zutroy.net

I listened to a fantastic talk by Elder Boyd K Packer this last weekend.  He articulated what I have been feeling for quite some time.  I have been saddened by all the “church members” who have gone public voicing their concern that the church is being intolerant and hateful.  Not so much at the going public, but more at the pridefulness of a “follower of Christ” that has the density and audacity to tell a Prophet of God that he’s wrong.  By virtue of the fact that he has been called as a prophet he is not wrong.  I realize that there are those that say “that’s just your opinion” and “I don’t believe in that so it can’t be right”.  Well I think this has happened before.  Let’s think about how that turned out…

Sometimes I wonder if the people in Noah’s time were organized in asking/telling Noah to stop telling them that they were sinning.  I imagine they formed some anti chastisement groups and organized some protests where they marched around the construction site where Noah was building an ark.  I imagine they put together some petitions to tell Noah that he was wrong and that God didn’t understand them.  They probably even told Noah to go back and explain to God that times had somehow changed and that what had always been considered as a sin needed to be removed from the sin category and moved into the acceptable category.

I imagine it was fairly similar when Lehi preached on the impending destruction of Jerusalem brought by the hands of the Babylonians.  They probably told Lehi that he was out of touch and that he was close minded.  He needed to change his views. And when he kept telling them that they would be destroyed, they got mad enough and tried to kill him.  I suspect they were also organized in this effort because Lehi was commanded to leave the city and told his kids that they needed to go get the brass plates from Laban, not him.

And I wonder what it was like for Lot and his family.  I imagine his wife was actually part of the “friends and family of the soon to be destroyed club” I imagine it became hostile enough that Lot didn’t go around preaching repentance.  Now Lot wasn’t a prophet but still, the Lord saw fit to rescue him before the hellfire and brimstone came raining down.

So what do you all think? Has God change his views on what is sin and what isn’t?  I think it’s time to choose sides.  Time to separate the wheat from the tares. If you’re on the fence, just keep in mind what has happened every other time in history when the people decided that the Prophet didn’t speak for the Lord.

I don’t really like confrontation.  Even being present during a confrontation makes me uncomfortable.  That’s only normal I think but I think I take it to an extreme.

When I started this blog I was very aware that anyone could come see it and for the most part I have avoided saying things and phrasing things in a way that might offend someone.  Even when my friends soon-to-be-x-wife asked me to go on a road trip with her, I tried to downplay it a little bit.

Well I’m done with that.  In this day and age it’s impossible to have an opinion without offending someone.  And I’m tired of it.  Not only that, but I think it’s wrong.

In 2006 Elder David A. Bednar gave a fantastic talk on choosing to be offended or not.  If you haven’t read the talk, think about it for a minute.  Who makes you offended? it’s the same person who makes you mad. There’s only one person that can make you offended. When someone chooses to be offended at my words or actions it really shouldn’t matter to me at all.  If I am doing what I believe to be right, why should I care who gets offended?

Now, just a note: In now way does this give license to be offensive. That’s something completely different.  Please refer to George Washington’s rules of civility for guidelines on how to act in the presence of others.

So where am I going with this?  Where’s the “so what?”

For a long time I’ve know that some of my visitors aren’t religious and been careful not to sound “preachy” because I didn’t want to offend them.  Well, not anymore.  Sorry, if you still want to come here… Doh! There I go apologizing for saying what I think.  Gotta stop that…

What else would you expect to see at a doctors office?

This is what a workstation looks like when your HD goes out.

So I just saw this cool tool that Google has up that can predict what you are going to type.  Go try it out.

http://scribe.googlelabs.com/

I tried to remember what happened this morning on the way to work but I couldn’t so I wondered it Google could help me remember if I just started it out with what I remember. So I typed “On my way to work” and just started hitting the “tab” key.  For a second I thought they had done it.  But I just kept going, I’m kind of a run-on sentence kind of guy anyway, Google should know that right?  Well, here’s what I got.

“On my way to work this morning through the blizzard of the season and then they will become more apparent from the following  detailed description of these properties are not well understood and therefore not available for this item is available  online at the comfort of your home close to your family and friends together for another year of amazing pictures online featuring the world famous Concise Oxford English Dictionary and Thesaurus for Blind and Visually Impaired Children Committee, the OSM board the Community Oversight Committee determined that there is anything you would not believe how much I loved the way they are used to determine their own future”

Funny, I don’t remember that happening on the way to work this morning.  I’m sure I would remember if it really did happen.

From my 4 year old:

A family is kids and parents… That love each other… And eat food.. And breakfast… when they wake up in the morning.