Posts

The Next Prophet and Mormon Whiteness

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Before I dive into the topic of my post, there’s a chart that statistically predicts the likelihood of who the next prophet will be among the members of the Quorum of the Twelve. A friend of mine named Tanner Jasperson made this and he’s way smarter than I am when it comes to this sort of thing, so I’ll let him explain it. “The results were obtained from simulations run on the US social security actuarial life tables. Those tables predict the probability of living another year based on age and birth year. 50,000 individual simulations were run, and their results were compared to find probable outcomes. It is possible to analytically predict the most probable outcome, but life rarely behaves according to probability. Allowing random simulations to run provides more insight into a range of possibilities rather than just one single most likely occurrence. The ‘prophet ever’ metric reports the percentage of simulations in which the apostle was prophet for any length of time. The
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The Top 5 Movies Mormons Are Obsessed With

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5. O Brother Where Art Thou : This could be a personal bias as this is my favorite movie, but I’ve seen a lip-synched version of the Soggy Bottom Boys performance pop up in tow ward talent shows which strikes me as odd. I’d be willing to bet this folksy classic is a mainstay in many Mormon households. 4. The Harry Potter franchise: I know these are wildly popular throughout the world, but I can’t shake this feeling that Mormons are extra obsessed with these films. I can attest to seeing Mormons rattle off the most obscure facts about them and every other girl on Mutual has their Pottermore house listed in their bio (not that I’m on Mutual). Honorable Mention : I debated Star Wars and Lord of the Rings for this pick because I feel that there is a special Mormon fanaticism for those as well. That could be general fanaticism though. 3. The Other Side of Heaven : This is a Disney movie about a Mormon missionary. What more is there to say? 2. Napoleon Dynamite : This
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Learning from Jesus' Hair

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This is not going to be about Jesus’ race or skin color or anything like that. I will be talking about His hair color from the perspective of the common paintings of Him. I will refer to it is brown, because it will make the whole experience easier. If you want to tell me how wrong I am about his hair, feel free but I don’t really care. That’s not what this post is about. Also, major disclaimer: don't take any of this too seriously. I have recently been called "passive-aggressive," a "belligerent ignoramus," a troll, and a great many other things that would not bear repeating in polite company. My advice to the people that get triggered by the ramblings of a nerdy young man with crazy ideas is to take a deep breath and loosen up a little. Have some fun! Or just don't read it. That's always an option. The Resurrected Christ is depicted with white hair in some pictures and brown in others. For example, He appears to the Nephites with brown hair in
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New Year, New Testament (charts)

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Here is a list of every person in the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. I made it for fun but I believe it also has some useful information in it. Here is a link to it. I have not done a similar guide for Acts through Revelation yet but I will be working on one and can hopefully get it out in the near future.   In the meantime, I have another chart that I created to determine just how new the New Testament really is. This is an exercise that much smarter and more talented people than me have undertaken and you can find their varied results on the internet but this (as with everything I post) was just for fun. You can find that here .  Feel free to share these around with people that may find them useful or interesting. I love stuff like this and I imagine that others might as well. Enjoy!
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Joseph Smith and the Inverted Pentagram

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The year is 2218. Modern society as we know it has crumbled and alien overlords have taken control of the ruined remains of America. In the rubble, a discovery is made. An issue of the conspiracy tabloid  National Enquirer . What valuable insight into the world of 200 years ago could this document provide? This issue becomes a prized artifact because of the information it provides about the world as it once existed. The only problem is that none of it is true. In 1844, disgruntled excommunicated Mormons created the  Nauvoo Expositor.  This anti-Mormon newspaper only ran one issue in which polygamy and Joseph Smith were condemned in very strong terms. It was one of many papers of the era that ran articles targeting the Mormons and Joseph Smith for their doctrine and practices. The publisher, William Law, disingenuously founded his own church based on the LDS church in an attempt to have his cake and eat it too. He then began a smear campaign in which he likened the Mormons to t
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Sticks and Stones: Revelation Throughout the Ages

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God never changes, therefore he always does things in the same way. Seems logical initially, but then you think about how humanity changes and things start to fall apart. The Bible alone shows again and again and again and again and again and again that Heavenly Father knows how to get a message across and that it's not always exactly the same. Knowing your audience was among the first things I was taught as a communications major. Surely the most powerful Being in the universe has at least a 101 level understanding of how to effectively communicate a message. Heavenly Father is willing to change his platform when delivering a message. When a prophet is on the earth the message comes from him, but when one is not on Earth, God works with what he's got. During the restoration, unconventional methods of revelation were used including  seer stones and divining rods . People say that Joseph Smith was crazy for using a rock or that Oliver Cowdery was a fraud for usin
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Complete Guide to D&C

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I've created a complete chronology of the Doctrine and Covenants. The current chronology in the beginning of D&C is great, but it is a little lacking in terms of details. The file, that you can download here , has dates, the subject matter of the revelations, the recipients of the revelations, content breakdowns, code names, and some other fun stuff. Check it out if you want to learn more about the Doctrine and Covenants!
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