Bednar claims the church is growing and vibrant

[Marcus]

Yeah, cringe.

Cringe over what?

THAT was an excellent object lesson for that young man and the others that were in attendance and online.

Wonderful.

You may have noticed that this young man was a bit emotional from the very start and Elder Bednar treated him with respect and dignity. It’s difficult for a young person to be in the spotlight and Elder Bednar treated him appropriately....

Oh dear god. No, he did not treat the young boy with "respect and dignity," nor was his touching of the boy appropriate. That is sick to label it as such.

[Rivendale]

Cringe over what?

THAT was an excellent object lesson for that young man and the others that were in attendance and online.

Wonderful.

You may have noticed that this young man was a bit emotional from the very start and Elder Bednar treated him with respect and dignity. It’s difficult for a young person to be in the spotlight and Elder Bednar treated him appropriately....

Oh dear god. No, he did not treat the young boy with "respect and dignity," nor was his touching of the boy appropriate. That is sick to label it as such.

That video was pure vile. What I found interesting was the crowds reaction. Laughing while a young child cries. And I think it was Renlund in last general conference that talked about wanting to die after his baptism because he would never be that clean. The crowd laughed. Gross. Immoral and obtuse.

[I Have Questions]

It couldn’t be any clearer than this.

So, that''s a hard no. You won't answer.

I’ve answered you. You just don’t like my answer.

[I Have Questions]

Cringe over what?

THAT was an excellent object lesson for that young man and the others that were in attendance and online.

Wonderful.

You may have noticed that this young man was a bit emotional from the very start and Elder Bednar treated him with respect and dignity. It’s difficult for a young person to be in the spotlight and Elder Bednar treated him appropriately....

Oh dear god. No, he did not treat the young boy with "respect and dignity," nor was his touching of the boy appropriate. That is sick to label it as such.

He didn’t seek the boys permission, he didn’t ask the boys parents permission. If that had happened in a school between a teacher and a young student, the teacher would have been suspended or fired. It’s grooming behaviour.

[Res Ipsa]

So, that''s a hard no. You won't answer.

I’ve answered you. You just don’t like my answer.

No, you haven’t. You’ve simply repeated Bednar’s words back to me, when the question on the table is what the words mean. My question is, what do you think Bednar sees as a commonality between SAS and “physical limitation” Repeating Bednar’s words over and over is not an answer. It’s avoidance.

The irony of the whole issue is that you are missing the camel.

[Marcus]

:..Let's make up some biology that would make calling SSA a "physical limitation" reasonable...

That is exactly what Bednar is doing, and I agree with you, it is a ridiculous position to take.

[MG 2.0]

Cringe over what?

THAT was an excellent object lesson for that young man and the others that were in attendance and online.

Wonderful.

You may have noticed that this young man was a bit emotional from the very start and Elder Bednar treated him with respect and dignity. It’s difficult for a young person to be in the spotlight and Elder Bednar treated him appropriately.

You guys are over the top.

Regards,
MG

Dude, you are whack. The kid asked a question about how to get back in the habit of reading the scriptures. It clearly wasn't a question for a friend -- he was talking about himself. He was crying throughout because he was scared and embarrassed.

Bednar never even tried to answer the question. All he did was threaten him with being unable to escape the grasp of the devil if he didn't read his scriptures. To the kid, Bednar was a representative of God. Bednar summoned him down. The kid had not choice but to obey an authority figure with God's authority. He ignored the signals that the kid was giving him. He didn't ask the kid's premission to touch him, let alone physically restrain him.

I take back whack. I replace it with sick.

I’ll have to say, these kinds of responses and back and forths between us do say a lot about how we view the world and especially, in this case, our views in regards to who we trust to do the right thing in a given situation.

I think that it is probable that if a person doesn’t trust the GA’s generally that same person is going to have a struggle trusting an individual GA in any given specific situation. It is difficult to give the benefit of a doubt.

Elder Bednar taught a very powerful object lesson through using movement and kinetic energy to amplify what was being taught. He is a master teacher.

But I can understand that if a person lacks trust in a global sort of way with a certain subgroup of humanity they are going to have a heck of a time trusting and/or accepting the actions of any one individual in that subgroup.

It’s a human thing to do.

Me? I trust that Elder Bednar’s interactions with this young man were totally appropriate and that all in attendance will remember the lesson that was taught.

I did.

Nothing ‘cringy’.

Regards,
MG

[Res Ipsa]

:..Let's make up some biology that would make calling SSA a "physical limitation" reasonable...

That is exactly what Bednar is doing, and I agree with you, it is a ridiculous position to take.

That is the interpretation you are choosing to put on his words. The biology I made up has nothing to do with Bednar. I created it to illustrate your interpretation of what he said. Do you have any other example from your study of Bednar in which he claims that everyone has SSA that is drowned out by some physical mechanism that makes OSA predominant in most people?

And even if you’re correct about what he means, how does that affect the argument in his answer?

[Marcus]

That is exactly what Bednar is doing, and I agree with you, it is a ridiculous position to take.

That is the interpretation you are choosing to put on his words. The biology I made up has nothing to do with Bednar. I created it to illustrate your interpretation of what he said. Do you have any other example from your study of Bednar in which he claims that everyone has SSA that is drowned out by some physical mechanism that makes OSA predominant in most people?

And even if you’re correct about what he means, how does that affect the argument in his answer?

Sigh. I don't know why you've decided to take this route. Maybe it is simple contrarianism. But the point has been fully made that Bednar has inappropriately labeled SSA as a sin, a physical limitation, a defect. You're on your own if you want to keep arguing that Bednar had a more glorious vision than that. You do you, son.

[Res Ipsa]

That is the interpretation you are choosing to put on his words. The biology I made up has nothing to do with Bednar. I created it to illustrate your interpretation of what he said. Do you have any other example from your study of Bednar in which he claims that everyone has SSA that is drowned out by some physical mechanism that makes OSA predominant in most people?

And even if you’re correct about what he means, how does that affect the argument in his answer?

Sigh. I don't know why you've decided to take this route. Maybe it is simple contrarianism. But the point has been fully made that Bednar has inappropriately labeled SSA as a sin, a physical limitation, a defect. You're on your own if you want to keep arguing that Bednar had a more glorious vision than that. You do you, son.

And you still can’t state his actual argument without strawmanning him.

Why? Because going for the silly cheap shot makes it trivially easy to dismiss your opinion based on bias alone. Review the bidding here. First in this thread was a cheap shot about no homosexuals in the church based on omitting context critical to understanding what he said. I mean, the Sun couldn’t have done it better.

We’ve also had the insinuation that Bednar beats his wide based on a joke.

Then we’ve got this claim about what Bednar meant by a couple of clauses that are ambiguous, with you choosing the nonsensical alternative because you have a low opinion of Bednar.

My own opinion is that Bednar takes a proposition we would all agree with, but then engages in some slight of hand to get to a conclusion that is damaging to LDS members that self Identify as anything other than cis-het. The first step in refuting his argument is to understand it, which means making a good faith a attempt to understand his argument without strawmanning it or talking silly cheap shots.

Your claim that Bednar labeled SSA as a sin is flat out wrong. SSA=Same Sex Attraction. Bednar’s whole argument is that being sexually attracted to a member of the same sex is not a sin. It’s right there in the transcript of the answer. So, what you claim has been “fully established” is 100% wrong. Before one can legitimately claim that something is fully established, one must actually establish it.

The entire point of Bednar’s answer is the opposite of what you claim he is saying. He is presenting an argument that tries to justify the church’s position on homosexuality without saying that being a homosexual or, as he would put it, a person who is challenged by same sex attraction, is a sin.

Here’s how I would summarize his argument based on doing my best to understand his words:

We are all children of God who are presented with challenges in this life. We don’t all face the same challenges, and we don’t get to choose our challenges. SSA is one challenge some of us face. Being challenged is not a sin. Feeling a sexual attraction to a person of the same sex is not a sin. It’s simply a challenge.

But, while we don’t get to choose our challenges, we do get to choose how we act when faced with challenges. We have moral agency to choose our actions. When faced with a challenge, if we choose to act by violating God’s laws, then we have sinned. If we are faced with the same challenge and choose to obey God’s laws, we have not sinned.

Homosexual is just a label used by people. The label doesn’t define us. The nature of our sexual attraction doesn’t define us. We are children of God with full moral agency to choose whether to obey God’s laws or to sin.

These are God’s laws. Marriage must be between a bio man and a bio woman. Sexual relations with any person outside of marriage is a sin. But it’s our responsibility to choose, and we are fully accountable for our choices.

That’s what I’m referring to as the first step. You can’t credible refute what you don’t understand. And if you don’t understand, you’ll be swinging at strawmen while completely missing what’s wrong with the argument.