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3 hours ago, MormonGator said:

I think we need to focus more on the forgiveness and repentance part. I don't want people who have committed these sins to lose hope in the atonement. 

Sure, but neither do we want people who have committed these sins to ignore the path to forgiveness.

Why are sins ranked by severity, beyond the leader's need to guide a member through repentance?

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Guest MormonGator
13 minutes ago, Grunt said:

Sure, but neither do we want people who have committed these sins to ignore the path to forgiveness.

Right, I never said otherwise. Sorry to disappoint you, no argument here. 

13 minutes ago, Grunt said:

 Why are sins ranked by severity, beyond the leader's need to guide a member through repentance?

Yeah, um, again, no argument here. Like I said three times, sexual sin is very serious, and yes, a leader needs to help you through it...yup. 

But guess what? We should still focus on the glory that is forgiveness. 
 

Edited by MormonGator
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10 minutes ago, Grunt said:

Why are sins ranked by severity, beyond the leader's need to guide a member through repentance?

In general, sins are not ranked by severity. In the case of sexual sins, I think the Lord and his leaders wish to emphasize the spiritually deadly nature of such sins.

We are not Roman Catholics. We do not divide sins up into "mortal" and "venial" categories. All sins are potentially mortal. We have no doctrine of an afterlife purgatory where sins are purged and remitted. Repentance, now and (or) in the spirit world after death, is available during "this day" when we are to prepare to meet God. But the old Catholic idea of "mortal" sins is useful to our benighted mortal minds as a way to point up especially egregious and damaging actions. That's my view, anyway.

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5 hours ago, Vort said:

In general, sins are not ranked by severity. In the case of sexual sins, I think the Lord and his leaders wish to emphasize the spiritually deadly nature of such sins.

i believe you to be correct except that the Lord himself has ranked sins. The most grave being murder and the next in severity?... sexual sins.

sins generally are ranked in severity in terms of how punishment or uhh the forgiveness process is doled out. Ranges from stop doing that to excommunication. The notion the sins are not ranked is laughable. Somewhere in handbook one is a penalty chart i am sure.  I have in my lifetime been through the repentence process for sexual sin, wow violation and for  not being sustaining of a stake young mens leader (calling him out publicly for a safety issue). Believe me these sins were very different in how they were handled. Ill say this much...the fornication was the lightest sanction of them all so next to murder in practice? I think not. Definitley not how it is and has been sold over the years.

 

Edited by mrmarket
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16 hours ago, MarginOfError said:

If you're going to rank the severity of sins, you can put denying the Holy Ghost and murder in first and second place, and then you can put "sexual sin" in third place, but I imagine it is a very distant third place. 

so is that what we get to do now? Shuffling the ranks of sins after the Lord himself ranked a few. No thanks.

as for most reasonable adults not believing masturbation is next to murder...i agree in fact i do t think it really is all that serious. Problem is there are others in the church who think it is and that is where the problem is. Sometimes they are leaders and their hobby horse makes for a lasting impression. 

 

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 Problem is there are others in the church who think it is and that is where the problem is.  Sometimes they are leaders and their hobby horse makes for a lasting impression.

Life is much easier when you aim your sights on the truth, and gain the Godlike attribute of not being a respecter of persons.   I've had around a dozen bishops in my life, each one better than the last.  And each with a different personal failing or weird take on something.  Most of them knew their faults, or their opinion was weird, some of them didn't.  

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It makes no difference what is written or what anyone has said, if what has been said is in conflict with what the Lord has revealed, we can set it aside. My words, and the teaching of any other member of the Church, high or low, if they do not square with the revelations, we need not accept them. Let us have this matter clear.
   - Joseph Fielding Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1956, 3:203-4

 

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If anyone, regardless of his position in the Church, were to advance a doctrine that is not substantiated by the standard Church works, meaning the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, you may know that his statement is merely his private opinion. The only one authorized to bring forth any new doctrine is the President of the Church, who, when he does, will declare it as revelation from God, and it will be so accepted by the Council of the Twelve and sustained by the body of the Church. And if any man speak a doctrine which contradicts what is in the standard Church works, you may know by that same token that it is false and you are not bound to accept it as truth.
 - President Harold B. Lee, The First Area General Conference for Germany, Austria, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, France, Belgium, and Spain of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, held in Munich Germany, August 24-26, 1973

 

 

Edited by NeuroTypical
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All sins take us away from the divine, but some sins ARE more serious than others.  Sins that are more serious impact others as well as our own spiritual development more than others which have less impact.

For example, let's say I have a brother and in a fit of anger I call him a fool and an idiot.  As per the Higher Law found in the New Testament I have sinned.  The impact of this can vary.  One benefit is that my brother is still alive.  I can reconcile with him.  I can apologize.  I can make amends.  I can try to restore anything that he may have lost.  I can try to show that I think he is actually better than what I said.  I can do all matter of things to try to show that I did not mean it or that I feel otherwise.

On the otherhand, let's say I instead murder him.  His mortal progression has stopped suddenly.  I cannot apologize to him face to face in his and my mortal life.  It is impossible.  I cannot restore his life.  I cannot make amends to him.  That is just the start of the impact on his immortal and eternal progression.  The impact it has on me could be far worse.

Both were sins.  Both remove me from the spirit, however ONE is far more serious in that the repentance of it is far harder than the other.

Thus we come to immorality. 

When I was a young man going to school there was this idea that you did not own yourself.  When you were married the husband was owned by their wife and their wife was owned by their husband, or their body was.  Thus, anything you did was using someone else's property.

In that light, we were taught that make out sessions or kissing more than a light friendly kiss (such as one might give a family member) was a betrayal of trust.  It was not something to be done lightly.  I know people do not look at it this way anymore, but there has also been a great and massive decay regarding morality in our Western society in modern times.

However, it could get more serious than there, up to, and including sins of fornication.  In this, one is actually giving something away and taking something from someone else.  This is something that you cannot restore.  You can apologize, you can try to say you are sorry, but once given or taken it can never be restored.   This is a very serious matter because this is one of the few sins where it involves something that cannot be restored afterwards.

In the instance of adultery it is even worse, as this is not even your body that is being used, it is your spouse's.  You are stealing the very property of your spouse to do acts that violate the trust of your spouse.  You CAN apologize, you might even be able to have your spouse's trust restored, but you cannot restore the actions that were taken and the body that was violated in the act.

There are other sins that are extremely serious and others which may not impact others as much, but can still have serious damage to our spiritual senses and advancement.

Luckily, the Lord has provided the atonement and through it we can be cleansed from all sins except sinning against the Holy Ghost.

Now, in some instances, the sins are so serious that we may be abridging our ability to attain certain positions in the afterlife.  However, we can be assured that we will not be left in Hell and will be restored to some form of glory if we but repent.

Yes, ALL sin removes us from the presence of our Father, but some sins impact us and others FAR more than other sins.  This is one reason why Alma told his son that the sin was so serious and next to murder.  There are sins that have a tremendous negative impact not just on our own spiritual wellbeing, but that of others. 

 

Edited by JohnsonJones
removing some personal information that may give too much about me.
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