bytor2112

16 months post open heart surgery and I feel AMAZING! I had no idea that I wasn't feeling well.....go figure. Life is pretty much like nothing bad ever happened and I am back to the gym again and doing whatever I want.....maybe even better,
 
My LDL cholesterol is 60....weird and I had one 100% blocked artery and three more that were nearly 100% blocked. Anyways, I am going to post more about the whole experience from cardiac arrest to surgery and recovery. Maybe it will be useful to someone...
 
The irony is that I had been away from the forum for a year or so and posted "I'm back" the night before the heart attack.About 6-7 hours after posting "I'm back" I was in the ER flat lining. Should have stayed gone....

You mean ...moderately pro abortion right? 

The number of abortions is also down, from about 1.6 million in 1990 to a bit over one million last year (source).
 
Nevertheless, popular attitudes about abortion don't matter worth a fig when the law is set by Supreme Court Justices, who are chosen by a President who thinks it's perfectly acceptable to take a living, breathing, squirming baby, dump it on a shelf, and leave it to freeze to death just because that baby committed the cardinal sin of surviving a botched abortion.

If, as you believe, He created us to love us, why did He create Hell? Why did He give us agency? (Even if it was so those who worship Him forever will not be simple slaves, this is still megalomania.)
Even in a non-Calvinist theology, the God Who created people, knowing the the majority of us will end up in an eternal pit of fire, where we will never die, but always suffer, must be a cruel God, a vicious God, a sadistic God.
If He didn't know, He would not be omniscient. If He did, He's a monster.
The problem of evil has never been resolved under orthodox theology, it cannot be.
Lehi

This argument is over a hyperliteral interpretation of the term "monotheism". When most cultures revere a pantheon of gods and you have to have an "unknown god" to fill in just in case you missed someone. any Abrahamic religion will stand out because of its insistence that (1) there is only one true God and (2) there are no other gods beside that one.
 
But once that is established and people quit believing in pantheons of gods including the god of the hearth, the god of the plow, and the god of morning breath, attention turns to the actual nature of the one true God. So finding out that that God consists of three individuals or entities is not a regression to polytheism, but a refinement of understanding.
 
In the same hyperliteral vein, note that the "Trinity" is without doubt a polytheistic belief. Don't believe me? Ask any Muslim (or Jew). For Trinitarian Christians to draw a definitional line between the "Trinity" as monotheistic and the LDS "Godhead" as polytheistic is Pharisaical gnat-straining of the most obvious kind.

After reading all of this....I reluctantly admit to having cable and will make an appointment with my Bishop and repent.

After reading all of this....I reluctantly admit to having cable and will make an appointment with my Bishop and repent.

After reading all of this....I reluctantly admit to having cable and will make an appointment with my Bishop and repent.

I think (of course I'm only presuming...but I suspect I'm quite right) that the percentage of people who are going too extreme in this sort of regard are significantly fewer than those who are not diligent enough in the other regard. There are, I suspect, very few in the church who are fanatical with their doing of right to the point where it actually becomes harmful to them. On the other hand, I expect there are a very great many who watch shows with negative influences and write it off as no big deal. "Negative influences" is putting it nicely. I expect that majority of church members are watching shows and movies with nudity, extreme violence, foul language, and insidious corrupt worldly principles and writing it off as no big deal.
 
Not that I believe you are saying this -- but the fact that some look beyond the mark in being too strict (and beyond that judgmental and applying said over-strictness to others beyond what has been taught by our leaders) does not have any meaning as to whether we should or should not be allowing much of the entertainment into our homes that we do.

In a faraway land lay a country in turmoil. Beset by troubles, famine, and internal strife, it seemed to many to be on a path to destruction, carrying with it its people. Fortunately, a vastly wealthy benefactor, not of that country, commissioned the good ship Zion as a refuge for those who sought escape from the turmoil, promising to bring its passengers to a far better land. Passage was free; the only price was a willingness to serve as the benefactor (and those he appointed to lead) requested. Among many, it was required that they agree to give all they had for the benefit of the ship, though few were actually required to hand their stuff over. In any case, it was understood that their reward in the new land would vastly exceed anything they offered.
 
Many gladly signed up. Who wouldn't? They were a merry bunch, and many were surprised and even delighted to learn that the ship's crew was staffed entirely by the passengers. This made for an interesting and sometimes uncomfortable dynamic, as the passengers themselves served the other passengers.
 
Yet some felt to criticize the appointed officers, even supposing that they themselves would be better suited for command. Even the captain himself was not spared such berating. And so the ship sailed on, but not has happy or as productive as it might have been. Some of the passengers took a very long time to figure out -- and some never did figure out -- that being an officer on board was utterly irrelevant. They were going to a new land, a promised land of plenty, where the strifes and turmoil of their home country didn't exist. Having been brought up in and infected by the evils of their home country, they foolishly thought that position among the crew or status as an officer was somehow meaningful in the long term.
 
But the humble, those that didn't worry about how they thought their neighbor might perceive them, kept in mind their goal and the reason for their journey. They kept quiet about the bilge water, the sometimes less-than-restaurant-quality mess, the inevitable slip-ups by the hands or deck officers, and even the occasional rat darting about. They kept their own berth shipshape and tried to do well at their duty onboard, whether it was manning the brow or cleaning the head. Because they remembered that, however fun or frustrating the voyage was, the destination was their goal, and that those who learned to live with joy aboard the good ship Zion would also know how to live with joy in the promised land.

Two hours of FaceTime with my son in the mission field.  :)

Me too!

Kahr CM9 for my pocket ( self gifting :-) and a Makita drill/driver...

Kahr CM9 for my pocket ( self gifting :-) and a Makita drill/driver...

ss,
 
The first step is to have the desire to believe and you are on that path.  Faith is a choice-never forget that; we have to choose to believe.  I believe what you are seeing in your father is a fulfillment of what will occur before the 2nd coming; the scriptures say that men's hearts shall fail them.  I think it means not just having fear but that men will cease to believe.
 
A couple of favorite videos of mine:
https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2011-11-020-mens-hearts-shall-fail-them?lang=eng
 
https://www.mormonchannel.org/watch/series/mormon-messages/the-hope-of-gods-light

A two way tie for me.
 
 
240 rounds of 5.56 tracer.
 
Wasteland 2 for my PS4.

 

Vort, I really appreciate the time you gave to your response to my question. I have never really thought of it that way and have always just assumed that she was forgiven...at least for the moment unless/until she transgressed again. 

"The law" here gets kind of a bad rap.  In practical terms it would be extremely difficult to impose the death penalty for adultery under Jewish law, because such executions were subject to meeting the following conditions: 
There had to be two witnesses in capital crimes, not just one (Deut 17:6) (who's going to commit adultery in front of multiple witnesses?); The witnesses had to begin the act of execution (Deut 17:7); and Both parties to the adulterous act must suffer the same fate (Deut 20:10). Executions under Jewish law were supposed to be rare, and Jesus simply reminded the Jewish leadership of that.  "Okay", He says, "if you want to apply the law, be sure you're applying the entire law, or else go home."  (Foreshadowing James 2:10, by the way). 
 
This created a double-dare for the prosecution:  First, to try to get a conviction under circumstances they knew to be impossible under Jewish law; and second, to try to impose capital punishment even though their Roman overlords had specifically denied them that prerogative. 
 
The "pricking in [the Pharisees'] conscience" wasn't some "well, golly gee willikers, I guess nobody's perfect!".  It was "Oh, crap--this Galilean hick called our bluff before the Romans, and schooled us in the Mosaic law!"  It was a humiliation twice over. 
 
And, more to the point of this discussion:  It was the Mosaic law--and Jesus' argument thereunder--that saved this woman's life.

Not in the way you are suggesting, no. But then, the fact that President Monson cited this event as an example of "forgiveness" does not mean either that (1) he (President Monson) meant to say that Jehovah granted forgiveness and cleansing to this woman of her filthy adulterous behaviors at that moment or (2) Jesus actually granted the adulteress such absolution. That Jesus said "Neither do I condemn thee" at that time doesn't mean he meant "I fully forgive thee"; we are granted a space to repent, as both the Book of Mormon and common-sense observation teach.
 
Many times, I have heard leaders misuse teachings or historical events to illustrate a perfectly true principle -- such as the 180° misunderstanding of the Isaiah passages reading "his hand is stretched out still" as being some sort of confirmation of divine love and forgiveness for those who abandon their sins, or telling an oversimplification of the story of the apostasy of Thomas Marsh and his wife as being an example of allowing a small, insignificant thing (and our own pride) to drive us away from God. There is in fact divine love and forgiveness to all those who would turn away from their sins, even if that is not what the Isaiah passages actually mean. We can in fact allow insignificant minutiae couple with our own pride to drive us away from God, even if the Thomas Marsh history is significantly more nuanced than the simplified story would suggest. The book of Matthew is full of such misapprehensions and downright misstatements of Old Testament passages, attempting to show Christ's divinity (a true principle) through what can best be described as a wholesale slaughter of the literal meaning and context of many Old Testament passages.
 
If President Monson meant to suggest that Jesus eternally forgave the adulteress right there on the spot, then that might well be true. But I could also understand it as an attempt to explain a true and important gospel principle using an example that doesn't actually fit, as has often been done before. Whether or not President Monson meant to suggest such a thing, I am pretty confident that he did not mean to declare new revelatory doctrine that we should thenceforth teach.

Teryl and Fiona Givens' The God who Weeps and The Crucible of Doubt aren't exactly "scientific", but they are very erudite/literary/philosophical.
 
Have you shown your son the Mormon Scholars Testify website?  (You can even sort them by academic specialty.)

My wife just had surgery a couple of days ago. They removed her gall bladder. I had chicken strips tonight and probaly wings tomorrow. Not sure what she will have ....she is recovering well

Killing Patton.....Bill O'reilly. It was a gift and surprisingly good. 

Not to diminish his actions, they are certainly unworthy but not sure Priesthood authority is required to resolve this issue. I do understand that you desire him to change and put away these things and if your husband agrees with you that "racy" sites are wrong and unworthy and resolves to steer clear and change, then he should be able to choose to resolve that with Heavenly Father. 
 
That said, Bishop is always an option regardless of the need for Priesthood authority or not. But that should be his choice and not a condition of your forgiveness.

Among other things, one of the important things I do to remain recovered from porn addiction is that I do not look at women.  I don't watch TV and I am extremely careful about what I do on the internet.  I use the strongest setting on popup blocker and I have every ad blocker I can find.  It keeps about 95% of the trash off my monitor.  He is flirting with addiction and these are the beginning steps. 
 
The problem with him going to the bishop under these circumstances is that he's not doing it of his own free choice.,  Making changes under pressure usually are not lasting changes.  My change was totally my idea because I wanted to change.  The problem with men with these type of problems is that they like what they are doing.  They may admit it's wrong, but they still like what they are doing.  He can use your urging to begin the changes, but he's got to want to change for the right reasons otherwise he will fall back into the same pattern and could very well end up an addict.

A friend and atheist emailed the following:
 
I have a Christmas related bible question. If Jesus is the son of God and not Joseph, why does the bible make a big deal out of tracing Joseph's lineage back to Abraham instead of Mary's?
 
Looking for easily understood doctrinal explanations without writing a book...
 
 
Thanks.