Why the Protestant Church Needs Another Ninety-Five Theses

[Stargazer]

2 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Nope.  Islam will be the dominant religion in Europe and England by the end of this century.  Demography is destiny.

That's because the historical populations there have discovered "the pill" and feminism, and let their hedonistic tendencies go mad. Result: intercourse without result and a birthrate that is well below replacement. Except for the Muslims, who still practice the First Commandment ("Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth"). 

My stepdaughter is bucking the trend, with six children (to the amazement and scandalization of everyone she knows, no doubt). But she can't do it alone. Even the LDS in Great Britain are hedonistically limiting their family size to two or three. 

[The Nehor]

6 hours ago, Injeun said:

The bible, which testifies of one gospel, one Christ, and one God, is a silent witness against the supposed bible based religion which is known as Christianity. This is because the religion is comprised of tens of thousands of differing gospels, Christs, and Gods, one set for each different denomination. So it isn't actually bible based. It's more bible adjacent or reflective, as in an image. It isn't united in Christ, but is divided from within its own particulars. So it has no standing whatsoever from within or without. There is no God in it. It is the work of men, and may as well be the religion of gossip about God. It is the result of men presuming to venture into divine matters and assume authority.

I say this, but I don't make it this way. Men have done so. It is self evident. It isn't my religion or God. It is an imposter with tens of thousands of sharp tongues and prison cells, holding 2.6 billion souls captive in its belly. And is two thousand years in the making.

So when they say the LDS Church isn't Christian, it means the LDS Church isn't an imposter. The reason they reject the LDS Church is because to welcome it, would be to rend Christianity to the ground as if the stars would fall from the sky and the sun and moon cease to give their light. As an LDS member, I say that God is real, he lives and is divine. And the Bible testimony is true. So there is God and hope. The value in the false religion of Christianity resides in the souls of its captives, not the image it presents.

 “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon Me, because the Lord hath anointed Me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound,

 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn,

 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He might be glorified.” Isaiah 61

So when they say Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t Christians does that mean they aren’t imposters either?

[The Nehor]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Nope.  Islam will be the dominant religion in Europe and England by the end of this century.  Demography is destiny.

No, this argument has been made many times throughout history suggesting that the secret to success is mass-breeding. The fears it raises virtually never actually happen.

[The Nehor]

37 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

That's because the historical populations there have discovered "the pill" and feminism, and let their hedonistic tendencies go mad. Result: intercourse without result and a birthrate that is well below replacement. Except for the Muslims, who still practice the First Commandment ("Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth"). 

My stepdaughter is bucking the trend, with six children (to the amazement and scandalization of everyone she knows, no doubt). But she can't do it alone. Even the LDS in Great Britain are hedonistically limiting their family size to two or three. 

Pretty sure that is a radical definition of the term hedonism.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

That's because the historical populations there have discovered "the pill" and feminism, and let their hedonistic tendencies go mad.

Because women being able to be independent from men and pursue the same pursuits of education and financial stability that men have pursued since eons is hedonistic?

Or not using your kids as your income producers and having as many as possible to maximize that income is a good unselfish family planning strategy. 

I just don’t buy people are more prone to hedonism now than in the past, there may be more opportunities now because more people are living above subsistence level.  I also have significant doubts that there is more sex happening outside of marriage only because people are less moral than they used to be given the cultural approval in so many places of men using prostitutes, the wealthy having harems, women basically sold by parents to advance the family’s status.

Edited March 9 by Calm

[The Nehor]

1 hour ago, Calm said:

Because women being able to be independent from men and pursue the same pursuits of education and financial stability that men have pursued since eons is hedonistic?

Or not using your kids as your income producers and having as many as possible to maximize that income is a good unselfish family planning strategy. 

I just don’t buy people are more prone to hedonism now than in the past, there may be more opportunities now because more people are living above subsistence level.  I also have significant doubts that there is more sex happening outside of marriage only because people are less moral than they used to be given the cultural approval in so many places of men using prostitutes, the wealthy having harems, women basically sold by parents to advance the family’s status.

Don’t believe the narrative that sex outside marriage used to be super rare until these days with all our crazy. It was always common. Read the medieval churchmen lamenting how no one is a virgin when getting married. Also explains why daughters of “fancy people” got married so young. They lost their potential use as political and social tools quickly if they played around and (surprise!) many of them did so marrying them off young was the way to make sure you use that utility.

I am reminded of one woman who was basically trying to become a saint and being an obnoxious crazy person trying to convince everyone she was holy. Then a guy hit her up for sex and she considered it such a minor thing to accept it that she wrote about it herself where it would become public. She was married too.

The idea that modern society are a bunch of hedonists is silly. Humanity has always been a bunch of hedonists by that standard.

[Injeun]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

So when they say Jehovah’s Witnesses aren’t Christians does that mean they aren’t imposters either?

It's another bible based religion with its own private interpretation of the same scriptures as the others, distinguishing itself from the next denomination.

[Injeun]

5 hours ago, InCognitus said:

I realize that you may be generalizing what it means to be "Christian" according to the topic of this thread, but it's not fair to group all of Christianity (apart from the LDS Church) as an "imposter".  There may be incorrect doctrines among them (as there may even be among believers in the LDS Church), but there are also many individuals in Christianity (apart from the LDS Church) who sincerely desire to be true followers of Christ and who also exhibit Christ-like behavior.  Furthermore, there are true followers of Christ in the LDS Church and we are a Christian church by definition.

The problem as I see it from the items listed in the OP of this thread is that there is a general attitude of persecution and judgement of others among some that profess to be Christians which is a behavior that is totally foreign to the doctrines of Christ, and it is that same lack of love for others that President Nelson has admonished us to avoid (and why would he do that if that attitude did not also exist among some members of the LDS Church?) 

I'm not criticizing individual Christ like behavior which can be found anywhere, at Church, at work, out and about, in a tavern, or even in a brothel. I'm rejecting the formalized religion of bible based Christianity for everyone's sake. If you love someone, you tell them the truth. God himself told Joseph Smith not to join any Church because they all teach the doctrines of men, that they draw near him with their lips, but their hearts are far away. God himself laid the axe to the root of that fruitless tree. That's why God restored his true Church thru Joseph Smith. Formal Christianity is a two thousand year old criminal enterprise which began as a hostile takeover of the gospel, after they crucified Jesus and murdered all of his Apostles. Then they formed a new Church around it, allied that Church with powerful governments, and proceeded to conquer the nations of the world in the name of God. Over the years, and with the advent of the printing press and mass production, everyone had access to scriptures, and men could form their own denomination. Now there are tens of thousands of different denominations, established and formalized as presumptuously as the first false Church after the original fell into apostasy following the deaths of its leaders. Traditional Christianity is a formalized crime against God. To call it Christianity as if were united in Christ, when it is divided among tens of thousands of private interpretations, is to advance a falsehood. They aren't aligned with one another, and they aren't aligned with Christ. So it is an imposter, without God, spirit, or authority. It is aligned with nothing. And that is the tradition. Yes, love its captives. But be acquainted with its nature. 

[Tony uk]

13 hours ago, Calm said:

Did not the Catholic Church contribute to the preservation of ancient texts over the years and the spread of Christianity in general (as far as I know conversion rates are higher among fellow Christians than non Christian’s)?

In the UK, England in particular. Over recent years, there have been a reasonable size conversion, of Anglicans from the Church of England to the Roman Catholic Church. This being as a result as I see it. The changing atmosphere within the Church of England. I feel that these people are looking for something more solid in doctrine. The Roman Catholic Church as you touched on as a large holding of ancient documents relating to the early church.

[Stargazer]

14 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Pretty sure that is a radical definition of the term hedonism.

Having intercourse with everything that moves, avoiding the fruits of that intercourse, is a radical definition? Interesting!

Perhaps hedonism comprises more than that, but so what? That's just one branch of the faith.

[The Nehor]

22 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Having intercourse with everything that moves, avoiding the fruits of that intercourse, is a radical definition? Interesting!

Perhaps hedonism comprises more than that, but so what? That's just one branch of the faith.

Wow, thanks for that reminder. It’s been a long time since I thought of “Anything That Moves” magazine written primarily for bisexuals. It was an ironic name taken because it was the 90s and bisexuals were seen as being desperate to copulate with anything that moved. Contained the bisexual manifesto which is still often quoted by bisexual people.

Also there is pretty much no one that actually wants ‘everything that moves’ and I have known some incredibly slutty people. Like body count of over a thousand people slutty. They still won’t hook up with everyone.

Still, I suppose it is nice to see this weird generalization about bisexual people generalized to the larger population. Not sure it is nearly as true for straight people though and they do make up the bulk of this hedonist population.

Also lol that at the idea that birth control is some new idea. Pretty reliable birth control is more recent but there were a lot of ways of avoiding pregnancy thrown about in history. There was also a plant that was used as birth control in the ancient Mediterranean world that several writers believed was effective. No way of knowing now if that is true as we are pretty sure that the plant is extinct. Women often tried to avoid pregnancy throughout history for all kinds of reasons. One of the most prominent was the relatively high chance of dying due to bearing a child.

[Stargazer]

14 hours ago, Calm said:

Because women being able to be independent from men and pursue the same pursuits of education and financial stability that men have pursued since eons is hedonistic?

No. Being able to be independent, and being educated is entirely non-hedonistic. And what I wrote had nothing to do with any of that -- I detect a smidgeon of straw man logic there. Perhaps you should argue with what I said, not against something else entirely?

But I was pretty sure someone would chime in like this. 

Let me ask this: why did men pursue education and financial stability over all those thousands of years? For the fun of it? For personal gratification? NO! It was that was what they had to do to successfully provide for a family! 

14 hours ago, Calm said:

Or not using your kids as your income producers and having as many as possible to maximize that income is a good unselfish family planning strategy. 

I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here.

While it is true that parents in some cultures would be supported in their old age by their children, it was because there were no social insurance programs amongst farmers in the old days. In fact, your children were your social insurance program.

14 hours ago, Calm said:

I just don’t buy people are more prone to hedonism now than in the past, there may be more opportunities now because more people are living above subsistence level.  

Of course people are no more prone to hedonism now than they were in the past. I didn't say they were. Human beings are the same now as they were five thousand years ago.  Neither leopards nor humans have changed their spots. Hedonism, being a family of philosophical views that prioritizes pleasure, requires prosperity. And as you rightly point out, there are far more opportunities to practice it when people are prosperous.

14 hours ago, Calm said:

I also have significant doubts that there is more sex happening outside of marriage only because people are less moral than they used to be given the cultural approval in so many places of men using prostitutes, the wealthy having harems, women basically sold by parents to advance the family’s status.

People are no more nor less inherently moral now than they were in the past. But just as the practice of hedonism requires prosperity to be practical, sexual immorality requires the kinds of opportunities that modern-day widely available contraception provides. You're not wrong that there isn't more sex happening outside of marriage -- there are alarming reports of significant numbers of young people who choose to remain celibate. And that is also part of the problem.

Perhaps you don't see all that is going on around you with the younger generation, the generation that is supposed to be generating. Instead of generating, they are either doing nothing at all (incels), or are going through the motions that would produce a new generation but taking steps to prevent that generation from arising (childfreeness). Birth control is fine when used to manage family structure. But it's being used to prevent families from forming at all. There are far too many young women using their fertile years being anything other than mothers. And far too many young men staying away from those women because those young women only care about their careers and making money. And then there are the young women who are wasting those important fertile years acting like proper Jezebels with multiple young men who are sowing wild oats while reaping nothing whatsoever. There are some exceptions, of course, otherwise the current US fertility rate would be lower than 1.62.  Why do you think nearly every Western country's fertility rate has gone down the tubes? And in nearly all cases that rate is below replacement! Some countries (especially South Korea, with 0.73) may have reached a point of no recovery. There's a very interesting and alarming interactive map HERE. The only countries with a more-than-replacement fertility rate are poor with uneducated populations. By the way, the replacement rate for developed countries is around 2.1 children per mother, and for undeveloped is as high as 3.4. The 2024 world total fertility rate of 2.2477 seems to be just a bit over replacement, with the poorer and less educated countries bringing us over the goal line.

The cause of all this in the OECD countries is complex. I am unsure how some things are going in the US, but here in the UK we have a bit of a housing crisis, meaning costs of shelter are high. This is because demand exceeds supply. Even though our population is on a starvation diet of babies, with a fertility rate of 1.55, we've had something like 2.5 million immigrants (too many are illegal and/or non-working) over just the past 2 years. Without being able to find a home to raise them in, who's gonna want to have children? 

This is a problem even in historically poor countries. Would you believe that India, of all places, now has a subreplacement fertility rate? Naturally, so does China.

Do you want to suggest that I want women to be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen? Well, if they don't start getting serious about that second item, we are toast. They can have all the shoes Imelda Marcos had, they can order in delivery every night, but please, please, have some babies, dammit! 🙂

I'm 73. Actuarily, I'll be dead before Social Security goes belly up and my private pension evaporates. So, as the song Bread used to sing goes, "It don't matter to me." But you younger people? You're going to be up a certain creek without a paddle. And sooner than you think.

Our only hope may be the Second Coming.

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Wow, thanks for that reminder. It’s been a long time since I thought of “Anything That Moves” magazine written primarily for bisexuals. It was an ironic name taken because it was the 90s and bisexuals were seen as being desperate to copulate with anything that moved. Contained the bisexual manifesto which is still often quoted by bisexual people.

Also there is pretty much no one that actually wants ‘everything that moves’ and I have known some incredibly slutty people. Like body count of over a thousand people slutty. They still won’t hook up with everyone.

Still, I suppose it is nice to see this weird generalization about bisexual people generalized to the larger population. Not sure it is nearly as true for straight people though and they do make up the bulk of this hedonist population.

Please, TN, I was being deliberately over-the-top. Just trying to emulate your own sometimes amusing brand of snark. Clearly unsuccessfully.

Back to hedonism. Regular hedonism can be defined as: "A family of philosophical views that prioritizes pleasure."

So, radical hedonism is of course "Anything that moves." Savvy?

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Also lol that at the idea that birth control is some new idea.

Oh, for goodness sake, did I say it was a new idea? No. I said it was now reliable and widely available. But of course straw men must be knocked over.

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Pretty reliable birth control is more recent but there were a lot of ways of avoiding pregnancy thrown about in history. There was also a plant that was used as birth control in the ancient Mediterranean world that several writers believed was effective. No way of knowing now if that is true as we are pretty sure that the plant is extinct.

There were a lot of ways of avoiding pregnancy thrown about in history? Does one get extra points for stating the obvious? Was this some kind of attempt to refute a point I made?

1 hour ago, The Nehor said:

Women often tried to avoid pregnancy throughout history for all kinds of reasons. One of the most prominent was the relatively high chance of dying due to bearing a child.

They often tried this? They failed at it far more oftener, LOL. That's the flipping reason we have over 7 billion people on the planet now. It is precisely BECAUSE we didn't have reliable and freely available contraception until about the mid-20th century. And the chances of dying in childbirth might have been non-zero, it was obviously not non-zero enough. I can trace my genealogy back quite a ways, like back to the 1500s on some lines. As far as I can tell, none of my grandmothers died due to having a baby. Infant mortality was sometimes pretty bad, though.

First use of the oral contraceptive pill was in 1960 in the USA. 65 years later and several countries in the world, unless something happens to change it, are going to be wastelands -- but probably conquered by their possibly more fecund neighbors some time before then. Take the Koreas, for example. North Korea is below replacement fertility, at 1.78 births per woman. But South Korea is in a death spiral, with 0.73! If that keeps up, when the then current Kim finally invades it will be a country of old folks homes.

But Europe will probably be safe. As I think Robert pointed out, Europe will be majority Muslim in 50 or 60 years. And Muslims, so far at least, still believe in having babies.

[The Nehor]

55 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Please, TN, I was being deliberately over-the-top. Just trying to emulate your own sometimes amusing brand of snark. Clearly unsuccessfully.

Back to hedonism. Regular hedonism can be defined as: "A family of philosophical views that prioritizes pleasure."

So, radical hedonism is of course "Anything that moves." Savvy?

Yeah, I was showing that that same hyperbole was weaponized against others in the past.

55 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

Oh, for goodness sake, did I say it was a new idea? No. I said it was now reliable and widely available. But of course straw men must be knocked over.

You are acting like this is some new crisis the world has never faced before.

55 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

There were a lot of ways of avoiding pregnancy thrown about in history? Does one get extra points for stating the obvious? Was this some kind of attempt to refute a point I made?

Again, you are suggesting it is causing all the hedonism.

55 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

They often tried this? They failed at it far more oftener, LOL. That's the flipping reason we have over 7 billion people on the planet now. It is precisely BECAUSE we didn't have reliable and freely available contraception until about the mid-20th century. And the chances of dying in childbirth might have been non-zero, it was obviously not non-zero enough. I can trace my genealogy back quite a ways, like back to the 1500s on some lines. As far as I can tell, none of my grandmothers died due to having a baby. Infant mortality was sometimes pretty bad, though.

That is really biased sampling. When the mother died it often meant the child died too even if successfully delivered. The lines that weren’t so fortunate usually never came to exist.

55 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

First use of the oral contraceptive pill was in 1960 in the USA. 65 years later and several countries in the world, unless something happens to change it, are going to be wastelands -- but probably conquered by their possibly more fecund neighbors some time before then. Take the Koreas, for example. North Korea is below replacement fertility, at 1.78 births per woman. But South Korea is in a death spiral, with 0.73! If that keeps up, when the then current Kim finally invades it will be a country of old folks homes.

And why is South Korea’s fertility so low? Let’s see. Exorbitant housing and education costs and a long workday and long workweek. So a couple needs two incomes to survive and they won’t realistically have any time to parent any children since both parents are basically never home and would have difficulty housing and educating those children if they did have them.

United States is following in that same tradition. Maybe going back to the days when having one full-time job was enough to support a household would help? You want to blame it on hedonism when economics is the main driver here. I know several couples who want children but also realize they can’t afford them and have no real prospect of that changing. Fix that before whining about how couples are doing the fiscally responsible thing which you are labelling as hedonism for some reason.

55 minutes ago, Stargazer said:

But Europe will probably be safe. As I think Robert pointed out, Europe will be majority Muslim in 50 or 60 years. And Muslims, so far at least, still believe in having babies.

Ah yes, the Great Replacement thing. The idea that Islam will slowly and continuously grow in Europe and cultural factors will keep everything exactly the same as right now in perpetuity and Europe will become majority Muslim in the late 2100s. Sure. Yeah.

So vote in far-right authoritarian regimes to save us. The Kremlin has spoken and must be obeyed. They know how to solve demographic crises.

*looks at Russia*

Oh wait…..ummmm…..hmmmmm…

[ZealouslyStriving]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Do you want to suggest that I want women to be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen? Well, if they don't start getting serious about that second item, we are toast. They can have all the shoes Imelda Marcos had, they can order in delivery every night, but please, please, have some babies, dammit! 🙂

Yes! 👍🏻 👍🏻 

[ZealouslyStriving]

22 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

So vote in far-right authoritarian regimes to save us. The Kremlin has spoken and must be obeyed. They know how to solve demographic crises.

Tsk, tsk. No politics, please.

[Chum]

18 hours ago, Calm said:

Or not using your kids as your income producers and having as many as possible to maximize that income is a good unselfish family planning strategy. 

re: Leveraging offspring as income producers.  In our 4 income economy, it's the new hot financial strategy for those who prefer being housed.

[Calm]

3 hours ago, The Nehor said:

No way of knowing now if that is true as we are pretty sure that the plant is extinct.

Hunted to extinction, was it?  Couldn’t keep up with demand.  

 

Quote

One of the most prominent was the relatively high chance of dying due to bearing a child.

What’s the big deal about possibly bleeding out or dying of sepsis just because you popped out a kid or 6?  You’ll get better.

Edited March 9 by Calm

[Chum]

I might be willing to compromise with folks sporting the [too many them, not enough us] mindset, if they were willing to consider things that actually drive lower US birthrates. 

Those things being the unhinged demands on modern parents (due to the War on Childhood via car culture, trespassing culture, etc) and the impossibility for lower income couples to self-sustain.

I might also be willing to move this diatribe into it's own thread.

Edited March 9 by Chum

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

. Being able to be independent, and being educated is entirely non-hedonistic. And what I wrote had nothing to do with any of that -

Yes, feminism has nothing to do with encouraging women to become educated and not dependent for existence on men.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

And the chances of dying in childbirth might have been non-zero, it was obviously not non-zero enough.

Quote

Some accounts estimate an average of six births per woman, and as many as 40% of infants may not have survived to a marriageable age, though estimates of infant mortality vary. Most historians agree that child loss was common enough in antiquity to be an expectation rather than a surprise.

Information about maternal mortality is equally obscure, though demographic data suggests that at times more than 30% of mothers died from complications related to childbirth. 

https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2023/may/mothers-day.html#:~:text=We have uncertain evidence for,the high rate of loss.

Quote

 In ancient Rome, for example, rough (conservative) estimates suggest that there were 25 maternal deaths [4]and 300 infant deaths [4,5], respectively, for every 1,000 live births, not dissimilar to 18th century England [4]. In 1920, maternal mortality varied widely among countries, with rates ranging from 2.42 per 1,000 in the Netherlands to 6.89 per 1,000 in the United States

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6452472_Childbirth_in_Ancient_Rome_From_traditional_folklore_to_obstetrics

Nothing to worry about….who cares if one dies as long as one’s done her duty of supplying enough replacement babies.

[ZealouslyStriving]

17 minutes ago, Calm said:

Yes, feminism has nothing to do with encouraging women to become educated and not dependent for existence on men.

Early Utah pioneer women seemed to do OK without the modern version of feminism.

[ZealouslyStriving]

3 minutes ago, Calm said:

https://www.brandeis.edu/now/2023/may/mothers-day.html#:~:text=We have uncertain evidence for,the high rate of loss.

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6452472_Childbirth_in_Ancient_Rome_From_traditional_folklore_to_obstetrics

Nothing to worry about….who cares if one dies as long as one’s done her duty of supplying enough replacement babies.

Strawman + hyperbole 

Not a good look.

[Calm]

2 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Do you want to suggest that I want women to be barefoot, pregnant, and in the kitchen? Well, if they don't start getting serious about that second item, we are toast. They can have all the shoes Imelda Marcos had, they can order in delivery every night, but please, please, have some babies, dammit!

I have no clue what you see as the ideal life for women. I am making comments about what you are saying and how you say it, not what you think.  If you think they are straw men, maybe you should go back and read what you wrote without the commentary you are adding in your head.  It may not be coming out as you intended it to.

Reducing women’s existence to how many babies they pop out before they die and attributing failure to meet that demand to pure selfishness, abandonment in hedonism that is a result of feminism and access to the pill is such an oversimplification of women’s choices and lives over the centuries it is hard to take your commentary seriously.  

[The Nehor]

43 minutes ago, Chum said:

re: Leveraging offspring as income producers.  In our 4 income economy, it's the new hot financial strategy for those who prefer being housed.

Monogamy? In this economy?