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May I add just a little logic? By definition G-d is a unbounded being without limits. Also by definition a being that is bounded and contained within limits is a Damned Soul. I liked your parable of tools. Obviously not having access to tools is a type (type and shadow) of bounds and limits. But there is another thought. For example, fighter pilots will use "Trainers" or at times "simulators" to prepare them for "The Real Thing". Without question, spiritual gifts are "trainers". Moses placed a brazen serpent on a pool to train Israel to look to Christ for deliverance. But we all realize that one can learn to look to Christ without a brazen serpent. We may realize that our spiritual gifts have limits - none of us have all the spiritual gifts afforded to Christ - but we are told in scripture that we are hires with Christ of all spiritual gifts, powers and glory. @prisonchaplain is quite correct. Latter-day Saints could easily adjust and become fantastic traditional Christians. But for a Traditional Christian to become a Latter-day Saint would require somewhat of a change of heart and mind concerning the Traditional view of the relationship between G-d and man - which is the essence of a miracle - there is nothing we can do to convince them. The Traveler

Two thoughts. First it is prophesied that in the last days people will say the Lord delayeth his coming. I use to interpret that as the people worrying about why the Lord hasn't already come considering how bad things are. But lately I have also begun to interpret it as some saying it as an excuse to not mend their ways and to indulge in worldliness because there is plenty of time to repent. I think we can see both attitudes in the two approaches of the 10 virgins. Second, as much as we want to be prepared for the Savior's coming at some future point, the reality is that Satan is coming into the world more and more right now. There will soon be no option for a lukewarm approach to living the gospel. If we are not actively preparing for the Second Coming we will by default be swallowed up by the world.

Thank you, @Just_A_Guy. We Pentecostals use a similar analogy when speaking of the importance of Spirit-baptism. Yes, one is born again--saved--without having experienced the baptism in the Holy Spirit (which we believe is accompanied by speaking/praying/praising in tongues). However, it's like a lumber jack choosing between an ax and a chainsaw. Both will do the work, but one is much more effective. So, if we are to witness to the ends of the earth then being baptized with the Holy Spirit empowers us to do so much more proficiently. So, the analogies are great and clear. Further, it is certainly true that those who practice the LDS faith would almost always make fantastic traditional Christians.

Just a thought or perhaps speculation. There will be two great temples. One in Jerusalem and one in Zion or the New Jerusalem. It is speculation on my part that the great city of Enoch was where the temple of Zion (Missouri) is to be built. Again it is my speculation that another great city called Salem (over which Melchizedek rained as king) was at the spot where Jerusalem (and the temple lot) is today. And so I speculate that when the City of Enoch and Salem returns - that it could be quite quick. Perhaps within a single day. And that when those cities return; that they will return with their Temples. From my understanding. no one is suggesting that the second coming will be this next March - April timeframe. I do not think it will occur so soon. But all this is speculation. My point of this post is to not procrastinate. That if there is not enough "oil" on one's lamp that they prepare such necessities now (this very day). Perhaps no later than by next March-April of the coming spring. I personally think that speculating that the 2nd coming will be later than what is actual - to be much more foolish than speculating that it will occur sooner than what will be. And yet we tend to mock more those that prepare too early rather than those that speculate and procrastinate a date which is too late. The Traveler

So, I may not be your target audience here—I didn’t “convert” from another religion to LDS; I was born in the faith. But of course, at some point I had to make a deliberate and informed decision to stay; so I’ll offer my two cents for what it’s worth. Maybe a parable, of sorts, will help: I’ve gotten into woodworking in a small way over the past couple of years. Nothing really special—a few bookshelves, a couple of boxes for various purposes, that kind of thing; I hope to make more furniture-type items going forward. I’ve accrued a collection of tools—less than I think I need, though certainly more than my wife thinks I need! The next tool that I want, is a thickness planer. The function of a thickness planer is that you feed a board into one end and, in seconds, an electrically-powered rotating blade shaves a layer of wood off the top face of the board. The result is a perfectly flat face. You can use a thickness planer for dimensioning lumber to the exact thickness you want it. You can also use it to take pre-milled wood that was cut sloppily, or that has warped/cupped/bowed since it was cut, and shape it into something that is perfectly flat and straight and ready for precision woodworking. Now, with a bit of skill and the right alternative tools (a workbench with clamps and a selection of hand planes), you could be an absolutely amazing woodworker without ever owning a thickness planer. It would be absolutely absurd to say that someone who owns a thickness planer is a “better woodworker” than a craftsman who lacks that tool, or that his product will always be qualitatively superior. Many woodworkers actually enjoy the workpace, or physical exercise, or tradition, or connection to their forbears, or just the extra attention that go into using and sharpening and tuning and maintaining their hand planes. But the fact is that a thickness planer just plain lets you work faster. A woodworker who chooses not to obtain that tool, will eventually find that his choice to dimension or flatten lumber by hand is imposing an artificial limit on the quantity of projects that he is able to undertake and complete. A woodworker who chooses to invest in a thickness planer, and uses it effectively as he works to improve his own skill set over time, will eventually be able to achieve more than the woodworker who chose not to obtain that tool. To me, religion is a tool—or, more properly, a set of tools—that helps us to produce the product God wants. To help us become what He wants us to become, now and in the hereafter. So in evaluating a religion, my starting point has to be what the religion says about the nature of God, the nature of man, the relationship between those two, what God’s plans are for humankind, and what the potential and fate of humankind actually is. If you accept the ideas that: --mankind was created as a sort of god in embryo --it is possible for a man to progress to a point where he can have the qualities God has, wield the powers that God wields, and do the things that God does; and --Jesus Christ’s Atonement was geared towards making it possible for us to do precisely that— --well, then, Mormonism is pretty much the only game in town. And frankly, I think as Church members, we should work harder at articulating this vision through our outreach and missionary work. The simple fact is that, per our theology—observant Christians who sincerely seek after Christ and live a Christlike life will get the Terrestrial Kingdom, which is basically everything their own faith traditions have led them to expect of Heaven. God didn’t restore the Church to get people into the Terrestrial Kingdom; he restored the Church for the benefit of that subset of humanity that seeks exaltation. That’s not some obscure “gospel meat” that should be carefully concealed until after the “milk” has been digested; it’s part and parcel of what the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is offering to Christianity and to the world in general. But let’s say you reject that particular worldview, while still agreeing that God imposed religion so as to help humans to become better individuals who are more in touch with His greatness and goodness and saving and comforting power. Even by that measure, Mormonism offers a pretty amazing toolset—one that I believe, properly used, can still take one further than the toolset offered by any other religion or philosophy. These tools include: --A quantitatively and qualitatively superior means of direct communication with God via the Holy Spirit, which in turn offers superior opportunities for education, edification, solace, warning, and instruction/counsel about the various life-decisions we all must make. Mormonism also promotes the idea that it is possible to commune with the Father even more directly, via visions and/or other direct interactions with corporeal angels or with God Himself. --I would note, on this issue, that while I am absolutely unqualified to trace the history of charismatic or Pentecostal Christian movements—it seems to me that one of the big selling points in 19th century Mormon missionary work, was the idea of spiritual gifts. We see this in Mormonism’s own publicized histories of itself and some of its first noteworthy converts, and I see it a lot in private journals of some of my own ancestors. A theme that I took away from Terryl Givens’s “Wrestling the Angel”, as well as his biography of Parley Pratt (which delves deeply into Pratt’s preaching and writing), leads me to the impression that much of mainline Christianity (certainly the “respectable” institutionalized branches thereof) had pretty much pooh-poohed “spiritual gifts” like tongues, prophecy, revelations, visions, healings, etc—as artifacts of the primitive church that Christianity had outgrown as it matured. While again acknowledging my relative ignorance of Christian history beyond my own faith tradition—I do wonder if many of the pastors and theologians who saw the way Mormonism appealed to a lot of Christian “seekers” did some soul-searching about whether their own congregations could benefit from the restoration of some of these gifts; and undertook a private and individual re-evaluation of the idea of “spiritual gifts” generally that may have helped “prepare the way” for 20th century pentecostal/evangelical/charismatic Christian movements. --Divine power, channeled both through the Holy Spirit and through divinely-sanctioned priests, that enables the Saints to make spiritual/psychological progress that they’d never be able to do on their own. And a power that occasionally, according to the will of God, can even change the material nature of the world around us. --Sacramental rites and liturgies that reinforce our sense of connectedness to the divine, and challenge and educate us in new and sometimes unexpected ways. --I would note here that I think most religions have a surfeit of mishnahs and commentaries and sermons that are happy to spoon-feed us the ostensible “meanings” and “right interpretations” of the mysteries we see in scripture, in nature, in human behavior and the problems of life. Mormonism certainly has this, too. But Mormonism also has a set of esoteric temple liturgies where—not only do our leaders abstain from telling us what it means; but they give us an injunction not even to publicly speculate about what it might mean! (Even as they continually reiterate that it does have some very deep meanings, and that it’s tremendously important that we work those meanings out by continued participation in those liturgies, and that they cannot be simply abandoned just because they are mysterious or uncomfortable.) To participate in temple worship on a prolonged basis, is to repeatedly accept a challenge to get onto the wrestling mat with God Himself—where the religious authority’s role is less about trying to mediate between you and God, and more about just keeping you in the ring even when you want to quit. I don’t know that any other religion will push you into quite that sort of a struggle with God. --Authoritative leadership that can help safeguard against deception and offer meaningful counsel in approaching the vicissitudes of life, especially while we are still growing in the faith and trying to figure out the difference between the whisperings of the Spirit and our own prejudices and predilections. --Additional scripture that again, helps to safeguard against deception and teaches us to approach God and the Spirit; while also clarifying some of the “holes” and debunking man-made misconceptions about previously-revealed scriptures. --A strong sense of collective purpose and destiny (“Zion”, and all that), which fosters both a sense of community and opportunities for personal growth through ministering and service. (The emotional and material "safety net" the Church has developed over the years ain't bad, either!) I would hasten to note, just like my parable of the thickness planer, that nearly all of the spiritual blessings and opportunities and tools (or alternative tools that serve similar purposes) exist, to some degree, in most variations of Christianity; and many adherents to those sects have used the “tools” in their possession to much greater effect than many adherents of Mormonism (myself, certainly included) have used the tools in our possession. So I hope that what I’ve written doesn’t seem too smug! Stunningly beautiful souls can be--have been--crafted within virtually any Christian faith tradition, and a good number of non-Christian traditions as well. But the underlying issue, to me, is potential and eternal increase. All other things being equal, I am satisfied through personal experience that the “tools” of Mormonism can take me further towards these ends than the “tools” offered by any other religion or philosophy. And so, I stay.

1. OK, we’ll come back to that. :-) 2. No, I’m not saying either section abrogates the other. I would agree that they should work together; we should synthesize them and form our conduct in a way that satisfies both sections. 134 tells us that we want our candidates to preserve individual liberties. 98 tells us that we want our candidates to also be individually righteous people. We can no more support a righteous authoritarian, than a wicked constitutionalist. 3. I hope you’ll pardon me for suggesting that this attempt to re-define the terms “honest”, “wise”, and “good” and suggest that what they really mean is “dedication to preservation of constitutional/natural rights through political action”, comes off as rather artificial. “Honest”, “wise”, and “good”, mean what they mean. I wonder whether many of us would have allowed a Clinton supporter to hijack these terms to suggest that his support of RFRA in 1993 qualifies him as “honest, wise, and good” and deserving of our support under D&C 98:10? Moreover, the relevant verse in D&C 98 is prefaced with the statement that “when the wicked rule, the people mourn”—verbiage borrowed from Proverbs 29:2, and which in context clearly had nothing to do with the US constitution or any of the rights it purports to safeguard. The verse is succeeded by the admonition that the Saints should “forsake all evil and cleave unto all good, that ye shall live by every word which proceedeth forth out of the mouth of God. For he will give unto the faithful line upon line, precept upon precept; and I will try you and prove you herewith”—surely you aren’t suggesting that those verses mean that the sine qua non for passing whatever “test” God gives us, is merely that we embrace a conservative approach to Constitutional jurisprudence? D&C 98:10, and it surrounding context, is a call to total individual and collective righteousness—and a call to expect those same standards from those we select to lead us. Your point that, given the sheer massiveness of our democracy, our individual political power is little better than if we were living under a monarchy; is a solid one. But then—doesn’t that make it even more important that we channel what little influence we have towards the kingdom of God and His righteousness; rather than wasting our resources and undermining our own moral authority by supporting person like Trump? How can we credibly denounce Biden as corrupt, a known liar, a cheat, a bully, and a sexual predator; when we tried our darnedest to prop up *another* politician who was corrupt, a known liar, a cheat, a bully, and a sexual predator? How do we redeem democratic government (and the civil society on which such a government must be based) when we spent the last four years stating that we don’t give a flying flip if a politician lies to us, so long as *we* deem those lies to be inconsequential or in the service of a greater good? 4. It seems that the assumption that underlies this, is that we have no guarantee of a better and greater form of deliverance if we wait for divine aid and refuse to provide our support to wicked people in the interim. I reject that assumption. The scriptures tell of too many groups of people who obtained “impossible” divine deliverance from their enemies by looking to Him rather than propping up the nearest strongman—Zion under Enoch, Judah under Ahaz and Hezekiah, Israel under the Maccabees, the Nephites under Nephi and Mosiah and Moroni and Moronihah. And in the Americas we have a very particular promise in Either 2:12; and that promise is not conditioned on us voting for whatever slimeball happens to properly speak the right constitutional shibboleths. The promise is conditioned on our serving Jesus Christ. Jesus is not conservatism. Conservatism is not Jesus. 5. Agreed. FWIW I don’t think I said “millions of Saints throughout must gather in Missouri”; only that a lot of Saints would be going there. Admittedly, there could be some weaseling over the definition of “a lot”! But the commission to build Zion in Jackson County has not been revoked. It’s going to happen. I agree with you in principle about the importance of temple rites. I don’t know that I’d agree that it’s the *temples* that are important, so much as the *authority* that is associated with those temples. But I’m probably straining at gnats here—the Church is investing massively in its temples, and seems to anticipate remaining in possession of most of them for the next few decades at least. 6. Perhaps. But I was told in very specific terms, back in 2016, that Trump would build a permanent conservative (well, right-ish populist) majority and that a Trump-stocked federal judiciary would keep me safe from the schemes of leftist moonbats. Jesus, schmeezus—it was *Trump’s* power that would save me from the neo-Stalinists like Kamala Harris!

I believe the commandment that we're supposed to vote for leaders of virtue to be focused on the wrong things -- especially lately. Consider the purpose of government per D&C 134.. He holds men accountable for what? Law of Chastity? In an ecclesiastical sense, yes. But in a governmental sense, no. The laws and administration of them is what makes a virtuous man in government. (I cannot prove, but can almost guarantee that apostles voted for both Kennedy and Clinton). Has not Trump done all these things? This entire verse deserves to be emphasized. The "virtues" that we seek in public office are: 1) Will he protect and defend the Constitution? 2) Will he protect the rights to life, liberty, and property (pursuit of happiness) as indicated in the Declaration and codified in the Constitution? 3) Will he have enough of a control on his own passions that he will not break the law simply because he feels it's "the right thing to do at the moment?" 4) Will he apply the law in equity and justice to all? Obama did none of these things. I thought Turmp wouldn't either. But he's proven time and time again, that he has. The fact is that we definitely should turn to the Lord. Absolutely agreee. But if governments are supposed to be help meet the Church in securing our freedom to worship, wouldn't one of the most important criteria to vote on be the freedom of Religion? You have to give Trump props for that much. You're not going to vote for him. This isn't about the election. I'm trying to dig a bit and get to some fundamentals that inform this sort of decision. Discussing it with you is helping me with that process. After all is said and done, if Trump wins re-election, we will have a Mme Pres. Pelosi after a double assassination. So, then we're subject to the other portion you mentioned. I believe such a thing will cause the end of the nation as we know it. So, what will be the mechanism by which we (the Church) will be gathered together? Such a thing is prophesied. But it seems that the "gathering" will be more of a spiritual gathering instead of a physical gathering. The virtual services has only been a dry run before we really need to do this for governmental reasons. Yet, for the sake of security, a geographical perimeter must still be necessary for the servicing of the Saints's physical and spiritual needs. How do you think it might happen? Actually, that's an impossible question to answer. Can you think of some sort of mechanism that has some plausibility which could theoretically work?