Islander
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Posts posted by Islander
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It seems futuristic but it is true. Most people have ONLY a 4-5 day supply of food at home. A big jolt of the earth's crust, the freeways collapse and the food supply is disrupted. You could see some very ugly things in the streets. And that is not a far fetch scenario. I have seen several refugee camps. They are not pleasant.
Yep, you ALL should overcome your aversion and apprehension about guns and purchase some, learn how to use them REALLY well, practice as a family how to use them appropriately in case of emergency and store them safely. And pray you'd never have to use them.
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The pain and disappointment at this stage are unavoidable. You don't have to go into painfully excruciating detail about your "sins." They already know you have gone wayward and they are also avoiding the conversation, believe me. They will continue to pray and hope that you would mend your ways. Nothing you say willl make them stop trying to bring you back into the fold. You be polite, have compassion for their pain and do not try to "assert" your free will on their faces. In oder words, do not wear your rebelious/sinful ways on your sleeve.
Just be courteous and polite. You are an adult and you do not have to divulge details of your private life. It serves no purpose other than adding insult to injury.
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The issue here is multifaceted. But from a purely legal standpoint a child has no legal right to receive or refuse medical treatment on his/her own. Sexual behavior excluded (that seems more a political issue than a medical one), children can not seek or receive medical treatment on their own. They enjoy protection under the law and they become a ward of the state whenever parental protection is absent or negligent.
For example, the parents could be arrested and the children removed by the state if it is found that they are not providing adequate health care. This case is in reverse. The state can compel a child to receive care for he is willfully and intentionally endangering himself.
From the family standpoint I wonder how is it that he rather die than get better. The family must have some serious issues.
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Why are we arguing about this. Obama is a "nominal" Christian just like Bill Clinton was a Christian and many other people in America today. He HAS to be (or at least call himself one) with a name like Barak Hussein Obama in the US. He had no choice other than to associate himself with Christians or he would get nowhere politically. A gamble that paid off, obviously as he managed himself to get elected to the highest office in the land in what is perhaps the shortest political career in history. Even his reported hero; JFK, served the people of New England for 13 yers before getting elected President. Obama is a "Sunday" Christian. He stood before the world and denied the Christian heritage of America so I am not surprised he is pro-abortion.
The fact is that it means very little these days to call oneself "Christian." You can, after all, be a serial killer and call yourself Christian, a drug addict, homosexual, an abortion nurse. You can be what you are, do what you please and call yourself a Christian on Sunday.
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I have been hoping a mod would step in for the last two days when it became obvious that we are merely the entertainment devices for a troll.
This thread hasn't gone anywhere since page 27 at least. I think it is time to lock it.
Yep...Moderator, Moderator? Where are thou, most mighty and powerful rulers of this realm? Pam, her highness?
Inflict upon this unruly and misguided intruder thy touch and brand the skin of his avatar with the sign of the unfit (BANNED)....and send him on his merry way, please;)
;)PS: I am reading (paraphrasing at times) Shakespeare's Henry the VII to my kids. I could not stomach the SHO rendition. Can you tell?
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It is great!! Is there an actual site where you can see scheduled programming?
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Don't go too far. In certain exclusive neighborhoods missionaries seldom go because all they do is ring intercoms and a maid would answer and she will not open the door for them. That can go on for miles and days. So, they rather trek over the mountains and into the Southern California desert where, although 120 degrees hot for 4 months out of the year, there are humble and willing people to listen and accept the Gospel.
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nite nite
AJ:
You just discredited yourself. You just got to the site under the claim of trying to sincerely inquire and learn. And you come out guns blazing quoting 2 Ne, D&C and the Journal of Discourses?
Dude, I am a convert, I was an investigator, I spent years looking for a church, reading, researching in 4 languages and it took me a very long time to get to the details. Your story is just not credible. I sincerely wish you well but I am done.
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The easiest to profess. The hardest to actually live.
Amen:
In my years of searching for a church, many times I felt that certain "brands" of Christianity were "barely Christian."
To call oneself a disciple, a follower of the way and true believer in Christ we MUST follow in His footsteps and do as He did.
Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. Matt 5:48
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I went to bookofMormononline.net What do you mean it is not mentioned. I gave the references. I saw it with my own eyes. I do not lie about stuff like this or play games. Look up the references in 2&3 Nephi that I posted. Look at the prophecy on the bottom of what I posted. I am going to double check myself. I was careful.
AJ:
Rather than this endless and pointless argument, why don't you read the Book of Mormon and when you get to a scripture that you do not understand come and ask a specific question.
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You see maybe I should approach my study differently. The Mormons on this forum don't agree with eachother about the Bible. Some feel it supports LDS doctrine and some feel it doesn't clash and some say it is not accurate or dependable. Now you say that you didn't say it doesn't clash. That is kind of what I was hoping to hear, because I see clashing. Some are not being honest about it or are in denial about it. I am very curious as to why. By the way, that was an interesting definitions of a troll.
Using the bible as your ONLY point of reference will take you nowhere, as demonstrated by the hundreds of garden variety religious sects currently in the world. More over, the bible does have internal contradictions. It was compiled by men, replicated by men and translated by men. Again, variances across translations and interpretations by congregations (Eastern Orthodox vs Roman order). Archaeological scholarship, linguistics, among other disciplines have shed light into the texts and revisions have been made over the years. The selection of the very cannon of scripture that we hold to be the inspired word of God and revere by Christians suffered changes over the years and some books were removed and others added. To this day some books used in the Roman Church which are not used by the evangelical churches.
As Justice pointed above, if you think you already know the answer then the exercise (studying LDS scriptures) is futile. Those who knew the most in Israel accuse the very Law Giver of breaking the Law and suggested He was of the devil. What more can we say.
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Anyone who had their calling and election made sure, is a special witness of Christ.
Thank you
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Tyler above was very eloquent. I just wanted to ad that your questions denote the fact that you have a very limited understanding of Christianity in particular and or religion in general. I suggest that without a clear insight into who God is and why we seek to understand His purposes for us you will not get very far. Your assertion that it would be "good for him" (your husband) but not for you could not be further from the truth. but again, it is clear that you do not understand, your are not there yet.
As far as joining the Church just to be supportive, I agree with the post above. It makes no sense at all. It is not a fraternal organization or a social group. You do not owe allegiance to a group of people but membership means you are seeking a covennant with God Himself and desire to join His people.
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I didn't know this. I thought it was a matter of understanding. If you trace back posts you can see why I am led to think this way. So are you meaning to tell me you don't agree with the explaination of faith I have posted? Then, I would like to know why:confused:Instead of being told I am not sincere by one!
My point exactly. After 30 pages of posts, some clarity emerged on your part as to what we actually believe about faith and works. It would have taken you about 1 hour of reading and you would have arrived at the same place minus the contention and animosity.
I suggest it is important for you to really question your motivations and the true intent of your heart for being here. We know what you have been taught, we know what you believe and your contribution by way of posting has been plentiful.
Our witness is simple: We hold, as you do, that the bible is inspired of God and it is an intrinsic part of our cannon as well. What we have, share and invite all men to do is to study and ponder, to pray and to ask God in regards to the witness and revelation that has come to us in the latter days, namely The Book of Mormon. It does not negate or deride existing scripture but clarifies. It offer another witness of the divinity of Christ, of his ministry, mission, mercy towards the children of God and unequivocal assertion that Salvation is of Him, by Him and thru Him. It is Him whom we worship and who directs the affairs of His Church thru His appointed servants today, for He lives and reveals His will and order to those who desire to listen to His voice. And we strive to live our lives according His commandments in humility for we all sin and fall short of His glory but His mercy and redemption is our bright hope for salvation and exaltation. And we labor to spread the Gospel, the good news of which you also spoke, to the whole world. So ALL come to know the Lord and Redeemer of mankind and be saved.
I sincerely pray you will consider the above. I also pray that you would ponder in your heart what questions you may have and seek to first research in detail. And once you have exhausted the material then come back and ask but not in the spirit of contention, but to sincerely attempt to understand.
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As per our discusion on faith and works, I found Al Maxey coments on it that I agree with, but I feel he is able to articulater better than me:
"What is the gospel? It is not a system of doctrine, a philosophy of life, a compilation of laws, or a code of ethics. It is good news about a person and what that person has done for us in our hopeless, helpless and hapless condition. It is not a message for the saved, but for the lost. It is never addressed to saints, but to sinners. It is never proclaimed to the church, but to the world" (Ketcherside, The Twisted Scriptures). "A careful student of the Galatian letter will at once see that the good news was a proclamation that we are justified by faith in Christ, and not by works of law" (ibid). "This is the gospel which Paul proclaimed in Galatia. It was the good news that Jesus was not as powerless as Greek wisdom and Jewish legalism. Salvation was not hinged upon arriving at wisdom or coming under law, but coming to a person" (ibid). "The gospel is Jesus Christ, the Son of God. He is the good news, the greatest good news in all the history of sinful man. Paul declared that the message brought to Galatia was 'Jesus Christ publicly portrayed as crucified' (Gal. 3:1). The truth of that gospel, that is, the essence, the basis, the central theme was justification by faith in Jesus Christ" (ibid).
· The gospel message of the apostle Paul was, and still is, simply this -- "For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast" (Eph. 2:8-9). No man can be justified before God by his own meritorious effort under a system of law ... any system of law. The only wage man merits is death, "but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Rom. 6:23). The message of this free gift of God's grace is the gospel. It is ours for the taking by faith in His Son. Paul emphasizes this truth repeatedly throughout his writings, and opposes with great intensity any effort to subvert this message with legalistic thinking.
The Gospel means good news to me!
To ALL of us as well. The issue here is according to what I have seen thus far, that it is unclear what you are seeking here in the forum. Realize that nothing you have said so far is novel or different from what every other non-LDS poster have shared in the past. There are 1000's of posts carbon copy, almost with what you have shared. See, you just got here but we have been around for years.
So, the skepticism is about your desire to contend before you have taken the time to research the wealth of information already here. It is a well traveled road, I promise you. You are entitled to your beliefs and we only claim the same privileged.
The argument is as old as the hills and the life of the Savior is a testimony to the fact that the truth and facts about God often time escape the learned and the erudite for no reason other than the fact that they closed their ears to it; for they supposed they already knew.
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i'm curious here...what role does "heavenly mother" play in our salvation and exaltation?
none!!!
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I was in UT this past weekend, Mother's day, and I have to admit was troubled by the references to "Heavenly Mother" during a couple of the meetings. What troubles me is that, as mentioned above, there is no doctrine or specific revelation/teaching shared by the prophets in that regard. We should not confuse mention with declaration.
There are many things that are real but that we should not be concerned with in general. I suggest this is one of them.
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THere are additional crisis brewing in the horizong that will come to a boil in the next 18 months or so. This administration will be tasked with making a decision about wha to do. It will be interesting to see the argument they will use.
Like I mentioned before, it is not situational ethics or cost/benefit analysis. But we can not interfere in every conflict and even if we do, most times nothing really will change.
Some of the most embarrassing moments for the country happened right after the Tsunami in South East Asia. The US sent billions in humanitarian aid, being the first to arrive in the region to help with rescue and disasters relief. We were told to drop off the relief and leave. You heard nothing on CNN about it. Almost 500,000 people died and the new coverage evaporated quite quickly. One of the largest relief operations in modern history and we never received a public acknowledgment of the aid rendered. What most people missed was the fact that Indonesia is the largest Islamic country in the world, percentage wise.
American history, values, laws and government are significantly different from the rest of the world. We keep forgetting that nobody else in the planet understands our social experiment. Any attempt we make to share and replicate it is met with resistance and rejection. We should ONLY offer the Gospel for what it is; the absolute truth about God's plan for his children and leave the government (to Caesar) to itself.
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Now that a Republican is not in the White House, we've suddenly remembered that we are not and cannot be the world's policemen.
(No offense, Maxel. I realize that a lot of conservatives were opposing war even during the runup to Operation Iraqi Freedom.)
Well, here are my two cents on this issue.
If you've been to public school, you know that even if you try to hide and avoid EVERYBODY the day will come when you are going to have to fight somebody over your lunch money, snacks or just to be left alone. What happens during that fight determines if you are going to have to fight just that time, everyday or once a year, or maybe never again.
I am glad I am neither a politician not a commanding officer in the US army. We have gone about this conflict in the ME the wrong way. Primarily because we have ignored history, experience and factual intelligence in favor of State Department driven policies and strategy generated by Ivy-League people whose only experience in geopolitics is the foreign film festival week at Baltimore's Grand theater and late nights at the Yale library.
I truly believe that during the last decade the administration tried but failed because of lack of true insight into the geopolitics involved in the conflicts around the world, the politicization of the intelligence organization and the hesitation inside the intelligence community on account of past punishment dispensed by past administrations. We have not executed as it should and thus here we are almost 10 years later. And last, I would quote and paraphrase a hero of mine:
"Now ye [all of you enemies of democracy and freedom] see that this is the true faith of God; yea, ye see that God will support, and keep, and preserve us, so long as we are faithful unto him, and unto our faith, and our religion; and never will the Lord suffer that we shall be destroyed except we should fall into transgression and deny our faith.
And now, [you that lie to the meek and ignorant pretending to speak and stand for the word of God] , I command you, in the name of that all-powerful God, who has strengthened our arms that we have gained power over you, by our faith, by our religion, and by our rites of worship, and by our church, and by the sacred support which we owe to our wives and our children, by that liberty which binds us to our lands and our country; yea, and also by the maintenance of the sacred word of God, to which we owe all our happiness; and by all that is most dear unto us—
Yea, and this is not all; I command you by all the desires which ye [should] have for [the] life [of your children and families], that ye deliver up your weapons of war unto us, and we will seek not your blood, but we will spare your lives, if ye will go your way [and stop trying to use terror, fear and intimidation as a way to subdue the world and those that do not share your distorted ways and means of worship] and come not again to war against us.
And now, if ye do not this, behold, ye are in our hands, and I will command my men that they shall fall upon you, and [and seek after you across the sea, in every land and in the hole of the rocks wherever you may seek to hide] inflict the wounds of death in your bodies, that ye may become extinct [for good and never come to war against us again]; and then we will see who shall [bring freedom and liberty] have [and give] power over [to] this people.
Alma 44
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Never a laugh button when you need it.
hahaahaha!!! You are right!!!
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Islander, did you serve in Africa [military wise]?
Yep, I have been to Congo, Guinea, Cabo Verde, Angola, Ethiopia, Somalia, Syria...among others. Really unpleasant neighborhoods, I tell you.
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Define progress. :)
Yep, my question exactly...
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Or, coming back to reality, where it will benefit the country exerting the influence the most in whatever subtle way
Well, my friend, it so happens that somebody HAS to be in charge and take the initiative. Government by consensus has never worked.
Beyond that, the inter dependencies in the planet run deep. We are discussing global geopolitics on a forum hosted in the US, on a server with parts made in Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore, assembled in the US by Mexican workers, with an OS loaded by Indian programmers so that members in 40 countries can share their thoughts in their Chinese assembled computers powered by electricity generated by turbines made in Germany and fueled by oil from the Middle East. Got that?
Yeah, they are not ulterior motives but operating realities that can not be avoided in today's globalized environment.
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Compassion fatigue.
What the American people are realizing is that war, death, disease, hunger, conflict and strife are the norm in the world and has been from the beginning of mankind. Global sources of information and access to it on demand has created greater awareness of current conditions rather.
We can not possibly interfere in every conflict currently taking place in the world. We have to be pragmatic and exert influence where we believe it will do the most good, benefit the most and we are able to develop prospects for long lasting solutions/peace. Some of these conflicts are ancestral strugles that will never be resolved. Not in this lifetime, anyhow.
The level of insight, thinking and philosophical frame of reference of the people MUST increase as to be able to develop high level analysis and solutions for their problems, such well above the mental stage at which they were created. History is a good teacher. we happen to be very bad students.
Prepared to defend yourself?
in Preparedness
Posted
I can see where your argument comes from, but consider this. For the longest time, most gun owners have found that the common ground with the gun lobby (read manufacturing and distributors) is very small. But because of the aggressiveness of the gun control crowd they have become bed fellows of convenience. The constituencies are very diverse and the needs, culture and interest, say in Montana, are different than in Palm springs, CA. Because just about ALL the legislation about gun ownership comes from the gun control side it puts the rest of the people on the defensive. In the last 20 years or so just about all legislative attempts hinted, at least in the eyes of some, at slowly but surely eroding gun ownership rights. Case in point England and Australia where gun rights are gone.
Some suggest that law enhancements aimed at the criminal elements will bear better fruit than trying to restrict gun ownership. After all, most gun violence in this country is perpetrated by people that are not legal gun owners, anyhow.
The argument continues,, of course.