- Jack on My Atheist Conversion, 3: A Lack of Theology: “I’m happy for people to be involved in the kingdom for the best reason they can come up with. Even so, as the Kingdom grows the earth will become filled with the knowledge of the Lord even as “the waters cover the sea.” So hang on–it’s gonna be a wild (and fun!) ride.” Apr 25, 21:35
- on My Atheist Conversion, 3: A Lack of Theology: “Oops, thanks for the catch, Raymond. I’m not the best proofreader and didn’t even know that was a word. But good point about some find of Freudian slip! Jonathan, as you well know, that’s an extremely complicated question and the answer no doubt will very drastically from person to person. I would say there’s can be quite a different approach between scholarly and religious claims and we all know we grad students are all taught to think rather critically of past scholarship. Quite different from religious practice. No doubt many scholars can become doctrinaire about favorite scholars and approaches, but I’d still say it’s overall a rather different approach, and something I talked about in this JI post. https://juvenileinstructor.org/study-and-faith-2-mythos-logos-and-historical-methodology/ Just to relate this to my own story, my approach to Joseph Smith is kind of tricky. I often declare myself a huge fan of JS (that is indeed how I feel) but also have been quite happy to really put his claims through the ringer and come to quite unorthodox conclusions. At the end of the day, I feel quite attached to what I see as his overall vision, while at that same time, not taking every individual claim at face value. So that’s my own approach, which I’m sure is pretty unusual.” Apr 25, 19:49
- on My Atheist Conversion, 3: A Lack of Theology: “Thanks for this ongoing series; it is informative as well as helpful in formulating our own spiritual views. One off-topic question: you wrote “I’ve felt directed to continue to patriciate in the church.” My first thought was that a typo had slipped in, but then I began to wonder if you have created a marvelous wordsmithing recognition of the very patriarchal nature of our church structure, organization, and operation. ?” Apr 25, 17:51
- on My Atheist Conversion, 3: A Lack of Theology: “Thanks for this next installment. I agree in a lot of ways (like a lot of details about the afterlife are just not things I’m highly invested in). One question I do have: In scholarship, nearly everything that we do involves building on the work of others. Of course we have to choose who is generally trustworthy and even then check footnotes, but we end up accepting a lot of things based in our trust in other scholars – using their editions and checking the facsimiles only when we suspect something has gone wrong somewhere, for example. Spiritually, when do you decide you can generally accept someone else’s spiritual experience and build on it, so to speak?” Apr 25, 14:01
- on My Atheist Conversion, 3: A Lack of Theology: “And just to clarify, I see human speculation about divine things as a very understandable and valuable thing. Naturally we want to understand such things and propose ideas. But I view a whole lot of such declarations as (understandable) human speculation that I’d suppose says more about the humans doing such speculation than it does about absolute supernatural reality. At that same time, I do think that what humans think about God(s) says a lot about those humans. God(s) doing bad things suggests such humans ought to make a few adjustments to their beliefs, in my opinion. At the same time, I do believe in a God with much more knowledge and a higher morality than me. But being engaged in the questions of “what do I believe?” and “what is right and wrong?” are useful human endeavors as well, in my opinion.” Apr 25, 12:39
- on My Mansplaining About Modesty: “Todays modesty in dress is yesterdays porn. rkt’s comment says it all. Members overdoing it like usual. There was a time many years ago that women in the church where I live were getting all worked up about tight fitting clothes (on the women) at church. It got way out of hand. The clothes and the shaming. I was in Utah from 5th grade to my mission and I wore tank tops and booty shorts all the time and thought nothing of it. (late 70s early 80s) I could have been bucking the church then but I dont recall feeling that way at the time. (lots of jack-mormons then so maybe that’s who I was fitting in with?) It was a very big deal when we got endowed because we had to change our wardrobe, not just get use to the new underwear. The way I dressed everyday after the temple experience reminded me I was a new person or made a new commitment to God. Huge change for me. Today kids dont experience that change as they are required to wear temple length clothing even though they have not chosen to be endowed. Somehow wearing anything less is now considered a sin. That is unfortunate. I knew we went too far as a church when I was visiting a friend of mine going to BYU. This was 1984. She said she had to take care of some payment thing and it might take a while but she would try and hurry. She came back pretty quick so I made the comment that it was faster than she thought. She then told me that it was fast because they would not help here because her shorts were too short. She had not been through the temple yet but the shorts she was wearing were maybe a half inch shorter than the knee. Ridiculous. That’s when I knew I could never go to BYU…” Apr 25, 07:37
- on My Mansplaining About Modesty: “I think it’s a mistake to treat modesty as one concept, when we use it to mean several different things. Being humble and avoiding self-promotion is one thing that goes by the name of “modesty,” and there are various norms for it. And avoiding clothing styles that are coded for sexual forwardness is another concept that goes by the same name. Neither of these are peculiar LDS usages – they’re all in the dictionary, unfortunately under the same heading. So we argue about what modesty really is, when it’s really multiple things that are mostly unrelated.” Apr 24, 20:30
- on My Mansplaining About Modesty: “@Gregg Sharp: I noted in the post that modesty isn’t all about sexuality, but some of it is, and at times (less now I think, but more in the past) it’s clear that many fashions are designed or at least influenced by the heterosexual male gaze. It’s hard to think of a counterpart for men’s fashion cowtowing to the high-sociosexuality, heterosexual female gaze (maybe tight jeans?). Men just don’t go to black tie balls with slits up our pant leg or our low-cut shirts showing off our lower traps, so just the way society and fashion is structured the actual use cases of modesty are going to be dealing disproportionately with female attire. I don’t make the rules, but that’s just kind of the on-the-ground reality.” Apr 24, 14:07
- on My Mansplaining About Modesty: “The real question I have is why is all (or at least the vast majority of) the “modesty” instruction geared towards women?” Apr 24, 13:39
- on My Mansplaining About Modesty: “rkt, Was that (1) protecting her husband; or (2) unrighteous dominion? I tend towards (2). I understand the magazine cannot make everyone happy.” Apr 24, 13:09