Vort

Tomorrow. At least, that's the reading schedule Zil came up with.

Education is indeed no guarantee of intelligence, nor religious position of piety.

One more sort of philosophical item. In any serious reading of a book, you choose how you approach it. With a novel, for example, you usually approach it as a retelling of a sort of history, even if it's a fiction novel. With a textbook, you approach it as a tutorial and a reference. The Book of Mormon could be approached in many ways. Two of the most obvious ways are: (1) as an actual, literal history of a fallen people, with all the flaws, misstatements, and niggling grammatical and continuity errors that such an authentic history unavoidably contains; and, (2) as a work of 19th-century American frontier-produced fiction. As a non-Latter-day Saint, Jamie, your first instinct might be to approach the Book of Mormon in the latter way. Let me suggest that, for the sake of this reading, you temporarily set aside your opinions or reservations about historicity, and read the book as if you accept it at face value, on its own terms, as an actual history of a fallen people. My reason for suggesting this is that if you are constantly questioning and wondering where Joseph Smith (or whichever purported author you choose to assign credit to) got this or that idea or came up with such-and-such a notion, you will almost certainly miss much of the "LDS experience" in reading the Book of Mormon. Suspend your disbelief, so to speak, and accept the book on its own terms. In doing so, I believe your experience will be more authentic to how Latter-day Saints read the book, more engaging on a personal level, and in the end a more satisfying experience.

A suggestion: Start by reading the Testimony of Three Witnesses and Testimony of Eight Witnesses, then read the frontispiece (the page that begins, "The Book of Mormon: An account written by the hand of Mormon upon plates taken from the plates of Nephi. Wherefore, etc."). The testimonies make up one rather short page, as does the frontispiece, and the frontispiece is actually a part of the translation of the Book of Mormon, having been written by Mormon (I assume).

FWIW, here is a synopsis of the Book of Mormon that I wrote some years back for @Sunday21. You can check out the thread, if you want. https://docs.google.com/document/d/1CceWZW7dZiR-tMr4NRWB1p-yNheirGDc92CtrjSRdO8/edit?usp=sharing I haven't updated this or even looked at it in quite some time. I'm sure there are elements here and there where I would change what I wrote back then. But this might provide a reasonable 50,000-foot overview. That's about 113° C for you metric folks, or 25.7 kg.

I heartily second this. I'm happy to have @zil2 or someone else (even me) sort of take charge of the reading schedule, but this particular reading is primarily for @Jamie123's benefit. So Jamie will ultimately determine how fast we go. On the other hand, it's easy to stop and dwell on various aspects, and I personally have little problem "getting in the weeds", as long as our overall purpose doesn't get lost. I propose that we generally sort of shoot for an end-of-December reading rate, with the understanding that we can move slower, even much slower (or for that matter, faster) if desired. That's about a five-page-per-day reading rate or a tad more, which is fairly ambitious but not at all unreasonable, IMO. My experience has taught me that reading scriptures as if you're reading a novel misses much of the point of scripture study, and reading scriptures as if you're reading a textbook tends to obscure the narrative—and in the case of the Book of Mormon, moreso than any other book of scripture, the narrative is an important foundation for understanding what you're reading. I also propose (though this is completely at Jamie's discretion) that we restart at the very beginning. The book of 1 Nephi sets the stage for everything that follows, so I think it's worth rereading for an endeavor like this.

What you call fear may simply be a recognition that the supposed "science" of psychology is no such thing, and hasn't been in probably two generations. We have licensed as "therapists" and "counselors" people who accept highly speculative and brittle models of human interactions and the human psyche, and who lead their patients to evil ends using the imprimatur of their supposed authority. Good, useful counselors exist. Perhaps even good, useful therapists exist. But the psychological community as a whole is unmoored and drifting aimlessly and dangerously. I would not trust such people to sit my dog, much less to advise my children.

The biggest problem I have with atheism is that atheists literally have no idea what religion is about, or how God might be perfectly knowable and not utterly subjective, and how they affirm their ignorance with no thought that maybe, you know, there's more to it than they perceive.

https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-65553748

I would love to participate in such a thing. My personal study at the moment is actually currently in the Bible, but I'm always happy to read the Book of Mormon.

I heard a lot of that "spiritual, not religious" crap growing up, too. Those who say, "I love spirituality but I don't practice any specific religion" might as well say, "I love linguistics but I don't speak any specific languages." Even within my own family, I heard one beloved aunt being referred to as "very religious", as if that were some ersatz form of being spiritual. (She was in fact very spiritual, but unabashedly religious.) Since that time, being the stubborn, stonehearted fool I am, I have openly embraced the label of "religious", both in and outside my family. Yes, I'm religious. Very much so. The fact is, I'm not all that spiritual, certainly not where I would like to be. But I'm religious. And I don't even have the good sense to be ashamed of it. I don't think that's backward at all. Religiosity leads to (or at least can lead to) spirituality. I do not believe that irreligiosity helps one be more spiritual. President Nelson gave a talk in General Conference a few years back where he investigated the etymology of the word "religion", demonstrating how it meant "to tie [one] back [to something]". That's the idea of religion, isn't it? To tie us back to God. I have little patience for those who insist that religion per se is a crutch or a weakness. They can believe what they want, but I reserve the right to label their idiocy for what it is.

@Jamie123 may not like this, as it references the American "The Office". But everyone else may ponder its profundity.

Extruaneous U's toutally rulue!

I think the Savior's work is never done. I don't know at this point whether this is a meaningful insight or just a game with words.

Is it any wonder that members of other Christian sects are scandalized by the LDS belief in (for want of a better term) the deification of man? Yet the idea has existed throughout the history of Christianity, being a fairly obvious extension of bedrock Christian beliefs. But most people had the good sense to keep the idea private and discuss it only among those to whom the idea was not offensive. At this point, the cat is 180 years out of the bag, but perhaps we should learn not to cast our pearls before swine by parading certain sacred beliefs and practices before an unbelieving world, including an unbelieving non-LDS Christianity.

Numbering the gifts of the Spirit is like counting our blessings. It's an exercise in gratitude and humility, not a task that can be achieved. The gifts of the Spirit are countless; as you point out, "we could technically call any positive attribute a gift of the Spirit". The latter, I would suggest.

I would change the order of preference. Pay tithing because: 1. we love the Lord and want to help our fellow man 2. we fear fire and want to purchase fire insurance 3. we are guilted into it by our friends and family 4. we want to virtue signal to the ward The first case is virtuous, the second is suboptimal but pragmatic, and the third is a bit shameful but, I would argue, better than disobedience. In the last case, I think paying tithing actually does no good for us at all. It's pure hypocrisy. We have our reward. I would also add a Step 1.5 (that is, between 1 and 2): Pay tithing because we have covenanted to do so and we want to obey our covenants. I think this is a pretty good reason, a step on the pathway to acting as we ought because we love the Lord and our fellow man.

Very glad it was worthwhile for you. My experience has been otherwise, but I'm happy that at least some people benefit from them.

Discontent leading to apostasy comes from all directions. I have probably seen as many people I care about go off the rails on the side of "freedom fighters" as I have seen go off on the side of wokeism.

High school classes are mostly a waste of time. AP classes teach like one semester of a college course in an entire year, and in my experience don't do a very good job of it, because it's a high school teacher trying to teach a college course. Simply taking the class at a community college is generally a far better experience. And so-called honors courses? A complete waste of time. Worse than a waste of time. A negative experience. You would be better off taking the non-honors course, which itself is just a regular crappy high school course, but without the worthless extra homework and posturing that you get in an "honors" course. If high schools taught reasonable courses at a reasonable rate with reasonable expectations, I would be much more likely to get behind an effort to make post-high-school education more like a trade school. But high school graduates today often lack basic academic skills that are developed only after the students start at a college. In that case, the gen ed requirements serve not only to provide a broad, "liberal education" foundation, but to teach and hone basic academic skills such as taking notes in lecture and keeping up on the homework. The US is generally considered to have the best overall collegiate-level educational system in the world. I think the general ed requirements are an important aspect of that, something that differentiates American diplomas from the much more trade-school-ish degrees found in most of the rest of the world. I'm willing to be educated on why I'm wrong, but until someone offers an argument I find convincing, I will remain pro-gen-ed for a bachelor's degree.

I would laugh, except I fear there might be some truth here. That would break my heart.

BYU needs to get a handle on this sort of thing yesterday.

As Saints, we strive to keep sacred things sacred, and sex is at or near the top of that list. We normally try to keep sex sacred by simply not talking about it openly. But this leads to a certain kind of naivete, a sort of opposing reaction to our sex- and filth-saturated world that so often portrays sex as "the nasty". It's one thing to not understand (or to refuse to understand) double entendres and degraded sex jokes; it's quite another to fail to see sex or sexual metaphor when it's used in holy writ. In the latter case, failing to understand the sexual nature of scripture, whether literal or metaphorical, can impede our grasp of what the scriptures mean. I have noticed quite a few examples of these, though I can't remember most of them. I haven't made a list of sexual mentions and metaphors in scripture; that might be a useful exercise. But consider that our most primal relationships are defined by the sexual act, either by engaging in the activity (in the case of a spouse) or by being the product of the activity (in the case of parents and children, brothers and sisters). We even call each other "brother" and "sister", implicitly invoking an intercourse-based relationship between us. As for our God, the Most High, the greatest Being of all, we call him Father—and this by instruction from our Savior and Redeemer (who is himself our elder Brother). The scriptures themselves mention sex openly, though often using euphemism (e.g. "Adam knew his wife...", where "to know" is a very old metaphor in many languages meaning "to have carnal knowledge of"). Perhaps just as often, it is built into the wording of certain verses, many of which we probably fail even to recognize as sexual metaphor. I remember reading Isaiah 51:1-2 (cf. 2 Nephi 8:1-2) many years ago and realizing it was probably a sexual metaphor: Hearken to me, ye that follow after righteousness, ye that seek the Lord: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him. I may be wrong about this verse, but when the metaphor idea occurred to me, the verses seemed to take on a more solid meaning. The earthy nature of the metaphor seemed to realize (i.e. to make real) the otherworldliness of what was being discussed. Now I am fully aware that many of the Saints of our day, and more especially the sisters, are sensitive to such things and find them distasteful. I have met a surprising number of women who are truly offended at the metaphoric reference to electrical parts as being "male" or "female". (I had a discussion about this with my wife a few days ago, the latest of a string of such discussions through the years. She assured me in all seriousness that she would very much prefer "innie part" and "outie part" to "female" and "male".) I have mentioned this particular issue to my sisters, my daughter, and a few family friends, and have found near-unanimous agreement among the womenfolk. Nevertheless, the raw earthiness that I perceive in the Isaiah verse above (for example) adds to the impact and personalization of the verse. I suspect there is a deep-seated idea, more common among the sisters, of the sexual act being not just private and sacred, but somehow a little...wrong. Or shameful. Or icky. Something like that. Whatever it is, it makes people (mostly women) uncomfortable when sexual metaphor is included in a place not normally associated with sex, such as electric fixtures or scripture. Anyway, my thesis statement is that if we are more willing to hear and consider such readings in scripture study, I think we'll get a much fuller picture of what the scriptures are addressing. I also realize that any time sex is invoked in a discussion, everything we write is likely to be viewed through a lens of double entendre. I have actually read back through and removed a couple of "no pun intended"s from this little essay exactly because I don't want to be perceived as jabbing my elbow in people's sides for some vulgar laughter. I mean this in perfect seriousness, no vulgarity or ribald humor intended.

I agree with @zil2. This is an example of reductio ad absurdum, a logical fallacy described by basically showing that the proposed argument is "If A, then B, but B is self-negating or otherwise absurd and impossible, so therefore Not A." In this case, A is "There is no Christ", and B is "we do not exist". In this case, A and B are connected by an intermediate step, C, which is "There is no God." So the line of thought is A→C→B, "There is no Christ, therefore there is no God, therefore we do not exist." Since we do in fact exist, it must therefore follow that God exists, and so therefore there is a Christ. Now, you may reject some premise or application of the logic. You may say, for example, that "no Christ" does not imply "no God", or that "no God" does not imply "we don't exist". But the logic is sound. The argument was apparently convincing to Jacob, who made it, and we may suppose to his hearers.