Vort

I should add that, while I recommend Firefly from an SF and an artistic perspective, I do not recommend it from a moral perspective. I would not allow my younger children to watch it and would discourage my older children from it.

Not true. Having sympathy with groups contrary to the Church will keep you from getting a temple recommend. That really is one of the questions asked. No kidding.

You can make the same arguments about preventing people from marrying their dogs, or their parents, or their desk chairs.

I am not being facetious. You argued that such laws are evil because they "ignore God's gift of Free Agency." I have simply observed that, if your charge is true (and I believe it is not), then all other laws also infringe on agency. Not paying my income taxes causes no harm whatsoever on any other person. My contribution to the tax stream is so minute that it literally would not be missed, and would not change the budget of the state or federal government by a penny. A sexual relationship between two isolated men perhaps does not affect me in any measurable way. Condoned, protected sexual relationships between men and women attack the integrity of the foundation of culture, which is the relationship between the sexes. That you fail to see the harm in a thing does not therefore make the thing harmless. But of course, this is false. No one is forcing anyone to live a certain lifestyle.

Then so is pushing laws that force our beliefs on others regarding rape, murder, and income tax evasion. If what you say is true, then these, too, are an infringement on our precious, God-given gift of Free Agency.

mrcharlie, despite seeming to have gotten off on the wrong foot in this conversation with you, please accept my sincere condolences on your wife's passing. I cannot imagine the pain you must be dealing with. Such things as you ask about do indeed happen from time to time, but again, most people won't discuss them in an open forum, nor should they. I would also suggest that the spirits of our beloved dead do not come back to visit and chat with us. In my understanding of such experiences, actual visitations from the departed take place for specific reasons and usually so the deceased can deliver a specific message or instruction that cannot easily be done some other way. More casual conversations with the departed seem much more often to take place in dreams, which raises the question of whether they are "authentic" visitations of some sort or merely self-generated illusions. I suspect that, to some extent, it doesn't matter which they are, so long as they deliver truth and comfort. But I expect it would seem important to those who have such dreams to know whether their beloved deceased "actually" came to them.

My religion teaches me not to rape or murder, and that I should obey even traffic laws. There are very strong secular arguments that the heterosexual relationship between a man and a woman is the very foundation of civilization, and that such nuclear families are the basic relationship unit in a healthy society. Governments are obliged to support and encourage such relationships in order to (in the words of the US constitution) "promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity". In any case, who says that our ethical opinions about society must be based on "secular reasoning"? (And by "who cares", I specifically mean "name someone whose opinion is important to me and who cares.") "Secular reasoning" could well lead to all sorts of bizarre and nonsensical opinions, such as that women who refuse to work outside the home should be taxed heavily to help support the burden they place on the hard-working elements of society, the lazy slackers. I see no possible inducement to believe that "secular reasoning" is superior to religious ethics.

I haven't read science fiction for years, though I did enjoy some of Orson Scott Card's sci-fi/fantasy in former years. I did recently watch a 2005 SF movie, Serenity, based on an early 2000's short-lived TV series, Firefly. The series and the movie are, respectively, the best TV SF series and the best SF movie I have ever seen. So if you have a taste for cinematic SF, I would recommend those.

Huh. How did that happen, john doe?

Years of experience. Discourage people? By noting that few are likely to accept your invitation? Hmmm. You might wish to look up what a "discussion list" is. Why not?

I could not agree more! In fact, I think we should do away with laws against rape, embezzlement, and speeding, for that very reason. We should not be trampling on people's sacred Free Agency by methods so crude and Satanic as making and enforcing a social contract. Anarchists, unite and organize! Oh, wait...

Absolutely. If you don't support Prop 8, you are subject to immediate termination ^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B^B excommunication. This is true, even if you are not a Californian, or for that matter an American. I am pretty sure that "Do you affiliate or sympathize with any groups that oppose Proposition 8?" is now a standard temple recommend question. Yes, liberal Mormons are a beleaguered minority who justly receive the wrath of their fellow, more righteous, Saints. Repentance is possible, but only after they go through hell. Be afraid! Be very afraid! If your bishop ever found out that you did not support Proposition 8, I think the Danites might be on your trail! If I were you, I'd start heading for Mexico now. Of course, there are lots of Mormons in Mexico...

People who have had such experiences as you ask about are unlikely to share such sacred things in a public forum such as this.

Ah. That makes a difference. That's why I tried to describe the problem before attempting to solve it.

2π/3. Actually writing the problem down helps...

I'm talking about a situation like a group of friends or acquaintances sitting around chatting, and someone feels impelled to say, "I see there's a new Twilight movie out. Can you believe anyone watches that crap?" And someone else pipes up, "Yeah, really! I tried reading the first book, but it was just SOOOOOO STUPID that I couldn't make it halfway through!" And the first person will respond with something like, "They were written for preadolescent girls who haven't developed a figure or any taste in literature!" And they'll both laugh at their cleverness. Seriously, if the books are popular, then there's a reason for that: Lots of people read them. Those who criticize might do well to think about that fact before condescending to enlighten the benighted crowd with their illuminations. To be clear, I am not talking about conversations on a discussion list such as this. The rules and expectations are completely different here. Something in between, actually. I have not met anyone (that I remember) who intentionally goes out of his or her way to criticize Twilight fans to their faces. It's more the expectation that everyone you're talking to naturally agrees with your negative assessment. Again, it's like saying, "When you Google 'French military victories', it asks if you really mean 'French military defeats'!" and then expecting everyone to give a hearty laugh.

I have never read Twilight. But I am very fond of Sister Vort, who loves Twilight, so I am therefore a Twilight fan. It's amazing how many people think it's acceptable in casual conversation to criticize certain books and those who read them. Not too different, really, from those who think it is the height of original cleverness to criticize France and/or the French. Seeing as how my mother-in-law is French, poor Sister Vort gets it from at least two directions, while I grit my teeth to keep from saying anything to those who insist on showing their superior breeding and refined tastes by lambasting Twilight and its fans and/or demonstrating their rapier wit and highly developed political sensibilities by criticizing all things French.

I don't get it.

Why do you presume that? Obviously, after death people will realize that there is an afterlife of some sort. But it does not follow that they therefore will immediately recognize Mormonism as the kingdom of God on earth, or that they will desire to follow God -- or for that matter, that they will even accept that there is a God.

The difficulty is not in someone asking whether Joseph Smith was a true prophet. The difficulty comes when people start making statements without having done their homework.

Uncle Sam to the rescue!

Hmmm. I was thinking about this in the shower, and I did a disk integration that suggested 2π/3. I have a very full Sunday and don't want to take away from my family time later on, but I will try to get back to this today or tomorrow morning.

I'm trying to understand the shape you're integrating. I understand you to say that the quadrilateral bounded by y=1, y=3, x=0, and x=1/y is rotated about the y axis, and you're trying to find the volume by integration. Is this correct? To integrate using cylindrical shells, first draw out the shape and see that it consists of two regions: The region between x=0 and x=1/3, where the height is 2, and the region between x=1/3 and x=1, where the height is 1/x - 1 (because when x=1/y, that means y=1/x). So make your cylinders and integrate. Each cylinder has a curved surface area of 2πx (x is the radius at any given point) times the height (either 2 or 1/x - 1). Multiply by the differential thickness and integrate: V(inner) = ∫(2πx)(2) dx [between x=0 and x=1/3] = 4π ∫x dx = 4πx²/2 = 2πx² [between x=0 and x=1/3] = 2π[ (1/3)² - 0 ] = 2π/9 V(outer) = ∫(2πx)(1/x - 1) dx [between x=1/3 and x=2/3] = 2π ∫(1 - x) dx = 2π (x - x²/2) = π (2x - x²) [between x=1/3 and x=2/3] = π [4/3 - 4/9 - 2/3 + 1/9] = π [12/9 - 4/9 - 6/9 + 1/9] = π [3/9] = π/3 V(total) = V(inner) + V(outer) = 2π/9 + π/3 = 5π/9 Checking, the inner cylinder must have a volume of π(1/3)²(2) = 2π/9. The outer cylinder is twice as wide at the base but goes as 1/x in width, so it will have something less than twice the volume of the inner cylinder. So 5π/9 looks right. Is that what integrating with disks gave you?

This was a private assessment, not a denouncement. Stand by it as you wish. It is still false.