Robert_Mason

To be entirely truthful... I'm not too fond of people in general. A scattering of friends, and some family, but ultimately I can only stand to be around people because I don't have to be around them all the time. Most of my voluntary face-to-face interaction with other people is limited to a few hours a week. So actually, while my happiest memories are not of taking tests, they are of reading, especially if said reading material allows me to learn, or at least makes me think. People? Nice, yeah, but in general they're rather overrated, IMO. Possibly because it's people rating people. xD Books? Proof of God's existence.

I suppose this is a bit off the topic, but eternity seems rather pointless if the sole point is "increasing the size of your family, so to speak." ... That said, thank you. I'm still a bit miffed with him, but unless somebody brings up something I'm not currently aware of, I suppose I'll skip out on the beating.

Right now, I'm not too fond of him. xD He's said a lot of things which are rather interesting, and true, and so forth, but I'm currently as irritated by some of his stuff as I am by the Discourses of Brigham Young. More, actually, since there are a lot of people within the church who accept these things. So I'm giving all of you a job: Either convince me that my first action in the afterlife should not be to find a big stick and give him a well-deserved whacking (which will not, after all, be fatal, or even damaging, and so be rather less of a bad thing than here on Earth), or squash the little voice in my head saying that I should just leave him be, and in a hundred years nobody's gonna pay any more attention to the loony bits of his talks and writings than they do Brigham Young's. alwaus! robert mason

Yes and no. On the one hand, anyone born during those times is of course going to have to discipline themselves, but everyone in general is going to have a rather long time to gain some self-control. Hmm... Perhaps moral perfection, in the sense of God's moral perfection, is not a lack of temptation or anything else similar to that, but self-discipline great enough that, quite simply, that doesn't matter any longer.

Oh, I know. I've just now got thoughts of God being constantly forgetful and all.

Am I wrong for finding the idea of this being true to be hilarious? ... Many good points've been raised... I think we're just repeating everything over and over again, though. In summary, I think this is the consensus: You need to confess. Otherwise, you did not make a full repentance, and while your marriage is legal, and will continue to be legal, it is not a truly sealed marriage. You must then do whatever else your Bishop tells you. PS. I will be horrible embarrassed if I find out that you really were only speaking in the hypothetical, as opposed to what all of us are assuming. XD

I don't feel that it would make you complacent, so long as you understood the concept properly. Satan is not the source of sin and evil, and only works to help this along, and so... You are your own problem. All those bad thoughts in your head, all those sins you've committed, every last thing you've ever wanted to do, but just barely held back from (or, perhaps, didn't)... That was you, and you can't blame Satan for any of that, because odds are that you didn't need any "helping along," so to speak. IMO, that awareness would actually make you more alert. There's something about the idea that Satan doesn't even need to bother with you, that you're perfectly capable of sinning even if you were in a giant anti-Satan bubble, that makes it seem like something you need to be watchful for even more, if that were possible.

Well, it seems to be that most children are, naturally, little monsters, in a manner of speaking. Having had to help a great deal with four little siblings, I feel I can say that they already come with all that "bad stuff" included free of charge. By "throw it" do you mean "genuinely create a thread along those lines"?

Of course! How could I be so blind? Take a "You're a GEEEENIUUS!" point! Well, technically speaking, how would they be influenced by Satan if they're at an age where they aren't affected by him? And since when has Satan tainted the world itself? Ethics... It's for science! Besides, what about those feral kids you always hear about? Oh... just urban legends? But... Yes. Let's get to work designing the Nursebot 2000s. Hey, we could even have the Nursebot 2000s raise them in a loving, caring environment! Wait... If they were intelligent, would the Nursebot 2000s be vulnerable to Satan? I sense another thread coming up! "Can an AI be tempted by Satan?"* *I actually did have a bit of a debate with some people at church along these lines, though it was more of a "Would an artificially-produced being such as an AI or a clone have a soul?"-type thing.

It's not so much being a "spoiled, selfish brat" as it is "being a normal child." But I was mainly trying to be humorous, getting some fun out of a bit of technical error (similar to the "Satan's Angles" comment). As for Satan, if you accept that Satan was tempted, did you need to accept that this tempter was either tempted as well, or was capable of sinning even without an outside influence. And if that tempter was tempted, well... You get The Idea, right? It would seem that it would be an accurate statement that "Satan tempts us, as do the rest of the Fallen, but in our post-Eden state we are perfectly capable of sinning even without an outside influence."

I always find it funny how easily people forget what children are really like. Sure, they're kind at times, and cheerful, and so on, but... Kids are vicious little monsters, and I'm only half-joking. Am I the only one who still remembers that kids are like the epitome of mob mentality? If you're different from the group, you're screwed. Does nobody remember why it's insulting to be told that one is "acting like a child"? If Satan was necessary for sin, then who caused Satan to sin?

And people wouldn't sin if Satan didn't tempt us?

Never said I did. Just trying to see if "Satan can tempt us, et cetera, but isn't necessary for a state of sin and evil to exist, et cetera" is able to hold any water amongst a large group of people, so that I might figure out if I'm the loony one, or if it's the vast majority of the rest of my ward.

An enemy, yes, but not essential for the existence of sin and evil. If he wasn't around, and the rest of the Fallen were similarly absent, the world would be better, yes, but still Bad with a capital B.

Do we give and take points on this forum, like we do at RPG.net? If we do, please take one "This is Truth" point, and one "WIN" point.

I need to convince one of my DeviantArt friends to draw this now. Nah. They're all populated by people, right? If you have enough people, you're going to reach a point where there's at least one guy willing to kill Jesus, and at that point... Well, dear old Alan Horton (a friend of a friend) puts it best. Despite the seriousness of it, I find the quote to be rather hilarious. “It’s mob mentality; you’ve got a bunch of people confused and it only takes one or two people to get angry before everyone else does, and the next thing you know… you’re throwing Jesus off a cliff.

Well, it depends. Creationism or Evolution? If Creationism, God created the chicken, which then lay the egg. If Evolution, the first chicken became such while still developing, and so the egg came first. XD

Which leads into me wondering if perhaps we're vulnerable to sin even when we're no longer carnal.

I somehow missed this post as I was reading. Yes. I'll say it again. Yes! This is exactly the point I was trying to make.

Emphasis Mine. Why does Satan need to be blamed for every sinful impulse or feeling we have?

Oh, I know that. I was just poking a bit of fun at his mispelling [sic]. He had written "Angles," not "Angels," you see. I know I'm a tad strange, but I find things like that to be hilarious. I'd think that "the natural man" is an "enemy to God" because we're all too capable of sinning all by ourselves. The best example I have, and the one which got me thinking along these lines in the first place, is Satan himself. If an outside influence is needed for someone to sin, then who caused Satan to sin? And then what caused that thing to sin? And on and on.

But is "evil and temptation" dependent on the existence of "a devil," Mr. Skalenfehl? I don't think so, but nearly everyone I've talked to does, which is why I've brought up this thread.

We have Satan's "Angles" perched on our shoulders? No, I don't think he's short on manpower, but... I suppose I'm just irritated with all the "Don't let Satan tempt you" and "Satan will do everything he can to lead you astray" and "Satan is trying to bring you down" and everything else. Everyone in my class honestly believes that if Satan and the Fallen vanished today, everyone would hold hands and start singing Kumbayah. Which was really what I was meaning when I was talking about the belief that without Satan there wouldn't be anything bad. I recognize that an outside tempter was needed for Eden, but past that, I don't think he's as necessary as everybody seems to think.

Doesn't it seem like we're giving him a bit too much credit here? It seems that nearly every temptation is said to come from him, that there wouldn't be anything bad if he wasn't around, et cetera. Doesn't it seem a lot more plausible that, while he does exist, he only magnifies a problem which is already there? It seems to me that people are perfectly capable of tempting themselves, and that the only thing Satan does is add a bit of spice to it every now and then, or exert a little bit of pressure on someone who he feels especially needs it, just as we might receive a bit of a boost from the Holy Ghost.

I would say that you should only pray if (1) you have already done everything else you can possibly do before you went to pray for help or (2) you feel the need to thank Him for something particularly good or unexpected. It's my personal opinion that God expects you to try and do things before you ask Him for help (thus #1), and that if you spend your time giving thanks for things which happen every single day (thank you for not making me die on the way to work, thanks for keeping the dog from scratching up the furniture, thanks for not repealing the law of gravity, thanks for...) then you're going to spend all your time praying, and none of your time actually doing anything.