NeuroTypical

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Everything posted by NeuroTypical

  1. The admin team welcomes you to the club.
  2. This is a good forum for any "Mormons seem weird" topics you may have as well. It's possible that your spiritual experiences may lead you to conclude that the CoJCoLDS is Christ's church, and where you should be. If that's the result, there can be a little culture shock, because our church is more than a church, it's a lifestyle. And there are some interesting cultural oddities that come with the lifestyle. Some we can explain doctrinally, others we tend to be embarrassed by.
  3. Heh - well, you can't please everyone I guess. At the risk of going full-blown passive-aggressive, would you say your post here is an example of a sad ego driven persona, or a counter balance to an unhappy/unfulfilled life? From where I'm standing, it's not the heaviness of the subject that's an issue. The only thing that gets threads locked is an abundance of folks abusing the site rules, usually #1-3. LM (head toxic windbag)
  4. Amazing. Whenever I need to feel a little hope for the human race, I go look at what SpaceX's latest milestone.
  5. Yep - I learned about the UK Postal service issue from you @Jamie123!
  6. Fun story: We moderators have a private forum for talking about moderator stuff like account warnings and bans and stuff. We also have a forum open to everyone to talk to moderators about moderator stuff. One time I got those mixed up, and talked in the open forum about a problematic poster, and then the problematic poster saw my post and life was awkward for a bit. Moral of the story: When you skip all the forums except for General Discussion, ya miss the juicy stuff!
  7. I've noticed a slow and steady decline across my favorite 3 LDS-themed message boards (and half-dozen Facebook groups) starting before COVID. One of them is now pretty much totally dead. Thirdhour has certainly slowed a bit, but is still kicking. The trick is to look for all new messages here: https://thirdhour.org/forums/discover/
  8. Thread closed. As a reminder, here are some of the site rules:
  9. It's an interesting dilemma, but one I had to abandon decades ago. It used to bug me that this or that gas station got their oil from this or that nation that occasionally spoke about their duty to kill Americans, or clothing produced in nations that make use of child or slave labor. The mortal, secular rules that govern the earth at this time just make it impossible to participate in civilization without doing occasional business with your enemies. Our church has historical tidbits about making food (and beer) from our own farms only, but I haven't heard anything like that in like a century.
  10. Everyone knows the Jack Chick Tract images of Joseph are the most accurate.
  11. Meanwhile, in San Francisco... Voters empower cops, reform welfare: Is San Francisco still a liberal bastion? - The San Francisco Standard news
  12. I started paying attention to gold and silver prices in 2010, to see if I could find a way to spot trends and make billions. I'm not a billionaire yet (I'm barely a thousandaire), but here's my chart I made and look at. It tracks the price of 1 oz of gold in coin form, and the price of 100 silver eagles: Fun fact: The Gold Standard got adopted basically because of an accident caused by Issac Newton: Gold standard - Wikipedia
  13. Daniel Peterson has a few personal anecdotes to share about the CoC. It's a pretty interesting read. https://www.patheos.com/blogs/danpeterson/2024/03/a-few-more-thoughts-on-the-kirtland-temple-deal.html
  14. @LDSGator you rebel. What will you become after hanging around libertarians?
  15. Whoops - yep, you are correct. I would say both. One is the direct result of the other. The once-popular notion that a college degree makes you smart or wise by exposing you to a breadth of human knowledge, has seemed to grow less popular in the decades since I was on a campus. Education has always been, to a certain extent, about indoctrination by people with an agenda. In the '90's when I was there, the agenda seemed to be at least partly about creating well-rounded individuals who can take life in all it's complexity, and arrive at an independent conclusion through the application of critical reasoning skills and a general exposure to human knowledge. Now so much of it is geared towards combating (certain) societal ills like institutional racism and transphobia, and exposing America's (certain) flaws.
  16. For over a decade, I've felt that pretty much all politicians on the federal level, follow two great commandments above all else: 1. Thou shalt get elected and gain power. 2. Thou shalt remain elected and increase power. That viewpoint has helped me decipher pretty much everything every politician says and does. So, a political party is more a reflection on that party's power brokers (people and entities who can influence votes), than it is of any particular platform or ideology. Trump seems to be a far superior deal maker than the rest of 'em. I truly believe if he had won his 2nd term, Russia wouldn't have invaded Ukraine. Trump would have made a deal with Putin, probably over NATO expansion and energy. Also this:
  17. Correct. It's the financial term. An "endowment" is a big pile of money that sits in income generating investments. You spend the income generated, not the endowment. And there's usually respect and praise for whoever donated the big pile of money. You can endow a college, and get a chair (or even a building) named after you.
  18. I inherited a bunch of religious books from my grandpa. One of them was published in the 1930's (I think), from the church's printing press in Beaver Utah, titled something like "The succession of Joseph II". I briefly thumbed through it, it was basically an in-depth response to a bunch of claims made that Joseph's child should be Joseph's successor after his martyrdom. I put it with the other 2-3 dozen books in a box in my basement. Years later, I was in Yahoo chat arguing religion with an RLDS person about who was right and who was wrong. I ran and got the 70 year old book. He proceeded to make a series of claims, pretty much verbatim to the claims refuted by my book, pretty much in the exact order my book was written. I immediately was able to counter each point he made, clearly and convincingly, by citing various elements of our shared history. Poor dude was forced to say something like "well, I don't know as much as I should about it, but I'm still sure you Brigahmites are the wrong ones." Imagine fighting a battle, over and over again, that was pretty conclusively lost 70 years ago.
  19. Super Tuesday fun: - Haley ended her campaign after Trump got triple the support. She actually won Virginia, but Trump was the clear victor everywhere else. - Hat tip to @Phoenix_person! ~19% of Minnesota democrats and lefties voted “uncommitted” in protest. - In one location, some rando named Jason Palmer actually beat Biden in the raw vote, and tied him in the delegate haul. - Smart money says deep, deep blue Cali will send bright red Republican Adam Schiff to the senate. - I heard Trump's voice on the radio last night, the first time in 3 years (outside of J6 drama). I remember when my leftie buddy honestly claimed to get genuinely triggered by clicking a link I shared and being surprised by hearing Trump's voice. He called foul and said reasonable folks should give TR/CRs before sharing any video or audio of Trump. It's a distinct possibility that a small segment of the US population is gonna spend 4 years in a constant state of being triggered. - Oh, and remember all those decades of complaining we've done about liberal bias in higher education? We've got a graph for that now:
  20. I consider them dear distant Cousins who left the family long ago, and have fallen upon hard times, and we figured out how to help them financially. Reading through their FAQ is sort of disheartening.
  21. Well, BYU is the home of various organizations that preserve and digitize records related to Judaism and Christianity, and we've been partnering with the Community of Christ's historian's office on this and other artifacts and documents for a long time. The original manuscript (including the 1823 Bible Joseph used in the work) is scanned and free online: https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/the-papers/revelations-and-translations/jsppr5 But yes, it's nice to have things, and I'm very excited. I remember in the 1980's, people with passionate opinions about when we'd finally get the temple and the manuscript. I'm surprised the CoC has held on to them for so long, especially when we've been offering real $$$ for them for a long time.