unixknight

Again, I didn't call you intellectually lazy, but it does seem that you're invested in thinking I did. I do believe your philosophy on this matter is oversimplified and thus intellectually lazy, and I've been very clear about that. I would hope you know the difference between calling a person a name, and just applying a term to something they said.

I have now! The Coca-Cola bottle one is amazing...

@Just_A_Guy I don't fully agree, but you said that well and you know what it's like. Your post makes a lot of sense. I think the only caveat I'd attach to it is that it's a significant enough struggle that I'd be very hesitant to call it sinning, only because to sin is to deliberately and willfully disobey Heavenly Father, and very few people ask to be in a physical state that restricts our ability to live life abundantly. (run-on sentences FTW)

That's fair, thanks. Actually I had the same misgivings about the PVC at first, but my son is about to graduate college with a degree in structural engineering, so I ran the stilt design past him and had him run the numbers before I even built it. The last thing I need is a broken ankle. Turns out, PVC pipe is ridiculously strong in compression the long way, and apparently these stilts could have been used as jackstands. The only thing I have to be careful of is not to put sideways force on them, but it isn't like I'm going to be doing any gymnastics or running.

I wouldn't have a conversation with someone who was calling me names either. Luckily, nobody's called you any names here, so I don't know why you'd say that. As for dismissing your thoughts as irrelevant... Where is that coming from? I presented counter arguments addressed to your comments. If they were irrelevant, why would I have addressed them? As for jumping on you... yep, guilty as charged. I don't like being judged. It reminded me of someone I once knew... She was a 90 lb Chinese lady who co-owned a company I was working for. She said all fat people had to do was push back from the table. Easy. I almost laughed in her face because those words were so breathtakingly ignorant. How could she possibly know what it is to struggle with weight? She couldn't. So for her to say something like that was ridiculous. I wouldn't know how most of the people in my ward self medicate because I don't make an effort to analyze them. Some people eat. Some drink. Some gamble. Some go shopping. Some watch porn. I don't make it my business to know how particular people cope. I'm really serious about the name calling thing. I reviewed my posts to be sure but as a rule I never call people names on forums because I find that sort of behavior childish and counterproductive. I did say that to oversimplify the issue of obesity was to be intellectually lazy, but I was talking about the act, not calling you anything.

Duuuuuude we can measure something moving 1/1000th the width of a proton?

Ah, but the instrument itself can now be used to detect other activity that we have no way of observing with telescopes. By confirming Einstein's math, we now know we can trust the readings from this instrument because we've been able to test it on the black hole collision. That's what they're referring to.

That made my day.

Not to sidetrack, but here's the build thread of the progress on that project. I've taken a pause while I recharge my funds for the project, but the goal is to complete it by this Summer for a convention in Washington, DC. I need to trim down around the waist a bit to avoid having to adjust the armor itself.

Ah, but you are, and you have. These are your own words: "Being obese I think is the sin. With a broad brush I will put obesity in the same category as alcoholism, and porn addiction." So unless my weight can be explained by some sort of medical or emotional factor, I'm sinning and in the same category as an alcoholic or a porn addict, according to what you've said. Nevermind how much I actually eat, or the type of food I eat, or my activity level. I'm fat and therefore sinning because of it. This is what you said. With absolutely no other data of any kind about a person, you're prepared to categorize them as an addict, and a sinful one at that. To be clear, the discussion about BMI and such was separate from my issue with what you said. Now, I think everybody can agree that our body is a temple and as such we should be good stewards of it and take care of it. That's the entire point of the Word of Wisdom. That said, it doesn't give any of us the right to decide that a person who struggles with that is a sinner. That's unfair, it's presumptuous, and it's intellectually lazy. Full disclosure, since I brought up my own weight earlier. This is me testing my shoes/stilts for my Space Marine Power Armor build.

I know what you said, and that's exactly what I responded to.

I think the "ideal weight" standard is oversimplified and doesn't take into account factors that may affect a person's healthiest weight, such as muscle mass, build, etc. I have the same criticism of the BMI system. My "ideal weight" for my height is something like 220, and I can tell you even if I didn't have an ounce of fat on my body I would still be significantly above that from my muscles alone. (Can you deadlift a manual transmission over your head and slide it onto an engine flywheel without any equipment to help?) The next time my body weighs 220 lbs will be about 7 minutes into my cremation process. That said, I have a LOT of weight to lose, and I don't consider myself to be particularly gluttonous. If you want some interesting reading, check out a book called Why We Get Fat and What To Do About It It's interesting, because it goes into a lot of detail about how your body processes energy differently depending on whether it's coming from fat, protein or carbs, how it's stored in your fat cells, how your body uses stored energy, how yuor muscles use it, the role insulin plays, etc. It explains why poorer classes of people are disproportionally more likely to become obese, because of the low quality of cheap food being so heavily loaded with carbohydrates.

I was reading about that a few days ago, and it rocks my face off. They say this is a leap forward as significant as the invention of the optical telescope.

Gluttony, I would agree, is a sin... But to assume that being obese = sinful because only gluttons become obese is intellectually lazy.

Always fun to be judged by people who haven't been there. (I'm assuming that because I find it hard to imagine someone going through the struggles associated with obesity and then saying something like this.)

What's worse still is that we aren't allowed to question anyone's assertion that they're trans-whatevered. Last year OSHA came out with some suggested guidelines for businesses that have mens' and womens' bathrooms and how to deal with these things. Basically, if a person who is obviously a man chooses to use the womens' restroom on the grounds that he's a "transgendered female" then he should be allowed to do so. Furthermore, "she" should not be asked to prove "her" status and should be taken at "her" word. So essentially if a creepy guy wants to get the kinky thrill of using the ladies' restroom while women are in there, all he has to do is claim to be a trans and no questions are to be asked. So, basically the only factor that matters is the emotional comfort and feeling of safety of the tiny minority of people, and the price? Fully half of our population is no longer able to feel fully safe in public ladies' rooms because they don't know who's going in there with them. Makes me afraid to let my daughters use public restrooms. Of course, that can go both ways, but I suspect men will feel less threatened and more weirded out when a woman claiming to be a man goes in there... But then again... most mens' public bathrooms are pretty disgusting so I'm not sure why anyone would go in there by choice.

That assumes he cares, or that the law would be enforced.

Congressional hearings on the matter. This quote blew my mind: “The logic of encryption will bring us to a place in the not too distant future where all of our conversations and all our papers and effects are entirely private,” -FBI Director James Comey. ....like that would be a bad thing. ARE YOU *#$*!@#!*( KIDDING ME?!?!?!?!?!?! This yahoo is who we have running the FBI?!?!?! This guy has a duty to uphold the law and he's whining about our ability, as private citizens, to safeguard our own privacy when the Government ignores the 4th Amendment. Yes, Mr. Comey I realize that in a terrifying future we may well be in a position where we don't have to just take your word for it that you won't use the vast resources at your disposal to completely ignore our 4th Amendment rights. How horrifying. And then there's this mindless gem: “We’re asking Apple to take the vicious guard dog away and let us pick the lock,” Comey said. “It’s not their job to watch out for public safety. That’s our job.” This comment is completely idiotic because it is literally saying that only the FBI should be able to "protect" us. Mr. Comey, you have failed in that regard miserably, because we're living in a time where the average American has more to fear from our own Government than we do from international terrorists. You're just gonna have to cope with the fact that we'd rather handle our own safety, thanks, and not continue to let thugs like yourself erode our freedom so you can play hero and grab more power. It's bad enough we have already lost some of our liberties for nothing more than security theater. You, and people like you, are EXACTLY the sort of threat George Orwell warned us about. /rant

I would be honored.

Wanted to chime in my agreement here as I too have huge respect for the Catholic Church. I was Catholic for the first 26 years of my life and they gave me a good moral center and an understanding of Jesus Christ, even if it's different from the one I know now. But yeah, the rigidity does sometimes come across as callous. I honestly don't believe it's meant to be, but again, sometimes it's hard to know what to say.

That was my experience as well. To be fair, Catholicism is considerably more rigid and black & white than the LDS approach is, and that makes it terribly difficult sometimes to reconcile things. When I'd get that sort of response to my questions I was very put off but in retrospect they probably just didn't know how to answer. One of the things that attracted me to learn more about LDS was the openness and pragmatism.

Thanks, Neuro. I'm a big believer in walking that mile in the moccasins, and before one can truly understand something they have to experience it.

Thanks... Let me tell you gun oil is not a pleasant flavor What stopped me was that I couldn't bear the thought of my kids finding me... And in that moment of lucidity I decided to get some help. I went through some counseling and medication for a while, but I've been free and clear of it for 12 years now and back to loving life.

I'm not sure Andrew Jackson is exactly a good model for an analogy like this. I have no doubt at all Jackson would have taken the side of the FBI in this one. I'd be a lot more interested in what Jefferson would have had to say, since he was more of a Constitutional scholar AND one of the founding fathers. (Admittedly the Louisiana Purchase was arguably unconstitutional, but still a better example than Jackson!)

I've never known anyone who killed themselves, but I have personally gone through Clinical Depression and at my lowest point I had a loaded .45 in my mouth. I'd like to think that mental health factors would be taken into consideration on the Day of Judgement, because I know from personal experience just how distorted one's perceptions and reasoning can become. You don't MEAN to disobey God, it just really does seem like the best option at the time.