zil2

Welcome to ThirdHour, @Omergideon!

This gave me an entirely new perspective on faith crises, how to avoid them, how to help those going through them, and the importance of The Sunday School Answers™.

Wait, is this English chat, or French (aka Gaul) le chat?

Wait! I've got it! The title and the image are red herrings! Look at the instructions: We're supposed to be thinking about the third-person singular neuter pronoun! This is all about gender identity or gender politics or some other crazy thing! No wonder the gender of the person on the right is ambiguous. Why it's entirely possible I misgendered the person on the left - maybe they and their lapdog are "it"s! I'll bet they're not even Gaulites. They're probably from Portland or former NSA employees or something... Well, if I didn't have an appointment to get to, I'd spend a lot more time streaming my third-person singular neuter cogitatifying, but there's no more time for that.

Google: [Streaming cogitation...] Apparently it's a bag (aka sack) made by / for the French (or Gauls)... (Why not call it a French sack, or a Gaul sack, or spell it Gaulic or Gaullic? Gallic for "of the Gauls" is absurd... Gallic Sac would make more sense... ) Meanwhile, back to the Sack of the Gauls, it appears to be depicting the Garden of Eden. No doubt @Carborendum has had something he considers a brilliant insight or revelation or something and, as he seems to enjoy, instead of just telling us, he wants to make us feel ignorant, unworthy, or perhaps to go learn all the Gaulish history that the average American school student never heard of. Perhaps he wants us to focus on the embroidery (that is the depiction, not the stitch-work (probably)), but probably also in relation to the fact that the "sack" (which seems more like a bag to me) is old and from(?) Gaul. (Golly, this is getting fun.) Hmm. What is that in Eve's hand? Does she have a purse-dog? Pet monkey? Can anyone tell what that is? (At least, I assume it's Eve. But how do we know this isn't some other tree and fruit and 2-people story of significance to the sack-owner or the Gauls?) I assume person on the right is a man, though it's kinda hard to tell, to be honest. Eve's free hand appears to be gesturing toward the tree. Hmm, they're both fully clothed. Clearly this isn't the "forbidden fruit" scene. (I mean, if the Gauls are the French, it's highly unlikely they were so prudish even back in the day as to put clothing on Adam and Eve.) Well, now we have to start over with some other story about two people, a lap dog, a tree, and a piece of fruit. When did lap dogs become a thing? [Klaw says we have to stop this and pay attention to him!! < Yes, he said it with two exclamation marks.] [...cogitation to be continued.]

I meant that search engines and the media not telling us about things / making it hard to find things has been the norm. And just because NT found it doesn't mean you necessarily would - google's search algorithms for him will be different from the ones they use for you... Anywho, my point was, you should not be surprised when you find out that information is hard to find...

Um, this has been the norm for years. It should not surprise you.

Salt Lake and neighboring valleys are also home to at least 7 of the people on this board, you know, in case you wanted to attempt to meet any virtual person in real life. You could plan for 2027, when the Salt Lake Temple open house is scheduled... (At least, I think it's 2027. I highly recommend against trying to come during the Olympics - I fully expect the Lord to burn Salt Lake City to the ground during that event (presumably He'll preserve the temple, though)... )

Then you should be able to relate to @Jamie123's cartoon!

For the profile picture / avatar, you must begin with this comment ("Guest" in this interaction is @Carborendum's previous incarnation): ...and continue reading until the "sheathen" bit runs dry. (It seems to have taken a moment for folks to recognize that sheathen is just a female heathen.) It stuck around as a running joke across threads, and so I drew my avatar to match. (Yes, zil was me, but I clobbered that account back when I was having hard times, to prevent myself from using it, and apparently I did such a good job that it couldn't be recovered, so when I was ready to come back, I needed a new account, hence, zil2.) As for how I chose my user name... I inverted my name (the first time; the second time, I did as described above - added a 2). Sadly, the site's indexing appears to be broken, and badly enough that even google can barely find any instances of "sheathen". It's possible it took a couple weeks for the avatar change - which I might have made for this post (I drew the avatar): And because the site indexing is broken, I can't go back and relive all the fun referenced in this post: But I can see that we used to have more fun, per my previous opinion, and therefore we ought to have more fun again. I think we need to coax @Jamie123 to finish the adventures of Henry the vacuum cleaner: Which ended in a cliffhanger - ironically, at the bottom of a cliff (be sure to check out the second installment on page 2 of the thread).

Just because even ending in a cliffhanger this thread deserves another read, I'll add this addendum... Since the Henry desktop vacuum (see previous comment) apparently sucks (because it doesn't suck), I got this orange cat desktop vacuum instead, which is fabulous! I use it to pick up eraser dust. It also picks up cat hair off the desk, but not off paper - very annoying how cat hair appears to be designed to glue itself to paper. Battery lasts forever, despite daily use.

Special stake conferences are usually for changes to ward boundaries within the stake (either combining wards or making a new one), or possibly splitting into two stakes. If you were merging with another stake, it would be a conference for multiple stakes. Anything else seems highly unlikely to me.

I see no reason to even think about "I never knew you" - first, it's clearly wrong, and second, Joseph Smith said it's supposed to be "ye never knew me". This leaves us with two primary points of focus: 1. The previous verse says they prophesied, cast out devils, and did many "wonderful works" in Christ's name. And yet Christ said they worked "iniquity". The faith-only Christians will wave this away with words about the characters having tried to work and earn their way into heaven and not having faith. But consider "thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" - it has become common for folks to understand this not only as using God's name as a vulgarity, but also using it as a facade for evil, or using it without authority (that is, without permission, without having been called and ordained / set apart). The verses combined lend support to @Traveler's theory as to what the Lord meant. 2. Continuing with the JST rendering, how do scriptures tell us we come to know Christ? With variations on this theme: Whatever the folks were doing in Matthew 7:22, they weren't doing what Moroni 7:48 describes - this must be the case, or Christ is a liar, and we know Christ isn't a liar. "Ye never knew me" and "I never knew you" and "I never authorized you" (aka "you used my name in vain") all fit with Moroni 7:48 - they didn't pray, weren't filled with charity, weren't true followers of Christ, had not become the sons of God, were not like Him, and did not even see Him as He is (which is why they were like, "but wait, we did all these great things in your name, what do you mean, 'depart'?").

The irony is that after Elder Andersen's talk people are no doubt praising the ward who welcomed the pregnant teenager who returned to activity - "Oh, how loving and supportive! That's just how I would be." Sadly, they can't see the hypocrisy when they turn around and shame a young man who didn't go on a mission. Here's my favorite scripture for these situations: I'm not saying those who judge unrighteously will be held to account for the young man's "foolish" choices, but on the other hand, sometimes, sins are answered on the heads of parents, so...

"True to the Faith That Our Parents Have Cherished" - Elder Hans T. Boom, Saturday Afternoon Session With the footnote to President Nelson's April 2022 talk, "Preaching the Gospel of Peace": FWIW

Uh huh. I'm just gonna go to the store and buy some more bottled water.

This sentence is proof society is about to collapse.

An eternity in Eden would have consisted of Adam and Eve. No children. (Per 2 Nephi 2, which I already quoted.) So no matter how you slice it - just the two of them, or all of us eternally terrestrial, the plan would have been stuck in a "terminal loop" (so to speak).

Note the use of "they" in v23. It's not just that Adam could have stayed alone in Eden. It's teaching that even if they'd both stayed in Eden, in a state of innocence, they'd have had no joy. The fall into mortality had to happen, and whether that happened by sin or some other way1, once you get a few billion people on the planet, it's 100% certain someone's gonna sin, and once one person's done it, others are gonna wanna try it, so we're gonna need a Savior. 1I'm not saying there is another way. I'm also not saying there isn't. I'm just pointing out that the Savior was guaranteed to be needed sooner or later.

This isn't what I asked. Adam and Eve were there and presumably could have stayed eternally. The rest of us were not there. Do you think the rest of us could have been there? Do you think Adam and Eve could have birthed the human family in Eden? Do you think they could have raised their children there and we all could have lived happily ever after as immortal terrestrial beings in Eden?

This can only be true if our existence (mortality, experience, whatever you want to lump into it) could have happened and served its purpose in the garden of Eden. Do you believe that was a viable option? (Many, perhaps most, Christians think Eve ruined the "everyone could have lived happily ever after in Eden" plan, which is why Christ had to come.)

The wording of this portion suggests it's based on Hebrews 11:3 (I'll bet it's even linked - I'll go look)... Yes. Here's the relevant bit of Lectures... But look at the wording in Hebrews. Is it saying: "[We understand through faith] that the worlds were framed by the word of God"? Or is it saying: "We understand that [through faith the worlds were framed by the word of God]"? That is, is it our understanding that happens through faith (a few Bible translations take pains to phrase it so this is the only interpretation), or was it the framing of worlds that happened through faith? (And it could be both!) Is #15 the explanation, given by revelation, or is #15 a conclusion from a misunderstanding of the verse in question? Regardless, the idea is that faith is both [belief in the unknown sufficient to drive action toward making the unknown known by experience] and [acting in the certain belief that what you know will produce the intended result]. The first is designed to gain knowledge based on hope. The second is designed to produce results based on knowledge. Our faith teaches us of God (sure, it may do stuff, but it really brings us knowledge, as described in Alma's analogy). God's faith produces results - it makes things, it saves people, it carries out plans. That the end is known (assumed, without doubt?) doesn't alter that it's faith in the surety of the end that produces the action... Or something like that.

Are you sure that this verse in Job, and the accompanying story bits, aren't just a metaphorical way of presenting the idea that Satan's bounds are set by the Lord?

You cannot be saved without knowing you're being saved. You cannot be saved until you have learned all that you need to know as a participant in that process. The mysteries of God are nothing more or less than knowledge. Those who inherit the celestial kingdom will eventually gain all the knowledge which God now has. Man cannot be saved in ignorance. That said, I believe, in large part because of Lectures on Faith, that there are two kinds of faith, only one of which is made "dormant" by knowledge.

I hate yard work. But I've found that it's a little better if, while going as fast as the riding mower will go, you make vrooming noises.