Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: they shall prosper that love thee. (Psalms 122:6) News reports are rampant with rumors that Yasir Arafat is either dead, in a coma or on life support. What seems certain is that Arafat’s end is nigh.
The King James Bible has competition
This is off-topic, but I thought I’d put in a word for the 9/11 Commission Report.
Michael Moore and the Gadianton Robbers
George W. Bush, in my mind, is very much like Bill Clinton. Both men seem to have the ability to make otherwise sane people on the other side of the political fence become nutcases.
Religion as Secular Epistemology
Well, we have ourselves a new president. Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. A week or two ago, Brandy Siegfried mentioned Ron Suskind’s article “Faith, Certainty, and the Presidency.” I didn’t read the article, but I heard Suskind talk about it on NPR, and found it very interesting.
The Election and SSM
I have generally avoided posting on same-sex marriage, and I am not attempting to initiate another debate on the merits. But I believe that one of the huge stories of the presidential election will be the importance of this issue. While most people I know thought this election would be a referendum on the war in Iraq, it now appears that the tipping issue may have been same-sex marriage. More on my other blog.
Mormon Senator Harry Reid
One of the so-far-untold stories of the election is that Mormon Senator Harry Reid will almost certainly assume leadership of the Democratic Party in the United States Senate. Senator Tom Daschle appears to be going down in South Dakota, thus providing an opening for Reid. Of course, the Democrats are a minority in the Senate, but they are far from irrelevant. I assume this makes Reid the most powerful Mormon politician in the United States. (Will he be the most powerful Mormon politician ever?) Ironic, in light of the recent dominance of the Republican Party among Mormons, that our most powerful politician is a Democrat.
Utah presidential politics
Not that anyone needs any more suspense tonight, but I’ll be keeping a curious eye on Utah’s election results.
A technical hiccough
Our internet host is having some problems keeping up with traffic on this incredibly busy day. The problem is exacerbated since they’re also hosting some official election supervisor sites in Florida. We’ve had one hiccough so far today — about an hour and a half of down time — and we may see more. Just an FYI.
O Quanta Qualia–More Musings on the Sabbath
Nate’s post on the Sabbath returns me to some thoughts on the Sabbath I’ve been kicking around for a while. Earlier this fall, as I was looking for music for my ward choir to do, I considered Healey Willan’s setting of “O Quanta Qualia.” The text is as follows: Oh, what their joys and their glories must be, Those endless sabbaths the blessed ones see, Crown for the valiant, to weary ones rest, God shall be all and in all ever blest.
Quick note
We’ve been getting a ton of spam lately from a new batch of spammers using new .info sites. So I just added a general moderation rule for any .info sites. I also added a specific unblock for danithew’s site — his posts should go through okay. I don’t think we have any other real commenters who use .info sites. If so, I can unblock them as well. (And this isn’t a true block, it just directs these comments into the moderation queue for individual approval or deletion).
Moderation In Most Things
Let your moderation be known unto all men. The Lord is at hand. (Phillipians 4:5) We have often heard the saying “moderation in all things.” But the words moderate, moderation and moderately only appear sparingly in the scriptures and the phrase “moderation in all things” does not appear at all. Then again, on second glance, this may simply be an interpretive or editorial choice. The King James Version prefers the words tempered, temperate and temperance and the Book of Mormon follows the KJV’s example. Thus we see the phrase “temperate in all things” more than once scripturally (1 Corinthians 9:25, Alma 7:23, Alma 38:10). As one ponders these phrases, “moderation in all things” or “temperate in all things”, a question may arise. Is it possible that these sayings fall prey to the human tendency to use superlatives (as Bob Caswell pointed out so well in this comment), to over-magnify the importance of a principle being taught? Is there ever a time when the moderate (or temperate) person is wrong and the extremist is right? Is there a situation where pure idealism utterly vanquishes practical wisdom? Or in other words, to phrase things in the predictable annoyingly absurd way, should we ever be moderate in our use of moderation, temperate in our use of temperance?
Sin and Ethics
One of the points of contention between believers and skeptics has to do with the question of morality. Roughly speaking, the exchange goes something like this: Believer: God is the source of morality. Without a belief in God one cannot have a belief in morality. Therefore skeptics are immoral. QED. Skeptic: Nonsense! There are lots of skeptics who behave in thoroughly ethical ways. Furthermore, they mold their behavior to conform with particular ethical standards, even though those standards lack any particular theological foundation. One can clearly be a skeptic and be a moral person. Framed in these terms (and I think that these are the terms usually employed), I think that Skeptic has the better end of the debate. I have family members, friends, and acquaintances ranging from agnostic to atheist and for the most part they are decent, ethical people. Furthermore, there are lots of thoroughly respectable ethical systems that do not rely on any belief in God per se. However, I think that this response misses a deeper and more interesting issue: The relationship between sin and ethics.
Sunday School Lesson 43
Lesson 43: Mormon 1-6, Moroni 9 Since I’m putting these together between conferences all over North America, the last lesson and this are not as complete as I would like. My apologies.
Spirit, Body, Brain
Thank you, Adam, for the intro, and T&S for the guest-spot. It’s a sacrifice for my other little blog, but I can really use the extra income. Today i’m thinking about my job and what it’s doing to me. I work on the tenth floor of a not very big building in downtown Salt Lake. My office is small but comfortable, and in the back corner of the building, where no one ever wanders by.
Reverence
We had an excellent discussion of reverence in our combined Priesthood-Relief Society meeting yesterday. At the end of the meeting, I made a comment which provoked mixed reactions after the meeting, and now I am wondering about that comment.
The Question You Should Never Ask
“Are you pregnant?” In the past two weeks, for some reason I have had four people ask me this question and variations on it: “Are you and Kristen expecting another?” “Are you going to have another baby?” “When is the next baby coming?”
Bloggernacle, The Movie: A Casting Game
Is there anything more fun than a casting game? You know, “who would be the perfect actor to play Joseph Smith?” or “who would be some good actors for a Book of Mormon movie“? And now, ladies and gents, we have new fuel for the fire. You’ve all seen the pictures of the blog party (in its various nicknames three). And you now know what most of us look like. That brings us to the fun part: In Bloggernacle, The Movie, who will be the actors and actresses playing whom?
The Wedding Feast
The metaphor of a marriage is often used to describe the relationship between the Savior and His Church. The Savior is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride. This metaphor is useful because the Church can instruct husbands that they should love their wives with all their hearts; to be willing to give up their lives for their wives just as the Savior gave his life for the Church. This metaphor also has other potential applications, pointing towards the festivities that will take place when The Bridegroom and The Bride ultimately unite in their bond of holy matrimony.
Thoughts From A Professional Sabbath Breaker
Thanks to the macinations of the plaintiff’s attorneys, I am spending most of my sabbath today ensconsed in my office with the Bankruptcy Code. For better or for worse, I have a job where Sundays at work are hardly unexpected and although I do my best to avoid them, it isn’t really possible to work at a K Street law firm and completely miss out on this particular fringe benefit. What is the precise scope of my sabbath violations and do I have any defenses?
Conversations with a seven-year-old, continued
7YO: What if Korihor was a talking bat? Me: (Trying not to laugh) Umm, what? 7YO: He would die! Me: Oh? 7YO: Yep — because bats see with their ears, and they have to use sonar. And so Korihor couldn’t use any more sonar after he got cursed. Can’t argue with that, can I?
Putting Faces to Names
The blog party at D’s was a great success. It was quite interesting to put faces to names. (Kristine’s reaction when Steve Evans introduced himself: “No you’re not!”). We had a lot of people there: D, Kristine, Steve and Sumer, Mat and Gigi Parke, Logan and Amy Bobo, Bob Caswell, Christina Taber-Kewene & Manahi, Chris Williams and wife (I didn’t get her name) and daughter, JL (Celibate in the city) and her sister, Rusty Clifton and Sara, Davis Bell, Jim Lucas, Mark Butler & his wife. I was also there, along with Mardell and the kids. There was good food and good company, and (once D. started playing the piano and Kris singing) good music. But I must admit I’m still trying to sort through the mental gear-shifting of putting faces to names. A few preliminary thoughts:
Bushman in New York
This afternoon, renowned historian (and former T & S guest-blogger) Richard Bushman was the speaker at a meeting of the J Reuben Clark society in New York. The event was held at a reputable law firm in midtown. Brother Bushman discussed Joseph Smith and how politics was viewed in the early church. He suggested that the divide between politics and religion — and the related tension between republican values and prophetic values — has played an important role throughout the church’s history.
The Immorality of Voting One’s “Self-Interest”
Last night on the NewsHour with Jim Lehrer there was a segment with Tom Frank, the author of What’s the Matter with Kansas?: How Conservatives Won the Heart of America. Frank argues that conservatives have successfully used cultural issues to con the lower and middle classes into voting against what Frank believes to be their “economic self-interest.” It’s probably the leading explanation for the migration of the middle class away from the Democratic party. A smart Democratic friend of mine from church recently used it while lamenting Mormons’ support for Republicans. The NewsHour invited conservative David Frum, one of Bush’s former speech writers, to respond to Frank. Frum responded ably (if Democrats care so much about the lower and middle classes, why do they dismiss their opinions on cultural issues important to them? Who is Frank to tell someone they should care more about the sales tax rate than abortion? ), but he didn’t expose the weakest part of Frank’s argument: his premise. The common idea that forms Frank’s premise — that people should vote their self-interest — is repugnant and corrosive to public discourse.
A Great New Product from Smith Industries
NEW PRODUCT ANNOUNCEMENT FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE AUSTIN, Texas – October 28, 2004 – Smith Industries LLC today proudly announces the release of their latest product, Child 3.0. Also known as “Truman Michael Smith,� Child 3.0 has been under development for nine months and arrives just in time for the holiday season.