Vort

I wish it were. Unfortunately, those leftists were (and are) all too serious about what they proposed.

Whoa!!! I think you're right! I think there really IS a ghost there! A dirty-fingered ghost! And I think I see the ghost of his father telling him to clean off that door jamb, too!

Any takers? BONUS BONUS QUESTION: Without looking, do you remember the name Alma and his people gave to their land and city in the land of Nephi?

Ghosts often take the form of door jambs. Darned ghosts.

The label is not arbitrary. They mean different things. If I said "plural marriage (aka law of chastity -- the label is arbitrary)", you would immediately recognize this as incorrect. The same applies to the above statement. We are under covenant to live the law of consecration right now, today. We no longer live the united order.

It is also worth noting that what you are calling the "law of consecration", which is more properly identified as the united order, was entered into by covenant and required the participant to dedicate himself totally to the work he did in the order as well as live by a very strict, very high moral code of conduct. It was as far removed from government welfare (or, for that matter, from communism) as can be imagined.

Clever but meaningless. Swift's famous essay dealt with a parody of 18th-century attitudes. Cloward and Piven's paper is all too real, all too literal, and produced by two respected members of the radical leftist establishment. I find it ironic (yet not surprising) that the response to a conservative pointing out actual and respected leftist antiestablishment doctrine is to cite as a "conservative plan" an unreal, purposely merciless plan produced hundreds of years ago by someone who didn't believe what he was writing in order to mock his political opponents. Is it any wonder that meaningful political dialog is almost totally lacking in the US today? (Btw, what do we expect the response to be? "Hey, lighten up! It was just a joke!" Sound familiar?)

In-N-Out's good, I agree, but FatBurger has them beat all to heck. Given the choice, we would always take FatBurger. (Except I really like the way In-N-Out does its buns.)

Okay. We have established that the main group of southern Nephites under Limhi were in bondage for a full generation. We have also established that the other southern Nephite group under Alma were brought into bondage in fulfillment of the prophecy made in light of their unrepentant state after Abinadi's first mission to them. Next question: How long did the people under Alma live as a free people in the land of Nephi, and how long did they spend in bondage under Amlici? Bonus follow-up: What lessons do you draw in contrasting the Nephites under Alma and those under Limhi?

Oh, I understand. You're asking if there is a Jewish doctrinal reason why the LDS work for the dead is objectionable. Good question. Obviously, I'm not qualified to answer that question, but it does lead me to wonder. I suppose that any religion that sees other religions as necessarily false will believe that their doctrinal practices are in some sense abominable. One of the truly beautiful and great things about the establishment of the US is that it provided for free practice (within reason) for ALL religions, even if their beliefs and practices looked "abominable" to others. Though the US may not always have lived up to that ideal, it certainly has been a great thing.

Not so. If I say that eating is a form of nutrification, it need not follow that all eating is nutritious. I can eat cotton candy, dirt, or animal excrement without experiencing nutritional content. Still, when I take in nutrition, it is typically done by eating. Similarly, true prayer is indeed worship, even if it's possible to pray in a non-worshipful way. I'd say that worship is the adoration and veneration of God. That is the real core of worship. So to ask if God worships is to ask if God adores and venerates God. This is obviously true in the case of Jesus Christ, but not of the Father.

Wouldn't bother me a bit. Let them do their foolish voodoo. No skin off my nose.

If by "interesting" you mean "horrific", "disgusting", and/or "appalling", then I agree, it's quite interesting.

Just keep telling yourself: Vort is beautiful. Vort is beautiful. Vort is beautiful. We now return you to your regularly scheduled thread.

Don't be silly! I'm not your age. Why, I'm almost three years younger than you. And I could well be your second wife, except for my sex.

Correction: A beautiful young lady. Does that help?

The term "rameumptom" was used by Nephites separatists who called themselves "Zoramites", named for their leader, Zoram. The original Zoram in the Book of Mormon was the (Jewish) servant of Laban who escaped Jerusalem and joined Lehi's group. I would be unsurprised to learn that many or most of these Zoramites were of largely non-Nephite descent. They may have originated primarily from the "Mulekites", whose Hebrew language had become "corrupted" (which in context appears to mean "it wasn't Hebrew any more"). Thus, the term "rameumptom" may very likely have had a completely non-Hebrew origin.

Since all believers apparently lived as a group after Christ's appearance, I have assumed that the nearly two centuries that followed involved a lot of cross-racial marrying, since race, historically always important to the Nephites, would have been deemed meaningless. And since the light-skinned Nephites were always a minority of the overall population, I assume that such interracial marrying probably largely did away with lighter-colored skin*. Thus, I envision Mormon and Moroni as looking much more like American Indians than like northern Europeans, as we see in many paintings. * I also suspect that the Nephites never had the northern European light skin. That, combined with laboring in the tropical sun (as I suspect a tropical location for the Book of Mormon), would have made the Nephites dark-skinned as compared with the English or their descendants, though apparently noticeably lighter than the Lamanites. Along this line, I note that lighter skin tone is still highly valued among Latinos and American blacks. Very fair skin used to be prized among the English and other Europeans, as well, though apparently not so much today. This preference for fairer skin might explain the very existence of white Europeans as well as lighter-skinned Asians, since there is no other obvious survival advantage to having light-colored skin.

The doctrinal reason is that we are charged with doing work for our ancestors, not for everyone else's ancestors. Some Saints are so eager to see work get done for Julius Caesar, Adolph Hitler, or the victims of Auschwitz that they fail to do the work for great-great-grandma Beulah.

Btw, Jamie, I wasn't trying to be cute. I could have been more helpful in offering a wider explanation, but my point was that there are many things on which we simply don't have a good understanding. As important as it is for Saints to know the doctrine of the Church, it is often equally important to know what is NOT the doctrine of the Church. The ideas being discussed are not Church doctrine. This sounds reasonable. Just to be clear: The Savior taught that if we seek, we shall find, and if we ask, we shall receive. The Church's policy is to give to those who ask; when someone asks for knowledge about doctrine, we give it to them. There are only two exceptions that I can think of: Those who are not prepared to receive. Another gospel principle is "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little". We give milk before we give meat. It does no good for us to tell people a bunch of knowledge that they have no framework for processing. God himself does not give us all we ask for up front; he allows us to grow into the knowledge we seek. Those who ask questions for which no answer has been revealed. There exist in the Church many ideas that take root but that don't really have a doctrinal basis. Some of these become widespread and are rooted out only with great difficulty; others have more limited scope.Regarding point #2 above, I suspect that your "Joe is God" example is one of the latter examples of an idea that takes hold among a limited group of Saints. Somewhere, somehow, someone came up with what they thought was just an absolutely marvelous example of how the average Joe could become God Himself (which, btw, is also manifestly not LDS doctrine but is still widely believed), and the story spread among a small subset of Saints. One missionary knew and believed this story, but when he tried to use it, his wiser companion, recognizing the story as false doctrine, shushed him while trying to spare his companion the embarrassment of undue attention. At least, that's my take.

Missionaries do not normally talk about "sons of perdition" because it's unimportant doctrine for those investigating the gospel. The vast bulk of the human family will dwell in a kingdom of glory, even the "bad" people. Why introduce a doctrine that applies to only a small portion of people and which is almost sure to raise more questions than it answers? There is plenty of time in a person's life to delve into the mysteries of eternal damnation, if one is so inclined. Introductory gospel lessons are not the time for that. It is the missionaries' job to teach the investigators. It is your job to support the missionaries' efforts. If the missionaries did not want to discuss the doctrine of eternal damnation among the sons of perdition, it was your duty to support them in that, not to force the issue. Next time, you would be better served in allowing the missionaries to teach as they see fit. Now, if the missionaries simply did not know the answer to a question, that might be a different thing. In that case, it's probably appropriate to suggest the answer. But if, as you say, the missionary was trying to steer the conversation another direction, then he's the driver and you should let him drive.

An yes. Very well observed! Some people confuse both.It is worth noting that the hypocrites so disparaged by Jesus Christ were those who prided themselves on their ritual purity, yet were so morally impure. "Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness." (Matthew 23:27)

What color do you imagine Mormon's and Moroni's skin to have been, and why?

That is probably correct. Serving a mission is both a duty and a privilege, but not a right. So if the Lord's servants dismiss you from your duty to serve a mission, there are plenty of other things you can do to build the kingdom.

That is my interpretation, as well, though I suppose "the king" need not have referred to Noah, and might instead have referred to his father Zeniff, or perhaps even the Lamanite king. (Though that last one seems a whole lot less likely.) Just thought it was funny that we're likely called Mormons based ultimately on what a wicked king called a small patch of land 2200 years ago.