eddified

OK my turn. My cousin is married to my wife's sister. His kids and my kids are therefore both (a) cousins through their moms and (b) second cousins through their dads. I collect yo-yos. I own over 400 of them and have a website cataloging them. I drive a 15 passenger van because of my many children.

I'm guessing #3 is the lie.

My 9 year old son is starting to figure this out. He recently observed, "cool people aren't cool".

People who are hurting due to being dumped/being used must go through the stages of grief. There are no shortcuts. But she will get over it, it just takes time.

(Here is where I go off topic right after suggesting that we return back to topic, ah, fickle me.) @Grunt, my understanding is that "the basics" is not open to personal interpretation and must be followed strictly. This means no alcohol, coffee, tea, smoking (of any kind), or illegal drugs. Beyond this, yes, it's open to personal interpretation. From https://www.lds.org/topics/word-of-wisdom?lang=eng , the following items are proscribed.

I don't drink green tea. My mission president told us not to. However, I also realize it's not something to argue over. There are more important things to worry about... now back to Loudlovefest conversation?

Ask Gramps said, and I quote, "The Word of Wisdom also never states that coffee is okay as long as it is 99% caffeine free. It says coffee."

I don't see many similarities. The missionaries stated truly, but didn't say what in my mind is a much bigger issue: decaffeinated coffee is still coffee. Nowhere did the Lord or its leaders say that coffee was to be avoided because of its caffeine. No, coffee is to be avoided because it is coffee. The official teaching is that coffee is to be avoided, caffeinated or not. Decaffeinated coffee is definitely against the Word of Wisdom, there is no grey area about this. Edit: found the "ask gramps" article and he basically says what I just said. https://askgramps.org/decaffeinated-coffee/

I'm excited for the 2045 eclipse, it goes right over where I live (and hope to still be living): http://americaneclipseusa.com/future-usa-eclipses/

I understand the concerns with the church statement. I also support the church's statement. I think the concern stems from the acknowledgment that homosexuality is an extremely gross abomination, so when the church makes a statement with a positive element to it, and pro-homosexuality groups are on the receiving end of the statement, it just makes one go "hmmm", at the visceral level. But when you see what the church is actually saying in this case, and think about it more logically, it's not hard to agree with the statement.

When people want "safe spaces" without whites, I'm not really offended. I do feel excluded, but I don't really care. Let them have their white-free safe spaces. If that's how they want to use their constitutionally guaranteed right to exercise their freedom of association, it doesn't harm me.

Ah, yes. I agree, if we're going to make something about skin color then it feels exclusionary. Same as if someone wants to celebrate Black History month--again, it's about skin color, so it's exclusionary. But I think perhaps people are more sensitive when it's about race vs cultural factors. I don't see people going around saying, "I'm not part German, so you should stop celebrating German heritage". When we celebrate German heritage, one could say it is exclusionary towards non-Germans. But no one does. No one says this; no non-Germans get offended when it's time to celebrate Germain heritage.... yet when it's about race, it becomes an issue... why is that? (I don't have the answers, I'm honestly wondering why this is the case.) Edit: likewise, one doesn't have to be white to celebrate white history, so what's the big deal? I guess I don't see your point.

Love this! Thank you for sharing. I completely agree that it "behooves" the church to denounce racism.

I like your comment, and thank you for making it. I didn't know many of the things you said. Once again, thanks! I see you were answering the question about why you think she really means "white race". OK. Got it. However, I'm really wondering about "white culture" and when it is or isn't OK to use the term, what the term means, and when it is or isn't OK to celebrate the white race or "white culture". My questions echo the questions of "Big Brutha", (some random commenter on the internet). Quote below copied from this link: http://disq.us/p/1lecg25 I'm just asking. I don't really have any skin in the game, so to speak. I'm not one to use the term "white culture" so I'm just wondering what to think of it. Edit: sorry @Just_A_Guy, I now see that your post does help dispel some additional confusion I was seeing.

I looked at her twitter page. I really dislike how she is speaking about the church and its statement. I agree with the sentiment of the church statement. Of course white supremacy is wrong! But I think there is some middle ground area which we could discuss here. "Wife With A Purpose" (the twitter handle for the LDS blogger) is on dangerous ground. Yet, she denies saying anything about whites being better (white supremacy).. in fact one of her tweets says she "never claim[ed] supremacy of any kind". If you ignore her re-tweets (stuff she didn't write) and ignore her tweets rebuking the Church's recent newsroom blog post, and look at only what she herself has penned about white culture and white supremacy (and do so in a spirit of trying to understand where she is coming from), I don't think you'll find anything supporting white supremacy.... at least, I didn't find anything supporting white supremacy, at least not directly. What I did find was promotion of "white culture". She seems to be protesting the fact that to be politically correct, we can't celebrate white culture, we can only celebrate non-white culture. If you understand her as supporting white culture but NOT supporting white supremacism, then, as I understand it, her only issue with the church's recent newsroom blog post is where it condemns "white culture". Here is the part of the church's newsroom blog post that I believe she has issues with: I'm guessing that her definition of "white culture" might differ from the definition of "white culture" as used in the church's recent newsroom blog post? (Based her specifically denouncing white supremacy, this is my best guess.) What do you think? What is your definition of "white culture"? Are there any definitions of "white culture" which you would could accept as something to promote/celebrate? Is there room for any celebration of white culture, while simultaneously avoiding white supremacy? @Just_A_Guy, why do you assume she means "race" when she talks about "culture"? For that matter, assuming one supports celebrating the black race (ex: "Black History Month"), is it still wrong in all cases to celebrate the white race? @Just_A_Guy, is it always wrong to talk about white culture (and thereby "poison the well")? Is there a way to talk about "white culture" without really meaning "white race"? I ask these questions of all, not really trying to pick on @Just_A_Guy specifically. Hm, come to think of it, "white" *is* a race, so when one says "white culture", it's really hard to not take this as meaning the "white race". NOTES: I'm asking for discussion of the more "middle ground" area. Of course white supremacy is evil. In this forum comment, whenever I mentioned the church's recent newsroom blog post, I meant this: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/church-statement-charlottesville-virginia And here is the link to the Twitter feed of the Twitter user "Wife With A Purpose": https://twitter.com/apurposefulwife?lang=en Disclaimers: I'm not the type of person to care about "white culture" or to want to celebrate the white race or white culture or what-have-you. I guess I tend to think that promoting the culture of any race tends to be an "-ites" type of thing (Zoramites, Lamanites, etc) and should be avoided generally. And I suppose this is an answer to the questions I posed above: promoting/celebrating any race is to be avoided. I denounce white supremacy. I denounce violence. I condemn the actions of the people (on both sides) at the white supremacist rally who acted violently. As I read the twitter posts of "Wife With A Purpose", I skipped over her re-tweets. I did not read them. If the re-tweets make it sound as if she supports white supremacy, (and, assuming she does NOT support white supremacy), then she should be more careful about what she re-tweets.

Did you think I said you were a Nehor? I made it quite clear that I was not saying you are a follower of Nehor.

I loved the suggestion of chiasmus and hebraisms, as well as stylometry (referred to above in this thread as "wordprint", which has to do with identifying authors using statistical analysis - I looked it up and apparently the preferred term is "stylometry"). I'd heard about stylometry but not read anything about its application to the Book of Mormon. Loved what I found here: https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Book_of_Mormon/Wordprint_studies The story of how chiasmus was found in the Book of Mormon is a fun one:

I believe that most people who keep trying will not necessarily notice improvement in the short term, but on the order of years (or decades) you should be able to notice progress.

I've read your ideas in other threads as well. Respectfully, I offer the following thought: I was reading the scriptures to my children, and came across this verse: It suddenly struck me that this sounds very similar to what you are professing. Whose teaching is this in Alma 1:4? It was Nehor's. Also, this FairMormon link says that a "doctrine of a type of universal salvation" (one where everyone is exalted) is one main indicator of a "modern Nehor". Now, I admit this is not exactly what you are teaching (but if I quantify it, there is only a 2% difference). I'm not saying you are a Nehor. I'm only claiming that your idea sounds awfully close to what Nehor taught.

Well, yes and no. I think we should be very concerned firstly about our own family, then our friends and neighbors. I'm talking about the kind of concern that makes you go out of your way and labor for the salvation of others. (Missionary work, prayer & fasting for others, temple work, home & visiting teaching). I understand your comment to indicate that we shouldn't have much, if any, of the kind of concern that is worried about numbers and statistics, and that I agree with. Just pointing out that there is a lot of room for us to righteously worry about others making the Celestial kingdom.

Does it rhyme with "star gazing"?

Yeah it's the style to have stubble. Yes facial hair grows at different lengths for different men. My brother went to BYU. There is a rule that you should shave each day. He constantly was asked by the folks at the testing center whether he had shaved that day and the answer was always an honest "yes". He just grows it faster. Then he finally got a beard card (medical reasons -- shaving irritates his skin) and rarely had his beard card checked.. apparently if you have a beard at BYU everyone just assumes you have a beard card. XD I hate shaving. It takes time and my skin is a bit sensitive to it. I usually just keep some stubble. I'm sure I look better without the stubble (I'm not one of those men that looks good with a beard as I don't have much facial hair at all) but it's a comfort thing for me.

I've hurt people using sarcasm. So I gave it up*. I don't think it is a desirable quality. *At least, as far as I understand what sarcasm is.

??? I don't get it.

This is incredibly kind of you! I give a big thanks to anyone who does this!