NeuroTypical

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That is funny. So you are telling me that if during a conversation someone would ask you something like "what did you think of yesterday's last fight?", you would just keep your mouth shut?I'd probably say something like "I didn't watch it", because I probably didn't. Unless it was free. Rein it in there, pal. Accusing members of this forum of lying will get you in trouble. Accusing a moderator will only delay that trouble by one post or so. I'm sorry you're having such a hard time grasping the concept, but yeah, MMA, BYU/Utah football, professional golf, tennis, texas hold-em tourneys, and NRA pistol competitions pretty much live or die without me contributing much of anything to them at all. There is no need for trust on the internet. Cite your source. Why do you believe that?

We had a member of the Stake Presidency describe missionary work in a very simple way that always stuck with me. We offer people cookies. "Would you like a cookie?" Don't want no cookie, no problem. It's not a show-stopper. You don't think differently of them. If someone accepts a cookie, it's also not a huge thing. It doesn't mean they want a dozen cookies. If they are happy with the cookie you offer them every time you see them, then hooray everybody. Not asking for a big shipment of cookies is not a problem. If they ask us for the recipe, we're more than happy to give it to them. The offering of the cookie, equates to offering to share messages, yes, but it also equates to just plain letting our light so shine before men. The gospel offers something the world hungers for. When people stand next to a righteous countenance, someone who knows what peace and joy feel like and where to get it, they react in different ways, but they react. Now, if missionary work means a bunch of tricks, if you've learned the commitment pattern without knowing peace, if someone taught you to share a testimony you've never had - then of course there are issues. People don't naturally like to be liars or bad guys. And suckering someone into getting baptized just so you can give a good report to someone, well, something like that ought to leave a bad taste in your mouth.

We don't disagree about whether it would be a good thing or not. We disagree very much about how easy/possible/radical it is. That little word 'if'. It seems so innocent. So tiny and unremarkable. And yet it assumes the power to obfuscate. Picture any utopian ideal, no matter how radically different or implausible. Stick that tiny little word in front of it, and suddenly every complex or difficult problem facing humanity, no mater how deeply entrenched or complicated, becomes so easy to solve that even a 6 year old can understand.if people would just be nice to each other, we wouldn't have any more wars. if healthcare was free, everyone could have it. if the color of the sky was red instead of blue, I'd look better in this hat. if there were less bad people, then we could let our kids play in the streets again. Again, good luck with your radical restructuring of American culture and the God-given male sex drive. I'll check back with you in a hundred years, and we can see if there are still restauraunts attracting customers by displaying the female form.

Howdy and welcome!

and how would you combat that (hooters and things like it i mean) i would work to change society's view of nudity/sexuality/female bodies and make that less of a thrill for males.I combat it by not spending my dollars on such things, discussing things in the public forum, and by trying to raise healthy righteous kids. I'll leave the radical alteration of society to others. Me too. Do you see anyone "freaking out" about the issue on this thread? Not sure why you brought it up.

FBI, CIA, and probably secret service too, all have LDS working for them in greater percentages than our basic demographic. Our pool of workers contains more language skills, more experience, greater amounts of education, and a stronger sense of nationalism and patriotism than most other places you can look, so these places recruit the heck out of us. I doubt there would be any problem finding enough temple recommend holding secret service guys to enter the temple.

Assuming for a minute that you are 100% correct: Hooters is still taking advantage of this society, to attract customers by objectifying, packaging, and presenting the mammary glands of women for the viewing pleasure of their male clientelle."What's wrong with society" is surely a valid discussion, but no matter how it turns out, I'm thinking that Hooters is still the bad guy from an LDS perspective.

Applepansy nailed it. Your records are somewhere. Human frailty is preventing folks from finding it. Wait - who is 'they'? Your parents? The bishop? The membership clerk? Whoever said it, they are not correct. Do what Applepansy says.

Sure it's national news. The very definition of "national news" is "crap that happened, that people like to get upset about". I guess the real question would be "shouldn't we demand a higher standard out of our news sources?" Yes, I'd be upset, because this is a 'voting with your dollars' issue. I don't support businesses that objectify, package, and present the mammary glands of women for the viewing pleasure of their male clientelle. Not sure who paid for lunch - but whether it was tax dollars or lunch money from parents - it's not acceptable. Back when my wife was in high school, a bunch of her male buddies were trying to spin hooters like FunkyTown. She said "Cool - I'll go apply there then!" You never saw such backtracking. Because no matter how well it's spun, guys know why they go there, and the waitresses know why they have a job there. And it ain't for the "good, plentiful and not expensive" food. Funky, you ought to know better. LM

Our justice system stinks when it comes to sex crimes. Once you think about the low conviction rate, and the various difficulties a victim endures after reporting, the low reporting rate makes more sense. There is a place where I've heard about justice being dispensed though. Rape crisis center group counseling sessions. Every now and then, some chick decides to get even with a guy and cries rape, and then goes to a crisis center as part of the act. From what I'm told, groups of rape victims might be traumatized and at the low point of their lives, but they're not stupid. It does not go well for false reporters in those rooms.

I have an answer that might sound frivolous, but I'm not at all sure that it is. Please keep in mind that both of my parents went in ways similar to what you describe, and my answer remains what it is:Go watch a movie called Secondhand Lions. LM

The crap Nazis did, doesn't bother me. The fact that given the right conditions, the average person has good odds of making the same choices - now that's truth to freeze your soul.

I had a buddy get so mad at whatever, that he tried to take his anger out on a piece of 6" PVC pipe. He proceeded to beat it down against a rock, from which of course it immediately bounced back and slammed him in the skull. He staggered backwards and almost fell. I don't think the thing he was mad at survived the day, but that event will stay in memory forever.

You needed a more traumatic middle-school experience, Vort. Mine provided me with a host of deeply-ingrained habits (everything from carrying my key in my mouth, to not closing the locker door until I've tried to unlock it while open) to prevent such embarassment. That limits my stories to "Had to go get ribbed by the security people to get a temporary badge allowing me access to my locker", and "Got locked out in my gym clothes, had a pair of bolt-cutters remove the problem in 10 minutes." I have, however, thought very specifically about your situation, and decided if I encounter someone like you, I will be kind. Golden Rule and all that.

Yep. Laurels and Priests. And yelling mommies. In 10 years, you'll look back and be glad everyone eventually grew up. Heck, in 5 years you might be saying that. You didn't ask for any specific advice, so I'm not sure what you're looking for. Sounds like teasing and jokes are off with J - he's too unstable to know the difference between joke and serious. You are not responsible for his actions, nor his mother's - just yours. Make them good actions and the whole thing will probably blow over in a few weeks.

Well, that's the most easily refutable lie I've encountered since I got up this morning. Israel's 2011 defense budget is around $16 billion (6.9% of it's GDP) on defense this year. US military aid to Israel is around $3 billion.So yeah, Israel is defending itself. Not to mention that the Israeli armed forces is made up of over a million Israeli conscripts - including women sometimes given combat roles. In the last 10 years, over a thousand Israeli soldiers have been killed, and 7000 wounded in Palestinian violence. You want to claim Israel isn't defending itself? Go make that claim to a family member of a fallen Israeli soldier. Israel doesn't defend itself? Why on earth do people who are otherwise so smart, let themselves get suckered in to believing such dumb stuff? How come the anti-Jewish side has so much success making such outlandish stupid claims, and having people believe them? We joke about how sometimes you can find someone who believes mormons have horns. It's not so funny to consider the people who not only believe crap about Jews drinking blood of arab children, but the number of people who actually advocate or take violent action against them because of these dumb beliefs. Please, HoosierGuy, for the love of truth - you can argue your case without resorting to such horrible outright falsehoods. Israelis don't defend themselves? Passing along such a claim says more about you than it does about the issue at hand.

I guess the question on top of my head: What are her parent's wishes?

I suppose it comes down to the geopolitical concept of an ally. In an ideal world, the shiny perfect moral US would only form alliances with other shiny perfect moral contries. In the world we all have to live in, we're all fallen sinful agenda-driven error-prone humans, and we all have spotty pasts and current problems on all levels - individual, family, community, and national. Countries make agreements, treaties, and alliances with each other for only one reason - doing so benefits each nation in some way. You might not like the other nation. You might have serious issues with things they do. Keep in mind they probably have serious issues with some of the things you do. There are plenty of folks in Saudi Arabia all ticked off that the kingdom works so closely with 'the Great Satan'. But the oil flows, and our economies benefit, and we all get to sit in a clilmate controlled room on a comfortable chair surrounded by abundance and plenty, and gripe about how things should be different.

I've encountered incestuous siblings and enabling parents with a long track record of protecting the perpetrator and blaming the victim. I can testify very clearly, that the heart-wrenching, painful, horrible journey I made to forgive these people, was worth every nightmare, every tear, every stumble. Being able to not just forgive, but love these people with as pure a Christlike love that I can manage, has relieved me of a heavy and dark burden in ways I can't even begin to describe. Even though they are who they are, and will likely never change in this life, my life has been freed by hoping and praying that they will find their way into heaven. Life got much easier, when I realized what forgiveness and love mean, and what they don't. They do not mean putting up with evildoers. They do not mean having to hang out or associate with people who cause you trauma by their very presence. They do not mean forgetting evil, or turning a blind eye to it. They do mean turning over your (very valid) gripes to the Lord to deal with. Because you know that where you'd do something imperfect, He'll admisiter perfect justice. He will do what isn't happening here - make it all better. I'd say something like that.

I always go back and forth on the whole "Current disasters are strong evidence of millenium coming quickly" notion. Yes, end-times prophecies tell us things are going to get a whole lot worse, before they get better. Pointing to the Joplin tornado (a hundred dead) looks pretty silly compared to 2004 tsunami (230,000 dead). And that looks pretty silly compared to the big Yellow river floods of 1931 and 1887 (a million or more dead each flood). I mean yeah, upwards of 3 million could have died in last decade's North Korean famine, but it's been 50 years since 15-43 million died in the Great Chineese Famine. When was the last time a plague killed off a third of a region like Europe? Aids hasn't even killed two million total since it started. Wars? There hasn't been anything close to WWII (40-72 million dead) in 65 years. So it seems like 'things getting worse' isn't as clear as one might first assume. Then people point to rising yearly numbers of disasters, that cost the world more and more every decade. Then others point to the fact that the earth's population is growing, and we're living more an more in earthquake zones and flood plains, and point out that the earth is doing what it's always done, it's just that we're living there now to make a disaster out of it. Then the first folks point out that regardless of the reason, the numbers are going up. So I dunno. I'm doing what I always do - trying to live life as if I won't be around next week. When you're at peace with your God and the humans in your life, you don't fear the end times so much. Tomorrow or next century - doesn't matter to me. LM

Just to make sure, it's still ok to name kids and pets after Star Trek characters, right? Little Seven of Nine would be very sad to hear otherwise.

Howdy and welcome.

Welcome to the forum eternallytrue! Everyone in the thread so far is a mature adult (or at least occasionally acts like one) - enjoy your chat.

Or, as more manly put in LM's Big Book for Big Boys: If you're a jerk, she won't care if you're right.There is no amount of right you can be, that makes self-righteousness ok. Conversely, it doesn't matter who you are or what you're like - it's always ok to be righteous. In other words, learn the difference between righteousness and self-righteousness, and act accordingly.