cinepro

If you don't have a dog in the fight, then it probably isn't Confirmation Bias. It would more likely be an Availability Bias, where things that are more recently emphasized and discussed come to mind more quickly, so when you hear a statement in General Conference you link it to things that have prominently been in the news (like the upcoming US election.) Availability Bias

When it comes to the Second Coming, I think this is one of the best talks I've heard:

Sometimes the remake is just better than the original...

While it's great that it was dismissed, I am disappointed that it wasn't dismissed based on the merit (or lack thereof) of the accusation.

Not sure if this ever got discussed here, but since it was such a big discussion back in 2018, I wanted to make sure everyone saw how this turned out.

Where did you hear this rumor?

The true value of a theory (and some might say the only value of a theory) is the effect it can have on someone that doesn't already believe it. So tell me: what is the value of your new "reworked EmodE" theory to someone that isn't already committed to the idea that the Book of Mormon is true? You might be thinking that the more complex this theory gets, the more convincing it is because that makes it less likely for 19th century authors to have created it. But I'm not sure it works that way for someone who doesn't already believe in the supernatural nature of the creation of the book.

I agree. Reading old Ensigns (1970s - 1980s) is definitely more towards the "BYU Studies" end of the spectrum. Articles where you can actually learn stuff. Now it's almost full-Watchtower.

I might be missing something, but it seems extremely odd for someone who has been on this forum for two weeks to accuse someone else of being a sock puppet. I mean, even if JasonMonroe were a sock puppet, if it were someone whose time on this forum predated August 3, how would you even know who it was?

I predict that six months from now, that will be part of the apologetic theory.

If people filling in gaps on the facsimiles with made-up stuff and overestimating their ability to translate the Egyptian and therefore deceiving people bothers you, I have terrible news.

Assuming the "angel Moroni raising" you refer to was outdoors, outdoors is much safer than indoors. Especially if you're singing and spending a lot of time near people indoors. https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1

It might be more correct to say that apologetics is dancing with science, and science is leading.

Uh, that's what I said. It is most honest to say that we don't know where the BoM came from. Unfortunately, that doesn't help the believers' case. I would also be wary of being overconfident in the "EModE findings" and what they mean. I don't know how long you've been in the apologetics game, but things like that have a way of circling back and biting you in the behind.

It's not Richard's job to explain who wrote the Book of Mormon. Even if we don't know who did it, that doesn't mean that "God did it" is the logically compelling argument. It simply means that we don't know who did it, or how Joseph did it. It is enough for Richard to simply say that the evidence doesn't support your theory about the origin of the book. Sure, his "Joseph did it" theory may not satisfactorily explain what you present as evidence that there is "Early Modern English" in the book, but I'm pretty sure your "God did it" theory also doesn't satisfactorily explain it either.

Here's a picture they posted. I don't remember which language they said.

Today my nephew was doing a Zoom chat to open his mission call. His sister had printed it out so he could read it to us all. He started at the top and went paragraph by paragraph, until he got to this part: "You are hereby called to serve as a missionary in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You are assigned to labor in the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone." I admit it. I laughed.

It's something I've never heard, and it always seemed pretty obvious to me that the rules might be different for missionaries and GA's, so your question seemed extremely odd. I mean, when was the last time you even saw a GA in public wearing a short-sleeved shirt with a tie?

You would first need to establish that your assumption was correct. Do you have any references for that ever being given as the reason in any published statements by the Church?

The outside shots never show what is in front of the choirs, so they could have had big speakers playing back the pre-recorded singing, or they could have played it off an iPod. It wouldn't matter at that point. And since the editor could change the shots as needed, they didn't even have to do a really good job lip syncing. Once the recording is being done in a studio or controlled space, there are a lot more options. Since the space is acoustically treated, they can playback the pre-recorded organ and it won't be audible when they mix the sound with the real organ recording. Or they ca

I just watched it again, and it should be pointed out that the choirs aren't actually being recorded in their outdoor "performances" (there are no microphones in the long-shots, and they're on a beach in New Zealand!) They obviously pre-recorded it (probably in a studio or other acoustically prepared space) and then lip-synced it in a more scenic local setting. I'm guessing they had a backing track (organ or something simpler) for the recording. In a studio environment, there are a lot more options.

If it's loud enough for the singers to hear, it's loud enough for the microphone to pick up. Although if they were all outside, there wouldn't be any reverberation so you might be able to play the original track over it and have it not be too noticeable.

You are correct. If you see "enormous health risks", they are probably imagined. In order to measure the risk, you would need to know these factors: What are the odds that an individual speaker has been infected with Covid-19? Since no speaker appears to be symptomatic, what are the odds of a speaker being infected but non-symptomatic and producing "viral droplets" to such a degree that they create a viral residue on the pulpit? Assuming that such a risk of contagion has been created on the pulpit or microphone, what's the risk of the virus surviving to the degree that a

There was a child in a ward on my mission (in the Eastern US in the early 1990s) who waited until they were 9 because they thought they weren't ready. Of course, the fact that they were mature enough to think that makes me think they were more ready than most 8-year-olds, but they didn't ask me.

On the subject of missionaries coming home, the Church appears to have solved the problem with crowds at the airport. We had one missionary from our stake coming home from South America and his family just got a call from him when he was already at the airport ready to be picked up. Another family in our stake has a missionary in the same country and hasn't heard when they'll be home, so they're expecting to get a phone call out of the blue any day now!