Slaying Giants vs. Going with them Two Miles

(From a friend's post on Facebook.)

It's different circumstances.

When God called Israel by Moses, He called them to be a "kingdom of priests and a holy nation", see Exodus 19, especially v. 6. Peter reiterated this to the early Christians, per 1st Peter 2, around v. 9.

But the Israelites in general could not handle it, so the Levites took on the burden of the preparatory priesthood of external ordinances, and were supposed to teach the ways of God to the rest. They were mediators between the people and God.

Israel was supposed to teach the ways of God to the world around them, but the people around them only knew war. So Israel had to go to war.

Israel was supposed to start by suing for peace. In some cases, the countries they visited wouldn't even give them a chance to do so. In the case of the Philistines and Goliath, the Philistines were already causing a scene.

Israel was an example of God making His power easy to see.

Getting us to change our ways, to turn ourselves towards God, is what God wants of us. External displays of power don't really help much to that end.

In Matthew 5: 41, Christians are now somewhat on our own, both before God and before the world. Also, we are no longer to depend on a Levitical priesthood to mediate between us and God. Jesus Himself is our mediator. And we are supposed to teach by example.

It has greater power to convert the soul to serve rather than to fight, and, because of the rules in the world at the time, the soldiers did have the right to demand peasants and Jews carry their equipment for them. By going with them twice the required distance, they had more opportunity to preach the Gospel while avoiding the sort of confrontation that would hasten the coming persecutions.

"Not cause a scene" is not what God said, not what He has in mind.

One of the things that is most difficult in understanding the Sermon on the Mount is that these aren't easy rules like 1000 steps on the Sabbath. These are commandments that require the believer to listen to the Holy Spirit in order to obey. Even now, we sometimes have to slay giants with small stones instead of swords, but the giants we are called to slay first are our own pride and lusts -- again, with small means that actually works, not with big action that seems to satisfy but doesn't.

(Sorry for the sermons, I need them for myself.)

Go to God

Citation of authority is an invitation to stop thinking, among other things.

That's what a FB friend posts in his feed.

One of his friends replies, giving a few examples of necessary "authority" -- medical diagnosis, pharmaceuticals, automotive maintenance and repair:

Who do you go to? How does this work in practice?

To which I snark,

God.

I know that's a snark, and will come off as a snark, and will likely be misinterpreted as just a snark. So I add the following:

And somebody says, "The ultimate Authority!"

Actually, a lot of people say that, but meaning different things by it.

But the problem with jumping to that conclusion is that the only way we can really go to God is to go to our own conscience. 

And the whole problem is that most people have buried their conscience under multiple layers of stuff, expectations, to start with -- expectations from parents', guardians', teachers', babysitters', peers', enemies', friends', lista ad nauseam; and on top of that, layers of one's own desires, of false ideologies, of lazy dependence on authority, of plain old lusts, lista ad nauseam.

Part of the act of going to God is unburying one's conscience.

You cannot go to God without becoming acquainted with your own conscience.

Which really puts a wrench in most interpretations of God as the ultimate authority.

Snarky is not an implicit fallacy.

If God is the ultimate authority, He doesn't behave like human authorities have a habit of behaving. He lets us experiment. He lets us make mistakes. He lets us do stupid things -- fatal things in some cases, and He doesn't just jump in to stop us and save us from doing things we shouldn't for whatever reason. 

(He. I am a dinosaur. I was finishing college by the time people were talking about borrowing the plural for the gender non-specific. And in this context, using the modern gender non-specific is only going to sidetrack me from my thesis. See? I just start to talk about the gender of deity, and I'm already sidetracked. That's a topic for another day. So I'm using the archaic gender non-specific: He.)

He lets us rebel. He lets us misunderstand. He lets us do and be wrong, until we come to our own understanding and start reaching out to correct our course. 

And then He doesn't get in a snit. He watches over us and helps us when we become able to accept help.

Anyway, God, if He exists, is not like mortal human authorities.

This is where the agnostic and the atheist get stuck, by the way. They refuse to see the hand of God. 

I assume that this is the exact reason for them, that God is not like mortal human authorities. God is not like they expect. And if He is not like that, then why bother?

So, instead, they see random chance and the human helping hand.

But these are the tools of God. 

He has us help each other because that's how He can bless us, that's how He can help us grow, which is the best way to help.

And chance. Some people will argue that the devil is in charge of chance. 

Not true, although that is another of the devil's false claims. Not true unless we let him be in charge of chance by making a game of chance. In chance, as in all other things, God is in control unless we give control over to the devil, and then God ultimately still overrules the devil.

No one is beyond God's help. Not even the devil.

But God will almost always refrain from helping us more than we are willing to be helped.

Almost always? Yes, almost always. Sometimes, we are so confused because of the things we have been taught by mortal humans, that we don't know how to ask for help. In those cases, He knows what we will accept when we know the truth, and will actually interfere with the ordinary course of events for us. And we usually don't see it until much time later (until which time we tend to call it random or something).

So go to God. Dig down into yourself. Throw away the false expectations, resign yourself to having to find new meanings in life and everything. 

Yeah, that's the way life is when you go to God, and it doesn't end. It shouldn't end. You shouldn't want it to end, especially not in the few years of this life. 

You should want to be always ready to let God teach you more than you knew before, because what you can learn in the few years or decades or even in centuries of this life is obviously not even beginning to get close to all the good surprises there are in store.

Well sometimes you do need a little rest, but God is faithful and will be ready again when you are.

Go to God.

語句・単語 Japanese Phrases and Words from Church Today (24th)

These are phrases and words I wrote down today during church today, picked somewhat at random.

The first part was from the Primary presentation that constituted the Sacrament (Communion) Services （聖餐会）today:

初等協会（プライマリー）

しょとうきょうかい

Primary (the Church organization for children)

 

発表　

はっぴょう

announcement, presentation

 

発表会　

はっぴょうかい

presentation, recital

 

ヒラマンの勇士のように　

ひらまんのゆうしのように

like the warriors of Helaman

 

戒めを守る　

いましめをまもる

keep the commandments

 

お祈りは神様とお話することです。　

おいのりはかみさまとおはなしすることです。

Prayer is talking with God.

 

手話　

しゅわ

sign language

 

イエスさまのように

(be) like Jesus

 

皆と一緒に勉強したい　

みなといっしょにべんきょうしたい

I want to study with everyone.

 

信仰箇条　

しんこうかじょう

Articles of Faith

 

最後に　

さいごに

finally, to end

 

「神殿に行きたい」を歌います。　

「しんでんにいきたい」をうたいます。

(We) will sing "I Want to Go to the Temple."

 

子供のようになりなさい。　

こどものようになりなさい。

become like a child

 

The second part is from the Priesthood lesson, taken from Bishop L. Todd Budge's General Conference talk from October 2021 （バッジビショップの2021年10月の総大会の話）:

清きを主に捧ぐ　

きよきをしゅにささぐ

(Give) holiness to the Lord

 

バリバリ　

ripping (sound); 

also, rip-roaring, enthusiastically

 

バリバリ働く　

ばりばりはたらく

Work like crazy

 

役職　

やくしょく

official position 

役職 generally indicates a managerial position

 

清さ　きよさ

purity, holiness

 

神聖な　

しんせいな

holy

 

物事　

ものごと

things

 

見極める　

みきわめる

distinguish, understand

 

清さを主に捧げると神聖な物事をもっと見極めることができる。

When you give holiness to the Lord, you become better able to distinguish sacred things. 

 

解決　

かいけつ

solution (to problems)

 

解決する

solve a problem

 

思いを清める　

おもいをきよめる

purify (your) thoughts

 

参加する　

さんかする

Attend, participate in

 

参入する　

さんにゅうする

attend (the temple)

 

修学旅行　

しゅうがくりょこう

school (finishing) trip

 

環境　

かんきょう

environment, conditions

 

残る　

のこる

be left

 

コミュニケーションができるような環境が残るように

... leave things so we can still communicate

以上です

About Baptism for the Dead and the Argument that the "Mormon" Temples Are Not the Same Gospel that Paul Taught, etc.

Baptism. 

Jesus invited us all to be baptized. 

We know that we cannot be saved without baptism. We know that God is merciful and just and would not condemn anyone just because they were born in the wrong place and the wrong time. 

Baptism by proxy for our dead is God's answer to that apparent injustice and is His invitation to us to learn one more way to exercise faith in Jesus Christ.

In a similar way, every doctrine of the temple simply extends the doctrines of the Gospel to the dead -- the very same Gospel as taught by Paul, Peter, Jude, John, Moroni, Mormon, Alma, Nephi, Isaiah, Moses, Enoch, Noah, and all the prophets, the very same Gospel as taught be Jesus Himself.

Otherwise, the dead would be taught a different doctrine, a different gospel, and, since we must all pass through death, we would all face a different gospel and a dilemma that would destroy us.

The doctrines of the temple ordinances are neither more nor less than bringing faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism by immersion, and the gift of the Holy Ghost through Jesus Christ's own authority -- bringing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to our dead, because without their salvation, we are as dead ourselves.

God and Proofs

It seems like there is always somebody asking for proofs.

As near as I can tell, God does not keep Himself busy offering proofs. 

(Himself/Herself/the Most Excellent Self, let's not argue English grammar gender problems. The Japanese grammar would work better -- 「御自分」(go-jibun) or something like that, but English does not have that, so we are stuck with needing context. "... in His own image, ... male and female". If I try to adopt the "modern" borrowing of plural for non-specific, it introduces questions of how many Gods there are, and that would be a distraction. I do that sometimes, but "Themself" just sounds weird to me.

Sometimes you just have to accept that, when it's facts versus ideals, facts win.)

[JMR202411020834 note:]

It occurs to me that I have an allegory that might help. 

If we are talking about paradigms and such in software engineering, and you work with the standard implementation of the language C++ and free/libre software methods, and we have a friend well-versed in Microsoft's .net, and another friend who works mainly in Apple's Objective-C and LLVM/Clang framework, and someone is there talking about Lisp, and Matz is in the conversation talking about Ruby, and my son is there talking about perl and its derivatives, and I'm talking about some highly theoretical stuff that I am trying to implement in a sort-of Forth derived set of languages, it's clear that there is going to be a disconnect when we say the words, "object" and "module", and even "stack", and "paradigm". 

These are necessary, vital concepts in software engineering, but the disconnect is going to be so great that we will often not be able to agree on important details of what constitutes proofs.

And yet the programs we each write will often function correctly cross-platform -- on each others' computers. Not always, but often.

[JMR202411020834 note end:]

When three messengers stopped by to visit Abraham on their way to check up on Sodom and Gomorrah (and extract Lot and his family if they could), the record does not talk about them proving their identity to him. Abraham knew.

Likewise, in the plains, when Jacob wrestled all night with a messenger, the record does not talk about the messenger specifically proving himself. It was Jacob doing the proving. 

And when Moses turned aside to see what the deal was with the thicket that was so brilliantly and glorious lit and not oxidizing, Moses didn't demand proof of who it was that spoke to him. He did ask what he could offer the children of Israel, but God didn't offer proofs, just a name -- a coded name, but just a name. And the elders of Israel didn't really argue too much about it, just complained that it was a hard thing they were being asked to do.

In the case of Pharaoh, that seems to be an exception. God allowed Moses to offer him proofs, but God knew in advance that that particular Pharaoh would harden his heart and refuse to believe no matter how many proofs were offered.

God didn't need to identify or prove Himself to Adam and Eve in the Garden. We can understand that, even though we understand that Eve was deceived. 

But what was Eve deceived about? 

Did the snake fool her into believing he was God? I don't think so. Did the devil fool Eve into believing he was an angel of God? I don't read that from the account, either.

God had commanded Adam and Eve to take responsibility over the Earth.

"Subdue" and "have dominion" -- 

In the cultural semantic we inherit from ages of examples of arbitrary rule by false royalty interspersed by rare examples of royals taking actual responsibility, we tend to read "subdue" and "have dominion" as license to behave arbitrarily. 

But it doesn't take a lot of thought to recognize that God has never told us that we should not behave responsibly. Quite the opposite. Whenever we will stop and consult with our conscience, responsibility is part of the discussion.

How were Adam and Eve supposed to take responsibility for the Earth? They were in the Garden, they were being taught be God, but they were being warned by God that knowledge of good and evil would separate them from God -- would cause them to die both spiritually and physically.

They were naive.

We can't get around that. They were perfect, according to some measure of perfection. But they had not partaken of the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. They were inexperienced. 

They were naive.

And not just about sex -- Sex isn't after all, the be-all and end-all of good and evil.

They were naive about about consequences in general. You cannot take responsibility for a stewardship from God in your naive state.

God warns us of the consequences of experience: pain, trouble, death, even separation from the divine spirit of truth.

It's a warning in apparent conflict with the commandment to take responsibility over the earth.

He gave Adam and Eve the choice of which course to take, and he gives us the choice.

If Eve was deceived, she was deceived about timing. At some point, God Himself would have had to explain the choice in detail, and told them it was time to choose. 

Continue in your innocent state and never die, or risk making life-changing decisions.

That's a terrible dilemma!

Perhaps it's the original dilemma.

And that is the state we are in.

What proof do I need of that?

The Greeks wrote many tragedies about the consequences of choice -- the tragic consequences of choice. That's why they are called tragedies.

I think the comedies were intended to be about deliverance from tragic consequences, but I would be hard pressed to prove it. We have a different understanding of comedy today.

God knew that there would be some mistakes we would make that would make it difficult to listen to our conscience and turn ourselves back from the train-wreck courses we so often choose. He planned for that. 

He would send us someone to save us from ourselves.

If we only have one piece of paper, and no eraser, we can't afford to practice our sums because we know we're going to make mistakes. 

It's a weak analogy, but you've faced that worry about some decisions. 

Everyone has. Everyone does.

By sending the Savior -- the Christ, God provides us access to an eraser, and even sometimes to a clean sheet of paper, so to speak.

Of course I'm not talking literally about sums and differences. Our mathematics is one of our inventions that is ideal but not perfect, so even if our teachers have a ruler ready to swat our hands every mistaken sum we write, well, God can save us from that kind of abuse. Can save the teacher, too, if the teacher will. If we will.

If we had the complete record, we would know that God sent angels to teach Adam and Eve and their children about the plan, and that the argument Cain had with both Able and with God was precisely about that plan.

And we instinctively have some knowledge of this plan. 

The proof is all around us, if we open up our eyes. 

Riddles about the age of the universe and whether Adam and Eve really were the first humans, etc., are not relevant. 

We are free to choose what to believe, but what we believe then constrains what we do. And we are free to change our choices if we come to believe there were better choices.

Society was not always so. Even now, there are those who do not want us to be free to make wrong choices -- according to somebody's definition of wrong. And there are those who, when we have made wrong choices, want us to continue making those wrong choices because they think they gain some profit when we do, or because they think it causes them inconvenience if we don't.

The society of this world is much like Cain of old -- continually arguing with God because they don't want to have to go back and change their mistakes.

But God said, and continues to say, "If you do well, are you not going to be accepted?"

Are we willing to be accepted on God's terms?

Or, like Cain, are we going to continue to demand to be accepted on our own terms, until we do something that really can't be fixed? Something that can only be forgiven, like Adam and Eve forgave Cain rather than risk further reducing a population that was too small to sustain itself without help from God.

Something that can only be forgiven if we are willing to turn our hearts and minds God-ward.

And this is what repentance is supposed to be about.

Not about being punished. Not about arcane rules of penitence.

About re-pent-ing. Turning away from bad decisions even when it hurts to do so. About turning towards God.

Back to the God we came from.

What proof do we need for this?

... Let Them Worship How, Where or What They May

In the Articles of Fatih of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is this:

11 We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may.

We are serious about this.

The fashions and vicissitudes and culture wars, etc. of human culture have altered, in the common context, the meanings of every meaningful word in the above, but we are still dead serious about this.

I have tried to invent a new way to talk about this, without using the words that have, in the vicissitudes of history, become offensive to many, where I substitute the word "cosmology" for "religion", and such, but it only moves the goalposts, and does not lead to mutual understanding. 

And mutual understanding is my real goal, to somehow invite you and your friends, and your enemies, to consider that we argue about it more about abstract definitions than substance -- arguing about choice of dictionaries, in effect.

Even the phrase, "article of faith":

Article: 

Of the definitions in the dictionaries, the one that probably came to mind when you read this word is 

written composition on a news or magazine site

or such.

But what we mean is closer to 

clause

-- particularly a clause of belief or faith rather than a clause of law. 

Speaking of faith,

Faith: 

The popularized definition of faith refers to religious belief, and has even been pushed towards 

system of superstition, and choice of favorite comic book or movie series or other mythologies and their heroes

But what we mean is closer to

fundamental beliefs and how those beliefs affect behavior and thinking and lives

-- but if we are not careful, even there, we can fall into the false trap of the false dichotomy between faith and works.(It's not just a Christian thing, or even "just a religious thing", that false dichotomy.)

For example, if you claim to be an atheist or agnostic, that is an assertion of one of your core beliefs and how it affects your thinking and behavior. 

Or, if you prefer not to be accused of believing something, or anything at all, you still have a choice in your approach to understanding. Or even whether you choose to approach understanding.

And we want to allow you that choice.

Sometimes it is even a valid choice to suspend the choice to understand, rather than to choose to claim understanding. And we want to allow you even that choice when you feel a need to. 

Heaven knows we have found that, at times, we have had to suspend understanding in order to let God teach us something we couldn't understand before.

Freedom of Religion is not about freedom of choice of favorite superheroes. Or, it is not just about that.

I mean, if you choose a favorite superhero, you are often using that as a metaphor to talk about something deeper about what you believe or what you understand, or what you want to understand, or something else important to you.

That's what freedom of religion was meant to be when the framers of the Constitution of the United States of America wrote the First Amendment to it -- the freedom to take your own approach to life, to the extent that it's possible to do so.

...

:::

:::

... and if this were to go viral, it would be only a matter of moments before the popular meanings of the phrase "take your own approach" were changed to something I do not intend, and, to the extent that such changes in idiom result from people's attempts to understand, I guess I have to allow that, too.

Addictions and Morality

This is, of course,  not the only framework for discussing morality, probably not even the best, but it seems useful.

Are addictions automatically immoral?

Well, we can bring up the example of the pusher, but that's too controversial.

So we can look at hand-washing.

You've heard of people who wash their hands obsessively, I suppose? Some people develop an obsession with keeping their hands clean, to the point of damaging their skin and of being unable to participate in ordinary social functions.

And someone is going to accuse me of engaging in hate speech against hand-washers.

We all need to wash our hands on occasion.

How much hand-washing is bad?

I think we can guess that a plumber will need to wash his hands more often than a software engineer who spends all his time behind a desk. 

Don't distract me about software engineers who engineer plumbing systems. Or about computer users who never clean their keyboards. 

The point is that there is no good single rule about how many times an hour or a day you should wash your hands, and no more -- no single rule to cover everyone.

So how can you define when it becomes an unhealthy compulsion?

If you're at a social function, and someone keeps excusing herself to go wash her hands every fifteen minutes, can't you get after her for letting her OCDs get the better of her?

I suppose you can, but are you not engaging in a compulsion to gossip and criticize when you do?

This will upset people who have a compulsion to tell other people what to do, but the only answer is that it is between the individual and her conscience --

-- unless she's dragging you along and making you wash her hands for her, I suppose.

No, there are valid reasons for needing help washing your hands, too.

Ultimately, the question must be left up to the individual to decide, between her and God.

Wait. If I say God in the current political climate, the odds are that you will imagine a cartoon caricature, or some caricature from some movie that focused on a particular or supposed aspect.

But if I say conscience, I know there are so many purveyors of arcane rules of etiquette that only profit the purveyors thereof, and of other such ideal-mongering, that most people have trouble distinguishing their innate instincts of right and wrong.

Pushers.

Our society seems addicted to purveyance, but it should be possible to refer to the tendency to addiction when talking about morality.

It should be valid to bring up the tendency to addiction when discussing the necessity for regulating the production and access to a substance.

It should be valid to bring up the tendency to addiction when discussing the need for laws punishing and prohibiting rape and sexual abuse.

It should also be valid to bring up the tendency to addiction when discussing monopoly power over technology, among other things.