- R on Outer Darkness, Voids, Dark Nebulas, and the End of the Universe: “The idea of the Atonement as an engine that turns back entropy has always been very appealing to me.” Feb 17, 20:22
- on Outer Darkness, Voids, Dark Nebulas, and the End of the Universe: “My mother thought of paradise as the light of christ and warmth comes with light. She felt outer darkness was dark and therefore cold. That has stuck with me.” Feb 17, 19:59
- on Outer Darkness, Voids, Dark Nebulas, and the End of the Universe: “If our Heavenly Parents are outside of our Big-Bang-Universe, then they can probably handle anything. If they are inside of our Big-Bang-Universe, then they will have to do something about the far future. Michio Kaku, in his book Parallel Worlds, says that we will have to either figure out how to get into a different (and younger) universe, or we will have to time-travel back to a younger time in our own universe. And, you know, there are probably some other solutions as well. I’m confident that we can trust our Heavenly Parents on this one.” Feb 17, 15:50
- on Feeding the hungry has negative ROI: “Norman Maclean said much the same thing in his novel A River Runs Through It. “Each one of us here today will at one time in our lives look upon a loved one who is in need and ask the same question: We are willing to help, Lord, but what, if anything, is needed? For it is true we can seldom help those closest to us. Either we don’t know what part of ourselves to give or, more often than not, the part we have to give is not wanted. And so it is those we live with and should know who elude us. But we can still love them – we can love completely without complete understanding.” ? Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories” Feb 17, 08:39
- on Outer Darkness, Voids, Dark Nebulas, and the End of the Universe: “Back in the 80s on an excellent episode of St. Elsewhere, hell was depicted as being alone in a rowboat on Lake Powell. It was so bad that when Howie Mandel showed up for a few minutes during a near-death experience, the occupant of the rowboat begged him to stay. (OK, that was a cheap shot, but I couldn’t resist.) For myself, I have decided that thinking about the afterlife in spatial terms in not helpful. Instead, I think of outer darkness as complete stagnation. You cannot learn anything new. You cannot create anything new. You just are what you are forever.” Feb 17, 07:47
- on Feeding the hungry has negative ROI: “After a lifetime of observing what ya’ll might describe as “Christlike” service of many anonymous Christians (LDS and other denominations) and others of other faiths and no particular faith at all – I wholeheartedly disagree with your initial assertion that such efforts don’t produce success, respect, or happiness. I have seen and felt these things myself, and seen it in many many others… assuming feeding the hungry, getting clean water supplies, tutoring kids who can’t read, helping girls & women access medical care, helping people access medical screenings or vacunas – thru persuasion – they knew nothing about or were averse to, repairing bikes, motos, etc, for better transportation to improve economic situation… just for starters…(assuming all this qualifies for your “Christ like service”) —- the helpers and helpees consistently come out happy…many of the folks I’ve served with, I’ll admit, come from dirt poor backgrounds.. we’ve gone hungry as children or wondered where our next meal was coming from; as adults some of us have found ourselves “between roofs over our heads..” or being on the hoping end of other poor people’s charity. We don’t carry around any particular middle class burden of guilt about any “prosperity “ we might have achieved or agonize or philosophize over what we are or aren’t doing… we’ll leave the hand wringing to the overthinking overphilosophizing gringos with lots of time on their hands. We serve who we can, when we can, with what we can. Donde comen 2 comen 3….Relax, “haz el bien y no mires a quien!”’como dice el dicho” Feb 17, 00:47
- on What Did You Think About Church Yesterday, 2/15?: “Our recently-released Stake president and his wife are now the service mission coordinators in our mission, so their presentation pre-empted Sunday School. The growth in service missions is one of the less heralded changes in recent years but it has the potential to have a big impact in terms of who can serve a mission and what the public face of the Church and its missionaries looks like.” Feb 16, 18:09
- on Feeding the hungry has negative ROI: “Thanks for the kind comments. To clarify again, I’m terrible at this kind of service, so this post is also a reminder to me. When I’m asked to do something like this or see an opportunity for it, or see other people doing it week after week, I have to resist the voice that says: Yeah, sure, but how is this going to pay off? By what metric is this an effective use of resources?” Feb 16, 18:06
- on Feeding the hungry has negative ROI: “Thanks for this, Jonathan, couldn’t agree more. The best service is the kind that can’t be returned.” Feb 16, 11:21
- on First Shall be Last and the Last Shall be First: A Didactic, Overbearing Parable: “Stephen C, You mentioned assimilation in Reform Judaism… Reform Judaism began in the early 19th century and over the course of the late 19th and early 20th centuries basically won all the growth races. In the U.S. especially, progressive Judaism (Reform + Conservatism + Reconstructionism) dominated orthodoxy in the face of claims that assimilation would kill the faith. Orthodoxy itself assimilated over similar time frames and modernized to the point where ultra-orthodoxy (what might pass as pre-Enlightenment Judaism) became vanishingly small. Having said that, Reform Judaism definitely became more anemic in recent decades, and orthodoxy more ascendant. I think my point is simply that Judaism doesn’t track on a straight line where progressivism equals less-devotion the way we think of mainline progressive Christian movements. It’s actually mature, still vibrant today, and heavily influenced orthodoxy itself.” Feb 16, 10:52
