askandanswer

"True doctrine, understood, changes attitudes and behavior. The study of the doctrines of the gospel will improve behavior quicker than a study of behavior will improve behavior. Preoccupation with unworthy behavior can lead to unworthy behavior. That is why we stress so forcefully the study of the doctrines of the gospel." Boyd K Packer, October 1986 General Conference

There was a time when two wards and a branch met in our chapel but the branch was dissolved years ago so now its just two wards and some people still say the chapel is too small. Its been probably close to three years now that every sacrament meeting, when the person conducting gets up to announce the intermediate hymn and the final speaker, that they will remind the congregation to clean up after themselves in the chapel, to replace the hymn books, stack the chairs and clean the boards. The counsellor in the bishopric who first started doing this was released about two years ago but other members of the bishopric followed his lead and continued to make the same announcement each week. This same counsellor could sometimes be seen vacuuming the chapel early on Sunday mornings if he didn't think it was clean enough. I suspect that these things would continue to happen each week even if members were not reminded of it but I guess there is no harm in repeating the message. I don't believe the other ward makes a similar announcement in their meetings. Its also my observation, and not just me, that when its the other ward's turn to clean the chapel, they don't do it as well as our ward does but nobody seems to get really bothered by it.

You can do all this just with makeup?! Her chin in the make up photos looks quite different, sharper and more pointy and her lips look flatter and thinner especially in the third pair of pics

Yes, but these posts are about the teachings of Christ, as reported by Matthew, and He was not just a man, and He probably never wore pants :)

Thanks Pam

Lol, Thanks Tess underinflated footballs, shed minimizer techniques and now free flight traning, to name just a few. I continue to be surprised at the extent of your areas of expertise

I know of no animal that by their nature would choose to live in a house. The only animals I know that live in houses are those forced or trained against their nature to do so. It used to be quite common when I was a kid for people to let their dogs roam around the neighbourhood when and where they wanted, and to only come back to the residence of their owners if and when they wanted to, which they almost always wanted to do. I also know many people who still let their cats do this, and they have a little cat flap built into their back door so the cat can come and go as it pleases. Surely in both cases, the pet is exercising some choice about where and how it will live. When the dog wants to go out he scratches and whines at the door, and he does the same when he wants to come in. So he/they seems to have the best of both worlds - to come and go as and where and when they please. those that keep animals in their personal living space - do so, I believe, primarily for their selfish pleasure and not because of a actual need of their pet. Lots of pets need warm sheltered safe places to stay with plenty of food and protection against other nasty dogs and cats. Most of the time, from what I have seen, living in a home with people is extremely conducive to the needs of the animals that live there. I'm guessing that this is even more so with domesticated animals that have been living in homes for many generations and have never known or imagined any other kind of existence. And soooo many pet owners invest lots of time money and effort in addressing the needs of their pets. Having said this, I will acknowledge that I have always wanted to have a pet cockatoo or galah, but I couldn't in good conscience do that because I feel it would be cruel and unnatural to keep a bird like a cockatoo or a galah in a cage. I picture them as big, independent, freedom loving birds. However, I have no qualms about keeping a cockatiel in a big cage in the kitchen, although she does spend quite a bit of time out of the cage roaming around inside the house wherever she wants. She seems to really enjoy interacting with people and she comes from a long line of caged pet birds. As far as I can tell, all of her needs are well provided for.

That's pretty much what we've done here in Australia - limiting, and almost eliminating, the difference between conventional marriage and defacto relationships, but not allowing defacto relationships to be called marriage. So marriage and defacto relationships are almost the same in law, but not in symbolism.

Matt 10: 34 – 35 Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. Matt 5: 9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God. These three verses almost make it look as if Christ might have initiated, or engaged in, conduct inconsistent with what He counselled. This is unlikely to be the case so there must be some other explanation. Any thoughts anybody? Additionally, perhaps its not stretching the point too far to say that if His gospel was to cause variance between family members, then one of the ways in which we could be peacemakers would be to not spread the gospel. Can we be peacemakers but also engage in a course of action that Christ has said would cause conflict?

In Australia, where the federal government has constitutional responsibility for marriage, some of the States have pushed for same sex marriage but the feds have said no. Some states have tried to get around this issue by creating something called civil unions, which same sex couples can enter into and the state governments will treat civil unions as almost the same as a marriage. It provides almost all of the benefits of marriage that can be provided by a state government but it cannot be called a marriage, Over the last few years the federal government has had a close look at all the (I think) 79 pieces of legislation that distinguish on the basis of marriage vs de facto relationships (either same sex or different sex) and have weeded out almost all the areas of distinction. Of course there is still a push to legalise same sex marriage at the federal level but I believe that the measures taken by the two levels of government have taken a lot of the oomph out of the push.

lol, ummmmm. Can't think of anything at the moment, I'll give it a go in the morning when my brain is working again :) I don't want to hold up the thread while I try to think of a question so if anyone else has a question, please jump in.

staff 1 Friedrich staff 2 Uchtdorf, and the prophet is President Monson :) Zechariah is the only one I can find who named his staffs, but they were Beauty and Bands (Old Testament | Zechariah 11:7)7 And I will feed the flock of slaughter, even you, O poor of the flock. And I took unto me two staves; the one I called Beauty, and the other I called Bands; and I fed the flock.

Titles are certainly contentious in Australia at the moment. In 2014 our current Prime Minister re-instituted the title of Knights and Dames which a previous Prime Minister abandoned back in the mid 1970's. On Australia Day 2015 (January 26) he awarded the title of Knight to Prince Philip, the husband of the Queen of England, Canada and Australia, (and other places). The Prime Minister has been widely mocked and ridiculed for this decision, by his friends and enemies alike. The poor political judgement shown by this decision has become one of the many reasons why many of the backbench members of parliament have now started murmuring about replacing him.

Oh no... the polar bear in my profile picture is not wearing a shirt. Or pants. I take it the ginger bread person is appropriately dressed?

Thank you Laniston, the material you have provided here is helpful in providing a background and description to the events referred to in Matthew 15 and John 4 but I think that's all it does - it doesn't seem to provide any good answers as to why. It is still unclear to me why Jesus did something (taught a woman not of the House of Israel in John 4) when He said in Matthew 15 that He is sent only unto the lost sheep of Israel. It seems unlikely that He went outside His mission statement but this is what seems to be suggested by His actions. I note the comment that the Samaritans are descendents of the Jews but they were also descendents of non-Jewish races as well, and certainly the Samaritans were not considered by the Jews to be Jewish.

Bini, you only told us the thing that's currently bothering you about your former high school friend, you didn't tell us any of the positive things that arise from this friendship. Kind of hard to make a sound decision when only one side of the story is given. When considering whether to unfriend or unfollow, have you given equal consideration to both sides?

Why did Christ teach in Matthew 15: 22 – 24 that He was only sent to the lost sheep of Israel but in John 4: 7 – 30 He taught a woman of Samaria?

But whatsoever thing persuadeth men to do evil, and believe not in Christ, and deny him, and serve not God, then ye may know with a perfect knowledge it is of the devil; for after this manner doth the devil work, for he persuadeth no man to do good, no, not one; neither do his angels; neither do they who subject themselves unto him. It seems to me that sometimes people condense the idea expressed in these verses to something like if its good, its from God, and if its bad its from the devil and that’s how we can tell if something is good or bad. My understanding of verses 12, 16 and 17 is that Moroni is saying that we can know that something is of God if that something persuades us to do good and believe in Christ. Put another way, Moroni is saying that if something is good, and persuades us to believe in Christ, we may thereby know that that something, whatever it is, is of God. Many people seem to accept that this scripture provides us with a way of telling whether or not something is good, or whether it is of God. I’ve always had trouble with seeing how this scripture provides us with a way of telling whether or not something is good or bad. I’ll try to illustrate why with the scenarios below. An atheist is meeting with LDS, Baptist and Buddhist missionaries. On the basis of what he hears and studies from the three sets of missionaries, he decides to become a Buddhist. Is this a good thing? Living a Buddhist life helps him to be a better person and surely that is good. But it does not lead him to believe in or serve God or Christ, so that might be bad. Then he goes back to the LDS and Baptist missionaries and he decides to become a Baptist. So now he believes in God, but in choosing the Baptists, he has chosen against the true God, and has chosen a false, Trinitarian concept of God. Maybe its good that he has now chosen to believe in a form of god, but maybe its bad because in choosing the Baptists he has turned away from a true understanding of God. How do we evaluate the scenario where someone does a small bad thing for the greater good, for example, an intelligence agent who corrupts a government employee of an enemy country in order to gain information that will lead to the lives of hundreds of soldiers being saved? If I render aid to a car crash victim and stop the bleeding, but in doing so move his body in the wrong way and thereby break his neck, is that good or bad? When a person practicing a modern day form of priestcraft persuades people to believe in Christ that he might have glory of men because of the number of souls he has brought unto Christ, or because he covets the increase in his personal wealth resulting from the offerings of his followers, has he done a good thing in persuading people to believe in Christ? If I am the doctor in prison who performs a lethal injection thereby killing a man, but making the rest of society safer by removing a mad mass murderer, is that good or bad? And if the injection is done by a vigilante, without the sanction of the State, does the same act then become bad? Because if so, it is the laws of the State that determines whether the act is good or bad, and the goodness or badness of the act is in no way dependent on Moroni 7:12. If a rich man gives a dollar to a beggar but retain the $99 that might for him be just be loose change, has he done good by giving, or bad by withholding? To what extent do motives need to be taken into account when determining the goodness or badness of an act? And if we do decide to take motives into account, how often do people act with more than one motive, or with only one motive at one moment, but over time, continuing in the same act, with a different motive at a later moment? How then would we judge the goodness or badness of their act? Moroni 7:6-9 does not seem to be helpful in answering this question because it seems to be based on the assumption that people, when performing an act, only ever act with the same motivation and doesn’t seem to take into account the common scenario of mixed motivations. And if there is any truth in the idea that one of Satan’s tools is to mix 95% good with 5% bad, does that 95% of good then become bad if it helps in furthering the Devil’s work? And if doing something good leads us to a sense of complacency, ie, all is well in Zion, and we are no longer motivated to do something better because we are already doing something good, does that good thing, by de-incentivising us to do better, become less good, or not good? The above types of scenarios lead me to some uncertainty about how helpful Moroni’s counsel in verses 16 and 17 might be when trying to decide whether something is good or bad. His counsel to rely on the Spirit of Christ is certainly good counsel for those who always have the Spirit to be with them and who always seeks its guidance, and always follow that guidance, but I believe that for most of us, that is something we are still working on. So how can we reliably tell good from bad and how helpful is Moroni 7: 5 – 17 when trying to answer this question? It seems to me that life is more complex with far more shades of ever-shifting grey than the approach suggested by Moroni.

The message of Moroni 7: 5-17 is very similar to the message in Matthew 7:17, so I have similar questions about Moroni 7 to the question I raised at the start of this thread. My response to the above comment takes the form of a new question, about verses 16-17 in a new thread with the heading How can we tell good from evil.

I was hoping to keep it as a surprise until the stake and wood are fully prepared :)

Last night while looking around for some material that I thought might inform my planned input to one of the current discussions on this site Google directed me to another LDS themed discussion forum. I read a few of the posts and was shocked to read how critical the posters were of other posters. After enjoying the friendly, good natured discussion on this site, it really was quite a surprise for me to see how unpleasant the posters were to each other on this other site. This experience renewed my appreciation for the thoughtful, well informed, friendly tone of discussion that prevails on this site. It made me feel grateful for people like Anatess, Vort, Pale Rider, Prison Chaplin, Mordurbund, Seminarysnoozer, Just a guy, the folk prophet, eowen, polarvortex, Jimmigerman, estradling and many many others. New as she is, I also enjoy and appreciate Claire’s well thought out and well written comments. And of course, I’m grateful to Pam for all that she does in moderating and maintaining this site, and the organisation she works for.

I'm not saying that I agree of disagree with your point here, but I do think your point is slightly weakened by the fact that there are no insurmountable barriers to procreation in female+female same sex marriages,

Claire, this comes from the official church website https://www.lds.org/topics/plural-marriage-in-the-church-of-jesus-christ-of-latter-day-saints?lang=eng

I'm still having trouble sorting out why Christ based His parable on a false premise - that a good tree cannot bring forth bad fruit and a bad tree cannot bring forth good fruit. Both facts are clearly false and its not unreasonable to believe that Christ and the olive growers knew this. It might be only a parable but surely it would have had more weight and impact if the listeners knew it to be based on some truth? I'm hoping that the answer to this question might, as Vort has suggested, have have something to do with poor translations rather than unusual teaching techniques. I'm also a bit doubtful about the idea that a looking at the natural consequences of following a "prophets" teachings will give a reliable indicator as to whether that prophet is good or bad. We are all familiar with the televangelists whose wonderful sermons inspire many people to do many good works, but whose personal life is full of fraud and immorality. That sounds like a case of a bad tree producing good fruit.