BYU - Call to Arms


mikbone
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31 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

Heck, even when I was a young man and seeking that super-model ideal, I knew it was shallow and I ought to grow up and consider other things than symmetry and size of facial and body features.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2016/04/in-praise-of-those-who-save?lang=eng

“Now, just one word to those of our single brethren who follow the deception that they first have to find the “perfect woman” before they can enter into serious courting or marriage.
My beloved brethren, may I remind you, if there were a perfect woman, do you really think she would be that interested in you?“

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54 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

This isn't necessarily a reply...just sharing more thoughts on the matter.

The problem with the whole "gay" ideology (and I'm talking specifically in the church where we, theoretically understand sex and love and commitment and relationships and all that stuff from an eternal perspective) is that it tends to claim something that isn't really ultimately true for anyone. It's like this special case that applies to gay people but no to one else. That claim is of two parts. That they need to be "attracted" to be sexually fulfilled, and that they cannot be happy if they aren't sexually fulfilled.

 

The even more sinister corollary is that if you have no hope of being sexually fulfilled, you have no hope of ever having a fulfilling life at all and that whatever life you may have left is a sort of stunted life, a half-life.

And then they wonder why suicide rates go through the roof when some of their audience grows up and learns the harsh truth that, just through the vicissitudes of life, not every Jack gets a Jill (or even another Jack).

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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On 8/25/2021 at 10:24 PM, mikbone said:

Elder Holland's recent talk has got me wondering.  

Definitely the talk was a call for the faculty and staff to step up and defend the faith, using the gospel teachings on marriage and family to illustrate (there are so many other areas of "confusion and conflict" to wrestle with these days as well). Political ideology and social (rather, socio-sexual?) activism are not the Lord's way. And if they can't bridge matters of faith and intellect in the Lord's / Lord's anointed's way -- President Kimball's reference to a unique and special way, they will make decision based on the fact that higher education is not essential for exaltation, its proper place of being a tool for building Zion. This is more of the crux, in my opinion, than LGBTQ+, feminism, or demasculinization issues per se, though these are a problem.

What to do? I think Elder Holland is taking the "teach correct principles and let them govern themselves" approach for the speech, but is also (as part of the Trustees and Board, etc.) putting a structure in place to do that (the cabinet-level Office of Belonging).

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A friend of mine made this post on Facebook.

 

Quote
Many of you have seen recent news and commentary concerning a speech that Elder Jeffrey R Holland made to the faculty, and administration at BYU. In the speech he made some comments about how we should treat people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community. The gist of his message was to be kind, and loving to everyone, while we also defend the doctrine of Christ.
There has been a lot of strong, negative response to Elder Holland’s comments. “Yahoo” in particular had an extremely dishonest headline and article referring to it.
I read the entire speech. And I will say unequivocally that anyone who believes that Elder Holland said anything unkind, or inappropriate really does not understand exactly what Elder Holland said. I believe that all of his words were fully in harmony with the will of the Lord.
 

 

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On 8/28/2021 at 4:49 PM, mikbone said:

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2016/04/in-praise-of-those-who-save?lang=eng

“Now, just one word to those of our single brethren who follow the deception that they first have to find the “perfect woman” before they can enter into serious courting or marriage.
My beloved brethren, may I remind you, if there were a perfect woman, do you really think she would be that interested in you?“

Funny thing...

Yes.

I married her.

Sometimes one gets lucky and marries the perfect gal.

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11 hours ago, JohnsonJones said:

Sometimes one gets lucky and marries the perfect gal.

And if she wasn't the perfect gal, she will soon fix your faulty way of thinking so that she becomes the perfect gal 😉

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On 8/26/2021 at 7:22 PM, Vort said:

I have spent a good portion of my life trying to overcome this poisonous philosophy and to teach my sons and daughter that it's a Satanic falsehood. We appear to agree on most matters, but if your summary above is sincere, we certainly disagree on this.

My personal experiences and observations of the world around me lead me to believe women are more righteous than men.  

1.) I don't see nearly as many women abusing men as much as I see men abusing women. Does that translate to one sex being more righteous than another? I don't know, but for me it more so supports rather than invalidates the idea that women in general are more righteous.

2.) Girls are more mature than boys when it comes to having a first-time, romantic, adolescent relationship.  But again, does early maturity in adolescent, romantic relationships translate to one sex being more righteous than another?  Not necessarily, but it might be why so many like me have similar thoughts surrounding the subject. 

The heartbreak I unintentionally caused with the adolescent relationships I was involved in was largely due to my immaturity. In retrospect, the girls I dated were just these sweetheart, balls of love, and I regretfully didn't carry myself as transparently as I wish I would have.

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10 minutes ago, clbent04 said:
On 8/26/2021 at 10:22 PM, Vort said:

 

My personal experiences and observations of the world around me lead me to believe women are more righteous than men.  

Ironically, my personal experiences and observations lead me to believe this is very naive and incredibly damaging to both men and women. 
 

If you think a woman can’t emotionally damage, manipulate or physically abuse another woman or, yes, a man, I advise you to go to your local high school and watch girls tease one another into eating disorders. Or a college. 
 

Watch how women treat one another when they join MLM schemes. Think women aren’t capable of evil? Being serious, not funny. 
 

If you think women can’t abuse men emotionally or hurt them, I advise you to pay attention to custody hearings when women punish their children for mistakes made in the marriage. 

I could go on and on. You are way off base here. 

Edited by LDSGator
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31 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

Ironically, my personal experiences and observations lead me to believe this is very naive and incredibly damaging to both men and women. 
 

If you think a woman can’t emotionally damage, manipulate or physically abuse another woman or, yes, a man, I advise you to go to your local high school and watch girls tease one another into eating disorders. Or a college. 
 

Watch how women treat one another when they join MLM schemes. Think women aren’t capable of evil? Being serious, not funny. 
 

If you think women can’t abuse men emotionally or hurt them, I advise you to pay attention to custody hearings when women punish their children for mistakes made in the marriage. 

I could go on and on. You are way off base here. 

Women aren’t innocent. I wasn’t suggesting that.

Also I specified upfront that my opinion is based on my personal experiences and observations of the world.

Females are sex trafficked more than males and domestically abused more in terms of physical violence.

Emotional abuse of course goes both ways.

No way to offer a solid answer on this.

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3 minutes ago, clbent04 said:

Females are sex trafficked more than males and domestically abused more in terms of physical violence.

We agree on sex trafficking, but even that is “complicated”. The dirty little secret is that only those in high risk occupations (exotic dancers, heavy drug users) have to worry about that, and even then it’s pretty rare. Your odds of being trafficked if you aren’t a stripper (in America) are essentially zero. Anyway....

 

 With domestic violence I agree more women are victims, but you’d be surprised. It’s just that since men are generally (generally, not always, generally) stronger the effect is more obvious. 

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28 minutes ago, LDSGator said:

We agree on sex trafficking, but even that is “complicated”. The dirty little secret is that only those in high risk occupations (exotic dancers, heavy drug users) have to worry about that, and even then it’s pretty rare. Your odds of being trafficked if you aren’t a stripper (in America) are essentially zero. Anyway....

 

 With domestic violence I agree more women are victims, but you’d be surprised. It’s just that since men are generally (generally, not always, generally) stronger the effect is more obvious. 

The thing is, most “trafficking” these days doesn’t look like it does on TV.  Trafficking victims, by and large, aren’t being kept in dingy warehouses under armed guard by pimps who kidnapped them from loving homes.  They are being kept, by their parents, in their own homes.  A good bit of modern western trafficking is done by drug-addled middle-aged single women who trade their daughters (and often, their very young sons) for a hit of meth or for next month’s rent.  

It’s so decentralized that it never even hits the radar of law enforcement agencies, or even dedicated organizations like Operation Underground Railroad.  In working with DCFS—I don’t think I’ve ever seen a case where we were called in to investigate trafficking and found conclusive evidence of trafficking.  Usually what happens is that we snag kids because of drug use or environmental hazards in the home, and four or five months go by until the kid is feeling safe enough in foster care that she starts to open up about what else had been going on in the home.  

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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10 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

good bit of modern western trafficking is done by drug-addled middle-aged single women who trade their daughters (and often, their very young sons) for a hit of meth or for next month’s rent.  

Which proves my point. Unless you are involved in drugs, or, tragically, your family is, your odds of being trafficked are very low. Suburban moms going to Target don’t have to worry about it. 
 

No, that doesn’t mean I think trafficking isn’t a problem. It’s horrific when it happens. I have no problem giving traffickers life in prison. 
 

It does mean that societal fear of it is grossly, almost absurdly, overblown.

 

Edited by LDSGator
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2 hours ago, LDSGator said:

We agree on sex trafficking, but even that is “complicated”. The dirty little secret is that only those in high risk occupations (exotic dancers, heavy drug users) have to worry about that, and even then it’s pretty rare. Your odds of being trafficked if you aren’t a stripper (in America) are essentially zero. Anyway....

 

 With domestic violence I agree more women are victims, but you’d be surprised. It’s just that since men are generally (generally, not always, generally) stronger the effect is more obvious. 

Statistics regarding abuse:

https://ncadv.org/STATISTICS

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1 in 4 women and 1 in 9 men experience severe intimate partner physical violence, intimate partner contact sexual violence, and/or intimate partner stalking with impacts such as injury, fearfulness, post-traumatic stress disorder, use of victim services, contraction of sexually transmitted diseases, etc.

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1 in 7 women and 1 in 25 men have been injured by an intimate partner.

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1 in 5 women and 1 in 71 men in the United States has been raped in their lifetime.

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72% of all murder-suicides involve an intimate partner; 94% of the victims of these murder suicides are female.

Plenty more statistics support the same result that women are more sexually and physically abused than men.  Any cop who's been on the job long enough would tell you the same. 

Still don't think there's a leaning of women being more sexually and physically abused than men? 

https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures

Quote

At least 200 million women and girls, aged 15–49 years, have undergone female genital mutilation in 31 countries where the practice is concentrated. Half of these countries are in West Africa. There are still countries where female genital mutilation is almost universal, where at least 9 in 10 girls and women, aged 15–49 years, have been cut

Quote

Most violence against women is perpetrated by current or former husbands or intimate partners. More than 640 million women aged 15 and older have been subjected to intimate partner violence (26 per cent of women aged 15 and older)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/07/29/12-trafficking-statistics-enormity-global-sex-trade/1755192001/

Quote

The vast majority of sex trafficking victims are women and girls, though men, boys, trans, intersex and nonbinary individuals can be victims as well. The International Labour Organization estimates that 99% of the adults and children forced into sexual exploitation in 2016 are female.  

Like @Just_A_Guy suggested, sex trafficking in the United States isn't what the average person thinks it is, and it is much more prevalent than you may realize.  While well-off American girls are hardly the victims, the main victims are poor Asian foreigners who come to the United States to work as prostitutes who operate under the guise of your neighborhood massage parlor. 

You know that innocuous looking massage place in the same plaza as the Wal-Mart you shop at?  Unless it's a recognized, reputable massage franchise, there's a good chance they're handing out more than back rubs over there.

I see the illicit massage parlor busts at least a couple times a year in the news.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2021/04/04/inside-the-45-billion-erotic-massage-parlor-economy/?sh=5da00dfc79a8

Quote

“Most Americans can find one in a short driving distance,” says Mehlman-Orozco.

 

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9 hours ago, clbent04 said:

Statistics regarding abuse:

https://ncadv.org/STATISTICS

Plenty more statistics support the same result that women are more sexually and physically abused than men.  Any cop who's been on the job long enough would tell you the same. 

Still don't think there's a leaning of women being more sexually and physically abused than men? 

https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/07/29/12-trafficking-statistics-enormity-global-sex-trade/1755192001/

Like @Just_A_Guy suggested, sex trafficking in the United States isn't what the average person thinks it is, and it is much more prevalent than you may realize.  While well-off American girls are hardly the victims, the main victims are poor Asian foreigners who come to the United States to work as prostitutes who operate under the guise of your neighborhood massage parlor. 

You know that innocuous looking massage place in the same plaza as the Wal-Mart you shop at?  Unless it's a recognized, reputable massage franchise, there's a good chance they're handing out more than back rubs over there.

I see the illicit massage parlor busts at least a couple times a year in the news.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyakowicz/2021/04/04/inside-the-45-billion-erotic-massage-parlor-economy/?sh=5da00dfc79a8

 

 What you are forgetting is the large number of men who won't call emergency services to admit that they’ve been assaulted by a woman. 

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Men are children of God and therefore have great and unlimited potential for good.

Women are children of God and therefore have great and unlimited potential for good.

Men are fallen and therefore have great potential for evil.

Women are fallen and therefore have great potential for evil.

All four statements are 100% correct.  Focusing on just one or just a few will mean we are not seeing the big picture.

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1 hour ago, LDSGator said:

 What you are forgetting is the large number of men who won't call emergency services to admit that they’ve been assaulted by a woman. 

The same goes for women. 

https://www.unwomen.org/en/what-we-do/ending-violence-against-women/facts-and-figures

“Fewer than 40 per cent of the women who experience violence seek help of any sort. In the majority of countries with available data on this issue, among women who do seek help, most look to family and friends, and very few look to formal institutions, such as police and health services. Fewer than 10 per cent of those seeking help appealed to the police.”

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1 hour ago, estradling75 said:

Men are children of God and therefore have great and unlimited potential for good.

Women are children of God and therefore have great and unlimited potential for good.

Men are fallen and therefore have great potential for evil.

Women are fallen and therefore have great potential for evil.

All four statements are 100% correct.  Focusing on just one or just a few will mean we are not seeing the big picture.

I acknowledge that although my life experiences and observations have led me to have the opinion I do, it's important to step back and look at the bigger picture here like you're doing.

Whether I'm right or wrong about men having a greater tendency to do evil things, doesn't change the fact both sexes have unlimited potential for good.

But here's a question: How is polygamy going to be practiced in the Celestial Kingdom if we have the exact same number of men and women?

Edited by clbent04
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21 minutes ago, clbent04 said:

But here's a question: How is polygamy going to be practiced in the Celestial Kingdom if we have the exact same number of men and women?

The counter question:  Do you think God wants us teaching his sons.. "the odds are against you making it?" either directly or through implication?

The simple reality is that there have always been theological mysteries, because we lack Full Light and Knowledge.   Joseph Smith came along with the Restoration with Greater Light and Knowledge, and resolved many theological mysteries that had existed for a very long time.  But Greater Light is not Full Light so we should not be surprised that there are still theological mysteries.  This is one of them. 

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1 hour ago, clbent04 said:

I acknowledge that although my life experiences and observations have led me to have the opinion I do, it's important to step back and look at the bigger picture here like you're doing.

Whether I'm right or wrong about men having a greater tendency to do evil things, doesn't change the fact both sexes have unlimited potential for good.

But here's a question: How is polygamy going to be practiced in the Celestial Kingdom if we have the exact same number of men and women?

I think it stands to reason that there are more righteous women than men.

I also think it stands to reason that there are more excellent black basketball players than white ones.

But it does not stand to reason that therefore if a man is black he must be good at basketball. Which is, I believe, the point you're getting at.

Women, overall, are more righteous than men is a very different statement than saying a woman, by nature of her being a woman, is automatically more righteous than a man. That's clearly false.

Edited by The Folk Prophet
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And, incidentally @clbent04, this question of women being more righteous than men IS the reason for polygamy. As @Just_A_Guy has pointed out before (among others) it actually doesn't make any more children than monogamy. But it does have the potential to raise more righteous children because of the reality that there are more righteous women. And...when push comes to shove, it is absolutely requisite to have some form of plural marriage if A. Sex is eternal and B. Marriage between a man and a woman is required for exaltation and C. There aren't the exact same amount of women and men that become exalted.

I don't know about you, or anyone else, but pondering on the implications of these things is moderately mind blowing.

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49 minutes ago, The Folk Prophet said:

And, incidentally @clbent04, this question of women being more righteous than men IS the reason for polygamy. As @Just_A_Guy has pointed out before (among others) it actually doesn't make any more children than monogamy. But it does have the potential to raise more righteous children because of the reality that there are more righteous women. And...when push comes to shove, it is absolutely requisite to have some form of plural marriage if A. Sex is eternal and B. Marriage between a man and a woman is required for exaltation and C. There aren't the exact same amount of women and men that become exalted.

I don't know about you, or anyone else, but pondering on the implications of these things is moderately mind blowing.

Totally agree  but I would add D.  The number of worthy men does not outnumber the number of worthy women..  Namely because we have no tools to handle that situation.

The corollary to this idea that the more polygamy is practiced in Heaven... the more brutal the implication toward men.  The mortal birthrates have largely been 50/50 which imply that in the pre-earth life we were near 50/50 as well.  If exaltation has a 2 women (or more)for every man deal.  That would mean that men are 50% (or worse) less likely to make it then women, and that is a very brutal assessment.

So for me I am counting on a really close to equal numbers of men and women. With polygamy picking up slack. 

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6 minutes ago, estradling75 said:

Totally agree  but I would add D.  The number of worthy men does not outnumber the number of worthy women..  Namely because we have no tools to handle that situation.

The D was left unspoken because that's part of the mind-blowing implication thing I was referencing.

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