Calm

Is that how the “I was inspired by the wrong answer” is actually explained? I remember the story of going down the wrong road for a short distance, but can’t remember who shared it to doublecheck how he phrases it. I understood it as God allows us to continue to understand something incorrectly rather than forcing correct understanding, may even do something that we might interpret as confirmation (I think of it as more him just conveying ‘I am okay with you working on that level”) when we can learn something of value even with the wrong understanding rather than God telling us something wrong and we hear and understand that revelation/inspiration correctly. As to the rest of your point…all our allowance for God answering our prayers in various ways (immediately or delayed, yes, no, maybe, conditional, etc) does make the belief unfalsifiable imo as we always have a valid doctrinal reason for it not turning out the way expected. Added: found it…it is presented as giving the wrong answer…or rather the right answer to a different question…what road should they take in order to get home safely with the least amount of problems and worry. Since they took the wrong road first and were able to quickly see it was wrong, the least amount of time was wasted. But it does have God giving the wrong information to the prayer asked even if they later accept it was the right answer for their actual needs. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/new-era/2005/07/wrong-roads-and-revelation?lang=eng Added again….it also shows that Pres Holland expected himself to have doubts and likely change his mind even after receiving strong inspiration of the right road if he was getting conflicting information afterwards (the right road didn’t look that right until they got to familiar places) because of his belief they were both told to go down the wrong road first so that doubt wouldn’t later cause him to turn around and go back to try the wrong road when it was much later. So either it was not unusual for Pres Holland to second guess inspiration (I think that is a very human and reasonable thing to do) and even act against it when in doubt or in his efforts to come up with an explanation, he created a rationale that didn’t match his typical behaviour. I think it’s more likely the first (added third time: not so sure now, see below post with video, this might be wishful thinking on my part)…which is both reassuring and troubling. Why would one be confident in acting on inspiration for major things if one believes one can be that easily mistaken about it? Especially if that inspiration seems unreasonable? Since I don’t think it’s a bad idea to question one’s certainty as well as questioning one’s doubts, I don’t see the ambiguity as that big of a deal. I do wonder about how some teach about revelation and how confident we should be about it as well as how we use it to weigh our choices (some members seem to believe it should be given primary weight, others one of many influences that vary in weight depending on the circumstances). My position is revelation/inspiration is best when used to help begin an exploration of choices….it’s useful to help us not ignore good choices, especially if we are frozen because of being overloaded. I am less certain it should be the final, most important variable as I think reason and knowledge and experience and especially conscience should be major factors in our decisions.

I don’t think you should label him an exception until you know the numbers of those who see their lives similarly. It’s more than an handful who I have come across who say promises in the Patriarchal Blessing never came to pass as well as many other instances. The usual responses in my experiences are 1) agency plays a part, blessings aren’t guaranteed and dependent on not only the self but others choices (God isn’t going to force marriages for example) or 2) blessings are to come in the next life or 3) a combo.

I would not be surprised if Joseph has a gift for speaking and description when young as he seems to have had one when older, after all many saw him as an excellent preacher. Plus he was charismatic. That he saw the material in vision as well as provided with at least some background context (laws, etc) would give him a lot to work with to make that time come alive for the family. I do believe the material gave him a head start, the foundation. Being a good speaker does not mean you are creative in coming up with story lines or dialogue. I highly doubt my family would sit around and listen to me recite stories from movies I had watched and they hadn’t no matter how interesting those movies were given I don’t tell stories or jokes at all well (get lost in the details and side tracks) even when it’s all written out for me. I can give a talk and well apparently if I am to believe people’s comments because of practice and my parents coaching me, but they never did that for narrative styles and I didn’t like performing much. Now my husband probably could keep the family enthralled for a time…except perhaps for me because I need to know where a story is heading and while I don’t mind written humor, for some reason speaking jokes or amusing stories makes me feel very awkward (another reason I am a bad narrative speaker). Someone can be a great storyteller, but not a good story creator. There is solid evidence imo where the material came from based on Lucy’s account. I think the gifts of speaking Joseph likely had is a very different issue and they shouldn’t be confused.

As in patterns of unwanted attention causing fear, iow stalking, but no arrest or prosecution?

This article suggests they did not use solar years: https://scripturecentral.org/archive/periodicals/journal-article/jewishnephite-lunar-calendar

I don’t know the boundaries of Chat, so two concerns…. This phrasing of “true” might create a requirement not intended, which is to accept what most people define as supernatural as actually occurring (angels, dead coming back to life) rather than just testing the idea it is an authentic ancient record that Joseph somehow translated. Even though you define “true” later, will that prevent Chat from making that connection to adding the requirement that everything the book says or the narrative around the book has to be factually accurate? Second, when I use Chat it remembers past conversations and adds info from those. How are you preventing previous conversations with it from affecting the current one? I apologize if this has been explained before…sometimes I read posts involving Chat, other times I don’t as I am interested in what actual people think, not AI calculations (though I don’t mind others using and discussing them as I allow people to be interested in different things than I am ).

I would if he was an over explainer like I am. I can so see me cursing myself for starting with including some not particularly important detail because once started I would have to do a thorough job even if I had changed my mind about whether it should be included or not. (I assume he wrote it out on something temporary first, but my school essays were just as long when they were handwritten as typed, so that might not be enough to give him pause…plus maybe stuff occurred to him he wanted to add mid process) You guys should be so grateful for the delete function. 😛

Possibly both, language is always changing. My guess is if there is an emphasis on using “Black people” instead of Blacks, there may be a broader reaction/more attention on the usage of “Jews” and that might change more overall, become generally less common. But if many in the community still use it, seems like it would vary from place to place depending on who is and isn’t using it.

That’s not the same thing as was being claimed that you quoted.

Are you suggesting there are no scientist who study the brain or psychology that accept or even strongly believe there is something more that could be labeled spirit or soul? Not just a minority, but none?

So far, this sound about right. My regard for those portions of Academia heavily infected with sociopolitical activism is, these days, quite low. This sounds like a fairy tale to me knowing professors of all stripes myself.

Or used in ways we don’t understand by someone much more knowledgeable about them. added: for more clarity, an example….a rocket heading for space does not suspend the law of gravity nor alters it in anyway, those building and launching it work carefully (if they want it to work safely) within the known laws of physics, chemistry, and biology.

We use Christians for our own religious community all the time, so it makes sense we are comfortable with other religious versions. But Blacks/blacks and Jews refer to ethnic groups (Jews also refers to a religious community, but outside of a religious conversation, it seems most common to be being used secularly. Plus “blacks” and “Jews” are quite common in hate speech. I wonder how often “Black people” and “Jewish people get used that way in comparison? Maybe that contributes to a cringe factor for some, having heard those terms used with disdain or hatred or so-called humorously?

Or amazed and heavy with sorrow knowing what his children he loved were about to do to him…

Apparently because they are on the south end of Santa Monica bay according to google.

Been thinking about this as well as the reasoning given for other faiths to see him as experiencing fear. If Christ is fully human as we believe and he was truly mortal in his mortality, he would also be programmed with the same biological instincts that the rest of us have. It seems appropriate to me for him to experience life at the level we do biologically speaking (meaning feeling pleasure at the taste of good food and displeasure with bad, feeling too hot or too cold, allowing himself to get ill, get injured, stunned, maybe even startled and embarrassed and anxious, etc) even if he had such control and self awareness so that he understood the results of his behaviour well enough that he could choose not to sin and not to let the experience of such negative emotions and physical states get in the way of what he needed to do. If so, then given he was probably even more aware of the pain and suffering to come, it makes sense to me he would at least instinctively fear such even if he knew he could balance that experience of primal fear of extreme pain with self control way beyond our own abilities. So from that position I see it as reasonable to both believe he felt fear for what was to come (if not death, then the manner of dying) and to believe he would continue to approach that fear with self awareness and calmness. Humans can after all hold contradictory emotions in our heads at the same time…at least while we are mortal. I can love the experience of school because of the opportunities to indulge my curiosity, for example, to the point I saw my career choice as “perpetual student” whatever else I ended up doing while still in the moment hating the discomfort of school because of the annoying lights and sounds, having to stay stationary on hard surfaces, not being able to talk when I wanted, having to talk when I didn’t want to, etc. Given Christ’s situation involved even more extremes…he knew it was necessary so that all humanity could be redeemed if they so desired and return to live with God, but he would also know such pain would reduce most to the levels of animals, it would so overwhelm their senses and ability to think. Another possibility of why he might have experienced fear… While we believe that perfect love casts out fear and I have no doubt that if Christ lacked perfect knowledge at that time of the result of his actions, he had perfect love, he also was taking on himself our sins. I have interpreted that and I believe many others do as well that meant he was experiencing all of our weaknesses as if they were his own. How else could he truly understand who we are and what we feel in order to redeem us, to reach us in ways that can fundamentally change who we are (with our desire to be changed by him) unless in some fashion he experienced the same thing…at least as a mortal if he lacked at that point the ability to know our hearts and minds to the extent that the Father does. If it was true he was experiencing our fears as if they were his own, it would not be out of his character, but still be understandable if he shrank from the cup, feared abandonment, and more…because in that moment he was not only himself, but also us.

CFR please. I have found Saints have misunderstood other faiths’ beliefs enough, I like to see documentation (preferably from the actual faith’s official website or other reference, but at least actual educated in the faith members). Not assuming you have got it wrong, it just is a standard I use if I am not familiar with a faith’s alleged principle. Interesting post, btw. Had heard of Gethsemane as oil press and Christ’s act interpreted through that before, but your details are a good addition. There were several things that caught my attention, one possible aha moment…have to think about it more.

There was a good reason not to given he was in front of people during that time that were likely getting satisfaction, if not delight, from any sign he was suffering as well as being in front of his followers and loved ones who were suffering as he suffered, hating he was experiencing pain (choosing a excruciatingly painful death wouldn’t be as useful as a scare tactic or punishment if not seen by others). It was likely both an act of defiance, showing he was still in control and an act of love, trying to protect those who cared for him from being destroyed by seeing his extreme pain.

I didn’t take it as one. It made me curious. I like to see how language changes over time. My daughter and I have these kinds of conversations all the time. I prefer to keep up with language changes in my writing as well, less because of others’ reactions and more just because it feels right and that I hadn’t here was a bit disappointing, so you did me a favor. The longer it was before I discovered it, the more it would have bothered me, probably embarrass me even if no one criticized my use. Now it’s quite minor, and I will probably forget being disappointed I missed it shortly. Good observation

Wow, am I out of date according to Chat. Wonder how I missed that. Granted I haven’t socialized much and lived in the same neighborhood in Utah for the past 20 years, but I would have thought I would have picked up the change at least in California, Kansas, or Canada sometime before the move here. I don’t use “the” that I can remember when speaking generally and I capitalize ethnic groups (don’t capitalize “whites because I don’t see that as an actual ethnic group as too much variation, feels more like a political designation to me), but have still been using simply “Blacks” a lot. I should have noticed it on my own….had even thought about it in the past when thinking about how we were instructed to talk about my daughter’s diabetes (don’t make it her primary identity). It’s an engrained habit so I may slip at times for a while; thanks for bringing it up and I wouldn’t mind if you say anything to remind me if I forget.

Same here. The scriptures are more of an intellectual pleasure for me, like solving a puzzle….only one of those almost all one color ones with minor shade differences, very odd pieces and about half or more of it missing.

I didn’t find any non capitalized “Blacks” after 2018 using google’s site search, oddly most of “the blacks” were found in 2017 and 2018, though at least one went back to 78 iirc. I haven’t noticed much, if any going back to edit older texts for consistency with current standards of speech, they didn’t edit the use of “Mormon church” even. The LDS Conference talk corpus shows Brigham Young as the only one to use the phrase “the blacks” (in two conference talks). Perhaps you mean church membership?

I have had a page of hers opened for a few days on my phone to read when I can focus long enough to get through it (which may be when spring hits 😕). It is informative enough to make the effort. Always impressed by her work. I think it was Ben Spackman’s FB page that had him thank her for her help over the years, sounds like her impact was more than just her own work.

So if it’s the sealings that are evidence for plural marriage, do you also believe that women will be able to be sealed to multiple men since they also have multiple non voided sealings in place just as the men do?

Why do you believe that?