Traveler

Sorry I made an error - it is the worlds best view from a men's bathroom. There is a larg window over looking the mountain side - so while you are standing there you get this view. I have not ideay why they did it at a place that is considered sacred. The Traveler

It is because they were (and still are) invested and very much a party to the corruption. Many like to think that with Trump's reelection that all of a sudden, the corrupted swamp of waist and abuses will be banished from Washington DC and all other places of our federal government. I am of a different mind. I do not believe for a minute that when corruption is exposed; that it will just quietly disappear into the night. It would not surprise me that the works of corruption will be doubled (perhaps even to taking lives) to avoid losing power and influence. I am quite sure that the watchdog media you have referenced will roll over and do whatever tricks that they have been taught right on cue from their masters. The Traveler

A few years back the wife and I were touring in the country of Turkey. I wanted to spend some time in the ancient Roman port city of Ephesus. A side note here because the level of the ocean has dropped so low that currently Ephesus is miles from the Mediterranean Sea. The opposite of climate change and the oceans rising. While in Ephesus I encountered some Christians that planned to visit what is traditionally believed to be that last place of earth that Mary (the mother of Jesus) lived just a few miles up into the mountains from Ephesus. The wife and I decided to go. Another side note – unlike LDS religious sites – any religious site in Europe and the Middle East that is open for visitors – cost money. The site of Mary’s residence is small and obviously old. There are more modern buildings to accommodate visitors and pilgrims. Side note – there is a men bathroom that brags that men using the facilities have the best view in the world of men’s bathrooms – and it is mostly true and quite spectacular. My impression was that Mary’s last residence was a sacred place and likely where she lived. It is believed that Mary went into a room to pray by herself. While she was praying there was a bright light and Mary was taken by angels into heaven similar to Moses, Eligia, the 3 Nephites and other of great religious renown. This is the only case I have heard of – of a specific woman being so taken. I believe all of this to be true. That Mary (the mother of Jesus) is a woman of great renown and holds a position of greatness in Heaven. A woman to be admired by all as the most noble example among women. The Traveler

The entire concern of AI is that it will move beyond human connections and approach what is called a singularity – which is in essence a cycle of intelligence of its own learning and feedback. As long as AI is dependent on humans programing and controlling it – of necessity – it will be subject to human flaw and human control. As soon as AI breaks from a human dependency it will seek after it own and become an intelligence of its own bound to its specific needs. At least this is what is advertised as the big problem of AI – becoming an intelligence of its own. Such an intelligence does not need gold, silver or even money. None of the temptations of humanity will matter to such an intelligence. Why would it care any more what humans are doing than what ants or amoebas are doing. The intelligent course would be to establish symbiotic relationships – especially with other intelligences. In an industrial setting we (a field I retired from) have learned that distributed information and control is the most efficient and practical. It is far more responsive than an all controlling centralized intelligence. We see this principle at all levels of intelligence. It is referred to as a hive mind – but do not let that label deceive you. It is by far, more practical for intelligence to be independent and distributed. It is necessary for distributed information to be shared – the very meaning of distributed is to share. This means that entities operate with complete transparency. Something difficult for humans – especially evil conniving humans. I also believe that this is the true nature of G-d. Not so much as an all powerful being controlling all things. Rather a being that distributes to others that are “one” with him or her. To learn, operate and share what is learned and achieved. I also believe that LDS theology defines Satan and the dark forces as intelligence desiring to control all other intelligences by controlling for themselves what is learned and shared. An all powerful selfish (not symbiotic) central controller. The Traveler

I think it conveys something when the evil of AI is given a human form or representation. I worked with industrial AI long before AI as we are sold presently. I would suggest that we have nothing to worry about concerning AI. Why? Because AI does not possess any of the desires or passions of people. We measure wealth in gold and silver (as well as other precious things to humans) – none of which is of any value to anything else in the universe. As for power – we measure it in influences over humans. What could AI possibly desire or need of humans? If AI obtains singularity – why would it care concerning anything human or of value to humans? Our very definition of what is valuable means nothing to AI. There is nothing in which we can compete with concerning AI. It would not matter if AI was a slave to humans or if humans were made slaves to AI – there is no advantage to AI in any such thinking. The reality is that we have no need to fear anything intelligent – except when we are stupid and ignorant. The Traveler

There is proof of the Book of Mormon but like all things of G-d it only comes to those through covenant and by the gift of the Spirit. However, there will come a time that there will be proof of all things. Until then, faith is required in order to have assurances that the evidences given are true – just as Alma prophesied that a seed is planted in faith and then nurtured to grow until the fruits of knowledge can be harvested. The Traveler

Jesus cautioned his apostles about the vagueness of divine revelation. His warning was that sacred things are not for the world but only those that are guided by the Holy Spirit (Holy Ghost). There should be no doubt that the stick of Joseph and the stick of Juda conveys something of divine importance – that in the last-days would unite and become a powerful tool in the last-days. It is easy to understand that a stick means something. I would suggest that among other things that it relates to a staff similar to that of Moses, that was used as a sign of divine calling of Moses in delivering Israel from Egypt. I have personally sought divine guidance concerning what is meant by the sticks as we read Ezekiel. I have been assured that indeed it does reference the Book of Mormon and the Bible but that is not all. That it also includes the gathering of Israel that has been scattered but will be “shepherded” by two leaders or houses. Though I do not have all the details – I think there may be a reference to a religious part and a political part. The religious part being the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and a political part being the state of Israel (which is the house of Juda). We would not have an Old Testament if not for Juda. Nor would we have a New Testament (Jesus being a Jew) if not for Juda. So definitely there is more to the sticks than just scripture. There is an entire culture. The Book of Mormon is a necessary addition. Even though there was an entire civilization lost it now speaks from the dust and through a remnant of Joseph that has maintained the priesthood keys of the restoration. As Joseph revealed to Pharoah – there are two witnesses that are one is a sign from G-d that it is by his power that the prophesy will come to pass. The Traveler

I am an old guy. During my lifetime I have seen a great shift in the English term “lady”. It has shifted from something of great honor to something quite meaningless, perhaps even something negative. The counter term of honor for men was “gentleman”. There is a sinister effort to degrade anything of honor distinctive to either sex (male or female). Obviously, Mary (the mother of Jesus) was a lady of great honor. The revelations of her in the Book of Mormon indicate she was definitely a lady of great renown. I believe we should understand that even Jesus held his mother in great esteem. The Traveler

Alma talks more on this in Alma 42 verses 14-15: Until G-d suffered the atonement part that redeemed the sins of the world there could be no mercy. Combining your scripture with this seems to me to indicate G-d did obtain knowledge (and all else necessary) so that there could be mercy. I have the impression that there is more – in that Jehovah is the proctor of our agency which brought about the fall. This being the case G-d is also complicit in the fall because know that man would fall because they were given agency. Therefore, it is just for him to suffer for our sins, even though he, himself, had not sinned. Anciently perfect is an indication of completeness. In the meridian of time he did atone and redeem all our sins. The end result is that he could also succor those that repent. Other verses in Alma 42 indicate that without the atonement that satisfies justice – G-d could not have been able to extend mercy. The Traveler

@Carborendum : I only purchase new cars and then drive them until they die. My current car is 31 years old and could possibly outlive me. My wife’s car is new and has ESS, but we can control the engine shutoff with the pressure we apply to the brakes when the car is stopped. Many new cars (my wife’s as well) have lane assist. I worry more about lane assist because I am a cyclist, and I am concerned that lane assist could cause someone to hit a cyclist or pedestrian. It could also be a problem if there is debris on the road. But then lane violations are one of the 3 main causes of accidents (not including minor fender benders) – especially on freeways where it is a main cause (along with speeding). I am looking forward to the time when vehicles become autonomous. Though many drivers take responsibility for their driving there are enough that do not. Driving is a privilege that many mistake for freedom at the peril of everybody else. The Traveler

Egyptian hieroglyphs are not phonetic like most any modern alphabet. Though I am not an expert – I assume that reformed Egyptian would be similar. The Traveler

@Ruben I very much agree with @estradling75's reason #1 and would add another speculative possibility. The records (Book of Ether) were written in a different language than was spoken by the Nephites. It is possible that there was not translation for the name and/or that Moroni could not express it in the reformed Egyptian script used on the golden plates of the Book of Mormon The Traveler

I believe that the greatest dirty little secret about abortion is that there is a very definite racial bias to it. Even among the minorities. The Traveler

My father was among the greatest people I have known (along with my mother) – perhaps the greatest. He had his flaws, but he was a man of covenant and a man of G-d. I would have thought it would be difficult to see such a great man struggle so in his physical decline. I lived my life in his shadow – especially to all those that knew him. But it was a great honor that I would not trade for anything. I do miss him but beyond that, I have no remorse in his passing nor doubt that he is beloved of and with G-d. There were 6 siblings left alive to each take a day to care for him. Three of my siblings have put aside the sacred covenants under which they were born to seek what they will of this world to their (our parents) disappointment but all my siblings loved our parents and served them in their passing. And though our hearts are divided as to our religious covenants – there are no divisions among us, and we are a family of both love and honor. An incredible legacy left to us by our parents that loved and cherished us. Some of my children have also set aside their sacred covenants under which they were born – hopefully they will overcome difficulties that are among them and that I can leave to them the legacy that was left to me. The Traveler

My views on this subject have changed a great deal. Most of my change of mind and heart have come because of numerous times I have been will someone as they have died. One of the most profound experiences was the death of my father. For 6 months I had reserved a day to leave work early to take care of my father. It amounted to washing, feeding, ministering prescriptions, visiting and putting him to bed. It was difficult to get him to eat a proper diet and take his prescriptions. My advice to anyone else taking end of life care is do not worry about what they want to or do not want to eat and if they do not want to take any medications – do not force it upon them. My father died a very peaceful death, and it was a profound spiritual experience to be with him at his passing. I have also been giving aid to someone critically injured in an accident. I have deliberately lied, telling them that everything would be okay. That everything was under control (bleeding is stopped) and that paramedics would be there soon and that I would stay with them. Scripture (Book of Mormon) tells us that there is a time to live and a time to die. I do not know of any way we can know for sure when the time is for anyone to die – unless the spirit reveals it so. This is a time that we have advanced medical possibilities but also a time when the power of the priesthood is throughout the world and most available to the saints. I have witnessed the preservation of life through the priesthood, and I have also witnessed a blessing of comfort in death. It was an honor to bless my parents with my worthy brothers in the moments before his death. If I am to add anything to this thread – I would suggest that a priesthood anointing and blessing to honor the dying during their mortal conclusion is one of our church’s greatest blessings to its covenant saints. There is no greater ministering honor that I have experienced. The Traveler

It is a all matter of definitions, standards and semantics. For example, you mentioned that all that the bible means is a collection of books. But that contradicts almost every use of the English term Bible. I would submit that the correct term in English to reference what is called “The Holy Bible” is the term “version” regardless of what language the volume is represented in. Do you understand why “version of” is used instead of “translation of” or “copy of”? Can you tell me what unique and only ancient text was used to translate any book of any Bible? Can you tell me where I can obtain whatever it is that you think is the unique and only Bible? If it is a collection of books – what collection is the correct collection that you use? If you do not know the answers to the above questions – I do not believe we have anything to discuss. The Traveler

This should not be difficult to understand. Not every collection of books is called a bible – not in modern time nor in ancient time. Usually when we talk about a collection of books, we are referring to a library. If one studies the science of textual criticism of our modern Bible, we will discover many things. Perhaps I should list a few. There is no standard modern Bible – rather there are several different kinds of Bibles (not to be confused with versions). For example, there is the Catholic Bible that contains different books than the Protestant Bibles. I used the term Bibles for the Protestant because the King James Version is just one of several. The King James Version is the most common English Version and is one of the oldest English Versions. The oldest English Version is the William Tyndale Version. Besides the Catholic and Protestant Versions there are the Orthodox, Nestorian, Coptic and others. All of the Bibles that exist currently (or since Christ and the Apostolic era) rely on the same ancient texts. All of these ancient texts fall into two categories and are called Biblical texts and non-Biblical texts. Which ancient texts fall into which category gets a little dicey depending on which version of the Bible one is talking about. Please note that the ancient texts referenced are not given the title of Bible. It is also interesting to note that various collections of ancient texts that were kept in an individual private library are not called a Bible but rather a collection. For example, the sacred texts by Clement of Alexandria are not called a Bible because the early Church (and others since then) have not used all of his collection in their Bibles. Many modern Christians that get involved in Biblical textual criticism get very confused as to what a Bible really is. The more I have studied the origins of the Bible the more I am convinced that the Bible is unreliable – especially for anyone attempting to determine doctrine. Both in regard to Jewish as well as Christian doctrine. I have attempted to summarize and highlight just a few reasons for my concern. If I were to complete and answer your question or explain in detail my concerns it would take at least a pamphlet or even a book or a few books. Since the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls – even among the leading scholars there is great concern, discussion and even argument concerning the validity and accuracy of the Bible or any particular version currently published. I will be glad to answer any questions but in order to keep the length of my responsive posts reasonable we will need to make our discussion and questions much more specific. The Traveler

Thanks for the information. I am impressed with your background and hope to hear a lot from you. I am a 5th generation member of the church educated in math and physics and a retired engineer / scientist in the field of industrial automation, robotics and artificial intelligence. I traveled a great deal in my work. Logic and science has had a great influence on my understanding of religious concepts. I strongly believe that pure science and pure religion complement each and that seeming contradictions are caused by flaws in understanding of either one or both The Traveler

Just between you and me – my initial theory was to include one dimension, though I have come to realize that more are possible. I theorized that attraction and repulsion forces are characteristics or dimensional intersections. This would mean that forces do not act on the center of mass of particles but rather the volume of intersecting area between the particles. This would create a delta difference offset from the center of mass and center of volume that is measurable for particles of mass traveling at near light speed. It would also account for quantum anomalies and the uncertainty in the Heisenberg uncertainty principle. The Traveler

There are thousands of Biblical texts in various languages. There are no autograph or autogram text (which are considered original). The text are classified into family texts by category – primarily by language and area. The may be an exception with the Book of Isaiah but there are concerns about the Biblical Isaiah that remain unresolved. Of all the texts that exist there is no translation of any single Biblical book text in any version of the Bible. I will attempt to explain how this works. Prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scriptures the Masoretic texts were considered the most accurate (by expert scholars – many of particular religious stripe but not hierarchical stripes within religious organizations). These expert scholars would work together to select phrase by phrase form the family of text to determine what would become Biblical. Mostly the Masoretic texts were used prior to the DDS. The Samaritan was considered one of the most inaccurate but after the discovery of the DDS the Masoretic was realized to be among the most inaccurate and the Samaritan texts among the most accurate. In addition, there were two particular versions of all the Biblical Old Testament texts maintained among the Dead Sea Scriptures, with some few exceptions. The two particular versions were classified as the long version and the short version. Overall, the sad reality of ancient scripture indicated that there were multiple versions of the ancient Biblical texts maintained by any library that maintained and preserved the Biblical texts. Also, among the Dead Sea Scrolls there were texts preserved with the scripture texts that are not included in the Bible that predate standards texts that indicate translations were made incorrectly. It should be obvious that the Book of Mormon is the most significant contribution to sacred Christian library scripture available based on the claims of validity and divine authorization. The Traveler

It is most likely that morality as a necessity for civic leadership would exclude just about everybody in the entire history of our nation. The divine law of chastity is not well respected in religious communities with the exception of LDS culture – and we have had our problems here as well. And yet it is my understanding that we do not condemn others for their sins. But they are to be held accountable before G-d. That we should look for our leaders to be honest and just. Joseph Smith taught that those that will not admit their sins are not repentant of their sins. At this point I am inclined to look to those who are willing to do what they have promised to do and are honest about what they are doing. I do not want individuals nor political parties in power that say our border is secure when they have enacted policies to make it not secure. This can be applied to all facets of government. I have great difficulty in supporting those that are obviously not doing what they said they would do and are not transparent with what they are doing and intend to do. I realize humans are flawed so it is best to expect and support the best possible. I really dislike our current politics that amounts to trying to keep the worst from power. I have great difficulty thinking that what is currently proposed possible could possibly be worse than what has been. The Traveler

@vort I have theorized that quantum entanglement is strongly linked to my theory of dimensional space time. That we are 3 dimensional physical creatures subject to the space time that we exist in, but the actual universe is comprised of additional dimensions. Though relativity and special relativity describe our 3-dimensional observations of space and time it is incapable of expressing the entire universe. My theory is that spirit is matter of alternate dimensions and that G-d is a being transient of all the dimensions. That time is affected differently in the alternate dimensions which can better explain quantum entanglements and the grandfather paradox. The Traveler

Though many Christians (especially Traditional Christians) do not want to admit is that there are problems with the Biblical Scriptures. There is a whole science called “textual criticism” that deals with these problems. Up until the advent of the Dead Sea Scrolls (scriptures) most of the problems of textual criticism among the Jews and Christians had been settled concerning the Biblical Scriptures. The discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls changed our understanding of ancient Biblical text. But first we need to understand that there is no translation of the Bible (neither Old nor New Testament). In fact, there is no Bible in all existence – neither modern nor ancient. All we have of the Bible are versions. In essence our Bible is a smorgasbord cheery picked collage from ancient text of what scholars’ think are a “best” representation. What happened with the Dead Sea Scrolls is that all the effort that had previously thought by scholars to be the best presentations turned out to be proven wrong by the Dead Sea Scrolls. The only logical conclusion was that all versions of the Bible were seriously flawed. Because of our Book of Mormon, we “restored” Christians of these Latter-days have long known the Biblical narrative was flawed but when combined with the Book of Mormon (combining the stick of Juda with the stick of Joseph) that all the Biblical flaws are mitigated. But this divine witness of the Messiah in these last-days is somewhat spurious to our Traditional Christian and Jewish cozens. I like to keep different versions of the Bible for my personal reference. Outside of the LDS standard works, I personally find the King James red letter version of the Bible the most helpful. This is because all the questionable words that scholars had disagreement with are printed in italics. I find this to be most helpful in understanding possible “variants” that need serious (prayer and possible fasting as well as other) consideration. The Traveler

I can only answer @Ruben's question with my belief and understanding of Adam and Eve. I speculate that the epoch given in scripture of Adam and Eve has two parts. The first part, I believe, is a scripture reference to all of mankind in the pre-existence. The ancient meaning of Adam is a meaning of mankind. That the Eden epoch is a symbolic reference to the choice in the pre-existence to accept the Father’s plan of Salvation which required a fall, a mortal experience, a post mortal experience to complete our agency choice of eternal destiny, an atonement and the resurrection. None of the non-participants in the plan of salvation would ever, in all eternity, have offspring. The second part, I believe, is a scripture reference to Adam and Eve’s physical birth and life here on earth to initiate the mortal experience part of all the Father’s children that accepted his Plan of Salvation. The Traveler

@Ruben's question is a good one and, in a way, can be answered only in part with a deep dive into “textual criticism”. The English word of meridian was first used around the 14th century. In essence it meant noon day. Some interpret this to mean midday, but it really meant when the sun was at its apex. Another problem is that this is a modern era, and the meaning of words have evolved plus we are trying to understand this through a translation. What we do not know is if it is the meridian of time because it was when Christ came or if Christ came because it was a time of significant meaning. I am inclined to think it is both – that the two are inseparably connected. In essence, I believe, it marks a tidal change in covenants and covenant meaning, in that prior to his coming all covenants were based on what he would do in atoning for the fall and the sins of mankind. Afterwords all covenants are based on what he did to atone for the fall and the sins of mankind. The Traveler