NOM

The church loves Alma stories as long as they can be contained at the ward level. It's kind of like the Telestial kingdom, a repentant sinner can rise so far but they hit the jello ceiling at about the level of Elders Quorum president. But their stories can make it all the way to General Conference ...

Why hasn't lds.org come up with an essay justifying this official belief in Bible fundamentalism? They don't have to. They have the entire Abrahamic world on their side when it comes to the Bible, and that's whose respect, especially from the Christian world, they care about. They need apologetics ...

Oh no, it's Hagoth talking about psychedelics again. There's something really interesting going on that I wanted to discuss with y'all. It's called the Church of Psilomethoxin: https://psilomethoxin.com/ There are countless psychedelic churches popping up all over the place. Two of them are particul...

White Magick: Teenage boys pronouncing an incantation over Wonder Bread and tap water to change it into flesh and blood. I'm going to go ahead and make a wild guess that the "Christians" that created this "baddie" checklist also perform the Eucharist/Communion. I'll also hazard another guess that t...

Well yeah, but: Related to the original topic of this post... If the "Great Apostasy" never happened, what is there to 'restore'? This is a great example of how apologetics works. Evidence shows there wasn't an apostasy, so they acknowledge that academically. At the same time a restoration was nece...

Those (NOM's) who don't know, but know that they don't know don't worry me. Those that don't know that they don't know scare me. In other words, there are those: mystics, religionists, etc. who think they know what is true but they don't. They will try to swallow a camel (Jesus's words) to prove wh...

Hey, they forgot to include loud laughter, evil speaking of the Lord's anointed, and all other unholy and impure practices (oral sex and watching Rick & Morty).

The early Christians just had to bad mouth the pagans, so they made up all kinds of crap. Even as they were absorbing and appropriating paganism. For example, they were killing women for honoring Diana and other manifestations of the fertility/earth goddess while at the same time reinventing her as...

When I was a missionary at the MTC we had a visit by apostle LeGrand Richards (IIRC). During his speech he asked, "have any of you been told in your patriarchal blessing that you will be one of the two prophets who will lie dead in the streets of Jerusalem for three days and then come back to life?"...

It would make for an excellent alternate history TV drama.

The problem here is that most things that we have been taught about stuff like witchcraft, occult, Satanism, etc. are either extensions of Christian mysticism or whole cloth fantasies created by Christians to malign others. Real witches don't have anything to do with demons, seances, etc. From what ...

wtfluff wrote: ↑

Wed Jan 25, 2023 12:47 pm

RubinHighlander wrote: ↑

Tue Jan 24, 2023 3:38 pm

...
IDKSAF

Where can I buy a IDKSAF t-shirt?

(I miss Ruth...)

I'm picturing you with a IDKSAF forehead tattoo, Fluff. I'll even pay for it.

I haven't heard this story, but I love it. Especially if the church actually has those artifacts and is keeping them hidden. Why would they do that? Maybe because it would shine a light on other fakes that fooled church leaders, like the Kinderhook plates and the Hoffman documents? ETA: And the Book...

This book in one more opportunity for the church to pretend to be intellectually serious while encouraging the most anti-intellectual attitudes in Sunday meetings. Yes, this does feel a bit schizophrenic. If this is going to be the church's new perspective, it's a 180 degree turnaround from what I ...

It feels to me like all us individual sapiens are brain cells that are being forced back into one machine again. Seems counter intuitive, but look how desperately these systems we've created are trying to plug us into everything and record every aspect of our lives and behaviors. Sure it's being dr...

Interesting comment by Max Planck that I just stumbled on entirely by accident: "I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness."

Linked wrote: ↑

Thu Jan 19, 2023 6:06 pm

My thoughts are similar to the fluffy ones above.

Ditto. You dipped into the well that is available to everyone everywhere, but which every organization trying to corner the market tries to claim as their personal property.

As part of a beginners programming course I took several years ago I wrote code fragments to simulate a Roomba cleaning a room. Sounds like a fun project. When I was taking programming classes, sometime back in the Stone Age, I wanted to write a simulation of a bee finding honey and communicating i...

hmb wrote: ↑

Sun Jan 22, 2023 6:32 am

My first thought!

595155-jiminy2.jpg

Consciousness... conscience... hmmm

Is a Roomba conscious? It appears to have goals, and to be able to look for and use ways to overcome obstacles. When you touch something hot, and jerk your hand away, it all happens before your brain has any idea about what is going on. So are your reflexes conscious? I could (probably :) go on and...