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Carborendum

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Posts posted by Carborendum

  1. Question concerning “Continuing Revelation”

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted · Edited by Carborendum

    11 hours ago, Maverick said:

    I’m not exactly sure what parallel you are trying to draw here.

    Are you suggesting that 10% of what has come from the heads of the church over the past 180 years or so has been true revelation from God, 10% completely uninspired, and another 80% somewhere in between?

    Ok.....

    So, that's what you got from what I said.  ...  I don't even know where to go from here.

    Good object lesson.

  2. Question concerning “Continuing Revelation”

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    14 hours ago, Maverick said:

    I’m sure you mean through prayer and receiving an answer by the power of the Holy Ghost. Problem is that many people have pondered and prayed on this and received conflicting answers (or at least think they have). 

    If I were to make a rough guess, I'd say that I've given close to 1000 blessings in my life.  Healing, comfort, promise of blessings, & prophecy.

    Of those, I'd guess about 10% were very clear blessings where I KNEW there was power there.  About 10% were clearly empty.  I was "practicing the forms without the power."  Finally, the great majority were something in between.  I really couldn't tell.  I didn't necessarily feel like there was power there.  But it also didn't feel empty.

    As you can imagine, those where I clearly felt the power -- these were always fulfilled.  Those where I knew were empty were never fulfilled.  Of the remaining?  Maybe 50% if I'm lucky were fulfilled.

    I think you can draw some parallels.

  3. No in-betweeners?

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    1 hour ago, ZealoulyStriving said:

    "Now, concerning the state of the soul between death and the resurrection—Behold, it has been made known unto me by an angel,

    My mistake.  You're right.  I mixed up the two.

    But it does make my point in a different way.  The fact that an angel had to teach him these things at around 74 BC says that the doctrine was not around at the time of the Brass Plates.  i.e. It was not taught, nor was it found in scriptures.

  4. Question concerning “Continuing Revelation”

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    2 hours ago, Maverick said:

    But wasn’t this also the case prior to 1847 (or 1918)? In the D&C the Lord says this about the saints in the 1830s, yet they continued to receive revelation and more light and truth from God. 

    Why do you think this changed?

    Nothing has changed.  And that is the problem.  The Lord was FORCED to open up new doctrines and knowledge to the people of the earth.  There is not time to wait any longer.  Consider that Jacob 5 is not just the history of the apostasy and restoration.  There is some very important information there for the last days.  He COULDN'T wait any longer.

    But he only gave enough to give us a chance as individuals to learn more through the Spirit.  Any more knowledge in the public arena would bring even greater condemnation on the Church and the earth as a whole.  

    2 hours ago, Maverick said:

    How can we know that there have been, since there haven’t been any presented to the church? 

    Take a wild guess...

  5. Question concerning “Continuing Revelation”

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    On 4/7/2024 at 10:18 PM, Maverick said:

    Why hasn’t there been any more revelations like this since? 

    There have been.  But the population of the Church is not ready for them.  And we're not going to publicly release new doctrine to the world if the Church itself (as a whole) is not ready for it.

    People have received personal revelation to answer specific gospel questions.  These answers have never been written down.  They have not been made public for a reason.

    • The world is barely ready for the light and knowledge available to them as it is.
    • The membership of the Church is not living according to the light we've already been given.
    • How can we expect to learn more as a people if we treat lightly that which we've already been given?

    If the whole Church is under such condemnation, then why should we believe we're worthy of more?

    One more thing is that there are some higher level realities that can't really be conveyed in human language.  They are concepts that have no words.  They can't be written down in any mortal tongue.  It is only discernible by and communicated through the Spirit.

  6. Eclipse

    in Current Events

    Posted · Edited by Carborendum

    On 4/4/2024 at 12:45 PM, Ironhold said:

    Market Heights shopping center in Harker Heights, Texas. 

    18 hours ago, mikbone said:

    Any updates?

    14 hours ago, Traveler said:

    there was a red dot at the bottome of the eclipse. 

    • Travel there was not too bad.  Google rerouted us a couple of times to shorten our travel.  Instead of the predicted 2:30h trip, it was about 2:50.
    • We stopped by the Target for a pit stop. 
      • The bathrooms were fine.
      • The parking lot was normal -- nowhere near full.  It was about what you'd expect on a Monday morning.
      • We went to a city park just south of the freeway from there.  The parking lot was nearly full.  But we managed to park two cars.  Plenty of room to layout and get a table.
    • I got several shots at different stages.  And I got the perfect video of the totality.  I'll post when I'm at an appropriate interface.
      • The cloud cover was actually the perfect level for photography.
      • I happened to switch to video just as the last crescent was showing.  Then the totality.
    • The red dot was, indeed a solar flare or sunspot.  There was a professional eclipse chaser at the park about 40 ft from our table. 
      • My 12 y.o. liked his scope setup and got curious. They traded contact info and now, this man ("Lloyd") is going to be a distance mentor for my son on the subject of astronomy.
    • The trip home was horrendous.  We thought we'd miss rush hour.  But there were major accidents on every route home.  That delayed us long enough that we hit rush hour.  Then that slowed us down to get us home in 4 hours.  But that was soon enough to get my visiting BIL to the airport, just in the nick of time.

    My wife had told me that the few minutes of totality would be like nighttime.  Not really.  It was like late twilight. But it was dark enough that the park's automatic lamps turned on.

    I often wonder why there is a difference between seeing photos or video vs actually being there in person.  The actual event as a memory frozen in time is no different to me.  But the overall experience is different.  When we were there we had to deal with the clouds on again - off again behavior.  We were afraid that the 3 to 4 minutes of totality would be denied us.  But there was a happy medium that was better than we expected just as the totality occurred.  That slight layer of clouds made it perfect.  Then there were the interactions we had because "an event" was happening.  We simply wouldn't interact that way if it was just a photo or video.

  7. No in-betweeners?

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    12 hours ago, Still_Small_Voice said:

    Perhaps it was taught earlier but the truths were forgotten when an era of apostasy came.  The Apostle Paul knew of the three heavens as he specifically mentioned it in the second epistle to the Corinthians chapter 12.

    No, there is some evidence in the BoM that they didn't even teach the doctrine of the Spirit World (a time after death but prior to judgment).  Alma theorized of such a place/state.  But he taught it as his opinion, not doctrine.

    It may be that it was taught before Noah.  But after Noah, the people were no longer allowed to have that much light.

    Consider how many people in the Church today believe they will be perfectly happy in the Telestial or Terrestrial.  They simply don't want any more than that.

  8. Temples for April 2024?

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    On 4/7/2024 at 5:38 PM, SilentOne said:

    I remembered that Carb had mentioned something about a new Houston-area temple on the old thread, but it looks like he was thinking the other side.

    I was surprised to hear of the new temple in South Houston.  (The current on is on the north side of Houston).

    Temple presidencies have told our stake that we were pretty much the reason we were the reason the temple stayed open.  Our percentages are that high.  The saying was that if all the stakes in Houston alone (let alone the outlying regions) would have attendance rates as high as ours, we'd have to have four temples.

    So, now we will have a second one.  I guess we're growing.

  9. Eclipse

    in Current Events

    Posted

    1 hour ago, Ironhold said:

    We're now at the point that some of the local churches and businesses are renting out space in their parking lots because all of the hotels - even the kinds of hotels where you rent rooms by the hour - filled up months ago. 

    Supplies are running low in stores, and to add insult to injury the Copperas Cove area (Cove, Hood, Killeen, et cetra) is under water restriction due to a broken water service line; the line was fixed a few hours ago but the restriction hasn't been lifted yet. 

    If you *are* coming up, get up here ASAP. Tomorrow or Friday will be your best bet provided that your reservation covers this period, otherwise you'll be stuck in traffic. 

    I know that this weekend is also Conference, so this would allow you to watch Conference in the stake center in Killeen provided that the lot isn't full. 

    We don't live that far away.  We're just day-tripping it. We have no reservations.  We're planning on coming home later in the evening.  The total eclipse will be over by 1:40 or so.  Give it two or three hours to get people going and traffic to wane.  We'll be home by 10:00pm easy.

    We'll have a bunch of munchables for food.  Boys won't have problems with bathrooms.  But we'll have three or four females with us.  It's more difficult for them.

    And, yes, we will have buckets and shovels with plenty of water and an ice chest.  So, the worst thing that can happen is that we're going to view it on the side of a road between Killeen and Temple, instead of a parking lot or anywhere more convenient. Copperas Cove is about as dead center in the path of totality as you can get.  But if it is as tight as things seem to be, we might only get to Temple.

    Our main concern is gasoline.  We are going to stop at College Station for a fill up.  Then we should have enough to get back to College Station on a single tank with plenty to spare for traffic jams.

  11. Eclipse

    in Current Events

    Posted

    So, my family is going to see the eclipse this coming Monday.  We're just a few hours away from the path of Totality.  We're planning on heading out right near @Ironhold's stomping grounds.

    We have no idea what the popularity will be.  But if it is the nearest spot for me, you can bet that most of the eclipse chasers (out of 4 million people in Houston) will want to go to the same location. 

    Texas is fortunate since the duration of the total eclipse will be longer with a decrease in latitude.  We'll get nearly four minutes of the total eclipse.

    With the roads clogged, we may have difficulty returning.  I hope we don't run out of gas.  Or we'll be the only idiots driving out in the middle of nowhere looking at an event for just a few minutes only to returrn home with a memory.  We can't really take pictures... can we?

    But memories will be what makes and breaks this family.

  12. Movie/show thread! What are you watching?

    in General Discussion

    Posted

    Wow.  I just realized that I haven't seen any TV or movie in a while.  But just this last weekend, the little lady and I went to see Dune Part II.

    It was interesting to compare it to the 1984 version and contrast them both with the book.  Empress had not seen the earlier version, nor red the book.  So, it was nice to have a captive audience for me to share my thoughts about it all.

  13. The Morality of Having Children

    in Current Events

    Posted

    On 4/1/2024 at 3:19 AM, tomasgreenro said:

    It's interesting that you mentioned the continual increase in construction requirements for homes. Do you think there should be more awareness about these changes among homeowners or potential buyers? Thanks for the reply right away!

    Not sure what you mean.  Can you elaborate?

  16. Did something I am now learning I shouldn't have done - Looked into Free Will.

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    Once all is said and done, I believe it will be brought to our full understanding just how much our free will was what got us to our final destination.  

    We can moan all we want about our circumstances and all.  And we can even point to things about our bodies, brains, etc.  And they all certainly had an impact. 

    But at the end of the day, I think we'll find it difficult for us to deny in the face of the Lord's perfect understanding that we were the ones who chose our path.

  17. Executive Order 13817 and logistics

    in Current Events

    Posted

    On 2/12/2024 at 1:52 PM, NeuroTypical said:

    Sounds like the Biden administration is down with all that.   

    Can you provide a link for this?  I'm not saying you're wrong.  It just seems out of character for Biden.

    I haven't heard anything on that from the Biden Admin.  But it would seem that his MO would tend to be: No, we can't harvest the lithium there because it is a natural landmark and we can't desecrate that with putting mines there.

    A-hem!  We already have salt mines there, duh! -- but don't let that dissuade him.  Besides, we can't do something that would lessen China's profits.

  24. Symbols on Temples

    in LDS Gospel Discussion

    Posted

    There are over 40 stars of different types on the temple.  But they are grouped in ways to indicate that the groups mean something different.

    One of the Center Towers (I believe it is the front one) has four stars on the three visible sides of the tower.  These twelve stars "crown" the taller tower with 12 stars.