Mike

Actually, I was hoping there might be someone on the forum who has been hypnotized by competent medical professionals and would describe it from their own personal viewpoint. A discussion needn't challenge the policy.

Yeah, at that age I probably displayed similar behavior. What about today? Do you personally feel attention is the key and that it might enable you now?

Thanks very much. I'm interested, and I think the conversation could be interesting, too. ?

Well, in the absence of any affirmative responses so far, with your indulgence I'll attempt to explore the experience(s) you did have. How many people have tried to hypnotize you? Were the people entertainment professionals? How did each attempt differ from other attempts?

So, you have been hypnotized?

If you've been hypnotized would you describe it to me?

I was toying with the fantasy of buying a new inexpensive laptop with Linux pre-installed to explore the possibilities.

Hmmm, disappointing. What little I've read on the internet made me imagine something that wouldn't be bogged down with the problems most PCs and Laptops seem to labor under.

What uses did you put it through?

If anyone uses (not as a developer) Linux Ubuntu, Mint, or other distributions I'm interested in first-hand testimonials.

Nor do I think comparing urine to the homosexual use of sex organs makes much sense, but that isn't what I did. Urination (not urine, itself) is a utilization of an organ for something outside the purpose of reproduction, but that doesn't make it abnormal or unnatural. And for you to make the claim that homosexuals use hetero sex organs in ways that respond heterosexually is simply repeating your original objective. When a male or a female responds to a stimulation of an organ it it isn't a hetero response, it's a response. I think your reasoning there merely goes around and around.

Well, I would consider it to be unnecessary even for your purpose to call it an oxymoron. But if you refer to it as a dysfunctional form of heterosexuality all you are really doing is using your original objective (to prove that it isn't normal) as a means of describing it in terms of what you are trying to prove. And the same can be said of zoophilia.

I suppose speculation is the best we can do, but I wonder how that 31% breaks down. I don't think these Utah birth's are all among active LDS, but just for the sake of discussion suppose they were. I wonder if very many Utah Stakes' fast offerings funds would financially support 31% of their membership births year after year without a huge continual increase in donations. (Many members are very very generous. I know that when needs are made known by Bishops, many members step up and increase donations. They even give anonymously without documenting such giving on a donation slip.) But I still wonder if year after year (given the larger ratios from 47 other States; and then ultimately from the rest of the world for that matter) the Church funding of the births of its members instead of Medicaid funding them would be accomplished.

If you had asked me to guess what Utah's rate is I wouldn't have had a clue. So I wouldn't have had a basis for surprise. But looking back at how naive I was in my early twenties I wonder if I was so different. We didn't have health insurance when my wife became pregnant and subsequently miscarried. Nor would we have been able to get insurance with a pre-existing condition. As our lives progressed we learned. But I wonder if maybe there is some basis for the perennial arguments you mentioned?

I have only lived in two States most of my adult life, but I never had that experience where our health care providers acted surprised that my wife and I have health insurance.

Do really mean that? You don't see a difference? Unless I misunderstood, you described a situation where my Mom and Dad divorce. My Dad remarries. (Does my Mom remarry?) Now Dad and his second wife are raising me? So Dad obtained custody? What about my Mom? I see a lot of difference between your scenario and polygamy.

Thanks to all for your patience with my inquiry.

Yeah, sorry. When I saw your post responding (I think) to this exchange: Irrelevant. Authority is authority. It appeared to me that @NightSG was saying in essence that Bishops are capable of making uninspired decisions and even decisions that are mistakes. So, I wasn't sure what TFPs response meant. I wasn't going to bother, but when I read your response I became curious what to make of it all. By the way @The Folk Prophet and @NightSG I'm not meaning to talk about either of you instead of to you, so please if you feel disposed help me understand. That's about as specific as I can be since I'm really only asking for elaboration so that I may understand.

Truth distilled to its essence. Gird yourselves for the Nazi comparisons. Well, even if I felt it (which I don't) I wouldn't bring up Nazis at this juncture. And I'm not one who's prone to criticizing Bishops and other Church Officials. But I'm not sure what to make of this. Are you saying no way, no how, not now, not ever, never?

I've heard lots of stories, and I know some parents (and of course I know their children) who have had to deal with the subject of this video. The people with whom I'm acquainted are much more like the parents in the video and much less like some of the negative opinions I've heard. As for me despite the negative opinions there just isn't any way I could turn away from my children (like the people you talk about in your post).

Consider the following. There are only two types of reproduction, i.e. sexual and asexual. In this sense the word homosexual is something of a misnomer because it doesn't address reproduction--it addresses a behavior. There is no such thing (it goes without saying) as homosexual reproduction even though a gay man can reproduce and a lesbian can reproduce. So can a rapist, a zoophile, or any other person with a behavior. But we don't think of any of those behaviors as a form of reproduction from an evolutionary or biological paradigm even though they are known or hypothesized to have genetic basis. There are many more genetic behaviors, and many of those involve sex organs, but none of them have to do with reproduction. And we don't typically look to Evolution nor to its mechanisms to explain the relative percent of the population that practices them, nor why the behaviors haven't died out. This is another reason I think your pursuit is destined not to yield the results you seek.

Let me seek to clarify some of what I've said. Keep in mind, too, that personification is merely a means of getting a point across from one person to another person. But if it muddies the conversation I'll avoid it. Speaking of laws is also related to personification, however, because persons make laws, Nature doesn't. So I'll be happy to simply talk about how things work (oops, if not personification, then equivocation may easily creep in even with a word like "work"). Yes, I totally get that you want to establish that homosexuality is abnormal and to explain the percentage of homosexuals in the population. The dead end I hope to cause you to perceive comes partly by you focusing on creatures and groups. You ought to focus solely upon species if you're going to look via reproduction and perpetuation. Have you considered from the Natural perspective that since homosexuality appears to have always existed among humans and also across many other species it is Natural and therefore not abnormal? If the reproduction and perpetuation angle held a path to answering your 2-fold purpose why hasn't homosexuality disappeared Naturally? I think the reason is that homosexuality is irrelevant to reproduction and perpetuation and vice versa, that's why. Isn't your goal of establishing the abnormality of homosexuality unscientific? I mean isn't that starting with a foregone conclusion and looking for observations to support it, rather than starting with an observation and hypothesizing an explanation for what we observe? But in order to analyze the possibility, I wonder whether a sort of thought experiment could be helpful. Imagine you and I were to obtain all the power and authority we deemed necessary in order to attempt to eradicate homosexuality forever from Nature. Since it hasn't happened already in Nature, we would do it for Nature, artificially. How would we go about it? Want to talk about that, and to speculate about whether we could succeed? I'm of the opinion that we couldn't succeed, and that no matter how many "homosexuals" we destroyed it would continually Naturally reappear. Please keep in mind that throughout my interactions with you on this topic I am arguing strictly from a Nature-Evolution angle, and in no way from any other angle.

Well, I think I can relate.

@MormonGator I'm interested if you care to share any personal experiences such as the ones you alluded to when you said: Since personal experiences can often be the most impactful for others to learn from or relate to.

Observing my children and grandchildren, and comparing their behavior with my own childhood experiences, has been fascinating for me in terms of the gut vs. head thing. It is at once instructive and enlightening to see how the two skills develop. Just yesterday I had such an experience when I picked up my two (twins) 7-year old grandsons from school. One of them got into trouble and the (gut) counsel the other one gave in order to avoid further complications from their parents was very wrong but fascinating to be there to see and hear.