posted
I'm a little rusty on my LDS doctrine, so here's a couple questions I've been wondering about:
1. If the restored gospel that God revealed to Joseph Smith is meant to be the way that it was practiced by the ancient church, then why did Moroni, in his first appearance to Joseph Smith, go to such lengths to demonstrate that he wasn't wearing garments?
2. I've heard it said that you're not supposed to gamble, and that if you do you're not supposed to pay tithing on your winnings, as it's a sin. If this is true, does it also apply to money made on risky stocks?
2a. If you are supposed to pay tithing on stocks, say you make $100 one week, and you pay $10. Then you lose $100 the next week. Can you ask for your $10 back?
What if that happens over the course of the same week? Should you pay $10 on the $100 you made, even though you ended up breaking even? Or what if you miss church during the week that you made the $100? If you've lost it by your next chance to pay tithing, does that absolve you of your responsibility?
[ETA: And yes, this is a trap. If anyone responds to these questions before 4:00 p.m. MDT, verily I say unto thee, thou art busted. ]
posted
1) Without going into detail, Moroni was a resurrected being no longer living in this world when he appeared to Joseph Smith. Garments have to do with promises made while living in this world, and there is nothing as of yet in our religion to indicate that the same type of clothing will continue past death.
2) There is not official church doctrine on this, as far as I am aware, but these types of decisions are left up to the individual. If I was making and losing money on stocks, I would pay tithing only on the money made that I withdrew and added to my personal funds. If I only withdrew stock earnings once a year, I would pay money on that money then. If I withdrew money to spend every week, then I would pay tithing each week. In between times that I withdrew money for personal income, I would not pay or subtract tithing based on the fluctuations of the stock market.
Posts: 684 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
And yes, I am watching the sustaining of church officers on general conference while typing this, since you want to bust me Posts: 684 | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
? Light, I think you're the first person to mention the words "really" and "prophet", let alone in the phrase that you quoted them.
Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
| IP: Logged |
posted
Seriously LIGHT, go read Speed's post again. Your spin on what Speed said is not present in his post at all.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm not LDS and have no idea about question # 1, but a lot of people tithe, and I'd like to give my take on 2 and 2A:
2: "Risky" stocks are not identical to gambling. Gambling like poker or lotteries involves random chance. Even a risky stock involves some intellectual or intuitive element of choosing investments. For example, I may sink money into lunar powered energy sources because I think or feel they're due for a breakthrough.
But if I felt that my method of investment was so hit-or-miss that it was indistinguishable from gambling, AND I felt that gambling was wrong, my conscience should lead me to forsake such investing.
2A: It is possible to tithe on a fiscal quarter basis, or fiscal-year basis, or even on rolling average basis, so that such ups and downs are evened out.
Posts: 270 | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Gambling like poker or lotteries involves random chance. Even a risky stock involves some intellectual or intuitive element of choosing investments.
I would argue that some games, like poker, involve significantly less random chance than some investments.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
Thanks for the answers, everyone. Sometimes I still get nostalgic for Question Box Day in seminary, when we could drop weird things like this in a box and our teacher would pull them out and try to come up with answers. Did everyone's teachers do that, or was mine just extra cool? Or maybe too lazy to do a lesson plan every day?
Flying Fish: there is something I'm reminded of though--I've never seen the evidence myself, but I've heard a few economists reference studies showing that people who put their money in an index fund and forget about it tend, in the long run, to outperform people who try to pick individual stocks. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, would playing the stock market be any more like gambling?
Posts: 2804 | Registered: May 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Flying Fish, I'm assuming you're not familiar with the game of poker. Had you said slots instead of poker, or maybe even roulette or something like that...but while poker obviously involves some amount of random chance in the cards you are dealt (what aspect of life doesn't?) the game is as much a skill game as any you can think of.
Posts: 8741 | Registered: Apr 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:If the restored gospel that God revealed to Joseph Smith is meant to be the way that it was practiced by the ancient church
While I believe that the gospel was restored by Joseph Smith, I do not believe that the Saints in the 1830s, or any decade since, have practiced it in the same way it was practiced in any previous era.
As to the rest of your question -- I don't know, but I've wondered that many times myself.
As for #2, I agree that those are questions that each individual needs to answer themselves. It's never been an issue for me, so I've never formulated a personal opinion. And honestly, I don't intend to form one now.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
1) This question is similar to the "Jesus drank wine" question. It relates to the changes in Church policy over time and situation. There are various ways to answer it, in this case I find Marlozhan's the most plausible. To answer these kinds of questions in general: it could be a change over time in the way various covenants are expressed. The endowment, which results in the Church member wearing garments, is an eternal principle and required for salvation according to Church doctrine. Thus we can assume that Moroni, a saved being, has been endowed (as was part of the underlying assumption of your question). In this dispensation that covenant comes with a requirement to wear garments whenever possible but there is no decelerations that this is eternal, or that it was required in past dispensations (different times in which the Gospel was preached on the Earth). The other major way these kind of discrepancies are dealt with is to try to remove the discrepancy all together (the wine Jesus is recorded to have drunken was not alcoholic). I find these solutions much less compelling but there's nothing that says it's not right. Sometimes a combination of the two (e.g. water was not clean so wine had to be used in its place when drinking, or could be used). The third is to say that rule broken is not actually a rule (this comes up a lot with caffeine). In this case there's a special circumstance as the person in question is no longer mortal but acting as a saved being and a divine agent. As garments are a temporal reminder of spiritual commitment it is unlikely that saved beings (or spiritual beings as is) would be required to wear them. I suppose this is a variation on the change in doctrine in different times: only time isn't one second to the next but time in your life (resurrected vs. mortal).
2. Gambling has been spoken explicitly against. There are no rules about what you pay your tithing on in regards to coming from sinful activities. i.e. The Church wont tell you not to have sex outside of marriage, but if you do it for money don't pay tithing on it. They pretty much try to stick to the original rules. Though gambling is explicitly prohibited, there are not specific rules or definitions for what consitutes gambling. The defenitive talk in our generation was given by President Gordon B. Hinckley. He gives some specific examples (incidently, focusing on poker) and general guides for determining what is gambling but no lists. Again the desicion is left to the individual and the Spirit (i.e. this is to be discussed with the Lord about). I know many who say they wouldn't day trade because they consider it gambling. I don't think any of these people would day-trade anyways but the point is that's certainly an issue that is considered. However, it's certainly not Church policy that is or isn't and though I don't know any personally I'm sure there are plenty of LDS day-traders.
As to when to pay tithing... you're not getting your money back after you pay it. If you're on the edge financially I'm sure you could work something out with the Bishop in regards to getting some help equivalent to the amount you paid but it wouldn't be your money back. When you pay tithing today (this is a semi-recent development) the money goes straight to SLC and is distributed from there. There may be a procedure to return money if you screwed up and added some decimal points or something. If so I've never heard of it and I'm sure it's hard to do. I doubt it would work to get $10 back when you paid it to soon.
I suppose it's possible to interpret the tithing commandment so that it would lead to that but I doubt anyone does. It's increase, or net and part of the cost of doing business (in fact the main part) as a day trader is the lost deals. I think they's be smart enough to pick a long enough period so as to be statistically stable and then pay on those periods (i.e. longer than a week). Once again this is a personal thing. I got paid once a month in my last position and paid tithing once a month. Nothing says you have to pay it weekly even if you're paid weekly, do what you think is right.
Hope that's helpful clarification for someone at least rather than just a repeat.
posted
True enough, poker (and blackjack and pinochle and betting on sports) involves elements of skill as well as luck.
Indeed, you plant crops and gamble that this year won't be a fifty-year drought; you work Monday through Friday and gamble that your employer won't go bankrupt over the weekend and fail to cover your earned wages.
If you're motivated to avoid "gambling" for religious or other reasons you'll often have to go back to your conscience or to some authority to see what's gambling and what isn't.
Posts: 270 | Registered: Apr 2009
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: it's a weird definition of gambling indeed that works hard not to count Poker as qualifying.
Samp, I wasnt objecting to labeling poker as gambling (and don't think my post implied this at all), but to lumping it in with lottery as simply a "game of chance". But now that you bring it up, in what way is investing in the stock market not gambling given that playing poker is defined as gambling? They both involve money, they both involve some chance factors out of your control, and they both involve an incredible amount of skill and knowledge to master.
posted
The stock market has significantly more luck involved than poker, but the baseline has a positive trend. I think a reasonable requirement of gambling is that it be a zero sum game (or worse), so one can only win if others lose.
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
While we're here, can anyone explain the history of the magnets question? From what I can find online, there are lots of people that ask Mormons to explain magnets, but they don't even seem to understand why they're asking the question.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by fugu13: The stock market has significantly more luck involved than poker, but the baseline has a positive trend. I think a reasonable requirement of gambling is that it be a zero sum game (or worse), so one can only win if others lose.
Speaking only for myself, that makes a lot of sense as a part of the definition.
quote:Originally posted by Glenn Arnold: While we're here, can anyone explain the history of the magnets question? From what I can find online, there are lots of people that ask Mormons to explain magnets, but they don't even seem to understand why they're asking the question.
What? Any links? I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
posted
fugu, I think that definition certainly helps to make a distinction between standard forms of gambling and stocks. Though as far as I'm aware that distinction is not made in the accepted definition of the word.
From Wikipedia:
quote:Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value (referred to as "the stakes") on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods.
From Merriam Webster:
quote:1 a: to play a game for money or property b: to bet on an uncertain outcome 2 : to stake something on a contingency
posted
It sort of is, though indirectly. It is necessary that money be wagered, bet, or staked, which can have broad colloquial meanings, but in certain strict readings imply the zero sum (or worse) property, particularly for wagering and betting (both of which imply a matched exchange between counterparties).
Posts: 15770 | Registered: Dec 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote: What? Any links? I have absolutely no idea what you're talking about.
To give you an idea, just go to google and type in "Mormons." "Mormons and Magnets" is the second item in the drop down menu, for me.
Seriously, there are so many links I don't know where to begin, and very little explanation. The best I can guess is that it's something like a rickroll, and definitely a troll thing to do, but I have no idea where it came from.
Posts: 3735 | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Charming. Having read through a bunch of that, the meme seems to have two prongs: - magnets are "unexplainable" and thus proof of God, but really proof of science (and thus all other things that Mormons take as proof of God are equally fallacious); - The BOM features people using compasses before they were invented. (I have no idea if this one has the slightest basis in truth.) With the obvious "therefore".
In either case, definitely trolling. I suspect the alliterativeness helped popularize the meme as well.
Posts: 32919 | Registered: Mar 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
The "compass" referred to in the Book of Mormon is not a magnetic compass, so the whole thing's moot anyway.
Posts: 9945 | Registered: Sep 2002
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hmm. I find that kind of sad. I know a lot of atheists/agnostics aren't thrilled with the wonders of the natural world are evidence of God thing. I imagine it's because when they hear it, it serves as a (paltry) argument to believe in God. The thing is, in my limited experience, the vast majority of the time the religious use it it's as an excuse to talk about science or the natural world. Almost the exact opposite of the way the non-religious experience it, they're trying to show that the wonders of the natural world or even science are spiritual and magnificent. Which is why I find it sad that it's apparently a matter of mockery. Oh well, hardly the worst thing done in religious-non-religious relations.
posted
What I don't like about science: No proper sense of wonder at things that are truly wonderful.
What I like about science: The can do attitude that given enough time and study anything can be figured out.
What I don't like about (some) religions: That no answer at all could be in any way taken as serious "proof" of anything.
What I like about religion: When people believe in something greater then themselves which they can not prove, they gain from it, regardless of what it is.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
Where does this idea come from that a scientific understanding of the universe makes things less wonderful and awe inspiring? I direct you to xkcd as definitive proof of my point:
quote:Where does this idea come from that a scientific understanding of the universe makes things less wonderful and awe inspiring?
there's a lot of reasons. They have more to do with the psychology and the positional bias of the people who claim it than anything else.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by rivka: Charming. Having read through a bunch of that, the meme seems to have two prongs: - magnets are "unexplainable" and thus proof of God, but really proof of science (and thus all other things that Mormons take as proof of God are equally fallacious);
.. oh god. there's no way that the whole mormons and magnets thing isn't based off the, quote, '****ing magnets, how do they work' meme.
ICP indirectly got mormons trolled. Lol, wow.
quote:Originally posted by Strider:
quote:Originally posted by Samprimary: it's a weird definition of gambling indeed that works hard not to count Poker as qualifying.
Samp, I wasnt objecting to labeling poker as gambling (and don't think my post implied this at all), but to lumping it in with lottery as simply a "game of chance". But now that you bring it up, in what way is investing in the stock market not gambling given that playing poker is defined as gambling? They both involve money, they both involve some chance factors out of your control, and they both involve an incredible amount of skill and knowledge to master.
The way I think about it, knowing and having partied with plenty of career gamblers (and their hapless whales): if you told any of them that what they did wasn't gambling, they'd roll their eyes at you. But they would also roll their eyes at you if you suggested that it could not be considered a sport / skill-based venture on their part, as the two aren't really mutually exclusive or contradictory. Poker is like blackjack in that they're both obviously (or should be obviously) gambling, but it's a type of gambling that you can offset in your favor by preying on fools and less talented gamblers, counting cards until you're forced to move tables/floors, etc.
Posts: 15421 | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:No proper sense of wonder at things that are truly wonderful.
Yeah, I have to admit-I don't think I've ever heard this kind of outlook from, y'know, actual scientists. People who are committed to exploring the various underpinnings of the world in a scientific way. They're either about as appreciative of the wonders of the world as other folks I've encountered, or they're much more appreciative, being much more aware.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:No proper sense of wonder at things that are truly wonderful.
Yeah, I have to admit-I don't think I've ever heard this kind of outlook from, y'know, actual scientists. People who are committed to exploring the various underpinnings of the world in a scientific way. They're either about as appreciative of the wonders of the world as other folks I've encountered, or they're much more appreciative, being much more aware.
I think that some people think that scientists are not awed at the wonders of the universe because their exposure to science is based on cold texbooks and boring lectures. Who has ever captured the beauty of organization in an ant colony (for example) in a lecture hall with 200 students? Might be possible but I believe it is quite rare.
Posts: 258 | Registered: Jul 2006
| IP: Logged |
quote:I think that some people think that scientists are not awed at the wonders of the universe because their exposure to science is based on cold texbooks and boring lectures.
"Cold textbooks and boring lectures" is how many people learn about science, not how it's actually done. Anybody who can legitimately be called a scientist has much more exposure to science than that.
If your only knowledge of ant colonies and the like comes from lectures, you are not an entomologist.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
Man, now I really want to release a bunch of ants in a church while yelling something like, "Marvel at the glorious and beautiful bounty of nature!"
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm not saying that all scientists do not appreciate wonder. What I am say is that at times, when you try and study and break everything down into data, you can loose sight of how amazing the process is.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
posted
My guess (and Sam's) about the origin of the Magnets thing is probably from this particular music video.. (Warning: Language) The video spawned a meme that essentially is making fun of people who don't trust science. (Also Warning: Language)
I am of the opinion that school should have at least one class that teaches "actual science," where the coursework is not focused on teaching stuff already known but on the method itself, with students getting to pick topics that they personally care about.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Stone_Wolf_: I'm not saying that all scientists do not appreciate wonder. What I am say is that at times, when you try and study and break everything down into data, you can loose sight of how amazing the process is.
Except that the people who tend to do that breaking down would vehemently disagree with you. It's largely the non-scientist, observing the superficial behavior of scientists engaged in their work, that makes this equally superficial claim about the nature of science or scientists.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
While I would expect almost all scientists to disagree that it has happened to them, I think that it does happen to some.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by mr_porteiro_head: While I would expect almost all scientists to disagree that it has happened to them, I think that it does happen to some.
Certainly, but there are boring theologians too who get equally lost in the minutia of the nature of God and Heaven, so I don't think this is necessarily a problem specific to science.
Posts: 3275 | Registered: May 2007
| IP: Logged |
posted
I'm speaking from personal experience MattP, not making generalizations about scientists.
I originally said "What I don't like about science", not "scientists".
My statement that science has no proper wonder is not a slam on scientists, who are people, with a wide range of emotions, interests and capacities for wonder.
quote:Science (from the Latin scientia, meaning "knowledge") is an enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the world.
As an endeavor, science generally does not have "wonder" as a goal.
Cheese and rice! They should call this a disagreement board instead of a discussion board.
Posts: 6683 | Registered: Jun 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:re·li·gion [ri-lij-uhn] Show IPA –noun 1. a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs.
Doesn't include "wonder" either.
What personal experiences do you have with science that you to believe it has a correlation with loss of wonder?
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:Cheese and rice! They should call this a disagreement board instead of a discussion board.
During a discussion, if you make a claim whose meaning and/or truth value isn't obvious to everyone, you'll need to explain and back up that claim.
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
quote:I'm not saying that all scientists do not appreciate wonder. What I am say is that at times, when you try and study and break everything down into data, you can loose sight of how amazing the process is.
I'm afraid I don't buy that. I think it's pretty difficult to know something like that without an insight into someone's mind and heart that we very rarely have. What you're effectively saying here is that attempting to understand something leads to devaluing it.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
quote:What you're effectively saying here is that attempting to understand something leads to devaluing it.
I don't think that's what's being said at all. At least, that's not what I mean when I say "Yeah, I think sometimes this does happen."
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I do note that Stone_Wolf specifies "at times." So yes, the statement is technically true. The issue is that making the a statement like that applies psychological weight to something that doesn't necessarily deserve it. Some percentage of people probably lose sight of wonder when they try to break things down into data. Other people might lose sight of wonder when they try to hard to read the Bible, or when they read too much poetry.
Saying "at times, poets could lose sight of the wonder of poetry by working too hard at it" is a technically true statement, but the actual effects of that statement, when you read it, lead you to believe something that isn't necessarily true at all (namely, that this happens with any frequency worth mentioning)
Posts: 4136 | Registered: Aug 2008
| IP: Logged |
posted
Hm, perhaps I should clarify (and even rethink) my position on poker and gambling. A more appropriate thing to say might be that poker is a different form of gambling.
Most casino games; take slots for example, you play against the casino. The house (casino) has a built in advantage. So no matter how well you play, the house always makes money and the players on average always lose money, even if some make a profit.
Poker, you do not play against the house, you play against other players. On average for the individual player, it is all about skill. We poker players have a saying whenever a noob calls poker "luck." We say "one hand is luck, long term success or failure is skill." But as some others have pointed out, it is still a zero sum game as the only money available to win is the money the players bring to the table. So on average, everyone breaks even. In fact, it is actually worse than a zero sum game in casinos or online as the house does take a rake so to break even, you actually have to do slightly better than 50/50 and on average, everyone loses slightly.
So I guess I would have to agree that it is still gambling, though a different form of it from your typical casino game.
Posts: 891 | Registered: Feb 2010
| IP: Logged |
posted
I didn't mean you, Porter-you were pretty specific, after all, in a way that excluded things. The way I read your remarks was that some scientists, because of who they are, lose sight of wonder-it's something they as individuals bring.
Whereas I read Stone_Wolf's remarks to imply that the process of breaking down a phenomena into components and understanding it will sometimes strip it of its value and wonder. That was what I was rejecting, that we devalue something by attempting to understand it-that there is some sort of value in not understanding something. Personally I think 'wonder' is only valuable if it drives us to attempt (and hopefully succeed) to understand something.
Posts: 17164 | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged |
posted
I truly believe that atheist scientists are as likely to experience wonder as anyone else. When I experience wonder at the universe (which is only enhanced the more I know of it) I also experience profound gratitude. How does that translate (if it does) for atheists?
Posts: 11187 | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Rakeesh: I didn't mean you, Porter-you were pretty specific, after all, in a way that excluded things. The way I read your remarks was that some scientists, because of who they are, lose sight of wonder-it's something they as individuals bring.
While I think that can happen too, that's not really what I meant.
What I'm talking about is really a form of mental myopia. When doing a jigsaw puzzle, if you're concentrating on how the pieces fit together, you can easily lose sight of the beautiful or interesting picture that is being formed. Focusing on the details of any field can cause one to lose sight of the beauty/fascination/wonder/etc. that brought them to the field in the first place. It's not unique to scientists, but they are not immune to it.
How big of a tragedy this is may depend how important you think it is that people retain the ability to appreciate the beauty/wonder/etc. of a particular endeavor. One might not particularly care if somebody studying music gets this myopia, but find it utterly tragic that an editor loses sight of how beautiful the movie they're working on is. And for another person, the previous one would be the tragedy.
Posts: 16551 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Evil]](graemlins/evil.gif)
]
![[Razz]](tongue.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
