Vort

If not, my wife will be greatly dismayed, and our five children will find themselves in an existential dilemma.

I'm sure you're right, LM. An even more hellish junior high school and high school experience would doubtless have helped me negotiate yesterday's fiasco with more aplomb, or perhaps avoid it altogether (by going postal years ago, perhaps).

The FLDS Church is "allowed" to do whatever it wants. How it chooses to interpret revelation is of absolutely no moment to us.We follow modern revelation because God is a living God. Human society changes, but God's overall plan and commandments do not. But a merciful God explains his commandments in a way that makes sense to his children today, which may not accord with the explanation three decades (or three centuries, or three millennia) ago. Joseph Smith lived in a time when teens and young adults were not enticed over mass media by scantily clad women to get drunk so they could fornicate. The social situation has changed somewhat; many of the dangers we face today are not the same ones faced by our parents or grandparents. We have modern revelation so we can have guidance in the modern world.

On the contrary, justice is indispensable -- in the long run. In mortality, justice is an elusive goal we always pursue but rarely catch. Our lot is to learn to live with the imperfect pursuit of justice, leaving ultimate justice in the hands of the great Judge.

Have you talked with your bishop?

Ah, adolescent drama. Don't let it ruin your life, or even your week. Try not to let it ruin your day. Just move on. My advice: Let J know that you thought he was in on the joke, and then stay away from J. Be pleasant, but don't return his joking or anything. You're not buds any more. Just be a nice, friendly, pleasant person who knows J as a social acquaintance but nothing more. And then go on with having fun at Church, with friends, and so on. If anyone asks about it, just tell them it was a misunderstanding, give a very brief explanation (without blaming anyone), and then stop. This, too, shall pass. Signed, The naked guy with the towel around his waist wandering the halls

My workplace provides shower rooms in many of its buildings so that employees who bike into work (or for whatever other reason) can use the shower. About an hour ago, I availed myself of this small luxury. I put my clothes in a locker, which is equipped with an electronic, PIN-activated lock. But this being a place of business, filled with fellow adults, and with other lockers standing open with stuff in them, I felt no need to bother with locking it for the ten minutes or so I'd be in the shower. Oops. When I came back to the locker, toweling off, lo and behold, the locker was locked. And since I didn't know the PIN that whoever locked it used, I couldn't get in. To, you know, get my clothes. Or underwear. Or cell phone. So there goes Vort, parading through the office building in the nude, with only a towel wrapped around his loins, to the receptionist at the front desk, who burst out laughing and said she'd call physical facilities. Back to the locker room, head down, towel firmly in place, while others in the building try hard not to be obvious in looking at the strange naked guy walking through the place. (Fortunately, I only "squat" in this building rather than work here permanently, so I don't actually know anyone.) An eternity later (actually about 20 or 30 minutes -- not sure, seeing as how my watch was locked in the locker, but it sure seemed like an eternity), the physical facilities guy showed up to let me in my locker. Keys, phone, wallet with credit cards still in place. Ha, ha! What a great joke! I'm sure I'll be laughing about it sometime in the 2020s.

I agree, I've never heard "Origen the African" either. But the attribution was to "Origen, an African Christian" or something like that. I was responding to your question why Origen was identified in the attribution as an African* while Clement is identified as "of Alexandria"**.* Because Origen apparently was an African, or more specifically, an Egyptian. ** Because Alexandria was a Greek city and Clement was a Greek by birth, so it emphasizes his Greekness. Also because there is another famous Clement from Rome, so the civic appellations serve to distinguish which one you're talking about.

The short answer is that it means nothing for your sealing to him.The longer answer is that his ex-wife will be contacted and any objections she might have considered. It is doubtful that this will interfere, at least long-term, with any sealing between the two of you. The sealing between your husband and his ex-wife need not even be dissolved before you can be sealed to him. In such cases, it seems* that the sealing often is not dissolved at all until and unless the ex-wife finds another husband to whom she wishes to be sealed. *I am not authoritative. I say "it seems" because that's what I have observed and have been told is the case.

Congratulations! I went to a regional conference in Marysville roughly ten years ago, where President Monson and Elder Scott spoke. It was a life-changing event for me in many ways. I was also amazed at your meetinghouse there. I have never seen one of that design, that just keeps opening back into a gym, a second gym, and a stage area, until you can have literally thousands of people seated (in tight quarters) in the extended "chapel".

Unlike pretty much every other god worshiped by the ancients, the Hebrew God had certain very human characteristics that He demanded His worshipers take on themselves, such as patience, justice, longsuffering, kindness, mercy, and so forth. From the very beginning, God's covenant people have been expected to become like him and promised the blessings of inheriting "all that the Father hath". This was as true anciently as in the time of Christ, and of course today. All honest seekers after truth arrive at this point eventually. "Clement of Alexandria" is how Clement is typically identified. Clement was thought (or at least supposed) to have been Greek, perhaps Athenian, and relocated to Alexandria, while Origen, Clement's successor as the head of the school at Alexandria, was thought to have been an Egyptian. Thus "Clement [the Greek] of Alexandria" and "Origen the African [Egyptian]".

Words of wisdom for all those with ears to hear, especially the bolded part.

Not sure what you think we disbelieve. I accept Joseph's account at face value. Did I (or someone else) give you the impression that I/we did not?

I think I probably don't understand what you're asking. Are you asking what the consequences would be if you committed adultery?

This may possibly be true in some cases, but certainly not all. You greatly undervalue sex. No, that does not follow. The marriage relationship is special and is not the same as every other long-term relationship. Because marriage is different from any other relationship teenagers and young adults find themselves in. This is like saying, "Bicycles and sailboats and skateboards and golf carts and good old-fashioned walking and all other means of land conveyance don't need gasoline, so why should we believe automobiles do?" This is not the case with the OP. He is not so choosing; only his wife is. Obviously, if a couple together decides that, for whatever reason, sex is not a priority or even an important part of their marriage, then fine. Whatever. That's their choice. But that is manifestly not what's going on in the case of the OP. One does not need to think that "sex is the be all and end all" to recognize the central place of sex to the marriage relationship and covenant and to want it as an important foundational element in his or her own life. For you to say, "Hey, sex is no big deal" shows your own attitude toward sex, but does not reflect the (very valid) thinking of the other 99% of the species on the subject.

Actresses and widowers the world over take issue with you. (Or maybe they agree.)

A little boy asked his father, "Daddy, did I grow on a vine, or did you dig me up?" The father said to his son, "What are you talking about?" The son replied, "I asked Mommy where I came from, and she told me you planted a seed in her and I grew from it."When we are given a general understanding of things but assign specific meanings, we can end up with wildly inappropriate scenarios. In that case, any questions we ask are liable to make no sense and, therefore, have no good answer. One of the main problems with gospel speculation (speaking in general) is exactly this: Most of it doesn't even make sense. I would suggest that, perhaps, you are forcing an understanding onto our existing knowledge that does not fit very well. I know your model is widely accepted within the Church, but that doesn't mean it's correct, or that the perfectly logical conclusions you draw from it (or the questions asked based on those logical conclusions) are meaningful.

If someone is considering joining the LDS Church without his/her spouse (but with the spouse's support), I think it's great. Only good things are likely to come of it, in my opinion. The Church emphasizes the importance of marriage, of selfless service to one's spouse, and of being a good parent, so it's very likely to be a big bonus in the marriage. In contrast, if someone is already a faithful Latter-day Saint and is considering marrying outside the faith, I think that is a hard thing. The reason is that the LDS Church is already important to the member (else by definition, s/he wouldn't be "a faithful Latter-day Saint"), and marrying someone who manifestly doesn't share your convictions from the very outset is a recipe for disappointment. Unlike in the previous case, it's not a matter of adding something good to a pre-existing situation; instead, it's a matter of forming an unequal partnership with someone who doesn't believe the same, and then putting expectations on the spouse that were known from the start not to be realistic. I have seen successful marriages in this case less often than in the first case. Bottom line: In your case, with one member of a couple considering joining the LDS Church and the other supporting that position, I think it's a wonderful idea and very likely to be a help to the marriage.

See? I got to experience it once again.

Tú. El/ella. Nosotros. Vosotros. Ellos/ellas. I think that's right, anyway.

What? You're welcome to experience that one-a-year-feeling of being wrong, too. I don't object. I personally experience that once-a-year feeling several times per day.

Others have suggested that this was a vision of plates rather than a cave physically located in the modern New York state "hill Cumorah". The hill in upstate New York is a "drumlin" created by glaciers and left over from the last ice age about 20,000 years ago. It is doubtful that the hill's structure would support a cave of any considerable dimension. Like you, I suspect that you could dig the entire hill out right down to the bedrock and find nothing of ancient Nephite records.

Like what? You love "these people?" What people are those?Blacks? Disabled People? Blind People? Mexicans? Russians? Homosexuals? Germans? Or humans? Which are your constant inspiration? Um...people who are celibate.Were you not following the thread? I think they're magically broken down at a chemical level by the very high acidity in your stomach, then by the enzymatic action of your digestive juices.Hormones saturate all or most of the foods we eat. We would be a mess if all those hormones were abosrbed wholesale into our bloodstream. Digestion renders such things to their constituent parts. People take human hormones in a way designed to get them into the bloodstream in an undigested format, through injection or absorption. You may be right, but haranguing people about them won't convince anyone. Why not post links to the studies you have seen and let everyone else read them (or not) as they choose?

Card writes for MormonTimes.com, but I believe he does not write for Meridian Magazine - LDS, Mormon and Latter-day Saint News and Views. (I have a hard time keeping them separate in my mind, too.)

1. It is pro-LDS. 2. It does not compare to the Ensign. The Ensign is the official voice of the Church; Meridian Magazine is essentially similar to LDS.net in that it's a collection of people offering their opinions (but not in a discussion-based format, like LDS.net). 3. Don't know this one, but I assume it's electronic-only format.