Vort

LostSheep, Kawazu is awesome. Please recognize him/her as an Awesome Person of the Week. Authoritatively and condescendingly, Vort There, that oughta do it. Unless LostSheep isn't one of the mindless sheep that accept everything I say as absolute truth...Nah! Just kiddin'! Everyone believes me! It's because I have so carefully cultivated my online persona that everyone assumes I am a General Authority, or perhaps an author of a best-selling fictionalized LDS historical series.

MHW! I'm surprised and disappointed! I always thought you were more strong-minded than to be so easily swayed by my opinions! Oh. Wow. Cool! As Spiderman says, "With great power comes...GREAT POWER!!!!" MHW: I am always right, and everything I say is not merely true, but profoundly so. And that goes for any of the rest of you who are so easily swayed by my arguments! He's our hero! He's a sport! No, not Nero! We love VORT!

Miss½, here is your post: *********************************************** Here is your goal.....according to your own words. It does seem rather interesting that you want people to come and try and convert you. Perhaps you are simply coming here to bait us.

Believe it or not, JaG, what I wrote was not aimed at you personally. (I know that's how it came across, so please just take my word for it -- that's not how I meant it.) I did not see anything necessarily inappropriate in what you wrote. It just seems to me that the good-hearted people on this site are only too willing to take great pains to explain, meticulously, every point of doctrine they are asked. I suspect that wiser (and, incidentally, more effective) response would be along the lines of, "Study the scriptures and pray." The meat of the gospel ought not be thrown to those barely able, or willing, to digest even the milk.

Here's another Joseph Smith quote that, I suspect, is appropriate to this conversation: "The reason we do not have the secrets of the Lord revealed unto us, is because we do not keep them but reveal them; we do not keep our own secrets, but reveal our difficulties to the world, even to our enemies, then how would we keep the secrets of the Lord? I can keep a secret till Doomsday." Joseph Smith shared with some of his close friends, and at the end of his life with the larger Church, the doctrine that (in Lorenzo Snow's words) "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become." Have we treasured this doctrine, pondered on its meaning, tried to understand it, and kept it as a pearl of knowledge, revealed unto us but safe from the vulgar world? Or have we widely broadcast it, even to our bitterest enemies, who are not shy in distorting this glorious doctrine and then using as a club to bash over our heads? It is my opinion that sharing our intimate and sacred doctrines with those who have proven their hatred and contempt toward the Church and toward religion in general is foolish. The gospel is preached to all, and we can and ought to share those basic precepts with everyone, even the haters. But careful, doctrinally rich explanations are not merely lost on such people; they will be turned against us. That's my view of things.

Right you are, Miss½! Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........................

Okay, I admit, this is largely my fault. Exhibiting the worst kind of hypocrisy, I call myself a disciple of Christ, only to act in a very unChristlike manner. Whether or not "superdad69" is a liar, as I have openly claimed, I should not have called him out so openly. To be clear: I do not believe I said anything untrue. Nevertheless, telling the truth is not, by itself, justification for mistreatment. I have mistreated "superdad69", and for that, I apologize. Now, I will attempt to give "superdad69" the benefit of the doubt. I will attempt to believe, or at least assume, that he is not a bald-faced liar. I will try to assume that he is actually an honest seeker after truth, that he has only the best of intentions, and that he has absolutely no intention whatsoever of gleaning whatever information he can about Mormons from this group, then turn around and manipulate that information into an attack on his web site against the LDS religion and its beliefs. (I confess, it's difficult for me. But I'll try.) You think I'm a fake bully? Or you think I use a fake internet? Wow! That certainly makes you, uh...help me out here. What does it make you? A hero? By the way, my wife is usually the only one to call me "sweetheart" -- but for you I'll make an exception, honey lips. I waste my time posting on the internet. You? Cops? Ex-marines? Atheists? Internet posters? Fathers? Overweight dog owners? Please, you really need to be a bit more specific. Maybe you shouldn't carry a gun. Seriously? What, exactly, do you know of my belief structure? (Other than that I despise liars, that is.) This is a real question. How could "people like me" be "the reason people like you have bad opinions" of my belief structure, when you know next to nothing about my belief structure? Ah, the bitter taste of persecution! Friend, having someone on the internet call you a "liar" may not be pleasant, but if it's the worst "persecution" you have faced in your life -- as you claim -- then you have led a very, very sheltered life indeed. Again, my wife is usually the only one who calls me "honey". But I guess I can make another exception for you, Sweetcheeks. Finally! Now we're getting somewhere. President Franklin?! Did he come before or after Jefferson? Please note that not a single one of those quotes you offer give any evidence of Benjamin Franklin as an atheist. By his own account he was not an atheist. So grouping him as an atheist is, well, it's...um... ...let's just say it's false. Again, not a single quote on the referenced page shows Lincoln to be atheist. On the contrary, he was explicitly a believer in God -- perhaps not Christian, but most certainly not atheist. To claim him as being so is simply, uh...false. I'm perfectly capable of using Google. Jefferson was a Deist. He can in no honest sense be claimed as an atheist. Yet you claimed, and I quote, "You will not be talked down to or hated I can assure you." Why did you make such an assurance if you were not capable of keeping it? My simple mind sees that you claimed no intent to upset and assured no hatefulness or down-talking, then referenced a web site where we were talked down to, treated with contempt and hatefulness, and in general provoked into being upset. Seriously. Can you explain this? Can you see how someone might read your email, visit your site, and conclude that you are, well, let's just say, less than on the up and up? Or do you still insist that both your motives and your execution were absolutely pure and beyond any possible reproach? Just curious: Is your research on the LDS religion going to find its way onto your web site as an attempt to mock and denigrate our religion? You're welcome and I'll do my best. Lovely! Home sweet home! Be it ever so humble, etc.! Thanks for the neighborly hint. (PS It's a "post-postscript", not a "postscript-script".)

Excellent! "Waaaah!!! You big meanie! I have never been treated so badly in all my life!! This has been the most unpleasant experience in all my life!!!" (Direct quotes, by the way.) Friend, you lead a very sheltered life. Just trying to help you understand that there are, in fact, liars out there, who intentionally deceive and misrepresent themselves. Always happy to be of help! PS I've been on this web site quite a while now. Don't flatter your pathetic self that I'm "stalking" you, especially when you don't have the courage to answer the points I made about your ridiculous intro posting. PPS You are not merely seeking for information. You are looking to mock the LDS religion on your site, as you have done with others, and you want ammo for your efforts.

Good luck with your efforts. The problem is, there is so much crap that sometimes it's hard for the sincere but uninformed seekers to tell the liars from the merely misinformed. Case in point: Here's a pro-atheist web site that claims "to help others understand our view of life in general and also to help them understand their own view as well." (How condescending of them, no? They not only help us understand their viewpoint, they help us understand our own viewpoint!) Now, you may well ask, are these people honest but misinformed, or are they liars? Harsh words, to be sure; the claim of "liar" is serious indeed. Before applying such a label, we need to examine the web site a bit more closely. The first thing you probably see is a video slide show. Among the slides are these untruths and overt criticism of religion and the religious: Slide 3: "Atheism -- Good Enough For These Idiots". Included in this "idiots" portrait are Abraham Lincoln (nondenominational but very clearly a believer in God), Thomas Jefferson (a Deist), and Benjamin Franklin (raised a Puritan, but like Lincoln nondenominational but very clearly a believer in God).Slide 6: A "Motivational"-style poster reading "Atheism -- Because Some Of Us Have Much Better Things To Do"Slide 11: An atheist symbol surrounded by atheist aphorisms, including:"Atheists will celebrate life while you're in church celebrating death. - Anonymous" "Animals do not have gods, they are smarter than that. - Ronnie Snow" "Gods don't kill people. People with gods kill people. - David Viaene" "With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion. - Steven Weinberg" Also plainly visible on the front page of this site: Animated cartoons mockingly portraying Jesus and Christians. Okay, so far, so good. Nothing spectacular here. Fairly run-of-the-mill, anti-Christian, we're-atheist-so-therefore-we're-smarter-than-you stuff. Pretty much what you find all over. But wait! This site owner then comes to an LDS-oriented group and posts a message with the Subject line "I'm not trying to upset anyone but....". The body of his message includes a link to his web site (described and referenced above) and then tells us, "You will not be talked down to or hated I can assure you." [lack of punctuation preserved] Now you tell me: Is this guy a liar, or is he simply misguided? (Hint: Misguided people do not put intentionally insulting and false information on a web site, point to it, and then say "You won't be talked down to or hated, I promise! I'm not trying to upset anyone!") Anyway, like I said, good luck with your search. I'm sure you're a lily-white, honest, good-hearted seeker after truth. Unlike, say, the owner of the previously mentioned web site.

Sure, that's entirely possible. I'm no prophet for the Church; my exegesis is not the final word. But then, neither is yours. According to your exegesis -- which is not the final word. On the contrary, it is not at all obvious.

A General Conference address does not constitute revealed doctrine. You are avoiding my point. I have done so. But you still have not responded to my points. So what? The scriptures make it perfectly clear that Satan deceived Eve, and they were punished for their sin by being cut off from God's presence -- exactly as we are cut off for our sins. Sure, I freely acknowledge the likelihood that there was plenty going on that we are not privy to, and that the Garden of Eden story we have is a highly stylized representation of a historical event that does not go into great detail about the specifics. Nevertheless, your analysis is shallow and scripturally unsound.

Yes, PC, I agree, I do think you've misunderstood me. Let me try to clarify. My point was as follows: If you [who believe such things -- not you personally, PC] are going to accuse Latter-day Saints of preaching 'earned salvation', then you yourself must plead guilty to the same charge. If the Latter-day Saint (and Biblical) doctrine of the necessity of obedience to the Lord's commandments constitutes 'salvation by works', then so does the necessity of making 'an affirmative confession of Christ.' It's not a matter of type, only of degree.

It's not legal for a public school to force you to watch a TV show that violates your standards. Stick to your guns. But understand that the school may do so, anyway, legal or not. Unless you are willing to follow up with legal action, if necessary, you may get a low grade in this project. That seems unlikely, but possible. If it happens, it will be unfair, but it may be quite expensive for you to do anything about it. But stick to your guns anyway.

This is false. There is no modern revelation that states this. The scriptures make no such distinction: Alma 9:23-24 And now behold I say unto you, that if this people, who have received so many blessings from the hand of the Lord, should transgress contrary to the light and knowledge which they do have, I say unto you that if this be the case, that if they should fall into transgression, it would be far more tolerable for the Lamanites than for them. For behold, the promises of the Lord are extended to the Lamanites, but they are not unto you if ye transgress; for has not the Lord expressly promised and firmly decreed, that if ye will rebel against him that ye shall utterly be destroyed from off the face of the earth? D&C 109:34 O Jehovah, have mercy upon this people, and as all men sin forgive the transgressions of thy people, and let them be blotted out forever. Mosiah 2:33 For behold, there is a wo pronounced upon him who listeth to obey that spirit; for if he listeth to obey him, and remaineth and dieth in his sins, the same drinketh damnation to his own soul; for he receiveth for his wages an everlasting punishment, having transgressed the law of God contrary to his own knowledge. D&C 104:9 Inasmuch as ye are cut off for transgression, ye cannot escape the buffetings of Satan until the day of redemption. 2 Nephi 9:46 Prepare your souls for that glorious day when justice shall be administered unto the righteous, even the day of judgment, that ye may not shrink with awful fear; that ye may not remember your awful guilt in perfectness, and be constrained to exclaim: Holy, holy are thy judgments, O Lord God Almighty—but I know my guilt; I transgressed thy law, and my transgressions are mine; and the devil hath obtained me, that I am a prey to his awful misery. 1 John 3:4 Whosoever committeth sin transgresseth also the law: for sin is the transgression of the law.

By what authority do you make this judgment? The bishop holds keys of presidency. You do not. So what makes you think you know better than him, a man whom you have never even met? Smacks of hubris. How so? It's not a "generalization of human behavior" at all. However you choose to view it, the fact remains that she has nothing to be ashamed of if she has been keeping the law of chastity, however uncomfortable the questions may be. As I wrote before: If your doctor is giving you a physical, you can expect his finger to intrude into spaces you would rather it not go. My mother told me a story that happened many years ago when I was a child. My parents were going through a very difficult financial time. They had not told anyone; however, the Relief Society president brought things to help out our family. My mother, deeply touched, asked her how she knew. Her response: "The Spirit told me that you were having financial problems and were in need." My mother (not yet having a good understanding of this principle of stewardship in callings) noticed some time later that this good woman was undergoing some trials of her own. My mother prayed and fasted to know what the problem was, so that she could administer relief. Finally, after days of prayer and fasting, she received a gentle but unmistakable response: "That is not your business." Moral: Our leaders (including our Priesthood leaders with keys to their callings) are indeed authorized to receive revelation on our behalf regarding personal topics.

Mr. Armstrong, So you want to go to the moon, do you? Well, you can't earn your way there. Seriously. No matter how hard you work, no matter how hard you try, no matter how smart you are, no matter how much you practice jumping, you will never, ever get to the moon under your own power. But... If you will devote yourself to our organization, we will send you to the moon. Sincerely, The National Aeronautic and Space Administration (Possible responses) Dear NASA,You are right, I want to go to the moon but I can't get there on my own. But I BELIEVE YOU! YESSSS!!! Now I'm on my way to the moon! I completely believe that you will do it for me! I'm devoted to your organization! I'll be watching Gilligan's Island in the donut shop when it's time. Already on my way to the moon, Neil Armstrong Dear NASA,You are right, I want to go to the moon but I can't get there on my own. I am willing to devote myself to your organization. Please let me know what that entails. Thanks, Neil Armstrong Which response indicates a more reasonable understanding of the offered gift? Which response is most likely to yield the desired result?

I don't like this way of looking at it, since I think it emphasizes the wrong things. But if you (not specifically you, PC) want to look at it in these terms, it's no different with larger traditional (or Evangelical) Christianity. You still have to "accept Christ" to gain the blessings of the atonement; ergo, you have to earn it, since you still have to do something. At this point, it becomes a word game. I am fully aware that philosophy itself is really just a discussion of word definitions. Nevertheless, when some condemn Latter-day Saints for believing in "earning salvation", it's downright disingenuous for those same people then to hold that one must "affirmatively accept Christ", yet claim that they and they alone are preaching the true ideal of salvation without works. In other words, if following the commandments constitutes "works", then so does "affirmatively accepting Christ".

Ms½, You are asking a philosophical question based on your present understanding of things. This is hardly unusual; how can you ask a question based on an understanding that you don't yet possess? Nevertheless, it makes for a question with no satisfactory answer. Consider an intelligent and thoughtful person who gazes at the stars, learns their names, and wonders about the heavens above. After much pondering, he asks a perfectly natural question that, to him, is meaningful: "Why don't we ever see a crack in the celestial sphere between closely adjacent stars?" How would you answer? The root problem with this question is that it is not meaningful. It presupposes a lot of assumptions that (as it happens) are not true: The heavens consists of an inverted opaque bowl that covers the earth.Stars are holes in the celestial bowl that allow the passage of light from the realms beyond.Closely adjacent stars are therefore closely spaced holes in the celestial bowl.The bowl is made of some physical material that acts similarly to other physical materials with which we are familiar, including a propensity to crack when subject to closely spaced holes.Our hero, unaware of the true nature of the heavens, does not realize that his very question is meaningless. Furthermore, if someone said, "Your question is meaningless", he would not acknowledge that, since he would have no other model to build his understanding on. To dissuade him from his question, you would have to offer an alternate model of the reality of the heavens to him. But if you could offer no such model -- say, for example, because you yourself didn't know the true nature of the heavens -- then simply saying "The question may not be meaningful" won't likely do much. Our hero's other friends, however, may hold the same mental model of the heavens as he does. They may be only too happy to answer by using their ideas that they have thought out. "Well, you see," they explain: "The heavens are very far away, so even the most closely spaced stars are actually very far apart. The holes never get very close together.""The quintessence (i.e. the material from which the celestial bowl is made) is a substance that doesn't work the same way as clay or glass or other things we're familiar with. It's special.""There are cracks, but you just can't see them because they are far too thin.""There may be cracks, but you see, the quintessence is quite thick, so even with cracks the celestial light can't shine through them."(modification of the above reason) "There are cracks, but they do not pass straight through the quintessence. Rather, they take a jog over here and there, so there ends up being no straight-line path through the quintessence that the celestial light can make.""Silly man, you misunderstand the nature of the celestial sphere. Why, it is covered in cracks! The stars are simply the intersections of the cracks, where we can see the celestial light beyond."10,000 other answers explaining why there are no cracks between stars, using a faulty model so that the explanations are ultimately meaningless.You see the problem? When your model of reality is faulty, all of your explanations fall short. Note that a faulty model need not be an explicitly wrong model; it may simply be inadequate. I suspect that's the case here. We know a few things given by revelation and taught by the prophets: God the Father is a physical as well as a spiritual being.Christ existed premortally as a spirit.So did we.The premortal Christ was known to the ancients by the name that, in English, is usually rendered Jehovah.Christ was born into mortality, gained a body as we all do, died, and was the first resurrected being.I submit that this list, while seeming to give us a plausible model for understanding the nature of things, is still far too inadequate to allow us to understand the nature of God. In fact, I submit that we cannot understand the nature of God based on a list of such attributes, however long it may be. The nature of God is a mystery, and as such can only be understood through the Spirit. It's possible that we don't even have the vocabulary to discuss such questions as you pose, much less the foundational knowledge to understand the answer. In writing this, I realize that I'm treading perilously close to the neoPlatonic philosophy that infected and apostatized the early Church, holding that the things of God are simply so far above and alien to our present circumstances that we are unable to comprehend them in the slightest degree. I don't believe this, but I do think that they can probably only be understood through the Spirit, which would suggest that most discussion on such issues would prove fruitless.

Great question. It appears our society has branded hate as "toxic" since at least WWII. Not "hatred", but "hate". I don't know what to make of this. It does seem as if hate eats away at and cankers the souls of those who harbor it. Hating people does seem at least somewhat in contradiction to the divine nature. On the other hand, the scriptures speak of God hating some people. If hatred is an honest emotion, I am not sure it per se can be bad. But perhaps due to social conditioning, I don't quite see how it is compatible with Christ-like charity, either. Thought: Maybe the equivalency between "hate" as an emotion and "love" as an emotion is false. Calling them both "emotions" and making them two sides to the same emotional coin may distort the real nature of what it is to hate or to love.

Furthermore, our perfect Savior has visible, palpable imperfections in his hands, feet, and side. Methinks "perfection" does not mean what we assume it to mean.

I don't believe this. I suspect that no one gets his money's worth out of SS. Agreed, except for the "cleverly disguised" part.

And you bear a startling resemblance to Beefche.

I don't know. If that was the case, so much the better. But it would be more comfortable for me if I were clued in. :)

Gwen, if this forum had a LOL button, I would have used it. To answer your question: I'm not concerned about looking macho. Even IRL, I'm not too worried about that, and certainly not on a more or less anonymous discussion list. If I were, I certainly would not have come on this forum and disclosed my shameful secret. Rather, I was ashamed that it happened, and I wanted to hear what others thought about such things.

I keep saying that I'll shut up now, and then I keep talking. So let me offer a couple of (hopefully) final thoughts before ceding the floor to everyone else: The topic I was hoping to discuss is why Mormon men tend to be so weepy compared with others. Is that a true observation? If so, why is it like that? If not, why is there that perception?Off the top of my head, I don't recall any incident of another man showing emotion during a talk or prayer or whatever that I thought, "Hey, that's really inappropriate. For heaven's sake, why doesn't that guy get ahold of himself?" I suppose I was really referring to myself and my own embarrassment -- which perhaps shows that I need to quit worrying so much about myself.I do believe that the machismo culture so prevalent in certain segments of our society is an evil, something that encourages men to be less than they are and to feel less than they otherwise might. But that culture arises from some kernel of thought that emotional expression can sometimes be a bad thing. I think this is true, so maybe I'm just wondering how that works in with the LDS world.I acknowledge that the honest expression of worthy emotion in a spiritual setting is probably never an evil thing, so maybe my whole embarrassment with the prayer incident is overblown.I have never watched Glenn Beck or listened to his radio program.