it's certainly a basis. this passage is referring to a specific group of people in the book of mormon, who (as i'm sure you know because you've read and studied the whole thing) are sometimes thought to be ancestors of native central americans. not people of african descent. but bigoted people used it to justify…

re: miracles. who knows. like i said, the personal experience of faith is much more effective anyway, so i don't really care. i'm with einstein on, "there are only two ways to live your life. one is as though nothing is a miracle. the other is as though everything is a miracle."

blammo, ReignDrops. blammo!

ugh. i really can identify with so much of what you're saying. i also had experiences of confessing sexual sins to male leaders, and i recall the pain that caused. i separated myself from the church for 7 years because of many of the issues you're discussing here. the biggest one for me was the church's treatment…

for sure. i think a lot of feminists wouldn't be ok with that. they obviously aren't, because a lot of feminists aren't ok with the lds church. but, as i mentioned in another post, feminism is ultimately about choice. if, with a diversity of choice, good information about the choices available, and no bias-driven…

if that's what you've gotten from everything i've said here, that's fine. i didn't mean for the lds charities site to answer your questions, only to point to the good the church does in the world in response to your characterization of the lds church as a harmful organization.

do you ever wonder why god would choose to set up the church in such a way when he could presumably have chosen other criteria to hold the priesthood?

a basic concept of feminism as i understand it is being free to be the kind of woman i choose to be. choice, of course, can't happen in a vacuum; there has to be a diversity of choice for the choosing to be meaningful. the chooser needs accurate and multi-sided information about all the choices. there can't be…

a little girl i used to babysit got to do that to daddy all the time. it was amazing.

i'm pretty sure that deciding who is and isn't a feminist is like, the least feminist thing evz.

yeah. it can get...exhausting. i like trying though because when it goes well it feels amazing.

hey thanks! that's so nice of you!

it's definitely hard. faith takes work. sometimes i have had very inspirational experiences (like many sets of circumstances coming together in an unexpectedly positive way, or a very profound physical feeling during prayer) and that has helped to reinforce for me that i am doing the right thing and am in the right…

oh for sure. fucking johnny lingo makes me wretch.

that's a good question, and one that i might not speak to very eloquently, but i can try.

sure. i don't actually know the specific reasons for the lowering of the missionary age (i didn't watch that session of general conference, i took a nap. i am not claiming to be a super mormon, here). my understanding of it is that it's to allow more people to go on missions without interrupting their schooling. i…

i'm doing my best. i think my best might be pretty bad, though.

we believe that the bible is the word of god as far as it was translated correctly. we believe the book of mormon to be the word of god, as it was translated only once, directly from its original language with the divine help of god the father and christ (if you don't want to get on that bandwagon with me, then…

i'm glad that you found a way to live and be happy in your adult life. that is what mormonism does for me. i don't agree that the lds church teaches that my role as a woman is not equal to a man's role. that's contrary to what it says in the proclamation to the world on the family. my beliefs as a feminist enhance…

oh, i think it's just coming up because they changed the missionary ages. gotta spread it around, right?