Vort

So they didn't realize their own nudity so much as they perceived that they had become denuded. Interesting.

Zion will be established only when God establishes it, and that will happen only when those on the earth yearn for Zion so intensely that they are willing to give up sin and selfishness to have it. I hope but do not expect to see Zion established in my lifetime.

Within the last year or two (which for me qualifies as "recently") I was in a discussion in Sunday School, or perhaps elders quorum, where the instructor made the point that all of these girls were virgins, and therefore pure and worthy of blessing, yet only half of them were in a position to receive it. Part of me says that he was not wrong; the girls were not committing whoredoms, but rather were unprepared. But the other part says that their presumed virginal state was not directly relevant to what was being discussed in the parable, pulling us away from the "stand ready and be prepared" message to "live the law of chastity" message. In this case, I do not believe that "live the law of chastity" was the Lord's intent behind this parable.

Great article. Well done. Kudos to you both.

My youngest is having a better Scouting experience than any of his older brothers, exactly because he does not belong to a so-called LDS troop. All (or at least most) of the other Scouts in his troop are indeed LDS, but the Scouting program is run as intended in their troop. The older Scouts don't drop out of troop activities at 14 years old. At 16, my son was the senior patrol leader, and at 17, he's the grizzled old man of the troop who knows how to do everything. None of my older sons really got to experience that. My point is not to criticize our leaders, or even to criticize the Church membership that struggled for decades to implement Scouting in a way that it served as an adjunct to Priesthood training. I suppose my point is that, in this case at least, we don't receive blessings that are right there for us because we don't allow them to come. We get distracted by what seem to be competing priorities, result in a that the system doesn't work, at least not well. When we force a given program or skill set into a situation it was not designed for, we get poor results. I believe what we call the commitment pattern is an example of this: We take what should be a pattern of emotional maturity to enable sincere conversation and use it as a lever or screw to create what amounts to sales pressure—precisely the opposite of what we should be doing or want to accomplish.

I suspect that certain of the Jews were given the same prophecies. That we have no record of such knowledge doesn't mean it wasn't present among the Jews of some prior period.

@mirkwood is asleep at his post.

Doesn't it seem odd to you to refer to someone in public conversation based on their virginal status? I mean, many (perhaps most) of us on this forum dislike that many people today define themselves publicly based on their preferred sexual perversion, yet we don't blink an eye with scriptures that refer to women by a term based on whether or not they have ever had sex. The point is that (I believe) such scriptures usually are not referring to such women based on their sexual status. The women under discussion are being referred to as "maidens", technically meaning sexually inexperienced young women but in almost all cases actually meaning simply girls or young women. I suspect that the "virgin" aspect distracts, and therefore possibly detracts, from the central point that the Savior had in mind when offering up the parable.

I would find it, but I can't be bothered.

I think that's a more correct title than "The Parable of the Ten Virgins". The term "virgin" was (and continues to be) used in many languages as a convenient reference to girls. It doesn't directly have to do with their sexual status, but emphasizes the fact of their youthfulness and, by extension, their assumed lack of experience in adult sexual matters. Or I suppose it's really the other way around: It alludes to their assumed lack of sexual experience and, by extension, the fact of their youthfulness. For example, I have heard faithful Church members say about how the ten were all virgins and therefore all worthy before God, so it's just their wise or foolish choice to keep oil (or not) that separates them into two camps. This is actually a reasonable point (with chastity rather than virginity per se being the common element), but is not what the Lord was implying with the parable. He was comparing days of trial and judgment to a fun activity that the girls had an important part in, exactly because he was comparing something vastly important and sacred with something comparatively trivial, as with the children calling to each other in the marketplace and complaining that the others didn't dance to their piping. Yes or no?

I remember that guy. Quite funny, if you can get past the constant and casual profanities.

True, but this can be said of anything. When the deacons are taught to do everything but click their boot heels, such as marching in step to the front, turning on the outside foot simultaneously, marching over two steps, turning simultaneously again to face the table, and then lift their trays to the priests as if presenting arms, I consider that a display and thus, by its nature, distracting. But of course you are right that we need not be distracted by it. I'll take ownership of my own faults, actions, and choices, but that doesn't mean that sacramental displays are therefore not inappropriate.

You mean blue rare, comrade. You have a more expansive and, perhaps, more charitable view of what "the commitment pattern" means than I have. I was taught "the commitment pattern" as a series of steps designed to maneuver people into agreeing to do something, whether that's to be baptized or to stop smoking or to pray or just to meet with us again. I did try to use it, but I didn't like it, and after a while I got away from using it because it didn't feel honest. I believe that certain personality types could use "the commitment pattern" as it was taught to me as a normal, natural, honest part of their conversation. I think such personality types would rub many people wrong; those so taught would often feel like they're being sold something. But, as you note, if by "the commitment pattern" you just mean a pattern of honest communication, then of course there is nothing wrong with that.

During my lifetime, I have witnessed deacons marching as in formation when passing the sacrament. I am happy to let the bishop take care of such things, though I will admit that I find quasi-military displays somewhat tasteless in sacrament meeting. Such a display is just that, a show, a production, something meant to catch the eye and impress. This is contrary to the Spirit that I believe should prevail during a sacrament meeting, and especially during the taking of the sacrament. But I have more often witnessed sloppy, unruly, noisy, or simply irreverent conduct in distributing the sacrament, which is just as distracting as a quasi-military display, if not moreso. As I wrote, I'm happy to let the bishop deal with such issues and try to focus my thoughts on where they should be. Rarely is the sacrament distribution so irreverent that it forcibly distracts me. If I'm distracted, that is almost always because of me, not the deacons or the priests or the bishop or a crying baby or something else.

I'm guessing the latter. There is nothing wrong with getting a commitment; that's solid communications. But requiring a verbal commitment before proceeding with the conversation feels, I don't know, not bullying, not quite manipulative, but something along those lines.

Often people will not see what they don't want to see. When I saw the Tom Hanks movie Big, I was greatly disturbed that the plot revolved around the sexual relationship between a young woman in her late 20s and a thirteen-year-old boy magically put into his 30- or 35-year-old self's body. I voiced this concern once on an LDS-oriented discussion list (not this one, I'm sure), only to be shouted down by the other list members. One participant in particular took great pains to separate my comments from anything that any normal Latter-day Saint would think.

I seem to recall talking to my children about this and referring to it as Sinistral Buttock. My children have grown up having to put up with that sort of thing.

It sees almost everyone assumes that Abel had no seed. I don't see any reason for this assumption, though. The strongest evidence for this idea that I know of is the fact that Abel's descendants are never mentioned anywhere in scripture. But that is pretty weak evidence, an argument from silence. For example, if not for a rather random reference to Simon Peter's mother-in-law, we would otherwise have no evidence that Peter was married. But obviously, even if Peter's mother-in-law were never mentioned anywhere, that would not mean that Peter had been unmarried.

Anyone who refutes the value of this list is a science denier.

For a mildly interesting read, ask ChatGPT to write a politically conservative SNL Weekend Update.

If I leave Satan's employ, what will become of me? A worthwhile question, but one best approached with faith and courage, I think.

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/2022-statistical-report-april-2023-conference I don't know what to make of this. Maybe @MarginOfError can explain it to us. A 1% per annum increase seems to indicate a doubling time of 72 years, which might barely be replacement level. But while smaller families and fewer children are certainly the norm compared to how things were in my childhood, my observation is that young couples still have more than a replacement level of children. Not sure where the disconnect exists.

I weep, in spirit at least, for little Jamie123 and the nasty song about cute anthropomorphic animals being savagely ripped apart. In a weird way, it vaguely reminds me of listening to my fourth-grade teacher reading us from James and the Giant Peach, which as a ten-year-old I found profoundly disturbing. (My 60-year-old self agrees.) As for the song itself, it appears to be a cautionary tale about the impropriety of otherwise unrelated land vertebrates intimately intermingling. The cat and her kits represent the inexorable hand of destiny meting out justice to those who would tamper with the laws of evolutionary reality. Stick with cousin marriages. In this there is safety and peace.

Adam's covenant is detailed in Moses 6:51-68: Please note (verse 50) that this is Enoch's recounting of Adam's and Eve's history, given many centuries after it happened. The conversation reported by Enoch took place long before Enoch was born, but still (verse 53) well after the events in the garden of Eden. This is the history of Adam's first, primal baptismal covenant. Whatever covenants Adam had made in the garden of Eden may have been in force, just as any premortal covenants we have made are still in force; but this first baptismal covenant in the flesh (meaning in mortality) must be made upon which to establish the other covenants that follow in mortality. Note also in verse 68, the Lord makes clear that, though Adam was a son of God by creation, as are we, Adam became a son of God through covenant, as may we. Until this primal baptismal covenant was made, Adam had no sealing promise. That covenant in the flesh must have been made after their fall into mortality and subsequent to their baptism, despite their premortal creation and assignment in the garden of Eden. Thus, I do not believe that Adam and Eve's children to this point had been born in the covenant, because that covenant cannot yet have been made in mortality. Backing up a chapter, we see in Moses 5 that Adam and Eve, having been expelled from the garden, immediately began producing children. Verse 4 (after the report of Eve's bearing of children is recounted) tells of their worship of God. This alone is a pretty weak foundation upon which to try to prove that they were only then (after the children were born and grown) under covenant, but in concert with Enoch's history in Moses 6, that is the reasonable inference. The rest of chapter 5 tells of the happenings after the gospel was preached to Adam and his posterity. Only then (verse 16, after repentance was widely preached and rejected) was Cain born, whom Adam and Eve rejoiced in and said that "he [Cain] may not reject his [the Lord's] words." That sounds to me like they, as parents, were at this point under covenant, and thus it is reasonable to infer that Cain was born under that covenant. For all the good it did him, which appears to be none. But the point is, the inference that Cain was the first of Adam's and Eve's children to be born under Adam's and Eve's covenant marriage seems perfectly reasonable to me, and very much scripturally based.

The Spirit prompted me to ignore this parenthetical warning.