Defense of Truth

Okay, we're going to have to hit this polygamy issue several times to really put it to rest. Again, I have NOT thought this one all the way through yet, but my preliminary hypothesis goes something like this: Whatever God says is right, therefore, if He commands it, polygamy must be not only acceptable, but true, right, and good as a principle of eternal happiness. However, my understanding of HOW it might make one happy in the sense of bringing a durable, eternal joy, is severely lacking. I can demonstrate to you how the principle of love, marriage, and having children can bring joy, but I'm at a loss as soon as another wife steps into the picture. It is a principle that I am not just relieved, but ecstatic to know is not currently a principle mortals need concern themselves with. I've seen my share of polygamous families in Africa, and to the extent that such families are even functional (providing all individuals involved with the love and support it takes to fulfill the...

We pause our current series on "The Mormons" to write briefly about a truth and a core principle based in religious thought, but bearing more directly on the political. It's time to make some quick notes on liberty. The American founding fathers conceived that all men (and I will not hesitate to correct: all human beings ) are created equal. When you consider the diversity of talents, abilities, height, weight, growth, intelligences (While there are obvious problems with Gardner's theory and taxonomy of "multiple intelligences" per this , it makes intuitive conceptual sense to use the concept as a tool as explained briefly here ), socio-historical economic circumstances, etc. it's patently absurd to believe this equality is an equality of result, or even an equality of opportunity (since the very diversity of natures and contexts we're discussing here constrain the nature of each opportunity differently), but rather an equality of treatment before an...

It's a travesty that even serious thinkers refuse to engage debates on faith. For many who have faith in logic, reason, and scientific principles (you'll excuse the circular definition for the purposes of illustration here, I hope), faith has come to mean whatever is beyond their purview—something that's simply un-provable by empirical, objective means. But if faith truly can be defined as a motivating belief in a truth of which the evidence is not readily discernable, then the truths behind it can be verified, are acquired by a "scientific" process of hypothesis testing and confirmation of truth or rejection of falsehood, and it is therefore missing an opportunity to grow in knowledge and intelligence to simply bracket certain areas of inquiry as unfit for experiment, debate, or even serious thought. Defining faith as a principle of action based on truth implies that it's more like what most would call knowledge than the unsubstantiated hokey claims of irrati...

As a budding scholar dealing with the literature of black Africa, I'd like to think I have some understanding of the risk I take in revealing some relevant elements of my identity here in this inaugural post: I'm a white anglo-saxon protestant heterosexual male. This is how I might identify myself if I believed in the categories all those adjectives represent as if they were pre scriptive. I guess as a de scription, they're as accurate as anything, but one of them is entirely debatable: protestant. The point is that I feel a group solidarity with Christians, and more specifically with non-Catholics. My affiliation with the larger group of Christian as well as my distanciation from the sub-group Catholic is entirely doctrinally based--I have no biases against any given Christian sect other than the disagreements I have with them based on their interpretation of Scripture and the key doctrines found therein. However, I'm also Mormon. Born and raised. Oh yeah, I had a peri...