@nicoraytruth@NoblestCalling The temple is the natural place to find Latter-day Saint liturgical maximalism. I do not think there is a close analogue elsewhere in Christendom, but its ritual grammar is much closer to e.g., Orthodoxy than anything I'm familiar with in Protestantism.
@KimballCall I asked my wife if she had been recruited by the CIA at BYU Jerusalem. She replied, "What are you talking about?" with precisely the same bemused, polished affect they taught me.
@UtdManvcho "Why does the second-to-last defender have to be completely past the attacker to draw the offside call, but it's not a goal if the ball is just a hair inside the playing field?"
@JustinMacmahan Maybe it's not the sport you thought you were watching, or the sport you wanted to watch, but it is the sport they're playing.
It's not "it would have been a goal but for offsides." If offsides weren't a defensive strategy, it wouldn't be defended this way.
@KelseaJ112@GovCox I don't completely blame Cox as it's ultimately up to the municipalities. But it gave them the excuse needed for outright bans when appropriately calibrated policy would have sufficed.
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This was Rorschach test for Provo. And they seemed to have failed it.
Everyone understands the rationale for a ban: dry conditions, limited resources, heightened ignition risk. But Utah has significant fire risk every year, and citizens deserve a real explanation for why safe areas, pavement-only use, supervised public lots, stricter time windows, or some other targeted policy was suddenly impossible.
Without that explanation, this does not signal prudence or competence. It signals lazy, unserious risk theater.
Iโm not even convinced the blanket ban is obviously safer. If the problem was already disproportionately illegal use in prohibited areas, a total ban may simplify enforcement, but it may also push some people into less visible and riskier places.
But the broader concern is this: if the city defaults to some insufficiently justified maximalist position on a narrow issue citizens can actually evaluate, why should we trust its judgment on issues where we have far less context?
As fire danger has only increased and temperatures have gotten hotter, the cities of Provo and Lehi announced fire and firework restrictions on Monday. https://t.co/AjIDDX42fT
@chris4auditor@LindsayOnAir@GovCox@abc4utah The current fires have not been attributed to fireworks. As far as I can tell, last yearโs fireworks fires were not caused by people following the rules in legal areas.
The failure mode was already illegal. This is just lazy bureaucratic risk theater.
This is not about fireworks. It is about governing instincts. Fire danger exists every year. That is why targeted restrictions existed: foothills, brush, dry open land, actual risk zones. And they worked. Utah was not being burned down by dads lighting legal fountains on Provo pavement. A total ban, which is in effect, is not prudence. It is the refusal to govern with judgment. It says every place is high-risk, every citizen is reckless, and every normal tradition is a liability problem. And this kind of draconian policy may very well induce more fireworks being lit in higher risk zones.
Fireworks may seem like a trivial issue. But the signal is not. If you cannot make a proportional rule for a once-a-year issue with an obvious risk map, I do not trust your instincts on anything harder.
@muttilolly@nicoraytruth โLet us here observe, that a religion that does not require the sacrifice of all things never has power sufficient to produce the faith necessary unto life and salvationโ (Lectures on Faith, 6:7).
@nicoraytruth Naturally, we donโt need evangelical permission to be Christian. But we also shouldnโt concede being defined out of Christianity by hostile taxonomy, especially when that framing reaches oblivious third parties and bleeds into law or culture or diminishes missionary efforts.
@nicoraytruth On the contrary, there are too few philomormon Catholics with cyberpunk Brigham Young avatars on this platform. The apparent paradox makes you one of the most interesting follows here.
@NeverRepentant@nicoraytruth Point 2 is even stronger than that: in the temple you covenant to consecrate everything you have. An honest tithe is inherently prerequisite. It would be strange, even wrong, to invite someone to promise total consecration while they knowingly refuse the lesser obligation.