Oaks talk is the most political talk I have ever heard at conference. He is talking mostly about USA and forgets he is talking to a world wide audience. This talk will be a dark Mark for this conference. There is nothing Dusty will say that can bring back any negative feelings that Oaks created. Unbelievable.

I disagree with you I thnk he brought up some valid points that regardless of religion merit consideration.
I am not a fan of Oaks! But I am going to go over his talk because he hit the nail on the head on a few issues



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/03/2020 01:57PM by thedesertrat1.

Can you be more specific about what you think of as relevant in his talk DR?

I agree with the comment by Secular Priest re church leaders forgetting their worldwide audience - they reinforce the fact that the church is American-centric. No offence meant by that but it's a matter of fact. Obvious, for one thing, by the fact that the Star-Spangled Banner is a song included in the church hymn book. It was BEYOND WEIRD to be expected to sing that in a **church service** here in Canada. Which is a sovereign nation with its own national anthem - it should go without saying.

Can you be more specific about what you think of as relevant in his talk DR?

After I download and analyze the talk mor thoroughly I intend to post my evaluaation and analyziation(spelling again) here

Not that we're interested in promoting Mormonism here. :)

Of course not.

I don't live in The USA. Many people think this is just an American Church. Perhaps Elder Oaks' speech proves that point. Sadly!

Well, sure. TSCC is America-centric after all, working to export Utah culture around the world. All their talk about "worldwide church" is empty lip service and they know it.

Canada had gay marriage for a decade and mormon god never gave it a second thought. Only when the US decided to take up the cause did it become an issue. Elohim's hair suddenly caught fire, burned clean off, and he became as bald as Oaks.

The US brings in the tithing. That's all that truly matters.

logged out today Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Well, sure. TSCC is America-centric after all,
> working to export Utah culture around the world.
> All their talk about "worldwide church" is empty
> lip service and they know it.
>
> Canada had gay marriage for a decade and mormon
> god never gave it a second thought. Only when the
> US decided to take up the cause did it become an
> issue. Elohim's hair suddenly caught fire, burned
> clean off, and he became as bald as Oaks.
>
> The US brings in the tithing. That's all that
> truly matters.

---------------------------

No, L-d$,inc is not "America Centered". It is USA Centered. America includes Canada, Bolivia, Peru, Chile and all of the rest. USA taking America as its own is offensive - almost as much as L-d$,inc and its "One True Church" crap.

That's your takeaway? Fine, I suppose, if you want to play with semantics.

But if you ask a Bolivian about their nationality, they'll say "Bolivian," not "American." Same with the others. That's the sense I was using "America."

Only US citizens refer to themselves as American, unless you expect them to say "I'm a citizen of the United States of America" every time, similar to a mormon trying to shame others into using the long-form name of the church.

You can get in the last word if you want. Have at it.

In my area in Canada, people frequently refer to the US as “America.” I have never once heard a CDN refer to themselves as American.
To much of the world outside of the USA, in colloquial terms, “America” does not refer to the continents, but specifically to the US.

It's what we call ourselves. Mexicans would prefer that we say, "North Americans," but that lumps us in with Mexico, Canada, etc. Conversely, since they live in the "United States of Mexico," they could say they live in the U.S., but they don't.

They wouldn't say, "U.S."; they'd say it in Spanish, "E.U.", for Estados Unidos de Mexico. (Even in Spanish, "Los EUM" is way lame.)

I know, picky-picky...

Yes, I know, it's the equivalent. They could say they come from the "Estados Unidos" (United States,) but they don't. What I'm trying to say is that the people of each country decide what to call themselves, and it won't necessarily make sense to people not from that county.

The America-centric model worked back in the 1950s and 1960s when everyone from South Korea across the Americas and through Europe thought the US represented a superior culture worthy of emulation. Those days are long gone. The legacy of VN, then the Middle East, and finally the erosion of social cohesion in the US over the last couple of decades have left it an object lesson in how NOT to run a country.

Oaks's approach merely emphasizes how little the United States and Mormonism have to offer the world.

ALL COUNTRIES should prohibit charitable donations from leaving their country!

? Africans sending tithing to SL/COB with the promise that their economics depend on it / will improve?

IF THAT ISN'T A FLAT - OUT LIE, NOTHING IS!

Except in the case of the Episcopal/Anglican church African bishops couldn't get enough of pandering to conservative americans for the money after The Gay Bishop came slong.

I'm curious to hear what Oaks had to say. He has a habit of going off on totally parochial subjects. I remember him giving at least one and perhaps more rants about the importance of sticking with King James English in prayers and scripture, in a world where a majority of the LDS members** at best speak English as a second language.

** Since foreign membership has a higher inactivity rate than US membership, LDS Inc in reality is still probably a majority "first language English" membership. But still, my first thought of Oaks' speech was WTF? And he seems to have a habit of going provincial in his topic choices.

Well, this may be OT, but the the jarring thing that stuck out to me was Oaks saying (maybe I have the exact quote wrong) "The church must root out racism..."

So, is he saying they need to dump the BoM, BoA, the 1949 Proclamation to the World re: "Negroes" and all the other "they were just speaking as men of their time" racist doctrine stuff?

Nah, nothing to look at here, folks, move along...

Racism goes deeper in Mormon than polygamy. The BoM introduces the former and forbids the latter.

I think "the Brethren" are well aware of that. Just yesterday there was an article in the SLTrib about "hey, did you notice how many of the temples don't have Angel Moroni statues?"

They are well aware that the BoM is irredeemably racist, and have been trying to fix it ("pure and delightsome") for some time now. I'm convinced they have a long-term plan to back away from the BoM, the foundational document of Mormon racism.

Just like the Community of Christ. . .

So if the church is attempting to follow the money, they have to dump their past?

So right up there with the Ku-Klux-Klan morphing into an organization dedicated to providing inner-city school kids with hugs and hot lunches.

Fresh starts for everybody!

Um, they were never racist. **From its beginnings.**

Alex Morrison of the 70 Yes-Men, twenty years ago:

"Racism is an offense against God and a tool in the devil's hands… How grateful I am that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has from its beginnings stood strongly against racism in any of its malignant manifestations."

— "No More Strangers," Ensign, Sep 2000 (p. 16)

Funny that Oaks should bring it up now. Maybe he forgot that the church already solved the problem? </s>

A couple talks before Oaks, as I recall “the church has always stood against racism in all its forms”.

Amazing impudence, amazing dishonesty.

That is so baldly hypocritical that it will offend some Mormons.

Nope. Never racist. Just look at two of Joseph's divinely inspired works accepted as the word of god.

The book of moses stated cains descents were black and had no place in Zion.

The book of Abraham specified black women were forbidden and Pharaoh was of that lineage denied the priesthood.

Nope note racist.

I wonder if the white nationalists in Mormondom are making The Brethren nervous. I think they should be nervous.

They never should have let the Cleon Skousens and Mark E Petersons and Bruce R McConkies/JFSes run the asylum.

Exactly. The church mainstreamed carefully to avoid offending the white nationalists and deep doctrine types. But that has left them unable to move anywhere. They are hurt by the Bundys and others but cannot denounce them, they care about family values but cannot espouse them.

That schism is profoundly dangerous.

Having just read the Trib synopsis of Oaks' speech, I'm puzzled about what was "out of control" about it.

I haven't heard any talks, but there is alot to say about America, because it is the most exceptional country in world history, past, and present. The world looks to us, everyone copies our culture, from our dress, mode of dealing business, to our democratic sentiments, to our language, to our toleration to minorities and women. We are the current leaders of the Anglo-Sphere (since Britain has declined).

We have a higher standard of living than anywhere (especially Europe), we have the highest gdp per capita of any large country. We have the most awesome history, the bravest soldiers, the smartest inventors, because we attracted the best. The second best didn't come.

Now in the future I don't know if we will still be the envy of the world, because of the rise of all kinds of troubling things that are too political to get into in this post. Suffice it to say, America rocks!

Is there any point at which you will give up your religious beliefs and look at actual evidence?

Are you kidding?

Triumph of hope over experience.

I wonder if macaRomney works at Hoover?

>I wonder if macaRomney works at Hoover?

Given his opinion of education, I doubt it.

Hey, they hired Atlas didn't they?

This is from his biograpical profile

"Scott W. Atlas, MD, is the Robert Wesson Senior Fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution. He investigates the impact of government and the private sector on access, quality, and pricing in health care, global trends in health care innovation, and key economic issues related to the future of technology-based medical advances."

Notice what isn't included.

Pretty obvious, isn't it?

He knows nothing about bleach.

I googled "Hoover Institution" and it appears to be a who's who of radical right wing extremism. Named after the instigator of the great depression no doubt

I think you need to get out more.

I think it used to be the case that the U.S. was a greatly admired country, but those days are gone. In a 2019 poll of 1,000 adults in each of 135 countries, given a choice between the U.S., Germany, China, and Russia, Germany was the strong favorite.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/27/germany-most-admired-country-in-the-world-as-us-china-and-russia-vie-for-second-place-gallup-poll

In a 2019 survey of the citizens of G8 and other nations as to which country is the most reputable, Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, New Zealand, and Canada top the list. The U.S. does not even crack the top 15.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/vickyvalet/2019/10/15/the-worlds-most-reputable-countries-2019/#4a1b3fc94cb8

Surely you are joking. The USA is not admired anymore

I like to think I tolerate minorities and women fairly well.

macaRomney Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------

>
> We have a higher standard of living than anywhere
> (especially Europe), we have the highest gdp per
> capita of any large country.

Clearly you have never been to Europe. Okay, maybe you might have been to Moldova or something like that. But if you think the US has a higher standard living than France, Belgium, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Sweden, Finland, the UK, or Ireland, I want to know what you are smoking. I am also guessing you have never been to Canada, Australia, Japan, South Korean, Taiwan, Singapore, or New Zealand either.

Look up Marconi sometime. Or Gutenberg. Faraday, Bell, Newton, Fleming. Curie, Leakey, Rosalind Franklin. And countless others. Not American. But gifted and contributory nonetheless.

Re bravest soldiers, I think all military personnel are courageous. Read a bit of history. Find out about ultimate bravery by the military of many countries in dire situations. Including women, who have been and are warriors. Brave women in Europe joined the underground in WW2 and saved many lives.

Re "toleration to minorities and women". First, "toleration" does not denote equality. Second, I'm sure those entities are thrilled to receive your toleration. And, most unfortunately, given events in your country as we speak it's demonstrably untrue.

As for the US planning Normandy, which was stated here recently but I've lost track of that post, a minor character named Churchill played a part in that I believe.

Your exceptionalism denies history, reality, good will and common sense. No offence intended to Americans but come on man.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/2020 02:22PM by Nightingale.

Unfortunately I was forced to watch conference and heard Oak's talk which I thought was way too political for general conference.

He addressed the recent riots/looting and it seemed to me he was trying to convince the members that rioting (not protesting) was bad. I'm sure the majority of Mormons and most Americans agree with him, so why did he bother stating the obvious? Was he trying to show the world (who weren't watching) that Mormons are opposed to rioting? Was he telling Mormons not to participate in the riots? Duh.

The other part of his talk that really bothered me was how he used the words "adversary" and "enemy" when referring to those who do not share your political views, and that we needed to be more tolerant and kind with those expressing differing political opinions. I remember when "the adversary" referred to satan and not someone who didn't share the same political views. I had the feeling he was talking about democrats and republicans and that the democrats were the enemy/adversary. Facebook posts from TBMs support my theory.

Overall, I found some of what he said okay but mostly too political for a conference talk. His talk didn't leave me with warm fuzzies but very unsettled feelings. He's a little on the angry side.

Happy Happy Joy Joy isn't on their menu...

I guess Happy - Joy doesn't sell well

Preaching To The Choir



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/2020 01:14AM by GNPE.

+heartbroken:
Everyone wants to join in on the political talk it seems, even seers, revelators, predictors like the top 15 boys of the mormon club.

So, did he tell us anything new about what is going on with the gods, with Jesus and his friends?

~~~~iceman9090

Of course not! That would require the gift of revelation which he does not poses.

I tried to find his speech but it doesn't seem to have been posted yet. If anyone sees it, please give a shout.

Yeah, I read that. It seemed judiciously homogenized. I'd like to see the full text or, better yet, a video.

No viddy, no know.

Oaks is in control the same way that rioting and burning things down is "peaceful". Only a tiny minority of his speech was offensive, and the majority of his speech condemned it.

In Canada, I know that I'm located in North America, but if you say "America," or "American" I think of the United States of America. I would not call myself an American.

are 'talks' (really Speeches to anyone else!) vetted / cleared by some committee before they're allowed to be presented?

Vetting was posted here a while back as some sort of guardrail for keeping the weirdness prevented or at least moderated - controlled.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/2020 03:32PM by GNPE.

GNPE Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> are 'talks' (really Speeches to anyone else!)
> vetted / cleared by some committee before they're
> allowed to be presented?
>
> Vetting was posted here a while back as some sort
> of guardrail for keeping the weirdness prevented
> or at least moderated - controlled.

Absolutely

Problem is when you get a group of similar thinking people, their gaffes and faux pas may not be discernible.

Have you watched an "edgy" commercial on TV and wonder why a group of advertisers thought that people wouldn't be offended or feel uncomfortable?

Remember the woman on the exercise bike commercial~ peloton?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/05/2020 03:43PM by messygoop.

In my opinion the entire conference had a subterranian (spelling again)goal of racism denyal. Including all races and societys while denying the exclusion thereof seemed to be underlying it all.