State of the Community

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by RedHeadGal

If it's true that we are assimilating, which I'm not sure I agree with, one of the next things to go needs to be Prohibition within the church. For me, I think this is one of the most commonly recurring differences for me among friends and neighbors. Yet we seem content on that point, and I don't see a movement to bring back the vino.

the WoW has become as central to our identity as about anything.

It's probably as likely they will get rid of temple ceremonies.

i.e. not likely.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by RedHeadGal

If it's true that we are assimilating, which I'm not sure I agree with, one of the next things to go needs to be Prohibition within the church. For me, I think this is one of the most commonly recurring differences for me among friends and neighbors. Yet we seem content on that point, and I don't see a movement to bring back the vino.

For the love of God, go ahead and have a martini with friends after work. I promise you won't go to hell for it.

I think much more urgently what needs to go is the prohibition on pre-marital sex. This is the root cause of all the premature marriages in the LDS Church. Of course, this would need to be accompanied by rigorous sex education.

[Tex]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

the WoW has become as central to our identity as about anything.

It's probably as likely they will get rid of temple ceremonies.

i.e. not likely.

Perhaps a hidden purpose of the Word of Wisdom is not just to keep us healthy, but to set us apart as a people.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by RedHeadGal

If it's true that we are assimilating, which I'm not sure I agree with, one of the next things to go needs to be Prohibition within the church. For me, I think this is one of the most commonly recurring differences for me among friends and neighbors. Yet we seem content on that point, and I don't see a movement to bring back the vino.

Perhaps, but there are many health fans who eschew alcoholic consumption. I don't see any great loss of rejecting alcoholic consumption.

[RedHeadGal]

Originally Posted by SeattleUte

For the love of God, go ahead and have a martini with friends after work. I promise you won't go to hell for it.

I think much more urgently what needs to go is the prohibition on pre-marital sex. This is the root cause of all the premature marriages in the LDS Church. Of course, this would need to be accompanied by rigorous sex education.

I don't mind living alcohol-free, and I never think about it in terms of the sinful consequences. It's more just part of who I am and how I was raised. It just seems to come up a lot. Call me when you're next in DC. We can go for drinks, but I'll have soda.

But I take your point about the no premarital sex--that's a problem too. I'm not sure it's a problem in terms of whether we are distinct or not. By that I mean that I think lots of churches preach against premarital sex. And then many congregants from those churches choose to live differently. I think that's becoming increasingly true among LDS young adults as well (although I don't really know for sure).

It may be *a* root cause for the early marriages, but it's certainly not the only one. Equally as problematic is the fact that we teach the young women that it's virtually their sole purpose--so that's what they aim for as they enter adulthood. And they do have biological clocks to consider, esp if they want to have 4-5 children spaced apart 2-3 years.

[RedHeadGal]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

the WoW has become as central to our identity as about anything.

It's probably as likely they will get rid of temple ceremonies.

i.e. not likely.

I agree it's not going anywhere. I don't really mind. I was talking about the assimilation point.

Where does the urge to assimilate into the broader culture? Does the LDS culture as a whole want to assimilate? I think probably so.

Does the LDS leadership want to assimilate? I actually don't know.

[RedHeadGal]

Originally Posted by Archaea

Perhaps, but there are many health fans who eschew alcoholic consumption. I don't see any great loss of rejecting alcoholic consumption.

And health fans who believe some consumption is beneficial. Same for coffee and tea.

[MikeWaters]

Originally Posted by RedHeadGal

I agree it's not going anywhere. I don't really mind. I was talking about the assimilation point.

Where does the urge to assimilate into the broader culture? Does the LDS culture as a whole want to assimilate? I think probably so.

Does the LDS leadership want to assimilate? I actually don't know.

I think a strong argument can be made that the LDS leadership is very comfortable with cultural assimilation into the Christian right-wing. They want to be considered a major player in this coalition, they also want to deemphasize the things about Mormonism that are controversial to these people.

[SeattleUte]

Originally Posted by MikeWaters

the WoW has become as central to our identity as about anything.

It's probably as likely they will get rid of temple ceremonies.

i.e. not likely.

We recently had a discussion on the sister forum where the concsensus ultimately reached was that the temple ceremonies had evolved substantially, the bulk of them were adapted from the Masons, strictly a late medieval Europe phenomenon, and the LDS Church could easily and probably should dispense with most of them.

[Archaea]

Originally Posted by RedHeadGal

And health fans who believe some consumption is beneficial. Same for coffee and tea.

Retrace the history of the "health" articles and you'll find they actually trace back to questionable research funded by the French wine industry. There is no solid evidence alcoholic consumption has a net health benefit.

The arguments for coffee are weaker than the wine arguments. It depends upon the nature of tea.

Frankly, I don't care what a person consumes, but as for me, I don't wish to consume those items. It may be that I consumed those beverages in the past and decided against current consumption apart from any religious dogma. But I suspect Mike is right, in that the Church likes that to be our brand distinction.