JVW

You made a lot of good points for me to consider in this conversation. Thanks for taking time to have this dialogue with me.

The temple has a ton of stuff that isn't in our canonized text. There is a lot of secret knowledge there. The temple literally has the sealing ordinance and it is not explicitly laid out in our canonized text. Even the wording of the sealing ceremony isn't present. DC 132, more than anything, just makes the argument for why authority is needed for a marriage to be eternal. The temple has everything else that we know about sealing. DC 132 was not needed for sealings to be performed and, in fact, sealings were performed before DC 132 was even dictated. Yeah... the anti-Brigham Young crowd isn't cool. They're basically just as bad as the anti-Mormons except that they still feel like they're active and are the only "true Mormons". I honestly prefer the "Adam-God theory is true" crowd more. There are journals, notes, etc. regarding the development of temple ceremonies and the council of the 50, and even the Second Anointing that are from before Joseph's martyrdom. Believing that polygamy is always an abomination before God and that the prophets were confused about the radical new doctrine of sealing is pretty easy to do. All I have to do is believe that the Book of Mormon is more correct than the D&C. The thing is, we all do abominable things before God all the time and yet he still communes with us and leads us along. I don't need to believe that Brigham Young was an evil conspirator to preserve some mystical element about Joseph. I just need to take Joseph Smith at his word. If the church ever has a major schism equivalent to Catholics V Protestants I do not believe it will be around pre/post 1890 church. I think it would probably be around more modern issues like the family proclamation. I say this because it's the pattern I'm seeing in other churches right now. Like the Anglican church issued a document in 2008 that is basically their version of the family proclamation and they just split along the line of who believes in that document and who doesn't.

Uh.. FAIR says it was a hoax, idk. I like to believe that while he was translating the book of Abraham he was commanded to keep some scrolls private for use in temple ceremonies, but that doesn't mean it's reality. I'm just having fun. https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Book_of_Abraham/Book_of_Joseph

The world needs more saucy, keep on posting brother.

It also comes from the temple which some have speculated come from other papyrus that Joseph translated which could have been the book of Joseph of Egypt. It is very strange that the capstone doctrine of the church has next to nothing explaining it. And the one document we have is half-bad. Even if we set aside the contradictions in it that I pointed out earlier, it basically says if you are sealed you can commit as much sin as you want excepting cold-blooded murder and you will be part of the first resurrection and obtain Celestial glory. That's not a cool doctrine at all so I'm disinclined to believe it.

Snow was not recounting hearsay decades removed; she was personally involved in the early practice and regarded plural marriage as divinely mandated despite personal cost. 2. Heber C. Kimball (Apostle, First Presidency) Kimball taught publicly that Joseph Smith struggled deeply with the commandment and only proceeded after repeated angelic warnings. Paraphrase from Kimball’s teaching: Joseph Smith delayed obeying the commandment until an angel appeared with a drawn sword and threatened him with destruction if he did not proceed. Kimball framed this not as indulgence, but as reluctant obedience. 3. Brigham Young Brigham Young consistently testified that plural marriage was introduced by Joseph Smith under extraordinary divine compulsion, not personal desire. Young stated that Joseph: Found the principle abhorrent at first Attempted to avoid it Finally complied only after angelic enforcement Young explicitly referenced the drawn sword motif in multiple sermons. 4. Mary Elizabeth Rollins Lightner (plural wife) Lightner gave a detailed autobiographical account stating that Joseph told her: An angel appeared to him The angel held a drawn sword He was commanded to enter plural marriage or face destruction Her account is among the most detailed and consistent first-person recollections. 5. William Clayton (Joseph Smith’s secretary) Clayton recorded in his journals that Joseph told him: He was commanded by an angel The commandment was not optional Severe consequences were attached to refusal Clayton was present when the 1843 revelation (now Doctrine and Covenants 132) was dictated. Canonical LDS Context Doctrine and Covenants 132 While D&C 132 does not explicitly mention an angel with a sword, it repeatedly emphasizes: Divine command Severe consequences for disobedience The principle being restored through Joseph Smith specifically The angelic enforcement narrative functions as historical context, not canonized text. Scholarly and Institutional Consensus Importantly, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints does not deny this claim. Modern Church historians and official publications acknowledge that: Joseph Smith taught that plural marriage was commanded by God He resisted the commandment Angelic visitation was part of his explanation for proceeding The Church refrains from dramatizing the image but does not reject its historicity. Important Clarifications The angel is never named in surviving accounts. The language “with a sword” appears consistently, sometimes phrased as “drawn sword.” The experience is described as coercive, not persuasive. No contemporary, hostile source invented the story; it comes from insiders defending the practice. Summary Judgment Yes. According to multiple independent LDS historical sources, Joseph Smith taught that an angel with a drawn sword commanded him to practice plural marriage and threatened him with destruction if he did not comply. This claim: Is early Is consistent Comes from participants and witnesses Is acknowledged (though not emphasized) by modern LDS scholarship I'd like to see this but with the dates of when the stories were shared. All of these witness accounts were decades after Joseph passed. There was no story of an angel with a drawn sword while he was alive or even before the Saints moved to Utah.

Ok, that information lines up with the article. That's interesting!

Even though I view polygamy as an abomination in God's site and against His will when the church practiced it I do not discount or ignore the myriad testimonies of women who God supported during that time. He takes care of His own, regardless of what decisions the leaders of His church make. It is actually quite beautiful and I'm glad can operate independently, at a personal level, for each of His children and not solely through church leaders who do dumb stuff from time to time.

I like that quote. Thanks for sharing it. We can discuss intersex more if you want, but intersex and transgenderism are not remotely equivalent. Having both parts is not the same as having one part but hating yourself because of it. I don't believe you but I accept your sentiment. I wouldn't be seeing pronouns on LinkedIn profiles if trans just wanted to be left alone. I think there has been a large, visceral shift in public culture and discourse in America because of the trans movement, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but it is a thing. IDK what cishet means, I'm assuming you just mean men? There are very real concerns about potential dangers from the trans community. I don't think making a blanket statement discarding everything your opposition believes as wrong is correct or the right way to go in a debate about trans. For someone so insistent on nuance regarding sex you are certainly throwing nuance out the window when regarding the arguments of those opposed to your views. There are bad guys everywhere, trans aren't innocent. It also doesn't help that every trans-woman at one point was a cishet so how do you determine if a trans woman is truly a woman or a cishet pretender? Here's a few quotes from trans authors and activists (i.e. leaders of the trans movement). Are they cishet in sheep's clothing, or real women? In the gay marriage movement there were many gays who hated the activists and just wanted to live a quiet peaceful life. I believe this to be the case in the trans movement too, that there are trans who hate the activists and just want to quietly live their lives. I thought that after King Henry established the Church of England the church wanted to eradicate Protestantism from England and so those people left? Not only the Puritans, but other protestant groups as well who founded other American colonies? If the State religion was, say, Islam like in Saudi Arabia or something we wouldn't be seeing any trans lawsuits of any kind. Heck, if the State religion was Christianity we probably wouldn't be seeing trans lawsuits, and there probably wouldn't be major sect splits either. The State has the power to enforce its will, and if it wants everyone to believe the same way that it does then it will. I don't know if Naziism was motivated by religion or not, but the State belief was enforced and the ones who failed to comply were decimated. Same with the Bolshevik revolution, or even the system that's set up by the CCP in China using Social Credit scores and/or the genocide of the Uyghurs. We also see this happening in Israel. It happens everywhere. Whatever the State believes, and the culture and society it wants to enforce, it does what it wills. So the fact that, in America, trans can rise up as a group and do lawsuits and things says something about the State here that implies a certain level of tolerance. Yeah, buddy! Hopefully it comes back some day but my brain has been leaking for years now.

Thanks for sharing that. I agree about the provenance, there was a brief period of time where I refused to believe that Joseph dictated it, but the evidence is too strong against that belief. While this does offer a helpful perspective, 132 still makes some very outrageous claims and I most definitely believe that Joseph would have revised it in a less emotionally volatile setting. But that also explains why Brigham was so hard-nosed about polygamy and led the church that direction. If the council of the 50 were using this document as instruction then there is little room to interpret it any differently than it was. And that group was the reason why Brigham was chosen over Sidney to be the next president, because Sidney wasn't part of the 50. Even though Joseph was an amazing prophet, he was still a guy and got things wrong. It's just a shame that it had to be 132 of all things. Or maybe God wanted this blemish on church history for His own wise and mysterious purposes and so He intentionally withheld more information about it, who knows? It would be nice if we could get some new sections of the D&C from living church leaders to elucidate further on what sealing actually means.

I appreciate the thought here. I was just leaning towards chalking it up to a revelation from an evil spirit or a forgery or something. I wasn't aware that Joseph edited his revelations in the D&C. That's really interesting to me because how did he know when he had gotten the revelation "just right"? Do you know which revelations Joseph considered complete and which were unfinished? AFAIK the JST of the Bible isn't regarded as canon because he was in the middle of it even though he did the bulk of the work in the early 1830s.

So are you suggesting that race being a protected class is based on outdated information and it may be worth reconsidering that protection since race isn't provable beyond using appearance and assumptions?

I believe that Joseph Smith practiced plural marriage, due to a misunderstanding in how the radical new doctrine of sealing operates. They used to do adoptions and believe that everyone had to be sealed to the prophet in order to go to heaven. To this day we don't really know anything about what sealing means and I don't fault Joseph for getting sealed to a bunch of women. I do not believe that Joseph Smith practiced polygamy. That is, living a married lifestyle with more than one woman. Anytime he was asked about polygamy he vehemently denied it and condemned the practice. As far as I recall (I don't have time to write a scholarly, well sourced article in this post) all of the women's testimonies in court were given after Joseph was dead and he was unable to defend himself against his accusers. Section 132 of the Doctrine and Covenants wasn't released until like the 1850s. The angel with the drawn sword story was first told in like the mid-1850s and nearly every other account was 1860s, 1880s, or later and it was all "I heard from a friend who heard it from their dad who heard it from Joseph" type of things. I do not believe that Joseph was murdered by Brigham Young, but I do think it's possible that Willard Richards murdered Hyrum in jail during the commotion. I saw a pretty persuasive video essay about it once examining the bullet wounds. For the record, Brigham Young is my favorite prophet and I do not believe that the "Brighamite" church went into apostasy and departed from Joseph's teachings and all of that. I can't explain the D&C 132 thing. Even though it was released posthumously, there strong evidence that Joseph dictated the revelation. This record is from 1843, before Joseph died, and it has all of the juicy polygamy stuff in it https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/revelation-12-july-1843-dc-132/5 The strangest thing about 132 is that it contradicts the dead sea scrolls, the Bible, and the Book of Mormon all in one fell swoop! Note this quote from the Damascus Document, found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (copied from this article https://oneclimbs.com/2023/09/15/commandments-given-unto-our-fathers/): 132 says that David will not be exalted because of Uriah. It contradicts the Bible because Isaac didn't have more than one wife but 132 says he did. It contradicts the Book of Mormon because Jacob says that "many wives and concubines is an abomination to God" and 132 says it is not. Anyways, I had an itch to scratch with polygamy and researched into it for 2-3 years until I reached a personal resolution (which is that half of section 132 is not God's word). Before I started my research journey I wanted to write a letter to the prophet about it, but realized it would be kicked down to the Stake, and the Stake would kick it down to the Bishop, and the Bishop doesn't have any idea so I just minded my own business. I tend to keep my position on the topic somewhat private because it is against the church's official apologetics (which I think are trying to justify an abomination). I imagine that if I went all public about it I would get excommunicated too. To me it is obvious that polygamy was a Brigham Young thing because it basically started with Brigham Young and ended like a decade after he died. God allowed Brigham to live in error because he lets us humans do that, and then in order to preserve the church he quickly course corrected it using political influence from the U.S. Government. Thank goodness he did! That's my two cents. I love this topic. Thanks for the video recommendation and the OP. Cheers!

Hey all. I need a sanity check. This article, https://medicinegirl.substack.com/p/diamonds-are-a-frauds-best-friend, argues about why carbon dating shouldn't be trusted but there's only one counterargument in the comments and it's not arguing against her analysis of carbon dating. I don't know if anyone here knows a lot about carbon dating but I would appreciate it if there were someone here who does if they would provide an argument for how this article is wrong (excluding the opinion statements she makes, which is like 30% of the text of the article, so feel free to sweep those statements under the rug). For those who don't want to read it because it's rather long, let me just put some things into this OP to make it long instead. Also, please note, I don't care about credentials or expertise, I care about the argument as its presented and the reasoning used, so when you argue against it please don't just say "she's dumb because she's not a geologist or whatever" because I think that's a lame argument. The first half of the article basically says that the story of how diamonds are formed is made up based on inferences from how lab grown diamonds are formed but has very little basis in scientific thought. It also talks about how diamond supply has been artificially throttled (which was old news to me). What I liked about this part of the article was her explanation about how lab diamonds are grown. I thought that was interesting. Pretty cool. Anyways, onto carbon dating! To start with the author says I have no idea, but that sounds about right according to what I've learned in the past about this method of dating. She then proceeds to talk about how carbon dating works This sounds like it could be a little murky and open for dispute. In a comment below the article someone summarized the carbon dating process as follows Is this what the actual process of carbon dating looks like? If so, that's fascinating but also kind of weird. The author continues on suggesting "points of failure" for current carbon dating methods: This is a point that I've considered in passing. I understand that radioactive decay, when measured in a lab, is uniform. But how can it be proven that decay is uniform across thousands or millions of years? If that assumption is wrong, I wonder what margin of error could be introduced to account for it? +/- a a few thousand years? A few million? I have no inkling about whether this statement is true or not, but it sounds reasonable. Again, no idea if this is true. I don't even know if this is applicable in the model she's critiquing? I assume she's talking about absorbing that mixture of carbon-12 and carbon-14 from the upper atmosphere here, but the model assumes that absorption stops after a living organism dies? I have heard of this before. I saw a discussion online about a guy who measured some fresh volcanic rocks in Hawaii and they were dated to like 10,000 years ago and the rebuttal was that the rocks were too new so carbon dating wouldn't work on them. It was in-line with this idea that if a result is anomalous it needs to be explained away or adjusted to fit a preexisting timeline. Ok, you have been quoted, dear author. I'm not sure that I agree with her sentiment here but it is interesting nonetheless, she continues This is a paradigm shifting idea since I was raised to view water as Hydrogen and Oxygen combined, yet I do think her idea is reasonable because if water is "taken apart" it is no longer water. So in a way, it is a primary element of its own. Also, I don't know that water has ever been synthetically created by smushing Hydrogen and Oxygen together, I don't really know about the history behind the discovery of the chemical composition of water. I believe that carbon exists, but not in an independent matter like water. AFAIK carbon is always bonded to something else and doesn't exist in isolation. If you think diamonds are proof against that, that is what the first half of her article addresses. I do agree that "the act of measurement permanently alters the thing being measured" I think that is irrefutable. I don't know if scientists can prove that the radiation being detected is unaltered before it is measured after that cooking process it goes through. In closing, I don't believe it's possible that she is 100% wrong in this article. I think it would be unscientific of me to regard her argument that way. My natural inclination is to believe she's mostly right, but I have no exposure to the carbon dating field and knew next to nothing about it (other than the common stuff we all learn in school) before reading this article. It is possible she is mostly wrong and just crafting a nice little story that's not grounded in reality to argue her point. In another article she wrote about Magnesium there were all sorts of experts that came out of the woodworks to rebut her and in my mind, after the dust settled, she was 50% wrong, which is great. Again, if anyone has some added perspective or arguments against her arguments (not her credentials or opinions!) please elucidate and help correct my perspective. Thank you!

Any news articles or anything??

I'd like to please summon @smac97 again here because I don't know legal history, maybe he could provide some legal explanation about this? And by the way Smac, I hate AI and I will never use it so you're time and energy to explain the law really means a lot to me and I appreciate it so much. The way you, Nehor, are describing race makes me wonder why it is a protected class in America. Something that is so difficult to prove and ripe for speculation should not get that kind of iron-clad protection. I wonder if the courts agree with your assessment regarding the difficulty of ascertaining and proving race. Word. I stand by what I said. If someone is born with a uterus and ovaries, regardless of whether it works or not, then they are the female sex. It's not complicated. Intersex people aren't chiming in on the public square so idk why they keep getting brought up, they don't seem to have any issues with anything. *queue someone finding an article with a niche intersex advocacy group made up of intersex people suing people because they got discriminated against* Yeah, I think religion has crazy protections because the country was founded by people who fled England on threat of extermination because of their religion. It just is what it is. If the country was founded by trans people our constitution would be very different and it's possible that religions would be the minority going to court for protections and making weak cases about "immutable" characteristics and stuff. I agree with you here. It's a very strange and interesting comparison. To be fair, if freedom of religion was not enshrined in the U.S. Constitution then trans wouldn't be a thing. A State religion or a Godless State would not tolerate any deviance in belief from whatever the State said and anyone trying to diversify public beliefs would be either: killed, imprisoned, hide their belief and conform, or flee/sneak out of the State to a place where they could practice their beliefs. So in a somewhat ironic twist, it is the nonsensical freedom of religion that even allows our comparisons between trans and religious protections to exist right now! (Unless my logic bird just flew out the window and I'm talking crazy talk, then feel free to point out where I've gone crazy.) Cool. I like chatting with you.

I wanted to give my condolences. I can't imagine what it would feel like to lose a child. I wish I could give you a hug. One thing that hasn't been mentioned here is that the LDS believe that those with extreme special needs (generally, if they are unable to live on their own) are not accountable before God and are unable to commit sin. My neighbors have a mid-twenties autistic son who is definitely in that category. Down Syndrome is widely regarded as being in that category. There were people I remember teaching on my mission where my companion and I would discuss whether or not the one we were teaching fell in that category, because if they did we would have been wrong to baptize them. The other thing I wanted to say is that nobody is going to ask you about baptizing your child, and nobody is going to sneak behind your back and baptize your child. I think you're just going to a weird place due to all of the crazy emotions going on right now. I have a question for you because it's one I struggled with when my mom died last year... How do you feel about God right now and how is He present in your current grief? I believe that He is close to those who have lost and are mourning and I pray that He'll be close to you. And I know it doesn't mean much, but I know there is an afterlife and your son is being spoiled rotten in God's arms right now.

I don't know. I'd have to defer to someone who knows the law around race as a protected status. I imagine they have set the burden of proof in order to litigate any lawsuits.

If there was an "immutable" characteristic that didn't change regardless of how someone dressed, what pronouns they used, what drugs they were taking, and what surgeries they had then I think there could be a case made for some kind of protected status. (I say this because trans can be any pronoun, no hormones, no diagnosis, no cross-dressing, and no surgeries or any combination of them. Trans advocates highlight the "fluidity" of the trans/queer experience.) But on that note I think that the gays would get protected status first because at least they can define themselves by who they sleep with and have a long history of showing consistency and lack of malleability in sexual preferences. What do you think, Calm?

If I told you how I did it I'd have to blank you. There was some occult-level ceremonies going on behind the screen to get Smac to pop up.

Thank you for this post, I appreciate you taking the time to write it. There were a few things I wanted to pick your brain on here. You mentioned there not being a "limiting principle". If society wanted to help trans along to get a protected status and create a "limiting principle" what do you think that would look like? At the end of your remarks you talk about religion having "suspect" classification even though it's mutable. I think this is actually really fascinating. So basically if religion wasn't enshrined in the U.S. Constitution then it probably wouldn't be a protected class? There is at least, in some cases, a "limiting principle" for those churches who keep membership records (i.e. bapism, marriage, etc.) so I suppose if religion wasn't in the Constitution then all churches would be required to keep documentation on their members, and possibly institute requirements in order to join the religion, so that a person's religion could be easily proved in a court of law. Is that correct?

I don't know. I brought in race because it is one of the protected classes. Ok Ok People have family histories and their race and national origin can be verified. A black guy could tick the white box on forms but it wouldn't hold up under scrutiny. Though, to your point, I've been made aware that there are a lot of people who lie about having Native American ancestry in order to get a bunch of perks from the State. However, under scrutiny, the lie would be revealed. The tests are professionally administered self-assessments and speaking with therapists. People can lie. And yes, people can walk into their GP office and say they feel depressed or have ADHD and get medication for it after taking a self-assessment and chatting for 5 minutes. I've done it and I know many others who have as well. My quote You're being a little dumb right now. If someone is born in Japan they are nationality Japanese. If someone is born with the equipment to pop out a baby they are sex (the protected class, not gender!): Female. If someone has black skin they are Black. It's not complicated. The law didn't make "uncomfortably uncertain" traits protected. These traits are, by and large, are easily verifiable and able to be defended in the court of law. In order for trans to exist a person needs to claim a belief about themselves that they cannot prove to anyone else. It's very similar to bearing a testimony about God or whatever. The person can live their life a certain way to reinforce their beliefs and strengthen their ability to convince others that their belief is real and true, but it cannot be proven. Anyone I know who is trans (my sister, for example) I am taking it on good faith that they are being sincere, and honest, and know what being the opposite sex feels like. I am believing their personal testimony about their lived experience. I am allowed not to believe it, just like most people I talk to don't believe me when I tell them that I've met God and know there is a God. No skin off my nose, I don't have to have other people believe me in order to know what I know. I promise I am not trying to be antagonistic or disrespectful. I like reading your opinions and value your contribution to this forum. Thank you for participating in this thread with me, Nehor.

I read a very simple overview of the case and I agree with this blurb from the article https://www.oyez.org/cases/1850-1900/98us145 The fundamental difference between this case and the trans case, in my mind, is that this case is about doing something as a result of religious belief and the trans case is about not doing something as a result of religious belief. It reminds me of how mask wearing during covid was enforced less by fines for non-compliance (action) and more by businesses not being willing to serve customers who weren't wearing one (refusal to act). If someone was actively targeting non-mask wearers during covid due to their religious beliefs that would be different than that same person refusing entry to their home or church. I am not a lawyer and I'm tired and I feel like my opinion here is really dumb, but there you have it. I do think that this problem is a really fascinating one and, in general, I don't know what the solution is. Specifically to this case I do not believe that trans should become a protected class because it's not scientifically provable. In theory (not saying that this is actually happening!), anyone could temporarily identify as trans in order to accomplish something and then change their mind after they accomplish their goal as a protected class unless a system for "trans passports" or something is effected. It would be akin to giving protected class to "depression" or "ADHD". Regardless of the reality of the situation the only evidence of its existence is the individuals beliefs and insistence on their condition, and there are many cases of ex-trans people indicating that one could be trans for an extended period of time (years, decades) and then not be anymore which reinforces my argument. Race, sex, and nationality are not like that, they are (generally, don't be dumb) immutable and easily certifiable.

I agree with you, but I try to have hope because living in despair kind of sucks. Agreed. I'm not sure I entirely understand what your saying here. But according to how I'm interpreting you, you are claiming that religions are taking the U.S. law and beating up the little guy with it. I'm not sure that I agree with that assessment because the law in the U.S. is "freedom of religion" since the founding. That, to me, strikes me more as a defensive previously established position as opposed to an offensive tool used to beat others into submission; but I could be missing something. I do not agree that one side is stirring up hatred. I see plenty of hatred coming from all directions from all types of people: religious, trans, political, you name it. Are you honestly only seeing one side stirring up hatred or were you just being rhetorical because of your close proximity to the trans issue? Yes, when that happens I am against it. In this specific case in the courts I am not seeing that though. This case seems to have been instigated by the trans side with the religious side defending to protect their right to express their values. I acknowledge that that isn't always the case though. I can see where you are coming from but I don't think the law cares much about "social scorn" and I don't think the stakes in the law realm are "someone might think I'm a bad person". As far as I'm aware the stakes are financially and criminally related. For example with the dumb gay wedding cake thing that's happened a bunch of times. Both parties had a bunch of legal fees, businesses and livelihoods were impacted, I don't know if jail was ever a threat in any of those cases, but it has been in other cases in the past. The law is much more than about "social scorn". If something can be open for lawsuits you can bet there will be people suing. Lawsuits are what make the world go 'round. If the OP court case was won by the trans side I wonder if BYU separated itself from all Federal funding if it would be immune from lawsuits from trans if the school did something that a trans didn't like. What do you think? If I understand you correctly where you draw the line on religions being able to preserve their values and enforce their internal rules on their congregants vs being accommodating to trans you are on the side of fully accommodating trans, regardless of what the religions want. Even if that means the church goes out of business or has to fundamentally change their doctrine in order to make those accommodations. Even if the clergyman has to act against their conscience in order to acquiesce. Is that correct? So on a scale of 1-10 with 1 being full religious protection and 10 being full trans protection you are a 10? Thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Thanks for taking the time to lay this out. I appreciate you, brother.