the narrator

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.