A couple of tips on being a more effective apologist. Instead of responding with heavy-handed admonishing that everyone finds humorous and then dismisses, "Looking at pornography is a serious breach of the law of chastity and firm measures must be taken to ensure the integrity of this sacred law," which just pits your point of view against theirs, why not read the story carefully and look for ways to analyze it that undermines the logic of the critics?
You're apparently under the impression that I take anecdotal leftist outrage stories that the sacred dogmas of the sexual revolution have been blasphemed seriously.
If you think the critics have once tasted of the fruit of the holy tree and now feel ashamed, how does it help logically, or even carry an insult by telling them this when they think the idea of a sacred fruit tree that good Mormons eat from is laughably stupid?
If they do, then this is, itself a part of the pattern of tasting of the fruit, glancing at the cool, hip, enlightened people in the Great and Spacious Building, and then looking around as if ashamed. I was simply pointing out a spiritual pattern - an eternal truth about human nature and the human condition in mortality - not constructing a logical argument. I did not intend to in this instance (and frankly, Gad, in all the countless times in the past when I have, its hasn't stimulated, for the most part, anything but the standard polemical, ad hominem howling that defines this board).
Even the liberal radical Bob Loblow -- they don't much more to the left than fifth-columnist Bob do they? -- said he is a little suspicious of this story.
I suspect that "Bob" is actually one of those odd mutant creatures, the fiscal conservative/social liberal hybrid that isn't really so much a hybrid as a paradox.
The story itself pits the youth as the one driving the measures. It's the youth, not the bishop, who claims to "struggle with the demon," having done so for two years (implying this has gone on underage extensively), and openly confessing his sins and seeking help from the bishop since that time. Any of these critics, if they discovered their underage teens looking at porn, and probably even their 18 year olds, would disable technology features that allow their children access to porn entirely against the will of their children to prevent them from getting access.
But this doesn't seem true of Madison, who is outraged over the Bishop doing precisely that.
That it's the bishop doing it, and the young man is technically an adult, I don't think adds much fury to a situation where the child had been addicted to porn for two years as a minor, breaking the law to fulfill his needs, and driving "progressive" measures by admitting guilt and confessing openly to the Bishop over a long period of time, not the Bishop doing intrusive detective work and doling out controlling punishments.
There were no "controlling punishments." That what all the
faux liberal anguish is all about. The guy is 18, he didn't have to hand over his cell to the Bishop and there is no way the Bishop could have made him do so. He quite obviously gave the Bishop the phone of his own free will, with the idea of being subject to whatever controls the Bishop had offered to impose on his cell phone usage.
Anyway, with the information given, there are other interpretations than merely a bishop overstepping his bounds.
I agree.
Try to come up with something other than apostates are mocking God's tree and will pay for it one day.
But that is the sugar that makes the honey sweet, Gad. That's the truth of the matter at its very core. Sometimes a body of internally consistent, logical argument is required. At other times, just telling the truth and testifying of the spiritual roots of human relations is more appropriate.