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There is an irony that just about everyone here--including myself--come from the opposite end of the Christian theological spectrum. However, I do believe "holy envy"--appreciating the positive aspects of other spiritual practices--is healthy. So...I love the overarching truth of Calvinism: The Sovereignty of God. One does not see the errors of my faith--be it televangelists, fake faith healers, cheap attempts at using worldly means to attract greater crowds, etc. because Calvinists tend to be so respectful of God. Also, when the question "Why not?" gets asks, Calvinists will readily accept, "Because God said no." Also, Calvinists tend to value and excel at education. They mostly set a great Christian example. It may be that no one can worship quite as devotedly as a Calvinist. They recognize so deeply the awesomeness of God and the depravity of humanity, thus are so grateful. I attended a Presbyterian college, and went with quite a theological chip on my shoulder. I thought, at 18, that the school would be full of compromised liberals. I found a different kind of discipleship and devotion I came to respect. So, sure, there is truth in Calvinism.

Literally no redeeming value. Truly a waste of resources and human effort. It defiles everything it touches and everyone associated with it. Apropos of nothing in particular. Carry on.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/uk-general-election-2019/2019/12/12/cc5ecb98-17ae-11ea-80d6-d0ca7007273f_story.html

I'm more fearful of the US-left Media-Industrial-Complex's reaction. It might be good if they avoided any stimulants--including coffee, tea, and energy drinks for the next few days.

Sounds like a clear victory, but isn't it just another dang clear victory? I am no expert on UK politics, but how many times does this guy have to win his election before they'll let him be Prime Minister?

Jane_doe Thank you..all of you ,thank you. This is going to be a hard decision to make ,but I have to make it myself. I am glad I put this here..I have a lot of thinking to do..this all so new and strange to me,but I will figure it out I guess...I will find the DIY books and see what help I can get from them.

Your points are well-taken, but you misunderstand me. I'm not looking to convert anyone to my viewpoint. I'm just explaining my viewpoint so that others can see where I'm coming from. As I already wrote, I share many of these biases myself, but that doesn't stop me from recognizing them and trying to point them out. How we look today is to some pretty large extent a reflection of what our ancestors found beautiful.

Full title of the work as listed on the title page: Midway The Battle That Doomed Japan The Japanese Navy's Story by Mitsuo Fuchida Former Captain, Imperial Japanese Navy and Masatake Okumiya Former Commander, Imperial Japanese Navy The edition I have was put out by Ballantine Books in 1955 and features a foreword by Admiral Spruance himself. It was translated by the US Naval Academy at Annapolis, who if I read it right have the copyright as of the date of publication. As Fuchida explains at the beginning of the book, the loss was so devastating that for a full decade it was illegal for anyone to publicly discuss the battle, let alone the full details. The reason why he used an early draft of his report as the basis for the book was that his final draft, upon submission to his superiors, seemingly vanished; he has no idea where it went. The only reason he even had this early draft was because he'd absentmindedly stowed it in a foot locker and forgotten about it until such time as he was cleaning the foot locker out some time later. Essentially, the original Japanese release of the book was the first time most Japanese civilians even knew the battle had taken place, let alone how it turned the war for the United States. For obvious reasons, when the United States Navy found out about the book, they quickly bought the rights to produce an English-language version so that they could study the Japanese side of the battle. The annotations are in place to note differences in the American and Japanese accounts, especially since Japanese intelligence was so poor and at least one key witness Fuchida relies on in a scene contradicts other witnesses whose recorded statements were in US Navy possession.

Not sure. "Perverse" is a general indictment of our society, one that I would be surprised if most here didn't agree with. It encompasses situations where normal, desirable traits of men or women are minimized, dismissed altogether, or even held in contempt. Women as the designated stay-at-home parents, men as the designated breadwinner, a desire to rear children, even the very idea of a nuclear family are ignored or despised. That's perverse. I think that might reasonably extend to finding the normal, God-given traits of men and women distasteful—you know, things like body hair. As for infantilizing: How did the whole idea of women shaving their legs or armpits get started? Hair on women's head isn't seen as unappealing. Eyebrows aren't seen as unappealing (possibly very masculine eyebrows). Why other body hair, specifically underarm hair? Unlike chest or back or facial hair, axillary hair is almost universal among adult women. Why should anyone find it more attractive when it's shaved off? The root of the answer seems obvious to me: Little girls don't have underarm hair, so shaving off underarm hair is an attempt to make an adult woman look more like a little girl. And why would an adult woman want to look more like a little girl? Well...hairy armpits are a turnoff...that's sexual...so obviously, the hairless armpits of little girls are more sexually appealing. At the risk of discussing things that maybe should not be openly discussed: I read an article a few months back that mentioned how modern porn shows a preference for women to be shaved in the pubic area. Individual variations of taste aside, why would the average man want his wife or lover to not have any pubic hair? I mean, that would make her look like...well... A little girl. Bingo. Gross? Disgusting? Horrible? Make whatever value judgments you want. But that's infantilizing.

Do you find eyebrows unappealing? Pubic hair? Women being taller and stronger than children? Girls grow up into women. That's how it's supposed to be. And adult women grow hair on various parts of their bodies, including the scalp, the brow, the forearms, the legs, the pubis, and the armpits. To find those things unappealing is to find womanhood unappealing. It's the same as women finding men's beards to be disgusting (which many women do). Healthy children generally do not have visible body hair. Healthy adults do. To prefer the body-hairless look in an adult is infantilization by definition. Clearly, few men would find it appealing for a woman to have a man's body hair pattern. But armpit hair is not a solely masculine trait—except in western societies, where the fashion trend against body hair has been overpoweringly reinforced in the last century. I am not pretending to be above this cultural preference. I'm an American. I grew up watching TV. I share many of the same stupidities as the vast majority of my fellow countrymen. But that doesn't mean I can 't see the foolishness of it, or that I'm unwilling to point it out.

I have a book written by one of the Japanese naval officers who was at the battle; it's based on an early draft of his official report, and was translated & annotated by the US Navy. If anything, the film understates how badly unprepared the Japanese were for Midway. The Japanese military leaders figured that Midway would be an easy victory, and so they completely ignored anything and everything that could even hint at failure because they felt it to be unrealistic. Couple this with their poor intelligence (not only did they not realize the US had done a rush job of getting a damaged carrier operational, they hit the same carrier twice during the battle without even realizing it and presumed it sank both times), and you can see why they were so vulnerable to utter destruction.

Again, this is a fair point. In the past some LDS apologist have accepted the henotheist label. Stephen Robinson comes to mind. Others have resisted it. I mentioned previously that one poster accepted the polytheist label. I can see that none quite fits the LDS Godhead teaching--especially when joined with belief in exaltation. Then again, that's what you get for having modern prophets and believing a restored gospel. 🤷‍♀️

Of course those are moderate stances. Only the perversion of the term "moderate" prevents them from being widely recognized as such.

I appreciate when POTUS and a few others push back against political correctness and learned offense-taking. On the other hand, "owning the liberals," or its counterpart, veers into childishness. Political Incorrectness is necessary, but can be used like salt. A little dash here, a little dash there, to remind us of free speech, highlight hypocrisies, etc. However, what we have today is such a hardening of the boundaries that the most reasoned and aware voices are silenced for fear of being labeled as :::gasp::: too moderate.

Fixed that for you 🙂

But in the origin of the word - Greek pantheon - a Greek could worship any number of "gods", no? Isn't that the idea - that the others are viable gods for the person to choose from? At least, I never got the impression that a person from one of these religions was required to choose only one, nor prevented from switching to another. Maybe I just don't understand the word. One thing I know for absolute certain - I have one God, and only one God (and when I use that word, I mean God the Father, FYI). IMO, this is a mortal perspective because we are so used to everything being finite. If I have all the peanuts, you get none - because there's only a finite number. Some things, however, are not reduced when shared - if I love someone, that doesn't mean you can't, nor do we have to divide a finite amount of "love for that person" so that it always adds up to a finite amount. We can both love the person and thereby double the amount of love without any reduction in love - on the contrary, we increase it. IMO, the things of eternity are all this way - sharing them increases them, it doesn't dilute them. NOTE: I do comprehend the reasoning / thinking behind the idea that if there are two omniscient or omnipotent people, that neither really is, I just don't find that reasoning convincing - I don't believe the word needs to be exclusive, nor that everyone else needs to be empty-headed (literally, have no knowledge, sentience, understanding at all) nor utterly powerless in order for God to be omniscient and omnipotent.

For now, this is pretty much the model I use. I think it's deficient, but I'm not sure exactly how it's deficient, and it works better than any other model I know of or that I have ever come up with. Consider it the Ptolemaic epicycle model of God's omniscience.

My thinking is influenced by Joseph Smith’s teaching that all things before God are “one eternal now”. God knows the future, not necessarily because He determines it in every circumstance, but because He is is merely watching it unfold in (to Him) real time. The fact that He sees me dying on (say) January 1, 2060 doesn’t mean He’s making me die on January 1, 2060; any more than the fact that I see my daughter stealing a cookie from the cookie jar right now means that I’m making her steal the cookie right now. Individual agency still governs; God just happens to be watching our past and present and future choices unfold with a perfect and eternal vision.

I certainly agree that you receive a better quality of information and understanding through revelation and inspiration than through study, but I also believe that well-intentioned study motivated by faith leads to better quality revelation and inspiration than would be the case without study. I would also be inclined to think that a person who has received such inspiration can still be of much benefit to others and help others to build a better understanding even if they do not reveal the essence of any spiritual truths that have been revealed to them.

My thoughts come more from my experiences being a parent. There are times I absolutely know what my kid is going to do. I know this because I know my kid and I know the situation and I can predict how my kid will respond to that situation. Does my knowledge rob my kid of agency? No. Does my knowledge limit my kid's choices? No. Does this knowledge give me power and the ablity to change things? Yes... yes it does. Can my actions limit my kid's choices or options? Yes it can. Can my actions rob my kid of their agency? Depends on how forceful the action is... usually not. With this knowledge and power am I responsible for the actions I take or do not take? Yes absolutely. Does this make me responsible for the actions of my child? Only if my action was of the forceful variety that took their agency. (Or they are not yet accountable and I have not taught them properly). Unlike my limits as a flawed person and parent.. God always acts in our best interest (as he sees it) and is the best supporter of our agency anywhere, while knowing and planning for what we will do.

Okay, whatever. _______________________________________________________________________ Why can't we all just admit and acknowledge the fact that there is one God, that we worship the One True God, but that the intricacies of exaltation and our capacity to become a god, like God our Father is complicated? _______________________________________________________________________ Given the absence of a response to my lengthier post above, for now, I will assume a silent (perhaps grudging) acknowledgement of its accuracy and veracity.

It's a new news article, but I'm not exactly sure this is new news. I've been hearing similar things for a few years now. It makes sense. We believe there are better ways to run life than having a divorce or children born out of wedlock, but part of doing genealogy is recording an occasional divorce date or birth to an unmarried partner. One good way find the skeletons and dirt on our ancestors, is to do their genealogy. Just enhancing the capabilities.

Oh, I have it on excellent authority that Trump never lies. Except when his lies are a sign of him being “smart”, which makes them okay, or something.

~~Trump and Anatess sitting in a tree! K.I.S.....*OOOF* Ugh Anatess! You didn't have to hit me *THAT* hard!!

Sorry my bad, wrong pic... here you go.

The book! The book!

I'd be very interested in knowing how Vermont had more people in prison than lived in the state and still managed to have one of the lowest incarceration rates.

Does it ever have stories as surprising as this one?

capacitor

Undecided. I've been lurking more over the past few weeks. What I can't figure out is why the Comet thread has yet to mention any of the other reindeer - I mean, if he hits the Earth that hard, I'm thinking it's gonna affect the other reindeer and the sleigh. And this would indicate Santa doesn't keep them on Earth (not enough room), but that would also explain how they manage to haul so many presents around so quickly... Sure, the moon is interesting and all, but not nearly so important...