Vort

Yeah. Thanks a bunch, Pam. Remind me not to invite you over next time I'm helping the kids with homework.

I agree. At Church, you should never be engaged in challenging people's testimony or worrying about philosophy. That is not the purpose of Church. There are many otherwise worthy, worthwhile things that we should and even must do, but not at Church. There is no imperative for us to participate on a discussion list, but neither is it wrong per se to do so. And a discussion list is not Church. So your example, while true, does not apply to this situation.

Not serving a mission is regrettable. It is not the end of the world. This young man needs to decide where his commitments lie and how he feels about duty to God. Once he gets that squared away, the decision to serve a mission will be easy, one way or the other. Now if he is simply not mature yet, a fourteen-year-old in a nineteen-year-old body, as it were, that might be a different story. In that case, it would be nice if the stake president advised him to wait six months (or a year, or some other period of time) while he further prepares himself through scripture study, prayer, regular shaving, etc. If that's the case, you might do well to have a chat with your stake president.

I disagree, Ruthie. The ideas "God doesn't exist" and "the Church is false" and "the world is flat" already exist and are well-publicized. No one can be surprised to hear such a sentiment expressed; they are endemic. Seeing a subject line that says "No more mormonism?" cannot be expected to cause apostasy in the weak. If that were the case, we would have an extremely limited set of topics we could discuss. And where to draw the line? Perhaps one of our brothers or sisters is so disturbed at the idea of organic evolution that his/her testimony might hang in the balance if anyone so much as mentions the possibility of a Mormon believing evolution. Shall we then prohibit all talk of evolution so as not to damage this hypothetical brother or sister? Shall we refuse to talk about abortion, or marijuana legalization, or BYU football, or investing in IRAs, because you never can tell when something you talk about might trigger apostasy in someone? We must assume that people are rational adults and can decide for themselves which topics are acceptable and which are too threatening to them. It's not like we're talking about legalizing pornography, watching R-rated movies, or cheering for the Utes.

Let us suppose we have been invited to a ward covered-dish party (often called a "potluck"). Each is responsible for bringing something to add to the eats. Within our ward, we know of three people with peanut allergies, two children with gluten intolerance, and a family of vegans. So the question is: Whose responsibility is it to protect those ward members? Well, we are all our brother's keepers, right? So therefore, no one should bring anything that has been in any sort of contact with peanut residue, wheat, or animal products of any type. OR...we could allow each person (or for children, the parents) to decide what food to take and what to leave alone. I think the second approach makes more sense in this case. No one is being forced to participate in this thread.

Start by googling "nicene creed" and "athanasian creed". Look up some of the good links from the results, read those and follow related links on those pages, and you will have begun educating yourself on this issues.

I try to make my deciding criterion, "Would I be comfortable if my children were reading this thread?" With the obvious exception of some of the sex-related threads, I am generally fine with it. I do seek to shield my children from some of the ugliness and brutality of life, especially when such ugliness seems attractive (e.g. porn). But in general, I do not seek to shield them from ideas; rather, I try to introduce ideas to them along with Daddy's take on the matter. I want my children to have multiple legs to stand on, so that when one or two get kicked out from under them, they aren't left in a freefall. So I want them to begin to consider questions like, "Why am I a Latter-day Saint? What does that mean? Do I really believe this stuff? Why and why not? What do the scriptures say to me? Do I gain benefit from prayer? To the extent that I do not, is that because I'm not putting into it what I ought? When I see something that seems strongly to suggest that my religious ideals are wrong, how do I react? What are my sources of strength?" In my opinion, the important spiritual abilities are not developed by refusing to acknowledge and confront doubt. Rather, I have found that it is almost always better to confront doubts head-on and learn to work through or around them. Avoiding such issues tends to breed doubt all by itself. Learning to be comfortable with, or at least accepting of, one's own ignorance and weakness can actually be a great strength. You can believe, exercise strong faith, and nourish and strengthen your testimony even while you wrestle with issues and explore your doubts. The single exception is when confronting doubts that terrify you and that you can't get past your emotional reaction to. These doubts are probably best left completely alone until you have developed more spiritual maturity. I know several women who are so terrified at the very idea of polygamy that they go to pieces just talking about it. One has actually torn Section 132 out of her Doctrine and Covenants. Such people would do well not to tackle the issue of polygamy until they have become a lot firmer in their testimonies and beliefs. But I do think that's the exception, not the rule.

Tough issue, because (forgive me for creating an artificial distinction) there is a correct answer and there is a right answer, and the two are different. The correct answer is: Of course we should allow medicinal marijuana. Using a relatively harmless herb to mitigate serious chronic pain? How can this even be a question? You can get over-the-counter drugs with arguably more dangerous side effects and potential for abuse than cannabis. The right answer appears to be: No, we should not allow it. It is an excuse for recreational use. The number of people who would actually benefit from such a law is very small, while the number of abusers (and their concomitant overall effect on society) would be very large. Most of the potential beneficiaries could be treated with existing legal drugs as well as, or in many cases better than, they would be treated with marijuana. So the cost-benefit analysis to society clearly shows it is better to disallow medicinal marijuana. Of course, to those who insist that there is no harm in smoking pot, the above paragraph will be specious. Maybe sometimes Balkanization is the only reasonable option. "When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation." At what point do we start drafting out the reasons?

Whoa, hold your horses, there, cowboy. No one turned this into a referendum on your personal spirituality. This is a discussion list; as such, we discuss things. Stating an opinion on a matter is not tantamount to calling you names because you disagree. You obviously have strong feelings about this, and that is obviously based on your past experiences. I accept that reality and honor your beliefs. By the same token, you should realize that the fact that you really, really believe something does not make it so. For you, perhaps it really is spiritual poison even to consider the "What if?" scenario of the Church being less than it claims. So be it. You should avoid such questions like the plague they are -- to you. But that does not mean that everyone else is likewise vulnerable or that such a question might not be of positive benefit to them.

Disagree. I would argue that the utter refusal to confront one's own insecurities and investigate alternative ideas is a sure recipe for a non-thriving, weak testimony that will prove incapable of withstanding the winter blasts that befall each of us, whether or not we seek them. It is one thing to dismiss one's own testimony and follow a path, in action or in thought, that must lead to ruin. It is quite another to ask an honest "What if?" question. My father-in-law, a convert and one of the best men I ever knew, once said to me, "Vortie, if I found out the Church wasn't true, I still think living by its precepts would be the best thing to do, because they lead to happiness." I admired him for his courageous forthrightness and honesty. I cannot find any fault with him for pursuing that line of thought. Says the guy continuing the thread. :)

You know, I'm not sure who I agree with. Fact is, I agree with both sides. I think it's foolish to play with something as priceless as your testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Asking "what if?" questions seems akin to asking your wife, "If we were to divorce, would you try to take the kids?" Some things are simply better left unexplored. On the other hand, we must face reality. And reality is that we live in a world of unknowns where we try our best to recognize and follow the truth, realizing all the while that we can and will mess up. If we have anything less than an absolutely profound revelation of the truth to our souls, then it is intellectually and spiritually dishonest to pretend that "we know beyond a shadow of a doubt with every fiber of our very being". It's hypocrisy. Part of being an adult is a willingness to recognize and acknowledge our own frailties. If we recognize that our testimony, strong though it may be, is not absolutely bullet-proof, then it seems reasonable to explore the consequences if we were to be believing something that is not so. The fact of the matter is that we do believe things that are not so, lots of them. Our very understanding of the gospel itself is imperfect; we will have a lot of mind-expanding, soul-wrenching revelations before we reach our eternal goal. We need to find out who God is and discover that he isn't the being we thought. We need to discover the efficacy of the atonement and heartbreakingly find out that the feeble efforts we thought were so magnificent are barely even a beginning. We must examine our own selfishness and face the awful truth that, as much as we think we love our wives or husbands, we really don't love them anywhere near as much as we should -- as we must. As a child finds so many of his preconceptions to be naive or just plain wrong, so we will find so much of what we "know" to be much different in reality. Of course, the gospel really is true. This Church really is the kingdom of God on earth. We all know that fact to varying degrees, some a little, some more, some a lot. But none of us has that perfect knowledge yet. So we must cling to it and nourish it with all tenderness and diligence, never allowing the howling, raging storms of our world to savage that which is most precious. But by the same token, we need to be absolutely honest with ourselves, and sometimes that might involve exploring uncomfortable situations, even those we know to be false, to see what truths we may glean about our own selves and our reactions to different situations. So there's my analysis. I don't know. But I probably will avoid leveling much criticism at someone who thinks differently from me on the topic.

Only 80 days left!!!

I suspect you might be reading a bit more into this than the text intends. I believe that it means simply that we will be fully aware of our guilt or righteousness, unaffected by the rationalizations and conditional moralities that plague our mortal existence. I suspect that a full understanding of the principles underlying righteousness and evil may lie eons in our future development, long past the point of our physical resurrection and judgment. Or, heck, maybe not, I don't know. That's my take on it.

The problem is, of course, that there was nothing "accidental" about it. It was an intentional, premeditated act that resulted in the death of an innocent infant. I hesitate to call the act "murder" because I suspect it does not fulfill the requirements, either legally or morally, to be so classified. But it is something far more horrific than a mere accident.

Thanks for all the comments. I'm interested to see what people think about this issue. I'm going to inject a few comments of my own, in the interest of understanding better what folks have written. So you think that the woman should make the rules and the man enforce them? "Presiding" = "enforcing the rules made by the wife"? If we have been commanded to preside, that suggests to me two things: We are expected to preside well.In order to preside well, we must understand what it means to preside.I suspect that ignorance of what "presiding" means and the de-emphasis of principles of presidency would seriously compromise our ability to fulfill our divine duties. Interestingly, I have never heard an LDS woman demand the right to marry an already-married man or complain that she isn't allowed to share out her stud-muffin husband. I seriously doubt this is an important area of focus for almost any women. In any case, I'm not sure what it has to do with the meaning of presidency. This is an interesting and worthwhile question. I think it ultimately asks the same thing I'm asking: What does it mean to preside in the family?

Peanutterrier, I'm sorry I've confused the issue. I'm one of those weird Mormons who has no issues with organic evolution. But if it doesn't make sense for you, then that's fine. We have the light of the gospel, and that is what's important. All else is just talk. Don't take too seriously what I or anyone else says on the topic. My son baptized a lovely young woman in Lake Stevens, a good friend of his who, I believe, has unfortunately fallen into inactivity and returned to the faith of her parents. Sweet girl, though.

Having never seen the movie, I can nevertheless state with absolute assurance that it does not portray a significant fraction of what the Savior endured so that we might gain salvation. I might perhaps take your word for it. Or not. In either case, I will never watch it. The very idea is repulsive: "Let's watch a man be slowly tortured to death, and then say how wonderful it is!" Christ's atonement was wrought primarily in the Garden of Gethsemane. The crucifixion was an ugly dénouement to the real suffering of the atonement (though McConkie believed and taught that the pains of Gethsemane returned to Christ on the cross). In any case, it is the spiritual cost that we celebrate, not the ruthless torture of the flesh. Any movie that celebrates torturing someone to death and makes it the front and center of the film sounds like pure crap to me. I'd sooner pollute my mind with some vomitous fornication flick like American Pie then claim entertainment in watching someone get tortured to death.

For the record: Evolution in no possible sense fails to follow basic math. "I think the implications of organic evolution are icky" does not qualify as mathematics, basic or otherwise.

No. It is a young man's duty to serve a mission. The "pressure" is simply the expectation that a young man will do his duty. If you think the expectation to serve a mission is pressure-filled, wait until your wife and kids expect you to bring home a paycheck every week, even when your boss is threatening to fire you.

Because it is what I perceive. It may not be automatic, but it does seem to be common. So, then, as I supposed: Inoculation attempt. If they were saying only what you suggest above, I would have no objection.

I think we would all agree with this, but it doesn't really give a picture of what's happening. So let me rephrase the question: What does it look like for the father to preside at home? In other words, what things does a presiding father do (or avoid doing) that, in a family where the father does not preside at home, he would not do (or avoid doing)?

Thanks for the links, Connie. I'm actually not looking for help. I want to know what people's opinions are on the meaning of "presiding at home". I already know what I think it means; I am curious to find out the thoughts of others on the topic. EDIT: Great links, by the way.

***WARNING! VORT'S NON-DOCTRINAL OPINION ALERT!*** Masturbation is bad. Having no desire for sexual relations is very much worse. If you as an unmarried young adult were given the choice between two people to marry, one of whom had high libido and had masturbated, the other of whom had very low libido and had never masturbated, which would you pick? 100 times out of 100, I would choose the masturbator. Better someone who has a desirable characteristic that s/he occasionally misuses than someone who lacks the characteristic altogether.

In another thread, the participants mentioned how important it was that the man "lead" in the home even if the woman is the primary breadwinner. We are told that it is a man's divine duty to preside in the home, as these good sisters seem to recognize. But that got me thinking: What do most people think "presiding at home" entails? Exactly what does it mean that the man "presides in the home"? I have my own opinions, but I am interested to know what others think.

Sounds to me like a case of the cure being much worse than the disease.