Vort

Original lyric: "Long shall his blood, which was shed by assassins, / Stain Illinois while the earth lauds his fame."

And this: - If we had a billionaire like Lance Hunt as our benefactor... - That's because Lance Hunt is Captain Amazing - Don't start that again. Lance Hunt wears glasses. Captain Amazing doesn't wear glasses. - He takes them off when he transforms. - That doesn't make any sense. He wouldn't be able to see. And this: - Okay, am I the only one who finds these sayings just a little bit formulaic? "If you want to push something down, you have to pull it up. If you want to go left, you have to go right." It's... - Your temper is very quick, my friend. But until you learn to master your rage... - ...your rage will become your master? That's what you were going to say. Right? Right? - [pause] Not necessarily.

There is no Biblical evidence of a "global" flood. There is no evidence (that I know of) that the ancient Hebrews of 2500 BC even knew they lived on a globe. A "global flood" is thus utterly anachronistic.

Who is he to declare LDS doctrine? Sorry, I must have missed the post where someone said he can't give his opinion. In my case, of course you do. Are you suggesting that I have not "looked into it"? Or do you think that because I came to a different conclusion from someone else, therefore I must need to "look into it" some more? Thanks for the invite. I appreciate it, but decline, as I have little interest in discussions that center around how scientific principles or conclusions ought to be determined by someone's scriptural gloss.

Sure, it's evidence. But it does not establish anything. Or are you willing to state that nothing ever published in the Ensign has been counterfactual or contrary to LDS doctrine?

True. True. True. True. False. Neither of which positions qualify him to speak about things clearly beyond his ken.

How so?

OK, who claimed to have published research on the matter? 'Fess up. Inquiring minds will have all sorts of questions to ask you.

AP reporters have determined that the "outed" (or "stolen", depending on your political viewpoint) emails do not show that anthropogenic global warming is a hoax, but rather that climate scientists have all the intricate social skills of a maladjusted seventh grader wearing plaid pants and Coke-bottle glasses with tape across the nosepiece. (Big, big surprise there!) Now we can all breathe easy, relax, and let our honest politicians continue in the important, nay vital, work they have been doing: Making the world safe for climate change! Or can we? Is the AP report accurate? Who you gonna believe, them or your lying eyes? Which most accurately reflects your own viewpoint? Manmade global warming is: Real! The scientists said it, I believe it, that settles it!Real! The AP is famous for its deep understanding of all things scientific.Probably real. The preponderance of evidence weighs toward anthropogenic global warming. I know this because I have actually done research on the topic and am qualified to offer a knowledgeable opinion on the matter.Probably real. The preponderance of evidence blah blah, or at least that's what they say, and I figure they wouldn't make such a thing up. It makes sense to me that a few billion people burning hydrocarbons for a few centuries would impact the chemical makeup of the atmosphere enough to cause some observable change.I have no idea. It's all over my head anyway, but if I trust them to collect and spend my tax money wisely, why not this, too? (That could be an argument either way.)Probably false. I can't put my finger on it, but the whole thing smells distinctly fishy to me. If anthropogenic global warming is real, why can't they just expose the proof so that everyone can see it?Probably false. Scientists are human, too, and they often are not nearly as smart as they think. This unfortunate "cause" has gained traction, mostly among the ignorant political Left and those who have just enough education to be dangerous but not enough to actually see through the smokescreen to the man behind the curtain.False! The earth has heated up and cooled down throughout its history. Why ought we to think that the last couple of decades (when we actually started paying attention) are suddenly so completely different from all other historical occurrences?False! It's all a scam, a plot by communists, earth worshipers, energy companies, and/or the world bank and the Illuminati to restrict our freedoms and ability to travel or even think clearly by foisting off this absurd "the-sky-is-falling!" scenario onto us, and the sheeple are too stupid and too committed to their drugs, fornications, and other debauchery even to care!

I think that's what we are all wondering. Vanhin decided this was just a troll. Your dreams are perhaps somewhat tamer than those of most people... That is the absolute epitome of hyperbole (pronounced EP-uh-towm uv HAI-per-bowl, for all you Brian Regen fans).

One of them Zucker films.

(cf Moses 1:14) The Naked Gun or one of the other sequels based off of Police Squad.

"Brain cloud". (No Googling!)

That's the commonest Primary song I never heard!

No, I don't color-code at all, except I occasionally change colors I use so I can roughly tell when I marked a certain scripture. I have found colored marking to be a bit artificial and altogether too fuzzy for my use. "Should this scripture be marked as atonement or as obedience?" I wish the margins were bigger so I could have more room for notes and thoughts. I'm going blind in my old age, too, so I'm considering at some point getting a large-print edition, which I assume would also have larger margins.

No, those mean different things. Every human being is a child of the heavenly Father. Being a son of Abraham is different. But I agree, the "sons of Abraham" thing is not particularly common LDS parlance. A more likely thing would be to say that they are "of the Abrahamic covenant"or some such expression. "Sons of Abraham" sounds very Muslim to me, kind of like "people of the book". I have heard some recently baptized people voice such concerns. Those more mature in the gospel don't usually worry about such things. I figured it was from a recent convert who hadn't quite absorbed "Mormonish" yet. But maybe you're right and it was a troll. The use of "holy spirit" instead of "Holy Ghost" and "witness" instead of "bear testimony" do sound other than traditional LDS. Also, I would hope that Latter-day Saints would not look at an invitation to a friend's wedding as an opportunity to overtly proselytize the wedding guests, as some anti-Mormons seem to portray.

Do you believe in the divine right of kings? That is, do you believe that kings rule their kingdom because God put them there? The rule of the kings of England, and by extension the very existence of the pervasive and rigid hierarchical structure of English society "classes" that lives on to some extent to this very day, was justified by this thinking. "I deserve to live in splendor and collect taxes from the poverty-stricken serfs (or itinerant farmers) on my land because I was born into this landed family. That man deserves his starvation, poverty, and misery, because he was born into that poor family. You can tell we both deserved it, because we were born to our station, so God put us here." Like most Americans, I reject this thinking. There is no "divine right of kings"; that is merely an excuse made up by rich people to justify their riches and their oppressive behavior toward their fellow man. If we are born into riches and luxury, it means we have a duty to use those riches to help our fellow man, not persist in his oppression. Similarly, I tend to reject the idea that we Americans deserve the liberties in our country because, hey, we were born here, but the unwashed aliens deserve no such thing. I have absolutely no problem with the need to secure our borders, but I have a very large problem with immigration law as it stands and with the view of "illegal immigrants" as criminals. They are, for the most part, people just like you and me, people who found themselves in poverty and are trying to make something better for themselves and for their children. They do not have the education to understand all the legal niceties of immigration or the financial means to jump through those hoops. For the most part, these are hard-working, honest, scared individuals doing the best they know how, and only because of procedural technicalities do they find themselves on the wrong side of the law. They constitute the American "serf" class, working for pennies to scrape by, often exploited by those who want cheap mass labor. We who enjoy our cheap food picked by "undocumented workers" and who buy our cheap burgers to feed our obese faces at the restaurants staffed by underpaid "illegals" are the beneficiaries of this system. We live off the sweat of our fellow being, rather than by our own sweat, as we have been commanded. It is utterly unconscionable, and one of the areas I find myself in stark contrast to many other conservatives. I am pleased as punch, in fact quite proud, that the LDS Church specifically reaches out to these people to share the gospel with them. I think it is a sign of a Christ-like people.

Then I apologize.

What? You mean this is not true? Lectures on Faith, Lecture 6 section 7: Let us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things, never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvation I dunno...sounds believable to me...

Alma 37:23 And the Lord said: I will prepare unto my servant Gazelem, a stone, which shall shine forth in darkness unto light, that I may discover unto my people who serve me, that I may discover unto them the works of their brethren, yea, their secret works, their works of darkness, and their wickedness and abominations. Joseph Smith on occasion used what he called a "seer stone", a pebble a couple of inches across. He named it "Gazelem".

Are you familiar with Egyptian geography and the annual cycle there? The Nile floods every year, inundating the land around it. This is clearly what is meant here. (Note: The entire earth need not be flooded by the Nile in order for the land to be "covered by water". That concept would be a modern and very obvious misunderstanding of the scripture -- perhaps not unlike the concept of Noah's "global" flood.) Or it requires understanding the worldview of the ancients and what the story of Noah's ark was intended to teach. I think this is an excellent example of wresting the scriptures through overanalysis.

So let me see if I understand your model correctly: A spirit is an object composed of a type of matter known as intelligence, aka spirit element.This spirit, formed of intelligence or spirit element, is then animated by intelligence, aka the light of Christ or the light of truth.So a spirit is created from intelligence(1) and animated by intelligence(2). These two types of intelligence refer to completely different things.

Okay, this make sense, sort of. Not sure how I was to know that "reading the saints" meant "reading the Journal of Discourses", but I'll chalk that up to coming in late in the conversation. I don't understand this. What you say "may not be a fact as an institution, but...[it] is [still] accurate." If what you say is counterfactual, in what sense is it accurate? Do you mean that people on this thread discouraged reading the Journal of Discourses, so therefore the Church as a whole does so? I did not notice the discouragement to reading the Journal of Discourses. I'd appreciate it if you could point them out to me. I seriously have no idea what you are talking about. What attitude? Can you point to a post I made that communicated such an attitude? I hadn't thought so, until this latest post. Which term? "Reading the saints"? If that's what you mean, then you are right, that term is not popular among Latter-day Saints. At least, I have never heard it before.

This is Vanhin's (and Elder McConkie's and Pres JFSmith's) model. The other model is: A man (a spirit) consists of a physical body (spiritual body) and an animating spirit (intelligence) contained within. The physical (spiritual) body has is not a person without the animating essence of the spirit (intelligence).

Thanks for your thanks. I have read your last 20 or so posts, and cannot find anything you have written about "reading the saints". So I have no idea what you are talking about, either for Catholicism or for Mormonism. Will you elucidate?