Politics continue to rattle the chains of the liberal mod brigade at MAD, to the point that, at this juncture, very specific posters (almost always conservative) are now targeted for banning and removal from threads for no other reason than that, apparently, they were zeroing in on uncomfortable territory.
Observe the following interchange from http://www.mormonapologetics.org/topic/ ... estly-say/:
Droopy:
The idea that fundamental, salient questions of political philosophy, let alone policy, can be separated from the gospel of Jesus Christ is well nigh intellectually unserious. Indeed, were it not for the sharp contrast that is now being presented by some LDS that this is the appropriate response to the core issues of the age that confront us as mortals and as citizens - that is, the proper response for LDS is to disengage from the political sphere or to engage it but pretend that one's engagement has no spiritual relevance and no direct gospel application, many of the Saints would doubtless dismiss it as a frivolity.
I've probably yet to see a recipe for cognitive dissonance and doublethink as copiously spiced as this.
Juliann:
As in this kind of doublethink? The only place your kind of fanatical rhetoric goes is to the door of Pres. Monson.•Expect its members to engage in the political process in an informed and civil manner, respecting the fact that members of the Church come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences and may have differences of opinion in partisan political matters.
Droopy:
Yes, yes, this is the usual mealy boilerplate we see over at the Trailerpark from staunch leftists there who don't want to go here because once we begin actually comparing and contrasting various and sundry political beliefs and ideologies with the teachings of the Church, we at some point begin to see that a number of them are not consistent, and others are utterly hostile, to those teachings.
As to Monson's statement, this is nothing more than a recapitulation of the statement we seen at the Church Newsroom regarding political neutrality. Note Juliann, that this statement applies to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, that is, the institutional church as a body and an entity. It has no relevance (else this would have been made clear) to the individual members of the Church or to the oath and covenant of the Priesthood I took (to preach, teach, expound, exhort, call to repentance, see there is no iniquity in the Church etc.)
Note here that quite literally all of these points refer to candidates, partisan political competition, and relations with government. Nowhere is there any reference to political ideology or policy and its potential relations to church doctrine.
But even more interesting are the subheadings on this page, where we see pages on abortion, euthanasia, stem cell research, homosexual marriage, and immigration. In each case, the church...takes clear stands on the issue in question (and let's understand that neutrality is a stand, its a position, the interpretation of which is open to interpretation). Some of this neutrality is, I'm convinced in any case, an indication that we as Latter Day Saints should be able to figure a great deal of this stuff out for ourselves, especially given the doctrine and counsel we have received in this dispensation thus far.Expect its members to engage in the political process in an informed and civil manner, respecting the fact that members of the Church come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences and may have differences of opinion in partisan political matters.
Notice again the reference to partisan politics. Don't want to talk about my party vs. your party? All well and good. Do you see any restriction here on analyzing and using our discernment to properly place various political philosophies, ideologies and policy prescriptions in their appropriate sphere with regard to the "ensign" of the restored gospel.
And:
Perhaps some are. I, for one, have never confused the gospel with politics. What I do understand is that the core, fundamental questions that inform what we understand as politics are questions that inform what kind of a society we are going to live in, the limits and conditions it places upon us, and the character both our nations and many of its citizens are going to develop and internalize. It is salient in the determination of whether a nation will be prosperous or poor, whether its people will tend to be virtuous or venal, and in more extreme cases, whether our potential as children of our Heavenly Father will be allowed to manifest itself much beyond a rudimentary, fetal state.
And:
All you're doing is fleeing headlong from something that threatens you in the very idea of a gospel critique of the political world and its various elements. I'm sorry, but who are you to shut the door on such a critique?
Juliann:
We must be reading different statements from the church. The one I linked to clearly cautioned members not institutions.
Droopy:
Time to quit straining so very hard to make your point Juliann and perhaps engage the specific arguments I've made here with some degree of critical rigor, as opposed to the Huffington Post technique of just calling your interlocutor a "fanatic" and clapping your hands over your ears again.Expect its members to engage in the political process in an informed and civil manner, respecting the fact that members of the Church come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences and may have differences of opinion in partisan political matters.
I try to follow this counsel as best I can, as I have been doing here. My civility begins to droop a bit, I admit, when I encounter philosophical shoddiness and intellectual diffidence to the salient points that are raised. I do note here, Juliann, that logically, the implied gist of this statement is: engage in political discourse and argument, but do so in an informed and civil manner.
Now, it is you, Juliann, not I who is in conflict with this counsel, for it is you, and not I, who takes the position that the gospel should be separated from politics; that members should not be engaging in the political process at all, at least if there is any chance that political principles may come into conflict with gospel principles.
The entire statement precludes much of what you have said here, and implies explicitly that members of the Church should be political and politically active. But this is precisely what you appear to find so threatening.
Juliann:
Now you are making things up. Members are counseled very specifically to engage in the political process and we did it quite effectively for Prop 8.
I support the church in their counsel even if it requires "straining so very hard".
Droopy:
You cannot have it both ways. Either we are to separate politics from religion (and hence no faithful members should have participated in the prop 8 grassroots mobilization), or we are to participate. If we are to participate, then...
What is your point?
Can a faithful, believing Nazi be a faithful, believing Latter Day Saint Juliann? By the term "Nazi", I mean one who subscribes to and accepts the 25 point Nazi party platform, its racial theories, its collectivism, its totalitarian political model, and its military aggression.
Juliann:
(some may have noticed, although Juliann didn't, that I never mentioned him).Ah, the death rattle of a debater....Hitler.
Skylla:
Droopy is banned from the thread.
Now, what is interesting is that Skylla did not ban me for any apparent reason at all. The entire thread was politically oriented and he let it go on for some eight pages (its still open at present so Juliann and whoever wishes to can take pot shots at me without response).
Were my posts too political, or was it just what I was saying that was out of some people's comfort zones (yet again)?
Juliann, (to my amazement, as she clearly is a very smart and educated woman) didn't so much as attempt to engage a single one of my major arguments or points in a concise, critical manner. She simply used the Church newsroom text as a kind of amulet to ward of evil conservative spirits and kept right on repeating over and over again the same cut and pasted paragraph.
More on this presently.