Sunday, November 23, 2014

Church separate from State vs Church "versus" State

Just thinking about something someone in the ward here said (not in any official capacity or anything) and finally remembered/re-found the reference of which I was trying to think.

"4 We believe that religion is instituted of God; and that men are amenable to him, and to him only, for the exercise of it, unless their religious opinions prompt them to infringe upon the rights and liberties of others; but we do not believe that human law has a right to interfere in prescribing rules of worship to bind the consciences of men, nor dictate forms for public or private devotion; that the civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never control conscience; should punish guilt, but never suppress the freedom of the soul.
9 We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government..."
- Joseph Smith, D&C 134:4, 9

Basically, governments should protect the free exercise of ALL religions so long as laws concerning life/property are not broken. Religions should not seek to create laws based on their particular dogmas (although individual members should be engaged in the political processes of their nation as much as possible, according to their conscience and without malice towards those who disagree).

Sunday, November 2, 2014

It's been... a while...

Life, as a whole, has been going rather stupendously of late:
The beard is huge and getting styled for charity at the end of November (info and donation stuff here: http://www.gofundme.com/GSIBeardBattle)
I got the last Diancie from the local GameStop yesterday which I guess is pretty great
My girlfriend is pretty fantastic, particularly with supporting me through my own challenges.
We've also been able to read scriptures together every day for the past 2 weeks or so, which is a new thing for me but it's been really great.
And we've been marathon-watching Parks & Recreation so that's pretty stellar as well...

Don't wanna turn this into a "hey my gf is super awesome" type of post but a) she kinda is & b) it's been a big contributing factor in how well life has been going the past few months.

There are an awful lot of other things going wrong in the world, but I wanted to write something down to at least remind myself in the future that some things are going right.