God May Forgive...But the LDS Data Base Never Will

[Kemara]

2 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Ok we'll play it your way....So repentance ends when the person has stopped committing the same sin ( for the record I believe that this is the point that repentance begins but I'll go along with your premise for the sake of argument). But the church maintains the annotation for life...god my forgive but the LDS data system does not

Yet another example of your blatant dishonesty. You yourself, on this very thread, have acknowledged that the annotations can be removed. The fact that there is a process to remove the annotations is beside the point because your claim is that the "church maintains the annotation for life". You know full well that this statement is not true.   

[Johnnie Cake]

1 hour ago, Kemara said:

This is the second time that you have accused me of hyperbole and this is the second time that I will state that I don't think you know what hyperbole means because you characterisation of my post as hyperbole is false, unless of course you can show me the exaggeration and/or embellishment of my post.

I have addressed directly and specifically the point of your opening post. You on the other hand have entirely refused to address the points I have made. The totality of your response, in a nutshell, has been "it is cause I say it is" and "check the dictionary".  

I can tell you exactly where our conversation went "wrong":

1. My first post on this thread was directed specifically at you and discussed the differences between homosexuals and heterosexuals. Your reply to my reasoned post was, and I quote, "Wow". You failed completely to address the points I made that dealt specifically with the points you raised. Ok fine, you want to play it like that, I am good to go.

2. My second post directed specifically at you called your out on your very weak response.

3. Following being called out you stated you would now give me a well reasoned logical response, and you did this by appealing to your opinion that all sex is sex regardless of who or what.

4. I addressed this post by pointing out why it was mind numbingly stupid. I pointed it out using clear and succinct logical deduction that homosexual sex and heterosexual sex are different. The point being that if they are different then there is a logical allowance for them to be treated differently without the tag of or "bigotry" or "discrimination" necessarily being attached...unfortunately you kept attaching the tag. Not acknowledging the logical allowance shows intellectual dishonesty.

5. Your response to my post, and I quote, "Haha, Hyperbole". You make the claim but fail entirely to substantiate it with anything at all.

6.  I rebuff your claim.

7. You next post you restate your opinion that sex is sex regardless of who or what, however, realising that you have offered absolutely no logical reasoning for this position you appeal to the authority of the all-knowing, all-powerful dictionary, and I quote, "Look it up in a dictionary. The fact that you hold a dogmatic definition doesn't change its definition." Then you make the statement that pretty much nothing I have claimed is factual, and you made this statement but fail entirely to substantiate it with anything at all.

8. I take you up on the matter of a dictionary definition and simply lay to waste your appeal to its authority. You did not comment on this at all and continued to use your personal definition, another glaring example of intellectual dishonesty. I request that you back up your statement that "pretty much nothing" I have claimed is factual, I ask you to show me or retract the statement as intellectual honesty requires. You refused to substantiate your statement with anything at all and you also refused to retract the statement. Do you see a pattern developing here? Are your really unsure of where the conversation went wrong?

9. In response to mfbukowski you stated that you have great respect for MD&D. You also state that I, Kemara, feel that gays should be discriminated against. Again you fail entirely to substantiate your claim about how I feel with anything other than your all mighty opinion.

10. I address your claim of respect for MD&D and point out how your refusal to engage the subject in any meaningful or logical manner, your refusal to acknowledge when your claims have been refuted (e.g. dictionary), your refusal to answer requests for you to provide evidence for your claims and your intellectual dishonesty is the opposite of respect for the board and its purpose. I then show, using very specific yet very simple deductive reasoning, that my position is not discriminatory as you claimed. I use the deductive reasoning to show that it is you who is discriminatory.  

11. You respond by claiming that I have not read or do not understand the point of your opening post and then accuse me of being disingenuous. You do this despite all evidence to the contrary, you do this despite my specifically addressing your opening post and the problem that you have with the Church's annotation policy particularly as it relates to homosexuals. 

12. Further, you claim that my being a Kiwi would necessarily mean that I should agree with your discriminatory view! Good grief!!

13. In response I used even simpler and even more specific deductive reasoning to show exactly why the Church's policy was not discriminatory and your position was.

14. In response to the Kiwi issue, I pointed out that my personal familiarity with bigotry led me to believe that you are a very special kind of bigot. I restated my position that while the Church's annotation policy validates homosexual uniqueness and individuality you do not. I asked a rhetorical question which bears repeating:

"So who is discriminating here? The organisation that acknowledges homosexual uniqueness or the Wizard hiding behind the curtain who refuses to do the same?"

So that is where it all went wrong. In a nutshell your refusal to engage the issues I raised, your refusal to acknowledge points I raised, your ongoing intellectual dishonesty, your refusal to provide any evidence for your position, your refusal to provide any evidence for your claims about my conduct, your ongoing mischaracterisation of me and my position and your bigotry is where we went wrong. Is that clearly understood?

Now, your latest post:

1. You claimed hyperbole, nothing to substantiate this claim of course. 

2. You inferred that I have not addressed the points of your opening post and you infer this despite all evidence to the contrary which is simply dishonest and delusional. Nothing to substantiate this delusional claim of course. 

3. Apparently you apologized to me in an earlier post, sorry I must have missed that, can you point it out to me please. 

4. You claim that except for my insistence that the male and female genders are different that you don't see what my argument is but in the same breath you state that you went back and read all my posts! Unbelievable!  Your overarching position is that the Church's annotation policy is discriminatory against homosexuals, here are a couple of examples of my posts that you are claiming you didn't see: 

"The Church's position of identifying homosexuals for exactly who they are is not discriminatory. The Church's position on the matter of annotations acknowledges homosexual uniqueness and identity. The Church's position on the matter of annotations acknowledges homosexuals as homosexuals." 

"Homosexuals are different from heterosexuals, in terms of sexuality, that is an absolute fact end of story. Homosexuals engage in sexual acts differently than heterosexuals, that is an absolute fact end of story. Homosexuals not only acknowledge but also celebrate these differences. The Church also acknowledges these differences in regard to the annotation policy. You on the other hand do not acknowledge or accept these differences and refuse to let homosexuals be treated as homosexuals. Wake up man."

But you re-read all my posts, right? And I said nothing but the two genders are different, right? You don't have agree with me, but you cannot honestly claim that all I said was that the genders are different.

5. You have claimed ad hominem, please show me where I have evaded the topic by attacking you. Yes I have attacked you but never to evade the topic.

6. You derided me for calling you names - pot meet kettle.   

7. You love the Maori people, you have many Maori friends....ok then .

I'm a lover not a fighter, I've tried to reset, but you don't seem interested...fair enough, you want to believe that you viewpoint is correct and mine is wrong...ok believe what you will...I just personally believe that it's unfortunate that the churches policy is so one sided, you believe is fair and equally proportioned... 

We just disagree...I'm done with you...have a nice life

Edited February 14, 2016 by Johnnie Cake

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Ok we'll play it your way....So repentance ends when the person has stopped committing the same sin ( for the record I believe that this is the point that repentance begins but I'll go along with your premise for the sake of argument). But the church maintains the annotation for life...god my forgive but the LDS data system does not

The community selects a leader who knows the history of someone who's behavior has in the past been destructive to the community.

Kind of like when a "repentant" terrorist gets the extra search before boarding a plane.  And the fact is those notations CAN be removed.

I see nothing wrong with that.

What you see as "destructive" and what the community sees as destcructive, oh well.  It's the same thing when they go through the luggage.  

Society creates registries for child molesters.  And no I am not equating the misdeeds- I am simply making the point that it is an accepted thing in society that felons cannot, for example, buy guns.

So you think felons should be able to buy guns?  I know you would not disagree with that one- I m making the point simply so you see the analogy of the principle here.  A felon may become the most wonderful person in the world but he could still not buy a gun.

It has nothing to do with forgiveness- it has to do with prudence in the face of human nature.  And if you want to address it in the manner you have, more power to you, I couldn't care less.  It is a well established principle in society and a prudent one in a world of human frailties.

Your perception of the seriousness of the sin is irrelevant to the perception of the community.  If you tell your children to never play with a school yard bully then you are doing the same thing.  If you tell your children to stay out of gangs, you are doing the same thing.  Yes the seriousness of the offense may be different in YOUR PERCEPTION but that is irrelevant because your values are not our values.

And yet in the above examples, no one would know who was or was not a "member of the gang" or not- only one "watchman" to keeps the secret in total confidence.

To me, you have distorted the church position in your mind and see it in a way that I know is nothing like my experience.   If you want to characterize it that way- go ahead, but it is a complete distortion.   And you can attempt to see it from another perspective, or deny the attempt.  That's up to you.

[ksfisher]

On February 12, 2016 at 6:15 PM, Johnnie Cake said:

 

For some reason when I try and reply to others posts on this thread the software acts as though I'm replying to this post, which I'm not.  Posting this in hopes that once I've replied here the software will let me reply to the post that I keep trying to.

[ksfisher]

13 hours ago, sjdawg said:

Interesting.  I was Ward Clerk and I don't remember ever seeing a file with any type of annotation on it.

When I served as ward clerk I was only aware of one annotated record.

[Kemara]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

I'm a lover not a fighter, I've tried to reset, but you don't seem interested...fair enough, you want to believe that you viewpoint is correct and mine is wrong...ok believe what you will...I just personally believe that it's unfortunate that the churches policy is so one sided, you believe is fair and equally proportioned... 

We just disagree...I'm done with you...have a nice life

You're done with me? That is hilarious because you never even started with me...I wonder why?

And even now in the very act of running away from a fight (your characterisation not mine) that you started you again misrepresent my position.    

You may be done with me, which is a perfectly understandable thing for you to do, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I am not done with you.

[Calm]

15 hours ago, sjdawg said:

I was told by a Stake President that no one who had ever confessed or faced discipline for a financial crime would ever be called as a finance clerk (some notation on a file).   It makes sense to me if true however it does seem to go against the notion of having your sins wiped clean.

For me it follows the same line that one's sins may be wiped clean but the results of those sins may not be (and even eternally speaking the positive results won't be wiped clean, such as if a child is born out of wedlock, the relationship of mother and father will still remain even if that relationship was initially the result of sin).  One of those results will be that others will be more cautious around one even if not necessary because they cannot mindread or know the future and thus cannot know if a sin had truly been repented of.  The Church tries to emulate the way the eternal Kingdom of God operates, but for various reasons cannot fully function in that way yet (for example, by the time we hit the eternal version, there will be no sinners to even need to wonder if annotations to their records are needed).

[Calm]

6 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Repentance ends when the person has stopped committing the same sin. How is the institution supposed to know that?

I think you mean 'stopped wanting to commit the same sin' (and for me I would say this means they want not only to stop sinning and to have no desire to commit the sin, but would desire for all that the pain and suffering they have caused to be as if they had never sinned in the first place).  And of course that is impossible for anyone but God to know.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Calm

[Calm]

5 hours ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Ok we'll play it your way....So repentance ends when the person has stopped committing the same sin ( for the record I believe that this is the point that repentance begins but I'll go along with your premise for the sake of argument). But the church maintains the annotation for life...god my forgive but the LDS data system does not

God is omniscient.  The LDS database (or those running it) is not and thus must act on what knowledge it has.

[Glenn101]

14 minutes ago, Calm said:

I think you mean 'stopped wanting to commit the same sin' (and for me I would say this means they want not only to stop sinning and to have no desire to commit the sin, but would desire for all that the pain and suffering they have caused to be as if they had never sinned in the first place).  And of course that is impossible for anyone but God to know.

I cannot completely agree that you have to stop wanting to commit the same sin. Take, for example, a heroin addict who has gone through detox and is trying to get his life straightened out. This person just may always have a craving for heroin, maybe latent. The person may not desire to sin any longer, but the temptation is there. I have yielded to too many temptations in my life time and have tried to overcome them. I am succeeding (I hope) but temptations still abound, even though I do not yield.

 

Maybe perfection will come when we no longer even are tempted any longer.

Glenn

Edited February 14, 2016 by Glenn101

[Calm]

1 minute ago, Glenn101 said:

I cannot completely agree that you have to stop wanting to commit the same sin. Take, for example, a heroin addict who has gone through detox and is trying to get his life straightened out. This person just may always have a craving for heroin, maybe latent. The person may not desire to sin any longer, but the temptation is there. I have yielded to too many temptations in my life time and have tried to overcome them. I am succeeding (I hope) but temptations still abound, even though I do not yield.

Glenn

I can agree with that when specifically discussing about our part of achieving repentance, but "repentance" is not only about what we do, but what is done to us in my view.  I think that when it is being said in the scriptures that our sins will be wiped clean it is saying that even the desire will be gone (which process begins when we begin to repent, but does not end until God removes the taint/damage from our souls that sin can cause).

[mfbukowski]

1 hour ago, Kemara said:

You're done with me? That is hilarious because you never even started with me...I wonder why?

And even now in the very act of running away from a fight (your characterisation not mine) that you started you again misrepresent my position.    

You may be done with me, which is a perfectly understandable thing for you to do, but I have a sneaking suspicion that I am not done with you.

In my experience, one does not want to have a Maori enemy.

On the other hand, I have found your wonderful people to be generous in their forgiveness.  

My wife, a descendant of James Fisher, ("Aimee Peehaw" - I know that is misspelled - apologies) says Hi again!  Good to see you back here!

[mfbukowski]

39 minutes ago, Calm said:

I think you mean 'stopped wanting to commit the same sin' (and for me I would say this means they want not only to stop sinning and to have no desire to commit the sin, but would desire for all that the pain and suffering they have caused to be as if they had never sinned in the first place).  And of course that is impossible for anyone but God to know.

Indeed- one cannot stop before first wanting to stop.

[Calm]

7 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Indeed- one cannot stop before first wanting to stop.

Depends on if one is talking about intent or external behaviour.  I assumed you meant external behaviour, but perhaps you meant internal state (for example, someone might want to steal cars but stops doing it because he is in jail  ).

I think I am in a nitpicky mood today, my apologies if this gets annoying to some.

Edited February 14, 2016 by Calm

[Johnnie Cake]

On February 11, 2016 at 4:08 PM, Johnnie Cake said:

I know I've been a somewhat active poster today...but I've had a lot on my mind.  I'm curious what others think about the church policy of placing an "*" asterisk on the membership records of every member who has confessed to some sin that the church considers grievous. Now don't get me wrong, a child molester should have appropriate restrictions placed in their records...but what of the young man who has a homosexual experience or the young woman who has a lesbian encounter or the high priest who has an affair...BUT REPENTS...Why does the church place an asterisk on their membership that remains until the day they die?  Why not after full reinstatement can't this Mark be removed?  Or why is it needed in the first place?  anyone have insight into this question?  thanks

Thanks for everyone's perspective on my OP. I guess I just feel it's unfortunate that the corporate church feels  the need to annotate the record of repented members with some members till the day they die. Molesters excluded.  While I'm obviously in the minority in my view, one of the blessings of repentance is being able to be clean of your misdeed and move on with your life, to me this policy hampers the ability to do so. It's a constant reminder that you'll never be fully forgiven...at least in the eyes and policy of the church.

 

cheers

Edited February 15, 2016 by Johnnie Cake

[Kemara]

1 hour ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Thanks for everyone's perspective on my OP. I guess I just feel it's unfortunate that the corporate church feels  the need to annotate the record of repented members with some members till the day they die. Molesters excluded.  While I'm obviously in the minority in my view, one of the blessings of repentance is being able to be clean of your misdeed and move on with your life, to me this policy hampers the ability to do so. It's a constant reminder that you'll never be fully forgiven...at least in the eyes and policy of the church.

 

cheers

You contradicted yourself completely in just two sentences. In relation to repentance and having a clean slate (my word, not yours) first you say that the annotation policy "hampers the ability to do so", then you follow up with "you'll never be fully forgiven". On the one hand its hampered on the other hand its impossible. Crikey mate, make up your mind, which one is it, they cant both be true.  

[Kemara]

1 hour ago, mfbukowski said:

In my experience, one does not want to have a Maori enemy.

On the other hand, I have found your wonderful people to be generous in their forgiveness.  

My wife, a descendant of James Fisher, ("Aimee Peehaw" - I know that is misspelled - apologies) says Hi again!  Good to see you back here!

Please pass on my very best regards to your wife and of course the same to you as well.

[Johnnie Cake]

1 hour ago, Kemara said:

You contradicted yourself completely in just two sentences. In relation to repentance and having a clean slate (my word, not yours) first you say that the annotation policy "hampers the ability to do so", then you follow up with "you'll never be fully forgiven". On the one hand its hampered on the other hand its impossible. Crikey mate, make up your mind, which one is it, they cant both be true.  

Australia wrap up crushing first Test victory over New Zealand on day four. Haha

[Kemara]

18 minutes ago, Johnnie Cake said:

Australia wrap up crushing first Test victory over New Zealand on day four. Haha

Cricket? You direct a post to me about cricket after avoiding every issue I raised on this thread, after refusing to answer my questions, after refusing to provide evidence for your claims, after refusing to acknowledge when your arguments are refuted, after repeatedly acting in a dishonest and disingenuous manner, after directing discrimination of a particularly vile sought at our gay brothers and sisters, you want to bring up cricket. Mate, you are a fair dinkum, ridgey didge, true blue, fair suck of the sav, throw another shrimp on the barbie, dinky-di, under arm bowling, drongo - get your head out of the dunny ya mug.

Hey, who humiliated Australia in the most recent Chappell-Hadlee Trophy series? Who absolutely smashed the Kangaroos at the most recent ANZAC Rugby League Test? Who completely outclassed the Wallabies as the last Rugby World Cup?  And you want to gloat about a single cricket match when the series isn't even complete yet? Your a bigger mug than I thought! You might find some consolation in the fact that Australia has a good chance against New Zealand in the years inaugural Pigeon racing contest. 

 

  

[Glenn101]

4 hours ago, Calm said:

I can agree with that when specifically discussing about our part of achieving repentance, but "repentance" is not only about what we do, but what is done to us in my view.  I think that when it is being said in the scriptures that our sins will be wiped clean it is saying that even the desire will be gone (which process begins when we begin to repent, but does not end until God removes the taint/damage from our souls that sin can cause).

Okay, now you have made me completely agree with you.

[Gray]

On 2/12/2016 at 4:28 PM, ksfisher said:

I think someone once told Eve the same sort of thing about fruit on trees.

A talking snake?

[Gray]

On 2/12/2016 at 4:59 PM, Ahab said:

What's with this myopic view of sex, as in sexual relations, these days?

Who put the idea in some people's heads that sex is all the same regardless of who or what is doing it, or did it?

Sex between adult males and adult females is one thing.

Sex between adult males, by themselves, males between males, is something else entirety.

 

Sex outside of marriage is fornication. If we take the BOM at face value, that's the sin next to murder. Why would you think it would be worse than that if done by gay people? Is there just some kind of need to see gay people as lower on the totem pole than straight people?

[Gray]

deleted

 

Edited February 15, 2016 by Gray

[Calm]

4 hours ago, Gray said:

Sex outside of marriage is fornication. If we take the BOM at face value, that's the sin next to murder.

Reread it.  There is a lot more being talked about than just sex.  Arrogance and a missionary forfeiting his mission to travel off to visit a harlot, who probably had ties to a false religion for starters.

[Gray]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Reread it.  There is a lot more being talked about than just sex.  Arrogance and a missionary forfeiting his mission to travel off to visit a harlot, who probably had ties to a false religion for starters.

However you wish to read, it's pretty extreme. Is leaving your mission early the sin next to murder? Is having sex with non-members something like murder?

In any case, I don't think there is a doctrinal case to be made that gay fornication is worse than straight fornication.