WHY?

In recent weeks, several families in our Ward have experienced tragedies and traumas. Then today, we had our Sunday Service and I left the meeting feeling depressed in spirit; depressed because of the words of a leader who said: "Why do bad things happen to good people? I simply don't know."

To clarify, I must say that our stake leaders are good men and women, probably doing the best they can with the time they have, and yet how can a top leader in our stake not know? With the continual cycling (and déjà vu) of "bad things"—with the prolific witness of scripture and history, how can our leaders not be able to articulate the principles of why "bad things happen to good people"?

1. The principle of agency. Children, spouses, friends, strangers, and we ourselves make choices—and choices have consequences. Many, many times those consequences are painful—sometimes so agonizing they seem unbearable, unforgivable, unending.

2. The principle of progression. The comfortable, "untroubled, blessed life," plus fame, money, power (The Three Temptations), and so forth are status-quo and distractive impediments to spiritual and eternal progression which is The Great Plan. Without some motivation to reassess priorities, perspectives, and purposes, we seem to forget that life is, at core, about eternal lives and relationships—not about transient, 3-D material and personal attachments.

3. The principles of law and necessity. Without perfecting faith, hope and charity¹ we cannot be trusted with the greater powers that accompany progression. And like so much else, increasing in faith, hope, and charity comes line upon line, choice upon choice—mostly triggered by reevaluations and recommitments wrung from out of suffering.

4. The principle of submission.²  However anything appears to us, things do not just happen randomly—without God's awareness. And furthermore, God is not asleep, nor dead, nor fickle, nor sadistic. He is a loving God who said:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Old Testament Isaiah 55:8-9)

Is He not telling us that the principle of progression (#2 above) means more than we can possibly comprehend in our 3-D world?³ That we don't know enough to judge what is best for our or another's progression? And that every "bad thing" that flows from agency (or from whatever cause) can be turned to good if we apply it to increasing our faith, hope, and charity?

5. The principle of comfort.

... I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world. (New Testament John 16:32-33)

I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you. (New Testament John 14:18)

Are we open to that comfort? Are we open to the principle of submission to God? Or are we so immersed in our own sense of what is "rational and just"⁴ that comfort is rejected out of hand?

But God's witness and the witness of unnumbered sufferers is that when we remain open, even when understanding is elusive, we shall be comforted (in God's way and timing). Remember Job.⁵

Someone said: "The gospel message is to disturb the comfortable and to comfort the disturbed."

How much peace, comfort, and understanding do we deny ourselves and others when we cannot witness (in appropriate times and ways) about the why of suffering?

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The following are related posts that also address these issues (in greater depth):
1. http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2009/09/agony-of-contradictions.html
2. http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2011/10/will-we-ever-get-it-part-3.html
3. http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2013/01/evolution.html
4. http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2012/11/transrational.html
5. http://dejavu-timestwo.blogspot.ca/2009/09/trauma-happens.html

Evolution?

Do Mormons believe in evolution? One would probably get a mix of answers from both the authorities and the rank and file, because there are a mix of definitions. But there is an "evolution concept" in Mormonism that consistently stirs the antagonism of many fellow Christians. And having recently begun watching "Fires of Faith: The Coming Forth of the King James Bible" one is reminded of the historical predilection toward charges of heresy when beliefs and actions do not conform to the accepted norm.

Also, while researching on the WWWeb, one is unpleasantly reminded that such a predilection is not just historical. The internet is full of pronouncements of disdain for perceived ideological opponents—not only in religious circles, but in most every field of knowledge.

How déjà vu is this (from a recent publication by Sam Harris¹)?

Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them. This may seem an extraordinary claim, but it merely enunciates an ordinary fact about the world in which we live. Certain beliefs place their adherents beyond the reach of every peaceful means of persuasion, while inspiring them to commit acts of extraordinary violence against others. There is, in fact, no talking to some people. If they cannot be captured, and they often cannot, otherwise tolerant people may be justified in killing them in self-defense. This is what the United States attempted in Afghanistan, and it is what we and other Western powers are bound to attempt, at an even greater cost to ourselves and to innocents abroad, elsewhere in the Muslim world. We will continue to spill blood in what is, at bottom, a war of ideas.

And how déjà vu is Richard Dawkins² loathing of alternative theorists?

Have we not evolved to the point where we can

claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God [or not] according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may. (Pearl of Great Price Articles of Faith 1:11)?

The militant atheists are certainly right about the many crimes perpetuated in the name of religion, but it is amazing to hear these "men of [still advancing] science" espouse "old time" solutions as they pursue an agenda to eradicate the "God delusion" (that they believe, but cannot prove).

So what do Mormons believe about evolution? Well, frankly, it seems to be evolving: as knowledge increases; as man's ability to comprehend the incomprehensible increases; as his obedience to law opens up greater vistas. But for the inquiring mind, here are four fascinating explorations:

▪ John A. Widtsoe, Rational Theology (published 1915; Free Kindle download)^[3]

▪ Robert P. Burton and Bruce F. Webster, "Some Thoughts on Higher-dimensional Realms," BYU Studies 20, no. 3 (Spring 1980): 281-296 ^[4]

▪ Eugene England, "Perfection and Progression: Two Complementary Ways to Talk about God," BYU Studies 29, no.3 (Summer 1989): 31–47^[5]

▪ James R. Harris, "Eternal Progression and the Foreknowledge of God," BYU Studies 8, no.1 (Autumn 1967)^[6]

If these ideas are heretical in your mind, how can you be sure? As sure as 16th Century England was in burning her Bible translators and smugglers? As sure as every other soul who has killed for the sake of an idea or opinion? How about live and let live!

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1) http://www.antitheists.co.uk/resources/Sam%20Harris%20-%20The%20End%20of%20Faith.pdf ; see page 28.
2) http://www.ted.com/talks/richard_dawkins_on_militant_atheism.html ; e.g.: "attack religion as a whole" and to eradicate it for its past, present (and future) crimes against humanity; find at minute 8:00 ~ "attack religion as a whole"; at 28:00 ~ "secretly despise religion as much as I do"
[3] http://www.amazon.com/Rational-Theology-Taught-Latter-day-ebook/dp/B004TSA4P0/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1358191597&sr=8-2&keywords=%22rational+theology%22
[4] https://byustudies.byu.edu/showtitle.aspx?title=5426 (click "Download Article Free")
[5] http://eugeneengland.org/wp-content/uploads/sbi/articles/1989_e_001.pdf
[6] https://byustudies.byu.edu/showtitle.aspx?title=4754 (click "Download Article Free")

And Hear the Angels Sing

A Plea from 1849

Edmund H. Sears (1810-1876), a Unitarian minister, wrote a 5-stanza poem titled, "Peace on Earth." It became the popular carol, "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear." In his poem, he expressed a longing for the day when peace and goodwill would envelop the world. He wrote:

Verse 3
Yet with the woes of sin and strife
The world has suffered long;
Beneath the angel-strain have rolled
Two thousand years of wrong;
And man, at war with man, hears not
The love song which they bring;
O hush the noise, ye men of strife,
And hear the angels sing!

Verse 4
And ye, beneath life's crushing load,
Whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way
With painful steps and slow,
Look now, for glad and golden hours
Come swiftly on the wing:
O rest beside the weary road,
And hear the angels sing!

A Call to Action ~ Christmas 2012 (and every year thereafter)

1) Perhaps flash-choirs could gather at the home of every House and Senate person in every state/province/district of their Union this Christmas Eve and peacefully sing one or two carols, ending with these two unfamiliar verses of  "It Came Upon the Midnight Clear." (Sing these two verses with some distinctive emphasis to make clear to our "men [and women] of stife" that it is time to "hush the noise" and "hear the angels sing.")

2) Incorporate more fully into Christmas-giving the ideas of Matthew 25:35-6, 40:

For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me. ... Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

For ideas, you can read the story, "Loving the Savior: Our Christmas Key" by Esther Jane Ward.*

An Every-Morning Devotional

Merry Christmas 1980 [Happy New Year 2013]
by Howard Thurmas

When the song of the angel is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins;

To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers,
To make music in the heart …

(Howard Thurmas, from a Quaker calendar)
(New Era, Dec. 1980, 51)**

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* "Loving the Savior: Our Christmas Key" by Esther Jane Ward, Ensign/December 1980, p. 49 (Item # 4 in the section titled "Sharing"}at http://www.lds.org/ensign/1980/12/sharing/loving-the-savior-our-christmas-key?lang=eng&query=%22esther+jane+ward%22
** http://www.lds.org/new-era/1980/12/merry-christmas-1980?lang=eng&query=%22merry+christmas+%22

Transrational

(No, no! Not transNational—TransRational!)

To a young child, (yea, even to many a teenager), the rules, limitations, suggestions, and corrections of a parent often seem irrational, unreasonable, and malevolently designed to crush the enjoyment of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Well, guess what? Doesn’t life witness that what is irrational to the child is really transrational his/her juvenile perspective; that there is a state of higher awareness—a more encompassing view to consider? A similitude of:

For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts. (Old Testament Isaiah 55:8-9)

So perhaps the déjà vu litanies of the rationally-bound man through the ages¹ are just irrational tantrums upon the hierarchy of man’s evolving identity and destiny. Of course,“rational” beings have many reasonable things to say and insightful observations upon many topics, but when they construct opaque ceilings, one wonders: What are the distortions when “Up” is excised from the quadrants of inquiry?

What would life be like if:

1. We inquired and observed full circle instead of excising our own offensive quadrant?
2. We allowed all to worship (or not), how, where, or what they might, without trying to expunge them?
3. We were free to speak our minds, but rational and transrational enough to agree to disagree agreeably?

For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. (New Testament 1 Corinthians 13:12)

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1. Modern manifestations of (self-confessed) rational imprisonment being Rand (msRIP), Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens (mhRIP), Stenger, et al.

“Same Old Story” (another SOS!)

In recent days, a commenter (#48, 53) at the TIMES AND SEASONS website¹ wrote how he had heard Ayn Rand quoted and recommended in priesthood meeting. And why not?! Despite her fervent atheism, didn’t she propagate profound truths? Just ask Paul Ryan.² Or Ron Paul. Or Rand(al) Paul. Or Alan Greenspan. Or scores of evangelicals. Or unnumbered current and former BYU students.

Ayn Rand for years was the most popular author by far here in the [BYU] bookstore. They would sell more of her books than any other [author's], and her books have such titles as The Virtue of Selfishness.³

It has been the same [old] story all along, only suddenly we have reached a new level. For the first time selfishness goes by its own name: "The virtue of selfishness" is the testament of Ayn Rand, the guru of Milton Friedman, Alan Greenspan, and James Watt, long the favorite reading of BYU students. "No other civilization has permitted the calculus of self-interest so to dominate its culture," writes R. L. Heilbroner; "it has transmogrified greed and philistinism into social virtues, and subordinated all values to commercial values." This is exactly what Thomas More said: "What has heretofore passed as unjust, . . . they have turned upside down, and in fact proclaimed it publicly and by law to be nothing less than justice itself." Mr. Ivan Boesky, in a college convocation, commended "healthy greed" as a virtue to be cultivated by the young.⁴

This was my response (#57) at the Times and Seasons:

(Re: # 48, 53) The love affair with Ayn Rand that “informs” the political economy of too many Mormons (and other Christians) is simply a déjà vu seduction—the latter-day version of God’s perpetual complaint against His chosen^[5] people (as detailed in Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Nephi, etc.). A condensed version of Rand’s philosophy can be found at Alma 30: 17. For the looong version read John Galt’s radio address from Atlas Shrugged. Or if you have [one has] the time and endurance, read the book and monitor the skill of seduction. Then do your own comparative; (mine is at http://www.dejavu-times.blogspot.ca/2012/11/comparatively-speaking.html ). Considering the enduring influence of Rand, maybe more of us need to be informed enough to protest the co-mingling of Rand and God, which I suspect is anathema to both.

A digital PDF version of Galt’s speech can be found at pp. 767-814 http://www.mises.ch/library/Rand_AtlasShrugged.pdf

So you see, it’s the “Same Old Story” (SOS!). Seeing [snippets of Ayn] we see not; hearing [sound bites of Ayn] we hear not how utterly flawed her premises are. She was always advising others to check their premises. Her own premises, having emerged in her mind at the age of 2½ years,⁶ were beyond further scrutiny (or observation).

The altruism she despised, that had been preached for thousands of years, was, for her, the root of evil. If she had believed in God, she might have checked her premises against both His word AND “objective reality” (which we can all do). In scripture, she would have found the lament that evil arises, not by the failure of altruism, but the failure to live its precepts; by the insistence on doing and having things our own way; and through neglect of the two great commandments.⁷ But no, Ayn’s supposed solution was to espouse the same old selfishness (SOS! again) that has plagued the natural man⁸ since before Day One.

So yes, let us get informed about Ayn and her [faux-]Objectivism and refuse to sustain the unsustainable. Some of her criticisms of government have legitimacy, but her solutions have NONE. If we don’t understand that, her proffered solutions will only exacerbate the dire problems of selfishness that she falsely attributed to altruism.

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1. http://timesandseasons.org/index.php/2012/11/still-outside/
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WmW19uoyuO8&feature=endscreen&NR=1 . (There are other avowals of Rand influence, but Ryan backed off those in 2012 because of adverse publicity.)
3. Hugh Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon--Semester 1: Transcripts of Lectures Presented to an Honors Book of Mormon Class at Brigham Young University, 1988--1990 [Provo: Foundation for Ancient Religion, 310.
4. Hugh Nibley, Approaching Zion, edited by Don E. Norton [Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1989], 466-467.
5. “Chosen,” not in the sense of unearned favors, but chosen to be witnesses and examples to the world that there is more to life and eternity than power, fame, and stuff.
6. Ayn Rand interview with Tom Snyder (1 of 3) from 8:09 – 8:38 seconds at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4doTzCs9lEc [Sept. 3, 2022: Since this video is no longer available, paste this link in the internet archive - WayBackMachine - to access it there.]
7. New Testament Matthew 22:36-40: Master, which is the great commandment in the law? Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
8. Book of Mormon Mosiah 3:19: For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.

Handbook to Hell?

And it came to pass that Adam, being tempted of the devil—for, behold, the devil was before Adam, for he rebelled against me, saying, Give me thine honor, which is my power; and also a third part of the hosts of heaven turned he away from me because of their agency; And they were thrust down, and thus came the devil and his angels; And, behold, there is a place prepared for them from the beginning, which place is hell. And it must needs be that the devil should tempt the children of men, or they could not be agents unto themselves; for if they never should have bitter they could not know the sweet— (Doctrine and Covenants Section 29:36-39; bold emphasis added)

Have you ever wondered what “the pitch” was that turned a third part of the hosts of heaven toward the opposition? Was it a mix of truth and lies? Did it contain more truth than lies? Was that the great persuasion—the truths so pervasive and apparent that the lies became lost in translation? Or was the truth so mocked, exaggerated, contorted and disparaged that good appeared evil and evil good? Perhaps it was a mix of both approaches.

If you want to experience a disturbing déjà vu of those pre-mortal times when the adversary pitched his case, you might consider John Galt’s lengthy radio address¹ (begins p. 767) from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged.

The alarming (though perhaps expected and déjà vu) thing is how persuasive² the pitch still remains in this world—our second estate.³

How persuaded are you?

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1. A digital PDF version of this speech can be found at pp. 767-814 http://www.mises.ch/library/Rand_AtlasShrugged.pdf . Galt’s devotee Francisco d’Anconia also gave a speech on money at pp. 313-316 (PDF) that could perhaps be considered a mortal addendum to the pre-mortal pitch. [The 35th Anniversary hard copy Plume Book version (© 1992) has 1168 pages; the PDF has 891.]

2. “In 1991, a survey conducted for the Library of Congress and the Book-of-the-Month Club asked club members what the most influential book in the respondent’s life was. Rand’s Atlas Shrugged was the second most popular choice, after the Bible.” [from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayn_Rand under “Popular Interest” subheading.)

3. (Pearl of Great Price | Abraham 3:26-28) And they who keep their first estate shall be added upon; and they who keep not their first estate shall not have glory in the same kingdom with those who keep their first estate; and they who keep their second estate shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever. And the Lord said: Whom shall I send? And one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first. And the second was angry, and kept not his first estate; and, at that day, many followed after him [bold emphasis added].

(New Testament Jude 1:6) And the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under darkness unto the judgment of the great day.

Some Choice!!!

Yesterday, a die-hard, grass-roots conservative said to me, “If I had to choose between government corruption and corporate corruption, I would choose the corporate.” He does not seem aware that much of the current government corruption is “purchased” by huge corporations in order to enhance and protect their own (not just national, but) global profits and devastations. He has bought into the Libertarian idea that government regulation is the root of (unfortunate) free-market and social evils. He, like most of his ideological mates, is utterly naïve about the true nemesis of a Zion society.

Babylon is happy to point her engorged finger at government. She is delighted to deflect attention from her abuses. She is thrilled to shift blame. She spends millions attempting to silence voices of warning. And more millions to produce enough pop, porn, paraphernalia, and propaganda to keep people sufficiently sick, addicted, debt-ridden, and deceived that the voices go unheard. Voices like:

The Future of Food ¹
Inside Job ²
You, Me & the SPP ³
The World According to Monsanto ⁴
Toxic Sludge is Good for You! ⁵
Sweet Remedy: Adulterated Food Supply ⁶
Corporate Crime and Violence ⁷

This is but a miniscule sample of the voices crying in the latter-day wilderness. Perhaps we could take an hour or two a day for ONE week and listen. Would it make a difference? Would we finally clue in that the (déjà vu) “natural man”⁸ operating in the artificial form of a faux-person has become an insatiable, collectivized, rampaging beast?

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1. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Future_of_Food ; http://www.thefutureoffood.com/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inside_Job_(film) ; http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/inside-job/
3. http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/trading-democracy-for-corporate-rule/ http://watchdocumentary.com/watch/you-me-and-the-spp-trading-democracy-for-corporate-rule-video_06d2f63f7.html ;
4. http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-world-according-to-monsanto/
5. http://www.prwatch.org/tsigfy.html ; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yaMh8KGfkTM
6. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SUubCJz2d8U or http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/sweet-remedy/
7. by Russell Mokhiber. Read his 1988 book entitled, Corporate Crime and Violence: Big Business Power and the Abuse of the Public Trust. Things have not improved. http://multinationalmonitor.org/hyper/issues/1987/04/editorial.html
8. (Old Testament Ecclesiastes 9:3) … the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, … ; (Old Testament Jeremiah 17:9) The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it? ; (New Testament Romans 8:7) … the carnal mind is enmity against God: …. ; (Book of Mormon Mosiah 3:19) For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.