NeuroTypical

I think we differ as to what gets taught. For someone interested in having someone else pay their bills, you show up with a bunch of pamphlets and seminars and informational commercial campaigns and public education units taught in health class and free healthcare, he has been succesfully taught that he has free healthcare, and kicks back on his sofa with his 38 grams-of-fat 3000-calorie dinner. They have pills that lower cholesterol.If you want to teach someone to take care of themselves, tell them about how they own the consequences of their actions. Then do not keep them from their consequences. Yes he does - King Mosiah addressed his people on how the Lord wanted them to act. King Mosiah was not justifying higher taxes so the government could do it for them, which is what is being proposed on this thread.I've been a ward financial clerk. It has been a great blessing to see how my fast offerings go to pay medical and other bills. I've also watched healthcare and insurance evolve and change in our country and others over the decades, as well as the healthcare needs of various populations. I have definite opinions about the harm we chose to do to ourselves when we are secure in the knowledge that the financial consequense will be borne by other people. Church welfare makes you work for it.

Yeah, helpin' folks is usually a worthy goal. However, removing consequences from them usually isn't. When I think about what America's obesity epidemic costs this country, and when I think it's due to people not making wise choices, it makes me wonder why I need to foot the bill for their choices. Or, if you want something a little more smarmy: I feel good knowing that no matter how poorly I maintain my health, no matter how many double-big-macs I eat every week and how little I exercise, no matter how many drugs I do, or how recklessly I drive, or how dangerously I live my life - people are advocating higher taxes for other folks to pay my medical bills. Tell me - do you also want to socialize dental care? I can feel good about not brushing my teeth too. Remember - I'm "Medically Needy"! I pass through the only gate you've offered! It doesn't matter to you that it's my own dang fault - I ain't got no job, so you people gotta pay for my rehab, or insulin, or cholesterol-induced repetetive strokes, or my new liver after I ruined mine with abuse. All hail being "medically needy"! It means I have judgement-free claim on your support! Anyone who says otherwise, is sure to shock the Christians!

Hi Maximo - welcome! Yes indeed, food storage is fairly ingrained in our culture. The broader context of preparadness, maybe not so much. The church pushes self reliance and provident living as hard as it can, many of us don't do much with that counsel, others of us take it in all sorts of fun directions. Have a look through the Preparadness forum on this site, and maybe start a thread or two. Happy to have you here. (Oh - and I think your sig link is missing a ".com"...)

Sounds great. I just want to plug the site rules to make sure we all get off on the correct foot.Welcome!

Heh - boy did my wife ever get cheated!

Well, I suppose somebody ought to give a direct answer to HoosierGuy. Here's a direct answer:The US Government should not step in, take over, and set prices, because of that pesky little thing called the 10 commandments. Specifically, "Thou shall not steal". AKA לֹא תִּגְנֹֽב׃ ס in Hebrew, or οὐ κλέψεις, if you prefer Greek. I can't find anywhere that says "thou shall not steal, unless someone needs it more, then it's ok."

ldstoday.com does a decent daily news scrape of lots of sources.

Strange: I thoroughly detest bureaucracy and the "not my job" mentality so pervasive in American business. And yet, I find myself in complete agreement with mormonmusic's post. (Probably because it involves urging the system to work, and also works to protect children.)

I assume you're talking about the priesthood not being extended to all worthy male members until 1978 - and not the actual history of black people and the church - right?Because when you get out of the 1978 issue, and look at the history of black people and the church, you find a whole bunch of cool things. Here's a cool timeline full of contributions of and events affecting black LDS members through history. As for your question, there have been a lot written on the subject. The link I gave is a good source, as is doing a thread search on this site for the topic. We don't know. My only opinion on the subject is that even if we did know, and have totally verifiable and unambiguous proof solidly establishing the Book of Mormon as a historical document as well as scripture - there'd still be a bunch of non-LDS critics finding reasons to criticize. Here's a summary of LDS sources on the subject.

Well, me too - but pretty much everywhere brothels are illegal. So, instead of trying to run a brothel, you start a church. Members pay tithes to the church. The method of worship involves a female pastor or acolyte applying consecrated (and aromatic) oils during very spiritual one-on-one sessions. Other things are rumored to be happening there, but whenever the cops or inspectors visit, that's everything they see.Again, I'm not just makin' this stuff up. Maybe they call it a "massage parlor", maybe they call it a "physical healing center", maybe they call it a "counseling session". Maybe their story is they sell exotic oils, and offer a free application. They sell sex, but on paper, it's legit. My sister watches this stuff go by in Albuquerque all the time. So, neighbors who can't get any relief from the laws and the cops, turn to zoning and HOA and whatnot for relief. The battle goes on. Sound waves qualify - how about light waves? In other words, if hearing or smelling stuff could violate property rights, can seeing stuff? If you and Little Johnny are out for a walk in your backyard, and you see over the fence, the usual line of seedy looking men being seductively welcomed by the scantilly-clad pastors of the church of the holy oils, does that count as having your rights violated? "Quiet enjoyment" and all that?

I still want to make sure that everyone understands: People have disguised brothels as christian churches before, and they will again. Whatever fixes y'all come up with for the situation, needs to handle those as well.

Big whoop. Facebook accelerated gossip to faster-than-light speeds a few years ago. I'm with this guy: LM p.s. - Here's the source paper. Page 10 is cool - this thing measures continental drift.

If a company wishes to not make customers happy, it is not the employee's job to make them happy. If a company wishes to make employees powerless in the face of customers who are angry for no good reason, it is the employee's job to leave and find a better job somewhere else. If anybody breaks any laws, people can get in trouble.

I can work with that.And absolutely - I'm aware also of how Christian groups are persecuted and unjust laws are leveled against them in various places around the globe. We LDS tend to work totally above-board and just work on changing attitudes in the government before we'll go into a country. I can find things to respect about groups that smuggle bibles and hold undercover church and such.

Pretty horrible thing. Too bad for the guy's wife. I'm glad nobody else was killed. I'm glad a couple of people were able to wrestle the gun away from him before he could reload and keep shooting.What a dang tragedy.

I'd just like to point out, that the church has no plans to feed the hungry, should bad times come. There's some sort of urban myth out there - very pervasive and deep in some circles - that the church owns a gazillion silos full of grain, and massive stockpiles of food that will be used to feed people in widespread or longterm disasters. The church has no such preparations and no such stockpiles and no such plans. We've got canneries to help members store food. The church's efforts on disaster preparadness is totally directed at helping individual families become prepared. The church is not Egypt, and the Prophet is not pharoah or Joseph. The church as an orgainzation, is not storing food against a time of need. Instead, it urges it's members to prepare every needful thing against times of need. Now, should big horrible things happen, I'm sure many of us will be helping and providing service and charity and whatnot. We're big on service and helping the poor and needy and whatnot. But we're also big on urging our members not to be poor and needy in the first place. The burden is on us to prepare for our families, not our church to prepare for us. Current counsel from our leaders is all about self-reliance. It's not about gathering together in companies of fifty, or reinstating the United Order, or any such things. Provident Living.org

And T.T is a smiley indicating someone has tear streaks coming down their cheeks.

The constitution binds the federal government only. Congress didn't make any law here. States, counties, parrishes, cities, towns, municipalities - all of them get to decide how they run their areas. Not only do they get to - they have a duty to. So the next time someone tries to start the "church of applying massage oil to naked businessman" in your neighborhood, the local cops come and arrest everyone. [Yes, things like this happen. No, I don't have a link - just news from my relative in Albuquerque.]

Excellent! Tell her so. And then bring up maybe moving forward, and see what she thinks.From the way you describe her, she sounds like someone who does not involve a guy in her daughter's life just at the drop of a hat. You'll never know until you try...

I guess I will always love and honor NetFlix, for their help in pulling out the Blockbuster weed and having it's vile roots wither in the sun and finally die the death it so totally deserved for so long.Out of the top five negative experiences I've had with companies, Blockbuster occupies two spots - one for it's horrible late return fees, one for it's totally abysmal incompetent theivery disguised as a DVD's by mail service.

My biggest concern would be traffic - those 50 have to get there and leave there somehow. We can let our kids have the run of the neighborhood and play in the street when 2 cars go by in an hour - not when 20 go by. It wrecks a big reason we moved there on a weekly basis.Noise and lights would also be concerns - yes, even on 5 acre lots. It's not the "quiet seclusion of country living" we purchased - it's "quiet seclusion of country living except for Wednesday and Saturday evenings when there's something big happening at the neighbor's". Again (for the third time) - there is a permit process. Go get the dang permit - that will shut up the neighbor, or at least take away their grounds for complaining. The scouting program was more than just run through a religious organization. It was the evangelical outreach portion of that church for boys. I've lost the story and links, but the basic intent was along the lines of "have your boys join our troop, and we'll train them up correctly in the [Nazarite/Baptist/Lutheran/I forget] tradition." Yes - they were Mormons in leadership positions. The program promised leaders with a very particular religous faith doing constant youth outreach. It was not like an LDS boy scout troop - it was more like an LDS Priest's quorum that wore uniforms and did service. It would be like a new familly moving in, the dad becomes Priest quorum advisor, and then says "oh, by the way, we're Baptists - that's not a problem is it?" Basically, the bible study story infringes on people's property rights, and my 2nd example was an issue with people's rights to assemble and associate with whom they please.

All my neighbors and I have at least 5 acres. 50 per week is too much. It's a neighborhood. If there's a permit process, then follow the permit process. If the zoning/hoa/whatever says not in that neighborhood, then change the zoning/hoa/whatever.I felt the same way when an LDS couple moved to a new area, got involved in the (non-lds and very faith-baseed) scouting program, became part of the leadership, and then told everyone they were LDS. Then they got all mad when they got kicked out. A simple trip to the church website indicated it was a train wreck waiting to happen, but the LDS couple either didn't bother to learn, or figured the rules didn't apply to them. Again - chess club, wine tasters, little-old-lady coffee klatch, local chapter of the "cute cartoon puppy drawers of America" - one disgruntled neighbor = 50 in a residential neighborhood is too much.

I'm thinking this isn't about religion or Christianity or faith. It's about having 50 people over at your house on a weekly basis. I mean, I'm hardly the world's biggest supporter of zoning laws or HOA policies or what have you. But I'd have a big issue if my neighbor had 50 people over once a week, regardless of the reason. Poker game, gardening club, astronomy night, etc - I'd have a problem with that.

Can't watch that one, unless you watch this one too:

Ditto. Let us know what happens next!