askandanswer

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Posts posted by askandanswer

  1. On 3/21/2024 at 5:12 AM, Traveler said:

    On another note – if you are going to ski through trees make sure you are capable of keeping both skis on the same side of all the trees

    It would have been very helpful if you had mentioned this earlier! I've been trying to work out what I've been doing wrong. Perhaps I should start trying to go through trees instead of trying to go around them. I'll have to think about that a bit. 

  2. On 3/21/2024 at 1:33 PM, Vort said:

    How It Happened

    This is the main reason why I'm thinking of ending this universe and starting again with a new one. All that effort involved in creation, just to lead to an outcome like this! It hardly seems worth the effort.

  3. On 3/15/2024 at 3:08 AM, mikbone said:

     

    Here is my question:  Don’t you think that Enos’s father Jacob had given him all this information in detail previously? 

    I believe that few, if anybody, and more likely, nobody, knows the details of the atonement. What we know is how to make it effective in our lives Knowing that is the most important thing to know, but only a tiny fraction of all there is to know, about the atonement. 

  4. So is it the case that the term God is both a collective noun, referring to one organisation consisting of three Gods and a personal pronoun, referring to each member of that organisation?

    And now I'm starting to wonder where God's wife fits into things, and Christ's wife. What is their part or role? Is God, in the collective sense, composed of 5 individuals? Or perhaps God and His wife count as one individual and Christ and His wife count as one individual?

  5. Its an odd situation where the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints is funding the missionary efforts of the Community of Christ.The next time I renew my temple recommend I'm going to be asked whether I support or promote any teachings, practices or doctrine contrary to those of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter_Day Saints. If I'd provided just $1,000 to support the missionary efforts of a church whose missionaries taught that this was a false church I think I might have to answer yes to that question. I'm not going to say that the church should not have done this because its not my place to say such things. I'm just saying its an odd situation.

  6. I have vague memories of reading about a discussion between the leaders of the two churches many decades ago in which the then Reorganised church offered to sell the LDS church the Kirtland Temple and the LDS church turning the offer down with the reason that the time would come that the Reorganised church would be so poor that they would give the Temple to us. It appears that that has not happened. Does anybody else recall something like this?

  7. 2 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

    Was this out in the wild, or was it in some kind of park? It must be wonderful to see these exotic animals living with nature. We do have wild deer and ponies here in the uk, and I did once see a moose in Maine. I never saw a bear though. (Except in the zoo.)

    Oh and I once saw a wild alligator when I was on a swamp tour from New Orleans. It wasn't as big as I'd expected though. The guide was making it jump out of the water by dangling a chicken leg over it on the end of a string. The lady sitting beside me in the boat told me he was being very stupid.

    We encountered this wombat wandering along the side of the road when we were on a trip to the south coast. It was unusual to see a wombat wandering around so close to a road during the day so we got out and had a closer look. Something, maybe us, must have scared it because suddenly it started running. I think it was heading for its hole. Unfortunately, I see far more dead wombats than live ones by the side of the road. 

    There is a place about an hour from where I now live that does jumping crocodile tours. You can take a boat the size of a small ferry which puts you well above the water line or you can take what is commonly referred to as a "tinnie" which is a very small boat which puts you almost at the same level as the crocodils. We took the tinnie. This part of the Adelaide River has a very dense crocodile population. We saw about 10 crocs in less than a kilometer.

    https://www.adrenaline.com.au/tours/darwin/jumpings-crocodile-cruise-adelaide-river/

    Jumping Crocodile Cruise Half Day Experience - Klook Australia

     

     

  8. 8 hours ago, Jamie123 said:

    I've been thinking all the way home. A very fast runner (like Roger Bannister) can run a four minute mile. Four minutes go into one hour 15 times, so that's 15 miles per hour. Quite a lot slower than a wombat.

    Now if a wombat runs at 25mph, it covers a mile in 1/25 hours which is 60/25=12/5=2.4 minutes. However, it can only run at 25mph for about 90 seconds at a time, but could no doubt run for longer at a slower speed 

    So the question remains: can a wombat run a 4 minute mile? Let's ask ChatGPT...

    Could a wombat run a 4 minute mile?
     
    No, it's highly unlikely. Wombats are not built for speed, as they have short legs and a stocky build, which is more suited for burrowing and digging rather than running long distances at high speeds.

    Are you sure? Wombats can run quite fast!

    While wombats can reach speeds of up to 25 miles per hour (40 kilometers per hour) over short distances, they are not built for sustained speed or endurance. Running a 4-minute mile, which requires maintaining an average speed of 15 miles per hour (24 kilometers per hour) for four consecutive minutes, would be highly unlikely for a wombat due to their physiology and energy reserves.

    I'm not convinced.  What do you think?

    image.png.72a888db25cf631b1137bdd208b814d0.png

    (Another picture of a wombat)

    Its really hard to imagine a wombat maintaining that sort of speed for more than, at a guess, 90 seconds on flat ground. I suspect they would have considerable energy reserves given how fat they are and how little they generally move.

  9. On 2/29/2024 at 12:24 PM, laronius said:

    In D&C 88 it's after the missionaries are called home that the other forms of "testimony" will happen.

    I thought that happened during covid. I know the mission I am living in shrunk to less than 20% of its normal size during covid. 

  10. I remember being amazed the first time I saw a wombat run. Until then I had only seen them move at a very slow pace. For a moment I thought it was chasing me and I got a bit worried , but when I changed direction it ran straight past me. 

  11. 4 hours ago, Traveler said:

    I am quite sure that our prophet ministers (including general authorities, area authorities, stake authorities, ward authorities, family authorities and personal authority) will receive all the needed revelation for the obedient covenant Saints in order to them to prepare and perform all the necessary and needed functions to insure all is prepared and ready when the Messiah returns.

    I am quite sure that that is exactly what has  been happening since at least 6 April 1830

  12. 2 hours ago, mrmarklin said:

    Change is constant.  Here in the Bay Area region of Northern California we went from four Wards in my city to one in less than 40 years.  A lot of Stake and Ward boundaries were changed, and the biggest chapel in my city is for sale.

    A couple of cities south of me a mega chapel was completed in the late 80s.  It was designed to have 4 wards and also be a major Stake HQ.  Only one ward there now.

    All you rich Utah Valley and Silicon Slope Mormons should migrate here.  Much better weather.  We need your talent.

    It sounds like the residents of this area are heeding the Lord's counsel in Isaiah 2 :) 

    20  Go ye forth of aBabylon, flee ye from the bChaldeans, with a voice of singing declare ye, tell this, utter it even to the end of the earth; say ye, The Lord hath redeemed his servant Jacob.

  13. The Branch that meets in the same chapel as my Branch has about 50 attendees on a good day. Its western and eastern boundaries both extend about 300 kilometers. Going south its about 250 km to the next Branch. Every time he comes up here the Mission President talks about having a Temple in this city of two Branches with a combined weekly attendance of about 160

  14. 23 minutes ago, zil2 said:

    It's a whole lot faster than using a vacuum that covers less width in one pass.  That one looks smaller than the one at our stake center, which I think covers 3 feet in one pass. :)

    So people would end up with nicely vacuumed feet? Is that a modern version of washing the dust off their feet?

  15. On 2/9/2024 at 12:23 AM, laronius said:

    D&C 88:6 He that ascended up on high, as also he descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things, the light of truth; 7 Which truth shineth. This is the light of Christ. As also he is in the sun, and the light of the sun, and the power thereof by which it was made. 8 As also he is in the moon, and is the light of the moon, and the power thereof by which it was made; 9 As also the light of the stars, and the power thereof by which they were made; 10 And the earth also, and the power thereof, even the earth upon which you stand. 11 And the light which shineth, which giveth you light, is through him who enlighteneth your eyes, which is the same light that quickeneth your understandings; 12 Which light proceedeth forth from the presence of God to fill the immensity of space— 13 The light which is in all things, which giveth life to all things, which is the law by which all things are governed, even the power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things.

    Some semi-formed, highly speculative ponderings about light:

    Given their source, we can accept these verses as truth. If we could work out how they are true, I think it would revolutionise our understanding of astronomy, electo-magnetic energy, truth, information, and how it is conveyed. It might also improve our understanding of how the Spirit communicates with us. In these verses, God has given us the answers. We just need to work out the how. If I was a physicist studying the properties of light, Doctrine and Covenants 88 is where I would begin. When God has given us direct teachings and truth on a topic that we want to know about, I can see some disadvantages arising from not accepting and following those teachings. 

    I suspect that one approach to studying the question of how physical light is/might be truth would be in looking more closely at the dual nature of light as both a particle and as energy. Light joins together in one thing the properties of a particle and the properties of energy. I think that the joining of two things into one -  intelligence to spirit to create a soul, then soul to physical body, then two bodies merged into one through temple marriage to create a family, then sperm and egg combining to create a body - is main method God uses for bringing seperate things into a higher order of being.  

    When I think of these verses I almost always immediately think also of the idea that God dwells in the midst of everlasting burning which sounds to me like a sun. A sun produces and emits more light than anything else - as does God. The other side of that thought is the idea that the place of least light, a black hole, where matter is stripped of its defining characteristics, sounds exactly like outer darkness, to which souls are consigned to be returned back to the condition they were in before they came into contact with God.

    (This is a diversion from the main topic but if it is the case that black holes are outer darkness, and that everything, including the remnants of those souls who are assigned there, eventually gets recycled, then perhaps what comes out of black holes - hawking radiation - might in some way be related to, or even be a form of, intelligence.)  

    I suspect that either light is the medium through which truth is conveyed, or in ways yet to be worked out, light is truth. 

    Verse 12 of the above refers to light filling the immensity of space. Light is a form of energy. The only thing I know that fills the immensity of space is the form of energy we refer to as the cosmic microwave background. 

    I suspect that if you compare the properties of light/energy with the properties of truth/intelligence you might find enough similarities to have cause to start thinking that they might be the same thing.  

    If we accept the idea that this universe started with the big bang, and maybe that's true and maybe its not, and that God played a part in enabling the big bang to happen, then that could be part of the explanation for how God created all truth, because light only came into existence as a consequence of the big bang.