Nathan6329

Personally I'm having the same problem is you are, but if you don't have a reason you can't go to church, just go. I work 3rd shift and I would never be able to make it during the church hours from 9:30-12:30 because that would be like you going to church from 3-6am. I know and talk to the missionaries but the problem is I don't even know who our bishop is of the ward or our stake leader or anything. I have thought of different ways of trying to work around it but the problem is it just cannot be done. I don't get home until after 7am and it isn't possible to just get an hour of sleep or so and if I went to church and stayed up that would be like pulling an all nighter and I would have no desire to concentrate on any of the teachings or be social with anyone so that kind of takes the purpose of going out. So I am kind of stuck as far as church goes but everything else usually works out fine in my schedule.

I pray every year that my favorite teams will win sports championships and the lord usually doesn't answer that prayer.

The name Jesus doesn't appear anywhere in the Old Testament of the Bible so why do you think the people in the Book of Mormon would have known the name of the messiah but not the people of the Bible?

Well even though callings can come from the lord I believe the church counsel sometimes has the obligation to pick who they think is best as well. If you aren't happy there then it is up to you to speak up and let them know, because don't be fooled into thinking the holy ghost is meant to be a mind reader, they can't read people's thoughts through the holy ghost. They sometimes will only know what you tell them.

If it is a spur of the moment type of thing where they said or did something inconsiderate without really thinking about it I don't think I have ever not forgiven someone who apologized for it. What I'm talking about are things I see as cold blooded plans where people don't even think about how it is gonna hurt our relationship so that makes me believe that they don't care enough about me so I pretty much tell them to never talk to me again.

Enjoying being angry isn't really what I meant to say, because I don't wanna get angry. However, there are a few things I will never forgive people for and those things are friends and family members lying to me and standing me up, doing things behind my back, using me, etc. My medications have suppressed anger and frustration a little bit, but never about those specific situations. One of our family friends before I quit sales a while ago had been talking for me for weeks and I had been answering her questions and gave her all the inside information she needed to know and then she used that and went to someone else just because she has a controlling mother that wanted her to use one of her friends. I have ignored her at gatherings and parties ever since and even made some demoralizing comments trashing her in front of some of her good friends that got a lot of people to lose some respect for me.

Well the point is women were educated in school and at home for the purpose of being a mother and wife. If they couldn't do that they meant nothing to society.

Go to church.

I'm not happy about it, but there are some people out there I was once friends with or got along with anyone that I now have personal hatred and wish the worst luck to because I feel that is the only way I can feel like the score has been evened. I am one of the most forgiving people when it comes to someone who wants to make up for a past action but when someone either does something behind my back or takes advantage of me I usually either say something mean to them that really hurts and feel good about it or I just wish death upon them and enjoy hearing of their misfortunes. My actions in the past had been very bad to the point where I had gotten in trouble for them but now that I have matured to the extent where I am able to control myself for my actions but it really hasn't helped me to forgive anyone and there have been family members that I ignored at weddings and other family gathers and that I have hung up on if they tried calling me. I think what is making it not go away is because I somewhat can't help feeling that my actions to them were justified somehow and I even told my sister in the past that she either uninvited the people that I hated or I wasn't gonna be there. I ended up going but refused to wear a tuxedo or take any part in the wedding and I didn't congratulate her or her husband and sort of spoiled the mood a little bit at the reception. I doubt my sister actually noticed because she was so into getting hammered and that is probably the part she looked forward to the most at her wedding but I can't really say I would have done much differently. The only reasons I really went were so I didn't have to hear the guilt from my family for the rest of my life, and I had sort of a family business relationship to which I didn't wanna lose my clients over it. The problem is the answer is not really as simple as just getting over it. I have been cursed with anger and depression throughout my life. **Note, I meant to say "personal" hatred***

Yeah, watch Titanic. Pay attention to the scene where she says the purpose of a University is to find a suitable husband.

Right now it sort of sounds like your only issue is with plural marriage. This is only an opinion but keep in mind the concept of an unwed woman in society was pretty much unthinkable. Women went to college in hope of finding a suitable husband someday. That was even a belief until like the mid-1900s. The fact that there were at times and over-population of women and many women couldn't own property without a husband or make ends meet by themselves may have had something to do with it, whether or not it does I'm not sure of. The fact is that it was abolished in 1890 and the ones that still do it today use being Mormon as an excuse to sleep around with multiple women, even though they don't have a record of membership with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. I've been a Catholic and now I'm a Mormon, and they are nothing alike.

Like I said, whether or not women are capable of doing just as good work for the church as men isn't the point. However, I do think women being part of a priesthood would really completely change everything the church is and has ever been.

I am not saying the revelation in 1978 is phony, but I think they may have waited too long to acknowledge it because I don't believe you receive revelations until there is much prayer involved in it which is what they did in Kirtland, Ohio before receiving the word of wisdom which never would have happened had Emma not have been sick of cleaning all the tobacco spit between the ceiling cracks. However, I guess I wasn't totally correct but I just have a bad feeling about something like that ever changing because all of the prophets and leaders throughout the Bible and Book of Mormon have been men and I hold a conservative attitude to that. It isn't the same as giving up smoking or an issue of racism. Should a woman try to sue the church for discrimination, I don't think the church would pray for a revelation and if they did I still don't think they'd budge, which is why even if a prophet does say he received such a revelation that will be something very huge bigger than anything that has been changed before and I would have to pray for weeks about that one and my faith in the church might be shaken.

I'm actually going to get the book called "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist" which is recommended by many religious people. If anyone else wants to get a copy of it so we can talk about it that would be hot.

What happened to FunkyTown? He never finished his explanation.

That is a very flawed argument though, because the church is a private organization which funds are contributed through it's own members. I think that was just a theory in my opinion that either someone made up, or the church took it too seriously. For example, a black guy can't sue the KKK for not allowing him membership. Why is an employer not allowed to discriminate based on sexual orientation and yet the Boy Scouts of America can? Just because someone is gay they don't have a case that they are a harm to the children. So every time someone mentions some garbage about a lawsuit I toss it out because they would have never won and I think the church knew that. I think maybe it could have opened their eyes to the fact that the threat of having blacks serving as leaders creating hate crimes against the religion like it would have in the late 1800s to the 1960s was no longer there due to a more acceptable society in which we learned from people like Sitting Bull, Chief Joseph, and Martin Luther King that it is wrong to deny people blessings based on race, but do I believe the church was really afraid of losing a court case over it? No.

Okay let me try to understand this... Are you saying that even though Atheists know what the right and wrong decisions are that they are denying the source to which it came from which is God, and our morals are based a lot on our society and influences as a whole which God may be the seed of?

Quite honestly I don't know what to say because I am going to have to read this a few more times before I understand a word of it. No offense.

Well I intend to pray about this some more and ask of God not to make any rash changes then.

So wouldn't organized religion be what we choose to tell us what is right and wrong and not what we believe?

I'm choosing not to serve a mission because I don't want to, plain and simple. I know I can't do it and I would either quit before the training was over or get kicked out so why waste my time? Missions aren't required.

I think everyone is kind of missing my point. If you weren't religious would that change your lifestyles? If you answered yes are you saying that you are doing the things you do to please God or because you believe it is right personally? Just because someone becomes Atheist doesn't necessarily mean they have to start sinning. Shouldn't we know what is right and what is wrong either way? I apologize to everyone for playing Devil's Advocate. Just trying to pretend to be someone else so I can get a full perspective.

I'm not talking about those issues. There are much more logical explanations for those.

I'm just saying I would have a hard time believing a prophet was speaking the truth if the allowed women in the priesthood. Say as time goes on we get a more liberal society and we constantly get harped on for not allowing women the same opportunities as men and then shortly thereafter they announce women will be allowed to hold the priesthood. Doesn't that seem kind of a like a coincidence?

Let's just hope the prophet never says that because I really would prefer this religion not be liberalized.