unixknight

My son once asked me this question. My answer was that Liberals believe that individual humans, when left to their own devices, will generally choose to be evil over good, and thus require lots of laws and control to keep them under control because Government is virtuous. Conservatives believe that individual humans, when left to their own devices, will generally choose good over evil, and thus should be given maximum freedom because Government is corrupt.

I tried so hard to let this go... but my inner nerd would not be denied. It's spelled Obi-Wan Kenobi.

Never happened. The mass media assures us that Islam is the most tolerant, peaceful and enlightened religion in the world. This can't be true.

Rapture.

Nothing nice, anyway.

That's the purpose of having a free press. But what happens when the mainstream press is ideologically aligned with the Government?

What scares me isn't so much that this would be used against Muslims (although that too is possible) but that it could be applied to anyone who the Government decides is a threat. Think about it. Haven't we heard some of the more left-leaning politicians refer to the Tea Party as a terrorist group? Who gets to define who the terrorists are? Where do you draw the line between speaking out against the Government and becoming a political threat? This is a blatant violation of the 4th Amendment.

^This.

Faith is best for some questions, science for others. I wouldn't attempt to find the Gravitational Constant in the Scriptures, and I wouldn't turn to science to become Spiritually uplifted. You run into trouble when you try to use only one approach or the other to solve EVERYTHING. Science can't be applied to the question of whether God exists (Despite claims to the contrary by some Atheists.) I think people sometimes try that approach when they need validation of what they believe in. For the really interesting questions, you can combine both. How did this planet come to be? Where did life originate? Science provides us with some information, and Scripture/Faith gives it a context. The trick is not to expect one to conform to the other, but rather to try and see how they harmonize.

This. Because sometimes, when you're all twisted up and trying to keep from falling into despair, the thought of just putting it all down and indulging in some other, easier belief can be disturbingly attractive. It would be a lot easier if God didn't hold us to a high standard. Less effort, less guilt, more fun, more indulgence, less time spent battling our carnal nature... I've found myself envying those who don't hold to that standard. But... that wouldn't be the truth. And ultimately holding to what's true and right is its own reward, and will be rewarded further in the hereafter.

In general, I think the problem is that (and this has been mentioned in the thread already) you can't always control how your words will be received. If someone is predisposed to take offense at what you have to say, then they're going to be put off no matter how gently you phrase your comments. A gently worded statement can easily be interpreted as being condescending. And there are also people out there for whom the phrase "I don't agree." is the most devastating personal attack you can possibly level against them. They're not as uncommon as one might think.

The problem with the way this is handled in the media and in modern perceptions is that whenever Conservative/Religious culture comes in conflict with the "Progressive" thought, traditional values are expected to give way. If somebody goes out and gets a sex change and mom & dad feel uncomfortable, well then that's just them being backward and closed minded. "They need to get with the times." There was a time, only a few years ago, when Progressives were insisting that morality is subjective and that if you want to believe in your religious, traditional values that was perfectly fine but that you had to acknowledge the equal validity of other ideas that you might disagree with. That's changed. Now, morality is no longer subjective. Now, you are immoral if you don't share the "progressive" viewpoint. I was once in an online debate about these things and was told that I was a bad parent and that I was emotionally damaging to my children. Why? Because if one of my sons wanted to go as a princess for Halloween I wouldn't allow it. We, as "traditional" thinkers, have gone beyond the live and let live and are now on the defensive when it comes to these issues. So when I look at a situation where a person gets a sex change and then demands that mom and dad sanitize their home of all traces of any evidence that the child had been born any other way, I don't just see it as a simple question of how much we should accommodate these things. I see it as a microcosm of the wider question.

I think a lot of that stuff exists specifically to be a counterpoint to LDS missionary work. "Hey how are you?" "I'm ok... been thinking a lot." "Really? About what?" "Well a couple of those Mormons were over here yesterday, and they told me a lot of things that really made sense..." "Oh don't listen to them, they preach blasphemy. Here, check out this book that tells all about it..." So I guess that falls under the "protecting the flock" category but in a reactive way. Edit: I actually thought of a bigger purpose: $$$ The more dramatic the criticisms, the more copies get sold. The more copies that get sold, the more checks get cashed. Why do you think the same sets of claims and accusations get repeated over and over? It's not to inform. Only one copy would be sufficient for that (even if the information were true as presented.)

You rock. :) Just sayin'

I dunno his status, but Grant from Ghost Hunters is LDS.

The latter is natural. The former is not. That's how I see the difference. ...not that I disagree when you say that at a certain point it's like violence porn... I think on some level they're trying to reach ever greater heights of graphic content as a way of trying to shock the audience.

Duly noted. Actually I once had a chance to shake hands with a WWII vet... I was at an air show and was inside an actual B-17 from the war and it turned out the elderly gentleman behind me had been a B-17 ball turret gunner. That was an awesome moment.

Well if there's something wrong with you then there's something wrong with us both. I suspect there isn't, though. I'm horrified by severe injury when it's real. Sometimes I watch the shows on Discovery where they show actual injuries in the E.R. and it sickens me, yet in the shows where it's only a re-enactment, I'm fine. It isn't a matter of being desensitized, it's like FunkyTown said, the mind knows the difference well enough not to overlap. When I see some gruesome, visceral injury in a movie like, say, Dawn of the Dead, all I can think is "Wow, how did the Special Effects crew pull that off?" But what's interesting is when I watch something like Saving Private Ryan and there's a similarly hideous injury, it bothers me even knowing that it's only simulated for the movie, because I keep thinking "This sort of thing actually happened." So it isn't the sight of the gore on screen that's bad, it's the realization that something that hideous was a common sight on those battlefields... ...and it makes me want to find a vet and hug him.

This was a subject that I started thinking about a lot as a parent. (I assume all of us parents do, it's just I hadn't before I became one.) I'm very strict about the content in the DVD collection on my shelf. Yes, Saving Private Ryan is there, as are a few other movies with violence that has much less meaning in it than SPR. (Aliens, for example.) At the same time, you will not find *ANY* nudity in my DVD collection. Not even a single bare breast. I used to have movies that contained some. Conan the Barbarian, Starship Troopers, Braveheart. I got rid of them for moments of nudity, not for sustained graphic violence. Why? Because while I agree that being desensitized to violence isn't a good thing, I am also much less worried about it impacting my kids' behavior. My sons play fairly violent video games (Unreal, Call of Duty, etc) but that doesn't instill in them an itch to go out and do violence. Violence isn't a natural human instinct. We're not genetically or hormonally driven to be violent. On the other hand, our hormones and genes to compel us to reproduce, and it's a natural urge that we, as spiritual people, need to keep under tight control in ourselves. Seeing nudity on screen wears down that control, puts thoughts in our minds that can and often do lead to other things. A momentary view of a topless woman in a movie can easily lead to the desire to see more, and to seek it out, and that's a fast path to pornography. So for that reason I'm much more careful about nudity than I am about violence. The rational mind handles it better. When you watch a violent movie you know you're seeing fake blood. No matter how gruesome someone's death is, it's simulated. That blood isn't real, and the "dead" person gets back up and has lunch afterward. A bare breast is a bare breast no matter the context and it's quite real. That carries its own spiritual implications for the actress, and the viewer is supposed to be stimulated by that.

Not to nitpick, but I wanted to put a little clarification on this. In the magnitude scale (which is a log scale), the lower the number, the brighter the object. For example, the Sun has an apparent magnitude from Earth of -26.7. So if Jupiter has a magnitude of -2.2 and Honda has a magnitude of 0, then it's actually dimmer than Jupiter by 2 orders of magnitude. A quick read.

You'll never prove the Gospel empirically. As it should be. If the Gospel could be proven 100% through evidence then there'd be no need for Faith. People who make decisions on pure reason and evidence would have no choice but to accept the truth of the Gospel because, well, it was proven beyond a shadow of a doubt. What good is faith then? Would people still be valiant for accepting and following the Gospel, or would they simply be doing what everybody else is doing because facts don't lie? What about people who refuse to accept the Gospel? Would they become social pariahs for being "Gospel Deniers?" Sounds like a loss of choice to me. Whose agenda does THAT serve? So it seems like your focus shouldn't be on evidence, but rather, boosting your faith. You've said your a very empirical evidence-based thinker. Well, evidence and the scientific method are great tools but they aren't one-size-fits-all solutions. Maybe it's time to look at new ways of thinking.

At the end of the day that's really all we can do.

I don't know about the dark skin = less valiant. I've heard of that idea before but I'm not well versed enough to comment on it but hopefully the site I gave you the link to will help with that. I don't think God was the reason for the priest hood to not be given to blacks. I truly believe Brigham Young just boogered that one up. I think Brigham Young was the leader the Church needed at the time, because of the fleeing West business and getting SLC set up. His talents in these areas made him the right choice at the time. The problem is I think he started making changed that were beyond the scope of what the Lord wanted of him. The problem is that it took a LONG time to fix it because in more recent LDS times, it takes a LOT of prayer, revelation, and the involvement of the Quorum of 12 to implement big changes like that. That means change comes slowly. (Probably precisely because of the earlier mistakes. Ironic, huh?)

Yikes, that would bug me too. Maybe you're right in that he thought he was somehow shielding you from stuff you weren't ready for? I dunno. I agree it was the wrong approach though. We're all human... Certainly! That's a really good question, and I think it really has more to do with the idea that without going to the Celestial Kingdom, there's no room for eternal growth and new spirit children, etc. With a ceiling like that, it's hard to imagine being in a stagnant family structure forever. Maybe that's the reason for the limit? I dunno but it certainly sounds like a question worth researching and studying. I think you'll find the attitude on this varies regionally. Around here (Washington, DC area) a lot of the LDS wives work outside the home as well (including mine). There's no hard rules on this one, it's one of those things that's left to your own prayer and judgement. Yes, the attitude is that ideally the mom would be the caregiver at home but the reality of this day and age leaves little room for it. I know Brigham Young had racist views but I'm not aware of him ever supporting the killing of biracial couples. Actually, the whole blacks/priesthood issue is a tough one but I was very encouraged to learn that Joseph Smith actually performed ordinations on some black members of the early church, so Brigham Young seems to have dropped the ball on that one in a big way. I learned a lot of really good info and commentary from this site: Black LDS Mormons They can answer this item WAY better than I can. Join the club

Seems weird that they'd say that to you, but then, we don't know who that was. Your best bet at this stage would be to talk to Missionaries. They're given training in helping investigators get started. When I first started investigating the Church I was coming from a Catholic background and I was much more interested in the deep, advanced, meatier stuff. We're talking Grade A steak doctrine here. The Missionaries aren't really supposed to go into THAT, but I did have to learn to be patient and trust. Just remember that we're all humans and we don't always get it right. That's why prayer is so important. The Holy Spirit can help you figure out what the truth is in cases like that.