Defense of Truth

So a friend of mine gave an example of something unrelated to my post at church the other day. It was the story of her attitude as she drives her school bus every day. She likes to take care to note if a student looks sad or upset or anything out of the ordinary positive she expects, then she makes an effort to get them to talk about it and deal with it before they arrive at school, if possible. In her description of her attitude, she mentioned that she had the power to potentially make or break a student's day. I turned back to her to make the compliment, then: I'm glad it's you with that power. She got flustered, embarrassed, and felt the need to corner me afterwards and clarify, backing down from the very word "power", as if it somehow automatically suggested its own abuse. Why can't people think of power as ability, as potential to do, as a neutral tool to be used, like any other tool, for good or ill? "Absolute power corrupts absolutely," objec

Here's another Facebook conversation I shouldn't have stuck my nose into today. Please note what passes for objectivity. Also Liberal Friend B presents an interesting assumption. Apparently, conservatives have evil intentions and no other explanation for their actions is possible, or even really thinkable. It couldn't possibly be that they have an actual logical disagreement on the merits of the issue at hand... Liberal Friend A: So we don't want to pass a treaty with Russia because... the Republicans don't want to comply with international law? We'll hunt you down if you have nukes, but don't ask us to get rid of ours. Right? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/17/world/europe/17start.html?pagewanted=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=a2 G.O.P. Opposition Dims Hope for Arms Treaty With Russia www.nytimes.com The chief Senate Republican negotiator dealt a setback to President Obama’s effort to pass a treaty with Russia. Me: Thanks for the read. It reminds me why I

My family and heart have ties back to Saskatchewan where I grew up. Currently there is some discussion of privatizing some of the current provincial government monopolies (called "Crown corporations") of which one--Sasktel, the province's only phone carrier, wired and wireless--is the employer of one of my good friends. Here is our conversation: Me: I hate to sound callous, but we don't make buggy whips anymore for a reason: there's cars now. I hope I can make a contrary opinion without seeming harsh, but I really don't understand much of this thinking. It's sounding a lot to me like you guys have lived under a monopoly for so long you've forgotten how detrimental they can be. If a competitor comes in to SK it won't destroy anything Sasktel does well, it will just force it to demonstrate what that is, via competition. Its talent pool will come from the same industry, so full-time/part-time won't really be an issue (can't get the hours you w

Article My response: I am a Mormon. To the extent the report on these local leaders is true, I condemn their lack of Christian spirit. The report is obviously not even close to even-handed, so I suspect there's a context we'll never get here. On the other hand, it IS obviously trying to make a point about MormonISM in general, and NOT just the local leaders. The Church in general has a good track record, and an especially good one in disaster areas, where local units are able to mobilize boots on the ground faster than the Red Cross in most cases. And even more importantly, I reject the premise that somehow prioritizing where to place one's charitable resources is somehow evil and un-Christian. It seems like these local leaders took the general rule a little too far, but it is NOT wrong to want to take care of one's family first, one's congregation next, and one's fellow community members after that if there's room/resources left to spare. In fact, it would

The scientific process of hypothesis testing and experimentation to arrive at knowledge describes exactly the process of faith building, because faith is "the evidence of things not seen". Atheists and the like interpret Paul's words to mean somehow blind belief stands in for evidence, but that's just backwards from his plain meaning. The thing is that in this world there are some things so difficult to prove fully, even though there's plenty of evidence for them, that people can go a long way in their ongoing process of faithful experimentation before they are brought to a point where the evidence no longer supports their hypothesis. I daresay the vast majority of humankind has died without understanding basic truths about God, about His requirements for Celestial life, etc. LDS doctrine makes room for these. The Book of Mormon conceives of life as a testing period, just as the Bible obviously does. And it talks plainly of a waiting place, a time between death a