Junction Punctuation

We build our roads in cursive, to show off our class

Step on a Duckstack, break your mothers back

Art: On a Plane, by Huleeb

Imagine you’re at a big fancy Duckstack restaurant, its a Tuesday night, or a Wednesday morning, depending on your timezone and where you make day/night divisions and also, I suppose, what you think Tuesday and Wednesday are. You’ve sat down to order your regular, Duckstack with a side of whatever other tabs you have open¹ in your browser. I imagine (overriding your imagined scenario) that you are filled with anticipation, which quickly turns to dread, as I, the narrator, intruding on your imagined scenario, yell “Hands in the air! This is a stickup!”. That’s right, I’m robbing you, right in your imagination. “Wallets on the table” I yell, and everyone else complies, bringing immense peer pressure down on you to do the same. Reluctantly, you place your wallet on the table, hoping for a glimpse of I, the narrator, who is robbing you, to see what you’re dealing with. You cannot see me though, because narrators are incorporeal. You try to imagine a weapon, but something goes wrong. A flower pot materializes in your hands, with a perfect daisy sticking up out of it. It will have to do. You swallow, prepared to do or die, when suddenly everything resets. The narrator is gone, everyone around you is relaxed and eating, and conversing (about The Duckstack.) This jarring discrepancy unnerves you, but you wonder if, maybe, you had imagined the whole thing (you had.) Your imaginary wallet is 50 bucks lighter. Its for a good cause I promise²

Free Agencies

Agencies for sale 50 for a dollar

Last week I had the experience³ of being politely informed that restricting pornography access to children is against God’s plan because it reduces their free will, which struck me as somewhat… off.

I’m misrepresenting the conversation somewhat, it was more about abortion, but we’ve all seen conversations something like this. Latter-Day Saints especially are taught that agency is a fundamental attribute of spirit- from our choice to let Christ lead us to being born on Earth to Adam’s transgression even to, depending on the folklore, the family you’re born to and the vices and talents you have in your life⁴. In one of our books of scripture, the Doctrine and Covenants, it says it explicitly many times⁵⁶⁷. So if its important to God, then its important to us, hence misunderstanding agency leads to some pretty gnarly⁸ heresies. If you take this far enough it horseshoes into a sort of dynamic Calvinism where you try to get as many people to commit sin as possible because you think sifting is serving God. As if to say “We need to allow evil, opposition in all things.” I don’t think this sort of insanity is unique to us, but it is more common in Christian sects that do have some sort of hard doctrine about free will, but most don’t. We even have a trope where rebellious teenagers get mad at some extremely reasonable family rule and are like “I have my agency, mom.”

I told my friend: “I believe negative consequences increase agency, not decrease it”.

We have a story about Satan the morning star, the dragon who fell from heaven and took 1/3rd of our Father’s children with him to become devils who tempt to evil upon the Earth. Please read it:

1 And I, the Lord God, spake unto Moses, saying: That Satan, whom thou hast commanded in the name of mine Only Begotten, is the same which was from the beginning, and he came before me, saying—Behold, here am I, send me, I will be thy son, and I will redeem all mankind, that one soul shall not be lost, and surely I will do it; wherefore give me thine honor.

2 But, behold, my Beloved Son, which was my Beloved and Chosen from the beginning, said unto me—Father, thy will be done, and the glory be thine forever.

3 Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down;

4 And he became Satan, yea, even the devil, the father of all lies, to deceive and to blind men, and to lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken unto my voice.

You will notice our Father chose Christ to be our savior, knowing we would be tempted on Earth, and Satan said, “No, I have a better idea”. This arrogance came with two proposed modifications to God’s plan-First to remove the possibility of failure, and second to do it without honoring our Father.

Now some Christians hear Latter-Day Saints “think Christ and Satan are brothers” (because we think all of God’s children are related) and think it blasphemy, but I wish to drive something home here which is that though Lucifer campaigned to replace Christ, he could not have actually done it, since he wasn’t, you know, righteous. He couldn’t have borne a cross humbly and sacrificed himself, it isn’t in his nature to do so. Nor could he perform miracles, which require, you know, doing God’s will. Nor could he mind control everyone into being righteous. No, to remove the possibility of failure means to remove the standards by which judgement is administered, no more, no less. If you call nothing sin, then everyone would be “perfect” and return to heaven. Adultery as an equal action to faithfulness, hedonism as equal to sacrifice. This was “Satan’s Plan” in the pre-Earth life, to just make sin not matter as much⁹. Its all he’s ever wanted, according to Latter-Day Saint theology. And Satan’s Plan has not changed. He still works towards all the same objectives, and cast down believes himself to be God. His lie in the garden of Eden wasn’t “ye shall be as the gods”, it was “it doesn’t matter.” You will observe this is Satan’s primary theology today, also.

Consequences don’t reduce free will- punishing abortion or divorce or heroin or whatever doesn’t reduce free will, though on its appearance it reduces potential choices, it affects your ability to make choices not at all. Agency isn’t determined by the number of ice cream flavors available. You notice that often the really good fast food joints don’t actually have that big of a menu- some of my favorites are just like, “burger, fries, shake. That’s it, that’s the menu.” But they’re good at what they do. I think God’s Plan of Salvation is like that.

Boreoscopes

ehhhh

yawn, here’s your boreoscopes everybody

Watching Paint Dry¹⁰: probably fine

Failing to Sleep: nothing to write home about

Waiting in Line: kind of average

Scrolling One feed or Another: Who could say

On Hold With Customer Service: What did you expect

Twiddling Thumbs: Normal as can be

Soliciting a House Where Nobody Is Home: I guess its something

History

Kids aren’t expensive… They pay you in quips

“You’re too cute!” “Youre too…. mama-ey”

“You can tell I like the muffins, because I have chocolate on my face. Chocolate kisses!”

Jethro discovered some way of using the milk carton to cool his hands and was running around grabbing everyone: “Cold Hands!”

I was holding the toddler and the toddler started getting a little agitated, repeating “Gummieth!” over and over again, and I was like what? But he saw gummy bears on the counter and was actually saying very specifically and clearly what he wanted.

Both kids are becoming incredibly polite. You’ll give them things and they’ll always say thank you, even the one that’s really bad at pronouncing thank you right now. Sometimes they are both even very perfuse about it.

Of course, part of this is the toddler loves imitating right now. Even when you’re mad at him he’ll just lisp your scold right back at you. The toddler was playing with a play phone and was like “hello? Hello? Grandma?” So my wife called her mom up for him to talk to and her mom was treated to like 5 minutes of both kids yelling “hello” into the phone over and over. They also surrounded mama this week and were both doing kisses at her knees together for a full minute, just air kisses. I don’t think she was in danger but I might feel threatened if that happened to me

The toddler pulled all the jewelry out of the dresser and taste tested it

Wife likes to call the toddler “tiny destructo man”, for his resemblance to a tiny man. And we were talking about it and she’s like “and Jethro went through that period too” and Jethro piped up from the background “What pyramid?” all excited to hear about a possible adventure

He doesn’t like too much adventure though, for example, foods. We made him some rice chicken, which I had to bribe him to eat, he tried the rice by taking a single grain of rice, and biting it in half. But he gave us a thumbs up and afterwards said “yummy” though, so mission accomplished I guess.

Jethro has started using sign language again, clear back from his toddler days, because it helps him be even more emphatic that he is starving

Know This That Every Soul Is Free Performed by the Priesthood Choir at Temple Square in 2009 at General Conference

That’s the General Conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints btw but I didn’t want to burden you with a long header

1. “Yes I would like a burger and, um, 642 sides”

2. I’m like robin hood if he didn’t exist except when you imagined him

3. people tell me so many wonderful things

4. I mean not in like, an RPG stat mixer sense, I mean in the “I made a decision to practice piano before I was born” sense, but if God is letting us fudge our stats a bit arbitrarily I’m not complaining

5. D&C 101:77 According to the laws and constitution of the people, which I have suffered to be established, and should be maintained for the rights and protection of all flesh, according to just and holy principles;

78 That every man may act in doctrine and principle pertaining to futurity, according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment.

6. D&C 93:29 Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be.

30 All truth is independent in that sphere in which God has placed it, to act for itself, as all intelligence also; otherwise there is no existence.

31 Behold, here is the agency of man, and here is the condemnation of man; because that which was from the beginning is plainly manifest unto them, and they receive not the light.

32 And every man whose spirit receiveth not the light is under condemnation.

7. D&C 29:35 Behold, I gave unto him that he should be an agent unto himself; and I gave unto him commandment, but no temporal commandment gave I unto him, for my commandments are spiritual; they are not natural nor temporal, neither carnal nor sensual.

36 And it came to pass that Adam, being tempted of the devil—for, behold, the devil was before Adam, for he rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power; and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency;

37 And they were thrust down, and thus came the devil and his angels;

8. Woah like, totally bodacious heresy dude, tubular

9. The correct way for sin not to matter is “repent and rely on Christ’s Atonement”. That’s God’s way, not the Satanic counterfeit, where everyone just validates you and the law excuses you.

10. I guess in the age of technology this would probably be more like “Watching code compile”