0:00:00 - 0:00:21 About you. These words can mean different things in different situations. So we're going to start by giving some definitions, these definitions are not universal. I'm just specifying what I mean in this particular video, when I say these particular words. So by value, I mean, the objective net worth 0:00:21 - 0:00:49 of a person or a thing could be an idea really anything. But the important focal point of this is that we're, we are imagining these things in the sense of God's perspective. So subject to God's understanding of reality, his understanding of cost, his understanding of benefit, his understanding of the 0:00:49 - 0:01:17 scope of options. So that's what I mean when I say value in this presentation, what do I mean by attractiveness, the subjective net worth of a person or thing? So this differs in the perspective. So when we talk about attractiveness, we're considering the eye of the beholder, it requires fixing um a 0:01:17 - 0:01:39 definition of who we're speaking about. And that person's understanding of reality, that person's understanding of cost, that person's understanding of benefit and that person's understanding of the scope of options. And that could be a specific person or a class or category or set of people. The next 0:01:39 - 0:02:02 thing we have to understand is an idea that I don't think I've spoken about yet. Um And this is just the slightest taste of a whole lot of material that I have. But I'm just gonna give the, the very minimum here to establish baseline understanding of what we have to have before we move on. So let's call 0:02:02 - 0:02:27 this the human spectrum. This is a distribution. So it's a graph where each bar represents a sense of the number of people in a certain category. There's a whole lot of bars here. So there are a lot of categories, those categories are sorted in ascending order of quantity of light. And that is a um it's 0:02:27 - 0:02:51 not an ambiguous term, but it's a big term, but we're gonna roll with it just to keep things as brief as possible. So on the left hand side of this graph, there's a concentration of people who are opposite to God. This is the default position of humanity. The natural man is an enemy to God, not just 0:02:51 - 0:03:19 unlike him, but an enemy. So opposing him, on the right side, we have the quality of being similar to God. And as you can see, uh as you increase in the quantity of light and in similarity to God, there's a very sharp drop off in uh the number of people who fulfill that um criterion. Now, these are not 0:03:18 - 0:03:36 , this graph is not based on actual numbers. It's, it's just a, a sense of how things are. And in fact, I totally stole this off the internet for a completely unrelated thing, which probably has something to do with the dash line and the orange line, those don't concern us in this graph. So just ignore 0:03:36 - 0:04:02 them. I just do this for the sake of time. So this is how things go and you can slice and dice similarity to God into any specific facet. And what you'll see is that this particular distribution, which is called the Pareto distribution, it closely models real life in many different qualities of human 0:04:01 - 0:04:25 um differences. So, uh again, we're just touching on this briefly, we're gonna move right ahead, but this is an extraordinarily important idea and we'll come back to this in other presentations and other times. But to continue laying out the idea that I want to get to what we're gonna do is we're going 0:04:25 - 0:04:46 to adjust this, we're gonna double up the graph and then we're going to turn it sideways. And so here we see the graph turned on its side, it's doubled and I've reapplied all the same labels as before. If you're not following me, you can pause this. Here, you can go back and re-watch it, you can stare 0:04:46 - 0:05:05 at this for as long as you'd like, but this is what we're gonna move forward with. So now I'm going to introduce another term. The title of this slide is the mountain that's short for the mountain of the Lord. Now, I've referred to this idea before, but I don't think anybody was paying attention. I will 0:05:05 - 0:05:30 come back to it many, many times in the future. It's extraordinarily important. But for now, I just want you to uh see this simplified triangle and understand where we're coming from. And uh that's again, not the full picture, but we need this symbol, this framework to go forward in the point that I'm 0:05:30 - 0:05:51 going to try to make with this presentation. OK, let's go back to this idea of attractiveness. We have to define the person whose perspective is evaluating attractiveness. And remember that their understanding of reality, their understanding of cost, their understanding of benefit, their understanding 0:05:50 - 0:06:23 of the scope of options, all of those things absolutely determine how attractive a person or thing or an idea is to that person. So mixing these two frameworks, this is uh the next step in laying all of this out. So in this mountain of people, this hierarchy of people, there is going to be a difference 0:06:22 - 0:06:48 among them at each layer in their understanding of reality, cost benefit and scope of options in the book. Um The Glory of God is Intelligence. I laid this out using the word awareness and that's just fine. Um I talked a lot about awareness in that book. Um I didn't explicitly introduce this framework 0:06:47 - 0:07:14 of the mountain. Um But as time moves forward, we're gonna bring it all together. That's not the purpose of this presentation. So just staying on topic, um these things differ as you ascend reality, cost benefit scope of options, it changes. So it turns out that if you look at the spectrum of humanity 0:07:13 - 0:07:38 , there are a few people that are similar to God, there are more people who are less similar to God and almost everyone is almost completely opposite to God. Now, of course, this is all very simplified. Um But I'm just trying to get enough of this across that we can make the points needed here. So the 0:07:38 - 0:08:02 question becomes, how do these people differ in how they uh in their perspectives on those topics that we talked about their understanding of reality, cost benefit and scope of options, the higher you ascend, the more accurate those things are because like everything else about the person, it becomes 0:08:02 - 0:08:25 more similar to God. Now, this is just a two dimensional triangle. But if you were to really lay this out, the dimensions, just keep multiplying it's almost infinitely dimensional, which is very difficult to imagine what that would look like. But as a visual aid, the point is that as you go up, you get 0:08:24 - 0:08:49 more similar to God in whatever that facet is. So in terms of your understanding of reality, cost benefit and the scope of options, you could be more similar or less similar. And so what I wanna do is uh invite you to think about how these people would see each other in terms of attractiveness. Because 0:08:49 - 0:09:12 by our definition, in terms of value, the people at the top are much more valuable than the people at the bottom because they're much more similar to God. All right. So let's keep rolling. How do the people at the bottom rate? The people at the top, how do the people in the middle rate, the people at 0:09:12 - 0:09:41 the top and how do the people at the top rate, the people at the top in terms of attractiveness? So um the subjective value, the idea of value that each of these people have is not equally accurate. So that is where their attractive idea of attractiveness is going to come from and they're each going 0:09:41 - 0:10:04 to see things very differently, even though objectively, these are the most valuable people at the top. So there are many, many, many scriptures that define this. We don't actually have to guess at all. And of course, anyone who lives this way to any degree also has a whole mountain pun intended of evidence 0:10:03 - 0:10:25 from their own lives. So these are just a few scripture references. Again, this could be a subject of study that could occupy a lot of your time in searching these things out and that would be a fruitful thing to spend your time on, but I'm not going to do that today for you. So if you read in first 0:10:25 - 0:10:48 Nephi eight um You see this uh this description of the people who are definitely bottom triangle, people who were mocking and pointing the fingers. Uh That's the finger of scorn to the people that were uh coming to the tree of life and part partaking of the fruit. Those are people at the top of the mountain 0:10:47 - 0:11:14 . Um In fact, coming to the tree of life is a figure of climbing the mountain of the Lord. But again, trying to keep that brief, I'm just using that as a tool in making this point in person. E 519, we read that these sorts of people um, trample what's highly valuable under their feet, they set it at 0:11:14 - 0:11:38 not, they treat it like a worthless thing. In fact, in many cases, they treat it as worse than worthless. And if you needed any, um any more evidence of this, all you have to do is look at how people reacted to the mortal ministry of Jesus Christ. So the highest value was treated as something less than 0:11:37 - 0:12:04 nothing because people didn't just ignore him. Many people actively hated him and they were consumed with plotting how to kill him or make him look like a fool or whatever, other lesser objective. So, what about the people in the middle? How do they view the people at the top? Well, uh they see them 0:12:04 - 0:12:27 in a much more positive light than Alma. 36. Uh A Alma has uh a vision open where he sees God sitting on his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels and those angels and those are middle people were in the attitude of singing and praising their God. And Alma says my soul did long to be 0:12:27 - 0:12:54 there. And so, whereas we see um negative attractiveness from the bottom people towards the top people, middle people see top people as vaguely attractive. Now, the scripture that I just read might, might not seem like vaguely attractive to you because uh singing and praising is not exactly indifference 0:12:53 - 0:13:27 , right? But um it is in fact vague relative to the reaction at the next level. So what's that like? Um again, this is uh this one's a little harder to lay out with a simple scripture reference. Um a a good job on this would take a lot more time and I just don't have that right now. But um here's one 0:13:27 - 0:13:54 that, that at least gets you started in Moses 763. The Lord said unto Enoch then shalt thou and all thy city, meet them there. He's talking about this end times reunion between um the former Zion and the end times Zion. And we will receive them into our bosom and they shall see us and we will fall upon 0:13:54 - 0:14:22 their necks and they shall fall upon our necks and we will kiss each other. So it's kind of hard to describe um the longing before it's fulfilled and also the richness of the feelings of overflowing joy when this happens, um to lay this out adequately, we would have to talk about a lot of things like 0:14:21 - 0:14:44 the suffering that righteous people go through the faith they exercise in trying to make things on earth more like how they are in heaven and uh all sorts of other things. But there's that, that we're just gonna keep it brief right now. The point is that it's immense, the attractiveness is off the charts 0:14:44 - 0:15:08 . So a lot of times, at least in the sense of romantic relationships. Of course, I'm speaking in much broader terms in this presentation. But um you know, there's this scale of 1 to 10 that people use and the scale would go to like 1000 or something with, with uh talking about this, this topic, uh a 0:15:08 - 0:15:39 little closer to reality. The fact is that, um of course, the definition of what is a 123456789, 10 is very different. But the point is that the granularity, once you get to 10, you kind of have to insert another scale to properly differentiate all the v excuse me, all the variety inside of 10. And then 0:15:39 - 0:16:07 you'd have to to inject another scale to do that again and again and again, and you get this fractal um differentiation, not unlike the fact that there are uh seven days of creation in the seventh day, there are 7000 years in the 7th 1000 years, excuse me. In the 7000 years, there are seven seals. In 0:16:07 - 0:16:34 the seventh seal, there are seven trumpets, et cetera, the seven vials. And so it's this fractal branching that goes on and uh that's you'd have to do something like that to get an accurate scale of value in this uh with this idea. But um you know, that that's all just uh symbolic is not the right word 0:16:34 - 0:16:57 . Uh But, but we're just dealing in the space of ideas here. It's, it's qualitative, it's not quantitative. You, you really couldn't quantitate these ideas. They're qualitative and so to create a scale, you'd have to go into quite a bit of detail using examples of people and experiences. And uh that's 0:16:57 - 0:17:28 not the point of this presentation, but we'll talk about a whole lot of that and other materials. OK. So um as you're climbing the scale of value in who you become, what you're going to find is that um you will not, yeah, let's see, the space of examples will thin rapidly. So when your objective is to 0:17:27 - 0:17:54 become a halfway decent person in some specific facet, it's really not that hard to find someone who's better than you in a very specific facet. When you, I should say, as you improve along those specific facets, you're going to find it harder and harder to find examples of people, you know, who've done 0:17:54 - 0:18:32 it before you in that regard. And then as those specific facets come together as um more transcendent principles or more um converging higher order properties of people. It will be even harder to find examples of folks that you know, who have come before and then you're gonna lean harder and harder on 0:18:32 - 0:19:03 scriptural examples. Uh For example, or maybe people you've never met, but people that you can reach out to uh or know of digitally or in print through biographies or podcasts or videos or whatever. And it is completely possible to reach a point where even that won't suffice. And so all along the way 0:19:02 - 0:19:31 , these branching points, they become opportunities to choose whether you want to keep going or not. And here's the thing, you know, we, we kind of arbitrarily broke this into three categories. There are many more categories than three. It's a continuum, it's a continuous spectrum. Uh Although you can 0:19:31 - 0:19:56 split it apart with many different criteria and turn it into something categorical. Um It is in fact a continuous spectrum. And so at each branching point, you have the choice whether to keep improving or to stay where you are and the thing to remember. And the principal point of this presentation is 0:19:56 - 0:20:24 the following. You have to live according to the law of the kingdom you desire to inherit before you inherit it. In other words, if you have a rule that you will only become as good as the example of the person you meet who's better than you, which is admirable because most people don't even have that 0:20:23 - 0:20:56 don't live by that. Uh You will stop short of your potential. And a reason for that is because of what God's objective is with creation. And that is to give everyone the opportunity to grow as much as they choose. In order for that to happen, all things come through God, through faith and you just can't 0:20:56 - 0:21:24 exercise the same kind of faith when you have abundant examples right in front of you as you can when you don't. So once you meet one of these people, your ability to exercise the faith that you could before you did, it's done. It's, it's a completely different, much lesser test at that point, a much 0:21:24 - 0:21:57 lesser opportunity with every dispensation of blessing comes a revocation of faith because faith transforms into knowledge, through experience. So um because God orders all things such that you have the maximum opportunity to both exercise faith for yourself in your own progression and also enable faith 0:21:56 - 0:22:18 in all of the people around you that you can inspire towards improvement. You're not going to get these opportunities that are just sort of spoon fed improvement. Because you see a living example of what you could be right in front of your face, who's also a normal human being, you're not gonna get those 0:22:17 - 0:22:42 sorts of opportunities right off the bat because it's very important for you to have the opportunity through reason, through faith. Through observation and thinking to improve yourself beyond how you are before, you have such an obvious example. So that doesn't mean you won't have sufficient reasons 0:22:41 - 0:23:09 . There are always sufficient reasons, but the greatest blessings, they'll come to those who use faith to obtain and live a higher law with the least overwhelming reasons to do. So, that's very important to understand. And these are principles that are true across the board, not just with this very specific 0:23:08 - 0:23:38 uh example that I'm sharing with you right now, but you'll see this is true across the board. So what principles can we derive out of this example? Well, I promise you that the more you become like God, the more often you will be despised more fully by more people. And all of those words are very intentional 0:23:37 - 0:24:04 . So if you happen to think that using the word despised, there is exaggerative one, you should read your scriptures more often. And two, you should follow the example of Jesus more often because the more often you act like Jesus did, the more often people will treat you like they treated him. Second 0:24:03 - 0:24:26 , the more you become like God. And this is the important one. This is actually the whole reason I made this presentation, the more you become like God, the higher the quality of the people who are attracted to you. Now again, just to be clear when I say attracted, I'm not meaning that in any narrow 0:24:26 - 0:24:48 sense of the word. So in all with all people and all things in God's creation, you will see the principles that I've laid out in this video play out, you'll see this in romantic relationships, which is probably where most people's minds will go when you talk about these sorts of ideas. But you'll also 0:24:48 - 0:25:15 see them play out in family dynamics, in friendships and even in work scenarios, you will find this to be true in everything. And what this means is when you're tempted, when you see the opposition, when you see this, this uh principle playing out that the more you become like God, the more often you're 0:25:15 - 0:25:41 despised more fully by more people, you'll be tempted to pull back, you'll be tempted to turn away. You'll be tempted to think what's the point of fighting against this flood? I'm walking upstream, whatever other metaphor you want to use? Why, why should I walk into this when it's obviously harder? Uh 0:25:40 - 0:26:06 And it is harder in a sense, in another sense, it's actually the easiest way you could possibly go, but we'll save that for a different time. So why keep pushing against it? Well, the reason is because what you're after does not live at the bottom of the mountain, the people you want to be with and the 0:26:06 - 0:26:39 people you want to be like and all the things that are desirable in life. They are all concentrated at the top of the pyramid. And so in all things. What you'll find is that while there is a narrowing as you go up, the commensurate richness that, that concentrates there, it's more than worth it, more 0:26:39 - 0:27:11 than makes up for the thinning that happens numerically as you ascend. And in all things, you'll see a much faster rate of growth in the value as you ascend than you do in the drop of people as you ascend. Remember at the very top of the pyramid, there is only one being and that's God specifically, there 0:27:11 - 0:27:51 is the Father and the Sun and the Holy ghost. So there's three and yet, in spite of the fact that there is one God, it is absolutely worth any price to stand there with him. That, that, that worthwhile character is absolutely in play all the way up. There's no point in the mountain where it's not worth 0:27:51 - 0:28:19 it. It's always more than worth it. The essence of being more than worth it is inseparable from God. Any time you follow Him, you will find that the reward for doing so to put it in the plainest language is much greater than the cost. And unfortunately, people shirk away from the use of that word, even 0:28:19 - 0:28:44 though it is a precise Greek word that's used very often, for example, by Paul in the New Testament. Um I it's, it's critical to understanding covenants, for example, this idea of a reward that's greater than the cost. But uh again, topic for another day. But the point is that there's absolutely no reason 0:28:44 - 0:29:11 to shy away from or hold back in any way from being the absolute best person, you know how to be right now. It's absolutely the, the most rational thing that you could do. So in conclusion, I'll share these two scriptures. Uh This first one is from Hebrews 12 1. Wherefore seeing, we also are compassed 0:29:11 - 0:29:39 about or surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. Let us lay aside every weight and the sin which doth so easily beset us and let us run with patience, the race that is set before us. So I'm giving you a picture of what this race is. It's to ascend the mountain to be the best person you can be. And 0:29:39 - 0:30:06 this cloud of witnesses that word witness um is, is martyr. It's uh the, the, the base form of this word. It's the same exact word uh as to be a martyr. It means to demonstrate, it's also translated into the word testimony. But what Paul is saying here is that we are surrounded, there is a pile of demonstrations 0:30:05 - 0:30:33 of how to be like God. And because that is so obvious, it's made so obvious to us, we have every reason to set aside the things that weigh us down the sins that take us off of the path to God that bring us down the mountain or prevent us from going up in the first place. And not just walk but run the 0:30:33 - 0:30:58 race. Uh, I'll skip the discussion of patients for today. It doesn't mean what people think it means. Alma. 715. Yeah, I say unto you come and fear not and lay aside every sin. Very similar idea which easily Doth beset you which Doth bind you down to destruction. Yeah. Come and go forth and show unto 0:30:57 - 0:31:20 your God that you are willing to repent of your sins. Now, this idea of destruction, of undoing of perishing, perish is a very rich word. You should look it up um of negative economists uh ridiculously talk about negative growth and it's obviously it's not growth, right? But negative growth, that's what 0:31:20 - 0:31:45 destruction is perishing. It's moving the other way, it's moving down the mountain and uh here in Alma, it's, it's uh he's, he's encouraging us to not fear and fear is one of many things that will keep you from going up. In this case, what I've addressed here is this fear that somehow by becoming less 0:31:45 - 0:32:13 attractive in the minds of the crowds, you are actually becoming less valuable. But the opposite is the case. You cannot become more valuable without becoming less attractive in the eyes of the crowds. But as you become more valuable, you will absolutely become more attractive to those people who are 0:32:13 - 0:32:47 more valuable and that relationship will absolutely turn to your blessing. So we have every reason to be the best person we can be right. Now and when you start that, you start that by freely let letting go or forsaking your sins, which is uh sin means to do less than your best. So I encourage you to 0:32:47 - 0:33:08 get on that and to not be afraid of what will absolutely happen, which is that the crowds of people will find you less attractive as you grow in value. But in God's eyes and in the eyes of all those who are like Him, you will grow in attractiveness as you grow in value.