Harrison

Thanks, I was only asking as an attempt to understand you. The link takes me back to your first post. I've re-read it multiple times. But it still isn't clear to me.

What do you mean by similar and by differentiation?

So, are you saying that Utah's clause would have prohibited denying or abridging (on account of sex) *only* the rights to vote and hold office, and therefore Utah included all civil, political and religious rights... almost so as if they thought, "well, alright let's include all other rights, too"?

As I understand, the Utah Constitution Article IV, Section 1 includes an equal rights clause pertaining to males and females. “The rights of citizens of the State of Utah to vote and hold office shall not be denied or abridged on account of sex. Both male and female citizens of this State shall enjoy equally all civil, political and religious rights and privileges.” The proposed Equal Rights Amendment states, “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.” Utah’s Constitution clause appears to be more specific than the text of the proposed ERA. Is this difference in specificity what makes the proposed ERA so dangerous in its opponents' view? The matter is unclear to me because both include the phrases “shall not be denied or abridged” and “on account of sex.” An obvious difference is that Utah’s Constitution is binding only in Utah; and the proposed U.S. amendment is binding upon all states—is it simply a states’ rights issue? What’s so significant about saying that male and female citizens shall enjoy (civil, political, and religious) rights and privileges equally and saying saying equality of rights under the law? If proponents would reword the ERA to mirror Utah’s clause would it motivate opponents to agree with it?

Hah hah. Whether or not infant mortality is an integral part of life expectancy calculations depends upon what one wishes to prove, or learn. Leaving infant mortality out of the calculation reveals that it wouldn't be necessary as you seemed to claim about making women bear children before age 18 in order to protect against extinction. There would be plenty of time with a life expectancy exceeding 30 years, and of course we may conclude that Mary lived beyond 30, right?

Can’t seem to access the book itself. Since you’ve read it can you tell me if Bruce Friar includes infant mortality in that calculation?

What's the evidence that the life expectancy was 21 in those days?

The point that we are discussing here is not a huge thing for me, so I don't want to appear dogmatic about it. I hope my curiosity about your viewpoint and my interest in conversing is also interesting to you as I'm not about "proving you wrong". It seems apparent to me that you are much more knowledgeable than I am about math, and I respect your background. I read your remarks here and I think to myself, "I suppose I am like many if not most people. I use mathematics but I don't see how my use of it is the very definition of dogmatic knowledge." I think of mathematics similarly to the way I think of a table saw. It's useful. But I have no attitude regarding the way I use it or the principles I've learned for using it safely and effectively as being incontrovertibly true. It just seems to work. Most people who haven't proven the most rudimentary theorems of mathematics probably got bored with it in Junior High school. It isn't that they can't, it's that they aren't interested. Why bother? I see little difference between this view of mathematics and a view of turning the ignition key, or changing my oil. I don't care how the car's electrical system works. I'm not interested at the moment at where the oil goes in my engine or how the parts work together--I just know from experience that changing my oil will save me money in the long run. Thus, I balance my checkbook because I want to keep track of my money. I use a little bit of rudimentary algebra if I want to change a recipe, or a bit of geometry when I do some landscaping, or a trig table when I want to build a certain kind of telescope. And I use a hammer when I want to drive a nail. What's dogmatic about this? Maybe I'm guilty as charged, but it seems to me that my knowledge of mathematics, or of starting my car engine is more the very definition of pragmatic than of dogmatic. (Thanks for enduring my point of view--hope you don't find me obnoxious).

Well, Brother, unless I'm hearing only what I want to hear you seem to have mortared the bricks I placed. I hope you'll welcome my continual questions as time goes on knowing that this particular one has so many more questions than answers. I look forward to more conversations with you.

There are many of us who want to be respectful. Depending upon the situation we see little use in bashing. However, at the end of the day isn't it true that many more of us lay our heads on the pillow believing that we worship the true God, and that all the others don't? You tell that you fear anyone too far from true doctrine may face eternal punishment, and insofar as the Terrestrial Kingdom you mentioned is not the "best" the LDS harbor similar fears on your behalf. This seems to be the elephant in the room. The elephant seems to have painted on it's hide the words that people really do worship different Gods for all the efforts some of us make to behave civilly. My sweet sister married a man who believes as you do, @prisonchaplain. I recall decades ago feeling that I could see (and hear) in the expressions of his parents despite their best efforts that they feared their son had married a daughter of Satan--or at least a woman who had been deceived and needed saving. Simultaneous in our most private moments with me my own mother expressed her fears that my sister and her children wouldn't be able to attain to live with God again. During all those decades I witnessed the usually quiet, but sometimes not so quiet tug-of-war. Today my sister's mother-in-law is much less cordial about "those Mormons", and my sister's children bear what I consider to be some of the scars from growing up in a home where the parents were "unequally yoked". (Please don't make the mistake of perceiving any ill-will on my part toward her.) So, my point I suppose is simply that for all our sincerity and our best efforts (speaking generally of all of us) there really seems to be a phantom hanging over us as we try to live together with our different Gods for peace sake. (And of course we need by all means to maintain our efforts for peace sake.)

I have difficulty with claiming all of mathematics is dogmatic knowledge. Notwithstanding my dislike of the term (dogmatic knowledge) I observe that there are some who seem to dogmatically glom onto a lot of things when it suits their purposes. But I prefer to think of mathematics as a tool. Now, I agree that one may accept or disregard 13 axioms, etc. and thus the tool can be used to prove anything given suitable premises. But then if one is honest one checks the results against the real world to see if the mathematical "proof" is true. Similarly, I dislike using the word faith with regard to mathematics (but I know some people want to use it and I can allow them that choice). More importantly, I think we are equivocating if we express our confidence in mathematics as faith and then compare it to our faith in a religious belief. I think they just aren't the same thing.

Agree. I don't doubt that if one cared to scan the Web for examples of discrimination in hiring, it wouldn't take long to develop a long list. I have observed first-hand examples of Christians discriminating against non-Christians (or against the "wrong" sort of Christians), of Christians being discriminated against, Mormons as both defendants and plaintiffs, etc. My first-hand list isn't particularly long, but I think it only illustrates that it's not an uncommon tendency. The topic of the OP is only the tip of the iceberg of "reasons" people will come up with to hire preferentially without regard to actual legitimate job qualifications.

An acquaintance had her DNA analyzed. She subsequently received letters over a span of years from people who said they had the same father as she has but different mothers. She said she knew that her father wasn't exactly paragon of virtuous behavior (she already knew about some other half-brothers), but she didn't think about the extent until the third unknown "sibling" contacted her. I wonder how I would react to learn I have a sister in France or someplace?

Thank you for saying so (with regard to turning the sentences around). Thus, I have a better understanding of some fundamental differences in the ways you and I would approach this issue. With regard to being lead toward Modalism I may have been less than clear. I don't feel lead that way. I only used it as an example because you had mentioned it earlier. Moreover, I'm unclear myself on what you mean about going beyond scripture. As an outsider to so many of these doctrines it seems that one person's strict adherence to scripture is another person's erroneous interpretation of scripture or wayward venture away from scripture. But in any event thank you for patiently responding to my questions.

Yes, you're right. I was thinking the very same thing as I wrote. I asked myself, "How is it, Harrison, that you find it easy to accept the possibility of one God instead of many or that God always existed, but difficult to comprehend some other doctrines?" And I confess that people were telling me such from a very early age. So, I counseled myself that some other person such as @Maureen could just as easily perhaps accept the doctrines you (and @prisonchaplain ) have endeavored to explain to me. So, I appreciate your patience with me, and taking a little extra time to share your beliefs. I hope my respect has been apparent.

Thanks, @prisonchaplain, your definition of the Trinity seems straightforward. Tell me, would turning each sentence around like this still preserve the integrity of your definition? God is the Father. God is the Son. God is the Holy Spirit.There is only one God. The reason I ask is that I personally think to say that the Father is God is the very same thing as saying that God is the Father. And so (for me) I can accept the possibility of one God who acts differently on different occasions--has different roles as I think you said. But to do that I feel that I have to conclude that some verses of scripture just aren't true--which in my own mind I'm prepared to do. Of course in another time and place I realize I'd get executed or imprisoned for saying so.

Well, @Maureen, I'm really trying here. The only method I know is to take each sentence (and sometimes each phrase) and hold it up to examine it. So, please don't think ill of me for parsing. I can easily hold in my mind a claim that there is one God. I can easily hold in my mind the claim that God always existed. But I can't succeed at holding that God always existed as the Father of a Son *and* always existed as that Son, let alone adding in a third being. I have always understood that three persons are by definition distinct *and* separate. To hold in my mind that the Father always existed as the Son and at the same time that the Father is never the Son, well it just doesn't work. I feel as though I'm being asked to accept a proposition that something is and is not. That a thing is separate but not distinct, or distinct but not separate. I just can't make it work. Want to keep trying to get me to see, my sister?

Now, it's even more difficult for me.

There is no problem at all. Each person of the Trinity is God. Each person is distinct from the other. They are one divine God, they are Creator, Saviour and Comforter. M. Help me out here. So each person is distinct from the other. OK, that's easy enough for me to perceive. Each person is God. OK, wait. Meaning each person is *a* God? Or, meaning each person is *the same God*? They are one divine God ... So that sounds like each person is the same God. I'm having difficulty wrapping my mind around this.

Merely as a point of discussion, not all employers are under the same hiring constraints even now. For example, I believe that under certain conditions an employer of any given faith may refuse to hire a candidate who is not a member of that faith. Such an employer may even dismiss a current employee who is not a member of the faith, or who interprets some tenets of the faith differently than the employer does.

Delightful! I'm so grateful to have come across your OP. I can relate. Thank you! 🙏

Hello, @Traveler, Mark Harrison here. I'm wondering whether your question about why the Celestial Kingdom is not called the Celestial Democracy or Celestial Republic was offered tongue-in-cheek. If so that would render the rest of my remark moot. But if you meant what you wrote, then I would like to ask you what 'Kingdom' means to you in the context of the doctrine. I suppose the answer to your question rests there, right? This would be an interesting topic if we could chat face-to-face. I think such a chat must needs explore speculations with regards to such questions as whether the Universe as we theorize it today includes the Celestial Kingdom, or whether it (the Universe) is tucked away in some tiny corner of the Celestial Kingdom. We could talk about whether its isotropic nature is the final word, or merely all we have to work with at present (science survives, does it not, on the assumption that what we "know" is always subject to revision). And then there's that pesky fact that we stand on ground likely to shake us if we make too firm a habit of exploring our faith by resorting to pages from a current science book. Nevertheless, I appreciate your metaphor. It encourages me to try to make choices that would help me situate myself on the better side of the sword. Thanks for giving me food for thought. All my best to you, Sir.

Lovely 😊

As I think about your questions I find myself also thinking about my grandchildren, my kids when they were your daughter's age, and myself when I was that age. At times as I remember my childhood experiences I shudder at how quickly and for how long I often wandered from a point where my parents knew my precise location to places where they couldn't possibly have a clue where I was. Partly because of those memories some of my parenting tactics differed from those of my mom and dad, and I went to great lengths to "keep my kids in my sights" even when they didn't know. And yet some things I didn't particularly approve still occurred--no surprise, right? By contrast, sort of, a friend years ago when I was raising my babies *seemed* to let her 8 children do what they wished and where they wished to do it. There were broken bones, bandages crutches, etc., etc. But as far as I can know those kids survived to adulthood. (And their father, a bishop, was recently killed by a drunk driver.)😭 I have a dear friend who as a child before the age of 12 was sexually abused repeatedly by a cousin.😡 And today I worry constantly about my sweet grandsons. You probably didn't find anything in my remarks that qualifies as advice. Neither did I. If I try to think of a point perhaps its only to observe that being a parent is at once so darned tough and so marvelously sweet, so sublime and so scary. I suppose that I'm like you--I prayed a lot, I cried a lot, I laughed a lot, I relied at times on some of the other villagers, I regretted some of my mistakes (both the commissions and the omissions), I thanked God for these precious souls, and I sometimes looked up at the sky and cried out, "Why?". In my heart I wish everything good for you and your sweet daughter. 💛

Hello, Iggy. Mark Harrison (new kid on the block) here. Thank you for sharing this. I can relate to the challenge of dealing with the "hole". All my best to you. 🙏