Random Thought #23

I read a small article today that got me thinking. Have you ever noticed that the sun and the moon appear to be the same size? Granted its rather hard to measure these objects from where we stand, especially the sun since you can't really look directly at it, but for the most part they seem to be about the same size. How can that be considering the sun is millions of miles farther away from us than the moon is. The laws of physics would demand that the size of the sun be much smaller than the moon due to its distance from us. Interesting. Also, we know that stars come and go as they die and are born, but they are always there, why can we only see them at night? Why do they all appear to be about the same size when some are closer than others? How is it that we can even see them at all? They all seem so far away. We can't typically see more than 50-100 feet in front of us on a perfectly clear day, and yet we can see balls of fiery gases billions of light years away. Interesting. This all of course relates to relativity. I wonder how these things look from God's perspective. I've been reading about ascension dramas (out of body experiences where individuals are taken up to get a tour of the cosmos). The Book of Abraham says multiple times that Abraham needs to remember that everything he is seeing is from the perspective of the earth that he dwells on. Time is a limitation that exists in our world, but that differs from time in other worlds, if its even measured.

Speaking of relativity, I think that is one of the biggest hurdles people have in reading and understanding the scriptures. Most of the scriptures are written from a time, culture, and perspective of the author. Many of the things apply to our day because we do things much in the same way they've been done since the time of Adam and we're meant to learn from these histories. That's what history is for, to learn from the experience of others. There are a number of prophecies, but these come from God (through prophets of God) and not from man. Ever try reading something in the Doctrine and Covenants and then read something similar in the Old Testament? Which one is easier to understand? D&C of course. It was written by a contemporary of ours (Joseph Smith; we're at least in the same dispensation and within 100-200 years) Even more, he was living in America and spoke and wrote in English. The people in the Old Testament lived in a completely different time period, location, and spoke a different language. They have a completely different perspective. Its no wonder that the Old Testament, not to mention New Testament and even Book of Mormon are so much more difficult to understand. If we truly want to understand what they are trying to teach us, we need to put ourselves in their shoes and try as best we can to look at things from their point of view. This could mean learning Hebrew, Egyptian, and exploring their cultures. Things make so much more sense when you are looking the same direction through the same piece of glass. I only hope that one day I can look from above through the same lens as Heavenly Father. Only then will I be able to understand the many mysteries of God.

Random Thought #22

I also learned today more about the temple via D&C 109 (The Kirtland Temple Dedicatory Prayer) and as I was reading, one of Nibley's articles, he quotes President Joseph F Smith (another guy I'm anxious to study) as saying "much temple work would likely have to be done over again because of the slipshod manner in which it was done." That totally rocked my world, but it goes to show you that everything that is done, must be done perfectly and in the Lord's manner. Who would of thought that we could be allowed to do temple work imperfectly? It has awakened my senses as to how I approach the things of the temple. Do I sit on the edge of my seat anxiously trying to understand the mysteries of God, or do I sit back and close my eyes a little bit?


Imagine if that quote above came from our current prophet today at general conference? What would our reaction be? Denial? Recognition? What if somebody else said it? Stake President? Temple President? Member of a local ward? Would we react differently in each situation?


I wonder sometimes how open we are to the truth, even if it hurts. Brigham Young is one of my all time favorite prophets as he has an insatiable appetite for truth and knowledge and was very direct and blunt with the saints. Many didn't like to hear what he had to say and some even questioned his calling, but many times I think we need to hear these things. We wonder why we go over the same lessons over and over again in Sunday School. We're comfortable with the rhetoric and easily accept it. What if something more controversial were discussed? It would probably rock a bunch of people's testimonies if they weren't ready to hear it. Kinda scary.


That's why many people have difficulty reading Brigham Young or Hugh Nibley, because they are both very direct and very correct. We just don't always like to hear it.

Random Thought #21

I just found out today that the reason none of us knows the time or the day of Christ's Second Coming is because its constantly changing. If we take the example of Sodom and Gomorrah, the Lord kept wanting to destroy the place and all its inhabitants because of their exceeding wickedness, but Abraham kept pleading with the Lord to show mercy as long as there were some good in the people to be found and they were still worth saving. This world is getting pretty wicked but the Lord hasn't come yet (by the way, all the wicked will be burned as stubble) because there are still souls out there that need to be saved. Those of you in the Kingwood 2nd Ward witnessed that in action with the Smith family. If I were a full-time missionary, this is what would motivate me more than anything. As a member missionary, this is what motivates me as well. I'm anxiously hoping for the 2nd coming of the Lord Jesus Christ, as I can't stand this world and its wickedness, but the Lord knows that there are still those out there that are worth saving, and its our charge to go out and save them before that great and final day!

Random Thought #20

So I was in charge or moderating a little forum for employees with 3-5 years of experience who meet with a manager and just have an open discussion forum. Our guest of honor today was a guy who has a Bachelor's in Mathematics and Physics, and also one in Theoretical Physics, a Masters in Nuclear Physics, and a PhD in Science Education. He also has a wife who has a PhD in clinical psychiatry and has two kids, a daughter who is also studying to be a clinical psychiatrist and a son who is also some of astronomical physicist. Anyways, needless to say, he was an intriguing person to talk to. I asked him about some good books to read on some of these topics as Quantum Mechanics and Theoretical Physics are two of my favorite reading topics. He gave me a few references and I'm sure as I start digging, more and more literature will become available. I've also recently been studying Hugh Nibley, a famous LDS scholar, and some of his works. I recently stumbled upon a complete bibliography of all of Nibley's works. Including his 19 books averaging 650 pages a piece were a plethora of articles he has written on various topics which all together comprised an astounding list of 47 pages were of articles to be read and digested. As I thought about the large task in front of me, I couldn't help but wonder how we find ourselves content with the knowledge we have when there is so much more out there to be learned. We spend our time on worthless endeavors that produce little to no benefit for good in our lives such as Twitter, Facebook, and other social networking sites. Instead of keeping our nose in books, we stick it in other people's business and the news is always filled with how the world is decaying around us. When was the last time any of us took a step back and evaluated how we spend our time in a day?

I have to admit that I used to be addicted to Twitter, but now that I have so much knowledge in front of me, I can't help but spend my free time trying to understand how things work. After all, if we are to rule on high and Gods and Goddesses and Piests and Priestesses, creating worlds without end, how do we expect to be able to do that if we haven't the slightest clue as to how astronomy works, how biology works, how chemistry works? You think it just exists? Let us remember that there was a creation. Somebody had to understand how these things work. Glory is shared intelligence. "For this is my work and my glory, to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man". God's whole goal is to give us the same knowledge He has so we can become like Him and do what He does, so that we can have everlasting joy. The scriptures are always telling us to feast (not just nibble), FEAST upon the words of Christ. We are to study out of the best books. Why do we limit ourselves to the standard works? Do we not believe in the 9th article of faith?

With so much to learn and so little time left in this world, I think it behooves us all to put a little more effort into learning the ways of the Lord and leaving the worthless things of this world alone.

Random Thought #19

Here is a link to a great story. Regardless of how you feel about politics, our government, our societal values, etc., this is an awesome story with a great moral to it.

http://www.meridianmagazine.com/article/6594

Enjoy!

Thanks Dad

Random Thought #18

So I just had this random thought that I absolutely couldn't pass up. I was thinking about the various TV shows and movies that involve time travel to the future and how its all screwed up and they have to change their ways in the present in order to change the future. That got me thinking, I wonder why we aren't capable of seeing the future, at least not for very long. If you think about it, only special people (prophets, seers, revelators) can glimpse into the future, and only to further their understanding of God's works.

In all of the movies, the current person travels into the future and tries not to interact but silently observes how life is as a result of their current choices. Some are actual characters (Back to the Future) and some are just an invisible spectator (A Christmas Carol, etc.) Let's look at the situation from the perspective of the characters that actually exist in the future. Can you imagine what it would be like if you met your previous self in your present? I think that would be kinda freaky. Everything that happens to your current self affects you as a future self. What if your future self gets mad at your current self and hits your current self causing some facial deformity, then you (the future self) would immediately end up with a facial deformity. Talk about "what goes around comes around" LOL. What if you weren't in the same plane of time as your current self, you still would notice the affects of the choices your current self is making. If your current self got into a car accident, your future self would go from walking down the street to wheeling down the road in a wheelchair. That would suck to be the future self. Every little choice that current self made affected your daily life. You'd be so sick of unexpected changes, you would probably wish that you could go back in time and smack yourself and straighten yourself out.

Now imagine if your current self meets your future self and changes his ways because of what the future self told the current self. (Back to the Future - where future Biff tells current Biff about cheating on the sports events based on a book of stats). Our minds are so futile that the movie producers had to come up with 3 Biffs for logistical reasons I'm sure. So there are now 2 future Biffs and one current Biff.

If you now change back to current self's perspective, if you had never met future self, what would your life be like? This is of course when current self is in the future and looks at the comparison between your two future selves. Does that memory travel with you when you are going back to your current present?

This guessing game is getting a little confusing so let's now change to God's perspective. If future and present and divided by an opaque wall and current self and future self have no knowledge of each other's existence (after all, they are the same, not two different instantiations of one's self as the movies depict) then God's perspective if that of someone looking from the top, seeing both. The interesting thing is that the future self (again assuming two different instantiations) never changes as we might think from the movies we've seen. God knows what the end result (bad word since our progression is eternal) will be because He is Alpha and Omega. He is the beginning and the end. He knows all of the choices you are going to make before you are even presented with  the choice. Its not like God is thinking "...OK, so Mike is going to write this blog post" and then all of a sudden, I decide, I'm going to outsmart God and stop writing this post right now!! He knows that thought is going through my head and that I'm going to finish writing this post anyways.

Blows your mind right? The cool thing is that if we study enough and continually learn, we'll be able to do that as well as Gods and Goddesses. Anyways, getting back to my original thought, this is probably why we aren't allowed to see the future. Its considered cheating in this test of life. Those that are allowed to glance into the future are only allowed to do so for a brief period of time and are only shown enough so as not to blow their minds. After all, if you're a prophet, seer, or revelator, you're probably getting an A on your test of life anyways. Consider all of the examples of all openers of dispensations (Adam, Enough, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Christ, and Joseph Smith). Every single one of them had a glimpse into the future, but only for a short time and only shown what they could handle or what was appropriate for them to see.

One of my favorite scriptures is Isaiah 55:8-9. It inspires me to learn more and more and to one day be as Heavenly Father and partake in all that he hath.