The Folk Prophet

I don't think it refers to natural state of anything, but the general mental state of the time.

Once I was discussing our ADD with my brother and he said, "Remember when we were kids and it was just called being bad?"

Yep. See my response to @estradling75 just prior to this one. Fully agree. People like to think they understand. Even I do. But we don't.

Sure...but that doesn't mean it isn't maybe true. What I do know is that there's WAY more to the eternities than we can even begin to try and comprehend.

Sure. But if it's a true principle, and if anyone practices it in the eternities, then it means more exalted women than men.

Moreover, even IF statistically more women make it to the Celestial Kingdom than men (which, you know....considering plural marriage.... but I digress....), the assumption that therefore any given woman is more righteous than any given man is classic biased stereotyping.

Happiness is not so simple though. The principle of losing our life to find our life, sacrifice bringing blessing, and that joy comes from faith, righteousness, humility, service, obedience, and effort, are not intuitive to the human (natural man) condition. People are (in their fallen "natural man" way) seeking self-fulfillment, money, pleasure, and ease, laughter, fun, and a painless existence. The gospel does not intuitively provide these things (though it does in a round about way). The core principles of Christ's gospel amount to denying oneself and taking up one's cross to follow the Savior. These principles are obvious to those who've engaged in them, even in practical matters of life (such as working out and eating right to be healthy, being careful with money and working hard to be wealthy, etc., etc.). But the world, more and more, pushes the ideas of "deserve" and "self" and "victim" and "follow your passion" and all the Disney (a.k.a. Satan) garbage like that, which all feels, to the natural man, like how we should find/seek happiness. The problem is that it doesn't work. So I'm not disagreeing with you. An environment where people left happy is, you're correct, the key. But what that environment looks like is sacrifice, humility, service, obedience, a broken heart and a contrite spirit, and so forth. And that's a tough pill to swallow, even though it's the actual medicine we all need.

Meaning...it's Disney's fault.

I was going to respond to this point by point (as your opener seemed somewhat conciliatory...) ...but once again... followed by nothing but strawmen arguments. You're not going to be easy to convince because you have predetermined what's in the hearts of your brethren and refuse to consider otherwise. No one can rationally converse with that sort of irrationality. Thanks for the conversation thus far. But I'm out.

This is an interesting post and I have a lot of thoughts, which I'll get to eventually. My overall thought though is that there is risk here, as in many things, of looking beyond the mark. All of us have the same mark. That mark is the Savior. That should be the center of our approach to any issues. Our roles in the kingdom are worth consideration. But at the core of those roles is the primary role we all have... to take on the name of the Savior and know Him. Worrying too much about other things can, as I said, amount to looking beyond the mark.

That's my mantra!

I think it should be clarified that this doesn't mean that Just_A_Guy is suggesting you "move on" from the marriage or the relationship. That's a determination that's between you, her, and God. Just moving on from the past to the future and doing as best you can to be as Christlike as you can, regardless of others choices and actions.

It's actually hilarious to me how much High School social stuff matters to High Schoolers and to now understand how little it matters in reality.

Remember the time John Wick John Wicked Wicked's Wicked Witch of the West?

Understood. But... I thought they handled it really well and it was intriguing and engaging. Thanks for your thoughts.