Calm

Except this was followed by pointing to his life (“mortal sojourn”) as the example we should be following: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2025/10/27cook?lang=eng I see a significant push for us to go out into our communities to serve others, this includes providing actual opportunities by funding JustServe as well as local leadership setting up projects, ongoing volunteer opportunities (our stake covers helping out at a local food bank as well as having collection drives throughout the year). Becoming politicians, going to rallies and protests, etc…that side is not encouraged as far as I can see, but that does not imply we are to isolate ourselves from the greater community and only focus on spiritual growth.

Varies for the person I suspect.

If it gives little in return, I would agree with you. Depending on what is does give in abundance, I think it could be a highly reasonable choice (if one were happier, felt more stable and safe, was secure in such so better able to offer help and love to others, etc) or an unreasonable one…created more fear than it quieted, created hate and sense of insecurity) as in good fruit vs bad fruit.

Seems like it is more than that given Helaman:

Lousy for convincing others, I would agree. But if you have had personal experiences that are in your own view best explained by such a description of God and his work, I have found can be it’s a pretty great position to hold practically speaking depending on what you do with that belief (nothing gets me through the senseless days better than my confidence God has a good purpose to all of this, hopefully I am not using it too much as an excuse to avoid responsibilities I should be taking on, I do recognize I use it as a comfort blanket for emotionally charged issues that overwhelm and freeze me).

When you know how that conflict is resolved, please let me know. (I realize it can be resolved by just removing the question by blinking God out of existence, but that feels more like avoiding the question than resolving it as long as we don’t know with certainty that God doesn’t exist.) I don’t think someone is inherently lazy or morally weak because they use crutches when they have a broken leg. Seems more like a sensible, responsible thing to do since it allows them to function more effectively than struggling without the crutch. And a crutch is not inherently a misshapen, nonsensical construction. If can be sensibly and realistically constructed according to the laws of physics to substitute for gaps in our physical abilities, why wouldn’t there be sensible and realistic crutches for our spiritual gaps? Of course, using a crutch when you don’t need it could weaken you or even create problems that didn’t exist before. The question that no one can answer for anyone else imo for when it comes to spiritual crutches is when a crutch is best and when does it hamper growth,

I think there are signs we are heading back to it as a more central teaching and never fully lost it (“Families can be together forever”, temple work, etc).

Could you expand on this? Not following you.

But since LDS theology requires very limited agency for the primal person, it seems to me the primal person’s behaviour is determined by something they have no control over because they did not create themselves at that level. We could use the phrase “born that way” modified for however we would label that primal existence “always were that way” to describe what first determined our behaviour and made us limited moral agents according to God’s laws. But what choice did we have in determining what we were in the beginning? So it seems to me the clean escape is ‘out of the ashes into the fire’ for LDS theology, we just push back the paradox a step or two it seems to me. (I am not fond of the image of ‘out of the frying pan into the fire’, I like the Norwegian version I used here better.)

But was this plan of Lucifer’s about preventing/completely avoiding behaviours that God defines as evil or about removing the accountability for such behaviours entirely by removing any law so that no one would need to be held accountable? Seems like the latter is more consistent with how Satan has operated since the Council, persuading people there is no God and/or no law or that the individual should not be held accountable because fill in the blank. It also appears easier on the surface if one sees the law as imposed by God and not somehow self existent. Though even there all Lucifer would have had to do was make sure everyone’s IQ was low enough or perhaps all were psychopaths (if that actually means people have no awareness of the light of Christ). Or assuming it was physically possible to reproduce even without partaking of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil (whatever that actually was/symbolizes), Lucifer could have envisioned a world where that never existed. All of the above defeats the currently defined (based mostly on the BoM) purpose of mortality, but could logically (given the limited info we have of what was required) it seems to me resulted in everyone receiving a body. Also, if one had or assumed the level of the most shallow interpretation of God’s purpose (return to his presence), everyone could ‘qualify’ in these ways for the Celestial Kingdom just as it is interpreted that those who die unaccountable to the law go to the CK without any further need to make choices or change of self.

Can you restate this please? As it is, I am reading it as two different, contradictory statements. I am sure I am missing something or assuming you mean something you don’t and hope my confusion can be easily cleared up with clarification.

Even if Brigham was not the one the Lord wanted (pure thought experiment exploring the logic of arguments surrounding the succession as I don’t believe this is probable), I don’t see it as requiring a full apostasy of the 12 and the majority of the Church. Not understanding and therefore not following God’s instructions accurately with the succession does not exclude the 12 and the majority of the Church following the instructions enough that God can eventually get the Church back fully on track. If that was actually the case, I see it as likely given the poor performance and inconsistencies of the other options that God made the best with Brigham in building up a strong community and is nudging the Church closer to the ideal he desires in the ways each President is open to (which is how I see it happening with Brigham as the choice of God as well as the majority of the Church and with every President afterwards). I am not sure if revelation requires if leadership did go off track enough for apostasy, a restoration of the restoration would be immediately required. I am not familiar enough with the scriptures themselves about these to be secure enough to speculate one way or the other. I should probably study this more. The way the Church has taught that these are the last days and the Church will never be taken from earth again does seem to indicate there had to be a continuation of authority somehow…and I very much agree with you that none who have made the claim of authority outside the Church of Latter-day Saints and the Community of Christ fit the scriptures to the best of my knowledge (the Church may not be that big in comparison to the population of the world in the last days teachings, but it must have the ability to be accessible to all and that seems to me limited to the top two size wise). And given the significant changes in doctrinal understanding from what the CoC started with, ie the necessity the successor of Joseph, the leader of God’s Church be of Joseph’s posterity—it seems unlikely to me the CoC now qualifies as the one with continuous authority. And since it appears continuous authority is a requirement of the last days Church (speaking of teachings I am assuming are correct, not scripture), that logically eliminates for me the CoC from ever being the authorized Church.

Why would he ask that since it wasn’t necessary to revoke the whole of the Covenant to abide by the law of the land, only to remove the authorization and practice of plural marriage?

But that doesn’t logically mean he was right. All of the options that were presented, considered as far as I know might have been wrong logically speaking. I personally think he was the correct choice and I think the way the succession played out eventually is correct, but it seems like even Brigham tried to use the process for his family’s destiny, if not benefit, because he ordain his sons as apostles so young. But Brigham had set a precedent for President Snow to do so for Brigham’s sons when Brigham had refined the standard of seniority, imo, removing those he had probable concerns about as possible successors to himself, Orson Hyde and Pratt. Brigham claimed Pratt preached false doctrine at times, but Pratt ended up more mainstream in some ways in the end than Brigham. I think the Church would have had a different culture, more inclined towards theological and philosophical discussions as well as more diverse if it was total time or original ordination date rather than readmission date that determined seniority. Him being a mathematician appeals to me greatly (if I had ever managed to get my doctorate, it would have been in math most likely…first and last love). And if one looks at the outcome as proving the choice correct, depending on how one chose to weight what was most important, some might say history proves Brother Pratt might have been a better choice (I have no idea how good a leader he was or the totality of his ideas, but I suspect we would not have had the Priesthood Ban) Which is all to say I don’t see the level of obvious certainty that you apparently do. I think it depends too greatly on where one is standing.

I wonder how clear it actually was. (Not saying it wasn’t crystal clear, I am just not certain we can be certain it was even with the testimonies of Brigham’s transformation.)

I think that reasoning fails if (I recognize it’s a big “if” ) one believes salvation and exaltation is a group effort, we are saved with our dead implies our dead are saved with us. Therefore sacrificing our own salvation by becoming murderers—which must change our souls imo and not for the better since we are taught to value life in the gospel, our own as well as others even mortality is not seen as important as eternal life—is likely harmful to those we intended to save by killing them in some fashion. I sometimes wonder given this scripture if salvation is more like a three-legged race, only with our entire family rather than one other person (and maybe that means all of humanity except those who intentionally cut the bonds and walk away, assuming that is even possible). It benefits ourselves to help others then as much as helping ourselves and the reverse is true as well, whether we hurt ourselves or hurt others, the race towards salvation is hampered. We may think we can somehow help others by depriving ourselves of necessities and giving them to others instead, but that just ends with us being heavy baggage they have to carry around, slowing them down more than speeding them up or increasing their endurance because they can’t abandon us and still get there. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/128?lang=eng

No, but it didn’t address the problem of evil causing suffering because even if some individual didn’t need mortality to practice agency so it was no loss to them to die young and even if we believe we can safely assume God (because we trust him) never allows someone to die before they have enough experience in agency, it does not address why God allows them to suffer so much in the process. (You also stated it as a fact, so it wasn’t obvious you presented speculation. It’s an error everyone makes, I probably do it countless times a day, but if we talk that way, then we should expect challenges of fact and not see it as someone saying we can’t speculate).

I agree, that is why I think giving partial explanations like ‘those who die young only needed a body’ that don’t make sense or are inconsistent in greater context often do more harm than good. It’s like giving reasons for plural marriage we thought we knew were right, but actually didn’t have the evidence to support it, such as it was so faithful women could marry when there were fewer faithful men around. When someone finds out the reality, it can backfire.

Not according to conference usage. It got slow for a time early last century, but has rebounded, especially the last five years it seems (we are at 17 and only halfway through the decade).

If so, then why not just die painlessly at birth. Why the needless suffering, sometimes horrendous agony?

I agree. So when we start offering explanations that justify actions which implies we don’t have to trust because it’s reasonable to be this way, we err imo.

Back from the appointment: I think you misunderstood. I said I couldn’t factor evil intent into the greater good explantation, not that I am assuming it fits somehow. And even if I do trust there is an answer, I don’t believe it will be ‘the innocents’ mindless, excruciating or endless suffering is okay because….’. I don’t believe some of my suffering where I have been reduced to the level of nonthought, just feeling agony (thankfully only got there a few times in my life) was somehow useful, helped me learn anything and my suffering was so temporary it comes nowhere near the level of suffering of the above examples you point to above, so I don’t see inherent purpose in that type of suffering either…and add to that evil intent, it wasn’t a necessary part of a natural world, but a choice by someone to harm another….the only thing learnt there are some people can be scum imo. If I saw effective community effort to protect and restore when possible (freely handing out drugs to those in need, resisting of corruption by those who can make things happen, etc), I might feel differently about it, but we have been given great knowledge of widespread corruption and greed that needs to be fought as well as resources that could eradicate many diseases and poverty if we worked effectively together, but it doesn’t happen because of human nature and instead appears to be getting worse….it’s not reasonable to me to see much learning how to be better people overall occurring on a grand enough scale to balance out the level of suffering that is present. And since God judges us for our thoughts as well as our actions according to Jesus, I don’t buy the usual interpretation that God allows the wicked to kill and torture so the innocents’ blood will stand as a witness against them. (Alma 14:11) especially given Alma and Amulek’s blood was not required for the same purpose and God protected and rescued them with the prison walls collapsing and them walking out unharmed while their jailers were killed (though they had suffered, been deprived and tortured iirc while in prison). This is one episode I think will have to wait for me to be okay with until I actually see the women and children who were killed and hear their POVs of their experiences as well as God’s explanation. I am not inspired by what Alma says in this case.

Those are man made evils, evil intent is involved, intentional removal of others’ agency and therefore are not seen by me as answered by the argument I used for natural disasters (and even there that pushes the boundaries for me). Added: I said “not acting for the greater good”

I agree. Am curious as to how you would respond to people pointing to the Community of Christ and other schisms (don’t see any others besides CoC as successful enough in growth to merit consideration as having authority and guidance from God as I believe this should be a time of growth, reaching out to the world) as evidence that the Restored Gospel lacks authority using the same argument. My response is faith based on my personal experiences plus the doctrine is the most logically satisfying I know at this time even with its gaps, but I suspect there are Anglicans and others who view their chosen faith in the same way, so my response really only works from a personal angle.

But we could apply this to something like surgery. Most of us could not imagine a reason why someone would cut open a child and remove an organ unless we knew the greater context of appendicitis and recognized not only the medical necessity, but the possibility that it was healing. I am not saying that experiencing horrors inflicted by nature and man must be similar in an eternal context, I am just not sure how we can remove the possibility when it’s so easy to find examples where lack of knowledge turns things horrific that aren’t. Now there is a huge difference because the intent of who we see as the actor in these cases…the murderer is evil, malicious; the surgeon is beneficent. I think you could extend the analogy a bit to cover natural disasters by viewing the doctor as God and the biological processes that cause the illness as the actors who are restrained or overcome by miracles, as in sometimes the doctor judges there will be more harm done by the cure than the illness and so allows nature to take its course. Think of standing by and letting your child suffer a fever when you could act remove it, but it’s not high enough to be dangerous and you don’t always want to suppress the body’s natural reaction….like taking fever reducer before a vaccination to remove all likely suffering be abuse that may lessen the effect of a vaccine. But that reasoning isn’t that applicable imo when actual evil intent is involved. That’s not nature taking its course, but one actor moving with intent to destroy the agency of another. I have to go to an appointment so that all I have for now. Not sure I have anything to add anyway. That last bit, evil men intentionally hurting others is something I haven’t resolved even if I am comfortable saying that each actor is expected to act morally in the level,of knowledge they have. We know that the surgeon means no harm and good will come of it even without our personal actions, so are justified in not intervening. I see this as likely similar to God and the natural disasters of life, big and small. It’s part of our ‘biological processes’. Evil intent changes that imo though. And I haven’t fit not acting for the greater good into that because other miracles do seem to show God is capable of ensuring agency when he acts.