Just_A_Guy

It’s true. I served my mission in equatorial Brazil, and no one had flush toilets there because they don’t work—the water can’t decide whether to go clockwise or counterclockwise, so the toilet never empties.

Julian of Norwich comes up a lot in Terryl and Fiona Givens’s LDS-oriented books—especially The God who Weeps and All Things New.

It should probably be noted that in 1 Samuel 13, Saul is in a desperate situation —he and his 3000 men have just picked a fight with the Philistines, they respond with 30,000 men, Saul wants to offer sacrifice before the battle and Samuel is nowhere to be found. (And Samuel isn’t even a Levite anyways; if an Ephraimite judge can offer sacrifice, then why not a Benjaminite king? All other near eastern kings were seen as having a priestly role, and basically being a sort of junior partner with the nation’s god. By the standards of every culture in the region, Samuel should be completely extraneous at this point.) Similarly, Israel has spent the last couple of centuries basically being the punching bag of every other nation in the region (not to mention ongoing genocidal internecine warfare). There was real suffering and desperation, and a craving for stability and certainty and safety; and sometimes when we are in that emotional state we just don’t make very good decisions. Israel’s challenge, and Saul’s, and ours, is whether we have the patience and courage to “stand still and see the salvation of the Lord”, or whether we will yield to the panicked shrieks of those who demand that we use the secular channels available to us in order to Do Something™.

I can add little except to recommend the Spackman post @MrShorty links above. My understanding is that the Hebrew here is full of double entendres. The author isn’t necessarily saying that they had intercourse—but he probably wants us to wonder if they did. Additionally—talking of extramarital sex in an ancient Hebrew context is complicated by the fact that so far as we know, there wasn’t a formal ecclesiastical wedding ceremony. The “wedding” was basically a big feast, at a certain point of which the bride and groom retired to a private room, consummated the marriage, and then the bloody sheets from the bed (the “tokens of her virginity”) were shown to the bride’s and groom’s fathers (and the other guests) to affirm that the bride had been a virgin; and they were considered “married” at that point. And here Ruth, as a widow, isn’t even a virgin anyways. This isn’t to say that ancient Israel was a sexual free-for-all. But in the context of the story of Ruth, it’s awkward to assert that pre-wedding sex would have been inherently sinful; because in a significant way the sex was the wedding.

I agree with nearly all of this; but write separately to note that what happened on January 6 was a mob, not an insurrection. The perpetrators, IMHO, ought to have been horsewhipped, and I’ll even go so far as to say that Ashli Babbitt’s shooting was most likely justified and it seems to me that she basically earned herself a Darwin Award. Nevertheless, there is a difference between a mob and an insurrection; and that difference is being deliberately blurred for political reasons.

Your purely-hypothetical (of course!) missionary sounds almost 100% like me, except that I was fortunate in that almost my entire mission was comprised of people who (notwithstanding numerous other, sometimes grave faults) had testimonies, wanted to be there, and were willing to work. I would still say: tough it out, and find joy where you can. Here’s something I posted to Facebook during the #givethanks campaign in late 2020, if it’s any help: In Mormon circles, it is a common trope that one’s term of service as a missionary is “the best two years of your life”. That . . . wasn’t the case with me. Don’t get me wrong—there were absolutely good times, and good people. But at its core, my missionary service was a sustained two-year period of being confronted with the disparity between what I wanted things to be, versus the way things really were. This sort of disappointment came up time and again—in the way I viewed my abilities, my faith, other people inside and outside of my own faith tradition, and the general world around me. I’m not sure I was a particularly effective missionary; and the overall experience was threateningly close to disillusionment. I have spent much of my adult life trying to process and make sense of what I experienced during that time. It’s still difficult—both linguistically and emotionally—for me to articulate all of my feelings about it. And yet . . . The older I get, the more I understand what a formative experience it was; how it prepared me for the life I have now. --It was on my mission that I first saw first-hand the effects of domestic violence, substance abuse, and mental illness; a precursor for my career path as a DCFS attorney. It was on my mission that I learned that while people *can* change, they often don’t; and waiting for them to change before loving them is going to be a very lonely experience. It was on my mission, I think, that I came to believe that one of the first rules of human relationships must be, “first, do no harm”—but that one of the next rules, is to remember that people have the potential to do and be so much more than they are. It was on my mission that I learned that being invited to be a part of someone’s struggles when they are in the most hellish moments of their lives, is a sacred trust and—paradoxically—beautiful in its own way. --It was on my mission that I think I really started to take comfort in little things. The faintest few puffs of a river breeze on a ninety-degree day with ninety-percent humidity. The sweetness of a watermelon, eaten in the shade. The sound of a tropical rainstorm approaching. The contrast between the brilliantly starlit sky above us and the pitch darkness surrounding our boat in the Trombetas River; and the inexplicable way a badly-but-sincerely sung hymn of praise can only enhance the experience. Flying above a tropical storm at night, watching bolts of lightning shooting between pillars of clouds towering up all around us. The workmanship of a hand-stitched blanket at the Ver-o-Peso market. [Religious stuff coming—apologies if I seem preachy with these next couple!] --It was on my mission that I dove into the scriptures, with an intensity that eventually made various authors seem very familiar, very individualized to me. --It was on my mission that I learned to have an all-out brawl with God. That He can take it. That I won’t get immediately smitten if I whine, if I complain, if I scream at Him and cuss at Him and demand explanations that He is disinclined to give. --It was on my mission that I learned that sometimes, even when every atom of you is screaming out for you to act--to do something, *anything*, to make the pain stop—sometimes the correct course is inaction. Patience. Wait and see. “Be still, and know that I am God.” For what may well have been the worst (but most necessary) two years of my life, I #givethanks.

The printer’s manuscript of the Book of a Mormon has it capitalized. As you probably already know, at that time both spelling and capitalization were largely subjective. I would *guess* that the 1981 edition renders the term capitalized due to sheer inertia. At least in modern LDS writing, a capitalized “God” typically refers specifically to God the Father, God the Son, or God the Holy Ghost; whereas a lower-case “god” is typically used when we are taking about either a human’s ability to attain exaltation or when folks are hypothesizing about other universes run by other exalted beings. The online version seems to reflect this stylistic usage and also comports better with KJV Genesis 3:5, which the “as gods” verbiage seems to deliberately echo and which also uses the lower case.

Ruth sent him.

I understand, and that’s fair. I will just say: wickedness comes in many forms. Stick closely to the Church’s living priesthood authorities, no matter what the JSF may encourage you to do either now or in the future.

There’s a lot I’d like to say about the Joseph Smith Foundation but that I couldn’t substantiate without waiving whatever bits of anonymity I still have in this forum. So obviously, you’ll have to take the following with the caveat that it comes from a random anonymous guy on the internet. But suffice it to say: be really, really careful with them: There are some people involved with that organization who are not as devoted to the Gospel that was taught to us, as they would like us to think they are.

We know that spirits who were “intended” to be one way, with relative frequency are born into bodies that fall short of the form the spirit was intended to take—people are born without limbs, or with congenital defects in this organ or that. We know that some of these defects occur at the genetic level (propensity to breast cancer, for example). People being genetically intersex is a thing (we used to have a forum participant here who claimed to be genetically intersex), and I regret not having engaged with them better to learn more about it firsthand. Similarly, there seems to be a physiological basis for many (not all) natal males who at some point identify as females—exposure (or lack thereof) to various hormones in utero seems to affect whether certain physical features of the brain develop in a particular way. But . . . There is also a subset of male-to-female transsexuals, and (from what I gather, though data in the latter case seems to be lacking as occurrence of male-to-female Gender Dysphoria in statistically significant numbers is apparently very new) nearly all female-to-male transsexuals, for whom socialization seems to play a major role. Up until a few years ago, in cases where gender dysphoria had only presented for the first time in adolescence (as opposed to early childhood), the general therapeutic approach was “watch and wait”, giving the kid space to figure things out on their own and not pushing them to prefer one potential identity over any other. When that was the approach, something over 60% of such kids eventually “grew out of it”. But now the prevailing therapeutic approach seems to be to lock ‘em into (“affirm”) a new identity early—announce new names and pronouns to all their contacts (guaranteeing that any backpedaling will result in social humiliation), give ‘em hormones (with a false promise that their effects are completely reversible), give ‘em puberty blockers (with another lie about potential reversibility), give ‘em top surgery, give ‘em bottom surgery . . . and once started down this path it becomes very, very hard for a kid to change direction. I suspect that’s one reason that the Church handbook discourages both medical *and* social transitions, and names both as grounds for the imposition of certain membership restrictions. On the other hand: it just seems like common courtesy to call someone by the name they want to be called. I transitioned from a diminutive nickname to a more “adult” nickname around middle school, so I have some appreciation for people who are conscientious about that sort of thing—but I also have little sympathy for people who make a big dramatic performance out of the fact that someone slipped up and called them by their “dead” name. These people have known and loved you all your life—have a little charity, for Pete’s sake! But pronouns . . . Yeah, except in the case in genetically intersex people: that’s perpetuating an untruth. I’ll try not to cause pain by needlessly using a pronoun they reject in their presence; but I won’t call them something they’re not. Going back to the socialization aspect: I said it in another recent thread, and I’ll say it again: if it’s legit to stay home from a ward meeting to avoid an epidemic of a disease that kills/maims virtually zero percent of the kids who get it, I think it’s legit to stay home from a ward meeting because the leadership is openly embracing an epidemic whose effects on a child’s body and future are far more catastrophic. The fact that one spreads biologically and the other socially is, to my mind, a distinction without a difference—the effect is the same. And what’s more—to all appearances, the modern mental health establishment doesn’t want it to stop. Until we understand what causes the spread and come up with some proven methodologies to counteract it—as a parent, it seems we have few options to protect our own kids from this other than isolation. And that is a tragedy.

Doesn’t the prophecy end with the prophets being killed, their bodies lying in the streets for a couple of days, and then being resurrected and ascended to Heaven? The idea of translated beings being mortal again, seems problematic.

Same as Scotty’s; just the most recent week for us. I’m currently serving in our ward Sunday school presidency, and I think our ward’s teachers have mostly surrendered to the idea that they just won’t cover everything. With that sense of urgency gone, we’ve seen some really good discussions. My approach is that if you can get people to really enjoy taking about the scriptures, that’ll inspire them to go home and study more on their own time—where, so suspect, most of the actual “learning” is going to take place.

The older I get, the more our social rituals and drama surrounding weddings just seem ridiculous. In the hypothetical described in the OP, I’d say: As long as the (temple) wedding actually happens, the time/place/manner is of minimal importance to me. I’d be more worried about how the pressures described would affect the marriage itself.

Elder Uchtdorf comes across as very “warm fuzzy” in his discourses, but everything I’ve heard suggests that when counseling people in-person he is very rigidly “by the book”. Assuming he re-enters the First Presidency, I don’t think he’ll be the pushover that the progmos are expecting. (And of course, he was in the First Presidency when the November 2015 policy was announced. He doesn’t get a lot of blame for that policy, but by then President Monson was in steep decline and President Eyring doesn’t seem the type to ram through sweeping controversial policy changes on his own initiative over a colleague’s objection.) Elder Gong, as a 70, appeared in some of those leaked videos of Q12 meetings a few years back and wasn’t exactly an advocate for social change; and my own (increasingly dated) experience with church leaders from Brazil (Elder Soared’s homeland) that they tend to be a pretty hard-nosed bunch—they grew up in a deeply profligate society, dealt with the fallout on a daily basis, and generally had little patience for impenitent sexual libertines. On the broader issue here: Elder Bednar’s recent talk to the National Press Club openly touted the church’s work with the LGBTQ lobby on housing and other non discrimination issues. For PR purposes, at least, the church seems to be trying to surf the wave—to a point. The more interesting question to me is whether, in broader society, the LGBTQ lobby has overplayed its hand in its outreach efforts to children—particularly to children in school, and behind the backs of these children’s parents. It’s still early, but I note a lot fewer rainbows on my Facebook feed this month than I did last year; and a lot more people openly and fearlessly mocking corporate wokeist hypocrisy. I don’t think the battle is over—not by a long shot—but given this country’s other issues, I think a lot of people are (at least momentarily) torqued off that the LGBTQ lobby seems more interested in making sure that kids are gettin’ it on, than in making sure that those same kids actually have food on their tables. Time will tell what the long-term ramifications of this discontent may be. But for the present, my sense is that a lot of “allies” are lying low, plotting their next move, and waiting for November to pass.

For a lot of the folks I knew in CA who later emigrated—it’s the Church itself that brings ‘em to Utah. And for those who have no ideological/religious connection to Utah: there’s still the fact that the Mormon Corridor from Idaho to Arizona is about as far east as you can move from the west coast, and still remain within a day’s drive of the family members you left behind you back in California. In the summer, I can start driving at sunrise and be at my folks’ house by sunset—no overnights, no motels, and maybe without even switching drivers. I couldn’t do that from Indiana (where I considered going to law school and still sort of regret not enrolling), or Texas, or even Colorado; but I can do it from Utah.

Me too. We bought in Lehi, Utah for $240K in 2012 and is now Zillowing at $646K. But as for the Texas house: I’d pull the the permits on the renovation project. Just because the wall was structural, doesn’t mean some chucklehead wouldn’t go ahead and knock it out . . . or that the house couldn’t seem fine for a few years before one day randomly collapsing under its own weight.

Agreed. I think “mental illness” is largely (not entirely, but largely) a “cop-out”, if you’ll forgive the pun. Other demographics are more at risk for “mental illness” than late-adolescent, mostly-white teenaged boys; but they don’t generally go around shooting up schools. And frankly, mental illness—unlike most other medical conditions—isn’t diagnosed according to an observable physiological or chemical causative agent; it’s diagnosed according to what kind of tensions it creates between the patient and the patient’s broader social community and then we try to work backwards to guess about what might have caused it. As community values evolve, some things that were formerly dubbed “‘mental illnesses” are redefined to not be mental illness at all (homosexuality, for example). Neuroscience is advancing, and we kind of know what sorts of behaviors tend to originate in what part of the brain—but it’s still a really fuzzy line between “mentally ill” versus “obstreperous son of a gun” versus “just plain, unmitigatedly evil.” Even most people we would call “mentally ill” can still love, can still feel connected with their community. And they can still fear suffering death in painful, ignominious ways; as well as postmortem humiliation. I suspect the rash of school shootings we are witnessing has less to do with clinical mental illness per se, and more about people who have been culturally groomed (sorry, @LDSGator!) to disregard at least some subset of human life, to not take pride in their past or expect to find meaning in their future, and/or not to be particularly fearful of the consequences of “going out in style”. These issues aren’t easily solved; but I think flaying and gibbeting the bodies of school shooters may be a start. Pre-death, if we can get SCOTUS to go along with it.

Welcome back! We disagree a lot, but I sincerely hope you are well.

What were they doing besides demonstrating? If they were getting physical/violent/destroying property, I think it’s hysterical. If they weren’t nonviolent, though . . . That doesn’t sit quite right with me.

I think it’s worth noting that per D&C 130, as of 1842 even Joseph Smith claimed not to know when the Second Coming would occur. We know the signs, certainly. Some of them have very fixed chronologies (eg two witnesses in Jerusalem for 3.5 years, etc). So I doubt the believers will be that surprised, even if they don’t know in advance the exact date it will occur.

Everybody’s doing it, Backroads . . .

After Sandy Hook, Larry Correia (a fiction author who happens to be LDS, though in his writing he tends to swear like a sailor) wrote a detailed blog about school shootings. Correia is himself a former federally-licensed firearm dealer and used to moonlight as a professional “bad guy” for cops doing active shooter drills; his bread and butter was the psychology of mass killers. His post is probably too foul-mouthed for me to link to here, but I’d highly recommend it. One of the points he makes (if memory serves) is that you don’t have to actually be that good of a marksman to stop a school shooter. School shooters sort of go into a fantasy/dream world as they are acting out their crime, and just the sound of gunfire from someone else and the knowledge that bullets are now flying in their direction, tends to pull them out of their trance. Correia points to shooting after shooting where, at the sound of hostile gunfire, the perpetrator immediately turned the gun on himself. As an armed teacher, you don’t necessarily have to hit the school shooter—you just have to make him have a “oh, crap, I’m not in total control of the situation anymore” moment (oh—and not kill any innocent bystanders in the process, naturally). That’s why law enforcement doctrine for dealing with active shooters has evolved over the last two decades from “wait until overwhelming force arrives, and then go in there together in a coordinated counteroffensive” to “as soon as you park your vehicle, get in there and shoot back—don’t wait for backup”. As for the fear of students wrestling guns away from teachers: the student has to know the teacher is armed in the first place. My understanding is that even just saying “I have a gun, so, nanny nanny boo boo” in a high-conflict situation can subject you to “brandishing” charges (unless there’s a legitimate need for self-defense). So I doubt students are likely to even know their teachers are carrying. My kids’ school told me that *some* teachers there carry (because I specifically asked), but they pointedly refused to tell me which teachers carry (I also asked that, because I’m nosy; but I think they were right not to tell me).

No, no, you’ve got it all wrong. If we fire the teacher-groomers first, then we don’t have to give them guns. On a more serious note: even if arming teachers “works”, you won’t really see the effect. Because the effect isn’t that school shootings don’t happen; the effect is that shooting body counts stay in the single digits. The sticky point with gun control debates generally is that the problems with the status quo are self-evident, whereas the benefits of the status quo can be ascertained only through counterfactuals and hypotheticals. I’d like to see earlier interventions with mental health care; but the mental health community has spilled too much ink over the last decade trying to pathologize conservatism. And that’s not a local phenomenon. As I understand it, the incarcerated Uighurs aren’t in prison; they are undergoing psychological treatment. Ditto for many of Putin’s most vocal critics.

These seem like false equivalencies. Teachers are trusted generally to teach children on topics about which teachers and parents agree. It’s when they go beyond the scope of that trust and that agreement that parents get tetchy. For all the other personal, political, and ideological disagreements that may exist, I think that parents and teachers can at least agree that they don’t want children to be gunned down in a school. The question is whether a teacher can be competent to protect kids with guns (and, in the interim, to handle their own firearms in a safe and responsible way). I don’t think teachers should be compelled to be armed. But I think those who are willing and able to do so safely, should be permitted to. That’s the way it is in Utah; there are several teachers at my kids’ elementary school who carry. They have CCWs, and I’m fine with it. Texas, too, apparently has a “school marshall” program under which teachers can get authorized to carry; it seems unclear at present whether this particular school availed itself of that program.