Just_A_Guy

From a moral perspective, you're no doubt right. From a civil standpoint, though: We cannot claim law and order and due process and a degree of common courtesy for ourselves in the face of a majority that considers us to be the morally abhorrent ones, unless we are willing to grant a certain degree of deference to a government that accommodates similar claims from folks whose own moral abhorrence is plain to see. I agree that the authorities shouldn't have given that particular event space at the library; but once the authorities at the library allowed it space at a particular time--the physical occupation of that space with the intent to break up the meeting seems deeply problematic in its own right (and could escalate into physical violence at the drop of a hat). I'm not sure that the explanation of "but, they're . . . they're . . . WRONG! And, GROSS! And, those parents shouldn't be allowed to expose their own children to THAT! Surely in such circumstances, the right to assemble/ the right to have one's contracts honored/ the right to instruct one's children in accordance with one's own values don't apply!" (or the corollary, "you can't afford your own meeting space, so I and my friends in the majority reserve the right to bust up your meetings wherever and whenever they occur!") is really the field I want to be playing on--or, more to the point, that I want to see the Church playing on.

I’m going to try to be charitable and assume that the SP has some local knowledge that is being omitted from the article. Even assuming that the protestors were fastidiously polite: the bottom line is that they crashed someone else’s event and flooded a venue that someone else had properly reserved. If applied to our missionaries who were trying to hold a community information session at a public library seminar room which they had properly booked, I think we would be fine calling the tactic “divisive” or even “hateful”. It seems to me that the better approach here would have been to name and fire the library personnel who let this happen or, if the personnel situation is incurable because of tenure or what-have-you, de-fund the library. (In the spirit of bipartisanship and as a friendly nod to my friends across the ideological aisle, I’ll leave it deliberately ambiguous as to what I mean by “de-fund”.) The issue, of course, is that LGBTQ advocates are fond of applying those labels (“divisive” and “hateful”) to our positions, quite irrespective of our behavior as we express those positions; and the million-dollar question is how carefully the SP was using those terms. (The TWO-million dollar question is whether the reporter will release his/her entire correspondence chain with the SP; and based on past experience, I’m betting the answer will be “no”.)

I want to note here that I am not raising concerns over the JSF in an attempt to undermine their historical arguments. The evidence is what it is. I tend to be an institutionalist in many respects, and I am probably prejudiced somewhat in favor of Bushman et al; but I also (hope I) am open to the possibility that they may be getting the history completely wrong. For purposes of this thread, my concern is simply that people may begin interpreting evidence in a certain way because the JSF encourages them to do so. I am unable to publicly discuss the source of my information or to document my concerns about them; but to the extent that I can raise alarm about them within the constraints that prevent me from going into detail about it—I feel I need to at least try. But again, I’m just a random guy in the internet; and those who don’t know me are probably right to take my statements with a *huge* grain of salt. I will just say this: live righteously, keep the Spirit, and hold to the living prophet and apostles—and don’t let anyone come between you and them; and don’t be too surprised if you see people connected with the JSF start trying to drive wedges between you and the modern church leadership at some point in the future.

Who knows? Denver Snuffer stayed in the church for decades; and even then he only left when they threw him out.

I don’t have time to engage with the historical allegations on these videos. But I will say the following, with the caveat that I’m just a random guy in the internet and cannot document any of this. But, for whatever it’s worth to those who do know me, I will say that I personally am satisfied that the following points are true: —I am familiar with the personal dealings of several of the principals of the Joseph Smith Foundation. —Some of them, at least, are not good people. —Some of them, at least, are not honest people. —Some of them, at least, subscribe to a series of private beliefs that are weirder than any public commentator has, or perhaps could, possibly imagine. —Whatever they say publicly—in their their personal conduct—some of the principals, at least, do not accept the priesthood/authority claims of the modern LDS Church; or of President Nelson in particular. Maybe someday these individuals’ private apostasies will boil over into the public sphere—and maybe they won’t. Maybe the people of whom I speak will spend the rest of their lives keeping up their public charades of loyalty both to the ethical code of Joseph Smith, and to the authoritative claims of the modern LDS Church. But I would encourage anyone paying attention to their claims, to consider now which way they personally will go if/when the JFS formally breaks from the LDS church. Because I believe there is a very strong chance that the public break is coming.

Don’t talk yourself down like that. I’m sure they heard you yelling at your TV set all the way in Kabul.

My parents didn’t do anything to get NASA to the moon; but they (rightly, I think) took pride in the national achievement.

I don’t know that COVID deaths or recent international relations catastrophes can really be properly politicized (very much). —COVID was a tough situation all around. The lockdowns, as it turned out, were likely overkill; and there was a lot of mask drama. That whole business has left lingering questions over civil liberties, the power of government, and the reliability of the medical and scientific establishments. But in terms of actual deaths, I’m not sure that there’s much that could have been done that wasn’t done. It was inevitably going to be ugly. And if you believe that the vaccine saved thousands of lives (and I recognize many don’t, but I’m speaking to those who do)—the development and distribution of those vaccines were largely a bipartisan enterprise; and you should be proud of the national effort that produced it. —I’m inclined to be a defense hawk, and I mistrust Dems on global affairs generally. (And I’m concerned with the extent to which DEI is apparently being prioritized over force readiness, and a general animus towards political conservatives is seemingly being deliberately inculcated into the Biden military.) And the results of Biden’s fecklessness in Afghanistan (particularly when we trained their army to fight with air support, and then pretty much sabotaged their ability to maintain their Air Force) and his pussyfooting around with Russia were, of course, predictable. But to be fair, Biden also inherited a very bad hand. The prior administration had trouble developing, communicating, and sticking with a coherent strategy. Top level lieutenants had no idea what their boss was going to do best; and the status of many old alliances had been placed into some degree of doubt. Some degree of re-evaluating the global security status quo was probably appropriate; and certainly a head of state can to some degree get what he wants over the long time by maintaining an aura of unpredictability (just ask the North Koreans). But the presidency isn’t a lifetime appointment; and it’s hard for the new guy to keep a lid on things when his predecessor has spent four years playing Calvinball with the both the domestic and global diplomatic and security establishments.

Joseph Smith Translation, baby.

There is no such thing as repenting but remaining in one’s sins. The point of these scriptures is that salvation without repentance is impossible; because salvation by definition pulls us away from our prior, sinful state.

Two issues pointed out in the footnotes to this chapter in the NET Bible: 1). Middle eastern culture at the time had a strong element of reciprocity, and it was theoretically possible to sue a wedding guest who offered an unsuitable gift or a host who did not properly look after his guests. Thus, Jesus acts as a literal savior to those responsible for putting on the wedding. 2). The wine is created in stone water vessels used for Jewish purification rites. This is an omen that religious mores are about to be deeply shaken—as significant to people of Jesus’s day as if a temple president went into the temple one morning to find that the water in the baptismal font had turned into milk. We don’t know what’s coming, but we know something big is about to happen. Another thought: This sets the stage for Jesus’s encounter with the temple authorities when they ask him for a sign—we know Jesus could give them a sign, if He wants to; but He chooses not to and instead answers them in riddles. Another: the change from water to wine foreshadows the change Jesus is about to tell Nicodemus all humans must go through: spiritual rebirth. Another: water can symbolize life, and wine can symbolize abundance; prefiguring John 10:10.

So, I have a co-worker who worked at the Pentagon (technically Army Reserve, but did some Space Forcey stuff) on his last deployment. We chatted about this today (to the extent that he’s allowed to talk about what he did at all), and my basic takeaways from the conversation were: 1). This happens relatively frequency; there’s probably a political reason that this incident leaked now. 2). We do have the ability to do electronic jamming, spoofing, and take other measures against this kind of thing. 3). Contra other pieces I have read online, it apparently is technologically possible to somehow shoot down balloons even at very high altitudes above the theoretical operational ceiling of our fighter aircraft. 4). There’s a good chance we left the thing alone because we wanted the Chinese to think they were getting useful data.

I wonder, tactically, what a balloon in the stratosphere could do that a satellite in low-earth orbit couldn’t do.

I’m not trying to be a snot, and I’m sorry if that’s how I came across. FWIW I was responding to @LDSGator, not you. 🙂

I suspect older generations feared therapy for much the same reason newer generations look askance at clerical counseling: You’re giving a third party tremendously intimate access to a very personal and vulnerable part of you; and it’s not altogether certain whether the person so privileged is really deserving of the sort of trust they are being given.

I largely agree with NT, but I would point out that mechanically we know far more about how blood pressure medication works (and how it interacts with the broader cardiovascular system), than about how antidepressants (or any other medication used to address behavioral/psychological issues) work and how they interact with a particular person’s overall neurophysiology and psychology. Meds are a great tool, but they are not a cure-all and over reliance on them can sometimes backfire in catastrophic fashion. Careful mental health professionals and others in counseling roles (including religious leaders) will want to be careful to keep a nuanced approach.

Well, and the Skousen paradigm to which I’m responding to suggests that on an atomic (subatomic?) level, the elements themselves have a limited form of intelligence and agency; and that God’s power over the elements stems from the elements honoring God and choosing to obey His commands because of His willingness to perfectly balance the eternal principles of justice and mercy.

He ceases to be sovereign, to be sure. But there was something about the legalism and (for lack of a better word) communitarianism involved, that I found appealing.

I don’t doubt it. I see a lot of kvetching about it in uber-conservative venues. It ain’t just political progressives whose church membership sometimes puts them in uncomfortable situations . . .

That’s Cleon Skousen’s view, IIRC. I came across of a speech of his (translated into Portuguese) on my mission, where he lays it all out. I find it very attractive in a lot of ways; but one question it begs is: If God governs only by the consent of the governed, then by what power did He cast out out Satan and by what power does He hold Satan (and everything else) in subjection, and by what power does He reveal Himself to the eternally faithless/rebellious at the last day to sit in judgment of them? I’m inclined to think God and Christ are governed more by the eternal good and wise attributes of their own characters, than by some sort of social contract betwixt Them and the rest of creation.

Cost them the primary?

As much as I have been benefited from following Elder Bednar’s counsel and revere him as an apostle, I respectfully (and usually, quietly) disagree with his exegesis on this particular issue.

From what I gather, the stake president *did* tell him he had to confess to law enforcement; which he did. But then the kid’s parents, on the advice of a friend who happened to be a bishop (but not THEIR bishop) declined to press charges. But the story is still bizarre to me, because if you have the perp’s confession to police that should be *more* than enough for a conviction even if the victim doesn’t want to testify.

I don’t know how I missed this; but apparently the three 2013-ish temple films were all directed by the same guy; and he was later convicted for doing bad things to kids. The Church pulled the films about a month before the story went public.

Agreed. Eve didn’t know what she was doing. She was “beguiled”. She admitted as much, and Paul affirms it. I recognize that a lot of terrible things have been done to women because of suppositions about “Eve’s weakness”, but the solution is not to turn the event into something that, scripturally, it clearly wasn’t. And for what it’s worth, I loved all three of the new temple films. Even the one with the stoner Satan who used zero inflection in his voice.