Family proclamation founded on irrevocable doctrine: President Oaks

[bluebell]

3 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Wrong.  I have not left the church. I am still a member.  I just do not participate currently.  You can down vote my response that Bernard misled but it is the truth.  

I can't remember, are you atheist or agnostic now, or was that a different poster that I'm thinking of?

[ttribe]

2 hours ago, Orthodox Christian said:

So, Joseph Smith also claimed he was a prophet, or maybe it was claimed for him, not sure,  but is that being also being debated? That claim, correct me if I'm wrong was also by revelation. 

What I find confusing here is that there are so many differing opinions seemingly about JS and his revelations. 🤯

I am no longer a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When I was a believing member, I believed wholeheartedly that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that his revelations were genuinely from a divine being. I no longer hold those beliefs.

[mfbukowski]

26 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Bernard is misleading you.  1th century LDS leaders called plural marriage the new and EVERLASTING covenant of marriage and that one must enter into it to be exalted.  They most certainly did not view it as a temporary thing.

No, the covenant is being sealed in the temple

That's what gay folks want, right?

Go to the temple and listen to the wording. . It's a covenant, a contract.

If you don't like the contract, don't accept it. It won't be everlasting, and then you will like that, right?

You will still have the best possible after life you can possibly imagine!

Virtually all of us will

 

[ttribe]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Maybe with Elders Talmage and Widtsoe present, on the other side.

Good one. Well played.

[Orthodox Christian]

23 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

We no longer practice Mosaic law, how do you account for that?

Abraham Issac et al practiced polygamy, and then it got "turned off" as well

We have new scriptures like the Book of Mormon too, teaching new things.

Revelation is not finished and never will be!

 

 

The Mosaic law was fulfilled in Christ, so Christians live now under grace not law, at least that's how we see it.

Because Abraham and Isaac practiced polygamy doesn't necessarily mean that it was God's will.

We believe that Christ was God's last word if you like, the last of the OT style prophets being John the Baptist, he  represented the end of the Mosaic Law, and the age of grace commenced with Christ.

[Orthodox Christian]

16 minutes ago, ttribe said:

I am no longer a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When I was a believing member, I believed wholeheartedly that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that his revelations were genuinely from a divine being. I no longer hold those beliefs.

Do you feel sad about your loss of faith, or liberated, or indifferent? And did you have to go through the resigning thing?

[Robert F. Smith]

1 hour ago, Teancum said:

The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. Others attain unto a glory and may even be permitted to come into the presence of the Father and the Son; but they cannot reign as kings in glory, because they had blessing offered unto them, and they refused to accept them.................

'Do you think that we shall ever be admitted as a State into the Union without denying the principle of polygamy?' If we are not admitted until then, we shall never be admitted.....................

Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is no part of the economy of heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman Empire... Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced this order of monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a hold sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers.

Brigham and other 19th century leaders did call plural marriage the new and EVERLASTING covenant of marriage:

It is well known, however, to the congregation before me, that the Latter-day Saints have embraced the doctrine of a plurality of wives, as part of their religious faith. ... I think, if I am not mistaken, that the Constitution gives the privilege to all inhabitants of this country, of the free exercise of their religious notions, and the freedom of their faith, and the practice of it. Then if it can be proven ... that the Latter-day Saints have actually embraced, as a part and portion of their religion, the doctrine of a plurality of wives, it is constitutional. ... There will be many who will not hearken, there will be the foolish among the wise who will not receive the new and everlasting covenant [plural marriage] in its fullness, and they never will attain to their exaltation, they never will be counted worthy to hold the sceptre of power over a numerous progeny, that shall multiply themselves without end, like the sand upon the seashore.

It always amuses me how stridently people quote Brother Brigham and other of the Brethren, as though what they said were canonical revelation -- which it is not.  However, it is true that the Constitution should have protected polygyny and other forms of non-traditional marriage.  The Supreme Court was wrong in Reynolds and in the Dredd Scott decision.  We can see that today, in hindsight.  That does not mean that SSM or polygyny or polyandry are good or bad, only that they should be a matter of free choice under our Constitution.  Only hypocrites don't understand why free choice is so important in our society.  The hypocrites want everyone to follow their dictatorial orders and their value judgments.  They hate freedom.

[the narrator]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Well, yes.  That is myth-ritualism, so dear to the heart of High Nibley.  That was the nature of Enuma elish, and of all the great mystery religions.

But didn't Nibley believe that there was an actual historical Adam and Eve who were given an endowment with rites very similar to that given by Joseph Smith and that various traditions around the world and history having similar rites and symbols because they ultimately descended from that original endowment?

[ttribe]

13 minutes ago, Orthodox Christian said:

Do you feel sad about your loss of faith, or liberated, or indifferent? And did you have to go through the resigning thing?

Losing my faith was one of the most emotionally painful things I've ever endured and took a number of years to work through. I am now, however, happier than I've ever been.

Yes, I went through the formal process of resigning.

[Robert F. Smith]

12 minutes ago, Orthodox Christian said:

The Mosaic law was fulfilled in Christ, so Christians live now under grace not law, at least that's how we see it.

The Jews still practice the Law of Moses and are quite successful.  How can that be, if they are so wrong?

12 minutes ago, Orthodox Christian said:

Because Abraham and Isaac practiced polygamy doesn't necessarily mean that it was God's will.

Why would God favor them so much and make so many covenants with them if their lifestyle were so bad?  Why was David ordered to practice polygamy by God?  2 Sam 12:7

12 minutes ago, Orthodox Christian said:

We believe that Christ was God's last word if you like, the last of the OT style prophets being John the Baptist, he  represented the end of the Mosaic Law, and the age of grace commenced with Christ.

Nowhere in Holy Writ does it declare that there should be a cessation of revelation and prophets.  Nowhere does it suggest that times have actually changed.  Certainly St Paul made it abundantly clear that the Jews would come back into their own, as they in fact have in our day (Rom 12).

[Buckeye]

4 minutes ago, the narrator said:

But didn't Nibley believe that there was an actual historical Adam and Eve who were given an endowment with rites very similar to that given by Joseph Smith and that various traditions around the world and history having similar rites and symbols because they ultimately descended from that original endowment?

I love Bro. Nibley. I read many of his works on my mission. He gave a special lecture at BYU when I got back in the late 90s. I was dating my future wife at the time and convinced her to go. I spent the entire lecturing straining to understand anything he said and came home with a headache. She was smarter and gave up in the first minute, instead passing the time by counting the number of times he said 'papyrus.'  We got engaged soon thereafter with an agreement that she would pick the date night activities and neither of us would ever use the word 'papyrus' again. 

[Meadowchik]

On 4/5/2022 at 1:27 AM, JLHPROF said:

News flash!  If anything can be changed by revelation then we have no actual beliefs.

If nothing can be changed than do those beliefs have lasting value?

There's gotta be a moderation of those poles somehow.

Edited April 6, 2022 by Meadowchik

[Robert F. Smith]

6 minutes ago, the narrator said:

But didn't Nibley believe that there was an actual historical Adam and Eve who were given an endowment with rites very similar to that given by Joseph Smith and that various traditions around the world and history having similar rites and symbols because they ultimately descended from that original endowment?

Yes, but more than that:  Along with the Gnostics, Nibley did believe that our LDS endowment matrix goes back in time even before the foundation of this world, and he best demonstrated the basic elements of it in his The Message of the JSP: An Egyptian Endowment, including the appendices.  For him, myth was merely the carrier of ritual.  There need never have been an actual historical person named Adam, nor an Eve.  Most biblical scholars do not even see them as proper names.

[Scott Lloyd]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

A couple of things worry me about that:  (1) Extended families get short shrift ("Extended families should lend support when needed"), when they used to be of prime importance; what pray tell will replace that significant but now lost form of the family?  (2) If families are indeed of such importance, why are they so often left dangling with two parents both struggling to deal with insoluble contemporary demands?  Why are young people left at the mercy of too expensive education and consequent debt, lack of adequate resources to purchase a home or rent an apartment?  The Proclamation on the Family might as well be  bravely making noise in empty space, echoing in a vacuum, when it should be backed by solid, substantive action.  Talk is cheap.

Fact is we are faced with the lowest fertility rates in history, the highest student debt, and the greatest percent of people living alone in our history.  Family?  What family?  Will there even be any families?

I agree we all need to pay better heed to the proclamation, and not just with regard to the blurring of genders or the societal redefinition of marriage. There is substantially more to it than that. 
 

Today I have helped meet the needs of an aging sibling. I count it a privilege, and it has left me with a glow that hasn’t faded yet. 

[Robert F. Smith]

10 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

I love Bro. Nibley. I read many of his works on my mission. He gave a special lecture at BYU when I got back in the late 90s. I was dating my future wife at the time and convinced her to go. I spent the entire lecturing straining to understand anything he said and came home with a headache. She was smarter and gave up in the first minute, instead passing the time by counting the number of times he said 'papyrus.'  We got engaged soon thereafter with an agreement that she would pick the date night activities and neither of us would ever use the word 'papyrus' again. 

I had the same experience with Nibley:  One of my roommates and I went to Smith Fieldhouse to hear Nibley lecture on the Dead Sea Scrolls, about which I knew nothing.  I understood nothing Nibley said.  However, my roommate had recorded it, and so I listened to it again:  And again I came up with nothing.  About 8 years later, I began to get it.  It definitely took time and a lot of study.

[the narrator]

21 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yes, but more than that:  Along with the Gnostics, Nibley did believe that our LDS endowment matrix goes back in time even before the foundation of this world, and he best demonstrated the basic elements of it in his The Message of the JSP: An Egyptian Endowment, including the appendices.  For him, myth was merely the carrier of ritual.  There need never have been an actual historical person named Adam, nor an Eve.  Most biblical scholars do not even see them as proper names.

True story. On my mission I read front to back, including every endnote, every single volume of the CWHN published up to 2000 (when I was done). I even found an original edition of Message in a chapel library and read that. I was in Hawaii, and members were basically handing us money every day, and I figured books were worth feasting on.

[JLHPROF]

40 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

If nothing can be changed than do those beliefs have lasting value?

There's gotta be a moderation of those poles somehow.

I'm absolutely open to correction.

But if we are to believe ANY doctrine, ordinance, or revelation came from God then we should not be expecting a different answer.  God is pretty consistent, even if we aren't.
And even when he makes exceptions to his own rules they are within the principles those rules were established under.
For example - He said we are not to kill.  However he is allowed to end lives.  So in the case of Nephi and Laban it would have been sin for Nephi to choose to kill Laban but there was no sin in Nephi following God's instructions to end Laban's life.
Nephi was basically the gun but God pulled the trigger.

[Robert F. Smith]

14 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

.................- He said we are not to kill.  However he is allowed to end lives.  So in the case of Nephi and Laban it would have been sin for Nephi to choose to kill Laban but there was no sin in Nephi following God's instructions to end Laban's life.

Nephi was basically the gun but God pulled the trigger.

The Mosaic commandment is not to murder.  Killing is permissible when justified -- war, self-defense, defense of one's family, etc.  The KJV English is frequently wrong.

[Hamba Tuhan]

8 hours ago, the narrator said:

Are you claiming that before the 19th century two men were never sexually and emotionally attracted to each other?

Nope.

[Hamba Tuhan]

5 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

No word for it, therefore it doesn't exist.

Mark, I'm crushed by your lack of reading comprehension. I can't tell if it's wilful or if you're just so deeply embedded in the discourse that you can't see out of it. 

[Bernard Gui]

4 hours ago, Teancum said:

The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy. Others attain unto a glory and may even be permitted to come into the presence of the Father and the Son; but they cannot reign as kings in glory, because they had blessing offered unto them, and they refused to accept them.

Brigham Young

'Do you think that we shall ever be admitted as a State into the Union without denying the principle of polygamy?' If we are not admitted until then, we shall never be admitted.

Brigham Young

Opps!

Monogamy, or restrictions by law to one wife, is no part of the economy of heaven among men. Such a system was commenced by the founders of the Roman Empire... Rome became the mistress of the world, and introduced this order of monogamy wherever her sway was acknowledged. Thus this monogamic order of marriage, so esteemed by modern Christians as a hold sacrament and divine institution, is nothing but a system established by a set of robbers.

Brigham and other 19th century leaders did call plural marriage the new and EVERLASTING covenant of marriage:

It is well known, however, to the congregation before me, that the Latter-day Saints have embraced the doctrine of a plurality of wives, as part of their religious faith. ... I think, if I am not mistaken, that the Constitution gives the privilege to all inhabitants of this country, of the free exercise of their religious notions, and the freedom of their faith, and the practice of it. Then if it can be proven ... that the Latter-day Saints have actually embraced, as a part and portion of their religion, the doctrine of a plurality of wives, it is constitutional. ... There will be many who will not hearken, there will be the foolish among the wise who will not receive the new and everlasting covenant [plural marriage] in its fullness, and they never will attain to their exaltation, they never will be counted worthy to hold the sceptre of power over a numerous progeny, that shall multiply themselves without end, like the sand upon the seashore.

All quotes before the Manifesto. When the time came, it was suspended.

[Bernard Gui]

6 hours ago, Orthodox Christian said:

Thank you. That being said, why was polygamy instituted?

For the reason stated.

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Wrong.  I have not left the church. I am still a member.  I just do not participate currently.  You can down vote my response that Bernard misled but it is the truth.  

Ok, I apologize 

[Bernard Gui]

3 hours ago, Teancum said:

Bernard is misleading you.  19th century LDS leaders called plural marriage the new and EVERLASTING covenant of marriage and that one must enter into it to be exalted.  They most certainly did not view it as a temporary thing.

19th century leaders frequently referred to the quoted scripture as justification fo4 the practice. It is the word of the Lord on the matter.

 

Edited April 6, 2022 by Bernard Gui

[filovirus]

7 hours ago, pogi said:

I agree that black people have had the priesthood withheld from them.  Was this a display of "divine truth" or God's will, or was this an example of prophetic fallibility?  If we are to believe the reasons given for the ban, then we can only conclude that it was not from God as all of those reasons have been disavowed - unless of course we accept the more fundamentalist position which suggests that old prophets are more authoritative than modern ones.  So many ways these things can be interpreted.  Ultimately, it all boils down to personal interpretation. 

I think you are still conflating the two. My mind sometimes works in funny ways, so maybe this is only clear to me and everyone else sees me as a quack. Divine truth is not doctrine, but doctrine is a way to explain diving truth. Let me put it this way. Divine truth is that God is all-powerful. There is no debating this for those who believe in God as he is. In the church, there is a doctrine to explain that power. We call it the priesthood. God can exercise that power however he wants. He can also authorize people on earth to use that power. God can choose who gets authorized to use that power, the priesthood. At one point in time, as shown in the OT, God chose a group of people, the descendants of Levi, as those authorized to use a portion of his power, what we now call the Levitical priesthood. Notice that God did not choose to let all people have access to that priesthood. Not even other of the tribes which descended from Jacob. Move forward 1200 years or so, and we enter the NT. God had the Jewish nation, and them only, being able to access the priesthood. Peter was told to bring the gospel to the gentiles, and finally another group of individuals could access the priesthood. Notice that there was a change in the doctrine of the priesthood at this point in time, but not a change in the divine truth that God is all-powerful. Does that mean that Moses and Aaron were fallible in their teaching of priesthood? No. It just means that others were allowed access to priesthood power when God deemed it right.

Before we get into a huge back and forth about prophetic fallibility (I know, everyone is antsy to tell how fallible the prophets are), we need to both agree that in the church, we sustain 15 people as prophets, seers, and revelators, with one of them acting as a presiding president of the entire congregation; and that they are the ones that will receive instruction for the church as a whole. Can we agree on that?