Members arbitrarily follow the rules they want to. SPs & bishops arbitralily ex or disfellowship members. "Doctrine" is arbitrary. Some regions & stakes have activities all the time, while others don't & say it's because of "a lack of funds". Many YSA & SA members are forced to go to singles wards in some areas, while others are allowed & even encouraged to go to family wards.

It seems like the only thing that isn't arbitrary is paying tithing in order to get a temple ecommend.

You are almost 100% correct. You just needed to include the mormon royalty exemptions and your thread is all good!

templeendumbed Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> You are almost 100% correct. You just needed to
> include the mormon royalty exemptions and your
> thread is all good!


That was actually included in the meaning of my 1st 2 statements. Mormon "royalty" only follow the rules that suit them - exemptions or not. & SPs & bishops are arbitrary in their exing of people because they don't go after Mormon "royalty" for the most part.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/28/2013 04:33AM by Tristan.

I disagree about the rules to follow being arbitrary and up to the person to choose. At least not for an active mormon, my whole life as a mormon I was under enormous pressure to follow ALL the rules.

Even the things in the church that come under advice rather than commandment I was still under huge pressure to follow them. And all the active mormons in my ward were the same. I didn't see anybody who followed half the rules. You hear about "jack mormons", who pick and choose what rules to follow, but that's not a common thing. It's a very all or nothing religion. Whilst in most other religions there isn't that huge pressure to follow every single commandment, if there's something you disagree with there isn't that pressure to conform, whilst in mormonism if you disagree with a doctrine then it's your problem and you need to somehow get over it and agree with everybody else.

To be honest, with the choice to attend family wards or single wards, it seems to be the only time in the church where you actually get to make a choice for yourself. And even then you hear of cases where a Bishop or SP steps in and forces someone to go to one or the other.

I didn't mean that the rules were arbitrary. I meant that TBMs (active TBMs, not Jackmos) that don't take the rules seriously follow them arbitrarily. I've seen it in Morridor & here in California, & it goes on all over Europe. So, it's all across the board.

I've been around long enough to see lots and lots of changes in the rules - especially in the social commandment areas.

For example, when I was a kid, double dating was OK at 14. These days they'd call it a group activity. One on one dating was fine at 16. Today, only group dating is allowed at 16 and single dating is prohibited until 18. Is prohibited too strong a word? Not in some families -Arbitrary.

Coke and Pepsi? I've seen that swing back and forth from perfectly fine to preventing a temple recommend. Mostly depends on local leaders but a couple of google searches will turn up conflicting statements from the top 15.

Net or Gross tithe? I once tried to pin the stake president down on what was doctrine. It was like wrestling a greased pig. Within a two minute span he spat arbitrary after arbitrary all over me. Two weeks later I heard a talk in Suckrament meeting declaring that GROSS IS A COMMANDMENT. The bishop didn't correct the statement- Arbitrary

Panty hose required for sacrament meeting? When did bare shoulders become pornography? Do you force your kids to stay in their Sunday clothes all day after church? A truly righteous Mormon votes republican? Even the name Mormon goes back and forth between a slur and an honorific.

The big rules like adultery and fornication have been pretty constant - at least for the past hundred years. Even still, arbitrary exceptions can be made at anytime.

Perhaps "constantly evolving" is a better term than arbitrary for what I've describing. That would certainly apply to the ever changing official stance on Homosexuality.

Sandra and Jerald Tanner nailed it years ago when they published "The Changing World of Mormonism" (ref. http://www.utlm.org/onlinebooks/changecontents.htm).

Mormon polygamy, Blood Atonement, anti-black racist doctrines and church policies, simulated 'penalty' violence in the 'holy' temple endowment ritual, and many other 'eternal', 'restored' aspects of ancient Christianity, per Mormonism, have been jettisoned by the inconstant Latter-day Saint Church during the past century or so.

But not making hoards of cash for the secrecy-shrouded accounts of the 'true' corporation of Je$u$ Chri$t! LD$ Inc.'s focus on wealth-creation - for itself, of course, not tithe-paying, ever-sacrificing, lay members - has been as constant as the polar star!

Frankly I will follow what I damn well please and no more.
NO RELIGION OWNS ME

It seems arbitrary because you cannot keep all of the rules and expectations, so you must pick and choose. The rules themselves are not arbitrary, they are carefully designed to control the members and keep them from thinking.

I agree, particularly about the doctrines being arbitrary. Why tea? It makes no sense at all what with today's medical knowledge of tea's healthful benefits, and that of coffee, red wine, and even beer. It's not like they can't revise such idiotic doctrines, because they change other stuff all the time. They just choose not to, which also seems arbitrary.

The church uses this their favor. Disfellowshipping and exing are a perfect examples. If you ever tell a member about a time when someone was treated badly during a disfellowshipping, you will always hear them say that doesn't happen at their ward. Because there is no continuity, they can always deny things happen or discount it as a "isolated case"

He was a former Sunstone guy and didn't try to apologize for much. I told him the Book of Abraham was out for me and not coming back. He said.... okay, I have problems with that one too. I made a list of core beliefs (or pillars) that had existed since the beginning and not changed. I wanted to find where the foundation was solid, but one issue at a time was scratched off my list. Want to know the last, unchanging (and unchanged) doctrine the good bishop and I ended up with???? Obedience to the current prophet and authorities. That's it!!! Everything else can be manipulated underneath that.

Yes it is.
There is a church handbook of instructions for leaders, but any leader can use his own judgement based on discernment from the Lord. Because one common judge of Israel is more or less compassionate than another, you could expect any number of variants on what is considered within the boundaries the Lord has set. And of course, with their Priesthood Authority, whatever they bind in earth is also in heaven. So if you get a jerk bishop and another person gets a lenient one, he might get to the CK for the sasme sin while you might not.

Members themselves are also prone as regular humans to decide whether they will allow for caffeinated drinks or ban them like coffee. And that is largely in part due to conflicting directions from above. If they were punished for breaking the WoW over drinking pepsi, they will likely hold that as the standard. If their Bishop was known to drink pepsi they have probably never heard of anything less than coffee being a sin.