Robert F. Smith

A Jesuit who took as his papal name Francis for St Francis -- the opposite of the intellectual Jesuits.

I thought Palmer's address particularly powerful, but don't recall what he said. It reminded me of a very different Conference address many years ago in which Spencer Kimball pleaded "Oh, come back,...Oh, come back." You are right about peer to peer conversations about coming back, and I recall a southern California bishop who told me that he had married a Roman Catholic woman, and regularly attended her church with her. Till one day she said, You need to decide whether you are going to be Mormon or Catholic. Both of them ended up LDS, and quite happy. I laughed when he told me that, because my Roman Catholic girlfriend and I had been attending that same Catholic church. We very much need to treat adherents of other religions (or no religion) with equanimity and respect. We never know which direction things will go . . .

A very sincere and knowledgeable scholar with a sense of humor. Some Latter-day Saints called her the "den mother" of the Mormon History Association due to her close monitoring of unprofessional behavior, and her instant handling of problems: On one occasion, Jan grabbed a small tape-recorder and stripped out the tape -- recording was not permitted. No one said a word. It was wonderful to have lunch with her and a couple of friends at an MHA meeting. She regaled us with her adventures as an undergraduate with a misogynistic professor.

You will notice a couple of major problems already with this YouTube video. It doesn't even attempt to convey the truth: Jesus, like all such victims, was crucified nude (evangelicals like to speak of the "shame of the cross"). Also, he had spikes through his wrists. The art here fails on both counts. Latter-day Saints might at least be expected to understand these realities -- one of which is dealt with in the temple. Indeed, on the west tower of the Salt Lake Temple, we find the image of Ursa Major and Polaris. Anciently, Ursa Major was known as The Wagon, which together with Polaris represented the unwearying circumpolar stars of God in Isaiah 14:13 (= 2 Nephi 24:13), and they symbolized eternity in the Bible, as well as in Phoenicia and Egypt. The Wagon was also known as the Seven Sages (who sit in the Heavenly Council with God, Isaiah 14:13), or as the seven threshing oxen (Septemtriones) which keep the millstone (plaga septentrionales) of the gods moving, with Kokob/ Kochab “Star” (beta Ursae Minoris) as the “millpeg” of the ever-turning and grinding mill of the gods. So, while Jupiter is Zeus-pitar "God the Father," Saturn is Jesus, the Lord and Pivot of the Mill of the Gods, i.e., he is Polaris, and Polaris is none other than the “north nail” or “World Nail,” the central nail or peg of the turning mill of time and destiny, and the way into and out of the watery abyss (the Maelstrom whirlpool) of death and hell. G. de Santillana & H. von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill: An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time. Gambit, 1969/ Boston: D. Godine, 1977.

I have the impression that he and his wife are trying to learn as much as they can. Maybe a book or article will come out of it. Maybe he will lecture at a symposium. Less likely is him and his wife converting to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints -- that would require a major spiritual experience for both of them.

No.

I often leave comments on his "Hello Saints" videos. This time I specifically commented on this 'body of Christ" issue (which he specifically addressed because it came up in that Conference session). I made two points: 1. Joseph Smith thought other churches had a lot of truth, but 2. did not have priesthood authority to act on God's behalf. I pointed out that this is the same problem Protestants have with Roman Catholic claims to that same authority (the Pope holding the keys of the kingdom and being a prophet). Since all of us are born with the light of Christ, any believer is part of the Body of Christ, even if not a formal part of the Latter-day Saint tradition. We are all simply on different places on the path to glory. All Christians need to be kind and generous to each other.

I did see his first Conference response, but cannot recall what he said. Been too long. In this case, he was very positive and was there with a knowledgeable LDS friend. I'd put it in the LDS faith-promoting category.

Pastor Jeff of "Hello Saints" attended for the second time, and here is his reaction:

Most people come up with variations on that theme, including flotsam-and-jetsam carrying seeds and critters (including bacteria) across the oceans. The problem is that not every living thing can survive that way, and, if they do, not all can automatically germinate -- some are domesticated and require careful treatment (maize and cotton, for example). Scientists know which can and cannot. John L. Sorenson and Martin H. Raish, Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas Across the Oceans: An Annotated Bibliography, 2 volumes (Provo: FARMS, 1996). John L. Sorenson and Carl L. Johannessen, “Biological Evidence for Pre-Columbian Transoceanic Voyages,” in Contact and Exchange in the Ancient World, ed. Victor H. Mair (Honolulu, HI: University of Hawai’i Press, 2006), 238–297. John L. Sorenson and Carl L. Johannessen, World Trade and Biological Exchanges before 1492 (New York, NY and Bloomington, IN: Universe, 2009). John L. Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex, 150–172.

See David Riesman, The Lonely Crowd (1950) Yeh. The social constructionists have been on their absurd quest to show that "man makes himself" (Sartre and Childe), but man has been what he was designed to be for thousands of mammalian years, and has little except technology to show for it. Man is little more than an ape with a smart phone. Could be that success is to be found by leapfrogging into another realm -- I Cor 15:53-55. The true next step of evolution.

Cheaters often push the notion of "everybody does it," but that is not true, except for the modern hippies in our population. Not the old geezers who can barely hold it together. And, yes, the trend to anomie is unprecedented. If it holds, the only population which grows will be the traditional one. All others will die out. Demography is destiny.

Yes, but that is also the case in traditional Muslim communities where polygamy is legal. Most men cannot afford more than one wife. Anciently, based on inheritance practices, the firstborn male might have more than one wife, and the women would likely be brought from another village. We know that from DNA (https://www.iflscience.com/bronze-age-families-appear-to-have-practiced-both-monogamy-and-polygamy-70377 ), but we already knew that from distinctive pottery decor coming from nearby villages (the women made the pottery). Thus avoiding inbreeding. Most humans nevertheless pair-bonded, and were not as likely to cheat as free-loving modern hippies (who remind us of nothing so much as bonobos).

Matt Baker, Useful Charts, also has a nice denomination chart available, here: The Bart Ehrman site also features a study of denominations, https://www.bartehrman.com/branches-of-christianity/ . Ready to Harvest has an excellent analysis of denominations, .

Margaret Meade's salacious Coming of Age in Samoa might give that impression, but her conclusions were dubious at best.