Vort

Do #5 and I'll tell my descendants to honor you in perpetuity.

Yeah, whatever. Let me know when they get to the PhDs.

My considered opinion, after long years of examining this: I think we must hate Satan, or else become like him.

Sheesh. Hope that guy is some big-time hedge fund manager or entrepreneur or surgeon or some such.

Your point is still well-taken. The rise of oral contraception has been a curse on humankind, an opinion I arrived at only within the last ten or twenty years, at most. Like everyone else, I have been brainwashed by our society, and I suffer from the disease of presentism at about the same rate as everyone else. (The difference is that I recognize it, while most seem not to see it at all.) Strange how things look different from another perspective. For a score or more generations, we have believed women to be the fairer sex, not merely in appearance but somehow in spiritual fortitude. Poems have been written about the moral superiority of the "weaker" sex. Our prophet and current Church president has openly opined that women are simply more spiritual by nature than men. Yet now we see that, when sex and pregnancy are dissociated and women are given the opportunity to whore themselves (their term, btw) without consequence of pregnancy, or at least with the sure ability to terminate the unborn child's life so as to avoid parental consequences, the average woman is pretty much as promiscuous as a man, if not moreso. It's a fascinating (if revolting) social experiment playing out before our eyes. I am astounded at young collegiate women eagerly jumping at their great opportunity to destroy their own spiritual acumen by seizing their "whore phase" (pronounced "hoe faze") and proudly jumping their "body count" (i.e. how many different men they have had sex with) into the dozens or hundreds. Satan laughs and his angels rejoice. God save my sons from such dregs of this filthy and promiscuous generation, the corrupt product of evil times diligently cultivated by their foolish, amoral parents. The vast majority of people, male and female alike, are swept along with the tide of society. I don't except myself from this rule, though I hope I put up more than a feeble struggle to swim against the current. Such are our times. And we should rejoice in our lives and opportunities and teach our children to do so. In this, I think we ought not to emulate the attitude of Nephi's brother Jacob in proclaiming ourselves lonesome and solemn, mourning out our days.

Perhaps as a group, but with countless individual exceptions. I believe it would be more correctly characterized not as "deciding to have fewer children" but instead as "following prevailing societal norms". As the societal norm for number of children per woman or marriage fell, that trend affected the Saints. I suspect it's not as much a conscious choice to limit children as a subconscious, perhaps almost unconscious, striving to maintain that societal norm. This impulse explains a great many things, such as people's deep reluctance to homeschool, even after issues of finance and dedication are taken care of. People say, "Well, it's just such a big thing", but that's tissue-thin and doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Surely having children in the first place is a vastly bigger and more life-changing deal than homeschooling, but people still have children. It is exactly the existence of the societal norm that makes people nervous about deviating from it.

Bones

My 90-year-old mother-in-law was inducted into the Hitler Youth. Her older sister was dragged away by German soldiers and returned to their family years later, deeply traumatized and unable ever to have children. The whole thing is a nightmare, one which has directly affected my own family.

I mostly agree with your post, @popatr, except: When sex gets mixed up in "things that are taboo and that you shouldn't do but want to", that's corruption right there, corruption of what should be most sacred. That's some dark, wicked stuff, of the sort I have prayed to God to protect my children from. For decades, I have wondered at people who talk about sex as "doing the nasty" and have puzzled why such people seem to find it attractive to think of sex as filthy. I guess they just don't have the same attitude toward or experience with sex as I do. (And parenthetically—HIDE THE CHILDREN!—I suspect this attitude of sex as "doing the nasty" might have something to do with the otherwise inexplicable rise of the fascination with anal sex as found in popular culture references and depictions.) My observation confirms this as one of the fundamental truths our society most needs to grasp.

I understand why you might think this, and I can't honestly deny that some part of my psyche is attracted to the idea. But I reject it. The day I decry Elder Oaks (certainly one of my all-time favorite speakers) for delivering the pure words of Christ instead of some religious commentary on the popular perversions of our time is the day I need to rigorously reexamine the very foundations of my own testimony. On a closely related note, I wonder if it's time for me to go ahead and pull the plug on time-wasting "social media", which is mostly garbage and pollution anyway. I spend little time on so-called social media as it is, but zero would probably be even better. I also wonder if time spent on this forum might not be better utilized elsewhere. But I have the good sense never actually to say that out loud or write it down.

An ironic but powerful testament to its truthfulness.

Among the microstates, I predict a temple first in Vatican City. (I visited San Marino (pronounced "sammareenoh") on my mission. Lovely little city/nation. Had its own lire coinage, too, identical in value to Italy's. I suppose that's all gone by the wayside with the advent of the euro.)

I actually agree with this completely, except that it is not parallel to what happened in the garden of Eden. Consider the following scenario regarding fornication. (DISCLAIMER: Our leaders have taught us in unambiguous terms that the garden of Eden's "forbidden fruit" was not sex. I do not mean to suggest it was. I use this only for a point of comparison.) A young man and a young woman are taught chastity and told never to engage in sex outside of marriage. (For this example, we will ignore that Adam and Eve were married, so sex per se would not have been forbidden; again, the "forbidden fruit" was not sex. This is merely an example.) Some outsider explains to the young woman that sex is the only way you can make babies and enlarge your family. (Yes, I know all about adoption. Please try to see my point through the meaningless objections.) She is also told that sex is tremendously intimate and binding to your partner, that it's an indescribably wonderful experience, and that her own parents engaged in sex when they married, which is how they produced her. Armed with this knowledge but not yet having a complete picture of how things work, the young woman tells her boyfriend and convinces him to engage in sex with her. The result is that she is impregnated, and the young man and young woman get married. Now consider the following questions: Was the young woman wrong to hearken to the voice of the person who told her that sex was her key to salvation? Was the young man wrong to hearken to his girlfriend's voice? Was the pregnancy and therefore the baby tainted and made less than holy because of the actions of the parents? Were the young man and young woman eventually truly married? Despite the unfortunate decisions surrounding their act, can they go forward, repenting of their carnality, and find all the joy in life that God intends for them? Assuming they do work to build their family and hearken to God's voice, are they forever damned because of their early poor choice? (My answers are yes and yes, of course not, yes, yes, and no way.) Whatever was involved in Adam and Eve's fall, it was a necessary step. We may assume based on scriptural accounts that it was done out of order and therefore unapproved of God. We may also conclude with certainty, based on latter-day scripture, that Adam and Eve were forgiven for the garden of Eden transgression*, and furthermore that Eve herself, after being forgiven, rejoiced in the fall she and Adam experienced (if not directly in the action that precipitated the fall) because it allowed them to progress. The fall of Adam, even if accomplished in a suboptimal way, was absolutely central to God's own plan of salvation for his children. *Many in the Restored Church of Christ, including apostles and other leaders, have opined that in the case of the garden of Eden, "transgression" is not the same as "sin". I find this argument deeply unconvincing, but since they are commissioned of the Lord to teach the kingdom and I am not, I don't spend any time trying to promulgate my own views. This is the so-called contradicting commandments idea, one which, again, I find deeply unconvincing. Own own scriptures teach that "the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them." But again, the kingdom is here with us, and I will not be found fighting against it. One day it will all be clear, and whether I was "right" or "wrong" or "it was something totally different that I never thought of" will be utterly irrelevant.

I used to think the same thing. Then a series of events happened, one of which might have been the crux upon which my opinion shifted. I had a marvelous experience as a stake missionary (today, "ward missionary") teaching an investigator (today, "friend" or something like that). She had said to begin with that she was not going to be baptized into the "Mormon Church". At some point in our discussion (today, "lesson"), I asked her the following: If God himself stood before you right now and told you that he wanted you to be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ, would you do it? Her response: "Of course." (BTW, she was soon baptized along with her children and was a delightful part of our ward until her sudden, tragic death a few years later from an asthma attack.) Emboldened by this experience, I tried the same trick a couple of months later with another lady who was investigating. I asked her the same question, and to my shock, she said, "Well, I don't know. I would have to find out more first." Thinking that she could not possibly have understood me correctly, I carefully rephrased the question, emphasizing that God Himself literally spoke to her and told her to be baptized. Her response was identical. The lesson I learned was that, for some people, the mere word of God is not sufficient. They feel the need to have everything explained upfront, and when that is not done—even when it is not possible—they simply refuse to budge. Perhaps such is the case with the aforementioned third part.

mirk rented my car. I gave him a good rate.

I may have misunderstood your point I thought I was responding to. My stance is that Cain did not somehow slip by and technically fulfill God's commandments, all the while secretly working in conjunction with Satan to establish his will. Cain, like other wicked people—like us—was seduced by Satan's lies and chose to follow him because he liked what he heard. Can Cain repent? I don't know. I don't even know if I know what that would mean. My impression throughout my life has been that Cain is beyond redemption by his own choice, to be resurrected but never again to be united to the Father and the Son. I suppose it's possible that doctrine is wrong. I do not know the mind of God, except in a few exceedingly small things. The amount of real truth that I comprehend would not fill God's thimble. One thing I am sure of: The Saints are encouraged and even commanded to fear not. If we are fearful or apprehensive about the future, we are failing to live up to our privileges. I hope to learn some things this coming weekend to help me in that regard.

No and no. God's ways are not an intricate network of subtle rules that someone sufficiently clever can game. Cain is the father of Satan's lies because he brings those lies into being and executes Satan's secret combinations of destruction. He is Perdition because he is an eternal being ("...also before the world") who is eternally lost to salvation by his own designs.

This is pretty hilarious. I remember the guy who would bring our jackets back to the dressing room. Every time he did, someone would yell "Kayfabe." ... Then one night, the guy decided to stand up for himself and told the whole dressing room: "I don't mind the yelling, but I want to let you know that my name is not Kayfabe. It's Mark." ... What he didn't know is that wrestlers called people outside of the business "marks"—that's why we were yelling kayfabe in the first place. — Pat Patterson, describing his interaction with a ring attendant in the Pacific Northwest Wrestling territory during the early 1960s.

He got what was coming to him. It’s nice to see. Like the hard right, gun waving guys say “Mess around and find out.” He messed around and found out. I appreciate your patience with explaining things to me. The topic makes more sense to me now. But the above comment leaves me baffled. Belzer said (in effect), "Wrestling isn't real, unscripted hand-to-hand combat. It's a violent ballet with a predetermined outcome." Hulk Hogan responded, "You're wrong. Come here and I'll choke you out, then let you fall on the stage and split your head open." Which was great, because Belzer really got what was coming to him. I don't get it. How, exactly, did Belzer get what was coming to him? How is this like "hard right, gun waving guys say[ing] 'Mess around and find out'"? Are you suggesting that Hogan and Mr. T were the "hard-right gun waver"s who showed Belzer what was what when he (Belzer) messed around with them? If I'm understanding correctly, the hard-right gun wavers are the heroes and those who mess with them by asking them questions and get their heads blown off find out and get what's coming to them?

I guess I've generally imagined them to be dressed something similar to the description of the angel Moroni's clothing - long white robe. I've more or less taken that as a descriptor of heavenly dress in general, I guess. That image could also be influenced by having seen many pictures and movies using that as the basic heavenly uniform. From what I have gathered, our modern dress, largely worldwide at this point, is based on Renaissance and medieval European dress of trousers and a torso overcoat or covering, which is itself based on earlier tailored dress articles used in e.g. Frankish and Germanic tribes, Scandinavia, the Asian steppes, and really throughout northern Asia all the way to the Pacific. They dressed that way because they lived in a very cold, harsh climate. Robes and open-bottomed dresses simply did not work well for staying warm; you needed to wear heavy clothing that was tailored to fit your body closely so that it provided insulation while walking but didn't hinder movement too much. Societies in more temperate regions such as the Mediterranean area and northern Africa, the Near East, and really the entire globe's tropical zone (where most people lived) tended to wear some variation on loose, open robes or loin coverings, or nothing at all. For the majority of the human race throughout history, the clothing norm was to wear such loose clothing. Trousers or breeches and a close-fitted coat must have looked very strange indeed to most premodern peoples. My guess, based on scriptural accounts and thinking about it a bit, would be that celestial folk don't wear closely tailored trousers and close-fitted shirts. Probably not shoes, either. I'm starting to believe that shoes are not generally a good idea for normal wear.

Hmmm. That theory seems to demonstrate something like the opposite, thinking the worst of those who don't agree with you. I seem to remember you saying something about pro wrestling vs. movies. Maybe you edited it out. Too bad, because that explanation made a lot of sense to me. It would be like watching a stage play and yelling, "THEY'RE ALL JUST PRETENDING! THE BAD GUY ISN'T REALLY PLOTTING TO KILL EVERYONE!" Two issues with that. First, I guess it's the milieu of physical combat as a proxy for virtue that I have never understood. I mean from childhood, when I would see huge lumpy guys throwing each other around on Ted Turner's Atlanta-based network, I didn't understand how it was entertaining. I didn't like boxing (still am not a huge fan), but I understood the idea of seeing which of two men could beat up the other one. There was no idea that one was "good" and the other "bad", just two guys trying to give each other concussions. I struggled to see that in pro wrestling, but it was all so obviously scripted (as a child and young man, I would have said "fake") that I didn't see the point. The movie thing never really occurred to me. Which leads to the second issue: I had acquaintances who really did enjoy pro wrestling, and to a man they insisted it was "real" (their word). I went back and forth with a few of them, and they never wavered in their insistence that the fights were real and on the level. I'm quite sure this wasn't just me or just a few people out in the sticks of eastern Washington that didn't get the news that pro wrestling was scripted. Richard Belzer had a mid-1980s talk show called Hot Properties on which he invited Hulk Hogan and Mr. T. He accused them of participating in a pre-scripted ("fake") activity. In response, Hogan invited Belzer to join a demonstration of a pro wrestling move, then choked him out and literally let him drop to the floor, giving him a scalp wound that had to be stitched shut. The point is, Belzer clearly thought pro wrestling was "fake" or scripted, and Hogan and Mr. T obviously took exception to that characterization. For some reason, it was a controversial thing for Belzer to say that pro wrestling was not actual fighting. It's not like pro wrestling openly owned up to its scripted nature until at least past the mid-1980s. So when you're rolling your eyes at the jackasses who don't like pro wrestling, remember that many of them were told it was all real (that is, unscripted) fighting, and that the participants were actually and in reality e.g. ramming their opponents' heads into corner posts, dropping them full-weight onto their necks, and otherwise actually trying to harm or kill them. If it had been represented to such people (like me) from the beginning as a scripted drama designed for entertainment and not a straightforward athletic competition, then characterizing those who dislike or don't understand the attraction of pro wrestling as snooty, stuck up stuffed suits would make more sense.

Serious question: Can someone explain to me the attraction of professional wrestling? Because I just don't get it.

"...swear not at all..."

If I knew that the Savior were coming in person to visit my home, I'm sure I would pick up the place, do the dishes, and vacuum. Heck, if I knew that my deceased parents were coming to visit my home, I would do the same. It's not a matter of trying to impress. It's a matter of showing respect and esteem by cleaning up before they come. My youngest, who will be 17 in a few weeks, started wearing a three-piece suit to Church six or eight months ago. He has the pocket handkerchief going, pocket watch with fob, the whole nine yards. It's a lot of fun, though I wonder what part of my recessive genome he inherited to take such sartorial care. I enjoy it, he enjoys it, his priest quorum enjoys it, the young women enjoy it, his leaders enjoy it. As long as he doesn't get obsessive or become vain about such thing, I don't quite see the harm. It's not like me, but frankly, I wish I cared a bit more about my appearance. All Mormons look the same. There. I said it.

Americans are not natively stupider than any other nation. We learn the things that we consider important. Today, that means equity for transsexuals and how to entertain children by taking them to see transvestites. A good world war or two and some general mass destruction, suffering, misery, and widespread death would do wonders for the American lack of focus on important things.