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Need might be a strong word. In this fallen world we are going to have diverse perspectives... because everyone has there own and we have to deal with it. The command to love and minster can some times be easier, and is generally more effective, when we understand the perspectives of those we are trying to reach.

Sufficient and acceptable are pretty hazy terms. As an orthopedic surgeon I do work all the time that nobody but myself can appreciate. For example I routinely replace the proximal femur in patient that break their hip with a metal prosthesis. There is a huge difference between what is acceptable vs. my best. The hardware vendors and scrub techs try to convince me all the time to put in hardware that makes the case easier and quicker. I know that spending an extra 10 minutes to properly cement the prosthesis and perform a water tight layered closure will give the patient a better implant. And even if the patient has dementia or is minimally active I always do my best. My x-rays look good. And I appreciate that they look good, even if the patient and family cant even understand what I did. I could go on and on. And, for sure its not just you. The majority of people are satisfied with sufficient or even sub-standard work. I see it all day long…

I realize we have agency, the ability to make choices/preferences like: hamburger vs. hotdog. Cat vs. dog. Blue vs. Red. Follow good vs. evil. That aside for the moment: Q. Is becoming like our Father in Heaven required to enter into the highest level of the Celestial Kingdom? Q. Does obtaining 'perfection', like our Father in Heaven, someday require a form of making his will our will? Q. Does obtaining 'perfection' at some point thus require us to align our perspective to his as well? Q. In order to master/become/obtain (?) perfection, it seems that some requirements, laws, guidelines must be followed at all times otherwise perfection would become corrupted and thus imperfect. REAL QUESTION: Q: Wouldn't diversity of thought at some point (in the eternities) become counter productive as it would be competing against those thoughts that stemmed from perfection? How do you offer a better thought than one that is already a perfect thought? Didn't Satan offer up a diverse thought to that of our Father in Heaven's already perfect plan?

It would seem to me the there are several points though which this topic can be viewed - I like @Vort's point of view. To be honest I think @NeedleinA view is not as incorrect as it is extreme. The goal of the Saints that covenant with G-d is to be "one" - both with each other and G-d (including his Son Jesus Christ). I have some ideas but I am not sure my ideas are as accurate as what is necessary for a Saint of G-d. But I do believe that the great principle of the Pre-existence was Agency. Without question - with agency comes diversity. It was Lucifer that went to war in heaven over diversity and being against diversity (Agency) was more harmful to him than benefit for thinking and believing so. It has been a bit difficult for me but I have become more acceptable of how someone uses their agency with two caveats. First; that they own their decisions as theirs and not attempt to blame anyone else - especially G-d or Satan. Often I will make of joke of this and say something like, "I can resist anything but temptation". Second that they do not attempt to make their choice the only valid or acceptable choice for others - especially those in a similar circumstance. I admit that the second caveat is the most difficult for me. I believe that because I am primarily connected to logic rather than emotions that anyone else employing logic should come to the same conclusion. However, I have a brother that tells me that the only thing that I am emotional about is logic and that others have a broader perspective. We have always had singles in the church. It does seem to me that there are more single ladies than men but then these times are a changing. It is also my opinion that we make too big of a deal over marriage in that if we cannot get along in a marriage relationship - it is okay to be single. I personally do not what to get into discussions over all the excuses that are employed to be single. I did not marry until I was 26 and had to employ many excuses myself. My favorite excuse was that my eternal partner was killed in the war in heaven. I did not think of myself as lonely when I was single - however now that I am married to a wonderful lady and have 5 children (9 counting their spouses) and 20 grand children - I have come to understand a connection to ancestors as well as decedents that has completely reset my previous logic of being alone and not lonely. There is a misery index that can go to zero through the everlasting covenant of eternal marriage. Any deliberate effort to avoid any sacred covenant will (if not in the here and now) eventually tick up the misery index. The Traveler

I’ve never heard of it being a cultural thing or a common thing. But in the case of Love, Kennedy, the father, after doing everything he could to try and save his daughter, he finally prayed and accepted that she was going to die, that her time on this Earth would be short. I would hope, and assume, that anyone who would state in a blessing that they are released from this life would only be doing so when moved upon by the Holy Spirit. My father died of cancer over 8 years ago. His diagnosis took the whole family by surprise, as he exercised, took good care of himself, and there wasn’t any history of cancer in his family. But not only was he diagnosed with cancer, but he was diagnosed with a very aggressive case of melanoma. He died 6 months after his diagnosis. My father was a good man. He was genuinely kind-hearted, and we were all very close to him, so it was hard to see him deteriorate. But, oddly enough, all of my siblings and I never really felt compelled to pray that he would be okay. I think we started to, but we quickly realized that we needed to pray that we could accept the Lord’s decision in this, that our mother would be comforted as she dealt with this, and that my father’s suffering would be eased. My mother and I were at his bedside when he died. He was barely conscious at this point, and breathing through a ventilator. Minutes before he passed, I was compelled to call my mother into his room. We felt that it was time. So, my mother told him that if he sees a light or if someone is calling his name, that it was okay to go. When she said that, he took one last breath and left this mortal realm. Perhaps this story is not the same as giving someone a blessing of being released, but I do understand the thinking behind it, but it’s certainly not something to be taken lightly.

You know, I think I get what you mean. I was pulling my experience in selling solar and it is slightly different and doesn’t quite fit your comments. One thing that is so hard to get new people to understand (and even myself) is to JUST give them what they want. Often times the person will say “I want X, Y and Z” and then the person selling them the system will say cool! “I will get you ancdefghijklmnopqrstuvw and X Y Z”. All those extras overwhelm the person and they end up not buying from us because we made it too complicated. I got a call from a lady once who said she wanted to put solar on her roof but the last guy to call started talking about the specifics of the system and how it all worked and made sense. She blocked his number, reached out to us, and said “I just want to replace my electric bill with solar” and I said “cool” and sold her what she asked for. Nothing less, nothing more. I also once sold a guy a $70,000 solar set up entirely over text, probably 10 texts entirely. He knew what he wanted, I gave exactly that to him. my “craft” isn’t so much crafting something as it is building a relationship and helping them feel comfortable with the whole thing. The actual crafting of the material and installing of the system is something I have no say or experience in. I just check the boxes they say they want and help them feel confident and comfortable with the whole process

A1: we don’t have a need for diverse perspectives, I guess, but we’ll have them because people are diverse A2: If he didn’t want diverse perspectives, he would have made us all clones incapable of independent thought. A3: lockstep conformity becomes a litmus test and a source of pride. What? This guy doesn’t vomit out what I do in appearances and thought? He must be a heathen. Why can’t he look/think like me? A4: I don’t know, but I can’t help but think that He (God) gives us multiple chances for salvation. I refuse to believe that a Jewish person in the holocaust dies and goes to Hell just because they weren’t presented with a chance in this life to be introduced to the BOM

Yes, for checkbox, virtue signaling or PR purposes... absolutely on the same page.

Very true. Sorry, the only parallel was the PR parallel of finding someone and presenting them in the light of "hey look at me, I'm X and still faithful and full of purpose". Other than that, singleness has nothing to do with a state that one must actively avoid. 👍

I see where you're coming from. But "singleness" is not a state one must actively avoid or repent of. In the sense that the optimal state, the state required of us to progress to our eventual exaltation, is one of marriage of a man to a woman, then anything other than that state is suboptimal. In this sense, your statement is true. But I would hesitate at making too much of a comparison between being unmarried and having homosexual proclivities. I think the comparison brings more confusion than clarity. Again, this is a matter of definition of terms. We are surely in agreement that diversity for diversity's sake is useless if not harmful. But God is vastly powerful and able. He can very literally do any meaningful thing. We are vastly impotent and handicapped. We cannot see the end from the beginning; indeed, we do well to see the next step. Next to God, we know almost nothing. We are as helpless as a newborn babe in his mother's arms. Yet God has given gifts and inspiration to us. Not all share the same gifts. If all are ears, where is the seeing? If all feet, where the hearing? If all vision, where the movement? In this sense—that God's gifts are innumerable, and that each of us has his own, perhaps unique, gifts—I would say yes, diversity is a very good thing indeed. I would in fact say that diversity is crucial to our progress and to the establishment of God's kingdom. Both are true simultaneously. If we must go by opinion on some matter, let us seek diligently to know God's "opinion" on that matter, and follow it. But I think it is usually not so straightforward and clear-cut as that. It makes sense for men and women to counsel together. This is the basis of the Church's operation by quorums, and in fact the basis of how the family operates, or should operate. We should be complementary to each other, as the woman complements the man and vice versa. I believe that in many cases, this is how the mind of God is revealed to us. See the above thoughts on diversity. I think it should be a great help, but when people focus on "diversity" as if it by its very nature is some virtue, then I think such attitudes prove a great hindrance to our progression. I do not believe the world is trying to convince us of this. The world scoffs at any idea of an "iron rod", except for whatever is popular today. Rather, and more insidiously, I think that too many who claim to be Saints are trying to convince us of this lie. Many of them actually believe the lie. It has always been thus, though I do believe the current rising generation has bought into such lies to a greater degree than many past generations. Maybe just different lies. I'm not sure.

Well unfortunately it is just not that easy. The point that you emphasized with underline and bold is a judgment call. How do you determine the point where no additional benefit is achieved? I'll give you an example. If you break a tibia the acceptable alignment (according to what will be considered malpractice) allows 5 degrees of angulation in the frontal plant, 10 degrees of anterior or posterior angulation in the lateral plane, 50% cortical apposition, < 1 cm of shortening, and < 10 deg of rotational malalignment. If you are within those boundaries you will not get sued, and the patient will likely have a good result (especially if they are childern [who have awesome remodeling capabilities] or the elderly and people who are low demand - less active) But if you are a healthy active adult any malalignment can be problematic. Most people would prefer to have anatomic alignment of their bones. And they do notice. My goal is to put every fracture back into anatomic alignment. Even if they are low demand. If you train and practice meticulous skills on all your cases you will have better results with those cases when you need to be more accurate. And there are many ways to fix a tibia. You can use a cast, plate and screws, an external fixator, or an intramedullary nail. There are benefits and disadvantages to each technique. If I broke my tibia I'd want it fixed with a nail by a surgeon with meticulous skills and expectations. If it is done with poor skill, the surgeon will probably tell you to stay off of the extremity for 2 months to allow it to heal. If it is done correctly the surgeon can allow you to start full weight-bearing as soon as the patient is comfortable. It would be nice if everyone did their best. Unfortunately in our society, people cut corners all the time. And some people are just sloppy.

I wish that we had more artisan craftsman in the world. I wish I could afford this guys work. https://craftsmanship.net/the-master-of-the-chair/ I love watching ship-building. There is a guy recreating a 100+ year old yacht called Tally Ho. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tally_Ho_(yacht) The workmanship is beautiful. They took the time to cast bronze supports and polished them to a mirror finish. You would call it OCD. Check out his work on You Tube. I wonder what kind of work Christ performed during his apprenticeship to Joseph as a carpenter (tekton). I have a background in biochemistry. Just understanding the machinery that is responsible for the duplication of DNA is awe inspiring.

Maybe it's just me but I really don't like doing things for the sake of doing things. When I reach the point where no additional benefit is achieved other than just because I could do it better I lose all motivation. If the piece that goes underneath is sufficient to do the job I would much rather move on to something that isn't sufficient for what's needed.

I don't know that I believe in an actual blessing of release as an authoritative act. I think at the point where a release is the Lord's will it may be manifest to loved ones but the blessing is more for the benefit of everyone else and so "releasing" an individual is more of a letting go by the loved ones. It does seem like I remember a quote about people having to suffer longer than need be because everyone keeps praying for them to not die but I could be wrong.

I would disagree. I would say that secular society views anyone with passionate faith (no matter what religion) as weird.

*like Kamino Clone Troopers? 😉

I shamefacedly admit that I am one of such people. But there are reasons why. This is not meant as an excuse, but rather as an explanation. I welcome insightful feedback. If you are not reared from childhood with examples and expectation of such meticulousness in craft, it becomes a great deal harder to implement later in adult life. To some extent, this is a question of personality. Some people are simply more meticulous by nature than others. Maybe this can be seen as a gift of God given to some in abundance and not as much to others. (But like other gifts of God, surely this is one we can develop and improve on.) Some among us suffer from the bizarre condition of being paralyzed by perfectionism. The saying "If it's worth doing, it's worth doing well" somehow gets twisted into "If you can't do it well, it's not worth doing." Such people end up getting very little done, because they are constantly frustrated with doing a half-donkeyed job of seemingly everything. Unsurprisingly, this snowballs in a positive feedback loop that renders some not just ineffective, but paralyzed. Some of those ironically embrace mediocrity as an operating principle, because it allows them to accomplish something, and something is almost always better than nothing. Again, these are not meant as excuses, but as explanations. And as I said before, insights are much appreciated.

Yes, the Lord loves diversity (as in variety; thus He created all things in and upon the Earth) -- and each child is different, and His Atonement can be applied in innumerable ways to any of their circumstances. Each child brings something to the table in the Church of the Firstborn. Making and keeping the eternal covenants is the only thing we are to do the same. So, RE: Q1 I think that yes, there is more than one way to do good and bring the Gospel to others in a fallen world. Q2: this is a false dichotomy. Q3: A help: God himself possesses diversity of thought (Hebrews 1:1, Alma 24:27, Moroni 10:8, ). Q4: Yes, but this is not the same as Q1, 2 or 3.

I've been reading this book of humorous tales from a certain Utah county. One tale, during a time of drought, had the local Harvard man asked to pray for rain on behalf of the congregation. The man eloquently asked for rain, but threw in how the Lord wouldn't get tithing if they couldn't grow their crops. Sure enough, it rained, the man saying the Lord had to see how He would be affected. Another had the local miser say they needed to start reducing the general authorities from the top down. It's quite a good read.