Holland's Apostolic Blessing

[_Craig Paxton]

haha...feeling lucky...Tobin's comments don't show in my feed

[_hagoth7]

I know.

And I think it's a valid question.

No it isn't. Without dead people, Mormons wouldn't be able to go through the Mormon temple more than once....

I disagree.

You overlook two of the core purposes of temples. Worship and instruction.

Complete what is oft referred to as temple "work", and one gets to focus on other elements of God's work. https://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/mose ... ang=eng#37

[_hagoth7]

...2 Peter is widely believe to be pseudepegriphy. That is, whoever wrote it, it probably wasn't really Peter.

And Isaiah is widely believed to be written by more than one person.
As are other books.
And so on.

In response, let's just say that as a somewhat-independent thinker, I don't typically adopt beliefs just because they happen to be "widely believed".

[_hagoth7]

No it isn't. Without dead people, Mormons wouldn't be able to go through the Mormon temple more than once. Then they'd only need one temple and you just go there once in your life. But with all these people dying all over the place, they can go to this amusement park all the time. I'm not going back till they add a water slide though.

I feel like Javert at the end of Le Miserables. I have to agree with Tobin on this.

Now I have to go jump into the Seine.

Before rashly leaping to your death, which part are you agreeing with?
1) That temples would serve no purpose without things like baptism for the dead? (Please consider my response to Tobin on that matter a few moments ago.)
2) Or that it would take a water slide for you to return?

[_Symmachus]

...2 Peter is widely believe to be pseudepegriphy. That is, whoever wrote it, it probably wasn't really Peter.

And Isaiah is widely believed to be written by more than one person.
As are other books.
And so on.

In response, let's just say that as a somewhat-independent thinker, I don't typically adopt beliefs just because they happen to be "widely believed".

Do you have a good reason for your skepticism? The historical and philological reasons for questioning the authenticity of 2 peter are overwhelming to those who are familiar with the historical and philological issues. When I see someone say that they reject them, I see someone saying that they don't know anything about the history or philology of these texts.

[_Quasimodo]

I feel like Javert at the end of Le Miserables. I have to agree with Tobin on this.

Now I have to go jump into the Seine.

Before rashly leaping to your death, which part are you agreeing with?
1) That temples would serve no purpose without things like baptism for the dead? (Please consider my response to Tobin on that matter a few moments ago.)
2) Or that it would take a water slide for you to return?

(Glub) Before I go down for the third time, I should tell you that I have never been a Mormon and so cannot go back to the Temple because I have never been to one. I do understand that they all have a small pool, so maybe a water slide would make sense.

The Temples do serve some purpose, but not for me. For those who believe, they do provide a place for marriages and sealings. The whole idea of baptism for the dead escapes me. Don't those that pass on have the opportunity to make a decision for themselves without dead dunking?

To me it just seems like busy work to keep the faithful, faithful.

[_hagoth7]

Do you have a good reason for your skepticism? The historical and philological reasons for questioning the authenticity of 2 peter are overwhelming to those who are familiar with the historical and philological issues.

I am not familiar with those issues, because this is the first I have heard of them. But I have had the referenced article open in another window since it was first offered, and intend on exploring it later.

When I see someone say that they reject them, I see someone saying that they don't know anything about the history or philology of these texts.

You are correct that I haven't explored them (yet).
But I haven't rejected them.

More importantly, after reviewing and considering them, I will not reject (or accept) them merely because a majority happens to do so.

[_ludwigm]

...
I feel like Javert at the end of Le Miserables. I have to agree with Tobin on this.

Now I have to go jump into the Seine.

Victor Hugo is one of my favourites --- from classicals.
Some films have got that moment.

But the original:

Javert took a pen and a sheet of paper, and began to write. This is what
he wrote:

A FEW OBSERVATIONS FOR THE GOOD OF THE SERVICE.


"In the first place: I beg Monsieur le Prefet to cast his eyes
on this.

"Secondly: prisoners, on arriving after examination, take off
their shoes and stand barefoot on the flagstones while they are
being searched. Many of them cough on their return to prison.
This entails hospital expenses.

"Thirdly: the mode of keeping track of a man with relays of police
agents from distance to distance, is good, but, on important occasions,
it is requisite that at least two agents should never lose sight
of each other, so that, in case one agent should, for any cause,
grow weak in his service, the other may supervise him and take
his place.

"Fourthly: it is inexplicable why the special regulation of the prison
of the Madelonettes interdicts the prisoner from having a chair,
even by paying for it.

"Fifthly: in the Madelonettes there are only two bars to the canteen,
so that the canteen woman can touch the prisoners with her hand.

"Sixthly: the prisoners called barkers, who summon the other
prisoners to the parlor, force the prisoner to pay them two sous
to call his name distinctly. This is a theft.

"Seventhly: for a broken thread ten sous are withheld in the
weaving shop; this is an abuse of the contractor, since the cloth
is none the worse for it.

"Eighthly: it is annoying for visitors to La Force to be
obliged to traverse the boys' court in order to reach the parlor
of Sainte-Marie-l'Egyptienne.

"Ninthly: it is a fact that any day gendarmes can be overheard
relating in the court-yard of the prefecture the interrogations put
by the magistrates to prisoners. For a gendarme, who should be
sworn to secrecy, to repeat what he has heard in the examination
room is a grave disorder.

"Tenthly: Mme. Henry is an honest woman; her canteen is very neat;
but it is bad to have a woman keep the wicket to the mouse-trap
of the secret cells. This is unworthy of the Conciergerie of a
great civilization."

Javert wrote these lines in his calmest and most correct chirography,
not omitting a single comma, and making the paper screech under his pen.
Below the last line he signed:

"JAVERT,
"Inspector of the 1st class.
"The Post of the Place du Chatelet.
"June 7th, 1832, about one o'clock in the morning."


Javert dried the fresh ink on the paper, folded it like a letter, sealed
it, wrote on the back: Note for the administration, left it on the
table, and quitted the post. The glazed and grated door fell to behind
him.

Again he traversed the Place du Chatelet diagonally, regained the quay,
and returned with automatic precision to the very point which he had
abandoned a quarter of an hour previously, leaned on his elbows and
found himself again in the same attitude on the same paving-stone of the
parapet. He did not appear to have stirred.

The darkness was complete. It was the sepulchral moment which follows
midnight. A ceiling of clouds concealed the stars. Not a single light
burned in the houses of the city; no one was passing; all of the streets
and quays which could be seen were deserted; Notre-Dame and the towers
of the Court-House seemed features of the night. A street lantern
reddened the margin of the quay. The outlines of the bridges lay
shapeless in the mist one behind the other. Recent rains had swollen the
river.

The spot where Javert was leaning was, it will be remembered, situated
precisely over the rapids of the Seine, perpendicularly above that
formidable spiral of whirlpools which loose and knot themselves again
like an endless screw.

Javert bent his head and gazed. All was black. Nothing was to be
distinguished. A sound of foam was audible; but the river could not be
seen. At moments, in that dizzy depth, a gleam of light appeared, and
undulated vaguely, water possessing the power of taking light, no one
knows whence, and converting it into a snake. The light vanished, and
all became indistinct once more. Immensity seemed thrown open there.
What lay below was not water, it was a gulf. The wall of the quay,
abrupt, confused, mingled with the vapors, instantly concealed from
sight, produced the effect of an escarpment of the infinite. Nothing was
to be seen, but the hostile chill of the water and the stale odor of
the wet stones could be felt. A fierce breath rose from this abyss. The
flood in the river, divined rather than perceived, the tragic whispering
of the waves, the melancholy vastness of the arches of the bridge, the
imaginable fall into that gloomy void, into all that shadow was full of
horror.

Javert remained motionless for several minutes, gazing at this opening
of shadow; he considered the invisible with a fixity that resembled
attention. The water roared. All at once he took off his hat and placed
it on the edge of the quay. A moment later, a tall black figure, which
a belated passer-by in the distance might have taken for a phantom,
appeared erect upon the parapet of the quay, bent over towards the
Seine, then drew itself up again, and fell straight down into the
shadows; a dull splash followed; and the shadow alone was in the secret
of the convulsions of that obscure form which had disappeared beneath
the water.

Thank You, Quasimodo to share that moment.

[_I have a question]

To me it just seems like busy work to keep the faithful, faithful.

We have a winner!

[_ludwigm]

...
Before rashly leaping to your death

Javert is somebody we can learn from.
As from others...

Anyway, they are Christmas gifts.