Carborendum

I never thought you did. Apparently, this is a false belief since WAYYY too many people older and having higher IQs buy into it hook line and sinker. I agree. This assumes, of course, that whenever a child is exposed to something toxic, that they will let their parents know about it. With ideologies, that is not always the case. I've said many times that "There is no silver bullet." This is a metaphor to say that there is no "one-pronged attack" that will solve society's ills nor guarantee raising our children to the Lord. So, with that background, I agree. Yes, and they spent an awful lot of time each day with their mothers. What if they spent 8 hours a day with someone other than their mothers? Do you think their mothers would have had much influence over them? This is really the main point I've been making. It's fine to expose our children to other ideas -- especially dangerous ones that they need to be inoculated against. But for them to spend MORE time with people just pouring these ideas into their heads and not have equal (if not more) time correcting such ideas (or at least providing the child sufficient freedom to explore answers themselves) then they are going to go down the path of least resistance. I'm hearing you. Yes, part of my point is that this is out there so much that we don't need to willingly, knowingly expose them to it. It will happen on its own. And we need to have enough discussion in the home on such topics so that they know what to look out for, so they know to avoid it when they come across it. For ideologies, rather than "avoid" it when they come across it, they need to be taught enough correct principles to offset it. But I see no reason to purposefuly, knowingly expose them to something that is both ubiquitous and toxic. Yes. Parents. Not public school teachers.

I read it and accepted it. That latest post wasn't what I was talking about. Gator, I love you as a brother and a child of God. I know you tend to think things through after a lot of research. These qualities make me want to admire you. But you have mocked, insulted and belittled without ever apologizing. Instead, you blame me for not having a sense of humor. You can give your blanket apology of "if I've ever... I apologize." That's nice and all. But it indicates that you don't even acknowledge that you actually did anything wrong even when I've pointed out the precise thing that bothered me. And, no, I'm not playing the victim. As I said, it's a free country. You can say what you want. Something you ignored.

Yup.

I think that is an individual choice based on individual conditions. To say a blanket statement is not really taking into account a LOT of variables. I think you may have confused your concept of what I've stated with what I actually stated in the past. I said that I have a medical condition that makes it unfavorable for ME to take many vaccines. If other people want to get a vaccine, that's fine by me. But because you don't agree with my medical exemption, you think I'm anti-vax, and proceed to shame and ridicule me. It's a free country. You can do that.

Depends on the vaccine. If they came out with an AIDS vaccine tomorrow, I'd be kinda skeptical.

Who said I was anti-vaxx? I was just sharing an article that had some interesting information on the topic.

What a piece of work is man.

https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2021/07/49-people-who-were-fully-vaccinated-have-died-of-covid-in-nj-heres-what-we-know.html

As I said, most scholarships are transferrable... unless... you're really saying...

When values are mixed up like this, it is no wonder why there are so many efforts to say, "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain. All's well in Babylon."

Whenever something unexpected happens, too often people cry out "why?" or "that's not fair!" What I'm sitting here wondering is "What are her alternatives?" The university already suggested she attend another Church School. She said it was her "dream school". I have no idea why BYU-H would be more preferable than BYU-P as far as academics except for particular fields of study -- even then it's almost a wash. When dealing with a private university, as Vort says, they have a right to require this. And she has the right to go to another school if she disagrees with the policy. So, why doesn't she? Why hasn't she looked into the other schools? I read that her scholarships are now "gone". I've never heard of that. Most scholarships are transferable. So, why is that even a factor? How on earth did she even get $200k in scholarships for a school whose tuition is only 1/20th that? Is she planning on attending while living in a 4 star hotel? What's the deal? Why is THAT particular school so important that she's raising this stink? Has anyone even bothered to ask these questions? I haven't read it in my limited exposure to this story. I'd bet Provo would bend over backwards to help her get in to Provo just because of the situation she's in. But she's stuck in this victim mindset so far that she's not even trying to figure this out.

I don't see how this is any different than when we were required to get various immunizations as a child to attend public school. Note the bold. It seems that BYU-H doesn't accept the exemption. But as others said, Hawaii is Hawaii.

The day ain't over yet But seriously, folks... I don't believe it's ending in three hours either. But your Vox link doesn't really mean much. Most of those measures aren't as important as you seem to think. The fact that fertility is decreasing is considered a positive? Why? Literacy increasing? Measured how? I'll grant that more people can read. But read well? And what do they read? How many people in first world countries have even opened a classic, much less read it? Senior law students don't even read the Federalist Papers. I could go on. But I'll sum up with: Yes, some things are getting better. Some are not. But the biggest point here is that in both your previous post as this one that I quoted is that you're not taking into account the eternal scheme. How many people are coming to know Christ? How many people are changing their lives because of that fact? How are interpersonal relationships getting better because of how we treat each other? How is the strength of the family in this era? How many people spend their lives in service to others rather than for their own gain? I honestly don't know the answers to these questions. And further I don't know how anyone would be able to gather such statistics. What kind of questions would you even ask? How could we even verify the answers? Maybe strength of the family is something that could at least be close to verifiable. Without really having such data, it sure seems like more and more people are going away from God+family, and more towards their own gain at the cost of others. Think about the pride-prosperity cycle. Did all those Vox numbers really help the Nephites spirituality? No, it hurt it. And I find it interesting what side of that you seem to have come down on. I'm not saying that the world will end in the next year or five years. But to say that the REALLY IMPORTANT things are getting better in this world??? You're entitled to your opinion. But... well... I'm not seeing it.

In some ways I agree, others I don't. But I can't seem to reconcile this attitude with your earlier statement that "we'll be fine for at least another 500 years."

The Church and Political Activism. Politics is downstream of culture. The Church's culture is made up of families. We do the most good in society when we spend our time and energy on raising our children to know the word of God, and have faith in and a testimony of The Atonement of Christ. The Book of Mormon as the word of God. The spiritual hospital that is The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The Sunday School presidency recently went around to families in our ward and asked the following questions: Is your family actually reading the Come Follow Me manual and doing the extra little things that it instructs us to do? Is your family reading and studying the D&C and answering the questions that the manual asks? Is your family reading the Book of Mormon daily? The results were astoundingly awful. Very few even opened CFM. Very few read the assignment. Almost no one was reading the BoM daily (or even close to daily). A reasonable number were reading the scriptures "sometimes" outside of Church. Do we really hope to change the world through political activism if we continue to "treated lightly the things which we have received"?