Obolus

Except for the fact that the chapel is an extension of the temple. The rite that is performed there (the sacrament) is the replacement of the animal sacrifices that took place in the ancient temple. If the sacrament is the "most sacred of all ordinances" (according to JR Holland), then how could the chapel not be a temple? Just a nice way of saying prayer circle. Any ordinance where the Lord's Atonement comes 'full circle' basically qualifies. It doesn't always have to look like a circle, but it happens often. I'm talking about all ordinances that involve the laying on of hands. The births performed by women are answered by the rebirths performed by Christ & his servants. Baptism is one where we come full circle from the womb to the font. Hence, Jesus was baptized before his ministry, and the completion of his "passion" culminated with the tearing of the veil in the temple... which was itself a symbol of the consummation of Jesus fulfilling the Law of Moses. Baptism also utilizes the laying on of hands. Hands are used in every ordinance because all ordinances equate to 'veil work', which can only be performed with hands that draw people through a veil. The sacrament is veil work. Ordinations and setting apart are all veil work. Baby blessings are veil work. The circle is never physically "perfect" even when there are a dozen MPs. But a circle is certainly completed by the laying on of hands even when it is just one MP. It is created by the hands/arms/torso of the body of the MP and the head of the person receiving. All instances of the laying on of hands constitute a "prayer circle" without exception, as a) there are always at least two people involved, and b) the faith of both is necessary.

Bingo. All circles of ordinance in a chapel or home reference those that occur in a temple. The point is to endow the powers/keys in question upon the head of the individual. The circle veils that individual from view, hence there is a transformation that takes place: The individual before the laying on of hands -> the individual within the cirlce of ordinance -> the authorized/empowered individual. All veils are intended to 'rebirth' those that pass through them. Hence Jesus conversation with Nicodemus concerning baptism.

If I had never been to Provo and knew nothing about its history, I suspect that an LDS temple would make perfect sense on the corner of Center Street and University. That said, I echo HeThePrimate's sentiments in losing any degree of our old culture and heritage. I don't necessarily agree that the building should be rebuilt into what it was, but I do feel that we have lost or sold far too many of our older church buildings. I've heard talk of bishops and stake presidents standing in front of bulldozers in Coalville when the Church opted to demolish the Coalville Tabernacle. There is an old ward house that is utterly exotic and fantastic looking just north of the Conference Center that has been sold and left in disrepair. You can see pics of it at this excellent site: Salt Lake 24th Ward LDS ARCHITECTURE Our old architecture is important, especially now that the wardhouse building process has become so streamlined and generic.

Ok, then on what do you base your faith in your wife?

Tim, are you married?

What do you mean by "answer it"? Do you mean a judgment passed, or an "Our doctrine states..."? Even if a member of the Church does infer some sort of self-righteous judgment when they remit the information, they are still not the text itself. And the text is what is in question here. Not the people.

The only person for whom it is reasonable to say so is God. Mormons, despite their foibles and misunderstandings of their own scriptures, are not the originators of the text, nor do they sit in the judgment seat. For the question to bear any legitimate answer, it must be posed to the originator.

PC, who are you concerned about being 'labeled' by in your hypothetical? The Mormons? Or God?

SS, thank you for that scripture.

Because the body is a temple, all is religion. Everything you are drawn to, that you participate in, and everything you seek and purchase. There isn't any act, word or thought that isn't some kind of ordinance. People can't help but commit and attend. Why? Because atonement (the middle english meaning of the word: to be "at one") is the main function of the human being. We make ourselves "one" with religions, musical instruments, exercise, sports teams, video games, film, and popular music. This is why we gather up at concerts, games, festivals, universities, and chapels. This is why we travel & line up for fantasy sequels. It is all about atonement and rebirth. The Lord's message in the aforementioned scriptures goes far beyond other churches or sects. It speaks to an understanding of the body that most people simply don't get. When Christ said, "Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it back up", it was the most important statement about the human body of all time. It's not just a far-reaching statement, it is all-reaching. The Lord never intended for us to skip out on movies, concerts, sports, or travel. He simply sets up a list of priorities, and at the top of the list are his ordinances. If all is atonement, then his Atonement is numero uno. Why are his ordinances so important? Where can they be found? The great and abominable church = all atonements that we prioritize over his ordinances and temple work. If the Lord is offended by counterfeit ordinances that purport to be his, he has every right to say so in his scripture. The Mormons don't make the claim. God does. Mormons can only be accused of the claim if Joseph Smith concocted the scriptures himself. It is either revelation, or a farce.

Yes, the hymen is certainly part of the vulva. But the womb isn't just a vulva. Tying a woman's "virtue" to the hymen is very middle ages. I'm not saying that you are doing so, I'm just saying. The truth about the hymen is that it stretches and can be torn for a number of reasons. So its condition is not an accurate indicator of a woman's virginity, and much less her virtue. But the entire womb is indeed the veil I was referring to.

I think it is a grave sin for a different reason. The restitution part is just residual. The womb is a veil. Meaning that everything that happens there has direct access to God. When Jesus says that "even if ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me", he's also inferring something about harming others. Being that he also receives the harm that we receive, in all of it's forms. But the body only has one veil, and it is carried by women. If you open that veil, you had better have permission from both the sentinel (the woman) and the owner (God). That veil creates belonging whether matrimony is intended or not. Which is why we see similar consequences for fornication and rape in the OT: "And if a man entice a maid that is not betrothed, and lie with her, he shall surely endow her to be his wife." -Exodus 22:16 "If a man find a damsel that is a virgin, which is not betrothed, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found… she shall be his wife; because he hath humbled her, he may not put her away all his days." -Deuteronomy 22:28-29 I agree with Snow that virtue is completely restored to the penitent. Restitution is achieved in time by realizing what the womb is (a direct conduit to God), and by committing to treat it so thereafter. But the womb, in its function as a veil, was never "hers" in the first place. It was always the Lord's. She is merely the gatekeeper of something she will no longer have if she doesn't attain the highest glory of God's kingdom. In fact, its sanctity and holiness never changes in mortality. Not even the wombs of prostitutes lose their holiness or creative power due to sin. It is individuals who either ennoble or profane themselves at that veil.

The "bracket" is an interesting device. It exists in all organizations, be they corporate hierarchies or playoff seeding in sports tournaments. In the church the bracket is directly tied to the cosmism of the family, as the Lord has passed his utilization of the tool down to us as a device of godliness. The difference between the bracket's use in the world and it's use by God is the direction in which the action flows. In a tournament, for example, you begin with 16 teams and the action flows towards the final two contenders, whereupon the glory is claimed by the champion. So: 16 ->8->4->2->1. With a family you begin with two people who are 'one flesh' in marriage... which is hopefully the opposite of a championship bout... who have children, grandkids, great-grandkids, Etc. Both the married couple and the lone champion achieve a sense of glory from their efforts. The difference between the glory of God and the glory of the world is that when the bracket flows outward from the 'one', everyone shares in the glory. Going the other direction hoards all the glory for the 'top dog'. Hence the dysfunction often associated with MLMs, which purport to be the former but always prove to be the latter. So I think what your question really comes down to, Snoozer, is the value of relationships. Not just looking at couples that happen to be up or down the line in those sealing room mirrors, but actually stepping through those mirrors and getting to know those people personally. The more that are available to you the greater your glory will be because of the inter-relational potential that resides between you and each person.

To me, the image of God is that of a great keeper of genealogies. He knows the family lines of the earth, those of the mortal world on which he lived, those of the deity that guided him, and so on and so forth. He and his exalted family are sealed as a branch to a vast, incomprehensible family tree. So when I think of his image, that's what I picture. A god of body and spirit that belongs to that order. When he walks, he glorifies that order. When he talks, his words come to pass because of that order. He is sealed not only to family, but to an eternal cycle of creation and infinite improvisation that do nothing but glorify that order. His exalted body is the instrument of this way of being. It is a temple, robed in power. His body resides between seer stones; the small white stone mentioned in Revelation 2:17 and the planet sized stone which is his throne. As we learn in D&C 130, one pertains to higher orders of kingdoms while the other pertains to lower orders. Both are Urim and Thummim. When I look into the facing mirrors of a sealing room, I see a type of what he sees in those stones; eternal progeny on one side and ancestry on the other. Through them, he is a seer of all of the order that he belongs to. This potential to walk and talk as he does... between those stones & connected to that tree... resides in all people. All are connected to God, thus all are sacred to him. His image is the brand of all brands, and the authority above all others in the world. To follow God is to attach yourself to the destiny of his steps and his words.

They had to like each other at least a little

Perhaps you are right. But for the purposes of Tubaloth's question, even righteous desires can be marginalized into irrelevancy in one's life. So I'm not sure a distinction needs to be made. I think you are right that all spirits have desires. But after passing through the veil of forgetfulness, time and experience are required to realize those desires in mortality. Else the forgetfulness element of the veil is just a myth. An infant in the cases you cited does pass through birth, pain and death, all of which provide a level of experience. But the righteous desires they may have had in the pre-existence have to be remembered for them to "have" them. Then again, there are accounts all the time of the veil being thin for youngsters. So you may be right. My main point concerns desires that keep us in thrall to sin. No one, for instance, is born with the desire to have sex that humiliates/annihilates the self or the other. Yet this desire is prevalent in subcultures that participate in BDSM. Hence, such desires are developed and fed as acquired appetites.

The most important thing to realize about desires is that they are developed. Once developed, they cannot be shut down directly. They can only be directly repressed, which leads to further slavery. Thus the only way to disable them is to develop alternative desires that render them displaced. In this indirect way, unwanted desires can be marginalized out of existence by the power of Christ's atonement. It is definitely possible to develop different desires because the body works by the law of the harvest (as indicated in Alma 32). What is sewn shall be reaped.

No, she can just enter the kingdom. She still has to marry in the temple (physically or by proxy) to attain exaltation. Hence the length of Christ's millennial reign.

The first veil pertains to the first tree, and the second to the Tree of Life. Eve's role in partaking of the fruit first is vital beyond all description.

When looking at the scriptures that pertain to Priesthood authority, it's a good rule of thumb to basically assume that righteous women will automatically receive most of the eternal blessings that Priesthood holders are promised so long as they humble themselves before God and submit to his program. The sanctification of the Spirit unto the renewing of their bodies is no exception. Compare 84:33 to 132:64 "And again, verily, verily, I say unto you, if any man have a wife, who holds the keys of this power, and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood, as pertaining to these things, then shall she believe and administer unto him, or she shall be destroyed, saith the Lord your God; for I will destroy her; for I will magnify my name upon all those who receive and abide in my law." The Lord's name becomes important in this context. See 130:10-11. The reason women automatically receive most of those blessings is because a righteous woman guards and sanctifies the first veil her whole life. Who does she allow to enter that gate? Only her husband, and ideally a worthy Priesthood holder who can answer her travail with ordinances that are authorized by God. Are righteous women required to be married to enter the Celestial Kingdom? No. Their stewardship over the veil qualifies them, and their blessings cannot be withheld. If you take a step back from the scriptures and consider gender, you will realize that God commands men left and right as pertaining to the Priesthood. He is continually aiming them away from the world and towards the 2nd veil (often to his own frustration). When the Lord addresses women, it is often regarding the 1st veil (See: Eve, Sarah, Leah, Rachel, Hannah, Mary, Elizabeth, et al). Because that's where their authority resides.

blah.

Man. I want to read the Book of Lehi so bad.

Many of the houses there are Victorian. It's very picturesque. But your singles scene will be very minimal to say the least. Might want to wait until you marry to settle there. I've been to the ward there. It's a good size family ward... bigger than I thought it would be. Quaint LDS chapel that looks like it was built in the '50s. They were very friendly & welcoming. The coast line near there, as others have said, is fantastic. Dark sand and breathtaking boulders like Haystack Rock. The Goonies house is there, too.

Well, I definitely think visions are real. But you are right not to share that with everyone. You can't really have community without privacy, and that's your private side. It should only be shared with those you trust the most. But everyone has a private side. And whether people want to admit it or not, we all are in thrall to certain demons. And that's not a metaphor. This is why Jesus spent some time addressing possession in the Bible. Of particular interest is Chapter 9 of Luke where Jesus is refused by the Samaritans and in response James & John ask Jesus if they should call down fire from heaven to consume them. In verses 55-56 Jesus responds: "But he turned, and rebuked them, and said, Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of. For the Son of man is not come to destroy men’s lives, but to save them." This shows that even apostles were subject to possession. In fact, all sin is a result of possession. Through the natural man, we give our bodies over to malefactors on the other side of the veil and allow them to act in our name. In this way, all sin is slavery. We trade in the Light of Christ within us to exert some temporary power here in mortality. Of course LDS people often don't like to look at it this way because a) they don't like to invite the presence of the adversary and b) they don't like to admit that they aren't in control of their lives. But every time we lie, cheat or steal, we sell our souls out... we sell something that doesn't belong to us. My advice to you is to study the Lord's encounters with possessions and to continue to seek counsel from your bishop and professional LDS counselors. Some of your visions may be from God. But perhaps not all of them.

My friend, You should keep a more positive outlook. Don't get caught up in the negatives of the YSA system or Utah/Provo in general to the point where it paralyzes you. Being Mormon does indeed make you a part of a crazy religion. But there is also an undeniable beauty about what we are. There are a lot of great people in Utah, and at BYU. But no matter where you live, "gold" must be dug up with effort. You have to be sincere and show some vulnerability in order to discover the same in others, and it takes time. Yes, things aren't perfect there, but walking around with a chip on your shoulder just does more damage. There will always be those around who will offend you, both in and out of Mormonism. That's just life. Regarding your sisters, there are a lot of students that have a difficult time at BYU. And there are a lot of problems there because of the Honor Code. But despite the whacko culture, it is an incredible school that gives a lot of people unbelievable opportunities. It's certainly not a perfect school, but when you consider it's position amidst the other available schools in this country, BYU is pretty remarkable. It embraces higher learning while simultaneously setting itself against the current of most universities who basically see it as their duty to "cure" people of their faith in God. The school and its professors/students deserve a lot of credit for that.