thebeliever

Exactly! Repentance can never fully put you on the same ground as the non-repentant person! Both you and Dravin seem to agree that it's good to know someone's past. Does it matter whether a pedophile repents? Will you still let that person watch your kids? Most likely not!

Then why did you call it my dad's quote a gem of wisdom?

I am not disagreeing with myself. I gave other examples of why I don't trust people who have violated the Law of Chastity. After reading what I wrote, you're right - I should have included a transition from my dad's quote. The first statement is my dad's position, and the second is my position. Apparently the first is your position as well?

Nice stealth edit. What egregious factual errors?

He was supporting my position! That gem of wisdom was "All you need to know whether you can trust someone is whether they have a temple recommend." Some people have always had a temple recommend through all of their adulthood. That's all you need to know about someone to know whether you can trust them.

Brigham Young once said "that I have never given counsel that is wrong" (Journal of Discourses, 16:161). If he takes such a strong stance on all of his counsel, then how can you tell whether any of his counsel is worthwhile? If you throw out part of what he says, then where do you end? That seems like a slippery slope. You can't throw out what he says! He was a prophet!

You could draw attention to me disagreeing with my dad, but it doesn't matter if I disagree with my dad, because he probably has said very many contradictory things (like ALL of us). He sometimes repeats that story of whether anyone would want to eat a cupcake that has been licked which most people won't (geez dad you don't have to repeat that so often..) - and I have to agree with him.

Yup. If someone smokes and quits, you try to keep them as far away from smoking as possible because they might enjoy it so much that they can't stand to be around it without doing it. It's like that. You can't change the past and you'll always carry something from the past with you.

I read the Bible and Book of Mormon everyday. I love them both. The Book of Mormon is upheld higher than the Bible because it is new revelation and more correct than the Bible. The Bible has passed through so many hands and people have changed it over time so it's nice to have the Book of Mormon to know what hasn't changed.

Is that a good thing or a bad thing?

Absolutely. You lose the spirit which will impair your decision making in the future. Just because someone starts saving for their retirement when they are 45 doesn't mean they'll ever catch up to the people who start saving when they are 30.

I like debating because sometimes you get a new opinion and other times you help someone else get a new opinion. It doesn't help anyone if you just stick only with people who only agree with you. I don't think anyone really grows from that. Now if there's someone that gets angry with you or if you get angry, then it's probably time to do something else.

What if the highest level is marriage, and the lower two are split between men and women? That way they could take on the different roles and abilities of men and women, so that the bottom two are ministering angels. Or what if the top is people who fulfill the law of polygamy, the middle is for people who just have one spouse and one wife, and the bottom is for people who never marry? Just spouting out ideas here.

I do realize that. All I'm saying is that that person is not for me. I just don't want to take the chance. It's like dating a murderer - if they murdered someone, wouldn't you be afraid that would murder someone again? You take precaution.

I would never date someone who violated the law of chastity, even if they fully repented of it. This means that I couldn't trust them. And if I can't trust them with this big thing, then I wouldn't be able to trust them with small things. My dad tells me sometimes, "All you need to know whether you can trust someone is whether they have a temple recommend." If someone broke the law of chastity, then they could no longer go to the temple.

I have a question - in Declaration 1 it says: "The Lord will never permit me or any other man who stands as President of this Church to lead you astray. It is not in the program. It is not in the mind of God. If I were to attempt that, the Lord would remove me out of my place." But, what does this really mean? This revelation seems so clear, but I think its really vague. Like, what does it mean to "remove [the prophet] out of [his] place"? I used to think that it meant that God would make the prophet die and not let a person become prophet through divine coincidence, but what if God just takes his Priesthood away and doesn't do anything spectacular? That's possible isn't it, because that's what happened so often in the past with all of the apostasies? Or, what if it means that the apostles or seventies are supposed to vote him out of office, because they have as much authority together as the prophet, and there's those sections in DC that talk about what to do when the prophet goes astray. And then, what does it even mean to let "lead you astray". Obviously the prophet isn't perfect. And different prophets sometimes disagree with past prophets. Is there like some type of "led astray" threshold? For example, if you go out to lunch with the prophet and he suggests that you would really like a certain type of sandwich, you order it, and you don't like it - did the prophet lead you astray? How do you tell the difference between when the prophet is being a prophet, because he totally could know what sandwich you like, versus when he's not? Does he have to say, "Thus saith the Lord"? Any thoughts would be nice since this is a big question for me.