NeuroTypical

I'm not exactly sure that I would characterize the MMM as an instance where people thought they were doing God's will. I would be more comfortable characterizing MMM as an instance of paranoia mixed with fear, resulting in mob mentality.I certainly wouldn't call it an example of perfect obedience to the church, as Brigham did everything he could to stop it from happening in the first place. Not to mention all of Joseph and Brigham's plentiful comments about how it's wrong to let the church do your thinking for you. LM

OP's situation: God is telling you to kill someone. (Assuming it's really Him telling you, and assuming that He is as good and just and perfect as you think He is.)War time: Your commanding officer is telling you to kill someone. (Assuming you've sworn allegiance to a nation who has decided to engage in a just war.) You probably won't be assuming your CO is inspired or acting under God's direction. People have been killing each other since the fall. The trick is to be on the good guy's side. Our church believes in being subject to governments, and has stated often that obeying (or giving) legitimate orders in wartime is fine with it. Back in WWII, there were saints in Nazi Germany serving in their military. LM

The only relevant thing I've learned about marriages, is that you can't work on the other spouse, you can only work on you. So: * Figure out why you picked this bad tempered immature drinking depressed person in the first place. * Figure out why you say nobody else "will ever be good enough". * Mature yourself to the point where you understand that the guy you picked to marry is now the guy you're married to. Figure out what YOU are going to do about that, not what you want HIM to do about it. * From that matured position, make the right decision about having kids. I'd suggest seeing a counselor from LDS Social services, if you have one in your area. They're good people, and you could probably get the Bishop's help in paying for it if money is an issue. Good luck. LM

I have to say that while good science doesn't necessarily involve beer, it certainly involves explosions. My 8 yr old started chemistry this year - so far I've exploded a bottle of sprite all over myself and the kitchen. I think I'll have her watch this video - she'll love it. LM [update from mom - the kids loved it, and want to recreate the experiment in our house. I said we'd do it in the kid's bedroom)

I have a passing aquaintence with both halucinations and mental illness. I also have a fairly decent ongoing relationship with the Spirit. They ain't the same.For one thing, the spirit has never guided me to harm another person. It's all about love. Also, as I already said, the spirit gave a convincing arguement to Nephi. He stood there as a rational human being, in full posession of his faculties. Halucinations or mental illness don't exactly come with a sense that you've got both feet firmly planted in reality. They operate on fears, loves, illogical urgings, and such. LM

Yeah, people shouldn't follow 'sayings', they should follow commandments.Not only that, they should make sure the 'saying' they've decided to talk about is an actual saying in the first place. "When the Prophet speaks the discussion is over" has never been a commandment, has never been doctrine. It has never been taught in any General Conference. It has never been taught by any church leader. It has never appeared in any General Handbook or instruction manual. Now, back in 1945, a brother by the name of Lee A. Palmer wrote a "Ward Teacher's Message" under the supervision of the presiding bishopric, in which he said "When our leaders speak, the thinking has been done." When people saw that statement in a church publication, it caused quite a bit of an uproar. It caused the leader of the First Unitarian Society in Salt Lake to write a letter to church HQ asking for clarification. And here is the clarification letter, signed by the prophet George Albert Smith (underlining mine): LM

A thing to note about Nephi: No mortal being told him to kill Laban. A little more context to verse 18 is warranted. It's not like Nephi got a warm fuzzy about killing Laban and said "sure, why not". The Spirit proposed an action that revulsed him. He initially refused. Then the Spirit laid out a rational argument for Nephi. The combination of a good reason, plus the fact that the good reason was God's will, had to happen before Nephi chose to follow the spirit.To answer the OP's question, no - outside of service in armed forces during wartime, I would not follow any mortal human's command to kill someone or commit an act of terrorism, prophet or not. If the Lord wants me to do what He wanted Nephi to do, I'd need to have a similar experience to Nephi. Meaning, the spirit would have to show me why, and there would have to be absolutely no doubt that it was the spirit who was talking to me - as opposed to a mental illness or halucination. That's my answer. I figure I can give it to my Lord on judgement day while I'm on my knees before Him, I figure I can give it to all of you too. LM

Addiction: You can't stop the behavior on your own. Surely, some people sit there and choose to sin, and make themselves feel better by calling it 'an addiction'. And some people who are addicted sit there and make themselves feel better by denying that, even if they can't stop the behavior, they can choose to seek help. Having an addiction is not the same thing as a 'get out of jail free' card. You still probably have the agency to seek help. LM

(great minds think alike)

Batman.

A thing to remember - most Iranians don't speak english, don't have access to twitter, don't live in the cities, and like Ahmadinejad. Like Elphaba said, whether he cheated in the election or not, he could very well have won the majority of the votes. LM

It's an immigrant issue, because when folks travel distances to new groups of people, they bring new stuff with them, and are more suseptible to old stuff. It ain't a 'bash immigrants' thing, it's a "LM always gets sick when he visits his relatives in another state" thing. LM

Hi Snubbed. Yeah, our church has its share of jerks. Our church has a scripture: "By their works ye shall know them". Sounds like you're neighbors with some mormons who are jerks (or at least unaquainted with proper social ettiquette, and don't control their dogs). Please don't judge us all based on this one family. LM (We've caught and returned our neighbor's dogs many more times than they've caught and returned ours)

Will someone please tell my wife it's just a phase? I had to promise her horses before she'd marry me. Now we've got an 1800 lb frisky black Clydesdale that thinks practical jokes are fun. Anyone know what it feels like to be standing there in the dark and feel the ground shaking as something that big and invisible comes barelling towards you in full gallop?

Today in the ColSpgs police blotter, was an item of note: Ms. M called the cops because her 41 yr old drunk ex-hubby and his 61 yr old mom had shown up and wouldn't leave. Ex-hubby had shown up to take their 13 yr old kid, they share custody. When the cops arrived, both the drunk ex-hubby and the 61 yr old mom had been injured by the home's occupants who physically had to force them out of the premisis after multiple requests to leave went unheeded. The cops took ex-hubby and 61 yr old mom to the hospital to get checked out and cleared, and then arrested them. It looks like Ms. M understood her rights. LM

The 'good old days' saw people handling their own problems.Now we see people just calling the cops to enforce desired social norms. But the cops can't do anything unless a crime is committed. Thus, rude jerks abound. LM

God bought the props and set the stage. He'll help or hinder the actors according to His will, to obtain the desired end. Nothing that the actors do surprises him, but it usually surprises the actors.

"but the man wouldn't leave, so out came the baseball bat." So, this doesn't seem to be a smoking thing, but a violation of castle laws. I like this person's take on the issue. LM

Hi Eddie, A few misconceptions: You don't have to be LDS to go to BYU in Provo. You just need an "ecclesiastical endorsement" from an ecclesiastical leader of some kind. You can go to some "we don't believe in organized religion" church, and the Pastor there can sign one for you. Mormons don't really have many "rituals", other than the sacrament, and stuff that goes on in the temple. Being LDS does not mean you are forced "to only live in areas with large mormon populations." (I live out in the middle of nowhere, Colorado, for example.) Nobody suckers you into getting married for all eternity - it's something you chose to do with your eyes as open as you choose to make them. People who are married in the temple can still screw up and sin, and ruin their marriages, and whatnot. We don't believe in a God who just shrugs his shoulders and says dumb stuff like "well, sorry, you guys are stuck together". Of course divorce and re-marriage happens in this church. Converting without believing, is a way of (in your case) lying to people so you can go to BYU. And yeah, we believe lying is wrong. Happy choosing! LM

Meh. Acorn only operates in places where the results of an election matters. Iran is not such a place, although you wouldn't realize it from all the media coverage of the elections. Yeah, the people vote for president, but candidates are vetted by the 6 theologins of the Guardian Council. Dunno about this year, but in 2005, this council banned all but 6 of the 1000 presidential hopefuls, including all women. The chairman of the Guardian Council is Ayatollah Jannati. This body also can bar candidates for parliament. They also approve or veto every law that comes out of parliament. The Guardian Council is appointed by the Supreme Leader - you guessed it - Ayatollah Khamenei. He created the office in 1989, and has held the office ever since. He also appoints the judiciary, the commanders of all the armed forces, and the head of radio and TV. He also confirms the president's election. If he ever fails to make himself immortal, the next Supreme Leader will be hand picked by the religious clerics of the Assembly of Experts. So, in other words, the people get to decide between a couple of candidates hand-picked by the ruling theocracy. They have a parliament which can pass only laws that the theocracy agrees with. That's a far sight away from the principles of our representative republic. I mean, I'm glad they've got something that works for them. If Iran wants to govern itself that way, good for them. But let's not lie to ourselves by thinking Iranian presidential elections and US presidential elections have much in common. LM

has it come in christian or jewish scriptures?in which book?It is good to say that also in holy Quran,there are some sentences about him and appreciate him.Cyrus conquered Babylon, and then, in the very first year of his reign, he decreed that the Jews could return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple. This fulfilled not only Jeremiah’s prophecy (Jeremiah 25:11–12; 29:10), but also Isaiah’s: “Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid” (Isa. 44:28). It's interesting to note, that Isaiah lived and died about 150 years before Cyrus was born. The books of Jeremiah and Isaiah are part of the "Jewish bible" (Masoretic texts), and also in the Christian's Bible as part of the Old Testament. LM

My wife and I moved 663.8 miles away, and have contact with them only from a position of strength.

Complete age appropriate honesty has worked fine with our kids. They know why we don't see the relatives in Utah any more (because the uncle hurt a kid and had to go to prison, and the grandparents don't know how to keep kids safe in their home). They know why our various animals died (because one dog's heart stopped working, another dog was in so much pain that we had her put to sleep, and the cats all got eaten by coyotes). I remember how hard it was as a kid, that nobody would just talk to me straight about my mom's suicide attempt. It would have been the easiest conversation in the world: "Your mom is very sick and tried to kill herself as a bad way of telling people how much pain she's in." If someone had just talked to her openly and honestly about her pain, she might have had a much better life. Of course, situations are different. But I would suggest that kids are smarter than we sometimes give them credit for. They know when someone is not telling them the important stuff, and they're much more able to deal with important stuff than we think.

I would say that Letterman certainly holds a ton of liberal views. But anyone who Madonna hates that much, can't be that bad. LM (I do NOT recommend you google that topic)

From the site rules: 3. Personal attacks, name calling, flaming, and judgments against other members will not be tolerated. I think you have a valid thing to complain about, you don't really need to break the site rules to do so...