Yeah, while you're at it maybe you can research and bring up every dime spent on travel for GA's, or fancy pageants and productions, or advertisements online and on tv, or any other expense with which someone may disagree. The point is that paying tithing is an act of faith. The church is not a business and you are not a shareholder, so get over it. You don't have to agree with every tithing expenditure in order to pay, and to think that paying what the Lord requires gives you the right to criticize how it's used is arrogant. So again.....if you have that much heartburn over it....don't pay. It's you that gets to decide if it's a deal breaker for you.paper face wrote:What you are essentially communicating is that no one has to be LDS. In that same spirit, I could say that it is disingenuous to teach the principle of tithing without mentioning the Honor Code and it's effect at BYU, as all LDS pay for it's continuance & implementation as a choice that should be informed. Shall I bring it up when I teach Elders quorum?
I've already suggested a number of possible reasons why it could exist, so either you haven't read the thread or you just like to argue. I happen to perceive a number of benefits from the honor code but again if you don't, nobody will force you to attend school there. I keep repeating this, because you seem unable to grasp the simple nature of the solution here. BYU is not some despotic system of slavery students are born into and can't seem to escape. They are not victims here.paper face wrote:Whatever. Most of your arguments seem wholly unconnected to the needs of the students and the necessity of having the Honor Code in the first place. You just keep insisting that it's there. If it is such a benefit, then please gush about what it does for students that their covenants don't supply. You've already covered the benefit of mind-clearing homogeneity, so you can skip that part and get right to the good stuff.
They advertise that if you don't live up to the honor code you could face disciplinary action. It is cut and dry, but as I state below, I don't see anything wrong with additional information being offered to students on the subject.paper face wrote:The school doesn't advertise these messes that people get into regarding the code, and a legit understanding of what it means is therefore not a possibility in the cut-and-dry world that you assert.
I've never claimed they are necessary. I would have been just as happy at BYU with no code as I was with a code. If you feel the code causes more problems than it solves that's fine. Since attendance at BYU is not mandatory for entrance into the celestial kingdom you should be in good shape!paper face wrote:The code does exactly that. It ups the ante regarding repentance, and unnecessarily so.
Aspects of the code have nothing to do with Christ. Yet you're defending them as if they are absolutely necessary for BYU to educate our young people. I maintain that they cause far more problems than they solve, and that BYU would be fine without them. The proof is in the years the school operated prior to 1957 when the code was primarily concerned with education.
I'm not providing a bureaucratic abstraction....the students themselves are. How about people accept responsibility for their own choices? For students to sign up for BYU knowing what the honor code entails and then whine that it makes life more difficult is a sign of how entrenched the entitlement mentality is (even in the church). You can't have your cake and eat it too. You keep arguing this point and choose to ignore the simplicity of the solution. Nobody should subject themselves to a program with which they disagree.paper face wrote:So what? Excuses are out there, but people still need to repent, right? BYU students included. The future of our smartest and brightest is what we are discussing here. The future of the Church. Your "sink or swim" attitude about this situation seems far more Darwinian than Christian. If you are concerned about excuses, then why provide students with a huge bureaucratic abstraction as another excuse?
Now we're getting somewhere. This is something I could definitely get behind. While I personally believe that the consequences of honor code violation are virtually self-evident, I'm in no way opposed to additional information on the subject being given to prospective students. It would be far better for prospective students to realize that BYU isn't some perfect, idyllic place and might not be a good fit for them rather than get there and run into the troubles you've mentioned.paper face wrote:While it is still in effect, I agree that prospective students should be educated with a true understanding of what the honor code means as BYU. I do not think they even remotely approach such an understanding until they are in the thick of it. The kind of presentation that one encounters at a college orientation is not nearly enough. Students should be exposed to both sides before they ever sign their name.