I continue to be confused about the priorities of church and society in censorship for obscenity.

In nearby Spokane, "concerned moms" have been petitioning city government to ban espresso stand ladies from showing too much. They claim to be concerned about the children. The city passed a law saying at least half the breast needs to be covered up. Not sure which half, or how police measure it.

Now if we're concerned about the chidren, which would bother them more, seeing a breast (they were nursing a few years ago), or seeing violence? As a child in the 60's, I had nightmares after seeing the Wizard of Oz. What happens now when kids see some of the stuff on TV or movies?

I occasionally catch shows my wife watches. BTW, she can't stand seeing anything pornographic. Yet she likes shows with violence and gore. Besides all the NCIS type shows with dead bodies, she watches The Blacklist. I noticed a scene recently in which the lead actor was secured in a sealed glass cage. To get him to come out, the bad guys put a gun to a ladies head, he refused to come out, and you hear the gunshot and blood sprayed all over the glass.

My wife was watching a movie with Pierce Brosnan last night. As I walked in, I saw a scene in which Brosnan grabs a guy's girlfriend, and slices open her leg and femoral artery causing blood to gush. Few minutes later showed someone getting stabbed by an intruder and blood gushing.

So, which do you think causes more harm to children, immodesty, nudity or non-violent porn, or this kind of violence? Why is there little shame attached to watching violence?

Yeah, I don't get the priority either. After all, sex is the second worst thing in the world *after* murder, according to these guys, so shouldn't watching murder be worse than watching sex?

I don't understand their priorities at all either. I do, however, disagree that watching violence causes harm to children. From what I understand, and correct me if I'm wrong, violent shows and video games have never been shown to significantly impact human behavior. In my opinion, there isn't really anything wrong with either of them, it just comes down to personal taste and preference.

One would expect that anything appropriate for wear in the temple would be good enough in the public eye, to wear anywhere in public also. That pre-1990 pancho with full nudity underneath that the church had everyone wear, the way temple go-ers pre-1990 wore it, would get you arrested for indecent exposure nearly everywhere if you wore it in public. How's that for modesty?

The only morally acceptible way to let it all hang out back then was to do initiatory work for the dead all day long. So it's okay to let some strange old man touch your junk in the temple. But bare shoulders in public? That's indecent.



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2015 02:09AM by azsteve.

The acceptance of violence over sex or nudity is not as big a conundrum as we often make it out to be, and it doesn't necessarily mean that we believe violence is preferable to sex as a society.

It's really a difference in category of activity. Sex and nudity are -- with rare exception -- things that are done in private without an audience. We don't generally encourage spontaneous coitus on the bus or while waiting in the checkout line at WalMart. When we have sexual relations, we go off in hiding, be quiet not to wake the kids, and get naked with someone only after we're confident they won't laugh at that strange birthmark on our upper thigh.

On the other hand, violence, though often perpetrated in private, is not categorically a private event. It's an entirely different sort of activity. Acts of violence happen openly and generally with no expectation of privacy. We may be shocked by violence, but not for the same reasons viewing nudity or sex may shock us. And in most instances, we discourage violence, while under appropriate circumstances, we encourage nudity and sex. But we have entirely different criteria for when and where each is acceptable. This is probably a good thing.

Violence deserves greater scrutiny due to its destructive nature. Sex, on the other hand, is with rare exception, a very special secretive event. Part of its impact is the fact that it is a building block of our most lasting relationships and is strongest when it remains a private event we engage in exclusively with our special partner. Very few regard violence in these same terms.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/30/2015 03:04AM by Tall Man, Short Hair.