Snow

Who do you mean? We Catholics, or we non-Catholics?

What is the devil doing to your family and how do you think he is doing it?

Oh? When did they learn Greek?

It doesn't take a prophet to understand the business cycle or know what just as we have gone through regular recessions in the past, so will we in the future.

Say... did you hear that the earth is hollow?

The last two that come to mind are the two Gordon B. Hinckley buildings at BYU and BYU Idaho.

rameumptom, Why do you prepare this posts? Do you teach Gospel Doctrine and these are your lessons - or for some other reason? Obviously this is a lot of work and very useful - thank you - plus it looks like you are a week ahead of my ward so it's extra helpful.

I think it is clear that we, or the Church, put's leaders on a pedestal, as evidenced by those things mentioned above (We build large expensive buildings and name them after LDS dignitaries. We build statues of them. We name libraries and school after them. We sing praises to them in song.) For that matter, despite what Paul wrote about not putting leaders on a pedestal (or the interpretation that that is what he said), it seems like Paul sometimes put himself on a pedestal. See * below for examples. Whether you think it is good or not so good, to the extent that the Church does praise and honor the leaders, name buildings after them, put them on a pedestal... ...WHY do they do it? *in 1 Cor he calls Christ the foundation, the saints the builing/temple and himself the master builder *Elsewhere he wheres the repeated injuries he suffered while preaching the gospel as a badge of honor. *He makes a big deal that he didn't receive his knowledge of the gospel from the apostles, he got it directly from God *He angrily argued with other Church leaders and insulted Peter and called him names and then makes sure that everyone knows about it

Convenient maybe but I say that anything that hastens the death of Flash is worth the inconvenience.

I'll take Capitalizing the First Letter of the First Word of the Sentence for $1000, Alex.

A little less of you fixating on me might be healthy Ram.

Did anybody say anything about not trusting God?

I didn't believe it the first time you said it but now that you said it TWO times, I'm convinced. Thank you.

1. I clean my screen very infrequently and the quality of the display is never smeary or compromised. 2. Thank goodness it can't do flash - that buggy, battery draining, antiquated failure. Fortunately for the 21 Century, it's demise is now a forgone conclusion. 3. I don't use mine for heavy duty typing but otherwise, it's an incredible tool - truly revolutionary. I use it to teach SS lessons, read the news, videos, music, internet surfing, games, email, work, and on and on. It's a marvel to behold.

I'm reviewing 1 Corinthians for SS tomorrow and in the first few chapters, Paul talks about one of the problems facing the saints in Corinth. Among other things, divisions and factions had occurred with certain folks siding with Paul, or Apollos, etc. Chapters 3 and 4 talk about the dangers of putting leaders on a pedestal. The Oxford Bible commentary talks about it this way: To align oneself with one leader or another is, for Paul, to commit three cardinal errors: 1 - to place leaders on a pedestal where they do not belong 2 - to play them off inappropriately against one another 3 - to reward them with human praise rather than leaving to God the assessment of their work. That sounds like reasonable commentary and good counsel... but then I got to thinking, how does that reconcile with what we do in the Church? We build large expensive buildings and name them after LDS dignitaries. We build statues of them. We name libraries and school after them. We sing praises to them in song. Thoughts

It's one thing to say that mysteries are knowable. It another thing to actually have the knowledge and then prove it. Short of proof, it's dogma and thus uninteresting. Arguing dogma isn't very interesting as anyone can claim anything they want and there's no standard to measure truth and accuracy against. For example, you can no more demostrate the truthfulness of Mormonism as you can Zoroasterism.

Can I demonstrate that it makes no logical sense that magical, invisible beings can enter my brain and manipulate it to think certain things... or ghosts, not having lungs and a voice box, can make audible vocal noises? I'm only entertain serious questions today. Sorry.

Who do you think baptized Jesus? An Episcopalian? The belief in the Trinity holds that there are three hypostases or persons that together comprise one God.

Welcome. I believe that I can prove that alien dentists sneak into my room at night and secret fix my teeth. How come I never see you at the weekly meetings for Hopelessly Nutty Professors of North America? We start promptly at 7:00pm.

Mormons claim to be led by prophets. Should not a higher standard apply. We should be the first to be enlightened. Not the last.

Of course if it's a mystery, it's not an answer. :)

Hi FunkyTown, Thank you for your thoughtful post. I think that what I am attempting to do through my posting style, and the debates that ensue, is to slowly shape and fine tune my own world view, reconciling, the best I can, faith, dogma, and scripture with science, reason and experience. In doing so, I find the need to play the 'devil's advocate' to generate 1. interest on my part and 2. debate from others... when those debates make sense, I will sometimes revise my worldview. Specifically to your questions... 1, Can prayers influence the world: as a believing Mormon, I feel compelled to accept that, yes, they likely do. On the other hand, I also believe God is benevolent, and God is just. So the quandary is how to reconcile a good, just God with all the suffering and evil in the world. It is illogical to believe that God helps middle class Mormons in Utah find their missing car key, or get home safely on an empty tank of gas, but lets innocent children be raped and tortured or families in Africa starve to death. 2. That Satan can and does tempt man: yes, as a believing Mormon I have to accept that, at least in theory, that is possible or actual. However, it makes no logical sense that magical, invisible beings can enter my brain and manipulate it to think certain things... or ghosts, not having lungs and a voice box, can make audible vocal noises. Besides which, evil beings plying their evil trade is not necessary to explain what goes on in the world. So, how to I best reconcile reason and reality, dogma and experience? Appealing to mystery is a waste of time. So, I think I am a minimalist. God exists but is relatively distant. Satan exists, somehow, but has no immediate relevancy in my life. I think in terms of what (belief) is reasonable, useful and necessary. That doesn't reconcile everything or satisfy all situations but, in my mind, it seems to be the most reasonable, the most necessary and the most useful belief I can, at present, think of.

Connie, Do you have a point you would like to express?

Racism is not welcome here. Please take it elsewhere.

Really? There are compelling arguments that BY, not JS, invented polygamy? For example? Are you sure they claim to be members of OUR Church?