zil

In trade for a fountain pen and accessories, @NeuroTypical sent me some My Little Pony music (surprisingly good stuff) and this:

(Which is currently hanging out off to my right.)

@theplains, the only stupid questions in this world are ones that the asker has no interest in the answers.  When a person habitually asks a question and then disappears, that's showing a lack of real interest, real questioning, or any sincerity.   And it's just a waste of time.

1.  Do you take *every* picture in a religious text as establishing doctrine?  What about all those pictures of the nativity that show Jesus in a wooden manger, even though we know Palestinian Jews of the first century AD would have been using stone mangers?
In answer to your question, Heavenly Father is the embodiment of a union between a spirit (or “spirit body”) and an immortal physical body of perfected flesh.
2.  That’s very nice.  But the invented dogmas of hellenized third-century Christians who lionized Socrates as much as Jesus and who were confounded by Jews who pointed out that worship of a God who was also the Son of God couldn’t possibly be “monotheistic”, are wholly irrelevant to the current discussion.  You’re alleging that Latter-day Saint theology is internally inconsistent; it’s a non sequitur for you to trot out trinitarian fables to further that effort.  The question I asked you challenged you to explore the situation from an LDS perspective, which of course you didn’t do; because as I said earlier, you’re here as an accusing ha satan; not as someone sincerely seeking truth or even as a teacher lovingly trying to understand another’s error before correcting it.
3.  Jesus said He had done nothing but what He had seen the Father do (John 5:19).  Many Saints have taken this literally in the context of Joseph Smith’s proposals in the King Follett discourse.  I think often they perhaps push the analogy beyond its usefulness.  That said, the process Jesus apparently went through was:
a.)  Organized as a spirit (from pre-existing intelligence) by God the Father;
b.) Progressed further than any other spirit, accepted the role of Savior, and attained status as a “god”, but still lacking a physical body;
c.)  Condescended to give up His divine power and live a sinless life as a mortal, in political weakness and social obscurity and poverty, ultimately suffering a painful and humiliating death; 
d.)  Was resurrected, being permanently joined to a perfected physical body and returned to the physical presence of the Father.  
The fact that the Book of Mormon generally focuses on c.) and d.) does not obviate or contradict a.) and b.).  
As for God the Father - we surmise He always existed at least as an intelligence, at some point was organized into a spirit, at some point received a body, lived, died, was resurrected, and became an embodied God; just as (in rough terms) Jesus did.  The degree to which the particulars of God the Father’s journey through mortality may or may not have paralleled Jesus’s own experiences as outlined above, is speculation upon inference.  I think some Church members like to believe that God the Father also went through the full  series of steps a) through d) because it lets us immediately dismiss uncomfortable questions like whether God the Father has a savior or whether God the Father ever sinned during His mortality; rather than acknowledging that we just don’t know. 

Yea, what's next, still reading comics and playing Dungeons and Dragons?

I can’t begin to process the sort of calculus in which God must engage to make everybody’s personal decisions interact together for the good of all; let alone how He can insert His own guidance to various individuals into that mix while accounting for the fact that some folks will take His advice while others won’t.  
In my more bewildered moments I have hypothesized that perhaps God actually exercises very little direct control over most elements of our lives; and that earth is more or less like a boarding school to which a parent sends her child—not knowing EXACTLY what will happen, but having a general idea of what the experience entails and knowing that at the end of the process, the result will be an “educated” child (and the more a child at school corresponds with his parents and heeds his parents’ wise advice, the easier the child will find it to navigate the boarding school experience).
I do think that perhaps the idea of all things being “made right” in eternity is perhaps a bit of a misnomer, or at least frames things in the wrong perspective.  Maybe the point isn’t that I’ll finally “get what’s coming to me” or finally be avenged/vindicated of the wrongs I have suffered.  Maybe the point is that I’ll be so happy just to be back in God’s presence, that I won’t really care about much of the stuff that happened here. 

That isn't what I said. You can't change other people by complaining about them. The only person you can change is yourself. Now an article where the author talks about ways they've changed some of their own behaviors and the positive effects it's had for them at church? That would be a good read, and a whole lot more effective than the article here.
Not only that, just as I mentioned any church, ours included, will always be full of individual people who fall short of who they should be, sometimes in really big ways. Always. The question is, do you learn to love them anyways, and work to treat them as Christ would, or do you grind your teeth and whine about "church culture" and overlook your own sins and imperfections? You can only change yourself.

Up at the altar there are souls...some are repenting, others are quietly joyful. There are tears, holy silence, and a lady in the corner is even laughing. A deacon is concerned by the seeming irreverence of this woman and goes over to whisper in the pastor's ear. He responds quietly, yet with force, "Leave that woman alone. I know her backstory. She has never laughed in her life and tonight she's experienced the joy of the Lord."
Meanwhile, in the back are a group of teens snickering about how fake the church is, and how there's nothing happening up front except a bunch of showboating:  Sophomoric cynicism that feigns to be insightful and honest commentary.

At this point, I just skim the article, sigh, and go on to what's next. Complaining about articles like this is like complaining about zits, Democrats, or the tide. The author is unable to perceive the irony in the very writing of her article. I would call it hypocrisy, but the word "hypocrite" comes from a Greek term that literally means a play actor putting on a false face for everyone else to see, and I am not convinced that the author is sufficiently mature or self-aware to understand how much she exemplifies the traits she claims to disdain.

Or, by example:
Possibility #1:
God: "Lehi, take your family and flee into the wilderness for the wicked seek to take your life."
Lehi: "On my way!"
...and then Lehi decides what to take and what to leave behind.
Possibility #2:
God: "Lehi, take your family and flee into the wilderness for the wicked seek to take your life.  Oh, and leave your riches behind."
Lehi: "Got it!"
...and then Lehi decides everything else about what to take and what to leave behind, but leaves the riches explicitly because he was told.
In both cases, what he does is "because of the commandments of the Lord", but only in one of these possibilities does the Lord explicitly tell Lehi to leave the riches behind.  And we don't know which of these possibilities happened, except that in the original account in the previous chapter all that's mentioned is the command to leave.
And either way, there's nothing explicitly forbidding use of the riches that were left behind.

So was I.

https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/30-words-that-are-their-own-opposites
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-own-opposites
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/57032/25-words-are-their-own-opposites
And, of course, the fount of all knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/alma/8.10?lang=eng#p10
10 Nevertheless Alma alabored much in the spirit, bwrestling with God in cmighty prayer, that he would pour out his Spirit upon the people who were in the city; that he would also grant that he might baptize them unto repentance.
I used to think Alma wrestled against God (spiritually) in opposition.  It wasn't until years after my mission I thought of the other way "with" could be interpreted.  That Alma was accompanied by God in his wrestle.

If I believe the D&C to be true, and I do, then I have to believe that there is correlation.  Therefore, it must be that we do not understand the laws upon which blessings are predicated, or do not know what is and is not a blessing.

If I believe the D&C to be true, and I do, then I have to believe that there is correlation.  Therefore, it must be that we do not understand the laws upon which blessings are predicated, or do not know what is and is not a blessing.

I believe this to be an accurate summation of the state of things.

If I believe the D&C to be true, and I do, then I have to believe that there is correlation.  Therefore, it must be that we do not understand the laws upon which blessings are predicated, or do not know what is and is not a blessing.

(Emphasis mine.)  Response from hypothetical person: "But it's so much easier to use a mathematical formula than to prayerfully seek the Lord's guidance!"

https://www.mnn.com/lifestyle/arts-culture/stories/30-words-that-are-their-own-opposites
https://www.merriam-webster.com/words-at-play/words-own-opposites
https://www.mentalfloss.com/article/57032/25-words-are-their-own-opposites
And, of course, the fount of all knowledge: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auto-antonym

My first linguistic challenge when I arrived in the USA is the desriptor "pretty".  I still don't understand what it means.  "Pretty good" can be really good or not really that good and "Pretty bad" is really bad.  I think.  Not sure.

"In that case, the bishop has your formula.  Go talk to him."  
 

Step aside White Horse prophecy, I have a new favorite Sign of the Times!

1.  A disembodied God, yes.
2.  Before God was a man, what was He?  Can you tell?  
3.  That’s because you don’t want it to be the same.  The role you have clearly chosen to play on this forum is what the Hebrews would have called ha satan—the accuser.  

I have been obedient to this policy, but I'm nowhere near convinced that it is right, nor that it was the direct result of revelation.

So as well as frema-sons there are now frema-daughters? And i suppose if we have freemas-ons there are probably freemas-offs. Given the rate of decline in the number of members it looks like many former freemasons have become fremasoffs.