Just_A_Guy

Nox, he qualified that statement by saying "if you ignore the voice of the people", which was probably a response to your ambiguous statement that "I refuse to follow this man". If, by your statement, you mean that you will refuse to observe any laws that come down from his administration--then yes, unfortunately, you've got a lot in common with the Kingmen. If that's not what you meant, then his statement doesn't apply to you. So why take offense? :)

Well, I would say it teaches that it is the best way to Christ, and that a man can get "nearer to His precepts" through it than through any other religion. Agreed. The fact that I can't shoot worth a darn, doesn't mean that guns are completely useless to anyone. I haven't got a clue how to use Dreamweaver, but that doesn't mean that the program itself can't be used to build a functional website in the hands of a capable user. As your brother in Christ, I rejoice in your new relationship with Him. As a Mormon, I sorrow that you were unable to utilize the tenets of our religion in establishing such a relationship. But please don't assume that because Mormonism didn't work for you, it won't work for anyone and that no Mormon knows Jesus as well as you do. It just ain't so.

ShootingStar, please don't take offense at this, but I find your posts very hard to follow. It appears that you are composing your posts in a foreign language and then translating them into English; but (if you'll pardon my saying so) a lot of the translations contain stilted language or seem to misuse some very nuanced English words. Lots of us here speak foreign languages. I would respectfully suggest (if the moderators approve) that you submit a post in your native tongue and then allow a native English speaker to translate it, so that we all may understand it a little better.

No; I believe that particular teaching is peculiar to us Mormons.

There is precedent, though, in God's giving Israel the Mosaic Law after they had proven themselves incapable of living the higher law He originally gave Moses on Sinai.

J-Pip: The point being, that it is by no means certain that James actually subjected himself to an extrajudicial mob.

If you're asking about "otherwise undiscoverable" names, my understanding is that after the Second Coming but before the resurrection of those individuals, heavenly messengers will reveal their identities to those living on earth and request that the work be done.

That, and the capital gains tax. Remember, too, that in 2010 the estate tax goes away completely (to be resurrected in 2011). It will be interesting to see what effect--if any--that has on the economy, as heirs will have larger inheritances to re-invest (provided they don't use them to pay down debt).

Well, it goes against what we've been told, yes. (Note: I'm not alleging a sinister cover-up here, just sloppy over-simplified history.) Yes, he did. When the Smiths moved from the Hale home to the Whitmer farm, David served as scribe in the translation process for a time. See the article I cite above. As per Joseph's account in the History of the Church, yes. My understanding, though, is that he was not always careful to separate out the U&T he received with the plates from the seer stone he found in the Chase well. Moreover, the History of the Church was itself largely ghost-written by scribes (I'm not sure if this particular part of it was, but for me that's currently enough to leave an open question). I like that. I really like that.

Technically, it wasn't the entire legislature. The bills died in committee. But yes, I agree with your overall point. What you're ultimately saying is, "If Utah didn't have so many people who vote for Chris Buttars, Chris Buttars wouldn't keep getting elected". :) What bewilders me is that Buttars' district holds a large concentration of non-Anglos. How does he do it?

I must confess my visceral disagreement with the above. The last thing people who demonstrably can't handle credit need, is more credit. If that means our economy needs to go through a few years of detox, so be it. The longer we try to keep this bubble alive, the more catastrophic will be its ultimate collapse. And sooner or later, it will collapse. Aside from that, I must confess to feeling a little taken in. First Democrats argue for liberalization of bankruptcy laws so that people who need one can get a "fresh start"; but then they argue that people shouldn't even have to declare bankruptcy! What, exactly, is the end game in all this?

Yeah, I'm with Gwen. Keep your options open, but don't go all psycho on her. If it's meant to be, she'll get her own revelation without any help from you. (Said from the heart of Utah Valley in the shadow of BYU, worldwide capital of unfulfilled "revelations on The One To Marry")

Oh, I agree completely. Polygamy is a very dangerous tool in the hands of a people who are unable or unwilling to live a celestial law. Even such decent people as Brigham Young and Joseph F. Smith couldn't get all of their marriages to work--Young and Smith both had a divorce or two apiece. Lived properly, though, there are huge potential advantages--mutual emotional support among the wives; arguably more checks against the husband's power to act unilaterally, decreased labor in household duties, and stronger connections between different families (I've seen research suggesting that one of the reasons so many Mormons were willing to move to Utah with Brigham Young is that many of them--especially in the higher echelons of leadership--were interrelated by marriage). In the long term, the temple blessings of eternal increase can be accelerated as the family's child-producing capacity increases. That said, I've seen stories about polygamous relationships gone wrong that would make your hair curl. There was an incident in American Fork in the 1860s where a polygamous wife, in a fit of jealousy, actually locked another (younger) one of her husband's wives out of the family home in the dead of winter; she froze to death right there on the doorstep. I've long suspected that even without Federal intervention, the law of plural marriage would have been not long for this world.

J-Pip, did you miss the part where I noted that accounts differ as to James' death, and that Josephus at least argues that it was a government action? Just because John Foxe wrote something fifteen hundred years after the fact, doesn't make it gospel truth. You are on very shaky ground, both theologically and historically, if you insist that Christ's teachings demand we become doormats the first time someone calls out for our blood.

I don't get it. Wouldn't the mortgage holders still be able to point to their liens on the property filed with the County Recorder's Office? At any rate, it seems a little disingenuous to essentially deny the existence of a debt the homeowner knows is legitimate.

I congratulate you for having read the bill in its entirety. That apparently puts you ahead of 435 Representatives and 100 Senators at the time the bill was actually passed. Why couldn't I look it up at least 48 hours before it passed, as the Congressional leadership promised would be the case with all bills to go before this Congress? Waiting until a proposed bill is practically a done deal before releasing its contents is *not* transparency. Oh, and by the way, you might want to take a look at this little analysis of Obama's "transparency". Consider, too, that unlike the Bush White House, the Obama Administration has chosen *not* to make transcripts of press briefings available on the White House website.

Uh, I think you've missed the point. Had Smith been given a trial (even a sham one) and received a death sentence, which he then sought to avoid by use of physical force, I'd agree with you. But his was a wholly different set of circumstances than those of the early Christians whose cases you cite. Smith's forcible resistance to his killers did not thrust him or his followers in a situation of open rebellion against the State. Peter's, Paul's, or James' resistance would have. By the way, was Moses a follower of Christ? Because he killed a man when his own life wasn't even in danger.

Point taken, but let us remember "moderation in all things". I believe it was Talmage in Articles of Faith who pointed out that some of the early "martyrs" were so obsessed with this wish that they deliberately made themselves as obnoxious as possible, hoping that someone would get sufficiently angry to kill them.

I concur that it's important to draw distinctions between Smith and Jesus Christ. But FWIW, Jesus, Peter, Paul, and (per Josephus) James were all killed under the aegis of law. Resistance would have equaled sedition. (As for James, accounts don't even agree as to the exact manner of his death; if he did indeed die as a result of a mob of Pharisees, how do we know that he didn't resist with whatever resources were available to him? And wouldn't any account making such a claim be suspect as religious propaganda, anyways?) There was nothing even ostensibly legal about the mode of Smith's death, and no element of sedition in his choice to resist.

Welcome, ShootingStar. Out of curiosity, what is your native language?

When the President of the United States tells me not to listen to somebody, that's usually a pretty decent sign that I'd better start listening to them . . .

Sorry. See page 54.

I can see doing it if the force is used to militarize our borders and have our international sea and airports crawling with M-16-toting security officers with search dogs. But otherwise . . . worrisome.

Since his election in November, Obama has embraced two (three, including today's) pieces of panic legislation whose cumulative price tag approaches two trillion dollars. That may not justify calling his administration a "failure" (yet), but it sure doesn't bode well for the next four years.

Elphaba, I don't have Bushman before me at the moment (I presume you're citing RSR). Is this the statement of the anti-Mormon that he had remarked that Smith would have to die and that the government would likely intervene, and Ford told him something along the lines of "not until you are done"? Or is it Dan Jones' recollection of Ford's behavior in Nauvoo? I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. I find his later writings to be generally self-serving. Thomas Ford had grown up in a culture where vigilantism was relatively commonplace. Talk of "nullification" had swamped the nation not too long before; and mob actions and lynchings were by our standards common nationwide. Ford knew human nature--he was a longtime lawyer and a former justice on the state supreme court. Moreover, Ford knew what had happened in Missouri. He unilaterally overturned the (favorable to Smith) verdict of a Nauvoo court and demanded Smith present himself in Carthage for a new "fair" trial, but when the biased nature of the Carthage proceedings became readily apparent he suddenly decided he couldn't meddle in judicial affairs. He knew the sympathies of the local militias, and he knew the threats that were being made. Knowing this, he had Smith marched through town in the middle of an angry and armed mob. When Smith came out of that ordeal alive, Ford deliberately removed the only militia group in Carthage that might have stood to Smith's defense (the McDonough County militia) and high-tailed it out of town (which he had promised Smith he wouldn't do without taking Smith with him). There's an old saying in tort law: res ipsa loquitur, roughly translated as "the thing speaks for itself". I believe that applies here. Nobody with Ford's savvy and experience could be so stupid as Ford later claimed to be.