Random Thought #57

So I went home teaching yesterday and the most interesting thing happened. This latest issue of the Ensign was all about the Book of Mormon and many of the conference talks were about the Book of Mormon. I was in a rush to go to eat dinner and then get to my appointment that I forgot to bring the Ensign. My companion brought a copy of the magazine but I didn't feel impressed to use it. Instead I brought my scriptures (dunno why...I never do). When it came time for the lesson, I just opened up the scriptures and thought immediately to turn to the Book of Mormon title page. As I read from the title page, a number of thoughts hit me and was basically the point of my message to that family. I will illustrate them below as well as provide a link so that you can read it for yourselves.

Link

1. The Book of Mormon was written not only to the Jew and Gentile, but also to the Lamanites, who were a remnant of the House of Israel. We have to remember that the Nephites and possibly also the Lamanites were descendant of Jews. Lehi and his family were Jews and followed the Law of Moses all the way up until the time that Christ appeared to the people in Bountiful.

2. Although the Book of Mormon was largely written by Jews, it was to be translated by God by way of the Gentile; not translated by a Gentile.

3. The record in Ether is meant to show the remnant of the House of Israel what the Lord has done and will do for his covenant people and to remind them of that covenant.

4. The biggest piece and purpose of the Book of Mormon is to convince both Jew and Gentile (I would say Gentile and Jew since the last are now first, but symantics aside) that Jesus is the Christ. There is only two times that Christ appeared to the people on this earth to basically fulfill the Law of Moses and introduce the Law of the Gospel. Jerusalem during his mortal ministry (New Testament) and after his resurrection (Book of Mormon). Since the Bible has been translated by man and many interpolations have been introduced, there is only one true and pure source for how this was done and it reinforces what happened in Jerusalem. How are you going to convince the Jews that Jesus was the Christ. He couldn't even convince them. When you show them that he appeared to other people who were living the same Law of Moses that they did and hear about how they felt the nail imprints in his hands and feet and how he descended from heaven in glory vs riding into the city on a donkey, the connections will be made and the Jews will realize they made a big mistake. I would venture to say that some of the best missionary work will happen when Israel, Jordan, Palestine, and other areas over there open their doors to missionary work.

It is truly a remarkable book and the keystone of our religion.

Random Thought #56

I just watched a cool TED.com video about the math behind not only biological lifeforms, but also cities and corporations. I think its well known that we are growing in population and urbanization at an exponential rate. The common question is how will we survive? Many answer the question with the statement that we have always innovated whenever it was crucial. Many of the graphs here show a hockey stick which indicates incredible growth, but the problem with that incredible growth is that its not sustainable forever, so we have to innovate before we collapse and start a new hockey stick. I'm sure many of you have noticed before but life is getting more and more hectic. There is just too much to take in and we often dismiss the important things in life in order to keep up. In contrast, I've noticed that the Lord's way is a cycle, its "one eternal round". It just keeps happening over and over again. You see it in biology, in death/birth, decay(entropy)/creation(organization), all of the early classic cultures talk about this (especially Egyptian), cycles of the sun, moon, stars, recycling of materials, nature. Its everywhere manifest in God's creations and his plan. This is sustainable and thus eternity becomes possible. For the physicist, its best represented by the fact that matter is neither created or destroyed, it just is. Given that fact, the creation account specifying that the earth was formed by the "organizing" of matter concurs with this fact and when the earth is transformed and receives its paradisaical glory, matter is transformed. It is not destroyed or blown to bits. The same thing goes for us. The interesting question is what kind of matter are our spirits made up of? I don't think we've figured that one out yet. Anyways, the whole point of this is that God's way is eternal, cyclical, cooperative, communal, and perfect. Mankind has a long way to go to figure that out and we're going in the wrong direction.

Link to the Ted.com video if you're curious.

Random Thought #55

Ever wonder how it is that we are so comfortable flying in an airplane with such adverse conditions all around us? I have occasionally and I finally found out how they do it. Quite fascinating and creative if you ask me.

Check it out for yourselves and next time you fly, be grateful for all the ingenious minds that made your comfort possible

http://blogs.howstuffworks.com/2011/04/12/how-airplane-cabin-pressurization-works-keeping-you-comfortable-in-the-death-zone-at-33000-feet/

Random Thought #54

I heard this in one of my podcasts and I thought it was interesting. He starts off in a neat fashion and adds a bit of humor, but towards the end I think he gets a little far-fetched and doesn't substantiate his claims very well. Having knowledge of the creation and a spiritual perspective I think gives us a little better understanding as to the way things are and how others have had to interpret them due to their lack of this knowledge. Worth the view.

Marcus Chown - 10 Bonkers things about the universe
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5x8t-4ewGo&noredirect=1

Random Thought #53

Is it just me or are we getting less and less personable as time goes on? My previous post is a great example of that? We don't even know how to say 'hello' in passing anymore. Speaking of this team welcome lunch we had on wednesday, I would think that if you were welcoming somebody into the group and were going to celebrate it with a lunch, a common theme or discussion might center around that individual. Find out about their likes/dislikes are, what they do for a hobby, where they live, something about their family, etc. None of that. They hardly talked to me. It wasn't like there were a lot of people either. There were 4 of us. They talked about their families, stuff going on in their life and things going on at work. At the end, the supervisor said, welcome to the team and that was about it. They asked me where I'd like to go so I gave them a suggestion and about 30 min later, I was asked if a different place was ok. I agreed and the next day I received an invite to go to a 3rd place completely different, which was where we ate. I guess I shouldn't complain too much right? I got a free lunch and they didn't even ask me to pick up the check. My farewell lunch is tomorrow for my old group so we'll see what happens. HA!

Random Thought #52

What do you do when you and someone else are walking towards each other at a distance and you both know that you'll eventually cross each other's paths? Do you loom at them or keep your head down and pretend you didn't notice them until it was too late? If you do look at them, how early? How many times do you look at them before they pass, pretending not to see them? Do you say hi, keep to yourself, wait until they say hi, or simply nod your head? Why is this always so awkward and why does it feel awkward every time? I don't know the answers to these questions but I sure ask them a lot. Anybody have any good answers? It happens to me almost every day. My team went out for lunch on wednesday for my welcome lunch. Upon returning to the office 3 of us went different directions. Sure enough, right after we turned our respective corners, 2 of us were caught in the eternal stare of awkwardness and as I continued, I met the 3rd one on the way to the bathroom. Too much awkwardness for 1 day. Think I'm going to stay in my office a little more until I figure this one out

Random Thought #51

I just read today that philosophy literally means "the love of wisdom". I never really thought about it too much but it translates quite well. Philo means love and sophos means wisdom. Guess those philosophers aren't quite so useless after all. Maybe they are perceived this way because they think abstractly or in theoretical terms versus offering tangible evidence, which is what determines success these days, but I think their pursuit of goods of first intent is far nobler than the common pursuit today of goods of second or third intent. Power to the philosophers!!

Random Thought #50

Truth and Knowledge are simply the product of discovering the unconscious by conscious effort. I'm sure some really smart guy or gal already said that or something similar to it, but if not, I call dibs. I've found that this has been the overriding theme in my studies. Most of the things that I've learned are not really that complicated or intricate. Granted, the people that wrote about them write in outlandishly complex jargon, but the concepts themselves are quite basic and elementary and many of the amazing things around us we do subconsciously. Take breathing for example (not to mention the entire human body). We don't even think about breathing. We just do it. What about any of our 5 main senses? We do all those automatically too and we don't even realize how much we're dependent on them until they are taken away from us. None of these things are overly complex to do (smell, see, hear, breathe, etc.) yet the complexity of what those systems are doing without you actually thinking about doing them is astounding. To get back to my first statement and how I defined truth and knowledge and to return to the example of breathing, if breathing is so simple, why can't we do it anywhere? Why not under water? Why not in space? To fully understand the truth about breathing and have knowledge about how it works, we must get outside of our cozy little subconscious world and consciously look for answers. I think it helps give insight into God's perspective. Let's look at fish. They can breathe under water but we can't. Why? As you start studying how fish breathe under water, you start understanding more and more how similar they are to us, just with a few tweaks to make it work for them. #1) There is oxygen in water (whew, at least we breathe the same stuff, which means their bodies and its organs must need oxygen just like ours). Its not the O in H2O, but rather oxygen mixed in amongst the water molecules. The amount of oxygen that exists in water compared to air is much smaller. In air, its like 20%. In water, its like 1%. In order to accommodate that, fish had to either push a lot more air and subsequently water over their gills or not require as much. In order to use less, 2) they are cold-blooded, instead of warm-blooded like us so their blood doesn't need as much oxygen. They are able to close their mouth so that they don't swallow the water but rather the de-oxygenated water flows out the gills. They also have the ability (at least in salt-water fish) so filter out the salt in case they do drink too much. The basic concept is the same. Oxygen is gathered and then seeps through a tiny cell membrane into nearby blood vessels waiting for their oxygen load to carry it to the organs. These differences, however, provide for the beauty and variety around us. While we're on the subject of breathing, why do we need a mouth and a nose? Besides the fact that taste and smell are different senses, it would be a bit difficult to breathe while eating. These types of things are just the tip of the iceberg, but I firmly believe that the more we learn and understand, especially about things that we're not familiar with, the better perspective and overall understanding of pure truth we'll have. I know someone famous once said, (think it was Einstien) if you can't explain it to both a child and the foremost expert in that field, you don't fully understand it. Given that statement, how many of us truly understand and know (or have knowledge of) the principles and covenants of the gospel. Have we thoroughly studied them out to be able to explain the same concept to a Nursery aged child as well as an apostle? I'd venture to say we still have a lot of learning to do, and not just of the scriptures, but things that are outside of our comfort zone as well. Those of us who have been in the church since we were born are so used to Sunday School answers, we've effectively handicapped ourselves as it pertains to gospel knowledge. We must consciously study that which our unconscious souls already know. One last note before I let this one rest. Malcolm Gladwell (a great speaker and author), wrote a book called "Blink" which explains the difference between our conscious and unconscious understanding and learning and I think its useful to reference it as it pertains to my comments here. Here is a link to his website and this book in particular.

Blink