Just_A_Guy

Good point, Nancy. Comment retracted.

[Comment retracted for being overly snarky, with my apologies.]

Pot, meet kettle. :)

To add: The Samaritans were "half-blood", being the descendants of people who were born of unions between Assyrian invaders around 700 BC and the local Israelite population. IIRC, Christ organized preaching among the Samaritans later in His ministry (as opposed to the Gentiles, who had to wait until after His resurrection before preaching began in earnest among them).

I think we tend to get a skewed idea about Church discipline. People who go through it and are satisfied with it don't generally write internet posts about what a great experience they have; and certain Mormon "intellectuals" aren't interested in compiling those types of stories in their penny dreadfuls chronicling LDS abuses of power. My odds of getting a fair deal through the LDS discipline process are a heckuvalot better than are my odds of getting into the Celestial Kingdom while concealing my sins. That's good enough for me.

If you read the text very carefully, the problem wasn't the rate Noah charged but the way he used the funds thus received.

I may be reading it wrong, but it sounds like it's saying that the ten tribes cannot be recovered until after New Jerusalem is built.

Slipknot - He's come after you twice, in front of your kids. At least in Utah--and probably in a lot of other US states--you'd have a pretty persuasive case to receive a civil stalking injunction. If your local law allows it, I'd go and get one. Then you just tell your BP, "I have a legal no-contact order against a branch member. Please transfer my records to a different branch." Problem solved.

No specific sources, but generally: --Study it side-by-side with the BoM, note the differences in the text (there are lots), and ask yourself: Why? --Brush up on your knowledge of the political histories of Israel and Judah.

Firsthand Evidence: This Is What Astroturfing Looks Like

Maxel, you will recall that even on this forum, some apparently question whether the LDS Church welfare system's way of doing things is really the most "Christian" way to go.

What do you think?

Ditto.

Good question.

1. There is a difference between health insurance and health care. 2. Though it is difficult to figure out where the distinction is/should be, there remains a difference between critical and non-critical health care. I think my faith compels me to use my own resources to assist someone to attain the former, but not the latter. Under no circumstances do I consider myself justified in siccing the power of the United States Government on anyone who doesn't share my idea of charity. 3. Speaking hypothetically (and not limiting the discussion to health care), there's also a fine line between helping the needy and becoming an enabler. Jesus was charitable, but He was not a schmuck; and I don't think He expects us to be either.

By the way, it's starting to look like the Obama administration extracted a commitment from Big Pharmaceuticals to spend $150 million in advertising supporting ObamaCare. And they accuse us of "astroturfing"?

The down side being (potentially) that with a higher tax burden to cover state-run health care, Americans don't have as much to spend in the private sector and so the domestic market for those companies' products shrinks.

It takes a lot of chutzpah to take a local, privately-organized entity that voluntarily provides free medical care to over 1,500 people and try to twist that into a story justifying the need for government-run health care. I also notice that the article doesn't say a word about California's extensive network of public health clinics and state-run health plans for low income people. But then, these programs--like the rest of the state--are broke.

Umm . . . a standard medical textbook? Assuming, of course, you believe God designed and created the human body, with all of its tolerances and weaknesses. I thought I addressed both types of situations in my previous post.

If God sets up the laws which allow for the killing of those innocents - is there really a difference? God says "If Father does [or does not do] x, Baby will die." Father does x. Baby dies. Isn't it ultimately God's fault for laying down the law, whether x constituted shaking Baby really hard or neglecting to paint the family's door posts? How are you so sure those people still had agency? The nation had seen nine horrific plagues over Egypt, attributable only to the God of Israel. If I remember correctly, it also had full warning of what the God of Israel was about to do. Those who died in the plague arguably had lost their agency already, either because a) they were so spiritually hardened that even nine enormous demonstrations of God's power couldn't convince them, or b) (in the case of children) their spiritual upbringing was in the hands of such people.

Technically, yes. There don't seem to be any questions regarding either killing or (getting Clintonesque) partaking of the spoils of war (other than women, which imputes the Law of Chastity which is a TR question). Leaving that aside for the moment: Is the TR interview more canonical than the scriptures? Frankly, several of the TR questions seem geared towards our own time (i.e. sympathizing with apostate groups), and I believe that from time to time individual questions are added or removed from the list. (As does the canon, of course.) What I'm getting at is, you seem to be arguing that God wouldn't/shouldn't allow innocent third parties to suffer for the decisions of people who have power over them. I think that experience pretty well debunks this idea--at least if you acknowledge that laws of, say, biology or psychology or physics or simple cause-and-effect are, to some extent, divinely ordained. The story of the war in Heaven would seem to imply that in principle, life is worthless if people are not able to exercise their agency.

In addition to Maxel's sentiments that there are worse things than death, I would just point out that it seems quite logical for a God who allows a baby to live or die based on whether its father chooses to hit it, to also allow a child to live or die based on whether its father paints lamb's blood on the doorpost. God put a (more or less permanent) law in place that if a baby is shaken hard enough, that baby will die. How is that different from a temporary law that if lamb's blood is not put on the doorpost, the same baby will die?

Finish your education as soon as possible.

Ah. Sorry, Vort--I missed the satire, and thought you actually disagreed with it.