I felt prompted to read D&C 19 this morning.
And surely every man must repent or suffer, for I , God, am endless.
…
Nevertheless, it is not written that there shall be no end to this torment, but it is written endless torment.
…
Eternal punishment is God’s punishment.
Endless punishment is God’s punishment.
The least satisfactory reading of this is that the scriptures about eternal punishment are a verbal sleight-of-hand. (more…)
The Nephites baptized before Christ. At the time of 3 Nephi 11, they would have been practicing baptism in a tradition and with authority that traced back at least to Alma.
Yet Christ gave Nephi and the other disciples authority to baptize.
And the Lord said unto him: I give unto you power that ye shall baptize this people when I am again ascended into heaven.
And again the Lord called others, and said unto them likewise; and he gave unto them power to baptize.
Christ gives them the sacrament which is usually something that would only be done for the already baptized. Why did Christ renew the grant of authority and require rebaptism?
“How bad can this flood get?” said the man. “Is it a 200-year flood? A thousand-year flood? We are in unprecedented territory. I don’t know of a reliable way to model it.”
“Very bad,” said Noah. “Repent and build a boat.”
It’s April 1990. A few months ago the people tore down the Berlin Wall while the guards stood by. The lights that were put out a lifetime ago are going back on all over eastern Europe.
And Elder Perry is thinking about the people of Israel who became free from bondage many lifetimes ago and what Moses taught them to help them preserve their liberty and make it of worth. Very interesting, especially what he saw as our equivalent of the rites and peculiar commandments of the Mosaic laws. It is a talk called Family Traditions from the Saturday morning session of the April 1990 General Conference.
Many relationship conflicts are conflicts of virtues. Virtues come in opposing pairs. If a man is particularly alive to a virtue, it is likely to be the case that he has a harder time recognizing the vice that distorts the virtue. If he is particularly alive to a virtue, it is likely he can see even the faintest hint of the opposing vice, and reacts in horror. Which means he has a harder time seeing the opposing virtue.
So when a husband and wife have opposing virtues–and they will, somewhere–each one is particularly likely to stray into the vice that is paired with the virtue, and each one is particularly likely to sound the alarm at the opposing virtue even when there isn’t much of the vice in it if at all.
Because our natural virtues and natural vices are often the results of some character trait that is neither good nor bad in itself. The angel in the Great Divorce asks the man who carries his sin around with him in the form of a whispering reptile for permission to kill it. The man is terrified, there is dialogue, and finally the man agrees in a whimper. The angel slashes . . . but when the lizard falls dead, it transforms into a unicorn that the man rides off on. The virtue is the redeemed face of the vice. The vice was the corrupted form of the virtue.
Here is an uneven essay arguing that the economy should be family centered instead of individual centered. Uneven, but full of plums. So, little Jack Horner, stick in your thumb. What a good boy you are!
Highlights:
The idea that economics is the study of markets is one of the greatest mistakes of our time. Properly understood, economics is the study of the production of goods and the provision of services. The market is only one realm in which goods production and service provision are found. The others are the family, the state, and civil society (the nonprofit or charity realm). The family is the oldest economic institution, as the very term “economics”—from the Greek word for household management—suggests.
Each of the four interlocking economies that make up the economy as a whole is based on a different set of principles. In the family economy, family relationships govern the pattern of both contributions and entitlements among family members. In the public economy, the state takes in taxes and provides goods or services to citizens according to some conception of the public interest. In the market, goods are produced and services are provided by firms or individuals in return for profits or wages. In the nonprofit or charity economy, people donate gifts of money or labor to organizations which help needy individuals or supply social goods (like higher education or museums or hospitals or symphony orchestras).
And (more…)
You will want to read Elder Bednar’s talk. What would you be doing with your time instead? You won’t be sorry.
Your marriage happiness comes when you sacrifice, he says.
And there are a few echoes of that Elder Maxwell poetry.
And these strong Step 3 lines about the divine pattern of marriage:
Establishing family patterns and traditions that give meaning to the ordinary tasks of life.
…
Helping with grandchildren, as the ever-widening circle of life and family continues.
Inoculation means making sure children learn about the doubt-raising stuff somewhere along the way. The Gospels’ chronology cannot be reconciled! Evolution and geology! Joseph Smith was credibly accused of marrying whats-her-name! Neuroscientists don’t believe in free will! Zelph the White Lamanite!
If raised by faithful parents and teachers, the kids won’t feel that things are being kept secret and will better be able to work through the concern and can be given contextual information and apologetics and the case against and so on.
Sure. Fine by me.
A doctor must first attend medical school. School is finite and much shorter than medical practice; but (If opportunities are grasped), that which is learned at school may have “permanent” and beneficial effects on the large future beyond.
Thus the benefits of medical school are best grasped when the student knows he is destined for a long professional practice.
Thus we are meant to be confident in our salavation, confident that we resurrect and go to Heaven after this life. Confidence is correct.
-thus Bruce Charlton. I was tempted to excerpt the whole thing, so you might as well go read it, it’s short.
A student could be motivated in medical school by the fear of failing and not becoming a doctor. Their ultimate motivation would still be becoming a doctor, but in an abstract and remote way. Getting through medical school would just be another hoop to jump through. Cheating would begin to look attractive. And if something came up to prolong their education, perhaps some remarkable new explosion of effective medical knowledge they needed to learn they would be angry. Haven’t I already worked hard? they would say. (more…)
I’m reading Saving Faith right now. It’s about how to raise your kids to be strong in the gospel. So far the answer is, its pretty easy. You don’t have to have searing answers to gospel questions. You have to care, and pray and study scriptures in your home, and go to church. Simple as.
It reminds me of this revelation I got in General Conference in 2018.
Consider this verse–
he was thus pondering—being much cast down because of the wickedness of the people of the Nephites, their secret works of darkness, and their murderings, and their plunderings, and all manner of iniquities
shortly followed by these verses–
4 Blessed art thou, Nephi, for those things which thou hast done; for I have beheld how thou hast with unwearyingness declared the word, which I have given unto thee, unto this people. And thou hast not feared them, and hast not sought thine own life, but hast sought my will, and to keep my commandments.
5 And now, because thou hast done this with such unwearyingness, behold, I will bless thee forever; and I will make thee mighty in word and in deed, in faith and in works; yea, even that all things shall be done unto thee according to thy word, for thou shalt not ask that which is contrary to my will.
6 Behold, thou art Nephi, and I am God. Behold, I declare it unto thee in the presence of mine angels, that ye shall have power over this people, and shall smite the earth with famine, and with pestilence, and destruction, according to the wickedness of this people.
7 Behold, I give unto you power, that whatsoever ye shall seal on earth shall be sealed in heaven; and whatsoever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven; and thus shall ye have power among this people.
8 And thus, if ye shall say unto this temple it shall be rent in twain, it shall be done.
9 And if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou cast down and become smooth, it shall be done.
10 And behold, if ye shall say that God shall smite this people, it shall come to pass.
Nephi had overcome the world. He had earned God’s trust.
cockiness distorts confidence.
cockiness contradicts humility.
timidity distorts humility.
timidity contracticts confidence.
-thus Bookslinger
I can’t upload images today for some reason. Otherwise, you’d see a virtue chart here.
But what is really interesting is the synthesis of the opposite virtues and the opposite vices.
Confident Humility sounds like a contradiction. So does Arrogant Timidity. But they are common enough that they are almost archetypes.
Perhaps this is what Helaman meant when he spoke of growing stronger and stronger in humility.
Bruce Charlton has a wonderful post on God’s purpose.
For me, now, this is the key to the specifically Christian concern with love; it is by love that unique individuals are able-to choose-to cooperate in harmony (as we can imagine would happen in an ideal family).
Culminating in this vision of eternity,
My favoured analogy for Heaven is with an idealised wholly-loving extended family of immortals; continually being added-to by new and unique people – by descent, marriage, adoption, and true-friendship; but always – because of their mutual love – working together, and cohering in their work; because they each work for each other, as-well-as for themselves.
As above, so below. Because that is also the ideal vision for this life. Penhurst the poem.
Ever larger, ever-loving, that is the formula.
but you should also read Bruce Charlton post for the intellectual tool of reverse causality. It is a potent form of inquiry.
Helaman 3 speaks of the Saints getting “stronger and stronger in their humility.” I’m sure the primary meaning is that they became more humble. But I also like to think that their humility made them strong.
Who is stronger, the man who boasts he doesn’t need to be planted to take a blow, or the man who looks for granite on which to brace his feet?
(Follow up: in Helaman 4, the people realize they have become militarily weak in their transgressions).
A boy was set to watch a flock. After awhile he saw a peculiar thing come creeping over the hill toward the flock.
It had a sheep’s skin and wool, slightly askew. But it walked strangely low the ground. There were glimpses of what seemed to be darker fur down below. It seemed to have sharp teeth. And its eyes were set straight ahead like a predator.
It’s hide could appear tilted a bit because of a spine condition, the boy reflected. The same spine condition could cause a peculiar walk. The darker fun could just be mud. The teeth, well, the animal is far away, perhaps I am mistaken. And wouldn’t it be wonderful if some few animals in the flock had far-away binocular vision like a predator the better to see predators sneaking up? Finally, who am I to judge? I must be charitable.
So,
“Sheep!” the boy cried.