Disney's Star Wars franchise

I saw Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Power Ranger in the theater today. I have so much to say about it now. I thought reading the Wikipedia entry had prepared me for it, but the experience exceeded all my expectations!

Contrary to what I had expected from reading the summary, the whole story was NOT pointless. The end of the movie leaves the story in a significantly different place from when it started. For most movies you might take that for granted, but from reading the reviews I wasn't sure that was going to be the case, but it was, and that was nice. You won't be able to skip over this movie and still understand the Disney Star Wars trilogy.

I liked the way Mark Hamill portrayed Jake Skywalker, a grizzled old Jedi Master clearly inspired by Luke Skywalker. The fact that they got the same actor to play both characters is a nice touch.

I liked the way Jake Skywalker tried to educate the audience in the ways of the George Lucas Star Wars universe (e.g. the Force is not just for Jedis; Luke Skywalker can't defeat the Empire just by waving a laser sword).

I liked some of the dialogue between Rey and Kylo (the "You're a monster," "Yes. I am," bit was particularly nice), and I sort of liked the Twilight-over-Skype-themed relationship they developed, while a high-stakes space battle was raging elsewhere. (A space battle which, knowing what I knew about the plot, had me asking, "Why are you throwing away this med-ship, foolish #Resistance? If lightspeed ramming is a thing in your story, why not have the med-ship ram the star destroyer? Why does the First Order not have custom-built lightspeed-equipped missiles for destroying enemy ships in one shot? Why don't both sides have such missiles? Why, sixty years after Star Wars, are they STILL flying around X-Wing fighters and basic TIE fighters?" But I digress...)

I also liked the space cows. The fact that they were made vaguely bipedal only enhanced how nonspecifically-disturbing they seemed. It was a nice touch.

My biggest takeaway: I am in awe. I'd like to say that I had no idea it was possible for a movie to be ludicrously bad on so many levels simultaneously--I'd like to say that, but I've seen /Thor/, directed by Kenneth Branagh, so it would be untrue. Still, in terms of characterization, plot structure, originality, world-building, military tactics, logic, and pacing--the Last Power Ranger manages to be bad at ALL of these. There were definitely times during the movie when I could not stop laughing. I am in awe.

I have soooooo much to say about this movie.

~Max


P.S. It makes noooo sense why, if Jake Skywalker just wanted to be left alone to die, he left behind a puzzle MacGuffin which, when assembled and correctly interpreted, gives the location of his secret hideaway. It's almost as if they introduced an unnecessary story element without any clear idea what purpose it was serving from the perspective of the characters! But of course they wouldn't do THAT...

P.P.S. Also I found the Power Ranger Foot Soldier fight in Snoke's throne room hilarious. "Now let's everyone take turns dying to the good guys. Be careful never to actually use your weapons to strike at a good guy who isn't ready for your attack. Oh, time for some grunting and grappling! Nobody else interfere until we're done fighting for control of this lightsaber!"

And don't think I overlooked the way Snoke wasted time gloating megalomaniacally about how "I cannot be betrayed.... I know EVERYTHING, bwahahahaha!" in order to deflect attention from the fact that betrayal between masters and apprentices is old hat in Star Wars. Palpatine betraying Dooku; Vader asking Luke to help him overthrow the Emperor; Palpatine tempting Luke to strike down (damaged, imperfect) Vader and become the new, more powerful Sith apprentice (Sith Lords, like certain Star Wars/comic book fans and the writers of The Last Power Ranger, are obsessed with "power" and who is more powerful than whom), Vader ACTUALLY betraying Palpatine and throwing him down a shaft, etc.

Or the way Snoke fetishizes Vader (who was a failure BTW, from Palpatine's perspective), or the strange way everyone fetishizes Luke Skywalker when there's a thousand generations of OTHER Jedi they should theoretically be aware of, not that anyone besides the Jedi themselves ever had any real reason to care about famous Jedi before this movie (notice how in Star Wars Episode IV, Vader gets mocked by the Imperial officers as a vestige of a dead religion).

There's so much to say.

P.P.P.S. Jake Skywalker's reaction to Rey's negligent discharge (as she claims) is pretty funny too. He's just like, "Oh, whatever." It shows that whoever wrote that script has no knowledge of weapons whatsoever.

Imagine that one of your friends accidentally melts the glass out of their car window. You ask them, "What happened?" and they say, "Oh, I washed the car and the window accidentally melted," and instead of asking, "How in the world were you washing this car such that MELTING THE WINDOW is something that can possibly happen?!?" you're like, "Oh, okay, whatever."

That's what it's like when Jake Skywalker casually accepts Rey's "I was cleaning my blaster and it went off and blasted a hole in the wall" story.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Mammoth extinctions

I looked into the North American mammoth thing, wondering how we know that mammoths were in Alaska up until 5600 B.C. Turns out it's not from fossil evidence--it's from DNA sampling of permafrost. Ergo, if there were no permafrost, we wouldn't know the mammoths existed. (Actually, if we had missed that one core, we wouldn't know mammoths existed.)

Again, the point here is that it's really hard to know ancient history, and there are a lot of true things that really happened which science will never know anything about.

-Max

from https://www.livescience.com/9771-mammoths-alive-thought.html

Woolly mammoths and other large beasts in North America may not have gone extinct as long ago as previously thought.

The new view — that pockets of beasts survived to as recently as 7,600 years ago, rather than the previous end times mark of 12,000 years ago — is supported by DNA evidence found in a few pinches of dirt.

After plucking ancient DNA from frozen soil in central Alaska, researchers uncovered "genetic fossils" of both mammoths and horses locked in permafrost samples dated to between 10,500 and 7,600 years ago.

"We don't know how long it takes to pinch out a species," said Ross MacPhee, Curator of Mammalogy at the American Museum of Natural History. "Extinctions often seem dramatic and sudden in fossil records, but our study provides an idea of what an extinction event might look like in real time, with imperiled species surviving in smaller and smaller numbers until eventually disappearing completely."

At the end of the Pleistocene, the geological epoch roughly spanning 2.5 million years ago to 12,000 years ago, many of the world's megafauna — giant sloths, saber-toothed cats, dire wolves, stag-moose, and mammoths — vanished from the geological record. Some large species such as Equus caballus, the species from which the domestic horse derives, became extinct in North America but persisted in small populations elsewhere.

Scientists have blamed the extinctions on everything from human overhunting to a comet impact to the introduction of novel infectious diseases.

The swiftness of the extinctions, however, is not suggested directly by the fossils themselves but is inferred from radiocarbon dating of bones and teeth discovered on the surface or buried in the ground, the researchers involved in the new study point out. Current "macrofossil" evidence places the last-known mammoths and wild horses between 15,000 and 13,000 years ago.

But hard remains of animals are rarely preserved, difficult to find, and laborious to accurately date because of physical degradation, the scientists said in a statement today.

So MacPhee and colleagues decided to tackle the problem by dating the creatures through dirt. Frozen sediments from the far north of Siberia and Canada can preserve small fragments of animal and plant DNA exceptionally well, even in the complete absence of any visible organic remains, such as bone or wood.

"In principle, you can take a pinch of dirt collected under favorable circumstances and uncover an amazing amount of forensic evidence regarding what species were on the landscape at the time," said co-researcher Eske Willerslev, director of the Centre for GeoGenetics at the University of Copenhagen.

The team collected soil cores from undisturbed Alaskan permafrost. Two independent methods (radiocarbon and optically stimulated luminescence) were used to date plant remains and individual mineral grains found in the same layers as the DNA.

"With these two techniques, we can be confident that the deposits from which the DNA was recovered haven't been contaminated since these lost giants last passed this way," said Richard Roberts of the University of Wollongong in Australia. "It's a genetic graveyard, frozen in time."

The core samples revealed the local Alaskan fauna at the end of the last Ice Age. The oldest sediments, dated to about 11,000 years ago, contain remnant DNA of Arctic hare, bison, and moose; all three animals were also found in higher, more recent layers, as would be expected. But one core, deposited between 10,500 and 7,600 years ago, confirmed the presence of both mammoth and horse DNA.

The team also developed a statistical model to show that mammoth and horse populations would have dwindled to a few hundred individuals by 8,000 years ago.

"At this point, mammoths and horses were barely holding on. We may actually be working with the DNA of some of the last members of these species in North America," said team member Duane Froese of the University of Alberta in Canada.

The findings are detailed in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

--

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Santa Clause (Yes, Virginia)

If my kids ever ask me about Santa, I will answer like this:

"Santa is real, but not in the way you think. 'Santa' is a guise-by-convention, a nom de guerre if you will, which we assume in order to do good without being named as individuals. There's no one living at the North Pole, but if anyone tries to tell you that there isn't any Santa Claus, they are mistaken."

100% true, and if they are old enough to understand the words they are old enough to understand the sentiment. Unlike with, say, the Easter Bunny, I'm sort of uncomfortable around people who tell kids there isn't any Santa Claus because it isn't really true. It's the truth but not the whole truth.

(Shout-out to Jim Butcher and Cold Days: it's a mantle!)

~B.C.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Star Wars: the Last Jedi (trailer 2)

So, I finally watched the most recent DisneyWars trailer. I haven't read many of the Star Wars books (maybe ten of them tops) but I still feel like this movie is a story I've read several times before.

Just like with Kyp Durron in the Sun Crusher books, Rey's storyline appears to be using Luke Skywalker mostly as a prop to showcase how Kyp/Rey is "even MOAR powerful than Luke!" Obsession with power made sense for Darth Sidious the megalomaniac Sith (not that it did him much good in the end) and it made him do interesting things that furthered the story; but in a film franchise instead of a character in a film franchise, that obsession becomes rather unattractive. (And of course they already did the Sun Crusher equivalent in The Force Awakens with their little long-range Death Star successor.)

I'm willing to consider this new DisneyWars movie a Star Wars fan-fiction movie, but I won't dignify it with the label of Episode VIII. Whatever else George Lucas was as a writer and director, at least when it came to Star Wars he was never derivative. Lucas's Episode VIII might have had bad casting and bad dialogue; but it would have a good story and interesting ideas, and probably would have introduced you to new corners of a vast and exotic conceptual universe. The Last Jedi is just going to be a rehash of ideas that George Lucas already made at least one movie about.

I'll pass on this one.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Rash vow #97

I, Maximilian Wilson, hereby vow that I will eat no sweetmeat, until I rendezvous with my true love, or discover that I have none. On my honor I swear it, as a sign to the heavens that all worldly hungers are but as air and nothing as long as Thou, my dearest and best friend, art absent.

Thursday, Sept 14, 2017.

5E encounter difficulty

[Historical context] Why "6 to 8 medium/hard encounters" meme is obsolete

The DMG, as well as the Basic Set, contains some self-contradictory guidance on adventuring days. There's a little section which reads:

Quoting http://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/DMBasicRulesV05.pdf

The Adventuring Day

Assuming typical adventuring conditions and averageluck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day. If the adventure has more easy encounters, the adventurers can get through more. If it has more deadly encounters, they can handle fewer.

In the same way you figure out the difficulty of an encounter, you can use the XP values of monsters and other opponents in an adventure as a guideline for how far the party is likely to progress.

For each character in the party, use the Adventuring Day XP table to estimate how much XP that character is expected to earn in a day. Add together the values of all party members to get a total for the party's adventuring day. This provides a rough estimate of the adjusted XP value for encounters the party can handle before the characters will need to take a long rest.

*SNIP TABLE*

The thing is, the table that they give doesn't actually match the language in that first paragraph about "six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day." I think most people don't notice this, and even those who do notice it don't usually know why the discrepancy exists. I don't work for WotC, but I can explain the discrepancy by pointing to 5E's historical documents.

The "6-8" meme made sense before they revised the difficulty guidelines, back around Basic 0.2. Back then, the breakpoints were ceilings, not floors, so what today is an easy/medium encounter would have been a medium/hard encounter back then. If you do the math using those guidelines, you'll find that you actually can fit 6-8 encounters in.

Unfortunately, when they updated the difficulty guidelines and then printed them in the DMG, they did not update the accompanying text blurb saying that "most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day," even though they had changed the definition of "medium or hard encounter."

Concrete example: if you look at Basic 0.1 pages 56-58, there's a Hard encounter given as an example encounter between four PCs (three level 3, one level 2) and four hobgoblins. That consumes 800 out of the 4200 XP budget for the day (3*1200 + 600, per table on page 58), leaving 3400 XP left. If you distribute those 3400 XP evently between six other encounters for a total of seven encounters, that gives you one Hard encounter (hobgoblins, 800 XP) and six more barely-Hard encounters (whatever else, 566 XP). That's because a Medium encounter can be at most 550 XP (3*150 + 100) and a Hard encounter can be at most 825 XP (3 * 225 + 150), according to the table on page 56. So we see that "six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day" held, back then.

Quoting https://media.wizards.com/2014/downloads/dnd/DMDnDBasicRules_v0.1.pdf

(Basic 0.1 page 57)

Example: Encounter Difficulty

You've designed an encounter for four player characters andwant to estimate how difficult it's going to be. Three of thefour players have 3rd-level characters and one has a characterat 2nd level (due to missing a session).First, note the XP values that define the four categoriesof difficulty. For each difficulty category on the EncounterDifficulty XP per Character table, you'll find the number fora 3rd-level character and multiply it by three (for the three3rd-level characters), then add the number for a 2nd-levelcharacter.

That gives you the following numbers:• Easy: up to 375 XP• Medium: up to 550 XP• Hard: up to 1,050 XP• Deadly: up to 1,400 XP

Now you look at the encounter you've designed, a fightwith four hobgoblins. Each hobgoblin has an XP value of100, so the total XP is 400. Since there are four hobgoblins,you double the XP value of the encounter; the encounter'sXP value, for the purposes of figuring out its difficulty, is800 XP. That makes this encounter tougher than a mediumencounter, but not higher than the hard threshold—so it's ahard encounter.

If you build a later encounter with four bugbears, withan XP value of 200 XP each, you'd end up with a total valueof 1,600 XP for the encounter. That number is above thethreshold of deadly encounters, meaning it's probably toohard for your characters to handle. If you adjust it down tothree bugbears, your total is 1,200 XP—still deadly, but atleast the adventurers have a fighting chance. Two bugbearsis probably a better encounter for this party: you multiply the base XP value of 400 by only 1.5 for a pair of monsters, giving you 600 XP—slightly easier than the hobgoblin fight.

Notice that Deadly is "up to 1400 XP" in contrast with today's "at least 1400 XP." Note also that back then there was such a thing as "Deadlier than Deadly" difficulty, which Kobold.com used to call "Ludicrous" difficulty.

Contrast that with today's DMG rules. (I'm AFB so I'll refer to Basic 0.5 instead here: http://media.wizards.com/2016/downloads/DND/DMBasicRulesV05.pdf but they are the same rules.) Now the example Hard fight is of a bugbear and three hobgoblins against the same party of three level 3s and a level 2. Due to the addition of a bugbear, it's 1000 XP, which crosses the new Hard threshold of 825 XP. The adventuring day budget hasn't changed, so we've still got 4200 XP total to spend, and 3200 XP to split between six encounters. That gives us 533 XP per encounter, which according to the new difficulty table on page 56 means each encounter is Easy (just shy of the 550 XP threshold for Medium).

The upshot is that whereas Basic 0.1 would have given you seven Hard encounters in a day, Basic 0.5 or the rules printed in the DMG would give you one Hard and six Easy encounters. Both versions preface the "Adventuring Day" XP table on page 57 with a text blurb stating that "Assuming typical adventuring conditions and average luck, most adventuring parties can handle about six to eight medium or hard encounters in a day", but that's a holdover from Basic 0.1. In 5E as the DMG actually published, that statement is no longer compatible with the table it's introducing.

In both cases, there never was any expectation that you have six to eight encounters a day. The expectation was that you don't exceed your adventuring day budget and accidentally TPK the party. 5E's design parameters are built to handle two or three hard/deadly encounters per day just as readily as six to eight easy/medium encounters.

IMO the game is at its best when the PCs are outnumbered and outgunned but not outthought; I like pitting e.g. four 9th level PCs are up against six CR 6 Chasmes and a couple of CR 17 Goristros. DMG guidelines tell me that that encounter is ludicrously difficult (124,500 XP when the Deadly threshold is 9600 XP) but my experience tells me it is about right for a couple of hours of fun. I'd love to be one of the PCs in that party, especially when they collect all the DMG-generated treasure associated with such monsters.

TL;DR 5E guidelines recommend a couple of deadly, a small number of medium-hard encounters or as many as six to eight easy-medium encounters in a day. If you do the math, they don't actually recommend six to eight medium/hard encounters per day. The reason people sometimes think otherwise is due to sloppy editing of the DMG and the Basic Rules, neglecting to update some fluff text when the rule guidelines were updated, somewhere around Basic 0.2. What used to be "hard" encounters back then are now "medium," so it's actually recommending six to eight easy/medium encounters per day or the equivalent in fewer, harder encounters.

--

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Dust of thy feet

In regard to those who reject the Lord's messengers, Doctrine and Covenants section 60 reads in part, "And shake off the dust of thy feet against those who receive thee not, not in their presence, lest thou provoke them, but in secret; and wash thy feet, as a testimony against them in the day of judgment. Behold, this is sufficient for you, and the will of him who hath sent you." And again in section 74, "And in whatsoever house ye enter, and they receive you not, ye shall depart speedily from that house, and shake off the dust of your feet as a testimony against them.  And you shall be filled with joy and gladness..."

I had long been mildly puzzled by the "joy and gladness" part, especially with regard to the following verses which talk about judgment. But I recently had an experience--the details don't matter, but it was about being witness to an online community which is casting out its righteous and everyone who will not call good evil and evil good, which prompted me to leave that community--and the promptings of the Spirit to me in that experience clarify what the Lord was saying to these missionaries. That is, when you are unjustly persecuted, you will be tempted to contend. You will be tempted to point out all the ways they are being unfair, and how hypocritical they are being, and to argue and contend and maybe even call names in your frustration. But just as Jesus spoke not a word to certain of his tormentors, you should not argue with those who cannot hear. Shake off the dust and move on, rejoicing--rejoicing not because of the fate that awaits them, but rejoicing because the Lord Jesus Christ has saved you from your sins and your life is good and filled with good people and good things to do. "Depart speedily" from the wicked instead of dwelling on the way they once behaved in your presence.

When the Lord showed Enoch a vision of the wickedness of his brethren and the fate which (a thousand years later) awaited those who would not repent in the time of Noah, "[Enoch]  had bitterness of soul, and wept over his brethren, and said unto the heavens: I will refuse to be comforted; but the Lord said unto Enoch: Lift up your heart, and be glad; and look."

Now I understand that scripture. Peace, be still.

~B.C.


--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Weak magic items for 5E

This resource is amazing: http://www.lordbyng.net/inspiration/. I'm definitely going to include some of these items in my game.

For example:

Scarlet Blade of Shade

Weapon (Shortsword), uncommon (requires attunement)

This weapon perpetually drips the blood of a monstrous race, chosen by the DM. The bearer can speak that race's language and has advantage on intimidation checks against monsters of that race when the weapon is revealed.

The bearer suffers no harm or discomfort in temperatures as high as 120 degrees Fahrenheit.

--

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Family Activities

--

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Other People's Stories

[Here's an interesting story. You never really know another person's story until you hear it from their own lips. -Max]

http://www.ldsliving.com/The-Surprising-Reason-Steve-Young-Didn-t-Serve-a-Mission/s/82995

Bishop Rasmussen didn't know me particularly well, but he had previously interviewed me and determined that I was qualified to serve a mission. I felt terribly guilty as I drove to the church to tell him that I wasn't going to go through with it.

Rasmussen was from Idaho, and he spoke slowly and softly. He had a way of putting people at ease. Still, I struggled to get the words out. "I really think the right thing for me to do is continue going to school at BYU," I said.

He leaned forward. "Can I tell you something?" he said.

I tensed up. Here it comes.

"A couple of weeks before you came home for Christmas break I was sitting in church, looking out over the congregation," he said. "And I got the impression that you were going to come see me at some point to tell me that you felt the right thing to do was return to BYU."

"You're kidding."

"That's not all," he continued. "I also got the impression that I should tell you that you should return to BYU."

He wasn't kidding. He was dead serious. I was speechless.

I had fully expected him to try to talk me into going on my mission. Instead, he gave me three simple pieces of advice: Serve Jesus Christ. Live your religion. Be a great example.

*snip*

People thought my status as a football player had influenced my decision not to serve a mission, unaware that I was an eighth-string nobody when I made that decision. It was only the fear and anxiety that had held me back. But now that I was a successful quarterback, I worried that kids would think I had shirked my responsibilities. I tried to make up for that by quietly living a personal code I had established for myself: never to do anything as a professional athlete—on the field or in private—that would set a poor example for kids.

-Steve Young

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Law of Chastity

I was recently reminded of this story, which I find remarkable. It makes me want to be a good man.

Kudos to my friends out there who are good men, and good women.

As a missionary, when I was in Finland, I was riding a train. I think I was alone. I was probably going to some new city. But I met a British dancer. She said she was a dancer. Now when I asked, "Is it ballet? Are you in concert halls?" she kind of said, "I'm a dancer." I don't know what this means, but this is our conversation. But she is British and I am American, and so I'm enjoying speaking English to somebody. So we are chatting. She says, "Now why are you here in Finland?" So I go through. And she said, "You don't smoke you don't drink?" We talked about this for a little while. And she says, "You don't believe in any kind of sex before marriage?" No I don't. And she starts off with disdain of how weird is this. But as we kept talking, in the middle of this she said, "I guess if you were dating men who felt the same way as you, maybe that would be possible." And then later on in the conversation she said, "ARE there any men who feel the same way as you?" At the end when I got off the train, I left a very wistful woman. It was so interesting. She listened to all that and I could see her reviewing her own life and the options that were available to her and she felt wistful. And I believe in that very famous quote from President Kimball, that in the ways that we are different from the world, it will attract women because they will want those things. Why? Because it is good for them. It is healthy. It is everything that they want. -Sharon Eubank

~B.C.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Ye Are the Light of the World

Matthew 5:

10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.

12 Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

13 ¶ Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men.

14 Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid.

15 Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.

16 Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven.

I just got the connection betweeen these verses. It says, basically, "When good is called evil and evil is called good, do not contend against those who contend with you. That is like salt losing its savor and becoming common. When you contend, Satan wins. Instead do good despite harsh words and false accusations. Be kind--by your fruits shall they know you."

~BC


--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Law of Consecration

There's a small error in my primary manual. It says,

A few days after calling Edward Partridge to be the bishop of the Church, the Lord revealed to Joseph Smith the law of consecration (see D&C 42:30–39, 42). This law commanded the Saints to share with each other in an organized way.

The Lord gave the following instructions:

1. The Saints were to consecrate, or give, all of their property and possessions to the Church. The bishop would be responsible for these consecrations.

2. The bishop would decide with the head of each family what property and possessions the family needed to work and live. The bishop would give these needed items to the family.

3. Families would work hard to provide for themselves using the things they were given. After they filled their own needs and wants, anything extra they had earned or created was to be given to the bishop to help the poor and strengthen the Church.

...Early members of the Church lived the law of consecration for only a short while. Someday the Church will practice the law of consecration again, but today we as members are asked to live only part of the law. We are not asked to give all we have to the Church, but we are asked to pay tithing and fast offerings.

The practice the manual speaks of here is actually the United Order. It is one implementation of the law of consecration, but not the only implementation. We are still expected to live the law of consecration today and to be just as open-hearted and generous with our means as were the saints back then; but we do not live the United Order, so we do not follow the process outlined above involving the bishop. It is *that* process (the United Order) which has been supplanted in our day by the law of tithing, as commanded in D&C 119:4.

TL;DR: the law of consecration still applies to us today.

Also, here is some useful context from the Institute manual:

In a somewhat humorous but sadly true commentary, President Brigham Young recounted his early experiences in attempting to get people to live the [United Order]:

"When the revelation … was given in 1838, I was present, and recollect the feelings of the brethren. … The brethren wished me to go among the Churches, and find out what surplus property the people had, with which to forward the building of the Temple we were commencing at Far West. I accordingly went from place to place through the country. Before I started, I asked brother Joseph, 'Who shall be the judge of what is surplus property?' Said he, 'Let them be the judges themselves. …'

"Then I replied, 'I will go and ask them for their surplus property;' and I did so; I found the people said they were willing to do about as they were counselled, but, upon asking them about their surplus property, most of the men who owned land and cattle would say, 'I have got so many hundred acres of land, and I have got so many boys, and I want each one of them to have eighty acres, therefore this is not surplus property.' Again, 'I have got so many girls, and I do not believe I shall be able to give them more than forty acres each.' 'Well, you have got two or three hundred acres left.' 'Yes, but I have a brother-in-law coming on, and he will depend on me for a living; my wife's nephew is also coming on, he is poor, and I shall have to furnish him a farm after he arrives here.' I would go on to the next one, and he would have more land and cattle than he could make use of to advantage. It is a laughable idea, but is nevertheless true, men would tell me they were young and beginning [in] the world, and would say, 'We have no children, but our prospects are good, and we think we shall have a family of children, and if we do, we want to give them eighty acres of land each; we have no surplus property.' 'How many cattle have you?' 'So many.' 'How many horses, &c?' 'So many, but I have made provisions for all these, and I have use for every thing I have got.'

"Some were disposed to do right with their surplus property, and once in a while you would find a man who had a cow which he considered surplus, but generally she was of the class that would kick a person's hat off, or eyes out. … You would once in a while find a man who had a horse that he considered surplus, but at the same time he had the ringbone, was broken-winded, spavined in both legs, and had the pole evil at one end of the neck and a fistula at the other, and both knees sprung." (In Journal of Discourses, 2:306–7.)

I know of certain acts of extraordinary sacrifice and generosity during early church history, so I know that Brigham Young must be exaggerating a little here. Not *everybody* was like this. Apparently many people were though, and it gives some insight into what conduct the Lord was chastising in D&C 105 when he said, "But behold, they have not learned to be obedient to the things which I required at their hands, but are full of all manner of evil, and do not impart of their substance, as becometh saints, to the poor and afflicted among them; And are not united according to the union required by the law of the celestial kingdom."

~Max

--

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Search Your Feelings, Luke

Darth Vader: So! You have a twin sister. Your feelings for her... wait, what? Oh, wow. That's messed up. And you didn't... Son, you have issues, and I feel responsible. We need to talk. [sheathes lightsaber] Why don't we go have some ice cream and talk this out?

Luke: [comes out of the shadows after a moment] Okay. You know, Yoda never wanted to discuss this with me. He just said to bury my feelings.

Darth Vader: Well, Yoda gives bad relationship advice. I should know. You can't blame him though, he's been a bachelor for almost a thousand years--that's bound to give you a skewed perspective.

Luke: Was a bachelor. Yoda's dead now actually.

Darth Vader: What? No! When did this happen? [exeunt]

Emperor Palpatine: ...guys? Guys? Where's my fight scene?


--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Personal Revelation and the Prophet

Really interesting story from Harold B. Lee, who was the Prophet and President of the Church back in the 60's. What I like is the insight it gives into what it is like to be in his shoes.

Plus, it's just a really touching story.

We had a bishop from down in Florida that had a great problem. A third of his total ward membership had been trying to buy a large piece of property, twenty-six thousand acres. They had obligated themselves to a bank and an insurance company and things hadn't gone right, and now the bank and the insurance company were going to foreclose. The property was worth twice as much as they had borrowed, but somebody had to bail them out. So this good bishop called the First Presidency's office and said, "I'd like to come to Salt Lake. I'd like to see if we can do something to save my people." This good bishop, good old Southerner that he was, came with all the papers. He just neglected everything else pertaining to his business, because he wanted to save his people. And so for two hours the First Presidency listened to him, and I sat there and I said, "No, we can't do that. We can't invest the Lord's money in that property. It can't be done. No, I can't see a way out. We'd get into more trouble." I could see all these difficulties, and so he was sent on his way back home. The President of the Church had said no. But before the next morning came, I knew that the President of the Church hadn't been speaking by the Spirit of the Lord. And when I met my counselors the next morning I said, "Where's the bishop?" And they said, "Oh, he's left on an early morning plane back home." And I said, "Well, I've had a complete change. I've done some praying; I've done some thinking. We mustn't let that bishop go down there without sending somebody down to see if we can help him. I don't know whether we can or not, but we can't send him back with just saying, 'No, there's nothing we can do to help you.' We've got to see if there's not some alternatives." We've had some brethren down there this last week trying to see if we can find a way by which part of the land might be purchased for what is all owing on the balance and save them sixteen thousand acres of their property. Now, I don't know what they're coming back with, but I knew that I hadn't spoken by the Spirit of the Lord the night before. But I knew before the next morning what the Lord was trying to say to me.

~B.C.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Thought experiment: reconciling right to choose and right to live

Imagine a hypothetical scenario where a pregnancy can be aborted without killing the child. I understand that we can keep premature babies alive if they've made it to about the 5th month of pregnancy nowadays.

If that is the case, then the woman's control of her own body does not have to mean the death of the child. She can just... stop. Termination of pregnancy, but not termination of life: an eviction from the womb, not an execution.

So the question: would you pay to keep such a child alive? How much would you pay? Does it matter to you whether it is your own child or someone else's?

I would pay... no more than $50K, and that only once, unless it was my own child and then I'd pay more than once.

~B.C.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Urim, Thummim, and Joseph Smith's Hat

I will never, never understand why some people get so excited about the idea that Joseph Smith may have sometimes kept the Urim and Thummim in his hat, including sometimes while he was using it.

(1) Like it or not, 19th century gentlemen apparently kept things in their hats in a way similar to how modern women keep things in their purses. I remember one account in particular involving a wild horse, and documents come flying out of Joseph's hat. This custom may seem weird to you, but regardless, he did it. So what?

(2) The Urim and Thummim were detachable from the breastplate. Lucy Mack Smith's account makes clear that the first time Joseph ever showed her the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates, it was while they were detached from the breastplate. Joseph showed her an object and told her it was "a key", and it wasn't until later that he identified it to her as the Urim and Thummim and showed her the breastplate which came with it. So they were detachable--so what?

(3) Joseph had a another seer stone which, yes, he acquired earlier than the Urim and Thummim which came with the plates. It had some interesting properties, and Martin Harris tells an interesting story about a prank he played on Joseph, replacing that stone with a common river stone. (Joseph apparently panicked a little because the stone had apparently stopped working--"all is dark as Egypt!", at which point Martin fessed up to his prank.) Joseph was clearly far more impressed with the Urim and Thummim that came with the plates though, so there were qualitative differences between them... but he eventually stopped needing either and relied upon direct inspiration. To me this is congruent with his identification of the tool as "a key"--once you've unlocked the door and gone through to other side, who needs the key any more? In any case, if Joseph had more than one tool, so what?

(4) Joseph said that he translated the book "by the gift and power of God." We know from the Doctrine and Covenants that this included a requirement to "study it out in your mind" and then seek for confirmation. Who cares if the way Joseph channeled the power of God doesn't conform to your preconceptions of how you think it should have happened?

I see some people get really exercised over this issue like it's some kind of big disappointment to them, but I can't understand why. It's interesting, yes, just like any other factual detail about a miraculous event. You can learn things from it, which may help you better understand revelation in your own life. But the doctrinal significance of this factoid is strictly limited.

-Max

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Peer Pressure vs. Revelation

A lesson in following revelation (1 Kings 13):

Then he said unto him, Come home with me, and eat bread.

And he said, I may not return with thee, nor go in with thee: neither will I eat bread nor drink water with thee in this place: For it was said to me by the word of the Lord, Thou shalt eat no bread nor drink water there, nor turn again to go by the way that thou camest.

He said unto him, I am a prophet also as thou art; and an angel spake unto me by the word of the Lord, saying, Bring him back with thee into thine house, that he may eat bread and drink water. And he lied not until him. [JST]

So he went back with him, and did eat bread in his house, and drank water.

...At this point warning bells should be going off in your mind. (Red alert! 116 pages!) There is no happy ending when you ignore revelation you've received in favor of arguments from your peers.

-Max

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

[5E Magical Item] Unushgila'a the Dayshard

Unushgila'a the Dayshard. One day, thousands of years ago, Luru'inili the Last of the Enkidu was looking up at the sun in the middle of the day and he saw a piece of the sun sticking out, like a twig poking out of a bush. Luru'inili got out his mighty longbow and shot it into the sky so that it hit the piece of the sun that was sticking out, and it broke off and fell down to earth. When Luru'inili got to where it had fallen he found that it had burned a mighty forest to ashes where it landed and now there was a desert, and in the desert was a puddle of liquid metal, and in the puddle there was the piece of the sun. Luru'inili liked how shiny it was so he took the metal and bound the sun within it and forged it into a blade which he called Unushgila'a the Dayshard. 

This 2' long knife is forged from mirror-bright brass. It is sized for a 9' tall Enkidu but can be used by a Medium-sized creature with big hands as a kind of long-handled shortsword (1d6 martial weapon, slashing damage). It is magical, and is at all times enveloped in shimmering flames which cause 2d6 fire damage to anything which contacts the blade. Fortunately, Luru'inili also forged a sheathe for the blade out of elemental chalk which resists heat and always stays the same temperature; as long as Unushgila'a is in the sheathe it will not harm anyone. When plunged into a pool of liquid, it will dry up at least 1 gallon of liquid per round, turning it to a 10' x 10' square of steam with the same properties as the original liquid--so an acid puddle will dry up into a cloud of acid steam, and a poison puddle will dry up into a poison cloud. A cloud of steam will usually dissipate in about a minute.

Some of the spirit of the Last Enkidu resides within the Dayshard he forged. Whoever wields and is attuned to the Dayshard will be able to read and write Enkidu engravings; will be able to smell magic as if it were sulfur (harmful magic) or cinnamon (beneficial or healing magic); and will always know which direction to go to find drinking water, as long as there is any such body of water within a day's travel. He will also suffer disadvantage on saving throws against plague or other disease, which caused the fall of the Enkidus; and he will never have offspring so long as he is attuned to the blade.

It is only possible to attune this weapon once. Once attunement has been broken, the blade will reject re-attunement from the same wielder.

--

If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."

Priesthood callings and patience

There was a period of time from 1849 to 1979 when, for reasons the Lord has not seen fit to reveal, men of African descent were not ordained to the priesthood. That's 130 years.

If that seems like a long trial to you, consider the patience of Mahalaleel! "Mahalaleel was four hundred and ninety-six years and seven days old when he was ordained by the hand of Adam, who also blessed him." Most of his contemporaries (ancestors and descendants) were ordained to the priesthood around the age of one to two hundred, but for reasons the Lord has not seen fit to reveal, Mahalaleel's calling did not come until he was almost five hundred years old--he personally waited for more than twice as long as the Church has even existed in this dispensation, and almost four times as long as any African man would have waited for his calling.

There are a lot of things we don't know about why and when the Lord calls men to the priesthood. It happens so frequently nowadays that you could take it for granted--but don't. It is a mighty thing.

--
If I esteem mankind to be in error, shall I bear them down? No. I will lift them up, and in their own way too, if I cannot persuade them my way is better; and I will not seek to compel any man to believe as I do, only by the force of reasoning, for truth will cut its own way.

"Thou shalt love thy wife with all thy heart, and shalt cleave unto her and none else."