LDeSsays

I originally started this blog as a way to foster discussion between members and non-members of the LDS faith to help create an understanding, but now I think I'll just post my own thoughts on things. if you feel like commenting then go right ahead.

[jeffjorgensen-blog]

Word of Wisdom

Last week I was in a Gospel Principles class that carried with it a closer resemblance to a pop psychology class than anything church related. The lesson of the day was the Word of Wisdom, and the lesson could have been taken straight out of a Facebook article on the positive effects of not drinking coffee with a smattering of scriptural and doctrinal references. It was very much a lesson on the philosophies of men being mingled with scripture. Al of us (especially those of us born in the covenant and raised in the church) are familiar with the temporal benefits of living the word of wisdom: freedom from addictions, no hangovers, saving money, whiter teeth, functional kidneys, and a longer life expectancy to name a few. But these are merely some of the blessings that come from living the word of wisdom, and if we are living the word of wisdom, or any of the commandments, just for the blessings we will get, we are not only missing the point, but are living in hypocrisy. The promised blessings for living any commandment are only additional motivators for doing so, and a way to grow in faith by living a commandment and waiting to see the Lord's promises being fulfilled. Instead of dwelling on the blessings for living a commandment and tooting our own horn in a fashion that sets us above the world, we must focus on the reasons we live the commandment in the first place, and why God gave it to us. If we go through this exercise with the word of wisdom it will hopefully help us apply the same principle to other commandments we have been instructed to live. The simplest and most effective way to think of why we were given the word of wisdom is by connecting it to the atonement of Jesus Christ. How does living the word of wisdom invite the atonement to take greater effect in our lives? When we look at it this way, the commandment becomes a spiritual one rather than a physical one. From this we learn that we must have a mind and body that is free from the influences of these harmful substances. Since our bodies are temples, we must treat them as such, and some of the physical substances that are most harmful to our bodies are those listed in the word of wisdom. When we know that the word of wisdom is meant for the sanctification of our bodies, we know we should avoid other harmful foods and drinks which are increasingly prevalent in our society. Of course, the application of viewing these commandments as spiritual doesn't end there. We may ask ourselves how the word of wisdom Connects to the doctrine of the godhead, with the priesthood, or with the plan of salvation. While speaking about spiritual things as if they were temporal things is problematic among the latter day saints, the word of wisdom seems to be the biggest culprit of this, with the rest teetering on the edge. Let us be sure that we are teaching things that pertain to the spirit in the manner that is befitting the spirit, and not in the manner that is befitting the great and spacious building.

[jeffjorgensen-blog]

Our Opinions vs Our Potential

It's interesting that people object to identifying the characteristics of God because, by doing so, they limit God; while at the same time find no objection to labeling, and thereby limiting, humans, who, as Latter Day Saints teach, have unlimited potential. If we have unlimited potential, then wouldn't placing labels on ourselves or others limit us in the same way God becomes limited when he becomes defined? What we must first realize is that the nature of God is not altered by man's views of Him. The second is a thought shared by Gordon B. Hinckley who said that no person on earth is living up to their potential; no, not one. We must realize that we live in a fallen state and will never realize our full potential in this life. Therefore, we must do all we can while we are here to unlock that potential which is stored in us, no matter how finite it may appear in the grand scheme of things. Finally, we can learn a sublime truth from examining the fact that God remains unchanged by man's opinion. Our full potential can not be realized when the opinions of fallen man are placed upon us. We must base our views of ourselves on revelations from God rather than on mortal labels. We are, first and foremost, children of God, and we will learn the significance of that truth more and more as we view the opinions of man and heed them not.

[jeffjorgensen-blog]

Adoptions and the Nature of God

About six months ago, one of my coworkers was criticizing the LDS church for eliminating their adoption services. This came as quite a shock to me since it this service was such a benefit to thousands of not only orphaned children, but couples that otherwise would be unable to have children.

Recently though, I came across an article that explained why the LDS church ceased their participation in adoption—the reason being that they were making preparations for a much better service that will help more people than they ever could with their previous program.

Here’s the link to that article: http://ldsliving.com/story/78193-church-announces-new-adoption-policy

When it was first announced, there were several people criticizing the LDS church because of it, but as it turns out, there was a greater plan in store.

Sometimes in life we are denied blessings in order to prepare for something better. Let’s take an extreme example. Abraham was tried with the challenge of sacrificing his son. On first glance this is a horrid act, one that brings into question the nature of God, for why would God ask something of Abraham that not only contradicts one of his Ten Commandments, but also is horrendous in nature. We can see the reason I’m the blessings that came. From this small sacrifice, both Abraham and Isaac were consecrated to the lord, making them worthy to carry on the abrahamic covenant, which blessed the entirety of the human family. One moment of pain became an eternity of prosperity. This it will be with the adoption program, and certainly won’t be the last time we see this happen in church history. A relatively small pause, and then the outpouring of blessings upon the children of men.

[mormonchannel]

You are never alone.

[jeffjorgensen-blog]

What Feminism Ought To Be

I took a Sociology of the Family class for my degree. It was by far one of my favorite classes I've ever taken, partly because I thought the material was fascinating, but mostly because I though the teacher was amazing. She always had insightful little tidbits to share with the class, and one of the things has stuck with me was her opinion on how feminism has been corrupted. She explained to us that feminism has reached a point where it has emasculated men to the point where they have nothing left to define their manhood besides the size of their dicks. I personally don't feel that it's gotten quite that extreme for every male on the planet, but I agree that the modern interpretation of feminism is that women need to oppress men as a type of vengeance for all of the oppression they received.

I've never been too familiar with the whole topic of feminism in any sense, but I've had opinions on the matter but haven't been able to verbalize them due to my own ignorance. But recently I've found some helpful youtube videos that allow me to verbalize those opinions.

This first video talks about how the common take of feminism has been fueled by a misrepresentation of statistical information, namely the pay gap between men and women. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oqyrflOQFc

This second video talks about what feminism in the 21st century should look like, it's particularly insightful after viewing the first video which explains the misconceptions that feminism has been founded on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZR9FHKKbMZo

At the end of this second video, the speaker explains that feminism shouldn't be making women more like men, but their role should rather be to civilize men. I thought this was a very unique take on a woman's role in society, but I was curious what a gospel's take on what that role is. 

Furthermore, what neither of these videos do is give a description of what it means to be a woman, and how women differentiate from men. I stumbled across this fun video that adds some illumination, but again, doesn't fully answer the question.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9kCJvfo28w

Just to recap quickly, I believe that with a gospel-centered idea of what woman is, and what a woman's role is not only in society but in the plan of salvation will all allow us to have a better idea of what feminism ought to be.

What Is Woman?

There was a stake conference meeting on my mission in which Elder Richard G. Scott (at least I'm pretty sure it was him) spoke about the sacred nature of women. One thing that always stood out to me was his mention of how the creation of man and woman on the sixth day was God's crowning achievement, but that God didn't declare his work complete until after he created Woman, thus, Elder Scott declared, Woman was the crowning creation of God's work.

Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find any better word on the nature of woman than that at this point in time, but perhaps it will help to remind ourselves that all are equal to God, for we are all his children with the same divine potential.

A Woman's Role

Elder M. Russell Ballard, referring to the Family Proclamation, spoke of a woman's role in society and the plan of salvation during a BYU Devotional. He stated:

This doctrine sometimes causes women to ask: “Is a woman’s value dependent exclusively upon her role as a wife and mother?” The answer is simple and obvious: No. Although there is nothing a woman can do that has more far-reaching, eternal impact than to rear her children to walk in righteousness, motherhood and marital status are not the only measures of a woman’s worth. Some women do not have the privilege of marrying or rearing children in this life. Yet if they are worthy, these blessings will come later. Men and women who do have the privilege of rearing children will of course be held accountable for that priceless, eternal stewardship. Although there is simply not a more significant contribution you can make to society, to the Church, or to the eternal destiny of our Father’s children than what you will do as a mother or father, motherhood and fatherhood are not the only measures of goodness or of one’s acceptance before the Lord. Every righteous man and woman has a significant role to play in the onward march of the kingdom of God. 

https://www.lds.org/liahona/2002/12/women-of-righteousness?lang=eng

Lds.org gives us some more insight into what other roles a woman may fill to determine their measure of 'goodness' and 'acceptance before the Lord', "Women are a necessary part of the plan of happiness, and that plan cannot operate without them. Women participate in the work of salvation, which includes member missionary work, convert retention, activation of less-active members, temple and family history work, teaching the gospel, and caring for the poor and needy. As a disciple of Jesus Christ, every woman in the Church is given the responsibility to know and defend the divine roles of women, which include that of wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, and friend. They stand strong and immovable in faith, in family, and in relief. Women participate in councils that oversee congregational activities throughout the world. They also have, by divine nature, the greater gift and responsibility for home and children and nurturing there and in other settings". 

Conclusion

I know for me, this article has given me a greater insight into the existential trials women face in our world, especially within the church. The conflicting ideologies of contemporary feminism and the doctrines of the church would surely create some dissonance in the recipients. Though I am not a woman, I still believe that many women, both in and out of the church, have been misled by feminism hype, which, in turn, is founded upon and being perpetuated by misleading information. There is nothing wrong with women being paid the same as men, there's nothing wrong with women having the same upward mobility as men, but women are not men and they shouldn't lower themselves to the stature of a man in an attempt to be equal with them. The ideals of feminism ought to be founded on correct information and the true nature of womanhood, namely that women have more freedoms today than they have in the history of the world, and that women are children of god, in fact, they are the crowning creation of God's kingdom, with a divine potential that men should be striven for, not suppressed.

[return-to-virtue]

Every trial and experience you have passed through is necessary for your salvation.

Brigham Young (via return-to-virtue)

[jeffjorgensen-blog]

Agency, Cults, and Broken iPhones

I upgraded my iPhone from a 4 to the 5c on Black friday. I was so excited to have a new phone that actually worked  and wasn't mind-numbigly slow. But since Black Friday, my new 5c has been having problems, namely that the thing would never charge, and when it did it would do so extremely slowly or not at all; and second, the screen would occasionally spaz out while I was reading a document or scrolling through an app and skip to the top of the page, or a few paragraphs above where I was reading. After a few weeks of dealing with these two issues, I finally took my phone into the Apple store to get it fixed. This story has a happy ending, they replaced my iPhone and the new one both charges and functions normally when I'm using different apps. But something very interesting happened while I was there. While the technician was helping me he told me that he'd just replace the phone, meaning that he'd put my SIM card into the new phone, and, to the technician's chagrin, we'd have to wipe the old phone. The technician had me wipe the phone because, in his own words, "It breaks my heart to do that." I laughed, but I was perplexed by the (real or not) emotional attachment he was portraying towards an iPhone, not to mention a complete stranger's iPhone. 

While I waited for my replacement iPhone, I thought about how odd it was that a company was able to instill such emotions in their customers towards the company's products. I stumbled across an article from The Atlantic (okay, I've actually had this article open on my desktop for a few weeks, and just finally got around to reading it. But I think fate was keeping me from reading it until after I had my iPhone replaced) titled Turning Customers Into Cultists with this image at its helm.

Read the full article here: 

Just like in this image, Apple seems to have a cult of devoted followers that, as the article puts it, "squat for hours outside the nearest Apple store like Wiccans worshipping before Stonehenge." So how exactly does a corporation transform from a company into a cult (not literally, of course)? The article reports several ways such as establishing an "us vs. them" mentality as was the case in Apple's early stages when they were portrayed as rebelling against IBM and Microsoft; there is the emphasis on establishing community while at the same time establishing individuality in regards to their products; but, the factor I'd like to explore at this time, is the withholding of information from the customer.

The article states, "Research shows that typically, the more information consumers have, the better they are at ignoring corporate iconography." meaning that the better informed customers are, not only about the products they're buying, but also those product's competitors, the less likely they are to start following a company like a cult. 

This issue of misinformation (or a lack of it) in advertising has bugged me for quite some time. Someone once asked me, if I had the ability to remove one group of people from the world, who would it be (you can see how that conversation could have gotten negative very quickly)? I answered that I would get rid of people involved in advertising. I can't remember my exact reasoning for this, it was something along the lines of how it perpetuates this consumer mentality, which consists of cheaply made products and companies telling us what we need in order to be happy, and its one big slippery slope that's leading to a rotting population (this coming from the guy that just got his iPhone replaced because it wouldn't charge "all the way"). But if I was asked that question now, I may or may not give the same answer, but my reasoning would be different. My reasoning would be that commercials, the way they are now, are limiting our agency.

Bruce R. McConkie explains that there are four principles that need to be in effect if there is to be agency (meaning that agency doesn't exist if one or more is missing,which is saying that, yes, we have been given agency, but we have to make a conscious effort to for it to exist in our lives). The four principles are :

1. Laws must exist, laws ordained by an Omnipotent power, laws which can be obeyed or disobeyed.

2. Opposites must exist - good and evil, virtue and vice, right and wrong - that is, there must be an opposition, one force pulling one way and another pulling the other.

3. A knowledge of good and evil must be had by those who are to enjoy the agency, that is, they must know the difference between the opposites.

4. An unfettered power of choice must prevail. (Mormon Doctrine, p. 20)

As I explained earlier, companies use a lack of information to create a cult-like following, relying instead on the feelings of community and belonging (also telling you that you need their product to be happy). This lack of information is rampant in our society, and it is limiting our agency. In a more minute sense, it is limiting our agency because it is minimizing our knowledge of both sides. In a more expansive sense, it is limiting our agency because we are only presented with one primary way to live our lives, and that is the ideals of consumerism.

I guess the whole purpose of this essay was to say that agency is important, and that the advertisements we see is just one example of how our society is slowly being transformed into one that limits individual agency. But let me move on to the "so what?" of the paper. How does this whole thing with iPhones and cults apply to us on a daily basis.

Basically, agency, contrary to popular belief, is not simply the ability to choose for oneself like so many of us believe it is. How many times have you, one of your siblings, one of your children, or even a spouse refused to go to church, and defended their decision by arguing that they have their agency to choose whether to go or not. I hope that from our discussion so far you can see that this is a misconception of what agency is, and is in fact not agency at all, but merely one of the factors that must be in place for agency to exist. "Agency is the ability and freedom to choose good or evil" (Mormon Doctrine, p. 20). One of the purposes of this life, and therefore one of the purposes of our agency is to see if we will choose to follow Christ or not (See Moses 7: 32-33). 

It's not the purpose of this post to evaluate all the ways in which we can foster agency more effectively in our lives, for such a discussion would span a variety of topics that would range from large areas such as politics, psychology, and philosophy, to smaller issues like how to get you children or siblings to go to church, how to teach effectively, or how to be a good friend. I'll leave it up to you to decide how to do that in the various aspects of your lives. I pray that this essay will help you not only in your decision about whether to get the next iPhone or not, but also in your spiritual and interpersonal lives as well.  

[jeffjorgensen-blog]

Lessons Learned

This has been one of the best semesters of my academic career, as as well as some of the best months of my entire life. There are a lot of reasons for this. I've moved up to Salt Lake City, an environment that I prefer much more to any other that I've lived; I've started working with great people and started forming greater friendships in my life, which is something I've been lacking for several years; I've become more interested in music, and begun finding joy in discovering new songs and artists, which has added a lot of richness into my life; I've also learned more about how to analyze literature, which has given me much more appreciation for all of the books I read, as well as the movies I watch; but more than anything, it's the things that I've learned that has made this one of the most joyful and enlightened periods of my life. 

I was told once (this semester, in fact) that students only learn on average seven new ideas, and therefore it was a waste to try to teach them much more than that, because you'd just be wasting your breath. So in that spirit, I'd like to try and list the seven (roughly) most important things I've learned over these last few months.

The first thing I've learned, which is really the overarching theme of all of the things I've learned is that one must always be on the quest for greater light and truth. I don't even know where to begin with explaining this one. This idea can be seen all throughout the gospel of Jesus Christ (especially in the temple), and brings so much clarity when dealing with any situations in we may face in day-to-day life. This quest for greater light and truth, as it has become a greater part of me, has been manifest in a few different facets, namely understanding and discovery.

I was once told that I had a gift for understanding, and ever since then I've always been fascinated with the idea of what it truly means to understand something, and what that gift truly means. I've learned that it can mean to have a deep comprehension of a given topic, or it can mean to have a comprehension of the connection between two or more topics. But over the last few months, I've learned to view the desire to understand as one of the aspects of questing for greater light and truth. Because when we come to understand something, it is because its truthfulness is testified to us by the power of the holy ghost, who's main purpose is to testify of the truth.Thus, seeking to understand becomes a spiritual journey that is guided by the companionship of the holy ghost. It keeps you curious, humble, and teachable while you learn and discover new things.

One of the things that has always impressed me about the first man, Adam, was the tremendous amount of discovery that must have taken place for him not only in the garden of eden, but even in the fallen world. When you stop to think about it, it is mind-boggling how much we have learned just from digging deeper into what we already know. if we look at the realm of physics alone, we can see that we have discovered tinier and tinier particles that are asked to the human eye, nevertheless they are there, and we would still be ignorant of them had we not made the effort to discover them. And just imagine how much there is that we don't know that either hasn't been discovered yet, or we're just not aware of it yet. because of this I've started having two separate windows open at all times on my internet browser, one for articles and things I want to read, and the other for videos I want to watch. This has been one step that I've been taking to ensure that I'm always discovering new knowledge as part of my quest for greater light and truth.

Another thing I've learned that goes along with the idea of discovery is the pursuit of trying to develop a more complete, more accurate picture of whatever it is I'm viewing. Meaning that the quest for truth is a depth as well as a breadth of knowledge. In this context I'm viewing truth as being things as they really were, things as they really are, and things as they really will be. Because of this, there are many different viewpoints we can take as we examine truth, and therefore a knowledge of several fields is required to gain a more complete picture. because of this, I've decided to make a conscious effort to learn more about a few topics that will give me a more complete truth, those being: psychology (which I'm already majoring in); neuroscience and the function of the brain; physics and the functions of the world around us, especially quantum physics as it has special interest to the realm of neuroscience; history and the various perspectives that take exist around different events; likewise politics and the whole slough of topics that exist within that realm and the various perspectives on each; literature, both ancient and modern that gives uniques perspectives on various topics; philosophy, and the knowledge of the great thinkers of the history of the world and how their ideas compare and contrast to one another; and, of course, doctrines of Jesus Christ that I believe to be universal constants and how every bit of knowledge that I obtain adds to my understanding of true doctrine.

The third thing I've learned (or fourth depending on how you're counting) comes from my social psychology class, which is the power that situations can have on us. Just the other day I posted an essay all about this topic, but essentially the idea is that being self-disciplined is more about making a conscious choice to avoid certain situations that would lead you into sin rather than just having a mental determination to not sin. This course of action will prove to be more effective at living the commandments than mental fortitude or willpower alone. And, any way we can more effectively live the commandments is part of the quest towards more light and truth.

The next thing I've learned is from my Research Methods class, in which my professor gave a long rant about how important it was to her to be consistent in all of her actions, no matter what situation she found herself in, either intentionally or unintentionally. I felt this was significant to my concept of questing for light and truth, because discovering our true selves, and being true to ourselves, would only enable the discovery of greater light and truth.

The fifth thing I've learned (Or is it sixth? I don't know why I'm even bothering to count any more) is that mathematics can be used to gain greater knowledge and truth. In my Statistics For Behavioral Sciences class, my professor made a side note about how statistics can be used to gain a greater insight into the reality of various situations. he used the example of how people throw around the statistic of how women get paid roughly 77 cents to the dollar that men make. In response to this, he claimed that when you control for things such as education, age, and experience in the field, the difference ends up being about a one or two cent difference. I don't know how accurate his claim is for myself, but it illustrated a good point, that statistics can be misreported, and upon further analysis, we can receive a more accurate portrayal of the situation we're examining. This can also be done through what's called a meta-analysis, in which a statistician would perform a series of tests on several sets of data to see how they compare to one another to receive a more accurate image than any one of them could provide on their own. Basically, math may be boring, but it can lead us to a better understanding of things as they really are.

One final thing that I've learned from my academic studies this semester comes from my theories of personality class. There are two ideas I'd like to touch on. The first reinforces the concept of how statistics and mathematics can give us a more accurate representation of reality. Each week in my class we'd review a different theory of personality and talk about the theorist that came up with it. One personality test we took, called the NEO PI-3 test, was easily the one test that seemed to be the most valid among any of the others that we studied. In this test, the theorists analyzed every personality test they could get their hands on and found the most statistically relevant characteristics they all shared and then found the questions that would best measure those. Long story short, statistics were used to gain a far more accurate picture by combining all of the knowledge that existed on the subject, and the result said more than any individual test could on its own. The second thing I learned from this class was from my own thinking on this subject on where exactly personality comes from. I initially thought that personality comes from our cognitive expectations of the various situations we're in. While that may be part of it, I think, more accurately, that personality comes from our individual desires. I feel that this idea aligns more closely with gospel teachings, as can be seen by Elder Oaks' talk, Desire. I don't want to spend too much time on this, but essentially what we want shapes who we are. The question then becomes, 'where do our desires come from?' And that most likely will be the topic of discussion for another day.

Now I'd like to talk about some of the doctrinal insights that have really stood out to me this semester. I've learned about the effects pride can have on our lives, the powerful change in ones heart that gratitude can have, and the importance of agency. But there's one item in particular I'd like to talk about, and that is about the culminating facets of the gospel.

Earlier in this semester I was making an extra effort to study the law of consecration, I've even written an essay or two on the subject. During my study, I realized that the law of consecration is the culminating principle of the gospel, meaning that all other principles (i.e tithing, fasting, temple work, service, scripture study) are all leading up to the act of consecrating our all to the Lord, because consecration embraces all actions we perform in the gospel.

This made me wonder if there were other culminating facets of the gospel. The first thing to pop into my head, as I'm sure it was for those of you reading this, was the atonement. I was told once that if you teach a lesson in Sunday School that doesn't relate back to the atonement, then you've missed the point. The doctrine of the Atonement is the culminating doctrine of the restored gospel, because every other core doctrine (i.e faith, repentance, baptism, the Holy Ghost, christlike attributes, covenants, priesthood) all tie back to the atonement, which all of them possible. 

So far we have a culminating principle and a culminating doctrine, but there is also a culminating ordinance. In the temple, the endowment is to receive (meaning to perform and live worthy of) all of the ordinances available there, the sealing ordinance being the crowning event. The sealing which takes place in the temple truly is the culminating ordinance of the gospel, since every ordinance we partake of leads to that final ordinance between husband and wife.

One thing that I fid fascinating is how I learned all of these things. I didn't set a goal or make a reading schedule in order to understand certain things better; but rather I accepted the fact that there is greater truth beyond what I know, and I became receptive to that truth as I received it. 

Well, I didn't expect this post to be quite so long. If you read all the way through this, I hope you've learned something, whether it be about culminating doctrines or the power of situations, or, hopefully, that the quest for greater light and truth is a ever ending one, and when we are receptive to the knowledge our Heavenly Father wants to bestow on us, we will receive it. 

[jeffjorgensen-blog]

Power of Situations

One thing I've learned from this semester at UVU is the power of situations. We often feel that we will always act under the same moral code no matter what situation we end up in, but it is human nature to change one's behavior depending on various situations.

In my social psychology class that I'm taking, we have learned a lot about this, especially since my professor has selected this as an overarching theme for the semester. We have learned that people who claim they would help in dangerous situations, don't when put to the test. This is shown with the Bystander Effect, where bystanders observe dangerous situations and don't do anything to help (or, worse yet, they'll pull out their phones and start recording it). There are many reasons why people claim they don't intervene, especially when in a large group; they think that someone else will, or already has, called for help; they don't want to endanger themselves; or they are just in a hurry.

Another principle that shows how powerful situations are on our behavior is that our behavior changes when we become anonymous, or there are no clear consequences presented. In a famous psychological study, participants were asked to administer a memory test and told to give an electrical shock to another participant every time the second participant got the wrong answer. The researchers assured the initial participant that they would receive no punishment for the health of the shocked individual. Because of this, the participants continued administering higher voltage shocks, up to the lethal level, to the other participant. Of course, the whole experiment was a hoax, and there wasn't really anyone getting shocked, but it did show that people would conform to authority figures under unusual circumstances; their behavior was modified from what they thought they would do. 

This principle has also been reinforced in my Research Methods class. We were asked what the best predictor for future behavior would be there were several answers, such as past behavior, or past or current attitudes. However, these are all unreliable predictors of future behavior. The best predictor, however, for future behavior, is the person's present situation. This is a fairly deep topic, but here is a simplified example of this principle: Imagine there are two teenagers who both agree not to engage in pre-marital sex. One adamantly says that they will not have sex before marriage, but then is out with their significant other in their car until 2 Am every night. The other says that they don't care one way or the other, but decides to stay home every night to study and do their homework. From this it becomes clear that attitudes don't influence our behavior as much as the situations we place ourselves into do. While one may covenant to live the law of chastity, they are much more likely to break that law if they place themselves in situations where they could break it, than if they place themselves in situations where it would be difficult to break. 

Stand Ye in Holy Places

We often think of the topics of standing in holy places and keeping covenants as separate, unrelated topics, but we learn so much more about how to effectively keep covenants when we view them together through the lens of our topic here on situations. 

When we make a sacred covenant with God, we commit to changing our attitudes and behaviors. While we must bend the mind before we bend the knee, we must still remember that no matter how resolved we are in the faith, we, as fallen beings, are still be susceptible to the power of tempting situations. Keeping covenants includes not only being resolved in our mind not to break the commandment, but also a resolve to consciously avoid situations that would lead to the breaking of that commandment. As Ralph Waldo Emerson explained, the sin lies in the decision.

In a Wall Street Journal article, the author explains the pattern of avoiding tempting situations among highly disciplined individuals. it states, " Highly disciplined individuals often make decisions that minimize their exposure to temptations and distractions." You can find the full article here: http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-secret-to-resisting-temptation-1416852990

Therefore, we can make commitments and covenants, but we have to remember that those promises aren't just for how we should feel and think, but how we act, which includes which situations we put ourselves in.

[luaren]

Yeah because you can totally tell how smart I am based on my opinion that porn is okay vs your opinion that is isn't. You're what's wrong with feminism; making men evil no matter what and women are always innocent victims who can't make choices for themselves. Because porn stars are totally forced to shoot videos and none of them have EVER quit the industry, right? Oh wait they have.

gonna need to pull your head out of your ass to read this one buddy

MASSIVE trigger warning for the following links and bullets.  includes mentions of rape, abuse, violence, racism, misogyny, homophobia, child sex abuse, pedophilia

Porn use:

There are over 420 million pages of pornographic material online worldwide. (IFR)

72 million searches for porn are logged monthly. (IFR)

25% of all daily search engine requests are for pornography (68 million searches daily) (IFR)

42.7% of internet users view porn (IFR)

100,000-plus websites are devoted to child pornography. There are over 116,000 daily requests for this material. (IFR)

20% of men admit to accessing pornography at work (IFR)

35% of those purchasing online porn make $75,000-plus annually. (IFR)

The United States is the top producer of pornographic web pages with 244,661,900, or 89 percent (IFR)

Worldwide revenue from mobile phone pornography is $1 billion-plus and growing (Bryan-Low, Cassel and Pringle, David. “Sex Cells: Wireless Operators Find That Racy Cellphone Video Drives Surge in Broadband Use.” The Wall Street Journal, May 12, 2005)

Ex-porn star testimonies:

Corina Taylor: ”When I arrived to the set I expected to do a vaginal girl boy scene. But during the scene with a male porn star, he forced himself anally into me and would not stop. I yelled at him to stop and screamed ‘No’ over and over but he would not stop. The pain became too much and I was in shock and my body went limp.”

Jenna Jameson: ”Most girls get their first experience in gonzo films – in which they’re taken to a crappy studio apartment in Mission Hills and penetrated in every hole possible by some abusive asshole who thinks her name is Bitch.”

Alexa James: ”The first shoot I did was with a man who was probably 40 and he was as thick as a soda can. He held me down and shoved it in me with no lube tearing my vagina. When I started to tear up and cry he flipped me over and continued from behind be so they wouldn’t get me crying on film. He pulled my hair and choked me over and over again even when I told him it hurt and I could barely breathe.”

Linda Lovelace: ”My initiation into prostitution was a gang rape by five men, arranged by Mr. Traynor. It was the turning point in my life. He threatened to shoot me with the pistol if I didn’t go through with it. I had never experienced anal sex before and it ripped me apart. They treated me like an inflatable plastic doll, picking me up and moving me here and there. They spread my legs this way and that, shoving their things at me and into me, they were playing musical chairs with parts of my body. I have never been so frightened and disgraced and humiliated in my life. I felt like garbage. I engaged in sex acts for pornography against my will to avoid being killed.The lives of my family were threatened.”

Andi Anderson: ”After a year or so of that so-called “glamorous” life, I sadly discovered that drugs and drinking were a part of the lifestyle. I began to drink and party out of control! Cocaine, alcohol and ecstasy were my favorites. Before long, I turned into a person I did not want to be. After doing so many hardcore scenes I couldn’t do it anymore. I just remember being in horrible situations and experiencing extreme depression and being alone and sad.”

Alexa Milano: ”My first movie I was treated very rough by 3 guys. They pounded on me, gagged me with their penises, and tossed me around like I was a ball! I was sore, hurting and could barely walk. My insides burned and hurt so badly. I could barely pee and to try to have a bowel movement was out of the question. I was hurting so bad from the physical abuse from these 3 male porn stars.”

Jessie Jewels: ”People in the porn industry are numb to real life and are like zombies walking around. The abuse that goes on in this industry is completely ridiculous. The way these young ladies are treated is totally sick and brainwashing. I left due to the trauma I experienced even though I was there only a short time.”

Genevieve: ”I had bodily fluids all over my face that had to stay on my face for ten minutes. The abuse and degradation was rough. I sweated and was in deep pain. On top of the horrifying experience, my whole body ached, and I was irritable the whole day. The director didn’t really care how I felt; he only wanted to finish the video.”

Jersey Jaxin: ”Guys punching you in the face. You have semen from many guys all over your face, in your eyes. You get ripped. Your insides can come out of you. It’s never ending.”

Elizabeth Rollings: ”I didn’t want to feel the pain of penetration from an over average sized man, being told to freeze in a position until the camera man was happy with his shots was very painful. I had peoples body fluids forced on my face or anywhere else the producer pleased and I had to accept it or else no pay. Sometimes you would get to a gig and the producer would change what the scene was supposed to be to something more intense and again if you didn’t like it, too bad, you did it or no pay.”

Lucky Starr: ”I was worried about my first anal scene for quite a few days … then the big moment arrived. It REALLY hurt! I almost quit and said, “I can’t do this”. When it was all over, I was so happy and relieved I was able to do it…”

Ashlyn Brooke: ”I honestly felt that if I had to have another strange man in my face, his hands (God knows where they’ve been all over me) him calling me his baby and having to exude some sort of forged passion for the world to see, I probably would have exploded. And what would have been stuck to the walls would have probably been nothing, just pieces of skin, bone, the brain of a robot, and what would have been left of what would have existed once as a huge and warm heart.”

Roxy: ”After only 30 movies I caught two sexually transmitted diseases. Herpes, a non-curable disease and HPV, which led to cervical cancer where I had to have half of my cervix removed. Porn destroyed my life.”

Anita Cannibal: ”Yeah, there are a lot of cover-ups going on. There is a lot of tragedy. There are a lot of horrible things.”

Tamra Toryn: ”As for myself, I ended up paying the price from working in the porn industry. In 2006, not even 9 months in, I caught a moderate form of dysplasia of the cervix (which is a form of HPV, a sexually transmitted disease) and later that day, I also found out I was pregnant. I had only 1 choice which was to abort the baby during my first month. It was extremely painful emotionally and physically. When it was all over, I cried my eyes out.”

Jessi Summers: ”I also did a scene where I was put with male talent that was on my no list. I wanted to please them so I did it. He put his foot on my head and stepped on it while he was doing me from behind. I freaked out and started balling; they stopped filming and sent me home with reduced pay since they got some shot but not the whole sce

porn trends:

"teen" is the most commonly searched porn term

child pornography is one of the fastest growing businesses online.

how pornographers feel about women:

"I’d like to really show what I believe the men want to see: violence against women. I firmly believe that we [pornographers] serve a purpose by showing that. The most violent we can get is the cum shot in the face. Men get off behind that, because they get even with the women they can’t have. We try to inundate the world with orgasms in the face." -  Bill Margold, porn industry veteran, quoted in Robert J. Stoller and I. S. Levine, Coming Attractions: The Making of an X-rated video; 1993.

"There’s nothing I love more than when a girl insists to me that she won’t take a cock in her ass, because — oh yes she will!" -Max Hardcore, interviewed in Hustler (June 1995).

"My whole reason for being in this Industry is to satisfy the desire of the men in the world who basically don’t much care for women and want to see the men in my Industry getting even with the women they couldn’t have when they were growing up. I strongly believe this… so we come on a woman’s face or somewhat brutalize her sexually: we’re getting even for their lost dreams. I believe this. I’ve heard audiences cheer me when I do something foul on screen. When I’ve strangled a person or sodomized a person, or brutalized a person, the audience is cheering my action, and then when I’ve fulfilled my warped desire, the audience applauds." - Bill Margold, porn industry veteran and Free Speech Coalition board member.

"It might promote violence against women in the United States, but I say, ‘Good.’ I hate those bitches. They’re out of line and that’s one of the reasons I want to do this … I’m going through a divorce right now. … I hate American women." - What pornographers really think of women (Deutsche Presse-Agentur, 14 October 1999)

2010 study on popular porn films:

88% of scenes contained physical aggression, including spanking, gagging, and slapping. 

Women were overwhelmingly the targets of aggressive acts, and men the perpetrators.

Following instances of aggression towards women, in 95% of cases the women expressed pleasure or neutrality.

cases of porn leading children to commit sexual assualt IN THE UK ALONE:

February 2014: A 13-year-old boy told a UK court that he raped his 8-year-old sister after viewing pornography at his friend’s house.  The teenager told police he “decided to try it out” on his sister because she was small and “couldn’t remember stuff,” reported the Lancashire Telegraph.

November 2013: A different 13-year old UK boy pleaded guilty to raping an eight-year old girlwhen he was 10. A pornography addiction since age 9 was said to have played a significant role in his crimes.

March 2013: Two boys aged 14 and 15 admitted to a British court that they were re-enacting scenes witnessed in violent online pornography when they beat, brutalized, then raped a 14-year-old girl they had tied to a chair.

March 2013: A UK report found that thousands of British children had committed sexual offenses. In all, 4,562 minors – some as young as five – committed 5,028 sexual offenses over a three year period from 2009-2012. Experts blamed “easy access to sexual material.”

January 2012: Children’s aid and sex abuse organizations in Australia largely blamed 414 cases of children sexually abusing other children on the explosion of pornography made accessible to children.

August 2012: A 13-year-old Canadian boy pleaded guilty to repeatedly raping a 4-year-old boy who lived in his foster home. The boy said the idea came from watching “gay porn” on his foster parents’ home computer.

April 2012: A child therapist reported a case of a 13-year-old boy who raped his 5-year-old sisterafter developing a “complex fantasy world” warped by “two years of constant porn use.”

racism in porn:

Latinos and Hispanics: Pornography tends to stereotype Hispanic women as feisty, “hot and spicy Latinas”, sexy Señoritas, with a high sex drive and low impulse control. Many are portrayed as maids, illegal immigrants to the United States, or unfaithful wives. Since Latinos and Hispanics can be of any race (many are white Hispanic Americans, Mestizos etc.), cultural characteristics are sometimes portrayed via iconic items like South and Central American national costumes, sombreros, maracas, or Mexican dresses.

Asian women: Are viewed as sexually willing or submissive. Asian men are hardly portrayed in pairing with white women and not as common compared to white men with asian women porn. Asian women are mainly portrayed as the: “Dragon Ladies”, as servile “Lotus Blossom Babies”, “Innocent School Girls” in private school uniforms, “China dolls”, “Geisha girls”, war brides, or prostitutes. Japanese media have also at times sensationalistically promoted the stereotype of Japanese women overseas as “yellow cabs”. 

Black performers: Large penis size in Black men is consistently emphasized in pornography, often by exclusively casting actors with larger than average penises such as Lexington Steele, Kid Bengala, Jack Napier and Mandingo. Men are often treated to stereotypes of gang affiliation, working class labor, and are overrepresented in gang rape fetish films. Also, they are represented as overly aggressive and demanding, and are performing with white women. Similarly, black women are often portrayed with large breast and buttocks, or ‘booty’. They normally play a submissive role while performing with a white male.

Kid’s access to pornography:

Youth who look at violent x-rated material are six times more likely to report forcing someone to do something sexual online or in-person versus youth not exposed to x-rated material. [12]

Middle-school aged boys who view X-rated content are almost three times more likely to report oral sex and sexual intercourse than boys who do not use sexually explicit material[13]  

A study in the southeastern U.S. found that 53 percent of boys and 28 percent of girls (ages 12-15) reported use of sexually explicit media. The Internet was the most popular forum for viewing. [14]

The words “sex” and “porn” rank fourth and sixth among the top ten most popular search terms. [15]

Roughly two-thirds (67 percent) of young men and one-half (49 percent) of young women agree that viewing pornography is acceptable.[7]

Nearly 9 out of 10 (87 percent) young men and 1 out of 3 (31 percent) young women report using pornography.[8]

Experts have warned that the rise in the viewing of pornography was implicated in a variety of problems, including a rise in the levels of STDs and teenage pregnancies.  Additionally, males aged between 12 and 17 who regularly viewed pornography had sex at an earlier stage in life and were more likely to initiate oral sex, apparently imitating what they had seen. [9] [10]

Internet pornography was blamed for a 20 percent increase in sexual attacks by children over three years.[6]

One out of three youth who viewed pornography, viewed the pornography intentionally.[1]

Seven out of ten youth have accidentally come across pornography online.[2]

Nearly 80 percent of unwanted exposure to pornography is taking place in the home (79 percent occurs in the home; 9 percent occurs at school; 7 percent other/unknown; 5 percent at a friend’s home).[3]

Kids experience unwanted exposure to sexual material via:[4] A link came up as a result of an innocent word search (40 percent), Clicking on a link in another site (17 percent), A pop-up (14 percent), Other (13 percent), Misspelled web address (12 percent), Don’t know (4 percent), Pictures involving animals or other strange things (10 percent)

Type of material youth encounter when unwanted exposure to pornography occurs:[5] Naked people (86 percent), People having sex (37 percent), Violent pictures (13 percent)

Nearly 74 percent of pornography websites surveyed display adult content on their homepage (accessible to anyone) before asking if the viewers are of legal age. [11]

American children begin consuming hardcore pronography at an average age of 11

Four out of five 16 year-olds regularly access pornography online

Findings from the Youth Internet Safety Survey indicate that 15% of 12-17 year olds have purposefully looked at x-rated material online.

Data from the PEW Internet and American Life Project suggest that 70% of 15-17 year old internet users accidently view pornography “very” or “Somewhat” often.

Child Pornography

Child pornography is a $3-billion industry. (Top Ten Reviews)

Child pornography is one of the fastest growing businesses online, and the content is becoming much worse.  (Internet Watch Foundation)  Internet Watch Foundation confirmed 1536 child abuse domains in 2008.

 The fastest growing demand in commercial websites for child abuse is for images depicting the worst type of abuse, including penetrative sexual activity involving children and adults and sadism or penetration by an animal.  58% of child sexual abuse images depict this level of abuse. (IWF, 2008)

 69% of all victims in child abuse images are between the ages of 0 and 10 years old. (IWF, 2008)

 In a study of arrested child pornography possessors, 40 percent had both sexually victimized children and were in possession of child pornography. Of those arrested between 2000 and 2001, 83 percent had images involving children between the ages 6 and 12; 39 percent had images of children between ages 3 and 5; and 19% had images of infants and toddlers under age 3 (National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Child Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings fro the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study. 2005).

Your brain on porn:

further decline in dopamine levels

further decline in opioids and endorphins

drop-off in GABA, which is an anti-anxiety neurotransmitter

rise in brain stress hormones CRF and norepinephrine 

elevated dynorphin which inhibits dopamine and lowers your pleasure response

one week after quitting the reward center sprouts new nerve cell branches, which correlate with cravings to use

More sources on addiction to porn

Common porn addiction withdrawal symptoms include:

Anxiety

Restlessness

Irritability

Insomnia

Fatigue

Headaches

Poor concentration

Depression

Social isolation

Loss of libido (Can take days to manifest, and last a long time)

Adult (>18 years old) exposure to pornographic media is connected with:

Believing a rape victim enjoyed rape

Believing women suffer less from rape

Believing women in general enjoy rape

Believing a rape victim experienced pleasure and “got what she wanted”

Believing women make false accusations of rape

Believing rapist deserve less jail time

More acceptance of the rape myth

More acceptance of violence against women

More likely to go to a prostitute and to go more frequently

Increasing their estimates of how often people engage in sex with violence

More self-reported likelihood of forcing a women sexually

More self-reported likelihood of rape

Creating more sexually violent fantasies to get aroused

Engaging in more sexual harassment behaviors

More likelihood of forcing a woman sexually

More likelihood of future rape

Using physical coercion to have sex

Using verbal coercion to have sex

Using drugs and alcohol to sexually coerce women

Having engaged in rape

Having engaged in date rape

Having engaged in marital rape

Being an adult sex offender

Being a child molester

Being an incest offender

Engaging in sexual abuse of a battered spouse

More willingness to have sex with 13-14 year olds

More sexual attraction to children

Having sexually abused children

Life and death of a porn star:

all the women who don’t make money from the porn industry.

the women who are kidnapped, tortured, and forced into snuff films.

the skeletons that NAFTA keeps hidden in cobweb-ridden closets on the U.S.-Mexican border.

 their average career length is 3 months. [x] [x]

If you don’t feel like reading:

Shelley Lubben: Porn as a driver for prostitution and sex trafficking, (Vimeo)

Cindy Gallop: Make love, not porn (Adult content)

"They call it fantasy," - Andrea Dworkin

Ex-Pornstar Jan Villarubia tells her story

Dr. Gail Dines addressing porn culture and rape culture’s intersecting roles in patriarchy

“Two Ex-Porn Stars Uncover The Truth About Porn.”

This guy stopped watching porn — and he wants you to know why.

Facing Life Head-On: Satan’s Final Frontier—the Sex Industry

Dr. Gail Dine’s lectures on pornography on youtube (1, 2, 3, 4)

This video has footage the porn industry doesn’t want you to see. Women are abused, screaming, crying, raped and in pain on the porn set…No woman should have to go to work only to return home beaten and traumatized.”

On the show Date My Pornstar, porn fans get to interact and converse with their favorite pornstars about their experiences in the industry

The story of ex-pornstar ‘Sal’, (Pink Cross Foundation)

Porn actress Sierra Sinn Leaves Porn

On the Joni talk show, ex-porn actresses come forward to share their experiences on what drove them into the porn industry, how it impacted their lives and what drove them out.

Just links:

Here is a site that has testimonies from lots of porn stars. The site is run by an ex pornstar who has dedicated her life to helping the women in the industry. 

Here is an article about Linda Lovelace, star of Deep Throat, basically the first pornography film, talking about how the film was her being raped, and the other atrocities she went through in the porn industry. 

Here is a video of a talk show where three porn actresses speak out against the industry and tell their stories. I can assure you, these are not extreme cases. This is the average life of porn stars. 

Here has great information on the porn industry, and if you scroll down to Porn and the Performer, you can read statistics about the porn industry and porn actresses and what they suffer through. 

Here is some facts about porn from Shelley Lubbens website.

How porn harms the economy

How porn harms relationships

How porn harms gay men

How porn harms gay women

How porn harms POC

Stop Porn Culture’s FAQ

400+ dead porn stars obituaries

more databases on dead porn stars

More testimonies

100+ stories

anti porn documentaries

DianaRussell.com

Shelley Lubben.com (Ex porn-star helping other porn stars)

Shelley Lubben’s MySpace Website

List of Dead Porn Stars and How They Died

Where My Ladies At (About porn and it’s connection to hip hop and rap.)

Feminist Fred: A Place for Men to Learn about Feminism (Also home of Pornsick Pat)

Compulsion Solutions

Internet Pornography Statistics (InternetFilterReview.com)

Porn and Sex Industry Statistics (Enough is Enough.)

Pornography and Sex Trade Statistics (Most thorough and documented.)

PBS Documentary “Porn In America”. Full video and lots of information.

XXX Family Values: ABC Primetime Show about Porn Star Sunny Lane. (Sunny’s parents are her managers. Transcript and video clip at link.)

ABC Primetime Interview with Porn Star Belladonn (Tells the harsh truth about porn.)

Porn Profits: Corporate America’s Secret (ABC Primetime Show.)

Anti-Pornography and Prostitution Research Group (Japan)

Pornography: Creating Demand for International Sex Trafficking (By Shared Hope International)

SHIT LOAD OF STATS

HOW YOU CAN HELP

if these links aka fucking cold hard proof dont make you stop watching it, i hope you drop dead.  

[ldsnet]

Testimony is to know and feel, conversion is to do any become.

[capablecapybara]

Possibly relevant?

(source is lds.org, I think it’s the NT student manual)

[jeffjorgensen-blog]

On Gratitude, Pianos, and Handless Statues

So in the spirit of Thanksgiving, here's a post all about gratitude. 

The other day I was walking home while listening to a BYU devotional talk on the atonement. In it, the speaker related the doctrine of the atonement to the christlike attribute of gratitude. Here, I'd like to explain how a piano student and a statue without hands can deepen our understanding of gratitude.

Definition of Gratitude

According to lds.org "Gratitude is a feeling of appreciation and thankfulness for blessings or benefits we have received." It continues by explaining: "As we cultivate a grateful attitude, we are more likely to be happy and spiritually strong. We should regularly express our gratitude to God for the blessings He gives us and to others for the kind acts they do for us.-Definition of gratitude from true to the faith." 

It would probably be safe to say that we express gratitude the more thankful we are, and we become more grateful the more we express our gratitude. 'To do' and 'to be' build on each other.  

Cultivating Gratitude

President Monson delivered an excellent talk on gratitude in which he explained how we can develop more grateful hearts. He states, "A grateful heart, then, comes through expressing gratitude to our Heavenly Father for His blessings and to those around us for all that they bring into our lives. This requires conscious effort—at least until we have truly learned and cultivated an attitude of gratitude."

There was a fantastic article published on lds.net titled 11 Essential Aspects of Gratitude, in which the author discussed in depth the why's and how's of gratitude. However, what was not touched on was the doctrinal foundation behind gratitude. Here, I would like to explore that very thing.

Doctrine Behind Gratitude

I was told once that if you ever teach a lesson that doesn't relate back to the atonement, then you've missed the point. In that same spirit, the attribute of gratitude relates directly to the doctrine of the atonement.

In a BYU devotional talk by Brad Wilcox titled His Grace is Sufficient, he talks about grace and how the atonement can begin working in our life. He relates the atonement to a child that is learning to play the piano. In this analogy, the child's mother is paying for her child to take piano lessons. Now the question becomes, "how does the child pay back the mother?" Does the child reimburse their mother the cost of the lessons? No. The only way to pay back the mother is if the child practices and makes use of the lessons they have received. Likewise, we express our gratitude for the atonement by using it, by repenting, by praying for the enabling power it provides, and obeying the commandments that will allow it to bless us. 

Another way we can use the atonement is when we serve our fellow man, for "when ye are in the service of your fellow beings, ye are only in the service of your god." And by doing the father's work, we express gratitude to him, and 'pay back the price of the lessons' as it were.

You Are My Hands

In a conference talk titled You Are My Hands, President Uchtdorf tells a story of a statue of Christ in a small town that had been destroyed during a bombing during World War II was rebuilt with the hands being unable to be repaired, and in their place, the phrase, "You are my hands" was engraven into the base of the statue. In the talk, President Uchtdorf describes how each of us are the hands of Christ, meaning that we have the responsibility to carry on his work on this earth by serving one another for their temporal and spiritual well-being. In this way we are doing the Lord's work, and thereby expressing gratitude for the blessings the Lord has bestowed upon us. 

I hope this has given you a deeper understanding of gratitude. Let us all remember to develop an attitude of gratitude, not just for today, but for the rest of our lives. There is a whole slough of data that shows how beneficial it is to be grateful is in our daily lives. 

[jeffjorgensen-blog]

Weird Names and Absolute Truth

I was teaching a Sunday School class last week. While I was getting ready I asked for a volunteer to say one of the prayers. A girl named Ashley raised her hand and I started writing her name on the board. When I was half-way through writing her name, she told me that her name was spelled with two Es instead of an EY. She then said that her name was spelled the "right way" because it made an E sound instead of an A sound like the EY spelling would. I have been able to tolerate the weird spelling of Utah names for the most part, but when she said that her weird way was the "right way" to spell it, I became a little perturbed and decided to do a google search for words ending in EY. What I found was a very comprehensive list of words in the english language that end in EY, a few of which are pronounced with the E sound such as: key, abbey, bailey, barley, baloney, bogey, boney, burley, cliquey, cockney, coney, curtsey, dicey, donkey, dopey, gooey, hickey, hockey, honkey, horsey, jersey, jockey, kidney, looney, malarkey, mickey, money, monkey, mopey, motley, odyssey, nosey, paisley, parsley, phooey, smokey, surrey, and volley. 

This is just one example of how we neglect more encompassing truth in favor of their own version of the truth. 

I'm not entirely sure where to go with this post from here. I've read a few talks and collected a bunch of quotes on the topic of truth, but I can't say that I really have much of an argument to be presented here. So I'm going to call this an exploratory essay and we're just going to see where it takes us. For, after all, writing is a pursuit of truth in its own light. 

Lesser and Greater Truths

Let's start with the example that was illustrated above. White it's true that the combination of EE makes an E sound in all cases, it is still neglecting a greater portion of truth, which is that EY can make both an A as well as an E sound, all while stubbornly holding onto a lesser truth. 

In a BYU devotional by President Uchtdorf, he explained the famous poem-parable of the six blind men that grab different parts of an elephant and describe and argue what their version of the truth is. He then stated, "That someone could make a judgement based on one aspect of truth and apply it to the whole seems absurd or even unbelievable. On the other hand, can't we see ourselves in these six blind men? Have we ever been guilty of the same pattern of thought?" Indeed we can. We are all guilty of rejecting a greater truth in favor of a more familiar lesser truth. Whether it's with the spelling of our names, or the existence of God, this error can be seen in every corner of society and all throughout history.

People used to be completely convinced that the earth was flat, and if they sailed far enough they would fall over the edge. For our entire existence, people were ignorant of the principle of gravity, until Isaac Newton discovered that this principle held constant on all parts of the earth, thus making it a physical law.

Just like there are physical constants (or laws) such as the shape of the earth or gravity, there are also spiritual laws and eternal truths that exist regardless of man's opinions or observations.  

What is Truth?

"the Spirit speaketh the truth and lieth not. Wherefore, it speaketh of all things as they really are, and of things as they really will be; wherefore, these things are manifested unto us plainly, for the salvation of our souls" (Jacob 4:13). In other words, truth is things as they really were, as they really are, and as they will be.

There are several truths that exist within our Heavenly father's Plan of Salvation. For example, God exists and He is our father, his Only Begotten Son suffered and died in carrying out the atonement so that all mankind might be saved if they would repent, God answers prayers, God calls prophets, and so on and so on.  

In a BYU devotional given by President Spencer W. Kimball, he stated, "there are absolute truths and relative truths." Relative truths are ones that change with the needs of society such as the correct spelling of words, whereas absolute truths are truths that are constant no matter what the opinion of the day is. The latter form of truth includes core doctrines of the Church as have been listed above. However, truth is not limited to the Latter Day Saints (no matter what we may think). 

Joseph Smith stated, "Mormonism is truth. . . . The first and fundamental principle of our holy religion is, that we believe that we have a right to embrace all, and every item of truth, without limitation." This is not to say that Mormonism has a monopoly on truth, but rather the religion of Mormonism is the discovery of truth. High Nibley explained that while we have a good deal of truth in the Latter Days, Abraham possessed an even greater amount than we currently have, and Adam even more so. So we must never feel that we have reached an end to truth, that there is no more to discover. As President Spencer W. Kimball, in a BYU devotional stated, "If men are really humble, they will realize that they discover truth, but to not create truth."

How do we Discover Truth?

For us to answer this, it may be helpful to explain why men shy away from greater truth, or reject it all together when it is given to them. president Uchtdorf explains, "Part of the reason for poor judgment comes from the tendency of mankind to blur the line between belief and truth. We too often confuse belief with truth, thinking that because something makes sense or is convenient, it must be true. Conversely, we sometimes don’t believe truth or reject it—because it would require us to change or admit that we were wrong. Often, truth is rejected because it doesn’t appear to be consistent with previous experiences." Therefore, as we free ourselves from pride, soften our hearts, and remain teachable, we will be able to be taught. In addition, we do not discover truth because we do not seek after it. We find a pleasant idea and classify it as truth without looking into it further.

I find this to be characteristic of many of the youth of the Latter Day Saints today. I acknowledge that Tumblr isn't known for these types of posts, as in short essays on various topics, but it very well could be. During Education Week this summer, Elder Bednar encouraged Latter Day Saints to use social media websites to spread gospel messages. Since I've started this small blog, I have seen nothing but elaborate quotes being blogged and reblogged thousands of times, whereas I have been hard-pressed to find one other blog similar to this one where people take the time to formulate their thoughts on gospel topics, express honest opinions, and bear sincere testimony. It would appear that our gospel knowledge is merely a collection of memes. Rarely do people seek the deeper understanding, preferring the partial truth over the whole truth. 

As we quest for truth, we must remember that the Holy Ghost is the great teacher and revealer of truth, and as we remain humble and teachable, we invite his companionship and his divine lessons into our lives. 

President Uchtdorf promises us certain blessings as we diligently search for truth and remain humble as we are taught by the Holy Ghost. He states, "My young friends, as you accept the responsibility to seek after truth with an open mind and a humble heart, you will become more tolerant of others, more open to listen, more prepared to understand, more inclined to build up instead of tearing down, and more willing to go where the Lord wants you to go." 

The original meaning of the word disciple means learner. As we humbly seek after truth, we will truly live as disciples of Jesus Christ and his gospel.

[jeffjorgensen-blog]

Wolverine Claws

The other day I was walking to the train and was bouncing some ideas around in my head. One of them was this question, "When Wolverine attacks someone with his claws, is that considered punching or stabbing?" On the one hand, he's definitely doing a punching motion; and on the other hand he is attacking them with these blades in his hands, which reminds me of a line from the book Choke by Chuck Palahniuk, "No...that's stabbing! Punching with a knife is stabbing!"

I can easily see this debate becoming very heated within the walls of a comic book store in the wee hours of the afternoon. The nerds would argue and yell back and forth about whether or not this could be considered stabbing. But both parties would be missing the point, they wouldn't be asking the right questions. The right question would be, "When Wolverine's claws are out, does he ever attack anyone with his fist?" Until we ask this question and try to examine the truth of the situation, we are merely arguing semantics. We may think this would be a silly thing to argue about, but we as humans in any religious community do this exact same thing all the time.

I'm not going to get into a big discussion on this, I just want people to be more aware of when we're arguing semantics vs. truth, perceptions vs. reality. When I first started working at the Writing Center, it was right at the outbreak of the Ordain Women movement, and seeing as several of my coworkers at the time were members of the LDS church that had since become inactive, an anti-mormon discussion centered around the women and the priesthood debate was not an uncommon occurrence.

There were always opinions flying around about how church leaders are unfair and sexist because they're not allowing women to carry the Priesthood. There'a a whole flurry of accusations that accompanied these arguments, but that will suffice for now. What no one was doing was trying to understand the what the Priesthood is, and why church regulations are the way they are. No one was asking the right questions, which would have been something along the lines of: "Did God determine to have males carry the Priesthood over females?" "If so, why exactly did he do that?" and ultimately, "Was Joseph Smith truly a prophet of God?" This final question in particular, should have been the center of the discussion. If Joseph smith truly was a prophet, then God did truly restore his Priesthood to the earth once more, and for whatever reason that I don't understand now but will in the future, God decided to have men be the carriers of His Priesthood. There are answers to these questions, but that's not the purpose of this post. We need to realize that while there's no such thing as a stupid question, there are better and even best questions. Until we learn how to discern between these different types of questions, we're just arguing Wolverine Claws. And when those claws come out, everyone gets bloodied.

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I don't like thinking of myself as religious. I don't even like thinking of myself as spiritual, for both of these miss the mark. I, more accurately, prefer thinking of myself as a covenant keeper.

[jeffjorgensen-blog]

Zombies and The Law of Consecration

"The genius of stable societies is that they achieve stability without stagnation, repetition without monotony, conformity with originality, obedience with liberty" (Nibley, Law of Consecration). 

I once had a conversation with one of my friends about world leadership, and in it she made a comment about how she wouldn't like to live in a world where there was one world leader that everyone agreed to follow, on the grounds that it would mean that everyone would be the same, with no variability or unique characteristics whatsoever. This is a very common objection that people will put forth for following a certain religion, and, in the case of the LDS faith, following the Prophet.

In one of Hugh Nibley's famous articles, The Law of Consecration, he explains, similar to the above quote, how there are two cultures, the culture of the stable society and the culture of the unstable society: 

"Since the days of Cain and Abel men and women have been pulled in two opposing directions, given a choice between two ways...stable or stationary on the one hand, and acquisitive or expansive on the other hand - eternal vs. temporary, agrarian vs. hunting, cooperative vs. hunting...The law of consecration is that of a stable society; the law of the marketplace is that of an expansive, acquisitive, brittle, untrustworthy, predatory society."

Nibley gives several examples of how our culture has become the unstable culture of a marketplace as described above. Nibley quotes a President of a large American corporation, who states:

Let's face it, if we don't grow and get more profit, there isn't any more money for raises, there aren't promotions for people. If you don't grow, you don't buy more products from your suppliers. You don't have new machines, you don't give more and better products to your customers. . . . I can make a case for hurting God because there isn't more money for the collection plate. The American dream is to be better off than you are. How much money is "enough money"? "Enough money" is always a little bit more than you have. There is never enough of anything. This is why people go on. If there was enough everybody would stop. . . . You must go for more—for faster, for better. If you are not getting better and faster, you are getting worse.

This is just one of many illustrations of this point, and unfortunately, the Latter Day Saint community is not immune to this toxic mentality. I have never seen so many business majors in my life until I came to Utah and began attending Institute classes at Utah Valley University. All of these bright young men that are squandering the talents and discipline they were blessed with on their mission on the fruitless pursuit of accumulating money through buying and selling. "But before ye seek for riches, seek ye for the kingdom of God. And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ, ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good--to clothe the naked and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted" (Jacob 2: 18-19). I hate to make sweeping assumptions and generalizations like this, but there are few people I've met that are majoring in business that have their hearts in the right place. They are puffed up and stiff-necked, and believe it or not, they are all mirror images of one another. This is the result when we shun the Law of Consecration--sameness. But I digress. 

Survival

The motto of the world is survival, whereas the law of the lord is consecration, the prior bringing fear and monotony, and the latter bringing protection and uniqueness.

"In the end you are competing with everyone, or as everyone was saying when I was young, 'Self-preservation is the first law of nature,' a doctrine that justifies the commission of any possible crime in the name of survival. Nobody loves the rat race, but nobody can think of anything else—Satan has us just where he wants us" (Nibley). In this concept of survival vs stability, I couldn't help but think of the portrayal of zombies that is so popular in our media these days. 

In the movie Warm Bodies the main character, a zombie, sarcastically remarks how rich life used to be before everyone was a zombie, when they would interact with one another and share stories etc. all while we see people milling around the airport with their eyes glued to their phones or tablets. Our society has brainwashed us to believe that we can't survive without our mobile technology, but the truth is that we live so much more without it. 

Nibley quotes another president of a successful corporation:

One of the great tragedies of American business life is what happens to talented executives who dedicate their lives to the company, who are successful and part of a system that is so bad. I didn't take the company from a million-dollar loss to a million-dollar profit without hurting a lot of people. . . . You do to others, and then it is done unto you. . . . One morning, I found my own resignation on my desk. Absolutely no reason was given. I didn't know what to think. . . . I left immediately. That was part of the deal. They used the same formula I had used. You do to others, and then it's done unto you. . . . You begin to wonder about this capitalism you preached, the profit motive. I used to tell young executives the name of the game is profit. You wonder whose game it really is. . . . Our profit system, the one we all live by, is presented as a fun game for young people training to be managers. If you can reduce the time it takes to do something, you increase the profit. Growth and investors' happiness are based on this. You can expand your facilities . . . that's why America is the land of plenty [a bitter note]. I'm so proud of the system, . . . that we all have television sets and cars and pollution and everything. There's no place like it.

This comfortable lifestyle, though successful in its own goals, will crumble sooner or later. Shows like the Walking Dead show us life would possibly be like after we lose this system of living that we have clung so tightly to, and amidst all of the horrors that exist there, the most frightening truth of all is that the living are no different from the dead, milling around, eating one another, and all in the name of survival.

Conclusion 

Nibley states:

 Quite literally, the net contribution of our present society to the history of the world will be a pile of garbage—and that very ugly garbage. Great civilizations like the Egyptian or Greek left magnificent garbage, sometimes great stuff to look at. When Salt Lake City is leveled by a nuclear bomb, what will be left behind? What will future civilizations dig up? What will be worth even looking at or digging up? What will survive? The Lord says, "There is no end to my works or my words" (Moses 1:4). The civilization survives only on its words. That's what we have from the Greeks, the Egyptians, and the Hebrews. We have the scriptures. We have the Testaments. We have the Book of Mormon. What has survived is a voice from the dust speaking to us; that's all that has survived. We wouldn't even know that that civilization ever existed without the voice from the dust. That which survived is the word. At least we will leave that behind. But the nice thing about the order the Lord wishes to establish here is that it is eternally perpetrated, not only in the heavens but here, as long as it needs to be anywhere. We can carry on and have a wonderful time.

In an earlier post I described how charity is the opposite of pride, and from that we can conclude that it pride is in direct opposition to the law of consecration. In that post I cite President Benson who describes how pride was the cause of so many civilizations before us, namely the civilizations in the Book of Mormon. Those that prospered when they followed the Lord, and crumbled when they did not.

When we live the way of the world we leave little behind, but when we live the Law of Consecration, the way of the Lord, what do we leave behind? The answer is ourselves. And it is not the monotonous, tedious humdrum of our current society, it is a far richer life than we could ever obtain under our current predicament, and it is all under one leader, the savior of the world, even Jesus Christ.