mentalgymnast wrote:Just trying like everyone else to navigate myself through this policy change...from a faithful perspective...and without checking in or disposing with my integrity.
Regards, MG
I get that. I don't envy you. And I don't think it's possible.
From my perspective I'm seeing the Priesthood Ban all over again. I was a lot younger but I regret allowing the inhumanity of that to pass me by and I will forever be associated with being in tacit compliance with the organization that did that to black people. Fool me once, shame on me...
Last edited by Guest on Fri Nov 13, 2015 1:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
“When we are confronted with evidence that challenges our deeply held beliefs we are more likely to reframe the evidence than we are to alter our beliefs. We simply invent new reasons, new justifications, new explanations. Sometimes we ignore the evidence altogether.” (Mathew Syed 'Black Box Thinking')
Mentalgymnast, if your conscience comes from the Light of Christ, and Christ is leading this church, why would its policies about who is eligible for baptism bother your conscience? How can both of those things be true---Christ inspires you to feel morally uneasy, he inspires his prophets, seers, and revelators to be morally at peace---at the same time?
Equality wrote:Perhaps they are a group of sociopaths in suits, neither stupid nor credulous.
mentalgymnast wrote:You're serious?
Equality wrote:I am just following the evidence, which strongly suggests the possibility.
mentalgymnast wrote:Are you saying that they are sociopaths because they seem to all be speaking as one voice...and that one voice appears to be treating children as objects rather than people?
Regards, MG
I promise I will answer your question, but I am planning a longer post on it and don't have time right now (hate to sound like DCP here. Well, for that, I suppose I would have to name-drop and casually mention a trip to an exotic location). Short answer is the treating children as objects to be used to further their nefarious schemes is only part of what makes me think they are sociopaths in suits.
"The Church is authoritarian, tribal, provincial, and founded on a loosely biblical racist frontier sex cult."--Juggler Vain "The LDS church is the Amway of religions. Even with all the soap they sell, they still manage to come away smelling dirty."--Some Schmo
zeezrom wrote:maybe the church felt they would get sued if children on the records couldn't include their parents on the records.
It's impossible to sue a religious organization for that. Under the First Amendment, judges can't evaluate or gainsay internal ecclesiastical policies.
[I]t is well settled that civil tort claims against clerics that require the courts to review and interpret church law, policies, or practices in the determination of the claims are barred by the First Amendment under the entanglement doctrine. See Serbian E. Orthodox Diocese v. Milivojevich, 426 U.S. 696, 709-10, 96 S.Ct. 2372, 49 L.Ed.2d 151 (1976); Dausch, 52 F.3d at 1432; L.L.N., 563 N.W.2d at 440. For, as the Supreme Court stated in Kedroff v. St. Nicholas Cathedral, 344 U.S. 94, 73 S.Ct. 143, 97 L.Ed. 120 (1952), churches must have “power to decide for themselves, free from state interference, matters of church government as well as those of faith and doctrine.” Id. at 116, 73 S.Ct. 143.
Oh, I see. Well, then I don't get what the hell they were thinking. I suppose they are just a bunch of idiots after all.
Oh for shame, how the mortals put the blame on us gods, for they say evils come from us, but it is they, rather, who by their own recklessness win sorrow beyond what is given... Zeus (1178 BC)
zeezrom wrote: Oh, I see. Well, then I don't get what the hell they were thinking. I suppose they are just a bunch of idiots after all.
That's the thing, my brother in Athena. You didn't know that, because why would you have had a reason to look into it? But if you had in-house counsel and a whole, whole lot of retained counsel besides that, and you were wondering if you could be sued over it, it would be really easy for you to find out.
Like if you were serious about some of the excuses being suggested, for example, you would have looked into it. If you were the church.
fetchface wrote:Don't forget "We'll find out after we die."
If.
When Leonidas was in charge of guarding the narrow mountain pass at Thermopylae with just 7,000 Greek men in order to delay the invading Persian army, Xerxes offered to spare his men if they gave up their arms. Leonidas replied "Molon labe" (Greek: Μολών λαβέ), which translates to "Come and take them". It was adopted as the motto of the Greek 1st Army Corps.
- Whenever a poet or preacher, chief or wizard spouts gibberish, the human race spends centuries deciphering the message. - Umberto Eco - To assert that the earth revolves around the sun is as erroneous as to claim that Jesus was not born of a virgin. - Cardinal Bellarmine at the trial of Galilei
I have a question wrote: Please can you quote an example of a between-the-lines grey area that will need clarifying?
What happens to a child in a situation where a mother and father divorce and the mother goes into a lesbian SSM. Or visa versa...dad goes into a SSM relationship. Child goes with mom and she either does or doesn't remarry a straight man. What about the child? Or on the other side, the child goes with the two daddies and mom works out a joint custody agreement with dad. Her wishes? Or simple straight line policy?
There are a number of gray area situations that have come up online in my reading. The policy doesn't seem to fill in those gaps.
I suppose that you are saying that there is NO need of clarification? Even with all the questions that have come up?
Regards, MG
How does the parent's sex partner's gender have anything to do with the child's need for salvation? How does that bear on the child's worthiness?
mentalgymnast wrote:Do you think that church leaders are doing what they are doing with the sole purpose of hurting and/or inflicting damage to people?
Regards, MG
Let's consider the other options.
1. They considered and fully understood the potential for hurt and inflicting damage to people, but went ahead anyway. 2. They didn't consider the potential for hurt and inflicting damage to people. 3. They considered but completely misunderstood the potential for hurt and inflicting damage to people.
I don't know that any of those improves the perception people have of Church leaders right now. Which one do you think is best?
mentalgymnast wrote:Number one. Although I'd rephrase it. Inflicting damage to SOME people. I've been saying this all along. Go back and read my posts on "collateral damage". I don't want to repeat myself.
Collateral damage is a difficult thing to deal with. I know that. Please don't paint me as 'heartless', howver.
I'm not.
Just trying like everyone else to navigate myself through this policy change...from a faithful perspective...and without checking in or disposing with my integrity.
Regards, MG
You admit this hurts some people. Which people does it help? In which ways? How does that outweigh the 'collateral damage' to the children of gay cohabiting parent(s)?
Weren't you the one that said it was a cost/benefit risk analysis?
mentalgymnast wrote:Just trying like everyone else to navigate myself through this policy change...from a faithful perspective...and without checking in or disposing with my integrity.
Perhaps I am in the minority here (I don't know?) but I am rather impressed by this post of yours.
You, MG, as well as boat-loads of other good and decent people who just happen to be Mormons, have been put in a very, very difficult position.
mentalgymnast wrote:Just trying like everyone else to navigate myself through this policy change...from a faithful perspective...and without checking in or disposing with my integrity.
Perhaps I am in the minority here (I don't know?) but I am rather impressed by this post of yours.
You, MG, as well as boat-loads of other good and decent people who just happen to be Mormons, have been put in a very, very difficult position.
But unfortunately that position is so difficult that it is forcing people like MG to get close to crossing (or to have already crossed) the boundary between taking a maximally charitable interpretation of the position stated by their church leaders and being prepared say black is white rather than disagree with those leaders.
It's not a pretty sight.
Zadok: I did not have a faith crisis. I discovered that the Church was having a truth crisis. Maksutov: That's the problem with this supernatural stuff, it doesn't really solve anything. It's a placeholder for ignorance.
