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I get wanting to hold onto that but while in many ways not brave to eternal struggles (as evidenced in this thread) I do have a strong thirst for knowledge and one thing I learned in a very harsh manner is sometimes the facts don’t match what I want them to. I would like to believe there is a simple or even complex solution to human conflict but as I studied history I didn’t find any way out of the constant conflicts between humans. They are baked into the world we live in. More recently I don’t like that I can’t find any good reason to trust God and have begun to doubt He exists at all. In fact in some ways I hope He doesn’t. If a lot of what His character in scripture is shown as is accurate I don’t trust Him at all and don’t want to live in a world he runs. I am still open to God somehow reaching out to help but am also terrified if He does as it will almost certainly involve breaking me in multiple ways because that seems to be how it works. Then again i think I could cope with a Telestial eternity if He just for the most part leaves us alone. Then again annihilation on death doesn’t carry the same fear for me that it used to. If that is the end then being dead will probably be a lot like what it was before I was born and that wasn’t so bad. I would rather the child not be finished but my wishes mean little in the face of cold reality.

That RFM episode triggered me to go buy a white wool felt tophat. And he is right, you can actually read with your face in it. It seems like the light is diffusing through the material into the hat. It doesn't seem to be reflecting from the brim in. If I cover the brim with dark material, it is still readable. And reading from the hat does explain some things. Skousen's work shows that Joseph seemed to be working with a ~20 word section and on a foolscap page, that is about 1 line worth of text (I based this by counting the text in a line from the original manuscript). So Joseph could just be doing 1 line at a time. When coming back from a break, he just has to remember the line he is on and can start from the beginning. But I think there are some really hard issues with this idea as well. First, I could read easily if I was outside or in a room with big windows. Once I moved to a room that had smaller windows or didn't have direct sunlight, the reading got much, much harder. Since 1830 era windows are poorer quality than modern windows and smaller than the ones I experimented with, I think it is more likely that the reading would have been hard. And reading for a long period of time was painful to my eyes. I can't imagine doing it every day for months. Second, a hat can't fit that much text in it. Take the size of the Original Manuscript. It is foolscap that has been folded in half. The original foolscap is 16–18 × 12–13½ inches (from Joseph Smith Papers) and folded in half is either 16½ × 7 inches or 13 × 8¼ inches. Unless Joseph had a really big hat, neither of those sizes will fit in the hat (my hat was a 7 5/8 which is considered XL at https://www.lockhatters.com/blogs/news/how-to-measure-top-hat-size). Folding that in half wouldn't fit either. You have to fold it one more time to fit it comfortably. And if you just push the paper in and let it scrunch up on the sides, that part of the paper is unreadable (I tried). And because of the lighting and ink contrast, you need a slightly bigger font size than what is on the Original Manuscript (I tested with laser ink on modern white paper which has better contrast than 1830 ink on 1830 paper). I cut out a sheet of paper that fit the inside of my hat perfectly and then counted how many words in handwriting roughly the size of the Original Manuscript would fit and it fit around 200-250 words. At around 15 wpm (using the middle value from Welch's expirement at https://byustudies.byu.edu/article/timing-the-translation-of-the-book-of-mormon-days-and-hours-never-to-be-forgotten), that means he has run out of text in the absolute best case (he cut a piece of paper that fits his hat perfectly with maximum words) about every 20 minutes. He would need to swap out the paper in his hat at that point. That's a lot of swaps. It isn't once per meal and once in the middle. At 15 wpm, they are translating 5-6 hours a day, so he is swapping a piece of paper 15-18 times a day. Every day for 3 months. And not a single person mentions it? That's a lot of breaks. We do have breaks mentioned, but every 20 minutes? And that's pretty much the best case scenario. More likely he is taking a break every 10-15 minutes or even more frequent. Third, it is extremely easy for anyone to see into the hat. I didn't realize how open the hat would be. I was sitting next to my kids and when I raised my head, anyone who was standing or just slightly above me could see into the base of the hat. They didn't even have to try to look. I have a 7 inch top hat which is about as tall as Lincoln's stovetop hat, so this is a tall hat and probably taller than what Joseph would have (taller hats were for wealthy people). I don't care how much warning Joseph would have to tell people, it was really hard for the people I tested with to not see the inside of the hat. Fourth, the 2 statements that RFM used don't actually mention Joseph telling them to not look in the hat. No hat is mentioned. First quote is from Josiah Jones' interview of Oliver Cowdery in 1841 (number 71 in https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/archive-files/pdf/welch/2016-04-11/welch_the_miraculous_translation_of_the_book_of_mormon_opening_the_heavens.pdf) Second quote is John Clacks interview of Martin Harris in 1840 (number 45 in the welch pdf above) The first quote could be inferred to mean he is talking about looking into the stones when it is in the hat, but it could also just be looking into the stones at any time (there is a difference between looking into and looking at). The second quote is from very early in the translation process with Joseph used a blanket to separate him. It is quite likely that at this stage, he wasn't using the stone in the hat process. By the time Cowdery came along, there was no suspended blanket separating Joseph from anyone and people did look at him while he had his face in the hat. So, the idea that Joseph read a manuscript inside the hat does sound plausible when I first heard it, but after attempting to figure out the actual mechanics of it, it seems very implausible. He had to do this magic trick for months in front of the same people and random people and he had to switch the paper every 10-20 minutes and prevent people from getting a glimpse.

I was talking about that specific kind of eternal rest. I was not conflating it with finding consolation in something in this life. I am glad for almost anything that alleviates suffering. There is already far too much of it. I don’t what minimize what you have gained. I do have a hard time accepting that God’s grace can only be manifest by pouring out suffering everywhere. The idea that humans must be broken in order to learn has a heroic bend to it and overcoming struggles is aspirational. I just find that grace less impressive when the consolation comes from the person who inflicted the suffering in the first place. Or at least allowed it to happen though with an omniscient and omnipotent being I have a very hard time determining a distinction between allowing and acting as both are direct choices made. This is the only way? The best way? Really? It also makes me shudder. If opposition in all things is some unending principle I have little reason to believe suffering and the like will stop in some future state where all will be made right. If the opposition matches the power of the person we might even expect it to get much worse.

A little. He wasn’t very good at it. He was better at it then this kind of really dumb playground insult level. What you said is Trump-level nicknaming. Sleepy Joe Biden. Lying Hillary. Childish and dumb. I mean, if you are going to insult someone put some wit into it. This is just sad.

I think they need to be more blunt. They are worried about offending climate change deniers in their own body. Do they really need this level of coddling?

I assume you mean the New York will be underwater by 2010 prediction as that is the most common one. Which he didn’t make. So their cunning plan was to have this girl call out the UN for failing the future in order to create a global totalitarian dictatorship that *checks notes* no one is seriously agitating for, has no support, and the UN doesn’t have the authority to create. This is conspiracy nonsense. Only the stupidest of fundamentalist evangelical rapture enthusiasts think that all nations are eager to lay down their sovereignty. Why are you doing this?

No, it is an accurate description of that biblical text. Dan takes his professional work seriously. If the facts give someone reasons to doubt the culprit is reality. LOL, have you watched Dan’s videos (Grok doesn’t count)? Or read any of this books? He is very methodical. He does his best to avoid spin. He will tell you what the text says and what the intentions appear to be based on the majority of the scholarship. He does this even when he dislikes what the Bible is saying. The irony is that a lot of his opponents attack him claiming he is a Mormon shill. Occasionally he has a good laugh about that and says that Mormon viewers don’t like what he is saying about as much as most Christians do. He is talking about Christians in general and yeah, he does do that because that is what the data points to. He won’t lie or obscure things to make people feel better. He is good at his job. So you’re just gonna assume Grok gave you the full context there then? You do know he is still active and participating in the Church right? He did put out a video as to why he doesn’t do a lot of textual criticism of the Book of Mormon, his views on the book, and some linguistic work he did do on the Book of Mormon: Oh, and if you want to have a lot of fun look up his video on trans issues.

I might agree there is an intentional dynamic in how the Church approaches public messaging around environmental issues. Church leadership rarely uses any political phrasing or explicitly name terms like "climate change." However, the Church seems to emphasize action over rhetoric. It will ground its environmental messaging under terms like "stewardship" (like in D&C 104), framing things like wasting resources or degrading the land as a breach of a spiritual duty. Conservation resonates across all members without triggering pushback. Instead of arguing over these multi-decade causes of climate trends does less immediate good than proceeding to change how water, energy, and land are actually managed today. Enacting real, large-scale environmental action.

As I was suffering after being told my youngest son would never speak and have the intellect of a five year old for his entire life, I found comfort in the rest of God. Was that screwed up? The 30+ years since have prove the doctors’ prognosis to be accurate, but in those 30+ years the rest of God has both given me peace and taught me the truth of the scriptural teaching that God allows physical and emotional challenges that His grace may be made manifest. There are scores of people who can testify of eternal insight they have received as a result of my son’s life, a life those not aware of His rest might characterize as unfair or tragic.

I have rarely had trouble trusting God and I think it is because the idea of God creating hardships for us never rang true to me. It's just not how I have ever felt or known parents to work. I mean there are some specific occasions like if your child wants to gain muscles you might hand him a heavier weight, but the majority of time I think just being mortal and living in an imperfect world throws you enough hardships that a parent or Heavenly Father doesn't need to give you more. Now I have had a hard time trusting that God is all powerful because he allows so much pain because I did trust him, but now that I have let go of him being all powerful and feel that he is not able to help all the time I no longer struggle with that.

I don’t know that there is any doctrine that supports the idea that God creates hardships for the purpose of teaching a specific lesson. I know our Sunday language suggests that but I really don’t know that anything backs that up?

They do have many of them except being everlasting with regards to their permanency but they do seem to have angels under them, even Satan has "his angels". I'm not certain they have a throne exactly, but they might. Jesus is one of them, I think he had a throne, and like them he became mortal, and had to be exalted again with a body and regain a throne. But Abraham 3 does say Jesus suggested that "we" the noble and great spirits should make an earth and Abraham 4 "they, rather the gods" make the earth. Are they two separate groups?

I'm struggling a lot with this right now. I can absolutely see the hand of God guiding my life in numerous ways, but I'm definitely unhappy with the place that I've been guided to. It is really hard to deal with the idea that God's plan for you includes major disappointments that won't be fixed in this life, or that God is putting you through suffering that feels completely unnecessary or pointless. Or that God will block your efforts to improve your situation or is withholding good things from you that He freely gives to other people, because it's all part of God's plan for you. The idea that God would cause a bad situation to come to you, and there is nothing that you could have done to avoid it because it's God's will, is hard to deal with. I'm right there now. I do take a little consolation in the idea that if God put this bad thing in my life, then I am not responsible for causing it. I am still responsible for working through it, but I can exonerate myself of the responsibility for causing it. I completely get the trust issue. You can completely trust God, and your worst fears can still come true. You can give your life and your will over to God and still end up in the exactly the bad situation that you didn't want to end up in. I don't have a good answer. What I am doing right now is trying to frame it as the idea that I have to go through this bad situation whether I want to or not, and that at some point, it will be over. I'm even past the point where I would ask what I can learn from it or what God is trying to teach me. I just know that at some point, the situation will be over, because no season lasts forever. That's the best I can do with it right now.

Abraham 4 mentions Gods. I don't see any noble humans (premortal spirit beings) being involved.

Do the gods of Psalm 82 have these qualities?

This poor girl was used in a massive propaganda offensive designed to stampede the proles into voting for a totalitarian one world dictatorship - - -

Looks like Dan went on Joe Rogan's podcast: A Grok summary: I find this to be quite a facile assessment. From the vid comments: "My personal opinion, Dan is consciously subversive. He is a wolf in sheep's clothing. He likes the organization, but doesn't believe in it, and would see it hollowed out to a husk. Where all spirituality and meaning is stripped and all that is left is the oranizaion. He would cut the rose from the plant that produced it, and intellectually monitor it as it withered." I share that assessment, unfortunately. I think Dan is subversive. He's not even shy about it, really. How else to characterize someone who professes to be a "believing" Latter-day Saint repeatedly declaring (bragging?) on prominent social media platforms that he is "offering ... reasons" for Latter-day Saints to abandon their faith? This is intellectually lazy, IMO. He's far too prone to make conclusory declarations with no real effort to explain how he gets there. Apparently it's a "Trust me, I'm a scholar" sort of thing. He expressed this same sentiment (probably doing something right if I’m offering {} reasons for people to feel justified in not remaining faithful") on Dehlin's podcast. So it wasn't a one-off. Disappointing that Dan has done this, but not surprising. I hope he finds his way back. Thanks, -Smac

I am wondering if there will be more than one of this kind of event. One that will interface with the temple complex in Independence Missouri?

I'm glad you have your priorities straight! (Seriously, though: Good for you. I hope you and the grands enjoyed your day!)

This comes to mind as an explanation: “Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

@longview One may reasonably ask to where this city will return. Joseph Young Sr. notes that “Joseph Smith said . . . in the hearing of some of the saints still surviving, that the City of Enoch would again take its place in the identical spot from which it had been detached, now forming that chasm of the earth, filled with water, called the Gulf of Mexico” (12; see also Widtsoe 365). https://rsc.byu.edu/book-mormon-fourth-nephi-through-moroni-zion-destruction/zion-zion-zion-keys-understanding-ether-13

I'll warn you in advance that I know this is all going to seem too trite, too pat, and too "just-so." I wouldn't blame anyone for getting frustrated with me because of that. I have discussed the litany of challenges I have experienced many times here. I won't bore you by reciting it, at least, not in full and not in detail, again. I am aware, fully and acutely, that many have and do experience challenges I can scarsely fathom. Those who endure, and who have endured, what I scarsely can fathom and who retain a long-range/eternal perspective have my everlasting respect. That said, I can only speak to what I know. Premature birth, highly questionable survival as a newborn, permanent mortal disability, two failed major operations (among several others) that set me back, in some ways permanently at least until the resurrection, to which I say, "Hasten the day!" But ... I suppose not. As Alma the Younger said, "But behold, I am a man, and do sin in my wish; for I ought to be content with the things which the Lord hath allotted unto me." Alma 29:3. I have labors to perform in the garden of life, for how long I know not, to what purpose, often, I know not. Spectacularly failed professional aspirations, and the only answer I've ever gotten as to "why" is, "Ken, you were where I wanted you while you were getting the degree." The "dog" of clinical depression alternating between nipping at my heels and threatening to devour me whole—until, mercifully, it simply ... stopped chasing me. I have no idea how or why that happened. I know only that, ultimately, it had nothing to do with more professionals with more brooms than I can count striving earnestly to help me "chase the bats from my belfry." They simply ... left. Is it something that simply comes with advancing age and wisdom to know to "not sweat the small stuff"—and to know that most all of it is "small stuff"? With wisdom to know to "not get caught up in the thick of thin things"—and to know that most all of them are "thin things"? Someday, sometime in the [too? not too?] distant future, I look forward to a fascinating, illuminating, Personal Priesthood Interview with Someone Who Knows All of the Whys and Wherefores that, as yet, I do not. As for why He hasn't told me yet, I have no reason to believe He won't—when He thinks I'm ready ("Ay, there's the rub!"). Have I simply gotten more adept at transferring more of the burden to Him whose yoke He invited me to take upon myself (see Matthew 11:28-30)? Perhaps. Incidentally, recently, I came to a epiphany regarding that scripture. Perhaps it would make all of you more insightful folks slap your foreheads and exclaim, "Duh, Ken!": Christ isn't asking us to take on an additional burden in that scripture. He is offering to shoulder ours! After all, isn't that what a yoke does, enabling animals to do far more together than either would be able to do alone. In a sense, the three-act—premortal, mortal, postmortal—play isn't fair because we don't remember the premortal first act, and the postmortal third act hasn't happened yet. Others' mileage may, and likely does, vary, and that's fine. I understand that completely. But I trust The Playright. What else can I do?

The peace and calm that I feel from the presence of God, is more of a spiritual inner feeling. Rather than a general peace of calm, that I would feel from a walk in the woods or hike up a mountain.

How is this different though from say a walk in the woods or a hike to a mountain top that generates a sense of peace and calm?

Loving God as our heavenly Father, and trusting that he will at some point do what is right, for us his earthly children. I do not believe to be lop sided.