I assumed it was, based on the “not in moderation”.
But the Mormon church also forbids a glass or two of wine with dinner, once a week.
Yes it does. You are free to read section 89 where it is so forbidden to see why.
In any case, one can look at the rings of trees, match them up to older trees, match those up to still older trees..
Not sure the trees would have died. Also not sure of the exact nature of the flood. The myth is an extremely common one and myths are usually based on some sort of fact. That we haven’t definitively shown what this was based on does not mean that it did not exist.
it is unethical to eat animals, for example, which the church would find to be incorrect
I just showed that the church would not find this to be incorrect. I actually know some members that hold this exact position and they are members in good standing. Like I said some of the presidents of the church have held this position.
Something being culturally being less acceptable has nothing to do with whether it is incorrect or not. That the culture within much of the church would be biased against holding a vegetarian or vegan position it is true but that is nowhere near the same as saying the church itself holds the position to be wrong.
This is EXACTLY what I mean by “playing logic games”
I assume that you do not hold that position then. I have had multiple discussions with people that did hold that position and it is one of the more annoying things to deal with.
I’m not even sure which one is responsible for more deaths per year,
Alcohol causes about 23,000 fatalities a year. Pools appear to cause about 3,500 fatalities per year. Tobacco causes about 400,000 fatalities per year. Cars cause about 40,000 fatalities per year.
Many of the alcohol deaths are also car fatalities as well.
Per usage alcohol has a higher death rate then either tobacco or pools. Over the long term tobacco clearly has a higher death rate. I am unsure as to if marijuana has a similar long term usage effect. To be consistent society should either make alcohol and tobacco illegal or legalize all other substances with a similar amount of harm. I personally think each state should be able to make the decision.
Per usage alcohol has a higher death rate then either tobacco or pools.
Actually, the best available study suggests that drinking appears to increase life expectancy on average even in fairly heavy amounts. (Ungated paper available here—see the striking graphs in figures 1 and 2.)
In practice, of course, this varies enormously between individuals, and it’s somewhat correlated with ancestry. Some people with particularly bad predispositions are indeed better off as teetotalers, but the idea that total abstinence would make everyone (or even the majority of people in Western countries) healthier is just ludicrous.
As for those supposed total alcohol death statistics, these numbers are completely arbitrary. There is simply no reasonable unique way to define deaths as due to alcohol, and with convenient enough definitions you can make the numbers vary by orders of magnitude.
I just put up what I found from what are generally considered reliable sources.
the idea that total abstinence would make everyone (or even the majority of people in Western countries) healthier is just ludicrous.
If you say so. Every population study that I have seen puts latter-day saints that practice at or above the life expectancy of the other longest lived population groups such as Asians.
About vegetarianism: you seem to be confusing two different positions:
it is ok to not eat animals
it is not ok to eat animals
One is the Mormon position, and the other is the vegan position. I understand that the Mormon church would be ok with something living a vegan lifestyle. No problem.
I am talking about being able to coherently hold the Mormon position and the vegan position. I’m talking about having the freedom to decided for myself that I believe it is wrong to eat animals. This is different from the freedom to just not eat animals. One is about actions you do or don’t do, and the other is about ethics.
If I were still Mormon, I could not give a talk in church about how it’s wrong to eat animals. If I were to tell others that I thought it was wrong (I’m really not the preachy sort at all, BTW, and most of my friends are carnivores, but if I were to tell others), I would be told by someone in authority in the church that I was incorrect. That animals are here for us to use, and God said so, and I am wrong if I think that’s not how it is. Because an old book said so.
I find this unacceptable. I find the idea (that I am not free to try to discover what is right and wrong in this world) to be totally unacceptable. After thinking long and hard about this (for years), and after accruing a great deal of evidence and experience, I have come to believe something, and someone who has never thought much about it at all can just tell me that I’m wrong, and This Is The Mormon Truth, because it’s written in an old book. It’s everything this website is against!! (IMHO)
Now don’t take this the wrong way: I welcome religious people to this website, I value differing points of view, and I think we can all stand to be a bit less wrong. But I have to ask: given your viewpoints (which seem to suggest that the way to be less wrong is to listen to god and read your scriptures)… why are you here?? What are you getting out of this?
Anyway… about the alcohol: did you even read what I originally wrote? I wrote “alcohol (taken responsibly (which is not the same as “in moderation” in all cases))”
Responsibly. Which might (might!), in some cases, be to some degree of excess… but still responsibly. That is what I said. You took that and went straight to every sort of excess and irresponsibility you could think of.
Your post only makes sense if God does not exist and if His prophets are not real. If the opposite assumptions are held, as they should by anyone of most religions and most especially someone that is LDS, then much of what you said falls apart. As if God is real and a book actually does contain His word then contradicting that book would be going against what is real and therefore not rational.
So it is not because an old book said so but because God said so and since it is God that said so one is able to confirm for oneself the truthfulness of not only the “old book” but also of the claim that it is wrong to forbid others from eating meat (or whatever else). Since God is all-knowing and we are not then when our limited understanding contradicts what God has said should we claim that God does not exist despite evidence that He does or should we think that we are mistaken in our views?
If God exists then that which is predicated on His non-existence becomes irrational and the rational thing to do is to change those views that contradict His. If there is no God to listen to then it is clearly irrational to listen to God, as He wouldn’t exist in that case. However, if there is Something to listen to then why is it irrational to listen to It?
Many of the conclusions drawn on this site depend on the non-existence of God and fall apart if He does in fact exist (and one is able to verify for oneself that He does). However, even with the existence of God it is still extremely useful to learn to be more rational (the stated goal of the site) as God does not command in all things but expects us to govern ourselves based on the principles He has given. I wish all men everywhere would take ideas seriously and attempt to be rational in their beliefs and in their actions.
[Disclaimer: I’m having a pretty strong negative emotional reaction to this post, and much of this thread, but I’m really trying to give you the benefit of the doubt; I apologize if I come off as snippy.]
Your post only makes sense if God does not exist
No, it makes sense in any case. Even if there’s a god. Even if that god is omniscient. Even if that god is benevolent. And even is that god is perfectly rational!!
There’s a difference between “rational” and “ethical”. (By your argument, Satan could not possibly be rational… is that your belief?) There’s a difference between “rational” and “logically internally consistent”. The mentally ill can be logically internally consistent, but that is not what we mean by “rational”.
Let me ask you again: why are you here? I don’t intend it as a rhetorical equivalent to “fuck off”… I’m honestly asking: what do you hope to get out of this?
I don’t know if you read Eliezer’s recent Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians, but I’d like to highlight a few of the items in the list of things rationality is about:
Saying oops and changing your mind occasionally.
Knowing that clever arguing isn’t the same as looking for truth.
Reserving your self-congratulations for the occasions when you actually change a policy or belief, because while not every change is an improvement, every improvement is a change.
Asking whether your most cherished beliefs to shout about actually control your anticipations, whether they mean anything, never mind whether their predictions are actually correct.
These are what rationality are for me. (The second point, in particular, is what I was trying to say when I spoke of “logic games”.) And these things are not dependent on there not being a god! (In fact, if you want to convince me that there is a god (in another thread, please!), these points are the way to do it.)
Are you here to say ‘oops’ on occasion? Are you here to look for the truth (or are you convinced that you’ve already found it)?
Rationality, the set of tools for for examining and changing our beliefs, necessarily must be more basic than any of your beliefs. Otherwise, it isn’t rationality… just logic games.
I’m here because I want to be Less Wrong! And that means changing my beliefs, and not to be more in-line with everyone else here! For example, my most recent ‘oops’:
I recently adopted a vegan lifestyle, saying “oops! I shouldn’t be eating animals”. (While I may, for the sake of brevity, refer to myself as ‘vegan’, in my mind I see myself as ‘living a vegan lifestyle’. I’ve even quipped, “No, I’m not vegan, I just live like one.”) I don’t know if there are any other vegans here, but I’ve never seen any posts claiming it to be virtuous, and I assume it is a minority view here.
But it was a process of rationality that led me to making the lifestyle choice. While I may have, someday, come to the same conclusions on my own, it was my exposure to Less Wrong that helped me to “shut up and multiply”, to overcome my biases and fears, and just say ‘oops’.
Even the name of this site helped! Just as this isn’t “BeingRight.com″, the issue for me was clearer once I viewed (my own personal take on) veganism not as “the Right choice”, but as “Less Animals”: I don’t claim to be right, just a bit less wrong that I was being before.
Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent… but do you see what I mean? That’s what I’m here for. Is that what you’re here for?
You are free to read section 89 where it is so forbidden to see why.
As a means of procrastinating, I looked up section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants, if that’s what it’s called. The “why” seems to be that there are people with insufficient willpower to resist caffeine or alcohol addiction (1).
So what? There are people without the willpower to resist chewing ice. Shouldn’t the Mormons ban ice?
(1) Wait! I have to be careful here. It never mentions either caffeine or alcohol! It’s specifically “grape wine” addiction and “hot drink” addiction—though Word of God is that hot drink means tea and coffee, curiously excluding soda.
Caffeine is not what is prohibited, that is an assumption that many people make but that is not well founded as there are many things that contain caffeine that are allowed.
It actually is wine and strong drink for the alcohol.
Shouldn’t the Mormons ban ice?
Considering it is a revelation from God that statement should be changed to “Shouldn’t God ban ice?”.
As to the rest, we believe in continuing revelation, therefore it is completely consistent for the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve to have clarified the position. Anything more then that is between the individual member and God and if shared is speculation.
It’s a reasonable assumption, that’s why. When we see something nonsensical like “hot drink addiction” which doesn’t actually exists in meaningful quantities in the world, we instinctively repair that phrase. The closest sensible meaning is “caffeine addiction”, because caffeine is in the hot drinks prohibited, and “caffeine addiction” is something that is in the world in meaningful quantities.
There are a few other things I would like to bring up but my experience with your previous postings indicate to me you come from an unalterable epistemic state. That is, you do not see the need to provide reasons other than God or revelation. I can’t do anything with that.
What of the other things that are allowed yet still have caffeine?
you do not see the need to provide reasons other than God or revelation
I have the belief that there are reasons for what God does and what is in revelation. I do not claim to know all of the reasons, though and think that some of the reasons people assume for such things aren’t consistent.
If God is real and is all knowing then when He says something then that is the way it is. How is that not consistent?
If God is real and is all knowing then when He says something then that is the way it is. How is that not consistent?
If X then Y
X
Therefore Y
This is the form of your statement (X is “God is real and all knowing” and Y is “Things are the way He says they are”) and I fully agree it is consistent. It is the second step—X is true—that you have not taken. “If X then Y, X, therefore Y” does not assert the truth of X, it conditions the truth of Y on the truth of X.
By way of analogy, there are many mathematical systems that are consistent yet do not apply to reality (in some senses, I believe, they are more consistent than the system(s) that do apply to reality!). Asserting their consistency will not make them apply to reality.
I have the belief that there are reasons for what God does and what is in revelation.
This is already deeply nested and derailed so I don’t feel bad pursuing this—could you please tell me what brought you to this belief (that there are reasons for what God does)? Be as concrete as possible, if you could!
I assume you mean by this that I have not proven to your satisfaction that X is true? I have presented to you most things that are easily with in my reach to show that God is real or to show ways to prove to yourself that God is real.
Consistency doesn’t make it apply to reality but I feel it is a necessary prerequisite to doing so.
could you please tell me what brought you to this belief?
For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.
Moses 1:39
Then the knowledge that God is a glorified and perfected man, that is when it says “in our image and likeness” it wasn’t being figurative and that when Christ says He only does what He saw His Father do He was speaking literally. Also, “the glory of God is intelligence”. Also, the fact that if God did not act consistently then He would cease to be God, as per the Book of Mormon. Also, the fact that when Jesus said that life eternal was knowing God He was telling the truth and God is knowable.
Therefore God has a purpose, He acts consistently, and He is understandable, and He was human but is now perfectly intelligent. Therefore He has reasons for everything that He does.
Caffeine is not what is prohibited, that is an assumption that many people make but that is not well founded as there are many things that contain caffeine that are allowed.
See the footnote under (1).
The argument remains: if the reason behind section 89 is the principle that because there exist people too weak to resist the addiction of X, then we must ban X, the prohibitions of section 89 are at least laughably incomplete, and at most incoherent.
If, on the other hand, this isn’t the reason behind the prohibitions of section 89, then there is no other reason stated. So the assertion that “You are free to read section 89 where it is so forbidden to see why.” is false, because there is no “why” given.
the prohibitions of section 89 are at least laughably incomplete
Please remember it was given in 1833 and that there is continuing revelation such that many other substances not listed in the section 89 are likewise banned. Also, please note that in vs 3 it states that it is given for a principle so that if one is too weak to resist the addiction of X then that person should avoid X, that is the principle (well, the one that gets the most attention at least)
God does not command in all things and we are to be taught correct principles and then govern ourselves. Hence the reason that vegetarianism is perfectly acceptable to the church. Also the reason that God was not required to list all of the substances that would in the future need to be banned.
Alcohol causes about 23,000 fatalities a year. Pools appear to cause about 3,500 fatalities per year. Tobacco causes about 400,000 fatalities per year. Cars cause about 40,000 fatalities per year.
I wouldn’t be so generous. The car accident statistics are probably accurate, and the pool drownings might be too, but the other two figures are necessarily arbitrary and tendentious, however they were arrived at.
I assumed it was, based on the “not in moderation”.
Yes it does. You are free to read section 89 where it is so forbidden to see why.
Not sure the trees would have died. Also not sure of the exact nature of the flood. The myth is an extremely common one and myths are usually based on some sort of fact. That we haven’t definitively shown what this was based on does not mean that it did not exist.
I just showed that the church would not find this to be incorrect. I actually know some members that hold this exact position and they are members in good standing. Like I said some of the presidents of the church have held this position.
Something being culturally being less acceptable has nothing to do with whether it is incorrect or not. That the culture within much of the church would be biased against holding a vegetarian or vegan position it is true but that is nowhere near the same as saying the church itself holds the position to be wrong.
I assume that you do not hold that position then. I have had multiple discussions with people that did hold that position and it is one of the more annoying things to deal with.
Alcohol causes about 23,000 fatalities a year. Pools appear to cause about 3,500 fatalities per year. Tobacco causes about 400,000 fatalities per year. Cars cause about 40,000 fatalities per year.
Many of the alcohol deaths are also car fatalities as well.
Per usage alcohol has a higher death rate then either tobacco or pools. Over the long term tobacco clearly has a higher death rate. I am unsure as to if marijuana has a similar long term usage effect. To be consistent society should either make alcohol and tobacco illegal or legalize all other substances with a similar amount of harm. I personally think each state should be able to make the decision.
Actually, the best available study suggests that drinking appears to increase life expectancy on average even in fairly heavy amounts. (Ungated paper available here—see the striking graphs in figures 1 and 2.)
In practice, of course, this varies enormously between individuals, and it’s somewhat correlated with ancestry. Some people with particularly bad predispositions are indeed better off as teetotalers, but the idea that total abstinence would make everyone (or even the majority of people in Western countries) healthier is just ludicrous.
As for those supposed total alcohol death statistics, these numbers are completely arbitrary. There is simply no reasonable unique way to define deaths as due to alcohol, and with convenient enough definitions you can make the numbers vary by orders of magnitude.
I just put up what I found from what are generally considered reliable sources.
If you say so. Every population study that I have seen puts latter-day saints that practice at or above the life expectancy of the other longest lived population groups such as Asians.
About vegetarianism: you seem to be confusing two different positions:
it is ok to not eat animals
it is not ok to eat animals
One is the Mormon position, and the other is the vegan position. I understand that the Mormon church would be ok with something living a vegan lifestyle. No problem.
I am talking about being able to coherently hold the Mormon position and the vegan position. I’m talking about having the freedom to decided for myself that I believe it is wrong to eat animals. This is different from the freedom to just not eat animals. One is about actions you do or don’t do, and the other is about ethics.
If I were still Mormon, I could not give a talk in church about how it’s wrong to eat animals. If I were to tell others that I thought it was wrong (I’m really not the preachy sort at all, BTW, and most of my friends are carnivores, but if I were to tell others), I would be told by someone in authority in the church that I was incorrect. That animals are here for us to use, and God said so, and I am wrong if I think that’s not how it is. Because an old book said so.
I find this unacceptable. I find the idea (that I am not free to try to discover what is right and wrong in this world) to be totally unacceptable. After thinking long and hard about this (for years), and after accruing a great deal of evidence and experience, I have come to believe something, and someone who has never thought much about it at all can just tell me that I’m wrong, and This Is The Mormon Truth, because it’s written in an old book. It’s everything this website is against!! (IMHO)
Now don’t take this the wrong way: I welcome religious people to this website, I value differing points of view, and I think we can all stand to be a bit less wrong. But I have to ask: given your viewpoints (which seem to suggest that the way to be less wrong is to listen to god and read your scriptures)… why are you here?? What are you getting out of this?
Anyway… about the alcohol: did you even read what I originally wrote? I wrote “alcohol (taken responsibly (which is not the same as “in moderation” in all cases))”
Responsibly. Which might (might!), in some cases, be to some degree of excess… but still responsibly. That is what I said. You took that and went straight to every sort of excess and irresponsibility you could think of.
Your post only makes sense if God does not exist and if His prophets are not real. If the opposite assumptions are held, as they should by anyone of most religions and most especially someone that is LDS, then much of what you said falls apart. As if God is real and a book actually does contain His word then contradicting that book would be going against what is real and therefore not rational.
So it is not because an old book said so but because God said so and since it is God that said so one is able to confirm for oneself the truthfulness of not only the “old book” but also of the claim that it is wrong to forbid others from eating meat (or whatever else). Since God is all-knowing and we are not then when our limited understanding contradicts what God has said should we claim that God does not exist despite evidence that He does or should we think that we are mistaken in our views?
If God exists then that which is predicated on His non-existence becomes irrational and the rational thing to do is to change those views that contradict His. If there is no God to listen to then it is clearly irrational to listen to God, as He wouldn’t exist in that case. However, if there is Something to listen to then why is it irrational to listen to It?
Many of the conclusions drawn on this site depend on the non-existence of God and fall apart if He does in fact exist (and one is able to verify for oneself that He does). However, even with the existence of God it is still extremely useful to learn to be more rational (the stated goal of the site) as God does not command in all things but expects us to govern ourselves based on the principles He has given. I wish all men everywhere would take ideas seriously and attempt to be rational in their beliefs and in their actions.
[Disclaimer: I’m having a pretty strong negative emotional reaction to this post, and much of this thread, but I’m really trying to give you the benefit of the doubt; I apologize if I come off as snippy.]
No, it makes sense in any case. Even if there’s a god. Even if that god is omniscient. Even if that god is benevolent. And even is that god is perfectly rational!!
There’s a difference between “rational” and “ethical”. (By your argument, Satan could not possibly be rational… is that your belief?) There’s a difference between “rational” and “logically internally consistent”. The mentally ill can be logically internally consistent, but that is not what we mean by “rational”.
Let me ask you again: why are you here? I don’t intend it as a rhetorical equivalent to “fuck off”… I’m honestly asking: what do you hope to get out of this?
I don’t know if you read Eliezer’s recent Epistle to the New York Less Wrongians, but I’d like to highlight a few of the items in the list of things rationality is about:
Saying oops and changing your mind occasionally.
Knowing that clever arguing isn’t the same as looking for truth.
Reserving your self-congratulations for the occasions when you actually change a policy or belief, because while not every change is an improvement, every improvement is a change.
Asking whether your most cherished beliefs to shout about actually control your anticipations, whether they mean anything, never mind whether their predictions are actually correct.
These are what rationality are for me. (The second point, in particular, is what I was trying to say when I spoke of “logic games”.) And these things are not dependent on there not being a god! (In fact, if you want to convince me that there is a god (in another thread, please!), these points are the way to do it.)
Are you here to say ‘oops’ on occasion? Are you here to look for the truth (or are you convinced that you’ve already found it)?
Rationality, the set of tools for for examining and changing our beliefs, necessarily must be more basic than any of your beliefs. Otherwise, it isn’t rationality… just logic games.
I’m here because I want to be Less Wrong! And that means changing my beliefs, and not to be more in-line with everyone else here! For example, my most recent ‘oops’:
I recently adopted a vegan lifestyle, saying “oops! I shouldn’t be eating animals”. (While I may, for the sake of brevity, refer to myself as ‘vegan’, in my mind I see myself as ‘living a vegan lifestyle’. I’ve even quipped, “No, I’m not vegan, I just live like one.”) I don’t know if there are any other vegans here, but I’ve never seen any posts claiming it to be virtuous, and I assume it is a minority view here.
But it was a process of rationality that led me to making the lifestyle choice. While I may have, someday, come to the same conclusions on my own, it was my exposure to Less Wrong that helped me to “shut up and multiply”, to overcome my biases and fears, and just say ‘oops’.
Even the name of this site helped! Just as this isn’t “BeingRight.com″, the issue for me was clearer once I viewed (my own personal take on) veganism not as “the Right choice”, but as “Less Animals”: I don’t claim to be right, just a bit less wrong that I was being before.
Sorry, that was a bit of a tangent… but do you see what I mean? That’s what I’m here for. Is that what you’re here for?
If God demonstrably exists, it is irrational to ignore the evidence saying so. That’s a rather important difference.
As a means of procrastinating, I looked up section 89 of the Doctrine and Covenants, if that’s what it’s called. The “why” seems to be that there are people with insufficient willpower to resist caffeine or alcohol addiction (1).
So what? There are people without the willpower to resist chewing ice. Shouldn’t the Mormons ban ice?
(1) Wait! I have to be careful here. It never mentions either caffeine or alcohol! It’s specifically “grape wine” addiction and “hot drink” addiction—though Word of God is that hot drink means tea and coffee, curiously excluding soda.
Curiously including iced tea and iced coffee and curiously excluding hot cocoa and warm cider, too.
Caffeine is not what is prohibited, that is an assumption that many people make but that is not well founded as there are many things that contain caffeine that are allowed.
It actually is wine and strong drink for the alcohol.
Considering it is a revelation from God that statement should be changed to “Shouldn’t God ban ice?”.
As to the rest, we believe in continuing revelation, therefore it is completely consistent for the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve to have clarified the position. Anything more then that is between the individual member and God and if shared is speculation.
It’s a reasonable assumption, that’s why. When we see something nonsensical like “hot drink addiction” which doesn’t actually exists in meaningful quantities in the world, we instinctively repair that phrase. The closest sensible meaning is “caffeine addiction”, because caffeine is in the hot drinks prohibited, and “caffeine addiction” is something that is in the world in meaningful quantities.
There are a few other things I would like to bring up but my experience with your previous postings indicate to me you come from an unalterable epistemic state. That is, you do not see the need to provide reasons other than God or revelation. I can’t do anything with that.
What of the other things that are allowed yet still have caffeine?
I have the belief that there are reasons for what God does and what is in revelation. I do not claim to know all of the reasons, though and think that some of the reasons people assume for such things aren’t consistent.
If God is real and is all knowing then when He says something then that is the way it is. How is that not consistent?
If X then Y
X
Therefore Y
This is the form of your statement (X is “God is real and all knowing” and Y is “Things are the way He says they are”) and I fully agree it is consistent. It is the second step—X is true—that you have not taken. “If X then Y, X, therefore Y” does not assert the truth of X, it conditions the truth of Y on the truth of X.
By way of analogy, there are many mathematical systems that are consistent yet do not apply to reality (in some senses, I believe, they are more consistent than the system(s) that do apply to reality!). Asserting their consistency will not make them apply to reality.
This is already deeply nested and derailed so I don’t feel bad pursuing this—could you please tell me what brought you to this belief (that there are reasons for what God does)? Be as concrete as possible, if you could!
I assume you mean by this that I have not proven to your satisfaction that X is true? I have presented to you most things that are easily with in my reach to show that God is real or to show ways to prove to yourself that God is real.
Consistency doesn’t make it apply to reality but I feel it is a necessary prerequisite to doing so.
Moses 1:39
Then the knowledge that God is a glorified and perfected man, that is when it says “in our image and likeness” it wasn’t being figurative and that when Christ says He only does what He saw His Father do He was speaking literally. Also, “the glory of God is intelligence”. Also, the fact that if God did not act consistently then He would cease to be God, as per the Book of Mormon. Also, the fact that when Jesus said that life eternal was knowing God He was telling the truth and God is knowable.
Therefore God has a purpose, He acts consistently, and He is understandable, and He was human but is now perfectly intelligent. Therefore He has reasons for everything that He does.
See the footnote under (1).
The argument remains: if the reason behind section 89 is the principle that because there exist people too weak to resist the addiction of X, then we must ban X, the prohibitions of section 89 are at least laughably incomplete, and at most incoherent.
If, on the other hand, this isn’t the reason behind the prohibitions of section 89, then there is no other reason stated. So the assertion that “You are free to read section 89 where it is so forbidden to see why.” is false, because there is no “why” given.
Also see Explaining vs. Explaining Away.
Please remember it was given in 1833 and that there is continuing revelation such that many other substances not listed in the section 89 are likewise banned. Also, please note that in vs 3 it states that it is given for a principle so that if one is too weak to resist the addiction of X then that person should avoid X, that is the principle (well, the one that gets the most attention at least)
God does not command in all things and we are to be taught correct principles and then govern ourselves. Hence the reason that vegetarianism is perfectly acceptable to the church. Also the reason that God was not required to list all of the substances that would in the future need to be banned.
Upvoted for apparently actually looking this up.
I wouldn’t be so generous. The car accident statistics are probably accurate, and the pool drownings might be too, but the other two figures are necessarily arbitrary and tendentious, however they were arrived at.