Vort

I was being funny. The American spelling is of no importance whatsoever.

...if the fools only knew what Vort means in N'tlîlãxian...

I think I agree with the gist of your post, but I'm gonna respond anyway. Agreed. In fact, I go further, and say that a man gets to marry whoever he wants to (who will have him) for any reason whatsoever, however stupid or trivial or racist or bizarre. Same for women. Don't like redheads? Okay, don't marry a redhead. Don't like skinny guys? Don't marry a skinny guy. Stupid reasons, and you may be closing yourself off to the best thing that would ever have happened to you, but okay. You're free to choose, and no one gets to fault you because you want to marry Anna and don't want to marry Betty. The practice of shaming people because they don't want to date _________ people (fill in the blank with whatever) is ridiculous. They get to make that choice, however stupid you think it is. If someone dates a blonde girl just to prove he's willing to date a blonde girl, despite the fact that he's not attracted to blonde girls and doesn't really like them, how is he doing either her or himself any favors? If he doesn't like blonde girls, he shouldn't date them. Save everyone the headache. The problem with this and other all-things-being-equal scenarios is that, as we all know, all things are never equal. Having great in-laws (or LDS in-laws, or filthy rich in-laws, or same-race in-laws, or Libertarian in-laws) might be convenient or useful or helpful or fun or whatever, and I can see possible scenarios where the in-laws could become deal-makers or deal-breakers. But for the vast majority of situations, it's not going to be the deciding factor. No man in the history of the world has ever had to choose between two women who were exactly as attractive to him except for one little, otherwise merely incidental, thing. This is a hard saying. Who can hear it? I have a hard time reconciling either side of this particular debate. In the end, I go back to what I wrote at first: People get to chose whom they want to marry for whatever reasons seem sufficient to them, however trivial or incidental or in the past or whatever. Jesus taught that a camel will pass through the eye of a needle more readily than a rich man will enter heaven. Jesus also warned about "the deceitfulness of riches". I think we would do well to heed that warning. The same is true with young women who want to date only returned missionaries. Such young men have shown a willingness to fulfill their Priesthood duties, something a faithful young Latter-day Saint woman will doubtless find attractive. Should we realize that not all returned missionaries are faithful and upright? Yes, just as we should realize that not all young men who forego missionary service are faithless or undutiful. But absent an ability to peer into someone's heart and see their very nature laid naked before your eyes, we all have to depend on proxy measures of those characteristics we most desire. That's just an unavoidable, integral part of living a mortal life.

I don't actually know many physicists any more, but surprisingly, I would say that many physicists do believe in extraterrestrial life. Of course, so do we, but believing that life exists outside of the earth is a far cry from believing that aliens from outer space are flying their UFOs around us. And I have known quite a few bona fide physicists who seemed to believe exactly that.

An interesting topic. My utter disbelief in UFOs-as-outer-space-aliens is on record. I do have additional thoughts on these and related topics, however. I believe that religious yearnings are built into the human psyche. I believe that UFOlogy and much of the science and pseudoscience worship we see in the world today is an expression of such inborn yearnings. I think you're right. I also think that such nonsense is ultimately a battle of egos. Pride is at the root of such foolish contentions. My own opinion is that civilization is not closely correlated with technological sophistication. We today are more technologically sophisticated than any previous society in all history that we have record of. We certainly have impressive electronic toys, some of them being exceptionally useful in organizing and managing such a huge body of people. But at the level of being a civilized people, where individuals are valued and given place among others for the health and well-being of the whole, I think we are not the best humanity has produced. I suspect there are many past civilizations, some perhaps lost to history, that were far more "civilized" than us in some such important respects. This will not happen in our lifetimes, and I suspect may never happen. There are significant engineering challenges to this, perhaps so significant that it will simply not be profitable to work through the problems. I think this is not unlikely. If nuclear fusion as a manageable energy source ever does come about, it will most likely be through some breakthrough in physics that allows us to "cheat the system", something on the order of so-called cold fusion. A couple of points: The net ion flux from the sun is zero charge. Otherwise, the sun would steadily become more positively charged, a situation which could continue only a very, very short while before the sun itself would be forcibly ripping electrons away from the inner planets and every other physical body in close proximity. I have never heard of solar winds causing crustal currents in the earth. If such currents exist, it's not obvious to me how we could harvest them. I also wonder what effect such hypothetical sun-caused crustal currents would have on the earth's biome and overall functioning. The amount of energy flowing from the sun as electromagnetic radiation (light, radio waves, gamma rays, etc.) would certainly far exceed whatever power might come from ion flux or induced crustal currents. I would think it would be vastly cheaper and more efficient to build huge space mirrors to focus light onto a generator. I agree, and I believe that our only hope is in Jesus Christ. I do not believe that advancing technology will ever, ever, ever save us. If the natural man is not reigned in, such technology will simply make our bondage that much more horrific. As for why other nearby intelligent civilizations haven't contacted us: Consider that mankind has existed on earth for about 200,000 years (scientific estimates of early anatomically modern humans). If life has existed for about two billion years—a conservative estimate—modern humans have been around for about one ten-thousandth of the existence of life on earth. That's about 0.0001, or 0.01% of the existence of life on earth. We have had radio communication technology for roughly a century. That means radio communications have come from earth for 100/2,000,000,000 = 1/20,000,000 = 0.00000005 = 5x10-8 = 0.000005% of the time life has existed on earth. In that time, radio waves have traveled up to 100 light-years from the earth. Let's look ten times further out. Estimates for the number of stars within 1000 light-years of earth range in the area of 100,000 stars. There's some question here, and that number could range an order of magnitude either direction. Surely the vast majority of these stars are inhospitable to the development of life, either because they're too cool (tiny Goldilocks zone) or too hot (and thus too short-lived), or in an area where other conditions such as local radiation from nearby systems simply preclude stable DNA. Let's just accept 100,000 as a reasonable, if very optimistic, estimate for our local 1000-light-year-radius bubble. So let's make some guesses here. Let's suppose that life arises on every planet (star system) where conditions are right for life, and that conditions exist appropriate for life to arise on one star system in ten. (This is surely a vast overestimate, by the way, but let's just go with it.) On how many of those star systems will intelligent life arise, that is, life capable of modifying its surroundings in such a way that it produces technological advancement? I don't know. Neither do you. Let's guess 10% (again, probably a vast overestimate). Now, how many of those intelligent races eventually develop sophisticated technology? Guess: 10%. Of those that develop sophisticated technology, how many specifically develop electromagnetic communications? Guess: 10%. How long does such a civilization last, either until it is destroyed (from without or from within) or until it moves beyond the need for radio-based communications? Guess: 100,000 years. From how far can such a radio signal be isolated from the background noise and identified as an artificial signal? Guess: 1000 light-years. In my view, all of these guesses are enormous overestimates except perhaps the last one, the 1000 light-year guess. I could imagine solar-system-sized telescope arrays that might be able to resolve signals beyond 1000 light-years. But at this point, the situation becomes moot. People living more than 1000 light-years from us will never be able to engage us in useful conversation. A 1000-year time lag is just too long. So we can suppose that we're limited by a normal human lifespan to something much less than 1000 light-years if we're talking communication. Therefore, using 1000 years is, again, a vast overestimate. 100,000 potential stars * (1 star system with life)/(10 stars) * (1 intelligent life system)/(10 systems with life) * (1 technological system)/(10 intelligent life systems) * (1 radio tech system)/(10 technological systems) = 10 potential candidate systems with intelligent life that uses radio communications within 1000 light-years of earth. That's ten. Within 1000 light-years. As an extremely optimistic guess. Now, it took two and a half billion years for radio-using creatures to arise on earth. How long will it take on other star systems? If the civilizations last 100,000 years (that was our guess) and such sophisticated life forms first became possible, say, a billion years ago (probably another optimistic guess, but at this point it's just that, a guess), there looks to be a one in ten thousand (one hundred thousand divided by one billion) chance of overlap between another intelligent radio-transmitting system and our own. Assuming our greatly optimistic ten potential star system candidates. that would appear to give us an optimistic guess of about one chance in a thousand that we might actually hear communication from an alien intelligence. This is a brief explanation of why I think SETI is such a waste of time, money, and effort.

As Paul taught: "Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled..." (Note the American spelling. Very important.)

As I wrote, I think Rittenhouse was completely justified—legally and even morally—in the shooting. I was very glad when he was correctly found not guilty in court. Anything else would have been an open miscarriage of justice. But he was WALKING AROUND with a LOADED SEMIAUTO RIFLE during a RIOT. That's what we call "stupid". If people are hunkered down with weapons protecting their homes or places of business, I'm with them in spirit and might perhaps be with them in body if I felt it merited such a show of strength. I have no problem at all with legit self-defense. I do have a problem with people putting themselves in harm's way without a strong reason to do so and then having to shoot their way out. In my opinion, Rittenhouse's actions were legal, justifiable, and ultimately stupid. Unless he was defending his own life or someone else's, he would have been better served not running around with live munitions.

IMO, legally speaking Rittenhouse was 100% completely in the right and justified in his shooting. But trotting around holding a loaded semiautomatic rifle during a riot seems like such an obviously bad idea that I can't imagine telling my own child anything but, "Don't do something stupid like that."

Yes - our "arrest" would include what you call "detained". Sometimes people are even arrested "by appointment". They come to the police station at an appointed time, wait in a waiting room. When their turn comes they are invited into an interview room, "arrested" (no question of handcuffs!), give a statement and are then free to go (though maybe with some nominal bail conditions). It is very common for a suspect to be arrested, questioned, and then released. (There is certainly no expectation of charges). Some murder inquiries involve multiple arrests before anyone is charged. mirkwood is vastly more an authority on this topic than am I, but let me clarify (and mirk can correct me if I'm wrong) that when police detain someone for an investigation, usually that simply means that person needs to stand there on the street or beside their car or the cop's car while the officer checks out ("investigates") the situation to determine what should happen next. Detaining someone is not a form of mini-arrest, but a way for an officer to control the comings and goings of potentially important people while he figures out what's going on in a given situation.

With no LOL or laugh emoji or anything but sincerity, I mourn at the weakening and apparent impending demise of this core root of Americanism. I am an American exceptionalist, not in believing that Americans were better than other peoples, or even that America was better than other nations, but in that the United States of America had been given a divine gift of liberty and therefore had the responsibility to spread that gift around the world. I think that, for all their mistakes and foolishness, previous generations of Americans had a surprising amount of success in doing this. But starting from some time after WWII, the rising generations of the time really lost their way. And here we are. Not sure how to move forward from here, except just to keep on plugging away, don't give up, don't let anything affect your joy in God and your fellow man. That last thing has proven hard for me, especially as I move into late middle age and the beginnings of actually being old, but I do believe it's the way to go.

I think most Americans, certainly most traditional or conservative Americans, find the idea of government censorship based on political correctness or sensitivity to mockery absolutely anathema.

That mission comprises a large area that is not particularly woke, and I believe the non-wokists are thirsting at least as much as the woke folk for the pure word of Christ.

The transactional nature taught of many things we do as worship, including prayer and also including scripture study, alms toward others, and simply living a Christlike life, has always bothered me in some way. I note that the scriptures themselves, even the words of God, contain this transactional element. But I don't look at Christ's atonement and see a transaction that Jesus freely engaged in. I see a gift from a Father to children that he considers precious beyond measure. I suppose we could view our relationships with our own children as fundamentally transactional, but I don't like that. As specific to zil's comment about prayer, I have not personally found the "template" to be particularly transactional. But I have always found it a bit, I don't know the right word, formal or wooden or stiff or somehow not really natural. Christ's example prayer given to his disciples, what the Catholics call "Our Father", really doesn't strike me as transactional, but more conversational and worshipful. You could view it transactionally, if you think that our praise to God somehow makes him feel better about himself, but I don't think that stands up to scrutiny. I always felt funny teaching people to pray by saying A, then B, then some combination of C, D, and E, and then end with F. But that's basically how we first teach our children to pray, so I decided it's probably appropriate for primary (or Primary) lessons in how to pray.

I consider this to be a great question, and a gateway to understanding more about our relationship to God and what he expects of us.

No. "Duty to retreat" refers to fleeing from an attack in preference to meeting the attack with deadly force. If you don't use force, "duty to retreat" doesn't apply. Even in Massachusetts, you don't actually have the duty to run away from an attacker.

Shouldn't that be "One of the two factions in War Chamber tonight is being led by Raven"? Kind of a literal word painting.

Italian missionaries go there all the time. Not much open preaching, of course.

Sorry, I'm not trying to bag on The Big Bang Theory. I have lost my taste for most TV, especially traditional sitcoms, in the last three decades. I suspect that says more about me and my growing impatience as I pass through middle age than anything really deep about American sitcoms.

Someone once called me "a real-life Sheldon", which was obviously meant as a mocking insult. I didn't care, but it did intrigue me enough that I watched some YouTube of BBT. It seemed to me like a generic laugh-tracked sitcom. The only thing that distinguished the writing was that the jokes (such as they were) were often themed toward physics or math. But they weren't particularly sophisticated, and often weren't even funny. So I'm left nonplussed by the show's popularity.

Since at least my missionary service in Italy, I have had a broadly positive opinion of Roman Catholics. I hope not to have my rose-colored glasses shattered too violently.

Same here, I think. Not sure about downtown Seattle proper. That place is infested with certified lunatics. But even there, I don't think people would look askance on someone who gave a home invader the beatdown, especially under the circumstances Jamie described.

What? Being a Latter-day Saint isn't a ticket to widespread popularity and acceptance? How come no one ever told me?

That's just what I was thinking.

I have noticed that many people often dismiss "semantic discussions" with a wave of the hand, apparently thinking that a mere discussion about which is the correct word to choose is at best a waste of time and at worst an exercise in bluenosed, self-serving hubris. While I think this is sometimes true, with people spouting words in an attempt to look smart or informed or intimidating or something else (which we would call hypocrisy), I think in general such so-called semantic discussions can be of great worth. As I mentioned before, I believe after a lifetime of experience that philosophy is primarily the study and dissection of what words mean. This discussion provides a good example of this. Is the word "act" appropriate in this context? From one way of thinking, the word "act" has overtones of phoniness, which implies hypocrisy. (I have been told that the word "hypocrite" comes from a Greek word meaning "an actor in a Greek play", and that the essence of hypocrisy is that you're trying to portray yourself as something that you manifestly are not, nor that you desire truly to be. You're just trying to fool people.) This would make the phrase "act well thy part" an encouragement to false portrayals, and thus basically opposite what it would seem to want to convey. From another way of thinking, the word "act" simply means to do something, as opposed to sitting there like a bump on a log, not making any effort. "Act" and "action" obviously are variations on the same root meaning, so "act well thy part" in this case would simply mean to take action as your place or position or assignment requires. The question then becomes which of the two meanings to choose. Certain personality types **blush** almost reflexively hearken back to word origins and original meanings. This is indeed often a useful way to proceed, especially if you are trying to understand the meaning of an old text. (This would certainly include scripture study.) Other personality types take the attitude that contemporary meaning is the only salient issue, and that etymology is only of occasional passing utility. Ultimately, that second way must prevail, as witnessed by the constant and unceasing evolution of language and expression. But I do think that for the thoughtful person, the first, etymology-based way offers a great deal to augment communication and anchor discussions on firm ground. And that's basically why I think "act" is the perfect term to use in the expression.

Nor did I think he said so. It appears we aren't communicating clearly in this.