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bytebear

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  1. bytebear
    When I was in high school (maybe college) I had a very strong premonition as to when the second coming would be. Year and month. It has now been about 15 years since. I pretty much just decided not to try to second guess the Lord. I'm out.
  2. bytebear
    Depends on the culture you are currently involved with. But culture is not race, so how about "middle class suburbia privilege"
  3. bytebear
    The current Gregorian calendar was adopted in 1582, so I really don't take stock in dates, since people keep changing them.
  4. bytebear
    Think about this. For about $500, which is equivalent of a few weeks pay at minimum wage, you can buy a plane ticket to the most exotic destination on the planet, whatever you deem that to be. And you can get there in less than a day. That's absolutely astonishing.
  5. bytebear
    It's not just how much you make in comparison to your parents. It's how much you can get for what you pay. Fact is, today we have gadgets that surpass anything every dreamed of a generation ago. We generally live in bigger houses with nicer amenities and have better household goods that cost far less than they did a generation ago. We don't make our own clothes. We don't bake our own bread, or grow our own vegetables. We are absolutely, without question far better off economically than the previous generation, and you only have to go back a few generations to see that our lifestyle is something that in their generation was not even achievable by royalty.
  6. bytebear
    I think it's interesting that when the concept of sealings was introduced, people were being sealed to Joseph Smith a lot, men and women, and in the case of Helen Kimball, the child of an apostle. The concept of sealing yourself to the prophet continued even after his death, as people were sealed to him even in Utah. I think it took enough time for Joseph's passing, and eventually church mandate, that people stop requesting to be sealed to church leaders. I suppose I could request that I be sealed to Gordon B. Hinkley as a son, but I don't think it would fly.
  7. bytebear
    When Christ comes, it will be a theocracy with a King. We don't want that now, or anything like it at all, because no matter how benevolent a King will be, he is corruptible. So, we have a Constitution established and influenced by God to give us the greatest freedoms and liberties with a corrupt people. This includes, not only basic rights, but also the concept of Federalism, meaning the notion that laws in Utah don't have to be complied with by those in California or New York or Ohio. This is critical because it means the Saints can gather and live according to the dictates of their own conscience without being forced to live immorally.
  8. bytebear
    I challenge the premise that wealth inequality is a bad thing. The fact is, world poverty has dropped dramatically, largely due to rich people wanting to get even more rich. And while we lament that poverty exists in the world, it has dropped from 70% to less than 10%. We are at the wealthiest, most prosperous time in world history, and we should be grateful for that.
  9. bytebear
    Here's a trick I use. Press CTRL-A. This selects ALL the text in the document. Assuming the text isn't an image pretending to be test, you should get a nice high contrast font color change. Oh and CTRL + and Ctrl - will zoom in and out. And CTRL 0 will set the zoom back to zero. Very handy for web sites that aren't designed for old eyes.
  10. bytebear
    I remember visiting the Seattle temple, and they had a small sitting area in the garden that was just picturesque. I would say, find a nice quiet place on the grounds of the temple.
  11. bytebear
    Gun control advocates assume the situation is like the wild West where everyone is carrying a gun in a holster around their belt, just itching to shoot it, but the truth is, those who do have guns, often will have them in the glove box, locked safely away, except that when a situation arises like in Florida, they can hopefully, get to their car and return, and with proper training, they can at least try to stop the situation. Now, if you have 5 or 10 people with this training, the mass shooter hasn't got a chance.
  12. bytebear
    “it was uncovered that Mr. Steinberg has an admitted history of alcohol abuse, and a charge for domestic battery involving his wife.” Did the author deny the charges? Based on the article, he seemed to dismiss them as if they were irrelevant to his story. But does he actually have a history of alcohol abuse and was he charged (and/or convicted) or battery?
  13. bytebear
    I found that I went into the temple with questions, and came out with a whole bunch of answers to things I hadn't even considered and a bunch of new questions which made my original questions seem trivial.
  14. bytebear
    Yeah, I'm going with the Apostle.
  15. bytebear
    To be clear the Catholic doctrine of Immaculate Conception is the notion that Mary was conceived and born without sin, making her worthy to carry the Son of God. It is not about the virgin birth of Christ. Carry on.
  16. bytebear
    Seinfeld seems to me to be a bit dated (maybe just me maturing beyond caring). I have then entire Frasier series on DVD, and I love it. I will pull out certain episodes over and over again. I tried watching Cheers on Netflix, but only got to about episode 4. I like some detective shows. Loved Monk. Never got into true crime or ghost hunting stories (which are popular at my house).
  17. bytebear
    I understand that the furniture is actually just for show. But yeah, most home improvements where they quote prices are crazy cheap.
  18. bytebear
    Jeopardy. Still as good as ever, and they seem to have a good range of LDS related trivia. I watch Netflix mostly, and found a few somewhat obscure series. The IT Crowd is a British comedy about a couple of computer nerds and their very clueless boss. I still watch the various Star Trek series. Voyager is my favorite, then TNG, but watched Deep Space 9 after finding a website that said which episodes were lame, and I found the series fairly entertaining. I also am revisiting the X files. Otherwise, it's toddler time with Curious George and Caillou which are actually very good lessons for kids. And Daniel Tiger which is the animated reboot of Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. I am not thrilled with Sesame Street though. Too much political correctness and not enough practical learning. Oh, yeah, and lots of home improvement shows. So many, but Fixer Upper and Decked Out are my current faves.
  19. bytebear
    I replaced my front lawn with native plants using a city rebate program. I thought it would look all desert like being Southern California, but they are thriving. When I planted, it was literally all dirt with tiny green plants scattered about. The pic is from several months ago, and they have filled in even more, and most have purple flowers now. Looks amazing but now that I know what the plants look like beyond their tiny buds, I might transplant and buy some filler plants.
  20. bytebear
    No, I think no revelation was given, because for the early saints, and apostles, it was largely common sense. And how would you know Jesus' DNA today anyway?
  21. bytebear
    I hate when a thread goes on and I want to respond to page 1. Anyway, I believe any record of Jesus being married or having children was suppressed by the later bishops of the early church so no one could stake a claim as a descendant of Christ. I can only imagine the chaos that would ensue.
  22. bytebear
    Many apostles taught and believed that Jesus was married (and had kids). I would call it near doctrine even. Today, I think the church has no official stance, but there is a strong LDS tradition on this belief.
  23. bytebear
    What about the Joseph Smith papers? http://www.josephsmithpapers.org/ " The Joseph Smith Papers Project is an effort to gather together all extant Joseph Smith documents and to publish complete and accurate transcripts of those documents with both textual and contextual annotation. All such documents will be published electronically on this website, and a large number of the documents will also be published in print. The print and electronic publications constitute an essential resource for scholars and students of the life and work of Joseph Smith, early Mormon history, and nineteenth-century American religion. For the first time, all of Joseph Smith’s known surviving papers, which include many of the foundational documents of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, will be easily accessible in one place. "
  24. bytebear
    How about this idea. When we are baptized, we also are joining the church. Maybe the bearing burdens, etc, are our obligation as church members and so are part of the baptism covenant, but are separate (but implied) from the things mentioned in the sacrament prayer.
  25. bytebear
    We discovered the trampoline park which is just around the corner. I also discovered that things were easier 25 years ago.