NeuroTypical

I'm confused - can anyone consider a circumstance where someone might do something like this and everything is right with them? Not sure what sticking a "just" in front of "something wrong with the person" is supposed to be saying there... Yes, just about all child sex offenders have some sort of serious unresolved trauma in their lives. Often, they were child victims themselves. Understanding this reality can help people forgive. But that word "just" sort of worries me. Does it mean: "Oh, that's ok - that's just what Bob does - he's just got something wrong with him - pay it no mind." That's sort of a way to brush aside the issue (and the victims as well)... LM

You'd think that if everything that came out of the mouths of speakers of General Conference was 'thus saith the Lord' scripture, some of these comments might have been a bit more, well, strongly worded:

Interesting tidbit: For mormons who commit a serious felony against a child, a permanent note may be affixed to that member's record. That annotation is permanent, unless a member of the 1st presidency asks it to be removed. It doesn't matter how much repenting you do or how good a life you live after that annotation - it follows you for your entire earthly probation. Perhaps the brethren understand about recidivism rates of child sex offenders? LM

It really does mean what it says. Sorry you are having to learn that the hard way. Humans, for lack of a better term, suck. We're fallible, error-prone, agenda-driven mortals. This is something we do. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something. Humans don't deserve certain levels of trust. People who place high value in hero worship tend to get let down. And people who refuse to look at warning signs because someone holds a certain office, often get hurt. The church came to grips with this a while ago - you may notice all the windows on your classroom doors at church, and the 'no single brother teaching' policy. The same visibility is necessary everywhere. LM

No. Fortunately, that phrase is an invention of man, and as such, is bull puckey. There's always either many other choices (as in the political process), or choices that preserve our integrity (as in decisions the Jews made at Auschwitz). The short answer is no. I believe in degrees of agency. We can increase our agency (and decrease it) as we grow and learn. My 4 yr old really isn't guilty of sin as she clocks her sister over the head with a toy truck - she doesn't understand her choices. There is a line we can pass (or get pushed) as adults where we are not responsible for our actions. Yes, although everyone up to age 19 1/2 will always disagree with that reality. (It's not about what you want - get over yourself ) I would say that 95% of people who claim "I was tricked" were expressing their agency, and have merely siezed on a convenient scapegoat. The other 5% really were tricked, and did not realize the choice they were making. Absolutely. You're also making a choice if everyone around you is screaming "for the love of Pete DON'T DO THAT!", and you do it anyway. Dunno. My gut reaction is that choice based on principle, character, or ideals would be the best, but then I'm not the emperor of agency so I don't know. We are, so they are of great good and value. Absolutely. Maybe not always. Maybe we are at times when we really wish we weren't free and able. But absolutely true agency exists. All of the best and worst things I've done in my life have come as a result of clear choices on my part. I know a lady who just got her 13 year AA coin who says the same thing. Now, the best and worst things that have happened to me were not always due to my choice. That's a different matter. LM

Interesting. When I think of atrocities, I think of things like the killing fields of Cambodia, Stallin's purges, and the Holocaust. These are all atrocities on a massive scale with some intellectual construct - not religion - as their founding basis. Surely, people can point to religion as justification for their evil acts. But from where I'm standing, religion is just one a dozen convenient things evil people point to. LM

Firmly in the swing and mindset of this poll, I voted 'shut up', therefore, here are things I will not be doing: * Cutting down the 30+ trees I've planted on my property over the years and burning them in a huge pit bonfire. * Ripping out all the caulking and weatherstripping I've installed over the years to turn my house into a heat sink. * Replacing the dozen or so CFL's I've been using for upwards of a decade, and returning to tallow candles. * I will not stop considering solar and wind power, and I will not alter my decision to set up such a system when it becomes economically feasable to do so. * My plans for a greenhouse will continue to have a geothermal heat pump as a natural heating system, instead of electric heat. As a boobie-prize, I suppose I can offer you this: We'll continue to keep our big honkin' truck that gets 14 mpg highway. I wish I could afford to drive it more. LM

I wish I could be on the Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. That'd be cool.

Just wanted to resurrect this thread for a moment, to post a few quotes from of Pres. Obama's acceptance speech. He says a boatload of stuff I disagree with of course, but I was surprised to see many of these gems: ...I am at the beginning, and not the end, of my labors on the world stage. Compared to some of the giants of history who have received this prize -- Schweitzer and King; Marshall and Mandela -- my accomplishments are slight. And then there are the men and women around the world who have been jailed and beaten in the pursuit of justice; those who toil in humanitarian organizations to relieve suffering; the unrecognized millions whose quiet acts of courage and compassion inspire even the most hardened of cynics. I cannot argue with those who find these men and women -- some known, some obscure to all but those they help -- to be far more deserving of this honor than I. ...we will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. I face the world as it is, and cannot stand idle in the face of threats to the American people. For make no mistake: Evil does exist in the world. A nonviolent movement could not have halted Hitler's armies. Negotiations cannot convince al Qaeda's leaders to lay down their arms. To say that force is sometimes necessary is not a call to cynicism -- it is a recognition of history; the imperfections of man and the limits of reason. The United States of America has helped underwrite global security for more than six decades with the blood of our citizens and the strength of our arms. So yes, the instruments of war do have a role to play in preserving the peace. I believe that force can be justified on humanitarian grounds... I understand why war is not popular. But I also know this: The belief that peace is desirable is rarely enough to achieve it. Peace requires responsibility. Peace entails sacrifice. That is why NATO continues to be indispensable. [we must work to] prevent the spread of nuclear weapons, and to seek a world without them. ...peace is not merely the absence of visible conflict. Only a just peace based upon the inherent rights and dignity of every individual can truly be lasting. I believe that peace is unstable where citizens are denied the right to speak freely or worship as they please; choose their own leaders or assemble without fear. For if you truly believe that you are carrying out divine will, then there is no need for restraint -- no need to spare the pregnant mother, or the medic, or even a person of one's own faith. Such a warped view of religion is not just incompatible with the concept of peace, but the purpose of faith -- for the one rule that lies at the heart of every major religion is that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. We can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace.

A few words of caution: This is a video that claims to be an interview with a captured suicide bomber. The people involved may not be anything of the sort. That region of the world is not exactly known for it's respect for freedom of speech and vigorous free press. To the contrary - whoever currently has the gun runs the press. Many times that means state-run tv, but some terrorist organizations also have production studios. These guys could both be actors - this could merely be propaganda for the next generation of suicide bombers. It's still chilling, but from what I've seen from verified sources, the guy willing to blow himself up isn't that articulate and principled. He's angry, he wants revenge, he wants his family taken care of, he wants the wanton sex and drug that come before the event - and the promise of heaven and virgins and whatnot after the event. One tactic used is to rape the guy and tell him the only way to gain forgiveness from Allah for being raped, is to do this violent jihad. They'll also kidnap the mentally disabled - anyone they can let out of a van who will walk towards a group of people. LM

I'd like to copy and paste LDS.net Site rule #1:1. Do not post, upload, or otherwise submit anything to the site that is derogatory towards The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, its teachers, or its leaders. Anti-LDS Propaganda will not be tolerated anywhere. Your accusation that the church wants to hide truth, is a clear violation. I'd love you to be around in a year or two, so I can take you to task about your end-times prediction, but beware the moderator hammer, Hill-Billy. LM

Giving service can bring blessings, if the heart of the giver is in the right place. Receiving service can bring blessings, if the heart of the receiver is in the right place. We tend to stand in our roles as one or the other, and want to pass judgement on the other side. "They should do more for themselves!" "They should appreciate us more!" "They should understand my troubles more!" "They should help more!" Normally, I'd say all that's a waste of time, but the stories people tell are so entertaining, I just love to hear them. Like the one young couple I helped move, where the overcontrolling wife had obviously lost the argument about hiring professional movers. She was just certain that we trained EQ monkeys were going to bust all her nice furniture to pieces. It got so bad that she was even telling us how to lift stuff into the van - including instructions on how bent our knees should be, and who should lift first. Or the other guy in his mid-30's who was getting kicked out of his parent's basement. He had known for a month, and asked for our help the night before. When we showed up, he hadn't even started packing. He didn't even have any boxes or moving supplies. So we basically went and bought boxes, and then shoveled armloads of his torn and wrinkled comic books and dirty laundry into them, while he sat on the couch and watched TV. When we packed the TV, he sat on the couch and glared at us. We basically just tipped the couch up to spill him off of it, so we could load it. We asked his mom if he had some sort of special needs or mental issue or something, she said "no, he's just pouting". When we arrived at his new apartment, he didn't have the key, so we dumped all his crap into the front yard and went home. LM

We once had a petsitter who was basically scared to death of death of mormonism, and always worried of offending us, or getting killed by us, or something. It was like she was expecting lizards to jump out of our ears. After one vacation, she nervously explained that during our vacation, one of our dogs had escaped and had been lost for about an hour, before being found and brought back safely. My wife did a great deadpan: "Well, we're glad you found her, because it's against our religion for you to lose our dog." We had her hook, line, and sinker - for about 3 full seconds. She lightened up a lot after that. LM

Folks are giving good opinions, but one thing I'd suggest before you carry any of them out: Were your ideas really dumb? I mean, if this guy was right, then yeah, he's rude and tactless, but you also have a problem that needs fixing. I've seen many dumb ideas advanced by well-meaning people in this church, and I've seen people hurt by them. If you really did have good ideas and this guy was blocking them, yeah, everyone has great advice. LM

Hear, hear - well spoken Bruce.(And dang - the accompanying song is quite fitting for this thread.)

My wife calls me 'hon' or 'honey'. If I wasn't so scared of her fist of death, I'd call her Hun.

Being able to genuinely love someone despite the things they do, is a very worthy goal that involves a lot of maturity. Learning the line between righteous and unrighteous judgement, condoning behavior vs. not condoning, civil disagreement vs being a jerk, all good stuff to know. I strive to get better at it myself. LM

My rules:I'm happy to interact civily with anyone who shows up on a board with a lesser-accepted view of how something is working, unless they show up with some red flags: * Posts with more than the average inclusion of sensationalism, end-times stuff, a prevalence of all caps or exclamation points, * Insulting dismissiveness, passive/aggressiveness, our outright hostility towards other opinions, * Inability or unwillingness to answer direct questions in a direct manner, * Pedestal-sitting, ivory-towerness, indications that the person thinks he is here to bestow pearls of wisdom upon us deluded unwashed masses, exerting great drops of gold from his jewel-encrusted brow as he attempts to reason down to our level, or demand we rise to his. If I have a hard time looking past someone's inflated view of themselves or their pet theory in order to take a good look at them, I'm less likely to take them seriously or bother interacting civily. Just so ya know. LM

For the love of Pete, don't ban Hill_billy! I need him to be around when my outlook reminder pops up in Jan 2011 to resurrect this thread. All the other coming-collapse-prediction threads that peaked around March have been resurrected to death - this is the last 'live' one I know of. LM

JW pamphlets have the coolest artwork in them. See if you can get the one that has the whore of babylon riding her beast. Better than a lot of comic books out there. If you're looking for sound doctrine though, there are lots of better places than a JW pamphlet. Their brand of doctrine seems to spring from "sounds sort of good, given certain fundamentally different concepts of agency and scripture interpretation". LM

I've developed the habit of being armed in most places where it's legal to do so. That means at home too. So my girls are 8 and 5, and they like tackling daddy and wrestling with him. I've followed Vanhin's philosophy of education and familiarization to a great extent, and it seems to be working. In their minds, jumping on daddy and landing on his gun seems to be slightly more serious than landing on his cellphone. They don't want to break the cell phone because that would be a bad thing, and the gun is something that should stay put and be left alone because it's not a toy, it's dangerous. I find their reactions healthy, there' no fear or innapropriate curiosity, just healthy respect. LM

Trying to figure out why people post what they do, by thinking about their motives, used to consume time and give me grief too. Then I realized I don't care. I ain't here to fix people who don't want to see what's wrong with themselves. I'm here to see if I can be of help to people who are interested in the truth. If I've learned something along the way that someone else finds useful, then hoorah. So, yes I do argue with people who won't budge an inch. I do this for two reasons: 1- I enjoy verbal sparring 2- I learned a TON by watching other people argue, and I am aware that other people learn in the same way. (Please note, neither of these reasons actually have anything to do with the person I'm arguing with. LM

Oh yeah. One needs only study history to learn of the halcyon days of safety and freedom back before they invented guns. So, are you just specifically against guns, or are you against the general concept of using deadly force in self defense? You mention two kinds of bad things. The first is due to negligent ownership of firearms. It's why we have a gun safe, and educate our kids about guns. The second is due to bad guys doing violent things, which is a condition of our mortal probation, guns or no guns. Tell ya what, I'll do that if you look at the number of times firearms have been employed to prevent crime. They're in the hundreds of thousands per year, according to books like More Guns Less Crime. I suppose I might agree with you there. Are you saying that anyone who supports 2nd amendment rights is a lover of guns? Isn't that a bit of an unchristian judgement? I mean, I don't love my guns, I just respect them as dangerous tools. I remember the epidemic of hundreds of rapes in Orlando that stopped overnight, after the media covered a few events in parks where women showed up to learn about conceal carry permits and excercise their rights to carry. Or the elderly guy driving home on a deserted road when some drunken baseball-bat-weilding jerks in a pickup truck tried to force him off the road - and then took off when he showed them his gun. I remember the guy who managed to put down a bear who attacked him in a residential neighborhood with his handgun. I'm a source of countless stories of people using defensive weapons for their intended purpose - defending themselves from bad guys. Yeah, it's your choice deals_dog. If you don't want a gun, don't have one. But you do us a disservice by lumping us all together in the 'nutter nazi gun lover' bucket. Some of us just want to be able to defend ourselves and our loved ones. And yeah, we do have some support for these righteous desires. "Not only should we have strong spiritual homes, but we should have strong temporal homes. ... There is wisdom in having on hand a year's supply of food, clothing, fuel (if possible), and in being preparing to defend our families and our possessions and to take care of ourselves. I believe a man should prepare for the worst while working for the best." Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 263-264. "As for this people fostering to themselves that the day has come for them to sell their guns and ammunition to their enemies, and sit down to sleep in peace, they will find themselves deceived and before they know, they will sleep until they are slain. They have got to carry weapons with them, to be ready to send their enemy to hell cross lots, whether they be Lamanites or mobs who may come to take their lives, or destroy their property. We must be prepared that they dare not come to us in a hostile manner without being assured they will meet a vigorous resistance and ten to one they will meet their grave." Journal of Discourses, Brigham Young, Vol 1, P . 171 - 172, July 31, 1853 "Then said he unto them, But now, he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise his scrip: and he that hath no sword, let him sell his garment, and buy one." - Jesus Christ, as quoted in Luke 22:36 "Now the Nephites were taught to defend themselves against their enemies, even to the shedding of blood if it were necessary;" Alma 48:14 "And also, that God would make it known unto them whither they should go to defend themselves against their enemies," Alma 48:16 "And again, the Lord has said that: Ye shall defend your families even unto bloodshed. Therefore for this cause were the Nephites contending with the Lamanites, to defend themselves, and their families, and their lands, their country, and their rights, and their religion." Alma 43:47 "We believe that men should appeal to the civil law for redress of all wrongs and grievances, where personal abuse is inflicted or the right of property or character infringed, where such laws exist as will protect the same; but we believe that all men are justified in defending themselves, their friends, and property, and the government, from the unlawful assaults and encroachments of all persons in times of exigency, where immediate appeal cannot be made to the laws, and relief afforded." Doctrine and Covenants 134:11 "There is one principle which is Eternal, it is the duty of all men to protect their lives and the lives of their households whenever necessity requires. And no power has a right to forbid it." -- Joseph Smith Jr. to his wife, Emma Smith, Carthage Jail, June 27, 1844. Source: "The Personal Writings of Joseph Smith," compiled and edited by Dean C. Jessee, Deseret Book, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1984, p. 611 "Peace be still, bury the hatchet and the sword, the sound of war is dreadful in my ear. [but] Any man who will not fight for his wife and children is a coward and a bastard." -- Joseph Smith Jr., journal entry, January 29, 1843. Source: "An American Prophet's Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith," edited by Scott H. Faulring, Signature Books, Inc. in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, Utah,1989, p. 298 "Constitution of the U S say, "Habeus Corpus shall not be denied. Deny me the right to H Corpus and I will fight with guns, sword, cannon behind and thunder [afore] till I am used up, like Killkenny Cats." -- Joseph Smith Jr., journal entry, June 30, 1843. Source: "An American Prophet's Record: The Diaries and Journals of Joseph Smith," edited by Scott H. Faulring, Signature Books, Inc. in association with Smith Research Associates, Salt Lake City, Utah, 1989, p. 391 "Let me say to all of you, Learn to be true and faithful; and, instead of laying out your means for fine bonnets and fine shoes, and for coffee and tea, my advice to you is, if you can five or ten dollars, go and buy a good blanket, a gun, or a sword. And we want you, ladies, to provide yourselves with weapons, and with all that is necessary, and be ready to defend yourselves; for you won't always have your husbands to defend you." Heber C. Kimbal, Journal of Discourses, [London: Latter-day Saints' Book Depot, 1854-1886], 4: 376.) LM

So, does anyone remember a video called koolkat? It had koolkat being driven around a neighborhood by some dorky guy. Koolkat was jammin'. It's about 8-9 years old - around the Wassap! craze. LM

I'm having a hard time reconciling that belief with what I've learned to accept as reality. It would seem that the laws of physics don't stop working in such situations. Nor would man's agency. By definition, if this belief were accurate, we'd see as many accidental shootings as intentional shootings in warfare or police action or violent crime.No idea how such a belief could ever make it off the drawing board. LM