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The Church of Jesus Christ of Latterday Saints has been pushing very hard for the use of the full name and even renamed the Tabernacle Choir At Temple Square to reflect that but probably still guards the trademark/Ip "LDS" if there's some way to do so. Even so, I really find it hard to believe that any three letter acronym is only used by one organization, business, or group.
I have 2 members of the church of latter day saints in my gaming group. I asked them what the preferred short version was, as I felt "member of the church of latter day saints" was quite a mouthful. I got effectively no answer
 
Well, naturally the preferred short terms would be "The Church of Jesus Christ" , "The Church" , and "Saints" but that ain't happenin' for obvious reasons :p
 
Church of Latter Day Saints aka Mormons are the only ones I know who use that acronym

It's region-blocked for me too, and I'm too lazy to turn on my VPN
I turned on VPN and connected from the Netherlands and it's blocked there too. I'm too lazy to find out where it might not be blocked.
 
Reminds me of...




Satirical UK news show but the guest, Claire Rayner (who was an 'advice/moral' journalist in UK newspapers), thinks its a real interview for those not aware of the format of the show. This show (Brass Eye) really made a lot of enemies in the media and celebrity-dom so when they did a special of pedophiles, which was brilliant, the amount of faux outrage from politicians and right-wing rags like the Daily Mail was ridiculous.

EDIT: if trying to watch it on a VPN then it's a UK broadcast and I'm in the UK so maybe that will help? Don't want to oversell it though; it is only a funny clip at the end of the day.

I misread it as being blocked by LSD, made me wonder if someone had dosed my oatmeal.
 
I have 2 members of the church of latter day saints in my gaming group. I asked them what the preferred short version was, as I felt "member of the church of latter day saints" was quite a mouthful. I got effectively no answer
Elders, or Mormon elders
 
Elders, or Mormon elders
i am not an expert, but I believe an elder is a specific title for a person in the church who has been deemed worthy through some process. Not everyone is automatically an elder, as I believe women cannot be elders. In addition, not every male is (one of my brothers in law is mormon, though not an elder I believe), though it is quite common relatively speaking.
 
i am not an expert, but I believe an elder is a specific title for a person in the church who has been deemed worthy through some process. Not everyone is automatically an elder, as I believe women cannot be elders. In addition, not every male is (one of my brothers in law is mormon, though not an elder I believe), though it is quite common relatively speaking.
Yeah, sort of... the short answer is that any male in the church who has done or is doing his mission is an elder and a woman is a sister. In general, they just call themselves Mormons.

Long answer... Elders are men who are on their mission and technically they are just returned missionaries after they get back, but the term elder is still widely used. As for Mormon... that term is controversial, but if they don't wince when you say it, then you are probably good to use it. Missions are to be completed by ALL men in the church out of high school and girls only if they want to... girls are instead expected to get married and start popping out kids... not kidding... Women can be called Sisters regardless of mission status.
 
Long answer... Elders are men who are on their mission and technically they are just returned missionaries after they get back, but the term elder is still widely used. As for Mormon... that term is controversial, but if they don't wince when you say it, then you are probably good to use it.
ya, i could call both of them elders, but that would also seem a little odd, as I am actually their elder in the chronological sense. and as they brought up the "trying to get away from the term Mormon", I was hoping they had an alternative.

english needs to move faster.
 
ya, i could call both of them elders, but that would also seem a little odd, as I am actually their elder in the chronological sense. and as they brought up the "trying to get away from the term Mormon", I was hoping they had an alternative.

english needs to move faster.
Not really afik. The church isn't big on labels and iconography. You could try calling them LDS. Informally among each other, they are usually brother, sister, or saint. Formally, they are... long winded versions as you mentioned.

Honestly, at this point, if they don't want to give you an informal, just go with Mormon and let them know it's for ease of use and not offence. It's kind of on them to tell you another term that would be suitable for their standards at this point. My Mormon half of the family use the term Mormon informally with no stigma.
 
Obi-Wan and Leia in that video image look like they're on a little too much LDS.

Why yes, that is a deep-cut Star Trek IV joke.
 
Elders, or Mormon elders
"Elder" is the primary office in the higher priesthood. The lower priesthood has deacons, teachers, priests, and bishops. The lower priesthood is generally first conferred at the age of twelve. "Bishop" is actually restricted to the descendants of Aaron but a high priest can hold the office if no descendants of Aaron are available, as a result, as far as I know all Bishops are high priests. Most active adult males and many inactive will have the office of elder. Some callings require a High Priest in which case the individual receiving the calling is ordained to the office of high priest.
 
"Elder" is the primary office in the higher priesthood. The lower priesthood has deacons, teachers, priests, and bishops. The lower priesthood is generally first conferred at the age of twelve. "Bishop" is actually restricted to the descendants of Aaron but a high priest can hold the office if no descendants of Aaron are available, as a result, as far as I know all Bishops are high priests. Most active adult males and many inactive will have the office of elder. Some callings require a High Priest in which case the individual receiving the calling is ordained to the office of high priest.
Not the case with the Mormons I know. All the missionaries have "Elder NAME" on their name tags. for example... Elder Jones.

Your calling is based upon what the church assigns but its applicable to all members. my father in law was a bishop of a ward because his calling made him so. He worked with the YSA part, the Young Adults. When his calling ended, so did his title. Those in the Actual Temples, and not the churches or wards have different titles and callings, however.

Mormons work differently than what is normal. An Elder in another religion is nothing like the Elders of Mormonism.
 
Yes and no, I mean, you could argue that Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica are cousins and the Latter had a Mormon father in Glen Larson. So it's still in the family. :tongue:
It's like that Wikipedia game where you have to navigate hyperlinks from a random article to get to Hitler.
And now I've satisfied Godwin's Law.
 
It's like that Wikipedia game where you have to navigate hyperlinks from a random article to get to Hitler.
And now I've satisfied Godwin's Law.
TBH, I always kind of associated the two. Similar style, similar designs, etc... Both filled my childhood toybox and I didn't know the difference between the wo franchises until I was much older.
These and the Last Starfighter made up my 80s childhood. Star Trek too, but not the same way. (Toys)
 
Did Lucsfilm ever try to sue Battlestar Galactica?

They sued Universal and Glen Larson Productions. Howard Kazanjian spells out the reasons for the suit in his biography by the late J.W. Rinzler.

1) Lucas already had a beef with Universal -first for hacking several minutes out of American Graffiti, then trying to dump it as a TV movie. His contract called for the studio to have first dibs on his next project (which turned out to be Star Wars). When he proposed the film to Universal the laughed him off the lot. So not only did they not have any interest in the film, but Lucas still owed them another movie (which turned out to be More American Graffiti) but then they tried to ride his coattails.

2) At first, Lucasfilm was cooperative with Larson, who agreed to lease ILM's special effects equipment for Battlestar Galactica. But there were conditions:

  • The spaceships and blaster shots weren't supposed to look similar to the ones in Star Wars. The original Colonial Viper was going to look like the fighters used in Buck Rogers, but at the last minute Larson had them changed into 3-winged X-wings. The blasters deliberately copied Star Wars' tracer round look, too.
  • The equipment had to be returned before ILM started work on "Star Wars 2" by late 1978. Larson hemmed and hawed about returning it.
  • Battlestar Galactica would NOT be released in theaters. Larson/Universal reneged on that one, too.
This led to several years of bad blood between Fox/Lucasfilm and Universal/Larson. Tom Selleck was all set to play Indiana Jones, but he was under contract to do Magnum PI (a Glen Larson production) and while Lucasfilm was willing to shoot around Selleck's schedule (both the TV show and part of Raiders of the Lost Ark were shot in Hawaii), Larson refused. A few years later, the parties settled.

From The Making of Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back:

On November 18, 1983, an Agreement for Settlement of Lawsuit and Release was agreed upon and, on March 5, 1984, a $225,000 settlement was paid to Twentieth Century–Fox.

So the real winner in all of this was Harrison Ford.

Glen Larson was despised in the TV and movie business for good reason. He was a shameless rip-off artist who piggybacked on others to the point where his nickname was "Glen Larceny". When Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid was a big hit, Larson made Alias Smith and Jones -a blatant rip-off. When Smokey and the Bandit and Every Which Way But Loose were big, he made BJ and the Bear. Coogan's Bluff was cribbed for McCloud. James Garner called him a thief and confronted him not only for plagiarizing The Rockford Files for his own show Switch, but for physically stealing a script from Garner's desk at Universal. Larson responded by asking Garner to guest star on Switch and Garner punched him hard enough to knock him through the side of his trailer.
 
To this day, The Last Starfighter is my favourite Star Wars film.

I think the Gunstar is one of the best star fighter designs - even if you disregard the prototype blossom pattern.
  • Tail stander without looking like a V2 - saves weight on aerodynamic surfaces or anti-gravity. Gimballed engines for the win!
  • Big - more plausibly so than a TIE fighter at least.
  • Two crew - although at least none of the crew were a goose.
  • Weapons on a turret - shoot one way, thrust in another.
Finally, rendered on a fecking Cray. None of your penny-ante Silicon Graphics kit here. The X-MP was a supercomputer for real men. It wasn't until the RealityEngine (Crimson, Onyx) came out 10 years later that SGI made a machine that caught up with it.
Ok, an Onyx workstation was about 1/50 of the price of a Cray, but who's counting?
 
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