NeuroTypical

Required reading on the subject: “Judge Not” and Judging - Dallin H. Oaks, Ensign, Aug 1999

Perhaps I'm the only one out there, but I get uncomfortable when I hear the "14 fundamentals" talk. It just seems so "obey at all costs"-ish. I suppose I'm happy with it, as long as it's taken with a dose of these words as well:

I'm afraid I already took the obvious 2nd choice for you.

I want to make sure I understand here. You think if you urge your kid to go on a mission, he might buckle and kill himself from the pressure? I mean, I can understand not wanting to apply overbearing pressure - forcing a kid to do anything is usually not a good way to get their buy-in. But you didn't say 'overbearing pressure', you said 'any kind of pressure'.I'm interested - I thought it was part of a parent's job to urge their kid to do good things. Really? You never urge him to go on a mission? Ever?

Testimonies survive when you know two things: 1- What you believe in 2- Why you believe in it Unfortunately, many of us are raised with a sort of 'cultural awareness' of how people or things worked in the past, or work today, and it's not true. We're brought up being taught a lot of things about the church, from sources both inside and outside the church. Some of this stuff is, for lack of a better word, complete hooey. We think we know it, but in reality, we've just assumed it without a good reason to. It doesn't mean that God isn't God, or that Joseph Smith and the BoM aren't what they claim to be - but it does mean that a person can get a notion into their head about how things worked. And when it turns out things worked very differently, it causes problems. My advice - for every single bit of troubling fact you hear about the church or those in it, follow this path: 1. Clearly state what it is that gives you trouble. 2. Ask yourself "Why is this giving me trouble?" Put the answer in words - something like "If X is true, then Joseph Smith must be a false prophet." 3. As yourself why you believe the answer to #2. Find a source for your belief. Why does X mean Joseph is a false prophet? Do you find it in the Bible? BoM? Scripture? General Conference talk? Sunday School Handbook? Or, do you find it in just the stuff that got poured into your head as you grew up, that really doesn't have a sound basis? In other words, you didn't know what you knew. And now you think you know it, you realize you don't know why you know it. As you complete this step, you might very well learn for the first time what actually makes a prophet, and you might learn some of the skeletons in the closet of the old testament prophets (like drunkenness and whoremongering and selling prophetic gifts for money and even speaking out against God - and yet people who did this were still used by God as His chosen mouthpiece.) 4. If you don't know why you know something, then congratulations, you've just discovered that you never knew it in the first place. You just sort of assumed it was true, and now it turns out it probably isn't. 5. Choose. Will you continue to hold on to stuff you assumed was true, or will you discard it and replace it with stuff that you actually find a basis for in the truth claims of the church? If you have a lot of questions and troubling things, it can take a lot of time. Years even. But I suggest you take these things one at a time, and see what happens. LM (Oh, I guess I should add #6 - if you come across proof that Joseph was a false prophet, or the BoM isn't what it claims to be - please send me a message. I've been looking for over a decade, and haven't found any of it yet.)

You describe an impending train wreck. So, do you wanna resolve things, or do you want a circle of supportive friends who will give you pity and say "there, there" to you while you vent?

It depends on the family. Some families want a very reverent churchlike atmosphere during conference sessions. My house is the opposite - I'm sitting in the middle of a destroyed living room after a day of horsie rides and chasing screaming giggly girls around. Earlier today we emptied the 72 hour kits out in the middle of the floor and celebrated the feast of the perishables.

Yeah, not all people with a "Dr." in front of their name are created equal. Dood's website is a one-pager - buy the book for ten bucks, and click here to read the first chapter. I'm not impressed with the first chapter. There doesn't seem to be anything new there, the same old stuff that has been recycled over a hundred years or more. I mean, at least he seems to get his quotes and sources right, but just like any other church critic offering to 'explain' - his goal is to arm christians with criticisms, not help them understand who we are or how we view the Gospel.

It would be nice if she was willing to do a thorough review of all the old testament prophets, and how hated and despised and killed they sometimes were for their harsh messages. Then she might begin to wonder where she got the idea that prophets should have a 'twinkle in their eye', or where she got the idea that it's ok to dismiss a prophet of the Lord because he doesn't have the personality you'd expect.I already know where she got those ideas - from somewhere outside of Biblical truth. It would be nice if she understood it too. LM

I was part of that suit. Basically, members who were charged late fees were given a coupon for a free rental for each late fee from date x to date y. I remember having a pretty big dang handful of free rental coupons. I also remember having to pay late fees on many of my free rentals.Netflix loves me. (And my kids too, who are currently watching Spongebob season 2 via Netflix over the Wii)

If they ever let me name the suns of a binary star system, sun A will be called Kwitcherdam, and sun B will be named Behlee-Ayk-Inn.

In this scenario, gas and electricity run out after the trains stop getting the coal and fuel and parts to the power plants, and workers stop showing up because their cars don't get them to work and they're off trying to feed/defend their families. Which fact renders your post pretty much pointless with regards to the OP. :)I was thinking that my post illustrated a critical issue in the question. It doesn't matter what five things you buy from a store in such a situation. If a long-term breakdown of the global food distribution network occurs, America will switch from modern living to pre-industrial revolution living in a week or two. Maybe 10-20% of America would survive the first winter - everyone else will die. Unless you have a place to go, a way to get there, skills and tools and will to live like folks did in the 1800's, you might as well buy 5 buckets of popcorn and watch yourself starve and die with everyone else.It's not like we could all move onto church farms and work in the cannery. Or, if we could, how would we get there and where would we live once we're there? (Fortunately, I don't see much possibility of just waking up one day and none of the machines work.) LM

dibs! I called it first!

The answer has to be "it depends". Such a massive and long-term disruption in the food distribution network would mean massive population migration and civil unrest and a whole lot of death for a lot of people. Your five things would depend totally on your location, access to food or water, people around you and their situation, etc. But, if you could pick 5: 1. A fully stocked retreat location out in the middle of nowhere that nobody knows about, but has a year round water supply and good farmland. 2. A way to get to it. 3. A way to survive off it (heirloom seeds, livestock, etc) 4. A way to defend it (think good neighbors/strong church organization more than bazookas and minefields) 5. The skills necessary to make it all work. Unfortunately, I don't see much of those stocked on the shelves of my local WalMart.

Three or four years ago, after paying the umpteenth late charge at checkout, I finally stormed out of their dumb store and destroyed my membership card. I remember hoping their horrible "make money through late fees" policy would reap what it was sowing - eihter change, or bankruptcy due to unhappy customers going elsewhere in droves. I switched to Netflix, and they made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. Then I switched to blockbuster online, because they were a few bucks cheaper a month. After umpteen bad experiences with customer service who figured my unhappiness was my own fault, I quit their stupid online thing too. Netflix welcomed me back with open arms and a cookie, holding me as I wept over the jagged end to my embarassing relationship with their competitor. Good riddance to blockbuster. They made me feel bad about myself - and I deserved better than that. Netflix loves me, and my kids can watch their movies via mail, on any computer, and even on our WII - as many as we want - whenever or wherever we want - with no late fees ever - for ten bucks a month. LM (never toy with my movie renting feelings)

Back in the fiesty good ol' days of Frontier America, you could find lots of Mormons who were convinced this referred to the Catholic church. Those days are pretty much over now, and nowadays, just about all of the LDS folks believe the abominable church is a reference to worldly secularness, that worships stuff, and being glorified by other people, and power and whatnot. It's a symbol of apostacy - a representation of all false doctrine - anything that weakens faith, desires worldly sin or gain, and seeks worldly praise. (Although you can still find the occasional Mormon who figures it's the Catholics.)

This is a great study. A few thoughts: * It makes sense that athiests and agnostics know the most, because the vacuum left by not allowing God, gets filled with reverence for the human ability to think and reason. So they tend to value education more, and they probably spend more time thinking about religion. * I learned about world religions via an institute class, and a University of Utah college class - both called "world religions". (The college class skipped Christianity, of course.) I'm trying to find a way to blame this on liberals, but time is short and my brain is foggy right now. It'll probably come to me soon. LM

In addition to the advice everyone else is giving you, I'd add something else. Something is broken in your ability to pick the right guy. You knew who he was before you married him, and yet you married him and made a kid with him anyway. And you have kids from before him? So, how come you pick the wrong guys? Sounds like you have the right desire - but I'm worried you'll fall for yet another Mr. Wrong and end up pulling your kids through yet another horrible experience.Figure out why you do this, and how to fix it. Your kids need more from you than to get their hopes up just to have them destroyed again. LM

Douglas Adams. Emo Phillips. Stephen Banks.

I didn't have kids until I was 30. If there were churchfolk looking down their nose at me, I didn't notice. Short answer - you can find judgemental busybodies everywhere - even in the LDS faith. If you encounter one, just love them like God commands, and move on. LM

Great topic! "All is well" (Last verse - 'and should I die, before my journey's through...') "Nearer, my God, to Thee" (good pick for the little band on the Titanic to pick as their last song) "Cat's in the Cradle" (unless it's done by Donkey from Shrek)

Sure - take it one day at a time. You are in emotional pain, and emotional pain goes away over time. Keep with your plans to go on a mission.She's right - the two of you will be different people in 2 years. Maybe you'll be 2 people who might have a chance at something. But you won't know here in September 2010.

I must wonder about the story behind such a comment. Marriage leads to contentment, therefore having more spouses means more contentment?Not in my reality...

I don't understand the reasoning behind the question. Why would you tell people? Do you have close relationships with them, and both of you share important details of your lives? Do you want to tell someone you think they're wrong? Do you want to now defend the faith with people who will argue with you? What do you want to accomplish? If you answer that, you'll probably have your answer on who to tell and who not to tell.

I'm thinking you've absorbed some low-quality anti-mormon material written more than a few decades ago. As others have mentioned, salvation is obtained through the redeeming atonement of Jesus Christ. We're saved by accepting Him as our savior. We do not believe in the trinity. We believe in a Godhead - meaning three separate personages. I've never heard anything in my three decades of church attendance that ever suggested anything about Christ having wives or children. I've heard members speculate, but that's it. It's not taught.As for God the Father, the only thing in our doctrine about a heavenly mother, is that it makes sense to believe we have one. Any other details are assumptions and speculation. We believe all of that talk in the Bible of us being sons and daughters of God isn't symbolic, it literal. We are sons and daughters of God. Inheritors of a divine birthright. If we accept Christ as our savior, we'll become joint heirs with Him, and He will accept everything God hath. That's what the Bible says, and we believe it. LM