unixknight

"I find it interesting that we know there are son's of perdition and yet to hear conversations in here it appears, in some people's eyes, it's impossible for anyone to become such!"

Nobody has made that assertion.

Fair enough.

So how do you account for others, including at least one Apostle, seeing it differently? Are they less intelligent than you? Less spiritual? Less honest? What is it that makes you so absolutely positive that nobody's perspective other than yours can have any merit? Do you know something they don't, or is it at least possible they see something you're missing? Not being catty, just genuinely wondering if you have any idea how arrogant it looks when someone won't even acknowledge the possibility of another reasonable view. Not calling you arrogant, just telling you how it looks. Just to be clear, earlier my argument (which you have yet to address beyond a few inconclusive verses, and I don't expect you to, so no pressure) had nothing to do with whether or not Judas was a Son of Perdition. I was just exploring his inner motive.

Of course we are, but Church Leadership is there for a reason. We can certainly gain insights from the Holy Spirit when reading scripture, but when people go off on their own, thinking their own interpretation of the scriptures are absolutely authoritative, you can get David Koresh. (An extreme example, I know, but you see what I'm getting at.) Your interpretation of the scriptures in this matter aren't the issue. We can all certainly agree to disagree . The reason people have been challenging you in this thread is because of the absolutism behind your arguments. "My interpretation is the only reasonable interpretation." That's a prideful statement, to put it mildly. It's also mildly insulting to anyone who disagrees with you. If you think your interpretation is more correct than even an Apostle's... well that's a bold claim. And extraordinary claims demand extraordinary evidence. The verses you supplied earlier in the thread when I requested them simply do not adequately support your interpretation. Multiple people have agreed on that point. Now, I was away from the thread for a while after that and maybe you provided some more that I haven't seen. Even so, it still all boils down to interpretation, and the very fact that so many of us have so many different opinions on it suggests that the matter isn't nearly as cut and dried as you've been pushing it to be. Does that make sense?

If your opinion and mine (or anyone else's) carries the same weight as one another, then why are you coming across so utterly adamant that your interpretation is the only possible correct one? Maybe you don't mean to, but that's how it looks. And I don't know about you, but I'd trust the opinion of an Apostle over my own any day. That's why they're apostles, bro. But that's a separate issue. Let's argue about one thing at a time

Cool. You want to call him or do you want me to? I mean, since you're better at interpreting Scripture and all. I'm sure he'd appreciate it!

I guess we'd better call Elder Holland and set him straight.

Why? The stories and lessons in Scripture are stories and lessons about humanity, and how we interact with God. To understand the lessons we have to understand the people in them. Joseph F. Smith was talking about the decision to perform ordinances for people who lived evil lives. He didn't say we shouldn't pity them, or acknowledge that they were, in fact, living humans who made a series of extremely poor decisions and wound up dying with such massive sin blackening them that they may well be irretrievably lost. I do humanize Judas and I do pity him. He was our brother. He was stupid in a way that's so profound and yet... if it's a way that we can understand and maybe even relate to, then there's a lesson to be learned here. If the material I read was correct and Judas' motive was to force Jesus to become a revolutionary Messiah, then that's a direct lesson to us who have the wisdom to learn it. If you've ever said something like "I really wish the Good Lord would come down here and wipe out all this evil around us right now!" Well, that's just what Judas wanted too, so what does that say about you, Captain Instigator? Maybe it says that there's a part of all of us that becomes impatient, wanting the Lord to act as we desire, and not according to His plan. And if Judas really was motivated by nothing more than a bag of coins, or was just plain evil, then that would have to mean he was utterly blind and deaf to every single lesson Jesus ever taught, and if that's so, then that doesn't say very good things about the awareness of the other 11 Apostles, who somehow managed to avoid recognizing an utterly clueless and greedy dirtbag for what he was in the 3 or so years they were together.

Heh, instead of covering I'd just say "Ask him." But that's just me. Put me in an awkward spot? There will be consequences. 😎

It's like watching Jordan Peterson vs. Cathy Newman.

Well I'd venture to say the awkwardness would be well worth it. Ultimately it's up to you. It sounds like you have a workable option to sit with people you know, leave the baby at home so you can get the benefits of being there, and hopefully motivate hubby to tag along. So is it worth the initial awkwardness? That's a question only you can answer. You posted for advice here so it does seem to be important to you. I'd definitely encourage you to at least try that. Why would people not like you?

Gotcha. I can relate to some of that. As an introvert I dislike being around people I don't know, especially if there's some expectation that I interact. Is there anybody in your ward you're friends with? Then you could sit with them and not feel so much like a loner.

It seems to me that this might be a mechanism to motivate dad to go. "Ok, you can stay home, but I'm leaving the baby with you while I go." He'll either go for it, which leaves you free to take the Sacrament, hear the talks, feel the Spirit, etc. Or he will come along because some dads just get squeamish about being alone with the baby for a couple hours. Either way, it's a winner for you. How come going alone would be worse than bringing the little one?

So I forgot to tell you guys... on Monday I went to the food court to get a supplement to lunch in the form of an Arby's salad. Don't. Just don't. I bought this thing and here's what you get: Some iceberg lettuce, a few bits of tomato, a sprinkling of shredded cheese, about a half of a strip of bacon (shredded) and two slices of deli turkey (shredded) and a big back of dressing. For $6. A salad I could have made at home for about 80 cents' worth of ingredients cost $6. Now, yes, I'm perfectly well aware that eating out is always more expensive than making it yourself. The complaint here is that it wasn't a good salad at all, it wasn't like there was any variety of quality ingredients, and it didn't even have that mystique of being food from eating out that makes us not really mind the extra cost. It's like buying a cup of chili at a restaurant and realizing it's just supermarket canned Hormel.

You have my attention...

Yah, welcome to that club It seems to me that the bigger issue is the reason why your husband won't go to church with you. Normally I'd say you and he could take turns with the baby. If that isn't an option, maybe it should become one? It juts feels like solving that problem would kill two birds with one stone.

You didn't, but at least one of your friends did. So here's a little insight into Facebook's ad algorithm I learned in class when I was working at Johns Hopkins. (One of the perks of working at the University was that you could sit in on classes in the lecture hall in the building where I worked, if the subject was in any way related to our work.) Facebook's first choice in targeting its ads is to look at your own posts, likes, cookies, browser history, etc. Now, because of some of the privacy settings it might not be able to access all of it. Thus, it has to come up with other ways of trying to determine how to target ads that would be relevant to you. One of the ways it does this is by looking, not at your posts and likes, but your friends' posts, cookies, browser history and likes. Typically, people in a circle of friends tend to share interests, so if you're friends with a bunch of people who all like NFL football, then there's a good chance you do too and you'll get ads for NFL stuff. So while you may never have done any searches for ED meds online, if one or more of your friends did, then it will sometimes target you, and their other friends, for such ads. This is how we know Facebook doesn't care a whit about your privacy. It could be NFL merch... but it could also be diabetes supplies, ED meds, sleep apnea supplies, etc. Medical privacy is a joke on Facebook. It wouldn't take Sherlock Holmes to deduce who's online looking at any particular type of stuff by seeing what groups of friends get what ads.

This is the greatest post I've seen in a long time...

I'm not aware of anyone arguing that Judas wasn't a traitor or a Son of Perdition as a result, at least, as of the time you posted this. Unless I'm missing something, the debate was about Judas' motives.

1983. Ah, 1983. It was the year Return of the Jedi was released. It was the year I turned 9 and, the year I first lived in a house. We (meaning my mom, my dad and I) had been living in a 3 bedroom apartment but rents were going up and it was time to move on. We managed to find a nice 3 bedroom house for only $400 a month. Even for 1983 that rent was low and my parents jumped on it. Eagerly, Mom and I went over to the new place one day after work with a car full of things, just to get the ball rolling. Actual move-in day was to be that weekend but Mom wasn't exactly known for her patience and I, being an 9-year-old kid wasn't going to complain. So we get there, and it's time for lunch. Mom had bought a couple of those small, single serving frozen pot pies, and heated them up for us to have. The hot pies came out of the oven, smelling great and ready to eat except for one problem... We had no silverware in the house yet. Frustrated, Mom didn't know what to do. We had brought clothes, clothes, and a few of my favorite toys... Eureka! Toys! I had brought one of my most prized possessions, my collection of toy smurfs. Among these items was the Smurf Village Windmill, a fairly large toy which had a working crank that turned the blades of the windmill. More importantly, it had a wraparound balcony, with two planks that made a 90 degree angle, owing to them being beveled rectangular pieces that came to a point on one end. They were made form a very durable, hard plastic that made them highly useful as knives and then, spoons... sort of. I volunteered the use of these items and we were able to eat our lunch. Now, that could have just been a fun, happy childhood memory that makes for a funny story on an Internet forum 36 years later. But no. I don't remember it for that. I remember it because my Mom's primary love language was gifts. You see, I told her that I really liked the pie. Which I did... that wasn't a lie. The problem is that in the 20th Century Standard English to Mom translator, "This pie is really good" translated directly into "Since you love me, you should buy me more of these pies, preferably by the case." As a result, over the next few weeks, I ate a lot of pot pies. I mean... a LOT OF POT PIES. I mean, when I was to the point of having gotten over how good they were, and mentioned it to my mom, she looked all hurt and said "Oh... I thought you liked them..." Which made me feel like a complete heel. So I reassured her that I only meant I was tired of them for that particular day (a lie) and that definitely, they were just amazing. You can imagine what happened after that. It's now 2019, and my wife's favorite meal is home made chicken pot pie. Whenever she tells me we're having pot pie for dinner, my stomach lurches. It's been 36 years and I still would rather eat grilled tarantula than a pot pie. (That isn't a joke. I would literally prefer grilled tarantula at this point.) Now, to be fair, my wife makes a killer chicken pot pie. Everyone who has dinner at our house on a day she's making pot pies loves them. It's one of the reasons I like it when we have the missionaries over for dinner on a day when the pot pie is coming out... they love it and I know I'm safe from having to eat leftovers. The strangeness is that once I'm actually eating it, it's not so bad. I don't have to struggle to clean my plate or anything. It's just the hours leading up to dinner that are so revolting. I'm not mad at my mom for this. She was just saying "I love you" in the way she knew how. It's just that I feel like I could be dealing with it better. Why am I posting this? Well, 2 reasons. 1) I'm hoping other people have similar stories to share, so I don't feel like such a jerk and 2) I'm hoping for advice form anybody that has some.

"There's an attention hound born on the Internet every 0.8 seconds."- @unixknight

Tell ya what, when my family and I move to Wyoming I'll sell ya my house at a good price.