NeuroTypical

In case of unintended extra time during sacrament meeting, when the bishopric scrambles to figure out how to fill those last 5 minutes, I keep a link on my phone to this thing. Worthy of being read across any Christian podium, and we saints are hardly an exception.

I don't know anything about Google sheets, but I am a data nerd, so here's my data: ~$19k across 13 years, so around $1500/year? This is for a house with a family of 4 living there.

Well, with other people leaving other organized religion in record numbers, maybe. I mean, folks can always make cases for inactivity, or people who don't believe any more, but don't not-believe enough to have their names removed from the rolls. But just plain old looking at membership numbers (or in this case, numbers of wards/branches): We've been tracking what they call a "declining rate of increase". That means we're still growing, just not as fast. (Sorry, I can only find 2019 data, but I've seen beancounter threads after April's General Conference where folks crunch the numbers and say we're still baaaaarely growing.

Ah, the sweet sound of someone being filled by a well-timed on-point song. Good deal @Jamie123! From 2012 until around 2020, I had a growing playlist of impactful songs that just seemed to add meaning and hope to my life. I was so surprised to discover a connection to music - it was like I woke up one day and started seeing a bunch of new colors I never knew existed. I'm always happy to hear someone else is experiencing something similar. The song impacting you reminds me of Michael McClean's stuff. Here - perhaps this something in this list can build on things for you: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCta5-IAIOzLSGjM4tiWRpbA

I've thought about this subject for decades. Whenever it comes up, I always remember something out of Victor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning. When he was in the Nazi concentration camps, being used as forced labor, the camp had a view of a majestic mountain range. There he was, starving to death, a slave of the Nazi machine, surrounded by torture, rape, and death, and yet he still gazed up at the mountains in awe, his breath taken by the view. It wasn't a choice, it surprised him that he was still capable of being struck breathless by natural beauty, even in those circumstances.

Over the decades, I have encountered no fewer than half a dozen people who told me they knew the year. Those years have all come and gone. Over the centuries, I've read of at least a dozen other people or groups who all claimed to know the time of the second coming. Like the ones I personally encountered, their timeframes were all soon/immediately/quickly. I'm told the first predictors of the second coming happened within a few years of Christ's death/ascendance. *shrug*. Eventually, someone'll get it right. Like they did in the BoM with prophecies of Christ's birth.

I'm sorry. I take my snark back. Care to comment on the unanimity of the courts, the states, the electors, and the federal government? Care to comment on Mitch McConnell's point about how '76, '00, and '04 were all closer elections than our last?

Mitch McConnel certainly thought so. 2020ElectionMitchMcConnell.MP4 But hey, maybe you know something the courts, the states, the electors, and the federal government don't.

Ugh. Thanks to Fentanyl, this nation has had more than 100,000 deaths due to drug overdose in a year, for the very first time ever. Nasty, nasty stuff. Sorry, PC.

Aw crap. I keep forgetting which way the math swings. C.E. 0-99 = 1st century? What sort of history nerd came up with that weirdness? (Probably someone like @Vort.)

True. Whenever I start thinking about how divided we are, I just remember a fun anecdote from our Founders. President John Adams, talking about Alexander Hamilton: That's some top-tier 17th century divisiveness right there, from a former US President. Seriously? "Dood wouldn't have lied or done such horrible things, if he could have just had more extramarital affairs"? Yeah, we're all mad at Trump making it personal, but he never made anything THAT personal!

I dunno Gator. The left takes to the streets, it's been true everywhere since at least the French Revolution. The more left-leaning you are, the less you're against violence as a way to create political change. The right operates differently. In both polling and practice. Can you find violent/doxxing/nasty folks on the right? Absolutely. But it tends to take a bombastic narcissist president to rile 'em up and point 'em somewhere in a group, otherwise they're just random lone wolves. This stuff just tends to spring naturally from the left. I believe it to be one of the legitimate differences between two political philosophies, when it can be pretty dang hard to tell the difference in the politicians sometimes. Just look at that green 66.5%, and tell me I'm wrong here.

A full 21% of likely voter Democrats thinks doxing SCOTUS home addresses and protesting there, is acceptable. I guess another way to spin that, is 79% of likely voter Democrats don't support such things. But holy crap - a full fifth of the Dem likely voter base is down with this nonsense? (Compare to 92% of GOP likely voters.) https://www.thetrafalgargroup.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/COSA-SCOTUS-Protests-Full-Report-0509.pdf And here's Psaki, voicing the Administration's opinion on the matter.

Yes, they're doing it. Not a lot of news coverage, you have to know where to look. Here's the Fort Collins, CO police Twitter asking the neighborhood for help: https://www.facebook.com/fortcollinspoliceservices/posts/385965323580934 My former neighbor who moved up there sent me this picture: Here's a story about an arson attack on a conservative lobbying group's office in Madison Wisconsin: https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/08/us/anti-abortion-office-arson/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0Lv5QbfCkx211H7pmcJLQovDKbG01aCWunV6TW9S6q3l9leR550eQhZR8 After initially declining to denounce such things, Psaki and Biden seem to have done the responsible thing, at least partly: I would have liked to see something a little more strongly worded. Something that directly addresses the protesters, maybe something like this: "You have to go home now, we have to have peace. We have to have law and order. We have to respect our Supreme Court justices. We don't want anyone hurt." It would be nice to see Psaki say something that strong. Actually, it would be nice to see Biden address the nation and say something like that. I'm pretty ticked off that he isn't.

My Catholic friends and former neighbors are on Facebook showing how their church (and others) have been recently vandalized by pro-abortion folks. And there's this:

.“If Jesus was a Jew, why isn’t Judaism the answer?“ Judaism was the answer for a long long time. But it was only a part of the overall plan as humanity continued to grow. It could not be the final answer, because not everyone was going to have access to the Abrahamic covenant. It was fine for the people at the time, who didn’t have access to refrigeration or modern health practices or stuff like that. Humanity can only progress so far while it’s still offering blood sacrifices and not pooping on the sabbath, etc. Analogous to how a human child goes through stages of maturity, marked by ceremony and change in behavior, humanity did too. Children move through things like like bar mitzvahs and drivers licenses and first jobs and moving out and getting married. Humanity has things like blood sacrifice being replaced with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, temples here then gone then back again, the post savior coming to earth and atoning for us world calls for different practices and rules. if you ask Jewish folks what life will be like after the Messiah comes, they will probably speculate about a bunch of things that will be different too.

Episode 3 has things getting patriarchical! (At least, as seen through the eyes of Krakauer and company.) 1- As the trouble-makin' upstart woman one of the Lafferty boys married, starts arguing with her husband, all the brothers gang up on her to instruct her on minding her place, and calling her out on arguing with her priesthood holder after he'd made his mind up. The other women in the room flee upstairs (good acting - they not only flee, they look bored at the same time, to convey this happens a lot). 2- As our hero, the youthful faithful cop, continues his dark slide into learning the horrible suppressed secrets of our faith's past, he is so troubled that he decides to postpone his twin daughters' baptism. Wife freaks out more and more until our hero pulls rank: Saying he holds the priesthood so it's his decision, and he needs her support. That ends it, she kicks off marital intimacy by reminding him that the priesthood may be his, but it's up to her to decide when it gets held. 3- After the girls' baptism interview, our hero stays after for counsel from his Bishop and priesthood leader. Bishop instructs him how to take care of his mother and her growing dementia, basically prescribing her antipsychotics and whatnot. And bishop strongly commands him to stop looking into the church's past. This is setting up a conflict between our hero's faith and his job as detective! 4- And all of the preceding 3 scenes have similar dark bassy horror-music soundtrack stuff happening in the background. #3 is so faint it's almost undetectable. If anyone missed it, go back and turn the volume up way loud. It's right there - almost sounds like the sound of trucks in traffic. Almost subliminal. Quite effective. I guess it can't be good patriarchy without ominous music to help manipulate the viewer's emotions. Imma get some deep bass speakers to make my family PPIs more effective. Or something. I wonder if we shouldn't just incorporate this article into our Handbook and teach it openly: https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/how-the-hidden-sounds-of-horror-movie-soundtracks-freak-you-out No really - put this vid on loop as you read this thread. It's as if you're watching the show! [There's also a lot of temple scenes I skipped through, sorry, I won't be able to say if the ominous soundtrack was present there too.]

The same things the Qanon crowd did when Trump refused to accept that he had lost? No, just what they tried to do. And no, Trump got on a plane and left, while the fire solidified Nazi power and led to a decree removing civil rights. And no, there's a difference between hidden arsonists burning an empty building housing a government, and a brash narcissist running a rally and doing a masterful job of whipping up the dumbest, drunkest, fringist, and most mentally-ill in the crowd, and pointing 'em at a full building housing a government currently in the process of kicking out the brash narcissist, to see how far they get. But yes, to the core of your point, I'd say yes, the impacts of such things can have similar results. I see the right split between folks who figure Trump went too far, and folks who want him back so he can go further. The latter group will always have plenty of sound questions to ask and things to demand people think about - but there's also an anti-government-burn-it-all-down element in that crowd that any Antifa group would be happy to add to their latest direct action.

Here's a fun poll that shows a disturbing trend over time. The further left you go, the less you find folks saying violence to obtain political goals, is bad:

Yeah, wouldn't be the first time for me. I started the post last night and finished it today - should have read all the comments in between first. I mainly wanted a place to put these links, as I go into the wide world to discuss this issue. There are like two new generations of humans out there, all who have been educated that only the right ever gets violent. Gotta educate the next generation of kiddos about folks like Boudin, Hodgkinson, Brooks, James, Brown, and the current scary winds of violence starting to congeal right around where the SCOTUS justices are standing. January 6th is seared into our collective memories, but half of the right and just about all of the left forget the murders, beatings, attempted assassinations, and billions of property damage by the left, that started before our legal institutions even had a chance to do their work. Lots and lots and lots and lots of folks on the left, a growing number every day, seem to be ok with violence as an acceptable form of political protest. We're just one Reichstag Fire away from horrible things. Can you imagine what Biden and the Dems in power do, if SCOTUS is compromised?

Personally worthiness is absolutely an element of the principle. But it extends beyond that. As Jacob explained it: So, just to clarify, I'm not saying "personal worthiness is all that's required". I'm saying plain old basics like repentance, church attendance, meaningful participation in the sacrament, and regular old trying hard to be a good disciple of Christ, pretty much covers everything here. Temple recommend + walking as a disciple = got this scripture covered. [Underlining to highlight the stuff requiring action and effort beyond just not sinning.]

Dear is a fun fellow. That thing happened down the road from where I work. I know some of the cops who took him down. The one who drove the armored van through the planned parenthood front door tells me he is managing to not be woken up by the nightmares as much any more. A few months ago he was still being ruled not mentally competent to stand trial. But @Carborendum's comment was specifically about the possibility of leftist groups deciding to harm SCOTUS or their families. You are responding with examples of right wing (or mentally ill portrayed as right wing) violence. So I'll take a shot at answering you: No, MOE, NOT like the right wing anti-abortion murderers. More like the violent left wing idealogues and groups like the Weather Underground and Black Liberation Army. Where Kathy Boudin was convicted of the murder of two cops and a security guard, where she was paroled, and eventually became an adjunct professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work, where she was the co-director and co-founder of the Center for Justice at Columbia University. Or the anti-Trump leftist James Hodgkinson who attempted to massacre a Republican baseball team getting ready to play for charity. Or the BLM supporter Darrell Brooks who drove his SUV through a crowd of old white ladies, killing six and sending 100 to the hospital right after the Rittenhouse verdict. Or Frank R. James, the arrested suspect who allegedly carried out the April 12th New York City Subway attack, with a social media full of violent BLM and Black Liberation Army stuff. Or Quintez Brown, social justice activist, arrested for shooting up Mayoral candidate Craig Greenberg at his own campaign headquarters. Fortunately only his clothing was grazed. So yeah, I echo Carb's concern about violence directed at SCOTUS. Especially with abortion activists releasing the home addresses of 6 of the justices, saying things like "We must rise up to force accountability using a diversity of tactics." (I'm not linking to this one, because the doxxed addresses are still there. Folks can search it up yourselves if you're interested.)

In my ward we haven't even had so much as a COVID death. In 20 years we've had suicides and car crashes and old people die, but none of that in the last 3 years, except for the last one. And one of our wayward ward kids who spent a decade walking dark horrible paths is back to church and seems to be walking well. Maybe some of our good karma can help mitigate your anxious mood? Mind, I'm not saying there won't be horrible things happen locally, nationally, and globally. But I am saying while sorrows may increase, that doesn't mean dread, fear, or loss of hope needs to be a part of it.

Sounds like plain old basics like repentance, church attendance, meaningful participation in the sacrament, and regular old trying hard to be a good disciple of Christ, pretty much covers everything here. Temple recommend + walking as a disciple = got this scripture covered. (That, and of course a cache of weapons and food in your bug-out retreat, to handle the "prepare yourselves" part.)

Stuff I've noticed: - Shortened hours at pharmacies, grocery stores, fast food, everywhere. - Wife struggled to get some surgery for a month because doctor's office staff apparently got fed up and quit for greener pastures one day, leaving nobody to make the appointments. - In my company, we have teams dedicated to assuring that we can actually get the parts we need to build our stuff, to fill our bazillions of lucrative orders. - To fill the holes at my place of employment, I notice my workplace has upped the employee referral bonus to as much as $50k. (p.s. Any smart high-tech engineering-types want a good job in a Fortune 500 company on the Fortune 100 Best Companies list, that does cool things like help quantum computers evolve and get cars more fully automated, and helps invent 6G? (And is making money hand over fist with no end to the success in sight?) PM me, we'll talk. )