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To all the forum -- I wish you a Merry Christmas and a prosperious new year. The Traveler

Brian Hales is probably the leading expert on Joseph Smith’s plural marriages and he recently did a couple of episodes with “Mormonism With the Murph” on YouTube where he addresses a lot of this. IIRC, as to Section 132 itself: in short, we have a number of contemporaneous accounts (including from people who rejected it, like Marks and Law) of Joseph Smith having shown it to them or otherwise teaching it. Hales also points out that JS basically took plural wives in three “waves”, if you will: 1) Fanny Alger. That situation blows up so badly that JS abandons plural marriage for years. 2) Following a threat from an angel with a drawn sword, JS begins marrying plural wives—but nearly all of them are women who are already married to other men. Hales posits that he deliberately chose married women because, out of respect for Emma as well as Joseph’s own feelings, he planned to have these be sexless “eternity-only” marriages. 3) The angel with drawn sword comes again, basically saying “that’s not what I meant and you know it. Now, do it right.” At this point Smith’s future brides are single women, and several of them later affirm (as genteelly as Victorians ever would) that there was indeed a sexual element to their marriages with Smith.

We don’t know that. Many assume that, because they just can’t fathom the idea of God acting in a way that they’ve been culturally groomed to believe is universally unjustifiable. David O. McKay was ready, willing, and able to remove the ban in the 1950s. He prayed about it requesting permission multiple times, and was repeatedly told “no”; there are multiple accounts of people who heard him tell about this. Once we admit that the continuation of the ban past 1951 was at God’s instruction, it becomes awfully difficult to argue that the implementation of the ban could not have been at His instruction. Especially when there is both past and modern precedent for lineage/ethnic/“race”-based bans on priesthood ordination and/or temple blessings. (Even today, the Church won’t do proxy temple work for Jews in the spirit world except under very rare circumstances. Is that an error, or a temporary concession that God allowed His servants to make so that other facets of His work could go forward? We don’t like to think about the work of salvation or the Church’s mission including any kind of cold calculus that advances the work of salvation in one field at the expense of delaying the salvation of other individuals—especially when those individuals are statistical minorities or perceived “outsiders” or victims oof historical oppression—but it absolutely does.) When modern Church leadership says “we don’t know the ‘why’, and it’s best not to speculate”, they don’t mean “LDS progressives get to make all kinds of inferences and accusations and extrapolate links to modern-day issues, and LDS conservatives are bound not to offer any pushback”. They mean “we don’t know the ‘why’, and it’s best not to speculate”.

The older I get, the more apropos it seems to compare the marital relationship to the relationship between the Church membership and the Q15. My relationship with spouse is important, even salvational. Truth is important, even salvational. Sometimes my spouse is wrong and I am right. Sometimes she is right and I am wrong. I don’t usually know when I am wrong while I am in the act of being wrong. Even when I am quite sure my spouse is wrong—there are times when it’s important she knows she’s wrong, and there’s are times it’s not important. *How* I tell my spouse she’s wrong, matters a great deal. I can do immense harm to our relationship if I go about it in the wrong way. Just because I may need to tell my spouse she’s wrong, doesn’t necessarily mean I need to tell third parties that she’s wrong. How I talk about my spouse to third parties, again, matters enormously. I can do immense harm to our relationship if I go about it in the wrong way. With regard to points 4-8: I need to be really careful to think about what my own motivations are in these cases. What am I trying to accomplish? Am I trying to use guilt or shame in furtherance of some personal agenda? As with the relationship between me and my spouse: so with the relationship between me and the Church leadership. With regard to the intra-Church Brigham-hate, I think most of it comes from three distinct camps: A. Libertines who, on behalf of themselves or out of some warped notion of “love for others”, want to bring the Sexual Revolution into the church; but realize they can only do so by undermining the historical underpinnings of the current leadership’s moral authority. These people deserve contempt. B. Trauma-dumpers. Generally victims of abuse or infidelity (or very close to such victims), who as a coping/survival mechanism have adopted broad caricatures about the sort of people who perpetrate these misdeeds. These folks tend to get (and I don’t mean this pejoratively) triggered by superficial similarities between alleged conduct of JS/BY. Detailed arguments justifying JS/BY and explaining how their conduct and motives differed from actual predators, demands a re-opening and re-processing of old wounds and a certain embrace of empathy and nuance that many of these folks just aren’t willing (or, perhaps, therapeutically able) to undertake. They deserve pity (but to the extent that they perpetuate historical falsehoods, those must still be refuted). C. Populist-conservatives who have for various reasons (especially COVID) developed a new streak of anti-institutionalism and are still trying to reconcile that with the fastidious obedience (and often, brittle black-and-white thinking) that they’ve traditionally offered to the Church (eg, “Why would a prophet who can never be wrong demand that my family to take this 100% Satanic vaccine?”). I think a certain amount of historic-church-hate like this tends to soothe a lot of their concerns (“prophets CAN be wrong and things will still come out ok in the long run”); but I don’t think such people have really thought through the full ramifications of the historical allegations they’ve accepted as true, and I think that over time that mentality to some degree becomes a spiritual bandage that conceals tissue that is festering rather than healing. And I really don’t know how to deal with people in that mindset.

First off, the image of sticks representing the records of Judah and Joseph is a secondary interpretation. As with the previous chapter where the assembled bones serve as a testimony of resurrection, the primary message is that Israel and Judah will be reunited. That said, the two sticks as records fits better than bones as resurrection because the Book of Mormon (as stated by Nephi) is a precursor and a facilitator of that reconciliation. Now, on the point of the reliability of reading the sticks as books, it turns out that the word “wood” is far more versatile than you give it credit for. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filename=26&article=1011&context=mi&type=additionalhttps://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?filename=26&article=1011&context=mi&type=additional see the section on “What is an ‘Etz’?

General rule, if you did not initiate the phone/text/email contact it is fake. If you are concerned, disconnect from the conversation, look up the number for said entity and call that number and see if they are trying to reach you. Police don't call and tell you that you have a warrant and if you pay a fee you are good. We come get you and take you to jail.

Start doing your genealogy. You gonna find all kinds of interesting skeletons in the closet. Presumably, The genetic code of Adam and Eve were perfect, without mutation. One of the problems with incest is the expression of recessive alleles of genetic mutations. Not an issue. Do some research on genetic bottlenecks. Cheetahs are interesting. We think they had a bottleneck last ice age. Their species is so similar that they have 0.1 -4% of the genetic diversity found in most other species. They can donate and receive organs from each other without fear of rejection.

I feel on both sides of the increasingly zigzagging fence with this thread, so to be clear, let me state my understandings and opinions: The so-called Priesthood ban was instituted by the highest leadership in the Church, either Brigham Young or Joseph Smith. The Priesthood ban required a divine revelation to be removed. A simple "change in policy" was insufficient. In my opinion, God Himself was probably the Being with whom the Priesthood ban originated. I admit that it is possible that the Church's president (Smith or Young) made that decision on their own, but I disbelieve that. Assuming that God was the Author of the Priesthood ban, which is the default position and the one I tend to believe, I do not know why He instituted the ban. But the speculation as to "why" has some pretty evident answers, historically and scripturally. I am talking specifically about the now-disavowed* theories of why African blacks were excluded from holding the Priesthood and from post-baptismal temple blessings. The fact that those theories have been "disavowed" does not mean they have been proclaimed false. These answers may or may not have validity. They may be fundamentally right, or they may be totally wrong. The often-advanced claim that the theories have been disavowed by the Church, and therefore have been proclaimed to have been false, is itself false. In matters of scriptural interpretation, I tend to agree pretty closely with @Maverick. I have no problem owning the previous teachings of the Church. I feel not the least bit of shame or embarrassment over the Church's doctrines or actions, any more than I might somehow feel ashamed to own Jesus Christ. I am not ashamed. I stand with the prophets, even in my (and their) imperfections. In matters of current teachings, I fully accept the 1978 revelation (which, by the way, was received with great joy not only by my 15-year-old self, but by everyone in my family—and frankly by everyone in the Church that I knew). While I have no shame or guilt or any other foolish negativity toward the Church's previous teachings and practices, I rejoice that the long-promised day came in my lifetime, and even in my childhood/very young adulthood. I hold in contempt any opinions advanced by any party or "side" that suggest that Brigham Young or Joseph Smith or any other Church leaders were racist. When those opinions suggest that the racism of the leaders was the actual reason for the Priesthood ban, I consider that a disloyal and contemptible opinion, one for which I have zero respect. We really, actually, truly did live before this life. We lived for a very long time, much longer than the history of this earth. During that time we made decisions, and we progressed (or failed to progress) based on those decisions. We had our agency, and we exercised that agency. Exactly how this inarguable truth might interface with the Priesthood ban, I do not know, nor do I believe anyone else knows. But to think that our premortal life/lives and our decisions made in our premortal history can have no bearing on our station in this life beggars the imagination. I have no interest in arguing about the Priesthood ban. Rather, I have an intense interest in arguing for and defending the integrity of the prophets. To chalk the Priesthood ban up to prophetic ignorance or racism or stupidity or any other antiChrist motive is, in my view, dishonorable and disloyal. I will speak up against such heretical statements when I can. If people want to think that makes me a racist, I welcome the false accusation, and believe it will be heaped on the heads of the false accusers. If you think to damn me for "racism", you damn yourselves for your false witness. * "Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse, or that it reflects unrighteous actions in a premortal life; that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else."

This very, very anti-Trump stance is not uncommon among Latter-day saints (relatively speaking, depending on what one means by "common"). My wife has an uncle who sees things this way. There's a website called the Moroni Project that's about the same p.o.v. It's not unsurprising that a BYU professor sees things that way. I guess the thing I find strange is that they aren't flipping the same way over Kamala, Clinton (both of them), Obama, and Biden. All of them are just as "evil" as the next.

The thing is, we already have a federal program geared towards making sure that women, infants, and children have enough to eat. And that’s above and beyond a broader program of food stamps/TANF. The programs are not particularly well-administered, in my experience; but they do exist and they do work. Moreover, I’ve been a desperately poor parent[*]. I would venture to guess that a lot of folks—especially LDS folks, who are encouraged to start having children early—have been. I never resorted to crime. In that time of poverty it was my upbringing and values and social network, not my need, that determined my life choices. It’s certainly dangerous to over-generalize; but on the whole I don’t think people steal because they are hungry. Rather, I think they steal—and fail to succeed professionally—through a combination of entitlement, a lack of self-discipline, and a rejection of the possibility of (or the character traits, skills, and activities that enable) social mobility. That sounds like a moral judgment, and I don’t mean it to—a lot of folks, especially these days, just weren’t raised to know any better; and political/“community” leaders have tended to cater to and exacerbate these traits, rather than working and demanding accountability to see that those traits are extinguished. *EDIT: on a re-reading, what I should have written is “I’ve been desperately poor *as a* parent.” Though, I’m a pretty poor parent, too.

This is an idea I have pondered, and each time I ponder this type of thought I keep coming to the same verse of scripture and the same thought. John 15: 20, "Remember the word that I said unto you, The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you; if they have kept my saying, they will keep yours also." The sons and daughters of God who myopically focus on the fallibility of prophets, and constantly use this as a way of disobedience or enmity would have done the same with their Lord. There's a difference between understanding fallibility and being consumed by fallibility. Those consumed would have seen an "imperfect" Savior.

Maybe. But I see MGTOW as something far more insidious. Like feminism itself, MGTOW's foundational assumptions and claims are not completely specious; on the contrary, many such claims are exactly on the mark. This fact makes MGTOW, like feminism, more dangerous rather than more true. It's easy to see the excesses and evils of feminism. Just look around. It's not as easy to see the evils of MGTOW, because our society is not yet conditioned to look for them. We may be with MGTOW today at the point that feminism was with the US population in the 1960s, with a lot of people nodding and saying, "You know, they have a point." Feminism has proven to be one of the most malignant societal cancers of our time; much of the corruption and decadence of today's United States can be laid at feminism's door. MGTOW, if left unchecked and unchallenged, will be as cancerous as feminism, and might well complete the evil that feminism began: The dissolution of the relationship between men and women, and the resulting utter destruction of the family. This is and always has been feminism's ultimate goal. Honestly, MGTOW is no different. This is a bitter pill for me. I recognize the truths that MGTOW preaches, and some part of my mind and spirit rejoices that, finally, someone is willing to point and state openly that the emperor has no clothes. But mainstream MGTOWism is not merely a rejection of western feminism; it is a dismissal of the feminine altogether, a proclamation that women are nothing but vaginas to be used at will but never bonded to. Ironic, really. Modern feminism glorifies women as of inherent, intrinsic worth, requiring no other condition besides a vagina to be revered and protected, while MGTOW accepts the value of women as being that same vagina, and nothing more. It's easy to say that feminism brought MGTOW on itself, but that's like saying your skin cancer brought on the bone cancer, so good riddance to both. As alluring as MGTOWism might be to many men, it is not the correct response to modern feminism. It is ultimately a furthering of the same evil that feminism represents. We would never want our daughter or our sister or our wife or our mother to be treated as MGTOW often portrays. If we see women, even feminists, as sisters and daughters, we can perhaps see through MGTOW at what we should really be striving for.

There has been some really weird and undesirable traffic within the last 24 hours. I had to sleep but I'm back to working on it. But in the meantime, verification must stay on to keep the server up/functioning/responding at all till the "attack?" is mitigated.

For at least the last five years I've been concerned about the opposite problem--depopulation. Western Europe, Japan and S. Korea, the native-born population of the United States--these are all shrinking. A society needs 2.1 children per female to maintain population. S. Korea is at 0.72. Japan has been combatting the problem for a generation and is at 1.46. Singapore's government subsidizes matchmaking for educated females. The reality is that as countries reach middle income for the majority of its populations the birthrate drops. Now even secular media is starting to notice the trend. Articles are appearing stating that the lack of children is becoming a problem. Regardless, there are not enough good and godly children. Our moral duty is to have more, not fewer, children.

"I bear witness that when Christ comes, He needs to recognize us—not as nominal members listed on a faded baptismal record but as thoroughly committed, faithfully believing, covenant-keeping disciples. This is an urgent matter for all of us, lest we ever hear with devastating regret: “I never knew you,” or, as Joseph Smith translated that phrase, “[You] never knew me.” Fortunately, we have help for this task—lots of help. We need to believe in angels and miracles and the promises of the holy priesthood. We need to believe in the gift of the Holy Ghost, the influence of good families and friends, and the power of the pure love of Christ. We need to believe in revelation and prophets, seers, and revelators and President Russell M. Nelson. We need to believe that with prayer and pleading and personal righteousness, we really can ascend to “Mount Zion, … the city of the living God, the heavenly place, the holiest of all.” Brothers and sisters, as we repent of our sins and come boldly to the “throne of grace,” leaving before Him there our alms and our heartfelt supplications, we will find mercy and compassion and forgiveness at the benevolent hands of our Eternal Father and His obedient, perfectly pure Son. Then, with Job and all the refined faithful, we will behold a world “too wonderful” to understand. In the name of Jesus Christ, amen." -President Jeffery R. Holland, April 2024 General Conference.

My mother is a resident alien... She has her green card and everything. I have no problem with immigration and those that want to come here and make a better life for themself. I also know that our current system for legal immigration is a horrible mess of a bureaucratic nightmare which needs a massive overhaul. So I have a great deal of sympathy for those that more or less just skip it out of frustration/confusion or what ever. I understand the the basic drive of a choice between a of hard, cumbersome, expensive, legal way vs cheap, easy, fast, illegal way. Now I hear a lot about fixing the second option aka make it harder (walls, cameras, guards, more ICE enforcement etc.) which I generally support but I hear nothing from either party about fixing the first option. That is where I think we need to be focusing. If we make the legal option more viable, more attractive, more doable... Then the second option start losing its appeal to the people we want immigrating. We will still need to make the second option harder because that will still be the only option for criminals/terrorists but if the first option is improved it makes it harder for them to hide among the good people that we want.

Then you are blind. Apart from many third-world countries (mostly in Africa) and some Middle Eastern nations, all nations have decreased their fertility rates in just this past generation. Many are now below replacement levels (2.1). This includes the United States (1.7 -- down from 2023 @ 1.8). That is only that high because of the presence of LDS and Amish. Take us out and it is 1.6. South Korea (0.7) will be dead in four or five generations unless they turn around. And before that, their economy will crumble just as the second generation grows into adulthood. Also keep in mind that those countries with higher birth rates also tend to be ones in which they have a high pre-adult mortality rate. The global fertility rate is 2.3. And the required rate for stability is also 2.3. But the fertility rate is dropping in ALL nations. That is an imminent threat to human survival by lack of procreation.

I don’t see this as a problem, actually. 1) The ban was always temporary in nature and if delaying its implementation meant that a couple of specific people who God wanted to wield the priesthood were able to wield it—for however limited a time—then I don’t see that as a problem. 2) Even if Abel’s and Lewis’s ordinations were mistakes from the get-go: the restoration was by its nature incremental; and (as JS told BY when discussing the endowment) some of the things Joseph Smith “set up” were not yet complete/correct in all their particulars. Smith was certainly a “prophet’s prophet”, but that didn’t make him infallible or make his teachings or practices immune to further development after his death.

When reviewing Jesus Christ’s final week. I was amazed at how often Christ would make a statement and the apostles would totally mis-understand him. And, that Jesus would not correct their misassumptions. This is a pattern that occurs throughout the scriptures. Retrospectively, many of the best learned lessons are when we make a mistake, realize the harm caused and then go through the process of repentance and reconciliation. We are not intended to go through this life perfectly. Why would we expect our current Church leadership to act perfectly? Is it OK for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints to make mistakes? Do we have to understand the mind of God in order to follow him? I sure hope not.

I think a lot of times we miss the point of the Book of Job. I suspect there was a real person named Job; but the story of Job is merely an envelope—a tortilla shell for the meaty taco that is the book’s philosophical meditations and arguments. When you really dig into it—after the first chapter or two, Job is neither patient nor uncomplaining. Ironically, while He doesn’t question God’s righteousness (as he understands the term “righteousness”), Job sort of does suggest that maybe God isn’t quite omniscient—that God must have gotten His facts messed up to be punishing him, Job, for sins that Job is sure he didn’t commit. Basically, Job & Co are coming from the mindset that “God always rewards the innocent and punishes the guilty; and if someone is having a hard time, it’s because they sinned”. Job’s friends jump to the position that “you must have sinned”. Job himself basically maintains that “yes, that’s how it’s supposed to work; but I’m quite sure I didn’t sin and I’m sure God’s motives are righteous; God has just made a factual mistake about my righteousness, and if He would just talk to me we could sort this all out”. God basically comes in and says “Job is right that he hasn’t sinned and is right to stand by My righteousness. But none of you drips know anything about how My punishment or My justice work, and your puny minds wouldn’t understand it if I explained it to you.” Scholars who accept a later date for the current text of Job often see it as a subversive book; pushing back against Deutero-Isaiah’s concept of God’s immediate and unvarying rewards for the righteous and punishment for the sinful.

I'm appreciating the back and forth. I don't think a nation can survive without contentious-but-still-civil debate going on, and I'm grateful Thirdhour allows it. Wanted to address this one: The last time I checked, both sides were pretty clearly in agreement about some things. The left holds women in a class of historically marginalized people who have had to fight for centuries to gain things like laws that don't treat them as property, the right to do things like own property and vote. Last I checked (which was last week actually), there were still plenty of folks on the left valuing women's safe spaces, the right to live a life without fear, etc. So from that perspective, let's take a moment to look at this fun vid made by all the biological men invading the Capitol hill women's room in the last day or two, to protest banning men in women's rest rooms. I hear a bunch of 'em got arrested. https://x.com/libsoftiktok/status/1864517663155999053 Anyway, your accusation has validity. We talk a lot about men invading women's spaces, but not so much the other way around. Yeah, we pay pretty much zero attention to protecting men's spaces, etc. Because a woman heading into a men's room will be, 99 out of 100 times, more vulnerable and more prone to being in danger than the men. And while bio men winning in girls/women's sports has become such a thing that the United Nations finally took a stand against it, a biological woman trying to compete in boys/men's sports, will probably not win the trophy. In short, of course this isn't a two sided coin. Men are stronger and more aggressive than women. We can take care of ourselves. Men are stronger than women. They don't belong in women's rest rooms. From my perspective, you gotta ignore a lot of very common sense science in order to think of this in terms of a two sided coin. Of course, when we're talking minors, the gender disparity disappears. I do not want this female-to-male person going into the boy's bathroom. Us grown ups can have grown up debates all day about the issue, but I'll be resisting the cultural indoctrination and forced-confusion policies like letting boys or girls go into each other's bathrooms, for as long as I hold breath.

From the handbook:

This is cherry picking. Or it shows you haven't actually read the OT. A parent loves his children (as a desire and sentiment for good to be in their lives and for them to gain Eternal Life) whether they are behaving well or not. A parent loves his children when he needs to punish them and correct them. Yet there were many instances of God's mercy being abundant in the OT. Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden. But He gave them coats of skins. He gave them the Law of Sacrifice. He gave them a plan to work out their repentance. While the flood took most of the earth, He showed mercy to Noah and his family because they were righteous. When the Israelites were enslaved by an unfamiliar Pharoah, He gave them a deliverer who provided manna in the wilderness and water from a rock. When cursed with serpents, He provided them a miraculous way to be healed. He gave Hannah a son who was faithful to her and to the Lord. He gave Abraham blessings and an everlasting covenant for his faithfulness. Ruth and Boaz were united in a fairy tale romance. Daniel and his friends were preserved in the midst of a hostile takeover of the nation. They were even raised in the King's court because of the Lord's blessings. He gave them a promise of a Messiah. The Widow of Zarapeth was blessed twice by a Prophet of God. As Israel returned to their homeland, they were given a king (Cyrus) who freed them from slavery and would allow them to openly practice their religion in peace. He saved entire groups of people to live the gospel in its fulness (Lehites, Mulekites, Jaredites). It's easy to say that He was always fire and brimstone. But that is because you haven't actually read the OT. And if you compare (supposedly) 4000 years of OT history with 100 yrs of NT history, you're getting a skewed view. Because of wickedness, the power of the Priesthood was taken away from the earth. And the world endured over 1000 years of darkness. And then we also have the Book of Revelation.

Personality and revenge issues aside, I'm often appalled at European reactions to free speech. (Note: Free speech does not include libelous statements or intentionally rousing a mob riot.) I have heard many Europeans, Brits and Germans in particular, insist that they have free speech, and then immediately start explaining why this or that (e.g. Holocaust denial) isn't really a matter of free speech. I heard a couple of Brits on a YT channel talking about anti-homosexuality ("homophobic" was their word) activists in the US being forcibly silenced. Their response was, "Well, good. That sort of speech is offensive, and no one should be allowed to say it." That was the same time period that I heard an online German apologist say, literally, "We have free speech in Germany. Of course we do. You just can't talk about Hitler or say the Holocaust wasn't real." SMH. The frightening part for us Americans is that there is a sizeable contingent (still a minority, at least for now) that agrees with these ideas about so-called "free" speech.

I readily concede there is some real wisdom in this. But this idea seems often to be taken to the point of saying, in essence, "Don't worry about who's right and who's wrong. Just do whatever it takes to keep the peace." This is a recipe for long-term, unavoidable disaster. At some level, right and wrong have to be considered, and outcomes must be based on that judgment.

I think you'll find that if you ask any three Americans, you'll get four different opinions. Here's mine: - Biden demonstrated he was in serious cognitive decline during the Biden/Trump debate, and the calls for him to get out of the race grew and spread and eventually won. The Dem's best pick to run is Veep Kamala Harris. She's gone like 35+ days without giving a single interview. I hear they finally scheduled one, pre-recorded, with the always-left-leaning CNN. She won't be alone, she'll be with her Veep pick. It's like they're afraid to let her just be interviewed and show it live. - Yes, Trump survived an assassination attempt, with the bullet coming within a few centimeters of making his head explode. He's energized much of his base with his immediate show of strength. We don't know how to react to such things, as the last time this happened was with Reagan in the 1980's. The shooter is something of a question mark, but with more left/democrat-leaning stuff on his social media. It's hard to figure out why he did it. No manifesto, not much more history of yelling about politics than a lot of normal people. - Trump was convicted of multiple felonies, brought by a New York district attorney who got elected by promising to find something, anything upon which he could charge Trump. An awful lot more legal and criminal cases are all reaching nexus, as folks have carefully timed the charges and suits to coincide with the presidential campaign. We're seeing the dawning of a new word: "Lawfare". Trump ran on draining the swamp, the swamp is certainly fighting back hard. Another one got filed a day or two ago, I'm not seeing it make much news, I think we're all on news overload. - Harris is facing an uphill battle. Millions of illegal immigrants entered the US on her watch. Democrat run sanctuary cities like Denver having problems, like the Venezuelan Tren de Aragua gang setting up shop in a Denver suburb. And Boston is using so many resources to bus illegal children to school, that American children go without bussing. She once called Trump's border wall "un-American", now she's showing some of his wall in some of her campaign ads, promising to get tough on immigration. The left got hysterical when Trump's immigration policies had 545 illegal immigrant children slip through the cracks. We now learn in her 4 years, 290,000 illegal immigrant children have slipped through the cracks. Her administration is also flipping from years of no-fracking to yes-fracking, hoping to win some swing states that drill a lot. - The US culture is recovering from several years of being coerced into believing men can be women and vice versa. We were told "if you don't affirm your child's gender identity they'll kill themselves. You can either have an alive son or a dead daughter". The horrible consequences are slowly dawning on us as sex offender prisoners identifying as female get put into female prisons and assault female prisoners. Every day there's a new story of a young person trying to detransition back to their biological sex, and discovering they're now lifelong medical patients who may be permanently infertile. Every day a new story about minors put on puberty blockers, sometimes without parent's knowledge. Sometimes with only a 1 hour doctor's consultation. Also, more and more of us are dumping the marxist-inspired DEI nonsense. - Related to DEI and culture is the disturbingly large amount of antisemitism on college campuses. The student protests are bad enough, but there's also several disturbing instances of antisemitism in the school leadership. Colleges and universities are one thing, but it's also cropping up in public grade schools. Anyway, I blame the left for all the bad, and I hope to see a resurgence of principled constitutional conservatives, usually homed somewhere on the right. I'm voting Trump.

Went to the first ultra sound this week with the wife. Pregnancy didn't feel real up until this point, but seeing the baby wriggle around so much was completely mesmerising and has filled me with joy. It's hard to imagine that in about 6 months I'll be responsible for another human being.

There is a sister in our ward who is an empty-nester widow. He husband died just a couple of years ago. Her youngest son who was watching over her finally got married and moved out last year. I had befriended him while he lived here. I was sorry to see him go. But we still text each other. As you can imagine she was quite upset at finally being on her own with no one to talk to or watch over her. She has a friend in the ward in much the same situation, so the two of them kind of kept each other company from time-to-time. I wasn't her ministering brother. But she just seemed to latch on to me as a surrogate son while at church. I make it a point to give her a watermelon each year. As of a couple weeks ago I realized that I had not seen her at church for a while. When I asked around, I found out she was hospitalized. So, I called her son to see what the situation was. She had something resembling a stroke. It turned out it was brought on by two brain tumors. After her son gave me her location (a care facility in the next town over) my wife and I decided to make it our date night activity to go visit her. She was really upbeat and happy to see us. We had a nice conversation about all that had happened, and bits and pieces of her life. She had had lots of visitors. She's now part of a different ward that covers the location of the care facility. So, visitors from both wards came to see her. That was cool to hear. The most surprising thing she told us was her end-of-life planning. She was offered chemo, and she had to ask, "how much will that buy me?" Two or three months. "You want me to be miserable for the 6 to 12 months I've got, just to buy me two months? Forget that." Yes, she's pretty strong-willed like that. We talked about what she was going to do with her time. She gave us some thoughts she had had. I suggested that she write her memoir for posterity. She talked about her hands. She was born left-handed. But in those days schools forced everyone to write with their right hand. So, for all her life she was a clumsy writer. She never practiced enough with her left hand to get good. And she was never going to write well with her right hand. But after the stroke, she found that she was right-handed. She could write now. She believed that it was a sign that she should write something and believed my suggestion was inspired. She's got 6-12 months to live and she's really happy about it. She really can't wait to get her memoir done. And she is really looking forward to her final rest. I reckon that among her final words in this world will be to tell someone, "I'll see you soon."

You're asking us to explain things God himself chooses not explain: I was going to quote part of this, but now I'm thinking you should just read from Chapter 17 of Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, the section titled "We are eternal beings; we can advance toward exaltation as we obey the laws of God." The truth is not to be found in "good arguments" one way or the other. Those all come from fallen mankind who, really, aren't all that smart as a whole. It is the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, who teaches and testifies of truth. God has intentionally kept many things from us because one thing is most important: the gospel of Jesus Christ. Whether there are many worlds or one world, many universes or none, a beginning (which is far more absurd than the incomprehensible idea of no beginning) or only eternity, those facts will not lead you back to God. (I am not suggesting one be satisfied only with the knowledge one currently has, nor only with what's currently contained in scripture, but I am suggesting that without the Spirit, there is no knowledge, and the philosophies and "arguments" of man are foolishness to God.) In other words, seek the Spirit. If you aren't sure how to do that: 1. Read the Book of Mormon every day. 2. Start with the most recent General Conference talk by President Nelson, study it, implement it in your life, then move back to the previous one. Lather, rinse, repeat.

On the other hand, if your 70-year-old mother had voluntarily donated her basement as a place for goons to keep their Jewish sex slave . . . We have a strong western tradition of at least giving lip service to the distinction between civilian and military; and the notion that a populace is often not accountable for the acts of its government. But when you see the public opinion polls about the number of Palestinians (and Palestinian supporters in Europe and the USA) who support the 10/7 attacks . . . I don’t know. It makes me reconsider the OT conquest narratives. Could it be that sometimes, an entire culture is simply beyond rehabilitation/reconciliation; and for the sake of self defense, all that’s left to do is to give them the most humane death your resources permit?

Sounds like Eli Herring. https://www.deseret.com/2015/4/29/20563855/20-years-later-blessed-herring-believes-he-made-right-decision-not-to-play-in-nfl/ From the above interview you can see he had no regrets. I was on the BYU track and field team with him back in the early ‘90s. He was a heck of a good shot putter too. And his eating prowess was awe-inspiring. Doing the right thing always pays off.

I do not believe this. Especially for men who work a professional job, the virtue of living within one's means is almost universally available.

We got another one. My wife was following him prior to his baptism. He loved the temple open houses. Our clear communication. And Robins (the birds).

Well, while many sections of the D&C have links in the "Related Content" pane for "Revelations in Context", this one only has it indirectly (see here), so apparently we don't know much about what led to receiving D&C 93. But, what if the paragraphination is wrong (or misleading)? Verses 29-35, re-paragraphinated: 1. Man was with God in the beginning, also ("also" because the preceding verses talked about how Christ was with God in the beginning). 2. There is a thing called [truth]. This thing has a light and we call this "light of truth" [intelligence]. [Intelligence] wasn't made and can't be made. 3. [Truth] is independent within the sphere in which God placed it. [Truth] can act. 4. [Intelligence, the light of truth] is also independent (really? independent from [truth]?) and free to act for itself within the sphere in which God has place it. 5. Were [truth] and [intelligence] not free to act within their spheres, there would be no existence. (Hmm.) 6. Men have agency because of these things. 7. Men are condemned when they refuse to receive the light (presumably [intelligence, the light of truth]). (This doesn't sound like "intelligence" === "the pre-spirit form of man" - how can you refuse to receive what you originally were?) 8. Man is spirit. (No qualifiers. No time mentioned. Perhaps we are and always have been spirits and our "spirit birth" was by ordinance and covenant with God so that we could progress. I'm not entirely comfortable with this idea, but I'm not entirely uncomfortable with it either. Just yesterday, another member (on X) explained that it was B. H. Roberts who formulated the intelligence > spirit > mortal paradigm that we now embrace, and asserted that he did it to reconcile Brigham Young's insistence that our spirits are conceived and born just as mortals are conceived and born. I haven't had time to research this to learn where, nor to learn more about what Joseph Smith actually taught, such as this simple sentence right here. In response to your OP, I went looking through the Scripture Citation Index for Abraham 3:22 and D&C 93:29, and the overwhelming perception, when "intelligences" were referenced (as opposed to the council in heaven) was that "intelligence" is synonymous with "spirit" in that verse. And actually, only one reference from then-Elder Nelson hinted otherwise. I think it best to keep one's beliefs flexible in this regard.) 9. Spirit and element can be combined and when "inseparably connected" (clearly suggests the resurrection), receive a fulness of joy. 10. All elements (matter?) are the tabernacle (aka temple) of God, including man. (Interesting. We believe God to be an exalted man, and yet all the elements everywhere, presumably, are His tabernacle. Hmm.) 11. Defiled temples (aka tabernacles) will be destroyed. Those seem to be the primary points from that set of verses. Now let's backtrack to verses 21-28. 12. Christ was in the beginning with the Father and is the "Firstborn". 13. Those begotten through Christ are partakers of "the glory of the same" - wait, what? The same what? All I can figure is that they are partakers of "the glory of the Firstborn" - hence, "and are the church of the Firstborn". So, were our spirits "begotten through Christ"? Or is this what we're here to do - get begotten through Christ, become His sons and daughters by covenant? (The second seems more consistent with my understanding, but what do I know?) (One can see where all the scriptures which talk about us becoming sons (and daughters) of Christ can suggest that becoming the children of God was also a covenant process...) 14. Prequel to the fact that we also were in the beginning with the Father (or does "Ye" refer to someone specific? "You" was used previously... ). The semi-colon confuses me in this bit: "that which is Spirit, even the Spirit of truth" - what does that refer to? Is it our spirits, if so, why capitalized? Is it God? Are we "the Spirit of truth"? This clause leaves me nothing but puzzled, always has. 15. Ah, here we have a definition of [truth]: things as they were, are, and will be. 16. Anything other than [truth] is "the spirit of [Lucifer]" 17. The "Spirit of truth" that confuses me in item #14 is of God. Jesus Christ is the "Spirit of truth". Now that phrase mentioned in 14 confuses me more, unless perhaps it's referring to God - if Christ is the "Spirit of truth" then I expect God is, too.... It's like a subject, object, or verb is missing from that paragraph! 18 John bore record that Christ received a fulness of all truth by keeping the commandments. 19. If you keep the commandments, you will receive [truth: knowledge of things as they were, are, and will be] and [light] (is this the light of truth, aka intelligence, or another light?), until you are glorified (see #13) in [truth] and know all things. My conclusion is as follows: 1) Don't get addicted to the "intelligence > spirit > mortal" paradigm. It might be correct, but it might not be. 2) Don't assume every instance of "intelligence" means the same thing, let alone "the pre-spirit form of mankind". 3) Mortal languages cannot correctly communicate many of the things found in the D&C, such as these from section 93. Therefore, one must study, reason, and then ask God to clarify where you understand correctly and where you are wrong. One must repeat this ad infinitum until one has received a fulness of all truth. It might take a few thousand years... 4) Keeping the commandments will speed item #3. (Failure to keep them will drastically hinder #3.) FWIW.

If you’re interested in the history of ordaining young men to the Aaronic Priesthood, you may enjoy reading From Men to Boys, LDS Aaronic Priesthood Offices, 1829-1996, by William G. Hartley (pages 80-136). As for the duties falling by the wayside, I agree that deacons are not given many opportunities for exhortation (except once or twice a year when they’re asked to give a sermon in sacrament meeting) but teachers fulfill their duties through ministering. I remember doing so at 14 and it still continues today.

I think your missing the point of the jab. Nice or not, he's saying absolutely horrible things of those who like Trump here. Claiming they worship Trump instead of Christ? That a downright despicable accusation and an extremely underhanded attack. And yet, I agree with you. I don't think he despises anyone. Which is why I made the jab. Because it should be obvious to anyone not afflicted by derangement that those who like Trump here do not despise anyone either.

@Gecko45, you have come to the right place. I am of pure European Jewish descent and a faithful member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You've descended down a rabbit hole that goes into a very dark place, and I hope you can extricate yourself. My ancestors are among the generations of Jews who have suffered and died because of these beliefs. First, let's talk about "Jews." Ethnically, Jews are the descendants of people who lived in Judea after the 10 tribes living in the ancient northern kingdom of Israel were carried away into Assyria. If you are an Ephraimite, then you are still descended from a brother of Judah, Joseph. Most of the inhabitants of Judea were of the tribes of Judah, Benjamin (the smallest tribe), and Levi (temple servants). People nowadays with last names like Cohen, Kahn, and the like have some background in the tribe of Levi, for example. Lehi, however, would have been considered Jewish because he was from Judea. The Book of Mormon centers the guilt for Christ's death on the Jews at Jerusalem (2 Nephi 10:5), exonerating all other Jews. At the time, there were a HUGE number of Jews in the diaspora, including about 1 million in the Egyptian/Greek city of Alexandria, Egypt. That said, the world has considered all Jews as Christ-killers, and there lies the central problem for Jews to be safe. The Lord has seen fit to allow pogroms and mass killing of Jews through the centuries, but He also judges the world in part by their treatment of Jews. Jewishness has always been judged as an ethnicity and not just a religion. When this happens (as you are doing), it condemns all Jews and people of Jewish descent by race, which is anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitism has all sorts of excuses for hatred of the Jews, many of which you have named. There are lots more, causing anti-Semitism in both the leftist and rightist movements in the US. Hitler actually conducted a census with 4 columns (among others) for identifying grandparents as Jewish or not. One Jewish grandparent qualified a person for the death camps. Interestingly, coming censuses in the US require all Americans of Jewish descent to no longer list themselves as white. I have always been White on various documents all my life, but now (even though I'm very fair-skinned), I must list my ethnicity/race as MENA (Middle East/North Africa). This change seems to justify Zionism and exonerate Jews of being invaders of their own ancient land, but I can't see any good in it. Although descendants of Jacob/Israel originated in the Holy Land, more recent locations have separated them into 3 ethnic groups--Ashkenazi (European), Sephardi (ejected from Spain), and Mizrachi (Middle Eastern Jews). Another interesting thing is that America's standard list of ethnicities contains no Jewish groups at all. As a religion, Judaism is not at all monolithic. The main groups are Ultra-Orthodox, Orthodox, Conservative, Reformed, and Humanistic Jews, from most religious to least. Two main things might increase your understanding. 1) The Law of Moses' purpose was to separate Israel from pagan people to keep them pure. This has isolated Jews (sometimes by choice) into their own separated villages and neighborhoods, especially because of the law to walk fewer than 1,000 steps to reach a synagogue. This separateness has caused rumors and suspicions to rage at various times among non-Jews. The Law of Moses also forbade Jews from entering certain professions but also approved of certain professions abhorred by Orthodox Christians (such as physiology and banking). These things have increased anti-Semitism. 2) There is very little information in the Tanakh (Old Testament) about an afterlife. Because of this, Jews focus very hard on mortality and improving the mortal experience. Whereas a Christian might concern himself about spending eternity in hell if he runs a porn site, there is no such concern in Judaism. It's also very easy to be an agnostic or atheistic Jew (like my father, who was a very moral, kind astrophysicist) because you are still a traditional or ethnic Jew.

Two semi-random observations: 1) Sanderson has “to-heck-with-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on” kind of money. He doesn’t have to write a dadgum thing that he doesn’t want to write. 2) There is currently something of a minor reformation going on at BYU. Whether Sanderson is still employed there when the dust settles, is anyone’s guess.

So, that's my thing. Yes, these horrible people exist. My point is that calling them right or extreme right or alt-right is silly and dumb and misses what the right is about. I figure the left wants to paint these folks as somehow associated with me and mine, so they apply the labels. I figure these folks themselves are running off of ignorance, fear, and hate, and know pretty much nothing about conservatism, so they don't bother to reject the labels. I reject the label. I don't recognize any of these people as "mine". They're not on my side of the fence. The stuff they're advocating for, I'm against. They're not more extreme versions of me. I realize my voice is in the minority here, but the entire world and all the media and talking heads and opiners and folks with opinions are wrong here, and I'm correct. Or more to the point, Plato and his theory of forms is more correct. A chair has 4 legs, a seat, a backrest, and maybe armrests. Once it replaces one of it's legs with a desire for Trump to torture immigrants, or it's backrest with a policy to imprison transgender people based on their speech, it ceases being a chair. Agreed, and me neither. My point is: When the right gets extreme it doesn't go fascist or authoritarian - it turns into a conspiracy nut flying a flag and waving a shotgun out of his 2nd story window demanding to be left alone. When the left gets extreme they go fascist and authoritarian - because you need power and government force at your back to implement the changes you want. Jordan Peterson's comments on the American right and left are pretty on point, and I think you might agree: JordanPetersonOnDiversity.MP4 You're absolutely correct when you talk in your other post about how hard it is to avoid arguing from the extremes. I think you can already guess the answer to most of these, but for the record: - Fighting radical gender theory in our schools mean administrators need to come up with and defend a policy that gives the most amount of benefit and the least amount of harm. I'm not a huge fan of school administrators, and I'm certainly not willing to defend extreme examples. But I understand the position they are in, and you should also. - The vast, vast, VAAAAAAAAST majority of abortions being elective, and medically necessary abortions number in perhaps maybe what, a dozen a year? With most of those coming with a host of preceding problems like addictions and bad choices. The last 3 media-boosted horror stories about women having to flee to another state for their "life-saving care" that I looked into, failed to hold up under scrutiny into the personal details. One was plain old elective with the chick just lying on social media and getting called out by people who knew her. The other two were women who got themselves into a life-risk situation with their fringey and unsupportable medical opinions that put them in risk because they didn't believe in things like well-baby checkups or taking their prenatal vitamins. My advice here is for you to be highly skeptical whenever you hear the claim "I can't get life-saving care because of my state's abortion laws". 99 times out of 100, it's untrue and boosted by the agenda driven. Find me the 10 states with most restrictive laws, and I'll find you their exceptions for rape/incest/life of the mother/viability of the child. - As for poor workers and rich employers, I'll remind you of my earlier comments. You have to identify anywhere in recorded human history where there hasn't been an accumulation of the most by the few. Everywhere. All the time. USSR and their elites with their dachas. Communist China and their supreme leaders with all the power living in golden palaces. The plains Indians right before the colonizers showed up, with their chiefs having all the women and first pick of the best food. Everywhere. All the time. The glory of capitalism and modern conservatism is people have the greatest amount of choice to improve their personal situations through individual effort. Better than socialism. Better than any other -ism. Corruption and evil seeps in everywhere, with every system. Your dreams of some utopia will never, NEVER come to play, because you're dealing with humans, and humans will work in their self-interest, sometimes in evil and horrible and murderous ways, no matter what the system. Capitalism is as fatally flawed as all the rest, but as someone who has lived on food stamps as a child, my life has afforded much more opportunity to gain advantages and resources and privilege than most other places in the world. And so has yours. And so have all the historically marginalized groups with special problems we all hear about. Yes, it's good that an immigrant can use his brain power to build a car and then shoot it into space. And it's good that we have education and job training and endless resources for anyone on food stamps who wants a better life for themselves. That's very, very good. Right?

Is incest per se evil? I think not. It's just defined as sexual relations between "close relatives". I don't understand why this idea would even possibly be considered objectionable. In addition, Adam and Eve were the first man and first woman, where we are defining "man" and "woman" as, essentially, Adam and Eve and their progeny. We are all children of Adam and Eve, meaning they show up in everyone's ancestry. But (non-doctrinally, same caveats as Carb gave) that does not mean that Adam and Eve were the first Homo sapiens to walk the earth, or that they were the only Homo sapiens on the planet. The scriptures make a big deal about So-and-so being a literal descendant of Noah. Whu...? How is that a distinguishing characteristic, if everyone died in the Flood except for Noah and his family? And more to the point: If someone was not a lineal descendant of Noah, who were his ancestors? I understand that many Saints in the past and even today harbor suspicion and doubt (or outright rejection) of what they consider to be the dangerously false idea of organic evolution. I will just point out that, if we accept a wider interpretation than the so-called literal interpretation of Genesis (which is nothing of the sort), then Adam and Eve and the garden in Eden can be fitted very nicely with the precepts and literality of organic evolution of human beings. Some are threatened by this idea, and that's fine. The leaders of God's kingdom have not seen fit to instruct everyone to accept organic evolution, or any other scientific theory or model that I can think of, so at this point it's pretty clearly not an overtly spiritual issue. But when we get into weird discussions like "Adam's and Eve's children must have intermarried, brother and sister! Ewwwww!", I think it's time to take a step back and clear our heads.

Yes. The current narrative, which is frighteningly enough widely shared among the Saints (!!), is that the Priesthood ban was instituted by Brigham Young because Brigham Young was a racist and had hateful feelings toward black people. If you suggest that Joseph Smith instituted the ban, that pushes the onus back a generation and threatens many people's rosy view of the Prophet Joseph Smith. For some bizarre reason, many Saints who would feel threatened by overt personal moral criticism of Joseph Smith don't mind at all when such criticism is applied to Brigham Young. However that may be, the evidence that Brother Brigham (a Yankee) considered racially black people to be children of God and subjects of salvation is much too overwhelming for any reasonable person to deny. The fact that President Young himself, in discussing the Priesthood ban, openly said that the ban was a temporary measure that would one day be lifted seems to be forgotten in the rush to judgment and condemnation. I stand with Brigham Young, and I stand against any who would suggest that he was "racist" or that his "racist motivations" were at the root of the Priesthood ban. I believe that the Priesthood ban was instituted by God for good and sufficient reasons, reasons to which I am not privy and on which I do not speculate.

I cannot begin to say how men are, but I can tell you that at least in my generation (I'm in my 50s), women are really hard on themselves and never feel like they are doing / have done enough. Assuming this works with men1, then yes, absolutely. It does seem that encouraging further good effort works better than discouraging bad behavior. 1Not everyone is motivated in the same ways or by the same things, and I have no idea the degree to which this is individual, gender-based, and/or generational. I only know what does and does not motivate me (and most of the motivational efforts I've observed and been subjected to annoy me more than motivate me).

That was the case 3 decades ago and before. IMO, that's about the time it started to change, but maybe a little earlier or later, perhaps depending on region. In the past decade, Church leaders have explicitly said this was not the case and encouraged all adult members to prepare for and receive their endowment. Absolutely not true. I was endowed a few years before I had any prospect of marriage. Also, see above. I don't know how or why it became the norm not to be endowed until you were preparing for a mission or marriage, but those days are long past. i. Yeah, OK, but there are plenty of blessings to be had regardless of marital status. And I don't think I've ever been to an endowment session in my life where there weren't a lot more women present than men - often with the "extra" women sitting on the men's side - in separate rows, at the back (just to separate the women from the men somehow while still allowing all who wished to attend). ii. Smack those men. Way to show confidence in a sister's ability to remain faithful. Way to show confidence in repentance and grace. I'm gonna go look for that GC talk I remember encouraging everyone to get endowed...

My views on this subject have changed a great deal. Most of my change of mind and heart have come because of numerous times I have been will someone as they have died. One of the most profound experiences was the death of my father. For 6 months I had reserved a day to leave work early to take care of my father. It amounted to washing, feeding, ministering prescriptions, visiting and putting him to bed. It was difficult to get him to eat a proper diet and take his prescriptions. My advice to anyone else taking end of life care is do not worry about what they want to or do not want to eat and if they do not want to take any medications – do not force it upon them. My father died a very peaceful death, and it was a profound spiritual experience to be with him at his passing. I have also been giving aid to someone critically injured in an accident. I have deliberately lied, telling them that everything would be okay. That everything was under control (bleeding is stopped) and that paramedics would be there soon and that I would stay with them. Scripture (Book of Mormon) tells us that there is a time to live and a time to die. I do not know of any way we can know for sure when the time is for anyone to die – unless the spirit reveals it so. This is a time that we have advanced medical possibilities but also a time when the power of the priesthood is throughout the world and most available to the saints. I have witnessed the preservation of life through the priesthood, and I have also witnessed a blessing of comfort in death. It was an honor to bless my parents with my worthy brothers in the moments before his death. If I am to add anything to this thread – I would suggest that a priesthood anointing and blessing to honor the dying during their mortal conclusion is one of our church’s greatest blessings to its covenant saints. There is no greater ministering honor that I have experienced. The Traveler

Erm . . . I’m white, and I trace my Israelitish ancestry through Ephraim, and I’ve *never* demanded the Lord apologize for His earlier policy of giving the priesthood to Levites and withholding it from my people. I’ve never expected Orthodox Jews to apologize for it, either.

Hearing our German exchange student talk about what is and isn’t allowed there is chilling,

No matter who wins, I promise to be crotchety and cantankerous and mad, because of this: Neither side is doing anything besides talk about that. Both sides will make the problem worse. Nobody's calling anyone out on it, because both sides are equally as guilty.

The topic of godhood is fascinating. Even from an Evangelical/Pentecostal perspective, the belief that we shall live for eternity, that we shall rule and reign with Christ, that we are becoming holy (progressive sanctification for theology buffs) all leads me to believe that we have undersold and undertaught the spiritual growth we are supposed to embrace. My guess is that those Evangelicals (and Fundamentalists) who come here to debate may desire to emphasize differences, but I fear we lose something in doing so. Ironically, in daily life LDS present as unpretentious and loathe to encourage any type of spiritual pride.

D&C 19:6-12 Gives a pertinent definition to the words endless and eternal. The same likely applies to the word infinite. I think that Jesus Christ’s Atonement applies to those pre-mortal spirits that heard the question, “Who shall I send?” - Abraham 3:27. Of course, this could lead one to assume that there might be an infinite amount of infinite atonements. Where was there ever a son without a father? and where was there ever a father without first being a son? Whenever did a tree or anything spring into existence without a progenitor? - History, 1838–1856, volume F-1 [1 May 1844–8 August 1844], p. 103, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed June 16, 2024, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-1838-1856-volume-f-1-1-may-1844-8-august-1844/109 🎵 If you could hie to kolob 🎵 ♾️