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Author Topic: A Landmark of Sorts - Returning My Eagle Badge
Rakeesh
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You're quite right that the LDS church didn't match, say, the KKK. Not in the habit of burning churches down or staging lynchings, so on and so forth.

I have to disagree when you reject the segregationist label, though, because I think it certainly did fit with a qualifier-that it wasn't nearly as bad as many segregationist notions, but it DID institute more or less two churches with respect to its male members-one for the whites and one for the blacks. I don't think that's an unfair criticism to level.

Anyway, I expect you might be right about what will happen with respect to BSA troops. I have a feeling that if church officials do feel strongly about exercising ideological control over the entire BSA, they might not be as eager for another PR fight as they were say six or seven years ago.

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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
there was no segregation in the church

Point of fact, there was segregation in the LDS church. Blacks were not allowed the priesthood. You are pointing out that congregations may not have been, by policy, segregated according to race. But the membership was in fact segregated.
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BlackBlade
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I can't say the church was totally not segregated as blacks could not perform temple ordinances sans priesthood. But that's hardly different than the current practice of not allowing women to hold the priesthood.

There were some pernicious justifications for why blacks could not hold the priesthood, but many of them in large part seemed to break down to, "God deemed it that way, and we don't know why." There wasn't a general belief that blacks were worthy of contempt or should be ashamed of being black. Though some probably did come to that conclusion as one particularly common explanation was that blacks were the fence sitters during the war in heaven that occurred prior to the earth being created.

In any case, I don't think we really disagree. I am waiting to see what the church does with this development. I need to remind myself to contact the BSA and tell them that I as a Mormon and Eagle Scout support lifting the ban.

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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
I can't say the church was totally not segregated as blacks could not perform temple ordinances sans priesthood. But that's hardly different than the current practice of not allowing women to hold the priesthood.

I absolutely agree with you. And though I would find the LDS church to be irredeemable for its views on the nature of the universe in general, and its actions against the institutions of democracy in particular regardless of how it treated its members, this, in my view, justifies calling it a backwards institution in its own right.


quote:
There wasn't a general belief that blacks were worthy of contempt or should be ashamed of being black. Though some probably did come to that conclusion as one particularly common explanation was that blacks were the fence sitters during the war in heaven that occurred prior to the earth being created.
I don't disbelieve that this is your honest impression of the community (though you weren't alive then), but it rather stretches credulity to imagine that the church's membership, were it wholly or even mostly forward thinking and indisposed to prejudice, would tolerate such a policy for any period of time. As it happened, outward pressure upon the Mormon leadership to fall in line with mainstream society in its treatment of black members precipitated the change.

The fact that, as you say, members took a "gee whiz... what are you gonna do?" approach to outright segregation based on race indicates that they were not particularly critical of the foundations of their church's philosophy, nor particularly disposed to voice disagreement with its interpretation of the "mission," that god had supposedly ordained, when and if it did not agree with their own internal moral compasses.

If we follow that kind of reasoning to its logical end, we can suppose that Mormons can be induced to do *anything* contrary to their personal moral standards, if the church were to instruct them to do so. We know, without need of a practical test, that this would not be the case for most. So I put it to you: if you cannot credit the church with entirely controlling the actions and opinions of its members as concerns what is morally right, then how can you dismiss the membership's wholesale acceptance of segregation? There must have been culpability among the membership viz a viz, racial prejudice. This is of course not a *surprise*, but I just want to challenge this notion that it was somehow a question left entirely to the leadership, and to "revelation." That rather neatly ignores the clear correlation of the Church's change in attitude with the social pressure for it to change- which is a nice way of saying that the "revelation," story is questionable, at best. Church members were culpable in the furtherance of the segregationist policy, just as church members should *also* be credited with making the change. It was for the benefit of keeping those who no longer wished to be seen as racists that the policy was changed in the first place. It was realized, among many other things, that no Mormon could ever be politically influential on the national stage, if he or she adhered to a racist church policy. And it was realized that the church would begin to lose members and new memberships for the same reason- and the policy changed. Just like with BSA.


quote:
In any case, I don't think we really disagree. I am waiting to see what the church does with this development. I need to remind myself to contact the BSA and tell them that I as a Mormon and Eagle Scout support lifting the ban.
I am positive that from all we have shared over the years, and all that you have said, that you are not a bigot or a liar. And I think you have a good moral compass. I am just engaging with you on what I think is something you don't really want to believe about people- that they are not all like you.

[ January 29, 2013, 02:50 PM: Message edited by: Orincoro ]

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kmbboots
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:

I need to remind myself to contact the BSA and tell them that I as a Mormon and Eagle Scout support lifting the ban.

Good for you, BlackBlade.
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theamazeeaz
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The thing that bothers me about the ban is by the time someone is old enough to know what sex is and that they'd rather have it with people of their own gender, they're too old to be joining scouts for the first time anyway. Rather they've been scouts for years.
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MrSquicky
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quote:
There were some pernicious justifications for why blacks could not hold the priesthood, but many of them in large part seemed to break down to, "God deemed it that way, and we don't know why." There wasn't a general belief that blacks were worthy of contempt or should be ashamed of being black. Though some probably did come to that conclusion as one particularly common explanation was that blacks were the fence sitters during the war in heaven that occurred prior to the earth being created.
My understand was that there was a pretty common belief that they were the descendents of Cain. And official church doctrine that blacks could be excluded from auxiliary activities (like the Boy Scouts) unless the local leaders decided to let them in.
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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by MrSquicky:
quote:
There were some pernicious justifications for why blacks could not hold the priesthood, but many of them in large part seemed to break down to, "God deemed it that way, and we don't know why." There wasn't a general belief that blacks were worthy of contempt or should be ashamed of being black. Though some probably did come to that conclusion as one particularly common explanation was that blacks were the fence sitters during the war in heaven that occurred prior to the earth being created.
My understand was that there was a pretty common belief that they were the descendents of Cain. And official church doctrine that blacks could be excluded from auxiliary activities (like the Boy Scouts) unless the local leaders decided to let them in.
I have heard the former belief mentioned as a theory, the latter one is completely news to me.

What I'm trying to describe is that at least for the church, the feeling was, "A prophet of God (Brigham Young) said blacks could not hold the priesthood because of the curse of Cain (according to him)."

The speech was made before the Utah legislature, and Joseph Smith made no mention of this principle. Even the speech itself is an exercise in saying blacks cannot have the priesthood, but they are no less children of God than the whites, just can't have the priesthood. Young doesn't know why, it's just what God has said.

So you have a group of people denying blacks the priesthood because a prophet said that needed to be the case, but there wasn't any attendant animosity or hatred towards blacks. Just unwillingness to go against another doctrine (The prophet speaks for God when he says he is). You can find plenty to criticize that somebody didn't come along sooner and theologically point out why that doctrine doesn't make sense, or couldn't be from God, but it wasn't as if the church wanted Young to take away the priesthood from blacks, and there was no resistance when Kimball gave it back. The belief was (I believe) divorced from public opinion. As in, certain leaders in the church (Young for example) believed it's what the scriptures demanded. When the church reversed course there were apostles who still subscribed to the scriptural doctrine that blacks could not hold the priesthood. They immediately reversed course when informed about the revelation.

I will admit these things happened before I was born, but I've spent a great deal of time studying it because I did want to understand why the church was so hopelessly wrong on this.

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Tittles
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Blackblade - You're taking the racism from the past, and then saying that it wasn't really that bad because it's not too different from the sexism of the present.

Okay then.

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BlackBlade
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No, I'm not. But I'm not really interested in discussing it with you at present. We haven't even been formally introduced.
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Anthonie
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Hmm, maybe BSA's plan to eliminate the national policy banning gays and leave it to local groups to decide is not so clean a solution legally.

quote:
The new policy would, however, undermine the rationale the Supreme Court voiced in 2000 when it affirmed the right of the Scouts to discriminate against gay people. The 5-to-4 ruling turned on the court’s acceptance of the Scouts’ claim that being antigay was a “core” part of its mission and that its freedom of association right trumped any state nondiscrimination rules.

Now that the group is on the verge of making discrimination optional, it can no longer claim that discrimination is a “core” purpose — and therefore state nondiscrimination rules should apply to the Scouts. The halfway policy change would inevitably invite litigation.

Article.
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Rakeesh
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It would be a nicer world, I think, if it were truly credible that someone could make such a proclamation-God has told me that blacks cannot hold the priesthood, but they are still equal children of God in His eyes-and be not only sincere but honest. That is to say, having really examined their feelings and truly purged any attendant notions of racial inferiority and chalked it all up to one of the impenetrable mysteries of God.

But I cannot see how such a proclamation can pass that sort of muster by anyone who didn't start out with the assumption 'Young was a good guy, and not a racist,' and then in subsequent consideration discover that surprisingly what they believed going in is what they believed going out.

It's simply a fundamental disconnect. If blacks were truly no less children of God in God's eyes, then why is God denying them the right to no less membership and participation in His Church? It seems to me there's really only one way this square can be circled, and that is if God can say the square is a circle and even if it isn't actually a circle, by virtue of God saying so it becomes one.

Which begs a whole lot of other difficult and frankly (in my opinion, of course) absurd questions, but reality being what God says it is, independent of what it actually is, isn't an uncommon religious belief.

It's just...one of the things I admire, or perhaps appreciate with respect to other religions, is Mormonism's take on that level of divine omnipotence-namely that it doesn't actually exist. That was my understanding anyway-there are rules of existence which even God must abide by. Well, it seems to me that that teaching cannot coexist in the same mind with 'blacks cannot hold the priesthood, but are none less equal Children of God'.

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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
I can't say the church was totally not segregated as blacks could not perform temple ordinances sans priesthood. But that's hardly different than the current practice of not allowing women to hold the priesthood ...

Made me quizzical too, although Orincoro basically addressed it.
The fact that your church *is* segregated by sex doesn't seem to conflict with the question on whether your church *was* segregated by race [Wink]

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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by theamazeeaz:
The thing that bothers me about the ban is by the time someone is old enough to know what sex is ...

$
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$ Warning for joke that might be "too soon"
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In fairness, sex is often something they discover with their scout leaders.

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BlackBlade
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You'd have to first understand why Young felt the way that he did. It's a complicated topic, I tend towards he misunderstood the certain passages in the scriptures, particularly the Old Testament, and Book of Mormon. Not that he believed blacks were some inferior race and it was the white man's burden to oversee them. If he did in fact believe that the scriptures were clear on this point, then it's a simple matter to get to the next place where you say, "It is not man's place to question God's decrees".

While black's were not permitted to participate in temple ordinances, there was never a belief that this would stop them from going to heaven, which I think allowed the state of affairs to last as long as it did. Mormonism places great importance on the concept that anybody can make it back to God. Unbaptized infants, those who live and die ignorant of the gospel, women are not hampered by not having the priesthood, and nor were black males who were not ordained to the priesthood in this life.

Honestly, I think the greatest obstacle to black's getting the priesthood back after Young took it away, was Young's proclamation that this was God's will, coupled with another prophet's (Wilford Woodruff) statement that God would not permit the prophet to lead the people astray. Without dealing with the vagueness of that statement, people wanted it to be true, and so it became concrete.

It's easy to believe that if a prophet says something, it must be true. And yet, the scriptures have examples of prophets being wrong about things. Peter and circumcision for gentile converts, Moses striking the stone with his staff instead of just speaking as God commanded. But this belief was endlessly repeated and hammered into the members beliefs.

Now, I'll be honest, I *do* believe that the prophet is the only man on earth God has authorized to speak for him to his people. But I simply believe anything he says must be confirmed by God to me before I'll believe it's of God and hence true.

quote:
It's simply a fundamental disconnect. If blacks were truly no less children of God in God's eyes, then why is God denying them the right to no less membership and participation in His Church?
Like I said, salvation was not affected, which ultimately is what matters to most Mormons. There are so many questions like that that remain unanswered. Why did an earthquake kill those people in that country? Why can't men have babies? Why don't women have the priesthood, why does God let children be born into bad families?

Why can't blacks have the priesthood is about at that level.

Look I'm not saying it was wrong/foolish/stupid that people didn't press for it sooner, but the concept of pressing the leadership to reconsider a former prophet's words was not something the church had a tradition of, and it was actively discouraged and cautioned as what one did if they were on the road to apostasy.

Heck, I am still told I am on the way out routinely by my family because of the things I believe.

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kmbboots
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Racism and segregation and discrimination without animosity are not all that different, in the end, than racism, segration, and discrimination with animosity. At least at the ballot box.
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Rakeesh
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quote:
Like I said, salvation was not affected, which ultimately is what matters to most Mormons. There are so many questions like that that remain unanswered. Why did an earthquake kill those people in that country? Why can't men have babies? Why don't women have the priesthood, why does God let children be born into bad families?
The problem here-though I do see where you're going with the similarities-is that only one of these things is affirmed and enforced by the words of one human being or one group of human beings to multitudes. Attributing a given perceived injustice in the world or irrationality or what have you is one thing when it's a matter that simply is, regardless of what humans may say and quite another when it is accompanied-indeed, exists only in the physical world because of-human beings.
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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
So you have a group of people denying blacks the priesthood because a prophet said that needed to be the case, but there wasn't any attendant animosity or hatred towards blacks.

I am hoping you'll stop, read my post, and take the time to examine whether you really find this to be consistent thinking.

How do you convince a group with *no* animosity towards blacks to overtly discriminate against them? Is their faith, as I asked before, really strong enough that the church may tell them *anything*?

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Orincoro
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:

While black's were not permitted to participate in temple ordinances, there was never a belief that this would stop them from going to heaven, which I think allowed the state of affairs to last as long as it did.

Not for a hot second do I buy this reasoning. It went on for as long as it did because the membership of the church didn't care enough to want it changed. And those who wanted it changed, weren't brave or influential enough to stand up to those who didn't.

This idea that the priesthood was *not a big deal,* and that it was just some sort of technicality and the people didn't really have anything against blacks. Honestly, I think it's ridiculous. And you never responded to my detailed explanation of why.


quote:
I tend towards he misunderstood the certain passages in the scriptures, particularly the Old Testament, and Book of Mormon. Not that he believed blacks were some inferior race and it was the white man's burden to oversee them. If he did in fact believe that the scriptures were clear on this point, then it's a simple matter to get to the next place where you say, "It is not man's place to question God's decrees".
How often man speaks his own will in the words of God.

The incredible convenience of his interpretation fitting current racist attitudes of the time, and then the amazing convenience of the reversal *also* fitting trends in race relations is amazing. Even more so it is amazing that this had *nothing* to do with bigotry. And how incredibly lucky for the church and for Young that his decree, and the reversal of that decree, both came at time in which the *opposite* decree would have damaged the standing of the church.

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Parkour
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BlackBlade: according to mormon theology, why exactly were the blacks denied priesthood then but not now?
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BlackBlade
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Orincoro: I do apologize for not responding to your posts earlier. I was already talking to Rakeesh, and only so many hours in the day. I will try to do so today or tomorrow.

Parkour: There isn't really a short answer, and I just tried to type one out. I'll try to address it later. It's not a very complete doctrine, which is typically characteristic of wrong ideas.

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BlackBlade
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Orincoro:
quote:
I absolutely agree with you. And though I would find the LDS church to be irredeemable for its views on the nature of the universe in general, and its actions against the institutions of democracy in particular regardless of how it treated its members, this, in my view, justifies calling it a backwards institution in its own right.

You must believe as you feel you must. For Mormons they are doing the same.

quote:
I don't disbelieve that this is your honest impression of the community (though you weren't alive then), but it rather stretches credulity to imagine that the church's membership, were it wholly or even mostly forward thinking and indisposed to prejudice, would tolerate such a policy for any period of time. As it happened, outward pressure upon the Mormon leadership to fall in line with mainstream society in its treatment of black members precipitated the change.

You say I can't know what the dynamic was having not been born yet, but then you proceed to say it was outside pressure that in whole facilitated the change.

I can speak from that community because I was raised in the church. I have spoken with members of the church many times who lived through the pre and post-revelation periods.

Again, you have to consider the belief that the prophet speaks for God. I mean nobody raises an eyebrow that for Jews, they cannot eat pork or shrimp. Or that women should cover their hair. Men should be circumcised.

There is a strong belief amongst Mormons that as the sexes are segregated in what reproductive and social functions they perform, so too are they segregated in church matters. It is as God designed it. Women are good at this, men are good at that. They don't look at it through the lens of, this is a construct of men, and God doesn't like it.

As far as ethnicity is concerned, the Jews revealed the law to the gentiles, that was their role. The gentiles will restore the knowledge of Jesus to the Jews in this day and age, that is their role. In this context, it's not as hard to believe that for black people, that is just a feature of that race, they are descendents of Cain. It's not principally a matter of being racist, it's what God has described is their heritage. At least that is largely the justification, and why you can't just look at it and say, "Why aren't all the raises treated exactly the same by God?" "Why wasn't Joseph Smith born in China or India, they have more people there than they do in the US."

quote:
The fact that, as you say, members took a "gee whiz... what are you gonna do?" approach to outright segregation based on race indicates that they were not particularly critical of the foundations of their church's philosophy, nor particularly disposed to voice disagreement with its interpretation of the "mission," that god had supposedly ordained, when and if it did not agree with their own internal moral compasses.
Yes, I have said this multiple times. During Joseph Smith's time there was a lot of room for dissension and debate. After he was murdered, for better or worse it was incumbent on Brigham Young to hold the church together and get them to a new headquarters intact. To accomplish this, he clamped down on the institution, and over the years brought it firmly under his control. Prophets after him largely followed that way of doing things because it was so successful. During Joseph Smith's time you had many leaders of the church apostatize. During Young's tenure that all but stopped. This mindset got the Mormons across the plains, and settled in a place so baron nobody wanted it. They thrived there, it was this concept of loyalty and unquestioned obedience that helped them create civilization in the desert. But it also created an institutionalized obedience, where questioning the prophet was frowned on and discouraged in many instances. Not all mind, there are a multitude of instances where there was dissension in the leadership about topics such as evolution, or whether church leaders should take political positions. But by and large for the membership, it was firmly said that they should seek advice from the brethren they should not seek to advise them, it was not their role to do so.

quote:
If we follow that kind of reasoning to its logical end, we can suppose that Mormons can be induced to do *anything* contrary to their personal moral standards, if the church were to instruct them to do so.
Abraham was commanded to murder his own son, he is commended for having been willing to do so, though ultimately it was just a test of his obedience. This is hardly a belief germane to Mormonism.

quote:
It was for the benefit of keeping those who no longer wished to be seen as racists that the policy was changed in the first place. It was realized, among many other things, that no Mormon could ever be politically influential on the national stage, if he or she adhered to a racist church policy.
And how many Mormons flew into the political stage in the 80s after that policy was reversed? The church has never been interested in getting members into positions of political power. Look at the Romney campaign, there was not one church announcement even mentioning his campaign or he was supported by the church.

You are also ignoring the possibility that maybe outside pressure got the leadership to reconsider that ill-advised policy, they took it up with God, and God gave them the answer they would have had if they had asked years ago. Again there was no official revelation that took the priesthood away, there was only Young's speech to the legislature, and people inferring from that that this protocol should be reinstated because it hadn't been observed while Smith was in charge.

quote:
I am positive that from all we have shared over the years, and all that you have said, that you are not a bigot or a liar. And I think you have a good moral compass. I am just engaging with you on what I think is something you don't really want to believe about people- that they are not all like you.
I appreciate that. I do. I also understand that my position in the church make me liable to havea bias where I give members too much the benefit of the doubt.

But I see the churches attitude about gay marriage, and it's in stark contrast to blacks and the priesthood. There are members very much opposed to allowing homosexuals to marry in this country. That they are trying to ruin the country. It's a whole different vibe than what I have experienced with blacks and the priesthood. Where nobody said, "Well if they can't have the priesthood, they must be bad people." Totally different dynamic.

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Tittles
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You're not quite right when you say nobody raises an eyebrow over the eccentricities of other religions. I know I do, and I'm probably not alone.

Just because their story was made up a long time before yours, doesn't make it any less ridiculous.

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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by Tittles:
You're not quite right when you say nobody raises an eyebrow over the eccentricities of other beliefs. I know I do, and I'm probably not alone.

Just because their story was made up a long time before yours, doesn't make it any less ridiculous.

I feel like I should know you from somewhere, but I'm still drawing a blank. It's odd, you would think if somebody was going to call my beliefs ridiculous, and made up that we would have at least gone through the niceties of introducing ourselves to each other. But I guess common courtesy, and the rules of polite conversation are just made up too.
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Mucus
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
... I mean nobody raises an eyebrow that for Jews, they cannot eat pork or shrimp. Or that women should cover their hair. Men should be circumcised.

What. Seriously?

I think there's a number of youtube videos where white people go around China and tell them what religious people think. In particular, there's one where a Jew goes around telling people what he has to do and they're all WTF.

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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by Mucus:
quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
... I mean nobody raises an eyebrow that for Jews, they cannot eat pork or shrimp. Or that women should cover their hair. Men should be circumcised.

What. Seriously?

I think there's a number of youtube videos where white people go around China and tell them what religious people think. In particular, there's one where a Jew goes around telling people what he has to do and they're all WTF.

That's kinda funny. I'd like to see some.

Can't really say the Chinese are in any position to laugh at other people's strange traditions.

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Mucus
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Well, there aren't as many religious Chinese people, so religious traditions earn a special place of mockery. (BTW, new Stephen Chow Journey to the West movie coming out!)

I'll search my history.

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BlackBlade
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Oh my gosh! Stephen Chow was born to make a comedy Wu Xia movie about Journey to the West.

I need to tell my brother immediately. Thanks for the heads up!

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Mucus
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Man, you would not believe how useless Google searches for "white people/student/laowai talk to Chinese people about religion" are. This is really going to annoy me since there was this super hilarious one with a black student that was talking to random Chinese passer-by about black people and he pulled it off with no malice or anything, just a respectful exchange of ideas.

Current searches for this make me sad.

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Parkour
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quote:
Originally posted by BlackBlade:
I feel like I should know you from somewhere, but I'm still drawing a blank.

You mean from how you've already banned him?
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kmbboots
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"We believe God says so" is not some kind of get-out-of-moral-jail-free card. It does not excuse us. We are just as responsible for our beliefs, our actions, and our votes whether or not we think that God has commanded us to believe, act and vote and certain way than if we do so out of our own cussedness. After all, we do have the choice to believe in a God that isn't a racist, misogynistic, arbitrary jerk.
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Geraine
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There is a pretty awesome timeline on this site:

http://www.blacklds.org/history

The truth is there was never really any official ban on blacks and the Priesthood. Brigham Young denied some requests for the Priesthood to some black members of the church, and it sort of just went on from there. Sort of like the "Mormons can't drink Coke" myth that so many members still believe.

It doesn't make it right by any means, and serves as an example that one person's personal beliefs, when in a position of power, and affect generations to come.

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Rakeesh
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One might almost say that when the one person is the prophet of god, and claims that a 'not-ban but not allowed but...', and then that statement is backed up by generations of following prophets and leadership...yeah, it's official.
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BlackBlade
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Depends on what you mean by official. Yes the church enforced a ban on blacks and the priesthood. No, God never commanded the church to keep the priesthood from blacks. It's an extremely common principle historically speaking. Moses rolls up and gets rid of the idols. Jesus kicks out the money changers. The Book of Mormon mentions infant baptism creeping into the church, and needing to be dispelled. There are a handful of other places where "points of doctrine" are debated and clarified.

One thing that is very clear in the Bible is that though a group is given the gospel by God via a prophet, false doctrine can creep in, and sometimes mass apostasy happens.

One preventative measure/remedy for that is constant willingness to evaluate, and progress based on whatever truth we obtain from any source. The other is recognition that if an organization latches onto a false belief long enough then it stops being God's church and needs to be reorganized.

Nobody can argue that the Mormon church never had an enforced policy of barring blacks from having the priesthood. But nobody can argue that the LDS church has not repudiated that policy, and recognized it as wrong. It would be nice if racism and Mormonism was relegated to its proper place, past history.

Or should we continue to act like Mormonism still belongs in the current discourse about racism?

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Boris
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I know I said I was leaving the forum...but I just have to point a few things out here...

quote:
After all, we do have the choice to believe in a God that isn't a racist, misogynistic, arbitrary jerk.
I consider it to be incredibly arrogant to look at a being who has a complete view of the universe and the flow of time and then say, as a human with a horribly limited view of that universe, "God...I won't believe in you unless you adhere to my principals." That's exactly what you are suggesting I do when you suggest I have a "choice" about what version of God I decide to worship. I have my own experiences and evidence that have convinced me that the LDS church is true. It would be the definition of delusional to then turn around and say, "I don't care if what I've seen and experienced suggests that this is the truth. Because it doesn't fit some other specific ideal or attitude, I will ignore those things I've seen and choose to believe something different."

quote:
One might almost say that when the one person is the prophet of god, and claims that a 'not-ban but not allowed but...', and then that statement is backed up by generations of following prophets and leadership...yeah, it's official.
The church never made an official statement on the subject until the 1950s. It was never a major issue of concern until the church started spreading around the world and particularly into Africa. There were fewer than 100 black members when the church stopped asking converts to move to Utah. You should also realize that we do not believe our leaders are infallible. The prophet can be mistaken due to a lack of knowledge or understanding. The church's leaders are not omniscient.

And here's something you should probably consider. Every worthy black member of the church holds the priesthood *now*. That includes every black member who has *ever* been a member of the church.

Everyone who looks at this particular subject seems to gloss over the idea that we believe people can be baptized, given the priesthood, or whatever else we feel is necessary even *after* they are dead. So please explain to me how whether or not someone was given the priesthood during a span of 110 years (on the top end) has any real significance given an existence that spans *eternity*.

In the end, before you go criticizing our beliefs, please spend some time actually *learning* our beliefs.

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MattP
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quote:
Or should we continue to act like Mormonism still belongs in the current discourse about racism?
Well, I think that discussing what happened with racism is relevant to the ongoing discussions about sexism and homophobia so it's bound to keep coming up as the church continues to diverge from the popular social conscience in these areas. (well, as the social conscience diverges from the church's position)

It's natural to wonder if, as was the case with blacks and the priesthood and the ending of plural marriage, that some sea change in the church will occur coincidentally with the current doctrines ("official" or otherwise) becoming socially untenable.

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MattP
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quote:
So please explain to me how whether or not someone was given the priesthood during a span of 110 years (on the top end) has any real significance given an existence that spans *eternity*.
As long as you are willing to grant that what happens during our time on earth is irrelevant, then sure it has no real significance. But my understanding is that the LDS view is that having a body and an earthly life is pretty darn important, regardless of how fleeting an experience that may be in light of eternity.

And do you likewise condemn any praise of the church in these terms - that they've only done such and such good thing for a 100+ years, which really is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things? Or do you reserve that calculation only for criticisms?

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BlackBlade
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Matt: There's nothing wrong with looking at blacks and the priesthood for context on the current debate about homosexuality.

It's frustrating though when we talk about racism in general and the Mormon church gets pulled into that conversation. As if it is still an active player in the debate.

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Boris
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quote:
Originally posted by MattP:
quote:
So please explain to me how whether or not someone was given the priesthood during a span of 110 years (on the top end) has any real significance given an existence that spans *eternity*.
As long as you are willing to grant that what happens during our time on earth is irrelevant, then sure it has no real significance. But my understanding is that the LDS view is that having a body and an earthly life is pretty darn important, regardless of how fleeting an experience that may be in light of eternity.

And do you likewise condemn any praise of the church in these terms - that they've only done such and such good thing for a 100+ years, which really is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things? Or do you reserve that calculation only for criticisms?

I'll try to clarify my meaning, but it's going to be very difficult to explain what I mean here considering it involves my own understanding of church teachings that has taken my whole life to obtain.

The fact that a person didn't get the priesthood during their life has little to no bearing in the context of eternity. Whether we have received all of the ordinances of the church in this life does not matter from an eternal perspective. Those ordinances will be given to all who lived eventually. What we do in this life is significant only in how it prepares us for the things we'll be doing after this life ends.

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MattP
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quote:
The fact that a person didn't get the priesthood during their life has little to no bearing in the context of eternity.
It may for that person as exercise of the priesthood is a faith-strengthening exercise for many people. And imagine the many people, particularly blacks, who were turned off from the church in the first place because of the policy.

quote:
What we do in this life is significant only in how it prepares us for the things we'll be doing after this life ends.
Exactly, so being pushed one way or another in this life will have eternal consequences.
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Parkour
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quote:
Originally posted by Boris:
The church never made an official statement on the subject until the 1950s. It was never a major issue of concern until the church started spreading around the world and particularly into Africa. There were fewer than 100 black members when the church stopped asking converts to move to Utah.

What was not a major issue of concern? And why exactly?
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Rakeesh
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WB!

quote:
I consider it to be incredibly arrogant to look at a being who has a complete view of the universe and the flow of time and then say, as a human with a horribly limited view of that universe, "God...I won't believe in you unless you adhere to my principals." That's exactly what you are suggesting I do when you suggest I have a "choice" about what version of God I decide to worship. I have my own experiences and evidence that have convinced me that the LDS church is true. It would be the definition of delusional to then turn around and say, "I don't care if what I've seen and experienced suggests that this is the truth. Because it doesn't fit some other specific ideal or attitude, I will ignore those things I've seen and choose to believe something different."
In fact, everyone does this so the arrogance and delusion perhaps ought to be reconsidered-or perhaps not. Or does your own judgment factor *nothing* in your perception of God? Or perhaps this gets pivoted back to 'if a speaker for God gets something wrong, the human speaker may be fallible', etc. etc. If God asked of you what is told He asked of Abraham or Christ, would you be able to obey? Well, maybe-I certainly hope not, but maybe. I suspect like just about every other human being outside of stories told in religious texts your own feeble (God given, but tremendously feeble) judgment would begin to interfere.

It's difficult to react without incredulity to the necessary disconnect in this thinking: God has given me a mind/soul/conscience/what-have-you-terms-vary with which to think and perceive myself and the world around me; I am commanded to obey the instructions of God, which can be difficult to correctly perceive in this mortal world; my one God-given tool becomes worse than useless if it begins to return results different from what this other God-given source is telling me. But it's an extremely common way of thinking, unfortunately.

quote:
The church never made an official statement on the subject until the 1950s. It was never a major issue of concern until the church started spreading around the world and particularly into Africa. There were fewer than 100 black members when the church stopped asking converts to move to Utah. You should also realize that we do not believe our leaders are infallible. The prophet can be mistaken due to a lack of knowledge or understanding. The church's leaders are not omniscient.
Never a major issue of concern until the 1960s. Well, you've got my applause for stating it so baldly. I guess those millions of African-Americans weren't as urgently important to bring into the Church? You sort of address this (hugely troubling but also highly relevant) thought later in your post, though, so-

quote:
Everyone who looks at this particular subject seems to gloss over the idea that we believe people can be baptized, given the priesthood, or whatever else we feel is necessary even *after* they are dead. So please explain to me how whether or not someone was given the priesthood during a span of 110 years (on the top end) has any real significance given an existence that spans *eternity*.
Oh, I see. Eternal timespan, therefore injustices such as systematic racism are immaterial here and now...in the Church we are told is God's church whose leaders often speak His words and guide as He would guide.

Do we need to go through the litany of evil that is now trivial thanks to this eternal frame of reference, or is it coming to your mind already?

quote:
In the end, before you go criticizing our beliefs, please spend some time actually *learning* our beliefs.
Since you're speaking in defense of your church: please don't insist on a degree of respect and consideration you don't give. This part of the conversation began as one discussing how the LDS addresses itself to homosexuality in society. It has hardly comported itself as an icon of respect and consideration in that discussion, and the truth is-I suspect you know this better than I do-there is little doubt that within the next couple of generations, new received wisdom will be shared by the leadership. Precisely as happened with African Americans and the priesthood, and other older issues for that matter.
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Rakeesh
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quote:
The fact that a person didn't get the priesthood during their life has little to no bearing in the context of eternity. Whether we have received all of the ordinances of the church in this life does not matter from an eternal perspective. Those ordinances will be given to all who lived eventually. What we do in this life is significant only in how it prepares us for the things we'll be doing after this life ends.
Why have a priesthood at all, then? Or if you must have it, why is it gender exclusive and formerly racially exclusive? If a mistake is made, it will be rectified, yes? This talk of comparative importance becomes much less persuasive when you consider that it was important enough to deny. The United States Congress had a better feel for racial equality earlier than did the LDS Church. I suppose that is in a sense a sign that it wasn't viewed as very important, on second thought.

---------

BlackBlade,

Initially the tie-ins to past racism were interesting (to me) largely because of their similarities with current events. I do agree that to treat the LDS church as though its racial record was as bad or close to it as the late 1980s would be unfair, with one possible qualifier: what proportion of the total LDS membership do white Americans comprise, versus their representation in senior overall leadership positions? Though if there were serious disparity there, that could be due to a sort of nationalism, or even just slowly evolving centralized institutions. I suppose to get a better handle on that question, one would need to compare leadership role percentage growth to overall membership growth between different groups, and see what if any disparities there are, and if so the rate at which they're changing.

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TomDavidson
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quote:
I won't be surprised if the ban is lifted and the church simply continues to enforce policies for its own sponsored troops...
Frankly, I think it is only because the Boy Scouts are owned by the Mormons that they're talking about letting individual troops choose whether or not to set policies. Because up to this point, one thing that distinguished the Boy Scouts from the Girl Scouts was that individual troops did not generally have that freedom.
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kmbboots
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quote:
Originally posted by Boris:
I know I said I was leaving the forum...but I just have to point a few things out here...

quote:
After all, we do have the choice to believe in a God that isn't a racist, misogynistic, arbitrary jerk.
I consider it to be incredibly arrogant to look at a being who has a complete view of the universe and the flow of time and then say, as a human with a horribly limited view of that universe, "God...I won't believe in you unless you adhere to my principals." That's exactly what you are suggesting I do when you suggest I have a "choice" about what version of God I decide to worship. I have my own experiences and evidence that have convinced me that the LDS church is true. It would be the definition of delusional to then turn around and say, "I don't care if what I've seen and experienced suggests that this is the truth. Because it doesn't fit some other specific ideal or attitude, I will ignore those things I've seen and choose to believe something different."


We also have God-given brains and hearts and conscience and the Holy Spirit. We know when we are embarrassed by our various Churches. When we know they are wrong. Ultimately, we are responsible for our own beliefs and we are answerable to our own consciences. "Every judgement of conscience, be it right or wrong, be it about things evil in themselves or morally indifferent, is obligatory, in such wise that he who acts against his conscience always sins." Thomas Aquinas

Church leaders do get it wrong. It is not only okay but essential to say so when they do. I know; I am Catholic.

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Rakeesh
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Re-reading what I'd written, I thought I ought to clarify something. When I said this: "I suspect like just about every other human being outside of stories told in religious texts your own feeble (God given, but tremendously feeble) judgment would begin to interfere," that wasn't an attack on your mind, Boris, rather a criticism of the idea that human judgment should be held as so inferior to received wisdom. But it certainly could've read as a direct personal attack, because I communicated poorly, so that was my mistake.
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kmbboots
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Following Rakeesh's example. It was not my intention to imply that the LDS Church was the only one that sometimes posited a God that is a racist, misogynistic, arbitrary jerk. Did I mention that I am Catholic?
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advice for robots
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Rakeesh:
quote:
Initially the tie-ins to past racism were interesting (to me) largely because of their similarities with current events. I do agree that to treat the LDS church as though its racial record was as bad or close to it as the late 1980s would be unfair, with one possible qualifier: what proportion of the total LDS membership do white Americans comprise, versus their representation in senior overall leadership positions? Though if there were serious disparity there, that could be due to a sort of nationalism, or even just slowly evolving centralized institutions. I suppose to get a better handle on that question, one would need to compare leadership role percentage growth to overall membership growth between different groups, and see what if any disparities there are, and if so the rate at which they're changing.
I would say the makeup of the church's senior leadership (1st and 2nd Quorums of the Seventy, Quorum of the 12, First Presidency) reflects length of time with the church established in the area as well as total membership in that area. There are a number of men from Mexico, Central America, and South America (where the church has grown quite significantly in the past 60 years) in the 1st and 2nd Quorums of the Seventy and a sprinkling of men from Asian, African, and European countries, although the majority still appears to be North American white men.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_general_authorities_of_The_Church_of_Jesus_Christ_of_Latter-day_Saints

With photos: http://www.lds.org/church/leaders?lang=eng

I would say more men in the U.S. mountain west have the kind of in-depth church leadership experience under their belts that general authorities tend to have, hence the higher percentage of them called to these positions. However, the church in Latin America has been established long enough that there are more and more men with that kind of experience and steadiness in the church, and the number of men from Latin America has increased over the past 20 years in the general authority ranks.

Look one level below the general authorities at the area seventies and you'll see nationalities much more evenly represented right now based on membership numbers. IMO this is indicative of the future composition of the senior church leadership.

Incidentally, by my count 14 of the 25 countries experiencing the highest percentage membership growth in 2011 were African countries. By sheer numbers, the U.S. still leads, but 8 of the 10 countries on that list are Latin American countries.
http://ldschurchgrowth.blogspot.com/2012/04/membership-by-country-statistics.html

[ February 05, 2013, 12:40 PM: Message edited by: advice for robots ]

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BlackBlade
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quote:
Originally posted by TomDavidson:
quote:
I won't be surprised if the ban is lifted and the church simply continues to enforce policies for its own sponsored troops...
Frankly, I think it is only because the Boy Scouts are owned by the Mormons that they're talking about letting individual troops choose whether or not to set policies. Because up to this point, one thing that distinguished the Boy Scouts from the Girl Scouts was that individual troops did not generally have that freedom.
I'm still chewing on this because there's an inherent contradiction. The church presently allows homosexuals to attend church and accept callings so long as they follow the law of chastity (I'm ignoring the can of worms that follows that rule). But they might continue to ban homosexuals from church scouting troops.

I don't grasp how it makes sense to let an out and proud homosexual serve say in the deacon's quorum, and pass the sacrament, but he can't also attend scouting activities with his fellow deacons.

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Rakeesh
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It doesn't, but the reasoning if growing less and less acceptable to express publicly is still pretty well known. In fact, if I'm not mistaken for a long time in the BSA's so-called 'Perversion Files', consensual adult homosexual behavior was included.
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