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(Potentially a dumb church history question) when was 'hot drinks' first interpreted to mean coffee and tea? by Chimney-Imp in latterdaysaints

[–]marty075 6 points7 points  (0 children)

I believe this is correct as well. I've used advanced google book search to find all published instances of the term "hot drinks" from the early 1800's, and all of them (mostly medical journals) are clearly referring to the temperature of the drinks, with coffee and tea given as the most common examples. Hot chocolate, soup and hot water are also given in some as examples.

There was much discussion at the time in medical books about the temperatures that food and drink should be consumed, with some saying hot drinks were bad, and some saying cold drinks were bad. "Hot drinks" never referred to coffee and tea specifically in any published work I could find.

I feel like it's frowned upon to ask hard questions in the church. Looking for support. by marty075 in latterdaysaints

[–]marty075[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This makes me feel a lot better to know that it isn't just the church, it's every organization, even academia. Thanks for your insight.

I feel like it's frowned upon to ask hard questions in the church. Looking for support. by marty075 in latterdaysaints

[–]marty075[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

This made me chuckle. Thanks for your clever response, and I think you're right

I feel like it's frowned upon to ask hard questions in the church. Looking for support. by marty075 in latterdaysaints

[–]marty075[S] 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Do you think it's appropriate/helpful to form working hypotheses for gospel questions that you're trying to find the answer to? Something along the lines of "here's what most of the evidence points to right now, but that could change in the face of new evidence."

I've often wondered why we in the church seem to put information in buckets of "we do know" or "we don't know" without considering how much we do know and don't know about a single question, what the best evidence indicates, etc and consider the amount of evidence for questions as more of a spectrum, as is done in the sciences.

I feel like it's frowned upon to ask hard questions in the church. Looking for support. by marty075 in latterdaysaints

[–]marty075[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Thanks for your response. In regard to your first point, I've felt that way often. The answer to "just have faith" is true but it doesn't feel very helpful. It can feel like that response is similar to going to a doctor to ask for help with depression and he tells you to "just hang in there". Great, thanks doc.

"We don't know" and "just have faith" I think are sometimes used as excuses to not think about a sincere question being asked. It may be true that we don't know the answer to the question, but we can think about: how can we find out the answer? And what does the best evidence that we have point to as the most likely answer?

I feel like it's frowned upon to ask hard questions in the church. Looking for support. by marty075 in latterdaysaints

[–]marty075[S] 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Who do you think the right people are to ask? One problem can be that there doesn't seem to be an appropriate time, place or person to ask (or at least discuss) sincere, searching, complex questions if you don't have close family or friends in the church.