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Like the Angels who accuse, question, or oppose human beings, in Job 1:6–11 they questions Job's loyalty and Zechariah 3:1–2 one stands to accuse Joshua the High Priest of impurity for wearing filthy garments, but God does not allow them to have the final word. Numbers 22:22–35 an angel is going to kill Balaam but the donkey avoids the angel, the angel even says that if the donkey had not turned aside, he would have killed Balaam just because he didn't look to see him. Angels who execute devastating violence, like 2 Samuel 24:15–17 the angel who kills 70,000 Israelites. Then the angel is described as stretching out his hand to destroy Jerusalem until God commands him to stop. Job 4:18 "Behold, he put no trust in his servants; and his angels he charged with folly" Eliphaz's statement reflects an ancient theological understanding of the imperfection or limited standing of heavenly beings before God. The elder son who never left his father's home in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15:25–32 can be read as an angel who has remained home and was obedient, identifies as righteousness, but cannot understand the father's extraordinary mercy toward someone who has fallen. A righteousness that becomes detached from compassion. In Jewish and early Christian heavenly-ascension literature, humans interact with hostile angels who regard human visitors as intruders, question their right to enter, or threaten to prevent their ascent, often needing a higher-ranking heavenly protector to defend him against other heavenly beings. 3 Enoch 1:3–4, Angels threaten to throw Rabbi Ishmael down. Rabbi Ishmael specifically fears Qafsiel and the angels accompanying him. Metatron rescues Ishmael from their hands. Hekhalot Rabbati depicts the mystic who attempts to ascend must confront fearsome angels who will kill you if you don't have the passwords and seals. Angels seem to look down on fallen men, underestimate the evil inclination of earth, come down with good intent, only to fall themselves.

That's interesting. Could you give some examples? Would also like to better understand this. Thanks, -Smac

Angels aren't depicted as always with God's program, and don't understand human behavior, they judge mortals harshly in their tunnel vision or delusion of their own perfect state.

For my part, I don't care for the subtext, namely, that in the Celestial economy of God there are angels running around half-cocked, ready to slay, but are then warned off by the Son of God. God's house is a "house of order" (D&C 88:119, 109:8 and132:8). But oh well. It's a TV show. Thanks, -Smac

This video is, upon further reflection, pretty discouraging as far as assessing Dan's reliability as a purveyor of "scholarship." I suppose he is reliable as to matters within his purview (biblical scholarship), but he then goes well outside of his domain and uses the same presentation techniques (screen caps of articles, quotes, etc.) to use studies that favor his perspective. Across the four studies examined (by Grok) above, McClellan’s pattern is consistent: he selects directional findings that align with a political conclusion, presents them as decisive “data,” and omits or minimizes the methodological limitations the authors themselves emphasize. In each case the underlying paper is real and reports associations. In each case McClellan converts qualified, low-certainty, or purely descriptive findings into stronger causal and policy claims than the studies support. The rhetorical effect is to make contested political judgments appear as straightforward conclusions from “the data.” That is the consistent feature of his citations in this video. Disappointing. But for Grok, I probably would have taken Dan's assessment of these articles at face value. I think a lot of his audience do that. I think that reliance is, here, misplaced. Dan's conclusion (from the YouTube transcript) : I asked Grok if Dan has ever addressed the Cass Report (the conclusions of which go very much in the opposite direction of what Dan is saying about "the research"). The response: In substance, I think Dan's citation to articles amounts to a contradiction between his findings on what "the research" shows versus what Hillary Cass found. A Grok summary: Kinda hard to square this with Dan's professed devotion to data > dogma, where the "dogma" in view is his personal opinions about transgender issues. He cherry-picks a few articles that favor his presuppositions, overstates or misstates or mischaracterizes their findings, does not give his audience much of any indication of this, and then sums them up as "the research." And he does this while seemingly ignoring the entirety of the Cass Report, perhaps the single most important piece of literature on the subject. And his statement of what "the research" shows conflicts with the Cass Report. Thanks, -Smac

Another article Dan cites: Dopp AR, Peipert A, Buss J, et al. Interventions for Gender Dysphoria and Related Health Problems in Transgender and Gender-Expansive Youth: A Systematic Review of Benefits and Risks to Inform Practice, Policy, and Research. RAND Corporation, 2024 (also summarized in RAND Health Quarterly). The Grok critique of Dan's use of this article: Thanks, -Smac

Haven’t read complaints. Are any upset because of no wings?

Another article Dan cites: Bird K, Arcelus J, Matsagoura L, O’Shea B, Townsend E. Risk and protective factors for self-harm thoughts and behaviours in transgender and gender diverse people: A systematic review. Heliyon. 2024;10(5):e26074. doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e26074. A Grok critique of Dan's use of this article: Thanks, -Smac

Went looking for a spear like that one and came across this article that agrees with your descriptions: https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/2026/11/03/the-chosen-season-6-upsets-fans-with-native-american-african-angels/ Also pointed out angels could look dang weird, so why the rants? “ The Bible doesn’t really align with the complaints here in terms of how it describes angels, in that they take many forms from exceedingly normal to totally bizarre. We have: Angels that look like totally average humans, like the ones who came to Abraham or went to Sodom. Angels that are more intimidating with an “appearance like lightning” and pure white clothes, one that shows up at Jesus’ resurrection. Angels seen in prophecy which have four faces, human, lion, ox, and eagle, with four wings and bronze feet. Angels that attend God with six wings that are called Seraphim, which stems from a word that means “burning.” The point here is that there are a whole lot of different types of angels, and the ones with two feathery wings and gold halos and robes and harps are not really described in the Bible at all. So it stands to reason that sure, there could be warrior angels taking the form of human fighters across time. Even if that format isn’t mentioned specifically in the Bible, it seems clear that angels can take many forms. We’ll see how fans react when the full episode is out.”

Dan also cites to another article: Campbell T, Mann S, van der Meulen Rodgers Y, Tran NM. Mental Health of Transgender Youth Following Gender Identity Milestones by Level of Family Support. JAMA Pediatrics. 2024;178(9):870–878. doi:10.1001/jamapediatrics.2024.2035. A Grok critique of Dan's usage of this article: Thanks,, -Smac

I speculate that communism might work on a small community where it is easier for the person on the street to see the lifestyles of those in charge so it will be more difficult to set up a hidden class system. I think with any government, the more transparent the better, which often means big is not always better. Communism has been tried in religious communities, for example. Probably the closest mankind has gotten, imo. Russia was definitely not a communist state even if it pretended to be. Never been to China, but from what I have heard, class is still going strong, beside the usual elite, there is a major difference between urban and rural. Not actual communism, no matter what the label. I don’t think they even typically claimed to be communism, but working towards that, but haven’t researched much. Now can the ideologies tied to communism actually work given human nature or are they doomed to be derailed eventually…that could be a decent discussion, imo.

Also, Dan cites to an excerpt from an article: Liu M, Patel VR, Reisner SL, Keuroghlian AS. Health Status and Mental Health of Transgender and Gender-Diverse Adults. JAMA Internal Medicine. 2024;184(8):984–986. doi:10.1001/jamainternmed.2024.2544. I asked Grok to assess Dan's citation ("About his citation to 'Journal of the American Medical Association Health and the 2024 US election,' what is that article, and what is your critique of it?") : Thanks, -Smac

Back to Dan McClellan: Quite an interesting and substantive critique in some ways. Not sure how accurate his characterization is of Stuckey (e.g., her purported opposition to 3 things: sex education, free access to contraception, increase access to women's healthcare). I did note this comment at the 1:04 mark: "I would suggest the data do not support the conclusion that people in general matter to Turning Point USA." He provides no dataset, study, survey, or operational definition. “People in general matter” is not a measurable claim that can be tested against a body of evidence; it is a moral evaluation of motives. By attaching the word “data” to it, he converts a political judgment into something that sounds like an empirical finding. And he seems to do this quite a lot. This is the same rhetorical move he uses when discussing the resurrection, the Book of Mormon, or other religious claims: “the data do not support X.” In those cases the underlying method (methodological naturalism) already excludes the conclusion, so the appeal to “data” is largely circular. Here the move is simpler and more transparent. Turning Point USA is an organization he dislikes on political grounds; labeling that dislike as a conclusion from “the data” gives it an aura of objectivity it does not possess. The pattern across his content is consistent: When the topic is inside his academic specialty and the conclusion aligns with critical consensus, “the data” tracks recognizable scholarly evidence. I commend him for this. When the topic is contemporary politics, contested social-science findings, or religious claims he rejects, “the data” frequently functions as a shorthand for “the evidence that supports the view I already hold,” without the qualifications, counter-evidence, or definitional clarity that actual data analysis would require. I find this problematic. The Turning Point USA remark is especially stark because it offers no data at all—only the assertion that data exist and point against the group. That is ideology speaking in the register of scholarship. Thanks, -Smac

Btw, according to chat, only Lenin and Stalin identified as Social Democrats, the rest did not, so it’s odd you are using them as evidence.

Great response! and besides was communism and socialism perfectly executed in every country? no!

And social democracy with socialism. (Did look up stats to doublecheck my memory using AI, but commentary is all my own, so no quotes; on my phone so no links today…this is common knowledge after all.) The best countries to live in if one cares about quality of life rather than wealth (and personally I think anyone who cares more about what they possess than how they live is dysfunctional at some level) are the Nordic countries (excluding Iceland here in the calculations as it’s an outlier in many things, while the others hang out together for the most part). Their economies are social democracies that even allow the operation of capitalism!!! They have privately owned businesses, competitive markets, entrepreneurship and innovation, even stock markets. Their governments are based on a constitution that has the prime minister and parliament running the country (in those that are constitutional monarchies, the monarch is mostly ceremonial). They even have a variety of political parties and have had conservative and liberal governments, etc. Some are even having issues with far right gaining power….how can that happen in a socialist country? Because they are constitutional governments using social democratic policies….much like what many liberals in the US want…and for very good reasons, given the examples. What do they have that the US doesn’t have? Much higher health care rates due to universal health care. And they pay less overall for that quality. They average around $7-8,000 per capita while the US is almost twice as much, close to $15,000. People who don’t want universal health care because they believe it will cost them more are not informed. In education, some are better than the US in some categories, some are worse, I would say the US holds its own in this area overall, but my guess this is because the wealthier families end up balancing out the more impoverished ones as the functional literacy rate is much lower for the US. Government spending per student is about the same, but more US dollars go to private than public compared to the Nordic countries (they invest more in the public education system, including more professional training for teachers, much more consistent quality across the board vs the elite schools that are available to the wealthy and the lucky scholarship kids. Crime….one of their countries, Finland iirc, is closing prisons because they don’t have enough prisoners to keep them occupied. But that doesn’t mean they are more at risk because of lax policing or justice system letting the bad guys get off with a slap on the wrist. They have more than 5 times less murders than the US does. Theft is hard to judge because of difference in reporting practices, including reports of minor theft. They have significant more reports of minor theft, but much lower rates of violent crime. It makes more sense to me their attitude to crime is its worth it to report minor thefts because something will be done about them, it won’t get lost among the more serious stuff, but I need to research more to confirm that. Spending on crime prevention is also much less than in the US, almost half in some countries. So less crime, better health and education for all their citizens…all for less money. These governments were mostly established using constitutional reform, elections, etc. Finland is an exception as there was a revolution—the Reds (the actual socialists) lost. And yet somehow social democracy (as in such programs framed in a constitutional republic—like the US) is inherently oppressive and violent because it’s really socialism at its heart, not reforms applied within the existing democracy… Btw…on one measure for liberty, the Nordic countries score in the high 90s (Finland is 100). The US scores 84. This is consistent with many such measures. Another measure of Freedom put out by the Cato institute iirc, has the US second lowest in the group, but still playing in the same ballpark. So much for oppression and personal and economic freedom. Social democratic reforms do not equate to socialism nor are they inherently violent or oppressive. They can be an excellent way to go for governments who care about all their residents.

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I agree. I typically state when I am using Grok, but I did not do so here. My apologies. I have edited my post to include identifiers. Thanks, -Smac

I have a friend who is checking on this. Another one remembered having one and then not, but can’t remember the reason it wasn’t allowed…was thinking safety issues like hay bales and candles (mice and fire hazards), but you can use artificial trees and not put lights on them even, so now we are both depending on the first to satisfy our curiosity. Hopefully he will be able to find out. Remind me to check my email if you don’t see a post here as that’s an address I don’t have to check daily and it can go for a week or more between looking in.

Rewatching the revisioned Planet of the Apes films from a number of years ago. Rise/Dawn/War, hoping to catch the additional, Kingdom. Found the special effects to be very good. I remember the original film series from when I was younger, with Charlton Heston and Roddy McDowell, also the TV series.

and confusing socialism with communism

It seems like there should be a board rule requiring a disclaimer when the majority of a post is written by AI

The following is a simile of the "Fountain of All Righteousness" being Faith, Hope and Charity. This illustrates how these principles apply to our progression and remain as "pillars" In the lower, right-hand corner is a birds-eye view of the spiral staircase and is likened to God's eternal round progressing from Faith, Hope and Charity endlessly. The next diagram shows how the symmetry works for the scripture about knowledge and intelligence

On a few random occasions, found myself getting forgetful as to why I entered a room, as 3DOP previously mentioned. Seems like a good piece of advice from Emily. As long as I don't forget which door I came in by 😊.

That's the Threshold Effect or Door Effect. It's not an old person thing. It's a memory storage thing. Working memory has very limited capacity. To avoid information overload, the brain routinely "flushes" details to free up mental space for whatever it expects to encounter in a new environment. Walking through a physical threshold signals to the brain that one event has ended and a new one has begun so it treats it like walking into a new environment and clears out working memory. It happens to children and teenagers and young adults as well. They just aren't worried about going senile so they don't particularly notice when it happens. Also, I think as you get older and collect responsibilities you tend to have more on your mind to fill up your brain or distract you before you step through the door. Stepping back into the room where you were before will often restore the memory. Then you just need to concentrate on what you wanted and not get distracted with other thoughts when you go through the door. 😄 I always figure cats don't have threshold effect memory issues. They stand in doorways SOOOOO long before stepping through I'm quite sure they know exactly why they went into every room. 😝