says only opposite genders can marry.

You have seen a reasoned basis. You have a rule that the only basis you will count is one that (a) never mentions God and (b) treats every non-fertile night as if it canceled the kind. Under that rule, of course nothing remains but a prophet. That is your filter.

Here is the basis, restated and clarified in pieces you can reject one at a time instead of flattening.

1. Kind of pair.

Marriage, on this view, joins a man and a woman. Two men are not that pair plus an adjective. Race is an adjective. Sex is the pair.

2. What the institution is for.

It grew up around the sexual union that can generate a child and attach that child to a mother and a father. That is a description of generation, not a verse. You can say the civil institution should no longer care. You cannot say the description was never offered.

3. Instance is not kind.

A postmenopausal wife, contraception, and oral sex in a marriage do not “fail to cohere” as the pair. They fail to conceive this time. The pair is still husband and wife. I said generation and union are both ends. You keep quoting only the first half of that sentence and then declaring a contradiction.

4. Jackie / CAIS is not your template.

CAIS is a 46,XY disorder of male development with a female-typical body. In ordinary and legal speech she can be a wife and a mother. That is an edge case in the binary, not proof that sex is idle, not proof that two men are a mother and a father, and not proof that “reproductive coherence” was my only test. Rare DSDs are why we keep layers. They are not a warrant to treat sex like race.

5. The sci-fi baby does not erase the rest.

If two men could produce a child in a lab, “dead end” would possibly need a rewrite (not sure about that, actually, since "in a lab" is not necessarily "natural"). The child would still not have a mother and a father. The pair would still not be husband and wife. More than one reason can be real at once. A second reason is not evidence the first was fake.

6. God and prophets.

Yes. I believe God has taught that sexual relations belong in a marriage of a man and a woman. That is an additional warrant. It is not the only sentence above. If you want to argue that God has not spoken, argue that. Do not use it as a delete key for 1–5.

What is not a reasoned rebuttal: “still waiting,” “that’s it,” and “Bigot!” Those are ways of announcing that you will not count a distinction unless it already uses your definition of marriage (companionate contract, sex and race on the same shelf). Under that definition my view will always look like a sermon. That is not a finding that I never gave reasons. It is a finding that you only score reasons that concede your premise.

If you want to continue, pick one of 1–5 and say why it is false. Do not run them all back through “your leader’s God” and call the thread finished.

Fallacies

• Straw man. Multi-part case reduced to one verse.
• Equivocation. “Doesn’t cohere as an act tonight” vs “doesn’t cohere as a kind of pair.”
• No true reasons. Any non-theological reason disqualified for not being your reason.
• Jackie as wedge. DSD edge case used to cancel the ordinary pair.

Thanks,

-Smac