askandanswer

I was surprised to find in my scripture reading this morning that Revelations has something interesting to say on physician assisted suicide, although I doubt that this was what John was actually referring to when he wrote this verse: 6 And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.

Wrong again Zil, I'm 313,684,498. How dare you confuse me with 313,684,499. were totally different. One of his fingernails is nearly 0.2 millimeters longer than mine

Given how many people held strong negatively views towards both candidates, I'm starting to feel a bit apologetic to the American people that I decided not to run i don't think I would have been disliked as much as the two main candidates were.

Will Trump take control of the system or will the system suck him in until he becomes yet another insider? Can anybody really resist the system?

If Trump continues with his plans to put Hillary in jail, Australia might be willing to offer political asylum

I certainly agree that the US constitution was inspired, I have no doubts about that question. My question is more to do with how well the end product reflects the inspiration that was given. Inspiration comes in many different ways and in widely varying degrees of detail and specificity. I’m not sure if any of us really know how detailed or specific was the inspiration that led to the US constitution. Additionally, as evidenced by hundreds or even thousands of corrections that were made to the Book of Mormon more than 150 years after it was first published, even the most inspired written products might not always correctly convey the original inspiration. And as indicated by Elder Oaks, its hard to see how any document that was a result of compromise amongst many men of varying opinions and beliefs can be said to be a true reflection of divine inspiration. It almost sounds like perhaps someone was inspired about a certain Article and then presented the idea to the rest of the writers, and they then argued and discussed and compromised about what to do with the idea. President Benson likened the constitution to scripture, but we all know what has happened to the Bible over the last thousand or so years, and how poorly it now reflects the prophetic teachings it purports to record.

I thought you'd be more inclined to count the number of nights than days.

Pam has finally snapped! I knew it was only a matter of time although I must admit, considering the job she does with this forum, she's lasted much longer than I expected

I learned a lot from my mission. Here are just four lessons, one positive, one sort of negative, and then another two positives. 1. 1. I learned fairly early on in my mission, I think when I was still with my first companion, that love is the greatest motivator. There was no particular event or incident that led me to this conclusion. It came about as a result of pondering and reasoning, followed with reflection about the example of the Saviour’s love for us, and my observation of missionaries who appeared to be motivated by a sense of competition and pride. I couldn’t see that anything other than a total and sincere concern for the eternal well being of those whom I was called to serve could bring about the changes that they needed to make in order to be ready for baptism. To serve these people properly, and to really be a help to them, I needed to love them. After coming to this conclusion, I began to pray for a love for the Filipino people and it wasn’t long before the Lord began to bless me with what I had asked for. Its been a long time since my mission finished but this feeling the Lord blessed me with continues to linger. To this day, I continue to have an interest in the Philippines and enjoy associating with Filipinos and every now and then I go back to the Philippines. After my mission when I returned to university, I changed my course and studied anthropology and sociology, with a focus on South-East Asia. As part of my course I ended up doing many assessments that allowed me to explore and further develop my love of the Philippines and the Filipino people. And of course, I ended up marrying a Filipina who I had met on my mission. 2. A day or two before I left for the MTC, I asked for a blessing from a friend. Certain promises were made towards me during that blessing. Perhaps somewhat pridefully, I paid more attention to the promises rather than to the conditions attached to the promises. When I arrived in the mission field, I went about sure in the knowledge that what had been promised would eventually come about. It never did, despite my hopes and expectations. Probably because I did nothing to bring them about. I just did my normal missionary activities and did nothing to earn, or work towards, or make myself ready for, the blessings that had been promised. I arrived home after my mission without having received the promised blessings. I learned from this that when it comes to receiving blessings, it is better to work than to wait. 3. This third lesson is sort of like two combined. It relates to the importance of obedience and hard work. In almost every Zone Conference, the Assistants to the Mission President would provide us with training on what they promised us was a guaranteed successful method of increasing the number of investigators and baptisms. Many of the more experienced missionaries, sometimes including myself, would sort of roll our eyes and say no, this will never work, this is totally impractical, what a dumb idea, I’m not going to do this. But it was clear to me, that those missionaries who did faithfully follow the counsel that had been given, did experience the promised success. All that was needed on their part was faith in the counsel that had been given and a willingness to follow it and do what was required. The counsel might have seemed like a dumb idea, and inconsistent with my own experience and understanding, but when it was faithfully followed, it produced results. 4. Closely related to this is my own experience with the blessings of hard work. I served in a mission that had many areas where tracting was not necessary. However, I ended up serving in some areas where tracting was necessary. When we had no referrals, we would tract, sometimes for weeks at a time. While we rarely got any really good investigators from tracting, when the Lord saw how hard we were trying, and how committed we were, He would often bless us with investigators from unexpected sources. I am convinced that He would not have blessed us with these investigators if we had not shown our commitment through our tracting. The lesson I learned from this is that if we are doing the right thing for the right reason, and working hard, the Lord will bless us, sometimes in ways that are not directly related to our efforts, but are definitely a result of our efforts. Great topic Carb, its been helpful for me to reflect on this and write down a few thoughts.

Not true at all! Both 14000 and 15000 have the same number of round digits - 000, although admittedly, the bottom part of 5 does appear to be more rounded than the triangular part of 4.

I think this battle plan is erroneous and probably intended as a deliberate "leak" by the enemy, to deceive, misguide and confuse. In truth, Halloween, being a time that celebrates the practice of trickery and the dead, is far more likely to be the aggressor against Christmas, which is a time that celebrates the birth of He who overcame death. And Thanksgiving is far more likely to be the ally, rather than the enemy, of Christmas, a time when we give thanks for Him who gave His all. The reality is that we should all be united in a war against Halloween to remove it permanently from the calendar and to erase all record and memory of its existence. After the inevitable victory over Halloween, the day that was formerly dedicated to Halloween should be reallocated to Easter celebrations, the time when we celebrate the resurrection and victory over death. Mirkwood, you should know better than to be deceived by such simple disinformation campaigns.

Like the Earth, my car tyres are round. But sometimes they are flat.

I think the kind of benefits and blessings you get from meeting with the Seventy will be greater, and longer lasting, than the blessings your wife might get from attending Time Out for Women. The Seventy is taking Time Out for You and Your Wife, so you should take advantage of it My guess is that it was the Spirit that prompted the Seventy to meet with you and your wife. Meeting with you and your wife is what the Lord wants His servant to do. Perhaps you should ponder why the Lord is directing His servant to you.

I'm sure this was only one of many possible thousands of reasons. It would be hard to attribute all the dirty looks you get to one particular cause.

i surely am not one of those who believe Trump is a fulfillment of prophecy. I have an opinion on Trump but I won't share it here.

I was just wondering if the Trump campaign a fulfillment of New Testament prophecy? (New Testament | 1 Corinthians 15:52) For the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. From the Guardian newspaper Donald Trump's dark warning that dead will rise to rig the election https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/18/donald-trump-rejects-election-result-before-the-votes-have-been-counted

Larry, in general, when I want to find out how to better understand a particular verse of scripture, one of the places I look is to the scripture citation index. This can be found online at http://scriptures.byu.edu/ or downloaded as an app. This app lists when any apostle, prophet or member of the First PResidency has ever quoted to or referred to a particular verse. The way it works is that you click on the verse you found like to find out more about and then you will get a list of occasions when that verse has been used. You click on an item in the list and it will take you to the text of the instance on which that verse was used. In the case of 1 Nephi 14:10 the scripture citation index might not be all that helpful because all except one of the quotes come from the Journal of Discourses, meaning that they are all more than 140 years old, save for a few, and lots of LDS have had lots of endless arguments about how theologically pure and reliable the Journal of Discourses are. Here are two instances that I have picked at random from the scripture citation index of when church leaders or apostles have referred to 1 Nephi 14:10 J Reuben Clark, a legal scholar and former member of the First Presidency, when speaking in the April 1949 General Conference TWO CHURCHES The Lord has told us in the scriptures that in the last days there will be two churches 1 Ne. 14:10 John the Revelator spoke of the great church with worldly power that had under its dominion and leadership the kings of the earth—he spoke of it as Babylon, the Mother of Harlots Rev. 17:1-6 and Nephi spoke of it as the great and abominable church 1 Ne. 14:10-17 I am not going to say what that church is, though I have a very definite and clear idea. But I want to say that those scriptures also tell us that the other church is a weak church, a church to whose assistance God has to come in order to preserve it. We certainly are not the great church, for no kings are tied to the chariot wheels of our Church. We are the other church. Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, volume 18 There are only two churches on the earth—only two parties. God leads the one, the devil the other. 1 Ne. 14:10 There are eleven instances listed for 1 Nephi 14:10 but I'll leave it to you to go and look them up at scriptures.byu.or

I'm not suggesting that God created evil - I'm suggesting that He may have been involved in its creation. His involvement may have two aspects, one more direct, and one less direct. First, the more direct involvement: To act against the will of God is evil and possibly that is the only kind of evil there is. Therefore, as soon as God has a will on a particular subject, eg, that we should choose red apples rather than green, it then becomes possible to commit evil in relation to our choices of apples, when prior to God declaring His will on the subject of apple choice, it was not possible to commit evil in relation to choice of apple colour. So by declaring His will, God brings evil into possibility when previously no such possibility existed. However, simply having a will on something, does not bring evil into existence, it only brings into existence the possibility of evil. Evil is actually done when we choose to violate that will. This brings me to the second, much less direct aspect of God's involvement in evil. To some extent, God encouraged/allowed/facilitated the development of our ability to choose. Without that ability, we could not choose to do evil. So to the extent that a Being teaches a student a particular skill, that Being might not then be entirely free from responsibility for how His student uses that skill. This is admittedly a far less direct form of involvement, but it is also far from being no involvement. I think our intelligences developed with certain tendencies. Those tendencies only led to evil when we exercised our newly developing ability to make choices that violated the will of God.

This has got me intrigued. I'm going to try it. Thanks Pam

I think the following scriptures give support to the idea: (New Testament | John 8:38) 38 I speak that which I have seen with my Father: and ye do that which ye have seen with your father. (New Testament | John 5:19) 19 Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. (New Testament | Revelation 1:6) And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. And from the King Follette discourse: Here, then, is eternal life—to know the only wise and true God; and you have got to learn how to be gods yourselves, and to be kings and priests to God, the same as all gods have done before you, namely, by going from one small degree to another, and from a small capacity to a great one; from grace to grace, from exaltation to exaltation, until you attain to theresurrection of the dead, and are able to dwell in everlasting burnings, and to sit in glory, as do those who sit enthroned in everlasting power.

I haven't thought of it like this before.

??? Perhaps I had a naive and simple childhood, but how does one do this and how many people and fingers does it take and how high can you lift?

I don't fully understand your first paragraph, perhaps you could rephrase it or illustrate it with some examples? I would accept that which is evil is that which is against God's will. But I see no compelling reason to believe that there is a form of evil which is and eternally has been evil. (Perhaps because I haven't properly understood your first paragraph.) However, I also accept that as mortals, there is some possibility, even likelihood, that there are things that we cannot comprehend, and the true nature of good and evil could be included in that class of things which we cannot fully comprehend at this time. My views are modifying as I think about and write further about this so what I say here is not consistent with the paragraph above. I acknowledge that there appears to be certain laws to which even God is subject, eg, in Alma it suggests that God must be just, or else He would cease to be God. I suspect there are other examples. (Where they come from and why they exist, is not something I can say anything about.) Consequently, violation of these laws, which appear to exist independently of God's will, would probably constitute a form of evil. So yes, there may well be some form of absolute good and evil to which all Ggods are subject to. I suspect that these laws, these types of good and evil, would have something to do with the promotion/enhancement/advancement/progression of lesser beings such as ourselves (good) or the capture/control/diminution/destruction of such beings (evil). I suspect that all Ggods are involved in the same endeavour, but I also suspect that there is still scope for each Ggod to exercise their own preferences,in how Tthey choose to define good and evil in the realms for which they are responsible, so long as Tthey adhere to the greater laws to which Tthey are subject. It is the violation of these greater laws that may be what constitutes absolute evil.

I'm sure there are many parents in this world, certainly both my wife and I are such parents, and possibly you are as well, who have not completely and automatically applied to their children all the rules to which they were subject to by their parents when they were children. And it does not necessarily follow, from this variation, that some parents are better than others. My parents might have had a rule that when approaching a steep cliff, that I not go closer than two feet. They had this rule because they loved me so much and cared so much for me, and any violation of that rule might have led to unpleasant consequences. But perhaps I want my children to experience the growth that can come from facing danger and overcoming fear, so my rule might be not to let my children get closer than six inches.

I think there is scope for the defining Being to exercise some individual preferences. Perfection and Godhood does not imply that all perfected beings are the same and one of the areas in which they could differ is in their likes and dislikes. Such likes and dislikes may well play a part in influencing their will and in determining what they choose to define as good and evil.