NeuroTypical

Hi and welcome sword!

Ok, so did anyone make it to the meetup last night? Quin's suggestions are good for my next experiement, but none of them correctly describe what I was wearing last night. I figure I was there somewhere between midnight and 5:30 AM, MST. Anyone?

So, on this thread, we've got the skeptical, the fearful, the boldly zealous, and everyone else. Come one, come all - tonight - to the reflecting pool at temple square. Just after you all get in bed to fall asleep tonight - get yourself in the right frame of mind. Imagine yourself falling asleep, then astrally projecting yourself there. I'll be there, my fat goateed astrally-projected self, wearing a shirt so obvious, so loud, you just won't be able to miss me. Then come on back here tomorrow and tell me about my shirt. I mean, here's everyone's chance to make me less skeptical. I doubt you can change the minds of the fearful or bold.

Doubt must be resolved, CommanderSouth. I'm pulling for ya. :)

So, it looks like you're researching common criticisms of our faith, or are talking to someone who is offering them. If you're looking for answers, you can find them in places like FARMS Review, or FAIR.Your questions seem to be of the "If it ain't in the Bible, it ain't Christian!" variety. If you can discover the source of these criticisms, I can probably find a good review of the source for you - it'll have direct answers to a lot of what's said. Then you can see if our answers are good or not.

Here's what Christ had to say about it:

You can bold, underline, and all caps all you like, but you're correct, this actually is the norm on forums. For the reasons explained above. No really- expectations of privacy on the internet are misplaced, and you're better off without them. I'm sorry if this is a rough learning curve to you, but you'll be better off understanding it. This isn't an lds.net thing or a mormon thing, this is an internet thing. Here are fifty-six million hits from a google search to help you. They focus on Facebook and Twitter and whatnot, but the message is pretty clear. Private Messages Aren't Private It is true that this information is buried halfway through the long site rules. But it's supposed to be pretty common knowledge. Did you have the sexting, illegal scamming, or child endangerment problems the rest of us have been dealing with for years? I guess you wouldn't know one way or the other, since you never looked. Is the forum you owned still operating? I'd like to know what it is, to see if my kids may be interested in using it at some point and possibly being targeted in PM by predators.

I just couldn't for the life of me make this decision on my own. I fasted for 3 days, then showed up at the Patriarch's house for my patriarchical blessing, and showed him the engagement ring. The ensuing blessing cleared up God's thoughts on the matter for me, and I haven't really looked back since. (16 years and 2 kids now.)

From what little I know about custody case law, it seems that you can expose them to whatever religious services you wish when you have custody, and spouse can do whatever they wish when they have custody.

I have stood at the pulpit of our chapel and taught a combined 3rd hour Priesthood and Relief Society, and used the phrase 'zombie uprising'. . . (Boring details: It was a lesson on living the temporal gospel and preparing against adversity - especially disaster/emergency preparadness. My point was that a lot of preparations (from living debt-free to family scripture study) help you no matter what the emergency, whether it's fire, flood, plague, earthquake, tornado, or zombie uprising.)

Quin, that mentality has worked pretty well for Israel, with it's enemies who would gladly blow up schoolchildren if they were a soft target. They tell me when you see a fieldtrip go by, seeing one or more of the teachers or assistants with a rifle slung over their shoulder is a pretty common and unremarkable sight. If folks see that, you don't need a sign. If they see a sign only, they might figure it's a bluff.

Just a reminder to folks who believe in this stuff - I'm inviting you to put your money where your mouth is. Tonight is a mere 16 hours away - why not come have an astral meetup? I'll be the one wearing the shirt that sticks out. You won't be able to miss me.

Phooey. Being worried about astral projection and the occult, makes about as much sense as being worried about ouija boards (copyright Hasbro, makers of fine occultic games like Monopoly and Life). Open Offer: If anyone wants to take me up on a little experiment, let me know. I will astrally project myself that night, to the reflecting pool next to temple square. I will be wearing a certain kind of shirt. Please, meet me there, and come back here tomorrow and tell me about the shirt I'm wearing. If you want to get all science-ey, I'll even message a neutral third party the details of my shirt the night before.

You read my summary of Real True Actual stories that come out of Boulder. One radio station had people drive around and see which public libraries were flying the American flag. Many weren't. Back in 2010 or so, there was a kerfuffle about one taxpayer-subsidized art exhibit in one of the libraries - a ranbow-colored assortment of phalli. Over the years, there have been many stories about wild animals attacking residents. Anywhere sane, there's wildlife officers and tranq darts and whatnot. In Boulder, there's passionate arguments about animal rights and how there's too many humans, and how we need to be thinned out naturally. That's Boulder.

I'm not sure if there's been any pressure for teachers to be packing heat. Just pressure to allow teachers the right to pack heat if they so choose. Since schools are a government deal and a societywide deal, it's a bit more complicated since some folks immediately think about funding and trying to control how many and where, but at the end of the day, the pressure is just for the right. (A right that Utah schools have enshrined in law for over a decade, by the way.)Something most of us know: guns aren't magic talismans that ward off evil, any more than strong doors are.

Doubt is a good thing, when it pushes one to reach the truth. But when it goes unresolved, it festers and becomes not so good. You should resolve your doubt.

The Colorado Springs area had a large fire last year, and this year's flash floods have taken some lives and done some damage. My area is doing ok - lots of rebuilding, hauling. The powers-that-be came together relatively early and killed a bunch of zoning rules and procedures and stuff that had built up over time, with the intention of streamlining the process for rebuilding. The fire fighters concentrated on community structures - schools, churches, community centers. Some folks were a little upset that such places were sometimes favored over their individual homes. But just because lots of folks are wearing t-shirts that say "community doesn't burn" doesn't make it true. A community can indeed burn up and get destroyed. But despite several hundred school district families losing homes, everyone's kids started their school year in two schools surrounded by burned trees. I've only been able to help with one cleanup so far. Home was a total loss - big steel I-beam that held up the house was all twisted and droopy, draped over what used to be their year's supply of food. My wife helped some crotchety guy who was about to get violent, by helping to run some idiot gawkers off his land. We're ok with the rubberneckers that drive through. We're fed up with the rude idiots that think traffic laws don't apply because the trees are black, or private property laws don't apply because a home has burned. Yep - that was our thinking too. Fortunately, we had 4 hours to scoop all those meds up with everything else and leave. You never know what's coming.

Correct, and correct. No. I'm not saying it needs to, I'm saying it will. I'm predicting the future - I'm not advocating a position. Dude, I know you like to argue, but I gotta say, if you're trying to persuade anyone, your methods are deeply, deeply flawed. People hear your mocking dismissive sarcasm and want to believe the exact opposite of whatever you're saying, just as a way of taking a stand against mean people. Never just ask a question, when you can ask a question and insult someone at the same time, eh yjacket? You should also ask about my optimistic view of fiat currency based on something besides my head-in-the-sand ostrichness. And also my unconcerned apathy about various governmental conspiracies based on things other than my status as deluded sheeple dupe. But I'll try, again, to set aside your insults and strawmen, and answer your question. The geopoliticical world runs (and has always run) on a set of rules. And even though many are rules that no sane or good person would want in a game, they are rules nonetheless. One of the rules, is that in order to work your will, you need leverage. ("You" can be a nation, a faction in a nation, or an actual human individual in a faction.) This rule goes along with it's twin - if someone else wants to work their will against you, they need leverage too. Leverage comes from many different sources. "Public opinion", "general consensus", "the will of the people" - all are sources of leverage. All the good people in the world know life is valueable, and taking it is a tragedy, regardless of the method used. But use of WMD is more than taking life, it's using leverage. It's playing a geopolitical card. It's sending a message to other nations. Why? Not because death means more or less depending on how it's taken. But because it just is. The powers that be, for whatever reason, have either willed it to be so, or find themselves forced to accept it. "We draw the line at the use of biological or chemical weapons" - a statement made by the international community, and individual nations including ours, for a while. Yep - that means plenty of death is dealt out without triggering a response from other nations. Yep - it leads to hypocracy and wrongheadedness. But charges of hypocracy and wrongheadedness, no matter how accurate or obvious, are rarely useful as leverage. Please keep in mind - I'm not defending all this, I'm not advocating for it, I'm not duped by some biased-wing media source into accepting it as truth - I'm just explaining how it works from my perspective. If you want to know my bias, it's what I find in the scriptures and the temple about how satan uses his power to lead away the minds and hearts of man. The game has been played with these rules since we got kicked out of the garden of Eden, and it'll be played this way until the Lord comes in His glory and makes us knock it off. You play the cards you were dealt, and you don't get to walk away from the table. It doesn't matter if Assad used the weapons or not. The general consensus is that he did, so unless leaders use their leverage in response, others will use their inaction as leverage against them. The world will hate whoever is on top, for whatever they do. It's not like alliances or coalitions or friends or enemies last any longer with anyone else. It would surprise me. Bullets are cheaper and more abundant. WMD costs a lot and is a higher-risk play. But I agree completely about unintended consequenses. Our leaders grasp it just fine - it's why Pres. Obama said "oh crap" in my little skit. He's not happy being forced into this position, because all his available choices come with undesirable consequenses. If it's any consolation, my wife agrees with you. We argued this point for 15 minutes last night. Making the case that the only remaining superpower should mind it's own business is a valid argument. But if you're going to bring up the law of unintended consequences, you'd be well advised to apply it here too.

Geopolitics doesn't run on a scale of horrible and nice. For that matter, it doesn't even run on a scale of ok and not ok. I wasn't paying attention in the 1980's, and can't really answer to what the US was thinking at the time. It does seem if you look for consistency in a nation's policy across three decades, you'll spend a lot of time being sarcastically unhappy about percieved hypocracy.To directly address your point, as things stand today, yes, a lot of two bit dictators 'get' to murder their own people without fear of US involvement, if they use simple bullets instead of WMD. Yes indeed, it's offensive to morals. And you don't really need to look back to the '80's. Egypt has recently killed more folks recently than Syria has. Maybe it could help you, if you realized the difference between understanding/explaining something, and defending/agreeing? I'm not doing the latter.

I have a half-decent guess at what's happening. Pres Obama (not wanting to get involved in Syria): "We won't stand for the use of chemical weapons!" Assad: "Sweet - we can continue getting away with murder, and the US won't interfere!" [a year passes, and two phones ring] Pres. Obama: "Yes? What? They did what? Oh crap. Now we've got to do something." Assad: "Yes? What? We did what? Who did it? Are you sure? Oh crap. Now the Americans have to do something." Many things are possible. Assad may have decided to test America. Some rogue general may have done it. The opposition may have done it. Heck, let's get all x-filesy and assume some third party did it for shadowy nefarious reasons of global shadowy nefariousnessitude. At the end of the day, pres Obama will need to do something. He can't get the UN to do anything. His coalition of blame-sharers is falling apart. Doing nothing means every two bit dictator from here to there just got the green light to gas their opponents. We'll know what he's decided, because we'll either see it on CNN, or the Republicans will have lined up to yell about how the exact opposite thing should happen.

I've heard it said if you ever have any doubt about the existence of evil, or the number of evildoers there are in the world, just go find your nearest corrections officer and ask them if they believe in evil. They'll probably smile and cheerily state something like "oh absolutely. We release evil into the world every Thursday!"

If you're talking about bringing a new life into the world at age 55, and you're interested in what's best for the kid, I'd vote against it. You'd be 70 years old when your kid would be entering the teen years and needing parents to be at the top of their game. Adoption and fostering is possible, and would bless children who may or may not have any better options, but you discount it because it's not easy. Of course, if you're mainly interested in satisfying your own wants, and have the money, then sure, it's physically possible to start a family at age 55. Are you married? Keep in mind here's something the mormons tend to believe a lot:

This morning, I noticed peanut butter on the tub. It wasn't put there by the kids. JustJane, I don't really have any advice, just good company. If you ever develop a cure for this stuff in pill form, I'd pay twenty bucks per pill.

Ok, well let me be clear then. I've seen my wife off her meds. It's like looking into a black hole from which no emotion escapes. A Nam Vet buddy of mine spent decades self-medicating with alcohol, and now with proper treatment, he and his wife are now temple workers. People have told me their stories about friends and loved ones coming off their meds and trying to jump through windows, or beating their heads into walls, or going back to their former lifestyles which end in ER visits, jails, or the morgue. My wife knows a few folks on antipsycotic medication who are grateful to function without the voices screaming horrible things in their ears every hour of every day. I'm aware of a kid or two who no longer have the compulsion to wash their hands over and over again until they're bloody and raw, due to medication. When the right medication is appropriately administered in the correct dosage by the right doctor, brain meds do more than allow people to feel happiness, they can save marriages, jobs, friends, and loved ones from a lifetime of destruction, despair, dissilusionment, dissasociation, and death.Is this what you're looking for Sharky? From where I'm standing, nobody in this thread is contesting the valid benefit held by medications that affect the brain. I can't speak for anyone else, but my comments are just attempts to educate about the possible side effects. I hear folks saying they've had no problems at all being prescribed something that works. I've personally had a problem. My wife had problems, and the current solution isn't perfect. I've gathered a handful of firsthand accounts from friends and family about their various rollercoaster or dark pit stories of trying to get the right blend of medication, therapy, and lifestyle before things finally clicked. Anyone in need of brain meds should be aware of possible complications. I honestly don't see anything wrong in talking about them.

Back in the late '70's/early'80's, my mother did a weekly bingo game in downtown SLC. The joint got raided by the cops one night when she wasn't there. For years, we told the story of how mom missed the chance to tussle with the cops and beat them with her cane.