Islander

Einstein was a recalcitrant Jew that just wanted to do his own thing and not be burdened with observing the traditions of his fathers. But he could not avoid the reality of the creation, the universe and the complexity found therein for which he had no explanation. I can humbly tell you that I have pondered, researched and analyze matters of faith and science much longer that you. I am a man of science and inquiry is of God, we have been commanded to search and to learn and be acquainted with the knowledge and the perplexities of the universe. The notion that everything can be explained by rational means is simply not true, in fact is unscientific. By his own admission: "I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details. Science without religion is lame. Religion without science is blind." A. Einstein. He was not the cold, calculating and exclusive mathematician you think he was. Beyond that, we should just agree to disagree. Yo claim there is no God, I say He is certainly very real. You just refuse to met Him, but eventually you will. I'll make sure I'm there the witness the exchange. Good luck sport.

Lovely: On a lighter note, these issues of race are old, irrelevant news now. I am also black, more often than not the ONLY one in just about every congregation I have been in Southern California. but I love my brethren of the Priesthood and they have loved me to death. Last week we went to Phoenix for my wife's best friend weeding. She is not a member so on Sunday morning we found the nearest ward on the Church website and went to Sacrament. As soon as the prayer ended I had 4 or 5 brethren on me like ink on paper, all asking us why they did not know we had moved into the ward and where was the moving truck!! I was in Utah last month and the ALL told me that since I was traveling up there so much for business (1-2 per month now) I should consider moving right in. You may encountered, now and again, some stuck on something they heard an ion ago. They forgot from whom or where they heard it. Take no offense not heed to such non-sense. The doctrine is pristine and perfect, the people are not.

Over the course of many generations we have adopted values and a frame of reference which is far distant from that of the generations that made this country truly great. We have confused wealth, popularity, notoriety, celebrity and extreme narcissism (we call it now eccentricity) with greatness. Sad state of affairs. Greatness is about the quality of our heart and our disposition to lose ourselves in the service of others. The Savior Said: Verily I say unto you, That ye which have followed me, in the regeneration when the Son of man shall sit in the throne of his glory, ye also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel. And every one that hath forsaken houses, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands, for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall inherit everlasting life. But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first. Mat 19:28-30 We should aspire to do great things in the name and in the service of our God. For our families, spouses, neighbors, for all the children of God as long as the sun shall rise and until the Savior comes to declare that the work has been done. Perhaps your general emotional state stems from other issues and current life conditions. You should start there.

Prophets are human and as such they make mistake, they misjudge things, act on impulse some times, allow themselves to be swept in emotion. The bible is full of those examples. Beyond that, what was said last Spring in Conference and the words of the living prophets stand fast and hold sway over what was said 200 years ago, regardless of who said it. "History is not destiny. Who you were and what happened to you yesterday has no baring on who you can become and where you can reach" grandma just to say. Forget the history. Catholics are not troubled too much for the horrors of the inquisition in past centuries or the current scandals shaking the Church, for example. The doctrine as revealed by God is perfect. But even the men that received it are not. Strengthen your faith, do not allow the enemy to plant the seeds of doubt and uncertainty in your mind. Feast on the words of Christ, hold on to your covenant and move forward. At some point we will understand ALL of God's purposes but until then we should be about His work.

When a boat sinks, you would be surprised how resourceful some can become. Poverty does not come from bad economic conditions. It comes from lack of opportunity, it comes from government corruption and inequality, it comes from lack of resources and infective laws and socio-economic models. Last I check none would apply to the US. Poverty in the US has other roots. It is just not politically correct to criticize poor people. During the Depression things were hard but people survived. It was a great lesson that this generation forgot.

Einstein stated once: "The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift." I suggest that you must start by questioning your motivation. At the heart of uncertainty and doubt lives fear. You have to really first acknowledge and later examine the nature of your fears. Until you are free from fear you could start moving into the exploratory process that will lead you to grow your faith. But you must seek to receive revelation, insight and awareness (we cal that intuition, to sense or know before we have actual evidence) of the purpose of God for your life rather than trying to reach the truth through a mathematical, rational process. No offense my brother, but none of us is that smart. God does the impossible (according to our puny minds) because He KNOWS how to do it. One day you will know, also. He has promised us that. I equate your current situation to somebody who is on the verge of developing viral symptoms. The organism/body is already infected but your immune system is fighting it. So you feel queasy, neither sick not well. You can sense that something is amiss, not quite the way it supposed to but you can't put your finger on it. I think I mentioned this before; you have to act "as if." You have to kill the air time you afford to the negative thought process, you have to push the doubt out of your mind. A random thought is like a bird that can land on our head while you are sitting in the park. But you don't have to let it make a nest on you. Faith defies reason. A miracle is just the impossible that becomes reality. Some times we will have rational explanations for such events, others we will not. As we grow up we move from the "why" and into the "what." Why and the mechanics of certain events are not as important as what to do about then and how to act. The truth and essence of what goes on around us will be revealed in due time. Humility encompasses our willingness to act as if we understood until we do.

It is not a blood test that will return fixed values based on genetics, for example. It is, at best, a mood-personality indicator. Your responses will depend, by far, on your mood, current life events, emotional and relational variables and other mood related states. Like I mentioned, it lacks internal reliability.

It is just entertainment. The internal reliability of the instrument is suspect, at best. but it is fun to some, I guess.

The analogy of the pool (it got lost I suppose) related to the fact that not much is necessary to reek havoc. Nude modeling can lead to other more explicit forms of "art." What goes on in UCLA, for example, is just bizarre. I am not deriding the art form per say. I am overall pointing to the fact that in general there are other forms that do not deal with the subject but are of equal or greater value.

I sort of understand the attempt to rationalize this one. But one drop of sewer water in a swimming pool and the right bacteria and you have a pandemic in your hands. Better safe than sorry. I have not missed anything of real value by not going to a contempo art gallery to see paintings of naked women. My life is just fine. Ask my wife.

I am sadden that you feel that way. There is ample evidence that what you call "reason", given enough time and with the help of the adversary of course, will likely lead you away from God's Kingdom for what He demands and requires as a prerequisite to sharing His power and blessings is FAITH. Solomon forsook God for other forbidden things. I Kings 11:1; reports that Solomon loved many strange women, from God forbidden nations, who eventually turned his heart away from his God. Solomon allowed his wives to turn his heart towards other gods. See I Kings 11:4. He began to worship Chemosh, Molech and other god's. (I Kings 11:7) Solomon served other gods by building high places, burning incense and offering sacrifices to those gods. (I Kings 11:7,8) His line of reasoning was always the same. Peace and trade are worthwhile pursuits. Alliances thru shared (uniform) beliefs/religion are always better and long lasting. Perhaps there are other gods and they do service those who worship them. I do not want to offend the other gods. Let people do as they will and there is no harm for they will be happy. Ironic that Solomon, one of, if not the wisest man in the history of mankind was a failure as far as faith and obedience was concerned. Some brief research will unquestionably lead you realize that ALL those that have left the Church reached a point where they thought themselves wiser, more enlightened and insightful than those called and appointed by God to lead His Church and His people. That your faith falters, that you hope is weak, that your belief and confidence in the revelation of the latter days is shaken? Do not despair. But fast, pray and search the word and revelation of God until your faith becomes as a mountain. There is no magic or trick. Just do it.

I would recommend a book by Peter Senge; "The Fifth Discipline." Just because you got into a car crash you do not write off cars all together and cry for public transportation to save you. We are going thru a cycle. Just like the "roaring 20's" gave way to the Great Depression of the 30's and 40's. Some 40 years of very high tension during the cold war where America was at the bring of pulling the nuclear trigger ended without a shot being fired. These are cycles. We had a decade of unrestrained excess, wildly speculative markets and unsustainable consumption. A correction was in order and here we are. Let's not throw out the baby with the bath water. Capitalism works and as a socio-economic system has proven to be a fair, balanced, less repressive, more transparent and conducive to wealth creation and the well being of the people than any other system in recorded history. Only God can do it better so we should wait for the Savior rather than try and cook something up in our spare time with our word processor. Governments do not fix anything, improve anything or create anything. They are entropic consumption and cost centers that ultimately depend on ever increasing taxation to support themselves with little regard for the source of that revenue. The best and the brightest never work for the government for any sustainable period of time. Some 6 months ago some of the brightest business minds in this country pointed out the the automakers needed to go into a managed bankruptcy in order to survive. There is video of the cacophony of congress saying "that will never happen...it is unthinkable..." Here we are half a year and 30 billion dollars later. Government needs to stick to the business of government as our Founding Fathers intended.

I think we got the wiring crossed. I was responding and quoted Koizito in my response. But in general, that s why the exchange with atheists as well as certain evangelicals is a royal waste. They arrive (to forums like thins one, mind you) their mind made up and argument ready without an ounce of deference for the opposing view. They (some atheist)e) may say that they just do not believe in deity. If that is all they did it would be fine. But they actively oppose and antagonize with Christians constantly. Agreed, not all but the opposition (legal and otherwise) is consistent and tangible. Have you ever seen the ACLU or atheist groups protesting the curriculum at Islamic private schools in Michigan, for example? Or religious celebrations of any other kind except Christian's? Perhaps I failed to make my point explicit. It may not be all, it may be even a minority but the impact is the same. They ascribe to a belief system divergent from mine. That is fine. To argue and oppose mine with no other evidence than the absence of evidence is just as intangible as my own evidence is to them to the contrary. So that is why I agreed to disagree.

I would agree. I have been in the US going on 20 years now and still don't get the people's fascination with violence. Elsewhere I describe in some details what is like to actually shoot somebody. Not pretty or glmorous.

Yeah, sure...nudity for exclusive "artistic reasons." We can and often do become desensitized from whatever stimuli under certain conditions and with familiarity and repetition. The simple fact is that nudity is designed to be attractive, appealing, enticing and arousing. We can argue what is the level of the beforehand mentioned but they remains the substrata of the driver to engage in such art pursue. It is just like my neighbor. She like short skirts. She claims it benefits/accentuate her figure, she always dressed that way, it keeps her body fresh, it is a modern style, it makes her look younger....blah, blah....The bottom line is she relishes the attention she gets by wearing short skirts. She likes turning heads, it feeds her ego.

It seems you have taken a position where religion and science are mutually exclusive when that is simply not the case. I point to the millions of Latter-day Saints that are men and women of science in diverse disciplines. Hypothesis are necessary to formulate frameworks to further inquiry, knowledge and understanding. We are not divorced from scientific inquiry. All I say is that, as a scientist, I operate under a theories/hypothesis "as if" it were a valid assumption. But it may not be. It serves its purpose, however. At times the premise is proven accurate at times false, but it had a roll to play. Science relates to and can ONLY explain a portion of the human existence/experience. We believe that the essence of God of truth and light, intelligence and thus ALL knowledge belongs to Him as it was set in motion by Him. We do not "discover" anything but merely become aware of truth which already existed, facts hidden from view and awareness but nevertheless real and tangible just not yet accessible to our understanding. This could become a never-ending argument. Suffice to say that I have access to the same information, reason and science that you hold dear and the foundation of your belief in the absence of God. I have additional information, irrefutable facts, unequivocal and unbending personal revelation and evidence that indeed God is real, that He lives, that He cares and answers my prayers. Since you and I, both, made up our minds on the matter; we should split the difference here and agree to disagree.

Hang in there. The Savior is making His way to us. In the mean time, please do not hold your breath.

That reasoning does not hold water. Science has gone on for 2000 years based on assumptions and theories for which it had no evidence whatsoever. Some of the most elegant and popular theories of the day are based on theoretical/mathematical models!! And yes, as a man of God and a scientist, I can stretch my mind to work based on theory and build whatever model it helps me solve everyday problems and create applications/solutions. So, if you negate the existence of God as a starting point, then you will never find if this is the case since the proposition of your thesis holds an intrinsic bias that completely invalidates the experiment.

Nudity was a curiosity and celebrated in the ancient world. In early 20th century it satisfied sexual anxiety. Today a naked statute does not signify "art" necessarily and other than teenagers, most people will ignore it. Art (nudity) in general is a more or less veiled attempt to satisfied sexual restlessness in the part of the artist and the need for attention of the model. Money is just the incentive to catalyze the transaction. Just my opinion.

In other circles we call this slow/small variation from truth "a one degree of inferential variation." If I can make you change course just one degree, in time you will be thousands of miles away from course/truth. Ogre is absolutely right. The end result of sin is spiritual death and complete estrangement from God, His word, Spirit and ultimately His Kingdom. There is no scale for sins. We erroneously tend to equate social consequences with spiritual ones. So, in our minds stealing is a greater sin than sexual transgression. But it is not so. We have trivialized sex and removed all social constrains where sexual behavior is no longer the subject of morality or ethical concerns for most of society. The effort to drive God out of the public square has nothing to do with rights or theocracy. God is the author of liberty, freedom and rights. The problem is that He also speaks about a whole lot of other things that get in the way of people's social agendas.

Well, depending on where you are from in Argentina you will freeze in Scandinavia or not. English is widely spoken so that is a plus. If you have a good tan you will be a celebrity there. People are very polite and kind, very friendly and inquisitive. You will find they want to know everything about you. Share but do not boast. The shock is the food. Nothing like we are used to in this side of the world. Remember: "when in Rome, do as the Romans" and roll with the punches.

Why do you have to cut the other trees around you to feel the talest in the forest, so to speak? Why do you have to promote "reason and science over religion"? Teach what you will, you do not have to compare it or juxtapose it to religion. We preach and teach the Gospel of Christ without regard for other religions, atheists and the like. I suggest that your exercise is less that genuine. Atheists, openly and consistently oppose religion as a critical component of your agenda. The WHOLE essence of atheist philosophy is the denial of deity. In fact, it is the Christian God the one that your design is centered against. It is also telling that atheists come to a religious forum and spend so much time trying to share their agenda when the purpose and intent of the forum is completely the opposite. Just interesting.

Often times, robbery in those countries has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that he is an Apostle of the Church and a lot to do with the apparent wealth and imagined possession of the occupants. Americans are targets of thieves just about everywhere on account of their passports, basically. And yes, those kinds of events are deemed an "inside job" more often than not. The people that work for or in the mission home in various capacities are likely part of the plot. We are trying to do the Lord's work but it is a different moral universe. In the jungle you are either the prey or the predator, unfortunately.

Same can be said for college education. It takes time, discipline, effort and resources. It seems too much for some people. Motivation is key. If eternal life and exaltation is not enough to motivate someone then nothing will and this life will be their reward.

He is just angry and throwing a tantrum. He is a grown man and ought to be able to take care of himself. He will not die. If you get kidnapped by aliens tonight he will find a way to fend for himself. He HAS to. You love him but that does not include enabling him to be rude, disrespectful and unproductive. You do not have to tolerate that in your home. Now he needs to grow up and be a man. Tell him to go join the Navy and make something of himself.