Just_A_Guy

Let's not get carried away here. The LDS Church also pays its senior leadership.

There are some great resources coming down the pipes (new Family Search, digitization of the FHL collections), but it'll take a few years. (Not to mention the fact that hopefully in a little while you may be more financially stable and able to afford subscription services or searches at public records offices). My wife's grandmother was once hassled by someone in her ward for not doing enough family history work. Her response was, "You take care of the dead, and I'll take care of the living." I'm not saying this is the case for everyone, but maybe you should ask the Lord whether He'd rather you focus on the living for the time being, and turn your attention to the dead when you have the resources to do so?

Ironically enough, the best testimony meetings I've ever been to were LDS Addiction Recovery group meetings.

I would say that there is a "rebuttable presumption in favor of such a duty" (sorry to get all lawyerly on you). But that presumption does not arise out of the Law of Chastity. It arises out of the New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage, which is a different (but related) law.

Justice, I've seen a quote out there somewhere that it was actually Jesus' duty, as firstborn Spirit, to fulfill the role of Savior unless He rejected it or proved himself unworthy of it. I'll see if I can dig it up.

Deseretgov, I'm just telling you what the law is and giving you a friendly warning. What you do with that warning is up to you. If you think you can convince a jury that you had never seen this: http://www.lds.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=103&d=1231175549 when you came up with this: http://www.lds.net/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=104&d=1231175553 then feel free to disregard what I've written.

I, for one, agree with you on this in the abstract though I can't point to any LDS authority to reinforce my position. If someone has received a revelation from God that marriage would not be appropriate for them in "the present distress", I wouldn't try to nit-pick at what must have been a very difficult decision. Nevertheless, barring such a revelation I believe that (as per the Proclamation on the Family) the commandment to "multiply and replenish the earth is still in force". As Elder Packer has repeatedly noted, we concern ourselves primarily with teaching the rule and not the exceptions.

Hope you don't mind my butting in (again)-- The Law of Chastity is *part* of the "New and Everlasting Covenant of Marriage", but they are not interchangeable. The consequences of ignoring the former are far more grave than those of eschewing the latter, and one can be fully compliant with the Law of Chastity while still remaining single. I personally think that linking celestial marriage with "families can be together forever" is something of an over-simplification. I don't see the sealing ceremony as governing our physical proximity to, or even (in the conventional sense) the quality of our relationships with, our loved ones; non-participation in a celestial marriage does not entail the forfeiture of one's ability to see, socialize with, or love others. I see the sealing ceremony as being primarily related to godhood--to cementing one's place in the Patriarchal Order preparatory to becoming a king and a priest to the most high God with the power to create new worlds and people to populate them. Returning to the thrust of your question, I would say that at least a desire to enter into Celestial Marriage is required for exaltation/godhood. And since even our desires are occasionally shaped by circumstances beyond our control, I can only be glad I won't be the one making that final decision. ;-)

Well, I don't read old issues of the Improvement Era on a regular basis, but that was the gist of it. ;-)

Doesn't Talmage assert that Jesus was the firstborn spirit? (Apologies if this has come up earlier in the thread; I'm just skimming the last couple of pages)

Inasmuch as your statement is limited to individuals who choose not to enter into the institution of marriage when such an opportunity is presented to them (now or in the hereafter), I'd say your conclusion seems axiomatic: unmarried people (Mormons or not) will not enjoy the benefits of Eternal Marriage. But I would *not* go so far as to assert that Mormonism offers no eternal benefits to persons who have no intention or desire to marry:

Re the flag design--copyright law also covers derivative works. In other words, you can't take an existing copyrighted image (as NoD has apparently done, based on your very thorough knowledge of the "differences" between the two designs) and reverse-engineer it in an attempt to make it "different enough" to skirt the existing copyright. You're going to have to start from scratch. I won't even get into the question of why anyone should subject themselves to a "government" whose first action has been to appropriate the property of an individual without that individual's consent or compensation.

Not wishing to be rude, deseretgov, but I looked at the Nation of Deseret's store and noticed the "flag" on the merchandise that you're selling. Does Mike Jensen know that the "Nation of Deseret" is using his copyrighted flag design (or a pretty obvious derivative thereof) for its own commercial profit?