Humans are Natural

It's occurred to me that maybe I should resume blogging a little bit. Lately it has just been funny/clever quips that I drop on Twitter from time to time. I just entered club 40s about a month ago, and my thinking has evolved on many things. As always, I reserve the right to be wrong and to change my mind based on new experiences and information.

A friend today mentioned that she likes to connect with nature a lot, and also tried to connect with some humans as well. On the one hand, I totally get the distinction between "nature" and "humans." There is certainly a qualitative difference between things largely untouched by humans, compared with how we've molded/harnessed "nature" to give us shiny and useful objects.

But there's also something called the naturalistic fallacy. In short, that which is "natural" is not necessarily better for us, or even inherently good. Cobra venom is 100% organic, but it'll still kill you. "Well who in their right mind would....!?" Nobody. That's not the point. The point is you have to look beyond labels and towards substance. If something is being marketed to you as "all natural," then it's probably overpriced. They're banking on you paying extra for whatever you think you're getting--substantively--from the label of "all natural." But ultimately whether that food is good or bad for you largely comes down to chemistry at a molecular level.

I've got some good (or bad) news for you. Everything that humans create is natural. That's because humans are part of nature. Whatever we do is, by definition, something nature is capable of producing, because here we are producing it. Life arose through natural processes, and therefore everything that life produces remains, by definition, natural. Whatever amazing virtual worlds we create for ourselves will also become a part of nature. Who are we to decide when nature ends and "humanity" takes over? Is that not a little bit presumptuous?

Are we still doing this?

Do people still blog? I've been listening to so many podcasts these days that I had almost forgotten about these things. I'd also kind of forgotten I even had this blog. Obviously I haven't done much here in a while.

One important update since the last time I appeared here is that I discovered we don't have to put two spaces after each period. Apparently that was some holdover from the typewriter days. So now I've joined the one space club, and life is better here.

Also, I don't really think about the church much. For several years, I was pretty angry about thing, and still thought long and hard about various church topics. I suppose it came with the territory, making that whole journey "out." I formally resigned from the Mormon church back in late 2015. Apparently that event wasn't even worthy of an entry here....whoops. The development that precipitated by formal resignation was that new policy the church came out with about the children of gay couples not being able to be baptized or fully participate until they turned 18. Truly ridiculous and about as un-Christian as you can get. So I sent the only message I still could to the Mormon church and left. (Honestly, I had been waiting for some big blunder like that so that my resignation would be more meaningful.)

Finally, I feel like I used to be a better writer. Maybe I should get back to this blogging thing more regularly!

Thoughts on the BYU Culture of Victim Blaming

There have been a number of news stories recently highlighting an unfortunate facet of student life at BYU.  Here is one article on the topic.  This article was recently posted by "This Week in Mormons", a Facebook page that covers news on Mormon-related topics.

I made the below comment on the post and wanted to preserve its content.

***

I commend you for posting about this (I was starting to think that this was a news site only for "positive" Mormony stuff).

I've read the comments so far and will chime in with my own perspective/experience. My experience at BYU taught me that if people wanted to break the honor code, they would do so (present company included). Punishment for violations is rather arbitrary and inconsistent. Let me give you an example. During the student body campaign season of my final year at BYU, the front-running student body president and his VP running mate were abruptly disqualified from the running when a roommate of the ex-gf of the VP went in to the honor office and reported him for a curfew violation six months earlier. This happened at about the same time that BYU did virtually nothing about numerous gang rape allegations that had been made against players on its football team. Is anyone surprised?

Let's not fool ourselves about one thing: the honor code is a mechanism of control, nothing more. Mormons are already expected to abide by the covenants they've made in their church. The honor code simply gives BYU (and the LDS church) leverage to ensure that their adherents remain obedient. It also adds many things to the "forbidden" list that would not otherwise constitute violations of any covenant (e.g. curfew, room/bathroom restrictions, dress/grooming, etc.). Such a control mechanism is seemingly inconsistent with a religion that so heavily emphasizes the importance of "free agency" and the notion of teaching people correct principles and then letting them govern themselves. The church already has a system in place to deal with (punish) covenant breakers, and it long predates the honor code.

BYU, or the church that runs it, has to make a decision. Does it preserve this culture of victim blaming, or does it sacrifice its mechanism of control? If students' academic progress could no longer be threatened by honor code violations, would that result in more "sin"? Perhaps, but like I already said, if people want to sin, they're going to find a way to do it. When an organization strives so hard to exert control over the behavior of its members, it looks less and less like a church, and more and more like another "c" word.

Are you in a cult? Answer these questions to find out.

1. Do you have pictures of your past and current church leaders hanging on your walls at home and/or in your places of worship?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
2. Are you allowed to question or criticize your church leaders without repercussions?  (Yes = 0 / No = +1)
3. Does your church throw big birthday celebrations or parades for current or past leaders?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
4. Do you sing hymns of praise to current and past church leaders?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
5. Do you believe that your church's founder was the most important human being to ever live, other than Jesus?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
6. Was your church's founder regularly in trouble with the law, both before and during his tenure as the first leader of your church?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
7. Did your church's founder amass a fair amount of wealth and property as a result of him being leader of the church?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
8. Did your church's founder end up marrying dozens of women (some as young as 14), including the wives of some of his male followers?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
9. Did your church's founder have sexual relations with the numerous women he "married"?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
10. How big of a deal is it when one of your top church leaders speaks in a local congregation?  (A big freaking deal...standing room only = +1 / No biggie = 0)
11. Do your current church leaders make money by writing books and selling them to members through the church-owned book publisher?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
12. Do you know how much your current church leaders get paid for their church-related services?  (I have no idea and I don't care = +1 / Yes, everything is fully transparent and disclosed = 0)
13. Do you hang on every word that comes out of your church leaders' mouths?  (Yes, it's as if God is speaking = +1 / No, they're just people like me = 0)
14. Do you consider it a very memorable and noteworthy life event when you personally shake the hand of one of the top leaders of your church?  (Yes, that shit is going on Instagram right now = +1 / No, sounds like a good way to get sick = 0)
15. Will you attend special meetings outside of regular church meetings to listen to broadcasts of your church leaders giving speeches?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
16. Are you counseled to follow the advice of your leaders, even if it is wrong? (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
17. If the leader of your church told you that it was the will of God that you do something that you felt was fundamentally wrong, would you do it anyway?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
18. Does your church commemorate the birthday of your church's founder each year? (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
19. Do you participate in secret religious rituals involving repetition, chanting, strange clothing, and pantomimes, all of which you're not allowed to disclose to anyone?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
20. Do you have a body of "esoteric" teachings that members are not exposed to until they have committed substantial time and resources to the church?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
21. Are your local leaders expected, if not required, to emulate your top church leaders in grooming and attire?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
22. Do your local leaders regularly sit down privately with minors and ask them questions about their sexual practices?  Without their parents present?  (Yes = +2 / No = 0)
23. Does your church regulate the type of underwear you must use?  Does your church happen to be the only place that sells this underwear?  (Yes = +2 / No = 0)
24. How much of your money must you pay to your church in order to enter its most sacred sites?  (More than 1% of your income = +1 / Nothing = 0)
25. Does your church whitewash its history?  (Yes = +1 / No = -1)
26. Do you have any detailed information on what your church does with the money it receives from you and other members? (None = +2 / Some = +1 / A good amount = 0 / Full transparency = -1)
27. Does your church conduct informal elections where you are expected to vote for and sustain the current leaders?  Are sustaining and opposing votes ever counted?  (Yes-No = +1 / Yes-Yes = 0)
28. Is critical thinking discouraged in your church?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
29. Are you allowed to openly dissent at church and voice opinions/views that call into question the doctrines of the church?  (No = +1 / Yes = 0)
30. Does your church keep detailed files and records of all of its members?  Does it actively assign elderly, retired members to try and track down other members who have moved or fallen out of contact?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)
31. Do you have regular church meetings where members stand up and reaffirm to each other the validity and truthfulness of the church?  (Yes = +1 / No = 0)

Scoring:

34-25: Definitely a cult

24-15: Kind of a cult

14-0:   Probably just a regular church

Paging George Orwell: Is the Church still "True" even if it's all made up?

I recently read a blog entry about a guy who found out the church is made up, yet he persists in describing the church as "true."  He relates it to an epiphany he had while watching the Lego movie.  Read all about it here.

I don't agree with this author's approach. First of all, it doesn't make sense to describe a religion or church as "true." A religion is something that people believe in and practice. In that sense, it is real and exists. Calling it "true" is meaningless. However, when Mormons describe their church as "true," they mean that it is the sole religion that will enable people to reach the highest heaven. So when you say the words "The church is true", that is more or less the meaning that most church members will process. 

This author is basically saying that even though the church is made up (not true), it's still true. The words he should be using, in my opinion, are "valuable" or "useful." Not "true." Perhaps the church is useful to him, or valuable to him in some respects. That is different than it being "true" in any objective sense, or in the sense that Mormons use that word.

Does this strike anyone else as eerily Orwellian? First, I can hardly think of a better example of double-think; essentially describing the church as both untrue (made up) and true. Second, in the book "1984," Big Brother is engaged in an effort to dilute the meaning of words, or eliminate certain words entirely, as a means of thought control. The theory is that if you can limit forms of expression, you can control what people think. Or, at least you can decrease the chances of them thinking certain undesirable thoughts.

So while this author apparently means well (he's psychologically grappling to somehow make the church "work" for him, even though he now realizes it's all made up), I think his approach is ultimately harmful and counterproductive. The resident cynic in my brain thinks that the church would love nothing more than to have this author, and others like him, continue using the words "The church is true," with the nuanced meaning advocated here, knowing full well that most church members will understand that phrase as it is traditionally understood in Mormonism: that people need the church to be saved.

LDS Church Activity Rates

Several weeks back a rather amusing gaffe happened in an online article published in the Deseret News, a newspaper owned by the LDS church.  The article is called "LDS CIO helps LDSTech attendees better understand church membership."  This article reports on a representative from the church attending a conference and divulging a number of interesting statistics regarding church membership.  Some statistics shared in the article include:

• 48% of members live in the U.S. and Canada
• 36% live in Latin America
• 3% live in Europe
• 3% live in Africa
• 3% live in Oceania
• 7% live in Asia

But the single most interesting statistic originally shared in this article was that only 36% of Mormons attend church each week.  As you can see, this particular number is nowhere to be found in the article linked above.  That's because the original article was hastily edited after initial publication, with an editor's note saying "Some of the statistics originally reported in this article have been removed because they have not been verified by the LDS Church. The information was removed at the request of the speaker."  

For those familiar with the book "1984" by George Orwell, you will recall the concept of the "memory hole."  In the book, which depicts a futuristic totalitarian society, where the thoughts and actions of citizens are heavily monitored and controlled by "Big Brother," the main character works in a branch of the government responsible for editing history and news.  If the government wants the population to collectively "forget" something, that something is excised from all texts and publications and sent down the "memory hole." 

The LDS Church seems to naively think it can live in the far-fetched world depicted in 1984.  Perhaps Mr. Orwell could have never foreseen the invention of the internet, which makes any kind of "memory hole" impossible, but today's church leadership has no such excuse.  For, as you guessed it, someone took and preserved a screenshot of the article as it originally appeared.  You can view it here.

Tip for a church grappling with the age of the internet: the more you try to bury something, the more attention you are going to call to it.  It is understandable why they would want to bury it--this is the closest the church has ever come to releasing official numbers on activity rates, even if it was inadvertent.  It's hard to brag about "15 million strong" (if that even bestows bragging rights at all) when only a third of those members are at church on any given week.

So what are some of the implications of this statistic?  First, it's important to point out that the church doesn't keep specific attendance on a member by member basis (that I know of, at least).  Instead, someone in the congregation, often the ward clerk, will go around and count how many people are in attendance at sacrament meeting.  Babies, investigators, visitors, etc.  All will be counted.  Therefore, this figure could be seen as a rough "ceiling" on activity rates.  In any event, the statistic must be an average; therefore specific variations and outliers are unimportant.  This also means that church leaders should seriously consider dropping the "strong" qualifier to any claim that the church is "15 million members 'strong.'"  The word "strong" implies members who actively believe and participate in the church.  But if, on average, over 9 million of the people that the church claims as members want nothing to do with it, they can hardly be considered "strong" members.  Perhaps the claim should be revised to something like "5.4 million strong."  But that would be like time traveling back to 1983, and it would destroy the illusion of growth the church so desperately strives to maintain.

We really shouldn't be surprised by this kind of disparity.  The church is notorious for hiding or obfuscating data like this.  Take, for instance, the church's practice of keeping "lost" members on its rolls until they are 110 years of age. ("Lost" means that the church has not received any official notice of the member's passing.)  Well, how's that for optimism!  That means every member born since 1904 is still on the books unless the church has formal notice of death or--possibly--resignation.  Given the less-than-precise record keeping that happens in third world countries, this essentially guarantees a perpetual inflation of membership numbers.  And let's not even get started on the lack of financial transparency.  It's abundantly clear by now that the church will shout numbers from the rooftops when it thinks they will make it look good.  But when the numbers aren't so flattering?  Well, that's when you have to go digging.  Or, in this case, screen-capturing.

A Prescription That Doesn't Work

I was talking to a friend the other day about the church.  She is a church convert and participates actively.  Somehow we got onto the topic of church members who get divorced, and she mentioned a particular couple she knows in the church who recently got divorced.  Everyone was perplexed over how they got divorced because both of them were active, and from all appearances worthy, obedient, church members, both before and after the split.

Many might wonder why anyone would be perplexed over a couple divorcing.  That happens all the time, right?  True, but in the Mormon church, people are taught that as long as spouses are faithful to their church covenants and follow the church's rules, then they will have happy and successful marriages.

I told my friend that I didn't find the divorce surprising or perplexing in the slightest.  My own parents got divorced even though they were always faithful and compliant with the church's rules, and they remain so today in their new marriages.  (However, now they are both much happier, being married to spouses respectively far more compatible with each of them.)  Many other divorced couples can undoubtedly attest to similar experiences.  Clearly, then, the church's prescription for marital bliss isn't that reliable.  It's kind of like advising someone that as long as they exercise at least five days a week, they will be successful in their chosen career.  Without a doubt, such frequent exercise would bestow numerous benefits, but it would not necessarily result in career success.  And if it did contribute to career success, the contribution would be merely indirect (unless, of course, you're a fitness instructor or something similar).  The church's prescription for marital success is only effective to the extent it results in the parties doing things together or maintaining similar attitudes regarding various social/moral issues.  That kind of forced compatibility could also be produced if the couple became equally involved in a political party, fitness club, or community organization.  Except that in those scenarios, the parties will most likely have affiliated voluntarily, and not as a result of simply being raised in a particular religion.

The church's prescription ignores many other material relationship issues that could contribute to divorce.  It does nothing for sexual incompatibility, personality differences, financial stress, communication failures, inequality, or being unprepared for the marital commitment in the first place, all of which can create the type of tension that leads to divorce.  Sometimes people just aren't good together, and there is no amount of obedience to arbitrary rules and guidelines that will change that.  It also doesn't help that many church members base their decision of whom and when to marry on a highly subjective "good" feeling they either get or don't get while praying on the subject.  It hardly needs to be stated that such a decision-making method is an even more useless recipe for marital bliss than that of "just follow the commandments."

The things that make for a happy, successful relationship are many, and I don't pretend to know what they all are.  What seems clear, however, is that the church promise of marital happiness as long as both parties are faithfully living the commandments does not encapsulate all, or perhaps even most, of such issues.  Admittedly, I have never been married or divorced, so a lot of this is just idle pontification on my part.  Feel free to chime in and disagree. :)