Author: Nathaniel Givens

The Expanse: Mormons in Space

The Expanse is an acclaimed novel series by Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck writing under the pen-name James S. A. Corey. The first novel, Leviathan Wakes, was released in 2011 and nominated for both the Hugo Award for Best Novel and the Locus Award for Best Science Fiction Novel. Abraham and Franck have released a book a year since then, with Caliban’s War in 2012, Abaddon’s Gate in 2013, Cibola Burn in 2014, and Nemesis Games in 2015. Babylon’s Ashes is slated for June 2016, and three more untitled sequels are scheduled for 2017-2019. The SyFy channel, in an attempt to relive the glory of its Battlestar Galactica  days, is adapting the novels for television. The first four episodes were released online, and the fifth episode airs tomorrow evening. I’ve read all the novels and enjoyed them a lot (especially the fourth and fifth) and I’ve seen each of the first four episodes twice (and find them promising.) But that’s not what prompted me to post about them to Times and Seasons. Nope, the reason I thought I’d tell you about The Expanse is that Mormons feature relatively prominently in both the books and the TV series. So, without giving any major spoilers away, I thought I’d write a quick review of how Mormons are portrayed in what could potentially be a fairly major new TV series. This is the first scene in the series that references Mormons. It comes just…

In Their Own Language

“For it shall come to pass in that day, that every man shall hear the fullness of the gospel in his own tongue, and in his own language.” D&C 90:11 Introduction This post begins with a simple question: does the Maxwell Institute (formerly FARMS) publish scholarship that treats the Book of Mormon as an ancient text? Or, in the words of Bill Hamblin, has the new leadership at MI “undermin[ed] ancient Book of Mormon studies” in favor of “modern Mormon Studies in its broadest sense” to the point where the Maxwell Institute today is “Sunstone South”? It’s a sensitive question, so let me get some caveats out of the way. I’m not an expert in ancient studies of any kind (Book of Mormon, Mesoamerican, Biblical, or other). Additionally, I’m not trying to wade into the larger controversy surrounding the change in leadership, a controversy that involves people I know and respect on both sides. I’m not passing judgment on MI as an institution nor responding to all the criticism raised by Bill Hamblin (and others), some of which are valid. I want to start by just answering one question: has the study of the Book of Mormon as an ancient text survived at MI? After reviewing the most recent issue Journal of Book of Mormon studies and one of the newest books published by the Maxwell Institute, I can say that it certainly has. Schooling the Prophet I’ll start with…

The Assurance of Love

About a week ago, I came across an interesting quote from a talk President Hinckley gave during the October 1981 General Conference (Faith: The Essence of True Religion). He quoted a journalist who had recently given a speech during which the journalist had said that “Certitude is the enemy of religion.” (I’d be fascinated to see the full text of this journalist’s remarks, or even just learn his name.) President Hinckley’s response is challenging for someone like me. After all, I started out blogging at Times and Seasons with a series of posts about epistemic humility. (1, 2, 3, 4) I do not believe uncertainty is a worthy end in itself, but I do believe that accepting the limits of our ability to know is an essential aspect of healthy faith because it enables us to grow and change. A belief that is certain is cemented. This is a good thing when you’re right, but a bad thing when you’re wrong. And—since it’s just as hard to know when we’re right about being right as about anything else—we should pour that concrete sparingly and with care. This ambivalent attitude towards uncertainty is what makes this talk a challenge for me. In the talk, which President Hinckley says is the result of “much reflection,” he praises certainty wholeheartedly, beginning that section of his remarks by saying that “Certitude, which I define as complete and total assurance, is not the enemy of…

Every Scar is a Bridge to Someone’s Broken Heart

Perhaps we literally need to feel our own pain in order to feel the pain of others. From a scientific perspective: The ability to feel the pain of others is based on neurobiological processes which underlie pain experience in oneself. Using innovative methods, an international research team headed by psychologist Claus Lamm from the University of Vienna could show that a reduction of self-experienced pain leads to a reduction in empathy for pain in others as well. From an aesthetic perspective (I realize screamo is not everyone’s idea of a pleasant Monday morning. Lyrics are below the video clip):   I know one day, all our scars will disappear, like the stars at dawn All of our pain will fade away when morning comes And on that day when we look backwards we will see that everything is changed And all of our trials will be as milestones on the way But as long as we live, every scar is a bridge to someone’s broken heart And there’s no greater love, than that one shed his blood for his friends From a scriptural perspective: And he shall go forth, suffering pains and afflictions and temptations of every kind; and this that the word might be fulfilled which saith he will take upon him the pains and the sicknesses of his people. And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which bind his people; and he…

Reading the Book of Mormon for the First Time Again

I read the Book of Mormon all the way through several times as a teenager. Between multiple readings and a knack for remembering anything that comes in the form of a story, by the time I was 19 I knew the Book of Mormon as well as any other 19 year old I met. Now I’m 34, and I routinely meet people whose familiarity with the text far, far outstrips my own. Sure, some of that comes from the fact that I know more Mormon studies folks now than I did as a teenager, but I’m not talking about the pro’s and the semi-pro’s out there who are doing great devotional and scholarly work. I mean just in terms of your average member: my command of the text is just nothing to get excited about. This isn’t surprising, because in the past 13 years since I came home from my mission, I don’t think I’ve completed a single cover-to-cover reading of the Book of Mormon. Other folks kept going. I didn’t. When I was in the MTC, I started reading the Book of Mormon with a notebook open and a pen in one hand. I jotted down notes of anything that I found interesting and also of questions that occurred to me as I read. I loved doing this, and I kept it up throughout most of my mission. I still have stacks of these notebooks in my garage, and I…

“A woman is a woman no matter what, but manhood can be lost.”

The title of today’s post (“A woman is a woman no matter what, but manhood can be lost,”) is a quote comes from a long and interesting article from the Pacific Standard: Why Men Kill Themselves. There’s a lot that is interesting in the article, especially about some of the gender differences that lead to a much higher suicide rate for men as compared to women. Although there are certainly wide variations between cultures in the overall rate of suicide, it turns out that “In every country in the world, male suicides outnumber female.” The article reminded me of Valerie Hudson Cassler’s article for Square Two: Plato’s Son, Augustine’s Heir: “A Post-Heterosexual Mormon Theology.” The article, a response to Taylor Petrey’s attempt to show how Mormon theology could be retrofitted to be compatible with eternal homosexual relationships, had a tremendous impact on how I view gender and religion. In the article, Cassler allows that “No doubt Petrey would argue that what he is advocating is the construction of or, alternatively, the realization of, a plethora of genders, not one gender,” but she points out that: When I read Petrey’s essay, I see a different bottom line: Women are no longer necessary for the Plan of Happiness to obtain. Women are no longer necessary for temple sealings to take place. Women are no longer necessary for the work of the gods in the eternities, or for there to be brought forth spirit children: indeed, there…

Introducing Meg Conley

I am excited to introduce Meg Conley as our newest guest-blogger here at Times and Seasons! Meg Conley is a freelance writer and blogger specializing in topics of womanhood and motherhood. Her website, megconley.com, is quickly becoming a nationally recognized platform for women’s issues and day to day inspiration. She has appeared on Good Morning America, Nightline and The Steve Harvey Show. Her writing regularly appears on The Huffington Post. She is also, as she puts it, “the mother of two sparkling girls and married to the kind of man that lights the days.” I’ve been a big fan of Meg’s writing for a long time now, and I’ve been consistently nagging her to write for Times and Seasons. She will be joining us for two posts a month over the next two months. I’ve already read her first post, and it’s great. I hope y’all enjoy her pieces as much as I do.

Do Mormons Have a Duty to Vote?

You might think that this is a strange question, and that of course everyone has a duty to vote. That’s part of being a good citizen, isn’t it? Well, there’s a growing body of opinion that says this isn’t so. It all starts widespread agreement that voting doesn’t make a lot of sense from the perspective of an individual voter. Your chance of swaying a national election—of being the decisive vote—is for all practical purposes zero. So there’s no benefit to voting. But there are costs. There’s the gas you pay for the drive to the polling place and the value of the time you spend waiting in line, for instance. This makes voting sort of like buying a lottery ticket when the jackpot is $0.00. It doesn’t matter how cheap the ticket is, no one would buy it at any price. Of course, there are some folks that think voting might be worthwhile because it’s not just who wins an election, but by what margin. That doesn’t really help, though, because making a margin one vote greater (or smaller) is still negligible. And the situation gets worse when you think that people should not only vote, but should be informed voters. Now the cost is much higher, since you’ve got to spend hours and hours reading and researching to become conversant on the important issues and on where the individual candidates stand on those issues. Given this analysis, it’s…

Introducing Walker Wright

After citing him on multiple occasions here at Times and Seasons (for example here and here), I’m very pleased to announce that Walker Wright will be joining us for a guest blogging stint. Walker is an MBA student at the University of North Texas, and his primary interests are in the theology of work and sacralizing the mundane. Walker has written for Square Two, presented at Sunstone, Mormon Transhumanist Association, Faith & Knowledge, and Mormon Scholars in the Humanities, and is contributing a chapter to Julie Smith’s forthcoming Come, Let Us Reason Together: Dialogues with Scripture. He also blogs at Difficult Run, Worlds Without End, and at his own blog The Slow Hunch.

Privilege and the Family

In a post at By Common Consent over the weekend (What has two thumbs and doesn’t give a crap about the Family?), Rebecca J writes that “If I’m not currently standing up for the Family, it’s… really just that I don’t care enough about the Family. I don’t think I care at all.” She goes on to write: I’m really not sure what they [Church leaders] mean. I mean, it can’t mean that I’m supposed to be speaking out against divorce or same-sex marriage or unwed parenthood because if it did, they would just come out and say that, right? I mean, I know that church leaders rarely just come out and say anything, but if I were to raise my hand and ask for clarification by saying, “Hey, does this mean I should be speaking out against divorce and/or same-sex marriage and/or unwed parenthood?” they would definitely not respond in the affirmative but would probably say something that had nothing to do with my question and didn’t mean anything, which I think means that there’s some deeper message here that I’m just not getting. So here are some thoughts on the twin questions Rebecca J raises: Why should we care about the family? What does it mean to stand up for the family? As for the first, I can do no better than reference the string of posts my co-blogger Walker Wright has written for Difficult Run over the…

When Symbolism isn’t Symbolic

A few weeks ago I listened to an episode of This American Life with an unfortunate title: Batman.[1] The title, which really doesn’t set the right tone for the episode to follow, refers to Daniel Kish, a blind man who taught himself to echolocate as a child. He gets around the world relatively unaided (including, for example, riding a bike) by clicking and then listening to the echoes. This ability has made him world famous, but it really shouldn’t be so unusual. And perhaps the most chilling thing is the fact that most blind kids will intuitively start clicking or snapping or stamping to test out their environment with sound. But they are so often discouraged that they never get the chance to develop their skill to the level Daniel did. They are discouraged, of course, because clicking or snapping repetitively isn’t conducive with normal social expectations. Thus far the tale is sad, but it is not unusual. The idea that social conventions can be repressive isn’t unusual. But it’s not just the freedom to break with social convention that allowed Kish to develop his talent. It was also having a mother who, in ways that seem cruel or uncaring, treated Kish more or less as though he could see even though he couldn’t. Kish says: From the fifth grade on, I walked to school almost every day. I had to cross major streets. I participated in extracurricular activities. I made my own breakfast. I…

On Reading Scripture and Being Human

About three weeks ago, David Bokovoy wrote an interesting blog post on historicity in the scripture in which he argued that questions of historicity are unhelpful anachronisms that tend to miss the point of scripture: It’s important for modern readers of the Bible to recognize that biblical historians were not motivated to write their accounts out of antiquarian interest. The past was far too important a tool for these authors to simply recount what really happened. Instead, biblical authors used history as a tool to convey themes concerning the God of Israel and his relationship to his chosen people. Bokovoy’s primary target in the article was an essay written by Paul Hoskisson. The main point of Hoskisson’s article was that Mormons are correct to “intuit the strong bond that exists between our faith and historical events,” and that “everything depends upon the historicity of what Elder Bruce R. McConkie called the three pillars of eternity—the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement.” I agree strongly with Hoskisson’s general conclusion (that historicity does matter), and I find his critical analysis of those who believe historicity does not matter to be quite compelling. But when it came time to argue in favor of historicity his arguments seemed slightly circular. As an example, one of them presumed a particular view of what ordinances are and how they work. Since this is largely information that comes from scripture, the logic seemed to reduce to: we…

Announcing the 2nd Annual Wheatley “Faith Seeking Understanding” Summer Seminar

The 2nd Annual Wheatley “Faith Seeking Understanding” Summer Seminar will be held from June 22 – July 10, 2015 under the direction of Professor Terryl Givens. Here’s the seminar description: What are the general contours of Christianity’s efforts to find a marriage of belief and intellect? Does Mormonism face the same challenges as the broader Christian tradition? What are the contributions of Mormon theology to current debates in the political and cultural realms? How reasonable are LDS positions on the family, marriage, pro-life and end of life issues? Is the Mormon theological tradition an asset or a handicap in the public sphere?  With what mix of revealed truth and rational discourse can Mormons best address these issues in public debate? Students in the seminar will spend three weeks addressing these and related questions. Along the way they will survey illustrative moments in Christianity’s engagement with secularism, and examine pivotal Mormon theological understanding of such concepts as agency, the eternal soul, embodiment, and human potential and purpose. Invited guests from inside and outside the Mormon tradition will share experiences related to religiously informed participation in the public square. The purpose is to foster Latter-day Saints who are better equipped to participate effectively in society-wide conversations where LDS values are relevant and at stake. The seminar will culminate with student-authored position papers to be presented in a public symposium. The Wheatley will provide $1500 stipend to seminar participants, along with a housing…

Reconciling Shame and Guilt

Last year was my first year teaching the Old Testament in Gospel Doctrine, and I benefited a ton from Ben Spackman’s Patheos blog. So I’m starting off this year by reading some of his recommended books for teaching the New Testament (list continues here and here). First up? Misreading the Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible. The point of Misreading the Scripture is that the Biblical authors left certain cultural assumptions unspoken because they took them for granted. When we read the Bible today, we fill in those gaps with our own cultural assumptions. This process is often unconscious because, using the metaphor of an iceberg, most cultural assumptions lurk below the surface. So we don’t even realize that we’re imposing our own cultural paradigm on the scripture when we do it. Problems arise when the cultural context provided by a 21st century American deviates significantly from that provided by (for example) a 1st century Jew. The authors, Randolph Richards and Brandon O’Brien, summarize nine cultural differences in the book. The most interesting for me is the difference between guilt-based and shame-based cultures. The United States is a guilt-based culture where private introspection (guilt) and individualism are seen as the primary guides of right behavior. Japan is the most oft-cited example of a modern shame-based culture where public dishonor (shame) and collectivism are seen as the primary guides of right behavior. Japan is not…

Hypersensitivity and Trolls: A Codependent Dysfunction

Introduction My first posts at Times and Seasons were about epistemic humility, which is the awareness of the limits of knowledge. One of the common responses I got at the time was to ask how conviction was compatible with such an emphasis on uncertainty. The quote I led with (“The wise man doubts often, and changes his mind.”) seemed like a perfect setup for the ominous lines from Yeats’ The Second Coming: “The best lack all conviction, while the worst / Are full of passionate intensity.” The answer is that even if one accepts the adage that “all models are wrong,” one ought to go all in and accept the entire adage: “essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful” [emphasis added]. Copernicus’ model of the solar system was wrong because he believed the orbits are circular. They are not; they are elliptical. But he still got heliocentrism right, and later on Kepler[1] added in the elliptical orbits. Newton’s theory of gravity was wrong in many respects that were later corrected by Einstein’s general relativity, but Newton’s model was still a great improvement over Aristotle’s. These models are obviously more useful in a simplistic sense: if you want to get to the moon it helps to have an accurate representation of astronomy and physics. But there’s more to it than that: this sequence of imperfect and flawed models can point the direction towards still greater truths. And so, rather than erode…

When to Disobey

I’ve been having some interesting conversations about the high cost of membership in the Church. We believe, in general, that the cost of being a Mormon is high and that this is a good thing. Sacrifice leads to faith. We pour a lot of time and a lot of energy into the Church, and this helps us value our membership more than if the Church asked less of us. But it can be taken to extremes. There are reasons to say “no” to something our leaders ask of us, and foremost among those is the sake of our families. The Church exists to serve the family. Families do not exist for the purpose of serving or repopulating the Church. My bishop—a man I admire greatly—made this point explicitly at the start of priesthood opening exercises last week. He enumerated the very large number of activities planned for the ward between now and the end of the year, and then he reminded everyone that family comes first. It’s OK not to go to an activity if that is the best thing for your family. Of course, not everyone is lucky to have a bishop who is willing to state that. So the tricky question is: how do you react to requests from Church leaders that seem excessive? The default position seems to be that you obey, obey, obey, and then obey some more. In practice: this makes sense. The emphasis should…

Announcing the BYU & Maxwell Institute 2015 Summer Seminar

UPDATED: The original version of this post didn’t include the link to the application form. That link was added on Dec 10, 2014. In the summer of 2015, the Neal A Maxwell Institute at Brigham Young University, with support from the Mormon Scholars Foundation, will sponsor a summer seminar for graduate students, CES educators,  and other qualified individuals, on “ORGANIZING THE KINGDOM: PRIESTHOOD, CHURCH GOVERNMENT, AND THE FORMS OF LDS WORSHIP.” The seminar continues the series of seminars on Mormon culture begun in the summer of 1997. This iteration will be conducted by Terryl Givens, Professor of Literature and Religion and James A. Bostwick Chair of English at the University of Richmond. Givens writes: This particular seminar will continue a series begun five years ago on the history of Mormon thought. More specifically, we will study LDS ecclesiology, focusing on the origin and development of church organization, the evolution of public worship services and practices, and related topics. We will examine the outward forms as well as the underlying theology pertaining to these subjects. For additional information–including dates and funding–download the full description as a .pdf file here. The application form (which is due by February 15) can be downloaded here.

I Need My Kids

Last month, my friend Betsy VanDenBerghe wrote a piece for Real Clear Religion inspired alternately by Pope Francis and the Coen brothers’ 1987 comedy Raising Arizona about Why Children Are Better Than Pets. Her central question was: What would a society of adults skewed toward childlessness, like the perpetually barren Time magazine beach couple, look and act like without having acquired the altruism, personal growth, and wisdom that bringing up children generally bequeaths on those who undergo parenthood? Her piece really resonated with me. My life has not gone at all as planned over the last several years. Without going into any gory details, I started a new job in 2008 and the training materials bragged about inventing the mortgage backed security. A couple of months later the housing bubble burst, and a couple of months later I was part of company-wide layoffs. In the years since then, I’ve worked hard, helped to launch and run a startup, earned a second master’s degree, lost a house and become a renter again, and at the end of all of it I’m not quite back to where I was before it all started. Except for the debt, I’ve collected lots of that. It’s been one long comedy of confounded expectations, and an altogether unpleasant experience. During this time, two things have kept me going. First, I realize that bad times always feel worse when you’re going through them then they do once you come…

Our Prayers and God’s Messy Plans

I taught lesson 35 today, which covers Amos and Joel. As usual, I benefitted a great deal from Ben Spackman’s Patheos posts, and in particular his discussion of Amos 3:6 and Amos 3:7. The latter, of course, is the famous scripture we all learn in seminary: “Surely the Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto his servants the prophets.” Ben included a short paper about the meaning of the word “sod” (“secret”) and its relation to the idea of a divine council. The word refers to both private discussion and the product of such discussions. The Old Testament is certainly rife with examples of the Lord involving mere mortals in His planning process and accepting their input. 30 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak. What if only thirty can be found there?” He answered, “I will not do it if I find thirty there.” 31 Abraham said, “Now that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, what if only twenty can be found there?” He said, “For the sake of twenty, I will not destroy it.” 32 Then he said, “May the Lord not be angry, but let me speak just once more. What if only ten can be found there?” He answered, “For the sake of ten, I will not destroy it.” – Genesis 18:30-32 (NIV) This idea of a God who involves us not…

Magic and Mechanisms

In her talk “The Evolutionary Roots of Religious Adaptation” for the Mormon Transhumanist Association, Chelsea Strayer hit on one of the fundamental sources of tension between devout and academic perspectives on faith: the distinction between process and purpose. She gave the example of evolution, emphasizing that when she teaches evolution it is fundamentally a discussion of process rather than purpose. Despite this, however, she recounts that: Every time I teach an evolution class… I have one student walk away and say, “Hey, you just told me that God doesn’t exist. You just proved that.” And I’ll have [another] student say, “You just proved that God is the smartest person ever.” I’ll have two students, same lecture, walk away with both of those [impressions]. The whole talk is fascinating—and definitely worth watching in its entirety—but it’s the tension between process and purpose that I want to focus on. Let me give another example of this. Walter van Beek’s excellent piece A temple, a temple, we already have a temple has been persistently on my mind since he posted it a few weeks ago. The meat of the post is this comparison of the dimensions of the Temple of Solomon and the Second Temple with the Book of Leviticus: The Second Temple would have the same dimensions. It is this structure that, on close reading, does inform the book of Leviticus. The rules and prescriptions fall into three unequal categories: the chapters 1 – 17 pertain to all…

Temple and Observatory Group Event in Minnesota

The Temple and Observatory Group, which has sponsored other events in Utah, Virginia and New York, is offering a seminar for those in the midst of a faith transition or crisis in the Minnesota area. The event features Terryl and Fiona Givens and Spencer Fluhman. Come listen to the three speak about negotiating LDS history, faith challenges and transitions on Saturday, September 27th from 10:30am – 3:30pm at 6125 Shingle Creek Pkwy, Brooklyn Center, MN 55430 (library). Lunch will be provided. Please sign up on the Facebook page as seating is limited. Note: there are no tickets for this event and registering on the Facebook page is not required to attend. It just helps the organizers estimate the number of people who will be attending.

My Experiment with Five Minute Prayers

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been setting a timer every time I say my evening prayers. This might sound like an absolutely terrible idea and, in some ways I guess it is. So before I tell you how that has worked out for me, let me explain why I would even consider such an idea in the first place. It starts with the idea of the curse of success. I first encountered this concept in Milton and Rose Friedman’s Free to Choose. They wrote that when a policy or technology becomes successful, it can be known more for the hardships it illuminates by contrast rather than for the good it accomplishes. When everyone’s situation is universally awful, no one complains. When an imperfect solution makes the situation better for most but not all, it risks being vilified for the resulting disparity. In some sense, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints suffers from the curse of success today. The success comes from the way that the Church is able to transmit the basics of its doctrine and moral code to our youth. Relative to other religions in the United States, at least, Mormons are the experts at this. I draw this conclusion primarily from a the well-known study conducted by UNC researchers from 2001-2005 involving over a hundred researchers interviewing thousands of American teenagers. (The results of the study were published in a book: Soul Searching: The…

Truth and Contradiction in Religious Communities

A couple of weeks ago I listened to the audiobook of Sikhism: A Very Short Introduction. As that was the first thing I’ve read on the topic (other than a multitude of Wikipedia entries) I by no means consider myself some kind of expert, but I was struck by several parallels and differences between Sikhism and Mormonism. The little I have learned has already helped me to see my own faith in new ways. In terms of similarities, Mormonism and Sikhism are both relatively new religions that arguably constitute a culture or a people (in addition to a religion) and that both have fraught historical relationships with larger faith traditions. Sikhs, for their part, have historically worked hard to stress their distinctiveness from Hinduism. Mormons, in contrast, have recently stressed our desire to be included within Christianity. In both cases, however, the exact nature of the relationship is complex and subject to change and controversy. The contrast that stood out that most to me was the ambiguous evolution of Sikh theology and scripture and institutions juxtaposed with the rigorous organization of the correlated Mormonism that I grew up with. Obviously this is apples-to-oranges, since I was comparing a snapshot of a relatively mature Mormonism with the historical origins of earliest Sikhism. Mormonism didn’t start out correlated and our own history is full of ambiguity as well. But it was illuminating to study the history of another faith’s development precisely because…

We Are Made to Suffer

In centuries gone by the best you could hope for in the case of an aching tooth would be that someone would yank it out, but thanks to modern medicine we can detect cavities and fill them before they start to cause any pain at all. Of course, the drilling of the tooth itself is painful, so you can have your tooth numbed with an injection. Someone jabbing a sharp needle into your gums isn’t a walk in the park either, so you can have some topical gel applied before the shot. Just to recap: you get a numbing gel to take away the pain of the injection which in turn numbs the tooth to avoid the pain of the drill which in turn fixes the tooth before it can start to seriously ache. That’s a triple-layer pain-mitigation strategy. Of course I took the topical gel and the shot. All else being equal, I’m definitely a fan of less pain rather than more pain. But I also wondered if we’ve reached a point in our society where we are so good at avoiding pain and suffering that we’ve come to view them as exotic. As defects than can be eliminated. As aberrant rather than as uncomfortable but necessary aspects of a meaningful existence. The Son of Man hath descended below them all. Art thou greater than he? (D&C 122:8) Health officials assure Americans that the terrifying Ebola outbreak in West Africa…

Comfort Those That Stand in Need

Behold, here are the waters of Mormon and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort… Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have you against being baptized in the name of the Lord? (Mosiah 18:8-10) This passage has been on my mind a lot over the past couple of weeks, and I wanted to share some thoughts on what it means to mourn with those who mourn in the context of recent events. I do so acutely aware that due to my skepticism of OW I am something of an outsider. And that’s my first thought: the call bear one another’s burdens is a call to cross the lines of insider and outsider. After all, if the burden is already ours, then it doesn’t make sense to ask us to share it. We already do. If we’re already mourning, then it doesn’t make sense to ask us to mourn with those who mourn. We already are. Even those who do not feel as personally affected must heed the moral imperative to offer sympathy and comfort. Otherwise, what’s the point? Think of the example of Jesus Christ outside the tomb of…

Scriptural Meanderings

Last week I started reading the Book of Mormon again from the beginning. The first day, I made it through 1 Nephi 1. The second day, I made it through 1 Nephi 2:1. For behold, it came to pass that the Lord spake unto my father, yea, even in a dream, and said unto him: Blessed art thou Lehi, because of the things which thou hast done; and because thou hast been faithful and declared unto this people the things which I commanded thee, behold, they seek to take away thy life (1 Nephi 2:1) “Behold,” says The Lord, “They seek to take away thy life.” This phrase really stuck out to me. It’s not like the Lord is likely telling Lehi anything that he doesn’t already know, is he? After all, this is how Nephi ended the last chapter: And when the Jews heard these things they were angry with him; yea, even as with the prophets of old, whom they had cast out, and stoned, and slain; and they also sought his life, that they might take it away. (1 Nephi 1:20) Then again, Nephi is writing this retrospectively. He wasn’t there (as far as we know) while his father preached to see the crowd’s reaction. Or even if there really was much of a crowd. By the time he writes these words, he has faced the deadly violence of his brothers on more than one occasion, but…

False Choices and Fence Holes

It is very common in the Bloggernaccle to talk about an exodus of members from the Church. These members are usually described as a cohesive demographic. The two examples I’ve seen most frequently are (1) young Millennials who are disillusioned by the discrepancy between real history and CES whitewashing and (2) good women whose contributions and perspectives are devalued and rejected by the institution at large. I don’t have any insider or objective data on these concerns, and so I couldn’t say where they fall on the spectrum from urban legend to imminent crisis, but I suspect the problem is genuine based purely on my own experiences. The question becomes: what should we do about it? Cynthia L proffered a twist on the usual tale of the lost sheep at By Common Consent on Saturday. In her parable, sheep wander away because there are holes in the fence. Disagreement arises among the shepherds. One group insists that we ought to repair the holes to protect the sheep. The other insists that if God had wanted a fence without holes, He would have created a fence without holes. And, this callous bunch adds, who wants those stupid sheep that keep getting lost anyway? Let me start by saying that I think this parable succeeds at its stated purpose. The title of Cynthia’s post is “Why I speak up: our responsibilities as farm hands for the shepherd,” and in terms of explaining the…

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

This post is a follow up to my two previous posts As Much As I Know Anything and What It Would Take To Not Believe. I have to start out by clarifying something that I didn’t define well enough in a previous post. I made the statement that we cannot not believe, but that depends on a definition of belief that isn’t universal and that I should have made more clear. Obviously we can choose to not believe in lots of things individually. But when I think about belief I have something more holistic and systemic in mind. Our really important beliefs tend to weave together in a web that makes it impossible for some strands to be pulled without having an effect on the entire fabric. At this point we’re not just talking about individual propositions. We’re talking about a world view, which is a cohesive whole that includes not just beliefs, but also values, emotions, and memories. I’m tempted to use the phrase “ecosystem,” but the term I like the best for this network of propositions and relationships between propositions is constructed reality. It is the working model we each have of the world around us. It governs not only what we think is true right now, but also what we think will be true in the future based on our actions and the actions of others. I went into much greater detail (and linked the topic to why…

What It Would Take to Not Believe

There was one question in response to my last post that I particularly wanted to answer, but wasn’t able to at the time. This is the question, which was posed by Sebastian Dick: “What would it take to convince you that (in as much as you know anything) propositions such as God exists or the BoM is historical are false? Or do you consider such propositions unfalsifiable?” This post is my answer. It is not a trite cliché that everyone has to believe in something. It is the literal truth. When your life has ended and you look back and see the decisions that you have made along the way, the pattern of choices will imply a corresponding constellation of beliefs. Those facts and principles that you affirm as relevant and true because they are made logically necessary by your actions are the things that you believe. This perspective is a generalization of the economic theory of revealed preferences, so we can call it the theory of revealed beliefs. It eschews subjective feelings about what is true for the simple reason that we often do not know our own feelings. We sometimes think that we believe in something, but then behave in ways that contradicts that belief. These instrumental or fictitious beliefs are not, in my mind, the genuine article. For the same reason, Paul Samuelson (who invented the theory of revealed preferences in 1938 and became the first American…

As Much As I Know Anything

“Out of curiosity, what makes you believe in Mormonism? Or God for that matter?” This is a question I got from a close friend, more or less out of the blue, the Wednesday before last in a Facebook conversation that had been—up to that point—mostly about how much I love Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. It’s not like it’s the first time I’ve been asked that, but it’s a question I’ve struggled unsuccessfully to answer in the past. I’ve tried on more than one occasion to sit down and write out my reasons, but I always failed. Eventually I gave up. And then, last week, I found that the answer had been there all along. And it was pretty simple. Looking back, I’d say that was the problem. For all I love to write about epistemic humility, doubt, and uncertainty I have just about the simplest and most conventional Mormon testimony that it is possible to have. And maybe, in the past, I’ve been a bit ashamed to admit that there’s nothing special, profound, or unique about my testimony. I guess I just thought I was too good for my own testimony. That was half the problem, but there’s another half, too. My other dirty little secret is that for all the time I spend talking about doubt and uncertainty, when it comes to my religious faith I just don’t have serious doubts in the way that most people understand the…