zil2

1 Nephi 7 Clearly the Lord isn't always concerned with efficiency, otherwise, he would have sent them to Jerusalem once. This may be a line-upon-line example - the Lord telling them what they need and seeing whether they obey before telling them the next. It also wouldn't surprise me if Lehi had already considered and prayed about these things before receiving guidance. v4-5: Be the kind of person who recognizes a call from the Lord and responds positively - even if it sounds far-fetched. v6: I doubt the make-up (number and gender of children) of Ishmael's family was an accident. v10+: One of the goals of the Book of Mormon is to show "what great things the Lord hath done for [our] fathers". Therefore, it's important to remember these things. Therefore, it's important to record and pass on this knowledge (not just prophets in scripture, but also family history).

Living in different states, thankfully!

Discussions on the OP-linked news article include the same stuff - whether started by the same person, heaven knows. Even the SL Tribulation don't appear to have a discussion about him. (But apparently there's a dude with the same last name in some band - or was in 2011.)

The last time I read the book of Moses, I tripped over a very interesting sequence: One would not be surprised at all if seeing the bitterness of hell invoked fear. But here we see that the fear came first and seeing hell came second! Now why would that be? I submit that it is a consequence of faith in Satan! I don't think Moses believed what Satan was saying, but rather, he believed that Satan had power to carry out implied threats, and the mere act of believing this increased Satan's power over him to the point that Moses saw the bitterness of hell. Now, I'm not suggesting that Satan doesn't have power independent of our belief in that power - clearly he does. But his power over us appears to be variable and limited by where we place our faith / trust / belief. Alternately, faith / trust / belief subjects you to the thing you believe / trust / have faith in. So, keep your faith centered on Jesus Christ - always. [We now return you to your regularly scheduled debate.]

This lesson was really powerful for me. The first time I heard it was the moment at which I finally consciously comprehended that the things of God are the inverse of the things of man (as a principle / rule rather than just as various examples). Excellent choice.

It's all @Carborendum's fault - you were responding to his post where he did the same (username rather than name). (Just teasing, Carb!)

Fair point. I try to be gracious when receiving praise (and most people don't seem to be bothered like I am), but I'm also not going to let someone continue in the false notion that everything I say is God's own truth - I know better. Perhaps I simply like praise too much and am over-compensating. Excuse me while I go check the leader board - I'm hoping to overtake that @zil person by the end of the year.

1 Nephi 6 This chapter is a short lesson on what's most important, and on separating what's important to you (and perhaps some people around you) vs. what's important to the entire human family. Nephi's genealogy is important to him and his family; kept, but elsewhere. Family history (not the same thing), or the life of a previous prophet, also important, but not the most important. Most important (and relevant to the whole human family): the things of God, persuading people to come unto God and be saved. Utterly unimportant: things which are pleasing to the world - leave them out. Teach your children what's important.

Aaron Sherinian (Just FYI)

The LDS (and perhaps it's everywhere) habit of praising speakers and teachers for their talks and lessons makes me very, very uncomfortable. No matter how often I might say that it wasn't me, it was the Spirit, there's always a "yeah, but..." (they don't understand what I mean when I say it wasn't me, it was the Spirit - that I'm being very literal). I know people are just trying to cheer and encourage, but I don't think they understand the burden and risk that goes with such things - making it easy for the recipient of praise to start thinking too well of themselves. I wish people would instead praise God for blessing the teacher / speaker and the hearers with the Spirit to guide both. This would be a far better thing. NOTE: Saying "thank you" - I have no problem with. Saying "oh you're so wonderful / smart / brilliant / insightful / whatever" - I gots problems. I once had a sister tell me she loved everything I (ever implied) said (I wasn't teaching - I'd just made a comment in someone else's lesson). I told her not to lay that burden on me, and not to put herself at such risk - to study scripture and listen to the Spirit instead. People, do your fellow saints a favor - thank them, but don't praise them.

I know one young man who, on his mission, received a vision in a dream in answer to his prayer to better understand Joseph Smith's first vision. He had done all he could prior to this prayer to understand - lots of study and discussion and prayer, obedience and service. In the vision/dream, he was told he now had a duty to bear witness of what he'd been given (which is how I heard of it - in sacrament meeting). I'm not saying everyone will always get this kind of experience, but those willing to work hard, those who already believe God and whatever answer God will give (before receiving the answer - see Ether 3:11), those who are faithful and will continue forward no matter what, just might receive such a gift, if they work hard enough. And in this case, probably, if they're the sort of person willing and able to keep their mouth shut - in the previous example, it's something already testified to over and over - in this case, the Lord has chosen to remain silent. So if one wants personal revelation regarding it, one had better be prepared to keep it entirely to oneself to death (and that's no easy burden to bear).

I like it. Of course, Joseph Smith changed this to "ye never knew me" - which of course means they couldn't have been authorized, either. Not much, but for reference, an article on AskGramps.org.

Crowned with commandments.

Welcome, @keeperofthegate. So sorry for what you're going through. I have no experience that can help me offer direct advice, so I'll just say that step one has to be keeping your own testimony strong and increasing your own conversion. This will set the example and help you receive guidance from the Spirit. It may also help you strengthen the rest of the family. All the best to you and your family.

And the first and great commandment is to love God with all your heart, soul, and mind. Ergo, we are commanded to keep the commandments with all our heart, soul, and mind.

I hope you're pleased with yourself. I've spent the day trying to figure out exactly what a "spiritual" witch looks like! I give up.

Your prediction would be better founded. All scripture makes it clear that same-gender sex and marriage will never be approved by God - indeed, logic itself dictates the same.

Well, for Latter-day Saints, if you hope to go to the Celestial kingdom, yes, baptism and temple ordinances are required - they're just not the thing that gets you there. They are the things that show the Lord you are willing to do his will. They're the things that change us into the sort of people who want to live with God. This quote from a devotional entitled "His Grace Is Sufficient" by Brad Wilcox might help: HTH

It's always tricky answering these questions because it makes it sound like we believe works save us, but we don't. We do believe that Jesus Christ requires us to do things - to come, follow him. Part of that is repentance. So yes, we believe that if one wants salvation, one must repent. But it's not our repentance that saves us, it's just one of the things Christ requires - in a sense, it's like accepting salvation. Christ says, "here's salvation, if you'll accept it" and repentance in like saying, "yes, I'll accept it". (That's not literally what repentance is. I'm just making an analogy.)

There's an essay and study guide on this too. The short answer is that the spirit world is where the spirits of deceased mortals go to await resurrection.

Then why did Jesus say to repent? (Check it out - go read the Gospels - the call to repentance is all over them.) (Note that for LDS, repentance is between the sinner and God - we don't have anything like Catholic confession.) But Jesus taught us to repent - I think that suggests either (a) believing in him isn't enough or (b) those who believe in him will repent. Your "rewards in Heaven" would parallel our idea of different degrees or kingdoms of heaven. (And we agree, all are sinners.) I recommend reading the Book of Mormon. I also recommend reading the LDS version of the KJV which has Joseph Smith Translation (JST) bits referenced in the footnotes (either the correction is there, or it tells you to go to an appendix). I suspect you'd find that the changes are logical. One thing that Paul mentioned, but no other Christians believe as we do is those three degrees of glory (Celestial, Terrestrial, Telestial) compared to the sun, moon, and stars. See 1 Corinthians 15, especially 40-44 - speaking of the resurrection (footnote a of verse 40 has an example of the JST to bring verses 40 and 41 into correlation).

If you were getting the life beaten out of you because someone didn't like your definition of truth, you might be more concerned. This is the type of "diversity" which some people propose - the intolerance of tolerance, only our style of diversity is allowed, yours isn't. I believe that's the one extreme Traveler meant. The other extreme is the positive use of diversity Elder Holland explains in his talk. And current reality is somewhere in between.

A lot of people feel that the Old Testament portrays God as vengeful. Check out The Family: A Proclamation to the World. The family @Grunt was referring to is the fact that we are all spirit children of our Heavenly Father. In that family, there would be no divorce, step siblings, death and remarriage - just spirit children of heavenly parents. (Whether there'd still be that annoying aunt / sibling, I'll leave to individual speculation. ) (Welcome to the rabbit hole of the importance and eternal nature of the family unit.)

I was responding to the fact that @Traveler's two posts may have seemed to be saying opposite things. Diversity that creates or worsens divisions (especially to the point of violence or oppression) is evil. Diversity organized to accomplish a united end is a good thing. Where reality lines up is a whole other question.

Read Elder Holland's talk. Or, just think of a choir (or a band). The sopranos, altos, tenors, and basses (or the different musicians and singers in the band) are each singing / playing a different note / part, and yet when each does their part correctly, together they create a harmony that is (supposed to be) beautiful. I see this all over. When I was a programmer, we had our boss, who kept the department running well; the BAs, who helped document requirements and communicate with users as well as coordinate meetings and such; the programmers who wrote the code; the testers, who made sure all the requirements were met and the code functioned as expected; the report writers, who made sure the data collected by the software was output into useful formats for the users; etc. Different skills, different jobs, done separately, and yet all working to the same end - to produce an application that would help the users.