Truth As I Know It

I have read Dooce's latest posting where she discusses her reasons for leaving the church. She is an intelligent woman who actually explains her exit quite non-offensively. After reading her essay and the ensuing comments, I have decided that nothing makes me more desperately sad then when people leave the church over these issues:
1.) Women's rights
2.) Polygamy
Women's Rights
First of all, I can promise that there is no gospel more dedicated to the sacredness of women than the one found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. I realize that many women do not want to be divine on account that they are too consumed with being equal to men. So they leave the church to find a world where they are expected to look like perfect women and think like a natural man. And if they succeed in doing so they will find true joy has eluded them.
Perhaps many leave the church because they gloss over the repetitive assurances that all women are divine. Divine is not synonymous with weak.
"Because of this divine heritage you, along with all of your spiritual sisters and brothers, have full equality in His sight and are empowered through obedience to become a rightful heir in His eternal kingdom, an "[heir] of God, and joint-[heir] with Christ." Seek to comprehend the significance of these doctrines. Everything Christ taught He taught to women as well as men. Indeed, in the restored light of the gospel of Jesus Christ, a woman, including a young woman, occupies a majesty all her own in the divine design of the Creator. You are, as Elder James E. Talmage once phrased it, "a sanctified investiture which none shall dare profane." -Elder Jeffrey R. Holland
Find me any other religion that teaches the doctrine that women are sanctified. This is why the women of our church do not have the priesthood. I know this because I have studied, fasted and prayed. Anyone could do the same because we have built our church on personal revelation. I promised people on my mission that they could listen to our message and know for themselves if it was truth. I still believe this, even more so, today.
Because women are called to sacrifice and save there is a call to also simplify. This doctrine is so pure and beautiful there is no need to complicate it with matters that do not matter. What if more women woke up in the morning remembering that they are sanctified?

Polygamy

We must understand that polygamy is a calling. Even when the church did practice it there were only a few families who were asked to do so. I haven't read any accounts of multiple wives who felt subjected to become such. From what I have read, these women were happy and found joy in living this celestial law. Sister-wives fulfilled a woman's need for female companionship and her husband provided his love, support and let's be honest, physical needs. To me, polygamy makes solid sense.

This law is also about selflessness and sacrifice. These two verbs always equate to growth and ultimately, joy. If this is an aspect of the gospel that is troubling, once again, there is an opportunity to understand through the guidance of the Holy Ghost.
As always, our conversion must be to the doctrine of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Not the church. Subscribing to, and understanding truth is so liberating. The first principle we learn is that God loves and accepts us, and is eager to help us rediscover intelligence. This intelligence teaches of a sacred feminine and purposes that are so amazing we would not look anywhere else, much less this confused world, to find fulfillment and joy.

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