estradling75

It is not your past mistakes we are seeing... It is your current actions from your own mouth that you are being judged on

Repentance is a fundamental change of heart. It is not a check-list of things you say and do.. For those that have the task of judging and helping with repentance (like a bishop) can't see a person's heart. Therefore they have gauge the change of heart by the change in actions. Someone who has had a fundamental change of heart (aka repentance) about breaking of a temple covenant (aka the Law of Chasity) is going to behave fundamentally differently then they did before they had the change of heart. Someone truly repentant of breaking the Law of Chasity will either work toward marriage or work toward being clearly separated (even if they have commitments that keep them in each others lives, like kids). Someone who moves in with and continues to call the other their Boy/Girl Friend is not bringing forth the fruits of repentance. Those who have the task of judging repentance are totally correct find the person to be unrepentant. If said person is also ignoring counsel and defying instructions, well then it is very clear. Said person is failing and needs to repent. Thinking that it is all done and should be behind them is in serious error and said error needs correcting.

And isn't that the real point? We should not need someone like Heather to point out that we need to really understand things before we jump on the "I'm offended", "This person is wrong", etc, etc bandwagons. Doing so leaves us vulnerable being manipulated, used and lead astray. We are instructed to listen, to ponder, and pray, and that is the answer we should be giving to everyone that might otherwise be struggling.

Or you could simply acknowledge that taking comments "out of context" is underhanded tactic of liars and con-men. And that everyone including our leaders have the right to have there comments taken in context and the way the person meant it to be

We are suppose to follow the leaders because we have a spiritual witness that they are God's chosen. Sadly too many neglect that witness. If we follow because we like and agree with them then we will falter when they tell us things we do not like (which will happen). We also recognize that God's chosen are also flawed humans like everyone else so we do not take every act and every word they utter as God breathed or expect God to be puppeting their every action. Rather we consider what they say and do in their official capacity. Even then we acknowledge that they are a flawed delivery system and therefore we should focus on what God is trying to tell us through them, rather then getting hung-up because they did not express themselves the way we would have wished.

Case in point... The blurb is suppose to make a person want to read more... When I read this blurb I was ready to Ban the poster. I had (and still have) no interest in reading further. This was a failure in cross advertising (even if the article eventually redeemed itself)

It is also interesting to note in the scriptures the two different types of people that get "hurt" by the words of a Prophet. First and Most Common... Sinners who do not want to hear it. I think it was Mormon who noted that his people complained about his Sharpness... And his response was this 4 Behold, I am laboring with them continually; and when I speak the word of God with sharpness they tremble and anger against me; and when I use no sharpness they harden their hearts against it; wherefore, I fear lest the Spirit of the Lord hath ceased striving with them. then there is also Nephi when dealing with is brothers complains about his word choices his response was this 2 And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center. Both response I could see President Oaks using when people complain about his comments That is the first type... Here is the second type. It is rarer but it still exist. We find the example from Jacob. 9 Wherefore, it burdeneth my soul that I should be constrained, because of the strict commandment which I have received from God, to aadmonish you according to your crimes, to enlarge the wounds of those who are already wounded, instead of consoling and healing their wounds; and those who have not been wounded, instead of feasting upon the pleasing word of God have daggers placed to pierce their souls and wound their delicate minds. This is not nearly as common, but as Jacob noted when the Lord commands, the Prophet has to even though it grieves him to do so. Sadly many look for a reason not to listen, instead of letting the discomfort work on them to repentance and greater discipleship

This just reinforces my understanding of how the Liberal/Progressive view things. "Good" people never do or think anything wrong. If you are a "Good" person you are never weak, you never make a mistake, no youthful indiscretions you will always be Good. There for anyone that ever acknowledged doing something wrong, being weak, making a mistake etc... Is "Evil" and needs to be destroyed. This is of course foolishness. Everyone has done something wrong, everyone has moments of weakness, everyone makes mistakes

I was talking Legally (because we are talking Laws in this thread)... Legally no we do not... If we had the Legal Understanding of Human life that you gave here, Roe vs Wade would have never happened. This law from New York would have never had a chance. If we want a long term legal victory on this subject it must be on the basis that fetus are Human and therefore entitled to basic Human rights. Letting the argument be about choice and the mother's body is an argument we will never win.

Simple line is... is a fetus 'Human'? If the unborn is Human then we already have plenty of Law and Ethical standards, and Religious Guidance on when it might be acceptable to kill (The mother acting in Self Defense is right up there). If the unborn is not Human then it is property to be used or disposed of as the owner wishes. We also already have this covered in Laws, Ethics, and Religious Guidance. We do not have a clear understanding of when the unborn goes from a mass of cells (aka property) to a Human. And that is the problem. Sadly some of the greatest tragedies in our History come from people treating other people as property. Slavery, the Holocaust, etc are just a few. I know those that support elective abortion are on the wrong side of God, and I predict they will find themselves on the wrong side of History.

And yet and yet all you have to do is listen to their cries to realize it was a victory in the minds of the Pro-life opponents... Or to turn it around on you... You are calling this New York Law a victory but one states unproven law is weak sauce. It is the Supreme Court that decides the Laws of the land. Until the Supreme Courts rules the New York Law is just as much a victory (or not a victory) as the Conservative appointment to the Court.

That is a possibility... However you were claiming the pro-life had not been successful lately... When in fact the pro-life recent success with the Supreme Court caused all kinds of heart-burn, and outrage from the anti-life folks

You mean like unsuccessful in retaking the Supreme Court? Now all we have to do is wait until and abortion law gets challenged all the way up. Oh hey look what law New York just passed... Something toxically repulsive enough to over come the conservative bias in favor of existing law.

I was not asking for help.... I was using a personal example to show why some people might have questions in this section. I neither wanted or asked for you to tell me how you did not have a problem with those questions, (and therefore dismiss it) because everyone is going to have different issues. Basically saying it is "Not an Issue" does not help anyone who is really struggling. (and again I use this as an example not an invitation)

I was sharing my personal experience I had reading the scriptures including the questions I asked myself while reading. The fact that you found the question to be irrelevant it fine for you but more then a bit insulting to imply that my question should have been self evident to me.

Maybe not for you.... Maybe (and apparently not) for Nephi. But it did not for me. Now you can continue to imply and infer that stupid and inferior because I did not make the connection that is plain as day to you. But it does not change that I did not and it appears that I am not the only one.

That is how you read it.. Not how I have read it in the past... I have read it several times wondering how Nephi got that point... Now I fully admit that I have struggled with symbolism in the past. If you tell me the Tree represents the Love of God I can accept it... but who told Nephi? The Angel did not. I have no problem with the idea of Nephi being smarter, more spiritual, better versed in symbolism the I am so I accept it, but it does not mean I followed how he got there.

Some typos are just embarrassing I think part of the difficultly lies with how Nephi tells the story. Nephi: "I want to know what the tree means/stands for" Angel: <Shows the Mother of the Son of God> "Now do you know what the tree means?" Nephi: "The Love of God" Me: "Say what? How did you get to that? Clearly there is context here that Nephi knew and that I do not... Because that is a huge leap from what I see and Nephi gets it right.." If we are pondering and likening the scriptures that can be a bit of a puzzler

I think you might have that reversed... Canaanites borrowing the imagery of the Heavenly Mother to create Asherah.. I think there are alot of pagan mythology that are distorted and twisted 'truths.' Having said that I think one of the reason we do not know more about subjects such as Heavenly Mother, is that the Path is through Christ. (not anyone else, including Heavenly Mother). Sadly the moment some people learn of her, they throw Christ under the bus and focus on her.

More importantly... Such direction for political activity would come from the Top down (aka From Christ, to his prophets, to the general church membership) not from the Bottom up (aka from potential converts, to general membership, to the prophet, finally to Christ). While there is plenty of room for an 'individual' to be engaged in whatever 'Good Thing' they find, your several attempts to dictate what the Relief Society or Priesthood or Church should do are wrong minded. We are a Kingdom lead by a King. Not a democracy lead by the masses

And that is the marriage problem they are talking about. You and your husband should be one and able to be adults and work through disagreements to come to mutually acceptable arrangement. The fact that you feel this way is the red flag that your marriage is failing and needs to be fixed. Your BIL might be the stressor that brought your marriage flaws into view but he is not the cause of such flaws.

And I think the IDEA that someone has to lose BIG is the problem. Trump wants the wall. He is making that big and clear (it is important to his base). The wise thing would be for the Democrats to find something they want (that is important to their base) and go to the negotiating table. This has a making for a classic win win... But the Democratic leadership is showing no signs of having a plan or agenda to help their base.. All they have is STOP Trump. They need a much better plan then that or they lose again.

Lets walk through this and examine the paradoxes we get due to our limited understanding. Paradoxes caused our limited understanding of two of God's characteristics. God's ability to plan, and God's respect for Agency (aka our ability to make our own choices) The standard Biblical Christian Idea is that God's plan was for us all to be in paradise (like Adam and Eve in the Garden). But if that was the plan.. why put the Tree of Knowledge in the Garden in the first place? If that was God's plan. Then Adam and Eve wrecked it like Ralph. That would make Christ and his Atonement a Plan B. There are some clear problem with God's ability to plan under this understanding of events. Basically God sucked at planning and was forced into a plan of suffering because Adam and Eve did something he did not account for. This is clearly paradoxical based on what we are told about God. With this limited Biblical Christianity understanding one should be angry at God for the crappy plan, but God can't be a crappy planner so the anger displaces to Adam and Eve. If they had not screwed up we would all be in Paradise right now. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint claim additional light and knowledge beyond the standard Biblical Christianity. *We do not however claim Total Light and Knowledge. Just more.* Our additional light and knowledge clears up the paradox. A lot of this is done through Lehi in the Book of Mormon. Lehi makes it clear that Adam and Eve did not rob us of our chance to live in the Garden, that was never an option. That God's plan required Adam and Eve to fall to put things into motion. Christ and his Atonement was not Plan B but rather the First and only plan. This handled the old paradox that was caused by limited understanding, but it raises some other questions. Since we do not have Total Light and Knowledge we still have a limited understanding and this can make for some apparent paradoxes. We know that God's initial plan is still working, and was in no danger of failing. However it is one thing to say that God's plan can Handle Sin. No plan would be effective if it could not. But it is another thing entirely to say that God's plan Required Sin. Saying that God's plan would have been frustrated by a lack of sin is just as problematic as saying it would have been frustrated by sin. We are limited because we are only told what happened, what Adam and Eve did. And it appears that Sin was "required" which has issues. Many resolve this by stating that it wasn't really a sin. That Eve lacked the fundamentals needed to have Agency and thus Sin. (Aka she was an innocent child) There is a lot of support for this idea. A smaller group thinks its a bit problematic to try to weasel ones way out of disobedience. Maybe one does consider it a Sin, maybe one does not. However the idea that God's plan required Adam and Eve to make one and only one choice for the plan to work is problematic no matter how much Light and Knowledge one might have.

Indeed... As a point of clarification though. If the church itself quotes Handbook 1 (say in a press release) you can post a link to the official church page that does so... You just can not reproduce the quote here. Basically the for us the Church controls all expressions of Handbook 1... This is true of any restricted church content. Say for example the temple ceremonies. If the church were to publish them we would allow links to the official publication but we do not allow reproduction of any part of them here.

Indeed... we read in D&C 130: 2 And that same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy. We do not have an Eternal Glory now per the D&C...Most understandings of the Degrees of Glory... well require some Glory. Could we be in Telestial world without Telestial Glory right now? Sure why not. But to be the Telestial Kingdom we need a Telestial Glory as most people would understand and use the term.