One assumes that a god would be able to formulate a standard that can be applied cleanly, to everything, and communicate that clearly to his prophet.

The issue wouldn’t be the god in question, but instead the people.

Consider the fact that Moses was given the Ten Commandments for all the Israelites to follow. They’re incredibly simple and straightforward. Yet there still was a division in how these were observed, which was documented well in the New Testament.

The two most notable (outlined in the New Testament) are the Pharisees and Sadducees. The Pharisees can be summarized as a group which added man-made rules or guidelines on top of the established doctrines. Certain stories, such as Christ healing a man on the Sabbath, demonstrate that the intention of a commandment can be forgotten by people who choose to observe by the letter of the law. The Sadducees can be summarized as a group which chose to observe only doctrines that are written. Both groups, however, largely ignored the foundation behind the 10 Commandments.

Christ explains it as simply as can be. Love the Lord above all else, and love they neighbor as you do yourself. The 10 Commandments were already straightforward to begin with, but the two greater commandments set the standard you suggest such a deity should be capable of doing.

Even still, as simple as they can be, the issue often becomes that some people want to be told what exactly they can or cannot do, while others want to justify their actions on the basis of technicality.

All of this to say, the doctrine for the LDS church is based on the idea of obedience towards God. It doesn’t matter why He says to not drink coffee, just that He promises you’ll be blessed if you do. So by virtue of the two greater commandments, loving God means following His instructions. And that alone should be reason enough to do so.

(Mind you, I disagree with how this is often put into practice, as a lot of guilt-tripping occurs for those who choose not to follow these teachings. At its core, these actions are antithetical to Christ’s teachings and examples, which are to love all unconditionally as we are all sinners in the eyes of the Lord. But again, the issue lies with people, who aren’t perfect, rather than the doctrines put forth.)

Yeah… unfortunately, confusion about this particular subject exists because members often look for the underlying justification on things and then extrapolate from there.

(I’m going to paraphrase and shorten things a lot here so we don’t have to dive into definitions and technicalities. Bear with me.)

The doctrine brought forth about this is what’s referred to as “The Word of Wisdom,” which was a short outline of what things were deemed as “harmful” or otherwise “unsuitable” for the body. The idea being that the Lord was promising to people that if they didn’t ingest these things, they would live a healthier life as a result. “Hot drinks” was mentioned and clarified a century later to mean “tea and coffee.” Furthermore, “tea” refers to black and green tea, and not necessarily herbal tea.

People, by nature, want to understand the “why” behind things. You also have people who want to understand where the line begins and ends so they can tiptoe it. Enter the rumor that since the “hot drinks” referred to “tea and coffee,” they both have not-so-insignificant amounts of caffeine in them. Obviously that must mean drinks like Coca-Cola and Pepsi, plus foods such as chocolate, must also be in violation of this, right?

Well, the issue with that is people think they’re applying “the spirit of the law” (meaning the larger picture behind it) when they’re actually applying “the word of the law” (taken at face value). The idea behind the Word of Wisdom is to take care of your body by having a balanced diet and not eating too much of a particular thing. Certain items were called out explicitly; if caffeine were the true issue, then it would’ve been called out instead. But it wasn’t, and there have been some clarifications to emphasize that caffeine itself is not the explicit reason behind it. (However the idea of “addiction” could extend to caffeine if someone were to consume large amounts of it regularly, but addiction or dependency can occur even to things like Tylenol when too much is consumed, so targeting it specifically is silly.)

So in short, it’s a mixture of misunderstanding and overzealous practice. Caffeine is perfectly fine. Just like anything else: make sure you’re not consuming too much of it.

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Yup. I worked at a Subway between ‘06 and ‘08. Pizza started to sell somewhere around that time.

I think it would’ve been funny if the title was “StackOverflow contributors are revolting” and the comment was “a little more than usual.”

But hey, gotta get whatever amount of humor in while you can.

whatever the Indian equivalent is

Uncle Vivek

It’s not symmetrical yet though. Which is weird.

Eh, I would say it’s to be expected. A lot of infrastructure still relies on coax/DOCSIS which has its limitations in comparison to an all-fiber backbone. (This post has some good explanations.) However it wouldn’t surprise me if some ISPs argue that “nobody needs that much uplink” and “it helps restrict piracy” when really it’s just them holding out against performing upgrades.

Nah I didn’t read your original comment as minimizing it, but rather saw it as someone who might not be from the USA. It sounded like genuine shock to how life-saving meds could just be flat-out denied for somebody.

Let’s say you get diagnosed with a treatable autoimmune disorder. Treatment isn’t cheap, so usually someone who recently got diagnosed and referred to a specialist to perform care will find that their insurance denied approval for prescription of medications and supplies needed.

The insurance companies will want the doctor to re-submit while providing documentation of the diagnosis (as proof) and an outline of the treatment plan. The insurance company can say “your plan states six months of injections but we will only approve for three.” At that point, the patient is stuck with a three-month plan because the cost of treatment is too much to pay out of pocket and the doctor won’t go forward with a six-month plan unless the patient pays in advance for the three months that wouldn’t be covered.

Another example is rare disorders where the medication may cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Insurance may decide the cost is too high and deny coverage for the prescription.

Finally, there are instances where more common issues (such as diabetes) may have the insurance artificially limit how many doses of a drug they decide to cover. If a person has a special case (like needing to take twice the amount due to tolerance or it being based on the person’s weight), insurance may deny it because it exceeds what they believe the average person should need.

All of these are examples where someone is stuck waiting for what is essentially life-saving medication just because insurance doesn’t want to pay out, or doesn’t care that you have a special scenario that requires some exceptions for it to work properly.