posted
Adoptive children are sealed to adoptive parents; however, the sealings between children and parents are in some sense (and the theology is fuzzy here, but understood) qualitatively different from those between spouses.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Aug 2000
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quote:Originally posted by TomDavidson: Ah. Sorry. To which set of parents are they sealed, rather?
Depends. Typically children that are adopted at birth or whose biological parents were not LDS will be sealed to their adoptive parents. Older children whose biological parents were LDS may very well have already been sealed to their biological parents.
I think there is authority to cancel the first sealing in order for them to be sealed to another, but that would be so unusual that I'm not even sure it's ever been done. That's the sort of thing I'd expect the First Presidency to have to sign off on.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
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quote:Ending polygamy required a serious shakeup of theology
That is not entirely true. The church never repudiated the theology of polygamy, just the practice. It was suspended for legal reasons, but it is still very much eternally practiced if a widower remarries in the temple.
To accept Homosexual eternal unions would require a major theological shakeup. I don't think it will happen. However, there may come a day they accept homosexual couples to adopt children from the church adoption program--tho I see that as only a little more likely then homosexual unions--maybe a .01 percent chance of being accepted.
quote:however, the sealings between children and parents are in some sense (and the theology is fuzzy here, but understood) qualitatively different from those between spouses.
I think it is too fuzzy to say one is qualitatively different from the other. The person who gave my patriarchal blessing (Hugh B Brown's son), told me that sealings were only important because the ordinance sealed you into the celestial kingdom. That is why it doesn't matter if someone who is sealed in marriage has their spouse cheat and get a divorce. The "pure spouse" is already/still sealed.
EDIT: to add second quote.
Posts: 2445 | Registered: Oct 2004
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quote: The church never repudiated the theology of polygamy, just the practice. It was suspended for legal reasons, but it is still very much eternally practiced if a widower remarries in the temple.
The last clause is true; the rest is, I think, subject to interpretation. I'd also point out that the massive theological re-invention of monogamous marriage that followed the first and second manifestos in and of itself constitutes a great theological shift. And though polygamous sealings are still performed, the theology surrounding them is much more shaky than it was a hundred years ago; nobody in a position of authority is claiming today that polygamy is essential to attain exaltation; indeed, they are actively claiming that it is not. That seems a rejection of a great portion of such theology to me.
As to the second, I'd say sections 131 and 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants make clear that it is the marriage sealing which is associated with exaltation. No statements with such authority exist for children. In any case, deification theology clearly is about heavenly couples propagating spiritual children; resurrected children don't seem to pop up in such narratives, for presumably they are adult and off being exalted on their own. Anyhow, we both, I think, agree that there's some fuzziness around the edges.
Posts: 794 | Registered: Aug 2000
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posted
It seems telling to me that a concern about allowing SSM is that it fosters acceptance of homosexuality in society and would make it easier for someone to feel safe about making that choice. Christianity makes a big deal about one choosing to accept Jesus as their savior and choosing to live a life reflective of his values (as defined by them). Yet great effort is exerted by the church to limit a person's choices; as if when presented with different choices they will not actually make the correct choice as defined by the church. It appears that the church doesn't really have the courage of their convictions. It seems they think it is better to foster discrimination against those who choose differently; let's make their lives as miserable and unfulfilled as possible (because it seems the choice by itself will not be so obviously bad without external help). Does it matter that a extra few confused teens take their lives, end up with emotional issues, learn to live a lie always hiding their true selves, and be generally miserable the rest of their lives?
Of course, this is all assuming that sexual attraction to the same sex is just a choice. How much time and thought did you (the general you) put into whether you found a certain person attractive or not. Do you think that if there was an equal playing field you would have felt differently? Yet with all the advantages of being (acting) heterosexual and all the obstacles to being (acting) homosexual there are still a significant number of people that identify as homosexual. Then there are all the people that try to force themselves to conform to the accepted norms yet know that it is all false. Are they happy, is this a great environment for children, do they cheat (and fulfill their sexual desires on the side), is the incident of divorce higher? How many loving homosexual couples do you know (I know quite a few), with children (I know quite a few)? How many married couples do you know where one or the other is secretly homosexual? You probably don't know that you know some. I was surprised to discover that there are quite a few (just look at gay cruise sites and count how many times the identifier “married man” shows up). How many homosexuals do you personally know? If the answer to these is few or none then you really don't understand.
Do you believe there shouldn't be a true choice, that the options should be limited to what you find acceptable, that people are incapable of determining their own happiness and must to told? Do you have the courage of your convictions that someone will choose your path because it was right and just or because it was the only one or the easier (safer) one?
Posts: 87 | Registered: Apr 2007
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quote:Originally posted by scholarette: But the dicty that make the fruiting body get a signal that tells them they are going to be stalks so they "know" that they will not be reproducing either. To be a stalk requires changes in protein expression, so one might cheat by receiving the signal to be a stalk and ignoring it and trying to climb up to the top and be a fruiting body or perhaps by sitting around, hoping to survive long enough to eat the dead stalk.
In that case, I would expect to see some cheating; has anyone checked? I'm going to need to think about how this works to not produce an orgy of cheating that destroys the whole behaviour, though. There seem to be three gene complexes we might consider:
1. Genes for gathering in a body. 2. Genes for becoming a stalk. 3. Genes for becoming a fruiting body.
The question is, why is (1+3, cheating) not an advantage over (1+2+3, playing straight)? One possibility is that they are correlated - you can't actually have 1 without 2, or perhaps 3 without 2. There is no simple way to check this, of course. A simpler possibility is that cheaters do have an advantage in the short term, but in the long term they run out of stalks to take advantage of, and die out. In a similar vein, cancer cells in the human body multiply like crazy to start with, but sooner or later kill off their host.
Or we might give complex 1 slightly more credit for brains. Perhaps the behaviour is actually "Form a body if the density of protein X is high enough", and protein X is a reliable signal of possessing complex 2. That way, the stalks can't be taken advantage of - they will only gather if everyone around them (or at least a largish percentage) will also form a stalk if unlucky. In this manner you would expect to see some equilibrium population of cheaters. If there are more than X% cheaters, bodies do not form. But these densities do vary with space; if you are only just above X%, you will get some local regions where the cheater density drops, and a body forms. But in that case the stalks are contributing a higher percentage to the body, so they get a better chance at passing their genes on. So you are going to drop back towards the equilibrium. Conversely if the cheater percentage is a bit below X%, bodies will form in lots of places, the cheaters will take advantage, and you get a higher percentage in the next generation.
At least two testable hypotheses here:
1. Do cheaters exist? 2. Does protein X exist?
A splendid project for a PhD thesis, no doubt. Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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I was thinking about how the LDS church might make a secular argument against gay marriage (or any "active" homosexuality). And as I was thinking about it, I realized that any negative social consequences they might point to are pretty much a result of society/church forbidding and punishing the behavior, rather than the behavior itself (excluding things like STDs which people can avoid by behaving safely and are anyway inherent to any kind of sex, not just the homo kind).
I think you're on the right track, in other words. The misery of the choice (however much there is) might be created by the stigma, and not the other way around.
Easing up on this might even permit people to experiment with homosexuality without it becoming a self-defining trait - not all gay people, but some, I believe, cement their identity as gay as a defense against the pressure from society to deny any homosexual impulse.
Posts: 4287 | Registered: Mar 2005
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posted
It is almost certainly true that if you decrease the cost of being homosexual, more people will become homosexual. :shrug: Since the people making it costly in the first place are the only ones who think it a bad thing, well then.
Posts: 10645 | Registered: Jul 2004
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