Who decides who gets banned and why?

[BrotherOfMahonri]

Oh, and if anyone here is going to be banned for the wrong reason, it will be myself. Just look at my username... :ymhug: :-\ :-ss

[jbalm]

Hoping there is sincerity (jbalm) in your question, start here:

http://voiceofanearthquake.blogspot.com ... odays.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

and as always, let the Holy Spirit be your guide as you read, ponder, consider and pray. Excited to hear what the Spirit teaches you jbalm as you study? this topic in the scriptures?

If I took advice from you, I'd be crazier than you are.

Don't worry about me. You've got plenty on your plate as it is.

[BrotherOfMahonri]

Oops... sorry brrgilbert, I thought the question originated with jbalm, my apologies...

[brrgilbert]

Thank you, BalaamDocrineLDS,

I am grateful for the education. I extend my apologies and welcome your presence. You, as well as I, do not seek the honors of men. I seek T/truth and it is sufficient for me.

[BrotherOfMahonri]

Something we all should consider. Sentimentality vs love. I am banking that most of us "saints" are in the pool of sentimentality, not truly loving one another...

http://signaturebookslibrary.org/?p=6862

We talked about how much easier it is to love in a general way the ideal of the family, the church, the country than it is to love any of the specific individuals that make up those groups. This is how some Mormons love the church without loving any of its members. I was reminded then of a remark made by Elder Dallin Oaks. When he was told that many people of the 1960s’ generation were losing their faith, he responded: “Well, it won’t hurt the Church.” He was thinking, of course, of the collective—not the individual struggling Saints. He had lost sight of the body of Christ, where damage done to one member is damage done to all. He was, perhaps, thinking of the church as a beehive or an anthill or even a machine in which the loss of a few cogs is [p.179]insignificant since there are so many of them—each one fungible, replaceable, dispensable. Perhaps, momentarily, Elder Oaks forgot Jesus’ statement: “As you have done it unto the least of these, you have done it unto me.”

This isn’t really love, of course. It is sentimentality. Sentimentality is affectionate and emotional, but it keeps itself at a distance. It makes no permanent attachments. It is without commitment, without depth, without meaning. For this reason, sentimentality is usually found in the service of authoritarianism. Tyrants are almost always sentimental. They think in terms of the welfare of the collective, not of individuals. They love Catholicism not Catholics. They are loyal to Germany not Germans. They are devoted to Israel not Jews, Palestine not Palestinians. They love the “one and only true”—whatever they may imagine it to be—but they do not love seekers after truth.

Sentimentality is the partner of compulsion because it lacks the most critical component of true love. It lacks passionate and specific desire for another, the desire we feel as inexpressible attachment or unfulfillable longing—the untamed devotions and desires that draw us beyond our cherished settled categories into the unpredictable, unknown, mysterious, and dangerous realms of another’s heart. As a people, we Latter-day Saints are schooled all our lives to distrust and avoid such desire, such attachment, such passion. We do not give our hearts easily. Nor do we accept the hearts of others. We prefer the safety, the certainty, the sanity of sentimentality. For sentimentality allows us to enjoy lukewarm feelings that can never boil over, relationships without risk, pleasantries without pleasure, and poignancies without pain. Sentimentality allows us to preserve ourselves against the change that must inevitably follow the true love of another...

True love is open, equal, reciprocal, specific, intimate, intense, knowing, forgiving, repenting, hopeful, sacrificial, passionate, and desiring. It sees beauty not just in form but in content. It is guileless and vulnerable. It abandons control and embraces mystery. It leaps away from ego and into the soul of the unknown, into the heart of the divine.

Is it any wonder that we Mormons fear it so? And the fear of love casts out love, just as much as the love of love casts out fear. In our weakness and our poverty, we do not seek love. We reject it. We reject the emptiness that longs to be filled. We reject the fullness that longs to be emptied. Instead, we seek substitutes that have the form of love, but deny its power and mystical beauty.

The call of God to us—through the prophets, through Christ, through the intercession of the Holy Spirit—is that we love one another as God loves us: passionately, specifically, unconditionally, as equals, without injury, compulsion, dominion, or control. The call of God to us is that we repent of our fear, that we truly be with one another, even as God is with us through the Spirit. To withhold love is the greatest sadness. To give it in the full measure we are able and to [p.182]receive it in the full measure we are able is the greatest joy. Thus, we go from grace to grace until we are filled with love and a perfect brightness of hope. And, as Joseph Smith said, those who are filled with such love can never fall.

Tonight, many have gathered here in support of a few. But that is not the whole of it. We are all one body. Damage done to one is damage done to all.

This thread to me is a case in point.

[freedomforall]

Here is a reminder of attributes required by the Lord within each of us. Would anyone risk being banned upon exercising these on the forum?

Faith, Hope and Charity...which is the fountain of all righteousness. How do these words impact each of us? Do we believe them, or do any of us think that without faith, hope and charity they will be allowed to dwell with Deity?

Ether 12:28
28 Behold, I will show unto the Gentiles their weakness, and I will show unto them that faith, hope and charity bringeth unto me—the fountain of all righteousness.

Moroni 7:40-48
40 And again, my beloved brethren, I would speak unto you concerning hope. How is it that ye can attain unto faith, save ye shall have hope?

41 And what is it that ye shall hope for? Behold I say unto you that ye shall have hope through the atonement of Christ and the power of his resurrection, to be raised unto life eternal, and this because of your faith in him according to the promise.

42 Wherefore, if a man have faith he must needs have hope; for without faith there cannot be any hope.

43 And again, behold I say unto you that he cannot have faith and hope, save he shall be meek, and lowly of heart.

44 If so, his faith and hope is vain, for none is acceptable before God, save the meek and lowly in heart; and if a man be meek and lowly in heart, and confesses by the power of the Holy Ghost that Jesus is the Christ, he must needs have charity; for if he have not charity he is nothing; wherefore he must needs have charity.

45 And charity suffereth long, and is kind, and envieth not, and is not puffed up, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, and rejoiceth not in iniquity but rejoiceth in the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things.

46 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the greatest of all, for all things must fail—

47 But charity is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with him.

48 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen.

Should not all of us take a serious look at ourselves and ascertain to what level each of these attributes exist and work on improving?

[A Random Phrase]

IMHAFO...in my humble arrogant female opinion

So, then, IMHAO means "in my humble arrogant opinion" then? :-B

[FSM]

There are too many treads to reread it all but don't we decide if we get banned by our actions?