The Folk Prophet

Well. that's just drivel and a half. I quit caffeine cold turkey with a severe addiction. Just quit. Stopped using it entirely. But, oh boy, did I struggle for a time. Will power over pain does not mean lack of struggle.

*shrug* I'm no expert on it. I know what the church teaches. Within the bound of marriage sex is appropriate. Outside of marriage, not so.

So basically every dispensation. I'm kind of assuming Moses knew and lived every doctrine in section 132 (He is in there twice) but had to withold it from the public. Enoch and Adam surely practiced and taught eternal marriage. Not necessarily. Promises are not always fulfilled in this life. All people are promised the opportunity for baptism as well. It does not follow that all people will have that opportunity while living though.

Whereas the point is valid, I don't think it's accurate to state it this way without the insertion of the word "only". As in, The Great Apostasy is not only about losing truth, etc... Losing truth and the corruption of the church is most definitely part of what the apostasy was. However, the key loss was authority, as you point out.

Ah...if that's true then my bad on that assumption...and...makes more sense.

Well then what is jungler going on about?

No. Why are you arguing with Mormons about their beliefs? What's your objective here? I'd point out the logical fallacy in this...but I'm really wondering why I engaged here. Seriously. What's your objective?

What the...? I'm honestly asking questions to try and gain insight into this and I'm using circular logic and trying to make myself appear more spiritual than anyone else? O.....k...... Seriously. Perhaps the strangest, most defensive accusation I've ever had. Hmm. I'd have my feelings hurt, but in this case, it's a bit out there, which makes it rather more amusing. Seriously, seriously. What did I do? I didn't even say you were wrong. And, of course, you still didn't bother to answer my question, which I am legitimately curious about. I'm really interested to know how you or others would find this quote, if out of context, to have a negative effect or have harmful connotation. You started out by saying that you were glad no one quoted it out of context. I'm asking why? How about you answer, if I disagree I can debate it, and then you can say all those nasty things about me again?

Um...but if plain and precious truths were removed from the Bible then...why would we feel the Bible must support everything we believe? And why wouldn't they be? The plain and precious truths were removed later, per our belief. No. No we shouldn't. If I felt we should, I would be a Catholic or some other "The Bible is the end all of scripture" based faith. Nonsense. There are so many lost scriptures out there. So many writings by so many prophets that are lost and gone. So many other writings that were not canonized. Tons, and tons of stuff. I'm not buying every word ever written by the prophets through all ages of man was preserved. Sorry.

If you follow Mormonism then you not exactly why we believe our church is true. But I'm not going to get into a "my spiritual experience is just as valid as yours", useless debate on the matter. You have the right to your views. I don't begrudge you that. Edit: Oh, and as far as the not taught in the Bible thing...are you not aware that Mormons believe that many plain and precious truths were taken from the Bible during the great apostasy? If you did not know that about us, now you do.

No. I am not keen on being called arrogant. Take it anatess! I have no interesting in bashing over different interpretations of the Bible.

This makes absolute sense, and is the same thing we believe about the keys/authority, in that it's passed down etc. The only real difference is that we believe, over time, that this authority was lost to the world through apostasy. It's as simple as that.

Can't/won't. I suppose there's nuance there. The end result is the same though. Which is what's important to understand I think. The kingdom of God will not fail.

Yesiree. D&C 131:1-4 1 In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; 2 And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; 3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it. 4 He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase.

I know certain viewed define addiction as a lack of control. But then there's also the idea that once an addict always an addict, even when one is not engaged in said behavior. The two ideas contradict each other somewhat.

Essentially then we have. A. Doubt exists. B. Faith exists. C. The church's purpose is to cultivate faith. D. Therefore... With the exception of C these things are implicit in the statement "First, doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith." And C is even moderately implicit if you know it's a church leader saying it. How can we doubt our doubts if no one had doubts? How can we doubt our faith if no one has faith? And why would it matter if one were not more important (from a gospel view point) than the other? Regardless, that doesn't really answer the question I have, which is: What could one possibly take the statement to mean out of context?

I dunno though. In some ways I feel that addiction to viewing illicit sexual materials is inherent in being male. The strong drive is built in, and the stimulation from viewing is there whether you've given into it or not. The difference, I think, is in the habit, of course. But the drive is there and must be vigilantly defended against consistently throughout one's hormonally charged life. It's not easy to stop either way. And it's not easy to not start either way. It takes focus, diligence, and a constant effort to cross oneself in these things to remain pure.

Some solid additional insight. The Abrahamic Covenant, at it's core, is to rule over your posterity forever. It's hard to do that without marriage. :)

We'll have to agree to see it differently then. I agree children are capable at some level (depending, of course on the child's age and maturity. a newborn is not capable of this, of course), but I disagree in terms of "just like adults do". This is literally not the case. They cannot reason like adults. They cannot see long term consequences. Sure, they can temporarily understand that if they do such-n-such they'll get a spanking or go on time out. How long does even that last though? I think this is a great point, and I think it shows that it is invalid to think of Adam and Eve EXACTLY like children. On the other hand, as you pointed out, children do have some level of understanding of consequences. If you leave a child home and tell them flat out, particularly repeatedly, that if they leave the house they will be in dutch, most children will at least be aware that if they leave the house they are, actually going to be in dutch (if they do not get caught). What they cannot understand, usually, is why they should not leave the house beyond their parent's say so - kidnappings, car accidents, getting lost, etc., etc. Mayhaps it was something akin to that. Adam and Even could understand the basics of what the Lord warned them of. If they partook of the fruit they'd be in trouble with God and would die. But truly understanding what that fully entailed? I dunno.

This is a baloney answer to give though. If one watches porn every once in a while then, "but its not a problem" is a lie. Purposefully watching porn is always a problem! If the answer was, "I was accidentally exposed to such-n-such but it's not a problem" then we're talking more in the realms of validity. Or even, "I used to watch porn sometimes but I do not any more."

To what end do you care? Mild curiosity or major issue? Mild curiosity...okay. It's just not a major issue though. Mormon did not feel inspired to include it because God knew He would reveal it to Joseph Smith. It should also be noted that it was one of the later revelations given, that the principle of eternal marriage was taught toward the end of Joseph Smith's life, etc... Which makes it seem, to me, a line upon line thing.

Should the church be teaching that every man should view at least some porn? Also, it should be noted, the standard is also no lying.

I think this gets into a semantic debate pretty easy. I think you could search high and low and you would not find any scriptures or other sources that state that marriage is required for godhood. What marriage is required for is the highest degree of the Celestial glory/exaltation. But, clearly, godhood is broader than that in some ways. Who cares? Does all information about all things have to be in every scripture? If so, then why would we need additional scripture? We have scripture that tells us about it. What difference does it make which book of scripture it's in? We don't know that. Some authorities, have, of course, speculated on it and presumed that He was. But we don't know and it should not be taught in EQ that He was or was not. Procreation seems a good enough reason to me. Endless seed. Eternal lives. These are the key aspects of the Patriarchal order, the Abrahamic covenant, and the promise of exaltation. I'm too lazy to bother researching this one. But off the top of my head...any dispensation with the sealing power had it. So those without the higher priesthood (Israelites after Moses) or no priesthood at all (Great apostacy) and the like did not have it. It's sort of irrelevant though. Even dispensations that did have it did not mean the whole world had access. Work for the dead will be key to bringing most ordinances to the children of God. Those are my thoughts. I do agree with you that you shouldn't deal with these things for the most part in your lesson. But interesting discussion points.

Just curious, but how does, "first, doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith" require context? What is it, exactly, that he is supposedly concluding that would be misunderstood if the quote stood on its own? It seems pretty straightforward to me. If you have some doubts and you have some faith, focus on the faith. Is there another way to understand it?

It's not a problem for us at all. It's only a problem for those who like to accuse us of arrogance for the viewpoint. Those who like to do so will do so, in spite of any explanation. Arguing about it isn't going to do much good. That's what the LDS point of view is. But we then don't follow with an explanation that entirely disregards prayer in the testing process. If you're going to agree that prayer is part of the test, maybe you should include prayer as part of the explanation of how to test. Just sayin'.