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Not according to you (posting as theplains): We currently don't have all those attributes, even though we all are (as the Bible says) the same kind of being as God (Acts 17:28-29). Those are attributes that can be obtained through the cleansing power of the atonement of Jesus Christ and by our willingness to follow and emulate him.

You can’t from the opposite side of the chapel. It sits on the floor and back in a little alcove.

I would say the literal offspring of a God is a literal God, albeit less developed. Congrats. You are a God right now.

I think "activism" these days is often quite susceptible to the March of Dimes Syndrome / Mission Creep phenomenon. This includes activism in the Church. Back to the Tierney article: I wonder if activist calls for an apology from the Church are borne of this "March of Dimes Syndrome" mindset. Any progress/success the Church has made/had relative to condemning racism, fostering goodwill, etc. is a threat. In the minds of some activists, they can never declare "mission accomplished." Mission Creep happens. "So activists have moved the goalposts once again." Yep. If the Church were to issue a formal institutional apology, would self-appointed "activists" accept it and move on? Or would they deem it insufficient, move the goalposts, and demand more? Yeah, the SPLC has really had a lot of mission creep. I can't help but wonder if some of the activists calling for the Church to issue an apology see Mission Creep not as a bug, but as a feature. That is, these folks want the Church to issue an apology so that they can, in true "Mission Creep" style and form, deem the apology insufficient, move the goalposts, and demand more. And the "more" would, in my view, almost certainly - and perhaps almost immediately - take us to demands that the Church "apologize" for the Law of Chastity, for its prohibitions against same-sex behavior, for its past opposition to same-sex marriage, for its current non-recognition (in an ecclesiastical sense) of same-sex marriages, and so on. And I think the calls would not stop at just an apology, but for alteration of the Church's doctrines, so as to ratify same-sex marriages, to allow temple sealings between persons of the same sex, to allow same-sex behavior, etc. Additionally or alternatively, I wonder if this is a pretext for calling for women to be ordained to the priesthood. And perhaps disavowals of claims to prophetic/priesthood authority, the Book of Mormon, and so on. The Tierney article goes on to explain a third label for this phenomenon (in addition to "March of Dimes Syndrome," mentioned in the article, and "Mission Creep," commented on by me) : "'The more things improve, the louder become the exclamations about their badness.'" Might this be said about the Church since 1978? "First is the negativity effect, or the brain’s innate bias to pay more attention to the negative than the positive." Might this be in play relative to how some folks treat the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? "As the world gets better—as people become richer, better educated, and longer-lived—we find new things to worry about and have more disposable income and free time to spend curing humanity’s woes, real or imagined." Again, are black people in the Church better off now than they were in 1978? If so, why is it that folks of an "activist" bent seem fixated on characterizing the Church in the worst possible ways? Further to the foregoing evaluation of the "March of Dimes Syndrome" and "Mission Creep" and the seeming paradox in play ("As the world gets better—as people become richer, better educated, and longer-lived—we find new things to worry about and have more disposable income and free time to spend curing humanity’s woes, real or imagined"), I just recently came across another term: The Tocqueville Effect From Wikipedia: I would like to hear any thoughts you all have about this stuff. Thanks, -Smac

Based solely on the diagram: uncertain. But my suspicion is that they wouldn't place it on an elevated platform because then you would have to deal with additional accessibility concerns.

Hi bluebell. Everybody only has their own experience. And sometimes it is minimal, but we don't realize it. I would not dismiss your own experience. My anecdotal experience is very limited. As for the Apostles Creed? You guys could accept that. The communion of saints would be happening in baptisms for the dead. Everybody who is ultimately saved by Jesus' work is intimately connected, even if we don't fully realize it. More than that, through the Incarnation, (this is Catholic because we deny that we are the same species as God), we humans have become united in brotherhood, even if we do not accept Jesus, God made man, a creature, made out of something! We are connected to Adam whether we like it or not. Likewise with "the last Adam". Jesus. Made out of pre-existent matter as a man! How we treat anybody, is how we treat Jesus. St. Augustine, whatever anybody despises about his teachings said, "Love, and do what you will." Who can argue with that? And however much I might doubt John Lennon's theology...or his vocabulary..."All you need is love."? That is a Christian idea that preceded the Beatles by two millenia. It is arguably an Old Testament Mosaic idea that was over 3,500 years before the Lennon-McCartney team. God bless. 3DOP, the long winded, going off on his own reveries at night. May God love us all who love His Son, and may we worship together someday.

Can you see the table from the pews? The ordinance being performed? Our ward the table is a step or two down from the main pulpit area. You can still see it most of it if sitting in the back.

My experience was with nonLDS Protestants and the Apostles Creed.

The sacrament table in my stake center is currently on the floor, not elevated at all. It At my old ward, the pulpit is not in the center, it is off to one side of the room. I think that we sometimes forget the variety in our ward buildings and assume they are all set up similarly.

I've had a few thoughts about the sentiment, occasionally expressed in this thread and elsewhere, that opposition to "trans" ideology and efforts is a fabricated and politically-motivated panic advanced by some sort of cabal. I don't think I exaggerate, as evidenced by how Analytics put it: "Wing Grievance Industrial Complex." "{A} made-up non-issue." "{M}ade-up target of the Right Wing Grievance Industrial Complex." I responded: Two more: Analytics: What actually is recent is culture warriors deciding this is a winning issue and constantly throwing it in your face. Smac: Lia Thomas. Lily Tino. Dylan Mulvaney. Drag Queen Story Hours and drag shows with children in attendance. All very public. All really trying to garner attention. Analytics: The only reason you know who Lily Tino or Lily Thomas are is because the people who curate your news want this to be an issue. Smac: Lily Tino and Lia Thomas and Dylan Mulvaney and marchers in parades, and demonstrators/protesters, and so on are all actively courting public attention, and they are getting some. I recently came across a troubling news article that, in my view, illustrates just how aggressive trans activists have been in recent years: Parents Can’t Escape Washington’s Transgender Policies by Changing Schools, Supreme Court Brief Argues A Grok summary: Troubling stuff. Thanks, -Smac

Will the sacrament table be on the floor or still elevated?

Height isn't a requirement, but I suspect it will likely need to be at least high enough to try and discourage all the littles from climbing on it.

Don't you believe Adam, Eve, Seth, Cain and you are real adams? But not the one true Adam? A 'god' (elohim) describes kinship with El and executive authority from El. Satan or the Prince of Persia, or even a human executive commissioned with divine authority like Moses to Pharaoh can function in an elohim capacity. Thus even archangels, lesser foreign nation gods or even Satan, could be called a "god", as he has dominion and "his angels" under him. Yes, if you define "god" using the Bible’s own vocabulary (elohim), rather than your modern post-Enlightenment definition, there are "many gods and many lords" (1 Cor 8:5). If by "real god" you mean an omnipotent being equal to Yahweh, then NO. None of them are "gods" in that sense. But if by "real god" you mean real, non-human, supernatural spiritual entities operating in the heavenly hierarchy, then the Bible's answer is an emphatic YES. Baal (whose name means Lord, a lord is a noble governing a territory) is called an elohim of a nation (1 Kings 18:27), a shed / territorial spirit (Deut 32:17), and Beelzebul, the prince of demons, which in ancient Greek, meant a "divine power," or "lesser deity" rather than an evil entity (Matt 12:24–27). By elohim, it is acknowledging their real spiritual existence and authority over pagan nations. The clearest explanation I ever read is a first century, Jewish-Christian, document by Pseudo-Clement (not Clement the Bishop of Rome). In which, Peter debates with Simon Magus. Simon makes a claim that in Jewish scriptures that there are many gods, "There are also many other testimonies which might be adduced by the law, not only obscure but plain, by which it is taught that there are many gods. One of these was chosen by lot, that he might be God of the Jews [Deuteronomy 32:9]. But it is not him that I speak, but the God who is also his God, whom even the Jews themselves do not know. For he is not their God, but of those who know him." (Clementine Recognitions 2:39). Peter explains that Elyon, the Most High God is the God of the Jews, but there are also several divine intermediaries that are called "gods", "For every nation has an angel to whom God committed the government of that nation; and when one of these appears, although he be thought and called God by those over whom he presides, yet being asked he does not give such testimony of himself. For the Most High God, who alone holds power of all things had divided the nations of the earth into seventy-two parts and over these he hath appointed angels as princes [Deuteronomy 32:8]. But to one among the archangels who is greatest, has committed the government of those who before all others, received the worship and knowledge of the Most High." (Clementine Recognitions 2:42). Whether or not Peter said this, it proves 1st and 2nd-century Jewish-Christians explicitly held the exact Divine Council framework I am arguing for. Jewish-Christians who spoke the language and lived in the ancient Near Eastern culture understood Deuteronomy 32 as literal territorial administration by non-human spiritual beings. Peter says they are real, non-human heavenly beings (archangels/princes) assigned over geographical nations. And "real" gods denotes their real power and heavenly presence. Acknowledging the real existence of these lower territorial elohim did not diminish the ultimate supremacy of the Most High God (El Elyon). Then there is you. Your insistence that foreign "gods" were non-existent or mere human magistrates is completely alien to early Jewish-Christian theology. You are trying to force a 21st-century philosophical assumption onto ancient texts that clearly taught a populated, hierarchically ordered spiritual realm.

I hadn't thought of the table being in the way of caskets. Or performances etc. Another thing, shouldn't the Sacrament table be up high like it is now?

Thanks Amulek. Not your fault. I figured I had to have misunderstood.

I had gone six years to a Baptist Bible College, and pastored churches for another seven years. I think Navidad might have preached there once! But I wasn't taught about creedal issues, nor did I teach any. After that we visited at Reformed, Anglican, and Lutheran churches which had been historically creedal. I wanted doctrinal clarity for about three more years before becoming Catholic. It was and still is striking to me, that there is such a heavy emphasis on the Trinity in the Catholic Church. Until I became Catholic I would not have believed with confidence in any creed. I was consistently sola scriptura. I possessed a 66 book creed. I still don't believe that the Scripture alone clearly teaches baptismal regeneration, the filioque, the hypostatic union, papal infallibilty, the Marian doctrines, or any other defined Catholic teachings that have become obligatory to Catholics over the centuries.

Sorry. In talking about the changes, I was operating under the assumption that people had seen a mock-up of the proposed layout. I could have been more clear about what I meant. When I said, "[m]oving the sacrament table to the center," I meant moving it to the center of the room, in front of the podium. And when I said "two rows of benches," I should have said two sections of pews (as opposed to the three section layout commonly used in meetinghouses today). Here's an image that might make it more clear. While still different from other Catholic buildings I have attended, I think this kind of layout would seem more familiar to you should you happen to visit an LDS chapel that was organized in this manner. Conceptually, I'm not opposed to using architecture to symbolically communicate whatever we want it to communicate (e.g., the primacy of the sacrament). But, from a Latter-day Saint perspective, I think there's something symbolically meaningful about having the pulpit at the front as well. Currently, I would say that it symbolizes the living Word of God continuing to be proclaimed through his children through revelation, through testimony, through scripture, etc. Just like the table isn't Christ himself, but is supposed to point us toward Christ, so to is the current configuration - only with the emphasis being on Christ's continuing work in the Church.

It is something that I have never been familiar with attending Church on a regular basis since childhood. The Liverpool RC Cathedral is a post Vatican 2 build, to the best of my knowledge. Although there were plans for a Cathedral long before. I suppose I am a bit of what some people would refer to has being Traditional. I like my altar area to be on a prominent area with the people looking towards, rather than at each other. However, everyone will have their own opinion on the matter.

Interesting. I had heard of that positioning. I think the idea comes from reflection on the fact that the Mass is a community meal. I have not experienced Mass in that setting. What do you think of it?

Yesterday's doctrine and direct commandment from God became tomorrow's theory. Which does not speak to Theory 3, which I think is the most accurate summary of where things actually stand. Well, that becomes regressive pretty quickly. And yet, there is no recorded revelation substantiating these characterizations. Hence the relevance of Edward Kimball observation: "The {1949} statement went beyond the evidence both in claiming a 'direct commandment' from the Lord and in saying that the doctrine came 'from the days of [the Church’s] organization.'" I think the same must be said about the 1969 item. I'm not sure I understand your position. I have repeatedly acknowledged the 1949 and 1969 statements, as well as their "beyond the evidence" status. I more or less agree with the historical point. For a long time it was not taught as a tentative theory. Presidents and apostles taught the restriction and the supporting explanations as the mind of the Lord. Relabeling those explanations “theories” in 2013 does not change how they landed in 1852 or 1949. What I don’t grant is that “it was taught as doctrine” freezes the explanations in place or makes the later disavowal a kind of fraud (is that where you are going?). In the Church, “taught as doctrine” has never been the same thing as “canonized and closed.” A great deal has been taught with prophetic certainty and later limited or discarded when further light came. The Church is not claiming Brigham and McConkie never spoke that way. It is saying those reasons—curse-as-skin, premortal failure, racial inferiority—are not doctrine now and were wrong. McConkie himself said to forget what he and earlier brethren had said that contradicted the 1978 revelation. That is not a cover-up of the teaching. It is a repudiation of the explanations by someone who had taught them as doctrine. If the argument is simply “leaders used to teach this authoritatively,” that is true. If the argument is “therefore the current Church cannot honestly disavow the explanations, and every essay is just PR,” that only follows if you have already decided that once a prophet teaches something as doctrine, later prophets cannot correct the reasons. That is a rule this faith has never actually lived by. 1978 is the correction of the practice. The essay is the correction of the folklore that grew up around it. You can think both should have come earlier and still not treat “it was taught as doctrine” as the end of the discussion. I take the priesthood-restriction discussion seriously when the aim is to tell the truth about what was taught, to reject the old racial explanations, and to refuse to treat Black Saints as a problem to be managed. I can respect a call for apology if it is really about repairing a moral wound. When the next move is, “Then what about Cannon and the Red Men—has the Church disavowed those truths as theories too?” I start to hear a different project. That question can be asked in good faith. It can also function as a test that no institution can ever pass. There will always be another chapter, another Journal of Discourses paragraph, another introduction that used to say “principal ancestors.” If the standard is “every authoritative-sounding sentence from the nineteenth century must be individually recanted in the same genre as the 2013 essay, or the Church is still 'hiding skeletons,'” the list will never end. Faultfinding of that kind is not a path to burial. It is a path that requires the grave to stay open. I am not interested in chasing that carrot. Not because the history of LDS teaching about Native peoples is tidy—it is not—but because I can tell the difference between “help us tell the truth and treat people as children of God” and “keep producing exhibits until confidence in the Restoration collapses.” The first I will work at. The second I will not treat as the same kind of conversation. If your concern is specific harm in how the Church has spoken about Indigenous people, please say that, and we can talk about that. If the point is that once a prophet taught something as “gospel truth,” the only moral option is an endless sequence of institutional confessions and apologies and retractions and grovelings, we do not share a theory of repentance, accountability, or what the Church even is. I would rather be clear about that than keep moving the goalposts and calling it peacemaking. On 16 March 1862 in Dundee, while serving in the European Mission presidency, Amasa Lyman preached “Nature of the Mission of Jesus.” The Millennial Star printed it. The sermon treated Jesus as teacher and exemplar and denied that His death was a necessary, predetermined atonement. Man, being innately good, could redeem himself by stopping sin. That was a doctrinal claim, delivered by an apostle, in a Church publication. By your reasoning, then, the Church is locked into this. Forever. It's etched in stone. It cannot be denied or revoked or disavowed. I don't think the Church is locked in. I don't understand your reasoning here. I actually anticipate the opposite: I think the Proclamation will eventually be canonized. I hope so, anyway. Erring in teachings sounds more appropriate as some people don't consider all teachings to be doctrines. "But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough" (2 Corinthians 11:3-4). Paul is warning the Corinthian Christians that someone can present a different Jesus while still using Christian-sounding language. Not sure how we went from the priesthood ban to "a different Jesus." Thanks, -Smac

I now see the references to "we" in a representative capacity. But still, no "we are sorry" and/or "we apologize". I am glad that we cleared that up. I don't think there is a dispute about whether he used particularized words ("we are sorry" and/or "we apologize"). Rather, I think the dispute is whether he or the President of the Church should apologize, and if so how and to whom. Well, I wonder if this is down to an issue of semantics. I think comments from Elder Bednar (previously summarized here) help provide some framework: I think it is fair to say that we cannot presently state with clarity and confidence that the ban was revelatory. Ipso facto, I likewise think we cannot state with clarity and confidence that the ban was "doctrine." As Edward Kimball put it: "The {1949} statement went beyond the evidence both in claiming a 'direct commandment' from the Lord and in saying that the doctrine came 'from the days of [the Church’s] organization.'" I think the same must be said about the 1969 item. Let's review a bit. What the Church says now: The heading to Official Declaration 2 (2013 scriptures) and the Gospel Topics essay Race and the Priesthood are the controlling texts. They say Church records “offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice,” that Black men were ordained in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, and that Brigham Young publicly announced the restriction in 1852. Past explanations (curse of Cain, premortal unworthiness, racial inferiority) are disavowed. Elder Holland’s 2018 statement is the pastoral version of the same point: the old explanations were “folklore”; “we simply do not know why that practice was in place.” Thus, the Church's current position is effectively an institutional retreat from and disavowal of both mid-century First Presidency letters. It does not say “Brigham invented it and God had nothing to do with it.” It says the documentary origin is Brigham’s public articulation, the earlier justifications are rejected, and no revelation instituting the ban is in the record. 1949 Edward Kimball’s statement above is accurate. The 1949 circular claimed: “not a matter of the declaration of a policy but of direct commandment from the Lord” “the doctrine of the Church from the days of its organization” the curse-of-Cain framework premortal conduct as the theodicy There is no text in the canon or in Joseph’s papers that is a “direct commandment” instituting a race ban. Elijah Abel and other Black men were ordained with Joseph’s knowledge. Further, the Church History Department has since described 1949 as standard language in private correspondence, not a public proclamation—but the wording is still the wording. Kimball is right: those two clauses go beyond the evidence. 1969 The December 15, 1969 letter (Brown and Tanner to local leaders; published in the Church News 10 January 1970) is more careful on rationale and less careful on origin. It drops the curse-of-Cain language and the 1949 claim of a “direct commandment.” It says the reasons “we believe are known to God, but which He has not made fully known to man,” and it flags continuing revelation as the way the practice could change. That is a real shift. It does not drop the historical claim that is the problem. The operative sentence is: That is the same "beyond the evidence" error as 1949’s “from the days of its organization,” only in different clothes. The surviving record does not show Joseph teaching a race-based priesthood ban, and it shows the opposite on ordination. The first clear presidential articulation is Brigham Young (1849 privately, 1852 publicly). So Kimball’s critique—this statement goes beyond the evidence on origin—does apply to 1969, even though 1969 is more modest about why. 1969 also still treats the restriction as having a divine source (“not something which originated with man”), which is a theological claim, not a documentary one. That is a different kind of assertion from “Joseph taught it from 1830.” The first could have previously been held as as a matter of faith (not now, though); the second is a historical statement that does not hold up. The Church no longer defends the 1949 claim of a recorded “direct commandment,” nor the claim that the restriction was doctrine “from the days of [the Church’s] organization.” The 1969 letter already softened the justifications, but it repeated the Joseph-from-the-beginning origin story. That origin story is what later official materials walked away from. Calling the ban “doctrine” in those decades was common speech among leaders; it was never backed by a canonized revelation instituting it. Official Declaration 2 is a revelation ending the practice. It does not contain, and the archives have not produced, a revelation that began it. What the current essay does not do is take the next step some critics, and some members, want: declare that the restriction was only Brigham’s policy and therefore never binding. It leaves the “why” unanswered and treats 1978 as the revelatory event that matters. That is a narrower claim than 1949 or 1969, is the one that better reflects our knowledge and understanding, and it is the one the Church is actually standing on right now. I addressed some of this earlier. Their position continues to say it was a theory, but we know it was not. Actually, I think we do know it was a theory. We know that because we have no recorded revelation for it. I think that sentence bundles three different claims, and only one of them is clean. If you mean the Church now understates how authoritatively the restriction was taught—commandment, doctrine, the Lord’s policy, from Joseph on down—I agree the current essay could be more comprehensive. The 1949 and 1969 First Presidency statements, and President Kimball in 1973, did not talk the way the essay talks, and the essay does not specifically address them. A member who only reads the essay will not see how hard those claims were driven. If you mean the Church is hiding that leaders offered racial explanations, I respectfully disagree. The essay names those explanations and repudiates them. Elders McConkie, Oaks, and Holland already said the old reasons were wrong or folklore. The live question is not whether those teachings existed. It is whether we are still bound by them. Officially, we are not. If you mean the current claim about origins—no clear originating revelation, Black men ordained under Joseph, Brigham announcing the restriction in 1852—that claim is what the documents support. The part of the old teaching that does not survive contact with the record is “Joseph taught this from 1830 as a direct commandment.” That is the sentence Edward Kimball said went beyond the evidence in 1949. The same problem is in the 1969 letter. So I would not say the Church is fabricating a past. I would say it has narrowed what it will defend: the 1978 revelation stands; the old justifications do not; the originating commandment is not in the file. What it has not done well is describe, in the same breath, how confidently those justifications were once taught. Those are different failures. One is a historical correction. The other is an incomplete account of our own prior voice. I can appreciate the sentiment behind “get the skeleton out of the closet and bury it.” If it means: stop treating the priesthood/temple restriction as unmentionable, stop recycling the old justifications, and be honest about the pain it caused—then that work is already largely done. The Church published the Race and the Priesthood essay, disavowed the theories that Black skin was a curse or a premortal penalty, and leaders have condemned racism past and present. Elder McConkie said to forget the old explanations. President Oaks has said he never received a spiritual confirmation of those explanations and that the Lord rarely gives reasons for the directions He gives His servants. That is not a locked closet. That said, if “bury it” means a formal institutional apology that treats the Church as a single moral person who can confess, atone, and be absolved, I think that is a philosophical preference more than a moral necessity given what we actually believe about sin and accountability. “We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression” (AoF 1:2). The Church as an institution is not a soul. It exists only as living people who join it, lead it, and comprise it. The men who announced or defended the restriction are dead. They will answer for their own actions, words, motives, sins and errors. Current members and current leaders did not impose it. Collective guilt and collective apology are both theologically awkward in a faith that is as individualistic and this covenantal as we are. An institution can correct course, disavow false teachings, and change practice—which it did in 1978 by revelation and has continued to do in how it teaches the history. That is not the same thing as a living body of Saints inheriting someone else’s sin as a transferable moral debt. I also have reservations about some of the demands for an apology. Not all of them. Some people who are hurt and offended want acknowledgment, and acknowledgment matters. But some of the demands are, I think, pretextual: it is less about burying a skeleton than about requiring the Church to accept a particular narrative of its own origins and authority—that the restriction was only racism and never anything the Lord permitted or withheld reasons for—and then to perform a ritual of submission to that narrative. If the demand is really “concede that prophets were merely products of their culture here, and therefore here, and therefore here,” it is not mainly about healing Black Saints. It is about leverage for opponents of the Church, who I don't think give two figs about the welfare of the Church. Ulterior motives may well be in play that have nothing to do with righting a moral wrong. I can mourn the restriction, reject the folk theology that grew up around it, and still not think that a corporate/institutional apology from people who were not there is the moral hinge on which the legitimacy of the Restored Gospel turns. The hinge is still Jesus Christ, individual faith in Him, individual repentance, individual efforts, all combined in the service of the same God who “denieth none that come unto him.” Nothing to add regarding the FAIR article or the one by Gregory Prince other than to say they tried to reverse the ban which was a doctrine as taught by former LDS leaders. Not sure what you mean here. As I mentioned before, not all revelations were recorded. And the reason for the ban was considered a doctrine back then. But these days, it has become a theory. The differentiation is whether there was a revelation. Not only do we now have any such revelation, Brigham Young didn't even claim to have had one. He did not dictate a revelation in the Joseph Smith pattern (scribe, “thus saith the Lord” text, presented to the Church for sustaining as scripture). The 1852 statements were political-legislative speeches, not a temple-received or conference-canonized document. There is no contemporary record of a specific revelatory event that originated the policy, which is why the Church’s current history topics essay and Gospel Topics essay put the public origin with Brigham in 1852 and say records “offer no clear insights into the origins” of the practice. You seem to be leaning rather heavily on speculation along the lines of "Hey, there may have been a revelation that was either lost or never recorded." Could you elaborate? I would like to understand your perspective here. The Muslim verse of Jesus is only a prophet. The JW version of Jesus is Michael the Archangel. The Hindu version of Jesus is only a great teacher. The LDS version of Jesus is the first spirit child of heavenly parents who became a God. Another Jesus is the Eternal God. These are examples of different Christs. I still don't understand. If I say "When Clinton was in the White House...," I may be referring to Bill or Hillary, depending on the context. Bill is a numerically distinct "Clinton" from Hillary, and vice versa. Bill is a "different" Clinton from Hillary, and vice versa. However, if I were to say "Bill Clinton was a great president," and if another person were to say "Bill Clinton was a horrible president," are they speaking of "different," numerically-distinct-from-each-other persons, both of which just happen to have the same name? Nope. They are speaking about different perspectives and opinions about the one person: Bill Clinton. When Muslims speak of Jesus, are you claiming that they are speaking of a numerically distinct Jesus wholly differentiated from the Jesus of the New Testament? Or is it that Muslims have different perspectives and opinions about the Jesus of the New Testament? Person A makes this statement: "The priesthood ban and the reason for it were of God". Person B makes the opposite statement: "The priesthood ban and the reason for it were not of God, but from man". Entity C (the institutional Church) makes this statement: "The records of the Church 'offer no clear insights into the origins of this practice,' that Black men were ordained in Joseph Smith’s lifetime, and that Brigham Young publicly announced the restriction in 1852." Which of these is, in your view, the most accurate? Thanks, -Smac

An interesting point regarding the Byrd’s rendition of Turn! Turn! Turn: When listening to the song’s instrumental interlude one might mistakenly think that Roger McGuinn is simply plucking the individual notes of the song’s melody on his Rickenbacker 12 string guitar, but what he’s actually doing is playing an intricate double-time finger picking banjo solo on a guitar (he’s an excellent banjo player). On the following tutorial video, McGuinn’s famous 12 string guitar solo starts at 2:00. https://youtu.be/ZAejkh4rTjs?is=syJeD0trdF7kvxv8

Hi 3DOP The altar in Liverpool RC Metropolitan Cathedral is situated in a central position within the cathedral. With the laity benches positioned around the altar. The only place where there could be two benches, are in the sanctuary are near to the alter. Normally used by altar servers, other ministers. The positioning may differ from various church to church.

Several AI data centers are planned for Utah: Stratos Project (Box Elder County): Backed by celebrity investor Kevin O'Leary. Delta Gigasite / Project Oasis (Millard County): Proposed by Creekstone Energy Nine Mile Data Center (Duchesne County): Planned near Myton by Energence Utah The last link provides others: https://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/2026/0901/utah-data-centers-stratos-project https://www.sltrib.com/news/2026/09/09/delta-gigasite-worlds-largest-data/ https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/tracking-where-ai-data-centers-224122248.html

Hi Amulek. No harm done but... Are you thinking that it is customary for a Catholic priest to celebrate Mass in the middle of the building? I am not saying it is never done. I have never seen it. Above you describe Catholics as having "two rows of benches" in many churches. Benches with no backs to them? Only two rows? I guess those are for folks who aren't able to stand? Maybe I am misunderstanding the picture you were trying to describe? Most of our churches have pews with backs and kneelers and enough of them for the ordinary capacity of the Sunday Masses. I think maybe some of the Eastern liturgies worship standing? Benches would make it especially difficult for many of us older folks. I know I could not kneel longer than about five minutes without being able to support myself from the back of the pew in front of me. This is just a practical thing too. No one is required to, but most of us WANT to kneel at certain times during the liturgy, and perhaps for an extended time after communion, before our Savior (as we believe) is placed in the tabernacle. Carry on with the subject. I find it very interesting to see how different church architecture reflects different beliefs and worship forms...and as you are wisely suggesting, practical logistics. I have enough trouble with distractions at Mass, when we are all facing the same direction. I would be concerned that it would be hard not to be looking at our neighbors if the liturgy was provided while we were all facing each other in a circle. The kids would have to be taught not to wave at their friends. The center of the building can sound like a good idea. You all do well to consider practical problems.