Sorry, but I've never said the "members are not a reflection of the church". If a portion of the church members reject the gospel's core teachings, this pertains to that portion, not the church as a whole.Telavian wrote: ↑November 1st, 2024, 12:57 pmI will be honest with you. It is impossible to have a conversation with you about anything related to this subject.larsenb wrote: ↑November 1st, 2024, 12:41 pm The Church doesn't do X. It's the members to include leaders who do X. If the leaders or members do an X which is a rejection of or contradicts core teachings, then they are in apostasy . . . not the 'Church', per se. And the 'apostasy' has to do with the particular rejection or contradiction they engage in; it may not be across the board.
If we say the 'church', then you correctly say the church is composed of people and can't act a certain way.
If we say the 'members', then you correctly say the members are not a reflection of the church and are strictly individuals.
I feel like if I want to have a conversation with you about this then I need to start adopting legalistic answers where everything is qualified to the nth degree. I frankly am not willing to do that.
You are correct that in many of my statements I have used general language. However, this was used because it generally is accepted vernacular to simplify the conversation.
For instance, it is raining where I live. However, technically it is not raining. There is a cloud above my house which is dropping moisture. However, this is also technically not correct. There is a cloud that is not above my house which is dropping moisture and the air patterns are moving the moisture to drop above my house. However, this is also technically not correct. There are many clouds in my area that are dropping moisture that is accumulating into rain drops that is being moved by air patterns to fall onto my house.
However, this is also technically not correct ...
I see people get wrapped around their sweeping, black-and-white generalizations all the time, and see the confusion this causes, one of which is to have a tendency to accept any other negative idea they may run into on the same topic. A prime example of this is where Reluctant Watchman (and many others) accepted the idea that BY, WR and JT had a direct hand in planning and murdering the Smith brothers.
My choice is to be aware of the bad attitudes and practices that take place within the Church, but to mainly focus on the incredible good I am aware of performed by most Church members.
Using the weather as an analogy is innocuous. It gets more serious when you start talking about a subject such as the apostasy of the entire Church. Just my point of view. Your choice to not sympathize with what I've been trying to convey..