MormonLeaks: Elder Perry on Homosexuality

[rockpond]

20 minutes ago, Honorentheos said:

Not really. It doesn't demonstrate the practice was implemented through revelation. In fact, if one accepts some accounts there is a clear shift in thinking around President McKay where it moved from being claimed to be doctrinal to merely a practice of the Church.

Additionally, there is evidence that the "no" may have been due to a lack of unity among the apostles. 

[ttribe]

40 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Do you think I'm craving their stamp of approval?

 

Nope, I have no idea what you are craving. As for me, I'm craving a Reeses Blizzard from Dairy Queen.

[Scott Lloyd]

35 minutes ago, rockpond said:

Additionally, there is evidence that the "no" may have been due to a lack of unity among the apostles. 

Oh, they became unified on the understanding that the time was not yet right.

That's how revelation works in divinely directed administration. The council seeks divine guidance, then engages in fact finding and discussion, after which a consensus is reached on which everyone feels a confirming witness. The recently published Nauvoo Council of Fifty MInutes in the Joseph Smith Papers project demonstrates this.

What is your evidence that this "lack of unity" persisted among the apostles?

 

Edited August 10, 2017 by Scott Lloyd

[USU78]

56 minutes ago, Honorentheos said:

It's not a quirky definition. You hope to gain something if I lose, and will lose something if I win. You're just lying to yourself for dumb reasons that make your ethical issues all the more intractable as you can't face them.

Mormonism sucks at teaching ethics. Seriously. You are a nice new case study to add to this argument. Not only are you incapable of making a moral judgment here but are inhibited from facing the dilemma you created by claiming to not engage in gambling for moral reasons while absolutely engaging in gambling because you narrowly understand what that means. See how Sunday School has poorly equipped you to engage in ethical thinking? And in so doing prevents you from growing as a moral agent through processes of improving self-knowledge?

So ...  do you find yourself needing to be this offensive generally or just hereabouts?

[Scott Lloyd]

44 minutes ago, Honorentheos said:

So God was racist?

Cheap shot.

[rockpond]

3 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Oh, they became unified on the understanding that the time was not yet right.

That's how revelation work in divinely directed administration. The council seeks divine guidance, then engages in fact finding and discussion, after which a consensus is reached on which everyone feels a confirming witness.

What is your evidence that this "lack of unity" persisted among the apostles?

 

Well, the apostles weren't united during Pres. McKay's service as prophet -- an he believes that he was told "not yet". 

The apostles were, however, united prior to Pres. Kimball praying for a confirmation that the ban should be removed and THEN they received the answer.

 

[Scott Lloyd]

5 minutes ago, rockpond said:

Well, the apostles weren't united during Pres. McKay's service as prophet -- an he believes that he was told "not yet". 

The apostles were, however, united prior to Pres. Kimball praying for a confirmation that the ban should be removed and THEN they received the answer.

 

That doesn't answer the question. What is your evidence that they persisted in lacking unity during President McKay's presidency? If they lacked unity there would have been in-fighting and quarreling from that point until his death. Where is your evidence of this?

 

[rockpond]

16 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

That doesn't answer the question. What is your evidence that they persisted in lacking unity during President McKay's presidency? If they lacked unity there would have been in-fighting and quarreling from that point until his death. Where is your evidence of this?

 

These are the apostles we're talking about, even when they lack unity on a matter I wouldn't expect in-fighting and quarreling.  Would you?

Also, I assume you've read Rise of Modern Mormonism... it provides the evidence for what I've discussed.

Edited August 10, 2017 by rockpond

[Honorentheos]

1 hour ago, USU78 said:

So ...  do you find yourself needing to be this offensive generally or just hereabouts?

Legalism makes for bad moral judgement. Perhaps I states it coarsely and blunt this time. 

[Honorentheos]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Cheap shot.

He's the only one left. It's not a cheap shot. Do you believe God directed the church to discriminate against blacks?

[Honorentheos]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

That doesn't answer the question. What is your evidence that they persisted in lacking unity during President McKay's presidency? If they lacked unity there would have been in-fighting and quarreling from that point until his death. Where is your evidence of this?

 

It would be quite a coincidence that the revelation came while Elder Petersen and Elder Stapley were not in attendance but they would have supported it had they been there present and had a say before it was announced. Their being absent as the most outspoken against is compelling.

[Scott Lloyd]

16 minutes ago, Honorentheos said:

It would be quite a coincidence that the revelation came while Elder Petersen and Elder Stapley were not in attendance but they would have supported it had they been there present and had a say before it was announced. Their being absent as the most outspoken against is compelling.

So you have no answer then about lack of unity in the wake of President McKay's decision. 

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, rockpond said:

These are the apostles we're talking about, even when they lack unity on a matter I wouldn't expect in-fighting and quarreling.  Would you?

Also, I assume you've read Rise of Modern Mormonism... it provides the evidence for what I've discussed.

So you have no evidence, then, of persistent disunity. Only innuendo. 

To answer your question, I would expect apostles to behave as these men did here: to engage in fact finding and discussion as a council followed by divinely directed accord. 

Some disagreement in the earlier stage of this process is not an indication of disunity. On the contrary, it's an indication that the process is proceeding as it should. 

Joseph Smith told the Council of Fifty he didn't want to be surrounded by "doughheads" or yes-men, that they should speak their minds and arrive at an accord as influenced by the Holy Spirit. 

If discord persisted after a decision was reached, then and only then would I entertain a notion that there was disunity. But you apparently have no evidence to offer of this. 

I didn't think so. 

Edited August 10, 2017 by Scott Lloyd

[Scott Lloyd]

1 hour ago, Honorentheos said:

Legalism makes for bad moral judgement. Perhaps I states it coarsely and blunt this time. 

Why are you talking like Popeye now?

Edited August 10, 2017 by Scott Lloyd

[Hamba Tuhan]

7 minutes ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Why are you talking like Popeye now?

Does one need a reason for talking like Popeye?

[Scott Lloyd]

6 minutes ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

Does one need a reason for talking like Popeye?

I Yam what I Yam. 

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

The priesthood ban is now widely understood by faithful LDS to have been a product of culture not revelation.

I agree, and it is clear from the history with Joseph Smith himself ardently opposing slavery and allowing ordination of Black men, that the LDS Church later took a wrong turn.  A precedent had already been set.

4 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

Can you point to a genuine revelation that ties marriage equality to God dictating the current direction to the leadership? The closest I recall was Elder Nelsen's account that Monson made a decision in a meeting and the apostles felt the spirit afterward. But was it canonized or actually released to the saint or the world as a bona fide revelation from God to his living oracle? Of course not.

You are assuming what has to be proved.  QED.  The biblical prohibition on homosexual conduct is the precedent, and takes priority in any discussion.  It is already part of the Canon.  The logical application to same-sex marriage flows from that fact.  However, that is a matter internal to LDS Church rules or boundaries.  It should have no effect on civil law.  More interesting by far is the question of what happens when polygamy becomes legal in U. S. civil law.  The LDS Church can certainly prevent members from contracting such marriages, but this would not affect civil law.

4 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

Anyway, "no likelihood" is a silly position to stake out. You can't say that and claim to be rational. The probability is absolutely greater than zero. I did take on a bit of risk by offering 2025 as a date by which we'll have LDS confirmation or at least acquiescence to the legal reality that any couple legally married and faithful is not living in sin but is living in line with the law of chastity. I had wanted to go with 2030 but I guess this may make it more interesting.

It is irrational to suggest that, just because a probability is greater than zero, therefore it is probable or likely.  Nonsense.

[USU78]

6 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

 Do you believe God directed the church to discriminate against blacks?

I'll bite. G-d didn't ask of us to take on another unwinnable fight while we dug ourselves out from under crippling debt and the aftermath consequences of polygyny.

The true racists, the true malefactors were the Protestants who, by the 70s, had decided that overt oppression, other than of Mormons, was no longer useful. Better to reenslave them, keep them in ghettos, keep them drugged up, dependant, and fatherless, while genociding them in the womb. All the while fooling them into believing they were benevolent Masters.

But I'm a cynic. My 10th grade English teacher told me so.

[Hamba Tuhan]

9 hours ago, Honorentheos said:

The priesthood ban is now widely understood by faithful LDS to have been a product of culture not revelation.

Interesting. I'm a faithful Latter-day Saint, and I go to church each Sunday with about 150 additional faithful Latter-day Saints, and I have heard a grand total of one of them ever suggest this. I also live with a black, African-born man who is another faithful Latter-day Saint, and he certainly doesn't 'understand' this. Are you sure you aren't projecting?

[rockpond]

6 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

So you have no evidence, then, of persistent disunity. Only innuendo. 

To answer your question, I would expect apostles to behave as these men did here: to engage in fact finding and discussion as a council followed by divinely directed accord. 

Some disagreement in the earlier stage of this process is not an indication of disunity. On the contrary, it's an indication that the process is proceeding as it should. 

Joseph Smith told the Council of Fifty he didn't want to be surrounded by "doughheads" or yes-men, that they should speak their minds and arrive at an accord as influenced by the Holy Spirit. 

If discord persisted after a decision was reached, then and only then would I entertain a notion that there was disunity. But you apparently have no evidence to offer of this. 

I didn't think so. 

Actually I provided my evidence and source.  I didn't say that discord existed AFTER a decision was reached.  I pointed out that it could well have been disunity among the apostles that prevented a revelation ending the ban.  As I stated, the disunity among the apostles regarding the ban may have been why Pres. McKay received the "not yet" answer.  And, when unity existed, they (led by Pres. Kimball) received the answer to end the ban.

[Honorentheos]

6 hours ago, Scott Lloyd said:

So you have no answer then about lack of unity in the wake of President McKay's decision. 

There are too many accounts now to be so blind to both the behind the scenes differences masked by a commitment to a public united front. The Mormon leaks info, the Kimball biography that speaks of this...come on, man!

[Honorentheos]

1 hour ago, USU78 said:

I'll bite. G-d didn't ask of us to take on another unwinnable fight while we dug ourselves out from under crippling debt and the aftermath consequences of polygyny.

The true racists, the true malefactors were the Protestants who, by the 70s, had decided that overt oppression, other than of Mormons, was no longer useful. Better to reenslave them, keep them in ghettos, keep them drugged up, dependant, and fatherless, while genociding them in the womb. All the while fooling them into believing they were benevolent Masters.

But I'm a cynic. My 10th grade English teacher told me so.

Could be, but then why were the open statements initiating the policy made in Utah in the early 1850's when the Saints seemed most isolated and free to build their Zion?

 

Better a cynic than an epicurean I suppose

Edited August 10, 2017 by Honorentheos