Vort

The Church accepts the appelation "Mormon" as a historical reality. Indeed, it would be foolish to give up such a recognizable word or "brand", the kind of thing corporations spend literally billions of dollars trying to create. Looks like the Church is trying to leverage some of that. But our leaders have consistently instructed us to refer to ourselves as "Latter-day Saints" and the Church as "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints", as designated in revelation. Whatever the Church's PR efforts, it is our place to obey the requests of our leaders (and indeed of the Lord) in how we refer to Christ's Church and to ourselves as members of the kingdom.

I was going to respond with something about how those "paid clergy" aren't really paid very much and how we should be very cautious about making such comparisons...but then I thought about what you wrote, and I changed my mind. I think you're right. When you have a "paid clergy", however much or little that pay might be, the natural tendency on the part of the "flock" is to assume that it's the clergyman's job. Hey, that's what we pay him for! Whereas on the local LDS level, such feelings are much diminished. Sure, some will still say, "It's the bishop's headache." (Or RS pres, or whoever.) But most members realize that these men and women are donating their time. I think you're right; that does engender more of a spirit of volunteerism.

Perhaps you know of Church doctrine of which I am not aware. Please point out the Church policy of sending out as missionaries 19-year-olds who don't want to be there. On the contrary, for years now the Church has increasingly emphasized preparedness for missionaries. A few years back, they "raised the bar", expecting ever more of the young men who serve missions, not merely in chastity issues but in other spiritual preparation. I am confident that "not wanting to serve a mission" was not on the list of requirements; quite the opposite, I expect. And so, your solution to this problem is...don't tell young men that the Lord expects them to do their Priesthood duty? Sorry, you will have to explain how your "solution" actually solves any problems. I'm not seeing it.

lol. I would have "laugh"ed your comment, but unfortunately there is no such button there.

Speaking for myself, PC, I do not find it overwhelming. I appreciate it. In the LDS Church, you tend to hear the phrase "ward family" a lot. In some wards, these are just empty words, but my ward really does feel like a family. I suppose you could draw the parallel out further and talk about family squabbles and "dysfunctions", but the bottom line is that I feel that I am among friends and siblings when I'm at Church. They know my idiosyncracies and weirdness, but somehow they accept me and act glad to see me. They embrace my family, ask about how my kids are, and congratulate them on achievement. I do not believe these things are uniquely LDS. I certainly hope they are not. But I appreciate your recognition that the Church tries to foster such feelings, and I agree with you. For my part, I think the effort is well-received. I see little pretense and a lot of sincere effort on the part of the ward members -- and not only from the fabled 20% who do 80% of the work.

Your opinion on this matter is irrelevant. The fact is that serving a full-time mission is a Priesthood duty, notwithstanding your disbelief.

That strikes me as absurd. So everything that is your duty to do, you have no choice in the matter. Right? Ridiculous. If your goal is to do God's bidding, then there is only one legitimate choice. But you can still choose not to do so. To say otherwise is simply false. You are perverting the very meaning of the word "choice" by claiming that the mere existence of an expectation abrogates choice.

That is sad. You ought perhaps to get to know more men, or maybe just a different class of men. Yet somehow, we find enough Priesthood holders to staff our leadership positions and still have men left over to serve elsewhere. Methinks you underestimate men. When you define "everyone else" as "men", then your statement is a tautology. I could equally well claim, "Men don't run away screaming when everyone else does." You might reconsider how you view men.

No apology necessary. I did not mean to hurt your feelings. I didn't feel any contention; I was just commenting on your story. Not trying to criticize. Sorry if that's how it came across.

No.

Welcome! And congratulations!

God loves both and sees neither as being better than the other. Not everyone understands the phrase "all are equal" to mean "God loves everyone the same". So if you're getting upset that some people don't agree with the statement, that's likely because you misunderstand what their interpretation of the statement is. Yours is not the only possible interpretation, or even the most obvious. Besides the fact that the latter statement is untrue; God does not "love everyone the same", unless we wish to disbelieve the clear scriptural teachings.

For the record, mine was a general comment, not targeted at anyone in particular.

I have long been of the opinion that people have the right to marry whomever they choose (assuming the other party is amenable, and assuming their choice fits the reasonable definition of a marriage partner). Moreover, they have the right to refuse to marry anyone, for any reason they find sufficient. Don't like fat chicks? Don't marry one. Don't like skinny guys with poor posture? Don't marry one. Don't like people with blond hair, or people with dark skin, or people with lots of kids, or people with massive debt, or people with whatever other trait you find objectionable? Don't marry such people. This doesn't mean your prejudice is right, of course, just that you have the right to make such a determination, as does everyone else. Trying to "guilt" someone into marrying a person s/he doesn't want to marry doesn't make sense to me. If a guy doesn't like blonde girls, I don't want my blonde daughter marrying or even dating the guy.

I think we would do well to keep our words sweet and our judgments merciful and tentative. We do not know the entire situation, nor is it our place to condemn. Some months back, a friend confided to me that he was leaving his wife. He did not give me detailed specifics (nor would I have wanted such), but he gave me a general outline of how his and his children's lives had been over the past decade. He also told me (without any prompting from me) that he has been counseled by his bishop and stake president that, while they could never suggest divorce, they personally found plenty of justification for his action. A few days later, he took his kids and left. His wife immediately announced her husband's actions and requested support. The support came, much of it in the form of vilification of the husband. (In contrast, the husband's only announcement was, "Many of you have heard that <wife> and I are having some problems. I would ask that you give us the privacy and space to figure this out and reserve your judgment." No public detailing of any part of the abuse he felt he had suffered.) Among our group of friends and acquaintances, of course, this news spread fast. One lady suggested by email everyone support the beleaguered wife against the unjust actions of her husband. My wife felt she should respond to this, so sent a rather neutral email saying simply, "We don't know the specifics of this, and <husband> is our friend, too, so I think it would be better to support our friends without choosing sides." The lady who sent the initial email apparently took great offense at this, because shortly afterward, she made a "private" comment to my wife, phrased as a sincere comment for self-betterment, that was extremely cruel (and, by the way, untrue) and clearly designed to cause offense. She and her husband have long been friends of ours; I admit that, to this day, many months later, I can still hardly look at her without feeling anger and resentment for her passive aggressive nastiness and cruelty toward my wife, who had done her no harm and had only tried to help the situation by offering some general advice. This forum is different, I realize. Most of us don't really know each other except as silly names on a discussion list. But we are all real people with real issues. We should remember that the issues brought up here are, for the most part, real life problems involving real live people and not Sunday School discussion examples. We would also do well to keep in mind that we don't have all the facts at hand. We should keep our words sweet, lest we find them bitter when forced to eat them.

When I wrote "shouting down", I did not mean literally screaming at the guy. Rather, I meant a whole bunch of people calling up to tell his manager what an idiot he was. Of course, maybe this wasn't really how you and your friends approached the manager, but that was the picture I got from your description. I was musing that perhaps going that route wasn't the best way of approaching the problem.

White, red, and glorious beyond description.

Ben Chan

A metaphor for what? Sorry for the misinterpretation. I understood "Satanist" to mean "one who worships Satan" or "one who follows the teachings of Satan". What do you mean when you say you are a "Satanist"?

Satan is a Hebrew word meaning "adversary" or "accuser". What do you mean when you say that you "worship" your adversary or your accuser? Or does "Satanism" mean something else?

And as I mentioned before, in general physically beautiful people have an easier time in almost every aspect of life than their plainer fellow beings. They are treated nicer and with more patience starting from early childhood. They are given more chances. They are forgiven more easily. They are believed to be smarter, stronger, and more fun to be around. They are given promotions at work over equally- or better-qualified but plainer coworkers. They have an easier time securing a spouse that they like. Each of these may be only an incremental advantage, but in many different areas and over a lifetime, they add up. It is true that the beautiful face challenges that the less attractive may not, such as excessive vanity. It is also true that in some situations, their beauty may attract unwanted or even injurious attention; I have heard of beautiful little girls being molested while the plainer ones are left alone. But such things, even if sometimes true, don't take away from the overall fact of beautiful people simply having it easier in most aspects of life. If you could choose whether your child is beautiful or plain, which would you pick for him or her? Why? I suspect most of us know the answers perfectly well.

I think that I don't agree with this approach. Surely shouting down the offending salesman (or business) is not as Christ would have us act. I am all for standing up against bigotry, but somehow this example strikes me as the wrong way to go about things.

Check your local public library.

Why can't people just stick to the important doctrines of salvation? Why the urge to delve into the interpretation of Revelation or identify Isaiah's "marred servant" or debate the significance of Ezekiel's valley of dried bones or any of a thousand other riddles the scriptures present -- which for the most part will eventually be discovered to be intercultural translation or linguistic issues that render moot the discussion, figurative language being misinterpreted or misapplied, or some other such thing? When a member of the First Presidency speaks in General Conference about the two servants in Jerusalem being apostles and/or breathing fire, then I will consider it an authoritative interpretation and important to understand. Until then, I classify it with all the other useless speculation that regularly occurs among the Latter-day Saints.

And ye shall also forgive one another your trespasses; for verily I say unto you, he that forgiveth not his neighbor’s trespasses when he says that he repents, the same hath brought himself under condemnation. (Mosiah 26:31) Does this apply? If so, how?