Who do you trust?

I’m watching the story about the violence in Michigan unfold.

The republican legislature and governor passed a bill and signed it that granted everyone the right to work without paying union dues.

The unions responded, as could be expected from an organization that operates with violence, through violence. Steven Crowder got punched several times, and decided to stand down in fear of his life. The Americans for Prosperity tent was knocked down with people inside of it, and the tent cut up and shared among union members as some sort of souvenir reminiscent of John Kerry’s memory of Vietnam where he claimed that soldiers would take the enemy’s ears and such.

What’s fascinating is how the “other” side is responding to these events. “It’s a fake! It’s staged!” they claimed. Or they just ignore it altogether.

I often wonder why our society is so gullible. Why could anyone claim that videos showing a man being beaten down by a union member were faked, and not be laughed off the world stage?

We live in a society, today, where a significant portion of the population doesn’t care about facts or reality. The democrat political machine seems to be all about crafting a message, any message, as long as the message furthers their political goals. “Mitt Romney doesn’t care about you because he’s rich.” “Mitt Romney wants to take away your contraceptives.” “Mitt Romney is going to get rid of Medicare and Social Security.” It doesn’t matter what the truth is to them.

And we live in a society where the vast majority of the media we watch, read, or listen to, doesn’t care either. Did anyone outside of some conservative media outlets bother to report about Mitt Romney’s quiet charitable life? Did anyone bother to point out that Barack Obama is rich too? Did anyone care to show how Barack Obama’s campaign was outright lying about what Mitt Romney stands for? No.

I fear for our country. We should always fear for our country. But I don’t believe the resolution to our fears is to sit on our hands and hope the media decides to operate morally.

Instead, we can only turn to ourselves. What do we prioritize? Morals and values? Or ends despite the means? If, in our own lives, we think honesty is very important, then we will demonstrate to the people around us what that means.

I believe our answers lie in religion. We need to redirect our beliefs and thoughts and attitudes to what is really important. We need to put life in perspective, and find a place where there is no confusion or doubt.

Who do you trust? Do you trust the media? Do you trust conservatives? Can you trust in any one man or group of men? The answer is, resoundingly, NO.

We can only trust in the infinite perfection and goodness that God is.

Why you Can’t Have Science Without God

Let me help my readers understand a critical fact: Without God, specifically the Judeo-Christian God, science would not exist.

Why God, or rather that God? Because the God of the Bible is a God of law and order. He is the one who stretched out the heavens. He is the one who gives law to all matter within the universe. There is no randomness where God’s laws apply. The apply fully and completely in every moment of time and in every corner of the universe.

This alone is not enough. Even if animals believed in such a God, they would not develop science because they can not think like God. Only man is set a little lower than the angels. We are created in the image of God. We are promised that we can become like God if we adhere to the doctrines that God teaches. This potential to become like God includes the potential to understand the laws that govern the universe. It is the Christian faith that teaches us to reach up and pluck the fruit of understanding from the tree of life, rather than accept life as an animal, without understanding.

This still, is not enough. One more core ingredient is necessary to develop science. With the above two qualities, a sort of science can emerge, but it would be a science of revelation, dependent solely upon man’s ability to understand God’s revelation. There is no judge except God, and he has only promised to judge mankind in the final judgment.

The last and final critical ingredient is the experiment. In the experiment, we try out our ideas against the universe itself. Since we believe that God ordered the universe, since we believe Man is capable of understanding those laws, and since we believe that God is no deceiver of men, then when we interrogate reality itself, we expect to get solid, reproducible answers that do not contradict what God has done.

This is, in short, the principle of faith that Christ and the prophets taught. Take what little understanding you have, and try it out. If it is good, then it will produce good. If it is not, then it will not.

Modern science simply cannot exist without these three assumptions.

Atheists like Dawkins and Bill Nye would have you believe that starting with those three assumptions makes one stupid or uneducated. I don’t know why they have this idea, except to blame it on the great deceiver of all mankind who would sift us and bring us down to his level.

Without God, what foundation of science could there be? Why should simply staring at the heavens be enough to drive someone to begin experiments with the idea that they will be reproducible, or to apply logic and reason to the universe with the idea that it should apply? Whatever reason you come up with should explain why, in all of recorded history, modern science was not invented until Christians who had rediscovered the sacred volumes of literature we call the Bible took the reigns of scientific thought in the world.

Response to Bill Nye

Bill Nye posted this recently.

If you don’t want to watch it, I don’t blame you. It’s a completely vacuous argument against creationism. His arguments are roughly:

1. There’s too much evidence for evolution.
2. We need your kids.

Honestly, I can form a retort to him that would look the same, using the same words, but substituting Creationism for evolution.

Let me reiterate why a God-less universe is not only illogical, but impossible.

First, you cannot disprove the existence of anything without examining all of the universe. Since we don’t have space ships or sensor arrays that can peer around corners of the galaxy and universe, we can no more disprove God than we can disprove that someone named Schmortz lives on the planet Fooble.

Second, supposing the technology, time, and energy exist, and someone actually does survey the universe. Not only can they disprove that Schmortz lives on Fooble, they could disprove that there is a God in this universe—but only a God who is confined to natural laws. We don’t believe in such a God, so such a survey would be pointless.

You can, however, prove a positive. If you sincerely want to know whether God exists, and what kind of a being he is, and what he wants you to do with your life, you can find out for yourself through sincere prayer and devotion to his commandments as found in scripture.

Which religion is true? You can investigate the claims of each until you find one that actually preaches a consistent and verifiable religion. I believe the LDS religion is such a religion,. No, I know it is. I have long ago left the realm of belief because what I have seen is enough to prove to anyone that what I know is true.

Now, the second point I want to talk about is how the universe cannot exist without God. See, God is the one that orders the elements, IE, provides the framework for the natural laws. Without him, the natural laws don’t exist. Everything is chaos and nothing would make sense. We know this because for the many millenia that man believed that God or the gods acted arbitrarily, rather than acting in accordance to universal laws that do not vary over space and time. It was this modern Christian concept of the marriage of religion and logic and the universe around us (accepting things as they are rather than as they ought to be) that lead to the foundations of modern science. Our universe simply wouldn’t be the way it is without those laws in place from the sub-atomic level to the inter-galactic level.

Some would argue the anthropic principle here. The universe exists, we exist, and therefore, the universe must be governed by laws and parameters that allow us to exist. The weakness of this argument is that it can be used to justify any explanation for the universe, if the explanation allows for the possibility of it at all. It is sort of the opposite to Occam’s Razor, a favorite theory that is often abused.

I, instead, argue that the laws must come from somewhere. There must be a reason that this universe exists of all universes, despite the improbability of it all. And that reason, that organizing and stabilizing force, is God. Can it be anything else? Luck or chance cannot explain it, or rather, if we relied on luck or chance to explain it we would be in a sorry state. IE, we would be forced to accept the anthropic principle and all the lunacy attendant to that. Instead, if we accept that there is a God that orders the universe, modern science survives intact.

This might seem like odd reasoning to many who aren’t used to reasoning. Without X, things don’t make sense. With X, things do make sense. Therefore, to preserve sense, we must assume X. Physicists have been doing this all along. Somehow, it’s acceptable to use things like Electrodynamics for X, or the General Theory of Relativity, or the Standard Model, but God? Without God, the universe doesn’t make sense. With God, it does.

Bill Nye’s final appeal is for us to sacrifice our children to meet his desires. This is a thought process that bewilders me. Why should I sacrifice my self-interests for Bill Nye’s self-interest? I am as offended as he should be if I demanded he teach his children according to what I thought was best, so that I could benefit the most.

Logic and reasoning are not the strong points in the Atheist world view. To be an Atheist, you must be what you claim your enemies are: ignorant of the universe around us.

Let me help you understand why, using evolution. In no case have I seen such a relationship between science as in geology and evolution. Geology assumes an ancient earth, not because there is evidence that supports this (which there isn’t, unless you assume all geological processes occur at a constant rate, which is absurd), but because they find so-called ancient animals in the strata they observe. On the other hand, evolutionists claim as evidence that their fossils are old that they are discovered in ancient rocks. One relies on the other, and the other on the one. Why does no one talk about this?

Bill Nye mentions radiation. I remember, growing up, how firm a foundation carbon dating was, and yet, how absurd a concept it was when you examined it in any detail. It assumes things we cannot assume. One, that at the time the animal or plant was covered, the ratio of carbon isotopes was similar as it is today. Two, that carbon, like all elements, decay at a constant rate, that is, no outside influence can change the decay rate of any substance. The former has been thoroughly debunked, so much so that carbon dating is only accurate within timescales of written human history,and that only because we have documents with dates on them. The latter is being questioned today, as two independent physicists have discovered that decay rates seem to change over time. What conclusions this has, no one knows exactly, except to say our assumptions were worth as much as the paper they were written on.

Any historical science suffers from the same critical flaw: We cannot rewind the clock to see what happened in ancient history. The “mists of time” obscure the past so thoroughly and so quickly we have a hard time figuring out when, exactly, a body was killed, and what exactly killed it, unless we have a fresh corpse. As time marches on and the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics imposes its toll, we know less and less about what happened, until we can known nothing at all, even if there was a body to begin with. There simply isn’t enough data and there isn’t enough certainty to rewind the clock more than a few years in the past, at best. Those who claim they know what happened thousands, millions, and billions of years ago are lunatic. At best, we can guess, and even then, it is likely wrong.

Bill Nye is a prophet of the pseudo-scientists Atheists wish was taught in our schools. I say, good luck imposing that religion via the power of the state on the rest of us. I would rather live in a world where people are free to choose what they believe is right and wrong, rather than a world where our ideas are constrained by the ideas of others.

Atheism is the Worst Religion Imaginable

Of all political systems, Churchill once joked, Democracy is the worst, save for all the others. I have come to the conclusion that of all religions, Atheism is the worst, including all the others.

Atheism begins with the idea that we can know for sure that there is no supernatural power above our own. This is laughable, of course, one, because it claims to know that a thing does not exist without first knowing all that does exist, and two, because even if you knew every natural thing, you could still not prove the supernatural, that which exists beyond our natural senses, does not exist.

Atheism begins with the assumption that logic is the first thing. It continues by preaching that logic is all that is needed, and faith and belief are obsolete, along with hope and all other virtues derived from them.

Then it proceeds to preach its gospel without any semblance of logic at all.

With no logical foundation for morality, Atheists still persist in using words like “good” and “bad”, “should” and “should not”. I would someone who would join Atheism, just as any other religion, would first ask, “What is good?” Or rather, “What should I do?”

The Atheist answer is the most pathetic of all. The logically obvious answer is, “It doesn’t matter what you do. You will die and disappear. So do whatever you want to.” This is the thought that I think most Atheists have.

Of course, the above is simply a recipe for disaster. Moral relativity means what is good for one is not good for all, and so you end up with people who think it’s a good idea to dress up as the Joker and murder people in a theater. So we can’t have that kind of ideology, because it’s simply not good. (Note the logical contradiction here, or rather, the lack of any logic whatsoever in such a statement.)

So Atheists have to borrow their morals from some other system. The prime candidate is the most superior religious system the world has ever seen, the Christian religion. After all, it’s the religion that gave us modern science and unprecedented wealth that was simply unimaginable even 50 years ago. You reap the benefits that Christianity has sown every time you enjoy one of the many rights and freedoms that Christianity bestows upon all mankind, so you might as well borrow their moral code as well?

Of course, the Christian religion comes with baggage. We do not selflessly act in Christianity. We selfishly pursue our self-interest by serving the poor and needy among us. Indeed, Christ himself proclaimed that no one can enter heaven simply by professing Christ’s name, but that we need to do unto the least of us as we would do to him.

Rather than taking the whole kit and kaboodle, Atheists treat Christianity like a buffet line. How they choose which bits to take and which to leave behind is beyond me. Apparently, chastity isn’t any good, but service is. Apparently, tithing isn’t any good but stewardship is.

I scratch my head at the logical inconsistencies one must embrace to be an Atheist. I laugh inside when Atheists violate their own sacred law of logic to preach and argue in the public square. In the end, I pity them as little children. They are simply too immature to really think about what logic really is, and to learn how to apply it in one’s life.

 
A comment on comments: Just like I wouldn’t tolerate a Christian defending his faith in un-Christian ways, I won’t tolerate Atheists trying to defend their faith in illogical ways. Make your point, but avoid ALL logical fallacies. It may help if you label your assumptions and reasoning clearly. If you feel the urge to call me names, then you simply can’t be an Atheist.

More On Mormons and Blacks

I had a chance to listen to Rev. Wayne Perryman talk about his ideas of what the Republicans need to do. I now understand something I didn’t understand before, but should’ve. The wall between the black community and my community is built from both sides. Just because I’m ready to tear down the wall, doesn’t mean that the other side is, nor that I’m doing a good job at knocking those bricks down. So I’ll do the best I can, and I ask for patience and understanding.

So let me try to summarize my thoughts on Blacks and the Priesthood in the Mormon church.

First, no Mormon was ever taught that blacks would not rise to greet Jesus during his Second Coming. In fact, we teach millions and billions of blacks who lived and died without ever hearing a word about Jesus Christ will not only be able to learn about him and accept him as the Savior, but will actually rise to live with Him in the eternities. Many of these will receive the highest possible degree of salvation, and be invited to sit on the throne of God along with Christ and all the saints who ever lived. No other church I know of teaches anything like this.

Second, we teach that there are a variety of curses on a variety of people throughout the earth. We teach that the members of our church are cursed, and we have a sore cursing that will damn us to hell while it will justify you and your community, if we do not act in obedience to God in all things. In other words, the blacks were cursed, the Jews were cursed, the Gentiles were cursed, the Whites and Asians and Indians and Mormons and Non-Mormons and every group you can imagine are all cursed. Everyone has to approach the Savior and get freed from whatever curse they were born with. This cursing started a long time ago, when Adam and Eve ate the fruit. Whether your curse is different than mine is hardly important.

Third, I plead ignorance. I simply don’t know everything about God. He’s a mystery to me. Sometimes I scratch my head and go, “What were you thinking, God?” However, and this is the key point, I never, ever suppose I am smarter than God. I know one day we’ll all be told everything, and every single one of us will kneel and praise him for his justice, mercy, and unending love. I trust in God, not my understanding.

Meaning, quite frankly, I don’t really know why your skin is black and mine is not. Frankly, I don’t care. Even if it was because of something someone did a long time ago, it really doesn’t matter. It doesn’t change anything. I have to find Jesus. You have to find Jesus. We all have to come to Jesus. Even though our skin is a different color, and you grew up differently than I did, we have to learn to be one in Christ, otherwise, he will reject both of us.

Our church used to teach some things about what the black skin meant, but to be honest, I don’t think they really understood what they were talking about, or maybe we’re not understanding what they were really trying to say. I just really don’t know. Frankly, if this is what you’re hung up on, then you’re missing the elephant in the room, because as long as we’re living on earth, people are always going to make mistakes. If you let other people’s weaknesses keep you from Christ, hoo boy. Talk about a poor excuse.

Fourth, and this is important. I want you to know that when I read the Book of Mormon’s Title Page, I see it is written not for the white Nephites, but for the Lamanites who had the curse of dark skin. I read it is written for them, so that they can blossom as the rose and be ready when Jesus comes, representing Israel. I read that the entire Book of Mormon was written for all of us in our day. There are some pretty crazy stories in there, but I can tell you this: The Lord makes it clear that if you think someone isn’t going to be in heaven because they have dark skin, you’re going to be surprised at judgment day, because the racists will be the ones going to hell. The Lord simply does not tolerate people who think they are better than others, no matter what they think it is that makes them better. He wants those who have been blessed with something to go out and share it, and lift people, not condemn them. So even if the worst possible scenario exists, it doesn’t change what the Lord has told me to do in relation to the black people. I am supposed to love you and serve you and do all I can to make sure everyone of you and your family and community come to know Jesus and accept his sacrifice and prepare yourselves for the Second Coming.

I think this is what Mitt Romney meant when he talked about if you could see into his heart. I feel something similar. I can’t stand the idea that when Jesus comes anyone at all, I don’t care what their skin color is or where they lived or how poor or rich they are, shouldn’t be caught up to greet him. I am working my butt off trying to get as many people as possible to wash themselves clean and take upon themselves the mission of Christ so they can go out and save as many souls as possible.

Are Mormons Misogynist?

Watching the left come unglued and resort to the original tactic of the Democratic Party, demagoguery, the same tactic used to attempt to preserve the institution of slavery, I am left to address something that people may feel is somewhat true.

The claim is that Mormons are misogynist, meaning, they hate or disrespect women.

As a Mormon who has sat through countless sermons and priesthood quorum lessons, and read the canon of the church as found in the Bible, the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price, I am honestly mystified as to why anyone would believe a Mormon could be misogynist. In fact, I’d dare say that Mormons have the most love towards women of any mode of thinking in the world.

Let me share with you a few recent anecdotes.

(1) In priesthood quorum, among a meeting of men, we had a lesson on revelation. Someone raised their hand to add their two cents. “Brethren, we need to listen to our wives. They are, for whatever reason, closer to the Lord than we’ll ever be.” Everyone nodded in agreement.

(2) In a similar environment, someone shared an anecdote of a temple sealer, someone who has been given the power to seal families together forever. He was giving a short sermon to the group of husbands and wives assembled in the temple in preparation of doing the sealing ceremony for their ancestors. He was an old sealer, ordained as a sealer by President Kimball, so his words have special meaning to us, because he has spent so much of his life in the temple contemplating this sacred ordinance. He spoke to the women, “Sisters, thank you for being here and bringing the Spirit with you.” Then he turned to the brethren, “Brethren, this is a sacred ordinance. You need to prepare yourselves spiritually. Follow the example of your wives.

These are some of the most private moments of the sharing of pure doctrine I have experienced.

Let me teach to you Mormon Doctrine considering women. I do this not to argue about doctrine, but to explain what every young mormon has inculcated in their minds as absolute doctrine.

First, Heavenly Father is male, the father of all the spirits. However, he is not alone. At his side is Heavenly Mother. This is rarely spoken of, because we do not wish to see the world misuse her or her name, and we do not take this doctrine glibly. However, it is doctrine, doctrine which no one can deny is ours.

Second, all women are created in God’s image, just like Adam was. They have a different role in God’s plan than the men, destined to be mothers in this life and in the eternities. We often refer to mother as the highest and most holy calling of all callings in the universe.

Third, we teach that Eve ate the fruit, then persuaded Adam to so partake. Our doctrine is very different than the typical Christian’s, however, since we celebrate Eve’s wisdom in partaking of the fruit. Had she not done it, we would never have been born, nor would we have fallen into mortality, and been provided with the opportunity to grow and become like our Heavenly Father. Eve is credited with being the first mortal being to comprehend the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and to explain why it is necessary that man must fall first.

Fourth, although the father in the family is the head, or as we might say, the president, he is under strict command not to exercise his authority except with pure love, patience, tolerance, and so on and so forth. The moment he tries to compel anyone, including his wife, that’s the moment all authority leaves him. Also, he is to counsel with his wife, meaning, pay attention and do what she thinks is best. Not every Mormon family is ideal, but divergence from this divine structure is a gross sin of the worst sort among Mormons. Not only are you injuring your wife, but you are injuring your children. If we do not live up the high standards, we are under greater condemnation as husbands and fathers than our wives ever will be.

On this point, I cannot stress enough what we really mean by president or head. I think the best example is how George Washington behaved during the Constitutional Convention so long ago. There really aren’t many parables in life outside the church that would help people understand.

Fifth, people see the priesthood as only available to men, but this is not true. Women are ordained to offices within the church the same as men by the same authority. It is true that women will never be apostles or presidents of our church. I do not understand completely why men are only eligible for these callings. I will say this, however. (1) We do not consider a position of leadership as a promotion, but a demotion. The greatest among us will be our servants. (2) There are no perks of office. In fact, the higher you go, the less time you have to yourself, and the higher standards you must live from day to day. (3) When we call men to high positions in the church, we have their wives right beside them. Without her consent and support, leadership in the church would be impossible. (4) Women do hold positions of authority, and are entitled to just as much revelation as men are in their respective callings. On the ward leadership counsel, there are, at minimum, 3 women, the leaders of the Primary (children’s organization), Relief Society (women’s organization), and Young Women’s (teenage women’s organization.) They are not superior or inferior on that counsel to any other member of the counsel.

In a technical sense, and this is something that is not well-taught or understood by most including myself, but women are entitled to all blessings of the priesthood, and have the same authority as their husbands through the sealing covenant. I cannot explain further what this means since I myself am ignorant. I will say that women in our temples enjoy all of the temple ceremonies except one: the ordaining to the priesthood. This suggests to me that the priesthood is more of a family affair than an individual affair, IE, the father received the priesthood, blesses his family with it, and his family are entitled to all of its privileges because of the father.

Sixth, and most importantly, we teach that salvation in the highest degrees of glory is impossible without our wives, and that our wives will share with us all the benefits of exaltation. In fact, it is frequently alluded to that many more women will be worthy of this salvation than men, which is why, logically speaking, there will be polygamy in the afterlife.

I cannot imagine a mode of thinking that would elevate women any higher. Women are a critical part of the plan of salvation, women play a huge role in the afterlife, and God himself couldn’t be God without his wife beside him.

After understanding these doctrines, how can anyone say that Mormons are misogynist? I cannot understand it. Sure, some of our members fall well short of our high ideals, or some do not understand correct doctrine, and so we might find instances where women are treated poorly by specific men, but this is the exception, it is contrary to what we teach, and when we discover it, we do whatever it takes to remedy the situation. We would even go so far as to excommunicate a man from our church if he fails to treat his wife properly.

Separation of Church and State? Not when it comes to Christian Charity!

Those who would like the government to stay out of church affairs, beware invoking Christ’s teachings to justify government charity. If it is good enough to use the Bible to dictate that we should care for the poor and sick, then a similar line of reasoning can be used to do far more disagreeable things. Beware!

My stance is that charity is a church, a religious, affair. It is up to the individual to contribute, out of the goodness of their heart, to help their neighbors, whether that be to a church or to some organization. The government exists merely to use force to protect our rights to live, to serve one another, not to make life fair or to undo the injustices caused by Satan’s influence on the world. When we replace our churches with government institutions, and give our government leaders the job that we used to give our church leaders, we are setting ourselves up for the same pitfall that plagued Europe during the Dark Ages.

What Mormons Really Believe

Allow me to expose some of the LDS beliefs and doctrines that don’t get spoken of very much in public.

LDS members believe that angels, God, and man are the same kind of thing. God is literally our father, angels are simply messengers sent by God (and may come as spirits, or resurrected beings, or mortal beings living around you). We all possess the ability to become like God, just like a child can grow into an adult. To us this is a self-evident and obvious from a plain reading of the Bible. I do not understand why people get so worked up about this, and why they insist in putting God and men and angels in separate boxes. I find Jesus’ teachings on this particular subject to be extraordinarily clear and precise.

The priesthood is when a man (male or female) takes upon themselves the attributes of God, and actively engages in the work of God on this earth. There are, of course, official ordinations and offices and assignments and callings as part of this, and they are absolutely necessary, but there is a great deal a man or woman can do in the priesthood without much more authority than you have as simply being a member of the church.

The opposite of priesthood is priestcraft. Priestcraft are simply people who treat doing God’s work as a day job. We have people practicing priestcraft within our church, of course, and they are condemned for it. (Sunday Mormons are not Mormons at all.) There are also those who exercise priestcraft outside of the church. I know this cuts deep into other religions, and is probably the reason why established, profitable churches despise Mormons, but it must be said. If you’re doing priestcraft, you’re working for the other guy.

LDS members claim rights to the priesthood; this is true. What people do not talk about is what we intend to do with our unique power and authority. We intend, simply, to baptize the entire world, bring them into our temples, and have them covenant with God for time and all eternity in unbreakable covenants that seal their families together forever. We intend to be the mechanism whereby the entire earth can be redeemed and live with God and like God in eternal bliss. In more immediate terms, we foresee a disaster. When Jesus returns to earth, all the wicked will be burnt as stubble. If we have our way, there will be no one wicked at the time of his coming. That means there will be no wars, no inequality, in any part of the world. That is our grand Mormon conspiracy.

(Priesthood authority also exists with the tribe of Levi and the sons of Aaron. We admit this. We know of no other existing priesthood lines on the earth than ours and theirs.)

LDS make sacred covenants and oaths in the temple. Among these are promises to obey the law and gospel of Christ, to avoid excess and to dedicate our lives and property to the church. This may sound nefarious to some, but the church mission is as I described above. Greater love hath no man than he lay down his life for his brother, so spake the Savior himself. We have covenanted to lay down our lives for the church, whose mission is to bring people to Christ. In other words, we are sacrificing our lives to bring people to Christ, both within and without the church, the living and the dead.

There is no secret doctrine or teaching in the temple. The lessons we teach and the ordinances we perform are already found scattered in the Bible. I will not point it out to you, but suffice it to say that it is there and you can find it yourself. If you study the Bible and the publicly available writings on Mormon doctrine (official church doctrine, not the book Mormon Doctrine which is not official), you will have exactly no surprises when you enter the temple and see for yourself.

Our temples are open to the world. However, they are a “clean room”, similar to the clean rooms we manufacture microchips in. You must go through a purification process that lasts at least a year. This starts with the ordinance of baptism, and requires that one obey a certain minimum standard and live spiritually for a year. If you entered the temple prematurely, you will miss the message because you will fail to receive the proper spiritual promptings and you will miss the deeper meaning of the symbols found in and around the temple. In short, if you want to experience the temple for yourself, get baptized, live according to our commandments for a year, and then you will understand.

We freely admit that the members of the church are far from perfect, but the structure and priesthood organization is of God. The church is still under a curse that Joseph Smith pronounced long ago. We have not yet been lifted from that curse. The curse is that we have not used the Book of Mormon as it was meant to be used, and so we are held back from certain doctrines and teachings. When we begin to use the Book of Mormon the way it was intended, we will be freed from the curse and have available to us greater spiritual knowledge and insight.

We embrace imperfection. We love you as you are. We know that inside of you is something much, much greater held back by your sins. Many members of the church are not perfect and do not embrace imperfection; it makes me sad to hear about someone who encounters these people. I hope they repent of their pride and learn to love people for who they are. I vow to be your close friend, even if you sin differently than I do.

We embrace imperfection, but we strive to eliminate it within ourselves. We teach each other often and freely, but we are very self-focused when it comes to working out our salvation and eliminating our imperfection. Say you have a problem smoking. You are free to come to our meetings and associate with us even as you maintain the habit. We will, hopefully, never take you aside and say, “Br. so-and-so, it’s time to give up smoking.” Instead, we will teach you our doctrine, and eventually, the spirit will prick your heart and you’ll say, “I believe God wants me to give up smoking.” At that point, we’ll do whatever we can to help you change your life, especially in providing spiritual help and a circle of friends you feel comfortable associating with.

Let me sum up what the priesthood is all about with a story. A young woman listened to the missionaries, received a spiritual witness, and decided to get baptized. In her former life, she had an abortion, which is a gross sin. Imagine her feelings and thoughts as she approached the baptismal interview. A young, 20-year-old missionary asked her the questions about her faith and preparation. When she expressed that she had an abortion, the interviewer excused himself to make the requisite phone call. The mission president answered the call, and told the young missionary, “Make sure she understands that the Lord loves her and forgives her, and make sure she forgives herself.” Satan would have us believe the priesthood is about holding people back, but it’s all about building people up, lifting them over the things that hold us back from God. Without the priesthood, there would be no one who could speak with absolute spiritual authority on behalf of Christ’s sacrifice to drive away all fear and doubt and guilt from that young woman’s heart.

We believe Thomas S. Monsen is a prophet of God, formally, a prophet, seer, and revelator, as well as president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This means if God is going to reveal something to the world, it will be through him. This also means that he can see into the future, past, or present, and understand what is really happening behind the scenes. However, the president delegates his priesthood authority all the way down to the lowliest of church members. His calling is not to lord over the earth as God’s representative, but to empower everyone who wants to to serve the Lord in a similar capacity.

It is true that women in our church do not receive the laying on of hands for the priesthood, and do not hold certain offices such as bishop, apostle or prophet. Given what I described above, it is trivial to see how women are just as much a part of the priesthood as the men. Although we have not been perfect in this regard, I can state with absolute authority that women in the church today are equal co-partners in the work we do. They hold authority comparable to the men. We joke sometimes that the Relief Society President (a position exclusive to women) is the third counselor in the bishopric (positions exclusive to men.) We freely acknowledge that a ward only functions when the bishop and relief society presidents, along with other ward leaders, male and female, are working cooperatively towards the same goals, sharing all the responsibility for the salvation of mankind among themselves without regard to gender.

When the church makes a press release detailing some of our beliefs, it has never been in contradiction to our actual beliefs. Some people accuse us of saying one thing and then doing another. Individuals within our church are mortal and prone to error, but organizationally, we strive to be consistent with what our leaders tell us to do. What we say we do with baptisms and with politics is what we actually do.

If you see a member of my church behaving in a way that is incongruent with our teachings, let them know. We hold ourselves to the highest standards imaginable. We should also admit our imperfection, and welcome criticism and strive to do better constantly. If it is a gross incongruity, such as dishonesty, theft, slander, adultery or murder, or even a profession in contradiction to our basic doctrines, let members of the church know. We do not want to keep people in our church who do not wish to be a part of it.

The priesthood operates exclusively by persuasion. If anyone tries to use the priesthood to force people to do things, as our doctrine says, “AMEN” to his authority and power. The powers of the priesthood are only present when the actor is living righteously. Translation: if someone wants to use the priesthood to do something, it must be done with persuasion, and the person must rely on their own righteousness, not bullying or force or coercion.

Joseph Smith’s teachings on the Law of Consecration detail how to build a Zion community where there is no poor or inequality among the people. Several attempts were made in Joseph Smith’s time, all of which ended in disaster and failure because the members of the Zion communities were not right in their hearts. Joseph Smith declared that no further attempts should be made until a time that would be revealed later. We understand that Zion begins within one’s own heart, and you can create a Zion environment in your own home. In Zion, property rights are established and protected; the bishop would administer donated surplus to those in need; substance would be shared freely among people according to their needs and wants. We believe that Zion will bring unprecedented wealth, prosperity, and happiness to people who practice it correctly. This is not related to Communism at all, which tends to work from the outside in, top-down, and relies on coercion rather than persuasion. In fact, Communism can be considered as a complete opposition to the Law of Consecration. The Law of Consecration is capitalism unbound because the people’s hearts are actually right and not set upon their substance.

Science Assumes Nothing?

I often read self-proclaimed scientists who deny the existence of a god or gods write that science assume nothing. The default scientific position, they claim, is nothing. That means until they see evidence of something, they do not consider it to be real.

I don’t know where people get this idea from. Science, after all, assumes a great deal.

The first assumption science makes is that the universe is ordered and logically consistent. Where is the evidence for that? Our ancestors who lived in the world believed the most sensible explanation for things was that random gods acted randomly in their realm. Storms, floods, and earthquakes were caused by angry gods. A couple that falls in love was caused by the god of love. Crops grew because the fertility gods favored men. So on and so forth.

The first time someone assumed the universe was ordered and logically consistent was a pious fellow by the name of Socrates. Christian philosophers such as Sir Isaac Newton expanded on this and assumed that not only was the universe generally ordered, but exactly ordered, in the minutest of detail, so much so that math was a perfect description of the motions of the planets and stars, as well as apples falling from trees here on earth.

This is an assumption that is such a large leap from what you see around you that it should never be assumed lightly. When you probe into statistical mechanics (which gives us entropy) or quantum mechanics (which uncovers the wave function and its probabilistic interpretation), you see a universe that is not ordered the way Isaac Newton assumed. His assumptions of a mechanical, predictable universe were simply wrong. He was correct, however, that the universe was logically consistent and followed universal laws. At least, as far as we can determine from experiments.

Where did we get this assumption from? Who gave us this idea, before people knew it was a very good assumption? The answer lies in religion.

The next assumption is one that is not to be treated lightly. It is the assumption that the human mind is capable of not only comprehending the laws that govern the universe, but to reason about them and deduce new laws. If we look at the world around us, we see animals that behave mindlessly. At best, the most intelligent animals are comparable to human babies. Even within the human world, we see humans who prioritize learning about the universe around them very low compared to baser desires. What is it that compels someone to abandon the traditional pursuits of a “normal” person and dedicate himself to the pursuit of science? Once again, the answer lies in religion. Something stirs within us and tells us that we must, of necessity, pursue knowledge, and abandon the mortal trappings of the world around us.

When you ponder the assumptions of science, you see that religion and science are not at odds at all. In fact, science is a subset of religion. It is religion that gave us science, and religion that maintains us.

I see a similar argument that goes something like this. “Religion is illogical. The universe is logical. Therefore, religion is not true.” At best, the conclusion can simply be drawn that “religion is not part of the universe”, not that it isn’t true. After all, when you start with the assumption that something is logical, you can’t use logic to explain why it is so. Religion is, and must ever be, illogical. You can only explain the logical nature of the universe with non-logic, because any logical explanation assumes the conclusion, which thus gives us circular reasoning. (At best, you can only show that logic is logically consistent, nothing more.)

The Slate Gets it Wrong Again

I know readers of the Slate think they are well-educated on the issues addressed. When it comes to the LDS church, they are woefully inaccurate. It’s better to leave the propagation of LDS beliefs to our 19-year-old missionaries, and let the Slate refer those who have questions to them.

The latest is an effort to link the corporatization and maintream-ization of the LDS church and theology to Elder Harold B. Lee’s correlation committee. (link)

What Elder Lee did was simply unify the church curriculum and apply already existing doctrine to the structure of the church. In short, he was bringing the church back to its roots.

This is a difficult concept for people to grasp. When you have an organization that claims their founding member was receiving revelation from God, it’s rare that the revelations are actually relevant, insightful, and, dare I say it, prophetic. Joseph Smith revealed the organization and structure of the church, which can be found in the Doctrine and Covenants. Details about how the church should be organized and administered are in that book. The curious are welcome to examine its pages and see for themselves.

Over time, church leaders, out of necessity or whatever, have lead the church in directions. Sometimes enthusiastic church members have changed the essence of the church as well. What I’m talking about here is not something malicious. It’s no different than any other large organization with enthusiastic and helpful members. The deviations of the church from the standard have always been small and insignificant, and temporary.

When church leaders have discovered problems within the church, they turn to God and the priesthood organization and authority for direction. Time and again, the answer is simply to look back in history, examine the revealed doctrines, and apply them more fully than they have been applied in the past.

Elder Lee did just that. He looked carefully at what our doctrines were, what has already been revealed, and combined with insight that was heretofore lacking, proposed changes to how we schedule our meetings. (That was the end result of the correlation committee: having our church services in one three-hour block instead of spread throughout Sunday. That, and ensuring that all the materials taught in our churches was drawn exclusively from authoritative, correct, and doctrinal sources.)

Regarding the women’s organization, the Relief Society. The Relief Society has its roots in an effort by the women of Nauvoo to assist in building the Nauvoo temple. They proposed an organization and presented it to Joseph Smith for his blessing. Joseph Smith received, at that time, the revelation that the women were also a critical component of the church, and he told the women he would do better than what they proposed, and organize the Relief Society under the authority of that priesthood. In times past, there has been confusion as to how the Relief Society fits into the system of quorums and leaders. Today, that confusion is all but gone, as the Relief Society is directed and led by God just as the quorums and groups in each ward. I don’t know exactly what role Elder Lee had in that, but whatever it was, it was a restoration of the roots of the organization, not a deviation into new territory.

Mormons have never been a people wont to be separate from the world. We tell ourselves, “in the world, but not of the world.” We genuinely like being around people that don’t agree with us, even if they harbor secret animosity towards us. We genuinely want to improve their lives and build up communities. That’s the way we were from day one. However, we do not turn to the world for leadership and counsel. That means we do things quite a bit differently than the world, and we are very proud of our differences. As an example, we wear modest but modern clothing, we keep our speech appropriate and clean, we do not tattoo our bodies, we do not drink alcohol, tea, or coffee, nor do we partake of tobacco, we try to be honest in all of our dealings, etc… Yet we still adopt and embrace and expound upon every good aspect of the culture we live in. “Seek [y]e learning, even by wisdom and by faith” says our Head, Jesus Christ. “yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom” (D&C 88:118) We have always been this way, from day one.

We were driven out of the United States into Mexican Territory. We raised the Mormon Battalion to fight for the very nation that rejected us and refused to protect us. We lived for a very long time in isolation, building up not just Utah but the entire West, turning the desert into a garden. Today, we are no longer cut off. We never wanted to be cut off in the first place! Even in our isolation, great efforts were made to keep our culture compatible with the culture that tried to murder and rape us. “In the world, but not of the world.” is a very, very good motto.

If people feel like the Mormons are secretive or isolationists, then they are either talking about a handful of specific instances of introverts, or they are thinking about the exodus we had to take to survive. That is not who we are nor who we wish to be.

Elder Lee didn’t change that. It didn’t need changing. The church hasn’t changed in that way at all.

The Slate would have you believe we were once separationists who did what David Koresh did but less violently. Not so, never so.

The reason why we shave our beards is because it separates us from the world, makes us seem like we don’t want to be a part of it, which isn’t true. Nowadays, now that beards are coming back into style, I would imagine the church would begin relaxing that standard since, honestly, the shaving of beards is not doctrine nor ever was nor can I see it ever being so.

The “I’m a mormon” campaign is to show the world that what the Slate is saying is wrong. Mormons are a part of your community. We want to be, that’s who we are. We don’t want to be separate in that sense, we never have. We love you guys, we love you a lot, and we don’t want to build unnecessary walls between you and us. Yes, we do things a little differently, things like taking care of our bodies and not violating the Lord’s law of chastity, but not so differently that we can’t ride Harley’s or go surfing or teach kids in inner cities or whatever.