JVW

So by your estimation the 5 wounds of Christ is more accurate and historically defendable than the LDS temple's 7 wounds of Christ. Only you have the caveat that the hand wounds would have been in the wrist, not in the palm. Is that correct?

I was thinking McCarthyism as I was writing it. I haven't heard of anyone referring to that time period as fascist before. ETA: Covid times were a lot like this in many parts of the world and many people were on board with it. My wife's family is Australian, the are all pretty far-left politically. But when they tell covid-era stories they will confess that their govt and neighbors went too far. There was a lot of spying and tattle-telling b/c the perception was "if I don't police my neighbor they could kill my grandma." So we aren't too far removed from this kind of atmosphere and I wouldn't be surprised if it pops up again very soon.

You and I are both asking the same question. Wouldn't a law to report illegal immigrants be viewed by many in this thread as immoral and unjust?

I wish that we could just use "Saints" or "Latter-day Saints" but I understand that across languages this doesn't work so well and that the Catholics already kind of have claim on that. So instead I'm wondering if we could use something like "disciples of Christ" or "Ephraimites" or "restored Israel". Since we are the Ephraimite church tasked with gathering Israel and all of those three terms either directly reference Christ or lead to Him and infer what the mission of our church is. I personally don't like the term "Mormon". I'd rather if we were called "Moronis" or "Nephis" or "Almas" or whatever. I just don't like the sound of the word, no particular reason why.

The first half of this thread was really good. Especially because I have seen some blog posts by people I follow who have been critical of the church investing in these Islamic charities but I know better now because of the information presented earlier in this thread. The "flavor of the month" politics arguing has been kind of dumb. I wish people got all the arguing about ICE out of their system before it was cool. I'd rather read about something else now.

I'm not going to take time to make this post pretty, so if anyone wants to add any sources or whatever feel free to do so below (or maybe I will when I get the time). A few days ago the Utah state governor Cox put a post on Facebook asking Utahns to pray for snow/rain because of the drought this winter season. Yesterday I get an email from my Stake President asking the whole Stake to fast and pray for snow/rain because the Utah governor asked Utahns to pray for it. They both believe that there is power in fasting for snow/rain and that it will help our state. Several years ago during the summer my Bishop asked the ward to pray for rain because there was drought-like conditions. IIRC Utah governor Cox asked the state to pray for rain around that time as well. I remember wondering at the time, "what if rain is against God's will and He wants a drought right now? I don't want to fast and pray for something contrary to God's will." I spent the next few weeks reflecting on this and studying about fasting to try and figure out exactly what fasting is and what purpose it serves. I read Isaiah 53, I looked up TG for fasting, I read about fasting in the D&C. The result of my study was as follows: People don't eat when they are sad or stressed. People tend to feast when they are happy and celebrating. Therefore I do not believe that the verse in D&C mentioning fasting in joy is God's word, I believe that verse is false scripture. Every other canonized instance of fasting is coupled with mourning and weakness. Fasting is not some "super powered prayer" or a magic bullet to insert extra money into a Celestial vending machine to get a prize. Fasting is designed to help the soul recognize the gravity of the situation its in, its reliance on the Messiah for salvation and comfort, and to turn one's heart towards God. After I came to this conclusion I decided to fast and pray for rain with the ward because I liked my Bishop. A curious thing followed. Later that same day on Fast Sunday, a teeny tiny little rain cloud passed over the ward neighborhood and we had a light sprinkling for about 10 seconds under a shadow, and then it passed. In that moment I laughed and recognized that God has His own ways of respecting the sacrifice of His saints while still getting His way. I do not intend to fast and pray for rain with my Stake or in order to honor my local church leadership or Utah state govt. I believe it is God's will for Utah to have a drought. I do not believe that God is causing a drought with a condition that if people pray extra hard that He'll change His mind. I think that's a dumb notion to have. Anyways, now that I have said my peace, what do you all think? What is fasting? Why do we fast? What can be accomplished with fasting? (If it's safe to ask) Do you think it's appropriate for govt leaders at any level to ask their constituents to pray for anything? Do you think it's a good idea to fast and pray for rain? Is there any historical precedent for this in LDS or early church history? Do you believe the verse on fasting in D&C is God's word? How do you reconcile that with all other verses on fasting? etc. etc. Thanks for reading and participating in this thread everyone. I appreciate all of you and your wisdom and thoughtfulness. Yes, even you!

Hey Nehor this is a tangent but I'm wondering your thoughts on this since you know a surprising amount about a bunch of random church stuff. From what I understand, historically, the 5 wounds of Christ were understood and used symbolically in the Christian world. Even as recently as the Nauvoo temple stained glass uses the 5 pointed star, representing the 5 wounds of Christ. However, in the temple the 5 wounds are expanded into 7 wounds with the wounds in the wrist being represented. Is there historical basis for crucifixion with nails through the hands and wrists? Are there any mention of these additional nails by any church history fathers or anything? This is potentially one of those "solve theological problems but creates historical problems" kind of things you just referred to.

I have a question on point 1. Let's pretend that the govt issued a law that said if you know someone is illegal then you are required to report them to the govt. Point 1 says LDS obey the law. The canonized Article of Faith reaffirms this "we belive in honoring, obeying, sustaining the law". Would that change how many of you are answering in this thread? Or would you break the law? Would you regard that law as simply unjust, or would you view it as immoral? If you didn't keep that law would you be breaking your covenants with God since our canon says to obey the law? What if the law included a requirement to report anyone on suspicion who you believe knew someone else was illegal but was refusing to report it? (making it more likely for you to get caught if you quietly resisted.) What if the penalty was $1k, $10k, etc. per infraction? What if the penalty were jail time? What if it were death (as @sunstoned pointed out earlier he wouldn't report the Jews in Germany under potential penalty of death)? Since this issue is currently reeking of politics (which I think is really weird, but whatever), what if the law was instituted by your favorite president of all time who you trusted and all media regardless of left/right, D/R, or independent/mainstream supported the law with honey-laced justifications that got the country enamored with the new law? What if all of your friends hopped on board and were quietly watching you to see if you were on their side? I know that everyone on here naturally believes that they wouldn't have reported Jews, and that they would resist immoral or unjust laws. But really take a moment to think about it. Would you really? I think these are interesting questions.

Yeah, and I'm not immune to it. Good point.

I wouldn't report them. I also don't believe they would be killed if I did. I do believe that anyone who is illegal shouldn't be able to get a temple recommend if they answer the questions honestly, but I do understand that the honesty question is a gray area and open for interpretation. I'm married to a former illegal immigrant, her family overstayed their visa and it took her 20 years to get citizenship. If she were deported before we met I'd be a lonely man. The reason I wouldn't report them is that I'm not the police, it's not my job. So unless the govt wants to pay me to nark on my neighbors then I have little to no incentive to do so. People who spy on their neighbors because it makes them feel good are the worst kinds of people. I was on the receiving end of that during the covid era and it's not fun. If I see someone doing something that I view as wrong I prefer to confront them directly and talk about it. If I ever saw someone in the act of committing a felony I'd obviously call the cops, I don't think there's any sane person who wouldn't.

Correct me if I'm wrong but I thought that all decisions made in the church needed to be unanimous (which means we don't decide things by vote)? I'm confused about what part of scripture the church isn't following here. Which sections of D&C are you referring to? (I'm assuming you are referring to D&C since that's where all the church govt stuff is).

But we don't decide things by vote in the church, it's not a democracy? We raise our hand to sustain a decision that's already been made, if we disagree with it for a dumb reason then the Stake President will probably help us along a path of repentance/excommunication. If we raise our hand for a good reason, who knows what'll happen? Either way, the decision that was already made prior to the sustaining will not change.

You're a rare breed, brother. Both the left and the right hate Israel for some overlapping reasons, and also some unique ones. It used to be mostly left that were overtly anti-Israel (pro-Palestinian is implicitly anti-Israel). Since Charlie Kirk's death (paired with Nick Fuentes rise) the anti-Israel sentiment from the right has exploded. So now I just see it everywhere, regardless of what comments section I'm in. It's becoming harder and harder to find someone online who will passionately defend Israel and I respect you for it. Whether you're right or wrong I appreciate you making an effort to defend a State you believe in. Thanks brother.

You gotta loosen up! Can't be serious all the time. Have some fun and bask in the ridiculous. It makes life a little less boring.

This is a really interesting question that I haven't thought about at all, but you got my mind grapes juicing so here's my preliminary thoughts. From the devil's view God is dead. There is no God in the devil's world. To take it even one step farther (and this opinion is qualified because of all of the Korean comics I've read, which a surprising amount have Satanic themes) the devil killed God in his world. He is not the loser in his mind, he is the victor. If one is cut off from God's presence then God is dead to that person, or there is no God in their world. God is the one who defines what is good and we can either accept or reject His definition. You mention that animals do good things sometimes. It could be argued that evil people do good things as well. If you want an example of this let me know, but I hope we can generally agree that evil people on Earth have done good too. Now, using God's definition, He says that you can't worship God and mammon (money), so He puts money in opposition to the Father. This means that those who worship money are evil and, whether they intentionally do it or not, are following the devil. They have the bitter fountain, the rotten fruit, etc. In addition to this, those who break the Ten Commandments are committing evil acts, whether it's committing murder or not putting God first. All of these judgments and definitions are from the Holy Bible, they are presumably God's definition of what constitutes a good or evil thought, feeling, action, etc. Getting back to the animals doing good things. They seem to be good things, because you judge them as such based off of your understanding of what is good, which is based on God's definition. We can sit and argue about whether good can be objectively reasoned to without religion, but the fact is that religion is baked in everywhere, and patterns of what are good and evil overlap in all major world religions and personal views. The golden rule being a prime example of this. Now, boiling all of this down to the worldview of the LDS (because we've been quoting the BoM) God has defined all truth, light, and goodness into one being who is Jesus Christ. He is in all things and through all things, etc. etc. Now what if God is dead? What if there is no God? Who defines what is good? If there is no God in the devil's world, there is no Jesus, and there is no source of good. The devil defines what is good, but any definition of good that is bereft of Jesus Christ is not in alignment with reality. Therefore those who cut themselves off from God are bereft of any internal goodness. As far as why we would become subject to the devil I don't really have any thoughts on that yet. My initial inkling of a thought is basically that the devil is more powerful than me, so if I die the second death and have no God then Satan would come to subject me and if I fought with every ounce of strength I had I could not win against him. The devil has had a long time to increase his strength without God's support. Whereas I spent all my eternity with God, and am supported by Him in mortality, so if He left me I'd be like a little baby compared to Satan the mature body builder. You are asking some tricky questions!

I don't have access to YT on this device but from what I recall he gave some very persuasive reasoning based on Hyrum's death mask and some other stuff that Hyrum was shot under the chin with an exit wound out by his ear and stated that the most logical explanation for the wounds being in these spots was someone in the room sticking a gun under his head and shooting him. I'm pretty sure it's that guy who did a video on it, I'll see if I can find it on my TV and try and find a link

Out of curiosity, what was the word string you used in the church's search engine and what was the talk you found? Your story sounds really interesting but you communicated it in a vague way because the meat of the story was besides the point, but I'd like to know more details... I hope that the SLC temple open house is so popular that they have to extend it for years in order to accommodate everyone from around the world who wants to walk through it and see it. It's a beautiful building.

I wanna take a stab at this. Life and death are in God's purview. Every breath we take is a gift from God. So without His support we couldn't be alive and if we weren't alive we couldn't do any good. I don't know if literally enabling us to live is part of the "grace" package, but I think this is a pretty reasonable argument. That's the smartest thing I've read all day. If you don't have a degree your opinion is worthless. (I'm just kidding here, I just don't feel like working and am joking through my misery.) This made me lol! In honor of Teddy, "Mosiah 3:19 For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father." ... duh ...

This video was really good, thanks for sharing! As an aside, I think church newsroom needs to step up their game. As a worldwide church I think it's safe to assume that there is enough news material where the church could have a news station setup running 24/7 and still wouldn't be able to cover all church newsworthy events. While the church news produced a few good videos about the SLC temple renovation, they don't really report on much in general and when they do it tends to be pretty vague. Also, while I'm whining, I'll say that the church needs to make their search feature on LDS.org not suck. It is so bad. I hope that one day the church can have a world-class church newsroom and search engine. Until then, I will enjoy videos like this one from B1N that did a better job than the church at producing a video about the temple renovation.

Are you a closet Calvinist?

I saw a video from this guy once, doesn't he believe that Brigham Young had Joseph assassinated? I haven't researched any of that, but the video I saw presented a pretty compelling argument for Willard Richards killing Hyrum. If he's not ex'd by now I don't doubt the he will be soon if his Stake President is paying attention or if God is moving through Stake Presidents collectively to ex people who appear to be better members than I am.

I read this when it came out. I find it interesting that the area presidency is the one making a statement. Maybe it's because the church isn't headquartered in Canada so they don't have the same kind of weight to throw around like they did with the brief they filed on the supreme court trans case? I have believed for at least 5 years that one day the words "Jesus Christ" will be regarded as the ultimate form of hate speech. A belief in Jesus inherently means a belief in justice and mercy, in right and wrong, good and evil, in accountability, in sin and repentance, and a belief in God. The way society seems to be approaching evil is to pretend it doesn't exist, to celebrate whatever people do and encourage and support them even if they are being dumb. There is no such thing as sin, no such thing as bad guys, and if you tell me I'm wrong you are being judgmental and bigoted. If the trends continue then Christianity will be regarded as the most hateful institution one day. By many it is already regarded as such. Hope isn't my strong suit, so I believe that CA will pass the bill and remove religious protections for speech. It's a bummer.

How do you know so much about everything? Had you actually heard of Globus before this post or did you just do some "Limitless" style online sleuthing before posting? You're a rockstar.

It was a joke. If it was by works we were saved then it's whatever the Pharisees and Saducees did that would produce salvation.

There, fixed it for you, you picked the wrong word to change.