Predictions on policy changes during conference?

[The Folk Prophet]

Just now, carlimac said:

To develop compassion for those who suffer and to show sincerity to the Lord.

That's suffering. I said beyond suffering.

[carlimac]

I think separating the marriage and the sealing would be a wonderful thing.  It would make the sealing so much more special!  It would distinguish it in a way that it isn't right now. For young brides especially it gets a little lost in the whole hoopla of the day.  For those that follow through and actually get sealed, it would show the Lord that " we are serious about the sealing ordinances and this is what we want and commit to." There are so many now who get married in the temple and then never go back.By making the sealing a separate event it would sanctify that ordinance even more.

 

Another idea would be for a requirement or at least strong encouragement that both bride and groom and have gone through the temple for their endowments before the civil marriage. This would certainly keep the wedding dresses more modest. It would also help the couple stay morally clean before entering the temple.  If staying morally clean isn't a requirement before the civil marriage, there might be more temptation to not take that commandment seriously.  

Edited September 25, 2018 by carlimac

[Vort]

12 minutes ago, carlimac said:

14 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Take fasting: Can you give a good reason beyond suffering for fasting? And just so we're clear -- fast offerings don't really count because many people could pay that and still not go hungry for the day, and yet they are commanded to fast anyhow. Why? What's the purpose there beyond sacrifice for the sake of sacrifice?

To develop compassion for those who suffer and to show sincerity to the Lord.

Fasting is not suffering. Fasting is rejoicing. If fasting is suffering, you don't know how to fast correctly.

How do you learn how to fast correctly? Same way you learn anything else: You practice. If fasting hurts, then fast more often until it doesn't hurt. Fast twice a month. Fast every week. Fast often, until fasting feels just as good as not fasting. Maybe better.

[The Folk Prophet]

2 minutes ago, Vort said:

Fasting is not suffering. Fasting is rejoicing. If fasting is suffering, you don't know how to fast correctly.

Then I don't know how to fast correctly.

But I'm not sure I see it that way. Can you back up the idea with something more than just what you think?

[carlimac]

7 minutes ago, Vort said:

Fasting is not suffering. Fasting is rejoicing. If fasting is suffering, you don't know how to fast correctly.

How do you learn how to fast correctly? Same way you learn anything else: You practice. If fasting hurts, then fast more often until it doesn't hurt. Fast twice a month. Fast every week. Fast often, until fasting feels just as good as not fasting. Maybe better.

🙄 Tell that to a diabetic or someone with hypoglycemia or a nursing or pregnant mother.  

Edited September 25, 2018 by carlimac

[zil]

17 minutes ago, Vort said:

If fasting hurts, then fast more often until it doesn't hurt.

After 45-61 days, it won't hurt any more.

[The Folk Prophet]

Doesn't specifically address fasting (though it does talk about temple marriage), but well worth a read:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1979/04/this-is-a-day-of-sacrifice?lang=eng

[Lost Boy]

3 hours ago, The Folk Prophet said:

And Jesus answered and said, Verily I say unto you, There is no man that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my sake, and the gospel’s,

But he shall receive an hundredfold now in this time, houses, and brethren, and sisters, and mothers, and children, and lands, with persecutions; and in the world to come eternal life.

-Mark 10:29-30

Yep, in order to follow Christ many have to leave family.  But why make them leave family once again to get married?

My guess is that you most likely live in Utah where everyone and their dog can attend a temple marriage.  Yeah, a few don't get to, but everyone else does.  Go to Japan, or Korea or India..  When they get married in the temple, they have to abandon everything...  once again and for what?  I am still waiting for this commandment to get married in the temple.

You have given me several ways we sacrifice and I have given you the reason why...  specific commandments.  And where is the commandment to get married in the temple?  Certainly there is the sealing, but that can always take place later.  So where is this commandment that the blessings are attached?

Perhaps I actually do understand sacrifice and someone else does not.

[The Folk Prophet]

3 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

My guess is that you most likely live in Utah where everyone and their dog can attend a temple marriage. 

That has nothing to do with the price of rice in Timbuktu. It's a misdirect and you darned well know it. Right is right. Truth is truth. Faith is faith. Sacrifice is sacrifice. Dedication is dedication. That doesn't change based on your or my perspective and it does not change on where you or I live.

[Guest MormonGator]

Can an LDS couple have a civil ceremony and then have a temple sealing? @LadyGator and I had already been married for over a decade when we got sealed-remember, we're converts. 

[Vort]

34 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Then I don't know how to fast correctly.

But I'm not sure I see it that way. Can you back up the idea with something more than just what you think?

Doctrine and Covenants 59:13-14

And on this day thou shalt do none other thing, only let thy food be prepared with singleness of heart that thy fasting may be perfect, or, in other words, that thy joy may be full. Verily, this is fasting and prayer, or in other words, rejoicing and prayer.

[Lost Boy]

5 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

Can an LDS couple have a civil ceremony and then have a temple sealing? @LadyGator and I had already been married for over a decade when we got sealed-remember, we're converts. 

Basically they would have you wait a year to get sealed unless there were some special circumstance.  My understanding was that it was to get couples focused on going to the temple.  Good policy if everyone around you is LDS, but not so great if no-one around you is.

[The Folk Prophet]

1 minute ago, Vort said:

Doctrine and Covenants 59:13-14

And on this day thou shalt do none other thing, only let thy food be prepared with singleness of heart that thy fasting may be perfect, or, in other words, that thy joy may be full. Verily, this is fasting and prayer, or in other words, rejoicing and prayer.

Yes. I don't have a problem with the idea that fasting is a means of rejoicing and that it will lead to joy. What I'm questioning is the idea that these things cannot be if one suffers somewhat -- and, moreover, if that suffering might not be requisite for these things to be.

Now I will grant, perhaps, what we mean by "suffering" is in question. If we enjoy pain then is pain suffering? So maybe that's the disconnect? Learn to enjoy pain. Or are you saying starve yourself until there's no pain in it? That's where I struggle. I believe the pain is part of the matter. (Maybe "pain" is too strong a word...but "suffering" seems to have broken down as a communicative idea here).

[Vort]

34 minutes ago, carlimac said:

🙄 Tell that to a diabetic or someone with hypoglycemia or a nursing or pregnant mother.  

There are indeed people in specific conditions who cannot enjoy the blessings of the fast. That's too bad for them. But in any given LDS congregation, you are likely to find an abnormally high number of people who are hypocglycemic or diabetic or have some other grave condition that, sadly, won't allow them to fast.

Baloney.

Exceptions are called "exceptions" because they are exceptional. Most of us don't fall into that category. I suspect that many, probably most, who "can't" fast actually CAN fast, but don't want to. It makes them feel icky. They get a headache. They feel weak and wobbly in the joints. They get...hungry. Therefore, they can't fast.

Nonsense.

In 1894, President Wilford Woodruff said:

It was remarked this morning that some people said they could not fast because it made their head ache. Well, I can fast, and so can any other man; and if it makes my head ache by keeping the commandments of God, let it ache.

I agree with the response given some years back by the Ask Gramps website to a question about fasting.

[Vort]

3 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

What I'm questioning is the idea that these things cannot be if one suffers somewhat -- and, moreover, if that suffering might not be requisite for these things to be.

Consider my previous statement to be something of an overstatement to try to drive the point home. Of course one can do a real fast and suffer for it. Jesus fasted for 40 days, and afterward was an hungered. Fasting is a sacrifice in its very nature. I did not mean to suggest otherwise with my hyperbole.

[Guest MormonGator]

5 minutes ago, Lost Boy said:

 Good policy if everyone around you is LDS, but not so great if no-one around you is.

 Oh I agree totally. It never applied to me, but I feel very sorry for LDS couples. How do you explain to your non-LDS friends that they can't share in the joy of you and your spouse getting married? 

[Lost Boy]

28 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Doesn't specifically address fasting (though it does talk about temple marriage), but well worth a read:

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1979/04/this-is-a-day-of-sacrifice?lang=eng

It does talk about temple marriage.  For temple marriage currently is the only viable option.  At the time one could not get married civilly and then right away get sealed.  The sealing is the part that is important from an eternal point of view.  It is the sealing that makes it eternal.  

[The Folk Prophet]

9 minutes ago, MormonGator said:

 Oh I agree totally. It never applied to me, but I feel very sorry for LDS couples. How do you explain to your non-LDS friends that they can't share in the joy of you and your spouse getting married? 

What a wonderful opportunity to share the gospel with them, bear testimony, etc.!

[Lost Boy]

29 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

That has nothing to do with the price of rice in Timbuktu. It's a misdirect and you darned well know it. Right is right. Truth is truth. Faith is faith. Sacrifice is sacrifice. Dedication is dedication. That doesn't change based on your or my perspective and it does not change on where you or I live.

Actually it does change based on where you live.  A temple marriage in Utah is hardly sacrifice.  Outside of Utah it becomes a huge sacrifice.  Going to the temple in Utah means you give up a couple hours of the week.  Going to the temple in various parts of the world can be a sacrifice bigger than one you or I will ever make.

Doesn't take a lot of faith to make a little sacrifice.  Takes a lot of faith to make a big one.

I am glad others here see the issues associated with this.  If this were a commandment, sure, but the commandment is to be sealed...  that is the everlasting covenant.  You don't need to be married in the temple to partake of that.  You need to be sealed and that is the marriage in the lord's eye.

[The Folk Prophet]

1 minute ago, Lost Boy said:

Actually it does change based on where you live.  A temple marriage in Utah is hardly sacrifice.  Outside of Utah it becomes a huge sacrifice.  Going to the temple in Utah means you give up a couple hours of the week.  Going to the temple in various parts of the world can be a sacrifice bigger than one you or I will ever make.

How blessed are they who make such a sacrifice. That's a blessing I won't receive that way. I'll have to find other ways to sacrifice instead.

[Lost Boy]

3 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

What a wonderful opportunity to share the gospel with them, bear testimony, etc.!

And 25 years later my in-laws are still a bit upset that they weren't able to go.  None of her family got to attend.  None of them got a positive view of the church from this.

With baptism, this alienates very few.  It is not a ceremony that family has anticipated their whole lives.  Marriage is.  It is a big deal.

[carlimac]

20 minutes ago, Vort said:

There are indeed people in specific conditions who cannot enjoy the blessings of the fast. That's too bad for them. But in any given LDS congregation, you are likely to find an abnormally high number of people who are hypocglycemic or diabetic or have some other grave condition that, sadly, won't allow them to fast.

Baloney.

Exceptions are called "exceptions" because they are exceptional. Most of us don't fall into that category. I suspect that many, probably most, who "can't" fast actually CAN fast, but don't want to. It makes them feel icky. They get a headache. They feel weak and wobbly in the joints. They get...hungry. Therefore, they can't fast.

Nonsense.

In 1894, President Wilford Woodruff said:

It was remarked this morning that some people said they could not fast because it made their head ache. Well, I can fast, and so can any other man; and if it makes my head ache by keeping the commandments of God, let it ache.

I agree with the response given some years back by the Ask Gramps website to a question about fasting.

Once again I am flabbergasted that someone would have this condescending attitude toward other members of the church. IT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!! 

Edited September 25, 2018 by carlimac

[Lost Boy]

Just now, The Folk Prophet said:

How blessed are they who make such a sacrifice. That's a blessing I won't receive that way. I'll have to find other ways to sacrifice instead.

Attending the temple is a commandment and therefore will be blessed for that sacrifice.  Getting sealed is a commandment and they will be blessed for that.  Getting married in the temple is not.  No particular blessing.

[mordorbund]

11 hours ago, KScience said:

Arranged marriages, because the brethren are so fed up with repeating talks advising people to get married

I gave you a trophy.

[lostinwater]

Just now, carlimac said:

IT IS NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!! 

The 11th Commandment.  It's my favorite one to break - because whenever i break it, i can break all the others and not even notice.