Family
Posts related to LDS families and family-matters
By: The Baron
Quick Quiz:
- Do you believe polygamy should be legal?
- Do you believe polygamists should be allowed to vote, own land, and hold a job?
And one last question:
3. Do you believe it is hypocritical and inconsistent to have different answers to (1) and (2)?
By: The Baron
...came from my wife, after listening to Elder Richard D. Scott's talk on Saturday.
By: The Baron
[Yes, another post on gay marriage…if your eyes glaze over at the very mention of the subject, you’ve been fairly warned…]
MormonMatters asked in a post last month what would happen if the Church ever “allowed” gay marriage. This answer largely depends on how we define “allow”. Like most issues, gay marriage policy within the Church does not have to be an ‘all-or-nothing’ proposition—let’s look at some potential ‘middle ground’…
By: The Baron
At the recently concluded Sunstone conference, writer Holly Welker criticized the popular LDS short “Johnny Lingo” (not strictly speaking an LDS film as it has no true LDS content, but was produced by BYU in 1969)
(This post will assume readers are somewhat familiar with the content of the Johnny Lingo short—featuring Johnny, his future wife Mahana, and eight cows. Summaries of the plot can be found in the linked article above… The 2003 movie about Johnny Lingo is similar in details but not quite the same story—this article focuses on the original 1969 short)
By: The Baron
Online rumors persist (probably just wishful thinking) that someday soon the Church is going to switch to a two-hour block instead of the current three.
Obviously in such a two hour arrangement the sacrament service will remain, but members seem to disagree as to whether the cut to the current three-hour block should be the Sunday School hour, or the Auxiliary Hour (Elders' Quorum/Relief Society/Young Men/Young Women/High Priests/etc...).
Let's look at the advantages and disadvantages of each:
By: The Baron
Meet "David", my imaginary neighbor...
"David" got laid off from work recently, and his family is struggling. In the spirit of benevolence and charity, I decide to give David $500 in cash to help take care of his family. David and I both understand that this is a one-time gift that won't be repeated by me, nor will need to be paid back by him.
By: Paradox
If you haven't wished a Happy Mother's Day to that special mother in your life, get the heck off the internet and go do it...
...Did you?
Good. Now we can continue.
By: The Baron
No, not "Paradox", our young and brilliant contributor, but actual paradoxes—where two contradictory ideas are entwined together within LDS policy and culture.
By: The Baron
[Previous looks at comic-book movies from a gospel perspective: Superman | Batman]
When X-Men reached theaters in 2000—followed by sequels in 2003 and 2006—it was unique among the other recent modern comic-book movie adaptations for a number of reasons:
1) X-Men was the first true ensemble comic book to make it to movie screens (assuming you don’t count Batman AND Robin) with a variety of different characters instead of one primary ‘hero’.
2) X-Men's unique approach to ‘realism’.
By: The Baron
When discussions of polygamy arise, most people seem to be clear on two things:
- Polygamy oppresses women
- Polygamy is men’s wildest dream come true.
Allow me to anoint myself the representative for all mankind (literally, ‘man’-kind), and tell you something that may shock and surprise you: men don’t want polygamy.
By: The Baron
Last year, I discussed the idea of “reconciliation”, particularly reconciling different (and potentially contradictory) ideas. Reconciliation happens when you have (or appear to see) a gap between two ideas that you want to form a bridge between, because you feel they are both correct and valuable, and don’t want to be forced to choose one or the other.
By: The Baron
Imagine a ward in the Church with low home teaching numbers.
(Okay, that could be just about any ward, couldn't it?)
By: The Baron
Imagine two women:
By: The Baron
In the 2002 movie “One Hour Photo”, Robin Williams plays a mentally unstable employee in a Walmart-ish super-store who develops photos. Throughout the film, he muses on the philosophy behind personal picture-taking, observing that pictures only provide a partial glimpse of things that really happened. People generally take pictures only of happy occasions in their lives--an outsider who looks through a family’s personal photo album might conclude they had obviously led a “joyous, leisurely existence free of tragedy,” simply because most people don’t take pictures of the unhappy stuff. (“No one ever takes a photograph of something they want to forget.”)
By: The Baron
Lisa Simpson: A rose by any other name smells as sweet
Bart Simpson: Not if you call them 'Stench Blossoms'!
The great big elephant in the room with California Proposition 8--which both sides seemed determined to ignore—is that California has had a domestic partnership law on the books since 2005, and which remains unaffected by Prop 8’s passing.
By: Téa
As I sorted a stack of papers this week, I found a February 2008 MLS print-out, advertising a 4 bedroom, 2.5 bathroom home, 3000 sq ft , and a 3 car garage. Because it was a short-sale, according to the agent, the listing price was only $300,000.
Fast forward to November 2008. A 6 bedroom, 4 bathroom, 3800 sq ft, 3 car garage home in the same neighborhood is listed at $175,000. That's what a glut of foreclosures has done to the area.
By: The Baron
…as theorized by a statistical analysis here (mentioned in this thread at T&S) How should one react to that?
By: The Baron
If there's a church out there that spends more time and effort in religious settings discussing financial matters with its membership than the LDS Church does, I'd like to see it. Debt and proper financial management (not to mention gambling) are frequent topics in General Conference and other settings.
By: The Baron
One of the constant battles of the Internet age has been between adult content and filtering software.
One idea that has been tossed around for years--and revisited this year by ICANN as part of a general domain name expansion--is the creation of an .xxx domain, specifically for sites with pornographic material. The theory is that having a 'porn domain' would make it much easier to (a) find, for those who are interested, or (b) filter out, for those who are not.
By: The Baron
Every ward has one. (Oftentimes, more than one...)
Charity 'black holes'.
Just like real black holes that suck in all forms of light and don't release anything out again, a "charity black hole" in the Church is a person or family that constantly consumes resources, charity, and service from other church members without ever offering anything back.
By: The Baron
[Wrap up of this brief series about movie content and ratings. Links to earlier posts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6]
Imagine this situation: You are heading back to your apartment one evening after work/school when you run into a friend from next door.
By: The Baron
There’s no question: Church members like seeing other Church members become famous.
Having famous Church members in the news in a variety of professional fields--business, sports, singing and dancing—provides a certain comfort to Latter-Day Saints who can see fellow Saints be successful on a national stage, even beyond the simple “good PR for the Church” standpoint.
By: The Baron
[Part 6 in a brief series about movie content and ratings. Links to earlier posts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5]
“You know, if the Bible (or Book of Mormon) was a movie, it would be rated R…”
A commonly heard phrase…notwithstanding they HAVE made movies based on the Bible and the Book of Mormon and most of them were not rated R...
By: The Baron
[Part 5 in a brief series about movie content and ratings. Links to earlier posts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4]
Editing movies for content has been a controversial idea from the beginning...
By: The Baron
[Part 4 in a brief series about movie content and ratings. Links to earlier posts: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3]
Originally, there were four ratings for movies: G, PG, R, and X.
Then came Steven Spielberg...
By: The Baron
[Part 3 in a brief series about movie content and ratings. Links to earlier posts: Part 1 | Part 2]
Conventional wisdom says the US—and particularly the conservative watchdogs who discuss movie content the most— are far more tolerant of violent content than sexual content.
Before we discuss whether this should be the case or not—is one of either sex or violence worse than the other?—first let’s see if this is, in fact, true. Are movie ratings in the US more ‘lenient’ for violent content than they are for sexual content? Let’s do some research…
By: The Baron
[Part 2 in a brief series about movie content and ratings. Links to earlier posts: Part 1]
The movie rating system has taken a lot of abuse over the years, most of it deserved. However, it’s worthwhile to try to look at the current movie rating system objectively—considering both the pro’s and con’s—and see what the alternatives are, if any.
By: The Baron
[Part 1 in a brief series of posts about movie content and ratings from an LDS perspective]
Question: Why are Church members encouraged to keep standards when selecting movies to watch?
Answer: Because many movies contain profanity, sexual images or dialogue, and violence.
Question: Okay, but why avoid profanity, sex or violence (PSV) in the first place?
By: The Baron
Imagine a particular type of congenital heart defect that strikes children from birth and dooms them to an early death, usually before they are a year old. Suppose every year throughout human history about 100 children worldwide are born with this defect and pass away within a year, with really nothing anyone can do about it.
By: The Baron
Kaimi asks whether it's hypocritical for the Church to oppose same-sex marriage on a 'marriage = one man and one woman' basis, given its polygamous history.
Is it contradictory to oppose gay marriage while allowing (in principle) for polygamy? Not at all: polygamy does not, in fact, violate the 'marriage = one man and one woman' principle.
By: The Baron
(Continuing on from Part 1 & Part 2)
Discussing the question of whether gay marriage should be legal involves asking the right question in the first place.
Many gay marriage supporters ask, “Why shouldn’t there be legalized gay marriage?” That’s the wrong question...
By: The Baron
Continuing on from Monday's analysis of the gay marriage issue…
It’s important to note that the pro-gay-marriage side is no less susceptible to arguments that are weak, irrelevant, and/or mistaken as the 'anti-'s are. Let's look at the arguments from the other side of the debate.
What the arguments for legalized gay marriage are NOT:
By: The Baron
With the recent California Supreme Court decision regarding gay marriage thrusting the issue back into the spotlight, it’s understandable that many inside and outside of the Bloggernacle are taking sides.
For the record, I don’t support legalized gay marriage, although I also don’t support many of the common arguments made against gay marriage by opponents. Those who oppose gay marriage inside and outside of the Church would be wise to recognize which arguments against legalized gay marriage are weak, irrelevant, or downright false, and not muddle their case by making things easier for the other side to refute.
Let’s look at what the arguments against gay marriage are NOT:
By: The Baron
It’s been a while since we’ve used mathematics to discuss gospel subjects, so let’s introduce two common problems in computer science:
Problem 1: Imagine a lake, which due to an amazing geological miracle happens to be shaped in a perfect rectangle. On the lake are N boats, each at their own unique (X,Y) locations on the lake. The task is: Find the two boats that are closest in distance to each other.
By: The Baron
“Defending marriage” is an oft-discussed topic both in the LDS world, and elsewhere. Few General Conferences go by without the topic being raised in some form--albeit often in vague and unspecific terms.
In the US today, divorces are mounting—an estimated 10% of the US adult population is now divorced, up from 8% in 1990, and 6% in 1980--and along with them come the wide variety of serious social problems they can cause.
By: The Baron
On a certain street in a certain (imaginary) town there are two houses that lie directly across from each other. Within each house lives a different LDS family, although as it happens the local ward boundaries travel down the middle of the street in front of them, thus these two families happen to belong to separate wards despite their close proximity.