Vort

1. Covid 2. Republicans

This is one (or both) of two separate questions: Do we as Latter-day Saints distinguish between the forgiveness and the remission of sins? Is there a difference between the forgiveness and the remission of sins? The answer to the first question is, I believe, no. To have our sins remitted is to gain divine forgiveness. I don't recall any teachings that explicitly distinguish between the two. The second question resembles a question that I heard bandied about in my childhood: Is there a difference between the unforgivable sin and the unpardonable sin? One speculation was that there was a difference, in the sense that a man adjudged guilty of a crime might nevertheless be paroled, perhaps even pardoned by the governor. He would remain a convicted felon, but the weight of penalty for his crime would have been lifted. By analogy, one might propose that a forgiveness of sin and a remission of sin each represent a specific way of dealing with the stain of sin, different somehow from the other. Looking back as a nearing-geriatric-age adult, I think I reject this distinction. I'll cast my lot in with the "no difference" folks.

"Perfect" in the linguistic sense of "complete", e.g. the past perfect tense.

How long has this been a thing?

You just have to step off the ledge and have some faith, man. Some of that good old atheist faith. It will work if you want it to bad enough. Never mind the details! We need to pass this legislation to find out what it contains! Be proactive! Abolish private insurance and socialist nirvana will come. Trust me.

Kagan? Are you sure you aren't thinking of Ginsburg?

Defend the choice of an openly non-textualist, non-originalist (and non-intentionalist) individual for the position of Supreme Court justice. This would cover Jackson, Sotomayor (an even worse pick than Jackson), and to some extent, possibly Kagan. (Though I admit I rather like Kagan's writing and some of her reasoning. She's not my preferred flavor of cookie, but she is a smart cookie.)

The good news is that the liberals (or at least the very significant minority of truly evil scumbags) are being exposed for what they really are: Terrorists waiting for a good time to strike and impose their will on everyone else. And if you think this is mere hyperbole, consider the media coverage of the cold-blooded murder of this man. You don't have to admire the victim or like what he has done to recognize a capital crime, to know that Luigi Mangione (assuming he is guilty, which seems to be certain) should be sent to the chair. In any and every case, the leftists who approve of this murder have exposed themselves for the liars they are, just as all of those—every one—who celebrated the attempts on Trump's life and bemoaned the failure of the efforts. They should never, in this life, be allowed to forget it. Their feet should be held to the fire every time they open their stinking maws to express an opinion, from today until the day they mercifully leave this mortal realm.

Under the legendary coach Stan Watts, BYU was a national name in basketball. Our luminaries back then included the fantastic Kresimir Cosic, maybe the best basketball player that no one outside of BYU remembers. Cosic could easily have played in the NBA. Our team in the early '80s with Danny Ainge was Final Four caliber. Back in the ancient days when the NIT was the premier postseason tournament and the NCAA tourney was an also-ran, BYU featured prominently among NIT schools. We have had some very good teams in the past few decades, but I don't think we've managed even a Sweet Sixteen appearance in that time except with the team that had Jimmer Fredette. Now that was a great team. Sadly, the starting center was suspended from the team for honor code violations right at tourney time, and BYU didn't get past the Sweet 16. BYU is not currently a basketball powerhouse, but it is a very good team. Beating BYU is no mean feat, and losing to BYU is no disgrace. Now that BYU is a member of the Big 12 athletic conference, which is certainly the nation's premier basketball conference, I expect things will improve for us in the coming years. We have the Marriott Center, an enormous basketball arena (19,000), tenth-largest (I believe) collegiate arena in the country and certainly at or near the top among private schools.

We'll see if it actually happens. If it does, I dearly hope AJ finds the BYU environment a good fit. I love BYU, flat out love it, but not everyone belongs there.

Honestly, I fail to see how this makes OAN worse than MSNBC.

Personally, I find this tremendously unconvincing. "I've got his arms, you can let go"? Not bloody likely (pardon the Brit vulgarity). I assume he had the guy in a rear naked choke, probably with his leg wrapped around the guy with one arm (probably the left) around his neck, inside of elbow to throat, forearm and biceps occluding the carotid arteries (or the jugular veins—same effect). In that situation, you can just ease up on the choke, allowing the guy to regain consciousness but able to put him right back to sleep should he pose a threat. That would be far more convincing to me as a possible juror that he didn't have to keep choking the guy than the fact that some random third guy said, "I got him! I have his arms pinned! You can just let go of him, because I got 'im! See? I'm pushing his arms into his side! I have his wrists! There's no possible way he could just easily push me off and twist out of my iron grip!" Uh, yeah, right, sure. People with no formal fight training or experience (thankfully, the vast majority of our population) are amazingly ignorant about very basic ideas of restraint. My son told me some funny stories about that topic, having to do with his wife and the effect of growing up in an all-girls family.

I'm going to have a little fun with you here, because if you go back to my original posting where I lay out the justification of my claim of Nephite racism, you're among the people who liked it. At the time you seemed to have no objection. So what changed? 😝 That I found your overall post helpful and insightful doesn't imply that I agreed with every point. You referenced an earlier post of yours, where you argued a more nuanced position—not one that I necessarily agree with completely, but one which I find, again, helpful and insightful. I appreciate your incisive and insightful comments. I will still argue that the Nephites, as a group, were very remarkably not racist, all things considered. But I also realize that the "Nephites were racist!" trope is common in LDS circles, so I'm not shocked by the claim. I am happy to see you back. You have been missed (even if the feeling is not reciprocated). Welcome back.

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."

I literally laughed out loud.

Just curious what you would talk about or what you think would be a good topic.

I was right with you in your analysis until I reached this. I believe this is patently false, and I believe that any in-depth reading of the Book of Mormon shows that, as a culture and through time, the Nephites were in fact much less racist than they have been portrayed. Frankly, they are notable not for their racism, but rather for their lack of racism.

QBs from that class have been tagged (unfairly, IMO) as "overrated". I suspect it has more to do with franchises not developing their QBs well.

It breaks my heart to see Clemson seeded last. (Where "breaks" means "fills".)

So this is apparently the logic of the Left: "There are pedophiles who are not drag queens. Therefore, we can see that there is nothing wrong with openly teaching and normalizing transgenderism. Because duh."

McConkie's full quote (one paragraph, not the whole talk). By the way, I found this talk to be especially inspiring when considering the place of the Book of Mormon in scripture. McConkie gives a view of the Bible as an incomplete compilation that will one day be completed and perfected. This is available somewhere in mp3, which is how I discovered it, but I don't have a link at hand. If you really want the mp3 and can't find it, PM me. In the Old Testament, Genesis is the book of books—a divine account whose worth cannot be measured. Exodus and Deuteronomy are also of surpassing worth. Numbers, Joshua, Judges, the Samuels, the Kings, and the Chronicles are all essential history, interwoven with deeds of faith and wonder that form a background for an understanding of the Christian faith. Leviticus has no special application to us and, except for a few passages, need not give us permanent concern. Ruth and Esther are lovely stories that are part of our heritage. The Psalms contain marvelous poetry, and the portions that are messianic and that speak of the last days and the Second Coming are of great import. Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Lamentations are interesting books; Job is for people who like the book of Job; and the Song of Solomon is biblical trash—it is not inspired writing. Ezra, Nehemiah, Obadiah, and Jonah are the least of the prophets; and all the rest of the prophets—Isaiah above them all—each in his place and order set forth the doctrinal and prophetic word that must be studied in depth.

I tend to agree with you on this, quite strongly in fact. But I have it on good authority that many LDS General Authorities refuse to publicly criticize women because, in the private (and approximate) words of an emeritus Seventy, "If we took the women to task like we do the men and held them to account for themselves, the women would just quit coming to Church." This is not an easily ignored point. Given the realities of human nature, I'm not sure on the best way to proceed.

For many cases, this reverses cause and effect. I won't exonerate anyone for their own chosen actions, but I recognize that a life of suffering hatred, contempt, and vilification will naturally tend to encourage "unpleasant, abrasive, rude and nasty" behavior.

Not really a matter of blame. I doubt you, I, or almost anyone else thinks a waifu anime doll is a healthy way to conduct a relationship. Kind of the blow-up doll route. But it's tragic that these men, who perhaps would have found a niche and lived a healthy social life in past generations (or, to be fair, perhaps not),would today be enticed to live a sad shadow reality of what they yearn for. And the blatant double standard is not condemned or even recognized, unless it is to be celebrated. NT's perceptive and valid observations about the inappropriateness of always considering the "two-sidedness" of the transsex coin notwithstanding, we should want and expect better for our brothers. There is nothing so dangerous as a society with a large population of marginalized umnarried men. On this path, our society will self-destruct, and we as a society will have earned that result, just as surely as the Nephites earned their end.

Stupid Republicans, making earthquakes in California.