[IT_Veteran]

Old Timer wrote:

Nothing was coerced. Nothing.

He had a choice: sign it, make a promise not to record it, and get excommunicated; not sign it, not make a promise not to record it, and get excommunicated. He KNEW what the outcome would be, given what he has said and done. His choice was to be honest in the situation or be dishonest in the situation. He chose to be dishonest.

I think you and I are just going to disagree on this point. I see the options offered as slightly different than you do, I think:

1) Sign it and make your defense against excommunication. The SP and HC, at least, believed they would hold a fair hearing (presumably).

2) Don’t sign it and we’ll excommunicate you

Now, Bill did likely know the outcome – he probably saw the hearing as less than fair from the get go. That doesn’t mean that the letter isn’t intended to coerce him into signing and remaining silent. Refusing to be coerced isn’t the same as not being subjected to coercion.

[IT_Veteran]

On Own Now wrote:

On the topic of recording a private proceeding and then publishing it. Sorry. There is no ambiguity here. This is simply wrong. One thing that frustrates me in our so-called modern world is how often people will turn to subjective viewpoints to justify objectively bad acts. We know the Church does this. I guess now we can say conclusively: people like us (Bill) are guilty of this, too.

I simply see it differently. This disciplinary council, at it’s core, is about Bill. The stake president and high council believe it has an effect on Bill’s eternal salvation, even if he doesn’t. I don’t think they should have any expectation of confidentiality – that should be up to the accused. I can see why they would want the person subject to the proceedings to have their privacy maintained, but if that person wants to waive it, it should be their decision.

I also don’t see a problem with him reneging on the agreement for one reason – it’s coerced. If he refused to sign it they simply hold the DC without him. That’s not really providing him a reasonable alternative – especially if you believe that it affects his salvation.

[IT_Veteran]

Roy wrote:

nibbler wrote:

Our interactions with people at church often follow a pattern where the interaction only exists to ensure the person is complying with those expectations.

Yeah, the phrase “We missed you at church on Sunday” can be used and interpreted as a veiled criticism. Even if the speaker is sincere, there are better ways to express concern.

One of my inactive home-teaching families (before ministering) told me that they were hurt that nobody reached out when they stopped attending church. In discussing this with DW’s VT who happened to be the RSP – she said that she was a little offended by that because she was serving in a presidency calling with the inactive lady at the time and had visited her a few times to try to resolve whatever was keeping them from church.

It was an interesting conversation because this sweet, salt of the earth RSP lady could not separate her love, care, and concern for the inactive lady from her desire for this person to come back to church.

I believe what the inactive family meant was that all of the friendships that they had built in their time in the church seemed to revolve around church stuff and that none of them seemed to survive outside of that context.

That’s been frustrating for me as I’ve stepped away from the church too. People will say hi in passing, but that’s about it. I’m glad they haven’t invited me back to church, as I asked the bishop to nip that in the bud before it started, but it hurts that those relationships are all just gone now. I mean, we’ve been in the ward for four years and I was the EQP until just a few months before I stopped attending.

[IT_Veteran]

I’m convinced that mental illness often contributes, but only because it is exacerbated by isolation and bullying.

[IT_Veteran]

This was so good, thank you for sharing it. This is one of the reasons I had such a hard time with the idea of worthiness interviews.

Quote:

“Love the ones you feel deserve it the least because they need it the most”

I love this.

[IT_Veteran]

I’ve been listening to this interview the last two days during my commute. I’ve absolutely loved it. I did not expect that it would bring me to tears – that was a new one for me. Great interview. I’m already looking forward to the next episodes with him that just showed up on my phone today.

[IT_Veteran]

dande48 wrote:

nibbler wrote:

It’s true, people can receive what appears to be the same input and walk away with very different conclusions. I think one struggle is that sometimes we fall into the trap of assuming that other people aren’t working with the right set of data, and that if they would just accept the right data then they would reach the same conclusions as we have reached. Then it becomes an argument over which data is correct. It’s essentially the same phenomenon but with the focus moved away from belief/conclusion and onto what is or is not a “valid” data set.

I think the root of this is, people automatically interpret evidence to support what they already believe. They rarely ever change what they believe to support the evidence.

I think it depends on the switching cost. For me, changing that belief was incredibly painful on its own. I didn’t know what the switching costs would be, I count myself very lucky. I know others that have lost marriages, relationships with family and friends, etc. It takes a lot to get to a place where you’re even willing to consider that you might have been wrong when even the perceived cost of switching may be high.

[IT_Veteran]

I haven’t listened to it yet. Since I’m not a member anymore, I’ve found that I have little patience for apologetics and I wasn’t entirely sure how that interview was going to go.

Reading your post though, I’m thinking I’ll put it in the queue

[IT_Veteran]

She’s on a lot of pain meds. They are giving her as much as they can while keeping her heart beating and liver functioning.

[IT_Veteran]

dande48 wrote:

FWIW, I think our opposition to suicide is a recent, cultural ideology, rather than a long held religious one. What’s for certain, is it’s not mentioned as a sin in the bible. Some places, you could say even condone it, under certain circumstances.

I think it’s important to do everything in our power to help those who are suffering get to a place where they can continue to enjoy life. I don’t think it helps anyone to believe if they simply pray and have faith they will be healed. We’ve seen this backfire not only with the chronically sick, the disabled, and the elderly, but with the LGBT community as well. No one is dealt a fair hand of cards, but this life is the only one we’ve been given. We’ve got to make the best of it, and do what we can to help those around us. But if someone, like your aunt, is at the point where life is needless suffering, and there’s no hope of recovery, I think it’d be far more cruel to force her to suffer, than to let her go on her own terms with dignity.

I know that’s not a popular opinion. I hope everyone who is suffering enough to entertain those sort of thoughts finds help and hope and recovers. But I agree she should have the freedom to choose. I do not think God would hold it against her.

Thank you. That pretty much sums up my opinion on the entire thing too.

[IT_Veteran]

SamBee wrote:

Only in the vaguest sense. Many of the detractors seem to think he lifted passages wholesale. This is certainly the case with the Bible – we know parts of Isaiah are quoted.

Quote:

We can’t get around the fact that they existed

So did the works of Thomas Aquinas and Spinoza but that doesn’t mean Smith had access to them.

I didn’t suggest he had access to them. I (and many others) also haven’t claimed he’s lifted the passages and copied them down. Copying ideas wouldn’t require access to the books.

[IT_Veteran]

SamBee wrote:

People who are dying need a form of comfort. That is the important thing even beyond healing IMHO. If we are to suffer we need something to take us through it.

I agree that they need comfort. A blessing can give comfort. Telling someone that their pain will go away if they just have enough faith doesn’t give comfort. It sets them up to feel guilty when the pain isn’t lessened, the affliction doesn’t go away, and so on. Because now it’s their fault because they didn’t have enough faith.

Dad’s blessing wasn’t a blessing of healing, everyone knows that her affliction is terminal – eventually. But to say that her pain will go away if she just have faith – it’s cruel.

[IT_Veteran]

SamBee wrote:

KJV yes. However, the number of books it is claimed that Smith plagiarized is vast in itself, and I really don’t believe he had access to such a library. Books weren’t that common in the backwoods. I knew someone who grew up in a remote farming area in the mid 20th century and about the only book they had in the house growing up was the Bible and one or two other religious books. His family were peasants, but in a developed country. They had no local libraries for many miles, and in school, the teacher had the books and they learnt from them on slates off a blackboard. Books back in JS’ day were often big. You could get some small editions but they were expensive. Many novels came out in several volumes.

The other problem with many anti-Mormon theories is that they can contradict one another. If he stole certain specific names off a map, for example, he can’t have taken them from a certain unrelated book – it’s one or the other.

I don’t think Joseph would have to read the other books or have possession of them to participate in the discussion of the ideas presented. We can’t get around the fact that they existed, that the discussion about them was happening at least in the geographical area, and that the concepts made it into the BoM. Joseph may not have done a lot of reading, I don’t know. I do know he didn’t live in a vacuum though.

[IT_Veteran]

nibbler wrote:

As I understand it, one of the “lies” was the comment about double digit stake creation every week made by Holland. Ok, it’s not true, but can anyone say with any degree of certainty that Holland made the statement in an effort to purposely mislead people? Perhaps Holland misremembered something that was mentioned during one of the many meetings he attends. Perhaps he himself was misinformed. Maybe he misspoke and meant wards, not stakes. But to not budge off calling someone a “liar,” yeah, pretty harsh. I felt it was more of a sensational claim meant for click-bait. I could be wrong, like I said, I haven’t listened to that podcast.

I’m in a different place belief-wise than most people here, so I get the benefit of listening to Bill on occasion. He called out five specific things that Holland was dishonest about. I don’t remember them all off-hand, but there were three that stuck out. For each of them, he played the audio of Holland actually saying these things.

1) That the church didn’t give “one red cent” to passing Prop 8 in California. Bill acknowledged that Holland could have meant cash, though there were certainly in-kind donations made, and the question seemed to be clear enough to provide a simple answer.

2) Holland’s talk about the BoM where he held up “the very copy” of the BoM that Hyrum had with him when he was killed. Bill pointed out that the church already had that copy on display and it was old and tattered, while the one Holland held up was in near-mint condition.

3) This is the deception that was easiest to disprove and the one that is the hardest to wriggle out from under. Holland claimed that every week in their meetings in the temple, they were creating new stakes in the double-digits. He was very explicit that one week it was 15, the week before was 12, sometimes it was 8, but we’re talking “double-digit stakes every week, every week of our lives”. He says the greatest problem the church faces is its exceptional growth. He said this in 2016 at a Dallas YSA event.

Here’s the video of the YSA event (no commentary, just the raw video from the event) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrYpRzi6xtY&feature=youtu.be&t=53m35s” class=”bbcode_url”>https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vrYpRzi6xtY&feature=youtu.be&t=53m35s (the video jumps directly to the relevant point in his talk).

Here’s the number of stakes that were actually created each year:

2014 – 64 = 1.2 per week

2015 – 60 = 1.2 per week

2016 – 92 = 1.8 per week

I acknowledge that calling Elder Holland a liar is what got him called into the DC, but it’s not hard to understand why he feels the way he does.

[IT_Veteran]

My first thought when I heard they were doing away with announcements?

“What are the teachers going to do with that extra 15-20 minutes?”

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