NeuroTypical

Welcome. I'm a nerd, but we also accept dorks.

There's no consensus, and the archaeological record doesn't really confirm anything one way or the other. The latest big book from an LDS scholar who has spent his entire career looking at the topic, says maybe somewhere around Guatemala.

Huh - it's been hung on about half the ward buildings I've attended over the decades, including my current building.

There are some descriptions throughout the BoM, and they change over the decades/centuries. There have been some popular artistic depictions, most of which I feel are sort of goofy (because I'm a historical accuracy snob, and I see the artistic license not backed up by scripture). This one is rather well known. The Stripling Warriors (sons of former Lamanites who 'switched sides') being addressed by Helaman (Nephite prophet and warrior) The things that make me chuckle: * No mention of riding horses anywhere in the BoM. * Artist doing his level best to make the guys on the left look like a cross between Native Americans and Jews. * Nephites looking like white Roman centurions * The Macuahuitl lying on the ground (closest thing archaeologists have found to a 'sword', which are mentioned in scripture). Another favorite, which probably inspired the above picture, was painted by Arnold Friberg. Arnold worked for over 3 years on Cecil B. DeMille's epic "The Ten Commandments" as his chief artist and designer. He had a thing for big muscles. I can't find an image on the internet that shows the banners - but they're there. And the cool thing, is they are very similar to the banners signifying the 12 tribes of Israel from DeMille's movie. If you ever make it to SLC, there's a massive wall mural of this one - I forget where. The conference center maybe? It shows the banners if I remember correctly. And of course, the king daddy of all artistic representations: Mormon and the Title of Liberty: No Macuahuitl in this one. Title of Liberty is from Alma: And it came to pass that he rent his coat; and he took a piece thereof, and wrote upon it—In memory of our God, our religion, and freedom, and our peace, our wives, and our children—and he fastened it upon the end of a pole. 13 And he fastened on his head-plate, and his breastplate, and his shields, and girded on his armor about his loins; and he took the pole, which had on the end thereof his rent coat, (and he called it the title of liberty) and he bowed himself to the earth, and he prayed mightily unto his God for the blessings of liberty to rest upon his brethren, so long as there should a band of Christians remain to possess the land— Lots of descriptions of wars and battles in the BoM. Many a young LDS kid got aquainted with scripture because they enjoyed reading about all the fighting and wars. Happy diorama making!

I became a FB black belt a few years ago. I made a post which was liked by my libertarian Catholic neighbor, left-wing pagan buddy from middle school, and anarchist athiest college buddy. You could almost feel the walls of divisiveness and conflict breaking, letting the love shine through. Almost.

Are you going to try?

I don't know, but I'm looking forward to kneeling at the feet of my Master and washing his feet with my tears. I'm looking forward to seeing how close I managed to come to His notions about things, and how far off I was. I'm looking forward to hearing the Actual Answer about dinosaurs and evolution. I'm especially interested to learn more about what a perfect balance of justice and mercy looks like.Happy to do, say, or be whatever He wants of me, should I make it to heaven.

I'd say "Excellent - I held out until 26 - why not see if you can beat my record?"If the conversation is going well, I'd also let it be known that 'the right woman' coming along can change a man's total outlook on life. And while it's not guaranteed such a thing will happen to him, he might be well-advised to think about it a little so he's not totally taken by surprise should it happen. Sounds like a young man worth knowing and loving to me.

Get comfortable with not getting your way a lot. It's not about you any more - it's about your kid.

One thing to keep in mind about people we don't want to see in heaven: If we are unable to forgive, we won't need to worry about seeing anyone in heaven, because that's not where we'll be. On topic, we have a large and growing list of pets we're looking forward to seeing. It's a point of contention between my kids and the Catholic neighbor's kids. :)

My Halloween costume is coming along nicely. I already dyed the 100 yards of cheesecloth. Now to work on the face: And also these:

I seem to be hearing from folks, that the EU was only supposed to do good things for the member nations - sort of a free trade zone. Is this the case? From what I recall, there was much talk many years ago about unified Europe becoming a rival to US and China, able to project geopolitical might to leverage a lot of good for itself. Avoid future European wars. Things like that. Is anyone talking like that any more? (Apparently not on this thread...)

The 2nd and 3rd items are hefty, and seem to have been realized to a great extent. The last two seem (to me at least), to not have happened much at all. Not seeing much "equality", cohesion. It becomes more and more apparent that Germany is on the rich and powerful end of things, calling shots and having sway in things proportional to their stability and strength. And Greece and Spain are on the other end. Not seeing much solidarity in the EU member's response to Syria. (Or geopolitical movements of Russia or China either, for that matter.)

Sounds like one of the many ways rich guilty people try to alleviate guilt or shoot for humility (or at least the appearance of humility).

No, the ideal of the EU was never meant to be something akin to the US. Yes, the main goals were economic (in no small part because an economically bound France and Germany are much less likely to start wars with neighbors or each other). I'm thinking the main goals just aren't being reached. How about you folks?

The European Union had a lot of lofty goals. If they all banded together, joined their economies, merged their geopolitics, etc, they'd realize various good things for themselves. They also wanted France and Germany to buddy up economically, as their division had been at the root of big European wars. But we never hear about the EU economy. We only hear about what Germany is going to do about Greece and Spain. That's roughly analogous to here in the US, hearing what California is going to do about Missouri. The UK is navigating it's own waters between Europe and the US, France is looking south to Africa and the Med, Germany is keeping the trade zone going and looking East to Russia. And then in Syria, we heard about the US response, Canada's response, Russia, China, UK, etc. But we heard nothing about the EU response. All the talk was about France's president's willingness to help, but he couldn't make it past France's parliament. And Germany didn't want anything to do with it at all, until late in the game. I mean, nothing has really broken or fallen apart - there's still an EU. But has it actually reached any of it's lofty goals at all? I'm thinking that if "pride in division" is a major goal, then geopolitical might will not be your prize.

Well we haven't kept the commandments of God if we've sinned in the first place. I'd suggest you read the chapter I linked. "Keep the commandments of God" is a step in the repentance process. Basically, if you sin, then do all the other stuff but keep sinning, then you haven't repented. Have you read the link? If so, what are your questions? If not, I'd suggest you read the link to see if the chapter answers your questions.

The Gospel Principles manual lays it out pretty clearly:

It's stupid to let hollywood dictate to you, a disciple of Christ, what movies to watch. So from that standpoint, some arbitrary rating system created by fallible man, isn't the sort of Unbreakable Law we should let rule our lives. That said, the US rating system is often pretty helpful in letting you know what you'll see, and there are some pretty reasonable principles it can assist you with. From the Strength of Youth pamphlet: I find this pretty good advice for the young and impressionable. I also find it's underlying principles (what you choose to accept into your bodies, no matter how it gets into you, will have an impact on you, so choose wisely, and think about what you wish to get out of it) useful for us grown ups too.I was not entertained by movies like Schindler's List or Saving Private Ryan - I was educated and humbled.

Our advice hasn't changed since last time, budding. Sorry you seem to be trapped in this loop of having to be involved in his life and journey and attitudes. I've seen so many divorced people go through it, there's got to be a name for it. But I don't know it, and I don't know how to advise you to break out of this loop. Sorry. This is one of the reasons divorce stinks - it takes otherwise smart, rational, wonderful people, and makes their minds and desires not their own. I hope you can eventually stop living for/at/against your ex-husband, and take back your life. I really am truly sorry you're going through this.

From what I can tell, it doesn't really matter what anyone says to her. If she ends up bouncing in and out of marriages with this and other guys, cranking out kids occasionally, she'll be numbered among quite a bit of women who do the same thing.The only person who can fix her is her. So love her, and don't take any crap from her, and try not to be too sarcastic as the next 5 years go by.

I understand what you're asking. At the end of the day, such things are only as important to people as they allow them to be.I used to ask church critics a question: "Let's say tomorrow, non-LDS sources discovered the sword of Laban, a massive precolumbian civilization that used horses and had steel swords, burial sites containing remains with "Jewish DNA", and a big city in Guatemala that said "Welcome to Zarahemla" in a language that seems to have been Egyptian at one time, but was reformed somehow. Would you bend your knee, profess Christ as your savior, acknowledge Joseph Smith was a prophet, and get baptized into my church?" Only about half said yes or maybe. The rest of them continued on with their criticism, totally undaunted by my question.

Huh. It looks like we're not heading into Syria after all. My prediction appears to be wrong. This event marks the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, that the Russians have stood toe to toe with the US, and the US blinked. I guess I'll just join with all the people who were against military action in Syria in the first place, and be happy a bunch of people didn't die. It'll be interesting to try to figure out which world deaths from here on out, are due to the tenuous resurgance of a former world power trying to make a comeback.

I'm not too familiar with your posting style, garryw. Are you acting like a jerk on purpose for the sake of humor or making some point? If so, please spell it out - I'm missing whatever point you're trying to make.If you're not doing it on purpose, 30 seconds on the nasajobs.nasa.gov website tells me 60% of NASA's workforce are in the professional/engineering/scientific category, requiring at least a BA, often higher, with major study in a specialized field...

My SAHM wife has superior knowledge and experience than me in a number of important areas. Like math, and dealing with people.Her Mom's club had a biochemical engineer with a PhD. The current homeschool co-op we take our kids to, are people with SAHM's with all sorts of degrees and background experience. At least half a dozen bachelor degrees, and a small handful of masters. All of them are smarter than me in their areas of expertise, and probably other areas too.