Defense of Truth

Pres. Monson's opening remarks asked the Church to pay special attention to the need for full-time missionaries. The LDS have always asked all their members to be ambassadors of Christ, and to always be on the lookout for people who might be prepared to receive our invitation to come learn more of Him, and join us through baptism. The call for missionaries to leave their homes and go actively preparing people for just such invitations is anchored in equally longstanding tradition and commandment. But let me throw out the question... We're all asked to be missionaries. I have more experience teaching than the average missionary. I have developed a closeness with the Spirit for longer than most missionaries. Through longer study I know the doctrines of the Church better than most missionaries. If I meet someone I know who is interested, I have the added advantage of knowing the person about to be taught. Why should I need a missionary's help at all? Why shouldn't I...

Please excuse me the incredible hubris of deigning to disagree with René Descartes: the heart of science is NOT doubt, it is doubt's opposite--faith. The scientific method describes the process of learning any empirical truth as beginning with enough curiosity to ask a question, then to doubt your own intuitions or the established "truth" enough to force yourself to experiment and prove whether your hypothesis is correct or incorrect. It's the self-doubt, or doubt of intuition, or even previous explanations (doubt of which leads to curiosity) that is meant when scientists talk about scientific skepticism. The problem, for me, is that I think it is falsely labeling the desire to find out for certain if something is true as a doubt, rather than as a form of faith. Is faith not the evidence of things not seen, the substance of things hoped for? If you hope to know something, and invest thought and effort into designing an experiment that would reveal your hypothesis as e...