- RLD on Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/23: “One of our speakers riffed on Elder Uchtdorf’s likening discipleship to developing talents to talk about his contrasting experiences with playing the piano and cooking. He learned to play the piano as a child, but his parents had to push him to practice and eventually gave up. He regrets not being able to play very well, but recognizes it is the result of his choices. (This is all very familiar to me.) By contrast, he got interested in cooking on his own, has spent countless hours watching instructional videos and trying various experiments, keeps getting better and better, and loves every minute of it. Our discipleship may start like a child being pushed to learn to play the piano, but eventually needs to shift into something we choose for ourselves and do with enthusiasm.” Nov 29, 12:01
- on Black Hole Cosmology and the Book of Abraham: “Mark Ashurst-McGee is right that the Milky Way is plenty big enough (hundreds of billions of stars!) to contain “worlds without number” if you make optimistic but defensible assumptions about the frequency of habitable worlds and the evolution of intelligent life. Personally, I lean towards more pessimistic assumptions that would make Earth unique in the universe, but not because I have any special insight into the probabilities involved. It seems to me that the entire universe, or rather physics itself, is fallen and mortal. Everywhere we look–even billions of light years away–everything is running down. Usable energy is dissipating; entropy is increasing; heat death grows inexorably closer. Perhaps celestial worlds are (undetectable, or at least undetected) bubbles where physics has different laws. Or maybe they’re taken somewhere else entirely. But I suspect that when this Earth’s mortal phase comes to an end, not just it but the entire universe will be renewed and made into a place fit for immortal beings to dwell. That suggests that when God wants to create a world where his current generation of children can experience mortality, he creates a new universe and waits patiently (probably with occasional nudges) until it obediently produces a planet where life has emerged and then evolved into fit tabernacles for his spirit children. I’m not sure if atheists or mainstream Christian theologians would be more appalled that I can look at countless galaxies and think “Yep, this is all for humanity” but there we are. :)” Nov 29, 11:35
- on The Watch, the Bullet, and the Windowsill: Examining John Taylor’s Carthage Miracle: “I said as much the day those original findings were released. One shot from 25m another from 150m. Plus we’re talking about hand loaded powder in the midst of a mob. I can hardly make a batch of cookies without spilling ingredients everywhere in the calm of my kitchen. Do it outside with gun shots and people mobbing around? Then factor in ricochets, fragments from a ball hitting a window sill and either the pieces of ball or wood flying off, etc.” Nov 28, 16:34
- on How Do YOU Think Eternal Marriage/Family Should Work in the Next Life?: “I think marriage in the next life can be compared to a conversation I had with my 5 year old. He wanted to know how much money I had. What he really meant was how much physical money I had in my wallet right at that moment and was I going to buy him a treat. He did not know or could comprehend my bank account, my financial investments, or the value of my home. He just wanted to know, with his limited knowledge, if I was capable of getting him what he thought he wanted right then. I think eternal marriage is the same. I don’t think we can comprehend it any more than my 5 year old could understand my retirement account, even if I had tried to explain it to him. We mostly want to know what we are going to get out of it, just like the treat my son wanted. But I think there is so much more to it than we can comprehend right now. God is compassionate in not giving us more knowledge than we can understand, just like not trying to explain to my young child my entire net worth.” Nov 28, 08:33
- on Black Hole Cosmology and the Book of Abraham: “Sute, Just to be clear–what I’m saying is: what was a “planet” to the early saints is a “big bang” to us modern saints. To them a planet was really, really big. And I think, in spite of the fact that they had a rudimentary understanding of Copernicus’ model, their view still carried a few vestiges of the ancient idea that the earth represented a division of the sacred cosmos–it was that big to them. And so however true it may be that exalted beings inherit worlds — and do we know for a fact that all worlds are whirling orbs? What are worlds like in higher realms of glory? — what we can say with certainty is that we will participate in the Father’s creative enterprise–and that means we will inherit some portion of the cosmos. Whether that means something that looks like the universe we’re familiar with or something beyond our comprehension or both remains to be seen–well, by me, at any rate.” Nov 28, 00:57
- on Black Hole Cosmology and the Book of Abraham: ““And so when they talked about inheriting a planet…” I wonder if we as a people even pay attention to the temple or if they get distracted by how much is going on. Adam helped create the earth as an apprentice to God and then came down and populated it. Pearl of Great Price, translated or inspired by Joseph, however you want to look at it, talks about many planets and many Adams. Joseph explained all this to Brigham and said put the ceremony in order. Brigham said he only taught what he received from Joseph. Now, he’s not here to quiz about all the intricacies of some of his controversial statements and I understand why many want to distance themselves from them. But I find it preposterous that anyone would be upset at that idea that Adam could be exalted but totally ok with the idea that we will be exalted. It’s odd that we seem to put binders on and act like no one in past creations was exalted. And we run in fear at thinking it robbery to be equal with God. Stephen drives the religious mobs into a murderous frenzy by daring to see that Jesus was on the right hand of God and we tip toe around the implications of that when it relates to all of God’s children and the greater purpose of the atonement. I’m not claiming to have everything worked out or exactly how it is going to be. But clearly our theology is predicated on things people want to distance themselves from because they cringe at the criticism. As if all of it isn’t completely looney, and the preposterous scale and construct of the universe itself is even more absurd. And this black hole idea, which I was also drawn to as well when I first heard it, is equally looney (and astounding). I really don’t know why it’s totally ok to accept that many premortal Adams (and Eves) without number went to planets to populate them, but it’s a bridge too far to imagine that glimpse into the past is also a possible glimpse into the future. It’s at least far more compelling weaving of our theology and doctrine into a coherent tapestry than the ethereal whispy angelic happy blissful heaven people seem to posit that practically aligns with most evangelicals thoughts but without much purpose. We know what God’s purpose and glory is. Why would we assume it begins and ends with us? That it will keep going, and we will take to the mantle seems to answer a lot of questions that abound about the purpose of life, marriage, family, gender, etc” Nov 27, 21:24
- on Black Hole Cosmology and the Book of Abraham: ““my main hesitancy with this idea is that it essentially makes God the God of the Milky Way, which seems a bit small to me . . . .” Perhaps you are underestimating the magnitude of the galaxy. It’s plenty big. I mean, it is incomprehensibly enormous. It is gloriously massive beyond belief. Any such God of the Milky Way Galaxy is easily worship worthy.” Nov 27, 18:56
- on Black Hole Cosmology and the Book of Abraham: “Thanks for the fun post. If I’m not mistaken, the star at the center of the Milky Way is named “Sagittarius A*”” Nov 27, 18:48
- on Black Hole Cosmology and the Book of Abraham: “Last Lemming, Actually I think there’s some truth in what you say–that is, in the sense that we’ll have the opportunity to help expand the Father’s creations–his cosmos. Yeah–the idea of getting our own planet is almost 150-200 years old. It took the saints three months to travel from the Mississippi River to the Salt Lake Valley–a trip that we make today in three hours on a Boeing 777. And so the “planet” was much larger to them than it is to us moderns. Large enough I dare say that it may have represented (in their minds) a division of the sacred cosmos. And so when they talked about inheriting a planet it was a slick way of saying a large chunk of the universe–not some little globe you could spin on your finger like a basketball.” Nov 27, 12:42
- on Black Hole Cosmology and the Book of Abraham: “Whenever somebody asks me if I hope to get my own planet in the next life (OK, that’s never actually happened), I tell them that I am holding out for a universe.” Nov 27, 07:10
