Heavenguard

English is the worst language on the face of the planet!! Or one of them, at least. THE single most basic verb, be, conjugates very irregularly! Be: am, is, are Irregular adjectives: Good, better, best. Bad, worse, worst. It absorbs and takes in words from every and any language. English is a horrible language for non-native speakers to learn. Although you can sound out most words, there are still things that are strange and irregular, such as silent letters: Pneumonia, doubt. And homonyms like might, mite (also sight and site?); two, too, to. Why does "ight" and "ite" even sound the same? I before E, except after C, and when it says A as in Neighbour and Weigh. It's my native tongue, it's what I think in, and it's the only language that I can competently communicate with, but I'm so painfully aware of it's shortcomings. I speak (conversational) Cantonese, and have a very limited literate vocabulary. (While English is a nightmare to learn to speak properly, Chinese is a nightmare to learn to write!)

This is NOT an LDS POV, but a Protestant one: (I know you're asking for LDS pov, being that this is an LDS forum, but I think it's always helpful to know more :) ) Mary was a righteous woman, deemed worthy to be the mother of Jesus. She gave birth to Jesus as a virgin. The protestant idea of this virgin birth means that she did not have ANY sex with ANY man (God or otherwise), but that Jesus was conceived through the work of the Holy Spirit. After his birth, she did not remain a virgin, and had (arguably half) siblings to Jesus with Joseph. Mary was the mother of Jesus, and raised and loved him. She holds no special authority or seat in Heaven, and does not hold any particularly special places in the hearts of Protestants any more than other righteous people in the bible, such as Elijah, Esther, Peter, Paul, etc. The Catholic view of Mary: (Although I'm not Catholic, I was raised in the Catholic School system for 14 years. I don't think I'm wrong, but I'm open to correction if I am.) Mary was a virgin when she conceived Jesus through the Holy Spirit. She remained a virgin even after the birth of Jesus. She is a very important person in Heaven: being the Mother of Jesus, she is, in a way, also the Mother of God, as professed in the Hail Mary. Because of her close relationship to God, prayers are offered to Mary. NOT that Mary may grant the prayers, but that she may petition or intercede with God on our behalf. (That is also why saints are prayed to.) Mary has appeared to devout believers in different ways throughout history, because she has a loving and caring heart for the people. The one I personally find most interesting is associated with the Brown Scapular (mostly because I have one: Wikipedia link), which speaks also of the authority that she has in Heaven. She holds a very special place in the hearts of many (most? I can't blanket statement "all") believers.

It's not so much that we're saying it couldn't possibly be true, but that it (likely?) isn't true. Here's a statement: I did not kill a man. Am I saying I couldn't possibly have killed a man? No. I'm not claiming that I never had the ability to, or that I never had the opportunity to, but only that I factually did not kill a man.

I think it's possible that this man may have choked to death. Contatry to conventional wisdom, one should NEVER tilt their head back in the case of a nose bleed because the blood can run back down into the throat and cause you to choke. Here's another interesting news story: Actor slits his own throat as knife switch turns fiction into reality | Stage | The Guardian

Jesus was a Jew, but what he taught was love and righteousness. He didn't really Christianity very much, and often told people to keep hushed about who he was. (Matthew 16, Peter calls Jesus the Christ, and Jesus tells he and the disciples not to tell anyone.) Siddhartha was a wise, caring and righteous* man. There are many people of all beliefs who believe in peace, giving, etc. (It's just that most of us don't have religions come up after us.) God gives good and right understanding to people from any and all backgrounds and beliefs. That there are similarities in teachings is nothing particular. Almost all religions teach goodness and peace, the greatest teacher of otherwise is secular society that chases economic success. The fundamental difference between what Jesus taught/Christians believe and Buddhism and other religions is that Christianity gives an answer/solution to how we relate to God. *I do not in the same context as the Christian idea of righteousness.

I've actually had a (guy) friend tell me that he wouldn't be able to date someone like me because I'm too far above him. If you watch the TV show Chuck, he followed it up with the analogy that he's Chuck and I'm Sarah. (If you don't watch the show, Chuck is a computer-nerd who works in a retail electronics store and is in love with Sarah, a very beautiful CIA agent.) I told him that on the show, Sarah loves Chuck. (And I'm hardly that beautiful- she is one really gorgeous lady! But I digress.) Guys, just so you know, ladies like the type that Ben described do not think of themselves like that (being 'above'), so neither should you. If they did, they would not do the sorts of things they do. Rather, they'd act like an entitled Princess. No, these are the loving and caring women of the world - isn't that what you would want in a lady friend?!

I have always admired the refinement and maturity of an older man. It's just I couldn't have said something like that in my even-younger-than-now days without making a fellow look like he's committing a crime!

I was a gaming addict when I was in high school. I went to school, and I still did my homework, but every moment of my free time went to my Playstation. I thought about the games in class at school, what would I do next, what strategy to employ, review the story thus far in my head... If your husband (or significant other, for everyone else) hasn't heard this from you yet, he needs to. He can't respond to or respect your feelings if he doesn't know about them. Ask him to make a little more time to actively be with you and the kids - even if just an hour after he comes home, before he goes to play. Whatever it is, there has to be some sort of concrete, measurable action to be taken, so both of you are on the same page as to what the expectations are.

I just found and printed a bunch of maps to help me with reading the OT. I am concurrently reading the OT, NT and Book of Mormon. I was wondering if anyone knows of a site with maps of the places in the Book of Mormon? I tried looking at the LDS.org site and, if memory serves, they only had the standard bible maps.

Ditto to what FunkyTown said (about Ben's daughter). And to what Ben said about I know worthy carries a certain idea in LDS thinking, but I'm going to put it as simply as a downright lack of maturity.

Any and every religion or belief set should be up to criticism. However, there's a difference between criticism and slander, hate, attacks, and disrespect. Respect is the key point here.

Further than that, you can assign people to lists, and choose to let only people on certain lists see particular items, or block certain lists from seeing particular items. This is a feature I use much, as the young teens I do stuff with at church are Facebook fiends, and we (my friends - who also work with them - and I) simply can't let them see some things that we do. And I don't mean we do anything that we have a particular need to hide from the world, but we're trying to teach our kids respect. If they see pictures of us when we run pranks on each other, well it just works against that.

Although I do believe that God does do much work in the world, some things are a result of our own actions. If parents do not teach and discipline their children, and the children grow up to be unruly people, did God punish the parents for their lack of parenting by giving the children difficult personalities, or are the parents to blame for failing to teach their kids? If a person is killed by a drunk driver, is that God's punishment, or the irresponsibility and recklessness of the drunk driver?

Though God, Jesus was also a man while he walked the Earth, and must definitely have had water for a 40-day fast, for the human body will die without being rehydrated for such a stretch of time. My bit to add to this discussion is Matthew 15: The Pharisees accused Jesus' disciples of breaking tradition (by not ceremonially washing themselves before eating) and Jesus replied by saying it is not what goes into a man's mouth that makes him unclean, rather what comes out of it, for what comes out a man's mouth reflects what is in his heart.

That disheartens me! A computer's search function is great for finding something specific in a pinch, but reading a physical book gives you much more than reading selected verses on a screen. It is much more helpful to learning and remembering by reading the whole rather than in parts. You may find that you won't need to use a search anymore! I think there's validity to learning what others use against what you believe - it forces you to find out more in order to respond. Granted, I'd rather go somewhere where people are respectful ... (can I say again how great you guys are?)

He's taking more of a shot at Jesus than he is at the LDS Church, really. The Captain's not the type to just go and ruffle your feathers, hes just kidding around like everyone else on the thread. I once had a history teacher that said that in today's world, Jesus would look like a mob boss... he hangs around with cheaters and prostitutes, and has a band of 12 guys around him at all times, the 'good guys' are all trying to catch him but can't, and has all sorts of people always asking him for mercy... Edit: PS, I'd like to note in the Captains defense that he went to BYU...

To say that to multiply and populate was God's first commandment and that we are to keep it, would it be right to say that the men and prophets mentioned in my first post failed to keep this command?

I know that in LDS marriage is a very important teaching, as one must be sealed in order to ultimately achieve exaltation, if worthy. I wonder, however, about the goodness of singlendom. Paul wrote in the much-referenced 1 Corinthians 7 the goodness of remaining single - that is, one can devote him (or herself) entirely to God's work, and not have his (or her) attention and priorities divided. (Abridged-by-me NIV version below.) Now, I'm not trying to argue that marriage is bad and gets in the way of ministry. (Indeed not, as I've always known that I myself would like a family, and that one's spouse can be a great support.) However the seemingly heavy emphasis on marriage in the LDS teaching brings me to recall some Biblical big wigs who were not married, at least as far as we know: Elijah - who never saw death, Elisha, Samuel, John the Baptist, and, of course, Paul. And indeed these men did throw themselves entirely in their ministries. I understand that most of what Paul was saying seems to be under the idea that there would be heavy persecution and/or the end times approaching soon. But to say "But each man has his own gift from God; one has this gift, another has that." seems to fall beyond the scope of immediate threat or harm. It reminds me of Ephesians 4: Just as my friend who's been in jail has a special circumstance in which only he can effectively minister to those around him, I think also singles can have special circumstances in which they can effectively minister. And although I believe the disciples were wrong to conclude so (unless they meant the second marriage), Jesus' response seems poignant (Matthew 19): Do I have a conclusion? No. I often don't around here; as with other times, I am just making my observation and looking forward to the discussion that ensues. And now, the abridged-by-me text of 1 Cor 7:

Two few points I'd like to bring up: The book of Mormon teaches that Jesus did indeed appear in the flesh - and not just in a vision - post-ascension: he appeared among the Nephites in America. I have no sort of conclusion to this matter, I just wanted to point it out, since nobody else had. Next, the differences in the gospels can't be compared to the differences in Joseph Smith's accounts, as four different people wrote the gospels, and Joseph Smith is the single source of his accounts. If four people were to tell exactly the same story four times, the logical conclusion is that they collaborated together to concoct (or at least "iron out the details of") the story. This is an understanding that police and investigators use to catch falsehoods in alibis. Conversely, I would have to agree that the differences between the appearances of an angel, Jesus, and Jesus and God are very major points of differences. It's not quite the difference of 'there were three guys sitting at the table across from me' and 'actually, there were four'. Its the difference between 'a heavenly host' and 'the Creator of the universe'.

You do not inherit and rule over other worlds, but you may - if you work hard enough at worthiness - progress to Godhood eventually (after this mortal life) and can be the god of worlds of your own creation. I'm not LDS, but this, I think, is a fair understanding.

Hello dunno2. First of all, I want to say I think you're the world's sweetest sweetie for doing this for your soon-to-be fiance! That said, I also want to say that any decisions you make about your faith matters should be for you and only you. I think you'll find these guys here are very, very helpful, and you can learn a lot from them. Have a good time!

I apply the latter half of the quote to the former half: was that Prophet's quote doctrinal, or simply his own belief? I'm not trying to say that the (lds) church has necessarily been led astray, past or present, but infallibility is a very dangerous concept to me. But even Popes have apologized for acts of the Church in the past (that is, admitting wrong), despite the idea of Papal Infallibility.

I think TeancumsSword's point is that a person is 50% their father, and 50% their mother. Hemi, you speak of an inheritance that has cultural standards, but that is not something that this generation readily accepts, because of women's and racial equality movements, and the increase of our understandings in biology. And to this point: I have to say... If you believe in the Restoration of the Church as brought by Joseph Smith, then you believe in the Apostasy, in which case you believe that the Lord did allow false doctrine to exist in his church for nearly 2000 years. (That's about ten times the amount of time that the LDS church as been Restored!) If you believe that Joseph Smith restored the church, you must also accept these possibilities. I'm not saying that's necessarily how it transpired, but you can't write off the possibility either.

I have a friend (guy) who decided to check out my church after he started seeing my other friend (girl). Although the girl thought the guy was only doing it in order to get closer to her and look like a good boy for her, I truly believe he was sincere in his interest, and was hurt by her accusations.

a-train, I meant in reference to the OP's