Stargazer

Sweet! Not getting into writing a response at this time (kinda busy), but coincidentally Ward Radio posted a livestream debate on this very subject in the last several hours, and I though I haven't actually watched it yet, myself, I figured it might be of interest (skip ahead to 3:00 to start the actual video). Edited to add: This question is even a topic of debate among LDS, so don't take my "take" as official church doctrine.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course.

Is this new with the BBB? I don't seem to recall being able in the past to deduct charitable giving with the standard deduction... There was a time in the distant past when I ran a small, independent tax filing business during the tax season. Just for people who didn't have complicated tax situations. There were plenty of people who were completely clueless and/or anxious over how to file just a standard uncomplicated 1040. When tax software became a thing I stopped doing that business. The software was much better than me.

Who knows? But I presume by the same process He intends to bring us to that point. As I brought it up before "Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel." - John 5:19,20 The Son does what He see the Father do. And I presume that this is not the first time it was done. Let me stop you right there because this is a false statement. They were not born as gods. The were born as potential gods. As C.S. Lewis once wrote: "It is a serious thing to live in a society of possible Gods and Goddesses. To remember that the dullest, and most uninteresting person you can talk to may one day be a creature which, if you saw it now, you would be strongly tempted to worship." Lewis had obviously read the New Testament for its intent. Because only some will be worthy of it. I don't get why you doubt this. It is recorded in 2 Cor. 12:2 that Paul had been caught up to the third heaven. THIRD heaven? Well there must be a first and a second one, then! What are they all for? He also wrote that there were three different resurrections, which he characterized as like the sun, the moon, and the stars. To the first two he gave names: celestial; and terrestrial. He left the third unnamed. This is recorded in 1 Cor. 14:40-42. If there are three heavens, then there must be a way to distinguish who goes into which heaven, and there must be differences between the heavens, and who is worthy to go into each of them. Logically, it should seem that the highest would be called the celestial; and the middle one must be the terrestrial. Which one was the third one that Paul visited? I have no idea, but it had to be either the lowest or the highest, but not the middle. Whatever. I can tell you who doesn't get into the highest, though. D&C 76:29 states of those raised to the Terrestrial kingdom: "These are they who are not valiant in the testimony of Jesus; wherefore, they obtain not the crown over the kingdom of our God." But these are they who accepted the testimony of Jesus and received of His grace. Of course. Can anything God creates have an end? You mainstream Christians like to claim that those who go to Hell suffer in fire and brimstone forever. So you don't even believe the hell-bound stop or end. Became as God, but were not Gods. "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil". After the Fall, Adam and Eve didn't merely look like God, they knew something God knew, which was good and evil. Tell me something I don't know. On the other hand, here we start diverging into theological language. What is "glorification"? What are the related terms "justification" and "sanctification"? There's a very interesting article in the June 2001 edition of the Ensign magazine on the topic of "Justification and Sanctification" that was written by Elder D. Todd Christofferson, then of the Presidency of the Seventy (but now of the Twelve). If you wish, you can read it here: "Justification and Sanctification". I tend to think of glorification as what happens to those who have been sanctified and justified by grace, and who have also been valiant in the testimony of Jesus. But that's just my private interpretation, with apologies to St. Peter (2 Peter 1:20). You find incorrectly. We are like Him, but we shall not be Him. For He will be our God forever. Again, tell me something I don't know. And again, I quote Moses 1:39 "This is my work and my glory: to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." And in this context, the word "immortality" means never-dying, and "eternal life" means "God's life." But when he glorifies us, as you stated above, we receive of His glory, and are glorified. I put it to you that it is not a mere side-effect, but God's very intention. He is glorified further in the glory he lends to us. Ah, but it has been revealed. Maybe not every detail, but in general terms: "To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne." Rev 3:21 What does it mean to you to be invited to be enthroned upon the throne of God? He made us. Obviously he needed us, otherwise he wouldn't have done it. Prove me wrong. You asked this already. I don't know. I don't care. It's not important. Half of Snow's couplet is a very Patristic doctrine, too. Here's what some of the Patristic Fathers taught: "For He was made man that we might be made God" - Athanasius, de Incarnatione verbi, 54,3 "Our Lord Jesus Christ, through His transcendent love, became what we are, so that He might bring us to be what He Himself is." - Irenaeus, Adversus Haereses, vol. 5 What man is, Christ was willing to be - so that man may also be what Christ is." - Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise VI "God made us so that we might become 'partakers of the divine nature' and sharers in His eternity, and so that we might come to be like Him through deification by grace." - Maximus the Confessor, Various Texts 1:42 "God has created all things that man may be saved and deified." - Antony the Great, On the Character or Men and on the Virtuous Life (168) And if the one half is a Christian doctrine, what stops the other from being such? Your discomfort? I go back to this: Jesus telling the people that he is only doing what He has seen the Father do (John 5:19,20). It is here that I find the other half of Snow's couplet in the New Testament, in Jesus's own words. If the Son, Jesus, was in mortality, then He must have seen the Father in the same place. If we can believe the scriptures, anyway. Of course. Although the expression "the only God they have to do with" is not my words. That sounds like a paraphrase of something Brigham Young once said. ----------- Here you can read my Testimony of Jesus Christ

Another "take"... "not a huge deal"

AI isn't the only threat. There is also nuclear war (Electromagnetic pulses) and the sun (See Carrington Event on Wikipedia). Here's the summary of the article: The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, peaking on 1–2 September 1859 during solar cycle 10. It created strong auroral displays that were reported globally and caused sparking and even fires in telegraph stations. The geomagnetic storm was most likely the result of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun colliding with Earth's magnetosphere. The geomagnetic storm was associated with a very bright solar flare on 1 September 1859. It was observed and recorded independently by British astronomers Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson—the first records of a solar flare. A geomagnetic storm of this magnitude occurring today has the potential to cause widespread electrical disruptions, blackouts, and damage to the electrical power grid. If this were to happen today, such an event might take out all our communications satellites, and we'd have to say goodbye to the Internet.

Shall we duel with journal critiques at daybreak? I spent a couple of hours writing a long response to this, but after almost posting it, I realized that it would constitute a huge derail of the topic. I still have the text saved, so if it ever becomes appropriate to share it... I'll just leave it at this: I have some disagreements with what you posted.

Something from a China observer that brings some thoughts about Xi Jinping's status in China.

Wow, hadn't thought of him in a long time. I was living in Washington state and barely noticed Arizona politics. Your comment led me to look old Ev up on Wikipedia. Ouch! Didn't know he had been impeached and removed from office; after removal from office he survived the following criminal trial with an acquittal on all charges. Wiki says: "Attorneys who analyzed the proceedings later concluded that the Mechams' lawyers' most successful strategy was keeping their clients off the witness stand." LOL! He died in 2008 from Alzheimers. What little I remember about him from that time is that he tried to promote one of Cleon Skousen's books on the Constitution ("The Making of America: The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution") as a required text for Arizona schools as part of the civics curriculum. Having read that book, I feel that was a good idea. You probably disagree. Mecham's former press secretary said this about him: "The tragic fact ... is that Mecham will be remembered as an incompetent, bumbling bigot who got what he deserved. But ... he had some charming personal qualities. He had a genuine interest in helping the disadvantaged. He understood economic development far better than his predecessor, Bruce Babbitt, or his successor, Rose Mofford. He believed in economic equality for all races and minorities, arguing this would be necessary before political and social equality could be achieved. He was deeply troubled by rampant drug abuse. And, his pet project this year [1988] would have been a statewide campaign to help illiterate adults learn to read. This side of Mecham was lost in a fog of controversy that he helped create."

I hope @Nemesis fixes things so that new users can join again. If some of our old dependables are no longer posting (thinking of @smac97 here) We need new blood.

An assertion proves nothing. I ask: says who? Examining the New Testament we uncover evidence that we can progress from a less-developed state. If we can do so, why couldn't God have done so? Just because the idea makes you uncomfortable? To start with, allowing the false assumption that we did not exist until God called us into being, we must have started from a foundational less-developed state. And what does God hope to make of us? Heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ. Paul wrote in Romans 8:16,17 -> "The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." What is an heir? The heir of a duke is a duke. The heir of a king is a king. So what is the heir of God? Must be a god. We are constantly being described as children of God, and have been described as such from the very beginning. What does it mean to be glorified together with God? Take a wild guess. Even John recognized this, as he wrote in 1 John 3:2 -> "Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is." Clearly, though we are not like him now, we shall be like him in due time, God willing. What does mainstream Christianity imagine that God made us for? Are we God's pets? Or His amusing pastime? What use does an eternal, omniscient, and omnipotent being have for creating lesser volitional beings whom He loves so much that he sends his only Begotten Son to die an ignominious and tortuous death at the hands of those lesser volitional beings, just to save those same beings from their own folly? That's madness, if we are only his pets. Does God need created beings who worship Him? If he needs such, then how can He be a God at all? And if he doesn't need such, why create lesser beings in the first place? His hobby, perhaps? God is working to raise us up to His level. Not to replace Him, but to join Him. So says your own scripture. Which is why it was revealed to Joseph Smith what God's true purpose is: Moses 1:39 -> "For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man." And while in another place, D&C 76:50-70, it is said of those whom God raises up: "Wherefore, as it is written, they are gods, even the sons of God— Wherefore, all things are theirs, whether life or death, or things present, or things to come, all are theirs and they are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s." And if God is doing this for us, how can it be said that such was not done for Him? After all, didn't Jesus say that he was doing nothing of himself? John 5:19,20 -> "Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise. For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel." Edited to add: I was conflicted about answering your assertion at all, because I can't help but answer it in ways that mainstream Christianity finds offensive. I don't intend to offend. I don't want to offend. But it remains the case that theosis is taught in the Bible, and if God is trying to raise us up to be like Him, then the possibility inevitably follows that the same thing was done for Him. You can say that He was the original and no other exists, and there exists scripture that suggests this. Isaiah 43:10 -> "Ye are my witnesses, saith the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen: that ye may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me." [emphasis added] This is problematic, but not for the reason you might think. "Before me there was no God formed," he says, but this strongly suggests that He, God, was formed. This contradicts the Athanasian Creed's claim, "the Father is uncreated, the Son is uncreated, the Holy Spirit is uncreated." Athanasius clearly didn't read Isaiah very closely. Assuming that Isaiah was transmitted and translated correctly, it means that God our Father is the only God that we have to do with. Whatever formed Him is not our God, and whomever god He forms after Him is likewise not our God. In any event, Lorenzo Snow's couplet, "As man now is, God once was; as God now is, man may become," conforms to the scriptural light that has been revealed whenever true doctrine was upon the earth.

Perhaps Korihor was trying for a deathbed confession? It happens in real life sometimes. And then again, some deathbed confessions have turned out to be false as well. So... I'll just take Korihor's story at face value for the sake of complexity reduction.

I recall someone saying that @Nemesis had turned off new user registrations in the wake of the recent bot attack, and I wonder if it's still turned off. There's a way to check that, but I'm not going to bother, since I found this at the bottom of the main site: It appears that 382 bots are currently attempting to storm the ramparts. But the gates are shut!

I, too, have a small collection of obsolete English money! Since I lived in England for a couple of years when these coins were still in use, I actually had to deal with them on more-or-less daily basis. As a schoolboy, I had a local part-time Saturday job at a retailer in Cheltenham, Gloucestershire, and sometimes had to man the cash register. This was back when the devices were electromechanical and did not calculate change. If a purchase amounted to £3 2/6 (that's also written as £3 2s 6d - three pounds, two shillings, and sixpence), and the customer presented a five pound note, I had to calculate in my head that the change was £1 17/6. That's because there were 12 pence in a shilling and 20 shillings in a pound. Tons of fun! At the time I was here, by coincidence one British penny was equal to one US penny. Which made the pound sterling equal to $2.40, there being 240 pence in a pound.

Of course it is.

The Great Courses is pretty cool, yes! I don't dare pay for it, though, because I have a bad habit of not using the things I pay for. Fortunately, TGC has a YouTube channel where some of their content is posted, and one doesn't have to pay for it.

I hadn't made a systematic search, but because I watch certain LDS-related YouTube channels on a regular basis (Ward Radio, Ether's Elephant, Saints Unscripted, etc.), YouTube makes recommendations based on the fact that I post comments, "like", and am subscribed to many of these channels. There are certainly more than 91, but the ones I haven't yet found are most likely going to be channels with few views, few subs, and few videos. I've been adding them to my spreadsheet as they turn up. It isn't even a hobby. And just for the fun of it, having never done it before now (believe it or not), I have finally searched YouTube on the keyword "Mormon" a few minutes ago. And OMG! There's certainly a great deal of anti-Mormon enthusiasm out there. I have some entries to make on my spreadsheet, in the anti-LDS worksheet.

I started making YouTube videos about 7 years ago. Created a channel for them, A Yank in Sussex. As I wander around southern England I collect videos and photos, and occasionally make videos about the places I visit. I've been contemplating starting a channel for promoting the LDS church, but since I've found there are at least 91 pro-LDS channels on YouTube already, I kind of wonder if I'd just be duplicating things. Another hobby I started about 10 years ago is learning new languages, and I've picked up some Spanish. Unfortunately I don't consistently work at it, so I can't say I speak the language. I already speak German fairly fluently, but that's not new, as it was my mission language (1972-74). I also write books! No best sellers, and they are all self-published. Two are "out of print" due to sales having dried up to nearly nothing. But writing is mostly a hobby for me, anyway.

I was taught to play chess by my father before I entered my teens. In the first actual game I played against him he trotted out the "Fools mate." This is the quickest possible win in chess (aside from one opponent capitulating before the first move occurs). I played the game occasionally and in high school actually joined the Chess Club. I was never very good at it, but it was fun, so that was that. When I taught my new wife how to play chess, I did the same thing to her that my dad did to me, which caused her to never want to play the game again! 😒

Outside of the MCU, does Thor have any kind of visitation claim history? Over the last 2,000 years, anyway?

By pure numbers, the PLAN is the largest navy in the world, with 787 ships. The US Navy has only about 300 deployable ships. But numbers are not everything. Total US Navy tonnage is about twice that of the PLAN. As for actual PLAN capabilities, I doubt their effectiveness. I imagine that the US knows where every single PLAN ship is located at any time, and the PLAN is largely a green-water navy. The US Navy has 51 nuke powered attack subs, and for that reason I doubt the ability of the PLAN to carry out a successful cross-strait invasion of Taiwan by sea. I do hope they don't try.

And a lot of temporal leaders were wonderful. What of it? Some guy taking over somewhere isn't necessarily God's work, but it could be, couldn't it? Self-help guru? Oh, my. Reality is what is real. If you have no one else to lead but yourself, then you can use the same principles to do it, and achieve success. The true leader's first responsibility is to control/lead him/herself. If they cannot do so, then they have no business leading. I'm not guru-ing. I'm stating a fact. And leadership is not confined to large organizations. Not only nations, but small communities need good leaders. What is the smallest community? When David O. McKay said "No other success can compensate for failure in the home," what was the failure he spoke of? The failure was of leadership. Either the father, the mother, or both failed in their leadership. Have you seen families where either or both parents just let their kids run riot -- or contrariwise, oppressed their children, or each other, such that their lack of leadership produced children who were unable to cope on their own? There are also cases where one parent is a fumbling, ineffective non-entity, and the other parent manages to pull the whole family together, and despite lack of support from the other parent manages to succeed with their children. That is leadership. And let's not forget single-parent families whose parent exhibits effective leadership despite lack of a partner, and still produces successful children. And there are even families where either or both parents are disengaged or ineffective, and one of the older children manages to exhibit enough leadership to hold things together. D&C 121:39 says "We have learned by sad experience that it is the nature and disposition of almost all men, as soon as they get a little authority, as they suppose, they will immediately begin to exercise unrighteous dominion." This is bad leadership. Good leadership is: "No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood, only by persuasion, by long-suffering, by gentleness and meekness, and by love unfeigned." And if these characteristics can be exhibited by a leader, even one who never even heard of the priesthood, they will likely be successful. Because these are universal principles of leadership. I suppose you know all that. May I say parenthetically that cynicism never accomplishes much of anything, except to spread bitterness?

Yes, trying to migrate out. Trying. Xi did not originate the Taiwan invasion promise (and it is a promise). It pre-dated him, and the CCP's long-range goal is to bring the rebellious province "back" under their control. Xi's government is not the only thing unraveling; the economy is as well. In order to stave off a complete collapse, the CCP under its new leader might just feel that the promised invasion is just the thing to take the public's mind off the economy, and somehow save their bacon. That's my speculation, at least.

Trying to appear non-threatening is good. But the CCP can be very mercurial about this. As Falun Gong found out. Yes, it is too soon to conclude anything, and of course we don't know the future (I didn't suggest we did). According to all the China observers on the net, Xi may now be little more than a figurehead, and not even that for much longer. But the decades-old threat to invade Taiwan did not originate with Xi. Is it a paper threat? Who can say? But there has been a recent build-up of military power, especially along the coast, that could signal something ominous. Or it could be nothing. One of the things that worries me is the state of China's economy. While the CCP keeps real numbers very much under wraps, discernable values suggest that it is dire and getting more dire. What the CCP may try to pull off is the so-called "tail wagging the dog" scenario. An actual invasion may be seen as the only way to stave off public support collapse. We definitely live in interesting times.

I'm not surprised. With the CCP earnestly preparing for an invasion of Taiwan as early as 2027, and the US being seen as a serious factor in resisting that invasion, any organization based in the US is going to be seen as a threat to the CCP's intentions.