- Kent Larsen on Your Reactions to Church Yesterday, 11/30: “Here are my reactions to yesterday’s Church meetings (11/30): One of the speakers talked about winter scout campouts, and it led me to wonder, is life maybe like a winter camp out? Kind of unpleasant overall, but still fun at some points? Apparently one of the campers in the winter camp out set up a hammock — again, its kind of like life. Without thinking we set up our lives in ways that make it harder, that increase our suffering. Other times the set up is something that we’re given and expected to use, even though it causes us suffering — like being given a hammock for a winter camp out. Another speaker made an analogy to fashion, saying that the best outfits have some kind of tension in them between different colors, or fabrics, etc. The juxtaposition of differences its what makes the outfit work, just like in life—opposition in all things is a way of saying this. To me, that seemed rather insightful, since when we talk about ‘opposition-in-all-things’ we usually see it as opposition to where we are, not balance and tension in our lives. It seems right to me that we do have such tensions in life, as we try to balance the demands on our time and attention, as well as the resources we have available. ” Dec 1, 20:42
- on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, November 2025: “Of course! I’m glad these are helpful. It’s fun for me as well.” Dec 1, 16:43
- on Black Hole Cosmology and the Book of Abraham: “Sute, I agree. And just so you know–I’m a great fan of your comments. I believe there is a strict continuity sorts. We’ll experience the same sociality there as we do here–and that’s comforting to know. That said, I think we both agree with Paul’s statement: Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. I think of President Nelson’s likening us to an acorn that barely sprouts in this life–but is destined to grow into a mighty oak. Though the difference between what we are now and what we might become is vast beyond comprehension there is still a continuity of genus and identity.” Dec 1, 13:37
- on Black Hole Cosmology and the Book of Abraham: ““Whether that means something that looks like the universe we’re familiar with or something beyond our comprehension or both remains to be seen” I’m sure it’s a mixture of both depending on how creative we want to get with our language but as we believe in the important of the physicality of this life as it relates to the eternities, I tend to push back against creeping l, almost nicene like beliefs of drastically different vague nothingness and everythingness notions of eternity. God has a body. We have a similar one. He experienced mortality. So do we. So did eons of others in the last, and presumably in presents elsewhere. That suggests that suddenly we aren’t the end of ACT I and then we’ll move on to becoming wormhole travelling cat-octopusses or something. Not saying anyone is arguing this, but I don’t see any reason given what we know about the past that the future will suddenly be different in substance. So ya, maybe there’s multiple universes or portions of this universe, and miracles of worm hole travel, a single creation for each black hole in the universe etc. But we are experiencing life with a body in this frame of reference for a reason. Not suggesting you, but when others create possibilities of eternity outside that standard it undermines our resemblance and relevance to divinity.” Dec 1, 11:17
- on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, November 2025: “Thanks, Stephen. I always read these and appreciate the updates.” Dec 1, 10:34
- on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, November 2025: “You’re welcome! Yeah, most of them time articles trickle in when they’re “online only” but some journal just drop them all at once when a new issue comes out and there’s a bit of a deluge.” Dec 1, 05:28
- on CFM 11/24-11/30 (D&C 135-136): Poetry for “ He “Has Sealed His Mission and His Works with His Own Blood”: “I am a Joel Johnson descendant on my maternal side. Thanks for sharing what I consider to be one of his more poignant poems.” Nov 30, 12:13
- on Cutting Edge Latter-day Saint Research, November 2025: “Thanks, Stephen. It looks like The Interpreter has been busy.” Nov 30, 10:32
- 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
