Further Light and Knowledge

Good point. I take it you refer to the canonized notes to Official Declaration 1. Plenty of prophets (all of them?) do dubious things and are then called home. It got me thinking...


After reading your post I got thinking about the "removed from my place" that Woodruff speaks of. The context sounds like dying, but in the Bible "remove from a place" nearly always refers to geographic location. The D&C uses the words in the same way. Which is interesting because the intended "place" for Mormon leaders is Jackson County, as stated repeatedly in LDS scripture:



I find this interesting because the Utah LDS church has been so apostate for so long (apostasy literally means moving apart) that Packer and company no longer even pay lip service to the original teachings. Removing from their place - giving up the central concept of Zion - is only one element. We are all aware of Packer's attitude to Jesus' teachings on love (Jesus' teachings were mocked by Monson in the latest GC). We recently discussed how Packer has abandoned the "Second Coming soon" message. So that is both parts of the church's name shot down. We know Packer's attitude to education and D&C121 (persuasion, not authority) and everything else that ever inspired hope in the church. I just marvel at how far the church has come that Packer no longer seems out of place.

[/rambling tangent]

Acknowledgment

Deseret Book Company wishes to express appreciation and gratitude to President Joseph Fielding Smith of the Council of the Twelve and The Improvement Era for permission to publish the material which has appeared in the magazine as a monthly series under the title "Your Question." During the past several years this feature has been so popular, that Deseret Book Company sought permission from President Smith and The Improvement Era to collect the material in book form. Answers to Gospel Questions is presented to Church readers with the sincere hope that it will provide answers to perplexing questions and increase knowledge of Church doctrine.

Deseret Book Company also desires to acknowledge its indebtedness to Joseph Fielding Smith, Jr. for his painstaking care and expert assistance in the planning and publication of this book.

FOREWORD

Since May 1953, President Joseph Fielding Smith has been answering the questions of readers, in a monthly page in The Improvement Era, under the continuing title--"Your Question."

In his mail comes a multiplicity of questions of all kinds, pertaining to scripture, to doctrine, to history, and to the interpretation of many points and problems.

He cannot, of course, answer all the questions that come. The mail is too voluminous, the questions too repetitious, and time and strength too limited, with all the other official obligations.

But with all these limitations, President Smith has given an earnest and eminently able service in selecting from among the many, those questions which to him seem most timely, or most significant, or most frequently repeated.

In using the pages of The Improvement Era for this purpose, President Smith has carried forward a tradition passed on from his father, President Joseph F. Smith, who, in 1897, was one of the Era's first editors, and whose doctrinal and other writings appeared on the "Editor's Table" and elsewhere in the Era, beginning some sixty years ago. Some of those Era writings of President Joseph F. Smith found their way into the much read and much quoted book, Gospel Doctrine, which has proved so significantly useful to the Church.

And now, in this generation, we are grateful for President Joseph Fielding Smith's willingness to bring his broad background of scripture, and doctrine, and history to the Church, through the pages of The Improvement Era, and through the pages of this book, which carries the title Answers to Gospel Questions.

The Deseret Book Company has requested the privilege of collecting and publishing these writings, and The Improvement Era, with President Smith's concurrence, has granted that privilege, to perpetuate a work that will be widely read and widely referred to, in answering "Your Question."

AHHHHH! I've been waiting to hear the "special spirit" one. A child born with problems is supposedly a special spirit for the family. If the kid could talk, do you think he'd consider himself special? Is the whole family special because of this situation? Is heaven going to be a better place because they'll be sharing it with a special person? Quite frankly I think it's atrocious the load of shit that disabled people have to go through in this life, and even more hideous the way some of them are treated in school settings. I wouldn't call it special. I'd call it shitty. Having watched a dear friend raise a son with CP, seeing him fall down flights of stairs at school, listening to him tell me about the horrible pain he has in his joints, my heart breaks for him. Very few people in his life have treated him like he's special.

What kind of god would allow this and then try to tell them that he did it because they were special? Fuck that god.

What kind of god would allow this and then try to tell them that he did it because they were special? Fuck that god.

I was taught that Satan had dominion over the water. My mom later told me that was NEVER taught and isn't doctrine (bullshit). Fucked me up for swimming in the sea when I was younger. Now I don't swim in the sea because of the jellyfish. Also, there's a lot of uncanonized doctrine about a woman's worthiness being associated with motherhood and the amount of children she bears.

Isn't that bit about Satan and the waters in the D&C? I think it is. So it's doctrine. Give me a break. Never taught. Bullshit indeed.