Amillia

That is sad. I'm glad she is in a better place now.

What if the statement : time is measured only to man ~ actually means that only man is limited in time ~ (on this earth)? Wouldn't that reconcile the statements? BTW ~ thanks for these references! (I am always up late, I have teen agers!) Maybe, but then you still have the "all is as one day unto God" passage. Not "a thousand years is as one day", but "all" is as one day. But a day is just a symbol of measurement. It isn't literal or finite as morning and night ~ it is also the beginning and end ~ of a time for accomplishing tasks at hand. The Lord stated that 'all' would see Him in 'that' day. When you consider that the sun will rise in the east all over the earth at a different time ~ all will not see Him at the same 'time' but in the same day! or their day ~ Read the scripture in D&C 88: 51 Behold, I will liken these kingdoms unto a man having a field, and he sent forth his servants into the field to dig in the field. 52 And he said unto the first: Go ye and labor in the field, and in the first hour I will come unto you, and ye shall behold the joy of my countenance. 53 And he said unto the second: Go ye also into the field, and in the second hour I will visit you with the joy of my countenance. 54 And also unto the third, saying: I will visit you; 55 And unto the fourth, and so on unto the twelfth. 56 And the lord of the field went unto the first in the first hour, and tarried with him all that hour, and he was made glad with the light of the countenance of his lord. 57 And then he withdrew from the first that he might visit the second also, and the third, and the fourth, and so on unto the twelfth. 58 And thus they all received the light of the countenance of their lord, every man in his hour, and in his time, and in his season— 59 Beginning at the first, and so on unto the last, and from the last unto the first, and from the first unto the last; 60 Every man in his own aorder, until his hour was finished, even according as his lord had commanded him, that his lord might be glorified in him, and he in his lord, that they all might be glorified. 61 Therefore, unto this parable I will liken all these kingdoms, and the inhabitants thereof—every kingdom in its hour, and in its time, and in its season, even according to the decree which God hath made. The meausrement of time is relavant to circumstances and can mean many different things. I can state ~ that in 'my day' I did thus and so ~ and I am not speaking of Friday ~ I am speaking of my time of life~

My father was able to state he no longer wanted to live ~ and someone complied to his wishes about his life. It wasn't what my mother wanted, nor what I wanted, but that wasn't the case with Terri was it?It was the parents who gave it into the hands of the judges, by interfering in a husband/wife relationship. I would hate to have my fil or mil decide what should happen to my husband. It isn't their place anymore. ~ even if they think I am screwing up! God had given a few statements about marriage ~ and none give the parents the power over either spouse after the marriage. Matt. 19: 6 6 Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder. This next one is so important it is taught many times over: When people over step their place, chaos occurs and that is what has happened when Terri's parents over stepped their place.

I agree, but could you give me some references in the BofM and Abraham which don't agree, so I can read that for myself? Dang, you're up late on a Friday night. Give me a minute and I'll get the references. (a few minutes later) Alma 40:8 -- "Now whether there is more than one time appointed for men to rise it mattereth not; for all do not die at once, and this mattereth not; all is as one day with God, and time only is measured unto men." Abraham 3:4 -- "And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord’s time, according to the reckoning of Kolob." To summarize and contrast: Alma says all of time is "as one day" with God. Abraham says a thousand years on earth is a year to the Lord. Alma says time is measured only to man, not God. Abraham says time is measured ("reckoned") to God, but that His time moves much more slowly than man's. The New Testament seems more consistent with the Book of Mormon version. See 2 Peter 3:8 -- "But, beloved, be not ignorant of this one thing, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day." That is, 1 earth day = 1,000 divine years and 1,000 earth years = 1 divine day. But if 1 divine day = 1,000 earth years, 1 earth day can't equal 1,000 divine years. The only way to escape the mathematical impossibility is to understand that to God, all time has the same value, so that 1,000 divine years has the same value as 1 divine day. In other words, time is measured only to man. Abraham got it wrong. What if the statement : time is measured only to man ~ actually means that only man is limited in time ~ (on this earth)? Wouldn't that reconcile the statements? BTW ~ thanks for these references! (I am always up late, I have teen agers!)

I think what was done was the right thing. Did you happen to listen to conference today? Didn't you hear the talk about the little paper boy?I think it is a lesson some need to learn.

What does it mean to be perfected? Does one have to be worthy and go to the Celestial kingdom to be perfected? If so ~ Elder Nelson stated (and it has been stated many times before) we can't be perfected without our ancestors. So ~ how does this happen if our ancestors are never brought into the Celestial Glory? And can Christ truly be perfected if we are not, based upon this principle?

The Right Words ================ Lord, give me the right words to say To broken hearts that come my way To those who have been hurt before That, I not hurt them any more To those whose hearts have hardened up To those who won't hold out their cup That, Lord, You long to overflow With love and mercy. Lord, let me know That I might have the words to say That I might plant a seed today That glory would be given to You Through all I say and all I do Lord, give me the right words to say More hearts are breaking every day They're out there crying in the night I long to help them see the light But, fragile are those souls and weak So this is why Your words I seek And pray Thee give me words to say That I, not one soul, turn away. ~by Susan Tier~

What's wrong Amillia? The study clearly said that Mormons were superior and more effective; it went on to specify how Mormons compared to specific non-Mormon demographic groups. All munch bunch!

Here is what I think: First, one must live the laws of the kingdom if they want to live in it. ~but I think given enough time ~and the element of one eternal round....and the doctrine taught in the temple.." into one great whole" will bring us all back to our Father....in the eternal eventualities... Second, those who didn't gain this life....because they didn't live the laws to obtain it ~(I believe ) will eventually be given such a chance again ~and as end meets beginning and all begins again ~they may fail severel times ~but I do believe that the work of the Lord will not be thwarted ~and that work is to bring to pass the imortality and eternal life of man. Now some would take eternal life to only mean eternal reward or eternal punishment ~or damnation ~(progression or blockage of progression) ~but I hear the words of JS saying... D&C 121: 33 33 How long can rolling waters remain impure? What power shall stay the heavens? As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints. Though this is speaking of only the Latter-day Saints ~and them receiving knowledge ~ I feel we must always look past the contextual limitations to the principle. The principle here is ~ that we cannot hinder the Almighty from doing anything, including bringing all of His children back under the principles of agency and choice ~though it takes several forevers to do so ~ Third, motivation being the power behind most of what we do here, it would seem important to make sure that we know we can't repent on the other side and gain the blessing of the atonement ~( but that doesn't eliminate the power to endure our own punishment and come out ready to progress) ~so that we would make the most of this life while we are here ~but consider the teachings we have received all of our life about how much harder it will be to do the same things over there without a body ~as we do here with a body ~that is motivation.... Also ~knowing that D&C 130:18-19 teaches us that it is so much the advantage to progress her ~ we are also given this as great motivations, without eternally shutting the doors on our brothers and sisters ~who were slower to come around. I see this earth life as a excelled program, which, if we earned it in the pre-existence, we received this opportunity to advance faste ~.and those who didn't qualify, will have to take the long road. Sort of like catching the monarail compared to walking a long distance. The advantages is the motivation. We don't have to take anything away from others to gain for ourselves the advantage or motivation, do you see? I think everyone will progress both within their kingdom and beyond if they do what it takes. I don't think one will get to the very top of the kingdom he/she is in and stay there forever after not progressing further. It just doesn't make sense. Consider the scripture in D&C 88: 40 40 For ntelligence cleaveth unto intelligence; wisdom receiveth wisdom; truth embraceth truth; virtue loveth virtue; light cleaveth unto light; mercy hath compassion on mercy and claimeth her own; justice continueth its course and claimeth its own; judgment goeth before the face of him who sitteth upon the throne and governeth and executeth all things. If one gains more intelligence, wisdom, truth, virtue, light, mercy, in their asigned and earned kingdom ~then justice would dictate they receive all of these progressively as they have gained them ~no? and that would mean moving on according to their progressiveness ~even to the point of gaining the advantage they lost in their first or second estates. For instance, those who were maybe laggers in the pre-existence could possibly gain back the advantage they lost there, by joining the church and becoming stalwarts here; doing more than others, sacreficing more for others, etc.(theoretically speaking of course) I find the human spirit so powerfully forward moving, that even bad choices can be put to our advantage as we grow in wisdom and understanding of it all. Experience is a powerful teacher and motivator. I had to hit "my bottom" place before I could start to rise up again. I think those who chose wrongly here or before in the pre-existence, may have there own 'bottom' to reach before they start an ascent upwards again ~and Our Father knows this. He gives us all the space we need to do the 180 ~even if it takes several 360s to finally do the 180 ~when we are going down the wrong path, implimenting all the eternal principles to bring us eventually back to Himself. I once had my stake president tell me that if we thought we could always do something later, we wouldn't have the motivation to be faithful and live right ~that it was necessary for us to feel the finality of making eternal mistakes ~to decide to do the right thing. But enduring love/charity is long suffering. Longer than this life, bigger than this one stage of life, for our children ~His children. He waits at that door for us ~all of us. If we take out the human element, the fallen nature of man ~we see that it isn't cut and dried as final this or that. There is no final. It is one eternal round ~it is always moving ~one way or the other. And there comes a time, even for the hardest heart, when everyone will bend their knee and confess Jesus is the Christ. And it won't be the bending the knee by force. That just isn't the MO of the Lord. It is all voluntary, by choice ~agency. Even our mistakes can be used for our good, when we come to love the Lord. Can one bend their knee by choice and not feel respect and humility for Christ? And in that humility have we not come from the hardness of heart? And in this humility can we not move forward? Well, I know I have gone on and on here ~but I have a hard time closing that door of Eternal Love/charity which endureth ~all things.

Then she celebrates the pagan holiday? There are lots of those!

I agree, but could you give me some references in the BofM and Abraham which don't agree, so I can read that for myself?

Where are the specific catagories of superiority? Superior in what way? That was the most wishywashy, generalized muck I have ever waded through!

That's a load of horse manure. Michael Schiavo has shown right from the beginning that he couldn't have cared less what the parents felt, either regarding her medical care or just their feelings. Maybe if he had been more giving, this battle would not have ensued. I don't agree at all. The manure has always come from the parents, so if you have a load, you know who to asign it to.

Two years ago we did our own traditional Passover seder with Mormon overtones - loved it. Cool. I wonder if it is becoming a trend among us mormons~

Actually, from all I can find plowing through some of the most tedious stuff imaginable, PD's copied and pasted definition of legal/clinical death, no brain function, including no brainSTEM function defines legal/clinical death. So, with brainstem function, and no cortical function Terri would have been technically alive, but in the state called "persistant vegetative". I said this myself last night, or the night before, and posted a link for to the definition of PVS, so I don't know what came over me tonight except perhaps I was flustered by the mention of Dr. Sanjay Gupta, whom I loathe, and who is into the same kind of mumbo jumbo mysticism George Felos is criticized for. And death is a clinical diagnosis, you don't need an EEG if you have a patient who is unable to breathe on their own and you know they have no brainstem function; the EEG measures primarily cortical function, and Terri's was "flat". Although the physician who said this on the Dan Abrams show (which I actually watched but ignored Dr. Gupta)may have been hired by Michael Schiavo, and was perhaps "dumbing down" his terminology to cater to the audience, he was still, IMO, right. To me this means Terri was a non thinking, non feeling, non functioning body kept breathing by a brain stem left intact by some awful fluke of fate. Again, IMO, the fine line between "brain death" and PVS is what makes this case so sad and so moving for all of us; it takes more than the ability to breathe on one's own to make one "alive", and while I can see why grieving parents might go a little "mad" and seek to keep a daughter with them, here on this earth, in a state of breathing death, I KNOW, beyond any shadow of doubt that there are none, or close enough to none of those among us (not just here, I am speaking of "us" as people in general) who would choose that state of mindless rotting existence for ourselves. I still think that the evidence tells that through all of this Michael Schiavo has acted with a much greater degree of grace and compassion than have the Schindlers, and, perhaps the greatest evidence we have for this has been his low profile and silence as the Schindler's played the crowd. And, in the end I think the Schindler's actions will finally betray them. we are seeing this now, with the selling of the list of contributors, and the literal attempt to pick a fist fight at Terri's actual deathbed on the part of Bobby Schindler. A couple of things struck me in the National College of Neurology definition of PVS that I posted last night, maybe the night before. One, is that after 12 moonths, the chances of recovery from a PVS are nil. Yet, it is well documented that Michael kept trying therapies and experimental treatments well past that 12 month mark. And, for those who claim Terri received sub standard, careless, or shoddy care: the expected lifespan of someone in a PVS is 2-5 years. Terri survived 15; this speaks to her having had exceptional care. It is late and I am rambling I know, sorry. Thanks ~ one thing about Michael still trying stuff after the 12 months ~ do we really know that it wasn't motivated by the parents through guilt that he had all this money to keep Terri, and then he lets her go after only 12 months? We really don't know all that was really going on with the family ~ except judging from what is happening now and I would say it is a pretty safe bet that Michael was afraid not to keep trying when he still had money~cause of the parents.

FALSE. Your mother could request and get copies of the medical records. Or maybe you think they would have forged the medical records... and would that have been before or after they helped arranged the Kennedy assasinations? Think about the absurdity of what you are saying.... that in plain sight someone murdered your father, your mother watched it but didn't think to ask about it and even if she did, the hospital wouldn't have told her. rightttttt. ROFL! YOu think they actually record murders in the medical records? LOL get out of here! Plain sight at 3 am ~ right! No one but my mother was there and she watched the nurse deliver the shot. How could she prove that it had anything to do with his death? They medical world would never have backed her up. Not even my brother, who had told us many horrendous stories of crap going on at hospitals ~ would back her up. BUT IT HAPPENED JUST LIKE THAT!

Nice. So there are some good athiest. :)

I have a dear friend who has also gotten caught up with the Judaism and more especially, it's cultural and religious celebrations. She closes her store and actually does all of them up to the extreme! Any plans to celebrate?

No, it's not. She did have some brain activity. If a person has a heartbeat that continues by itself, there is brain activity, period. Specifically, the autonomic system, operating from the brain stem, is the only thing that keeps the heartbeat and breathing going. It's impossible for a person with no brain activity to have an independent heartbeat. If Terri Schiavo truly had "no brain activity," she would have had to be on a heart-lung machine, wouldn't have responded to stimuli, couldn't have opened and closed her eyes, and couldn't have made noise. Now, it does look like she had little or no higher brain activity, as her cerebral cortex, where the higher brain functions associated with consciousness are mostly operate, was pretty much shot. The heart beat and the breathing was a function of the brain stem ~ strickly reflexes, not life. The AMA and ABA, and the law, say different. It's not a very good life, I'll grant, but life in a PVS is still legally and medically life. Well they have been known to be wrong before.

Thanks. I do have a question. Why do the athiests or non-christians/jews ~ not get their own holidays? Why do they just try and destroy ours? Spoil sports, I say!

My kids repeat this quite often when riding in the car with me.

Wow! A voice of reason! Well stated USN! But human beings aren't animals ... http://www.theproudduck.blogspot.com/2005_...ck_archive.html "As Terri Schiavo dies, I keep coming back to the phrase "death with dignity," which figured large in my law school con-law and biothics classes. I've always been uneasy with the whole phrase "dying with dignity." By my calculation, there have been approximately six truly dignified deaths in the past two thousand years, and I may be overcounting. There's nothing particularly dignified about death, no matter how you try to pretty it up. Really, the things that we say make a "dignified" death are truly rather the last few moments of dignified life. You say a few noble last words, exhale, and then what's left of you starts to go bad immediately. In the modern world, you're likely to be immobilized and helpless flat on your back in a hospital or hospice bed, dependent for your comfort on the kindness of others. The addition or subtraction of a few more or less IVs and tubes hardly makes any difference to the indignity of it all. Even a heroic death on a battlefield is hardly better -- messy stuff tends to splatter everywhere and more likely than not you wind up facedown in mud. As an ocean lifeguard, I performed CPR on a man who had a sudden cardiac arrest on the beach. He was a man who for all I know had lived a wonderful life, but there he was clammy and crusted with sand and frothing with sputum as he died in front of a gawking crowd, with cursing lifeguards and paramedics slamming down on his chest. Nothing dignified about that at all, let me tell you. Death sucks. It really takes faith (or a mature philosophy, which I believe draws its wisdom from divinity even if it does not acknowledge that Source) to afford the process any kind of dignity at all. Faith and philosophy are incidents of life, not death. Yet the slogan "death with dignity" seems to me to be too often marshaled to diminish those very things, and make man -- the only creature with a capacity for these things -- little more than an old sick cat to be put out of its misery." Well there isn't really anything dignified about birth either. And we aren't animals, we are much more than animals so why should we be made to lay around like vegatables just so those who are around us won't feel guilty about sending us to the great beyond?

Yes, it is all in what you know and also what experience has taught you in your life. Terri was brain damaged and unable to speak for her self. I feel that Michael used the control that he had, being her guardian, unrighteously. I have a real problem with control freaks who take advantage of the disabled. This is one of the reasons why he is creepy to me. And I see the parents as the control freaks. LOL

Yes, I remember you telling me about that on IM. My point is that a spirit can leave(for a limited time only) without a person being dead. It is the heartbeat that determines life. I don't know if it can really be considered life if the heart beat contnues ~ when there is no brain activity. God has to decide I guess. I guess the jury is still out on whether Terri had brain activity or not, so for now let's just place that right here* If I understand this, if the body or (shell as it has been described) remains alive with a heart beat...but because a brain lacks activity the person is considered dead right? It just doesn't sound right. To me a people are alive until their spirit leaves their body. You see I have this belief that our bodies merely house our spirits. We are not our bodies; we are the observer inside of the body. If you were to say "I am so sorry" and really mean it... try it now, and say it out loud. Did you do anything when your hands? If it didn't work this time, try it again when you express something sincere and meaningful. When I do this I usually put my hand close to my heart. It is an instinct and I believe that we do this because first, it is our heart felt words, and second because that is where the observer is. It is the observer who controls our brains and our brains control our bodies. I believe that the reason we were sent here was to be tested. How does one be tested when there is no brain activity, no thinking, no feeling, no existence? Having already fulfilled one element of this life's purposes, gaining a body, it would be no longer to hang on to said body after the brain has stopped functioning. I don't believe God measures life the way men do.

No, it's not. She did have some brain activity. If a person has a heartbeat that continues by itself, there is brain activity, period. Specifically, the autonomic system, operating from the brain stem, is the only thing that keeps the heartbeat and breathing going. It's impossible for a person with no brain activity to have an independent heartbeat. If Terri Schiavo truly had "no brain activity," she would have had to be on a heart-lung machine, wouldn't have responded to stimuli, couldn't have opened and closed her eyes, and couldn't have made noise. Now, it does look like she had little or no higher brain activity, as her cerebral cortex, where the higher brain functions associated with consciousness are mostly operate, was pretty much shot. The heart beat and the breathing was a function of the brain stem ~ strickly reflexes, not life.