The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. It is the Lord’s Church in these last days. Do you dislike that statement? Why? Does it make your personal belief any less true? Does your worship of Jesus suddenly mean nothing just because He recognizes our church? Did you know that shortly after Christ’s death, there were at least SEVEN churches of Christ that arose. They didn’t arise by one dictatorial head. They arose independently, by Christians in each of those areas deciding they wanted to form a group of like-minded persons. And Jesus accepted ALL of them as His churches, because they all centered on Him. So stop worrying that we claim to be accepted of the Lord. If you believe your own church to also be, then so be it! But if you study the teachings of Christ and the Apostles and find that your own institution doesn’t actually adhere to that which was set in the beginning, then I invite you to come and see for yourself if the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints adheres to those teachings. Because I have found that it does. And I believe so will you.

AI: “Oh, you’re experiencing a weird symptom? Go straight to the ER!” AI: “Oh, you stubbed your toe? Better have it checked out at the ER!” AI: “I’m sorry they looked at you funny. Better go to the ER and get that checked out. There could be something wrong with your face.”

The problem with the arguments over whether Iran (or Israel for that matter) has a nuke is that nobody can really know. Not even our highest levels of intelligence can know if Iran has a super secret underground base that happened to escape all our sensors. I am confident in saying that the available evidence is that Iran does NOT have a nuke, but that they are constantly trying even underneath all their claims that they’re not. And I am confident that if they actually completed a nuke, they WOULD use it against Israel and/or America as soon as they could. But even then, completing a bomb and successfully deploying it are still two completely different matters. They could have one completed for years before they found a way to succeed in striking either target. And they wouldn’t want to waste it on any small target. They’d go big. And this is also why I support the measures Trump has taken against them, and hope they actually come to the table. Because I’d rather see a thriving Iran than whatever this is.

When this PHP fiasco started, I drafted a comment reply that said “Sounds like an easy way to force everyone to update.” I decided against posting it because I just didn’t care to deal with comments from people telling me I know nothing. Yet here we are… This guy made a website with PHP daring you to hack it and steal $2k in Bitcoin. It’s been up almost 24 hours and nobody has been able to. So much for this alleged vulnerability, eh?

Kirk has some great insights of our Church as an outsider. I may not agree with him on everything — otherwise he’d be LDS — but he’s about as good as they come on the outside.

The problem with ending all wars and finding world peace is that there are people who don’t want war to end. They make a lot of money and live glorious lifestyles thanks to others dying all around the world. So to end all wars isn’t as simple as bringing the conflicts to an end, but must address the root causes and motivators of war. Those who want wars must either be convinced to abandon their ways or removed from the equation. I’m not suggesting death (though their lifestyle tends to make that more likely), as we can also simply endure them until they pass of their own accord and hope that the next generation makes better choices. And typically, they do, if the prior generations greatly oppressed them. The real trick then is finding ways to prevent the future generations who are raised in a glorious time from becoming complacent and allowing themselves to slide back into wickedness. I think our technological advancements, especially AI having access to all of world history, is going to help with that. Scripture declares a thousand years of peace following Christ’s return, and I suppose that to be because we gain such a clear understanding of how our past brought us to each form of oppression, so we can choose for a thousand years to not fall into those ways again. And we’ll have the resurrected persons of the past to testify personally to each thing. But alas, eventually mankind will choose wickedness again, and Satan will be loosed again for a final conflict. I’d imagine there will be signs that the time is near. Men will begin pointing out the ways in which others are behaving, and that it’ll bring about the great prophesied conflict. But the world at large will ignore it. And before we know it, everything will unravel again.

AIDS. Artificial Intelligence Derangement Syndrome

I have banned Fortnite in my house before it was ever installed by anyone. Want to know why? The developers literally spent millions on psychological research to understand what makes games addicting, and then they took all their findings and put them into one game. The goal: keep you playing and paying. The gaming industry IS NO LONGER ABOUT GOOD GAMES. It’s all about extracting as much $$$ from you as possible. I am a game developer that never published a game and stepped away from the gaming industry because I learned this. I realized I had no chance of beating any of these games because I’m unwilling to use predatory practices, and those who don’t never seem to get noticed. So I walked away. I still dabble on the side, and AI has allowed me to vibe code a lot of the games I had in mind — at least partially. And maybe I’ll still release them, if they reach a releasable point. But I don’t expect much from them. I don’t expect to make a living. I don’t expect them to be see by more than a handful of people — because I won’t cross that ethical line.

Not a @RealCandaceO fan. But I can be objective, unlike so many others. Let me ask you a question: If a person is a mile away from something, and they take one step closer, are they “getting closer” to their objective? If they take one more step, are they still yet closer? At an average stride, there are between 2,000-2,500 steps in a mile. That leaves PLENTY of “we’re getting closer” updates before reaching the objective. And that’s presuming the target is a mile away. What if it’s 10 miles? 100 miles? See the problem with attacking a “we’re getting closer” statement, even if said a thousand times? Can you PROVE that she hasn’t been getting closer? Unlikely. I can also objectively acknowledge that as time goes on, Candace keeps finding more clips from people that continue to call into question the Prosecution’s narrative. At this point, I argue there’s a 0% chance the Prosecution can win IF the Defense actually uses any of the evidence Candace has procured. Why 0%? Because the goal isn’t to prove innocence, it’s only to prove reasonable doubt. And I could generate sufficient reasonable doubt by simply plopping Lance in Tyler’s clothes and letting the jury see what that looks like — because that alone make Lance far more likely to be the stairwell person than Tyler. And the fact that Lance has many cell phones would make any alleged GPS data “proving” Lance wasn’t there indefensible. Oh, by the way, did you know LANCE HAS NO ALIBI? None. He was alone in his apartment, and claimed he was asleep. No corroboration. JUST HIS WORD! The entire case rests on Lance’s word, and I could make him a liar in half a second on the stand. Case closed.

Lmao. Reddit uses AI to develop its platform and then tells YOU that if you use AI they’ll ban you. Reddit has always been stupid. Always. If you’ve get used it, you’re part of the problem.

I believe every word of the Lord is literal, and also has layers of meaning. Consider 3 Nephi 13:22-23: “The light of the body is the eye; if, therefore, thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If, therefore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness!” Of course, the common reading here is the metaphorical one, about controlling what we see and think. But I argue that the literal words here are the also an acceptable interpretation: that the light of your body is your sight. And the light of our surroundings filters through our eyes, being the first lens upon which everything passes through. So if our eye is evil, then we see evil in everything. But if our eye is righteous, then we find the good in everything. The danger being that a good man sometimes reads light into an evil man where there is no light, and an evil man reads darkness into a good man where there is no darkness.

I believe each of us has wings. Not white feathery things we see on depictions of angels, but what I call “wings” I imagine more like mechanisms of our spirit, which has the power to levitate us wherever we wish to go. It is not only the power to fly, but also the power to create, and to do all things. And the many technological tools we have access to today are designed to teach us how to command and control our own spirit.

Every generation comes with nonsense like this. If you had walked around a city in the decades leading up to cell phones, you’d have made the same observation about people and their televisions. And for decades before that, people and their newspapers. And before that, people and their novels. Before that, printed pamphlets and books. Before that, tavern dice, cards, and storytelling. Before that, chariot racing and gladiatorial spectacles. And before that… We can just keep on going. Mankind has always found things to occupy their time. God has always expected us to balance that with serving others.

I think Angel is the first show I remember having a horrible ending. These are likely shows that were planned one episode at a time. Those that had an ending from the beginning typically reach that ending. What shows have you watched that left you completely unsatisfied?

Not surprising he’d give the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a 0. Look at the logo. Christ standing with His arms open. The full name of His Church, with JESUS CHRIST right there for everyone to read. Most of the others are crosses, abstract symbols, or names that don’t even mention Him. Yet this one gets a zero. Apparently, once you’ve decided the Church cannot possibly be true, even a logo with Christ Himself front and center has no redeeming qualities. That sure looks like the religious judgment came first and the design score followed. And we’ve seen that attitude before. God sent prophets to Israel and Judah. The people already had the temple, the priesthood, and the scriptures. Many still rejected His messengers. Some killed them. Having those things apparently didn’t guarantee they would recognize God speaking when He actually spoke. Then Christ Himself came. The religious authorities who claimed to understand His law condemned Him. They were so certain they knew God that they rejected Him when He stood in front of them. The early Saints were a small, despised group in a world full of people who already believed they had religion figured out. The Book of Mormon shows the same cycle repeatedly. People receive truth. They prosper. They become proud. Eventually, people who inherited the church and the records reject the prophets calling them to repent. A faithful minority remains, while the majority treats its own position as proof that it must be right. And the pattern didn’t end with the New Testament. Christianity eventually became joined to Roman imperial power. Later reformers argued that the dominant church had departed from the original faith. Those reformers certainly didn’t accept that possessing the name, the buildings, and centuries of institutional authority settled the question. Yet people who accept that God restored lost truth through an unpopular minority in the past can be remarkably certain He couldn’t possibly have done it again. I’m not suggesting being a minority automatically makes someone right. Obviously, it doesn’t. But being the majority has NEVER guaranteed that you are following God. Scripture gives us plenty of reason to question that assumption. Fortunately, God has never needed the permission of the religious majority to call His prophets or establish His Church.