Humor will not be tolerated!! -Portia

I love this conversation. Thanks for being smart, everybody. As someone who watches plenty of restricted movies and mature content (and I feel that I'm one of those people for whom it adds value to my personal life and character, when I separate the wheat from the chaff), I've recently watched some...

There's another tangent I want to go on (though this one is slightly more related than breastfeeding): what is appropriate for kids, and how that should change what is available. I recently was in a Relief Society lesson that really bugged me for several reasons, and one of them was that this comme...

haha I guess you might say I'm for abstinence-only teaching in Sunday School, with more frank discussions at home.

Craig and wired, do you think it's important that everyone in the Church have some understanding of our "warts-and-all" history or is it OK if most people only know the CES/Sunday School version? Personally I think it's fine to skip out on knowing the warts and have the Sunday School vers...

(I originally posted this as a separate thread, but I think Craig must have been working on his at the same time as mine.) 1. To supplement the answer, The Mormon People by Matt Bowman (http://www.amazon.com/The-Mormon-People-Making-American/dp/0679644903) is a fantastic book that covers Church hist...

I feel like that is true in some ways, and not so much in others. As a church, we might be the most embracing of new technologies among the large churches. As far as "adapting to the times." I'd be interested in hearing in what ways the church has and hasn't done that, wired, so that I ca...

I think the history of the Mormon language of prayer is very much affected by American societal norms throughout history . . . we no longer use a formal register with our parents . . . So why wouldn't that current social informality transfer over to our prayer (assuming we think of God as a parent)...

Yes, except that I'm not convinced that we use "thee or thou" to show respect. I think we use it because we've always used it and the "respect" justification is a more recent development. (Actually, maybe I should research this. It could be interesting.) I agree that it's a post...

The Ashkenazim (middle European Jews, roughly) shy away from lamb on passover, out of respect of the temple that is lost and the sacrifice that can no longer take place. On the other hand Sephardi Jews try to include it out of remembrance of the same. Interesting that the same motive (wanting to ho...

Read Issac Asimov's Nightfall for the first time. (Available at http://www.uni.edu/morgans/astro/course/nightfall.pdf ) Splendid story. Not life-changing, but fun and poetic.

Thanks! Recently started jogging again and thought about it one morning while getting out of bed. Now I know.

Yeah the 1800 number seemed artificial to me, rather than based on any sound statistical analysis. I could be wrong and I would love to see a study that gives something accurate. I think it's easy for someone who is particularly engaged with the LGBTQ community to over-estimate how many students at ...

Hey, so my Facebook feed has been lighting up with this YouTube "It Gets Better" video done at BYU. http://youtu.be/Ym0jXg-hKCI Since I'm not on campus any more, I'd be interested to hear from anyone on-campus (meaning, attending classes at BYU) what type of noise this is making, if any. I...

When Elder Nelson spoke about the Big Bang, I told my wife, "You know, I don't really like how he's approaching that." Her perception of her comments were what IndefInteg mentioned: he was specifically attacking an undirected creation theory. But, listening to how he said it, you would def...

Because they are both sovereign nations? That's one of the reasons. See 11th Amendment. Across the board? Probably not in every way conceivable; I am sure there is some measure that would make Sweden more like the United States than like Michigan. But in the vast majority of ways, I would say they ...

I'm a little surprised anyone would think size doesn't matter. It's not that I think that size doesn't matter, I just want the people who are saying that size breaks the model to articulate why and how instead of passing it off as a given. (And I agree with you that national governments are differe...

Off-hand, I agree with you, but I haven't thought about it thoroughly (what factors servicing a more diverse population would pose.) My response is more toward the Portia's comment about being uncomfortable with those suggestions coming up -- I don't think it should make anyone uncomfortable so long...

Also, I'd be curious to know what population the U.S. has that Sweden does not, when it comes to healthcare needs. Non-caucasians? Hoodie-wearers? Short people? I always feel like these debates about "populations" and "unmanageable diversity" have uncomfortable undertones. Uncom...

Brilliant. Thanks for posting this.

What is the alternative name for Somaos?

Bueler? Bueler? Anyone have any info on what happened?