The Folk Prophet

Not only is it, in my opinion, not something to apologize about, but it is, perhaps, the most glorious of the LDS theological concepts.

I'm not sure I'm behind the 6th, 7th and 8th ideas as general advice to everyone. Some people revel in stress. Some people don't have a lot of need or feel it's appropriate to laugh too much. And the complimenting people thing is great, but I don't see how that will make one live longer. Just my thoughts.

I really, really enjoy The Joseph Smith papers that airs on KBYU. You can get it on DVD from Deseret Book, I think. A bit pricey. I think you can watch most of them online on KBYU though. At least of Season 1.

In many cases, I feel it necessary to defend the church. When someone says something that insults the church, encourages negativity toward it, attacks it or its principles, etc., I often find it obligatory to speak up. As is obvious, this leads to contention sometimes. I don't like to argue. I like to advance correct principles and defend the gospel. It's a very tough balance to stay contention free and to stand up for the church. I find it a bit funny, actually. I work very, very hard to not ever get personal. You won't seem me (hopefully) telling people they're arrogant, ignorant, self-righteous, etc. (something that others do to me consistently), and yet people do seem to often take offense at me (usually in terms of thinking me arrogant, ignorant, self-righteous, etc...) I figure I have to respond one of two ways -- in balance. 1. Stand up for the gospel and the church in spite of getting scorn for it. 2. Honestly take a look at how I communicate and improve that. The balance between these two things is very interesting. There are many situations where others take offense merely because I don't agree with them, and in those cases, I simply do not feel culpable. There are also many situations where I see that I could have said something better. If I were to take some posters on here at their word, I would have to accept that I'm just a horrible, horrible person. I'm actually a really nice guy (okay...that may be arrogant :)). But if someone attacks the gospel or the church, I'm stepping up.

Yeah. It's a bandaid rip situation. "Bishop, I have a porn problem." Easy as that. (and by "easy" I don't mean "easy"...if you know what I mean.)

Yes. And it is, as I said, interesting. But I'm not settled on the idea being eternal truth.

Moreover, moreover...there are no beings who exist that God did not create. All are subservient to Him. He is the Master of all. Moreover, moreover, moreover...The other "gods" that are referenced in the OT are all Satan. Satan is the only contrary power to God, and he is not all-powerful. Not in the least. He only has power as is given to him. God will destroy him in the end.

Oh...it very, very much matters. If there is another all-powerful being who's will might contrast God's it puts a serious kink in faith that God's will reign supreme, that we can have utter and complete trust in Him, etc. Moreover, God is all-powerful because of His will (being a perfect will) not in spite of it. It is theoretically, theologically impossible to have a contrary will that is all-powerful as well.

Which eternal, all-knowing, all-anything beings would there be out there that do not have the same will as God?

Exactly. If you told your kid, "Hey, if you put Mentos in a Coke bottle it goes ballistic." and the kid goes out to experiment on it and then comes back and says, "I did what you said but nothing happened." You're likely going to say, "Well, you must have done something wrong. Let's go figure it out. Ah...there's yer problem. You used M&Ms."

This is a very interesting thought anatess. Prison Chaplain, earlier, made a point that I think plays into the LDS belief as well -- though it's less easy to reconcile -- and I don't know if all LDS universally think this way. But as for me, if I am saying God, I mean God the Father. God the Father is God. Even Jesus worships Him. So, from a certain perspective, there is only one God, and Jesus and the Holy Ghost do His will. When they speak, they speak on His behalf. They represent Him, doing His will in all things, and submit entirely to Him. In this regard, LDS are, actually, monotheistic. But it requires as much word play as does explaining the trinity, I think, to get there. And, unquestionably, when you take into account that we believe it was fairly exclusively (in almost every case) Jesus (Jehovah) who was the "one God" of the Old Testament, it quickly gets messy to explain. And, like I said, I'm not sure all LDS would even see it that way. But it's a thought.

I'm not sure it can be really understood unless one has been given the Gift of the Holy Ghost. But, in essence, the Spirit strongly bears witness of the truth on the LDS owned side of things. The RLDS (technically Community of Christ now) side of things does not. It is flat. In relationship to this discussion -- that even if the Spirit manifests the truth to you you can still kill the word in yourself by not nourishing it. The Spirit, as it says in Moroni 10:5, witnesses the truth of ALL things. So truths that are in other faiths (like that Jesus is the Christ) may certainly be learned through the Spirit. But the Spirit will not bear witness of that which is not true. The Spirit cannot lie.

Sounds moderately reasonable. :)

That study doesn't mean it's common unless it includes how many people in how many households relative to the amount of people in the state use it, and shows it to be a percentage that renders it common. Also, that study was shown recently to be highly inaccurate.

Moroni 10 is about planting a seed. That seed still has to be nourished. Moreover, the seed represents the word of God. That word is in the Bible. Anyone can nourish that word. It's not exclusive to the LDS church. Only those things that are the word of God that are exclusive to the LDS church may be nourished exclusively in the LDS church. Nourishing the word of God does not prove other church's false, nor is that the intent of Alma 32. Having the word wither and die doesn't prove the church you're in false, nor does it prove other churches true. Just as, literally, planting a garden and then failing to water it means you didn't water it, not that you planted nails. But if you plant nails, you aren't going to grow much either. Experimenting on the word and having no fruit grow doesn't prove a church false or true. Neither does harvesting fruit from the good word of God. What it does prove is that that word, as given by God, is good and right. In other words, If you are a peacemaker, and you nourish that by obedience, study, faith, and effort, you will reap the harvest of being a peacemaker. It does not mean you'll reap the harvest of being poor in spirit or for being meek. Nourishing the word is a life long process. It is not a one time test you run to validate truth. We all must nourish the word of God continually throughout our lives.

It's pretty east to experiment on the word, so to speak, with the RLDS. All you have to do is visit Nauvoo. The contrast of the Spirit is pretty straight up there.

Here's my take on it, if you'll indulge me. At it's core, the idea of 3 Gods but 1 God is a contradictory idea. The LDS point of view resolves this by reference to meaning, specifically, the meaning of "one". In other words, three is literal, one is figurative (referring to purpose rather than existence). The theory of the trinity, on the other hand (and forgive me and correct me if I'm wrong) takes both three and one as literals, thereby substantially, attempting to render them equal. It is ultimately incomprehensible, beyond the abstract, because three does not equal one. The LDS idea does not require equality, because literal does not need to equal figurative. It's a very understandable idea, in spite of the fact that some may have a hard time with it, disagree with it, or consider it non-Biblical. But it's certainly easy to understand. As I said before, there's nothing necessarily insulting about the trinity concept being incomprehensible. I am not using it as an argument of inauthenticity. But it is, for that reason, why I claim no one can truly understand it. Now, assuming I've made an idiot of myself because my knowledge of the trinity comes from wikipedia, please let me have it.

That's not really the point. You claimed something about "true" addiction, thereby setting all other forms as "false" or not really addiction. Even a single exception that qualifies as "true" counts in that case. But, really, it goes to what omegaseamaster75 is trying to claim -- that if anatess' husband quit cold turkey then it must not have been an addiction or a struggle. That is just a false statement, regardless of whether it was the norm or not.

Right. And I see one of the functions as mortal -- the other as eternal. That's my take.

I don't think Elder Bednar's comments play into this stuff. I think it' simply that if you're going to talk about sex in relationship to divine nature and potential that procreation is implicit. That's not to say there's no other reason or validity to sex. But a lot of those reasons are related to the fact that we are imperfect, mortal beings who benefit from things that an exalted being likely wouldn't benefit from. For example, the sexual drive assists in keeping couples working out their problems. It helps to comfort each other in trials. Etc. These things would be non-issues for perfect beings. No problems, no trials, etc. I won't go so far as to discuss the idea of pleasure in sex as it might relate to exalted beings because I think that's going into the realm of absolute conjecture, and runs the risk of being quite profane. But I do tend towards the pleasure side of it being less viable as an eternal thing as well. Kind of like most mortal pleasures in life. I don't see us eating for pleasure, camping for pleasure, reading, water or snow skiing, playing sports, etc., etc. as perfect exalted beings. The pleasures of this life can be both a boon and a temptation to us. If used wisely, they are a gift. That doesn't translate to eternal importance, necessarily. Just my thoughts though.

So my addiction to caffeine was fantasy? What makes "true" addiction true? There's no level of addiction? You're either hopelessly screwed up or you don't have an addiction? Methinks there be some shades of gray in there. Everyone's different. Therefore, everyone will struggle with overcoming addictions differently. Some will struggle more, some will struggle less. This does not define what addiction is.

*shrug* Sure. Okay. I guess I wonder then, what's the point in understanding this? What's the gospel principle we find or...I dunno...what's the value in this? One man had the authority at the very, very beginning of a dispensation, then, yes technically all dispensations had it...except then the rest of the 99.9 percent of that dispensation after that one man died or was taken up did not have it. So, I suppose technically then, I agree that likely every dispensation had it.

I don't deny that you may be right. I'm not sure it's a forgone conclusion that all the ordinances were available throughout each dispensation. We know for a fact that they were not completely available in the time of the Law of Moses. We also know for a fact that they were not available in the Great Apostasy (though, strictly speaking, by definition this was not a dispensation). The reasons behind why they were not available (which I agree with you, it is because they were not received) has no bearing on the fact of whether they were available or not. Either way, there are, unquestionably, times throughout the ages where there there was no authority on the earth to perform Celestial Marriage (The Great Apostasy being the obvious one -- which as I said, is not a dispensation -- so not really relative to your point -- but.....) My sense is that Celestial marriage was available in all dispensations except under the law of Moses.

I think the idea or procreation is inherent in Elder Bednar's comments. But I also think that there is more to marriage (at least in this life) than just procreation. A whole lot more. How that fits into the eternities, however, is something that I don't think we can really understand.