A bridge too far?

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Are you intending a veiled reference to Aichinger's "The Bound Man?" If so, I approve!

Du hast "Den Gefesselten" von Ilse Aichinger gelesen? Er is eine interessante Geschichte.

Try this if you like her.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0016-8831(196501)38%3A1%3C30%3AWITBMT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I

Here's more cool stuff on that short story.

http://www.3sat.de/3sat.php?http://w...589/index.html

[UtahDan]

Originally Posted by BYU71

My bottom line is, does it affect me getting a Temple Recommend. In my simple world requirements for the Temple are commandments and all else is counsel.

We need to have the separation. That is so those that follow the counsel can look down on those who don't and tell them how rotten and disobedient they are. Otherwise it wouldn't be fun for them.

I agree with that 100%. I neither look down my nose at, nor feel inferior to, folks who try hard to follow every bit of counsel spoken. I personally can't keep up with all of it and if it doesn't affect my temple recommend I don't worry about it. There have been many people who to one degree or another decide to devote their lives entirely to God, study and obedience. Monks are a good example but there are lots of examples short of that. I'm sure for some that is fulfilling and maybe they are better than me. I am too busy just living, taking care of my family and enjoying life to have much angst over number of earrings, white shirts, etc.

My wife has multiple piercings. I am about half and half white shirt blue shirt to church. I don't have a tattoo but don't think its a big deal if you want one. I just can't get excited about it one way or the other.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by UtahDan

I agree with that 100%. I neither look down my nose at, nor feel inferior to, folks who try hard to follow every bit of counsel spoken. I personally can't keep up with all of it and if it doesn't affect my temple recommend I don't worry about it. There have been many people who to one degree or another decide to devote their lives entirely to God, study and obedience. Monks are a good example but there are lots of examples short of that. I'm sure for some that is fulfilling and maybe they are better than me. I am too busy just living, taking care of my family and enjoying life to have much angst over number of earrings, white shirts, etc.

My wife has multiple piercings. I am about half and half white shirt blue shirt to church. I don't have a tattoo but don't think its a big deal if you want one. I just can't get excited about it one way or the other.

I agree with Adam that a navel piercing can be quite cool. The eyebrow stuff is too much for me, but whatever.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Adam

It is like the rule not to enter the girls bedrooms in Heritage Halls. But then you home teach the girl and she is in bed with a fever of 103 and you are called to give a blessing. You go into the room and don't feel bad about it and the Spirit tells you it is OK.

There is no eternal law saying you shouldn't go into that bedroom. It is a law of Moses restriction to put a roadblock on the hormones of 18 year old boys.

If those boys' love was stronger then their sex drive, we wouldn't need the rule at all. The rule controls the subjects in order to make compliance with the law of chastity more likely.

Similarly, GBH thinks having a belly ring is one step closer to fornication. So he forbids it.

That doesn't make it an eternal truth/law.

It's as though few are aware that Jesus tried to teach the pharisees not to blindly follow Moses. I swear ( I don't, but you get the idea), you and Arch and '71 are having the exact same conversation with Tex and Indy that Jesus had with the pharisees. The man can pick up his bed! You can heal on the Sabbath! You can pick grain as you walk on the Sabbath! You can go into that bedroom in Helaman Halls and give that woman a blessing!

You don't do things to flant the law, but you should be developing your own compass so that you will be a moral individual. Jesus countered the legalism (*a nod to Jay*) of the mosaic law with the mercy of understanding people as individuals and not just as objects to be actuarily sorted.

Love your neighbor in Deuteronomy meant love Jews who observed the law (this is clear because in the very next chapters the people are told to kill homosexuals and those who break the Sabbath, and to chop the hand's off a woman who punches a man in the junk and so on). There were to be no exceptions. Jesus proffered a new understanding of neighbor, one that asked us to treat all people as individuals created in the image of god and deserving consideration.

Have some people not read the New Testament?

As an aside, I agree with '71. The Temple Recommend interview is the real standard and it is deliberately vague on some points.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

It's as though few are aware that Jesus tried to teach the pharisees not to blindly follow Moses. I swear ( I don't, but you get the idea), you and Arch and '71 are having the exact same conversation with Tex and Indy that Jesus had with the pharisees. The man can pick up his bed! You can heal on the Sabbath! You can pick grain as you walk on the Sabbath! You can go into that bedroom in Helaman Halls and give that woman a blessing!

Just curious, SIEQ. Have you even read a single post I've made in this thread?

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Du hast "Den Gefesselten" von Ilse Aichinger gelesen? Er is eine interessante Geschichte.

Try this if you like her.

http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0016-8831(196501)38%3A1%3C30%3AWITBMT%3E2.0.CO%3B2-I

Here's more cool stuff on that short story.

http://www.3sat.de/3sat.php?http://w...589/index.html

Thanks. That looks like good stuff.

[Sleeping in EQ]

Originally Posted by Tex

Just curious, SIEQ. Have you even read a single post I've made in this thread?

Yes, and you're right to call me out here. I apologize for lumping you in like that. Will you elaborate on where you're coming from on this?

[Indy Coug]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

I swear ( I don't, but you get the idea), you and Arch and '71 are having the exact same conversation with Tex and Indy that Jesus had with the pharisees. The man can pick up his bed! You can heal on the Sabbath! You can pick grain as you walk on the Sabbath! You can go into that bedroom in Helaman Halls and give that woman a blessing!

How in the world can you construe my comments as Pharisaic? Certainly there is no basis to say that I'm advocating following a lower law at the expense of a higher law (healing on the Sabbath vs keeping the Sabbath holy).

I'm simply voicing my opposition not so much to the question of whether we should do everything the brethren "counsel", but the dismissive attitude some have voiced in the process.

How that amounts to Pharisaic is beyond me.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by Sleeping in EQ

Yes, and you're right to call me out here. I apologize for lumping you in like that. Will you elaborate on where you're coming from on this?

I started the thread because I was curious how people handled the other end of the spectrum from the "kill in the name of God" commands. The responses have been very interesting.

[fusnik11]

Are we not to govern ourselves?

The church leadership should provide doctrine, which it hasn't for almost 100 years, and make business decisions, which it does quite well.

GBH telling girls that wearing two earrings is bad, and people thinking that that actually comes from God himself is almost laughable. The Lord splitting hairs over the merits of one earring v. two? The Lord caring if his sacrament is passed by boys wearing white shirts?

The church is a temporary stopover in one's spiritual journey, it shouldn't be a lifesource.