Jason Bourne wrote:I am familiar with Mark Schindler somewhat. From what I know of him he was a fine LDS. But based on this thread you would have expunged him from that category.
But I do not understand. You are quite happy to engage left of center people here. You want to engage me too, in your term a cafeteria Mormon. And I am actually fairly conservative though I to believe this war is and had become an abomination and the so called conservative president that launched it has, in my opinion, betrayed the conservative cause with this war and with other misplaced policy. Once again, it flies in the face of the modern day revelation on war, which I think in your mind ought to Trump the Old Testament passaged.
So anyway, I am certain that Bob would oppose you politically on many of the issues you hold dear. I know he would regarding the Iraq war because he has spoken out here. My guess is you might define him right out of being a good solid LDS. So if you won't engage him why engage anyone else here? Why the reluctance if based on your very own thread he might fall out of your graces. Is it because he is a defender? Or perhaps your attempt to exclude people who don't see things your political way is nonsensical.
I had a lengthy response to this and than accidentally deleted it, so I'm not going to recompose it now. Suffice it to say that, as I said before, there are reasonable arguments on both sides of the Iraq war, and a number of very unreasonable ones that would clearly endanger myself, my children, and my grandchildren on my own soil were they to be followed to there logical conclusions as policy. If Bob holds to those, then we would part ways on those issues. After my experience with Marc, if it was the case that his views were, to me, not just wrong headed, but immoral or irresponsibly dangerous, our only recourse would be to let politics alone while in mortality.
The question in the OP was about faithfulness to Gospel principles relative to a set of ideological positions common to the Left. The Iraq war was not among them. However, I'll admit to the limitation of such a framing of the argument. It would certainly take much more than one issue to create a cognitive dissonance or incongruence with LDS doctrine such taht one might have to reconsider his actual commitment to the Gospel.
Look, could Tom Hayden be a faithful LDS? Sure, but not holding many of the views he has traditionally held. Leaving those behind would have to me understood as a part of his repentance prior to entering the Kingdom. Could the Grand Dragon of the KKK by a good Mormon? Sure, but not while still accepting his prior beliefs and attitudes. Of course, he could keep them quiet and no one would ever know, but the question was about faithfulness relative to church teachings: about whether certain beliefs could be harmonized with Gospel doctrines without obvious conflict, not about one's official standing in the Church as a member.
Keep in mind that Marc Schindler had me excommunicated from the realms of decent humanity and the Church for my views on free market economics, socialized medicine, the behavior and policies of this country during the Cold War, my anti-communism, and racial issues, so this sword cuts both proverbial ways.
Ill just say again, with Bob, I'd just leave it alone if our positions were too radically different. And yes, one of the reasons is because he is a faithful and valiant member of the Church and is here as a defender. The other leftists here (and Bob has called himself a liberal, not a leftist, which is important) are mostly secular exmos and countermos, who have no love lost between either conservative/classical liberal views or the Church. This runs the gamut from the severe Dawkinist/Saganoid materialists, to socialist/Marxist leftists, to angry feminists and social liberals mad at the Church's moral and social teachings, to to people like Infy, Porter, and others so neurotic there positions on things are hard to discern. Then you have folks like Harmony who are exmos who stay active in the Church for the purposes of subverting the faith of others.
Let me put it this way. If Bob has reasonable philosophical and political arguments about the Iraq war, that's fine. We could debate them like reasonable, intellectually mature adults. If Bob is a
pacifist, however (a standard position long held among the baby boom generation Left) a philosophy that I not only believe to be wrong, but with which I have very strong and poignant
moral problems as well, that would be another matter, and we would probably have to keep both our positions to ourselves.
Such is mortality.
