Calm

I find this position very troubling as well. And quite wrong. His assassination created a much greater platform and grew his audience tremendously. But all the people I know who saw Kirk as more extreme also condemned his murder, so hopefully the numbers of those who actually saw his killing as a good thing are small in proportion and their numbers seem greater simply because they are quite vocal.

And what does “Godhood” mean to you that does not apply to “godhood”?

In one sense yes, I don’t believe Heavenly Father took up certain roles until after he went through mortality. But Christ was God (acted as Jehovah) before his mortality and thus I believe Heavenly also acted as God in another sense prior to his mortality.

I obsess about my own errors, I don’t pay attention to them in others unless the errors make reading confusing, which I don’t remember happening with your posts recently. I have no memory of your errors. They must not have caused reading difficulties. If I even noticed them, they were quickly forgotten. I try to remind myself if others’ errors don’t bother me, then my errors probably don’t bother others, so I should relax but it doesn’t help. I am too programmed by my history. Cleaning up mud and broken debris on your property and dealing with the heartbreak of loss of memories (assuming this may have happened to you like it often does with floods) on top of your wife’s health….no need to worry about muddy writing here. If it bugs you that much, in a couple of months when life has slowed down you can always review and edit.

Good to see you again, Ryan. Checking your profile, it’s just over a year since you last posted. Glad you broke the drought.

Okay. Following so far. Makes sense to me. Did this ability have any determined structure at its beginning to it or was it random? Iow, did God know before he gave them their ability to think and choose how this ability would work and therefore what choices they would make or did he somehow hide the result from himself so he had no control over what those abilities would be in detail at least? Iow, what led Satan to choose pride while some other being choose humility? PS: My last semester at university included a class on the various foundations of Psychology and what the basic assumptions meant. Behaviourism and Humanism were studied in detailed, especially in the area of what actually determines our behavior. So I tend to look at religious beliefs in the same way, dissecting them back to the most basic assumptions about humanity. This is probably why I am asking for more detail. It’s one of the parts of belief that fascinates me the most—what ultimately makes is who we are.

Maybe you could summarize what each of these mean in a sentence or two for those of us who can’t focus long enough on the article to get the meaning for ourselves, please?

Depends on how it’s done. Those who are attracted to minors but do not want to act on such attractions need to be less stressed to control their behaviour, to direct it into constructive avenues away from abuse. Acceptance by others so they feel less isolated, less on their own can be very helpful. Shaming for even thoughts that pop into their heads, but are controlled is also highly stressful and it would be better to limit the stigma to those who abuse minors….especially since iirc the majority of child molesters are opportunists, not pedophiles. And that is where the focus should be imo (behaviour, don’t create the opportunities where possible, train people to recognize them and what making use of them looks like, etc). In no way should there be acceptance of acting on such temptations imo. I am no expert here, but assume even acting on those attractions in ‘safe’ ways (non minors who look or act like minors or AI generated) would tend to strengthen the attractions and in the end make them harder to control. I just realized derail….sorry. Will delete if you want.

Tony is who I thought of, because he is newer to the board, not a member, but interested in many things LDS. And iirc, we haven’t talked about Brian Stubbs for awhile, so for those who get exposure only to academic ideas here, it might be something new. I can see both Morgan’s POV because I felt cheated when I considered your post as possibly AI generated and yours because of habits of writing.

That makes sense. What a fantastic memory. Me too. Whether I want to or not, I always read my writing thinking ‘what is someone looking to dismiss what I say going to zero in on?’, so I might come across as less confident than I am in a particular position/belief. But you don’t with your caveats, just shows to me you don’t assume perfect knowledge and stay open to being wrong, so maybe it’s the same with my stuff….which would be good because that is my goal, to be open to correction even when I know I am right. My memory is poor these days, so I guess my writing is naturally less repetitive (maybe it just appears that way to me). Your writing isn’t so much repetitive as consistent though. I also had one teacher who pounded into us to avoid repetition of words and phrases to make our work more interesting, so even now 50 years later, I just can’t let myself use the same word too often (except of course the basic building blocks that one has to use). I used to keep a thesaurus by my side when writing even the most trivial thing…then thesaurus.com got bookmarked. I was hoping Alexa would substitute for actually having to open a new tab to search, but it’s too limited. This compulsion for variety in wording helped me acquire a decent size vocabulary at least.

Oh no! Another English teacher. I must be vigilant. I will never escape! (The prequel to this is in another thread)

Formatting it that way makes it easy to read, for which I am grateful, but I was wondering before if you stuck your work into AI to polish it before posting. Not complaining, just feedback as I suspect these days you can get negative reactions from sounding too formal or whatever is the vibe of AI writing. I edit and re-edit my posts over and over, even years after posting if I happen to come across an error. Had some very impressive English teachers who dinged me for minor errors (and I had one memorable argument over whether “colour” was an acceptable spelling…urgh, still annoys me big time she didn’t allow it when it was all over my library books, in the dictionary as an alternative spelling, and always looked more natural, more right to me). That and having a sister who was an English Lit prof—who is even more obsessive than I am—drives me to read and reread to ensure perfection. Relaxed on grammar issues mostly though, thank goodness. And I put my punctuation where I want it these days. Just spelling still rules me with an iron fist. So much time wasted over the years looking up correct usage, etc, lol. Are you trying to mimic AI with this? Not sure what you mean here.

Deleted

I missed a couple of posts and misunderstood the conversation, so deleting…

Do you mean in his mortal human form or do you believe he sets aside his resurrected human form at some time in the future? I have seen some nonL.DS Christians say the latter, so I want to be sure I understand your position (they didn’t identify what denomination they were, so can’t be sure, but from what else they said they appeared to be either Evangelical or Fundamentalist, using Navidad’s distinctions).

Is there a reason why you continue to use “Gods” as opposed to “gods” even though some of us have repeatedly said capitalizing the “g” implies a belief we don’t hold? Is there an issue for you with using “gods” instead?

And what was the internal source of his pride and lust, what caused him to think like that?

Kind of hard to resist the ice cream, for sure!

It started last time with notifications being slow. That just happened again, but everything else seems fast enough, not instantaneous as it can be at times, but not long enough to make me think “this is slow”.

I get it for embarrassment and anxiety. Emotions I find difficult to control in myself.

Depends on what “blame” means here. There can be additional connotations, often of shaming, than just the definition of “holding responsible/accountable”, including some toxic implications.

I see the feelings side of empathy as more as being able to relate to them in some fashion, perhaps by remembering a situation where your feelings were likely similar to the other’s or at least you believe so. Doesn’t mean you need to reexperience those feelings, but remembering what the consequences of the situation were for you, especially the consequences of those feelings, can help you process the why and how someone is reacting as they are, the more cognitive side and this awareness can allow you to more effectively support them and may even allow you to help nudge them away from harmful responses you personally had experience with. Of course it’s very important not to assume they will react identically to how you did, that is not empathy, but projection and can be harmful at times.

[I will be watching the interview later to better format it, who is saying what, etc] Well, thank you so much for taking this time today. We appreciate it so much. President Oaks, at President Nelson's funeral, you described him as your best friend and most effective teacher. I'm curious if you could help us understand your first feelings uh when you realized that your friend and teacher had passed and that the responsibility of leading the church as the new prophet would fall to you. Well, I had the two reactions implied in your question. I felt that I had lost a friend. I sat by him for 41 years in the highest councils of the church and I knew what it would mean to be in the chair he had occupied so capably. So I felt sorrowand burden. And how do you view your role as a modern-dayprophet? with great humility, a sense of of incredible responsibility and with a need to try to keep up with all that leadership requires in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I view it with the assurance that the Lord will bless me as I am his worthy active pleading servant. President Iring at the announcement of this new first presidency, you said that you have seen the power of God come upon President Oaks. Could you speak more about that? And in your initial conversations, what has it been like to counsel with this new prophet? I watched him and suddenly it was a different kind of it was a different man. Suddenly it was clear that he was receiving a revelation of exactly what to do in a very extremely quick short time. And uh I really had the feeling this is not the same man I was with a day or two ago. It's another man. He had a there was a kind of quiet clear knowing exactly what to do and it was uh to me a a spiritual experience. President Kristofferson um you said that this is not what you expected when you woke up the morning you were called. Um, can you describe your feelings in your first interactions with President Oaks? It's profited me tremendously just to listen and respond to his example and his counsel and I look forward very much to a closer association and to learning a great deal more. Um I don't know quite what the dynamic is president but I feel and I think everyone else does that um in your presence with with the gifts and and intellect and so on that you have a person for whatever reason doesn't feel diminished but rather you inspire confidence self-confidence in the in anyone you're with and I appreciate that. I think that's a tremendous gift. President Oaks, as the new president of the church, you said, "Our ministry is a ministry of all the children of God. We pray for all. We seek to serve all. For those who are watching right now who may be struggling with questions of faith or worth, they feel on the margins or they don't always see themselves in the body of the church. As the new president of the church, what do you want them to know about how the savior feels about them and how you feel about them? I think it begins with realizing that we are all children of God and that God loves them and he has a plan for them wherever they are on the pathway toward that divine destiny. President Iring, would you respond to the same question? Yes, I would. I'm always touched in the scriptures when the the Lord himself speaks and says, "My arms are always outstretched to you." And he does he says it at times when people are having difficulty or feeling estranged. And so I think my my suggestion is that when a person feels anyone feels that they're on the margin, uh they can't get far enough away from the savior that he would ever not be reaching to them. So I'm my encouragement to them is just pray and you'll have a feeling of being back from the margin and included and trust in the Lord. Trust he's your heavenly father and he loves you. Yeah. Yeah. So everyone ought to feel like they belong that they have a role. And I would simply say put your hand to the plow. Take take part. Uh join in service. uh don't wait always to be invited off the sideline, but come forward and contribute what you can to the body of Christ. Everyone is valuable. Every contribution is valuable. I recognize that these rising generations, as we call them, the the millennials, the Gen Z, and so forth, live in a world that's very different than the world has ever been. um they they deal with issues and challenges and opportunities that I don't think we've ever seen at least not to this degree and they if they turn to the Lord as president said Jesus Christ is always the answer he's been the answer from the beginning and they will find in him the source or resource and resolution of their unique issues just as every other generationhas. I'd also like to ask you about women in the church. Um, some in the media have suggested that the church presents impossibly high standards for women and that the church does not give space for women to lead. What do you want people to understand about the role of women in the church today? I say remember you have a heavenly father who loves you, who has created you to return to live with heavenly parents, to enjoy the choicest blessings that God has for his daughters. But it doesn't always come at once. We have work left to do. But we are a lot better off than we were even uh a decade ago. I think we should also say that we have not always been wise in using the the great qualifications and powers of the daughters of God. I think I'm I need to be personal again. Uh my wife died two years ago yesterday and uh I thought I miss her a lot of for a lot of reasons but mostly I wish she were here when I come into the this position that I'm in now because she had a she had a sense of what mattered. Uh that was just remarkable. There's a line in our handbook that says speaking about ward councils and counseling together that women and men sometimes have different perspectives on things. And I thought to myself, do we need a handbook to tell us that? I think that's obvious. But what that says is we bring both perspectives together, we get a better perspective. We get a closer to the divine perspective. What advice do you have for families today as the new prophet? The first thing that comes to mind with that good question is what I tried to teach in my talk in the general conference just concluded that tried to persuade that the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints outlines the destiny of the children of God and that destiny culminates in an eternal family, a father in heaven and also a mother in heaven. Though we haven't been given very much information about her for reasons that God understands and we don't. But the point is the whole purpose of mortal life is to prepare us for a heavenly destiny in a family organization. And we are blessed when we take those as a given as we said in the the family proclamation. Not when we try to rewrite God's plan, but when we try to f find where we fit within it and how we can magnify it. Just a a line in the proclamation titled the family that you mentioned, President um says something like happiness in family life um is most likely when founded on the teachings of Jesus Christ, faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect and love and so on. And that that is true of family life, but it's true of any life. I think it's true for every individual. Whatever circumstance they're in, whether they're a family of one or a dozen, it doesn't matter. Those principles can be applied by anyone in any moment. And uh it is the path to happiness. I'd like to ask you about the global church. Um I have seen demographic trends that show a growing number of people identifying as religiously unaffiliated. a general weakening of religious identity. And yet the growth statistics in the church are at historically high levels. In the first six months of this year, the church has seen a 17% increase in conversions in North America, even higher globally. There have been 900,000 new converts in the last three years. What is driving this? the difference between the performance of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints members and the world trends you describe is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ because it's a gospel of happiness and growth and information about the purpose of life and people who subscribe to its doctrine. find that it makes their life more happy, more significant, more resistant to the difficulties we all experience in mortal life and more able to serve their fellow men and to raise their children. I see the Lord moving across the earth and his spirit influencing people in their lives. President Nelson used to speak often about the gathering of Israel, the gathering of a covenant people. And I believe that's what we're seeing. Um the Lord is is bringing things to pass. We're able to help maybe on the fringes, but but he is moving in his power. And I notice wherever I go that u there's an increasing diversity it seems like in the church that that there's movement of people. I I'll venture a prophecy the the growth of the church will accelerate when they re find the gospel of Jesus Christ presented by missionaries. They see hope. President Oaks, what is your message to the rising generation, to the young single adults that are watching right now um in the church and outside? What is your message to them? You have a heavenly father who loves you. He's provided a plan for you and it's best in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints where we have an explanation for the purpose of life, challenges and activities that lead you along what we call the covenant path to a heavenly destiny. Trust in the Lord. Come and enjoy his blessings with us. Be true to your savior Jesus Christ and he will lead you back to our heavenly father whose children you are who love you and have a heavenly destiny for you every one of you. This is such a special generation, isn't it? The rising generation. There's something different and unique about them. Yes. I I see them more firmly grounded and stronger than the generation in which I was raised. President Irene, what is your message to the rising generation? Congratulations. The Lord saved you for the most exciting time in the history of his work in this world. and they can be optimistic if they'll trust in the Lord Jesus Christ and be his servants as much as they can be. I promise them a glorious future and I think that it's already emerging. Well, you do live in a unique time. uh technology is part of that uniqueness and I'm so gratified to see so many taking advantage of whatever they have in the way of technology sometimes quite limited um to improve themselves to progress to grow to uh reach out and and bless others but remember you have to be the master it doesn't master you or you shouldn't let it master you are the master and you use this tool that no other generation has had to be able to march forward more rapidly to make more progress to accomplish more of the Lord's work in uh in greater speed and velocity if you can say it that way and I I believe it is a very unique and exciting time. I would say simply remember this. There is no substitute for the Holy Ghost. No technology, no other recourse or source can replace the spirit. If there was one phrase or one scripture or one image that you would want members of the church to carry with them right now as you begin this prophetic ministry, what would it be? Jesus Christ is the way. That is taught in five, at least five different important scriptures in the Book of Mormon. And I'll read you one from the sermon of King Benjamin, a prophet King, whose sermon to his people included this teaching. And moreover, I say unto you, that there shall be no other name given, nor any other way, nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord omnipotent. That's Messiah chapter 3 verse 17. Jesus Christ is the way. He is the way. My feeling is exactly as what's been said. Um Jesus is the Christ and he lives and he watches over and loves us. And I I know that is true. I know that is the way to peace and happiness in all lives is to come into the gospel of Jesus Christ into his church. And so my invitation is not just come and see, come and be and find the peace that you're finding such difficulty in discovering in the world around you. As President Oaks mentioned a moment ago, the message really is Jesus Christ is the way. And I bear witness that that is true. He is the savior. He is the son of God and he is resurrected. And for me, the fact of his resurrection is the proof of his power to fulfill all of his promises. It's the proof of who he is. And just remember that he volunteered to be our redeemer from a time before the earth even existed and has always been our redeemer and will ever be. I'm glad for this opportunity to testify that I know the gospel of Jesus Christ in its fullness is in the restored church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here are found the answers to life's greatest questions. What is my relationship to God? Why am I here on earth? What is the purpose of this sometimes troublesome mortal life? Where are we headed? How do we get there? What is my relationship to Jesus Christ? And how can that relationship be improved? and I can live better and more securely with those I love and look forward to a life with them in the next life which is assured as a resurrected embodied spirit child of God because of the mission of his only begotten son Jesus Christ in whose name I testify of these things the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank you.

It does seem like standard procedure any beginner, even a middle school kid doing a report would know had value, so odd.

What about grok? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grok