So Allan told me that his wife, Haylee, has a blog. I went and looked at it.
See my blog entry.
And from her blog, immediately after their honeymoon.
GNAAAAARRRR!!!!!
I tried! I really did! But it's harder to change the false traditions of our fathers than I thought!
Monday, June 29, 2009
Sunday, June 21, 2009
My Dad Is Awesome
My Dad is awesome. Why?
Well, not only is he a mission president right now, not only has he worked very hard to provide for us, not only has he put up with all seven of us kids, not only has he always been there for me when I needed to talk to someone, not only can he play racquetball like a pro, not only did he help me understand the scriptures by making us memorize some of them, not only did he cook us breakfast just about every morning since time immemorial, not only has he encouraged me to follow my dreams, not only has he edited vast amounts of his children's papers, not only has he been a bishop twice, not only has he helped us all appreciate music more by actually singing harmonies at FHE, not only has he been my inspiration . . . wait. I'm not actually going to finish that sentence.
Dad, you are the greatest. Happy Father's Day!
Friday, June 19, 2009
Review: His Dark Materials by Phillip Pullman
When Leah broke up with me a bit ago my family was spectacular. They were all worried about me. Rebecca even had me come over and watch movies a few times with her and Camden. Stephen and I are going to write an article together. Nathan even came weightlifting with me! Dad suggested I start writing again, and I’ve been doing so, dusting off a few old papers and reworking them for submission to some journals. Then Dad suggested I get the C.S. Lewis Space Trilogy to read, as something else to pass the time. I told him I was already in the middle of a series, His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. Not exactly what Dad was thinking since Pullman has deliberately described his books as the “anti-Narnia” (my term) and in the end the main characters kill God.
Well, guess what. You can all stop freaking out, hyper-conservative Christians. It’s not that bad if you actually, you know, read the books. And if you’re Mormon, you can definitely stop freaking out. The books are downright LDS.
To sum up the plot, on a world where each human’s soul is a daemon, or animal spirit companion, a young girl named Lyra is given a Golden Compass. This instrument allows her to know the truth about anything by reading its directions and symbols. Through a series of adventures she travels through parallel worlds and eventually helps her Dad finish the war in heaven and kill The Authority, the first of the angels whose servants generally run amok doing very bad things in His name. In the end, she’s a new Eve who makes the same choice the original Eve did—to follow her own path and destiny—but this time with The Authority dead it’s the right decision to make. Okay, with The Authority alive it was still the right decision, even if He didn’t like it.
Why am I not horribly offended? Well, first of all, Latter-day Saints don’t view the Fall as anything bad. So the entire underpinning of The Authority and his servants for fighting it is bad. So I want them to lose. Second, The Authority is merely all about control, while Lyra and company want to have their own free will. This also isn’t bad. Third, if all religion actually is just a bunch of old men trying to herd us into uncomfortable pews in churches Sunday every morning to apologize to an invisible friend for being human, then I don’t want any part of it. But it isn’t.
In other words, I have the same criticisms of some organized religions and interpretations of God’s will that Pullman does, so I don’t get offended. And while I want everybody to be Mormon in the long run (the very long run), I’d rather actually have a conversation with a well-thought-out atheist than a non-well-thought-out Mormon. And here’s where my criticisms of the series come in. The first book is really great. Fantastic. Armored bears? Awesome. Witches? Very fun. Lyra? Adorable. And mischevious. The enemies? Evil. Actually, genuinely evil. (One scene where they try to sever Lyra from her daemon made the book probably PG-13, so to speak, just for intensity, which felt out of place for the fact that the rest of it was geared for a decently young audience.)
The second book was good. The jumping to different worlds thing was intriguing and led to some interesting points, but felt a bit weird to me. But the third book was just merely okay on multiple levels. By the time Lyra’s father, Lord Asrael, with his assembled armies are being attacked by the Kingdom of God, a floating citadel hidden by eternal clouds run by Metatron, the regent who runs everything since The Authority is old and decrepit, the whole thing just felt too convoluted. I don’t think Pullman did a good job of pulling the strings and various threads together into a cohesive whole. And while I appreciate fantasy and science fiction’s ability to allow us to tell certain stories metaphorically, by the end his atheism had grown so heavy-handed that it was annoying.
Not to mention that the actual death scene of the authority was . . . well, is there a word for the level below underwhelming? I’ll just quote it. SPOILERS, obviously, here if you care.
“Because he was so old, and he was terrified, crying like a baby and cowering away into the lowest corner [. . .] The shaking hand seized his and feebly held on. The old one was uttering a wordless groaning whimper that went on and on, and grinding his teeth, and compulsively plucking at himself [. . .] Between them they helped the ancient of days ouf of his crystal cell; it wasn’t hard, for he was as light as paper, and he would have followed them anywhere, having no will of his own, and responding to simple kindness like a flower to the sun. But in the open air there was nothing to stop the wind from damaging him, and to their dismay his form began to loosen and dissolve. Only a few moments later he had vanished completely, and their last impression was of those eyes, blinking in wonder, and a sigh of the most profound and exhausted relief. Then he was gone; a mystery dissolving into a mystery. It had all taken less than a miute.”
Wait. That’s it? These two barely pubescent kids find an ancient angel entombed in a crystal coffin. He’s so old he’s got alzheimers or something. He’s completely impotent. They help him out. He dissolves.
That’s the death of God? Really? Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra at least was intriguing with the Ugliest Man confessing to the death of God. Knowing what the series was about I expected Lyra to confront The Authority head on, ranting and raving about how he didn’t care about anybody but himself and how he had lied about being the absolute creator (he was the first self-organized being, something that is also extremely LDS), and how he didn’t serve any more purpose in the universe but to hinder people from having and using their free will. But that didn’t happen.
So, overall, I think the series is worth reading once. Brings up some interesting ideas. Fun read, generally. Could provide some good discussions about the true nature of religion with your kids if you read it with them. But I will not be buying it. My next big book purchase will still be all 7 Harry Potter books. If I can ever get a job here in Utah.
Overall Grade: 77/100.
Well, guess what. You can all stop freaking out, hyper-conservative Christians. It’s not that bad if you actually, you know, read the books. And if you’re Mormon, you can definitely stop freaking out. The books are downright LDS.
To sum up the plot, on a world where each human’s soul is a daemon, or animal spirit companion, a young girl named Lyra is given a Golden Compass. This instrument allows her to know the truth about anything by reading its directions and symbols. Through a series of adventures she travels through parallel worlds and eventually helps her Dad finish the war in heaven and kill The Authority, the first of the angels whose servants generally run amok doing very bad things in His name. In the end, she’s a new Eve who makes the same choice the original Eve did—to follow her own path and destiny—but this time with The Authority dead it’s the right decision to make. Okay, with The Authority alive it was still the right decision, even if He didn’t like it.
Why am I not horribly offended? Well, first of all, Latter-day Saints don’t view the Fall as anything bad. So the entire underpinning of The Authority and his servants for fighting it is bad. So I want them to lose. Second, The Authority is merely all about control, while Lyra and company want to have their own free will. This also isn’t bad. Third, if all religion actually is just a bunch of old men trying to herd us into uncomfortable pews in churches Sunday every morning to apologize to an invisible friend for being human, then I don’t want any part of it. But it isn’t.
In other words, I have the same criticisms of some organized religions and interpretations of God’s will that Pullman does, so I don’t get offended. And while I want everybody to be Mormon in the long run (the very long run), I’d rather actually have a conversation with a well-thought-out atheist than a non-well-thought-out Mormon. And here’s where my criticisms of the series come in. The first book is really great. Fantastic. Armored bears? Awesome. Witches? Very fun. Lyra? Adorable. And mischevious. The enemies? Evil. Actually, genuinely evil. (One scene where they try to sever Lyra from her daemon made the book probably PG-13, so to speak, just for intensity, which felt out of place for the fact that the rest of it was geared for a decently young audience.)
The second book was good. The jumping to different worlds thing was intriguing and led to some interesting points, but felt a bit weird to me. But the third book was just merely okay on multiple levels. By the time Lyra’s father, Lord Asrael, with his assembled armies are being attacked by the Kingdom of God, a floating citadel hidden by eternal clouds run by Metatron, the regent who runs everything since The Authority is old and decrepit, the whole thing just felt too convoluted. I don’t think Pullman did a good job of pulling the strings and various threads together into a cohesive whole. And while I appreciate fantasy and science fiction’s ability to allow us to tell certain stories metaphorically, by the end his atheism had grown so heavy-handed that it was annoying.
Not to mention that the actual death scene of the authority was . . . well, is there a word for the level below underwhelming? I’ll just quote it. SPOILERS, obviously, here if you care.
“Because he was so old, and he was terrified, crying like a baby and cowering away into the lowest corner [. . .] The shaking hand seized his and feebly held on. The old one was uttering a wordless groaning whimper that went on and on, and grinding his teeth, and compulsively plucking at himself [. . .] Between them they helped the ancient of days ouf of his crystal cell; it wasn’t hard, for he was as light as paper, and he would have followed them anywhere, having no will of his own, and responding to simple kindness like a flower to the sun. But in the open air there was nothing to stop the wind from damaging him, and to their dismay his form began to loosen and dissolve. Only a few moments later he had vanished completely, and their last impression was of those eyes, blinking in wonder, and a sigh of the most profound and exhausted relief. Then he was gone; a mystery dissolving into a mystery. It had all taken less than a miute.”
Wait. That’s it? These two barely pubescent kids find an ancient angel entombed in a crystal coffin. He’s so old he’s got alzheimers or something. He’s completely impotent. They help him out. He dissolves.
That’s the death of God? Really? Nietzsche’s Thus Spake Zarathustra at least was intriguing with the Ugliest Man confessing to the death of God. Knowing what the series was about I expected Lyra to confront The Authority head on, ranting and raving about how he didn’t care about anybody but himself and how he had lied about being the absolute creator (he was the first self-organized being, something that is also extremely LDS), and how he didn’t serve any more purpose in the universe but to hinder people from having and using their free will. But that didn’t happen.
So, overall, I think the series is worth reading once. Brings up some interesting ideas. Fun read, generally. Could provide some good discussions about the true nature of religion with your kids if you read it with them. But I will not be buying it. My next big book purchase will still be all 7 Harry Potter books. If I can ever get a job here in Utah.
Overall Grade: 77/100.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
The Future of Islam (sidenote on "Mormonism")?
This week’s unrest in Iran, aside from getting CNN in a bit of trouble with the NY Times, underscores something I’ve been saying for a while. Simply put, in today’s world, I think the problem of radical militant Islam is a self-correcting problem. With our modern world, the internet, twitter (apparently a major source of the goings-on in Iran at the moment), etc. an exceptionally hardline isolationist ideology will become more and more difficult to maintain.
I’ve always felt that the problem with radical Islam was something that only Muslims could fix. If there were a group of LDS radicals who thought that flying airplanes into buildings was God’s will, it would be unfair to label all Mormons as identifying with or condoning those. It raises an interesting question as to what “Mormon” even means, something I’ve argued many times with some of my Yale friends. Can you call RLDS, now Community of Christ, Mormon? Are they a subset of Mormonism? What about the “fundamentalist” Mormons? President Hinckley once said that the term “fundamentalist Mormon” is an oxymoron, but I’m personally uncomfortable denying polygamous offshoots of the mainstream LDS church the label “Mormon.” They have to have some label, and they themselves do descend, religiously, from the teachings of Joseph Smith. I like to call myself a “mainstream Mormon” to differentiate myself from the other offshoots, and I think that's a good label.
Anyway, the point is, if people claiming to be Mormon were doing these acts of terror, then we Mormons would have to obviously condemn them, but in doing so would have to define what we felt true Mormonism is. This is the same problem that Muslims have today. For much of the Western World their religion has been largely defined by a select few. In order for that to change, those who claim the title “Muslim” must retake it for themselves. It’s not something that I, as a non-Muslim, can even help with. That’s why articles like the following are encouraging.
Mubai Killers To Be Denied Muslim Burial
Islam, Virgins, and Grapes
A Quiet Revolution Grows in the Muslim World
At the same time, I realize that some things will never entirely die, and I’m not naïve enough to think that my simple blog entry is doing any kind of real justice to the myriad complex issues at play here. Fundamentalist radical Islam is probably around to stay. However, I do think I am right that the definition of “Muslim” and what Islam actually teaches and is about is something that is an internal matter of the Muslims themselves. We LDS get angry when someone tries to define our beliefs for us, saying that we actually believe things that we do not, and so I must afford the same privilege to the Muslims. They get to define what their religion is about, and what submission to your religion means. Some may take a minimalist approach, that you must only say the shahada. (That would be similar to my personal approach to Mormonism—limiting “Mormon orthodoxy” to the temple recommend questions.) Others might object (as many have to my minimalist approach to Mormonism). But it’s their conversation. I can only sit by, watch, and occasionally ask questions to my (one) Muslim friend. But I am seeing encouraging signs, as evidenced by these articles. And I have faith in the power of modern technology to aid the education of most of the people on the planet.
Eventually I think the moderate Muslims will win out. I mean, just look at around. I hate to be blunt, but eventually those who perpetuated the Islamic Revolution of 1979 are going to die. There are many indications that the up and coming generation of Iranians are not of similar mind. It’s a self-correcting problem, given enough time. And I think this example of Iran is a good microcosm for what could, and probably will, happen over the next decades and centuries. Yes, this is a long-term view. I'm under no illusions about its affect for the immediate future.
I’ve always felt that the problem with radical Islam was something that only Muslims could fix. If there were a group of LDS radicals who thought that flying airplanes into buildings was God’s will, it would be unfair to label all Mormons as identifying with or condoning those. It raises an interesting question as to what “Mormon” even means, something I’ve argued many times with some of my Yale friends. Can you call RLDS, now Community of Christ, Mormon? Are they a subset of Mormonism? What about the “fundamentalist” Mormons? President Hinckley once said that the term “fundamentalist Mormon” is an oxymoron, but I’m personally uncomfortable denying polygamous offshoots of the mainstream LDS church the label “Mormon.” They have to have some label, and they themselves do descend, religiously, from the teachings of Joseph Smith. I like to call myself a “mainstream Mormon” to differentiate myself from the other offshoots, and I think that's a good label.
Anyway, the point is, if people claiming to be Mormon were doing these acts of terror, then we Mormons would have to obviously condemn them, but in doing so would have to define what we felt true Mormonism is. This is the same problem that Muslims have today. For much of the Western World their religion has been largely defined by a select few. In order for that to change, those who claim the title “Muslim” must retake it for themselves. It’s not something that I, as a non-Muslim, can even help with. That’s why articles like the following are encouraging.
Mubai Killers To Be Denied Muslim Burial
Islam, Virgins, and Grapes
A Quiet Revolution Grows in the Muslim World
At the same time, I realize that some things will never entirely die, and I’m not naïve enough to think that my simple blog entry is doing any kind of real justice to the myriad complex issues at play here. Fundamentalist radical Islam is probably around to stay. However, I do think I am right that the definition of “Muslim” and what Islam actually teaches and is about is something that is an internal matter of the Muslims themselves. We LDS get angry when someone tries to define our beliefs for us, saying that we actually believe things that we do not, and so I must afford the same privilege to the Muslims. They get to define what their religion is about, and what submission to your religion means. Some may take a minimalist approach, that you must only say the shahada. (That would be similar to my personal approach to Mormonism—limiting “Mormon orthodoxy” to the temple recommend questions.) Others might object (as many have to my minimalist approach to Mormonism). But it’s their conversation. I can only sit by, watch, and occasionally ask questions to my (one) Muslim friend. But I am seeing encouraging signs, as evidenced by these articles. And I have faith in the power of modern technology to aid the education of most of the people on the planet.
Eventually I think the moderate Muslims will win out. I mean, just look at around. I hate to be blunt, but eventually those who perpetuated the Islamic Revolution of 1979 are going to die. There are many indications that the up and coming generation of Iranians are not of similar mind. It’s a self-correcting problem, given enough time. And I think this example of Iran is a good microcosm for what could, and probably will, happen over the next decades and centuries. Yes, this is a long-term view. I'm under no illusions about its affect for the immediate future.
Tuesday, June 9, 2009
Once More Unto the Breach, Dear Friends, Once More
Leah and I broke up over the weekend and once again I feel like Schrodinger's Cat. Back to dating, I guess.
Hello Square One. It's good to see you again my old friend.
Okay, actually it's not.
Hello Square One. It's good to see you again my old friend.
Okay, actually it's not.
Tuesday, June 2, 2009
Jesus Wasn't a Hippie, and Paul Wasn't a Jerk
I’ve come across this idea a number of times in various readings for both my MA and now my PhD program, as well as had it articulated to me by several friends, most notably Dianna Bell who’s in a PhD program in religious studies at Florida State and Seth Payne, who got his MA with me at the Yale Divinity School.
The argument is basically this: Jesus’ original message was one of harmony and love. He didn’t condemn people, didn’t make up lots of rules, and was on the side of the sinners, the oppressed, the poor, and the downtrodden. Paul comes along and using his brilliant mind imposed a kind of quasi-Jewish-pharisaical mindset into Christianity. Paul is the one who says that homosexuality is wrong, that women can’t speak in church, etc. Jesus never said such things. In short the religion taught by Jesus and the religion taught by Paul are very different. Paul teaches a religion about Jesus, which is not at all the same religion that Jesus himself taught. That’s the argument.
It’s a pile of straw.
I got into an argument with Seth about it one night while we were both online playing WarCraft, and let me tell you when you are fighting ogres and undead that is most definitely not the time to be getting into theological debates. But Seth and I manage to do it just about every time we’re both on simultaneously anyway. It’s one of the reasons I like him. Anyway, I said something like the following to him:
In order to have the hippie view of Jesus, that he was okay with everybody and didn’t condemn them and preached a gospel of happiness and peace you really have to ignore large swaths of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospels. The most prime example of this is, “I am not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). Or how about “leaving father and mother for my sake” (Matthew 19:29)? Or how about parables where he describes rich men going to hell (Luke 16:20-31)? (Or the fact that he talks about hell at all?) I think Jesus’ message, when you look at the entire thing, is a basic message about a broken humanity that he has been sent to fix by a) teaching us how to act in harmony with each other and by b) atoning for our sins allowing us to repent and be cleansed. Most are aware of the former, and I have a strong personal belief in the latter based on my own religious experiences. But that’s his basic message. It is not “everybody is okay, so do whatever you want.” It’s a gross misreading of Jesus’ overall teachings, even if I think too many focus too much on part b and not enough on part a.
Some think that using various historical-critical methods we can discover what the “real Jesus” was like, but that makes me very uncomfortable. What these people do, and the Jesus Seminar would be the obvious prime example, is decide what they think Jesus should have said, and decide to conveniently ignore the other parts.
And I think it may be a fair criticism of Paul that he focused too much on the atonement part and not enough on the “social justice” teachings of Jesus. And you could make a good argument that he imposed particular structures on Christianity that hadn’t been present before. But let’s not forget his own particular approach to social justice that apparently Jesus himself didn’t enact during his lifetime, and just because those structures weren’t there before doesn’t mean they completely changed the entire program. I speak mainly here of taking the gospel to non-Jewish people, which Paul was hugely influential in. Peter even received the revelation first (Acts 10), but apparently didn’t have the spine to stand up to those who disagreed with this “policy change” in the early Christian church. Paul called him out on it, and rightly so, I think (Galatians 2:11-21).
And while I’m not comfortable with the Jesus Seminar and the approach to Jesus’ life they embody (start with the assumption he was merely a good human teacher and work from there), I’m more comfortable with some of the historical-critical research that labels some of his more “chauvinist” writings pseudo-Pauline (there is actually textual evidence to back this up). Basically, I am not convinced by the Jesus Seminar arguments that Jesus didn’t say everything attributed to him, but I am much more convinced that Paul didn’t write everything attributed to him.
The issues at hand are much more complex and to think that Jesus taught one thing and Paul taught something else entirely is to misread both Paul and Jesus. There’s more continuity than you think. In short, for both Paul and Jesus to label the former a “jerk” and the latter a “hippie” is a very narrow reading of both their lives and works.
The argument is basically this: Jesus’ original message was one of harmony and love. He didn’t condemn people, didn’t make up lots of rules, and was on the side of the sinners, the oppressed, the poor, and the downtrodden. Paul comes along and using his brilliant mind imposed a kind of quasi-Jewish-pharisaical mindset into Christianity. Paul is the one who says that homosexuality is wrong, that women can’t speak in church, etc. Jesus never said such things. In short the religion taught by Jesus and the religion taught by Paul are very different. Paul teaches a religion about Jesus, which is not at all the same religion that Jesus himself taught. That’s the argument.
It’s a pile of straw.
I got into an argument with Seth about it one night while we were both online playing WarCraft, and let me tell you when you are fighting ogres and undead that is most definitely not the time to be getting into theological debates. But Seth and I manage to do it just about every time we’re both on simultaneously anyway. It’s one of the reasons I like him. Anyway, I said something like the following to him:
In order to have the hippie view of Jesus, that he was okay with everybody and didn’t condemn them and preached a gospel of happiness and peace you really have to ignore large swaths of the sayings attributed to Jesus in the gospels. The most prime example of this is, “I am not come to bring peace, but a sword” (Matt. 10:34). Or how about “leaving father and mother for my sake” (Matthew 19:29)? Or how about parables where he describes rich men going to hell (Luke 16:20-31)? (Or the fact that he talks about hell at all?) I think Jesus’ message, when you look at the entire thing, is a basic message about a broken humanity that he has been sent to fix by a) teaching us how to act in harmony with each other and by b) atoning for our sins allowing us to repent and be cleansed. Most are aware of the former, and I have a strong personal belief in the latter based on my own religious experiences. But that’s his basic message. It is not “everybody is okay, so do whatever you want.” It’s a gross misreading of Jesus’ overall teachings, even if I think too many focus too much on part b and not enough on part a.
Some think that using various historical-critical methods we can discover what the “real Jesus” was like, but that makes me very uncomfortable. What these people do, and the Jesus Seminar would be the obvious prime example, is decide what they think Jesus should have said, and decide to conveniently ignore the other parts.
And I think it may be a fair criticism of Paul that he focused too much on the atonement part and not enough on the “social justice” teachings of Jesus. And you could make a good argument that he imposed particular structures on Christianity that hadn’t been present before. But let’s not forget his own particular approach to social justice that apparently Jesus himself didn’t enact during his lifetime, and just because those structures weren’t there before doesn’t mean they completely changed the entire program. I speak mainly here of taking the gospel to non-Jewish people, which Paul was hugely influential in. Peter even received the revelation first (Acts 10), but apparently didn’t have the spine to stand up to those who disagreed with this “policy change” in the early Christian church. Paul called him out on it, and rightly so, I think (Galatians 2:11-21).
And while I’m not comfortable with the Jesus Seminar and the approach to Jesus’ life they embody (start with the assumption he was merely a good human teacher and work from there), I’m more comfortable with some of the historical-critical research that labels some of his more “chauvinist” writings pseudo-Pauline (there is actually textual evidence to back this up). Basically, I am not convinced by the Jesus Seminar arguments that Jesus didn’t say everything attributed to him, but I am much more convinced that Paul didn’t write everything attributed to him.
The issues at hand are much more complex and to think that Jesus taught one thing and Paul taught something else entirely is to misread both Paul and Jesus. There’s more continuity than you think. In short, for both Paul and Jesus to label the former a “jerk” and the latter a “hippie” is a very narrow reading of both their lives and works.
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