Luke

I had to read your reply a couple times...wow, the 3 groups a very different way of looking at things. Not sure I totally accept that as I've never heard that taught anywhere else and it seems that church authorities often interpret this scripture to mean 1/3 of God's children. But I hope your understanding is right...the idea that 1/3 of our brothers and sisters are going to suffer the most awful torment imaginable for the rest of eternity....makes me want to weep like Enoch. Back to the actual topic: the idea of our pre-mortal existance like our spiritual childhood and mortal life as our spiritual adolescence when our decisions have the greatest effect on our final path as adults makes a lot of sense to me. So perhaps as spiritual children sin and accountability were different.

Interesting point. I hadn't thought of it that way. Makes a lot of sense.

I was hoping someone could help me work through an apparent contradiction of the following three doctrinal facts: 1) that we lived in God's presence before coming to earth 2) we had free agency and most of us did not live perfect pre-mortal lives. That is we committed sin in our pre-mortal existance. 3) No unclean thing can dwell with God, in fact, God cannot look upon sin with the least degree of allowance So, how is it we lived with God if we were sinful? I was trying to work through this but haven't been able to find a satisfactory explanation: Perhaps sins in the pre-mortal life were more like transgressions not sins....like a child taking a toy from another child...not the same as a grown man steeling...but that didn't make sense since we had no veil over our memory and any sin committed was with our eyes wide open. Then I thought, well, maybe the types of sins that get us cast out of God's presence are those that can only be committed with a physical body. But that doesn't appear to hold water since 1/3 of God's spirit children were cast out of his presence for choosing Lucifer....they didn't and never will have bodies. Perhaps we didn't fully live in God's presence. Perhaps when we committed sin there was a spiritual distance put between us and God. Only problem with this is that I can't find any doctrinal/scriptural support for this. My best theory is that while we could sin we could also repent. If we could repent then obviously the Atonement of Jesus Christ extended back to the pre-mortal realm....which is a pretty cool thought. But then the pre-mortal council seems to contradict this idea, that it is, it would seem that Jesus wasn't the designated Savior until this council was held. Also, baptism is part of full repentance and we can't be baptized without bodies...so was it really possible to full repent in the pre-mortal realm? Anyone have a better idea to resolve this apparent contradiction?

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I just hope they are of the same quality of the Bible videos.

Does anyone know what is going on with the BOM videos that were supposed to be released in Sept? First the church announced the BOM videos would be released in Sep 2018, then Fall 2018....It is now Jan 9, 2019 and I haven't heard anything. I sent an email through lds.org on Dec 22 but no response...which is odd in itself as I have always gotten a prompt response to all of my queries through lds.org. I'm suspecting no news is bad news and that the new church leadership has either decided to cancel the project or do some major re-work of these videos....or perhaps the videos turned out so good they are going to do a nationwide cinematic release?! The suspense is killing me. Someone in the know, please throw me a bone.

That IS what the 12-step program is about. I don't mean to be rude but you give the impression you don't know what you are talking about.

"This part of myself that I’ve spent my whole life fighting isn’t my enemy. This part of myself that I’ve shoved into a dark dungeon deserves light. " You are going to embrace your inner demon?! This cannot end well. Put it back in the dungeon/closet while you still can!

This discussion motivated me to reduce my fast offering donation and increase my donation to humanitarian aid. Working in India for several months completely changed my perspective on what poverty is. It is for millions a situation of bare survival and it is truly soul wrenching to see up close. And for better or worse, since then I have lost a lot of my compassion for Americans in "poverty". A friend told me he was talking with an immigrant one time and when asked why he wanted to come to America he replied: I want to live in a country where even the poor people are fat. I'm not writing this to be offensive, but I found there to be a lot of truth in that statement. The more common poverty found in America is a poverty of character.

Spot on. The last Bishop I served under, whenever there was a question about correct course to take, his first question was: Well, what does the handbook say. And if there wasn't a clear answer there: Let's pray about it.

Yet, it is not theirs to deny. God determines who is a true Christian and it appears this is one of His tests for determining. I would be uncomfortable if the "Christian" world did whole heartedly accept us....and it would probably mean we were doing something wrong (sort of like RLDS complete apostasy and transition to Community of Christ).

I have been in two bishoprics and just this last week assisted the Bishop with a welfare issue. Based on my experiences with church welfare situations, I wish there was more "guilt trips" given. And by that I mean, making recipients accountable for the help they receive. The easy option is to just hand over the help and move on. Too often it is the Bishop that suffers the guilt trip and not the one requesting the help. The situation last week I could tell the Bishop agonized over it. One situation comes to mind when I was in a bishopric 15 years ago the Bishop asked me to interview someone requesting help. I did and found that he had four cars, etc. I asked him if he had considered selling one of his cars and he seemed to give rather lame reasons for why he couldn't. I went to the bishop with my recommendation that he not be given assistance and instead request him to do a little self-sacrifice. But instead the Bishop gave him the assistance. Side note: I've heard that when the movie the Grapes of Wrath came out and was viewed in foreign countries like USSR they had a totally different perspective: the poor farmers fleeing the dust bowl were viewed as being wealthy since in their countries only a small select class of people could afford automobiles.

For the sake of this discussion: someone who sincerely believes the Bible. Although, LePeel's definition is probably a better one.

Good point!

In Mormon 7:9 Mormon states, "if ye believe that [The Bible] ye will believe this [The Book of Mormon] also" Does this mean that anyone who was presented The Book of Mormon and rejects it, does not actually believe The Bible and is not a true Christian? Is this an absolute, infallible litmus test of the claim of someone to be Christian?