The good things about the Church

[DT_]

So I have my doubts about the Church, and there's no way the Book of Mormon and the Old Testament describe real historical events. That being said, I would like to point out the good things about the church.

I think the Church has a fantastic word of Wisdom doctrine. I praise the Church's stance against alcohol. There are so many negative things about alcohol. Alcohol consumption is bad for your health. Alcohol causes deadly traffic accidents, Utah's new drunk driving law (inspired by the Word of Wisdom) is benefiting the state and reducing traffic accidents.  Alcohol is involved in a large number of drug-facilitated sexual assaults. The list of bad things goes on. Coffee is no better. Drinking coffee in the afternoon is very bad for your health. Coffee production involves the exploitation of workers and children. There are a lot of good things to say about the Word of Wisdom, it has been a blessing in my life. 

Church leaders telling young adults not to delay marriage is a good idea. The average age of first marriage is now about 30 years, that's probably not a good thing. The incidence of type 1 diabetes is increasing in Europe and the US. The scientists estimate a ten percent increase of type 1 odds per 5-year increase in maternal age. [1] The odds of type 1 diabetes are low, but I don't think society should encourage couples to get married later. The incidence of Gestational Diabetes is also increasing, the rise "may be attributable to long-standing trends in the rising age of women giving birth" [2] I think society is making a big mistake here. 

I also like the doctrine of salvation. A lot of religions put a lot of emphasis on salvation by faith alone, but the church puts more emphasis on charity, forgiveness, kindness, and unselfishness. 

[1]  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2809958/

[2] https://www.statnews.com/2022/07/20/as-diabetes-during-pregnancy-grows-more-common-experts-point-to-a-need-for-preventive-care/

 

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by DT_

[Benjamin McGuire]

5 hours ago, DT_ said:

Church leaders telling young adults not to delay marriage is a good idea. The average age of first marriage is now about 30 years, that's probably not a good thing. The incidence of type 1 diabetes is increasing in Europe and the US. The scientists estimate a ten percent increase of type 1 odds per 5-year increase in maternal age. [1] The odds of type 1 diabetes are low, but I don't think society should encourage couples to get married later. The incidence of Gestational Diabetes is also increasing, the rise "may be attributable to long-standing trends in the rising age of women giving birth" [2] I think society is making a big mistake here. 

The mistakes have already been made, and I doubt there is any way to roll them back. The cost of having children when young is much more extreme than it has been historically.  On the one hand, the cost of creating a new family unit is high - housing costs - especially in an economically unstable position (which describes most young people) is a factor. The disappearance of the family wage - which has led to the necessity for most families to have two wage earners is a contributor. The cost of child care is too high (whether you pay for it or one parent provides it - at the cost of a second income). These conditions have also driven young adults (those age 18-29) to remain at home living with one or both parents in record numbers. In 2020 that statistic had set an all-time high in the United States at 52%. Yes, Covid almost certainly contributed. But, the number has been growing consistently since the 1960s, had already jumped to 44% (just four percent shy of the previous historic high of 48% caused by the great depression). Covid represents a small spike in a trend that shows no signs of slowing down. At 52%, that's more than half of all people aged 18-29 still living at home - and this doesn't help much with starting new families.

The fastest growing demographic in terms of family composition in the US is single person. In 2019, 38% of all US adults (aged 25-54) were living as singles (not living with a romantic partner - I assume some of these are living with their parents). 

Women who began entering the workforce in increasing numbers following World War II have begun working for income equality through education. A majority of college students are women in the US today (60%). The cost of getting pregnant is much higher for these women than it has been in the past. 

Marriage is most strongly correlated to education levels - and not just education on the part of one partner. Marriages are generally between people with the same education levels. This is a complete shift from marriage patterns through the 1980s. If we look at marriage as an economic transaction, this means that many individuals are waiting to find a marriage partner until their own market value (determined at least in part by their education level) is high enough to secure a spouse that will add to their future economic security (an interesting corollary researched in the last decade has been the connection between marriages and fringe benefits as opposed to salaries - good life insurance, good health insurance, and good retirement plans are often much better indicators of the likelihood of marriage than simple wages). These kinds of factors mean that later marriages and later childbearing are reflective of the need (or at least the perceived need) for economic stability. This only adds to the cost for women to have children earlier - it not only interrupts their own ability to achieve their education, but if it delays that education, it decreases their chances for an appealing marriage partner.

Marriage isn't incentivized the way that it used to be. When we had a fairly common family wage, a family had one significant wage earner. Marriage then provided a tax benefit. When couples marry where income levels are relatively similar this benefit shifts to a significant tax penalty. This has disincentivized marriage - especially in lower income families, and has contributed to the societal shift from a 'cornerstone' marriage to a 'capstone' marriage. Cohabitation provides most of the financial benefits of marriage without the current penalties that come with it. This change from marriage benefit to marriage penalty has come as more and more families become two-income, and as more and more women enter the work-force with college education.

If I were to say that society has made a big mistake, then I would argue that the mistake is that much of our society wants to return to some historic ideal of the family in an economic context in which that family simply cannot exist. Our free market capitalism has decided that growth is perhaps the most important marker of progress. Some six months before Covid became a thing (back when I was still a local politician) I listened to a presentation from the regional VP of Chase-Morgan bank. He told us that labor markets were way too tight - and that this was going to contribute to a near future recession. One way to delay this was to expand the labor pool by using untapped resources - and the largest group of these resources that they saw (at Chase Morgan) were felons convicted of non-violent crimes. By utilizing labor pools like this group more effectively, we could continue to push growth and delay the inevitable recession. Then, of course, Covid happened ... but these views about labor aren't new. The shift that has most impacted this issue of child-bearing and marriage ages really started at the end of World War II. Prior to that time period, only minorities (and in particular black families) had high incidences of two income families (there it was out of necessity). Following WWII, especially with the loss of a significant number of men in the work place, some types of jobs transitioned to women, and women began entering the work force in larger and larger numbers. This led to the eventual disruption of the family wage. It led society's normalization of two wage families. And coupled with the need for education to maintain income (which means getting college educations), have led to conditions that practically dictate for most Americans to delay marriage and children. I don't see the market forces as changing much any time in the foreseeable future. We are stuck with this trajectory.

If we want to strengthen the family then we need to work to make the costs of marriage and early childbearing significantly lower. Included in this is the fact that we need to make at least four years of college free for all Americans. We need to revisit tax policy to incentivize families and children (more than, say, the child tax credit or the earned income credits). We need stronger social safety nets to reduce or limit economic stability for young people. And we need to make steps like increasing minimum wage to something that will provide more than subsistence level economic standing. Until we do this, the family model of the first half of the 20th century is going to continue to disappear. Allowing the markets to influence the family to the degree that we have is the big mistake that society has already made. This problem has been growing over my entire lifetime - it isn't new. What's new is that we are constantly finding ourselves setting new benchmarks in the statistical analysis.

From my perspective, education for women is a good thing. Greater equality in the social and market spaces of our society is also a good thing. So I think that while Church leaders can suggest that young adults shouldn't delay marriage and family, it isn't going to make any headway. If you cannot afford to move out of your parents home, it isn't going to be as effective as those leaders would like. Early marriage and child bearing has an increasingly demonstrable negative impact on family economics (even greater when that impact is extrapolated over future potential generations). Church leaders need to be much stronger advocates for the other societal issues that are part of this trend. Marriage and birth rates are not the societal mistake, they are merely symptoms of other societal issues. If we fix the other issues, those symptoms can start changing. And of course, the silver lining - divorce rates are moving towards all-time lows as as part of these trends.

[Nofear]

There are lots of good things about the Church but in the end it's more about being true. The Church's claim to be led by Christ and to have his authority, an authority that extends beyond mortality, delegated to us is true.

Still to answer the question. Are we Zion? No. Do we have all truth? No. Are there things that are understood incorrectly? Sure. Nonetheless, we are doing pretty good. And because we are doing pretty good, we are reaping some of the benefits. By almost every social metric that measures the well-being and happiness of its members, the Church does very well, at or near the top of other social groups. General happiness and life satisfaction. Check. Social support and networking. Check. Charitable giving. Check. Self sufficiency. Check. Teenage development. Check. Lowers rates of suicidality among LGTBQ teens. Check. Education. Meh (we actually represent the general population reasonably closely -- though unlike most faiths, Church participation and faithfulness increases with education). Low divorce rate. Check. Etc. Etc.

Though it pains me to say it (I'm a Nebraskan), Utah pretty consistently ranks in the top three as the  "happiest" state (e.g. https://www.sltrib.com/news/2021/09/14/smile-utahns-after-all/). So, yeah. We are doing pretty dang good. But, we aren't Zion and we still have a long ways to go.

 

 

[katherine the great]

10 hours ago, DT_ said:

Church leaders telling young adults not to delay marriage is a good idea. The average age of first marriage is now about 30 years, that's probably not a good thing. The incidence of type 1 diabetes is increasing in Europe and the US. The scientists estimate a ten percent increase of type 1 odds per 5-year increase in maternal age. [1] The odds of type 1 diabetes are low, but I don't think society should encourage couples to get married later.

I appreciate your post but I have to object to your hypothesis that later marriage somehow would influence T1D. I got married in my 20s and had a type one child in my mid 30s (my youngest) My husband’s grandmother was also type one so in our case there was a strong genetic component. An earlier marriage would not have affected my having I had a type one child. Curtailing the number of children I had probably would have but I’m very thankful for her. Maybe the reason type one is increasing has more to do with better treatments and people living long enough to have children whereas they used to tragically die as children. We are thankfully interfering with natural selection by having great treatments for diabetes.

Edited August 18, 2022 by katherine the great

[BlueDreams]

10 minutes ago, katherine the great said:

I appreciate your post but I have to object to your hypothesis that later marriage somehow would influence T1D. I got married in my 20s and had a type one child in my mid 30s (my youngest) My husband’s grandmother was also type one so in our case there was a strong genetic component. An earlier marriage would not of affected my having I had a type one child. Curtailing the number of children I had probably would have but I’m very thankful for her. Maybe the reason type one is increasing has more to do with better treatments and people living long enough to have children whereas they used to tragically die as children. We are thankfully interfering with natural selection by having great treatments for diabetes.

Along with From what I could find in a quick google search…most research is leaning to some form of environmental impact. The theories range: https://www.healthline.com/diabetesmine/type1-diabetes-growing-alarming-rate#Impacts-of-public-awareness-

 

either way, till not from late marriage 

 

with luv, 

BD

[bsjkki]

32 minutes ago, katherine the great said:

I appreciate your post but I have to object to your hypothesis that later marriage somehow would influence T1D. I got married in my 20s and had a type one child in my mid 30s (my youngest) My husband’s grandmother was also type one so in our case there was a strong genetic component. An earlier marriage would not of affected my having I had a type one child. Curtailing the number of children I had probably would have but I’m very thankful for her. Maybe the reason type one is increasing has more to do with better treatments and people living long enough to have children whereas they used to tragically die as children. We are thankfully interfering with natural selection by having great treatments for diabetes.

I had my type 1 at 25. Is there a study showing maternal age contributes to type 1?

[katherine the great]

10 minutes ago, bsjkki said:

I had my type 1 at 25. Is there a study showing maternal age contributes to type 1?

I’ve seen a couple papers with a cursory link to maternal age but I haven’t looked at them closely enough to see how they look at other factors. I’m also not saying that maternal age isn’t a possible factor but earlier marriage isn’t going to change the fact that some women have babies into their 30s and 40s.

[DT_]

2 hours ago, katherine the great said:

 Maybe the reason type one is increasing has more to do with better treatments and people living long enough to have children whereas they used to tragically die as children. We are thankfully interfering with natural selection by having great treatments for diabetes.

Interesting.

1 hour ago, katherine the great said:

I’ve seen a couple papers with a cursory link to maternal age but I haven’t looked at them closely enough to see how they look at other factors. I’m also not saying that maternal age isn’t a possible factor but earlier marriage isn’t going to change the fact that some women have babies into their 30s and 40s.

What's your opinion on this meta-analysis?  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2809958/

Would you agree the incidence of type 1 would decline if the average age of first marriage was lowered by five to ten years? You have to take into account that many people tend to gain weight as they get older, so it's a concern when most people start to have babies in their 30s.

The concerns are not only with women, there's a possible link between older dads and children with autism.  I think Church leaders are being more consistent with human history on this one.

Edited August 18, 2022 by DT_

[DT_]

1 hour ago, katherine the great said:

I appreciate your post but I have to object to your hypothesis that later marriage somehow would influence T1D

Thank you and it's okay.

[DT_]

5 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

The fastest growing demographic in terms of family composition in the US is single person

Especially young adult men. 

Edited August 18, 2022 by DT_

[MiserereNobis]

12 hours ago, DT_ said:

The list of bad things goes on. Coffee is no better.

I just have to object to the idea that coffee is no better than alcohol.

And also, I would have loved to have been at the wedding feast at Cana. I can only imagine how good Jesus' wine must have been!

[Amulek]

7 minutes ago, MiserereNobis said:

I would have loved to have been at the wedding feast at Cana. I can only imagine how good Jesus' wine must have been!

People's tastes and preferences differ from one location to another and across time as well.

All we know from the story is that it was considered good wine, but what would it take to be considered "good wine" over 2K years ago?

Do you think that would still be good by today's standards?

 

[MiserereNobis]

1 hour ago, Amulek said:

People's tastes and preferences differ from one location to another and across time as well.

All we know from the story is that it was considered good wine, but what would it take to be considered "good wine" over 2K years ago?

Do you think that would still be good by today's standards?

 

You're right. What I really want is for Jesus to make some wine for us today. Salud!

[katherine the great]

4 hours ago, DT_ said:

What's your opinion on this meta-analysis?  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2809958/

Would you agree the incidence of type 1 would decline if the average age of first marriage was lowered by five to ten years?

I categorically don’t agree with that. I didn’t read anywhere in there about the marital status of the mother. Who is to say that all of these older mothers are even married? I do like the last paragraph in the paper:

“In conclusion, there is evidence of a weak but significant relation between age at birth and the risk of type 1 diabetes in children. Across the maternal age range, there is an ∼20% difference in the risk of type 1 diabetes. Based upon these estimates, a very small percentage of the increasing incidence of children onset type 1 diabetes could be explained by increasing maternal age.”

There’s a weak relationship and a very small percentage of the increase that could be explained by increasing maternal age. (that’s what this one meta analysis concludes)  If our church leaders are worried about the frequency of type one diabetes in the church and they would like to see a very slight reduction in that, they could certainly instruct women in their 30s to stop having children. That would also surely reduce the incidence of Trisomy 21, right? I just don’t really think the church is interested in eugenics- all children are precious. Insisting that everyone get married in their 20s is simply not going to change anything. 

[DT_]

5 hours ago, katherine the great said:

 If our church leaders are worried about the frequency of type one diabetes in the church and they would like to see a very slight reduction in that, they could certainly instruct women in their 30s to stop having children.

I think it's perfectly fine for an individual to have children after age 30, some people didn't get the opportunity to have children sooner. However, it is a concern when we are talking about populations. A large percentage of people simply want to have fun in their 20s and decide to wait after 30 to get serious. During the great economic recession, the average age of first marriage was lower compared to today.

5 hours ago, katherine the great said:

There’s a weak relationship and a very small percentage of the increase that could be explained by increasing maternal age. (that’s what this one meta analysis concludes)

 I think the very small percentage is still large enough for a population. The very small increase means more children are getting type 1. Gestational diabetes is also a concern, and it's a lot more common. There's some evidence that increasing maternal age contributes to the obesity epidemic. I'm no anthropologist, so I would like to ask you, has there ever been a time in human history when the average age of having children was 30?  

Edited August 19, 2022 by DT_

[Calm]

10 hours ago, DT_ said:

You have to take into account that many people tend to gain weight as they get older, so it's a concern when most people start to have babies in their 30s.

What does weight have to do with type 1 diabetes?

[Calm]

Type 1 child (12 years old) born in my early 30’s, married early 20’s.

[DT_]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

What does weight have to do with type 1 diabetes?

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150427211642.htm

[DT_]

11 minutes ago, Calm said:

Type 1 child (12 years old) born in my early 30’s, married early 20’s.

I hope she is doing okay. I remember everything you told me.

Edited August 19, 2022 by DT_

[Calm]

22 hours ago, DT_ said:

Coffee is no better

You have correlation of coffee to suicide and assault risk, DUIs, etc?

Is it known that coffee causes brain damage (serious question) because alcohol does? https://www.webmd.com/connect-to-care/addiction-treatment-recovery/alcohol/serious-effects-alcohol-on-brain

[Calm]

5 minutes ago, DT_ said:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150427211642.htm

Interesting.  Wasn’t the case for my daughter though.  Weight issues came afterwards due to worsening sleep deprivation and crap drugs.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Calm

[DT_]

2 minutes ago, Calm said:

You have correlation of coffee to suicide and assault risk, DUIs, etc?

Is it known that coffee causes brain damage (serious question) because alcohol does? https://www.webmd.com/connect-to-care/addiction-treatment-recovery/alcohol/serious-effects-alcohol-on-brain

I'm sorry, I should've said "not much better", but the difference is huge. So, it's best for me to retract that statement.

[Calm]

8 minutes ago, DT_ said:

I hope she is doing okay. Have you invited her to participate on this board?

Not interested in religious topics…at least not Christianity.  If it weren’t for the fact she has all my disorders and then some, I might doubt her parentage.  
 

She is not doing okay, but it’s not really the diabetes (except that it makes it harder to treat the other stuff).  She lost her thyroid and has fibromyalgia and migraines.  Pretty much is constantly nauseated and in pain.  However, her A1cs are practically perfect.  Her doctor just told her she is one of the few people she knows who controls her diabetes so well while having so many other problems.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Calm

[DT_]

17 minutes ago, Calm said:

She is not doing okay, but it’s not really the diabetes (except that it makes it harder to treat the other stuff).  She lost her thyroid and has fibromyalgia and migraines.  Pretty much is constantly nauseated and in pain.  However, her A1cs are practically perfect.  Her doctor just told her she is one of the few people she knows who controls her diabetes so well while having so many other problems.

I'm really sorry to hear that, it's good she is controlling her diabetes very well. 

Edited August 19, 2022 by DT_

[katherine the great]

12 hours ago, DT_ said:

has there ever been a time in human history when the average age of having children was 30?  

Cultural demographics aren’t really my area of expertise. (I’m a Bio anth)  I do know that during the Victorian era at least, British and East coast American women were frequently marrying (in the upper classes)  in their late 20s and early 30s. IIRC, The age of marriage for women is usually somewhat connected to their education level. Also, there’s never been a time in history that people live as long as we do now. So the “ why rush marriage?” question seems pretty logical to me.

From a strictly biological perspective, I absolutely agree that our bodies evolved to bear children primarily in our 20s and early 30s. However, there’s a lot more to life than just thinking about the odds of having a “ flawed” child. I would not change my daughter one whit. Her diabetes is part of who she is and it has made her a very strong and compassionate person. I also feel blessed to live in a time when there are treatments.