I distinctly remember trying to come up with the biggest number as a child. I would say something like one-hundred-trillion-billion-quazillion, and then my older brother would torment me by saying one-hundred-trillion-billion-quazillion-and-one. I can’t wait to torment my kids with that when they get to the right age. (more…)
D&C 19:4-12 is a humdinger of a scriptural passage. In it the Lord confirms what people had surely been suspecting about various doctrines for thousands of years: “He has to be kidding about that doctrine, right?” Apparently the answer to their question in at least one case was “yup”. The specific misleading doctrine that the Lord tells us he had allowed people to buy into until section 19 was given in 1830 is the doctrine that “endless torment” and “eternal damnation” are actually endless and eternal in duration. Rather, the Lord admits, such punishments usually do have an end. God just allowed his people to believe otherwise because having people believe such punishments last forever was a useful form of motivation. In his words:
wherefore it is more express than other scriptures, that it might work upon the hearts of the children of men, altogether for my name’s glory. (verse 7)
I used to be very interested in the great big world around me. I would love to watch the news and find out all about the interesting and sometimes awful things going on here on planet Earth. That has all changed since I’ve become a mother. Now I’m so uninformed if there is an actual apocalypse you might want to give me a call and let me know about it. (more…)
There has been some interesting action around these parts while I have been away. It started with some exchanges between Jacob and Mogget about the general subject of theology. Late in one of those threads at Mogget made an interesting comment:
Two points about our info on the post-mortal existence:
If it’s something that is known only by revelation, then let’s admit that it’s so.
If we’re going to speculate about it, then it needs structure and organization.
Now it seems that there are folks that think three kingdoms, and folks that think “many kingdoms.†Interestingly enough, both sides seem to think they have logic, exegesis, and revelation on their side.
So let’s take a step back in the whole process and talk about how to distinguish between competing claims in general before we work on this issue. It would seem that the tough one is competing claims of revelation, no?
Anybody got any ideas? Something reasonably objective?
The point she brings up about competing revelations a difficult but highly important one. (more…)
