I'm sure they weighed the PR consequences against the consequences of not enforcing their copyright and decided that it is more important to enforce their copyright than avoid bad PR. There's already plenty of bad PR out there about the LDS Church (just ask any anti-Mormon), a little more probably won't hurt anything in the long run.
how am I supposed to observe the dictates of the text if I'm kept from reading it There is a difference between an administrative manual and scripture that members are bound to live by. The scriptures are freely available online here, and a hard copy of the Book of Mormon may be ordered online or by asking a local LDS missionary or church member. These are the things that members are bound to live by - materials that are freely available to them.
The administrative manual in question, however, contains no doctrine that cannot be found in the scriptures; it simply contains the policies and procedures that the Church wants its leaders to abide by in various situations. How would you suggest that such a manual be distributed?
It is illogical to require an organization to mass-publish a manual intended only for those in leadership positions. The Church is not trying to keep anything secret, they are simply protecting a copyright they own, the same thing any other organization would do.
If someone seriously has the secret key to salvation, it's unthinkable that the rest of us should perish in the fires of hell for lack of access to it Indeed it is unthinkable; in fact one of the core LDS beliefs is that everyone will, at some point, whether in this life or the next, have the opportunity to learn and subsequently accept or reject LDS teachings.
The difference is that the LDS Church isn't using copyright as a tool to oppress. It's simply protecting its copyright through the proper legal channels. If you really want to know what's in the manual, you can always just ask.
Your argument basically boils down to "If there were a God he would control us so we couldn't do all these horrible things to eachother."
That's flawed in various ways, but primarily because you assume that any existing God would want to control us. It is perfectly valid to portray a God who wants to let us act how we wish.
In the same way, parents can, to some degree, control the actions of their children. However, the best parents are the ones that realize that their children will learn far more if they learn by experience than if they are instructed what to do in every way. It is perfectly valid to portray a God who holds the same opinion.
I'm not trying to prove or disprove whether God exists. I'm only showing you that the basis of your argument is invalid.
Those who perpetrated the Mountain Meadows Massacre acted without the authorization of the church; in fact the church had dispatched a messenger to that group explicitly telling them to do nothing to those passing through, but the messenger was unable to arrive in time.
Way to get your facts straight. (I know, it's on all-knowing Wikipedia. Whatever.)
If you're implying that the FLDS church is part of the LDS church, you're completely wrong. If you're implying that they're similar, you're somewhat wrong - there are a few similar underlying beliefs, however, if the FLDS were following what the Book of Mormon teaches (as I suppose they claim they do), they would not be doing what they are doing.
The LDS Church promptly excommunicates any members found to be practicing polygamy.
If you want to see the handbook, or ask questions about it, I'm sure your local LDS bishop will answer your questions. There's nothing "secret" in the handbook, it's just a copyrighted handbook of instructions - and there's no reason the Church should not be allowed to enforce their copyright.
I think you've hit the reason on the nose here. By all scriptural accounts, women do not have multiple husbands at any time (not sealed to them, anyway); any posthumous sealing is likely done only to allow the person to choose which to accept.
I am my wife's second husband, and I know for sure that she wants nothing to do with her first husband, even if he does make it to heaven.
No, the copyright issues are the entire point. If the Church cannot enforce this copyright, or chooses not to, then it is in danger of setting a precedent about its other copyrights, for example its logo and name. Having other entities pose as the LDS Church would certainly be damaging.
I'm disappointed you choose to ignore the real issues and call them "beside the point".
It can indeed be turned around quite easily. The difference is, there are impartial third-party accounts portraying Joseph Smith as a hard-working, honest person; there are none portraying him as a lazy, deceitful treasure hunter (or whatever the fashionable insult is this month). See, for example, this page.
The supposed evidence that he was a significant religious figure is entirely composed of accounts from people who liked him and liked what he taught. This sentence, however, is flawed. The fact that he was a significant religious figure is indisputable; you don't have to like the man to realize the religious influence he had.
I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, yes.
As myself and others have said, I do not think the LDS Church is trying to "keep the information from getting out". I think they're simply enforcing a copyright they own - a perfectly legitimate pursuit.
Nobody has a right to secrets. Please list here, for all to see, your full name, address, phone number, social security number, and bank account information.
If you don't want to, or refuse to, then you've betrayed your lie - you believe you have a right to some secrets. Your profile doesn't even show your e-mail address.
Secrecy is not the same as privacy, you're correct in that, however they are often inseparably intertwined.
I've never really understood the church's policy on keeping the GHI out of general circulation I'd guess it's the reason your parent post gave:
The basic idea is that people should govern themselves. If you give them a hard and fast rule, some types of people will see how close they can get to that rule without breaking it. Not a good way to live a christian life. It's true, in my experience, and it's not the type of behavior the Church wants to encourage.
Recall that the Jews received a huge list of do's and don'ts, and look where it got them (scripturally speaking, I'm not talking about anything post-300 A.D.); Christ rarely taught "do this, don't do that" in the New Testament, instead he taught "love your neighbor" and such.
You needn't bother; most of the Church Handbook of Instructions is of the form "In situation X, do Y. Scriptures A, B, and C form the basis for this action", with the situations organized by whose responsibility the things fall under. It's not very interesting reading; it's more of a reference manual for if you're actually in one of those leadership positions and are unsure of what to do in some situation.
The New Testament teaches that God sends prophets, apostles, etc to teach those who believe; if such is the case, then there should be prophets on the earth now. That implies that there are men on the earth who receive revelation from God. If those revelations are written (the same way the revelations of Peter, John the Revelator, Paul, and so on were written to later form the New Testament), they become scripture. (That's what is unique about the LDS Church's teachings; we believe there is a living prophet.)
So, if the New Testament is to be believed, it is not the only source of Christ's teachings, and it does not claim to be.
Furthermore, the New Testament does not contain the entirety of the writings of the apostles of the time of Christ. The New Testament itself is a manmade compilation of scripture, and is not complete.
In the first case (someone who is going to get an elective surgery), the person is ignoring one the LDS Church's core beliefs - that gender is an essential part of a person's eternal identity, and if a person does not believe the basic beliefs of the church they should not be baptized.
In the second case - allowing someone who has previously received such surgery to be baptized - a person cannot go back into the past to undo his/her (its?) actions, and as such can receive some measure of forgiveness, but anything beyond that is up to God and is left for Him.
They haven't threatened anyone above what the law permits for enforcing copyright (and even then I really doubt the LDS Church is interested in financial damages).
Thanks for making the LDS Church sound like a bunch of thugs though. We appreciate it. </sarcasm>
Slashdot Mirror
I'm sure they weighed the PR consequences against the consequences of not enforcing their copyright and decided that it is more important to enforce their copyright than avoid bad PR. There's already plenty of bad PR out there about the LDS Church (just ask any anti-Mormon), a little more probably won't hurt anything in the long run.
The administrative manual in question, however, contains no doctrine that cannot be found in the scriptures; it simply contains the policies and procedures that the Church wants its leaders to abide by in various situations. How would you suggest that such a manual be distributed?
It is illogical to require an organization to mass-publish a manual intended only for those in leadership positions. The Church is not trying to keep anything secret, they are simply protecting a copyright they own, the same thing any other organization would do. If someone seriously has the secret key to salvation, it's unthinkable that the rest of us should perish in the fires of hell for lack of access to it Indeed it is unthinkable; in fact one of the core LDS beliefs is that everyone will, at some point, whether in this life or the next, have the opportunity to learn and subsequently accept or reject LDS teachings.
The difference is that the LDS Church isn't using copyright as a tool to oppress. It's simply protecting its copyright through the proper legal channels. If you really want to know what's in the manual, you can always just ask.
Your argument basically boils down to "If there were a God he would control us so we couldn't do all these horrible things to eachother."
That's flawed in various ways, but primarily because you assume that any existing God would want to control us. It is perfectly valid to portray a God who wants to let us act how we wish.
In the same way, parents can, to some degree, control the actions of their children. However, the best parents are the ones that realize that their children will learn far more if they learn by experience than if they are instructed what to do in every way. It is perfectly valid to portray a God who holds the same opinion.
I'm not trying to prove or disprove whether God exists. I'm only showing you that the basis of your argument is invalid.
Those who perpetrated the Mountain Meadows Massacre acted without the authorization of the church; in fact the church had dispatched a messenger to that group explicitly telling them to do nothing to those passing through, but the messenger was unable to arrive in time.
Way to get your facts straight. (I know, it's on all-knowing Wikipedia. Whatever.)
Yeah, because a lot of Mormons have disemboweled people. What are you smoking?
You really shouldn't pick on your cousin like that.
If you're implying that the FLDS church is part of the LDS church, you're completely wrong. If you're implying that they're similar, you're somewhat wrong - there are a few similar underlying beliefs, however, if the FLDS were following what the Book of Mormon teaches (as I suppose they claim they do), they would not be doing what they are doing.
The LDS Church promptly excommunicates any members found to be practicing polygamy.
Fair enough; I should have chosen my words more carefully. Your point is, of course, perfectly valid.
If you want to see the handbook, or ask questions about it, I'm sure your local LDS bishop will answer your questions. There's nothing "secret" in the handbook, it's just a copyrighted handbook of instructions - and there's no reason the Church should not be allowed to enforce their copyright.
It's not damning - that's the point. That's why the whole thing must be about copyright enforcement and precedent.
I think you've hit the reason on the nose here. By all scriptural accounts, women do not have multiple husbands at any time (not sealed to them, anyway); any posthumous sealing is likely done only to allow the person to choose which to accept.
I am my wife's second husband, and I know for sure that she wants nothing to do with her first husband, even if he does make it to heaven.
No, the copyright issues are the entire point. If the Church cannot enforce this copyright, or chooses not to, then it is in danger of setting a precedent about its other copyrights, for example its logo and name. Having other entities pose as the LDS Church would certainly be damaging.
I'm disappointed you choose to ignore the real issues and call them "beside the point".
It's probably more about precedent and copyright enforcement than anything else. As a legal professional yourself I'm sure you can understand.
I'm glad you're capable of twisting benign statements of truth into hate-mongering. I'd give you a cookie if I had one.
Someone mod parent -1 Flamebait, please?
That's an interesting comparison, I hadn't thought of that before.
I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, yes.
If you don't want to, or refuse to, then you've betrayed your lie - you believe you have a right to some secrets. Your profile doesn't even show your e-mail address.
Secrecy is not the same as privacy, you're correct in that, however they are often inseparably intertwined.
Recall that the Jews received a huge list of do's and don'ts, and look where it got them (scripturally speaking, I'm not talking about anything post-300 A.D.); Christ rarely taught "do this, don't do that" in the New Testament, instead he taught "love your neighbor" and such.
You needn't bother; most of the Church Handbook of Instructions is of the form "In situation X, do Y. Scriptures A, B, and C form the basis for this action", with the situations organized by whose responsibility the things fall under. It's not very interesting reading; it's more of a reference manual for if you're actually in one of those leadership positions and are unsure of what to do in some situation.
The New Testament teaches that God sends prophets, apostles, etc to teach those who believe; if such is the case, then there should be prophets on the earth now. That implies that there are men on the earth who receive revelation from God. If those revelations are written (the same way the revelations of Peter, John the Revelator, Paul, and so on were written to later form the New Testament), they become scripture. (That's what is unique about the LDS Church's teachings; we believe there is a living prophet.)
So, if the New Testament is to be believed, it is not the only source of Christ's teachings, and it does not claim to be.
Furthermore, the New Testament does not contain the entirety of the writings of the apostles of the time of Christ. The New Testament itself is a manmade compilation of scripture, and is not complete.
The reasons for this are pretty clear.
In the first case (someone who is going to get an elective surgery), the person is ignoring one the LDS Church's core beliefs - that gender is an essential part of a person's eternal identity, and if a person does not believe the basic beliefs of the church they should not be baptized.
In the second case - allowing someone who has previously received such surgery to be baptized - a person cannot go back into the past to undo his/her (its?) actions, and as such can receive some measure of forgiveness, but anything beyond that is up to God and is left for Him.
Isn't sensationalism fun? I said much the same as you further up this thread just a moment ago.
They haven't threatened anyone above what the law permits for enforcing copyright (and even then I really doubt the LDS Church is interested in financial damages).
Thanks for making the LDS Church sound like a bunch of thugs though. We appreciate it. </sarcasm>
You've got your religions mixed up there...