The Folk Prophet

Can one hate Satan without it being of Satan? Serious question: not just being flippant.

Hmm. I feel that I have a fairly consistent level of what I'd consider righteous anger. I am angry at the mutilation and murder of children the world over, the perversions encroaching into every facet of our daily lives, the political upheave, the efforts to destroy all that is good in life, and the fact that I don't know how to raise my children safely in all this. Etc., etc... I am angry...but the feelings I have are not the same sort of dark bitterness like Satan has wrapped his arms around you feelings like @zil2 described.

I have two siblings with 10 kids each.

The 2nd to last phrase in Pres Nelson's talk: "I bless you to replace belligerence with beseeching, animosity with understanding, and contention with peace." I think I must ponder on this sentence some more.

What about righteous anger? Per my understanding (as best I can recall at the moment), Pres. Nelson seemed to be suggesting that the more evil the person or thing, the more important it was to deal without contention. I'll have to review his talk again. But that seemed to be part of it. The more wicked the world, the more important it is for us to approach it without contention. I do not understand the why of this, but it seemed to be part of his point. I do think it's useful to consider the difference between "contending" and being "contentious". It's the how that seems to matter. We need to contend against wickedness and for goodness but without doing so contentiously. There is a distinct definitional difference.

Not even close.

Why aren't masks required every flu season then? The extra "caution" around Covid was political theater. Sure...not at first. We didn't know at first. Everyone was floundering. Two years later where I'm still required to wear a mask at the doctor's office....theater. Haha. Sorry...I'm really not meaning to argue. I get that leadership of organizations like the church would take the more conservative cautious approach. That wasn't my point. I, obviously, have some bitterness about masks. But that's really beyond the point of what we were discussing...which to my thinking was choosing to follow the prophet even if and when he may not be entirely accurate in any given thing. We may not agree whether he was accurate in his mask wearing or not. But can we agree that there might be cases where he isn't entirely accurate in some given thing or another, and that even in those cases we should follow him regardless? The specific masks example was used because I thought you were of a like mind on masks. If you're not, the we can let that go as the example. It's not important.

So I think where I struggle a bit more is where President Nelson says in the same talk that he doesn't mean peace at any cost, but then also says contention is never right. But what else would one call Captain Moroni's actions if not contentious? It seems like there are semantics at play here that have not been clarified. And it leaves me floundering a bit. Are we meant to be as Captain Moroni, or not? When the king men contend for the governance, should they be put to death, or not? I mean this is the problem. A lot of us have been raised believing the Book of Mormon was written for our day, and that means that the examples therein are to help us navigate these times...that we should behave as Captain Moroni and Alma and the like. I mean a good portion of the Book of Mormon is dedicated to these conflicts. And we're specifically warned against secret combinations, and calling them out, and not letting them take root, etc. But then, it seems to me, that President Nelson is telling us...nope....never... that's not the way. Don't do it. And it seems problematic to me to narrowly define contention as only doing so with anger (sorry @zil2. Not meaning to be contentious....). I have very, very rarely typed a thing on this forum, for example, in anger. But I have very obviously been very engaged in contention. The idea that if two people go back and forth at each other saying, "You're wrong." "No, you're wrong." "No. You're wrong" and so forth, but do so without anger that it isn't contention doesn't work for me. Sure...anger makes it worse. But whether I'm mad or not, telling others that they're wrong all the time is clearly against the counsel President Nelson gave. So I have to swallow a lifetime of perception and understanding based on my scriptures study. I accept that. I don't deny President Nelson is right. I am determined. I will follow. But I guess I'll complain about my confusion a bit too. But really...I don't actually believe never being like Captain Moroni is the correct answer. Somehow the two ideas need to be reconciled in my mind. I haven't yet been able to reconcile them. but I'm not so far off as I was a few years back.

How does it make sense? Do you have the study to show that? I mean I'm not really asking because I don't really want to debate. It's just... here's the thing. It makes sense to me that some masks make some sense IF they're worn and used properly. But pulling the masks down to take the sacrament is NOT using them properly and immediately negates any sense in wearing them. That's to my thinking. Staying home, of course, makes more sense. But it didn't make sense for me and my family...or anyone with small children -- who put everything into their mouths and constantly pull masks off faces. I'm sorry...but if there are Covid germs on the benches, my kids are picking them up and passing them to me. There's no getting around it, mask or no mask. And if we have Covid...I'm sorry, but my kids are picking it up from me and then smearing it all over the benches. There's no getting around it, mask or no mask. And if the immune compromised and aged walk past said bench, touching it with their hands as they do, and then head home, pulling off their masks, having not thoroughly washed their hands, etc., before doing so...guess what? How many people, even of those who are "immune compromised" wore their masks correctly and followed correct and safe procedures to give them any level of efficacy? Everyone I know...and I'd dare bet EVERYONE pulled their same-old, used, mask out of their pocket when walking into whatever building, then pulled it back off when exiting, having touched everything as normal within whatever establishment...doors, sacrament trays, benches, etc.... and then stuff the mask back in their pockets to do the same the next time they enter any establishment. Even the fanatical leftist "we're all gonna die" types basically did this...though they'd wear the masks in the car ride home too, perhaps. I would dare bet the few legit OCD-ish behavior required to make full time mask wearing useful at all was extremely, extremely rare. I dunno. I'm not sure there's a way to really know...but I'd dare bet the total number of people who didn't get sick or die because they wore masks was a grand total of....zero. So our wearing masks to church was one of two things. Obedience -- or virtue signaling. I chose the former at the expense of feeling like I was expressing the latter. But I accept that I could be wrong. I think what I think. I think masks are stupid. I hate everything about the nonsense cultural sheep-like response the whole world had to the "pandemic". But I still wore the mask to church because I was asked to.

Sure...but there's another way to look at it. By having someone else crush my cans and bottles for me I'm helping to provide more employment. I mean I'm half joking...but half not. Sure. But pre-crushing my bottles and cans isn't going to solve these things. I'm all for recycling. I'm all for less plastics. Though places like China are the real problem. And as I understand it, most of what we put in the recycle bin doesn't actually get recycled. There's a broader, systematic problem. I still put things into recycling. But I have never crushed my soda cans. My wife does crush any 2-liter (plastic) soda bottles because, as you pointed out...the garbage fills up too fast. (Yes...we have a too-much-soda problem in our house.) Don't get me wrong...I'll probably start crushing all my cans and bottles just to be on the safe side of following the prophet. My point is simply that it's more complicated than anecdotes like the one given seem to make it out to be. If one takes the crushing bottle story to be about crushing bottles it breaks down pretty quickly. As I said, that's not the point of the story, imo. I also don't think this is really the point. Can President Nelson be wrong? Sure. He's mortal. He's flawed. He makes logical mistakes. But he's the prophet. My stronger point is that whether he's right or wrong in any given thing is beyond the point. Take, for example, the vaccination thing. There are people who I know who get legitimately angry every time they think about the statement given by the First Presidency on the Covid vaccination. "Everything they said is WRONG!" they'll claim. And there may well be some evidence that some of what they said may be wrong. (I'm not claiming it is...I'm simply saying "may" be.) But so what?! I got vaccinated based on their statement alone and I believe I made the right choice, even if the end result kills me. I still don't trust the vaccination. I still think it's mostly politics. Heck...a better example...the mask wearing. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, STUPID! (I believe it was you who provided the study on masks showing how they did nothing to curb Covid.) And yet....President Nelson wore the mask. And in my area we were asked to wear masks to church. I still believe it was stupid. It is stupid. STUPID! But I wore a mask to church until they said it was no longer required. It doesn't matter if President Nelson is right or wrong to have worn the mask. It doesn't matter if my Area Presidency was right or wrong to request we wear masks to church. Because my only objective in life is to live seeking God in humility and obedience. It's not science. It's not saving the planet. It's not learning. It's not being clever. It's not out reasoning others. It's to humble myself and obey. All the other stuff has it's place. And they all tie into obedience and humility. But they are not the key. As soon as we put our reasoning above humility and obedience we're stepping away from what our priority should be. So I'm not simply criticizing the crushing of water bottles. I only point out that it's more complicated (to my thinking and understanding) than what it seems in order to make the point that the fact that any given thing doesn't make sense to me and my reasoning is not very profound in the grand scheme of things.

What a fascinating post. As I think on it, I cannot help but wonder if maybe there's some negative cultural persuasion mixed into the logic. That's not to say I don't understand. I believe the position of the church on this has been pretty stable for its history...we get married and then we let the children come. Or as another quote I recall stated (I cannot remember attribution here), "We believe in family planning. We plan to have families." It's a strange...and yet natural and perfectly reasonable...idea to view the idea of having children as a result of sexual congress with one's spouse as a "risk". Like I said, I get it...but.... It's like saying you run the risk of the church growing from doing missionary work. The implied suggestion is that we ought to consider refraining from having relations with our spouses in order to limit the risk of too many pregnancies. Clearly, so the world would think. But I cannot help but think that we ought not be thinking this way, generally.

This. I don't know that I can walk that line. It's a personal struggle. I'm not content making excuses on the matter. I do believe there is a line to be walked. I just cannot reconcile it currently in my own understanding of Pres. Nelson's words and my understanding. My inclination, and I believe rightly so, then is to lean not unto my own understanding. Another way to put it...I think recycling, per my understanding, is a waste of time. I do not think crushing a plastic water bottle is helpful or useful to solve the problems with it. But....I believe there was an important point to that story (and it was not that we should all start crushing water bottles or we're going to hell).

I'm not sure the Pharisees would agree.

It is very difficult to be online at all and not engage in contention. (I know this thread is on President Oakes' talk, and I'm speaking of President Nelson's...but....) I have stayed out of other less moderated forums because the contention there becomes so awful so quickly. But even here...there's contention. Continual, constant, contention. I must admit, I don't understand the concept of "no contention". I really don't. But I trust the prophet. So I swallow what I do and do not understand and commit. But that leaves me feeling like...well....what's the point of even being here? Every time I say something...it gets debated. And every time someone else says something I usually find that I want to debate it. But I'm not supposed to do that any more. So what's the point? Or can contention-less debate exist? Doesn't seem like it. So every thing I say is viewed as "wrong" by others and what others say is viewed as "wrong" by me, but I'm not supposed to correct what I believe is wrong, or defend what I believe is right. Which in real life means blankly discussing...I dunno....the weather. Like I said... I don't understand. (On the flip side, I hate being in arguments...so not engaging has been much better on my emotional state.) In a lot of ways the messaging given by our leadership at Conference seems to have strayed away from the practical. And that's left me floundering quite a bit. So....I dunno. It makes me feel inclined to spend less time here as well.

In theory I love the idea of what Facebook could and should be. I would love to see my extended family's children and events and keep updated with them, etc., etc. Instead...none of my family uses Facebook and my feed is mostly filled with ads and inane quizzes or memes. With the addition of "shorts" I get bikini pics and the like in my feed. Garr...I hate Facebook now! And it's still, probably, the best of social media.

It didn't sound like him at all!

You mean it's just like terribly written, terribly acted, no budget B-movies. Some people are entertained by those.

I find it interesting that you state my 'yes' answer to be inaccurate, but then handily explain how it is accurate.

IMO I'm doing the opposite of that and the problem is that others have made it more complicated than it actually is. I thought that would be an interesting discussion. But if not....

This is an interesting thing to actually consider. Is never wearing something that is designed to draw attention to oneself always wrong? And is that really what "modesty" is about. One might well ask...can one modestly wear something to draw attention to themselves? Can one modestly wear something to draw attention to themselves sexually? Can someone be immodest without meaning to be? I'd say yes, yes, and yes. Frankly, the whole modesty discussion in the church has become pretty muddled. I'm not sure, in many cases, the discussion makes sense any longer.

People responding this way to the idea of "outward appearance" strikes me as pretty short-sighted. The Lord looks upon the heart...and how we interact with outward appearance is an indication of the state of our heart (as most things are). Obviously if one is concerned with outward appearance in terms of pride, then it's based on a prideful heart, which the Lord looks upon unfavorably. Obviously, if one is concerned with outward appearance in terms of humility, then it's based on a humble heart, which the Lord looks upon favorably.

It's surprising to me how many people believe that was the message of it.

I have two thoughts on this. 1. I guess it depends on how much one thinks "grooming" is a thing. 2. I wonder how difficult it is for people to leave Uganda. On 1., I think a law such as this is meant to curb that, but also to suppress the expressions of homosexuality. It will, inevitably, force it underground. On 2., and per the second half of your post, I would think having a path that helps people exit the country if they dislike the law would be a good idea.

Or.... It's solved by replicators, teleporters, and warp drives.

I absolutely DESPISE this fact. Particularly in that I have a little girl who loves rainbows, as all little girls do.