Stargazer

When "God's great work" was not upon the earth, or only among a small subset of people, those not part of that work couldn't be leaders in His work. But where and when His work was going on, He raised up leaders. And when and where it wasn't going on, temporal leaders rose up, or were raised up. Everyone is his or her own leader, if not a leader over others. Even the least intellectual among us makes choices that show who we are. That is what agency is all about. Not everyone can be a leader here in mortality. But all are capable of it in eternity. Why else would they be put here? The only NPCs are the non-human beings.

I've used Microsoft Word's dictation mode to transcribe talks in our stake conferences. It works pretty well, but of course doesn't paragraph at all, and it's punctuating isn't very good, either, but still it makes the impossible possible. When Microsoft had a phone operating system (Windows Phone) it had a great transcriber. I would receive texts while driving my car, and Cortana would say, "You've received a text from X. Would you like to listen to it?" I would say "Yes" and Cortana would then read the text to me. After finishing, Cortana would ask if I wanted to hear it again, respond, or was I finished? I could say "Respond," and then Cortana would listen to me speak. When I paused for a long enough time, she would ask if I was done, wanted to hear the transcription, or add to it. Anyway, I could do all that while driving and then ask Cortana to send it. It was great! I miss Cortana. I asked Alexa if she knew Cortana, and she said "Only by reputation." Sigh.

I doubt Bigfoot is one of the Three Nephites. 🤣 Not that you're saying that, of course. Personally, I give Bigfoot the benefit of the doubt. But the longer BF stays a cryptid, the more that benefit reduces in me.

Calm, please, I'm talking about someone who has had a "Brother of Jared" experience and then rebels against that knowledge. D&C 76:31 -> "Thus saith the Lord concerning all those who know my power, and have been made partakers thereof, and suffered themselves through the power of the devil to be overcome, and to deny the truth and defy my power" They may act like they no longer believe, but they left belief long behind and are rebelling against knowledge, as opposed to mere belief or faith.

Nevermind

Yes, but I was referring to those in mortality who no longer believe, but know. Of course, still being mortal, they are still ignorant to a certain degree, as you say, but in one sense they are not ignorant. And that is a very important sense. Consider Joseph Smith and the Brother of Jared. They no longer believed; they knew beyond all doubt of God's power. And thus became potential Sons of Perdition, if they ever rebelled against that knowledge.

The second chances you speak of are for those who only sin in ignorance. There is no second chance for those who sin against knowledge. And those who rebelled in the pre-existence rebelled against knowledge, not ignorance. They knew who God was; they saw Him at work. It is the same for those who did keep their first estate, but later kept not their second, who sinned against knowledge in mortality. D&C 17:30-49 is very clear that there is no second chance for them. Neither those who rebelled against God in the pre-existence, nor for those who did so in mortality. Verses 36 and 37 say "These are they who shall go away into the lake of fire and brimstone, with the devil and his angels—And the only ones on whom the second death shall have any power;" So it seems that those who rebelled against the light in mortality will also lose their resurrection (the second death) and be just the same as those who were among the third of spirits who rebelled in the pre-existence. It seems that God cannot ever trust those who rebel against knowledge.

Oh, yes. No question.

One of my favorite scenes...

Either I'm too stupid to understand, you haven't understood what I'm trying to say, or you haven't properly explained yourself, but this entire paragraph makes no sense to me. To start with what you ended with, "If ... you only compared your life to those in much worse circumstances, ... you wouldn't feel the need to question fairness." Since I wasn't questioning fairness, this sentence makes no sense. I've been trying to say that I feel that "fairness" is subjective and illusory, at least from our point of view. But from an eternal perspective, God is perfectly fair. We're here to be tested. We're given situations to react to. Those situations may resemble those that others are given, but since we are all individuals, our tests are individualized. Hence, fairness is either an illusion or immaterial.

It's almost always the belief of those who are in a better place than others? I call baloney sausage on that. There are plenty of people who say life isn't fair when they have all the advantages. My place sucks, quite frankly. At least in comparison to some others. One of those who served with me in my mission was a brilliant and spiritual man. He was quite tall. He was given great gifts of intellect, and he used that gift to great advantage. He had a full-ride scholarship to BYU. He was an exemplary missionary, and spiritual giant even then. He learned to speak two other languages fluently. He wrote books. He married very well to a spiritual giantess. They had four children who were equally brilliant. He was called to be a General Authority. And then he died in harness. I don't know if he thought life was fair or not. Was it fair that I was given some intellectual capabilities, but was hamstrung with attention deficit syndrome that made it very difficult for me to rise to whatever that level of intellect was capable of? I'm closing in on 74 years old, am getting more decrepit week by week. Is that fair? But Father is fair, despite what you say. He gives to each of us what we need for our test, and that is fairness at its very root. But in another sense, there is no fairness. It is a meaningless concept. Awwww... I have two cats. You can imagine the disdain in which I am held.

Awww... you took me seriously! I'm flattered. My tongue was actually firmly in cheek on this. I'm pretty sure it's wrong. It was just an errant thought that popped into what passes for my mind as I read the OP. I've sometimes wondered if we are being tested adequately at all in just one earth life, and have had other thoughts pop up, such as "multiple mortal probations" or MMP. Perhaps we are being tested here and in other places simultaneously or serially (Father has plenty more worlds that could be used for this, as He states in Moses chapter 1). But that's just idle speculation, and I certainly don't hold to it. More than one mortal probation would be quite exhausting for me. I wasn't using the silver spoon analogy in the same way it is normally used. Which I didn't make clear. What I meant by "silver spoon" was someone born into mortality in, say, the US during a fairly peaceful time, managed to skate through life with few upsets, and then slid out easily at the end. Not much testing at all. In actuality, I am pretty sure that Father judges us based on what decisions we did make when we had the choices. Much as you said. A man of my ward has a daughter who is severely disabled. She cannot walk, cannot talk, and requires constant care. She will grow old and die without the ability to make any choices. Her disability is a result of medical error (ironically, her father is a medical doctor). Her parents will have to deal with the pressures of caring of her for a long time, including emergency hospital visits, knowing that the end of the road will find her not changed at all. Another man in my ward (my nephew) has two very healthy rambunctious kids who appear to be slated to grow into adults with no problems at all. One is being tested in a number of different ways that the other doesn't seem to have to worry about. Much. Whose test is the hardest? Whose choices are the most difficult? Is this fair? My answer is: of course it's fair. Because the Father is fair, despite all appearances. Isaiah 55:8,9. It is my feeling that reaching celestial glory will not require extra "time" after resurrection. It is my opinion that those of us who are found worthy of exaltation will be resurrected directly into it. I say this because I feel that we were selected for mortal testing as the final step of our eternal progression, not some intermediate one. As eternal beings in mortality we are held temporarily so severely limited that we could be said to mere viruses in comparison to what we were in the pre-existence. And only a shadow of ourselves is manifested here in this universe. The vast majority of our self is elsewhere, asleep. As for "time" we don't even know what it is. It may only exist in this universe, while outside this universe there is no "time," but something else we are even more completely unable to imagine. When I try to imagine such things I start to feel as if I had just jumped out of an aircraft without a parachute. Well, none of us is perfect. I mean, I've argued with you about things that you were insistent upon that were completely wrong, so clearly you're not perfect.

I think that it could be argued that those born into far worse conditions than we unusually privileged people have been born into might be among the more valiant spirits in the Pre-existence. They could be being tested under far less advantaged conditions simply because they were seen by Father to be more loyal, more resilient, and worthy of greater testing. Father's purpose is to create true celestial beings, after all, and should not the best be tested more rigorously? Meanwhile we get the less difficult test, the one that reflects the lower expectations that Father had for us. And so we skate through life, having been born with a virtual silver spoon in our mouths.

Did the purple socks have any connection with her conversion? By the way, I always wear black socks. That's so I don't have to worry about mating socks. They all fit with each other regardless.

I've had that happen as well. Years ago I was reading a book written by Elder Dallin Oaks, "The Lord's Way," and something he wrote suggested to me that I needed to document my spiritual life. Either for my own remembrance, for my descendants, or for some other reason. So I went ahead with the project, and at 73 I think it is largely finished. There may yet be more to document, but that's unpredictable. I started with a brief autobiographical note, then went on to my conversion story.

How many actual Scotsmen are you actually acquainted with?

What book are we talking about (it's no longer on the best seller list)? Being unfortunately blinded by my prejudice against its author, I completely missed the fact that this thread is about his book. A new book, presumably, though the newest Dan McClellan book I have seen a release date for is dated a month after your OP. Is it this one?

Nope.

Are you saying there is a normal Scotsman? Or are we talking about that elusive "true Scotsman"? One of my sons-in-law is a Scotsman, and he is definitely not normal. He's a great guy and I love him, but normal? No way. I think he would even be offended if I referred to him as normal. In truth, nobody is normal. Everyone is individual. There are some misguided people who strive for normal, but they are misguided. Normality is for sheep. As for Braveheart, the film is ahistorical nonsense. Great film! But completely bogus. On the other hand, why did those Highlanders show up to fight the English? Because if they were going to be taxed, at least they preferred to be taxed by their own people, not some bloody Englishman.

I've recently started reading the first volume of "Saints," the history of the church that the church has put out. I'm reading it on Audible, since reading actual print has started to annoy me in my old age. I love that my progress on the book seems to correspond with the current "Come, Follow Me" schedule.

I doubt it, but how would I know? Actually, it appears that those who wander the earth in this capacity do not self-identify. I guess I will use a former TV series to explain further. Do you remember "Highway to Heaven"? Michael Landon starred as Jonathan Smith, a "probationary" angel going about on "assignments" to correct problems people were having. The only person aware of his actual status is a retired policeman, Marcus Gordon (played by Victor French), and he went about with him helping give assistance to people in need. So there you have a type or example for John and the Three Nephites. Is this so hard to believe? Paul advised that we should entertain strangers, because sometimes they are angels.

Sperry-Univac used to make some very good minicomputers. I think the ones we had were of the Univac 9000 series. This photo of an example of the model 9400 looks very much like the ones we had. Our system differs in that we actually had two of them, such that if one failed the other would automatically do a "failover." We had to run 24 hrs per day 365 days a year.

Yeah, that's fair.

LOL, one of my daughters once said something similar about unusual spiritual things. Although I feel the need to point out that when the three Nephites were called to that service, Christ was among them. It's a perfectly good and appropriate word for the topic. Definition of weird from the Cambridge dictionary: "very strange and unusual, unexpected, or not natural" Here's another weird something... Our chapel here in Worthing, England, apparently has a ghost. Or poltergeist, I don't know which. My wife told me about a time over twelve years before when she was there alone one day. She was the Primary president getting something or other ready for Sunday. She heard a voice say "Hello!" quite distinctly, but there was nobody there. She had heard of previous minor "spookings" I guess I will call it, and figured it must be the ghost. She was a bit disconcerted, and decided to leave then and there. What do I think about that? Something odd happened when I happened to be there by myself just a few years ago, so I am not a complete unbeliever in that regard. It also doesn't worry me. As for the three Nephites, when I re-read the chapter of the Book of Mormon that Mormon wrote to tell about them, I get a spiritual confirmation of the story's reality. To start with, why couldn't it be true? John's own testimony about his promise from the Lord in the gospel of John says something similar to that of the Nephites, and Elijah was carried into heaven in a chariot of fire, not tasting of death. There's precedent, at least.

Yeah, me too, but in this one case concerning the gent under discussion he made his false accusations in a very public forum, so I don't feel bad about expressing my disdain towards him in public in return. Not that he cares. I'm sure he doesn't remember me. After he unfriended me I probably went right down his memory hole.