Ryan

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

Your argument is borrowed from the Pharisees in the Bible.

They watched Jesus heal the sick, cast out devils, and teach truth about God - yet accused Him of being demonic because it came from the ‘wrong’ source (Matt 12:24, ‘by Beelzebub’).

Jesus said: judge by the fruit (Matt 12:33). Good trees don’t produce bad fruit.

Look at the fruits. The LDS Church has brought millions to Christ through faith, repentance, and baptism. Contrast that with the Catholic Church burning people at the stake for translating the Bible into English. Different trees, different fruit.

Not sure the Catholic Church passes its own good fruit test.

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

My problem with the creeds isn’t that they exist or some of what they say. It’s that they’re treated like God’s actual word when they’re extra-biblical and came without prophetic authority. This mirrors Numbers 12.

Aaron and Miriam had received real revelation too. But they challenged Moses: ‘Hath the LORD indeed spoken only by Moses? hath he not spoken also by us?’ (v2)

‘And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the Lord will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream.’ (v6)

Councils and creeds can’t replace the living prophet’s keys. God’s pattern hasn’t changed.

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

That’s option 1 and it requires him to dictate the 4,500/words/day for 60 days into a complex timeline and culture he had no exposure to.

Joseph knew polygamy would mean his death, but God knew something Joseph didn’t: that the saints would be slaughtered and forced out of the United States and into Mexico. Polygamy was never about sex. It was about the saints surviving persecution. There were basically no widows and no fatherless in the church. Once polygamy was hurting and no longer helping, God commanded the practice to end. It really is just that simple. If someone wanted to “boink” a lot of women, polygamy is not the way.

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

You tried to hold an undefendable position.

The debate topic was about the Book of Mormon being demonic or not and you backed up your position by saying you haven’t even read it.

Do you ever wonder how Nicodemus came to know Christ was God? He was a Pharisee after all and Christ was blatantly disobeying the Jewish customs and laws. He could have done what you did and dismiss Christ as a demonic false prophet come to lead people away from Gods true church but he didn’t. He studied Christ, talked with Him, defended Him in the Sanhedrin, and after his death assisted in His burial. Be like Nicodemus.

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

@emuse1955 @justin_hart @grok Okay man. Whatever you say. 👍

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

That’s like saying:

A lot of people are confused into thinking that reading Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy in their entirety is necessary to judge whether they are influenced by demons or negative spiritual forces.

The following analogy might help.

Suppose you learn that Moses killed a man in cold blood, was raised in Egyptian courts steeped in pagan practices and what some would call occult knowledge, and then abandoned his country as a fugitive. Moreover, you learn he was doing all this in the years leading up to when he began leading Israel and receiving revelation. Do you need to read Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy in full to know whether his writings had negative influences?

No, you do not.

In a conversation about influence or inspiration of a given work, what’s primarily relevant is the proximate context and the character of the one delivering it.

Now, suppose that you decide to confront those who revere Moses’ writings. You point out the fact that he was a murderer, immersed in Egyptian occult traditions, a runaway, and so on when the foundational events and writings began.

Suppose they respond by asking, “But did you read the whole thing?”

Most people can see how silly of a requirement this is in this context. You don’t need to read every word of Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy to know that there’s something deeper going on — or to decide whether the source and context raise serious questions about its origin.

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

For context, there’s one book in the Book of Mormon that is about 1/3 of the entire text. Not knowing about the book of Alma means @emuse1955 has never actually read the book.

Glad to hear you’re going to read it.

Read it knowing if Joseph Smith was the original author, he would have to dictate about 4,500 words per day for 60 days straight with no reference material.

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

Lucky for us, we have the actual meeting notes from June 1833:

https://t.co/QcAEDpdruo

Hurlbut was accused of “unchristian conduct with the female sex while on a mission.”

That’s not profanity or mere “obscene language.” That’s sexual misconduct. Rigdon’s 1839 letter came six years later and doesn’t override the contemporary record.

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

You’re cherry picking.

The Kirtland minutes state Hurlbut was excommunicated for “unchristian conduct with the female sex.” He was reinstated after appealing, then cut off again for claiming he deceived Joseph’s God/Spirit.

Joseph testified in the 1834 court case it was “base conduct with lewd women.” Rigdon’s 1839 letter described it as obscene language to a young lady who rejected the insult.

A witness also said Hurlbut stayed two nights with a Mormon woman “of very bad character” while on his mission.

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

@emuse1955 @justin_hart @grok how many times was Doctor Philastus Hurlbut excommunicated and was it ever for profanity?

[Ryan McBeth @RyanMcbeth]

LDS Church not considered Christian ✝️ by DoD/DoW.

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

Yeah, I think the design thinking double diamond is a good model for this.

You should be divergent in your product research, but then you should converge on a defined problem statement. Then divergent in as you brainstorm but ultimately you must ship something that tests both the problem definition and your solution. Both times you diverge you are basically acknowledging the fog and when you converge you should be deciding on the next step.

More recently I shipped a simple feature that covered 80% of the use cases we knew our users had. That last 20% was too foggy. We kind of knew what it was, but not enough to give it much conviction. Instead we shipped the small feature and a variety of small features on top that could be granted with feature flags. These were small experiments meant to be deleted. We dispelled the fog then repeated the process.

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

It’s one of the reasons why I think the shift to “product engineering” excites me so much. Sitting down with customers and solving the problem together never needed a middleman, but we had one before because change was expensive.

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

I think engineers that come from small agile startups are going to be more effective in the coming years than those who come from large enterprises.

[Ryan @RyannAllred]

Which brings me back to the startup engineers in this new chapter. Bureaucracy is a learned behavior from employees in enterprises. You can now fix old code and write new code as fast as you can think, but if you anticipate being told to stop then you’ll never learn that yourself