Humility

Growing up, I could never understand why people thought creationism and evolution were separate, mutually exclusive concepts. I didn't understand where religious people got their basis for this stance, as the Bible is far from clear on how creation occurred, uses allegory quite often, and could just be a misinterpretation of what Moses saw. More importantly, I couldn't figure out why scientific people were so unwilling to consider the concept of some higher power, since science itself does not discredit this. Then, as I grew older, I started to realize that there was no such thing as an atheist. At least, not in the way many atheists like to think.

To explain this point further, I'm going to give a little example. I once encountered a person who was wearing a button that said, "If atheism is a religion, then bald is a hair color." I thought this was a little odd, since, in fact, the definition of atheism is skepticism or lack of belief in a god and not in religion. I realize to most people, it's the same thing, but it isn't. Even dictionary.com defines religion as "a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe..."* and "a specific fundamental set of beliefs and practices generally agreed upon by a number of persons or sects." Belief in a god is not a requirement to have a religion. So, yes, in fact, atheism is a religion, because its based on the principles of 'free thought' and skepticism and, in most cases, science.

Now, let me explain my earlier point of there being no true atheists (again, using the 'bald is a hair color' definition of the word). I've met a lot of atheists. I spend a lot of time with them. I think its tough to find an area of study with more atheists than mine. That being said, I think that, among theists, I have some of the more unique views. I have never met an atheist who, given an argument they haven't heard before, actually pauses and thinks about it (or, better yet, comes back later after much thought), tests it with everything they know, and then responds. Every single one has always replied with something dogmatic. I realize, to them, their answer is probably completely rational and logical. But to me, my answer is completely rational, and their answer is one sided. I don't believe in anything blindly. My religious belief is not illogical. I do not believe in something that goes against logic because God is 'mysterious' or some such thing. Who are they to assume that my logic is wrong, and their logic right? Who am I to assume the inverse? This very construction of logic is a person's religion; it is the basis and foundation of what they believe, and very few things can change that.

So why do so many 'open minded' atheists outright deny the opinions of other people? Why do so many outright religious 'nuts' deny the opinion of science? Well, for one, there's biology against us. The last time I went to the Science Museum of MN, there was an exhibit on child development. Among the items in the exhibit was a rather fascinating description of the way a brain grows. (Keep in mind at this point that I'm no neuroscientist, and am going to paraphrase heavily due to imperfect memory.) It turns out, that when we are born, there are a ton of little 'paths' between our neurons. When we make an observation, or need to solve a problem, a rather roundabout path is taken from point A to B. As we grow and continue to make observations, unused paths actually go away. This allows the signal from A to B to travel a much straighter path, making the thought faster. This change allows for the development of experience, a way to react to known situations faster and more effectively. However, it also decreases the ability to effectively encounter new situations. New, unfamiliar thoughts are actually more difficult to have. Thus, our thoughts deteriorate into the most probable state. It takes genuine effort to have a new thought. It becomes increasingly difficult to see things from another perspective. Open-mindedness is not biologically easy.

So, some people reading this may assume that I'm telling people to constantly put forth the effort to see everyone's point of view, to always challenge their own with every new thought or idea they encounter. While, ideally, that would be a good thing, there is simply not enough time to do this. The more we learn, the more we have to test new ideas against, which means reconciliation takes longer. If we truly tried to be open-minded, we would soon run out of time to do anything else.

My real point is this: you are not open-minded. Do not assume someone is crazy, or irrational just because they don't make sense to you. They are not crazy; they simply have a different religion than you. If a person's beliefs or behaviors concern you greatly (either in a good way or a bad way), then perhaps you should talk to that person, try to see things from their point of view. It will require genuine effort and will, however. Even if you fail, that doesn't mean they are wrong. We, as a political, religious and economic world need to stop disrespecting those who think differently from us. Christians are not crazy. Mormons are not crazy. Muslims are not crazy. Atheists are not crazy. Democrats are not crazy. Republicans are not crazy. Socialists are not crazy. Libertarians are not crazy. Respect people, no matter what they believe, because they could always end up being right. If you can find the balance of respecting others while standing up for what you believe, I think you'll end up much happier and more successful. This is, after all, true humility, and the meek shall inherit the earth.

*[ The first definition mentioned does actually go on to mention gods; however, it specifically says "especially..." meaning that it can exist without the aftmentioned content.]

Effective Omnipotence, and Einstein's Argument

So, first I want to apologize for taking so long to post again. To be frank, I don't really have a good reason for it. I have some bad ones, though, and sure enough, I'm going to attempt to use them to justify my actions. The break started with a good reason: I was having difficulty writing anything (or, in my case mentally writing anything, since I usually write things in my head before actually giving them physical form) that wasn't absurdly verbose. I had that list of topics I wanted to write about, but it seemed like every time I started to brain-write one, I'd find that I was actually writing about all of them at once... and it was getting too much for my poor consciousness to handle. So I started making notes here and there, hoping I would eventually find a way to break them up. After a while of that absolutely NOT working, I let my attention slide a bit.

So, several weeks and excuses later, I decided I'm going to do something completely unusual for me. I'm going to just sit here, typing away on my lovely keyboard, and see what happens. I'm not even going to go back and check what I've written (well, okay, that's a lie... but I'll try to minimize second-thinking). Stream of consciousness for the win, right?

There's a rather ironic problem with certain theological perspectives out there. I think most people will understand why its ironic fairly quickly. You see, the problem with many theological arguments (both for and against it) is that they assume that God is omnipotent. Now, before anyone accuses me of blasphemy for saying He isn't, read on. If, after you've read everything, you still want to, feel free.

In what I'm going to coin 'general culture' (a decidedly nonsense word), omnipotent means all powerful, capable of doing anything. That seems like a good definition of God's power, at very first glance, but it really isn't. In fact, God is absolutely not omnipotent. He can't be, if mortal logic has any merit at all (and, for sanity's sake, I'm going to assume it does).

Alright, so why can't he be? Well, for starters, there's the famous argument of, if God is all-powerful, why is there pain? Why is there suffering? Why is there sin? At this point, I immediately think something like, "well, of COURSE there's pain! People still have agency! They can still make bad choices!" Okay, but... why? Not much harder to answer that one, either: "because we learn through our mistakes; the ability to make decisions -- and be aware of their consequences -- is literally what makes us sentient!"

Here's where Socrates starts to get annoying. If God can do absolutely anything (and, at this point, you may actually have to change your definition of omnipotent), why can't he just make us perfect, make us as happy as is possible (wait, possibility and omnipotence? Oh man... headache), make us already know all those consequences, give us the respect we need, and have the whole thing be done?

Well, see, as far as I can determine, there isn't an answer to that. The Socratic method just won out over omnipotence. Or did it? At this point, I'm going to coin another nonsense term, "effective omnipotence." It is being defined, for the purpose of distinguishing between it and true omnipotence, as the ability to do everything possible. Accepting such a clause requires the acceptance of several prerequisites. One, that there are actually laws that govern the universe (or, if not that, then whatever indefinable hypersphere it resides in). Two, that absolutely nothing has EVER existed or ever WILL exist that could break these laws. I may expound upon that last one in a later post, but for now, I'm going to assume most people can understand why that is.

A second reason is (and I doubt this will be news to many people at all) He's said he isn't. I mean, okay, He never actually came out and said the words "I am not omnipotent," but I suspect that's because he expects us to be able to figure out that he means effectively omnipotent. And that, he is. However, there are several obvious things He cannot do, by his own admission:

• He cannot, to any extent, rescind or reduce the agency of man. I actually addressed this in an earlier post. The power of the priesthood (God's power, and thus the effectively omnipotent power) cannot be used to make people do things. Even the intent to do so is evil, but the task itself is impossible. (DC 121)
• He cannot actually, really, create anything. He doesn't state, and may not be able to explain, what 'creation' actually means. What we define as the basic building blocks of matter/energy may not be truly elemental, but at some point, things can no longer be reduced anymore. This applies to intelligence (DC 93:29) and all matter (in its most elemental state). (I know this is explicitly stated somewhere, but I cannot remember or find where. It can be easily inferred from Abraham chapter 4, however.)
• He cannot violate a covenant. It is unclear whether this is actually an impossibility, or an effective impossibility (yes, now I'm just being mean), but I'm going to assume its actually impossible.

Alright, so I'm hoping at this point people agree with me; at least, in the LDS faith, God is not omnipotent. If I've failed to make that point, express your concern in the comments, and I will try to address it later. More importantly, however, giving these very slight limitations to God's power actually validates the entirety of the doctrine. There is suffering because God can't force us to do things, even if he wanted to, and he can't give us the knowledge of good and evil, unless we make mistakes. Adam had to fall, he had to make a mistake, because without making a choice, he would have never learned of consequences. This is the counter argument to the argument against sin.

Now I'm going to make a slightly non-sequitur transition to Einstein. It'll make sense shortly, I promise.

 A relatively common Deist argument (for those unfamiliar with the term, a Deist is someone who believes in a God, but in general has no specific beliefs beyond that), is the very argument that led Einstein, once an atheist, to become a Deist. The argument lies in the problem of a beginning. Before Einsteins theories of relativity, it was assumed the universe always existed (this idea always had some problems, primarily the issue of starlight). While slightly difficult for some people to comprehend, something never beginning is actually very science-friendly. With relativity, however, it was shown that the Universe's history could be tracked back to a singular convergence -- the Big Bang.

The issue with the Big Bang, of course, is what started it? It's a common, easy to make argument to assume that God did. Critics place this argument into the "God's in the Gaps" theological school, and thus disregard it. And its easy enough to disregard in standard Christian theology. However, LDS theology is peculiar, and rather distinct. While it is not stressed or even, really, taught, it is well known that Joseph Smith said that God was once a Man, that the whole creation cycle has happened before, and that via apotheosis,  a select few will continue the cycle, presumably in other Universes on their own.

Now, while the specifics of the whole process are decidedly unclear, and it seems the leadership of the church intends to keep it that way, and focus on more 'standard' doctrine (line upon line, after all), the basis already known is enough. "One Eternal Round," lyrics from "If You Could Hie To Kolob," could not better describe the notion that science is most comfortable with.

See, the critics who dismiss the Deist argument, say that, if an eternal God created the universe, but the universe had a beginning, what happened before then? And who created God? There are counter arguments, of course, but it boils down to them saying (and rightly so, I believe) that such an argument answers one paradox with another. However, if Gods have been creating universes and other Gods forever back through time, and will for ever forward in time, there is no paradox; this is already accepted scientific canon.

Upcoming Blog Posts

This is mostly for reminding myself about what I want to write:

The Love Conspiracy: This is, quite possibly, the culmination point of this blog. The Love Conspiracy addresses both ancient and modern issues with emotion, sexuality, and love. It is the sum total of my original theory on the fallacy of the physical, the decay of marriage, homosexuality and heterosexuality and the decay of art and the expression of love.

Unbridled Change, the path to Stagnation?

Brainwashing and Old Dogs - Why regular scripture study and church attendance isn't brainwashing, in terms of neuroscience.

The Best Path - an argument for why sometimes good enough just isn't good enough.

Multidisciplinary Action - logic and supporting evidence that science alone cannot possibly explain everything, nor can theology.

Adventures in Allegory - a possible explanation for why scripture can seem so confusing, and how you write for everyone.

Righteous Anger - What is it, really? What is its purpose?

Gap Theology, the Antithesis of - Why God isn't just in the gaps.

Patriarchal Order

The Sunday school lesson today was on 1st Corinthians, chapters 11-16. For those of you who don't know (which is probably most of you), Corinthians is my favorite book in the New Testament, specifically chapter 15.

The lesson started off with a discussion on patriarchal order, and the relationship between man and wife. This particular belief of the church is often under attack, and is a source of dissension among investigators. Being male, however, I never put much thought into why it was in place, what it really means, etc, until recently.

That being said, it has recently become an important issue for me to understand, for reasons some of you may know. As such, I have put a decent amount of time and study into the subject.

The teacher brought one particular thing out very well; he stated that many people confuse a patriarchal order with a patriarchal society. In the latter, men are superior, or dominant over women; there is no equality. The church's order is not, by any means, intended to be that. Thinking that the church's interpretation of patriarchal order is the same as the world's is a severe mistake.

Before I go into specific doctrine, I'm going to start with a little anecdotal evidence; sometimes the best kind, when dealing with a social organization. If you were to go to any priesthood meeting where married men are prominent, I all but promise you that at some point in the meeting, the instructor will make a comment about how his wife is a better person than he is. Taking that farther, if you were to ask any married, priesthood holding member if he thought his wife was a better person than him, he would say yes. I am not kidding; we all think that women are more worthy than us. This should be fairly obvious; demographic data consistently shows that crime rate among men is much higher than women. I don't even need to cite sources, because a quick google search returns hundreds of applicable results.

Now for something a little more concrete.

Since the lesson was on Paul's first letter to the saints in Corinth, we'll start there. There are a couple key verses. The first is establishing the order, which is verse three in chapter eleven, "...the head of every man is Christ: and the head of the woman is the man: and the head of Christ is God." (11:3) this states, quite simply, that the Patriarchal Order is really just that, an order. More importantly, while it doesn't state it explicitly, modern revelation explains that this order only holds true while the man is acting in righteousness. This verse says that implicitly, because if the man is not acting in righteousness, then his head is not Christ, so the order is broken.

So, now the question is whether this order somehow grants men a high rank, or dominion over women. "...neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord." (11:11) This verse, along with a plethora of modern phrases from presidents and apostles of the church, make it quite clear that the answer is a resounding "No!" In fact, practicing unrighteous dominion is a serious sin. Just to make it even clearer, in the third official declaration of the church, The Family: A Proclamation to the World, it says, "fathers and mothers are obligated to help one another as equal partners."

For me, the next question I would ask at this point would be (and has been), if man and woman are equal, what is the point of the patriarchal order? While there may well be a concise answer to this already, I have been unable to find it, so what follows is my speculation.

It is well known and well documented in the church that without the priesthood, the powers, and blessings, of heaven are completely inaccessible. "The rights and powers of the priesthood are inseparably connected with the powers of heaven, and [the] powers of heaven cannot be controlled nor handled only upon the principles of righteousness" (D&C 121:36)* This means that just following the commandments isn't good enough: there must needs be some force or power to get us there. This power is the the Holy Priesthood, after the Order of the Son of God. This was later renamed the Melchizedek Priesthood. The original name has a very important meaning, however; it quite clearly specifies that the priesthood functions via order. This is really no surprise, as the Lord's "house is a house of order." (D&C 132:8)

It is also true that a man cannot have full and eternal access to His priesthood without being married, and a woman cannot have access to the blessings of the priesthood without a husband. Furthermore, a woman cannot hold the priesthood of God the Father, because He is a man, but she is a necessary component of that power. As the first quote on this blog states, there is a Heavenly Mother, as well as Father; Heavenly Father's power has two halves, and two halves must wield it. We are taught that righteous women will become "queens and priestesses in Heaven." These women can only do so, as the men, inside the covenant of Marriage.

In the end, it boils down to basic thermodynamics: order versus entropy. It may also be an unbreakable law of the Universe, one that science cannot determine because it has no testing medium. The Order is only valid when the unit is righteous; in other words, it is only valid when all members are as one, just as God the Father and Jesus Christ are one in purpose. There must simply be a direction, or an order, to the authority and blessings. In short, I believe it is this simple: the ultimate blessings we can receive come from the Father, through his Son (the atonement), to a worthy man and then to his worthy wife. Men look to Christ, Christ looks to the Father, woman looks to husband.

It is an order of respect. It also happens to go in both directions.

EDIT: I've been thinking a lot on this subject lately. Its a rather potent one, filled with many of the core principles of the gospel. I think I came up with a fairly good analogy. Creation power (or organization power, priesthood power, etc) can be aptly compared, I think, to that of water going under a mill. There is a reason a man cannot have any power without a woman to hold it with, and why being kept from having spirit children is considered damnation. The power must flow. It cannot stop at anyone. If it does, it is damned, and it cannot drive or do any work. Thus, it must flow from man to woman, and then from woman to children, and the cycle repeats... into eternity.

*[In fact, while we're in D&C 121, a little aside, "No power or influence can or ought to be maintained by virtue of the priesthood" (121:41) "when we... exercise control or dominion or compulsion upon the souls of the children of men... Amen to the priesthood or authority of that man." (121:37) This is how and why Satan fell in the war in heaven; he tried to use the Order of God (the priesthood) to bend mankind to his will. This is not only impossible, but attempting to do so is, evidently, a quick way to lose all authority you had. Satan did not like this limitation, and so he rebelled, became the Father of Lies, fighting against the universe itself. It is quite common for people to think what little authority they have can be used in this way, and this is why "many are called, but few are chosen." Ben Parker's words of "with great power comes great responsibility" were extremely true.]

Look at the Long View

So my mother has this wonderful policy of writing down a shorthand version of every Father's Blessing I get. At least, most of them. Having just moved, I was rummaging through some stacks of paper in an attempt to get them organized, and somehow, this typed recording of the most recent blessing I'd received, shortly before my dad left for Colorado, was on top. I'm not sure how it got there, because the rest were financial documents and the like, but there it was. I unfolded it and read it over.

About halfway down, my mother recorded the part where my father blessed me with wisdom, and the ability to 'look at the long view.' I stopped reading momentarily at that point, because I have been thinking to myself, over the last six months, that its quite amazing how much my view of things has changed. In a very short time, I've started to see things in a completely different way. I thought it was amazing how much I've changed in so little time, but seeing it on paper shocked me even more. Would I have ever recognized the hand of the Lord in inspiring my father to say those words if my mom had never written them down? Most certainly not! Thank you, mother! Seeing personal prophesy come true certainly helps strengthen one's belief!

And that phrase, look at the long view! I'm not sure if those words were my dad's, or my mom's interpretation of them, but how true they are! That very thing is the difficulty the world has. With all the data analysis, social justice and political backbiting, its easy to find multiple reasonable explanations for things... but if you have the wisdom and experience to extrapolate far into the future, only one path becomes rational. And, of course, no one alive can possibly have the experience to truly see that perspective. Getting even a glimpse of it is truly amazing.

A new perspective on Faith

The fourth Article of Faith of my church states, "The first four principles and ordinances of the Gospel are first, faith in the Lord, Jesus Christ. Second, repentance. Third, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins, and fourth, the laying on of hands to receive the gift of the Holy Ghost." (I was too lazy to verify individual words or punctuation, so I apologize if my memory is a little off on that)

Perhaps it is not so odd that I regularly see people around me having the most difficulty, of all things about religion, with two of these.

First, I must state that aside from church members, I really only ever associate with physicists, mathematicians and computer scientists (if computer science is really a separate discipline from math or physics, but I digress!), so I can't say I have a well rounded population for my observations. Regardless, there is a high percentage of these people that are atheist, and very outspoken about it, even proselytizing. One of the biggest 'issues' they have with religions in general is faith. It is obvious to me that one of the main goals of the adversary is to give faith a bad name. Do that, and religion dies. The only problem is, so does everything else!

See, all of learning, whether spiritual, scientific, philosophic or otherwise, requires faith. This is because faith is simply a belief in something you do not fully comprehend (yet) or have observed no evidence to suggest yet. This particular attribute has to be applied to several different things for learning to exist. For one, it must be assumed that the current base of your knowledge is correct. In addition, you must assume that the source of your knowledge is correct, or at least suitably so. And, most importantly, since it is simply impossible, with finite time, to learn everything about a subject, you must assume that what other people know on the subject is correct. All of these assumptions require faith. The less you currently understand about a particular subject requires a greater leap of faith to accept a deeper principle.

Let me attempt to provide an example. Growing up, in science classes, we are taught that conservation of energy is an unbreakable law. This seems to make sense to us at the time; since nothing can really have a beginning (and not break down under the Socratic Method), it fits. Heck, the universe was thought to never have a beginning for a long time for that very reason. Logically, things are eternal. If I were, soon after you accepted this fact that conservation of energy is a law, and before you delved much deeper into physics, tell you that it is quite accepted in the physics community that particles exist that VIOLATE conservation of energy, and instead follow the Uncertainty Principle, you'd have three choices. The first choice would be to have faith in the scientific community and assume you will eventually understand, based ONLY on other people's word and past experience. The second would be to disregard what you know about conservation of energy (and have a lot of other things suddenly make no sense as consequence) and accept this new fact as exclusive of the old. The third option would be to cling to what makes sense to you now, and refuse the theory of virtual particles, and deny yourself a more sensible explanation of the universe's mechanics. Depending on your predisposition to the field, the first or the third are the most likely. The third requires no faith, except in what you already know, but also leads to lesser learning. The first requires the most faith, as well as humility. The second is a function of blind faith, and probably would not happen.

Let's posit that you followed the first path. At this point, you've had some education on quantum mechanics, wave mechanics and the uncertainty principle, and many of its applications. This means that you will, in all likelihood, be able to accept virtual particles as existing and still accept the law of conservation as valid. However, it will be a long time (and may in fact never happen) before you understand all the mathematics, vastly done by Feynman, that describe how the virtual particles cause the attractive and repulsive forces of gravity, electromagnetism and Strong/Weak nuclear force. So, you don't have a perfect knowledge of these particles, very probably never will, but you will accept that someone else has done the math, has experienced it for you, by proxy. This is definitively faith.

The argument can be taken deeper than that (eventually, the Socratic method breaks down all science to, "I don't know"), but there's no purpose. There is something else I feel the need to clarify, however.

In my discussions with people both atheist and theist (of other faiths), it has surprised me that many of both actually think religion functions purely on blind faith. When I hear of this, I can fully understand why many give faith such a dirty connotation; they are assuming all faith in religion is blind. This, quite simply, is a gross misinterpretation of God's plan for us!

James makes it quite clear this is not the case in James 1:5, which states, "If any of ye lack wisdom, let him ask of god, who giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him." (once again, from memory, sorry if I misquoted) This is further clarified in the Book of Mormon, Moroni, Chapter 10, verses 4 and 5, which states, "...if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. 5: And by the power of the Holy Ghost, ye may know the truth of all things." This means that you can't attempt to fool God; if you don't truly have faith in Him, you will likely not receive and answer. However, as James goes on to say in his epistle, just because you ask, doesn't mean you should assume you'll get an answer immediately. Learning about anything rarely requires no effort on your part.

There are scriptures that often say that it is wicked to seek for a sign, and I am not saying these scriptures are wrong. When I read those scriptures, I interpret them to mean that it is wicked to ask God for a specific confirmation, or a sign of your choosing. This is not the way things work. Different people receive knowledge different ways, depending upon our spiritual gifts. Different people require more knowledge than others. I have known people who can lead phenomenal lives on very little confirmation, because they do not need more. I myself require more, and God gives it to me, when I am worthy of it. I have a particular way I feel the spirit. In truth, I have several ways. They are rather intense and undeniable. I know this is because God knows I'm stubborn, and would probably reason away a lesser confirmation. Asking God to give you a confirmation you should not need, or do not deserve is wicked, because it is arrogant. Asking to know the truth never is.

I know this has been rather long. I'm inexperienced at this; hopefully future posts will be clearer and more concise. If anyone has questions they want me to answer (honest ones... I won't get into an argument, as that accomplishes nothing), let me know in the comments. If you have other suggestions, let me know as well.

God be with you till we meet again.

An Introduction

I was sitting at home today, pondering on what I could do to make my Sabbaths more significant to me. Having a day of rest is great, but I wanted to find some way to condense more spirituality into the day; to turn my thoughts to something more appropriate. The decision to make this blog came, partly as a culmination of things I've been thinking on for months, or perhaps years, and perhaps partly out of inspiration.

I feel this introduction is important, because this blog, while seemingly otherwise, will vastly be for my own benefit. Like all good things, I hope they may be of some use to others, but I don't expect to change anyone's heart, or even really be heard.  For that reason, I do not expect or intend to turn this into a source for apologetics. There are already plenty of places to go for that, namely http://www.fairlds.org and http://www.fairmormon.org. Ipso facto, this site will probably take a swing toward something vastly different than conventional apologetics.

In an attempt to be slightly more concise, this blog is intended for two things: to put my musings down in a semi-permanent location where I can access them for future thoughts, and to allow access to people that know me, intimately or otherwise, to gain insight into how I think on certain topics.

One last disclaimer for any future readers: I am fully aware that no amount of reason can cause a person to join this church; you cannot join by agreeing with it, only by believing in it. Belief is the driving force behind reason, and I cannot provide that. I can, however, perhaps provide a new way of looking at things.