- thor on That time when President Oaks told you voting Democrat was okay: “Thank you for this wake up call. I was wasting my time studying the issues closely, examining candidates’ positions and evaluating the pros and cons of each (seriously, for the sane voter, no political party nor candidate can fully represent her views and eternal shame on those who think otherwise). But now that random guy on the internet has called me out, I am going to do straight D-party voting! And it will save me moral angst, knowing that I am on the right side of every issue now.” Oct 15, 10:25
- on That time when President Oaks told you voting Democrat was okay: “Excellent post ?” Oct 15, 08:15
- on That time when President Oaks told you voting Democrat was okay: “Thank you for posting this. I was a republican for 30 years but I believe it is very important to elect democrats in this election in order to weaken the amount of power the Republican Party holds in the US, including in Utah because Trump and many others including Senator Lee are working to destroy our democracy. No other issue comes close in importance.” Oct 15, 07:09
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “Fair to ask the questions, Cougar. I agree that we don’t have firm doctrine on next-life reproduction, but we do like the idea of marriage bonds lasting into the next life, and I’d like the think that for many that’s a bigger issue than just sex. Plato, in the Symposium, talks about the true lovers who “throw their arms about each other, weaving themselves together, wanting to grow together … they don’t want to be separated from one another, not even for a moment…. No one would think it is the intimacy of sex–that mere sex is the reason each lover takes so great and deep joy in being with the other. It’s obvious that the soul of each lover longs for something else; his soul cannot say what it is.” And what they long for is for the God “to weld” them “together and join you into something that is naturally whole, so that the two of you are made into one.” So they they would be one not two in the afterlife. I quote that here https://juvenileinstructor.org/plato-on-deification-and-eternal-marriage/ Perhaps such individual bonds aren’t so important as long as all the righteous are together in the Celestial Kingdom, but such bonds seem important to us here on earth.” Oct 14, 19:06
- on Latter-day Saint on Joe Rogan: “Israel, I forgot to thank you for posting your example. I’ll see if I can find the episode or episode of Dan’s Youtube channel where he talks about how the Bible doesn’t have a single, permanent biblical design for marriage and report back.” Oct 14, 13:13
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “Stephen, this may not fall squarely on the path you have planned out, but it may be worth discussing what problems we think sealings solve. If I was to ask any fellow Latter-day Saint that question, he or she could readily rattle off an answer that would include the idea that, unless our marriages are sealed in a temple today, they are of no effect in the eternities. That of course raises the question of what we think “the eternities” look like. The idea of sealings as we have them today strongly suggests an ongoing sexual relationship between a male eternal being and a female eternal being to create spirit children using effectively the same sexual reproduction methods we have today to bring children into our world (perhaps other would disagree with that conclusion). I’m pretty confident that the methods by which spirit children are created is not settled doctrine, so I don’t feel uncomfortable asking the following question. If sex isn’t required or involved in the creation of spirit children, then exactly why is a marriage (carried over from a previous existence) needed at all? We might argue that the sealing binds us together, but, if we’re all present in the hereafter (assuming for the sake of argument that we’re in the Celestial kingdom), how much more binding is necessary? Or is marriage simply fundamentally required for creation in the eternities (or at least for spirit creation)? If so, has God clearly revealed that? These aren’t questions we ever really ask, but, if everything we do or should be doing on this earth is preparation for the world to come, it’s natural to ask for what conditions we’re preparing.” Oct 14, 11:55
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “Jonathan, as I’ve posted previously, eternal marriage naturally brings up issues of “extra-monogamy” because of common deaths to spouses as you note. Thus the question the Sadducees asked Christ about the Platonic idea of eternal marriage in terms of a woman with seven consecutive husbands. DaveW, yes that is a good summary, and yes, clearly the leaders want to dodge those difficult issues. I get why they want to do that since those issues are genuinely difficult, and are thus something interesting to talk about on blogs like this.” Oct 14, 11:27
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “Peter, yes, multiple sealings for men make the issue continually relevant. And yes, Kendall, I agree that allowing such sealings for women is the morally and doctrinally correct position (I’ll talk more about the doctrinal points in my next post). Restored, I won’t be able to get into all these details but will say a few things. A few points I agree with and some disagreements, but let’s call that position, the “JS renunciation” one. JS practiced polygamy, but then renounced it. Again, I’ll go over more of my historical position in my next post, but I’m arguing in my book that shared marriage (men AND women being able to have multiple spouses under the right and proper circumstances) was central to JS’s restoration from the beginning. I argue (and even mentioned it at Sunstone this year) that Jacob 2:30 hints at shared marriage (long story). So, no, I don’t believe that JS would renounce shared marriage any more than he would renounce all of Mormonism. He saw that as a central piece. However, JS was certainly willing make make lots of modifications to what he was doing. Utopian “all things in common” was central to his program as well, but he couldn’t make that work and thus made modifications. All things in common remained the ideal however. I’ve said this a lot, but I argue that JS switched from shared marriage to polygyny in early 1843 and that DC 132 is about that switch (with verse 41 hinting at the “old system” of shared marriage). So JS could and did make modifications. I still need to finish up my last chapter in my book which covers Nauvoo polygamy among other topics. I am aware that JS seemed to stop engaging in new marriage in late 1843 and the reports that he said he needed to stop. But there are some other layers to such claims. Plato (the basis for these practices, I argue) said that while the shared goods and marriages of his REPUBLIC was the ideal, Plato also said that a group of people being able to pull that off might not be possible ON EARTH and perhaps can only be achievable in heaven. So I can very much see the possibility of multiple modifications. Switching to polygyny from shared marriage because shared marriage made his close male followers angry, but I can also see him coming to the belief of needing to stop all “extra-monogamy.” Utah leaders from Woodruff to JS Smith seemed to have made a similar calculation of the need to stop polygyny.” Oct 14, 10:15
- on Thoughts on Our Polygamy Problems: “For me, concerns about polygamy are really a manifestation of a deeper issue: the church is unable or unwilling to clarify past practices and statements. I assume many here are familiar with statements about polygamy from Brigham Young (“the only men who become gods . . . are those who enter into polygamy”) or John Taylor’s 1886 revelation (“I have not revoked this law, nor will I, for it is everlasting”) which the church denied the existence for 100 years. There are two extreme paths here. One is to throw previous presidents of the church under the bus and repudiate past teachings as just plain wrong. The other is to embrace polygamy as an eternal principle, though perhaps one we have to forgo for the time being for practical reasons. The Church has instead opted for a middle path that, despite decades of trying, they don’t seem to be able to un-muddy. Polygamy was right then, but wrong now, and it wasn’t very common, or it was just to take care of widows, or to raise up a righteous seed, or for other reasons that history and data don’t support, and all those statements are best left alone, or were a product of their time. It’s a perpetual game of tap dancing around the issue trying to find any rational that will make the questioner stop asking the question right now. In this way, the temple/priesthood ban is, to me, exactly the same issue. 100 years of policy, thousands of statements about it over the entire time span, decades spent debating its repeal, and here we are with the official line being “no one knows why we did this, but all those explanations people did give at the time definitely aren’t the reason why.” For an institution that claims to be led by Prophets, Seers and Revelators, we sure seem to have a hard time even explaining our own actions.” Oct 14, 09:57
