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We could assume that, though sometimes I wonder if the Lord is actually trying to send a message to the Church. Perhaps the fault is, in some way, with the Church and it's members and how it is going and doing things as to why physical measures were taken to halt the work in the temples. He may be hoping that we take note of our own sins and faults and change direction before more drastic measures need to be taken. We have been told we are under condemnation before (under Ezra Taft Benson) and though many may be reading the Book of Mormon today, there may be many other areas in which the Saints have gotten far more lax, or changed the commandments to their understanding rather than his understanding in which has made it so that we need to repent and change before worse things occur. The closing of the temples may only be a precursor or warning to us to stop the evil or whatever we are doing. Instead of blaming the world, perhaps we should look inward to what the Church is doing in regards to why the temples are closed and seek to make inward changes?

Grim thought to think about. Many of these Claims came from Utah, Arizona, and Idaho. Guess which organization was the sponsor for these BSA units. IF BSA ceases to exist as the front...guess who gets the lawsuits next? Even Grimmer thought, the BSA in the past 20 years had stronger restrictions (admittedly, many claims are prior to that where they had almost NO way of protecting the youth from these individuals) and sifting to try to make it harder for predators to be leaders (which the Church rarely enforced or did anything about, in many instances, actually did the exact opposite). The church has put a token training up, but hasn't done anything close to the BSA in it's restrictions on leaders. They don't have the BSA to blame anymore, and angry people do drastic things. I'd put the Church up front and center in the next decade or two for lawsuits that could (key word...COULD...not will or anything that predictive) make the BSA lawsuits seem trivial in comparison.

I don't disagree, but you appear to be neglecting two important points: 1. How do you know the information is false? Just because it isn't what CNN et alia are reporting? If there is one thing that everyone should agree the mainstream media has taught us, it is that we cannot take anything they say at face value. 2. Even assuming you're right, so what? How can you possibly codify such a thing without violating the First Amendment? I grew up being taught and believing that the cure for false information was true information. Today the political Left openly pushes for (what they call) misinformation to be suppressed by force of law. Surely no clear-thinking lover of liberty, whatever his or her political stripe, can possibly agree with this.

During the campaign there were many conservatives who suspected this. DJT seemed to believe it, thus his jarring behavior during the first debate. Now that Biden is President-Elect, most conservative are praying for his health and wellbeing every day, considering who is waiting in the wings.

Okay. I'm going to hijack my own thread. If I'm Biden, I am super powerful. My instincts are middle-of-the-road. I got the House and 48 Democrat senators. With moderate proposals I can win over 2-6 Republican ones, if not more. I can enact common sense immigration reform, more criminal justice reform, a lime green new deal, and perhaps one or two other bills. Come 2022 the normal midterm trouncing would be neutered (some kind of "stay the steady course" campaign), and 2024 will be a great year for me, if I'm up to it, or some moderate anointed by me (read: not Harris). I know. I'm too optimistic. Life can't get that good. :::sigh:::

In many ways he did. Any conservative can be happy he got through 3 Supreme Court nominees and dozens of other judicial appointments around the country. Plus if we can hold onto the Senate (it'll be tight but I think we will win both Georgia races) Biden won't be able to pass any of his super extreme ideas like court packing. So a bit of a silver lining there.

I would say it's a bad idea. At the end of the day, whatever else happened, Donald Trump lost this election. He lost because despite what he did right from a conservative point of view, which was quite a bit to be sure, he's awful at getting people to like him. He lost a 2 to 3 % swing of Republicans who voted for the Republican representative and senator in their state but voted for Biden. He needed to run against someone as outright hated as Hillary Clinton to stand a chance. The minute he didn't, as we can see, he choked. If he ran again and manged to secure the nomination he would lose again due to his complete lack of charisma especially on Twitter. This is one Republican who hopes he stays away from trying to get the top job so we can win again in 2024.

As an Eagle Scout, I am overall grateful for what I got out of BSA. I am sad to see them struggle, I will be sad if BSA substantially disappears. I wish things could have been different. I wish that BSA leadership would have had the foresight to take youth protection more seriously sooner to try to prevent this outcome. It is what it is -- I cannot say that the outcome ought to be different. But I am still saddened, and will be saddened by the outcome.

No, it is not a fake controversy. But how can you prove it? The Dems had a big boost in "unprovable" fraud votes due to unsolicited mail-in ballots. Election fraud can only go so far before it becomes "clear and convincing." Trump had just enough swing voters against him that they were able to get away with enough without losing in court. And we have three years to pass legislation in swing states and red states that make it more and more difficult to defraud the vote. They will have that time to pass legislation to prevent unsolicited mail-in ballots. They can pass legislation nullifying any votes that were counted without bipartisan participation in the counting -- regardless of the reason. Even if we can't prove it, we know the methods they used. We can prevent many of the methods and have experts consider new ways that the Dems will most likely try to use next time.

Jeffrey R. Holland, “Rending the Veil of Unbelief,” in The Voice of My Servants: Apostolic Messages on Teaching, Learning, and Scripture, ed. Scott C. Esplin and Richard Neitzel Holzapfel (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2010), 143–64. The second issue that requires preliminary comment stems from the Lord’s exclamation, “Never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye could not have seen my finger” (Ether 3:9). And later, “Never have I showed myself unto man whom I have created, for never has man believed in me as thou hast” (Ether 3:15). The potential for confusion here comes with the realization that many—indeed, we would assume all—of the major prophets living prior to the brother of Jared had seen God. How then does one account for the Lord’s declaration? Adam’s face-to-face conversations with God in the Garden of Eden can be exempted because of the paradisiacal, prefallen state of that setting and relationship. Furthermore, other prophets’ visions of God, such as those of Moses and Isaiah in the Bible, or Nephi and Jacob in the Book of Mormon, came after this “never before” experience of the brother of Jared. But before the era of the Tower of Babel, the Lord did appear unto Adam and “the residue of his posterity who were righteous” in the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman three years before Adam’s death (see D&C 107:53–55). And we are left with Enoch, who said very explicitly, “I saw the Lord; and he stood before my face, and he talked with me, even as a man talketh one with another, face to face” (Moses 7:4). We assume there would have been other prophets living in the period between Adam’s leaving the Garden of Eden and the building of the Tower of Babel who also saw God in a similar manner, including Noah, who “found grace in the eyes of the Lord” and “walked with God” (Genesis 6:8–9), the same scriptural phrase used to describe Enoch’s relationship with the Lord (see Genesis 5:24). This issue has been much discussed by Latter-day Saint writers, and there are several possible explanations, any one—or all—of which may cast some light upon the larger truth of this passage. Nevertheless, without additional scriptural revelation or commentary on the matter, any conjecture is only that—conjecture—and as such is inadequate and incomplete. One possibility is that this is simply a comment made in the context of one dispensation and as such applies only to the Jaredites and Jaredite prophets—that Jehovah has never before revealed Himself to one of their seers and revelators. Obviously this theory has severe limitations when measured against such phrases as “never before” and “never has man” and combined with the realization that Jared and his brother are the fathers of this dispensation, the first to whom God could have revealed Himself in their era. Another suggestion is that the lowercase reference to “man” is the key to this passage, suggesting that the Lord has never revealed Himself to the unsanctified, to the nonbeliever, to temporal, earthy, natural man. The implication here is that only those who have put off the natural man, only those who are untainted by the world—in short, the sanctified (such as Adam, Enoch, and now the brother of Jared)—are entitled to this privilege. Some have believed that the Lord here means He has never before revealed Himself to this degree or to this extent. This theory would suggest that divine appearances to earlier prophets had not been with this same “fulness,” that never before had the veil been lifted to give such a complete revelation of Christ’s nature and being. A further possibility is that this is the first time Jehovah has appeared and identified Himself as Jesus Christ, the Son of God, thus the interpretation of the passage being “never have I showed myself [as Jesus Christ] unto man whom I have created” (Ether 3:15). This possibility is reinforced by one way of reading Moroni’s later editorial comment: “Having this perfect knowledge of God, he could not be kept from within the veil; therefore he saw Jesus” (Ether 3:20; emphasis added). Yet another interpretation of this passage is that the faith of the brother of Jared was so great he saw not only the spirit finger and body of the premortal Jesus (which presumably many other prophets had also seen) but also had some distinctly more revealing aspect of Christ’s body of flesh, blood, and bone. Exactly what insight into the flesh-and-blood nature of Christ’s future body the brother of Jared might have had is not clear, but Jehovah does say to him, “Because of thy faith thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood” (Ether 3:9), and Moroni does say that Christ revealed Himself in this instance “in the likeness of the same body even as he showed himself unto the Nephites” (Ether 3:17). Some have taken that to mean literally “the same body” the Nephites would see—a body of flesh and blood. A safer position would be that it was at least the exact spiritual likeness of that future body. Jehovah says, “Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit . . .and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh” (Ether 3:16), and Moroni says, “Jesus showed himself unto this man in the spirit” (Ether 3:17). A final—and in terms of the faith of the brother of Jared (which is the issue at hand) surely the most persuasive—explanation for me is that Christ is saying to the brother of Jared, “Never have I showed myself unto man in this manner, without my volition, driven solely by the faith of the beholder.” As a rule, prophets are invited into the presence of the Lord, are bidden to enter His presence by Him and only with His sanction. The brother of Jared, on the other hand, stands alone then (and we assume now) in having thrust himself through the veil, not as an unwelcome guest but perhaps technically an uninvited one. Says Jehovah, “Never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye could not have seen my finger. . . . Never has man believed in me as thou hast” (Ether 3:9, 15; emphasis added). Obviously the Lord Himself is linking unprecedented faith with this unprecedented vision. If the vision is not unique, then it has to be the faith— and how the vision is obtained—that is so remarkable. The only way this faith could be so remarkable would be in its ability to take this prophet, uninvited, where others had only been able to go by invitation.

Possibly, but the Church has far more virulent enemies than the BSA that are willing to go to further extremes as well. The BSA lawsuits have been ongoing for a while, with many of the first cases being leveled against LDS and Catholic Units (one could even say the Catholic scandals of prior years led directly to the BSA lawsuits today). If the BSA gets out of the way, just like the Catholic lawsuits did not stop them from going after the BSA, I expect the LDS church will be focused on far more.

Financial? Maybe. Legal? Unless the Democrats want to provoke a never-ending war of administrative retribution, they would do well to let their efforts go no further than the type of inflammatory rhetoric used by Trump.

If the GOP keeps the senate job #1 will be to reject the most unpopular and radical Democratic proposals--packing SCOTUS, Green New Deal, and other grand socialism-like schemes. I suspect that Biden is not big on those anyway, thus my theorizing that he could potentially do a lot in his moderate lane. Without a GOP president, the senate won't have a long to-do list, just a do-not one.

Just a reminder of the site rules, to which we all agreed in order to create an account here. Especially site rule #3 and 4.

If the GOP keeps the Senate, McConnell can keep bills he *really* doesn’t like from even coming to the vote. Biden is certainly a major part of deciding what legislation gets passed, but there’s also a big question mark about whether the GOP post-Trump retains its populist flavor or whether it reverts to a more conventionally ideological brand of conservatism. That may determine the ultimate fate of Biden proposals regarding—say—criminal justice reform, or fiscal policy.

I'm wondering if the "Trump 2024" theory is something put out there to appease his hardcore supporters. Neither the current President, nor the VP, will end up the nominee in 2024, imho. If they do, as @Midwest LDS says, they will lose. I hope it does not take that loss for the GOP to shake itself loose. On the other hand, so much good was accomplished in the past 4-years. Reagan will always be my style-and-speech hero, but DJT did get the business done.

It won't be Trump. And it won't be Biden. It will be Harris vs...??? Probably not Pence either. People theorize Nikki Haley. Regardless, if the GOP produces a candidate that is at least above average administratively and has a decent public persona with a decent moral background, they will be a clear victor over Harris.

For good or for evil, to listen or to mock, for their salvation or for their destruction, the focus of the adults is on Christ—where it should be. But a child can still point out a pretty butterfly.

My ward: doesn't do anything digital and has a lot of folks opposed to masking. I don't feel comfortable attending in person. My parent's ward does the Zoom and half the alphabet's invited to attend in person thing. Knowing my situation, my parents forward me their Zoom link and it's... been very nice. I really enjoy seeing others, even when it's people I don't know. And it's really awesome when somebody in my family is speaking: I get to see their talk, hear their thoughts, and chat about it with them afterwards.

For members of the Church, there could be several answers to that. One more literal is that at a certain age all young men receive the Aaronic Priesthood and those in their 16th year (it used to be over the age of 16, but now it is the 16th year) are ordained priests. One could also view one that is married jointly as sharing in the priesthood blessings and as such, the couple being one would be encompassed within the priesthood of the priesthood. Thus, for a great majority of the members of our Church, those who would be considered part of the Kingdom of the Lord would be priests as long as they are not little children and have been actively involved in the church.

[This isn’t directed at you specifically, EG; it’s just a general observation.] I’ve noted a lot of similar sentiments amongst various die-hard Trump supporters of my acquaintance in the last day or two. I find it gratifying. It wasn’t so long ago that staunchly maintaining the importance of seeking righteousness, keeping the world at arm’s length, and waiting for divine deliverance; could get one labeled a “cuck”. Trump’s (threatened?) loss, whatever its other effects, does seem to be Making Zion Desirable Again.

Trump has a good chance to win and Biden too so let's wait and see. Having said that, it is really sad (in a bad way) to read/hear about "cheating" and "fraud" just because Trump isn't doing well in some states. On Twitter, he is behaving and ranting like a spoiled child right now, just because he isn't getting his way. I think we all know that if those mail-in ballots were benefiting him, he would praise the entire process as "transparent" and "tremendous" . Nuff said.

We’ve talked about the potential that BEA would file for bankruptcy. Turns out they went ahead with a Chapter 11 filing back in February, and today was the deadline for all potential claimants to file their “proofs of claim” with the bankruptcy court. Apparently, over 92,000 proofs of claim have been received as of this afternoon; the vast majority, apparently, from self-reported sex abuse victims. Let’s assume that only half of these are accepted by the court, and that each victim receives the absurdly low figure of $100K (a recent verdict in Oregon granted the victim $20 million). Forty-six thousand claims at $100,000 per claim is $4.6 billion. BSA National apparently has $1.4 billion in assets (many already mortgaged) with the councils holding $3.3 billion more (assuming council resources can be tapped, which is debatable). That means in a best case scenario they have $4.7 billion to pay off at least $4.6 billion in sex abuse claims, plus whatever other debts the BSA has racked up. The bankruptcy is nominally a “reorganization”, but it’s looking an awful lot like the BSA’s corporate existence itself is in existential danger. Random thoughts: —The LDS/BSA divorce didn’t come a moment too soon; —A $120 billion “rainy day” fund doesn’t seem as extravagant as it used to.