Jaredite Barges: Real World Test of Faith + Strangite Update

[Guest]

I'm headed out to Oman this evening. Perhaps I can find 8 heavy duty bottles while I am there, put notes in them with serial numbers and an email address, and throw them into the Gulf of Oman offshore.

Tana, who is an ocean sailor as well, could help me make odds on the chances of finding all 8 in the new world in 344 days (or ever), and we could run a lottery. I would offer money to anyone who finds one washed up on shore in the New World, and we could allow Book of Ether believers to put down small amount of money at long odds, depending on their faith. This wold be a chance to test their faith with funds.

Anyway, probably won't be on the board much in the next 6 weeks or so. If I have time to do the 8 bottles thing, I'll be sure to take a picture of the "Launch" and post it when I get back to civilization.

[_MCB]

Please do. Would be a revealing experiment, I am sure. Take care, and try to check in once in a while.

[_Dantana]

Hey Cap'n, Ya know I never have understood the reason for these unorthodox designed dish ship. A person could take a mid 20th century, Alden or Rhodes, or Sparkman and Stevens design wooden sailing vessel, close up the hatches and sail that sucker through a hurricane. That little Westsail (wet snail) from the "Perfect Storm" was found a few weeks later....still making way.

Plus with a vessel that has a deck and propulsion and steering and ballast and ground tackle and secondary skiffs has the advantages of not having it's occupants starved and suffocated and wet tumbled and going stir crazy....to name a few.



Anyway, good luck with your experiment...Have ya thought about putting some sort of prayer note inside?

[_brade]

Please do. Would be a revealing experiment, I am sure. Take care, and try to check in once in a while.

No it wouldn't, because the bottles wouldn't be guided by God like we know the ancient Jaradite barges were.

[_Sethbag]

We know that God used evolution because, rather than miraculously doing things counter to the natural laws as we have observed them, God "guides" processes along naturally to achieve his aims.

And then we have the Jaredite barge story, in all its unimaginably dumb and fantastic glory.

Where's the connection here? Where's the coherency in the story?

[_DrW]

Please do. Would be a revealing experiment, I am sure. Take care, and try to check in once in a while.

No it wouldn't, because the bottles wouldn't be guided by God like we know the ancient Jaradite barges were.

Perhaps a faithful Book of Ether believer could put up a small amount of money at exceedingly long odds, promise to give an extra additional 10% to the Church if the bottles all arrived in 344 days (or ever), and then pray hard and make it happen. After all, what is prayer for?
____________________________________________________________

Tana, thanks for the insights as to oceangoing small boat design. You would get a kick out of this. On the way over, I read an article in SAIL about the Strangite Mormon colony founded in 1848 on Beaver Island in Lake Michigan. The secular history of the Strangite group, and their relationship to Joseph Smith and his sect of Mormons, as described to the general public in SAIL magazine, was very different than what I was taught in Seminary.

James Strang had the main town on Beaver Island named after him (St. James). Like Joseph Smith, he had himself crowned King, and like Joseph Smith, he was killed by angry locals (after he ordered some of their wives flogged for dress code violations - so take heed, BYU co-eds)

Unlike Smith, Strang at least had the honesty to declare himself a polygamist publicly. Like the main Mormons, the Strangites did not get along well with the locals, who eventually drove them off the island after Strang's death. Today there are still about 650 residents on the island.

Pretty succinct history of a branch of the Mormon Church, related to the general public in a secular magazine the context of a Lake Michigan day sail adventure.

The young woman sitting beside me on the plane wondered why I was so amused while reading this, so I told her and gave her the magazine so she could read it for herself. She thought it all very weird.

Mormons are becoming known the world around, again, and this time the Church is not controlling the message - not by a long shot. What do you bet that contributed article would have never seen the light of day were not for Romney's presidential run?
______________________________________

Tomorrow the desert.

[_Hoops]

In a similar vein, I'll offer odds that certain aah's here can make a post that is not insulting, condescending, or pugnacious.

(did anyone note the rather DCP-ish mention of globe trotting?)

[_DrW]

In a similar vein, I'll offer odds that certain aah's here can make a post that is not insulting, condescending, or pugnacious.

(did anyone note the rather DCP-ish mention of globe trotting?)

Sorry if my business travel offended you. I lived around here on and off for many years, so mention of this trip would be no different than you mentioning a trip back home to see your parents, for example.

Unless I mentioned that I was in Oman, the whole point of the eight-bottle experiment would sort of be lost, would it not?

Lighten up.

[_Nightlion]

In a similar vein, I'll offer odds that certain aah's here can make a post that is not insulting, condescending, or pugnacious.

(did anyone note the rather DCP-ish mention of globe trotting?)

Sorry if my business travel offended you. I lived around here on and off for many years, so mention of this trip would be no different than you mentioning a trip back home to see your parents, for example.

Unless I mentioned that I was in Oman, the whole point of the eight-bottle experiment would sort of be lost, would it not?

Lighten up.

I thought we agreed with the China launch? They immediately first went North from the tower. And then they built barges and crossed many bodies of water. Not possible to the South. We already know that it takes a year or so to drift to America from Japan. And beside we all know you wont be getting up to an exceedingly high mountain to obtain objects touched by the finger of the Lord to put into your bottles.

[_Hoops]

Sorry if my business travel offended you.

There's a big difference between being offended and finding something peculiar.

Chap is giving a lesson on semantics on another thread. Why don't you stop by?

I lived around here on and off for many years, so mention of this trip would be no different than you mentioning a trip back home to see your parents, for example.

Good for you.

Unless I mentioned that I was in Oman, the whole point of the eight-bottle experiment would sort of be lost, would it not?

If you say so.
Lighten up.[/quote]