NOM

In this article, Jon Ogden certainly has the history and the data correct. People's interest and commitment to religion seem to be changing significantly according to the all the data we've got. The Church's reported numbers have notably dropped. Surveys show a significant increase in those who are ...

I now consider Jesus of Nazareth, if he lived, to have been a spiritual sage--remarkably enlightened for his day, but definitely a product of the contemporary point of view. I also believe he was not a family man, so not a whole lot of room to talk, there. Whether Jesus existed or not and whether h...

FiveFingerMnemonic wrote: ↑

Fri Oct 20, 2017 3:33 pm

One item of note is the word "masturbate" is not found in the questions. I'm sure it's implied in chastity, but the lack of the term itself is interesting.

While it's not explicitly named, I'm sure the line
"Avoiding pornography"
is intended to accomplish much the same purpose.

It's kind of like how every generation seems to think that it invented sex, when the evidence is pretty clear that it's been around for a long time.

I conceded it not really possible to speculate about that period of time, because the daguerreotype was pretty new, and porn wasn't highly available. Don't mistake the medium for the thing. Porn has been around for a long, long time. The media have been varied and changed with technologies, but the...

Here are some articles on the topic: Your Porn Addiction Isn't Real Is Porn Addiction Even Real? Is Porn Addiction Really a Thing? Is pornography addictive? Porn ‘Addiction’ Isn’t Really Addiction, Neuroscientists Say Is 'porn addiction' a real thing? Keep in mind that whether it is an addiction or ...

First off, I'm not really convinced that porn addiction is a real thing. Neither are psychologists and other experts in the field, which is pretty much why I'm not convinced. If it is a real thing, there are certainly far fewer real cases than the Church thinks there are. Can you elaborate more on ...

There are others who I'm sure remember this stuff much more than I do and who were much more involved than I was. One person who particularly comes to mind is Nadine Hansen. I'm sure she also knows a bunch of other people who were involved and would remember.

There was a different conference on the family. Not the Beijing one. It was pretty significant in Mormon circles. Some Mormons went to it and felt like they were instrumental in keeping it more conservative and expressing their repressive views on the family. That experience got a number of the acti...

Another interesting blog post I read this morning makes a similar plea for "big tent Mormonism" by taking apart Callister's last conference talk on the Book of Mormon. Dude has a Masters in History, and makes some great points that will be familiar to many of us here: https://hartbrad.blogspot.ca/2...

I'd say, probably not. It can be interesting speculation but it's really pretty meaningless, about like trying to figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. First off, I'm not really convinced that porn addiction is a real thing. Neither are psychologists and other experts in the fie...

Well, what's the use of religion if you can't use it to look down on and denigrate others? What good is it if it doesn't make you feel better than others? Condolences on how all this going on with your family. It's a terrible situation. It's too bad the family can't prioritize people over organizati...

I've seen a lot of talk of the church leaving BSA over this, but I could see the church adopting it. Maybe I'm out of touch, but I don't think there would be much backlash if the church embraced scouting for girls and put them in their own troops. I'm not saying it will happen, but I don't think it...

My DD is a Girl Scout. It is a great program. It totally blows Activity Days and Personal Progress out of the water. I don't know. I almost kind of feel like the church's allegiance to BSA will hinge on who scares them more: the gays or empowered girls. How will the fear of gays matter in that cons...

nibbler wrote: ↑

Wed Oct 11, 2017 11:45 am

Popcorn cookies?

Uggh. No. Dump the popcorn and just go with the cookies. I said the best of both programs, not just everything from both programs.

In most of the rest of the world there are not separate organizations for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. There is just scouting, for boys and girls. The other countries find the U.S.A. weird, especially at international scouting events. The Girl Scouts of America is not very happy about this change. It...

https://apnews.com/7f690adec7ad45d2a9469baac8e90ac7?utm_campaign=SocialFlow&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=AP It's very surprising but they have been working on it. I completed a survey on it a while back. Surprising to see such a dramatic change so quickly, but we've known they were looking into ch...

It depends on a lot of different things, but this response is fairly common. My wife and I both saw it to a significant degree as we left the church. The only person who inquired about our leaving, who wanted to know anything more, left herself not all that long after. People shy away from things th...

Roughly, the "never been married" rates for women have doubled in the last 30 years. The divorce rate is roughly 70%. Modern marriage is more like Swingfest than actual, commit for life type relationships. Not that I have a solution for it, but marriage doesn't really exist like it used to. You've ...

I think this thread does a pretty good job of illustrating something I've said a bit lately -- different people place differing levels of importance on different things. Some things are significant to some people and not to others. And, if I'm not misgendering too many people too badly, I think we c...