bcspace wrote:The OP is not asking whether one is "free to speculate and hypothesize."
It's begging the question.
Exactly. Speculation and ad hoc hypothesizing, in the absence of any supporting evidence, is simply begging the question.
The OP is asking whether "not official doctrine" should be the conversation-ender for such "speculation and hypotheses" attempting to be used to explain "official doctrine."
Only if official doctrine answers the question.
And if it doesn't, than the Church's claims fail, because the Church has not officially answered the question.
Example: the LDS Church officially teaches that the entire planet Earth became an ocean during Noah's flood. Overwhelming scientific evidence shows that this is not possible. There is no need to turn to the mental masturbation of Mormon apologists, because the Church has already staked its claim.
For example, your ideas about LDS teachings being compatible with evolutionary theory require numerous ad hoc inventions and suppositions that are not found in official LDS teachings.
They merely tie doctrine and science together without conflict and make the same type of doctrinal assumptions that have been made elsewhere.
And as you have no authority to speak on behalf of the LDS Church, your ideas are mere speculation and may be summarily rejected on that basis.
Therefore, official LDS teachings must stand on their own, without such "speculation and hypotheses," to answer the question of whether official LDS teachings are compatible with evolutionary theory.
Right?
They always stand on their own. They just don't answer every question.
Irrelevant. The OP is contemplating questions on which the LDS Church has taken a position.
Totally agree. For example, some people try to say that the United Order was de facto socialism or communism. In reality, socialism and communism are definable, coherent economic and ideological concepts, regardless of whether one agrees or not with said ideologies. The United Order, on the other hand, is meaningless patter and drivel that failed because it really isn't anything except the vacuous babbling of Joseph Smith.
The U.O. is not an economic system but free market capitalism is certainly required for it to work by doctrinal implication. It's not difficult to see how it would work in the modern world without much change.
And believing Mormons of a more leftist bent see the opposite in the United Order, suggesting that ultimately the United Order is nothing but vacuous babbling that is so devoid of meaning that one can claim it to support whatever one's political bent happens to be.
Therefore, you are completely right to say that LDS Democrats should not claim that official church teachings support socialism or the welfare state.
Yep
Nor should they claim that official church teachings support free-market capitalism, since the LDS Church has offered nothing to enhance, clarify, or otherwise add to the world's already-existant understanding of free market capitalism.
Similarly, the LDS Church does not officially accept or encourage homosexuality, except when it is expedient for it to do so:
Has doctrine defined homosexuality as inborn?
No. Therefore, LDS Democrats are free to speculate and hypothesize that gay people are born that way.
http://newsroom.LDS.org/article/church- ... iage-votes
The Church’s opposition to same-sex marriage neither constitutes nor condones any kind of hostility toward gays and lesbians. Even more, the Church does not object to rights for same-sex couples regarding hospitalization and medical care, fair housing and employment rights, or probate rights, so long as these do not infringe on the integrity of the traditional family or the constitutional rights of churches.
I don't see any acceptance or encouragement of homosexuality here.
By not opposing legally enforceable rights for same-sex couples?
What is the effective difference between not opposing something and accepting it?