Calm

I would add one more, the Gospel Principles manual as it provides a very easy to read coverage of our doctrine, the closest thing we have to a catechism or manual for systematic theology. This edition trimmed some excess speculation imo and is more dependent on scripture for support than in the past. Still uses quotes from leaders, but not as much.

Thought some might be interested in this. I came across it due to Church Historian Press email (see link for their article below) that mentioned Spencer McBride’s short presentation analyzing the pamphlet. I was hoping they would include that, but unless I am blind it wasn’t listed. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/general-smiths-views-of-the-powers-and-policy-of-the-government-of-the-united-states-circa-26-january-7-february-1844 https://www.churchhistorianspress.org/article/newsletter/2026-july Here is a podcast McBride did on a related subject: https://mi.byu.edu/podcasts/maxwell-institute-podcast-132-joseph-smith-for-president-with-spencer-mcbride Here is a text of a nonLDS interview with McBride for his book: And a couple of positive reviews of his book (it’s been out for several years, I am just putting this up because I can’t find his analysis of the pamphlet recently done. I am assuming it is thoroughly discussed in his 2022 book): https://kirkcenter.org/reviews/of-prophets-and-presidents/ https://lawliberty.org/book-review/religious-liberty-put-to-the-test/ And found a different individual’s thesis on JS and religious liberty from Claremont:

Okay, that’s weird. Have those been confirmed as valid yet?

I think the sum total of the opposition we have towards God because of the natural man supplies sufficient opposition. 1000 1 kg weights are equivalent in weight to 1 1000 kg weight.

My choice…Lord, Is It Mine? by Supertramp Even in the Quietest Moments would be another good one except it is a bit ambiguous and could be either romantic or spiritual.

In this case might have saved the man’s life.

Loooove the analogy.

Unless “God” is both plural and singular or rather an individual and collective noun (sort of like “deer” or “sheep”, but not exactly that ); after all, we have God the Father and God the Son, both are God are they not? This is my POV, not doctrine… If the Father, Son, Mother, and Spirit are truly perfectly one with each other (whatever that actually means to God), then it also makes sense to see them as One.

I don’t understand how his comparison works then.

Surely water towers are given exceptions since they are both public utilities and height is an requirement for it to function. Neither is true for the temple.

Pure speculation: If Bullock was just taking notes and not attempting to do verbatim, then it makes sense that he might add his own thoughts of what it meant to add context. I remember doing this when taking notes in college classes, adding stuff the words of the professor triggered, not always just what he said. And there is a good chance I didn’t mark it as additions, relying on my then excellent memory to differentiate. Bullock phrasing it as speech could have been him thinking about how he would discuss it with Joseph later. Not pure speculation: I believe Wilford Woodruff may be another example of this as his notes on the discourse in his journal may have editorial comments, similar to what I am suggesting for Bullock. I don’t believe we have his original notes to compare, (I have seen this speculation by someone else), but he is known to have revised his notes when transferring them to his journal at least sometimes. https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/discourse-2-july-1839-as-reported-by-wilford-woodruff-a/1#historical-intro We even have the evidence of George Watts who is known to have added his own thoughts to stuff being published under Brigham’s name, not just in Watts’ personal notes. Standards of recording others’ comments for publication just weren’t as rigid back then unfortunately (and I do see it as unfortunate as I believe significant error crept in because of it). An expert’s opinion on accuracy of that time: https://fromthedesk.org/journal-of-discourses-shorthand/ Precision is the exception, not the rule. If they were typically willing to play around with shorthand where they had a chance to be precise, makes sense they were relaxed with longhand notetaking as well.

They can also cause skin irritation, especially if skin with the sap on it is exposed to sunlight…which makes using fig leaves to cover ‘nakedness’ not the best choice. 😛 Had to keep the title attached, lol I include this under “things that show just how evil Lucifer can be”…

https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/113398-troubling-allegations-against-former-sheriff-in-pinal-county-az-church-mbr/page/5/#findComment-1210271079 Since you appear to be explaining your process as part of helping me better understand your reasoning and comments, I am going to point out an example of how I often don’t feel listened to because you appear to respond as soon as you think of a response without further reading. This is not an issue in and of itself, I do this a lot. But then when I realize the point gets covered, I go back and edit my remark to reflect the additional information/comment. But it appears you on occasion at least don’t go back and remove questions or points that are dealt with later in my post even when you quote clarifications as well later on, so sometimes it appears you are not reading for understanding or maybe just not paying attention, ie “listening” to the rest of what I say once you form an idea about a specific comment I made. Could you clarify what you mean here? In the above link you quote my first sentence and then ask me to clarify it. But I already did that immediately following my question. “As in…” is a phrase that introduces a clarification. You then follow the request for clarification with a significant amount of response with additional questions that have nothing to do with my own point since I wasn’t talking about collective guilt, but a collective duty as is clear in my “as in” addition. My post that precedes yours that is linked above: Can you explain what is happening in your post as a response to mine? PS: I had brought up this behaviour before, but finding an example was too time consuming and I understand it can be hard to understand a criticism without an example of what is being criticized. I got sensible and kept track of one in case it came up again, so you would understand what I was talking about. I just have the one, so I hope it’s enough.

They can be both at the same time, like flags and clothing may be.

A major clue to whether or not someone is listening to engage or there to argue. I don’t find arguments that interesting. They tend to be repetitive lists of talking points that often are shallow. I find engagement fascinating and fun.

It would be a good idea if you were upfront about articles you are not trusting in this way as sometimes, I will be blunt, you come across as way too uncritical about some links you post, something I have in the past found surprising. I think everyone should be clear on what materials they are accepting as valid and what ones they have doubts on so others don’t waste their time or get sidetrack because they misunderstand the purpose of why someone posts something or gets the wrong impression that someone is more gullible on a topic than they really are.

Do you see yourself as talking more often about the “some” transgender people who are engaging in these behaviours than the “some” of straight community here (not just number of threads, but lengths of posts, amounts of links to support claims, etc)? Do you feel in the past two years you have invested the same, more, or less than effort into discussing transgender issues than straight? Do you see a higher percentage of transgender people involved in these behaviours or that it is more typical in the transgender community than the straight? In terms of absolute numbers, not percentages, which group do you see as having the largest number of predators? Which group do you see as having more social influence currently? Btw, I don’t assume what appears to me to be a focus of yours to be based on bigotry. There could be a number of reasons why you have this alleged (because I admit this may be an inaccurate perception, but I can’t check since the search function of the board does not work well enough nor is my interest high enough to go back and reread past threads to determine which subjects get the most content from you as well as apparent effort in research…meaning more academic treatments for me). I ask these questions because assumptions and perceptions help me understand the reasoning of others.

By the way you talk about it. Critiquing a group’s methodology consistently and pointing out the same things as needing to change is generally a cause in my book. Calling someone a crook and advocating for them to be punished in multiple threads would be a cause, but simply informing people about someone’s behaviour, offering judgment, but not coming back to it over and over when any sort of connection pops up, that’s not a cause. My tracking of the Daybells was a semi cause because I want people to recognize the dangers in some of the fringe groups in the Church. Same with Julie Rowe. I am appalled that her books and the Vision of Glories book were the bestsellers in the LDS market and a significant number of people made costly, unnecessary purchases damaging their financial stability because of their enthrallment with those beliefs. Same with Tim Ballard and his work being both fraudulent, manipulative, and distracting from actual effective efforts. I would put thread up after thread about them except that I don’t believe that will be any more persuasive. OTOH, my only concern with the Bisbee, Arizona abuse case was accuracy in reporting. I am not going to revisit it unless something new pops up. I don’t see that abusive father and mother as indicative of any patterns. They were anomalies, imo. Wee need to be able to get better at recognizing such, but that wasn’t the usual ongoing around them…though iirc we did get into the side topic of child protection and mandatory reporting there, which could and did turn the Bisbee threads into a cause discussion, which I joined in, but am relatively neutral on as I see pros and cons….except for better funding, I will always push for better funding as there just isn’t enough financial investment in the health and welfare off this nation’s children imo. That’s a scandal given how wealthy as a nation we are.

My take on taking Satan seriously is to recognize humanity in general can be very selfish, very self centered….which often leads to not caring about harming others. Selfishness can even get to a point where one delights in the pain of others somehow (perhaps because that makes one feel in control, powerful and therefore safe). There doesn’t need to be a specific super being of evil whispering in someone’s ear tempting when there is a significant number of regular guys on the street who like to kick others when they are down, push others off the heights and into the gutter, etc. who in spite of them bragging about their power trips and greedy grabbing still are the ones who look like they are living a better life than the nice guys. Plenty of temptations right in front of us that way.

Which may or may not be a third group, which could be quite small or quite large or most likely in my view, a symbolic number, one that is used probably to show his influence was significant imo.

This is a very good, accurate analysis in my view based off of my own classes and research since university as well as discussions with working therapists. Impressive. But much of my stuff is out of date though this honestly feels like such a basic standard that has consistently been proven more effective and it intuitively more sensible, I doubt that it will ever get dumped. Obviously if a client feels uncomfortable with a therapist they are less likely to participate even if forced to go. My daughter was a prime example of this, she just withdrew and refused to speak for the session. This is one reason why ‘fit’ is so important in the therapeutic relationship, if the client won’t open up, not much to work with. One of the fastest way to increase discomfort is for someone to feel judged. Avoiding judgment while helping the client see realistic consequences of their behaviour as well as helping them recognize there are other options to choose from which will result in different consequences is the hallmark of a good therapist, imo. A lot of therapists do personal therapy for themselves so that they learn to recognize their own biases, triggers, and also very important their own blind spots so as to make it less likely their own issues and own preferences prevent them from being effective with their clients, especially needed when it comes to judgment. That way they are better able to do what most of them went into the field for, help those who reach out to them for help.

But do you treat these as a systemic or cultural issue or as individual events, where the issue is one person’s behaviour with limited impact on society? Do you discuss these as something we need to prevent, that they show troubling patterns of behaviour we need to stop being normalized, etc? Are they a cause for you like gender affirming care or other transgender issues? Serious question as I want to know your own perception of your comments.

Except I am not dismissing your arguments for that reason and I am not addressing this lack of balance to make an argument. It’s a lack of understanding on my part why you are so focused on a small issue, it’s so important to you if one measures by time and effort spent on it while a much greater issue is a diminutive interest for you by the same measure (people spend time and resources on what matters to them). I am wondering why it actually matters to you because if it was simply that girls and boys were being harmed it makes much more sense to invest time and effort into a persistent and dramatically larger issue causing harm than a smaller one. First deal with that which harms the most, then seeks out lesser harms. At this point sexualization is a pervasive element in our culture, ignoring it (and by that I mean you pretty much push aside and spend very little time in the past when I bring up such things) is like ignoring a malignant bone cancer while focusing on potentially cancerous moles (many of which aren’t likely to be cancerous). PS: while I believe bigotry is one reason that some people focus on sexualization from some in the queer community, I don’t believe that’s the only reason why someone might spend an inordinate amount of time on that aspect of sexualization while ignoring the greater social context that such is rooted in and is most often displayed in heterosexual sexualization. Why you don’t see me ranting much on this board (I admit I have probably ranted about Dehlin, Daybell, and Tim Ballard and likely a few others)is because I don’t spend huge amounts of time and effort on arguments that will have little impact, including providing information. I don’t see constant repetition of the same claims that aren’t particularly well grounded as that persuasive for one thing. Also, I define rants as longwinded arguments that are more inflammatory than solid documentation (meaning actual psychologists discussing it academically and possible interpreting it in more popular language if dealing in psychology, but someone who knows the technical stuff as well to avoid the misinterpretations that happen so often when amateurs interpret technical language…because they don’t understand what is relevant and what isn’t, methodology, etc….like supplements being pushed as effective based on rat studies).

Apparently yes if you accept there are appropriate religious contexts for what other people see as adultery because they don’t believe God commanded it, but the client is of the religious belief God commanded it, correct? If for example, Joseph and Emma had gone to couples counseling over the practice and the therapist was nonLDS, it would have under that standard been appropriate for that therapist to encourage Emma to look at it from her husband’s POV, to trust him and not push for details if he didn’t believe it was right to share them because Joseph believed he should obey God and Emma should support him in that. —— Do you see that others argue against plural marriage and they define it as adultery because they don’t believe God would inspire anyone to live that way and therefore it’s the polygamist’s own wishful thinking or family pressure or whatever, not the Spirit, that convinces them…therefore they see no difference between that and someone convincing themselves it’s right because of other forms of wishful thinking?

But the context is not a religious discussion on the marriage, but the standards a therapist should be using. And if you insist that the term adultery, etc, do not apply to JS within that context, do you agree you are providing your own personal religious beliefs to argue such?