Awakened

Cool! Thanks. And if anyone else knows anything else, please please post it too as well.

Alright then. How do they connect with LDS beliefs though? I'm reading about them and not seeing anything related to Mormonism.

Hey, can anyone recommend me any books with LDS authors that talk about psychology with a gospel perspective? I am specifically looking for books on full self-control using gospel principles, basic or advanced. Or heck, even a book that doesn't necessarily teach you but at least talks about such. I can't really find anything though... Also something that mixes meditation with LDS principles would also be incredibly welcome and helpful. I know "Matters of the Mind: Latter-day Saint Helps for Mental Illness", but that seems to be the only book on LDS psychology that I can find so far. I really really wish to learn to control my body and mind on an incredibly high level, but I really want to avoid getting into waters I maybe should have left alone. Or disturbing and using powers that maybe ought not to be used at all.

I have this book too! I think it's supposed to be a connected to a much larger work Brent did on the afterlife but I'm not COMPLETELY sure. Either way, the book is great.

Thank you so much, you two. It was exactly what I needed to hear. I know now exactly what I must do. I want to say more to express my gratitude but I feel it would be redundant, so once more, thank you truly.

So... A long time ago... I made some dear friends... There's a long story to it but I won't bother getting into that. It's not relevant right now. The problem is, these friends, although great people, have led me to do some sexual things with them outside of marriage. Luckily nothing TOO bad. But it's wrong. And it's definitely keeping me from getting close to my Heavenly Father and going on my Mission. But in order to repent fully from all this... I greatly fear that... I will have to say goodbye permanently to my friends I'm doing these things with. And deep emotional attachments have developed with us. And even further, these friends are, of course, not LDS, so they probably won't understand if I try to explain why I have to do this. So now, because of my sheer idiocy in giving in to these sexual things, I need to decide now between God or them... I want to choose God but it's so very hard to bring myself to say goodbye to them after all we've experienced together. In fact, I haven't been able to do it yet at all. I don't want to hurt them... They're nice people who don't deserve it. And if I say goodbye permanently, I know it will hurt them so much... I don't want to leave them. But I KNOW this church is true. There is no doubt. Well, I guess there is SOME doubt as anyone will have obviously or else having faith would be impossible as you would have a sure knowledge then. But you know what I mean I'm sure. Please, any help, advice, or encouragement at all would be greatly appreciated. Even criticism. I don't care. It's perfectly fine. I just badly need to talk about this at least with people who are LDS too. Who understand the gravity of all this.

I always wonder why the ban was even done though. I don't want to know merely to satisfy my curiosity, I want to know because other people might ask me why the Church would deny the priesthood to blacks and then give it to them if the Church reay does have and has had the full truth. What do I say to that?

I have searched this entire thread and I haven't seen anybody asking whether Shepard's daughter has prayed to know if the church is true. It also looks like Shepard hasn't brought it up. How was this missed, guys? This is INSANELY important for EVERYONE to do, much less Shepard's daughter.

I may be COMPLETELY off on this, but I think that a lot of young men haven't actually prayed as to the validity of the Book of Mormon yet. They're still riding off their parents testimonies. And that doesn't really give one enough reason at all to pay attention. It was like this for me too. I didn't really pay attention to what was being taught until I finally prayed and learned that the church really was true. After that though, I paid attention to everything that was being said afterwards.

Oh no, you misunderstand me. I wasn't talking about actual full-blown possession, I was asking if whether or not, when we give in to temptations, the spirit(s) responsible actually receive pleasure along with you. It would explain why they would even want to do so in the first place. They want to satisfy their appetites through you. This also aligns with what Alma said about those same spirits "possessing" our bodies. "Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God. Nay, ye cannot say this, for that same spirit which doth possess you bodies at the time that ye go out of this life, that same spirit will have power to possess your body in that eternal world." (Alma 34:34) If not, then I'm sure it would just come down to simple spite and/or dominance as I mentioned before.

Sorry to bring up yet another question, but what I'm curious about is whether these unclean spirits are actually living through us when we give in to their temptations or if they're just getting us to sin out of pure spite and/or dominance.

It's Altair from the first Assassin's Creed. Disciplined, focused, and skilled, he makes darn sure that the job gets done and all while looking stylish. Image source: http://i39.servimg.com/u/f39/14/26/98/51/assass10.jpg

Very informative. A good read for anyone, not just mormons i would think.

You don't want to go to Oregon. (Unless you're just there to visit.) I wonder if I'll ever going to get myself off the fence, spiritually speaking. It's been a while since I've looked at porn but I'm not following the commandments as I should either. Every time I think of when I'm going to begin repenting again, my focus just seems to slip until I'm thinking about something else. I can't work up the motivation to do it at all for seemingly no reason. But I'm too wary of porn to go back to viewing it nearly as regularly as I once did.

Nothing else really to say in this topic that hasn't already been said. The Holy Ghost manifests the truth of all things and, thus, the scriptures. There might be very minor problems, but as Joseph said, they are the mistakes of man. God is not to be blamed. They are still perfectly suitable for the purposes they are intended for.

Could be wrong but I'm betting that "Touch me not" could also be translated as "You cannot touch me" which would make sense because people with bodies cannot touch spirits since they just go right through them. EDIT: Actually, ignore everything I just said. I'm dumb.

Honestly, it's really hard to narrow down the BEST advice I've received since, although it sounds trite, almost every good piece of spiritual advice I've heard has benefitted me greatly more or less. I guess ultimately, although it's not really advice per se, it comes down to the firm testimony of the Church that was given to me by the Holy Ghost when I prayed to know if it was true. This has formed the foundation for every single one of my spiritual beliefs since and without it, the testimony of my parents and everyone else that I rode off of when I was young would sooner or later collapse and without that foundation I have now, I would have became a COMPLETELY different person.

Woah, I thought this thread was really active because you guys were just discussing the article, hence why I didn't look into this thread at all. Had I known, I might have been able to be of some help here. I've just finished reading "A Perfect Brightness of Hope" by Phil Simkins. Perhaps some of you know it. It's one LDS members story about how he lost everything he cared about because of his drinking addiction. It, of course, also describes how he finally gets out of it almost completely. There were three very important things about dealing with addiction that I learned from this amazing story. 1. You must first admit that you are POWERLESS over your addictions. Some will know this as the first step of AA. 2. In order to truly fight this addiction, you must submit to God EVERY DAY. Every day, you pray to have the Lord help you overcome any temptations that you might run into. Every day, you renew your commitment to rely on the Lord. 3. No matter how much time has past, you must ALWAYS be vigilant. The day you stop relying on the Lord for any reason is the day that you become incredibly vulnerable. Your addiction can and will strike again, no matter HOW long it's been since you've last given in, no matter how much you've repented. BUT as long as you rely on the Lord, you can overcome it completely every day and find true happiness. Hopefully that will be of some help to you guys. Maybe not. In any case, feel free to ask me any question you guys would like, keeping in mind my current history.

That is a good question but one that I don't think we know the answer to exactly yet. There are a lot of other uses for the body besides just procreation. I think personally that a body infused with the spirit allows the spirit to change and grow much easier and much faster.

Well, you didn't say moral agency, you just said agency. But yeah. Anyway. Does anyone have any more questions like that?

Actually, it changed the earth as well. Furthermore, it led to procreation. Spirits borne into this world inherit the same state Adam and Eve were in.

Choosing to eat a Big Mac even though you're on a diet.

Oh, you've read it too? Nice! As to your second part, yes and no. Agency can be applied to more than just a choice between salvation and damnation even though salvation and damnation is obviously a very important choice.

Agency is the ability to choose for ourselves consequences. There are stringent rules that must be meant in order for agency to be in effect. I don't know if I can remember all of them but I'll do my best. 1. There must be at least two options. 2. The chooser must be aware of the consequences for each choice. 3. The consequences must, of course, exist for each choice and the consequences cannot be all the same. Agency is important for the plan of salvation because it is necessary for our spiritual progression. In order to become gods ourselves, we must make choices for ourselves. It's like if you were in school and you were literally forced to study and get A's. There was absolutely no leeway. So when you actually did get those A's, would you feel any sense of satisfaction at all for getting them? Someone might as well have done school for you. These do have specific answers. The gospel is so great BECUASE it provides one true answer for everything. Why would the Curch have to be restored if the gospel was subjective? Here's a great quote from Elder J. Kent Jolley. That does not sound like something that is subjective.

Don't mean to single you or anyone else out but keep in mind, these questions are geared towards LDS and as such, LDS answers, so you may or may not agree with them.