There are many doctrinal arguments that are unworth having – they amount to angels dancing on pins. There is currently a debate online amongst Latter Day Saints, about the Doctrine of Infinite Regress, or if you prefer, the Doctrine of an Infinite Lineage, of Family of Heavenly Parents. And this debate does have both genuine importance and current relevance, beyond simply agreeing with former prophets.

It is also worth noting we are not in the position of churches with a dead canon with largely settled creedal theology.  There are still real debates to be had. And God does want us to really think and struggle with profound doctrine. But instead of relitigating the evidence in this debate (it was certainly what the Brethren taught for a long time), let’s discuss why this is important, instead of only arguing about LDS Sola Scriptura.

Because it has everything to do with the doctrine of the Family. (more…)

Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, in the midst of UAP/UFO disclosure efforts, told people “Read the Book of Enoch”. As men and women of scriptural distinction, it is obvious to us, she meant First Enoch. If the US Govt has to tell me to read my scriptures, it is probably time for me to read my scriptures, so let’s investigate this.

Nothing beats actually reading the word of God, no matter how corrupted.

(I am still working on Isaiah – we will get back to that eventually!)

This source has non-standard chapters. In other texts, this is ch. 6-16 in the standard way. But this is easier to read.
Next time, chapter 4! (more…)

There is a part of Isaiah that has been weighing on my mind.

Ch. 2-5 Explain the dire situation of the people, with Ch. 5 having the prophet say, I have done everything I can do! I give up!

Ch. 6-12 Begins with Isaiah’s Vision of the Divine Throne and the Lord, in the Temple, and ends (Ch. 12) with a Testimony of the Righteous Men and Women.

Ch. 13-27 The Fall/Collapse of Babylon

13-20 – Temporal Collapse
21-23 – Spiritual Collapse
24-27 – We see the world bifurcated – the wicked exist in a ruined state, where nothing is working, like they all just ran out of steam. And the righteous live in a strong city, with great blessings and glory

The situation is not merely apocalyptic. It is a collapsed society. Nobody has anything, nobody knows what to do, nothing works. This affects everyone from the top to the bottom. Every idea, philosophy and idol have been tried and found wanting. The people are out of ideas. And repentance… well, they simply are not going to think about that!

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This was a fantastic post by FoJG William Tychonievich

Satan Divided Against Himself

 Remember what Sorath wants — for men to hate the good as such and to pursue evil strictly for the evulz — and how contrary to human nature that is. How to get us humans to sail against the wind of our own deepest nature? By tacking, of course.

• Sorath’s goal: Avoid good, pursue evil

• Human nature: Pursue good, avoid evil

• Lucifer tack: Sacrifice the avoidance of evil in order to pursue good (e.g. to seek pleasure)

• Ahriman tack: Sacrifice the pursuit of good in order to avoid evil (e.g. to be “safe”)

Full of Virtue Set goodness.

The Lovely One and were talking about King Noah’s people–they fled leaving their women and children behind at one point–at another point they sent their daughters out to meet with a hostile army–and the only conclusion we came to is that they seemed to have no concept of chivalry.  There is possible counter evidence, like the text of the Title of Liberty, but it still seems to be true.

Now, many say that chivalry is a Western invention, and though I don’t entirely believe that to be true, I guess there’s something to it.

Which means your primary experience in reading the Old Testament and also the Book of Mormon, when running across something hard to understand, is a sense of the eerie and of awe:  that people can be so different from you; that they are nonetheless objects of God’s justice and mercy.

Shoot, you should probably take the same position for anything pre-1940.  We should take C.S. Lewis seriously when he says he grew up in a different world than the one he died in.

Someone you love is doing wrong.  It is sickening and it is changing even their face and posture for worse.  You try to say something and get clawed.   You… pray?

The loss of a child.

We have two chunks of garden, beds with paths in between. Both of them got overgrown with grass and weeds towards the end of the season, including the paths. This year we plan to put down weed tarp and wood chips, but first I decided to burn the weeds around the edges to make the tarp easier to lay down. I wanted to burn the whole garden but decided it would be too much trouble.

My thought was that the weeds I torched would burn and no others. This is how it has worked for me in the past.

I started with one lick of flame in each section and it caught. it spread like… fire. I had to scramble to get a hose up and call my son out to get the other hose. We barely suppressed it before it reached the wooden fence and the grape vines.
But it turned out what burned was exactly what I was wanting to have burned. Except that I hadn’t removed my drip lines first so they all melted down in the general combustion.

I was thinking on this–I had plenty of time to think as I stood there hosing everything down afterwards–and something inside me whisphered, “You don’t plan for wild success enough. Nor pray for it enough.”

Aw, spring!  There really are days in this season that are the best days.  When bad poetry is no longer bad poetry.  Soft breezes, tender grass,  flowers in bloom.   But not for you.  Your eyes itch, your breath cramps down, the snot starts up.

There are foods you can’t eat.

There are clothes you can’t wear.

No reason why, but the body sullenly revolts.

I got curious about the journey the Jaredites took, since they are so different from the rest of our Hebrew and Greek scriptures. And because their journey appears to have taken place near the end of the Ice Age.

The account in Ether is highly abbreviated. It appears they traveled eastward, in part because Hugh Nibley pointed out that the Book of Ether resembles early Chinese historiography in form.

Siberia / Northern Asia doesn’t match well. There were no long stretches with “many waters”. Seasonal freezing would severely limit repeated barge use. And continental interiors do not produce sustained, dominating wind systems. Ether does not describe prolonged cold, frozen travel, or famine.

The Tibetan Plateau/ Central Asia was my first guess, but it doesn’t work well either. Extreme altitude and hypoxia are never mentioned, nor is river travel. Surface water on the plateau itself is sparse. Travel logic favors rapid crossing, not repeated habitation. Winds are strong but episodic, not system-scale and entraining. This might have been easier in terms of overland travel, but this suggests the Lord deliberately placed them in environments where they gained repeated experience building barges, because they would need that practice when they built their final ones.

What does work, is a journey across Iran, India, south of the Himalayas and ending in Southern China or Southeast Asia, like Vietnam.

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One of the things that I believe will precede the fall of Babylon, or our collapse in general, is a crisis of meaning. Specifically, this mean our myths and heroes are hollow or not taken seriously. This is fundamentally a spiritual crisis.

The Jedi Church may be laughable, but a society incapable of even that… that is terrifying. A society without heroes or myths is spiritually dead. It can still move, still function—but only on momentum, like a corpse that hasn’t yet realized it’s dead.

And related to this, is a crisis in telling stories. You can’t have a compelling story without meaning.

It is interesting to note, that of the Eminent Men and Women who appeared to Pres Woodruff, said they laid the foundation of liberty for us. Besides the signers of the Declaration of Independence, the majority were artists and authors. What we might call mythmakers.

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On the sweetness of Mormon life.

You are at a tiny little branch in a tiny town on the snowy plains.  You are there with your father-in-law.  None of you have been here before, you are visiting him while he is a on a work detail in this place.

You left with plenty of time because of the snow, so he gets into a long discussion with the Branch President.  Two texts come in–the two speakers for the service are snowed in.  Why don’t you talk then, the Branch President asks him.  He does.

Friends, its that time of year when you have a million happy bustling things to do and so, in fear that you might have a free moment, we post our Christmas page.  Please see above in the header bar.  There’s enough there for one or two books, and probably we will publish them, maybe as soon as next year.

May we suggest that you particularly check out our two fairy tales from last year?  Here is a tale of a princess, and here is a tale of a knight.  The first one is in the classic style whereas the second one has more of a Norse flavor.

Merry Christmas!

I personally am grateful for any time you spend here with me this season, and don’t begrudge it at all if the time you have to spare for your JG friends is not as much as you would like.

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We all know the evidence that sex tendencies are innates.  Baby chimp girls play with dolls, baby chimp males play with trucks.  And so on and so on and so on.

But also clearly there is a lot of social construction going on.

What we all overlook though is how the social construction occurs.  We think of social construction as something, probably oppressive, that “Society” does.

I think in truth a lot of it is done by your children.

the villainous mastermind of social construction

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This being All Soul’s Day, I found myself thinking about Vader while in the temple.  I think about him a lot.  I will write a post and wonder what he would think about it.  In a way, he is still the audience in my head.

He got in his accident in late October a few years ago and then died in early November.

Rest in peace.  Until we meet again.