Vort

Police Squad! (In color)

Police Squad! (In color)

There appears to be some history with Zarahemla's postings that I'm not aware of, and frankly I don't care to go educate myself. As requested, I will offer my thoughts.
I make nothing of the supposed NDE. Nothing at all. It may be a made-up story, or it may be a faithful retelling of an experience. If it is the latter, the experience may have been a hallucination or it may have been authentic. But in any case, it means nothing. Nothing important, that is.
One day, every one of us here will experience an actual DE. Not an NDE, but a DE. We Will Die. So will our parents. So will our children. So will everyone.
One day, we're going to know exactly "what happens when you die". We will know from personal experience. All we learned here and worried about here regarding death will be utterly meaningless, like an adult pondering his two-year-old's ideas of what Daddy does at work.
According to prophetic revelations, the dead look on their lack of bodies as a sort of imprisonment. This appears to include those in paradise as well as "spirit prison". Yet here we are, now, at present, TABERNACLED IN BODIES. Why should we possibly worry about "what it's like when we're dead"? We LDS have been given basic information about that, as much information as we need (and probably more).
Don't fear death. But don't obsess about it. Accept it as a reality of existence; accept that you will not understand it well until you experience it, at which point you will understand the experience perfectly; and get on with the important business of living. My suggestion to you is to quit reading about NDEs. They are unprovable, most are probably inaccurate or completely wrong (if not simply made up), and none will give you anything beyond the illusion of comfort. Elder Haight had an NDE; read about that, if you feel like you need NDE input. Other than that, quit dwelling on it and just concentrate on living your life as God would have you do.
Here is an excerpt from Elder Haight's talk, if you're interested. It is actually a talk about the importance and significance of the sacrament; his NDE is incidental, and is mentioned in that context.
 
 

A few days ago, during a family mission tour for my second son, our family watched the Vidangel version of The Martian. The movie was actually quite enjoyable when the nudity and foul language (all completely unnecessary and superfluous) were removed. Not as astounding a work of art as many would have us believe, but certainly entertaining.

Yep. Not worth fighting over, but YM is an auxiliary, not a part of the quorums. It even has its own presidency.

Young Men.
Nope. The Primary president reports directly to the bishop.
You and me both, sister, though I get the impression we're a minority.

Young Men.
Nope. The Primary president reports directly to the bishop.
You and me both, sister, though I get the impression we're a minority.

The primary are under the bishop's authority, directly.  Not Sunday School's.
Please note that nothing in what I'm about to say should be taken as meaning I personally think Sunday School presidencies should be (allowed to be) women or that priesthood authority is not needed by the Sunday School presidency.  I'm just making observations.
It is an interesting question.  The Sunday School president does not, as far as I can tell, perform ordinances as part of his calling (so that couldn't be the reason for the priesthood requirement).  It, RS, YW, and Primary are all auxiliaries who answer to the bishop and operate under his authority.  From a purely functional standpoint, I can't see why any more priesthood authority is necessary for that presidency than for any other auxiliary presidency (history notwithstanding, and the history can easily be explained the same way lots of historic things can be explained).
The difference, however, is somewhat obvious: RS deals only with the women (makes more than sense for it to be run by women), YW deals only with young women (ditto comment), Primary deals with children (see the family proclamation for who has "primary" responsibility here).  SS deals with adult men and adult women both (as well as mixed young men and young women).  Historically, when that happens, the church puts men in charge of it.  So, it is consistent, and I can think of at least one good reason for it to be and stay that way (which reason I decline to share).
FWIW.

That problem has already been solved by those who decline to participate.  Personally, I'd be just fine if church were 3.5 hours:
0:00 - 1:10 = Sacrament Meeting (standard 1:10)
10 Minute break
1:20 - 2:20 = Sunday School (now they get the hour they've been trying to take all along)
10 minute break
2:30 - 3:30 = RS / Priesthood (hooray, 10 extra minutes!)
IMO, people who want less church already have all the options they need.  Those of us who want more church don't.

There appears to be some history with Zarahemla's postings that I'm not aware of, and frankly I don't care to go educate myself. As requested, I will offer my thoughts.
I make nothing of the supposed NDE. Nothing at all. It may be a made-up story, or it may be a faithful retelling of an experience. If it is the latter, the experience may have been a hallucination or it may have been authentic. But in any case, it means nothing. Nothing important, that is.
One day, every one of us here will experience an actual DE. Not an NDE, but a DE. We Will Die. So will our parents. So will our children. So will everyone.
One day, we're going to know exactly "what happens when you die". We will know from personal experience. All we learned here and worried about here regarding death will be utterly meaningless, like an adult pondering his two-year-old's ideas of what Daddy does at work.
According to prophetic revelations, the dead look on their lack of bodies as a sort of imprisonment. This appears to include those in paradise as well as "spirit prison". Yet here we are, now, at present, TABERNACLED IN BODIES. Why should we possibly worry about "what it's like when we're dead"? We LDS have been given basic information about that, as much information as we need (and probably more).
Don't fear death. But don't obsess about it. Accept it as a reality of existence; accept that you will not understand it well until you experience it, at which point you will understand the experience perfectly; and get on with the important business of living. My suggestion to you is to quit reading about NDEs. They are unprovable, most are probably inaccurate or completely wrong (if not simply made up), and none will give you anything beyond the illusion of comfort. Elder Haight had an NDE; read about that, if you feel like you need NDE input. Other than that, quit dwelling on it and just concentrate on living your life as God would have you do.
Here is an excerpt from Elder Haight's talk, if you're interested. It is actually a talk about the importance and significance of the sacrament; his NDE is incidental, and is mentioned in that context.
 
 

There appears to be some history with Zarahemla's postings that I'm not aware of, and frankly I don't care to go educate myself. As requested, I will offer my thoughts.
I make nothing of the supposed NDE. Nothing at all. It may be a made-up story, or it may be a faithful retelling of an experience. If it is the latter, the experience may have been a hallucination or it may have been authentic. But in any case, it means nothing. Nothing important, that is.
One day, every one of us here will experience an actual DE. Not an NDE, but a DE. We Will Die. So will our parents. So will our children. So will everyone.
One day, we're going to know exactly "what happens when you die". We will know from personal experience. All we learned here and worried about here regarding death will be utterly meaningless, like an adult pondering his two-year-old's ideas of what Daddy does at work.
According to prophetic revelations, the dead look on their lack of bodies as a sort of imprisonment. This appears to include those in paradise as well as "spirit prison". Yet here we are, now, at present, TABERNACLED IN BODIES. Why should we possibly worry about "what it's like when we're dead"? We LDS have been given basic information about that, as much information as we need (and probably more).
Don't fear death. But don't obsess about it. Accept it as a reality of existence; accept that you will not understand it well until you experience it, at which point you will understand the experience perfectly; and get on with the important business of living. My suggestion to you is to quit reading about NDEs. They are unprovable, most are probably inaccurate or completely wrong (if not simply made up), and none will give you anything beyond the illusion of comfort. Elder Haight had an NDE; read about that, if you feel like you need NDE input. Other than that, quit dwelling on it and just concentrate on living your life as God would have you do.
Here is an excerpt from Elder Haight's talk, if you're interested. It is actually a talk about the importance and significance of the sacrament; his NDE is incidental, and is mentioned in that context.
 
 

There appears to be some history with Zarahemla's postings that I'm not aware of, and frankly I don't care to go educate myself. As requested, I will offer my thoughts.
I make nothing of the supposed NDE. Nothing at all. It may be a made-up story, or it may be a faithful retelling of an experience. If it is the latter, the experience may have been a hallucination or it may have been authentic. But in any case, it means nothing. Nothing important, that is.
One day, every one of us here will experience an actual DE. Not an NDE, but a DE. We Will Die. So will our parents. So will our children. So will everyone.
One day, we're going to know exactly "what happens when you die". We will know from personal experience. All we learned here and worried about here regarding death will be utterly meaningless, like an adult pondering his two-year-old's ideas of what Daddy does at work.
According to prophetic revelations, the dead look on their lack of bodies as a sort of imprisonment. This appears to include those in paradise as well as "spirit prison". Yet here we are, now, at present, TABERNACLED IN BODIES. Why should we possibly worry about "what it's like when we're dead"? We LDS have been given basic information about that, as much information as we need (and probably more).
Don't fear death. But don't obsess about it. Accept it as a reality of existence; accept that you will not understand it well until you experience it, at which point you will understand the experience perfectly; and get on with the important business of living. My suggestion to you is to quit reading about NDEs. They are unprovable, most are probably inaccurate or completely wrong (if not simply made up), and none will give you anything beyond the illusion of comfort. Elder Haight had an NDE; read about that, if you feel like you need NDE input. Other than that, quit dwelling on it and just concentrate on living your life as God would have you do.
Here is an excerpt from Elder Haight's talk, if you're interested. It is actually a talk about the importance and significance of the sacrament; his NDE is incidental, and is mentioned in that context.
 
 

Hi, all. Just poking my head in to give you all the benefit of my profound insight. Feel free to laugh with me or at me, whichever better suits your fancy. My review of Batman vs. Superman, which I posted on a BYU sports site and thought I should post among my friends here, is as follows:
What a stupid, stupid, stupid movie. The stupidity of the stupidness of this stupid movie was just stupid. My IQ dropped 50 points watching it, which is probably why I kept watching until the end, waiting for something to occur that would show me that all the stupidity wasn't really stupid. Never happened. The longer it went, the stupider it got.
To be fair, the stupidity didn't really begin rearing its stupid head until over a third of the way into the movie. Until then, it looked like it was setting up to be a continuation of Man of Steel, which was not a stupid movie. (Just entirely too self-satisfied with its constant Christ figure posing, presented with all the clever subtlety of a Donald Trump campaign speech. But that is not the same thing as stupid.) But starting somewhere before the halfway point, the stupidity started encroaching. By the midpoint of the movie, The Stupid started taking over, and the longer the movie went, the more The Stupid snowballed. I had heard so many good things about the movie that I didn't want to stop watching it, thinking that surely it would quit being the awful piece of garbage that it was turning into. I almost quit watching it two or three times; in retrospect, I'm kind of glad I didn't, just because now I know that the movie really was as stupid as I thought it was, all the way to the bitter end. (Including the dirt on the coffin lid starting to float up a half-second before the end, which was about as subtle as the previous movie's Christ figure posing. But whatever. On the Stupidity Scale, that hardly even registers.)
Now, I know that some will say, "Look, Vort, people LOVED the movie. It made a gazillion dollars. Therefore, you are wrong." Okay, whatever. This is the same American public that chose Barack Obama as its commander in chief (twice), that put Donald Trump up as the Republican candidate for president, and that will shortly elect the vomitous Hillary Rodham Clinton to its highest office, making both of the previously mentioned men look almost rational by comparison. Those same people loved this movie, which in my mind pretty much confirms everything I have said about it.
tl;dr -- Do not waste your time and money on Batman vs. Superman. Instead, take the cash you would have spent in $1 bills, light them on fire, and roast marshmallows. You will have a much more profitable and enjoyable experience.

Hi, all. Just poking my head in to give you all the benefit of my profound insight. Feel free to laugh with me or at me, whichever better suits your fancy. My review of Batman vs. Superman, which I posted on a BYU sports site and thought I should post among my friends here, is as follows:
What a stupid, stupid, stupid movie. The stupidity of the stupidness of this stupid movie was just stupid. My IQ dropped 50 points watching it, which is probably why I kept watching until the end, waiting for something to occur that would show me that all the stupidity wasn't really stupid. Never happened. The longer it went, the stupider it got.
To be fair, the stupidity didn't really begin rearing its stupid head until over a third of the way into the movie. Until then, it looked like it was setting up to be a continuation of Man of Steel, which was not a stupid movie. (Just entirely too self-satisfied with its constant Christ figure posing, presented with all the clever subtlety of a Donald Trump campaign speech. But that is not the same thing as stupid.) But starting somewhere before the halfway point, the stupidity started encroaching. By the midpoint of the movie, The Stupid started taking over, and the longer the movie went, the more The Stupid snowballed. I had heard so many good things about the movie that I didn't want to stop watching it, thinking that surely it would quit being the awful piece of garbage that it was turning into. I almost quit watching it two or three times; in retrospect, I'm kind of glad I didn't, just because now I know that the movie really was as stupid as I thought it was, all the way to the bitter end. (Including the dirt on the coffin lid starting to float up a half-second before the end, which was about as subtle as the previous movie's Christ figure posing. But whatever. On the Stupidity Scale, that hardly even registers.)
Now, I know that some will say, "Look, Vort, people LOVED the movie. It made a gazillion dollars. Therefore, you are wrong." Okay, whatever. This is the same American public that chose Barack Obama as its commander in chief (twice), that put Donald Trump up as the Republican candidate for president, and that will shortly elect the vomitous Hillary Rodham Clinton to its highest office, making both of the previously mentioned men look almost rational by comparison. Those same people loved this movie, which in my mind pretty much confirms everything I have said about it.
tl;dr -- Do not waste your time and money on Batman vs. Superman. Instead, take the cash you would have spent in $1 bills, light them on fire, and roast marshmallows. You will have a much more profitable and enjoyable experience.

Hi, all. Just poking my head in to give you all the benefit of my profound insight. Feel free to laugh with me or at me, whichever better suits your fancy. My review of Batman vs. Superman, which I posted on a BYU sports site and thought I should post among my friends here, is as follows:
What a stupid, stupid, stupid movie. The stupidity of the stupidness of this stupid movie was just stupid. My IQ dropped 50 points watching it, which is probably why I kept watching until the end, waiting for something to occur that would show me that all the stupidity wasn't really stupid. Never happened. The longer it went, the stupider it got.
To be fair, the stupidity didn't really begin rearing its stupid head until over a third of the way into the movie. Until then, it looked like it was setting up to be a continuation of Man of Steel, which was not a stupid movie. (Just entirely too self-satisfied with its constant Christ figure posing, presented with all the clever subtlety of a Donald Trump campaign speech. But that is not the same thing as stupid.) But starting somewhere before the halfway point, the stupidity started encroaching. By the midpoint of the movie, The Stupid started taking over, and the longer the movie went, the more The Stupid snowballed. I had heard so many good things about the movie that I didn't want to stop watching it, thinking that surely it would quit being the awful piece of garbage that it was turning into. I almost quit watching it two or three times; in retrospect, I'm kind of glad I didn't, just because now I know that the movie really was as stupid as I thought it was, all the way to the bitter end. (Including the dirt on the coffin lid starting to float up a half-second before the end, which was about as subtle as the previous movie's Christ figure posing. But whatever. On the Stupidity Scale, that hardly even registers.)
Now, I know that some will say, "Look, Vort, people LOVED the movie. It made a gazillion dollars. Therefore, you are wrong." Okay, whatever. This is the same American public that chose Barack Obama as its commander in chief (twice), that put Donald Trump up as the Republican candidate for president, and that will shortly elect the vomitous Hillary Rodham Clinton to its highest office, making both of the previously mentioned men look almost rational by comparison. Those same people loved this movie, which in my mind pretty much confirms everything I have said about it.
tl;dr -- Do not waste your time and money on Batman vs. Superman. Instead, take the cash you would have spent in $1 bills, light them on fire, and roast marshmallows. You will have a much more profitable and enjoyable experience.

@Vort, I just found out Sage Northcutt trained in Gracie Barra Katy Texas!  My boys train there and the one in Spring when we're in Texas which is almost every summer.  They might have been in a session with the guy!
Anyway, this kid looks promising.  I know he's still quite young and very green but I like his attitude and his spirituality (my husband calls him the Tebow of UFC) and his fighting skills are quite good.  So now, I got Cupcake, Holly, Rose, Dillishaw, and Northcutt on my team.  I did not watch the Holly vs Cupcake match.  I was rooting for Holly but I'm glad Cupcake finally got a taste of the belt.  Now I got 3 of my picks with belt experience.  I predict Northcutt to be there too.  I don't know about Rose yet.  She's been having it rough.
I am so disappointed in Bones.  I had him in my picks a long time ago and had to drop him due to his drug issue.  When they announced he has a match coming up I told my husband, it's not gonna happen... and I was right.

I'm going to rant further: it seems every time some one drags out that quote they are cherry picking what those under 25 can and can't do.What else should we ban those youth from? Military? Drinking? Walking a block without an over-25 babysitter?
 Sure, missionaries back in the day were mature men. How does that properly compare with younger men/women in a far more scaffolded mission setting? 
If 20-year-old, give or take some years, missionaries were truly developmentally inappropriate we would have far, far more issues than we do. We would have fixed it long ago. But, most missionaries manage without too many huge issues. Most people who don't go on missions would also probably do just fine if they went. It's not a freak few successes, it's an age range that heretofore has proved generally capable of handling missions regardless of their brain development not being fully mature. Rather, I'd say the mental exercise and new experience is helping their brains.
So please don't throw out that brain development spew unless you have evidence of regular mass major issues with the responsibility and the age.
Rant over.

It is perhaps worth remembering that "history" does not refer to past events, but to the record of past events. History is, above all, a "story". In this sense, history can change. It can even be wrong. In general, our understanding of the past is only as good as our histories of it. In this sense, Rough Stone Rolling may be as good a "secular" history of Joseph Smith as we can hope for.
 
But whatever other people may have said about Joseph Smith and whatever the historical records might seem to indicate, these things do not affect to any degree the reality of what happened. And we may be (and very likely are) sealed off from that reality throughout mortality. So in topics such as these, the best and safest course is to gain a testimony and follow the Spirit in all things. Insofar as they are true, histories can be very useful; but since false histories in such a topic can be not merely damaging, but damning, we are much better off not basing our beliefs on various histories, but rather on a confirmation of the Spirit.
 
That said, it's probably a great book. I have two copies waiting to be read, some time in the future when I have loads of time to read for pleasure.

I take it your chapel has an exceptionally large front row.

I take it your chapel has an exceptionally large front row.

In my mind, successful parents teach their children to think about things, not just memorize a list of Rules of Conduct. Because when the children eventually want to breach the Rules of Conduct, what's to stop them? Only their own thinking.
If parents teach their children that obedience to gospel principles brings happiness, then spends the children's young lives illustrating this principle, the children will very probably follow their parents' footsteps. That's my theory, anyway.

I learned a long time ago, it doesn't have anything to do with "wanting to believe".  Faith is simple, it is a choice, nothing else nothing more.  I choose to believe in God. I also learned that I need God more than He could ever possibly need me. So I choose Faith.  
And that choice has been rewarded, abundantly, yet someone who did not choose faith could look at my same experience and see it differently.  Well, that just happened by chance, by probability.
God is very good, yet we must have ears to hear him and eyes to see him with. If we choose faith and truly look, we will see the tapestry of life that God has woven with us and when we truly see it . . . it is amazing!

Predictable but sad.

Not sure I'd call that paying a price; shake off the dust from your feet and focus your efforts on the ones willing to hear the Gospel.

2 Timothy 4:3
3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears;
 
Prophetic!