NeuroTypical

Hi Tom. Prepare for some pretty depressing news. If you'll remember back to hurricane Katrina, there were stories of valor and lots of effort to evacuate the hospitals and nursing homes and whatnot. It was a massive effort incurring a lot of expense and taking a lot of effort to handle these frail folks with special requirements for machines and uninterrupted power and whatnot. It worked pretty well, because the thing was a localized disaster, and we had an entire rich country to pull abundant resources from. The terrifying final truth, is that if "modern society goes wacky and we have to run for the hills or stay barricaded in our home", you - TomK - the father - the head of the house - you have to answer your own question. There won't be all these resources to pull from, or services available. So, if you don't have a way to feed your daughter or she can't survive without her medicines, well, complete this sentence yourself. Yes, God works miracles sometimes. But yes, lots of folk died on the Pioneer trek. I recommend the book One Second After by William R. Forstchen. It describes a scenario where the power goes out to the whole country one day. That's a pretty low-risk scenario, but it sets up pretty realistically what will happen to communities and counties and states if there's a melodramatic change to our economy or power grid. To answer your question - yes, I've thought about this quite a bit. The health and wellbeing of my family currently depends on quite a large number of prescriptions and access to medical services.

The history of warfare isn't exactly a study of people showing restraint. Although again, recent generations have only post WWII memories of US actions to go by.Nope - still voting not silly.

Yeah, for people who are fascinated by mental illnesses and addictions, you haven't seen interesting stories until you've read some multiple personality stories (called Dissociative Identity Disorder these days). Thanks for sharing Iggy. Kudos on breaking the destructive cycles, and keeping or obtaining the good ones.

I've heard it said that the issues dividing left and right today, are wider and more divisive than those dividing north and south back then. We've enjoyed a handful of generations of US citizens not going to war against each other. It's easy to forget that we've done it at least twice in the past, and it is always happening in some country in the world. Here's one vote for Traveler's notion being "not silly".

Some people, absolutely yes. My wife endured years of abuse as a child, became an alcoholic at age 14, and stopped drinking around age 18. She not only is one of the most pragmatically grounded, strongest people I know, but she also works miracles in helping others who are in (or approaching) the situation she was in.She tells me that she would not be who she is today, had the garbage in her past not happened. She figures she'd be a "much more superficial, much more ignorant, much happier twit of a woman" if she'd just been allowed to grow up normally. But for the love of pete - don't anybody go off and get themselves into dark places because you want to be cool like my wife. She goes to waay more funerals than college graduations.

Actually, I was only aware of the headlines from two or three years ago, and the other headlines from five or six years ago. It seems like this happens every few years. Step 1: Some well-intentioned mormon somewhere on Earth gets a bright idea about doing temple work for holocaust victims. Step 2: Somehow word gets around to survivors groups or Jewish folk, some of whom occasionally look for this sort of thing coming from us Mormons. Step 3: A big kerfuffle happens, media reports are written, well-intentioned member is educated, temple ordinances are removed. Step 4: Start at step 1 with a new well-intentioned Mormon

This topic has fascinated me for a long time. Basically, in order to be tempted, you must have agency to choose one or the other. Otherwise, it's not a temptation, it's something done to you that you have no control over like a facial tick or having a house dropped on you while you sleep. Consider the scenario of someone severely addicted to a serious drug like meth. They are not tempted to get their next fix - they're body demands it. They are out of control, and have no agency in the matter of their addiction. This is why there are bars on the windows and locks on the doors of many detox facilities. Because people often are unable to choose to not get their next hit. So, when we non-addicts wander by and want to pass judgement, we cannot say the addict is giving into temptation, and if they'd just stop, everything would be peachy. We do a grave disservice to the addict, ourselves, and our God when we do this. Now, if you go to a fairly healthy, stable, recovered (or recovering) addict, they will talk all day about their choices. They will be able to tell you the exact moment in their life when they decided to no longer be an addict, and they will tell you about the actions they performed, or set in motion, in order to get themselves out of their pit. More often than not, they will tell you about how they took action that handed control of their body over to someone else (like a detox facility or an emergency room). So according to them, there is an element of choice/agency, and there is a way to get yourself healthy enough so the drug goes back to just being a temptation, and not something that runs your life. Another situation is the person who committs suicide. We're told that murder is a sin. We're also told that some things that happen to us are out of our control and we bear no blame. In order for a murder/sin to occur, the person had to have the action in his/her control. There appears to be a line, which someone can be pushed past. Once past this line, someone is no longer in control of their actions. Did they chose to push themselves past this line? Did they realize what they were capable of once pushed past the line? Were they in fact past the line when they killed themselves? We fallible mortal humans are not equipped with the tools necessary to discern these answers. So any judgement we render on a suicide, is by definition, unrigheous and inadequate.

Hi jmjlaw, I'll take a shot at two of your questions. Sounds like you are lacking a few bits of information about God's plan of happiness. Baptism for the dead and all that. We don't believe in a God that would punish people for never hearing the Gospel. Sounds like another bit is missing. Eternal punishment isn't punishment that goes on forever. Eternal punishment is God's punishment - because "Eternal" is one of God's titles. D&C 19.

Since Joseph started telling of his experiences, that is one way his critics attempted to explain him away, yes. Other critics who study his life more closely, find that explanation doesn't fit the mountains of facts indicating Joseph actually believed his story. So the more educated a critic becomes, the more likely they are to move to the explanation that he was sincere, but deluded or insane. Actually, I've had some critics try to tell me that Joseph was both a fraud, totally sincere, tricking people on purpose, and utterly devout - all at the same time. Those critics have at best, a passing aquaintance with logic, and most thinking people tend to dismiss them out of hand. I've also heard that Joseph was a lazy no-account ignorant slacker, as well as a brilliant devious schemer who sat up nights figuring out ways to steal men's souls and money. Pendragon, your brand of LDS criticism was more popular back in the '80's and '90's, back when you were fighting against unarmed opponents. Those days are long gone.

It wasn't really that hard to google: So, in total honesty, I'm sort of surprised myself. I echo your mild surprise at the results. I would suggest one reason that might explain things: Mormonism rocks, and Thomas S. Monson sticks in people's minds as a guy who is good at bringing the message of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ to a country thirsty to hear such things, and somehow not filled by just watching Tebow.

Iran is in a tough spot. Historically, it is the country that gets invaded by everybody. They're muslim, so they're often at odds with the nonMuslim world. They're Persian, so they're often at odds with the Arabs. They have to balance their alliances and deals carefully between Saudi Arabia and the US. They have a cool deal where they can sneeze at the strait of Hormuz and alter the global economic system, so they're a power, even if their power comes from a threat. I work with an Iranian expat, he figures the best thing that could happen to that country is if the US invaded and killed the top ten or twenty levels of government so the people could start fresh. I don't know enough about it to have such a strong opinion.

Yeah, the weight issue is based on ignorance. First, there are plenty of examples of thin sheets of metal in the archaeological record. Books weight less than chunks of trees for similar reasons. Second: The BoM was “engraven on plates which had the appearance of gold, each plate was six inches wide and eight inches long and not quite so thick as common tin" according to Joseph Smith. There's lots of stuff out there that looks like gold but isn't as heavy. This criticism was pretty well shot in the head over a dozen years ago. Michael Ash SHIELDS

Hi The_Phoenix, There's no need to guess at what the responses would be. I've been asking church critics this question for years. Here's what I ask them: Here are the responses I've gathered so far: So, there you go. A mixed bag.

The church can convene a disciplinary council whenever it needs to, and can reach it's own conclusion and act on it independently of any judicial system outcome. There was an open question from earlier in this case - whether the church would act in bishop Moon's defense by assigning a lawyer or paying legal fees. I don't know if that has happened or not - but it looks like his lawyer, David Leavitt, is pretty well known and has his own wikipedia page.

Indeed. The church has indeed long pushed education, savings being fit and healthy, as ways to prepare against hard times.But there are situations when focusing only on those three will not help much. Eowyn mentioned changing economic conditions and vanishing employment in your career area. Other things would be a major disruption in the food supply, like a trucker's strike or some sort of global event that lowers food production to dangerous levels. Or local short-term event like earthquake or destructive weather event that paralyzes food and service distribution for a week or three. Indeed, money helps (if you have access to it - meaning cash on hand, or stocked ATM's with the power on, and no run on the banks). Indeed, following the WoW helps much in such stressful situations. Indeed, good education and good career planning is a great part of an overall plan of dealing with adversity. But I'm having a hard time agreeing with you that storing food isn't a good idea.

Hi Juan_P,I have to admit, you're coming down lighter on the bishop than I am. I assume you don't get to be president of the Duchesne County School Board by being ignorant of how to handle allegations of assault. I sure know you don't get to be bishop without being presented with a little information. * As RMGuy said, there's a phone number bishops are trained to call to get advice about such matters. That phone number won't be answered by anyone who will instruct the bishop to tell the alleged victim to not report out of worry about how hard it will make things on the alleged perpetrator. * On top of that, bishops do receive training on their responsibilities in this area. And the training is on how to protect victims, not how to urge victims to protect perpetrators. * And even further than that, once or twice a year in our church's General Conference, every member who is listening gets clear, unambiguous direction about how we do not suffer abusers, and how abusers are in violation of God's and possibly man's law, and will be held accountable for their actions. * Anyway, with all those above points, the church feels pretty comfortable putting some advice in our widely-read For The Strength of Youth pamphlets, which say in part: Anyway, yes, the facts aren't always apparent in news stories, and yes, news stories are all we're going off of right now. We shouldn't rush to judge one way or the other based on media reports. I do have a hard time digesting this little tidbit from the link: So which is it? How exactly did the bishop join the growing ranks of those who "know about the abuse", if "the girl never clearly told"?Oy. The other new bit of info coming from this link, is the offender is related to the girl. Not sure if this means cousin or brother or what.

1. The "LDS Bible" is the bible. You might be referring to the Book of Mormon, our 2nd set of scriptures. 2. The Lillith story is not found anywhere in LDS cannon, not taught, and rarely believed. In fact, until this thread on this forum, I went 40 years in the church without ever hearing that a mormon might believe the story. 3. The notion that mortal difficulties or hardships prove that God is mean/imperfect/wrong/etc, is an arguable notion. It's certainly the notion that my kids sometimes hold, when I make them do the dishes. From the LDS standpoint, God is a loving Father in Heaven, who is invested in us growing and learning and advancing into better things than we are now. And the way He picked to do that, is to send us here to encounter adversity, grow character, learn love, etc. Yeah, it's hard for an athiest to wrap their minds around it. But consider - should you ever have kids, do you expect them to sucessfully deal with a difficult thing and emerge a better kid?

Yes. "Not preventing" is the same thing as "trying". Jenmarie and Eowyn gave you great, practical, realistic answers. Happy making babies! Remember - "Loudmouthina" is a great name for a girl!

Hi sdl54 and welcome. To the best of my knowledge, the various polygamist sects out there don't have anything like a public message board forum. Most of what I personally know about them, comes from dissafected former members telling stories of woe. I wish I could find someone who actually lives and belives that lifestyle, so I could mine them for information. But they don't seem to seek out much public interaction. Just wanted to point you to the site rules. This forum is funded by folks who are primarily interested in explaining our beliefs. For example, we're happy to discuss the reasons for our belief and what it is we actually believe, but this is not really a debate forum where we argue over the existence of God. If you like a good debate like that, you might have more success at ornery.com, or any of the LDS or Christian apologetic forums. Again, welcome! What essay, and where do you go to school?

Hi Juan_P, Folks get banned for severely or repeatedly violating the site rules. Sometimes it's an arguable decision, sometimes it's a no brainer. Lots and lots of no brainers. More than you think. Lots of times, the mods know something you don't, which makes it a no-brainer for us, but a puzzling or worrisome thing to you. Lots of spambots or scam engines or fraudulent ID thieves or anti-LDS folks come here. The mods make sure they don't stay long, and we often delete their posts that expose them for what they are. If you want to know more about the specifics of how we work, click that link and read the stuff that starts out with "Consequences to these rules could result in the following, and are determined on a case by case basis.". Anyway, please take such things up with mods directly. No need to pollute a perfectly good "Hi I'm new" thread. Welcome to all the new folks!

Hi Barcode, Here is a pretty darn good article about what the church thinks about such things. Definitely worth a read: Myths about Mental Illness - Elder Alexander B. Morrison of the Seventy

You might want to think for a moment - if she's willing to lie to her bishop to get what she wants, who else is she willing to lie to, in order to get what she wants?

Well, the bishop will be the guy writing out checks and storehouse orders to this lady, so he'll be involved with or without our meeting with him.

Yep - it's important to know what you believe and why you believe it. It's important to have a testimony based on the reality and divinity of Jesus Christ, and not hero worship about church leaders, or an ignorant back-of-the-mind notion that there's nothing challenging in our history.

If she's asking for my advice, I'd say "yeah, good luck with that". If I just happen to know the local gossip about her, I'd ignore gossip, because that's what you're supposed to do with gossip. If something in between those two are happening, yeah, I'd mind my own business.