Faded

It is sometimes helpful to learn to group Anti-Mormon materials with similar types of material. For example:

Careful though we might be about discussing the temple, "Holy Underwear" is certainly not a proper name for it. The Garment of the Holy Priesthood would be the longer name, but if you must shorten it down, please just call them "garments." "Holy Underwear" is a preferred verbiage used by Anti-Mormons to refer to the garments of the Holy Priesthood. It's akin to the usage of the term "Golden Bible" being used to refer to the Book of Mormon. I can tell that you didn't mean anything by it, but bear in mind that it's not the most polite wording for things. Notions of the Higher Law should be pursued with care. The greatest mistake made by those who have personal revelation on things like PG13 movies or chocolate or whatever you like -- is when they try to apply those personal revelations to anyone but themselves.

The essentials of this statement are correct and the LDS church would not disagree. "The [Trinity] doctrine states that God is the Triune God, existing as three persons, or in the Greek hypostases, but one being. Each person is understood as having the one identical essence or nature, not merely similar natures. Since the beginning of the third century the doctrine of the Trinity has been stated as "the one God exists in three Persons and one substance, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit." " The closer the explanation gets to defining Father, Son and Holy Ghost as "the same being" the more Latter Day Saints disagree. A mother and her child are not the same being. A father and his child are likewise not the same being. But to say that all three are exactly alike in attributes, character and nature is fine with Latter Day Saints for the most part (excepting that the Holy Spirit currently has no physical body while we know that Christ does have one.) The biggest trouble we have with the Trinity is often that it is too confusing. Explained one way, it fits LDS teaching. Explained another way, it doesn't. Terms like "being", "co-eternal", "co-equal" get interpreted in different ways. Just about every word involved has variant definitions to best suit one's preferred doctrine on the matter.

LOL, call it an over-simplification that allows me to not have to explain a long story. Yeah I know, technically Free BSD isn't Linux, but it is a free open-source Unix variant. Many people tend to lump all open-source free Unix variants under the name Linux, though the creation of Free BSD had no link to Linus Torvalds and Free BSD developed independent of what would properly be known as Linux.FreeBSD - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia covers the essentials.

Luther really did get the idea up and running, no question there!I suppose it's a bit like our feelings about FLDS. The FLDS do a long list of astoundingly bizarre things, all the while claiming that they are the "real Mormons." In the process, they cause a great many people to make unfounded incorrect assumptions about the LDS Church. Based on your description, they certainly would fit within the definition of "Born Again Christian." So strange to consider that terms we all believe in can be sort of taken over by certain belief sets. All Christians believe that a person must be born again in order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.

Well, I guess now we move on to the higher % chance options. Artificial insemination chances of success = 20%. In vitro fertilization chances of success = 40-50%. We'll get there. Ball is already rolling for in vitro, just as we planned. This is just a speed bump.

Yeah, I'm one of those crazy IT professionals. Windows and Mac OS were both always bloated and frustratingly inefficient operating systems. They both still are for the most part, but Apple did something intelligent when they put together Mac OS 10. They took the kernel from a truly efficient OS (Free BSD, which is a version of Linux) and built their new OS on that kernel. All versions of Mac OS since have been built on a Linux kernel. The GUI intensive OS they built on top of that kernel isn't designed how I would have done it, but at least they started with a strong foundation. I'm not a huge fan of Mac OS. Windows ... I will never understand. They try to take the same horrible OS, add an insane number of features, the system requirements goes through the roof, and then the package it and ship and charge people a ton of money for it. The logic for coding new versions of Windows seems to be to take their unnecessarily complicated OS and make even more complicated. Sometimes they do simplify things here or there, but mostly it's just a process of making it bigger and bigger. If you were to ask the question, "What is the best OS for personal computers, Mac or Windows?" the answer is: Neither.

Consider the Mac Pro for a moment. Beautiful and powerful machine that I'd love to have but will never buy: Starting price: $3,299.00. Fully upgraded: $20,724.85

The two cheapest Macitosh computers available at their website: 21.5-inch: 3.06GHz 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 1920 x 1080 resolution 4GB memory 500GB hard drive1 8x double-layer SuperDrive NVIDIA GeForce 9400M graphics ---------------------------- $1,199.00 (Fully loaded with all available upgrades, $2,721.90) 21.5-inch: 3.06GHz 3.06GHz Intel Core 2 Duo 1920 x 1080 resolution 4 GB memory 1TB hard drive 8x double-layer SuperDrive ATI Radeon HD 4670 graphics with 256MB ---------------------------- $1,499.00 (Fully loaded with all available upgrades, $3,670.90) Cheapest computer at HP website: AMD Sempron LE1300 processor [2.3GHz, 512KB L2, up to 1600MT/s bus] 2GB DDR2-800MHz SDRAM [1 DIMM] 320GB 7200 rpm SATA 3Gb/s hard drive Integrated NVIDIA GeForce 6150 SE [VGA] HP w1858 18.5-inch 16:9 HD Ready Widescreen Monitor LightScribe 16X max. DVD+/-R/RW SuperMulti drive $299.00 (if you already have a monitor and don't want to buy an new one ) $459.98 with monitor $2,939.97 Fully loaded with all available upgrades The difference? Price! Macs are just WAY MORE EXPENSIVE than PC's. I know very well that they tend to make a superior product, I just don't want to pay 3 to 5 times as much money to get their product. I know Windows, I would have to learn Mac OS. I know that it's a better OS, but it's a large expense to venture off into the unknown world of Macintosh. The day that Mac provides a quality machine at comparable price to PCs is the day they become a real threat to Windows'/PC's virtual monopoly of the personal computer industry.

Its a matter that pits the Lord's Standard against Social Expectations. How I view it: Among other things, garments cover everything that we should routinely cover when we are in public. God works with us from where we are, but I would not be the least bit surprised if the Lord's standard is eventually "upgraded" to swimwear that covers the thighs and shoulders. But that sort of swimwear isn't always easy to find. Other activities often offer us minimal flexibility. Various sports uniforms are simply not conducive to wearing garments. It's certainly not easy to hold our standards where the Lord wants us to.

Thanks PC. The "once saved always saved" folks tend to be perceived as at least a sub-group of Born Again Christians, but a group that takes their notions of grace to greater extremes than the majority. They do tend to define themselves as Born Again Christians as well. I was not aware that the other Born Again folks do not identify these people as part of the same movement/grouping. But I know that their understanding is not universally held nor taught within Born Again Christianity.

This is an important point of open honesty. I think it best that you tell your wife that: A.) You need to talk this through and just have a place to talk about it all, and you've chosen to do so on lds.net. That was exactly why I came to this site a little over a year ago. I needed an outlet because it was simply too much for me to suffer through in silence. B.) Offer assurances that you will protect her honor by keeping your identities anonymous. The biggest reason your posting here would upset her likely comes down to everyone she knows finding out what she's done, etc. That was the other half of my need: I needed to talk through my thoughts and feelings and yet I didn't want her to be ridiculed for the rest of her life -- that would be counter-productive and only lead to her giving up and living in constant despair. That would only be setting her up for failure in the long run.

Having been through the emotional train-wreck of finding out that your wife has committed adultery, first let me offer my sympathies. I know how terrible this feels. I was fortunate enough: The other man lives in another state, isn't a member and my wife and I can sever all contact and never see or hear from him again. Yours is a very difficult circumstance.Depending upon your circumstances, you might ask your bishop if it would be okay for you and your family to attend a different nearby ward. I know that I've seen circumstances where this sort of accommodation was made on behalf of a family that was split up because of adultery, but everyone still lived in the same ward boundaries. Forgiving the other man has to happen eventually, but it ain't easy. I'm getting there. My wife also has had some very bitter and angry feelings for him and has found she needs to forgive him as well. Seeing the other man at Church every week just makes it that much harder. It is also likely an unnecessary distraction from your wife's repentance process. One thing I did to try to help my wife in her daily goals: I created two white-board charts (drew lines in permanent marker) with daily and weekly goals on it. What I found is that when I'm diligently doing what I'm supposed to do and marking those items on the chart, it tends to inspire her to do better. I do try to offer up words of encouragement too. Any statements of negativity always backfires, but positive encouragement has worked well. We've realized that a large part of the reason that the affair even happened was because we weren't doing the things we know we should be doing: Daily prayer, church attendance, scripture study, etc. Sorry for rambling so long, but hope that helps some.

You always so bring clarity to these sorts of topics, and I certainly appreciate it. You can see where some do seem to come across as, "I've been saved, so now I can do whatever I want for the rest of my life with no consequences." The unfortunate side-affect of this is that Latter Day Saints can tend to run too far in the opposite direction, when the truth is that we believe something very similar. We come unto Christ, we enter into the covenant relationship, and as long as we do not turn and walk away from Him, we can fully expect salvation. But staying in the covenant involves doing His will, keeping His commandments and putting forth out best effort. All the while, we know that we will sin, make mistakes and fall short, but we know that Christ will make up the difference for us and we do not need to live in constant terror and doubt. Unfortunately, some Latter Day Saints live in constant terror that "I'm just not good enough" and other such sentiments, and this just isn't how God wants us to live. One thing that puzzles me about this teaching of "grace-only" sects: If a man starts down the path to God and is doing well enough, but at some point he loses his way, wanders off, stops listening to God, and becomes a perpetually sinful person. Let's use the example of a gang member who leaves a life of murder and violence. He received the message of salvation, repents, comes to Christ and lives a good life for a decade or so. But at some point, he loses faith, stops trusting in God, goes back to his gang and returns to his lifestyle of murder and violence: 1.) From the born-again evangelical view, was he ever actually saved at any point? 2.) Because he ultimately fell away, does that mean that he was never actually sincere, or that he was somehow not completely reconciled to God before he fell away? 3.) Are we agreed that he is no longer saved and bound for heaven (unless and until he returns to God)?

So the first problem that the 14 year old Joseph Smith recounts: If any denomination was fine and good, why was there so much bitterness and strife? If this was God’s Church and Kingdom on earth, where was the peace, harmony and unity? What he wanted to know seems simple enough. ‘Who is right and how can I know with absolute certainty that they are right?’ He already knew what still know today: Each denomination interprets the Bible in their own way. Any given passage used by one sect to establish their doctrine as correct will be read and understood completely differently by other sects. The foundational revelations leading to the establishment of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints came about because young Joseph Smith found the key to finding answers from God while reading in the Bible. He prayed, God and Christ appeared, and many revelations followed. The Bible is the key to our foundation, and remains a part of the LDS collection of sacred writings. We teach from the Bible. We hold it sacred. We believe its messages for us.But we don't believe the Bible was ever meant to stand alone as God's only instructions for those who seek after him. The Bible certainly never teaches that the Bible is complete, nor that it is a closed record, nor that there can never be anymore written word from God. Therein lies the difference of opinion.

I believe that "questionable" is a more accurate definition of pseudo. And I certainly do not agree that the Bible is Pseudopigraphorical. Valid point applicable to only one book of the Bible: The Song of Solomon. Joseph Smith considered all of the rest to be inspired writings and the word of God. See above. Whether all of this is true or not, the men that compiled and abridged the Biblical Old Testament record -- apparently compiled in the time of Josiah, written by men much like Ezra, Nehemiah, etc -- were prophets and men of God. Consider the Book of Mormon (which we accept and you do not of course.) Mormon was a prophet and he abridged the collective works and writings of the Prophets and history of God's people. So even though Latter Day Saints would love to have the original works of all the prophets, we accept what we have as inspired and of God. Who said that 2 Timothy is a forgery?Modern scholarship is one thing. There are many reasons put forward by modern scholars putting the Biblical record into question. But ultimately, as a Latter Day Saint, we come back to Joseph Smith's statements that insofar as they were translated and transcribed correctly, every book in the Bible (excepting the Song of Solomon) is of God. Where the real difference of opinions comes about is how you and we define the Bible. We believe the Bible to be the surviving collected works and writings of God's dealings with his people. For the most part, the Old Testament is his dealings with the children of Israel, and the New Testament recounts God's dealings with both Jew and Gentile. The reason God preserved what's left of the records is to teach all humankind to come unto Christ, the only hope for their salvation. Up to this point, our understanding of the Bible is the same. Where we disagree is: 1.) The Bible is the ONLY written word of God and God himself forbade anymore from ever being written. 2.) The Bible is absolutely perfect. 3.) The Bible is complete. 4.) The Bible is everything we need to lead us to God and teach us his will for us. These four points are where Latter Day Saints disagree with you and others of your opinion.

While I was a missionary, I remember once or twice being told straight up by a Born Again Christian that they were saved and even if they murdered somebody tomorrow, they'd still be saved and bound for Heaven. Most memorable was a lay minister who told me this, which diminishes the chances of it being a simple congregation member who misunderstood.It is people that take the notion of being "saved" to this extent that I would say are truly missing the point and misunderstanding Christ's message entirely. I think that the incorrect notion is this: Just because you have been snatched away from destruction and received forgiveness and a promise of salvation does not mean that God is going to take away your freedom to choose. You can choose to walk right out of his kingdom, his grace and his promise of salvation, however foolish that choice would be. The extreme teaching of this doctrine (once saved, always saved no matter what, end of story) seems to be denomination-specific, and not applicable to all evangelical Christianity.

Oh THAT schpeel! Let me guess. "As man is God once was. As God is, man may become." + [Jump to a bunch of conclusions] = "Mormons believe that God was once a sinful man." But let's look at this tactic and recognize it for what it is: Nitpicking and making unfounded conclusions in order to introduce a thread of doubt into your mind. There's an endless list of these little spiritual jabs. I strongly recommend taking the opposite approach. Find out from God whether this Church is God's Church and Kingdom on Earth. Go read the Book of Mormon and keep in mind exactly how it came to us. Delivered by an angel of God and translated into English by an uneducated farm-boy (and prophet) not by scholarship but by the gift and power of God. The way the Book of Mormon came into the world makes it the ideal litmus test of the truthfulness of the Restored Gospel. If it is of God, then Joseph Smith was a true prophet from God and apostle of Jesus Christ. If Joseph Smith was a true prophet and apostle, then this really and truly is God's Church and Kingdom on Earth, established according to His will and under his continual direction.

Welcome, glad to have you aboard.

Where is the Laugh button when you need it!?

The essence of any accusation that LDS believe that God sinned has absolutely no factual basis whatsoever. Bear in mind, they are mislead. Here's the really sad fact: They try to save "those poor misguided Mormons" from an eternity in Hell by deception. Most know very well that they are taking statements WAY out of context, sensationalizing things and being deceptive. But they think that they are doing it for our own good. Yeah, lying to the Mormons to save them. Very strange indeed. Then again, the Spanish Inquisition killed people to save them from hell, so the general idea of "doing something bad to save people from themselves" has been around for a long time.

One important thing to point out about Anti-Mormon media: Their tactics are IDENTICAL to every method that Satan has always used and will always use to destroy the belief of God People. Twist the facts. Create a doubt. Distort things to make the truth look like obvious lies. How does it make you feel? Do you feel enlightened and spiritually uplifted, or does it make you feel confused and sick inside? That should offer some insight as to the source of these materials. If it is of God, then it should make you feel uplifted, enlightened and good, shouldn't it?

CommanderSouth attacks against the Church of Jesus Christ have always been ongoing. Every anti-Mormon accusation has it's answer, but the enemies of Christ's Church and Kingdom on Earth enthusiastically flood the world with an endless barrage of attacks. So answering every single attack would be hopelessly time consuming. One thing that I can offer you is this. Pick up your Book of Mormon and start reading and praying. This boils the whole thing down to something very simple and tangible. If the Book of Mormon is from God then everything that came thereafter was according to the will of God himself. If the Book of Mormon is not true then the whole Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is wrong obviously. Once you have your answer on this matter, then we can more easily address any specific concerns. You see, Satan is a sly trickster. If he can get a single doubt into your mind, he will keep reminding you of it and keep pestering you with it until your certainty of truth erodes into nothing. That is how he works. Anti-Mormons think they are doing God's work, and the jokes on them unfortunately. Begin with the Book of Mormon and lets see where it goes from there.

Soninme you have your opinions on things and that is clear enough. It is also quite clear that you're not really being very open-minded in any of your opinions. For that reason, The Church of Jesus Christ will forever remain bizarre and mysterious to you, filled with teachings that either differ from or contradict things you passionately believe. Where does that leave us? Wasting time going into one endless debate after another, a process that will never end and never actually accomplish anything. You will simply have to trust me on this much: I've heard every single point you made many, many, many times. I realized a long time ago that engaging in these lengthy debates can never accomplish anything useful without open-mindedness. So I have to ask, what are you hoping to accomplish here?

Make the Zappas proud. Boy = Dweezil Girl = Moon Unit