Results of Ruminations

Note: This is the third and final essay in my quasi-epistemological analysis of Truth. The first and second parts are also available. Additionally, this is the last planned daily essay on this website. Additional content can be found at my website. Thank you for reading.  Third Assumption We have a duty to learn as much Truth as possible. The meaning "obligation or duty" is tucked into the Greek word deon- and is usually known through the Kantian system of ethics known as deontology . And though I'm familiar with his work, I can't boast to have read all his works. So if he's on the same wavelength as me on this aspect of the application of his moral philosophy I don't know. Nevertheless, I think it can be rationally asserted that it is incumbent on every human being to learn more about the world. It satisfies the categorical imperative in his maxim "Act only on that maxim through which you can at the same time will that it should become a universal ...

Unless you're new to my posts, you've probably already figured out that I'm a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. As a life-long Mormon, I've spent a lot  of time thinking and learning about the teachings of my church. I've learned that some stuff isn't real stuff but cultural stuff (e.g. having to wear a white shirt to Sunday meetings; caffeine isn't the thing that's forbidden in the Word of Wisdom). I've also learned some cool stuff that is real stuff (e.g. God's love for all His children; the grace of Christ is monumental and beyond capacious). But one thing that I never really learned about in official Church settings (General Conferences, Sunday Schools, Institute/Seminary classes) was the broadness of religious thought that the world has yielded. Despite being awash in my religion, I've never gone deeply into religion s . There's an explanation for this, of course--plenty of them. One is the fact that Mormon...

At the time of this writing, Hurricane Irma is venting its fury on Florida . The hurricane pummeled Key West, then swung up, smashing into Florida's Gulf coast. With Hurricane Harvey hardly in the rear view mirror, and Hurricane Jose on the way, it's pretty clear that there's some catastrophic weather happening at the time. Florida--southeast Florida, to be exact--has a special place in my heart: I served my two-year long mission in Miami-Dade and Broward counties. While I never personally went farther south than the Kendall/Hammocks area, my mission boundaries included everyone in Key West up to West Palm Beach, with the Everglades on the east and the Bahamas out in the west. So though the hurricane is currently pummeling the western part of the peninsula, the areas where I served thirteen to fifteen years ago are in rough shape. So, even though Hurricane Harvey's deluge of Houston was in my country, and my heart, thoughts, and prayers went out to them, seeing my o...

When a youth from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints decides to volunteer for an eighteen- to twenty-four month mission, said youth agrees to abstain from a lot of things that generally comprise the majority of a kid's living experience: No dating, no popular/secular music, no contact with home save emails once a week and a couple of calls, and no watching movies, especially not in the theater. This list of Don't Commandments is designed to strip away the distractions of normal life so that the limited time as a missionary can be focused on the purpose of dedicated missionary life: Preaching the gospel. So it makes sense within the internal logic of the Church's system and it is, for the most part, an effective maneuver that does help keep missionaries honed in on their purpose. The fascinating thing about this forced fast of films is that there's an unspoken but fairly well understood cultural expectation on the other end of the service. Young women (a...

I'm reading a book about Reconstructivists, a particular brand of fundamentalist Christianity that is better known for their effects than for their name. The book, Building God's Kingdom , looks closely at the manifestations of Reconstructivism within the purview of education. It's the backbone of the homeschooling movement, as well as school choice and other cultural and political reverberations of similar ilk. Julie Ingersoll explores this mostly through a close reading and careful history of a fellow named Rousas John Rushdoony and the manifold ways in which his vision of education in America ought to be constrained by biblical teachings and interpretations. He and his followers (even those who disagree with some of his points and modify them to fit their own means--as followers often do) have cast the world in a binary: Theism and humanism. Now, I'm a sectarian humanist, which may sound like a contradiction in terms, but that's because "secular hum...

Thanks to the omnipresent (and omniangry) influence of the Twitter.com, I learned about the Nashville Statement . Rather than spend time summing it up for you, I'll let you follow the link and make your own decisions about it. For me and my part, I've already sounded off on this topic (broadly speaking), so I've not a lot too change here. I have thought a lot about the issues of LGBTQ+ rights, as I see them as a crucial point in the life of my church (the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints) as well as the nation. The idea of allowing legal discrimination is puzzling to me, and though there might be some compelling arguments for areas of discrimination (say, disallowing a person with rage issues to work at a child care facility), the concept of sexual orientation isn't one that really computes for me. I simply can't see why it matters so much to people who don't participate in an LGBTQ+ lifestyle what those within the lifestyle do. From a doctrinal ...

Note: This is part two in a three part analysis. Part one can be found here .  Second Assumption The pathways to understanding Truth are legion.  This posit would entail epistemological considerations that I'm not interested in following here, but anyone curious could start here for an overview of the philosophy. Rather, I'm interested in pursuing broader swaths of understanding and knowledge, recognizing that a lot of the road has been paved by philosophers and theologians, but focusing more on my own process of thinking. To begin, I think there's something to be said about prima facie  impulses about basic sensory data. The sun is hot, we can feel it and see it, and those physical stimuli come from a cause which we can point to and agree with. Intersubjective agreement may be necessary on one level, but once there, we're discussing common knowledge, verified through the senses. This kind of truth can be considered a rudimentary Truth--human senses are trigge...

A story of the evolution of a thought, in three parts. I Growing up, I didn't know if I knew anyone who was LGBTQ+. Middle school and high school happened throughout the nineties, and though there was still some AIDS conversations in hushed tones in the hallways at school, the judgment of homosexuality particularly (the rest of the gender and orientation spectrum being even more suppressed than it is now) was somehow tied into the disease. I lived a sheltered life, shared with friends who didn't know much about sexuality--or, if they did, they didn't bring it up around me. This meant that most of my understanding of sexuality and human relationships was narrowly confined. I remember the first time my mom explained how gays have sex, and the disgust and disdain in her voice still echoes.* I don't know what inspired it, or if there's another way of reading that conversation. It was long ago, and I daresay that I may have misremembered what was said. Neverthele...

There's something that I really want to talk about, but I don't know if there's ever a place or venue in which I should. I know that I shouldn't talk about it here or on Twitter, as I have students who read both. Even if I don't share such an essay online, it'd be  online, archived and ready for viewing. It isn't that I think that this Topic is so horrible or scandalous that students shouldn't read it, but rather I don't know if I want to talk about this Topic with them. I could verbalize it; make my wife suffer through my poorly constructed ideas and rambling sentences. That's the most likely outlet, but I don't know what I expect by airing this Topic, so I don't know if it will help or hinder my feelings. Additionally, it's difficult to know when to have important conversations, what with the differences in patience, energy levels, and emotional states of the different participants. Sometimes, I'd really like to talk about som...

Brigham Young: The gospel of Jesus Christ embraces all truth. All truth is for the salvation of the children of men—for the benefit and learning—for their furtherance in the principles of divine knowledge; and divine knowledge is any matter of fact—truth; and all truth pertains to divinity (DBY, 11). Be willing to receive the truth, let it come from whom it may; no difference, not a particle. Just as soon receive the Gospel from Joseph Smith as from Peter, who lived in the days of Jesus. Receive it from one man as soon as another. If God has called an individual and sent him to preach the Gospel that is enough for me to know; it is no matter who it is, all I want is to know the truth (DBY, 11). “Mormonism,” so-called, embraces every principle pertaining to life and salvation, for time and eternity. No matter who has it. If the infidel has got truth it belongs to “Mormonism.” The truth and sound doctrine possessed by the sectarian world, and they have a great deal, all belong t...

You likely already know quite a bit about the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints if you're reading this blog--particularly if you're a regular reader, as I talk about Mormonism and Mormon life pretty regularly--and since it's Sunday, I wanted to talk about a random observation I had the other week, and it's about wine. See, in the LDS Church, we don't drink sacramental wine; we use tap water (which, incidentally, tastes like pool water at the chapel where I attend) and scraps of donated bread to represent the blood and body of Jesus Christ. I realize that's one more split from mainstream Christianity (but I already wrote about why that doesn't bother me), but I think there's a lot to be said about a thimble of water and a crust of (almost always) white bread to help remind me of the sacrifice of the Christ. The plastic cups are Church made and provided. The bread is donated. ( Source ) Why don't we use wine? In a revelation given t...

Jacques Derrida (as quoted in How to Read Derrida  pg 77): For there to be a gift, there must be no reciprocity, return, exchange, countergift, or debt. If the other gives me back  or owes  me or has to give me back what I give him or her, there will not have been a gift, whether this restitution is immediate or whether it is programmed by a complex calculation of a long term deferral or difference [ differance ]. This is all too obvious if the other, the donee, gives me back immediately  the same thing...For there to be a gift, it is  necessary that the donee not give back, amortize, reimburse, acquit himself, enter into a contract, and that he never have contracted a debt...The donee owes it to himself  even not to give back, he ought not owe  and the donor ought not count on restitution. Is it thus necessary, at the limit, that he not recognize  the gift as gift? If he recognizes it as  gift, if the gift appears to him as such , if the p...

Like Harry Baker  (start at 1:29), I like people. This is easy to say in general, because there are some specific humans that I have little respect or appreciation for beyond the simple truth that we're all connected--the beautiful and the despicable. And considering the unflagging pessimism that louers over my heart and the tumultuous sea of depression that too often capsizes me in its troughs, this is no small thing. Indeed, it's the love of people--more than love of self--that keeps me around. That isn't to say that I am in a perpetual state of desiring suicide--quite the opposite; I don't want this ride on Earth to end, and thinking of "the undiscovered country" propels me through more of Hamlet's "To be or not to be" soliloquy than is probably healthy and a more-than-white-knuckle-grip on however many numbered breaths I will yet claim. But that doesn't mean that I haven't thought about leaving the world on my own terms. I was ...

Does God wear a tie? I'm not an archaeologist, so I don't spend a lot of my time researching the fashions of history (except for late Elizabethan and early Jacobean England because of course ). Additionally, fashion doesn't particularly speak to me--I try to look nice (most of the time) in a conventional, conservative way. It's one of the few areas in my life where I'm comfortable modifying it with the descriptor "conservative". But when talking about God (or Jesus, which is similar and, yet, different), I start running into imaginative cul-de-sacs. Starting at the beginning (you know, 16th century Italy), I'd have to say that my mental concept for God would have to be Michelangelo's. As a lifelong Mormon and participant in selective parts of Christianity , this is a good starting point. The original finger beam shooter. ( Source ) While an art historian could probably bring in a lot of potential layers of meaning, I'm considering fas...