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20 years in IT will do that to you... Duly noted! Right now, I need a sprinkler repair guy, or so it seems. (Replacing the diaphragm on one problem valve didn't solve its problems - it seems to have lessened the severity, but that could be my imagination. Sigh. I have one more thing to try, but no hope that it'll do any good. Seems likely the city water pressure has increased and I need a pressure reduction valve on the line to the sprinklers... Grr.)

At the very least, knowing which section to work on would help. I don't have time to decipher that whole page (and I'm pretty good at cursive, even old cursive - but dude wrote so small and "slurred" his writing). The version people talk about, maybe. When I went and read some of the documents I had (just common Church history volumes in a digital library), it seemed to me he was just using an expanded definition of "god", not claiming Adam and God the Father were one and the same person (which is what a lot of people say this theory claims, but I wasn't finding that - not that I care either way). Anywho, I don't believe we're capable of understanding the context - knowing some things about it, sure - understanding it? Not without revelation from God putting you into the mind of someone who lived it. Let God worry about brother Brigham. For me, there's only two ways to look at it: 1. God chose Brigham Young. In this case, any problems are God's to solve. 2. God didn't choose Brigham Young. In this case, we're in the wrong church. I know we're in the right Church, so I'm gonna let God figure out the past while I try to figure out how to live my covenants.

Highly unlikely. More likely to be database corruption or a software upgrade gone wrong.

Don't you mean you'll see if it is a thing? (I'm pretty sure you'll find it is almost always a thing.) PS: Enjoy your trip!

Yes, I mentioned that in another thread. Not only is it broken, but it's so broken that even a site-specific google search can't find posts. I had to resort to going to the content of my old account, viewing "activity", filtering by posts, and then finding the page with the time-frame in question (I remembered the post in detail and wanted to link to it). A few times, there were messages at the top of the page about indexing, but they're not there now.

Welcome to ThirdHour, @Eva Herrey!

And here's the answer - or at least, more of one, for anyone willing to read for a while... "The “Ceremony of the Shoe”: A Ritual of God’s Ancient Covenant People"

I highly doubt this was consciously established. Somehow, we all subconsciously came to just know. How that happened is beyond me.

I'm no longer convinced of these, though they may be possible (with one wording exception, which I think was made for this very reason). It seems obvious to me that God doesn't need to change anything for the rebellious to misunderstand. I think it may well be about time (for most changes) - as in, we have a lot of work to do and not much time. And I suspect more changes will come to speed things up further. As to the veil, one woman pointed out that in various marriage traditions involving the bride wearing a veil (which stem from antiquity), there are two variations for lifting the bride's veil: one is by the groom, after the bride and groom complete their vows; the other is by the father of the bride, when he presents the bride to the groom, before the vows are made. The Church membership are the bride. This woman suggested that perhaps the Father is now presenting the bride to the Groom, and thus we no longer veil our faces - another type of symbol - in other words, perhaps we're that close. Anywho, I'm not convinced the Lord has removed knowledge - it's there, if you're willing to receive.

You could be right. If so, it's absurd. (But as far as I can tell, it's absurd regardless.) This is more absurd. I know you're there, you know I'm there, I know you know, you know I know, we know the other knows we know... Turning your back, refusing to respond if the other does speak, refusing to nod or smile or otherwise "imitate" an offered gesture, sure, that's rejection and therefore rude. But the requirement for verbal acknowledgement is just saying "I know you know I know and you know I know you know, but we'd better say it in case one of us doesn't know we know..." It's absurd.

This is synonymous with what I said, but allow me to be more specific: you seem to be suggesting that the Lord instructed Moses to enact the cultural norm which Moses knew indicated respect and/or reverence for something sacred (or perhaps just something that outranked him), or perhaps humility, or some other thing that we're not aware of - because (duh), Moses was approaching the presence of God. In other words, the Lord used (this is what I meant by "adopted") Moses' culture to inform Moses. Yes. This is a temple experience for Moses, so the parallel makes sense. Did we stop because the act has no meaning in our culture? (Suggesting there's nothing inherent in the act itself that gives it importance.) Or ...? (I don't know, I'm just posing the question as something to consider.) I do not know. Let me address it from another angle. In US culture, it's considered polite to speak when encountering another person in an indoor environment with somewhat restricted access. For example, when you pass someone in the hallway at work, it's considered polite to say "hi" or "hello" or some other thing. No one - not one person I've ever asked can explain to me why this is polite. As you pass each other, assuming neither of you is blind, you know you're passing each other and that the other knows it as well. If neither of you intends to engage the other in discussion, why is speech necessary? Why is even a nod or lift of the head necessary? Why can you not pass each other in silence, without even making eye contact? (I know that you physically can, but why is it not polite?) No one has any idea, yet everyone seems to know and believe that the verbal acknowledgement is the polite thing to do. (NOTE: This may have changed as younger people, accustomed to sitting together and ignoring each other while they used their phones, entered the workforce - I don't know.) My pondering was an effort to figure out whether there was an inherent reason why Moses should put off his shoes? Is there an explanation for why this is the cultural norm? Is there an explanation for how this shows respect / reverence / humility / whatever? (I don't even know that it shows those things - I'm just assuming.) What is it about bare feet, or the act of setting aside footwear, that demonstrates reverence, or that respects the holy, or....? As I mentioned above, many of the things that we do in worship or in an attempt to approach deity do not involve being barefoot or ritualistically removing and setting aside footwear. One difference is that we aren't literally approaching God, as Moses was. But then, as far as I know, Joseph Smith wasn't instructed to remove his shoes at the start of the first vision (but then, God wasn't on the ground, as far as I know - and if we're going to continue, I don't know that God was touching the ground in Moses' encounter either). All that suggests that the instructions to Moses may very well have been the use of his culture to inform Moses of just how sacred the experience was. I don't know. In short, I was pondering, exploring, seeing if I could find reason, meaning, or something more, because though I've read it many times before, this question never struck me before. I figured it struck me for a reason, and I wanted to explore it. As I said in the OP, the only additional reason I could come up with was that this action brought Moses into closer, or direct connection with the holy. Whether that's symbolic or literal, or both, I don't know. I do know that the analogy - to put off whatever separates you from the holy - is of God (the Spirit is telling me this as I type). I don't know what you're asking here. Are you posing the possibility that the literal bits of dirt at that location were holy and asking about the state of that location, or the dirt that was at that location at that time? Or are you asking about those coordinates of planet Earth where Moses was located in this event (which I think we don't know, but have theories about)? Or are you speaking in allusion to the temple being "that location of holy ground today"? My initial thought is that the location was holy because God was present, and once God left, it didn't necessarily remain any more holy than the rest of the planet. It may have, for all I know, but I don't know that of necessity it did.

The subject interested me greatly, so I had lots of questions and followed through the whole process. Since I couldn't contribute like some of the others (there were another ~5, I think, scientists in the thread), I just tried to learn and be encouraging. Here's my reaction to some of the more in-depth science discussions: (Hopefully that shows up for everyone - those are usernames at the non-arrow ends of the lines.)

The paper is on ScienceDirect: "Identification of fountain pen ink properties which determine the amount put on paper during handwriting" - access should be free to all. The author is Austrian, so if the English ever seems off, that's why (I don't remember it being off, but it was published in July 2022, so I can't remember). The author is also a university professor (and one of my pen pals). I'll note that my mention was simply as someone encouraging the author, not as a contributing scientist or any such lofty thing. (Section 5, where I'm listed as "LizEF"). The Fountain Pen Network thread where we discussed the data collection and theories is "An alternative look at ink wetness" - I learned a lot in this thread, having never studied physics, some of it was beyond me, other bits my instincts knew, but couldn't explain... blah blah. Enjoy - or not, as the case may be. It was certainly a lot of fun in the thread, and I was able to understand most of the paper.

Are you two suggesting that the Lord adopted Moses' culture? I suppose He could have, in order to communicate something to Moses, but I suspect there was more to it. Whether there was or not, I think my conclusion is useful.

I'm glad you also have a record-keeping method that seems to bring you joy and provide you with utility, @Traveler! I got a mention in a published scientific paper last year (or was it 2023?). Whatever. The paper was about ink flow in fountain pens! I can get you a link, if you wish.

From today's scripture study / GC reading: Why put off his shoes? It can't be to not track in dirt: he's already on dirt. It can't be because he's going from cursed dirt to holy dirt (as some say): it says he's already on holy ground. Shoes can't be inherently irreverent: we wear them in the house of the Lord. So why? This thought came up while reading Elder Soares' talk "Reverence for Sacred Things". I paused to ponder why... How does removing shoes show reverence, beyond obeying God? We wear shoes at church. We wear shoes when we pray. We wear shoes in the house of the Lord, even if they're different shoes. I could think of only one answer: The shoes were separating Moses from the holy ground. Then I continued reading and found these phrases in the talk: connected Moses to his divine identity connection to holiness connection to the divine connection with God and His Son connect to the perfect love of our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ Put off whatever is separating you from your divine identity, holiness, God and Christ, and their perfect love. Put off those things and connect!

TL,DR: You don't have to get upset every time I mention fountain pens. I know you're not a writer, and it's an invitation, not a demand. Everything but the cloud is going to melt/burn in a fire. The vast majority of houses don't catch fire. We have writing from thousands of years ago. Meanwhile, good luck finding anything to read your floppy disk from the 1980s or even 1990s. Most people don't even have a CD/DVD drive in their computers anymore. Even Microsoft products won't open their own older file formats, so you have to not only upgrade, but import and resave files each upgrade - or try to keep an ancient computer running. The notion that digital files will always be accessible is absurd - unless, maybe, you stick to .txt files - the only files that appear mostly unchanged since DOS days and that, I think, are compatible across OSs. So, what, you're gonna refuse to read 19th century journals and letters? You'll be missing out on treasure. Everyone has their own unique needs and preferences. I know full well that 99.99% of the population isn't going to use a fountain pen. But if it's a difference between not making a record at all, and making one on paper, the better choice is obvious. My invitation is harmless, and mostly teasing. You don't have to go all off on it every time I make it. And if you need me to spell out the gospel-related good that has happened because I write with fountain pens and associate with other fountain pen users, let me know, cuz I've got some good ones. God can do His work, even through fountain pens.

Google AI found that by selecting this part of your post, right clicking and choosing "Search google for..."

https://speeches.byu.edu/talks/gordon-b-hinckley/need-not-fear-coming/

Can't really tell you more about the Isaiah verses in question beyond what the institute manual and your own reasoning have figured out. But... Get a fountain pen and a nice journal. The act of writing will be so pleasant you'll be looking for excuses to write! Proof:

Jordan Peterson did a fascinating lecture or interview (I forget which), wherein he was describing how biologists discovered that animals are a lot smarter than we previously realized because previously we were measuring their intelligence by human standards. As soon as we started looking at this "embodied cognition" idea, we started recognizing much more intelligence in said animals. It was very interesting. Thanks for sharing your discussion - good stuff - even if it did remind me of my soupy ancestry and victimhood.

I now wish to point out that I'm a victim of shortness, probably caused by oppressive white males, and therefore cannot steer my car with my legs. That Honda didn't inform me of this ahead of time is surely evidence of systemic heightism and Honda should give me half my money back.

I just wanted to pause here before reading more and remind you that all this evolved entirely on its own from "primordial soup" without any help from anyone or anything, especially any intelligent being. Just in case your grey cells forgot this fact.

Apparently AI has no sense of humor.

Henry needs to complete his mission!!