carlimac

I'm curious as to what the "good" is that MOE sees.  It just might be that ole bugaboo problem of calling evil good and good evil. 

I'm curious as to what the "good" is that MOE sees.  It just might be that ole bugaboo problem of calling evil good and good evil. 

I'm having a hard time equating the number of men who visited brothels in ye olden day with the number of men addicted to porn in our day. Of course I don't have stats on the matter. But I think the idea that things are getting worse and worse is A. Obvious and B. Prophecy.
 
You may not see the obvious. But you must believe the prophecies, surely.

Really? There's the same amount of porn as there was in the 1800s?

Every example ever used from now on should include slime mold!

Death, since it is necessary for the plan of salvation is not harmful. Rather the opposite in the grand scheme. The more difficult trial could be if there was no fear of death, nothing to hurt us but sin and age itself. 
 
If we all worried as much about the spiritual food we eat, the harmful smut we allow into our homes and lives as much as we do physical harm... how much better off would the world be. What if we had the same outrage and concern from the United States concerning pornography (plug in any issue there) as much as we have seen from the two people who have contracted Ebola? 

I wonder if this is different for military chaplains.
 
According to lds.org it states:
 
Note: When deployed to areas of the world where the Church is not established, chaplains will operate under the direction of Area Presidents to establish service member groups, call and set apart group leaders, give priesthood blessings, and support the group leaders and members as needed.
 
 
Female chaplains certainly wouldn't have the authority to set apart group leaders and give priesthood blessings.

I've already eaten two bags of candy corn this season and it's only Oct 4th.
#hidesheadinshame #nowondermypantsdontfit

Be it therefore known to all nations, races, kindreds, tribes, and tongues that I am hopelessly in love in Judi Dench (formally known as Dame Judith Olivia Dench, CH DBE FRSA) and that I would be overjoyed if I could meet her just one time to thank her for the enjoyment she has given me.  And she's a very devoted Christian (Quaker), too.
 
By the way, if your Netflix queue is scraping bottom and you like Britcoms, try "As Time Goes By" (also available on Amazon Prime streaming). 
 
Oh, and I have a 2nd confession as well.  I am a gentle man, slow to anger and endless in patience... but I totally lose it when I go to a salad bar and get stuck behind some bozo who moves down the line at a glacial pace, uses the tongs to transfer one pea at a time onto the plate, and slowly ponders every vegetable and dressing with more contemplation than I do when buying a new car. 

No, you're not justified and as Leah said your thoughts are your own responsibility.  You mentioned therapy but was it for you to voice your frustration or to understand where your wife may be coming from?  Huge difference!  There are all sorts of reasons a spouse may be uninterested in physical intimacy:
 - past trauma (molested/raped),
 - physical pain,
 - unsatisfied/unfulfilled sexually (so why bother),
 - tired,
 - depressed,
 - doesn't feel attractive,
 - been offended (porn...),
 - personality (some are more interested in sex than others - check library for 'Life Colors' by Pamala Oslie),
 - etc.
Until the root cause is acknowledged/addressed, "a sustained period" doesn't matter.  
 
Two questions to consider:
~if she were in an accident that rendered her unable to be intimate, would you feel ok leaving her?
~how would you feel if it was your wife wondering about leaving you because you haven't met her timeline or expectations?

Your "bad thoughts" are your choice and responsibility. You cannot shift the blame of your own thoughts or actions to someone else. They are solely YOUR choice responsibility no matter what the circumstances are. If you choose to have those thoughts or choose to act on those thoughts, you are the only one to blame, you cannot shift that blame to someone else. Infidelity is never justified.

I rely on 300mg of Wellbutrin XL daily to be happy.  But then, somedays it's not as effective. 
 

Lusting after and being attracted to are related but not the same. One could be attracted to another because of poise, cooking, financial stability and so forth, while physical attraction is also possible. Physical attraction and lust also differ. As a married man I can notice that women all around me are beautiful, but not connect that to untoward desires or imagining myself with them. For me this is the difference. There is nothing wrong with noticing that another human being is blessed with attractive features, it is when you take that acknowledgement and start coveting or imagining a sexual/romantic relationship that it becomes lustful.

Because he's out of step with everyone else, and still wants to be seen as the Smartest Person In The Room. Even though it's obvious to everyone that he's not. The Emperor has no clothes on.

Find some books by Neal A Maxwell or read his Conference talks.  He was very intellectually based and offered a lot of food for thought.

Makes me wonder how or what will stop the troops from bringing it back here ??

Contact with bodily fluid, not just the host himself. Contact with sheets/bedding/clothing can infect you. And while it's not technically "airborne", you can be infected by inhaling large droplets of matter expelled by an infected person who sneezes within a radius of three to five feet.Huh? So, the people who have spread Ebola by having sex, were nevertheless too ill to leave their homes? I hope so; but it hasn't stopped the spread of the flu.I fully agree with you on this.

I think the implication here was that for there to be war, there'd have to another country to fight. We, nor anyone else recognizes the ISIS as a country therefore this is a really big terrorist operation, not a war.
I didn't listen to it, but seems like it's better than the last one: "We ain't got no plan, where is my nine iron?"

I think 2 Nephi 9 has a scripture that sums up the intellectualism debate
 
28 O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish.
 
29 But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.

I think I have met quite a few people who would take exception to your  second sentence, the one about Mormon theology encouraging intellectualism. I agree. However, the problem with condemning intellectualism without clarification, which is what happens when people quote Elder Packer's talk without any context, is that a lot of Mormons end up thinking that any kind of intellectual thought is not okay. Often we are poorer as a people because of this trend.

True; but He was never shy about telling them that they needed to stop sinning. I like the image generally (and I can't even say for sure that there won't be beer there!); but I think He would also be warning against drunkenness and hedonism. There is no sin in heaven--not even the lowest degree thereof. People who refuse to turn from fornication and sodomy now will still have to do it eventually. A person cannot receive and keep divine light, whilst deliberately suppressing his divine nature.Well, again, this has both political and theological implications; and I won't engage the former at this time. As for the latter: God didn't create us to receive a good reward; He created us to receive the best reward. We may (and ultimately, will) choose for ourselves; but He (or his servants) will never stop reminding us of the purpose of our creation. As you cogently remind us above, we humans are to some degree still discovering absolute morality--certainly the "whys", and occasionally the "whats" as well. As a third grader I thought I would be perfectly happy to go through life never knowing my multiplication tables. In retrospect, I'm very grateful for a "judgmental" teacher who really DID know, better than me, what I ought to become. "Live and let live" doesn't really apply in a schoolhouse, which is what Mormonism claims this life essentially is.

Fair point, but as a practicing Mormon (who is pretty darned sure I'm right, though I'm sure that's not a certitude you share! ) I would suggest that there's a fundamental tension between your implicit assumption that homosexual relationships do no harm (presumably from an eternal as well as a temporal standpoint) and your concession that we have not yet discovered "objective morality" in its entirety. 
 
Mormon teaching is pretty clear that to participate in the work that is particular to exalted (a.k.a. "Celestialized") beings--i.e., the creation and teaching of new, living beings--a person must enter into a marital relationship with a person of the opposite gender.  Theologically, anything that distracts from that--even a deep-seated psychological, chemical, physiological, or genetic condition--is "harmful"; and we should at least try to govern the manifestations of that condition.  Whether the condition is a tendency to be uncharitable, or materialism (perhaps even kleptomania), same-sex attraction, psychopathy, or whatever--is irrelevant.  Whether it is ultimately conquerable (or even just clinically treatable) in this life, is irrelevant--we at least try.  Sinking into the "this is who I am and I'm not going to change it" routine is frankly anathema to the Mormon concept of human potential (and contrary to the Mormon idea of Christ's Atonement as an enabling, or at least consoling, force in the lives of those who accept and follow Him).
 
Now, Mormons can (and do!) quibble about how this should play over into the political sphere.  But if, by your suggestion that some religions should "grow up", you were suggesting that you're waiting for the LDS Church to evolve theologically and quit saying that gay sex is wrong--I fear you'll be waiting a very long time indeed.  :)

I am glad I don't subscribe to traditional religion if this is the message. The God I worship loves all of His children, while separating the sin from the sinner. We all are sinners and are all under condemnation which requires the Atonement of the Lord. Queers are not singled out as the only sinners. 
 
However, even when studying other religions I have largely found the same idea to be the case. God does not hate homosexuals, but he cannot look on sin with the least degree of allowance and has decreed that engaging in sexual acts outside of marriage between a man and a woman is indeed sin. There is nothing inherently wrong with same sex attraction, other than it poses a challenge to have an urge that must not be acted on. How many people have urges to do things with members of the opposite sex that they must not act on as well? How many people have urges to do things to children that they must not act on? The point being we all have challenges to overcome, we all sin, no one is being persecuted by God.
 
The perception of persecuting the LBGT community is a matter of self-defense when trying to raise children to have good values while the opposite is being force-fed everywhere else. Take for instance a (hopefully) morally neutral topic like eating vegetables vs eating junk-food. Suppose you are trying to ascertain the truth of whether eating vegetables or junk-food is the best way to go and/or trying to teach your children what is correct at the same time. Now suppose that you are thoroughly convinced that eating vegetables is the way to go and that eating junk-food is harmful, but everywhere you go eating junk-food is promoted as a "healthy and normal alternate lifestyle" while stuffing junk-food in your face in the media at work and at school. If that wasn't bad enough now suppose that any one who dares to caution others about the dangers of junk-food start to be ostracized as old-fashioned uneducated swine and must quickly lose their jobs. While all this is going on you have been free to reap the benefits of eating vegetables for yourself while abstaining from junk-food. The rest of the world is sluggish and sick from all of the junk-food they ingest, but not you. Yet you can not share these benefits even with your own family effectively because they are inundated with the message that junk-food is great and they like the taste of it, so it is much easier to just do what comes naturally (enjoy junk-food) than to make the effort to switch over to vegetables. Since they can't feel how great you are feeling they continue in a sub-optimal state that they believe is content and happy, but you can tell clearly they are missing out on what you have. You can try to share, but few will listen because they are too involved in their junk-food eating ways to ever care to change.

This is just a thought/observation.  I am continuing my thought from a previous comment on this topic (Quote above).  One is a behavior and the other a belief system, and this is why i believe that Max Hall is being treated better in the media/online then Kate Kelly was by members of the church, Max' issues are behavioral white Kate Kelly's ideological.  I may be wrong but its just a thought.

Urstadt
 
The word intellectualism can be used in so many ways. It goes without saying that Mormon theology encourages intellectualism. I don't know about you, but i think Elder Holland, Scott, Nelson, Eyring, and Elder Maxwell fit into the category of intellectuals. 
 
Now, i can't speak for everyone, but I believe the kind of "intellectualism" that we see worshiped in our day (University Professors) is not one that has truth as its highest value, but rather an ideology that is more interested in social justice then pursuing truth. They are more interested in making their students into activists then individuals that can think and reason. In short, the intellectualism of today is anything but that, rather, its a secular ideology with the label, "intellectuals."