(Non-Mormon) Black and white couple moving to SLC or a surrounding area (hot, church)

[Lmejh]

Originally Posted by OhYaImThatChick

Okay so if they are not adopted by mormons they will never be saved?? Thats a bunch of BS a human can not be another humans savior! Yes, they may be able to "save" them from bad situations but only God & Jesus can provide Eternal Salvation by being saved.

They believe they are the only true church so... I'm not sure. Better to ask a Mormon than me. But I don't think they believe they themselves can save the children. They baptize them into the Church so then God and Jesus can provide eternal salvation.

Look, I'm just trying to interpret what they believe through what I've learned over time by living in Utah. I'm not here to argue about religion because I'm most certainly not qualified, but I'm trying to be rational about things... go figure.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by OhYaImThatChick

Well Katzpur, It sounds as if your maybe a baby Mormon that hasn't done much History in the church.

Oh, yeah... right. I'm probably old enough to be your grandmother. I've been in the Church all my life. I have probably attended well over 2500 LDS worship services during that time. Believe me, my knowledge of LDS history so far surpasses yours that it's not even funny.

All these new "Revelations" the Church keeps having in a way call God a liar. They say God told them one thing and then when they get "heat" for it they change their mind and say God told them a new idea to believe in. Isn't this the same with Polygamy? Next your gonna tell me the Mormons didn't practice or start that either.........

You're rambling. Calm down at stop frothing at the mouth.

In 1967 Ezra Taft Benson said, We can therefore see that when the Mormons came here to 'set up shop' in 1968, black skinned people could join the church but the 'priesthood' was denied to them because they were 'cursed.'

Oh, I see... The back-pedaling has now begun. In your last post, you said Blacks couldn't be members of the Church. Now I see you've changed your story. Now we're talking about the Priesthood. Well, we're at least making progress.

In 1978, the church abolished a long-standing practice that kept black men from seeking priesthoods and black women from participating in temple ceremonies.

That's correct.

In 2006, Mormon president Gordon B. Hinckley publicly declared the faith open to all people.

The faith has been open to all people since 1830.

In 1978 the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints was under increasing pressure by the US government to end its racist doctrine and teachings or lose its tax-free status. Additionally, the church leadership saw the expansion in countries such as Brazil to be one big embarrassment to them.

The pressure you're speaking of ended some 20 years prior to 1978. You are seriously distorting the facts and you're spouting off to the wrong person. If you had any idea whatsoever how I personally felt about the ban, you would probably be a little less hostile. Seriously, I remember clearly the day the ban was lifted. Hearing the announcement was positively one of the most wonderfully memorable days I can remember in my life.

Now instead of continuing to bash the Mormon people, why don't you just stick to the topic of the OP.

[stycotl]

Originally Posted by OhYaImThatChick

I NEVER said they wouldn't love the children they took in or take care of them

pretty much, yes you did.

I just see it that they are doing it for the wrong reasons.

here you go. if they love and care for the kids, then they aren't doing it for "all of the wrong reasons," now are they?

that phrase, "for all of the wrong reasons," usually implies one of two things:

that every reason for which they adopted the kids is wrong.

or

they adopted the kids for every wrong reason that is in existence.

on the latter, there is obviously no way that you could successfully argue that they were adopted for every wrong reason out there.

on the former, you are already contradicting yourself in your thesis statement. either they love the kids, or they are adopting them for all of the wrong reasons.

which is it?

In one ward alone they had 30+ families all adopt AA children

to quote you, "now come on."

now come on...

yep, there it was.

did they really all do that to "help" NO I don't think so.

first of all, you are already showing yourself to be incapable of emotionally detaching yourself from this discussion in any manner, so i am pretty sure that people are skeptical about your 30+ families in one ward scenario.

even if it proves itself to be true, that does not mean anything in particular, and certainly does not default to the "all the wrong reasons" that you have presumed.

I myself am black/white

great. want a cookie? that has nothing to do with the discussion except to point out that you obviously think that the color of your skin affects the validity of your argument. maybe it lends weight to your "all the wrong reasons" generalizations or something.

feel free to explain this too, so that we can see that we're not dealing with a bitter, emotionally volatile person here.

& I would never want to be Mormon!

and case and point. emotionally reactive. vendetta. bitter hatred. the works.

I've had many friends & family whom are

i can keep handing out cookies for a while, but eventually i'll run out and you will have to start giving yourself your own cookies.

and then also with the whole Blacks not being allowed in their church for years should put a bad taste in any AA's mouth.

yeah, especially the black members of the church that are constantly confronted with this lie by accusatory nonmembers.

get your facts straight; then you are more than welcome to come pointing fingers.

incidentally, none of this has anything to do with your original thesis of mormons adopting black children for all of the wrong reasons. this is called a tangent, and is either indicative of a person that does not know what their argument is, or someone that is purposefully evading and deflecting (dishonesty, for those that need to look it up).

Yes, I'm sure other religions have said a person of a certain race can't be in the church but none so vocal as the LDS church.

feel free to try and prove this statement.

so far, your accusations are based on multiple repetitions of "all the wrong reasons," which is obvious hyperbole, and inconsistent with a rational argument, a few lies and distortions of facts, and your personal skin color and religious preferences.

you're on a roll. feel free to keep them coming.

So only the LDS can determine or provide ones "Eternal Salvation" for these kids????

nope. in fact, no mortal or church can determine any of that; that is mormon doctrine for ya.

Originally Posted by Lmejh

Well, that's their belief. That's one reason they adopt these kids, along with making sure they don't have to suffer in some Godforsaken orphanage. You know, some Mormons have good intentions too...

thanks for the kind words. to clarify though, the mormons don't believe that we get to determine where other people go. we don't believe that only mormons are going to heaven either. in fact, the whole term, "mormons," is misleading in that sense anyway, and only aggravates the human tendancy to turn religion into a social club (one of the reasons that the church leaders don't like the term). but then again, this is all for the religious forum....

Originally Posted by OhYaImThatChick

Okay so if they are not adopted by mormons they will never be saved?? Thats a bunch of BS

that is a bunch of bs. luckily for you, mormons don't believe that. so you can put that paranoia to rest for now.

a human can not be another humans savior!

no kidding. again, move along; you're barking up the wrong tree. mormons don't believe in that.

Yes, they may be able to "save" them from bad situations but only God & Jesus can provide Eternal Salvation by being saved.

glad you are understanding the idea.

Mormons that believe in doing good works to be saved need to read this!

mormons do read that. we believe that Christ's atonement is the *only* way we are saved. we believe that you need to accept the atonement in order to be saved. again, food for the religious forum.

but again, unrelated to your original purpose, and supportive only of a widening rant.

And belive me Mormons like to boast about their good works they do.

nice generalizations and baseless accusations. try at least providing some links or something when you accuse 10 million people at the same time.

Ever time they donate money they put it on the news as a top story.

feel free to tally good deeds and news articles and get back to me. you have hardly gotten a single sentence in on this forum without a logical fallacy.

most mormons are doing small deeds that never make the papers. care to argue that and try to tell us that every single one of those is newsworthy?

even the big stuff does not get covered all of the time. the only time i get to hear a synopsis of the entirety of the year's charitable functions is during general conference when they are reporting to me where my money has gone during the year. fiscal responsibility. what a horribly satanic thing to encourage...

When you truly do a good deed you should except nothing in return not even acknowledgment for it. Unless you need to show off to boast yourself up!

no kidding. you teaching sunday school this week, or am i?

Well Katzpur, It sounds as if your maybe a baby Mormon that hasn't done much History in the church.

you keep getting better. adding arrogant (and ignorant) assumptions of individuals that you know nothing about to the general accusations of 10 million people.

All these new "Revelations" the Church keeps having in a way call God a liar.

you don't believe in modern revelation. so what? take it to the religious forum. this has nothing to do with the op, and it doesn't even have to do with your derailed accusations about baby adoptions.

They say God told them one thing and then when they get "heat" for it they change their mind and say God told them a new idea to believe in. Isn't this the same with Polygamy? Next your gonna tell me the Mormons didn't practice or start that either.........

no, for some reason, i don't think that katz was gonna claim any of that. but since you keep founding your argument on assumptions and generalizations like that, i'm assuming that this is just projection.

Psychological projection - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
just in case you don't know what i'm talking about.

scriptures and historical dates...

so, what does this have to do with adoption and black babies?

since you are stumped here (unless you are making things up), i'll help.

nothing.

this has nothing to do with the adoption of children.

i will ask again, if a white family adopting a black baby is for the wrong reasons, is it also wrong when they adopt white children, asian children, european children, south and central american children?

what is the difference in your eyes? i am giving you the chance to calm down and rationally explain yourself so that you quit offending everyone on the board (including the other nonmormons) with your uneducated (as relating to this subject; i make no assumptions as to your extracurricular knowledge–although debate certainly isn't one of them...) and baseless accusations.

quit with the hyperbole. quit generalizing everyone in the church. quit lying about what we believe. quit changing the subject. quit frantically grasping at everything that you hate about the church, especially when it has nothing to do with the conversation. narrow your rant to the topic of adoption and black children in white familes.

if you can do that, we might be able to salvage this discussion and turn it into something meaningful.

as far as myself: i have seen adoptions for many good reasons, and i have seen adoptions for many wrong reasons.

let me give a legal disclaimer here, and say that white families adopting black (or other minority) children is not unique to utah or mormons. i just moved from north carolina a little over a year ago, and there were white families with adopted foreign children there too.

everywhere that i have been that i have seen adoption up close, i have seen a mix of tendancies. some people really do it for some poor reasons. but i can't say that they did it for "all of the wrong reasons," because that is in and of itself a logical fallacy. you can't successfully argue a logical fallacy. it is like trying to successfully figure out a mathematical equation when you purposefully screwed up some of the numbers. it'll never turn out.

anyway, back to adoptions.

i have noticed a trend among white families. similar to what alexai27 and moonlight melvin were saying, some people look at an adopted child of different skin color like they would an exotic pet. pretty stupid reason to take in a kid, if you ask me.

some other people do it because, as thatchick was ranting about, they want to be seen as saintly.

some other people do it for perverted reasons, though i won't mention any names (will i, woody allen?).

there are probably other bad reasons to adopt that i am not even considering (wonder about the tax breaks and stuff...).

but there are people even in utah that are doing it for the right reasons too. thatchick said that she never claimed they don't love the kids.

that would be one of the right reasons, smart one. in fact, that would be the right reason, trumping all others, and beating almost all of the wrong reasons that they would want to adopt a kid.

let's talk about my personal experience with adoption: my sister is married to a man that had been adopted by a mormon family–he's white. my brother just married a girl adopted by a mormon family–she's white. one of my friends growing up, adopted by a mormon family is... central american. my aunt and uncle adopted two black kids... because they thought that they were cool? no. because they wanted the liberals next door to worship them. no; because they didn't want the kids to get split up, and they love them. my neighbors have adopted a black kid, and i don't know them well enough yet (we're new in the area) to tell you why they did it, but i know that they love the boy, and so do his siblings.

those are the ones that i can remember off the top of my head. my wife and i have even talked of adopting, and we don't care what color the kid is or what kind of tax incentives we'll find. we just want to help care for some of the otherwise unwanted children in the world.

sound like the wrong reasons to you? feel free to describe to me what they did wrong and why. don't forget to go into detail about their obviously flawed intentions.

otherwise, if you can't think up an answer and you can't hold an intelligent conversation, feel free to keep ranting, accusing, and making an online fool of yourself.

aaron out.

[Lmejh]

thanks for the kind words. to clarify though, the mormons don't believe that we get to determine where other people go. we don't believe that only mormons are going to heaven either. in fact, the whole term, "mormons," is misleading in that sense anyway, and only aggravates the human tendancy to turn religion into a social club (one of the reasons that the church leaders don't like the term). but then again, this is all for the religious forum....

Okay, thanks for the clarification. Isn't the whole deal with heaven those that have accepted the gospel and are faithful with it achieve the glory of the celestial kingdom? And those that don't have a chance to do so in their eternal life? Something like that. I'm not trying to be a religious philosopher but I guess I'm trying to justify OhYaImThatChick's flawed and just plain wrong reasoning for this whole adoption deal. But that's not the topic of the thread... did the OP ever come back anyway?

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by Lmejh

Okay, thanks for the clarification. Isn't the whole deal with heaven those that have accepted the gospel and are faithful with it achieve the glory of the celestial kingdom? And those that don't have a chance to do so in their eternal life? Something like that. I'm not trying to be a religious philosopher but I guess I'm trying to justify OhYaImThatChick's flawed and just plain wrong reasoning for this whole adoption deal. But that's not the topic of the thread... did the OP ever come back anyway?

Brtiefly, we believe in a Heaven comprised of three distinct "degrees of glory" (the highest is said to have a glory comparable to that of the sun, the next to the moon and the last to the stars). People will be given a degree of glory commensurate with the way they lived their lives. We don't believe that the final curtain falls at death, though. There are millions of people who have lived and died without ever having had the opportunity to hear or at least really understand the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe that during the time between their deaths and resurrections, they can still be taught the gospel and have the opportunity to either accept or reject it. Hence, a person could live his entire life as a Catholic, a Methodist, a Jew or a Hindu and then accept the restored gospel in the Spirit World after death. That person would have just as much chance of receiving Celestial glory in the hereafter as someone who was raised LDS here on earth. (This really should be on one of the religious forums, but it's bound to come up on a thread about Utah, I guess.)

[stycotl]

Originally Posted by Katzpur

Brtiefly, we believe in a Heaven comprised of three distinct "degrees of glory" (the highest is said to have a glory comparable to that of the sun, the next to the moon and the last to the stars). People will be given a degree of glory commensurate with the way they lived their lives. We don't believe that the final curtain falls at death, though. There are millions of people who have lived and died without ever having had the opportunity to hear or at least really understand the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We believe that during the time between their deaths and resurrections, they can still be taught the gospel and have the opportunity to either accept or reject it. Hence, a person could live his entire life as a Catholic, a Methodist, a Jew or a Hindu and then accept the restored gospel in the Spirit World after death. That person would have just as much chance of receiving Celestial glory in the hereafter as someone who was raised LDS here on earth. (This really should be on one of the religious forums, but it's bound to come up on a thread about Utah, I guess.)

nice explanation. the interesting thing about this is that, as katz said, a person could live their entire life as something other than mormon, and because they still lived their life faithfully and charitably according to what knowledge they did have in this life, they will have the opportunity to receive salvation in the fullest, going to heaven and living with God and with their families–without ever being "mormon." in heaven, mormons isn't going to mean much except as the name of a few individuals throughout history. it is going to be a follower of Christ, or not. no denominations, no club meetings, etc.

[markg91359]

A few words about racism and the LDS Church. I'll submit the LDS Church is about in line with other churches when it comes to racism. The reality is that civil rights were slow in coming for African Americans. Many Christian denominations in the South undertook to defend the practice of slavery based upon language in the Bible before the Civil War. Its worse than this though. Most of these same Christian churches fought the civil rights movement during the 1960's.

It is true that the priesthood was not extended to black men until 1978. This was done when President Spencer W. Kimball had a revelation. I remember this moment well. I was sitting in my barber's chair getting a haircut when the phone rang. I knew my barber well and the caller was also someone I knew. He informed her of President Kimball's revelation. I remember feeling as many other members of the church did that a great moral weight had been lifted from our shoulders. That was 31 years ago.

In retrospect, I think we all wish now that the revelation had come sooner. Clearly, this priesthood ban hurt the church and was very hard to defend. I felt the arguments in favor of the priesthood ban were so silly they were almost laughable.

But, it doesn't take away from the fact that the day it came was a great day that many of us in the church still savor.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by markg91359

I remember this moment well. I was sitting in my barber's chair getting a haircut when the phone rang. I knew my barber well and the caller was also someone I knew. He informed her of President Kimball's revelation. I remember feeling as many other members of the church did that a great moral weight had been lifted from our shoulders. That was 31 years ago.

In retrospect, I think we all wish now that the revelation had come sooner. Clearly, this priesthood ban hurt the church and was very hard to defend. I felt the arguments in favor of the priesthood ban were so silly they were almost laughable.

But, it doesn't take away from the fact that the day it came was a great day that many of us in the church still savor.

Your thoughts mirror mine almost to the letter, Mark. I can remember the day very well, too. (I guess you must be "old" like me. ) I was at work and it was just before noon. When I first heard -- word spread quickly around the office, and I just heard a fellow co-worker tell someone -- I thought, "Okay, what's the punch line?" When I realized it wasn't a joke, I was overwhelmed with happiness. I left the building for lunch just a few minutes later. I worked on Social Hall Avenue at the time, just a couple of blocks away from Church Headquarters. As I walked across State Street, I became aware that I had this ear-to-ear grin on my face. As soon as I realized it, I felt so silly, but then I started looking around me and I could hardly believe what I saw. I wasn't the only one smiling. It was incredible. The news was spreading quickly and everybody I saw seemed to be so happy. Obviously there were some who were not, but it really was a neat experience to be part of.

[susiederkins]

I still don't understand how you can believe an all powerful, all knowing being changes his mind so much. Seems more like a flawed man realizing mistakes made by flawed religion and finding a way to cover them up and get some publicity at the same time. Don't get me wrong, I doubt any religion's got it all figured out... but admit your mistakes.... This "revelation" thing is just embarrassing.

Anyways... Trucker'sWife, Draper is a great place to live. We have several bi-racial couples just on our street. You made a good choice. I have to admit, there are whole towns in this state where all the African American's could be counted on my hands (I'm from Florida, so it was a big shock to me, and I'm white) But draper is one of the better areas. I'm sure you'll like it here.

[Katzpur]

Originally Posted by susiederkins

I still don't understand how you can believe an all powerful, all knowing being changes his mind so much. Seems more like a flawed man realizing mistakes made by flawed religion and finding a way to cover them up and get some publicity at the same time. Don't get me wrong, I doubt any religion's got it all figured out... but admit your mistakes.... This "revelation" thing is just embarrassing.

I'm not embarrassed in the slightest. And if this were the religion forum, I'd be inclined to ask you why you think I should be. Since it's not, I'll let you go start a thread elsewhere if you're interested. Obviously, there's a lot you don't know about the LDS Church.