mordorbund

Good question.  The Declaration of Independence is a fantastic document, however it is also a product of 13 almost completely independent colonies coming together in unison.  
 
At the beginning of the Continental Congress, one of the most important questions was who would say the opening prayer. The Congregationalist in the New England vs. the Baptists in the South vs. the various other religious colonies.  Unity in the colonies was a monumental task for a simple reason of religion as each colony basically had their own colonial religion.  Luckily some wise men (Sam Adams one of them) helped pick the right person to lead the opening prayer.  
 
Sam Adams was basically vital in helping foment the revolution and keeping it alive to get to the Declaration of Independence.  Without Sam Adams, there would be no revolution.  Adams was a Congregationalist and he was also poor, especially when compared to other delegates like Hancock.  Adams never cared much for wealth or property, at one point he was the tax collector for Boston and let's just say he didn't do a very good job of enforcement.  Jefferson certainly had a basis in Locke and IIRC the phrase was originally to be life, liberty and property.  The choosing of Jefferson, Franklin and John Adams (Sam's cousin) on the committee to write the declaration was important.  Being able to balance all the politics of the various colonies in order to send a completely united voice of independence was vital.
 
Ultimately, I think the phrasing was more palatable for all the representatives to sign, especially for some of the more northern colonies who's religion focused much less on the importance of property.
 
The Declaration is a fantastic document and Locke and Jefferson produced a fantastic groundwork.  But just like science has advance, the ability to extrapolate further upon natural rights has also expanded.  From Locke and Jefferson to Frederick Bastiate, Lord Acton, to Lysander Spooner and Albert Jay Nock, to Mises, Murray Rothbard and others.

Bini, your post implies that it is this economy or this time period that should make couples wary of large families.  Why is this time period any different than another time period?  Why would it be ok for couples 100 years ago to have large families--what's changed that would preclude a large family?

I found this for under $10K.  It's a 2007 Chevy Express 12-passenger.  I guess I solved this string.  Yay me!
 

Thanks. That's the first I've heard of the Gospel Fundamentals manual. For anyone else that's curious, the quoted section can be found here: https://www.lds.org/manual/gospel-fundamentals/chapter-34-the-millennium?lang=eng
 
Unfortunately, the manual doesn't cite its sources. From my knowledge, the first sentence was something Joseph Smith said (you can find it in the JS manual) specifically about governing with Christ, but the first part of the second sentence was taught by Joseph Fielding Smith (the next section in the manual uses the JFS teaching). I have no idea where the second part of the second sentence is coming from (the next section in the manual reaffirms that missionary work will be done, but now the resurrected persons are absent - they're only mentioned with respect to temple work).
 
I'm not trying to pick on you SeminarySnoozer. This is a new teaching for me and I'm trying to find its origin.

Back in the 2010 Worldwide Leadership training, President Monson included some examples similar to the OP's to encourage leaders to familiarize themselves with the Church Handbook of Instruction.
 
 
 
As Estradling points out, it's the presiding authority's place to correct such things and follow up with training.

For some reason, I am reminded of what Tweedle Dee (or Dum) explained to Alice -- perhaps she was just a part of the Red King's dream, and as soon as he woke up, she would cease to exist.
 
I'm no expert on philosophy, but I recall that this was part of DesCartes "I think, therefore I am." axiom. He was trying to find a bedrock principle that could serve as an anchor for his view of existence. Perceptions through the senses could not be fully trusted, because our senses can "lie" to us. Even when dealing with spiritual promptings, sometimes it is possible to misinterpret or to deceive ourselves. I do not know if we can ever know for sure that something is true.
 
 
Perhaps. I agree that God and truth should not be confusing or contradictory. On the other hand, I don't want to be guilty of limiting God/truth to my finite, mortal, imperfect reasoning. As God explained through Isaiah, His ways/thoughts are higher than our ways/thoughts. When something doesn't make sense, is it because it is false, or is it a failure of my logic engine.
 
Right now I'm working on the results of an experiment where the results in many ways don't make sense -- don't follow expected patterns. There are a lot of variables involved, so I am really struggling to decide if it is because the experiment is wrong, or if I have not yet come upon the correct mathematical relationship to describe the relationship between the variables.
 
In many ways, I think some truth, especially religious/theological truth, is in interesting interplay between reason and faith. There are several religious truths that I would be tempted to discard if I refused to believe something that didn't make sense to me. At the same time, there are some religious claims that I reject because I find them irrational. I'm not sure I can explain how those judgements get made, nor do I always feel like they are a "there that is decided" kind of thing. Part of being penitent might be never being quite satisfied that a specific question is definitively answered -- to always be willing to think through concepts again to see if they are still something you want to believe.

Yup. sounds legit. 
 

I'll pick just one, property.  
 
All other rights can be extrapolated from property rights.  Before one can truly understand rights, a clear distinction must be made between legality and morality.  Legality means that a bunch of other people of the ability to forcibly deprive one of their rights.  Morality is a higher law than legality and is what one should do regardless of the legality of something.  A key distinction between morality and legality is should and must, morality is what one should do based upon either an internal conscience, religion, etc.. Legality is what a bunch of other people say one must do. 
 
The most basic property right is the question of who owns me?  Who owns my body?  And the follow-up question is what does it mean to own something.  To own something, means to do with it how one pleases.  If I own my body, and consequently everyone owns their body, then a legal framework should be set up to protect that right.  This means that anytime I do anything to another human being that they do not approve of (i.e. use of force), I should have my own property rights violated.
 
From the fact that I own myself, other property rights are defined, i.e. by extension anything that I make is an extension of me as I have mixed my body, my labor with things in the natural world that have no ownership.  Therefore, anytime that in a basic natural state (i.e. a garden of eden type scenario) anything that I form I have ownership over.  So I modify the land and create a farm, I own it.
 
The extrapolation of property rights can be used to form natural rights of life and liberty and freedom of conscience.  In a complex world, the interleaving of property rights can be very complex but IMO almost all problems in the world can be broken down to a violation of property rights.

Just because you haven't traced your family history doesn't mean your extended family hasn't.

LOL... I would suspect its because the colonies had unlimited land/ property... Just build on it, defend it, and it's yours. Heck. Montana STILL has homesteading.
Meanwhile the sum total of the UK has, at various points, been in the hands of the aristocracy. Whether the Kings land, or the hereditary Lord's the K/Q has given it to, or even in later years when estates were bought and sold... We plebs couldn't own property ourselves. We lived at the discretion of our (literal) land-lord.
Even long after those documents were written and even -to an EXTENT- today,.. Property holding in the UK proper can get pretty dicey. England/Wales/Scotland/Ireland are pretty small islands. Granted the commonwealth extends to Canada & Australia, so it's not desperate like it once was, and even when the US constitution was drawn up, feudalism had already been done away with, so it wasn't as bad as it had been.
________
I think 3 is an English (spoken language) thing. It has a certain ring. Be it friends, Romans, countrymen... Or Life, liberty, & the ___________... It sits well in our hearts & minds. The original sound byte. Longer than 3 requires music or rhyme to have the same bang.
Other languages have other number combos. Or different linguistic tricks to make them memorable/meaningful.
Even old English used a different meter. Beowulf (one of my favs!) splits lines in half, and alliterates them.
_______
So.... Yah. I suspect pragmatism & prose.
Q

I picked life and liberty

that's our word, you have no right using it!

A diplomat knows a woman's birthday but not her age.
 
Since I'm not a woman, I guess it's ok you're not a diplomat

Stop! You're making me blush!
 
 
And with great power comes great.... AWESOMENESS!!!

Yay you!

Happy Birthday!

May the One Ring fall into your hands this day!

hello I was using a friends my phone and saw that it was your birthday and had to log in to wish you a very happy birthday

Happy Birthday !!!

I agree.  He's one of my favorites on the site.  Just love this guy.  :)

A Birthday couldn't happen to a more like-able soul  
Have a great day! 

Happy Birthday.  Hope you have a good day.

Rather than taking the kids out right away, you may consider having one or both of the parents assist for the next few months.

I grew up Mormon; so it was a very evolutionary process for me where the voice of God confirming the truth of these things just grew stronger and stronger.  It wasn't a single "Is this true?" followed by some overwhelming feeling of "YES"; it was a now-uncounted number of positive, confirmatory (I would even go so far as to say "revelatory") experiences generally in line with the phenomena described in Galatians 5:22-23 and 2 Timothy 1:7.
 
 
I don't want to dissuade you from that method; but I think it's important to note the limitations of that method.
 
For example, we can independently confirm that Joseph Smith, Oliver Cowdery, Palmyra, Kirtland, and Nauvoo, really existed--just as described in the Doctrine and Covenants.  We can confirm that Joseph Smith was imprisoned in Missouri at the time D&C 121 says he was; and the remains of that jailhouse still exist.  We can confirm Brigham Young was in Winter Quarters in 1846, just as D&C 136 says he was.  But I doubt anyone would be so brash as to say that archaeology "confirms" that the Doctrine and Covenants is true in every particular--let alone that it confirms the D&C's purported divinely-inspired origin.
 
And of course, I can confirm the existence of places like London and Brighton and Gretna Greene in eighteenth-century England; but that doesn't make Meryton or Longbourn or Pemberley actual places or confirm that Pride and Prejudice is indeed scripture.
 
For people who claim that their embrace of Christianity is based in science/archaeology, or a mixture of rationalism and faith; I would respectfully submit that most of them are unconsciously giving a lot more weight to "faith" (and even the idea that they themselves can receive/have received supernatural communications from God) than their secularized culture would let them admit even to themselves.  Once they come to grips with that, I think Mormonism's admonition to "go pray about it" seems a little less weird.