Vort

Those that do not believe in Jesus Christ are in a state of condemnation. There they will remain until and unless they believe in their Savior. Not sure what part of this is confusing to you. Perhaps you're under the impression that the word "condemnation" always means eternal and irrevocable destruction?

As long as I had to delete this dupe, I'll use the space to post something I found concerning. Here, Sherinian celebrates a SC ruling that is not only bad law, but is literally directly counter to the Church's not-so-long-ago efforts in California in support of Proposition 8. Note his hashtags: "LoveisLove" and "MarriageEquality". Sherinian appears to be announcing to the world that homosexual unions are exactly the moral equivalent of heterosexual unions. This is the man who now heads efforts to represent the Church to media and the world. I trust in God, and I support my leaders. That I find it most incongruous and concerning that a man with these openly stated social beliefs was hired essentially for Church PR does not negate my trust in God or support of my leaders. But make no mistake, it's incongruous and I'm concerned.

On my birthday earlier this week my Alsacian (French) mother-in-law died, less than a month shy of 91. She was a survivor of the invasion of Nazi Germany, and her life was influenced strongly and, needless to say, very negatively by the occupying Nazi regime. She was a young girl at the time of the invasion. The spiritual cost to her family was enormous. The effect of those early experiences on her own marriage and children, indeed on every human connection she ever made for the rest of her life, was incalculable, something that will never be cured by anything but the atoning blood of Christ. I understand why Europe in general and France in particular have slid into atheism over the last century. I don't understand why such an evil had to happen, but I count Europe's current irreligious state as an unfortunate effect of two devastating and horrific world wars.

The Jewish holocaust and the wars currently raging are not the very kingdom of God on earth. The two classifications are not comparable. I'm sure Brother Reeves is a wonderful man. I bear him no ill will on a personal level. I find his arguments biased and utterly unconvincing. His book reads like that of a man who has made up his mind on the issue and is now looking to justify his position. True enough, and this is certainly a fallacy. But we're not talking about evils in the world. We're talking about supposed evils within God's restored kingdom—and not just the expected evils of an imperfect membership, but evils of official administration and literally the doctrines taught in the Church for well over a century. That's a pretty important claim. Such a claim should be established by a lot more than some philosophical armchair reasoning and fault-finding of supposed shortcomings of the early prophets and leaders of this dispensation, disguised as a simple and affectionate recognition of imperfection. I appreciate your candor. Are you willing to consider that maybe God actually did institute that policy? Are you willing to grant that you do not know the mind of God well enough to base your opinion on what you believe God must think? Are you willing to concede that it's possible that the God who ordered his chosen people in the past to kill men, women, and children, the being who is the master and creator of life and death and who literally gives and takes life as suits his purposes, that same divine man who ordered Abraham to sacrifice his own son Isaac, may very well have good and sufficient reasons to give his Priesthood to whom he will and withhold his Priesthood from others as he sees fit, even if you don't now and probably never will (in this life) fully comprehend the reasons why? I frankly don't care very much whether or not you agree with me on this. I'll like you either way. In fact, I freely admit I may be wrong. Strange that I have never found those on the other side of the issue willing to say the same about themselves and their opinions, though. They seem to have an urgency to encourage others to adopt their particular views. I don't understand this attitude, and when I perceive it I find it unpalatable. Other than the fact that it seems distasteful, politically incorrect, and more than a bit embarrassing to you that the Church long had a policy of excluding black men of African descent from holding the Priesthood, do you have any particular and solid reason for doubting the divinity of the policy? I mean, you can believe what you want, and I won't excoriate you for it. I enjoy our conversations, and don't harbor any ill feelings against you, either for this opinion or for any other that I'm aware of. But I have had the experience more than just once or twice of being, in effect, taken to task by those who call themselves my brothers because THEY want to preach a version of restored truth that names early prophets of our time as "racist" and claim for themselves supposedly enlightened views on what they call "an erroneous and unfortunate policy". This they have done during Church meetings dedicated to teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ to the Saints. When I have dared to object to the characterization of our prophets and opine the view—taught in the kingdom of God for over 130 years—that the policy was established by God for reasons known to him, they have reacted condescendingly and with barely concealed contempt and have rushed to point out that the long-accepted teaching I espoused is "just an opinion". Funny that, to my recollection, they have never bothered to mention that their own revisionist history is "just an opinion", as well.

In which case, God was tacitly supporting the so-called Priesthood ban by not revoking it, for whatever reasons he had. Thus it was divinely supported, whatever the circumstances of its original implementation. I know you don't want to go down the rabbit hole, but I find the reasoning you described above completely unconvincing. We belong to a Church that we claim is the Restored Church of Jesus Christ. We claim that God the Father himself and the risen Jesus Christ physically stood before the founding prophet when he was but 14 years old. We claim that Joseph was given square plates made out of gold (!!) along with seemingly magical stones that allowed him to translate or somehow render the otherwise undecipherable characters engraven on these gold plates into English. We claim that each of us may receive revelation to the degree we prepare ourselves. We claim not only that we do ordinances through the very power of Jesus Christ, but that we can do them by proxy in behalf of dead people, and that such ordinances are acceptable to God and will be honored if the person being proxied receives the ordinances. But we are to understand that the same all-knowing, all-powerful God responsible for such marvelous, miraculous institutions was too afraid to let black people hold his Priesthood until the late 20th century? Nonsense. Remember, Joseph Smith ordained at least two black men of African ancestry to the Priesthood, one of whom stayed faithful throughout his life and reared a faithful posterity, and was apparently honored by those Saints who knew him. (At least, I've never read evil words about Elijah Abel*.) The very idea that God would cause all these miracles upon the earth and among his people, restoring his gospel and his very Priesthood, but then would chicken out from one particular instance of these radical changes because too many of the white members just weren't ready to accept black folks into fellowship, rings completely hollow. Remember, these are the same people who were willing to practice plural marriage, a far more reviled idea than that black people could be in fellowship with white people and others. It is my opinion that the only people such an explanation would possibly appeal to are those who have already decided that the Priesthood ban was wrong and evil, and thus are thrashing about, searching desperately for any explanation that might fill the obvious logical hole without abandoning LDS beliefs altogether. *By the way, and apropos of nothing in particular: Given the old traditional explanation of African blacks being denied the Priesthood because they inherited through their ancestry the curse of Cain, I've always found it entertaining that the most famous example of a black man holding the Priesthood early in the restoration was a man named Abel.

To clarify (and my apologies if this goes further down the rabbit hole, but the response of my inner twelve-year-old would be "You Started It!"): What I said (or was attempting to say) is that, accoring to Greg Prince*, President McKay wanted to change the Church's policy with respect to who can receive the Priesthood. But in sincerely and repeatedly asking of God, he reported something like "the heavens were a brass ceiling over my head". While I realize that nothing a prophet says makes a particle of difference to non-Latter-day Saints, I would think that any faithful and believing Saint would interpret an utter lack of divine response to a Church President's direct, sincere, and repeated petition as just that: Silence from God. The man was literally asking God, "Can I ordain black men to the Priesthood", and God wasn't answering. If the policy of the Church was to avoid ordaining men of sub-Saharan African descent, how else could such silence from heaven be interpreted other than a negative? *Not that I find Greg Prince to be a particularly credible source, but I see no reason to disbelieve this. In contrast, when President Kimball asked that very same question of the Lord a decade or so later, he eventually received a clear spiritual response. When he presented the revelation to the Brethren, all testified that they received the same spiritual response. As a believing Latter-day Saint, I see no other reasonable interpretation except that God did not want LDS Church policy changed in the 1950s or 1960s or early 1970s when his prophet asked back then, but he did want it to change in the late 1970s when his prophet asked at that time. And if God specifically did not want a policy to change, then that is at the very least a tacit endorsement of said policy. Thus, at least to that degree, we can be completely sure the continuation of that policy was of God, regardless of how, why, or by whom it was instituted.

The problem with this illustration of principle is that the so-called Priesthood ban was of God. This is absolutely sure, at least to the level that God refused to rescind it as recently (at least) as David O. McKay. We may importune God as we see fit, but God is not required to do anything just because we ask it of him. If there is a principle of the gospel of which you do not have a testimony. silent loyalty to that principle is your very best option until you gain a spiritual conviction of it.

Surely it can't be the same guy.

A hilarious part of this video is the subtitles, provided for the Italian viewers. The subtitles are Italian, but the people are speaking Neapolitan (napoletano, their local dialect and the language of many popular "Italian" songs of the past, such as O Sole Mio and Funiculì Funiculà.) Many Italians cannot understand people from Naples, like literally can't understand what they're saying. Hence the subtitles. Funny story (to me, at least): One of my early mission companions had spent his entire mission to that point (five or six months) serving in Naples. This elder spoke little Italian, actually not much better than me (and I was brand new and could not speak Italian). Rather, he spoke napoletano. Pretty fluently, too. We were together for one transfer (four weeks), and he was sent off to be a zone leader. In Florence. It was a disaster*. But he stuck it out. *The local dialect in Florence is called, unsurprisingly, Florentine (fiorentino). That dialect is literally the basis for the modern Italian language. The Florentine accent is distinctive, and Florentines are immensely proud that their dialect is the dialect in Italy, the one that was the linguistic standard. Florentines consider their own speech to be beautiful (which it is), and many look down their noses at pretty much every other Italian dialect. But they reserve special scorn for Neapolitan. Not really sure why. Many of them legitimately can't understand someone from Naples, but many others simply pretend not to be able to understand because, you know, napoletano. And here my companion was put in charge of a zone in and around Florence, when he himself could only barely speak Italian at all—though, as I said, he was impressively fluent in Neapolitan. I'm sure it was a growth experience for him. For the record, I loved Naples and would welcome a chance to go back. But I never could understand what anyone was saying.

God created the races. What would it even mean for God to be "racist"? It's a stooopid question that no adult with two or more brain cells to rub together should ever ask.

He broke a record and hurt the previous record holder's feelings.

Honestly, what an idiotic question. Was Jesus racist? It's just a stupid question, brain-dead stupid, six ways from Sunday. It's the kind of question that literally does not deserve any consideration, or frankly even an answer.

To be fair, Mormon added a lot of commentary in his abridgment. Nephi would have been abridging his father's history, but his own experiences included, so he could have shifted POV. I realize this whole discussion amounts to nothing, but it's fun to think about.

I took this to mean something more like, "After I have abridged my father's words (in 1 Nephi), I will make my own account of my life from that point on (in 2 Nephi)." Your interpretation might make more sense. I'll have to give this some thought.

Good for Puka! Doing BYU proud!

Your left thumb is slightly larger than the right. Maybe you need to cut your nails. Your nose is pretty good-sized, but your left middle toenail is strangely large. I think the Bible says to be wary of people with large middle toenails. Something about it being better to live on the corner of a roof than with someone that has a large left middle toenail.

Traveler, I believe you're mistaken on a few points: 1. I'm pretty sure you're talking about neutrons, not neutrinos. 2. It's not the neutrons (or neutrinos) release from fission that ignites the fusion; rather, it is the immense temperature and pressure generated by the fission weapons that enables the fusion to occur. The neutrons are a relatively small part of that heat and pressure. 3. The fusion explosion accounts for maybe half of the blast energy released from a thermonuclear device. The fusion releases a very large neutron flux, used to ignite (fission) the non-fissile tamper and casing, which is typically made of U-238. U-238 won't sustain a nuclear fission reaction (that is, U-238 is not fissile), but if exposed to a very large neutron flux, it will fission and blow up just fine. The casing ignition is thought to provide about half of the blast energy of a thermonuclear device. The things that people of our generations were taught in public school about how nuclear devices work were only vaguely accurate. I'm not a Wikipedia fan, but on scientific and other fact-driven, relatively non-political topics like the operation of thermonuclear weaponry, it has some good information.

For the record, I don't know that what I wrote above is actually true. Seems like I saw a conversation on physics StackExchange that suggested that making 197Au in reactors was indeed possible and that there is at least one decay chain (from lead, no less) that results in 197Au. Don't know if this is true or not. I am interested to know the truth, but apparently not enough to do any research right now. But the idea was so strong and so appealing to my romantic sensibilities that I thought I'd post it, anyway.

Sister Balde, it appears your best bet might be to write to the folks at [email protected] and ask them. We here on this site are just a group of friends who discuss things. You are welcome to join us, but the questions you ask can't be answered by any of us, and must be addressed by someone at the Paris Temple Housing.

At the request of a few people, I wrote this thread up into a document. I have not updated it in years, and I don't pretend it's anything but a reflection of my understanding from several years back. But for what it's worth, here is the link. The Book of Mormon made understandable

Some time back, I read about how radioactive isotopes of gold could be used for various nefarious purposes such as "dirty" bombs. A couple of months ago, I got curious about the decay chains leading to regular gold (not a radioactive isotope). I don't know much about that, so I did what anyone would do and googled "decay chain gold" or something of the sort. I think I asked ChatGPT, too. My investigation led to an amazing discovery: There are no radioactive decay chains that lead to the production of stable gold. There is in fact only one stable isotope of gold, 197Au. That's regular gold. Any other isotope of gold decays away quickly; the longest-lived radioactive gold isotope is 195Au, with a half-life of about six months. So if you had a coin made of 195Au (which would be super-dangerous and quickly kill you from radioactivity), in five years only 1/1000th of that coin would still be gold. Five years after that, there would be only a millionth of the original gold isotope left. Within one human lifetime, all of that "gold", down to the last atom, would simply go away. And none of it would ever transmute into regular, stable gold. Like leprechaun gold, it would be lethal and evanescent. In fact, other than atom-by-atom transmutation of platinum or iridium into gold inside a nuclear reactor (and what a shameful waste of platinum or iridium that would be!), there is no other way of creating gold than how it is created in dying stars. Gold is created in the heart of stars, and only there. All of the gold you have ever seen has been created this way. There is no substitute method, no shortcut, no clever way to get around that. To the dismay of the alchemist, you can't decay away some type of radioactive lead to make gold. Lead can never be gold. I trust the spiritual parallels are obvious, so I won't belabor the point. So there's your Sunday thought. Gold is created only the heart of stars. Don't think you can get it some other way. You can't.

Note that the template could be something as simple as a prototype of the desired dimensions, hammered out to a desired thickness, and with holes for the rings in a standard position. Nothing fancy, no plate casting needed or anything of the sort.

This is one of the things that make me think that Mormon physically inserted the small plates into his abridgment, rather than copying them in. I envision Nephi and later plate-makers using a standard plate template to make plates with, so that the resulting plates could possibly be shuffled around as desired. If this were the case, it would have been a simple enough thing for Mormon just to put the small plates right in with his abridgment.

I agree that God is a God of order. Nevertheless, remember Paul lamenting how "now we see through a glass, darkly". Many divine things are hidden from us in this state. The doctrine of the veil of forgetfulness illustrates that God actively keeps things from us until his own due time has arrived to accomplish his purposes. A&A stole my Pauline thunder. I guess I should have read further. Not a single point I made above was not made earlier, and probably better, than my effort. Story of my life.

I don't believe the Priesthood is "jointly held", any more than e.g. motherhood is "jointly held". Men have parental responsibilities, just as women do. But "motherhood" is not synonymous with "parenthood". Just so, I believe that "Priesthood" is not synonymous with "acting in God's name and with his authority". As has often been pointed out, women act under Priesthood assignment and in God's name, but that is not the same as holding the Priesthood. I think it's worth noting that the highest (known?) "order" of the Priesthood, the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, requires both a man and a woman. Without the woman, that order does not even exist. But again, holding the Priesthood seems different to me from being a member of its highest order. I am not even sure exactly what it actually means to "hold the Priesthood", but I feel confident that it does mean something. Whatever it means, it seems to apply only to worthy men.