A survey of college students by religion showed that 22% of the LDS kids labeled themselves as something other than straight.

https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/gender-sexual-orientation-and-religion

If you were interested in surveying how successfully  the Church was at separating youth from the influence of the world, the answer here would be NOPE.  With NOPE SAUCE.

I suppose your B.S. degree stands for Building, Spacious.

There are interesting parallels between Bruce Charlton’s reasoning on why more than one creation (estate) was necessary, and our own LDS doctrine that Christ did the Atonement twice.

Primary Creation of God the Father (Bruce C.)

Why Two Atonements?

And then after you have the gift of the Holy Ghost you have to endear to the end, my daughter said.

These chapters are parallel with chapter 29, including the verse about ‘a marvelous work and a wonder’. Like Ch. 29, this shows that the Lord’s plans are unaffected by invaders, and that the Lord always has the last word. (31:1-8) The theme of ch. 29 is the need for and the work of divine transformation, the “Marvelous Work and a Wonder”, which is the doctrinal / spiritual perspective. Ch. 31-32 discuss the work of divine transformation from a temporal perspective.

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The beaver proposed building a dam on  the creek, but the creatures who dwelled on the bank naturally demurred.

The beaver then returned with a new proposal.  He would place sticks and logs in the stream so that if a creature fell in, it might find something to cling to.  This safety measure, he averred, if done properly, might even offer an easy way to cross the waters.

He received their assent.

Unaccountably, after he had installed his safety measure-cum-transport option, the creek flooded.

Oh my, the beaver said.  I will have to add more safety measures, they are needed now more than ever.

Heckuva graph

From this article on dedollarization

I gather there is currently an Argentine firebrand politician, he hates leftists and such, who has a real chance of being elected to office.

Looking it up . . . His name is Milei and he’s running for President, which must be an office of real power in Argentina from the way the news articles talk about it.

Anyhow, last night I dreamed that in the late 40s Hercule Poirot saw the shape of the disaster to come in our civilization and fled to Argentina to set up a small cohort of people dedicated to preserving a remnant of the old civilization and eventually to fight back.  Over the years the group grew in strength and ability until they finally felt able to offer one of their own, Milei, for President of Argentina.

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So much depends on whether you are an advanced animal or an immature angel.

On whether you are the top of your genus or a toddler god.

Even some people who theoretically believe the latter fall into thinking that God is grading them and will grade on a curve because, after all, they are doing pretty good for talking plains monkey.  In the reality God is not grading you at all, He’s raising you, He loves you as you are, but He doesn’t intend for you to stay that way.  He intends for you to grow up.

Job 3.  Job has just had everything bad happen to him, including boils erupting all over his flesh.

He does not curse God.  Instead he curses the day he was born.

Sometimes in our circles I have seen a tendency to think that someone who doesn’t like a trial or adversity is being unfaithful.  the logic seems to be that if God sent you the trial then being angry at the trial is the same at being angry at God.  Job’s example shows otherwise.  Unpleasant things are unpleasant.  Unhappiness when something unhappy happens is not faithless.

Elevating doctrine about Christ in the flesh surrounded by a mountain of frippery

I approve.

Several years ago I wrote one of my better parables about two friends in an airport, and one of you invented Airport Friend.  Airport Friend changed a good parable to a great one.  Partly because Airport Friend, though deluded, seems like a pretty cool guy or gal.

Airport Friend would be amazing to spend time with in Paris.

Short read, check it out.

It is  a valuable spiritual practice from time to time to do a half-baked slipshod job of filling out forms.

“The one who is close to me is close to the fire. The one who is far from me is far from the kingdom.”

Lost saying of Jesus.

This feels right and true.

In my dream there must have been some kind of partial collapse because Greater Deseret was an independent state. We trumpeted how well we treated other religions here–news articles about Stake Presidents helping to build some sect’s church house, things like that–both because it made us feel good ourselves but also for good relations with other American countries, some of which had strong religious interests of their own.

This worked well until in a town on what is now Colorado’s western slope (Paonia, I think) the Methodists acquired prime main street property right in front of our temple and wanted to build to block its view. They also proposed a couple of inflammatory features, signage and statuary designed to give us the finger. We denied the permit and they made a lot of hay of it. In fact, it was a bit of an international hullaboo. The upshot was that they got to build their chapel (without the inflammatory signage and statuary).

What we did do was rebuild our temple. To make a point, I suppose, the part directly behind chapel we left empty. But for the rest we made the temple huge, completely dominating their chapel. Looming over it really. It was more horrifying than anything.

Nine months in, this is still the best comment of the year so far

Rozy I am going to start a traveling circus soon, a combination pageant, roadshow, riot, and YSA conference, hopefully your daughter can come along

From [] in the birth rate post.