The Nehor

Not just stand by. Deliberately put them in harm’s way and then not intervene. An active choice not to intervene. Good point, I don’t want to do that work. That is sick. If that is the highest righteousness then the laws of the cosmos I live in are depraved and sick. The hero of Omelas isn’t to be found in the ones who walk away. It is the person who hopefully one day goes in and rescues the suffering child and lets Omelas burn it that is the result. We find God’s rest in suffering and death. That is really screwed up. I don’t find the idea that someone suffered more than me edifying anymore. I can be grateful to someone who suffered more but it seems like God’s highest honor is to suffer and die for Him. A God of Martyrdom and Pain. Why do I want to be like this guy? Then my eternal reward is to allow the suffering of my own children forever and ever because that is the only way to find happiness and eventually get to do the same to my grandchildren? What kind of screwed up MLM is this? Excuse me, I would like off of the ride now please!

The video did lay out the timeline you say they omitted and I suspect the DA is playing ‘fast and loose’ with the facts. https://people.com/cornell-jane-doe-s-family-swatted-at-home-12164905 Not according to her attorney. Which you did just now by saying that mobocratic outrage was “utterly wrong”. You dismiss the mobocratic injury/murder attempt on the female victim and then tut about people being upset at the male perpetrators who, even if this isn’t something that can be criminally prosecuted, are still RAPISTS. She appears to have consented to the first two guys…..dubiously. Then those guys invited more guys in on the fun. You know who does that? Big Rapey Raper McRapersons. And those offended by the idea that they might be held accountable are targeting the victim with violence…..repeatedly. This is not new. This happens in many publicized sexual assault cases. The misogynists act to intimidate, silence, harm, or kill the victim. IT BAD. IT RAPE CULTURE. Please stop carrying water for them. K thx bye

I’m not sure that is faith anymore if it expects nothing. That is like saying I trust someone completely knowing they are unreliable when I am in need. What is the trust based on? Maybe just being reliable in another life? Yep. And being told that I am so fortunate doesn’t help. It is like saying you should be happy. God could have made it so much worse and even did for a lot of people throughout history and up to this day. So I should trust God because he could have made it so much worse and he did for many of his children? That is supposed to be a consolation for anyone with empathy? Yeah, if God seems to make overhyped promises of prosperity and joy here and I find it underwhelming then I have a hard time getting excited about more promises that could also be overhyped. I just sometimes wonder if God is even needed in that equation.

I used to think there was. When my faith started to ebb after failed revelation I experimented and found that with the right mental and emotional stimulation I could replicate what I used to call revelatory experiences. So I went looking for continued reasons to press on elsewhere.

“Seek and expect miracles.” - President Nelson Trying to lower or get rid of expectations is really pushing against the grain of scripture, prophetic counsel, and the whole vibe of church culture and admonitions. I mean, sure, there are the “and if not” admonitions that sometimes you won’t get it but my brain can’t work on this level. How do you fully expect the best and all kinds of miracles and then shift to a kind of resigned stoicism and then go back to optimistic expectations? Wouldn’t just a more moderate realism be more palatable than advocating for a roller coaster ride. I sincerely envy the people I see in Church (and elsewhere) that can seem convinced the best will happen and then it very often doesn’t and then in the next situation they seem to think the best will happen again. HOW DOES THAT BRAND OF OPTIMISM SURVIVE BEING ALMOST PERPETUALLY WRONG?

I wish the scriptures were better at teaching that instead of effusively talking about being blessed in all things both temporal and spiritual or pouring out blessings that there is not room to receive and the regular ‘if then’ statements that obedience leads to prosperity. The prophets should probably have stuck with the “underpromise and overdeliver” bit instead of the opposite.

Some people take “mourn with those that mourn” to mean explain why the person shouldn’t be mourning and their mourning is wrong and bad.

No, that is how magic works in some fiction. It is not how ritual magic was supposed to work historically and even that varied from culture to culture. A lot of Jewish and Christian ritual magic involved being morally pure and upright before God and not being in that condition meant that it wouldn’t work or (in extreme cases) it would drive you insane or even kill you. Being contingent on obeidence is not unique to ‘approved’ religious ordinances. I don’t believe that the reason clergy was professionalized was due to the complexity of ordinances. Even if it was the whole of the Torah suggests that complex ritual ordinances are not something God despises. Our temple ordinances are not exactly simple and quick. Not all forms of ritual magic require some perfect language. This was a thing in Jewish magical practice for a while especially when they were convinced the Hebrew language was divine and many believed it was a key to understanding how God created everything. I think it is more a resistance to change. People generally don’t like change. I’m a pretty bad Latter-Day Saint by most standards at this point. As I said Ritual magic is often much more involved than the . If you like horror movies the movie “Dark Song” is about two people doing an extended Abramelin ritual, a Kabbalistic magic meant to summon your guardian angel to grant a request. It is reportedly very dangerous…hence why it is a horror movie. Another form of magic or possibly a religious rite that has strange parallels to some LDS rites is the practice of Jewish Merkabah mysticism. Based on Ezekiel’s chariot throne visions it is an attempt to descend and reach the throne of God. You have to pass a bunch of guardian angels and these angels are not the loving kind. They are the “kill all humans” kind. It requires all kinds of ritual purifications and learning secret signals and passwords you have to use to get there. If you fail you might be expelled, might be driven insane, or might die. Even if you succeed you might be wounded. If you succeed you approach the throne and can measure the form of God…possibly inspired by how Ezekiel had exact measurements of things in his writings and the Book of Revelation does the same thing with its space station sized city of New Jerusalem. Some scholars have pointed out that Paul’s being caught up to the third heaven thing sounds a bit like a Merkabah trek through heaven. This could mean the thorn in his side might even refer to being metaphysically wounded by a guardian angel. You were also not supposed to share Merkabah experiences with non-initiates which might explain why Paul was so cagey about relating the experience. He starts out talking in the third person and then admits it was him and he seems to have only done so to prove his legitimacy. Earlier in the letter we read of “super apostles” coming after Paul and teaching some other stuff. Did Paul break his silence in order to hold on to the congregation? We know Paul had an ecstatic experience in the Book of Acts that led to a lot more Gentile proselyting. Was that the same experience? So is Merkabah a religious rite? A magical ritual? Something in between?

That could easily be a very codependent relationship I am reminded of this old blog post I saved:

Fun Fact*: Jane Doe has been doxxed online and is receiving regular death threats and threatening phone calls in general. On Tuesday she was swatted. Someone called in a false 911 call about her family’s home reporting that shots had been fired. The clear intent was that someone would get injured or killed. Police approached with weapons drawn scaring everyone and the family is now blocking out their windows and increasing security. A nice warning from all the rapists and rapist supporters that women should not try to hold men accountable for their crimes. We sure do love our misogyny don’t we? And some people say rape culture isn’t real. What clowns they must be. *Fact is actually not fun at all

Then how do you react when God doesn’t provide a home, clothing, and food and everything necessary? Or they weren’t and/or aren’t being cared for in a loving environment? If you put God in front of a family court to testify about how He trusted his children to mortal parents he knew were abusive or would be abusive God would have to say that he did do that. God would be judged an unfit and negligent parent. You can appeal to a larger context where everything will eventually made right or things will be healed but that is cold comfort to those enduring pain now. And then God is going to have to send those children to spirit prison/hell to ‘fix’ their unbelief in this loving God that put them in that situation because they are horrible sinners by virtue of having been born. It is a pretty screwed up way to run things.

I didn’t say it did but in this context where she was the one who was much more insensate the idea that she forced herself on them is ridiculous and counters the facts of the case as reported. The more pointed thing is that in a group sex encounter it is very difficult for one person to assault or rape two people at once especially for an AFAB person. The whole point of my ‘edited’ explanation is to make people think about that without outright describing why because it would likely get me perma-banned from this site. Yes, men can be raped. Orgasming is not proof of consent. It is very weird that you seem to want to make the assailants who were answering text messages about free sex with a drugged up girl into co-equal victims. For anyone interested this is a consistently good source for information on prominent legal cases reported by lawyers and they released a video this morning on the case and the DA comes off REALLY badly:

Do you seriously need an anatomy lesson in order to see how very unlikely that equivalence is? Well, I suppose someone has to tell you sometime. You see smac when a mommy and a daddy love each other very much…… …..and when the mommy and daddy decide to expand this and invite other people to join….. …..realistically two at a time with each woman due to limits of flexibility…….. ……and a woman would be less likely to be able to initiate if out of her mind on drugs. I also doubt the guys were as drunk and/or drugged out as the victim. Ketamine massively inhibits libido. Alcohol degrades”performance”. Your attempt to make those who planned this rapefest as somehow morally equivalent to the victim is disgusting and misogynistic.

No, it takes a lot to prosecute someone from profiting off actual abuse or tragedy. Alex Jones spent years actively encouraging his followers to harass the families of the victims of the Sandy Hook shootings as crisis actors and frauds before they could organize a civil case and it still isn’t over yet years late as he tries to hide money, delay the payout, and dodge responsibility. That was causing active harm. This is just trying to threaten based off of probably imaginary evidence of imaginary abuse cases Ballard hopes will garner sympathy for him as he spins a web of conspiracies supposedly closing in on him. Those still supporting him are too stupid to connect basic dots and realize that he is claiming he is sitting on evidence of active and potentially ongoing abuse and holding it close to protect himself. If he was the hero he plays in his really bad movie he would release that data to try to save the children instead of leaving them in peril to protect themselves. Assuming they actually care about abuse victims at all.

Correction: Clearly it also really annoys you so it accomplishes more. I suspect the Church left it out because the Church knows that acknowledging climate change is real irks a disturbingly large portion of their membership and forces them to choose between two things they have made a large part of their identity and it hurts to deal with that kind of thing. So publishing it that way could have pushed people towards a decision point. I have no idea how you imagine Cato’s comments were worthless. Keeping Carthage in the public’s mind was part of the reason the Third Punic War happened. I am not saying Cato’s comments were vital to that happening but it was part of a larger effort to keep that potential threat in mind. And Billie Eilish? The conservative callout of quasi-legitimate hypocrisy to discredit her and ignore the more important “F—- ICE!” element of her message as Native Americans are being swept up and detained in ICE raids because ICE goons are so stupid and badly trained that they don’t know what tribal IDs are or they are so racist they just don’t care. ‘This person isn’t perfectly consistent in everything and is therefore bad’ while you are an apologist for government goons rounding people up without due process. Oh, and F—- ICE. May they all end up in the gulags they built for others. Reprehensible trash humans led by reprehensible trash humans and supported and cheered on by reprehensible trash humans.

Whataboutism about how childish you are? Le sigh.

Same reason those grifters who recently announced they had comprehensive and definitive proof that they had found Noah’s ark (again) but somehow never get around to actually releasing the data. He’s got nothing. This whole demon woman persecuting me and everyone turned against me and I tried to hold off on incriminating/beating the Church/woman I love thing is standard narcissist and/or abuser behavior and pretty standard mentality. I didn’t want to do it but she left me no choice but to hurt her. On some level he probably even believes it.

If the physical city is going to be returned it will require a lot of miracles not to destroy everything in a large radius. If, as some suggest, it was the whole Gulf of Mexico and the land is coming back soon it would wipe out all life on Earth absent multiple miracles. Just like it would have required a miracle for it being pulled up in the first place to not leave devastation in its wake and large scale evidence of what happened unless that evidence was also miraculously removed. Because I was carried away to a black sabbat and danced and copulated with demons and was inducted into the horde of Satan and now I must obey the Dark Master or I will lose all the benefits of membership and I really need that 5% discount on Amazon.

Proverbs 8 is a personification of wisdom speaking. Saying that Yahweh possessed wisdom before the earth was doesn’t say anything about premortality or the relationship between Yahweh and humans. Are you imagining that the writer of this section of Proverbs was, despite making it clear that he is personifying wisdom, is secretly claiming that he had a premortal existence. Wholesale inventing the idea and then hiding it behind metaphor…..why?

The Bible absolutely does not clearly say that humans are the same species as God.

I don’t think it works theologically or philosophically either.

The scriptures respectfully disagree: “And I said unto them that it was a representation of that awful hell, which the angel said unto me was prepared for the wicked.” “…and they who are filthy shall be filthy still; wherefore, they who are filthy are the devil and his angels; and they shall go away into everlasting fire, prepared for them; and their torment is as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever and has no end.” That is a modern negotiation with scripture to try to make hell more palatable but the Book of Mormon and Doctrine and Covenants suggest it is a place God prepared. It can be both but the idea that it is primarily a state of mind isn’t scripturally supported. Wait, hold on. First you said God didn’t create hell and it is just a natural consequence of fundamental laws of the Universe that even God cannot change. Now you are saying that the existence of hell is evidence of God’s love for us. What? How? Whuh? So God couldn’t change it even if they wanted to but we should also see its existence as proof of God’s love? So you want to give God credit for something God didn’t do? Why? PICK A LANE! I find Lehi’s reasoning eloquent but also naive and pretty nonsensical. Lehi doesn’t define at all what “all things” mean and that vagueness makes it useless for figuring out anything. There must be an opposition to what? All moral acts? All physical acts? All emotions? All reason? All the natural forces of the Universe? Opposition to God? So when I wrote an email this morning to a friend who just lost his dream job due to something incredibly unfair why did I not feel or experience any opposition to that act? What was supposed to be opposing it? And since there was no opposition does it not count as a moral decision? If I joyfully signed up for this I am an idiot. Then again if it turns out there is some spirit being inhabiting my body that leaves at death I am less and less convinced that entity is me. With memory lost and the fundamental differences in nature I think when I die I die and am gone. That entity might go on but I doubt it is me even if it somehow carries my memories. Also I question the validity of enforcing a contract that one party has no knowledge of. Seems a little unfair. It does make people arguing that Spirit Prison is somehow a place of learning or waiting seem a bit silly. Sure sounds like ongoing torment. I do find this whole idea disturbing. Apparently on death you suddenly know exactly how vile virtually everything you have done in life is. Then you immediately feel guilt that you didn’t feel before or at least not with the same acuteness you did in life and get to suffer by a standard you didn’t know existed and in some cases didn’t know about at all. Yikes! And this is happening to the bulk of humanity because they never got the gospel. Also does this mean that those with emotional conditions or disabilities who feel intense guilt about everything are actually what we should aspire to be? Are they the ones that see reality more clearly than the rest of us who are oblivious to how horrible we all are? And Alma got this realization in life and most people won’t so that doesn’t seem like it is much of an applicable message. It is a kind of cautionary tale in a “The Christmas Carol” sense but it isn’t going to happen to most humans and the only people getting this warning through the text are the ones least likely to actually need it. Also as soon as he turned to Jesus everything turned to joy and happiness. That was easy. I have tried to do some repenting in my life and it doesn’t work like that. What is this story supposed to be teaching?

An inevitable rebellion against truth that we cannot escape. There is no way to not rebel. Setting up a standard where someone is inevitably doomed to fail is not good. Creating an escape hatch isn’t proof of any deep and abiding love. It is common decency. You also present a false dichotomy. Either people roast in hell for a long time until they beg God for forgiveness for doing something they could not avoid doing (which is still all kinds of screwed up) or there is no way and they are there forever. Those are the only two options. An omniscient being sat down to figure things out and this is what they came up with? Really? Behold the mercy of our God. He pushed us into a well….or if you want we agreed to be pushed into the well because it was the only way to progress I guess. Then God wants praise and thanks and abject humility and deference because God was nice enough to lower a rope for us to climb out with? I mean, the Book of Mormon calls humans wretched and all that but God designed us and designed the world we live in so if it went wrong is it really not on God? These don’t follow each other naturally. Broken down this is saying if there is no objective morality or maybe a subjective morality that God imposes the Universe wouldn’t exist. This whole sequence is filled with so many baked in presuppositions required for this to work that it is virtually meaningless.

Yeah, but the new model is just the old ‘vending machine’ model with extra steps. You may not get blessings in this life but, trust us bro, you are scoring all kinds of brownie points in the next. When you test God’s promises and they fail does it really make sense to rationalize that the promises work but just work in an untestable way? Maybe….kind of….I dunno, I don’t find it that comforting or helpful.

I agree with the scholars. That doesn’t mean it is not about the end times. It is just that the writer of Revelation thought the end times were going to hit very very soon.