crazypotato

The Prophet specifically asked us to vote against gay marriage. So if we vote for it we are opposing the prophet. Usually the prophet is uninvolved in politics and leaves it up to our own judgement. When he is this specific, and all it involves is casting a ballot against gay marriage, then that is an easy thing to do, in my opinion. I don't follow the prophet in all ways, but I agree with him about everything. I don't follow him perfectly because I am weak and sinful, but I still believe him, trust him, and want to follow him better than I do. As far as not getting a temple recommend, I think it is up to you and your bishop to judge, but I think if you are directly opposing the LDS's church's stand on gay marriage, such as actively involved in protests, etc, then I don't think a temple recommend is appropriate. As Melissa said, you should find a church that you pretty much believe in and agree with. If you disagree with your prophet on a major issue, maybe you can't answer "yes" when they ask you if you believe and sustain the prophet and his counselors.

A Time of Spiritual War We live in a time of war, that spiritual war that will never end. Moroni warned us that the secret combinations begun by Gadianton “are had among all people. … “Wherefore, O ye Gentiles [and the term Gentile in that place in the Book of Mormon refers to us in our generation], it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you. … “Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you” (Ether 8:20, 23–24). Atheists and agnostics make nonbelief their religion and today organize in unprecedented ways to attack faith and belief. They are now organized, and they pursue political power. You will be hearing much about them and from them. Much of their attack is indirect in mocking the faithful, in mocking religion. The types of Sherem, Nehor, and Korihor live among us today (see Jacob 7:1–21; Alma 1:1–15; 30:6–60). Their arguments are not so different from those in the Book of Mormon. You who are young will see many things that will try your courage and test your faith. All of the mocking does not come from outside of the Church. Let me say that again: all of the mocking does not come from outside of the Church. Be careful that you do not fall into the category of mocking. The Lord promised, “If ye are prepared ye shall not fear” (D&C 38:30). Even Moroni faced the same challenge. He said, because of his weakness in writing: “I fear … the Gentiles shall mock at our words. “[And the Lord said to him:] Fools mock, but they shall mourn; and my grace is sufficient for the meek, that they shall take no advantage of your weakness; “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them” (Ether 12:25–27). Boyd K Packer, Aug 2010 Ensign, "Finding Ourselves in Lehi's Dream."

President Monson would just call the police, and the police would shoot the mayor.

It wouldn't happen that way because it didn't happen that way in the Book of Mormon. If the prophet had a problem with the mayor, he could go through legal channels. Laman first just asked for the plates. Then if that didn't work, he would offer a deal with the mayor - Lemuel offered money and riches. Then if the mayor took the deal and didn't follow through with his word, he is different from a king, so Pres Monson would probably encourage the police or a law firm to go after the mayor. We live in a freer country than Nephi's time. I am assuming that Laban wasn't accountable for stealing their riches and then trying to kill them. Now if President Monson were dealing with an evil dictator that was ruthless, dangerous, and could do whatever cruel things he wanted to Pres Monson with no recourse for him, and Pres Monson was trying to get the only scripture set that existed on the earth, with no other copies, and chopped off the dictator's head with a machete and ran away, I would say, "Good for President Monson for having the courage to do something so frightening and repulsive to him, for the greater good of the world."

Your reply was rude.

Oh stop it, you self-righteous, judgmental . . .:)

What I got out of this thread, for example, is that sharing personal stories on the internet is like opening a door for you to be judged and criticized, when it is not our jobs to do so. Also, if someone has the "wrong" opinion in your opinion, disagreeing gets you judged as self-righteous and judgmental. It's like the circle of hell. But at least the emoticons are cool.

I'm not saying that I am a peach and everyone else isn't. It is all so subjective but my point is, is it helpful to judge and pick each other apart?

Yes, I understand. It strikes a personal chord with me because I could share stories about my marriage where I could easily make my husband look like a terrible jerk. I could leave out what I did wrong, and I could get professionals, friends, and families to side with me, look down on my husband, and urge me to go to a woman's shelter. But if I go to the bishop, or to the Lord, and share the same story, I may get a completely different answer (the opposite).

It's one thing to share faith and personal stories, and another to have people take your stories of faith, etc., copy and paste them into a reply, and directly pick apart everything that you shared as wrong and here is why. For example, a lady posts that her feelings were hurt that people saved seats in Sacrament Meeting and turned her away. People either support her or not, but she gets judged as oversensitive, told to get over it, and people that agree with her are told that they are making too much of it too. So her feelings are picked apart by a bunch of strangers. not in the most kind manner, and then the people who agree and disagree start judging each other as oversensitive or rude. The breast implant post - OP has good intentions of sociological impacts on wards. But all the people who have had implants or wives or whatever, get judged and picked apart on a personal level, and those that agree with the moderator are judged as petty, self-righteous, overly judgmental people. Who is helped by the conversation? Who is hurt? Do we really want to make each other think that our values are so different that we have to pick each other apart? It always, always goes both ways on these kinds of threads. I even tried to make light, stupid jokes on the seat saving thread and was told to stop joking and get serious. I roll my eyes heavily. People start asking each other to stop posting in some of the threads. Does Heavenly Father want us to do these things to each other? When we discuss stuff at church, there is a different feeling of reverence. If a topic goes on too long or gets even close to rude, the discussion is stopped (hopefully) because we know that the Holy Ghost is our teacher, not each other, and we have to have the Holy Ghost in church or we will not be taught. In a perfect world, people could share their personal anecdotes without being judged or picked apart, but I don't see it happening here. I believe most people are well meaning in how they lead their lives, but why do we need to comment on personal stuff to each other?

Five years ago I would have agreed with you. But we are not saying that what he did was no big deal or okay. We are saying there are two sides, and how do you know that the wife hasn't been emotionally abusing her husband? Most people leap to conclusions of categorizing men as abusers without thinking too much about the women and what they are doing. Sure, if dinner isn't ready on time and he throws her out of the house. . . It's really not for us to decide, though. It's for the OP to prayerfully discern and her bishop and husband as well. How in the heck do we know?

None of it is our business, but we all post our opinion anyway;)

No criticism was meant. My point was not to criticize the moderators, but all of us posters for getting personal with each other, and then I added that moderators probably do not want to be hyper about shutting threads down.

The problem with this thread and hundreds of other threads on LDS.net is that people start getting personal - we bring up personal examples and then everyone reading makes a judgment. Sometimes I wonder if having these kinds of discussions on the internet, where we don't really know each other, is a good means of communicating at all. It seems like one person, say the OP, will write their opinion on the best way to follow a gospel principle. Then others chime in about whether the OP is too judgmental or not, using personal examples. Then, because personal examples are used people may disagree with your own personal experience, the examples are judged. It seems like a vehicle for contention. I don't think that Justaname and his wife are sinners for getting implants. It is true that it is not my business to decide whether they are or not. I also don't think the OP is a self-righteous, judgemental person. I truly believe he is concerned with ward and societal trends, not with judging individuals on here or elsewhere as good or bad. As he has stated, he is looking at this sociologically. Written communication is the least effective way to talk to people. I have had my feelings hurt and have felt attacked on LDS.net, and I have seen others attacked and hurt, and I have been accused myself of being self-righteous on here. If I were a moderator of this site, I would be tempted to close a lot more of these threads faster than they are, but perhaps they don't want to censor people or be too controlling. I am not criticizing the moderators. I just think I see truth in what everyone says, but there is too much contention and arguing. Everyone here is doing what they think is best according to how they interpret the gospel, and perhaps gospel discussions would avoid a lot of this crap if they were only done in settings where a word of prayer inviting the Holy Ghost in. Otherwise, are we inviting contention?

I find it insulting to leap to the conclusion that faith is just dogma that has been shoved into our brains by our mothers. Or, I guess insulting isn't the word. . .extremely skeptical of other's testimonies to the point of not even sounding like a believing member of any church. But I do like the anecdotes about Jack Benny and Lucille Ball. I have been around people who hallucinated celebrities visiting them and talking to them. Fun memories. Hallucinations included Michael Jackson, Batman, and TV newscasters. However, when given psychotropic meds, the hallucinations go away. By the way, the hallucinations never made any sense - just pure nonsense or anxiety inducing. Oh, and I was not the one hallucinating, or WAS I????? Maybe all of you are hallucinating right now, and there is no computer keyboard under your fingers, no computer screen. Maybe you don't even exist? This is turning into Philosophy 101 - a deteriorated discussion as a lot of these posts go, into ridiculous back and forth that I have been guilty of myself. Or was I? Is any of this even happening?

Two wrongs don't make a right. Just because there are other things that people can do to negatively impact their ward doesn't negate the OP's opinion. Just because there are posters on here that don't care or judge what other people do to their bodies does not mean that other people are not influenced. We all influence each other. I have been asked several times why people in Utah are all so rich? I don't live in Utah anymore, but when I go, I am always a little surprised by how many people live in really nice houses, and how alike the people dress and do their hair, etc. When I went to BYU, I remember feeling like I was in the Stepford Wives movie sometimes. Another thread we had here was how crazy all the Utah drivers are. I am not trying to bash Utah, I am just saying that Utah seems to have a lot of copy cats living together. I know that everyone there does not copy each other and that I am generalizing. But there are fashion trends, housing trends, hair and clothes trends, crazy car driving trends that especially influence the youth and the adults.

I find surgery to be more of a dramatic alteration than makeup and jewelry. Makeup washes off, jewelry can be taken off, there is no threat to your health. I agree with Elgama that the most important commandment is to love God and then love each other. I don't think the OP is disagreeing with you on that though. He is just trying to remind us all that we don't live in a bubble. Our western culture is very individualistic. Our culture teaches us to be free and independent and not let anyone tell us what to do or make us feel a certain way about ourselves. I think our cultural view may trickle into our gospel thinking. Other cultures seem to be more community/family oriented, where people regularly sacrifice their own selfish desires for the greater good of the family or community. For example - parts of Asia, they still have big family businesses, live with their extended families, revere their elderly, and all work together as a team. In these cultures, I think people are more self-aware than their actions affect everyone, negatively and positively. I think all the OP is trying to say, is that we need to think of families, wards, and communities more than ourselves, as to how our decisions will impact them, rather than just thinking that it's a free country and I can do whatever I want and nobody should care or judge me. I don't think the debate is so much about implants as about sociology.

Very true. And actually, I had no intent of being rude. It was a joke implying "come on everyone, let's get off Suzie's back." Maybe I put my foot in my mouth and hurt Suzie's feelings unintentionally, but instead of writing on and how about how Suzie's feeling's should not be hurt because it would be oversensitive, I am going to say, "Suzie, I was just playing with you in a good-natured way, and repeating, again, as I have said a few times in this thread, I do not think you are a rude person, just a practical, self-confident person who does not agree with my viewpoint."

I agree with Loudmouth. I think it is impossible to find an impartial, unbiased report of any religion or of a political issue, for that matter. I think if you are wondering if the church is true, read a variety of materials about our church written by LDS believers, and then read other religious materials from different religions to see how you feel about those. Like read the Catholic version of the Bible to study Catholism, and talk to other Catholics about their religion, etc. If you read anti-Mormon stuff, keep in mind that it is not unbiased, but almost always specifically designed to bash Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. I would suggest reading the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith's own words and deciding for yourself if it is true. It would be like asking a Mormon if the Catholic church is true, and then reading books by the Mormon church about the Catholics, rather than going to the source. I think that is the best way.

Uh, that was a joke.

Oh Raca not Rabba! Ha! I knew I had something wrong there. It sounded too much like Rabbi. Why can't I use the emoticons when I have been laughing my butt off all day? Wait, is there one of those?

Camoflage? How did you know I was in a military family? This is getting creepy. I feel compelled to use the emoticons: Wow, I never noticed the more options thing here. I like the Satan ones. Those will come in really useful the next time I am judging someone to be Satanic on here. . .

Pres Holland just explicitly said that our western society over-sexualizes women. He just said that we are not to participate in that. Why would he even bother if it wasn't going to help women? I thought he was trying to help us women. The over-sexualization of women is currently a HUGE problem in our culture. The property and breeding tools thing is a separate issue that NOW loves to throw around so that we will hate all men, instead of just some of them (see previously closed thread on feminism where Snow tried to kill me).

President Spencer W. Kimball (1895–1985) once said about crossing the line on dates, “Conscience tells the individual when he is entering forbidden worlds, and it continues … until silenced by the will or by sin’s repetition” (“President Kimball Speaks Out on Morality,” New Era, Nov. 1980, 41). In other words, we know when things are getting into a dangerous or wrong area, and we must not keep ignoring these promptings until we don’t feel them anymore. Don't know if that helps? I think it is funny that you wanted to close the thread because I think everything is funny lately. Sorry!

Don't ask, don't tell!