andypg

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andypg last won the day on May 24 2014

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About andypg

  • Birthday 10/25/1992

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  1. I'm in the Lakeshore YSA though the regular wards in the area just use numbers
  2. Honestly, I'd rather go see Left Behind. Nothing better, or funnier, than a terrible Evangelical film starring Nicholas Cage.
  3. Just when I thought President Uchtdorf gave the best Conference talk I wake up this morning and play this! (I'm visiting family so I'm watching it on DVR slowly and a little delayed). Wow. Just as people saw and heard Joseph Smith when Brigham Young spoke outside the Nauvoo temple, I'm pretty sure I saw and heard King Benjamin when Elder Holland spoke! But in all seriousness, my biggest complaint about my year as a Mormon so far was the apparent lack of discussion on charity and help for the poor and less fortunate. It may just be me, but I can count on one hand the amount of times they were mentioned. As a Catholic, that was most of what was talked about next to Christ. My main question I wrote before conference was, How can I live a Christ-like life in this Church especially when it comes to helping the poor and needy? Then I heard Elder Holland's talk. Like classylady, I couldn't help but cry with him too. This, for me, is a call to do what I can to help those around me and in need no matter who they are.
  4. So I wrote a paper about this last year for a class. My professor at the time was Urban von Wahlde who is considered a leading American scholar on John and the Johannine community. So when I look at the question of "Who killed Jesus" especially with allegations of "It was 'the Jews'", I tend to look at it through the lens of the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John went through three editorial stages by three separate authors in the Johannine community. The first edition refers to the Jewish leaders as the “Pharisees” and “Scribes” however, in the second edition the author uses the term “the Jews” in order to describe the Jewish religious leaders, not the Jewish people as a whole. The Gospel writer (of the second edition) uses the Greek word Ioudaios. So when the Gospel of John refers to the Jews (Ioudaios) who opposed Christ, it is referring to the religious leaders, not the entire Jewish community. While the Gospel of John talks about the plot of the Jews to kill Christ, it is a very small and specific group the author is referring to. It is the religious leaders responsible. Now, looking at the passage from Matthew, and I’m much less familiar with the Matthean tradition so I may be reading this wrong, the first two verses of chapter 27 reads: “When morning came, the chief priests and the elders of the people conferred together against Jesus in order to bring about his death. They bound him, led him away, and handed him over to Pilate the governor.” (NRSV) The “they” that bound him and led him to Pilate were the chief priests (arciereis) and elders (presbuteroi). Now, in verse 25 that you quoted, it says that “all the people” called for Barabbas. Now, this is where my lack of knowledge of the Matthean tradition puts me at a disadvantage. In John, Ioudaios (the Jews) could to us bring about images of a large group of people, but in reality to the Johannine tradition and author it was just the religious leaders. In Matthew, the Greek says, pas ho laos translated “all the people”. We could take it to mean a large group of the Jewish community, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be that. It could be all the people who were present, and since there is no evidence provided by the author of Matthew that a large following went with the chief priests and elders to Pilate, all the people who were there could well be just the chief priests and elders, the religious leaders of John’s Gospel. If I had more time on my hands, I’d try to find out the wording of the Marcan and Luke traditions, though I think they might agree with Matthew. Now in all this I think it’s important to remember this: When Christ is being crucified in The Passion of the Christ, it is Mel Gibson’s hand that is hammering the nail. Why? Gibson wanted to symbolically show that he (and all of us) have a role in the crucifixion. That’s the important part we need to remember when discussing who crucified Christ.
  5. From what I've been hearing, there is going to be a new curriculum starting in 2015. Will this mean they'll be getting rid of the current curriculum on the Gospel Library app? If so, I may need to purchase a hard copy of the Gospel Principles book just in case.
  6. It's been pretty dead in this section, so I thought I should try to revive it. I'm currently going through the D&C for the first time and have decided to finally highlight and mark in my new scriptures. At first I've been afraid of highlighting (dry highlighter) or marking it because it's so nice, but what use are the scriptures if I can't remember what I'm learning. So, what are your highlighting/marking techniques. Do you use different colors for different topics? Share!
  7. I have two coffee makers. One instant, one is a stove top espresso maker. I make the best Cuban coffee out of anyone I know (not to brag), so if I'm asked, I'll make it for you. I also have alcohol in my freezer. Most of my friends are 21 and not LDS, so we'll get together to hang out and I have no problem with others drinking, even in my apartment. I'll even give recommendations for wine.
  8. At school I'm specializing in theology and Catholic Studies. Since I go to a Catholic university, most of what I study when it comes to theology comes from Catholic sources. Honestly, I have benefited so much from reading them! Sometimes I'll read the Bible in the NRSV translation (Catholic edition, as all my non-KJV translations are). Church resources are great, though I like getting multiple points of view.
  9. It's actually really interesting, but the people I know the closest to me who are the most moral (I don't know any LDS well enough to have these heavy conversations with on a regular basis) tend to be deists who believe that there is a god, that he made up natural law but other than that no punishment no reward and no interaction in our daily lives. Just from personal experience, the deists I know are the least moral relativists and actually have morals most similarly to what we believe. Just an interesting observation. I do think a belief in natural law is the bare minimum for morality (though that kind of leads to there being a god, just not very specific on the kind of god there is). I think Penn was mostly talking about harm to self and others and being respectful. Kind of like you can be an atheist and know it is wrong to kill an innocent person. So I think he was going more into being a good person and respectful than what we are discussing here, which kind of goes beyond that.
  10. Penn Jillette, my favorite atheist, has said on more than one occasion that you don't need religion to be moral, and I agree with that. To say, "I'd be a serial rapist if there wasn't that threat of hell" doesn't make you more moral or superior than an atheist who believes rape is wrong and would not do it. Maybe it makes it worse. That being said, Dr. Dawkins makes me question that hypothesis a bit. Is that where atheism leads? Or is that where nihilism leads for a biologist? I'm inclined to believe the problem is with nihilism and not atheism. Though then you have to wonder about the relationship between the two philosophies. my ultimate question is why do we, or anyone, listen to an evolutionary biologist when it comes to religion or morality. Now, if Dawkins wanted to make the point from an evolutionary standpoint abortion would be better for the species, fine. But to bring in morality and the question of the morality of abortion in this circumstance is outside of his field. I should mention I would disagree on both questions, though he has more standing seeing it biologically than morally. That's my main problem with these famous atheist scientists. I'll listen to Dr. Dawkins, or Dr. deGrasse Tyson, if they stay within their fields of evolutionary biology and astrophysics, respectively. The minute deGrasse Tyson opens his moth on biology or philosophy I shut off because that is not his area. The same with Dr. Dawkins on morality and theology.
  11. A couple weeks ago I celebrated my first year as a Latter-day Saint. It's been an amazing year and am so glad I found the Church. This is where I belong and I believe that this is the restored Church. That being said... I hate writing this and feel guilty admitting this, but recently, I am missing aspects of Catholicism that I love. I miss the ritual of the Mass. The high liturgy for me is something wonderful and points to God in such a beautiful way. It still seems strange attending a very low liturgy. Don't get me wrong, I love going to church on Sundays and stay all three hours, but it's different and part of me is really missing the Mass and high liturgy. Before my conversion I was trying to find a Tridentine Mass (old style Latin) because I love that. The beauty, the ritual, the symbolism. And this one doesn't really seem fair given the age and sizes of the two churches, but there seems to be so much Catholic intellectual thought. Granted, the Catholic Church has been around much much longer and Mormonism is still fairly new, but for me, sitting down to read Ratzinger (Pope Benedict) or Hans Urs von Balthasar, is an act of spiritual nourishment. They write highly intellectual books yet with such beauty and depth that while reading it I feel like I am encountering heaven, spending a few minutes there before I have to put the book down. It doesn't even have to be hard core theologians, the writings of Mother Teresa are some of the most eloquent yet simplest I have read. There is beauty there where I read these things and they impact me much more than a General Conference talk. When I went to Deseret Book, I couldn't find books like this, a lot of it seemed very elementary, inspirational. But there isn't much that I have been able to find that allows me to go deeper. The closest i can find to that is the writings of Terryl and Fiona Givens. Even then I feel like only reading them will make me unbalanced. All that being said, I LOVE the Standard Works. I don't know. I belong here, I love the Church, I love the people, but I feel like something is missing. I told myself after a year as a member I will re-evaluate to see if this is where I belong and I think yes. I just miss these things and I think my spiritual life has been impacted by that. It's been feeling harder to connect deeply with our Heavenly Parents.
  12. When I went I ate at a Mexican cart next to City Creek. It was actually pretty good, though I had to eat on the sidewalk. Is the diner next to Temple Square open Sundays?
  13. I'm fond of Augustine. In general I'm a fan of metaphysics.
  14. I'm thinking of patriarch in the biblical sense like Abraham.