tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-59395434431668474712024-03-13T07:48:56.659-07:00Scott in TempeGeneral musings about mostly national politics, religion, and how I try to manage my day to day life.tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.comBlogger344125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-87336580510906103042015-07-17T22:56:00.001-07:002015-07-17T22:57:03.954-07:00Moving to WordpressI'm moving to wordpress here: <a href="https://scottintempe.wordpress.com/">https://scottintempe.wordpress.com/ a</a>t least for now... :-).tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-20678912148577497822015-03-22T23:29:00.002-07:002015-03-23T12:55:52.900-07:00Grace Is Not God's Backup Plan: My Paraphrase of Adam Miller's Urgent Paraphrase of Paul's Letter to the RomansThose who know me, know that I'm prone to obsessions. It's just part of my personality I guess. I get exposed to one thing that blows me over, some real gold, and I dig and dig in that one area, mining it for all it's worth. I did that when I was younger, with Bob Dylan, eventually owning and listening to nearly all of his albums. I was enamored by Barack Obama's 2008 presidential run. Now, I just can't get enough of Adam Miller. He speaks the language of Mormonism and brings to it something new and original pulling truths from everywhere and anywhere he finds it.<br />
<br />
Growing up Mormon, I felt like I've often been in a defensive posture. Proving to others and to myself that I have the necessary levels of righteousness to be considered worthy and accepted and valued. I thought if I could just claw myself up the ladder of righteousness just a little bit higher, than I could finally feel pure, accepted and worthy. In my youth, going on a mission seemed like the impossible goal. I imagined myself sitting on the stand for my mission farewell, totally clean, pure and worthy, finally feeling acceptable to the Lord enough to serve Him.<br />
<br />
But oddly, this feeling never came. I entered the mission field still feeling doubts about my worthiness, not sure if I really belonged. I "confessed" to both of my mission presidents while out there, both assured me I was worthy which was a blessing. But this feeling of never feeling quite right about myself persisted both on my mission and when I got home.<br />
<br />
But as a Mormon, I was in a defensive posture in another way, in my association with broader Christiandom. I've had many moments both on my mission and off when I've discussed and debated the relative merits of grace and works with my Christian born again friends. Those Christians would accuse us Mormons of trying to work our way toward salvation and we countered back that they were offering nothing but cheap grace. Looking back, I wonder if they had the better argument.<br />
<br />
I think there is danger on both sides of this debate, thinking all you have to do is to declare Jesus is Lord and then no matter what you do gets wrapped up in the grace of Christ and real Christ-like living is not actually required. I don't think anyone actually believes this, but I think there is some danger here. And you can read this theological debate when you contrast the words of James with Paul.<br />
<br />
But I think Mormons are too quick to dismiss this idea of grace. Or we misinterpret <a href="https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/25.23?lang=eng">2 Nephi 25:23</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="color: black;"><a class="bookmark-anchor dontHighlight" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="23" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #0091bc; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </a><span class="verse" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; margin: 0px 1px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">23 For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, <i>after all we can do</i>.</span></span></blockquote>
The common interpretation is to believe grace comes next, after we give everything we have. Grace becomes to some a backup plan to be used after we've tried everything else. I think that's a mistaken way to read it. Rather, after all we can do, it will never be enough. Ultimately, it has always been and will always be grace. It's why I think Adam Miller's interpretation of Mormon theology is so important because he argues that grace is foundational to Mormon theology and that it's all over Mormon scripture.<br />
<br />
In his book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Mormon-Adam-Miller/dp/0842528563">Letters to a Young Mormon</a>", Adam Miller states in his chapter on Sin:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Being a good person doesn’t mean you’re not a sinner. Sin goes deeper. Being good will save you a lot of trouble, but it won’t solve the problem of sin. Only God can do this. Fill your basket with good apples rather than bad ones, but, in the end, sin has as much to do with the basket as with the apples. Sin depends not just on your actions but on the story you use those actions to tell. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Miller, Adam S. (2014-01-22). Letters to a Young Mormon (Kindle Locations 145-147). Neal A. Maxwell Institute. Kindle Edition. </blockquote>
He goes further in hist <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Grace-Not-Gods-Backup-Plan-ebook/dp/B00U1WBCXQ">latest book</a>, in the introduction:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
To make sense of Romans, we have to surrender a very natural assumption. We have to stop pretending that the world revolves around us. We have to let God be the center of the universe. We have to stop looking at God’s grace from the perspective of our sin and, instead, let sin appear in light of grace. And this grace is everywhere . God’s work of creation is a grace. His work of sustaining that created world is a grace. His willingness to shape us in his image and let us make our own way is a grace. His gift of the law is a grace. His Son is a grace. And his willingness to stand by us, regardless of our weakness or wanderings, is a grace.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
This, though, is what sin can’t abide. Sin wants to be the star of the show. From the perspective of sin, everything is about sin. As Paul describes it, sin is an active suppression of God’s already obvious glory. It’s a rejection of his already offered grace. Sin likes to think that it came first and that grace , then, is God’s stopgap response. Sin acts as if God’s original plan was for us to bootstrap ourselves into holiness by way of the law and then, when this didn’t quite pan out, God offered his grace— but only the bare minimum—to make good the difference and boost us into righteousness. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Miller, Adam S. (2015-02-26). Grace Is Not God's Backup Plan: An Urgent Paraphrase of Paul's Letter to the Romans (Kindle Locations 66-70). . Kindle Edition.</blockquote>
Adam Miller goes on to "paraphrase" the entire book of Romans not only in his own, modern language, but as a reinterpretation with the intent of pulling out the sophisticated, beautiful theology of Paul's Romans and place it directly into the heart of Mormon theology. It's urgent because I think many Mormons at the ground level get grace wrong, at least I did and do.<br />
<br />
And this has been what I've been trying to do. I'm trying to become born again and again and again. It's not, in the end, about me, it's about Christ. My life given to Christ is all that really matters and that's what it means to truly be a Christian. When Adam Miller talks about the law, he describes it as a grace because the law points us to Christ. It's why Christ says that love, both for God and for our fellow being wraps up the law, it's at its foundation.<br />
<br />
It's why I think perhaps it's counterproductive to try to white knuckle our way to repentance. Rather we must look at repentance in the way described <a href="https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bd/repentance?lang=eng&letter=r">here</a> in the LDS bible dictionary:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Greek word of which this is the translation denotes a change of mind, a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world. Since we are born into conditions of mortality, repentance comes to mean a turning of the heart and will to God...</blockquote>
But let me get right into it, let me show you an example of what Adam Miller actually did in his book. Just one sample, here's Adam's Miller restatement of Roman's 3:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
19– 20 This is harsh, but it has to be said. It has to be said so that you’ll finally shut your mouth about how good you are. It has to be said so that the whole world, without exception, can be brought to stand naked and defenseless before the truth no one can be made right with God by way of the law. The law gives a totally different kind of gift: the law shows you you’re a sinner.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Miller, Adam S. (2015-02-26). Grace Is Not God's Backup Plan: An Urgent Paraphrase of Paul's Letter to the Romans . . Kindle Edition. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
31 Does faith then abolish the law? No, that’s ridiculous. The law can reach its end only by way of faith. The law was never meant for the sake of itself and so it’s impossible to fulfill it just by keeping it. The law was given for the sake of grace and so, as a result, only grace can fulfill it. Be absolutely clear about this. Grace doesn’t grease the wheels of the law. Grace isn’t God’s way of jury rigging a broken law. It’s the other way around. The law is just one small cog in a world animated entirely— from top to bottom, from beginning to end—by grace. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Miller, Adam S. (2015-02-26). Grace Is Not God's Backup Plan: An Urgent Paraphrase of Paul's Letter to the Romans . . Kindle Edition. </blockquote>
From Romans 3 King James Version:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq" style="background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">
<span class="verse" style="background: transparent; border: 0px; font-weight: bold; margin: 0px 1px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">19 </span>Now we know that what things soever the law saith, it saith to them who are under the law: that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God.<br />
<b><a class="bookmark-anchor dontHighlight" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="20" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #0091bc; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </a><span class="verse" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; margin: 0px 1px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">20 </span></b><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">Therefore by the</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">deeds</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">of the</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">law</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">there shall no flesh be</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">justified</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">in his sight: for</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">by</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">the law</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"> </span><span class="clarityWord" style="background-attachment: initial; background-clip: initial; background-image: initial; background-origin: initial; background-position: initial; background-repeat: initial; background-size: initial; border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; font-style: italic; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">is</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;"> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">the knowledge of sin.</span> </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a class="bookmark-anchor dontHighlight" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="31" style="background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); border: 0px; color: #0091bc; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b> </b></a><span class="verse" style="background: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); border: 0px; color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; font-weight: bold; line-height: 25.2000007629395px; margin: 0px 1px 0px 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><b>31</b> </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">Do we then make void the law through faith? </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">God forbid</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">: </span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">yea</span><span style="background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0.00784314); color: #333333; font-family: Palatino, 'Palatino Linotype', Pahoran, Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 18px; line-height: 25.2000007629395px;">, we establish the law.</span> </blockquote>
There's more in here that I'm still trying to mine. I feel like I've only scratched the surface. I think this is urgent, important stuff and I'm just getting started.<br />
<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-38436231350827866792014-12-26T16:33:00.002-07:002015-01-02T15:37:56.577-07:00I know the church is trueAs a follow up post to <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2014/12/choose-to-have-faith-in-miracles.html">this one</a>, I wanted to dive deeper into one principle of religious belief that bothers many, especially in the age of secularism and pluralism, this idea of "knowing truth". It's tough in the age of secularism because we are forced to hold onto faith that at times comes into deep tension with scientific or historic evidence. Pluralism, because we hold onto our faith while we love others who hold onto theirs even as there are foundational contradictions between the two. Before I dive into it, let me flush out a bit of what it means to have faith. First, from a very secular historical take on<a href="http://www.amazon.com/How-Jesus-Became-God-Exaltation/dp/0061778184"> the life of Christ</a> that so far I've only been able to get part of the way through.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Religious faith and historical knowledge are two different ways of 'knowing.' When I was at Moody Bible Institute, we affirmed wholeheartedly the words of Handel’s Messiah (taken from the book of Job in the Hebrew Bible): 'I know that my Redeemer liveth.' But we 'knew' this not because of historical investigation, but because of our faith. Whether Jesus is still alive today, because of his resurrection, or indeed whether any such great miracles have happened in the past, cannot be 'known' by means of historical study, but only on the basis of faith. This is not because historians are required to adopt 'unbelieving presuppositions' or 'secular assumptions hostile to religion.' It is purely the result of the nature of historical inquiry itself— whether undertaken by believers or unbelievers— as I will try to explain later in this chapter."<br />
<br />
Ehrman, Bart D. (2014-03-25). How Jesus Became God: The Exaltation of a Jewish Preacher from Galilee (p. 132). HarperCollins. Kindle Edition. </blockquote>
The idea here is that you can say you know something is true without having historical or scientific evidence that it is so. This knowledge is a statement of faith. Adam Miller in his book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Letters-Young-Mormon-Adam-Miller-ebook/dp/B00HZX73LE/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419634626&sr=1-1&keywords=Letters+to+a+Young+Mormon">Letters to a Young Mormon</a>, says it another way:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"When your faith falters and you're tempted to run, stand up and bear testimony instead. A testimony is a promise to stay. A testimony gives form to your great faith, it gives direction to your great doubt, and it publicly commits you to the great effort of trying to live what God gives. It is less a measure of your certainty about a list of facts than it is a mark of your commitment to bearing truths that, despite their weakness, keep imposing themselves as a grace. In this way, bearing testimony is like saying 'I love you.' A testimony doesn't just reflect what someone else has already decided, it is a declaration that, in the face of uncertainty, you have made a decision. Saying 'I love you' or 'I know the church is true' commits you to living in such a way as to make that love true."</blockquote>
I think for me as a religious person, both of these quotes resonate. I know that "my Redeemer liveth" is a statement of my faith but it's also an expression of my faithfulness to Christ as my personal savior. Mormonism raises the stakes, though. In the very f<a href="https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/1.30?lang=eng#29">irst section of the Doctrines and Covenants</a>, Joseph Smith comes out boldly:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a class="bookmark-anchor dontHighlight" href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="30"></a><span class="verse">30 </span>And also those to whom these commandments were given, might have power to lay the foundation of this church, and to bring it forth out of obscurity and out of darkness, the only true and living church upon the face of the whole earth, with which I, the Lord, am well pleased, speaking unto the church collectively and not individually—</blockquote>
This isn't just a statement of faith in this church, it's also a statement of how it compares compares with all other religious institutions that exist. I'm not sure what to completely make of this statement. I heard Terryl Givens <a href="http://mormonstories.org/terryl-givens-an-approach-to-thoughtful-honest-and-faithful-mormonism/">in an interview</a> once say that this was the language of Joseph Smith's day, that every church was making claims to exclusive truth in this way.<br />
<br />
This is possibly true, but this expression of exclusive access to revelatory truth, or maybe that's too strong a phrase, but the idea that Mormonism has something within it missing from other faiths, that sort of self-confidence gives Mormonism some amount of spiritual power that would be missing without it. It was through that confidence that Joseph Smith was able to, from nothing, build a church that covers the globe and that through humble beginnings, many thousands of early Saints were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin%27s_Cove">willing to risk their lives</a> to move the church across the plains to begin something amazing in Utah. It's this confidence that inspires thousands of young men and women to give up several months of their prime years to share the gospel on missions. Or to spend countless hours in service in our temples, or to give up 10% of their income to the church. This sort of confidence in one's faith is obviously not unique to Mormonism, it's what motivates <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2011/07/religion-and-reason.html">evangelicals to </a>go on missions to convert Catholics in Spain. It inspires Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists.<br />
<br />
There is definitely danger in this kind of self-confidence that can lead to prejudice, abuse and obviously war. I think rational thought and an understanding of science provides a good check on unfettered faith, forcing the faithful toward humility. I think pluralism does the same. Having deep relationships with those whose faith contradict your own puts a check on faithful over-confidence.<br />
<br />
But there is something beautiful about many people expressing a deep internal faith in one's religion to a degree that leads them to sacrifice their time, talents and resources to build up this faith while at the same time developing love, respect and relationships with others who are doing the same thing in their own faith.<br />
<br />
I know this church is true. It's my own statement of faith. It's a commitment of faithfulness. It's an expression of love. But at the same time, I honor others who lay claim to a faith that takes them on a different journey than my own.<br />
<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-5968881997045922732014-12-24T10:04:00.002-07:002014-12-24T13:22:30.766-07:00Choose to Have Faith in Miracles<div class="MsoNormal">
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One of the challenges with being
a religious person in this modern age of scientific advancement and its trend
toward secularism is that at times you have to figure out how to hold onto
crazy stories that contradict whatever you learned in science and history.
It would be an interesting project to dig into why nearly every religious
tradition has these crazy stories sitting at their foundation. Perhaps it stems
from ancient tradition before science was well understood when there was a
tendency to mix superstition with a desire to understand the world. But come
on, there’s some crazy stuff. I don’t know a lot about the tradition stories of
other religions, but I know my own, let me give a few examples:
<br />
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From the Old Testament, Jonas
was swallowed whole and then sat for three days in the belly of a whale as
punishment for failing to preach to Nineveh. When he finally consented he was
spit out onto the shore so he could convince the cities inhabitants to repent.</div>
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<br /></div>
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Or God created the earth and the
water and the animals and then Adam and Eve in a garden where they would live
forever in a state of innocence. Until, of course, Eve partakes of an apple
that brings to the world sin and death.</div>
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Or of course, Jesus born to a
virgin woman, lives a sinless life, healing the sick, turning water to wine,
raising the dead up until his own crucifixion, when 3 days later he, himself rises
from the dead and from this event starts a world wide religion that would sweep
the earth.</div>
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Or later, in the 1800’s, an
uneducated farm boy, Joseph Smith, guided by an angel, finds gold plates in a
hill near his house. Then in a period of 3 months, produces another book of
scripture detailing the events of Christians living in America spanning 1000
years before, during and after the life of Christ. And then in his lifetime, he
produces another book revealing new revelations from Abraham’s life.</div>
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<br />
So, why not a belief in Santa Claus as well?<br />
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How do I as a Christian make sense of this? For one, my course of life has not
really forced me to reckon with the craziness too much. I don’t study evolution
in my day job; I’m not a physicist, nor really a scientist. I’m in software, I
build stuff; I solve real world problems, making the mundane a little easier
for people. That’s where I spend most of my day. I can go to church on Sunday,
pray day and night, read my scriptures and just accept the possibility that a
being in another world with more power than my mind can imagine cares for the
daily mundane problems of my life. So, I accept these stories at face value
because at times I have to. I just cannot believe that I’m left to my own
devices to face the world alone. It feels so much better to believe I have a
God who loves me and is willing to help me navigate the world.</div>
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But you know what, I love these
stories. But what’s more, they aren’t just stories. Scripture describes both
science and history in ways that make a mockery of both. It’s almost as if God
said, I’m going to make it as hard as possible for some to believe just so I
can make it as easy as possible for as many people to believe as possible. The
creation story is breathtakingly simple. And through the story, a theology of
the fall and the need for a Savior and an explanation of sin and grace and
justice comes out of it. We learn why it’s important to work and why we have
trials. It gives us a reason for the weeds in our garden or cars that break
down or software with bugs or periods of unemployment or rejection. The
existence Adam and Eve make no scientific sense, but it gives our lives meaning
in a way that evolution would never be able to. </div>
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<a href="http://www.fairmormon.org/perspectives/publications/archaeological-evidence-and-the-book-of-mormon">Apologists and Mormon academics have tried to find archeological proof </a>of the Book of Mormon. Skeptics point out the lack of <a href="https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies?lang=eng"> DNA evidence</a> that would show an
ancient American link to Jerusalem. But the Book of Mormon turns Christianity
into both an ancient and global religion. The book explains that the idea of
Jesus was known not only to those in Jerusalem but also to those in America. And
as a result provides a second testimony of the resurrection and shows that God
loves all those who inhabit the earth.</div>
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<a href="http://www.reclaimingthemind.org/blog/2014/03/how-jesus-became-god-or-how-god-became-jesus-a-review-of-bart-ehrmans-new-book-and-a-concurrent-response/">There is actually historical evidence that contradicts the crucifixion and resurrection story of Jesus.</a> But
it’s the resurrection that is at the heart of Christianity, showing that through
it, death will not be victorious and that through it we will all live again.</div>
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<br /></div>
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<a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2013/12/santa-claus-does-exist.html">I love the story of Santa Claus</a>.
My older kids have lost their faith in Santa, sadly. Our young kids still
believe. My son is right; Santa is really hard to believe in, the story makes
no sense, as you get older. He doesn’t believe because how in the world could
Santa travel to every house in the world in a single night. It defies physics.
But he thinks he might believe because would his parents really buy that many
presents for him and his sisters (we have a history of going a bit over-board).
So, Santa is difficult, but still worth believing in perhaps.</div>
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<br /></div>
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But you know what I love more? A
God who is also my spiritual father with a capacity to love and look out for me,
his child and that this God would send His son to save me, a sinner, providing
hope for change and growth. As a father myself who feels the very real weight
of four children to care for, it’s good to know that I have someone with both
the capacity and the will to help me.</div>
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<br /></div>
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None of this makes sense
scientifically. Evidence points in the opposite direction. I choose to
believe anyway.</div>
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tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-70415256344894302472014-10-27T07:59:00.000-07:002014-10-27T07:59:12.835-07:00A few thoughts on the LD26 debateI wish I had more time this election season to carefully watch and blog about each debate in detail. As it stands, I'm having to watch debates sporadically usually while doing something else pieces at a time. And I'm only going to be able to post quick thoughts about them here.<br />
<br />
Here's the LD26 debate for the benefit of those living as I do in that district:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Fij0l9YS3Q0?list=UU1o6KhL1yoYqUkvIUbcRtaA" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
A few quick points:<br />
<ol>
</ol>
Nothing against those running against the Democrats in this district but it seems like the Republican party has given up on it. I say that because it just doesn't seem like the Republican party candidates are getting the same kind of backing and support as the Democrats. The Democratic candidates have more experience. Obviously because all of them are incumbents, but they all just seem to understand politics deeply. All three have an obvious and deep passion for it and seem to be it in for the long haul.<br />
<br />The two Republican candidates (well the Senate candidate, <a href="http://daleeames2014.com/">Dale Eames</a> is really running as an independent), are just citizens of the community, to use their words, who had to be talked into running largely because no one else would. Eames literally decided to run at the very last minute and scrambled to get the necessary signatures. Neither have much in the way of political experience. The Democrats, by contrast, have a stronger grasp of the technicalities of each issue.<br />
<br />
In the debate, of the Republicans, <a href="http://jamesroyforaz.com/home/">James Roy</a> did make one really good point that I wish would have gotten vetted better, that increased access costs are squeezing funding for schools. We can't fund everything, keep tax rates low and close are coming deficits - a few brief mentions on the looming deficits were mentioned, but mostly only by <a href="http://sherwoodforaz.com/">Andrew Sherwood</a>.<br />
<br />
I'm not one to enjoy a fight (ok, maybe a little), but I want the candidates to go at each other a little bit, I want views to be challenged and defended, but very little of that went on in this debate. There was a lot of agreement around more laws to prosecute animal cruelty (I wish there would have been more representation to the idea that we tend to over-punish reflexively).<br /><br />Andrew Sherwood come off a little arrogant to me. Very knowledgeable and passionate. I'm not sure how he behaves with his colleagues and there's a place for a bull dog, but an ounce of humility wouldn't hurt. I'm not sure if that was more of a performance?<br />
<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.mendezforaz.com/">Juan Mendez</a> showed the most humility of three democrats which is good. He made some really good points about lobbyists and legislative pay. He's young and I doubt he's making much on the side, so he's really trying to squeak by on the legislative salary which is tiny.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.azleg.gov/MembersPage.asp?Member_ID=86&Legislature=51&Session_ID=110">Ed Ableser</a> apparently has no campaign website? I guess he doesn't need one this go around. He was easily the most experienced and knowledgeable. Has strong command of the issues and seemed the most comfortable with the debate. He has impressive credentials, but he misses a lot of time in the Senate, though this likely has a lot to do with the Senate salary requiring an active professional life, his family obligations, and the fact that Democrats don't have much of a voice in the legislature currently.<br />
<br />
I expect the Democrats to win easily. I know James Roy personally. He used to be a member of my church congregation. He admitted nerves, early in the debate, but I think he did well all things considering. He says that immigration is his most important issue and I disagree pretty strongly with his position. I'm likely to vote democrat for this race. Sorry James.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<ol><ul>
</ul>
</ol>
tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-85443585235849524382014-09-20T13:52:00.001-07:002014-09-20T13:52:20.125-07:00Getting Along With OthersI just finished reading <a href="http://deseretbook.com/Crucible-Doubt-Terryl-L-Givens/i/5125923">remarkable</a> book co-written by a <a href="http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865566746/Scholars-Terryl-and-Fiona-Givens-discuss-life-love-and-their-new-book-The-God-Who-Weeps.html?pg=all">remarkable LDS couple</a>, Terryl and Fiona Givens. The book challenges me to approach my Mormonism in a different way. Each week is my opportunity to offer up my personal gifts in the spirit of true worship and it's my obligation to find my own watering holes outside of church, especially when the church service itself fails to do so.<br />
<br />
There are two qualities of Mormonism that make it remarkable and unique: 1) The church is run in large part by a local congregation of unpaid volunteers. 2) These local congregations are organized purely geographically and its members are strongly encouraged to attend the congregation they happen to live. From this membership, the leaders are called, so quality and personalities vary.<br />
<br />
This provides a unique opportunity to meet people you might not otherwise meet and it forces global regions to self-bootstrap and to learn how to take care of themselves. A couple of quotes from the book illustrate the power of this approach:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Although not all family relations are idyllic, most are remarkably strong and a primary source for the individual's identity. Surely that is, in part, a function of the cost of individuals pay to make a relationship work. Love is a product</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;"> of what we put into a relationship. We love our families because of how much we have invested in them, how many times we fought, argued, simmered, and stewed but were forced back to the negotiating table by an unavoidable proximity and by a connection that transcended personal choice. We love that irritating brother and that infuriating sister because we couldn't simply walk away in a moment of frustration. We had to submit to the hard schooling of love because we couldn't transfer to another class with siblings more to our taste.</span></blockquote>
and<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Like Robinson Crusoe on his island, Mormons implicitly recognize that any resource they need to employ for the building of Zion must be found within themselves or their immediate environs, not among more congenial fellow Saints or under t</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">he tutelage of more inspiring leaders the next block over. These wards and stakes thus function as laboratories and practicums where we discover that we love God by learning to love each other.</span></blockquote>
and finally<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">Certainly it is in the nature of institutions to homogenize disparities, to stifle individualism. But the Creator G</span><span class="text_exposed_show" style="background-color: white; color: #37404e; display: inline; font-family: Helvetica, Arial, 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 20px;">od of Genesis is a Being who revels in distinctions, difference, and variation, an Artificer who separated man from woman as surely as He severed earth from sky. And love is the spark that fires across the chasm of difference, not the plane of sameness. This is as true of Zion as it is of marriage. The poet Coventry Patmore wrote that the bonds that unite us in community consist 'not in similarity, but in dissimilarity; the happiness of love, in which alone happiness resid[es]...not in unison, but conjunction, which can only be between spiritual dissimilar.'</span></blockquote>
This got me thinking about how I've fallen short in my church membership over the years. I've always had an internal drive to live up to my church callings, to really feel like I am a strong contributor in my congregation and to really feel like I could be there to help and uplift. I've always wanted to feel like I was in a congregation that could use me, that appreciated my family, where I felt useful and needed.<br />
<br />
But there are times, in this striving, where I mess up, when my personality comes across a bit too strong, or anxious, or annoying. I can certainly relate to the comedian Nathan Fielder who uses a socially awkward personality as a tool for laughs:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/o_5_JDukJJg" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
The point, here, though is that there will always be people who you will anger or annoy, or people you dread seeing in the hallway because of some past unresolved conflict. This is normal and human. When it's a member of a family, you are forced to deal with it. You just can't pick another family to belong to. Mormon congregations have to a lesser extent, the same dynamic. You can pick up your family and move to another area, but that's not always possible and certainly not easy. Better to learn the art of reconciliation, repentance and forgiveness. Better to face those awkward and difficult moments head-on. Here lies opportunity for growth.<br />
<br />
I had this experience recently. Two of my oldest children are in a community children's choir and the director is amazing, pushing the kids, working hard and striving for high musical quality. She also provides some interesting opportunities. Last spring, they had the opportunity to sing the National Anthem at an ASU basketball game. I love basketball, so I took the kids and my other 5 year old daughter to the game. After the anthem was sung, the kids met me so we could watch the game together.<br />
<br />
We had to arrive early and I misunderstood my seat number, so we sat in the wrong section. The true owners of our seats arrived late, so we didn't realize our mistake until after the game had begun. They were nice and there were plenty of open seats so they just sat elsewhere. Well, being a little obsessed about correcting my mistakes, at halftime, we got some food and returned to our real seats. Well, of course, someone else was sitting in them, so we took seats nearby those which happened to be directly behind an older couple.<br />
<br />
So I had my five year old sit next to me, then my two other children next to her. This put me and my daughter directly behind an older couple. My five year old is short and her legs stick out a bit, precariously close to the man in front's back. I was aware of this fact and sensitive to it, but was hopeful she could constrain herself enough. Besides college stadium seating is packed, I didn't think too much of it. And of course I quickly got absorbed into the game.<br />
<br />
After about 10 minutes of this, the man in front just lost it. Here's the exchange as best as I can remember:<br />
<br />
<ul>
<li>The man, turned around angrily, exclaiming "Look, I just about had enough of this".</li>
<li>Me to the man: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry". Me to my daughter: "Please be careful with your feet".</li>
<li>My older daughter to me: "What's going on?"</li>
<li>Me to my older daughter: "I wasn't totally aware, and my daughter was poking his back".</li>
<li>The man to me even angrier and louder: "Man, I'm about ready to pop you one."</li>
<li>Me to the man: "Take it easy, she's only 5."</li>
<li>The man to me: "Well, how old are you!"</li>
<li>Me to the man: "Sorry, sorry". We finally move to another seat far away.</li>
</ul>
<div>
Unfortunately for me, the man and his wife also happen to be connected to the choir. After the game, we walked to the parking garage and I noticed he was parked close to where we were parked. And it was packed and busy, so I took the kids to a grassy area far away to play for a long while.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Worse still, we had three more concerts that year, and yes he was at every single one. I would look for him, inevitably find him and try to keep myself situated as far from him as possible. I have effectively banished a stranger from my life.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
The new year has arrived and he may or may not be at future concerts (I will never forget his face). But why is it my job to avoid him? Perhaps a better strategy is to engage fully in the choir. And if I run into him again in the future, maybe I don't say hi, but I certainly don't walk in the opposite direction.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Maybe he was having a bad day, perhaps he was dealing with a personal tragedy and just didn't have the patience. It doesn't matter. Dealing with people, day in and day out as we do, there are times when tempers are triggered. It's our job to work through them the best we can and to keep striving for more goodness. And in the future, I will try to be more sensitive to those around me so that my young children are not inadvertently poking my neighbor in the back.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
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tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-79089176644002714512014-08-24T16:00:00.005-07:002015-04-19T10:54:00.940-07:00On LibertyIn my Mormon congregation last week, a member of our <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stake_%28Latter_Day_Saints%29">stake</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_council_%28Latter_Day_Saints%29">high council</a> spoke on the subject of <a href="https://www.lds.org/topics/agency?lang=eng">liberty</a> which is one of those principles that where <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_Liberty">politics</a> mixes with religion. To be honest, I can't say I was able to absorb his talk completely. It was long and meaty and we have four children that have a hard time sitting still through church meetings. But I did want to summarize bits of it I was able to get and to also add a few extra thoughts of my own.<br />
<br />
Many politicians act as if freedom can only be granted or taken away by the government. Our founding documents act as a rebuttal to this, describing<a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html"> the unalienable rights of each person granted to them by their Creator</a>. Government can attempt to take away these rights and have throughout history, but oppressive government is not the only way to limit one's liberty.<br />
<br />
One of the principles taught in the talk is why <a href="https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/obedience-to-law-is-liberty?lang=eng">obedience to God's law is the way to find both personal happiness and somewhat paradoxically, preserve liberty.</a> This principle can, in some ways, be a rebuttal to the more libertarian view that society is free insomuch as we are able to reduce government's role to an enforcer of contracts. Rather it's a recognition that in our choices we can limit our own and another's freedom in ways that may not be obvious at first glance. One example of this is when we fall into an addiction. It's hard to feel free when we are compelled to behave in ways that cause us personal shame, embarrassment or worse.<br />
<br />
But another less obvious way that sin inhibits our freedom is that it blunts our ability to experience the kind of growth we would otherwise have. This will limit our ability to develop talents and improve our capacity. And in the end, our life's experience will become muted and our choices limited. <br />
<br />
But our country has in some ways done a poor job in ensuring liberty, especially for the poor and the non-white.<br />
<br />
<b><span style="font-size: large;">Unjust Sentencing</span></b><br />
In a<a href="http://www.prb.org/Publications/Articles/2012/us-incarceration.aspx"> country with the highest incarceration rate </a>in the world, there are so many examples of how we limit liberty by coming down far too harshly on crime. Much of this was an overreaction to the get tough on crime movement of the 1980's that still plague us today.<br />
<br />
<u><b><a href="https://www.blogger.com/ilkerson%20is%20unlucky,%20but%20he%27s%20hardly%20alone.%20Despite%20the%20passage%20in%20late%202012%20of%20a%20new%20state%20ballot%20initiative%20that%20prevents%20California%20from%20ever%20again%20giving%20out%20life%20sentences%20to%20anyone%20whose%20%22third%20strike%22%20is%20not%20a%20serious%20crime,%20thousands%20of%20people%20%E2%80%93%20the%20overwhelming%20majority%20of%20them%20poor%20and%20nonwhite%20%E2%80%93%20remain%20imprisoned%20for%20a%20variety%20of%20offenses%20so%20absurd%20that%20any%20list%20of%20the%20unluckiest%20offenders%20reads%20like%20a%20macabre%20joke,%20a%20surrealistic%20comedy%20routine.%20%20Read%20more:%20http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cruel-and-unusual-punishment-the-shame-of-three-strikes-laws-20130327#ixzz3BLkVtkrq%20Follow%20us:%20@rollingstone%20on%20Twitter%20|%20RollingStone%20on%20Facebook">Three Strikes Laws</a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/ilkerson%20is%20unlucky,%20but%20he%27s%20hardly%20alone.%20Despite%20the%20passage%20in%20late%202012%20of%20a%20new%20state%20ballot%20initiative%20that%20prevents%20California%20from%20ever%20again%20giving%20out%20life%20sentences%20to%20anyone%20whose%20%22third%20strike%22%20is%20not%20a%20serious%20crime,%20thousands%20of%20people%20%E2%80%93%20the%20overwhelming%20majority%20of%20them%20poor%20and%20nonwhite%20%E2%80%93%20remain%20imprisoned%20for%20a%20variety%20of%20offenses%20so%20absurd%20that%20any%20list%20of%20the%20unluckiest%20offenders%20reads%20like%20a%20macabre%20joke,%20a%20surrealistic%20comedy%20routine.%20%20Read%20more:%20http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/cruel-and-unusual-punishment-the-shame-of-three-strikes-laws-20130327#ixzz3BLkVtkrq%20Follow%20us:%20@rollingstone%20on%20Twitter%20|%20RollingStone%20on%20Facebook"> </a></b></u><br />
<br />
Matt Tabbai:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Despite the passage in late 2012 of a new state ballot initiative that
prevents California from ever again giving out life sentences to anyone
whose 'third strike' is not a serious crime, thousands of people – the
overwhelming majority of them poor and nonwhite – remain imprisoned for a
variety of offenses so absurd that any list of the unluckiest offenders
reads like a macabre joke, a surrealistic comedy routine."</blockquote>
<br />
and<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"Like
wars, forest fires and bad marriages, really stupid laws are much
easier to begin than they are to end. As the years passed and word of
great masses of nonviolent inmates serving insanely disproportionate
terms began to spread in the legal community, it became clear that any
attempt to repair the damage done by Three Strikes would be a
painstaking, ungainly process at best. The fear of being tabbed 'soft on
crime' left politicians and prosecutors everywhere reluctant to lift
their foot off the gas pedal for even a moment, and before long the
Three Strikes punishment machine evolved into something that hurtled
forward at light speed, but moved backward only with great effort,
fractions of a millimeter at a time."</blockquote>
<b><a href="http://www.drugpolicy.org/resource/drug-war-mass-incarceration-and-race">The War on Drugs</a></b><br />
<br />
This is an interesting one because drug addiction can cause enormous damage to an individual afflicted, but to think the solution is to lock up people, primarily poor people of color, for minor drug offenses is not the way to stop it... Well, it's like trying to protect liberty by limiting it. And it has had <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2012/12/06/opinion/branson-end-war-on-drugs/">devastating affects</a>. After spending $1 trillion fighting the war, we are left with this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
About 40,000 people were in U.S. jails and prisons for drug crimes in
1980, compared with more than 500,000 today. Excessively long prison
sentences and locking up people for small drug offenses contribute
greatly to this ballooning of the prison population. It also represents
racial discrimination and targeting disguised as drug policy. People of
color are no more likely to use or sell illegal drugs than white people
-- yet from 1980 to 2007, blacks were arrested for drug law violations
at rates 2.8 to 5.5 times higher than white arrest rates. </blockquote>
<b><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/06/04/318801651/burning-down-the-house-makes-the-case-against-juvenile-incarceration">Our Juvenile Detention Center</a></span></b><br />
<br />
Nell Bernstein, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=burning+your+house+down&tag=googhydr-20&index=aps&hvadid=28612439847&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=4146603837586026212&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=b&hvdev=c&ref=pd_sl_o55j5540i_b">Burning Down The House</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"'The greatest predictor of adult incarceration and adult criminality
wasn't gang involvement, wasn't family issues, wasn't delinquency
itself,' Bernstein says. 'The greatest predictor that a kid would grow
up to be a criminal was being incarcerated in a juvenile facility.'"</blockquote>
<a href="http://reason.com/archives/2011/06/14/perverted-justice/singlepage"><b><span style="font-size: small;"><u>Our Sex Offender Registery</u></span></b></a><br />
<br />
Sexual offense is a crime that's really tough to write about because it has such a high level of stigma in our country today. But the laws around sex offenders is getting irrational:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"American policies regarding sex offenders mark them as a special
category of criminals for whom no stigma is too crippling, no
regulations are too restrictive, and no penalty is too severe. This
attitude, driven by fear and outrage, is fundamentally irrational,
and so are its results, which make little sense in terms of justice
or public safety. Like the lustful predators of their nightmares,
Americans pondering the right way to deal with sex offenders seem
captive to their passions."</blockquote>
I encourage you to read the article in its entirety but I will quote the conclusion:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"In a 2004 <i class="">Criminal Law Bulletin</i> article, William
Mitchell College of Law professor Eric Janus argued that 'sexual
predator laws provide a model for undercutting…constitutional
protections.' The process, Janus said, starts with a universally
despised group of people who, like suspected terrorists, attract no
public sympathy. He warned that 'we are at risk of becoming a
‘preventive state,’ in which the paradigm of governmental social
control has shifted from solving and punishing crimes that have
been committed to identifying ‘dangerous’ people and depriving them
of their liberty <i class="">before</i> they can do harm.' To most
Americans, I fear, this prospect is not nearly as scary as the
possibility that a sex offender lives down the street.'"</blockquote>
<b><span style="font-size: large;"><span style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Development-as-Freedom-Amartya-Sen/dp/0385720270"> </a><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Development-as-Freedom-Amartya-Sen/dp/0385720270">Development As Freedom</a></span></span></b><br />
<br />
The nobel prize winning economist Amartya Sen, makes the compelling case in this book that the government should be proactive not just eliminating unjust imprisonment, but also in enhancing freedom and equality among it's citizenry. Sen summarizes this position <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/sen-development.html">here</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"On the other hand, the freedom of agency that we have
individually is inescapably qualified and constrained by the social, political and
economic opportunities that are available to us. There is a deep complementarity
between individual agency and social arrangements. It is important to give
simultaneous recognition to the centrality of individual freedom and to the force of
social influences on the extent and reach of individual freedom. To counter the
problems that we face, we have to see individual freedom as a social commitment. This
is the basic approach that this work tries to explore and examine."</blockquote>
and<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Similarly, social
opportunities of education and health care, which may require public action,
complement individual opportunities of economic and political participation and also
help to foster our own initiatives in overcoming our respective deprivations. If the
point of departure of the approach lies in the identification of freedom as the main
object of development, the reach of the policy analysis lies in establishing the
empirical linkages that make the viewpoint of freedom coherent and cogent as the
guiding perspective of the process of development.
</blockquote>
I wholehartedly agree with my high councilor who taught us why obedience to God's law is essential for personal liberty. But often times this is not enough. For one, none of us is perfectly obedient, and it's why the doctrine of grace runs hand in hand with obedience. Personal liberty requires a climate of compassion when we make sincere efforts to overcome past mistakes. A world where someone is locked up 25 years to life for stealing a pair of socks is a world where one's liberty has been unjustly taken away. Rather we need to live in a society where punishment truly fits the crime. Where there is a pathway for people to overcome their past mistakes so that they can live good, productive lives. This requires compassion and sympathy and a degree of sophistication.<br />
<br />
But also, I might add, personal liberty comes hand-in-hand with social justice. We are free or we are bound together. A world where some of our population is deprived access to basic health care or adequate education is a world that is not free. Freedom requires a functioning community, society and government. Where resources are sustainable, the environment is protected, where basic infrastructure is developed and adequately maintained, and where everyone has the opportunity for self-development and personal growth.<br />
<br />
No one is truly free individually.<br />
<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-42718159397947792222014-08-18T00:29:00.001-07:002014-08-18T00:44:48.011-07:00Logic, History and IslamI recently saw this video in my facebook feed.<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/GCVBkvfDZ1U" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
I wasn't comfortable enough with the friend to dive into a discussion about it with her on Facebook and to be honest, I'm not confident enough with the subject matter to have a competent opinion from which to defend. But that won't stop me from taking the argument on from my blog, so here goes.<br />
<br />
First of all, read the wikipedia entry about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brigitte_Gabriel">speaker</a>. She's definitely legitimate. Her passion comes from experience and she knows more about this topic than I do, that's for sure. But before reading anything about her, watched the video. And through it, alarms kept ringing in my head with words like "no", "stupid", "bad logic".<br />
<br />
You see she speaks with emotional passion, energy, and rhetorical flourish, so it's understandable that she gets the applause and the facebook shares. But there's danger there.
In their book , Susan Wise Bauer and Jessie Wise talk about how to study history during the logic phase and they make the following point:
<br />
<blockquote>
Creating a time line teaches the student to trace chronological connections; outlining trains the student to look past rhetorical smoke and mirrors in order to find the "bare bones" argument of a speech or essay; the use of primary sources teaches the student to interpret the material himself instead of relying on "experts"; organizing information into divisions of the history notebook helps the student to classify similar events and historical trends together.</blockquote>
The point about outlining is important here. So, let me apply it now. What were Brigitte Gabriel's main point and what were arguments she was making to prove it. Unfortunately the clip is taken out of context so this will be a fragmented analysis.<br />
<br />
First, the questioner makes the point that it's erroneous to paint all 1.8 billion worldwide followers of Islam as bad. Further, there are 8 million Muslim Americans in this country and not one on of them sit in this particular panel. This leads her to ask, how can you expect to win and end an ideological war with weapons, when it seems more appropriate and effective to win an ideological war by taking on the ideology.
Ms. Gabriel responds:
<br />
<ol>
<li>She denies anyone on this panel mentioned anything about Muslims. Rather they want to know why four Americans died in Benghazi and who will be held accountable for that.</li>
<li>She then pivots to the religion itself (since the questioner brought it up). She sites the statistic that 15-20% of Muslims are radical.</li>
<li>Then because that's true, that means 300 million people are dedicated to the destruction of western civilization.</li>
<li>The reason why we should worry is because that also means that there are 300 million people who are either currently killing or want to kill.</li>
<li>She sites other examples in history that we should consider. </li>
<ol>
<li>The Nazis drove the agenda in Germany and as a result 60 million people died.</li>
<li>Most Russians were peaceful, yet the Russians killed 20 million people.</li>
<li>Most Chinese people were peaceful, yet the Chinese people killed 70 million people.</li>
<li>Pre-WWII Japanese were peaceful, yet the Japanese killed 12 million people across SE Asia.</li>
<li>It took 19 radical hijakers to bring America to its knees.</li>
</ol>
</ol>
Ok, I'll attack the logic by simply diving into these points with further questions:<br />
<ol>
<li>Where did the 15-20% statistic come from? What actually constitutes a radical Muslim. Do all 15-20% of them really want to destroy western civilization and are they all brutal murderers?</li>
<li>For those who are classified as radical Muslisms, is their religion the predominant factor driving their radicalism. Or are their other more important drivers - say, the region where they live, it's history, culture and whether they are or recently have experienced war.</li>
<li>If their religion is the primary driver, can we expect to enter a random mosque anywhere in the world and encounter 20% of the congregation as possible murderers? If not, why not?</li>
<li>Since most predominantly Islamic countries are in the Middle East and in portions of Africa, what could we learn about its history that may teach us some lessons about what's driving the wars that seem to dominate these regions in recent history? </li>
<li> She brings up Russian, German, Chinese and Japanese examples to further her point. How do these examples compare and contrast with the terrorism we're seeing in the world today? </li>
<li>Could it be, to use one example, the problems were not the Russians, but the Russian leadership (Stalin), his control of the government and its military? What drove Stalin to massacre his own citizens and how are those motivations relevant to the problems facing the Middle East? </li>
<li>What of fascism and Hitler?
It's interesting that Fascism in Germany and Communism in Russia both took off only after the catastrophic first world war that destroyed Europe. How is that fact relevant then and today? </li>
</ol>
These are not easy questions and I don't have easy answers. But what I know for sure, is this video snippet was not helpful to the discussion at all.
And that is why, while listening, I kept thinking, "stupid", "bad", "no"... I don't deny Ms. Gabriel's passion and I know she's experienced some stuff that I hope I nor my children ever have to. And I'm sure she has smarter arguments to back up her opinions than this. Let's dig into those instead.tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-38513526920246446662014-08-15T00:36:00.001-07:002014-08-15T00:46:09.018-07:00 The Primary ElectionFortunately for me, since I'm a registered democrat, I only have to figure out the Tempe City Council and the Superintendent of Public Instruction. The rest are running unopposed (or simply nobody is running). There are a a couple of more candidates on the ballet, but I'm only listing those that have a contended primary race.
A couple of points:
<ol>
<li>Really nobody should be voting in an early ballot. Why rob yourself time to figure out the candidates - unless you know for sure ahead of time, but who does?</li>
<li>Really everyone should be voting in the primary. Some key electoral decisions are happening here and those choices are gone in the general election.</li>
</ol>
Get informed and vote.
<br />
<br />
<br />
<table border="1"><tbody>
<tr>
<td><b>Position</b></td><td><b>My Pick</b></td><td><b>Arizona Republic's Opinion</b></td><td><b>Brief Explanation</b></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Republic Primary CD 9</td><td>Neither</td><td><a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/07/22/congress-district-9-no-endorsement/13017113/">Neither</a></td><td>Wendy Rogers is extreme and incompetent and Andrew Walters is just incompetent. Kirsten Sinema has been gifted the race this year - strange.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Republican Governor</td><td>Scott Smith</td><td><a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/07/25/doug-ducey-governor-endorsement/13194923/">Doug Ducey</a></td><td>I didn't like Ducey in his run for treasure and I still feel that way. The Arizona Republic thinks he did a great job as treasurer and likely that's the case. He's just a bit too conservative, red-meat for my taste. Meanwhile, Scott Smith was effective as Mesa mayor - which actually is a much better forum to prepare for governor and he's a more moderate voice.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Republican Attorney General></td><td>Mark Brnovich</td><td><a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/07/24/mark-brnovich-attorney-general-endorsement/13129609/">Mark Brnovich</a></td><td>Anybody but Tom Horne</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Republican Secretary of State</td><td>Michele Regan</td><td><a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/07/25/michele-reagan-secretary-state-endorsement/13138187/">Michele Regan</a></td><td>
Regan seems like the best of the bunch for this position. Pierce is getting some questionable funding and Cardon is too extreme.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Republican Treasurer</td><td>Hugh Hallman</td><td><a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/07/19/hugh-hallman-treasurer-endorsement/12844387/">Hugh Hallman</a></td><td><br />
I liked Hallman as Tempe mayor. The other candidates do not have the right temperament for the job.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction</td><td>David Garcia</td><td><a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/07/21/david-garcia-democrat-education-endorsement/12967307/">David Garcia</a></td><td>The Republican candidates are terrible. This will be a true test to see if voters are awake if they continue to elect Huppenthal for this position. Both Democratic candidates have deep education experience. Garcia seems to have more relevant experience for this particular position.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Republican Arizona Corporation Commision</td><td>Undecided</td><td><a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2014/07/17/tom-forese-lucy-mason-corp-commission-endorsement/12813027/">Lucy Mason and Tom Forese</a></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Tempe City Council</td><td>Undecided</td><td><a href="http://www.azcentral.com/story/joannaallhands/2014/08/13/chandler-tempe-council-races/13957103/">Shana Ellis, Dick Foreman, and David Schapira</a></td><td>I like the AZ Republican picks, but I also like Lauren Kuby and I'm sorry to say but I simply don't know enough about Robin Arredondo-Savage to have an opinion. This one needs a bit more careful study before I decide.</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-78438186900325169112014-07-05T21:22:00.001-07:002014-07-06T18:56:18.280-07:00Some Thoughts on HistoryAbout six months ago, the LDS <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stake_%28Latter_Day_Saints%29">stake</a> I belong to organized its fiftieth anniversary since its organization. I've actually been a member of this stake for quite a long time beginning when I first moved here after college graduation. We were not sure we were going to attend, but our newly called stake president visited our ward and strongly encouraged it and so we did. Dragging our four young children a long with us for, if my memory serves me correctly, a two hour presentation that mostly involved a survey of every stake president that served in the stake since its inception. It covered slightly more ground than this, but that was mostly it.<br />
<br />
Now, this was interesting, and there was something to be learned from it and it would have been much more challenging to do this differently. But obviously, the stake is much, much more than its president and most of my experience within the stake involves much more my relationships with individual members than with those who lead it. <br />
<br />
But if you look at the history of anything, you will mostly find that history to be dominated by the leaders of the relevant institutions. Study world history, and you'll mainly be studying kings, monarchs, dictators, and presidents. Study state history, and you'll be learning about mayors and governors with some other notables mixed in. The point here is that the least notable you are the more likely you will be forgotten, which is actually a very depressing thing to consider.<br />
<br />
This is one reason why I think family history is so powerful. Family history is the art of giving life to your own ancestors, no matter how obscure they were to the world at large, they definitely have a preeminent role in your own personal existence and largely had a more interesting life than you realize.<br />
<br />
But let me make an even bigger claim. In learning about the life of the obscure, the neglected or the forgotten, you will actually get a better sense of history than in the far more common study of the elite. Even more controversially, the famous and the elite take a far too prominent claim on the course of history than they really should. In other words, individual people, no matter how powerful their position may have been, have far less control over world events then our history books would have us believe.<br />
<br />
I will make a far too feeble attempt to prove this hypothesis here, but let me at least provide a couple of pieces of evidence to provide at least some reason for this claim:<br />
<br />
First, for some time, I've been wading my way through the book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Sleepwalkers-Europe-Went-1914/dp/006114665X">The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914.</a> One of the themes of the book as I've been able to make sense of it, was that this massive century affecting war actually came about out of an array of contradictory forces that no one individual could control. And the result of those forces led the world into a war that nobody had the power to stop. I'm over-simplifying a bit. But the point is that it was cultural forces that were created primarily from individual members of mostly European countries that pushed the world into war and leadership were powerless at best or unwilling at worst to stop it.<br />
<br />
But then, you could point to World War II as having a single bad actor - Adolph Hitler - who was principally responsible. There may be some truth to this. But anti-semitism was rampant in Europe at this time and Germany was punished harshly after World War I. Some may say that Hitler simply took advantage of the forces already set forth and if not him, than someone else may have kicked off the second world war with all of the atrocities that occurred along with it. What I'm saying is that world leaders get their power from the large number of people who hand it to them.<br />
<br />
Another example, from American History. Recently I listened to <a href="http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2014-07-03/danielle-allen-our-declaration">this podcast</a> with Danielle Allen author of a recently published book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Our-Declaration-Reading-Independence-Equality-ebook/dp/B00FPT5KYW%3FSubscriptionId%3D0EP44N4Z8Y93MBZ1ZC82%26tag%3Ddianerehm-20%26linkCode%3Dxm2%26camp%3D2025%26creative%3D165953%26creativeASIN%3DB00FPT5KYW">Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality</a>. In the interview she makes the point that this country was based on the principle of both freedom and equality. That all of us, every single one of us is responsible to make sure the government is created to provide opportunities for all, <a href="http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html">"laying on its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."</a><br />
<br />
I think we make this mistake often, paying the CEO's of companies more money than they could possibly hope to spend while forgetting about the contributions of the folks within the company who have a role in executing the vision but in many ways even creating the vision of the company. Apple was never just Steve Jobs.<br />
<br />
Recently, I began another attempt to read <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_the_Obscure">Jude the Obscure</a>, by Thomas Hardy. I'm interested in it because I am interested in those who tend to be marginalized and obscured in our society and by history. And this was especially prevalent in 19th century England. I've read the first three chapters which describes the central character of the book, Jude. In chapter two, he's given the job of scaring crows away from the corn fields, something he ends up not doing well:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
He sounded the clacker till his arm ached, and at length his heart grew sympathetic with the birds' thwarted desires. They seemed, like himself, to be living in a world which did not want them. Why should he frighten them away? They took upon them more and more the aspect of gentle friends and pensioners - the only friends he could claim as being in the least degree interested in him, for his aunt had often told him that she was not. He ceased his rattling, and they alighted anew.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
They (the crows) stayed and ate, inky spots on the nut-brown soil, and Jude enjoyed their appetite. A magic thread of fellow-feeling united his own life with theirs. Puny and sorry as those lives were, they much resembled his own.</blockquote>
The problem here is that it's really hard to get into the lives of the obscure. They typically are not writing memoirs, nobody is writing their biographies, movies are not being made about them. Fiction is where you can learn about them, perhaps. And that is what I'm doing here.<br />
<br />
But really, it's not that hard to get into the lives of the obscure because in the end, it seems like most of use at times feel this way (or will eventually). Feeling forgotten, alone, or neglected is likely a part of the human condition and something we will all have to endure at some time or another.<br />
<br />
It's too bad we fail to recognize the contribution of the masses because in the end, they likely have far more to do with the course of our world than we realize.<br />
<br />
<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-41891947340055168992014-06-01T16:41:00.000-07:002014-06-02T07:47:32.351-07:00Sin, Repentence, and StoriesThis is mostly going to be a recap of a couple of different ideas that I've very recently encountered and need to find a way to absorb and apply.<br />
<br />
Thanks to <a href="http://mormonstories.org/adam-miller-letters-to-a-young-mormon/">Mormon Stories</a>, I was exposed to Adam Miller's remarkable nugget of a book,<a href="http://mormonstories.org/adam-miller-letters-to-a-young-mormon/"> Letters to a Young Mormon</a>, and because of the remarkable interview, I immediately bought and downloaded the electronic book. Adam Miller is a professional philosopher, author and a faithful and devout Mormon who you can tell, by virtue of his background and training has put into practice something he encourages in his book here in his chapter on scripture. In the chapter he encourages the reader to continue the work of Joseph Smith by translating over and over again the scriptures into our own life:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You'll need faith to undertake these translations as acts of repentance. You'll have to trust that the books can withstand your scrutiny and you'll have to trust that God, despite their antiquity, can be contemporary in them. The Lord counseled Joseph that, "as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning even by study and also by faith" (D&C 88:118). This is good, though circuitous, advice. On one hand, if you lack faith, seek wisdom out of the best books. On the other hand, if you lack wisdom, seek learning by faith. Your ability to translate with power will depend on your faith and it will be amplified by your familiarity with the world's best books. The wider you read in Laozi, Shakespeare, Austen, Dogen, Plato, Dante, Krishna, Sappho, Goethe, Confucious, Tolstoy, and Homer, the better off you'll be. The more familiar you are with Israelite histories, Near Eastern archaeologies, and secular biblical scholarship, the richer your translations will be rendered. Don't be afraid for scripture and don't be afraid of these other books. Claim it all as your own. Doubtless, the world's best books have their flaws, but this just means that they too must be translated. You'll need to translate them so that they can contribute to your own translations. As long as these other books help you to translate repentance, then you're still doing it right. Don't balk at this responsibility or hand it off to church leaders. Our minds go dark and our hearts go cold when we set this work aside. "Your minds in times past have been darkened," the Lord told Joseph, "because of unbelief, and because you have treated lightly the things you have received - which vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation" (D&C 84:54-55). Our minds go dark because we've treated this responsibility lightly. We don't sit down with the scriptures and we don't study them out in our minds. And, to our discredit, we've often dismissed the world's best books rather than translate them. As a result, we'll "remain under this condemnation" until we repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon" (D&C 84:57).</blockquote>
This is a good quote to set up this blog post because you get the sense that these are not idle words by Miller, you just know that he's lived them. Admittedly, he's a professor of philosophy and is a credentialed reader who had to do a lot of it to get to where he is. And unfairly, he just has more time to do this than a normal person. But still, good advice.<br />
<br />
I have two points to make from this quote. He uses the word repentance twice in this quote in unexpected ways and I'll get to that later on. Secondly, he doesn't exclude anything. He's willing to learn from all sources. There's no ego in it. He recognizes not just that there is truth in every church, from every culture and country, but he treats the products of other sources on an almost equal footing as scripture themselves. And as we put in the hard work of translation, they become just that for us. We should not reject anything that comes from God and so much more comes from God than we realize.<br />
<br />
In another chapter, he talks about sin in another completely unexpected way:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Being a good person doesn't mean you're not a sinner. Sin goes deeper. Being good will save you a lot of trouble, but it won't solve the problem of sin. Only God can do this. Fill your basket with good apples rather than bad ones, but, in the end, sin has as much to do with the basket as with the apples. Sin depends not just on your actions but on the story you use those actions to tell.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Like everyone, you have a story you want your life to tell. You have your own way of doing things and your own way of thinking about things. But "my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts" (Isaiah 55:8-9). As the heavens are higher than the earth, God's work in your life is bigger than the story you'd like that life to tell. His life is bigger than your plans, goals, or fears. To save your life, you'll have to lay down your stories and minute by minute, day by day, give your life back to him. Preferring your stories to his life is sin.</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Sin is endemic to the story you're always telling yourself about yourself. This story shows up in that spool of judgmental chitchat - sometimes fair, sometimes foul - that, like an off-stage voice-over, endlessly loops in your head. This narration follows you around like a shadow. It mimes you, measures you, sometimes mocks you, and pretends, in its flat, black simplicity, to be the truth about you. This story is seductive. It seems so weightless and bulletproof and ideal. But as a shadow it hides as much as it reveals. You are not your shadow. No matter how carefully you line up the light, your body will never fit that profile. Sin is what happens when we choose our shadows over the lives that cast them. Life is full of stories, but life is not a story. God doesn't love your story, he loves you.</blockquote>
If you get down to it, this idea of stories forms the foundation of the entire book and the primary objective of life is to learn about ourselves, the world and our life within the world as it is, unfiltered. And the lure of an alternative identity, a story to define ourselves is as common as it is limiting. In politics, our positions are defined more by our party membership than by an honest analysis of the issues at hand. We spend more time vilifying our political or religious opponents, rather than spending the hard work of really listening to them, understanding their positions, and using the discussion as an opportunity to wake up, shed our stories and learn more.<br />
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And this work of translation should be happening all of the time. The core of any church is not in its leadership, it's in its members. In fact, the pope, prophet, the pastor or the bishop is perhaps the least important member of a particular church institution. These often are positions of management and organization, but "Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world." James 1:27. In other words, the true power of a religious body comes from the collective action of each and every member of the church. In their willingness to be kind, loving, to assist and to help. Then the church callings that are most vital to the success and vitality of the church, are those callings that put individuals in contact with other individuals, providing teaching, support and kindness.<br />
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Today in our church congregation we had <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ward_(LDS_Church)">ward </a>conference, where church leaders in our <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stake_(Latter_Day_Saints)">stake</a> leaders taught us. In our Elder's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quorum_(Latter_Day_Saints)">quorum </a>lesson today, we had a lesson that seemed to be lifted right out of this book I've been quoting on this blog. The core of the lesson was taken out of the LDS bible dictionary passage on repentance, <a href="https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bd/repentance">here</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: #f9f6ed; color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">The Greek word of which this is the translation denotes a change of mind, a fresh view about God, about oneself, and about the world. Since we are born into conditions of mortality, repentance comes to mean a turning of the heart and will to God, and a renunciation of sin to which we are naturally inclined. Without this there can be no progress in the things of the soul’s salvation, for all accountable persons are stained by sin and must be cleansed in order to enter the kingdom of heaven. Repentance is not optional for salvation; it is a commandment of God (</span><a class="scriptureRef" href="https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/18.9-22?lang=eng#8" style="background: rgb(249, 246, 237); border: 0px; color: #486fae; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">D&C 18:9–22</a><span style="background-color: #f9f6ed; color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">; </span><a class="scriptureRef" href="https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/20.29?lang=eng#28" style="background: rgb(249, 246, 237); border: 0px; color: #486fae; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">20:29</a><span style="background-color: #f9f6ed; color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">; </span><a class="scriptureRef" href="https://www.lds.org/scriptures/dc-testament/dc/133.16?lang=eng#15" style="background: rgb(249, 246, 237); border: 0px; color: #486fae; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">133:16</a><span style="background-color: #f9f6ed; color: #2f393a; font-family: 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px;">). The preaching of repentance by John the Baptist formed the preparation for the ministry of our Lord.</span></blockquote>
So, isn't that just another way of staying that repentance happens when we shed our own stories for reality. Where we wake up, in other words, become born again, embrace the world as it truly is. If we look at religion this way, it changes the dynamics of our lives in profound ways. For examples, what of guilt? Again from Miller:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Shame and guilt are life's way of protesting against the constriction of the too-tight story you're busy telling about it. The twist is that shame and guilt, manifest in this pinch, end up siding with your story and blaming life. Guilt doubles down on the self-important story you're telling about yourself. Guilt is sin seen from perspective your sinfulness. Even if you feel guilty about how you've hurt others, that guilt remains problematic because your guilt is about you and about how you didn't measure up to your story. Guilt recognizes your story's poor fit and then still demands that life measure up. It recognizes that your shoes are too small and too tight and then blames your feet for their size. Repentance is not about shaving down your toes, it is about taking off your shoes.</blockquote>
Finally, in the church we often talk about how the goal of our life is to return to live with God, to achieve eternal life. Miller has an interesting alternative interpretation of what eternal life means:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
If eternal punishment is God's kind of punishment, then we might, as others have, try this same reading of eternal life. Eternal life is God's kind of life. Rather than just checking a life span, 'eternal' names a certain way of being alive, a certain way of holding life as it passes from one moment to the next. Life itself involves the passage of time and, in order to be faithful to it, we must bless rather than dam that flow. We must do as God does and allow the world and our parents and our children and ourselves to grow and change and die and start again. In heaven, all the world's many parts continue moving. Being sealed to those we love doesn't seal them off from change. Rather, it binds us to them as, in their living, they never cease to change. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Have no doubt, these costs are high. Each of us will sacrifice everything. We will lose everyone and everything and everyplace we've ever been given. Even if we stay put and stay together, neither we nor they will stay the same. All of it will change and all of it will pass into what comes next and there is no going back. The question is, will we greet this passing with a closed fist and a hard heart or with an open palm and a consecrated life?</blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
What is eternal life like? It's like this. It's like now. Eternal life is always for now and never for later. Eternal life is a certain way of holding in our hands the hunger of a human life. It is a certain way of doing whatever you're already doing. Eternal life is just like doing what you're doing right now, but doing it the way God himself would do it.</blockquote>
And that's what it's all about. To become more like God and we don't have to wait, we try every day to learn more, to grow closer to God. To live our lives like God would have us live them. And this process of waking up, this lifetime process, is hard work and we should leverage all of our resources. Practice acting like God in our homes with our children. Practice accepting gifts of knowledge from all sources. Learn from everyone. The most thoughtful sermon might come out of the lips of a child or out of the lips of the aged, the poor just as easily as from an educated person. As we translate and internalize, we grow and expand.<br />
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<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-9015826562568916012014-03-24T08:34:00.001-07:002014-06-06T21:10:29.472-07:00More Religious DiscussionsIn the subject line of this blog I state, "General musings about mostly national politics, religion, and how I try to manage my day to day life." I wish this blog could be more about how I manage my day to day life where I dwell on issues where I have some influence and that directly affect me and my family - and that most definitely includes my religion, my community, my job. Then, I would then spend much less time on national politics. Funny how in reality this blog has spent far too much space on national politics and so I changed my subject to reflect this reality over wishful thinking.<br />
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National politics is just so much of what the national conversation is all about, at least the conversation I usually pay attention to. And I want to be a part of it, despite the fact that my voice is really a whisper compared to the shouting that is happening all around me. But nonetheless, that whisper, for reasons I can't really explain, gets me going day to day.<br />
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But I'm not the only one to be tempted to jump into the political debate, and over the years I've been a part of some lively on-line discussions, and those experiences got me to write <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2013/12/how-to-have-argument-discussion-online.html">this post</a> a few months ago. But believe me, it's true, religion is a major part of my life and I really do <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2014/02/religious-discussions.html">enjoy</a> <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2008/05/religious-faith-quandries.html">writing</a> and discussing it. But why do I do so little of it? I used to talk religion all of the time. I grew up doing it. I did it on my church mission and I've done it since with plenty of people. Along the way, I've learned that the internet may not be the proper forum for intense religious talk, definitely not in the same way I do political talk. Let me explain while realizing that perhaps some of this is pretty obvious.<br />
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First and most important, is that religion mostly transcends vocabulary and language. The Christian faith teaches that <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians+5%3A22-23&version=KJV">the fruit of the spirit is joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance.</a> These are feelings, emotions, character attributes none of which are easy to explain or describe. And my faith also teaches that <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+1%3A17&version=KJV">good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.</a><br />
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I once was in a grocery store and this lady taught me another principle that rang true and stayed with me and I have no memory what prompted her to make this point to me, a stranger. She said that it's all about relationships. Religious faith is less about what you know and more about how you feel. Religious faith is less about knowledge and more about one's relationship with God. There's really nothing to argue about when it comes to religion, in fact my faith's scriptures <a href="https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/3-ne/11.29?lang=eng">forbids it</a> because really, you are really going to convince me that my personal relationship with God is not authentic? You're going to try to tell me that my emotions and feelings are misguided or wrong? You simply can't do it.<br />
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And it's why this post is meant to be somewhat of a complementary post to the one I wrote about <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2013/12/how-to-have-argument-discussion-online.html">political debate.</a> In a free society, our country and economy thrives on lively debate to move the country forward. Scientific papers are peer reviewed, scrutinized every which way for flaws. Political candidates are mercilessly attacked, looking for any possible reason why a person may be unfit for office. Political ideas receive similar scrutiny and abuse. This scrutiny is vital to smooth off the rough edges as we seek to solve our major problems. That post was trying to outline ways we can optimize the discourse without damaging relationships.<br />
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To have the most fruitful conversations requires humility, the willingness to abandon our own bad ideas and prejudices while being courageous enough to push our own good ideas forward even in the face of this relentless scrutiny.<br />
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But none of this really makes sense when talking about our religious faith. Some time ago, I spent some time enrolled in a martial arts class. The leader of the school said something that again has stayed with me. That religion is really a personal journey that all of us must take on our own. So true. It is a personal journey and to make progress on that journey it has to be done with humility and authenticity - a willingness to be led by and drawn to God. And we can't get there through debate, in fact that's the opposite of what we should be doing.<br />
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How we get there comes again from the fruits of the spirit - joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness faith, meekness, temperance. How do we bring ourselves to a state of mind where these feelings are possible? Prayer, meditation, softness, silence. We get there by serving and loving others - even those, especially those, who have injured us. We get there by seeking holy spaces - in our homes, at our churches, in our temples. We get there when we experience beautiful things, in nature, with art or with music. We get there when we see in every person someone who is literally a child of God with immense worth and then we treat them as such.<br />
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A previous Bishop of a past congregation challenged his audience to, when we see a homeless person on the street, to view him as a child of God and then have a prayer in our heart that the homeless person might be looked out for and blessed. I would add, that doing so may prompt us to act on their behalf. Listening and acting on such promptings brings us to God.<br />
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The mistakes I've made in the past were mistakes I made when I treated my religious faith more like my political party. When I've tried to prove, either through scripture (ha) or by my bad logic, why my church is superior to yours. How is that possible, when faith is a journey each of us must take and this journey requires individual adaptation.<br />
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This point was brought home to me several years ago after I read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Autobiography-Malcolm-Told-Haley/dp/0345350685">The Autobiography of Malcolm X</a>. I loved that book, and I was impressed with the man. What's more I felt like his life, with all of its twists and turns, was blessed and directed by God. I have no doubt about this. What's more, there's no way he or Martin Luther King or other similar religious leaders in world history could have done what they needed to do had they been a member of my particular church. No way that was possible. God worked through them and they were where they needed to be.<br />
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Now my church is definitely an unapologetic missionary church, and all churches really should be, but that does not mean God wants every person to join it. Many people do find strength, joy and peace in my faith and it's my obligation to offer that opportunity to others, but it's always up to them to decide if this is the route God wants them to take. It's a personal journey and only the individual is qualified to make these decisions for themselves.<br />
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One last point. There are some who may read this line of reasoning and say, exactly, and this is why churches should stay out of the political space. But I don't agree. I think society's problems demand every resource we have to solve them. We need science, with its peer-reviewed journals and rigorous, provable laws to solve problems. And we've made remarkable advances by doing so, but our limitations are real and science is far from sufficient. We need our art and our music to push beyond the limits of scientific thought and into ideas that transcend logic. But again this is not sufficient.<br />
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Religion brings something more to the table. There are certain people born with spiritual gifts who have chosen a more righteous life. Who have sanctified themselves through sacrifice and obedience. Who have a stronger relationship to God than most. These are the leaders of our churches. And especially those churches with large memberships, religious leaders who have large followers who trust and listen to them. These church leaders need a voice in our national conversation. They should be sought out by our political leaders for advice and input. Almost every political issue has deep moral and ethical components that are difficult to parse out correctly without spiritual input.<br />
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We get tied up in knots over an issue like abortion because the issue is difficult. When does life really begin, not in the scientific sense of life, but when does a living soul occupy a body? When does a fetus become a person with a right to life. How can we possibly answer this question without some input from our spiritual leaders? How should we think about capital punishment. Is ending a human life something a government institution should be doing? How can we be so arrogant to assume Christian, Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist churches have nothing to say about these and other issues? What about gay marriage? Or war? Or poverty?<br />
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I'm definitely not saying that churches should have the final say and definitely not the only say. We are a democracy not a theocracy. I also believe size matters. <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2014/03/21/westboro-baptist-church-pickets-funerals/6688951/">Fringe churches</a> with few followers should be largely ignored while defending even their right and freedom to worship as they choose. I also think certain faiths have more to say about some issues than others, for example, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2012/aug/23/nypd-surveillance-anti-terrorism-muslims">Muslim leaders</a> have a lot of important opinions on the manner in which we've engaged the war on terror. And these leaders should be listened to. And I hope it's obvious that the civil rights movement was most of all a <a href="http://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-by-era/civil-rights-movement/essays/african-american-religious-leadership-and-civil-rights-m">religious movement</a>.<br />
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And that, in the end, is what religion is for me. I belong to my faith because I believe in it, with all of my heart. When I attend church service week after week, I feel the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace. I feel motivated to serve within my church community. My own journey is important, my prayers, my scripture study, the personal insights I get when I meditate. These are all my own and are intensely personal. But I listen to what the leadership within my church has to say carefully because I know these men and women have been called of God and have special insights because of their own personal relationship with God. While this is a personal journey, it's not one I have to make without help from others stronger than myself.<br />
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And this is what religious faith is in the end. A recognition of our own weaknesses and a desire for support and help from someone infinitely more capable than ourselves. A recognition that without God we are hopeless creatures. I can't walk the path of faith on my own. And that is why our country needs its churches.tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-33252080284793855662014-02-19T08:30:00.003-07:002014-02-19T12:45:01.634-07:00Religious DiscussionsI have been meaning to write about religious faith (<a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2008/05/religious-faith-quandries.html">well I did once a long time ago)</a> for some time because one, religion means so much in my life, but two I seem to spend far more time writing about politics. The problem, for me, though is that religious conversation does not work as well on the web. I have been wanting to explore why and how I personally handle my own spiritual life in more depth on a blog post as kind of a <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2013/12/how-to-have-argument-discussion-online.html">companion article to this one</a>.<br />
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But then someone on my facebook feed posted this <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/mormontherapist/2014/02/morality-we-can-do-much-better-than-this.html">Natasha Helfer Parker</a> criticism of an article found in <a href="http://media.ldscdn.org/pdf/magazines/ensign-march-2014/2014-03-00-ensign-eng.pdf">March 2014 Ensign</a> on morality. What's interesting to me is that, even though Parker was pretty critical of Ensign article, I found myself agreeing with both articles. I think as I dive into the two, I will be able to get at some of the topics I've been wanting write about. So, what I'll do here is quote from each article, Elder Callister's point, Natasha Parker's counter-point and then provide my own commentary on why I think they are both right. Let's see how it goes.<br />
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<b>Callister:</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So it is with God our Father—He needs to speak only once on the issue of morality, and that one declaration trumps all the opinions of the lower courts, whether uttered by psychologists, counselors, politicians, friends, parents, or would be moralists of the day.</blockquote>
<b>Parker</b>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The problem with this approach, of course (discussed in General Conference by Uchtdorf), is that God’s “declarations” have been communicated and interpreted by fallible men – Callister included. This is why it is so important to rely not only on prophetic teachings but also such doctrinal principles as personal revelation, intellectual study, spiritual study, and the influence of healthy approaches from therapists, parents, loved ones and others who would have our best interests in mind when coming to conclusions on such an important and sacred topic as sexual morality.</blockquote>
While I agree with Parker here, I think her point is mostly relevant when the issue is personal. Elder Callister is talking about standards here. Standards set by the church, which are set high on purpose. This is a tricky distinction and I'm not sure I will make it well. Religious faith serves many purposes, but its primary purpose is to try to bring each of us closer to God. It's that relationship that is so important. We strengthen that relationship through personal prayer, scripture study and fasting, but we also have to strive to live a more holy, sanctified life. If religion is to mean anything for us, it has to be transformative, and Christ is the model we are trying to follow.<br />
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I think Parker is speaking from her role as a therapist which is valid. And there are many people who struggle with addiction, depression, and anxiety sometimes made worse when trying for an ideal that seems impossible to achieve, especially given the temptations we all endure. Thank goodness for therapists to help us make sense of these contradictions and provide us with practical tools to help navigate them.<br />
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However, should we rely solely on science or psychology or popular opinion? If so, then we don't need religion. Is our own personal revelation sufficient? If so, than we don't need religious institutions or religious leaders. The point of religious leadership, I think, is to recognize that there are certain people among us who have been blessed with certain spiritual gifts and have by virtue of these gifts, been able to lead a more sanctified path and by virtue of that, have been called into spiritual leadership where they stand as special messengers and spiritual leaders for the rest of us to follow.<br />
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Does that make them infallible? No. Should we also test what they say with our own thoughtful prayer, analysis and intuition? Yes. But we should listen and consider what they have to say. I think that is what Elder Callister is saying here, but even more than that. He is making what I think is an obvious point, that God knows more than all of us. And as we try to tap into God's word and will, it should preempt anything we get from other sources. Of course, we don't blindly assume everything a person says comes from God. We have to get a confirmation for ourselves, but we definitely should be mindful of our own limitations and be willing to set aside our own opinions when they contradict our spiritual confirmations of God's word.<br />
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<b>Callister:</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The Lord condemns self-abuse. Self-abuse is the act of stimulating the procreative power of one’s own body. President Boyd K. Packer, President of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, said: “Do not be guilty of tampering or playing with this sacred power of creation. . . . It is not pleasing to the Lord, nor is it pleasing to you. It does not make you feel worthy or clean."</blockquote>
<b>Parker</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Callister refers to masturbation as “self-abuse.” This is not an appropriate clinical term. Self-abuse is a term currently used to describe unhealthy coping behaviors people use in order to manage overwhelming depression and anxiety (i.e. ritualistic cutting of the skin, pulling of hair, picking of scabs, burning of skin, etc.). If you’re going to take a stand either for or against masturbation – please call it masturbation. Also, to refer to masturbation as self-abuse shames a natural developmental process that begins in the womb and hinders an important relationship with self that needs to be developed in a shame-free environment in order to facilitate the transition into healthy marital sexuality.</blockquote>
Her first criticism is one of vocabulary and I won't step on that. I take Parker's point and I wish we could be more straight-forward with the vocabulary and call it what it is, masturbation. "Self-abuse" does not even seem to accurately portray the experience anyway.<br />
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But I don't think Elder Callister's larger point is wrong and I believe Callister is condemning a narrower set of behaviors than what Parker is describing. Touching your genitals for comfort (say in the womb) is not masturbation at least not in the way Callister describes it. Rather his specific words are significant, the act of stimulating the procreative power and that is what is prohibited. I think there is a distinction here.<br />
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The second point is one of shame and sexual sin seems to carry with it more taboo and shame than other kinds of sin especially in our church culture. But most people are guilty of crossing the lines in one way or another for nearly every kind of sin. The trick as always is how can we seek holiness and sanctification even as we fall short daily.<br />
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<b>Elder Callister:</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Now I share some danger signals that precede some of the sins I have mentioned. In some regards, Satan is like an octopus trying to capture us. If one tentacle does not work, he will try another and another until he finds one that takes hold. Following are some of the tentacles of the evil one designed to cause us to break God’s standard of morality.</blockquote>
<b>Parker</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Callister uses fear-based language and overall approach that is inconducive to healthy sexual education. Although there is correct principle behind understanding the gravity of sexual responsibility towards others and self – using a fear-based approach to get this point across is not effective and usually contributes to problems rather than solving them.</blockquote>
This is a tough one. I agree with Parker that the over-use of the addiction paradigm to address pornography and sexual sin is sometimes psychologically not appropriate. Addiction has a very specific psychological definition and we tend to over-apply it, especially when pornography is the issue.<br />
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And there is danger in using over-the-top fear based analogies to describe the temptations that surround us and that can cause unnecessary anxiety and especially shame for those who struggle - and we all struggle.<br />
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But fear is a legitimate emotion and often a useful one, especially when there are dangers lurking. I think there there are legitimate reasons to be afraid, especially with the way sexuality is used and abused in our society. There are some people whose lives are ruined by sexual or drug addiction. <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/2013/08/09/from-deep-throat-to-lovelace-how-porn-industry-has-changed/">Pornography is rife with abuse</a>, where some of the participants are participating <a href="http://voices.yahoo.com/the-relationship-between-pornography-human-trafficking-6612026.html">under force</a>, and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/26/brain-scans-porn-addicts-sexual-tastes">pornography exposure does affect the brain</a> and can damage a person's ability to have healthy sexual relationships with another actual person. I think, or at least I'd hope, Parker would agree with all of this.<br />
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But our society is saturated by it and many good <a href="http://www.covenanteyes.com/2009/11/24/why-are-so-many-christians-addicted-to-porn/">people fall into it</a>. So, care and sensitivity is appropriate. And we can certainly exaggerate the danger and create far too much guilt for the behavior than is warranted. And this guilt can cause hopelessness which can be counter-productive to our ultimate goal of sanctification and a closer more loving relationship with God.<br />
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<b>Callister:</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
We cannot avoid seeing every improper billboard or immodestly dressed person, but we can drive out the improper thought once it arises. The sin is not in involuntarily seeing something improper; the sin is in entertaining the thought once it comes. The scriptures tell us, “For as he thinketh in his heart, so is he”<br />
(Proverbs 23:7).</blockquote>
<b>Parker</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Callister allows for no level of arousal or sexual thought outside of a spouse as a natural part of being a mortal human. He speaks of avoiding material that is “pornographic in ANY way.” For many of my OCD clients this becomes an impossible feat (because it is defined rigidly) – they cannot enjoy a museum where fine art depicts the human body, they cannot go to work where there exists “walking pornography” through what is considered immodest dress, they cannot develop any tolerance to the sexual nature of the human experience.</blockquote>
Again, I think both are correct here. But Callister is talking in terms of an ideal to strive for and Parker is dealing with the human condition as it actually is. It's an impossible standard to go through life without a single lustful though, but this is the standard Jesus himself set forth. And again, the goal of this life is get to that point, to direct all of our sexual yearnings solely toward our spouse, the one place where sex can deepen and strengthen the intimacy and power of an extremely important relationship. If we can succeed at that, we can see every person we encounter as more than a body, we will have a greater capacity to recognize the precious spirit that each of us have, allowing us to treat every person as the children of God we all are.<br />
<br />
<b>Callister</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Men and women can look sharp and be fashionable, yet they can also be modest. Women particularly can dress modestly and in the process contribute to their own self respect and to the moral purity of men. In the end, most women get the type of man they dress for.</blockquote>
<b>Parker</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Callister’s statements on modest dress are sexist and offensive to both men and women. First of all “modesty” is only talked about in the context of clothing and it is only addressed to women. He participates in classic “rape culture” ideology where the woman is responsible for the man’s sexual thoughts and actions. </blockquote>
Of all of the parts of Callister's article, this is possibly the most difficult for me to defend, mostly because I realize a lot of feminists are deeply troubled and offended by the church's teaching on modesty and I'm not totally sure why. Our family has accepted the modesty teachings mostly on faith, but having three daughters I probably need to ramp up on this issue.<br />
<br />
Just a couple of thoughts. I hope it's obvious that men and women are different in terms of <a href="http://www.webmd.com/sex/features/sex-drive-how-do-men-women-compare">sexual desire</a>. Men are more quickly aroused then women and visual stimulation seems to be more powerful for me, generally speaking. Men are definitely responsible to keep that desire in check, but it seems sensible to me that both genders should make an effort at modest dress and that it's likely that it's more important for women to be mindful of this than men, based purely on their differences. Take that for what it's worth.<br />
<br />
<b>Callister</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Two oft repeated rationalizations are used to support moral transgression. The first is “I loved her.” Satan is the great counterfeiter. He tries to palm off lust as love. There is a simple test to detect the difference. Love is motivated by self-control, obedience to God’s moral laws, respect for others, and unselfishness. On the other hand, lust is motivated by disobedience, self-gratification, and lack of discipline.</blockquote>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Parker</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Secondly, there are many more complicated issues that contribute to sexual choices than “selfish lust”: past sexual, physical or emotional abuse, personality traits or disorders, mental health diagnoses (i.e. bipolar disorder), trauma of any kind – just to name a few. A very typical scenario I see is that of young women or men who have been sexually abused in their childhood: they are now dealing with complex and confusing dynamics as they try and navigate their own developing sexuality as teens and young adults.</blockquote>
Parker gets a bit picky over linguistics again in the section right before the quote above. Is sexual desire for your spouse lust or love? Who knows, but there is certainly a distinction between it and the desire one feels when looking at an attractive stranger dressed provocatively. <br />
<br />
But Parker's larger point is spot on and it's why, especially in today's climate, it's very difficult to generalize about sexual issues. There's so much complexity around it especially considering the highly sexualized culture we are trying to navigate our lives through. I think the standards are clear and everyone should strive to live up to them. But compassion and consideration is required when dealing with someone who has struggled with past abuse or mental health issues. Again, thank goodness for therapists.<br />
<br />
<b>Callister</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Those with same gender tendencies have a duty to (1) abstain from immoral relationships and (2) do all within their power to avail themselves of the refining, perfecting powers of the Atonement. In the interim, however, those who have same gender tendencies but do not act on them are worthy to hold Church positions and receive a temple recommend.</blockquote>
<b>Parker</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Callister speaks to the LGBTQ community where a life of celibacy and singleness is the expectation as a condition to worthy participation in the service of the Lord. It is my strong position that this is not a healthy stance for any human who naturally craves and needs the communion of partnership.
</blockquote>
This is another tough one that I'm not qualified to take on. But I will say that Callister is simply repeating the official doctrine of the church and it's important that the church be clear on what their official position is. I will say that a life-time (or large portion of a lifetime) of singleness is something that does happen to some people, gay or straight. And navigating decades of a single life while maintaining complete celibacy is a challenge, and we should have compassion and understanding for those who fail. Again, the way of holiness and sanctification is not easy and nobody lives up to it fully and mostly we're just trying to grow and evolve over our lives.<br />
<br />
Having said that, it's one thing to have the hope of an eventual marriage always before you even if that hope is never satisfied, and quite another to have it removed completely. There should be even more understanding and compassion given to those within the LGBTQ community having to face that kind of choice, especially for those who find themselves within a Mormon culture that gives them very little space for a full and fulfilling life. I hope, we as a church culture, can make more room for these precious brothers and sisters who can and should enrich our lives with their presence within it - even if lifelong celibacy just is not practical for them.<br />
<br />
I don't have much experience in this area, but I feel like there should be room even for gay couples. Callister only excludes Church positions and temple recommends, but this exclusion is not really that wide. They are still free to attend services, participate in activities, perform service, and be a part of the community if they choose to do so. Of course, there is a broader issue within church culture that might make this difficult for many and I hope this is resolved and Mormons learn true Christ-like compassion for those who choose not to or cannot live up to these or other standards.<br />
<br />
<b>Callister</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The blessings of living a clean and moral life are over whelming. Such a life will bring self confidence and self esteem. It will result in a clear conscience. It will make us eligible for a spouse of like purity and will make the expression of the procreative power in the marriage relationship sweeter and more rewarding because we have reserved it for the time the Lord Himself has endorsed.</blockquote>
<b><br /></b>
<b>Parker</b><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Finally, Callister ends by saying that if we follow the advice given in the talk we will be “eligible for a spouse of <em style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;">like</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, Helvetica, Tahoma, sans-serif; font-size: 16px; line-height: 20px;"> purity.” </span>I cannot emphasize enough how damaging it is for members of the church who have sexually explored outside the realms of marriage, then gone through the appropriate repentance steps to still consider themselves as “impure” because of their past actions.</blockquote>
Another tough one. I completely agree with Parker here. In Callister's article, he just finishes talking about repentance and the power of the Atonement to change one's life when mistakes have been made. And I admit it sounds contradictory when he then pivots to living up to the ideal of not making serious mistakes at all. I think it is better to live a life free from serious mistakes, but its tricky, especially as a parent, to help guide your children past major pits while still conveying the message that if they fall into a pit, you will be there, without judgment, to help lift them up and out.<br />
<br />
Again, the goal of this life and it's a life-long quest, is complete sanctification. Thoughts that never waver, eyes that never wander and a complete sexual devotion reserved exclusively for the one you've committed you're entire life too. This is the challenge for everyone and it is a high standard. But I'm guessing most of us have fallen short of that and depend on the repentance process, continuously to get back on the path and to continually strive to live up to the standards Christ has set.<br />
<br />
And after all, the church's role is to offer hope. Hope to those who are just starting out that they are more capable than they realize and they have can lean on Christ to get the strength and protection to resist temptation. But also hope to those who have already made mistakes, that they can overcome them and also experience the same blessings of a sanctified, pure and holy life as those who never made these same mistakes.<br />
<br />
Parker concludes with this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The way that sexual standards are presented in this type of talk is unrealistic and sets people up for failure. Very few will be able to achieve them at the level of rigidity in which they are communicated. And if they can, there may be other factors at hand – such as having an asexual response (an entirely different topic altogether).</blockquote>
I hope I've made it clear that sexual standards, but even beyond sex, the standards our church has set is unrealistic and will set up people for failure. This is completely true and I believe intentional. The standard is to become like Christ, but our doctrine teaches that failure is baked into the experience of life. We will fail but that failure should not lead to despair. And that's the other, complementary message of our church. That there is always hope, and that hope is in Christ.<br />
<br />
Will high standards cause more anxiety and depression for some driving them as Parker claims to a therapist? Likely, but again, thank goodness for therapists. The way forward is strive ever higher toward a more holy life.<br />
<br />
The <a href="http://bookofmormononline.net/#/jaredites/151">Book of Mormon teaches</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Ubuntu, 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;">Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, </span><img class="dot" src="http://bookofmormononline.net/interface/i" style="-webkit-user-select: none; background-color: white; cursor: pointer; font-family: Ubuntu, 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-right: 2px; outline: 0px; position: relative; top: 4px; vertical-align: top;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Ubuntu, 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, </span><img class="dot" src="http://bookofmormononline.net/interface/c" style="-webkit-user-select: none; background-color: white; cursor: pointer; font-family: Ubuntu, 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px; margin-right: 2px; outline: 0px; position: relative; top: 4px; vertical-align: top;" /><span style="background-color: white; font-family: Ubuntu, 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', 'Lucida Sans', Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"> which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God. And it came to pass that Ether did prophesy great and marvelous things unto the people, which they did not believe, because they saw them not.</span></blockquote>
That's true, hope and faith give us charity and compassion, both for ourselves and for others, which lead us to abound in good works and to glorify God. We will keep making mistakes, but we will, over time, come closer to God. That is the goal of this life.<br />
<br />
I want to finish by quoting from a <a href="http://douthat.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/01/15/catholicism-and-cognitive-dissonance/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs&region=Body&gwh=16AF6EB6C04E800DD1D65F74074FEA0C&gwt=pay">beautiful essay</a> from Douthat who covers this topic beautifully:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But Gordis is raising an issue that any tradition-minded religious body needs to think through: Namely, how to make its hardest rules seem like aspirations rather than just judgments, and how to deal with the many fine personal gradations that can exist between orthodoxy and apostasy, fidelity and dissent. And I suspect there are many Catholics who would be classified as “liberal” who want something like what he’s describing in Modern Orthodoxy from their church. That is, they want room to dissent from a teaching or fail to live up to it in practice, but they don’t necessarily want the church to change that teaching so that the dissonance or tension they feel simply goes away.</blockquote>
And that is the essence of how we should take Callister's message, that these are aspirations, not judgments and we all have to deal with "many fine personal gradations that can exist between [complete] orthodoxy and apostasy, fidelity and dissent". We all come with our own personal weaknesses, limitations and misunderstandings.<br />
<br />
In politics, t<a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2013/12/how-to-have-argument-discussion-online.html">his should make us more willing to listen </a>to another who may disagree because likely we are wrong and most definitely limited. With religion, it should make us more willing to get down on our knees and listen to God. Either way, humility, compassion, and patience is what will get us through.<br />
<br />
<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-7031622254431764032014-01-20T14:02:00.001-07:002014-01-21T18:12:58.472-07:00A Big Money Takeover of State GovernmentI just finished listening to a <a href="http://www.npr.org/2014/01/15/262733742/one-party-to-rule-them-all-why-the-gop-is-winning-the-statehouse-war">podcast on Fresh Air</a> about how, largely because of gridlock in Washington, big money is pivoting toward state elections to push big partisan ideas at the state level in hopes that a national consensus can coalesce for eventual national policy change. This makes sense in a couple of ways. First of all, shoring up a monopoly position in specific states allows your party to groom governors for eventual presidential runs. And of course, controlling state government increases the likelihood that the party will be represented by this state in the US Congress.<br />
<br />
As national dollars are redirected toward state elections, it's much more difficult for minority parties to win these elections even with better candidates. Further, the party ideology becomes both more entrenched and less accountable through redistricting and gerrymandering techniques.<br />
<br />
One reason why I'm posting is that the gay marriage issue is being pushed using this strategy. Look at the respective maps.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_the_United_States">From wikipedia</a>, the red states are those states that have constitutional bans on same sex marriage and civil unions (dark red), just same sex marriage (lighter red), or just state statute bands on same sex marriage (still lighter red). The blue are those states that have legalized same sex marriage (dark blue) or have some legal benefits for same sex couples (stripes).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixCrZVwH9Z1mbF3jGCGhfMeLfUgpb8eJoDgogud5a3cv-3gpZxcywUSmKgSCQjIFW1PAx-gi2jsK48-RXFjyjHwXQuLbwdZW836qzbaLOORVaFCn4bskO5A6YIGqpiPUo_MAOqLTc1qZvs/s1600/Samesex_marriage_in_USA.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEixCrZVwH9Z1mbF3jGCGhfMeLfUgpb8eJoDgogud5a3cv-3gpZxcywUSmKgSCQjIFW1PAx-gi2jsK48-RXFjyjHwXQuLbwdZW836qzbaLOORVaFCn4bskO5A6YIGqpiPUo_MAOqLTc1qZvs/s1600/Samesex_marriage_in_USA.svg.png" height="197" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/01/11/us/politics/who-controls-the-states-and-where-they-stand.html">From an article writte</a>n by the journalist investigating monopoly control of state houses (I couldn't figure out how to download the image, so you're going to have to just click the link).<br />
<br />
You see the color code of the two maps line up almost exactly. Not really surprising. But the problem with these super-majorities at the state level is that while you get some level of state-level experimentation, you get it primarily at the extremes.<br />
<br />
Look how many states not only ban gay marriage but also civil unions. Look how many states not only provide some legal benefits for gay couples but went straight to full marriage equality. There's very few states trying more compromised approaches. You'll find similar outcomes on abortion, minimum wage, taxes, voter identification laws, etc.<br />
<br />
The problem for me is that the extreme position is almost always wrong and good government almost always comes through compromise and accountability, working in good faith with those who have different points of view from you, recognizing your own very human inability to look at all sides and desperately seeking different points of view to balance out your own biases.<br />
<br />
We are increasingly getting none of this. Rather we are learning winner take all political maneuvering where big money institutions wield almost all of the democratic muscle and minority views our bullied out of the conversation.<br />
<br />
One way around this, of course, is to use tactics currently at work in Utah on gay marriage. Pushing the issue to the federal courts and assuming you have the courts on your side, you can override the majority. But again, this is possible only when big money national groups funnel money to fund these law suits. And it increases judicial power beyond the bounds of what our founders intended.<br />
<br />
I have no solutions to this. Largely it's inevitable. But it saddens me as being someone with a lot of interest in politics, a strong desire to get involved and make a difference, but a shrinking ability to do so.<br />
<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-33327048535583081662014-01-14T20:39:00.000-07:002014-01-14T20:59:56.910-07:00My Response to Andrew Sullivan's Gay Marriage Post TodayHave you ever had a really intense argument with a really informed intelligent friend on a subject you both care deeply about but you both have legitimate and possibly not an easily reconcilable disagreement? Good things may result.<br />
<br />
That is what happens in this fascinating blog exchange between Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan that I reference in some form or another <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2010/09/some-final-douthat-on-gay-marriage.html">here</a>, <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2010/08/another-douthat.html">here</a>, and <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2010/08/ross-douthat-makes-same-point-i-made.html">here</a>. It's fascinating because Sullivan is probably the most persuasive gay marriage advocate I have read largely because he takes on the likes of Ross Douthat, the most persuasive gay marriage skeptic I have read (largely because he takes on Andrew Sullivan).<br />
<br />
At any rate, when you are pressed to the limits of your best arguments, you often are forced to admit things that otherwise would not come up. Andrew Sullivan does so here (which would be fantastic if these points were brought up more often in mainstream discussion assuming Sullivan is right):<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Will marriage that encompasses gays and lesbians undermine this? </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
The
first thing to say is that lesbians seem to be far more eager to marry
than gay men. Duh. It's not because they're lesbians, it's because
they're women. It follows, however, that lesbian couples are likely to
be <i>more</i> monogamous than most straight couples as well as more numerous than gay males ones. So adding lesbians to the mix actually <i>reinforces</i> monogamy as an ideal and feminizes marriage in ways that Ross would presumably favor. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Gay
men? I think it's fair to say that the fact that they are men makes
monogamy less likely than even straight marriages. If Eliot Spitzer had
married another Eliot Spitzer, he may have had more sex on the downlow
and spent a lot less money on hookers. Male-male marriages that survive
are likelier to have some kind of informal level of permission and
forgiveness and defensible hypocrisy on this score than most male-female
marriages or female-female marriages, especially if the men marry
young. I think the honesty within these relationships can actually be a
good thing and can help sustain a life-long commitment rather than
weaken it. But I can also see why it might worry Ross if this became
publicly celebrated rather than privately tolerated. Given the way in
which the straight family as a whole is involved in such marriages, I
believe private toleration will likely prevail over public celebration.
But the defensible hypocrisy of straight marriages may have an extra
twist here.</blockquote>
Here Sullivan admits that these three kinds of relationships are not the same, they have different dynamics, temptations and implicit rules built in because of these differences.<br />
<br />
But then today he says <a href="http://dish.andrewsullivan.com/2014/01/14/the-right-backs-affirmative-action/">this:</a><br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It’s a surprising move, but perhaps the only possible shred of an
argument they have left in the fight to deny marriage equality to gay
citizens. In Utah, the state has <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/14/us/utahs-arguments-against-gay-marriage.html" target="_blank">tried to muster legal arguments</a>
as to why they have an interest in marginalizing gay unions as opposed
to heterosexual ones. Their first try was to argue that
heterosexual-only marriage was important for “responsible procreation.”
The Judge agreed, but couldn’t understand why allowing civil marriage
for gays would somehow undermine that. In fact, he made the socially
conservative counter-point that by mandating that gay couples remain
unmarried, “the state reinforces a norm that sexual activity may take
place outside of marriage.”</blockquote>
and this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
And that’s the core thing about
this debate. As it has gone on, the logic of equality has proven far
stronger than the logic of exclusion. In the courts, often denigrated,
the standard of logic applies more rigorously than in the emotional and
human maelstrom of democratic votes. If the arguments just don’t stand
up to reasonable inspection – and they sure haven’t – what is even a
conservative court supposed to do? And if <i>Utah</i>‘s supreme court cannot provide a convincing case to retain this kind of public discrimination, what hope the others?</blockquote>
I understand this is a subtle contradiction but it's there. I'm not sure whether or not the state should care whether they reinforce a "norm that sexual activity may take place outside of marriage" if by sexual activity you mean any kind of sexual activity you can imagine (or choose not to). Maybe, maybe not, but that seems to me a tougher argument to make. Rather I think it makes much more sense that the state would care about sexual activity that may lead to the creation of new life. And the fact that we get into such heated debates about sex education, birth control and abortion, procreative activity is very much a state concern.<br />
<br />
I think the larger point is a good one. Will adding gay couples to marriage weaken it? <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2011/07/another-gay-marriage-post.html">Likely not</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
While Douthat continues to cling to his views, another moderate conservative I admire, David Frum <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2011-06-2">dithers</a>. But his logic as to why?... is just dumb:<br />
<br />
It's
true that marriage, among the educated middle class, has actually
strengthened recently which weakens the argument that gay marriage
destroys traditional families. But that's only true if you believe gay
marriage is the only and the strongest factor that will destroy
families. I believe there are a multitude of societal factors at play
and changing gay marriage laws is just one of many and not near the most
important. I'm not sure how you can separate these out in way to come
to the conclusion Frum comes to. </blockquote>
Marriage as well as all of the legal benefits attached to it was designed with straight sexual activity in mind (especially given that birth control did not exist when the marriage construct was developed and if we were still living in that world, I guarantee we would not be having this discussion right now). Does expanding the institution to include couples that simply do not have the same kinds of risks blunt its goals? Maybe or maybe not, but making the case that this is a <a href="http://www.annenbergclassroom.org/speakouts.aspx?name=do-gay-marriage-bans-violate-the-constitutions-equal-protection-clause&AspxAutoDetectCookieSupport=1">violation of the equal protection clause</a> is far from clear, to me at least.<br />
<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-18776893072361559122013-12-27T22:35:00.001-07:002013-12-30T23:01:21.671-07:00How to Have an Argument, err Discussion OnlineI spend a lot of time reading articles on the internet, far too much time. But maybe I'm being fairly productive during those times when I'm reading really smart, really good writing from those grappling with some of the most difficult issues of the day. The best writers tend to be located on sites that host views across the political spectrum and part of the reason these writers are so great, in my view, is because they have been challenged. They are read by people who disagree with them, they read others with whom they disagree, and they write and are driven to write from a place of tension and conflict.<br />
<br />
These writers want to contribute to the <a href="http://www.welltrainedmind.com/great-books/">great conversation</a> that has been taken place since the beginning of the written word. There are many great forums for this kind of great writing, the two I frequent most frequently are <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/">The Atlantic</a> and <a href="http://www.slate.com/">Slate</a>, but there are others. Admittedly, these sites are not perfect, they both lean left, but given the nature of our political environment and the fact that people are seeking echo chamber validation for views they already hold, these sites are about as good as they get.<br />
<br />
Contrast that with those sites that try to stay more politically pure: <a href="http://townhall.com/">Town Hall</a>, <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/">The National Review</a>, or <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/">The Weekly Standard</a> on the right or <a href="http://www.dailykos.com/">DailyKOS</a> or <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/">Think Progress</a> on the left. I notice this especially on the right wing sites, where the echo chamber is particularly loud. I understand this is a subjective opinion, but on average, these sites tend to emphasize stories and make political points that have very little relationship to the topics and points made on the other side, almost as if they are living in another universe.<br />
<br />
One thing I am convinced of, however, the more broadly read a writer is, the more they have injected themselves into the middle of a conversation, the more frequently have they grappled with the big questions and dealt with challenges to their opinions, the smarter they are as writers. Similar to why <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gandalf#Gandalf_the_White">Gandalf becomes the white wizard in LOTR only after his fight with Balrog</a>, we become better when we struggle. It's why I think conservative thought has degraded over the years and why I struggle with the content on their websites, they have insulated themselves to a far greater extent than the liberal sites.<br />
<br />
So, why should I care about any of this? I don't make my living writing on the internet. But I do love to learn. I love to grapple. I love to <strike>argue</strike> discuss big ideas with people who disagree with me. There are many out there who do, but there are also many who are turned off by the debate. Why? Because we too often do it wrong.<br />
<br />
The problem with most internet debate, taking place in the comments section of a posted article, on facebook, twitter or between bloggers, is that in the heat of the moment, our point of view gets skewed. We come into it believing we have the answers and it's our own holy calling to convince the other that we're right. Our goal is to get the other person to change their poorly conceived, weak opinions to our own much more superior ideas conceived by a much more advanced mind. Can you see why this is a flawed approach?<br />
<br />
<b>Why We Disagree</b><br />
But why do people disagree in the first place? I think there are many reasons, but here's a short collection of them<br />
<br />
<b><i>Different Backgrounds</i></b><br />
We have different backgrounds and experiences which lead us to see the world in a different way informed by these differences. This is key. It doesn't mean we're wrong, but it does mean we're limited - all of us. Chances are on many issues, we're both right and we're both wrong. In other words, yes, what we're saying makes perfect sense, but only if you see the issue from my exact vantage point.<br />
<br />
For this reason, it's vital that we seek empathy in our discussion, placing ourselves into the other's shoes, really trying to understand the issue from their perspective. Give them the benefit of the doubt as much as possible.<br />
<br />
<b><i>Different Foundational Opinions</i></b><br />
We come to our opinions usually from a basic set of foundational principles. Whether or not you believe the <a href="http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/12/24/same-sex-marriages-go-forward-in-utah-after-judge-decision/">courts over-stepped their bounds on the gay marriage ruling in Utah recently</a> probably depends a lot on what you think the proper function of the judicial system is. And it probably depends even more on what your opinion on gay marriage is. It's frustrating to have a debate on an issue, when you disagree on the more fundamental issues driving these opinions.<br />
<br />
The quicker you discover this and drive down to the more fundamental disagreements, the faster toward understanding you will get.<br />
<br />
<b><i>There are Really No Right or Wrong Answers</i></b><br />
There are some issues where both ideas are viable approaches to solve the problem under discussion. Additionally, there are attributes about the world we live in that just lend themselves to unsolvable problems. There are all kinds of ideas out there on how to end poverty, none of them are likely to work or all of them may. We don't know, actually. For these ideas, it's best we just try them and see.<br />
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<b>Why We Should Engage</b><br />
The point here though is that the conversation is important. Admittedly, we should <a href="https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/3-ne/11.29?lang=eng#28">avoid hateful contention on any platform</a>, but I think we can and should engage with others who have different opinions, perspectives, religious and political ideas than we do. In fact, living in the country we live in, with the political system we have inherited, our politics demand that we do.<br />
<br />
How many of us complain about the utter incompetency of the US Congress, their failure to pass meaningful (or any) legislation, their unwillingness to cooperate or compromise? Our representatives behave in the way we do because they represent us who are behaving in the exact same way. If we want our representatives to compromise, we need to encourage them to do so. We have to be willing to support legislation that we will likely hate. Few of us are willing to give our representatives this kind of support.<br />
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The reason why this is important, though, is that likely we're wrong. Likely those people who disagree with us have good reason to do so. Willingness to compromise is a willingness to admit they we don't have all of the answers. That our ideas, left on their own devices, would probably hurt more people than help. Working together produces better legislation, better ideas come but only if we feel validated and listened to and only if we listen and validate.<br />
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Musicians are experts at this. They have learned <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2009/01/people-united-will-never-be-defeated.html">to both listen and contribute at the same time.</a>. To quote Daniel Barenboim from his book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Music-Quickens-Time-Daniel-Barenboim/dp/1844672875">Music Quickens Time</a>,<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;">The way that people should play in an orchestra, when you sit in the orchestra, you have to give everything of yourself, everything you know, everything you feel, whatever comes to you, you have to give the maximum, otherwise you're not contributing to the collective effort, but at the same time, simultaneously, you have to listen to what others are playing, and what you say is in permanent relation to what they are saying. What you play in relation to what they are playing. If you are too loud, they won't be heard, if you are too soft, you won't support them. What better lesson for life do you want? Can you imagine if our politicians have to really contribute everything that they think and feel and at the same time listen to others."</span></blockquote>
That's what happens in a productive conversation We are forming music, with all of the tension and surprises good music contains, where all involved are both hearing and being heard. This is the environment where good ideas germinate.<br />
<br />
<b>A Better Way to Discuss</b><br />
The problem here is that most people engage in an on-line debate all wrong. Our goal is not to learn but to convince. The problem as I mentioned, is that we're already on shaky ground because we are more likely wrong than right (or if not wrong, most likely too narrow, or too limited to be useful) because we as limited human beings who just don't know very much.<br />
<br />
Rather, if we could change our paradigm. <a href="http://paulgraham.com/essay.html">The goal should not be to convince but to discover</a>. Give the other person the benefit of the doubt. Recognize that they likely have really good reasons to believe the way they do. Expedite the discussion by attempting to make their argument for them as soon as you understand what their argument is.<br />
<br />
<b>Why this is Important</b><br />
An idea came to me in the context of the <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2010/08/more-douthat-follow-up.html">gay marriage debate</a>. First, consider that this debate seems to be winding toward an abrupt resolution with the help of a series of court decisions. I do realize, even without judicial help, that the democratic momentum seems to be moving in the pro-gay marriage direction. But to get a full, nation-wide democratic victory would take time. Given the constitutional barriers to major legislative national movement and the weakness of our current Congress, a full national democratic decision on the gay marriage is likely at least a decade away.<br />
<br />
Rather than wait, it looks like the issue is being resolved by judicial fiat. What was once a broad conversation including, most especially, churches and church members and individuals from all parts of society, we are leaving this issue to be resolved by the elite few who happen to be sitting in the judge's seat. This will prematurely end the conversation and that is disappointing.<br />
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Since most people like to use 1960's civil rights analogy to further the case on gay marriage, let me do the same. There was a strong Democratic movement to end the unjust Jim Crow laws culminating in a series of important legislative victories. But this was also pushed forward with important court case decisions. Given the nature of this issue and the extreme injustices being inflicted on black America, over-turning these laws was extremely important. Providing legal protection to allow blacks to go to school, purchase homes, and obtain jobs where-ever they like was (and is) vital.<br />
<br />
But one side-effect of the way this issue was resolved is that it lead to two decades of political correctness and a witch hunt to banish all racism from the public sphere. A part of me wonders whether we really were better off censuring even those who made dumb <a href="http://articles.latimes.com/1988-01-17/sports/sp-36803_1_jimmy-snyder">comments on race</a>. There were (and are) a lot of people who sincerely hold incredibly naive, incorrect and damaging views on race. To completely come to terms with and move away from these views, you need a safe place to express them, to have them sincerely challenged. Because we would rather shut them down rather than engage and convince, I wonder if the collateral damage was <a href="http://newjimcrow.com/">much worse</a> resulting in harder-to-detect racist laws causing considerable harm to black communities.<br />
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It's not politically correct and certainly <a href="http://healthland.time.com/2011/11/07/study-whites-more-likely-to-abuse-drugs-than-blacks/">not accurate to believe that blacks commit more drug crime than whites</a>, but the fact is that people broadly still believe this to be so. We have had centuries of slavery and racism in this country, to believe that we as a country can collectively pivot on a dime to the more correct position just does not seem realistic. Perhaps if we would have cut <a href="http://www.salon.com/2013/12/24/evangelical_churchs_ugly_truth_duck_dynasty_and_christian_racists/">cultural racists</a> a little bit of slack. Allow them a bit of time to work through their <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/04/why-accidental-racist-is-actually-just-racist/274826/">accidental racism</a>, perhaps we could have avoided the third iteration of Jim Crow laws shepherding far too many of our black young men through our prison system. Perhaps if we were little more<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution"> forgiving on speech</a> and a lot less forgiving on <a href="http://www.drugpolicy.org/race-and-drug-war">racist legislation </a>that have decimated poor, black neighborhoods, we would be better off as a country.<br />
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That is why we need the dialogue. The conversations are often messy and discouraging. But we should be really careful to limit speech in all of its forms. Rather we should do the opposite. Fewer echo chambers and more forums where opinions are discussed in a forum of natural disagreement. Where the objective is not to convince but to learn and improve.<br />
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To be clear I'm not excusing <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/sports/2013/12/27/3104881/colorado-state-football-coach-suspended-using-gay-slur/">hateful, abusive speech</a>. There is no excuse for name-calling or hate in any form and those who resort to it should be censured, but we really need to be careful what we categorize as hate speech. The motivation of the speaker is important.<br />
<br />
And when we error, we should error on the side of open engagement and avoid limiting political correctness and any other kind of censure in all of its forms.<br />
<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-75559766909026321182013-12-25T13:41:00.001-07:002016-12-19T15:20:52.884-07:00Santa Claus Does ExistLast night on Christmas eve, I was reading <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/norad-tracks-santas-path-on-christmas-eve-because-of-a-typo/282388/">this interesting story about why it came to be that Norac tracks Santa</a>. This prompted me to immediately download the app on my phone to track Santa's progress with my kids. I found myself trying to explain how Santa could be making such rapid progress throughout the world, visiting every house in the span of a solitary night - how he violated all kinds of laws of physics (ok I left that part out, but I was thinking it). That he shows up more as a flash and gifts magically appear in neighborhoods within the same fraction of a second.<br />
<br />
Then I thought, wow, how implausible of a story is Santa Claus, but millions of children believe. Sure, it's in their best interest, and what do they know about the implausibility of Santa Claus when the proof is in the gifts that show up out of thin air on Christmas morning.<br />
<br />
Incidentally, we are very careless keepers of the Santa secret. My boy commented this morning on the fact that he saw my wife purchased the gift marked "from Santa" for his sister. But it doesn't seem to phase him or his sister, he still believes - though I'm not sure how faithfully he would hold onto this belief if cornered by a skeptic.<br />
<br />
But as I thought about this crazy myth that gets perpetuated in household after household, a different thought came to me. It's a thought that comes to me in different contexts, say <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2012/04/on-lindsay-lohan.html">this one about why so many people care about Lindsey Lohan</a>. This is really, truly a magical night. Every family of different economic incomes, different backgrounds, different circumstances align for one event, year after year because this holiday matters for so many people on so many levels, merging the celebration of Christ's birth with a myth spun from the actual life of a<a href="http://www.stnicholascenter.org/pages/who-is-st-nicholas/"> Catholic bishop long ago.</a><br />
<br />
And the traditions and the gift giving matters economically, providing a<a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/24/christmas_spirit_more_than_presents_even_materialistically_speaking.html"> very real boost</a> to the <a href="http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/23/macroeconomic_case_for_christmas.html">economy</a>. It's really, truly is a magical time of the year. <br />
<br />
And the reason is because Santa Claus does exist, he is not a myth. He is real. He exists because Santa is every parent who loves their family enough to make him real by providing this magical experience over and over again for those they love. One person cannot literally provide hope, and magic for millions of children all over the world. One person never does. One person can't, but every single one of us, working together, collectively can. And this is always the case. It's why<a href="http://lonelyconservative.com/2012/11/jamie-foxx-calls-obama-our-lord-and-savior/"> conservatives were skeptical about the way Obama won the presidency</a> but it's also why so <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY">many liberals had hope in it.</a><br />
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Because real change is made by each of us doing good for those near us, one thoughtful act of sacrifice at a time. If you want to make a real difference in ways that matter, the answer is not to build the next Facebook. While cool and useful, it's not nearly as transformative as the founders of the company think. What really changes the world is for the world to change, by all of us changing together.<br />
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<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-27463621834370578952013-09-01T14:42:00.002-07:002013-09-01T20:55:23.737-07:00How I'm Learning to Read Difficult, Technical BooksI'm not sure my advise will be generally applicable and the older I get the more I worry that I'm learning these lessons far too late. But you know, I still (hopefully) have decades of productive work ahead of me, so I'm still young enough to learn new things I suppose.<br />
<br />
But because this advise comes from me and may not apply to you, let me start with a little background. Growing up, I did not have much access to computers or technology of any kind really. My parents were poor and couldn't afford to buy many necessities and technology was far down their list of priorities. Nor did they have much in the way of connections, so hand-me down technology gadgets were not on their list as well.
Growing up, my <a href="http://cladintights.blogspot.com/p/tight-places.html">two older</a> <a href="http://www.shelleyturley.com/#home">sisters </a> were both artists which had probably the most direct influence on me, especially when I was younger.<br />
<br />
Not that I really had any notable artistic talent, but I did love to read, and I read a lot of good books, for the pure love of reading, for the challenge of it and also for the knotch on my belt when I read books no one else reads. Some of the books I've read without school assignments were <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tess_of_the_d%27Urbervilles">Tess of the d'Urbervilles,</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby">The Great Gatsby</a>, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Quixote">Don Quixote</a>, and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Song_of_Solomon">Song of Solomon</a> (I read the last book with my wife while we were dating and even referenced it during a church talk on family history). I've tried and failed with other books as well.<br />
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Don't get me wrong, I don't claim any special skill in great literature, but given my general demographic and the fact that most people not in my demographic don't <a href="http://ideas.time.com/2013/06/03/why-we-should-read-literature/">really read</a> anything at all, I think this little qwerk about me makes me a little unique.<br />
<br />
It's relevant here because as I started my very technical university degree (because my real proficiencies are in math not literature), the skills I brought with me weren't exactly lining up with the skills I needed to excel in technical coursework. Mostly, my reading experience involved starting at page one and moving ahead, page by page until you reached the end. I wasn't an especially <a href="http://www.welltrainedmind.com/classical-education/">well-trained</a> classical reader either, one that dug into the hard books with vigor and the willingness to dive deeply with careful reading and sometimes repeated reading, taking notes along the way. As a result, most of the hardest books<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulysses_%28novel%29"> flew over my head </a>and I've tried <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sound_and_the_Fury">and failed to finish most of them.</a> Don Quixote is one remarkable exception - it took me three years to finish. It's not especially difficult. Individual chapters are quite engaging. Its just so darn long and at times tedious and without a (to me) compelling enough story to keep you coming back for more. I was really just trying to <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Well-Educated-Mind-Classical-Education/dp/0393050947">get the classical education I never had, </a> Don Quixote happened to be the first book on the list and was the reason, predominantly, I flamed out.<br />
<br />
But I digress. But I guess its obvious that you can't learn technology in the same way you read novels. There are some parallels, true, especially with the hard books, but mostly you'll be doing it wrong or at least not efficiently. My natural inclination is to pick up a technical book, start from the beginning and read to the end, one dreary chapter at a time, considering the entire attempt a failure if I don't finish. This is wrong, wrong, wrong.<br />
<br />
The goal with tech-books is not to finish the book, it's to learn the technology. And really learning difficult concepts is not the same as finishing a single book. It takes constant, continuous exposure, trying concepts out in the real world, reading books from different people, skipping around, not giving up until you achieve proficiency, well at least enough proficiency to do something useful.<br />
<br />
In fact, this is not something they exactly teach in school. In a classroom, at least in my day, you are mostly assigned one very expensive text book, and the class more or less walks through it one chapter at a time, doing difficult assignments a long the way, you know, kind of like reading a novel. Not to mention that often the book the professor picks is the book the professor wrote (nothing wrong with that necessarily).<br />
<br />
Now, in the age of the internet, people seem to have abandoned books altogether and lean on <a href="http://stackoverflow.com/">Stack Overflow</a> or just plain old google to help with specific problems. These resources are good but not sufficient. Books give you a technical breadth and depth on a subject that is not easily replicable within the fragmented confines of the internet.<br />
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So, if you really want to learn a technical subject (say how to program an iPhone app), read, study, program, then read some more. And find multiple books, get different points of view, dive deeply, understand the language, the environment, experiment learn. It's not about finishing a book, it's about building something new. It's not magic, just a bit of relentlessness and constant exposure to the subject matter until it becomes second nature. But you learn this by doing and by reading.<br />
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<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-2980470741149204552013-05-19T22:08:00.002-07:002013-05-19T22:34:24.232-07:00Why We Aren't Moving (Yet)I feel like a need to preface this post with a whole bunch of background history, but first of all, let me explain the motivation behind it. We live in a mildly run-down, older part of Tempe, nearby ASU. Our house is perfectly fine, it was build in 1960 and we've had our share of problems with it, but with the exception of the kitchen, we are getting it near the way we want it to look. Our front yard is landscaped nicely now, the outside has been recently painted and I love it. One bathroom was over-hauled, the other one was improved. We've re-done most of the flooring. We're down to the kitchen, basically... And I have the money to do it, I just gotta get it done.<br />
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Size-wise (my wife won't agree with this), it is perfectly adequate, at least for now. It's 1500 square feet. We have four children, but they are mostly small and in my opinion its perfectly sized for our family. As they age, things will start to squish. And we <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-we-are-homeschooling.html">home school</a>, so my wife would prefer more space for all of our home schooling stuff and a better dedicated space for school. But honestly <a href="http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/first-world-problems">this is a first world complaint</a> (please don't tell her I said this) and we are getting by just fine with what we have.<br />
<br />
And despite all of this, the location has a lot of benefits. We're right in the middle of a sprawling valley. Nearly anything we want to get to is within a 30 minute drive. Right now, my wife is driving all the way out to Queen Creek to take advantage of some seriously kick-butt violin lessons for our oldest daughter and even <a href="http://www.queencreek.org/">Queen Creek,</a> situated as it is on the edge of the population, is still a manageable distance away.<br />
<br />
When we bought the house, the housing boom was just beginning and we were really hesitant to jump in. I was seriously handicapped by trying to make this decision by asking the question, what would my older sisters do. Well, I know what they would have done, they would have bought a house in the <a href="http://www.gcna.info/">Coronado District</a> or similar, and that's what we tried to do as well, going as far as making an offer on a house. But we couldn't follow through because, you know, I'm not them, and this area, for all of its charm and historic value, was not for us.<br />
<br />
Meanwhile, the people most like me, those my age in the tech industry were making much different house buying decisions than me. Their houses were much larger, brand-new,
meant-to-look impressive sort of houses in the suburbs and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/09/opinion/09brooks.html">exurbs</a>, houses with pillars,
and granite counter-tops and stainless steel appliances with big windows
and vaulted ceilings and lots of space. <br />
<br />
At the time we finally made our house purchase, I was working in South Scottsdale, and my wife was working at ASU, so actually Tempe made a ton more sense than downtown Phoenix and in my opinion it made a ton more sense then far east Mesa, or far south Chandler, or Gilbert and beyond. But the houses in Tempe are either really expensive or kind of lame and often both. We did the best we could and ended up with the house we have (kind of lame, kind of small, kind of run-down).<br />
<br />
But it has worked out. We made friends in our church congregation, got to know our neighbors (the ones we are most friendly with are the older, been here almost since when the neighborhood was new. The others are renters, typically ASU students and are harder to pin down). And it has worked out. But we've aged and our kids have aged, and our friends are starting to move, in droves to find bigger nicer homes elsewhere.<br />
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Our church congregation tends to have very small number of youth who regularly attend and they are in a rather transitionary demographic, a lot of renters who are passing through typically. Our primary (children under 12) is fairly nice sized, but after 10 or 11, the population drops off a cliff. And this past week, another family is leaving the ward a family whose son is our son's age, a boy our son considers his best friend.<br />
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But you know, and I said it in my <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-we-are-homeschooling.html">home schooling</a> post, I like doing what eveyone else is not doing:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Not too many people would agree with me, but I do have a rebellious
spirit inside of me. It's wildly constrained by fear, but I do rebel.
I like to turn against the status quo at times, to do something unique
only to me, swim against the tide, establish my own identity. But I
just don't rebel for random reasons, I have to have really, really good
reasons. I need to have a great story to explain my rebellion, so
that I can justify it to others. Maybe, so that I may even get someone
else to join me...</blockquote>
And as people our age leave our church community one by one replaced by young couples half our age, I want to dig in. I want to zig while others zag. I want to recommit myself to the Peterson Park Ward of the Tempe Stake for as long as I can.<br />
<br />
And by the way, I think this <a href="http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/04/the-lords-way?lang=eng">General Conference</a> talk is particularly relevant to this point:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
One
thing we have often been taught is to bloom where we are planted. Yet
sometimes we are tempted to migrate to some new area, thinking our
children will have more friends and therefore better youth programs. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="">
Brothers
and sisters, do we really think the critical factor in the salvation of
our children is the neighborhood where we live? The apostles and
prophets have often taught that what happens inside the home is far more
important than what our children encounter outside. <i>How</i> we raise our children is more important than <i>where</i> we raise them.</div>
Certainly
there are other factors involved in deciding where to live, and
thankfully, the Lord will guide us if we seek His confirmation. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Another
question is “Where are we needed?” For 16 years I served in the
presidency of the Houston Texas North Stake. Many moved to our area
during those years. We would often receive a phone call announcing
someone moving in and asking which was the best ward. Only once in 16
years did I receive a call asking, “Which ward needs a good <a class="no-link-style" href="http://mormon.org/family">family</a>? Where can we help?” </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<div class="">
In
the early years of the Church, President Brigham Young and others would
call members to go to a certain place to build up the Church there. The
irony is that even now we have faithful Church members everywhere who
would go anywhere the prophet asked them to go. Do we really expect
President Monson to individually tell more than 14 million of us where
our family is needed? The Lord’s way is that we hearken to our leaders’
teachings, understand correct principles, and govern ourselves.</div>
</blockquote>
Our son just started Cub Scouts. In the past week, three Cub Scout leaders are in process of leaving or have left. I am committed to helping my son suck every last ounce of benefit from the scouting program and am more than willing to help other boys if asked. <br />
<br />
And our children are hardly bereft of resources. I mean, we live within biking distance of a major university. Our kids have participated in an amazing <a href="http://chandlerchildrenschoir.org/">Chandler Children's Choir</a>, they sporadically get <a href="http://www.goldmedalgym.com/">gymnastic training from a school</a> run by a woman who won a gold medal in the 1996 olympics. And even without those perks, I have an awfully <a href="http://www.tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2013/05/my-wifes-masters-recital.html">talented</a> wife.<br />
<br />
Now, this does not mean we are staying here forever and we could move sooner than this post implies (maybe much sooner). We still would like to live closer to family and we would eventually like to have a nicer, bigger house, especially as our kids get older and our needs change.<br />
<br />
But for now at least we're here and enjoying it. Zigging while everyone else seems to be zagging.<br />
tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-3914471196532923432013-05-19T21:40:00.002-07:002013-05-19T21:40:55.971-07:00My Wife's Master's RecitalSome time back, I tried to get my <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2010/08/my-wifes-masters-recital.html">wife's master's recital stored on the web reference-able.</a> The links are now dead, so this time I'm going youtube. This is really half of the recital unfortunately. The second half is Schumann's Carnaval. It last almost thirty minutes and is broken up into 19 tiny movements. I'm haven't figured out how to get it up to youtube yet.<br />
<br />
Some brief commentary. This is my wife at her absolute musical peak. We weren't married yet, we had started dating seriously that semester before she performed it. It was difficult for me because she was so stressed out about it and was focused so hard on it, I didn't get to see her nearly enough.<br />
<br />
I hope that one day, when the children are older and she has more time to focus on it, she can try to get at least some of this back. <br />
<br />
Mozart Sonata in D Major K. 576<br />
<br />
Movement 1, Allegro:<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/mgD6JK77n4g" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
Movement 2, Adagio:<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/yq49N6m4V1M" width="560"></iframe><br />
<br />
Movement 3, Allegretto:<br />
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Ravel Sonatine<br />
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Movement 1, Modere:<br />
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Movement 2: Mouvement de menuet <br />
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Movement 3: Anime<br />
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Prokofiev<br />
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Sonata No. 3 in A Minor, Op 28<br />
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<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-65220041959144139622013-03-27T08:34:00.001-07:002013-03-27T10:38:22.523-07:00Let's end the Cultural War with a Compromise: Legalize Gay Marriage, End AbortionsMy preference, of course, is to find a muddied compromise on both issues. Find ways to extend to gay couples the benefits they request while finding cultural space for traditional view of marriage for those individuals and institutions that want to still believe in it. Even more so, I hope we can come to what I think is the basic understanding that gay and straight relationships are fundamentally different and that the <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/08/the-unique-quality-of-lifelong-heterosexual-monogamy-ctd/183637/">rules, taboos, constraints and support may inevitably be structured to respect, honor and support these differences</a>. Here's Andrew Sullivan:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Ross sharpens this by noting that in Massachusetts and Spain, for
example, there are now three kinds of marriages: gay male, lesbian and
heterosexual. <i>Experientially</i>, these are different things
because of the power of gender. I do not dispute this at all. Ross, I
think, is particularly worried about monogamy in this context - because
it is so unnatural a state for most of us. The threat to monogamy, of
course, is not universally - but largely - a function of <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/08/the-unique-quality-of-lifelong-heterosexual-monogamy-ctd/183637/#" id="_GPLITA_1" style="text-decoration: underline;" title="Click to Continue > by CouponDropDown">testosterone</a>
and evolutionary biology. And the heterosexual marriage ideal offers
social status to males to stick to one woman for the sake of children
(and his wife).</blockquote>
On abortion, I think we should do more to support and sustain women so that pregnancy is intentional and occurs under the best circumstances, but when it does occur, they are supported throughout their pregnancy and the newly created child has every opportunity to be raised in a home of loving caregivers, ideally bound to the biological parents who produced the life.<br />
<br />
However, I think these two issues have a lot of complementary features and could easily be worked through in tandem. If the choice is between an aborted baby and a gay couple willing to provide a loving home for that baby to thrive... Well, I'm not sure how this choice is difficult. If marriage is less about creating life and more about binding romantic relationships than the taboos around unwed pregnancy disappear.<br />
<br />
Finally, I think gay marriage is becoming increasingly inevitable as the polls seem to be going in that direction. It seems though making abortion illegal could also have the same air of inevitability as science is increasingly showing that perhaps the unborn fetus is not only a living entity but quite possibly, well you know, a person?<br />
<br />
I think <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/the-sanguine-sex/305780/">this </a>article provides a brief abortion history but makes what I think an important point:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But my sympathy for the beliefs of people who oppose abortion is
enormous, and it grows almost by the day. An ultrasound image taken
surprisingly early in pregnancy can stop me in my tracks. In it is much
more than I want to know about the tiny creature whose destruction we
have legalized: a beating heart, a human face, functioning kidneys, two
waving hands that seem not too far away from being able to grasp and
shake a rattle. One of the newest types of prenatal imaging, the
three-dimensional sonogram—which is so fully realized that happily
pregnant women spend a hundred dollars to have their babies’ first
“photograph” taken—is frankly terrifying when examined in the context of
the abortion debate. The demands pro-life advocates make of pregnant
women are modest: All they want is a little bit of time. All they are
asking, in a societal climate in which out-of-wedlock pregnancy is
without stigma, is that pregnant women give the tiny bodies growing
inside of them a few months, until the little creatures are large enough
to be on their way, to loving homes. </blockquote>
Or read about how Penelope Trunk describes here abortion <a href="http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2009/06/17/whats-the-connection-between-abortions-and-careers/">here</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
People think abortion is such an easy choice–they say, “Don't use
abortion as birth control.” Any woman who has had one will tell you how
that is such crazy talk. Because an abortion is terrible. You never stop
thinking about the baby you killed. You never stop thinking about the
guy you were with when you killed the baby you made with him. You never
stop wondering. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
So the second time I got pregnant, I thought of killing myself. My
career was soaring. I was 30 and I felt like I had everything going for
me — great job, great boyfriend, and finally, for the first time ever, I
had enough money to support myself. I hated that I put myself in the
position of either losing all that or killing a baby.</blockquote>
And finally:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
But also, here I am with two kids. So I know a bit about having kids
and a career. And I want to tell you something: You don't need to get an
abortion to have a big career. Women who want big careers want them
because something deep inside you drives you to change the world, lead a
revolution, break new barriers. </blockquote>
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
It doesn't matter whether you have kids now or later, because they
will always make your career more difficult. There is no time in your
life when you are so stable in your work that kids won't create an
earthquake underneath that confidence.</blockquote>
Increasingly, I also think we should try to avoid sperm donor babies. I doubt its practical to legally prevent it, but it does potentially lead to crazy stuff like <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dear_prudence/2013/02/dear_prudence_my_wife_and_i_came_from_the_same_sperm_donor.html">this</a>, where a man finds out his wife is biologically his sister.<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
When my wife and I met in college, the attraction was immediate, and we
quickly became inseparable. We had a number of things in common, we came
from the same large metropolitan area, and we both wanted to return
there after school, so everything was very natural between us. We
married soon after graduation, moved back closer to our families, and
had three children by the time we were 30. We were both born to
lesbians, she to a couple, and me to a single woman. She had sought out
her biological father as soon as she turned 18, as the sperm bank her
parents used allowed contact once the children were 18 if both parties
consented. I never was interested in learning about that for myself, but
she felt we were cheating our future children by not learning
everything we could about my past, too. Well, our anniversary is coming
up and I decided to go ahead and, as a present to my wife, see if my
biological father was interested in contact as well. He was, and even
though our parents had used different sperm banks, it appears so did our
father, as he is the same person. On the one hand, I love my wife more
than I can say, and logically, done is done, we already have children. I
have had a vasectomy, so we won't be having any more, so perhaps there
is no harm in continuing as we are. But, I can't help but think 'This is
my sister' every time I look at her now. I haven't said anything to her
yet, and I don't know if I should or not. Where do I go from here? I am
tempted to burn everything I got from the sperm bank and just try to
forget it all, but I'm not sure if I can. Please help me figure out
where to go from here.</blockquote>
Or in the one thread of <a href="http://www.hulu.com/watch/467600">Parks and Recreation</a>, a character weighs the responsibility of fatherhood when he is asked to donate his sperm, implying that donating a sperm is much, much more than just donating a sperm.<br />
<br />
If we do expand marriage to include gay couples (which we already are), my ideal would be that those relationships would exist to support straight couples who have much more at stake in terms of creating life. Support those who get pregnant unintentionally, adopt children who would otherwise not be adopted. Push abortion into the taboo fringe where it belongs.<br />
<br />
Can we find a compromise? Extend gay marriage, end abortions?<br />
<br />
As a side note, illegalizing abortion makes me uncomfortable in some very serious ways. I don't ever want a return to this:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
At Bellevue, my mother had twice attended dying young women who were
victims of botched abortions, young women—“girls,” she called them—who
spent their last hours on earth being interviewed by policemen.
Terrified, alone, dying, neither would reveal the name of the
abortionist; “they were too frightened,” my mother said. If I had to put
money on which of the roommates bravely went to the girl’s apartment,
I’d put it on my mother. </blockquote>
And I would prefer if we could end abortion through culture pressure and taboo than through threat of jail, but I hope that we could at least have the discussion that goes beyond simply Roe v Wade.<br />
<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-65098910457884064212013-03-10T23:30:00.003-07:002013-03-30T13:27:29.348-07:00Does it take continuous 100 hour work weeks to change the world?Because I am a masochist I started following the blog of <a href="http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/">Penelope Trunk</a>. It all started innocently enough, a friend of mine <a href="http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2013/02/18/universal-preschool-is-bad-for-everyone/">posted</a> a link from her blog that criticized universal pre-k from the perspective of a homeschooling family. Well, we are a <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2008/04/why-we-are-homeschooling.html">homeschooling</a> family and this was a smart post from an accomplished homeschooler, so yes, I'll add this blog to my RSS reader and begin to follow.<br />
<br />
Before doing this, I decided to take a gander at her posting history and well, for someone prone to competitive comparingness, this was not a pleasant thing to do. Tales of <a href="http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2010/10/09/women-dont-want-to-do-startups-they-want-children/">100 hour work weeks</a> or driving <a href="http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2011/07/12/how-to-compete-with-generation-z/">two hours one way</a> to take her prodigious six year old son to cello lessons taught by a music professor at the University of Wisconsin. I know its wrong, but these are not tales I enjoy reading.<br />
<br />
Finally after reading yet another post written a <a href="http://blog.penelopetrunk.com/2013/03/10/i-had-to-take-a-xanax-to-read-time-magazine-this-week/">long these lines</a>, I felt like I had to write a response of my own, maybe as a defense of my own life choices? To give myself some hope that I can still accomplish some of my own goals without making these kinds of sacrifices?<br />
<br />
The 60, 80, 100 hour work week tension has been something I've been living with since graduating with my engineering degree back in the 1990's. I started my career at a company that had this crazy over-time compensation policy. If you worked 40-59 hours in a week you were paid your salary, but if you crossed the 60.0 hour boundary, you were paid for every hour you worked. And my colleagues at the time were in the habit of exploiting this loophole to maximize their income. I resisted the urge mostly, but it's hard to work less while those you work with work more: they take the most interesting work assignments and leave you with the scraps.<br />
<br />
But I felt this prompting at the time that I needed to be more well-rounded and in my early career I was, trying to make up for my <a href="http://www.ci.yuma.az.us/">culturally barren childhood</a>. At one time or another I had season tickets at the <a href="http://www.phxart.org/">Phoenix Art Museum</a> and the <a href="http://www.phxart.org/">Herberger Theater</a>. I attended concerts at the <a href="http://www.phoenixsymphony.org/">Phoenix Symphony</a>. I spent all of my post-college single life mentoring a boy as part of the <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2008/05/about-boy.html">East Vally Big Brothers/Big Sisters.</a> I even took up piano lessons.<br />
<br />
Although single, I was not giving up my life for my job. And I tried hard to keep my personal life in-tact. I think it worked out because I ended up marrying a pianist. Would this marriage have worked without this min-self education? I'm not sure.<br />
<br />
But I spent my twenties working on myself in ways that had nothing to do with my day job. My thirties were spent married, bearing four kids the <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2008/10/giving-birth.html">Bradley way</a>, joining the ranks of homeschoolers, and still spending large swaths of my personal time in ways that had nothing to do with my day job. Obviously, this did not put me on the path for a high powered career at Google or Facebook.<br />
<br />
And I also happen to<a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2011/05/when-mormons-sin.html"> belong to a church</a> that asks for a lot of my time. Three hours of church service on Sunday, a command to keep the Sabbath day holy and work free, a responsibility to watch over four or so other members of your congregation through at a minimum monthly visits, requests to help fellow members of your congregation move or to bring them dinner when they are ill, a request to research your family history, to regularly write in your journal, take on additional church callings (through the years I have been a quorum president and a counselor in other presidencies, a leader in the scouts and with the young men, in the primary (working with children), and with the church's missionary program and of course to spend daily time in family, couples and personal prayer, meditation and scripture study.<br />
<br />
Devoting 100 hours every week to your career does not line up (that's 14 hour days, 7 days a week).<br />
<br />
So, I have to ask myself, is 100 hour work weeks really required to change the world? Without any evidence to prove this assertion (being as I have yet to change the world myself), I say no. In fact, I've already covered this topic<a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2011/11/meriticracy-or-grace.html"> here</a>.<br />
<br />
I'm afraid that many (not all) of the companies at Silicon Valley are building products nobody really wants because they are mostly building products they think people want but end up building products only tech geeks who work 100 hours a week want. Steve Yegge says it well <a href="http://steve-yegge.blogspot.com/2008/08/business-requirements-are-bullshit.html">here</a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
You can look at <i>any</i> phenomenally successful company, and it's pretty obvious that their success was founded on building on something <i>they</i>
personally wanted. The extent that any company begins to deviate from
this course is the extent to which their ship starts taking on water.</blockquote>
The other day I was out to eat with my friends and one of them was selling girl scout cookies for her daughter and I asked if she took PayPal, she laughed and told me she had no idea even had to login to her account.<br />
<br />
People love Facebook, but really, if they had just stopped working on Facebook five years ago and just made sure it scaled, would it be much different than it is today? Google built search which people love, but what else is coming out of Google that people really, truly love? Apple is the best at building products people love, but are Apple products really that much better than Windows? And how much time are people wasting browsing the web on their iPhone rather than going to bed? <br />
<br />
I'm probably over-selling this point a bit, but what if people mostly just worked 40-50 hour work weeks (there are times when you have to crank it up, but they should be rarer than people think) and spent the rest of their time with their families, working on their hobbies and building their communities? <br />
<br />
Given how much work is happening out there building stuff that nobody wants or needs (housing bubble anyone?), wouldn't the world be a tad bit better place if more of us were building stuff for ourselves and for our friends, and by extension consuming the stuff others were building for us?<br />
<br />
I'll end this rather long post with a quote I just recently ran across reading the "Lord of the Rings" to my kids:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"'At least for a while', said Elrond. 'The road must be trod, but it will be very hard. And neither strength nor wisdom will carry us far upon it. This quest may be attempted by the weak with as much hope as the strong. Yet such is oft the course of deeds that move the wheels of the world; small hands do them because they must, while the eyes of the great are elsewhere.'"</blockquote>
If we ever want to truly change the world, we need fewer Mark Zuckerbergs working 100 work weeks trying to convince more people to spend more time wasting stuff they don't really need or want, and more people like the Bishop of my congregation who homeschools his five children, runs his own law firm and spends countless of hours ministering to the poor and the needy in Tempe.<br />
<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-89790386740102315752013-03-03T19:50:00.002-07:002013-03-05T00:46:31.129-07:00Political SystemsIf I had to rate at a high level, the political-economic systems in order from those that are most prone to disaster to those that are most likely to foster a productive society, I would come up with the following:<br />
<ol>
<li>Dictatorships: An unaccountable few who have taken control over a country's resources. Historically this form of government has been our most common and the cause of so much suffering - from communism and fascism to the traditional dictatorships of ancient times. If you get lucky, a dictator will be competent and fair, but nobody is really smart enough to effectively control something as large and complex as a country, so even the benevolent dictator causes unnecessary suffering and waste.</li>
<li>Corporate monopolies or oligarchies: Corporations that are able to control parts of the economy that either collude with competitors or eliminate competition altogether are almost as unaccountable as dictators. Their control doesn't tend to reach as broad, but they tend to also be more opaque. The damage of such are immense. They charge high prices, enrich themselves and have little incentive to really meet the needs of their consumers. There are so many examples of this today (of variable degree): cable and cell phone providers, hospitals, drug companies, energy companies, big banks, etc.</li>
<li>Democracies that impose regulatory control over parts of the economy that suffers from a lack of oversight and competition. Medicare has been such an important part of our country because no private insurance would ever agree to insure people near end of life and hospital and health care providers have all the leverage when someone requires health care - a patient facing death will pay almost anything to get the required care. Health care requires regulation. Medicare works because recipients of the benefit are engaged and informed and hold their democratically elected politicians accountable to make sure the sytem works, is funded, and operating efficiently.</li>
<li>Free Market Capitalism: There is nothing so efficient and innovate as an industry where the barriers of entry are low, where companies are at the mercy of their customers, and where pricing is transparent. Customer driven innovation is a beautiful thing to be a part of. To discover pain points, deliver products that delight, and get paid by appreciative customers for services rendered or goods delivered.</li>
</ol>
The problem with today's political environment is that the Republicans too often mistake 2) for 4) and Democrats mistakenly push industries in 4) into 3). Worse, today's Republicans have spent the last couple of decades assuming Democrats are the party of 2) when they are really support a complicated mix of 3) and 4) (which is the ideal). As a result, Republicans and the media that serve them, have become incoherent and paranoid and a result, good compromise has become impossible. <br />
<br />
The sweet spot is for Democrats to push category 2) industries into category 3) and for Republicans to prevent categories in 4) from becoming 3) or 2) and to find ways to expand 4) into as many industries as possible. <br />
<br />
In a sane political system this would be a relatively straight forward thing to do and ripe for all sorts of compromise and cooperation in doing so. To bad we don't have a sane political climate today.<br />
<br />
tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-20409958021615536702013-03-03T19:14:00.002-07:002013-03-03T19:14:45.068-07:00Is a Liberal Arts Education a Waste of Time?There's been <a href="http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/09/how-liberal-arts-colleges-are-failing-america/262711/">a lot</a> of <a href="http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2012/0919/Why-a-liberal-arts-education-is-the-best-job-preparation">talk</a> lately on whether or not a liberal arts college education is worth the cost involved in getting it, and <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2012/09/12/is-a-college-degree-worth-the-crisis-of-debt.html">graduate liberal arts degrees are even more controversial.</a> Someone with a bachelors in history can pivot that into something very specifically practical if they desire. I will say that a lot of this debate stems from the fallout of the last great recession that has rendered many young people without work experience unemployed and living with their parents.<br />
<br />
The other day, out with some friends, I made the rather caustic statement that a liberal arts degree was a waste of time, and in response, my wife (who has two degrees in piano performance) says, well that's what I have. I did offer one corollary, that children should have a rather vigorous liberal arts education throughout their lives that increases in intensity as they enter high school, which should include reading from original sources, research and a lot of writing.<br />
<br />
Because I often say things off the cuff that don't necessarily capture my true feelings, I thought it would be a good idea to vet some of this.<br />
<br />
The first question we should ask is what should we be getting out of our educational system? Should it lead directly to a job that matches exactly with the degree we're obtaining? Are their non-monetary reasons to get educated?<br />
<br />
First of all, I think there are all kinds of reasons to get as much education as you possibly can and that this education should basically never stop. And there are all sorts of reasons why this is important that span far beyond how impressive specific knowledge looks on your resume. A vital democracy depends on a broadly educated population. Churches and non-profits depend on skilled talent willing to donate it for free. To get where we want to be as a society, we need more people willing to do more without compensation, even when doing that thing requires a lot of skill.<br />
<br />
Last week, I took my oldest daughter to see a chamber orchestra perform some pretty amazing chamber music. Her violin teacher was performing a Bach duet concerto in this concert, and by the way, it was both free and amazing. Her teacher has advanced degrees in violin and was now giving away her performances for free.<br />
<br />
Only an extreme few of us can be professional musicians or tenured professors or full-time, best-selling authors. The world simply has too many problems to solve to afford this. There are too many ditches to dig, sick people to care for, roads to build. There are only so many people we can carve out of society to write something nobody really wants to read. Since, every author and musician is now competing with artists both past and present and since artistic production is copied and broadly distributed, we simply don't need that many of them, at least that many who do it full time. There are parts of our economy where we do need a lot of workers - teachers, nurses, doctors most primarily. But most of these laborers are relatively low wage and none really require advanced degrees in the liberal arts.<br />
<br />
As families are organized and adults pair off, at least one member of this pair needs to have practical skills to get essential work done, work important enough that someone out there is willing to pay for.<br />
<br />
So, while I want my kids to nail their liberal arts education, I hope each one of them has a desire and will to also pursue skills that will translate into a practical career. If they want to hitch their wagon on the hopes of marrying someone who will provide, cool, a liberal arts degree is probably ok, but better not go into a lot of debt for this.<br />
<br />tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5939543443166847471.post-48705404679812653342013-02-23T16:34:00.001-07:002013-02-23T16:34:52.603-07:00Homeschooling MathThe other day my wife and I were having this conversation about how frustrating it can be to get our children, especially our oldest child through a math lesson in the allotted time. She'll get hung up on a tough problem and rather then face it down, she'll dawdle, draw, stare off into space. It can take some constant nagging and then we'll either have to spend much longer on the Math lesson to the detriment of other subjects or not finish.<br />
<br />
Added to the dilemma is the way math curriculum is organized and the expectations around math our culture imposes. In a <a href="http://tempeturleymusings.blogspot.com/2011/02/funny-thing-about-homeschooling.html">past post</a>, I talked about some suggestions surrounding Suzuki violin practicing that I'll repeat here:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<ul>
<li>"Let the child learn at his OWN pace. It allows him to learn each
step VERY WELL before going on to a new idea. (Example of rushing a
child - is pushing him to memorize a new piece when he is still
stumbling over the notes of his last piece.) Definition: Child's own
pace -- is speed at which he learns something under optimal conditions.</li>
<li> Because of lifestyles we have chosen, too often practice sessions are not at an ideal time, or are rushed.</li>
<li> Because of 'other things' we have scheduled, 'careful
repetitions' are not done (poor practice timing, interruptions, or
distractions.)</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
and<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
Let a child practice only as long as he is interested and can cooperate.
Once his attention is gone, his learning stops. Practice then becomes
a measure of endurance and bad attitudes can develop from it. A few
minutes, several times a day may work best at first.</blockquote>
If these are a good ways to learn violin, I'm not sure why or how other subjects of learning are different. For our daughter, why not slow down the pace of learning. Why the rush to get through the curriculum at the exact rate suggested? Why risk turning kids against the subject at a very early age and pushing them through the material before mastery has been achieved?<br /><br />What we concluded is that we'll be consistent and steady, allocate a time window each day at an optimal time of the day. She'll get through what she can get through. Solid, consistent learning for significant years of her life without turning her off completely from the subject is preferable to the alternatives.<br />
<br />
And this is one of the reasons why we homeschool: to allow our kids to progress through the curriculum at their own pace. Why should we try to act like traditional school when we don't have to.<br />
<br />
tempe turleyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00906350838729139212noreply@blogger.com0