candyprpl

Fourth of July!!! Fireworks start before bedtime, LOL! Surprise birthday parties or none at all?

felt

Hawk -- only because they are so beautiful to watch as they sore. Thanksgiving dinner or Christmas dinner?

wheelin

floating

Tough choice -- I like both. pumpkin pie or sweet potatoe pie?

creamed corn!!! home-made fudge or store bought fudge?

loser

No, we say it down here in the Southwest as well. I always say rain. Truegrits -- I love the snow!!! Maybe if I lived in Alaska I would get tired of it.

you

proprietor

My sister was LDS and 20 yrs. old still living at home -- she was engaged and planning a wedding. Her soon to be husband lived an hour away and so sometimes he would spend the night because of the long drive. He slept on the couch bed in the family room. One morning when I was 11 yrs. old I woke up and went looking for my mom. She was over at my other sister's house helping her with a new baby. When I walked into the family room both my sister and fiance were in bed together. I was confused -- eleven year olds know more now than we knew then. I ran over to my sister's where my mom was and asked her very innocently, "Is ________ suppose to be in bed with _______." She looked shocked and told me to go play. End result -- they had to move the wedding up a few months -- my sister was 3 months pregnant when they got married. Happy ending -- they are still married, 43 years and both very active in the Church.

I like to get there early so I can sit quietly and prepare myself -- if I do need to take care of some church business, I get there extra early and try and do it quickly and quietly. The prelude music helps in our ward. I know some of our lessons in primary have been to teach the children the importance of the Sacrament meeting and how to prepare themselves. I can think of one time the Bishop going up to the microphone to quiet people. Most of the time people are fairly reverent. The kids don't start acting up unil they get to Primary, LOL! For me personally, I don't want to sit and visit in the chapel (it's okay if it's something real quick about church business) because I want the time to sit and prepare myself. I've noticed that if I sit down and open my scriptures that helps.

modern -- but most of my may fall into the classic category, hehe! rice or potatoes?

gold

You're right -- my point exactly -- that's why we disagree with each other. You have your opinion and are firmly planted -- I have mine and am firmly planted. I was afraid that you might want to know more about my experience -- truefully, I'm not a good enough writer to explain how I know and I am afraid that you might try and demean my experience. I will tell you about one experience I had a long time ago (when I was Agnostic). I was raped when I was 14 by my school counselor and because of the trauma had blocked it from my mind. Many years later, suffering from severe depression I started recalling this incedent. The man had told me he would kill me if I ever told anyone. I was having horrible nightmares and sometimes would wake up in the middle of the night, terrified and convinced he was outside my door. My husband would have to walk the house, put our big watchdog outside the door before I could go back to sleep. On one occasion, I woke up in a horrible state of panic, I couldn't move, I couldn't even wake my husband. Never, in my life have I felt such fear. Then, all of the sudden, I felt a hand on my shoulder and immediately a calm came over me. I looked up and it was my grandfather, who had been dead for many years. He whispered, "It's okay babygirl." Then he was gone. I didn't have anymore nightmares after that. Say what you will, but the spiritual experiences I have had are as real as the chair I'm sitting in. And the real delusions (the perpetrator being outside my door) were easly explained away. :)

Yes tomk, this is true but I agree with mightynancy -- if someone does 'choose' to take offense at something we said, can't we be charitable enough to try and clear things up? I used to be super-sensitive and it has taken me many years to realize and be responsible for my choices in regards to my feelings. I do try to be responsible, but we are human and mistakes get made -- both sides. It takes conversation then to clear it up. Elder Bednar's counsel is perfect and we should all try to heed it -- but it takes time to change one's attitude.

I didn't see your mention of his 'vote No' -- maybe when you talk again, you could converse more on your differing positions -- and stress your love again and ask him to stress his love towards you, even though he disagrees with you. I think at this point I would ask that we not send each other anymore emails about the subject. I think (IMO) that you drop the discussion about Christ-like behavior -- he was hurt and now you're hurt and that discussion will definitely just bring out un-Christ-like behavior. *Hugs* I know this must be very difficult for you:(*hugs again*

adhesive

Jacket. doing laundry or washing the car?

Like you said in your post about a book -- 'food for thought.' It would be interesting for a believer of God and a non-believer to read the book and make an assessment -- don't you think? Would either of us be able to read the information objectively? Having an experience of being very, very near death (in a coma) and having all kinds of delusions -- some of which I now know were just delusions, other experiences that happened to me were more than delusion -- I would be most interested in what this neurologist has to say.

I'm not sure how I came across this site but it has some interesting topics. Horizon Research Foundation. They advertised a book (The Spiritual Brain) that I found interesting --- here's a little about what it's about. by Dr. Mario Beauregard and Denyse O'Leary (book discription from Amazon) Do religious experiences come from God, or are they merely the random firing of neurons in the brain? Drawing on his own research with Carmelite nuns, neuroscientist Mario Beauregard shows that genuine, life-changing spiritual events can be documented. He offers compelling evidence that religious experiences have a nonmaterial origin, making a convincing case for what many in scientific fields are loath to consider - that it is God who creates our spiritual experiences, not the brain. Many scientists ignore hard evidence that challenges their materialistic prejudice, clinging to the limited view that our experiences are explainable only by material causes, in the obstinate conviction that the physical world is the only reality. But scientific materialism is at a loss to explain irrefutable accounts of mind over matter, of intuition, willpower, and leaps of faith, of the "placebo effect" in medicine, of near-death experiences on the operating table, and of psychic premonitions of a loved one in crisis, to say nothing of the occasional sense of oneness with nature and mystical experiences of meditation or prayer. Traditional science explains away these and other occurences as delusions or misunderstandings, but by exploring the latest neurological research on phenomena such as these. The Spiritual Brain gets to their real source. I think I'll add this book to my 'to read' list.:)

forever

:offtopic:It is interesting -- I do love sociology! I wish I had finished my degree. I was studying all this when I was a professed Agnostic and it made me think a lot about people and differences. I love studying about other cultures and their histories.:)

Just to clarify -- I didn't say those were your claims -- I said the claims of the researcher said that. I know that it's not a big number and it may not be significant when talking about the majority of the society there -- I just seem to think that if you're going to make research reliable, ALL aspects of a society need to be taken into play. Now having said that, the article was about what this researcher found and wrote in his book and not having read the book, it would be unfair to stand by this point of view. Food for thought -- it did make me think and that's why I commented the way I commented.:)