Fiannan

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Everything posted by Fiannan

  1. Please, a single child with two working parents can experience more neglect than a child in a family of 10 where the mother is at home. Also, the child from the large family has siblings that will be there for life. Don't get started on large families being inferior until you read the theories of psychological pioneer Alfred Adler on childrearing. He correctly pointed out that pampering a child is child abuse. Also, it's news to me that the Church has changed its stand on childbearing and "financial security". Hope you aren't taking out of contect the "Bishop's Handbood" which holds no doctrinal importance whatsoever -- if it did then it would be sold at the LDS bookstore and not only for use of bishops. I can quote many Church leaders on this issue but right now I have to have some games with my youngest kids. Also, I posted this as a great example. If this family can do it then there are many families in our Church that (although they may be doubting themselves) can do it as well.
  2. http://www.duggarfamily.com/default.php Just recently read where the mother gave birth to her 16th. child and they want to keep going. I think this is great! Many LDS couples who have been contaminated by decadent (dare I say "infidel") western culture (or what has become western ideals during the 20th. Century) need examples like this whether they are LDS or non-LDS. This family is unapologetic about their principles and their belief in God and the Bible. That's real faith.
  3. Response to Please's comments: I am generally antagonistic towards government schools, but that is on the macro scale, not individual teachers. Parents bring a child into the world and they should take greater responsibility in teaching him or her. Take your typical middle or high school class -- we'll focus on a history class that has 30 students for 1 hour. Let's pretend that you can actually squeeze 1 hour of good teaching -- that still gives you 2 minutes per child. What's wrong with trying to suppliment your children's work -- expecially if the teacher is some liberal with an agenda? In my kid's lessons recently my 14 year old is going to study the American Revolution. My plan is that he will have to investigate a website called "Washington in the Classroom", read up on some pages on the causes of the war and then I will suppliment this visually by having him watch "Patriot". Recently I made him and his brothers watch the entire "History of Britain" (6 hours when combined) and now they know more about British history than any other kids in their school. I do similar things for biology, etc. Yes, overly stressed yuppies working two jobs so they can afford an SUV and a big house in the newest section of the suburbs. Now I do feel sorry for couples who both work at Wal "made in China" Mart who may both have to work full time to pay the bills just to survive. However, most people I hear complain about not having time or money to raise more than 1.8 kids are more concerned with materialism than maternalism. People make their choices.
  4. Please, again, you have to weigh maternalism and materialism to examine and set your priorities. Also, the educational system is as good (or bad) as parents make it for the most part. The main variables that have been discovered that determine how well students will do in school are the number of books in the home, attitude/involvement of the parents in the educational process and the level of education the father attained. Heather, where was that part of the New Testament where Jesus praised one woman for sitting by Him during his visit and chastized the other for trying to organize the house?
  5. Christians and Muslims have a different opinion of course.
  6. http://www.brusselsjournal.com/node/301 Yes, I know it's still just a civil union, but that's the first step to official recognition of polygamy. With fewer people in the western world seeing polygamy as bad, and a growing Islamic influence, one wonders how long before polygamy is reinstated.
  7. Please, don't you think that D & C 88 is talking about church building and temples? I have heard many misinterpret this thing about "order" and become fanatics about housecleaning and organization (sorry, I am not anal retentive so my vision of order is different than some). And your interpretation of Genesis is a bit esoteric. I believe the counsel from Presidents Kimball and Benson is totally specific and not hard to understand. Biology designed women to be at their reproductive best between their late teens and 35. Having babies is easier, there are fewer complications and less cases of genetic disorders. Modern feminism and materialism may pull at us and tempt us, but our bodies are still the same as they have always been.
  8. Yes on both counts. I am either male or female and yes I do have children.
  9. And if you didn't have insurance the costs of fertility treatment would be...? Check out this site: http://www.fertilitext.org/p7_investment/ Fertility treatments vary according to what the problem is. Some problems are easier to treat than others but if you add a factor like being 36, rather than 26 to any existing condition (especially if it is one that gets worse with age -- i.e. endometriosis) then the average figure of 50% of patients eventually having a baby goes lower for you.
  10. You could say the mere act of putting on clothes is ritualistic as nakedness may not have been an issue of immodesty (heck, I know people who would not blush hiking naked) but rather symbolic of one's position.
  11. No, that is the point the doctors featured in the articles I quoted originally are trying to get across. Female fertility is still locked the same way it has been for thousands of years. If Mary gave birth to Jesus at age 14 then puberty must have occured in young teens who had good nourishment in those days. The point is, child bearing years are the same now as they always have been for women -- the natural limit is late 30s and some, very feew, mid 40s). Breast cancer rates have gone up due to low birthrates, but that is all. Fertility treatments are expensive and generally don't work. They do offer hope, but the younger a woman tries to get aid the better chance she has of having some success. Also, I knew a wonderful (and beautiful) LDS gal who was about 23 and unmarried who had developed a bad case of endometriosis. She shared with me that her doctor had said that her best hope to cure this (and avoid irreversible reproductive damage) would be to get pregnant soon (endometriosis is very rare in societies that women start having children very young). I do remember joking about a cure and she was kinda open to the idea but I am glad I resisted that particular moment of temptation.
  12. How do people here feel about downloading -- music, movies, etc.? I mean, it's legal to tape a movie off the TV (even cable) so why should their be a problem with downloading? On a related note, let's say you were on a visit to China. You can go into huge stores there and buy DVDs (boxes, imprinted with the movie on the DVD backside, etc.) for about 70 cents. Some are actually licensed (movie companies would rather make a few cents off a sale in China than nothing if it costs 20 dollars), but some must be pirated. Would you buy movies there? Since it is legal there to make the purchase is it ethically questionable?
  13. I sympathize with the views expressed but believe that modern society is a dangerous thing to borrow values from. http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/daily/s..._Control.htm#by http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=8534
  14. Actually it is a myth that women lived some sort of Relief Society 1950s dream image in the 19th. Century. Women then worked in the fields, might have to shoot someone to protect her children while her husband was off hunting, trapping or off on a mission, women had to run the farm (physically as well as financially) when they were widowed or the husband was away. She might have 7 or 8 kids, have no modern conveniences, have to teach her children at home (everything) and still have to worry that game might be slight, crops might fail or some disease could hit and kill her, her husband or some of her kids. If anytime was a time of uncertainty about life it was the era BEFORE the early to mid 20th. Century. If there were any era that might have warrented curtailing your number of kids it was before our recent times. Using reasoning abilities theis would be the best of times to raise a large family, not the worse. If Brigham Young or Joseph Smith could cross over to our dimension and hear people in the Church today complain of how hard it is to raise kids I think they would just shake their heads in disbelief.
  15. This is what happens when people's emotions over-rule their cognitive abilities. Why should the feds rebuild a house flooded in New Orleans but not a house that burns down in a California wildfire (many the result of federal environmental laws I might add).
  16. Actually Heather you do not sound as if your style of family is worldly in the least -- how many people in today's post-Chrisitan society comment that they want at least 4 children before age 35? People in and out of the Church (Chrisitans who desire to live by the Bible) might learn a great deal from the following instructions. The Pope recently said Christians needed to start raising more kids and refrain from birth control and family limitation. Good idea. http://www.lds-mormon.com/birth.shtml
  17. A source from an unlikely place: http://english.pravda.ru/science/19/94/379/16169_IVF.html Brigham Young said something very similar to this: "From the point of view of demography a woman decides to delay her motherhood and pay most of her attention to her career and financial well-being. Consequently, children born from such mothers take a worse position in the competition with children born from younger mothers in terms of health and genetic potential."
  18. Oh yes, psychology -- and secular society is SO much more capable of dealing with depression. Maybe that's why Sweden, the least religious nation on earth, has an increasing problem with depression amongth the young (not to mention suicide). Wanna play psychology? Why not Dirkheim's observations years ago (and confirmed by studies today) that depression and suicide is lowest in (at that time) Jewish and Catholic populations -- due to a strong sense of community and laarge families. Tell me, is the ideal presented in "Sex and the City" with all its decadence, materialism, etc. likely to create less depression than the ideals presented by traditional Mormon teachings? Read up on Adlerian psychology to see how parental styles, pampering of children (an epidemic in our ever-increasing fat and spoiled children population), as well as not giving good guidance to children early on is a major problem in depression. ANd if you say that kids were raised with more responsibilities 100 years ago I think the answer is not to adopt the world's views but to instill responsibility and respect of sacrifice in our youth today. An interesting piece of pop psychology that goes with this can be found if you google "Peter Pan Syndrome".
  19. One gripe I have heard about the Church is that we encourage younger women to marry and start families -- while the norm for at least the opinion shapers of "modern" American/European society would have young women pattern their lives after the characters of "Sex and the City". However, biology cares nothing about such norms as evidenced below: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4112450.stm Seems there are three factors making it difficult even for women WANTING babies in our increasingly selfish society: 1) Weight gain (every western country is getting fatter and fatter). 2) Waiting until you are too old to get pregnant. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4248244.stm 3) Sexually transmitted diseases -- only a few can kill you (AIDS and cervical cancer for examples) but others can scar a woman and sterilize her. Seems "modern" society and biology just don't go hand in hand.
  20. He has given no legitimate reason he is voting against Roberts. The only opposition I have seen to Roberts is from the pro-abortion lobby. Therefore I think it is safe to assume that ultra-liberal members of the senate have pressured him to vote no. As for the perception I have of him, I said before that it is based on listening to him speak on various news programs. It has nothing to do with his being LDS (Smith, Hatch and other LDS reps come across very bright). I believe he has some answering to do in order to justify his anti-Roberts statements which even have some Democrats puzzled. I will say that Ried has been the subject a a few talk shows and on political discussion boards on the net and I am very glad nobody associates him (as they do with Hatch) with LDS membership.
  21. Last time I was in China I went into a DVD store and bought Mel Gibson's "Passion of Christ". I noticed both tourists and Chinese people also buying this DVD. This would have been impossible to buy something that religious 15 years ago. Technology (internet, entertainment, etc.) will make it increasingly difficult for the communist dictatorship to keep religion away from the people.
  22. Reid's voting record places him in the "pro-life" category. I doubt he lets that remain silent in Nevada with its heavy LDS and Hispanic (mainly Catholic) populations. If Roberts were as conservative as he is, yet was in favor of Roe v. Wade, the vast majority of Democrats would vote for him. When Attorney General Gonzales first came up for confirmation Democrats questioned him on issues like interrogation and torture of suspects involved in terrorism. They made a big fuss about this yet (because Gonzales hinted at not being oopposed to abortion) they made it clear they would support him in mass if HE were nominated by Bush for a court position. Abortion is the litmus test for Democrats -- even Kerry in 2004 made that clear. So one would assume that Reid would support Roberts -- even Hillary (at this point) has made no real objections to him. Yet Reid comes out opposed to him? This when he said that if Scalia were nominated to chief justice he would support him???? Either Reid was pressured to cave in on his convictions or the guy is more confused than he looks. Either way he is still an embarassment.
  23. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,169924,00.html What's with this Reid guy? He claims to be against abortion yet the only issue that seems to be of concern to the more liberal wing of the Democratic Party in regards to the Roberts nomination is abortion. I'll admit, I've heard Reid on TV and he doesn't come across as a MENSA candidate, but come on.
  24. Amazing, a very sincere post started this thread and already some naysayer wants to re-direct attention to their own agenda.