Last_Daze

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Everything posted by Last_Daze

  1. Regarding House, it is that one of the less-endearing qualities of the main character (a doctor) is that he is an outspoken atheist who frequently belittles the religious beliefs of his patients. It is not a major part of the show, but there are several episodes that center around those themes; fans of the show call them 'House vs. God' episodes. Personally, I find them rather tedious. Additionally, there was briefly an LDS character on the show, a black man, who was known as the 'Black Mormon' or to House as 'Big Love'. At one point in the show, House referred to Joseph Smith as a "horny fraud" and the Black Mormon slugged him, tired of the constant abuse heaped on him by House. Regarding Big Love, one of the underlying conflicts in the show is the ongoing tension between the mainstream LDS church and the Mormon fundamentalists who make up most of the show's main cast. The mainstream church is generally not represented either unfairly or negatively, although there is a story arc in which the fundamentalists and the mainstream church are both after a set of historic documents which allegedly validate the lifestyle of the fundamentalists, and both sides resort to some pretty iffy tactics to get their hands on the documents (which, it turns out, were fraudulent anyhow). The South Park "All About Mormons" episode lobbed soft bombs, as the show does with most religions (except Scientology; they really let them have it). I've heard a lot of criticisms of the The Mormons PBS documentary, not the least of which is that while numerous representatives of the church were interviewed, and the church cooperated heavily, the majority of the 'pro-church' interviews ended up on the cutting-room floor, while those skeptical of or hostile to the church got the lions' share of screentime.
  2. It is a regional dialect. Bahston, maybe?
  3. Um, thanks, I guess. I just talks how I talks, really.
  4. What you describe is called teaching; it involves actual respect and dialogue. Baiting is disrespectful or dismissive of the other person's viewpoint. It is the academic equivalent of trolling on a message board, and inappropriate in all situations.
  5. So you did; I missed that. That would be something I would think people could get behind, not least because it is not hard to do; there is a ton of material out there on how to give good sacrament talks, more than enough to build a 2 or 3 lesson curriculum.
  6. M-Music, you make a lot of really good points. As someone who has been attending meetings as an investigator for about 2-1/2 months, I can corroborate a lot of what you've said. Sacrament meetings are generally interesting, but not always; I find it depends in large part on the speakers. Fast Sunday meetings are uniformly uninteresting and often confusing, largely for the reasons Dravin mentioned earlier in this thread. (My first thread ever posted on these boards was to the effect of "Is this what is supposed to happen at a testimony meeting?"). So I can identify, at least on a small scale. All of that said, I'm not sure that the answer is necessarily to be found in changing the character of the music. I say this because I've been in churches where there has been declining interest in Sunday services, and they changed to a contemporary worship format, thinking that sticking a praise band up front* would bring people (young people, especially) flocking to their church. There was a brief uptick in attendance followed by a continued drop, as well as growing dissatisfaction among the older people, and those who were more traditional. I've actually seen it play out this way in a couple of churches. I know you're not suggesting a praise band (you specifically said drums and guitars were right out), but I say this only because I would be skeptical that the key to getting people excited about sacrament meeting lies in the music. I don't pretend to have any real answers, but I'm not sure its there.
  7. ELPHABA: "But I see no purpose to your teacher calling it a "myth," other than her personal desire to plant a seed. One of the reasons it's inappropriate to teach the Bible is true is because not all students are Christian. It only makes sense that the same should hold true for teaching the Bible is false--Christian students shouldn't be subjected to that in a public school." I have a problem with any teacher who feels it is appropriate to bait their students, regardless of the beliefs of anyone involved, or the subject matter involved in the baiting. Not appropriate behavior at all from the teacher. That said, I have no problem at all with the phrase 'creation myth', if we are talking about that category of stories universal to (all/most/many) cultures describing the creation of the world. In a secular academic setting, to suggest that any of them are true, false, or more or less true than any others is inappropriate.
  8. No offense, but did you even read the definition you quoted to me? It is right there: "adherence [...] to the letter of the law rather than the spirit." I suppose we will have to disagree that the simple having of laws and insisting that they be followed constitutes legalism. By that definition, an absolute commitment to the spirit of the law could also, paradoxically, be legalism, especially when adherence to the spirit of the law creates a harsher result than the black letter of the law. I suppose too that you can say that legalism is a good thing, if you want. But you'll have a hard time talking to those who use legalism as a slur, which was of course the whole point of the OP.
  9. Don't know if there are Simpsons fans around, but whenever I see something like this (re: making worship services more interesting) I am reminded of this exchange involving the venerable Reverend Lovejoy, after an energetic sermon by a young, eager, guitar-playing visiting minister: <Carl> Hey Reverend, you should do that during your sermons. You know, a little more razzle-dazzle, huh? <Lovejoy> Oh I already do, Carl, if by 'razzle' you mean piety, and by 'dazzle' you mean scriptural accuracy. <Carl> What a tool.
  10. PRIMATE: I think you miss the letter vs. spirit distinction I alluded to earlier. Having strict standards and rules is not legalism; insisting on rigid and unthinking application of the letter of the law at the ignorance of the spirit is legalism. If your position is that this sort of thing is rampant in the LDS church, that is fine; my observations disagree, but that's okay. But I do wish that you would stop insisting that having rules, laws, etc. at all is legalism. It is not. Again: simply having laws is not legalism. If teaching high standards for behavior, and insisting on teaching that God's laws exist to be followed, then I suppose I will have to admit that legalism abounds in the LDS church.
  11. I make an effort to pay attention; I don't know if that means I am engaged or not. Not that it is easy all the time; there are times when the speakers are uninteresting or hard to follow or just plain bad, which makes it difficult. Also, for the month or so I attended a family ward, there were consistently problems with the sound system, so speakers were generally drowned out by shouting children; it was as though a sacrament meeting had broken out in the middle of a daycare. Of course, being at a singles/university ward has its own problems. I get that not everyone can be engaged during the meeting, but little groups talking amongst themselves is not helping matters. Just like the university, some of us are there to learn.
  12. Where is the legalism? I see no legalism; I see insistence on a high standard of conduct. Legalism and strictness are not the same thing, regardless of context. Having strict rules or laws or regulations or whatever does not imply legalism.
  13. Straw-man. Whatever your problem is with lawyers, it has nothing to do with the church. The 'legalistic view' of the Atonement is probably something akin to Penal Substitutionary Atonement, which is but one possible way of explaining of how the Atonement works. It is not the only one, nor even the dominant one in LDS theology, to my understanding. Legalism is not embodied either in a strict application of laws or a concern for a clear explanation of what the law actually says. One can be strict as all get-out and not a legalist. I'd imagine Christ was rather strict, what with stuff like "Be perfect, even as your Father in heaven is perfect." Sounds pretty strict to me, but he was far from a legalist.
  14. "Your Bishop has a private beach?" Wish my bish had a private beach. The only thing he has is a private jet. Maybe if all of us were paying a full tithe...
  15. Any job does interfere with one's family. Then again, I find that not having money also interferes with one's family.
  16. Also, along the same lines as what Elphaba was saying, there could be some degree of mental illness going on here. Eating disorders are a lot like substance abuse disorders. She could be severely depressed; I was at one point in my life, and I made bad decisions and ruined a lot of relationships then. This is not to say that it is not a choice thing; it is. We do have choices to make, regardless of our situation, and if she is making choices that effect you directly and hurt you, I would say that it is going to be pretty difficult to have a relationship with that her. You can't be in relationships family, friendship or otherwise, that are going to hurt you and bring you down. On the other hand, you mention that she is hurting her children (your nieces and nephews), who you probably feel some responsibility for, so that does complicate matters more than a bit. The challenge when dealing with someone who has serious issues, whatever the kind, self-inflicted or not, is to treat that person with at least a modicum of charity and love without letting them suck you into whatever it is they do. Its a very difficult line to walk, especially when that person is family.
  17. Absolutely. It is the very first act in the Atonement of Christ; the atonement doesn't happen if Christ does not take a mortal body. As it is often said: "That which is not assumed is not redeemed." If Christ does not take to himself all of what we are and what we have, then the Atonement would have only limited effect, and we could not be saved. It would not be that "full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world."
  18. Well, you're right about that, in any case. I generally feel like I can tell the difference between an anti-site and a pro-or-neutral site. It was just that I didn't find what I was looking for (a description of what actually goes on) when I did the search.
  19. Happily, no. Not an LDS one at any rate. :) It started out as pretty idle curiosity; I guess I didn't really think it was any different than a standard Protestant-Christian funeral, but I didn't know. So I went online, and found all those horror stories about the cult-y Mormons and how they don't let non-members join in their reindeer games, and I started wondering what exactly is so scandalous about an LDS funeral. So I came on here and asked. Apparently the answer is: nothing.
  20. Legalism, at least in a non-theological sense, indicates a rigid insistence on the application of the letter of the law without regard to its purpose or intent. One point that I think we would do well to remember is that, while we often talk about legalism in the sense that it creates applications of the law that are stricter than necessitated by the spirit of the law, there are many times when the 'spirit' of the law is far, far stricter than the letter of the law, especially as it relates to spiritual and theological matters. Remember the things that the Savior taught: how the law said not to murder, but he told us not even to be angry with our brothers. And that the law said not to commit to adultery, but he said not even to look on a woman with lust. In these cases, and many others, the spirit of the law, or the true meaning of it, actually seemed much more restrictive than the 'black letter' application of the law. To me, the point is that even if we are committed to the spirit rather than the letter of the law, there are times when such an an approach will produce results we do not like. And we cannot tailor our interpretation of things simply to produce the result which is most palatable or expedient to us at that particular moment.
  21. Lots of universities, particularly private-sectarian ones, have dress codes; BYU's may be stricter than most, but it is hardly the only one. A few, of note: -Ave Maria University (Roman Catholic) has a no-shorts policy. -Liberty University (Baptist) has a relatively strict code, although they've loosened it considerably in the last 5 years or so -Bob Jones Univ (Fundamentalist Protestant) has a short-hair/no facial hair policy for men, and a 'modest dress' policy for women BYU's code is about attending the school more than about being LDS; as always, attending a church-run university is in many ways a privilege, and contingent upon certain things. It is worth noting also that BYU's code applies to all students, LDS or not.
  22. Isn't that generally the idea? I guess I don't know how things always play out on the ground, but my understanding is that is pretty much how its supposed to work. There is no 'inquisition'. As for the temple interview, the way I've heard it explained, is that the temple is for those people who are willing to live by a higher standard. Ideally, everyone would be a recommend-holder, but that is not the case. My position would be that if we really believe in prophetic authority and leadership, then what you mention is exactly what many of these counsels are: "helpful in building a strong relationship with the Savior and a sure foundation in the gospel, and [...] prophetic clarification of often-vague scriptural values[.]" The question is often about 'doctrines of men'; for the LDS, something like the Word of Wisdom is not a doctrine of man, but is from God, like the rest of the D&C. Of course, the non-LDS do not accept the D&C as scripture, so the things therein are by definition doctrines of men, and more properly, just stuff Joseph Smith made up. So really it comes back to the questions about authority.
  23. Just want to point out (and it has been hinted at in the much older posts here), that legally speaking, nudity =/= pornography, and pornography =/= obscenity. Marginoferror laid out the Miller v. California standard, which is the governing legal precedent for when something falls outside of the First Amendment's protection. This is fine, as far as it goes, but the reality is that very little has ever actually been prohibited under that standard (which is probably a good thing). Obscenity, as a legal term, encompasses an extremely narrow category of material and expression. I have become convinced that trying to say "stuff involving X is pornography" is pretty useless, and things can only be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, tedious as it may be. Like Justice Potter Stewart, I know pornography when I see it, and far from everything involving nudity is pornography. Just throwin' it out there, as they say.
  24. Thanks JAG. Some people might find that really strange, but I don't. Certainly, it offends modern Western sensibilities about such things, but it is a very common part of the burial rites of many religions, including Eastern Orthodox Christianity and Islam.
  25. Stories like Jamie's make me think I must constantly be drawing the good missionaries. None of them have ever gotten upset at all, even in the face of hard questions, persistence or controversial subjects. I even had a conversation with one set that was similar to that above. Maybe they just have the patience of saints, or they're just really good at hiding it. I can't explain why some people have bad experiences with missionaries, but I can honestly say that I never have, even after working closely with three different sets.