Life in the Fast Lane

Proportional Penalties

2011-03-26T18:15:00.001-05:00

It has taken me a while to digest the news that BYU basketball player Brandon Davies was indefinitely suspended for having sex with his girlfriend. While I'm a fan of BYU sports, I wasn't any more worked up over the impact to their season than I would have been over a season ending injury. Those sorts of things happen to sports teams all of the time and players and coaches are responsible for dealing with them.. What really upsets me is how the church has ruthlessly sacrificed the reputation and career of one man and his teammates in order to score a PR coup for the church.

BYU has every right to set its honor code. Every person applying to BYU signs the honor code and knows what is expected. And the university knows that every student is fallible and that there are bound to be violations. In fact they have a whole department in the administration whose purpose is to enforce the honor code. They get to do important things like monitor students standing in line to get student IDs to make sure that they meet the school's grooming standards. Hair too long? Go get a hair cut. Forgot to shave? Go shave. They get to kick people out of the testing center during finals week for wearing shorts, not shaving, having too long hair, etc. Back in the day the dress code required females to wear dresses on campus. During finals in December a girl wasn't allowed to take a final in the testing center because she was wearing pants. So she went into the bathroom and took off her pants and put them in her backpack. She went back to the counter in nothing but her long coat and properly exposed legs and was allowed to take her test. Her letter to the campus paper raised quite an uproar.

What about premarital sex? Believe it or not, it even happens at BYU. I wouldn't know, but I'm guessing more than a little bit but probably not a lot. People just get married instead. But it happens. People get hot and heavy, things go to far. The next Sunday visits get made to the bishop, teary confessions are made, calls are made to the other partner's bishop, disciplinary councils are sometimes held, etc. I suspect that sometimes the students get expelled. But I know for a fact that if they are repentant they often don't. They stay in school, go through their repentance process, and life goes on. People have their suspicions because they see them not taking the sacrament, but the process is private. It's not public. I don't know that the university is even ever notified. One thing I can say for certain:

THERE AREN'T ANY PRESS RELEASES PEOPLE.

So what is special about the case of Brandon Davies? Why is a start basketball player being singled out? Is it because the basketball is ranked 3rd in the country? Is it because they are picked for a #1 regional seed? So why do we have headlines? Maybe because the church just can't pass up quotes like this:

“in an era in which big-time college athletics has run amok, BYU has maintained its core values and refused to sell out.”

The media has got this all wrong. The church completely sold out. It has treated Brandon Davies completely differently than it would have treated any other student guilty of the same honor code violation. It has used and manipulated his "honor code violation" for its own benefit without any regard for the personal repercussions for Brandon, his girlfriend, their families, his teammates, or for that matter the rest of the university. I don't know if Brandon is Mormon or not. If he is his proper punishment might have been excommunication, not being able to take the sacrament, etc. If he's some other religion I'm sure the church would have worked with his ecclesiastical leader for appropriate religious discipline. But the church doesn't typically have authority to suspend you from an athletic team. The church did that to make PR hay.

Transgendered

2010-02-26T10:48:00.000-06:00

Okay, I've written in the past about Caster Semenya and how an apparently black and white issue, your sex (male/female), can be anything but clear. In this case there are clearly understood genetic and biologic factors that can make it extremely difficult to determine the sex of an individual and can even lead to the conclusion that a genetically male person is a female.

Now I see a Dr. Oz show that featured a teenager who was born female but has always felt that she was a male. She had a mastectomy and started taking hormone blockers when she started to menstruate. She looks, sounds, and dresses like a boy and psychologically seems to believe quite strongly that she is a he.

They also had a little boy, maybe 4 years old, that has always believed that he is a girl. He is now a bubbling, happy, cute little girl that just happens to have a penis and dress and act like a girl. Her mother talked about all of the psychological problems this child had as he was forced to dress and act like a boy and how all of those problems have resolved now that they allow him to be a girl.

This mismatch between a person's genetic sex and the sex that they believe they are is called being transgendered. I have to admit knowing absolutely nothing about this so I'll be looking into it. But it makes me wonder about the separate issue of gender identity. Is there something biological going on inside the brain or that happened during prenatal development that caused this? Or is this a behavioral things, a mental illness that could be cured through therapy? With something this basic, I'm inclined to think that there is something biological going on.

Of course, if I was still religious this would be pretty easy to dismiss. Mormons in particular insist that gender and sex are one and the same and are an inherent spiritual attribute. Of course, since we can't investigate the spiritual plane, I guess we just have to take their word for that, as trustworthy as that is.

Indoctrination

2010-02-26T08:58:00.001-06:00

"Going to church, just like going to synagogue, is indoctrination."

I really couldn't have said it any better. This is from the jewish mother who is suing her divorced husband over taking their daughter to catholic mass.

So what's the harm?

"There will be confusion. There will be an abrogation of her identity."

So the custodial parent, whose greatest fear is that her child will grow up not understanding who she is, has the arbitrary right to force a jewish identity on her child while denying the other parent the right to arbitrarily instill a catholic identity.

Given the mother's bald statement that this is a matter of choosing indoctrinations is it just for the courts to decide which form of indoctrination is correct? Given the mother's admission, I'd claim that the child's best interest would be to disallow indoctrination which is so difficult to undo after a lifetime of programming.

However the constitution allows the free exercise of religion so I'd prefer that the child is raised understanding both parent's religions until she is old enough to choose for herself. In the end the cognitive dissonance will probably serve her well.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

On Morality

2010-01-16T16:34:00.000-06:00

Jonathan Haidt, author of "The Happiness Hypothesis", has a very enlightening essay over on www.edge.org called "Moral Psychology and the Misunderstanding of Religion". One of the first things my wife asked me when I told her I no longer believed in the church was what I'd base my morality on. The question caused me to pause because I'd never really considered it before. What was the basis of my morality? How do I know what is right and wrong? I had a very strong intuition that the church had very little influence on my core morality. In fact, most of the church specific moral values that set it apart were pretty tenuous in value. For example, without the church would you spend any mental bandwidth worrying about the morality of Coke versus non-caffeinated soft drinks? Or would you worry about whether drinking a hot beverage might damn your eternal soul?

The interesting aspect of his essay for me is contrasting the lense that academia looks at morality through with the way that religious people view morality. It is alway refreshing when liberal academics are able to recognize the bias that they bring to a subject and examine it.

A key point he makes is that you really can't trust the reasons that people give for why they think something is moral or immoral. As Haidt says, "People couldn't stop themselves from making up post-hoc explanations for whatever it was they had just done for unconscious reasons." In other words, we subconsciously make a moral judgment and then our conscious brain tries to fit a rational explanation to why we feel the way we do. We may come up with quite convincing reasons and really believe them without realizing that we reached that judgment for quite non-rational reasons. In other words, our morality initially comes from our gut feelings.

Academia has focused on fairness/justice and harm/care as the basis of morality. However these two foundations fail to explain the real world.

Most traditional societies care about a lot more than harm/care and fairness/justice. Why do so many societies care deeply and morally about menstruation, food taboos, sexuality, and respect for elders and the Gods?"

He proposed three additional foundations of morality:

ingroup/loyalty
authority/respect
purity/sanctity

He calls these binding foundations because they bind groups of people together into hierarchical, interdependent social groups that regulate the daily activities of their members. By contrast he calls the first two foundations the individualizing foundations because they protect individuals from each other. People who self-identify as liberals base their morality primarily on the first two individualizing foundations whereas conservatives have morals based on all five foundations. Conservatives care about much more than just individual rights, they also care deeply about loyalty to their group, respect for authority, and purity.

I guess this would only be surprising to a liberal academic, but it does explain why academics and liberals are so tone deaf to the importance of certain beliefs to conservatives. One easy example is sexuality. Liberals want people to stay out of the bedroom. After all, what goes on between consenting adults is no one else's business because it doesn't hurt anyone (harm/care) and they wouldn't like other people intruding into their own personal lives (fairness/justice). The religious right, however, care deeply about other people's sexual practices because those practices are filthy or unnatural (sanctity/purity), violate God's law (authority/respect), and violate societal norms or decency (ingroup/loyalty).

A classic example comes from the movie "Milk" where Anita Bryant goes on a religious crusade to overturn laws that were passed to protect the civil rights of homosexuals. A more recent example of the same thing was the recent proposition 8 in California which pitted social conservatives against liberal over gay marriage. I find this example example particularly because it pits the individualizing moral foundations against the binding ones. The fact that time and time again the binding foundations seem to win over the individualizing ones is, I think, a clear statement of the relative importance to the human species of group cohesion over individuality. Nothing seems to bring us together more strongly than threats to our group identity.

So the crux of all of this is that morality seems to derive more from evolved gut feelings than from any kind of philosophical musing or rational process. Rationality mainly gets involved to justify those feelings and in some rare cases to override our baser instincts.

Magical Thinking

2009-11-29T15:51:00.000-06:00

Aaron commented on last week's post on Personalities of the Deeply Religious and suggested that perhaps the common thread among the deeply religious is magical thinking. He hadn't experienced the violence that I have seen and that was integral to the upbringing of the Lafferty brothers and that seemed to be part and parcel of religious culture of Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and 19th century Mormonism. But with or without the violence and spirit of coercion, devoted religiosity does seem to rely on a willing suspension of disbelief and a desire to believe in supernatural powers that can only be invoked through obedience to the practices of the religion. So, I can't help but agree with him, but I think it is a short stroll from magical thinking to violence, especially for people who are naturally inclined in that direction.

Reading more about the Lafferty brothers today I was struck by what a short path it was for Ron Lafferty to go from a devoted, model Mormon, first counselor in the bishopric and pillar of the community to an abusive, fundamentalist Mormon receiving revelations from God that ultimately led him to murder a young mother and her infant child in cold blood for the sin or opposing him and his brothers and their divinely appointed mission to restore the Mormon church to its true practices and doctrines including polygamy.

In the early 80s he was publicly a role model for the members of his ward, but privately he was consumed by the huge recession and on the verge of going bankrupt. At this critical time he met with his brothers who had already independently discovered and retreated into religious and political extremism to try to correct their ways. Instead he found himself convinced and soon started to require his wife to be subservient to him and started to talk of marrying off his teenage daughters in polygamous marriages to other men. When his wife and children left him and he lost his home he fell under the sway of another fundamentalist prophet who taught him to receive revelations. Unsurprisingly he received a revelation reminiscent of D&C 132 that called his wife to repentance and commanded her to return to him or be destroyed. Then he received a revelation commanding him to kill the people who had supported his wife and helped her leave him. The rest is history.

I'm still left wondering whether extreme religious belief is a fertile ground in which coercive and violent behavior can easily find roots. When you are convinced that God has revealed the truth to you and that ultimately truth will prevail in apocalyptic fashion and consume everyone who doesn't believe, it isn't a huge stretch to believe that you are the instrument for fulfilling God's will to cleanse the earth and help the truth roll forward.

Birthers

2009-11-28T12:10:00.000-06:00

My dad did it again. He lured me into his bizzaro world of politics. This time it was his conviction that President Obama isn't a natural born citizen. I'd already looked into this one because, unlike him, if this were true or had some basis in fact I'd actually like to know it. The link in the title is to a Salon article that addresses the claims of the birthers. The refutation is pretty simple since none of their claims have any evidence to support them.

So, why do my father and uncle and a pretty significant percentage of the U.S. population belief such stuff? The only conclusion I can come to is that they want to believe it. From there it is pretty easy to convince them using false premises, circular logic, strawman arguments, and other logical fallacies and outright fabrications.

Trying to use reason with these people is much like trying to rationally discuss religion with the converted. They have already reached their conclusions and even when confronted with contradicting facts they filter them and twist them through the lense of their world view and are able to dismiss them.

Take for example their assertion that Obama doesn't have a birth certificate. This falls under the category of a straw man argument. While it is true, it doesn't matter because he has a certificate of live birth. Twist it and turn it however you want the existence of a birth certificate doesn't matter because in the state of Hawaii a certificate of live birth is all that is required to prove birth in Hawaii. You can also claim that his was a forgery or was originally falsified in some way, but without proof you're still out of luck because the officials in Hawaii have repeatedly stated that he has a valid certificate. You'd think that would be the end of it, but it is completely unpersuasive to people like my father.

He brought up the "fact" that Obama had traveled to Pakistan on an Indonesian passport when he was 20. The implication here (which proves to be false) is that if he had an Indonesian passport then he must have previously renounced his U.S. citizenship. I've heard this claim so much that I figured that there must be some basis in fact but I should have known better. This little tidbit is an inference based on a false premise. The false premise is that U.S. citizens weren't allowed to travel to Pakistan at that time. Therefore, he must have traveled there using a passport from another nation such as the U.K. or Indonesia. This becomes "proof" and a "fact" to the birthers despite the fact that U.S. citizens were freely traveling to Pakistan at the time and the actual fact that there was no such travel restriction.

Part of the problem here is that people trust the sources of such things and figure that if they say it then they've checked the fact. They trust the Rush Limbaughs and Glenn Becks of the world to tell them the truth.

How many times do you have to show that wack jobs like the birthers are idiots that are so desperate to prove an extremely unlikely point before you just dismiss having further discussions with them? Unfortunately, I still have to interact with my father and I'm intellectually honest so I continue to research some of his more precious beliefs on the off chance that he may have come across something. I just wish he was capable of doing the same.

One point I'd like to make is that it's not just religion and Mormonism that inspires irrational belief in the extraordinary. Politics is also fertile ground for self deception. Despite the temptation to demonize the religious it is important to realize that the enemy is irrationality, fanaticism, and close mindedness no matter where it is found.

Personalities of the Deeply Religious

2009-11-22T12:36:00.000-06:00

On the recommendation of a friend I have started reading "Under the Banner of Heaven" by Jon Krakauer. So far I'm finding a lot of parallels with "Blood of the Prophets" and the culture and circumstances surrounding the Mountain Meadows Massacre.

I'm reading about Watson Lafferty and the following things struck me because of the parallels with my own father and some other Mormons I've known.

He was extremely conservative and was impressed with the ideas of Ezra Taft Benson including the John Birch Society and the pervasive infiltration of communists.

He was very pious, individualistic, and strict. He beat his wife and children and once beat the family dog to death with a baseball bat while the children watched.

He was very distrustful of conventional medicine. He was a chiropractor and once tried to treat a daughter's appendicitis at home with prayers and homeopathy and refused to take her to the hospital until her appendix burst and she was on the verge of death.

Despite the periodic violence his son remember him as a loving father and great role model who raised a very special and happy family.

In comparison my father belongs to the Birchers and subscribes to their beliefs in worldwide communist conspiracies. Those that disagree are pinko commies or fools that are under their sway. He's a birther who thinks Obama is an illegitimate president because he isn't a natural born citizen.

He was very strict and didn't have qualms about using the belt and was known to enforce his will with violence.

He is also very distrustful of mainstream medicine. He believes that laetrile is the cure for cancer but that the establishment has refused to research it because it is free and so they can't make money off of it. He regularly ignores medical advice and is prone to trying crackpot cures.

I wonder if these types of rigidly unconventional individuals are at the core of most religions. I know not all or even most religious people are this way. But I'm thinking of those that are the core; those that are most active, most pious, and who inevitably rise to positions of leadership.

-- Sent from my Palm Pre

Elder Hafen, Come Out of the Closet!

2009-09-29T18:39:00.003-05:00

Homosexuality doesn't really bother me so I've always been perplexed by those who are really bent out of shape over the threat of homosexuality to our society. It's as if they think that it's infectious and that by accepting or tolerating it we will encourage its spread. Instead we need to fight it and battle it. After all, any guy could fall prey to the temptations of easy, promiscuous homosexual sex, right? If society says it's okay then think of all of the guys that would stop chasing those icky women and marrying them for reproduction and eternal exaltation.

I know a few of you out there are going, well duh. Of course.

I have news for you. You're at least a little crooked and definitely not completely straight.

Take, for example, the following quote from Elder Hafen, a Mormon General Authority.

In other words, before puberty, boys are typically more interested in other boys than in girls. Then their interest gradually shifts to girls, but a few boys don’t make this transition. Often these boys are emotionally sensitive, introspective, and, especially among Church members, perfectionistic. When puberty hits this group, they can be sexually aroused by many factors. When these factors include other boys, they can become fixated on the fear that they are “gay,” especially if they have male sexual experiences, including male pornography. Then their fixation can block their normal emotional-sexual development.

Now, maybe I'm not your typical heterosexual male, but this doesn't even begin to describe my romantic or sexual interests at ANY point in my life, especially in the years immediately preceding and during puberty. I remember my first crush in first grade on Becky Wolf to this day. My second crush was on my attractive, young, single second grade teacher. Many others followed and by the time I entered junior high I was fairly well entranced by all things female. At no point do I remember ever having even a passing attraction to other males much less being more interested in other boys than girls.

So, my question for Bruce Hafen and Boyd Packer, who he was quoting is if this was their experience? It apparently was also the experience of other anti-homosexual religious and political figures such as Ted Haggard and Senator Larry Craig. They seem terrified of the acceptance of homosexuality because they themselves can easily see themselves succumbing to their own homosexual temptations and without legal and religious proscriptions can see how it would spread.

I had a conversation about this with a friend at work a while back. He was laughingly telling me about a friend who was describing how he could see how easy it would be for a man to become gay and that he could imagine how that could be a temptation that needed to be resisted. Of course, this was pretty laughable to both of us.

Again, maybe I'm way off here and maybe I'm abnormal among heterosexual men, but while I can concede that it may be attractive to some men, I simply can't imagine it. I don't remember ever making a choice about my sexual orientation and frankly find male homosexual sex icky. No offense, but no thank you. It's not hygienic or anything, I just can't imagine being intimate with a man.

Anyway, this whole need to resist the temptation to be gay, repent, be fixed, etc. seems rather like fighting the need to eat or drink water or meet other basic physical needs. The apparent classification of sex by the church as some kind of completely optional, unnecessary physical activity that can be overcome seems pretty unreal to me. Are they gay or frigid? Would they really like to live their lives without any sex or physical bonding with another human being that they find attractive? What would that make their life like? Because that's what they're asking of their homosexual members. For all I know, that's the way they feel about sex with their wives.

The rest of the article is pretty sad that basically asks the gay members he was addressing to repent of their sins (not that their same sex attraction itself is a sin, he points out) and seek the healing power of the atonement to help them either celibate for the rest of their lives or functional heterosexuals who resist their temptations (because what they feel is not their natural state, but a mental illness that can be treated) and be made whole and heteorsexual either in this life or the life to some. Hallelujah!

Just Drop Your Pants

2009-09-16T18:24:00.002-05:00

Have you ever seen the Saturday Night Live sketch with the androgenous Pat? Was Pat male or female? We'll never know. As it turns out, answering the question can be a lot more difficult than having the person drop their pants (although that will usually suffice).

The question comes up in sports like track and field where men and women compete separately because of the significant difference in performane potential between the sexes. Occassionally men are caught cheating by entering women's events in "drag" so when a woman comes along with broad shoulders, narrow waist, heavy muscles, and a deep voice and proceeds to blow away everyone in elite competitions, the questions inevitably arise. Is "she" a he, or is she just incredibly juiced like the East German women used to be? Or is something else going on?

The problem surfaced during this year's IAAF Track and Field World Championships when suspicion fell on Caster Semenya when she dominated the women's 800m final. Her win fell under a cloud of suspicion and protest and I wondered why a quick trip to the showers didn't solve the problem.

The short answer is because that wouldn't necessarily answer the question.

The IAAF did genetic testing for a while for gender. They checked for a gene that only exists on the Y (male) chromosome. Amazingly (to me) there were 8 of the 3000 females tested in the 1996 Atlanta olympics that tested positive as being genetically male. They had a Y chromosome. So doesn't that make them male? If so, then why were they allowed to compete?

This excellent blog post at "The Science of Sport" gives a great explanation. A condition called androgen insensitivity syndrome (AIS) can cause a male embryo to develop testes and not ovaries or a uterus, but to not develop the rest of the physical traits of a male. The external genetalia may be ambiguous and the physical appearance doesn't match the genetic sex. Other conditions can result in ambiguous genetalia and intersex conditions where the person is neither male nor female.

So, the result may be very interesting and counterintuitive (to me at least). Caster may indeed be genetically male, have internal testes, no uterus or ovaries, but be allowed to keep her world championship and continue to compete as a female. And, the controversy may actually save her life because internal testes need to be removed because they can quickly become cancerous and in her case are not needed.

Of course, Mormons have this all figured out as witnessed by this excerpt from The Family: A Proclamation to the World:

All human beings—male and female—are created in the image of God. Each is a beloved spirit son or daughter of heavenly parents, and, as such, each has a divine nature and destiny. Gender is an essential characteristic of individual premortal, mortal, and eternal identity and purpose.

So there you have it. The Lord's prophets have declared that male/female is an intrinsic, eternal, essential characteristic. So, I wonder if they would ordain Caster to the priesthood even though she, her family, and friends all believe she is a woman. Does her genetic identity trump? It's great that the Mormons have a prophet to sort out and address such issues. Perhaps she can get a patriarchal blessing to not only declare her lineage, but also her gender? Or perhaps in a Mormon family she would be forced to be male although she has no penis and feels like a woman. Perhaps it's her burden to be an eternal male destined to pass mortality feeling like a female.

Or perhaps even on topics so apparently easy to deal with, such as gender and sexuality, the world is much stranger and more complicated than we ever imagined.

I'm not holding my breath for the church to come out with anything reasonable on this because it doesn't fit neatly into their black/white world and would to easily transition to other questions of sexuality for which they aren't known for being terribly understanding or reasonable.

Nope, God has made it all so simple to understand.

Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess

2009-09-10T21:42:00.002-05:00

Over the last few months I read a couple of church history books. The first was Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess by Richard S. Van Wagoner. The second was Who Really Wrote the Book of Mormon?: The Spalding Enigma by Wayne L. Cowdrey, Howard A. Davis, and Arthur Vanick.

The first is a long overdue biography of Rigdon. He is best known among Mormons for his pivotal role in the early days of the church and was in the First Presidency right up until Joseph Smith's murder. After that he tried to assert his claim to the presidency and when Brigham Young and the apostles supplanted him and other claimants he went his own way and was excommunicated by Young for continuing to try to regain his former leadership role. Like so many early leaders of the church he became an apostate cast by the wayside and largely forgotten.

Most interesting to me was his religious exploits after Smith's death because I think it gives great insight into how to consider his involvement in the founding of Mormonism. After to failing to gain a following in Nauvoo he head east to Pittsburgh (?) and took over leadership of a branch of the church there. He became a prophet and tried to establish a new Zion in a similar fashion to what he had done with Smith in Kirtland, Independence, and Nauvoo. Like those previous attempts he failed miserably. He finally wound up living in impoverished circumstances with his son's family. His son forbid people from discussing religion with his father because of the problems it caused.

Apparently in secret, Rigdon continued to act as a prophet to people who he led via letters as he remotely led them from site to site of new Zions while constantly berating them with prophecies condemning them for failing to adequately support him. His small flock apparently placed great faith in him as they sacrificed everything trying to support him and comply with his arbitrary directions.

In a tragic turn of events for seekers after truth, Rigdon's wife apparently burned all of his papers. One wonders what might have been in that treasure trove that he didn't want exposed to the world but we'll never know.

The second book explores the possibility that Rigdon had a role in the production of the Book of Mormon. Despite the length of the book, there is really no solid evidence. About all that can be said is that they have shown that Rigdon was in the right places at the right times so that it's a possibility. But is is so highly speculative in nature that the case is hardly compelling. It can't be ruled out, but then again neither can the theories proposed by Brody and others including B.H. Roberts who concluded that Smith was certainly capable of producing the Book of Mormon on his own using the resources at his disposal.

But, when you take the two books together it struck me how quickly Smith's prophetic voice changed as soon as he joined with Rigdon in Kirtland, Ohio. Nearly all of the church's revelations were given in Kirtland with Rigdon by Smith's side the whole time. Prior to Smith, Rigdon had already spent years developing his own Christian restorationist theology as a Cambellite minister and had had a falling out with the Cambellites because he seemed to go to far. However as soon as he linked up with the Mormons you can see his ideas finding fruit in Smith's revelations. During this period, not only were most of the revelations given, but he and Smith "translated" the Bible, established Zion in Missouri, and tried to set up a communal order and various business enterprises. It is easy to understand why so many people at that time believed that Rigdon was the real founder of Mormonism.

Like Smith, Rigdon was never successful in earning an honest living with his own hands and relied on his religious roles and the charity of others to support himself. After his split from the main branch of Mormonism it becomes easy to see him continue a pattern until his death where he tried to use the faith of others to his own advantage.

I highly recommend the first book, but not the second unless you really, really want to see how far people are willing to stretch scanty evidence or are very interested in minute details of the period.

Oh. The second book also raises a very good point about how very little we know about Oliver Cowdery prior to his role in the production of the Book of Mormon and the founding of the Mormon church. I've pointed this out with regard to the testimonies of the three witnesses, but it is extremely suspicious how little we know of Cowdery's life. As church historian it makes one wonder at what he might have been trying to hide and the book actually does a pretty good job at pointing out what some of those things might me.

Smith and Rigdon were the key figures in the foundation of Mormonism and it's theological evolution. I think that the character of Smith's closest associate sheds a great deal of light on Smith himself.

Evolution Redux

2009-04-28T19:44:00.002-05:00

I got a response to an older post, Transitional Life Forms, and I figured I post my response here. You can read the response in the comments, but the essence is that it takes more faith to believe in evolution than creation and that there is no evidence for evolution. Here's my response.

Aw, but MonkeyMom, the evidence is plentiful. Over the 4.5 billion years of its existence the fossil record clearly records the emergence, extinction, and continuation of all of the kingdoms. It just happens over extremely long periods of time. So if you expect to see it over the period of your lifetime or even during the period of recorded human history then you'll probably miss it. People easily misjudge probabilities because they can't easily fathom the magnitudes of the involved numbers. But to state that there is no evidence is simply wrong. It's there even if it is just fragmentary snapshots.

What's completely lacking is any evidence that supports a single creation event where all of the world's species were created with no new ones emerging since that creation.

The beautiful thing about science is that it's not afraid to say when it doesn't know something. Regardless, what we do know is that the earth is significantly older than 6000 years and that life has existed on it for a very, very long time, and that the types of life have changed radically over those long periods and that they have changed from simple life forms to increasingly complex life forms and that the life forms have changed to match the conditions.

If you know what fossils are, you probably know how rare they are and that they are only formed under very special circumstances. The result is that the fossil record is incredibly incomplete. This makes it very unlikely that we'll ever see a complete fossil record showing transitions. However, it does show the appearance of increasingly complex organisms over very large time periods.

Evolution is a theory that tries to explain the known facts. So far, it is the most plausible although like all theories it will be modified and perhaps discarded as new evidence is found that either supports it or undermines it.

That's the beauty of science.

I was, of course, joking about dogs being evidence of transitional life forms. I'm not sure that I buy the theory of evolution either. I'm willing to say I don't know. I think that it's quite likely that there are processes that we don't or can't understand because they happen over millions, billions, or trillions of years. Also, by the very nature of the question, I'm not sure we'll ever be able to know the answer.

What I am 100% certain of, is that the Biblical creation account is not how it happened. The evidence on the ground completely contradicts the account unless you read it as a purely metaphorical story whose details are essentially meaningless.

Since you've studied this so much, I'm sure you're also aware of the problems with postulating an all powerful creator. On the other hand, if you had you'd probably understand why that is an even more improbable theory than evolution.

I'm sure it is comforting to believe in a simple answer: God did it. But if I concede that, then you still have to explain what God is and how he did it. Which kind of brings us back to square one. In the end, "God did it" is just a comforting way of saying, "I don't know." And I'm okay with that answer.

In the end our existence is miraculous, amazing, and astounding. Whether or not we believe in God doesn't change that one bit.

The Office of Presiding Patriarch: Where Has It Gone?

2009-04-09T17:35:00.002-05:00

Search the Mormon scriptures for the term patriarch and you will find the following tantalizing reference in D&C 124:91-95:

91 And again, verily I say unto you, let my servant William be appointed, ordained, and anointed, as counselor unto my servant Joseph, in the room of my servant Hyrum, that my servant Hyrum may take the office of Priesthood and aPatriarch, which was appointed unto him by his father, by blessing and also by right;
92 That from henceforth he shall hold the keys of the apatriarchal blessings upon the heads of all my people,
93 That whoever he blesses shall be blessed, and whoever he acurses shall be cursed; that whatsoever he shall bbind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and whatsoever he shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.
94 And from this time forth I appoint unto him that he may be a prophet, and a aseer, and a revelator unto my church, as well as my servant Joseph;
95 That he may act in concert also with my aservant Joseph; and that he shall receive counsel from my servant Joseph, who shall show unto him the bkeys whereby he may ask and receive, and be crowned with the same blessing, and glory, and honor, and priesthood, and gifts of the priesthood, that once were put upon him that was my servant cOliver Cowdery;

What's so tantalizing about this you ask? Joseph Smith instituted the office of Presiding Patriarch of the church and Brigham Young later stated that it was an office that should always exist within the church yet today that office no longer exists in the church. It was silently done away with when the church put its last Presiding Patriarch on "emeritus" status without explanation to him or the church other than that all stakes had their own local patriarchs and that therefore the presiding office was no longer necessary.

What is lost in all of this is the prolonged internal debate and dissension within the presiding circles of the church over what exactly the nature of the office of Presiding Patriarch was within the church. The above quote is about all that the scriptures have to say about it, but in Joseph Smith's time it was understood that it was a lineal office that should go to the oldest worthy descendant of Joseph Smith, Sr and that understanding continued in the church right until the end of the office.

So what happened? In a nutshell the office threatened the primacy of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. When Joseph Smith was murdered there were no clear succession plans. During his life Joseph Smith ordained his son Joseph Smith III to be his successor but he was too young. There were various claimants to the position but ultimately most of the church followed the president of the 12, Brigham Young. But even with the 12 some of the apostles felt that a new prophet could take the position of the president of the church without a revelation. That revelation never came and after a few years Brigham filled the position and this precedent has been followed to this day despite the fact that there is not revelation stating that this is the correct method of succession. The church could change its succession tradition whenever it wants to and not contradict any known Mormon doctrine. What the tradition does do is eliminate dissent when the president dies.

So how does that relate to the office of Patriarch? In the same section God reveals the officers of the presiding priesthood in order and for a long time the officers were sustained in this order during church conferences.

123 Verily I say unto you, I now give unto you the officers belonging to my Priesthood, that ye may hold the keys thereof, even the Priesthood which is after the order of Melchizedek, which is after the order of mine Only Begotten Son.
124 First, I give unto you Hyrum Smith to be a patriarch unto you, to hold the sealing blessings of my church, even the Holy Spirit of promise, whereby ye are sealed up unto the day of redemption, that ye may not fall notwithstanding the hour of temptation that may come upon you.
125 I give unto you my servant Joseph to be a presiding elder over all my church, to be a translator, a revelator, a seer, and prophet.
126 I give unto him for counselors my servant Sidney Rigdon and my servant William Law, that these may constitute a quorum and First Presidency, to receive the oracles for the whole church.
127 I give unto you my servant Brigham Young to be a president over the Twelve traveling council;
128 Which Twelve hold the keys to open up the authority of my kingdom upon the four corners of the earth, and after that to send my word to every creature.

Note that the office of Patriarch was listed first, before even the prophet or first presidency. Although it was an office without institutional authority over the operations of the church, it seems clear that it was intended to be a presiding officer on par with the rest.

In the aftermath of Joseph Smith's death Brigham Young's authority was challenged on several fronts. The Quorum of the Seventy was also a presiding quorum that theoretically could claim authority to lead the church. Young deftly defused that potential threat by creating stake level quorums of seventy. This ploy existed in the church until the church put the matters right in the 80s when they eliminated the local 70s and left only the 70s who were in the first and second quorums of the 70s.

He was also threatened by the Smith family. There was young Joseph III, but there were also Joseph's surviving brothers Samuel and William. Samuel died in the care of a confidant of Brigham Young and William believed that Samuel was poisoned to remove a threat to Brigham's authority. William became the presiding patriarch but challenged Brigham's leadership and was subsequently excommunicated under the pretext that he was teaching and practicing polygamy even though all of the twelve were also doing so.

Note that in all of this that a revelation was never received clarifying how the succession was to procede. Remember that Mormon's claim to fame is that it is led by prophets. Yet at a critical junction the leadership crisis was dealt with in a manner that you'd expect from any similar institution with plenty of politics, strife, and machinations.

The next patriarch was Joseph Smith, Sr.'s brother John. He had zero aspirations to power and was thus a safe choice while Hyrum Smith's son was a child. When John Smith died in 1854 the patriarchal office fell on a different John Smith, the eldest son of Hyrum Smith and half brother of apostle and future president Joseph F. Smith. He held the office from 1855 to 1911, but his tenure turned out to impact future successions to the office. While he fulfilled the office well and gave many blessings, he smoked and drank and didn't live the principle of polygamy with proper enthusiasm. He took a second wife, but apparently only as an obligation. His first wife hated the practice and in one telling quote remarked that all of the girls 14-19 in the territory were married off to polygamists.

John Smith was publicly called to task over his shortcomings during his lifetime and when he died in 1911 the office of patriarch passed over his son to his grandson, Hyrum G. Smith. Apparently John's son was not deemed worthy since he apparently wasn't faithful in obeying the Word of Wisdom.

With Hyrum G. Smith the role of the presiding patriarch again became an issue and a perceived threat to the apostles. Unlike his two predecessors, he was a strong leader and under the presidency of his uncle, Joseph F. Smith, he tried to reassert the primacy of the office of Patriarch in the church. While supported by the president, this received a chilly reception from other apostles. This hostility resulted in the office of Patriarch going unfilled after his untimely death in 1932.

The successor by lineal descent should have been Eldred G. Smith, but President Heber J. Grant strongly opposed him and refused to call him to the office. Unfortunately, the church assumed that he wasn't being called because of unworthiness and he had to live with that stigma for over a decade.

Now once again, this is where a prophet would have come in really handy. Instead, President Grant had the apostles research the issue. He really, really wanted to get around the lineal descent issue so he could be allowed to choose a man of his choosing. He felt that Eldred was too young and of insufficient stature to take such a prominent position. Furthurmore, Grant had grown up in the 1800s and was very familiar with Eldred's great grandfather who had the Word of Wisdom and polygamy problems. Based on that he felt that the entire line of descendants from John Smith were unworthy to hold the office and he preferred for the office to go to a different descendant of Joseph Smith Sr. that he felt was more worthy. In 1942 he finally got his way and Joseph Fielding Smith was set apart as presiding patriarch. The inspiration behind this choice was revealed when the new patriarch was released in 1946 after he was discovered to be a homosexual. So much for revelation.

Eldred G. Smith finally became presiding patriarch in 1947 and continued in that role until 1979 when he told that he was being place on emeritus status.

The thing I find stunning in all of this is the complete lack of divine inspiration and direction in such critical questions as prophetic succession and the role of patriarch and other presiding officers in the church and the ultimate dropping of what was originally the first presiding officer in the church.

I guess I haven't heard how the apologists address this issue, if they even do, but it strongly confirms my belief that the Mormon church is not what it claims to be.

The whole story is documented in the following fascinating book: Irene M. Bates and E. Gary Smith, Lost Legacy: The Mormon Office of Presiding Patriarch, Urbana, Illinois, 1996.

Hammer Blow

2009-04-04T14:35:00.002-05:00

As I resumed running after my ankle surgery I noticed that my German Shepherd Dog (GSD), Scout, seemed a little out of shape. Then one morning one of the kids noticed bloody streaks on the floor of the kitchen after a run. Worried that he'd cut a paw during the run I quickly examine Scout's paws. The pads were fine, but the nails on both his hind paws were worn down to the quick which is where the blood was coming from. As he was walking around it became clear he was dragging them forward.

The vet took xrays which showed that his hips are in great shape and the only thing he noticed was some calcification between a couple of vertebrae that might be an indicator of a bulging disk. The problem was definitely neurological and it was either a disk pressing on the nerves or a condition called degenerative myelopathy (DM). He referred me to a orthopedic specialist who I saw on Thursday. He confirmed what my vet had told me. If it was a disk I was looking at about $2000 for corrective surgery, but if it was DM then there was nothing that could be done.

When I got back to work I looked up DM and discovered that it is fairly common and almost exclusive to GSDs. It was the first I'd heard of it. In a nutshell it is like MS in people. It is a disease that attacks the nerves in the spinal column starting with the rear legs and rapidly progresses until the hind legs are paralyzed and eventually the dog dies.

The way the condition is progressing, I'm 99% sure that Scout has DM. His symptoms are rapidly worsening. He has difficulty going up and down stairs and frequently trips or stumbles. His legs cross under him when he is walking slowly and when he is standing it isn't uncommon for his hind legs to just slide out from underneath him. If it's DM then in a short time, 3 to 6 months, he'll become incontinent and completely lame. Before it gets too bad I'll have the difficult task of saying goodbye to a dear friend and putting him down.

Sad day.

The Secret Mormon Temple Endowment

2009-03-12T22:04:00.003-05:00

Why do so many Mormons out there have their garmies in a bind over HBO's Big Love depicting the Mormon temple endowment ceremony?

Growing up in the church, young Mormons are taught that their main aspiration should be to go on a mission and be married in the temple. Eventually they learn that before they can go on a mission or be married in the temple they have to "take out their endowments" in the temple. But all they know about the endowment is that it can't be discussed and that afterward they will be required to wear temple garments instead of normal underwear for the rest of their life. Throughout their young lives, if their parents are devout, they see their parents go away to the temple regularly to do who knows what. Growing up in Des Moines, Iowa my parents made annual pilgramages to the nearest temples in Salt Lake City and Washington, D.C. to do temple work. But I never knew what that work consisted of other than doing endowments for dead people.

Prior to taking out their endowments Mormons have to pass worthiness interviews with their Bishop and Stake President. In the interviews no more information is provided about what will happen. The church sometimes has temple preparation classes and it has a book, "The House of the Lord," written by an apostle, but none of those resources give much information about what the endowment consists of or what to expect. It is a great, sacred secret that you will only receive once you are proven worthy.

The secrecy is then reinforced in the ceremony itself when the participantsy promise before "gods, angels, and these witnesses" to never reveal the secrets that they learn within. When I went in 1990 I had to promise to suffer my life to be taken rather than reveal its contents. I promised this not only once, but three times and each time had to ritually enact different ways in which my life could be taken: by having my throat slit, by having my chest torn open, and by being disemboweled.

When Mormons go the first time, they receive additional instruction from the temple officials after the ceremony to never talk about the ordinance outside of the temple, not even to their spouse. The secrecy is reinforced throughout their lifetime of church attendance by all of the oblique, obscure, indirect references made to what goes on inside the temple. It has such an air of sacredness, mystery and untouchableness that I don't know any active Mormons that are willing to talk about what goes on inside the temple.

So, within the culture of Mormonism it is really, really, really, super duper, mega bad to talk about the temple. It is a violation of their most sacred promises. In some ways, the very essence of the endowment is its secrecy. It is special, occult knowledge that is only supposed to be known by those who have lived worthily and who are candidates for eternal exaltation. Its signs and tokens are supposed to be the keys to entering heaven and so it's unthinkable to disclose those sacred things to non-believers or unworthy people.

And that, my friends, is why the Mormons freak out when people publish the endowment on the web or re-enact it on film or put it on TV.

Ironically, if you read it over there is absolutely nothing doctrinal in the entire thing that isn't openly taught outside the temple. The only unique things are the secret handshakes and passwords which, again, are easily available outside the temple.

For a recounting of my experience with the temple, click here.

Big Love to Show Endowment

2009-03-11T21:16:00.002-05:00

Since the Mormon temple ceremonies are in the news I thought I'd link to my previous posts about my temple experience when I was a young TBM Mormon preparing to leave on a mission to Bolivia in the fall of 1983. You can read it here.

For the full text of the ceremony, click here. It includes markup that shows the extensive changes that the church made in 1990 to remove parts that are particularly unsettling.

Daisy 5k

2009-02-28T20:36:00.002-06:00

Today was a significant milestone for me. I completed my first road race since my ankle surgery, a small 5k in downtown Austin. It was pretty much what I expected: slow (9:15/mile pace). The weather was a nice crisp 46 F with a strong wind blowing out of the northwest. My left foot and ankle were sore for the first mile or so but then they calmed down and by the end I was running comfortably. It felt good to try to run hard and try to push my limits some although it wasn't until the last couple of hundred meters that it started feeling good instead of like work.

I've made good progress with a few setbacks over the last several weeks. Three weeks ago my ankle's swelling was less than it's been since the surgery and I was able to see my ankle bones. So the next week I tried to run every day, nice and easy. I also extended my long run out to 4.5 miles. This made my ankle start swelling again and I started feeling pain on the outside of my left foot and ankle and having a lot of swelling again. I had a 6 month followup with my doctor last Tuesday and while he was happy with my progress he wasn't happy with the swelling and pain in the foot and thought that it might be the result of overpronation and he referred me to an orthotic specialist.

I'm not so sure about the need for an orthotic because neutral cushioned shoes feel good and stability shoes hurt my feet. Before dumping $300-$400 on custom orthotics I went down to the running store and bought some Superfeet over the counter orthotics. In my Saucony's they raise my heel some and make my heels slip a little so I have to tighten the shoes more. But in my new Nike Zoom Victorys they felt completely natural and my foot and ankle feel good this evening so maybe they are helping. I'll see over the next few weeks.

Blessings of Tithing (Not), Part 2

2009-02-27T13:06:00.003-06:00

On January 30 I walked into work with a huge smile on my face and I felt like I was entering a period of great prospects. This was incongruous because it was the last day of my contract and my company had no prospects for new contracts. I had friends and co-workers who had already been unemployed for over 4 months and had done thorough nationwide searches trying to drum up new contracts with absolutely no results. Over the last year the contracting job market had completely dried up.

I had resolved to live off my savings for as long as possible and I was looking forward to some time off after working a tremendous amount over the previous year and a half. I also had some ideas for starting my own business that I wanted time to think about and work on. I also had things to do around the house that had been neglected for too long.

One of the things I wanted to do was go on a cruise with my wife. Not knowing my job future made me delay until the last moment but I booked a cruise at the last moment over the internet. My wife and I hurriedly packed and drove down to Galveston on February 8. We got caught in a huge traffic logjam just south of Houston and barely made it to the dock in time to board. I dropped my wife and our luggage at the dock and parked the car. We then got into the line to check in and got out driver's licenses out. We got up to the TSA people and they asked for our birth certificates or passport. I had hurriedly read the travel documents web page the night before which said that passports weren't required so I panicked a bit. I thought you only needed a driver's license. No problem, we'd brought our passports along even though we thought they weren't needed so we ran back out to our luggage.

After 30 minutes later of going through every piece of luggage we couldn't find any sign of my passport. Feeling like the stupidest person on the planet I made one last attempt to beg my way onto the ship only to be denied. I went back to the car, searched it for my passport, and went and picked up my wife and luggage for the long drive back to Austin.

Before leaving I called Royal Caribbean and they graciously agreed to transfer my non-refundable payment to a future cruise. The only problem was that this was the only week that really worked for us that was also affordable. After a little discussion we decided the only week that would really work was the week of spring break. This also meant that all of the kids would be free. So I made a command decision to book a cruise not just for the wife and I, but also for all 4 kids. Royal Caribbean helped us get it all set up the next day and we are now looking forward to a dream vacation.

By the way, in our haste to leave, my small backpack that I was going to carry on got left at the house. Inside were my cameras, some computer cables, and ... (drum roll please) ... my passport.

That next week I enjoyed my time off and didn't do much. On Friday I got an update from Linked In and I decided on the spur of the moment to ping a couple people in my network to see if they knew of any jobs. Within the hour they had responsed and I'd sent out a couple of updated resumes. The following Monday I got a call from a hiring manager and on Tuesday I had a phone interview with him and on the next day did a phone interview with a senior fellow of the company. The next Tuesday I had an on campus interview and two days later had an offer which I accepted two days ago and I start a great new job on 3/9.

If I was still an active member of the church this string of events would make a great faith promoting story to tell during testimony meeting. What initially looks like a calamity (missing the cruise and losing a lot of non-refundable money) results in my getting a great job and being able to take a cruise with the whole family while on paid vacation instead of while hoping to find a job.

Are these the blessing of heaven despite my unworthiness or because of my wife's worthiness or is it just life? My personal opinion is that there wasn't any divine intervention. Everything that happened was a direct result of my own stupidity and my own initiative in doing what I could do. I'm happy that Royal Caribbean felt it was good business to allow me to rebook the cruise at a later date even though they had no contractual obligation to do so. But, their decision was rewarded with more business from me that they wouldn't have otherwise gotten. I'm glad that I was in Austin to send out those feelers instead of on a cruise ship. But in the end, I don't know if it would have made any difference if I'd sent those resumes out a few days or a week later. I have a very good resume with unique skills and the company really wanted to hire me and found a spot for me despite challenging ecomonic times.

I'm blessed and I'm happy. But I wouldn't feel any differently if those things hadn't happened. The flip side is I also don't feel cursed or tried when things aren't going well. I feel like my personal life philosopy allows me to ride the ups and downs of life with relative equanimity.

Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses

2009-02-07T09:48:00.003-06:00

I've formed some opinions about the Book of Mormon witnesses, but I don't like reaching uninformed conclusions so I decided to read up on them. I just finished reading Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses by Richard L. Anderson based on the recommendation of no less that Daniel C. Petersen whose quote on Amazon is titled, "An Instant Classic" and states

This is one of the most important books ever published in the field of Book of Mormon studies. I recommend it without hesitation, and with the greatest enthusiasm. It deserves to be kept in print for the indefinite future.

Based on that I wanted to see how it would address my concerns about their testimonies.

Unfortunately, it didn't offer anything new. Here's my review that I posted on Amazon.

Based on Daniel Petersen's review I was expecting quite a bit more. This book is essentially a series of brief biographical sketches of each of the witnesses with an emphasis on their normality and integrity in their normal lives and how they repeatedly re-affirmed their testimony of the Book of Mormon. I'm convinced that they believed and weren't lying and that it was real to them.

What it fails to do, however, is provide any kind of detail about the nature of the experiences that they have. The author repeatedly emphasizes that it was real to them. However, these were people that believed in peep stones and magic too. I have no doubt that their visionary experiences were as real to them as alien abductions are to people that have experienced them. He readily dismisses, however, the possibility that the experiences were the product of the charismatic, visionary, ecstatic experiences that are typical of the religiously zealous. This is despite the fact that Martin Harris and David Whitmer both emphasize that their experience occurred by the power of God while in the Spirit. The fact that such experiences are real to them shouldn't be convincing to the rest of us.

I'm convinced that they had an experience and don't think they were lying. But if I accept their witness then do I have to believe equally sincere spiritual witnesses of countless others throughout the ages even though they are all contradictory?

I think the more interesting question, which isn't addressed by this book, is what is the actual basis of these types of experiences.

Unfortunately, the book only gives a couple of well-known descriptions of the experiences which bring up more questions than they answer. What is extremely troubling to me is the pro-forma nature of the testimonies. We lack critical details such as the date, the setting, the time of day, etc. We have evidence that the 8 witnesses' experience was spiritual as well. The author challenges this, but curiously can provide no refutation from the 8 witnesses themselves. I think it says a lot that they never described what happened and that the author doesn't bring this up.

He also minimizes or neglects to mention evidence that challenges his thesis. One example is that he gives the Mormon version of the Charles Anthon story but neglects to quote Anthon's version which calls into question the veracity of Harris with regard to the Book of Mormon. He fails to mention the issues that David Whitmer brought up about Oliver Cowdery editing Joseph Smith's revelations by adding and deleting parts as well as challenging problematic details. This alone should call Cowdery's trustworthiness with regard to church history into question. This is why this book is an apologetic as opposed to a real history. I think the topic is covered much better by other more objective historians who treat all of the evidence and not just the favorable evidence.

Additions to My Library

2009-01-30T10:42:00.003-06:00

My work contract is ended on January 30 and in preparation I ordered a bunch of books from Amazon. Here are my latest additions:

Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses

Lost Legacy: THE MORMON OFFICE OF PRESIDING PATRIARCH

Sidney Rigdon: A Portrait of Religious Excess

Do Mormons Even Bother Reading The ApologeticsThey Send?

2009-01-30T10:41:00.000-06:00

My brother's comment about Stela 5 reminded me of the books and CDs my parents sent to me to try to help me regain my testimony. After reading and listening to them I wondered if they'd even bothered to read or listen to them. In several cases they confirmed facts that my father had stated that he couldn't possibly believe were true that were obvious attacks by the enemies of the church. But mostly, they didn't tell me anything I didn't already know and were a confirmation of things that I'd only learned when I started reading non-Mormon sources. I also discovered that they conveniently failed to mention facts or information that weren't helpful to their argument. And finally I found that they made some of the most egregious logical flaws in leaping to conclusions that either weren't supported or were explicitly contradicted by their own facts.

Unfortunately, they don't feel they need to study or understand because the Spirit has already told them what the truth is and nothing is stronger for them than that witness and the good feelings it gives them.

Hummingbirds

2009-01-29T14:17:00.003-06:00

And now for your moment of Zen. I took this at a scout camp in New Mexico. The hummingbirds lived in the woods and would fly over to a feeder by the crafts area. If you were still you could put your fingers on the perches and they would land on your hands to eat.

All They Have to Do Is Ask

2009-01-29T14:03:00.000-06:00

My emails with my little brother reminded me how almost no one in my family or ward has asked why I've left the church. I think that there are several things going on.

What his email reveals is how Mormons have been taught to think of apostates as misguided sinners who have lost the Spirit and fallen away from or rejected the truth. The stated reasons for their apostasy don't really matter because the prophets and scriptures have pretty clearly stated why people apostatize. Everything else is just rationalizations. These people don't ask because they think they already know the answer.

I think another reason is that they don't want to know the answer. If the reasons were strong enough to break my testimony then maybe it's better not to know.

Finally, the last reason I've observed are those members who are aware of the issues and still remain active in the church. This was really surprising to me. I learned things such as the nature of Joseph Smith's polygamy that I simply couldn't swallow. Those people have somehow made peace with the uncomfortable facts. Some put the issues on a shelf or reformulate their beliefs to accommodate the facts while others no longer believe but continue to remain active and pretend to believe in order to keep the peace and reap the benefits of membership. That last group was especially surprising to me. These people don't ask because they already know what the problems are.

The Tree of Life, Lehi Stone, or Stela 5

2009-01-28T14:06:00.000-06:00

From my TBM brother:

Regarding archaeological “evidence” do you not find the Lehi stone in Chiapas, Mexico to be intriguing? That is one of the clearest objects that corroborates the writings found in the Book of Mormon. Regarding linguistics, I’ve heard mixed reports.

I had heard of this stone engraving that some Mormons claim is a depiction of Lehi's dream in the Book of Mormon. Even as a TBM it seemed pretty speculative. But I try to keep an open mind so I googled it and hit the following FARMS article. You can read it, but it basically states that it's not evidence for or against the Book of Mormon and that even Hugh Nibley thought it was essentially rubbish. So, no, I don't find it intriguing, but it is typical of the "evidence" for the Book of Mormon. The evidence against it, on the other had, is pretty solid.

Regarding linguistics the results are pretty iron clad. There are no known remnants of Hebrew in any Indian languages. Furthermore, the vast numbers and varieties of dialects requires thousands of years of development, not a couple of thousand years as the Book of Mormon would show. I'll refer you to B. H. Roberts Studies of the Book of Mormon for more on that topic.

Of course, the current Mormon apologetics seems to state that the Nephites and Lamanites were an essentially insignificant population whose genetic and cultural impacts were swallowed by a much larger non-Hebrew population that pre-dated them. I guess they ignore the statements of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith, and almost every subsequent prophet.

The burden of proof lies with the Mormons, not me or you. However, the only proof they are willing to stick to is their individual testimonies based on "feeling the Spirit."

More DNA Evidence Related to the Book of Mormon

2009-01-28T10:30:00.001-06:00

My brother sent me an extract from an article that published some very interesting DNA research. Instead of using human DNA they used the DNA of bacteria that are found in the gut of humans. Based on that DNA they showed that some pacific islanders had apparently originated in Taiwan. The same article also talked about how linguistic patterns has shown similar results which strengthens the conclusions.

As a true believer, my brother thought it would be interesting to see if similar research could be done to show that Book of Mormon Americans had populated some of the pacific islands. You see, the Book of Mormon talks of people that sailed away in ships never to be seen again. Mormon prophets have subsequently stated that pacific islanders in places like Samoa are descended from those nephite adventurers.

I would be interested in the results of such a study too, but I would expect them to confirm what mitochondrial DNA studies have already shown.

I said as much to my brother which he interpreted, rightly, as an attack on the veracity of the Book of Mormon. He then proceeded to imply that I was an addict searching for an intellectual escape from Mormonism so I wouldn't have to repent and conquer my many sins. I posted a quote in my previous post. He then stated that because of the goodness of the church and his testimony things like evidence were superfluous because he knew what was true and would be lost without the church and his testimony.

3 Categories of Sinners

2009-01-26T15:34:00.003-06:00

I received this unsolicited categorization of sinners from my TBM brother.

I love and respect you as my brother for all the good memories I’ve had as a result of you, but I’d be willing to almost state that there are other life choices and habits that preceded your choice to actively distanced yourself from activity, service, and affiliation with the Church. Maybe you’re an exception and I’m wrong for being suspicious about your motives, but I’ve known too many people who have dipped deeply into pornography or other forms of addiction and gone through cycles of guilt-shame-repentance-relapse. To me I’ve been able to see people sort themselves into one of three groups.

Group 1: People who have battled patterns of behavior who fight until they conquer it
Group 2: People who go inactively quietly in an attempt to minimize feelings of shame or guilt because they have lost confidence in their ability to change
Group 3: Inactive people who actively seek to cover-up wrongdoings by justifying a choice to become inactive based solely upon scholarly merit.

From this, I gather that he believes or has been told that I'm some kind of an addict. I'll even concede that he may be right. So there you have it. People battling addictions and sins either conquer and remain believing, give up and go inactive, or seek intellectual rationalizations for giving up. I guess that in his world those that are successful never leave.

I'm not sure if it has ever occurred to my brother, but every single apostate is a sinner, so if you want to blame apostasy on sin then you can always do so. Of course, every believer is also a sinner so I could just as rationally blame belief on sin and a need to seek peace and say that the only reason believers don't apostasize is because they need the peace that belief gives them in order to live with their guilt. In fact, I'd never thought to turn it around like that, but I suspect that it explains belief a lot better than apostasy.

Cross Examing Witnesses

2009-01-13T10:45:00.001-06:00

Why do lawyers cross examine witnesses? Why does a person accused of a crime have an opportunity to face his accusers in open court?

The simple answer is that witnesses can lie or be mistaken and often the only way to tell is to ask questions to clarify their testimony or to catch them making inconsistent statements that would indicate either fabrications or faulty recollections or perceptions. This is also why eye witness testimony is not considered very strong; it is very often wrong. The most important evidence in a court is factual, forensic evidence such as DNA or fingerprints, not eye witness testimony.

Before publishing the Book of Mormon to the world Joseph Smith had 11 witnesses sign statements attesting to its divine origins. First there were 3 witnesses and then later 8 more. Their testimonies can be found at the front of every Book of Mormon that has ever been published and are linked in the previous sentence. If you haven't ever read them, then you probably should. If they are to be trusted and their testimonies are true then the Book of Mormon is the word of God even more surely than the Bible or any other book known and you ignore it and the Mormons at your eternal peril.

So, why don't I believe them? This is most assuredly the strongest piece of evidence that the church has in its favor. None of the witnesses ever renounced their testimony and throughout their lives repeatedly reaffirmed by word and deed their belief in the Book of Mormon as the word of God even though some repudiated Joseph Smith as a fallen prophet and Brigham Young and his polygamist followers as apostates.

First let's look at what they actual testified. The 3 witnesses state the following:

They saw, through the grace of God, the gold plates.
The voice of God declared to them that the plates were translated by the gift and power of God.
They saw the engravings that were on the plates.
They were shown to them by the power of God and not of man.
An angel came down from heaven and showed them the plates and engravings.
The voice of the Lord commanded them to bear record of it.

The testimony is kind of written backwards, but seems quite clear enough. The 8 witnesses state the following:

Joseph Smith showed them the plates.
They had the appearance of gold.
They handled the leaves that Joseph translated.
They saw the engravings which appeared ancient and of curious workmanship.
They hefted the plates.

Unfortunately, other than the witnesses, the church lacks any forensic evidence to corrobate the points of the testimony. For example, they don't have the plates so that they can be inspected by experts to verify their age or the correctness of the translation. In fact, this is the most curious thing about the Book of Mormon. Why should special witnesses be required at all if the gold plates actually existed? Mormons will answer quite simply that God requires us to have faith and so he took the plates back up to heaven after having shown them to these witnesses. After all here we have 11 witnesses and Joseph Smith makes 12.

So, again, why don't I believe them?

Let's start with the 3 witnesses. If the plates physically existed then why did an angel have to bring them and why was the power of God required to see them and inspect them? In later accounts Martin Harris gave a curious account of how he obtained the witness and it hardly makes his witness very believable. It is clear that the experience was in his head, or as believers would have it, spiritual. David Whitmer later confirmed that the testimony was based on a spiritual experience. This caused him no pause, but it make me wonder why physical plates rely on what has proven to be highly suspect "spiritual" experiences. People, Harris and Whitmer among them, believe strongly in the trustworthiness of such experiences, but evidence shows otherwise.

Other than Martin Harris, why didn't the witnesses subsequently talk about the particular circumstances of seeing the plates? What were the dates and places? Did they see them individually or in a group? Was the lighting good? Did they all see the same details? Were they in a visionary state when they saw them? Were the characters engraved deeply? Were the engravings thick or thin? Were both sides of the plates engraven or only one side? How were they bound? What size were they? How thick were they? How much did they weigh? How was the sealed portion sealed? Were they smooth or rippled? Did they show signs of age?

There are so many questions that could be asked, but from what I can tell, if they were ever asked these questions they weren't answered. Given the church's fondness for its history, if these details existed I'm sure that I'd have heard them during my years of Sunday School, seminary, institute, missionary service, and church meetings. Instead, what I know of are pro forma responses that basically say, "We confirm our written testimony." That in and of itself seems very suspicious.

When lawyers cross examine a witness they look for signs of memorized or prepared testimony. If the witness repeats exactly the same thing over and over again it starts to sound suspicious like they have been told what to say. The 11 witnesses' testimonies seem to fall into this category. In fact, the testimonies were prepared by Joseph Smith. Martin Harris claimed that the 8 witnesses also saw the plates only with their spiritual eyes and that some were hesitant to sign the prepared statement.

So, do I believe them? As far as I can tell, they are testifying to what they saw in a dream-like state. So, I believe that they are telling the truth. But I don't believe that what they saw in vision actually existed. Otherwise they wouldn't have needed to be in a vision.

Do I belive the gold plates ever existed or that the Book of Mormon is a translation of them? Nope. The evidence is strongly against it and the dreams or visions of 11 witnesses won't change that.

New Year's: Resolution Time

2009-01-13T10:44:00.000-06:00

This is the worst time of the year to be at the gym. The place is suddenly packed with all the people who bought their membership and didn't hardly use it during the year and now suddenly resolve to use it to lose some pounds or get those six pack abs or whatever.

Nothing wrong with that, but it does make you wonder where they were for the rest of the year. Or perhaps it's better to ask why they stop coming after a pretty short period of time. Rather than focus on why they stop, though, I'd like to share some advice on how to make permanent changes and achieve your resolutions.

Set a concrete, achievable goal: A New Year's resolution is a goal. In order for to reach a goal it must be measurable. Losing weight is an easy one. One of mine is that I want to get to 205 pounds from my current 240. I also want to run the spring race series here in Austin and a fall marathon.

Make a plan: A goal without a reasonable plan is just a wish and it will probably never happen. My plan is to net 1500 calories a day, to run 5-6 days per week, and to do some strength training at least once a week. Once I build up a base of about 25 miles a week I'll formulate more detailed training plans targeted at the spring races and the marathon that I choose.

Track your progress: A major reason that people fail to execute their plans is that they don't regularly track their progress. First they miss a day, then two, and before they know it they can't remember the last time they worked on their plan. Tracking requires some kind of tool. It could be a piece of paper or a notebook where you write down status each day. In my case, I'm a geek so I use computers to track my progress. I use the free training log on Nike's web site to track my workouts. Their log will also build customized training plans for races for you, track the mileage on your running shoes, and other cool stuff. I can just pop it up and quickly see if I've been missing runs. For weight loss I highly recommend Dietpower. You can track the calories you eat and the calories you burn and come up with a custom plan with daily tracking to help you manage your diet and exercise to meet your weight goal. It's the only way I've found to reliably lose weight and keep it off.

Team up: It's easier to tackle a difficult goal if you are on your own. Your support can be family, friends, a training group, or a hired hand such as a coach or trainer.

Look where you want to go: Put mistakes or shortcomings behind you and focus on what you need to do. If you are trying to lose weight, don't focus on how hungry you are. Instead create a list of healthy foods and snacks that you like and eat reasonable portions throughout the day to stave off the hunger pangs. If you focus on what you can't do you'll almost inevitably fail. If you focus on what you need to do and what you can control, then you will do it.

The Stuff That People Will Believe

2009-01-07T19:02:00.003-06:00

People believe all kinds of strange stuff. Some people are convinced that they are victims of alien abduction and experimentation all evidence to the contrary. Some believe that the apollo missions to the moon were staged and never actually happened. Others believe that the Jewish holocaust never happened. Some of these people might be liars, but others are completely convinced and aren't being deceptive. If they were all mentally ill, then that might make understanding them easier, but many are perfectly sane or at least as sane as you and I (which might not be saying much...).

As I was leaving Mormonism this topic interested me a lot. How could I have believed such impossible stuff? I found a couple of books helpful. The first was "Why People Believe Weird Things: Pseudoscience, Superstition, and Other Confusions of Our Time" by Michael Shermer and the other was "The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark" by Carl Sagan. Both are excellent books that are pretty short and easy to read and the topic is very important to understand because it helps explain why witnesses can be pretty unreliable sources for figuring out if something is true or not. As a bonus they also give some pretty good insite into how to avoid being a sucker.

The topic is a broad one that I don't intend to explain it here. If you are interested then read away. But the ramifications are very important, especially when it comes to religious belief.

Take, for example, the 11 witnesses to the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon story is pretty ridiculous just about any way you look at it. Yet, here you have 11 individuals who were eye witnesses to its origins to testified to it and never gave up that testimony. From reading David Whitmer's writings I firmly believe that he believed that the Book of Mormon came from God. I think the same can be said of Martin Harris, but when it comes to Oliver Cowdery and Joseph Smith I doubt it.

But the bigger question is "So what?!". Let's concede that they all firmly believed what they were saying. Does that mean it's true? Certainly not. It is something you need to address if you don't believe, but when you understand why people believe all kinds of strange things then it isn't so difficult to understand and explain away. In fact, given the enormous burden of proof that must be met, their statements are pretty thin.

I'll write more on this topic in the next post where I want to talk about problems that I have with the witnesses and their story.

Trustworthy? Sure, You Can Trust Me

2009-01-06T18:01:00.003-06:00

I promise you that I am trustworthy. Heck, I hardly ever lie or distort the truth. So, go ahead and trust me.

Our natural inclination is to trust people. In "Social Intelligence" the author talks about mirror neurons that have been identified in human brains that trigger empathetic responses in us when we view something happening to another person. For example, when I was watching the Olympic 200m trials in Oregon last year I instinctively groaned and grabbed my hamstring when I saw Tyson pull up and fall to the track. I could almost feel the pain in my own leg and I got teary eyed watching the anguish on his face that was not only physical, but also the emotional atom bomb that he wouldn't be competing in the 200m race in Beijing where he was the favorite against Usain Bolt and Asafa Powell in both the 100m and 200m events.

We can usually trust people to treat us like they would expect to be treated because hurting you in effect hurts them too. But in some people, something goes awry and they simply don't have a clue on what is going on in other people. People with autistic spectrum disorders have this problem. They will consistently continue on and on talking about something long after it is clear to everyone that they are being a bore. If it seems like they don't have a clue, it's because they don't.

But another social behavior counter balances our trusting nature. When we discover taking advantage of our trust then we go into full out revenge mode. Traitors are reviled. The petty thief isn't trusted with the till. The convicted felon can't get jobs. The apostate is shunned by his former co-religionists or worse.

When you lose someone's trust, it's hard to get it back.

When I discovered that the Mormon church has systematically deceived me throughout my life I lost all trust in it and it's defenders and over time my distrust has been confirmed as I found more and more deceits and half truths. It turns out that the best source for unbiased information isn't always the source and in the case of the Mormons they only thing you can guarantee is that they'll only tell you the things that they think will be well-received. You see, they know what will turn you off so they give you "milk" before the "meat".

We can't function without some level of trust, but we need to develop a healthy skepticism so we can find who can and can't be trusted and once we find the untrustworthy change our default stance. Or as I constantly say in my line of work: Trust but verify.

Book of Mormon Witnesses

2009-01-02T14:42:00.004-06:00

When I stopped believing in the truthfulness of Mormonism I suddenly found that many things that collided with my previous beliefs fit better with my new disbelief. I could probably phrase that better. How about, things that I couldn't explain and had to put on a shelf hoping to understand them in the future could now come down off the shelf and be explained.

One subject that troubled me for a while were the witnesses to the Book of Mormon. Everything else seemed to fit well with Joseph Smith being a fraud and his followers willing dupes. However, the witnesses never recanted their testimony which seems like pretty strong evidence that they believed in the Book of Mormon. I still think that this is probably one of the stronger pieces of evidence that the church has and is one of the smartest things that Joseph Smith did. Until he had the witnesses' signatures, everything pretty much rested on his word. Afterwards he would have 11 other men who essentially testified that what he was saying was true. Furthermore, several of these men were subsequently run out of the church and would have seemed to have ample excuse to recant their testimonies, but they didn't.

I've since learned a little more about the witnesses that makes there testimony much less compellingto me.

The most important is the following statement by David Whitmer found in his publication, An Address to All Believers in Christ:

If you believe my testimony to the Book of Mormon; if you believe that God spake to us three witnesses by his own voice, then I tell you that in June, 1838, God spake to me again by his own voice from the heavens, and told me to "separate myself from among the Latter Day Saints, for as they sought to do unto me, should it be done unto them."

This entire document is a repudiation of Joseph Smith and the various branches of Mormonism and he argues persuasively that they had fallen into error. If you believe his witness of the Book of Mormon, then should you also believe his arguments against the church? I think so. He was there from the beginning and argues very clearly how Joseph Smith and others fell into errors, gave false and contradictory revelations, and edited revelations after the fact to fix them.

As far as the witnesses themselves, I think that one would have to read their testimonies and try to ascertain what actually happened, because they subsequently said very little about the actual experiences that they had and what details they gave talk of spiritual land visionary experiences that would seem to be unnecessary if the plates physically existed. In fact, I find this to be one of the more damning evidences against them. They basically reaffirmed their statements time and time again, but with no details. As a result we really have almost no information of how, when, or where they saw the plates. If this were an exception I wouldn't think much of it, but since it seems to be the rule it makes me think that they had agreed to stick to the written testimony to avoid contradicting one another.

I have no doubt that David Whitmer believed he had had a vision of divine vision that was as real to him as any other experience in his life. In fact, it seemed to be more real than anything else because he believed the power of God was also involved. He had no doubts. I really don't doubt that he was earnest, but I do question his interpretation of the experience and whether his vision was a divine manifestation or a product of his brain. Read my post about Lexapro Dreams for my own experiences in this regard. I can attest to the fact that they can seem vividly real even though they clearly are not.

Lexapro Dreams

2008-12-23T16:57:00.004-06:00

Can a dream seem so real that it can be mistaken for reality? Can memories incredibly vivid yet wrong? Can perfectly sane, stable people believe things happened that really didn't?

These are very important question in day to day life, but they are particularly important when trying to understand religious experience and belief.

I started taking an anti-depressant, Lexapro, this year and one strange side effect has been incredibly vivid, lucid dreams. Sometimes I'll wake up in the morning from one of the dreams and it seems very real. This isn't my first experience with dreams like this, but the Lexapro seems to make it happen much more frequently.

When I was on my mission in Bolivia, I was reading "Jesus the Christ" by James Talmage during my spare time. One morning as I lay in bed I dreamed that I was in the Garden of Gethsemane and I witnessed Jesus in agony as he suffered and then walked back to awaken his slumbering disciples. For me, it felt incredibly real and part of me hoped that this was the Spirit opening up a vision to me to strengthen my testimony while another part wondered whether it wasn't a dream brought about my my immersion in missionary work and scripture study. After all, I had gone to bed reading about this very part of the New Testament.

Later in my mission I had a similarly vivid dream about my girl friend who was back in Utah at BYU and waiting for my return. The dream led me to believe that she was moving on with her social life and would soon be dumping me. Time proved that the dream was prescient.

Later on in my mission I dreamed of a conversation with my father in which he confided that he had cheated on my mother. I awoke startled and worried. I was so worried that I considered confronting my dad with the information. It seemed crazy and yet it seemed so real. As a missionary trying to feel the Spirit and receive revelation and inspiration from God all the time, I was quite concerned. I've never discussed this with my dad, but part of me is curious. Was it a true vision that revealed his dark secret? I'll never know, because I don't want to know the answer.

As a believing Mormons I strongly entertained the notion that these were visions. As a non-believer I now believe that they are no different than my current Lexapro dreams, constructs of my mind that reflect my inner thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and desires.

My experiences have strong parallels with "alien abductees" who firmly believe that they have been abducted and experimented on by alien visitors. Experts who have interviewed some of the abductees have been convinced because the victims are completely convinced that the experience was real. Carl Sagan in "Demon Haunted World" talks about this phenomenon and concludes that while the experiences seem real, they are really vivid dreams.

Now, I'll take another step. Martin Harris and David Whitmer claimed that they saw the Book of Mormon in vision with their spiritual eyes. Martin Harris is reputed to have said that none of the Book of Mormon witnesses saw the gold plates with their physical eyes, but rather with spiritual eyes. Given their beliefs and their total immersion in the translation of the Book of Mormon is it possible that they had similarly vivid, visionary dreams like I have had? Would their beliefs cause them to believe that those visions are just as real as anything else they have experienced? I can testify that it would be easy to believe that. Those dreams feel as real as anything else I experience; they are as clear to my perception as when I'm fully awake and walking around. Heck, maybe I've been led astray. Maybe those dreams weren't dreams. Maybe they really were visions. Maybe I should have that conversation with my dad...

Feeling the Spirit

2008-12-12T10:46:00.002-06:00

Slate had a fascinating article on the emotion called "elevation". Here's how they describe the sensation:

...a feeling of spreading, liquid warmth in the chest and a lump in the throat.

They theorize that this feeling is caused by stimulation of the vagus nerve. Now, does that sound at all like the following:

But, behold, I say unto you, that you must ^astudy it out in your ^bmind; then you must ^cask me if it be right, and if it is right I will cause that your ^dbosom shall ^eburn within you; therefore, you shall ^ffeel that it is right.

D&C 9:8

Mormons believe that this sensation is the Spirit of God causing a burning in the bosom to testify of truth.

Here's what the Book of Mormon says on how to discover truth:

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how ^amerciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ^bponder it in your ^chearts.

4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ^aask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not ^btrue; and if ye shall ask with a ^csincere heart, with ^dreal intent, having ^efaith in Christ, he will ^fmanifest the ^gtruth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may ^aknow the ^btruth of all things.

Moroni 10:3-5

I find it interesting that science is now shedding light on the source of this sensation and unfortunately it doesn't seem to have a mysterious, supernatural, divine source.

Damn it. This would really piss me off if I hadn't already figured it out on my own. Unfortunately, this feeling is supposed to be a more reliable source of truth than anything else in the world. So where does it leave those who believe in religion because of these feelings? I mean, maybe it's the Spirit stimulating the vagus nerve. But that might disappoint the religious who didn't support Obama because it seems that the Spirit testifies of him.

It's Official: I Can Run

2008-12-12T10:41:00.002-06:00

Well, I've been good the last several weeks and not run. Instead I've been ramping up my walking and last week I walked every day for a total of 18 miles. On Wednesday I got the good news from my physical therapist that it was safe for me to gradually start running. I celebrated by heading to the gym and hopping on the treadmill. The sad news is that running at 12 minute mile pace was getting my heart rate quickly into the upper 150s so I ran for 1 minute at a time and walked for 2. That gave my heart a chance to recover into the low 140s before the next running interval. That gives you an idea of how far off my conditioning has fallen, but it is still nice to be on the road to recovery. I'm hoping to see continued steady improvement until the spring races I have planned.

On the weight loss front the best I can say is that the weight gain has been stopped and seems to be slowly dropping. The long term plan is to gradually lose weight and try to get down to 205 from my current 236 by June.

Physical Therapy

2008-11-12T18:29:00.003-06:00

I walked into physical therapy and Troy greeted me with, "So, did you run last week?"

Me, sheepishly: "Just a little bit."

Troy: "How little."

Me: "Just one minute."

Troy: Knowing smile.

Me: "At a time..."

Troy: "Come on, how much total?"

Me: "Only five minutes in all with one minute of walking in between."

Troy: "I knew you would. That's why I told you no. I knew if I said yes you'd overdo it."

Me: "So I can start running now?"

Troy: "No. But I know you will anyway, just try to take it really easy."

Seriously, I get winded just walking and with just the little bit of running I do once a week I can feel that my foot, ankle, calf, and lower leg aren't ready to sustained running so I'm doing the elliptical trainer, stationary bike, and walking. My ankle was still swollen from running yesterday so today I just did the bike. My ankle is feeling really good though, it just swells up quite a bit when I overdo it.

Protests in Front of LDS Temple in LA

2008-11-12T18:09:00.002-06:00

It's no surprise, given the church's involvement in Proposition 8, that people would protest against the Mormon church. I do find it telling that the only reported violence was a group of apparently South Pacific Islander Mormons who assaulted some female protesters. You can follow the link above to the LA Times web site for text and video including an attractive woman with a bloody nose being cared for by paramedics.

The church has been persecuted in the past, but this current incident gives insite into the type of things that Mormons past and present have done to incite the anger of their neighbors. Of course, they see this as just another example of the armies of iniquity fighting against the truth.

I found out about this from an email that was forwarded to me by my in-laws. I thought that it would be interesting post it to show how the faithful feel about the protests.

A Letter from a Worker at the LA Temple

As additional information for those who missed the news, I was at the temple assisting in the security efforts and it was quite an experience. Our temple is safe and no damage was done on the grounds.It was a site I never expected to see. At one point we had let in about 20 police vehicles through the gates because they were afraid their vehicles would be damaged as civilian cars were being vandalized. I removed the Utah plates from my truck just so I could drive through the mess and park blocks away. Two fullsquads of LAPD in riot gear set up their base inside the temple grounds while SWAT vehicles and hundreds of officers followed the crowds run up Santa Monica and Wilshire Boulevards. I've heard that the crowd was estimated to be over 2,500. The officers inside the temple grounds made a line on the front lawn by the fence. At one point, with 7 news and police helicopters overhead, the crowd began to climb the fence and it looked like there was going to be a lot of trouble. We had, it seemed, a good fourth of a Polynesian ward there so it could have gotten very interesting very fast. While I was there, I was not aware of anyone actually breaching the fence, but we were asked to move far across the parking lot as they were anticipating the need to shoot tear gas canisters. I never thought I would see the day when police officers would sit perched on the spire of our temple as lookouts. All of this happened at about 7:30 PM. It should be remembered that most likely many of the law enforcement were not in favor of our stance on Proposition 8, but nevertheless, the men and women were there doing their duty and protecting our property. For that we are grateful. And yes, there was an incident with some of our members who had gone to remove the protest signs from the front fence. One of the protesters did initiate physical contact with one of our sisters so the details are uncertain as to whether the response was fully justified. The lesson to be learned is that it's important to anticipate and avoid such confrontational situations. Remember the world is watching our reaction and the media is everywhere. In the end, when we keep our cool, the video footage speaks the truth regarding which side is really intolerant and appears hateful whenwe simply do not respond or do so in a loving and controlled manner. I can testify that I felt the presence of others protecting the temple..those we could not physically see there tonight. We areprotected and our Father in Heaven is mindful of our efforts and willingness to withstand persecution. As far as the temple being open or not, I do not have any official word. The decision to close it today came from Church headquarters in the afternoon and I imagine they will have to evaluate the situation day to day. Since protesting has occurred the past 2 days, I imagine in will happen again tomorrow and as long as people can keep it up without losing their day jobs.

My response to the email was:

Wow. First blacks, then women, and now gays. When will the church learn...

It's difficult to feel sympathy for the church for when it supported stripping rights from people through a campaign of systematic misinformation. Now they act surprised that people are exercising their rights to fight back.

I've posted before on why I think the church does this. The reason is retarded, mind you, but it makes since to them and their sexual purity obsessed culture. To them marriage equals permission to have sex and if you allow gays to marry then you are saying it's okay for them to have sex. And for them that's unacceptable. So they see it as a moral fight to continue to officially and legally condemn homosexuality. It doesn't affect them, but for them it's a moral struggle and they see losing that battle as a downward spiral into immorality. All the other reasons are simply pretenses as the rebuttals to their propaganda have shown.

I Still Don't Understand It

2008-11-11T20:23:00.001-06:00

I started this entry months ago and finishing it has been difficult because it admits something that I don't every like to admit: weakness and vulnerability. But reading about friends struggles have made my personal struggles particularly poignant and I want to share my experiences on this subject in part to let them know that they aren't alone, in part to help someone who might read this, and in part at a catharsis.

I've written about my sometimes turbulent upbringing, but it wasn't all bad. I sometimes wonder if it was really bad at all or if it was all my perceptions and just in my head. Part of the point of my recollections is to remind me that at times it was actually bad and that I had some reasons to feel fear, anger, hatred, and sadness. But I don't know if it really justified the sometimes overwhelming feelings of loneliness, unhappiness, and hopelessness that I remember growing up with.

I remember often crying myself asleep as a child. I felt unloved. I was incredibly unhappy and didn't foresee anything ever changing and wishing I could die. I remember thinking about suicide. My dad had a huge Bowie knife that I'd imagine pushing up under my rib cage into my heart. He had a 32 caliber pistol in the top of his closet. We had rifles and shotguns around the house along with ammunition and none of it was locked up. Taking my life would have been easy and part of me really wanted life to just end. I knew I could do it and the main thing that stopped me was the sheer futility of the act.

It seemed to me that God had perpetrated a cruel joke. My Mormon upbringing had taught me that I'd always existed as a spirit child of God and that my spirit was eternal and could never die. I learned that life was a time of forgetting and probation where I was being tested to see if I was worthy of the greatest gift God could give: becoming a god myself. There were really only two alternatives, exaltation and godhood or eternal damnation as a servant of the exalted in various degrees of lower glory. In the grand scheme of things, there was no escape. Suicide was just an illusory escape from a mortal torment to an everlasting one. As soon as I died, I knew I'd wake up in the spirit world feeling just as unhappy but with the bitter knowledge that I was now damned for all eternity. I found myself wondering why God didn't leave open the option to just cease to exist. I found it a bitter pill to just have to be long suffering, not only for this life, but forever. Instead of providing comfort, my religion made me feel even more hopeless; it was like a grand eternal game that I just couldn't win. I thought that if God really loved us then he'd give us the opportunity to just end it all and blink out of existence.

The greatest blessing in Mormonism is to have an eternal family. However, in our family we prayed together daily for harmony in the home and rarely seemed to experience it. The thought of spending forever with my family usually didn't seem like a blessing. One of the happiest days of my life was the day I left for college at BYU. I had hurried through high school in 3 years mainly so I could escape my house and unhappy public school experience and move out on my own. My mother was crying as I got into the car with my dad to make the 1000 mile trek to Utah and it was a struggle to keep from laughing out loud and busting out a huge smile because I was so incredibly happy to finally be making my escape.

College, by and large, was great. My social awkwardness still left me with few friends, but being in control, studying what I wanted to study, and setting my own direction felt great. I associated with the people I wanted to and did the things I wanted to do when I wanted to do them. I even became very marginally active in church for quite some time. Strangely, to me, I felt very happy on Sunday mornings reading my scriptures with the dorms to myself while everyone else was at church. It seemed strange to me at the time that I felt more spiritual and comfortable in the quiet of my room than I ever did in the meetings.

I exercised regularly, played intramural sports, and carried a very heavy load of engineering classes while keeping my grades up to maintain my academic scholarship. I didn't date much because I'd left my first true love back in Iowa. I was at peace, but I don't know if I was very happy. I do remember times of extreme sadness and loneliness however. I remember one instance where I was so depressed that it felt like I simply couldn't get any lower. In the depths of such sadness I found myself on my knees praying and I felt a wash of warmth and elation flood through my body. This had to be the burning in my bosom, the Comforter, that I'd learned about in the scriptures. It felt like pure love and convinced me that God loved me and cared.

I experienced peace and comfort from reading the scriptures and pondering how I could apply them to myself to be happy and to make those around me happy. My religious experiences drew me back into church activity even though they rarely provided the same comfort as my private studies and after two years of college I left on a church mission to Bolivia.

From time to time I post recollections of my mission. It was very hard in every way imaginable, but I had a sense of purpose and it gave me a confidence and brightness that I'd never had before. I lost a lot of my fear of social situations and matured into an adult and gained experiences that helped form me into who I am today. I suppose that it helped that I completely believed in what I was doing and teaching without any doubt. It was no cake walk, but I loved the experience and was proud of my service.

But through it all, I struggled to find happiness. In some ways I think I'm a "can do" person who tries to find the positive in things and tries to make the best of situations. I've tried to focus on things that are within my control and ignore those that aren't. So, why have I always struggled with these periods of unhappiness and gloominess?

A few years ago a friend related that anti-depressants had literally saved his and his wife's lives. This surprised me because he seemed like such a positive, happy guy. But apparently he struggled with deep depression and managed it successfully with happy pills. I wondered if they'd help me and he encouraged me to talk to my doctor.

Over the years, our society has become much more accepting of happiness through better pharmacology. I've read many articles explaining the dangers of depression along with the little 10 question pop quizzes to assess whether you might be depressed. I always felt dismissive of them because the quizzes seemed like they were designed to diagnose everyone as depressed. At least they always seemed to show me to be moderately to deeply depressed every time I took one. Since I felt normal I figured that it was just part of a publicity campaign to sell more drugs.

This spring, when marathon season was over, I felt burned out. I figured it was just from the effort of a long, aggressive training season and the stresses of work and family. But I just felt no motivation to train, I was constantly tired, and all I wanted to do was sleep or watch TV. I'd be riding along on my motorcycle and wonder what would happen if I crashed and realize I didn't really care. I'd come home and not want to walk through the door. I felt pretty hopeless and sad and like I was sleep walking through life. I felt so crappy that I went to the doctor because I was convinced I was anemic, or had diabetes, or hypothyroidism or some other physical malady that was causing me to feel so bad. I just felt like crap, all the time. I didn't want to come home, I didn't want to go to work, I really didn't want to do anything. I was just going through the motions and figured something must be wrong.

The doctor listened to my symptoms and ordered up blood work but then he said, "What do we do if the blood work comes back and everything is normal?" I said that I didn't know, but that I guess I'd just have to get used to the fact that the way I was feeling was normal. He asked if I'd considered that I might be depressed. He started to say there are no tests they can do, but then stopped and pulled up a list of questions on his PDA. I laughed as he started to ask the questions because I knew where it was going. They were the same questions I'd answered before and they showed the same thing they always had. I was depressed.

I left the office with a some samples and a prescription for an anti-depressant. The next day the doctor called to tell me that all my blood work was normal, but I already guessed that it would be and had already filled the prescription. Fortunately, previous conversations with my friend and reading had left me with at least the intellectual understanding that the drugs might help me. I also suffer from migraines, so I'm particularly aware of how altered brain chemistry can affect mood and perceptions.

The pharmacist and the enclosed literature suggested that it might take several weeks before I'd feel any difference. It didn't. Within just a few days I felt much better. Things didn't bother me as much and, it's difficult to describe, but things just felt normal. But normal without feeling down. I felt alive normal. Not magically happy or anything, but the things that I thought were making me unhappy no longer seemed to matter. I had more perspective and things felt good, rather than hopeless.

My family doesn't see any difference. That bugged me at first because I thought surely everyone could tell. I kept waiting for someone to notice or comment. But I think that the main thing that changed was my internal view of the world and how I perceived it. I guess my behaviors, good and bad, are ingrained, but I feel better.

After a little while, the blues came back, and when I went in for a prescription refill I increased my dosage. Things evened out again, but the drugs have a niggling side effect for me; they make it difficult for me to have an orgasm and in fact make sex much less pleasurable. I've been feeling so good that recently I tried cutting the dosage back. Sex returned to being great, but I slowly drifted back down into a deep depression. All of a sudden things that had receded into the background emerged front and center and once again took on a significance that they had ceased to have for while. I still felt normal and my feelings seemed legitimate and I found myself wondering if the anti-depressants weren't masking legitimate issues that were the real source of my unhappiness. But I resumed my normal dosage and the feelings receded. Maybe those feelings weren't so objective as they seemed.

This is so weird and part of what I struggle with. Part of me feels weak for needing anti-depressants. Shouldn't I just be able to control my emotional balance on my own? With all I've accomplished, mastering my own emotional climate shouldn't be beyond me, should it? But then, I also realize that I have to wear glasses to see clearly. If what the medical community claims is true, and depression is a manifestation of an imbalance in my brain chemistry, then I'd be a fool to not use the drugs. It would be like not wearing glasses when I need them or for a diabetic to not take required insulin. Feelings seem real. Are they? It seems strange that this since of "I" can be so influenced by a little white pill.

So, that is where I'm at right now. I'm resigned to taking a little pill each night to prevent a state of mind that I'd grown accustomed to for my whole life and trying to learn a new normal. And I'm thinking that the second half of my life seems much more hopeful than the first half did. I just wish that I'd taken that step 20+ years ago.

Ran 1/4 Mile Today

2008-11-03T14:58:00.004-06:00

At lunch today I excitedly told a friend that I ran a quarter of a mile this morning. He looked at me kind of funny and said, "That's not very far." Well, maybe not for him, but it's the furthest I've run since the beginning of August when I found out I needed reconstructive ankle surgery and it felt pretty damn good!

It's been a while since I posted so I'll fill you in on how it has gone. I had surgery on September 8 and I spent the next 4 weeks on crutches and wasn't allowed to put any weight on my foot and I had to wear a bit boot on it so I couldn't move it. After 4 weeks they put me in a lighter brace that let me move my foot up and down, but not side to side and they allowed me to put partial weight on my foot.

When I started out it felt like the sole of my foot was a big sponge full of goo that squished out when I put it down. It was a weird sensation but didn't really hurt. It was more of a pins and needles type of sensation. I still had quite a bit of swelling in my ankle at first, but as I started walking, even with crutches, it helped pump some of the swelling out of my lower leg, ankle, and foot. I started out at 1/4 weight the fifth week, then 1/2 weight the sixth week. On that Thursday one of my crutches broke so I walked with just one crutch with about 3/4/ weight on the ankle.

I had been planning on running the Kansas City marathon on the 18th of October which was at the end of my sixth week post surgery. I took the crutch along, but I cheated some and walked some short distances without it. It was weird. The most painful part was my heal where the achilles tendon attaches and by the end of the weekend my left calf was really sore and stiff.

The next Tuesday I showed up at the physical therapist with no crutches. He was funny because he checked the calendar to make sure I wasn't jumping the gun. Apparently some patients have a problem with patience and get ahead of themselves.

Over the last two weeks progress has seemed glacially slow, yet somehow in only two weeks I'm walking without a limp and I'm putting more trust in my ankle. I'm actually more comfortable walking now than I was before the surgery so that is good. My range of motion is nearly back to normal. I still have swelling after exercise, but apparently that's okay for now.

The most painful part of my ankle ever since surgery has been the front of the ankle and my heel. Right after surgery I couldn't hardly point my toes down at all and until the last couple of days, that has been the most painful area. I had to be very careful going down stairs or ramps because of the pain, but over the last couple of days that pain has almost completely disappeared. I suspect that it was caused by the device they used to pry open the joint to drill the fracture out inside the joint.

When I got off the crutches I started going to the gym again. For the last two weeks I've been doing very light (30 pounds) leg presses for about 10 minutes to help with range of motion, riding a stationary bike for cardio, and doing light weight lifting. At the end of last week I tried about 10 minutes on the elliptical trainer. That felt okay so I started working up until I got to 20 minutes yesterday and 30 minutes today.

Last Friday I tentatively tried a very slow jog and felt pain immediately and stopped. Yesterday I tried jogging on my toes and that was okay. I gradually let my foot strike move back toward the heel until I was using a normal foot strike. After 1 minute at 4 mph I called it quits and called it a success. Today I went for two minutes a little faster and ran nearly a quarter of a mile. My foot and lower leg were fatigued even from that, but I didn't have any pain and only a little swelling afterwards. Considering that I've only been walking without crutches for 2 weeks I'm pretty excited by how good I feel.

Overall, everything is feeling very good and I'm finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. I'm really, really out of shape and my legs aren't ready for running, but I'll slowly work up to it and everything should be fine.

I have my last visit with the doctor tomorrow. About my only concern right now is the swelling and whether that indicates a problem or if it is just a symptom that the joint still doesn't have full range of motion. I'd also like to finish up with the PT because the cost adds up and we're not doing anything that I can't do on my own at home and in the gym. So, I'm going to suggest that the PT give me a list of exercises to do on my own with followup appointments only on an as-needed basis.

Purpose of this Blog

2008-09-29T17:56:00.003-05:00

This isn't a ministry. If you are Mormon and happy, then I wish you peace. I'm not trying to steer anyone out of a path that they find comforting. I don't go out on the weekends passing out tracts or knocking doors hoping to convince people of the ridiculousness of their religious beliefs.

But if you find yourself on this blog it is probably because you have had some doubts or questions. I'm here because I want Mormons struggling with their beliefs to know that they aren't alone and that their doubts are well justified and reasonable. I want them to understand that they are among the many Mormons who are suddenly getting access to good information about the church's origins that was previously difficult to find and that are confused by what they've found.

I want you to know that it is perfectly fine to doubt and to question. I want you to doubt and question. If the church is really true then your research will confirm your beliefs and resolve your doubts. But if it just creates more questions and doubts then it's time to consider that maybe it isn't true.

If you reach that conclusion then you'll have joined the many Mormons that are leaving the church just like a child who realizes that there is no Santa Claus and moves on with a more mature world view. You'll find that you haven't really changed, but that you'll suddenly have more time and resources to devote to the things that really matter to you.

You won't suddenly be morally adrift. You won't suddenly lose the Spirit and be unable to differentiate between right and wrong. You won't lose access to your intuition and judgment that allow you to make tough decisions with incomplete information. If you lose anything in the process, then you never really had it anyway.

You may lose friends. Family may shun you or disrespect your decision. You will certainly cut yourself off from the network of support offered by your ward or branch. You will probably spend a lot of time rethinking your beliefs. You will feel loss and pain and will go through a grieving process. It won't be easy.

But, you aren't alone.

That's one reason I'm blogging.

The other reason is that I've found that I like putting my thoughts and experiences down in words and sharing them semi-anonymously here on the web. If others find them entertaining or useful, then that's great, but it's really all about me. A lot of the time this is my therapy and my attempt to organize and make sense of my thoughts and feelings.

What Would Convince Me?

2008-09-29T17:27:00.002-05:00

I recently wrote three posts about what I feel are particularly damning evidences against the divine origins of the Mormon church:

Joseph's use of a seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon (see Rock In A Hat).
Joseph's claim to have translated Egyptian hieroglyphics even though the church now has a portion of the papyrus he used and the text of his "translation" bears no resemblance to the papyrus (see Translation Strike 2).
Joseph's practice of polygamy which included marrying other men's wives and young teenagers (see 38 year old man, 14 year old girl).

The church's apologists believe that they have thoroughly dealt with these and many other issues. However I've read their explanations and found them to stretch credibility far beyond my breaking point. They ask me to ignore the most obvious explanation of these facts and instead believe that while lesser men might have been wrong, Joseph Smith wasn't because he was a prophet.

So, what evidence would convince me?

On the first point, I have to admit that there isn't much that would convince me. I don't believe that Joseph Smith was ever able to find lost treasure using his seer stone and that his use of it was outright fraud and deception. I guess you'd have to show me evidence that that seer stone can actually do what Joseph Smith claimed it did. This isn't implausible since the current church prophet still has this seer stone and claims to be a prophet, seer, and revelator and to have the keys to all spiritual gifts. So, he could theoretically pull out the brown seer stone and demonstrate his abilities but I won't hold my breath.

On the second point I'd be convinced if the church could produce the papyrus from which the Book of Abraham was translated and impartial Egyptologists could authenticate the papyrus and the translation. Again, I think the church already has the correct papyrus and that they clearly show Joseph Smith to be a fraud. But if the church can produce the evidence, I'll clearly recant.

On the third point, like the first, I simply find the history of the institution of polygamy to be antithetical to any kind of moral behavior and evidence of the craven nature of Joseph Smith and how far he'd fallen by that time in his life and how much power he had over his followers so that they would do things that they would otherwise find to be abominable. The answer of the apologists seems to be that it can't be wrong if God ordered it. But the more pertinent question to me is, if the prophetic status of Joseph Smith is the question, then isn't his immoral behavior the answer? It is to me.

The above three issues rise to the top for me, but there are many, many, many other issues. Once I allowed myself to consider the facts without prejudice, I started asking, "Are these facts more consistent with the church being true or false?" What I found was that all the facts were consistent with the church being an earthly invention of Joseph Smith and that I had to swallow all sorts of improbable explanations in order to believe that the church is divine. It's really no contest.

Gamma Party

2008-09-19T08:55:00.004-05:00

Obrajes had been "tracted out" when I arrived, meaning that previous elders had already knocked on every door and reaped whatever converts were to be had. Of course, the same could probably be said of just about any place where Mormon missionaries have been working for very long. My trainer and I buckled down to work.

Our house was at the top of a steep hill, a cliff almost, above a road that wound up a valley, across a river and into a neighborhood of adobe houses called Bella Vista. The road was paved in a way I'd never seen before, but was common in this part of the world. The soil was mostly rocks with a little clay to hold it together and as they dug the road bed they harvested fist sized round river rocks which they then laid back down as the pavers. This made for a nice, hard surface but it was really uncomfortable to walk on because it wasn't really flat and the stones dug into the balls of your feet and made your ankles roll.

Every morning we would eat our breakfast of war bread and carrot tea, descend the switchbacks from our house to the road, cross over and take a shortcut up the trail from hell into Bella Vista. Both my feet still hurt from the muscles I'd torn playing basketball at the MTC and climbing almost straight up at 13,000 feet altitude made my legs burn. Every morning I'd say a little mantra as I climbed that hill to help me believe that God would give me strength to keep up with my companion who was already conditioned to the altitude and endless walking.

Health in the navel
Marrow in the bones
Strength in the loins and in the sinews
Power in the priesthood be upon me and upon all my posterity
through all generations of time and through out all eternity

I'd repeat this over and over in my head as I climbed believing that God would fulfill his promises and give me strength if I would just put in the effort.

Bella Vista was typical of the areas I worked in Bolivia. It was a tightly packed warren of houses made from adobe bricks with corrugated steel roofs. The dirt for the adobe was dug from the ground on the home site so its only cost was the back breaking labor which the Bolivians could afford. However they could afford little else so the houses usually had no plaster to cover the adobe. The houses were dark and were sparsely furnished. Many had a single room with a bed, a table, a few chairs, perhaps some pictures of the Virgin, and little else. Many cooked on kerosene stoves and with few windows the atmosphere in the house was sometimes toxic.

Wealthier neighbors had homes built of rebar reinforced frames and red ceramic bricks. Some of these homes left the bricks exposed, but some were covered in stucco or plaster.

We worked every day from Tuesday to Saturday, going door to door knocking and trying to share our message. We taught a lot of first discussions, but very few second ones. On Sunday we attended church in the Obrajes Ward which met in a nice two story brick building that the church rented. The bishop was a Bolivian who went to college in the United States and worked in the church office building in La Paz. The meetings were well attended by a core group of about 30 or 40 members out of the 500 plus that lived in the ward boundaries. As in most of Latin America, the elders had been very successful in baptizing many converts, but not many of those converts ever remained active in the church resulting in a substantial number of members of record and an abysmal activity rate.

Sunday wasn't a day of rest for us because after church we were supposed to do missionary work like any other day. However, we often took the day off from tracting and only went to appointments we'd made during the week or visited with members or read scriptures or studied.

Monday was our day off. We called it P day, for preparation day. The missionaries get the day off to take care of their personal business and to have some recreation. For many it was basketball. My companion was a slim, athletic blond southern Utahn who loved to play ball so we always met with other elders for pick up games in the morning. After that we'd usually have lunch at a downtown restaurant and then shop or write letters in the afternoon. The day off ended early because the day ended with a zone meeting in the evening with the zone leaders and all the missionaries in your zone.

December in La Paz is the middle of summer because Bolivia is south of the equator and someone forgot to tell me to bring sunscreen. Even though the weather wasn't particularly hot, the sun was fierce and by the end of the week my ears were peeling and bloody and cracked from sunburn.

I'd only been in Bolivia for a short time I had a bout of altitude sickness. I woke up with a pounding head ache and nausea. After I threw up my breakfast I went back to bed. The lady of the house brought me in some tea made from anise and coca. I'd heard about it in the MTC and although I'm not a fan of the licorice flavored anise, it made me feel better and withing a couple of days I was back trudging through the hills and knocking doors.

The mission had all kinds of lore, and I was skeptical of most of the fantastic stories the elders were constantly telling. Over time I learned that most of them were true. One piece of lore was the gamma party. One week after zone meeting my companion and I headed over zone leaders' house for a gamma party.

Bolivia is an area were you can easily get exposed to hepatitis. I have a friend who contracted hepatitis while serving in Guatemala. At the time there was no vaccine, but the church provided gamma globulin so that the missionaries could receive regular injections to boost their immune system. The syringes and vials were generally kept at the zone leaders' house and the mission ritual was that all self respecting elders had to inject themselves.

A large group of elders paraded to the ZLs aparment thrilled to show a greenie (me) his first gamma party and how to do it. They filed into the ZLs aparment, got a syringe, dropped their pants, and sat on the bed. The ZLs brought the gamma and the elders filled their syringes. The mission manual had detailed instructions on how to inject the stuff into the quadricep muscle of your leg. The first elder swabbed his thigh with alcohol, slapped it hard with a loud "Yee Haw!" and jabbed the long, thick needle to its hilt in his thigh. After pulling back to make sure he wasn't in a vein he slowing pushed the thick syrup into this leg. This was repeated over and over for my viewing enjoyment. Some elders had recently done it, but did it again just to show off.

I was fresh out of the MTC, so I didn't have to do it then but a few months later my time had come. I had a new companion by then and he was an expert. We did it in our own apartment, just the two of us, and it wasn't pretty. I tried the slap and stab method, but every time I would instinctively pull the needle back out leaving a blooding hole in my thigh. By the time I'd done this about 6 times my companion was rolling on the floor laughing. Embarrassed, I sat the needle on my leg and began to slowly push. With now surprise I was able to keep from pulling back as my skin tented inwards further and further. I watched in amazement as the skin pushed in at least a quarter of an inch, maybe more before the needle suddenly snapped up around the needle. I let go and cringed. OK, I was in. Worst part over. Only an inch and a half to go. Once through the skin there was just a dull ache as the needle slowly burrowed through muscle. Then I could feel the gamma filling the muscle and leaving a lump as I slowly depressed the plunger. No problem pulling the needle out. It was over.

My comp was so entertained by my wimpiness that he grabbed two syringes, prepped both legs, and with a needle in each hand slammed them into both thighs at the same time. He then stood up while I took a picture and he flexed his legs to make the syringes dance up and down.

I went through this ritual regularly throughout my mission and grossed out every companion I had with my slow and steady technique which was the only way I could manage. But I always did it myself.

I may have to post some gamma party pictures if I can dig them up.

38 year old man, 14 year old girl

2008-09-16T13:23:00.000-05:00

This is the third in a series of posts about what I consider solid evidence the Mormon church isn't true. The first was Rock In a Hat and the second was Translation Strike 2.

The title of this blog entry links to a web site dedicated to the wives of Joseph Smith and to one in particular, Helen Marr Kimball. Helen was the daughter of apostle Heber C. Kimball. Joseph Smith initially proposed to take Heber's beloved wife Vilate as one of his plural wives. Heber tearfully agreed and then to his great relief Joseph told him it was just a test. However, he then asked for his 14 year old daughter Helen. Heber consented and then convinced his daughter to agree. Joseph Smith, 38 years old, was then married to this 14 year old girl.

This is merely one of Joseph's many polygamous marriages, but one of the more shocking because of the age of the girl. He also married other men's wives. Some of the women he proposed to, such as the wife of apostle Orson Pratt, refused him and threatened to expose him. He then tried to ruin their reputations through libel and threats. When his first counselor in the First Presidency, Willian Law, found out that he had proposed to his wife he created a paper, the Nauvoo Expositor, to expose Joseph Smith's practice of polygamy. Joseph excommunicated William Law and his wife, declared the Nauvoo Expositor a public nuisance, destroyed the press and paper and created an atmosphere that caused those who refused his polygamous advances to flee the city.

The church has always acknowledged that Joseph Smith instituted polygamy, but details aren't to be found in church lessons. This can perhaps be put down to the fact that the church no longer considers polygamy an important doctrine and no longer practices it among the living, but it is also conventient that the details are so damning. As a result most members learn of the details and are shocked because they seem so out of character for what the church considers the greatest prophet in the history of the world.

Probably the best reference on the topic is "In Sacred Loneliness". Don't trust the FARMS review of the book which borders on libelous unless you also reads the author's rebuttal of the review. The book is thorough and if anything biased in favor of the prophet.

I recently read some of the apologetic explanations to refresh my memory of how they respond to Joseph's practice of polygamy. I want to talk about two defenses in particular because it's difficult for me to imagine them being put forward with a straight face. In fact, I can't imagine that in my most faithful, believing state of mind I could have ever even considered these defenses.

1) It wasn't uncommon in that place and time for girls as young as 14 to get married.

Perhaps, but it wasn't common either and it was very uncommon for them marry a man 24 years older. It was even more uncommon if the 38 year old man was already married to a dozen or more wives.

Seriously, read the accounts from Helen and it becomes clear that the idea of marrying Joseph was repugnant to her and that she only did it because she was told that it would ensure the salvation of her family and that it would be a marriage in name only.

2) It wasn't about sex. There were other reasons such as dynastic marriages.

There is something wrong about this whole line of reasoning. Does it imply that if it was about sex then there WOULD be something wrong? It tacitly acknowledges that if sex were the primary marriage that it would look bad. It would make Joseph Smith look like so many other false prophets and powerful men who use their power and influence to gain sexual access to their followers. Think David Koresh and Bill Clinton for religious and political examples.

First of all, the church in Utah went around and got legal affidavits from as many of the surviving widows of Joseph Smith as it could to confirm that he did have real marriages including sexual relations with them to contest the RLDS accusation that Joseph Smith never practiced polygamy.

Also consider, if it wasn't about sex, then what was the outrage about? If these marriage didn't include the right to have sex, then why were the husbands so outraged to have their wives married to Joseph? Why was Emma, his first and only legal wife, so upset? Why did he have sex with some of them? It's possible, given the quantity of marriages and requirement of secrecy, that not all of the marriages were consummated, but it is clear that the marriages allowed sex. Heck, read D&C 132 and the Book of Mormon. It's clear that polygamy was about having sex and children. The possibility that not all the marriages were consummated simply allows Mormons to believe that Joseph may not have been bedding young teenage girls. However he was caught in the sack with other teenage wives who weren't much older. In fact, he married sisters that he was the guardian of.

So, I guess you can believe that God was the author of all of that. If so, then why not. God can do whatever he wants.

But if you just heard about Joseph Smith's polygamous practices, does it really seem to have the hand of God involved?

Still confused? Consider the fruits of the church's practice in Utah which ultimately resulted in the church being disenfranchised and nearly destroyed. Consider that the world is still plagued with Mormon fundamentalists that still believe and follow the church's original teachings.

To me it is too much to swallow and the apologetics involved are simply whistling past the graveyard; they are completely unconvincing to me.

Somebody Play With Me! Please...

2008-09-12T14:29:00.006-05:00

No running for the last month means the dog is unhappy. Can you tell?

Even the cat is getting to know me and hang out on the bed.

Alive! (Queasy alert: One picture of closed surgical incision)

2008-09-12T14:29:00.000-05:00

I was very nervous prior to my surgery on Monday. I've never had a general anesthetic or surgery so it was more fear of the unknown than anything. I was also a little nervous about pain management. They prescribed Percocet (oxycodone) which I had after I snapped a collar bone and it didn't do the trick. It's supposed to be about 7 times stronger than Vicodin, but the vike seemed much more effective that time.

I showed up at the surgical hospital at 10:30 am, filled out some paperwork, and was quickly called back because the doctor was running ahead of schedule. I stripped, slipped into the oh so hot gown, and put all of my belongings into a plastic bag. Then they gave me a compression stocking to go over my good leg. The pre-op area had a row of beds separated by curtains and they led me past a few waiting patients to mine. They took my vitals, put on ID tags, wired me up for an EKG monitor, shaved my ankle, and put in an IV. The doc came by to say hi and we were ready to go. The nurse anesthetist shot some sleepy juice into my IV and they wheeled me out of the pre-op area and down a hallway. I was talking, wondering what was next...

A nurse was asking me if I was OK as I started slowly waking up from a deep sleep. She told me my throat might be a little sore because they had put a breathing tube in. I opened my eyes and I felt a little disconnected, like I often do after a migraine. She sat me up and covered me with a warm blanket. I wiggled my left toes and they were still there. I glanced down and I had a large black boot on my ankle which was gently aching. As I woke up the ankle started hurting so she pushed a pain killer into my IV. I continued to chat until I was feeling pretty alert. Then they helped me into a wheel chair and moved me into the discharge area where they sat me down in a recliner and propped up my ankle. My wife came in, I got dressed, and they wheeled me out the the car. All told I was at the hospital from 10:30 to 2:45, but it only felt like about 30 minutes. The rest of the time I was completely unconscious.

I spent the next three days in bed with my leg propped up while downing oxycodone at regular intervals, surfing the web, watching TV, and working. This is how the world looked:

On Wednesday I decided to see how long I could go without the pain meds and made it through the day without any. I guess I lucked out and am not experiencing really any pain. I haven't taken any more since Wednesday night at bedtime.

I went for my post operative visit on Wednesday and snapped the following picture of my ankle. As you can see it's not too swollen and the incision seems to be healing well. Notice the magic marking writing on my leg to identify that it is the leg they are supposed to be working on.

All's well except I can't put any weight on the ankle for 4 weeks and hopping around on crutches sucks.

Also, the doctor said that the cartilage over the OCD was intact and in good shape so he didn't have to drill out much bone. He did have to cut away some scarred cartilage in the joint, but overall the surgery went well and with no complications.

Translation Strike 2

2008-09-05T12:09:00.002-05:00

I previously wrote about what I consider pretty strong evidence that the Mormon church is not, as it claims, the only true church on the face of the earth. It seems that the church and its apologists and historians agree that Joseph Smith used his treasure hunting seer stone to translate the Book of Mormon even though most members don't seem to know it. I simply don't believe it for the same reason that I don't believe he could find treasure with it.

Now I'm going to give the next piece of evidence against the church's divinity that I find very nearly indisputable. The fact that the church doesn't have an official response to this issue and the fact that its apologists have so many competing explanations and have written so much about it should give an idea about how difficult the issue is to explain away.

I'll be brief about it because the issue is actually quite simple. Joseph Smith and the church purchased some mummies and papyri after Joseph revealed that the papyri actually contained the ancient writings of no less than Abraham and Joseph of biblical fame. Since he'd translated the Book of Mormon and since at the time no one could read ancient Egyptian he proceeded in fits and starts to translate the Book of Abraham which is canonized scripture in the Mormon church.

Two unexpected things happened. First, after centuries of trying scholars deciphered Egyptian. Was the Book of Abraham and the papyri the Rosetta Stone that broke the code? Well, no, actually it was the Rosetta Stone. Second, after being lost for many years fragments of the Joseph Smith papyri were found.

The undisputed facts of the matter are that the papyri are common funerary texts that are part of something called the Book of the Dead and that the Book of Abraham has absolutely no relationship whatsoever to the discovered fragments.

Church leaders were initially excited that they would finally have concrete, irrefutable evidence of Joseph Smith's ability to translate, but that excitement quickly turned to dread when their own scholars translated the papyri and discovered that they didn't contain the Book of Abraham.

Game over, right? Well, over the years Joseph's defenders have put forward many explanations the most plausible of which is that only a portion of the papyri have been found so the missing parts must contain the Book of Abraham. That is a reasonable and plausible explanation that is, I suspect, what allows most Mormons who know of the papyri to continue believing. However, other evidence exists that seems to refute the explanation. Most notably, the church also has in its possession an Egyptian alphabet and grammar that was an attempt to use the Book of Abraham in the same way the Rosetta Stone was used to decipher the hieroglyphs. It contains the translation with the glyphs written beside the text. Guess where those glyphs are found? Right on the papyri that the church has in its possession which indicates that whoever created the grammar believed that those glyphs were the source of the Book of Abraham.

Since that is obviously not the case, the apologists claim that the grammar was not written by Joseph Smith and therefore it must have been an uninformed and mislead attempt. However, to accept this you must accept that Joseph Smith's scribes and confidantes didn't get any help from Joseph in matching glyphs to translation. Again, this seem highly unlikely to me.

Apparently to at least some of the apologists too because they've produced even more unlikely explanations that include the possibility that even if we had all of the papyri and they still didn't contain the Book of Abraham then it still doesn't mean anything because the papyri may have just been the inspiration that caused Joseph Smith to receive a revelation that he believed was a translation but actually wasn't. I shit you not.

In other words, the refuse to consider the most likely explanation: Joseph Smith couldn't and didn't translate.

The issue is really quite simple to anyone who doesn't already have a great emotional and spiritual investment in believing. It only gets complicated when you are put in a position of trying to refute the known physical evidence and its most straightforward interpretation.

I actually learned about this in BYU and read the apologetic material and believed it at the time. Unfortunately, I assumed that since the church was true and it had nothing to hide that the material I read was accurate and completely represented the facts. I've since changed my mind.

I think that you can find the church's side of the story represented on the FARMS web site. If you are unfamiliar I actually encourage you to start there. Then I'd encourage you to read the following book: By His Own Hand Upon Papyrus: A New Look at the Joseph Smith Papyri. It's only $12 on Amazon and it's worth the price for the color photos of the papyri alone.

For me this is solid, nearly irrefutable, evidence that Joseph Smith couldn't translate. If he couldn't translate the Book of Abraham then it adds further evidence against his ability to translate the Book of Mormon.

Rock In A Hat

2008-09-04T01:51:00.001-05:00

I was recently asked what evidence could convince me the church is true. This post, and maybe following ones, is meant to present what I consider strong evidence against the church's truth claims. The problem for the church and it's defenders is that it's much easier to prove something false than to prove it true and a bigger problem is the insistence of its leaders that you have to accept all of it as true or reject it all as false (a false dichotomy if ever there was one). Sorry for the long post and I apologize if it's not terribly coherent.

Some of you may be multi-lingual and have experience in the difficult task of translating written text from one language to another. If not, then trust me, it is very hard. I am intrigued with the process Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon, which he said was done through “the gift and power of God". Unfortunately other than that rather nondescript phrase he seems to have been rather tight lipped about how he actually did it.

“Also, that there were two stones in silver bows—and these stones, fastened to a breastplate, constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim—deposited with the plates; and the possession and use of these stones were what constituted ‘seers’ in ancient or former times; and that God had prepared them for the purpose of translating the book.” (JS—H 1:34–35.)

The text of the Book of Mormon talks about interpreters that were used by its prophets to translate records written in lost tongues. According to Joseph Smith those interpreters were hidden away with the gold plates to facilitate their translation. Joseph Smith didn't start calling the interpreters Urim and Thummim until a couple of years after the Book of Mormon was published (Joseph Smith History wasn't written until 1838) and the term is a mouthful so I'll stick to interpreters.

I was under the impression that the interpreters were used to translate the Book of Mormon. Joseph seems to give the same impression. According to a second hand account, Oliver Cowdery described their use as follows. It is from a 1977 Ensign article.

“He represented Joseph as sitting at a table with the plates before him, translating them by means of the Urim and Thummim, while he (Oliver) sat beside him writing every word as Joseph spoke them to him. This was done by holding the ‘translators’ over the hieroglyphics, the translation appearing distinctly on the instrument, which had been touched by the finger of God and dedicated and consecrated for the express purpose of translating languages. Every word was distinctly visible even to every letter; and if Oliver omitted a word or failed to spell a word correctly, the translation remained on the ‘interpreter’ until it was copied correctly.”

Oliver Cowdery was the scribe for most of the book and he was also one of the three witnesses. When the church was founded he was a presiding elder and then co-president of the new church along with Joseph Smith. He was a first hand witness of all of the seminal events of the church including the production of the Book of Mormon, priesthood restoration, church founding, and many of its revelations. So, this account should be pretty trustworthy.

At one point the Lord granted Oliver the opportunity to attempt translation. He failed. Joseph Smith received the revelation in D&C 9 explaining why. He apparently thought that the words would just magically come, but the revelation said you must first study it out in your mind and ask God if it is right. This seems like a rather unlikely method of "translation". Instead it seems to describe a method for inspired authorship. After all, with zero knowledge of the original script and language then there is nothing to study or ask about. It really sounds like the "translator" is formulating ideas in his head and then seeking divine confirmation that the words are correct. It seems at odds with the description given above where visible words appear that can then be read to the scribe. This method has another problem because the original Book of Mormon contains thousands of spelling and grammatical errors that have subsequently been corrected. The process described indicates that the translator couldn't proceed until the scribe had correctly written the words. So, either God wasn't able to correctly spell or use proper grammar or else the method described above isn't they way the translation was actually done.

However, things get even a more confusing when you read the following account. This is quoted from a talk by Mormon apostle Russell Nelson given in a seminar for new mission presidents in 1992 that was subsequently published in 1993 in the church's magazine The Ensign.

The details of this miraculous method of translation are still not fully known. Yet we do have a few precious insights. David Whitmer wrote:

“Joseph Smith would put the seer stone into a hat, and put his face in the hat, drawing it closely around his face to exclude the light; and in the darkness the spiritual light would shine. A piece of something resembling parchment would appear, and on that appeared the writing. One character at a time would appear, and under it was the interpretation in English. Brother Joseph would read off the English to Oliver Cowdery, who was his principal scribe, and when it was written down and repeated to Brother Joseph to see if it was correct, then it would disappear, and another character with the interpretation would appear. Thus the Book of Mormon was translated by the gift and power of God, and not by any power of man.” (David Whitmer, An Address to All Believers in Christ, Richmond, Mo.: n.p., 1887, p. 12.)

David Whitmer was another of the three witnesses and like Oliver Cowdery was a partipcant in the translation of the Book of Mormon and the founding of the church. If you're a fan of South Park and have seen their episode on Mormons then you'll recognize the rock in the hat method of translation. However, most members of the church wouldn't. In fact when I told my father about this, his response was, "I can't possibly believe that Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon with a common field stone." How is it possible that he, I, and so many other members of the church were ignorant of this fact? Now, why couldn't he believe that? An apostle of the church apparently does and the David Whitmer was a firsthand witness of the translation and one of the Three Witnesses to the Book of Mormon and went to his grave believing in the divine origins of the book. The above account is what he published to the world.

Mormon apologists like to point to articles like this one to point out that the church isn't hiding or concealing its history and that if members don't know about this stuff then it's their own fault. I'll partially concede the point. The church periodically does publish articles like this one about problematic historical issues, however, it often doesn't tell the rest of the story and it also doesn't incorporate quotes such as the above into lesson materials and missionary discussions. The result is that most members find out about this method of translation from anti-Mormon sources or from non-Mormons. Maybe it's because they emphasize the JSH account that refers to the interpreters in most of their materials and because most of their artwork shows Joseph Smith at a table with the gold plates beside him dictating the transaction to a scribe. In other words, they prefer to emphasize the Cowdery account because it is more consistent with the Book of Mormon itself and because the rock in a hat methods sounds a little silly.

It is a little confusing and disconcerting and inconsistent. Well, it is if you believe that the Book of Mormon is a translation. It's pretty easy to understand for most other people and anyone who has dealt with a pathological liar or con man.

Missing from the church articles is further information about the seer stone. Joseph Smith found it when he was a teenager and digging a well for a neighbor. He claimed to be able to use it to find buried treasure and apparently gained some notoriety as a seer. It's difficult to tell how involved he was in this activity, but he was at least well enough known that a farmer in Pennsylvania had heard of him and hired him to come down and help him find a lost silver mine. While there he met his future wife Emma Hale and her family. While there he was also arrested and convicted of in 1826 "glass looking" which was a crime. Apparently seers were common enough that laws had been passed to make it a crime. I guess they considered it a kind of fraud.

That, I think, is the explanation for my father's reaction to the rock in a hat story. If Joseph came to any of us and told us he could find buried treasure with his rock in a hat method we'd simply laugh at him. But Oliver Cowdery and the rest of the Mormons believed that he could. Richard Bushman in his faithful biography "Rough Stone Rolling" posits that Joseph's career as a treasure hunter was like a preparatory priesthood that prepared him for translating the Book of Mormon and also prepared a following for him who already believed in his extraordinary powers as a seer. Of course, that rationalization cuts both ways. It seems to presuppose that he could acutally see buried treasure. On the other hand, if he couldn't translate then Bushman is also right and ait was an excellent preparation in how to defraud people.

Ultimately I guess my father sides with Bushman. Or perhaps he simply accepts it as a mystery. However, I simply can't swallow this. Joseph never successfully found any treasure although he claimed to be able to do so. I don't believe in seer stones or folk magic and don't believe that there is any evidence for it. And I don't think that that stone magically started working for a holy purpose.

I count this as very, very strong evidence that Joseph Smith was a fraud.

The problem for me, is that, grammar and spelling aside, the Book of Mormon is an exceptional book and quite an accomplishment. So, how can I explain how it was produced? I can't. And I don't have to. The burden of proof is not on me. But I certainly don't believe it was done using a rock in a hat.

If you want a thorough academic treatment of the translation process by the church's apologists I would highly recommend "Joseph Smith's Translation of the Book of Mormon: Evidence for Tight Control of the Text" by Royal Skousen. He explores the various accounts of how the translation was done as well as analysis of the actual manuscripts that resulted. His conclusion is, "Evidence from the original manuscript supports the traditional belief that Joseph Smith received a revealed text by means of the interpreters." I assume by interpreters he includes both the ancient ones found with the gold plates as well as Joseph's seer stone. I encourage you to read the article to see if the evidence leads you to the same conclusion. I found the evidence more consistent with either a pious fraud or outright deception on the part of the authors.

A longer manuscript was written by LDS general authority B. H. Roberts. Here is one choice quote:

"One other subject remains to be considered in this division... viz.—was Joseph Smith possessed of a sufficiently vivid and creative imagination as to produce such a work as the Book of Mormon from such materials as have been indicated in the preceding chapters... That such power of imagination would have to be of a high order is conceded; that Joseph Smith possessed such a gift of mind there can be no question....
"In the light of this evidence, there can be no doubt as to the possession of a vividly strong, creative imagination by Joseph Smith, the Prophet, an imagination, it could with reason be urged, which, given the suggestions that are found in the 'common knowledge' of accepted American antiquities of the times, supplemented by such a work as Ethan Smith's View of the Hebrews, would make it possible for him to create a book such as the Book of Mormon is." (Studies of the Book of Mormon, pp. 243, 250)

"If from all that has gone before in Part 1, the view be taken that the Book of Mormon is merely of human origin... if it be assumed that he is the author of it, then it could be said there is much internal evidence in the book itself to sustain such a view.

"In the first place there is a certain lack of perspective in the things the book relates as history that points quite clearly to an undeveloped mind as their origin. The narrative proceeds in characteristic disregard of conditions necessary to its reasonableness, as if it were a tale told by a child, with utter disregard for consistency." (Ibid., page 251)

"There were other Anti-Christs among the Nephites, but they were more military leaders than religious innovators... they are all of one breed and brand; so nearly alike that one mind is the author of them, and that a young and undeveloped, but piously inclined mind. The evidence I sorrowfully submit, points to Joseph Smith as their creator. It is difficult to believe that they are the product of history, that they come upon the scene separated by long periods of time, and among a race which was the ancestral race of the red man of America." (Ibid., page 271)

This is quoted from UTLM and the emphasis is theirs. The book they quote from is an impressive analysis by B. H. Roberts and despite the above quote it's questionable that he ever lost his belief in the Book of Mormon. However, I respect the fact that he earnestly investigated a number of issues, acknowledged the problems, and honestly considered the possibility that a case could be made that it is not what it claims to be.

If you are interested, I invite you to look into the above information further and make your own judgement. But I find the evidence persuasive and rather overwhelming that the Book of Mormon is not a translation of an ancient record.

Call Me Butterball

2008-09-03T17:18:00.006-05:00

The doctor's office called today. They had a cancellation and can fit me in for a preoperative visit tomorrow and on Monday they are going to carve me up like a Thanksgiving turkey. I decided not to go to Indianapolis for the MotoGP and wanted to go ahead and get the surgery taken care of so I can get on the road to recovery.

Since my diagnosis I've completely stopped running and am swimming instead. I've worked up to 1400m in 42 minutes which is probably pathetically slow, but it's a good workout, I can do it without stopping, and it's really helping my messed up shoulders. However, my ankle isn't any better and some days I think it's worse. Going down stairs is particularly scary because sometimes the ankle hurts so bad I nearly fall.

You can go to the following Podiatry Today article if you want to see pictures of what the surgery entails. Warning, it includes graphic pictures of a surgery which I think are pretty cool, but which apparently make some people swoon. I originally included a couple of the pictures here, but I've taken them off so you don't have to see them unless you want to.

"They leave the church but can't leave it alone"

2008-08-30T17:03:00.000-05:00

Ever wonder why Mormons have such a low opinion of former Mormons? Check out the title link. The possible reasons for apostasy listed are:

Having once been enlightened their minds are now darkened
They are Judas like (traitors)
They just don't believe the gospel
Having once had a testimony they never deny it. A testimony cannot be reduced to an illusion.
They're using intellectual reservations to cover behavioral lapses
One loses his testimony only by listening to the evil one.
They leave because they have sinned.
They left by the instigation of Satan and are now in his service.

I'm actually OK with being called an apostate, because that is what I most definitely am. However if you look at the list above you can see why within the church apostates have a bad name and why apostasy has such a negative connotation. After all, if you trust the church and its leaders then apostates are under the influence of the evil one and knowingly rejecting the truth.

It sort of explains why my father came up to me and my young nephew this summer and said, "Don't believe a word he says, you can trust Uncle Bull." He laughed. My nephew looked puzzled. Perhaps he thought it was just a teasing joke. But who says that? Would he have said that if not for my apostasy?

I'll credit the author of the post with a couple of isolated instances where he concedes that some apostates can leave the church alone and that there may be reasons why they can't (family, etc.) and that they might not all leave because of sin. But the overall tone of the article is pretty consistent with the way the Mormon church, like many other religions, portrays apostates.

By the way. I am a sinner. I won't burden you with a confession here, but trust me that I'm guilty of plenty of problems. But it has nothing to do with my apostasy. My disbelief has nothing to do with my personal faults. In fact I continue to try to improve today just like I did when I believed.

Maybe the Mormons are right. Perhaps my mind has been darkened by Satan. Maybe I've lost the light of the Spirit (whatever that is, presumably anything that makes you agree with Mormonism). But it sure doesn't seem like that to me. I simply became aware of additional facts that I never learned while a member that caused me to re-evaluate the facts and come to a different conclusion. I changed my mind.

By the way, it wasn't easy to make that change. Changing beliefs in such a dramatic way isn't easy and wasn't done casually. And perhaps that's why the attitudes toward apostates irritates me so much. It seems like they want to demonize people like me rather than concede that perhaps I had valid reasons and left for good reasons.

2 Simple Questions (Okay, 3)

2008-08-29T16:16:00.000-05:00

When discussing beliefs it is important to consider a couple of questions. The first question can be put a couple of different ways, but it is basically meant to evaluate whether the person is even willing to attempt to be objective and fair. The second is really meant to evaluate the sincerity of the answer to the first question and establish a framework for any discussion of the beliefs. Here are the questions.

1a) If what you believe is wrong, would you want to know?
1b) Can you consider that your beliefs might be wrong?

2) What could you convince you that your beliefs are wrong?

Now, why are these questions important?

First of all, if you yourself can't answer the first question with an unqualified "yes" then you need to do some soul searching. It suggests that you are not objective and are unwilling to consider the possibility that the other person might be right or even that you both might be wrong. It also suggests that you are not going to be listening to the other person or trying to understand where they are coming from or the logic behind their beliefs. Your intent is likely to show the other person they are wrong and as a result you won't be listening to them very well.

If the other person's answer to the first question is "no" then you are wasting your time talking to that person if you are trying to change their mind. Their mind is already made up and it is important for both people to understand that fact up front. If the answer is "no" then all you can really hope for is to try to understand each other's beliefs without any hope of changing them. It also helps to understand that their beliefs will color their interpretation of everything you tell them resulting in seemingly bizarre reactions from them. My next post will give a poignant example.

If the answer to the first question is "no" then the second question is by default, "nothing." However, if the answer to the first question is "yes" then perhaps there is hope. Depending on the answer you can focus on the issues that might persuade either of you to change your minds.

I've only had the opportunity to ask these questions 3 times that I recall.

The first time was during an email exchange with my TBM father.

Me: It's pretty simple in the end if you consider the simple possibility that Joseph Smith made the whole thing up.

Dad: I can consider that possibility and then reject is as utterly false. I and tens of thousands of others have had personal experience that is "evidence" that God lives - will you deny that? - that Jesus Christ is the son of God and the savior and redeemer of all - will you deny that? - by instituting the resurrection of all, good and wicked, and the resurrection was witnessed on both continents - will you deny the Bible as well as the Book of Mormon? and We have personal experience that the Book of Mormon is true and wholesome - and it is LUDICROUS to state or believe it was "made up" by a liar.

So, basically, he can consider he might be wrong, but then he can reject that as ludicrous because he has personal experience that God lives and that the Book of Mormon is true and wholesome. For him, personal experience is the ultimate evidence. After that I gave up. After all, I can't change his personal experiences and he is simply arguing from a standpoint of surety and that my position is LUDICROUS. After this I was regaled with the following nice assessment of my own objectivity.

You have reached a state of mind where you only allow witnesses in support of one side. How fair or logical is that? It is bizarre. You reject what I and others have, out of hand, with derisive and insulting and unsound language about how "less logical we are", not by refuting our evidence with stronger evidence.

If he were correct in his assessment he'd be justified in his outrage. But it's a more than a little frustrating when what he's saying pretty well describes what he does. However, I've spent more time, in retrospect, investigating both sides of the issues than what is justified by the evidence in support of the church.

The second case was a friend who was questioning his testimony. I'd learned from my experiences with my father and asked the first question. We talked for at least a couple of hours and I never got him to answer the question. It was a good discussion, but I tried to mostly listen to his concerns rather than give him any new evidence. After all, what's the point until he's willing to look at it critically and with a mindset that it might be wrong.

The most recent case was in the comments for I'm An Ignorat Dumbass. Here's his response.

1) If the church isn't true, would you want to know?

I favor intellectual honesty. This question, frankly, can seem offensive, which is why I assume your relatives etc. aren't fond of it. I've been asked these questions by many critics, it seems to be a popular sticking point, especially for those who lean towards agnosticism and atheism. The answer is "of course."

2) What evidence would you accept that would convince you that the church isn't true?

I would accept solid, incontrovertible, decisive, evidence.

I can understand that people can feel insulted that you are questioning their objectivity. But, for gosh sake, we're talking about religion. Religious people don't have a history of objectivity when it comes to their beliefs. The whole point of the question is to get that out in the open and dealt with.

I'll repost my comment on his answer to the second question.

The standard of "solid, incontrovertible, decisive, evidence" would seem to be an impossible standard for a belief system predicated on faith. I wouldn't even insist on that as proof that the church is true. But surely you see the problem. In the same way I can't provide that to you, you can't provide it to me either. The best that I've been able to find is systematic factual errors and deception on the part of the church and a large body of evidence that calls its fundamental claims into question.

Am I 100% sure the church is false? Nope. But my standard is more one of likelihood and preponderance of evidence. I haven't found any facts that can't be more reasonably explained in a naturalistic way than by the supernatural.

Naturally LifeOnAPlate disagrees and finds naturalistic explanations more problematic. On that we'll disagree. However, my burden of proof isn't that high.

In the meantime, realizing that I can't produce what would be needed to influence his beliefs I understand that I shouldn't waste any time trying to persuade him, even if I was so inclined. And that really was the point of the questions: to figure out whether or not it would be a waste of time to engage.

However, he has inspired me to post what I consider some of the most persuading evidence against the church's truthfulness.

BTW, I value these questions enough to have added them to my banner.

Guerilla Marketing Idea

2008-08-29T15:36:00.001-05:00

While showing my "artistic creations" to my wife and daughter, it occurred to me what a minefield Nike has sown for itself with NikeId. Companies go to great lengths establishing an image, copyrighting, trademarking, marketing, and protecting it. A company like Nike spends bazillions of dollars on it. That's why their products are relatively expensive. You can rest assured that anything with the Nike swoosh on it has been vamped to make sure that it enhances the brand.

So here comes NikeId and all of a sudden idiots like me are allowed to bastardize their product and then, horror of horrors, slap their logo on it symobolizing some kind of corporate approval of my exceedingly bad taste in running shoes.

You know what I'd do if I was a marketing exec at Asics? I'd order boxes and boxes and boxes of tastelessly colored NikeId shoes and then dump them on the market in select, highly visible markets until people began to think of Nike as that company with the horrendously poor taste in shoe colors.

So, I'm going to take advantage and stock up on shoes that only I can appreciate before Nike realizes the errors of its ways and shuts down NikeId.

Cool Shoe Geekdom

2008-08-27T19:20:00.008-05:00

Nike has a pretty cool idea for people like me who are continually disappointed by the color schemes used on running shoes. I like bright, flashy shoes. My theory is if I can't be fast, I'd at least like to look fast. Nike created a web site just for me so I headed over to nikeid.nike.com and designed my own shoes. Tell me what you think.

I'm an Ignorant Dumbass

2008-08-21T23:12:00.003-05:00

I wound up on an apologetic blog reading a post about a fireside by Bushman, author of Rough Stone Rolling. Bushman stated how he was amazed at how many members were unaware of Smith's polygamy. I commented to the effect that it really isn't a wonder since the church does a good job of concealing the fact. Of course, I was courteously responded to with lengthy quotations and links to articles on FARMS, FAIR, etc. about polygamy as well as links to institute manuals and church books on the topic. I guess it was a polite way of saying, "Sir, you are an ignorant dumbass." After all, there is so much information out there that the church can hardly be accused of hiding its history.

They have a point.

And yet...

I was active in the church from birth to age 40. I rarely missed any meetings: priesthood, sunday school, sacrament meeting, ward conferences, stake conferences, general conferences, mutual, early morning seminary, institute, etc. I went to BYU for 4 years and took religion classes as required there. I served an honorable full time mission in Bolivia. I taught early morning seminary for three years. I read all of the church's standard works multiple times as well as the missionary bookshelf, and many church books such as Doctrines of Salvation, Mormon Doctrine, Comprehensive History of the Church, etc. I literally have stacks of LDS books that I read over the years. Yet somehow I didn't know that

Joseph Smith ~~had an affair with~~ married Fanny Alger.
Joseph Smith married a 14 year old girl
Joseph Smith married other men's wives
Joseph Smith arranged sham marriages to hide his polygamy
Joseph Smith married sisters living in his house for whom he was the legal guardian while spending their inheritance
Joseph Smith lied about his polygamy and hid it from his wife
Joseph Smith destroyed the Nauvoo Expositor because it exposed his practice of polygamy
Joseph Smith may have been tarred and feathered because he tried to have improper relations with a teenage girl living in the house where he was living as a guest. He later married this woman while she was married to another man.
Joseph Smith ruined the reputation of the wife of an apostle who rejected his polygamous proposal and then threatened to expose him.
Joseph Smith excommunicated his first counselor in the First Presidency when he tried to expose the polygamy.

There's more, but isn't that enough?

Okay. You can go to FARMS and FAIR and apologetic web sites and find this information. But the only reason you can find it is because the apologists have been forced to respond to the critics and historians who have brought the facts to light. However, good luck finding this information over at lds.org. I invite you to go look.

I'm sorry, but I may be simple minded, but I had problem accepting Joseph Smith as a prophet once I had all of the facts.

This is just one topic. There are many others where after a lifetime of membership I was completely ignorant of the rest of the story. I suspect I'm not the only active member of the church that didn't know those things. I don't remember those facts ever being presented to me. I think I would have remembered.

So the question for Bushman and the apologists really needs to be: How can a lifelong, active member not know these things? I guess they would argue that it's really not important and that if I wanted to I could have found the answers.

So, I'll accept the criticism of the defenders of the faith. I was an ignorant dumbass. But I'm not ignorant any more and I suspect therein lies the rub. As soon as I discovered the truth my eyes were opened and Joseph Smith no longer seemed like such a swell guy and I saw the church for what it is. I suspect the reality is that the church doesn't want its members to have a complete knowledge of the facts. And, to me, that is fundamentally dishonest; witholding information because you know it will cause people to reach conclusions you don't want.

Oh, the other reason I'm a dumbass is for even trying to comment on that blog. The patronizing, insulting responses made my blood boil. What the heck do I have to be defensive about? As I pointed out above it's not like I wasn't trying to read and know my religion. My only problem is that I never ventured into the realm of anti-Mormon literature and apologetics where the real information comes out.

Blessings of Paying Tithing

2008-08-21T23:12:00.000-05:00

My PocketPC cell phone was getting long in the tooth, but Sprint didn't have a compelling enough upgrade for me to replace it so I've been living with my adorable little brick despite ridicule from my coworkers. That came to an end when it suddenly completely died. Rather than pay the $50 deductible to get it repaired I decided to go ahead and upgrade so off to the Sprint store I went. The sales lady took it back to the service center to see if they could repair it and I went to look at the latest smart phones.

I picked out the latest version of my PDA phone and got the sales lady busy completing the upgrade. But when she went to activate the phone it wouldn't work so she went back to the service center to get help. She came back with a smile and told me that since they couldn't repair my phone and they don't have replacements for it, they were going to upgrade me to the latest phone for free. Whoopee! Saved me $250.

When I told my dad about it he said that normally he would attribute it to the blessings of paying tithing, but in my case he guessed that wasn't it. Haha.

In logic that is what is known as confirmation bias. You notice the things that confirm your beliefs and ignore or downplay those that don't.

For example, when growing up we would never travel on Sunday while on vacation so we could keep the Sabbath holy. So, if the car broke down on Saturday or Monday we could count our blessings that if we'd been driving on Sunday we'd have been stranded, but since it was a Monday the shop was opened and we could get it fixed right away.

It always struck me as silly. When good things happen you are blessed. When bad things happen you are being tried or punished depending on how devout you'd recently been.

Of course, in the case of my phone it was the result of paying $7 a month for 3 years for the protection plan. A fair bit better deal than paying 10% of my gross during that time.

Head Scarves at the Water Park

2008-08-20T22:54:00.003-05:00

The company sponsored an outing at an excellent water park yesterday for all of the employees and their families. I took the wife and kids and we had a great time. One interesting thing was to see the families of some of the Muslim employees. The men and children were dressed in typical western swim attire, but the women wore concealing middle eastern clothes with long sleeves and pants and head scarves wrapped tightly around their heads concealing everything except their faces. In Texas. In August. At a water park. Their families were having a great time, but somehow they didn't seem to be really enjoying themselves.

The little girls wore regular swim suits and romped and played and had a grand time and I wondered at what point they would notice their mothers and wonder when they'd have to start concealing themselves. At some point do they begin to dread the transition from carefree childhood to confinement? Is there some right of passage ceremony like in mormonism or does someone decide one day that they are no longer children and must hide their body as it blossoms into beautiful adulthood?

My wife commented on the poor women in their head scarves. I wondered what the difference was between that and having to wear clothing to cover garments during the heat of summer. While everyone else wears sleeveless shirts and comfortable shorts in the heat, mormons are wearing sleeved shirts over an undershirt and shorts extending below the knees. The head scarves are obvious. The garments only when their lines show or when they peek out below the hem of the shorts. But the clothing mormons wear is definitely atypical for the Texas heat.

It was somewhat poignant for me because during my teenage years I dreaded the day when I'd have to go through the temple because it meant I'd have to abandon my typical summer attire of tennis shorts and nothing else. I never like wearing garments and even the mesh ones were very uncomfortable in the heat. Somehow wearing two layers of clothing, no matter how thin, is going to be worse than wearing one, or better yet, none.

Hmmm. Didn't see that one coming

2008-08-14T22:49:00.003-05:00

Sprained ankles are no big deal, right? Ice, maybe an ace bandage, some rest, and then you're all better. At least that's what I thought. I've only sprained my ankle once and that was back in 1999 while playing 2 on 2 basketball. Some moron got over aggressive and moved under my when I jumped up for a rebound and I rolled my ankle when I came down on his foot. I heard my ankle snap and was sure that it was broken. But after a little ice I was walking and after a few weeks I thought I was fine. That was nine years ago.

About 6 weeks ago I fell off my daughter's horse a week before I started training for the KC marathon. My biggest concern was a serious deep thigh bruise from where the horse's hoof hit my right leg. My left ankle was a little sore, but not really painful and didn't have any swelling. The bruise went away after a couple of weeks, but the ankle kept getting sorer and sorer. On one early run it felt like I had glass in the joint for a few steps, but I'd had a similar pain a couple of years ago so I kept running and after a few steps it went away. After each run the ankle would be sore and a little swollen, but after a day or so it would be okay, and I was able to run 20 to 25 miles a week so I figured it couldn't be too bad.

On Saturday my left calf gave up after running 7 miles of a planned 16 mile run. I had a bad cramp on the outside and as I rolled it on a foam roller it was very painful. I got it loosened up and stretched and tried running again, but after another mile I realized that I was done for the day. Later I was poking around on my lower leg and found very, very painful points along the outside of my lower leg that made me wonder if the bone was broken. When it still hurt on Monday I bit the bullet and scheduled an appointment with my running doctor. He diagnosed an unstable ankle joint ordered an MRI.

Today I got the results. A bad ATL ligament, probably from the basketball sprain nearly a decade ago, probably aggravated by falling off the horse, and even worse two osteochondral lesions of the talus. That's doctor speak for broken bones in my ankle joint. The unstable ankle has allowed the bones to smash into each other and pulverize the bone under the cartilage in a couple of spots. Unfortunately, the breaks require surgery to drill out the broken, dead bone and repair the damaged ligament. The break is still fairly small, about 1.0 cm square, so the prognosis is probably pretty good.

There's no urgency in getting the surgery so I'm waiting until the end of September, but I'm done running for some time. The KC marathon is definitely off, and the Houston marathon in January if very unlikely. In fact, any serious running is probably several months in the future. After the surgery I can't put any weight on the ankle for at least 6 weeks to allow the bone to heal and then I can start putting weight on it. I guess resumption of activity depends on how quickly the bone and ligament heal.

I'm a little shell shocked right now, but I'll deal with it. I stopped by the running store on the way home from work and picked up an aqua jogging belt. Running in the water is supposed to be a very good way to work out while you have injuries like this. I'm going to give cycling and swimming a try too. Who knows, maybe I'll come out of this as a triathlete.

I'm considering getting my left shoulder looked at. I've broken it twice and it pops, clicks, and grinds when I move it. It's pretty gross when I swim because I can hear it really well in the water. I figure it the first surgery maxes out my insurance deductible I might as well get the shoulder done this year too to minimize my out of pocket expenses.

Disappointment

2008-08-12T18:01:00.002-05:00

My left ankle has been sore since I fell off my daughter's horse at the end of June. Since then, every running log entry has contained the following notation: "sore left ankle." Occasionally the pain has been severe, but mostly its been mild pain that gets better as I warm up followed by moderate swelling and pain when my toes flex toward my shin. Saturday took a pain for the worse as I started having severe muscle pain in my calf during a long run that got bad enough that I had to abort the run. Pressing on the outside leg revealed severe pain and tenderness on the outside of my lower leg right along the fibula. A quick google took me to an orthopod website that led me to think it was the peroneal muscles and tendons that rotate the foot to the outside.

I've been debating going to the doctor about the ankle for a couple of weeks, but kept putting it off because it seems silly to go to the doctor for a sore ankle when you are able to run 25 miles a week on it. I mean, how bad can it be?

Well, unlike most minor injuries this one seemed to be getting worse and spreading to other parts of my leg so I went to my running doctor today.

He immediately pointed out the swelling and said that shouldn't be there after 6 weeks. Then he held my leg and pulled on my foot and I could feel the bones in my ankle slopping fore and aft. Could I feel that? Yep. Other foot, not movement. Left foot, slop. Thirty minutes later I was kicked back reading Car and Driver for an hour and a half while an MRI machine scanned my ankle.

Thursday I go back to find out what's screwed up. Probably tore a ligament enough to make the ankle joint unstable. In the meantime, no running.

Tyranny of the Treadmill

2008-07-20T23:29:00.002-05:00

Despite lots of ideas and lots of drafts I haven't been posting much. Things have been pretty busy at work and I just got notified that my contract has been extended to the end of the year so I have at least another 6 months of 50+ hour weeks.

It's been a while since I've post about running so I'll catch you up really quickly on how that's going.

By the end of the the marathon season I was a train wreck. I was run down and tired. While I was training I thought it was just the long miles and wear and tear. But even with a break I felt like I was living in a fog. It was so bad I actually bit the bullet and went to the doctor. As much as I avoid doctors, that means I really thought something was wrong. He didn't find anything physically wrong but diagnosed me with depression and gave me a script.

That greatly improved my mood and made me feel much better, but after some experimenting I discovered that the non-sedating Zyrtec, whose listed side effects include fatigue, was sedating for me and I was much less tired when I stopped taking it.

Anyway, I didn't feel much like training through the spring so I ran occasionally and ran my normal spring races with no expectations and no significant results.

Between depression and lack of training my weight starting creeping up so a week before Memorial Day I started a new diet in Dietpower diet. Over Memorial Day I gorged at my parents 50th celebration and my weight hit 236 which is about 12 pounds more than I had weighed a year before. My goal was 205 by August.

I also decided to run the Kansas City marathon in October so I started training again three weeks ago. Running and dieting sucks. My energy levels are so low that it is tough just to move. I have to be careful standing up too quickly or I get light headed and I've already passed out once when I got out of bed too quickly first thing in the morning.

It's a constant battle, but I've gotten used to feeling hungry and tired from lack of calories and my weight is aroung 222 right now and steadily, although slowly, dropping.

The last couple of days I've eaten a bit more and today I did a 14 mile run that I was really dreading. You see last weeks run was shit. I felt crappier than crap. My legs felt like lead and it was just agony to try to move. But today, with some fuel in my system I felt freaking awesome. I churned out 14 miles at 10:00 mile pace on the treadmill and it was effortless. I dropped to 8:57 pace for the last mile and my heart rate stayed in the low 150s.

This is very encouraging because the same pace would have been much harder a year ago so I seem to be rounding in to shape well and my body really likes having less weight to lug around. It makes me really look forward to being 205 and I hope that it will translate into a speed.

Oh yeah. The treadmill. The sucky part about an October marathon is that I have to train through the Texas summer and it just isn't going to happen outside so I'm doing a lot of running on the treadmill. I'm discovering that the treadmill enforces a discipline that is difficult to attain when running on the streets. I punch in the pace and I either have to keep up or hit the wall behind me. Treadmills are normally boring, but with a good audio book I'm finding that I really like it.

Well, I'll post before and after pictures when I hit my goal. I can already see a difference and I'm looking forward to releasing the skinny person that I've been hiding in a fat-old-man suit.

Gay Marriage - It's All About the Sex

2008-06-25T23:05:00.002-05:00

On the way home from work I was thinking about Sideon's post about gay marriage. I was wondering why it seems to upset so many people, especially religious people, and it got me to thinking about the "traditional" purpose of marriage.

When I was growing up I reached a certain age when my father carefully and very sensitively explained to me that I should NEVER be in bed with a girl unless I was married to her. I was especially NEVER, EVER supposed to be in a bed with a girl without my clothes on! Uck. Why would I want to do that?

In Mormonism, as with most Christian religions, and probably most other religions and cultures extra-marital sex is a really, really bad thing. Of course, the reasoning for this is pretty simple. Sex can result in pregnancy which produces children and children are usually better off being raised in a stable relationship with two parents. Marriage was the step people took to formalize a stable, committed, long term relationship suitable for raising children.

So, sex and marriage are traditionally pretty inextricably intertwined in most people's minds with marriage being the prerequisite for having sex.

This all makes a lot of sense until you attach a lot of other things to marriage. From a legal standpoint marriage has evolved into a complex contract that confers all kinds of rights and responsibilities. I hazard a guess that if all of the implications were disclosed to the parties getting married a lot of them would hesitate before signing. Heck, it seems pretty ridiculous that a car loan has more disclosure and paperwork than probably the most complex legal contract most people will enter into during their lives.

Of course, the sexual aspect of marriage becomes irrelevant in an age where sex only results in children when you're trying to have a kid or if you're irresponsibly stupid. And of course homosexual sex hasn't ever resulted in a pregnancy, as far as I know.

So here's the disconnect. Many people in committed relationships want to formalize that relationship and enter into the legal obligations and receive the legal protectionis traditionally given to married couples. That seems pretty reasonable and in fact completely unobjectionable.

So why are so many people getting bent out of shape by it? I think it is because they believe that it's a sin to have sex outside of marriage and that if you allow homosexuals to marry then you are condoning homosexual sex. They believe that homosexual sex is a grave sin and they don't want the law to be seen as condoning it. But the idiots seem to miss the fact that gay and straight people are boinking like bunnies without being married. Marriage, for most people, is simply not about sex anymore except to religious people.

My solution? I think that the state legislatures should require marriage licenses with full legal disclosure of all of the terms and conditions of the marriage contract. If the want they can call it marriage for traditional straight marriages for all I care and something else for everyone else. But the law shouldn't have anything to say about consenting, adult sexuality. The law should be about the law. The legal aspects ought to be handled like any other contract with standard terms and conditions and the religious or ceremonial aspects should be completely separate with no legal implications whatsoever. In that world, couples could get married in a church or their backyard and it would mean absolutely nothing before the law until they sit down and sign the marriage contract and file it with the government.

Obrajes

2008-05-25T11:25:00.000-05:00

The trip to Bolivia was long, but uneventful. We stopped in the middle of the night in Brazil at a large, modern, deserted airport and were able to deplane and stretch our legs. After traveling all day and through the night we finally landed in Santa Cruz where we walked down stairs to the tarmac to have our passports and visas checked by Bolivian immigration before proceeding on to La Paz.

Bolivia has two capitals. La Paz is the executive and legislative capital and the largest city in the country and is huge. Sucre is the judicial capital where the Supreme Court is located and is lower in the Andes and much smaller and laid back. I would wind up spending most of my mission in these two cities and all of it in the Andes mountains. The country is bordered on the west by the Andes mountains which separate it from Chile and Peru. It used to have a band of land that ran to the Pacific coast but it lost this state during a war with Chile and has been landlocked and without its own port ever since. In the northwest part of the country, starting at La Paz and extending across the border to Peru is the high plain or altiplano. This huge, arid plane is over 13,000 feet in elevation and is also the location of the highest navigable lake in the world, Lake Titicaca. Most of its major cities and population live in the high and rugged Andes mountains, but in the east the country falls away rapidly into the Amazon basin in the north and east where it borders Brazil and the plains of the Argentine plains or pampas and chaco in the south and south east where it borders Uruguay, Paraguay, and Argentina.

Know today as a source of coca leaves and cocaine, historically Bolivia was known for its mines and as you travel across the altiplano and past the mining cities of Oruro and Potosi you see a landscape colorfully marked by enormous tailings from the mines that have hollowed out the surrounding mountains. Some of the mountains have had so much silver, copper, and lead removed that they were rumored to be dangerously unstable and in danger of collapse.

In La Paz we were met at the airport by the APs (assistants to the president or apes) and loaded in the mission's Toyota Land Cruisers. The airport was on the altiplano above the city and we got onto a modern looking cement freeway or autopista and headed to the city. We were told that the autopista was constructed with the help of the U.S. Navy's Seabees and it showed. It was smooth and well constructed, unlike most of the rest of the roads I saw in the country. Apparently the road, which was the only way into the city from the altiplano, used to get washed out nearly every year during the rainy season.

We abruptly reached the rim of a huge valley and saw the city spread out below us in steep, deep, brown bowl carved by erosion from the plain. Rows and rows of poor, brown adobe houses with corrugated steel roofs clung to the steep sides of the bowl and surrounded downtown like a grand stadium watching the bustling streets, markets, hotels, high rise office buildings, governmental building, cathedrals, and stadiums of the bustling capital. Unlike many cities, where the rich live in the heights overlooking the city, La Paz's wealthy lived at the bottom of the city where all of the infrastructure was located and the poor dug into the rocky hillsides with limited resources like water, sanitary sewers, and electricity. The poorest of the poor live near the rim of the valley called the ceja or eyebrow. We descended through neighborhoods of adobe houses clustered on the hillsides and into downtown where large, modern buildings rose from the valley floor. We checked into the 5 star Sheraton Hotel where we would be spending our first night in Bolivia.

The heart of the city is a bustling metropolis with modern high rise office buildings and hotels along with modern hotels, government buildings, a covered Olympic style swimming stadium, and a magnificent soccer stadium with a pitch of luscious grass that is blindingly green compared to the bland browns and grays of the rest of the city. Like much of latin america, there is a huge disparity between the wealthy and the poor and a very small, almost non-existent middle class. As missionaries, we rarely were invited into the homes of the wealthy and did nearly all of our work with the large number of poor people.

Because of the altitude and aridity of the climate not much grows in La Paz. Grass was rare and sparse. The only trees in the city were eucalyptus trees near the ceja. I don't think they are native to Bolivia, but they seemed to thrive where they were planted and provided welcome greenery.

My mission president was a short, rotund, gruff Argentine. We had dinner with him at the hotel and interviews with him. I don't remember much about him because I only met him twice during my mission. He warned us about what we should and should not eat so we could avoid sickness. He then somewhat ominously told us to make sure to get medical care as soon as we got sick and to not let things get bad hoping that the Lord would heal us and allow us to continue to work. Specifically, I remember him telling us to not wait until we were pooping blood to get medical care. That stuck with me and I was always worried about crapping blood. This turned out to be very good advice that I took to heart. It wasn't very long before, despite being careful of my diet and hygiene, I was sick with worms. I had parasites and other intestinal infections nearly continuously during my stay in Bolivia, but at the first signs of illness I always got tested and immediately started taking appropriate medicines. In the end I left the country with a ravaged intestinal tract but without having lost very much weight.

We were met the next day by the apes and given our assignments. Some of the greenies would be flying out to other cities but I was staying in La Paz to work in the Obrajes area. The ape said, “It's a very nice area. Enjoy it because it will be all downhill from there.” My companion came to pick me up, but at the last minute he was diverted by the apes where there was some animated discussion. They came over and informed me that there had been a last minute change of plans and that I would have a different companion. I later learned that my original companion had been caught kissing a girl that lived in the house where he stayed and that when his companion found out he was getting a greenie he had ratted him out. So, instead of getting Elder Amore, I got Elder Brinks. But until they figured out what hell hole Amore should be sent to I had both Amore and Brinks as companions.

I gathered my luggage and headed to the lobby. The porters kept us from leaving until the tab was settled at the front desk and while I was there I was greeted by some of the missionaries. Many were sunburned, scruffy and dirty. They were working up in El Alto on the altiplano above the city. Apparently the living conditions were primitive there and the missionaries would come down each week to the El Gloria Hotel to take showers. “If I were you I'd slit my wrists now,” said one with a wry smile. Then they found out I was going to Obrajes. With jealous looks they told me to enjoy, but it would only make the rest of my mission worse by raising my expectations.

With such pleasantries we walked out to the street to go to my first area. Normally the missionaries road on the micros, or buses, but with my luggage we hailed a taxi, a dirty, beat up Nissan compact car. We wound down the main street along a dirty river lower and lower into the city. We turned off the main road at what appeared to be a large supermarket onto a road paved with stones and stopped at the base of a large hill with a steep dirt path running up it. Apparently this was it. I could see nice, stucco houses at the top of the hill and we climbed the hill to one of them.

Our house was owned by a divorced woman who belonged to the church and lived there with her two teenage sons, parents, and maid. It was a nice two story house made with a steel reinforced concrete frame and the hollow red clay bricks used to build nicer houses. The walls were covered with white stucco and the house was surrounded by a high wall topped with glass from broken beer and soda bottles. Inside the house was as nice, maybe nicer, than my home. It had wood parquet floors, nice furnishings, a living room, dining room, family room, bathroom, kitchen, and separate servants quarters in the corner of the small backyard. We lived in an airy, second story, corner room with large windows and a closet with two nice beds. Maybe this wouldn't be so bad after all.

ACBAC

2008-05-21T19:40:00.001-05:00

As I prepared to enter the mission field one of my biggest concerns was getting along with companions. I've always been a bit of a loner and for whatever reason I never really felt comfortable socially and had a problem making friends (a problem that continues to this day).

You'd never know it from looking at me today, but I was always on the small side. My birthday was one day before the school cutoff so I started kindergarten when I was 4 going on 5 and was always the youngest kid in my class with some kids nearly a year older than me. The problem became worse in high school when my body matured late and slowly leaving me probably the last pre-pubescent boy in the locker room. I also graduated a year early from high school so for my last two years I was going to classes with the class ahead of me and was sometimes two years younger than my classmates.

For some reason, when I was in kindergarten the public school decided I was "too motivated" and eager to learn and decided to put me in a slowed down class in first grade so I wouldn't become bored and drop out in high school. It doesn't make sense to me, but that is apparently what they told my parents who pulled me and my siblings out of public schools and enrolled us in a small private Christian school that was initially run by a Baptist church and later by a large evangelical church. I didn't go to public schools again until junior high school so I received six years of education that included daily prayer, Bible study, and scripture memorization.

I grew up in Iowa where Mormons were a rarity. My father was a member of the John Birch Society so I was raised with a "unique" political perspective full of patriotism, nationalism, and international conspiracy theories. My parents were also strong believers in fringe medical practices such as chiropractic, mega-vitamin therapy, and laetrile. My father's convictions were strong and he wanted to share them so my siblings and I could often be seen going through the neighborhood on weekends distributing hundreds of JBS political pamphlets. We attended church every Sunday for up to 5 hours, during the week, and at other special church occasions. I wasn't allowed to play with friends or watch TV on Sunday in order to keep the Sabbath holy. All of my parents friends were either members of the church or JBS members. We barely knew or associated with our neighbors and since I didn't attend public school I didn't know any kids in the neighborhood except for my best friends who lived in a duplex behind our house.

At home things I was raised by parents who were conscientious and caring but demanding, emotionally detached, often harsh, and sometimes violent. Hugs, kisses, and expressions of affection or love were rare, but discipline was omnipresent. My father's skinny dress belt was feared, but hair brushes and wooden spoons were also favorite instruments of punishment. At one school ball they had little paddle balls that have a bouncy ball connected by a rubber ball. We made the mistake of bringing them home only to have them turned into spanking paddles. We never made that mistake again. One spanking ended in the emergency room when my sister stuck her hand behind to protect her butt and wound up with a broken finger. My spankings ended on the day I tried an experiment. I figured it would only work if I cried or showed pain. So, as my mother laid into me with the belt I started laughing. The harder she spanked the harder I laughed and the more I laughed the angrier I got until I was laying face down on the bed laughing until tears streamed down my face while she hit me as hard and as fast as she could. After she tired I got up much sorer, but with the satisfaction of having beaten her by not giving her what she wanted. I never got spanked again.

One of my earliest memories, when I was four or five, was being in bed and hearing my father yelling angrily at my mother. The yelling got louder and louder as my mother retreated from the living room, through the kitchen, and neared the back of the house where I shared a bedroom with my brother. My father hit or pushed my mother and I saw her fall on the ground cowering outside my bedroom as he towered over her yelling and holding his fist up.

My father claims he had a wonderful upbringing. I guess that is his perception. But his parents separated and divorced shortly after he was born. His father joined the Navy and his mother didn't want him and his brother so he spent his childhood being raised by his aunts and uncles and later by his alcoholic mother and step father and itinerant father and step mother. As a teenager his mother tried to get custody of his older brother, but didn't want him if my father came as part of the package. Both my uncle and my father boxed in high school and my father was actually a golden gloves boxer. I don't know what that says about their upbringing, but it seems strange that both would choose such a violent sport. My parents married when my dad was 18 and my mother 17. Soon his older brother joined the Mormon church and my father and mother soon followed him. Then he joined the Air Force and served his entire career in the military. Despite their young marriage and the problems in the house, they have remained together for more than 50 years.

I always believed that religion had a rehabilitative effect on my father. He could be a monster when he lost his temper, but the discipline of religious observance made him aspire to constantly improve himself. Unfortunately, I don't think he had any role models for normal family life growing up and so his ideals were formed based on church talks, church lessons, and church media that presented a highly idealized, but hardly realistic representation of the challenges of real life and solutions that worked. I think this resulted in him becoming extremely frustrated that despite his efforts his family was never like what he thought it should be. Those frustrations only seemed to grow and I grew older.

I had what I guess could be best described as a disciplined, hard working childhood. We worked hard around the house and in additional to normal chores also did major tasks such as reroofing and painting the house and doing all of our own auto maintenance and repairs. My father could be extremely tolerant and patient, but when his he finally lost his temper it was a terrible thing to witness. I never saw him lose his temper in public, but it became increasingly frequent as I got older and the challenges me and my siblings presented to him became harder for him to deal with. Remember that he was 6 foot 4 inches and 175 very solid pounds, a former golden gloves boxer, and a fighter pilot who had to stay fit by regularly running and working out at the YMCA.

Two episodes stand out. He started yelling at my mother and doing who knows what, but she ran to their bedroom and locked the door. He chased her and when confronted with the locked door he simply kicked it open and followed her in. I don't know what happened after that; I was hiding with my sisters in the farthest room in the house until he calmed down.

Everyone in the house lived in fear of my father and tried to avoid angering him. I learned by watching the abuse of my older brother that you really couldn't win a direct confrontation with my father so I learned avoidance. But I didn't like the feeling of helplessness I felt both at home and at school. I was brainy, but wanted the popularity of the jocks so I always went out for sports despite my small size and rather conspicuous absence of athletic talent. When everyone else grew and I didn't I finally got tired of getting pummeled and quit football. After the season I signed up for wrestling. Part of it was a desire to get an athletic letter and I figured I had a chance against people my own size. But part of it was also to be able to defend myself both against bullies at school, but especially from my father's anger and abuse.

During my last year of high school my sister did something to upset my dad. I think she was sleeping in on a Saturday and he wanted her to get up and do chores. He finally resorted to trying to drag her out of her bed and a fight ensued. She ran to the bathroom and locked the door. He stood pounding on the door and yelling for her to unlock the door. His anger built into a roaring fury and when she didn't come out he simply kicked the door open and shattered the door and jamb. By now I'd grown some, although I was still dwarfed by my father, but more importantly I'd gathered a hard won physical confidence on the wrestling mats and was quite strong for my size and able to use my leverage effectively. I steeled myself and walked into the bathroom to find my sister cowering and screaming hysterically in the bathtub and my father with both hands around her throat trying to drag her out. I walked up behind him, grabbed him around the waist, and carried him out into the kitchen. When I set him down he started yelling at me and I stood inches from his lightning eyes and yelled up into his face. I wondered if I was next, but he stormed off and eventually calmed down. He knew he was in the wrong, but this was also the first time I'd ever seen anyone stand up to him.

I don't remember him ever apologizing for such episodes. In fact, after the bathroom incident I remember piecing the door and door jamb back together with wood glue and clamps since it was the only bathroom in the house and it was a little difficult to use when you couldn't close and fasten the door. Locks in our house only seemed to result in broken doors, not safety, so to prevent future lockins and breakage I disabled the lock on the handle when I put everything back together. He never offered to help and in fact his bedroom door was still broken and without a door knob when we moved from that house.

I was a brainy, skinny, small, afraid kid who wanted to be athletic, respected, and sure of myself. So I participated in sports and for my whole life I lifted weights to try to remodel my naturally slim frame. When I graduated from high school I was 6'1" and 145 pounds. Two years later when I left on my mission I was still lean, but I weighed 165. At 43 I am 6'2" and my lean body weight is up to 185 meaning that if I wasn't such a fat ass I'd still weigh a lean 200+ pounds instead of 225.

While I was a freshman at BYU I made an interesting discovery. Someone said something mean to me and not having a sharp wit for comebacks I gave him a dirty look. I was surprised when he looked a little afraid at my angry look and apologized. Hmmm. I started perfecting my glare. Soon my motto became, "A smile is much more disarming when preceded by a scowl." With no friends to lose I got a perverse pleasure out of trying to be intimidating. Not really very cool, I guess, but it did have its moments.

One day I came into the Morris Center cafeteria. My friends and brother were sitting at a table and I greeted them with my nastiest look. One of my buddies said, "Here comes the president of ACBAC." Huh? Apparently I'd been appointed in absentia as the found and president of the A. C. Bad Ass Club. I found it uproariously funny that someone had noticed.

Anyway, what does this have to do with my mission? In many ways my life was ideal preparation for a mission. I was used to hard work and discipline. My social isolation made me need to belong to something. The church was my comfort zone and my support structure and made up for deficiencies at home. I was used to rules and discipline. I was physically fit. I was well educated.

However, I knew my social limitations and problems with roomates at BYU meant that I was concerned with being able to get along with companions. In fact, my biggest concern when I entered the MTC was whether or not I'd be able to keep from killing a comp during my mission.

Finally, this might explain some episodes later in my mission where without trying I apparently became feared as something of an intimidating enforcer by some of the missionaries. I'll save that for another tale.

I'm Not Using Circular Logic, You're Asking Circular Questions

2008-05-14T11:28:00.005-05:00

I absolutely love this. I'm pretty sure it's a parody, but it's difficult to tell because some of the fundy media is its own best parody.

Enjoy.

The MTC

2008-05-10T13:18:00.001-05:00

The MTC (missionary training center) was essentially part of the BYU campus. It was located at the north end of campus and it's facilities and services were provided by the university, which is also owned and run by the church. It was a cluster of modern tan brick buildings surrounded by a tall chain link fence. It was completely self contained so that the only reason missionaries had to leave was to go across the street to the temple or down to campus for haircuts at the BYU barber. It had dormitories, class rooms, a large cafeteria, laundry facilities, a large gymnasium with a full basketball court and three volleyball courts and weight room, and a huge auditorium that could hold all of the missionaries in the MTC at once.

Missionaries who were going to English speaking missions were in the MTC for 2 weeks to memorize the missionary discussions (lessons) and practice basic missionary skills. Then they were quickly off to their mission to learn on the job from an experience senior companion.

Missionaries who were called to foreign language missions stayed in the MTC for 8 weeks of total language immersion. The first two days were spent learning the basics of their new language and instructors and missionaries were allowed to speak English. The third day was known as Helen Keller Day. On that day English was no longer permitted except for emergencies and as a result most communication for the first week or more was done with ineffective gesticulation and grunts. Missionaries learning Romance or Germanic languages had a much easier time because the languages share a common alphabet and word roots with English. But missionaries going to the far east to China, Japan, or Korea had a much tougher time and often left the MTC only knowing a few rudimentary phrases and one discussion. It wasn't uncommon for Spanish speaking missionaries to leave after two months with all seven discussions memorized and basic conversational skills.

One of the first orders of business was to pay for my stay at the MTC. We were all volunteers and I brought a personal check from my parents to cover my MTC expenses. No check; no admittance. In the first week or so some of us received additional vaccinations that were required by our missions but weren’t commonly available. In my case I still had to get a yellow fever vaccination and a gamma globulin shot for hepatitis. The yellow fever shot was no big deal, but the gamma shot was something else. It was affectionately known as the peanut butter shot because the serum was so thick. It was fairly large in volume too so it had to go in a large muscle like the buttocks or thigh. They stuck me in the butt and I could feel the large lump. Gamma wasn’t a vaccination but it was supposed to boost your immune system. In our mission we had to get a booster every 3 to 6 months.

The MTC turned out to be the highlight of my mission. I've always been a bookworm and a loner and the monastic lifestyle suited me. The accommodations were comfortable and clean. The food was plentiful and healthy even if it was cafeteria food. We got an hour of exercise and recreation every day except Sunday in the gym. Other than that we spent the remaining time in classrooms. We woke up at 6:00 am, ate breakfast and went to a morning class. Then we had lunch followed by class all afternoon with a break for gym. Then we had supper and all evening was a review class. All our classes were taught by BYU students who were returned missionaries from Spanish speaking missions. Our morning teacher was a very cute red headed sister who'd served in Peru, our afternoon teacher was a towering, slim BYU basketball player who'd served in the mountains of Chile, and our evening teacher was a friendly, bespectacled linguistics major who loved to joke around as he helped us review what we'd learned during the day.

The only break from the routine was preparation day (P-day). On that day we were supposed to attend the temple and then we could do our laundry, write letters home, get our hair cut, and take care of any shopping we needed to do. But we had to stay with our companions and were supposed to visit with friends or family. I stuck to the rules and didn't go visit my friends or girlfriend even though they were only a mile away. I know other missionaries who snuck off, but I think it was the exception.

The environment was one of isolation and conformity. It was a very disciplined, structured academic religious environment. We all dressed the same, had the same rules and schedule, and the same goals. I was raised in a military family and somehow I dropped right into a comfort zone. The leaders noticed and I was made an assistant to the branch president for our missionary branch. This was something of a big deal to me at the time and I felt blessed to be noticed although in retrospect it wasn't really a big deal. I was basically the person in charge of keeping an eye on the missionaries in the branch and serving as the liaison between the branch presidency and the missionaries. I think the most exciting thing I had to do was notify the elders that they weren’t supposed to gather in the true order of prayer taught in the temple. Apparently one group had been meeting each night in a prayer circle like in the temple including giving all of the temple signs and tokens.

The MTC was organized into branches of about 80 missionaries and each branch was composed of several districts that had 8 to 10 missionaries. Each district had the same schedule and went to classes together for the entire 8 weeks. We had 5 elders and 4 sisters in our district. All 5 of us elders were going to Bolivia. The sisters were going to Columbia. We got to know each other quite well and were lucky that we all got along. I think that I annoyed some of the elders with my gung ho attitude, but all I remember was a strong feeling of love and camaraderie between everyone. Without outside distractions it was very easy to focus on our studies and try very hard to live the gospel.

It wasn’t all work and no play. I loved playing basketball and looked forward to gym each day. The long days meant we played hard for the short time we had. Gym started off with Timed-X, a calisthenics program the church had for the missionaries to help them stay in shape, but after that we were on our own. I somehow managed to tear muscles in the arch of my foot while making a cut during a basketball game. They actually had a trainer and could get the foot taped each day so I could keep playing. Then a week later I did the same thing to my other foot. My feet still hurt when I left for Bolivia. But I was lucky. One elder blew his knee out and had to go home to get surgery.

The evening review classes could get goofy after a long day of studying. Our review teacher helped several classes so we were often alone and unsupervised. This allowed us to sometimes visit in English and joke around. The starchy cafeteria food the nasty side effect of giving us all a lot of gas. One evening Elder Follows and I had our own symphony going so we decided to have a contest to see who could fart the most times in a half hour. Everyone joined in and soon the classroom was almost unliveable. I don’t remember who won, but the winning count was in the 30s.

When non-Mormons learn I was a missionary in Bolivia they often ask why I chose to go there. They seem a little perplexed by my perplexed reaction. Mormon missionaries don't get to choose where they go. They submit their papers to the church and wait to be called. The church then chooses where they go. The calling is personally signed by the prophet and most missionaries , including me, thought that the callings were the result of revelation or inspiration by the prophet. It never occurred to me that it was possible to choose a destination and it certainly never occurred to me to turn down the calling. In fact, I remember in shock when a missionary in my branch at the MTC switched to a different mission because his father complained to the church and refused to let him go to South America.

I was later disappointed to learn that the assignments were done by the missionary department based on the needs of the missions around the world and based on the aptitude and appearance of the missionaries and that the signature of the prophet was done by a signature machine. Knowing what I know of the health risks in places like Bolivia and the atrocious medical care provided to missionaries, I’d never allow one of my children to go there on a church mission. But at the time it would have never occurred to me or my family to do anything other than what the church asked of us.

The selection was aided by scores on a language aptitude test taken as part of the application process. This was an odd test. A local member was the proctor and I was the only person taking the test that day. I arrived at the church and was taken to a classroom. I sat at a desk and was given an answer sheet. Then the proctor put an audio cassette into a tape player and pushed play. For the next thirty or so minutes a disembodied voice would introduce the vocabulary and grammar of a completely made up language so that knowledge of a particular foreign language was no benefit. Then they'd ask questions about the language. They'd say a word or phrase or sentence and then ask what it meant. You selected your answer and then it continued. I might have had some advantage on the test because I'd had three years of high school Spanish and 15 hours (3 semesters) of Russian while I was at BYU. The test was a little like learning Russian (in 30 minutes) which uses a completely different alphabet and which has a very unique grammar. I actually thought it was kind of fun and think I did pretty well. At least I don't remember being particularly lost. I could easily imagine some people being lost pretty quickly.

The church never tells you how you did on the test, but the results affect who gets called to foreign language missions. It's not a sure thing since some missionaries still have a terrible time learning their new language. But it mostly works; missionaries usually become quite fluent in their new language. Later in my mission I learned from one of the office elders that the score becomes part of your missionary file. I asked how I did and was told that he hadn't ever seen anyone with a higher score.

At times those 8 weeks in the MTC felt like they were never going to end, but before we knew it the day of departure neared. Family and friends were allowed to meet missionaries at the airport before they left. I arranged to say goodbye to my girlfriend in the lobby of the MTC since she didn’t have any way to get to the airport. I think this was technically ok, but I was confronted by some officious young mission official as I nervously waited in the lobby with my companion and I got many disapproving looks when my girlfriend arrived. We were only allowed to visit for a few minutes before I had to say one last goodbye and give her a tentative hug and a peck.

The sisters in our district had trouble getting visas to Columbia so they were sent to Houston to wait for their paperwork to clear. The church didn’t have a problem getting missionary visas to Bolivia so the 5 elders in my district left on schedule just after Thanksgiving. We were shuttled off to the airport. My companion’s family and girlfriend and I got to stand awkwardly to the side while he visited until our flight boarded and we flew off to a different world.

Mission Preparations

2008-05-06T18:32:00.000-05:00

I received letters from the church with lists of things I'd need for my mission. I bought a cheap but sturdy black polyester suit with two pairs of pants to go with the one jacket. I didn't realize that this would cause people for the next two years to constantly ask me why I was "en luto" or mourning. I stocked up on white shirts and ties and bought a tan trench coat. Why a trench coat? Apparently that is part of the stock missionary uniform which was apparently invented in the 1950s. A trench coat turned out to be highly impractical while hiking up and down steep mountain paths and because of the length it tended to wrap around your legs in the wind.

I bought my missionary library which included "The Articles of Faith", "Jesus the Christ", and "The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith" but I wasn't allowed any other books or recordings beyond those classics of Mormon theological literature.

I also had to prepare to travel out of the country. I had to get my U.S. passport, but worse I had to get vaccinations for some nasty diseases. That was uneventful except for the typhoid. I was warned that it would hurt so I got it in my left shoulder. When I got home I went out and played a little tennis in the hope that a little exercise might help the muscle from getting too sore. However my shoulder soon started getting sore. By supper it was warm to the touch and getting red around the vaccination site. By bedtime my entire deltoid was red, swollen, hot to the touch, and unbelievably painful. That night I struggled to sleep because any movement or touch on that shoulder woke me up in pain. The only position that was bearable was on my right side. I remember thinking, "If the vaccination is this bad, I wonder what the actual disease feels like?" Unfortunately, I found out. It turns out the vaccine only protects against the worst strains of a disease that has many, many strains.

I went to the temple on the Saturday before I was scheduled to leave and then on Sunday I went to the stake president's office to be set apart. He laid his hands on my head and I was officially an ordained missionary of the church for the next two years until I had an interview where he released me. During that period I was required to live by all missionary rules including constantly being with my companion. Until I arrived at the MTC my parents were my companion and I wasn't allowed to be alone any more.

I packed everything I'd have for the next two years into two suitcases and boarded the plane to Salt Lake City. My best friend, who was attending BYU, picked me up and I stayed at his apartment that night. I met my girlfriend that night, but since I was set apart I wasn't allowed to be alone with her and we had to say our goodbyes with a room full of people. I told her not to worry about waiting for me and she said she wasn't going to. We had both grown up in the church and knew how few relationships survived a mission and we didn't want to continue the stereotype of Dear John letters. Better to just have low expectations for the future.

The next morning Bill drove me to the north end of the BYU campus across the street from the Provo temple and dropped me off to join a large crowd of new missionaries. Many of the new missionaries had been escorted to the MTC by friends and family. I felt so alone and disoriented as I watched many tearful goodbyes. I was surrounded by people I didn't know and had no idea what to expect. Soon, the missionaries were directed to a large room and we collectively took a deep breath, walked through the door and left one life behind as we entered a completely new one.

Bolivian Laundry Duty

2008-05-02T11:30:00.003-05:00

My missionary wardrobe consisted of a sturdy black suit with two pairs of pants, a pair of brown slacks, and a bunch of white shirts. They got worn every day and quickly got dirty. Everything was machine washable, but I never saw a washing machine or dryer my entire time in Bolivia. I'm sure some people had them, but none that I ever knew. Instead, all my laundry was washed by hand.

The missionaries would typically pay a cholita or ward member to do their laundry for them once a week. It was somewhat important to hire a member or a trusted person to do it because the laundry included our temple garments and they weren't supposed to be hung out to dry in public. In my first area we had a maid and she did our laundry in a large cement utility sink in the back yard. She'd use a large green block of laundry soap and hand wash the dirty clothes in one side of the sink and rinse them on the other side before hanging them up to air dry. The clothes always came back clean but a little stiff from air drying.

After a while my suit jacket and ties got dirty too, and I didn't think they'd handle hand washing so I took them to a dry cleaner where one of our investigators worked. Everything came back nice and clean except for one minor detail. They smelled like they'd been washed in kerosene! The fumes were overpowering and it took weeks for the smell to finally dissipate. This was apparently typical, so after that I took special care to keep my suit jacket clean, mostly by not wearing it except to church.

Mission Papers

2008-05-02T00:17:00.004-05:00

Son, everyone does it. But, you see, no one talks about it.

John Goodman as the father on Roseanne

I'm going to candidly address an uncomfortable topic here and one that is more than a little embarrassing for me. If the topic of masturbation offends you, then please move along.

When I turned 12 I received the Aaronic priesthood. This meant that every Sunday I now had to get to church at 9:00 am for priesthood meeting before sunday school at 10:30. I also had to go to stake priesthood meetings twice a year and the general priesthood meeting broadcast twice a year. I also had to pass the sacrament each Sunday during sunday school and sacrament meeting. I also had to be a junior companion to an adult for monthly home teaching visits to three or four families that we were responsible for.

In those days, the churches didn't have satellites for receiving general conference broadcasts. Instead Bonneville, the church owned broadcasting company, had broadcast the audio over phone lines that were hooked to the PA system in the chapel. So, for general priesthood meeting all the priesthood holders would come to the chapel on Saturday evening and sit in the choir seats to listen to the crackly audio of the sermons being given from the Tabernacle on temple square in Salt Lake City.

I still remember an early general priesthood meeting. In it Elder Boyd Packer addressed the young men of the church. His talk was later published by the church as a pamplet entitled, To Young Men Only. For some reason I couldn't find it on the church's web site any more so maybe continuing revelation has again revealed that what was true when I was young is no longer relevant. I remember my father going on about how delicately the apostle handled such an important topic. I guess the message got mixed up for me.

The basic premise of the talk is that your testicles are like a little factory that produce at a certain rate. The body produces until it has too much semen and then it has a natural safety valve that releases the excess. This is a natural process that shouldn't be tampered with. But if you stimulate them then they start working overtime and the more you stimulate them the more release is needed in an ever increasing spiral. The only solution is to leave them alone and let things slow back down to their pre-ordained function.

Now, I remember having no idea how to go about doing this, but most of the boys at school were already going through puberty and getting pubic and armpit hair as well as getting much bigger. Meanwhile, I hadn't grown at all and didn't have a hint of hair anywhere on my body except my head. I wondered if perhaps stimulating my little factory might make jump start me into puberty.

This led a period of experimentation whose main goal was to grow some pubes and hopefully stop being the smallest, scrawniest kid on the football team. I had no idea what I was doing but I eventually figured it out. It actually took a long time before I independently discovered what an orgasm was and why you should always keep a box of Kleenex next to your bed. Now, that was a pleasant surprise and suddenly I had a new reason for stimulating my little factory.

Of course, as I started doing it more regularly, I felt increasingly guilty. Every year we had a lesson in priesthood meeting telling us that masturbation was a sin. When I neared 14 I had a personal worthiness interview with my bishop. He asked if I masturbated. I was mortified and of course I lied. He then proceeded to explain that masturbation was also called self abuse and that it really was abusing your own body. I listened attentively and then lied again. No, I wasn't abusing myself. I was terribly worried about lying to the bishop and I felt really guilty about it, but I wasn't about to confess to something so horrible and get in trouble.

I'm not lying when I say I felt guilty. We read scriptures as a family and I remember the story of the priest who reached out to steady the ark and was struck dead on the spot. I remember one Sunday. I'd masturbated in the shower that morning and had to pass the sacrament. As the prayer was said I fretted about whether or not I was worthy. I was seriously worried that perhaps I'd be struck with some kind of shock as I took the tray of sacrament bread. But I risked it and hesitantly reached out my hand. Nothing. Whew!

Later in my teenage years my father pulled me aside at least twice to interview me and ask if I masturbated. The first time I lied. The second time I said I used to but that I'd stopped some months before.

I really tried to stop. But the longer I went, the worse it got. Finally, I'd give in to temptation and fall again. But I did notice that it didn't really work the way that the apostle said. The longer I went, the worse it got. When I didn't masturbate my thoughts became obsessessed with sex. More so than normal. But as soon as I serviced myself, I had a period of peace.

This went on despite my feelings of guilt and unworthiness. I lied again when I was interviewed at 16 to become a priest. I kept trying to stop right up until I prepared to go on my mission.

When a young man in the church turns 18 he has to get ready to submit his "mission papers." These papers include medical and dental exams. They also include a worthiness form and recommendation that has to be filled out by the bishop. I was healthy but I was worried about the worthiness part. I decided to come clean and when I went in for my interview with my bishop I confessed that I had a problem with masturbation. It was really embarrassing and he notified that I couldn't serve a mission with this problem. His counsel was that I should go running or exercise when I felt the need. I tried this, but the physical activity just made me hornier than ever.

I managed to keep clean for a couple of weeks and passed the next interview. But he wanted to make sure so he made me wait and come back for another interview. Of course, I gave in, but I'd already gotten a scholarship deferral from BYU for my mission and if I didn't go I'd lose my scholarship. So I lied. The bishop's spirit of discernment was inadequate to detect my lies. So was the stake presidents. My mission papers got signed and sent to Salt Lake City.

Then I had to wait for my mission call.

It came as my family was preparing to move from Iowa to Washington D.C. I was called to Cochabamba, Bolivia and I was entering the Missionary Training Center in September 1983. Now I got ordained an Elder in the Melchisedec priesthood and got a temple recommend so that I could receive my temple endowments before leaving on my mission.

I've written about my temple experiences elsewhere. It was shocking and unsettling. I felt guilty that perhaps I hadn't felt the spirit because I was unworthy due to not only masturbating, but also lying about it to my church leaders. I once again resolved to stay clean and went back to the temple to try to feel the spirit. It didn't really work.

Once I got to the MTC, it was somewhat easier to resist temptation. The missionaries lived in dormitories with 4 people to a room in two bunk beds. No privacy there. The showers in the rest rooms didn't have shower curtains and the water was at best luke warm. No privacy there either. I really doubt the shower situation was a coincidence.

I was in the MTC for 2 months in order to learn Spanish. I only fell once. I was in bed and got a throbbing, pulsing erection that wouldn't go away. With an image of Victoria Principal in my head (from Dallas) that wouldn't go away I gave a couple of squeezes and it was over. I was crushed. I was so intensely guilty. Then next day was a disaster. I put my head on my desk on the verge of tears. What was I going to do? I felt I'd have to go confess my sin to my branch president and I was terrified of being sent home in disgrace for my sexual impurity.

Eventually my fear of disgrace overrode my guilt and I kept my sin to myself and resolved to postpone the price for the eternities. Maybe God would forgive me if I worked hard.

Other than that, I worked my butt off. Maybe my guilt made me work even harder.

Throughout my mission, I continued to struggle with my sin and occasionally gave in to temptation. But my concern lessened when I noticed that I was often more effective afterward. In fact, I noticed that some of my most powerful spiritual experiences and missionary experiences came after sinning. I was consoled by the fact that God seemed to be more than capable of working through me despite my sins.

After my mission I went back to BYU. One Sunday our bishop, a psychology professor at the university, stood up in priesthood meeting and talked to us about masturbation. He said that it was normal and that we should stop coming to him to confess about it. As long as it wasn't an obsession that controlled our life then it wasn't a problem. There were nervous chuckles all around, but I was quite relieved. Maybe I wasn't such a terrible sinner. When I got back to my apartment I had a roommate who was incensed. He told us what a huge problem they had in his mission in Guatemala with masturbation. Apparently lots of missionaries were doing it. I was secretly relieved.

Apparently everyone does it. We just don't talk about it. Normally.

Sorry for sharing, but this was a serious subtext throughout my mission that caused me to constantly feel guilty and unworthy to be in the work of the Lord.

Update: A little searching on Google explained why I couldn't find this talk in the conference report in the November 1976 Ensign. The talk was given on October 2, 1976. In December 1976 the Ensign had the following:

The recent October conference address of Elder Boyd K. Packer, given in the priesthood session of conference, has been published as a pamphlet to be distributed to bishops for further distribution to parents of young men. Elder Packer’s address was not included in the November Ensign’s conference report by determination of the First Presidency. The address was a sensitive treatment of the important subject of chastity.

I suspect that the topic of sex was deemed inappropriate for a magazine that would be read by the general membership of the church. I believe that church leaders can still order and distribute this pamphlet to cultivate guilt in their young men like they did with me.

As someone else said, "Guilt is great for the church. If they can convince you that something is wrong with you then they can convince you that they have the cure."

Mission Memories

2008-05-01T15:57:00.000-05:00

I hate to be a copy cat, but apparently Runtu's blog posts have shaken something loose inside my head. I don't normally dwell on the past and when I talk about my mission it's mostly to entertain people or gross them out. But my mission was a significant personal sacrifice as well as a huge sacrifice for my family. For me, it was a rite of passage to adulthood and it has left its mark on me. Overall it was a positive experience, but it wasn't without its traumas. So, apologies to Runtu, but I feel a need to write some of this down and share. In fact, I've barely been able to sleep over the last couple of nights as memories of my mission have flooded back, triggered by reading Runtu's stories. Our missions mostly overlapped and we had some of the same companions and knew some of the same characters that inhabited that strange place.

My older brother served a mission in Ecuador so when my mission call came to Bolivia I had an idea of what to expect. People congratulated me because everyone knew that missionaries had lots of success finding and baptizing new members in Latin America. But I knew that it meant I'd be living in poverty and getting sick as well as being in danger of being mugged or worse. I'd hoped to go to Japan or Russia, but I definitely didn't want to go to a third world country like Bolivia. As it turned out, it was much worse than I'd even imagined even though some missionaries suffered much more than I did.

For my whole life missions were 2 years duration, but during the recession in the early 1980s the church shortened the duration of the missions to 18 months in order to reduce the economic burden on the missionaries and their families. I was called to serve for 18 months, but at the end of 1984, with less than 6 months left in my mission, the church announced that new mission calls would once again be for 2 years and that all currently serving missionaries had the option to extend their missions another 6 months. I wound up extending my mission for 4 months so that I could get home in time to start the fall 1985 semester at BYU. So I served for 22 months, but I generally round up to 2 years because its easier to say and explain.

I entered the mission field with a strong testimony and a desire to be a good missionary. I wasn't one of those young men who went to get a testimony or to comply with social expectations. I'd grown up in the "mission field" in Iowa so no one other than my family would really have been disappointed or even notice if I'd decided not to go. I'd already finished two years at BYU and during that time I'd read the Book of Mormon through from cover to cover and really believed that it couldn't be an invention of Joseph Smith and therefore it must be true. Based on that conviction I was ready to head out and share the message that God was alive and lead his church through living prophets. In preparation I'd gone out tracting and teaching with the local missionaries in Iowa. When I left to enter the MTC I was willingly leaving behind my schooling, family, friends, and girlfriend in order to do what I believed God wanted me to do. I wouldn't say I was thrilled to be going, but I committed to doing it right and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ and message of hope and good living with the people I taught.

And so a great adventure began that changed me, tempered me, and gave me a wealth of interesting and colorful stories to share for the rest of my life.

La Mision Bolivia Cochabamba

2008-04-29T23:32:00.002-05:00

I highly recommend you check out the recollections of former comrade in the Bolivian mission. It's really brought back a lot of memories from an important part of my life. If you've ever wondered what it was like to work as a missionary in the 2nd poorest country in all of the Americans (just behind Haiti) then give it a read. You might be horrified, but I doubt you'll be bored.

Oh, What To Do

2008-04-23T23:40:00.001-05:00

Hopefully my last post explains why I'm paying particular attention to FLDS abuse case in Eldorado, Texas. Although current LDS prophets comply with the anti-polygamy laws and excommunicate members who don't, they still believe in polygamy as a righteous doctrine and I always understood that as a member. Although I was raised LDS where polygamy isn't practiced in this life, polygamy was always part of my religious culture, heritage, and belief system.

I also understand what it is like to be raised as a member of a "peculiar people." The Mormons take a special pride in their peculiarities and believe that they are the mark of a distinct and righteous people that are inherently different and separate from non-believing Gentiles. This explains the strong emphasis on otherwise minor doctrines such as the Word of Wisdom which prohibits coffee, tea, tobacco, and alcohol. It's not that using such things are really that bad in the grand scheme of things, but they are somewhat unique and serve to separate the believers and the faithful from the non-believers and unfaithful. It is an easy to distinguish mark of belief. The same goes for other Mormon practices such as wearing garments and regularly attending all church meetings. Such things don't really serve to make the members better people, but it does mark them as different and belonging.

The other aspect of being "peculiar" is having a strong persecution complex. Mormons believe that the history of church persecution is strong evidence that Satan has mustered his forces to try to oppose the grand work of God. It's easy to see how any actions against the church are interpreted through the lens of persecution. This creates a blind spot among the faithful toward their own culpability in perhaps inviting the persecution on themselves. This is similar to how the U.S. wants to ignore actions it has taken that may have provoked attacks such as 9/11 and instead accept the simplistic explanation that it was extremist Muslims who hate our way of life.

So, what is the real problem among the FLDS and what should be done?

I see two issues:

They are raping girls who are too young to consent to marriage or sex.
They are neglecting minor children by expelling them from their families for minor religious infractions.

Both of these are crimes. Note that wearing pioneer dresses, having long hair in funky braids, having strange religious beliefs, living in isolation, not wearing makeup, and other cultural things are not. In my mind, neither is polygamy. The Mormon doctrine of polygamy seems much less harmful to families than adultery or other forms of marital infidelity. As long as it is a real marriage entered into by consenting adults, then I don't see why it should be a crime. But, again, that's not the issue. The Texas attorney general has hinted that bigamy laws may have been violated and that charges may be filed on that ground. But I'd rather see such laws be stricken from the books or left unenforced unless he also plans to crack down on similar laws such as adultery and sodomy laws.

I'm a strong believer in the rule of law, and one of the fundamental aspects of the rule of law in the principle of impartiality. Laws should apply to everyone and should be applied uniformly. We shouldn't have separate rules for rich and poor or based on race or based on gender or any other arbitrary distinctions. The state of Texas shouldn't get leeway to enforce laws against one small religious minority just because they are different.

In case you can't tell, I'm a little bit peeved at the media focus on superficial differences. It's the same mentality that led to (my considered opinion here) the mass murder of the Branch Davidians in Waco and the cold blooded murder at Ruby Ridge. The media coverage focused on the strangeness of the victims as if that is a justification for the government to selectively tyrannize those people.

Based on what I see, the wholesale removal of every child from the compound is excessive and unjustified and will deepen the feelings of persecution among the FLDS. No one has accused them of pedophilia. There is no reason to be removing girls that have not reached puberty, which is the age the FLDS appear to believe is marriageable age. There is no reason to remove boys, since the problem appears to be with the boys that have been cast out. Those that are still there are still being cared for.

I'm sympathetic of the difficulties in investigating the crimes. Investigating close societies like the FLDS has to be like investigating organized crime families. But, we still live in a free country where people deserve due process under the law.

So, what seems justified?

The DNA testing seems reasonable in order to prove paternity and establish that sex has occurred illegally between minor children and adults.

If anyone should be separated and removed and put into protective custody it should be adolescent girls.

Paternity and maternity should be established so that rape charges can be filed against the appropriate men.

The state should establish a consent decree from the FLDS getting them to agree to cease underage marriage and sex. I personally think that they should revoke the anti bigamy laws and require that all marriages be open to the public and that they be licensed by the state with both parties swearing consent. I think that this should apply to all religions including the LDS who exclude non-members from their temple marriages.

I think that the should investigate whether the FLDS in Texas are casting out minor boys and prosecute the church and families for neglect if they find such cases.

Other than that, I think they should leave them alone to live their culture according to their own conscience as long as they comply with the law no matter how strange it may seem to us. Heaven knows our ways probably seem more strange and objectionable to them than theirs do to us.

Who Are the Real Mormons?

2008-04-20T11:27:00.003-05:00

The Mormons have been in the news recently, much to their dismay. Why? Polygamy again. Try as they will, the Mormons just can't seem to shake their inextricable association with polygamy. Throughout my life, whenever people heard I was Mormon they would ask about polygamy. My responses would range from puzzled to irritated. I was raised Mormon and knew nothing about it. Polygamy was something from the past and I wished people would just forget about it.

Mormons, of course, know that the church practiced polygamy up until 1890. The revelation commanding polygamy, Doctrine and Covenants section 132, is still a very important one in the church since it also reveals the principle of eternal marriage which remains a central tenet of the church. So, while most Mormons are still comfortable with polygamy as an acceptable, theoretical, eternal practice, they are secretly and sometimes openly relieved that the church abandoned the principle long ago and that they don't have to live it in this life. But, they do understand that in the eternities men will have multiple wives. The men have no problem with this, but many women, my wife included, have no desire to share their husbands in this life or the next one.

Every time Mormon polygamists make the headlines, the mainstream Mormon church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, sends out press releases reminding the media that there is no such thing as Mormon fundamentalists or polygamous Mormons and that any Mormons caught practicing polygamy are excommunicated and therefore no longer Mormon. For example, the following new release claims:

Elder Cook said it is very confusing to the public when some media use “Mormon” to describe the Texas-based polygamous group that is currently under investigation for possible incidents of child abuse. He reiterated that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, with over 13 million members worldwide, is not connected in any way to sects that practice polygamy.

I'm sure Elder Cook wishes this were true, unfortunately it isn't. What is confusing to the media and the public at large is why Elder Cook thinks that a group that follows Joseph Smith, believes in all of the Mormon scriptures and doctrines, and follows the church's 19th century prophets shouldn't be called Mormons. It's not at all clear why the LDS church should get to define who is and isn't Mormon any more than why evangelical Christians should get to decide who is and isn't Christian.

What is also confusing is his claim that the LDS don't practice polygamy. For example, Elder Dallin Oaks, an apostle in the church, is a practicing polygamist and has been open about it. His practice is in compliance with the law because his first wife is dead, but Mormons believe that marriages are eternal and he believes he is still married to his first wife as well as his second wife that he married a year after his first wife's death and looks forward to an eternal life with at least two wives, possibly more if God smiles on him and gives him even more wives in the afterlife.

The church officially stopped practicing polygamy in 1890, but continued to secretly perform polygamous marriages until 1906 when they were caught and had to issue a 2nd Manifesto discontinuing polygamy again. But they never renounced the doctrine of polygamy and the reality is that they simply reformed the practice from a temporal practice to an eternal practice in order to comply with the law.

So, when the Mormon church claims to no longer practice polygamy it is at best a half truth, which is also known in some circles as a lie. When Elder Cook states that the church is "connected in any way to sects that practice polygamy" he is clearly lying because one of his fellow apostles is a polygamist by the church's own definitions.

Now, about those Fundamentalist Mormons or FLDS that the church would prefer that the media not refer to as Mormons. Where did they come from? Well, prior to 1890 the Mormon prophets repeatedly said that polygamy was an eternal principle and that the practice would never be discontinued and that if it ever was then the church would be in apostasy. So, when the church stopped practicing polygamy some members believed that it was evidence that the leadership had apostatized and fallen and so they formed their own offshoots that continued the doctrines and practices originated by Joseph Smith and Brigham Young.

It's a little difficult to see how the FLDS are not Mormon. They believe in Joseph Smith, they Book of Mormon, and all of the teachings of the pre-1890 church. They follow the doctrines of the founding prophets of the church and refused to follow fallen leaders into apostasy after the LDS rejected polygamy. In fact, I think that they have a better doctrinal case of being the real Mormons. If they seem bizarre to the apostate, mainstream Mormon church then it is just an indication of how far the LDS church has fallen from what it was prior to its 1890 general apostasy.

What we see with the FLDS are the practical results of the "revelation" of Joseph Smith and its implementation by Brigham Young. Polygamy means that there will be a shortage of brides. The result is strong competition among the males for the most desirable girls. This drives the marriages to occur at younger and younger ages in order to lock up the marriages. The logical extreme for the group is similar to other societies where girls are married as soon as they go through puberty and reach child bearing age. Since the primary objective of marriage is children and raising up a righteous generation for God, it is not unexpected that these girls will start having children and become mothers at an early age. This is their highest calling. This is the case even in the mainstream LDS church where women are discouraged from working outside the home and are encouraged to be stay at home mothers. The main difference is that without polygamy, they don't have the same pressure to marry at very young ages.

The other implication that is not currently getting the press it deserves is the implications of polygamy for the males within the FLDS community. If each righteous male has to have 3 wives in order to be saved, then that means that 2 out of 3 males will be unwed. So what do you do? Well, you cull the herd. You need to go through a process that selects the most righteous 1/3 and you get rid of the rest. In fact the FLDS do exactly that and have cast out thousands of young boys to wander homeless. After being raised in their isolated communities with little education and a profound distrust for non-members they are cast out into a world that they are unprepared to live in. The end result is a culture that systematically produces a stream of homeless boys with severe emotional and social problems.

So, the LDS have deal with the FLDS making the new for continuing on with doctrines that the LDS itself practiced until 1890/1906. And it doesn't like it. Somehow I feel no sympathy for them and hope that many, many more articles are written showing how the two are inextricably linked by their history and doctrines.

Where Have You Been?

2008-04-20T10:55:00.002-05:00

I've kind of gone AWOL lately. Part of it is that life has been busy, but that is usually the case for me. The real reason is that I kind of crashed and burned after my last marathon of the season, the Austin Marathon on February 17. I think I'll leave the details for a separate post.

On the running front I hadn't really recovered from the Houston Marathon on January 6 when the Austin marathon rolled around. I was back to running, but the my endurance and speed never came back. I felt good going in to the race, but my plan was to run a conservative pace and see how things went. I planned on running about 9:45 pace, which is normally a pretty comfortable pace for me in training. But this is what my pace and average heart rate looked like during the race:

Mile 1: 10:11, 157 bpm
Mile 2: 10:23, 161 bpm
Mile 3: 10:06, 165 bpm
Mile 4: 9:13, 163 bpm
Mile 5: 9:27, 164 bpm
Mile 6: 9:46, 165 bpm
Mile 7: 9:52, 161 bpm
Mile 8: 10:24, 163 bpm
Mile 9: 10:10, 162 bpm
Mile 10: 10:27, 162 bpm
Mile 11: 10:39, 159 bpm
Mile 12: 10:59, 160 bpm
Mile 13: 10:48, 159 bpm
Mile 14: 11:26, 154 bpm

The first two miles were uphill so I wasn't too worried at the outset, but as thing flattened out in mile 3 and went down hill in miles 4 and 5 I began to sense trouble. Miles 5 and 6 were flat and it was a struggle to even get to 9:46 pace and I knew I had to slow down to even hope to finish. But it was all down hill from there. When I hit the hills in mile ten my body quickly disintegrated and by the halfway point I hurt so badly that it was all I could do to shuffle along. When the five hour pace group passed me I decided to drop out because if I was able to finish at all it was going to take five and a half or six hours and it simply wasn't worth it to me. I'd already finished a marathon this season and finished others so just finishing wasn't a big deal for me. My body clearly wasn't recovered or ready and I walked. I stopped at the side of the road and got out my cell phone and called my wife to have her pick me up at Northcross mall. I actually continued to walk past mile 17 where I met my wife and went home.

I really didn't feel bad about it. I'd started the season injured back in September and had rehabilitated enough to run within a couple of minutes of my PR at Houston. Austin was simply a lesson learned that my 43 year old body needed at least a couple of months to recover from a marathon before I could do another. I'd done it the previous year when I ran Dallas at the beginning of December and then had a good race at Austin in February.

I really didn't start running semi-regularly again until the end of March. I ran the Capitol 10k and the Bun Run 5k, but I wasn't in shape for them and ran them just for fun. In fact, while I'm entered in all my normal spring races I don't have any goals for them because I'm focused on recovering from marathon season and just building up a good mileage and endurance base with a focus on weight loss. In other words, I'm in my off season and running for pleasure.

I've already entered next year's Houston marathon and the lottery for the New York Marathon. That means, with this year's lesson learned, that I have no intention of running the Austin Marathon next year. The big goal, however is to get down to 205 pounds. Harumph. Like I've never had that goal before.

We're Different, Aren't We?

2008-03-18T14:02:00.001-05:00

I was raised in a very patriotic family. Mormons, as a whole, tend to be patriotic. Our house had a picture of Captain Moroni and the Title of Liberty in the entryway. If you've never read his story, then I highly recommend it even if only as a morality play and not history. Mormons also believe that no less than God directed the founding fathers of the United States of America to separate from the European tyrants and found a constitutional republic founded on reason, inalienable human rights, and free enterprise.

My father was also a Vietnam veteran who flew combat missions and had friends who spent years in North Vietnamese prison camps where they suffered torture. I read books about the horrendous human rights abuses of the communists as they tried to use torture to extract confessions of war crimes and the evils of the American empire. I also read books by Soviet dissidents about the horrible human rights abuses inside that country. I also read histories of various World War II campaigns and the inhuman treatment our captured soldiers received at the hands of their captors.

The U.S. concept of universal human rights has always been one of the distinguishing characteristics that distinguished "us" from "them." It has always seemed apparent to me that a large part of what makes our country great is its respect for human rights and the preservation of those rights through the rule of law.

So, I find myself appalled when I hear our leaders, sworn to uphold to Constitution, talk about rights as if they are matters of inconvenience that get in the way of fighting whichever "war" they happen to be fighting at the moment. Which war is it today? Which will it be tomorrow? Organized crime, alcohol, drugs, communists, liberals, conservatives, socialists, Christians, atheists, Jews, Muslims, terror, hate, guns? We haven't recently had a war on some of those things, but there isn't much difference between the ones we've had wars on and the ones we haven't beyond the vagaries of public opinion.

I see talking heads on TV trying to justify what they euphemistically call "stress positions." I'd never seen pictures, but now I recognize some of the torture positions I read about in the Vietnam war. How about water boarding where we effectively cut off a persons breathing with water to simulate drowning? Who knows what else our government is doing that we don't know about. Why are we so outraged when our citizens are treated in this way and in that case argue at the ineffectiveness of torture? Why do U.S citizens have a right to not be treated in this way, but other citizens of the world lack such rights?

How about basic rights to face your charges and the evidence you in open court? Why is that a uniquely U.S. right? Sure, it's protected by the Constitution, but at one point in time our country understood that rights do not originate from any document or government but are innate. So, why should we be able to deprive people of freedom without any evidence or due process? At what point is the government able to extend its treatment of "terrorists" to domestic "terrorists" and who gets to define the terms. By the way, whats to prevent the government from using "stress positions" or other "harsh" interrogation methods to extract "confessions" and thus violate the right against self-incrimination? Why do non-citizens lack these rights that are supposed to be protected for citizens?

The answer, of course, is that what is good for U.S. citizens should be good for everyone. I'm willing to allow some latitude for temporary suspension of those rights in battlefield situations where the exigencies of the situation prevent normal due process, but at some point there has to be a way to convict the guilty based on actual evidence and to exonerate those for which inadequate evidence exists.

I'm sickened by what the current state of affairs says about the erosion of the foundational freedoms of this country and the corrosive effects of the so many so called wars we are fighting that seem to be little more than an excuse to justify the use of more and more power.

Marathoners' Diet

2008-01-30T12:02:00.000-06:00

Click on the title to witness the Hansons Brooks running team's cheeseburger eating contest.

Just a little background first. The guy in a red baseball hat is Brian Sell who qualified for the 2008 Olympic team when he came in third in the US Olympic Marathon Trials in November ahead of many much bigger names including the bronze medalist from the 2004 Olympics. He has a reputation for being one of the hardest workers out there and his peak mileage in training can exceed 160 miles per week. That's unimagineable to me, but ever more incredible is the fact that he feels like he can't cut back too much in his taper without losing his edge so he'll still run 100 to 120 miles per week during his taper. The guy obviously has a high tolerance for pain, which is good since it looks like those are McDonald's cheeseburgers that they are eating in that video.

Anyway, now you know the secret behind being a world class distance runner. Lots of cheeseburgers.

Recovery

2008-01-29T09:42:00.000-06:00

It's only been a little over 2 weeks, but my recovery from the Houston Marathon is coming along fairly well. The soreness is long gone and the only remaining problem is that it takes a lot of effort to run at a pace that used to be fairly easy. I ran 14 miles on Sunday and 6 miles yesterday and am actually now in the taper period for the Austin Marathon on February 17. Hopefully between now and then my muscles will fully recover and I'll be able to have a good race.

The following link shows an elite female runner at the end of her first marathon. It's a distance that can humble even the best and the fact that she can barely move her feet is shown by the fact that she falls 3 times in the last 300m of the race, the last time less than 10m from the finish line.

Watch

Be a Crank

2008-01-25T08:56:00.000-06:00

I think that "civility" may ultimately be the downfall of civilization. It seems to encourage and reward bad behavior and penalize good people that try to follow the rules. I guess it's an example of the freeloader problem in evolution where useless genes reap the benefits of living among better individuals.

For example, last night I went to a one-time showing of "Marathon Dreams." I purchased the tickets online a month ago and knew it would be sold out so I showed up half an hour early to save a seat for me and my wife. I put a jacket on her seat and a vest on mine, told the lady next to me I'd be right back but that the seats were taken, and went for a popcorn run. As I'm coming back I see a scruffy young man pick up my jacket , move it over, and take one of my seats. I slide in and tell him he just took my seat. He looks up at me and smiles and tells me, "I don't see you sitting in it man." I'm pissed because the guy has just stolen my seat and so I simply tell him if he doesn't move then I'll get an usher. "No," he says, "Well, maybe if you had asked nicely..." and proceeds to act like I'm being rude and trying to make me feel bad for saving a seat and how if everyone saved seats then the whole theater would be saved and late comers like himself wouldn't be able to find adjacent seats. I'm thinking, "Ummm. Yeah, that is the way it works..." But all I want is my seat so I just nod my head and smile and wonder what he'd look like covered in 64 ounces of soda and a large popcorn. He finally gets up and moves. But for the rest of the night I wished that I could have punched him in his smug, self-satisfied face.

You see, in civilized society you can't do that. We don't assault people and we don't call them names and we don't dump crap on them. We try to follow the rules so we can all get along and we expect others to do the same. Which is why it's so frustrating when others don't do the same. Because it's all really voluntary. Society breaks down if people don't voluntarily comply because enforcement is difficult. But this little guy didn't learn a lesson. He'll go away in his delusion that he did me a favor by surrendering the seat that he'd stolen and continue making life difficult for people just trying to get along by playing by the rules.

Unfortunately, I see more and more of this. People are too polite to complain about bad service. Companies sell defective products knowing people don't want to go through the hassle of returning them. They under staff their support lines so that frustrated customers will stop calling. Then they assume their products must be good because no one calls to complain. They get monopolies and put out crappy products and then say that if their product was so bad then people have the choice to switch to something else knowing full well that they have a captive audience because they've methodically put their competitors out of business.

One more example. After that auspicious beginning, the movie was almost unwatchable. The bulb in the projector was so dim that it was almost impossible to see. I was in the middle of the back row and didn't want to cross in front of people during the movie, but I did hunt down the manager afterwards to complain. Apparently I'm the only person out of a sold out house that did so. Why? Was everyone else too polite? Or maybe it was the fact that I had to ask 3 employees and hunt all over the theater before I could finally get the manager? Even then he radioed the projectionist who replied that there was no problems with the picture. When I insisted that there most definitely was a problem the projectionist finally came back that the bulb was very dim and appeared to be going out. I got my tickets refunded, but I wonder how long that bulb had been bad and how many projectionists and movie viewers put up with it without notice or complaint.

So, my challenge to you is to make it a point to politely and insistently complain when things aren't right. And back up those around you who are doing it instead of mutely looking on like the people around me at the theater while someone tried to steal my seat. If you don't then you have no right to complain about the problems around you.

No Disrespect Intended

2008-01-25T00:22:00.000-06:00

I apologize to Mormons who take offense at the fact that I no longer believe that Mormons have some kind of exclusive hold on the truth. I'll pay you the same back handed compliment that you offer to other churches. The Mormon church has a lot of good and true things that I admire, it's just that they don't have the whole truth. Specifically, they believe things that are either demonstrably false or else completely unsubstantiated by evidence or reason. They also insist on beliefs and behaviors that are completely unnecessary for living a full and happy life. Even worse they believe and practice things that are inconsistent with a full and happy life. One thing I think that Joseph Smith got right was that all of the churches are full of errors. Unfortunately he added one more example to the collection.

So, if you find Mormonism helpful and useful then more power to you. If you can convince others of its utility and convert them then even more power to you.

But please, when you find people like me who have thoroughly investigated the church and its claims and found them lacking, please stop telling them that they are proud sinners that have been deceived by Satan and that are doomed to a life of bitter misery for rejecting the "truth."

I welcome reasoned discussion and value dissenting opinions, especially when backed up by evidence and reason. I in fact am perfectly willing to change my mind if given good reasons. I ask you,

If the church wasn't true, would you want to know?

I would expect an unqualified yes from you before we engaged in any kind of discussion. I would expect that that would be back by an intellectual honesty that would admit the possibility that your beliefs might be wrong. In other words, not like my father who would answer, "Of course, I'd want to know. But I know it's true so it's a ridiculous question."

On the flip side I think it's fair for you to ask me,

If the church was true, would you want to know?

My answer is an unqualified yes. I would want to know. If I've misunderstood the issues or gotten the facts wrong I'll gladly accept correction. I reserve the right to change my mind. If anything, my loss of faith in the Mormon church isn't the result of pride. It's been truly humbling to realize how easily I was misled and how wrong I was. I find myself regularly reminding myself to listen and reevaluate my beliefs and opinions when I find them challenged. In other words, Mormonism instilled in me an overweening pride and sense of infallibility about religion that leaked into many other aspects of my life that I now find myself trying to undo.

I've posted my reasons for disbelief. I've explained the problems with Mormonisms methodology for evaluating truth claims. Please attack the issues, not me.

The Spirit Can Overcome Contradictions!

2008-01-23T11:33:00.000-06:00

Even your claim that prayer will not help you overcome a contradiction is a classic Satan led work that prayer is useless.

- Faithful Mormon

I received a lengthy comment to one of my posts that included the above bit of wisdom. I guess that Elder Ballard's army of intrepid technologists are out trying to save people like me who have decided that evidence and reason are the enemy of the Spirit of truth. Apparently the opening salvo of this intellectual giant is that logic is a tool of Satan. To summarize the rest of his post, I have made the following mistakes:

I had concerns about the Church
I allows my concerns turn into doubts
I sought answers to my doubts with a doubting Spirit.
I went to non-Church sources of information that confirmed my doubts.
I didn't seek God's counsel or the Spirit.
I trusted my own reason which is a foul spirit and was led astray.
I failed to be patient, other than waiting for over a decade.
I wasn't humble
I didn't repent
I didn't ask the Spirit

First, let me respond with a couple of points.

I followed the path he outlines above for most of my life. Just to be clear, over the years I did my best to obey the commandments, fasted, prayed, served a mission, accepted callings, married in the temple, etc.
I didn't seek non-church sources for any of my doubts for nearly 40 years and 13 years after the temple changes that he refers to. I think that that is at least moderately patient.
That path doesn't address doubts and issues, it just teaches you to ignore them. It puts a premium on feeling good about what you believe and encourages you to ignore anything that challenges your beliefs.
This is a circular argument that encourages you to first decide what you believe, teaches you to feel good about your beliefs, teaches you to feel bad about things that disagree with that belief, and then teaches you that good feelings come from God and bad feelings come from Satan, and that then teaches you to reach the conclusion that you should believe in what makes you feel good and reject what makes you feel bad. Surprisingly, if you start with the conclusion that the church is true, never doubt it, ignore issues that may cause you to doubt, and never read information that may contradict the church, pray and ask whether the church is true without every doubting, then you will feel the Spirit and reach the conclusion that the church is true. What a beautiful formula.

So, let me ask the faithful Mormons out there a simple question.

If the church wasn't true, would you want to know?

If you follow the recipe from Faithful Mormon then you wouldn't even be able to sincerely ask the question because to do so you'd have to have a doubt and you'd have to have the spirit of doubt and according to his formula this will prevent you from finding the truth. Furthermore, if you were to consider the above question seriously it might lead you to ask the next obvious question.

What would you accept as evidence that the church isn't true?

Now, if your only answer is the Spirit and you perceive the Spirit as good feelings that you receive when you pray and you have been taught that considering the church isn't true is the spirit of Satan, how likely is it that you will feel good about asking if the church is false? For me, prayers weren't helpful because I never received a spiritual confirmation that the church was true no matter how much I wanted it to be true and no matter how hard I tried to ignore my doubts and believe that there must be perfectly reasonable answers to my questions/doubts. Instead I had more of what would be described in D&C 9 as a "stupor of thought".

So, since the spiritual man couldn't get me answers, I was left to the "natural man." Why is this wrong? I guess it's because evidence and reason lead to where I am now.

Finally, I love the quote I opened with. If prayer can overcome a contradiction then it is further evidence of the futility of prayer. What it means is that prayer can help you believe things that are not true. Faithful Mormon apparently believes that this idea comes from Satan. But it is simply logic. So, apparently logic is a tool of Satan. But if you must reject logic, then what does that mean about your beliefs? I'll lay out a simple logical argument to demonstrate.

Assumed: Eternal ordinances are given by revelation and can never be changed.
Assumed: The temple endowment is an eternal ordinance required for salvation
Derived: The temple ordinance cannot change.
Contradiction: The temple ordinance has changed.

A contradiction is when something is both true and false. Obviously this cannot happen any more than black can be white. A statement has to be either one or the other or possibly simply unknown. A contradiction indicates that either an assumption is false or else that the logic used to derive the statement is flawed. In other words, the contradiction is proof positive that one of the first 3 statements if false.

Now the logic above is clearly correct so that leaves only two assumptions to be challenged. So, to resolve the contradiction you must accept at least one of the following statements:

Eternal ordinances can be changed
The temple endowment is not an eternal ordinance required for salvation

Note that prayer is completely unnecessary to resolve the contradiction. The only way it might be useful is in choosing between the two resolutions.

However, how can you choose to reject either since both are doctrines. Choosing either is effectively admitting that at least a part of the church's doctrines are not true. If one of them isn't true, then what else isn't true? If you go down this path then you are a cafeteria Mormon that is faced with the task of trying to pick and choose which of the church's doctrines are true or false. Meanwhile the church insists that it is all true or all false and that picking and choosing isn't an acceptable path. This is the conundrum I was faced with.

By the way, I've never heard a faithful Mormon argue for the second. I have had them choose the first. They basically state that the prophet can change anything he wants through revelation. This is plainly ridiculous because it basically allows the prophet to be a cafeteria Mormon an pick and choose doctrines and declare things that were once true to now be false. Whatever happened to eternal truths?

Another third option I've heard is to simply deny the fact that the endowment has changed. Given the first two doctrines, many members simply declare that the endowment has never changed and that this is just an anti-Mormon lie. Others who know better say that only the presentation has changed, but the essence has remained. Of course, then you are left trying to figure out which parts of the endowment are eternal and which are just window dressing. It also ignores the fact that the actual covenants changed and the method for passing through the veil to enter the celestial kingdom changed.

Of course, the fourth option is to just ignore the contradiction. I guess that prayer is useful here if it helps you feel good about being illogical and believing something that is provably false. But that won't make it true. It just means that you are a person of faith so strong that you can have an unshakeable belief in something that is demonstrably false.

Just Happy to be Here

2008-01-16T23:09:00.001-06:00

This was just before the start of the marathon.

4:21:50

2008-01-16T11:03:00.000-06:00

Depending on your perspective, 22 minutes is moment in time or a lifetime. Last Sunday it was how far I fell short of my goal at the Houston marathon. But don't feel sorry for me, because I feel surprisingly good about the race despite having some problems and am in a very positive mood. I'm getting a little ahead of myself so let's step back to last Thursday.

My last hard run was a 3 mile tempo run at 8:47 pace with one mile warm up and one mile cool down. My legs felt pretty good except a shooting pain in my right quad and discomfort in my right hip every time my leg came forward. It didn't hinder my running and didn't hurt bad, but if it was uncomfortable on a short run I was worried about what it could turn into after 26 miles. Fortunately my doctor had a cancellation and I was able to get in that afternoon. The poor doctor is a little guy and all of his poking and moving my leg around didn't replicate the pain. So he pulled my physical therapist in and he was able to push hard and duplicate the pain. The diagnosis was that my ileopsoas (hip flexor) was getting pinched by the ball of the hip joint. The PT strapped me to the table yanked on my leg to relocate the ball of the hip back into the socket and cracked my back in a few places. That fixed the problem and I couldn't feel anything the next day running an easy three miles. However, all of the pushing on my leg also revealed a mildly strained quad which was the other part of the pain I was feeling.

Friday I had a massage on the way home from work and then packed for the race. Saturday morning I flew to Houston and drove to the marathon expo to pick up my packet. While there I listened to a pretty interesting presentation by the Rice University men's track coach about adapting elite training programs to slower runners. One interesting point he made was that a 4:10 marathoner doing 50 miles a week in training was doing an comparable workload to an elite runner putting in 100 miles a week. Why? Because it's duration and intensity that matters, not mileage. I've read that before, but somehow it hasn't sunk in as I've looked at training programs. I'd peaked at 45 miles a week so I felt pretty good about my volume of training. The other interesting thing he talked about was recovery. He recommended walking a mile or two the same day after the marathon and then getting out for a mile or two of walking every day the next week. Then he said that the test for whether you are ready to resume training is if you can comfortably complete a 90 minute run.

I stayed at Hotel Icon downtown which was walking distance from the starting line. It's in an historic bank building and looked it's age on the outside but it was awesomely nice inside. It had a jacuzzi tub in the bathroom with a window to the room so I could watch TV from the tub.

When I got to the starting line at 6:30 am I felt great. The weather was a perfect 45F and I didn't even need gloves even though I started out with a light cap. I had 2 quarts of Powerade in my camelbak and another 28 ounces in the flasks on my fuel belt. I also had 12 gels hanging on the belt and a few electrolyte capsules. The race started right on time at 7:00 am with the sun just starting to brighten the sky in the east.

The race was pretty uneventful and went according to plan for the first 15 miles or so. I slowed myself down some for the first six miles and then settled into a steady 9:08-9:10 pace with my heart rate at about 160. The pace felt pretty comfortable. The only minor issue was some tightness in my right hamstring that felt like it wanted to cramp. I took gels every 20 minutes until about mile 10 when I started getting some stomach upset indicating that maybe my body wasn't digesting it as fast as I was taking it in. After that I backed off on the gels to every 30 or 40 minutes but I never really felt like fuel was an issue. I also did a good job of drinking regularly. I was carrying my own liquids so I ran through the water stops.

I went through the half mark at 2:01 so I was a little slower than my goal, but I was trying to save something for the end so I was pretty happy. At this point things got tougher and my heart rate started going up to maintain pace. I slowed down to about 9:20 pace and tried to stay relaxed. Around mile 15 my heart rate started going up closer to 170 even at the slower pace and I had to slow down when I felt my legs starting to burn. I really wanted to get to mile 20 and push, but at mile 18 I'd already pushed too hard and had to walk a bit and let my legs and heart recover. The rest of the race isn't particularly memorable and was a struggle like I'd imagined except after the 20 mile mark my right hamstring started cramping up every time I'd try to pick up the pace. I was tired, but felt like I had the energy to run faster, but every time I did the muscle would cramp. It wasn't the whole hamstring locking up like last year, but I had to stop and stretch it for a second before moving on. This continued for the rest of the race. In the last mile I picked up the pace back to 9:20 only to cramp again. So I just trudged the rest of the way in.

As I crossed the line volunteer after volunteer came up to ask if I was okay. I must have looked shaky, but I was just thoroughly exhausted. One lady finally walked me into the building. I didn't even come close to my goal, but I did everything I could and I finished.

The marathon was doing a hydration study. My weight at the expo on Saturday was 233.6 (dressed) and it was 228.8 at the finish so I lost at least 5 pounds (almost 3 quarts) on the course despite drinking 3 quarts. So I lost about a gallon and a half of water, mostly sweat, in a little over 4 hours. I don't know if that's a lot, it seems like it, but it means that dehydration could have played a role in my cramping and that I'll have to consider drinking even more in the next race by picking up additional liquid at the water stops on the course.

I don't know if the electrolyte capsules helped or not. The Powerade and the Clif Shots both have electrolytes and I had salty burps for the rest of the day, so I think I had plenty of electrolytes.

I was pretty weak on Sunday, but didn't feel too bad. I was sore on Monday and got a massage over lunch. I was really sore on Tuesday, but today (Wednesday) most of the soreness is gone and I feel really good. I'm going to keep walking each day and try to go for a run on Saturday. If I can finish a 90 minute run then I'll resume training next week and look forward to the Austin marathon on February 17.

In retrospect it doesn't look like my conditioning was up to running a 4:00 marathon. This is one of the things, out of several, that I don't like about my training group. We did a time trial early in the season, but haven't done a race or time trial since a 10k in early October so I didn't really have a recent race performance to help me know what a reasonable pace would be. Based on the training runs I did my goal seemed reasonable, but I'll be recalibrating for Austin and I'll go out at a 4:15 pace. That would be a PR so I'll be content with it and if I'm feeling good at the end then maybe I'll be able to do better.

Nerves

2008-01-09T14:43:00.000-06:00

I remember my first road races. I'm privileged to have road raced both on motorcycles and on foot so I had two first races.

I was a bundle of nerves for my first motorcycle race. The first time I went out on track as a provisional novice racer was to follow an experienced racer around the track with the rest of the newbies and I distinctly remember feeling like I was going to hurl in my helmet as I rode through the gap in the pit wall, entered the hot pits, and accelerated onto the track. It was just a slow lap, but it was faster than I'd ever gone before and after only a couple of laps I was left to my own devices trying desperately to hold my line as I was strafed left and right by riders that were much faster than me. The entire weekend I was a bundle of knotted, nervous exasperation as I realized how slow I was and how far I had to go to even catch up to the back of the pack of other newbies. It was horrible and I seriously questioned whether I'd ever return.

The Capitol 10k in 2004 was a completely different experience. I'd done track a little in high school, just enough to realize I had no talent for it, but I'd never once raced competitively. I was heavy and slow and I knew it. Coming into the race the farthest I'd run in training was 6 miles so I knew I could complete the race without problems. I had a target heart rate and I just ran at a pace that kept my heart beating at that pace. Sure, little old ladies were passing me, but I was pushing my personal capabilities and I wasn't even last. I had no expectations and no nerves. It was a thoroughly enjoyable experience that I shared with over 10,000 fellow runners of all ages and abilities.

One of the attractions to running right now is that I really can't fail. My goal isn't to compete with anyone. It's not really even to compete with myself. The goal is really to try to find my potential and reach it. That potential changes every time I run. As I age, my potential naturally decreases, but as I train my body it increases. So far at least, the increases are out pacing the decreases and I continue to get faster. But I feel great satisfaction at the end of the race knowing I did as well as I could that day. It isn't alway a PR (personal record), but I always learn something that I can take to my training and the next event. Success is just going out here. Success is putting on the shoes and running, whether its training or a race. The only way I can fail is if I don't do it.

One thing has changed, though. When I ran that first race I didn't really have a target time and I didn't have any expectations. That's the beauty of the first race; nothing to compare yourself against. But for the upcoming marathon I'm a bundle of nerves. I have a goal. If all goes well I think it's achievable. But there are so many variables and the marathon is such a long event it's difficult to know what exactly to expect. I've also done a marathon, so I'm also entering with a pretty good understanding of what is required to reach my potential and it entails a pretty extended dose of pain. Last night I kept running the race in my head, envisioning the finish, imagining the middle, trying to mentally calibrate the amount of effort required in the closing stages. I didn't sleep well.

The experts recommend having three goals: a best case, an achievable, and a fall back goal. My best case goal is 4:00. I think 4:00 is achievable, but not overly aggressive; I've trained for it, but it will require everything to go right and it is simply uncharted waters. I was on 4:00 pace for the first 19 miles of the Dallas Marathon in 2006 before the wheels came off. My achievable goal is a PR, which is 4:17, because I'm quite sure I'm in better shape than last year and this course is easier. My fallback goal is just to finish, which is a major accomplishment by itself in the marathon.

Pressure. Nerves. I love it.

$29?!

2008-01-08T13:48:00.001-06:00

My wife is a genius. It turns out she has a class she can't miss on Saturday which threw a wrench in my plans to drive to Houston Friday night. I was moaning about driving two cars down and back and I was asking her if she really wanted to drive down so she suggested I just fly down. So I headed over to Southwest's web page. The cheapest Friday flight was $117, but this was last Saturday so I wondered if the flights were cheaper if booked 7 days in advance. Sure enough, Saturday flights were $29. That's just incredible. It's actually cheaper to fly from Austin to Houston, plus I don't have to drive. It's even cheaper since I don't have to stay in the hotel on Friday night. So I'm flying to the marathon this weekend instead of driving.

Of course, if I was as smart as my wife I'd have bought tickets for her too...

Tapering

2008-01-04T13:21:00.001-06:00

The last two weeks have been really weird. First is the fact that I didn't work for a week and a half which left me really, really not wanting to show up for work on Wednesday. Second is that last week I ran 45 miles including a 20 miler last Saturday. Third is that I've barely run at all this week.

You see, that 20 miler marked the high water mark of my preparation for the Houston Marathon and now I'm doing what is called a taper. This week all of my runs are basically cut in half and they feel really, really easy compared to what I'm used to. I ran 1.5 miles on Sunday, 4.6 miles on Tuesday, and 5 miles (3 miles at tempo pace) on Wednesday. Today I'll run an easy 4 miles and tomorrow or Sunday I'll run an easy 8 miles. Next week I'll only run 3 easy miles on Tuesday, a light 5 mile tempo run on Thursday, and 3 easy miles on Friday. The goal is to do just enough running to maintain my fitness level and stay sharp while letting my body recover from all the training so that on Sunday the 13th I can finish the Houston Marathon in under 4 hours.

I'll drive down to Houston on Friday night and check into a nice hotel downtown. On Saturday all I have to do is pick up my registration packet. The rest of the day will be spent relaxing and eating healthy food. On Sunday I'll get up at 5:00 am and start preparing for the 7:00 am start.

I've broken the race up into 30 minute segments that are 3.3 miles long and marked them on a course map that I have sitting on my desk next to my computer. My plan is to take the race 30 minutes at a time. I'm trying to visualize how I'll feel in each segment and what my mental mindset needs to be.

The first segment will be just getting warmed up and working through the crowds at the start. This portion of the race usually goes by really quickly and the focus is on slowing down because it's easy to get excited and take off too fast. At the end of the segment it will be time to take my first gel packet. I'll be taking a 100 calorie Clif Shot Espresso flavored caffeinated gel every 30 minutes during the race along with PowerAde from my Camelbak and fuel belt. I'll also be taking electrolyte caplets periodically to prevent cramps at the end of the race. I need to work out amounts and schedule for that.

The second segment will have the crowds thinning out and is when I'll be trying to get solidly onto my 9:09 goal pace. At the end of the first hour I should be warmed up and locked into pace. If it's cool, around this time I'll probably be shedding my gloves and hat to keep from overheating.

The next three segments should just be cruise control and should feel reasonably comfortable. The first is a straight segment and is followed by stretches that take me around Rice University and then up to the Galleria area. The end of the fourth segment comes at the halfway point 2 hours into the race just past the university. The end of the fifth segment will bring me to the 16.5 mile mark 2:30 into the race and is when I anticipate the race really beginning. It's after this point where the stress really starts to build and the effort level begins to rise in order to hold pace.

The sixth segment is critical because it is the run up to where most people, including me, hit the wall at around mile 20. The race will transition from feeling like being on cruise control to requiring continuous mental effort to overcome negative messages from my body. My legs will be complaining about fatigue. I'll want to slow down. I'll want to take a walk break. I may feel shooting pains. My hips will undoubtedly be sore by this point as my sciatic nerves get inflamed. The goal of this segment is to achieve a high level of focus and steel myself for one big push.

The seventh segment is the big push. This segment will start just before the 20 mile mark as I cross under I-610 and is where the race really begins. This is where I have to have the confidence in my preparation to push through overwhelming fatigue and soreness with a knowledge that my body can handle it. The heart rate will climb from the low 160s to the upper 160s and even low 170s. My lactate threshold is somewhere near 170 or 172, so I'll be running very near my aerobic limit. But it's just 30 minutes and only 3.3 miles. It's only a little more than 5 km. Forget about want comes after and just focus on getting through the next 30 minutes. The first goal is to get to the 20 mile mark. It's a short distance to the 20 mile marker. Then I only need to do 3 more miles. Only four 400m splits for each mile and I'll probably be taking it a quarter of a mile at a time at this point. Just reach the next split. With two down then it will just be two more to get to the next mile. After 6 splits then it's halfway done. At the 23 mile mark it's merely a tenth of a mile, less than a minute, to finish this critical segment. Finish. Finish strong. Look forward to the last segment. When this segment is done then it's just a short stretch to the end. I'll be 88% done. Heck, round up and I'll be 90% done. Almost all of the effort will be behind me and all I'll have to do is finish. So, if I feel like slowing down, pick the pace up a bit. Vary the pace a little faster, then a little slower. If in doubt, surge and pick the pace up a bit. After all, it's now less than 30 minutes until this segment is over. Don't worry about the end. Just live in this moment, here and now, and do this segment in a way that I'll look back on with pride.

The eighth and last segment is the finishing segment and my mantra will be, "Finish!" The race will be 90% behind me. I'll have come this far right on pace and if I can get this far then nothing will stop me from finishing strong and on pace. I don't have any illusions about how I'll feel at this point. I can vividly imagine the absolute fatigue in my legs and the building burning in the muscles. It may feel like I've blown everything just getting through that last segment. My mind will be going numb from the concentration and mental effort required to get through the previous segment, but now I have the advantage of knowing I got through the worst segment and am on the finishing leg. There's something about knowing that the race is almost over that allows you to dig a little deeper and find reserves where there doesn't seem to be anything left. I'll be imagining floating along, attached by an invisible bungie cord attached to the approaching finish line. I'll pretend I'm riding a bike and try to keep my feet turning the invisible crank, efficiently circling with minimal energy loss. I'll be talking to my body, encouraging it, telling it that it's going to be okay and that there is more energy in there than it thinks. Just get to mile 24 and there will be only 2 left. At 24 then just get to 25. If I can get to 25 then I can certainly gut out the last mile. Right after mile 25 I cross under I-45, bend right and then turn left. All I have to do is get to the next left, run about half a mile, and then I'll turn onto the home stretch and can stretch my legs and try to finish with a bit of a kick across the line. At this point there's no need to hold back. Who cares about the heart rate, because once I cross the line then I can stop. As I turn onto the final stretch the clock will be reading 3:55. Just 5 minutes left. As I watch the seconds and minutes count up, the line approaches, faster and faster, as I race to cross the red mats before that hour digit changes from 3 to 4. My legs pump faster, I drive with my arms, I'm breathing in and out with each step, spit is flying from my mouth with each explosive exhale, and my heart feels like it is ready to explode from my chest as I cross the line with 3:59 showing on the clock.

You know. It could happen.

I'm pretty optimistic because my runs this month have really fallen into place and my legs have started feeling really good. My only concern is my left calf, but I think that the taper will allow it to fully recover so it can withstand the race.

If you're reading this and happen to be in Houston, drop a line and maybe we can do lunch on Saturday January 12.

December 23

2007-12-23T08:25:00.000-06:00

For those that don't know, December 23 is an important date on the Mormon calendar. On December 23, 2005 Joseph Smith was born. By his own admission, Joseph Smith is the most important man to have walked the earth, save perhaps Jesus Christ himself. The appropriate greeting for this day when meeting a Mormon is, "Merry Smithmas to all, and to all many wives."

Thanks to RfM for informing me on the appropriate greeting.

Beefcake

2007-12-19T17:28:00.000-06:00

Okay, I know you're just dying to know how my weight loss program and marathon training has transformed the Bull's body. The pictures don't lie. Nothing much has changed...

All Healed Up

2007-12-19T17:15:00.000-06:00

I tweaked my calf at the Dallas Half Marathon so I spent last week doing my workouts in the gym on the elliptical trainer. By Thursday I felt good enough to run a couple of miles on the treadmill after 60 minutes on the elliptical. My calf was still a little sore, but it didn't hurt my running. The big day is fast approaching so I made the call that it wasn't up to the punishment of the 20 mile run I had scheduled for last Saturday. Instead I spent 4+ hours in the gym going nowhere on the elliptical with a mile on the treadmill thrown in for good measure every hour. The only saving grace was that I can read on the elliptical so I caught up on a huge backlog of magazines I had laying around.

Yesterday I resumed running with an easy 3.5 miles. No pain or soreness so I think I'm good to resume running. In fact, my legs feel fantabulously great.

This week is a recovery week anyway so I don't have anything tough planned until Saturday. Then it's a short run, but I'll be doing a race simulation with 10 miles at my marathon goal pace of 9:09/mile. I'll warm up for a couple of miles and then do one 10.1 mile loop of Town Lake at race pace to see if the pace is doable. It better feel easy or else it will be time to reset my goals and perhaps pull out of the Houston Marathon and focus on Austin the next month.

Is the Mormon Church Honest?

2007-12-18T10:55:00.001-06:00

I grew up thinking so. After all, I believed that it was God's true church and the truth has nothing to fear. Right?

However, I grew up fully aware, and embarrassed, of how different my religion was. After all, the basic premise of the Mormon church is that it is THE one true church and that all other churches, although they may have remnants or parts of the truth,
were false. Not only are they false, the Book of Mormon very clearly states that they are the whore of the earth and the church of the devil. Some think that this refers to the Catholic church, but the Book of Mormon clearly teaches that there are only two churches: the church of the Lamb and the church of the devil. If you aren't the true church, then you are part of the other one. Needless to say this didn't go over well with other religions and still doesn't. So the church doesn't exactly go around using this is as a talking point in its missionary discussions.

Anyway, a big part of my mission was overcoming my embarrassment about the church and learning to be proud and bold about talking about the church. After all, if it is true then there is no reason to be afraid. Blacks and the priesthood? No problem. The priesthood is God's power delegated to man. He get's to choose who to delegate it to. He has chosen prophets and told them who can and can't have it. He doesn't give it to non-church members. He doesn't give it to women. And until 1978 he didn't give it to blacks. God has spoken and who am I to argue. I don't know the reason, but he must know what he is doing. After all he IS God.

Do you get the point? The point of the Mormon church, first and foremost, is that it is led by a prophet of God who tells us God's will. It's not a debating society. It's not a democracy. It's the divine source of all truth and knowledge. So, if God's word runs against current social mores then it's an indication that society has strayed. It's not for the church to conform; the world needs to pray, humble itself, and conform to God's word.

In an election year, the church has suddenly been thrust to center stage by the candidacy of Mitt Romney. They have been given an unprecedented opportunity to boldly declare their beliefs and how they differ from the other religions of the world. They have an opportunity to proudly declare their beliefs. Fox News gave them a list of questions that focused on some of the church's controversial beliefs. Check out their answers. Most of them are simple lies. For the record I'll answer the questions for them since they seem incapable.

Q: Why do some call the Church a cult?

A: Because it meets almost all of the attributes of destructive personality cults such as the Church of Scientology. Because it exerts tremendous social pressure to exert control over all aspects of its members.

Q: Does the Mormon Church believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God?

A: Yes.

Q: Does the Church believe in the divinity of Jesus?

A: Yes

Q: Does the Church believe that God is a physical being?

A: Yes. It believes that God the Father and Jesus Christ are beings of flesh and bone and that they are perfected humans.

Q: If so, does the Church believe that God lives on a planet named Kolob?

A: Yes.

Update: I was wrong. Kolob is a star. All the scripture says is that it is close to God, whatever that means. In fact, read about it yourself in Abraham 3. If it makes any sense to you then you're doing better than me. Still, as far as I know this doesn't have any theological significance whatsoever to Mormons now or ever other than they claim that Abraham had a great deal of advanced astronomy revealed directly to him by God. However, as far as I know, no astronomers, not even at the Lord's university (BYU), have found that the Book of Abraham has been of any particular use in shedding light on the nature of the cosmos.

Q: Where is the planet Kolob? What significance does the planet have to Mormons?

A: They don't know, but the Book of Mormon, part of the Mormon canon, tells about it and its cosmic relationship to this world and the other worlds in this universe. It doesn't really have any theological role in the church.

Q: Does the Mormon Church believe that God and Mary had physical sex to conceive Jesus?

A: It's not part of the church canon, but one of the church's prophets taught publicly that Jesus' physical body was conceived the same way as any other naturally conceived human body. The same prophet also taught that God and Mary were plurally married. Most members are unaware of the teaching, but the church DOES teach that Jesus is the literal physical son of God the Father. In the end, does it really matter if it was copulation, artificial insemination, or immaculate conception? God fathered a son with an unmarried woman. All Christians believe that. Non-mormons just seem to object to the idea that the Virgin Mary had sex with God.

Update: Here is a pretty good link summarizing the church's past teachings on the matter.

Q: Does the Mormon Church believe Jesus appeared in North America after his crucifixion and resurrection?

A: Yes.

Q: If so, when did this happen? And under what circumstances?

A: Right after his ascension in Jerusalem. After three days of complete darkness Jesus descended in a pillar of light from heaven in America were he ministered to the people, ordained apostles, preached, instituted ordinances, and organized his church.

Honestly, this is the most perplexing answer that the church gave. This is one of their BIG selling points.

Q: Does the Mormon Church believe its followers can become "gods and goddesses" after death?

A: Yes. They believe that God is a perfected man and that all people are his children with the divine nature to rise to become gods and goddesses. This is what the church calls exaltation and it is one of the key doctrines of the church.

Q: Does the Mormon Church believe that women can only gain access to heaven with a special pass or codewords?

A: Their answer is a blatant lie. The answer is yes. The answer is also yes for men. Read Brigham Young's definition of the temple endowment. People must have the keywords, tokens, and handshakes in order to pass by the angels and enter into the highest degree of glory.

Update: Ok, first you have to define what you mean by heaven. Mormons scripture defines 3 heavens: telestial, terrestrial, and celestial. The celestial kingdom in turn has three degrees the highest of which is reserved for faithful Mormons who have been married in the temple. Mormon theology claims universal salvation for all except sons of perdition who openly, knowingly rebel against God. So, everyone, including murderers and child molesters will go to heaven although it might be the lowest. Still Joseph Smith claimed that if we knew how wonderful the lowest heaven was we'd commit suicide to get in.

Still, most Mormons aspire to the highest degree of the celestial kingdom when thinking of heaven and generally when they talk about heaven that is what they mean. Men and women need to be endowed and married in the temple and know the appropriate handshakes and passwords to get in.

Furthermore, men get to know one of the secret passwords of their wives (their new name) but the women don't know the husband's. I learned that men would use this key word to call forth their wives in the resurrection. Sort of as if the resurrection is a temple ordinance over which the men preside. I guess this is another reason why Mormon women should be hesistant about disobeying their worthy priesthood holding husbands.

Q: Does the Mormon Church believe that women must serve men on both Earth and in heaven?

A: Until 1990 women had to covenant in the temple to obey their husbands in righteousness just as they would obey God. They are NOT equal in any way in the church. They are expected to be subservient and accountable to the male priesthood hierarchy. No matter how much the church states otherwise, the church makes clear differences between men and women with women always below men.

Q: Is there such a thing as Mormon "underwear"? if so, are all Mormons required to wear it? What does it symbolize?

A: Their answer here is tactful, but correct. They are called the garments of the holy priesthood and only members who have received their temple endowments wear them. They wear them as a constant reminder of their temple covenants and as a spiritual and physical protection.

A pertinent part of this is an enumeration of the covenants that are made. Romney, if he is active Mormon, wears garments and some of his covenants could be construed to conflict with the oath of the President of the U.S.A. People should be interested in knowing exactly what SECRET oaths and covenants Romney has taken in the temple if he is to serve in high office. If he is wearing garments it is an indication that he takes those oaths seriously.

Q: Does the Mormon Church believe in the existence of another physical planet or planets, where Mormons will "rule" after their death and ascension?

A: This is a clear lie. The canon teaches that exaltation is inheriting "worlds without end". All active, studious members know that this is a lie.

Q: What specifically does the Mormon Church say about African-Americans and Native Americans?

A: This is a clear lie. The Mormon church to this day teaches that the dark skins of blacks and Indians are the result of a curse for wickedness and were given as a sign to prevent the righteous from intermixing with them. Until 1978 a Mormon with even one black ancestor anywhere in their past was denied the priesthood and the blessings of the priesthood and as a result was denied exaltation or the highest level of heaven. This doctrine has NEVER been changed. It was only modified to say that the Lord has decided that the time has come where, finally, everyone could have all the blessings regardless of color. This has only been true since 1978. But even today, dark skin is a mark of unrighteousness.

Updated: OK, a clear lie of ommission. Their answer is true as far as it goes since 1978. But is incomplete and as such is a lie because it is simply non-responsive. For rather obvious reasons they don't want to give a complete answer.

Q: What are or were the "Golden Plates"?

A: The dissimulation here is that The Book of Mormon is a history of "peoples" in the Western Hemisphere. This is a modification of the original teaching that it was the history of all the people of the Western Hemisphere.

Again, the Book of Mormon is the whole reason the church was founded and is one its key doctrinal differences.

Q: Are consumption of alcohol and tobacco prohibited or simply discouraged?

A: The Word of Wisdom was originally a recommendation that wasn't made a commandment until the 1920s. Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and others were known to violate the Word of Wisdom.

Q: Does the Church also ban the consumption of "hot drinks"? And does that apply specifically to caffeinated drinks?

A: The current prophet has publicly stated that it applies to caffeinated sodas such as Pepsi and Coke.

Q: Why do Mormons go from door to door?

A: No problem here. All Christians should do the same. It's in the Bible.

Q: What do the Mormons believe about the family?

A: They forgot to state that families can be forever if the parents are married in the temple and sealed to their children. I'm surprised that they forgot this. It's only beaten into the head of every Mormon from the time they can first sing a song in Primary.

Q: Can someone who may never marry in life have eternal marriage?

A: Truthful in as far as it goes. The actual doctrine is that single women will be given as plural wives to righteous polygamists in the celestial kingdom in the afterlife. Otherwise they cannot be exalted.

Updated: Thanks for the comments from Mattman. But the answers are positively Clintonian in their parsing of words and careful phrasing and reliance on ambiguity and misunderstanding of how Mormons have redefined the common meaning of words such as "heaven" without revealing how they are interpreting the word in a way that they know the questioner didn't intend or doesn't understand. It's obvious that these questions are intentionally probing into weird areas of Mormon theology. But that some such as the question about the golden plates are core and even there they couldn't give a good answer.

The problem is that the church really IS weird. It is trying to mainstream, but to do so would require stripping it of everything that makes it unique and appealing to its believers.

An Apostle's Witness of Christ

2007-12-17T11:24:00.000-06:00

Joseph Smith claimed that he saw God the Father and Jesus Christ. He founded the Mormon church and claimed that he received the authority to do so directly from ancient prophets including Elijah, John the Baptist, Peter, James, John, and others. His church has claimed unique authority among the worlds churches and religions to represent God and its members regularly bear testimony that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the one and only true church on the face of the earth.

The divine visitations to Joseph Smith are very important to Mormons because they are central to Joseph's claim of prophetic status. Joseph's successors have continued to claim a prophetic mantle and the current presidency of the church and its twelve apostles are all sustained by the church members as prophets, seers and revelators. The apostles also claim the role as special witness of Jesus Christ.

Their is an aura of reverence and secrecy surrounding those claims. I can never recall a modern church leader claiming to have seen God face to face as a man, but church members assume that they have. Part of the belief is that it is too sacred to speak about. But the assumption is there and it is carefully cultivated. After all, if an apostle's faith is no different than a rank and file member's, then what makes his witness "special"? The "special" aspect is assumed by most members to be a personal visit by Jesus that allows them to proclaim his divinity with a certainty denied to those that must live by faith.

If you read the above church article you'll see how carefully the apostles choose their language to give the impression that their knowledge is different than that of a normal member. This is how Howard Hunter describes the role of the ancient apostles:

These twelve Apostles served a vital function in the Lord’s plan. They were special witnesses of the Savior’s divinity and of his literal resurrection. Not only did they know him during his mortal ministry, but they communed with him after his resurrection. The resurrected Redeemer appeared in the midst of his disciples in the upper room. They handled the Lord’s hands and feet and learned that Jesus was not merely a spirit but a resurrected being with flesh and bones. (See Luke 24:38, 39.)
These Apostles knew of the Lord’s divinity and of his resurrection with a certainty beyond all disputation. With this knowledge, born of experience and confirmed by the Holy Ghost, they were commanded to “be witnesses unto [Christ] both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”

It is very clear from this quote that the function of an apostle was to be an actual eye witness of the resurrected Lord to those who have not actually seen him. Note that the Mormon church claims to have apostles that fulfill the same role. By implication the reader is left to assume that the modern apostles are also literal witnesses who have "handled the Lord's hands and feet." But note the careful way he states this.

In our day the Lord has again called Apostles. These Apostles have been ordained as special witnesses of Christ in all the world. They know of the reality of Christ and his redemption with a certainty born of the Spirit.

Note that here he uses the cryptic statement, "with a certainty born of the Spirit." Church members are taught that mortals cannot bear the presence of God except through the power of the Spirit. So what does he mean? He quickly follows with a quote from Joseph Smith,

“For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice beating record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father.” (D&C 76:22–23.)

The Prophet’s witness, born of experience and of the Spirit, has been proclaimed throughout the world, and the Holy Ghost has confirmed the truthfulness of that witness in the hearts of millions who have received the word with gladness. The pattern for proving spiritual things has been reestablished in our day. And an unbroken chain of succession has ensured that the apostolic calling has been with us continually since it was restored to Joseph Smith.

Are you following his logic? It's seems pretty clear that he's making the claim that he, as a modern apostle, follows the pattern and has had a similar experience to Joseph Smith and the ancient apostles. Here's his special witness:

As an ordained Apostle and special witness of Christ, I give to you my solemn witness that Jesus Christ is in fact the Son of God.

...

The resurrected Lord has continued his ministry of salvation by appearing, from time to time, to mortal men chosen by God to be his witnesses, and by revealing his will through the Holy Ghost.

It is by the power of the Holy Ghost that I bear my witness. I know of Christ’s reality as if I had seen with my eyes and heard with my ears. I know also that the Holy Spirit will confirm the truthfulness of my witness in the hearts of all those who listen with an ear of faith.

Parse the words carefully and note the "as if." As a faithful member would this increase or decrease your belief that the apostles have actually seen Jesus Christ? Everything leading up to this point is carefully constructed to give that impression, but he comes just short of making the claim. Many members would claim that he's too humble or that the experience is too sacred.

The only reason I bring it up is that he gave this talk on October 30, 1983 and only a little over a month later, while in the Missionary Training Center, I heard this same man during the Church's Christmas Devotional Broadcast explicitly state that he had never seen Jesus Christ and that his "special" witness was a spiritual witness that he felt was stronger than if he'd actually seen him. Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem like that is the impression he was trying to give or that apostles continue to try to give today.

So, I'll give him credit for actually publicly answering the question although I can't find any transcripts of that talk.

I'll also close by noting that just a few short years later this man became the president and prophet of the church. So, unless something changed in those years it's probable that the Mormon church is led by prophets that have never seen God despite the fact that they allow the perception to exist that they have.

Is it just me, or is that dishonest?

What I Believe

2007-12-14T14:10:00.000-06:00

This is a continuation of three previous posts: What is God? The Mormon Version, Seeds of Doubt, and The Roles of Faith and Science.

This all started out with someone on another forum asking what we believe now that we've left Mormonism. I posted a short answer which but as I started to post it here I realized that it really didn't make a lot of sense without some context about my original beliefs and how they have evolved to reach the point where I am now.

If you believe in an omnipotent, interventionist God then you open a whole can of worms and God becomes very capricious, helping the unworthy while letting the worthy suffer. If he does intervene it is in a manner so inexplicable to me as to be useless to explain either good or evil. I don't see any magic recipe like that promised by Mormonism where we can bind God to bless us if we keep his laws. I just see too many instances where it doesn't work out. Either that or you are reduced to calling bad things trials when they happen to good people and punishment when they happen to bad people. It's not a terribly useful world view especially when no one is totally good or bad because there is no way to disprove it and it provides no predictive power.

It has always made more sense for me to believe that God set things in motion and then lets them play out according to natural laws. He created the laws and then we are stuck living with the consequences and the best we can do is to act in a way to make the world as good of a place as possible. If we want it better then we have to put in the effort. So I guess I've never put much stock in a interventionist God.

Now, I guess I mostly consider myself an atheist. If God exists I don't believe we can prove it because I don't think he interferes. And I frankly don't find magical thinking terribly useful in my personal life. To me God is the mysteries. He's the source of the universe. He defined the laws. He's order. He's the creative force.

To me Satan is the destroyer. He's the source of disorder. He's the perfect foil for God.

And I think we have the seeds of both natures in each of us. At our best we can create and organize and bring great beauty into the world. At our worst we are capable of incredible cruelty and destruction and ugliness. As Jesus said, "You are all gods."

But in the end, both are just a way to say, "I don't know." When I can't explain it and it looks like it simply can't be explained, I guess that is where God and Satan reside in my belief system. They are symbols for causes that are beyond my understanding.

I really don't pray, but I find myself hoping that ultimately good will prevail or at least will balance out evil. I find myself reaching out and trying to tap into the godly aspect of my nature and battling the evil part.

Rather than define myself as what I am not, a believer in God, I prefer to define myself as what I am, a believer in reason and evidence, a rationalist or an enlightened man.

How's that for an ambiguous answer? I'm truly not sure if any of that made any sense but it's my first attempt to express ideas that have been bouncing around in my head since I left the church.

It makes more sense for me to believe that God set things in motion and then lets them play out according to natural laws. He created the laws and then we are stuck living with the consequences and the best we can do is to act in a way to make the world as good of a place as possible. If we want it better then we have to put in the effort.

So, I guess I mostly consider myself an atheist. If God exists I don't believe we can prove it because I don't think he interferes. To me God is the mysteries. He's the source of the universe. He defined the laws. He's order. He's the creative force.

To me Satan is the destroyer. He's the source of disorder. He's the perfect foil for God.

And I think we have the seeds of both natures in each of us. At our best we can create and organize and bring great beauty into the world. At our worst we are capable of incredible cruelty and destruction and ugliness. As Jesus said, "You are all gods."

But in the end, both are just a way to say, "I don't know." When I can't explain it and it looks like it simply can't be explained, I guess that is where God and Satan reside in my belief system. They are symbols for causes that are beyond my understanding.

I really don't pray, but I find myself hoping that ultimately good will prevail or at least will balance out evil. I find myself reaching out and trying to tap into the godly aspect of my nature and battling the evil part.

Rather than define myself as what I am not, a believer in God, I prefer to define myself as what I am, a believer in reason and evidence, a rationalist or an enlightened man.

How's that for an ambiguous answer? I'm truly not sure if any of that made any sense but it's my first attempt to express ideas that have been bouncing around in my head since I left the church.

The Roles of Faith and Science

2007-12-12T15:54:00.000-06:00

This is a continuation of two previous posts: What is God? The Mormon Version and Seeds of Doubt.

In retrospect, spiritual experiences have pretty mundane explanations once you understand a little bit about human psychology. I would highly recommend Phantoms in the Brain: Probing the Mysteries of the Human Mind for a very interesting exploration of the wonders of the mind. But I'm pretty comfortable that what I was taught were spiritual experiences caused by an external power were actually exceptional, but normal products of human consciousness.

I have always marveled and continue to be awed by the beauty and complexity of the universe and its origins are beyond my comprehension. But my life has led me to believe that even though you don't have the explanation, one can be found. Sometimes explanations are elusive. Some have taken lifetimes to find. But the history of mankind repeatedly shows that when sought, explanations to even the thorniest conundrums follow.

I was raised in a Mormon church that coexisted comfortably with science and knowledge and as a result I was always encouraged to ask questions. The truth has nothing to fear from questions and careful probing because it has nothing to hide. Errors and falsehoods can't hold up to inquiry, but the truth has nothing to fear. The church of my childhood was fearlessly and unapologetically true. My church heroes were James E. Talmage and John A. Widtsoe, educated and thoughtful men who fearlessly sought and defended the truth.

I highly recommend B. H. Roberts' book, Studies of the Book of Mormon. B. H. was a member of the First Quorum of the Seventy, the church historian, editor of The Comprehensive History of the Church, and author of many volumes that explained and defended the history and doctrines of the church. His unofficial title was Defender of the Faith. A person sent a letter to the church with some questions about the Book of Mormon. The questions were given to Mr Roberts to answer. Initially he assumed that it would be easy to answer these questions in a manner that would confirm the plausibility of the Book of Mormon as a history of the Indians. However the more he studied the more he realized that the facts were simply inconsistent with the story in the Book of Mormon. He was so concerned by the implications that he petitioned to discuss the issues with the highest leaders of the church. His concerns were dismissed. But he documented his concerns in the above book which was published posthumously. It is interesting that he concluded that there was good evidence that the Book of Mormon was a product of 19th century America and that Joseph Smith was capable of producing the book. While he never renounced his religion or his testimony, it becomes clear that he had serious doubts/concerns and that he felt that the questions were legitimate and that they needed to be addressed by the church. This is clear example of an honest man who understood that the truth needed to provide answers and not ask people to just have faith and ignore evidence against their beliefs.

The book is also interesting because the questions are really only problematic if you believe that the Book of Mormon is the history of the principle ancestors of the American Indians (the so-called hemispheric model). Modern apologists deal with the questions with a modern Mormon invention called the limited geography theory that states that the Book of Mormon is only the history of a portion (possibly quite small) of the original Americans that was possibly limited to an unknown, small geographical area which they suppose is in meso-America. Never mind that this directly contradicts the public teachings of every single Mormon prophet starting with Joseph Smith and the beliefs of most Mormons to this day; the educated Mormons realize that the hemispheric model is strongly contradicted by all available evidence and so the limited geography theory is the only plausible explanation unless you want to deny mountains of scientific evidence. B. H. Roberts was about as educated and knowledgeable as any person in the church in the early 20th century. If he had known of or accepted the limited geography theory or some variant thereof he would have mentioned it. But the fact that he didn't is pretty good evidence that he and others in authority in the church believed what the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith taught: the American Indians are direct descendants of Lehi and the primary ancestors of the hemisphere. Yet today's Mormon apologists pretend as if this is a simple misunderstanding of the church's founder and followers and that this is not and has never been doctrinal.

My point is, I was raised to believe that a belief in God and a belief in science are mutually compatible but somewhere I got the heretical belief that when faith and science are in conflict that science should win. Faith is belief without evidence, so when evidence conflicts with faith then the evidence should win out. My definition of faith was always a belief in things not proven that are true. If they contradict evidence then they are not true and thus can be rejected as true faith. I think that this is still a good definition to work with. I still believe in faith. I don't know everything, so I find faith very helpful.

The Mormon church today seems to have retreated into an intellectual siege mentality where the current president of the Quorum of the Twelve and next man in line to succession to the presidency has declarde that there are things that are true that aren't particularly useful and that those facts should be suppressed and that church members that publish those facts should be punished. Needless to say, this is not characteristic of the church of my youth and is not consistent with what I consider to be true faith. It is the worst form of dogmatism: blind belief.

Ultimately, I expanded my horizons and allowed myself to consider facts that contradicted my life long beliefs about the church. My core beliefs about faith and science didn't change, but they did force me to abandon my belief in the truthfulness of the Mormon church. In the end, its claims simply don't hold up to close scrutiny and its efforts to hide the facts just make it clear that it knows the facts aren't on its side.