I think that Kevin Barney was sincerely interested in finding answers when he first posed the question. The trouble is that when you ask a question on the Internet, there’s a danger that you’ll get responses from people who have actual, first-hand experience. Then the double-trouble is that it’s hard to answer that question in a reasonable way without, y’know, pointing out things that might possibly be wrong with the CoJCoL-dS. Which, in Mormonland, is not kosher. Those are the kinds of truths that aren’t useful — unless you want to actually address and solve the problems. But that would require acknowledging that the CoJCoL-dS may not be already perfect exactly the way it is. Just imagining such a thing makes some believers respond with la-la-la-I-can’t-hear-you-anymore-because-I’m-bearing-my-testimony-at-you-now (which Chino argues may be the root of the problem).
But, to be fair, the responses that Andrew calls “cringe-worthy” (about how obviously bad and wrong the church is) don’t really answer the question either. We’ve hardly scratched the surface of the main mysteries:
- Why now? Why was the LDS church growing a few decades ago and now heading into decline? (If it’s not true now, it’s not as though it was more true thirty years ago…)
- Why is religion in general losing ground throughout the industrialized world? Are Mormonism’s problems just a part of that trend, or is there something more going on in Zion?
- Why is it that the more liberal/laid-back religions seem to be losing ground faster than the more extreme/all-consuming religions? (Is that actually the case, and is Mormonism a counter-example?)
Now, I have my own theory about this, but please formulate your own theory before reading it.
Ready?
OK, remember how they used to teach us in Sunday School that nobody knows when the exact time of the Second coming will be, not even Heavenly Father? Well, naturally that causes some coordination and planning problems. HF had saved up a whole bunch of choice, valiant spirits for the last days — but He used them all up a generation ago, and now in the latter-latter days, He’s left scraping the bottom of the spirit barrel. Meanwhile, Jesus is still in the bathroom doing his hair for His return in clouds of glory.
But, seriously, any ideas?
everyone– how can you not watch the devistation in japan and not quickly think to Repent?! REPENT, REPENT, REPENT, for the Lord shall come as a thief in the night and at that night you dont want to be caught in bed with your boyfriend.
That was godzilla’s doing not Jesus’.
prove me wrong.
chris– every unbeliever in the last days will think that devistation is not a sign from God but will attribute it to just nature doing nature, thats prophechy and thats one of the first things i learned when i joined the church at 16 years old, even when christ returns people will look to the skys and will not believe it is jesus and will say it was an astroid and still deny it. Unholy men can converse with an angel and 5 minutes later deny they ever did and state they must have been seeing things. You believe in godzilla and ill keep my faith in the almighty God.
Wow…a devout, outspoken mormon who doesn’t have the first clue what he’s talking about. I’ve certainly never encountered one of THOSE before.
If you really believe that archaeology proves the BoM true, then you are beyond reason or education, and I simply don’t have the time today to show you how indescribably wrong you are. Maybe some other time.
In the meantime, I would suggest you do something about your dosage…either up or down, because it certainly isn’t right where it is.
ibear– i dont have time to teach children today so come back when you actualy want to learn something..
jason, with me it’s a case of picking my battles here. I’m not going to wade into every dispute on this website. I’ve had some knock-down drag out fights with people on this blog before over the gay marriage issue. I’ve been called nasty names before and all that. I’ve found that homosexuality is one issue that you simply can’t have a civil disagreement over on Main Street Plaza – or at least it is incredibly difficult.
You can’t go more than a couple posts without being called a “homophobe” or something along those lines. The people here are nicer than many ex-Mormon venues and generally polite. But there’s just something about the homosexuality issue that apparently makes people’s brains dribble out their ears.
You’re actually fortunate jason. I got hammered on this blog far worse than you have been a few months ago. You’re lucky the same set of commenters that were here then aren’t here now (or the ones here are in a more friendly mood) or this conversation would have been far more ugly.
But keep something in mind jason – just because we are fellow Mormons does not obligate me to back you up when you are taking a far more aggressive tone than I feel comfortable with. Or when you are inappropriately personalizing the debate. Or when you are pushing Mormon folk doctrines that I frankly disagree with.
I do not believe that dark skin has much of anything to do with the Mark of Cain or Curse of Ham. Nor do I believe that the Priesthood ban was ever a revelation in the first place. As far as I’m concerned, it’s an LDS POLICY, based on Brigham Young’s personal opinion, that got out of control and then required a revelation in the 70s to fix. I don’t find any scriptural basis whatsoever for believing that blacks were “fence sitters” in the pre-existence.
Nor do I see much use in linking homosexuality with Sodom and Gomorrah. I tend to agree with Hugh Nibley that the primary and most important and damaging sin of Sodom and Gomorrah was PRIDE, not sex.
Pride is always a far more damaging sin than mere sexual transgression. It is enmity toward God – as Ezra Taft Benson said. And I believe it is this sin that topples nations, more than any bedroom behavior.
Reasonable minds may differ on how much homosexuality is linked to the more pressing societal ills we have. But it’s not an area I particularly enjoy speculating in. I think there are better uses of my time and energies.
jason, the mere fact that we are fellow Mormons does not require me to back you up on issues I simply disagree with you on. Nor does it require me to buy into your own personal interpretation of the scriptures.
I’ve been on this blog for years and disagreed with just about everyone here. But my feeling is that I can do that much more effectively when I refrain from making the debate about the personalities here, and instead stick to the issues. I am also more effective when I do NOT wade in with fists flying into every single post or issue or debate raised here.
Besides, my time is scarce. On any given day, I usually have about 3 or 4 different debates about Mormonism that I am managing all at the same time. Right now I’m in a rather heated debate about the ugly nature of “New Atheism” actually – on a different blog no one here has probably heard of. And that doesn’t count email correspondence and debate that I’m involved in. Not to mention running my own law office from home. I’m busy. And I get spread too thin sometimes.
So there you are.
SEXUALITY INFOMERCIAL
my anul has an exit only sign buddy. Im no ones women.
Actually, lots of heterosexual men enjoy anal play, and lots of women (heterosexual and otherwise) do not.
Most homosexual couples actually report that oral sex is their favorite activity. It’s my understanding that 90% of heterosexual married men like it when their wives give them oral sex, 5% have never had it, and the other 5% are lying.
All right, end of sexuality infomercial. Carry on.
Oh, come now. The discussions here about when/whether to use terms like “homophobe” and “bigot” have been for the most part quite nuanced and thoughtful. Passionate, certainly, and more challenging and serious than this discussion. But “brains dripping out of ears” is hardly the way I’d characterize that debate, and that isn’t quite the terminology that represents “sticking to the issues” as opposed to making it personal.
Maybe not Chanson. But that last big fight I had over here on the issue was certainly memorable. Maybe I’d best leave it there.
And Jack…. eww.
What do you think this blog is – fMh?
seth r– ok I will only make a few comments, but first i would like you to know that though I will disagree with you on a few things i will respect your opinion a lot more now that you have gave a thoughtful response to the issues or I can understand where your comming from now alot more then i have with your previous responses towards anything i have said. As i look up at your statements ill just briefly respond to what youve said. I do not expect you to agree with everything i have said but i would hope you would not give up on letting gays know what they are doing is wrong even though youve already talked their ears off. Second i have to disagree with you on the whole folk doctrine concept. If we start to believe what a lot of the founder of our church have said as folk doctrine then the church would not be true cause we would have no foundation, not saying that the seed of cain is a big issue cause its not, but we can also see in the book of mormon that even the lamanites had their skins darkened by God when they became rebillious and broke off from the nephites, this was not only opinion but taught as doctrine and you can find it in the book of mormon its scripture. My opinion is its the opposite way around I tend to believe it was only changed at the time because of the emense preasure on the church during the civil rights movement. This may make me more of a “ultra mormon” or an early mormon type, i totaly disagree with “modern mormonism” moving to the left i believe and know it is a sign of the times and that there is a weeding out taking place in the church right now. The lord is getting his people ready for his comming. We both can agree that pride is the original sin and ofcourse is the great sin that causes all the other sins to take place or helps them take place. Homosexuality is next to murder and is a major tool of satan for bringing distruction thats why when we give interviews for baptism they ask you if you have ever been involved in any homosexual activities and you will either not be allowed to join or we would have to get permission from the general authorities themselves, It doesnt get much more serious then that. Murder, homosexuality, abortion, are some of the major issues that headquaters considers for any joining of the church and it can not be taken lightly. I only make the point that it is one of the major markers for the destruction of most if not all of ancient civilizations including current along with pride. whenever there is mass homosexuality society is on the verge of colapse and God prepared that place for destruction. I think their is in-house apostacy going on in the church right now and that one side will be weeded out from church membership or destroyed for apostacy and i believe that it has something to do with the liberal surge within the church. Look at senator harry reid, he pushes gay rights, he pushes abortion rights for people wanting to kill their children, he openly rebukes church leadership and past prophets and apostles as being to conservative and says their trying to get more democrats in church leadrship. Most of what i say does not only come from my mouth but the mouth of prophets or apostles and not to mention most scholors im not making this stuff up. I just dont understand the mindset of many members these days they are so far gone from what are church was built upon and i just hope you dont think our founders were only giving their opinions and you only believe more left leaning members now cause they might not believe joseph, brigham, pratt, and so on but if we deny them we deny they church cause through them God restored his church to the earth. I just pray your not letting the the modern day sodom and gomora mindset make you act and think more on the liberal side of thought. If there is a physical war to take place in the last days and you have to war against your liberal friends whos side would you be on? Anyway, good talking to you, and I dont know how you find all the time to write everyone cause Its very time consuming and it all goes in one ear and out the other.
Jason, here’s a free debate tip: when you have the spelling and grammar skills of a 5-yr-old, don’t EVER use the words “teach” or “learn” in a posted comment.
ms. jack– thanks for the image im trying to kick it out of my head. lol .. Yea oral sex is great but there’s no sin involved when done win wedlock, even makes it more injoyable, but please no responces oral sex Ill stay out of that one.
ibear– go back and play with your little spell check and ill keep my common sense!
jason, the Priesthood ban did not start with our “founder” Joseph Smith.
It started with Brigham Young. Joseph Smith never taught anything about blacks not receiving the Priesthood.
In fact, he ordained a black man – Elijah Abel to the Melchizedek Priesthood, allowed him his temple endowments, and made him a member of the Quorum of the Seventy.
The Priesthood ban appears to have been solely Brigham Young’s own invention as far as I can tell.
And no, this does not shake my faith in the Restored Gospel or the LDS Church. Changes how I view it – yes – but it doesn’t shake my faith or conviction.
You ought to seriously ask yourself why such a thing should shake your faith.
Yes my spelling sucks but whatever like i said before it was the first thing to leave me when i finished college and hey im a cajun from south louisiana so i might not talk like some of you but i like it so owell.
seth– it doesnt shake my faith at all. I could write you an essay on error that i have found but I know what i felt when i got on my knees to ask the Lord which church to join at 16 years old, i felt the spirit so hard i had a vision and i have never felt something so strong sense not even on a mission so i could never deny that the church is true. When joseph was killed which by the way was set up by masons, he even gave the mason sign for help and mercy as he was being shot, but back to my point, no one knew who would be the prophet and we both remember what happened to testify to the brethern that brigham would be the prophet. Now besides joseph, next you would have to say that brigham young was one of the major founders of the church and if we are going to say we dont believe what brigham said we might as well say everythings not true cause what do we have if a major founder was wrong on most of his points of doctrine. Have you ever considered that joseph had not recieved the revelation yet that black should not hold the priesthood? well im glad they can im just making the point that we cant disregard our founding prophets of the church and we cant change to current social traditions or behaviors of a society, the church should never change doctrine.
seth– would you tell me if you are a liberal, no its not my buisness but could you tell me that?
Seth, it’s actually very important to bring up what exactly is happening in the American bedroom when it comes to these discussions. The question of “homosexual sex as a sin” tends to get reduced to an unspoken relationship between vaginal sex (penis + vagina = reproductive potential) versus anal sex (penis + anus = non-reproductive potential) when in hetero and homo relationships neither of these sex acts are necessarily occurring. In reality, just as Ms Jack says, hetero men anally penetrate women, hetero women anally penetrate men, and some gay couples do nothing but cuddle. Yet, official Mormon discourse would have “homosexual feelings” as something to struggle against, because it could lead to gay cuddling (or OMG, same-sex sodomy), whereas already occurring opposite sex sodomy is ignored because it occurs within “marriage” that has “reproductive possibility,” even if the couple is steadfast about not having children: AKA no reproductive possibility (unless of course, you want to deny people their agency). This is a double standard born from a set of ideals that don’t correspond to reality, not even the reality of Mormon culture.
Laying this out on the table is not what I would call brains dripping out of ears” or “ew, gross.”
Alan I didn’t really care. I was just making fun of Jack because I know her.
jason, I don’t care to be categorized in such a fashion. As far as I’m concerned the Republican party is the equivalent of the Pharisees, and the Democrats are the equivalent of the Sadducees, and the Tea Party are are just plain nuts.
Okay…now that I’m on a computer instead of typing on my phone, let’s do this thing:)
Jason, you wrote “there are mounds that were found all over north america with artifacts proving the lds church to be true.”
There ARE mounds all over North America. This does NOT prove the LDS Church is true. You seem to be under the unfortunate impression that archaeology agrees with the Book of Mormon. It does not. Let me give you a few examples.
The BoM makes several mentions of horses in the ancient Americas. There were no horses in the Western Hemisphere until Europeans brought them; all prehistoric species of horses died out at the end of the last Ice Age some 10,000 years ago. (That’s about 6,000 years before the Jaredites allegedly arrived.)
The BoM talks about the Nephites forging steel swords. There is absolutely no evidence that ANYONE made any kind of steel in the Americas before Columbus arrived.
The Book of Ether claims that the Jaredites had elephants in the New World. Just with horses, the last elephants died out in the Americas at the end of the last Ice Age.
The Book of Mormon claims that the Nephites and Lamanites were the descendents of Jewish Lehi and his family. DNA testing has shown that Native Americans are NOT of semitic descent, instead having come from Siberia across the Bering Land Bridge–just as archaeologists have suggested for decades.
A further archaeological contradiction is that the BoM talks about the Nephites having chariots. There were NO chariots in the Americas, in fact there were no wheeled vehicles of ANY kind until the arrival of European explorers.
The Book of Ether says that the Jaredites’ windows would have been “dashed to pieces” by the waves during the oceanic crossing which was supposed to have been in 2,000 BC. No civilization on earth had glass windows at that time. Furthermore, the Book of Ether compares the shining stones to “transparent glass” despite the fact that the Brother of Jared would have never SEEN transparent glass to compare them to. It hadn’t been invented yet.
Now if you’re right, Jason, then I should be clearly and demonstrably wrong on EVERY ONE of these points. So here’s your chance, dumbass. Show all of us horrible, allegedly-gay apostates how we’ve got all our facts wrong, and how all of mainstream science supports your religious beliefs. Make sure you back these statements up with credible sources. You claimed earlier that resorting to insults meant that I had lost the argument. You’re wrong about that, too. I transitioned to insults because you’re obviously too stupid to keep up with reality.
Do your research, and then come back and show me how archaeology supports the Book of Mormon. Or come back and apologize for shooting your mouth off without having the first damn clue what you were talking about.
I’ll wait.
iBear, your data is largely correct, but your conclusions are almost all purely speculative.
Personally, I don’t care to open up this debate to the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, because it’s totally off topic and jason shouldn’t have brought it up in the first place.
But don’t expect that batch of assumptions you are making to get quiet agreement from me. DNA has NOT disproven the Book of Mormon, the archeological status of horses in North America is not established, the Book of Mormon never claims there were wheels in pre-Columbian America, your bit about the Jaredite barges is entirely speculative, and your bit about glass is irrelevant because the Book of Mormon is a translation.
Aside from that, I don’t care to get into this debate with you on this thread, because it’s a massive threadjack – no matter who started it.
Seth ~ And Jack. eww.
Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it, Mr. Gloomy Bankruptcy Attorney.
Jason ~ Yea oral sex is great but theres no sin involved when done win wedlock
I agree with you.
Incidentally, Spencer W. Kimball & Gordon B. Hinckley would not have agreed with you.
Alan ~ Well, my point was not meant to be anywhere near as thoughtful as that, but I am generally against stereotyping certain types of sex acts as “gay” or effeminate.
seth– Tea party all the way, go sara palin!!! yea… Thats why i love glen beck if anyone wants to know how i think i think just like him.. I agree with your opinion on the two other parties but i differ because of the liberal infiltration of both parties being that i believe so called “liberalism” is the devils version government. But, Ive agreed with you more then anyone else on here so i wont argue you to much i still have hope for you yet.. Yea focus on iBear he is CRAZZZY! haha
iBear– I would have to have a counceling session with you so ill make this simple. I have to give credit to seth i agree with what he said about picking your battles cause i think your brain is locked up and your still trying to find the key. I didnt say that i use the mounds to prove the church is true, i dont need to worry about when horses, cows, chickens, elephants, or whatever came to the land to prove or disprove the book of mormon or the bible, being that God sets this stuff up where he wants us to rely mostly on faith its not important to me wether dates completely match up cause they never do. As far as steel being found before columbus man just read non mormons in the ancient american magazine, indeed steel has been found forged on skeletal remains far before columbus came to america. The rest of your statements are laughable and they are mostly speculative, so how do you want me to debate you on speculative arguments? You ever debated a jehova witness or tryed to do missionary work on a member of their faith? well, no matter what you say to them you’ll never get anywhere and i get the feeling that your cup is already full of education in fooldum try emptying a little out and you might learn something.
Now that I’ve had time to go back and read the full extent of this fun-happy thread, I just wanted to add that I’ve met Seth in person. Twice.
He’s got Peter Priesthood written all over him (and really nice teeth, too).
He’s as Mormon as green Jell-O with carrots in it.
Ms. jack– I believe now that Seth is lds i didnt at first and the reason why is because ive never met a member of the church who is as liberal as seth and still active in the church so thats a new one for me to scratch my head over. No, i dont know him personaly but i work with members of the church every other day and the missionaries.. well probably to much cause we can get on eachothers nerves and laugh about it.haha I just feel very strongly that liberalism withing the church is causing an in-house apostacy, but seth sounds like a good guy i just find his views on politics a little to left leaning and i find it might fall into his understanding of certain gospel topics.. ps. its good to know im not the only one who works to keep my teeth sparkling.
MALE BONDERS– I was just thinking about the title of this blog, “why are we leaving the lds church in droves? why? why? why?” Well.. because your gay! lol Im not being harsh, the majority of you on here are gay and question why you find yourself at odds with the church of Christ and dont know why your leaving it, because your putting your love for man above the love of the savior and being apart of his church and ruining your chances to make it back to live with your heavenly father. So tell yourself this, “why are we leaving the lds church in droves? why? why? why?” because your gay, gay, gay…I say that lovingly and im not trying to lol but i tend to crack myself up.. ok have fun.
Depends on what you’re liberal about I would imagine. I don’t really recall revealing too much of my political beliefs on this thread.
seth– just making an educated guess. Well, when you were calling the tea party people nuts and a few of your ideas on deep doctrine were the same as i read a while back on a few anti-mormon sites but i cant argue with you over deep docrine cause either one of us could be right or wrong. I myself am a member of the tea party, we stand for feedom, low taxes, small government, honoring the God inspired constitution which our prophets have said they were inspired by him, and most importantly putting God back in the fiber of this country and back into our homes. Glenn beck just gave the restoring honor rally where he did not involve politics and they prayed to be able to do the will of the father and getting God back into the fabric of our society, he also is a tea party member and has been working great miracles for our God on national tv 5 days a week he even teaches our doctrine or works it into his broadcast. so i was just putting two and two together that if you think were nuts you must hold similiar views as the liberals cause most conservatives and the majority of independents dont think so. If my guess was wrong im sorry but something tells me im correct.
I generally try to keep politics as separate from religious matters as possible. And I maintain a commitment to keeping my participation at Church each Sunday as apolitical as possible. I mess up from time to time, but I try.
Seth r– totaly understandable, i just find that sometimes many liberals are so far gone to the left that they leave the church cause they can not relate to it, cause it stands against everything they stand for they can only rationalize so much (not talking about you). ps. you would hate me at church cause id give a hell and fire talk during sacrament and add in the evils of modern liberalism, but other then that we would get along just fine.lol
Man, blogging can be addicting hu?? Ill make sure i dont make this a habbit.
Good idea.
Someone should have told me that 7 years ago.
seth–i might also have some liberal in me when it comes to the law of consecration, but i would just like to make a random point and that is that charity is not charity when one is being forced to be charitable, that is communism and my spirit and mind go strait to the pre-existence and i can almost imagine satan offering up his plan that he would not let one single soul be lost, but he wanted the glory. satan wanted to take away our free agency. Its the same when it comes to the law of consecration, it is only good when it is ran by christ and we still have our free agency to obey the law or not being that it is a celestial law. If obama and all the other liberal leaders want to give of our goods to the people without a choice in the matter and redistribute the money shows that it was an attempt to overthrow our free agency and its satans attempt at his own law of consecration, satan style. sorry that was so random.
I don’t think I’ll ever call Godwin’s Law or Poe’s Law again. From now on, I’m only calling Dunning-Kruger Effect.
kuri– dunning-druger effect?? could you explain?
Read all about it here.
What’s happening here is Westboro Baptist Church level nonsense. It’s becoming tiresome.
I suppose this sort of thing drives up page views, but over time it can transform a site’s commenting culture from one of reasonably intelligent, mostly civil conversation to one of semi-literate rants vs. angry responses. I kind of think that’s not what most of us here really want.
I stopped reading jason’s comments about 50 comments ago. I literally just skip past them and read everyone else’s. I gave jason up for a lost cause after his second response to me, even though I figured he wasn’t worth reading well before that. He’s really just here to insult and annoy; classic characteristics of a troll. I say we stop feeding him.
Anyone who enters a forum demanding that everyone agree to play by his terms isn’t worthy of my attention, let alone the attention of those who post on here regularly. jason has no business knowing where any of us stand regarding the church or knowing about our sexuality. And since he is not open to rational discussion concerning his religious views (“Evidence? WTF is evidence? Logic? I’ve never heard of that? What is this logic of which you speak?”), I see no point in continuing this charade. Let him go play arrogant, irrational homophobe on someone else’s forum…
profxm– I think you threw logic under the bus a few men ago.. I dont play by your terms either does God so yea, just go on and pass up my comments cause they condemn you and you want to keep thinking your using logic to rationalize your sinful behavior, but you only have a few years left then youll want to hide under a rock when the savior comes back to hide your sin(s). Good luck and have a nice day.
chino blanco– westboro baptist church? Thos guys are idiots and in no way represent christ and his teachings so im dumnfounded by how someone can compare a WORTHY member of the church to some cult who call themselves christians. If i saw that church doing their little thing by me i would punch them in the face so, even though im against homosexuality id probablly be one of the only ones to actualy defend gay people to that extreme.
kuri– im not trying to openly insult anyone i just cant understand how any worthy member of the church could sit back and let people think the sin of homosexuality if ok and not that big of a deal, i care more about that persons soul then i do them getting temporary pleasure.
Are you going to listen? Or will you continue to rant?
Church leaders used to say that when people have homosexual thoughts, they were sinning. Tell me…is this what you believe? This is what Church President Spencer Kimball said in the 1960s. But Church leaders today don’t say this anymore. Why? Because many human beings (including possibly yourself) have “same-gender attraction.” The Church realized that when homosexual thoughts are thought about as sin, this requires many people to make themselves only have attractions to the opposite sex. But this “cure” proved to be impossible. People tried for many, many years to “cure” themselves, sometimes in painful ways (like electrocuting their genitals when they were sexually attracted to someone they didn’t want to be attracted to). So the Church changed to acting on homosexual attractions is the sin, while having homosexual attractions is not a sin (attractions are “temptations” to fight against). This change happened in the 1980s.
Meanwhile, those in the Church who have family members who have same-gender attraction (homosexual feelings only, not bisexual) LEAVE the Church every day. They don’t leave because they want to “get temporary pleasure” or want to “go sin,” but because they don’t feel like they belong in the Church. Even if Church is where everyone is supposed to belong, a lot of people begin to feel like the idea of their whole life having to be one of “struggle” just to “belong to the Church” doesn’t make any sense. They also see happiness outside the Church. It doesn’t matter what you think about this happiness; I’m just telling a story here. The truth is, a lot of Mormons who leave the Church over this aren’t entirely happy because they have trouble committing to their choice, they deal with their family rejecting them, and so on.
Now, you can blame the family, the person leaving, or the Church for this rejection and unhappiness…I’ll leave that up to you. In fact, it doesn’t really matter who you blame — the rejection and unhappiness is still there. Some people don’t leave. They take it upon themselves to “struggle”…and the truth is, many days don’t feel like a struggle. A person might focus on work, their children, or whatever and be generally happy…but they’ll always feel like a part of themselves is “broken,” a kind of crutch they carry. For some people, they literally cannot live the way the Church says is the best way to live…the struggle is so intense that they commit suicide.
I don’t think same-gender attraction is a kind of brokenness. That’s my belief. If you have any children that have same-gender attraction and you consider them “broken,” and they don’t think of themselves as broken, then trust me, you’re going to have problems understanding your child. Your child will pull away from you in a lot of ways. Thus, homosexuality becomes an issue that pulls families apart and pulls individuals from the Church. You can think this is Satan’s work (which I suspect you do), or you can think that maybe the gays rights movement is a response to discrimination against the way people are on Earth. In Heaven, you can think that there’s no homosexuality, or you can think that families that have two moms or two dads will probably be there because they’re families, too. But hopefully you might understand how a worthy members of the Church might think about this topic more thoughtfully.
The bonus for me is that Jason’s commentary make me seem reasonable and downright nice–not to mention brilliant.
Yeah, no doubt, the brilliant-by-comparison effect is part of the allure of allowing trolls to hold forth. I just wanted to note that this one has come around flapping its arms and yelling REPENT in response to news that people are dead.
CB As usual, you hit it right on the head.
wow…there seems to be a lot of testosterone flying around here. I have now read most of the 298 comments, and wow.
First off-as a member who has recently decided to leave the Church-Jason…I think the manner in which you write insults members everywhere. You are judgmental, and insulting.
On what seems to be a place for people to present their opinions and engage in friendly debate-you have reduced it to a mud-slinging fight…where you seem to think it is ok to label people as ‘gay’ without having any idea of their sexual orientation.
As a Christian-how is it ok for you to judge others? Remember the scripture about the mote and the beam?
Everyone is entitled to their own opinions-and as humans, we are far from perfect…even you. I find someone who resorts to calling people ‘gay’ for no reason, is juvenile, yet you say you are 36…the mind boggles.
It might be a little thing but let me say that the rules of capitalization exist for a reason: they render paragraphs readable.
For those of us who have to deal with dyslexia and the like, trifles like capitalization actually make a big difference. Please, be a good neighbor and abide by the rules of written English.
You will find a better reception for your arguments.