General Conference Preview
Our analysts anticipate themes related to the gospel and the Godhead. Inside sources tell us to expect stories, scriptures, doctrine, and the phrase “our beloved prophet.” Don’t miss a minute!
Our analysts anticipate themes related to the gospel and the Godhead. Inside sources tell us to expect stories, scriptures, doctrine, and the phrase “our beloved prophet.” Don’t miss a minute!
Just under the wire, here is what I haven’t posted about yet from the last General Conference.
Brother Uceda made a parable clearer to me. The parable of the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the prodigal son.
When Luke, the Gospel writer, is introducing the three stories, he uses the word parable in the singular, not in the plural. It appears that the Lord is teaching one unique lesson with three stories—stories that present different numbers: 100 sheep, 10 coins, and 2 sons. The key number in each of these stories, however, is the number one.
This can be a hard parable if you read it as a justification for local leaders to ignore your family in favor of those who are more performatively lost. But from a divine perspective we are all lost sheep. The actual point is that the only level of success love can be satisfied with is 100%. Whether personally or as a people 0.5 or 0.9 or 0.99 is not enough.
Coincidentally (?), Elder Christofferson spoke next on being one in Christ as the body of Christ. What an interesting juxtaposition! We can imagine a parable as follows
What man of you, having injured his hand, would not bind the wound? Would he say I will not bind it, because the rest of my body is well? No, but he will bind it and treat it until his hand is also well.
I consider a great many (not all, but many) AI concerns to be in the same vein as Caveman Science Fiction. It is a psyop to keep us from challenging existing power structures. But if we are cavemen (and women), and we have been handed fire, then we ought to learn how to use fire. So… just what do you do with fire, anyway?
We are going to search out the deepest Mysteries of the Book of Abraham.
Wisdom, n.: mastered fear.
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
His noble and great ones are the chiefest of his miracles.
God touched a plumber. He bored a tunnel through the mountains that gushed fresh, cold water for a thousand years.
God touched a cop. He rooted out corruption in high places down to the last rotten apple.
God touched a teacher. The teacher’s students became a band of statesmen who led their country to destiny.
God touched a fisherman. He made the waters bloom and caught in their hundreds of thousands the teeming fish.
God touched a mother. She raised up the the founders of a nation.
God touched a father. He made a world.
The first two articles are great. I will be following assiduously.
In verses where it says something along the lines of ‘and the people glorified God,’ what does that mean? (more…)
200 years ago, on the evening of September 21, 1823, the Angel Moroni appeared to the Prophet Joseph Smith and revealed the Book of Mormon.
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.)
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.
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.
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.