Spotlight On Mormonism, And Other Equally Meaningless Subjects.

Life, Days Off, and Internet Addiction

2008-08-27T14:00:00.001+10:00

I wonder how many spend too much time on the Internet message boards, like I do. I've come up with a term to describe this - IA - Internet Addiction. Probably not novel. I suffer from IA. I wish I could say otherwise, but the reality is that from the time I finish night-shift on Sunday mornings at around 7am, I sleep about three hours, sometimes two, so I won't be wide awake on Sunday night, then I get up around 10am, make a coffee, then "do the rounds" to see what's happening in cyber-world. I'll spend the rest of the day in cyber-space until I hit the sack about seven or eight PM. My list of "things to do" keeps getting longer and longer, but the mental stimulation of the Internet is too addictive. And I'm usually so tired from long working hours that just sitting in front of the computer seems sufficient relaxation.

Fortunately I live alone, so it's just me and the computer busily engaged for most of my three days off, apart from shopping and cleaning on Mondays, and other occasional errands or appointments. Friends calling and asking to go out get a shifty, dodgy excuse - I'm too tired to go out. Besides, a nightclub is the last thing I want to see during my time off. I deal with drunks all working nights, and I don't want to see any on nights off. I sometimes wonder if I'm wasting my life, but there's not much else I'm interested in anyway. I raised children for 28 years, was locked into a marriage for 22, was a competitive runner off and on for 15 years, and I read thousands of books before the Internet (something I rarely do now), so over the past year, when I became totally free, it's pretty much been me and the PC, and I've enjoyed it all. One year I've been in this not posh yet fairly cosy flat, and I relish the silence and solitude of days off, when my mind becomes busy. While working I have to talk to people constantly, and deal with all sorts of challenges, so Sunday morning is my favourite time of the week. Working people say "thank God it's Friday", I say "thank God it's Sunday morning". I'm in a neat holding pattern at the moment, and don't know when it will change, not for a while I hope, because I need this respite after so many years of financial struggle, and six moves in six years, to appease my youngest daughter. No one can say I haven't sacrificed, and busted my guts for too many years to count. Life has been as tough as shit for me, but the last twelve months have been the best. Being in a committed relationship is something I need like I need a hole in the head. The idea of a woman in my life is about as appealing as an Artic dog-sled ride, or a holiday in Siberia.

When I look at my children now, with all of the problems and challenges they have with young families, I'm glad my time is done in that business. Now it's like George Burns said, "Happiness is having a large, loving, caring, close-knit family in another city". Next week I turn 54, an age I never thought I'd reach. Death really doesn't scare me anymore, like the thought of it did when I turned 30, and perhaps the loss of that fear makes life more enjoyable. As Burns also said, "I'm very pleased to be here. Let's face it, at my age I'm very pleased to be anywhere". I haven't caught up to Burnsie yet, but even at my age you know most of the race has been run, and it's not likely I'm going to reach 108, maybe not even 60, because we all really live on borrowed time past 50. I'm enjoying the deserts of life, and I wouldn't want to have any more main courses, thanks.

So here's to many more Sunday mornings and quiet days off. Or am I asking too much?

Myths About Masturbation.

2008-08-25T18:35:00.004+10:00

I found THIS interesting site about self-flagellation. Among the entries was something that ranks with the vilest apostasy in Boyd K. Packer's eyes:

Myth # 3

'It will make you homosexual.'

This is certainly baseless. It is perhaps the strongest rumor told to young boys to make them stop masturbating. The theory told to them is, if you touch your male organ too much, you will like to touch it, and so you will become homosexual. But, there is no grain of truth in it.

It does not dictate a person's sexual orientation. There are both homosexual as well as heterosexual men who masturbate. In fact, in some heterosexual couples, the female often gives pleasure to the male by masturbating. The male organ is a very sensitive organ, with several nerve endings in it. Any touch can stimulate it into erection. So, if it is becoming erect by your own touch, it does not mean that you have become homosexual. Also, if you like fondling your own organ, it does not mean you will eventually begin liking fondling other men's penises also. If you can pick your own nose, it does not mean you will start picking other people's noses too! This rumor is as baseless as that.

LOL at the bold part.

And this I found equallly funny, even if true:

Myth # 6

'Your penis will start malfunctioning if you masturbate too much.'

Strictly speaking, no! Your penis is an organ which has two main functions. Let's keep the urinary function aside. The other important function is ejaculation of semen. Your organ is meant to get aroused and ejaculate at the climax of the act. As long as the organ is concerned, its duty is only to ejaculate semen, and it does not matter where the semen lands up. It could be in your hand, someone's vaginal tract, someone's mouth or even someone's anus. It is not concerned. As such, it will not malfunction if you masturbate. Yes, but there could be problems related to the sexual act that may develop in the long run.(My emphasis)

Now that is what I call a reality check. :)

Do enjoy masturbation, but please, don't let "it" end up in someone else's "yard". You know the old saying about "do unto others"...

And now, for something worse than masturbation, John Edwards:

Visits To My Blog.

2008-08-25T18:17:00.002+10:00

The weird thing I find about entry links and searches to my blog (which I've only recently kept) is that most of them come from Google searches for things like "Tal Bachman", "Randy Keyes", "Church handbook of instructions", "Mormon bishops", and things I'd never imagine would lead them here. And this considering that my blog doesn't even register with Google blogs, mainly because Google Admin are about as efficient as Saddam's Minister For Information. Technorati has ceased "updating" my new entries, but they were hopeless to begin with anyway. It's all "bureaucratic quirks", of course, but I find the phenomenon interesting. Somehow, through others, my posts are registering on Google.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the spectacle. Most of my visits are from the United States, but what do you expect with a blog title like "Spotlight on Mormonism"? Visits from India?

The funny thing about us bloggers is that we don't expect a cent in return for our efforts, only a healthy respect for our vainglorious vanity, and a desire for recognition for the unpaid time we put into this madness.

To Ex-Mormons: How to get on with your life.

2008-08-24T13:42:00.004+10:00

Here are my seven guidelines of how to get on with your life post-Mormonism:

1) The ex-Mormon phenomenon can legitimately be compared to a bitter divorce, for many. Message: Life goes on. I know it sounds flippant, but it's the truth! The majority of the world's population really don't care about your disappointments in life. Laugh, and the world laughs with you, cry, and you cry alone. There's a time and a place for all things, a time to love, and a time to hate, but don't let the hate become obsessive. No one listens to a constantly complaining drone. Have your say, but remember that while you bemoan the lost years of your life, 200 million people died in wars in the 20th century. Lives snuffed out in late teens and early 20s. Your exit story pales in comparison to that of a Vietnam veteran with a couple of severed limbs. Tragedy is everywhere, so put your negative experiences in perspective, and don't make mountains out of molehills.

2) One man's fraud is another man's truth. Accept it, no matter how bizarre you may think it. As a sign of accommodation the Church "officially" dropped polygamy in 1890. Mormons, in my experience, eventually move with the mainstream. They fare far better than many other fanatical religions that we've seen in history. Your freedom isn't threatened, and there isn't going to be another Mormon theocracy. Don't let your ungrounded fears and prejudices rule your life, because they will give you many false and uncomfortable imaginings.

3) Become interested in things outside of Mormonism. This may be difficult at first, especially if your whole life was lived with Mormonism at the centre. I took up distance running, and fitness, and listening to music. Don't spend your life ruing the fact that you lost 25 years, look forward to the next 25 with a positive attitude. By all means share your Mormon experiences with others, but don't make it look like you survived a concentration camp, or the battle of Long Tan, because you didn't, as far as Mormonism is concerned.

4) If you have peers, family, or a spouse still a faithful Mormon, your challenge will be greater. These are the ones I don't envy. They are reminded everyday of what they rejected, unless they have very understanding partners. Being bitter, angry, or too forceful, will never win them over to your point of view, or even to understand your point of view, which in some cases is the most positive outcome you can hope for. As the Beatles sing, "Let it be". One day, "there'll be an answer". Find solace and comfort in things that uplift, like good music, and friends who accept you as you are. Be philosophical.

5) If you want to spend time critiquing Mormonism, create a blog to vent your frustrations, or go on message boards where you can do this, but remember that by and large everyone has their own problems to deal with, and they will only relate to yours as it relates to them. You can find solace in that too, but remember that just like Mormons aren't going to save the world, ex-Mormons aren't either. You will find new friends in cyber space who will resonate with you, but don't think you have a corner on truth, any more than Mormons have. Be humble in the realisation that many people find spiritual comfort in Mormonism. It is their "lifeline" to a meaningful life. Look into Buddhism, perhaps, and learn to relate to the fact that we are all at different levels of personal experience, and just like you once needed Mormonism, there are many who still do at some spiritual level. Be tolerant of what you might consider idiocy, and remember that you too once believed all the things you may now consider "idiotic". As Krisnarmurti once said, "truth is a pathless land". Everyone must seek their own truth. When your life is drawing to a close, endless debates about Mormonism will have NO relevance. How you loved and accepted others, will. We are here to learn, and to love, not win debates.

"A human being is part of a whole, called by us the 'universe', a part limited in time and space.
He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings, as something separate from the rest
- a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness.
This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affectation for a few people near us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circles of compassion
to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty."

"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."

-- Albert Einstein.

"How much suffering and fear, and
How many harmful things are in existence?
If all arises from clinging to the "I",
What should I do with this great demon?"

--Shantideva

Understand the "interconnectedness" of life.

Thus interdependence is a fundamental law of nature. Not only higher forms of life but also many of the smallest insects are social beings who, without any religion, law, or education, survive by mutual cooperation based on an innate recognition of their interconnectedness. The most subtle level of material phenomena is also governed by interdependence. All phenomena, from the planet we inhabit to the oceans, clouds, forests, and flowers that surround us, arise in dependence upon subtle patterns of energy. Without their proper interaction, they dissolve and decay."

-- The 14th Dalai Lama

6) Cultivate a sense of humour. Humour produces endorphins, in other words it can make you healthy. This is one of the more important points. Isn't it ironic that so many of the world's comedians were often people possessed by personal demons? Lives filled with tragedy often produce greatness, and humour. I'm convinced that God created humour to help us weather the storms of life. To laugh, is to be Godlike, even in the face of tragedy.

7) Time is the great healer, and as they say, "time heals all wounds". Someone, of course, would disagree, and I found this neat little piece on the Internet after I had written the above.

But observe the lessons imparted by this writer:

How to stay miserable

• Complain about the unfairness of it all. ("This should not have happened" - "How could anyone do such a thing?")

• Organize your life around the event, trauma or injustice. Make it a central theme in your life. Talk about nothing else. Bore your friends.

• Remain bitter and unforgiving. A wise friend of mine once said, "Not forgiving someone is much like trying to crush a sandspur between your fingers. You might eventually do it, but it sure is going to hurt."

• Become a victim. Give up your power to take responsibility and control over your own life.

• Play the scene over and over in your mind. Keep thinking of what you should have done or what you should .

How to move on, heal and thrive

• Talk about it. Many of us mistakenly believe that if we keep it inside it won't bother us. Quite the opposite is true. Remember the character -Tom Wingo in "Prince of Tides" and the damage done by not talking about the trauma that had happened in his family? Many times, getting it out in the open can make it manageable.

• Forgive those involved. Forgiving does not condone what someone else did, it simply releases us from the pain of their actions.

• Most importantly, follow this favorite advice of mine:

"Make a place for the event in your life and then put it in its place."

It's important to remember that it did happen and it did affect you. At the same time, its place is in the past, much like a chapter in a book you have read and choose not to read again.

• If you find yourself wanting to but unable to follow these suggestions, you may want to get professional help putting the past behind you.

Sounds pretty much like what I wrote. There must be some kind of universal wisdom in this?

Be the change that you want to see in the world. -- Mahatma Gandhi

Lyrics to "Let It Be":

When I find myself in times of trouble
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people
Living in the world agree,
There will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is
Still a chance that they will see
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be. Yeah
There will be an answer, let it be.

And when the night is cloudy,
There is still a light that shines on me,
Shine on until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music
Mother Mary comes to me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
Let it be, let it be.
There will be an answer, let it be.
Let it be, let it be,
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

Drugs in Olympic Sports. Is Beijing Drug Free? Who Knows?

2008-08-18T09:47:00.006+10:00

We've witnessed Usain Bolt blowing away his rivals in the men's 100 metres final at the Beijing Olympics in a new world record of 9.69 seconds. Mike Powell described looking at it with a dropped jaw. The winning margin was substantial for the 100 metres, 2/10ths of a second, with Trinidad and Tobago's Richard Thompson coming second in 9.89. My mind flashed back to Canada's Ben Johnson, who also won by a substantial margin, 9.79 to Carl Lewis' 9.92. Johnson was later disqualified for testing positive to taking anabolic steroids. Before 1987 Johnson was nothing special, suffering many defeats, but all that changed when he apparently began taking drugs. Lewis observed:

"There are a lot of people coming out of nowhere. I don’t think they are doing it without drugs."

Some will undoubtedly be wondering the same about the current Olympics - "who's on what?"

Of course, I'm not saying Bolt is on the dope, nor even suggesting it, but this subject constantly raises questions in people's minds because of the past (and although my athletic background isn't as prestigious as Mike's [see below], I have been following Track & Field since 1967). Some of the East Germans in the 1980s were running times unheard of, and we suspected then, and later learned that they were indeed on drugs. Blood Doping in endurance athletes is another form of cheating.

My older Brother, Mike, a former Olympian, has had a lot to say about this, and many have disagreed with his approach to the problem of drugs in sport. You can listen to his interview on NPR and judge for yourself whether what he says has any merit, or whether you think he has lost his marbles.

NPR Interview (Click on "Listen Now")

Mike's You Tube clip, where he again voices "heretical" ideas (it's a family trait):

Marion Jones' fall from grace

Before we are all too harsh to judge Marion Jones, let's bear in mind that she's actually one of the honest ones, who admitted her drug-taking. For every honest Marion Jones, I wonder how many dishonest drug-takers there are?

This is a controversial issue, but I wonder about Mike's point regarding earning money in sport. Once upon a time banned to all who wanted to remain amateur, and anyone competing in the Olympics had to be "clean" of being "tainted" by professionalism. Earning money was only for those who had sold their soul to the monetary devil. Today no one even blinks an eyelid. Even Rugby Union, my former sport, once hailed for its amateur status, can now draw even bigger money than the professional league. How times have changed. But will they change in regard to drugs in sport?

Is Mike's suggestion, radical as it sounds, the future of sport? Is it even realistic? Or is he just crazy?

According to a report in The Sydney Morning Herald :

IT'S official. Drug taking is now a recognised Olympic sport — at least as far as the bookies are concerned. Some international sports betting companies have framed markets on which sport will be the first to have an athlete stripped of a medal because of a failed drug test.

Not surprisingly, weightlifting is the short-priced favourite at even money, although observers will have noted that this is one sport that has had a plethora of athletes banned before they even got to China. Just this week, female Indian weightlifter Monika Devi was prevented from boarding her plane and Greece has lost 11 of its weightlifting team to positive drug tests...And these Olympic Games are being held in the country that is the world's factory of performance-enhancing drugs.

Pessimists would claim this persistent exposure of drug cheating is proof that the drugs in sport battle is not being won. Optimists would claim this is proof that the testing is working.

The truth is probably in the middle.

Athletes have been increasingly willing to experiment with drug-taking, often not so much as to "cheat" but to recover from injuries and from repeated training sessions. They want to push their body beyond its normal limits and by taking drugs, such as steroids, human growth hormone, IGF-1 assists that.

The whole article is insightful. The problem is that it's becoming a vicious cycle - new drugs, new therapies, and ways of making detection more difficult, and the endless pursuit of the cheats.

Enjoy the spectacle of the Olympics, because it's really only a show, and sometimes a hypocritical one. Don't idolise too much, because you don't know whose on what.

Related links:

1) Australian swimming coach, Don Talbot, agees with Mike, but others consider it "outlandish".

The Sydney Morning Herald

John Fahey apparently lives in some kind of perfect sporting dream world, but then, he's a politician:

"That's something I totally disagree with," Fahey told The Sun-Herald. "Sport is about a contest in a true and fair way, that's what underpins sport. It will wither unless there is a belief from those in sport that a particular contest is a fair contest.

A fair contest? Where has Fahey been for the last 50 years? Possibly watching too many episodes of "Lost Horizon".

2) Legalising drugs may be only option, says Talbot

3) Let them all cheat, it's the only answer: Talbot

4) Mike Agostini, "Danger: Sport can kill"

5) Robin Parisotto, "Why legalised doping in sport can never be acceptable"

6) Timesonline, "BOA must realise knowledge is power in war on drugs"

Note the argument here, and the sophistication now invloved in drug-taking:

The British Olympic Association (BOA) should save itself a day in court and unilaterally rescind the lifetime ban on drug-taking that stands between Dwain Chambers and his ambition to compete in Beijing next month. It should do so not because it has “gone soft on drugs”, but because it has belatedly realised that its infamous bylaw is not merely misguided but self-defeating....

But the reasons why the BOA must ditch its bylaw are practical, not legal. Throughout history it has been those on the inside of the doping culture who have equipped testers with their most valuable information, from the doctors who revealed the horrors of the East German system to the athletes and coaches who have lifted the lid on more recent scandals. Never forget that the Balco affair would not have come to light without the intervention of Trevor Graham, who provided the sample of THG that facilitated a testing procedure for the designer steroid.

An Apple A Day.

2008-08-17T15:14:00.002+10:00

We all know the old saying "an apple a day keeps the doctor away". Well, a couple of months ago I met a male customer of mine who embodied that saying. I don't know if he ate an apple a day, but he told me he hadn't visited a doctor in 30 years. Now in his early 70s, a smoker, he divorced in his early 40s, and hasn't been to a doctor since then.

There's a somewhat tragic story in that divorce, though. His wife left him for another man who was a bit of a revhead, liked fast cars, and one day spun out of control, killing her in her early 30s. My customer said he remained single since that divorce (and I foresee myself being the same when/if I live to my early 70s), because "women are too complicated". He looked fairly fit, and said working around the house and keeping physically occupied kept him that way. Two of his siblings died of cancer, but that hasn't stopped him from smoking.

Coming from a family of practising hypochrondriacs, I found his statement very interesting, though I too confess I haven't seen a doctor in two years, and I don't like doctor visits, dentist visits, nor the interior of hospitals. They smell awful. My last visit to a doctor, apart from a routine medical check up to get a taxi licence, was around June 2006. I was suffering burnout from long working hours, and travelling to Sydney every day except Saturday, for five years, with only about seven weeks' holiday in that whole time. Before quitting my job partly because of this rigourous and exhausting schedule, my doctor ordered a thorough medical check up (he too suspected burnout), and wrote out a prescription for blood tests. I left it in my drawer, and after a year I ripped it up. I don't know why, but it seems I'd rather risk death than deal with doctors. My 30s and 40s hypochrondria gone (at a time when, strangely, I was much fitter). My ex-wife died of cancer, which could have been avoided by a colonoscopy examination, yet I still refuse to do this, in spite of regular encouragement from my older brother, perhaps the Chief Hypochrondriac in the family. I usually just tick his emails with a "to do" reminder.

If my potential polyps turn cancerous, I'm sure I'll regret not being tested, but I stubbornly refuse to undergo the tests. Maybe it's partly because I believe life is a lottery. My eldest brother died of rheumatic fever when only 16. I have a grand uncle who lived to 100, who had a daily drink, and smoked roll-your-own cigarettes. My grandfather died at 89 after suffering a fall, while under the influence after a Lodge meeting. My mother, a smoker since the age of 14, died at 80. But none of this is worth rationalising, since several of my mother's brothers died of heart attacks relatively early. So like I said, life is really a lottery. Judging by human history, we're all gonna be dead one day, and I often wonder whether quality is better than length of time. I think so. Your life can't be measured for quality by how long you're here, but by what you've accomplished while here. I think my greatest accomplishment is having five children. And if there's a real reason to go on - it's them.

But, frankly, if I were to die tonight (hopefully in my sleep), I would not have one regret. I consider whatever time I have left on this earth as a bonus, a "fringe benefit". It's sort of like having all your debts paid off, and whatever comes after that is the bonus surplus. The real source of happiness isn't necessarily a long life, nor riches, nor fame, it's about enjoying the moment, and finding meaning in the moment. When I look back 40 years, I feel like my experiences then were another life, almost totally unrelated to what I experience now, though I know the "cause/reaction" element is definitely there.

To find meaning and happiness in the present is what's important, not to dwell on yesterdays. No, I'm not one who longs for "Yesterday", as it goes in the Beatles song. I prefer the saying that "today is the first day of the rest of my life". Each day is a new beginning. Each new day holds a promise which yesterday can't fulfil. But that doesn't mean I haven't learned from yesterday.

You live, and you learn. Swallow it down. But don't choke on it. :)

(PS: Fuck Google and Technorati. LOL)

Violence in the Streets

2008-08-08T13:34:00.001+10:00

Last night I witnessed, along with many others, a man being bashed unconscious in the street outside a nightclub. Not unusual in a night's work for me or my cabbie mates. About six males were involved, and it was difficult to tell who was fighting who. Punches were flying everywhere, and a female trying to intervene to stop it copped one herself. Although a nearby police station was only some 300 metres away, no police were in sight.

At least not for some 15-20 minutes. I left to do a fare, and when I got back the man was still lying on the ground motionless, but now three ambulances and three police cars were there. The Highway Patrol car sped off looking for the assailant, but soon returned with nothing. Paramedics were also on the scene, and the area was eventually cordoned off as a crime scene. I don't know the fate of the victim, but he could have brain damage, or even worse.

This is all too common at nights, and it's out of control. Alcohol and drugs are of course the main instigators. I've seen people do things "under the influence" they would never do when sober. I know, because I've transported people to nightclubs sober, then by chance picked some of them up in the early morning hours. Often the friendliness and generous tips have turned to aggressiveness and even attempted fare evasion. The personality change is striking. What can I say? As a drinker myself, I see no need for this, but it appears that some just can't handle their alcohol. An accidental bump or a wrong comment these nights can land one in hospital, or even dead. Many people will not go out, and those who do walk the streets in fear. I know people who now catch cabs very short distances because of the fear. Last week I transported one young lady about 300 metres, because, she said, it was too dangerous for a female to walk even such a short distance alone. I didn't complain about the short fare, because I knew she really was at risk. She was apologetic, but I fully understood her fears.

So what's the solution? Probably earlier closing hours for pubs and clubs, because this violence, although it can and does occur before midnight, it's after 2am that most of the full-on violence occurs. Yet some of these clubs go until 5am, some even 6am. And a greater police presence is needed. Clubs also need to take more responsibility to enforce RSA laws (responsible service of alcohol). That's not happened to any great degree, because clubs fear losing revenue from regular pisspot customers. I've even had club staff dump totally inebriated customers into my cab, but sometimes when I see their state I just drive off. The raw hide of these staff is something that baffles, and outrages me, when they should know better, and observe the RSA laws. People have been stabbed, and even killed, and the night time carnage will go on.

And what can I say? All in a night's work. Nearly every night.

The Seven Most Influential Books I Ever Read.

2008-08-04T15:57:00.004+10:00

These books aren't necessarily the most interesting books I ever read, but they have influenced my thinking more than any others. And they aren't listed in order of importance.

1) Eric Hoffer, The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements. Although written 57 years ago, Hoffer's book remains what I consider the most apt description of the mind of the fanatic. I first read it in the late 1980s. Here are some of Hoffer's insights:

Those who lack the capacity to achieve much in an atmosphere of freedom will clamor for power.

Absolute power corrupts even when exercised for humane purposes. The benevolent despot who sees himself as a shepherd of the people still demands from others the submissiveness of sheep.

Unity and self-sacrifice, of themselves, even when fostered by the most noble means, produce a facility for hating. Even when men league themselves mightily together to promote tolerance and peace on earth, they are likely to be violently intolerant toward those not of a like mind.

Passionate hatred can give meaning and purpose to an empty life. Thus people haunted by the purposelessness of their lives try to find a new content not only by dedicating themselves to a holy cause but also by nursing a fanatical grievance. A mass movement offers them unlimited opportunities for both.

Those of little faith are of little hatred.

It is doubtful if the oppressed ever fight for freedom. They fight for pride and power—power to oppress others. The oppressed want above all to imitate their oppressors; they want to retaliate.

It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible. What we know as blind faith is sustained by innumerable unbeliefs.

The opposite of the religious fanatic is not the fanatical atheist but the gentle cynic who cares not whether there is a god or not.

Collective unity is not the result of the brotherly love of the faithful for each other. The loyalty of the true believer is to the whole—the church, party, nation—and not to his fellow true believer. True loyalty between individuals is possible only in a loose and relatively free society.

The important thing to note about Hoffer is that he was not an academic, but a man with sharp insights gained by voracious reading, and life experience. He was never beholden to institutions or popular opinions.

2) New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology (Brent Lee Metcalfe, editor, Signature Books, 1993).

This book, probably more than any other, influenced my views about the historicity of the Book of Mormon. I also read, several times, the FARMS reply review to this, but my views leaned more to New Approaches. David Wright, a contributor to this monograph, also influenced me through his various articles on Book of Mormon Historicity. In the mid-90s my views on this were pretty much cemented, and it forever changed how I viewed the Book of Mormon.

3) Damian Thompson, The End of Time: Faith and Fear in the Shadow of the Millennium (1996).

The impact of this book can't be underestimated. Thompson showed just what a gullible species we are, and the drivel we will believe in regard to the "second coming" of Christ. If you haven't noted my link on this blog, check it out now HERE

4) B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon (University of Illinois Press, 1985).

FARMS and other apologetic arms have never recognised that Elder Roberts experienced a serious crisis of faith in the Book of Mormon. If you read this book, you will see DOUBT written through all Roberts' commentary. Roberts was an honest and intorspective Mormon willing to face genuine challenges to his faith. We seldom see this in modern "apologetics".

5) Paul Sheehan, The Electronic Whorehouse (Macmillan, 2003).

Paul Sheehan exposed the lies, fabrications, and general corruption of the modern media in Australia. This book, more than any other, made me realise what the media is all about. If you think they are not agenda-driven, then read The Electronic Whorehouse.

6) Eric Williams, British Historians and the West Indies

This book was written by a man I consider one be one of the greatest intellects of modern times, but you probably haven't heard of him. He exposed 19th century racism on a scale I consider never before or since done. This is stuff you'd never read in politically correct academia.

Worth reading over and over, until it sinks in how racist some of our ancestors were. He destroyed every positive stereotype attached to "great writers", while they were all being lauded for their virtues by others. It's no exaggeration to say he revealed the "dark side of the moon".

7) Robert Anton Wilson, The New Inquisition: Irrational Rationalism and the Citadel of Science.

Wilson did become a bit spurious in this book, but his general point that science can sometimes evolve into dogma, cannot be lost on any reader. His openness on questions considered "settled" by some, is well worth considering.

Walter Mitty, Move Over.

2008-08-04T07:25:00.000+10:00

The problem with life is that you learn the most important things when it's drawing to a close. Anyone past fifty is living on borrowed time. I have a brother who died at 16, so at 53 (54 next month) I consider myself very lucky to be alive. It looks like the years of heartache and turmoil are behind me, however, you never know what lies ahead. Looking back at the early years now, I see a young man susceptible to magnificent dreams, idealism, ambition, hope, and even delusions. I dreamed forever and a day about winning Olympic Gold in some track event, only to end up jogging for fitness. I dreamed about being a computer genius, and now my technician earns a fortune fixing my stuff-ups. I dreamed about meeting "Miss Right", and I ended up $33,000 in debt from divorce debts. Sometimes I've felt like I made Walter Mitty look like the epitome of credibility. I've rightly been described by some as a total, abject failure. No point beating around the bush about this. What I don't understand is why such a failure is so content with life now. Maybe there's one explanation for this - I got rid of youthful Utopia and megalomania. I also learned that happiness is relative. As a young boy I dreamed of flying big jets, big commercial jets across the world. Being a pilot was my most cherished ambition. For years and years. So at 15, I decided to pursue my ambition by writing to BOAC (now British Airways) as to how I might pursue my desired career in the skies. I received back a fairly quick reply, that I needed high marks in "A" and "O" levels, particularly in maths, and I needed to pass a physical test as well, which included good hearing. My heart sank. I was prepared to study my guts out to meet those marks, but I knew then that I would not pass the physical test. I was born with a slight hearing defect in both ears, enough to kill my dream. Not nearly enough to require a hearing-aid, but enough to encounter some embarrassing social moments, and definitely enough to bring my dream to an end. I read that reply from British Airways over and over and over. I nearly even framed it. But reality struck home. I would not reply. I would just have to live with the fact that I'd never be at the control of the big birds. From that moment, I felt like I was wasting my time at high school, aimlessly studying for nothing, my dream as dead as a doornail, because being a pilot was all that I wanted to do.

Many years later, I emailed a friend who did go on to become a pilot, the same one I told with great sorrow years earlier, "fly for both of us". I learned that after many years of being a captain of a commercial airline, he got bored with flying, and resigned to do something else. It's just a job, and almost every job eventually gets boring, he said. I was reminded of the saying of the preacher, that everything under the sun is vanity and vexation of spirit. So I lived a simple life, driving trucks, teaching people to drive, and taxing people about. I've lived on the roads for 21 years as a professional driver. I know trucks, I know road rules, and I know enough street locations without needing a map. That's probably the sum total of my knowledge, not quite like a Harvard degree. I did spend some time in academia as a university student, but I quickly learned that a degree doesn't equip you to deal with life. All it taught me is that we humans can be pompous asses, or as Hugh Nibley described it, clothed in the robes of a false priesthood.

Anyway, in case you're wondering, I've decided to continue my blog, but with much less emphasis on Mormonism, next to none if possible, and I'll be changing the name of the blog soon, but noting that it was formerly "Spotlight On Mormonism". I'm not sure what to call the new blog, but I'll think of something soon.

It's Monday, my first full day off work. I'm back to work on Wednesday, so hopefully I'll be able to entertain myself with some more relaxed entries and musings about life and all that shit. Constantly dwelling on Mormonism in this blog was really beginning to bore the hell out of me. I just no longer felt the energy. And I've got nothing to prove. The chances of me believing Mormonism again are about one in a trillion trillion. But I find life enjoyable, and love meeting and talking with people in my job as a cab driver. Along the way in my new blog emphasis, I'll share stories about some of the people I've met. I promise that you'll be amazed, as I was.

Blog Set For Deletion. (See Comments section)

2008-07-29T18:37:00.004+10:00

Well Friends, have your last read, and copy whatever you want, because I will be deleting this blog in one week.

I hope you have enjoyed it, as I have, but it's time to move on. I never sought much publicity for this blog anyway. Google never picked it up, not that I cared a rat's arse. LOL. And Technorati only got it once in every two posts. And I've never overtly publicised it.

It has been fun, but it's time for me to concentrate on other things, and let bygones be bygones. Thoughts that will disappear into the night. Maybe I'll reappear somewhere else, with a new blog.

God Bless, and may you all have prosperous and happy lives, whatever pathway you choose.

Ray.

C.L. Hanson on Atheist Talk.

2008-07-28T17:43:00.007+10:00

For those who may have missed it, be sure to check out C.L.Hanson on Atheist Talk. You can listen to the interview Here. Referred to in the interview as "C.L.", she is also known as "Chanson" by her online friends. I first "met" Chanson on Exmo-Social many years ago, where I also met her brother John Hamer . My admiration for John's intelligence, sense of balance and fairness, has left an indelible impression on me to this day. I can only flatteringly conclude that intelligence runs in this family.

Some of Chanson's posts
which I've reflected on:

Almost all of the exmormons I’ve met (in real life and on the Internet) continue to feel a connection with Mormonism. And those raised LDS typically retain a lot of positive feelings towards LDS culture.

Faithful Mormons often expect those who leave the church to hate everything about Mormonism. To me that’s completely crazy. How can you expect people to feel nothing but hatred for a culture that shaped them, their families, their childhood, etc.? Personally, I left the church because it’s not true. Period. Not because of some anger or hostility towards the organization.

Ding! Ding! Ding! This registers. What manner of woman is this?? LOL. She did even better than I did when leaving Mormonism.

In Part 2 of her deconversion experience (see link below), Chanson wrote:

disclaimer: I will be recounting my own experiences in a direct and straight-forward manner. None of this is intended as disrespectful to those who believe differently, it is merely a statement of my personal conclusions and how I reached them....

The last straw that pushed me out of Mormonism was the question of whether this religion -- or any other -- could have the true and final word on the nature of God and the afterlife.

Before getting there, however, there were a few glaring sign-posts along the road. The first one was the evidence -- or lack thereof -- for the Book of Mormon.

Where did the Native Americans come from?

I knew that the "true" answer was written by Nephi and Moroni and all the rest in the pages of the Book of Mormon. I also knew that no one -- outside of Mormonism -- proposed that the Native Americans had arrived by boat from the Middle East.

I remember sitting in American History class -- probably in the seventh grade -- watching a film showing how the Americas were populated by migrations across a land bridge from Asia.

I thought to myself If only they knew the truth. If only they had the idea to look for evidence that these people arrived by boat, they would find it.

Another part of me said These researchers promoting these theories of Native American origins -- they aren't bitter anti-Mormons out to destroy the church. The church probably doesn't even show up on their radar. They say the Native Americans migrated on foot from Asia because they dug up evidence out of the ground and that's the conclusion it pointed to. If the same types of researchers used the same types of evidence to piece together the history of some unknown tribe in Africa or an island somewhere, I would believe them.

But some incompetent and mistaken archaeologists and anthropologists weren't sufficient to dissuade me from the truth.

Worse was later when I heard from some Mormons who were all excited about the research of Thor Heyerdahl and how it was such a boon to proving the Book of Mormon right. I pressed for details and found that he had constructed a boat using ancient techniques and had sailed it across the Atlantic. So he had shown that Nephi and Lehi's journey was not physically impossible. Do we have any evidence that it actually happened? No.

I was left forcing out of my mind the obvious question: That's the best you can do?

The point that was the most painful for me to try to rationalize was later -- when I was about fifteen or sixteen -- and I heard my parents talking about the Book of Abraham.

Like any good Mormon kid, I knew that Joseph Smith had translated some ancient Egyptian documents, found with a mummy, and that they had turned out to be a record written by Abraham of his time in Egypt. I had also learned that the original papyrus was lost, and was thought to have been destroyed in the great Chicago fire.

This story made perfect sense from a Mormon perspective. Like the golden plates that were taken back into heaven after Joseph Smith translated them, and like the Nauvoo Temple that was destroyed by fire after the Saints left for the promised land in the Salt Lake Valley, the Lord took Abraham's writings back once their purpose was fulfilled.

Then one day I heard my parents say that this story wasn't true, and that, in fact, the Book of Abraham papyrus had been found, and was in the possession of the church!!! Not only that, it had been in the possession of the church since before I was born!!!

This was very upsetting. I couldn't see why I would ever have been told this "Chicago fire" story unless... Unless the existence of the original was something that we needed to avoid talking about. The nail in the coffin was when I learned the rationalization in the very same conversation: "Maybe Joseph Smith didn't really translate the papyrus, maybe the papyrus inspired him to receive the Book of Abraham text as a revelation."

This was a terrible blow, to learn that the physical evidence had been hidden away as a shameful thing and to hear an upsetting hint as to why.

I know that today's modern, Internet-savvy Mormons all already know that the papyrus is in the possession of the church and that no scholar -- Mormon or otherwise -- claims that it is anything other than ordinary Egyptian funeral documents that have nothing to do with the Biblical patriarch Abraham nor are even remotely from the right time period to have been written by him. So one might claim that it was my own foolish ignorance or lack of study that led to me to be shocked by this information. I suppose that nowadays they're saying that they never really claimed that Joseph Smith literally translated a record that Abraham himself had written "by his own hand upon papyrus" and that information about it was never obscured or hidden away. But that's not what it was like back in the 1980's. People just didn't talk about such "deep doctrines."

For a teenager, I was actually relatively well-informed about the "meat" of Mormonism (as in "milk before meat"). I knew about polygamy and "celestial polygamy" (the fact that Mormons believe that there is polygamy in the afterlife even if polygamy is not currently practiced by the church).

I had learned in seminary about the Mountain Meadows Massacre and the "Vilate Kimball test of faith" story. That's the one where Joseph Smith has a revelation that he is to take Heber C. Kimball's wife Vilate as one of his own plural wives, Heber and Vilate are terribly distraught but finally agree because it's the will of God, and then Joseph Smith says that God was just testing their faith, and that in fact God would be okay with Heber keeping Vilate as long as they give Joseph their fourteen-year-old daughter Helen in her place...

For both of those stories, I remember thinking "Hmmm, that's pretty weird."

But as disturbing as those stories were, neither one struck at the root of my faith like the question of whether Joseph Smith really had the ability to miraculously translate ancient records.

to be continued...

Link To the post above

In spite of this, Chanson advocates a non-antagonistic approach to her former religion:

What's in a name? ;)

Back when I wrote my handy guide to different types of Mormons I claimed that ex-Mormon and post-Mormon are just two words for the same thing. Since then, many people have told me that there's a real difference between the two, namely that an ex-Mormon is someone who is angry and/or recovering whereas a post-Mormon is someone who has moved on.

That makes a lot of sense as a distinction, and I suppose that's the idea of this one new forum I found the other day: postmormon.org. I guess if that's it, I'd qualify more as post-Mormon than ex-Mormon myself. My novel qualifies more as ex-Mormon since the focus is on being Mormon and experiences shortly after leaving the church. (Yay, I don't have to change the title!) Maybe the sequel should be called post-Mormon...

However, it's important to keep in mind that a lot of people's choice of labels depends more on which they encountered online first, so people who started out on RfM are more likely to adopt the label "exmo" whereas those who came in through the foyer are more likely to go with DAMU (DisAffected Mormon Underground).

It is becoming increasingly clear that Recovery from Mormonism (the main bulletin board of exmormon.org) has a bad reputation -- not only with believing Mormons but within the post-Mormon community -- as being full of angry rants, and I think that may be why a number of former Mormons take offense at being called exmos.

It's unfortunate if this is causing a division of the variety "I don't believe in the church anymore, but I'm not one of them." I'm not terribly interested in posting (or even reading) a bunch of angry rants myself, but I think most of us have gone through some anger over this, and can understand what people go through when it sinks in how very much they and their families have sacrificed for something that ultimately they've found to be false. So I hesitate to say "Hey, just buck up and stop complaining" or even "Whew! I'm glad I'm not like that!" since who knows if any given "angry apostate" will still be "like that" a year or two from now.

So I guess I'm saying that while I'm interested in building bridges of common interest with the faithful Mormons, I don't want to do it by trying to draw a line around the "good guys" that includes me and leaves people who aren't all that far from me out in the cold...

I've been saying the same about Recovery From Mormonism for years, but like Chanson I've decided to leave them alone, to sort out their own personal issues and grievances with Mormonism. Really, who am I to judge this level of anger? Though I still don't think it (the palpable anger) will be productive in the end.

And here is another remarkable post:

Hey Catherine!!!

It's possible that the Internet encourages people to dwell on Mormon issues. My trajectory was kind of opposite of a lot of Internet apostates in that I was completely over it and had had moved on, and for around ten years I hardly gave a second thought to having been Mormon. Then blogging and forums pulled me back into the community and got me interested in the subject of Mormonism again.

One funny thing about it is that I feel like my participation in the exmo Internet community has actually increased my positive feelings towards Mormonism. I already wasn't bitter, and I've had such fun connecting with people and swapping stories about the old days when I was Mormon, it makes it hard for me to hate it... ;^)

Sigh! What else can I say? LOL.

I don't by any means wish to denigrate the awful experiences of some "exmos", and as Chanson herself has pointed out, all one needs to do is read Gay blogs to sense the enormous pain many have felt. I hope I'm not minimising this pain in that regard, because I long for the day when Mormons will stop demonising people who are so good at heart, yet find themselves in personal moral conflict with Mormonism, who yet believe that it has many, many good points. I wish we could all live in a world without such conflict, but my hopes will probably be dashed against the reality.

I remain an optimist, and believe that in the end common sense will prevail over archaic religious superstitions.

The Philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard: A Theoretical Comparison to Mormonism.

2008-07-23T13:49:00.003+10:00

Many years ago I became fascinated with the philosophy of Soren Kierkegaard, the main reason for this being that I found his approach to faith quite radical. It even startled me, because it seemed so alien to conventional approaches to faith. As one commentator on Kierkegaard wrote:

"Like that other celebrated Dane, Prince Hamlet, he was wracked with doubt and with anguish, a world of Latin origin which he endowed with a new shiver of fear. He was less a philosopher than a theologian, and less a theologian than a eloquent and sensitive man. A Lutheran evangelist, he denied the arguments that prove the existence of God and the incarnation of Jesus, considering them absurd from a rational point of view, and he proposed an act of individual faith for every believer... Religion was the strongest of his passions." (Jorge Luis Borgess in Total Library, 1999)

In 1840 Kierkegaard was engaged to be married, but broke off the engagement to devote his life to writing. Kierkegaard's basic philosophy was that "subjectivity is truth". He shunned logical arguments for faith or even the existence of God, believing that this was something one could only decide from within, and encapsulated with the radical statement, "I believe because it is absurd". A strong indication that intuitiveness, not reason or logic, is the real basis of faith, otherwise it would not be real faith. Church dogma he rejected, but his life was centred around his concept of sin, guilt and suffering, and his belief in human responsibility for actions, not through any clerical mediation.

From the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

Christian dogma, according to Kierkegaard, embodies paradoxes which are offensive to reason. The central paradox is the assertion that the eternal, infinite, transcendent God simultaneously became incarnated as a temporal, finite, human being (Jesus). There are two possible attitudes we can adopt to this assertion, viz. we can have faith, or we can take offense. What we cannot do, according to Kierkegaard, is believe by virtue of reason. If we choose faith we must suspend our reason in order to believe in something higher than reason. In fact we must believe by virtue of the absurd...

Crucial to the miracle of Christian faith is the realization that over against God we are always in the wrong. That is, we must realize that we are always in sin. This is the condition for faith, and must be given by God. The idea of sin cannot evolve from purely human origins. Rather, it must have been introduced into the world from a transcendent source. Once we understand that we are in sin, we can understand that there is some being over against which we are always in the wrong. On this basis we can have faith that, by virtue of the absurd, we can ultimately be atoned with this being.

On Abraham's potential sacrifice of Isaac:

Kierkegaard, however, does recognize duties to a power higher than social norms. Much of Fear and Trembling turns on the notion that Abraham's would-be sacrifice of his son Isaac is not for the sake of social norms, but is the result of a "teleological suspension of the ethical". That is, Abraham recognizes a duty to something higher than both his social duty not to kill an innocent person and his personal commitment to his beloved son, viz. his duty to obey God's commands.
But in order to arrive at a position of religious faith, which might entail a "teleological suspension of the ethical", the individual must first embrace the ethical (in the first sense). In order to raise oneself beyond the merely aesthetic life, which is a life of drifting in imagination, possibility and sensation, one needs to make a commitment. That is, the aesthete needs to choose the ethical, which entails a commitment to communication and decision procedures....

From Kierkegaard's religious perspective, however, the conceptual distinction between good and evil is ultimately dependent not on social norms but on God. Therefore it is possible, as Johannes de Silentio argues was the case for Abraham (the father of faith), that God demand a suspension of the ethical (in the sense of the socially prescribed norms). This is still ethical in the second sense, since ultimately God's definition of the distinction between good and evil outranks any human society's definition. The requirement of communicability and clear decision procedures can also be suspended by God's fiat. This renders cases such as Abraham's extremely problematic, since we have no recourse to public reason to decide whether he is legitimately obeying God's command or whether he is a deluded would-be murderer. Since public reason cannot decide the issue for us, we must decide for ourselves as a matter of religious faith.

It has been written that Kierkegaard was an unhappy neurotic, like Nietzsche, a melancholy, and this was one reason he didn't feel suitable for marriage. He died at the age of 42. Not that I agree with Kierkegaard's philosophy or religious beliefs, but I have found some of his thought interesting. In contrast to both Christian and Mormon apologetics, Kierkegaard advocated a concept of subjective truth, no need for a clergy, in fact he was often opposed to the Church, and freely admitted that to most unbelievers faith and belief not only seemed absurd, but was absurd, and that was the "leap of faith" one had to make to commune with God. A great deal continues to be written about Keirkegaard's thought.

Perhaps, amidst so much that is inexplicable in the mishmash and contradiction that is Mormonism, if one applied the ideas of Kierkegaard in this setting, perhaps the Mormon concept of "divine knowledge", or "revelation" given through the Holy Ghost can be better understood. "I know, but I'm not even sure how I know." It is in essence a personal encounter with God. Try to explain that to unbelievers, or to make it sound too logical, or become too defensive, and the word "absurd" is sure to be flung around. But for the believer, faith is personal, and subjective, and it can never be proved through logic.

A Tribute To The God in Whom I Believe.

2008-07-22T18:45:00.003+10:00

Yea, this is another of my "God meme" posts. As I've said before, I always have, and will always believe in God. Why? Because I need a crutch. LOL. But in reality, my belief in God is so ingrained that I doubt anything will ever persuade me to abandon Him. I have heard many speak of the "peace of atheism", but to me, atheism means nothing. I have been on my knees, and I've contemplated the "things of the Universe", and it all makes little sense to me without God. I have experienced the peace that passeth all understanding, but only when I've humbled myself before God. Who "He" is, I don't know, but I've felt His presence too many times to deny. All, of course, total delusion, according to the skeptics.

As I wrote when I was about 16:

I believe I am always divinely guided, I believe I will always take the right turn of the road; I believe that God will always make a way, where there is no way.

In all of the transcendent hypocrisy of scriptural interpretation and justification, the God I believe in stands above it all. He looks mercifully and justly upon all of his creations, and allows his rain to fall on both the just and injust. He is a rewarder of them that seek him with pure purpose of heart, and who understand His mercies and loving tenderness. Which Father would want any child lost? Which Father would not have a divine plan of redemption for ALL of his children. None, I submit.

So ending this short post, let me quote you my favourite scripture, Proverbs 3:

1 My son, forget not my law; but let thine heart keep my commandments:
2 For length of days, and long life, and peace, shall they add to thee.
3 Let not mercy and truth forsake thee: bind them about thy neck; write them upon the table of thine heart:
4 So shalt thou find favour and good understanding in the sight of God and man.
5 Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.
6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.
7 Be not wise in thine own eyes: fear the Lord, and depart from evil.
8 It shall be health to thy navel, and marrow to thy bones.
9 Honour the Lord with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:
10 So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine.
11 My son, despise not the chastening of the Lord; neither be weary of his correction:
12 For whom the Lord loveth he correcteth; even as a father the son in whom he delighteth.
13 Happy is the man that findeth wisdom, and the man that getteth understanding.
14 For the merchandise of it is better than the merchandise of silver, and the gain thereof than fine gold.
15 She is more precious than rubies: and all the things thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her.
16 Length of days is in her right hand; and in her left hand riches and honour.
17 Her ways are ways of pleasantness, and all her paths are peace.
18 She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her: and happy is every one that retaineth her.
19 The Lord by wisdom hath founded the earth; by understanding hath he established the heavens.
20 By his knowledge the depths are broken up, and the clouds drop down the dew.
21 My son, let not them depart from thine eyes: keep sound wisdom and discretion:
22 So shall they be life unto thy soul, and grace to thy neck.
23 Then shalt thou walk in thy way safely, and thy foot shall not stumble.
24 When thou liest down, thou shalt not be afraid: yea, thou shalt lie down, and thy sleep shall be sweet.
25 Be not afraid of sudden fear, neither of the desolation of the wicked, when it cometh.
26 For the Lord shall be thy confidence, and shall keep thy foot from being taken.
27 Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.
28 Say not unto thy neighbour, Go, and come again, and to morrow I will give; when thou hast it by thee.
29 Devise not evil against thy neighbour, seeing he dwelleth securely by thee.
30 Strive not with a man without cause, if he have done thee no harm.
31 Envy thou not the oppressor, and choose none of his ways.
32 For the froward is abomination to the Lord: but his secret is with the righteous.
33 The curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked: but he blesseth the habitation of the just.
34 Surely he scorneth the scorners: but he giveth grace unto the lowly.
35 The wise shall inherit glory: but shame shall be the promotion of fools.

Read, and become enlightened. How this scripture came to be my favourite, is for another post.

Thoughts About "The Mormon Meme" and Other Infections Ideas.

2008-07-21T08:32:00.005+10:00

Some years ago I flirted with the idea, derived from Richard Dawkins, that religious belief could be a virus of the mind.

I just came across some of the ideas of Richard Brodie who wrote Virus of the Mind, and this seems to expand on Dawkins' ideas. First I should make some things clear about this post lest I wrongly infect your mind as well. This is not a denunciation of religion. This is not a denunciation of spiritual beliefs. These are some thoughts garnered from some of my own experiences with belief and speculation, at various times in my life. I have at times in the past ridiculed Dawkins' thoughts on this, but I've always maintained an open mind, obviously susceptible to viruses, as any good seeker of truth should. These are some hard questions about what we believe, and why we are at times prepared to believe things that to others seem obviously impossible. It is my contention that belief may reflect actuality, at times, but it can also be symptomatic of some strange mental gymnastics by which we persuade ourselves that certain things are "true", when they are not.

I'll start with Brodie's Introduction

The good news is that the long-awaited scientific theory unifying biology, psychology, and cognitive science is here. An interdisciplinary effort by scientists in all those fields over the last 20 years or so—really back to 1859 and Charles Darwin, if you like—has produced a new science called memetics.
The science of memetics is based on evolution. Darwin’s theory of the evolution of species by natural selection utterly transformed the field of biology. Scientists are now applying modern evolutionary theory to the way the mind works, the way people learn and grow, the way culture progresses. In so doing, the field of psychology will ultimately be as transformed by the scientists researching memetics as biology was by Darwin.

For those of us who yearn to understand ourselves, learning about memetics gives us a huge amount of satisfaction. I also believe that people who understand memetics will have an increasing advantage in life, especially in preventing themselves from being manipulated or taken advantage of. If you better understand how your mind works, you can better navigate through a world of increasingly subtle manipulation.

Now the bad news. The bad news is that this book raises more questions than it answers. In particular, memetics has uncovered the existence of viruses of the mind, but gives us few insights into what to do about them.

Maybe I'll attempt some answers of my own, especially if this could give me more advantages in life. The first advantage I see is that I need not be subjected to every whim or fancy that crosses my mind. I could, in reality, like anyone else, believe lots of codswallop. I'm quite sure I have in the past, and I'm quite sure I still have some codswallop beliefs. That's where the fun starts. What are they? If you look at history you'll see some of the strangest beliefs that humans have entertained, and often passed off as reality until a more enlightened generation came along which eventually discarded them, and then the generation after them discarded their ideas. It's tempting to think that it's all leading somewhere.

As Brodie writes:

Viruses of the mind have been with us throughout history, but are constantly evolving and changing. They are infectious pieces of our culture that spread rapidly throughout a population, altering people’s thoughts and lives in their wake. They include everything from relatively harmless mind viruses, such as miniskirts and slang phrases, to mind viruses that seriously derail people’s lives, such as the cycle of unwed mothers on welfare, the Crips and Bloods youth gangs and the Branch Davidian religious cult. When these pieces of culture are ones we like, there’s no problem. However, as the Michelangelo computer virus programs computers with instructions to destroy their data, viruses of the mind can program us to think and behave in ways that are destructive to our lives.

I'm reminded of Voltaire's saying that "history is nothing but a tableau of crimes and misfortunes", and I wonder about the comment a man made to me two weeks ago, that we are basically "a fucked up species". He isn't the only one to express this sentiment to me, and he wasn't hesitant to include himself in this assessment. "We criticise people for the very things we do", he said, "and all we really care about is ourselves". I'm sure there's evolutionary merit in self-concern, but I think this man felt that we are subject not just to a healthy, productive self-concern, but to the eradication of others (think of Hitler here). We can be a contentious, unpleasant lot. And this seems borne out by the fact that over 200 million people lost their lives in war last century. Does that sound like a sane species? If there is a God in heaven, does he watch our slaughter of each other with a sense of amusement, or, "you'll eventually grow up, kids"? Or is the idea of God just another meme exercise? Does God really care when a sparrow falls? Did he care about the extermination of six million Jews? If he did, then he failed to put care into action. All he had to do was make sure Adolf Hitler was aborted. With His omniscience, surely he knew that this creature would bring untold misery to earth, and all He had to do was say the word and the Hitler foetus would have been flushed down a toilet, or never conceived. But he let it grow into a crazed megalomaniac which culminated in the deaths of millions of people. But, my God meme tells me there is still some purpose in this, as the Anne Frank diaries reveal. We can gain comfort by knowing that when we complain about a headache, someone, somewhere, spent 50 years suffering boils. Look, there, says God, what are you complaining about you whinging bastard? Some other bastard has to suffer so you can appreciate how blessed you are, so think of them. "Lighten my load, O Lord, by showing me real suffering!" Somehow this only seems to make sense with the aid of a God meme. So does God exist? I'd have to go with Dawkins on probability and say, "probably not", but as Voltaire again said, "if God didn't exist, he would have to be invented". I'm okay with my current God meme, even if it doesn't explain a damn thing, because it can't do much harm either, unless I choose to let my beliefs harm others, and there's no shortage of that in human history.

But Einstein outlined another problem, "Desire for approval and recognition is a healthy motive, but the desire to be acknowledged as better, stronger, or more intelligent than a fellow being or fellow scholar easily leads to an excessively egoistic psychological adjustment, which may become injurious for the individual and for the community." We could call this the "vanity meme", or the "my God can beat up your God" meme. Yes, it applies to religion too. The vanity meme persuades us that we are always right, which the dictionary defines as bigotry. Some memes aren't very useful, and I'll outline some of them a bit later, and these are the memes that Brodie says can disadvantage us.

But let's not focus on religion and spiritual beliefs alone. I like Bill Beaty's ideas here:

Excess rationality poisons creativity. I perceive many researchers' striving for skeptical rationality and "right answers" as having damaged their creative ability and their capacity to brainstorm. If this were not the case, then most scientists would be just like Richard Feynman, and RF's accomplishments would be common. Creativity comes from our "darker" side, from our crazy irrational subconscious regions. Any overwhelming pursuit of intellect, reason, and skepticism can be poison to creative discovery. If we become certain about what is impossible and what is not, we'll guarantee our blindness to any phenomena which are "too wonderful to be true." History shows that solid knowledge of the limits of possibility were often wrong.

If I become too confident in my ability to judge what is possible, I put unnecessary constraints on my creativity. If I distrust my subconscious realms, then I shut off my creative voice. But if I cultivate some "irrational," "superstitious," and "credulous" styles of thinking, then I dance with Mystery, and court the impossible discoveries.

We should take care not to make the intellect our god; it has, of course, powerful muscles, but no personality. - Einstein.

I've always thought that human creativity has traces of "psychic powers" about it. If PSI is real, then those who strongly deny the existence of everyday PSI are cutting off the source of their own creative thought, to say nothing of giving themselves psychological damage by suppressing the data of their (extra) senses. According to modern science, a "collective unconscious" is impossible. But creative leaps come from a very mysterious source; a strange source whose characteristics fly in the face of a worldview based entirely on materialism. If I insist on "Total Rationality," then I will believe that the irrational parts of creativity are impossible and simply cannot be. And so I will become blind/deaf to them.

And so I tend to pursue an opposite course, involving myself with the dark irrational underbelly of science from whence comes cranks, crackpots, and the *really* creative ideas.

This could all be crackpot stuff, junk memes, but he has a point - we must question and explore all possibilities, and then eradicate what definitely doesn't fit. And that's not always going to be an easy task or choice, because we first have to "see" our blind spots.

More from Beaty:

I myself see the contents of my "weird science" page as being 99% bogus. (Perhaps the index of bogosity is even far higher!) However, hidden in the bulk of the crazy-and-false material there is an extremely valuable 1% which is crazy-but-true. There are diamonds in the compost. But there is no reliable way to sort the crap from the treasure. Therefore I believe that a small portion of federal science funding should be directed to the "crazy" stuff. This would serve the same function as the investment practice of "long-shot betting": investing in businesses having a large chance of failure but also a small chance of incredibly large returns. To support the 1% of our investment which strikes it rich, we must also pour 99% down a hole. (But as with playing the Stock Market, such a thing requires highly skilled investors, not mob rule by a committee called "peer review.")

And Brodie along seemingly similar lines:

This is the most surprising and most profound insight from the science of memetics: your thoughts are not always your own original ideas. You catch thoughts—you get infected with them, both directly from other people and indirectly from viruses of the mind. People don’t seem to like the idea that they aren’t in control of their thoughts. The reluctance of people to even consider this notion is probably the main reason the scientific work done so far is not better known. As we’ll see, ideas people don’t like have a hard time catching on.

Further compounding the problem, you don’t immediately know whether the programming you get from a given mind virus is harmful or beneficial. Nobody every joined a religious cult with the intention of getting brainwashed, moving to Guyana, and committing suicide. When the teenage Bill Gates caught the poker-playing mind virus at Harvard, was that harmful because it kept him from his studies? Or was it beneficial because it helped sway his decision to drop out, start Microsoft, and become a multibillionaire?

At the age of 20, I became "infected" with the Mormon meme, and it possessed me for the better part of 13 years, and even long after that to lesser extents, because we are shaped by what influences us in our heads. As a true believing Mormon, I wanted to share my Mormon Holy Ghost memes with as many others as I could. Often it didn't work, and perhaps that was ultimately a good thing. I could never work out why others didn't "catch" this meme, but at the time of my conversion nearly four million others had caught it. And today some 13 million either have it, or had it until they decided it was a harmful meme. I'm probably in the middle, as I think the Mormon meme can be both good and bad. It's good when it encourages philanthropy, bad when it encourages division and even hatred. I remember, as a Mormon, sometimes, maybe often, thinking of myself as better than others. And having the only true religion on earth made me feel very special. I've long discarded that destructive meme, but not before it created havoc in my life. Destructive memes can destroy us, and we can communicate these memes through language and expressions:

A mind virus is not spread by sneezing, like the flu, or by sex, like AIDS. It’s not a physical thing. Mind viruses are spread by something as simple as communicating. I discuss the ways we get programmed by mind viruses in Chapter 8. In a way, mind viruses are the price of one of the freedoms most dear to us: freedom of speech. The more freedom there is to put forth any communication, the more welcoming the environment for mind viruses.
Some mind viruses arise spontaneously, as I discuss in Chapters 9 and 10; some are created intentionally, as I cover in Chapter 11. But all of them share one thing in common: Once created, a virus of the mind gains a life independent of its creator and evolves quickly to infect as many people as possible.

That's a frightening but true thought. Once we have been overtaken by a particular belief, it can be next to impossible to discard, no matter how irrationally based the belief might be. Witness the phenomenon of ex-Mormonism. They've often been described as angry hordes of screaming people, and they're screaming at their former Mormon Holy Ghost meme-based beliefs. Post-Mormonism, they find it difficult to understand how they could once have believed such codswallop. There are expressions of embarrassment, and unfortunately some of them go on to adopt another destructive meme - the angry ex-Mormon meme. Hopefully, this too, will pass.

Brodie expresses some very powerful and meme-infectious thoughts in the following:

Viruses of the mind are not some far-off future worry like the sun burning out or the earth being hit by a comet. They are here with us now—have been with us since before recorded history—and they are evolving to become better and better at their job of infecting us. We are being infected in some new ways—television, popular music, sales techniques—but also in very ancient ways—education, religious teachings, even talking to our closest friends. Our parents unwittingly infected us when we were kids. If you have children, chances are you are spreading the viruses to them every day.

Read a newspaper? Catch a mind virus. Listen to the radio? Catch a mind virus. Hang out with your friends and shoot the breeze about nothing in particular? Catch one mind virus after another. If your life isn’t going the way you would like, you can bet mind viruses are playing a large part. Having relationship problems? Mind viruses take over parts of your brain and divert you from what would give you long-term happiness in a relationship. Having trouble in your job or career? Mind viruses cloud your future and steer you along a career path that supports their agenda, not your quality of life.

Cult religions are springing up everywhere, the result of more and more powerful mind viruses. These cults take control of people’s minds and make members engage in bizarre behavior ranging from odd rituals to mass suicide. If you think you’re immune, remember: nobody ever set out intentionally to join a cult and have their mind taken over. It’s the work of tricky and pernicious mind viruses. And once the founder of the cult starts the process, the virus of the mind takes on a life of its own.(Emphasis added)

So now you may understand better why some people believe weird things. It's got nothing to do with reality, but with memes. But we should never get comfortable with the idea that what we currently believe is somehow the most rational and best place for us to be. Or the most correct place, because when we do that, we are again into bigotry territory, and this whole post could be a bigoted assumption, but as Brodie wrote:

Let me tell you right now, I have an agenda in writing this book, and that agenda is to make a difference in people’s lives. Some of the content in this book could be used for self-improvement. You might not expect a book about science to include ideas from the self-development field, but the science of memetics deals with the mind, with people’s lives. Understanding memetics can naturally help increase the quality of people’s lives.

In the first place, I would never have written this book—or my first book, Getting Past OK—if I had not intentionally disinfected myself of many of the memes I got as I grew up and reprogrammed myself with new memes. What new memes would you choose to reprogram yourself with, given the chance? That’s entirely up to you. I had no idea what that even meant when I started this research. Now that I do, I choose to program myself with memes that support my values in life rather than ones that support the agendas of viruses of the mind. You can do that or something different. But you won’t have the option to do anything like that unless you understand memetics.

The reason I’m writing this book is that I really enjoy making a difference in people’s lives. My agenda in writing Virus of the Mind is to do just that. I believe that knowledge of memetics is important, and so I’m spreading it. I’m not just writing this book as an intellectual exercise. Although this book is about science, it’s obviously not a scientific text. It’s designed with an intention, and that is to consciously spread the new paradigm of memetics because I think it’s important.

I haven't read Brodie's book, but the introduction has passed on enough information so that I get the idea, er...., memes. Thinking is healthy, and even thinking outrageous thoughts which don't conform to "the community". We influence one another more than we believe through the process of expressing our thoughts, and that's a very good thing. As long as we learn to separate junk memes from healthy ones. A junk meme is one most people eventually recognise and discard, like the yo-yo or Rubic's cube memes, even if at one time it was the main course in society. And that's how we "progress", if you can even call it "progress". Perhaps more like "current meme fashion".

(Note: All responsibility for carelessly accepting junk memes in this post lies with the reader, because the writer is just having some meme fun.)

Daniel C. Peterson: Defender of the Faith.

2008-07-15T09:08:00.005+10:00

Mormon Times recently posted an article "BYU Professor Defends Mormonism" which highlighted perhaps the most controversial modern-day apologist of Mormonism, Professor Daniel C. Peterson. Love him or hate him, Dr. Peterson, or "DCP" as he's sometimes known, is a polarising figure in the world of online Mormonism. Before that DCP was the vanguard FARMS flame-thrower at anything anti-Mormon, and still is, some 19 years later. He is a man determined to vindicate his faith, and prepared to "waste and wear out" his life in doing so. His enemies charge that he's defending a fraud. His loyal followers and observers believe that his knowledge, testimony, and debating skills has what it takes to confound the critics.

According to the article, in defending charges that he's a "paid apologist":

But the Brigham Young University professor has one question for those who feel he's out for financial gain.

"When's the check going to arrive?" Peterson said....While he laughs off those who accuse him of having less-than-honorable intentions, Peterson's motivation for defending the church is entirely serious -- a combination of personal conviction and moral obligation to those in need of answers.

I've made my point of view clear before, this isn't really a big issue, but what it does demonstrate is that DCP is sensitive to criticism like this, which he takes with both humour and personal offence. What bothers some critics is not just a paycheck, even if it's an occasional $200, but the "lurks and perks" that come with apologetics combined with world "tours", which some see as a "jet-setting" lifestyle, a man whose world revolves around study, research, lecturing at universities, media appearances, meeting often with the high and mighty both in and out of the Church, of course added to all of his other duties, such as being a bishop and working on the Middle Eastern Texts Initiative, no small task I would imagine. One wonders where he gets all of this time and energy, and my bet is that most of it comes from his personal conviction about the truth of Mormonism. Dan Peterson isn't in this for the money, but there's little question that he likes the admiration often expressed by those loyal to him, and even some not so loyal, but certainly doesn't appear to crave it. He does this out of personal conviction. For a man who is so heavily criticised, some occasional adulation might offer a bit of balance anyway. I don't agree with critics who say that he must realise Mormonism is a fraud. I'm sure he sees problems, but I believe it is an inner spiritual conviction which drives him, not a full reliance on external facts.

I've followed Dr. Peterson's writings since 1990, and I've previously expressed how they affected me in the 1990s, when I was see-sawing in and out of the Church for brief periods. There's little question in my mind about his engaging spirituality, like a powerful speaker or writer who can capture immediate attention, for better or worse. I even feel safe in saying that there's an intellectual charisma that can sway people who might be experiencing midnight doubts about Mormonism. If you can't fully believe, here is someone with knowledge who still believes, and who slaughters the "gainsayers" Goliath-like. If Dan Peterson were ever to lose his faith in Mormonism, there will be a 20 mile long train wreck behind him, filled with the spiritual dead bodies of believers. Ex-Mormons would celebrate. That's the basic impact of the man known as "DCP", at least in the circle of Mormons and ex-Mormons who have followed and commented about him over the years. He is noted by critics as one who is headstrong and arrogant, dismissive of lesser mortals.

I've only met Dr. Peterson once, when he visited my humble abode Down Under for a few hours respite from a lecture tour in this country in the later part of 2006. From that visit I saw a different side of DCP, one who was familiar with and could converse intelligently on a wide range of subjects, including Australian politics, and a very likable person. In a strange turn of events after our antagonistic confrontation on Zion's Lighthouse Message Board in 2003, where he objected that I had been making judgments of him without ever having met him, I could now make him eat his words. But as it also turned out, my impressions of the man are very favourable. I think he's a decent and honourable human being following his personal convictions, but I simply don't, and can't believe what he believes, and no one can accuse me of not trying. I also believe that his personal faith stands above everything. It is what matters most to him.

Some comments about the Mormon Times article:

While he laughs off those who accuse him of having less-than-honorable intentions, Peterson's motivation for defending the church is entirely serious -- a combination of personal conviction and moral obligation to those in need of answers.

I can attest to his feeling of "moral obligation". When I was going through the cognitive dissonance mill I wrote many scholars of Mormonism in America, and Dan Peterson was one of the few to reply. This is the Good Samaritan version of Mormon apologia. He has time and an answer for everyone, and takes criticism of the Church very seriously, no matter how minor the person may be on the world's stage who is making the criticism. While most scholars would dismiss the minor sycophants as "barking dogs", Dan Peterson takes them seriously, and makes them feel that their questions and/or criticisms are important, even if he doesn't agree. This may seem like a weakness to other scholars, who seldom do this on such a level with their opponents. But there is a limit to his patience, and time, and that has been shown in some invective at times, but is rare. He shakes his head at intractables who keep repeating what a vile and offensive person he is, and for nothing other than his defence of Mormonism. And he once wrote that he observes anti-Mormons as a part of his "research", something like a zoologist would observe animal behaviour, perhaps. But he's no snob, he's prepared to talk to all, and take even the most minor criticisms with some degree of seriousness. However, critics say he doesn't really listen, he's only out to prove his belief correct, and he really doesn't care about them. His ultimate aim is to help guide Mormonism to final victory, and, according to critics, he's a master of spin and diversion. One critic, Bob McCue, referred to him as a sort of Jacques Derrida, a post-modernist defender of Mormonism who skews or ignores historical facts about Mormonism, and always putting the most devastating negative evidence into a new and positive light. The glass is never half-empty, it's always half-full.

"I'm happy to do it," he said. "I really am a believer, and it bothers me to see people out there who come under attack ... and don't have the resources to defend themselves."

Well in the end I didn't return to Mormonism, and I no longer need to be defended. I've been reading FARMS apologia since 1983, and I'm not convinced that the Book of Mormon is history, in spite of Dan's contrary belief. Far from it. In cases like mine I guess Dan only feels I've been blinded. Or perhaps regular doses of sin keep me in the dark, where the light of the Holy Spirit can't shine through. To sin I plead guilty. To reasoning I also plead guilty. Whether the Holy Spirit can revive me with enough high octane revelations to blot out the problems is unlikely, because I'd also have to ignore a lot, and you know what Eric Hoffer said about this, that true belief requires an enormous amount of denial of other "unpleasant" facts. The question that really begs here is what is being defended? The truth? Or the Church? They may be the same in the eyes of the true believer, but they are not the same in eyes outside of Mormonism. It is hardly likely, for example, that Dr. Peterson could ever convince Mesoamerican archaeologist Michael Coe that he's not seeing "the truth" because he "doesn't understand" the Book of Mormon. It might be easier to discredit at face value "amateur archaeologists" like Tom Ferguson, and it wasn't only searching for 25 years for evidence of Nephites in America and finding none that caused Ferguson to lose his faith, he eventually lost it totally over many other issues that troubled him. Even Ferguson's credibility isn't spared the heavy hand of FARMS.

Peterson also participates in online conversations about the church -- saying he spends "way too much time" on the Internet. He's an advocate of making as much information available online as possible.

"To a certain extent, our critics have owned the Internet for awhile," he said. "And I'm not willing to cede that to them.

"In my opinion, we ought to be trying every way we can to reach everyone we can."

I think this effectively sums up what DCP has been doing for many years now. This is, in a sense, a battle for God, the Mormon God, and a battle for the hearts and minds of those paying attention to the debates. And it looks like Mormons want to claim back the Internet. It's not going to be easy, if at all possible. If anything, it would be a great enough task just to keep the criticisms and anger at bay, let alone win back the Internet.

Peterson concedes that the work can be time-consuming, and he's not immune to feelings of sadness that come from being portrayed negatively by critics. But he's learned how to deflect the attacks that come his way.

"Basically I've developed a pretty thick skin," he said. "(It) gets to you sometimes, but on the whole I treat it with humor."

He's even been accused of having too much fun. But even when it's an unpleasant situation, Peterson will take the time to defend the church -- saying he feels "morally obligated."

Contending with critics, after all, is his strength.

"I do it because I'm absolutely committed to the truthfulness of the gospel," Peterson said. "This is one way that I see that I can help build the kingdom.... This is one offering I can make."

In regard to the last line in bold, see my former blog post The Real Purpose of Mormon Apologetics
In conclusion, while there's a lot to admire about Dan Peterson, I believe that ultimately he's fighting a losing battle, not because he doesn't have the knowledge and skills to tackle anti-Mormons, not because he's a bad person, not because he genuinely believes in Mormonism, not because these are "the last days", not because he belongs to the "only true Church", not because he believes God revealed the truth to him. He will lose this battle because in its entirety - Mormonism simply doesn't add up. As I said to a Mormon friend of mine, 2 + 2 does not equal 5. But apologetics tries hard to make it so, and it does so by stalling for as much time as possible, waiting for some kind of vindication, like a Nephite article, or some other tangible proof to help confirm the spiritual witness. It has been a long wait. And this about sums up the problem with apologetics:

"Alice laughed: "There's no use trying," she said; "one can't believe impossible things."
"I daresay you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."
Alice in Wonderland.

What I tell you three times is true.
The Hunting of the Snark.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less."
"The question is," said Alice, "whether you can make words mean so many different things."
"The question is," said Humpty Dumpty, "which is to be master - that's all."
Through the Looking Glass.