Nonbeliever's questions about your faith


Madam_Mim
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29 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Yep, the basic deal is you can't renew covenants you haven't made, so a non-member partaking isn't really binding themselves to anything.  But if partaking of the sacrament helps some visitor feel closer to God, good on 'em.  Kind of like how we are ok offering the sacrament to our unbaptized kiddos.

Yes.  Like a child partaking, a visitor isn't renewing covenants because they haven't made any.  However, anyone partaking in remembrance of Him  is always a good thing!  

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@Madam_Mim, I haven’t read much of the posts, I just saw your question on homosexuality.  So, I apologize if this has been addressed already.

So... Eternal Marriage is the basic foundation of families.  Eternal Marriage is a covenant between husband and wife with God, sealed for all eternity. 

Homosexual marriage doesn’t conform to the pattern of Eternal Marriage because the role of a husband and a wife is not gender interchangeable.  This is the same with Father and Mother.  They are not interchangeable.

So you might ask, what about those who do not want children?  Are they not being sinful?  If, barring any other reason, they simply do not want to, then they are not aligned with God’s commandment which is to build eternal families.  But a heterosexual marriage, even when childless, still retains hope for repentance even after death and may still be blessed with eternal offspring.  Homosexual marriages don’t have this fruitful future.

Anyway, the teaching is Love.  Love others as yourself.  Sexual expression is simply one way to express love under the marital covenant and is the expression of love that bears the fruit of eternal families.  There are many other ways to express love.  The error in homosexuality is in the backward thinking that Love is the fruit of sexual attraction.  It is not.  Love is that all-consuming desire to bring someone with you closer to Christ.  Anybody - hetero or homo - who devalues sexual expression outside the marital covenant failed to Love as they put themselves and another person farther from Christ.

Hope this helps.

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Guest MormonGator
2 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Yep, the basic deal is you can't renew covenants you haven't made, so a non-member partaking isn't really binding themselves to anything.  But if partaking of the sacrament helps some visitor feel closer to God, good on 'em.  Kind of like how we are ok offering the sacrament to our unbaptized kiddos.

I think it's a wonderful idea. Speaks very highly of the church to allow everyone to partake in the sacrament. 

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1 hour ago, MormonGator said:

I think it's a wonderful idea. Speaks very highly of the church to allow everyone to partake in the sacrament. 

It might be interpreted like that, which I suppose is good. But if the Church's leadership were to change the policy such that the tokens of the sacramental covenant were not to be administered to those not under the covenant, that would make perfect sense. I think it's convenient that we don't actively prohibit children and non-members from partaking of the emblems of the sacrament, since to them there is no covenant to renew, but I don't think it's a moral issue of friendliness and acceptance, more like "Why bother possibly giving offense over a harmless practice?" If the thinking on the matter or the social circumstances were to change, the "openness" of the sacrament might well be rethought, and I would have no objection to make in that case.

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Guest Mores
15 hours ago, Vort said:

Personally, I believe that "because God said so" is a valid reason, but I also recognize that it begs the question of, "Why should we obey a commandment?" God is not capricious, and he does not give commandments on a whim. True, he does give commandments so that they will be obeyed; and true, he often does not explain fully (or at all) why a commandment is being given. We are normally expected to obey first, and find out why later. That is the divine order. But even so, God's commandments are perfectly logical and rational to those who understand all of the whys and wherefores—which we do not.

I believe that all the reasons why gay marriage have become so popular lately is that people have completely lost track of what sex and marriage are about.  While we acknowledge that children/family are a part of that, I don't think people give that idea enough importance.  I'm not advocating the orthodox Catholic idea that sex is "ONLY" for procreation, but I do tend to think that we push procreation too far down on the importance scale.

Having children is a big deal.  Marriage is a big deal.  And they do go hand-in-hand.  Yes, one could make the argument that even heterosexual couples can be infertile.  And that's true.  But that is because of a malfunction in the system, like someone being being blind or deaf.  We all know the way things are supposed to function.  And we recognize when it fails for reasons beyond our control.  We also know that a gay union was NEVER INTENDED to produce offspring.  This is not a malfunction of the system.  IT IS THE SYSTEM!  That's the way it was designed.

Work arounds, like adoption are supposed to make up for the malfunctions in the system.  They are not supposed to be used for denying the system exists.

What about simply strengthening the union?  That's another good point.  There is no physical mechanism present in gay unions that will increase that bond.  I don't want to violate "child friendly" policies of the site, so I won't go into detail.  But there are physical realities that will allow heterosexual couples to truly "be one" in that act.  There are no such mechanisms in gay unions.

Not only that, but I'd say that to be truly one in spirit is also impossible in gay unions because they can never be one in Christ.

Quote

11 Nevertheless neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.

12 For as the woman is of the man, even so is the man also by the woman; but all things of God.

  --  1 Cor 11

Edited by Mores
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14 hours ago, MormonGator said:

I think it's a wonderful idea. Speaks very highly of the church to allow everyone to partake in the sacrament. 

Well, it appears that the current guidance is not the same as I grew up with.

https://www.lds.org/study/liahona/2012/03/youth/to-the-point/can-nonmembers-take-the-sacrament?lang=eng

While it does not negate what I said, it seems more open than what I was taught.

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2 hours ago, Mores said:

I believe that all the reasons why gay marriage have become so popular lately is that people have completely lost track of what sex and marriage are about.  While we acknowledge that children/family are a part of that, I don't think people give that idea enough importance.  I'm not advocating the orthodox Catholic idea that sex is "ONLY" for procreation, but I do tend to think that we push procreation too far down on the importance scale.

Having children is a big deal.  Marriage is a big deal.  And they do go hand-in-hand.  Yes, one could make the argument that even heterosexual couples can be infertile.  And that's true.  But that is because of a malfunction in the system, like someone being being blind or deaf.  We all know the way things are supposed to function.  And we recognize when it fails for reasons beyond our control.  We also know that a gay union was NEVER INTENDED to produce offspring.  This is not a malfunction of the system.  IT IS THE SYSTEM!  That's the way it was designed.

Work arounds, like adoption are supposed to make up for the malfunctions in the system.  They are not supposed to be used for denying the system exists.

What about simply strengthening the union?  That's another good point.  There is no physical mechanism present in gay unions that will increase that bond.  I don't want to violate "child friendly" policies of the site, so I won't go into detail.  But there are physical realities that will allow heterosexual couples to truly "be one" in that act.  There are no such mechanisms in gay unions.

Not only that, but I'd say that to be truly one in spirit is also impossible in gay unions because they can never be one in Christ.

Mores, you’re making the civil case—one I very much agree with; and in a remarkably articulate way.  But as it pertains to the theological case, I don’t think you even need to concede as much as you have.  Theologically, marriage is all about rearing up righteous offspring—if not in this life, then in the next.  

It’s not that marriage is a hoop to jump through to get into to the highest degree of Heaven.  It’s that the highest degree of Heaven is by definition a state of existence in which you are eternally creating new lives and teaching and guiding those lives into spiritual maturity—and just by the nature of what that task involves (and I mean this more in a spiritual than a physical or mechanical sense), you need an eternal partner in a heterosexual union.

Many progressives bellyache about the idea of God being a man and complain that women just can identify with a deity that is solely male—but then demand that the Restored Gospel tweak its theology to allow for male-male couples to attain exaltation and basically (to put things crudely) become joint gods who will raise an infinite number of females who will never know what it is to have a Heavenly Mother.  

To me, the idea of gay sex is frankly far less offensive than the culmination of misunderstandings, skewed values, ignorance of or willful blindness to human nature, sloppy logic, and drawing of botched inference upon botched inference in which LGBTQ advocates generally, and LDS LGBTQ advocates in particular, base their arguments and worldview.  In other words—gay marriage in and of itself is merely one of many, many things that are both morally wrong and sociologically counterproductive; but given modern social conditions it also happens to represent the culmination (so far) of every idiotic deconstructionist dogma that’s come into play since the early 19th century.  

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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Guest Mores
17 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Mores, you’re making the civil case—one I very much agree with; and in a remarkably articulate way.  But as it pertains to the theological case, I don’t think you even need to concede as much as you have.  Theologically, marriage is all about rearing up righteous offspring—if not in this life, then in the next.  

It’s not that marriage is a hoop to jump through to get into to the highest degree of Heaven.  It’s that the highest degree of Heaven is by definition a state of existence in which you are eternally creating new lives and teaching and guiding those lives into spiritual maturity—and just by the nature of what that task involves (and I mean this more in a spiritual than a physical or mechanical sense), you need an eternal partner in a heterosexual union.

Many progressives bellyache about the idea of God being a man and complain that women just can identify with a deity that is solely male—but then demand that the Restored Gospel tweak its theology to allow for male-male couples to attain exaltation and basically (to put things crudely) become joint gods who will raise an infinite number of females who will never know what it is to have a Heavenly Mother.  

To me, the idea of gay sex is frankly far less offensive than the culmination of misunderstandings, skewed values, ignorance of or willful blindness to human nature, sloppy logic, and drawing of botched inference upon botched inference in which LGBTQ advocates generally, and LDS LGBTQ advocates in particular, base their arguments and worldview.  In other words—gay marriage in and of itself is merely one of many, many things that are both morally wrong and sociologically counterproductive; but given modern social conditions it also happens to represent the culmination (so far) of every idiotic deconstructionist dogma that’s come into play since the early 19th century.  

Thank you for that explanation.  But I'm curious.  What did you think I conceded that you've addressed here.  I admit that I did not address the eternal aspect.  But this was in response mainly to a non-member's point of view.  So, I omitted it.  But I'm not sure where I conceded anything that wasn't correct.

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1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

...male-male couples to attain exaltation and basically (to put things crudely) become joint gods who will raise an infinite number of females who will never know what it is to have a Heavenly Mother.  

This had never occurred to me, and the concept hits like a thunderbolt.  

I had always felt it was selfish for same-sex couples to raise kids without understanding the psychological ramifications on those children from not being raised in a balance of a male and female parent, but this elevates that exponentially. 

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1 hour ago, Mores said:

Thank you for that explanation.  But I'm curious.  What did you think I conceded that you've addressed here.  I admit that I did not address the eternal aspect.  But this was in response mainly to a non-member's point of view.  So, I omitted it.  But I'm not sure where I conceded anything that wasn't correct.

I think it was the “I'm not advocating the orthodox Catholic idea that sex is "ONLY" for procreation. . .” that threw me a little.  My understanding (and I confess, I probably haven’t been following the thread as closely as I ought) was that @Madam_Mim was specifically asking how we justify our position within our own theological paradigm.  :) 

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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1 minute ago, Madam_Mim said:

I appreciate all of you commenting but wow.. I'm having a really hard time to relate to your views. 

That's ok.  We've always been apart from the broader cultural tides.  I think even back in the 1800s, members of the church were known to be a "peculiar people."  I accept that gladly.  :)

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47 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I think it was the “I'm not advocating the orthodox Catholic idea that sex is "ONLY" for procreation. . .” that threw me a little.  

How so?  When I grew up my Catholic relatives stated that their theological position was that sex was ONLY for procreation.  That's why they didn't believe in any form of birth control other than monthly timing.

Quote

My understanding (and I confess, I probably haven’t been following the thread as closely as I ought) was that @Madam_Mim was specifically asking how we justify our position within our own theological paradigm.  :) 

Maybe or maybe not.  I don't really know what motivated her question.  I was just answering the question she asked the best I could.  She specifically asked "why" something in her paradigm could be considered wrong.  So, I pointed out that the paradigm ignores certain physical and biological realities.  And I was trying to point to how those realities affect or are affected by our spirits and our overall spiritual nature.

Perhaps I didn't articulate that clearly enough.  But I did my best.

Edited by Mores
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Guest Mores
15 minutes ago, Madam_Mim said:

I appreciate all of you commenting but wow.. I'm having a really hard time to relate to your views. 

That pretty much always happens when we come from different world views.  When dealing with people of different viewpoints, we need to look for the fundamental points that we either agree or disagree on which affect the point at hand.

You seem to have indicated that your stance on gay marriage is based on a fundamental principle of "mutual adult consent."  I dismiss that as a fundamental principle.  In an earlier post I indicated several examples of why things can be done with mutual consent, and still be wrong.  But that wasn't enough to change how you thought about it.  Yet, I could hope that you at least recognized then that mutual consent is insufficient to be the sole qualifier of right and wrong.

If you can come to that agreement (that there is more to right and wrong than mutual consent) then we can have a further discussion.  If you can't, then that's the end of the discussion. 

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5 minutes ago, Mores said:

How so?  When I grew up my Catholic relatives stated that their theological position was that sex was ONLY for procreation.  That's why they didn't believe in any form of procreation other than monthly timing.

Right, but comparing to the LDS position:  we may not go so far as to say that sex is only for procreation; but I think theologically, eternal marriage is pretty much pointless without eternal increase.  So it’s not, IMHO, off the mark to say that eternal marriage is *only* for procreation.  Anything else, we can get through a lesser kingdom.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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Guest Mores
Just now, Just_A_Guy said:

 It’s not, IMHO, off the mark to say that eternal marriage is *only* for procreation.

Could be.  But I'd rebut with: A) I'm not sure if that is so.  B) I did not perceive this aspect as being in answer to M_M's question.

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Guest Mores
3 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

Right, but comparing to the LDS position:  we may not go so far as to say that sex is only for procreation; but I think theologically, eternal marriage is pretty much pointless without eternal increase.  So it’s not, IMHO, off the mark to say that eternal marriage is *only* for procreation.  Anything else, we can get through a lesser kingdom.

Sorry, I have to issue a correction.  I meant "birth control" rather than "procreation".

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5 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

So it’s not, IMHO, off the mark to say that eternal marriage is *only* for procreation.

I don't disagree, but I would argue that the major part of the fabric of eternal life is the joy of family and familial interaction. This, of course, starts with husband and wife. So "procreation" has to be understood to mean not simply the begetting of children, but the whole marriage relationship that brings it about. Perhaps I'm too influenced by western ideas of "romance", but I see this as an inescapable part of the whole. From the husband's point of view, the wife is much more than merely a vessel that magically produces life; she is a part of him in a very literal sense. The same kind of thing must be true from the wife's point of view, where the husband is not merely a "sperm donor" (to use the feminists' hateful phrase) and provider, but the focus of her affections.

Again, I fully admit I might be unduly influenced by our western tradition of the idea of romance; but even if I am, I think there's a kernel of truth there.

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26 minutes ago, Vort said:

I don't disagree, but I would argue that the major part of the fabric of eternal life is the joy of family and familial interaction. This, of course, starts with husband and wife. So "procreation" has to be understood to mean not simply the begetting of children, but the whole marriage relationship that brings it about. Perhaps I'm too influenced by western ideas of "romance", but I see this as an inescapable part of the whole. From the husband's point of view, the wife is much more than merely a vessel that magically produces life; she is a part of him in a very literal sense. The same kind of thing must be true from the wife's point of view, where the husband is not merely a "sperm donor" (to use the feminists' hateful phrase) and provider, but the focus of her affections.

Again, I fully admit I might be unduly influenced by our western tradition of the idea of romance; but even if I am, I think there's a kernel of truth there.

I completely agree with you.  The uniquely marital aspects of the relationship need to be there (I’m not sure romantic passion as understood in the 19th century and later is a sine qua non, but certainly some unique combination of companionship and respect and admiration and selflessness and mutual trust, in conjunction with some degree of exclusivity)—but the whole point is that the relationship nurtures the creation and development and training of new lives.  Otherwise, there’s just no point to it other than to pass time through eternity; since companionship and respect and admiration and selflessness and trust can all exist in the Terrestrial and Telestial kingdoms as well as they can in the Celestial.

It’s no accident that both eternal marriage and eternal increase *only* exist in the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom.

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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12 hours ago, Mores said:

You seem to have indicated that your stance on gay marriage is based on a fundamental principle of "mutual adult consent."  I dismiss that as a fundamental principle.  In an earlier post I indicated several examples of why things can be done with mutual consent, and still be wrong.  But that wasn't enough to change how you thought about it.  Yet, I could hope that you at least recognized then that mutual consent is insufficient to be the sole qualifier of right and wrong.

If you can come to that agreement (that there is more to right and wrong than mutual consent) then we can have a further discussion.  If you can't, then that's the end of the discussion. 

I have to admit that I didn't think about examples of consensual actions that could be viewed as wrong, just because it's so obvious to me that homosexual relations are nothing that could be considered "wrong". (And yes, I'm aware that I could be totally wrong about this and I'm making god angrier every day by supporting gays... but I'll gladly take that risk)

Regarding your two examples (marrying a relative or an animal): What does that have to do with gay marriage?

 

I have to admit, when I read all of your arguments on why gay marriage is "wrong", I couldn't help but think that people probably argued quite similarly before the priesthood ban was lifted ("god knows better"). Most of you would agree that it's a good thing the church got rid of it, but back then people probably tried to justify it too. 

 

I'm not relating exclusively to gay-marriage now, but just speaking in general: Since I'm not convinced that a god even exists, it's very difficult to understand why anyone would put god's will (well.. or what people claim to be god's will) above the well being of humans. 

I know that you are all trying to do good things and don't want to harm anyone intentionally. It's just difficult to watch from "outside" when people get treated poorly because others are so convinced that this is what must be done to please god. 

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6 hours ago, Madam_Mim said:

I'm not relating exclusively to gay-marriage now, but just speaking in general: Since I'm not convinced that a god even exists, it's very difficult to understand why anyone would put god's will (well.. or what people claim to be god's will) above the well being of humans. 

 

The answer is simple....  If God exists (and has the attributes we claim).  Then he knows for a fact what brings to pass the greatest well being of humans and tells us so all we have to do is follow his instructions...   Without God we are blown from one thing to another trying to guess what is "the best for humans"  Take health and diet how many people are really willing to do what it takes to live healthy?  If you read the headlines science is all over the place and often contradictory.  And that is for something as simple as physical health that should really be the low hanging fruit of "doing what is best".   Then you have things like mental and emotional health which are much harder to understand.  Then assuming God exists there are "eternal health"  How to we even begin to evaluate what might be "Best" for eternal health? 

Thus following God is putting the well being of humans first, because we trust that God is the only one that can see clearly what that is.

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6 hours ago, Madam_Mim said:

 

I have to admit that I didn't think about examples of consensual actions that could be viewed as wrong, just because it's so obvious to me that homosexual relations are nothing that could be considered "wrong". (And yes, I'm aware that I could be totally wrong about this and I'm making god angrier every day by supporting gays... but I'll gladly take that risk)

Regarding your two examples (marrying a relative or an animal): What does that have to do with gay marriage?

 

I have to admit, when I read all of your arguments on why gay marriage is "wrong", I couldn't help but think that people probably argued quite similarly before the priesthood ban was lifted ("god knows better"). Most of you would agree that it's a good thing the church got rid of it, but back then people probably tried to justify it too. 

 

I'm not relating exclusively to gay-marriage now, but just speaking in general: Since I'm not convinced that a god even exists, it's very difficult to understand why anyone would put god's will (well.. or what people claim to be god's will) above the well being of humans. 

I know that you are all trying to do good things and don't want to harm anyone intentionally. It's just difficult to watch from "outside" when people get treated poorly because others are so convinced that this is what must be done to please god. 

Gay marriage and Black Priesthood are 2 unrelated scenarios.  Gay marriage is an Eternal Principle, Black Priesthood is a dispensationary restriction.

To see if you can look at homosexuality differently, I’m going to ask you a few questions:  Do you believe that Gender is interchangeable?  Do you believe  that there is nothing about Motherhood intrinsic to female and there is nothing about being a Wife intrinsic to female?  And similarly for Fatherhood and being a Husband to male?

Do you believe that Sexual Attraction is always first for Love to follow?  Define Love.

Edited by anatess2
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