Just_A_Guy
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Posts posted by Just_A_Guy
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52 minutes ago, Vort said:
This is simply false. "The cases" have shown no such thing. If they have, I invite you to demonstrate such. There were many irregularities in the 2020 vote, and the Democrats actively suppressed investigation until the audit trail was too cold to follow.
We follow the reported results not because they have been demonstrated to be accurate, but because the alternative is the end of our republic. The Democrats are much better at cheating, lying, and corruption than the Republicans. It's not because many Republicans wouldn't do so if they could; it's because the Democrats have many generations of experience. To think that had no bearing at all on the election returns is, at best, naive.
Whether or not it changed the outcome is a different matter. Did Biden actually, truly win the majority of votes in the electoral college? We will never know the answer. But don't pretend that some reliable third party has validated the 2020 election results.
In a non-nationalized election regimen (ie, individual states set up their own procedures) there’s always going to be some tomfoolery somewhere, which in our day and age will provide useful video clips that will tend to affirm someone’s desire to believe that the whole shebang was rigged.
I haven’t done an exhaustive study of all the alleged 2020 fraud. I did look at 2 or 3 of the allegedly most obvious cases (as alleged by Trump, Powell, & Co) and remember coming away with the impression that the claims being made about them were overblown. I recognize the leftist march through our institutions (including the judiciary) over the past decades, but have not seen a 2020 election case where it seemed clear that the court reached the wrong result. (I agree that the current criminal charges, by contrast, are as dodgy as heck; there were probably some technical violations—with RICO, pretty much ANYTHING is a technical violation—but I think the real crime being charged is effectually “Presidenting While Republican”.)
This is an over-simplification, but . . . Trump was consistently trailing in the 2020 polls. We all knew it. We all consoled ourselves with the idea that the polling was off; that a red wave would materialize on Election Day in just the right combination of states so as to give Republicans a victory in the electoral college. That wave *sort of* materialized—the final RCP poll average (https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/polls/president-general/2020/national/) had the popular vote at 51.8% Biden versus 43.4% Trump; and when all the votes were counted nationwide it was actually 51.3%/46.8%. But the simple fact is that all along, the GOP’s only hope of victory was a series of coordinated lightning strikes in just the right places; and that simply didn’t happen.
At the end of the day: as a party, we nominated a bad guy; and everyone knew he was a bad guy; and most of the self-proclaimed moral consciences of the nation on the Christian Right were openly reveling in the fact that they had a bad guy who would fight their battles for them—and the country had just plain had enough of it all.
- LDSGator and Phoenix_person
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That kid represents himself and the Church really, really well.
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I saw about a 10 minute clip of Candace being interviewed by Tucker Carlson, and the issue came up. I thought she came across as being very measured and gracious. I think they’re both right, to a certain extent—there *should* be ongoing dialogue (especially with regard to just how deeply the US should get involved), as Candace says: and a call for permanent ceasefire at this point in time is essentially a call for unfettered Jew-killing, as Ben says.
- LDSGator, Carborendum and Traveler
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Indeed. And at a time when we are still dickering over getting the Dubai temple built, and looking towards keeping good relations with the Arab partners of the BYU Jerusalem center, it’s conceivable that the Lord doesn’t feel the costs are worth the benefits for the Church to come out as stridently pro-Israel.
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19 hours ago, mikbone said:
Of note is the scripture in the bottom right of the picture, or the far left side of the desk.
2 Ne 29: 5 O ye Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them. But behold, I will return all these things upon your own heads; for I the Lord have not forgotten my people.
Also, notice that the chapter ends with these words.
And I will show unto them that fight against my word and against my people, who are of the house of Israel, that I am God, and that I covenanted with Abraham that I would remember his seed forever.
“Tell us you support Israel without dealing with the political fallout of telling us you support Israel.”
Well-played, President. Very well-played, indeed.
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5 minutes ago, LDSGator said:
It might be, but rhetoric means nothing to the Jewish people that died. You sort of insinuated libertarians would be down with doing nothing . . .
What I was trying to flat-out imply was that no, there’s no way that even more pragmatic/politically savvy libertarians or corporate conservatives would try to muzzle the moralistic ideologues who (I would like to think!) would be leading the opposition in such a scenario.
As for the history: seriously, watch The Scarlet and the Black. 🙂
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16 hours ago, LDSGator said:
There were republicans who warned everyone about this way back in 2016. No one listened.
I think that Cruz or Kasich could have pulled most of the party together in 2016 if they’d gotten the nomination—there was certainly a “burn it all down” component to the GOP, but I think it was manageable back then. Nowadays . . . not so much.
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1 hour ago, LDSGator said:
You know me @Just_A_Guy, I don’t speak for all libertarians. But your question is dangerous one for religious people to ask. I’d be stunned if any libertarian endorsed murder. However, and since you brought it up, I’ll go there.
Given that some churches WERE complicit in the holocaust or at the very least knew about it and did nothing (Google Pope Pious XII holocaust letter) I’d be far more likely to trust libertarians than churches with the life of Jews.
Now, having said that, I have never seen an anti Semitic LDS person in my life. So I exclude the LDS church in what I just said. And yes, the majority of Christians are not anti Jewish.
But if you ask me who I trust more with the safety of the jews-your average mainstream Christian church or Russell Nelson, it would be our prophet 100% of the time.
This seems kind of close to an et tu argument. And isn’t it coming perilously close to saying that “since Catholic A (who was a de facto hostage of Mussolini, and then Hitler) didn’t take more aggressive action when Catholic B (who was secretly but actively fighting Hitler) informed Catholic A of the Holocaust, Christians generally must assent to a repeat Holocaust whenever, wherever, and against whomever the leftist libertines and secularist sex fiends may hereafter demand”?
(By the way, I’d encourage you to watch “The Scarlet and the Black” with Christopher Plummer and Gregory Peck at some point. It’s a nice little movie, and very thought-provoking.)
At any rate, @Backroadsaccurately gets the gist of the reason for my hypothetical. Provided that the state of your democratic republic is still somewhat functional*, there are worse things than an electoral defeat.
*Which, I grant, is arguably an increasingly tenuous assertion to make in this day and age . . .
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I agree with you in substance, @JohnsonJones, though I might quibble a smidge with the way you get there (I think 132:19–and verse 26–are each subtly referring to a different ordinance that makes an unconditional promise of exaltation).
I’ve been reading Buerger’s “The Mysteries of Godliness” (definitely not for everyone; and though he has some interesting insights I think he largely missed the point of temple work generally and the endowment in particular); and he provided a quote from President Snow affirming that (this is me paraphrasing) exaltation could be gained without receiving what was then called the Second Anointing during one’s lifetime. (Buerger also suggests that in Joseph Smith’s day, having received this ordinance—also called receiving the “fullness of the priesthood”—was what separated the apostles from the other pretenders to Joseph’s mantle; and that Sidney Rigdon’s excommunication technically came because he hadn’t received the Second Anointing, but knew it existed, and so administered a version of it to himself in order to bolster his leadership claims.)
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1 hour ago, LDSGator said:
If that’s your hill I understand totally. The only word of caution I would offer is that your cause goes nowhere if you continue to lose. I’m with the WSJ 100% on this.
I think, though, that the country was founded on the principle that some things are so morally repugnant that fighting against them—even when we know it’s a losing fight—is an ethical imperative.
If Jew-lynching were legal and religious conservatives were trying to stop it, would libertarians and corporate conservatives be justified in trying to dissuade them for political reasons?
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5 hours ago, Traveler said:
This off year election has demonstrated that Republicans over rate themselves – either that or they have not learned to count ballots yet.
There is no way the front runner Republican will win the president election next year. At best the front runner only draws less than 60% of the republican voters and I doubt that they could draw 5% of non-republican voters. With all the problems in the Democratic party this gives them control of the federal government. Obviously, the pendulum is not yet swinging.
Is this a sign of the times? As members of the Church – are you going to sustain your elected officials?
The Traveler
In one respect, the primary source of the GOP’s woes right now is the Trump personality cult. Trump himself can’t win mainstream Americans (who, one hopes, are finally starting to see the results of the sort of intersectional politics that the Dems are beholden to, and would probably be open to a not-insane Republican). If any other GOP candidate gets the nomination, the Trump rump won’t turn out for the nominee and (s)he’ll likely lose.
Trump’s legacy will be GOP party losses (and a stalemate/muted victory or two) in what should have been the very winnable years of 2018, 2020, 2022, and 2024.
But in another respect: The Ohio abortion vote yesterday reminds us that we live in a country that has overwhelmingly embraced sex-without-consequences—and is willing to kill for it. Latter-day Saints can never be truly at home in such a nation.
As for your last paragraph—I don’t know what “sustain your elected officials” even means. I’m certainly not plotting rebellion; but I don’t owe my elected officials the sorts of deference or support that the word “sustaining” typically connotes among Latter-day Saints.
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On 11/5/2023 at 5:59 PM, zpeel05 said:
As the subject suggests, I'm a gym bro. Ever since I started working out it has been my life. I wouldn't give up training for the world because I'm so passionate about this and slowly but surely becoming lean and aesthetic has been a fulfilling journey.
I feel like ever since I started working out a little over a year ago I've been in conflict with the church's doctrine. My parents are always telling me to work out less (currently on a 6-day ~9hr/week split) and that my gains a temporary as I will simply lose them once I leave on a mission. Just today my dad told me that I won't have my muscles in Heaven and that the only things you take is family, ordinances, life choices, etc. I think it's ridiculous how I'm being ridiculed for doing something as basic as exercising.
I've decided that I won't be serving a mission at all if it means I can't work out. How is this even an issue? Granted, missionaries are allotted 30 mins for exercising, but for me that's merely than a pitiful ration, even when disregarding commute times to the gym and back. Even if I went full Mike Mentzer style it wouldn't work and besides, I shouldn't have to do that to begin with. When I raise my concerns to the bishopric, teachers, etc. I'm met with this "he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." (Matthew 10:39) sorta answer that isn't very satisfying. It seems like all this flies in the face of the whole "Word of Wisdom" and "the body is a temple" thing. I've worked so hard and I see no reason why I should lose my gains now, later in life, or after I die. (Will I take my gains with me to the next life? I don't wanna be a shredded dad my whole life only to be skinny in heaven with my family eternally; that would be stupid.)
tl;dr - don't wanna serve a mission bc it means I can't work out and I think that's dumb
How do you see yourself balancing your physical conditioning with future obligations to your career (including educational development), your wife, your children, your community, and your ward?
I think it’s normal, in our late teens and early twenties, to be pretty focused on ourselves and our own development. But the point of eternal progression isn’t just that we become (spiritually or physically) powerful; it’s that we use that power for the good of those around us.
Heaven knows, the society we live in will put up with us—even indulge and encourage us—even if we aren’t terribly useful to others and instead focus on the glory and aesthetics of our own body and soul. But at a very fundamental level, that sort of focus is in a state of severe tension with the sort of existence that the Church—and, we believe, the Jesus who organized it—invites us to lead.
None of us can make you want something you sincerely don’t want—or to make you give up something you truly love and value above everything else you currently have or anticipate ever having. But you’re at a point in life where whichever choices you make are, by their nature, going to close some doors to you—or at least, commit you to paths you may find very unfulfilling and/or difficult to extricate yourself from later. Now may be a good time to put some deep thought into what, and who, you want to be in five years; in ten; in twenty and in fifty.
- LDSGator, JohnsonJones, mordorbund and 2 others
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6 hours ago, Phoenix_person said:
I get that. But the outrage against Hamas easily gets lost when you see images like this.
Hamas is a terrorist organization. Israel is a sovereign state and ally to the US and NATO. They should be expected to respect civilian life as much as possible in accordance with international law, even if their enemy does not. Eye-for-an-eye is a pretty terrible military strategy when your enemy is embedded among civilians. And this destruction was allegedly for one dude. What kind of "collateral damage" will the IDF deem acceptable if they have a chance to take out 20 Hamas leaders in one airstrike?
1. IIRC, from that particular incident the dude was in a tunnel dozens of feet underground. And I believe you say you’re ex-military; so maybe you can weigh in on what kind of ordinance it would take to make a crater like that and the pros and cons of using that kind of ordinance in a particular tactical situation.
Assuming that I’m right and the guy had indeed gone to the tunnels: Are you suggesting that between option a) (destroy the threat even if doing so hurts the civilians that the threat is using to shield himself) and option b) (shrug, say “oh, well, he’s with/underneath civilians so we just have to let him go knowing he’ll kill more of our civilians in the future”), there exists some third option? What, precisely, *is* that option?
2. I’m not sure the proper jus in bellum calculus is dictated by the kill ratio of “enemy combatants to collateral civilians”. The IDF’s main goal isn’t to kill bad guys; it’s to save Israeli civilians. The IDF obviously shouldn’t be going out of its way to kill Palestinian civilians; but nor does it have an especial need to spare their lives at the expense of the Israeli civilians they are sworn to protect (and whose tortures and deaths, it should be noted, the vast majority of Palestinians—Hamas or not—unabashedly applaud).
3. We often self-flagellate over how many terrorists-of-color are created through western-inflicted violence; but it seems no one ever talks much how many terrorists-of-pallor are created through eastern-inflicted violence. Why is that? Is the implication that light-skinned people, or cultural westerners, have a superior ability to control their emotions or to productively redirect their natural desire for revenge? Is “we’re creating more terrorists than we can kill” really a manifestation of racial or cultural paternalism—a polite way of saying “those brown people just can’t help themselves, the poor little dears”?
And, these considerations aside—is there anyone left in Gaza who hasn’t been radicalized by the last couple of decades? They sing songs about killing Jews, they listen to sermons about killing Jews, they send their kids to schools that teach the virtues of killing Jews, they vote for politicians who promise to kill Jews, and they take to the streets and celebrate when Jews are burned and baked and raped and ripped. Just where are all these “moderate Palestinians” we’re supposed to be afraid of offending, who were horrified by the October 7 massacres and but for Israel’s response were on the cusp of standing up to Hamas and filling in the tunnels and making the rocket attacks stop?
- Vort, NeuroTypical and zil2
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23 minutes ago, LDSGator said:
I’m sure some cops, while wonderful people and good at their job, believe things that are flat out wrong. Just being a cop doesn’t mean a cop has Godlike knowledge for all things criminal. Same with me and my job . . . Lawyers for theirs.
That last part is objectively false.
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1 hour ago, NeuroTypical said:
Everything humans do is understandable. I understand the rise of Hitler, Nazi Germany, and the 3rd Reich. It's absolutely understandable. Post-WWI Germany was a mess, its economy in shambles, it's national identity bruised, its cultural attitude of hopeless depression. Hitler's rousing and impassioned speeches helped him rise in the Weimar Republic's German Worker's Party, which became the National Socialist German Workers' Party, which became the Nazi party. Germany was ripe to be energized with strong doses of fear- and hate-based anti-communism, antisemitism, and ultranationalism. The trains ran on time, the gays and gypsies and mentally deficient all got killed. The party rose in prominence although never making it to majority status. Until the Reichstag burned, and Hitler was named chancellor. By then, the German people were growing too scared to speak up or resist. A few more deaths and manipulations, and dood was Dictator.
Yep, totally, absolutely, unambiguously understandable. It was so understandable, the entire generation of humans that had to go over to defeat Germany came back and dedicated their lives to making sure people never forgot exactly how understandable it was. My dad's generation was very clear about things - it happened in Germany, it could happen anywhere.
Anyway, about the only historical tidbit that doesn't have an eerily clear equivalent with Palestine and Hamas, is that there's no single charismatic leader. Other than that, holy crap yes, everything that has happened in Palestine since the creation of Israel is equally as understandable as the rise of Nazi Germany.
And frankly, Germany had legitimate grievances (not against Jews specifically, but in general they had reason to feel angry and betrayed). The Treaty of Versailles was, in many ways, a monstrosity.
But it became a classic scenario of getting mad at the wrong people, and the ends not justifying the means. And we had to kill a whole lot of Germans before the survivors could be persuaded to abandon their agenda of revenge. 😞
- LDSGator and Phoenix_person
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59 minutes ago, LDSGator said:
I’m a very stupid man @JohnsonJones. In one sentence I want you to tell me if you are cool with eradicating a group of people from the Earth. One sentence.
I think part of the issue here may be that @JohnsonJones’s terminology of “wipe them out” isn’t really helpful or, in my view, a terribly accurate descriptor of what American military policy was in the various conflicts he mentions. The US has certainly pursued resounding, unambiguous military victories that utterly destroyed an enemy’s capacity to make war; and it has been willing to accept civilian casualties (sometimes massive amounts of them) as collateral damage in pursuing that goal. It has also developed ballistic nuclear capabilities as a retaliatory/deterrent (I don’t think any mainstream American in the Cold War seriously thought that a first-strike nuclear attack was something we would do or that would be in alignment with our values or who we were as a people). These are both very different than a calculated strategy to completely destroy a group of people for mere racial or ethnic or cultural reasons, which I think is what JJ’s verbiage unfortunately connotes.
39 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:Hamas won roughly 44% of the overall vote in the 2006 election. They didn't win a majority of overall votes, they just won more than any other party. Hamas control of Gaza came only after infighting between them and Fatah, the party of Yasser Arafat which currently controls the West Bank. So no, I don't think it's necessarily accurate to say that a majority of Palestinians support Hamas. Their support may be proportionally higher in Gaza due to the restrictive nature of Israeli occupation there, but there's an entire generation of young adults in Gaza who never got a vote, so it's hard to say for sure.
Frankly, I think discussions like this ask the wrong question. The question isn’t whether a critical mass of Palestinians would vote for Hamas due to some aspect or other of their official party platform. The question is whether a critical mass of Palestinians support the 10/7 attacks; whether most of ‘em get their jollies off of the rape of Israeli women or the maiming of Israeli children. Hamas doesn’t have a monopoly on that kind of ideology or sociopathy.
A recent poll suggested that a bare majority of Americans between 18 and 24 believes that the 10/7 attacks were justified. If support for Jew-killing is that high among a subset of (largely non-Palestinian) Americans, you’re going to have a hard time convincing me that Palestinians aren’t at least bloody-minded.
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On 10/25/2023 at 7:40 PM, NeuroTypical said:
You thought tithing was just for money? It's also for music. The last half-beat is consecrated to the Lord.
(Hey, best I got. Happens in my ward too. Even though the organist's daughter is a musical prodigy who practices hours a day and travels the nation invited to sing in different symphony orchestras.
Well, most newer LDS meetinghouses (at least here in the US) have (tithing-funded!) organs that are pre-programmed with most of the hymns from our hymnal. I don’t think I’ve ever been in a ward where that feature was used (except for prelude music before/after the meeting)—they’ve always had a live organist or, failing that, a pianist— but the capability for auto-play is definitely there.
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On 10/23/2023 at 11:31 AM, Jamie123 said:
Only 3 of those 8 you can put a name to - that's 37.5%.
My list has 37 women, 29 of whom I can name. That's 78.38%. 😝
Although . . . And I don’t remember where I read this, but it was within the last 2 years . . . I believe that there’s a fairly consequential (I won’t say “prevalent”) theory that many Biblical names, particularly of OT characters, were developed for the sake of the story years or even centuries after the events being related and reflected thematic elements from the stories themselves. In other words: we have a name for the first woman (“Eve”); but we don’t necessarily have her name (the name Adam would have actually known her by).
If this is true, it presents an interesting insight: both the BoM and the OT come from intensely patriarchal cultures that didn’t really emphasize preserving the memory/names of females; but in the Old Testament’s case the later editors/scribes were willing to invent new names for the sake of wordplay and a more “literary” narrative; whereas Mormon, as editor, was unwilling to do so (perhaps he didn’t see the point, since he presumed his readers would have no way of understanding/appreciating any Reformed Egyptian puns he might try to make).
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2 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:
That's quite a comprehensive answer thanks everyone for your efforts.
I've not read the whole story of course, but I was guessing that monarchy would eventually return. I'm not an expert on Roman history, but perhaps there's a parallel there: Brutus overthrew the last king Tarquinus Superbus and established a Republic, which lasted a long time, but eventually in-fighting led to the rise of super-magistrates, who became emperors.
We see it again in England in the 17th Century: the short experiment with republicanism ended with Cromwell becoming Lord Protector (king in all but name) and in France where the First Republic led to the Terror and eventually the rise of Napoleon.
IIRC, one of the architects of the collapse of the Nephite system of judges was a guy named Jacob who eventually came to control a city called Jacobugath and proclaimed himself king. The BoM doesn’t go into much detail, as I recall; but one gets the sense that he was well on his way to building a new coalition until he and his followers were destroyed en mass in the natural catastrophes that accompanied Jesus’s crucifixion.
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32 minutes ago, Jamie123 said:
Now I'm a wee bit confused.
In Mosiah 8:5, Limhi shows Ammon the plates containing the record of his people since they left Zarahemla. This record begins in the next chapter, where the intro calls it the "Record of Zeniff" and says that it comprises chapters 9 to 22.
However, 21:22 brings the story up to date with the arrival of Ammon at Limhi's court. So is this still part of the "Record of Zeniff"? Did the scribes quickly write out an account of Ammon's arrival and add it to the plates before giving it to Ammon himself to read?
Perhaps. This account is Mormon’s summary of the record of the people of Zeniff, but Mormon is giving the account as a (relatively) omniscient narrator and at times is probably weaving in materiel gleaned from other sources. Exactly where the record of Zeniff ended and at what point he relied on other sources for the denouement of the story, Mormon doesn’t seem to tell us.
- Jamie123, Carborendum and zil2
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Peter Santello starts a series of videos on the Mormons
in General Discussion
Posted
The men’s beards were nuthin’. You should have seen the women’s beards.