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When I was tracting in England near the start of my mission in 1973, one lady, passionately observed that her late husband had been good and kind his whole life, "and he STILL died!" So part of trusting God is learning better what to expect. If something happens that I did not expect or desire (a not infrequent occurrence in life), I have found that my trust and faith increases when I seriously consider, "What should I expect?" FWIW Kevin Christensen Tooele, UT

That is utterly wrong. I think we need to set aside emotionalisms and mobocratic outrage, uphold the rule of law, let those with training and expertise evaluate the evidence in a clinical and dispassionate way, and pray - both civilly and religiously - that justice is sought and achieved. Thanks, -Smac

Oh, is it? I was going to respond with dirt pie with gummy worms... Yes, I see, a textbook SEO coupon spam post. A harmless question to trick forum moderators while quietly embedding brand mention for a coupon aggregation site.

Reminds me of one of my pillars of faith in God. I know I believe in justice and will never not believe in it, justice will always be a worthy goal to me, but I know often justice is not found on earth. If I'm to proceed to have any hope that justice could be served, I must have faith there is some other force in the universe that will deliver that justice. Like Karma or God. The Just-World Fallacy is looking at present suffering, authority, or legal outcomes and working backward to assume, "They must have done something to deserve this," or "The system got it right because the system exists." The just-world bias actively protects injustice by sanctifying whatever outcome currently exists. It mistakes the status quo for right. If you believe in justice too, we should keep striving for what should be, rather than blindly accepting what is.

I didn’t say it did Me: I am curious if the "needed to consider" element of this goes both ways. Everyone was blotto from booze and Special K. Everyone knew everyone else was blotto, it seems. If so, did Jane Doe need to consider that the young men "might not be able to articulate 'no'" if they changed their minds? You: Do you seriously need an anatomy lesson in order to see how very unlikely that equivalence is? Me: I did not say the men were morally equivalent to her. I asked whether incapacity, as a principle, is a one-way rule. Those are different claims. Calling the question misogynistic does not answer it. ... Courts do not treat that response as consent. The incapacity point is about whether a person could understand and agree, not about whose body reacted. If everyone was too impaired to agree, anatomy does not answer which of them had to stop. You: I didn’t say it did. I think you may have a partial point here. Per Jane Doe's voluntary and sworn statement in 2024 as quoted in the statement from the DA, she describes a mixed room, not a uniformly incapacitated one. Some of the men were far gone. Male Number 1 passed out during the night, woke later, and said he wanted sex again as "redemption for passing out." Sex continued beside him while he was out. The same account has some of the men struggling to stay conscious and dry-heaving so they would not vomit, while the group was snorting ketamine off one another and drinking. Others were, per her account, functional. Male Number 2 was participating next to the passed-out Male 1 (we don't really know his level of inebriation). Male Number 7 insulted her, apologized, grabbed her face, and kissed her (again, level of inebriation is not clear from her statement). She backed away and stopped him. Another man then came in and shut the scene down. When she later said she was tired, the two men still with her stopped. So the DA's excerpts provisionally support a "some blotto, some less so" assessment. We don't really know, though. They do not say all seven were blacked out, and they do not say the men were sober. The office's charging conclusion was about her 2024 statement: voluntary, conscious, and consensual, and not a claim that she was unconscious and helpless. Sexual assault without "force" happens all the time, particularly in the context of a person with diminished capacity due to alcohol or drugs. Further, nobody has suggested that "she forced herself on them." Rather, from her 2024 statement, the DA concluded: "Jane Doe’s sworn statement in November of 2024 did not allege that she was drugged against her will or gang raped. On the contrary, Jane Doe’s statement described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual." She did not allege force against her in 2024 (except perhaps some conduct by "Male Number 2," with whom she - according to her own statement - thereafter participated in a group sex session). Not sure what any of this has to to with lack of consent due to voluntary intoxication. Again, without more, voluntary intoxication does not establish a lack of consent. Again, if Jane Doe's intoxication rendered her incapable of consent, then why can't the same be said about the men (or some of them), who were also blotto? This seems to be an implicit "men cannot be sexually assaulted" proposition. If so, I respectfully disagree with it. Man can be sexually assaulted due to lack of consent. From one of the resources I provided earlier: I think this needs to be addressed. I am glad we clarified this point. You are begging the question here. You reference "assailants" (the men) and "victim" (Jane Doe) as if culpability has been established. You do not address Jane Doe's 2024 statement, which "described her participation in drug use and sexual conduct as voluntary, conscious, and consensual." You also do not address the New York law regarding "voluntary intoxication." You also do not address the point I have raised, namely, that if we are going with a "Jane Doe was incapable of consenting to sexual contact because she was blotto" position, then it seems that same line of reasoning can be applied to some of the men involved, who were also blotto. All the more reason to set aside emotionalisms and reflexive mobocratic outrage and give the process some time to go through the evidence in a clinical and dispassionate and lawful way. A notable excerpt, at the :12 mark: "According to a lawsuit filed last month in New York state court..." I previously said this to SU: My sense is that, for you, an allegation of sexual assault is, alone, definitive proof for itself. A woman said it. It must be so. Any questions = "defending the rapists" and "defending... rape culture." It seems like you have the same sentiment. Jane Doe said X in her civil lawsuit, ergo X is necessarily and indisputably true and correct, and anyone who questions that is, as SU put it, "defending the rapists" and "defending... rape culture." I don't think that is a reasonable position. I am curious how you view her lawsuit relative to her voluntary sworn statement from 2024. Also, the video fudges quite about about the timeline: "Hours later {after the alleged assault} the campus was gossiping about a potential gang rape at a frat house. The woman went to the ER. She reported the attack to the university police. She sat for two days of interviews with the campus cops." This makes it sounds like Jane Doe went to the ER and police "hours" after the alleged October 19 attack. She went to the ER on October 22 for a UTI, which she says told them had occurred in "a traumatic way." She went to an ER on November 7 and asked for a rape kit (two weeks after the incident), and reported the issue to police weeks later on November 8, and she reported the issue to Cornell's Title IX office on January 14, nearly three months later. At 1:05, the video says the prosecutor "admitted that he had never read the transcript of her interview with police," and also that "if what is circulating online is true, those fraternity members would be in prison right now." As to the second point, he is stating something that is axiomatic. "If what is circulating online is true..." "If." We get rid of the "if" by examining the evidence. Clinically and dispassionately and fairly, and not emotionally and mobocratically. As to the first point, the video characterizes the DA has not having "read" the transcripts, as if they had been made available to him but he simply hadn't bothered to read them. Per this article: More here: The video is apparently playing fast and loose with the facts. Thanks, -Smac

No, that is how magic works in some fiction. It is not how ritual magic was supposed to work historically and even that varied from culture to culture. A lot of Jewish and Christian ritual magic involved being morally pure and upright before God and not being in that condition meant that it wouldn’t work or (in extreme cases) it would drive you insane or even kill you. Being contingent on obeidence is not unique to ‘approved’ religious ordinances. I don’t believe that the reason clergy was professionalized was due to the complexity of ordinances. Even if it was the whole of the Torah suggests that complex ritual ordinances are not something God despises. Our temple ordinances are not exactly simple and quick. Not all forms of ritual magic require some perfect language. This was a thing in Jewish magical practice for a while especially when they were convinced the Hebrew language was divine and many believed it was a key to understanding how God created everything. I think it is more a resistance to change. People generally don’t like change. I’m a pretty bad Latter-Day Saint by most standards at this point. As I said Ritual magic is often much more involved than the . If you like horror movies the movie “Dark Song” is about two people doing an extended Abramelin ritual, a Kabbalistic magic meant to summon your guardian angel to grant a request. It is reportedly very dangerous…hence why it is a horror movie. Another form of magic or possibly a religious rite that has strange parallels to some LDS rites is the practice of Jewish Merkabah mysticism. Based on Ezekiel’s chariot throne visions it is an attempt to descend and reach the throne of God. You have to pass a bunch of guardian angels and these angels are not the loving kind. They are the “kill all humans” kind. It requires all kinds of ritual purifications and learning secret signals and passwords you have to use to get there. If you fail you might be expelled, might be driven insane, or might die. Even if you succeed you might be wounded. If you succeed you approach the throne and can measure the form of God…possibly inspired by how Ezekiel had exact measurements of things in his writings and the Book of Revelation does the same thing with its space station sized city of New Jerusalem. Some scholars have pointed out that Paul’s being caught up to the third heaven thing sounds a bit like a Merkabah trek through heaven. This could mean the thorn in his side might even refer to being metaphysically wounded by a guardian angel. You were also not supposed to share Merkabah experiences with non-initiates which might explain why Paul was so cagey about relating the experience. He starts out talking in the third person and then admits it was him and he seems to have only done so to prove his legitimacy. Earlier in the letter we read of “super apostles” coming after Paul and teaching some other stuff. Did Paul break his silence in order to hold on to the congregation? We know Paul had an ecstatic experience in the Book of Acts that led to a lot more Gentile proselyting. Was that the same experience? So is Merkabah a religious rite? A magical ritual? Something in between?

That’s such a great wondering and can be very painful too. Do you think when something bad happens that it’s Gods will? Is everything Gods will? Maybe if everything is Gods will the trick becomes radical acceptance, a willingness to accept the ride. Letting go of your own expectations can require some grief, no?

I prefer the term, Faith.

D&C 132:19-20 "Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting... Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them." D&C 132:37 "they have entered into their exaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon thrones, and are not angels, but are gods." The Bible says Christians become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), given "glory" (1 Corinthians 15:43), made "like" God (1 John 3:2). Sitting on God's throne (Revelation 3:21) and exercising dominion over angels (1 Corinthians 6:3). LDS scripture, including the Bible, is not exclusive in its definition of all beings called gods. We clearly believe Jesus was God before he became human, therefore logically an exalted human cannot be the exclusive definition of a god. A godhood status existed in pre-mortal entities. D&C 29:1 and John 1:1 says Jesus is "God", is divine investiture. He carried the Father’s title and authority. D&C 93:12-14 says Jesus "received not of the fulness at the first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness". His ultimate exaltation was only completed through his mortal embodiment and physical resurrection. Philippians 2:5-11, Jesus had a pre-mortal title of "God" but "he emptied himself [ekenosen], by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death... Therefore God super-exalted him [hyperypsosen]" and so is still an exalted embodied human today as all Christians are promised to be also. Abraham 3:22–24 says human spirits were in the council of gods at creation, "Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was [human spirits]; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones [nobles even as human spirits]... And there stood one among them that was like unto God [Jesus], and he said unto those who were with him: We [Jesus and human spirits] will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these [other human spirits] may dwell." Human spirits were present in the council of the god before the earth was framed. Abraham 4:1, 26 "And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth." The Creation is explicitly carried out by "the gods" (elohim), a council with noble humans operating under the direction of the Father and the Lord, including premortal spirit beings acting as agents. Job 15:7-8 "Are you the first man ever born [Adam]? Were you brought forth before the hills [before Creation]? Have you listened in the council of God [sod Elohim]?" Job 38:4-7 "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth [at Creation]?... When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God [bene Elohim] shouted for joy?"

That could easily be a very codependent relationship I am reminded of this old blog post I saved:

Fun Fact*: Jane Doe has been doxxed online and is receiving regular death threats and threatening phone calls in general. On Tuesday she was swatted. Someone called in a false 911 call about her family’s home reporting that shots had been fired. The clear intent was that someone would get injured or killed. Police approached with weapons drawn scaring everyone and the family is now blocking out their windows and increasing security. A nice warning from all the rapists and rapist supporters that women should not try to hold men accountable for their crimes. We sure do love our misogyny don’t we? And some people say rape culture isn’t real. What clowns they must be. *Fact is actually not fun at all

Maybe this would require unconditional love and trust in God.

Then how do you react when God doesn’t provide a home, clothing, and food and everything necessary? Or they weren’t and/or aren’t being cared for in a loving environment? If you put God in front of a family court to testify about how He trusted his children to mortal parents he knew were abusive or would be abusive God would have to say that he did do that. God would be judged an unfit and negligent parent. You can appeal to a larger context where everything will eventually made right or things will be healed but that is cold comfort to those enduring pain now. And then God is going to have to send those children to spirit prison/hell to ‘fix’ their unbelief in this loving God that put them in that situation because they are horrible sinners by virtue of having been born. It is a pretty screwed up way to run things.

I have felt God's presence in my own life. Sometimes when I have prayed for something. At times, when I have not asked directly. Sometimes I am guided without realising, until after some time do I realise of a presence of God's love in a personal action. In my own thoughts process, it is a parent and child process. The parent providing a home, clothing, food and all what is necessary. And the child trusting that they will be cared for in a loving environment. I feel that it is a parent/child situation between God and ourselves.

I didn’t say it did but in this context where she was the one who was much more insensate the idea that she forced herself on them is ridiculous and counters the facts of the case as reported. The more pointed thing is that in a group sex encounter it is very difficult for one person to assault or rape two people at once especially for an AFAB person. The whole point of my ‘edited’ explanation is to make people think about that without outright describing why because it would likely get me perma-banned from this site. Yes, men can be raped. Orgasming is not proof of consent. It is very weird that you seem to want to make the assailants who were answering text messages about free sex with a drugged up girl into co-equal victims. For anyone interested this is a consistently good source for information on prominent legal cases reported by lawyers and they released a video this morning on the case and the DA comes off REALLY badly:

There's a lady that I see on instagram sometimes (not a latter-day saint as far as I can tell) who has been saying some things that really resonate with me and many experiences I've had in my life. The last one that she posted said: "You're not afraid God's will won't happen. You're afraid it will. Because somewhere along the way, 'God's will' became the explanation for everything that broke your heart. The thing you lost. The prayer He didn't answer. The life you begged Him not to let fall apart. And afterward you were told: God knows best, God had a reason, God's ways are higher. So now when someone says 'Trust God with the outcome' you don't hear comfort. You hear: Anything can happen and if it does, you have to find a way to call it good. Maybe that's why surrender feels so complicated. Because somewhere along the way you stopped experiencing God's will as something you could rest in and started experiencing it as something you had to brace for." Amen. I know there is a God because I've personally experienced Him. I know He loves me because I've personally experienced His love. But translating that into trusting Him as been an uphill battle. Why does it seem like life is set up to make it hard to trust Him and how do we do it anyway?

I have been thinking of Robert Smith as well as Mark Bukowski. I am glad for your report about Robert.

Stargazer "If you want to see something that rather resembles ritual magic, read how baptisms are conducted in the Catholic Church." 3DOP I note that you use the expression, "rather resembles ritual magic". You didn't accuse our baptisms of actually being magic. Good. One reason for analyzing this statement is that even in the Roman rite, this form of baptism is used only in a few traditional communities that have permission from the Holy See to use the 1962 Missal. The Church has always recognized that her rituals tend to become repetitive and ever-growing in various ways and places. There is an expression which has become somewhat popular among Catholics who find themselves exasperated, mainly with private devotions that seem to be ever growing in length, but also with the public liturgy. It is sometimes called "piety sprawl". I will give just one example out of many. When the 1962 Missal came into use, it deliberately trimmed one of two prayers we call the Confiteor, that existed from a reform of the Mass promulgated by Pius XII in 1955. So what happened? Apparently nothing. I have been to probably a thousand Masses supposedly celebrated according to the 1962 MIssal. I have never been to an old Mass with one Confiteor. Two are so unnecessary. All it does is extend the length of a Mass that is already repeating every reading from the Latin, and then again in the vernacular. Finally, the 1970 reform of St. Paul VI, with the approval of 99% of the bishops at Vatican II, succeeded in reducing the Confiteor from two to one, while trimming the number of intercessions from individual saints. The Mass is also made shorter by only allowing one reading of the same text. I really don't know how the Church ever decided to read the same exact readings twice, once in Latin, and again the vernacular. Piety sprawl? So yes, one can make an argument against the way baptisms were conducted in the Catholic Church. But that has not been the norm since 1970. I have not been to a baptism in the New Rite for two decades. But I understand it is significantly shorter today. Some dislike the New Rite. Most don't care. Some don't like the Old Rite. The Church is a rich and diverse Body that includes all types. Even in our current age of communication, a church composed of one and a half billion baptized souls is difficult to micromanage. The pope and his bishops, I think wisely, often allow variations to the official set words and gestures (rubrics) of the liturgies without exercising their disciplinary authority. Why aren't the authorities more strict? It doesn't change the essential efficacy of the sacrament. The point above is that all the breathings, saliva, salt, and any other odd gesture are completely unnecessary to a valid baptism. They might "rather resemble ritual magic", but mistakes or disobedience does not annul the sacrament. It is not to be applauded, but many words and gestures can be added or left out at the whim or ineptitude of the minister. For that reason, it seems like the Old Rite of baptism should not be equated with the strictness which is commonly understood as necessary to ritual magic. Stargazer, you rightly avoided saying that our older baptisms were actually ritual magic. Those who don't understand it might read that description you linked and find it bizarre or yucky. I am considering explaining my theory about why the Church would ever have approved it originally. When understood properly, it beautifully symbolizes some very important Catholic beliefs.

Do you seriously need an anatomy lesson in order to see how very unlikely that equivalence is? I hope you reconsider this response. The question was not about anatomy. An erection is a reflex. It is not a "yes," and it is not proof that someone could have said no. Lubrication and sexual climax are reflexes too. If, as you seem to be declaring, a physiological response counts as consent, that rule could just as readily be used against a woman whose body responded during an assault she did not agree to. I am sure you would not apply your reasoning in that circumstance. Courts do not treat that response as consent. The incapacity point is about whether a person could understand and agree, not about whose body reacted. If everyone was too impaired to agree, anatomy does not answer which of them had to stop. Moreover, under New York law, voluntary intoxication does not automatically establish a lack of consent. Instead, it creates a widely debated framework that requires prosecutors to prove a victim was entirely "physically helpless" (such as being unconscious) to establish incapacity. If a person is conscious but heavily impaired due to substances they willingly consumed, New York's legal definition of "mental incapacitation" does not apply, as that status is strictly reserved for instances where an intoxicant was administered without their consent. The Argument for the Status Quo: Opponents of changing these statutes—such as the New York State Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers—argue that broadening the law could severely compromise due process. They contend that without objective boundaries, the law fails to provide clear guidance on exactly when a partner transitions from being legally "intoxicated" to legally "incapable" of agreeing to sex. The core concern is criminalizing ambiguous, consensual encounters where both parties are willingly under the influence. The Argument for Reform: Conversely, advocates and lawmakers argue that this framework creates a dangerous "voluntary intoxication loophole". They point out that under the current standard, an individual who is severely impaired but still awake can be legally exploited. Critics argue that capacity should depend entirely on a person's cognitive state at the moment of the encounter, rather than the mechanism of how they became intoxicated. For my part, I am unsettled on how I feel the law should treat this issue. I see merit to both sides of the debate. My point here, though, is that the reasoning being deployed to inculpate the men - that Jane Doe was too drunk/stoned to consent to sex - is not only contravened by her own voluntary sworn 2024 statement (in which she describes consensual instances of taking drugs and participating in multiple instances of group sex), it also would seem to apply to inculpate Jane Doe for her having had sexual contact with the men when they could be said to have been incapable of giving consent. Indeed, one of the accused has publicly stated this very point. I did not say the men were morally equivalent to her. I asked whether incapacity, as a principle, is a one-way rule. Those are different claims. Calling the question misogynistic does not answer it. Who could physically initiate is also not the question. The question is who could agree. Being less able to start sex while impaired does not tell you whether someone else, also impaired, could refuse it. Flexibility is not consent. The pharmacology does not do the work you want it to do either. If ketamine suppresses libido and alcohol impairs performance, that is a fact about bodies, when the issue here is consent. It is not a finding about who was more incapacitated or who agreed. An erection is not a blood-alcohol test. The presence or lack of one is not a consent test. The same mistake in reasoning runs the other direction: a woman's body can respond during contact she did not agree to, and that response is not a yes. Again, I am sure you do not mean to present a rule that could be construed in that way. Performance and consent are different facts. If the men were in fact less impaired, say so from the evidence. That is a fact question. It is not established by an anatomy joke, and it is not established by treating a reflex as proof they were sober enough to be responsible and she was not. Some resources for your consideration: Rape Myths (Washington University's Relationship & Sexual Violence Prevention Center Questions, emotions and physical responses after a traumatic sexual experience (Sexual Assault Center, Netherlands) Sexual arousal and orgasm in subjects who experience forced or non-consensual sexual stimulation – a review This is a very difficult topic. Thanks, -Smac

When President Kimball referred to humans as gods in embryo, doesn’t this mean we are gods right now, but progressing to become more mature ones?

Which Mormon scriptures clearly identify gods being exalted humans (humans being made gods) instead of only receiving divine titles and authority?

My fellow Washingtonian, right? Hi Stargazer! You seem to be enjoying exile in the U.K. Good for you. My wife and I avidly watch this program out of your current home country, Escape to the Country. Maybe you have seen it? It makes your "exile" seem possibly quite tolerable. In contrast to what appears on the show as what could be an idyllic exile, I am happily homesick here as an exile in Kansas, living in in a new built house that won't last a hundred years. (Happy in God's apparent will, and missing an Evergreen State that I never quite appreciated for more than sixty years). I am amazed at how the Brits of old made houses that are still lovely and livable centuries ago. I hope you have one of those with a beautiful garden! If you've told us where you live I missed it. I hope you are not in a London slum, but God's will be done, right? So anyway, I like your posts and by extension, you. I truly hope all good things for you in your new life. You should believe that after I critique your long post which included some apparent misunderstandings about Catholic teaching and ritual. In following posts, I intend to use a format that will not notify you that I have responded to this original prompting to my participation here. In contrast with your occasional uninformed ideas about my faith, there are two reasons why I enjoy you here. The first and most important is that I firmly believe that you mean well. The second reason is for much shared cultural appreciation. Thus, Yes, Prime Minister, will not be included in my hopefully charitable critique. I am thinking that even if I can only be charitably wrong, it will still be a win for my side! God bless you and yours, I hope to be back soon. Rory

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Do you seriously need an anatomy lesson in order to see how very unlikely that equivalence is? Well, I suppose someone has to tell you sometime. You see smac when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much…… …..and when the mommy and daddy decide to expand this and invite other people to join….. …..realistically two at a time with each woman due to limits of flexibility…….. ……and a woman would be less likely to be able to initiate if out of her mind on drugs. I also doubt the guys were as drunk and/or drugged out as the victim. Ketamine massively inhibits libido. Alcohol degrades”performance”. Your attempt to make those who planned this rapefest as somehow morally equivalent to the victim is disgusting and misogynistic.