Monthly Archives: November 2008
If your heart is turned …
Before the fall, Eve was a “help meet” to Adam. The term means a “companion equal.” While the account is figurative as far as humanity is concerned, it is also instructive as to what goes on in an idealized or perfect world. In such a world, women are equal companions to men and are not ruled over or presided over by men. That is the celestial law that we lost.
Thanksgiving Open Thread
This Thanksgiving, what things cause you to be thankful – that are somewhat unique and personal? I am thankful for many things, but there are some that stand out – specifically because they are mine and mine alone. They are shared, perhaps, in general with some others, but not all have been blessed in quite the same way.
Thanksgiving or Obedience: Which one will you pick?
Is that a trick question? Giving thanks and being obedient hardly seem mutually exclusive. But as I re-examined a New Testament vignette that’s oft-cited this time of year, that message stuck out like a sore thumb—though I had never noticed it before. The story of the ten lepers starts with: And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, “Jesus,...
got guns?
While the various media outlets speculate about the possibility of a run on the banks in our precarious economic situation, I’m surprised we haven’t yet seen any news reports about the run that’s already underway. I’m talking about the run on gun shops that’s going on as we speak. And no, I am not joking.
Twilight and “The Great Mormon Novel”
Many consider The Power and the Glory by Graham Greene to be the quintessential Great Catholic Novel: a book written about faith and doubt with great courage. So far, no one has written what one would call “The Great Mormon Novel.”
The Problem of History – First a Fake Example
In my past posts I discussed the impossibility of knowing what really happened in history as well as the problem that, believe or disbelieve, we all have much riding on how Mormon history is interpreted. Either way, it’s your personal religion at stake. The problem with me saying that is that, well, we all know it’s true — for other people. But due to the narrative fallacy, we think we’re the exception not the rule. To prove that, at times, we’re all the rule, I am forced to start with a fake example because it is the only way...
Little Lord Jesus, No Crying He Makes
Sometimes, I have to say to my creedal Christian friends, in all sincerity: We really do worship a different Jesus than you do. I mention sometimes to my family and friends my frustration over certain song lyrics and how they influence how we view Jesus, his mortality and His perfection. I realize it bothers my wife that I obsess over two particular phrases, from two particular songs, but they represent to me much of what is wrong (even “abominable”) about the perceptions and teachings that have come down to us through the ages. These phrases are: “Little Lord Jesus,...
Examining the Church’s Political Neutrality
neu-tral /ˈnutrəl, ˈnyu-/ Show Spelled Pronunciation -adjective: not taking part or giving assistance in a dispute or war between others. (Random House Dictionary.) * * * * * Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law. -Jesus (Matt. 10:34-35.) Although much, probably too much, has already been said about the Church’s endorsement of Proposition 8 in California,...
“Mormon Fundamentalists” on Law & Order
Did anyone watch Law & Order last night on NBC? If you didn’t, you missed an interesting parody based on the events that transpired in Texas with the FLDS Church. Instead of the FLDS Church it was The Church of the Path. Today’s guest post is by The Captain.
Bathos — sometimes the worst of the false spirits
The first talk of the Priesthood session reminded me of a man I met on my mission. His wife had died and he told us of all the things he had done in worship and prayer to seek God’s help. He complained of how he had come up so empty. The list he gave us consisted of various forms of emotionalism. He was Catholic, but obviously had gone somewhere else for comfort (and, bless his heart, seemed to be blaming his priest). I was struck by how he was substituting emotional processes for spiritual ones. I have seen that...
This Won’t Make It Past Correlation!
Who wrote this, and why wouldn’t the Correlation Committee allow it to be published today? Every teacher is obligated by his responsibility to others to become a scholar in the gospel.
Persecution Complex
Today’s guest post is from The Captain. The urban dictionary defines the term persecution complex as follows: One of the top fifteen factors that can transform a reasonable, amiable, friendly person with reasonable, friendly beliefs and ideas into a ranting, screaming, judgmental zealot with poisonous, nauseating, self-righteous dreck for beliefs.
History as Narrative Fallacy aka What Type of Apologist Are You?
“History is opaque. You see what comes out, not the script that produces events, the generator of history. There is a fundamental incompleteness in your grasp of such events, since you do not see what’s inside the box, how the mechanisms work. …the minds of the gods cannot be read just by witnessing their deeds. You are very likely to be fooled about their intentions.” (The Black Swan, P. 8 ) In a previous post I discussed the realities of The Black Swan, those improbable events that rule our lives but we pretend don’t and can’t happen. I also discussed how...
Virtual RS/PH #21: The Second Coming & The Millenium
To the teachers out there, sorry if this one is coming a day late and a dollar short. Our ward is a month behind on these due to Stake & Ward Conferences. Mea culpa. Sometimes we forget that the early restored church focused a lot on the millenium, which many of them believed was imminent. As if they didn’t have enough stress!
Healing the Waters of the Dead Sea
The Relief Society teacher was teaching the lesson on the signs of the Second Coming, and she was writing these events on the board as fast as we sisters could shout them out. “Wars,” “Rumors of wars,” “Pestilence,” “Earthquakes,” she wrote. Then came an unusual one: “The waters of the Dead Sea will be healed.”
The Biology of Irrationality
In my previous post, I discussed my introduction to the science behind the rationality problems all humans suffer from. I later found another book, this one called Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother’s Boyfriend, that introduced me to the biology behind our emotional – and sometimes irrational — thinking. This time, I’m going to mostly just go with quotes from the book, as they say it all:
The New Mormon Brand
Today’s post is by Wade Nelson. THE NEW MORMON BRAND In my view the Prop 8 campaign in California that just ended has turned out to be a fiasco for the Church. I had assumed and hoped it would fail but we have all lost by winning. This post is not about the issue of same sex marriage but expresses my view that the Church leaders have shot themselves and all of us in the foot. Quite apart from the astoundingly divisive nature of the effort it has created a new toxic image of the Church that is going...
What is a Black Swan? A Book Review
In my last post I talked about how God helped me develop a more realistic, though uncomfortable, world view that excluded faith in myself. As it turns out, there is scientific backing for this view. The first book that introduced me to that science is called The Black Swan: The Impact of the Highly Improbable by Nassim Nicholas Taleb (from here on I’ll abbreviate NNT).
Should we have listened to BH Roberts?
BH Roberts predicted that if church leaders did not address the historical problems of church origins and possible anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, these problems would eventually undermine “the faith of the Youth of the Church.