Vort

No, Lstinthwrld is right. My original wording was something like, "your fellow Mormon-haters". I changed it because it did seem to imply that Lstinthwrld was a Mormon-hater, which was not my intent. Though with his recent venom, I'm starting to wonder...

Just a joke, Krazy. :)

Here's the blunt, painful truth, friend: If you go on a mission, she may not wait for you. Even if she's unmarried when you return, you both may have changed enough that you don't want to pick up where you left off. But if you stay, you might end up in the same boat, anyway, leaving you wondering why you sacrificed your mission service for -- nothing. And if you did marry her, you might end up wondering how your marriage and life would have been different had you served your mission. And so might she. Bottom line: Do what is right; let the consequence follow. Doing so does not guarantee you painless passage. Such a thing is not possible, nor desirable. But doing so does guarantee that you won't be saddled with regret. Your life will be much sunnier and more pleasant without the regret.

Then you missed his point. I have never heard of "excepted science". I think the whole idea of science is that you don't grant special exceptions. From what, exactly, do you think the science should be excepted? Let's see if I understand you correctly. The non-Mormon Christian world, which by and large believes in -- ex nihilo creationan earth that is about 6,000 years old since its creationa flood inundating the entire globe for a year less than 5,000 years agothe falsity of organic evolutionall of the various science-defying miracles of the Bible-- this world's problem with Mormonism is that we aren't scientific enough? I don't think so. Prove it. Please list out those "many problems". Make sure you can substantiate your allegations, not just reproduce the specious lists that many Mormon-haters have generated and promulgated through the years.

Please confine such comments to the polygamy threads. No need to hijack.

Alrighty, ya young whippersnappers! Listen up, ya hear? _ general advice Happy wife, happy life. Learn it. Live it. Love it.Ignore nasty people, unless you like being your own worst self.Repent at least daily.When riding a motorcycle, only cover up the body parts you don't want scraped off.Candy and soda pop waste your money and your health.Do what is right; let the consequence follow. But realize: The consequence will ALWAYS follow. Be ready for it._ financial Always pay tithing.Pay yourself 10% starting at or before age 25; invest it in blue chip stocks. By the time you approach retirement age, you will be comfortably set for the rest of your life -- even if you live a long, long time.If you're playing the market, only gamble money you don't mind losing.When you've found where you're going to live, buy, don't rent. And don't buy more house than you can afford.A used car is generally a better value than a new car, but if you're spending every weekend keeping the hunk of junk running, either find a better used car outlet or buy new -- unless you actually like spending your weekends keeping the jalopy running._ professional Your job is to make your boss happy. This is true no matter what profession you train in.Get to work early. Work at work. Go home and don't worry about work until you go again.Find a job you enjoy and never work a day in your life._ intimate 'Tis far more blessed to give than to receive.Never pee on your carpet (speaking metaphorically, and I suppose literally, too). You, and she, will live forever; treat each other as such.If you must criticize, keep a ratio of at least seven "atta girl"s (or "atta boy"s for the women) to each "aw shucks!"Praise publicly. Criticize privately.If you wait for your wife to make the move, prepare for a life of near-celibacy. The blunt truth: If left to her own devices, the mythical "average woman" will initiate sex maybe once a month. It's not that she dislikes sex, it's just that she makes it the lowest priority. The husband's job is to help her overcome this through many years of patient, gentle persuasion.Love means always being willing to say you're sorry.If you've wronged your children, apologize to them. Being the parent doesn't mean refusing to admit when you're wrong.You are not your child's buddy. You are his or her parent. Act like it. In fifty years, the buddies will be distant, hazy memories, but you'll still be the parent.If you didn't honor your parents when you were young, spend extra effort doing so as an adult. If you dislike your parent(s), try even harder to honor them._ social If you wait until the house is perfectly clean to invite friends over, you will never have friends over.Friends with varying viewpoints from yours and a kind way of discussing differences are often the most valuable. Cultivate such friends and work on being one yourself.When the quorum asks for volunteers to help out, raise your hand.Don't skip ward or quorum socials. Make the effort to go. You will be glad you did.

Well, it's clearly a nasty, hateful study, because it suggests (in LM's words) that "Homeschooled kids continue to whip their public school counterparts in national averages by at least 30 percentile points." What could be more nasty and hateful than that? The authors of the nasty, hateful study are clearly awful people, because they authored a nasty, hateful study. The results of the U of M study were clearly disastrous given their title, Home Schooling Works. Hope I cleared things up a bit.

What a nasty, hateful study done by awful people. No public funding for THEIR study!!! (Which can be seen by the disastrous results of the 1998 publicly funded U of M study...)

I felt the same way as the OP, and never owned a quad until my darling wife bought me one for our anniversary some years ago. Suffice it to say I have changed my mind on the matter. Quads rock.

This is ironic only if one believes, as some evangelicals loudly proclaim, that Latter-day Saints worship "A Different Jesus®". I gather that you (PC) believe no such thing; thus, I submit that, far from being ironic, your insightful perception should be the expected order of things.

That officially makes me pathetic.

Then shame on them for giving up their testimonies based on the words of a man who was only trying to help them by sharing something that he himself found convincing. If their education on the matter exceeded his, they should have been patient with him. Not the forte of a sixteen-year-old, I understand, but still -- your leader tries to give you something to help you, and you turn it to his (and your own) condemnation. That just isn't very smart. I agree, it's probably best not to mention lava-petrified raptern [sic] nests, especially since lava doesn't petrify anything. Latest estimates are about 4700 million years old. How do you know he hasn't? How do you know the Lord didn't tell him "That's not for you to know" or "Here's the answer, but don't give it to anyone else"? Do you also expect the prophet to ask the Lord about genetic inheritance theory, string theory, astrophysical questions, information theory, and the specifics of high-pressure, high-temperature nuclear fusion? Perhaps because the prophet is expected to worry about other things, and not trouble the Lord with questions of (at best) tangential relationship to spiritual matters. In such instances, Joseph was busy preparing to address the Saints in outdoor conditions. The presence or absence of rain was an immediate concern for his ministry, and not one over which he could exert much control. Mormon was writing about those men and their physical state. He was authoring scripture on the matter. He felt that he needed a good understanding of it, so he asked and was given the answer. That's much different from asking God for revelatory clarification on current scientific models. This is logically difficult to prove, isn't it? How many times have the prophets asked God for answers, only not to be given the answers they sought? Do you think the prophets generally make it a practice to tell of all the things they asked God that didn't get answered like they wanted? D&C 130:14-16 I was once praying very earnestly to know the time of the coming of the Son of Man, when I heard a voice repeat the following: Joseph, my son, if thou livest until thou art eighty-five years old, thou shalt see the face of the Son of Man; therefore let this suffice, and trouble me no more on this matter. I was left thus, without being able to decide whether this coming referred to the beginning of the millennium or to some previous appearing, or whether I should die and thus see his face.

That officially makes it unanimous.

That was beautiful, Maxel. Thank you.

Any revelation that gives new and as-yet-unrevealed information is strictly private and not to be shared publicly, unless the recipient holds the keys to receiving such revelation for the world. See Alma 12:9 ("And now Alma began to expound these things unto him, saying: It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him.") and Joseph Smith's famous remark that "I can keep a secret till doomsday."

I suspect Rameumptom was simply being charitable. Since the things you said are not publicly revealed truths, there are only three possibilities: They are privately revealed truths.They are lies.They are speculation.If #1 is true, that means you are guilty of a particularly nasty sin: That of revealing private revelation, thus proving yourself to be unreliable and unworthy of further revelations of the Spirit. If #2 is true, that means you are a liar. I'm guessing that Ram simply assumed the best of you and opted for #3.

Ah, okay.

You think Kerry Shirts is not credible? Why not?

You mean this site used to be dedicated to stalking the learning disabled?

I disagree. The scriptures are not a grand puzzle, waiting for some sufficiently smart person to put the pieces together and reveal the whole picture. Such is the thinking that inspires people like John Pratt, an otherwise intelligent man who spends his time involved in outlandish exegesis, numerology, and astrology. Here's a clue: Whenever you're critically reading a scriptural text and start analyzing the underlying patterns and meanings of specific numbers and number sequences, and especially whenever you're reading prophecy and trying to work out specific dates, there is a very high chance you're venturing into crackpot territory.

Yet another example of the true genius of Weird Al. "Go hang a salami! I'm a lasagna hog!"

Actually, I believe that none of these is an unanswered mystery. Even I, an anonymous guy on an internet discussion board, can point to answers for all of them. Sure they could. In fact, paleontologists can do the physics to work out (generally) how large their muscle mass was in order to run, move, etc. Sure there is. Several billion years ago, the proto-earth had stratified much like it is now, with a preponderance of iron and nickel at the core and the outer layers being mostly the less dense silicates and lithium compounds. Current ideas suggest that this proto-earth was struck by a Mars-sized body that caused a large amount of the proto-earth to be thrown into space. This detritus was mostly from the outer region, so it was more of the lithium and silica compounds than the heavier iron, cobalt, and nickel. Much of this material fell back to earth; some of it escaped the planet; and the rest coalesced into our Moon. Sure they have. Read Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies by Jared Diamond some time. The short answer is that all plants and animals were not domesticated at the same time. For example, strawberries were only domesticated in about the time of Christ, and were only made amenable to large production two or three hundred years ago. Macadamia nuts were only recently domesticated; acorns still have not been domesticated. In contrast, wheat has been domesticated since prehistory, perhaps as early as 12,000 years ago. Similarly, dogs and sheep have been domesticated for well over 10,000 years, while turkeys were domesticated probably no more than 1500 years ago. Sure there is. A well-established principle of biology is that life spreads out to fill available niches; if a habitat can support life, there probably will be life there. Since the high-radiation, high-vacuum environment of interplanetary space is not amenable to life as we know it on earth, you don't find life floating around outer space or colonizing other planets. At least, we haven't found any yet, but that's not to say we won't. Sure there is; it's called the anthropic principle. As for "short period of time", anthropologists estimate it's been seven million years since the human and chimpanzee genetic lines diverged. That doesn't seem too short a period to me. The Book of Mormon gives as good an answer for this as anything: "For when they are learned, they think they are wise..." I would also suggest that technological innovation has been going on for very many thousands of years, and that rapid innovation has been going on for at least the last 500 years -- depending on what you want to classify as "rapid innovation".

Not to worry. It's entirely appropriate to kneel in prayer at home.

I had to wait for my visa, as well. I was in the MTC for two months, then another two-and-a-half months waiting for my visa to come through. In all, it was nine or ten months from receiving my mission call until I finally got visa approval. Be strong, stay close to the Spirit, determine to serve God in whatever manner he sees fit, no matter the consequences. If you do these things, you can't go wrong.

It's not polite to brag. Sincerely, Dirk Steele