Church's Policy on Surrogacy - Looking for Input

[Analytics]

On 9/26/2026 at 12:12 PM, smac97 said:

I do find the sentiment in the video you like difficult to reconcile with the well that folks like you and SU so frequently go to, namely, "The only plausible explanation for you disagreeing with me is that you are a bigot."  You seem to genuinely lack the capacity to allow reasonable minds to reach conclusions which diverge from your conclusions.  

Maybe I'm being unfair. You at least sometimes come across as being selective in your focus and outrage for these LGBTQ groups. It doesn't seem reasonable. It seems targeted.

I might be wrong. Let's test this. From your last post, you said that you really, really, hate using pronouns that correspond to somebody's gender identity rather than their biological sex, because using those pronouns would be dishonest. You hate the idea of an employer compelling the use of pronouns you disagree with. 

Is this principle based, or are you being selective against a particular group?

Let's test it with a hypothetical. Say there is a judge who you happen to know really isn't honorable. Are you morally outraged at court decorum requiring you to call a judge "your honor" when you know that particular judge isn't honorable? If so, how often to you go on the internet and complain about how awful this form of compelled speech is? 

You seem to be in favor of "free speech" laws that protect the use of "true" pronouns at work. Would you also be in favor of "free speech" laws that allow you to call a judge "your dishonor" if you really think he isn't honorable?

On 9/26/2026 at 12:12 PM, smac97 said:

I am working from the pages you quoted and I have seen elsewhere, not from a pretense of having read the whole book. Those pages say the particle content relevant to everyday matter is settled, and that a soul that made a difference the way extra particles would have made a difference should have been seen. That is a strong experimental claim. I am not disputing it.

I appreciate the effort you are making here.

On 9/26/2026 at 12:12 PM, smac97 said:

What I am disputing is the next step: treating that inventory as a complete list of everything that can exist or act, and then assigning an infinitesimal prior to revelation or a soul.

You aren't being precise here. The assertion isn't and never was about "a complete list of everything that can exist or act." The assertion is about whether unknown forces or particles can interact with normal matter with enough vigor to have any effect on our everyday lives. And in this context, this doesn't just mean bending spoons. It means subtly nudging an electrical impulse enough to change the probability that a neuron fires.

In this context, "spirit matter" (as conceived by Mormonism), "revelation" and other such things are all in the broad category of "new particles or fields".

The verdict is unambiguous: we’ve found all of the particles that our best current technology enables us to find. Crossing symmetry assures us that, if there were any particles lurking around us that interact with ordinary matter strongly enough to make a difference to the behavior of everyday stuff, those particles should have easily been produced in experiments. But there’s nothing there.

There are probably more particles yet to be found. They just won’t be relevant to our everyday world. The fact that we haven’t yet found such particles tells us a great deal about what properties they must have; that’s the power of quantum field theory. Any particle that we haven’t yet detected must have one of the following features:

1. It could be so very weakly interacting with ordinary matter that it is almost never produced; or—
2. It could be extremely massive, so that it takes collisions at energies even higher than what our best accelerators can achieve in order to make it; or—
3. It could be extremely short-lived, so that it gets made but then almost immediately decays away into other particles.

If any particle we haven’t yet found lasted long enough and interacted with ordinary matter with sufficient strength that it could possibly affect the physics of everyday goings-on, we would have produced it in experiments by now.

Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (pp. 182-183). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

In this context, "the physics of everyday goings-on" include having enough impact to even subtly affect your brain.

He addresses at least part of your point directly:

To imagine that the soul pushes around the electrons and protons and neutrons in our bodies in a way that we haven’t yet detected  is certainly conceivable, but it implies that modern physics is profoundly wrong in a way that has so far eluded every controlled experiment ever performed. How should we modify the Core Theory equation (shown in the Appendix) to allow for the soul to influence the particles in our body? It’s a substantial hurdle to leap.

Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (p. 212). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

Carroll published this 11 years ago, and unsurprisingly it still holds up. If your beliefs about spirit matter and revelation are true, then "modern physics is profoundly wrong in a way that has so far eluded every controlled experiment ever performed."

Here's the thing. If you want to expose your beliefs to the baloney detection kit, you can do so. If you don't want to, you don't have to. But arguing with people on the internet isn't the same thing as rigorously examining your beliefs the way Sagan recommends. From my perspective, it seems really internally inconsistent to say that you accept science, but selectively reject its implications on philosophical grounds when it contradicts your religious beliefs, and to say that you are in favor of applying the baloney detection kit to the silly beliefs of others, but don't think it is applicable to your beliefs for philosophical reasons.

Edited 17 hours ago by Analytics

[california boy]

On 9/26/2026 at 8:46 AM, smac97 said:

Thank you for your comments.

The legal definition is not, I think, an argument. It is the thing we are arguing about.  

“Fortunately the law differs from your opinion” means: five Justices in 2015 wrote a companionate definition into the Fourteenth Amendment, so the discussion is over. Though that is what happened (and I acknowledge that it is the law of the land), that is not a reply to what marriage is for. It is an appeal to a recent judgment. Loving struck a racial bar on men and women marrying. Obergefell held that sex is idle in the definition. Those are not the same holding. Citing the second as if it were accumulated social consensus, or a vote, skips the work.

You are trying to define what you think marriage should be.  But not only does the Supreme Court disagree with you, but by far the majority of Americans also agree,  You are definitely an outliner trying to make a case that marriage is all about the plumbing and not the far more importance of establishing a strong legal foundation, committing to a life long relationship and providing a stable environment for raising children.  To the majority of Americans, these are the things that bring value to marriage.  

 

On 9/26/2026 at 8:46 AM, smac97 said:

“Denying citizens the right to marry is not a good decision for the country or the world” is a slogan that does not contain a limit. Incestuous pairs, group marriages, and polygamous households can say the same sentence: we are citizens, we want the license, we would benefit. If the only test is “someone is left out of the current definition,” every restriction fails. The live question is what the institution is, not whether some adults would like a marriage certificate.

Pretty ironic that you list polygamous households marriages as being somehow shameful and shouldn't be legalized either.  

On 9/26/2026 at 8:46 AM, smac97 said:

“Keeping a foundation of marriage for all is a strength” is asserted, not shown. I already granted private goods for some couples — hospital access, inheritance, companionship. You treated that grant as if I had said “zero benefit,” then ignored the costs I listed: the public meaning of the institution, children placed by design in a home with no mother or no father, and a documented pattern of explicit non-monogamy in a large share of male same-sex relationships. “The world is a better place for it” does not engage those points. It scores only the column you like.

A small share of gay and lesbian adults are in a same-sex marriage. That is not a reason to deny anyone a license. It is a reason to stop talking as if the license were a universal foundation “for all” that the holdouts are tearing down.

Really?  You don't view stable marriage relationships as an important foundation of American society?  Well I guess we will have to disagree with that world view.  

Do you believe gay couples relationship and society in general is better off if they just living together?

On 9/26/2026 at 8:46 AM, smac97 said:

 

“To argue against marriage for even part of the population is to devalue marriage” assumes the conclusion. It assumes marriage is a flexible status whose purpose is adult recognition, so that drawing a line at husband-and-wife is an insult to the institution. On the account I have been using, the line is the institution: the sexual pair that can generate children, and the household that can be a mother and a father. Two men can have a real, loyal, legally useful bond. That does not make the bond the same kind of union. Refusing to collapse the kinds is not “devaluing marriage.” It is refusing to make companionship the whole of it.

If you want to say the costs I listed are overstated, say that and point to the data. “The law already says otherwise” and “denying anyone a license devalues marriage” do not do much to advance the discussion.

Thanks,

-Smac

I am saying plumbing and whether a couple can reproduce are not the only criteria the majority of Americans judge the value of marriage to be.  I really don't know many people that share your radical defining reasons for marriage.  Maybe it is more of an Utah thing because of the Church's campaign against gay marriage among its members.  

Do you think there should be a questioner required to be signed stating each partner's sex and whether they will be able to reproduce?  

[Calm]

6 hours ago, Analytics said:

Do you like audio books? Most of the book is pretty conversational, so if that is a more accessible way for you to ingest information, you might want to consider listening to it.

That is even harder for me to track.   My own thoughts are too noisy, too easily distracted, lol.  I couldn’t even do those before fibro or chronic sleep deprivation or whatever it was got to me.  But thanks for the suggestion.  I am not entirely hopeless about this, several things have improved over the past two years with my latest drug.  And there’s much more research occurring.

Edited 15 hours ago by Calm

[Calm]

7 hours ago, Analytics said:

Sure. We can't "prove" that when we aren't looking, the toys don't jump to life and have eventful, dramatic lives, but then run back to where they were and pretend they are dead when we aren't looking. There is no way to prove that. All we have is the evidence based on the experiments. The Core Theory has been "spectacularly successful at accounting for every experiment ever performed in a laboratory here on Earth." (p. 176)  

I haven’t eaten breakfast yet, so I am resorting to AI’s cleaning up of my draft comments at least for now, so if this sounds like not me in terms of language, it isn’t, even if definitely my ideas down to the details.  It is just prettier than my stuff.

I don’t know if this calls for quoting or not, lol.

Me polished up by AI, except for the last paragraph as it ignored that point.

I don’t think this comment actually deals with his assumption that a physical event has only physical causes.  And, in fact, I think our usual LDS interpretation of Joseph’s statements about spirit may be part of the problem rather than a solution.

We tend to read Joseph’s description of spirit as “matter, but more fine or pure” as though he were making a statement about physical matter in something close to the modern scientific sense. But Joseph didn’t define what he meant by matter, spirit, or refined with anything approaching the precision we would expect today. He also lived before two centuries of scientific discoveries that have radically changed what we mean by matter, energy, fields, particles, and physical reality. So I don’t think we can simply assume that Joseph was working with the same conceptual categories we are.

And there’s an even more fundamental reason I’m reluctant to treat his language as closing the question. We’re talking about an entity who, within the LDS conception, was a mortal human being trying to describe realities associated with beings and an existence that are supposed to be vastly beyond ordinary human experience. I have a hard time being confident that the conceptual and linguistic tools available to a short-lived mortal human are sufficient to tell us precisely what an eternal being is, what its constituent reality is, or even whether our categories of “physical” and “nonphysical” map onto that reality in the way we assume they do.

That doesn’t mean I believe Joseph was wrong, or that spirits exist, or that there must be some unknown form of matter or something more than matter. It means I don’t think we can take his relatively imprecise language and turn it into the much stronger proposition that everything that exists is ultimately physical in the modern sense of the word.  And this is both because we don’t know what Joseph truly meant and we don’t know if his understanding was even close to reality.

So I’m actually stepping away from the usual LDS conception of spirit matter here rather than defending it and dipping into the excuse that I see mortals as too limited to conceive of reality in a fundamental, encompassing way.  I may be making an inappropriate judgement based on what I see us doing with social knowledge…as if the experiences of thousands of years of recorded social interactions among at most hundred year entities can significantly inform our understanding of what the social life of immortal, remarkably advanced entities is like. (Think of how Star Trek is really about what we would do if transported into an advanced technological life, not what mortals that grew up in that life would do, so it’s not an actual glimpse at the future, it’s just a different setting for the here and now.)  I accept my extrapolation to all areas of knowledge may be wrong when it comes to the hard sciences because they deal with something different than the result of millions and more years of social development.

Hopefully this last paragraph made sense as well because I am not going to pop it into AI to be sure.  Too hungry.

[smac97]

9 hours ago, california boy said:

You are trying to define what you think marriage should be.  

I am reciting how marriage was defined until 2015, at which point five SCOTUS justices decided, on flimsy-bordering-on-pretextual legal grounds, to toss out what is - in my view - the sine qua non attribute of the institution: a male-female pairing.

9 hours ago, california boy said:

But not only does the Supreme Court disagree with you, but by far the majority of Americans also agree,  

Argumentum ad populum is a logical error that happens when you claim something is true just because a lot of people believe it.

If SCOTUS were to reverse Obergefell, and if the majority of Americans were to return to disagreeing with same-sex marriage, would you change your views?  

Popular opinion can be fickle.  From June 2026:

U.S. Support for LGBTQ+ Issues Remains Down From Peak

Quote

After two decades of rising support for LGBTQ+ issues, U.S. attitudes have plateaued and begun to slide back modestly. Approval of same-sex marriage, moral acceptance of gay and lesbian relations, and endorsement of gender changes are all down from peaks reached in the early 2020s.

While most Americans still favor legal same-sex marriages, the 65% who do so today is down six percentage points from the peak in 2022 and 2023. Similarly, the percentage viewing gay or lesbian relations as morally acceptable, 62%, has not been lower since 2016. And the share of Americans who consider changing one's gender morally acceptable has declined eight points over the past five years, to 38%.

Probably a few reasons for this. Regardless, my perspective on issues of morality, the Law of Chastity, marriage, etc. are not dictated by what is popular, but rather what I feel is right and reasoned.

9 hours ago, california boy said:

Quote

“Keeping a foundation of marriage for all is a strength” is asserted, not shown. I already granted private goods for some couples — hospital access, inheritance, companionship. You treated that grant as if I had said “zero benefit,” then ignored the costs I listed: the public meaning of the institution, children placed by design in a home with no mother or no father, and a documented pattern of explicit non-monogamy in a large share of male same-sex relationships. “The world is a better place for it” does not engage those points. It scores only the column you like.

A small share of gay and lesbian adults are in a same-sex marriage. That is not a reason to deny anyone a license. It is a reason to stop talking as if the license were a universal foundation “for all” that the holdouts are tearing down.

Really?  You don't view stable marriage relationships as an important foundation of American society?  

I have laid out my reasoning.  I look forward to a substantive critique of it.

9 hours ago, california boy said:

Well I guess we will have to disagree with that world view.  

I am glad of that.  We need to allow each other to room to disagree.

9 hours ago, california boy said:

Do you believe gay couples relationship and society in general is better off if they just living together?

The vast majority of them are "just living together" even 11 years after the legalization of same-sex marriage.

I do not think the typical committed couple is better off with no legal tools at all — no hospital access, no inheritance default, no next-of-kin status. I already said those private goods are real.  But they could have been achieved without radically re-defining marriage.  Moreover, that is not the same question as whether the civil institution of marriage should have been redefined so that it no longer publicly means a union ordered to the possibility of mother-and-father childrearing. A couple can be better off with a contract or a tailored status and still leave the older meaning of marriage intact.

‘Are these two adults happier with a license?’ can be yes for many pairs. ‘Is society better off once the institution no longer distinguishes the kind of union that can produce a child with both a mother and a father?’ is a different question. I have been answering the second one. Treating them as one question is how ‘private goods I already granted’ gets scored as if I said cohabitation with zero recognition is the ideal.

9 hours ago, california boy said:

I am saying plumbing and whether a couple can reproduce are not the only criteria the majority of Americans judge the value of marriage to be.  

Again, you are using the argumentum ad populum fallacy.  

Again, you were in favor of same-sex marriage when it was not the law of the land and most Americans were opposed to it, right?

9 hours ago, california boy said:

I really don't know many people that share your radical defining reasons for marriage.  

I have not defined marriage via number, gender, consanguinity, consent and age.  I have, instead, recited how the law previously treated marriage.

9 hours ago, california boy said:

Maybe it is more of an Utah thing because of the Church's campaign against gay marriage among its members.  

Do you think there should be a questioner required to be signed stating each partner's sex and whether they will be able to reproduce?  

Majority sentiment is evidence about what people now prize in a relationship. It is not a definition of the institution. Plenty of Americans now treat marriage as a diluted form of what it was previously (categorically linked with procreation and child-rearing), and now see it more or less as just some sort of prestige package for adult commitment, severed from that prior categorical link. That is exactly the shift I have been arguing against. Calling the older account ‘radical’ or ‘a Utah thing’ names where you have heard it. It does not show the account is wrong.

The criterion I have cited (among others) is not "this pair will in fact conceive." It is the kind of sexual union that is ordered to generating children and that can give a child a mother and a father. Infertile opposite-sex couples still enter that kind of union. Same-sex couples categorically do not. That is why the law never needed a fertility questionnaire for husband and wife, and why I would not add one. A sex-and-fertility form would treat a contingent medical fact as if it were the same issue as the structure of the pair. It is not.

Two men can have a loyal, legally useful bond. I have not denied that. I have denied that companionship-plus-license is now the whole public meaning of marriage. If most people now want that to be the whole meaning, I guess you can say so.  If you do, you will be tacitly admitting that marriage has been severed from procreation and child-rearing, and that you are on board with this.  That is a proposal to change what the institution is for, not proof that drawing the older line "devalues marriage."

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited 9 hours ago by smac97

[smac97]

10 hours ago, Analytics said:

Quote

I do find the sentiment in the video you like difficult to reconcile with the well that folks like you and SU so frequently go to, namely, "The only plausible explanation for you disagreeing with me is that you are a bigot."  You seem to genuinely lack the capacity to allow reasonable minds to reach conclusions which diverge from your conclusions.  

Maybe I'm being unfair. You at least sometimes come across as being selective in your focus and outrage for these LGBTQ groups.

You are only further demonstrating my point.  To disagree with you is to be "bigoted."  To disagree with you is to be "outraged."  Again, you seem incapable of allowing for reasoned and principled disagreement.

10 hours ago, Analytics said:

I might be wrong. Let's test this. From your last post, you said that you really, really, hate using pronouns that correspond to somebody's gender identity rather than their biological sex, because using those pronouns would be dishonest.

You hate the idea of an employer compelling the use of pronouns you disagree with. 

You are here demonstrating why I don't see you as a reliable narrator.  You cannot be trusted to fairly characterize viewpoints which diverge from yours.  Here is what I have said, and which you characterize as "really, really hate":

Quote

Whether to call Caitlyn Jenner, a male who "identifies" as a woman, by "she/her" pronouns is not really a contest I want to address every day.
...
If using correct pronouns will cause a person afflicted with a mental condition some distress, I might as well.  It would be exhausting otherwise.  My reservations arise from this being presented as a requirement, not a request, and from the use of the coercive power of the State to compel use of incorrect pronouns, and so on.
...
If I had a "trans" co-worker, someone I had to interact with every day, I would probably concede the fight and go along with the falsehood.  Both because it would be exhausting to have the co-worker complaint every time someone uses a grammatically correct pronoun and because HR might get involved.  Gotta love compelled speech.

Nothing about "hate" here (as in "to dislike intensely or passionately; feel extreme aversion for or extreme hostility toward; detest").

I have strong principled disagreement with coerced and compelled speech, but you can't accommodate that, so you rebrand it as "hate."  

10 hours ago, Analytics said:

Is this principle based, or are you being selective against a particular group?

It is based on principle.  Coerced/compelled speech is a terrible idea.  

I am not selective about this.  It just so happens that the only substantive movement I can think of that incorporates coerced/compelled speech into its objectives and means is some parts of the LGBT movement.  I see this as a tacit acknowledgment of its vacuity.  You and yours can't persuade, so you coerce.  It's agree with you or else be branded a "bigot" driven by "hate."  It's agree with you and yours or else you will seek to use the coercive power of the State to compel me to say words I do not want to say, or else punish me for not saying them.

There is no real effort here to persuade hearts and minds.  

10 hours ago, Analytics said:

Let's test it with a hypothetical. Say there is a judge who you happen to know really isn't honorable. Are you morally outraged at court decorum requiring you to call a judge "your honor" when you know that particular judge isn't honorable?

"Bigot."

"Really, really hate."

"Morally outraged."'

You just can't help yourself.

To answer your question: No.  The same can be said when I rendered military courtesies to officers I found to be not really deserving of it.  A few reasons for this. 

First, I am in those circumstances effectively required to use titles, honorifics, and formalities.  I knew that was part of the gig when I joined the Army, and later when I joined the Bar. 

Second, these formalities are principally focused on the position and the system in which it functions more than the individual inhabiting it.  Band of Brothers got it right:

Third, to the extent military service or courtroom formalities by members of the Bar are seen as "compelled," they are very much exceptions to the rule.  I think that's a stretch, though.  Calling a judge "Your Honor" is legally classified as a regulation of conduct and decorum within a specialized government facility rather than unconstitutional compelled speech.   A servicemember being required to address a superior officer as "sir" or "ma'am" is not considered unconstitutional compelled speech because of the legally distinct nature of the U.S. military. While the First Amendment generally prevents the government from forcing citizens to say things they disagree with (like the Pledge of Allegiance), the rules are fundamentally different for active-duty personnel.

10 hours ago, Analytics said:

If so, how often to you go on the internet and complain about how awful this form of compelled speech is? 

"Bigot."

"Really, really hate."

"Morally outraged."'

"Awful."

You just can't help yourself.

10 hours ago, Analytics said:

You seem to be in favor of "free speech" laws that protect the use of "true" pronouns at work.

I am not sure what you are referencing here.  Most employers are private entities, and hence are not bound by the First Amendment, which regulates State behavior relative to speech.

10 hours ago, Analytics said:

Quote

What I am disputing is the next step: treating that inventory as a complete list of everything that can exist or act, and then assigning an infinitesimal prior to revelation or a soul.

You aren't being precise here. The assertion isn't and never was about "a complete list of everything that can exist or act." The assertion is about whether unknown forces or particles can interact with normal matter with enough vigor to have any effect on our everyday lives. And in this context, this doesn't just mean bending spoons. It means subtly nudging an electrical impulse enough to change the probability that a neuron fires.

In this context, "spirit matter" (as conceived by Mormonism), "revelation" and other such things are all in the broad category of "new particles or fields".

That is a fair correction on wording. The live claim is not "nothing else can exist." It is: nothing unknown can couple to ordinary matter strongly enough to change everyday outcomes, including the probability that a given neuron fires.

If a soul or an act of revelation had to be a new field or particle that continuously exchanges energy-momentum with charges and ions the way known forces do, then yes — a nudge at the synapse is exactly the kind of coupling experiments were built to find. I am not saying that coupling was missed.

What I am disputing, and have for years, is the requirement that revelation or a soul, if real, must be that kind of extra term in the effective theory. That is the step that turns ‘no fifth force in the neural energy range’ into ‘therefore an infinitesimal prior on God speaking.’ A cause that is not another particle species, or that does not act as a stable, law-like force across the board, is not constrained in the same way by crossing symmetry. You can reject those options. You cannot treat the rejection as if it were just the experimental bound on extra particles.

10 hours ago, Analytics said:

The verdict is unambiguous: we’ve found all of the particles that our best current technology enables us to find. Crossing symmetry assures us that, if there were any particles lurking around us that interact with ordinary matter strongly enough to make a difference to the behavior of everyday stuff, those particles should have easily been produced in experiments. But there’s nothing there.

There are probably more particles yet to be found. They just won’t be relevant to our everyday world. The fact that we haven’t yet found such particles tells us a great deal about what properties they must have; that’s the power of quantum field theory. Any particle that we haven’t yet detected must have one of the following features:

1. It could be so very weakly interacting with ordinary matter that it is almost never produced; or—
2. It could be extremely massive, so that it takes collisions at energies even higher than what our best accelerators can achieve in order to make it; or—
3. It could be extremely short-lived, so that it gets made but then almost immediately decays away into other particles.

If any particle we haven’t yet found lasted long enough and interacted with ordinary matter with sufficient strength that it could possibly affect the physics of everyday goings-on, we would have produced it in experiments by now.

Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (pp. 182-183). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

In this context, "the physics of everyday goings-on" include having enough impact to even subtly affect your brain.

He addresses at least part of your point directly:

To imagine that the soul pushes around the electrons and protons and neutrons in our bodies in a way that we haven’t yet detected  is certainly conceivable, but it implies that modern physics is profoundly wrong in a way that has so far eluded every controlled experiment ever performed. How should we modify the Core Theory equation (shown in the Appendix) to allow for the soul to influence the particles in our body? It’s a substantial hurdle to leap.

Carroll, Sean M. . The Big Picture: On the Origins of Life, Meaning, and the Universe Itself (p. 212). (Function). Kindle Edition. 

Carroll published this 11 years ago, and unsurprisingly it still holds up. If your beliefs about spirit matter and revelation are true, then "modern physics is profoundly wrong in a way that has so far eluded every controlled experiment ever performed."

Here's the thing. If you want to expose your beliefs to the baloney detection kit, you can do so. If you don't want to, you don't have to. But arguing with people on the internet isn't the same thing as rigorously examining your beliefs the way Sagan recommends. From my perspective, it seems really internally inconsistent to say that you accept science, but selectively reject its implications on philosophical grounds when it contradicts your religious beliefs, and to say that you are in favor of applying the baloney detection kit to the silly beliefs of others, but don't think it is applicable to your beliefs for philosophical reasons.

"Bigot."

"Really, really hate."

"Morally outraged."'

"Awful."

"Boloney Detection Kit."

I accept the particle-physics claim in those pages. If something is another quantum field that lives long enough and couples to ordinary matter strongly enough to change everyday processes — including whether a neuron is a little more or less likely to fire — then yes, we should have produced it. Carroll’s three options for missing particles are the right list for that kind of thing. I am not arguing that a hidden electron-like field was overlooked.

The religious claim I am defending is not "there is a fourth option: a long-lived, moderately coupled particle we somehow missed."  It is that God, or a soul, or revelation, need not be a term you add to the Core Theory equation the way you add a new force. Carroll is right that if you insist on modeling the soul as something that pushes protons and electrons around inside the existing Lagrangian, you have a serious problem. That ‘if’ is the whole dispute. Treating every influence on a brain as "must be a modification of this equation in a way colliders would have seen" is the physicalist rule. The experiments bound extra couplings. They do not by themselves prove that the only possible cause is an extra coupling.

On the kit: I have said from the start that Sagan’s tools are the right tools for candidate scientific mechanisms: ESP papers, medical miracles, sloppy history, fraud. I apply them there. I do not accept that the same protocol, with the same restriction on admissible causes, is a neutral test of whether God can speak. That is not "science for thee but not for me." It is refusing to let a method designed to police extra particles in the everyday domain also serve as the sole judge of a different kind of claim. You can call that selective. I call it not collapsing two hypotheses into one.

I can be wrong about God. What I will not grant is that Carroll’s bound on undiscovered particles is the demonstration that I am wrong, or that declining to treat revelation as a missing term in the Core Theory is a refusal to think.

Thanks,

-Smac

[smac97]

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

It isn't telling me "what I want to hear." It is summarizing what I've already said in these conversations. 

I have limiting principles, but they are intentionally a little bit blurry so that people of good will have some discretion to make good decisions in complicated edge cases.

Okay.  The "intentionally a little bit blurry" comes across - quite strongly, in my view - as evasive and vague, as effectively impossible to apply, as motte-and-bailey.

I was in a hearing last week in which the judge was rendering a decision on a motion for summary judgment I had filed.  The opposing attorney, David, had filed an opposing memorandum that either dodged many of the points of law I was making or only addressed them vaguely and obliquely.

The most acute example was a question about David's first cause of action (I represent the defendant), seeking a judgment that my client, when he foreclosed on the plaintiff's house, violated the law by failing to send a "Notice of Default" to the plaintiff.  This is indisputably a requirement of the nonjudicial foreclosure process in Utah, but the obligation to send it rests with the foreclosure trustee (not my client).  In fact, my client is statutorily prohibited from doing what the trustee is obligated to do.  

At the hearing the judge asked David: "About that first cause of action, you aren't claiming that the defendant was the foreclosure trustee, correct?"  David didn't talk for about 15 seconds, but then said "No, we're not."  The judge then said "And the duty to send a Notice of Default to the property owner is the duty of the trustee, right?"  Another pregnant pause, even longer, then David said "That is correct."  The judge did not ask the next obvious question: "So the first cause of action necessarily fails, doesn't it?  The defendant can't be held liable for not sending a Notice of Default when he had no obligation to do so, right?"  The judge did, however, dismiss the first cause of action a few minutes later.

David did what you have been refusing to do for months now: answer questions directly and candidly.  Of course, he had an obligation to do so, and you do not.

I have been asking for weeks and weeks how you would propose to differentiate which men can legally access women's bathrooms and which cannot.  I have also been asking for "limiting principles" to your proposal.  I have also been asking you to acknowledge that your proposal, in enacted, would result in de facto and/or de jure eradication of sex-segregated spaces.

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

1. The reality and authority of gender identity

Source position — HRC: Gender identity is a person’s deeply felt internal understanding of themselves. That self-understanding should be respected when recognizing their gender. This does not, by itself, establish a particular scientific theory about how gender identity develops. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: You use gender identity to mean someone’s internal sense of themselves, distinct from sex recorded at birth. I found no specific commitment to a theory of its innateness. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" …

Huh.  ChatGPT doesn't seem to actually address the propositions.

"Proposition 1: Gender identity is real, innate, and authoritative. A person’s stated identity is the primary fact about whether they are a man, woman, both, or neither."

Do you agree or disagree with Proposition 1?  Is gender identity "real, innate and authoritative?"

Do you agree or disagree that "[a] person’s stated identity is the primary fact about whether they are a man, woman, both, or neither?"

What do you mean by "sex recorded at birth?"

If a person is a man by biological sex, but is a "woman" by "gender identity," is that person a man or a woman?

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

2. Recognition of transgender women as women and transgender men as men

Source position — HRC’s Alphonso David: Transgender women genuinely belong to the category women, rather than merely receiving an honorary designation. He defines womanhood through an adult’s understanding of herself as female; that is not a claim that identifying differently changes chromosomes. Senate Judiciary Committee

Your position: You recognize transgender people socially while distinguishing gender from biological sex. You explicitly reject making gender identity replace biological sex for every legal purpose. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

"Proposition 2:   Identity is sex (or replaces sex for social/legal purposes). “Trans women are women” / “trans men are men” is treated as a literal truth, not a courtesy or a political slogan."

What does "recognize transgender people socially" mean?

Do you agree or disagree that "trans women are women" is a "literal truth?"

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

3. Recognition without mandatory medical transition

Source position — GLAAD: Being transgender does not depend on obtaining a diagnosis, hormones, or surgery. People should not lose recognition because they cannot or do not wish to undergo medical procedures. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

Your position: For ordinary restroom use, you favor individual judgment and sincere identity, not mandatory medical qualification. You exclude insincere claims made as a pretext. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

"Proposition 3:   Self-identification is sufficient. No medical diagnosis, surgery, hormones, or even consistent presentation is required for the identity to be valid."

Do you agree or disagree that a man who "self-identifies" as a woman means he is a woman, regardless of "medical diagnosis, surgery, hormones, or even consistent presentation?"

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

4. Identity denial as a personal harm

Source position — GLAAD: Deliberately invalidating someone’s gender identity can attack their dignity and social legitimacy, not merely dispute an abstract definition. GLAAD expressly connects targeted misgendering with denying who a person is and with broader stigmatization. GLAAD Brand Portal

Your position: You advocate empathy and respectful treatment. I found no statement equating every disagreement about gender classification with denying that a person exists. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

"Proposition 4:   Denial of the identity is a denial of the person. Disagreeing with the identity claim is framed as saying the person 'doesn’t exist,' not as disputing a proposition."

Do you agree that if Person A denies that Person B, a man who "identifies" as a woman, actually is a woman, Person A is denying the "existence" of Person B?

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

5. Biological sex and the limits of rigid classification

Source position — HRC: Intersex variation and medical transition demonstrate that sex characteristics are not perfectly uniform or immutable. HRC therefore rejects describing sex through rigid, exceptionless categories. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: You explicitly argue that sex results from biological processes rather than an immutable essence, and that a strict binary model does not fully describe all variations. You expressly say this need not imply a third sex. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

"Proposition 5:   Sex is a spectrum, a social construct, or at least not a strict binary relevant to policy. Chromosomes, gametes, and reproductive anatomy are treated as crude, incomplete, or bigoted ways to classify people."

So is sex a "spectrum" or a "binary?"

How many sexes are there?

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

6. The meaning of “sex assigned at birth”

Source position — HRC/GLAAD: The phrase identifies the classification given to someone at birth, ordinarily based on observed anatomy, which may differ from their later gender identity. It does not inherently mean the classification was arbitrary. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: You introduced definitions explicitly tying the recorded classification to observed genital anatomy, while recognizing that atypical development can require a more involved assignment process. You have not claimed doctors invent biological sex. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" …

"Proposition 6:   'Assigned sex at birth' is the preferred description of sex, implying a bureaucratic label rather than an observed reproductive category."

Do you agree or disagree that "assigned sex at birth" implies "a bureaucratic label rather than an observed reproductive category."

Do you think a doctor "assigns" a sex to a newborn or "observes" it?

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

7. Names and pronouns

Source position — HRC/GLAAD: Use people’s stated pronouns and current names, correct misgendering, and respect confidentiality concerning former names. These are expectations of respectful treatment, not merely optional linguistic preferences in the organizations’ accounts. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: You say you try to use requested pronouns as a courtesy. I found no blanket claim from you that every mistake is equivalent to a slur. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

"Proposition 7:   Preferred pronouns and names are morally mandatory. Using sex-based pronouns is 'misgendering'; using a prior name is 'deadnaming.' Both are treated as harms comparable to slurs."

Do you agree or disagree that using sex-based pronouns is "misgendering?"

Do you agree or disagree that using sex-based pronouns is "comparable to slurs?"

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

8. Language that distinguishes sex without delegitimizing people

Source position — HRC: Contrasting transgender people with supposedly “real” men or women treats transgender identities as inauthentic. Its objection is to that framing—not, in the quotation supplied, a comprehensive prohibition on describing anatomy or reproductive characteristics. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

Your position: You openly use biological-sex distinctions and have supplied definitions involving sperm, ovaries, chromosomes, and anatomy. You do not treat discussing those characteristics as inherently objectionable. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" …

"Proposition 8:   There is no polite way to state the sex distinction. 'Biological male/female,' 'natal sex,' and similar terms are often classified as hate speech or dogwhistles."

Do you agree or disagree that using terms like "biological male" or "natal sex" are "hate speech or dogwhistles?"

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

9. Affirmation, exploration, and conversion therapy

Source position — distinguish the organizations: HRC condemns the model called gender exploratory therapy as conversion therapy. WPATH, however, explicitly recommends open exploration without favoring a particular identity and distinguishes that from efforts predetermined to make someone identify with their birth-assigned sex. These are not adequately summarized as opposition to all exploration. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: No specific position found on affirmation versus exploratory therapy or watchful waiting.

"Proposition 9:   Gender dysphoria is validated by affirmation, not primarily explored as a possible misattribution of other distress. 'Watchful waiting' or exploratory therapy is frequently labeled conversion therapy.

Do you agree or disagree that "gender dysphoria is validated by affirmation?"

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

10. Medical transition as healthcare

Source position — HRC: Transition-related treatment can be medically necessary and lifesaving; access should not be categorically denied through legislation. That is a claim about access to indicated care, not proof that every requested intervention is appropriate. Human Rights Campaign

Your position: In October 2024, you explicitly said other people’s treatment belongs between them and their doctors, and whether an intervention is advisable must be assessed case by case. You did not endorse every intervention indiscriminately. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

"Proposition 10:   Medical transition (blockers, hormones, surgery) is healthcare, and withholding it is violence. Access is framed as lifesaving; gatekeeping is framed as cruelty."

Do you agree or disagree that withholding medical transition is "violence?"

Do you agree or disagree that medical transition is "lifesaving?"

Do you agree or disagree that "gatekeeping" medical transition is "cruelty?"

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

11. Treatment and recognition of transgender minors

Source position — WPATH: Some adolescents may appropriately receive transition-related treatment, subject to assessment of sustained gender incongruence, maturity, relevant mental-health concerns, and informed consent or assent. Parents ordinarily participate, with exceptions when involvement would be harmful or infeasible. NCBI

Your position: You opposed government micromanagement of these decisions and expressly favored decision-making by parents and children, alongside your case-specific medical approach. No specific age thresholds or detailed eligibility protocol found. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

"Proposition 11:   Minors can have a stable, knowable transgender identity that justifies social and often medical transition. Parental or clinical caution is cast as abuse or bigotry."

Do you agree or disagree that "{m}inors {} have a stable, knowable transgender identity that justifies social and often medical transition?"

Do you agree or disagree that "{p}arental or clinical caution {regarding pediatric medical transition procedures} is ... abuse or bigotry?"

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

13. Restrooms, sports, prisons, and other facilities

Source position — distinguish the settings: GLAAD supports gender-identity-consistent restroom access. NWLC explicitly supports transgender women’s participation in women’s sports. WPATH’s institutional-housing guidance considers identity, preference, and safety—not identity alone. These are substantive inclusion positions, but not one identical rule covering every setting. GLAAD Brand Portal

Your position: You distinguish restroom discretion from sports eligibility and prison security. You favor leagues deciding sports rules and have explicitly objected to claims of an automatic right to women’s elite competition. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

"Proposition 13:   Single-sex spaces, sports, prisons, and shelters must follow identity, not sex. Exclusion of males who identify as women is discrimination."

Do you agree or disagree that "Single-sex spaces, sports, prisons, and shelters must follow identity, not sex?"

Do you agree or disagree that excluding males "who identify as women" from these spaces "discrimination?"

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

14. Distinguishing people by medical-transition status

Source position — GLAAD: Someone who has not undergone medical transition is not therefore less genuinely transgender or less deserving of recognition. This does not itself establish that every treatment-related eligibility distinction in every setting is forbidden. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

Your position: Your restroom rule requires no medical test, but you allow context-specific eligibility rules elsewhere. No explicit position found on “transmedicalism” as a doctrine about who counts as transgender. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

"Proposition 14:   Any line among 'trans women' is itself bigotry. Distinguishing social-only from medically transitioned, or pre-op from post-op, is 'transmedicalism' or 'dividing the community.'"

Do you agree or disagree that differentiating trans women in any way (medically-transitioned versus non-medically-transitioned, etc.) is "bigotry?"

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

16. Questions, debate, and harm

Source position — GLAAD: Policy discussion can be legitimate, but GLAAD regards challenges to transgender people’s identities and legitimacy, and targeted misgendering, as potentially dehumanizing rather than neutral debate. It expressly distinguishes legitimate discourse from harassment. GLAAD Brand Portal

Your position: You invite discussion of definitions and evidence. You explicitly oppose disciplining women merely for good-faith privacy concerns or accommodation requests. SCOTUS Decision: Ban on "Talk" … Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

"Proposition 16:   Questions are a form of harm. Asking for definitions ('what is a woman?'), evidence, or tradeoffs is treated as bad-faith or as endangering trans people."

Do you agree or disagree that "{a}sking for definitions ('what is a woman?')" is "bad-faith?"  As "endangering trans people?"

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

17. Explaining opposition

Source position — GLAAD: Prominent campaigns against transgender inclusion rely, in its account, on stigmatizing stereotypes and misinformation rather than the neutral concerns they profess. That is its characterization of those campaigns—not evidence that every possible disagreement has the same motive. GLAAD Brand Portal

Your position: You have attributed opposition to manufactured fear and political motives, sometimes broadly. But you also recognize good-faith concerns and explicitly say accusations of bigotry require explanation rather than substituting for argument. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

"Proposition 17:   Opposition is explained as animus. The admissible motives are hatred, disgust, or religion; safety, fairness, child protection, and definitional accuracy are discounted."

Hoo, boy.  This sure would be nice to see, as you have in my recollection been a non-stop member of the bucket brigade drawing water from the "Bigot!" well.

Haven't seen it.

13 hours ago, Analytics said:

19. Women’s rights, gay rights, and competing interests

Source position — NWLC: Including transgender women is part of advancing women’s rights, and exclusionary policies can harm both transgender and cisgender women. The supplied quotations do not establish an obligation for gay people or lesbians to change their attractions or accept particular partners. National Women's Law Center

Your position: You explicitly count biological women’s safety, privacy, dignity, and competitive interests, rather than dismissing them. No position found requiring anyone to alter their sexual attractions. Mormon Dialogue & Discussion Board

"Proposition 19:   Conflicts with women’s rights and gay rights are denied or inverted. Sex-based rights are reframed as bigotry; same-sex attraction is pressured toward 'attraction to gender identity.'"

Do you agree or disagree that "sex-based rights" are "bigotry?"

Thanks,

-Smac

Edited 9 hours ago by smac97