Vort

I bet a lot of people misread it as "decide".

An idea has just struck me.
They say one of the central ideas of evolution is "common ancestry" - that modern humans do not only share ancestors with modern apes, but also dogs, cats, horses, snails, oak trees, cacti, mushrooms, slime molds and bacteria. Which means that just one event - one random alignment of atoms billions of years ago - led to the diversity of life we now see.
Now what has just occurred to me is that this only ever happened once in all the billions of years the Earth has existed, how unlikely must that event have been? It puts the sheer specialness of life into perspective. Perhaps with all the billions of stars in the universe, and the trillions of planets orbiting around them, it was bound to happen once - but it happened to happen here on our planet. What are the odds?
(Well actually the odds are 100%, because if it hadn't happened, we wouldn't be here to ask the question. I believe they call that the "weak anthropic principle".)
Or perhaps it happened more than once. Perhaps the evolutionists are wrong, and that different types of life did spring from multiple "proto-life" events during the Earth's early history. Or perhaps all current life did come from the same proto-life, but there were for a while rival "lives" to ours which eventually died out - our's was the one which (by natural selection) survived.
Or maybe Fred Hoyle was right about "panspermia" - that the elements of life have been drifting around the universe since forever (Hoyle didn't believe in a beginning) and dropping "like gentle rain from heaven" upon any planets they happen to meet.
Or maybe the event wasn't random. Maybe a proto-life is so unlikely that it could never reasonably occur at random however many planets there are, but that God travels around causing it to happen on planets here and there. Or maybe God only did it once, and it spread across the universe under its own steam, Hoyle-style.
Something to think about during lockdown...
P.S. I can do a good Fred Hoyle impression: "T' Big Bang theeuury is a looada o' ooold crap!"  (Well actually I can never decide if its Fred Hoyle, or Michael Palin pretending to be a Yorkshireman.) I've been reading The Secret Garden to my wife for a bedtime story for an excuse to use my "Yorkshireman" voice for all the Yorkshire characters - especially Ben Weatherstaff.
P.P.S. My wife says I don't sound Yorkshire at all, but just like I'm "talking stupid". Oh well... 

You mistake the meaning of the dog.  The dogs aren't representations of the candidates.  They are representations of the people reacting to the candidate.  In this case, it's how the left reacts to the two incidents.  Hate orange man, give Biden a pass.  
Hypocrisy.  Lack of consistency in outrage.  #HashtagBelieveWomen, but throw Reade under the bus for the greater good.  Shame, shame, SHAME on anyone who reacts like this dog.

Here is an interesting development that I've been thinking a lot about.  Trump is declaring houses of worship as providing "essential services."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UFG6Gr0Fow0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PPZceV5RR5Y
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sRweFK5LzQ
It's funny how CNN decides to point out that this is "unenforceable" rather than "faith friendly."  Why?  Because they want to drive a wedge between the faith community and Trump.
The more I'm thinking about this, the more I see Trump as Darius (of Daniel and the Lion's den).  Not Nebuchadnezzar.  Not Morianton.  Not Charlemagne.
Darius never did "convert" to the Law of Moses.  History says he eventually became Zoroastorian.  But there was no question that he was an ally of Daniel and all the Jews.  We can point to the fact that he declared that all people worship him (Darius) for a day.  And we can point to throwing Daniel in the Lion's den.  We could probably point to many things that he did in his life that were certainly against the laws of God.  But at the end of the day, he was a man with the power. And he used that power to protect the covenant people.
SIDE NOTE about Persia: It is sad that the story of the 300 Spartans depicts the Persians as the evil empire.  The truth is that Persians had many very forward thinking practices.  They were the first major world power to outlaw slavery.  They allowed women the right to own and control property.  They could represent themselves and their husbands at court.  A Persian Queen (Pourandokt) may have been one of the first female monarchs in history.
The point is:  It is very difficult to see from the outside and determine who a man (or woman) is on the inside.  What we can do is judge their actions.
The problem with Trump is that his actions in his private life (adultery, bully behavior, and adolescent speech) show one side, where his public actions (policies, proposed legislation, judicial appointees, defunding Planned Parenthood, general rhetoric supportive of Christians...) tell a very different side.  He's also taken a very federalist position on many policies.  He's been very respectful of states rights.  He's done what he can to get us out of wars and conflicts.  He even reversed his decision to attack Iran because he realized it there was insufficient cause to put G.I.s in danger.  He is an interesting character to say the least.
Looking at that profile, you know what political category I'd put him in?  Libertarian.

Phew, "Pete the Pretender" conveniently backed up by "Allison the Alias".
You've got to knee slap the fact that this trolling routine is so predictable.

In that article, the very word “revelation” links to another article  summarizing remarks by Elder Cook, who refers to the promulgation of recent “administrative principles” (which among other things serve as a useful check against conspiracy theorists who claim the pandemic is all an invention of left wingers, and reiterate what can and can’t happen in terms of liturgy), and also points to recent developments in the Church which taken together have created an “interlocking pattern of strength” and rendered the Church extraordinarily well-prepared for a crisis that would prevent its members from meeting for an extended period.
If you want the text of the revelations themselves . . . That presupposes a) each revelation was received as a fixed text, rather than broadly inspired concepts or ideas; and b) that such revelatory texts are typically distributed to the Church membership.  Both of those presuppositions are flawed.

Good ol' Pete the Pretender at it again.

In general, I think this is not so. indeed, we are commanded to bear testimony, and what is a miracle if not a testimony to you of God?
Here's my current take: Things that are given for us alone are probably not appropriate to share. If an angel appears before you to instruct you, then based on that experience you can bear testimony of the reality of God's communication with us. But you may be extremely reluctant (and rightfully so) to share details of your angelic encounter. Can you imagine the doubt and mockery from many corners that would follow such a recounting? We always bear testimony, but we do not cast our pearls before swine.

Ooooh. Eggplant.

So we count heads of cattle and butts of poultry. Got it.

Ooooh. Eggplant.

Wow.  I must have been the most foolish person you've ever met. 
I knew I wanted to marry when I first met her. I called on her for about a month before she agreed to date me. We went on exactly two dates and we talked about marriage. We were formally engaged about two months later. We married about 7 months from the time we first met. After 24 years and 7 children later, we've never gotten past the infatuation stage of the relationship.  I hope we never do.

So we count heads of cattle and butts of poultry. Got it.

Really? So how many people need to be ignorant of the meaning of "deicide" before it qualifies as "a lot"?
Perhaps you can enlighten me how this pertains to the discussion, because I don't see any relevance.

What the other two have already said is true.  I will state what the dynamic is in our stake and it may give you a better feel for what is really going on.
Pres. Nelson gives guidelines for stakes to administer the sacrament to people at home. The Stake Pres. then decides how that guidance will fit best with the stake's attributes: geography, personnel, activity rate, relative numbers of active priesthood holders, etc. The bishop then provides the house-to-house plan by making individual assignments of which families will have them administered to, and which families will self-administer. The Elders' Quorum then calls various brethren and decides which active priesthood holders will administer to the houses without sufficient priesthood in the home. It goes from general to more and more detailed.

FTR, "Deicide" means "killing God".

So... I promised my husband that I will finally do what the doctor told me to do and go on a lifestyle change on - tat-tat-tada - MONDAY!  Gasp.  This involves having to let go of my favorite Filipino foods completely and drastically reducing RICE!  Can you believe that?  A Filipino on rice restriction.  I struggled with this for so long - it's like I'm going to have to rip my identity...
Anyway... I'm so old my son is old enough to be on a mission and yet I still have a hard time doing the things necessary for my well-being.  But on Monday, I'm finally going to do it.  It's going to be hard.  It's going to be tough for the next few years.  But if I want to serve my Lord and my God, I have to do this.  And it will be done.  So bye-bye rice and humba and pinirito.  I love you and I'm going to miss you.  But until my health is back where it belongs, I will think of you with fondness but not dwell on your tastiness until then.  But don't think that just because I finished my health mission that I will come back to you.  I may have drastically changed by then that I don't even want to be with you anymore.  So long, good friends.

Ooooh. Eggplant.

When someone is given priesthood keys (the bishop in this case) the person giving those keys (the SP) does not relinquish those authorities. Also, what we have experienced recently wasn't some isolated circumstance that local bishops had to make a decision on. It was actually a temporary policy change that came down from the prophet through the priesthood chain of command. It was the SP responsibility to see that it was implemented in the stake by the bishops. So really it was the prophet that authorized it but the SP was responsible in seeing it carried out.

Ooooh. Eggplant.

Ooooh. Eggplant.

And here are the two most beautiful flowers of all the garden.  My wife and eldest daughter. And... there's also my dog.

Since I'd been talking about my garden on another thread, I thought I'd share some of my garden with y'all.
Here is my watermelon patch.  These are my two watermelon plants.  If they produce well, then I'm going to expand it to four or five next year.  For scale, those are 4x8x16 concrete blocks between the two plants.

These are the flowers that have developed.  They are all male flowers.  They're supposed to precede the female flowers by about a week.  It has been two weeks since the first male flower and still no female flowers.  I'm beginning to get worried.

Here is one of my blueberry bushes.  This is the third growing season.  Producing lots of berries for such a sparse plant.  i need to work on getting the branches to be fuller.

Here is a shot of the corn bed, the 2nd blueberry bush, and the gourd plant.  The corn bed is 4x8.  The gourd bed is 4x4.

And here is the cucumber bed (4x8).  We just put up the trellis with cattle panel and T-Posts. On the back end of the bed is a zucchini plant.  You can see the difference in leaves if you look real close.

 

Narratives can easily become more real to you than what you actually know...
 

The Bishop holds the keys for his ward and is authorized to act as he sees fit via revelation, but the Stake President has keys for the whole Stake including the Bishop's ward. His direction can and does supercede the Bishop's authority when necessary. And it goes all the way up the chain. The Prophet holds the keys for the whole church. If President Nelson said no further Sacrament is to be administered until I say otherwise, all priesthood holders no matter what keys they hold, would be bound by that statement.