And also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth... D& C 1:30
There are far too many in this world who don't have a clue as to what The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is. There are also too many who "think" they know what it is and are way off base.
I am hoping that the candidacy of Mitt Romney will help to bring forth the Church a little further "out of obscurity". I believe that he was prepared for just such a time as this.
For those of us who beleive that there were actual men named Mormon and Moroni who saw our day and who knew our doing, if we take the 55 pages in the Book of Alma... some 17% of the Book of Mormon that deals exclusively with war and liken it to our time perhaps we can see why it would be wise to have a commander in chief who is a member of Christ's only true and living church.
Take the word "nephites" and replace it with "Americans" Take the word "lamanites" and replace it with the word "jihadists" and it begins to come to light. Of course you could replace the Zoramites and Ammulonites/Amalikiahites with Al Queda or Radical Muslim clerics and it takes on new meaning. Don't take my word for it... turn on over to Alma and read for yourself. It is an enlightening exercise. Of course there are many lessons that can be learned from these scriptures besides war, but it's past time folks, for members of the Church to get out of debt and to have a supply on hand.
As I read the epistles between Moroni and the lamanites evil king, I wondered at the possiblity of a "dialoge" between a mormon president and the president of Iran or some other group of jihadists.
Who would the "king" men or perhaps now "queen" men be? Democrats or others here in America that would not want to see us protected? Those that would cut and run?
Who will our "Teancum" be?
Mormon and Moroni and Nephi spoke about how difficult it was to write on metal plates, and yet, as difficult as it was, 17% of this great book deals with war. " Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing."
"And now, except ye do repent of that which ye have done, and begin to be up and doing, and send forth food and men unto us, (??in Iraq and Afghanistan??), that ye may support those parts of our (world community) which have been regained, and that we may also recover the remainder of our possessions in these parts, behold it will be expedient that we contend no more with the (Jihadists) until we have first cleansed our inward vessel, yea, even the great head of our government."
I hope we don't get to this point...
"But behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late, and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head.
O ye people of the land, that ye would hear my words! And I pray that the anger of the Lord be turned away from you, and that ye would repent and be saved."
Are we there yet?
"AND it came to pass that in this same year, behold, "Bush" delivered up the judgment-seat to a (wo)man whose name was "Clinton".
For as their laws and their governments were established by the voice of the people, and they who chose evil were more numerous than they who chose good, therefore they were ripening for destruction, for the laws had become corrupted.
Yea, and this was not all; they were a stiffnecked people, insomuch that they could not be governed by the law nor justice, save it were to their destruction."
Perhaps I likeneth too much... and like Samuel, I'll have darts and arrows pointed at me as I stand here on the wall....
at least it can give some of you food for thought
ray, enjoy this, the latest edition of the Mahonri entertainment hour....
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no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing... the truth of God will go forth till it has penetrated every website, sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done
:starts sharpening up his arrows: Oh wait, I can't fire arrows at you, I agree with you. There are many who think that things will continue this way for decades, if not centuries. I think that things will, as President Packer said, spiral down and continue to get worse.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
Why can't we fire arrows if we agree? All in good fun, of course...
The ones who think matters will continue for a long time...don't realize that when you have an exponential curve, the slope at each point changes very quickly in a short period of time.
This applies to good and evil, I think. Disintegration of the government? Not totally unthinkable. Iraqi Stake President? Could happen.
I was reading a great book about the New Testament times, and came across commentary about the Roman Emporer Nero who due to neglect allowed his city to burn, then when confronted with political unhappiness, blamed this little cult that was not particularly popular at the time... that cult was called Christianity.
--Ray
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I'm not slow; I'm special. (Don't take it personally, everyone finds me offensive. Yet somehow I manage to live with myself.)
There you go again with math, Euphrasie. Don't you know that math can't describe everything in life? And the reason for that, of course, is that we don't understand math well enough yet. The important question, of course, is can you hand calculate a square root using the Babylonian Method? Speaking of Babylon, what has the Lord traditionally destroyed other civilizations for? He has destroyed them for excessive moral sin and for following after other gods. We have both right now. We have those who outright worship another god or gods, such as the wiccans. Then we have people who have made their car, or their job, or whatever their god. And moral sin is everywhere. It's not popular anywhere anymore to get married. Instead, people live together. And porn is everywhere - I really don't think that anyone growing up nowadays will escape getting a glimpse of it somewhere. I'm just glad that when someone tossed some pages from a porn magazine into our yard that my son told me, instead of just picking them up and hiding them in his room. Granted, he was only ten then, but people are getting into horrible sin even younger than ever. And President Packer said that he does not know that Sodom and Gomorrah's sins were greater than ours. That's pretty damning. But then again, the Lord's side wins in the end, so we should rejoice. And we know which side we should be on.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
Arrr! Cane the mathimatician! Math be evil magic, it be! Aaaar!
I vote Ray in as Teancum... Teancum is, after all, the Nephite colloquialism for raybies... he will need a body guard, though, so that the second time he inflicts the raybies of death he can be protected from being smotten unto death that he dies...
Serious note, it is uncanny how similar the conditions described are to what we see today. And, it would be so easy to get scared. But where does fear come from? Not the Lord, and we have the promise that if we as individuals are moving in the right direction, we have no need to fear.
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It seems to me the only thing you've learned is that Caesar is a "salad dressing dude."
arbilad wrote: There you go again with math, Euphrasie. Don't you know that math can't describe everything in life? And the reason for that, of course, is that we don't understand math well enough yet.
Well...I'll give you the point about understanding. We believe all the math that has been revealed, all the math now revealed, and we believe there will yet be revealed much great and important math...
But I'll still apply what we have to just about anything I can get away with. Willy nilly, even.
Babylonian square roots? Hey now. I listened while you were talking.
The Babylonian Method is a term for a method of estimating a square root by hand. So, for instance, if we choose a random number, such as 37, and we want to find the square root, we can do so with the Babylonian Method. To start with, choose a positive integer whose square is closest to 37. That would be 6. You would then take the average of 37/6 and 6. 37/6 is 6.16666..., and the average of that and 6 is 6.08333... We now continue that same method to the desired degree of accuracy. So, the average of 37/6.08333... and 6.08333... is 6.08276255 and so on. I could go on and on, but you get the point. If you take the result and multiply it by itself, you'll note that we have 37.000000325785 and so on. A pretty good approximation of the square root.
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If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
I think I've done it before...but it's been a long time. I didn't even have to take any math classes in college, surprisingly. So high school calculus...10 years ago? And I'm pretty sure the square root thing was an earlier class...
If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen! - Samuel Adams
*lobs protractors at Catherder...in perfect parabolas...then calculates the area under the curve above y=0...*
Tee hee. My husband was teaching my 4yo daughter about parabolas the other day. It's so funny when he teaches her things which she passes on to people who look at her like an alien.
The Babylonians were pretty good at numerical methods of solving equations. There are cuniform tablets that show a method for calulating the solution to a cubic equation. We also found a tablet with Pythagoran triples listed in a manner similar to a trigonometry table. I learn all sorts of neat stuff in my History of Mathematics course this semester.
Of course I am the one that will have a bachelors degree in Mathematics with an empasis in Scientific Computing this May.
Anyway in my personal scripture study I am in the same place in Alma, and was also comparing it to today. Very facinating.
Rayb... thank you. It was worth all of the time spent, just for that one compliment.
Train wreck... you gotta love it!!!! Ah, but a train wreck with so, so many kernels of truth!!
Thanks.
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no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing... the truth of God will go forth till it has penetrated every website, sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done
Is Gore and his hypocritical utility bills / energy consumption one of the modern day King men? Me thinks yea, and I'd throw Billary and Kerry and Pelosi and Kennedy and some others in that batch too. Maybe even some Republicans, but I can't think of whom at this point.
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It seems to me the only thing you've learned is that Caesar is a "salad dressing dude."
As we move closer to Our Lords reign here upon the earth hopefully we will see things more clearly... things as they really are. Until then, we share the gospel, treat others with kindness and seek to buildup his kingdom.
Eventually we will see exactly why Mormon chose one story or another... Will we be well versed/studied enough to recognize the players as they walk upon the world scene and how to react to them?
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no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing... the truth of God will go forth till it has penetrated every website, sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done
Hey now. I listened while you were talking. 
Run away! Run away!
