the narrator

Kirk should not have been killed. That was evil and wrong. Unfortunately, what you said is precisely what Robinson thought, and it is looking more and more like he saw Kirk as the symbolic, if not actual, vehicle of hate that drove a wedge between he and his father. Besides wishing more empathy for himself and other LGBT persons (an empathy that Kirk saw as evil), Robinson seemed to maintain most of the conservative and gun-loving ways he was raised.

No disrespect, but Antonin Scalia's opinion about the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution in District of Columbia v. Heller has likely harmed hundreds if not thousands of people, including children, by ensuring that guns will be increasingly accessible to those who wish to do harm with them. And I'll add that the frenzied and unhinged opinions of the idolatrous gun worshippers add to those numbers harmed by pushing legislation to expand their Second Amendment right to worship their gods of steel, leads, sulfur, charcoal, and potassium nitrate.

You are giving them way to much credit. They're not that rationale. I have resigned to the reality that I can do nothing to change the world, for the good or for the worse. All i can do is care for and love those close to and around me. Those who care more about guns than children can... Nevermind.

I'm not calling everyone who has a gun a gun worshipper, but I very much, along the lines of Spencer W. Kimball's "The False Gods We Worship," see the relationship that the most ardent gun-advocates have to their weapons of death as idolatry. If a person's response to yet another school shooting is a callous and unwavering appeal to their interpretation of the second amendment that would allow for no regulation that might save future lives, then, yeah, they are idolatrous gun worshippers. If that hurts their feelings, oh well. My first amendment right hurts them far less than their love of the second amendment has done to these children.

Thank you for that. This highlights just how much of a personal decision abortion should be, which the pro-life movement tends to abstract away into largely nonsensical debates over heartbeats and such while ignoring the complicated and deep relationship the mother (or father) may have with the zygote/embryo/fetus as either a person or potential person. (For the same reason, a woman [or man] can have vastly different experiences with miscarriages depending on many factors.)

*No parent goes to bed at night in tears because their child was killed by an abortion. *No parent goes to bed at night in tears because their child was killed by a movie. *No parent goes to bed at night in tears because their child was killed by a video game. *No parent goes to bed at night in tears because their child was killed by rap music. In 2024 in the US, parents of over 5,000 children went to bed in tears because their child was killed a gun--the leading cause of death of children in the US.

I know you're not doing this, but I get so tired of gun worshippers comparing guns to cars in their pathetic arguments. The purpose and design of a car is to transport people and things. The purpose and design of a gun is to kill--any other supposed utility (such as self defense, which very very very very very very very very few people need) is dependent on that purpose and design. Cars are routinely redesigned, and laws are passed, to make them safer and less deadly with the hope that fewer people will die. Guns are routinely redesigned to make them more efficient in killing, and laws are passed by their idol worshippers that make it easier for people to use them to kill others.

A quick Google Books in early 19th century literature search shows very clearly that "first estate" was a common reference to the state that Adam and Eve were in the Garden (as well as for angels in heaven). Read it in that context, and it seems to be very much discussing Adam and Eve.

As Grant Underwood (JSPP editor) would say, Joseph Smith was not God's fax machine. And I think the same rational of what Joseph "heard" should be applied to what he "saw"--which I think best explains the various First Vision accounts.

Ding ding ding. Especially this: As far as I have seen, the apologetic effort to point to possible poetic structures within English Book of Mormon as evidence of its historicity has yet to fully explain the provenance and literary chain of events from the original creation and recording, through whatever number of replications of the text, Nephi/Mormon/etc’s transcription on metal plates in a non-phonetic(?) script, and Joseph’s translation into English.

And yet no complaint against Longview, who arguably was the one to derail it by commenting about chiasmus. Hmm..... Also, stop acting like I wanted to make it about anything but a direct reply to and participation with the claims you were making. If anything, you are derailing the discussion with your odd red herrings.

Perhaps, but he never said what he wanted, just that "Your comments are welcomed unless you are the narrator" oh...I guess I should have read that whole sentence.

Please explain how my comments on how rhetorical tropes may be a product of brain function is derailing the thread.

insult? Please explain.

Let me fix this for you "this is a structure that is repeatedly and may or may not be intentionally used in an orally dictated English translation of a purported Nephite discourse"

Lolz. I had one sentence about it. Why aren't you getting upset at Longview for replying only about chiasmus? Seems like it's not a supposed derailing that bothers you but maybe me pointing out that poetic structures might not indicate what you think they do.

Probably not what you are looking for, but in his recent Dialogue article, Bill Davis shows how some supposed "Hebraic-like" poetic structures claimed by Skousen are instead adaptations of New Testament passages.

Longview brought up chiasmus. But the relation of brain function and rhetorical structures isn't limited to chiasmus. If you want similar studies that include anadiplosis, here you go: "Memory and Literary Structures" Repeating Words, Retelling Stories (this refers to the question of whether these rhetorical tropes are a product of memory or for memory as the chicken-egg controversy, and argues for the former). "A Cognitive Ontology of Rhetorical Figures" (this doesn't discuss anadiplosis directly but argues that further studies should include it and would likely see the same result) "A Mirror on the Mind: Stevens, Chiasmus, and Autism Spectrum Disorder" - this is particularly interesting to me, as I think it very likely that Joseph (like myself) was on the ASD. (In short at a fundamental level, ASD brains organize/structure reality in a way that is prone to creating various poetic structures, which is why many musicians happen to be autistic. For example, it seems rather clear that Eminem is able to do what he does because he is on the spectrum.) (I'm also of the view that only a small fraction of people on the ASD are even aware that they are.) Slightly related, but most about something else. IMO William Davis's recent article on Skousen and Carmack's EME claims should settle the matter.

Nor were most ancient peoples. That's because (if these arguments are correct) chiasmus is a natural result of brain retrieval in oral performances. It wasn't something that ancient peoples consciously constructed but rather a reflection of the way in which our brains retrieve and report information when speaking extemporaneously. Whether or not you believe the golden plates existed and contained a record of ancient peoples, the BofM as you have read it is 100% a 19th century English dictation, as is the D&C. If chiasmus is a natural result of how the brain recollects information in an oral performance, then it is instead evidence that the English BofM was orally dictated (regardless of whether you think Joseph was a translator or creator). Chiasmus and parallelisms are not necessarily Hebraic structures. They are present in the stories of virtually all oral cultures. This is the basis for the studies I mentioned, which ask why they were present in virtually all oral cultures but began to disappear as writing and technology replaced oracular traditions.

There has been some recent scholarship arguing that instead of an intentional form of writing, chiasmus is a natural result of memory retrieval due to how the brain stores and recollects information in oral presentations, which explains why chiasmus is present in virtually all ancient cultures but began to disappear as writing and technology replaced orality. In other words, rather than being a tool for memory, it's product of memory. "UNDOING FORGETFULNESS: Chiasmus of Poetical Mind – a Cultural Paradigm of Archetypal Imagination" "Chiasmus: A Phenomenon of Language, Body and Perception" If this is the case, then chiasmus and parallelism (which may be even more so a product of oral speaking) is less evidence for the BofM being ancient and instead highlighting the oral nature of Joseph Smith's translation/dictation.

Trust me, I’m fully aware of what the rhetoric is, and, yes, everything you said is rhetorically true, but in practice the Church’s contemporary interpretation of its doctrines and practices (which are always in flux) will always trump any individual’s personal inspiration. So thus while the rhetoric of leadership may be for someone to pray to ask “if” something the Church or a leader in the Church says is of God, in practice they are being told to pray to know “that” it is. Thus, prayer does not determine the validity of the Church’s position, the Church’s position determines the validity of one’s answer to a prayer. This is precisely what is implied in your very response, which already presumes the message of the Church to be from God: “ to take that message to Him and ask it to be imprinted upon our hearts.”