David’s story in the books of Samuel has a gripping story.  It reminds me of my time obsessively reading the Alma war chapters.

The fun doesn’t stop when he becomes king.  One of his sons comes up with an intrigue that allows him rapes one David’s daughters (by a different wife), that daughter’s brother lays an elaborate plot to kill the rapist (which he does), then one of King David’s servants schemes up an intrigue to get the murderer recalled from exile (which happens), and then the murderer starts destroying the servant’s property until the servant agrees to intercede for the murderer to be restored to favor at court . . . and that is only the beginning.  None of these people let law or order or virtue stand in the way of getting what they want.

This was always going to be a problem for David.  The chronicler tries to portray his rise to power in a very positive light, but we still see glimpses of the corner cutting and killing involved in a guerrilla rebel’s rise to power.   Even so, David made his problem much worse.  He set the example of letting nothing stand in the way of getting what he wants and he did it after his rise to power.  All of these incidents with David’s sons and servants happened after Bathsheba and Uriah, which everyone in David’s court would have known about.  Further, I do not believe that David would have gone as far as he did with Bathsheba and Uriah if he hadn’t gone at least partly as far before.  Adultery and murder might have been his most corrupt scheme but I do not believe it was his only corrupt scheme.

Spaceman Spiff would be proud.

https://pjmedia.com/vodkapundit/2023/04/20/rapid-unscheduled-disassembly-first-starship-orbital-test-flight-goes-boom-n1688692

All your moments and memories form a rich soil.

Time is flooding through it and is continually washing it away.

I think I stumbled across a genuine insight. A small but genuine insight.  (It could even be an original insight, though I bet not).   It’s a different interpretation of something Jesus taught about hell.    Mark 9:

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched

The straightforward interpretation is Jesus is saying hell is a place of eternal torment, avoid it at any cost.

But there is another way of looking at it that doesn’t do violence to this scripture. (more…)

(Because it can be obtained on no other principle).

Not only does absolute power not corrupt absolutely, the purpose of this life is to learn to exercise power without being corrupted.

-thus EdJCB

(more…)

My pard Elon ast me particular to refrain from skeet shooting in the vicinity of this here launch.  I am giving the matter a passel of considerashuns.

Live feed for tomorrow

https://behindtheblack.com/behind-the-black/essays-and-commentaries/watching-the-launch-of-starship-superheavy/

There was a recent article in Wired Magazine on Brandon Sanderson, which I shall not link. It was a smug largely incompetent hit piece. While I am a Sanderson fan, I am aware of just how Mormie he is, bending over backwards to not offend the Great and Spacious Building. (Though, praise where praise is due, he was remarkably level-headed and peace-making through this whole thing. Something that all of us are going to have to practice, while also standing for the truth.)

(more…)

All institutions have problems and often the same types of problems.  Some of those problems can be very, very bad.  The soul-killing stuff that stagnation and therefore damnation are made of.

Nearly everything awful that has been said about institutions and bureaucracies and management is mostly true.  Even institutions run by well-meaning, good people with insight and etc.; the problem isn’t necessarily  the people.

Corporations, bureaucracies, militaries, schools, churches, fraternal organizations, you name it.

Read your public choice theory or Dominic Cummings or anybody at all on bureaucratic managerialism or Dilbert or just get a job.  There are laws of social organization in conditions of mortality that just are.  Being organized for righteous purposes doesn’t free  you from the diseases of organizations any more than being a righteous person frees you from the diseases of persons.

( Look at the Pharisees for example.  You will not understand them until you realize that for most purposes their movement was more righteous and more moral than those around them, which is why even the good ones were prone to doing wickedness when the movement approved it, which is why the Savior said what he said about them.)

Now let’s flip the script. (more…)

The gospels are full of double events.  A thing happens, then another writer tells of a similar but slightly different thing.  The parable of the talents and of the pounds, for example.  People who adore the Bible almost like Muslims adore the Koran have to get pretty slick to work it all together.  Whereas naive intellectuals just assume its garbled recollections of eyewitness accounts and move on.  I know because I’m one of them.

One example is the miracle of the feeding the thousands.  There are the 5 loaves for the 5,000 (Matthew 14, Mark 6, Luke 9, John 6)) and the 7 loaves for the 4,000 (Matthew 15, Mark 8).

It takes no effort at all to assume these are two different stories of the same event that got wrote down decades later as two events.

(more…)

There are three symbols for Jesus in Lehi’s dream. (more…)

This is a list of my deep intuitions about the atonement.

This was hard to write.

You will see some connections to the atonement theories from last week.  These are the simple truths the theories are meant to explain or in a few cases to which the theories have led me.  If the theory later turns out to be false where it has led me was not.

This list turns out to be not quite but mostly the basic message of the gospels.  Even so, that isn’t what it is.  It isn’t a testimony.  This is self-examination.  I am trying to see what I deeply know and feel about it.

I don’t know if this effort would be useful for most people.  Most people don’t have ideas tumbling out one over the other and thoughts and words words words all over the place.  I’m trying to burrow down underneath all that to the source.  I am not trying to harmonize or analyze or make sense.

Here we go. (more…)

On the sweetness of Mormon life.

After church a brother is playing Easter hymns outside on his bagpipes.  He is wearing the full regalia and sunglasses–it is brighter and warmer here than in Scotland.  Your family is dressed for Easter also, hats and pearls, another friend takes your picture.

You drove separately because you had come early to practice for a quartet.  Your youngest, dressed to the nines, begs to ride home in the bed of your beat up old pickup.

Christ won.  The crown is his.  His victory spreads.  First in Jerusalem and then out and on.  From his palms a drop has come to you in your soul, and there it continues to grow.

the Jewish sabbath, the sealed tomb–Christ descends into hell, organizes the liberation of the dead (D&C 138)–in the Nephite lands, there is no daylight, a voice from the darkness announces that he has destroyed many cities and people, proclaims himself Christ Alpha and Omega, and begs the people to come unto him by repentance (3 Nephi 9-10)

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Woefully arrayed,
My blood, man,
For thee ran,
It may not be nay’d:
My body blue and wan,
Woefully arrayed:

Time spent at the foot of the cross is better than time spent thinking about theories of the atonement. I admit that. Yet thinking about the atonement can sometimes get you to the cross.

In conference Brother Didn’tCatchHisName talked about trying to explain why Christ needed to suffer for our sins even though God loves us to a woman from Asia who grew up away from the background assumptions of Christendom. He challenged our children to ask us why.

Let me tell you what I am going to tell my kids when they ask. I have three theories. There are lots of worthwhile other theories out there, , but these are the two theories you and I have come up with that as far as I can tell are original, at least in this way of looking at them, plus a way of explaining the ransom theory of the atonement.

Understanding these theories will enhance your understanding of the atonement, but in no way does your salvation depend on it.

(more…)