ldsister

I'm happy to continue discussing the interface between and faith and politics, though the current tone seems a bit tense. Are you interested in a conversation or do you see this being an argument? If it's the former, I would love to keep talking. If it's the latter, I'll probably opt out of this thread.

I understood you.

Your responses have contained a variety of concerns, and I've been asking follow-up questions to make sure I completely understand your perspective. With this final response, I believe I thoroughly understand your position. Thank you for taking the time to answer.

Why are you attacking me? You're twisting my words in pretty significant ways and continuing to be aggressive even after I've said I'm not seeking conflict. I don't understand why you're doing this.

I can tell I've really irritated you in some way. That wasn't my intention. I'll see myself out of this thread.

So your dislike of the choir member's choice stems not from her having an opinion, or even having a public opinion, but that that public opinion goes against a decision made by the church?

That answers whether you can change the gender. It does not answer whether you can go back to the OLD (bass, more melodic) male narrator.

I thought I was answering the question. I'm sorry my answers didn't meet your specifications. Was what you were trying to ask with all those scenarios was what I'd say and do if I found out unequivocally that God actually DID order all those killings with no justification or explanation? I'd be sad and terrified but I'd keep my mouth shut because who's going to argue with that kind of God?

Glad to know it's not just me. Does anyone know if there's a setting to go back to the old narrators?

LOL. Yes, I can see that happening, though if the smell continued even after the malodorous shoes were removed, I'd start looking under seats and in the heating system. Would your friend's child be more comfortable wearing sandles except when it was snowy?

Yesterday in church when I opened my Gospel Library app, there were all sorts of updates. Today when I went to listen to my scriptures, the voice was new! Has anyone else noticed this change?

I'm not asserting an opinion about Beck. I'm solely asking questions to more thoroughly understand your perspective. I'm still not sure I do. Did you ever explain what your feeling on Beck's PUBLIC endorsement of Trump was? You seem to make a very great distinction between private opinion and public statement as regards the choir member. Do you make the same distinction between between private opinion and public statement as regards Beck, or is that different in some way?

Out of curiosity, what are your feelings about Julie B. Beck's endorsement of Trump? Do you consider her, as one of the most recognizable and prominent women in the church, as having used "her position in the Kingdom of God to promote her own political agenda"?

I'm intrigued by the fact that her decision has been seen in such widely disparate ways: some view it as grandstanding in order to gain social points. Others view it as giving public voice to those who have no say in their church's apparent endorsement of a morally reprehensible man. May I ask your reason for feeling so strongly that this was not a moral stand on her part, but rather a social pandering?

This is a good comparison. It raises the question, "How public must I be to achieve the good I am trying to achieve?" In some spheres, individuals can accomplish their goals very privately, as with their alms. In other spheres, individuals must take a public stand in order to achieve the good they aim for, not because they're seeking the praise, but because making people aware of something is the good they're hoping for. I believe that's the case here.

Setting aside your reasons for wanting a large salary, it sounds like you will be very unhappy trying to live on a teacher's salary. If this is a problem now, while you're engaged, it's likely to become an even larger problem once you're actually experiencing the reality of it. It would probably be good for your and your fiance to discuss this right now.

We could be in different areas, or perhaps we're using the word "teacher," differently. I'm using it to refer to public-school educators k-12. Are you using it to mean college-level educators, by chance? That's a different profession than the one OP's fiance is studying, and it has very different salary prospects. Of the teachers I know, even the wives with the staunchest beliefs in being SAHMs have had to pick up extra work. You're correct that many people struggle for "niceties," but my observation (coming from a long line of teachers and having a lot of teachers among my friends) has been that teachers struggle financially even more than others. And that's totally fine. It's a valid lifestyle choice. It's just important for OP and her husband to have an accurate view of what their lifestyles will be like and to be in agreement that they're happy to live that lifestyle in order for him to be a teacher.

That breaks my heart. That poor child.

Thank you. I appreciate your kind words and your understanding of my perspective.

I understand your perspective that we can't seek to counsel God. If God himself said that he really ordered all those things, I'd bow my head and shut my mouth. But I also feel like I have an obligation to understand things in the context of reason and morality, and since God himself hasn't told me that he ordered all those slaughters, I regard them with the mind that there may be more to the story, or a much different story, than what's presented in the OT.

If the prophet were speaking directly to me about the events of the OT, I would adore the opportunity to discuss the whys of that and get some context for those events. If an angel came and told me anything, the first thing I would do is ask to shake his hand. As for the Lord, I believe that one day there will be understanding for all these difficult issues.

I understand your perspective, but modern revelation has already eliminated at least one part of the Bible as being entirely uninspired. Here's a link to the church's position on The Song of Solomon, for instance. https://www.lds.org/scriptures/gs/song-of-solomon?lang=eng Is it really so impossible that other parts of the Bible may not have been recorded entirely accurately, especially when those parts of the Bible seem entirely inconsistent with the God taught about in the other three standard works? I believe in a just and loving God, which is why I find it hard to countenance the claim that he ordered babies and children to be slaughtered. That's not only unloving, that's also entirely unjust.

I agree that God probably does not view death as being particularly horrible (neither do I), but I think God views killing as a very grave thing indeed. Throughout scripture, with the exception of the OT, God restricts the authorization for one human to kill another to a) being very rare b) being used only against the extremely wicked and c) being used only as defense against the most extreme and repeated provocation. That's why I can see God letting people die in earthquakes, as described in the Book of Mormon, but I can't see him commanding people to kill with the indiscriminate, reckless abandon that's described in the OT.

To OP: another reason I don't take all the OT stories literally at face value is because the LDS understanding of their literalness changes slightly over time. For instance, for many years, I was taught that there was no death (none at all) before the Fall AND that evolution could not have happened: God hand-created the animals, then he hand-created Adam and Eve, and there was no more to it. However, in a recent talk, Holland's description of Adam and Eve, while remaining firm on their existence (which I do believe), leaves open room for there to have been death and other events before the creation. He's very specific in saying that he doesn't know what happened on the planet before Adam and Eve, and in restricting the absence of death to HUMAN death. " I do not know the details of what happened on this planet before that, but I do know these two were created under the divine hand of God, that for a time they lived alone in a paradisiacal setting where there was neither human death nor future family, and that through a sequence of choices they transgressed a commandment of God which required that they leave their garden setting but which allowed them to have children before facing physical death.3 " To me, this new flexibility of interpretation tells us that there's room for interpretation where the literalness of the events described in the OT are concerned. Far from damaging my testimony, this gives me hope that the things that don't make sense to me will one day be clarified, and that lets my faith stay strong.

Good. I'm glad that wasn't her intention.