Family proclamation founded on irrevocable doctrine: President Oaks

[the narrator]

1 minute ago, OGHoosier said:

Given that spirit is matter in LDS teaching, I think that "unembodied" is an inaccurate term. A spirit body is a different type of body, but a body it remains, and beyond that we know very little. I cannot presume to explain the necessity of reproductive organs and gametes in the creation of such a spirit body. Nor can I presume that they aren't involved at all. It seems that your propositions require them to be positively unnecessary, a position which I cannot adopt with confidence. Furthermore, I think any such intuition on the part of men is androcentric and suspect. Furthermore, such a position reduces the differences between men and women to mere matters of reproductive function, which is an inaccurate view.

I'm using "embodied" in its traditional "spirits come to earth to get a body" sense. Sure, a spirit may be made up of ectoplasm (which, I believe, was taught by Orson Pratt), but I still wouldn't considered that embodied.

I am not saying that sexual organs are unnecessary for spiritual production, I'm questioning the necessity of them and what it means for them to be necessary--as some have seemed to claim here.

[Buckeye]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

I admit it seems strange to me that so many act as if this command is some central pillar of the gospel when it is only mentioned as part of an ancient purity law and Paul condemning a few general acts. It appears nowhere in modern scripture. If the book was for our day it seems a warning about it might be apt. The writers saw our day and knew our doings yet nothing.

For even better evidence look to the BOM - scripture written by prophets attuned to the problems that would present in the last days, but in which there is not a whisper of warning against homosexuality, gender confusion, feminists, or intellectuals. Lots of warnings re pride, tribalism, neglecting the poor, etc, but oddly silent on the gender issues. 

[Buckeye]

31 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

It is odd that for some SSM is up there with denying that Jesus is the Christ as a kind of fundamental teaching that cannot be altered or clarified and doing so is proof of apostasy.

Unfortunately no. My grandparents had friends walk away because of the 1978 revelation. 

[bluebell]

12 minutes ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

The WoW is a modern covenant for a modern Church (IE-"in consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days").  Christ was not under such a covenant; members of the modern church are.  Willfully disregarding one's covenants is an attitude or behavior that prevents us from achieving our full potential as heirs of God. 

edited to add: ninja'd by @SwedishLDSI step away from my computer for just ten minutes...

Ok yes, but it doesn't really answer my question.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say, it doesn't address the issue that drinking wine, though it is a sin for us, doesn't actually prevent us from achieving our full potential.  It's the disobedience to God that does that, not the wine.

Rather than putting the emphasis on our eternal potential's relationship with "sin", it seems more helpful to put the emphasis on our eternal potential's relationship with God.

If that makes any sense.

[Buckeye]

4 minutes ago, the narrator said:

I'm using "embodied" in its traditional "spirits come to earth to get a body" sense. Sure, a spirit may be made up of ectoplasm (which, I believe, was taught by Orson Pratt), but I still wouldn't considered that embodied.

I am not saying that sexual organs are unnecessary for spiritual production, I'm questioning the necessity of them and what it means for them to be necessary--as some have seemed to claim here.

Not to mention all the other body parts that will prove useless for a celestial body: sweat glands, intestines, white blood cells, etc. We are comfortable saying ‘we don’t know’ the answer for those parts, but somehow we’re dead certain that genitalia has eternal necessity.  

[Scott Lloyd]

5 hours ago, Orthodox Christian said:

Then how can some on this forum believe that there might be a change on e the present incumbent is no longer there. 

They are at best misguided on the matter. I fear they haven’t given due consideration to the doctrinal teachings of the Church regarding God’s plan for His children and His law of matrimony as taught by President Oaks yesterday. 

[HappyJackWagon]

5 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Perhaps I am.
Or perhaps I take God at his previous words when he says he doesn't change.  See, I'm not saying "my God wouldn't do this."  I'm saying "my God SAID he wouldn't do this".

It's not about what I want God to be.  It's never about what I want (story of my life).  It's about what God says regardless of how it makes me feel.

You're saying that a man told you, or wrote down, that God said he wouldn't do this, and you place a lot of faith in what that person claims God has said. I'm not belittling that. We all do it, but I think it is more accurate to acknowledge the process that is being interpreted as "GOD SAID".

As long as we rely on our own understanding, or the understanding of a third party in interpreting God's will, it seems that an acknowledgement of potential error would prevent us from drawing a hard line in the sand as if God told us face to face. 

[JLHPROF]

12 minutes ago, the narrator said:

Why is it so difficult for you to grasp that nobody, not a single person here, is advocating for God to condone sin? Nor is anyone really advocating that God is changing His views on homosexuality. Rather, the point is that--like with so much that has changed--that it is possible for modern leaders to teach that previous authorities were wrong about God's views on homosexuality--just as they did with homosexual attraction.

I grasp that just fine.  Is it impossible to believe that this has nothing to do with what our leaders teach and in my beliefs that homosexuality is explicitly wrong for doctrinal reasons already explained?

[Stormin' Mormon]

FWIW and solely my speculative, unsupported opinion:

A resurrected being has no need of legs, but we will have them.  The physical existence of legs represent a spiritual truth about a glorified body's ability to move and act for itself.  A resurrected being has no need for eyes, but we will have them.  The physical existence of eyes represents a spiritual truth about a glorified body's ability to perceive the world around it.

Likewise, we may not use our gendered body parts in the same way they are used in mortality.  But I believe they represent a spiritual truth about the ability and role of gendered glorified bodies in the work of eternal procreation.  Maybe male spirits have the ability to gather unorganized matter and female spirits have the ability to organize it and give it form.  Maybe it's something else entirely. Heck if I know!  As I said at the beginning, this is my personal, unsupported, speculative view. 

But I absolutely believe that there is a middle ground position between "gender and sex are irrelevant to spirit bodies" and "gender and sex in the eternities must operate exactly as they do in mortality."

Edited April 4, 2022 by Stormin' Mormon

[Teancum]

47 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

"Absolute infallibility," or inability to get something wrong, is a pretty lofty requirement for trust.

Straw man. I never said I expect this.

47 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

 

Based on that standard nothing is trustworthy, particularly our senses. The strongest accounts of epistemology (particularly those which interact with the debate about biases in human cognition) boil down to whether or not something is more likely than not to deliver useful information. I find this to dovetail well with the George Box scientific paradigm - in which all models are in some degree false, but some are useful in describing the world and thus can be described as "true" to the best of our knowledge. These modes of thinking enable one to accept occasional errors in otherwise reliable and useful guides without the loss of the whole paradigm, which I think is a useful and necessary part of intellectual maturity.

 

[OGHoosier]

2 minutes ago, Buckeye said:

For even better evidence look to the BOM - scripture written by prophets attuned to the problems that would present in the last days, but in which there is not a whisper of warning against homosexuality, gender confusion, feminists, or intellectuals. Lots of warnings re pride, tribalism, neglecting the poor, etc, but oddly silent on the gender issues. 

I actually take issue with this characterization. In my eyes the Book of Mormon is a manual of apocalyptic discipleship, written by a disciple whose world was ending - Mormon. You'll note that the Book of Mormon chronicles many cycles of apostasy but it doesn't really discuss the wedge issues surrounding each one. It doesn't talk about the specific issues that would have been front and center in the minds of the Saints of the age - there's no discussion of controversies of competing pantheons or clashing folk beliefs outside of, say, Alma's sermons. Mormon focuses on a meta-issue: civilizational pride, its outcomes, and its genesis in short-sighted prosperity. This issue, teaches Mormon, underlies all the others. Honestly, I would say that the history of the 20th and 21st centuries bears him out. 

God is God of more than just the WEIRD (white, educated, industrialized, rich, democratic) world, it stands to reason that He would focus on meta-issues in scripture which He intends to shortly go global. The Book of Mormon has to be applicable to every civilization. 

[Teancum]

23 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

I agree with this.
It doesn't mean God can choose to condone sin.  
D&C 1:31 "For I the Lord cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance;"

So you can reason that God cannot require sin.  If God does require something it wouldn't be a sin.  But God is also incapable of requiring sin or calling evil good.

God says killing is a sin.  God commands Nephi to murder a drunk man.

God says adultery is wrong.  Allegedly God tell JS to take many wives and not this is not adultery.

The list goes on.

 

[the narrator]

1 minute ago, JLHPROF said:

I grasp that just fine.

No, I don't think you do. Otherwise you would stop saying that people are wanting God to condone sin.

 

3 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

Is it impossible to believe that this has nothing to do with what our leaders teach and in my beliefs that homosexuality is explicitly wrong for doctrinal reasons already explained?

I have no idea what this question is asking.

[Teancum]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

Bottom line for me is God cannot "clarify" that homosexuality isn't a sin.  That's a revelation that can never come.  And if anyone proclaimed it they would be a false prophet.

Actually, the real confusion here is between "deemed sinful" and "actually sinful".  What we deem something is completely irrelevant.

Maybe homsexuality is not a sin and all the prophets are getting it wrong.   Sort of like all those "speculative" comments on the priesthood ban.

[the narrator]

3 minutes ago, Stormin' Mormon said:

FWIW and solely my speculative, unsupported opinion:

A resurrected being has no need of legs, but we will have them.  The physical existence of legs represent a spiritual truth about a glorified body's ability to move and act for itself.  A resurrected being has no need for eyes, but we will have them.  The physical existence of eyes represents a spiritual truth about a glorified body's ability to perceive the world around it.

Likewise, we may not use our gendered body parts in the same way they are used in mortality.  But I believe they represent a spiritual truth about the ability and role of gendered glorified bodies in the work of eternal procreation.  Maybe male spirits have the ability to gather unorganized matter and female spirits have the ability to organize it and give it form.  Maybe it's something else entirely. Heck if I know!  As I said at the beginning, this is my personal, unsupported, speculative view. 

But I absolutely believe that there is a middle ground position between "gender and sex are irrelevant to spirit bodies" and "gender and sex in the eternities must operate exactly as it does in mortality."

Nothing wrong with anything you say here. It just becomes a problem when an appeal to this vacuous space is made to make absolute claims elsewhere.

[bluebell]

21 minutes ago, rongo said:

Some may object and say that this isn't specified as the standardized wording, but I think the treatment in FtSoY would universally be acknowledged by active (non-activist) members as being comprehensive. I'm certain that the Q15 and the combined 70s quorums would agree.

Section under sexual purity:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/bc/content/shared/content/english/pdf/ForTheStrengthOfYouth-eng.pdf

Perhaps so.  It would be interesting to ask, where could one find the LoC before the FtSoY existed?  

We have posters on here saying that any change in the interpretation of the LoC would be equal to the church stopping it's belief in Jesus Christ.  If that's true then it would mean that our current interpretation of the LoC is fundamental to the Gospel.  The gospel of Jesus Christ cannot exist without it.

Such a foundational and fundamental doctrine should exist somewhere other than a pamphlet, shouldn't it?  

 

[Stormin' Mormon]

9 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Ok yes, but it doesn't really answer my question.  Or maybe it would be more accurate to say, it doesn't address the issue that drinking wine, though it is a sin for us, doesn't actually prevent us from achieving our full potential.  It's the disobedience to God that does that, not the wine.

Rather than putting the emphasis on our eternal potential's relationship with "sin", it seems more helpful to put the emphasis on our eternal potential's relationship with God.

If that makes any sense.

Absolutely.  I totally acknowledge that my definition sometimes has to reduce certain sinful acts to "disobedience" or "willful pride" in order to work.  No definition is ever perfect.  My humble offering to the lexicon was meant to help my various audiences to de-stigmatize sin, but I recognize that it can create other difficulties or inconsistencies. 

[OGHoosier]

7 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Straw man. I never said I expect this.

 

If that is the case, then please clarify this:

Quote

In other words Elder McConkie, we cannot really trust what you or any other leader says because you can get it wrong. Really wrong. But good advice.  Just forget everything he says. Also it seems to me that Elder McConkie was the one that needed to do some repenting for leading so many people astray on this issue.

 

[Nofear]

So many parallels (and differences) with the contention in the primitive Church concerning the consumption of unclean animals and circumcision.

[MrShorty]

30 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

It doesn't mean God can choose to condone sin.  

My counter-example would be slavery. Clearly, God condoned it with the law of Moses. I suppose we could try and argue that slavery (as practiced by ancient Israel, assuming we fully understand how it was practiced) was not a sin, but I find that a difficult argument to make. At some level, God condoned slavery (something I believe is universally a sin), God condoned racism (something else I believe is universally a sin), and God may very well be condoning Pres. Oaks's incorrect teachings until such time as He can change things. (I'm even inclined to believe that, if God could condone these past sinful practices, He can also condone same sex marriage and gender transitions, because neither of these seems worse that other things He has condoned).

In the end, I don't really know the answer. It seems overstating the case to say that God cannot do this particular thing (tolerate and even embrace LGBT+ members of the Church and their preferred lifestyles).

[OGHoosier]

31 minutes ago, the narrator said:

I'm using "embodied" in its traditional "spirits come to earth to get a body" sense. Sure, a spirit may be made up of ectoplasm (which, I believe, was taught by Orson Pratt), but I still wouldn't considered that embodied.

I am not saying that sexual organs are unnecessary for spiritual production, I'm questioning the necessity of them and what it means for them to be necessary--as some have seemed to claim here.

That's not how I read you. I read you as attacking President Oaks for conceptual incoherence in large part based on the intuition that mortal reproduction is unnecessary with its spiritual counterpart. That intuition, however, is just that - an intuition. We don't know it to be the case, and I don't see how your case holds up without it. 

Edited April 4, 2022 by OGHoosier

[JLHPROF]

13 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Maybe homsexuality is not a sin and all the prophets are getting it wrong.   Sort of like all those "speculative" comments on the priesthood ban.

That could be the case, except as I already explained there are solid doctrinal reasons why God wouldn't allow homosexuality.
Unless his instructions on family and his plan of salvation in scripture are also wrong.

[JLHPROF]

17 minutes ago, Teancum said:

God says killing is a sin.  God commands Nephi to murder a drunk man.

God says adultery is wrong.  Allegedly God tell JS to take many wives and not this is not adultery.

The list goes on.

Who has authority over life and death?
Who defined marriage from the beginning?

I already explained Laban's murder.  God has every right to end our lives.
D&C 132 explains the other - "he cannot commit adultery for they are given unto him; for he cannot commit adultery with that that belongeth unto him and to no one else."

Your comparison doesn't hold.

[the narrator]

3 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

That's not how I read you. I read you as attacking President Oaks for conceptual incoherence in large part based on the intuition that mortal reproduction is unnecessary with its spiritual counterpart. That intuition, however, is just that - an intuition. We don't know it to be the case, and I don't see how your case holds up without it. 

Not attacking Oaks here. Not even sure what he said about it over the weekend, other than apparently doubling down on his dislike of gay people getting married.

I was actually responding to teddyaware, who said:

  

4 hours ago, teddyaware said:

for this reason eternal marriage between people of the same sex makes no sense since the defining blessing and duty of eternal marriage is to have an eternal increase of children? If so, how do you suppose that members of the same sex will be able to have an eternal increase of children throughout eternity?

 

[the narrator]

4 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

That could be the case, except as I already explained there are solid doctrinal reasons why God wouldn't allow homosexuality.
Unless his instructions on family and his plan of salvation in scripture are also wrong.

Again. It should be "His instructions on family ... according to human authorities."

You have no direct access to "His instructions"