Calm

I have company that just arrived, so I had AI polish it up for me as I don’t have time to reread and check stuff, the points are all mine: The heat and energy involved in bringing that much mass together would be a problem if the goal was to preserve all those individual pieces intact. Once you have anything approaching enough mass to make a planet, gravity takes over. Everything is pulling on everything else, material is falling and colliding, and all that motion and compression generates enormous heat. You’d expect melting, mixing, and eventually differentiation, with heavier material sinking toward the center and lighter material moving outward. So if God wanted to keep the pieces, fossils, geological structures, etc. intact, He would actually have to prevent many of the natural processes that would happen when you bring that much mass together. And what would be the benefit of keeping the bits and pieces intact anyway? If God was going to use material from old planets, why not bring the material together and let it go through the natural processes that would occur when enough mass forms a planet? He could accelerate or direct those processes if necessary. Gravity, heat, melting, differentiation, etc. would actually help produce a functioning planet. Plus, where the different planets were joined together, you’d expect some sign of differences. Different planets should have different geological and chemical histories. We’d potentially see differences in minerals, isotopes, radiometric ages, etc. Instead, Earth’s rocks show remarkably interconnected geological relationships. The fossil problem seems even bigger. If the fossils came from other planets, then the organisms represented by them would have lived and evolved on those planets with likely different chemical signatures. Why would fossils from completely different worlds happen to fit together into a coherent sequence that looks like the history of life on Earth? Of course, God could do all of this. That’s not really my argument. My question is: why would He? He would have to bring pieces of other planets here after having first arranged identical to our own solar environments for each, preserve them in spite of the enormous forces involved in assembling a planet, keep their fossils and geological histories intact, make the different pieces compatible, and then make the resulting planet function as though it had developed as one coherent world. That’s a massive amount of extra work to accomplish what exactly? If the purpose is to make a young Earth look old, then we’re left with an uncomfortable theological problem: God would have deliberately constructed the physical evidence so that its natural interpretation would be a false history. Why? To tease us? If God uses natural processes we don’t yet understand to accomplish things we call miracles, that’s one thing. But deliberately making the Earth look as though it has a history it doesn’t actually have seems like something quite different. So I’m not saying God couldn’t make Earth from prefabricated pieces like a jigsaw puzzle. I’m asking why He would choose such a complicated process when He could simply use the natural processes involved in planetary formation—accelerating or directing them if necessary—and produce the coherent, functioning planet we actually observe.

I agree completely with this above. I think the “no blood in immortal bodies” is speculation. “Flesh and bones” just doesn’t mention blood, it also doesn’t mention cartilage, tendons, brain tissue, nerves, organ tissue, and more. Are we assuming those also don’t exist in immortal bodies? The only thing revealed in scripture that specifically refers to excluding blood iirc also refers to flesh, so it must mean something besides immortal bodies can’t include blood. https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1 Corinthians 15%3A50&version=NIV

We have never been popular with the Russia government. We were over in Moscow during the elections where one candidate included us in his list of religions to be banned. The guy was a jerk anyway so didn’t hurt my feelings. 😛 Treatment of Saints by government qualifies as outright persecution. When we were there in 93 and 95, there was active hate and refusal to interact with Americans (we put Canadian flags on everything, legit since we lived in Canada at the time even if American citizens). Elders*** were often followed by gangs and one pair told us the “hooligans” (what the locals called the juvenile gangs with nothing better to do besides harass passersby) actually attacked them. Nothing major but I was grateful my son didn’t end up there like I thought might happen because if his stays there and interactions with Russians over the years through family. Didn’t help one of my husband’s friends was assassinated by mafia backed by the Moscow mayor and my in laws were warned by the US gov they would not be able to be protected once they got threatened when they tried to resist their travel company being grabbed by the mafia (they walked away from it). I don’t know how the ones on the street feel about Americans these days. They might have hated us, but they were wanting to consume anything they could get from Hollywood, our music, etc, so I wonder if that opened to more positive feelings outside the government. I admire any Russian Saint who stays active in the faith. ***we were told “elder” implies something like “magician” in Russian, so old women were always make a protection sign when they saw the elders coming. Never double-checked that. They also got spat on a lot. Typically they laughed it off, but they did take refuge at our place once when a gang was following them a little too aggressively. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fig_sign I wonder if this is what they meant, only a dark version: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starets

Ouch!?!

I have done it myself for stuff online and known others who have as well, in one case I know it was changed based on the input, can’t remember in other cases. Doing so resulted in my being part of a survey group (covered something unrelated, but obviously it showed they appreciated rather than ignored my input).

Given the apparent eagerness (based on investment) of the government to prosecute, seems like it’s a good assumption that the charges would not have stood up and that is why they weren’t filled.

I find it’s a good idea to refresh the page before writing a post and if a long post, copy it before hitting submit just in case the “are you a robot” or other spam blocker function kicks in because it’s been too long since the last verification of my sentience. Refreshing doesn’t always work, but seems to catch most of them.

I don’t understand. Analytics’ example showed a drag show being investigated under the earlier statue, Why wouldn’t that demonstrate sufficiency in covering drag shows?

My guess is this is what Meldrum (Iknew he was young earth and hoped he mentioned it somewhere) believes because he dismisses the age scientists give for fossils because fossilization over long periods of time has never been observed directly, in the lab or out of it. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1808&context=msr Also AI (this is an accurate summary according to the ideas I have seen from this very unfortunate model):

This is the one I heard growing up.

I take it you really like her.

I doubt it if we are talking about her then beliefs and the current doctrines and not about her being given a chance to learn the development and reasons for the changes. Same with the Restored Church though. Neither are excellent matches for how doctrine was understood in Joseph’s time, which I assume is the set of beliefs Emma most likely possessed, whether she accepted up to Kirtland and no further or she also accepted some, many or all at some time of the innovations of Nauvoo. But I don’t see that as a negative, but to be expected. Change to me is a sign of possible continuing revelation, which to me is an essential sign of God’s Church. I think how much trust would depend in part on the time of the references. By 1879, it seems she is willing to present the history in ways that most appeal to her, which to me makes anything she says problematic. If she is willing to alter stuff on plural marriage, why not other stuff. But that doesn’t mean to me we should automatically label earlier material as untrustworthy. We should be looking at factors likely contributing to her choice to misrepresent, go with the more ideal image, seeing when they occurred and look at the rest of what she in the time/context, compare those to what we know elsewhere to see how we might use her comments with care. She died in April, 1879. Interview was in early February. Do we know anything about the state of her health, both physical or mental? She wouldn’t be the first senior who truly believed her own version of history in the last years of her life, even with that version obviously being wrong (My grandmother, for example, insisted her husband’s name was Leroy and Roy was his nickname even when confronted, Leroy was the middle name of one of her sons, arrived at by combining her name that started with Le with Roy most likely). Sometimes dementia is obvious, but lots of times seniors are very convincing that they are representing things correctly.

I don’t view either as persecution, the death threats were one or two times expressions of anger from guys (my memory says three, but the third guy might have just labeled me an apostate, fifth columnist without the threat…has been too long and the details are blurring) who struggled in life with insecurity as far as I could tell and I was threatening to cut off one of the places that contributed to their sense of self because of their refusal to abide by that board’s rules. They saw their defense of the church as justifying breaking the rules (that board worked hard to treat members and nonmembers alike due to the owners and original posters’ experiences of biases treatment on other websites). I don’t think the threats would have been as disturbing if it happened now when such things are way more common and drastic. The threats were pretty mild, not particularly graphic and iirc leaned more to telling me I was deserving of death without going into detail of how it would occur. Mild stuff from what I have since read about. At the time I couldn’t conceive as someone saying even that just as a way to vent. I saw them as deeply mentally disturbed and therefore unpredictable (because I knew so little of what they were thinking and nothing of real life behaviors). Now I can unfortunately see that adults can indulge in such behavior without consideration for the other quite easily and without much dysfunction besides selfcenterness and lack of empathy. As far as my husband, it was basic office politics. I have my doubts the other professor or the assistant dean even believed the accusation or at least cared about it as there was no request or follow through for an investigation (the female professor was a hypocrite if she thought it was a valid accusation since she obviously didn’t put effort into or concern herself with respecting the women around her from their accounts) knowing my husband even a little and were more likely just using it as an excuse to justify office skullduggery (the mini dean did some other underhanded stuff that looked good on paper and he got his promotion, moved out and left behind a somewhat decimated department), in the process killing my husband’s joy in his job. Thankfully another university came calling shortly after and worked hard to get him to come there and that reinvigorated his love of teaching and his work (except for publishing osiers, he always disliked that part, though I think he found the actual research fun). That was a very hard year for my husband. He’s a very easygoing, likable, charitable guy who likes people himself. Very non critical (a little too noncritical in fact). Having someone attack him in that way really threw him (though he downplays it now, I remember his pain well).

Because she fought for them, correct? In part, because she did not want them to be in Brigham’s control from what I understand, but also as an inheritance for her and Joseph’s children…

So what do they conclude she saw these teachings as since it seems at times she rejected them as revelation?

Arrogance would be a better word here I am guessing. Someone with no pride wouldn’t talk back or stick up for themselves, compromise all the time, etc. Pride can be healthy, arrogance is the dysfunctional form of pride, imo. Self-respect, self confidence, dignity, high self esteem are positive forms of pride. I view Emma as having pride, great pride in some things…it helped her find value in the sacrifices she chose to make and were demanded of her by circumstances. I would say she respected/had pride in herself, Joseph, their relationship, their family, God, and Joseph’s mission.

Good question, especially if this just isn’t AI interpretation but what they said in the video: “the central aim is to treat Emma as a full person”. (Can’t give you rep points yet)

Good point, but mentally I need context because when I read it’s a conversation with the author for me and with nonfiction it matters to me that I visualize the person semi accurately (unless it’s a textbook or something else that’s generic rather than original thought. So I prefer to get some bio even though I recognize there are several valid reasons for anonymity (privacy and potential of threats and even action) and was anonymous myself in not sharing my name at the request of my daughter even if I shared location and lots of personal details (I did receive some hate mail as a mod on another board, including one suggesting I was going to die and go to hell in the near future which really disturbed me at the time as I met him in real life, but apparently he was leaving it up to God to exercise justice on his behalf). It’s not even just church leaders. There are crazies among members (my hate mail was from members) and nonmembers. It can also affect jobs as I have read people saying they refuse to hire LDS. My husband, a professor, lost a position he was to be appointed to because another professor who wanted the job told the assistant dean my husband wasn’t appropriate because he saw women as less being Mormon. That professor was awful to the secretaries according to the secretaries who worked with my husband as they told me she would bully any one under her and kiss butt of those over her while my husband was their favorite boss as he was the only one who treated them with respect all the time, like equals (which has been my experience with him as well). They even wrote a letter to the assistant dean in support of my husband for the job, but no go.

I agree as well. I don’t see anything in our doctrine that prevents that. There’s references to if prophets err, it will be made known…implying they will err, which sounds like “man-made” to me. Could just be policies, but logical to me it also includes doctrine that is a result of misinterpreted revelation or possibly filling in the gaps the wrong way.

Thanks for the back story, good to hear (also sad given LDS aggressively arguing with him).

Timing…Moroni buried them around 421 AD, he got them around 385 AD, the year the Nephites civilization was destroyed and all but a few wiped out. (Remnants were being hunted) (this was actually not needed, but somehow my brain randomly jumped where you covered timing in your post and I did not do my usual rereading of a post before posting as the skipping over parts is not unusual. Mormon 6 Moroni 10:

glitch

If you look at what you quoted, it does not say he buried them with the rest of the plates. Joseph certainly didn’t find other plates with the BoM plates. Given the Lamanites were hunting for any survivors to kill them, why would he stay in the same area? The plates were said to be about 40-60 lbs. That’s not too heavy for someone used to combat and long treks. US soldiers carry 72 lbs when marching apparently and my guess is Moroni was fitter, having most likely lived a much more physical life than many Americans do in childhood. https://sk.sagepub.com/ency/edvol/encyclopedia-of-military-science/chpt/combat-load#_

It’s probable gopher was making a joke. If he read the original post it made it clear. They were commenting on a problem with the title. I responded in the same vein.

Cool