The Nehor

A lot of Christians think he is a an apologist for Mormons because they don’t understand what the LDS Church (and a lot of other restorationist churches) teach. If they did they would know that a lot of what Dan says is disliked and derided by people of his own church. I have seen people on the web commenting that the LDS church is pro-LGBT because Dan is. Also people claiming that LDS people in general are very skeptical of biblical historicity to a degree I rarely see in the Church because Dan seems to be that way.

Fundamentalism arose at the same time as advances in archaeology and evolutionary science began to provide a solid case for a naturalistic explanation for the universe and threw doubt on the historical claims of the Bible. So some retreat to a very literalist and absolute view of religious historical truth claims as a way of pushing back. When it seems like the ground you are on is eroding you tend to view anything that could potentially erode anything as a threat. Hence fundamentalism. Islamic fundamentalism showed up shortly afterwards.

They had the books of Enoch at the time of Jesus because they were written between the 3rd century BCE through the the 1st century. They are pseudepigrapha. They were written at that time and attributed to Enoch. Even at that time the rabbis knew it didn’t actually come from Enoch. Also most of it was originally written in Aramaic which wouldn’t make sense for a hypothetical pre-flood language or if it was passed down for millenia. If it were passed down for millenia the original language (or the oldest copies we had access to) would be in Hebrew.

Also again this is evidence that the Christian Nationalists (Pete Hegseth is one) do not think LDS are part of their cool kid’s club. It baffles me that so many members want the US to be labeled a Christian nation and privilege the Christian faith even after those advancing this agenda repeatedly indicate that they aren’t including any kind of Mormons in this privileged position. Has a “Jews for Hitler” vibe to it.

No, it is not. The US is for religious pluralism. At least it used to be. The whole idea was to avoid the religious wars and conflicts that wrecked Europe with the Catholics fighting the Protestants. We seem determined to want to tear down Chesterton’s fence to see what will happen. You mean like the touchy-feely LDS when a lot of us cried over not being labeled as Christian. Or is it only “touchy-feely” when the other minority faiths want to be recognized? It has been my experience that people who complain about snowflakes and people being too easily offended are generally just self-identifying as exactly what they are complaining about. 200 codes? So what? That is easily doable and can be maintained easily enough. Hegseth is just trying to give a more palatable explanation. That it is nonsensical and actually collects less data is overlooked for some reason.

You generally can’t get out of military service via conversion. In the case of Jehovah’s Witnesses specifically the church won’t begin the formal conversion process for anyone serving in the military. There is currently a way out of the US military though. Get prescribed testosterone or estrogen for dysphoria and they will let you and/or force you to leave. I know of about four people who were delaying a diagnosis due to serving in the military or the reserves that were planning to finish their time before transitioning that took the diagnosis to leave early. Avoiding the potential of being sent to the current conflict zones is a strong incentive. I also know one guy who was already transitioned who was pushed out due to the rule change. He mostly wanted to stay but was frustrated as his promotion opportunities were being sabotaged due to bigotry.

Is this irony intentional or unintenttional?

I don’t buy it. Does this guy have inside information? So did they reach out to Wiccans and ask them if they wanted to be delisted? Doubt it.

Believe the unhinged reasons the appointed administration gives off the cuff. Don’t believe the PR people who come in afterwards to try to give more palatable reasons.

What? Doubtful. Plain and precious truths and a vast correct knowledge of the cosmos? So the cosmos was plain to them? Also doubtful.

Because none of the readers back at that time thought they did.

No, they often have to view them as potentially dangerous in terms of regular physical assault and murder too. It is kind of lumped together.

It is not rhetorical hyperbole. Why do you seem to be worried more about the idea that men might feel bad when they find out men as a category are responsible for the overwhelming majority of cases of sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape over and above the victims of those acts? Men should take that reality seriously and act to change it. If a man’s response is to get huffy and offended they really don’t sound like they possess much in the way of virtue or empathy at all.

I know and you can find that reading in the D&C. I am objecting to the way many in the Church take Bible verses that weren’t intended to support a doctrine of premortal humans and retroactively saying they do. The most common one was the boast by Jeremiah about how God knew him before he was born. That was oneupmanship. Other prophets were said to have been chosen in childhood or in the womb so Jeremiah was staking his claim as a super prophet.

Yeah, there is no sure thing as an indirect descendant. I suppose you could use it as referring to an uncle or something but you aren’t their descendant in any sense nor are they your ancestor.

The Rephaim appear to have been demigod heroes. Later they were portrayed as giants and became villains. This probably coincided with Israel’s slow switch from polytheism towards monolatry as the Rephaim as demigod heroes no longer fit well with the new theology so they became enemies to be conquered. Also while the Israelites made a big deal of who was a descendant of whom if this is at all a representation of any kind of actual history they intermarried and everyone was a direct descendants of everyone.

Have a short video about how men reflexively dismiss women’s concerns.. If you don’t want to lose you faith in humanity don’t read the comments:

The people in Romans 11:2 that God foreknew are Israel or the Jews. It was not intended to refer to any form of preexistent or premortal state.

Yeah, there was a big push in the late 40s and the early 50s to coopt Christianity as a political force and align Christianity’s goals with those of the elite. This was a part of that effort. It sought to tie patriotism to Christianity and both to the status quo.

The Bible is a pro-slavery book. There isn’t really a contradiction there sadly.

Generally men jumping in to tell women how to be safe (usually after a crime has occurred are not helpful. And I disagree about individual men taking responsibility. Other men should take responsibility to socially shame and discourage predation by other men. Many men who wouldn’t assault a women validate the culture where men do assault women.

The desperate need to parse out guilt is unhealthy. The best metaphor I know of is that we all live in a broken down apartment building. Because of the flaws in construction and ongoing damage to the premises by people in it the place is unsafe. It is more unsafe for some than for others. Minorities and women find the premises more unsafe. Now a lot of the problems were there before any of us got here. Some are neglecting maintenance they should be doing and others are actively making the situation worse. The goal is to fix the building we all live in. Parsing out exactly how much of the responsibility lies on the original builders, those who lived here before, and those who are living here now aren’t productive and are mostly used as a dodge by people who think they see advantages for themselves in the broken down nature of the place because their living situation in it is marginally better. So do we fix the house or do the people in the better apartments just whine about how everyone else is trying to make them feel guilty when the call is to figure out how to fix the whole thing. We’ll probably collectively choose inaction and suffering over improvement because this is what humanity tends to do. We could choose differently but we probably won’t.

Men generally don’t hold other men accountable for harassing and making women feel unsafe. Many defend and downplay. Women learn quickly most men won’t listen or help so they turn to a kind of collective self-defense. It is not the guilt that is usually imputed. Most women know some men are safe or at least safer. However the caution women live with is there and has nothing to do with guilt. They can’t operate on ‘innocent until proven guilty’ because the stakes are way too high for that presumption to matter. Low bar but that is where we are at. We are terrible at the latter. Woah, I don’t think we should jump straight to Bible burning. Reporting often doesn’t help. I really wish it did. I know a few people whose lives were ruined by reporting misconduct. It is not enough to say people should report. We have to defend those who do report. We are terrible at these. Create environments where situational awareness is less necessary. Note this treatment has to extend to all women or the message is muddled. If it only applies to close family and friends it can be a toxic message. Also the main goal would be for sons to not treat women badly. Teaching women how they ought to be treated is good but the threat comes from the boys and men. Except due to many factors men tend to listen to and go along with what men say and do over what women say and do. You’re splitting hairs and trying to make it about you again. And again it is about you. I dislike that the lived experience of so many people is such that these kinds of lyrics are an accurate and relatable experience. I don’t think paving over the problem by complaining about people signing and writing about horrible experiences is helpful. Refusing to speak about problems means they are here to stay. The counsel of scripture is, of course, much more mixed. Also the culture of the Church is not conducive to defending victims. Sometimes it manages it. Sometimes it does not. Too often rape culture is seen as a women’s issue that has to be solved when men are overwhelmingly the people causing the problem. Also if women would just be situationally aware, wear the right clothing, stay out of certain areas, and live in a kind of maximum safety then bad things won’t happen….to them. Just to the bad women who bring it on themselves by being a little less aware, dressing slutty, or going to the wrong places. There is an expectation that women have to police themselves perfectly or they (to some level) deserve what happens. Sometimes this is just blatant victim blaming. Sometimes it is people wanting to believe in a just universe rationalizing what the victim did wrong that led to the event so that they can assure themselves it won’t happen to them or to people they care about. That if you do the right thing you will be safe. You see this in any story where a man rapes or assaults a woman. It also fixates on the less common forms of assault where strangers are the aggressor. More often it is acquaintances or friends or family or a spouse.

A lot of this seems to come down to an argument that some poor people are bad people which is yeah, so what? Some of the oppressed are bad therefore status quo that oppresses them is somehow good? No thanks. A lot of my friends are fleeing Texas to avoid persecution and denial of medical care so I don’t consider Texas to be some glorious utopia and many of those I know are drowning in medical debt and can’t buy a home and all that fun stuff. I think a lot of these problems can be fixed and I don’t think the impoverished are causing them.

I think this approach in thinking that the non-elite white people would not support this is incorrect. However, it is not off the reservation thinking. Those who think it are in good company. This was actually what Lincoln was thinking would happen. There was a hope that those who benefitted the least from slavery would be uninterested in the conflict. Sadly historians who do deep dives into the correspondence of Confederate soldiers have found that the lowly privates and other enlisted of the Confederate army were, generally speaking, very pro-slavery. The groundswell of Confederate dissatisfaction with the war from the relatively poor never materialized. They appear to have largely bought into the system they were defending even if its benefits to them were relatively minimal. The cynic in me thinks this is best explained by the old quote from LBJ: "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." There is a huge advantage of creating an underclass below your poorer classes. Having someone beneath them is a reminder that things could be worse and help you buy into the status quo. LBJ was from the South and was a staunch member of the Southern bloc in Congress throughout his career. He knew how racism in the South worked inside and out and the “Lost Cause” mythos the Confederate historians wrote was built up to build this kind of loyalty to the status quo even if it didn’t benefit you much individually.