Calm

Perhaps they are assuming that the person confessing is almost always a committed member of the congregation (why else would they confess?) and of course the priest recognizes the voice (as often happens in shows in my experience where they end up joking with each other). It really doesn’t make sense otherwise, given the setup. I, however, can easily see making the effort to confess to a priest who does not know one in order to avoid future awkwardness even if the priest is committed to acting as if they have no knowledge of the confession. Now you have mentioned, I would love to know the reasoning of the law based on the anonymity of the confession.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250347466/thebiblesaysso/ Got to say because I just got to ;), while I like the name, I hate that cover…the color choice hurts my eyes. I laughed with the “and wrong” being second and in parentheses. I wonder if more bought if for ‘what we got right’ or ‘what we got wrong’. I am guessing it’s the latter.

That comment was equivalent to “what, someone lied on the internet?!”, but now I am seriously wondering if such ideas (deep loyalty and respect to the local laird/lords and deep disgust/hatred of the distant ‘overlords’) were started because of political propaganda or just lazy writing (conflict being necessary to keep things interesting).

I like you.

Do you mean not every Scotsman hated/disdained the English like I read in books and saw on TV?

I would say it gave me information about things I had concerns about before based on what I know of human behavior. I was pretty sure there were significant mistakes, even sin and wickedness among our leaders since they are all human, but I was only vaguely aware of a few cases (even current ones, we were frugal and never bought newspapers or magazines and I wasn’t interested in watching news either or making the effort to go to the library to keep up), especially once we left Utah in the mid80s. My efforts went into checking out scholarship on the Bible and that was limited to what I could get in local libraries as I was too frugal to put out too much money, though I picked up a few texts on BYU Bookstore clearance sales, and too shy to seek help from others in my studies, even librarians who might have suggested ordering texts. I had not known much of abuse cases before I seriously hit the internet in 2001, but had expected them. I knew there were issues at times with leaders not protecting victims of financial and other types of predators because of rumors and because my parents had been victim once and had learned afterwards that leadership knew of the fraudulent behavior of these supposedly upright members beforehand because of other members getting suckered (they weren’t full out con artists, it was a family who took advantage of others’ generosity), but details were lacking then that became available online. I had wondered about the Priesthood ban. Learning how it started and responses over the years helped firm up what I believed about how prophets operated (for some reason I never idealized leaders and it was more an exception to really like a prophet rather than be neutral in the emotional about him…as in would I like to interact with him as a friend or family member, even though I have always had great respect for what prophets have been able to accomplish). I think everything I have learned has fit relatively smoothly into the rather basic, perhaps even rough belief system I had from my youth, though learning has definitely made my beliefs become more detailed and complicated. I think experiences with people and with the Spirit has eased the worry I used to have about the process, but even if I still sorrow over what I see as often unnecessary suffering because of the way we humans mess up even glorious things, I just feel more certain God knows what he is doing and feel more at peace because of confidence in his love. I think one of the few things I have been shocked about was how Elder McConkie and more recently learned Elder Joseph Fielding Smith were so willing to go against counsel from their leaders because of their confidence they were right (for example, BRM labeling his book Mormon Doctrine and publishing it and JFS’ approach to evolution as well his one interpretation/plain reading of scripture with no need for scholarship to help with understanding even when his interpretations contradicted others of the Brethern, including those with greater support from the First Presidency). I had been under the impression the First Presidency was the final word for all upper leadership…that such would be the natural result of moving up the ladder and spending decades in the service of the Church…or so I once thought. Humans are more stubborn and unreasonable than I once believed. It was actually a relief to me to learn there was at times significant conflict in ideas at the top levels*** rather than a greater consensus behind the anti evolution, etc position that soaked into our culture and that originally the First Presidency of the time went out of their ways to increase the influence of the scientific mindset among leadership (by calling Elder Talmage, Widtsoe, and one other whose name I always forget as apostles as well as directing leaders to seek counsel from a BYU professor of science as well as other scholars). ***https://benspackman.com/2023/08/the-power-of-good-historiography-or-how-joseph-fielding-smith-unwittingly-undermined-joseph-fielding-smith/ I should mention that I throughly applaud Elder McConkie and Pres Smith’s efforts towards getting Saints to be invested in the scriptures and church doctrine and to study them in depth. They did a lot of good there. I see them both as good men doing their best for the kingdom. I only wish they had been more open to other ideas of the Brethren, part and present, not to accept those ideas personally as Truth, but to accept the possibility that perhaps they themselves might be less correct than others, so they could have allowed more breathing room to other perspectives and not as much locked down the culture so much for so long. Given they were willing to seek Truth anywhere apparently (why else would they go outside church leaders’ writings), even outside the Church and apparently thought they found much of it among the conservative Evangelical and others’ ideas, it seems odd to me they weren’t as open to others searching in different paths as well. Highly recommend this well written blog by Joseph Spencer: https://www.wayfaremagazine.org/p/on-bruce-r-mcconkie

stelf is not a newcomer, he’s been a member of the board longer than you have (2010). Nor is he naive and I would be surprised if he was all that surprised. He has probably lost some posts when threads were culled in the past, but his earliest post currently available is from 2012.

What I want to know is how he was so certain she didn’t delay treatment because she was someone who wouldn’t accept illness in herself out of an underlying fear of being weak or perhaps as a refusal to need others or just didn’t want to put the mental effort in that comes with having to change habits or combo of all of the above? My dad was that way imo, he did the minimum he thought he could get away with and was wrong on occasion. For example, hurt himself in the hospital after surgery because he wouldn’t wait for a nurse to help him out of bed to use the toilet. Being independent was a huge point of pride for him, but he had also seen his father consumed with the genetic disorder that is the bane of our family, restless legs syndrome, and no way did he want to end up like that…but his solution was to find something that worked and then ignore it (which led to a great aggravation of his issues towards the end of his life that he might have been able to avoid if he had just been willing to stay one extra day and go to a doctor’s appointment I had arranged for him, but he wouldn’t even talk with me about his own symptoms or possible better medications and was dismissive when I bought out actual expert info on the problems with the drugs he was taking). Dad often used the excuse he was too busy to pay deeper attention to his health. But he ignored it when he had free time too, so I didn’t buy it. He was always able to make time for what he thought was important. My mom was much more practical. She was always serving, but she also looked for and accepted help for her health. It didn’t always go well because her health was complicated (which likely contributed to Dad not being willing). Mom’s response to stories of those who died in service or for their families (like a woman who refused cancer treatment so she could have one last child even though that left her children, including the newest without a mother) was ‘sometimes it’s harder to live for people than die for them’, recognizing that going against one’s natural instincts and investing effort in being more effective overtime was often the better way. There is nothing in church doctrine that demands we sacrifice our health though we often seem to glorify those who do, ignoring the longterm suffering that may end up causing for short term gains.

My interaction with the board over the decades, including with criticism and critics, has strengthened my testimony, not weakened it. And I had what I believe was a strong one when I first got online.

Define what a miracle is. Do we believe God’s miracles break the laws of nature or just appear to because lack of our God’s superior knowledge and skills? My understanding is LDS doctrine is the second. It would make sense that as we learn more of the laws of nature, less things become labeled as miraculous in our eyes.

And in LDS doctrine angels are simply those who are God’s messengers and can be mortal in my understanding. I am open to the idea, so not scoffing.

My guess would place it more at 99%. I just think it’s too big of a benefit for us mortals to help out, someone like the 3 Nephites or a true Saint/Santa wouldn’t need those kinds of blessings, so God would give the opportunity to those who need it.

At this point when Dan doesn’t visit the board and thus there is no actual interaction from him on your criticism, to me your comments are only insights into you, not him…iow, it makes me consider why you feel the need to express your disdain towards him when you know it will have no effect on his behaviour for the better.

There is a very good chance it is sounds in her ears (tinnitus) or something else that gets written by her brain as someone saying hello. It used to happen all the time to me anytime I was in a quiet place. “Hello” is a very familiar path in the brain for most of us, I am guessing. It shouldn’t be surprising if it is often the default response when the brain is unsure of what it’s hearing. Since my tinnitus got worse so it is constant instead of intermittent, it hardly ever happens. The sound tinnitus now makes is very clear on what it is. No guessing or filling in gaps by the brain needed. I also use to hear complicated pieces of music playing. If only they could have somehow been transcribed or recorded, I bet I could have made some extra cash off of them because some were quite beautiful. Also, now all I hear is a high pitched squeal. I do believe there are times when the Spirit speaks directly to us. I have had it happened, I believe, three times. The first was “your daughter has diabetes”. There was always a very significant purpose to it though.

For me, it’s the necessity of them. Christ’s resurrection is obviously necessary based on the most basic Christian doctrines. His raising of the dead during his ministry seems necessary to me to demonstrate his power over life and death in a very immediate way. I can see the benefit for those who knew John and the 3 disciples, but once they became strangers to those they helped, I do not see how they are actual testaments to Christ’s power over life and death. Most of the stories have too many shared qualities with urban myths for me to accept them as anything but low probability ‘maybes’. I think there is a massive desire in most of us to have guardian spirits and these stories feed that need. My guess is if the 3 Nephites are active in this day and age, actually interacting with mortals in meaningfully different ways than a random kind stranger, those they interact with aren’t inclined to share the experience.

I just got a package from the Netherlands. We had ordered a lovely quilt and a few other things from the Van Gogh museum a few years ago for my daughter, who loves his work and decorated her room to work with his almond blossoms (and she doesn’t like ripoffs so we went to the source as a treat). We were quite excited waiting for it and its origins in the Netherlands made it even more unique. Me, I am not so snooty. Mine today was a practical item…toothpaste. How bizarre is it to buy toothpaste from the other side of the world and get it in a week or two. It’s made in the UK too, so why the heck is it coming from the Netherlands, lol? Now to justify my purchase because dang, it’s expensive toothpaste…I hate mint toothpaste, always have and these days it even burns my mouth for some odd reason (so does cinnamon). Can’t have anything with sorbitol, so that leaves out all the kids’ toothpaste (besides they taste terrible). I buy fennel these days but wanted it with fluoride. Could be buried in the pages of options, but the kind that popped up first on Amazon that actually had fluoride (it’s annoying that the Amazon search function can’t seem to differentiate between with or without something) had been recommended in a few places online, so I didn’t really put too much thought into it beyond checking ingredients before hitting ‘buy’. I know you don’t have to actually use paste to brush your teeth and I often don’t, but I have been programmed enough that it just doesn’t feel as clean. It was Amazon which I know is global, but I usually think US or China. It’s disorienting to get international mail from odd places that amounts to mostly the same thing I can get around the corner, just a wee bit better (Americans who don’t like mint apparently mostly want fluoride free). It’s not something I would have expected to become a commonplace occurrence that long ago. Last Christmas I got two Moomin advent calendars from Finland (23 characters from the books each, I got a kaleidoscope with my set, my daughter got a magnifying glass; it was idiotic how excited I was over this cute little cardboard tube as we collect kaleidoscopes as well…though only on occasion and inexpensive ones). No flying cars yet, no individual nuclear power units for the home, but this much more realistic than teleportation delivery service from anywhere in the world is still pretty amazing. I never bought even as a kid we were going to have teleportation in 50 years. I am kind of disappointed we don’t have space hotels and colonies on the moon yet. I have way too much fun little stuff from around the world all over my house, it is quite delightful to be able to be so frivolous with so little effort. I was even able to complete with the help of eBay a Winnie the Pooh book collection I started when I was 8 years old (one was a present from my favorite teacher, the other was the first book I ever bought myself the following year on a field trip to the Natural History Museum in Chicago). To be able to find the exact edition almost 60 years later and to be able to afford it with just 15 minutes work one day when it occurred to me I might as well try…I cried when I put the all the four on my shelf instead of just two. It filled a hole in my soul. I also now have every mystery written by Agatha Christie. Had made a very good start on that collection because of my mother-in-law and a neighbor giving me their collections. Too close not to finish it off, lol. I almost ordered a Lone Ranger horse my husband had been jealous his brother got instead of him when young kids (early ‘60s, I think he got Tonto’s horse), but he’s not into walking that far down memory lane as much as I am and hasn’t organized the knickknacks he already has well enough to appreciate them yet (we are both semi-hoarders, but I am organized and he is not). I did find a hallway to clear out of clutter and set up four display shelves for him, but that took care of maybe a tenth of what he has out. So what are you doing these days you never thought would happen, but can now because of technology or something else?

https://www.npr.org/2025/06/05/nx-s1-5424445/supreme-court-catholic-charities-wisconsin-unemployment-compensation Anyone with info on the case? It seems odd that religious groups don’t have to pay unemployment tax to me. Is the rationale no taxes at all can be required? Seems like religious groups could opt out of paying SS in general as well and not just as individual or organization conscientious objectors*** since the unemployment tax is for covering unemployment government benefits and I don’t see much difference with retirement benefits. Are there any safeguards included to ensure the employee gets enough income to pay for insurance for unemployment or retirement themselves if they want to? ***this info is from a quick search as I had no relevant knowledge on the subject. What, if anything, is absolutely required from religious organizations to the government money wise?

We talked earlier about Christian Nationalism in the US, so I thought people would be interested in this study I stumbled across today from January. https://www.pewresearch.org/global/2025/01/28/comparing-levels-of-religious-nationalism-around-the-world/ “In many countries, religion and politics are deeply intertwined. The belief that a country’s historically predominant religion should be a central part of its national identity and drive policymaking is sometimes described as “religious nationalism.” A wide range of movements have been described as religious nationalism, including in India, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi has campaigned and governed on the idea that Hindu faith and culture should shape government policies; and in Israel, where Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is backed by a coalition that includes ultra-Orthodox and national religious parties. But there is no universally accepted definition of religious nationalism, leaving lots of room for debate over who is, say, a Christian nationalist or a Hindu nationalist. This has made it difficult to assess how common such views are around the world. To help fill this gap, Pew Research Center set out to measure – in an impartial, consistent way – what share of people in different countries view the dominant religious tradition as central to their national identity, want their leaders to share their religious beliefs, and want religious teachings to guide their laws. We asked four key questions in nationally representative surveys of nearly 55,000 people, conducted from January to May 2024 in three dozen countries1: How important is belonging to the historically predominant religion to being truly part of your national identity? (For example, how important is being a Muslim to being truly Indonesian, or being a Christian to being truly American?) How important is it to you for your national leader to share your religious beliefs? How much influence do you think the historically predominant religion’s sacred text should have on the laws of your country? (For example, how much influence should the Quran have on the laws of Turkey, or should the Bible have on the laws of Italy?) When the sacred text conflicts with the will of the people, which should have more influence on the laws of your country? (This follow-up question was asked only of respondents who answered the previous question by saying that the sacred text should have a “fair amount” or “great deal” of influence on their country’s laws.) For this report, we define “religious nationalists” as people who identify with the historically predominant religion (also often the majority religion) and take a strongly religious position on all four of these questions.” “Using this definition, the prevalence of religious nationalism varies widely across the 35 countries where we asked all four of these questions. Fewer than 1% of adults surveyed meet the criteria in Germany and Sweden, compared with more than four-in-ten in Indonesia (46%) and Bangladesh (45%).” For those primarily interested in US standing: “In this global perspective, the U.S. does not stand out for especially high levels of religious nationalism. Just 6% of U.S. adults are religious nationalists by the combination of these four measures, about the same level as several other countries surveyed in the Americas, such as Chile (6%), Mexico (8%) and Argentina (8%).Canada has a relatively low share of religious nationalists (3%), while Colombia (12%), Brazil (13%) and Peru (17%) have somewhat higher shares. However, the U.S. does stand out when compared with other high-income countries, particularly on questions about religious texts. U.S. adults are more likely than people in any other high-income country surveyed to say the Bible currently has either a great deal or some influence over the laws of their country (in other countries, people were asked about other texts). And the U.S. public is also more inclined than people in other high-income countries to say that the Bible should have that kind of influence (again, relative to the sacred texts asked about in other places). Americans are also among the most likely of any high-income public to: Describe a religious identity (in this case, being a Christian) as very important to truly sharing in the national identity (being American) Say it’s very important for their country’s political leader to have strong religious beliefs.”

https://www.kcra.com/article/idaho-mormon-church-child-sex-abuse-claims/46022043 https://apnews.com/article/mormon-church-investigation-child-sex-abuse-4db829616a5c5cfa351a2e95d778ae9e This is from the reporter who wasn’t great with details from the Adams case, so I would urge caution until we have other confirming sources. Lights out for me, so dissection comes tomorrow…though thinking Smac and others will get there first.

Jury selection for the first trial has started. No cameras in court. These are the two top reporters on this Imo, been devoting lots of up close attention from the beginning… Justin Lum (Arizona) is providing details here; https://m.facebook.com/jlumfox10 day one: https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=pfbid02T3B9DtxDNgRyHzUKhqpBKpWRdCimVok7jMNSrQ8JPtSzD8zm7dv4zn1PLz2BkW8Nl&id=100044424966565 Eaat Idaho News (usually Nate Eaton) here: https://www.eastidahonews.com/2023/04/jury-selection-begins-on-first-day-of-lori-vallow-daybell-murder-trial-day-one/