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LDS II: The Mormons

Loss Leader said:
You know what, skyrider44? I'm going to take up your cause for you. This is my best argument against gay marriage:

1. The goal of all humans should be to be righteous in the eyes of God and united with him in death.
2. Only through the Mormon faith may people truly be righteous and all that stuff I said in #1.
3. It is the obligation of the righteous to bring others to God through the Mormon church.
4. It is the obligation of those with sin to live righteously and to be faithful to the teachings of the Mormon church.
5. Homosexuality is a sin which prevents individuals from union with God in this life or in death.
6. Thus, it is the duty of Mormons to convince people to renounce their homosexuality and practice the Mormon faith (and it is the duty of sinners to be convinced).
7. Anything that makes it easier or more acceptable to be homosexual makes it more difficult to convince homosexuals to do that stuff I said in #1 and #5.
8. Gay marriage makes it easier for people to be homosexual.
9. Thus, gay marriage should not be allowed.

This appears to be the only honest, logically consistent argument against gay marriage that I can construct. Those who are so inclined may attack my logic. Don't bother attacking the truth value of any of the premises as I obviously don't believe they are true.

However, if the truth value of the premises is assumed, it would appear to be the duty of every right-thinking individual to actively make life as difficult for homosexuals as possible.
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This is so pathetically sad.
 
Catching up here after a particularly intense bout of RL, I see skyrider replied to a point of mine some days back

skyrider44 said:
Research on the effects of children living with same-sex parents is mixed. Some studies report it is a problem, while others claim it is not. Consequently, it isn't accurate to say that there is no problem.
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Nor, of course, is it accurate to say there is a problem, given the presented evidence.

skyrider's post represents precisely the sort of twisted logic that led me to write

skyrider44 said:
pakeha said:
This sort of intellectual dishonesty shown by deliberate misusing sources is, IMO, the result of rationalising the need to accept Smith's frauds regarding the BoM and the BoA.
It's why accepting lies 'for the greater good' is so pernicious, in my view.
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So, accepting the BoM and BA predisposes Latter-day Saints to accept certain research that shows children are harmed by being raised by same-sex parents.

Surely you aren't serious.
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Other posters wrote
Brainache said:
It certainly predisposes them to ignore facts in favour of ideology.
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Foster Zygote said:
I'm sure pakeha is being very serious. You've already demonstrated that you will ignore glaringly obvious evidence regarding the founder of your religion, why should we expect you to acknowledge scientific institutions that say that homosexuality is a normal aspect of human behavior?
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Oh, yes, quite serious, indeed.
Intellectual dishonesty inveigles us into the most amazing rationalisations imaginable.
It's why I go back again and again to what to me is the crux of the Morman point of view on their own church and its teachings- they're basing any thoughts or conclusions on a cognitive dissonance, a dissonance formed by consciously or unconsciously repressing the truth about Smith's con games respecting his 'inspired translations'.
 
Myriad said:
If you're referring to the story of Babel, the Lord God's reason for confounding the language is quite clearly told: aversion to brick cities, tall towers, and/or human aspiration in general.

So, what's the official LDS policy on the building of cities, the use of bricks in construction, and the permissible height of towers guaranteed not to make the Lord God fearful that heaven might be invaded?

The Washington DC LDS Temple is 288 feet tall. The LDS Office Building in Salt Lake City is 420 feet. That's definitely getting up near the theoretical maximum height that could possibly have been built of brick in ancient times. But of course we now use steel for tall buildings and so can build them much taller than that. Is that not a cause for concern? What about aircraft and spacecraft, that go much higher? How seriously does the LDS take that Genesis passage anyhow?

What about language translation software? Are you not afraid that if we work around the problems of communications too effectively, God will try some new affliction to (literally) keep us down? What if next time He decides to just blind us all?

I wonder whether you've thought this through.

Respectfully,
Myriad
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http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/1-2?lang=eng
B of A 1:17 And this because they have turned their hearts away from me...

The intent and motive to build the Tower was an attempt to reach Heaven by their own labour, disregarding the Commandments of God... the obeying of which is the only way. The Lord was displeased, and confounded the language to segregate the varying degrees of righteousness amongst the people.

It was not the height which was significant, it was the intent of the hearts of the unrighteous who sought to reach Heaven without the blessing of their Heavenly Father.

Jared and his brother were righteous men who lived near the Tower and who loved and obeyed God. They and their people, who were called the Jaredites, retained the language and were led by the Lord to America. See Ether 1:35, 37 in the Book of Mormon. http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/ether/1?lang=eng

The unrighteous were scattered and segregated according to the degree of their wickedness.

http://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/gen/11?lang=eng
 
Cat Tale said:
It's something that, if you give me a couple months, I can look into in my spare time cause it's one of those things I'm now interested in. In just a quick 5 minute search I did find some things that looked interesting in the Deseret News and other online newspapers. I should say, historic newspapers, not recent. :) I'll get back to you on that later.
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I'm looking forward to reading what you uncover. :)

Back to the topic of gay marriage, the majority of Americans support the legalization of gay marriage.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_opinion_of_same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States#Polls_in_2013

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/31/gallup-gay-marriage-poll-_n_3682884.html

Interracial marriage didn't have that high an approval rating until the 1990's.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/28417/most-americans-approve-interracial-marriages.aspx

During the civil rights movement, approval of interracial marriage was around 20%.
 
Janadele said:
http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/1-2?lang=eng
B of A 1:17 And this because they have turned their hearts away from me...

The intent and motive to build the Tower was an attempt to reach Heaven by their own labour, disregarding the Commandments of God... the obeying of which is the only way. The Lord was displeased, and confounded the language to segregate the varying degrees of righteousness amongst the people.

It was not the height which was significant, it was the intent of the hearts of the unrighteous who sought to reach Heaven without the blessing of their Heavenly Father.

Jared and his brother were righteous men who lived near the Tower and who loved and obeyed God. They and their people, who were called the Jaredites, retained the language and were led by the Lord to America. See Ether 1:35, 37 in the Book of Mormon. http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/ether/1?lang=eng

The unrighteous were scattered and segregated according to the degree of their wickedness.

http://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/gen/11?lang=eng
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Except that all of the evidence to date shows migration patterns. These patterns were established prior to DNA and supported by multiple lines of evidence. DNA has since confirmed them.
 
pakeha said:
Intellectual dishonesty inveigles us into the most amazing rationalisations imaginable.
It's why I go back again and again to what to me is the crux of the Morman point of view on their own church and its teachings- they're basing any thoughts or conclusions on a cognitive dissonance, a dissonance formed by consciously or unconsciously repressing the truth about Smith's con games respecting his 'inspired translations'.
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Indeed. It isn't that acceptance of the Book Of Mormon and the Book Of Abraham predisposes LDS to accept certain research that shows children are harmed by being raised by same-sex parents. It predisposes (many of) them to accept certain research that pretends to show said harm.
 
It's important to keep the issue of gay adoption in perspective. There is a very real shortage of adoptive and foster parents for children who are older than toddler age. It strikes me as short-sighted and foolish to deny children loving homes with gay couples based upon vague and debunked fears in a world where this happens:

Feel like cannot cope with your child anymore? Parents in the US found a very easy way of solving such problems. They sell or give for free their unwanted rascals to strangers through the Internet. The future of those children is unknown since the US government is typically unaware of such arrangements.

Which would be a better fate for a child? To be adopted by a gay or lesbian couple who had passed an adoption agency's screening process, or to be given away on Craigslist like an unwanted rabbit or dog?
 
Janadele said:
http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/1-2?lang=eng
B of A 1:17 And this because they have turned their hearts away from me...

The intent and motive to build the Tower was an attempt to reach Heaven by their own labour, disregarding the Commandments of God... the obeying of which is the only way. The Lord was displeased, and confounded the language to segregate the varying degrees of righteousness amongst the people.

It was not the height which was significant, it was the intent of the hearts of the unrighteous who sought to reach Heaven without the blessing of their Heavenly Father.

Jared and his brother were righteous men who lived near the Tower and who loved and obeyed God. They and their people, who were called the Jaredites, retained the language and were led by the Lord to America. See Ether 1:35, 37 in the Book of Mormon. http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/ether/1?lang=eng

The unrighteous were scattered and segregated according to the degree of their wickedness.

http://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/gen/11?lang=eng
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So those were the guys with the chariots pulled by the tapirs?
 
halleyscomet said:
It's important to keep the issue of gay adoption in perspective. There is a very real shortage of adoptive and foster parents for children who are older than toddler age. It strikes me as short-sighted and foolish to deny children loving homes with gay couples based upon vague and debunked fears in a world where this happens:

Feel like cannot cope with your child anymore? Parents in the US found a very easy way of solving such problems. They sell or give for free their unwanted rascals to strangers through the Internet. The future of those children is unknown since the US government is typically unaware of such arrangements.

Which would be a better fate for a child? To be adopted by a gay or lesbian couple who had passed an adoption agency's screening process, or to be given away on Craigslist like an unwanted rabbit or dog?
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Excellent point especially since several studies indicate that gay couples tend to be far more willing to take in older, sicker, and more troubled children than straight couples are. In some states, half of all gay adoptive parents adopted children designated as special-needs. Gays also have much higher rates of adopting minority children than straight couples. The children that many gay couples adopt would otherwise languish for years in foster care limbo.
 
Janadele said:
http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/abr/1-2?lang=eng
B of A 1:17 And this because they have turned their hearts away from me...

The intent and motive to build the Tower was an attempt to reach Heaven by their own labour, disregarding the Commandments of God... the obeying of which is the only way. The Lord was displeased, and confounded the language to segregate the varying degrees of righteousness amongst the people.

It was not the height which was significant, it was the intent of the hearts of the unrighteous who sought to reach Heaven without the blessing of their Heavenly Father.

Jared and his brother were righteous men who lived near the Tower and who loved and obeyed God. They and their people, who were called the Jaredites, retained the language and were led by the Lord to America. See Ether 1:35, 37 in the Book of Mormon. http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/ether/1?lang=eng

The unrighteous were scattered and segregated according to the degree of their wickedness.

http://www.lds.org/scriptures/ot/gen/11?lang=eng
Click to expand...

I prefer real history.
 
gabeygoat said:
What language is that? Is it now lost?
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jaredites

http://eom.byu.edu/index.php/Jaredites

Details are sparse, but according to the Book of Mormon, they would have emigrated from Asia. Their written language was intelligible to the Nephite King Mosiah I a thousand years or so after their migration. Keep in mind, written Chinese is an example of a single written language used by multiple spoken languages. Developing a common written language would probably have been a priority for the scattered peoples. By creating a common written language for multiple spoken tongues, China pretty much stuck its tongue out at the Babel curse and threw it a rude gesture before moving on.

The Nephite's probably spoke a form of Aramaic.

If the Jaredites influenced the surrounding peoples or left behind a remnant speaking their native tongue, then the original language spoken by Adam and Eve would probably have been a precursor to one of the modern Asian language families. The written language would have to be a written trade language, like Chinese, for a Nephite king descended from Palestinian Jews to read it a thousand years later.

Amusingly, the Nephite and Jaredites narratives and the fact that their scribes shared a written language tells us that commerce had already started finding a way around the Babel curse before the Jaredites migrated to the Americas.

So, to answer your question, the written language of the Jaredites had to be ideographic and in use by the Babylonian empire for trade purposes around the time the Nephites left Palestine. The following is probably representative:
http://www2.econ.iastate.edu/classes/econ355/choi/bab.htm

The spoken language was, given the Eastern Asian origins of the Jaredites, of the Sino-Tibetan family. The King Mosiah I incident tells us the Oceanic languages are right out, as they would not have has even a ghost of a chance of enough Babylonian trade relations for the shared common written language to be in use in both locations. Indian language families are contenders to be the descendants of the Jaredite language, but China is a more likely contender due to it's superior position for the described Trans-Pacific migration. China hits the sweet spot of necessary geography and trade relations.
 
There's been a lot of discussion here about what, if any, role the LDS church should play in enforcing Mormon morals upon non-Momrons. To further that discussion, I'd like to discuss the incident described at the following link:

http://imgur.com/gallery/zwCGHQs

Assuming the incident is accurately described, what we have is a group of Mormons treating a non-Mormon acquaintance poorly because of a tattoo and revealing attire. The image is of a letter written by one of the Mormons in question a few months after the incident.
 
halleyscomet said:
It's important to keep the issue of gay adoption in perspective. There is a very real shortage of adoptive and foster parents for children who are older than toddler age. It strikes me as short-sighted and foolish to deny children loving homes with gay couples based upon vague and debunked fears in a world where this happens:

Feel like cannot cope with your child anymore? Parents in the US found a very easy way of solving such problems. They sell or give for free their unwanted rascals to strangers through the Internet. The future of those children is unknown since the US government is typically unaware of such arrangements.

Which would be a better fate for a child? To be adopted by a gay or lesbian couple who had passed an adoption agency's screening process, or to be given away on Craigslist like an unwanted rabbit or dog?
Click to expand...

Beating a well worn drum here, but I would also point out that adoption by gay persons and gay couples (which includes, of course, adoption of the children of a partner's previous unions) in some places at least long long predated single sex marriage and civil union. The long acceptance of gay adoption, and the existence of the resulting families, was one of the motivations for the Vermont Supreme Court's ruling that resulted in civil unions. Using the adoption angle to resist gay marriage is an argument for turning the clock back, not forward.
 
halleyscomet said:
There's been a lot of discussion here about what, if any, role the LDS church should play in enforcing Mormon morals upon non-Momrons. To further that discussion, I'd like to discuss the incident described at the following link:

http://imgur.com/gallery/zwCGHQs

Assuming the incident is accurately described, what we have is a group of Mormons treating a non-Mormon acquaintance poorly because of a tattoo and revealing attire. The image is of a letter written by one of the Mormons in question a few months after the incident.
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I do not see in the letter or the presentation an accusation that the other Mormons on the premises dealt badly with Zach. It looks as if the grandmother who hosted the party did so, mentioning that she hurt not only Zach but his friends. Exactly what transpired is not made clear, but it does not seem like a concentrated attack by many.

The letter cited looks like a pretty gracious apology. We cannot know whether it was on her own, at the urging of her grandson, or at the urging of Mormon colleagues, but whoever brought it about, it seems like a decent resolution.
 
bruto said:
I do not see in the letter or the presentation an accusation that the other Mormons on the premises dealt badly with Zach. It looks as if the grandmother who hosted the party did so, mentioning that she hurt not only Zach but his friends. Exactly what transpired is not made clear, but it does not seem like a concentrated attack by many.

The letter cited looks like a pretty gracious apology. We cannot know whether it was on her own, at the urging of her grandson, or at the urging of Mormon colleagues, but whoever brought it about, it seems like a decent resolution.
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I agree with Bruto, I don't see evidence of a group doing anything wrong, what I do see is a grandmother making an apology for behaving poorly. Unfortunately, there are people in all walks of life, religious or not, who put their foot in their mouth from time to time. In the incident related in this post he says "she" [the grandmother] treated him poorly, no mention of anyone else and how they behaved. We do not know what brought her to apologize, whether she actually fretted about it for several months, or she was enticed by her family, but as one of the comments below the letter states, at least "she had the guts to own up to her mistake, that shows something." So basically we have a grandmother who offended a non-member, and she apologized. Seems pretty straight forward and resolved, am I missing something?
 
Cat Tale said:
I agree with Bruto, I don't see evidence of a group doing anything wrong, what I do see is a grandmother making an apology for behaving poorly. Unfortunately, there are people in all walks of life, religious or not, who put their foot in their mouth from time to time. In the incident related in this post he says "she" [the grandmother] treated him poorly, no mention of anyone else and how they behaved. We do not know what brought her to apologize, whether she actually fretted about it for several months, or she was enticed by her family, but as one of the comments below the letter states, at least "she had the guts to own up to her mistake, that shows something." So basically we have a grandmother who offended a non-member, and she apologized. Seems pretty straight forward and resolved, am I missing something?
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You're not missing anything. You got exactly what I was trying to convey by posting the link, someone apologizing for a mistake.

I think the letter is a good example of someone realizing they had overstepped their bounds when interacting with a non-Mormon. This woman clearly has affection for the person she treated badly but she let judgmental attitudes hold sway during the BBQ.

In a way, I see the exchange as symbolic of the LDS church's relationship towards marriage equality. Right now, we're at the BBQ. The LDS leadership is just starting to realize their behavior in relationship to Prop 8 was over the top and out of bounds. The party is still going on, and the non-Mormon is still being treated badly, but realization is starting to creep in.

Eventually, the LDS leadership is going to metaphorically write the apology letter. Since they still haven't quite reached that stage in race relations, it'll probably take them a bit longer than the median population.

While I'm tempted to compare the family members talking to the Grandmother to LDS members, I think I've strained the analogy far enough.
 
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