zil

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Everything posted by zil

  1. Nothing! Absolutely nothing! It's perfect. Perfect, I tell you. Downright miraculous! Not sure, but a capacitor might have been involved. (Ask @mordorbund if you want to be sure.)
  2. Apparently I don't. (Unless what I did there was use paragraphs.)
  3. Ooooo - and it was powered by a star going supernova. Yeah! (Don't anybody destroy my fun with facts about how that wouldn't work. I don't want to hear it. I've got a good miracle going on here.)
  4. Essentially, this thread is a waste of everyone's time. @star.bright is very angry about the fact that some people have committed unspeakably cruel acts, and God has not stopped them from doing so. @star.bright hates these criminals (and perhaps God, not sure; perhaps just doesn't believe in God anymore). @star.bright claims to want an explanation of why God would allow such evil to happen, but in the OP pre-rejected any possible answer, especially the truth, thus making the discussion pointless. Meanwhile, @star.bright has accused @Jane_Doe of not having compassion for victims or horrible crime, which, if @star.bright knew Jane's past, @star.bright would never have said (based on @star.bright's expressions of concern for victims). @star.bright has also attacked the character of a few of the respondents, and I don't buy the whole "English isn't my first language, you don't understand" claim. Further, I'm pretty sure German uses paragraphs, and I wish @star.bright would, too. I suspect @askandanswer was trying to determine whether @star.bright would prefer that no one have free will, or only wants some limit on the degree of evil we can act out, or some other thing, but @star.bright has repeatedly avoided engaging, and seems to prefer raging against those guilty of unspeakable acts, and against anyone who doesn't immediately join in the raging. @star.bright has also rejected the notion that hate and anger destroy the one who feels them, regardless of whether the object of the emotions "deserves" them. I think that about sums it up.
  5. A really, really high-powered LED (probably made by Cree). Maybe with some sort of broad diffuser1. Yeah. 1Firefox need to update their spelling dictionary.
  6. In fact, you've just used 14 out of 26 of them.
  7. Don't worry. By the end of 2nd quarter, my "vacation" will cover the cost of the new story.
  8. Speaking of which, have you seen the contractor's estimate on the cost of expanding the compound? I'm thinking maybe we just add another story to the main building and call it good.
  9. I knew you were a closet commie. Time to refurbish the compound's re-education chamber - it's woefully out of date.
  10. But in the origin of the word - Greek pantheon - a Greek could worship any number of "gods", no? Isn't that the idea - that the others are viable gods for the person to choose from? At least, I never got the impression that a person from one of these religions was required to choose only one, nor prevented from switching to another. Maybe I just don't understand the word. One thing I know for absolute certain - I have one God, and only one God (and when I use that word, I mean God the Father, FYI). IMO, this is a mortal perspective because we are so used to everything being finite. If I have all the peanuts, you get none - because there's only a finite number. Some things, however, are not reduced when shared - if I love someone, that doesn't mean you can't, nor do we have to divide a finite amount of "love for that person" so that it always adds up to a finite amount. We can both love the person and thereby double the amount of love without any reduction in love - on the contrary, we increase it. IMO, the things of eternity are all this way - sharing them increases them, it doesn't dilute them. NOTE: I do comprehend the reasoning / thinking behind the idea that if there are two omniscient or omnipotent people, that neither really is, I just don't find that reasoning convincing - I don't believe the word needs to be exclusive, nor that everyone else needs to be empty-headed (literally, have no knowledge, sentience, understanding at all) nor utterly powerless in order for God to be omniscient and omnipotent.
  11. Good points, all. As always, it's difficult to summarize into words on the internet what is in one's mind. If, for the sake of argument, there are others who are "peers" to God, whether in this universe or any other, and whether or not I might one day meet them, they will never be "God" to me. Thus, I have only one God. While I said "worship-able", I suppose I should also have added that bit. They may be "God" to someone else, but they can never be "God" to me - even if I wanted them to be, can't happen. That fact seems to me to exclude me from "henotheist". It seems to me that "henotheist" implies the possibility that I can (or at least believe I can) "switch sides". In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, there isn't the remotest possibility of switching sides or adding additional entities to what constitutes "God". (At least, nothing I've ever heard says that, and I disagree with @anatess2's notion of others joining the Godhead - being at one with them (and still subject to), sure, but never one of them (which implies, to me, no-longer-subject).)
  12. Maybe I missed it, I haven't really been reading everything, but the thing I haven't seen is this: Henotheism (if I understand correctly) is a belief that there are multiple gods who are all worship-able, but I'm just going to worship this one that I prefer. Monotheism says there is only one worship-able God. And that is why we are monotheists and not henotheists. No matter whether we become gods or not, we will always have exactly one worship-able God. No matter whether there are other gods who are currently "peers" with our God (whether in this universe or their own other universes), they will never be worship-able for us. They cannot bless us, save us, exalt us, redeem us, condemn us, or buy us an ice cream - they are not and can never be ours.
  13. And my point was, that it's not the "I want the celestial kingdom" that defines what you get, but rather the "I want to relax already" or "I want challenges and hard work to do" and that kind of want which will determine your worthiness. In other words, as has been said elsewhere, if you don't really want the life of an exalted being, you won't be doing those things here which qualify you for it. If you're going through the motions, following the rules, but your heart isn't in it, you won't make it. If your heart is in it, regardless of how often you fall, you'll make it. And wherever your heart is, that's the kingdom you'll both want, and qualify for. In other words, regardless of how much we don't know, each of us is already becoming a particular sort of person. IMO, people frequently claim to want things they don't really want (as much as other things - often laziness). Those things we truly want, we work for, we don't just wish for them. And they are in our hearts, minds, and efforts. Anyone who will reject the celestial kingdom will also never qualify for it, because it's way too much work to get there without it being completely in your heart, mind, and efforts.
  14. I suspect what we qualify for is actually what we want. Nibley (in Approaching Zion) also talks about how everything here, and in the next life, and in the millennium is to prepare us for the celestial because otherwise, we'd die of shock on arrival.
  15. And I just realized this may sound like I believe in progression between kingdoms - I don't. But I believe we as individuals progress gradually and that the resurrection alone won't be enough to make us instantly like God - we must learn that - exactly how and when, I don't pretend to know, I simply don't think it's an instant change.
  16. In case my drawing skills are too poor, or the logo too unfamiliar....
  17. Nibley also liked to point out how angels always had to start off with "fear not!" - in other words, the divine is so very different as to be frightening. It makes sense to me that one might have to progress their way into a vision of the celestial. (And, I expect, even after resurrection (or perhaps on the way to it), make a similar progression.)
  18. Hmm. Too busy reading today. Maybe another day, after this book is finished.
  19. According to Nibley, some apocryphal accounts of those who have seen visions of the celestial have the person first passing through lesser kingdoms, in preparation. I think this and the following are the only way to interpret scripture which talks of someone having visions of heaven - the progression applies to the vision, not the resurrection. To me, it sounds like one moves through covenants and ordinances which move one from telestial to terrestrial to celestial - the goal always being to attain celestial. Or, exactly what @Vort said.
  20. Pilot Blue-Black is one of my favorite inks. Fountain Pen ink is an essential oil (for my nibs) and yes, it works. 😛
  21. Also: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000WKZBCK/ and https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001P35A74/ ...buying in bulk. The Pilot ink might even be cheaper over there - not so far to travel.
  22. So don't buy Lamy ink. There are inks made in the Philippines that are quite popular over here - I expect they'd be cheap there. Troublemaker and Vinta are two brands I believe originate there.
  23. @NeuroTypical, @anatess2, @Vort (68gsm Tomoe River paper in a Hippo Noto notebook)
  24. Please! Shoes, schmoos. Take her fountain pens!