rayhale

I just wanted to point out something that no one else has so far, we offer everyone the sacrament, even to people we know shouldn’t be taking the sacrament, like someone that is excommunicated, since the person that is delivering the sacrament shouldn’t judge if that person does partake.

The Jews have a different definition of Messiah than Christians do. I realize that Joseph Smith was/is not THE Messiah, but when I read this quote, the similarities to Joseph Smith, how he died in a battle, the Book of Mormon being called a “Stick of Joseph”, are hard to miss.

On Page 304 of “Shadow of the Temple” by Oskar Skarsaune, I found this: I added bold to make it stand out.

Some of you said that there are questionable things in the Game of Thrones book, what are those things? Is it as graphic as the show, like describing sex in graphic detail, or describing war/violence in graphic detail?

Having too much information and not knowing how to filter it is a bad thing, especially these days of 24 hour news programs, where they ‘make’ news, and not just report news. The Daily Show showed a clip of a respected national news reporter talking about a mass shooter whose name was just released. What was the research like, to find out who this person was? Well it seemed like all it was, was an Internet search, since in the same program, the reporter had to detract his earlier statement, saying that there was (at least) two people with the same name living in the same town. The head of Wikipedia has said several times that Wikipedia shouldn’t be the only place people should get information from. Did you know that there is a history for every article on Wikipedia, showing ALL edits and additions? This will help you to know how recent something has been added, or if the information is debatable. You can always compare information of Wikipedia to the Encyclopedia Britannica, but since they are not in print anymore, and they charge for use of their website, I don’t see many people doing that. On an old Law & Order Special Victims Unit episode, a school principal pointed out that the school needed the internet without any filter, he pointed out that children needed to look up biological information using the real terms, like breast, and that they had got into trouble when one of the students tried to look for information on homosexuality and got blocked. My point is, even in the real world, some parents are naive when it comes to what is on the internet in general, and what is available on their children schools’ internet, which is everything EVEN if they have a filter. (there are easy work-arounds that you, or a website, can do to avoid being filtered.) With the wealth of information around, the art, and science, of research shouldn’t be dying out, it should intensify instead, since the ‘business’ of information has opened up to involve anyone, and everyone, and not to just the ‘experts’.

I wonder if there will be a big deal for the two hundredth temple as there was with the one hundredth? Like a special edition of the Ensign, or the Prophet noting that a certain temple would be the two hundredth temple?

One major problem of this poll is that it doesn’t ask if your scripture study is homework for school, or a part of your job, as a church leader/teacher. I would be curious to see if there is a time gap between people that study “just because they want to” and people that “need” to do scripture study.

If you mean going to the MTC type of a mission, well, I can say that my Stake President recommended that I only go to an English mission since it would be extremely hard for me to learn another language.

I agree, I wonder if the girl meant that the staff members would be drug tested, if so, I’m all for it.

I have the scriptures in several different forms, in print, on computer in several different software programs, and on a Kindle in several different apps and in an e-book. One main thing that I miss is the maps, and photos in the back of the Bible. We are counseled to search the scriptures, not just to read them, with a Bible study software program that I have, I can do that lighting fast, instead of hours, days, weeks, months, or even years to search for something, I can take seconds to not just search the scriptures, but hundreds of books, and am able to easily read and compare more than twenty different English translations of the Bible. I can do difficult, if not impossible, to do searches. One of the disadvantage of electronic scriptures is that you can’t drop them and them flip to a random scripture that somehow talks about something you had prayed for. Maybe there will be, or even is, a random verse setting for a scripture e-book.

Yes, this is my line of thinking, especially since one of the things said during the Prop 8 battle, was that gays thought marriage is a right, which it is not. I understand what you are saying, Dravin. Marriage is one of, if not THE, most important aspects of society, so if someone alters its definition, it should be seriously looked at as a threat to society.

On the new LDS site mormonsandgays.org states: “The Church’s approach to this [same-sex marriage] stands apart from society in many ways. And that’s alright. Reasonable people can and do differ. From a public relations perspective it would be easier for the Church to simply accept homosexual behavior. That we cannot do, for God’s law is not ours to change. There is no change in the Church’s position of what is morally right. But what is changing—and what needs to change—is to help Church members respond sensitively and thoughtfully when they encounter same-sex attraction in their own families, among other Church members, or elsewhere.” By saying that gays are somehow worse than murderers and rapists is not very sensitive to them. Also during the California Prop 8 there were some things said both within and outside of the Church, that I strongly disagree with. The mormonandgays.org site is an overdue response to what happened during the Prop 8 battle. Basically the site points out that we don’t hate gays, we are now realizing that having same-sex attraction is NOT a sin, what is the sin is when the attraction is acted on.

I do not, and will not, say one of the reasons why I don’t support gay marriage because it’s a threat to marriage. It’s a slap on the face of gays to say that convicted murders, rapists, and child molesters can marry, but it’s not a considered a threat to marriage, but somehow, gay marriage is a threat. It’s not about sin; I just think it’s hypocritical.

If same-sex marriage is a threat to marriage and family, then why isn't the church fighting against marriages of convicted murders, rapists, child molesters, and other serious crimes? I think it mocks the whole point by saying that same-sex marriages are so bad yet these other groups are still able to marry. There’s another group that I have a hard time mentioning, the mentally disabled. There is an LDS couple, that I know of, who both are mentally disabled to the point where I question if they truly understand the concept of marriage since they have never been intimate with each other.

I would say that the Bishop(s) of the church building and probably even the Stake President needs to approve the paintings. I suggest that you ask them.

Well they mixed the regular bread with rice cakes, and told the members that the rice cakes were for people with allergies, so the answer would be no, they didn’t change the word ‘bread’ for ‘rice’.

There have been a few times that the Sacrament bread was replaced with rice cakes because of allergy reasons of some members.

One time at my church, they forgot the bread, so they went into the kitchen, in the church, and brought out some hamburger buns. I have heard that in WW2 where members of the church, while fighting in Germany, used scrapes of paper, or crackers, or something else, which leaves me the question, “Do you say in the Sacrament prayer of the bread, ‘… bless and sanctify this bread…’ or substitute the word ‘bread’ for crackers, paper, or whatever your using?”

Let me clarify, when the anti-porn group goes to a porn convention, they pay for a booth, with advertising implying that they are a porn group.

During the Early days of the AIDS outbreak, there were some religious groups that gave drug addicts clean needles, rounded up prostitutes, gave them rides to a local free health clinic, and during times of a Serial Killer is killing prostitutes, they go around the city making sure the prostitutes are safe. There is an anti-porn religious group that advertises their site as a porn site, they go to porn conventions, they even created an educational video for kids on what to do if they accidently watch one of their parents porn videos, they had one of the most well-known porn star/director to help them make the video. Where is the line between help and enabling? That is a hard question to answer. I can understand saying, “If they are going to do drugs, have sex, or whatever, I’ll at least want them to be as safe, as possible, while doing it.”

To be honest, for males, it is required, if you are healthy both physically and mentally. It may not be officially required, since its voluntary calling, it is culturally.

A note about vain repetition, the Church has several prayers that need to be said exactly; sacrament, and the baptism prayers are two that I can think of off the top of my head. The reason that these prayers are the exactly the same every time, is that we are making, and keeping covenants with the Lord. My Branch President also pointed out that there are only so many different ways to give thanks for food, family, life, etc… I also would say if you don’t understand a word or phrase, like “… with every fiber of my being.” Then don’t say it.

I’m surprised that there isn’t more national talk about how sexting between minors is considered child porn, and will be prosecuted as such. I don’t think that most teens realize that they will be treated as an adult sex offender by taking, and/or sharing naked pictures, of themselves.

There can be a lot of things a convert can add to the LDS faith, for one, like several people have said, a different perspective of a topic; another is the fact that some other churches have a formal faith plus secular based high schools, like Catholics do, and have intense training to become a minister, which sadly, is lacking in the LDS faith. To remedy this Church Leaders strongly encourage members to go to Seminary (faith based classes for High school), then go to Institute classes (faith based classes for college aged people and above).

I’ve read in several different places that people are becoming ‘adults’ at older and older ages, one major reason is that the need to become an adult is not as apparent as it was in the past. There’s also the problem of experience, as classylady pointed out, when a person, mainly a woman, goes from home, where her parents did everything, then to the arms of a spouse, where he now does everything, it can be a shock, when you realize you don’t know how to do something essential, like how to balance your budget. When I asked a co-worker, on her twenty-first birthday, “How do you feel being an adult?” she said, “Expensive”. As, she said, that now she had to pay for things that previously her parents paid for. There are a lot of things that as a child is provided for you but as an adult you need to provide for yourself, like a home, food, health insurance, car insurance, cell phone, taxes. I could go on, but even you try your best to teach your child the realities of life, sometimes you just need to experience something yourself to really understand that, “No, I can’t have it all.”