Vort

I blame the antidisestablishmentarians.

The AP will call a man "she" if the man requests it, but insists on calling the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints "the Mormon Church" despite explicit requests to the contrary.

Some people already do. I have heard people (relatives, in fact) claim that Laman and Lemuel were misunderstood and had some good points, but that Nephi was too uptight and prideful to acknowledge them. Reminds me of a meme NT posted a while back.

It seems to me that our modern Western stories as told on television and in movies tend to center around sexual conquest and revenge. That latter one, especially, is a harbinger of our downfall.

Lehi was a great prophet. At the Lord's word, he left his substantial riches and lived out the rest of his life with his family in the wilderness, dwelling in tents. Prosperity, indeed.

Yes, but for how long? Do you think if Kamala Harris had survived an open assassination attempt, that the media would have moved past it after two or three weeks? It's not just Trump. The media doesn't even try to hide its contempt for Republicans and conservatives any more.

Thank you. I plan to be rare, like my steaks. If I find the courage and good sense, I will be absent.

Anyone care to bet on how much media attention this doesn't get?

Incidentally, this is not meant as a cynical observation. I struggle mightily not to succumb to cynicism, and sometimes fail. But in this case, I'm not being cynical, just realistic. It's a jaded view, I suppose, but not cynical.

Which is the point, the answer to your question. Politicians didn't declare war because they are politicians. For most of them, that means their primary goal is to get re-elected. War declarations tend to lose you votes.

"Finland" = "fen land". I learned something new and valuable today.

How is its metrical quality and structure so well known if it's a completely oral tradition first written down only the 19th century? Has any attempt beem made to capture various poetic versions?

I remember some really cheap animation that combined minimalist, practically still-frame, animation with a filmed mouth superimposed on the character's face. It was one of the most bizarre and frankly disturbing things I have ever seen on television.

The temple drama is a representation of reality that surely touches on many essential truths, but at the same time is going to be a somewhat figurative representation, to some extent, of whatv actually went on. Therefore, it's hard to pin down a given meaning to a lot of elements of that drama. Nevertheless, I would suggest that the fact that Eve, even after the Fall, was still in the garden when she identified Satan as the erstwhile Lucifer, but Adam was outside the garden when he was required to sacrifice, makes a lot of difference. I'm sure the"veil of forgetfulness" is not monolithic, but has many degrees or levels.

Satan may indeed be very smart in the carnal sense, but as Elder Bruce R. McConkie made clear, he lacks the least spark of intelligence.

God's policy has always been and will always be that knowledge is given to any who sincerely ask for it and who have prepared themselves to receive that knowledge and live by it.

A natural inference is that the Fall had already been carefully explained and planned out, not only in the present case for our Earth but for worlds before. Satan's stroke of genius, as he supposed, was that he would throw a wrench into the works by introducing the Fall out of sequence. Ha! Gotcha, Father! Now you're playing by MY rules! Unfortunately for the serpent, Father had foreseen and planned for this eventuality. As depicted in Genesis and in the temple, Satan reminds me strongly of many Hollywood actors, who present a smooth and attractive façade to mask their unending malevolence and hatred. God forbid that we who call ourselves Saints be deceived by such.

A war declaration is an act of Congress.

Yep. Narcissistic, but definitely not sociopathic.

If I'm honest, this is not really the reason at all. My reason is that I find Trump's policies and leadership to be vastly (not infinitely) better than Harris'. The sex/whore thing is basically my reaction to the Democrat strategy of one-sided, hypocritical lies and slander.

You're missing the point. Democrats are playing the Pharisee role as whited sepulchres. Talking to your bishop about your moral transgressions is vastly different from judging the suitability of political candidates. In the former case, I agree that when you're undergoing Church discipline, the faults of others are generally not relevant. In the latter case, it might well make sense to use a tu quoque argument ("you did it, too"). In this case, it would be a tu peius argument ("you are worse"). (I suppose in Harris' case, that would be tu peia, assuming she's identifying as female these days.) Biden/Harris are vastly worse than Trump, whatever Trump's failings. That is the point, and is the only point. Stretching the comparison beyond that ignores the central issue. Even if Trump is fully guilty of the adultery the Left wants to pin on him, that pales in comparison to Harris' perfidy. If one of the two has to be my leader, I'll put my vote behind the one who didn't whore himself out in order to gain a political advantage.

Because only the mighty survive it. The rest fall along the way.

The problem with applying this to modern American politics is that casting Trump as "evil" is a joke, especially when you compare him to Harris or Biden. What, Trump is evil because he supposedly committed adultery with a porn star, from which he gained zero professional status, while Harris is a hero because she literally slept her way into politics with a married man thirty years her senior? As for the incompetence, that's always a bad thing, but Trump has demonstrated more competence than any president since at least Clinton (burns me to say that, but there it is). Harris? What has Kamala Harris ever done, ever, in her entire career, that suggests she might be anything besides a disaster as the President of the United States? Her career as vice president has been inglorious, when her duties required essentially zero effort.

At the risk of being obvious, this is...um...obvious. Yes, Trump has his zealots, but he also has great support from many social and political conservatives who don't particularly like him or his fiscal policies, but recognize that the alternative to Donald Trump is vastly uglier and worse. Joe Biden has been an unfunny joke for at least the second half of his political career, and his candidacy only proves the deep and abiding cynicism of the Democrat party. The fact that Joe Biden actually won is a tribute to American mendacity and, if we're honest, the power wielded by the media. Compared to Biden and the even more pathetic (if that's even possible) Kamala Harris, Donald Trump actually looks like a pretty good choice, personality quirks and all.

Would you distinguish the two ideas as being different? I would. A faithful wife (or a faithful friend, or a faithful dog) is not one that necessarily has faith, but one in whom you can have faith. I assume that's at least part of the meaning of the statement "God is faithful".