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My boss used to say that when they make you a manager, they take away 1/4 of your brain. Each step up the hierarchy removes another 1/4 until the people at the very top have no brain left. This explains most meetings. That said, when I was employed, we would have requirements-gathering / design meetings with the software users, where I would design parts of the GUI in real-time (gotta love high-level languages) and put the rules in comments in the code. The BA would also be capturing requirements. These were highly productive and everyone left the meeting feeling charged (or so it seemed). Sometimes our meetings would be demonstration & review meetings, to walk through the system and make sure how it works matches the users' needs, note changes needed. Lather, rinse, repeat. We also had "SCRUM" stand-up meetings - 5-15 minutes, on our feet, at a SCRUM board, each person noting what task they're working on, who they're waiting on, help they need, etc. Cards would move between phases on the wall, to match those tasks. Very efficient and helpful to ensure everyone on the project was busy and knew what was happening. But meetings like you describe, where all anyone does is yammer on? Mostly useless, and mostly a sign of people either not doing, or not knowing their job.

No I didn't. Since you don't believe me, go talk to an English professor. What you call "two sentences" was [one sentence] and [an incomplete sentence that should have been a qualifying clause as part of the first sentence]. At least now we've established that I understood your original intent. But it took way, way too long to get there.

I don't feel like you answered my first question, and until you do, in a way that's clear enough for me to understand, the next question is pointless (it may be anyway, depending on your answer). This feels like beating around the bush. I could not care less about why Calvinists think what they do. So let's try this.... Recognizing that any example is of necessity going to be flawed, nevertheless, let's imagine what this might have looked like for Joseph Smith, Jr. He and God (or the Godhead or whomever) get together and come up with a plan (or perhaps God just tells Joseph the assignment / calling), that looks something like: "You'll be inspired to pray and ask what church to join. You'll be called to restore the church of Jesus Christ, translate scripture, restore and reveal doctrine..." Etc. etc. They'll go over the plan for Joseph's mortality to some level of detail. Maybe it includes detail like the surgery on his leg as a child, who he'll marry, his children, his family's poverty, his numerous trials, how he'll die, who will betray him.... Or maybe it won't. Maybe it'll just include the high points with an acknowledgement that mortality can be brutal. Or maybe it's just the calling to be the head of this dispensation, without all the details... My first question is, is something in there along the lines of what you're suggesting happened in our pre-mortal lives, or am I misunderstanding what you're trying to say? And if that is along the lines of what you're suggesting, do you have thoughts on the level of detail: Very vague: "You're called to be the prophet of the restoration." Just the important points: "You'll restore ancient scripture, restore the gospel, establish the church..." Also major life events: "...and you'll marry Emma and..." Lots of details (see example above)

I'm confused. "No" above means "it's not limited to only those I know", that means it's not anecdotal. But then you say, "this was anecdotal". If it was anecdotal, then the answer to my text is, "Yes, this was anecdotal. That's what I was trying to communicate in that incomplete sentence I wrote after the sentence that looked like a claim of facts rather than an anecdote." Or your first statement should have been a single sentence rather than one sentence + one incomplete sentence. So that this: Should have read: "If we are going by anecdotal information, 100% of the people my age who died from Covid were NOT Vaxxed." Or even better, "Of those I know about, 100% of the people my age who died from Covid were NOT Vaxxed." If structured like this, then the preceding clause acts as a qualifier that this is your limited experience. But your original wording is such that your first sentence ("100% of the people my age who died from Covid were NOT Vaxxed.") is making a factual claim about every person your age on the entire planet across the entire timeframe of COVID's existence, because that sentence has no qualifiers. The intent of the second sentence was apparently unclear to everyone but me (though after your response, I'm now uncertain whether it is or isn't intended to qualify the first sentence). In other words: when I try to guess that your second, incomplete sentence, was intended to qualify the first, you tell me "no, it wasn't" but then "this was anecdotal" (which means "yes, it was")... Honestly, it's like we're speaking a different language.

@JohnsonJones, it sounded like you were saying that all people your age who died of COVID were unvaccinated - all people everywhere on the entire planet, no exception. (This is the same as saying that no person your age who was vaccinated died of COVID - ever, anywhere on the planet.) I think you were trying to parallel @mirkwood's statement by saying that of the people your age, that you personally know, who died of COVID, none were vaccinated. But your statement didn't include the qualifier regarding "those you personally know".

You've explained this before, and if I understand correctly, you are in essence saying we planned out the details of our mortality with God before we came here. Is that correct? (Cuz if it is, I have a doozy of a question for you.) ETA: Followup question: If the above is correct, do you believe this happened for everyone, or only for those who would have a significant impact?

So far, I only have one Canadian responding (2 more "pinged", but heaven knows when they'll see my ping), but the general consensus among all people responding is that you shouldn't tell another person that they are "ignorant" - no matter what - they all agree, it's always an insult, always equates to "you're stupid / uneducated" (and one person thought it could also mean "you're rude / impolite"). @NeuroTypical, feel free to say I'm ignorant of whatever - I'll just assume you mean that I'm lacking in knowledge of whatever. But apparently the rest of the world will hear an insult.

When Christ comes again, and the truth is known, you're welcome to smack me upside the head with the nearest 2"x4" if I'm wrong.

I suppose if we could get rid of all the other, more useless ways in which our government is already tyrannical, and thereby force the general population to take more responsibility for their lives, then maybe I'd agree with you... I know my stance is very unpopular, but human trafficking ought to be even more unpopular, and if pornography exists, so does human trafficking and violence.

I keep hearing events in the UK that to an American (one who actually believes in really free speech1) are terrifying: getting arrested just for saying something online; trials for said folk happening faster than trials for violent criminals; criminals being let out of jails to make room for said folk; making it a crime to pray in your own home if it's too close to an abortion clinic; and other insanity. I do not know why the British people aren't protesting this vocally and demanding free speech protections be codified in such a way as to make them impossible to remove. You all are letting those who hate the very foundations of your country take it over - it's terrifying. At least, that's how it looks from over here. 1I'm generally in favor of letting people say whatever offensive, ugly, violent, hateful thing they want, because restricting it is far worse than not. My only exceptions are the whole "fire in a crowded theater" thing (i.e. it will cause immediate, physical harm before anyone has a chance to counter it); and pornography, which ought to be destroyed - it is, in essence a very slow-burning fire in the theater of mankind, guaranteed to destroy without doing anyone an ounce of good.

Really? Apparently I have Cluster Lives-Under-A-Rock-and-Never-Notices-These-Things symptomology... (And Firefox has doesn't-know-symptomology-is-a-word symptomology, which I'm about to fix.)

FWIW, it appears that in some subcultures in the US (and perhaps Canada?), "ignorant" is synonymous with stupid, "retarded" and other terms. I had to deal with this at work when I used the word as it's intended - meaning "lacking knowledge" and someone took it as an insult. It's frustrating, because "ignorant" is exactly the right word (and shorter than the phrase "lacking knowledge of ..."), but what are you going to do. (I'm gonna go ask my Canadian FP friends - though most of them are in the East, so it may not be very informative...)

This was my primary thought. Back then, WalMart was a century away. There were no cops. There was no insurance company. GoFundMe was farther away than WalMart. Folks in Africa were never going to hear about it - let alone tomorrow morning on X. Stories like this one remind me that there are about a billion and one things for which I should be so grateful that I never have time to get off my knees for all the thanks I'm giving.

I have some thoughts, but they are nothing more than my own thoughts and therefore not worth much. So at least for now, I have some questions: Do you know why this is disturbing you? It has to be more than the brutality of past centuries, as there are far more brutal things described in the Bible and in history, but you didn't start a thread about those. It has to be more than learning some negative thing you never knew before, because as I'm sure you know, there's a whole lot more from the foundation of the world until this morning, that impacted far more people, that no one has informed you about (yet). I'm just thinking that you know full well, none of us were there. None of us can see or feel or experience the events the people described saw or felt or experienced. We can neither justify nor excuse their words and actions. I would hope you know that once a physical battle begins, no man is responsible for any other man's actions - some will go wild and some will maintain restraint to do only what they must. Etc. (Please read the following with the understanding that I am experiencing a genuine desire and curiosity to understand your "why" and your needs from this discussion. These questions are not intended to be derogatory, though they're often used that way. I just don't know how else to ask them.) Do you expect us to be able to answer the above questions? I'm assuming not. I'm assuming they're rhetorical. Do you want us to speak ill of Brigham Young? Do you want us to say you're right? Do you want us to be upset or to do something? What is it, exactly, that you're looking for? (Again, I'm sincerely trying to understand your deeper motivation, wishes, needs from the discussion, because until we can understand what's underneath the OP, we can't begin to have a conversation with you that might be satisfying to either party.) It appears from your reply that you believe someone should have known all this sooner and told you all about it at some prior point in your life. Do you know why you believe this? Have you considered who should have known? And whose responsibility it was to tell you, specifically? (By positions if not names.) I'm not trying to question your assumptions - I'm trying to get you to question your own assumptions - is it reasonable that there should always be someone who is entirely aware of all the meeting notes from the Church's history - I'm guessing there are thousands of them? Is it reasonable that they should be publicly proclaiming all the details in such a way as to ensure you, specifically, learn about them as early in your life as possible? Is this realistically possible? Is it actually important or urgent that this happen? I'm sorry if any of that came across as dismissive or derogatory. I don't mean it that way. From my perspective, the events described in your second link are in the past, and therefore, they are not something I can impact. It isn't useful for me to be upset over them, and judging them is not my job - it's God's. I understand that not everyone sees such things the way I do, hence the above questions hoping to draw out some replies that will help me understand. I may still not have any reply that can satisfy you, but the answers may still be useful...

@jdf135, just realized I forgot to say welcome! Welcome to ThirdHour!

Welcome, @JimTheMM!

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.