Conversation with a Mormon

[zaffiroborant]

When I enter your quote: “the LDS Church does not oppose civil unions or domestic partnerships that involve legal protections for gay and lesbian couples.”
into google, only one website came up. I would think that if there was such protest against this statement, there would be more references to it.

Funny my google search came up with more.

google.com/search?q=the+LDS+Church+does+not+oppose+civil+unions+or+domestic+partnerships+that+involve+legal+protections+for+gay+and+lesbian+couples&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&client=firefox-a

 

[LDSGuy]

Let me google that for you.

WHOA, my inner nerdiness was just amazed, i’ve never seen that before

I googled mormonpro’s entire quote that he stated Elder Clayton wrote, and only came up with one result. Where are all these protests that were supposedly against this statement? And why can’t I find his entire statement, even if it was “deleted” from the LDS website, which I doubt.

 

[RebeccaJ]

WHOA, my inner nerdiness was just amazed, i’ve never seen that before

I googled mormonpro’s entire quote that he stated Elder Clayton wrote, and only came up with one result. Where are all these protests that were supposedly against this statement? And why can’t I find his entire statement, even if it was “deleted” from the LDS website, which I doubt.

Please tell me that you aren’t one of those people who believe if it isn’t on the internet, it never happened.

Where I helped you google, there is a desnews article, it sites Clayton. I think this is where the original quote came from.

The protests are discussed in some of the articles that come up in that google search.

 

[LDSGuy]

Please tell me that you aren’t one of those people who believe if it isn’t on the internet, it never happened.

Where I helped you google, there is a desnews article, it sites Clayton. I think this is where the original quote came from.

The protests are discussed in some of the articles that come up in that google search.

I just want to see the entire statement to see in what context he was talking. Just because it “was taken off from the LDS website” doesn’t mean that we can’t find it anywhere else, especially when he was speaking “officially” for the LDS Church.

From the deseret article:
He said in general, the church “does not oppose civil unions or domestic partnerships,” that involve benefits like health insurance and property rights".-does this mean that the Church does not oppose civil unions, or does not oppose giving health insurance and property rights to people in civil unions? I oppose racism, but racists should still be given health insurance and property rights. I just want to see the context of his statement.

 

[RebeccaJ]

I just want to see the entire statement to see in what context he was talking. Just because it “was taken off from the LDS website” doesn’t mean that we can’t find it anywhere else, especially when he was speaking “officially” for the LDS Church.

From the deseret article:
He said in general, the church “does not oppose civil unions or domestic partnerships,” that involve benefits like health insurance and property rights".-does this mean that the Church does not oppose civil unions, or does not oppose giving health insurance and property rights to people in civil unions? I oppose racism, but racists should still be given health insurance and property rights. I just want to see the context of his statement.

Most likely found in all the prop 8 reporting. I believe he said it several times, as a way to communicate that the LDS church was against SSM, not legal rights such as civil unions, hospital care, etc. for gay couples. Good luck finding it, there is way too much information for me to go slogging through.

 

[dianaiad]

oh, Gallileo as if that wasn’t predictable

Well, yeah. It was. Kinda glaring, that…when you claim that Catholicism has been just fine and dandy with science.

A Pope somewhere apologized about that. Are you keeping up with Catholic teaching. You are aware that we believe the Holy Spirit guides us to truth?

I have no problem with that; we do believe the same thing. The problem, of course, is that he actually HAD to apologize for it. If Catholicism has never had a problem in this area, there would have been nothing to apologize for, would there?

Now true, Catholics are a great deal more amenable to Scientific thought than they used to be, but then I never said anything different. My response to you was to point out that your accusation that Mormons and science were enemies was a little wonky–and more than a little ironic considering Catholic history.

Look up who brought the scientific method to the Western world…oh, a Catholic, encouraged by a Pope.

Here’s how Mormons reconcile science to faith:

All Native Americans are Lamanites. Period. oh. look DNA. That darn DNA, and archaeology, and anthropology…all science says nope, Native Americans migrated from Asia, at least 12000 years ago, long before the fictional Lamanites existed.

What to do? Reconcile faith to science by changing what your founding “prophet” and your church taught for 150 years. There, all reconciled. Everyone can feel good and know the church is true and that joseph smith is a prophet of god. phew!

Y’know, you might have a point if the Book of Mormon weren’t so very clear about a couple of things…like the Jaredites meeting people who were already here, and the Nephites/Lamanites meeting a great many more people than the Jaredite descendents (who were, in the main, mostly killed off, remember? And WHO was it that killed them all off, anyway? ) …and WHO were the Jaredites, by the way?

If you want to get into this further, a very fair treatment of the various models of colonization (assuming that the Book of Mormon is true) is here:dialoguejournal.com/excerpts/36-4.asp

Yes, nineteenth century Americans who believed in the Book of Mormon wanted to believe that all native Americans were descended from Laman and Lemuel…but since they had to ignore, not DNA, but the Book of Mormon, to think so, you can understand

Apostasy? Had to happen otherwise, your church is unnecessary.

On that we absolutely agree.

altogether. Can’t let that pesky Christian history get in the way. So, make up history to suite your belief.

How about your literal belief of 6000 years and y2k is tic-toc, the 7th day, time to rest. Dang science, gets in the way of that too.

I do not know, and never have known anybody who believes in the literal 24/7, young earth creation thing. True, some Mormons do believe that, however, it is not taught and I don’t know a bunch who do believe it. You do realize, don’t you, that the church presidency has issued AT LEAST three letters describing the church position on archeology/evolution, and all of them are very clear about this: leave science to the scientists and religion to religion; it is important to understand THAT God created Adam and Eve, but the ‘how’ is not something anybody needs to fight about; evolution is just fine with us. So your accusation of a 'literal belief in" that stuff is actually inaccurate.By the way, the first of those letters came out in 1909 “The Origin of Man” , in 1910 “Words in Season” and in 1925, " ‘Mormon’ view of Evolution"

David O’McKay wrote this:

“There is a perpetual design permeating all purposes of creation. … [E]volution’s beautiful theory of the creation of the world offers many perplexing problems to the inquiring mind. Inevitably, a teacher who denies divine agency in creation, who insists there is no intelligent purpose in it, will infect the student with the thought that all may be chance. I say, that no youth should be so led without a counterbalancing thought.” ~continued on next post~

 

[dianaiad]

~cont from previous post~

RECONCILE, is to notice that God created everything, including DNA and the solar system, the earth revolving around the sun, the smallest of small like a quark. To understand that science only brings to light what God made. Galileo helped to teach us this. He helped us to understand.

You don’t have to convince ME. After all, it was the Catholics who tried to shut him up, not the Mormons.

Mormons are still making the mistake that the sun revolves around the earth. A fitting metaphor for a view that history and science revolve around belief.History, archaeology, anthropology…all made to revolve around what is believed because it just has to be “true”.

Galileo shines the light, which changed NOTHING of what we believe, our faith, who God is, why we are here, and if Holy Scripture is truth.

Mormons have a problem. Science shines the light and your “scriptures” are debunked.

Not really. Or rather, no more for the Book of Mormon than for the Bible as we have it. The point is, Rebecca, that you made a ludicrous statement about the CoJCoLDS regarding science; there is really no way you can back out of it without looking pretty silly…but continuing on in this vein isn’t going to help.

The FACT is that Mormonism and science get along just fine. Always has…and if some of our leaders held to the traditional 6 day creation, most did not–including, by the way, Joseph Smith–who was a little ahead of his time in his ideas about the age of the planet (very, very old; the epochs of creation being called ‘days’ even if those lasted millions of years.)

Do some members misunderstand and believe as some of their Protestant (and some Catholic) neighbors do? Sure.

Does the church teach this literal approach to things? Not even close.

This is, actually, a pretty silly charge you made; Mormons hate and dislike science? (grin)

Well then, I guess we are just going to have to shut down BYU, BYU Idaho, and BYU Hawaii, which are all three top ten schools–their science departments right up their with the Law and Business schools.

Lessee…Catholics have 197 “colleges and universities” in the USA. You also have about 51 million Catholics here. We have 5 colleges and universities, with about 6 million Mormons here. Let’s do the math; I’m curious…

You

(at least in the USA) having
I guess, after all, Rebecca has spoken; Mormons hate science and that’s that.

(shaking head…)

If every Catholic went to a Catholic university right now, you would have about 260,000 people on every single campus.

If every Mormon in America went to an LDS university, we would have to put 1,260,000 on each campus. That is quite a disconnect…except that Mormons have no problem attending Harvard, UCLA, Cal Tech or MIT. All five LDS campuses are top tier universities, beating out UCLA, USC, UC-San Diego, UC-Davis, UC-Irvine–and a few other top tier universities. I guess we’ll have to settle for quality over quantity.

Of course, you have Notre Dame, Villanova, Georgetown, Fordham, Holy Cross and Loyola, not to mention Scranton and Marquette among others, but I guess I"ll just have to take comfort in the fact that 100% of our universities are top tier, and that’s not true for you guys.

It’s also true that we haven’t been putting up universities all THAT long, even if BYU was started almost as soon as the wagons topped the rise.

Hey. I"ll take what I can get.

No, Rebecca, the point is that Mormonism and science don’t bump heads at all. It is quite possible to be a TBM and also be a flaming evolutionist, a Big Bang believer, a lover of geology and million year epochs. Most of us are…including the majority (if not all) of the members of the Quorum of the Twelve.

…and if you excuse the Catholics because 'some Pope somewhere" apologized for Galileo (thus changing perception of dogma to embrace scientific fact) especially if you are going to point to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in making those cultural and perceptual changes, then you absolutely cannot criticize the Mormons either individually or as a group for doing precisely the same thing. After all, if it’s OK for Catholics to go from persecuting Galileo to apologizing to the man and accepting the idea of evolution, then it’s OK for the Mormons to have, officially, never condemned evolution in the first place.

But you go on and think what you will.

 

[Stephen168]

~ After all, if it’s OK for Catholics to go from persecuting Galileo to apologizing to the man and accepting the idea of evolution, …

Galileo and evolution?

Galileo and heliocentrism.

 

[JohnVIII]

Exaltation is only for faithful LDS that receive their temple ordinances. However salvation is not limited to LDS.

We really don’t focus on getting worlds and such, this seems to be an anti-LDS obsession on our belief in exaltation.

What is the highest Temple ordinance? That would be the “Second Anointing”. I bet you don’t know the wording used in the Second Anointing. Those who receive this become a god right now IN THIS LIFE.

 

[JohnVIII]

Sola scriptura Mormon style. Are the “doctrines” that were in the Book of Commandments, but were not later included in the Doctrine and Covenents part of Mormon “doctrine”?

No. I would have thought you would know how I would answer that question based on the statement from me that you quoted.

Here’s a bulletin for you: God let’s man progress–even prophets. The “Book of Commandments” wasn’t a finished product. Have a good day.

I used to be a Mormon. And back in those days I was taught that anything that comes from the Prophet Joseph Smith and is called a revelation is Mormon Doctrine. If now you teach that a revelation from the Prophet Joseph Smith is not Mormon Doctrine unless it’s in the Standard Works does this mean that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet? I’m sure you will say “No”, but I don’t know how you can explain this.

I mentioned earlier about a long list of Book of Mormon believing churches that are out there. A lot of them do think that Joseph Smith was a fallen prophet. Some of them say that God called him to translate the Book of Mormon, and that was all God called him to do. They say that when he got into polygamy he became a fallen prophet. In fact one of the three witnesses to the Book of Mormon, David Whitmer, believed this all his life until the day he died.

 

[RebeccaJ]

Well, yeah. It was. Kinda glaring, that…when you claim that Catholicism has been just fine and dandy with science.

I have no problem with that; we do believe the same thing. The problem, of course, is that he actually HAD to apologize for it. If Catholicism has never had a problem in this area, there would have been nothing to apologize for, would there?

No one says any single person in the Catholic Church is perfect.

Now true, Catholics are a great deal more amenable to Scientific thought than they used to be, but then I never said anything different. My response to you was to point out that your accusation that Mormons and science were enemies was a little wonky–and more than a little ironic considering Catholic history.

You work backwards, to my view. The Catholic Church works forward. Carefully, now doubt, and sometimes slow as molasses compared to the world, but forward is the direction.

Y’know, you might have a point if the Book of Mormon weren’t so very clear about a couple of things…like the Jaredites meeting people who were already here, and the Nephites/Lamanites meeting a great many more people than the Jaredite descendents (who were, in the main, mostly killed off, remember? And WHO was it that killed them all off, anyway? ) …and WHO were the Jaredites, by the way?

If you want to get into this further, a very fair treatment of the various models of colonization (assuming that the Book of Mormon is true) is here:dialoguejournal.com/excerpts/36-4.asp

Yes, nineteenth century Americans who believed in the Book of Mormon wanted to believe that all native Americans were descended from Laman and Lemuel…but since they had to ignore, not DNA, but the Book of Mormon, to think so, you can understand

This would be all fine and dandy if it wasn’t for the fact that you are denying what your church taught, all the way to the point where DNA and other scientific evidence said it wasn’t possible. No you backpeddle. All you give up there ^^^^ … backpeddling.

On that we absolutely agree.

WHAT ‘pesky Christian history’ are you talking about here? The histories I have read (and since I rather specialize in literary works from around 800 on up, I’ve read a great many of them) are a little confused as to who did what–and who claimed to be ‘the first and only.’ Remember, the Eastern Orthodox folks claim that YOU guys left the fold…

Neither of us left the fold. One of these days you Mormons might get this part right.

I do not know, and never have known anybody who believes in the literal 24/7, young earth creation thing. True, some Mormons do believe that, however, it is not taught and I don’t know a bunch who do believe it. You do realize, don’t you, that the church presidency has issued AT LEAST three letters describing the church position on archeology/evolution, and all of them are very clear about this: leave science to the scientists and religion to religion

haha, funny stuff. I was taught it numerous times, by your CES. It is the entire basis for your belief that the world is going to end any minute now.

; it is important to understand THAT God created Adam and Eve, but the ‘how’ is not something anybody needs to fight about; evolution is just fine with us. So your accusation of a 'literal belief in" that stuff is actually inaccurate.By the way, the first of those letters came out in 1909 “The Origin of Man” , in 1910 “Words in Season” and in 1925, " ‘Mormon’ view of Evolution"

That is your belief. There are Mormons that come around now and then that are absolutely shocked that Catholics don’t take the Bible so literally as they.

David O’McKay wrote this:

“There is a perpetual design permeating all purposes of creation. … [E]volution’s beautiful theory of the creation of the world offers many perplexing problems to the inquiring mind. Inevitably, a teacher who denies divine agency in creation, who insists there is no intelligent purpose in it, will infect the student with the thought that all may be chance. I say, that no youth should be so led without a counterbalancing thought.” ~continued on next post~

Intelligent design does not equal evolution.

 

[RebeccaJ]

~cont from previous post~

You don’t have to convince ME. After all, it was the Catholics who tried to shut him up, not the Mormons.

Not really. Or rather, no more for the Book of Mormon than for the Bible as we have it. The point is, Rebecca, that you made a ludicrous statement about the CoJCoLDS regarding science; there is really no way you can back out of it without looking pretty silly…but continuing on in this vein isn’t going to help.

Who says I am backing out?

The FACT is that Mormonism and science get along just fine. Always has…and if some of our leaders held to the traditional 6 day creation, most did not–including, by the way, Joseph Smith–who was a little ahead of his time in his ideas about the age of the planet (very, very old; the epochs of creation being called ‘days’ even if those lasted millions of years.)

Do some members misunderstand and believe as some of their Protestant (and some Catholic) neighbors do? Sure.

Does the church teach this literal approach to things? Not even close.

This is, actually, a pretty silly charge you made; Mormons hate and dislike science? (grin)

Did I say hate and dislike? No. Stop putting words in my mouth. I said, you cannot reconcile your beliefs to science. Starting with the BoM. Never reconciled. As I said, you backpeddled on out of that one.

No, Rebecca, the point is that Mormonism and science don’t bump heads at all.

Good Lord Diana. I don’t care how many universities and students you have. That has NOTHING to do with how you approach science and faith.

It is quite possible to be a TBM and also be a flaming evolutionist, a Big Bang believer, a lover of geology and million year epochs. Most of us are…including the majority (if not all) of the members of the Quorum of the Twelve.

Congratulations. Still nothing to do with how mormons approach science and faith, together. Mormons are good at compartmentalizing. Faith here. Science there. Don’t worry about where they meet.

…and if you excuse the Catholics because 'some Pope somewhere" apologized for Galileo (thus changing perception of dogma to embrace scientific fact)

Dogma? The belief of the sun rotating around the earth was never dogma.

especially if you are going to point to the guidance of the Holy Spirit in making those cultural and perceptual changes, then you absolutely cannot criticize the Mormons either individually or as a group for doing precisely the same thing.

Which precisely same things? WHAT about Galileo is proof that Catholicism is a false invention made out of the fantasises of humans? This is what happens to your BoM when put against the light of science.

After all, if it’s OK for Catholics to go from persecuting Galileo to apologizing to the man

Perhaps you didn’t realize that giving and receiving forgiveness is a main tenent of Christian belief. If you are wrong, you should apologize.

When your church apologizes for telling its members, for more than 150 years, that your BoM is a record of EVERY Native American ancestor, then we’ll have a comparison. As it is, all your church did was quietly remove the chapter introductions, and send out press releases saying “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain”.

And you have fallen for it.

and accepting the idea of evolution,

Perhaps you are confusing us with fundamentalists. Catholics do not oppose evolution.

then it’s OK for the Mormons to have, officially, never condemned evolution in the first place.

Nice rhetoric, which addresses nothing of what I am telling you.

You have science revolving around belief. If science does not contradict or interfere with what you believe, you are perfectly alright to be right on board with it. No matter how immoral it might be, your church says nothing.

But when it comes to your BoM and Christianity in general, you modify facts to suit belief. Don’t believe me? Tell me about those Nephites and Lamanites that founded the great civilizations of the Inca, Maya and Aztec. And then find me a non-Mormon scientist in any field who supports this belief that you attempt to wrap in the cloak of “science”.

But you go on and think what you will.

 

[DLClark]

LDSGuy, it is the hope of all Mormons to be with God they die. Q. Why should God let you into His heaven to be with Him? Q. Suppose you were to die today and were to stand before God and He were to say to you, "Why should I let you into my heaven to be with Me? How would you answer Him?

 

[dianaiad]

Galileo and evolution?

Galileo and heliocentrism.

I know. I was under the influence of two benedryl tablets (hayfever is not fun…) and that entire post was…sorry about that. I was fighting off sleep.

Actually, there wasn’t anything wrong with that sentence: "After all, if it’s OK for Catholics to go from persecuting Galileo to apologizing to the man and accepting the idea of evolution"is a perfectly acceptable way to encompass the Catholic progression in acceptance of scientific thought. It HAS gone from persecuting Galileo to apologizing to him for doing so…and then on to accepting the idea of evolution. The subject of the sentence, after all, is “Catholics,” and what you do, not Galileo and what he taught.

So THAT sentence was fine, if a little awkward. It’s the rest of the post that deserves a “D”.

(sigh)

 

[Stephen168]

I know. I was under the influence of two benedryl tablets (hayfever is not fun…) and that entire post was…sorry about that. I was fighting off sleep.

Actually, there wasn’t anything wrong with that sentence: "After all, if it’s OK for Catholics to go from persecuting Galileo to apologizing to the man and accepting the idea of evolution"is a perfectly acceptable way to encompass the Catholic progression in acceptance of scientific thought. It HAS gone from persecuting Galileo to apologizing to him for doing so…and then on to accepting the idea of evolution. The subject of the sentence, after all, is “Catholics,” and what you do, not Galileo and what he taught.

So THAT sentence was fine, if a little awkward. It’s the rest of the post that deserves a “D”.

(sigh)

When did the Catholic Church reject the theory of evolution?

 

[dianaiad]

When did the Catholic Church reject the theory of evolution?

I didn’t say it rejected the theory of evolution. I WROTE that it progressed from persecuting Galileo to apologizing to him and accepting evolution.

A progression from a heliocentric view to a modern evolutionary view.

Kicking and screaming (and doing unfortunate things to scientists) most of the way.

My point, of course, is not to disparage Catholic views on science today. It was to point out that no Catholic can criticize Mormons for being anti-Science because A: even though Catholics are not anti-science NOW, you definitely used to be, and B: Mormons not only are not anti-science now, we NEVER WERE.

We have never excommunicated or disciplined anybody for believing in biological evolution, for instance. That would be rather dumb, given that most, if not all, of the members of the Quorum of Twelve apostles are evolutionists to one extent or another.

 

[DLClark]

When did the Catholic Church reject the theory of evolution?

When they started to deny sola scriptura. The Bible is pro-creation in many many places. To think that man came from goo-to-you is not very encouraging. On the other to know that a loving God created us bring great hope and encouragment. What would you rather have "goo -to-you or creation by a loving God?

 

[Jerusha]

So what is wrong with a loving God who guided goo-to-you in a very slow process? Does He have the power to tweak genes to get the result that he wants?

 

[DLClark]

So what is wrong with a loving God who guided goo-to-you in a very slow process? Does He have the power to tweak genes to get the result that he wants?

Evolution disagrees with the Bible in Gen.1-11 and many other places. Evolution disagrees with the Bible. I will trust God and what He has done in creating us over man’s ideas about evolution.
Gen 1:1-2
A In the beginning **God created **the heavens and the earth.
NASU

Isa 40:28
28 Do you not know? Have you not heard?
The Everlasting God, the LORD, **the Creator **of the ends of the earth
Does not become weary or tired.
NASU

Isa 43:1
ut now, thus says the LORD, your Creator, O Jacob,
And He who formed you, O Israel,
NASU

Isa 43:15
15 “I am the LORD, your Holy One,
The Creator of Israel, your King.”
NASU

Ps 139:13-14

13 For Youf ormed my inward parts;
You wove me in my mother’s womb.
14 I will give thanks to You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
NASU

Ps 148:1-5
1 Praise the LORD!
Praise the LORD from the heavens;
Praise Him in the heights!
2 Praise Him, all His angels;
Praise Him, all His hosts!
3 Praise Him, sun and moon;
Praise Him, all stars of light!
4 Praise Him, highest heavens,
And the waters that are above the heavens!
5 Let them praise the name of the LORD,
For He commanded and they were created.
NASU

Isa 45:12
12 "It is I who made the earth, and created man upon it.
**I stretched out the heavens with My hands **NASU

Isa 45:18

18 For thus says the LORD, who created the heavens (He is the God who formed the earth and made it, He established it and did not create it a waste place, but formed it to be inhabited),
"I am the LORD, and there is none else.
NASU

 

[Jerusha]

This does not deny Him as Creator. Who made the “big bang” happen?

We must look at the ethical meaning of the Bible, rather than its literal truth. This is particularly true when we seek to understand Genesis, which was derived from oral tradition.

This is the reason why prot. fundies have problems refuting the BOM (to get the thread back on track), because the BOM has its origins in Biblical literalism.