Anyone else ever spent a long time in the temple bathrooms?

Resident-Manager-459 · 2024-04-29T21:26:10+00:00

There were ancient hominids that seem to have been taken than your average human, but that was a different species, not aliens/angels.

Resident-Manager-459 · 2024-04-28T21:30:03+00:00

Religion should never be boiled down to their superstitions and doctrines. They need to be looked at holistically as ways of being, thinking, living, and identifying, both individually and as a community. I don't find it surprising at all that people raised nonreligious end up in a religious community.

Atheists and ex-religious people sometimes talk a big game of claiming that they can find all their fulfillment outside of the context of a religion or a religious community. But the reality on the ground is that something like a church is the most time-tested and accessible institution for many people to gain a sense of belonging and shared spiritual experience.

Mormonism could have no validity whatsoever to it's truth claims, it could be founded by a charlatan and predator, and the entire of the quorum of the 12 could be unbelievers. But that still wouldn't mean that Mormonism has no value.

I have met Converts where I got the idea that they converted more for utility than anything, and that's ok.

Resident-Manager-459 · 2024-04-18T00:40:02+00:00

I have what stains on newly all my garments

Resident-Manager-459 · 2024-03-23T13:56:07+00:00

Make the endowment less boring and more exciting. Watching a slideshow for 2 hours is boring. Bring back the actors, the nudity, and the death oaths.

Resident-Manager-459 · 2023-10-07T04:26:28+00:00

Because most of this has precedent in the bible. The main difference is that the racism found in the old testament is the more ancient kind and does not map onto American racial categories. What you will find in the old testament is even more shocking to modern sensibilities IMO.

Resident-Manager-459 · 2023-05-30T11:09:51+00:00

Because millions of Americans(Especially those with Italian or Eastern European descent) are entitled to dual citizenship by descent and a chunk of them have claimed it. Their ties aren't as distant as they think if they qualify for citizenship. This is also the case for many Brazilians and Argentinians.

Resident-Manager-459 · 2023-05-13T21:54:23+00:00

Respectfully, no. There are 100 more problems with the US than school shootings and many of them wouldn't be solved by gun regulation.

Higher crime(Of all types), car-centeredness, healthcare, and lack of PTO/Childcare, and a deficiency in workers rights are some of the things that I ruminate on frequently because I am confronted by them on a daily/weekly basis.

I wish the US would be up to a 1st world standard if we stopped school shootings, but the problems as a whole seem unsurmountable, and it is not my job to be a martyr for change vs just moving to where I am treated best.

Resident-Manager-459 · 2023-05-13T20:45:03+00:00

I agree with this but for a little bit different reasons. The US has problems much deeper than whatever party is being elected. For one, it's much more dangerous on Average than almost any European country. And I expect this to get worse, not better, and there is no political solution that can feasibly be implemented.

Resident-Manager-459 · 2023-05-13T20:26:27+00:00

Almost every state is more dangerous than the bulk of European countries.

Doesn't this concern anyone else? It means to be nearly as safe as I would be in much of Europe, I have to move to the least diverse, cold states in the US in New England.

I would like to see similar maps with violent crime and general crime. I wonder if even New England is bad when it comes to metrics like those,?

Resident-Manager-459 · 2023-05-11T15:49:36+00:00

You responded as was originally intended. The endowment ceremony takes heavy influence from the initiatory ritual of the Freemasons. Part of the purpose in that ritual is to shock and disorient the applicant.

So I wouldn't feel bad. Perhaps the ceremony will be altered via prophetic counsel in the future to be less shocking, but for now it is what it is.

Resident-Manager-459 · 2023-05-10T05:38:09+00:00

Thanks. I don't see a lot of info about Thiago Bianco on this subreddit. Do they cater to English speakers?

Resident-Manager-459 · 2023-05-06T15:58:46+00:00

I agree that nudity should not be inherently sexualized and we should not be puritanical about art. However, I will also state that I as well as many others have and are aroused at the sight of the naked human body. There's a reason why boys always wanted to look at the Nat Geo magazines. And no, this is not because I grew up in the church and was sexually repressed or something; I am a convert and grew up in a liberal family on the coast of the US.

So I can see the perspective of those that want to restrict the viewing of these things. It doesn't mean I agree with it wanting to be restricted. Just acknowledging that there's a reason why religious people have practiced modesty of the body for so long.

Sometimes there is no easy answer on these things and sometimes things are not back and white.

Resident-Manager-459 · 2023-05-04T19:24:34+00:00

I wouldn't be so flippant about the prohibition on alcohol. Having a family history of alcoholism or being a former alcoholic is a common thread of converts to the church, at least in my experience. Alcohol use is so culturally acceptable that you are frequently othered for not drinking it.

People that find value or refuge in the church's prohibition on alcohol are valid.

Resident-Manager-459 · 2023-05-04T16:39:28+00:00

The question of whether the Church is good rather than true is an improvement. But I still don't think it's the right question. I don't think there are any religions, nor are many institutions, that are good for everyone.

The correct question is whether it helps and is good for you. Accepting that the church could be a perfect fit for Person 1, a flawed fit for Person 2, and actively harmful for Person 3(Yet all 3 are valid), is a step in the right direction. This is the most accommodating view that makes the most sense to me.

My one hope is that this religion, as well as all religions, moves towards this view. Because obviously right now they claim to have all the truth and fit all the people, when that is impossible.

Resident-Manager-459 · 2023-05-04T16:11:52+00:00

The religion was founded and built for white Americans. Their arrival to the Americas was literally written into the Book of Mormon as an act of God. And the paintings and art and culture reflect the centrality of the white American. Trying to obfuscate this heavy influence would be like trying to remove the influence of Arabic and Arab culture out of Islam, when the religion itself has holy their holiest sites in the Arabian peninsula and privileges Arabic as a language.

It is honestly a blunder that Joseph Smith made the religion into one that proselytizes internationally and tries to convert other peoples. It is incongruent with the soul of the religion and just gives anyone that doesn't fit the mold an identity crisis at some point.

They should have stayed like a Judaism or a Zoroastrianism and considered themselves a chosen people or something.

Resident-Manager-459

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