Will the WoW shift toward a "sustainability revelation?"

[Lem]

There is an interesting piece in the Deseret News about Joseph Smith's sermons that I think shows how far removed the modern church now is in terms of orthodoxy, from the church and membership Joseph encouraged.

“I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm. and administ(er)ing to the poor & dividi(n)g his substance. than the long smoothed faced hypo(c)rites,” Joseph said in a sermon recorded by Willard Richards on May 21, 1843.

Wow. Well, administering to the poor does seem to have been given up in favor of Botox, and I heard more fetches from byu RMs than one should be forced to hear in their entire life. That's quite a revelation he had about the future of his church.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

What’s a long smooth-faced *insert noun here*?

- Doc

[Dr Moore]

There is an interesting piece in the Deseret News about Joseph Smith's sermons that I think shows how far removed the modern church now is in terms of orthodoxy, from the church and membership Joseph encouraged.

“I love that man better who swears a stream as long as my arm. and administ(er)ing to the poor & dividi(n)g his substance. than the long smoothed faced hypo(c)rites,” Joseph said in a sermon recorded by Willard Richards on May 21, 1843.

Astonishing contrast with today's hoarding of substance and making "Mormon" a swear word.

[Analytics]

I can see an innovative and enlightened Prophet teaching what you suggest in the OP, Dr. Moore. But is an innovative and enlightened Prophet a contradiction in terms?

In 100 years, animal-based meat might be widely not consumed for health-of-the-planet reasons, and apologists then might point to how Joseph Smith was ahead of the curve on this and use it as further evidence of his prophetic calling. But the current leaders simply don’t have the guts to tell the Saints that they need to eat meat sparingly. Whatever happens with Mormon meat eating habits, Mormons in general and the hierarchy in particular will be following society, not leading it.

I agree with Gadianton—the Word of Wisdom’s real functionality is about creating tension with the rest of society—about cultural identity and setting the Saints apart.

[IHAQ]

What’s a long smooth-faced *insert noun here*?

- Doc

Those are the people who spend 2/3 hours a week pretending to be more righteous than anyone else.

[Dr Moore]

I can see an innovative and enlightened Prophet teaching what you suggest in the OP, Dr. Moore. But is an innovative and enlightened Prophet a contradiction in terms?

Today, it would be. In 100 or possibly even 40 years, who knows what will constitute innovative or enlightened ideas. Relative today, sure, but that was kind of the point. At the time the action won't be -- the innovation would be to back-date WoW insights.

[canpakes]

Well, of all places …

In the summer of 2015, a team of archaeologists in Utah found duck bones and charred plant matter just beneath the ground, in an arid stretch of northwestern Utah now known as the Wishbone site. The team realized it was an open-air hearth, some 12,000 years old, and now the same group has reported their discovery of tobacco seeds on the site. If corroborated, the find would become the oldest known evidence of people using tobacco.

[Equality]

Maybe instead of the plant based substitutes, lab grown meat will save us all.

But how would the WoW square that I wonder. I guess no harm no foul fowl.

FIFY

[Atlanticmike]

For the millennium to come, sustainability may just be the defining challenge for humankind. How will we evolve as a species to keep our planet hospitable?

Scientific consensus appears to overwhelmingly accept that drastic change is required to halt and repair damage to our atmosphere, oceans and forests. Now, before some of you jump on me over nits in the details of global warming or Seaspiracy, I'm not here to grind any political axes or stake out new ground on sustainability per se. I'm not an expert -- I'm just a fellow human sharing this planet with all the rest of you. But I am watching with great interest as society introduces innovative solutions to combat the rising risk of permanent, possibly catastrophic, global climate change.

Consider, for instance, Beyond Meat (BYND), which sold about $400 million in plant-based meat substitutes last year. Beyond aims to permanently impact the >$1 trillion global meat industry with a product that resembles the taste and texture of meat, but without the environmental impact of meat and eventually at a ~50% lower cost per pound for consumers. BYND is valued at $10 billion today. I've tried all of the Beyond products and have to say, it's really close. Not perfect, but definitely promising, and this is very, very early days. I don't think we'll ever go backward; it's a question of what pace going forward. Probably, like history, things will crawl and then leap. Anyhow, it's intriguing to wonder where meat substitutes will be in 10 years? 20 years? 50 years? If sustainability is an inevitable human imperative, then in what year will meat substitute sales exceed sales of actual meat?

If scientific analysis is to be trusted, reducing the number of animals raised for slaughter is a critical element to curbing climate change. I don't know if this is a panacea, but the notion that cow farts and cow burps are a leading cause of global warming seems to have gelled among leading minds. Bill Gates, for one, as you can watch in this enjoyable taste testing with Mark Rober (who happens to be an active Mormon, by the way).

I'm just thinking about the future and wondering out loud:

Could the Word of Wisdom be shifted toward a "sustainable Earth revelation?" How likely is it that someday, say in the year 2033 or 2045, an articulate Apostle will deliver the long-awaited talk that connects our "glorious and beautiful" earth to the Word of Wisdom?

Below, I offer a few data points.

1. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... nservation

While the church's entry on conservation does not (yet?) deal with topics like global warming or reducing meat consumption, it does embrace the potential for future sustainability practices the society may embrace.

The fulness of the earth is to be used with wisdom and restraint.

2. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... 9?lang=eng

Section 89 offers a few lines of text which I suspect could be back-dated into a sort of "sustainability revelation." Give it a try by re-reading the verses dealing with meat consumption with an eye on key words that hearken to sustainability. I've highlighted some of them in bold.

10 And again, verily I say unto you, all wholesome herbs God hath ordained for the constitution, nature, and use of man—

11 Every herb in the season thereof, and every fruit in the season thereof; all these to be used with prudence and thanksgiving.

12 Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly;

13 And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine.

14 All grain is ordained for the use of man and of beasts, to be the staff of life, not only for man but for the beasts of the field, and the fowls of heaven, and all wild animals that run or creep on the earth;

15 And these hath God made for the use of man only in times of famine and excess of hunger.

16 All grain is good for the food of man; as also the fruit of the vine; that which yieldeth fruit, whether in the ground or above the ground—

17 Nevertheless, wheat for man, and corn for the ox, and oats for the horse, and rye for the fowls and for swine, and for all beasts of the field, and barley for all useful animals, and for mild drinks, as also other grain.

18 And all saints who remember to keep and do these sayings, walking in obedience to the commandments, shall receive health in their navel and marrow to their bones;

19 And shall find wisdom and great treasures of knowledge, even hidden treasures;

20 And shall run and not be weary, and shall walk and not faint.

21 And I, the Lord, give unto them a promise, that the destroying angel shall pass by them, as the children of Israel, and not slay them. Amen.

The church has historically read the WoW in terms of benefits to "man" or "mankind." But why not allow it to be a metaphor for the home of mankind, i.e. the Earth itself?

A step further, knowing the power of parallelomania and faith-promotion by insinuation and implied dot connecting, I can envision a thoughtful Q15 member in the future pointing to verse 18 and observing an ancient connection to the temple ceremony. Before man was formed, the Earth was made. This creation motif is central to the plan of salvation and the temple ceremony. After the creation, as we know, Jehovah and Elohim marvel that the world they've made is "glorious and beautiful." Is it a stretch to think that doctrinal consensus will eventually be asserted that the Word of Wisdom in Section 89, by advising toward sparing use of animals for meat, Jehovah intended to sustain the glorious and beautiful earth as much as to offer health advice for the Saints?

We've tried the Beyond Burger patties and they're not that bad actually. The texture is a little off but the flavor isn't bad, I would eat them again. What about going old school and start teaching people how to raise animals again on their own property? Rabbits and quail are two animals that can be raised indoor or outdoor and are very easy to raise. For rabbits, one buck and two does can produce around 400lbs of meat. For quail, 10 hens can lay around 2500 eggs a year and if you add two roosters you have well over a 1000lbs of meat if you raise 1300 of those eggs to maturity. If we raised our own meat we would reduce millions of miles of tractor trailers hauling meat, free up land for farming and rabbit farts are earth friendly .

[Physics Guy]

Decentralizing food production again is an interesting idea, but on the good conservative principle of Chesterton's Fence, I start wondering why exactly we stopped all growing our own food.

I'm pretty sure it's because it has long been a more efficient use of human time to let a small number of people raise food for a much larger number, and trade food for all the other stuff humans can make. So I have to ask, how many extra hours would I have to work in a year to raise my own farm animals? Even getting a couple of dogs has taken a daily half-hour bite out of my leisure time, walking them. I'm pretty sure that tending a small flock of quail would take a time investment from me as well.

Against that, I don't really get paid by the hour, but if I value my time as if I were, then I reckon I can get more meat in a few minutes of writing physics papers than I can in hours of tending animals. If I were going to get into raising quail, on the other hand, I bet that if I invested in a larger bird house then my marginal cost in time for additional birds would drop low, until I could produce hundreds of times more quail eggs for every hour of my time than I could if I only kept ten.

I think this is the problem. A few eco-enthusiasts may raise their own food to save the planet, but the horrible inefficiency of non-specialisation makes the idea of devolving food production back to individual families a non-starter for the world in general.

Avoiding a lot of transportation costs is still a great goal. I don't see it happening in the old-school way of families raising their own animals, though. I see it happening with networks of widely spread mini-farms run by corporations using a lot of automation. We won't go away from big factory farms. The factory farms will just decentralise physically, until the point where efficiency loss from decentralisation is offset by savings on transportation costs that rise dramatically when they are allowed to reflect the environmental costs that everyone bears.

We won't get our eggs from the back yard. We'll get our eggs from the cloud.