Constitutional fight about polygamy

After the government of British Columbia (BC) tried to convict a fundamentalist Mormon sect in Bountiful, BC on charges of polygamy they have moved on to more dangerous grounds.  The government wants the Supreme Court of BC to confirm or deny the constitutionality of Polygamy under the law.  If the court confirms that polygamist relationships should be protected under law, as same sex marriage was in 2005, then a law which has existed over 100 years with the movement of Mormons to Canada in the 1890s will be removed.

It is fascinating to see how this plays out.  I am convinced that the BC court will rule that polygamy should be protected, while illegal underage marriages and abuse should be prosecuted.  If the Canadian courts are to be consistent with the trends over the past 1o years I can see no other reaction.   There seems to be no law against multiple partners, laws were struck down on other definitions of what a marriage entails so there is little that can be said in favour of single partner unions over a multiple partner other than what havoc it will play with divorce and pension laws.

While there are other reasons to be unhappy with what is going on in Bountiful (there are some who are saying things are not so bad others would of course disagree) there is little that can be presented that would justify continuing discrimination under this evaluation.

I think I have been pretty clear that I do not defend anything going on in Bountiful, I have heard a few horror stories that also do not surprise me.  Yet polygamy, either polygyny or polyandry,  as a relationship is seemingly little different from other monogamous relationships that can have abuse and problems.  Of course this could be the tip of a another relationship iceberg and may prove that government sponsorship of marriage in general is just not tenable if what the definition becomes is always legally moved to various more distant goal posts.

This reference case could just be the beginning of a new world for those who believe and practice polygamy.

All Hallows Eve – A History

The origins of Halloween or All Hallows Eve are old.  So old that I think most of us have no idea why we do what we do on the day.  Of course one could Wikipedia the origins and quickly come up with a great deal of answers.

But I thought I would stick to some scholarly writers to gather the information on the day that kids anticipate and parents prepare knowing that the best thing to come out of the experience is a parent tax and an extended kids snacks for schools we no longer have to put out for a month.

The Pagan Roots

Halloween most people know is a pagan holiday in origin which much like the Solstice was co-opted by the early Christians to change the focus away from the pagan rituals and to make it more Christian centred.   The origins are Celtic.  We mostly know this from Gaulic Celtic sources¹.

In Celtic worship November 1st was the New Year for them, it was called Samhain.   The Celts viewed the day as starting at sun down, so thus the New Year started on what would be October 31st for our understanding.  Geo Athena Trevarthen explains that there was good religious reason for this:

Why should the year begin in darkness?  In The Conquest of Gaul Caesar said Celtic Gauls claimed descent from Father Dis, a god of death, darkness and the underworld. Consequently, each day began at night. The year begins with darkness because all things do; just as the baby forms in the mother’s womb, the new day begins in midnight’s darkness.

So an interesting understanding comes from this, the Celtic idea for the new year is not spring, when things are new in nature, or at the winter solstice where day begins to return again rather it came from another origin.  They saw darkness as the origin of life, so thus it was something to celebrate.   For us who live in an age where darkness is conceived as something to be frightened of this is likely a strange concept.  Anyone who has lived, especially in Wales, during a winter of cold, wet, and dark, would understand why this was seen as such a significant event.

A major reason for this day in Celtic myth was a celebration of death and life, death from the loss of those who will not survive the cold winter months and for the conception of new life which, lets be honest here, was one thing that would be common in months after the harvest and most of the hard work was done.   Sitting by the fire only gets you so far at the end of the day.

Another Celtic portion to the modern version of the day was the release of chaos during the darkness of that period.  In later folklore this idea was personified in a letting loose of youth.  Perceived by some as a way to keep reign on them the rest of the year.  In Scotland and Ireland this meant teens and children would play practical jokes and some not so harmless tricks on others in the community.

As Jack Santino says, “All Hallows Eve, alias Hallow Even, alias Hallowe’en is an ancient Celtic pre-Christian New Year’s day in modern dress.”²

Stephen Hawking is wrong and here is why

Stephen Hawking, the great British physicist is putting out a new book.

In The Grand Design Hawking argues that, “”It is not necessary to invoke God to light the blue touch paper and set the Universe going.”

He argues that gravity alone will always do it without any kick necessary from any Eternal power.   Part of his proof is the discovery of other planets in other solar systems.  To Hawking it proves that God did not create a world specifically in the perfect place for a once in an eternity chance of humanity.  I am not a physicist, nor have a I read the book, but just going on what I have read in various sources here is my unscientific opinion.

I think most Mormons accept that the universe is run under laws.  They are natural laws which govern all level of worlds.  That is one thing that both science and our faith agree.

Hawking and others seem to see that as justification for the lack of a God like figure.  I think most Mormons see it as God in everything.  We see his power in how the universe is governed not under pure chaos as some feel but rather under a structure and order which is influenced by God where necessary to get the right outcomes.  I would suggest that is how each of our lives work.

Give that then rather than seeing earth as an accident of one time positioning seems counter to the Mormon understanding of the universe.

Abraham 3

11 Thus I, Abraham, talked with the Lord, face to face, as one man talketh with another; and he told me of the works which his hands had made;

12 And he said unto me: My son, my son (and his hand was stretched out), behold I will show you all these. And he put his hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which his hands had made, which were many; and they multiplied before mine eyes, and I could not see the end thereof.

In this writing it appears that Abraham was introduced to the concept that the earth was not alone and that there were many more like them.  To my mind the simple discovery of more earths does not suddenly suggest that this one is just some cosmic event ruled only by gravity.  In my estimation we have known about other planets for a while now, ever since some one realized Mars and Venus were not simply stars.

I think that the big bang or the new Darwinian moment that some are spinning, much like Book of Mormon DNA everyone will go too much on both sides.

Though I think he did a great service for the Creation from Nothing crowd:

“Because there is a law such as gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing. Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the universe exists, why we exist,” Hawking writes.

So there you go Creation from nothing DOES exist, or doesn’t, or something…

Personally I think that is a stretch of logic but as I say my physics ended in grade 12 so I might not be the most logical source for an opinion ;0).

Teaching history at home

Rather than go into a long discussion on a point which is nebulous to what I really want to talk about let me just say:

I have two kids who are being home schooled and three that are at school and one that thinks she should be…

My twins have had speech/communications issues and learning disabilities which are not severe enough to hold them back or get special help yet they are basically the type of kids that the system shuffles along while shrugging.

So my wife put her foot down and we are now home schoolers.  In the process of looking for suitable materials one thing is clear to me.  Homeschooling seems to be something religious people predominately do.

How do I know this?  Well loads of the history books avoid evolution (they talk of “nomads”) and give way to much credence to bible as truth.  Look, I am all for that, to some extent, but I consider it to be foolhardy to ignore science.

So we have been combing around for some world history books that might interest grade 4 students that would not talk down to them or be boring.  So with this in mind I also put my foot down on the pseudo-history that some of the books had.

Now let me introduce my choice.  This book on the right had a good mix of web page style  fitted with actual information.  It seems to be a good introduction to world history without going overboard.  It also includes a wide variety of things, including the story of the Israelites but in a much more classroom style.

Case in point, the opening discussion is about evolution of man but it is a brief discussion, it has the various bipedal ancient hominids on a suspects wall with a brief introduction.  Then it moves on into Egypt discussing some of the roles of Egyptian religion and lifestyle.  It is done in a cartoon type format.

As some who takes history seriously I found the book both cheap ($17 bucks on Amazon) and a good way to get them interested in history.   My wife is using the book to reinforce language arts so that they learn more than just history.

If you are considering homeschooling I would certainly recommend it.  At least for younger kids.

Of course the advantage to home schooling is we can go on a “field trip” to the museum whenever we feel like to also reignite the learning process in a different way.

Day one done lets see what tomorrow brings.

God are you against me?

It a common question that people ask themselves.  How do we deal with God when it appears we get hurt by decisions that seem right, seem authorized and yet explode in our face?

What do we do when doubt and anger creeps in when it seems like God does not hear our prayers or worse, he allows all these things to happen to us?

About two years ago things happened to me that I found myself left empty and outraged.  I was mad, not at the church, not at the leadership, but at God.  I felt that he abandon me after leading me down a primrose path which created a terrible set of circumstances.  So I hated God, I disbelieved his ability to save me.  In other words I lost my belief.

I spent probably 18 months going through the motions.  Doing all the things I used to but losing any desire to continue to act as a real Latter-day Saint.   This is not an uncommon experience, of course, many have fallen out with faith in religions world wide.

During my four years in Britain it was common to see chapels being used as pubs, garages and houses.   Some were just plain abandoned, they had become derelicts because the population rarely attend church.  In fact our kids easily got into a Church in Wales (Anglican) school because we were attending church.  I was told that many were amazed because it was “difficult” to qualify.

As the years have gone by and I have become more in tune with God again I have realized that while I am still not happy with my so-called Job moment, I understand better that I needed to overcome it.  Unlike Job I found I could not just let it all fall off my strong testimony.

I have seen now that some aspects of what happened would have made life difficult on us as we were entering a depressed economy in a tiny community in the mountains. However though my goal has changed some it is not completely turned on its heels.  In fact I am still able to do some of the things I wanted to even if it was not in manner I wanted.  In fact I have picked up the derelict bricks and slowly rebuilt the temple in my heart.

My understanding of God and his role in my life has changed to some degree, yet I feel like I have a much better understanding of how my Father in Heaven works with me.  My personal relationship with God is like any other relationship.  I can build or destroy it, it is my choice.  Can I rebuild that relationship with someone I cannot see?

There is a key I decided that the problem was me.  In evaluating my anger I decided that it was something that created a gap.  I felt discouraged and annoyed about all that had happened and blamed it on God.  Deciding to begin reaching out to God once more is something which seemed easier said than done.  But I felt the need, to once again accept that I am unable to control everything.

However, with a rebuilt relationship there is a slow and steady approach.   So anyone could return to accepting that God is not to blame for everything, and maybe one border guard should not determine how I view my relationship with God.  I am not the best of students but I can say I am learning on this eternal path… I hope all of those who question God can come to an understanding.

What the bloggernacle means to me

With the Banner of Heaven retrospective going on over at Bloggernacle Times it has made me reflect somewhat on what the whole bloggernacle might mean to me.

Historically I came to the bloggernacle later than most.  After being heavily involved in political blogging I had only read a few LDS blogs once in a while and mostly read the FAIR website for its semi-once-in-a-while articles.  I ended up reading blogs in earnest in the spring of 2006 because I got thinking that if there are so many blogs about so many subjects then there must be a large LDS blog populace.  I was not wrong.

At the time I had no desire to start my own blog I just wanted to get a feel for what other Latter-day Saints thought in the world.  It was then that I found the Mormon Archipelago.  Using its links I was able to find a number of blogs.  Some I found were ones that were easy to gravitate to and others were sometimes thought provoking and others were, well, not my cup of tea.  I am not alone in this discovery nor particularly new at it.

Most of us I think find the Bloggernacle in similar fashion.

For me commenting on issues was fun, I thought after a while if I got invited to a bigger blog I would probably be willing to do so.  But mostly I did not know the crowd so I supported the ones I liked and commented as often as I could.

After leaving my political jobs and returning the university I felt like starting my own LDS blog would be a good way to share some of my history research with everyone, LDS history I found was a popular topic on the blogs I read.  It was about that time that the Juvenile Instructor started up.  So we were kind of kin to one another as same era blogs.

I have over the past couple of years floated around blogging very inconsistently due to just being too busy or less interested in LDS blogging.   This burn out phase has hit more often than I would admit but at the same time I am writing for a number of things so after a while I just found myself getting burned out and not having a lot to say on some issues.  Again this can and does happen.  Lots of rich writers and commentators on the bloggernacle have fallen off and in some cases gotten back on.

After four years I can say that I know what I appreciate about the bloggernacle.   It is a two fold thing that I want to express.

1.  I think the LDS Blogs offer perspectives and thinking that at once can be revelationary and on another side can be mundane or hostile.  Each of these have their place, I know some blogs I have read have challenged me from all three and some that bored me from all three.   Yet each category has reached me at different times when I was looking for different things.  Blogs I do not normally frequent, Feminist Mormon Housewives and Mormon Mommy Wars have both offered me something I can think about.

2.   The intellectual contributions and out of the box thinking, this is something the blogs can do to help develop ideas of faith.  They are out growths of Dialogue and Sunstone magazines, where some of this began.  In some ways it reminds me of the ancient and medieval philosophers who helped to set ideas about religious institutions.  Often I see Thomas Aquinas, Moses Maimonides and Al-Ghazali in some of the discussions about the role of God, the foreknowledge of the Father, and in the role and place we have in the afterlife.  In some ways these discussions are mind blowing but in others they advance religious understanding and conformity which is more developed than your garden variety Sunday School meeting.

In ways the bloggernacle has added to my understanding of gospel topics, and has blown some of my own preconceptions away.  I love it when it does that and this more than anything else is the reason I return to understand and grow both in intelligence and in faith.    That for me is what the bloggernacle has meant to me.

1600 years ago the apocalypse struck Britain

You live in a city, in your life you have always had plumbing, under floor heating and your days are spent at the shops buying the newest shiniest toy.   The world is your oyster, you travel the boundaries looking for interesting sites and you enjoy food and clothing from around the world.  Weapons are banned and you rely on the local police to enforce the peace.   On top of all that you follow your local sports with passion and follow all the local gossip about some starlet and her sports hero boyfriend.

No you do not live in New York, maybe London, or more accurately Londinium.  You are a Roman Britain living in a place in the future to be known as England.   And in 410, according to tradition, you are about to meet your end of days, welcome to your apocalypse.