askandanswer

According to John Travolta, the word is grease. And he may be right. Those who have worked as mechanics, plumbers and engineers will know that with the correct use of grease, you can accomplish all sorts of things that you could not accomplish without it.

And the even better response is "So sad - I'll help you to return to recovery soon."

My most recent 5k run was January 20 -25. (Not all at once)

Bad habits take a week at most to develop, good habits about a year. Good habits take about a week to break, bad habits at least a year and sometime a lifetime.

My thoughts on exercise are driven by a deep committment to (personal) energy conservation.

How is this possible? There's only 24 hours in one day.

ANd just to re-emphasise a point that @Latter-Day Marriage has made: It's a good general rule for life not to get into something until you have first formulated an exit plan for how you can later get out of whatever you are getting into. In this context it means not letting your BIL stay with you until you have first prepared an exit plan for how and when he will go. Such a plan might include a list of red-line behaviours which, if engaged in, lead to him immediately being asked to move, a planned series of regular discussions in which you and your husband set aside time to honestly discuss whatever impact the presence of your BIL might be having on each of you individually and as a couple, a series of goals or steps that you and your BIL can work towards so that he return to independent living, an end date by which he should be ready to go, and some initial research into other accommodation options that he can move into when he leaves your place. All of this should be part of the exit plan that you and your husband discuss and agree to before you allow your BIL to come back. Remember, don't get into a situation until you have first figured out how to get out of it if you need to do so.

By a very long way your marriage is far, far more important than your relationship with your brother in law and your husband's relationship with you is far more important than his relationship with his brother. Your husband needs to understand this.

I haven't given too much thought to the progression of life forms a spirit might need to pass through to finally be born as a human, but I have given some thought to the principles of how such progression could be organised. One possible approach might be to rank the progression by intelligence, which seems to be what you have done, in which case I would rank whales and dolphins much higher, and not group them with sharks. Another possible approach might be to rank animals by their proximity to man, in which case dogs would probably be at the top of the list. If you want to become a human, it might be helpful to spend your whole life in close proximity to humans. One of the most important things that we need to learn in this life is obedience to a higher power, and that's something that a lot of dogs, and few other animals, have lots of opportunities to learn.

I agree that Lucifer is not strong enough to create evil where it wasn't meant to exist. I also agree with Rob who suggested that evil exists independently of Satan and I agree that evil could not exist on earth if God did want it to be here. I'm not sure if I agree that evil needs to exist for us to choose good because I'm still open to the possibility that we can experience a kind of growth from choosing between good and better than the kind of growth we can gain from choosing between good and evil. I can see how the plan I am referring to has some similarities with Satan's plan. However, an important difference is that Satan's plan forces us to choose good by taking over our agency while the plan I am referring to removes the possibility of choosing evil by removing evil as an option.

Would you feel comfortable in sharing what led you to start?

ten out of 11. I guessed wrong that Steve Martin is a Latter-Day Saint. He's an actor isn't he? Or comedian? or tv celebrity?

@Maureen even though I've seen it many times, I'm sometimes still surprised about how much you know about this church.

Perhaps they are, perhaps they aren't. But if you can get the same, or even just similar learning and progression outcomes from a system based on choosing between good, better and best, rather than the current system based on choices between good and evil, then you can do away with Satan and evil, and that would be radically different from our current system.

Some questions occurred to me this morning about which I think it would be very helpful to get the thoughts of others. At present, the Plan of Salvation is set up in such a way that progression and learning is linked to, when choosing between good and evil, the making of right choices, ie, choosing the right and rejecting the evil. This seems to be one of the main mechanisms for growth. Under the current arrangements, the necessity of, and ability to make such choices, is the, or maybe one of the, central elements of the whole plan. When thinking about this, this morning, the following questions came to mind. How might things be different if, instead of being required to choose between good and evil, the range of choices was simply between good, better, best, or between good and more good? Could the objectives that are intended to be achieved under a system of choosing between good and evil be achievable under a system of choosing between good better best? What objectives could not be achieved, or could not be achieved quite as well? If the same, or similar objectives could be achieved under a system of choosing between good better and best, is the existence of evil and a tempter still necessary? What are the pros and cons of a system where the choices are between good better best as compared with a system where the choices are between good and evil? Could an examination of the range of differing possible mechanisms – ie, one mechanism characterized by a system of choosing between good and evil, and another mechanism characterized by a system of choosing between good, better and best, and any other mechanisms that could exist – and an examination of the option that is ultimately decided upon, and a comparison between the option that was decided upon with the options that were rejected help us to better understand the mind, the preferences, the values and intentions of the Decider of that decision? Your thoughts and comments are most welcome because I have no clear idea about this. But it does seem to me that values, preferences, and intentions can sometimes be glimpsed when we can better understand the choices that have been made and what the alternatives were.

From my long and careful studies, I'm pretty sure that the urim has thumm'in to do with the breastplate.

The article mentioned that: Data from the Federal Bureau of Investigation showed that in 2017, there were 2,627 murders of blacks by other blacks in the United States. For perspective, consider that this nearly equates to the number of the lives lost in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And this is happening annually within our communities. If only one tenth of the resources that have been expended in response to the 9/11 attacks had been expended on addressing the problem of blacks killing blacks, how much smaller would that problem be now and how many more people would still be alive?

Lol, really? There's no way I would have guessed that!

How did this thread come to be called TK Smoothies?

I think that any committee or organisation that has as one of its key functions the gathering of evidence and information needs to be extremely careful about making rules about how that information or evidence will be provided. Once you start making rules about how evidence must be provided, you start to limit the quality and clarity of the evidence you will receive. Evidence givers should be allowed to give their evidence in a manner that best reflects what they are comfortable with. It seems strange to me that an evidence gathering committee, that relies on the good will of people to give evidence to it, would set up a rule saying you can only give evidence to us in this particular manner and in the manner that we want to hear.

Here is an example of the dangers of relying on this sort of approach: 1. Thou shalt have no other cats before me. 2. Thou shalt not make unto thee any casseroles 3. Thou shalt not take deep breaths in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh deep breaths in vain. 4 Remember your wedding anniversary, to keep it holy. 5. Honour thy house and thy car: that thy days may be long upon the land which the LORD thy God giveth thee. 6. Thou shalt not laugh. 7. Thou shalt not commit harm. 8. Thou shalt not play golf. 9. Thou shalt not bear gifts against thy neighbour. 10. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's barbecue, thou shalt not covet thy children, nor his tools, nor shed, nor his swimming pool, nor his pet dog, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

It’s absurd to think that an understanding of the gospel means that we then have an understanding of all of God’s intentions, plans, decisions and actions in relation to the development, implementation and operation of the Plan of Salvation. If we take the narrow definition of the gospel, as taught by Christ himself, and recorded in 3rd Nephi 27, then the gospel is simply faith, repentance, baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. If we take a more expanded, modern definition of the Gospel, as added to by latter day prophets, we can include Priesthood, temple ordinances, enduring to the end and eternal progression. I think the gospel contains all and only the information that we need in order to be saved, but this is far, far short of all the information contained in the development, implementation and operation of the Plan of Salvation. There is almost an infinite amount of room for ideas and information about thousands of topics that have not been included in the scriptures.

My understanding is that those who rejected God's plan and did not want themselves or others to have agency were cast out. What are your thoughts on what these rejectin spirits were before they rejected agency? Were they the sprits of eventual humans or the spirits of eventual animals?

I think it is God's desire to give all forms of life the maximum opportunities to progress as far as they can and becoming like God is as far as we can progress, so perhaps in some way, animals also have this opportunity, although on a different timeframe.

It has been suggested that all the major religions contain some form of truth. Reincarnation is a major teaching of one particular religion, although I can't remember which one at the moment. Perhaps animals go through multiple cycles of life and death and descend or ascend on the intelligence scale in proportion to their obedience until they are born as humans.