NeuroTypical

It's fascinating watching GenZ/Alpha starting to expound on stuff they're learning about the BoM. So much political and social commentary goes with it:

Saddest thing in the world - I saw a post from someone near the bottom of the 2008 economic downturn, saying he was selling all his retirement stock while he still had some left and putting it somewhere safe. The market has gone up roughly 500% since the 2008 bottom. If dude put it in cash or gold or something, it's probably lost like a third of it's value, because of inflation. And that's how you end up spending your golden years working, unable to retire. (Divorce is the other reason people end up there.)

Is this the drop you're referring to? If so, I'm having a hard time getting worried about a coming depression. I'd love to see 10x the size of that drop, to get us back to 2020 levels before we shut down the economy and made the money printer go brrrrrrt...

Well, Israel has been attacking targets in Iran for a lot of decades. As well as killing Iranian targets in other countries for decades. There's a longer history than even this article mentions: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/14/world/middleeast/iran-attacks-israel-history.html Or even this one-sided history from Al Jazeera. The Wiki article does it better justice. I'm guessing Israel figures this round of tit-for-tat is over. "We finally hit them hard enough, and publicly enough, that they had to give their first actual response launched from their own country. And it was a pretty pathetic response." Although you read the comments section of the IDF twitter feed, and you'd think it's kicking off armageddon, end times, apocalypse, millennium, and the 2nd coming, all rolled into one. That video of missiles in the background of the dome of the rock, is really riling up the sign-seekers from 3 different world's faiths.

There's an awful lot of results when you just search for "service missionary" on the church's website. https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/search?lang=eng&query=service+missionaries&page=1&facet=all

Yep. Iran did something similar after the US did some similar attack a few years back. We killed a senior baddie, they threw some token number of missles at some of our bases in Iraq. A few news stories about some of our troops getting hearing damage and a TBI or two, Iran's media crowed to it's own people about how they rained down death and destruction on the great satan in defense and retaliation, and then everyone went back to business as normal.

Oh, and straight from the horses mouth: https://x.com/iran_un/status/1779269993043022053?s=46&t=X5qcMifsD8E7ppEtCxaqJw

Since He's one of 'em, it would be sort of hard for Him to be there without Him present...

Iran, who for a long time has attacked Israel via proxies, finally attacked Israel from it's homeland.

Audio: By the way, whatever answer you find for the discrepancy here, you should also be applying to the BoM. Thing is chock full of such discrepancies. The scribe's notes don't match the printer's manuscript doesn't match the first copy of the first print run doesn't match the last copy of the first print run doesn't match the copy you have on your shelf doesn't match what you find at www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures. https://criticaltext.byustudies.byu.edu/

I've met two. One married, one not. Both of 'em temple worthy the last time they told me. One of them I know very well.

I wonder - what does it mean to you to be "against gay sex", and what does it mean to you to have the church "never allow" it? Membership in the church is voluntary. People can do whatever they want to in this church, and reap whatever consequences spring from their actions, be it positive or negative. The church isn't our mommy, telling us what we can and can't do. It's not about allowed or not allowed. The church is our guide, giving us counsel on how to be and how to act, inviting us to come to beliefs which our doctrine indicates is true, urging us to gain, maintain, and strengthen our testimonies. It's missions are to perfect the saints, proclaim the gospel, redeem the dead, and care for the poor and needy. It doesn't enforce keeping the commandments, it urges keeping the commandments. When you talk in terms of "against" and "never allowing", the immediate question is "or what?". The main actions the church can take with members, who either aren't keeping the commandments, or are breaking the commandments, are primarily to urge, proclaim, teach, and love. Some things the church figures are serious enough breaches of community norms (i.e. sins), that the ultimate power - that of removing membership - gets involved. It's like a chess club dealing with a member who wants to play checkers. Ok, you're still welcome in chess club, but you can expect we'll be playing chess, and inviting or even urging you to do the same. And if you disrupt our chess games to push for checkers, we'll probably disinvite you to future meetings and tournaments. Replace chess with bringing unto Christ, and checkers with sins, and there you go. Another way of thinking about it, is we're also "against" and don't "allow" cheating on a spouse. But there are endless active LDS folks with behavior like that in their past, and that's a good thing, because being LDS and living as one is a blessing that's available to all, just as the atonement is. We're also "against and "don't allow" p0rn or lusting after your neighbor's wife in your own head. But there are endless active LDS folks engaged in it, and we want to keep them in the church, because we believe being in the church is a good thing. Isn't same-sex behavior or thoughts or orientations sort of the exact same thing? I guess another way of asking my question, how do you know you're "against gay sex"? What sorts of actions or beliefs spring from you when you see gay? Something that surprised the heck out of me recently, was found in a recent poll: https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2024/03/08/jana-riess-who-is-leaving-lds/ That 4% number floored me. 4 out of every 100 members of the church identifies somewhere in that acronym? With roughly 6.8 million LDS members in America, most of whom live in the corridor, that equals roughly a quarter-million members who might identify as LGBTQ. Who are these people? Are they happy? At what rates do they keep the commandments or break them? Are they active? Do they hold callings? Are they surly teens waiting to age out and leave the church as soon as they can? I wonder - has the church found a good balance on the issue? Ok, so you like checkers. This is the chess club, and we'll be doing chess club things. You're welcome to come as much as you want, and participate as much as you want, and we'll love the heck out of you. Just don't try to get us to stop playing chess, or force your checkers playing on us, and we're good.

Why did @Vort go fishing? Just for the halibut.

I believe it is being referred to as "inspired counsel"? There's also a hefty dose of good old fashioned Old Testament-ey prophetic warnings and calls to action in it: The forces working against the family are pretty much everywhere now. Plenty of voices decrying outdated European models based on an oppressive patriarchy, plenty of sympathetic ears.

Also, folks in Florida be like: