Stargazer

Of course! I've written a couple and edit/published another, so I should know. The Bones of My People - attributed author is my late mother-in-law (died in 2004), but I ghost-wrote it from a transcript of an audio tape recorded by one of my sisters-in-law (no longer in print) Bramber Castle and the Rise and Fall of the House of Braose - I can see this castle from my backyard Yesterday's Sandhills - written by my late sister-in-law, but edited and published by me (no longer in print)

I thought so. No doubt Mr. McGuire thinks it's a load of rubbish. If he read it. Or maybe even if he didn't.

I'd say that your friend who left the church because the apostles were men of means and not "humble followers of Christ" was rather deluded as well. The idea that a rich person cannot be humble is a little cracked, as far as I can see. Of course rich people can be proud and selfish. But I've known poor men who were so jacked up in their own minds that nobody could tell them anything, and I've known rich men whom you wouldn't know were rich because they just didn't put on airs. I had a bishop once who was a multimillionaire, and also one of the most humble men I knew, and genuinely Christlike. The Apostle Peter was not some poor uneducated mendicant, he was apparently a businessman running a successful fishing business along with other members of his family. And let's not leave out the tax collector, Matthew, who was probably doing pretty well for himself, even if he wasn't corrupt like some others of his profession.

Maybe you should take this a little less seriously. The "associate professor" thing is obviously intended as somewhat of a joke -- probably assigned the title by the jokester Cardon, and not self-assumed. And he doesn't claim to be a "full professor." He does have a lot of knowledge regarding the Apocrypha, so much so that he wrote a book about correspondences between apocryphal works and the Book of Mormon. Unaccredited people with large amounts of knowledge gained by self-study sometimes get assigned "courtesy titles" by media figures or other kinds of pundits. Some examples: Elvis Presley - the King of Rock and Roll TIna Turner - the Queen of Rock and Roll John Wayne - the Duke Edward Kennedy "Duke" Ellington Adam Reader - the Professor of Rock - in his case, self-assigned as a trade name. To be fair, he does know a lot about the subject. I do wonder, are there any universities offering courses in Rock and Roll that have a department that would require hiring a professor to chair it? Asking for a friend... Bill Nye - the Science Guy - but his BS degree is in mechanical engineering, not science I am a retired software developer. I'm also an Army veteran. I once worked with a project leader, seriously a fine chap, who insisted upon calling me "Sergeant Major" even though I rose never higher than a three striper, a mere buck sergeant. Should I have been offended on behalf of my old fellow soldier, who stayed in the service after I left, and actually did rise to the rank of Command Sergeant Major? My project leader was actually a retired lieutenant colonel, and I liked to annoy him by calling him General. Payback!

Probably not. Maybe MembersOfTheChurchOfJesusChristOfLatterDaySaintsDialogueAndDiscussionBoard.org -- a bit long, but... I checked, and MDDB.org is taken, but not being used. Some domain squatter owns it, and no doubt hopes to make some cheddar on it.

Great! I enjoyed that!

Oh, yes. But I have to go back to the US for a few weeks to take care of business. Not looking forward to it. I shall persevere...

The fuel mileage on that one is a tad pricey, but it has the best road-safety rating in the world. As long as you stay on the road, that is.

As a subscriber with David Alexander, a recent convert from evangelical Christianity with a prolific pro-LDS YouTube channel, I noticed today his response to an article that appeared in The Salt Lake Tribune, discussing the Church's effort to enforce the "Mormon" trademark. The targets include "Mormon Stories" and "Radio Free Mormon". Here's the link to the Trib article: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/12/08/lds-church-pressures-mormon/ Of course, the Trib's website won't let you read the article without being a subscriber (i.e. there's a paywall), and not being willing to pay for it, I haven't read it myself. But Alexander does discuss the issue in this YouTube video: HOORAY! CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS PRESSURES "MORMON STORIES" TYPES TO "REBRAND"! As usual, the comment section of the video is quite interesting. From what little I've seen, John Dehlin is resisting the rebrand, but Bill Reel seems to be intending to comply. Apparently, the Church's intellectual property department is also talking to pro- or neutral-sources about their use of "Mormon." A commenter in the David Alexander video writes that they listen to a pro-LDS podcast that also received a letter. The comment is: So will Mormon Dialogue and Discussion Forum have to change its name? A question for @Nemesis.

Fair enough.

Ah! Poptart is back! You been absent a while, so how's things, guy?

Oh! The pedantry!

I've been thinking about that. I am a small YouTube creator (my channel, A Yank in Sussex, is tiny, just 1.18k subscribers) and I do virtually nothing to promote the channel. And it's taken me 6 years to get as big as it is. Of course, my topic is so niche that even if I had heavily promoted it, it's doubtful it would have gotten much larger than it is. I am "this close" to monetizing it, but I've been "that close" for about a year now. Even then, if it finally crossed the threshhold, I think the channel might make me about $2 a month, tops. It's more a hobby than anything else. What I do is not highly beneficial to anyone, not even myself, except for my enjoyment in making the videos. But is Jacob chasing clicks in order to "monetize his Church membership" or is he chasing clicks in order to promote and defend the Church. You don't have a high opinion of his apologetic efforts, and that's fair (you're entitled to your opinion). But I've been watching his Thoughtful Faith channel for some time and I am very impressed with his efforts. I think he does a fair amount of good. If in the process of doing that good, isn't it fair that he makes some money doing it? If he didn't "chase clicks" then maybe you wouldn't be calling it monetizing his Church membership, but would his channel have grown to almost 63k subscribers? And wouldn't he be much less effective without those subs, clicks, and views?

You might as well. I do it all the time, too. With my memory, sometimes I have completely forgotten I responded in a thread, and try to respond again with the same thoughts, or more concerning, completely opposite thoughts!

Thoughtful Faith has responded to a video interviewing a former LDS member and former bishop who lost his faith. The original video appeared on a channel with over 6 million subscribers, so it would have some impact. When I saw the video, I thought of @ttribe, who had some issues with Jacob Hansen, who narrates this answer to that video, wherein he posted: Here's the video:

There's a varied set of co-hosts, with Cardon Ellis being the only common personage. The channel is a mixed bag. As for trust, "prove all things," as Paul said. I've found some things presented on Ward Radio that has been of use to me. Like Calm said, seems sometimes more like a high school frat party than presentation of serious material. For more serious stuff I prefer Thoughtful Faith, which is mainly Jacob Hanson (he's also in many WR videos), and which is less sophomoric in presentation. Thoughtful Faith has a neat package of material intended for missionaries, consisting of "curated content specific for missionaries (or prospective missionaries) to help them better answer questions, resolve concerns and achieve their goal to invite others to come unto Christ." It's available at: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1JrYitXbD42qfg1ROuIHzH2rUo8bJX3B1?usp=drive_link

Forgot...butter? How could you! 😵

You and I are probably not the target audience. I prefer talking heads, to be honest. Give me that straight stuff and I'm happy.

True! But one of the things that convinces me that there must be more than one degree in the Celestial Kingdom is that exaltation must require celestial marriage -- if not, then there will be exalted beings (i.e. single Gods and single Goddesses) who create spirits from intelligences without a partner. And those who happen to be single and female, the Goddesses in those cases, would set the Lord's prayer to start out "Our Mother who art in Heaven..." Or maybe She reveals Herself (falsely) as male, and insists Her spirit children call her Father. It makes no logical sense for an exalted being to be without a partner. If an exalted being can be either single or married, or, in other words, you don't need a partner, why bother with partners at all? It breaks the algorithm, in my humble opinion. So, DC 131:1-4 makes perfect sense to me.

I agree. But picking and choosing which ones we prefer, as opposed to which ones are true, as if there was a cafeteria somewhere, could be mighty shortsighted. As for Adam-God, I don't know if you've ever watched the Ward Radio YouTube channel, but they were discussing this the other month. If you're not familiar with Ward Radio, I have to warn you that it tries be entertaining as well as thoughtful, so be prepared for some cringy presentation (at least in my opinion). Oh, and by the way, one of the presenters in this episode, Austin Falter, in his youth, was an old home-teaching companion of mine. Great kid.

Needs a little more salt.

I guess I'm a little skeptical that to be true something needs to be stated more than once.

I disagree. Mothering is more than the physical act of bearing a child. My own mother died when I was seven, and my father remarried. My stepmother did not bear me, but she loved me as if I had been borne in her own body, and brought me up well. I am a product of both mothers, and love them both. But in the all important arena of upbringing, I argue that my stepmother had a greater influence than my birthmother. And there's good reason to suspect that there is a heavenly mother, just from the fact that God Himself told us to call Him Father. If there were no Mother, and only an omnipotent being who created us out of a desire to be worshipped, then He should have eschewed any such mere mortal title as Father.

Well, you're entitled to your opinion, of course, but the revelatory statement does seem quite clearly different to your understanding. You need more than one revelatory statement in order to be convinced? D&C 131:1-4 -> 1 In the celestial glory there are three heavens or degrees; 2 And in order to obtain the highest, a man must enter into this order of the priesthood [meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage]; 3 And if he does not, he cannot obtain it. 4 He may enter into the other, but that is the end of his kingdom; he cannot have an increase. In the October 2023 General Conference, President Oaks's spoke and said: His understanding differs from yours, but perhaps he's wrong. Why are you unconvinced? I have to jump in and edit this because you explained yourself rather satisfactorily in a later post. Bravo! But I accept the doctrine as explicated in D&C 131:1-4. If it's wrongly canonical, then so be it. Fortunately, accepting it or not in this life is not a bar to exaltation. I don't think.

@JLHPROF menitoned in another thread that our understanding of the nature of the Godhead (and indeed, our theology in general) has progressed over time. Joseph Smith will certainly not have revealed in public everything he had learned through revelation, just as Paul, in 2 Cor 12:2-4 stated that he had been caught up to the third heaven, where he "heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter." I feel that much of what Paul was forbidden to utter has been uttered in this dispensation -- here I'm pointing to D&C, PofGP, and such things as the King Follett Discourse. I'm actually puzzled that anyone could even consider the idea of a biologic process as a mechanism for creating spirit children. But there have been many things believed by the Saints that turned out to be incorrect, or at least misunderstood. Blood Atonement, for example. In King Follett Joseph made it extremely clear that there was no biologic mechanism in creating spirit children. It happens that King Follett is not canonized scripture, but there is canonized scripture that backs it up. D&C 93:29 states 29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be. Of course, this doesn't say "no biologic process," but it does say we are all co-eternal with God. Which Joseph in King Follett affirmed: In other words, we have leaders who have believed that Celestial glory may become available to all of God's children who inherit a kingdom of glory as they progress. You can see how these issues all work together. If progression remains open, then there is reason to believe that gender could not/should not be removed. Only if you believe that progression ends for some does it make sense that these characteristics might be lost. The family whose son brought me into the church believed that progression was possible, and I believed that as well at the time. The matter didn't really come up in my mind until recent years after a closer study of D&C 76. I've argued here before that there can be no progression between the kingdoms, for reasons which seemed to me decisive -- and I recall being told that if J. Reuben Clark said that there was progression between the kingdoms, being just a flea in spiritual comparison, who was I to contradict him? LOL! To which I pointed out that President Clark's statement is an opinion, not canon doctrine (if there can be said to be such in the Church). But I've since then modified my understanding, because you, @Benjamin McGuire, made me think it over further. Now I feel that while the Telestial Kingdom is a dead end in progression, one might be able to progress from the Terrestrial to the Celestial. But not to the highest level of the Celestial. I have what I feel are good reasons for believing this, but this might not be the thread to go over it. It's possible, however, that I could be persuaded to believe as Pres. Clark believed. I find that belief to be comfortable, even if I feel it is incorrect.