Theological Twinkies

[erichard]

Actually, that 's not a Twinkie, it's a joke allegedly by J. Golden Kimball.

And it is not original. When I was a missionary in Italy they would say, "If the Catholic church was not true, the Priests would have destroyed it long ago."

Richard

[LifeOnaPlate]

And it is not original. When I was a missionary in Italy they would say, "If the Catholic church was not true, the Priests would have destroyed it long ago."

Richard

I'm sure J. Golden was familiar with what the Italians were doing and saying.

Wait. No, I think J. Golden came up with it in this case, despite other similar sayings. So there.

[battlefieldboy]

Just a few years ago, Pres Hinckley gave a money management lesson in General Priesthood meeting. In it, he discussed the story of Joseph and Pharaoh and the 7 years of plenty/famine. While he said he was not prophesying a Great Depression, he was concerned for the financial safety of Americans and America. He told us to get out of debt, pay off our houses (he mentioned that Pres Faust had paid off his house and whistled while he worked because of it), and get our food storage, among other things.

We have had a very prosperous time in the 1990s. Why we should think that good times should continue on forever, when Americans are spending worse than drunken sailors, is beyond me. Drunken sailors stop spending when the money runs out. Pres Bush just asked to raise our national debt ceiling to $9 Trillion dollars.

So, I'd say we're heading for some very tough times soon down the road. We're broke, China is buying up America and selling us dangerous toys, and our high paying jobs are going overseas. If you aren't out of debt and listening to the prophets by now, it may be getting a little late to fully prepare. But at least we can begin to prepare, even now. Keep Christmas cheap, and spend the money to pay off current debts, including the house, and to buy food storage.

Even if we don't hit a Great Depression, the jobs we are losing overseas will impact many Americans, and it only helps to have no debt and a basement of food, when you are seeking a new job.

I'm Guessing that President Hinkley could tell that with Republican Leadership allowing their special interests to rob the american people blind that it would be easy to foresee our country heading into the toilet. That was great advice as G Bush was taking over the White House. I wished I could have followed his advice and paid my house off in time... alas with high energy, gas, and medical that has risen astronomically I can only manage to keep my family's head above the water. Here's hoping for a change of direction in the next elections. Then maybe I will be able to start saving money and paying off debts.

[MormonMason]

I'm Guessing that President Hinkley could tell that with Republican Leadership allowing their special interests to rob the american people blind that it would be easy to foresee our country heading into the toilet. That was great advice as G Bush was taking over the White House. I wished I could have followed his advice and paid my house off in time... alas with high energy, gas, and medical that has risen astronomically I can only manage to keep my family's head above the water. Here's hoping for a change of direction in the next elections. Then maybe I will be able to start saving money and paying off debts.

Putting the Clintons back into the White House is neither the answer nor new direction you are looking for.

[battlefieldboy]

Putting the Clintons back into the White House is neither the answer nor new direction you are looking for.

That's funny I had the greatest growth of income and investments when Clinton was President. I'm terrified of what might happen if our country continues on its current course. My first choice would be Ron Paul but would support anyone who would change the course of this presidency and its supporters.

There is great wisdom in President Hinckley's words which I hope everyone can heed to them, but I have heard this same advice given by other religious leaders even my atheist grandfather gave me this advice over 20 years ago when I was 16...a few months before he died. While I don't think the 2nd coming is going to happen soon I can see that this country is headed to a serious recession as a result of decisions made by this presidency. My prayers are for our children who will have to live with this debt that has been created during this presidency.

Politics close threads so have this discussion somewhere else. ~ Mods

[MormonMason]

That's funny I had the greatest growth of income and investments when Clinton was President....

That certainly was not my experience, or that of anyone else I knew where I lived then. But, you may have been one of the lucky few. Fact is, the stock market is higher now than it ever was when the Clintons were in office. And, then there was the so-called bipartisan NAFTA that was signed into law by Clinton, which sent a great number of jobs into Mexico and overseas. Like I said, you appear to have been one of the lucky ones. But, hey, your mileage may vary. And, now, got to bow out before this thread gets locked for becoming a political thread. Nice, derail of the thread, by the way.

[Thinking]

I heard this once...That President Hinckley is the last prophet, when he dies Christ will come.

I heard the same thing about SWK while on my mission. The reason? He was the twelfth prophet of the latter-days, and twelve is such a significant number (12 tribes, 12 apostles).

[Anijen]

I heard the same thing about SWK while on my mission. The reason? He was the twelfth prophet of the latter-days, and twelve is such a significant number (12 tribes, 12 apostles).

I heard that it will Thomas S Monson to usher in the Lords second coming. I also heard that Henry B. Eyring and Jeffery R. Holland are the two prophets who are dead in the streets for three days.

I must admit I truly would like the savior to come soon, Tomorrow would be awesome. but I put no credibility in the above twinkies.

[wjclerk]

I personally heard this while in the MTC. The "center" of the Church was moving from Church Headquarter's in Salt Lake City to Provo. The sentiment was that the influence, instruction, and guidance of the Church would start to flow from Provo.

Sorry, folks. This one is absolutely true - insofar as you consider true as that which you overhear when you walk in halfway on a conversation in progress and don't get the whole statement, and thus fill in what you missed.

The Church has moved its center from Church Headquarters to Provo. I know. I used to work there. There is a building directly across from the Church Office Building on the North-West corner of State Street and North Temple that has no signs, and until last year, no windows in the entire building. It has been the "center" of the Church for over 20 years. It has indeed moved to Provo, underground the BYU campus right around the Talmage Math building. The entrance is just to the South side and requires a handprint identification to get in.

Sounds too fantastical to be true! Surely, you are just making this up! No, but without the rest of the story, I've laid the foundation for yet another great Mormon myth (just make sure that it is properly attributed to me - some guy on the MADB boards who REALLY KNEW THIS!). There is the, (pardon me, Paul Harvey) "rest of the story."

Everything I have said is real. The buildling across from the Church Office Building has been the Church Data Center. It is where we housed all of the mainframes (there were still a couple until about 3 years ago) and servers that we used to maintain the North American Region of the Church (other Area Offices maintained their own servers that had WAN connections to CHQ). This building was built years ago when big iron was the computing power of the day. It is not up to earthquake standards and as I said, had no windows. It has been retrofitted now and has windows and is used to house some of our IT staff (I used to work there when I was part of the team that managed the Church's e-mail network). It was also outfitted to be the emergency command post for the First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve with offices for the FP, a conference room, and two underground emergency generators and a room of battery backups with food and water storage as a contingency should anything every require an evacuation of the Church Administration Building. This building does not serve this function anymore - I don't know what does and probably wouldn't make it public if I did know.

About 5 years ago, recognizing the need to build another data center to make up for the deficiencies of the current one, several locations around the SL Valley were explored for seismic stability and such. At the same time, BYU had undertaken a project to build their own data center underground and when the Church IT guys became aware of the fact, the long and short of it was they decided to expand the size of BYU's facility and move all of the Church HQ servers and central computing functions down to Provo for economy of scale and cheap student labor to maintain the system with fewer full-time employees (like me, but I'm not bitter! I promise!!! Besides, I didn't want to move again.) So a massive undertaking (like moving to Missouri - maybe this was just a practice drill???) was initiated and completed to relocate the SL Data Center to the undeground one at BYU. It is a massive facility. We all got a tour of it before the server hardware started to be migrated. It does indeed have a handprint security station outside the door that leads down below the surface and huge rooms for servers, battery backups, GNOC (Global Network Operations Center), etc. Very impressive, and built to withstand a certain intensity earthquake (I think 7.0) and backup network reliability with satellite, alternate land lines, etc.

THEREFORE, the "Center" of the Church has indeed moved to Provo and is indeed functioning there as we speak. The sentiment of the "guidance" of the Church flowing from there is also true, after a fashion, as you determine how reliant we now are on electronic means for communicating with the far-flung outposts of the kingdom around the world and coordinating the building up of the Church and maintaining its operations.

Sorry to burst anyone's bubble, but walking into an elevator and hearing part of the conversation is bound to give us young missionaries looking for "faith promoting rumors" a lot of fodder.

Here's my contribution for this twinkie list:

Missionary at the MTC as a joke tries to bless a fire hydrant and is smitten and has to be sent home.

wjclerk

[SolarPowered]

I heard that it will Thomas S Monson to usher in the Lords second coming. I also heard that Henry B. Eyring and Jeffery R. Holland are the two prophets who are dead in the streets for three days.

I must admit I truly would like the savior to come soon, Tomorrow would be awesome. but I put no credibility in the above twinkies.

Actually, the prophecy is that the next Pope after this one will be Pope when the Savior returns. So says the prophecy of St. Malachy, who died in 1148.

His prophecy also connected John Paul II to an eclipse of the sun. John Paul was born during a solar eclipse, and was also buried during a solar eclipse.

Benedict XVI is around 80, and in nowhere near the health of President Hinckley...

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

here is another one.

the more doors you knock in the rain, the hotter your wife will be.

Oh Come in, I like this one though, it made it so much more bareable.

I have to say this has been one of the most enertaining threads I have seen, THanks to all.

[MormonMason]

I heard that it will Thomas S Monson to usher in the Lords second coming.

I heard this one way back in 1990. I poo-pooed it to the person telling it to me.

I also heard that Henry B. Eyring and Jeffery R. Holland are the two prophets who are dead in the streets for three days.

That's impossible! Someone I know actually has met at least six of the two prophets who were supposed to lie dead in the streets in Israel.

I must admit I truly would like the savior to come soon, Tomorrow would be awesome. but I put no credibility in the above twinkies.

I estimate sometime around 254 years or so for that event, based both upon the Jewish calendar (232 more years to go before opening the seventh seal) and my own interpretation of the meaning of the half-hour of silence (about 21 or 22 years after the opening of the seventh). Of course, I could be wrong but I already know I won't be alive to see the second coming while still alive. My patriarchal blessing is pretty clear I will have to be raised from the dead first. So, I, too, put no credibility in the above twinkies.

[cinepro]

My patriarchal blessing is pretty clear I will have to be raised from the dead first. So, I, too, put no credibility in the above twinkies.

Good point. Your patriarchal blessing is probably much more accurate than the blessings that promised now-dead people they would see the second-coming in their lifetime.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

Good point. Your patriarchal blessing is probably much more accurate than the blessings that promised now-dead people they would see the second-coming in their lifetime.

Patriarchal blessing are a doosey arent they? I count mine as a suggestions to things that will bring me happiness, I dont count it as scripture. There are to many ways to inturpret a blessing, I use it for general guidance.

Good point though.

[Jigglysaint]

Well I heard a few things. One of my friends from church honestly believed that he was told by God that George Bush would become President. Since GB senior allready served his term, it obviously meant his son. He also thought that GWB was called of God to lead the USA or somthing like that.

He also told me a few other things, like how we were following arround one of our grandparents in the premortal existance, and thus why we tend to look like one grandparent and behave like another. He also said that he thought that late Neal A. Maxwell of the quorem of the 12 would be one of the two wittnesses in Revelation that would preach to the Jews, get murdered, and be resurected. And, one more story; he said that somebody in our stake was, as a child, actually abandoned by his father to be killed by wild amimals.

You know, there is a reason why we are told to keep our Patriarchal Blessings to ourselves and close family, and to be careful about telling people our miracles. When we tell people about extraordinary events, they somehow can become twisted and the result is a spiritual twinkie, or as I know them as faith promoting rumours. The geatest danger is that people see this stuff preached, and learn it isn't true, and they end up questioning the doctrine that is true. If I got a dime for everybody who left the church because all they were served was twinkies, I'd be rich.

[wjclerk]

If I got a dime for everybody who left the church because all they were served was twinkies, I'd be rich.

And we'd have less of a spiritual "famine in the land" without spiritually anorexic souls running around who got fed the spiritual equivalent of diet coke. Remember - twinkies at least have fat and calories! "Fried froth," on the other hand . . . .

wjclerk

[LifeOnaPlate]

If I got a dime for everybody who left the church because all they were served was twinkies, I'd be rich.

The sad thing about this was expressed by Amasa Lyman, the posthumously restored apostle:

Well, so it is with truth and its excellency in all the various departments of nature's works and its glory. We live in the midst of it, and are starving. We are a poor, starving, miserable, wretched, beggarly set of creatures in the midst of plenty (Journal of Discourses 3:167).

[ERMD]

I heard this one over 20 years ago:

Del Parsons was commissioned to paint his portrait of Christ by the First Presidency. He was instructed to show them his progress, and they would have him make corrections until he got it right.

[John Williams]

I heard this one over 20 years ago:

Del Parsons was commissioned to paint his portrait of Christ by the First Presidency. He was instructed to show them his progress, and they would have him make corrections until he got it right.

Right after I worked on the For the Strength of Youth pamphlet, my bishop held a special fireside wherein he said that he had it on good authority that President Monson, after much prayer and fasting, wrote the text of the pamphlet in its entirety in one weekend. I laughed out loud and got a stern glare.

My least-favorite twinkie: "Fake it till you make it."

[asbestosman]

One common twinkie seems to be the idea that any account of a miracle happening in the church is a twinkie.

I guess it depends on what you mean by twinkie--untrue? I dont' think all twinkies are untrue. To me, a twinkie is that which does not directly relate to building an understanding of core gospel doctrines or are utterly without application.

But not all accounts of miricles are twinkies IMO. My favorite miricle is the First Vision. That's no twinkie. It's core. Another miricle is the appearance of Elijah, Elias, Moses, and others in the temple to restore priesthood keys. Another is the appearance of John the Baptist to restore the Aaronic priesthood. Another miricle is the vision of the Celestial, Terrestrial, and Telestial kingdoms in D&C 76. None of these miricles are twinkies and all are very core to the church.

Some twinkies may be true but are utterly without application (e.g. that people with Down's Syndrome were very valiant in the pre-mortal world--I mean, should we love and respect them (and indeed all people) regardless of how valiant such people were or were not in the pre-mortal world?--Hence those stories are useless IMO).

[asbestosman]

OH crumbs...here we go again....you 'think' you heard perfectly pronounced profanities,

Amazingly enough, I believe Drew's story, but I don't think evil spirits have anything to do with thos profanities. I think most people in the world know English profanities and so while they try speaking in tongues, I'd imagine it easy for a few to slip out without them realizing what it is. I mean let's face it--when I learn a foreign language one of the first things I wanted to know after saying "hi" was what the cuss words were.

Anyone know how to swear in Adamic (or say hi for that matter)?

Anyhow, I don't believe that Pentacostals are posessed by evil spirits when they speak in tongues. I heard that scientists have attended those meetings and used statistics to discover that what they speak is not really like any known human languages at all.

[SolarPowered]

My least-favorite twinkie: "Fake it till you make it."

Actually, if you mean what I think you mean, that's based on a valid psychological principle.

I remember Dr. Joyce Brothers citing an unfortunate negative example of this principle. It seems that over the history of the Oberammergau Passion Play, nine (IIRC) of the actors who have played Judas have hanged themselves.

[Gaia]

Oh, I know more women in heaven the man, so that is why there is polygamy.

GAIA:

Hi There --

Actually, this idea was debunked by LDS leaders --

For example, LDS apostle John Widtsoe said:

"Members of the Church unfamiliar with its history, and many nonmembers, have set up fallacious reasons for the origin of this system of marriage among the Latter-day Saints. The most common of these conjectures is that the Church, through plural marriage, sought to provide husbands for its large surplus of female members. The implied assumption in this theory, that there have been more female than male members in the Church, is not supported by existing evidence. On the contrary, there seem always to have been more males than females in the Church. ....

The United States census records from 1850 to 1940, and all available Church records, uniformly show a preponderance of males in Utah, and in the Church.... The theory that plural marriage was a consequence of a surplus of female Church members fails from lack of evidence.

(John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations [salt Lake City: Improvement Era], 390.)

[Jigglysaint]

This is somewhat off topic, but I just created the phrase "Yo man I be Twinkin' my Ho Ho's". What hidden message you get from this is entirely up to you.

[SolarPowered]

GAIA:

Hi There --

Actually, this idea was debunked by LDS leaders --

For example, LDS apostle John Widtsoe said:

"Members of the Church unfamiliar with its history, and many nonmembers, have set up fallacious reasons for the origin of this system of marriage among the Latter-day Saints. The most common of these conjectures is that the Church, through plural marriage, sought to provide husbands for its large surplus of female members. The implied assumption in this theory, that there have been more female than male members in the Church, is not supported by existing evidence. On the contrary, there seem always to have been more males than females in the Church. ....

The United States census records from 1850 to 1940, and all available Church records, uniformly show a preponderance of males in Utah, and in the Church.... The theory that plural marriage was a consequence of a surplus of female Church members fails from lack of evidence.

(John A. Widtsoe, Evidences and Reconciliations [salt Lake City: Improvement Era], 390.)

I don't know about 1850 to 1940, but as long as I have been in the Church, there has always been more women than men in the Chruch, by a substantial margin.

I was at a Single Adult conference in around 1996, where the General Authority keynote speaker quoted the statistic that, church-wide, there are five times as many single women as single men.