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Every time I think of this verse it causes me to remember a time when my wife and I were staying at my in-laws on their farm property while helping my father-in-law recover from an injury. They had a rooster named "Darkly", and he used to come up to the glass sliding door that opened out to the back patio to let us know that the chickens needed to be fed. And I would say, "For now we see through a glass, Darkly".

I live in gilbert az area and we have ton of drivers here in SUVs with blonde hair and a pile of kids. All in a hurry to get to the three schools five different kids attend. Smoking red lights, tailgating, cutting people off and generally recklessly occupying the road. Driving here just before and just after school should come with combat pay. Ohhh and lots of em are from Utah lol.

I don't think there is any theological view that is free from problems to be solved. I look forward to the day when we can come face to face with God and get all of our questions answered. "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known." (1 Corinthians 13:12)

Maybe so InCognitis. I don't claim that my position is without any problems to be solved.

Good thing that’s not what ur saying. he ran a red light and wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. given he has a track record of recording while driving and not wearing a belt I imagine the crappy Utah drivers had little to do with his demise.

Yes, eventually it all gets down to “it just is” whether it’s God alone or all eternally existent beings and a material something they exist within.

Hi calm. I don't want to reduce anything to total understanding. We have mystery. So do you. The main thing I was saying is that BlipBlap was presenting a syllogism that was based on a faulty presupposition that nobody pretends to defend...a complete strawman.

I agree, to a point. Where creation ex-nihilo creates problems (out of nothing?) in my opinion, is that it introduces a total separation between God and man, one that I think contradicts Paul's teachings in Acts 17:28-29. In doing so it distorts God's relationship to mankind and introduces a boat load of theological problems, such as exacerbating the problems of evil. It also changes the ideas about monotheism (as I just posted in a separate thread).

I thought I would provide some links to the sources where some of this comes from. First, for Michael Heiser: Michael Heiser, Monotheism, Polytheism, Monolatry, or Henotheism? Toward an Assessment of Divine Plurality in the Hebrew Bible, Liberty University, 2008. Michael Heiser, Should the Plural אלהים of Psalm 82 Be Understood as Men or Divine Beings?, Annual Meeting, Evangelical Theological Society, 2010. Michael Heiser, Jesus’ Quotation of Psalm 82:6 in John 10:34: A Different View of John‘s Theological Strategy, 2012 SBL regional. And I'll add this one, because I think it is very important to the background of all of this: Peter Hayman, "Monotheism-- A Misused Word in Jewish Studies?", as found in Journal of Jewish Studies, Vol. XLII, No 1 (Spring 1991), pp. 1-15. Peter Hayman's article is important to me because I read it back in the 90's not long after it was published, and it influenced me to dig deeper into this topic. But the thing that really puzzled me (at first) about Hayman's article is that early on in his article he brought up the development of the doctrine of creation ex-nihilo. Hayman quotes Sefer Yesira (2:6), which the Sefaria Library website describes as follows: "Composed: c.200 BCE – c.200 CE. Sefer Yetzirah (the 'Book of Creation') is the title of the earliest extant book of Jewish esotericism." He says, "The Sefer Yesira has in [2:6] the following statement about how God created the world: 'He formed substance from chaos and made it with fire and it exists, and he hewed out great columns from intangible air'". Hayman continues: "This statement is entirely congruous with what we find in Bereshit Rabba: 'R. Huna said, in the name of Bar Qappara: 'If it were not written explicitly in Scripture, it would not be possible to say it: God created the heaven and the earth. From what? From the earth was chaos (תֹהוּ), etc.'" (Hayman, p. 2, italics in the original). The quote above is from Bereshit Rabba 1:5. The Sefaria Library website describes Bereshit Rabba as follows: "Composed: Talmudic Israel, 400 CE. Bereshit Rabbah is a talmudic-era midrash on the book of Genesis." Hayman continues, "The position represented here by Sefer Yesira and Rab Huna represents no advance whatsoever on Genesis chapter one. God creates order out of a pre-existing chaos; he does not create from nothing. Nearly all recent studies on the origin of the doctrine of creatio ex nihilo have come to the conclusion that this doctrine is not native to Judaism, is nowhere attested in the Hebrew Bible, and probably arose in Christianity in the second century C.E. in the course of its fierce battle with Gnosticism." He notes that the idea of creation ex-nihilo "came into Judaism from Christianity and Islam at the beginning of the Middle Ages and that even then it never really succeeded in establishing itself as the accepted Jewish doctrine on creation" (Hayman, p. 3). As I said above, it was puzzling to me at first what any of this had to do with the development of monotheism. But I have since learned that the late second century AD development of the doctrine of creation ex-nihilo (in Christian circles and later introduced into Judaism and Islam) has everything to do with the development of monotheism. The development of the doctrine of creation ex-nihilo led to the idea that God "is so completely other in character"[1], making the journey to monotheism more complete. Footnote [1] Hayman quoting from T. C. Vriezen on page 1 of his article. Other studies have been published on the development of the doctrine of creation ex-nihilo since Hayman's article was published (the one by Gerhard May predated Hayman's article by over a decade, but it wasn't translated into English until 1994). The scholarly consensus today is that the doctrine of creation ex-nihilo was first introduced at around 177 AD by Tatian and Theophilus of Antioch. And this teaching is contrary to the earliest teachings from Christians (and Jews) that matter is eternal and that God created all things from unformed matter. In addition , the development of the doctrine of creation ex-nihilo flips the biblical teaching that all humans are the same "kind" of being as God (Acts 17:28-29) on its head, because if humans are truly the “offspring [génos] of God” then the notion that there are other gods that coexist with God is evident, and the modern idea of monotheism can't be true in that environment. And this is why modern Christian commentaries on Acts 17:28-29 try to come up with creative ways (no pun intended) to get around the true meaning of the text by claiming that Paul was only talking about God creating humans in those verses, and they never address what the text actually says.

I'm not committed to any particular doctrine of how creation happened, or is happening (maybe it's not over yet?), but as a thought exercise: Suppose God exists in a realm where thoughts are, or can be, energy. From there, it's not a huge leap to envision a sufficiently advanced "celestial technology" (for lack of a better term) converting this energy into matter; in fact, down here in the physical we even have an equation describing how much physical-world energy it takes to create matter: E/C^2 = M Now down here in the physical world we have conservation of matter and energy, such that the total sum of the two remains constant in the physical universe, but maybe that is not the case for the non-physical universe. For instance suppose you become filled with the pure love of Christ. Is there now less of the pure love of Christ somewhere else in the universe(s)? I don't think so; I think you have actually increased the net amount of the pure love of Christ in the universe(s). I'm not saying the above two paragraphs are descriptive of how creation happened; what I'm really saying is, I think it's a good idea to keep an open mind. If one's paradigm is correct, it will survive open-minded encounters with other paradigms. And if one's paradigm is incorrect, it will be corrected by open-minded encounters with other paradigms (assuming one of those is more correct). Imo this is a topic where there is vastly more we don't know than what little we do "know".

I think he served a small part of his mission in Louisiana. The highest car insurance rates in the country. Worst roads too. They can't drive when it rains.

I very much agree with this. There might be some frustration and sorrow with what some have inferred from this belief, including what follows from God being the only one who existed before he created. For example, If it leads some to deny we are his literal children and we actually are. (which belief comes first and which follows?) God is the only one who has always existed or God created everything else out of nothing). So…..the only thing God could exist within would be God. Hmmm…

In the sense of reason yes, in the sense of being able to visualize or comprehend it…nope. The closest I get to it is thinking how I create by first visualizing in my head what I want and then I take what is required to create it. But if I understand correctly, you are saying God simply thinking (or what he does in this process) of something is enough for it to take form. Nothing else shifts in any way, material or immaterial. The creation just is.

By the way, https://fullerconsideration.com/DeseretDemographer/ is a pretty interesting site that tries to graph out the changes in membership over time. It includes both disaffected members, less active (but still believing), moderate active, and full active, children under 8, and "lost deceased" (people who are still on the church records but have died and will stay there till they are 110 or discovered earlier). The methodology seems pretty impressive and it does incorporate Pew Research as well as others.

I'm guessing that the ChatGPT is talking about is actually https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2025/12/15/why-do-some-americans-leave-their-religion-while-others-stay/ or something like that. Because the report you linked to only has a single line about LDS and it is the percentage change over each year (1% on 2025, 2024, 2023, then 2% on 2022, and back to 1% on 2021). I'm not seeing anything in the pdf you linked to that has anything like what chatgpt is talking about. It is a 4 page report that is mostly talking about how frequently people go to church.

Hi calm. Ex nihilo literally means "ex" out, as in going out of Egypt. Exodus. Nihilo means literaly..."nothing". We profess and believe that God created the world, without any antecedent matter, or spirit, "out" of nothing. No greater accomplishment is conceivable. That is our faith. It doesn't seem like a loving Father should be too upset with us for overestimating His powers...if we have done so. Does that make any sense? We approach these ideas from vastly different paradigms. God love you. 3DOP

I found the numbers ChatGPT referred to. Maybe you could tell me which numbers in the report you could't find and I will try and look for them.

If people can collect bounties by identifying lawbreakers, how do you think women are going to able to respond to accusations?

To clarify: “ex nihilo” simply refers to the physical world of matter and energy, nothing physical?

Can you get where the Journal got it from?

No, they don’t. They may claim to be true (and even that is not precise) but not all claim uniqueness in being the “one true church”. And technically (at least for revealed truth) it’s “one true and living church in which I am well pleased” which may not be the same thing. https://benspackman.com/2017/01/quick-thoughts-dc-130-true-living-church/ https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/70969-what-does-it-mean-that-this-is-the-true-church/page/2/#findComment-1209849454 It helps to read carefully, in particular to consider that the Biblical uses of the words "true" and "living" in passages like "living waters", "true vine", living bread, etc. match the themes of D&C 1 overall. https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/69911-one-true-church-virtue-or-vice/page/12/#findComment-1209789097 added: I see Navidad already addressed this sufficiently

So good to see you Jesse. Happy 20th Sunday in Ordinary time, and 12th after Pentecost. We probably won't meet in this life. But we are sure we will if neither of us falters. God save us both.

Yes, I didn't realize that he lived outside the state of Utah (or outside of the Salt Lake City area) and he was only here for the FAIR conference. This makes his accident more tragic to me, partly because of the confusing roads and bad drivers in Utah that we were discussing earlier. I'm not saying that the other drivers involved in the accident were bad drivers, but when a person is in an unfamiliar area with crazy traffic it is a lot easier to make a driving mistake.

Not every church necessarily claims that. And the Catholic Church doesn’t jump through hoops; it most definitely openly states it. You can read all about the Catholic Church’s history. How are we not open about our history? It’s the history of Europe. Which is an absolute shame. Which was absolutely wrong and terrible, as stated by 2 popes who condemned it and asked forgiveness. Earlier you spoke against presentism. You might consider that here, too. Also size and politics come into play. Finally, there were the Danites.

Are you sure that is the correct link? Because I don't see the numbers that chatgpt is talking about. I'm wondering if there is a different link?