MrShorty

Everyone's faith journey (or crisis or whatever you want to call it) is unique. For me, it seems that all of the issues that I encounter (historical or otherwise) come down to questions around prophetic fallibility and/or scriptural errancy. We claim that the church is built on the "rock of revelation," with a "foundation of apostles and prophets." What does this really mean, when we also acknowledge that prophets can make mistakes? In many ways, I think Ben Spackman has captured the heart and soul of the issue best while addressing the issue of slavery in the Bible (https://benspackman.com/2019/11/gospel-doctrine-lesson-40-colossians-and-philippians-but-mostly-philemon/ Obviously, there's a lot more that is said to build up to this point, and then some ideas for consideration (Spackman tends to favor an "accommodationist" model of scripture, prophets, and revelation where God gives revelation according to our understanding, in which He sometimes does not counter people's or prophet's strongly held but incorrect beliefs). I recommend the entire essay to see how he gets to this question using the example of slavery in the Bible. In the end, I have not found a good answer to this question. "Accommodationism" or Givens's "Viceroy model" (see chapter 6 of Crucible of Doubt) or Leo Winegar's "Restorative Light model" seem to describe what happens, but they leave open questions around whether there really are eternal moral truths that God cannot violate, or maybe God really doesn't care about truth, whether loyalty to the church/prophets is more important than loyalty to truth, and so on. In my experience, this has been the central issue as I try to figure out what I believe and where my faith journey will go. One additional principle that I think feeds into the problem of prophetic errancy is an all or nothing attitude that is common in our teaching. Some variation of what Pres. Hinckley said about "it's either all true or the greatest fraud" makes the slippery slope even more slippery. Once one finds that prophets/scripture may have made a mistake about [blank], this all or nothing belief then accelerates us down the slippery slope because we believe that it's either all true or all false (One thing I have seen others say, and one of my own pet peeves from ex-Mormon and anti-Mormon commentators is how they seem to believe the same kind of all or nothingness about the church). I know that there is a solid discomfort with "cafeteria Mormons," but I find that it is a very useful concept for staying in the church. I sometimes wonder if finding examples of other cafeteria Mormons is a useful tool for this sort of thing. For example, I recently read Carol Lynn Pearson's Ghost of Eternal Polygamy. I know that some people don't like her book, one thing I found quite compelling in her writing was her strongly held belief that Joseph Smith was a prophet, while also holding the belief that God did not ever (in the OT or in 19th century Mormonism) command or condone polygamy. For another example, I have seen a few interviews with Patrick Mason where he come right out and says that he does not believe that the priesthood and temple ban was ever commanded or otherwise put in place by God. As you indicate in the OP, many of this issues are difficult, often nuanced, and maybe don't even have satisfactory answers. Finding examples of people who have figured out how to be cafeteria Mormons and stay actively engaged with the church in spite of the things they don't believe seems useful to me.

It is interesting, isn't it. I don't know if I have any meaningful insights. Maybe it has something to do with the different ways the people I grew up with valued conformity to group standards? "Boys do ____" vs. "Girls do ____" and we don't want to confuse the two? Of course, some of the new narratives are just conforming to different standards and not really about non-comformity. Maybe it has to do with what is considered pathological? When I was young, homosexuality and trans-gender were solidly considered "illnesses" (technically, it was about a decade after the APA had de-pathologized homosexuality in the DSM, but that sort of change doesn't trickle out to the laity immediately). I don't know if this adds to the conversation, but I have a child who seems determined to get themselves classified as some kind of neurodivergent. They frequently bring up essays and articles about "unexpected signs someone is on the autism spectrum" as if to say, "see, Dad, how I'm really neurodivergent on some level." When I was younger, people didn't want to carry the stigma that comes with labels of mental or neurological illness, where today those same diagnoses do not carry the same stigma. Is it good to be more accepting of people's mental/neural diversity? On some level, yes, it seems good to be more accepting of people as they are rather than stigmatizing or pathologizing significant characteristics about a person. However, as those characteristics become less stigmatized or pathologized, it becomes more accepted (maybe even more desirable??) to be found with those characteristics. I really don't know what we do about some of this. Part of me wants to say that maybe we ought to not make a big deal out of any of it. "You have diabetes? That's fine, no big deal, keep in touch with your doctor for treatment, but otherwise, it's no big deal." "You have depression? That's fine, no big deal, keep in touch with your doctor for treatment, but otherwise, it's no big deal." You're LGBTQ+? That's fine, no big deal, in this case, there is no pathology to deal with, but keep in touch with your doctor for any pathologies that arise, but otherwise it's no big deal." Maybe none of it really matters, and we ought to just accept whatever people are or have as no big deal and live and let live? But I don't know if the whole experience of life is intended to be that stoic.

@Ironhold@NeuroTypical My intent wasn't to focus on the incels specifically. Personally, I'm appalled at their ideas -- especially some of the more violent ones. My main point in mentioning the incels and others is that there is a variety of experiences out there, and to try to say that it is difficult to make some kind of universal, blanket "opposite sex couples are better at deciding that sexual fulfillment is unimportant and same sex couples are more inclined to make sex the end all, be all of their relationships." I was trying to say that there are a variety of experiences across all sexual orientations trying to figure out the proper place for sexual fulfillment, and many who struggle to get it right.

Maybe. I certainly think there is something to the idea that there are basic attitudes and thinking behind some of this. At one extreme, are the so-called "incels" that speak anger and hatred and even violence towards women. Acknowledging they exist, I think they need serious help. They are not a group to look to as a "good" example. More mainstream, I see many heterosexuals who think sexual fulfillment does matter. I also think many of them are good LDS (and broader Christian) people who believe that sexual fulfillment is important. I have not kept it a secret from the group that my own sexless marriage drove me to wonder about the importance of sexual fulfillment in marriage and to seek out ideas from a variety of sources (perhaps of note to a group like this, but, when I looked to the church for ideas, the church was silent on the importance of sexual fulfillment in marriage). In looking through these sources I see a fairly strong majority that believe sexual fulfillment is important. Of course, the devil is in the details, so it can be difficult to find consensus on just how important. Some get hung up on questions of divorce. @The Folk Prophet mentioned men who leave their aging wives for younger models. I think most that I encounter view this as "shallow." But the more common scenario is one where a man (or a woman) will leave his sexually disinterested wife in search of someone with more sexual interest, and they find a similarly aged woman and they make a good second marriage. Some of these might say, "life is too short to live in a sexless marriage, so I amicably left my first wife and found a second wife." If it isn't too explicit for thirdhour, there are women who experience anorgasmia. A frequent topic of conversation is whether these women ought to pursue their own sexual pleasure in pursuit of sexual fulfillment. Most people suggest that female anorgasmia is among the most treatable of sexual dysfunctions, so, yes, it is valuable pursuit. Such a woman need not simply accept sexual unfulfillment due to anorgasmia. I don't have the same kind of discomfort with LGB issues that the OP talks about, but I do find myself uncomfortable with LGB issues. In a sense, I agree that perhaps a big part of that discomfort centers on the issue of just how important is sexual fulfillment to a person's well-being. My big challenge is that I haven't figured out exactly what the appropriate priority sexual fulfillment ought to have. There just seem to be so many different human experiences figuring into this. Some have higher libidos and some lower. Some seem to place too high of a priority on sexual fulfillment, while others dismiss its importance way too readily. I can't even figure out in my own heterosexual relationship what importance to give to sexual fulfillment, let alone try to figure out what that ought to look like for LGB people. I just have not found "THE" answer to the question.

I don't know if the third hour community will consider this appropriate. If you were unaware, in the time since you resigned, the church made all of its handbooks publicly available (churchofjesuschrist.org or in the LDS gospel library app). The section specifically addressing readmission after resigning is section 32.16.2. There are not a lot of specifics given, but the process clearly goes through your bishop (or stake president). If it will help you feel more confident going into your meeting with the bishop, you can review that section of the CHI and see what kinds of things your bishop or stake president is advised to go over with you during the process of readmission.

Any thoughts beyond the video? Personally, I find myself a bit turned off by most generic takes on being "equally yoked" because "equally yoked" is usually referring to the "lesser" status of mixed faith marriages. Since my wife and kids have left the church, I can never tell if someone like this would just as soon see me divorce my wife so that I can remarry a faithful marry (in the mixed-faith marriage circles I frequent, it is not uncommon to encounter people who advocate for divorce and remarriage solely because one spouse leaves the church). Again, I could be missing the point (the video was short and focused only on the axe getting dulled by wood analogy), but it seems to me that my relationships with my family and others who have left the church are still useful in sharpening myself. I'm not sure that an interpretation that a Christian cannot find themself sharpened in their relationships with non-Christians is completely true. I expect that those of use with relationships with non-LDS/non-Christians can point to ways that non-Christians have helped us grow and develop. I'm not sure that all "sharpening" exclusively occurs in LDS-LDS or Christian-Christian relationships. Those are my reactions. As I note, they mostly start from the idea that being "equally yoked" is something St. Paul said to discourage Christians from marrying outside of the faith. If you want to go a different direction with the metaphor, I'm open to other directions.

Here I sit in the hospital after the ostomy reversal. Assuming I am truly cured of the cancer, this should be my last step in treatment (and maybe my last post to this thread). The surgery went well and, after only a day I'm optimistic (maybe unrealistically so) that I will recover quickly. It has been a long and difficult year. I still have years of follow up to monitor my body for any recurrence, with no promises. Statistics and other indicators suggest all kinds of reasons for optimism. Thanks to all for your prayers and just for being a virtual part of my support team.

In many ways, I think this is the whole thing that people are wondering about -- has prophetic advice changed? I'm old enough to recall a seminary lesson talking about the prophetic advice to avoid interracial marriages. The principle behind the counsel was that interracial marriages allegedly had a higher incidence of divorce, so the principle given was to choose a spouse that you were more confident of having a long and successful marriage with. Forty years later, it seems pretty clear to me that no one (not even current prophets) are counseling against interracial marriages, but the underlying principle is still alive and well and very wise -- when dating and courtship turn towards seriously seeking a spouse, seek someone to whom you are comfortable making a lifelong commitment with, and then do what you need to do to nourish that relationship so it will last. Movies and media can also be a good example. As you say, ratings are inconsistent across the world and, sometimes, even inconsistent within the same rating body. Rather than focus on a specific rating, it is better to look at the underlying principles about media choices as we make decisions about what entertainment we consume. As your anecdote shows, some will come to different conclusions about what media is appropriate at what isn't based on how we each apply the underlying principles. So, I still see a lot of questions around about how prophetic advice might be changing with this new principles based approach. As I said, if we don't think prophetic advice has changed, then our challenge as parents as leaders is understanding the principles and being able to teach those principles. As @JohnsonJones says, it might be difficult to teach the principles to our youth without specific examples and anecdotes and such to help them understand.

@JohnsonJones I've seen the same kinds of questions around this. Are the old standards still in place or not? In general, I like the idea of a principles based approach, so I would say that, if we think the old standards are still in place (like no tattoos or limits on piercings or dating age or whatever it is), then we need to find and understand the principles behind the standards that would convince our youth to agree to live by those standards. Dating age, for example. Growing up in the '80s, when we would talk about the principle behind waiting until you are 16 to date, it was mostly based on a fear of sex. The principle I was taught was that those who started dating younger started having sex earlier. I think the principle underlying that principle (and the one I would focus on now, if I were in the position to teach youth) is that it is a broader question of maturity. Dating relationships require a certain level of maturity, certain relationship and social skills. Under the new FSY, rather than focusing on a calendar age, I would want to focus on those skills and markers of maturity that I think are important in navigating dating relationships. Another thing that seems important is that dating seems to have a new and different meaning to the current generation than it did back in the '80s and '90s, so there is probably value in seeking to understand how the youth we are talking with understand the idea of dating (versus hanging out or other co-ed social activities they might engage in). As for tattoos and piercings. Growing up in the '80s, the meanings I attributed to tattoos and piercings and wild hair colors/styles and other crazy fashion ideas of the idea was that they were markers of rebellion and disobedience. Beards and long hair (on men) and sandals (again on men) were markers of the "hippie" counter culture movement and associated with the wild "sex, drugs, and rock and roll" culture of the '60s and '70s. If I were to address these things under the new FSY, I would focus on these principles and meanings. Of course, bringing it into the 21st century, these fashion markers don't seem to have the same meanings for today's youth, so it would be important to understand the meanings they associate with these things. From the different meanings and principles around how we might make such choices, we can talk about decisions related to tattoos and piercings. I like the idea of a principled based approach to these things. I think the real challenge for us old dogs might be understanding the meanings and principles that our youth will be operating under. For those of us less comfortable with changes to these standards, how are we going to react when the youth feel differently about the underlying principles and meanings around some of their decisions?

A couple of things: I don't know why the church doesn't have a bigger presence on the internet and social media -- especially when it comes to the difficult "faith crisis" issues. One observation I see frequently being made is that things like the Gospel Topics Essays and similar are often implicated in triggering faith crises. Even a resource like Bushman's Rough Stone Rolling gets plenty of blame/credit for triggering someone's faith crisis. It sometimes seems to me that part of the reason that "the church" does not seem to have as large of a presence around these issues is that it is much more difficult to create content that faithfully and honestly discusses these issues. Our history is messy (and a foreign country), so it seems much easier to create content that simply criticizes, but much more difficult to balance the critique with faith. As for the failures (my own included). This is part of where my growing universalism comes in. I am becoming less insistent that gaining/retaining a testimony of this church (at least in this life) is a necessary prerequisite to salvation and exaltation. I find myself more and more feeling like I can do nothing more than rely on God and Christ to help loved ones find their way home through whatever path they are following.

One thing I notice that hasn't been mentioned yet is the "amp hour" rating of the battery -- Basically, how long can the battery go before it discharges too much to continue. If memory serves, most car batteries are about 70 amp-hours -- meaning that it can sustain a 1 amp draw for 70 hours, or a 7 amp draw for 10 hours or a 70 amp draw for 1 hour (in a perfect world). As Vort explains, your gizmo is going to draw 20ish amps, giving you about 3 hours before the battery is discharged. Of course, if this is the same battery you are relying on to start the car so you can go home, you would be kind of stuck. Consider how long you need to run your gizmo and whether your car battery will run gizmo that long and whether you need to also be able to start the car and maybe you consider just letting the car idle while gizmo is running or installing a second battery or...(hello run on sentence!). At some point, one start to wonder if it would be as good or better to buy a small gas generator.

Maybe not specifically LDS, but I expect many of us LDS can appreciate it

When I have bought inverters, they are usually rated for a continuous watt rating with a separate peak watt rating. In the end, as Vort says, one key is to get an inverter rated high enough. In my inverters' installation instructions, there is usually something that says, "inverters above ___ watt rating must be wired direct to the battery and not wired through a cigarette lighter or aux power" for reasons that @Vort covered. You haven't specified the kind of gizmo you want to run. DC-AC power inverters tend to create a square wave power pattern rather than the typical sine wave pattern. Most gizmos will run just fine on the inverter's square wave, but a few gizmos get grumpy with a square wave. Most commonly, I run an old laptop off of my inverters and it runs just fine. I've run power tools (up to the point of overloading the inverter, at least) and small stereos, too. Simple, relatively inexpensive things, I wouldn't worry about. If my gizmo is expensive and ruining the gizmo was going to create significant grief in my life, I would carefully check the AC wave type of the inverter and try to find out if the gizmo is going to accept a square wave.

A post surgery thought. After removing the affected portion of my gut, they examined it under a microscope and found residual cancer cells invisible to the MRI. So, in hindsight, the choice to proceed with surgery was the right one. I've gotten fairly sensitized to the observation that God doesn't always intervene (for the better) in everyone's lives, so I'm a little uncomfortable enthusiastically attributing my good fortune to God. At the same time, I recall the point of making the decision to proceed when the thought came seemingly unbidden that, after everything we had done and suffered so far to have the best chance of full cure, it would seem unwise to take on additional risk after trying so hard to minimize the risk. In hindsight, that thought seems almost prophetic. My own story isn't complete, so it's too soon to make final declarations. And I'm still very much aware that not everyone experiences these little miracles, and I have no explanation for why. But I am grateful today for a very small thing that makes me feel more confident in my future.

I go under the knife this week. I will lose a portion of my GI tract, get a temporary ileostomy (small intestine exits the abdomen into a bag 🤢 ), then wait several weeks until he can put my GI tract all back together. As well as the cancer responded to preliminary treatments, we're all optimistic that I should be done with cancer after this.

There might be other things at play (a recent spirited discussion elsewhere on what "sad heaven" means, for example), but I found the article interesting. Reactions: 1) One common reaction to any talk or essay on the topic is to reflect on our general and long-standing discomfort with universalism. As I understand the history, one of the biggest obstacles to 19th century saints accepting "The Vision" (as D&C 76 was affectionately called back then) was that they felt it was too universalist and they were uncomfortable with that. We eventually got past this issue with D&C 76, but we never did fully resolve our uncomfortable and complicated relationship with universalism. 2) Specific to Br. Goddard's essay, the thing that stood out to me (even above his use of exclamation marks) was his push against a "hierarchical, linear way of thinking" about the afterlife. I saw similar intimations in Pres. Oaks's April Sunday Afternoon talk, so I have been contemplating for the past 6 months this idea that maybe celestial, terrestrial, telestial -- rather than being in a happy, happier, happiest hierarchy -- are more different kinds of equivalent happiness. If everyone is so completely and perfectly happy where they end up, maybe it isn't necessarily better to be celestial? 3) While Br. Goddard didn't mention any "sad heaven" scenarios, I naturally reflected on my own "sad heaven." As Elder Holland told PBS, heaven just won't be heaven without my wife and children, but my wife and children have all left the church. Some (pointing to some statements by Pres. Nelson) will claim that, barring repentance during this life, my family will not make it to the CK. Will I be happier in the TrK or TlK with them (even if marriage/family is somehow "dissolved") than I would be single in the CK? Sometimes, in "eternal polygamy" circles, someone will talk about doing a little bit less than their best so they can avoid the CK and any threat of needing to enter polygamous relationship -- figuring they will be happier single in a lower kingdom than in a higher kingdom sharing a spouse or having multiple spouses. If the kingdoms are more horizontal and less vertical, then maybe these are less concerning? 4) Whenever these topics come up, I am often reminded of Joseph Smith's quote (paraphrased because I choose not to look it up to get it exactly right) about finding eternal truth by proving contraries. I sometimes wonder what real truths are lingering in these seeming contradictions between our universalistic beliefs and our non-univerlastic beliefs (is there a better opposite term for not universalism?).

I sometimes wish I had chosen a career in math pedagogy or similar so I could talk more intelligently about things like this. A few thoughts Yes, it is obvious this is a simple Riemann sum approach (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riemann_sum) to integration. The basic methodology (break up an integral into "slices" that you can easily find the area of, then sum up the area of the slices) is attributed to Riemann in the 19th century. I learned them as Riemann sums in my second full calculus class (I do not recall them being mention in pre-calculus or my first, simple calculus class). It appears to me (decades after graduation) that not every calculus class taught these methods, and not all of them attributed the method to Riemann. The first thing I notice in Tai's paper is that this is a medical application (Glucose tolerance and metabolic curves). It is not clear what Tai's credentials are, but I would guess she (assuming someone named Mary is female) is well studied in medicine. I don't recall (if I ever knew) the math ed requirements for pre-med, nursing, and other "practical" medical degrees and certification. What medical fields (if any) expect a solid course in calculus? Looking at the references Tai used in preparing the paper, I notice that all references are medical in nature. The only mathematical reference appears to be a geometry text. I could be wrong, but I wouldn't expect a geometry text to cover Riemann sums and definite integrals. Speaking of definite integrals, I notice that Tai never uses that term in the paper (unless I missed it). She always uses "area under the curve." I also notice that she refers to other methods by various names, but I would suspect that those methods are also Riemann sums (perhaps, left, right, or midpoint rules with the predictable errors from those rules -- especially if you don't know the calculus behind the rules). Reading between the lines, I infer that Ms. Tai has not had a calculus class, and perhaps none of her immediate colleagues or reveiwers/editors have had a calculus course, either. Within the narrow confines of her medical field, she has independently developed a method developed by others long ago. Climbing on my soapbox, assuming that someone in her field has had calculus, it shows the grand weakness in our math ed -- practical application. How many math teachers from middle school on up to college struggle to answer the "When am I ever going to use this?" question from students. It is also possible that Ms. Tai and/or her colleagues had calculus classes, but saw them as unnecessary hurdles to jump. "I'm never going to need to find the area under a curve, so I don't need to really know how to find definite integrals. I just need to get through the class, but this will never apply to my medical career." In some ways, this is why I wish I had chosen a career in math pedagogy. I would like to have been a part of figuring out how to make math ed applicable to real life. Of course, perhaps I do sin in my wish, because many very smart people have been trying for years and generations to figure out how to help students see the applicability of math to real life. That's probably more than the issue deserved, but this is the internet where random people go on all kinds of rants about trivial things all the time.

I know a bit about living a mixed faith marriage. My advice would be to very carefully measure your relationship with the church and her relationship with Christianity. You have said that her relationship is 100% against broader Christianity, what is that going to mean for her "relationship" with the church? You have not said anything about your relationship with the church. Mixed faith relationships can work, but they will require more effort than relationships with a shared faith -- especially when one of those faiths is a high demand religion like the LDS church. You will need to be prepared for some of your beliefs, desires, and practices to clash with her beliefs, desires, and practices. She will need to be prepared for the same thing. Some of those clashes will not be easy to reconcile. If you are familiar with the work of David Schnarch, you will need to be "differentiated" so that you can easily face her invalidation of your beliefs. Likewise, she will need the emotional maturity to handle when your beliefs invalidate her beliefs. It can be very difficult. And, looking towards a family, children make it doubly difficult, as you must negotiate what to teach children about your own faith and Christianity in general, while respecting her being 100% against anything that looks Christian. Things that I see that help make mixed faith marriages work Mutual respect. Even if you disagree about many things, you have to be able to respect each other. If you are forever going to see her as something less than because she's not Christian, or if she is going to forever think you are something less than because you are Christian, it won't work very well. You need to find shared values. Hard work, generosity, loyalty, kindness, or whatever, but you need to be able to identify things you both value so you are not constantly and forever wrangling with differences. You've already been together for 2 years, so you already know something about each other. Making it a lifelong commitment, I expect, will change certain dynamics. Adding children to the mix will further change dynamics. I would suggest you explore with her what those new dynamics might look like before making those commitments.

I'm not sure the JST "corrections" are all of the same nature. A few years ago, Kevin Barney over at By Common Consent (yes, I know, one of those less than faithful blogs that one should not be reading) proposed (based in part on some work by Robert Millet and Robert Matthews) 14 different "types" of things in the JST. He followed it up with posts with several examples from different Biblical books. It seemed like a reasonable understanding of the nature of the changes Joseph Smith made to the Biblical text: https://bycommonconsent.com/2018/01/08/toward-a-paradigm-of-jst-revisions/

After several weeks, I feel great (after 6 months of chem and radiation, I had forgotten what it feels like to be myself). Follow up tests are showing no cancer remaining, so the chemo and radiation were very successful. Now the surgeon is giving me a choice. Stick with the tried and true treatment plan and cut the offending part of my gut out, because we know through years of experience what the risk of recurrence is (pretty small). Or forego surgery (a less tested and less understood course of action) and see what happens. The idea of skipping surgery is, naturally, appealing. But I'm just not sure I want to take on the uncertainty. If the cancer were to come back, there would be the regret of not having done everything we could now to prevent recurrence. If we do surgery and it comes back, well, then we shake our fist at God until we get it out of our system, then submit to His will. If only there was a way to see into the future, but there isn't, so I feel inclined to go with the known risk rather than the unknown risk and have surgery. It's a bit of a tough decision, but that seems best with what we know now.

I don't know all of the who's who in Mormon history, but Ardis comes across as one who knows her stuff. She's not convinced: http://www.keepapitchinin.org/2022/07/27/is-it-joseph-smith-the-scotch-verdict/ Her official verdict is "not proven"

I, too, would struggle mightily with Eastern Europe and Africa. In part because some of the political borders have changed (some dramatically) from when I was young.

Having served a Canadian mission, I wonder what it would look like if you also included the 10 provinces (and 2 major territories) of Canada.

According to Jana Riess's article, this daguerrotype and the death mask were compared by some experts using facial recognition software and there was a solid match for 19 of 21 features they looked at. I don't have access to the JWHA article that appears to be the primary source for the popular publication articles, so I cannot say more about the methodology or arguments they are using to make the argument that this is a daguerrotype of the prophet. I'm intrigued by the possibility. It seems to me that the next step would be to get some other experts to replicate the analysis and see what they say and see if a consensus develops.

An you're certainly not alone in coming to the same conclusion -- most notably, the Catholic Church agrees with you. It's one of those things where, with the precedent set by the Catholic and other Christian churches, it wouldn't necessarily be controversial to take the stand that life begins at conception, so I find it interesting that the LDS Church refuses to make that claim in any official capacity.