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Lets hope this whole issue gets higher into media, BBC and CNN. That would certainly help motivate things. GBSmith wrote:cwald wrote:I’m curious, where can I read a transcript of the Council of 50 minutes?
First of all your dress all in black including a black ski mask. Get to the roof of the historical section of the COB and get into the air shaft. Make your way to the records section and lower yourself to the Frist Presidency vault. Get past the time lock and once inside find the cabinet labeled council of 50 minutes and cut away the interlocking chains and titanium bands… You get the idea.
Don’t forget that you have to make it past an ill tempered and slightly starved tiger.
The suggestion that the books are open and available is ludicrous. If “our history is an open book” is the statement, then the interpretation is, our history is an open book locked up in a den of lions.
Yes that information is available, but much of it is not made readily available by the church. If it was readily available, it would be integrated into our lessons, and teachings would be different. Doctrines would likely be similar, but the way it is presented would be fundamentally different. We would not be trying to establish the one true church by using misrepresentation, status quo, or partial truths to do so. That is not a firm foundation, and it is starting to rain.
If I am unable to trust the church over a few things, it makes it difficult to trust it over many things.
They could speed things along by having to font automatically start draining 15 minutes after it is filled. Keep it a special moment, rather than an ordeal to endure. I was baptized in a river, and confirmed a few minutes later beside a fire, sitting on a stump of wood, while still dripping wet. I enjoyed it much more than the countless baptisms at the stake center which seem very much like overly long recruiting fairs with the missionaries giving off-the-cuff first discussions while the candidates are drying off for 25 minutes.
Trek. Ambitious, but rubbish. I’m sorry but any deprivation of food, water or shelter during arduous work, along with isolation from peers and the creation of an artificial group “new family” serves only to break the willpower of the individual.
The experiences are manufactured, and in my own opinion, a poor way of remembering those who suffered tremendous loss moving west.
mackay11 wrote:GodisLove wrote:I do love my version of the gospel and try to mix it in with the church part.
Nice approach. I’m struggling a little with that. I feel like the gospel in my head is fine. Then I spend 3 hours at church on Sunday.
I no longer attend church on Sunday, instead I attend 3 hours of meetings, and I wouldn’t wish it on anybody.
Kind of a grey area for me. I have a lot of food storage, but I purchased very little from the Church. I kind of have a thing about organizations that tell you that you need stuff, and then they happily sell you the stuff they say you need.
That said, Monsanto has some rather draconian tactics around these parts for making sure no one is planting unlicensed grain.
It makes me wonder if anyone has studied the desire for sex being a factor with the rapid rate of LDS courtship and marriage. My LDS friends probably never lasted much more than 6 months from the first date to the wedding, while my non member friends ranged from 3 to 10 years. One additional comment for this one. There was an instance where a brother would not drive an older single sister home after a stake activity because he was worried about either somehow violating the law of chastity, or being thought to have done so in the four block car ride. This is not anecdotal, as it was a family member of mine who was the sister left behind. Obviously I found the story ridiculous in application of the spirit of the law, but you hear stories of a man refusing to ride elevators with a woman in the COB. Are we that scared of each other? I understand the need to protect people from being taken advantage of, but do we really feel that if we are alone for a minute it is going to result in some sexual escapade?
Yes, I totally agree with you, the church emphasizes sex within legal and lawful marriage as approved. But please understand that is only a very small portion of the law of chastity in practice, that being strict and respectful fidelity to spouse after marriage. I mentioned earlier that the law of chastity is a mixed bag, because it branches off into many different areas. Modesty, dating, abuse, worthiness, leadership, interviews, media, adoption, marriage, standards, temple, and so on.
So in very general terms what I was trying to say is that that we tend to focus on building up the spiritual man and leave the carnal man to die in the ditch, when they are inseparably connected. We tend to try and suppress or destroy the natural man as an enemy to God, rather than try to understand it.
If we teach that we will be resurrected one day, with a body that we are going to have to live with for eternity, we should try to accept it a bit better I think.
It is disturbing to me when we blame sexual urges on the devil, when it is likely hormones and neurology at work.
But when someone asks for opinions, they will be many and varied. I look forward to reading more.
Old-Timer wrote:Quote:by teaching that human sexuality is evil
The LDS Church doesn’t teach that. In fact, the official teaching is the exact opposite. I know members present it improperly, and I know there are forms of human sexuality (like homosexuality) that are not accepted in the Church, but “human sexuality is evil” is not an accurate portrayal of the LDS Church’s view.
I think we teach very clearly that sexual beings cannot exist in the presence of God.
Mosiah 16
3 For they are carnal and devilish, and the devil has power over them; yea, even that old serpent that did beguile our first parents, which was the cause of their fall; which was the cause of all mankind becoming carnal, sensual, devilish, knowing evil from good, subjecting themselves to the devil.
4 Thus all mankind were lost; and behold, they would have been endlessly lost were it not that God redeemed his people from their lost and fallen state.
5 But remember that he that persists in his own carnal nature, and goes on in the ways of sin and rebellion against God, remaineth in his fallen state and the devil hath all power over him. Therefore he is as though there was no redemption made, being an enemy to God; and also is the devil an enemy to God.
Last year I had several members of the high priest group relaying that they didn’t even teach their kids about the birds and the bees as that was something that should only be discovered after a temple marriage, and that they themselves knew nothing at the time of their own marriages.
They clearly held sex at arms length. It was a mechanical process of necessity.
What an unfortunate, and damaging fruit that is. But just imagine the fallout if a youth leader gave a lesson about what sexual frustration is and why the youth are crazy.
I agree that there needs to be clear boundaries taught and emphasized, but there should also be room for understanding the sexual nature, not locking it in a box and hoping it dies.
This is a mixed bag topic. But if I was to break it down I would say this. The church preaches chastity because it can and will dictate terms to the membership.
They way it goes about this, by teaching that human sexuality is evil, is not correct in my view, and is very unhealthy. It also points to a specific set of people, mainly western society that has hyper sexualized the human body through media. There are places in the world where a half naked body has no effect on the eye of the beholder.
As much as some would prefer to think otherwise, the church is not McChapels and steel chairs, lesson manuals and pulpits. It’s not the COB and not the BOM. It’s not programs and assignments, conferences or temple trips. None of those things are capable of loving another. Christ taught that the church is human beings, unified in him. If I am going to sustain and defend the human beings in my family, I will uphold boundaries and limits on the constructs of administration, otherwise it will run rampant, unchecked, and unchallenged.
The administration of the church only has as much power over you as you allow it to have.
