Fiannan

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/arti...in_page_id=1770 Any comments?

Yes and no. I and my wife get into it occasionally over this. I say you taylor the lesson to the needs of the people while my wife believes in not deviating from the general lesson. Sorry, but if we need to go straight by the book then the Church needs to commission some tech geeks to develop a line of real cylons to make sure lessons come straight from the book and make sure there is no deviation from the party line. Scriptures + the spirit = good lessons that people stay awake for. :)

If you do any travel you need to have a region free DVD player -- or know how to convert a standard player into region free. I have DVDs from all over the world so region free is required. We have the Disney Channel and if I had a DVD recorder I could record directly off of the TV. So in my opinion I would not care less about if a DVD is legit or not since almost all movies appear on various movie stations soon after release to DVD and (as long as the DVD is only being used for private purposes) I see no moral problems involved.

I cannot put an actual percentage label on this. However, I would warn that the more government takes an active hand in the society financially the more it will take over all aspects of life.

Pushka, to a degree that might be the case. However, I believe humans have a vivid imagination and have a pretty good idea of what their sex drive/libido levels are at as well. It's kink of like if you date a woman and you find that whenever kids are around she gets really agitated and speaks badly of children -- I'd run away from her faster than you can imagine. Sex is the same way -- people know what they like even if they have not had a lot of experience probably. Also, fitzy, good for you for sticking by your man. I really think though that most people in this thread have not defended porn or advocated its use. There have been opinions expressed that occasional use is not addiction or that most people in America have looked at the stuff (yes, even the majority of under-40 females) but that even use that might extend to a few times per month does not constitute an addiction in any way shape or form (from a psychological perspective).

You know, in Sweden, when they originally adopted national health care, they came up with a plan to lower costs -- sterilize people who had health problems, social disorders, mental conditions, etc. Snipped about 70,000 people between the late 1930s and mid 1970s. Probably reduced the number of people needed services today. Think they had a good plan? I mean, if we all have to pay for each other then maybe...

Smoking or viewing strippers -- I don't really have an easy answer on that one. Smoking can be expensive -- thus draining a family's resources and most divorces have financial insecurity as the underlying factor. Smoking is socially unacceptable in the state I am from and restricts your ability to get jobs even if you only smoke on your free time -- another financial danger. Then smoking can give you cancer and take you away from your parental responsibilities. Most men needing viagra are or were heavy smokers so smoking can affect your relationship even there. On this one I'd have to say that smoking is more dangerous than occasionally going to a strip club -- and I will note that where I live I wouldn't even know where to find a strip club, so don't assume anything based on my answer.

I suggest he be selected as the keynote speaker for all our Especially for Youth programs -- he is a fantastic role model!

Yeah, but the media hyped a lot of issues in ways to hurt the Republicans. When Gerry Studds died he was presented as a hero for gay rights even though what propelled him into the spotlight was having a sexual affair with a 17 year old page and being censured by the House (not expelled). Foley sent dirty messages to a 17 year old page and you'd think he had oped up Galigula's orgy (I think that involved the Roman senator's wives though). So while Democratic Studds died he was a hero but Folley was a perv. Also, as for Dirty Harry Reid: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/7..._dont_know.html I was just telling my wife yesterday that maybe Reid can open up new doors for Mormons as people can see you can be a questionable politician AND a Mormon at the same time.

Libertarians should use the opportunity to educate -- and even run for local offices, but running for national offices merely takes votes away from Republicans and hands power over to ultra liberal people like Pelosi or clean as mud politicians like Reid.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nancy_Pelosi Wow, it's like San Francisco itself just took over! Oh well, it will give the Republicans a chance to target her and her policies and get energized for 2008. Now they have to oust that old geezer with the charisma of a turnup who has been serving as HML for the Republicans and get a more dynamic person who can get John McCain or Mitt Romney elected and bring the Republicans back into the House majority.

Well, this less-than-pure politician will certainly be gloating over the results of the election: http://www.thereidworld.com/

Okay, I have said it before on the forum that nudes are hardly an issue to me. That being said anyone who believes that nudity is all that pornography today is about is way out of touch with the issue. To give you a clue many of the actions that pervaide porn today on the internet were actually illegal in the 1950s (i.e. homosexual sex, sex with animals, etc.). In the 1950s young men might steal a glance at the nude Africans in National Geographic (or get their hands on a Playboy or nudist magazine if they had connections) and that was a great deal of their foundational sex education. Today young men AND women are frequenting sites on the net that most often depict sex between couples in a casual manner, quite often depict lesbain sex as an innocent passtime or show group sex as the new recreational sport. Not only that but many mainstream movies and TV programs aimed at younger audiences (while not necessarily showing actual sex) depict the themes I have just mentioned as totally acceptable. Times have certainly changed, haven't they?

In heavily Democratic pricincts I'm sure not being an American citizen would not be a problem in voting.

My suggestion before voting is to ask yourself which party, if you were suddenly nominated to fill an important post, would support YOU! That's a great irony to me in regards to someone like Harry Reid. I have heard there is a justice on the Supreme Court who may be retiring in the next several months due to poor health. Wouldn't it be funny if Bush nominated the current senate minority leader to fill the post? I know Reid has some ethics problems (which the Democrats would likely overlook) but overall he is anti abortion and conservative on most social issues -- he considers himself a working class Democrat. The Lieberman situation has exposed the way Democrats oppose people who may not fall in 100% on the issues they consider important -- in Lieberman's case the Iraq War. Nominating Reid to the court would embarass the Democrats as most of the liberals who supported him to be their leader in the senate would likely oppose his nomination to the court due to the abortion issue. Doesn't this say anything to non-liberal Democrats?

Yes PC but what I am trying to illustrate is that if a magazine came out today with the same "standards" that Playboy had in the late 1950s it could easily be sole in the general interest magazine section of your local supermarket. So what was considered "sleaze" by most people in 1958 hardly passes that test in most people's minds (in the USA and most certainly Europe) today. Either people were uptight in the 1950s or standards have come down considerably.

I won't leave a link but I thought it was interesting that Pravda ran pictures from Playboy in 1958 in one of their photo collections. What was interesting was that the pictures were mostly of women in bathing suits and a very little bit of nudity -- far less than one might see on a the catwalk of one of those fashion programs. In the 1950s religious leaders generally condemned publications such as these. Ever hear of the term "systematic desensitization`? Just food for thought.

Actually I can think of two instances where polygamy was REQUIRED of a man. In the Mosaic Law if a man's brother died, and his wife had not had children with him, the brother (even if married already) was expected to take his sister in law as a wife and provide her children. In another case if a married man were fooling around with an unmarried woman then (if caught) he had to take her as a wife -- and he could not divorce her. Nathan told David that God had blessed him with 6 wives and that it was an abomination what he had done to make Bathsheba available to him. Polygamy has always been a thorn in Romanized/Hellenized Christianity in that to say polygamy is a sin means important prophets of the Old Testament were guilty of adultery. To say it isn't a sin would undercut Romanized/Hellenized Christianity's foundations and make Chritianity more akin to its Jewish roots. Mormonism solves this problem quite well.

Would a young man be allowed to go on a mission if he had decked his school teacher in a dispute over the discipline of his little sister?

If vitamine D is in some way associated with lowering MS and conceiving a child in summer when the levels of vitamine D go up with sun exposure then there are several ways to test this hypothesis. Women who are members of nudist resorts who conceive in the summer should have a lower rate of MS in their children. Women who are fundamentalist Muslims who cover up from head to toe should have a much higher rate of MS in their children. Already it has been shown that osteoporosis rates are soaring for women in the Middle East because now many live in apartments as opposed to homes with a central courtyard where women traditionally could shed their burkas and get very little sunlight, which leads to less vitamine D production and less metabolism of calcium.

Wonder how many people actually fall for the Nigerian prince spam mail hoax.

Actually, the best reason for polygamy was that fewer men desired the responsibilities of family than women. Same is true today. Also, more women convert than men. Since the Bible says one should not be unequally yoked then it made more sense these women be married in polygamist situations than either remain single or have to marry non-members. Also, how many people in the Church today would not be here if it were not for polygamy? Polygamy will eventually come back -- and I for one feel it's better to deal with polygamy honestly reather than make excuses for it. I had a professor who once made a really good case for polygamy from a biological point of view and nobody had a fit over it. If you present the scriptures and common sense it just makes it a practice we may see come back into the Church in our lifetimes. No biggie.

POD and Within Temptation -- plan on getting the new Evanescence release.

Interesting that Islam also teaches that Jesus will return. From what I understand there is a war in which Christians and Muslims unite to destroy the non believers (this force wins), then Jesus returns, breaks the cross and tells the Christians to convert to Islam, half do and there is a war between the Muslims and what is left of the Christians and other forces (I believe Israel is part of that group) and then Islam wins, Israel is destroyed, and Jesus marries, has a family and dies 40 years later and is buried in Mecca.

Is the Bible capitalistic? Not really -- at least not in the modern sense. Is it socialistic? Certainly not. In Isaiah we find the scripture (chapter 8) in which the idea of monopoly (verse 8) is harshly condemned. Teddy Roosevelt would be quite happy with the message here. In The Parable of the Talants Jesus presents a very strong endorsement of investment oriented free enterprise. The scriptures do not endorse state-controlled socialism but do promote the idea of morality and ethics (much the same as the capitalism promoted by Adam Smith). The spirit of globalization of economic liberalism as we see today is harly even close to that ideal.