- Jonathan Green on A Review: The Deseret Alphabet: A Fixed and Unalterable Sound: “At least in the introduction, I didn’t find the vocabulary too far outside the norm for the academic humanities, but introductions are often more approachable. The choice to occasionally refer to the Deseret Alphabet as just “the Deseret” seems utterly bizarre to me, and I wonder how well the authors understood the source or informant from which they borrow this usage. After reading the introduction, my impression is that the authors do not respect the people they are writing about.” Jul 28, 15:14
- on A Review: The Deseret Alphabet: A Fixed and Unalterable Sound: “You missed the best one. It is not the Book of Mormon. It is the Book of Mahrman according to the Deseret Alphabet edition.” Jul 28, 12:57
- on Second Nature Reactions (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 7/26: “This made me laugh: Do we label things as “bad” just because they made us uncomfortable at first blush? No! Make me uncomfortable. Push the boundaries of my understanding of God-nature and human-nature. But more concretely, the cycle is actually: cue, behavior, reward — best set up if the reward is another cue leading to more of a behavior cycle (but I digress – and my interest in behaviorism comes out of training dogs, although mammal brains are mammal brains) I only have vague recollections of church yesterday, primarily because something was wrong with the A/C and being overheated makes me drowsy. We had a fabulous speaker and I felt sorry for him because if it was rough on me, it was even rougher on the parents with overly warm kids. Which is interesting in and of itself though. As in seeing what an effect outside stimuli have on the cue, behavior, reward cycle. The outside cue (heat) overshadowed the goal cue (the speaker). (Afterwards the bishopric profusely apologized. Not anyone’s fault. Just one of those moments life goes wrong.)” Jul 27, 18:38
- on Unnecessary Spiritual Hierarchies: Leaders Receiving the Sacrament First: “Interesting thoughts. Recall the design of the Kirtland temple. There’s a pretty big emphasis on hierarchy in it. Consider the nature of the work of eternity as flash-backed and foreshadowed in the temple drama with the returning and reporting. The structure of the higher and lesser priesthood and different offices all have some degree of seniority to it. It might rub an egalitarian the wrong way. But only if you view it wrongly. We could make all kinds of replies about what would Jesus do. But I think the symbolism of him going first, in the suffering of Gethsemane and the sacrifice on the cross sets the right pattern to follow. The leaders in authority aren’t honored for being special. They are literally the ones who sacrifice first of themselves for the congregation. I think we get that wrong idea that the bishop, stake president or general authorities are enjoying cushy perks of their leadership. Especially at the general authority level, their time is no longer their own. It’s no mere job. It become their life and they essentially sacrificed all their desires to do it.” Jul 27, 00:28
- on A Review: After Happiness: Living with Faith in a Time of Crisis: “I thought the postwar term was “Plan of Salvation,” with “Plan of Happiness” being something used much more recently?” Jul 26, 19:29
- on Judge Not in Church—or anywhere (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 7/12: “No, Kent, no! The songs in the Children’s Songbook do not have simpler melodies. They have single line melodies with an accompaniment in the left hand, instead of the four part block chords of the hymnbook, but that frees the melodies to, in at least some cases, be much more unique, and for sure more beautiful. Few notes, but better ones. We’d all be do better if we abandoned most of the hymnbook entirely, and just sang Primary songs. Although I will say that some of the new Primary songs appear to have melody lines generated at random. But then, most of the new hymns are nearly indistinguishable from the old hymns, so we’ll be plodding along for some time.” Jul 26, 19:25
- on Unnecessary Spiritual Hierarchies: Leaders Receiving the Sacrament First: “A long ago when I was a zoology student at BYU, there was a spring term thing where you could live in a lodge up above Sundance with a number of other students and some professors, and a nice lady would cook. We were there for the duration, and it was a good experience. Sundays, of course, there needed to be church. We would line up some chairs and have church. It wasn’t a church unit, so there’d be a bishop for the day, to call things to order and whatnot. The bishop could be whoever, and sometimes was female. The sacrament might go to the bishop first, or to someone who was nearer. This wasn’t dictated by the professors, it’s just how we did it. Although our professors were not very orthodox. After sacrament meeting we’d pull the couches in a semicircle around the fireplace, and have a fairly informal Sunday School lesson, maybe with some people in jammies. Those were nice times.” Jul 26, 19:04
- on Second Nature Reactions (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About Yesterday), 7/26: “Here’s a few of my thoughts in reaction to what I experienced in Church yesterday (7/26): In sacrament meeting we sang pioneer songs. The pioneer experience has become a founding myth for LDS culture—the experience that we appropriate for telling stories that explain why things are how they are and what we should do next. And several of the songs we sang claimed that we can be pioneers too. Well, I have to wonder, if everyone is a pioneer, then nobody is really a pioneer, right? On the other hand, there is something we can learn from pioneers. The basic pioneer story is about going into a new and unfamiliar situation—something that requires faith. In class later, we got into a discussion about faith, and the idea that faith eventually leads to knowledge (one interpretation of Alma 32). Sometimes this ends up with the idea that faith is then no longer needed. But I have several issues with this idea. I’m not sure that spiritual evidence is like physical evidence, providing certainty. In addition, when we reach certainty, often that is interpreted as not only no longer needing faith, but also no longer needing to think. In many people’s mind, certainty means that the struggle for more knowledge is over. This led me to remember 1 Corinthians 13:8-12, which, as I read it, speaks powerfully about how our knowledge in this life is always incomplete: “whether there be knowledge, it shall fail … for we know in part and we prophesy in part…” I am trying to always ask myself “what is left out of my understanding?” It’s not easy to train yourself to do that — to pick up that habit. Certainty is attractive. Part of the lesson was also on ministering and ministering assignments. When the teacher cited Mosiah 18:9 with its utopian idea that on baptism, members of the community would look out for each other, I wondered if maybe ministering is like the law of tithing compared to the law of consecration — what we can do now instead of what the ideal is. Ideally, we shouldn’t need a program to do something that we should be doing “of our own good will.” ” Jul 26, 16:59
- on Unnecessary Spiritual Hierarchies: Leaders Receiving the Sacrament First: “Thanks, Chad. I wanna use comment to opine on “culture vs. doctrine”, which seems to be making the rounds: I have never heard anyone in the Church persuasively describe the difference between culture and doctrine—they are indisputably intertwined, as they are in *in all religions*. We lean on our stated beliefs to justify the practices that serve us; conversely, we strike things from our culture using tools like scripture—again, if we choose. However you interpret hierarchy and the proper mechanisms for enacting change within the Church, it remains a living organism that responds to feedback, adapting its culture and doctrines in tandem. Even if it is true that church leaders are working to separate our beliefs from pioneer practices, we will emerge with a new culture informed by new interpretations of doctrine! I liked the comment above that established 3 Nephi as the scriptural precedent for serving priesthood leaders first—I’d never heard that; and if we repeat that enough to each other, well… you get the idea. I’m not arguing that our beliefs are trivially malleable, or not guided by God—but I think when you’re critiquing a practice, you’re critiquing the beliefs that inform the practice too.” Jul 24, 15:13
- on Unnecessary Spiritual Hierarchies: Leaders Receiving the Sacrament First: ““…that a superior officer might be first served.” Not office. Transcription error on my part.” Jul 24, 13:27
