Calm

What is the difference in learning a skill through self teaching vs from professionals? PS: by credentials, I mean what makes them a credible source; it doesn’t have to be a university degree, but there needs to be evidence of legitimate experience or training, whether professional or amateur, in the field so as to be able to properly judge the value of relevant information.

And do you let untrained mechanics work on your car or someone like me who has studied medicine all my life, but never went to med school diagnosis your medical issues, tell you what meds you should or worse, operate on you? A doctor asked me once if I had medical training after discussing the diagnosis with me and after all, I was the one who who confirmed my daughter’s diabetes before she ever saw a doctor (tested glucose levels and she was off the charts). Surely I have demonstrated I am as good as anyone trained in the field. He was wrong imo (added if the justification is the lack of training plus it depends on what you mean by “regular folks”, lacking in education for any type of research or same university courses leading to same degree, just not at an Ivy League school). While credentials don’t guarantee decent critical analysis, training in the field or actual personal experience is going to make it much more likely that someone will be able to properly critique sources and not inflate the value of trivial info while ignoring more essential or reliable material. Now someone can pick it up on their own with diligent work, imo, if they subject themselves to credible outside criticism of their work. In fact, one of the most important aspects of education is going through the process of having one’s work critique so you learn what weaknesses (lack of knowledge or skills) you have. It helps if you have training in critical analysis in another field as well since many research skills transfer over.

And is this member someone well versed in Calvinism or just doing superficial online research? Letting actual Calvinists speak for themselves? What are their credentials? My experience is many LDS do a poor job of summarizing others’ beliefs just as nonmembers often mess up ours.

I don’t think you two (teddy and zealous) understand many of the nonLDS Christians’ beliefs about the nature of God, especially those who identify as Calvinists. It is a pity Paul Hadik, the longtime poster who is a devout Calvinist iirc (can’t remember if he actually used that label), is not still here to explain and defend his beliefs (though he stopped by last year, so who knows https://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/75717-mississippi-bishop-resigns-from-the-pulpit/page/27/#findComment-1210175722 ). There is a much broader range of views among nonLDS Christians and even among Calvinists than the way you are simplifying them so you can condemn their view of God as twisted. I see this as similar to antimormons who claim LDS believe God the Father could have been a drag queen for the shock value, taking one aspect of belief and ignoring nuances to arrive at a possible, but not probable (possibly held by a few believers, but not a majority view by any means) interpretation. These critics insist LDS must accept their claims if they really believe their own doctrine, but since they have cherry picked a few aspects and ignored many more of our doctrines, they misrepresent the actual logic of our belief. Up front, I personally do have trouble viewing certain Calvinist beliefs of the nature of God as good, but I still believe we shouldn’t resort to arguing the extremes. There may be aspects of Calvinist belief that are not consistent with each other, but I have not come across a Christian faith yet that has not had to appeal to faith to resolve contradictions/paradoxes/mysteries. Some Calvinists may resolve one issue by believe God creates to condemn, but that is not a majority view among those who identify as Calvinists from what I tell. Here is a response to certain claims about Calvinism as presented by a Calvinist (he seems to have engaged with many respected individuals online and is treated as credible). I am using the archived link as the actual one doesn’t work, the whole website appears to be down. https://web.archive.org/web/20180620160640/http://credohouse.org/blog/12-myths-calvinism Meaning of supralapsarians: https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/supralapsarians The “here” has this: https://web.archive.org/web/20161013060828/http://www.gty.org/Resources/Articles/2473

I disagree to this. God has stated “Men are, so they might have joy”, so the object of our existence is to experience a fullness of joy, imo. Personification of truth as you define it would be the means by which we achieve this, rather than the end itself. Having experienced at times a lack of joy even while living a life aligned as much as possible with truth and goodness, I don’t see much value in Truth, order, or anything else if one lacks joy (which I define as enduring, deep happiness). It makes perfect sense to me that God wants joy for his children.

Are you using intelligence in two different ways here? Intelligences being the entities that have always existed and in the above “intelligence” being a characteristic or type of perception?

Oh my gosh, this woman is psycho….not that we didn’t know it already.

Definitely. I watched one day of her trial for Brandon’s attempted murder. I find it interesting once I am doing it because of the court side of things as I have never watched trials outside of these, except bits here in there. So if someone turned it on, I probably would be lost in it the next few hours. But thinking about checking it myself….just do not care in the least anymore what is happening. I watched the interview Tacenda? posted and she blames Tylee again for killing JJ and herself. Maybe her brother or Daybell told her that or maybe she is a sociopath who just says whatever makes her look good (she was the one orchestrating the lies about Joe Ryan and Colby in the child custody case, so I see no reason not to believe she was the one who pushed for the murders given Charles went first and when Daybell wasn’t involved and it was likely Alex who first tried with Tammy and likely Daybell only acted when forced as there was some info that Tammy had recently found out, iirc). LVD never explains what happened to the bodies or why Tylee wasn’t seen before the last time JJ was seen. I suspect it will end up being Alex wanting to shield both her and Daybell from hurting too much and lying to the two of them about it until shortly before he died. Her excuse for not sharing truth before is, iirc, Big Media or LEOs or both constructed the lies and everyone, even the nice guys bought into it, so the actual truth is just being dismissed. I can’t remember if she specified the texts, but it sounded like to me she is saying they are forgeries, fakes, or whatever you would call them, but I didn’t watch that part of the trial to be sure.

We don’t actually recognize people from the preexistence much anyway. There has to be something special then when it happens. My guess is it’s a recognition of their spiritual nature/personality rather than some spirit material appearance. Or rather than recognition, it’s a bond that existed between individuals in the previous existence that gets reactivated when the two get back together.

Excellent summary

No, I am pointing out that the scripture refers to God placing Truth in a sphere and compares Truth to “all intelligence”, which suggests he took all intelligence and placed those in a sphere as well. “Sphere” need not refer to simply the universe or space given the alternative meaning of “sphere” that I quoted. Iow, the scripture is possibly referring to intelligences existing within the same space, but unable to act in their original form and therefore God embodied them in spiritual forms, thereby creating a new sphere of activity for them. “Sphere” here could either mean the spiritual bodies themselves or a new set of associated behaviours. The political sphere does not exist in a different universe than the economic sphere, even if at times it feels like it does. A more modern definition from Google than the 1828 Webster’s that makes it clearer how “sphere” might be used in this verse: God placed us in/gave us access to a spiritual society/life by giving the intelligences spiritual bodies.

I think this may be a typo?

Could we act for ourselves though before God placed us in “that sphere”, whatever that sphere*** may be for us? My guess of our first experience as actors would be as his spirit children. ***https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/Sphere

No It’s simply the artist’s attempt to show all are Heavenly Father’s children. Latter-day Saints do not get our doctrine from artists’ renderings.

Is there a relatively neutral summary of Project 2025 out there? I tried to read it myself and didn’t have the concentration power to do so. Same with the UN Proposal, but that was well organized with headings and such, so I got a better idea of what it was skimming through it. At this point they seem very different to me (one appears to be about how to achieve more control over government bureaucracy so as to give a president more power, but I didn’t get too far and the other a collection of goals to improve and protect quality of global life that may or may not be actually helpful).

So you are suggesting in individual countries and possibly more powerful countries pressuring weaker ones?

That’s smart… Bug me if you don’t hear back from someone in a few days. FAIR decision makers are always preoccupied and busy in the two weeks before a conference. I may have to ask a couple of times.

People have been asking for a Wednesday only ticket, so now we have one! https://fairlatterdaysaints.org/store/product/august-2025-fair-conference-wednesday-only/ See first post for info on Brother Sherinian

I don’t know him (unless you meant the poster here who collects BoM whose alias I can’t remember at the moment), but I am guessing this might work: https://streaming.bookofmormonevidence.org/actor/robert-messick/ added: I just checked FAIR and he wrote us once. If you want me to contact him for permission to give you his email, I will need to check first with FAIR people that’s okay, but will be happy to do so if alright. and added again: I have painfully*** deleted a few conversations, so you should be able to PMme again. ***with my memory so poor, I tend to forget them if I delete them and it’s hard to choose which ones it’s okay to lose.

Don’t condemn a whole town for the behaviour of a few of its people.

That would depend on what kind of Christian theology they have. My guess is those most vocal about the need for Christian Nationalism would likely include a good percentage of those who exclude LDS from the Christian community.

Liberal in the classical sense (I am pointing that out because I know people who define “liberal” solely in terms of the current more extreme members of the Democratic Party and for whom it is a negative label).

added: For ease of access, streaming ticket link here… https://fairlatterdaysaints.org/store/product/august-2025-fair-conference-streaming/ ———— Just a reminder for those interested that it’s coming up in two weeks (edit: one week now, 2nd edit: it’s tomorrow) https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/conference/august-2025-fair-conference Keynote speaker is Aaron Sherinian, Fluent in Our Faith: Identifying Evidence of the Glad Tidings of the Gospel in Our Everyday Reality

Yes, people need to remember their decisions affect others besides themselves, sometimes in dangerous ways even if there is the smallest of connections…especially when someone is just looking for an excuse to justify their own actions. You may be willing to destroy your own life in the service of a great cause, but what about destroying the lives of others, especially those you consider part of your community?

While some of the things he says are on point, imo, I disagree in his equating the Religious Right with Christian Nationalism as well the “language and theology” of Christian Nationalism with the imposition of Sharia law by extremists, except at a very superficial level (privileging religious laws in government). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_right I would say Christian Nationalism is a subset of the Religious/Christian Right, though describing the two as overlapping might be more accurate given there are likely some concerns of the Christian Right that Christian Nationalists in general ignore. Neither group is monolithic, one size fits all, so determining the amount of overlap is problematic.