Blogger of Jared

Introducing: The Classics

Posted by Ryan on January 13th, 2006

Lest we fall away from our roots and into originality, We would like to introduce a little symposium we want to call “The Classics”. We foresee the symposium lasting anywhere from 2-4 months as “Classic” posts will be interspersed with our normal thoughtful postings.
What is a “Classic Post” you ask? Well it’s nothing more than a re-hashing of some of the oldest and most played out debates in Mormon History. Items such as Birth Control, Tithing on net or gross, and other such inflammatory topics (if you’re lucky, we may even talk about caffeine and chocolate)
Why the “Classic Post”? we think that every Mormon Blog tries to avoid posts on the overplayed issues of Mormondom. Blogger of Jared isn’t any different in that respect. But sometimes, in the drive to keep the posts coming regularly I think that we might be tempted to fall back on the safety net of cliche. Hopefully we can purge our Blog of these topics by facing them head-on early in our existence and satisfying everybody’s need to vent their opinions on the subjects.
So, for discussion, we would like to hear as many suggestions as you have for “The Classics” symposium and we will address as many as we can.

11 Responses to “Introducing: The Classics”

whew.. tough crowd

Comment # 1 left by Ryan on January 17th, 2006

Yeah, not too much traffic lately. We should probably do more to increase our readership - spreading the word somehow. In the meantime, I think it’s important that we as founders (all four of us) keep posting our thoughts and questions.

As for starting the list of topics, I am currently in a discussion over at T&S about evolution and I think this has always been a good “classic” to discuss. Others: polygamy, femminism in the Church and its relation to Priesthood, pride, racism, and inter-kingdom progression come to mind for me.

Comment # 2 left by Wade on January 17th, 2006

How about: Conflicting commandments in the garden of eden, premortal fence sitters, The status of Judas Iscariot

Comment # 3 left by Ryan on January 17th, 2006

How about how masturbation can lead to blindness and eternal damnation. I swear I know more kids that were generally good kids that thought they were doing the worst possible thing in the world based on the teachings of the church so a lot of them felt they were already horrible sinners and just started a downward spiral.

Comment # 4 left by My Dominion on January 17th, 2006

you seem to have strong feelings on the subject. If you want to write a post about it and e-mail it to me, I’ll put it up for you.

Comment # 5 left by Ryan on January 18th, 2006

My Dominion:
I know more kids that were generally good kids that thought they were doing the worst possible thing in the world based on the teachings of the church…

Very interesting! First off, as a young man who grew up in the Church, I never once was taught (or even heard that it was Church doctrine from friends) that masturbation leads to blindness. Honestly, I was never given a lesson that ever taught about masturbation.

I for one think that the subject should be discussed more than it is. We, I think, tend to be very skittish about such topics and because of this, I think some might be misled in various ways.

However, I also think you might be giving what you call “the teachings of the church” too much credit for the life decisions of those “kids” you refer to.

Finally, we have a policy here at the Blogger of Jared about backing up arguments with authority. So, I would be very interested to have a citation referring to the teaching of the church that masturbation leads to blindness. Please advise!

Comment # 6 left by Wade on January 18th, 2006

I’m sure he was kidding about the blindness part Although I’ll have to insist that we save the discussion for the actual post

Comment # 7 left by Ryan on January 18th, 2006

I’m sure he was kidding…

Ah, I just couldn’t tell because the tone seemed pretty defensive?

As for reservation of the topic, I agree.

Comment # 8 left by Wade on January 18th, 2006

Polygamy anyone?? I am not referring to the past but the future. Also, explain the fairness of a man being able to be sealed to multiple women but not the reverse.

Ok I will take a deep breath now and think happy thoughts of monogamy.

Comment # 9 left by Mandy on January 24th, 2006

I like your spin on the polygamy issue! It brings to mind something that a woman in one of the wards on my mission said. She got so upset one day when I told her that I believed polygamy was an eternal law. She refused to accept that and said she would stay out of the Celestial Kingdom if she were ever required to enter into it.

Well, as for my personal belief, I still do think it is an eternal principle, but I also don’t believe that it is a prerequisite for entering the CK.

But, I’ll save my citations and thoughts for the post…I think I may end up posting this one soon?

Comment # 10 left by Wade on January 24th, 2006

As for the fairness of a woman not being able to be sealed to more than one man, this actually touches close to home for me: my great-grandfather caused a split, or what you could call a miniature apostasy, on my father’s side of the family because he constantly spoke evil of the leaders of the Church concerning this issue. He married a woman (my great-grandmother) after her husband died to whom she was sealed to after only a year of marriage. Well, they ended up having 11 children and none of them could be sealed to my grandfather because of this rule. He cursed the leadership of the Church on his death-bed (note: he served as an ordinance worker in the SLT until his death too).