Just_A_Guy

They knew exactly who they were dealing with. Campaign donors.

For me, yes. My current health bills are $0. If I get sick, I fully intend to pay the costs thereof--and if I can't pay the costs thereof, I will refuse treatment and suffer the consequences, even if they include death. I'm OK with that.

The WHO, as far as I can tell on the web, no longer does rankings. The "37th" figure comes from the year 2000. This New York Times editorial is interesting. It cites a later study comparing the US with five other countries, and provides an illuminating analysis of what factors the Times (and probably the WHO) considers important.

Didn't Freud have some rather jarring ideas about males who were "hostile" to their fathers? (And yes. I mock Freud solely because I haven't read him and don't completely understand his theories. )

My recollection is that Utah's spousal protection statutes are stronger than that of most other states--they were thus drafted in 1896, when the polygamy prosecutions were still fresh in everyone's minds. (Edit: I should have said spousal privilege statutes--the statutes that make it so a husband doesn't have to testify against a wife, or vice-versa)

No need, Hemi. :)

To be clear, I was talking about the local leadership as being responsible for the excommunication; not general authorities and certainly not the First Presidency.

But seriously--why? You think it won't happen? Or you think it will happen, but we shouldn't care?

Gabelpa, you seem to think the idea of government-mandated ski helmets implausible. Why?

Oh, C.S. Lewis gets a lot of mileage in Mormon circles.

I'm not terribly well-versed in the affair; but my understanding is they weren't naive so much as just scared spitless of what would happen if they didn't distance themselves from him.

With all due respect, it seems like we're straining at gnats here. Sins are remitted by Christ Jesus and his atoning blood. As a precondition to our claiming the blessings of that Atonement, Jesus has asked us to do "all of the above"--demonstrate faith, repent, and be baptized. Thanks for the alternate view of John 3:5--I'd never thought of it that way before.

Yes . . . but not 100% for a nanny state.

Karger's scraping the bottom of the barrel. As usual.

I see your point, PastorBob. I think what some of us find a bit frustrating is to be (by analogy) discussing the finer points of automotive design, when all of a sudden someone bursts onto the scene and hijacks the discussion with demands that we re-invent and recognize the supremacy of the wheel.

FWIW, it is possible to reinstate an excommunicated member posthumously. I believe this happened in the case of Helmuth Hubener--his local leaders excommunicated him after the Nazis threw him in jail; and after Hubener died in a Nazi prison Salt Lake found out what had happened and eventually reinstated him.

Somehow, the idea of Elder Packer's words being used to justify the idea of women holding the priesthood just makes me giggle. (Not that I necessarily disagree with MOE. I just find the source highly amusing--Elder Packer is usually Public Enemy Number One for the types of people who tend to be most vocal about women and the priesthood.)

Something like this is what I'd been waiting for. From some of your other rhetoric, I'd gotten the impression that you believe people will--and should--remain sealed to abusive spouses/parents; and that rather than moving on a woman whose spouse has been beating her should should spend the rest of her mortal lifetime unmarried and pining away for her abusive husband.

Is this the quote you're thinking of? I doubt that very strongly. If you can show me a quote, I'll reconsider my position.

Changed-- I still disagree with your apparent disdain for pregnancy and natural conception, but I'm starting to see a little more where you're coming from. Thank you for your patience.

Before Natasha Richardson's body is even in the grave, CNN begins the drumbeat for ski helmets. I'm pretty sure that the genesis of the motorcycle- and bicycle-helmet-law movements were similar. It'll be interesting to watch this develop over the next few years.

I disagree. Discourses of Brigham Young, p. 195: If a worthy couple's kids bail out on them and want to be part of my lineage instead, that's a complete violation of the principle Brigham Young is teaching above. One cannot build a kingdom by wooing (poaching?) kids away from other worthy couples.

Not under Adam-God. Sarah was not barren. Isaac was her natural son. I pointed this out to you in another recent thread. She is not, never was, and never will be considered the "mother" of Hagar's children (Ishmael et seq).

The Atonement is of slightly higher significance than a power drill. In all seriousness--I never thought much of sacrament-meeting-criers either. But since having two little girls I cry at practically nothing--heck, a couple of weeks ago my wife and kids were visiting family in another state for the week, and I started blubbering because "Butterfly Kisses" came on the radio. I read somewhere that in a house full of girls, a father's internal estrogen levels will actually increase for some reason. (That's my excuse, and I'm sticking to it!)

Well, "marital equality" (EDIT: if by that you mean "gay marriage") is certainly contrary to the order of Heaven (assuming you accept the Mormon ideal of Heaven as explained by the Mormon leadership past and present). Democracy is not a new concept; it's just that no one's been able to make it work over the long term until now (and it's certainly not the order of Heaven, in any event). Similarly, universal education is nice in the here-and-now--but, in its current form as we know it, not necessarily an essential element of the eternities. Not per se, no; it certainly doesn't end the discussion. But it does challenge the assumption that our twenty-first-century ideas are some kind of universal "truth-standard" that God always wanted mankind to be living.