NeuroTypical

Well, the problem I see, is that plural marriage is a very complicated and delicate issue, requiring much shared understanding between people before it can even be discussed. There is no 'short and sweet' way to package it. I make sure everyone knows we have nothing to do with Warren Jeffs, and that there hasn't been a Mormon poligamist in almost 150 years. If the person I'm talking to has a sense of humor, my wife and I will often make jokes about having sisterwives and horns and whatnot.

When it comes to wallets and cars and whatnot, I'm pretty much in agreement unless there's a direct threat of serious bodily harm. Bad guys entering a private premisis or residence is another matter. Some states have a "duty to retreat" deal going - if it's possible to run away and abandon your property, you must. Other states have "castle doctrine" in place - if someone is illegally entering your premisis through stealth or violent means, you're good to assume they intend serious harm to innocent people inside, and you're good to employ deadly force to stop the threat. [i live in Colorado - we got famous a few year's back for our "Make My Day" laws, extending castle doctrine to privately owned businesses. ] My wife's Personal Protection class (offered through the NRA, by our local police) gave us good things to think about too. Deterrence (locks and lights, yelling "I'm armed - go away"), avoidance (situational awareness, backing down from a heated discussion), and evasion (running the heck the other way) - all of those things should also be thought about/practiced/planned-for at least as much as utilizing your weapon. Target shooting, dry firing, practicing safe drawing with a firearm is good and necessary if you're going to own one. Practicing looking up from your iPhone when wandering around and practicing not walking down that alley in the first place - even more good and necessary.

It depends on what state you're in, but generally, you are correct. A right to carry does not trump someone else's private property rights.Here in CO, it's legal to carry into private property, unless the business or whoever posts "no guns allowed" or some such. Here's how a hospital in Colorado Springs handles things: Uneducated and uninformed folks assume no guns are allowed. Conceal carry permit holders can see they are within their rights to carry. Lawbreakers intent on mayhem ignore the law and the sign. Everyone is happy.

Where are you getting your data? I have a half-remembered statistic about the thousands of times per year Americans pull guns and a situation defuses itself. I also have a dozen or two first- or second-hand anecdotes. A buddy, driving at night on a dirt road, bunch of loud teenagers in a pickup truck showing bats and knives tried to force him off the road, he showed his .45, they turned three shades whiter and hit the brakes. Two stories from different states, guys filling cars up with gas, noticing they are being cased by multiple punks who then surround and start to approach - guys pull their firearms and yell 'back off!', everyone runs away. Stuff like that. There is a massive thread over on glocktalk.com, with thousands of people relaying anecdotes when they've employed their pistol and all the bad things stopped happening. It depends on the situation. For most of us, not escalating an encounter is appropriate most of the time. If someone is intent on your blood, or your wife's body, or what have you - standing there and not doing anything won't be preventing bad things. I'm only guessing, but I think that notion is held by a majority of permit holders. I certainly plan to fork over my wallet to a mugger, leaving my gun in place. I don't carry to protect my wallet. I carry to protect my wife and children's lives.

Isn't this how I Am Legend (with Will Smith) started out?

What's a Jimmer?

Heh - or it might of ended in saving innocent life, or it might have ended in no shots being fired. What-iffing a scenario is a waste of time. None of us were there, and every situation is different. It is true that a firearm raises the stakes, makes things more complicated, and brings more serious consequenses. But the notion that pulling out weapons doesn't ever make anything better, is a totally false notion. I'd refer interested folks to John Lott's book More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws. Guns are used thousands of time every year in the US to deter or stop bad things from happening, without a shot ever being fired.Yes, gun violence is a problem. Yes, accidental shootings are a problem. But the notion that guns don't solve problems, is totally false. No, that's not what he's saying. Yes indeed it is a rediculous strawman though. Wheats did not come here advocating "that we should start carrying weapons to church". He came here saying he does it, and is looking for a discussion.

Hi Wheats! Welcome to the board! You have raised an issue that gets discussed quite a bit and quite zealously in circles of conceal-carry permit holding Saints. Rest assured that your take on the issue is very well represented in such circles, but so is the other side of the issue. People, as we discuss the issue, lets keep a few site rules in mind: There are at least two polarized sides on this issue - let's civilly advocate for our reasoning, and keep our judgements and condemnations out of it.LM p.s. I used to carry at church, but changed my mind a few years ago and don't anymore.

ConvinceTheWorld seems to be doing better than a lot of end-times sensationalistic folks I run into. I mean sure, he insults us with the standard "all is well in Zion" zinger, and also the tired old "this will be dismissed by the wisdom of the world which is foolishness before God" rejoinder. However, he does use that magic word "if" in a few of his posts - most zealous end-of-timers don't come within a mile of that word. He also says stuff like "For me this is 100% proof" - allowing the possibility that others might come to a different conclusion. I just hope we can find him on September 1st.

The last time someone predicted this at me, the day came, and he fervently pointed to a list of the 200+ earthquakes that had happened that week.So, in the interests of having everyone all down the learning curve ahead of time, I'd like to point out that there are hundreds of earthquakes going on all over the earth in any given week. Here's the website where you can get live details. Here is an example of an average week on planet earth. Sometimes there are more, sometimes less, sometimes we get a slew of greater than 5.0, but this is a rough example: So, ConvinceTheWorld also figures an 'earthquake as we have never seen before'. I'd like to further remind us all, that we all saw a 9.0 quake on 11 March 2011 that occured 80 miles east of Honshu Japan.

So, to make sure we understand - by "bright light" you mean something visible during daytime (assuming no clouds). And it will stay visible, and get brighter, for at least 24 hours of visible brightness. Yes? And by "huge earthquake", you mean at least 9 on the richter scale? (Again, there are hundreds of earthquakes occuring naturally every day. 6, 7, even the occasional 8.something occurs every now and then without making the news.)

Excellent. Now - there are literally hundreds of earthquakes that normally happen on any given day throughout the world. What sort of thing to you see as "something"?

Hi there.Could I ask for a little clarification here? How did you hear we're concerned about Iran, and who wrote you, and who is "us"? I guess my last question would be, if you're a member of the church, why chose Hindu scripture for your screen name? (Just interested) Welcome to the board.

Here's the next big honkin date: Sep 26-28th (The website says this could be the biblical "three days of darkness". Elenin is between Earth and sun - same alignment that supposedly caused the Japan quake - except this time - Elenin will be closer to us) Ok ConvinceTheWorld - I'm calling you out. I propose a little bet. If nothing happens, you have to dress up in a pink tutu and sing "I'm a little teapot". If something happens, I'll dress up. Do you have the courage of your convictions? Do you truly believe deeply enough in this deal to risk a little public embarassment if you turn out to be wrong? This is not the first time I've made (and won) such a bet. LM

Probably not what you were looking for, but when I went inactive as a teenager, some of the stuff my mom and grandmother told me, probably qualifies. "Satan's coming to get you!" and whatnot. I've had good luck with the evangelicals I've encountered. I even went to an "Are Mormons Christian" class or two thrown by my local megachurch, and they didn't come anywhere near any sort of prediction about my soul's future. Just trying to equip their members with ways of expressing concern (they called it "convicted civility"). When President Hinckley died, I tried to get some sort of statement out the lady running the class. But she flat out refused to judge, allowed for the possibility that Pres. Hinckley was indeed a saved Christian, and offered her condolances. Of course, in my apologetic running around, everyone and their dog was telling me I was heading for hell and should stop trying to get people to follow me. But I went out and found those people because I wanted to argue - it's not like they busted down my door to tell me.

Love it. I consider that video, and the original one, required viewing for anyone wishing to have an understanding about why we fight about economics.

Hi Aussiechick, and welcome. You're not alone.

Oh, the intent of your heart is good - I don't think anyone doubts that. I think of gossip sort of like a computer virus - it doesn't matter what the intent is of the person clicking the link - the virus spreads when the link gets clicked. I advocate placing yourself above rumors and gossip for a few reasons. Yeah, we shouldn't spread it. But also, once people know you don't put up with rumors at all, they tend to stop doing it around you, and that makes life easier.

I hate to be all disrespectful of my objectivist friend, but what a bunch of melodramatic, yellow-journalistic, overly-sensational hogwash. This sort of drama kept the X-files tv show going for season after season, and that was ok, but it really has no place when discussing temples.We figure temples are sacred, and we speak about them in reverent ways. Kind of like discussing marital intimacy - you just don't go around blurting things out. ZorabelMay - if you'd like to know a lot about temples, here are some resources. MormonTemples.com - lots of info. Despite John_Galt_Lives' goofy claims, there's an article specifically on the Endowment ceremony. The Holy Temple by Boyd K. Packer: 274 pages - written by an Apostle. You can pick up a copy for under five bucks on amazon.com - including shipping. Temple Prep class - meet with your Bishop and let him know you want to know more, and see if there's a class for you to attend. Happy learning!

I think you answered your own question.Rumors are gossip. Gossip stinks. Don't let it come out your mouth.

All of you people:

Most of the water in the counties around me, is drilled out of aquifers that were made a gazillion years ago. Aquifers that only decrease - rain water takes too long to get back down there to replace it. New development has to pass some "300 year" test of some kind. It's vaguely concerning to a lot of people here. The science is based on guesses and there is a fair amount of disagreement.

I hate to bust up a perfectly good analogy, but I just have to add that a few billion murders later, Anakin repents, is forgiven, and ends up all glowy and immortal next to Obi Wan and Yoda.[And, apart from analogies to StarWars, I've found little else to answer these questions besides guessing.]

London was rather quiet last night, but the rioting had spread from London to Manchester, Salford, Liverpool, Nottingham, Birmingham, and Bristol. BBC - UK riots: Trouble erupts in English cities Anyone a fan of the show COPS? I watched an episode of that filmed in London. It was unlike anything I'd ever seen on the rest of the episodes. The entire show consisted of showing training exercises, with maybe one or two actual stops - nothing more serious than arguing politely with a guy who was angry at his mother. They did show riot training - basically training the cops on how to not get injured as they stood there and people threw rocks and molotovs at them. I read in some other bbc article, that the cops were injured more than the protestors by like 3 or 4 to one. It makes me sad to see the violence there. I hope they can restore order. I hope they can go back to arguing with drunks as the most serious thing they encounter in an average day.

I'm having a hard time seeing where the problem is here. Tell him that temple prep class is a great place to ask every single question he can think of. Allow him the time to mull things over as much as he wants. If his family is pushing him to the point of being manipulative, then defend him. If they're just being annoying, then be annoyed too and support him.Rushing someone into a temple experience they are not prepared for or don't accept, could be a horrible mistake.