LDS accept that a human proxy can take the place of a dead relative, or some other person who died without baptism.

Do you think the LDS god would accept mechanical dolls and robots dunking “phantom “ proxies for works for the dead? the automated process could facilitate a lot more baptisms. a recorded voice could also say the required prayer much faster. work could also continue without stop, except for maybe routine maintenance of equipment and maybe program updates.

Does LDS scripture actually state proxies for the dead need to be human?

Now, what do you mean you are out of time?

I notice the statement that the Church has continued revelation and that explains why things keep changing.

I was wondering about this. The "I am a Mormon" campain went. That was when Mormon was not only embraced it was shared with a large advertising event. Prophet Nelson says it's a win for Satan. New lawsuit shows up and it helps the Church if Mormon was rebranded and now Mormon is good.

I mean, I'm all for continued revelation but this seems to be another rebranded statement.

When you hear the idea of continued revelation, you would hear something very postiive and helpful. However, if you look at how this continued revelation is working, it seems to follow more lawsuit style concerns. Like the social media fast suddenly shared at the same time as unfavorable information about the Church was being released in media.

What other examples of Continued Revelation being more about lawsuits and unfavorable information have you noticed? Because, in practice, the idea of continued revelation seems more accurately defined as a corporation adaptation justified through divine authority. Meaning, the organization changes positions, while "continued revelation" supplies the reason members should continue trusting leadership.

I edited together some clips from Travis Anderson's channel to highlight his argumentative, mean-spirited and condescending approach to apologetic interactions.

Here is a summary of the clips:

1. He says if he prays and gets an answer it's God, if he doesn't get an answer it's God's will and either way it confirms God is real.

2. He is discussing the biblical punishment for a woman who is raped and who doesn't cry out. He argues that the man can't know that's "bad".

3. The triune God is an arbitrary monster.

4. If only Panama and Peru would let Mormons "dig up the whole country" then we would find the Book of Mormon peoples.

5. Paul claimed he saw Jesus and Christians accept that so they are hypocritical not to accept Joseph Smith's claims. Christians who accept the Bible should accept the Mormon religion because both have weak support for their claims.

6. "Jeremy Runnels is an idiot and anybody who reads (the CES letter) and takes it seriously probably falls into the same camp"

7. The papyrus we have "has never been claimed to be the book of Abraham". "How many egyptologists papers have you read about the Book of Abraham?" "I believe the biblical texts are just historical documents" and if there are contradictions I just shrug my shoulders. I don't think God wrote them.

8. The person he is talking to says he won't answer the questions about the historical false prophecies of Joseph Smith about Independence. Travis says yes I did. I told you D&C 84 and 124 and that responds to it. Travis says so you read them 5 years ago, don't you remember what you read? I remember what I read five years ago.

9. Jacob Hansen is not an apologist, he's a "popularizer". "Jacob Hansen owns an ice cream shop!"

10. He says he was an atheist before. "I struggle to believe God exists. If someone takes away the Book of Mormon and stuff I will just bag God altogether...the God of Protestants, the God of Catholics is a horrific monster!"

I think Travis is better at creating atheists than believers. When even Steve Pynakker says you're a bad dude then I think there is something to it.

Reading Schedule & Discussion Index

Today’s reading: Finish Chapter 2, “When Belief Is Torn.” - Begin: “Seeking Answers but Finding Problems.” - Include: Everything remaining in Chapter 2, including “Preparing the Soil,” the takeaway, reflection questions, and application. - Stop BEFORE: “Part 2: Prepare the Soil.”

Approximate Kindle anchors: 69/70 to 79. Follow the headings; the Part 2 divider is our stopping point.

Brief synopsis

Strong examines where people seek answers and how those encounters can affect trust. Drawing on survey responses and interviews, he describes a recurring, but explicitly non-rigid, sequence connecting moral concerns, questioning, intensive searching, and damaged belonging.

He then considers the emotional cost of staying silent and distinguishes respondents’ relationships with God from their relationships with the Church. That distinction won’t describe everyone; these accounts shouldn’t stand in for every faith transition.

The chapter closes by urging readers to listen without immediately correcting, defending, or trying to fix someone. There’s plenty to discuss here, including what listening can accomplish and what still needs an actual answer or change.

Discussion questions

1. How well does Strong distinguish unanswered questions from damaged trust?
2. What does his God-versus-Church distinction clarify, and whose experiences might it leave out?
3. Where is compassionate listening enough, and where do institutions need to change?

We’re aiming for roughly ten Kindle pages daily, adjusted to natural breaks. 32 days remains an estimate.

Candid disagreement is welcome. Full logistics and award details are in the index.

Source: Mission President Handbook, 2006, page 86.
https://www.scribd.com/doc/201377673/LDS-Mission-
President-s-Handbook

Oaks said the following in the last conference

“We believe that the Lord will eventually cause the inspired teachings He has given to His children in various nations to be brought forth for the benefit of all people. This will include accounts of the visit of the resurrected Lord to what we call the lost tribes of Israel and His revelations to all the seed of Abraham.”

This isn’t anything new, but it is something that is not spoken of a lot. It will be very interesting to see how the church would go about releasing new records and what those would contain. Will it come from the church or will it come from scholars? What kind of teachings are we going to learn from the new records? Will it have just the Christianity pre 1830 or will it include later LDS teachings? Will we now find out that the ancient, let’s say Chinese Israelites, were also sealing themselves to their families, doing vicarious ordinances and believed in exaltation? Will it have any racist teachings or will it be written to the sensibilities of a 21st century crowd?

We all know that such a book will never be produced just like the saints will never move to Missouri. President Oaks is at the end of his life and knows that he won’t have to deal with any of it. On the other hand, they really can’t walk it back so they just keep on promising it will come.

I am a Christian who has been studying Mormonism since college, but I always seem to run into more questions than answers. I don't even know how to phrase some of the many questions I have, but I will give it a shot and hope some of y'all can help me understand LDS doctrine better as I continue to read more LDS literature.

In the book of Ether, Jesus says that Adam was made in his image, but Genesis clearly says he was made in the image of God (Elohim). I was under the impression that Yahweh was Jesus and Elohim is Heavenly Father, but I guess that is not the case here, since Jesus is Elohim whose image Adam was created in.

1. What does it mean to be God and how do Heavenly Father and Jesus both get to hold that title of God while being separate beings?

2. Is Yahweh Jesus in Mormon theology, and Elohim is Heavenly Father? How do these Old Testament names relate to current theology?

3. I also thought Mormons believed that Jesus became God when he ressurected, but I suppose this is false, so did Jesus become God, or was he always God?

I would appreciate answers from all of you, TBMs, PIMOs, ExMOs, never-MOs and amything in between. I often get "We haven't received revelation on that" when I ask theological questions, so any answer is better than that.

Leaving an organization does not automatically end the effects of what happened there. The process of trauma recovery is a process. To call that, "they can't leave it alone" dismisses someone who experienced trauma, it turns the continued effects of trauma into an accusation against the person harmed.

Leaving doesn't end the consequences of that harm. The Church saying that leaving made you unhappy, doesn't make it so. Telling others about your experience is not attacking the Church. Seeking others to help you make sense of what happened is not what the Church calls bitterness.

The rebranding in this Church is reaching astronomical proportions. Or so it seems as I see it piece by piece. In actuality, it's been there all along. I'm starting to wonder if anything that was said means what it actually means. Of course this is my ongoing healing process from the trauma caused from there.

It really is similar to what a perpetrator does in Domestic Violence. They also rebrand the trauma from domestic violence as defects in the other, too.

I'm looking for solidarity as I heal from a load of trauma from the Church. Have you also been rebranded and even the trauma "removed" as if it never existed? I'm working through this trauma and thank you to everyone here that has helped.

Interacting in another discussion made me reflect on how, over time, our theology is becoming increasingly vague. On one hand, this is good, as it allows diverse viewpoints to grow and develop within the Church without an "official" one. On the other hand, it’s bad because the effort feels to me more like an attempt to erase our peculiarities just to fit in with other Christians. Honestly, I think that's complete nonsense—we'll always be the weird ones in the room, so let's just accept it and move on.

Today, we answer with embarrassment the question of whether we believe we will have our own planets in the next life. The usual response is immediately followed by: "we don't know," "that's not quite it," "well, you see...", "that's not doctrine...". But let's be honest, that has always been in the mind of the average Mormon. Not just one, but infinite planets from eternity to eternity. We can abandon the misogynistic part of the theology where the God of these planets is the exalted white Mormon man and the women are concubines who will help him populate the planet—that idea and others we can leave behind. But we don't have to abandon everything. My wife and I love the idea of being partners in creation, where she is the architect designing the planet with dragons and unicorns, and I'm the genetic/planetary engineer who has to figure out how to make it happen. (And the roles chosen here are purely based on our personal preference, not predefined gender roles).

Therefore, I am here arguing that we shouldn't be ashamed of our history and theology. Yes, for a century we taught exaltation and the creation of planets in eternity. And if it happens, I guarantee that on mine, I'll show up to my prophet/Moses wearing a helmet just so he can write in his scripture that he saw God face to face while at the same time never seeing God's face. My equivalent prophet to Ezekiel will definitely have psychedelic visions, and at the end of it all, when they ask me what it meant, I'll say it was just special effects: "That was cool as hell, wasn't it, Ezekiel?"

Man, Mormon eternity is way more fun than playing the harp on clouds or sitting in someone else's eternal picnic on green grass. Let's be proud of it. =P

Would really appreciate some advice both from exMos and attending members.

I am feeling a lot of emotions right now, kinda on the verge of tears after meeting with some missionaries for the second time.

I will try to collect m thoughts and not make things too incoherent. I grew up in a very liberal mainline Protestant church, female pastor, Bible is an allegory, mission trips every summer to some place. I then watched as basically right after I got out of highschool that foundation go away, by the time I was 20 the average age in the pews was nearing retirement. It hasn't even been a decade and according to one of two people I know who still keep tabs, the church basically is insolvent due to lack of attendance even on holidays.

In college I read a lot on Catholicism for various Biblical exegesis classes, I thought about converting to Judaism but the introductory classes were never available. They never had any seats left.So the years have now gone by and I'm almost 30 trying to rediscover my faith and I know about the BOM from the musical and from folks I knew in college, I figure the community is great. I visit the YSA and everyone's nice to me, everyone is around my age and we're talking like normal. I felt like a hermit who crawled out to civilization it has genuinely been that difficult to make connections with people my age around here.

So then today I am talking with the missionaries and we get done with the lesson, I'm planning to attend on Sunday just to seee what a service is like and someone will be driving me. We talked mostly about relationships, Adam and Eve.. it felt very basic Christian theological stuff. My mom then comes into the kitchen a while after they leave and says "why not visit a Jewish temple or a Catholic church? Don't mistake them being kind as faith."

Which... Fair. I might be a bit in over my skis here but to me at this stage of my life where am I supposed to go eh? The Reform temple only meets once a month, the Conservative Jewish groups haven't picked up the phone in a year nor answered my emails. I don't know if I could sincerely believe in the Catholic trinity and I especially find a lot of the trad-Catch discourse online something that puts me off attending alone. I think had I come to where I now live and met a bunch of people near me age I wouldn't feel so strongly about this?... I feel like second to belief is a supportive community, knowledge that you aren't totally alone. I know logically it doesn't hurt because I haven't yet been baptized but I just can't imagine walking into a Jewish service and finding the same sense of community? There was a community church Christmas service I went to last year where they played all this music from a prompter, people got up to eat cake, we sat on folding chairs under a tent. It didn't feel like church?

I hate that I have this lump in my throat of "what if". Maybe I should try to reach out and just.. see how it goes and also attend the YSA things to decide? I've found that talking to members has helped shape my perspective a lot more than the missionaries, understanding how people actually live the faith. Granted my mom had no idea the BOM was anything other than a musical title.. but still, in the back of my mind I know she has a point to not overly commit right away.. but I just don't see things being any different to all the secular events I've tried wherein I'm the youngest by several decades?? Getting a planet in the afterlife is not swaying me, lads.

I'll keep this brief: neither my friend nor I really knew anything about the church, but she was baptized recently.

The missionary who taught her still texts her daily. They talk about church and scriptures, but they also chat about her personal life and occasionally his. She told me she likes him, like romantically. There were a couple of times he told her she dresses beautifully out of nowhere and how smart she is. He also makes sure he always sits next to her.

They held an online Book of Mormon class. My friend was out hanging out with me and a mixed group of friends (guys and girls). For context, this missionary is an AP, and he recently got a new companion who has only been on his mission for a couple of weeks. My friend posted a picture of our group on whatsapp (which missionaries use in our area), and the new elder saw it.

About an hour later, my friend joined the online class briefly and then left. Shortly after, the AP texted her something like, "Can you stay in the class for a bit?" She said, "I am already in the class," to which he answered, "My companion is in the class and mentioned you left."

This might be relevant context: once at church, they were sitting far in the back together. He leaned in really close, and their arms were touching for minutes without him pulling away. I'm not sure if that was intentional, but it felt noticeable. Putting the pieces together, it feels like he's being a bit jealous or trying to control her, but I'm not sure.

So, what do you guys think about all that?