Mike

I'm fascinated by the feeling that comes over me during an eclipse. Especially in the summer time when the sun is higher in the sky it suddenly feels like fall when the sun is toward the South. My mood actually changes, and likewise I've noticed how birds behave and start to sing.

No, you don't have to excuse her at all. And I suppose the scriptures are replete with so many stories to make application practical that we have a huge library to study. While at the moment it pleases you to focus upon over turning tables, I pleases me to focus upon the woman taken in sin (and casting stones), and the prodigal's return, just as examples. So, I'm not going to dispute your choice: "call (out) away".

As a parent (of now adult children) I am grateful that I must do no more than imagine the fears that might have occupied the minds of Ms. Card’s parents after the modeling talent-scout approached her and she subsequently left home; the sorrow upon later learning the dreaded news: she had committed and was suffering the results of sins. And then the self-imposed guilt as they asked themselves, as parents will, what they could have done more. On the other hand my own heart swells to imagine the subsequent joy they would have felt knowing that she embraced the reality of the law of repentance, and especially that she trusted what they had undoubtedly taught her and which she undoubtedly came to know in own heart—that God loves her and wants her back. Some of us are fortunate to have something (in our make-up ?) that allows us to navigate without having to know by experience the prodigal's errors. I recall an uncle's funeral decades ago and listening to a cousin recount her sorrow and frustration for having been a child who seemed to never learn but by burning her own hand--like some others of us. I suppose for all my gratitude none of us is "home free" until we get home free so to speak.

Well, you're kind to compliment me that way. And I feel compelled to return the compliment for your willingness to suffer me.

I really don't think that you believe that telling people that "sin causes a withdrawal of the Spirit" is an incorrect statement. I don't think you believe that this is false. I would believe that you take this statement to be true. I simply don't believe she is justified in making such a statement. It is false doctrine to want to spread it. You are correct that I believe the verity of "sin causes a withdrawal of the Spirit". I think in this case that paraphrasing the writer's words and/or mingling the title of her article with other parts of her article is inappropriate. While I don't know whether the wording of the title was wholly hers or whether the editor had anything to do with it as an attention "grabber" I dislike it. I recall that TFP said earlier in this thread that the article lost him at "These little sisses..."; and likewise if I had looked at an open magazine and had seen an article with that title it would of lost me at the beginning because I would have disliked the gratuitous provocative feel of it. I would have resented being included in an assumption in such a venue that there is something Mormons need to stop believing--I'm sure you'll agree the reason is obvious. As for Ms. Card's inability to stomach an idea I take it as just that, i.e. a feeling and I give her credit for telling me, the reader, that she is offering her simple *opinion* without claiming anything like authority as she tells me how she feels. In other words as an author she freely accepts my right to freely take or leave what she has to say. You say, "It is false doctrine to want to spread it." Not really accurate, but just as I give Ms. Card some leeway I do the same for you because I think I understand where you're coming from. I know what you mean. I would not say what Ms. Card said. I would not deliberately contradict scripture or inspired remarks made by prophets and apostles, and I know the difference between opinion and spreading false doctrine. Moreover, if I were acquainted with Ms. Card and in a position to offer my advice to her I would have told her that choosing her words more carefully might allow her to reach a larger number of people with her message, and helped bring people to Christ--which I believe is the intent of her heart. I hope you find my response to you to be satisfactory.

I want to believe despite how the manner in which you are pursuing this makes me feel (which I realize is my problem, and not yours) that you are motivated by a desire to defend the truth and purity of doctrine. But you don't need to go after that goal here and now with me. I'm no threat to you. At no time during my participation in this thread have I criticized you, my fellow forum members, nor the doctrine. I have only chosen to defend the writer's intentions and what I believe the results of her writing can be. On the off chance that *the manner in which I pursued* that objective made you feel it necessary to turn from criticizing the writer to investigating my doctrinal fidelity (which of course would rightfully be your problem, not mine) then I apologize here and now, if it helps. I said what I had to say and I'm asking you to merely disagree with it, as I did yours. We are, I suppose, brothers and sisters in the gospel and in terms of doctrine; and for my part this development in the conversation is unnecessarily potentially contentious. I expect that you and I will have ample opportunities as time goes on to disagree and argue in as friendly a way as we can manage, but I've no interest in participating in disagreements and argumentation regarding the doctrine or my own unworthiness compared to that of others. Seriously, all my best.

Are you asking this because you believe the writer is a liar?

Then I disagree with your criticism of the writer because I believe that her article may well encourage some young woman who has already sinned to repent. I don't believe it will encourage one to commit sin.

Wait a minute. Are you saying that she is an idiot because the Spirit of Christ *will* leave a young woman because of her sins? Are you criticizing her because you think what she wrote will encourage some young woman to sin rather than encourage some other young woman to repent of what she may already have done?

I suppose it might depend upon how one seeks to righteously evaluate whether or not someone else possesses it.

This is what I learned in school, and it illustrates the basis of my post to @person0

Thanks for reiterating that.

Let's see if I can inquire without offending. I have long been of the opinion that "Muslims" and "Arabs" are not race categorizations at all. If we were compelled, what would we say *are* the race categories of humans on Earth? I ask this question because I suspect that after naming them we would be unable to place "Muslims", and "Arabs" in only one of the categories--and I think this is quite salient. What's your opinion?

Well, yeah, but I hope you can easily see how I would misunderstand. And of course that's the reason I communicated with you, i.e. to clear up misunderstanding. So, I'm pleased to know we agree that cuisine has nothing to do with genetics. (It will help as we go forward)

I think I disagree. I disbelieve that cuisine is passed down through genetics at all.

Hmmm, I think it has less to do with the box and more to do with what different words mean to different people. For me the operative word was culture. I have also come to observe that the more we say at one time (especially digitally) the greater the risk that someone else will go in a different direction.

@Carborendum Maybe I grossly misunderstood your original question Did the question really ask which (race or culture) plays a more impactful role on us individually? I might have been barking up the wrong tree.

Yes, both contribute and not always equally to a great many facets of ourselves such as personality, predilection, disposition, etc, etc. At the moment I find myself more comfortable in the camp of "non-believers" regarding nature in terms of race impacting culture. However I'm very interested in what you might feel is the number one piece of evidence you perceive to support the claim.

Yes, and consider the "caucasian race". What is the culture that we would assign as having been impacted by it? I think we would see that there are so many "members of this race" with so many diverse cultures that to hypothesize that race itself had anything to do with any of the cultures just doesn't make sense to us.

We could have an interesting discussion about if and how (or not) race influenced this particular culture

I agree. Over my lifetime I've had the interesting pleasure of working with people by telephone because we worked in different departments of fairly large corporations. Later we would meet face-to-face at corporate parties, etc., and I realized one day that I was almost *never* right on my mental image.

I think your OP has the potential for very interesting discussion. (And your wording about intellectual honesty makes me want to try not to disappoint you. Or rather I should say to prove you wrong.) I'm fascinated to have learned that you are 100% Korean because during the time I've been a member of this forum I created, as I suspect nearly everyone does, a mental image of you--and it wasn't Korean, haha. So, that right there suggests that race as you appear to identify it might play less of a role in culture than other factors play. It also suggests to me that our perceptions with regard to race and culture have more to do with the inaccurate conclusions our eyes lead us to make vs. what is really there.

I seem to recall that when I was a teen my church leaders encouraged my generation to date (and to date more in groups than one-on-one alone for obvious reasons). Over the past couple of decades or so I've observed many parents lamenting that their teens "never dated" and some of the parents draw a connection between "this generation's behavior" and the fact that their child is past his or her twenties and still unmarried. I remember over-hearing the bishop in a singles ward only a few years ago "grilling" a ward member in the hallway outside the foyer about whether he had asked enough girls out that week, hahaha.) I am happily married (41 years) and when fondly remembering my own youth I include happy and fun memories of dating "alot". (I'm hearing in my mind the lyrics to John Mellencamp's song, Cherry Bomb: "...when I think back about those days all I can do is sit and smile." I like to believe that having met so many wonderful girls helped me to recognize the one I chose to marry when I finally met her. With this little personal background anecdote I'm curious whether any of you have an opinion (whether from personal experience or not) on the benefits (notwithstanding the risks and challenges that have always beset young people in their teens and single adults) or whether it even matters at all about dating "alot or a little".

My own personal desire in the context of the OP and subsequent posts is to state my own approach as some others have done with theirs. I like to believe that I'm following the scriptural admonition to let my light shine as in allowing people who are in the dark to see their way amongst the rocks and the cliff-edges. This as opposed to focusing my light in their eyes so that they feel compelled to shield themselves from it. So, I imagine "my light" more as a lantern and less as a search-light used as a weapon. Since I have been exposed to both kinds of lights myself I'm trying hard not to indict anyone else (neither the blind nor the seeing) but "that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven" and not that they may glorify me. (I realize that one always runs the risk of inviting unintended consequences when talking about one's self.)

In *my* second-hand experience, missionary-based couples have been less successful when the missionary was female and the husband was from the proselytizing area. But I'm prone to suspect that neither of us have a sufficiently large sampling in order to formulate a statistically valid hypothesis. Now my *first-hand* experience is 180 degrees toward the successful side. In any event I'm with you on the "I would encourage ... to pursue the relationship with ... eyes wide open, be ruthlessly introspective and honest, and understand what ... was contemplating" part. Personally, I would tell anyone the same thing if if they were marrying the boy or girl next door, from BYU, or anywhere else.