NeuroTypical

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.

I "questioned and left the church" for 6 years back in the '90's, and all I got was love and support from the LDS folks in my life (plus one goofy misguided attempt at 'fellowshipping' from someone I'd never met). I was born into a multigenerational Mormon pioneer family too. My experiences, actions, and opinions are very much different than this lady's.

Those may be high on anatess' and LM's list, but there are homeschooling families who do just fine withtout them, thank you very much. For #4, there are unschoolers and artist-y types who thrive on chaos and lack of discipline. There are also the drill-instructor parents who have zero patience. (Kids from both groups are often the spelling bee winners). For #5, there are the narrowly-focused, politically- or religiously-motivated homeschoolers who carefully control and spin information to produce a desired mindset. These folks still manage to produce groups of kids with superior measurable achievement to public/private schooled groups of kids. So yeah, although we figure it's a travesty for a kid to be homeschooled in an environment without elements of 4 or 5, other folks are raising successful kids without them. But if you're missing one or more of my original list, well, see bytor's posts about his wife's experiences.

In our experience, you need three things to be a successful homeschooling family: 1- Enough brain cells to budget and plan 2- Enough dedication to stick to a budget and plan 3- You need to really like spending a lot of time with your kids, every day, without end. No, this does not describe lots of good, righteous, wonderful parents. That's not a bad thing.

I see you correcting me. Again, the point I'm trying to get across, is that if your son predicts you will correct him, then it makes perfect sense to have a wall up around you. You don't share personal feelings with people who will tell you why you're wrong to feel that way. I restate my original advice: I would advise you carefully consider the reasons you want to do this, and how you'll react should you get what you want.

If it helps, we have a bumper sticker that says "DANGER - Unsocialized homeschoolers on board!"

I would advise you carefully consider the reasons you want to do this, and how you'll react should you get what you want.It's possible that he's got a big wall up around you, because he does not see you as a positive or helpful force in his life. What with all the raised voices, and coming down hard because of lost binders, and micromanaging him, and not being able to stay married so he has to uproot his life and move to where you and your new wife live. (I'm just guessing at his deal, but yeah, agreeing with applepansy here.)

No clue what you're talking about, HG.