Category Archives: Main

Ouch, indeed

Current events, Humor, Main, Politics

Here’s a child after my own heart:

“Who is your favorite author?” Aleya Deatsch, 7, of West Des Moines asked Mr. Huckabee in one of those posing-like-a-shopping-mall-Santa moments.

Mr. Huckabee paused, then said his favorite author was Dr. Seuss.

In an interview afterward with the news media, Aleya said she was somewhat surprised. She thought the candidate would be reading at a higher level.

“My favorite author is C. S. Lewis,” she said.

Boy, that’s gotta sting (this is in the New York Times). Hat tip to the omnipresent Glenn Reynolds and a chain of links from there.  ..bruce..

Joseph Smith’s Presidential platform

LDS History, Main, Politics

Most people (including many members of the LDS Church) are unaware that Joseph Smith ran for President in 1844, the year of his assassination. RonanJH over at By Common Consent has listed Smith’s Presidential platform, as set forth in a pamphlet distributed by LDS missionaries all over the young United States. Here are a few of them:

  • “Petition, also, ye goodly inhabitants of the slave states, your legislators to abolish slavery by the year 1850, or now, and save the abolitionist from reproach and ruin, infamy and shame. Pray Congress to pay every man a reasonable price for his slaves out of the surplus revenue arising from the sale of public lands, and from the deduction of pay from the members of Congress. Break off the shackles from the poor black man, and hire him to labor like other human beings; for ‘an hour of virtuous liberty on earth, is worth a whole eternity of bondage!’”
  • “Abolish the practice in the army and navy of trying men by court martial for desertion; if a soldier or marine runs away, send him his wages, with this instruction, that his country will never trust him again; he has forfeited his honor. Make HONOR the standard with all men: be sure that good is rendered for evil in all cases; and the whole nation, like a kingdom of kings and priests, will rise up with righteousness; and be respected as wise and worthy on earth; and as just and holy for heaven; by Jehovah, the author of perfection.”
  • “More economy in the national and state governments, would make less taxes among the people.”

You can read a scanned version of the original pamphlet here.  ..bruce..

Oh, great…

Current events, Main

…it turns out that Matthew Murray, the Colorado shooter — the one who murdered four people before killing himself and who left anti-Christian screeds on various web sites — had joined the LDS Church a year or so ago. This is a wretched tragedy as it is; I’d hate to see evangelicals seize upon it to somehow implicate or criticize the Church. That may have been part of his apparent rejection of his family’s evangelical Christianity, and there’s no indication of whether he stayed active and involved in the LDS Church for any period after his baptism. But that’s not going matter much once this hits the news cycle. ..bruce..

Evil, agency, and suffering

LDS Doctrine, Main

In my posting regarding the Huckabee flap, I noted that the LDS approach to ‘angels and demons’ avoids some of the issues regarding the problem of evil (theodicy), largely due to our rejection of creatio ex nihilo (creation from nothing). While this helps neutralize the “God created evil” issue, we do still have the issue of ‘why does God permit evil?’ I think it’s because it’s a necessary consequence of our agency, which from an LDS perspective is an essential aspect of our eternal progress.

Beyond that, I suspect that in the next life, our perspectives regarding evil, suffering, and injustice will shift dramatically — in part because we will have ‘grown up’ and will have an eternal perspective on things. As a child, I hated getting shots; I would literally scream and thrash about. I’m still not a great fan of needles, but I can calmly watch myself getting a shot or giving blood — I think two years (during my missionary work in Central America) of getting a gamma globulin shot every three months probably did that for me. That’s a trivial example, but I think that our perspective will truly change in an eternal setting.

Beyond that, however, I suspect we may see examples of evil on an eternal level that make the worst sufferings here on earth look paltry and momentary. Consider this: if agency is an eternal aspect of eternal intelligences, what about those intelligences that chose evil early on — before ever receiving ‘spirit bodies’? If agency existed prior to spirit incarnation — and I would certainly read the scriptures and the prophets that way — then the spirit sibling we call Lucifer is clearly a ‘Johnny-come-lately’ to the dark side.

At the risk of sounding like a Latter-day Lovecraft — I wonder what evil might exist that has been following that course for much of eternity? What form might it take, and what threat might it pose to (a) other intelligences, (b) pre-mortal spirits, (c) post-mortal spirits, and (d) resurrected beings? (Think about it:  who tempted Lucifer?) We may find that our mortal life is just a warm-up for the real battle.

Thoughts? ..bruce..

Rethinking the Flood, part III

LDS Doctrine, Main, Science

I had an earlier posting that talked about rethinking the Noachian flood from an LDS perspective, changing the timeframe and location of the Noachian events to North America at the end of the last ice age. In that post, I mentioned growing evidence about a major impact event over the North American ice sheet about 13,000 years ago that may have triggered the Lesser Dryas glaciation, the last ice age event before the current warm period.

Here’s another article that pulls together some of the growing evidence of this impact:

Evidence unearthed at more than two dozen sites across North America suggests that an extraterrestrial object exploded in Earth’s atmosphere above Canada about 12,900 years ago, just as the climate was warming at the end of the last ice age. The explosion sparked immense wildfires, devastated North America’s ecosystems and prehistoric cultures, and triggered a millennium-long cold spell, scientists say.

At sites stretching from California to the Carolinas and as far north as Alberta and Saskatchewan—many of which were home to prehistoric people of the Clovis culture—researchers have long noted an enigmatic layer of carbon-rich sediment that was laid down nearly 13 millennia ago. “Clovis artifacts are never found above this black mat,” says Allen West, a geophysicist with Geoscience Consulting in Dewey, Ariz. The layer, typically a few millimeters thick, lies between older, underlying strata that are chock-full of mammoth bones and younger, fossilfree sediments immediately above, he notes…

Heat from the event would have set off wildfires across the continent, the scientists suggest. The heat and shock from the explosion probably broke up portions of the ice sheet smothering eastern Canada at the time, they add. The flood of fresh water into the North Atlantic that resulted would have interrupted ocean currents that bring warmth to the region, and thick clouds of smoke and soot in the air would have intensified cooling across the Northern Hemisphere.

The inferred date of the event matches the beginning of a 1,200-year-long cold spell that geologists call the Younger Dryas, which in its first few decades saw temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere drop as much as 10°C.

The interesting note (as per the excerpt above) is that the Clovis culture of North America, along with much of the megafauna, appears to have disappeared post-impact. Read the whole article (which includes photographs of the charred layer). ..bruce..

Angels and demons

Belief systems, LDS Doctrine, Main, World Religions, , , , , ,

Some weeks back, I happened to see the last few minutes of the movie “End of Days“, in which Arnold Schwarzenegger ends up taking on Satan himself. It highlighted for me how differently the LDS Church and most other Christians religion view angels and devils (or demons). I think it explains in part why Evangelicals are so obsessed with the LDS doctrine that both Christ and Lucifer are — just like the rest of us — eternal, uncreated intelligences with agency who each received spirit bodies from God and thus — just like the rest of us — are ‘spirit children’ of Heavenly Father. Their usual way of framing this is that “Do Mormons really believe that Christ and Satan are brothers?”, an issue that presidential candidate Mike Huckabee has now apparently raised.

The short answer is, yes, an answer that (in my opinion) makes as much or more sense than traditional Christian theology while defusing the whole sticky issue of why (and how) did God create evil (theodicy). Let me explain.

Continue reading Angels and demons →

The JFK Mormon speech

LDS History, Main, Politics

No, not John F. Kennedy’s original “Catholic” speech, nor Mitt Romney’s “Mormon” speech. This is a speech that Kennedy gave in the LDS Tabernacle in Salt Lake City in September 1963, just two months before his assassination. The full text has been posted over at Straight and Narrow Blog, but here are a few excerpts:

…Of all the stories of American pioneers and settlers, none is more inspiring than the Mormon trail. The qualities of the founders of this community are the qualities that we seek in America, the qualities which we like to feel this country has, courage, patience, faith, self-reliance, perseverance, and, above all, an unflagging determination to see the right prevail…

…I know that many of you in this State and other States sometimes wonder where we are going and why the United States should be so involved in so many affairs, in so many countries all around the globe. If our task on occasion seems hopeless, if we despair of ever working our will on the other 94 percent of the world population, then let us remember that the Mormons of a century ago were a persecuted and prosecuted minority, harried from place to place, the victims of violence and occasionally murder, while today, in the short space of 100 years, their faith and works are known and respected the world around, and their voices heard in the highest councils of this country.

As the Mormons succeeded, so America can succeed, if we will not give up or turn back. I realize that the burdens are heavy and I realize that there is a great temptation to urge that we relinquish them, that we have enough to do here in the United States, and we should not be so busy around the globe. The fact of the matter is that we, this generation of Americans, are the first generation of our country ever to be involved in affairs around the globe. From the beginning of this country, from the days of Washington, until the Second World War, this country lived an isolated existence. Through most of our history we were an unaligned country, an uncommitted nation, a neutralist nation. We were by statute as well as by desire. We had believed that we could live behind our two oceans in safety and prosperity in a comfortable distance from the rest of the world…

Hat tip to Dave’s Mormon Inquiry.  ..bruce..

The continuing debate: are Mormons Christian?

Belief systems, LDS Doctrine, Main, World Religions

Michael Otterson, director of media relations for the LDS Church, has a lengthy and thoughtful discussion on this issue over at the Washington Post. Key paragraphs:

When someone says Mormons aren’t Christian – and I’m trying not to break Stendahl’s first rule here by interpreting conservative Christian thought incorrectly – he or she usually means that Mormons don’t embrace the traditional interpretation of the Bible that includes the Trinity. “Our Jesus” is somehow different from “their Jesus.” Further, they mean that some Mormon teachings are so far outside Christian orthodoxy of past centuries that they constitute almost a new religion.

The irony is that most Latter-day Saints wouldn’t argue with those statements. When a Mormon says he or she is Christian, they are not trying to minimize differences or fudge the issues. Mormons are well aware of the many deep doctrinal differences with other Christians. For instance, Mormons reject the Trinity as non-biblical, and believe the concept to be the product of the creeds that emerged from the 4th and 5th centuries. Further, while embracing the Bible (the King James version is preferred), they don’t interpret it the same way as some Protestants – for instance, that the earth was literally created in six days of 24 hours. Neither do they believe that the scriptural canon was closed with a period and an exclamation mark after the death of the apostles, but that God is perfectly able to talk to prophets today as He did in ancient times.

But for Mormons, these belief differences have nothing to do with whether or not they are Christian in the true meaning of the word. Mormons believe in the Jesus of the Bible, the same that was born at Bethlehem, grew up in Nazareth, preached His gospel in Galilee and Judea, healed the sick, raised the dead, and finally offered Himself as a sinless ransom for the sins of the world. They believe that Jesus Christ was literally resurrected, that He lives today, and that He is the only name under heaven by which mankind can be saved. This is the Jesus whose name is depicted on the front of every Mormon place of worship. This is the Jesus in whose name every Mormon prays and every sermon is preached. This is the Jesus whose body and blood are commemorated in weekly worship services by Latter-day Saints from Nigeria to New Zealand, from Michigan to Mongolia. For Latter-day Saints who try to live their lives as they believe Jesus taught, assertions that they aren’t Christian are as bewildering as they are wounding.

Mormons have no argument with assertions that they are not “creedal Christians,” or not “orthodox” Christians or “Trinitarian Christians.” Frankly, the whole point of Mormonism is that it is different. Just how different is best explained not by pastors of other faiths, or by secular journalists or by those whose self-interest lies in marginalizing a growing religion, but by Mormons themselves.

Amen. ..bruce..

P.S. And if you missed it, note the rejection of strict creationism in the 2nd paragraph quoted above.

Romney’s Speech

Belief systems, Main, Politics

After a lot of will-he-won’t-he? back and forth, Mitt Romney gave ‘the speech‘ on how his membership in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints would or would not affect his role as President of the United States, should he be elected. Here, in my opinion, is the key section:

As a young man, Lincoln described what he called America’s “political religion” — the commitment to defend the rule of law and the Constitution. When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God. If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States.

There are some for whom these commitments are not enough. They would prefer it if I would simply distance myself from my religion, say that it’s more a tradition than my personal conviction, or disavow one or another of its precepts. That I will not do. I believe in my Mormon faith and I endeavor to live by it. My faith is the faith of my fathers. I will be true to them and to my beliefs.

Some believe that such a confession of my faith will sink my candidacy. If they are right, so be it. But I think they underestimate the American people. Americans do not respect respecters — excuse me — believers of convenience.

It’s a sad commentary that he has to do it at all, but there’s a fair amount of anti-Mormon prejudice on both the Left and the Right — and as many other commentators have pointed out ad infinitum et ad nauseum, if the things being said on both sides were being said about Evangelicals, Catholics, Jews or Muslims, cries of ‘hate speech!’ and ‘bigotry!’ would fill the air.

As far as I’m concerned, Romney (who, by the way, is not my choice for President), could have simply quoted two of the thirteen Articles of Faith, a canonized set of statements composed by Joseph Smith in 1842 regarding our fundamental beliefs:

11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

12 We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.

Of course, the real elephant in the GOP tent is the deep conviction on the part of many Evangelists that the LDS Church is secretly a Satanic organization. This is just goofy beyond words, quite literally on par with those who believe that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion is a true and accurate document regarding Jewish plans for world domination, and yet it is pervasive throughout Evangelical churches. The rank anti-Mormon (not to mention anti-Catholic and anti-Islamic) bigotry of large segments of the Religious Right is a major reason why I have never joined the Republican Party, despite being appalled for many years by my own party (I’m a lifelong registered Democrat).

[NOTE: FAKE SIGN! FAKE SIGN! But reflects real discussions among Evangelists:]

Yes, this is a fake sign! But accurate!

As for whether other Christian denominations consider the LDS Church to be Christian — again, I think that’s just silly, and I think it says far more about those churches and the individuals who lead them than it does about the LDS Church. I don’t feel bound by the doctrine and theology of these other denominations, so I’m certainly not concerned about their definition of who is or is not “Christian.” Christ said, “By their fruits, ye shall know them” — and I’ll cheerfully stack up our record on honesty, morality, integrity, and humanitarian service (not to mention our views on near-universal salvation) against any other Christian denomination that cares to take the challenge. ..bruce..