Just_A_Guy

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Just_A_Guy last won the day on September 22 2023

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About Just_A_Guy

  • Birthday December 2

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    Utah County, Utah, USA
  • Religion
    LDS

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  1. Never fear. I was told back in 2016 that Trump would do just fine without my fuddy-duddy preening about such irrelevant minutiae as “right and wrong” and “honesty” and “civic virtue” and “values” and “having a president who is not a recidivist credibly-accused thief and rapist”. They didn’t want my support. They didn’t need my support. They did fine in 2016, they did fine in 2020, they’ll do fine in 2024. They’re fine. Everything’s fine. Fine!
  2. Write In Russ. That’s what I’ll be doing in November.
  3. If I didn’t have kids, I might. But I think it’s going to be increasingly difficult for LDS parents who don’t want their schoolchildren turned into a captive audience for sexual proselytizing by the political allies of the party in power there, to retain legal custody of their kids.
  4. At this point, I’m not 100% sure I want our armed forces to be particularly competent. I think overall, the Pax Americana has been a good thing—worth fighting a few small-ish wars to preserve, even. If we maintain it on such terms as befit our highest ideals, it can bring about the best possible conditions for worldwide human flourishing—both material and spiritual. But in this day and age, conservatives are wishy-washy about whether they want to preserve it at all; and libs have largely thrown out the value system that made our nation a unique influence for good; they mostly seem to want to preserve American might insofar as they can use it to export the continually-evolving values of the sexual revolution (with a side of fantasizing about using the military to kill right-wingers who won’t toe the line). In such situations, it’s hard not to conclude that a large standing army is of limited use and may actually be a threat. It’s all a darned shame.
  5. I remember a BYU class taught by Randy Bott in the late 1990s, where he mentioned that in some of his book manuscripts he had consistently capitalized pronouns for Deity only to have the Deseret Book editors make them all lower case.
  6. I flatly deny that the Church as a whole has any such policy or practice regarding missionaries testifying. Elizabeth Smart came home from her mission to testify against her kidnappers—multiple times, IIRC. I could *hypothetically* see why local leaders in a particular area (particularly one where government corruption may be an issue) might prefer to stay out of legal proceedings. But, if they’re leaning on third parties/lay members to stay silent or hide evidence . . . the Church could get in a lot of trouble for that. I would tell my leaders that I intend to inform legal authorities/ defense counsel/ whatever of the situation on such-and-such a date unless they instruct me in writing by virtue of their priesthood and in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that I must remain silent. And if they do write such a letter, my next step is to forward a copy of it to the Area Presidency.
  7. Someone wrote an article tracing the whole “seal of Melchizedek” thing; and it turns out that it originated from a photo caption in Nibley’s book that was actually written by a research assistant and not Nibley himself. The RA—when approached much later about it—vaguely recalled thinking they’d seen it in a book somewhere. It’s an aesthetically cool motif, certainly a very old one, and I like the symbolic meaning that’s being imputed to it. But I’m not convinced it’s an ancient symbol of Christ, priesthood, or anything else relating to the Gospel. EDIT: pretty sure this is the article I was thinking of. https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-11-no-3-2010/seal-melchizedek
  8. Originally there were also to be Saturn stones, which I think would have looked cool (though the intended symbolism is lost on me).
  9. This seems to give rise to another question, though. We have skeletons of infants and children who died pre-Christ. But I had always understood that the non-Telestial dead who died pre-Christ were resurrected shortly after He was. So, why weren’t these little ones resurrected? Is *every* pre-Christian grave modern archaeologists find, the resting place of a wicked person? One solution to this that I’ve been toying with, is that while resurrection *might* in some cases entail the re-gathering/re-assimilation of all of the specific atoms/molecules that went down into the grave (especially when doing so constitutes a sign to others, such as Christ’s own resurrection)—that that may not *always* be the case; and resurrection may actually involve the selective retrieval of some body material that was discarded throughout one’s life (if *every* molecule that was ever part of/eaten by us came back in the resurrection, we’d be physically enormous.) Thus, I suspect that the fact that we today have remains that are traceable to a particular individual, doesn’t necessarily mean that the individual has not yet been resurrected. Peter, for example—we know he’s been resurrected. Joseph Smith saw him. He got ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood by him. And yet, I think the evidence is reasonably strong that the 1st century skeleton found under St. Peter’s Basilica and analyzed in the mid 20th century, does originate with the apostle Peter. But then, it must be that there isn’t enough of him there at the Vatican to even call it his “body” anymore. Certainly, the soft tissues are all gone. Whatever’s still there is like . . . nail clippings. The nonessential stuff.
  10. IIRC, Paul Reeve has pointed out that by “priesthood” Young is probably referring to the patriarchal order—that what changed Young’s mind about blacks and the priesthood (he was initially in favor of it) was coming to understand the importance of the temple sealing, developing a horror that righteous Abel’s line of posterity had been cut off, and concluding (via inspiration or otherwise) that Cain ought not to have priesthood-bearing seed until Abel did. So . . . maybe 1978 was the year Abel finally finally attained his exaltation, took his place upon a throne (as, IIRC, we are told that Abraham and some other patriarchs already have), and—presumably—attained godhood. Of course, in modern times we’ve been asked not to speculate about this. But since so many disregard that counsel by speculating—even arguing—that the ban was spurious, I don’t know that there’s a lot of harm in pondering the possibility that maybe BY was, to some extent, right.
  11. To some degree it probably is; but I believe God will send us better candidates when we show we want them and refuse to embrace the openly-amoral, proudly visionless libertines that the abortionists or the “beer, babes, burps ‘n’ brawls” wing of the GOP serve up to us. Naive, I know . . . A certain forum member back in 2016-ish got really mad when I cited 1 Kings 19:18 and likened it to Trump; but that’s still pretty much where I am. If the GOP thinks they need my vote, they know where to find me.
  12. Looks like I’ll be writing in President Nelson again in November (assuming he’s still alive, of course . . .)
  13. Well, wasn’t it Eisenhower who sent in federal marshals to de-segregate the schools? And I think that when Arkansas threatened to use the National Guard to keep enforcing segregation, Eisenhower federalized them—and sent them home. I imagine that the solution is going to be tailored to the circumstances of each case. Maybe it means sending federal troops to a county jail to secure a prisoner’s release. Maybe it means instructing the Treasury to quit making reimbursements to a particular state under some particular federal program. Obviously, the ability of the executive and legislative branches to coordinate a response will play a role in determining what kinds of options are on the table. IIRC, there’s a relative dearth of 10th Amendment case law from the Supreme Court. @JohnsonJones may know more about that than I do.