LDS

[I Am The Scum]

I don't think anyone is questioning the validity of a vote to strike down gay marriage. They question its wisdom.

 

[deaman]

I have no interest in such insulting false opinions! To presume to be eligible to judge and proclaim that a deceased person would become a God merely by accepting a Baptism by proxy is preposterous. To declare this to be a doctrine of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is not only incorrect but blasphemous in the extreme.

What are you talking about?

Can you please explain a little more about what you see as "blasphamous in the extreme"?

Thank you.

 

[deaman]

The difference here is I would change my opinion if my views were found to be based upon lies

Oh, snap!

Beautifully expressed.

 

[halleyscomet]

What are you talking about?

Can you please explain a little more about what you see as "blasphamous in the extreme"?

Thank you.

She's criticizing Cat for quoting Mormon scripture. The scripture contradicted Janadele's claims, which, in her mind, made it "blasphemous."

How a Mormon can declare clear as crystal Mormon scripture "blasphemous" is beyond me, but then, I don't think Janadele is actually Mormon, "Jack" or otherwise.

 

[skyrider44]

Your stridency might be more justified had you, for instance, ever actually answered my questions about how anything that happens among consenting adults in my demesne could possibly affect you , or your sect, or your practice of its superstitions.

The fact that you cannot accept my answers to your questions--bias and denial being what they are--does not mean, as you wishfully suppose, that I didn't answer them.

I and mine are not trying to control your behaviour based on how we live.

True; I have never suggested otherwise.

You and yours are arrogating to control my behaviour based on rules invented to control members of your sect.

Are you suggesting that the LDS Church has law-making power? The Church presented its position in the marketplace of societal ideas, which it had every right to do. Moreover, even if gay marriage were to be ruled illegal nationwide, that would do nothing to change the behavior of gay couples. Hence, your notion that legislation somehow controls behavior is sophomoric.

: Were I ever to decide to join your sect, your rules would be germane--until then, not so much.

You wouldn't be able to join the LDS Church, because it isn't a sect.

However, it is worth pointing out that the kind of mind in thrall to the transparent frauds and clumsy inventions of the BoA/M also appears to believe that same-gender marriage is likely to result in welfare orphans.

It is worth pointing out that you're assigning an attitude to LDS that you manufactured out of pixie dust.

Or to believe that derails about typographical errors are substantive responses to questions.

Clumsy thinking makes for clumsy writing.

: Or claims that "marriage equality" a a description of the position that adults capable of consent ought to be allowed to participate in the legal rights and benefit of the civil institution of marriage is a "euphemism".

I simply called you on the fact that you chose that term as a euphemism.

: Now, when you edited this:

(quoted in http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?postid=9576072#post9576072)

...into this:


You, did, in fact, substitute a euphemism for an accurate term. To what end?
The money, time, and effort your sect spent working to prevent consenting adults from participating in the legal rights and privilege of civil marriage was not, cannot correctly be said to have been, a "debate"--I wonder what nefarious purposes you are attempting to conceal with your euphemism?

Sorry, I can't decipher what you're trying to say. In any event, Prop 8 did involve a debate.

It is also worth noticing that you offered no support to your claim, either in its original, correct formulation, or the euphemistic construction...

If you're referring to "marriage equality," I had never heard the term before.
I grant you kudos for creativity.

Nor did your ever explain why, if worshiping the 'god' of your sect is such a wonderful thing, you and yours are not helping people see that light, and come to want to live by your rules and follow your teachings.

Your premises are false; hence, not worthy of a serious response.

 

[RandFan]

I wonder what Jan and Sky will make if this web site's claims:

Love One Another: A Discussion on Same-Sex Attraction

The experience of same-sex attraction is a complex reality for many people. The attraction itself is not a sin, but acting on it is. Even though individuals do not choose to have such attractions, they do choose how to respond to them. With love and understanding, the Church reaches out to all God’s children, including our gay and lesbian brothers and sisters.

I've been with my wife for more than a quarter century. I cannot imagine being celibate all of that time. It's not just about sex. It's about a deep bond that ties two people together. Laying together in bed without sex is often times just as important if not more important. We evolved to have sex and to be intimate and close with other people. That's a fact.

BTW: Sin is a religious term used by one group of people to control another. Sex, isn't unethical or immoral unless you are violating the trust of another or unless you are having sex with someone who cannot or does not consent.

Why is Sex a Sin? (here's a hint, it's not)

 

[RandFan]

Are you suggesting that the LDS Church has law-making power?

The church pressured members to spend enormous amounts of money in support of Proposition 8. Money is mothers milk to politics. The Church could not themselves donate but they could direct their members to, and they did. Their unelected power was a big reason why Prop 8 passed.

8: The Mormon Proposition (2010) - IMDb

 

[I Ratant]

What are you talking about?

Can you please explain a little more about what you see as "blasphamous in the extreme"?

Thank you.

.
"blasphemy" is an verbal attack on an imaginary character or tenet of the various religions of the world.
Other than making the believers uncomfortable, it has no physical existence.
"It neither breaks their bones nor picks their pocket". (It may reduce the amount of loot in the collection basket on the Sabbath though.)
As such, blasphemy should as harmless as any collection of letters making up words are in reality. Acting on the offense to the imaginary character should be prohibited in secular law.

 

[Foster Zygote]

The fact that you cannot accept my answers to your questions--bias and denial being what they are--does not mean, as you wishfully suppose, that I didn't answer them.

Where did you explain what effect Slowvehicle's private life has on your life? All you've offered is some nebulous objections about criminal enterprises and other illegal activities, and men abandoning their pregnant partners.

True; I have never suggested otherwise.

But members of the LDS church, organized from quite high up in the chain of command, have used their influence to attempt to control the behavior of others based on religious doctrine that is based on falsehoods. That's really the subject being discussed.

Are you suggesting that the LDS Church has law-making power? The Church presented its position in the marketplace of societal ideas, which it had every right to do.

Certainly. And southern whites had every right to present their position regarding the segregation of African Americans in the marketplace of societal ideas. Nobody's suggesting that what they did was illegal, only that it was bigotry based on falsehoods.

Moreover, even if gay marriage were to be ruled illegal nationwide, that would do nothing to change the behavior of gay couples. Hence, your notion that legislation somehow controls behavior is sophomoric.

It would have an effect. Gay couples would be able to participate in society as equals, not as an underclass subjugated by the denial of equal rights simply because others believe the supernatural fairy stories that assure them that homosexuals' relationships are morally aberrant.

You wouldn't be able to join the LDS Church, because it isn't a sect.

Do Mormons no longer consider themselves Christians?

It is worth pointing out that you're assigning an attitude to LDS that you manufactured out of pixie dust.

Is that what we're calling post #8421 now?

Clumsy thinking makes for clumsy writing.

Please show me where my thinking has gone wrong by clearly elucidating the reasons why we should regard the Book Of Abraham as a correct translation of the Egyptian funerary text obtained by Joseph Smith. While you're at it, you could explain why there is absolutely no archaeological, paleontological, linguistic or genetic evidence of the claims regarding ancient American civilization presented in the Book Of Mormon. Surely a mind as adept as yours will have no trouble clearing up this matter. Just be sure not to accidentally link to any sources that actually contradict your claims.

I simply called you on the fact that you chose that term as a euphemism.

How is it a euphemism? How is it not an accurate description of what is being sought? Is "racial equality" a euphemism? Is "gender equality" a euphemism?

Sorry, I can't decipher what you're trying to say.

Then the comprehensive failure is yours.

If you're referring to "marriage equality," I had never heard the term before.
I grant you kudos for creativity.

A Google search for the term resulted in about 91,400,000 hits. Your ignorance of the term doesn't mean that Slowvehicle created it from pixie dust.

Your premises are false; hence, not worthy of a serious response.

I'd be satisfied with an explanation of why we should regard the Book Of Mormon and the Book Of Abraham as anything other than fiction given what is known about them.

 

[RandFan]

Please show me where my thinking has gone wrong by clearly elucidating the reasons why we should regard the Book Of Abraham as a correct translation of the Egyptian funerary text obtained by Joseph Smith. While you're at it, you could explain why there is absolutely no archaeological, paleontological, linguistic or genetic evidence of the claims regarding ancient American civilization presented in the Book Of Mormon.

Having been in the position as a true believer confronting these issues I am not at all envious of those who attempt to face them.

To Mormons I would say, there is nothing good to come from debating these issues. At best your apologetics will sooth your dissonance. You can sleep well knowing that somewhere someone has an answer that satisfies you.

But understand this, they don't satisfy those with a skeptical mind. Those of us who are skeptical must deal with contradictions of the first vision, BoM anachronisims, convenient and self serving explanations (an angel took the plates to heaven, the papyrus that contains the BoA was destroyed, etc).

It's not at all a coherent narrative. Please, for one moment put yourselves in our shoes, why should we look past all of the many problems to even seriously consider it?

I took it very, very seriously, struggled, fasted, prayed and sought out answers. I did so in a sincere fashion knowing that to stop believing in the Church would bear a heavy burden on me and my family. In the end I had to accept the dictates of my conscience. If there were a god and it was a loving and just god it would not ask anyone to lie on his behalf. It would not allow his representatives to deny informed consent to those thinking of joining the church. Such a being would not prohibit freedom of conscience nor penalize anyone for freedom of expression (unless that expression were libel or slander).

For those Mormons willing to put themselves in our shoes you will see that at the end of the day parsimony and prosaic, rational objective facts rule out the possibility that a supernatural being picked a mystical mountebank to represent him. Such an entity would be transparent having nothing to hide. Such an entity would not allow his representatives to make racists statements as Brigham Young has done. If there were a just god as Mormons claim then that god would do everything it it's power to propagate truth. His plan of salvation would never rely on deception. Those who could not or would not listen to the truth would be winnowed from the start and would not have to go through the process of excommunication or losing family members when they eventually did learn the truth.

Finally, such a being would never forbid a mother from attending her child's wedding.

 

[Janadele]

The fact that you cannot accept my answers to your questions--bias and denial being what they are--does not mean, as you wishfully suppose, that I didn't answer them.

Well said skyrider, and so true.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Well said skyrider, and so true.

Could you point to the post in which he answered SV's question?

 

[Slowvehicle]

The fact that you cannot accept my answers to your questions--bias and denial being what they are--does not mean, as you wishfully suppose, that I didn't answer them.

No, this is simply not true. Given your posting history and habits, it is an even chance whether you truly do not understand the question; whether you are being disingenuous; or whether you are simply being dishonest.

Follow:

I have asked, "How can anything that goes on among consenting adults within my demesne affect you?" Your responses included, among the red herrings and straw people, the possibility of welfare orphans (which is physically impossible among the consenting adults here), an illegal drug lab (which, were it to happen on my property, and were the fruits of the endeavour to be used on the property {as, for instance, happens with the 'still} would not, could not affect you--you are not within the bounds of the property in question), growing 'pot' (which is decriminalized locally, and on the way to being legalized--not to mention the limitation that, were it grown here, it would be used here), and the like--none of which affects, nor could affect,n you in any way.

You have continually chosen to sidestep the question, and to pretend that your unwillingness to answer the question is actually my fault. You have yet to mention a single activity that actually takes place upon my property; much less one that, in so taking place, affects, or even could affect you in any way. Of the activities that I and mine have done here, today, which impacts your equipoise?

Were you to approach the question, and the answer, honestly, there could be only one answer.

True; I have never suggested otherwise.

And yet you and yours feel meet and just pretending that the rules invented to regulate the behaviour of members of the sect be applied to control the private behaviour of non-members. What careless thinking.

Are you suggesting that the LDS Church has law-making power?

Can you show me where you might have gotten such a careless idea? Or is this just another one of your straw men?

Your sect did, in fact, spend a great deal of time and money to defeat a proposition that could not be said to affect its members in any way. Janadele may claim that people are being "forced" into "endorsing" "abhorrent and disgusting" lifestyles; the truth is that Prop 8 in California would not have affected the options open to your sectarian group at all--you already have rules in place that, it would seem, would supercede Prop. 8. Why then the frantic, prurient concern?

The Church presented its position in the marketplace of societal ideas, which it had every right to do. Moreover, even if gay marriage were to be ruled illegal nationwide, that would do nothing to change the behavior of gay couples. Hence, your notion that legislation somehow controls behavior is sophomoric.

I understand that you do not understand that "behaviour" encompasses all sorts of things, including disposition of property.

And, not to join you in insult, but in what way is "getting legally married" not "behaviour"?

I will not go into the troubling aspects of the "marketplace of ideas" being flooded with money by a sect that accepts the BoA as accurate, and the BoM as historical. To say nothing of your sect's macculate history with regard to civil rights in general.

You wouldn't be able to join the LDS Church, because it isn't a sect.

Not to commit your technique of "argumentum ad lexicum", but the primary definition of "sect" in RHWUD2 is, "a body of persons adhering to a particular religious faith; a religious denomination," (p. 1731, so you can find it). By that primary definition (even avoiding the subsequent definitions based upon separationist, exclusivist, or heterodoxical arguments) alone, mormons are, in fact, a "sect".

Nor does your taunt change the fact that, if your haufen truly has the keys to the kingdom, shouldn't you be more concerned about attracting people than pointlessly (and, usually, groundlessly), insulting and abusing them?

I am finicky about εκκλησία; I prefer to use it accurately.

Feel free to self-identify by whatever term with which you choose to be careless.

It is worth pointing out that you're assigning an attitude to LDS that you manufactured out of pixie dust.

...I would not judge your posts quite so harshly as to call them "pixie dust"; OTH it was, in fact, you, who introduced welfare orphans into the discussion about same-sex marriage. You may equivocate and disimilate to your heart's content. Naetheles, it remains true that same-gender marriages cannot, in and of themselves, result in welfare orphans.

Clumsy thinking makes for clumsy writing.

And red herrings and minutiae are much easier than reasoned argument.

Again, I am happy for you that you never commit the unforgivable sin of typographical error. How nice for you.

I simply called you on the fact that you chose that term as a euphemism.

.

Not to commit your technique of "argumentum ad lexicum", but the primary definition of "euphemism" in RHWUD2 is, "the substitution of a mild, indirect, or vague expression for one thought to be offensive, harsh, or blunt," (p.668, so you can find it).

You cannot "call me out" for something I did not do, no matter how hard you want to pretend.

I, personally, use the term "marriage equality", not to avoid the term "same-gender marriage", but to encompass it. (In case you missed it, that means that "marriage equality" is not a "euphemism".) I am of the radical idea that the strictures imposed upon civil marriage should be limited to adults capable of consent. Why not get all of the sectarian interference with civil marriage out of the way at once, rather than have to repeat the whole tired process, piecemeal?

Sorry, I can't decipher what you're trying to say. In any event, Prop 8 did involve a debate.

...not in any meaningful, technical use of the word "debate"--but don't feel bad. Popular sources have been misusing the term"debate" for a long time, and it is easy to get swept up in the carelessness.

That does not explain why you felt you had to bowdlerize your original post.

If you're referring to "marriage equality," I had never heard the term before.
I grant you kudos for creativity.

I cannot accept your kudos; the accurate term "marriage equality" is not original with me. As I pointed out above, "marriage equality" is not a euphemism, and it is dishonest of you to continue to pretend that it is.

I was, of course, referring to your euphemistic (and vulgarly incorrect, at best) substitution of "debate" for your original phrase.

Your premises are false; hence, not worthy of a serious response.

Not that I expect you to substantively respond, but which "premises" do you find "false" in my question? Is it actually possible that you feel you are doing the"lord's work" with your attitude and approach?

Horses for courses, I guess. Any time you choose to stop posing, I would still appreciate answers to my questions.

 

[Foster Zygote]

Horses for courses, I guess.

Horses have been a touchy subject in this thread.

 

[Quinn]

If there were a god and it was a loving and just god it would not ask anyone to lie on his behalf. It would not allow his representatives to deny informed consent to those thinking of joining the church.

I'm guessing the highlighted bit refers to something that was discussed earlier, but I missed it. Could I trouble you for a link or a brief explanation, for those of us who were goofing off in the back of the class?

 

[RandFan]

I'm guessing the highlighted bit refers to something that was discussed earlier, but I missed it. Could I trouble you for a link or a brief explanation, for those of us who were goofing off in the back of the class?

The LDS Church, like many other churches and cults, has a "milk before meat" doctrine. IOW: Don't tell people who are thinking about joining the church anything that might discourage them from joining.

I posted a link of things the Church doesn't tell investigators upstream but I'm too lazy to find it. Here is another. Scroll down to the section that says, WHAT THE MISSIONARIES WILL NOT TELL YOU.

I think it is a violation of trust to withhold information but I concede that given that organizations have a right to keep secrets and given that people who join can then leave I don't think it should or could be illegal. I do think it is unethical. It's not as if these things are trade secrets, at least, I hope the Church doesn't see it that way. Scientology does and in fact they sue to protect their secrets.

 

[Slowvehicle]

Horses have been a touchy subject in this thread.

I cannot say thee neigh. The mare mention sends a colt breeze though the thread. Kinda filly, innit?

 

[joobz]

Well said skyrider, and so true.

Similarly,

The fact that you responded to questions--bias and denial being what they are--does not mean, as you wishfully suppose, that You answered them.



Being true isn't synonymous with agreeing with you. We can determine which statement is true by providing evidence.

If what you said is true, you will be able to show the post where skyrider answered slowvehicle's questions.

 

[Quinn]

The LDS Church, like many other churches and cults, has a "milk before meat" doctrine. IOW: Don't tell people who are thinking about joining the church anything that might discourage them from joining.

I posted a link of things the Church doesn't tell investigators upstream but I'm too lazy to find it. Here is another. Scroll down to the section that says, WHAT THE MISSIONARIES WILL NOT TELL YOU.

Ah, the old "hide the crazy till you've got 'em hooked" strategy. Thanks for clarifying.

 

[Amazer]

The fact that you cannot accept my answers to your questions--bias and denial being what they are--does not mean, as you wishfully suppose, that I didn't answer them.

Skyrider,

It would seem to me that you are conflating reply and answer. You have certainly replied to his questions. Thus far you have however carefully avoided answering his questions.