Jamie123

Good to hear from you too! Holidays went well I hope?

LOL - I don't think anyone has ever confused Mormons with Islamic terrorists! (Well, not in the past century anyhow!) On the other hand though, one of the South Park creators (I can't remember if it was Parker or Stone) has said he has an admiration for Mormonism, and considers it to be one of the better religions. If you ever saw the episode "All About the Mormons" - although it's mocking of Smith, it portrays the modern Mormons quite positively. In the end it is Stan who is made to look petty for trying to undermine them.

Namby Pamby (one of Drop Dead Fred's "friends" that he meets in the psychiatric hospital - another one was "Go To Hell Herman")

Thanks for the reply Vort - it's good to hear from you :) This is sort-of what I was driving at in my second point. Sometimes saying that someone has been wronged (or even misquoted) while at the same time not appearing to support what that person stands/stood for is often a very narrow bridge to cross. You can of course quote Voltaire about something like "you are wrong but I defend to the death your right to say it" (I forget the exact quote) - but that gets old very quickly.

Both you and Jerome are tweaking the scenario so as to avoid the moral core of the question. It's as if I were to ask "if a man jumps out of a plane without a parachute, will he not die?" and you replied "well perhaps the plane is still on the ground", and then used that to justify that gravity does not exist. Let me propose a thought experiment: Think back to the worst sin you ever committed. Imagine that you could go back to the point just before you committed that sin, and take a different course of action. What would you do? I would reasonably (I think) assume that if you had truly repented of that sin, you would use that second chance not to commit it. OK - lets now assume that you had (like Valjean) stolen bread to feed some starving children. (And let's assume - just to close your previous loophole - that the person you stole the bread from had plenty to spare, and that the children would otherwise have died.) If you believed that was a sin, then you would need to repent of it - would you not? But let's say you now have a chance to go back and not steal the bread. If you accepted that your previous choice had been a sin, then to do the same thing again would mean that your repentence had not been genuine. Yet your only other action would be to allow the children to starve. (And before you start proposing loopholes again - like "why not try something else like begging/asking for food?" - let's assume that those possibilities have already been tried and have failed.) It seems to me that if you are correct - that all stealing is necessarily sin - there are conceivable situations in which true repentance is not possible. Would a loving God allow this? P.S. I've just thought of another possible loophole people may use to get out of this - that my proposed mechanism of "going back in time" is imaginary, and therefore the situation is not conceivable as existing in the real world. However, I don't think this changes the nature of the problem, which concerns the repented/unrepented state of the soul. What I have proposed is merely a mechanism for testing that state.

OK - I take this back - I've found the thread on this topic now on General Discussion (For what it's worth this was my original post: I was interested to see that nobody has yet posted anything on this part of the forum about the terrorist attack in Paris, or its bloody aftermath (murder of police, the seige, shooting of hostages, and finally of the terrorists themselves). There's been little else in the newspapers here in England for the past week. Two possibilities spring to mind: Events in Europe don't impinge much on this community, which (with a few exceptions such as Funkytown) tends to centre on the USA.The original attack was precipitated by people "criticizing other people's religion", something the LDS (in theory at least) consider bad, and consequently there is an unstated feeling that these cartoonists (to some extent at least) "had it coming", but since no one would be heartless enough to say this outloud, silence has been regarded as golden.Any thoughts? My thoughts are mostly with those mourning the loss of friends and family - many of whom were just ordinary people who had nothing to do with any religious satirizing. As for the magazine staff, they must have known they were poking a hornets' nest. The French have made heroes of them for paying the ultimate sacrifice for free speech. I agree - freedoms were never won without cost - but I also wonder if there's something to be said for "discretion" being "the better part of valour".)

I'm sorry to disappoint you Jerome, but the USA is not the whole world, and the early 21st Century is not the whole of time. There have been periods of history when people were faced with exactly the moral dilemma I proposed - like Valjean was in Les Miserables. And even today there are nations in Asia and Africa and South America where children will starve to death - where charities are overstretched and there is no "government welfare" to pick up the slack. To dismiss the situation I proposed as a "false dichotomy" speaks of a very privileged and parochial outlook.

Crime and sin are not the same thing. Stealing is a crime, yes, because the statute books (which are imperfect) define it as such. But sin is based on a less easily defined standard of what is right and wrong. For example, Oskar Schindler was a criminal. He broke the laws that existed in his country in his time. Do we regard him as "a sinner" because of it? It's no answer to say that the laws of Nazi Germany were themselves criminal; if they were, then it is only the judgment of history which makes them so. Oskar Schindler had no such historical consensus to guide him; he had only had his own sense of right and wrong. He knew he had a duty to uphold the law, but that he had other duties besides. And even "crime" is not absolute; to take an axe to someone's front door and smash it to pieces is in normal circunstances "criminal damage". But if the house is on fire, and people are trapped behind that door who will otherwise burn to death, will the person who breaks the door be prosecuted?

Supposing your children were starving, and your only way of keeping them alive was to steal? Would stealing in those circumstances still be a sin? Or to put it another way, supposing another woman allowed her children to die, so that she would not have to commit the sin of theft. Would you applaud her for her virtue, or call her heartless?

We sort-of celebrate Thanksgiving in our house because my wife is American. I have never actually tasted pumpkin pie, but I believe this year Jean is planning on getting some - or at least she was talking about it a few days ago. If so I'll let you know whether or not I agree with Backroads.

I don't know whether Carl Sagan would have agreed, but Richard Dawkins has admitted many times that he doesn't know 100% that there's no God. He says he's just 99% sure that there isn't - which is a less than the level of certainty many religious people (including LDS) claim to have that their beliefs are true.

Indeed - and you also can't prove for certain that your whole life hasn't really been a dream; that you're not actually Napoleon, about to wake up with the Battle of Waterloo to fight; nor that the people you consider your best friends aren't plotting behind your back to kill you tomorrow. But I'm sure you don't lose any sleep over these possibilities. (Or at least I hope you don't!)

I remember watching and loving the TV series when they showed it in the UK for the first time when I was only 16. My parents gave me the book for a present on my 17th birthday, and I remember it contained a lot more information than the TV show, but (of course!) none of the lovely music! I don't remember Sagan saying anything about the LDS church ever, but I find it hard to imagine him having much time for Mormonism. One religious argument I remember him making ran something like: "If God made the universe, who made God? If you answer 'God always existed', why not cut out the middle-man and say that the universe always existed?"

Edward Gibbon certainly blamed Christianity for the fall of the Roman Empire, but I don't think this was ever more than "his opinion". Whatever religion it practiced, the Empire was under pressure from nations arriving from Eastern Asia in Europe, who were themselves being driven by peoples such as the Huns and the Mongals. By the 5th Century the Western Roman Empire had lost control of the British Isles and the Hispanic peninsula, and maintained a nominal soverignty over Gaul by cooperating with chieftains of the Germanic tribes who had settled there. In 451 the Roman general Aetius defeated Atill the Hun, but most of his army was not Roman but Visigothic. Eventually the tribes Rome relied upon became so powerful they pretty much controlled the Empreror and and in the end abolished him altogether. The Eastern Roman Empute - fully Christianized and centred on Byzantium flourished beyond the Middle Ages. (Sorry Jerome - I rushed this off yesterday, but I realize now I misread your original post - you said it "wasn't" caused by its conversion to Christianity.)

I don't know that the rich man couldn't give up his wealth, nor that he didn't later change his mind. (Preachers who proclaim "That rich man is now in hell!" are testifying to a lot more than they actually know.) But remember that in the early days of the Church, the cost of discipleship could be a lot more than money. Some examples: St. Hipollytus - torn apart by horses tied to his arms and legs St. Ignatius of Antioch - eaten by lions to the applause of a roaring crowd St. Lawrence - roasted and burned alive St. Agatha of Sicily - breasts removed (and not in a nice way like a surgeon would perform a masectomy) St. Bartholomew - flayed alive before being crucified St. Clement - thrown into deep water whilst tied to an anchor St. Agnes of Rome - a curious story: she was sent to a brothel (presumably to be gang-raped) but miraculously kept her virginity. Following this they tried to burn her alive, but the wood would not ignite. Finally they beheaded her with a sword. St. Sebastian - another curious story: the emperor Diocletian ordered him to be shot by archers, but he survived, recovered and continued preaching. He was finally beaten to death. St. Catherine - broken on the wheel (this is how the "Catherine wheel" gets its name) St. Symphorosa - thrown into the River Anio with a rock tied around her neck. Her seven sons were then tied to stakes, and subjected to a variety of nasty deaths.

I was not serious in my use of the word "bickering". We are - I hope - having a sensible and mature discussion :)

Exactly - which is why I said he was a poor example. Luther and Hitler were both Catholic apostates, but while Luther's apostasy was (as he saw it) obedience to God, Hitler's was in obedience to some kind of pseudo-Wagnerian nationalism. The point I'm trying to make is that you cannot divorce obediene to God with doing what you feel is right - as though the two were somehow in automatic opposition. When you were baptized into (I take it) the LDS faith, were you not "doing what you felt was right" - based upon the feelings you got when you prayed over Moroni's promise?

Sorry Backroads - I've rather ignored you because of my bickering with Folk Prophet. I've perhaps leapt into this discussion without reading both sides of the issue (my knowledge of it is based entirely on Kelly's blog). It's always good to look at both sides before talking. I'm interested though - it's a long long time since I read the B of M, but wasn't there a part where some non-priesthood-holding Lamanite stood on a wall and preached to the corrupt Nephites (who were presumably still on the "historically correct" side) while they fired arrows at him - or some such thing? What would you see as the difference between him and Kate Kelly? (I apologize if this is a stupid and ill-informed question).

OK - just one question I can't let drop unanswered: No I would not - and neither would you (I hope) accept the "obeying God" defence of the terrorists who flew planes into the WTC. Why not? Because (according to you) their God is a "false god". Well maybe they think your God is a false god too - after all He is the same God who ordered Joshua to butcher the entire population of Jericho. Where is the difference? [i'm not saying this to be offensive. It is a serious matter which genuinely worries me.] But that is rather aside from what we're discussing. My point is that a person acting true to him or herself is not - by necessity - acting in opposition to God. Stalin was certainly an atheist, so he is a poor example. Hitler was baptized a Roman Catholic, but I don't believe he had any serious faith in God, so he is not really applicable either. Certainly neither of them can be "thrown out" (as you put it) as examples of what I mean.

Deleted: I won't continue to argue with Folk Prophet. Pursuing this kind of logic usually gets a thread stopped by the moderators.

(Posted in error - still trying to get the hang of this new forum)

Indeed, but if you are in harmony with God then being true to yourself and lovng God more than yourself become one and the same thing. Maybe Kate Kelly has some insight which at the present time the "official" church leadership lacks. I can't help but think of Luther standing up against the Catholic Church, or John Bunyan against the established protestant church which claimed he had "no calling". Both these men are revered today. Of course, if you think Mormon leadership is infallible then neither of these comparisons apply, but the principle remains that there is no either/or about being true to yourself and being true to God. Afterthought: I can't help comparing this to people who beat the phrase "...they did what was right in their own eyes..." around the heads of those with different moral or theological positions. What they are really saying is that their opponents should do what is right in their eyes instead of their own.

You talk as though it were either-or. If you love God, are you not being true to yourself when you obey him? Perhaps Kate Kelly is being obedient to God according to her own understanding, and being true to her own self in the process.

No, it's a Shakespeare principle :) I've met other people who've wrongly attributed the words of Polonius to Jesus. They do have that kind of ring! Nevertheless, being "true to oneself" has to be the starting point. We believe in God/scripture/Church, not because they are God/scrripture/Church, but because we believe within ourselves that they are true. If Sister Kelly is being true to her genuine, honest convictions and is willing to suffer consequences (just as Luther, Ghandi, Socrates, St. Paul and many others did) then good luck to her!

(Deleted double post)