The June 1

[creekster]

The women in our ward council elect to sit in the chairs that are in the corner behind the bishop so in some regards it's like they are not even there.

Ours always get the soft chairs on the perimeter.

[Pheidippides]

The women in our ward council elect to sit in the chairs that are in the corner behind the bishop so in some regards it's like they are not even there.

Yeah. To be honest, I only skimmed after that. It was so obviously wrong - women were a cowering afterthought in all the ward councils I've been in.

[Jeff Lebowski]

:catfight:

lol @ creekster for owning a red purse.

[TripletDaddy]

Hmm... Now you have me puzzled. You started out this particular discussion by implicitly mocking those that apply simple moral reasoning (WWJD) with the logic that Jesus did (or advocated/allowed) some really wild stuff, therefore WWJD is meaningless. From one of your posts:

I think simple moral reasoning based on a holistic reading of the gospels makes perfect sense and is entirely consistent with the most fundamental christian principles such as "Love your neighbor" and the Golden Rule. If one considers Jesus as the God of the OT and if one believes in a literal reading of scripture (particularly the OT), then such an approach bumps into some contradictions, such as genocide, slavery, racism, etc. You seem to be arguing that we should just shrug our shoulders and accept it as one of God's mysteries. Actually, you are going farther than that: you are using such stories as implicit justification for modern-day discrimination. Your case in question is women and the priesthood, but the very same arguments were (and still are in some cases) used in support of the priesthood ban on blacks and by Southern slaveholders to support slavery. Of course, another approach is to recognize that the OT is a messy mixture of myth, culture, oral traditions, and divinely inspired narrative and maybe God doesn't really endorse horrible things like genocide and slavery and killing forty kids with a she-bear for teasing an old dude about his bald head.

This explanation certainly works for stories like the talking ass or the child hating she bear, but it is very hard to write off the commandments to kill Canaanites and others without losing many of the central themes and the basic meanings of the OT. The privileged status of the covenant people is manifested nowhere more clearly than by the bestowal by Yahweh of the land of milk and honey on the band of wandering Hebrews. Sure, you can simply decide not to believe it because you don't like it, but apart from making you feel better about your religion, there isn't much doctrinal basis to pick the stories of Jesus in the NT over those of the Hebrews in the OT.

Whoa. You are going to write off all the other stories, but stick with the most problematic one of all due to narrative consistency? (BTW, there are plenty of valid reasons to apply a different lens to OT stories written pre-800 BC - for starters, those stories were all passed down via oral tradition for centuries before being written down).

As you probably know, the stories in Genesis exhibit a nice cohesiveness.

Creation - The gods create man in their own image. Man eats fruit becoming as the gods. "Hey, these people we created are too much like us, let's kick them out of the garden and make life hard on them."

Flood - Man starts mating with angels and killing and doing all kinds of evil things. "Whoa, these humans are out of control again. Let's wipe them out and start over."

Tower - Man becomes wealthy and powerful and tries to build a tower to heaven. "Darn it, these humans are at it again. Let's mess up their languages and scatter them over the earth."

Really cool consistency in the story line. Genesis is awesome, but there is no way it is literal history. I can make that conclusion and still feel great about my religion, thank you very much.

You seem to be willfully ignoring the point. I didn't say for narrative consistency. I said that apart from some likely outliers there is no religiously sustainable basis to pick which parts of the OT you decide are true. I assure you I am the last person to assert that Genesis is literal history in all or even many respects. And I certainly agree it is a mishmash of ideas and sources, but the genocidal notions, as they have been characterized here, are central to the very point of the gospel. Moreover, none of the examples you add in this post refer or relate to this issue. You may excuse the Tower of Babel, or the full world flood, or the creation story as mere myth; you may parse out inconsistencies based on the J, P and E sources; but the central theme of the OT is the covenant of the Hebrews with God and of their coming to grips with this relationship. The notion of the covenant is expressed and manifested in many practical ways. The Hebrews' God is more powerful, he is more intelligent and he is wiser and he blesses and favors his people, his covenant people, in very direct ways. As a result he commands them to kill the Canaanites, the Moabites and others in order to prepare a place for them to live and to protect and preserve the purity of the covenant relationship and he even becomes angry when they do not fully and completely comply. These directives are found throughout the OT, not just in Genesis. So you can selectively choose some of the more obviously fantastic stories to discount, if you choose, but the very central nature of the covenant and the instructions surrounding it make it impossible to so blithely discard it without placing yourself above the gospel narrative in ALL respects.

I am not following you. You say this:

And then in the very next sentence you say this:

Is this some kind of lawyer trick?

I certainly agree with you that "Our god is greater than the other gods" is a central theme in the OT. Of course, that is a central theme for just about any ancient culture. Or put another way, "We wiped out your people, so this is proof that god is on our side."

If genocide is so central to the Christian covenant, it seems rather odd that we don't stress it more in the modern church. Go figure.

I don't know what you don't understand. The outliers are pretty easy to isolate, and they are pretty easy to separate from the Gospel narrative (the she bear? The talking ass? pretty easy to see how those are not central to the theme). And as tricks go, trying to re-cast my statement as suggesting the genocide is part of the covenant is not a very good one. I said no such thing. But God very clearly ordered genocide multiple times in the OT in order to support the covenant and the covenant peoples. These were not instances of a bizarre story grafted on to the larger narrative, or of an exception to the types of stories being told. Instead, they were a part of the advancement of the covenant peoples and fulfillment of God's commitment to the covenant. (one might ague that genocide is an example of an exaggeration, such as a world wide flood as opposed to a more likely localized mediterranean basin event, for example. But in doing so you are still left with the fact that God promises blessings in return for killing, whether it is genocide or not.)

As far as not stressing it, I gather you haven't spent much time reading the correlated SS materials for the OT? Lots of references to the ordered genocide. Plus, we seem to have lost sight of the point of this discussion: You disagreed with Eddie's reference to genocide as an example of God's inconvenient positions. But the fact is that the story of genocide is integral to the covenant as presented in the OT. (not part of the covenant, in case you are confused by my comment again, but integral to its fulfillment by God). To disregard it as an outlier is to overturn any binding nature of any of the principles in the OT except those which pass your own personal inspection for reasons of preference and convenience.

There are also countless references to the creation and to the flood. And yet you have no problem regarding those stories as ahistorical. Very odd.

Yes, there is no doubt that the genocide stories came to be woven into the religious/cultural narrative of the Hebrew people and were passed down for generations. That doesn't make it any more historical than the story of the great flood.

I think you are choosing to ignore what I am saying. Up to you. I addressed these arguments several times. I never said it was historical, I said it was scriptural. If historical is the basis upon which you choose to believe the scriptures or gospel principles, then your belief system is pretty thin.

Holy cow, I am certainly not arguing that something has to be historical to be valuable. But this entire argument started out as a discussion of the application of ancient scriptural stories to modern-day moral reasoning. I have simply argued that I don't believe some of these ancient stories should be used as a doctrinal/scriptural justification for things like discrimination or genocide.

BTW, I am puzzled why making judgments about my belief system is part of your argument.

I should have said "one" and not "you". have no idea about your belief system apart from what you choose to reveal here. But I can point out the logical consequence of your reasoning. Which I have attempted to do.

So how about if you go ahead and attack my reasoning and logic without making judgments about the thinness of my belief system? TIA.

How about you discuss the ideas stop looking to turn this I to something personal? Nothing personal was meant. As I said, I meant you as in one, not you as in JL. TIA.

A distinction without a difference.

Forget it. Your statement in question was based on a straw man anyway. As I said, I would never claim that historicity is the basis upon which one should choose to believe the scriptures or gospel principles. I think I have been quite consistent in arguing the opposite. In the absence of historicity and given the messiness of the manner in which the scriptures were recorded and passed down through history, how does one go about deciding how much moral weight to apply to a particular story? I don't feel compelled to believe that God condones genocide or slavery simply because it is part of an OT narrative that we (apparently) agree is probably not historical and/or is heavily influenced by ancient cultural tradition. Wouldn't it make more sense to analyze each story/principle to determine if it resonates with our sense of rightness? Or in the LDS vernacular, if we are moved by the spirit that the principle is "true"?

You keep arguing that the genocide is a key component of the concept of a covenant people. There are several different views of God and the relationship between God and man expressed in the OT. In the early part of the OT, God is a plural but in the latter part, God become singular. There is no such thing as heaven or hell or life after death for a huge part of the OT. The concept of the priesthood in the OT is vastly different than what we currently believe. To say that one cannot choose to reject something such as divinely sanctioned genocide without dumping everything else doesn't make any sense to me. The OT is chock full of contradictions. That is part of what makes it so darned interesting.

if you think it is a distinction without a difference then it is pointless to suggest i am free to discuss the consequence of your reasoning if you will then assert it is a personal attack, even if none is meant. You, or should I say one, can't have it both ways.

You now wish to talk about moral weight in an apparently personal context when before we were talking about weight given the scriptures in a gospel context. You, or one, can decide whatever one wants in a personal context, but once you try to put the scriptures in a gospel context, you, or one, can only take away so much before the remnants fall as inadequate support for the gospel approach.

Let me repeat something here: I have NEVER suggested that genocide is a component of the covenant. I have said that God's order to kill was integral to his fulfillment of the covenant promises. But it was done in his time, for his reasons and under his direction. In a gospel context, genocide is integral to God's fulfillment of the covenant, which premise you have not even attempted to refute, apart from saying you just don't believe it (an example of you stating your own belief). You then throw out the fact (which I consider to be irrelevant to this discussion) that God is described as plural in the beginning of the OT but singular in the latter parts. That's sort of true, but really it breaks down, as I recall, along the lines of the source material, with the E source (if my memory serves) referring to plural Elohim. The latter part of the OT, by which I assume you mean the prophets, is not from that source, or at least not much of it is. But what does that mean in this context? Indeed, this fact actually is very consistent with what JS taught about the OT in a gospel context.

Moreover, the LACK of something in the OT, such as a modern concept of the priesthood, or of notions of the after life, is also not relevant. Because what IS found in the OT is what is at issue. And what IS found is the covenant and the way in which it was presented, promised and fulfilled by God. The lack of some concepts may further undermine the OT and any claim to its utility as a gospel guide, but it certainly doesn't undermine my point.

How do we decide what to believe (FTR this is what you asked above, so I am not trying to delve into your personal feelings here)? In the gospel context we might look to the prophet or similar authoritative sources. Outside that context, there are a lot of ways, but not many of them are consistent with the gospel. If one eliminates those portions of the OT that one personally concludes are not historical, and then eliminates those portions that one finds do not resonates with one's one moral tuning fork, then one is left with not much at all in the OT to follow in the gospel context.

Oh brother. Now you are just being patronizing.

the viet nam strategy. Declare victory and leave. As you wish.

Declare victory? Leave?

Pretty much. But I suspect we both said all we can on those issues.

[smokymountainrain]

lol @ creekster for owning a red purse.

I'll be honest, I thought creek was winning, but now...

creekster Lebowski

[creekster]

Yeah. To be honest, I only skimmed after that. It was so obviously wrong - women were a cowering afterthought in all the ward councils I've been in.

Cowering after thought? While women never dominated our ward councils, I have never been in one (three wards, over 12 years worth) where I would describe the women as either cowering or an afterthought.

[creekster]

lol @ creekster for owning a red purse.

What?!? I thought you were the one with red! I didnt realize we had the same hair style.

[Pheidippides]

Cowering after thought? While women never dominated our ward councils, I have never been in one (three wards, over 12 years worth) where I would describe the women as either cowering or an afterthought.

Congratulations to you then.

[creekster]

Congratulations to you then.

Thank you. Thank you very much. I do admire your hyperbole, however. Cowering afterthought is a nice turn of phrase.

[YOhio]

LOL!!!!!

[Dwight Schr-ute]

An pretty interesting post on protocol. http://rationalfaiths.com/kate-kelly...llow-handbook/

This post does seek, however, to ask important questions about how Kate Kelly’s local leaders have handled her situation, as it relates to Mormonism’s closest thing to church law – the Church Handbook of Instructions.
Talmage painstakingly outlines a host of examples of how the Sanhedrin – the governing council of Jewish law – circumvented clearly established Jewish procedure in order to hastily try and convict Jesus of blasphemy. They held proceedings on the Sabbath. They did not call the proper witnesses. They did not provide the required evidence.
It would seem that, from the 30,000 foot view most of us have of the situation, the pending trial of Kate Kelly in Vienna, Va. contains much of the same circumventing of LDS procedure in order to come to a swift and, in my personal opinion, pre-determined outcome.

[wuapinmon]

You're a good man, wuap. I hope you believe you are better for being here, but I'm sure we are better for you being here.

The church isn't a perfect place, but it is a very good one. Collectively, we have things to work on, but I do believe we are better for being a part of it.

At this point I think I'm more of a cultural Mormon. My life is better since I joined the Church; I remember what it was like without it. But, my wife and I are not bipolar/generalized anxiety disorder, we have a firm morality we live by, and I know that my kids' lives will be nothing like the yo-yo life I lived growing up, never knowing if my loving parents would come home from work or my mentally ill ones. The question I struggle with now is, "Do my children need this in their lives for reasons I don't realize, or am I baptizing them into an institution that they'll someday regret having been a part of, the way I'm starting to feel?"

I hate how I feel. Dammit! Why can't it all be as simple as the missionaries explained it to me in 1990?

[Topper]

It was an interesting debate.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk

[Dwight Schr-ute]

Ally isn't fairing well.

[Pelado]

An pretty interesting post on protocol. http://rationalfaiths.com/kate-kelly...llow-handbook/

Very interesting.