MarginOfError

This is the standard I fall back on to evaluate these questions. It ties decision to your level of sexual arousal. If you aren't overly aroused, don't sweat it. If you continue to get involved in these make outs specifically to get the arousal, then maybe you should dial it back. Keep in mind also that the nature of the relationship may play a role in the decision. I am much less concerned with adult boyfriend and girlfriend who are moving toward marriage engaging in some make out than I am with teenagers making out on the first date. While the law of chastity is clear (no sexual relations outside of marriage), there are dating-in-a-serious-relationship activities prior to marriage that are not necessarily sexual. It isn't always clear to me where the line is drawn for any two people.

The math is valid, but the math is rarely the challenge with Bayesian analyses. The place where you run into problems with Bayesian analyses are first, the selection of the prior distribution, and 2, the choice of the likelihood function. In this particular case, I don't really object to their choice of prior distribution. They've effectively assigned a Bernoulli distribution with p = 1/1,000,000,000. I'm a bit more skeptical of the likelihood function. The likelihood function gets applied to each "statement of evidence" and adjusts our belief about the prior distribution based on the observed evidence. In this case, the likelihood function operates on the general algorithm If the statement from Coe and the statement from the Book of Mormon are concordant, increase our belief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon. If the statement from Coe and the statement from the Book of Mormon are discordant, decrease our belief in the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately, Dale and Dale chose a likelihood function that, when the two sources are discordant, it simply says, "each has equal probability of being true." That is, despite the prior probability that the Book of Mormon is non-historical, the likelihood function assumes that it is, at worst, equally historical as the best scholarly research when the scholarly research is discordant. I'm not sure that's the best way to penalize discrepancies, and may be overstating the conclusion. The other place where this analysis gets mirky is in the evaluation of concordant or discordant. One in particular that I found unconvincing was where they found concordance with Mayan writings talking about leaders being "seated" and the Book of Mormon using the term "seated" when changes of power occur. But that seems to speak more to the translation process than the culture. Furthermore, it's claiming concordance based on changes of power occurring, which is a generally unsurprising observation through history. It would have been more impressive if the likelihood function were weighted based on the temporal proximity of changes in power reported by scholarly work and the Book of Mormon. Likewise, they claim concordance (albeit weak concordance) simply because the Book of Mormon mentions volcanoes and earthquakes and so do the Mayans, but makes no attempt to match time frames. My takeaway...meh....interesting concept. But I am not very persuaded as to the objectivity or rigor in which the points of concordance are selected, and I do think the likelihood function is biased in favor of the Book of Mormon.

From my time as an ordinance worker (mind you, this was 15 years ago) we were told that, when manning the front desk, General Authorities would have temple recommends that looked a little different and were only signed by themselves. I never saw one. But they do have a different recommend. I have no documentation to verify this. I imagine it is in the temple presidency handbooks.

lcr.lds.org is the link to Leader and Clerk Resources, which is where we manage membership records, finances, temple recommends, ministering, etc. It is essential to the administrative function of the Church. The fact that it is not available as lcr.churchofjesuschrist.org indicates that conversion of the web properties is far from complete. And the reason I used "thechurchofjesuschrist.org" is because @clbent04 included in the OP The Church would have no reason to include that particular URL in a press release because, as you point out, the Church does not own that URL. Hence, my claim that this is a bogus story.

I'm pretty sure this is a bogus story. The url thechurchofjesuschrist.org isn't even owned by the Church. What's more, many of the web based properties haven't been transitioned to the new url base. For instance, if I try lcr.churchofjesuschrist.org, I get nothing. I still have to use lcr.lds.org. And if I attempt to access Leader and Clerk Resources from churchofjesuschrist.org, I get redirected to lcr.lds.org.

To clarify, Devil's Due received a cease-and-desist letter for the cover. AOC herself was not a party to the issue.

A bad pun.

Or the literal bus. I'd be cautious of both.

Well, you aren't the first person on the internet to ask this question. But you might be the second. This reddit is the only other link I can find asking the question: So even if they aren't necessary, it doesn't seem that very many people care. For what it's worth, vanity glasses (or glasses as fashion accessory) aren't a thing that bother me. I even considered them before I developed a need for them, just to add to the "nerd look."

Incineration, as I understand it, is a common method of handling medical waste. The point of the Indiana law was to require that fetal remains be treated has human remains, not as medical waste.

Given the number of stories I've heard of a person being called to a position and saying "I had a feeling this was coming," and how those are often celebrated as stories of personal preparedness and sensitivity to the spirit, I find this a curious statement. It seems dangerously close to using concurrence with leadership as the yardstick of whether revelation/intuition/premonition is "true" or "false" The exact position I bear in the ward's organization is not a detail necessary for the discussion. But I will note that councilors that do not council with the bishop and offer their viewpoints aren't much good as councilors. Beyond that, we've been advised that those serving on the ward council serve the entire ward, not just their organizations; and that they should be free to offer council on all matters that affect ward members. If you wish to discuss that further, open a thread. Regarding "pray that your personal bias will not get in the way of the Lord's work" -- thank you. I just wish I knew some more sure way to determine if I were doing that successfully.

I'm going to ask that comments regarding the appropriateness of telling a bishop what callings you should have be moved to a separate thread, as they aren't helpful here. I'm happy to engage in that discussion. But for this current thread, please focus on the issue at hand; clearing one's mind of their own bias* in order to create the opportunity to understand the Lord's will when presented with information previously not considered. * Bias here is pretty broad. It can be that I've already come to a decision, and I inherently believe that my decisions are right. To change my decision now would imply that I was wrong (or less right) before. Therefore, I am biased against changing my decision because I want to be right. Bias can be personal. It can be preconceived based on a list of names provided by an organization president. I don't much care what the source of bias is.

I'm going to step in and advise not to be so quick to judge. There is a lot more back story here than I have shared, and I am withholding details deliberately. I have no doubt that, as much as I'm struggling to be able to see things from his point of view, that his cognitive dissonance is probably 10 times what mine is.

I do genuinely appreciate the feedback. Like @jdf135, I get irritated when leaders don't take into account what those they serve are feeling (happens to me a lot if you can believe it ). One of the problems I have, if I'm honest, is that I feel like this particular person has no business being anywhere near youth that are in a faith crisis. His approach toward these things is pretty heavy handed, and I don't see the youth he thinks are in need of his help as actually responding to his tactics. To put it shortly, I am under the impression that this desire to work with the youth is some kind of hero-complex kicking in. And some of that...I don't want to call it animosity, but I'm not sure what the better word is...is definitely personal. I mean, to put it in context, this would be like @Vort telling me he has had distinct impressions that he should be called to teach my kids because he doesn't feel like they're being taught adequately by the people we've called (I mean that in the best way, Vort). So I've spent a few hours over the past two days trying to drop my guard and be open to the idea of calling him to work with youth (this brother, not Vort--let's be realistic ). I can't say my position has moved much. But I also can't say I feel certain that I've successfully let my guard down. Still working on it. I've imposed an artificial deadline on myself of the start of mutual activities this week. If I haven't had any change in my feelings, I'm just going to call "stupor of thought" and proceed as usual. If that's wrong, then I'll have to accept the consequences of that. Any other advice on how to deal with these kinds of situations is appreciated.

I work pretty closely with the bishopric.

I'm struggling here and could use some advice. Earlier today, a call was extended to a member in our ward to be a counselor in the elders quorum. Due to the nature of the calling, we weren't surprised when it was reported back that he wanted some time to think about it. What did take us off guard was his statement that his hesitation was that he felt he needed to be called into the young men organization. When that detail was reported back, everyone in our Bishopric was a bit taken aback. We have a fully staffed, smooth functioning Young Men organization that hasn't been together very long. What's more, we have a couple of youth that have been disengaging from the church somewhat, and it is the bishopric's impression that this particular brother would antagonize that situation (even though he is under the impression that he would be the fix). Anyhow, I have always hated it when Bishoprics have been dismissive of others' impressions. So I really want to take this information seriously. But it flies in the face of what I've felt about this brother for close to a year, so it's hard for me to put my strong biases aside here. How do you consider something like this without letting your own biases interfere?

Medically speaking (and I say this in my experience at my previous workplace doing women's health research), if the child dies before delivery, it is an abortion. End of story. They merely get coded as either "spontaneous abortion" or "induced abortion." In @LadyGunnar's case, the codes applied ideally would have reflected "spontaneous abortion followed by induction." One other likely contributor to the decline in abortion noted by Guttmacher--and forgive me, some of you may not like this--is Obamacare. Having mandated that insurance cover contraceptives gave a lot of women easier access to birth control that didn't previously have the option. I'll hide behind this blast wall now.....

While I agree that this is far too high, I will also point out that abortions are on the decline. Guttmacher Institute reports that there was a 25% decline in the rate of abortions between 2008 and 2014. https://www.guttmacher.org/news-release/2017/abortion-common-experience-us-women-despite-dramatic-declines-rates

old? You sick little ageist.

No. Just no. Under no terms do you get to be Gandalf.

Well dang, we've still arrived here

Missouri Executive Order 44?

I'm not so concerned about the political point he's trying to make. I find myself devastated by the attitude I perceive in these responses. For instance, the question about the creation theory of what's-his-bucket, my first thought when I read the question was, "I don't know who that is or what he taught." My lamentation is that people seem to respond to the unknown by rejecting it, rather than with curiosity. And since those people aren't like me, they obviously aren't worth saving.

Yeah, I failed to complete my thought there. Of course codification is easier with widespread acceptance of a single moral code. That doesn't always mean the widespread morality is just. I mean, one of the express reasons we have courts is to overturn laws that disadvantage/disempower a minority who don't share the same morals of a majority who imposed it on them anyway. Another way of phrasing that is that courts exist to adjudicate situations where the rights and/or interests of two parties conflict with each other. Which is effectively what Roe v Wade did, and I wish was made more explicit. And I'm also not discounting the process of social evolution. RBG has made comments in the past the Roe v. Wade was a bit of too-much, too-fast; and that if left alone, legislative processes probably would have wound up with a similar decision. But alas, here we are.

I'll pile on to this one as well. The Church most definitely does not use viability by itself as a metric for the moral evaluation of abortion. What it does use is "viability following birth," and, using cold hearted terms, permits individuals to engage in a cost-benefit analysis regarding continuing the pregnancy when viability past birth is unlikely. But as far as the Church is concerned, early termination of a pregnancy is a serious no-no.