NeuroTypical

My promptings all seem centered around my relationship with my wife and daughters these days.

Hmmm... I'm thinking #2 is the lie - you are more the Xtreme Snowboarder type. My wife's experiences are much more interesting than mine: 1. My wife is three steps removed from the Sicilian mafia. 2. My wife was once stabbed in the leg by a bad guy before the cops arrived. 3. In 2012, my wife spent the night alone with a drunken lesbian, and came home around 5 am smelling of alcohol. On a school night.

Do you still have the same Bishop? http://www.lds.net/forums/advice-board/51070-masturbation-while-repenting.html#post722772

I notice you didn't answer my question there, raven2. It wasn't rhetorical. What do you think that statement from the LDS newsroom means? Exactly how does the state of an inner-city sewer worker's soul differ from that of an outdoor loving hiker?

From "Staying Healthy: Welfare Services Suggest How," Ensign, January 1981, p.10 Oh, and also: snopes.com: Mormon Ownership of Coca-Cola

Ok - so you are trying to duck responsibility here. Mandy, when you choose to have sex with someone, you are making the intentional choice to risk getting pregnant. There is no such thing as accidentally getting pregnant. I guess that's where I'd start - by learning how to be honest with yourself about how reality works. Hoping for something doesn't change people, any more than it will stop sperm from meeting an egg. He isn't what you want him to be. Stop hoping you can change him, and accept that he is who he is. We are supposed to have hope. But our hope must be rooted in reality. Don't give up on life, just on your fantasy.

I'm not a member of the sr. church leadership fandom. I won't be asking for autographs or snapping photos of church leadership any time soon.

I'm not talking about manufacturing details, I'm talking about "The retired dude pulls out his gun, shoots the cellphone in the woman's hand, it goes through her hand and straight into her 40-something-year-old husband/boyfriend". Makes it sound like his motivation was to shoot the cell phone. Is that what the news story was claiming?

I think they all are, Bini.

Yeah, that story rings false. People might be afraid that a gunowner may decide to go shooting a phone out of someone's hand. But I'd be hard pressed to find a gunowner who would even think of such a thing. And I doubt there is even such a thing as a retired cop who would even entertain the notion. Whoever wrote that story probably watches too many movies. "Be aware of what is behind your target" is in every single gun safety list or training deal I've ever seen.

Well, the main focus of your comments have surely been along those lines. I continue to believe that since agendas are being pushed on local, state, national, and global levels that can impact all of us, it is indeed wise to spend time looking at and participating in the debate.It doesn't have to be an 'either-or' thing, you know raven2. One can be both desirous to be a wise and righteous steward, AND participate in the debate over climate change. Here's a counterbalancing comment for you to chew on:"Approaches to the environment must be prudent, realistic, balanced and consistent with the needs of the earth and of current and future generations, rather than pursuing the ideologies of humans who wish to push their agendas of power and control over individuals, corporations, and nations." Well, this quote is coming from an anonymous source working out of the church newsroom, so it's hardly "thus saith the Lord" quality material. That said, I'm not even sure what it means. Do people who clean septic tanks have a lower-quality soul than people who hike the Rockies and listen to John Denver music?

Can someone explain this phrase to me? It seems to be particular to the UK. I'm having a hard time understanding it. It sort of sounds like something that accidentally happened, like falling down the stairs. Whoops! But people don't just accidentally get pregnant. They make the choice to have sex and risk pregnancy.If someone can explain if this phrase is used as an excuse to duck responsibility or not, I'll be able to craft a more appropriate response.

My avatar says basically the same thing about me, as Suzie's says about hers, except for the princess part. If that's too many words for ya, just try to remember "virile volcano of manly intellectual prowess".

Wait - is this thread about a bishop doing something wrong, or is it about how to deal with inappropriate guilt? Seems like two very different threads...

Shooter is claiming he was attacked. People are talking about the victim throwing popcorn and swearing. The standard is "reasonable fear" - if you are in reasonable fear of your life, you can take action to defend yourself. Popcorn and swear words don't rise to that level. I guess we'll see if there was anything else involved.

Hi KountC, Do you know which leader is speaking?

*sigh*Just as a reminder of what's gone on earlier in the thread, you've already been directed to these links: Account in Scripture: Extracts from the History of Joseph Smith, the Prophet Chapter 1 Orson Pratt and David Whitmer talked about it: Orson Pratt's Call to Serve The Contributions of Martin Harris 1974: Friend Magazine: A Peaceful Heart 1992: BYU: Book of Mormon Translation By Joseph Smith 1993: A Treasured Testament - Ensign 1997: By the Gift and Power of God - Ensign 2002-present: Doctrine & Covenants Student Manual: Section 30 "Your Mind Has Been on the Things of the Earth" January 2013: Great and Marvelous Are the Revelations of God Great and Marvelous Are the Revelations of God - Ensign Jan. 2013 - ensign Current: Book of Mormon Translation mdfxdb, you're really starting to come across as a single-issue zealot here. Unable to change his mind, unwilling to change the subject. How on earth can all these links constitute "Knowingly not correcting a falsehood"? Are you looking for something more like a statement from the church that we were wrong? Maybe something like this from Oct 2013: Top Mormon Leader Acknowledges the Church ‘Made Mistakes’ Honestly, I don't get why you're so dug in to this criticism.

Well, to continue picking this nit, no he didn't. God rendered in another language, Joseph read (or felt) the English words and said them out loud. Joseph didn't gain the ability to comprehend the other language, which is necessary in order to translate - he gained the ability to see the English translation God put there for him. I basically agree here.

Anyone able to give the OP a little love here?

I enjoy a higher quality marriage, to a gay guy my wife worked with before we got married. He was bitter, depressed, and sometimes suicidal. His partner/roommate was dying of aids. The partner was dealing with his own impending death better than this guy. My wife and this guy had a series of incredibly deep conversations about the meaning of life, the nature of God, what is worthwhile and what is ultimately worthless. She tells me both of them came away with altered worldviews. Those conversations helped him gain a little more peace about things, and helped my wife lay a foundation that has been built on to include a temple sealing, a marriage in it's 2nd decade, faith, and children. I never met him, but I owe him.

Because half of the civilized world have bought into the lie that mormons hate gay people. Here's your chance to prove them wrong, by telling a personal anecdote.It's a good PR move. Sort of the same thinking behind mormons.org, and this website for that matter. Has anyone else noticed how every thread on this website has somewhere between 50-2000% more views than posts? Yeah, we pretty much never convince the people with which we're discussing, but there are endless hoards of anonymous people coming here to find out what mormons really have to say about things.

So, I actually worked for a translation company for over two years back in the '90's. I learned about how the process worked, different languages, common issues and challenges. Work hours were sometimes early or late, so we could talk to our colleagues in Japan or China or Germany or wherever. Now I only speak English, yet I got familiar enough with the process to be able to identify languages just by looking at the text. I can see if something is written in Portuguese vs Spanish, I can tell the difference between Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Heck, I was able to tell between Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. At the top of my game, I could even figure out where one translator stopped and another translator started working, just by looking at a block of translated text. I say all this to establish my credentials as someone who knows a thing or two about the translation process.So listen to what I have to say: In my experience of talking to thousands of people all over the world across two decades, most people are almost completely ignorant of how translation works. Most of you don't even know what you don't know. What a typical person "typically thinks of a translation process" is less than useless - it's likely a handful of baseless assumptions that have rarely risen to the level of a conscious thought. In your case, everything you figure we "typically think" about it, probably was based largely on that picture you were shown in Primary. This isn't a bad thing. It's just not knowing. We all go through life actually knowing very little of everything there is to know. Here's a very, very brief primer of what translation looks like: On the Beach, or Why You Can't Just Translate the Words After you've read it, (and feel free to show it to anyone from the t9n industry* if you doubt it's wisdom), you'll probably notice that it describes a whole lot of stuff that you've never even began to think about as what Joseph did. And, having read the accounts of Joseph's process, I'd have to agree. What Joseph did cannot really be considered translation at all. Because he didn't know how to read the text on the plates. That's right - I just claimed, in a thread where the words "translate" or "translation" have been used over a hundred times, by all parties in the conversation, that what Joseph did can't correctly be seen as "translating". If you read that link and think for a bit, you may be able to understand why. But we use the word "translate", because it's what we all think of, even though we're all wrong. Can you imagine me trying to teach any of this to a group of bored primary kids who just want their snack? So, mdfxdb, not only was that picture wrong, but the entire use of the word "translation" is wrong. God was the being doing the translating - Joseph just read the English words as they appeared (in a stone or in his mind), and saw they were written down more or less correctly. Because I know all this, I continue to be unable to rise to the level of concern you think appropriate. The church, peopled by folks ignorant of how translation works, needed a way to get across how Joseph created the BoM to it's young members, who also are largely ignorant of how translation works. Joseph himself used the word in error, having never done a day of real translation in his whole youthful life up until that point, and having still never done real translation after the dictation was all done. Nobody had really looked that closely into the accounts of how it actually happened (at least we can be pretty sure the folks who came up with that picture hadn't), so they did what you did - made an assumption which turned out to be based in ignorance. You can call that "misleading" if you like. I'll call it an innocent mistake. Regrettable? Sure. Look at what it's doing to you. Nobody wanted that to happen. When they make me emperor of the mormons and give me a time machine, I'll go back to the people coming up with that picture, and have them read the 2014 link off lds.org, and come up with a different picture. But until then, I'm just going to continue not being agitated about the whole deal, and I sincerely suggest you consider letting go as well. * t9n = translation (the letter "t", followed by 9 letters, ending with "n". Folks in the industry actually prefer L10n or I18n, because localization and internationalization are better than simple translation. Go ahead - google "L10N".)

I'm on the reclusive nutcase end of the spectrum. My cell phone is my servant, not my master. If you have information to communicate to me, voice mail is fine, email is better. My cell phone gets crappy reception where we live, and that's my excuse to keep from offending people.

Ender's game - twice. Once with kid #1, and again with both kids. The book series is all on the way for kid #1's birthday.

I dunno - you tell me: "Peace be still, bury the hatchet and the sword, the sound of war is dreadful in my ear. [but] Any man who will not fight for his wife and children is a coward and a b*st*rd." -- Joseph Smith Jr., journal entry, January 29, 1843. Source: "An American Prophet's Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith," edited by Scott H. Faulring, Signature Books, Inc.,1989, p. 298 Because he told us so himself. Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Brigham Young - Chapter 28: Exercising Self-Control "Many men will say they have a violent temper, and try to excuse themselves for actions of which they are ashamed. I will say, there is not a man in this house who has a more indomitable and unyielding temper than myself." (He goes on to explain how one can overcome their passion.) How many business ventures does one need to fail at, in the absence of any business successes, before one could rightly claim the title of "horrible business owner"? I'm really interested in a number. One? Five? "One more than Joseph"? Anyway, I suppose I can't really say I got this notion from church, because it was some of the scholarly commenting from folks like Hugh Nibley and people at FAIR who went through his history.You know, Joseph was a great leader, very charismatic, with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge and learning, and the people who knew him best (friend or foe) pretty much all said he possessed great character, honesty, and genuine forthrightness. It's ok if he stank at business, isn't it? Church, don't tell me you're now ticked off that some of this stuff wasn't covered more when you were in primary... :)