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[Wafflecakes]

God damnit.

Typing on a cell phone.

 

[ronito]

Well to be fair to the RCC, we've had 2,000 years to accumulate wealth, and become the richest organization on the planet, and everyone knew we were doing it and how we were doing it. I don't think comparing the Mormon Church to the RCC is a valid comparison in this regard.

how so? Do you take offense that the LDS church is more covert with its money? I don't understand.

 

[Pollux]

how so? Do you take offense that the LDS church is more covert with its money? I don't understand.

No, no offense at all. I'm just saying that the Mormon Church seems to be far more secretive about amassing their wealth and on how they use it. Thus I don't think it's a good analogy to compare the Mormon Church gaining money to how the RCC gained money over 2,000 years in a relatively open manner. While the Vatican may not be open NOW about how they spend ALL their money, they are pretty open with how they spend most of it.

I don't know, I'm probably just splitting hairs.

 

[ronito]

They just released the cover for the business week.

Seems a little trollish considering how even handed the article actually was

 

[FelixOrion]

They just released the cover for the business week.

Seems a little trollish considering how even handed the article actually was

I don't feel that's troll-ish, I feel its more in the vein of Daily Show style satire, but that's my opinion. Plus it's a cover, gotta get something out there to get people to read it, right?

 

[JetBlackPanda]

They just released the cover for the business week.

Seems a little trollish considering how even handed the article actually was

Here is the response.

LDS Church responds to Businessweek's 'money' article

 

[ronito]

I don't feel that's troll-ish, I feel its more in the vein of Daily Show style satire, but that's my opinion. Plus it's a cover, gotta get something out there to get people to read it, right?

I totally find it trollish. It's a shame because mormons will just look at the cover and say "It's Anti-mormon!" and not read it at all. I think it's very interesting and something mormons should know. It is their money after all.

 

[SillyEskimo]

Here is the response.

LDS Church responds to Businessweek's 'money' article

"All of the people who try to guess our worth are wrong. No, we're not going to tell you how much we're worth but we do good stuff with the money so stop asking".

 

[Eight Diagram Bat Fighter]

I totally find it trollish. It's a shame because mormons will just look at the cover and say "It's Anti-mormon!" and not read it at all. I think it's very interesting and something mormons should know. It is their money after all.

Thing is, there is quite a bit they get entirely wrong in this article or don't take into consideration. Not anti-mormon as much as it's just not all correct.

 

[ronito]

Thing is, there is quite a bit they get entirely wrong in this article or don't take into consideration. Not anti-mormon as much as it's just not all correct.

quite a bit? such as? I did notice some "wrongness" around something about missions. What else is off? It seemed mostly correct.

 

[ronito]

The New Yorker has an article on the LDS history and Romney.

I think they're spot on:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2012/08/13/120813crat_atlarge_gopnik

Here's some excerpts:

Mormonism had other assets. Smith held (especially in the sermons he preached toward the end of his life) that God and angels and men were all members of the same species. “God that sits enthroned is a man like one of you” and “God Himself was once as we are now, and is an exalted man” were two of his most emphatic aphorisms on the subject. (People who were “exalted,” in Smith’s language, were men moving toward godhood, as God himself had once been a man who achieved it.) Although in many other respects, as Fluhman and Bowman point out, Mormonism was orthodox in its outlook—Jesus is the sole Messiah, and his history as told in the Gospels is taken to be true, if incomplete—the doctrine of God-as-Man divided Smith’s cult from the others, and scared the pants off even charismatic Protestantism: the Protestants were willing to accept that we are made in his image, but not that we are made of the same flesh.

This doctrine led in turn to various theological niceties, which seem to have risen and receded in the faith’s theology over the years: one is that the birth of Jesus had to have been the consequence of a “natural action”—i.e., that God the Father knew Mary in a carnal way, in order to produce the Messiah. (This doctrine is currently in disfavor, but it had a long life.) Another is that God, being an exalted man, must have a wife, or several wives, as men do; she is known as the Heavenly Mother, and is a being distinct from Mary. (Smith’s belief in exaltation evolved into the belief that other planets were inhabited by men even more exalted than we are; Smith taught that the truly exalted will get not just entry into Heaven but a planet of their own to run. This is now taken, or taught, metaphorically, the way conventional Christians often think of Hell, but it was part of the story.)
.....

Smith was eventually martyred by a mob in Carthage, Illinois, while in the local jail awaiting trial for treason. Which of his doctrines enraged the mob is hard to grasp, but it may have been sex more than heresy. You could have as many doctrines as you liked, but not as many wives.
....
One element latent in Smith’s theology that Young brought forward was a kind of sanctified materialism. His brand of Mormonism might at times have been extra-planetary, but it was scarcely otherworldly. Right here on earth, he insisted, men became saints and even approached godliness. Smith taught that Gods and men were one species; Young made this idea a practical guiding principle. “We are not going to wait for Angels” was his very American aphorism on the subject. “We intend to build up Zion on the earth.”
....
After the Civil War, Brigham Young sponsored the first Mormon department stores and commercial franchises, the Zion Co-operative Mercantile Institutions, through which, Turner says, “Mormon merchants would earn reduced profits, but undercut the non-Mormon counterparts and keep Zion’s wealth within its borders. . . . Merchants who invested in the enterprise displayed a ZCMI sign on their storefronts, consisting of an ‘All-Seeing Eye’ and the phrase ‘Holiness to the Lord.’ ”
...

All of which leads to the inevitable question: To what degree is Mormonism responsible for Mitt Romney? Is there a thread, dark or golden, that runs from Moroni to Mitt? Garry Wills has argued, after all, that Irish Catholic ideas about sin—that sin is negotiable currency, to be practiced, done penance for, forgiven—allowed John Kennedy some serenity as he screwed his way through the White House typing pool, just as the habits of Protestant Evangelical belief, in forgiveness and temptation and forgiveness, in a never-ending cycle, helped Bill Clinton find a common language with working-class people. The most striking feature of Mitt Romney as a politician is an absence of any responsibility to his own past—the consuming sense that his life and opinions can be remade at a moment’s need. Romney, according to Romney, never favored the individual mandate, or supported abortion rights, or opposed the auto-industry bailout, or did any of the other things he obviously, and on the record, did.

One could presumably make a case that beleaguered faiths always shy from admitting errancy in public. Dominant faiths can afford tales of failure and redemption, with sinners becoming saints and saints dropping in and out of the calendar like blue-plate specials; beleaguered ones have to put on a good face in public and never lose it. Donny Osmond talks about the anxieties that arose from a need to appear perfect, and the impossibility of admitting in public to flaws or errors. Better to have a new revelation about, say, health-care mandates that renders the previous one instantly inoperable than spend time apologizing for the old ways. When, in 1978, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints abandoned the rule prohibiting blacks from serving as priests, one church leader, Bruce McConkie, explained, “It doesn’t make a particle of difference what anybody ever said about the Negro matter before the first day of June 1978.” You could find, or think you’ve found, a similar logic behind Romney’s blithe amnesia when it comes to the things he used to think and say.

....

It’s just that this tradition is not merely Mormon. Joseph Smith’s strange faith has become a denomination within the bigger creed of commerce. It’s unfair to say, as some might, that Mitt Romney believes in nothing except his own ambition. He believes, with shining certainty, in his own success, and, more broadly, in the American Gospel of Wealth that lies behind it: the idea that rich people got rich by being good, that the riches are a sign of their virtue, and that they should therefore be allowed to rule.

Then again, almost every American religion sooner or later becomes a Gospel of Wealth. Forced into a corner by the Feds, Young’s followers put down their guns and got busy making money—just as the Oneida devotees who made silverware for a living ended up merely making silverware. (The moneymaking activities of the major churches hardly need outlining.) Christmas morning is the American Sabbath, and it runs, ideally, all year round. The astonishing thing, and it would have brought a smile to Nephi’s face as he and his tribe sailed to the New World, is that this gospel of prosperity is the one American faith that will never fail, even when its promises seem ruined. Elsewhere among the Western democracies, the bursting of the last bubble has led to doubts about the system that blows them. Here the people who seem likely to inherit power are those who want to blow still bigger ones, who believe in the bubble even after it has burst, and who hold its perfection as a faith so gleaming and secure and unbreakable that it might once have been written down somewhere by angels, on solid-gold plates

I think he's spot on with Romney and I learned some stuff I didn't know, like the origins of ZCMI.

It's an interesting take on Mormonism.

 

[ronito]

So Joanna Brooks is a mormon author and she was on the Daily Show yesterday.

It's here:
http://www.hulu.com/watch/389737

(it's the third segment)

I have a few issues with Mrs. Brooks approach in general. I do think she tends to misrepresent the church as "liberal" it's not. Saying, "We're not gonna kick gays out!" Yeah, technically true, but if that member ever does anything to act on any attraction they're out. Yeah it's nice to note that yeah some mormons marched in gay pride parades. But they were mormons that happened to go, it's not that the church itself advocated it, the church at most kept quiet. I think it's not necessarily a fair representation of the church. Someone hears that and get a universalist vibe, that's not gonna go so well.

Also I didn't think Jon's playing it as "It's because the church is young." I get that but to be fair, it's not the jewish or catholic church. It's the one true church. It's not like they're just gonna sweep some reforms under the table, it's much more serious than that. Also what's up with her forehead?

 

[ronito]

PBS did a story on the hill cumorah pagent

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/lds-pageant/12369/

Or as I overheard an investigator call it "Mighty Mormon Power Rangers"

 

[Chumly]

Always interested in this stuff.

 

[ronito]

So apparently there was a active mormon lgbt conference in San Fran and a High Councilman from the San Fran stake spoke. This is obviously highly unofficial and not church endorsed and the councilman goes out of his way to make sure everyone knows he doesn't speak for the church. Here's the entire speech:

http://mitchmayne.blogspot.com/2012/08/circling-wagons-mormon-lgbt-conference_14.html

Here's a few highlights:

on nomenclature, and this is the only point where I’ll outright say that I’d like the church and its members to make a change: the church seems to encourage people to refer to LGBT people as people who “suffer” from “same-sex attraction.” I don’t believe that most Mormons understand that the term “same-sex attraction” is diminutive and offensive. I think we don’t grasp that. It reduces a gay person’s feelings for a partner, which are as rich and varied as yours and mine are with our spouses and which involve feelings of connectedness and a shared life, to “attraction.”

First, I want to point out that the church has every right to decide who is a member in good standing and who is not. Any organization does. If we’re a Boston Red Sox fan group, it is perfectly fair to remove the guy who always wears the Yankees gear from the group. So I don’t have a problem with excommunication in theory, and neither should you.

Second, let me just say here that disciplinary councils in the Mormon church are exceptionally rare. In most of our congregations this year, exactly no one will be excommunicated.

To be clear: the LDS church’s stated position on the question of whether or not being gay is some kind of a choice is that the church has no position on that matter. No position. None.

Honestly, I don't understand this movement. Sure the church will allow you to be gay and active and even hold callings. But they will never allow you to have a gay relationship without discipline, they will never acknowledge your right to marry. The moment you stop being gay on paper and start being gay in action you're on bad footing. And that doesn't seem like much of a life to me. If the church told me I could be friends with my wife but never more I'd no longer be a part of that church. The whole movement thing makes no sense to me. I've heard some say that the church will change their stance but I don't see it, it's in black and white much more so than the blacks and priesthood ever were.

 

[ronito]

PRI is doing a series on the mormon missionaries.

Here's part 1:
http://www.theworld.org/2012/08/a-growing-interest-in-mormons-serving-missions-around-the-world/

Part 2:
http://www.theworld.org/2012/08/mormon-church-in-chile/

The only thing that I thought was a bit wrong was the sociologist's take as to why the church was growing and now slowing down and also the church saying that it never had a policy of getting commitment to baptism early? Do they think we'd have forgotten the old first discussion already?

 

[Hitokage]

Those young men weren't speaking as missionaries at the time.

 

[ronito]

Those young men weren't speaking as missionaries at the time.

lol dude

 

[alejob]

I just got visited by missionaries an hour ago. It's not the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last.

I feel right now that this people just can't accept you for who you are. They just have to convert you, make you one of them.

Yes, I live amongst them in Utah.

 

[CharlieDigital]

^

Missionaries in Utah? Would seem kind of redundant to me.

 

[ronito]

I just got visited by missionaries an hour ago. It's not the first time and I'm sure it won't be the last.

I feel right now that this people just can't accept you for who you are. They just have to convert you, make you one of them.

Yes, I live amongst them in Utah.

Oh man, try having been one.
Missionaries stop by and when they find that I'm no longer active I first get the "I'm sure the bishop can help you work through any 'issues' you might have." When they issues they mean sins. When I say I'm clean then I get the whole "Maybe we could read scriptures together so you can ask us questions?" When I show them my scriptures which are highlighted to holy hell they look really confused.

Not cool.

 

[AlteredBeast]

Oh man, try having been one.
Missionaries stop by and when they find that I'm no longer active I first get the "I'm sure the bishop can help you work through any 'issues' you might have." When they issues they mean sins. When I say I'm clean then I get the whole "Maybe we could read scriptures together so you can ask us questions?" When I show them my scriptures which are highlighted to holy hell they look really confused.

Not cool.

Have you asked to get your name taken off the rolls? When I was younger and I would home teach people who wanted nothing to do with the church, I would always bring up how they could write a few letters and get their names taken off the rolls of the church (I am sure it is somewhat of a process, to be sure), but if they were really serious about it and really wanted nothing to do with us, they were just wasting everyone's time, including their own, by not doing it.

 

[jb1234]

Have you asked to get your name taken off the rolls? When I was younger and I would home teach people who wanted nothing to do with the church, I would always bring up how they could write a few letters and get their names taken off the rolls of the church (I am sure it is somewhat of a process, to be sure), but if they were really serious about it and really wanted nothing to do with us, they were just wasting everyone's time, including their own, by not doing it.

It's easy to do. There's a website out there that has a template you just send to them. I used it myself after my brief one-year Mormon phase. I liked a lot of the people I met at church but I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that they all stopped talking to me after I left.

 

[ronito]

Have you asked to get your name taken off the rolls? When I was younger and I would home teach people who wanted nothing to do with the church, I would always bring up how they could write a few letters and get their names taken off the rolls of the church (I am sure it is somewhat of a process, to be sure), but if they were really serious about it and really wanted nothing to do with us, they were just wasting everyone's time, including their own, by not doing it.

Oh I actually like having members over (minus the unnecessary condescension).

The thing is, it's really complicated and few people really don't or can't understand that. You get the whole "people can leave the church but they can't leave it alone!" line plenty. But the thing is, I was an active mormon for 30+ years. It was how I was raised, my friends were all mormon, my family is mormon, my wife's family is mormon, the songs my mom sang me were mormon. I spent so much my life and energy on it, yeah I can't just leave it behind, not anymore than I can leave being latino.

As for time wasted? Well, missionaries get nice drinks and a break from proselytizing. My wife's visiting teachers are great. And home teachers? HA! Even when I was active I don't remember the last time I got some of those to visit.

I do really hate the condescension, I've had people ask me in front of my wife if I had issues with porn or fidelity or tobacco and drugs and that was why I left. Not cool. I've thought about it long and hard and really, removing my name is not for me right now. It will always be a part of who I am, regardless of my activity.

 

[AlteredBeast]

Oh I actually like having members over (minus the unnecessary condescension).

The thing is, it's really complicated and few people really don't or can't understand that. You get the whole "people can leave the church but they can't leave it alone!" line plenty. But the thing is, I was an active mormon for 30+ years. It was how I was raised, my friends were all mormon, my family is mormon, my wife's family is mormon, the songs my mom sang me were mormon. I spent so much my life and energy on it, yeah I can't just leave it behind, not anymore than I can leave being latino.

As for time wasted? Well, missionaries get nice drinks and a break from proselytizing. My wife's visiting teachers are great. And home teachers? HA! Even when I was active I don't remember the last time I got some of those to visit.

I do really hate the condescension, I've had people ask me in front of my wife if I had issues with porn or fidelity or tobacco and drugs and that was why I left. Not cool. I've thought about it long and hard and really, removing my name is not for me right now. It will always be a part of who I am, regardless of my activity.

That is honorable and makes sense then. Is your wife still active?

 

[ronito]

That is honorable and makes sense then. Is your wife still active?

No. She'd like to go to enrichment and have the social aspects but she's largely in the same place I am.

 

[aceface]

PBS did a story on the hill cumorah pagent

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/episodes/lds-pageant/12369/

Or as I overheard an investigator call it "Mighty Mormon Power Rangers"

My wife grew up in Palmyra, so I drive by the Hill Cumorah all the time. She said that she went to the pagent once, apparently it's a pretty bitchin' a/v presentation.

 

[ronito]

Now this is fascinating

John Dehlin did an interview with Tom Philips for his mormonstories website podcast.

Tom Philips, for those that don't know was a friend of Elder Holland and further had his calling and election made sure by receiving the second anointing. Tom then grew disillusioned with the church and later left.

The interview goes into detail about the second anointing and what it is and what it entails and all that. REALLY interesting stuff.

After the interview was over Dehlin decided not to publish it for fear that it would get him excommunicated (and rightly so, most mormons don't know that a second anointing exists, let alone the details of it). But Tom posted it on his website anyway.

The interview is really long (like 4 hours) and goes into some deep stuff. If there's interest I'll do a tl;dr later.

Here's the link:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/tempstash/TomPhillips-Unedited.mp3

 

[CorvoSol]

So, to the level-headed Mormons and Ex-Mormons on GAF, I'd like to apologize for losing my cool in that thread yesterday. I, uh, sometimes I get a little annoyed at how people rush to assume all these crazy things and dismiss anything members say as their being "apologists." Take that as you will, but I am sorry I flipped out there.

Anyway, I'm heading back to Rexburg in like, two weeks, and I have a bit on that subject worth saying:

1) Listen to anyone who tells you not to date the 18-19 year old crowd. Those girls are YEESH. I mean, some of them seem perfectly reasonable, but now that I've reached the august age of 24 (I still have one more before I'm a menace, right?) I can't find it in myself to date women who graduated high-school after I started my Mission. It's just . . . odd and some of them are REALLY uh, crazy.

2) If there's one thing in this Church I cannot stand more than its gossip (and nobody loves to gossip quite like us Mormons) then it is most definitely the group of women and people who support them in their crying over the fact that they're not married because all the men want to marry the younger, prettier girls. You know why I don't want to marry you? It's not just because you're going on forty and still in Young Single Adults, it's because the constant whining is absolutely unpleasant. And forgive me, sister, but polygamy isn't on-going, so the single woman I marry is likely the one I'm stuck with forever. So if I choose one, you can bet I'll choose one who doesn't spend her time crying about how shallow men are for not marrying her. So annoying. Ugh.

3) I need ideas for dates in Rexburg. It's like the Church only inherited the God-forsaken Deserts of this fair nation, and there's precious little to do in that town. You could throw a snowball from one end of mainstreet to the other, if it wasn't against the law. Bowling is out because there is not a woman in that town who has NOT been bowling. I'm Fall/Winter, so the river is more or less out, as is the mountain range. No car, so no going to IF or Pocatello.

But anyway, I apologize if my outburst in the other thread made things more difficult for others.

 

[ronito]

So, to the level-headed Mormons and Ex-Mormons on GAF, I'd like to apologize for losing my cool in that thread yesterday. I, uh, sometimes I get a little annoyed at how people rush to assume all these crazy things and dismiss anything members say as their being "apologists." Take that as you will, but I am sorry I flipped out there.

Anyway, I'm heading back to Rexburg in like, two weeks, and I have a bit on that subject worth saying:

1) Listen to anyone who tells you not to date the 18-19 year old crowd. Those girls are YEESH. I mean, some of them seem perfectly reasonable, but now that I've reached the august age of 24 (I still have one more before I'm a menace, right?) I can't find it in myself to date women who graduated high-school after I started my Mission. It's just . . . odd and some of them are REALLY uh, crazy.

2) If there's one thing in this Church I cannot stand more than its gossip (and nobody loves to gossip quite like us Mormons) then it is most definitely the group of women and people who support them in their crying over the fact that they're not married because all the men want to marry the younger, prettier girls. You know why I don't want to marry you? It's not just because you're going on forty and still in Young Single Adults, it's because the constant whining is absolutely unpleasant. And forgive me, sister, but polygamy isn't on-going, so the single woman I marry is likely the one I'm stuck with forever. So if I choose one, you can bet I'll choose one who doesn't spend her time crying about how shallow men are for not marrying her. So annoying. Ugh.

3) I need ideas for dates in Rexburg. It's like the Church only inherited the God-forsaken Deserts of this fair nation, and there's precious little to do in that town. You could throw a snowball from one end of mainstreet to the other, if it wasn't against the law. Bowling is out because there is not a woman in that town who has NOT been bowling. I'm Fall/Winter, so the river is more or less out, as is the mountain range. No car, so no going to IF or Pocatello.

But anyway, I apologize if my outburst in the other thread made things more difficult for others.

Level headed? Ah man you're not gonna apologize to me? Shame. I thought we were bros.

1) 24, you ARE a menace to society.
2) I don't know I tend to find any religion that has same sex meetings end up gossiping quite a lot. But I get you, my wife would always complain when she'd say that Relief Society was more like "Complain about men Society" but then she'd ask what we talked about in priesthood and I'd be like "basketball."
3) Dude I've only ever driven passed Rexburg and that itself bored me to death. For me the best dates weren't necessarily activity focused. Like getting together and playing board games or cooking dinner was usually best.

 

[Commodore]

So, to the level-headed Mormons and Ex-Mormons on GAF, I'd like to apologize for losing my cool in that thread yesterday. I, uh, sometimes I get a little annoyed at how people rush to assume all these crazy things and dismiss anything members say as their being "apologists." Take that as you will, but I am sorry I flipped out there.

Anyway, I'm heading back to Rexburg in like, two weeks, and I have a bit on that subject worth saying:

1) Listen to anyone who tells you not to date the 18-19 year old crowd. Those girls are YEESH. I mean, some of them seem perfectly reasonable, but now that I've reached the august age of 24 (I still have one more before I'm a menace, right?) I can't find it in myself to date women who graduated high-school after I started my Mission. It's just . . . odd and some of them are REALLY uh, crazy.

2) If there's one thing in this Church I cannot stand more than its gossip (and nobody loves to gossip quite like us Mormons) then it is most definitely the group of women and people who support them in their crying over the fact that they're not married because all the men want to marry the younger, prettier girls. You know why I don't want to marry you? It's not just because you're going on forty and still in Young Single Adults, it's because the constant whining is absolutely unpleasant. And forgive me, sister, but polygamy isn't on-going, so the single woman I marry is likely the one I'm stuck with forever. So if I choose one, you can bet I'll choose one who doesn't spend her time crying about how shallow men are for not marrying her. So annoying. Ugh.

3) I need ideas for dates in Rexburg. It's like the Church only inherited the God-forsaken Deserts of this fair nation, and there's precious little to do in that town. You could throw a snowball from one end of mainstreet to the other, if it wasn't against the law. Bowling is out because there is not a woman in that town who has NOT been bowling. I'm Fall/Winter, so the river is more or less out, as is the mountain range. No car, so no going to IF or Pocatello.

But anyway, I apologize if my outburst in the other thread made things more difficult for others.

3) If you find a decent person you like, what you do doesn't really matter. You aren't impressing a girl on a first date with the date itself, its more just you. But then again, if she's not into you, all she cares about is hey free fun. Find a park and go for a walk and get ice cream afterward, if that doesn't win a second date, its not worth the extra effort.

 

[ronito]

3) If you find a decent person you like, what you do doesn't really matter. You aren't impressing a girl on a first date with the date itself, its more just you. But then again, if she's not into you, all she cares about is hey free fun. Find a park and go for a walk and get ice cream afterward, if that doesn't win a second date, its not worth the extra effort.

Here is wisdom.

Remember, dating is just spending a bunch of money on someone else's wife.

 

[CorvoSol]

Here is wisdom.

Remember, dating is just spending a bunch of money on someone else's wife.

Hahaha, I guess you guys are right. Most of the dates I went on last semester were just walks in the park, talking about Doctor Who and such. She was a really nice girl, but I wasn't feeling, I dunno, a click, so we decided to just be friends.

Level headed? Ah man you're not gonna apologize to me? Shame. I thought we were bros.

1) 24, you ARE a menace to society.
2) I don't know I tend to find any religion that has same sex meetings end up gossiping quite a lot. But I get you, my wife would always complain when she'd say that Relief Society was more like "Complain about men Society" but then she'd ask what we talked about in priesthood and I'd be like "basketball."
3) Dude I've only ever driven passed Rexburg and that itself bored me to death. For me the best dates weren't necessarily activity focused. Like getting together and playing board games or cooking dinner was usually best.

We're bros Ronito. Bros don't have to 'pologize, unless it involves violations of the brode.

 

[ronito]

Now this is fascinating

John Dehlin did an interview with Tom Philips for his mormonstories website podcast.

Tom Philips, for those that don't know was a friend of Elder Holland and further had his calling and election made sure by receiving the second anointing. Tom then grew disillusioned with the church and later left.

The interview goes into detail about the second anointing and what it is and what it entails and all that. REALLY interesting stuff.

After the interview was over Dehlin decided not to publish it for fear that it would get him excommunicated (and rightly so, most mormons don't know that a second anointing exists, let alone the details of it). But Tom posted it on his website anyway.

The interview is really long (like 4 hours) and goes into some deep stuff. If there's interest I'll do a tl;dr later.

Here's the link:

https://s3.amazonaws.com/tempstash/TomPhillips-Unedited.mp3

Holy Hell!
That guy does not fool around when it comes to "falling away".

I've heard that the higher up you go in the church the more polarized you are when you leave. This dude has his calling and election made sure and his disbelief is as strong as his belief.

I mean, several times listening to that even I gasped at how anti he's become. I'd say I'm beyond NOM, and am an ex but not anti he's way beyond NOM, even ex, and squarely in anti camp and not just the outskirts. Wow. You'd think someone so engaged with the church and friends with apostles and such would be a bit more respectful.

Of course it's probably his conviction to his beliefs that made him successful in the church and then when he left it's those same convictions that made him such an enemy to the church. Dude looses his wife, his family, his friends. And while that's not uncommon for people that leave the church (I lost a large majority of friends) but he lost them with a bullet.

I tend not to be a fan of Dehlin, I find that in many ways he's cognitive dissonance incarnate. But I do appreciate what he does and it's a thankless job, the church doesn't care for him and exmos don't understand why he's still there. But I do think he did as fair a job as he could have in the interview actually asking him hard questions and puts the guy in his place.

But drama nonetheless the bit about the second anointing was really interesting.

We're bros Ronito. Bros don't have to 'pologize, unless it involves violations of the brode.

I love you man.

 

[Hitokage]

The more you expose, the deeper your negative opinion becomes. Some people just stop caring and leave without learning anything.

 

[CorvoSol]

I love you man.

Bro hug!

I did not know Hitokage was a member of Mormon/Ex-Mormon GAF.

 

[ronito]

Bro hug!

Together forever!

 

[Zerokku]

Bro hug!

I did not know Hitokage was a member of Mormon/Ex-Mormon GAF.

There really is a surprising number here on GAF. Definetely seems to be a pretty decent lean towards exmormons though, at least when it comes to vocal GAFers at any rate.

 

[ronito]

So I do have a question about the second anointing. I was hoping you guys could shed some light on it. As I know the second anointing is supposed to be secret I'll spoiler my question so don't highlight the below unless you're cool with it

Spoiler

So with the endowment while you can't have guessed the signs and tokens but really there's no entirely new concepts given. It's just building on existing stuff. But this having his wife give him a blessing hints at a female priesthood and while you hear folklore about women being able to use their husbands priesthood. But I really don't get this one at all. Who's priesthood is she using? Her husbands? Or her own, if it's her own doesn't she need the laying on of hands to get it? If it's his could she perform any ordinance he can? Outside of being set apart as a member of a godhead and the live as long as you want there wasn't much else new in it but the wife blessing her husband was a bit strange especially as the rest of it is in scriptures (the three nephites for long life, and the whole thing about eternal progression towards godhood) but there's nothing really about a female preisthood at all it really threw me off

So any help on that front? My wife's reaction to that part was actually really funny she was like "That's just not right."

 

[CorvoSol]

Together forever!

I have had to stop myself so many times from putting Cosplay into the "Awesome" Fan art thread. A part of me desperately wants to make an "Awesome" cosplay thread, but at the same time, I get in such a fuss about people teasing others for things which they like to do which are harmless, that I'd feel like an incredible jerk if I did.

But it really would be the greatest of threads.

 

[ronito]

So they made it official.

Maybe now, reporters, bloggers, outsiders and even many Mormons will accept that the Utah-based LDS Church does not forbid cola drinking.

On Wednesday, the LDS Church posted a statement on its website saying that "the church does not prohibit the use of caffeine" and that the faith’s health-code reference to "hot drinks" "does not go beyond [tea and coffee]."
A day later, the website wording was slightly softened, saying only that "the church revelation spelling out health practices ... does not mention the use of caffeine."

Same goes for the church’s two-volume handbook, which stake presidents, bishops and other LDS leaders use to guide their congregations. It says plainly that "the only official interpretation of ‘hot drinks’ (D&C 89:9) in the Word of Wisdom is the statement made by early church leaders that the term ‘hot drinks’ means tea and coffee."

That doesn’t mean church leaders view caffeinated drinks as healthy. They just don’t bar members from, say, pounding a Pepsi, downing a Dew or sipping a hot chocolate.

Even LDS presidential nominee Mitt Romney has been seen drinking an occasional Diet Coke, and Mormon missionaries in France routinely imbibe caffeinated colas — without embarrassment or consequences.

This week’s clarification on caffeine "is long overdue," said Matthew Jorgensen, a Mormon and longtime Mountain Dew drinker.

Jorgensen, who is doing a two-year research fellowship in Germany, grew up "in a devout Mormon household, in a small, devout Mormon town," where his neighbors and church leaders viewed "drinking a Coca-Cola as so close to drinking coffee that it made your worthiness ... questionable."

That view was magnified when LDS Church President Gordon B. Hinckley offhandedly told "60 Minutes" that Mormons avoid caffeine. Several earlier LDS leaders, including apostle Bruce R. McConkie, considered imbibing Coke as a violation of the "spirit" of the Word of Wisdom.

It was dictated in 1833 by Mormon founder Joseph Smith and bars consumption of wine, strong drinks (alcohol), tobacco and "hot drinks," which have been defined by church authorities as tea and coffee.

 

[radios shipping overview]

Utah County sales of caffeine-free Dew and cola will tank. But what does this mean for Mormons who like herbal tea and decaf?

If the "body is a temple" reasoning doesn't apply to other caffeinated drinks, then the prohibition on tea and coffee boils down to "because the Word of Wisdom says so." A lot of energy drinks have much more unhealthy amounts of caffeine than coffee.

 

[Hitokage]

So are we back to the high temperature of a liquid being what's bad and not the chemical action of it?

 

[ronito]

So are we back to the high temperature of a liquid being what's bad and not the chemical action of it?

Certainly not!
Hot cocoa, and milk is still ok.

 

[ronito]

I've seen this pic everywhere this week and it drives me mad.
I mean let's not pretend the church is something it's not. Missionaries will tell you about the church but the church has secrets even from active members, the second endowment shows that there's secrets even from endowed members. Hard to act surprised when people call it secretive.

 

[Hitokage]

I guess they gave up on putting "milk before meat" in a meme pic.

 

[ronito]

Tasteless joke? Or tasteless joke?

http://prospect.org/article/hidden-candidate

 

[Yoritomo]

I can't stand John Dehlin's interview style. He's either an idiot, thinks his audience are idiots, can't hear worth shit, or likes to force people to repeat stuff they've just said for shits and giggles.

 

[SquiddyCracker]

Are there any interesting mormon traditions that ex-mormons keep up with (that aren't attending mass/praying)?

 

[ctrayne]

.