- wayfarer on How Many Stakes Worth of Immigrants Are There in the Church in the US?: “Majority of our very large for the UK ward are immigrants. It is an interesting challenge that members here are embracing, frequently supplying the needs of entire households. They are rejuvenating the church here for sure.” Feb 19, 12:57
- on Outer Darkness, Voids, Dark Nebulas, and the End of the Universe: “My take on outer darkness: God loves all his children, and has created a plan that in the end gives everyone what they most want–what will make them happiest. Unfortunately, what some people most want is to exercise unrighteous dominion over others. To control. To abuse. If they want to change, God will do anything to make that happen. He’ll sacrifice his Son. He’ll put them through hell in the spirit prison if that’s what it takes. But if they utterly refuse to change, he will not force them. If they really want to spend eternity making other people miserable, he’ll let them. What he won’t do is let them make his other children miserable–that ends with mortality. So he puts all these sons of perdition in one place so they can make each other miserable. I presume God will make it a physically comfortable place if they’ll let him. But they’ve definitely “opted out” of all his efforts to make them better people: no influence of the Holy Ghost, no Light of Christ. So it’s the worst of the worst, at their worst; “L’enfer, c’est les autres” indeed. It sounds like an absolute nightmare to me, but it is the one place in all eternity where people can exercise unrighteous dominion over others, and for those who dwell there that makes it worth it. I hope the experience will eventually cause them to change their minds, and I’m sure God will embrace them if they do. But maybe by the time they get there they’re beyond that point.” Feb 19, 11:14
- on Outer Darkness, Voids, Dark Nebulas, and the End of the Universe: “I think those who go to such a place are those who want nothing to do with the Lord or his Kingdom. They are so filled with wrath that they actually prefer to go to place beyond the precincts of the Kingdom. And in saying “place” I mean that the only thing that defines it as a place is that it is not the Kingdom. It is “without form and void” of order.” Feb 18, 21:55
- on What Did You Think About Church Yesterday, 2/15?: “I started last week’s reading with a bad attitude: what can we learn from Noah and the Ark other than “be good or else”? Fortunately, our teacher pointed out the chiastic structure of the whole story, which makes God remembering Noah the turning point. He then used that as a springboard to talk about getting closer to God, played a clip from President Oaks’ BYU devotional, and made it a pretty great lesson. That actually dovetailed with something I noticed in my reading: we frame this as a “follow the prophet” story, but as far as is recorded Noah never tries to persuade anyone else to build a boat or to get on his. His prophetic message (according to Moses 8) is “repent.” Of course if the “violent” and “corrupt” society he lived in had listened, no boats would have been needed. But since that didn’t happen, he then received personal revelation on how to mitigate the consequences of living in a violent and corrupt society for him and his family. That certainly seems relevant today, even if both the consequences and the mitigation are just a bit different.” Feb 18, 16:59
- on Brave Like Eve Art Exhibit Open in Bountiful, Utah: “my wife and i went and saw this yesterday. it was beautiful. we would not have known about this show w/o your post, so thank you for sharing.” Feb 18, 12:00
- on Hymns and Tunes I Submitted for “Hymns—For Home and Church”: “Thank you for sharing your talent! I think members who compose new hymns ought to be encouraged to perform them in Sacrament meetings. Just because the church didn’t accept them for the hymn book shouldn’t bar them from being heard locally.” Feb 18, 07:32
- on Outer Darkness, Voids, Dark Nebulas, and the End of the Universe: “@ Last Lemming: I actually liked the Good Place because, regardless of the particulars, it got people thinking about the afterlife and what heaven and hell’s defining characteristics would be. I like that framing of hell as well, it’s very Lewisian; the people in The Great Divorce who chose to stay in Hell couldn’t simply move on from the petty squabbles of their mortal lives. @ Mark Ashurst-McGee: Oh definitely, the depression that comes with the idea of an Outer Darkness, end-of-universe situation is only applicable to atheists. Even deists would probably find the idea that a clock-setting God would just watch the universe die off forever a tough pill to swallow. @ Mhermitmom & R: I agree. I’ve thought the same thing for both of those insights.” Feb 18, 04:33
- on Hymns and Tunes I Submitted for “Hymns—For Home and Church”: “Not about these hymns in particular, as somebody who is not musical, but was raised in a musical family so I understand the culture, it was an interesting social phenomena to watch when the Church announced that people could submit hymns. It made a bigger splash than I thought; sort of outing the budding musicians in our ward. Like how everybody over a certain age and education level is working on a novel, I didn’t realize how many people had been working on composition. All that is to say to not feel too bad, I’m sure the slush pile the Church employees have to weed through is huuuge.” Feb 18, 04:28
- 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
