Jamie123

I'd like to know the answer to FunkyTown's question. Also why do you think the RC church ordains with the Melchizedek Priesthood? Have you a reference for this? I've always thought the offices of the Catholic churches were much more aligned with those of the Mormon Aaronic priesthood, i.e. Mormon Aaronic: Deacon, Teacher, Priest, Bishop Anglican and RC: Deacon, Priest, Bishop Orthodox: Subdeacon, Deacon, Priest, Bishop

Elephant and Fridge Jokes How do you fit three elephants in a Mini? Two in the front, two in the back. How do you know if an elephant's been in your fridge? Footprints in the butter. How do you tell if two elephants have been in your fridge? Two sets of footprints in the butter. How do you tell if three elephants have been in your fridge? Three sets of footprints in the butter. How do you tell if four elephants have been in your fridge? There's a Mini parked outside. What's white and wears checked trousers? Rupert the Fridge

Thanks for all your thoughts. I've always rejected the idea that sexual immorality is a form of pride, on the grounds that most of us are not "proud" of our sexual sins. I doubt very much that Tiger Woods felt "proud" when stories of his misbehaviour were splashed all over the media. And yet Blackmarch makes an excellent point: A proud man may think that he can indulge his lusts without getting caught, or without it corrupting other parts of his life, or (like someone slipping into alcohol abuse or overeating or drug addiction) that he "can control it". However, in another of his books (Surprised by Joy), after giving a hellish description of life at his old school where the senior students (or "Bloods") whose lives were normally taken up with the struggle to move up the school hierarchy, as a recreation engaged in homosexual relationships with their juniors, Lewis says the following... This is quite a brave thing for a Christian writer to say, and I'm sure it got him into a lot of trouble at the time! But was he right? Were these pederastic liaisons really a comparative good against a background of prideful ambition, or were they rather an extension of the general pridefulness of these young men - a conceited belief that their station in life (within the closed world of the school) gave them a right to indulge their baser urges? I'm inclined to view Lewis' opinions with some scepticism here - though he certainly does get you thinking!

In my religious thinking over the years, I've perhaps been a little over-influenced by C.S. Lewis, to the extent that I've been surprised to find Christians whse opinions are so much at odds with him. This is of course a fault on my part - Lewis never claimed to be a prophet, and would (I suspect) be horrified at anyone using his writings as a substitute for scripture. Now Lewis was a protestant (though I believe he did correspond with at least one Mormon in the US) but he nevertheless seems to have a following among LDS members. And this is a little surprising considering some of his writings. Take for instance this passage from Mere Christianity: (Emphasis mine.) Now this flies in the face of what many Mormons believe. A couple of years ago I got into a long-running dispute with someone on this board (it might have been Hemidakota) about the relative seriousness of pride and sexual sin - he believing that fornication was second only to murder, and that pride was far less serious. (I would suggest that fornication and murder are not sins in themselves, but consequences of sin - giving in to the temptations of lust or anger - but that's another matter.) Lewis on the other hand suggests that pride is worst condition of the soul, and the very cause of Satan's fall. (Hemi said that "rebellion" and not "pride" was the cause, but I would again suggest that that rebellion was a symptom of pride, and not a cause in itself.)Anyway, what do you guys think? Was Lewis wrong to suggest that unchastity is a "mere fleabite" compared to pride? Mormons (I believe) need to seek forgiveness from special priesthood holders if they ever commit fornication, but life would be complicated if you had to seek out a priest every time you had a prideful thought! And if this is so, how seriously does that error undermine Lewis' writings?

I guess you're being ironic but for the record he is technically an American. He became a naturalized citizen of the US in 1985.

I've seen that before, applied to the Academic heirarchy, the top level being Vice Chancellor/College President and the bottom being Departmental Secretary: Departmental Secretary: 1. Lifts tall buildings and walks under them 2. Kicks locomotives off the tracks 3. Catches speeding bullets in her teeth 4. Freezes water with a single glance 5. She is God!

How to escape from a German PoW camp:

Knock, knock. Who's there? Oh....you've heard it before.

It surprises me that you should say that. If the Church is like a family, shouldn't it treat its members like family members? I know that if one of my children was accused of murder, and they swore to me they were innocent, I wouldn't turn their back on them just because a jury of strangers chose not to believe them. Afterthought: OK - I can already see an objection someone's going to make to this analogy: God is the "father" to the Church, while the church leadership are more like elder siblings. With standing orders from Heavenly Father that we must respect the civil authorities, in the absence of any divine revelation to the contrary that is what we should do. But there's a problem with this: It is true that everyone has an obligation to respect the government in so far as that they should obey the law. When a person is convicted of a crime, no one has the right to break him out of jail on the grounds that they believe him innocent. But that doesn't mean they must agree with the decision to convict, or not campaign to have that decision overturned. If it did, then every lawyer who took on a case at the Court of Appeal would have to be thrown into jail! If your brother or sister was accused of murder, and a jury found them guilty, would you ostracize them from the family and "side with society's judgement" against them? This certainly wasn't the case with Betty Ann Waters, whose brother Kenny was convicted of murder in 1983. Though she was a High School dropout, she put herself through school, college and law-school and became a fully qualified attorney, simply in order to prove her brother innocent. In doing this she was in no way disobeying or disrespecting the civil government. She did it all through legal channels. Furthermore, when she finally succeeded, she never practiced law again and went back to being an ordinary barmaid. They made a movie of it (though I've never seen it) starring Hilary Swank. It always makes me cry to think of it.

The situation I always wonder about is a person who is accused of murder on the basis of circumstantial evidence, is found guilty by a jury, but continues to deny it. This has often happened: The prison system assumes that protestations of innocence indicates the prisoner is "in denial" and heaps on additional punishments. This sometimes continues for years until the Court of Appeal - on the basis of new evidence or argument - overturns the verdict and sets him free. But what position would the Church take? Would the jury verdict (or appeal-court findings) be taken as proof of guilt or innocence? Or would the Church leadership rely upon their own intuition/divine revelation, and possibly take a position contrary to that of the civil authorities? (Note: I am not talking here about killings which may or may not be considered murder. I am talking about situations where a prisoner denies any any involvement, but is nonetheless found guilty.)

That's from The Hobbit.

As far as I know, the only adaptation which ever did include the Houyhnhnms was the 1996 version with Ted Danson and Mary Steenburgen. I think that's my favourite of all the movies of Gulliver's Travels. BTW, part of that movie was (I'm told) filmed in the building where I now work - though this was a little before my time.

In Britain the book and movie are both called "Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone", which was Rowling's original title, and also the correct name for the stone itself (Philosopher's stone - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia). I don't know why the Americans insisted on changing it. Perhaps they were worried people would think it was a philosophy textbook, and not buy it.

If I remember the story rightly Moses didn't need to kill that Egyptian in order to prevent his cruelty. He killed him because he lost his temper. Can this be regarded as "moral"? Also David (indirectly) murdered Uriah, simply in order to satisfy his own lust. And he certainly was forgiven! (2 Samuel 12:13)

I'm talking about the (fairly) recent movie starring Jack Black. We bought the DVD several months ago, but only saw it for the first time last week. I thought it was quite entertaining, but I have one major, major complaint: Two of the greatest British comics ever were on the cast - Billy Connolly and Catherine Tate (who play the King and Queen of Lilliput) - and they gave them hardly anything to say or do! Admittedly Connolly does have one or two funny lines (the "eths" for example) but Tate might just as well have been an extra! What a criminal waste of talent! If only they'd cut just a bit of Black's buffoonery, so we could have had more fun with the British cast-members. But overall I didn't think it was as bad a movie as some of the critics thought it. And my 6-year-old really laughed at the doll-house scene with the milk bottle!

Or rather the opposite effect :) I always get caught out by the "exclusive of VAT" every time we go to Cosco!

I think one of the best hotel chains in the UK is Travelodge. My father-in-law (who's American) used it last year when he came to visit us, and he liked it very much. There are planty of them in easy reach (by train) of Central London. The trains and buses in London are excellent, but you can't beat doing an open-topped bus tour and a river tour. There are also the duck tours which are fun - they use old WWII amphibious landing craft, which go through the streets and on the river. (Trouble is they tend to get booked up very quickly!)

This is all quite new to me, but it sounds to me like something which is hardly ever done these days. Wikipedia says:

I think you're responding to the wrong post here. The point I was making was that God's power to forgive is not (or should not be) limited by the decisions of earthly law courts, which was what Saintmichaeldefendthem1 seemed to be suggesting. Traditionally Catholics, Mormons and some Anglicans do believe that priesthood authority is needed to obtain grace, while most other Protestants say that a believer's own "priesthood" (which he holds by virtue of his faith) is sufficient. Either way, I don't see the decisions of jurors intervening in the process.

I've always found the "forgiveness is contingent upon not repeating" the most difficult part of all this. I know murder is a difficult sin to "drift into" through weakness etc., but what about other, lesser sins? When I confess my sins, I know that in all probability I will commit these same sins again, so taken literally these "steps of repentance" aren't a great deal of use. I could only interpret this as "have a genuine resolve to try not to repeat, and if you do commit the sin again, then understand you will need to go through the process of repentance once again".

Firstly we don't know that Simpson and Antony were guilty. That is why they were acquitted. People were making the same sort of "we-know-he-did-it" comments about Colin Stagg after his acquittal in 1994 (when the UK still had a strong double jeapardy law) and he was later proved to be completely innocent! Secondly, even assuming that they are guilty, do you think God's grace so weak that it depends on the decisions of juries? I'm sure that sincere confession and meaningful repentance - including some form of self-imposed penance - would still be acceptable to God. He's forgiven some worse sinners than either of these!

What about someone like John Newton, who must have been compliant in the horrible deaths of many hundreds of black slaves, before he discovered Christ and started a new life? What he did must have amounted to "praying for forgiveness and moving on". And Saint Paul must have been in the same category too.

Is it true that the mods can see you through your computer screen?

A while ago, I posted a terribly heretical message on one of these threads to the effect that David Lynch's version of Frank Herbert's Dune is not "a terrible movie" (as is the recieved wisdom on this matter) but is actually rather good. At last I've found someone who really agrees with me! I don't totally agree with everything he says. To begin with, the movie is not true to the book. For example: * The whole concept of "wierding" was introduced by the film makers. * Ditto the "heart plugs" (or whatever they were) of the Harkonnens. * Patrick Stewart was nothing at all like the ugly but loveable Gurney Halleck of the novel. * Jessica is far more openly emotional than she was in the original; there is no way the Jessica of the novel would have burst into tears the way Francesca Annis did on hearing that the Duke was dead. She pretty much goes to pieces during that whole section of the movie. That's not the way a Bene Gesserit would have acted, even if her husband had just been murdered. To appreciate it, you have to dissociate it from the book and take it as a wholly new interpretation of the story, set in the universe of Lynch, not of Herbert. But it is a great movie, whatever "everyone" says about it!

Galatians 2:20 I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.