NightSG

There's also no rule that couples must conceive on the honeymoon. IMO, the ones who find the right person then put off marriage waiting to finish school, get financially stable, etc. are almost as bad as the ones that rush into marriage with the first partner that passes their "must have" list.

If you're doing it right, you should probably at least pray for no major strains

If you're waiting for God to take off your bra, I think I see the source of most of your stress.

According to my ex, not putting the lid down is screwing up royally, and she was sick of it before we were even married.

Probably; consider that in a lot of languages of the time, a leader's name would often be a single character. (Presumably it would be written a lot, so this would be much more efficient.) Assuming that a common identifier like "brother of" would also be a single character, it would be two characters compared to whatever it would have taken to - most probably phonetically - spell out his full name.

Whenever I feel like closing my eyes in traffic it seems like a good time to pray.

The problem comes when they don't postpone marriage, but do postpone maturing enough to pick the right mate.

IMO, the problem isn't the age, it's that there's more emphasis on getting married than on choosing a suitable mate. I know several women who, in the rush to get married because they were under pressure from parents and church, ended up with abusive and/or unfaithful men. I know a few men who had the same problems.

I figure if He didn't want to hear from me when I'm naked, He wouldn't have made me that way.

Just follow the scriptures. Rev 21:8 But the fearful, and unbelieving, and the abominable, and murderers, and whoremongers, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars, shall have their part in the lake which burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death. All liars, not just big liars. Proverbs 6:16 These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: 17 A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, 18 An heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, 19 A false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren. Seven abominations, and two of them are lying. I could go on all day. (Literally; I've done it, and my friend has almost forgiven me for it...but she stopped trying to justify "little white lies" to me after that.) If you'll look back through threads I've started in here, one of them is about this very thing, and mentions that I found 118 times that we're told to tell the truth, or not to lie, or people are praised for honesty or condemned for dishonesty. Not once in all the scriptures is there a single mention of the size or significance of the lie.

I once took a soccer ball to the face that made me feel a lot closer to Him for a few minutes.

One that actually likes shredded carrots.

Have you tried leaving some puddles of blood, bits of fur, and strange symbols carved in the walls around the house? After a couple weeks of that, ask your parents "I'm tired of satanism, can I be a Mormon instead?" Sometimes parents just need a bit of perspective. (In case you didn't know, the above is humor, and I take no responsibility if you try it and fail. If you try it and succeed, I want video.)

So, was it flame retardant?

Reminds me of an incident a few years back where a sheriff's department burned a huge pile of mj outside of a small town. Seems the wind shifted, and the local grocery store had a run on snack foods. No violent crime in the town for a couple days, though.

It's an interesting parallel to a few other things in the Bible. Lot's wife is never named, and IIRC, (IOW, I'm too lazy to reach two feet for a Bible and look it up) only one of the synoptic gospels names the servant whose ear Simon Peter cut off, or names Simon Peter as the one doing the cutting, for that matter. The brother of Jared is interesting in that he has so much mention only by relation, when he himself is particuarly significant, but leaving someone unnamed is not entirely unique in scripture.

I've known too many who, even years after a bad relationship, still only even dated when their friends would pressure them to. I've seen that both inside and outside the church, though it does seem less prevalent in the church.

I think Mark 12:30 (among several others) pretty well sums up the Spirit of the Law. If you honestly and wholeheartedly love the Lord, you won't do things that He doesn't like just because they're easier for you than the things He does like. Think about your earthly family; you love them, and want to make them happy. You may not do everything exactly the way they want you to, but you do try, and usually not for any incentive, positive or negative, beyond their happiness. The same principle should apply to making your Heavenly Father happy with you. Right, but what I'm getting at is that we shouldn't need to have the reward promised to us in the first place. It should be enough that we will make Him happy if we do what He says. As a convert, with something of a past, I do know a bit about the "fun" they're "missing out on," and it ain't that great. I can't imagine going into it knowing what they could have in the church, and still thinking it's better to separate from that for any length of time to do those things.

I think the problem here is that women are more often "single and not looking right now," and men generally assume that's the case. That, and it's sometimes hard to know if a woman is interested or just being nice.

Another of my opinions that I just feel the need to share. This is something that I often feel isn't addressed to the extent that it seems to need. I picked up the concept from a Methodist sermon, but then sort of ran with it for a bit. You can't give away what you don't own free and clear. That includes letting Christ take on your sins. It's not enough just to recognize or accept that you have sinned, you have to own that sin in full. You can't truly repent when you're saying "I did it because," or trying to lay any part of the blame on someone else. Effectively, that's saying that you would do it again under the same circumstances. If it was truly justified by the circumstances, it wouldn't have been a sin at all. Even if there were serious earthly consequences to not sinning, you have to be willing to say "I, and ultimately I alone placed earthly consequences over eternal ones and committed this act by my own decision, and even should the identical situation arise again, I will steadfastly strive to do the right thing from now on." Only then are you truly forsaking the sin.

How important is the underlying reason one does good things or refrains from doing bad things? I've sometimes felt that about 90% of scripture is just supporting documentation for the incentive based righteousness that I think is more of a "fake it 'til you make it" approach. Fear of punishment or desire for reward shouldn't be the reason we do something right, but simply love for Christ and gratitude for His atonement. If we could live righteously only out of love for Him, then we wouldn't need all the stories about good things happening to good people and bad things happening to bad ones, just a list of what He wants us to do or not do. One other advantage to this is the effect that it has on the "I'll do what I want to do and repent later" mindset; in effect this is saying "Savior, my earthly reasons for doing this are more important to me than keeping Your burden as light as I can, so I'm going to count on You still being too nice to refuse me later." That's not something one would lightly ask of a loved one, and certainly not on a regular basis for minor gains.

Why are we even discussing this when it would be so much more fun to determine experimentally? What's the point of having missionaries in Italy if they won't try for the big prize?

Why do you think this? Somewhere out there is a guy that's looking for you. Speaking as a 36 year old divorced man who converted during the divorce, I can say for sure that it's just as hard for guys to remember to keep looking until you find the right one, no matter how slim the pickings may seem. That said, no matter how hard it is to find even one, don't fall into the trap of just grabbing the first one that comes along. Stick to the old advice of not taking a mate you think you can live with, but only one you don't want to think about living without. I wish I had done that.

But what if the infraction is still paying its tithing? Is it really inactive?

Well, if I were going to do it, it would only be kept as an encrypted file on the computer, and the passphrase would die with me. Why take pictures of the kids when you can just conceive another one?