NOM

Some observations. The stuff on intersex and transgender individuals is just plain wrong. Besides the bad facts or lack of good ones, it's primary effort is to push the people and the issues off to the side and not have to deal with them. This line, under the Transgender Individuals section, is phen...

Basically, it's not as bad as it could be. That's pretty faint praise. It's not as punitive as the now-truly-excluded Policy of Exclusion. Now it's more along the lines of purposeful ignorance, of facts, but primarily of people they don't want to acknowledge, who might disturb their worldview. If th...

You too can now read the handbook: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/stu ... e?lang=eng

No longer is the most important book in the Church super-secret and available only to the elect few.

I still agree 100% with you. Your point is the point I was trying to make. I probably needlessly called out primary specifically, but I really meant any setting where you take the class manual at its face and use it word for word in the lesson. Mormon doctrine is a mile wide and an inch deep, but t...

Yes, but my point was that it really can't be blamed on Primary, either. It's the desired state for adult lessons. Decades ago I taught EQ (and my wife taught RS at the same time) and it was possible to use the lesson manuals as the starting point for decent lessons. With the introduction of the "Te...

The guy with the calling, and one of the presidency members are terrible teachers. They mostly just lecture. Occasionally, one of us and break into their thought stream and get a (hopefully) thought-provoking comment or question in. Sometimes that will lead to an actual discussion for a minute or t...

After about 5 years of being in the YM organization, I returned to the EQ. This was my first visit in 5 years, That's kind of what finally did it for me. With Primary, nursery, clerk, and YM it had been years since I had attended EQ / SS. My wife and I had been doing nursery together. They kept pro...

A quick search reveals that Strobel is very unreliable. His attempts at a scholarly support for Christ results from interviewing very biased experts from only one side. The claims he makes are not widely accepted by scholars and the evidence. He significantly distorts his own conversion story. Basic...

But the part of this that I didn’t talk about is that for those boys who enjoyed the scout camps and such, this will be a real demotion as far as fancy activities go. See, the girls on the church’s insurance could only travel X miles for girls camp and activities. Nothing like scuba diving was ever...

I’d posture to suggest it comes from the top. I’ll give him a pass though because he did say “some” cancerous faith destroying messages. Responsibility does have to be placed at the feet of those at the top. They've carefully nurtured the environment for this sort of behavior, at adds with what rea...

If they would just make a big public announcement that we are sorry for early doctrine that got into the church because it was started at a time when many people including early church leaders, and that it was false doctrine when Nephi wrote it down and it was false doctrine when Joseph Smith trans...

I saw an interesting theory on reddit. The church found the error in the printed manuals but still sent them out. Then it changed the online manual. This was the older members, who are more likely to use the printed manual, get to see the same doctrine they have always known. The younger members, w...

It really shows that their disavowal of these very racist doctrines is only a very thin veneer.

I would guess that the courts would accept this argument. I'll be honest. I think that the state park is promoting religion. If it were worth discussing, I'd like to hear what a lawyer would say. Moving on. It's been ages since I've been to "This is the Place" State Park. Probably 30 years. I see t...

Admittedly I certainly got off into some tangents there, but my basic point is that the condom wrapper isn't making fun of the Church. It's making fun of the Utah State Park "This is the Place Heritage Park" and the founding of the government. It says it right there, it's a Heritage Park and not a R...

I love this juxtaposition from the video: Simple white clothing symbolizes purity [slight pause] and equality. The most senior church leader and the newest member are indistinguishable when dressed in the same way. Men and women wear similar clothing ... Somehow I really don't think it works that --...

There was recently a vaguely related court development. Three New Hampshire women involved in a Free the Nipple organization were arrested and fined a few years back for going topless at a lake. They appealed the inequality of the law, which was supported based on “the traditional understanding of w...

Debate: was the “this is the place" statement by BY a religious statement, or was it the voice of the founder of the city and first governor of the territory? I could argue it was not a statement of the church, but rather of the future city. Yeah, that's basically the tangential discussion between ...

I hope bears don’t chase me. Some guys like bears to chase them. When we were in Paris we saw a bunch of them at The Bear's Den. You can see them standing around the bar as my kids walk past. https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-W6WFcpc/0/de20f83b/M/i-W6WFcpc-M.jpg But, the health department does wa...

The only one that I would have a problem with is "This is the place." Clearly that's a religious reference. The government should not be in the business of religious teasing. Just because the church acts badly in the political arena doesn't mean everyone else should. The others are harmless. I'm no...