“Rusty’s future 3rd wife Sheri Dew” wrote: Elder Brent H. Nielson, then executive director of the missionary department, was initially concerned that baptisms might drop to nearly zero. But they didn’t. Inspired missionaries working from their apartments found and baptized 125,000 people in 2020—largely because they had smartphones.
Says Elder Nielson: “I quickly learned that the Lord had prepared us for this day. Prophets can see around corners.” [1]
Ammon explained how prophets see around corners. “[A] seer can know…of things which are to come, and by them shall all things be revealed…and hidden things shall come to light, and things which are not known shall be made known by them….” [2]
Prophets see things we cannot see because the Lord does “nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” [3]
This is why prophets make us smarter than any other leaders or influencers on earth. Prophets help us see dangers we cannot yet see and opportunities we can’t even imagine.
I have experienced this myself. In the October 1998 general conference, President Gordon B. Hinckley admonished members to get out of debt. [4] I felt that I should pay off my home, but my accountant told me I was crazy to even think about it because the interest rate on my mortgage was so low. Nonetheless, I decided to take President Hinckley at his word and just do it. It took some scrimping for several years, but I paid off the loan.
Now skip ahead to the fall of 2008—exactly ten years after President Hinckley’s warning about debt—when the U.S. economy was suddenly plunged into a recession. I was still the CEO of Deseret Book, and our sales plummeted. I was worried sick about saving jobs and frankly about saving the company.
But one evening as I drove home with a pit in my stomach, it dawned on me that despite all the pressure I was under, I wasn’t worried at all about myself. I owned my home and owed no money—all because I had followed a prophet’s counsel ten years earlier. Prophets help us see around corners
Buildings are currently collapsing on untold thousands of people in Turkey. But we can rest assured that when it comes to saving some modest amounts of money on your house mortgage, Rusty has the world covered with his superpower to see around corners.
The priorities of Mormon God continue to amaze me.
“Rusty’s future 3rd wife Sheri Dew” wrote: Elder Brent H. Nielson, then executive director of the missionary department, was initially concerned that baptisms might drop to nearly zero. But they didn’t. Inspired missionaries working from their apartments found and baptized 125,000 people in 2020—largely because they had smartphones.
Says Elder Nielson: “I quickly learned that the Lord had prepared us for this day. Prophets can see around corners.” [1]
Ammon explained how prophets see around corners. “[A] seer can know…of things which are to come, and by them shall all things be revealed…and hidden things shall come to light, and things which are not known shall be made known by them….” [2]
Prophets see things we cannot see because the Lord does “nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” [3]
This is why prophets make us smarter than any other leaders or influencers on earth. Prophets help us see dangers we cannot yet see and opportunities we can’t even imagine.
I have experienced this myself. In the October 1998 general conference, President Gordon B. Hinckley admonished members to get out of debt. [4] I felt that I should pay off my home, but my accountant told me I was crazy to even think about it because the interest rate on my mortgage was so low. Nonetheless, I decided to take President Hinckley at his word and just do it. It took some scrimping for several years, but I paid off the loan.
Now skip ahead to the fall of 2008—exactly ten years after President Hinckley’s warning about debt—when the U.S. economy was suddenly plunged into a recession. I was still the CEO of Deseret Book, and our sales plummeted. I was worried sick about saving jobs and frankly about saving the company.
But one evening as I drove home with a pit in my stomach, it dawned on me that despite all the pressure I was under, I wasn’t worried at all about myself. I owned my home and owed no money—all because I had followed a prophet’s counsel ten years earlier. Prophets help us see around corners
Buildings are currently collapsing on untold thousands of people in Turkey. But we can rest assured that when it comes to saving some modest amounts of money on your house mortgage, Rusty has the world covered with his superpower to see around corners.
The priorities of Mormon God continue to amaze me.
Are you open to the idea that God might have a different modus operandi for revelation when it some to individuals vs. prophets and geopolitical politics and their outcomes?
Ah yes...the "I was blessed for something that doesn't matter to anyone most likely not even me, while billions are so less fortunate...Praise God." mentality.
Its the prefection of narcissism. From Sam Harris talking with William Craig ("God loves me. God loves Bill Craig").
You'll be tortured in hell for eternity. Now is there the slightest evidence for this? No...It just says so in Mark 9, Matthew 13 and Revelation 14.... So God created the cultural isolation of the Hindus. He engineered the circumstances of their deaths in ignorance of revelation. And then he created the penalty for this ignorance which is an eternity of conscious torment in fire.
On the other hand, on Dr. Craig's account, your run of the mill serial killer, in America, who spent his life raping and torturing children need only come to God, come to Jesus on death row. And after a final meal of fried Chicken, he's going to spend an eternity in heaven after death. One thing should be crystal clear, this vision of life has absolutely nothing to do with moral accountability.
Please notice the double standard that people like Dr Craig use to exonerate God from all of this evil. We're told that God is loving and kind and just and intrinsically good. But when someone like myself points out the rather obvious compelling evidence that God is cruel and unjust because he visits suffering on innocent people on a scope and scale that would embarrass the most ambitious psychopath. We're told that God is mysterious. Who can understand God's will? Yet this is precisely...this merely human understanding of God's will...this is precisely what believers use to establish God's will in the first place. If something good happens to a Christian. He feels some bliss when he's praying, or he sees some positive change in his life. And we're told that God is good. But when children by the tens of thousands are torn from their parents' arms and drowned, we're told that God is mysterious. This is how you play tennis without the net.
And I want to suggest to you, that its not only tiresome when otherwise intelligent people speak this way, it is morally reprehensible. This kind of faith is really the perfection of narcissism. God loves me...don't you know? He cured me of my eczema. He makes me feel so good while singing in Church. And just when we were giving up hope he found a banker who was willing to reduce my mother's mortgage. Given all that this God of yours does not accomplish in the lives of others. Given the misery that is being imposed on some helpless child at this instant. This kind of faith is obscene. To think in this way is to fail to reason honestly or to care sufficiently about the suffering of other human beings.
“Every one of us is, in the cosmic perspective, precious. If a human disagrees with you, let him live. In a hundred billion galaxies, you will not find another.”
― Carl Sagan, Cosmos
Buildings are currently collapsing on untold thousands of people in Turkey. But we can rest assured that when it comes to saving some modest amounts of money on your house mortgage, Rusty has the world covered with his superpower to see around corners.
The priorities of Mormon God continue to amaze me.
Are you open to the idea that God might have a different modus operandi for revelation when it some to individuals vs. prophets and geopolitical politics and their outcomes?
Regards,
MG
I think they are many ways to explain away the lack of prophecy from the prophets. "Line upon line, precept upon precept" is of course an old standby.
I don't think those who died from COVID had much time to think about it. Or those who are currently being crushed under the rubble. Or those who washed away in the 2004 Tsunami.
But Sheri Dew has been blessed with a lot of time to think about it and tell us her thoughts.
Are you open to the idea that God might have a different modus operandi for revelation when it some to individuals vs. prophets and geopolitical politics and their outcomes?
Regards,
MG
I think they are many ways to explain away the lack of prophecy from the prophets. "Line upon line, precept upon precept" is of course an old standby.
I don't think those who died from COVID had much time to think about it. Or those who are currently being crushed under the rubble. Or those who washed away in the 2004 Tsunami.
But Sheri Dew has been blessed with a lot of time to think about it and tell us her thoughts.
I think they are many ways to explain away the lack of prophecy from the prophets. "Line upon line, precept upon precept" is of course an old standby.
I don't think those who died from COVID had much time to think about it. Or those who are currently being crushed under the rubble. Or those who washed away in the 2004 Tsunami.
But Sheri Dew has been blessed with a lot of time to think about it and tell us her thoughts.
You didn’t answer my question.
Regards,
MG
Yes, I believe that if you're a Mormon you are faced with the fact that Mormon God must have a very different set of priorities than a rational human being would have. It's also indistinguishable from a God who doesn't exist or a God who is purposefully malicious.
Yes, I believe that if you're a Mormon you are faced with the fact that Mormon God must have a very different set of priorities than a rational human being would have. It's also indistinguishable from a God who doesn't exist or a God who is purposefully malicious.
You are still avoiding my actual question. Let me repeat it:
Are you open to the idea that God might have a different modus operandi for revelation when it some to individuals vs. prophets and geopolitical politics and their outcomes?
This is your original statement that I was referring to:
Buildings are currently collapsing on untold thousands of people in Turkey. But we can rest assured that when it comes to saving some modest amounts of money on your house mortgage, Rusty has the world covered with his superpower to see around corners.