Syme

Resistance is futile.

Correct if wrong but... I would have thought Cain's descendants were all dead due to the flood.

I heard somewhere that in the resurrection, we will have the same bodies that we do now, only perfected. How this will happen with cremation, etc. we don't know. Is there some deeper significance to this? Why doesn't God just give us new bodies?

This is just... comical. Your tax dollars at work. I completely agree with carlimac. Seriously, isn't this just a huge waste of resources? Not to mention incredibly biased and unjust... If the supreme court has that much power over people in the public sector, then I hope I will never have to work there.

I'm white, and I can't speak from experience about what it's like to be black, or asian, or hispanic. I can, however, speak from being an oustide observer of this whole mess. Like prisonchap said, we all have our own perspectives and biases. But this whole 'white privelege' movement is like "Oh, you're white, so your opinion is totally worthless". These people aren't willing to accept ANY opinion, no matter how well-formed and studied, as long as it comes out of a white mouth. And, ironically, when an opinion they disagree with comes from a minority, they're accused of being an "Uncle Tom", etc. It's just a shortcut to dismiss someone without really considering their ideas.

I would try to find out more details of her faith crisis. Does she believe in God? Does she believe in other parts of the gospel? How does she reconcile the spiritual experiences, if any, she's felt from the past two decades or more, and how did 15 seconds of an essay nullify it all? Possibly just giving her someone to talk to and express her thoughts to will help her through this trial.

Would he cease to be God if he did not have children? This isn't a rhetorical question btw, I really want to know

The LDS do not have the same "constraint" of omnipotence. God cannot do evil. The reason why God is God is because he is perfectly good, and if he were not perfectly good he would cease to be God. (Alma 42:22) Let's go with #2, but slightly altered: "If my loyalty is with the Good, and I believe God to be good, but I don't trust my limited knowledge or my objectivity, my knowledge/objectivity must be faulty. We can't possibly understand all the moral consequences just by experience and intuition alone. We can also let pride, grudges, etc. get in the way of it. If we all worshiped "goodness" we would all be following our limited understandings of goodness. Assuming you believe in a universal morality, that would be chaos. That's (one of the reasons) why we need God; to guide us on the correct path. So, our loyalty should be towards God because he's the only one who is actually loyal to the Good. What's your complaint with #2? Now that I've added on to it?

Given this verse, do you think some of us had a small part in the creation? Like what spamlds was saying?

I went to the resignation website. There's a poem on the About page: "This is not the place for questionsThis is not the place for answersThis is not the place for thinkingThis is not the place for doubts This is the place for conformityThis is the place for silenceThis is the place for the 99This is not the place for the 1 This is not the place for agencyThis is not the place for changeIf this is not the place for themThen this is not the place for me" Well, that escalated quickly. I wonder if there's going to be an "Occupy Temple Square" movement soon.

Is it possible to converse with Angels in diverse ways? I'm not finding too much info regarding rules and regulations here... Most of what I see is based on following the Spirit and the Light. I understand dark magic is one form of communicating with the other angels. I'm not talking about dark magic. Actually, I'm not exactly sure what I am talking about. Other than the fact that it is real and exciting stuff! I suppose the feelings would change if the angels were from the dark side (by their fruits). Maybe sometimes they come to us to deliver a message via Spirit to spirit. So in this physical worldly realm we feel them and know that they are there but we don't exactly comprehend the message? <Syme's Opinion>If there is a way to communicate with the other side, except it be through prayer, fasting, etc., it would always be with an evil spirit. I can't imagine why anything like that, which would leave God out of the equation, could successfully communicate with one of his servants.</Syme's Opinion> Maybe it becomes a pure exchange of intelligence that our "5% capable" brain doesn't quite get. But that our spirit needs and gets completely? And maybe my "5% brain" wants to make sense of it so I try to send them off to create and bring forth abundance? LOL! Pretty crazy stuff! The "You only use 5/10 percent of your brain" thing is a myth: http://www.snopes.com/science/stats/10percent.asp

I realize the point of a testimony is faith, personal revelation, etc. So what would he think of FAIR Mormon and apologetics like that? Are they doing more harm than good, i.e. giving people answers instead of urging them to pray about it? Does it encourage contention?

Cool, I said something quotable! Go for it! :)

Your response had nothing to do with Lakumi's post. Why don't you just come out over what's really bothering you?

I agree with this and Quin's post. I think everyone has strengths and weaknesses in "godly traits" - some people are all about courage and need to learn patience, while others are the exact opposite. But if Pride is the root of all sin, then Humility must be the root of all virtue.

There are a few people that have Patriarchal Blessings that state something like "You will witness the Second Coming (while still alive)" Can these be used to "guess" the time of the Second Coming? If they are true, does that really mean it would happen in, at most, the next 80 years or so?

People saying that trying to be perfect is pointless, as if there's some virtue in "acceptance" of all your flaws and shortcomings. Well, being perfect in this life is impossible, but trying to get there is not pointless. - There's also this stereotype going around that Christians are a bunch of judgmental bigots. Sure, there are some, but this extends to people just quietly living their beliefs out in peace. People almost expect the religious to be religious out of some holier-than-thou attitude. - Finally, there's this thing with anger & pessimism all over the internet. It's this sort of "Someone is wrong so we have every right to call it/them out in the most vile and hateful way possible, because the ends justify the means" or something. Same with pessimism. Optimism is "shallow", "naive" or even "oppressive", while pessimism is some kind of liberation from societal shackles. As if being pessimistic and spiteful is more authentic, and we need to "celebrate" it.