Another Big Batch Of Temple Ordinance Changes

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

If you were humble and open enough, you may actually learn to treat your wife with the respect and dignity that she deserves as an equal partner rather than a subservient and subordinate subject to you.  We have all read your threads though, so I don’t think anyone is holding their breath.

You’ve gone too far Pogi. 

[pogi]

2 minutes ago, bluebell said:

You’ve gone too far Pogi. 

Apparently so.  It was definitely snarky but I think he deserves to know that he CAN indeed learn something from these changes (despite his insistence that all the changes are negative) that can benefit relationships and cultural views of women.  

It was probably too personal and for that I apologize to Neanderthal.

[ttribe]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

If you were humble and open enough, you may actually learn to treat your wife with the respect and dignity that she deserves as an equal partner rather than a subservient and subordinate subject to you.  We have all read your threads though, so I don’t think anyone is holding their breath.

[mfbukowski]

11 hours ago, bluebell said:

Something isn’t true or false based on our beliefs about it. It exists outside of whether or not we agree. 

How can we KNOW it "exists" since we are limited by a human brain?

Suppose when you look at something green, I look at the same object and my brain associates it with the word "red" because my brain is wired a little differently than yours?

We can never know anything more or less than what our 5 senses are capable of perceiving and communicating.

Reality is what each brain tells itself it is.

What about magic tricks and optical illusions? 

[bluebell]

23 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

How can we KNOW it "exists" since we are limited by a human brain?

Suppose when you look at something green, I look at the same object and my brain associates it with the word "red" because my brain is wired a little differently than yours?

We can never know anything more or less than what our 5 senses are capable of perceiving and communicating.

Reality is what each brain tells itself it is.

What about magic tricks and optical illusions? 

Because we are talking about things that exist outside of a mortal plane, we can’t use mortal feelings and limitations to define it.

Reality exist, even when there is no brain to tell itself anything.  Whether or not, we can know something has no bearing on whether or not it exists. There are a lot of things that exist right now that no human knows. They still exist though.

[bluebell]

3 hours ago, Grug the Neanderthal said:

It’s not hard to show that teachings in the endowment have been removed and therefore lost to those individuals who never hear about them, like my kids who haven’t been endowed yet. 

But being able to show a removal of some thing, or a change, does not automatically show a loss.

Is it a loss for us that we no longer live under the law of circumcision? Was it a loss for the apostles when they no longer had the law of Moses? Is it a loss for you that you cannot be a polygamist in this life?  Is it a loss that we don’t drink wine when we take the sacrament?

I would answer no to each of those questions. Though we can easily prove that things were changed or removed in each of those circumstances, none of those removals or changes equal a loss to any follower of Christ.

[pogi]

13 hours ago, bluebell said:

I use relative to mean that idea that whatever someone believes is true, is true.  That is the relativism that the prophets warn against.

Something isn’t true or false based on our beliefs about it. It exists outside of whether or not we agree. 

In the absolute sense, I think that is the case, but because we can't know absolute truth with absolute certainty (as Bukowski points out, we can't escape our brain and perspective to verify if it aligns with ultimate reality), so it is a matter of faith.  Absolute Truth, as it relates to us (aka relative truth) is unwhole and therefore not absolute - nothing therefore can be said of it, as it is - only as it is perceived.  The only truth that we can know is entirely relative to our perspective and is based on our beliefs.  Relative truth is the only truth for which mortals have to show.  It is the basis for all that we do, and how we choose to use our agency revolves around relative truth and not absolute truth.

32 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Because we are talking about things that exist outside of a mortal plane, we can’t use mortal feelings and limitations to define it.

Exatcly!   There is nothing that can be said of absolute truth or reality.  It is only a matter of faith that it even exists, but can't be defined or known beyond a relative and unwhole perspective - which unavoidably skews our interpretation. 

32 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Reality exist, even when there is no brain to tell itself anything.  Whether or not, we can know something has no bearing on whether or not it exists. There are a lot of things that exist right now that no human knows. They still exist though.

This is all a matter of faith, because again we can't escape our limited perspective.  We can speak of these things in terms of hope and faith, but in absolute terms of what is "true" or "false", it is beyond our capacity to speak about with any degree of confidence.  We are therefore limited to our relative truths and perspectives which are supposed to be progressive and evolve.  

I think the relativism that prophets warn about is the relativism that does not seek to humble themselves before almighty God in sacrificing their ego to align with the light that they believe comes from God.  Some relativists justify severing that tie because ultimate/absolute truth can't be known in any absolute way - but that is what faith is for.  I think it is wrong to speak against relativism in general though, it is an inescapable part of life and limited mortal perspective.  The real danger comes in confusing ones relative truth for absolute truth.  That is when progression stops and much evil is justified in the name of God. 

Edited February 21, 2023 by pogi

[Tacenda]

7 minutes ago, bluebell said:

But being able to show a removal of some thing, or a change, does not automatically show a loss.

Is it a loss for us that we no longer live under the law of circumcision? Was it a loss for the apostles when they no longer had the law of Moses? Is it a loss for you that you cannot be a polygamist in this life?  Is it a loss that we don’t drink wine when we take the sacrament?

I would answer no to each of those questions. Though we can easily prove that things were changed or removed in each of those circumstances, none of those removals or changes equal a loss to any follower of Christ.

This makes a lot of sense. We'd be in the dark ages without change!

[Calm]

10 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Is it a loss that we don’t drink wine when we take the sacrament?

Lost some symbolism there in the act, but still plenty there in the teaching.

[bluebell]

4 minutes ago, pogi said:

In the absolute sense, I think that is the case, but because we can't know absolute truth with absolute certainty (as Bukowski points out, we can't escape our brain and perspective to verify if it aligns with ultimate reality), so it is a matter of faith.  Absolute Truth, as it relates to us (aka relative truth) is unwhole and therefore not absolute - nothing therefore can be said of it.  The only truth that we can know is entirely relative to our perspective and is based on our beliefs.   

Exatcly!   There is nothing that can be said of absolute truth or reality.  It is only a matter of faith that it even exists, but can't be defined or known beyond a relative and unwhole perspective - which unavoidably skews our interpretation. 

This is all a matter of faith, because again we can't escape our limited perspective.  We can speak of these things in terms of hope and faith, but in absolute terms of what is "true" or "false", it is beyond our capacity to speak about with any degree of confidence.  We are therefore limited to our relative truths and perspectives which are supposed to be progressive and evolve.  

I think the relativism that prophets warn about is the relativism that does not seek to humble themselves before almighty God in sacrificing their ego to align with the light that they believe comes from God.  Some relativists justify severing that tie because ultimate/absolute truth can't be known in any absolute way - but that is what faith is for.  I think it is wrong to speak against relativism in general though, it is an inescapable part of life and limited mortal perspective.  The real danger comes in confusing ones relative truth for absolute truth.  That is when progression stops and much evil is justified in the name of God. 

I would agree with you, except we have access to three Beings who do not exist within our mortal framework,  and who are not limited by our limitations, who are able to communicate truth to us.

So, because faith is so important in our spiritual journey I agree that faith is what we deal with the majority of time. But I disagree that we deal with faith 100% of the time. I disagree that we can never know anything.

having said that, it really doesn’t have anything to do with my point. My point is that truth exists and is not dependent on our beliefs. 

[bluebell]

13 minutes ago, Calm said:

Lost some symbolism there in the act, but still plenty there in the teaching.

Exactly. A loss of symbolism does not equal a loss to us.

[pogi]

17 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I would agree with you, except we have access to three Beings who do not exist within our mortal framework,  and who are not limited by our limitations, who are able to communicate truth to us.

I would suggest that our access is limited and veiled, and anything we receive by them is filtered and interpreted via our perspective.  I know form personal experience that the principle of revelation line upon line and precept upon precept inevitably causes me to reinterpret things I once thought was "certain" as it was revealed to me by God - we see the same thing happen in the temple and other ways in the church.  As I see it, no interpretation of any revelation is whole and absolute.

17 minutes ago, bluebell said:

So, because faith is so important in our spiritual journey I agree that faith is what we deal with the majority of time. But I disagree that we deal with faith 100% of the time. I disagree that we can never know anything.

How can we know anything with absolute certainty if we can't escape our brain and limited perspective to see if our interpretation aligns/corresponds with what we perceive? 

17 minutes ago, bluebell said:

having said that, it really doesn’t have anything to do with my point. My point is that truth exists and is not dependent on our beliefs. 

Because your point is being stated as a matter of absolute truth rather than a matter of faith, I think it is relevant.   I think what you say is true, but that is my relative truth and a matter of faith.  I can't verify it to obtain absolute certainty. 

Edited February 21, 2023 by pogi

[mfbukowski]

47 minutes ago, bluebell said:

There are a lot of things that exist right now that no human knows. They still exist though.

How do you know that?   seriously?

Faith.  Hope for things unseen? Is science faith based?

[OGHoosier]

23 minutes ago, pogi said:

I think the relativism that prophets warn about is the relativism that does not seek to humble themselves before almighty God in sacrificing their ego to align with the light that they believe comes from God.  Some relativists justify severing that tie because ultimate/absolute truth can't be known in any absolute way - but that is what faith is for.  I think it is wrong to speak against relativism in general though, it is an inescapable part of life and limited mortal perspective.  The real danger comes in confusing ones relative truth for absolute truth.  That is when progression stops and much evil is justified in the name of God. 

Cue Joseph Smith's well-known antipathy for creeds. 

I would argue that we need to have an epistemic relativism without denying the existence of real values. C.S. Lewis' "Abolition of Man" makes a good case that you can't just say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" - in practical terms we can only know beauty through the eye of the beholder, but to say that beauty doesn't exist mind-independently is to totally deconstruct the concept. I'd say that the relativism we should embrace is merely epistemic - we should accept that we can be wrong about things like beauty and higher truths just like anything else, while still acknowledging that these things exist beyond us and are worth seeking.

 

[bluebell]

41 minutes ago, pogi said:

I would suggest that our access is limited and veiled, and anything we receive by them is filtered and interpreted via our perspective.  I know form personal experience that the principle of revelation line upon line and precept upon precept inevitably causes me to reinterpret things I once thought was "certain" as it was revealed to me by God - we see the same thing happen in the temple and other ways in the church.  As I see it, no interpretation of any revelation is whole and absolute.

How can we know anything with absolute certainty if we can't escape our brain and limited perspective to see if our interpretation aligns/corresponds with what we perceive? 

Because your point is being stated as a matter of absolute truth rather than a matter of faith, I think it is relevant.   I think what you say is true, but that is my relative truth and a matter of faith.  I can't verify it to obtain absolute certainty. 

It doesn’t matter if we can verify that something is true or not. It’s true or not regardless of its ability to be verified.

If something that we believe is true is actually false, it was always false. Our belief never had any effect on it.  Our belief existed completely separate from that thing.

Belief is relative, truth is not.

[bluebell]

38 minutes ago, OGHoosier said:

Cue Joseph Smith's well-known antipathy for creeds. 

I would argue that we need to have an epistemic relativism without denying the existence of real values. C.S. Lewis' "Abolition of Man" makes a good case that you can't just say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" - in practical terms we can only know beauty through the eye of the beholder, but to say that beauty doesn't exist mind-independently is to totally deconstruct the concept. I'd say that the relativism we should embrace is merely epistemic - we should accept that we can be wrong about things like beauty and higher truths just like anything else, while still acknowledging that these things exist beyond us and are worth seeking.

 

Perfectly said.

[pogi]

1 hour ago, OGHoosier said:

Cue Joseph Smith's well-known antipathy for creeds. 

I would argue that we need to have an epistemic relativism without denying the existence of real values. C.S. Lewis' "Abolition of Man" makes a good case that you can't just say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" - in practical terms we can only know beauty through the eye of the beholder, but to say that beauty doesn't exist mind-independently is to totally deconstruct the concept. I'd say that the relativism we should embrace is merely epistemic - we should accept that we can be wrong about things like beauty and higher truths just like anything else, while still acknowledging that these things exist beyond us and are worth seeking.

 

I don't think we can be wrong about beauty and matters of subjectivity.  I don't even comprehend what objective beauty independent of any subjective observer could even mean.  Beautiful according to who or what? I haven't read Abolition Man, so there may be more to his argument that I am not aware of, but I don't see how matters of subjectivity can be objective. 

I would argue that epistemic relativism can't be divorced form any other form of relativism in any meaningful way.   If all that we can know is relative, than absolute truth/reality cannot be known as it is, therefore there is nothing that can be said about it.  It therefore cannot be defended as an absolute reality that exists outside of our perspective.   It is our limited interpretive perspective (epistemic relativism) that creates our truth - relative truth.   Nothing else can be said to exist, except as a matter of faith. 

Edited February 21, 2023 by pogi

[bluebell]

44 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

How do you know that?   seriously?

Faith.  Hope for things unseen? Is science faith based?

Experience, that’s how I know that.

There was a time when people did not know that a certain fish that lives in ocean existed. Now we do. Our belief had no impact on the existence of the fish.  The fish existed independently, completely outside of our knowledge or opinions.  Completely independent of our ability to verify its existence.

That has happened enough times throughout history—thousands of times and more, on many many different subjects—that it is an absolute certainty that it will happen again.

[JLHPROF]

4 hours ago, MustardSeed said:

Was there a time when Jenna Tallia was touched? Voice to text and I’m not changing it lol

You're funny 🤣.

But he said "in the temple you needed to take all your clothes off so that they could bless every body part of you with oil."

You answered "There are a lot of Myths. Consider yourself corrected."

That's no myth and you know it. It's a part of our history.  Even if Jenna wasn't part of it.

[Calm]

9 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

You're funny 🤣.

But he said "in the temple you needed to take all your clothes off so that they could bless every body part of you with oil."

You answered "There are a lot of Myths. Consider yourself corrected."

That's no myth and you know it. It's a part of our history.  Even if Jenna wasn't part of it.

How about saying there is a ton of context missing?  After all one can say you need to take your clothes off for both a strip joint and the doctors, but it means drastically different things.

The vast majority of stuff I have read about nakedness in the temple is wrong, has been incorrect folktales.

Edited February 21, 2023 by Calm

[MustardSeed]

10 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

You're funny 🤣.

But he said "in the temple you needed to take all your clothes off so that they could bless every body part of you with oil."

You answered "There are a lot of Myths. Consider yourself corrected."

That's no myth and you know it. It's a part of our history.  Even if Jenna wasn't part of it.

Bless every body part?  Well I haven’t ever had that experience in a temple.  I was first introduced to the temple in the 90s and I had a covering on, and only a few (very boring) body parts were blessed.  It was not sexual in any way.  
 

 

[bluebell]

18 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

You're funny 🤣.

But he said "in the temple you needed to take all your clothes off so that they could bless every body part of you with oil."

You answered "There are a lot of Myths. Consider yourself corrected."

That's no myth and you know it. It's a part of our history.  Even if Jenna wasn't part of it.

I think that in the context of what Dario said, mustardseed’s reply was accurate.

The implications of being told that you would need to takeoff all of your clothes (implication of nudity, which is false) so that every part of your body could be blessed (implication of the touching of *every* part of the body, which is also false) are not accurate representations of what happened in the temple a few years ago.

[mfbukowski]

9 minutes ago, bluebell said:

There was a time when people did not know that a certain fish that lives in ocean existed. Now we do. Our belief had no impact on the existence of the fish.  The fish existed independently, completely outside of our knowledge or opinions.  Completely independent of our ability to verify its existence.

 

Oddly, many "scientific discoveries" in new fish species are actually found in fish markets where the species has been sold for generations.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/melissacristinamarquez/2019/01/28/new-species-of-shark-found-in-fish-market/?sh=2b097874741d

Time again to hit up good old Rorty again.   

We EXPERIENCE through our human senses, as human "mental states", or how things appear to us.  Green and houses are human mental states as we know them.

But we do not EXPERIENCE the CAUSES of those perceptions.   One of a scientific bent would say that color for example is "caused" by wavelengths of light being filtered through the brain/mind/spirit.

But we do not perceive wave lengths, we experience colors.  It's a little easier to find an apple in a tree if one can see "red" rather than a swarm of wavelengths all mixed and mashed together.  We need colors to find nuts and fruits and berries to survive, we don't need to see "wavelengths"- that concept doesn't even make sense to us! 

Yet again- Rorty- the simplest statement I have ever found of the principle here discussed.   

"

Quote

 

 To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

     Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

 

No sentences= no truth.  Not possible.

What is a "true apple"? or even a "true church" exempting it's sentences or beliefs?  Does that mean it's walls are "truly" 90 degrees square?

The sentences can be shown as being "true" as per Alma 32- causing those sentences to be "sweet" and give comfort to our hearts.  The walls are "square" providing strength to the structure, and sometimes therefore called "true".  But without sentences and beliefs, there is NOTHING that one can say "verifies" the church beliefs.  They logically fit together as a paradigm AND most importantly, the spirit or "conscience" verifies that they make sense and are right.

THAT is what we mean by "I know the church is true".

What it means is that believing in the church's beliefs, and following the Covenant path, the voice within me tells me I am on the right path, and in the process the path and paradigm become "sweet" to us.   It's not about scientific "facts", it's about how there is "proof in the pudding" of what happens as we truly live the true church.

Orthopraxy, not Orthodoxy. 

"Come and See".

[pogi]

56 minutes ago, bluebell said:

It doesn’t matter if we can verify that something is true or not. It’s true or not regardless of its ability to be verified.

True in what sense?    This seems to be the positivist view that you are stating, along the lines of the correspondence theory of truth.  Because we can't escape our perspectives,  truth (as it relates to us) is however we perceive it to be - aka "relative".   One can state that it exists independent of the mind, but if they can't see it as it is or demonstrate it, then their statement of truth is unavoidably relative.  One can't escape relativism without an absolute perspective,  until then, we are limited to relative truth that we create.   

56 minutes ago, bluebell said:

If something that we believe is true is actually false, it was always false. Our belief never had any effect on it.  Our belief existed completely separate from that thing.

If we believe something is true that is false in the absolute sense - it is still truth in every practical sense to us.  Relative truth has gravity and real consequence just like anything else that is real.  All belief and truth as it relates to mortals is "separate from that thing" (because we can't see it as it is), so to speak of truth as if it correlates to something absolute is as you say, "beyond mortal comprehension", and cannot be posited as an absolute fact.  It can only be stated in a relative way as a matter of belief/faith.  

56 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Belief is relative, truth is not.

If you agree, as you seem to, that knowledge is relative (epistemic relativism), than mankind has no truth in the absolute sense as defined by scripture - "truth is knowledge of things as they are..."  

We rely on relative truth if we rely on epistemic relativism. 

Relative truth is our truth, because we can't escape our perspective and know things as they are.   So if we are going to speak of truth in any meaningful way, it must be relative, otherwise it is unknown. 

I am also guessing that we are not seeing eye to eye on what "truth" even means, which makes communication difficult.   

Edited February 21, 2023 by pogi

[Calm]

19 minutes ago, MustardSeed said:

Bless every body part?  Well I haven’t ever had that experience in a temple.  I was first introduced to the temple in the 90s and I had a covering on, and only a few (very boring) body parts were blessed.  It was not sexual in any way.  
 

 

1980, same