OGHoosier

@mfbukowski It's all over now...

"Shall" can also be in the form of a command. Pretty much every standing command the Lord has ever given has been disobeyed so the usage stands.

It's good to hear from you again, Robert.

The reality of divine justice. I understand that injustice must exist but it's good to know that God will correct it and refine us to deal with it along the way.

Within their rights? Yeah. My general philosophy is that people are within their rights to make whatever judgements they may on any given topic. Given that judgements are essentially opinions, the assertion that people might not have the right to hold certain opinions doesn't sit well with me. I do maintain a distinction between the right to do something and the goodness or badness of doing that thing.

This misses so many points. Aside from the blatant condescension exhibited to believing members, none of this characterization is at all relevant. When we make judgements about how "exemplary", "strong and faithful", "admirable" others are, we do so based on characteristics which are visible and accessible to us. These are most often things like dedication, enthusiasm, kindness, serviceability, etc., as well as elements of orthopraxy like obedience to the commandments. Personal understanding of theology and doctrine are usually not among those unless the person we're referring to is b

You're speaking my language. I have a rather eccentric British friend who told me to read Ride The Tiger. I haven't gotten around to it but I think he now fantasized about "riding the tiger" after everything goes to heck. I can't imagine God is super satisfied with the state of affairs in this place. As for traditionalism, I didn't even know places like St. Mary's existed, so that's kind of interesting. Everybody talks about polarization, the urban/rural divide, etc, but I think we're struggling to grasp the true meaning of these abstracts on our daily lives. We're essentially balkanizing as a

Good point. I'm still an unwed college kid so that aspect of things escaped me completely.

Thanks for posting the old mass. I love Catholic masses, though I can't understand a word that's said (and given my theological commitments perhaps that's for the best). But I'll readily confess that Gregorian chants are criminally underrepresented on the Billboard Top 100. Repeated application of the Benedict Option is part of my heritage. Of course, I'd call it the Brigham Option. 😉 I haven't read Dreher's book but I hope to do so. Sadly, I think your assessment is quite right. I am left to wonder how exactly our furious consumption will play out: will the consequences come fi

Our most prominent measure of successful governance is GDP, which is calculated using consumption. So long as neoliberal economic prosperity remains the measure of good governance in our society, consumerism is destiny. I hate to say it but if we're going to shake consumerist philosophy and its externalities, we're going to have to shuck the idea that national and personal wealth is the measure of success. It's going to have to be a secondary concern or the Almighty Dollar's throne will be quite secure.

In my experience we only explicitly acknowledge the Advent on the last Sunday before Christmas Day, which is called the "Christmas program". We have the sacrament and then after that comes a presentation of "music and the spoken word", as we call it. There's usually a reading of Luke 2. Definitely a few Christmas hymns performed with vocals or a variety of instruments. Occasionally a brief Christmas message or two are shared. That's the only real formal celebration of Christmas in our services, at least in my experiences. Some wards will do Christmas service projects, the youth groups almost a

If Re is dumping beer everywhere, both of us have bigger problems to worry about

There's textual evidence within the Book of Mormon which corroborates that Lehi did not live within Jerusalem's boundaries but in the countryside. Lehi is described as having a "land of his inheritance" (1 Nephi 2:4, 1 Nephi 3:22), which implies rural property as opposed to an urban dwelling. In 1 Nephi 3:22 we are told that the sons of Lehi "went down to the land of [their] inheritance" from the cleft in the rock in which they were hiding outside of Jerusalem, which indicates that their property was not only outside of Jerusalem but at a lower altitude. 1 Nephi 1:4 says that Lehi "dwelt at Je

There's also the question of whether or not Joseph had the coopering skills necessary. I don't know of any source from later in life that has Joseph working as a cooper, which would be an obvious choice of profession if he had the training and financial need, and he clearly had the latter.

I don't know of any way to make lead or iron appear golden or greenish, so I don't think that lead can satisfy witness descriptions even if it is comparable to ironworking. Coopers did use iron to make the bands for barrels, but the plates would require considerably more craftsmanship and probably a specialized set of tools. A basic forge and a hammer won't do it, you'd need specialized molds. Furthermore I think iron would be too tough to engrave the fine characters observed on the plates, and it would be too light to match descriptions of the plates.