Open Hatch

Archive for the ‘Religion’ Category

Approaching 10 years since the terrorist attacks on America of September 11 2001, I have been thinking a lot about United flight 93, and the actions of the retaliating passengers who thwarted their attackers’ mission.

After the hijackers either killed or disabled the airplane pilots, passengers learned from cell phone calls to loved ones that other targets had been hit: other hijackings had succeeded. They knew they were riding an airplane-turned-bomb, which must have some intended target: they were facing imminent death. They knew that their choice was to retake control of the flight or die.

Faced with their own imminent destruction, the passengers chose to fight. They organized and mounted a counterattack. The combat that ensued bore out the apparent intentions of the terrorist attackers: to maintain control of the airplane toward its destructive goal or else destroy themselves and the passengers.

The flight recorder captured the sounds of the conflict in which the passengers either closely approached retaking control of the cabin, or actually retook it. At that point, the hijackers, faced with the imminent failure of their mission, chose self-and-all-annihilation. On the flight recording is one of the hijackers issuing an order to end the flight, just before the time ground witnesses reported the plane crashed. It approached ground near upside-down at a steep angle, and impacted at about 500 miles per hour in a giant fireball, immediately killing all the hijackers and passengers.

The passengers succeeded in killing two hijackers and thwarting the remaining two. The terrorists succeeded in thwarting the passengers’ attempt to re-take the plane: by ending their own and all lives present.

Whether or not it was the passengers’ intentions to defend America as well as their own lives, they in fact did defend their country. What is more, they probably defended the Capitol; abundant evidence suggests the intended target of the flight was the White House or the Capitol building. At the cost of their own lives, the citizens-turned-soldiers of United flight 93 stopped a plot in action to destroy the housings of our liberty, and all of the life in them.

The survival battle and the sacrifices of the passengers of flight 93 are heroic.

These, and the other victims of the attacks of that day, left many survivors and survived, not only in the United States but globally. In some way we are all survived, but it is worst for those who had to confront this most personally and directly. To any of you, if you read this: To merely function after surviving a forced confrontation with such unspeakable evil is heroic. For all of us, but especially for you, I pray.

I’ve been slowly working on a project to produce a version of the Book of Mormon which integrates modern grammar with textual corrections discovered in Royal Skousen’s Critical Text Project.

Royal Skousen has spent decades researching the original and earliest sources (and for that matter, eventually all major printed editions) of the Book of Mormon, and he has discovered thousands of errors and alterations transmitted through various editions from the original manuscripts to subsequent editions. None of these errors or alterations change the meaning of the text substantially, but there are numerous cases where relatively small meanings didn’t come through. One example is the final verse of the book, where the original manuscript, it has been discovered, read “..pleading bar of the great Jehovah”, but the first printed edition (and all subsequent editions) mistook this as “..pleasing bar of the great Jehovah”. (Incidentally, I’ve always found that mistaken word a bit jarring and puzzling – now I’ve learned why. That’s not how it was intended to read!)

My main reason for this is that for some time I’ve wanted to orate a “podcast” of the Book of Mormon, as I really don’t prefer any of the existing audio versions of this book; so while I’m doing that, why not do it with a text truer to the original manuscript?

Initially I even contacted Dr. Skousen himself, seeking permission. He seemed open to it, but deferred to Yale Press, forwarding my request there. Yale Press denied permission on the basis that they would want to authorize and organize such an effort through an established publisher. (I predict they never do.)

Nevertheless remaining curious, I got my own copy of The Earliest Text from Deseret Book. I was both very pleased and disappointed. The disappointment stems from decisions necessary to remain true to forming a “critical text”. This means a text reproducing the original manuscripts as faithfully as possible – right down to some of the weirder grammar – such as “if there be fault, it be the mistake of men” in the original title page – which, incidentally, I think is a perfect mistake. These grammar errors may be inherent to Joseph Smith’s dictation when he (early on) had little education in language. I don’t mean to marginalize The Earliest Text. Being strictly true to the original text doubtless has very worthwhile academic and historical application. But for the layman and everyday readers, it doesn’t. Joseph Smith himself made considerable grammatical and other emendations to the text for the third edition (dozens of times, he scratched out the very redundant phrase “and it came to pass”), and apostles and prophets who followed him down through the decades made numerous grammatical corrections, none of which alter the meaning of the text, all of which make it clearer and easier to read.

What pleases me in The Earliest Text is the plain layout, the spare devotion to only canonical text (none of the extensive introductions, cross-references, chapter introductions etc.), the preservation of initial section breaks as denoted by Joseph Smith, and Skousen’s very clear reworking of the punctuation from scratch. (The original manuscripts were, with very little exception, un-punctuated, continuous blocks of text. All periods, commas, semicolons etc. were added by the original type-setter.)

It dawned on me these facts (of my pleasure and disappointment) produce an opportunity.

The Earliest Text edition may arguably be under copyright as the first printing of all combined discoveries about the earliest text, plus Skousen’s completely reworked punctuation. What it does not have is the grammatical emendations of later editions – which are all in the public domain. Very little has been altered since Orson Pratt’s grammar emendations and versification of the text early last century.

I can combine the two without violating anyone’s copyright.

My edition will integrate these of Skousen’s findings: 1.) Correction of all errors that alter meaning, such as “pleasing” to “pleading”, 2.) All language that supports the original text’s self-consistency, such as the identified “Hebraisms” – for example, so many conjoining clauses prefixed with the word “and” 3.) All grammatical emendations subsequent to the original publishing which clarify meaning, and 4.) Perhaps even some of my own grammatical corrections. For example, where Lehi says “..behold, I have obtained a land of promise, in the which things I do rejoice”. If this isn’t evidently originating in any language phenomenon inherent to the text before translation, why not simply reduce this to “in which I rejoice”? No change in meaning, and plenty of improvement in clear grammar.

Unfortunately, producing a new edition of the text is an involved undertaking. But modern technologies are speeding it up vastly (such as Optical Character Recognition grabbing me a full 1921 text, from a scan of an edition of that year downloadable from archive.org).

I have a full text; I’m working out OCR scanning errors. I’m aiming for a layout akin to the first edition, but maintaining verse numbers unobtrusively.

Hours ago I accidentally ran into the work of a font designer who created a font intent on reproducing a style of typeface in wide use in the 1800′s through early 1900′s, but which was subsequently almost entirely abandoned. I’ve incorporated this font into a page layout and title page design first draft; I’m very pleased with it. Here is a link to a pdf export: 1921-bookofmormon00smituoft-editcopy3-title-pages-design1

This entry would probably best be at a new blog devoted to the project; but I’ll have a section here devoted to it as well; so maybe I’ll just copy relevant stuff to.. whatever.. new blog.

At opentochoice, “choice matters”:

“..the Web browser has become one of the most critical and trusted relationships of our modern lives – with nearly perfect knowledge of everything we do.”

Um, no.

.. And I’m thankful for the Mozilla Foundation, and search engine optimization, and my search engine ranking, and Firefox plugins.. and please bless that Google will stop nagging me to opt-in to Google Wave..”

The ‘net is great (even arguably crucial), but this sounds like.. actual worship. Wrong god. Idol Fail.

(I actually am thankful for the Mozilla Foundation, though.)

I’ve been overhearing one of the audiobook recordings of A Series of Unfortunate Events, as my wife listens through it with our children, and she paused it and talked to them about it:

They’re laughing at the circus freaks because they think they’re better than them. But is that right? .. No, it isn’t, is it?

And this just got me thinking: We’re all freaks.

Which leads to:

All we like freaks have run away; we have run every one and joined our Circus; …

I’ve been playing through an old favorite of mine, the game EARTHBOUND, with my very young son, reading everything to him (and he likes the game very much). As I’ve been playing I’ve grabbed screen shots of what reminds me why I love the game. This is a gallery of those screen grabs.

[svgallery name="EARTHBOUND-screens-I"]

What I love about the game:

• It is the story of four children who conquer Giygas, the Cosmic Destroyer.
• Japanese wackiness. As you can see from the gallery, it is full of good-natured, daffy characters.
• It is incredibly musically versatile, prolific, expressive, and in my opinion, beautiful. Here is the track for your home.

  Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

• The ultimate, world-saving weapon in the game is prayer. This is combined with the work of knocking back into their senses anyone or anything that has gone wild or insane (such as a Rowdy Mouse or Insane Cultist). Or, if they are a mortal enemy (such as a lil’ UFO, Spinning Robo, or Starman), destroying them.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (34.0MB)

See my description and the YouTube upload here.

It has been horrifying and surreal to read, hear and see the events unfolding around California’s State Ballot Proposition no. 8.

I’ve spent more time reading, listening to and watching the advertisements and arguments of the movement I disagree with (No On 8 ) in order to grasp their point of view.

Items:

1. Disappointed “No on 8″ voters protest outside the walls of the Los Angeles Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS or “Mormon”).

One thing at least the protesters aren’t happy about is that, leading up to the Ballot vote, the LDS Church had urged its members to contribute to the cause of the “Yes on 8″ campaign – and it worked.  Wikipedia cites mercurynews.com that about 45 percent of out-of-state donations to “Yes on 8″ came from citizens of the state of Utah (which is mostly populated by Mormons and where the LDS Church is headquartered).

The following YouTube video, about 10 minutes, is footage of the protesters shouting “Go back to Utah!” – “You wanted Armaggedon?” – “SHAME ON YOU!! SHAME ON YOU!!” – and “TAX THE MORMON CHURCH!! TAX THE MORMON CHURCH!” – or that’s everything I picked out.

Slanderous, hate-filled messages on signs (link – Flikr gallery) from protesters condemn Mormons and/or their Church.  The hypocrisy of these signs is well-described at this post at the One Thousand and One Parsecs blog, here.  I would only add that the Flikr gallery evidences vandalism on Temple walls, vandalism of sacred grounds, from people preaching “love” and “tolerance.”

The source of the protesters’ ire?  If, as they believe, they’ve lost a civil right, this is freedom fighting.  What is a slap in the face when you’ve lost your human, your civil rights?  That’s the morality of it, from their vantage.  But this has started to go beyond slaps.  Some apparently felt justified in physically attacking – beating to the ground – an onlooker who, out of pity for the sacred grounds, proceeded to remove the offensive signs – as reported at Meridian (link).

Granting what I think is a radically far stretch, that these beliefs justify such measures (the Democratic process is still very open! – I’m not out slugging Obama supporters because of my disappointment!) – how good are these protesters’ arguments?  Well, I think the aforementioned blog post also dismantles that.

2. There’s contradiction among “No on 8″ supporters in their condemnation of religious reasons for supporting Prop 8.  (There’s contradiction among Mormons, too, which is sad.  Your prophets make their occasional prophetic statement – in this case supporting something – you believe your prophets are prophets, you support it too.  That simple.  Unless you don’t believe they’re prophets.  Which admits complication.)  According to a KUTV report I saw, the “No on 8″ campaign does not support the infamous ad portraying LDS missionaries invading a lesbian couples’ home and shredding their marriage certificate.  However, that campaign has repeatedly singled out the Mormon church as antagonists to their campaign – their news section fairly frequently mentions the Mormon church and Utah, and scarcely mentions the wider religious coalition or other bodies opposed to their campaign.  Clearly the Mormon church is consistently in their sights – and meanwhile, many of thier associates, if not the “No on 8″ campaign itself – these protestors, and the producers of that vile commercial clearly condemn motives for supporting Prop. 8. that originate in religious motivations.  “SEPARATE CHURCH AND HATE!” reads a sign.  “Say NO to a church taking over your government”, says the ad.  Clearly many of these folks are opposed to the LDS church urging a yes vote. Confusing, in light of “No on 8″ often reporting that this or that religious institution urges you to vote no on Prop. 8.  Examples: [link 1]- [link 2] – [link 3, a video, clearly displaying the No on 8 campaign logo]. There was an ad from their campaign with a man clearly stating his church says to vote no – end of ad, final point (wish I remembered the link).  So how would it be not okay for the LDS church to religiously support the Proposition, while it would be okay for any other church to religiously oppose it?

Point to underscore: this is a moral question, often or usually founded in religious feeling. Religion is by definition irrational.  It explains the unexplained and cosmological.  (So does science, more often than we usually admit.)  Opponents to the proposition openly appeal to religion.  So do proponents.  Because, strictly, both are thinking irrationally – that is to say, religiously – they may never agree.  Therefore, appeal to religion has no effective place in discourse over state policy questions, which is what this question is. And we’re mixing those up.  Religion can have appeal to individual citizens’ right of conscience, and how the people collectively vote becomes law. Religion influences the State but is not the State. No religion’s reason dictates the law. That would impinge on the religious right, or right of conscience, of one religious group, while putting forward the other.  Which, as pointed out from my first link, has happened to churches. Won’t put kids up for adoption to gay couples?  Blam – you can’t put up any kids for adoption anymore.  Won’t marry gays?  Blam – out goes your tax-exempt status.  Meanwhile, gays in civil unions in California retain all the same legal rights as heterosexual marrieds.  Who is losing rights?  Whose religiously asserted right is impinging on the rights of others?

A very thought-provoking post at one blog got me, well, thinking:

“One post commented wondering if there was a way for both sides to get what they wanted. There probably is. It would be for the state to acknowledge that homesexuality [sic] is a faith based practice.”

I haven’t even begun to think through the implications of that.  But it made me stop.

Meanwhile, George Lucas.. disappoints me again.  As if the writing in Episodes I-II wasn’t bad enough (if largely redeemed in episodes III, IV and V), now Lucas buys the line that anybody is losing any moral-civil rights, and shells out $100,000 to keep the line going.

When did you not grasp the actual machinations that give rise to an Evil Galactic Empire?

I’ve got to end on a good note.  (That is, unless you disagree with me.) As a Mormon, I’d like to express a thank you to the people who said and created the following.

I began all the following as a reply to friend and visitor Hydralisk in my last post – but obviously this is so voluminous as to only issue a Warrant for an Entry. By the way I just installed a “commodore 64″-like theme I found – you can try reading this entry under that theme with this link.

Hydralisk, having missed your intended irony in a post at your blog recently (and making a fool of myself – no one will see this; I requested he take down my mislead comment), I’m not sure what tone to read in your comment. But, thinking anyway that I might see some clear arguments and implications, and whether I’m really responding to your comments or not, here are my thoughts:

This is why I personally make a point of believing in everything everyone tells me about anything unless I can produce proof to the contrary.

Surely that’s irony. Everything is true until disproved? If you mean that seriously I’d have to call it a straw man, as nobody argued that.

One of the mormon Articles of Faith is “We believe all things..”; which I don’t believe is literal: rather it is a statement that we believe anything is possible. As Nephi put it: “If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them.” So whatever idea we hear, no matter how outlandish, it never does any harm to think: “That could be true, that could be possible.” (By the way, this is a very effective tactic to deflect criticism. If someone tells you that you are an infantile demagogue bent on world dominion, one appropriate response is “That could be true.”) This is neither belief nor disbelief: it is holding belief in abeyance, pending any further experience that would seem to either validate or invalidate the idea.

And happy not all the time – maybe not even a lot of the time? – I’m sorry if that is so. God knows (and I admit I’m saying this to an avowed atheist) that any person’s life can be that way – for a lot of people there isn’t ever even a glimmer. There have been times I wondered where the glimmer is. And I would never presume to tell anybody who suffers that they simply don’t have enough faith (the all too common, too abstract, trite solution of well-meaning but misguided mormons), or that they should simply throw out anything that seems to them to go contrary to religious belief.

All religions are true? But that’s an extension of the earlier identified ironic straw-man. Of course truth, assuming it were absolute, could not be both absolute and relative: the same absolute question being true for one person and false for another. (Although strictly, there are provisions of mercy in mormon belief that can make that effectively true for individuals who for whatever reason never heard, or were never able to cling to, The Truth, as mormonism preaches it.)

Expressions of certainty in belief could be called arrogant? It could be (you observe here the use of the aforementioned deflective tactic). But I see unfortunate implications there. It would be arrogant to claim a religious belief or experience to be true if that belief could not possibly be true; that would be arrogantly seeking to prove the unprovable. But how could it be arrogant to conclude that something is or could be so, if it is also not arrogant to conclude that something is not so or could not be so? Both positions operate outside of what can be proved or disproved, so they must both be either arrogant or not arrogant together; not one the one and the other the other. So much for that contradiction. If a religious claimant truly did state “Even if this is not provable, I still know it is true”, I might agree that is arrogant. But I’d have to say at the same time it may be arrogant to claim someone cannot know it is true. So how about dropping either question and simply focusing on experience – sensory memory, feeling, apparent cause and effect etc?

The experience I argue for is that certain religious practices will lead one to happiness, and that this experience of happiness can be seen as proof of a loving God allowing us to experience grace and joy in our lives. Such a claim cannot be rhetorically proven true or false.* Such a claim is not an attempt to give proof, rather, it is an invitation for others to run the same experiments which gave the person witnessing their basis of belief – their own feelings, what they have experienced, what they have felt, what it seems to them has been divinely given or communicated to them as a result of their sincere efforts to live in a way that tries out the proposed truths.

Mormonism has doubt built into it. Mormons (ideally) are completely capable of turning everything they believe on their head, pending further revelation. This is in the Article of Faith that “..we believe that He [God] will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.” Contrary to what you conclude (and if you mean this as comic irony, I don’t see the utility of the punch line), nobody is about shifting any burden of proof (or disproof) onto anyone – Smith himself said he doesn’t blame anyone for not believing him; that he wouldn’t believe it himself if it hadn’t happened to him. To be rather blunt, it seems to me that atheists may usually be more concerned about proof or disproof than believers. I’ve started reading an article in this month’s Christianity Today claiming that the philosophy of verificationism (the burden of proof or disproof) was quite in vogue one generation ago, but that it died in part because its adherents realized verificationism itself could not be verified. Apparently the philosophy may be an undying favorite, as (CT also claims) it is the basis of a recent spate of best-selling books arguing for atheism.

This talk about being privy to proof that angels pass out golden books to farm boys**, this is rooted in more of the same straw man that anyone should believe anything without proof (or disproof). Of course nobody can prove Joseph Smith had any golden plates. That goes right back to what I began with: of course there isn’t proof. To say (as I have) that experience is the proof of religion, and that I know certain religious ideas to be true, this can only be to say: this is my experience. This is what I feel about this. I’m certain I’ve felt this (what I explain or believe to be the Holy Spirit or Holy Ghost), and all the evidence seems to me to show that this religious explanation (the teachings of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) is the reason.

There have been times – and still are – where I ask exactly what started this whole discussion, the same question Dutcher reported asking himself in horror: “What if it all isn’t true?” I have only to think on my experiences to dispel that doubt. If everything I believe is wrong, this is still my experience: it all seems to be the foundation of all the genuine happiness I have ever known, and more than that, the foundation of overcoming every unhappiness that I so far have.

Nobody is proving or disproving mormonism. For all I know most or all of what I believe about my religion could be utter malarkey. I don’t care. It’s doing me good, and I’ll keep it, thanks. Amen.

Meanwhile, I still open the discussion on religion, so long as it focuses on experience – so long as nobody tries to steer the dialogue into any nonsense questions of proof or disproof. To be rather blunt, looking for signs – and I would call a quest for disproof a quest for sorts of anti-signs – it’s exactly the kind of nonsense the Bible itself (never mind the Book of Mormon) frequently throws down. Trying the experiments of religion, that is the point – and I’m not out to say the experiment has to work for everyone, either. Obviously, I’d like it to work for you. That’s my religious bias. But I don’t know enough about you yet to know whether I think I’d even suggest any specific experiments supposed to be tailored to your life, and I’d have to first prove, er, that is, substantially provide a basis for a belief in the probability of the truth, that I care enough to take seriously any and every thought you have for and against belief. Or unbelief.

*never mind that mormonism urges its adherents to avoid rhetorical, read contentious religious discussion, and instead focus on attempting to communicate in a way that invites the Spirit of God

**which, by the way, as stupid as the story may sound, is exactly what I love about it – the Lord works through the weak and simple, and by small, humble, and even absurd means brings about good – the God of all creation was born in a stable? Divine truth was given to a fourteen year old, uneducated farmer?

This article at the L.A. times came to my attention.

(No, this film still is from Brigham City.  It’s just a great still of The Sheriff.)

My thoughts:

First, I didn’t find FALLING to be “spiritually disquieting” (or causing unease or anxiety). It opened some very probing questions, which, personally, only led to very assuring answers for me. And the film as a whole moved me.

Second, I don’t buy the line that Mormons are embargoed from seeing R-rated films. Bleh. Can this myth please die?

And thirdly and waxing philosophical, as for this quote of Dutcher wondering “what if it’s not true?” -

That surprises me. I don’t expect religion to leave me doubt-free. It’s clear the Savior had his profound doubts just before enacting the atonement. In my book, doubt and questioning, looking for answers – that’s the soil for faith and belief. It was certainly where Joseph Smith began his journey. Proof isn’t the point. You can no more disprove any point of religion (for example the existence of God) than anyone can prove it.

The results of living your religion are the proof. Meetings, taking the sacrament, service, study, testing the word of God. You try the experiments; and do the results make you unhappy or happy?

If you’re not trying the word of God – if you aren’t going to church, if you isolate yourself from your religious community, for starters – you won’t get results. It’s easy to conjecture there’s no merit to a theory you aren’t testing.

And much of the test is what my service or involvement can contribute. As a Bishop put it to me, he never found any ward (Mormon congregation) he liked until he stopped focusing on what others were (or weren’t) doing for him, and started focusing on what he can give.

I see friends who begin expressing doubt, mere luke-warm feelings, or even disenfranchisement, with the church, the people in their ward and the things they believe and say, and this all happens at the same time they’ve stopped attending church. Guess what? What these misguided people around you need is for you to go to church and present your take on things in a positive, non-threatening way. (And I know these friends have good and enlightening things to say.)

If others may not be seeing the light, how about shedding some of your own? The Mormon church is designed to informally acquaint us with each other’s insights. If there sometimes isn’t much insight, there’s even less if people nonplussed with that fact keep on waiting for the situation to change – without realizing they can change it. Without realizing they can never know how they positively impact others. There are many people in the LDS religious community who have no idea how they’ve positively impacted me.

Did Jesus walk the streets during his ministry visiting the sick, the poor, the social outcasts, the odd ones, the unwanted, all the while asking himself “What am I getting from these weirdos, what’s in this for me?”

Religion may not be thrilling very often, ergo the command to “endure to the end”. I’ve found that any time I give up the endurance test, again, I feel empty.

Never mind I’d tell you like many a Mormon I know it’s all true. Which I do. My doubts are about what this religion can actually do for me (the acknowledged paradox being that I shouldn’t just be in it for me). I’ll always be figuring that out – and those doubts are exactly what lead me to keep trying things out.

Ah ha ha!

“The truth will make us strong.”

I’m waiting for more.  Please.  Feed me another verse.  I’ll start compiling it into a Windows Bible.  Not that there isn’t at least one already.

At BYU’s Science Fiction and Fantasy Symposium this January (which I was very delighted to attend), Orson Scott Card gave two addresses. The first was a main address seeking to answer this question:

“Why are Mormons over represented among emerging Science Fiction and Fantasy writers?”

That phenomenon has relatively recently emerged in the history of Science Fiction and Fantasy writing – this has been going on long before Stephanie Meyer’s now great fame (and her work certainly counts as fantasy and science fiction). As an example, the Writers of the Future Contest is a blind contest (I’ve personally dreamed of entering since a teenager – and gee golly, I’m a Mormon! – but I’m still sitting on the seeds of ideas which are germinating) – none of the judges know the identities of entrants, and every year a disproportionate number of winners of the contest happen to be Mormons.

Card’s second address was entitled “Science Fiction as a Valid Literary Genre”. To introduce it he said that every year, articles come out in either Atlantic, or Harper’s, or New Yorker about, as he puts it, “.. why Science Fiction sucks.” In this speech Card completely shredded (in my opinion) the snotty, self-absorbed triteness (my words) of literary fiction and most of all literary fiction writers which the aforementioned magazines (and also elitist literature programs at universities) apparently encourage. I have audio recordings of both speeches, which are both very enlightening, entertaining and to me even moving – but unfortunately my recording of the latter is cut off too soon. However I have a full, cleaned up recording of the former speech, which I here present. Strictly I may not have any authorization to do this, so I’m not giving a download link for this recording, and I want to seriously advertise the symposium and the proceedings; if you like this, you’ll probably like Card’s other address and anything and everything else at the symposium, so please: watch BYU’s web site for news on next year’s symposium, and releases of the proceedings from previous years. Email them via the “contact” link at that page and ask them what’s up and when the proceedings will be published.

Meanwhile, here’s my audio recording of Card’s main address. This is just over 47 minutes.

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Podcast: Play in new window | Download (411.2KB)

This bird quartet was made from recordings of one nightingale duplicated, pitch altered, mixed back onto itself and a “reverb” effect added.

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(Download mp3 file, 412K) I release this free under Creative Commons Share-alike Attrib 2.0. That means you can copy and use it for any purpose guilt-free, but I’d like credit (though I don’t demand it) in any reproductions/alterations. I made this with a demo for a Cakewalk (or any other audio/music application) plugin I’ve been playing with – an exceedingly cool plugin that does simply miraculous pitch corrections and outright changes. It’s called Melodyne. This version of the plugin (1) doesn’t do what this jaw-dropping video at YouTube demonstrates (a future version (2) of the plugin will) – picking notes out of a chord from a wave recording! – but, like I said, it does its own miraculous things. Fortunately, the plugin demo has very little limitations and allowed me to put together this music. There are odd artifacts from – I think – other very quiet background birds in the recordings that somehow got mixed into the pitch-bending, and who get their volume increased four times for the quartet. I best have done a bypass filter and/or noise cleanup to remove them first, but I didn’t notice them at first and now it’s too late. Or if that isn’t other background birds, there are warbling overtones in choirs of nightingales that emerge when they sing in the Western-style musical scale and classical tradition, which we wouldn’t know about, because we’ve never heard nightingales singing that way. (Just imagine what you can do when any pitched sound can be made a dynamic musical instrument. My imagination is running wild). I also have yet to figure out how to make the plugin alter the timing and length of notes – I could give this more variation and difference in the rhythm of harmonies.

I just wrote the following in a forum for reasons originally completely unrelated to any argument favoring religion.  I’m sure this argument has been made by many who favor religion (though I don’t know that I’ve actually read it anywhere, it has to have been written before), but I like to put it in my own words.

The pure irrationality of religion would be an example of a right-brained or intuitive thing that the left has to accept.  There is no way to logically prove that the dictates of any religion are truthful or valuable, but the fact is that there is an observable cause and effect, manifesting its own reason, in following those dictates.  People do good things based on the irrational dictates of their religion, which cause them to feel good, and live more abundant lives, and, since the dictates of religion can neither be logically proved or disproved, it is worth it to risk that the reasons of religion may be true, not false – because _if_ they are true, then there is something real and valid behind the observable happiness in following the ultimately purely irrational dictates of a religion.  And if they are false, why not follow religious dictates anyway?  What would it hurt humanity, if religion is false, to live lives deluded by the happy imaginations of heaven, if we’re all going to die and obliterate into an unknown nothingness anyway?  An unknown nothingness would be the ultimate hurt; delusions of a happy heaven would be no hurt at all compared to that hurt.  That the thought of an unknown nothingness fills man with fear is proof itself that the makeup of man longs for something beyond this life.  Given that none of it can be proved, and it could be either way, I’d pick a life of either delusions about heaven or experienced knowledge of heaven – I’d pick that over nothing at all, risking that heaven could be real.

It was an odd coincidence, after watching so many episodes of the new BattleStar Galactica on DVD, that after I penned that essay yesterday I watched an episode where the abortion debate was raised.

(By the way, I waited five weeks checking three different Blockbuster video stores for the right disc of the right season of BattleStar Galactica to be checked in – there was a conspiracy to keep me from checking out that disc – and then one day my wife brought home the entire season of the show, checked out for far less a price, from the Orem Public Library. Now, as well as for the Monte L. Bean Life Science Museum, I have a testimony that the Orem Public Library is true.)

The premise of the show is that the Cylons, robots created by humanity but which betray humanity, wipe out all the planetary colonies and drive and hunt the very small remainder of humanity into space. The entire show is humanity outsmarting, outmaneuvering, thwarting, and seeking to destroy the malevolent forces which they themselves created – while the evolved Cylons who are indistinguishable from humans fool people into David/Bathseba fiascoes.

In this episode (Season 2.5, “The Captain’s Hand”) President Rosylin is presented with a young pregnant woman who stowed away on the fleet command ship (Galactica), seeking asylum from her evil, fanatic, controlling parents to abort a child she apparently doesn’t want and/or can’t support. Rosylin has begun campaigning for re-election to office (she became President de facto as the highest ranking surviving political officer of the human race), and apparently the majority of the fleet is “pro-choice”, and her whole life Rosylin has fought to support the right, as she puts it, for a woman to control her own body. But General Adama reminds her that after the Cylon struck and nearly destroyed humanity, one of the first things she said to him was that “..if humanity is to survive we need to start having babies now.” Adama points to the number of humans still alive which Rosylin has kept on a whiteboard behind her desk since being sworn into office – around 54,000 – and says “That number hasn’t gone up for a long time.” Despite her position on abortion, Rosylin issues an executive order declaring any interference with the birth of a child as subject to criminal penalty – she makes abortion illegal. At the same time, since the executive order occurred after the young woman’s abortion, and the woman had already claimed asylum, Rosylin does not hold the woman subject to criminal penalty, which outrages the religious, fanatical representative from Gemenon. This principled compromise also outrages the eleven of the twelve colonies who support abortion (uh, how reflective of America or humanity would that be in real life – not very – the issue is very divided, and pretty equally). It also opens the way for a former political ally to come out in opposition and betray her in a factioning bid for the Presidency. Not bending to either extreme, Rosylin outrages everyone. Huh. Sounds like prexy Bush, dudn’t it?

The episode, in my opinion, underscored what Orson Scott Card said of the Science Fiction genre, in his main address at Life, the Universe, and Everything XVII (which symposium I very much enjoyed attending). Card sought to answer the question of why so many prominent writers of Sci-Fi and Fantasy happen to be Mormon. Apparently Mormons have been heavily dominating winners in the Writers of the Future contest for many years – and the contest is run blind. None of the judges know the names of any of the writers who submit, as the names are stripped from the entries before judging. Card argued that Science Fiction often embodies both the American plain narrative style and the American pragmatic hero – the hero who tests and tries things for himself until he finds the best solution – and, Card argues, Mormonism is also an embodiment of both of those, or more specifically, of the Scientific Method in harmony with religion. Mormonism does not ask its followers to simply blindly accept the religion, but to try it out.

“Prove me now herewith“,

- echoes the Mormon God in the Book of Mormon,

“..if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing that there shall not be room enough to receive it.“

And again in Moroni:

“..And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.“

If you are showing faith in Christ, if you are sincerely seeking Him, if you have changed your life already, if you are experimenting on the word (Card didn’t mention the verses that say that), and you have a sincere desire to follow these things if they are true, God Himself will manifest the truth to you by the power of the Holy Ghost. If you sincerely try Mormon principles and doctrine in your life, Mormonism promises, you will know for yourself whether the doctrines are true. That, Card argues, is the Scientific Method – run tests, try things out for yourself, experiment on a hypothesis until you have an idea whether it seems true or false – that is the Scientific Method in complete harmony with the Mormon religion.

In summary then, Mormons who are raised with these values of pragmatic experimentation find themselves very easily at home in a body of literature where pragmatic experimentation is the norm.

And what pragmatic truth does this episode of BattleStar Galactica unfold to our view? (By the way – I heard asides from Card that he doesn’t like the overt references to Mormonism made in BattleStar Galactica – because the leaders of the 12 colonies are more like the 12 idiots.) When the human race is driven to near extinction by evil robots, abortion is not a good idea

I’ve been holding off recommending this film, because ai-ai-ai, will it make a Mormon audience composed of your typical Mormon culture uncomfortable. It is ridiculous how fully Dutcher has taken on the role of The Artist Who Challenges You. If Dutcher is going around touting in his advertisements that the thing is R-rated – one of the hot-button topics in Mormon culture – I cannot see otherwise but that he has taken it upon himself to challenge culture. If that gives you brownie points among crowds that think that’s the mission of an artist (*ahem*AML-list*hem), okay. But I don’t think there’s any chart in heaven detailing how much any artist challenged culture. It’s not about that.

According to Michael Medved – who has given Dutcher some of his best reviews! – the artist as cultural or religious challenger is a mythical role that has emerged only in this last century. Medved argues that most of the artists who created our “classics” through the centuries found plenty to do – under every kind of label or adjective you could conjure: disturbed, glorious, funny, tragic – whatever- without heckling their host culture, as so many artists in our day have been taught to believe they should. It is a point given in Dutcher’s biography at his own web page that one of his teachers while in film school at BYU prophesied that the first great Mormon writer will be excommunicated. Richard, that teacher was full of crap! Without a mass of knowledge to back up my agreement with Medved, I only say that Medved’s take on artists and culture sounds to me a whole lot better than advertising your film as “The first R-Rated Mormon film!” Why don’t we just change the billboard to say “This film will shock and offend you!” What of the dopes in the narrative of this very film who claim the only way an artist will get ahead is by shocking and offending? We’re supposed to think those guys are dopes, right? They’re part of the culture that led to the lead character’s fall. So let’s not listen to them.

Now I know I’ve gone and abrasively criticized marketing. Sometime last year I abrasively criticized a marketing effort coming from Dutcher’s Main Street Movie Co. and shortly thereafter found a comment at my film blog from Dutcher’s marketing guy, abrasively criticizing my (retrospectively) amateurish concept trailer. Tit-for-tat cannon blasts among the artists in Zion. I don’t think it’s easy for artists to separate the line of personal criticism from artistic criticism. And too often we merge them – but that’s an essay for another day.

I believe Dutcher could have told the exact same story of FALLING with just slightly different directing decisions that wouldn’t ensure he turns a lot of his audience away. And his marketing of this film is way off-base. (I know, I hear the cannons blasting still.) If you don’t care about ratings (as I believe Dutcher claims not to), you don’t advertise them. If many Mormons think it wrong to ever see an R-rated film (and that thinking is in error, in my opinion), period, that’s fine for them – it is their right to risk missing out, and frankly, too many who argue against the point would seek to deny Mormons so inclined of that right, or deny them their freedom of conscience to avoid whatever they want – but the inevitable message behind “The first R-rated Mormon film!” is ironically as narrow in a different way. It actually seeks to drive the question of the appropriate to the utmost limits of tolerance – and I would argue that very approach will only produce intolerance – it isn’t going to make anyone think. Nobody thinks when they feel threatened. All they think about is either raising their fists to pummel the hell out of you or getting the hell away from the situation (Dutcher has experienced far more than his share of both, on emotional terms). Fight or Flight. It reduces us to cavemen. Where’s the love in that? Philosophical battles are one thing, but you’ve gotta know that even though there may not be a rational basis for Mormons to do so, they’re simply going to read it as an attack on their religion.

Art isn’t a culture or religion test. Life is a culture and religion test – the way we live. Art is a huge part of life (and for artists, it is literally the subsistence of their life – how they get by) – but as the Indigo Girls penned, “..there’s just no medium for life”. Life is life, art is story (where this film is concerned). And this story should be advertised for what it is – a very powerful morality tale – not for what it isn’t (G-rated).

The unfortunate irony of that advertising is that the film is, in my opinion, powerfully Mormon, but while the advertising raises a question entirely irrelevant to the film, it only invites those whose minds are closed to the question – and I have tried opening many minds to the question, and the steel trap set on that question does not respond to crow bars – it only invites them to keep the trap shut, indeed the trap may only close tighter.

I had to decide whether I think Dutcher himself or his actors went against good principle in their performances. I’ve decided I don’t think they did. The directing decisions over that question are so distracting it could not only tear down the proscenium for many (it nearly did for me, but I’d gone into the film with a lot of forethought and preparation) – it could make them want to burn down the theater. Nevertheless, to those willing to explore them, the questions are so gripping it may not matter. The context and the story, the presentation, the direction, what happens – it all very clearly paints the disturbances the film explores as just that: disturbances which are not wanted in a good life. The obvious implication is that we like good, not evil. Hallejuhah. One more film striking against evil.

This also may not be a film for the squeamish.

This film wallops the bloodthirsty with divine guilt.

Last of all, this film probes deeper into the mystery of the Atonement than any work of art I have encountered. If the story it presents is deeply disturbed, the power is in the questions the story poses of whether those disturbances could be overcome. The ending presents situations on questions of innocence and very powerful symbolic reversals – leading to Christ – which I found deeply affecting.