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I'm a heartland model believer. The topic is interesting but not pertinent to my salvation.

A well-regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” infringe [inˈfrinj] VERB infringed (past tense) actively break the terms of (a law, agreement, etc.). "making an unauthorized copy would infringe copyright" synonyms: contravene · violate · transgress · break · breach · commit a breach of · [more] VERB infringed (past participle) actively break the terms of (a law, agreement, etc.). "making an unauthorized copy would infringe copyright" synonyms: contravene · violate · transgress · break · breach · commit a breach of ·

How are those things appropriate subjects for advocacy? I can only assume he is meaning this from the perspective of the First Amendment; otherwise, it is a sincerely concerning statement. President Oaks is a lawyer, and many of his pronouncements are best understood through that lens. In saying what he did, President Oaks was not promoting those positions as worthy. He was merely stating that such subjects were (as he said) appropriate for addressing in a manner of advocacy. Other examples of advocacy-appropriate topics might include universal basic income, nationalized health care, and shale oil production. You don't have to be for or against any of those topics to recognize that they are "appropriate subjects for advocacy." Apparently I missed that statement back in June. Regardless, where are the Brethren coming up with confirmation that George Floyd's death, in addition to police brutality, was for sure an incident of racism? Please note that no Apostle has made a public statement affirming that George Floyd was killed for reasons of race. (Unless one slipped by me, which I'm quite sure didn't happen, or we all would have heard about it incessantly.) They kept things rather generic—"recent events of racism"—without naming anything specific. This may seem to play into the Social Justice Warrior theme of "black people are all persecuted", but viewed as pure statements of observation and sage advice, I think they hold up fine. Things usually need to be understood in context, but sometimes that context can provide unwarranted and perhaps even unintended subtexts. I think that's what's going on here. So this quote makes it sound like police brutality is a specifically racist problem and then goes on to make it sound as though systemic racism is a real thing. These statements aren't given any real qualification and so I am left bewildered as to if the Brethren have received some sort of spiritual confirmation that things like systemic racism and racially targeted police brutality against black Americans is a real issue affecting our country, or if this is simply an opinion that may or may not be accurate, or if it is a misspoken outreach to the snowflakes. Same analysis as above. I would add that so-called systemic racism is almost certainly a real thing. The two important questions are: To what degree? Ang against whom? I would suggest that the answer to the first question is, "Not to as great a degree as the SJWs scream," and to the second question, "Historically against minorities, especially blacks, but in the last decade or so consciously targeted specifically toward white people—and not merely culturally, but openly taught in universities and even attempted to be encoded into law." Anyway, I'm confused. Any thoughts or ideas to help? I guess I must be officially becoming An Old Guy, because I find that pretty funny,.

I frankly don’t believe that the scriptures were written with the level of deliberation/precision/stylistic consistency/linguistic consistency/narrative “tightness”, that would justify the sort of hyper-literalistic and hyper-legalistic approach that underlies the timelines most folks propose.

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.

I don’t want to be overly and unnecessarily denigrating to Americans on the opposite side of the political aisle. But the answer to your question is, fundamentally, “yes”. That’s what “living constitutionalism” is—the view that (if our motives are pure enough) what we want a statute to mean is more important than what the statute’s text or historical context or commonly-accepted interpretation would dictate. An originalist (read: “conservative”, at least for most practical purposes) judge should be able to point to numerous instances where she felt compelled to rule in a way she personally disliked. A progressive judge will have a much harder time giving you examples of that having occurred; because in his eyes making good law to achieve “justice” (as he understands it) is, to some degree, a natural and legitimate part of his job. I have much more faith in a conservative court to uphold a Biden victory, than I would in a progressive court to uphold a Trump one.

Have faith, be kind, love others and prepare for the voice of the Holy Ghost. Pray, Serve and Ponder. We need to Strive to become God's people. I look at the "nor any manner of -ites" to mean we need to stop putting people into categories. We are all children of God and we should treat each other as such. We must strive to become the Children of Light. Be safe my friends, be sober and patient. Rely on the Lord and not to our own understanding. God will be with us if we are with Him.

The NYT is an emaciated shadow of its former self, a hideous undead creature whose very existence mocks what it once was. It should be summarily ignored in all instances.

I am personally convinced that the only reason to limit a lawful citizen's 2nd Amendment rights is a precursor (intent) for the removal of additional rights. In addition - politicians threatening the 2nd Amendment - I believe is an indication of being controlled by "secret combinations" such as drug cartels - especially if they are also for open borders, abolishing ICE, defunding the Police and so on and so on. The trend is obvious where their true loyalties lie. The Traveler

There are numerous States and/or cities that are trying to legislate away our 2A right in this manner. I took all my dad's guns out of California years ago because of the insanity of their everchanging gun laws.

@person0 Minor thought. I read the quote you posted multiple times, being frustrated by it each time I read it. Each time, I failed to read it as the following: "Things that do not command universal support. Examples": - Abolishing the police (do not support) - Seriously reducing their (police) effectiveness (do not support) - Changing our constitutional government (do no support)

I'm just trying to make it through today, my friend. Just trying to make it through today.

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.

A common criticism against your church is this reliance on "feelings," or subjective confirmation. This is a terrible mistake on their part. All Christians should come to faith through the drawing of the Holy Spirit. I fear we have too many "social converts" in our most of our churches. There is some patience--some 'tarrying' needed. Science, evidence, logic--these tools may bring me to the waters of conversion--but the witness of the Holy Spirit is essential, in my always humble opinion.

Justice Barrett will interpret the Constitution, rather than legislating a Trumpian, or even conservative agenda. Justices nominated by the apparent POTUS-elect would be much more prone to legislating in ways that many people of faith would find troubling. Now that it appears we have a new President on the horizon I, like @Emmanuel Goldstein, am glad that her nomination was pushed through.

The gift of the Holy Ghost is a part of the authority of God, and dwells only within his kingdom. All children of God may experience and be led by the Spirit, as a part of their divine inheritance. But only those within God's kingdom may receive the Holy Ghost by right. That is the real, fundamental difference.

I agree . . . partly. It’s one thing to say “we are concerned about irregularities in multiple states and we will petition the courts for redress”. It’s another to say something along the lines of “I *know* I won, and if the numbers don’t show that then it’s prima facie evidence that someone cooked the books.” Trump has not exactly been covering himself in glory here.

Claims of Voter Fraud are serious claims. Serious claims begin with serious accusations. Serious accusations need to be taken seriously no matter what we might think of the accuser. Burden of proof lies with the accuser, but they need to be allowed to gather and put forth their proof and not just dismissed. What ever evidence is put forth then need to be evaluated based strictly on the power of the evidence. We are in the accusation and evidence gathering phase, now. The real tragedy of this whole thing is... Trump called his shot months ago. Had the 'Powers that Be' being paying attention they could have take steps to secure the election from this claim, yet they did not. Thus I have no sympathies for those complaining about his actions now when they literally had months to prevent it.

Yeah, I had to respond to this too. The Right's answer to meaningful progress in black communities: "Keep government out of your way, so you can lift yourselves up." The Left's answer to meaningful progress in black communities: "Elect us and we'll fix your ills via wealth transfer, affirmative action, etc. More government will fix your problems for you!" I know which solution I figure works better. It's the solution that works better regardless of race/class/income/education/any demographic.

Then we must all educate them as best we can. Pres Oaks was referring to the slogan/statement "black lives matter". People need to know that the phrase and the BLM movement are two different things. BLM only cares about self-aggrandizement through destruction...they don't give a rat's patootie about actual black lives...or anyone's life for that matter. If they did, they would be protesting the countless black on black deaths we see in Chicago every day.

I watch the 2nd Amendment a lot in this nation. About thirty-six states presently have tolerable firearm laws. These states do not have magazine capacity restrictions on citizens, red flag gun confiscations without due process or silly laws against pistol grips, barrel shrouds, flash hiders, bayonet lugs or adjustable stocks. Detachable magazines are a nice feature to have for a long gun or pistol as it enables a citizen to reload faster. There is no such thing as a "high capacity magazine." This was a term invented by people wishing to cripple and erode our 2nd Amendment liberties away. There are "full capacity magazines" and "crippled capacity magazines." From what I have experienced and read, most magazines that have over thirty five rounds in capacity are less reliable, heavy and bulky.

Legislating the sale of guns so much, nobody can buy guns, is absolutely a thing that people try to do all the time. Nothing new here. It needs to be fought, like any other attempt. - Banning certain types of guns, or demanding certain technologies be included in anything to be bought/sold in a state - Pressuring banks or credit card companies to refuse to do business with any business that sells guns or ammo - Banning certain capacity magazines - Regulating the sale of guns/ammo to the point where it's difficult or impossible to buy either These are just off the top of my head.

People need to stop worrying about when the Second Coming is going to happen and spend time preparing themselves for the stuff that precedes the Second Coming. There are a lot of events, many of them catastrophic, that we have to go through loooong before the Second Coming occurs.

Elder Russell M. Ballard - 1996 BYU Devotional

The problem with fraud claims is that it creates a two-tiered burden of proof. You have to prove that 1) fraud is occurring, and 2) it is happening at levels that could sway the election. I have yet to see compelling evidence that either of those standards have been met, though I'd welcome any insights you may have. What I DO see is segments of the GOP electorate crying foul at the counting of mail-in ballots because the POTUS spent months planting seeds of distrust in their heads.