mordorbund

As a European American (I guess?) raised in the South in a post-ban Church, my experiences and conclusions differ from yours. Do you mind if I ask some clarifying questions so I can better understand what is coming from your experience and what is hearsay? I agree that this is wrong. Did you experience this as a member of the Church or as an investigator? Was this a regular occurrence? Was this the actual reason specified? Again, I'm just wondering if this was something you experienced first hand as a member, and how systemic it was. I'm not familiar with any prophet apologizing for God. Even if the origin of the ban was purely of man, more recent prophets asked to have it lifted and were told "not yet". I fear for any man who defies the revelation of God, moreso the mantled man.

I also assume that the bride flatulates and deficates, but I wouldn't bring it up in a toast.

Well of course one out of ten is tithing.

The 10th Article of Faith states that we believe that the Millennium will come and that there are some mile markers along the way. Are you familiar with the doctrine of the Millennium? How about the gathering of Israel? What about Zion? I'm not trying to sound condescending, I recognize that these concepts have varying degrees of popularity in the Christian community at large, so you may already have a knowledge base in place.

You know a song that predates dinosaurs? I'm gonna have to call baloney on that one. (I can't personally confirm there were no prehistoric songs, but I'm sure someone can)

From my notes on D&C 76 I get the following layout for the Vision: Vision of throne roomFall of PerditionOpposition against saintsDestiny of Sons of PerditionGospel declaredVision of the celestial gloryVision of the terrestrial gloryVision of the telestialExplanation of interglorial ministries (telestial to celestial)Comparative glory and Christ subdues (celestial to telestial)Telestial bows the kneeAny thoughts on why this particular layout for this vision? If I were to describe the kingdoms, I would start at one end and go to the last - from celestial to terrestrial to telestial to perdition; or the reverse order. I'm also struck by how the first portion of the vision, all the way up to the point where the gospel is declared in vs 40-42 follows the plan of salvation - beginning in the presence of God, followed by a fall and a world of opposition, when salvation is offered through the gospel (there are angels, but we'll get to those later), but there the parallel seems to end. We jump straight to the celestial instead of progressing from one kingdom to the next. As an additional question, why do you think the celestial and telestial take up the lion's share of the vision? Why is the terrestrial almost glossed over? If you have a different layout that may clarify I'd appreciate seeing that as well.

How cute, that alligator is dancing with that man. [uhn chukka unh chukka unh chukka unh unh....]

I read the book and enjoyed the first half. Then it just got boring. It's like the author churned out the second half just to finish the book. I enjoyed the early parts where his interactions with vampires drove his character and personality. Lincoln's distance from his father was caused by his mother's murder - something that could have been prevented had he not struck a deal with the undead. His foray into politics was driven by a larger organization's concern with vampiricism run amok. But once he's elected and no longer fighting them directly, the tie-ins just drop off. He'll mention it in a meeting, and people think he's crazy. Surely some of Mary Todd Lincoln's moods, headaches and outbursts can be explained with a run-in. And Grant's drinking as well. He's dealt with them before and alcohol is his coping drug. He gets the job done because he knows what he's actually out there facing. I enjoyed the premise, but the author needed to play it to the hilt to really deliver.

Up in the Pacific Northwest: Grape Tomatoes (regular ones just don't work) Lettuce (we usually grow spinach, this one's new this year) Snow Peas Green beans Zucchini Strawberries (new this year, we've got 3 kinds to see what we like) We've tried carrots in the past, but they just didn't work. If anyone knows the secret in this climate, I'd like to learn it. One day we'll have a yard, and then I'll get serious about my garden.

It's in the context of children, but then broadens the application (Moroni 8:10)

I feel like you've restated your case with synonyms, but not with explanations. Are you simply saying everything that exists is either created or uncreated? Are you saying that the minimum bar for the created to exist is some purpose of the created (there may certainly be other reasons, but you only need that one) while the minimum bar for an uncreate to exist is simply to create? Or is there some other function that can be performed by the uncreated (it doesn't create, but it performs the really useful function of transition, or sustaining, or something)? Or are you saying that the uncreate is uncreated because that falls in the very nature of the uncreate in question? Are you saying that we start with the assumption that something is uncreated, but if that's proven false then we assume an uncreated creator ("uncreate must exist, otherwise the created could not")? This will help me understand the rest of your arguments better. Nor is Argument well established. I'm not familiar with the 2003 study you reference, perhaps you'd like to share a link? And the reason why atheists are reluctant to this kind of logic is because the same can be applied to a God, which must exist because it is in his nature and because, frankly, he does. This is why I asked for clarification with your first premise. Your confusion over this suggests that perhaps you weren't saying what I thought you were saying. [qutoe]"all existing matter and space considered as a whole; the cosmos" Oxford Online Dictionaries The notion of a multi-verse has no evidence, rather it is postulated as a way of explaining the complexity of life. Nor is there evidence of an uncreate mind which creates. Yet here we are peering outside the universe for answers and arbitrarily accepting one and rejecting the other. As a fan of the Oxford Dictionary, I'm sure you're quite familiar with overloaded terms that have multiple meanings. Both 'physical' are 'spiritual' are among these. For what it's worth, you will only find the term 'physical' in the standard works once, and it has nothing to do with physics, or matter. Rather it is used to contrast acceptable faith disciplines from that which is beyond the pale (many (myself included) would say that having the Holy Ghost withdraw is a spiritual punishment (I would even go so far as to say that this is probably an "infliction" on "finer matter") and would still agree with the scripture that such is not a "physical punishment". I don't know if you would count yourself among such. A further search through the D&C specifically give us some good synonyms of "physical" that matches the modern parlance and not so much that of the physicist who studied the natural sciences in day of yore. Keeping in mind what I mentioned before about overloaded terms, you can search out uses of "element" and "flesh". You can even do a search for "body" to see the contrast between the spirit (body) and the (physical) body. That there is a difference is apparent readily enough. This difference is what we're generally referring to (which you've acknowledged). Surely from these example you can see that Joseph viewed spirit as something different from the physical in the way we use these terms today. As I pointed out earlier, so long as you limit your definition of "physical" to mean "composing of a form of matter" (and here I would include energy as a "form" since they are interchangeable) then you won't find much disagreement. I think your earlier posts weren't terribly clear on that and that's why you've met so much resistance. Additionally, I for one (and it sounds like SeminarySnoozer) am reluctant to bind myself to the implications of "spirit is matter" doctrine because there is so little that is known about what that actually means (from my reading, there is about 2 paragraphs that mention this in passing about discernment). If I haven't said it already, welcome to the boards.

I read the "necessity of its own nature" to mean that there's some utility to gain from its existence. But the way you list the alternative, it sounds like what you are trying to say is that everything that exists is either caused or uncaused. Am I reading you wrong about the utility aspect? Or do you posit that anything "uncreated" performs some function? I'm not talking about length of existence either. I only mention to show that some models that take into account the big bang still include an eternal, self-existing universe. Thanks for the clarification. This additional information fleshes out some of the logical leaps you hazarded earlier. Now, here's a counter-argument: Each of these particles must exist - and, what's more, they must exist in this particular configuration. As evidence of this - they do. Perhaps I'm missing something, but conceptualizing what happens if the universe had different laws or properties does nothing to destroy its eternal nature. Shall we apply the same principles to your mind-God? The problem with God existing of necessity is that, according to the standard model of <anything>, .... and now we've defined God. Having defined the "mind", we'll find that there's a number of definitions we discarded along the way because it doesn't comport with either of our understandings of God. Which means those are Gods (universe) that don't follow the same self-existence of the God (universe) we have before us. Pull the universe out of the self-existent bucket because "change it and it's different" and you'll find a barrel of monkeys pulling God out of the same pail. This definition of the universe is quite dated. Back in the 70's Carl Sagan popularized the notion of a Cosmos - a collection of universes, each self-contained with no connection to each other (unless you want to listen to the black hole/sci-fi crowd), of which ours is only one. Frankly, the Cosmos sounds like a construct created primarily so we could comfortably explore different laws of the universe without having to commit them to ours - but be that as it may, the notion still exists of other space-time realities, including other matter and energy outside of our universe. That leads us to the possibility of a universe created by physical, material being, existing in space and time (although not our space and time). I don't know if this is what you've been trying to say all along. I agree that spirit being material matter would mean that it is "physical" under a limited definition (you'll see in LDS parlance that we usually reserve the term physical for the tangible, or temporal aspects of our mortal experience). Undoubtedly, there are some "physical" properties of spirit matter that could presumably be measured - even if only by the "light of Christ" or some equally meaningless means for a physicist who only deals with the empirical.

I haven't seen this addressed, and you keep referencing it, so I thought I'd point out a premise I disagree with and a premise that doesn't necessarily hold true. I don't disagree with this, but I don't necessarily agree with it either. I don't know that everything that is self-existing must have some utility to it (which is how I'm reading this). Be that as it may, it's not the one I take issue with. I would think, building on premise 1, that if the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is either an external cause or the necessity of its own nature. Why can't the universe be eternal? Hawking kicked around the idea that it was in a cycle of expanding and collapsing. Further, if the explanation is an external cause, that cause may be an unembodied mind, or perhaps an unobservable mind, or perhaps a mindless ecology, or perhaps a donkey composed of elements from another universe. You've taken quite a leap here and I'm not ready to hop aboard. Additionally, you're hooked up on if spirit is matter, then it must hold all the same properties of matter of which we're already aware. I don't think this necessarily holds true either. The Prophet both described is as "finer", which lends credence to your idea of having a microscope that has a resolution for finer things, but he also described it as "purer", and I don't know many scientists ready to build a machine to view purer things. What does that mean? how do you do that? are the properties of purer matter the same as observable matter? One other verse for your consideration, the same Prophet seemingly drew a distinction between the matter of spirit bodies and the matter of physical bodies here: Doctrine and Covenants 93:33Â and in passing, regarding your philosophical musings of the chair and the body - your analogy fails if the physical body is not also replacing the purer matter of your spirit every 7 years.

Maybe you should blog about it Anatess. Here's your title: "Kissing a potty mouth is like drinking from the toilet"

What'd you get for your birthday besides that black robe and sickle? Sorry I didn't realize you had company - Is he okay, why's he doubled over in the corner..... You know what, I'll let my self out. Thanks.

I'm pretty sure the Church prefers we call it BYU-junior.

Between that and Cinco de Mayo, Monday was a real Revenge of the Sixth (if you know what I mean).

Thanks all. I celebrated with a nice walk through our local botanical gardens with my family. I'm embarrassed to say I actually laughed after watching this. We should ask Orcapella.

There's been a lot of harping on the connection between Mormon and Masonic ritual, and while that's an old bone that anti's love to gnaw it's not the one getting presented here. I think there have been some good discussion on why this statement is not a simple given. I'll add my own reiteration that symbols have context and should be understood within that context. We should take masons at their word about the meaning of their symbols. Also springboarding off of some earlier comments, all first-hand references that I have seen to a satanic interpretation of masonic symbols come from a work by Albert Pike. The interpretation he shares are different than what I have been given when I ask individual masons. To me, this means that Pike's interpretations, if they were ever the norm, have since fallen out of vogue; or that there is a secret interpretation that is not told to outsiders (such as myself), or perhaps not taught to most initiates (such as those I've chatted with) - but this secret is widely published and available to anyone with a library card or access to the Internet. Somebody presented me with this question: Freemasons and the Illuminati are supposedly'in league with the Devil' to put it bluntly and through deceit and lies aim to heighten themselves and become like Gods. Your friend has presented loose evidence of a masonic tie to Satanism, but has failed to provide sources for Satan's mission statement. You would do him a great disservice to let him get away with such indolence. I've had heard some people make the argument that because the serpent in Genesis taught that Eve would be as God, knowing good and evil, that any such teaching is demonic. But equally demonic would be the teaching that Jesus is the Christ - a claim made by many demons in the New Testament. So he asked me what's the difference - are the LDS people not just subjecting to the same Satanic power-hungry ideology? Thoughts.. opinions. I'm a LDS and I'd like to hear people's opinions on this. So now we've come this far and I'm confused as well. Why did your friend bring up masonry at all? Are we going to discuss masonic teachings? or would you rather discuss the doctrine of the Latter-day Saints and whether it has echoes from the depths of hell? Christ Himself taught that we need to become one with Him and His Father. Paul taught that we are heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. At the very least, the scriptures teach the we are to receive what Christ receives. We take them at their word.

For the sake of clarity, do you object to the unenforceable capacity limit or the background checks for private sales (the "gun show loophole" aspect) or both?

So close. My grandpa played dominoes, not cribbage. When he got down to 5 he would palm them in one hand so you didn't know when he was down to 1 until he tapped it on the table.

When friends of other faiths join me in sacrament meeting I usually give them a heads-up of what to expect. I tell them those who eat the bread and water of the sacrament do so in remembrance of their Lord and to renew their covenants. No one has asked me for further clarifications on whether or not they qualify to partake.

What a depressing doctrine Did you manage to draw out something positive and uplifting from this?

I believe that the Son of God Himself would opt to use 300 precious pence to improve the way His feet smell rather than give it to the poor. I would hope that should this happen again, covenant members will be smart enough to side with their Lord.