The church must have had a reality check after getting back from Rome. I'm wondering if a **true** membership report revealed the number of resignations spiked up. I think that they must be really hurting with their youth crisis to go back on their bigot policy.

Thoughts?

I doubt they (Mormon leadership) are able to see that Rome needs a giant reality check too. Mormons hardly ever make advances until after Catholics pave the way.

Mormons are gathering ideas about how to let Mormons "do whatever they want" like Catholics as long as they enable political power by numbers.

No.

Dire Straits has been defunct for nearly 25 years, more's the pity.

Lot's Wife Wrote:
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> No.
>
> Dire Straits has been defunct for nearly 25 years,
> more's the pity.

Ha ha.

Money for Nothing

And something for free!

was Joseph Smith's theme song.

In June 1843, Sidney Rigdon wrote down in his journal that he had heard Joseph Smith up on the roof of the Nauvoo temple singing the following song:

I want my...

I want my... en-dow-ment!

Now look at me, yo-yo's! This be the way I do it!
I work the peepstone and the revelations...

That ain't workin', that's the way I do it!
Money for nothin' and my chicks for free...

Now that ain't workin', that's the way I do it!
Lemme tell ya, this guy ain't dumb...

Maybe get a blister on my peepstone finger
Maybe get a blister on my hat-holding thumb...

We gotta install sealing rooms now
Custom altar deliveries

We gotta move these temple garments
We gotta move these aprons too...

Strait up! that is some funny shiz right there...Nice cover of a great song.

The church has been in dire straits before. In Kirtland. In Missouri. In Nauvoo. In Utah when Johnston's army moved in. During the arrest of church leaders, members and confiscation of church assets by the federal government for practicing polygamy. The church has been broke several times.

It still seems to trudge on. Never underestimate the power of delusion. There will always be people who will follow a fabrication.

It looks like Nelson, Oaks and Eyring (together with allies in the Q12) have been wanting to "modernize" the Church.

I don't think anyone in the current FP believes in the Church in the traditional way. I doubt that they believe the Book of Mormon is what it is claimed to be.

At best, I think they believe that, for one reason or another, the supreme being has put them in charge of a large organization and their job is to restructure it to make a "great leap forward" by getting rid of a lot of irrational baggage that has accumulated over the past 2 centuries. They can't tell the little people that this is what they're doing. They have to tell the little people that it's all based on "revelation" and "God's will for the Church at this point in time."

You can't change a large church over night. It has to be done incrementally or you can shock the congregation to the point of having large numbers of people leave.

The problem the LDS church has is it's prophet is so old. If it had a young leader that was leader for 20-30 years you could transform the church.

I actually heard from an apostle himself in a leadership meeting the apostles disagree on things constantly. Sure they are all supposed to be prophets, seers and revelators with the president holding all the priesthood keys but it doesn't seem that they all can agree on much. Then you have the oldest member of this group becoming prophet for a few years. Not exactly a steady captain at the helm. How do you systematically transform a church with that kind of turnover?

is essentially an open and public admission that there is no real inspiration involved at all in the calling of the "Prophet."

It's simply a rigidly applied combination of succession based on seniority and a "president for life" term of office.

I remember hearing Kimball one time trying to explain it in a way that would make it seem like there was some clear divine intervention in the system. Basically, he said that when God wants a particular person to be the Prophet at a particular time, he "calls home" all of the apostles who otherwise would be ahead of the chosen one in seniority. I loved how he inserted that "calls home" euphemism to make it sound nice, because what he was really saying was that God killed anyone who was getting in the way in that mechanical seniority system.

And, yes, all of those guys have insane egos. Prior to becoming apostles, they spent most of their lives jockeying for high-status leadership positions and always took great pride in thinking of themselves as great leaders. After a point, and for much of their lives, they were always the biggest fish in whatever small-to-medium-sized pond they happened to find themselves in. But when they have to deal with other apostles they're dealing with other huge egos that always have to be right and always have to be the big fish. I imagine they're pulling rank and seniority on each other all the time, whenever they can apply rank and seniority.

Even now, I wouldn't be surprised if there's a faction in the Q12 that is seething with anger and resentment about what Nelson's been doing.

Bednar's gotta be going insane about this.

eastofthemississippi Wrote:
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> Bednar's gotta be going insane about this.

Haha!

And Uchdorf might secretly be cheering.

There are a lot of economy and social forces that are at work on the church and with all churches that are not helpful to religiosity. So yes Mormonism and Christianity are in dire straits.

1) the conservative religious surge of post WWII is over. 1950s America was quite different than what we see today. Men were relied on more to provide for families. And the purchasing power was greater for the dollar. Taxes were lower for the middle class people, And Patriarchy was respected.
2) The economy is much more tricky now. I was looking over my grandfathers tax returns from 1972 and he made $10,000 doing a labor job. His upper middle class house costs $19,000. Now the ratio is $45,000 for a labor job and $280,000 for that same house. The mormon middle class is apparently much more difficult to get to.
3) feminism has undermined mormon patriarchy. Women can receive benefits for leaving her child's daddy unlike in times past. So the number of divorces has increased substantially and out of wedlock births are exponentially higher than in the past.

I think Nelson is trying to do everything he can to energize young people without completely alienating the old guard. On paper, it all looks very nice, but it also kind of mails it in that the Mormon leadership is making it up as they go.

>
> ...but it also kind of mails it
> in that the Mormon leadership
> is making it up as they go.
>

I think this is the message that has to be expanded on and then hammered home: There are no "Revelations" from ghawd. The very apparent fact that ghawd has been silent for a couple of millennia has to be made a reality to those faithful mormons who have been believing the mormon claim to ongoing revelation. Yes, TBMs, JS lied his ass off, over and over again.

Occam's Razor, along with this recent about-face, offers plenty of support to those who will open their eyes to it. And Rusty and his Rustlers are helping to make this happen more and more.

There will probably always be a Salt Lake City mormon church, but it will just be a boutique church, not a big player in religion. It stalled out due to an inability to walk its talk.

That's what I see in my crystalmeth ball.

I can't even keep track of what the rules are anymore.
But at the same time I have close family and friends who send their money and their children to these snakes O_o

It is crazy. I've been out over 10 years now, I know it was right for me but I hate to see my peeps in a cult.
I remember how much pain people went through over prop 8 and the ban and now this, and now the lord needs a policy change?!? This is inexcusable and there is no justification. The rank and file can't pretend revelation guides them anymore, they know it's bs but what keeps them inside is also the stuff of Waco and The Peoples Temple and The Moonies and Scientology and the Manson Family. What it comes down to is this is their club
The top dudes in suits still have plenty of power and followers. This could go either way. They could do more things that feel more inclusive or they could mix up some more wierd Kool aid drinks and the flocks would chug it