LeSellers

Watching @Carborendum video reminded of a fun little item. When the Brother of Jared was trying to figure out how to light the barges he asks the Lord how to solve the problem. Ether 2:25 the Lord responds to him with a figure it out yourself, I don't have to spoon feed you everything: 
Therefore what will ye that I should prepare for you that ye may have light when ye are swallowed up in the depths of the sea?
The Brother of Jared comes back with his proposed solution Ether 3:4.
4 And I know, O Lord, that thou hast all apower, and can do whatsoever thou wilt for the benefit of man; therefore touch these stones, O Lord, with thy bfinger, and prepare them that they may shine forth in darkness; and they shall shine forth unto us in the vessels which we have prepared, that we may have clight while we shall cross the sea.
As you read in Genesis 6, it talks about the creation/sizes of the Ark etc. Genesis 6:16 reads:
16 A awindow shalt thou make to the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above; and the door of the ark shalt thou set in the side thereof; with lower, second, and thirdstories shalt thou make it.
Footnote (a) window reads:  HEB tsohar; some rabbis believed it was a precious stone that shone in the ark. Ether 2:23 (23–24).
Appears the Lord had already given the Brother of Jared the answer to his problem, he just needed to go read his scriptures instead. Perhaps similar to us in our day, appears the Lord may not spoon feed us all of our answers to our problems IF he has already given us the answers in the scriptures.

About a month ago, I was is in the Temple and thought,
I just copied his from my phone. (No, I wasn't taking notes in the Temple.)
Lehi
 

Maybe because worrying takes quite a bit of time and energy to do properly?

Still, cops kill people every week because they "resisted long enough" and aggressively enough.
The original infraction or misdemeanor or felony may not be violent or significant, but the resistance leads to the death. Or, sometimes, as @Carborendum illustrated, the person who dies isn't even a true suspect: the old guy dies because someone called SWAT (a big mistake to even have such a force), or, worse, the cops made a mistake and went to the wrong house.
In any case, and as you note, all laws are enforced by the (threat of) lethal force. If they weren't, no one would obey them, at least not those that are purely malum prohibitum.
Lehi

I read the story as well, but the tether need not be at the Equator. True, it will be more effective there, but even at ~45° North or South, it will still be effective. It won't be at 90° to the earth: it'll always be parallel to one on the Equator and radial to the earth's axis, i.e., 45° south- or northward.
Further north or south than 45°, the Earth's spin might not be adequate to keep the tether stable.
If we only had the technology to create a fiber strong and light enough to make it so.
Lehi

Joseph was, in spite of being a prophet, quite an ordinary man. It's just that he did extraordinary things when God commanded him to.
Lehi

The only law we need is, "Don't hurt people and don't take or break their stuff."
Anything beyond that is too much.
Lehi

That's "wayyyy past" anything in my original statement.
@Just_A_Guy has it pretty well right, it's the political background that defines my assertion that even a library fine would lead to the political powers sending a lot of armed men with fancy hats and shiny badges who, if you resist long enough and aggressively enough, will kill you.
Before anyone says, "There ought to be a law!", he should first ask himself, "Is this important enough to kill someone over it?"
You accused me of some dastardly things, and you pass it off with a shrug‽‽
Lehi

Not really trying to derail the topic here, but this illustrates the principle that all laws  (and, indeed, all government) are based on (the threat of) lethal force. The case involves traffic misdemeanors, but even a late library fine could result in one's death. All you need do is resist long enough and the state will send armed men with fancy hats and shiny badges and they will kill you.
In this case, it seems, as others have noted elsewhere, this woman was actively committing suicide by cop. She used the fact above to her "advantage".
The Constitution, according to John Adams, was written for a moral and religious people. It is sufficient, he said, to the governance of no other. 'Tseems to me that we have reached a point where the majority of the people are no longer able to govern themselves and need a strong man to control them.
Is this the reason that the Nephites, the Israelites, the Jews, and other nations were destroyed: they couldn't govern themselves, so the Lord brought in people who would do it for them?
Lehi

What makes one happy is not the best criterion to judge by. One must decide determine what is true and follow it irrespective of the outcome. (Hint: Moroni 10:4~5, Alma 22:18.)
In the end, the Gospel of Jesus Christ will make converts (as we all are) happier than anything else, but the trials between making the choice to follow Christ and the state of bliss may not be "happy" in the least.
The only question that counts is, "Is it true?" I say it is, not only 'true", but "perfect" (as perfect as we are able to let it be in our lives).
Lehi

No one knows exactly.
It is my opinion that the reason is that the JST has served its primary purpose. (See 5 below.)
Your question is similar to one antis ask frequently: Why don't you (LDSs) use the JST?
There are, to my mind, six reasons for this:
1) We don't own the copyright. That belongs to the CoC. We worked for decades to get permission to use a tiny fraction in foot- and end-notes.
2) We don't need it because it's available with the full text from Herald House (the CoC publisher) and the most important changes in our own edition of the AV as foot- and end-notes.
3) Joseph never finished it (which is your question in a different guise). Some claim he did based on a statement that he had. But this statement is open for interpretation, and, more importantly, refuted by Joseph's own acts. He was still working on it a few weeks before his martyrdom. When the RLDS Publication Committee took the "manuscripts" in hand, they found it "bone tiring work" to prepare an engrossed copy for the printer to work from. The translation process changed about the end of Matthew and Genesis. The first had Joseph read from a large, family-style Bible while his scribe wrote word-for-word the text as Joseph read it from the book itself or from revelation. But that took a long time, and God had him change the process so that Joseph read, but the scribe only wrote the changes, while each made marks on the document before him: Joseph in the Bible, the scribe on the transcript. (These symbols were underlinings, dots in pairs or triples or singles, dashes, and so on and matched.) However, as the Publication Committee discovered, it was not clear what these changes meant. As noted above, the Prophet was still working on it right up until his death. This he did by pinning scraps of paper to the manuscript. Again, the meaning wasn't always clear
4) We don't need it for doctrine. We have the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, as well as the Book of Mormon to reveal doctrine that has been lost in the Bible.
5) The purpose for the JST was to train Joseph in "prophethoodness". With rare exception, prophets of earlier times had grown up in a culture that knew what a prophet did. They may not have accepted them, but they understood the job description. As Joseph went through the Bible, less hurriedly than he'd done in the Book of Mormon, he could reflect on how Ezra or Moses or Isaiah approached his ministry.
6) God hasn't commanded us to use the JST. We are already "weird enough" with the Book of Mormon, etc., that if we also had a different Bible, our work of spreading the Gospel would be even more difficult, and those who might listen now, might not in such a case.
We have a promise that the records of the Jews and of Israel will be available to us at some point. That time is not yet. Patience is a godly virtue.
Lehi

No one knows exactly.
It is my opinion that the reason is that the JST has served its primary purpose. (See 5 below.)
Your question is similar to one antis ask frequently: Why don't you (LDSs) use the JST?
There are, to my mind, six reasons for this:
1) We don't own the copyright. That belongs to the CoC. We worked for decades to get permission to use a tiny fraction in foot- and end-notes.
2) We don't need it because it's available with the full text from Herald House (the CoC publisher) and the most important changes in our own edition of the AV as foot- and end-notes.
3) Joseph never finished it (which is your question in a different guise). Some claim he did based on a statement that he had. But this statement is open for interpretation, and, more importantly, refuted by Joseph's own acts. He was still working on it a few weeks before his martyrdom. When the RLDS Publication Committee took the "manuscripts" in hand, they found it "bone tiring work" to prepare an engrossed copy for the printer to work from. The translation process changed about the end of Matthew and Genesis. The first had Joseph read from a large, family-style Bible while his scribe wrote word-for-word the text as Joseph read it from the book itself or from revelation. But that took a long time, and God had him change the process so that Joseph read, but the scribe only wrote the changes, while each made marks on the document before him: Joseph in the Bible, the scribe on the transcript. (These symbols were underlinings, dots in pairs or triples or singles, dashes, and so on and matched.) However, as the Publication Committee discovered, it was not clear what these changes meant. As noted above, the Prophet was still working on it right up until his death. This he did by pinning scraps of paper to the manuscript. Again, the meaning wasn't always clear
4) We don't need it for doctrine. We have the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, as well as the Book of Mormon to reveal doctrine that has been lost in the Bible.
5) The purpose for the JST was to train Joseph in "prophethoodness". With rare exception, prophets of earlier times had grown up in a culture that knew what a prophet did. They may not have accepted them, but they understood the job description. As Joseph went through the Bible, less hurriedly than he'd done in the Book of Mormon, he could reflect on how Ezra or Moses or Isaiah approached his ministry.
6) God hasn't commanded us to use the JST. We are already "weird enough" with the Book of Mormon, etc., that if we also had a different Bible, our work of spreading the Gospel would be even more difficult, and those who might listen now, might not in such a case.
We have a promise that the records of the Jews and of Israel will be available to us at some point. That time is not yet. Patience is a godly virtue.
Lehi

And the thing is, we can be tolerant without endorsing it.  It's one thing to accept that this person wants to live that way.  It's an other thing entirely to participate in it.
If one of my kids goes gay, I won't disown them.  If they want to bring their boyfriend/girlfriend over to have dinner, they'll be welcomed.  I won't attend any weddings, however, and I wouldn't allow them to share a bedroom if they were staying with me.  Everybody draws the line somewhere different, but that's fine as long as we have a sense of the difference between tolerance and enabling.

2 Who art thou? Suppose ye that we shall believe the testimony of one man, although he should preach unto us that the earth should pass away?
 
Alma was teaching those in Ammonihah
They asked him this.
Do you know what is amazing about this verse?
The people were invoking Jewish Law.  Jewish Law requires at least two witnesses.  They were invoking Jewish Law!
How would they have known Jewish Law if they did not have Jewish ancestors?
And how would Joseph have known that?
Evidence of the truth of the Book of Mormon.......
 

You could ask a larger question - how come the modern scriptures we have are almost all from Joseph Smith, not from later prophets?
As already said here, we don't know the mind of the Lord.
It seems to me that the Lord gave a extraordinary outpouring of revelation to Joseph Smith, the first modern prophet, to re-establish the church after it was lost during the Dark Ages. We got a lot of modern scriptures. Now we need to learn and follow that - and maybe when the Lord see's we're doing that well enough, then he'll give us more scriptures.
Also of course, we have many sermons given by modern prophets, we have  leaders and members getting revelation for their church callings, we have personal revelation from the Holy Spirit, etc. So the Lord hasn't left us alone.

No one knows exactly.
It is my opinion that the reason is that the JST has served its primary purpose. (See 5 below.)
Your question is similar to one antis ask frequently: Why don't you (LDSs) use the JST?
There are, to my mind, six reasons for this:
1) We don't own the copyright. That belongs to the CoC. We worked for decades to get permission to use a tiny fraction in foot- and end-notes.
2) We don't need it because it's available with the full text from Herald House (the CoC publisher) and the most important changes in our own edition of the AV as foot- and end-notes.
3) Joseph never finished it (which is your question in a different guise). Some claim he did based on a statement that he had. But this statement is open for interpretation, and, more importantly, refuted by Joseph's own acts. He was still working on it a few weeks before his martyrdom. When the RLDS Publication Committee took the "manuscripts" in hand, they found it "bone tiring work" to prepare an engrossed copy for the printer to work from. The translation process changed about the end of Matthew and Genesis. The first had Joseph read from a large, family-style Bible while his scribe wrote word-for-word the text as Joseph read it from the book itself or from revelation. But that took a long time, and God had him change the process so that Joseph read, but the scribe only wrote the changes, while each made marks on the document before him: Joseph in the Bible, the scribe on the transcript. (These symbols were underlinings, dots in pairs or triples or singles, dashes, and so on and matched.) However, as the Publication Committee discovered, it was not clear what these changes meant. As noted above, the Prophet was still working on it right up until his death. This he did by pinning scraps of paper to the manuscript. Again, the meaning wasn't always clear
4) We don't need it for doctrine. We have the Doctrine and Covenants, the Pearl of Great Price, as well as the Book of Mormon to reveal doctrine that has been lost in the Bible.
5) The purpose for the JST was to train Joseph in "prophethoodness". With rare exception, prophets of earlier times had grown up in a culture that knew what a prophet did. They may not have accepted them, but they understood the job description. As Joseph went through the Bible, less hurriedly than he'd done in the Book of Mormon, he could reflect on how Ezra or Moses or Isaiah approached his ministry.
6) God hasn't commanded us to use the JST. We are already "weird enough" with the Book of Mormon, etc., that if we also had a different Bible, our work of spreading the Gospel would be even more difficult, and those who might listen now, might not in such a case.
We have a promise that the records of the Jews and of Israel will be available to us at some point. That time is not yet. Patience is a godly virtue.
Lehi

The Community of Christ (the name was changed in 2001, aIr, by the first non-Smith from the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). The claim that Joseph III and his heirs would always run the RLDS/CoC was poo-pooed into oblivion at the time W. Grant McMurray took the office. He resigned under interesting, and unspecified, circumstances.
When the Saints left Nauvoo, one of the important things they did not take with them was the JST manuscript. Emma had it in her possession, and refused to give it to the Church that was leaving her (by her own choice). As its custodian, she eventually gave it to the RLDS Church through her son, JS III.
In the late 1860s the RLDS decided to print the JST (they call it the Inspired Version of the Holy Scriptures), and formed a committee to make that happen. But, when they got the manuscript, they discovered that Joseph didn't have a "manuscript", he had "notes". Putting it together for the printer (a process called "engrossing") took years for the seven-person committee. They made a lot of choices about what to include and what to leave out from among the three versions (called manuscripts 1, 2, & 3), and sometimes made what most might consider mistakes by choosing an earlier version over a more difficult-to-understand later version.
However, one of the RLDSs sent Parley P. Pratt (who was intimately involved in the translation with Joseph) a copy of the first printing. He sat down and read it through, and said that those who had done it had done it well.
Earlier, John Bernheisel (I forget how to spell his name), a doctor, was passing through and visited Emma in Nauvoo. He asked her to see the ms, and she allowed him to look at it and take notes. He produced what we call the "Bernheisal manuscript". It is useful, but he made copyist errors and didn't do a complete transcription, so it isn't as helpful as we might like, but it does (or did) give us a view into the text, and a touchstone to the printed version's accuracy. He included his own interlinear notes, at one point saying "this I not understand."
Feelings between the LDS and RLDS churches were bad to horrid until the mid-70s, aIr. The only way for a Saint to buy a copy of the IV/JST was to get it from Herald House (the RLDS publisher). I got mine from Deseret Book in the mid 70s, but it was more expensive there than I could have bought it directly from the publisher. I think it may have been that HH wouldn't discount the cover price for DB. That's an assumption based on one experience: I haven't even tried to verify it. This animus abated about this time, and it was due to several factor, not least on the efforts of Robert J. Matthews.
The most important LDS scholar to review the mss was Dr. Matthews (A Plainer Translation: Joseph Smith's Translation of the Bible--A History and Commentary). The thawing probably came about when he asked for permission from his friend, the RLDS Church historian, to examine the mss. This friendship had been on-going for years, so it was not a surprise that he granted it.
Dr. Matthews examined every page of the extensive mss, and the Bible needed to "decode" the text. He made hand-written copies of the mss and made identical (as far as possible) marks in his own copy of the Bible. See his book for more details.
Following the change, and when the Brethren decided we needed a better edition of the Bible, we got permission to use the IV/JST in foot- and end- notes in the LDS edition of the AV.
I could go on (and on, and on), but I hope this will suffice.
Lehi

That is a problem... People want you to you to either embrace it fully and treat it as absolutely normal or you're nothing but a nasty homophobe.  They are gambling that our desire to not alienate people in our lives will outweigh our desire to stand up for what's right.
Sadly, in many cases it's a successful gamble.
What makes it harder is that if you decline to allow an unmarried (but otherwise normal) couple to stay in your home it's usually not questioned because people understand.  They don't take it personally.  This gay issue is different because gay people are being conditioned to take it personally and to conclude that homophobia is the only possible reason to not embrace them in their lifestyle.  That, to me, is the greater tragedy.  There's no compromise anymore.  They want their way, period, and will punish you by withdrawing from your life if you don't give into their every demand.
 

You need to be consistent. Immorality is immorality, irrespective of the laws (many of which are extraordinarily immoral).
Lehi

Yes.
The Brethren already are. In a stake conference several years ago, one of them spoke and said that the rich kids from Sandy, Ut, were not becoming good missionaries because they couldn't do without their phone, computers, cars, and other toys.
And that's just one indicator.
But we should also worry about the "poor" Saints who have the same values and goals, the only difference being they can't afford them.
Lehi

You need to be consistent. Immorality is immorality, irrespective of the laws (many of which are extraordinarily immoral).
Lehi

I remember my seminary teachers trying to help us memorize scriptures, but I don't remember ever passing them off verbatim--I'm terrible at that sort of thing and I have huge respect for those who have been able to train their minds in that way.  I do remember that, if the scripture was read aloud, we had to be able to find it; and I did pretty well at that.
I think it's worth noting that seminary isn't about imparting knowledge in an academic sense; it's about giving students a general (and frankly, quite superficial) background in the scriptures while cultivating their spirituality and giving them the tools they will need to find the answers they need when they need them and to independently undertake a more serious study of the scriptures later on in life.
As for common core, I doubt that as a curriculum it's objectively worse than the status quo.  The problem is a) the centralization issues @anatess2 mentions, and b) that the status quo allows children to be helped by their parents who grew up learningthe same  methodologies.  Common Core denies children this source of support, and there's some evidence that that's why the White House is so enamored of it--there's a belief in the DOE that if ("privileged") parents would quit helping their kids with their homework, a lot of the achievement gap between K-12 students of various ethnicities would disappear.

1.5 to afford women protection and support. this can vary on how it's done... in times where women have few rights sometimes marriage can offset that.

As evidence by the watching MTV or E!, the answer is no.  The correct answer is as Lehi said we have infantized children 12-18 and trained them to be completely incapable of making their own decisions.  Evidence this by how many children after graduating high school (or even college!!) come back to live with their parents-that just defies logic that a fully formed adult would want to come back home and live under his parents roof after being completely capable of taking care of himself.
Is it any wonder why society looks down upon 16 year olds getting married?
A 16 year old in the late 1800s had a completely different mindset and maturity level than a 16 year old today. I'd say 16 year olds in the late 1800s were more mature than many 26 year olds today.