lonetree
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Posts posted by lonetree
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45 minutes ago, Carborendum said:
That was in the pilot episode: "The Cage" (later adapted to "The Menagerie").
The big-headed guys were trying to break Captain Pike (Jeffrey Hunter) of his hunger strike. They insisted that he eat their food elixir. When he refused, they had him experience a fiery environment for a minute. They said it was from a fable from his childhood. I don't remember the word "hell" being invoked.
Pike proceeded to drink the elixir.
Okay-maybe it wasn't an allusion to Hell--maybe it was Daniel's fiery furnace.
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On a lighter note(?) this discussion has triggered a memory of one Star Trek(OS) episode where Kirk-Jeffrey Hunter, Shatner? found himself unable to stand even a few moments of the fabled traditional Hell-brought upon by either: one of those big-headed guys or his antagonist Gary Lockwood .
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On 6/20/2023 at 6:02 PM, Vort said:
There are roughly one trillion (1012) grains of fine sand per cubic meter. "Mountains" is not a precise specification, but for a small mountain/large dune, we might guess roughly a million cubic meters. (Maybe a billion for a somewhat larger mountain.) So taking the one million figure, we're looking at around 1018 (a quintillion) grains of sand. At a million years per grain carried away, it would take 1024 (a septillion) years.
This is such an absurdly long period of time that we have no good way of even getting our minds around it. For comparison, it is roughly 1014 times the estimated age of our universe. That means if you lived the life of our universe from the so-called Big Bang until this moment, then went back and relived it again, and kept repeating that a total of ten million times, that amount of elapsed time would put you one ten-millionth of the way to a septillion years. You would have to live ten million universe ages ten million separate times.
As one segment of a wonderful series of lectures, the famous computer scientist/mathematician Donald Knuth (a faithful Lutheran) described what Graham's number was and then tried to describe what it would be like to live Graham's number of nanoseconds. His conclusion was that, from any human standpoint, such a thing would be indistinguishable from eternity. Well, of course that is simply false by definition, but I think Knuth wasn't looking for doctrinal truth. I think he was trying to describe how monstrously enormous the numbers that we construct in our numbering system can become. And, of course, that literally unthinkably huge Graham's number—far, far, far, unbelievably far greater than the septillion years we just talked about—is vanishingly tiny compared with all positive numbers, almost 100% of which are a very great deal larger than Graham's number. That being the case, eternity cannot even reasonably be contemplated.
So I'm not actually going anywhere with this. Just responding to @lonetree's comment.
EDIT: Donald Knuth, "Things a Computer Scientist Rarely Talks About"
I think that yr statement "This is such an absurdly long period of time that we have no good way of even getting our minds around it." hits the nail on the head for me- It's not just the intensity of the torment, but the enormity of the time frame, if one can even call it that. My memory is hazy, but I am sure that the Sparrow-mountain illustration was known to me even before that high school reading of Joyce. Perhaps encountered at a revival or campfire meeting in my youth. On the source for Joyce's retreat hell sermon- https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/389596?journalCode=mp
Looking at the end of the parable now, it is surprising to me that it even made it into the new testament, as Abraham states, "...if they hear not Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded, Though One Rose From The Dead..."-italics mine.
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On 6/20/2023 at 5:27 PM, CV75 said:
Here is something that might resonate with you, part of a revelation given to Jospeh Smith: Doctrine and Covenants 19 (churchofjesuschrist.org)
1 I am aAlpha and Omega, bChrist the Lord; yea, even I am he, the beginning and the end, the Redeemer of the cworld.
2 I, having accomplished and afinished the will of him whose I am, even the Father, concerning me—having done this that I might bsubdue all things unto myself—
3 Retaining all apower, even to the bdestroying of Satan and his works at the cend of the world, and the last great day of judgment, which I shall pass upon the inhabitants thereof, djudging every man according to his eworks and the deeds which he hath done.
4 And surely every man must arepent or bsuffer, for I, God, am cendless.
5 Wherefore, I arevoke not the judgments which I shall pass, but woes shall go forth, weeping, bwailing and gnashing of teeth, yea, to those who are found on my cleft hand.
6 Nevertheless, it is anot written that there shall be no end to this torment, but it is written bendless ctorment.
7 Again, it is written aeternal damnation; wherefore it is more express than other scriptures, that it might work upon the hearts of the children of men, altogether for my name’s glory.
8 Wherefore, I will explain unto you this amystery, for it is meet unto you to know even as mine apostles.
9 I speak unto you that are chosen in this thing, even as one, that you may enter into my arest.
10 For, behold, the amystery of godliness, how great is it! For, behold, I am bendless, and the punishment which is given from my hand is endless cpunishment, for dEndless is my name. Wherefore—
11 aEternal punishment is God’s punishment.
12 Endless punishment is God’s punishment.
13 Wherefore, I command you to repent, and keep the acommandments which you have received by the hand of my servant Joseph Smith, Jun., in my name;
14 And it is by my almighty power that you have received them;
15 Therefore I command you to repent—repent, lest I asmite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your bsufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.
16 For behold, I, God, have asuffered these things for all, that they bmight not suffer if they would crepent;
17 But if they would not repent they must asuffer even as I;
18 Which asuffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might bnot drink the bitter cup, and shrink—
19 Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and afinished my preparations unto the children of men.
So, endless punishment is not necessarily torment without end but has been redefined by God as something that is His to pass on to the unrepentant, because he had to suffer.
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On 6/18/2023 at 2:09 PM, CV75 said:
What do you consider 'the traditional Hell of everlasting torment' to be?
Besides the phrase I used^, -no hope- that such a thing will ever end-or that someone will end it for you. The description of hell in James Joyce's 'Portrait of the artist as a young man' which I first encountered in high school comes to mind. The one about mountains of grains of sand and each million years a bird carries one grain away... I read once it may originally have come from Augustine but I'm not sure. It is hard to believe that such pictures of eternal pain and hopelessness did not borrow or were not inspired in some way by this parable.
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One of the most chilling parts of the New Testament-I wince each time I come across it. This gives me pause when I hear someone state that 'the traditional Hell of everlasting torment is nowhere really found in the teachings of Jesus'.
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On 3/29/2022 at 9:47 AM, Carborendum said:
Here's what I've heard, but I haven't taken the time to verify. Two opinions:
1) Of all the versions available, the King James version is the most accurate and complete.
2) Most of the versions today pretty much preserve the language of the Tyndale Bible. A lot of sacrifices were made to bring us the KJV. So, it was more-or-less Joseph's preference because he considered the language of the KJV to be sacred.
I rather like #2 better. But I'm afraid that may be short lived.
The whole reason why we needed a Bible in English is so that a "poor farm boy" would have access to its actual words. Today, a "poor farm boy's language skills" are very common. But the difference is that today's kids are not raised reading this Bible anymore. So, they read, but cannot understand.
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/2005/03/what-had-to-happen?lang=eng
At some point, we're going to need a more plain-language / modern language version. And that may be the death of Christianity (as we know it). While we can try to modernize the language somewhat, I believe we can't sufficiently dumb-down the language enough for the average person in America to read and understand while sufficiently preserving the literary mechanisms of the Bible as we know it. But I am guessing people will still try.
My preference would be to keep the KJV and offer as many study guides and aides as possible. This is the route the Church has taken since I've been alive. I hope they don't change course.
Your No. 2 point about the Tyndale bible is interesting. The NRSV and the ESV(English Standard Version) are used & considered authoritative by so many today.Both have the RSV as their forerunner. I don't think the ESV reads as much more than a retread but that's just me. And the RSV as the grandchild of the Authorized Version stands squarely in the tradition of Tyndale. My 1980s prediction(to myself) that the NIV would soon become The English Bible for Evangelicals never did come to pass😊.
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On 9/17/2021 at 8:20 PM, Jane_Doe said:
An important refinement on this to make (speaking as an LDS Christian lady)
Free will is foundational to what it is to be. It is intrinsic to whom person is. The Father acknowledges this. Christ (whom was always the chosen to be the Savior) choose to follow in His Father's wisdom in this regard. It was Lucifer whom then said (in essence) "Time out-- no no, that's a horrible idea. I'll force everyone to behave. I'll be the Savior I"ll be the most High!". The Father already had the Plan, Lucifer's rebellion was never a valid option. But Lucifer did always have the option to obey or rebel, and he choose rebellion.
You can't get a more anti-Calvinist view point than LDS Christians. The "sovereignty of God" is... not a concern. Just zero. We have all have choices- you, me, the Father, etc. They are intrinsic. Obviously some things aren't possible and consequences comes with choices. Even the Father acknowledges this and works within that framework.
Yes. Without free choice, it is just a game- a horrible game. There is no need for Satan, because God has become Satan.
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On 3/31/2017 at 2:08 PM, JohnsonJones said:
In preparation for General Conference I was browsing various materials on the LDS website. It is probably that I'm just slow in this regards and everyone here has already known about what I'm about to mention for a long time. As I was looking at different conference talks through the years I found this
And then I found even more!
Which floors me. It has all the conferences and Ensigns back to 1971! This is awesome! This prompted me to open my tablet which I recently got and put the Gospel Library on, and lo and behold it had the same thing on it as well! You can have all that with endless reading material! I think it is very cool. It does raise an interesting question though. Now that I've discovered this, do I need to continue a subscription to the church magazines?
If I stop subscribing, is this a trend that others are also doing. If so, would that indicate that eventually they might stop publishing the actual hardcopy of the magazine? As a historian, this makes me somewhat sad. For a historian, we are all about books and documents, most of the time hardcopies of items. It seems so easy for electronic items to be lost if some event happens, or even something slight like a media change or an update to the program that opens a specific type of media.
However, it is personally cheaper and easier to rely on the electronic than the hardcopy in this instance. It is wonderful that these are available to the world via electronic means, especially with such a back history of issues and conferences.
Thank you for pointing out this resource(Ensign). Did not realise that I could go back to some of the issues of 1992 and '3 when I was a member.
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On 8/11/2021 at 2:04 PM, Anddenex said:
This is one I have to admit I still struggle with. I have a internal fight between the way I was raised (tradition) and what I think is best. I do like President Nelson's question on how to make the Sabbath a delight -- principle based.
Maybe truly take it as a day of rest -- 24 hours of sleep minus 2 hours of church. 😉
Would you mind sharing a bit about the 'tradition' you speak of? I was brought up in a conservative Protestant tradition(actually two branches of it) that valued church attendance & then rest on Sunday. That way of thinking still retains some value for me. I'd be interested in reading more about yr experience.
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My favourite composer is probably Ralph Vaughan Williams. He was a hymn(music) writer as well as a well-known composer in his time. He wrote a few symphonies and many smaller pieces. The Lark Ascending--is a very hopeful piece of music.
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Just a couple more fun facts from my own childhood-and the recent Canadian past. The two icons of morning CBC children's tv -Mr Dressup, and The Friendly Giant, both came from the USA. Both, but especially Ernie Coombs are still revered today-at least by some.
https://www.broadcasting-history.ca/personalities/coombs-ernie-mr-dressup
https://www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/robert-homme-the-friendly-giant-obituary
Of course those days are a long way away from the present CBC which glorifies "Drag Kids"🙄.
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On Canadians and Americans, I found this 2005 article helpful. The writer is Robert Fulford, a Canadian journalist. There were a couple of places where he made me chuckle-the highlighting of Vincent Massey, and his story about the tv program he watched. The only reason I recognized Massey's name was because he was the bro. of the famous 1950s actor, not because of any time I'd spent on our country's history.
http://www.robertfulford.com/2005-11-17-anti-americanism.html
- mordorbund and Vort
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I have to confess-I love watching football-that's not soccer or CFL-but NFL football-on a Sunday afternoon. I have since the early 1980s-when Brian Sipe threw that fateful pass, the Eagles seemed so perfect (but lost), and the Chargers, as exciting as they were, couldn't quite muster a Superbowl win out of it. I assume I'm not alone here. I've been wanting to ask this for awhile, but how does the LDS practice of sabbath keeping fit into this? I know that there have been Latter-day Saints who have played, and, I assume again, perhaps watched
the game on Sundays. Is this compatible (or incompatible)with keeping the sabbath for a Latter-day Saint?
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4 hours ago, Traveler said:
I wanted to respond to your post - specifically about g-dless evolution and the pointlessness of current cruel conditions. I believe that you are thinking that suffering and death is pointless. This seems to be a primary argument posed from modern thinking attempting to reconcile divine intelligence as a prime factor in the affairs of our universe. The first point that I would make is that the cruelty of suffering and death only seems pointless if one is attempting to remove the concept of a loving compassionate G-d from the universe. And the first point concerning our universe - that I would make - is that for all we know of this vast universe - here on this earth is the only place in all the universe we know of where life is suffering and dying. Obviously, life is, as far as we know, the most rare commodity of this universe. If this universe is G-dless then life is an aberration and the only way to rid the universe of the anomalie is by suffering and death. This means that suffering and death is not pointless in a g-dless universe. What would be pointless in a G-dless universe is life, rightness and wrongness, freedom, liberty, justice and everything else that intelligence would consider as being beyond pointless.
But what if there is a G-d? From the standpoint of Christianity there are two "points" to consider. First is the fall of mankind, which came of necessity from the quest of mankind for the knowledge of good and evil. To me there are obvious flaws in the logic of most religious theology - this is why I personally find the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints one of the very few religious notions - plausible. A critical element of the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that everything has its opposite. Therefore good cannot exist without its evil opposite and thus good cannot be "known" without a knowledge of evil and vice versa. And so cruelty and suffering does have a point - and that point is two fold - first so that the opposite of cruelty and suffering can exist and secondly - that the knowledge of good (as expressed in G-dlyness ) can be obtained or acquired. So it is that this earthly planet uniquely exists in this universe - and as far as we know is the only such unique place where this knowledge of good and evil can be obtained. This is by itself is a most critical and important reason for suffering and cruelty. A small abnormal superimposed temporary non-steady state condition on the superhighway of eternity. And this is the second point to consider - that humans and all other forms of life are not mortal, existing but to eventually suffer cruelly and die but are eternal beings having a temporary mortal experience - which is the purpose of G-d's creation and evolution of human knowledge and intelligence.
The Traveler
Thank you for stating the LDS case so clearly. My view is that-in the case of theistic evolution- there would be an enormous amount of suffering to account for by a loving God. I say pointless exactly because life is involved. How much natural carnage is enough to bridge the gap between animal changes and species-over millions of years? (I admit my knowledge of the whole process is sketchy here-but we're talking about a good long time). And even in the general LDS view of suffering, there is an end to it ultimately(as Rev. 21.4 says), isn't there? Or will there always be that good-evil reality?
Additionally, as far as I can tell, the LDS concept of God is a very personal one. And He is not only a personal being but has a fair amount of power-compared to ordinary mortals. Theistic evolution may be a great fit for an impersonal lumbering 'divine' force, but for an acting, choosing & because of knowledge acquired, very resourceful deity, I can't see it. The pre-Darwinian account of creation, on the other hand, removes that tension but leads to other problems. -
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As an outsider, I remember reading Sterling McMurrin's stuff on evolution and theology in the 1990s and found it sensible. Nowadays I'm not so sure & tend to doubt whether theism and evolution can be reconciled. Even if evolution does not necessarily need to be 'godless' there are still the factors of the immense stretches of time, and (pointless?)animal cruelty to consider-at least for me. Of course, God could guide or use evolution to bring about a wonderful creation. But why would he-unless his options were pretty limited. The Samuel Johnson observation on women preachers comes to mind.
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On 4/7/2020 at 12:36 PM, Jamie123 said:
First things first - here's a picture of Honor Blackman playing Goddess Hera...
...and here she is as Pussy Galore...
...with Sean Connery also in the picture. Two total legends!
Anyway, now I have that off my chest, we have one child at home too (a daughter). Until last week she had to do school work online, but this week it's the Easter vacation so right now she's cooking supper (butternut soup). Luckily we all have our own laptops so no arguments - thoug last week mine broke and I had to make a trip into work to borrow one. (Hence the "green" webcam - perhaps a student was sick on it once - who knows?) It's like a ghost town there too - only security and IT techs on campus, and not very many of them.
My wife has knitted me a face mask, so no coronavirus for me when I go shopping tomorrow!
I love Hera in that film. Especially the way she rebukes Pelias.
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On moral agency-As of late I have following comments and podcasts by two Protestant apologists on-among other things-whether the enormously influential Augustine was the first Church father to really deny free will's role in salvation. I find such discussion fascinating, and certainly sympathize with the arduousness that each side honestly contends. But this (like many other biblical topics) may be a "burned over district". If the biblical record is undecided between "chose whom ye shall serve"(Joshua), and "it is not of him that willeth...but of God that showeth mercy..."(Romans) well,...- MrShorty and Just_A_Guy
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7 minutes ago, Grunt said:
We are having an online. Easter Service tomorrow
Thank you, I shall look for that.
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One side effect of the pandemic is that it's keeping me away from alcohol. Yes, liquor stores are open here, but the very irksomeness of the whole experience is putting me off buying it. That may lead me to finally convert a halfhearted notion("nah, I'm not standing in line in the cold, rain...") into getting along without it entirely-who knows. I had planned visiting a meetinghouse/chapel on a Sunday morning this Spring-but that's off, of course, too, for now...
- JohnsonJones, Vort, NeuroTypical and 1 other
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In a speech today, Johnson brought up the Bridge On The River Kwai and the poet Virgil🤣. I'd like to view the ITV Debate tomorrow, but not sure if they will carry it on their FB site or anywhere else for those outside the UK.
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(Not that it matters so much but)The day the federal conservative leader marches in a pride parade is the day I stop voting Conservative. Anyway Scheer's leadership will be reviewed:
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Criticisms of the Conservative leader abound(he was indecisive, awkward, fibbed about his business background, etc.). There may be one other thing: too many(progressives?) just hate-hate hate- a family man with 5 kids who refuses to walk in pride parades, and talks about ordinary things. But that's probably just me.
Movie/show thread! What are you watching?
in General Discussion
Posted
Switching through some of the old Hollywood 'easter' films this past weekend, I stopped on 'The Greatest Story Ever Told'. I had not really seen it before and was surprised at the impressive scenery in it. There is a vastness in the backgrounds that I haven't seen in other of those types of films. In fact, it's almost as if the land in which the story took place was that of Robert E Howard's mythical Conan world rather than the ancient near east. This may be worth getting on bluray just for that.