Vader’s recent post on agency and education got me thinking about one of my favorite books, Approaching Zion, by the inestimable Hugh Nibley, and in particular, the chapter entitled Work we must, but the Lunch is Free. 

Imagine this world is our education, our school and that lunch is merely those we need to live.

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In the previous posts of this series, I developed a definition of freedom as the ability to make meaningful and consequential decisions; briefly discussed the three key concepts in this definition (ability, meaningfulness, and consequence); and described liberty as the set of social constructs we erect to sustain freedom.

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What Really Drives Suicide Bombers, Rampage Shooters, and Other Self-Destructive Killers, by Adam Lankford.
John Batchelor interviewed the book author on his radio show:
Listen to this episode/podcast at this web page.

The book at Amazon.

This may appeal to others besides myself. I wish I could see it. From the Washington Post:

“Okay, you walk — one, two, three, four, five, six, seven — and kneel on eight,” Stiefel tells Sarah Steele, a willowy, dark-eyed 22-year-old. She was recently hired as an apprentice, and Stiefel plucked her from that bottom rank to star in his ballet. Her courage at the outset of rehearsals attracted him. She possesses, he says, “the essence of a strong, brave artist.”

“You have a full eight counts to zip,” he continues. “Then you’ll get lifted. Turn on four, arms on five. Four counts for the gloves. . . . Lift on five; six, you get into the backpack.”

Steele and the dancer-crew members who are helping her dress eye him intently, tallying up the counts in their heads. The first few run-throughs are rocky — Steele’s zipper snags on the waistband of her tights, the gloves don’t cooperate. The helmet strap must be snapped — oh, where is it, where’s that dang other end? — and, meanwhile, the cyber beats in the commissioned music are racing on. Ah, at last, success! Well, the helmet’s a little askew. But Steele stands triumphant, ready for takeoff, fists clenched at her sides in the ready position.

“This is going to work,” Stiefel assures his dancers. “This will be absolutely no problem. We have two weeks to work on it.”

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I have nostalgia for lives I’ve never lived.

I was just driving through a tiny foothills Spanish colonial landgrant.  There are a few small adobes, willows and cottonwoods by the streams, a twisted apple tree, a few cattle, stacks of firewood, everyone related.  And I felt a strong sense of the distinctness and value of their life.  And an attraction, like nostalgia.

That’s what the best tourism usually is.  Nostalgia for unlived lives.  Imaginative communion with them. (more…)

Since equality never happens in nature; either men must understand women better than women understand men; or else women understand men better than men understand women – on average.

(Or, the difference could be too small to make a difference, except perhaps at the extremes.)

So which is it?

I would say the answer is obvious: men understand women better than vice versa!

More exactly, over time most men learn to understand women better and better; but women instead learn to tolerate that which they do not ever understand.

Why? Perhaps because biologically men court and women choose; so men want and need to understand women so they will mate with them. A woman (a young healthy woman, anyway) is intrinsically in-demand, and doesn’t really need to understand men – just to pick the best one available…

We’ll just get ultra-conservative Pence as Pres.
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In the first part of this series of posts, I proposed a definition of freedom as the ability to make meaningful and consequential choices. I offered some explanation of the three elements of this definition, namely: ability, meaningfulness, and consequence. In the second part of this series of posts, I reflected on the significance of freedom as a gift from God, pointed out that there is strong opposition to freedom, and described liberty as the set of social and legal constructs we are duty-bound to erect and sustain to protect and enhance freedom.

In this post, I will discuss some of the aspects of liberty that support the second element of freedom, namely, meaningfulness.

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LDS readers will get this elsewhere, but for our non-LDS readers….

The church has announced that as of Jan 1st, 2018, it will no longer charter/register Varsity Scouts and Venturing.  This only affects Youth age 14 and up.  Programs for Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts through age 13 will continue.  Merit badges and rank advancement will also continue for those age 14-up for those who want to.

This only applies to USA and Canada.

Details here: http://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/questions-answers-changes-young-men-program

There is a link to a pdf of the official church announcement at that web page.

I’ve never been involved with the YM (Young Men) programs at church, so I’m ignorant of what all the changes will entail, or how the merit badges and rank advancment (only) will work out.

One obvious and uncontroversial fact about Mormons is that they are one of very few groups in the modern world who have, by and large, wholesome and sustainable aspirations relating to marriage and family. And a high proportion of Mormons live by these aspirations.

How does this work, how do they manage it?

Here are some speculations (and they are speculations).

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The root of it seems to be religious – and relating to the distinctive religious doctrines and emphases of Mormonism (in other words, Mormon exceptionalism is not attributable to something like genetic inheritance or pure culture).

But many mainstream Christians have similar aspirations to Mormons, yet utterly fail to live by them – and most Christian denominations have long since given-up trying to resist the sexual revolution.

My guess is that Mormonism has certain interlinked features which enable it, uniquely among Christian denominations to achieve what they believe.

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For young men the fact that Mormonism is a Patriarchal religion is a guarantee of significant status for all men: this is enhanced by the fact that a married man is normally expected to be the priest for his wife and family – a divinely-ordained and honoured position.

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Why would a man, qua man – and not specifically as a Mormon – want to remain chaste, marry early, and stay faithful to a Mormon woman?

(Bearing in mind that a high status Mormon man would usually be surrounded by non-Mormon opportunities for extra-marital sex, and for marriage.)

Perhaps because – assuming he does indeed want to marry, and stay married, and raise a family; then Mormon women are more likely than average to be chaste and faithful and orientated to motherhood (in so far as upbringing can influence a person’s behaviour).

Mormon women are also expecting to marry while young, while non-Mormon women often delay marriage.

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But what of Mormon women?

As a rule, women control the sexual marketplace: they are the gate-keepers. This especially applies to young women (nowadays by their own choice, but throughout history and still in much of the world by very strict the familial control of young women’s sexual behaviour).

If you control the sexual behaviour of women, then – indirectly but effectively – you pretty much also control the sexual behaviour of men.

So, it is probably the behaviour of Mormon women that underpins the success of the Mormon system of marriage and family (combined with the above-mentioned preference of high status Mormon men to marry Mormon women).

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The difficulty most religions (or cultures) have is retaining young, attractive women within the faith, when young attractive women are in demand with men of any and every faith.

For example, an exceptionally attractive woman from almost any background or group can and (unless there are enforced social prohibitions) will often marry almost any man, no matter high status. So a beautiful slave, chorus girl, or gypsy girl can (and did) sometimes marry a Lord, King or Emperor.

What stops the most beautiful Mormon women marrying high status men outside the faith (and undermining the whole system)?

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Usually, this problem is dealt with by extreme coercive and perhaps violent sanctions against those women who look outside the faith for partners or husbands: but this is emphatically not the case among Latter Day Saints.

So, if there are not strong sanctions against marrying-out; then there must (it seems) be strong incentives for the most beautiful Mormon women to marry – in – to marry only Mormon men, and indeed only the most devout of Mormon men.

So why do Mormon women so often choose to remain chaste until marriage, and then marry a Mormon man, and then stick with him, and (usually) have as large a family as they can afford to raise decently?

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Part of the answer, I suggest, involves the Mormon prohibition on alcohol; because alcohol is a thing which – even in moderation, but especially in excess (which is ever more common) – enables or promotes female promiscuity.

This is my tentative explanation:

Most women are naturally chaste in the sense of being highly-selective and care-full in their choice of sexual partners; and generally requiring commitment before allowing sex. This is an expected product of evolution because throughout much of history, women who were not selective about sexual partners would not have raised many children to adulthood.

In modern Western society, this has been continually attacked for many decades by unprecedented levels of propaganda from the mass media; but one neglected factor in the increased promiscuity of non-Mormon women is alcohol.

Alcohol removes inhibition; indeed alcohol is strategically used for this purpose. Getting the woman drunk is a strategy used by seducing men; but more recently it is also used by on women themselves – to remove their own spontaneous (biologically bred) inhibitions.

Without alcohol, most women find it very difficult (psychologically difficult) to be promiscuous – even when they consciously ‘want’ to be.

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Therefore, I think a necessary (not sufficient) factor in the chastity of Mormon women, is the prohibition on alcohol; and therefore prohibition is a necessary factor in the success of the Mormon system of marriage and family (but specifically for women).

It is the absolute prohibition on alcohol – in the context of the Mormon religion, and the social system – that enables most Mormon women to live-up to the high Christian ideals of their society.

 

Note: The above comes from my online mini-book Speculations of a Theoretical Mormon – theoreticalmormon.blogspot.co.uk – which was ‘published’ about three years ago and before I began blogging here. I am interested to know how this argument strikes Junior Ganymede readers.

“Christensen is a Mormon.” It’s got a Danish great-grandfather pulling a hand cart, courting a girl from a family of fourteen, and praying nightly about the truth of the Book of Mormon until “One evening in October, 1975, as I sat in the chair and opened the book following my prayer, I felt a marvelous spirit come into the room and envelop my body. I had never before felt such an intense feeling of peace and love. I started to cry, and did not want to stop. I knew then, from a source of understanding more powerful than anything I had ever felt in my life, that the book I was holding in my hands was true.”

More good stuff such as dealing with death as a believing Mormon. New Yorker readers will be more edified than usual. Also a bunch of disruptive innovation.

Like many Mormon missionaries, I was the catalyst for a fair number of overdue weddings.

Been together for years, have several kids together*, can’t imagine living their lives separately, just never got around to an actual wedding. Indeed, it was usually impossible to tell which domestic arrangements were official until you asked them at the end of the fourth discussion. Happily, the goal of preparing for baptism was all that some of them needed to take the plunge (no pun intended).

Then there were the others, with the common refrain: “Why does it matter if we get married? We’re already together. It’s just a piece of paper.” (more…)

The first part of this series of posts proposed a definition of freedom: Freedom is the ability to make meaningful and consequential choices. There I suggested that ability implied a free will, understood as a first cause capable of initiating new causal chains. Meaningful choices are ones which can be made rationally between distinguishable alternatives. Consequential choices are ones that have lasting significance. I further proposed that, in the divine scheme of things, lasting significance implies an eternal Judgment of those choices. Reconciling these attributes of freedom with the omniscience, omnipotence, and benevolence of God requires that the causal chains generated by choices exist in a sphere significant to God, but in which He chooses not to exercise His full omnipotence, and which is bounded by His taking the causal chains arising from evil choices into Himself, in the person of the Son, via the Atonement.

In this post, I summarize my understanding of why freedom is a gift from an benevolent God, why it is precious, and  how this understanding informs our approach to liberty, here defined as the social and legal constructs that arise from our understanding of freedom and its worth.

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Christ brought theosis to the world – that is, he made possible our full divinity as Sons and Daughters of God… if we wish to accept this gift, with its responsibilities.

(Salvation is vital; but is not, should not be, the main thing in life – and the incarnation of Christ was not required to make salvation possible. God the Father could give us salvation, even without the work of Christ.)

School closed because student shows up in Darth Vader mask.

And I’m distressed that the article is unclear on whether it was actually a Darth Vader mask or a mere stormtrooper mask.