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At the end of last year I hit a very low point in my life. Thanks to reaching out to my dad, I am still here and have been given a chance to reflect on my life and my relationships with my wife, my children, and my Savior. I have always felt that I have the gift of Faith in Christ, but have not often enough taken advantage of that gift. In 2023 I am trying to change that and increase my testimony and my capacity to be a worthy priesthood leader in my family. I am glad to be here with you all!

The mechanics of Christ's atoning sacrifice cannot possibly be understood without understanding exactly what the atonement of Jesus accomplishes. We understand that it brings us back to God, but what exactly does that mean, and how is it accomplished? These things form a part of "the mystery of Godliness", about which Elder McConkie said: Is God omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, or are these descriptive designations part of the legends of sectarianism? Are there three gods or one? Why does Jesus say his Father is greater than he, and Paul say Jesus is equal with the Father? Why the great scriptural emphasis on proclaiming that three gods are one, and that the Lord our God is one Lord? What of the mystery of our Lord’s birth? Indeed, why should God even have a son? Is Jesus the Son of Man, or the Son of God, or is there a difference? Was it necessary to have a Savior and Redeemer, or is the Koran correct in teaching that God had no need for a son because Allah has but to speak and a thing is done? By what power could Jesus atone for the sins of the world, or rise from death’s dark tomb, or ascend physically into heaven? Is the atonement truly infinite and eternal, applying to all worlds and all created things? ... All these are but sample questions, questions that raise some of the issues relative to the mystery of godliness. ... Gospel truths are known and understood only by the power of the Spirit. Eternal life—which is to know God—is such an infinitely great reward that men must study, ponder, and pray, with all their hearts, to gain the needed knowledge. The Lord gives his truths line upon line and precept upon precept to those who believe and obey. Saving truths come by revelation to prophets, not by reason to false priests or doctors of debate, dissension, and divisiveness. ... As we walk the razor’s edge—the razor that divides truth from near truths, which sometimes have a pleasing attraction—let us be mindful of these words of the Prophet Joseph Smith: “The Savior has the words of eternal life. Nothing else can profit us. . . . I advise all to go on to perfection, and search deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Godliness” (Teachings, p. 364). The whole talk is very well worth reading and/or listening to. For me, the bottom line is that we can and, eventually, must understand these things, but much of that understanding will likely be given us in the life to come. I suspect few of us will develop in this life sufficiently that we can actually grasp many of these things. That's not to say they are beyond understanding; they are not. But they may well be beyond our understanding today, right now, and even in this life. Let us in any case not decide that if we do not/cannot understand these things, that therefore means that these things are untrue or forever beyond us—or worse, that we can assign whatever meaning we like to these things, especially if such assignments please the world and make us more acceptable to the world.

This is just a thought I had this morning, rather than a question for discussion, although it could lead to some discussion. I like the thought and thought it could be useful, so I decided to share it. Christ suffered for our sins and we suffer for them as well. He is saddened, He is pained, when we act contrary to a manner which promotes our growth and eternal well-being and when we act against the teachings, covenants and commandments He has given us to enable our return to Him. When we repent and turn back to Him, I feel it erases His pain at our rejection of Him and His word just as much as it does ours. To lessen the pain of Christ and bring some measure of joy to Him is yet another reason to repent.

I think that Christ knows your pain and cares about the sorrow you feel is the best reason to repent. HE actually cares about ME, and knows my potential joys and sorrows, and that's WHY he wants me to repent. He's happy for us when we live to our higher selves. What you wrote was beautiful, thank you.

Welcome. I'm glad you have joined us. Let us know if there is anything we can do to assist you in your journey.

Welcome to ThirdHour, @rcthompson88! While there might be something to be gleaned from part of the author's idea, I think it's important to note that the author is lacking the additional understanding we have through the restoration. Therefore, don't let it carry you away from a true understanding. At first blush, I find myself uncomfortable mixing the words "festive" and "Atonement" together - there wasn't really anything "festive" about it in my mind. Glorious and merciful, and horrific and tragic, sure, but festive? If Christ's suffering and death were not necessary to atone for our sins, then, what? Are we to believe they were pointless or needless? Just a fluke of the culture? We are taught they were necessary. Whether they constitute a 1-to-1 substitution for our own seems unnecessarily mathematical and legalistic - as pointless a discussion as the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin. Christ himself tells us that he suffered so that we would not have to, if we would repent: Just because the type or symbol wasn't needlessly tortured (it was a symbol, after all, and not exactly a willing or understanding participant), does not argue against the reality or meaning of all the Savior did. The animal's suffering wouldn't have helped anything (and may well have damaged the psyche of those instructed to carry out the torture). The sacrifice was simply a reminder of what would one day happen. It was an instructional aid. And it was the faith (in that future sacrifice) that gave it meaning, not the suffering or death or other ritualistic elements - those were just there for reminders and to give the Israelites a way to obey, IMO. All that said, we do celebrate, at Easter, both the fact that our Lord atoned for our sins and the fact that he completed that act through his resurrection. And I expect many a family feasts at Easter. This last conference, we were asked to create more and more meaningful / appropriate Easter traditions in our families, and a few here have posted about having their own Seder... Those are my initial reactions to the ideas presented, FWIW.

The church does teach this as truth however. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1982/06/christ-and-the-creation.p2?lang=eng#p2 Christ is the Creator and Redeemer of worlds so numerous that they cannot be numbered by man. As to his infinite and eternal creative and redemptive enterprises the divine word attests: “And worlds without number have I created,” saith the Father, “and I also created them for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is mine Only Begotten. … But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you.” As to all of the other worlds of the Lord’s creating we know only that it is his work and his glory “to bring to pass”—through the Redeemer—“the immortality and eternal life” of all their inhabitants. (Moses 1:33, 35, 39.) In what is probably the most glorious vision given to mortals in this dispensation, Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon saw “the Son, on the right hand of the Father,” and “heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father—That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God.” (D&C 76:20, 23–24.) Christ is thus the Creator and the Redeemer. By him the worlds were made, and through his infinite atonement the inhabitants of those worlds are adopted into the divine family as heirs with himself.

I was reading the biographies of some recently called Area 70 leaders and started thinking to myself my gosh look how successful and how many kids they all have which immediately made me question if I was doing a good enough job since I've been divorced and only have 1 child, but then I discovered on the same page where I was reading the biographies some reassuring advice from Elder Ballard. My takeaway reading Elder's Ballard's advice is no matter how many kids we have or if we don't have any at all or if we are single, married or divorced, we are all equally valuable and can serve in pretty much all of the leadership positions that anyone else can, and that even if a strong, statistical argument can be made that the Church only calls people to leadership positions who have at least 4 children and married, it's official position is it does not! Lol. The official position is reassuring to me. We are all equally valuable no matter if someone else might appear to be further ahead of us. Article from Elder Ballard copied and pasted below: https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/april-2021-general-conference-leadership-meeting President M. Russell Ballard, Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles President Ballard said that more than half of adult Latter-day Saints are widowed, divorced or have never married. “Some wonder about their opportunities and place in the eternal plan and in the Savior’s Church,” he said. “We remind all that eternal life is not simply a question of current marital status but of discipleship, that is, being ‘valiant in the testimony of Jesus’ (Doctrine and Covenants 76:79).” As was announced in an update to the General Handbook on March 31, 2021, President Ballard said that singles in the Church now have more ways to serve in their congregations around the globe. “Marital status has nothing to do with one’s capacity to serve and bless the lives of others. The Lord honors those who wait upon Him in patience and faith,” President Ballard said. “We can do better at providing opportunities for our single members to serve. I am not talking about creating service projects, although those are important. I am talking about giving them significant callings, including leadership callings. Single members are just as capable as married members. There are only a few callings, such as stake president and bishop, that are specified only for married members. The restriction of having only married men serve as counselors in bishoprics and stake presidencies in young single adult wards and stakes has been removed.” These prior restrictions existed only in single adult and young single adult wards and stakes. In all other congregations, there were no such limitations. “Don’t worry about their age either,” he added. “I am 92. I am glad I was not released from my calling as Acting President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles because of my age or at the death of my wife. I love my Savior Jesus Christ, and I love helping to build up His Church. Most members feel the same way. This gives us hope in Christ and a feeling of belonging.” The Apostle also shared five doctrinal assurances that Church leaders can use to help single adults in their midst. 1. “The scriptures and declarations of latter-day prophets confirm that every person who is faithful in the gospel covenant will have the opportunity for exaltation.” 2. “The precise times and manner in which the blessings of exaltation are bestowed upon every faithful person have not all been revealed, but they are nonetheless assured.” 3. “Waiting upon the Lord implies continued obedience and spiritual progress.” 4. “God offers eternal life to all of His children. All those who accept the Lord Jesus Christ’s gracious gift of repentance and strive to be obedient to His commandments will qualify for eternal life.” 5. “Our confidence in these assurances is rooted in our faith in Jesus Christ by whose grace all things pertaining to mortality are set right.”

Elder Uchtdorf only has 2 children, and Elder Renlund only has 1. Many sisters have also served as general officers and have never been married.

I don't think church callings are a factor at all to our salvation. But I do think a lot of the GA's have figured things out that the average church member will eventually need to figure out specifically with being more in tune to the Spirit.

If salvation is based on attaining advanced leadership callings, I am doomed. And so, incidentally, are some of the best people I have known.

where would you get the idea that we would put a statue of the Lord on the temples. The angel moroni has always represented the scripture in Revelation 14:6 And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people. That is it, nothing more, we don't worship the statue and we never would desecrate the Lord's image in that way. If you look at the new temples; we are taking the angels down from the new designs. 🙄

An interesting history: (take this story to be worthy of all the effort I put into verifying it -- which wasn't very much). In the 1800s (and earlier) angels were placed on pinnacles of various buildings throughout the United States as a weather vane. An early image of the original Nauvoo temple had a horizontal "flying" angel with wings. It was not meant to be religious. It was simply decorative -- a common American decoration on all sorts of buildings. In the final construction, wings were removed. At the time, it was not considered to be Moroni. It was simply "the angel of the restoration." And it is often depicted in images as facing west, not east. To me this makes more sense doctrinally. Once the Saints began building temples in Utah, the angels faced east. At some point people associated Moroni with the "angel of the restoration" because... of course he was. So, not a lot of revelation involved in the decorative icon that has come to symbolize our temples. Brigham Young said that he prayed for guidance in the fulfilment of his duties. And if he does anything wrong, then he asks that the Lord make it clear that he needs to fix something. That's the level of revelation in some more mundane decisions like this.

Long time no see, Mr. Zero-Carb Emissions. The question is was it truly the Lord's wishes to begin with to have gold-plated angel Moronis set atop temples as the crowning decorative piece? Or are you suggesting church leaders perfectly interpret revelation given to them by God every time in the exact way God wants it to be received?

Is it vain idolatry for many Christians throughout the world to have an angel on the top of a Christmas tree? Is it vain idolatry to use the remnants of a Pagan holiday as decorative center of the celebration of the birth of Christ? Do Americans participate in vain idolatry when we use currency with the graven images of various presidents and other Founding Fathers? How about Mt. Rushmore? That's a pretty dang big idol. Ask any Jew. They'd prefer that Mt. Rushmore and pretty much every statue in the country be taken down. The bottom line is that the Lord does what He does on His own timeline and for His own reasons, no one else's.

Well, the temple is the house of the Lord, and when I come home to my house, I don't want a statue of me hearalding my own return to my house. I'd rather have a... hmm... [goes off and considers what kind of statue or pomp I want to experience whenever I come home]

If she was born more than 30 years ago, she probably said, "I told you not to do that. But come to me and I'll break this aloe plant and apply its healing balm."

Sure. Look at the author, who is she and what are some of the things she actually stands for? Are they in harmony with the gospel and are they going to draw readers closer or further to the Savior and his Church? Some already dangerous and inharmonious opinions from the author: and If people are willing to voluntarily consume her content, then they shouldn't be surprised when they eventually find themselves with damaged testimonies. This is a "You are what you eat" concept.

This is the first I've heard about the book. But I'm vaguely aware of the author: I had to google 'transhumanism'. Better living through human enhancement technologies? Hokay. I suppose Blaire figures given enough technology, trans men can father children, and trans women can ovulate and stuff. I've been reading good sci-fi for four decades, and this is as good as any I suppose.

Agreed. I like the new designs. I always thought the angel looked like a baseball trophy.

Thank you. Your response was incredibly insightful. You, my friend, just showed all of us what 'true' Christlike empathy and understanding is all about.