askandanswer

Now I'm full of curiosity and hope about how the first meeting goes..........

The fish was shot with a 9 mm round?

So some ballistics, such as a .44 are measured in imperial units, and others, such as a 9 millimeter, are measured in metric units? And I'm still not sure where the 207 rifle fits in.

Media outlets here are describing the sentence as a slap on the wrist with a wet lettuce.

27 And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.

How many pages is the list of conditions?

so a .44 is .44 of a centimeter across? Which would then make it slightly larger than half a 9 millimeter? And a .22 is half the size of .44. There was a reference to a 207 which I think referred to a rifle. Is that a different scale or is it something that is almost ten times bigger than a .22?

This sounds something like: I God, am talking to you in English, but I'm not going to tell you clearly what I mean. So that you can understand what I mean, I want you to refer back to the 200 year old English translation of what I said to a prophet in Hebrew more than 2,500 years ago, and which has since been translated multiple times with varying degrees of accuracy. If achieving understanding and clarity are the purposes of your communication, this seems to be an odd way to achieve it. Of course, these might not have been the purposes of this particular part of the communication - perhaps you're right and the intention of this communication was to prompt those who read this phrase to go away and seek revelation as to what it means.

I see a lot of numbers in this thread - .44, .45, 22. 207, 9 millimeter- most of which I guess are measurements. What are these measurements of?

It's not immediately clear to me why the Lord would use such vague and imprecise language, capable of multiple meanings, all of which seem to carry some degree of uncertainty. At first glance, it doesn't strike me as the most effective means of communication. It's possible that the only people likely to clearly understand this phrase are those who have made the same sort of effort as those who have participated in this discussion, and when compared with all those who read the phrase, that is likely to be a very small number. I kind of like the idea of say what you mean and mean what you say - its clearer, more precise, and leaves less room for misunderstanding. This style of language - sword is bathed in heaven - gives weight to the arguments of the clerics in the middle ages who claimed that interpretation of the bible should be left to trained specialists.

Would that be a black radio? As in Sirius Black?

You can't be Syrius?!

It seems to me that if the main support for the idea of a Priesthood ban for a certain group of people is based on certain scriptures, then all of those scriptures should be true, and not just a part of them. According to those scriptures, one part of the curse is that the descendants of Cain and Canaan would be servants of servants and another part is that they would be cursed as to the Priesthood. If it can be demonstrated that one part of the curse is untrue, or did not come to pass, or is not universally applicable to the group to whom it is said to apply, then that gives reason to be less certain about the other part of the curse. I think it is a matter of widely accepted historical fact that over the period from when the curse was first said to apply, up to the time of Joseph Smith, and up to the time when the curse was lifted, there were centuries, perhaps even thousands of years, when a very large proportion of the people to whom the curse is believed to apply, were not servants of servants, but were members of great and powerful kingdoms, exercising power and dominion over many others, and even over those who were descendants of Shem from time to time, up until the establishment of the state of Israel. In particular, its very hard to see how that part of the curse was true during the 400 years that the children of Israel were in bondage to the children of Ham. Who were the servants of servants at that time? Since it is clear that one part of the curse is completely false/wrong/incorrect/unreliable/misunderstood, I’m not sure why we shouldn’t assume that the other part is equally as wrong and miunderstood.

An interesting and useful site - thanks @zil2

The very first verse of Job raises questions about whether all of it can be taken literally as true. 1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil. Some people suggest that there has only ever been one perfect person and I don't think they have Job in mind when they say that. And if he was perfect, he would certainly have lived in the land of Aus rather than Uz.

Its an unrelated tangent, but it seems to me as if this might be how a collective hive mind would work.

It seems odd that Mahonri, in his present moment, could see a future finger of the Lord touching stones in a present moment. And I think there's lots of room to question whether what Mahonri saw was an echo of the future. The wording to me seems to suggest Mahonri saw the body of the Lord's spirit as it existed at that time.

If our reason for believing that the greatness of the brother or Jared's faith is evidenced by the fact that he saw the finger of the Lord, then perhaps we can conclude that his faith was similar to that of Oliver Cowdery who saw the whole of the Lord's resurrected body. I've sometimes been puzzled by the appearance of a contradiction between 15 And never have I showed myself unto man whom I have created, and Doctrine and Covenants 107:48 Enoch was twenty-five years old when he was ordained under the hand of Adam; and he was sixty-five and Adam blessed him. 49 And he saw the Lord, and he walked with him, and was before his face continually; With the Brother of Jared having such great faith, I'm also puzzled about why the author or editor of the plates of Ether spoke so much about wars, wickedness and political intrigues and so little about the teachings and doings of this man of great faith. If the author or editor of these materials wrote his record on the basis of what he believed would be most beneficial to future readers, what assumptions did he have about us that led him to believe we would benefit more by reading accounts of wars and political intrigues rather than by faith-inspired teachings of the gospel?

I think the passage essentially states: Because of thy faith thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood; (my bolding) and 16 Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh.

I haven't read the whole thread. These verses give reason to believe that spirits can touch physical objects 6 And it came to pass that when the brother of Jared had said these words, behold, the Lord stretched forth his hand and touched the stones one by one with his finger. And the veil was taken from off the eyes of the brother of Jared, and he saw the finger of the Lord; and it was as the finger of a man, like unto flesh and blood; and the brother of Jared fell down before the Lord, for he was struck with fear. 7 And the Lord saw that the brother of Jared had fallen to the earth; and the Lord said unto him: Arise, why hast thou fallen? 8 And he saith unto the Lord: I saw the finger of the Lord, and I feared lest he should smite me; for I knew not that the Lord had flesh and blood. 9 And the Lord said unto him: Because of thy faith thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood; and never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye could not have seen my finger. Sawest thou more than this? 10 And he answered: Nay; Lord, show thyself unto me. 11 And the Lord said unto him: Believest thou the words which I shall speak? 12 And he answered: Yea, Lord, I know that thou speakest the truth, for thou art a God of truth, and canst not lie. 13 And when he had said these words, behold, the Lord showed himself unto him, and said: Because thou knowest these things ye are redeemed from the fall; therefore ye are brought back into my presence; therefore I show myself unto you. 14 Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters. 15 And never have I showed myself unto man whom I have created, for never has man believed in me as thou hast. Seest thou that ye are created after mine own image? Yea, even all men were created in the beginning after mine own image. 16 Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh.

Yes Mosiah 18:10 Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord, as a witness before him that ye have entered into a covenant with him, that ye will serve him and keep his commandments, that he may pour out his Spirit more abundantly upon you? Acts 2:32 32 This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses.

Cancel the holidays - end of problem

Sounds like a long and very quiet day.

From my scripture reading yesterday: Jude 13: Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. My thoughts are From my scripture reading yesterday: Jude 13: 13 Raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame; wandering stars, to whom is reserved the blackness of darkness for ever. My thoughts are that the outcome of our first interaction with God was the joining of an intelligence, which we provided, with a spirit, which God provided, leading to the creation of a soul. I think that those who reject the Plan of Salvation and everything that God is offering are cast into outder darkness - a black hole - and reduced back to the condition they were in before God came along - the essential components that made them who/what they are a seperated from each other and they go back to being a singular intelligence, unconnected with anything else, awaiting the time when they might once again, in some far off time, be joined to another spirit. I think that perhaps this seperation of intelligence from spirit occurs in a black hole, which seperates everything from everything, and strips matter apart and that eventually, the unconstructured intelligence is released from the black hole in the form of Hawking radiation, making it once again available to be combined with a spirit. Perhaps a useful analogy is to liken to process to one of those car shredder machines that seperates a car into its component parts so that they are in no way part of the car they once were. After being torn into pieces and seperated into its component parts, the scrap is metal down into something like it originally was before it became a part of a car. In its melted down condition, it is then able to be used for another purpose, with no sense of continuing identity between its previous and new purposes.

Exactly as I thought, although not quite as many as I anticipated