Mike

How interesting. Really. "Following my gut" has not come naturally to me; I'm much more likely to analyze a situation and follow my head. But I have found through long (and often painful) experience that I pretty much always do better to follow my gut. And just to contribute an additional perspective my default mode has typically been following my gut, or heart, or instincts. Often my default mode caused me problems, and I had to learn through long and often painful experiences, as @Vort puts it, that I needed to use my head more often. I think it's often situational, and maybe the learning curve involves becoming acquainted with the kinds of events where my instincts work and where my head works better. Interestingly, over time I found that using both my instincts and my head produced positive results; and I learned that often (to my great satisfaction) one actually enhanced the other.

Great! Thanks everybody for the help.

What is the procedure for nesting quotes the way @mordorbund did at the top of page 3 in the thread entitled Temple Workers (quoting @anatess2 quoting @Just_A_Guy )?

I don't argue against (and at no point have intended to argue against) that statement. However that statement illustrates why your contributions to this thread and my contributions to this thread have nothing at all to do with one another, and why both of us are wasting our time and energy responding to one another's posts. I wish you all the best.

Just for the sake of conversation. Isn't the doctrine that children who die before the age of 8 go directly to the Celestial Kingdom? That sounds like an advantage to me.

Thank you. As usual your way of putting it is probably more effective than my way.

Yes, I see that clearly now.

And I think you aren't paying enough attention to get the point. You could nuke most of the planet and it wouldn't matter. We're not talking demographics here. We're talking how Nature works to perpetuate *any* species. And if the human species dies out, it still doesn't matter to the way Nature works.

Maybe I should change the words "for the majority of humans on the planet" to something like "for many people on the planet" or even "large numbers of people in the modern western world". The point--in the context of the discussion I am having with Vort relative to perceptions about sexual activity vs. murder--is that the perception I described is only a single factor that could begin to account for why people might have an easier time not being as bothered. It wasn't meant to address your opinions in any way, if that means anything to you.

OK, I'm going to believe that I misconstrued some of what you said earlier. I do agree with you with regard to a human lifetime being such a relatively infinitesimally small span in eternity.

It seems to me, Wade, this sentence takes you down a dead end. Creatures don't survive as a species. It isn't about individual creatures. For no other reason than emphasis let me say it this way: Nature doesn't "care" about you, nor about me, nor about Bob and Ted, nor about Alice and Carol. Nature only cares about the human species in general; and the human species is doing just fine reproducing and perpetuating the species. So Nature has nothing to worry about. Again, I think you are drawing an unwarranted conclusion about a lifestyle being non-reproductive. The same could be said about urinating with an organ that is "meant" (?) for ejaculating sperm. But all Nature cares about is that the reproductive organs work well enough, and enough creatures survive to perpetuate the species. A homosexual male creature can still get horny enough to rape a female and thereby get with the "program"--Nature doesn't care.

I agree that in terms of true repentance with all that it entails (i.e. real change) what a person *was* no longer *is*. I agree this also applies to the case of murder as you explained. Moreover, I agree with you in terms of forgiveness--how the Lord feels about it anyway. Everyone ought to forgive as the Lord does, but since we are talking about weak mortals we must acknowledge the reality of the limitations (one-by-one) to overcome in order to forgive and forget. I submit the first factor affecting our limitations is that the difference in magnitude makes all the difference in the world, and I don't agree that the two sins are even close to being comparable in magnitude. The results of sexual bad judgement you mentioned (as in the hypothetical pre-marital experimentations) don't typically last--as a matter of fact for the majority of humans on the planet they may even be looked back upon as pleasant memories and lessons learned.* The exceptions are just that, exceptions--if every sexual indiscretion resulted in a venereal disease or every boy with a magazine went blind, then people would stop, no questions asked. But every murder always lasts a lifetime, and of the two participants in each murder one of them never said, "yeah, let's do it," and never got a second chance. I doubt the other ever entertained a memory that some good came from the experience. This huge difference in magnitude weighs heavily, and is culturally embedded in the minds of people the world over. * For some reason I was just now humming to myself and thinking of Joni Mitchell's lyrics to Woodstock - " ...life is for learning"

"What difference does it make" can be applied in some examples, but not in most examples. Most of the time our choices do make a difference--sometimes a tiny difference and other times a huge difference. My own stripe and thought causes me to think of life as something like playing chess where every move potentially opens the metaphorical door to more choices, or conversely closes the door forever to some other choices. Well not exactly. When we repent *we* change, but the "it" still happened and often the results of the "it" are there to stay for the duration of our lifetimes. I believe this, too, but perhaps to a different extent. I can't say whether or what God knows--but I still believe God is omniscient. If I knew at some time past, I certainly don't know now and to invoke again the phrase "what difference does it make" I would answer that it makes all the difference. Yes, we started the journey long ago but if I accurately understand the meaning of what you've written as you want me to, then I'm not sure I can agree whole heartedly that my choices here don't have some kind of significant impact on my journey. Yes, I believe in repentance and my ability to change. Yes, I believe that my sins although they are like crimson can be made white. And yes I believe that my choices made in faith are everything good that you say they are. ...but: If you are right, and that repentance can be accomplished beyond this mortal life then wonderful. But since I don't know, I think I would be better off acting as though it can't. I think I should keep playing the "game" and striving to enlarge my opportunities for free-will choices.

Likewise. And I've done a 180 in my appreciation of the value of your original question. I'm happy to allow a discussion to take as long as it may, and at whatever points in time we can both give it the attention it deserves. Thank you for this, and for your high calibre thinking. I fear that I may struggle to avoid becoming lost in the words, and I may therefore need to "eat this elephant" a bite at a time.

You've jumped to some inaccurate conclusions of which I want to disabuse you. What's at play here may be that you and I think very differently from one another in the ways we approach life. First, I am not avoiding your question. At least not intentionally. My problem was that your question felt so absurd to me that it has taken me this long to wrap my mind around it--and to decide to trust you since you tell me that you have no hidden agenda. It felt to me as if you did have an agenda, or at least that your intent was simply to embarrass me. I think the reason your question threw me for a loop is that it seemed so out of context given what Anatess and I were discussing--and, as I already mentioned, to me placing "sexually active" and murder in the same topic still feels so unacceptable. Secondly, what you identified as an implicit suggestion, [i.e. that the hypothetical sexually active behavior was "in the past"] and a reason it didn't bother me was neither a suggestion nor a reason at all. I was merely using the phrase as an expression to describe events that would have had to have happened over 40 years ago. However, if we were to pose differing hypotheticals (with differing time frames in regard to when my wife and I met; and in regard to whether the sexual activity occurred before marriage or during marriage) then I must confess that the intensity or lack of intensity of my feelings might change accordingly. And thirdly, I didn't offer the fact that one action may be criminal and the other not as a relevant factor but again simply as a reason that your question originally struck me as being so off-the-wall. Anyway, you say a simple "yes" or "no" will suffice. Actually it won't suffice for me. I'll give you a brief answer, but at this point I've become intrigued and I'm now hoping to discuss it in more depth if you remain interested in your own question. The brief answer is this: in your hypothetical the murder would probably bother me, but the intensity of my feelings would be influenced by several additional factors. As I said, being sexually active and murdering someone are very different--to me even metaphorically light years apart. So, if you're interested in discussing this in more depth then let's go for it.

Based upon so many of the posts I have seen you make I have a difficult time seeing you make a comparison between murder and a person being sexually active. I mean one thing is a capital crime. The other is not. That should be sufficient. But more than that I know that you are an active member of the church with a deep understanding of gospel doctrine particularly the doctrine of the atonement, and of repentance, and of forgiveness. I feel comfortable saying that I am confident you yourself have been through many temple recommend interviews, and you know full well that after a person has repented, and taken care of issues through appropriate priesthood officials there is no need to ever dredge up the past again. Now, the one thing you couldn't possibly know about me and about my bride is that we were sealed in the temple. But I suppose you could have asked rather than drawing an analogy between sexual activity and murder. In any event, what I've told you is the basis for my comfort in saying that even if I were to learn today about something in my wife's past, or even for that matter in your past, Vort, that it would not mean much to me. So, I hope I have not come across as condescending, or abrasive. And if what I have said sounds foolish to you on any level, then I don't know what else I can say.

Not sure how this is a serious question.

I agree with this. It goes without saying that anyone's life could fill volumes.

Thank you. I appreciate understanding you better, and I gained some valuable insight just now.

Yeah, it was just a little black humor there. Actually I would call our experience with Ebola a possible success story. And our experience with antibiotics par for the course. Tell me more about what you mean with homosexual-related health concerns. From a microbiological standpoint and in the worldview of an Evolutionist I would think there is really nothing surprising.

I would call 11.5 and 5.0 small percentages of the population. When I say tendency I mean anywhere on the spectrum from something as insignificant as a fleeting erotic fantasy to those of us deplored by some others of us. I wouldn't call it a cause for concern, either. I would just call it getting to know ourselves better. Like I said, it can have a constructive application regardless of whatever side of the room one wishes to find a chair.

Hmmm, I would wonder if the greater danger isn't due to our technology which makes it more difficult for Mother Nature to isolate problems. (Or perhaps easier to eradicate some other problems if you take my meaning. I'm thinking more along the lines of influenza, Ebola, etc., and not AIDS per se.)

It seems to me to be easily as likely (as any other explanation) that everybody has homosexual tendencies to varying degrees. From a religious standpoint that strikes me as good reason to expect God warning against it as He warns against other sexual behaviors. From a non-religious standpoint it makes sense in a similiar way that people have varying other tendencies and to varying degrees. I'm sure there are a lot of people who would be gagging at the possibility right now, hahaha.

There seems to me at least another way to think about this. First of all I think it is erroneous and extremely over-simplistic to say that a "gene causes homosexuality", and more accurate to say a gene can have a variety of manifestations by itself, under differing conditions, and in tandem with or in the absence of other genes, etc. Thus, there is no reason that homosexuality should be considered subject to or even ought to "die out". Moreover, given the complexity and variety of human sexuality there are many reasons to not be surprised it doesn't die out.

That's too extreme, and it's light years too general. I'm aware of the dangers of social diseases for example which is a big reason to be careful. I don't take lightly the dangers of losing access to the blessings of a temple marriage if one is LDS. And I have observed the pain that results in many lives when a child is born and doesn't know her father, for example. There are many practical reasons to be careful. And there are too many variables for me to make a blanket judgement to cover all the possible paths in the lives of so many millions of people. Because on the other side I can't think of a reason to be bothered if I learned today that my wife was sexually active before I met her. It's in the past.