Thai Dad

If you're here because something I said offended you, then

I'm really sorry and I apologize and I take it back and I just want to be friends please forgive me

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

My mom was born in Thailand. She moved here at about six. Today she speaks about two words of Thai and is, in soul, a modern, fashionable, conservative Mormon grandma. She's literally the same as everyone else in Rexburg, she's just brown and we eat rice a little more often.

My brother just got married in the spring to the sweetest little Southern bell of a girl from Virginia. We were a little worried when he got serious with the first girl he dated off of his mission but it's been so great to get to know her and how she's the nicest girl who can stand her own against his teasing. She was adopted at 10 from Ethiopia.

My parents built their new house in the countryside right across the street from where their best friend built his. He's a real estate agent who helped my wife and I find our house. Loves snowmobiling and Trump. Most generous soul you'd ever meet. He came from Venezuala as a teenager and bemoans the state of his former country, but not too often. This is his home.

What the identitarians have correct is that being American is more than just an "idea" or a "paragraph". Being American IS to belong to a tangible group of people. It's not racial. You can have a foreign accent. You can have different ancestors. But you have to decide to belong and build up this country and everyone else in it. You gotta love eagles flying over American flags while crying about fallen soldiers. You gotta believe we're all gonna strike it rich one day in some new technology. You gotta love being outside. And deep down, you gotta know that this is the best country on earth.

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@FraserVal_girl @xwanyex Not unless you stub your toe in Canada

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

Not only is space real, Joseph Smith specifically described the Earth *and* heaven as spheres. While a lot of this can be attributed to this being a more modern religion, "Worlds without number have I created" (Moses 1:3) was penned long before the Hubble telescope expanded our view of the universe.

I'm sure there are crackpot Mormons who still insist on Flat Earth. Every ward has about 5 crazy people in it.

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@SandyofCthulhu @klara_sjo Sandy Peterson was at ground zero for the Loss meme. This makes sense. The world is logical.

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@owenbroadcast So the hats never existed?

So, like, anyone could just make this and wear it and it wouldn't be appropriation?... just curious?

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

It may not contain explicit elaboration on our more unique doctrines, like eternal marriage or premortality, but it does contain what we call "the fullness of the Gospel of Christ". That's not "everything we know", it instead means "the basics of Salvation through Jesus". Which is: Faith in Christ, Repentance, Baptism by authority and immersion, and Recieving the Holy Ghost. The Book of Mormon plays these out and illustrates how these principles bless the people in it (or how abandonment of them leaves them helpless). Yes, we believe God has revealed more than that, but for salvation in Christ, these are the only necessary building blocks. Therefore, the Book of Mormon is a complete witness of Christ (when paired with the Bible, as it will itself insist) for all who seek God.

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

It's certainly not about "different levels of authority", if anything, the Doctrine and Covenants would supersede anything (if it needed to) by being modern revelation for our day.
No, the Book of Mormon is used for missionary work because that is its explicit purpose given by God - to come forth in the latter days as a witness to Jesus and salvation through him. This is from the title page, which was from the plates:

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@plasmarob Good job with this one, man. I think I was expecting some sort of Hebrew analysis of the word but pointing out the significance of the Waters of Mormon is an angle I hadn't adequately considered. Neat.

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@owenbroadcast I've used dashes just the way you are now, and - despite what my high school teachers would say - none of my college professors cared.

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@plasmarob @AaronMouritsen Oh it's probably fine then

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@Grownded Dang if only there was some way to just know for sure which of all these churches were correct, or if they were all wrong together...

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@plasmarob I'm already a fan of their comedy YT channel, they're talented dudes. Idk if I'll watch the movie but I'm proud of them nevertheless

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@plasmarob A cemetery on a peaceful day? That's fine. I can relax amongst the respected dead.

Almost any other situation that I would be surrounded by corpses would probably be stress inducing to say the least.

[Jake Rogers @_Jake_Rogers_]

Respectfully. I think there’s a false binary here.

But I do agree with your point that apologetics that becomes mostly dunking can become spiritually thin. If the goal is ego, tribal reassurance, or humiliating outsiders, then yes, that is not the same thing as bearing witness.

But “for the defense of the faithful” is not a retreat. It is one of the normal purposes of apologetics. There are many times when I was investigating and newly baptized into the church that people would come in with very convincing very confident statements, and I was grateful for other people to be the adult in the room showing the other side of the argument. That is not replacing testimony with comebacks. Done right, it clears rubble so testimony can breathe.

Also, Saints in the 70s, 80s, and 90s absolutely had apologetics. Talmage, B. H. Roberts, Hugh Nibley, FARMS, Maxwell, and others were all engaged in defending and clarifying the faith. The internet changed the speed, audience, and tone, not the need.

I agree that no one is argued into covenant life by cleverness alone. Testimony, sacrament, repentance, ordinances, and encounter with the living God are the center.

But it is a false choice to say we must either bear witness or answer criticism.

Alma reasoned. Paul disputed. Peter said to be ready to give an answer. Moroni wrote for future unbelievers. Joseph taught, corrected, and defended.

The question is not whether we defend the faith.

The question is whether we do it with light or with contempt.

I think if you have enough humility and love, and you genuinely try to seek understanding from the other perspective, you can communicate in a way that edifies both sides. I think what you’re noticing is that Jacob is not trying to put himself in the shoes of the other side and really understand their perspective.

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

All of my children require vastly different parenting strategies. Nothing - seriously, nothing - has worked for all three of them so far except a strict bedtime routine.

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@plasmarob I'm not as incensed over it as some are since I never subscribed to the DW. But my question is genuinely Why? Why are you using a political platform to attack allied religious groups? I can't get in the headspace.

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@plasmarob How unfortunate you were to survive such an experience (according to Canada)

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

When I compare raising my kids to the Gospel and Plan of Salvation, I do so with the understanding that it's not a metaphor but merely an iteration of a divine order.

[Kirk Rollins @nicoraytruth]

Having my first child has made me see, more and more, the truth in Mormonism.

There is a particular kind of ache in watching him learn to walk.

He pulls himself up against the coffee table, wobbles, and lets go, and I want, with everything in me, to catch him before he falls.

But I don’t. I stay close, my hands hovering inches away, and I let him drop onto the carpet. Because I know something he cannot yet understand. That the falling is the learning. That if I caught him every time, he would never walk at all.

And in that small, hovering restraint, I think I have begun to understand the God of the Restoration.

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@nicoraytruth This is how I reconcile the apparent contradiction that eating the fruit was a transgression but also *necessary*. Just like your son on the table, He had to let us fall.

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@owenbroadcast Mind, if you read the poetry *written* by children, it might also contain airplanes blowing up as subject matter.

Could just be my kids, though.

[Thai Dad @athaidad]

@YouSpooneeBard Washington and Coolidge are the only people to get past C tbh (ending up in S and A respectively)