CV75

I'll defer to Joseph Smith's remarks on infants. Anyone inclined to rank Heavenly Father's children need to remember that abiding mortality into accountability suggests their own third part were not as pure and lovely in the pre-existence as the third part who do not abide that long.

Of course they taught the truth. There is also nothing wrong with teaching error when the spirit of repentance and progress are employed as Joseph Smith and his successors exemplified so well. He and Brigham would admit when they knew they were wrong or mistaken or in error and make adjustments -- in cases like this they simply did not know what we do, and only knew the accepted history of the time. And so what? Unfortunately many of their admirers and followers do not walk their path in this regard. The teachings and the covenants of salvation and exaltation were restored and taught by Joseph Smith. He also taught his good-faith (but faulty) interpretation of history according to the standards of the time -- what else was he to do? He did the same with financial decisions, banking, farming, settling, etc. I try not to squander my opportunities holding to erroneous notions of the past. My testimony and covenant path is in his prophetic calling, not these kinds of teachings and other failures/failings, real or imagined, anyone wishes to exploit. He did his best and well enough to accomplish all he did by the grace of the Lord.

I see this as a lesson in sticking to the basic Gospel principles for spiritual purposes and to sound scholarship for intellectual purposes. Even a prophet can deploy incomplete scholarship while holding the keys to the fundamental principles of salvation and exaltation. It takes generations for fallible prophets and members to build upon the shoulders of their predecessors to balance things like these more spiritually and intellectually. I do emphasize building over reminiscing and wallowing in error.

I see the trinary division as: 1) those coming into the second estate as accountable; 2) those not accountable; and 3) those never coming into the second estate. The second part are the more valiant of the three.

I do not think so, since He and His atonement were prepared from before the foundation of the world (Mosiah 4:7, Moroni 8:12, Ether 3:14 and others). An example of rendering comfort prior to His birth is Helaman 5:47. There are many examples of miracles prior to the Lord's incarnation in the Bible and Book of Mormon. He had to fulfil His mission in the Meridian of Time (His flesh and resurrection) to seal in the Millennium and beyond that which was prepared premortally. The Meridian of Time is the pathway He walks to redeem all things bounded by time, according to our reckoning and conceptualization, from the beginning (premortality) to the end (exaltation).

"Know when to hold 'em, know when to fold 'em." -- Ignatius of Antioch

All humanity is fallible, but as faith grows in the earth, so does the kingdom of God on earth. The Lord would not have us run faster than we are able. Nothing has interfered with the keys of the kingdom exercised by the prophets and the salvation extended by virtue of the ordinances and covenants. However quickly or slowly we build, the Lord will come when the Father tells Him to. Judging (and by extension condemning, or forgiving for that matter) any prophet for not yet having what we have attained is prideful. This is not a matter of learning from past mistakes on a particular point of doctrine or policy. Whoever might have done that finished the job before 1978, and we are too far ahead to armchair quarterback. I think this is a matter of letting the light shine and expand in darkness. The only option is to look forward in faith. This is also not a matter of who struggled with the ban in the 50s-70s being honored as "on the right side of history" -- I think any who contended over it lacked a spiritually productive perspective and certainly did not aid the kingdom. Those who look back and do are even worse.

Visions like these, I believe as with the brother of Jared interacting with a future reality if not a future event, are enabled by the ability to foresee them. The Lord can foresee them (both events and conditions) and share that as seems Him good, or as in the exceedingly rare event of the brother of Jared, exceeding great faith can generate the ability to foresee a future condition manifest within a current event.

I think the faith (in Christ) of the brother of Jared was so great that he saw the spirit finger of the Lord, touching the stones, as flesh and blood. He saw the future reality in the present, How this works is beyond me, but he did it. After that, the Lord showed him his spirit body and all the rest as recorded. The greater the faith, the greater the knowledge, and the two build upon each other in a dynamo (I would say they are two forms of the same thing). Thus became the faith of the brother of Jared, sufficient to see the future finger of the Lord. It could be said he only thought he saw flesh and blood, or misinterpreted the reality of a spirit finger as one of flesh and blood, but the Lord did not correct him. So yes, while God can interact with the past and future, in this case it was the brother of Jared interacting with the future. He was not interacting in a future event where the physically embodied Lord touched stones, but he was interacting with the future reality of the Lord's embodied spirit.

I believe it was a simple matter of faith on the part of those who asked. Faith brought the revelation forth, as it always has. In this dispensation, the demonstration began with Joseph's faith to pray in the grove.

Unlike Adam and Eve, God is an immortal being who has the highest level of knowledge of good and evil that comes from having passed through all estates worthily. Spirits can only come from people who have this level of knowledge (and the attendant keys to life / the tree of life), just as mortals can only come from first parents who have attained the level of moral knowledge Adam and Eve did. Even today, bad people have children but not matter how fallen they may be, retain a measure of the light of Christ in them.

I would take exception to the lack of physical attraction, as they were man and wife. Why would they not engage in sexual relations, even if they failed to reproduce more immortal offspring like themselves? I think they did not fail to fulfil the command to replenish the earth due to lack of sexual feelings (even children have these) or a willingness to engage in sexual intercourse as a result, but as a matter of paradisaical regulation (regulation in all respects) and a lack of understanding that a knowledge of good and evil was prerequisite for bringing forth beings that could bring forth, eventually in time, the Christ through a mortal mother. Eve eventually made this connection, then Adam followed suit. Their transgression pushed them out of (or from) paradisaical regulation into mortal regulation, the only path to obtaining celestial regulation through Christ. What we do know is that things changed according to God's wisdom and plan!

I think the biological/mechanical reason, like the rest of science, answers "how" questions, and the spiritual reason answers "why" questions. Scripture provides the latter.

Without knowing good and evil, they could only populate Eden with ever more immortal souls lacking moral agency and unable to become like their Heavenly Father. There is no progress in making more Adam and Eves for the sake of making more Adam and Eves. There would be no Christ in the genealogy of a terrestrial/paradisiacal world like that. At some point somebody/everybody would have to partake of the forbidden fruit and fall anyway. Maybe this is what happened, and our scriptures may be a simplification how our first parents and their posterity got here.

I know "meridian" sounds like "half" but it is a circular path on a sphere. If this earth's time is spherical, it has no center really, but the time path in which the Lord appears is a predesignated locale, which by our reckoning is such-and-such a date. The Lord's arrival is the reference point for all things taking place on that sphere. As in Chinese medicine, He is the pathway from and along which all light, spiritual and temporal, flows.

When I first asked the question, I was thinking of those born into circumstances that keep them in ignorance of the restored gospel, and must wait until the next life to discover it. As long as they act on the light they are given, they will be all the more prepared. Joseph Smith said, "It doesn't prove that a man is not a good man because he errs in doctrine." But then I thought that Joseph's observation also applies to those who have exposure to the restored gospel but struggle with opposition in understanding and accepting it. Today in Sunday School, the teacher pointed out Ether 4:7 - 15. One of the comments on how to adopt true principles was to overcome unbelief in Christ and His teachings with a broken heart and a contrite spirit. This made me think that we choose to believe in Christ and the gospel doctrine (which is often pointed out), but in order to get to that point, we need to have a mind to imagine or consider what it would be like to believe in Him, and then choose to do so. Those who need to wait to hear and those who struggle with hearing in these times when the restoration is presented to them will need to go through those steps. As long as either acts on the light they are given, they will be able to disabuse themselves of their false premise(s) by considering what life would be like applying the gospel premise, and then choose to believe and exercise faith accordingly. I think all this can be summed up with "humility" which, I think you covered in your list!

How does one disabuse themselves of a false premise when it is the only one they have, and haven't considered whether it is false or not?

I agree; using your example of knives and guns as metaphors for the keys of immortality, God reserves them for those who are able to handle them, such as Nephi in Helaman 10. He exercises them for the blessing of everyone, including any suffering from the misuse of knives and guns. This is a good example of the relative scale I mentioned above. Lacking these keys, we can be good parents with the tools we possess while God is a Good Parent with His. We can look at this more and more granularly, and each step reveals a moment where the development of the child warrants an incremental change in access (greater or lesser) to the tools the good parent uses. Even good parents bring the guns and knives into their home in the first place, temporarily leaving them exposed to abuse one way or another before locking them away from the children as they begin to meddle. Similarly, God brought the tools of the tree of life and the forbidden fruit into the Garden (both tools He uses regularly in His home for the benefit of His children), and then set up some rules and then of necessity the absolutely protective measure of the flaming sword once the children got into a place where they could do some real, existential damage. I think any model of the atonement of Christ works if it leads to someone being more Christlike. We can share specific models, but they become individually filtered, understood and applied. Our personal models integrate and evolve as we move along (or away from) the covenant path. I lean toward a “work” model: Christ did all the work required in this world to overcome sin and death, and possesses the keys over them (or more positively framed, the keys over righteousness and eternal life). From this perspective, sin and death are not allowed after all, since “no unclean thing can enter into his kingdom.” Models aside, why is the witness that a good and just God exists, redeems us, and grants us power to embrace and share an expanding goodness in mortality and eternity not a satisfactory explanation of how/why He allows evil (sin and death) temporarily in the world, when He a) did not allow the ultimate evil as described in Alma 42: 5, 13, and b) He ultimately uses the keys of righteousness and eternal life against them?

That is one perspective, but resurrection is at the same time an expression of mercy: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2014/04/the-resurrection-of-jesus-christ?lang=eng "No injustice in mortality is permanent, even death, for He restores life again. No injury, disability, betrayal, or abuse goes uncompensated in the end because of His ultimate justice and mercy." The reconciliation of justice and mercy are accomplished through His atoning sacrifice. We might consider death to be just in terms of the natural penalty for the sins of the accountable, or the temporary, probationary nature of mortality for both the accountable and unaccountable. We might consider death to be unjust when imposed at the hands of another, whether the perpetrator or victim are accountable or not, or resulting from life circumstances. In either case, the talk above suggests our resurrection requires the offsetting power of mercy. Not all resurrected people are forgiven of all their sins, yet mercy is shown toward them with the gift of resurrection. Compassion: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/gs/compassion?lang=eng "In the scriptures, compassion means literally “to suffer with.” It also means to show sympathy, pity, and mercy for another." Mercy: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/gs/merciful-mercy?lang=eng "The spirit of compassion, tenderness, and forgiveness. Mercy is one of the attributes of God. Jesus Christ offers mercy to us through His atoning sacrifice."

Mercy in the form of resurrection is for more people than not (two of three parts of God's spirit children), and it is then for all mortal people. The value we place on Christ (the mechanism for mercy and resurrection) is important because it determines the kingdom of gory we live in, which is the reconciliation or cointegration of justice and mercy.

Mortality is as much about allowing one child to kill another as it is about allowing One Child to save all of them. What loving parent would limit the range of their children’s greatest potential by removing the risks and consequences of a down-side? Mortal parents haven’t power over life and death, but God does. He alleviates suffering on His scale, and we alleviate suffering on our scale. His scale requires the infinite and eternal sacrifice of Christ (hence the extreme evil that we see, and even worse evil that we do not see). Our scale requires the sacrifice of our wherewithal, which He provides in the first place through His infinite and eternal sacrifice. Those who acknowledge where their resources for good parenting come from cannot find themselves “more loving and righteous than the God of the universe.” Why is the witness that a good and just God exists, redeems us, and grants us power to embrace and share an expanding goodness in mortality and eternity not a satisfactory explanation of how/why He allows evil in the world?

Relationships are the the conveyors of all interpersonal gestures, and covenant relationships are always more meaningful that those that are not. Covenants entail conditions. So, covenant mercy is more useful than casual mercy, just as exaltation is more meaningful than immortality.

I would recommend trying a conversation about the rock of personal revelation. When all is said and done, what else are you going to go by (whatever is real to you), as fallible as you are (remember grace)? Our religion (and by extension our Church) is based on the testimony of the apostles and prophets concerning the work of Jesus Christ. Whether we receive that testimony by revelation or by empirical evidence, it is a spiritual construct where a growing faith is always required. Joseph Smith: "The fundamental principles of our religion is the testimony of the apostles and prophets concerning Jesus Christ, “that he died, was buried, and rose again the third day, and ascended up into heaven;” and all other things are only appendages to these, which pertain to our religion. "But in connection with these, we believe in the gift of the Holy Ghost, the power of faith, the enjoyment of the spiritual gifts according to the will of God, the restoration of the house of Israel, and the final triumph of truth."

I haven't heard the lecture but speaking evil of a person's deeds and teachings is not the same as speaking evil of the person. Those are different sins (and at what point do they become sins?). Something to the extent of apostasy would need to be identified by his priesthood leader. I question why he would go into such depth over Brigham Young if his gig is "about the founding of the nation and about how to participate in the political process", though and on the surface his YouTube series sounds like something I wouldn't trust for my children anyway.

72 years was the age for their retirement plan's required minimum distribution, and this allowed them to spend it all at once ahead of time.