bluebell

This discussion reminds me of one of (then) Elder Oak's famous quotes from a talk he gave in 2005: "If you feel you are a special case, so that the strong counsel I have given doesn’t apply to you, please don’t write me a letter. Why would I make this request? I have learned that the kind of direct counsel I have given results in a large number of letters from members who feel they are an exception, and they want me to confirm that the things I have said just don’t apply to them in their special circumstance. I will explain why I can’t offer much comfort in response to that kind of letter by telling you an experience I had with another person who was troubled by a general rule. I gave a talk in which I mentioned the commandment “Thou shalt not kill” (Ex. 20:13). Afterward a man came up to me in tears saying that what I had said showed there was no hope for him. “What do you mean?” I asked him. He explained that he had been a machine gunner during the Korean War. During a frontal assault, his machine gun mowed down scores of enemy infantry. Their bodies were piled so high in front of his gun that he and his men had to push them away in order to maintain their field of fire. He had killed a hundred, he said, and now he must be going to hell because I had spoken of the Lord’s commandment “Thou shalt not kill.” The explanation I gave that man is the same explanation I give to you if you feel you are an exception to what I have said. As a General Authority, I have the responsibility to preach general principles. When I do, I don’t try to define all the exceptions. There are exceptions to some rules. For example, we believe the commandment is not violated by killing pursuant to a lawful order in an armed conflict. But don’t ask me to give an opinion on your exception. I only teach the general rules. Whether an exception applies to you is your responsibility. You must work that out individually between you and the Lord."

Not in my opinion because I don’t think that drinking in and of itself is immoral.

I saw this this morning on Facebook but didn't look at the comments. What could people possibly be upset over??

The Sudafed in the old NyQuil is what did me in. Horrible dreams all night, raging heartbeat, dilated pupils and altered mental state. Which is annoying because Sudafed is one of the only medicines we have that actually works for head colds.

Both are good things. You guys need to sit down and talk it out so that both things can be accomplished.

I have a friend who doesn't believe we landed on the moon but does believe the earth is round so I feel like there's hope for him. But he believes that aliens built the pyramids because humans couldn't ever do that so the hope is small.

There is no proof that will convince someone who thinks they know more than they actually do. All the data points to us having landed on the moon, even the Russians agreed that we did and no one had a bigger stake in us faking it than them. Men have died training for Apollo missions. Dozens of men have been on moon landing missions, some like Apollo 13 were supposed to go and almost died trying to get back home again. What would the point of decades of this level of pretending be? Even just reading the books these people have written should be enough to convince most people. But the trouble is that facts are useless to people who deliberately won't accept them and instead focus on an ignorant understanding of science to form their worldview. I saw a comment on a facebook picture of the earth put out by nasa where someone wanted to know why the photo wasn’t fuzzy if it was a real photo because the earth is spinning and moving objects are fuzzy in pictures. We have just all gotten so dumb and fearful of being fooled as a society that we are very very easy to manipulate now.

I would get on facebook and join some community pages (most towns have a facebook group) and put the call out there. There are a lot of people with big hearts, you just have to find them.

Have they dated the settlement?

I can't offer anything but prayers but I hope someone can help. It's hard to feel responsible for lives you have no real control over.

Tony is also Catholic I believe. 😊

Agreed. It can't just be Friday. We need Sunday.

All true. And of course, there would have been no message for them to carry to anyone and no reason to. Jesus would have been a good teacher and an exemplary man but nothing more to them. Another rabbi maybe to remember maybe.

I don’t think there is Christianity without the resurrected Christ.

The kids and I saw the movie last night so I better understand what part in the story you were talking about. (Excellent movie by the way!). The book is incredibly science-dense. The movie has much much less science in it, though it does follow the basic same story that the book does. In the book, there are no astrophage predators in the petrova line. All the sample from the petrova line tells rocky and grace is that there is a lot of life on Adrian, and that something is keeping the astrophage numbers even. They guess that it's a predator of some kind (bacteria or amoeba or whatever) but they have no proof of it. They try to collect enough samples to find the specific organism they need but can't find any in the line or the upper atmosphere of the planet and decide that the predator must life in or on the planet. They use a bunch of science to figure out where the astrophage are breeding in the atmosphere and deduce that the predators must be there as well. That's why they have to drop the chain to get the sample. In the book they have to drop the chain much farther down than in the movie.

oops

I agree that is incredibly harmful. It’s strange to think that anyone in this day and age would still be giving such counsel but I would guess there are still a few out there who believe sexual orientation is a choice. Even though the church has stopped teaching that. From what you’ve said it sounds like this ruling by SCOTUS doesn’t impact the church or any of its practices or programs. Am I understanding that right?

Is the church still promoting it then? (Sincere question)

I didn’t realize they were talking about the magazine. I thought they were talking about doing a dedicated lesson manual.

Given how the church likes to test new things out on wards before they are implemented, I bet that this has been tried out in a few wards for a while and so the leadership has an idea of how it's going to go.

I wish they would cut sacrament meeting. It would go along way towards the ideal of the sacrament being the most important part of the meeting if the blessing and taking of it weren’t such a small part of the 60 minutes (and if the speakers weren’t front and center and the defacto center of the meeting)

I’m assuming it means that if the speaker gets done a little early that you don’t have to try to push it to 60 minutes. But who knows.

They announced at the same time that the counsel together thing will not continue due to the time constraints. That makes me kind of sad but there’s no way around it with a 25 minute lesson.

This is just a guess, but I’m thinking that a lot of times it’s because it’s not important and can be a stumbling block for some people.

I already acknowledged that an importance of steeple height isn’t taught doctrinally anywhere so I’m not really sure what you’re asking me. I think that the importance of height and grandeur of the building is very much implied in our beliefs, but nothing specifically about steeple height.