unixknight

Thanks countrygirl66... I like to think I'm getting at least that part right because my own parents divorced when I was 12-ish and I was made a pawn. In my case, my mom absolutely could not shut up about what a horrible man my father was, and how he had basically done every bad thing a husband can possibly do to a wife short of killing her. She made sure I resented my dad, and got sole custody and it was many months before I saw him again. But later I began to realize, as I matured, that my dad was not the man mom was making him out to be. He'd made mistakes, sure, but none of that involved me. It was between them and now, as I look back on it, I find myself resenting my mother for basically turning me into a pawn. She wanted to hurt my father, and I was the means by which she did it. She fought for custody of me as if my father were on the brink of hurting me or stealing me away to South America, which is where he's from. My father is not that kind of man, and never was. Even now I feel guilt that I was so gullible as to listen to my mother's distorted version of things and swallow it all hook, line and sinker. As I look back I seldom heard my dad say bad things about my mom, and I remember my mom saying very little else besides bad things about my dad. At first I thought it was because dad was at fault and mom wasn't, but later I began to realize the truth, which was that my dad simply handled it all with greater strength and character. And yet my mom isn't a bad person either. She comes form a time and a culture and has the mentality where love is expressed by loyalty. I had learned that the most effective way to tell mom "I love you" was to love ONLY her and not my dad, whom she hated so much for so long. It's like the term "neutral" doesn't exist for her. So when the time came for my divorce I absolutely refused to use my kids as pawns, even though it cost me having them live with me. Legally, we have joint custody but she has physical custody. I felt by conceding that part it would be easier on the kids, although it hurts me every time our weekend visits are over and they go back home, 100 miles away. Coincidentally, my dad is coming in to visit from South America tomorrow. I can't wait to see him again and have yet another opportunity to thank him for setting the right example under the most difficult of circumstances.

Well just when it seemed things were settling down I find myself once again coming here for some feedback from the wise minds of lds.net It's war, apparently. Outraged that my sons not only know about my faults but STILL continue to think highly of me, my ex is now embellishing the stories more and more, even dragging my current wife into her narrative. A quote, from her to my 13 year old son: "How can you not hate him after knowing all this?" She WANTS them to hate me. So a couple of weeks ago I went through my DVD collection and got rid of the ones that contained nudity. I'm trying to make my home a more spiritual place and they were not a part of it. Away went Conan, Excalibur, Starship Troopers, etc. My kids thought it was a good move. They told their mom about it in conversation. A few nights later I get a phone call from her at 10:30 at night demanding to know why I REALLY got rid of those movies, accusing me now of doing it just to make her look bad... She insists that I'm lying when I give my real reason, and calls me a religious zealot and accuses me of having our boys too uptight. (Buh? She's supposed to be a church member... This is too uptight???) I'm scared now, guys. This is the most irrational thing I've ever heard form her and I"m beginning to think there are some real emotional issues involved here. That makes her unpredictable and it makes me worried. I have been praying for her, but I can't help but be afraid of what's next...

Much better... Last weekend I sat down with my sons and explained to them a few things that previously, I felt they were too young to know. Mind you, my ex had been threatening to tell them all sorts of bad things about me from when we were married, because she feels that our kids put me up on a pedestal and do nothing but criticize her. I tried to explain to her that if she's constantly badmouthing me, then naturally they're going to feel like they're being put in a position where they need to defend me. I told her it's not that the kids think I'm perfect, it's that I acknowledge my flaws and they know I'm working to improve myself. They respect that about me. Well anyway I decided it was time that I sat the boys down and told them some things about myself that my ex had been threatening to reveal to them. Their reaction? The younger son said "That's it?!?!?" and the older son said "Yeah, mom told me a couple years ago but her version was a lot different." I didn't know whether to feel relieved or outraged, so I felt both. So she'd broken our agreement, eh? So she decided to try and vilify me long ago and continued to offer me the illusion that she'd been faithful to our agreement? And yet, it obviously did her no good, and gained her no standing in their eyes. They're eager to go to church with me when they're at my home, and have been doing their best to spend as much time with me as possible. If this must be a confrontation, then I'm winning. I wish it weren't, but I feel a lot better about it now than I did before.

Could you elaborate on that a little? Why would only people formerly from this Earth be able to visit?

And that's the thing... Any time it is causing you turmoil then yes, I'd agree with the others that it should be taken up with the Bishop. The problem is, in a case like this is seems like the turmoil is more because of the fear of the result than guilt over the action itself. (Which is good. Once repented, feeling guilt over a sin is not constructive.) We just need to be careful to avoid getting legalistic in our approach as to when to see the Bishop. Sin A must always go to the Bishop but sin B never does. That leaves out personal discernment. My suggestion to you: Pray about this, and be open to the answer. If you feel impressed to go to the Bishop then go. Otherwise, let it go. You don't need this baggage on your mind when you are preparing to go to the Temple.

That's one of the comforts I find in the LDS Church... When we see sci fi movies or read sci fi books they always talk about one of the ramifications of discovering alien beings being massive social and religious upheaval in the world. Most religions aren't equipped to deal with this. If an alien spacecraft landed on the White House lawn tomorrow, I think most Mormons would, from a spiritual point of view, simply shrug their shoulders and get on with life. There's nothing really in our religion that I know of that would be threatened or directly contradicted by such an event.

My thing is, this particular event was seen by something like 10,000 people... But despite being absolutely convinced that this was an alien spacecraft, the film fails to address any questions like: 1)For the spacecraft to appear over a major city, the aliens must want to make their presence known. Why at night? A daytime appearance would be much more effective. 2)The spacecraft followed a course that, while taking it over one major city, was mostly over empty desert. Wouldn't an appearance over the greater New York City area be more logical? Surely most of that flight wasn't for the benefit of desert jackrabbits... 3)If 10,000 people saw it, why are there only a handful of videos and photos? 4)They claim the spacecraft flew directly over an airport. Were the schedules and flight plans of any commercial aircraft affected? They say it was only moving at 30 miles per hour. That would make it a flight hazard to any planes in the area for a significant amount of time. Why wasn't the airport shut down? It was visible near the airport at around 8PM. The airport was open and operating.

So I've been watching a documentary on the Phoenix Lights and I don't think I can draw a conclusion either way. On the one hand, they have a lot of compelling eyewitness testimony, but on the other hand this isn't a very objective film. What do you guys think of this sort of thing? If there really is something to it, how would it fit with your understanding of the Gospel? I know the Pearl of Great Price describes other worlds created by God, but does that mean they could be visiting us, or is this just a lot of collective imagination?

It looks like so far the biggest advantage over FF is that Chrome handles memory issues better and eliminates the leaks. A co-worker and I are experimenting today with Chrome, FF3 and IE7 to see how the memory issue looks after a day of browsing and shuffling tabs. I'll let ya know what we find :)

I think that makes a lot of sense, but on some level preparing the Missionaries by making them experts on LDS apologetics would seem to be well beyond the scope of both their mission and the amount of time they have to prepare for it. Ultimately, the pivotal issue of the Church is Faith, and if the Missionaries have it, then they needn't fear arguments they can't answer. In terms of how others might view their inability to answer some of the criticisms, I think generally a critic isn't likely to be swayed by their answer even if they had one, and any third party observers can make up their own minds based on the behavior of the critic and the Missionaries themselves.

Heh I can tell you some stories from my own life...

Ok guys, I'm gonna be the voice of dissent here. I'm interpreting 'IT' to mean 'self gratification' and on that basis I answer thus: I know how important the law of Chastity is, and how serious these issues are. At the same time, what we'[re talking about here seems to be an isolated incident as opposed to a continuing pattern. If indeed this brother has repented and sinned no more in that department, then I fail to understand why it needs to be brought up again. The point of going to the Bishop and confessing is to seek help in breaking a pattern of sin and getting back on the path to righteousness. Again, if we were talking about a continuing pattern then absolutely seeing the Bishop is the thing to do. But if he's handled it and isn't doing it again, having sincerely prayed for forgiveness and repented of it... Then it's done with and the Lord will forget the sin. I mean, if I'm way off base here then by all means tell me... But as the father of a couple teenage sons I just have trouble seeing this issue with the same level of gloom and doom as is being expressed here (unless I'm badly misunderstanding you guys, which is always possible ) Just my 2 cents' worth.

Thanks for that. I think our hesitation comes from the fact that it's our lack of discipline that causes this more than any other factor, and it's hard to justify, in my mind, asking someone else to help me when I can't seem to get disciplined enough to do my part.

We haven't discussed it with him, no.

Don't forget the backpacks. ... I bet you thought that was just for carrying Scriptures and paper, didn't you?

Lotsa great stuff in there, thanks! Our problem isn't so much that we're living beyond our means per se, it's that we tend to not pay close attention to what's in the bank at any given moment and no matter how thrifty you are, that bites you in the bum every time. We can afford some little luxuries when we're not paying out hundreds in overlimit charges. Money management is our Achilles Heel.

Don't bother. The guy posting that isn't really interested in an answer. He's got a chip on his shoulder and thinks he already KNOWS the answer and is looking to make some Mormons squirm. You can go into that thread and clarify things all you want but they will either assume you're a liar or have been duped by Church Leadership. Your best bet might be to point that out, offer a brief clarification for the record, bear your testimony, and be done with it. EDIT: I just took a look not only at a few of the posts on that thread but also the forum rules themselves. The rules are obviously not being applied to those who attack LDS in their vitriolic way. Don't look for justice or fair discussion there. CARM is an Evangelical Christian apologetics website. These people are NOT interested in understanding us any further than it takes to attack.

The problem is that people could very easily interpret this as a deliberate effort to insult, and I wouldn't blame them. This is NOT going to open people's minds and hearts to the missionaries, and the damage done to the church's image will last a LONG time. In fact, given the area and its reputation, it's not out of the question to imagine violence ensuing. (No offense intended to any Alabama forum members here.)

I did use some of that discernment... Like, there's nudity in Schindler's List and Apocalypto but those movies will remain, because there's no sexual context for them. Now, in a couple of the other movies I'm getting rid of there might be some nudity that while not in a sexual context, is still gratuitous so on the chopping block they went. (unixknight because Unix was the focus of my study for my B.S. and knight because of my ancestors.)

I won't say that's not an element, since even though officially our Church's position is that every other Christian church has some truth, we have the fullness of it, we as members (especially those of us who enjoy the debate) aren't very good at keeping that in mind sometimes. But I do think there's an element of feeling threatened more often than that, since we're not the only ones claiming an exclusive understanding of the Truth. I think, subconsciously, perhaps spiritually, they recognize the Truth when they hear it and that's what makes it difficult to hear when your myths are easier.

No I believe it's hear, hear! I have found this to be true also. On a forum for Christian computer gaming I have tried to do exactly the same thing but people cling to their myths and illusions and I think I know why. I think it's because on some level LDS theology is more logical and consistent than a lot of Evangelical concepts, and it scares them. They don't want to accept the truth what we believe because some part of them feels threatened and so they continue to recycle the same old accusations over and over again like a worn out and threadbare security blanket. But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.

^This. It almost strikes me as he's positioning his pieces to leave. Especially if the financial situation has improved. That makes it possible to separate. Extra income: Check Wife financially independent: Check Prepared to continue meeting obligations to the child: Check Emotional separation from Wife: Check I'd find out why that is and soon.

Interestingly, last night as my wife and I were discussing this, she had a similar idea. (Only after I'd already unloaded 3 of my old favorites... *sigh*) What I can do is this: 1)Rip the DVD onto my computer 2)Edit out the parts that are objectionable 3)Burn the new version onto a blank DVD 4)Dispose of the old DVD 5)Take the new DVD and put it in the case, and return it to my DVD shelf. Presto... only the edited copy remains, playable on any device. And because the copy is for my own use and I've disposed of the original, it's perfectly legal.

I didn't find that rude at all. Opinions are what I need

Thanks or the responses so far. Stuff like this is hard to call sometimes, and having the additional perspectives helps a lot. I gotta tell ya though, giving up some of these is hard... I really like Conan... and the Excalibur movie has scenes in it that send a chill down my spine (Like the part where the knights are riding into battle again after Arthur is restored)... But I just really feel like I've been prompted to do it...