Fether

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Posts posted by Fether

  1. 4 hours ago, laronius said:

    In Alma's classic discourse on faith he contrasts knowing vs believing and speaks against those who have to know as opposed to merely believing and then says:

    19 And now, how much more cursed is he that knoweth the will of God and doeth it not, than he that only believeth, or only hath cause to believe, and falleth into transgression?

    Is this the only benefit to not knowing and only having faith or are there other benefits to faith that knowledge does not give us? 

    knowledge and faith produce different powers. You need them both. I’m also not so sure faith is meant to evolve into knowledge. I think belief evolves into knowledge, but faith seems to be it’s on factor unrelated to knowledge.

    I have beaten this topic of faith and knowledge I’ve met head for years. I dont really understand it all.

    here is a link on another forum where I recently offered similar questions: https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/74511-belief-knowledge-and-faith/#comment-1210092801

    Personally, I think faith has greater power than we think. I’m bothered when I hear people emphatically state that they KNOW the church is true and that they KNOW there is a God (and so on). I have a couple  of arguments and thought experiments that tend to disprove their proclaimed knowledge… but really what bothers me is that people seem to value knowledge above faith.

  2. 16 hours ago, MrShorty said:

    I have seen enough LGBTQ+ people who feel led by God to leave the Church that, in the end, I hope they find happiness either way.

    I have seen far more people use “I prayed about it and God said…” to justify all sorts of decisions. One of my biggest frustrations with members is they will use prayer to cover their bad decisions or to do things they are embarrassed to admit it they wanted to do themselves.

  3. 2 hours ago, askandanswer said:

    It has been suggested, both in scripture and church teachings, that there is a certain point beyond which it will be difficult, or perhaps even impossible, to repent. This certain point is usually described as being at, or beyond, the day of final judgement. Alma expressed this idea like this, but this is far from being the only place, or the only way, in which it has been expressed.

    "therefore I say unto you the time shall come, yea, and it shall be at the last day, that he who is filthy shall remain in his filthiness." (Alma 7:21)

    If this idea is true, would that then place a limitation on either the power or accessibility of the atonement? It almost seems like Alma, and others who have expressed this idea are putting an end date beyond which it either cannot be accessed or will be of no effect.

    The limitations are placed by us individually. I think after all is said and done, those who do not fully partake on Christ redemption will know in their hearts that they didn’t really want what was offered. If they did, they would have acted differently.

  4. On 4/23/2022 at 5:43 PM, SpiritDragon said:

    Hi Fether, I don't believe the term is used largely by others, but I've come across the concept in studies of environment and behavior that may match what you're looking for. I call it the proximity impulse. Basically, when something we desire is close and easy to access we are more likely to engage in the desire. A classic example is a study called the Office Candy Dish, where visible, open, candy dishes in close proximity to workers leads to more candy consumption than closed off opaque candy dishes or those that are further away.

    Thus, just as the candy was not needed before seeing it and being able to grab it, The black hole video wasn't needed until it showed up and became available. I do believe some of these are compounded by an aspect of the fear of missing out as well though, because unless you write down the video name and allot a time to come back later part of you realizes that by not watching it now you may never do so. I think the same can be said of obsessing over responding to a question, except in this case it's an added level of instant gratification as well. By going to sleep and responding in the morning there is delayed gratification in being the one with the answer and the supposed prestige it may bring. There may also be an element of challenge in responding to a text that may be perceived at some level as creating an unsafe environment that needs to be resolved before sleep.

    Anyways, hopefully there's something helpful in there for you.

    I love this 👍 this is probably the closest thing, if not exactly, what I was describing

  5. 42 minutes ago, askandanswer said:

    Well, to be fair, there may be some validity to her point that she is already spending a lot of time with the kids through home schooling, and that becaues of your work, you are spending less time with them than her, hence her idea that you, rather than her, needs to spend more time with the kids. 

    Which I already do. I love taking my kids on walks, hikes, and the like. The soccer schedule doesn’t take me from work at all, it just means I am with my son at soccer practice instead of with my son at home.

  6. 1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

    You’re a better man than me.  I’d be livid.

    Every time I think about it, I just start laughing. But then it turns into frustration as I think about how instead of going home after work, I have to go teach 4 and 5 year olds how to play soccer… a sport I never liked.

    We had a good talk today and she is going to do it with me still

  7. I’m pretty conservative in my thinking, but I do have to admit that many of us were sold a bill of goods when it comes to college, college loans, and degrees. 
     

    On one hand, I would life some sort of repayment for the 30+ hours I worked while taking 16+ credits a semester to pay my way through college. Why should the people with no work ethic, poor fiscal literacy, and a lacking vision of their future be rewarded?

    On the other hand, everything we were taught growing up from educators, parents, church leaders, and media screamed “go to college or your life will suck, also, you are cool if you go to an expensive college”. Then, everyone is thrown on front of government back predatory lenders as their first experience in borrowing money and told “this is a good decision”. I’m lucky to have had the wit and vision to not have fallen into the traditional traps.

    My mom works as a school counselor and college is not longer the push for their district. They just push for what they call “secondary education” which encompasses college and other post high school learning opportunities.

  8. STORY TIME!

    A couple months ago, my wife signed my 4 year old so. Up for soccer. While at the signup place, she saw that there was a signup for parents to be coaches. When she got home, she said “Fether! We should coach our child’s soccer team!” I explained to her that we have too much going on and adding another thing to our plate would not Be good. We debated this over the next week or so, sometimes turning into an argument. One day, she got a little frustrated and said something to the affect of “Our child needs to see us doing things like, and you spend so much time at work, you need to spend more time with our son!”
     

    (Side note, I have complete control over my schedule and choose to work 40 hours a week. I’ve calculated it many times. The fact that I have the ability to take time off whenever I want and still choose to work 40 hours a week gives the illusion I spend too much time at work. A conversation we have had multiple times).

    Anyway… I gave in and agreed to do it with her. Fast forward to last week when we had our first practice. I decided to give it my all and choose to have a good time with the kids. On our way there, my wife told me that she was feeling really really nervous and wanted me to head everything off. Fair enough, I could do that. The practice went great.

    The next day, my wife was feeling overwhelmed with being a mom, homeschooling, ministering, and other stuff. She said to me in a very emotional tone “I can’t help you with soccer, I just have too much going on and it stresses me out”. So the very reason I told her I didn’t want to do it is the reason she is now wanting to pass it all off on me.

    Wives… can’t live with them… also can’t live with them.

  9. 16 hours ago, Carborendum said:

    I'm not sure if you even saw my post.  So, I'm going to try again.  Not because I "need" to be heard.  But because I think you are troubled by it and I'm trying to help.

    The term you're looking for is FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out).  Look it up.

    I did see it, sorry I didn’t respond. I am familiar with the term and it’s probably the closest thing to what I am thinking of. However, FOMO is often used to describe something like a party, movie release, new meme, or anything else that provides some social credit for a group of people. A fear of missing out on something that everyone else is going to experience. You don’t want to be left out.

    What I am talking about fits into that, but elsewhere. It’s something that happens regardless of whether there is social pressure or social credit gained. 
     

    Some examples:

    - I go to YouTube to watch a video showing me how to cook empanadas. On my way there, I see a video of Neil Degrasse Tyson explaining black holes from 6 years ago. All of a sudden I NEED to watch that video because it interests me so much. This is the moment. The seemingly primordial  instinct that kicks in. 20 seconds ago I was happily making my empanadas and had no reason to to get sucked into a 10 minute lecture by Mr Tyson. Yet simply seeing it triggered my brain to start screaming at me to go watch this video. Again, 20 seconds ago I was perfectly happy without it, now I cannot imagine ending the day without watching this video.

    - You are writing in your journal and the thought comes to mind that you want to order catering for your job in a few weeks. You don’t need to do it now… but your mind won’t leave it alone and now you need to look up catering places and see what is in budget. You can no longer focus on your journaling until you figure out what the catering options are. 20 seconds ago you were happily focused on the task at hand and knew nothing of this need to find catering. You could have happily gone to bed and not dealt with it… yet here you are, searching the web trying to find a good catering company.

    - You about to go to bed when you notice someone has texted you an interesting question. You are no longer interested in going to bed and spend the next hour crafting thoughts on how to respond. 20 seconds ago, you were about to go to bed, now your mind won’t leave this alone and you go to bed an hour late trying to craft a response. 

    It’s really just that little experience I am intrigued by. That point where you go from content to hopelessly obsessed simply due to a little stimuli and becoming aware of it. 

    If you strip away the socially contrived meaning of FOMO, I think there is an argument there for it fitting what I am describing. However, it has a deeply embedded addendum that it is about social events, and what I am trying to describe is something that can happen completely by yourself with zero social influence.

    it’s an unbridled curiosity. An easily distracted mind. A mind that quickly grabs on to the newest thing and won’t let it go till it is satisfied. Maybe just ADD/ADHD??? Just plain addiction? A bad Habit?

  10. 8 hours ago, Traveler said:

    It is estimated that if present trends hold that by time President Biden finishes his first term that 20% of the people living in the united states will be illegal.  I would add that those coming across the southern borders illegally are 100% controlled by the Mexican drug cartels. 

     

    The Traveler

    What’s the fix?

  11. 6 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

    When it comes to folks thinking misbehavior is ok, I'm not worried about the conservatives.  I'm worried about stuff like this.  Take a look at that 66.5% of "very liberal" folks who believe violence is justified...

     PoliticalViolenceOKPoll.thumb.JPG.7be71002476b9509e912a087707aeb98.JPG

    I don’t understand this graph when compared to your comment. It looks like shows conservatives are far more violent than liberals

  12. Spitefully? No.

    But if there is a major issue with a policy, then yes. 
     

    It is easy to turn our passionate political opinions into a radical religion. I am under the impression that we should not do that.

    I also think we confuse how we ought to act in public and how we talk about political issues in formal debates and opinion articles. I will oppose laws that demand me to accept LGBTQ views, but I’ll also respect a transgender person’s chosen pronouns and call them by such. I know far too many people that are turning every disagreement into a battle ground

  13. I spoke with a friend of mine yesterday about a concept that is very difficult to work around. There are people on this world that are extremely sensitive and will spiral into depressive states at the drop of a hat. On the other side, there are people that thrive on being called to repentance. It gives them energy to push forward knowing that there is more growth to be had. A single talk cannot provide the needed energy for the latter whilst being conscience of the needs of the former. 
     

    there are speakers that I detest listening to, but I know others love it. I would hate to see those speakers disappear because of my opinions. I would also hate to see those “in your face” talks disappear because a portion of the church finds them difficult to listen to.

  14. Mosiah 25:19

    “king Mosiah granted unto Alma that he might establish churches throughout all the land of Zarahemla; and gave him power to ordain priests and teachers over every church.”

    A lot of these questions assume that the Nephites church organization was similar to what we have today. Let me know if this is not so.

    Questions:

    - I was always under the impression that the lesser priesthood (levitical) was not had in the America’s since there were no levites. But we see in Mosiah 18 that Alma was given some sort of authority since he was baptizing people. Was Mosiah granting Alma the authority to establish a church and granting him power to ordain akin to us receiving callings and stewardship from our leaders?

    - Was Alma or Mosiah the head of the church? 

    - If Alma was head of the church, How is it that Mosiah granted the authority to Alma, yet he was not the head?

    - If Mosiah was the head of the church, how is it that Alma the elder appointed Alma the Younger to be the head of the church at his death?

     

     

    Was this a similar situation as Alma the younger relinquishing the role of chief judge to focus on his role as head of the church? 
     

    Mosiah 25:20 reads:

    ”Now this was done because there were so many people that they could not all be governed by one teacher; neither could they all hear the word of God in one assembly;”

    Was Mosiah transferring the role of head of the church to Alma because he couldn’t do everything? This is suggested in Mosiah 26:8

  15. Do vacuums float?

    A balloon of air floats in water because it’s contents are less dense than its surroundings. Helium balloons float up because it too is less dense than the air around it.

    If you were able to get a balloon, have it maintain its round and full shape, but turn the interior into a vacuum, would it float into space?