Difference between revisions of "User talk:Seanmcox/Suspect Doctrine List"

Revision as of 00:05, 3 October 2008

I don't preach the right hand theory. I happen to be right handed, so out of convience use my right hand -- but certainly don't teach it as doctrine. Sue Cox

HomeTeachers - this recently came up in our ward. The bishopric is moving to redo all the hometeaching so that there is a companionship pair. Also they will only be given 3 or 4 families to visit (the optimum being 3). They quickly realized this would mean that not all families would have a hometeacher - but they had received direction from above that this was ok. The goal was to focus on those families with the greatest need (converts, part member, inactive, etc...) The hope is that as Junior companions become better trained, the quality hometeacher pool will increase in time and eventually all families will have a hometeacher. Makes sense. My only concern is as an emergency preparedness specialist -- the church guideline is that in the event of a ward or stake wide emergency, the hometeachers will check on their families and report to the bishopric. But if not everyone has a hometeacher......... We are going to have to come up with an alternate emergency communication system.

Equality of Sins

I believe the Equality of Sins idea is just a matter of perspective.

When it comes to keeping you out of the Celestial Kingdom, being proud is just as effective as being an adulterer. If that's how "badness" is measured, they're equally bad. They can be overcome with differing amounts of effort (perhaps), but if not overcome, the end result is the same.

But if "badness" is measured by the degree of harm done to others and the difficulty of the repentance process, of course some sins are more bad than others. It would be "bad" to succumb to the temptation of adultery because the repentance process would be hard, but "not so bad" to yell an obscenity to a motorist who cuts you off because it is easier to repent. It is important to mention that repenting of the "not so bad" sins can sometimes be exceedingly difficult. It's easy to think of them as insignificant and forget about them rather than repenting of them. In that case the repentance process can be just as difficult.

Sigh... please sign your posts. :-(

If I measure whether something can fit in a box, there's a "fits" and "doesn't fit". That's it. That tells me very little about the size of the object going into the box. It's a very limited metric.

As far as little sins being difficult to repent of, I would agree, but big sins will make it hard for you to even notice the little ones, and sometimes the little ones are so persistent because of the big ones. Furthermore, sins do actual damage to our souls. It is clear (from the record) that murder does more damage than adultery, which does more damage than pride. They are difficult to repent of precisely because of the amount of damage they cause. Little sins are often difficult merely because they don't make as big a blip on the radar. It's a completely different phenomena.

The point is, certain sins are worse than others. This is an established scriptural fact. It's irrelevant that they all keep you out of the celestial kingdom. (though it is relevant that your degree of badness determines which lesser glory you might receive) The fact that they all keep you out of the celestial kingdom is a fact independent of degree, therefore it is useless for establishing any kind of way of measuring degree and can actually blind us to where we are in relation to the goal of perfection.

--Seanmcox 06:05, 3 October 2008 (CEST)