wenglund wrote: Okay. But, can you respect that reasonable people may rationally interpret and weight the evidence differently than you, and thus find good cause to accept the so-called extraordinary claims about how to live one's life?
Thanks, -Wade Englund-
I can accept that people DO interpret the evidence differently than I do, but I vehemently disagree with that interpretation.
I have to admit that I can't help but thinking that people who know all of evidence against the church, yet still believe in it, are being irrational.
That may be because you are being ironically irrational about it. ;-)
Of course, since they usually justify their belief in the church based on an appeal to a fundamentally emotional experience, they probably wouldn't have any problem with recognising that it's an irrational belief, right?
Wrong. Reasoning, particularly as it relates to interpretation of evidence (whether mischaracterized as "fundamentally emotional experiences" or not), is an unavoidable component of religious belief.
Who Knows wrote:in my opinion, the problem isn't that the church excludes non-members from the temple - I have no problem with that. The problem is that the church says you can't have a normal wedding, and then get sealed in the temple the next day.
That would be the arbitrary man-made rule of which I was speaking. It is unnecessary and kind of cruel.
Who Knows wrote:in my opinion, the problem isn't that the church excludes non-members from the temple - I have no problem with that. The problem is that the church says you can't have a normal wedding, and then get sealed in the temple the next day.
Isn't it required in some areas that you HAVE to have a civil wedding with proper authority before they will recognise the marriage?
Yes, in some foreign countries.
WK: "Joseph Smith asserted that the Book of Mormon peoples were the original inhabitants of the americas"
Will Schryver: "No, he didn’t." 3/19/08
Still waiting for Will to back this up...
wenglund wrote:Do you also think it "arrogant" for universities to have admittance requirement for undergraduate and graduate programs? Do you think it "arrogant" for the medical profession and other highly skilled occupations to have licensure requirements?
Thanks, -Wade Englund-
Apples to apples, Wade. What if the university denied you entrance to your son's graduation ceremony because you personally didn't qualify for that school?
Were parental attendance at the graduation of their child a function of parents meeting certain standards and requirements, then your analogy would be apples-to-apples. Since there are no such standards, it is apples-to-oranges. Sorry.
However, if you changed your analogy from a university to a scuba diving school, and were the son's graduation exercises to be held more than 50 feet under water, then would you have a problem were parents that had not been scuba certified, be denied attendance at the ceremony?
wenglund wrote:Were parental attendance at the graduation of their child a function of parents meeting certain standards and requirements, then your analogy would be apples-to-apples. Since there are no such standards, it is apples-to-oranges. Sorry.
Well, that's the point, Wade. Why are there certain standards for attending the wedding? Why can't the church allow members to hold the wedding outside the temple and then the sealing inside? It seems remarkably arbitrary.
However, if you changed your analogy from a university to a scuba diving school, and were the son's graduation exercises to be held more than 50 feet under water, then would you have a problem were parents that had not been scuba certified, be denied attendance at the ceremony?
Thanks, -Wade Englund-
That's an excellent analogy, Wade. Holding the graduation exercises underwater would be intentionally and unnecessarily exclusionary, which, come to think of it, was the point of this thread.
Do you also think it "arrogant" for universities to have admittance requirement for undergraduate and graduate programs? Do you think it "arrogant" for the medical profession and other highly skilled occupations to have licensure requirements?
Wait, are you comparing the standards set for keeping quacks from practising medicine to the exclusion of parents from seeing their own children be married (what is supposed to be the happiest day of their lives)???
I DO think that it's arrogant that Joe Schmo temple-recommend holder can attend the wedding of a fellow ward-member, but the very parents who raised their child from a baby are excluded becuase... becuase why? Because they haven't done enough to warrant seeing it? Because they're not holy enough to enter the temple?
Call me dogmatic if you must, but please don't try to compare temple marriage exclusion to medical professional standards.
Actually, what I was attempting to clarify is what, exactly, you see as "arrogant" about restricting temple attendance to temple recommend holders, and whether your judgementalism in this specific case is based on general principles or ironically on a selective/arbitrary application of some unstated standard of your own.
I see from your kneejerk reaction that you don't think admittance and licensing requirements in general are "arrogant". So, what specifically do you find "arrogant" about restricting temple attendance to temple recommend holders?
I see the mention of "these" people and Mormons and their beliefs. Weren't the majority of you once "these" people?
Were you arrogant?
What about your beliefs made you arrogant?
Why are there questions asked of others that belong to a group when you yourself were once a part of this group? Don't you already hold the answer?
**edited to add** I didn't see one person on this thread admit to being an arrogant person. Did I miss it? If you were a Mormon and believe Mormons are arrogant step up!
Canucklehead wrote:What I find arrogant about the LDS belief system is the widely-held view that other people outside the belief system aren't truly happy (or at least as happy as they COULD be if only they believed the correct things).
Now, before all the TBMs on here jump up and down saying that no Mormons think this way, I will simply say that in my experience with the church (more than two decades), this view is very prevalent. How many times do we hear about how we need to bring the gospel to others, so that they can experience the same joy that we experienced (assuming that other people don't already experience it!!). How many times are the "less-active" referred to as "lost" or "deceived"? How many missionaries, upon hearing that their investigators didn't get the "correct" answer to their prayers, try to go about correcting how the person prayed (assuming that they MUST not have done it properly, otherwise they would have received the "correct" answer)?
What is arrogant is the presumption that your own personal spiritual experiences and your interpretation of them can form the basis for dictating how other people should live their lives.
I admit that when I used to think that way, I was being very arrogant.
wenglund wrote:Were parental attendance at the graduation of their child a function of parents meeting certain standards and requirements, then your analogy would be apples-to-apples. Since there are no such standards, it is apples-to-oranges. Sorry.
Well, that's the point, Wade. Why are there certain standards for attending the wedding? Why can't the church allow members to hold the wedding outside the temple and then the sealing inside? It seems remarkably arbitrary.
However, if you changed your analogy from a university to a scuba diving school, and were the son's graduation exercises to be held more than 50 feet under water, then would you have a problem were parents that had not been scuba certified, be denied attendance at the ceremony?
Thanks, -Wade Englund-
That's an excellent analogy, Wade. Holding the graduation exercises underwater would be intentionally and unnecessarily exclusionary, which, come to think of it, was the point of this thread.
I think you are confusing intents with unavoidable and indirect outcomes of intents. To me, the intent for both temple weddings and the scuba graduation, isn't to exclude, but rather to perform the respective ceremonies in ways and areas that have been deemed most fitting to what is being ceremonialized. What better place to graduate from scuba diving class than in the very environment where the scuba instruction is most applicable? Same goes for the temple ceremony. Sure, exclusion may unavoidably be a consequence thereof, but not the intent.
The same general principle applies to most every wedding. The size and location of the wedding facility may not accomodate everyone wishing to attend. For example, my nephew is getting married in a week in his fiance's parent's back yard in Washington state. Because of the small size of the yard, and the great distance from where many of my family lives, only a few are in a position to attend, and fewer still will be able to attend--not because the intent was to exclude, but because circumstance unavoidably resulted in exclusion.
I don't see anything "arrogant" about any of this (not that you do).
Canucklehead wrote:What I find arrogant about the LDS belief system is the widely-held view that other people outside the belief system aren't truly happy (or at least as happy as they COULD be if only they believed the correct things).
Now, before all the TBMs on here jump up and down saying that no Mormons think this way, I will simply say that in my experience with the church (more than two decades), this view is very prevalent. How many times do we hear about how we need to bring the gospel to others, so that they can experience the same joy that we experienced (assuming that other people don't already experience it!!). How many times are the "less-active" referred to as "lost" or "deceived"? How many missionaries, upon hearing that their investigators didn't get the "correct" answer to their prayers, try to go about correcting how the person prayed (assuming that they MUST not have done it properly, otherwise they would have received the "correct" answer)?
What is arrogant is the presumption that your own personal spiritual experiences and your interpretation of them can form the basis for dictating how other people should live their lives.
I admit that when I used to think that way, I was being very arrogant.