Vort

Whether or not our prayers meet with the same answer is unimportant, as long as we are all receiving bona fide revelation from God. Truth is large and we are small. If you and I ask God the same question, both in faith, and we each receive an answer according to our level of understanding, we may be assured that each answer is correct. But since we are not identical people and are likely at different levels of understanding, your revelation and mine might be somewhat (or very) different in content. Thus, my revelation is mine, private, not generally shared, and the same with yours.  Then you probably do not understand what I'm talking about. Or maybe I don't understand what you're talking about; you refer to 'the Great Debate' as if it's a thing, a known quantity, an understood and ongoing concern, but I am not familiar with the term in the present context. My concern is not philosophy. All philosophy is foolishness, however much I personally may engage in it. What I ultimately care about is divine truth, and divine truth is not discovered through philosophical meanderings. It is discovered through revelation, and only through revelation.  
If you read the OP carefully, I think you will see that its motive was actually quite the opposite of that suggested by your warning. The "select few" who are privy to divinely approved answers are those who seek the Lord in sincerity, humility, and mighty faith. God is no respecter of persons, so this is a self-selecting "select few".
 
 
Two siblings were discussing the birth of their younger sister.
 
Billy: Sally came from the cabbage patch.
Bobby: No she didn't! The stork brought her!
Billy: That's ridiculous. A stork's wings aren't large enough to generate the necessary lift to carry an infant human. She's clearly from the cabbage patch.
Bobby: Don't be naive. Does Sally look like she's full of chlorophyll? Soft tissues are not generated by plants, which have rigid cell walls.
Billy: Hey, I know! Let's go ask Mommy!
Bobby: Shame on you for attempting to shut down our useful and informative debate.
 
My suggestion is not that inquiry cease. Rather, I suggest that we go to the fount of knowledge and drink deeply of the pure water, rather than drink downstream after the cattle have waded through it.

In sci-fi and comic books, continuing story lines sometimes introduce new material that seems to contradict something established earlier in the series. "Retroactive continuity", or "retcon", is making up creative (or sometimes not creative) explanations to make the "old" story fit reasonably well with the "new" facts.
 
This is a perfectly acceptable pastime with fictional stories -- a rather fun game, in fact. But I see what look to me like similar attempts often made to explain how Elements X and Y of the gospel work together. For example, the many early explanations of why blacks could not be ordained to the Priesthood or participate in temple work (besides baptism for the dead) were, in effect, a retcon attempt to explain how the restored gospel of Jesus Christ and the higher law that went with it could fit together with the doctrine prohibiting African blacks (but not those black-skinned people of other origins) from receiving these authorities and blessings. In reality, we don't know what those reasons are; any of the "old" explanations that have been openly disclaimed as LDS doctrine might indeed be true. The same principle applies to the "explanations" offered by many putative Latter-day Saints today to explain away the Priesthood ban as "racism" or some other leadership vice. It's all retconning, and in the end, it's probably all nonsense.
 
I would think it obvious to any believing Saint that such things should be avoided. Sadly, they are not. The previous situation is but one example (going in both "directions", as it were) of exactly this phenomenon taking place among those who should have known better, or at least should have been much wiser. But the same thing happens every Sunday in gospel doctrine classes around the world, where people come up with the most marvelous and inventive explanations for this or that scriptural teaching. I do not exempt myself from being guilty in participating in such nonsense. Along with many of you, I have done this very thing on this very forum. It seems one of our less tractable human weaknesses.
 
But we believe a REVEALED religion! That means that, unlike those early "Christian" philosophers of the first few centuries AD, we have something far more reliable to depend on than reheated Platonic philosophy and inventive but hollow explanations about things we just can't understand so let's make something up.
 
How would it be if, when we had a question or deep concern, we took it humbly to our Lord in fasting and mighty prayer instead of whining about it and making sure everyone else knew all about our oh-so-perceptive concern? How would it be if, instead of finding some way to say what a pervert Joseph Smith was or what a racist Brigham Young was or what hidebound ignoramuses the prophets have all been, we kept our mouths shut and went to God with our questions, assuring him that we could be trusted with important information and certainly wouldn't blab it all over the place if given such revelation?
 
I don't know, but I have a guess. My guess is that we would have a whole lot more personal understanding of the gospel than we actually have. My further speculation is that there are many among us, perhaps not as a percentage but still surprisingly numerous, who already do exactly this, and who as a result have great knowledge given them that is withheld from the rest of us because we don't ask in faith.

Committed traditionalists are not the issue. The 90% of casual observers are the issue.

Yes, I thought it might be self-referential, but it isn't a question. It's an instruction. Guess I need to cast a wider net in word definitions, especially with jokes.

I already told this one a year ago. It's so good, it deserves another airing.
 
*************************
 
Three logicians walk into a bar. The bartender asks, "A beer for each of you?"
The first logician says, "I don't know."
The second logician says, "I don't know."
The third logician says, "Yes."

I already told this one a year ago. It's so good, it deserves another airing.
 
*************************
 
Three logicians walk into a bar. The bartender asks, "A beer for each of you?"
The first logician says, "I don't know."
The second logician says, "I don't know."
The third logician says, "Yes."

Meg, my advice is to quit focusing on the "punishment" and on your fear of what might happen. Focus on getting control of your body and soul and on becoming clean before God. The bishop is the common judge in Israel. He will do his job. Let him. You do your job, which is to get on the right path and walk that path.

And I disagree with your disagreement. Legality or illegality of an action has a profound effect on the public perception of acceptability, as the abortion holocaust clearly demonstrates.

Lethal in Europe.

Because, you know, they use Celsius, and 90° Celsius is, like, 194° Fahrenheit, and most people wouldn't live very long at that temperature.
 
On a completely separate and unrelated note, explaining jokes kinda sucks.

Mockery potential notwithstanding, it's too bad we can't officially laugh at posts any more.

The B in Benoît B. Mandelbrot stands for Benoît B. Mandelbrot.

the simple definition of sin is choosing to go against what God commands.....
I think you are on the right track, behind sin seems to be the desire of the self, and/or the the removal of freedom. Whereas the commands of God seem to be based on the helping and the raising of the "other"- in the end the most ultimate way of helping another individual to achieve the greatest that could be possibly achieved.
The hobble that those who don't believe have is the understanding that part of the picture is the other world or the spirit world, or understanding what God is trying to accomplish for Man.
without understanding it's more difficult to understand what is Godly and what isn't. While it's not impossible to be in Godly ways without being a practicing believer, it becomes more difficult, and likely more painful.
 
Christ showed what real love is
whereas popular vote says that sexuality is love (and this is what is espoused both on the hetero, homo, or about any other self declared type of sexual individual in popular trends).
 

Meg, my advice is to quit focusing on the "punishment" and on your fear of what might happen. Focus on getting control of your body and soul and on becoming clean before God. The bishop is the common judge in Israel. He will do his job. Let him. You do your job, which is to get on the right path and walk that path.

Meg, my advice is to quit focusing on the "punishment" and on your fear of what might happen. Focus on getting control of your body and soul and on becoming clean before God. The bishop is the common judge in Israel. He will do his job. Let him. You do your job, which is to get on the right path and walk that path.

I would admire Germany a great deal more if they didn't throw parents in jail who homeschool their kids and refuse to send them to the cesspool that is their public school.

You did catch in the other thread that pretty much every other response was how awesome the temple is in spite of it being new (and therefore) odd.
 
The percentage of people who have a "dark" feeling in the temple is very, very, very, very small...and it is an indication (with all due respect to the poor guy who was struggling that way) of something wrong with that person, not with the temple.
 
You should not be freaked out about the temple. You watch a video that teaches the plan of salvation and make covenants...none of which are not already intrinsically part of the baptismal covenant. And there's some signs and tokens stuff that, frankly, I still don't entirely understand (and I'm a temple ordinance worker). So don't stress about getting it all or it being overly weird. It is not.
 
Listen. Learn. Enjoy. Return often. Listen. Learn. Enjoy. Be blessed.
 
Remember, the key to the temple is the covenants we make there. No different than the covenants we make outside the temple. Just more detailed. We covenant with the Lord to follow Him and He covenants with us to bless us with eternal life. That's really the crux of it.
 
Take it seriously, of course. There is little with more meaning than these covenants we make. But relax too. The temple is awesome!

My reaction is that the author is either a liar or a fool.

Committed traditionalists are not the issue. The 90% of casual observers are the issue.

Whether or not our prayers meet with the same answer is unimportant, as long as we are all receiving bona fide revelation from God. Truth is large and we are small. If you and I ask God the same question, both in faith, and we each receive an answer according to our level of understanding, we may be assured that each answer is correct. But since we are not identical people and are likely at different levels of understanding, your revelation and mine might be somewhat (or very) different in content. Thus, my revelation is mine, private, not generally shared, and the same with yours.  Then you probably do not understand what I'm talking about. Or maybe I don't understand what you're talking about; you refer to 'the Great Debate' as if it's a thing, a known quantity, an understood and ongoing concern, but I am not familiar with the term in the present context. My concern is not philosophy. All philosophy is foolishness, however much I personally may engage in it. What I ultimately care about is divine truth, and divine truth is not discovered through philosophical meanderings. It is discovered through revelation, and only through revelation.  
If you read the OP carefully, I think you will see that its motive was actually quite the opposite of that suggested by your warning. The "select few" who are privy to divinely approved answers are those who seek the Lord in sincerity, humility, and mighty faith. God is no respecter of persons, so this is a self-selecting "select few".
 
 
Two siblings were discussing the birth of their younger sister.
 
Billy: Sally came from the cabbage patch.
Bobby: No she didn't! The stork brought her!
Billy: That's ridiculous. A stork's wings aren't large enough to generate the necessary lift to carry an infant human. She's clearly from the cabbage patch.
Bobby: Don't be naive. Does Sally look like she's full of chlorophyll? Soft tissues are not generated by plants, which have rigid cell walls.
Billy: Hey, I know! Let's go ask Mommy!
Bobby: Shame on you for attempting to shut down our useful and informative debate.
 
My suggestion is not that inquiry cease. Rather, I suggest that we go to the fount of knowledge and drink deeply of the pure water, rather than drink downstream after the cattle have waded through it.

I just might have to listen to this.. My wife and I have been studying the Pearl of Great Price. I hope others have done the same. If not I encourage you to do so. Awesome !!

Who do you have to pay off to get the warning points to go away?
 
(Not that I need to know personally, of course. I'm asking for a friend.)

Vortex is right about job protection from religious persecution, but the statement above would be grounds for termination.  Best just let you personal life be your personal life and not take it to work. It may seem unnatural in a small company but I bet there are a lot of peronal things you wouldn't talk about at work.

The event hasn't been cancelled. It's only postponed until a coatroom can be found of sufficient size to hold the requisite checked privilege.

I'm not sure if it's been mentioned, or if this is really, really old news, but I thought I'd make aware that The Maxwell Institute has a youtube channel and one of their playlists is the Hugh Nibley's Pearl of Great Price Lecture Series.  I enjoyed it, thought others might also.