Shining a Light

There were two people who spoke today at church whose message really touched me. The first spoke about how appreciative he was of the excellent manners the youth and children showed as they were trick-or-treating. He noted they were quick to offer unsolicited "Thank-you's" and otherwise behave in a very polite fashion. He went on to talk about many simple acts of kindness he observed in the neighborhood - people sharing produce from their garden, or bringing bread or some other homemade goody to a neighbor...

The second individual talked about a friend who had been coming to church with him lately - a man who had experienced some difficult times. He expressed gratitude to the many members of the church who had been so welcoming to this man. He expressed that the man "felt like a rock-star" the way he was treated by the congregation.

I was touched to tears by their expressions of gratitude for simple kindnesses.

Later we were having a lesson on Faith, in which it was noted that "Faith is choice, not chance".

That led me to recall a... parable one of my brothers shared a number of years before. He is a racing fan, and he shared the analogy that race car drivers, are aware of the wall, and want to avoid hitting the wall (which could be painful or even fatal), but they don't focus on the wall. They focus instead on the line they are driving - where they want to go. Because if you are looking at the wall, you are probably going to hit it.

More personally, I remember my own experience cycling - I've done a number of 100+ Mile rides, and when you are riding for that long, you do have a little time on your hands. I observed that if I looked to the side, the bike would inevitably drift to the side. If I looked to the side and consciously made an effort to compensate for that drift, I would inevitably drift the opposite direction.

In order to maintain the desired course, It is necessary to look where you want to go. You have to focus on the desired goal, and not get distracted by the stuff on the side.

All this led me to recall how a few months ago, I made the decision to stop listening to the radio while driving to/from work. I never found music that I liked or found appropriate, so I would end up on one of the news/talk stations. I became aware that I was coming home feeling agitated, angry. So... I turned the radio off. In a few weeks I realized that I was no less informed on critical current events, and I was arriving home in a MUCH better mood!

Typically when "Shining a light" is mentioned, it is taken to mean pointing a light in the darkness. It is used to mean drawing attention to or exposing corruption, scandal... To expose the bad behavior of those working in secret. Particularly those in power (governments, corporations, etc...)

But it occurs to me, what we really need to do more of is shine the light on the bright spots - To call attention to the many acts of kindness, to celebrate the simple acts of politeness and human decency... We need to look to where we want to be - stop focusing on where we don't want to be.

Salsa Verde (Green Tomato Salsa) - and one small (big?) lesson learned

With the Cold weather coming, I cleared the Tomato patch out of the garden, and ended up with a fair quantity of green tomatoes. I've never used green tomatoes before. I was going to try fired green tomatoes, a couple years ago, but procrastinated until the tomatoes rotted. So this year, I had a friend who made salsa verde, using green tomatoes instead of tomatillos (I've never made salsa verde of any kind, but his was tasty, so I thought I'd give it a go. As I often do, I looked around at a few recipes, then kind of did my own thing. It is pretty darn delicious!

I don't know, maybe this is just me, but I find the "waste" bowl to be rather beautiful...

That will go to the copost pile to become part of next years vegetables! But I had to take a pic, because it is.... a natural work of art?

The jalapenoes came from the freezer, from last years garden, the habaneros were pretty tiny - one was ripe, one was half-ripe and the last one was just barely starting to ripen (It's what I had on the plant. Have to start that one earlier next year).


Salsa Verde

36 cups cored, rough-chopped green tomatoes
10 large jalapeno peppers
3 small habaneros
8 cups chopped red onion
1 head garlic
1 bunch cilantro, finely chopped
1 1/2 cups lime juice (fresh squeezed plus the pulp)

3 1/2 Tbsp ground cumin

2 Tbsp dried oregano

2 Tbsp salt
1 Tbsp black pepper


Run the tomatoes, peppers, onion and garlic through a food processor and add to a large pot.
Add the remaining ingredients and bring to a slow boil. Simmer for 15 minutes. I got size quarts out of this.

Of course then I went to look up processing info, and found that Salsa shouldn't be processed in quart jars, which is what I had available, and therefore filled and loaded in the canner before I went looking for processing times. Additionally, they are rather iffy on making up your own recipes and canning (at least water bath) as salsa is a mix of acid and non-acid ingredients, thus may not be safe for water bath canning. I've got 6 quarts of questionably processed salsa verde now. Ooops. I guess I could get some ph test strips and get at least a rough guess on approximate safety.

Guess I will be eating lots of green salsa this week. Salsa anyone?

My Experience With Religious Persecution

"Kill those Jehovas! Kill those Jehovas!"

That was my first real experience with religious persecution. I was in second grade, and that day is forever burned into my brain. I was in the classroom, with one of my best friends (don't even remember his name now, he move later that year). A girl I knew (and liked) was talking to another girl abut religion. The other Girl was Jehovas Witness. "What's that?!" I asked, trying to look and sound cool, and not-ignorant.

My friend then told me he had heard all about them from his Mom. "They were a cult!...  had their own 'bible' called the "Green Dragon"...  worship the Devil!... Brainwash people!...".

I have always have a bit of a hero fixation - always like heroes - always wanted to be one. I grew up watching Battlestar Galactica (the original TV series, not the lame reboot), Buck rogers, Jason of Star Command, Justice League, Knight Rider, A-Team, The Equalizer (At one point, that was my career plan - Join the military, train as special forces, and become the equalizer...). I used to play knights, rescue heroes, space explorers...

Still like heroes - real heroes.

Always wanted to be a hero. And fight evil.

So... I spent recess marching around the playground like an idiot, with my friend, shouting "Kill those Jehovas! Kill those Jehovas!..."

After recess our teacher gave us a stern talking to for our inappropriate behavior. More importantly, she planted a seed of doubt as to the veracity of my friends claims.

That troubled me. Why would he lie? I asked my mother (a voracious consumer of books and their contents) about the Jehovah Witness. She provided a reasonably thorough education (for one who is not a Jehovas Witness) regarding their beliefs, noting the similarities and differences to the Latter Day Saint faith.

I felt... Humiliated, Embarrassed, Crushed, Betrayed. That day was the end of my friendship with that kid. Though in retrospect it wasn't my stupid friends fault. And it probably wasn't his stupid Mom's fault. Perhaps not even their stupid preachers fault. Who know where the ignorance sprang from, a misunderstanding during a heated religious conversation with some preacher, an angry half-truth from a disaffected member of the faith. An early historical event taken out of context...

I don't remember if I ever apologized to the girl. But that day is a permanent scar in my memory.

My next taste of religious persecution came in high-school - some christian group sent their kids to a bible school, and they came back armed with anti-mormon propaganda, some of which was slipped into my locker. That was the same year somebody drove past me as I was walking home from school and yelled "Mormon A-hole!". Also the same year I received a letter full of anti-mormon "questions" from a friend. My encyclopedia Mom was again the source I turned to. She put the various statements into context, separated the truths, half-truths and lies into neat little piles. She produced plenty of source material to read (our house had more books than wall space).

Somewhere right around that time (the summer after, I think) I participated in 'friendly ribbing' of a kid who had suddenly decided to join some new age, vegetarian group. It sounded so weird. I quit within a few seconds, and followed him outside after the meeting to apologize. He made a few cracks about Mormons, and we parted friends.

Of course, after that, I served a mission in Florida, where there were billboards advertising a hotline to call in order to save your Mormon friends from their satanic cult, where I had a number of Christians pray for my soul. Where the friends of one girl we gave a Book of  Mormon to took it form her and burned it. Where a teenage girl had a prayer group pray over her and push on her stomach until she threw up and convinced her that it was the devil coming out of her. Where I heard all about the "Joe Smith and his Mormon mafia, who kidnapped virgins and took them to the Salt Lake temple to force them to marry old men." and this was known to be true because some of the girls had jumped out of the tower and into the great Salt Lake, where they swam to safety and escaped (Look at a map of Salt Lake City. Note the location of the Temple and The great Salt Lake. Impressive feat, no?).

And now, with the internet allowing every idiot (including myself) a voice...

I have seen plenty of anti-mormon propaganda, I have also seen plenty of anti-islamic propaganda. Fortunately, on my mission, I met a devout muslim, who came from the Middle east to the U.S. to study medicine, and was at that time a successful Doctor. He gave me a Quran as a trade for the Book of Mormon we offered him. My brief experience with him serves as a counter-point to the claims I now hear. The copy of the Quran a source from which I could fact-check claims, and read quotes in context.

I am forever regretful, and forever grateful for my encounter with that girl in 2nd grade. I wish I could find her and apologize to her, but because of that experience I am slower to listen to propaganda, quicker to question the accusatory claims, and somewhat better at seeking common ground. (Though I still have an infuriating habit of challenging peoples' strong beliefs - the always/never/all/none kinds of beliefs, not because I agree or disagree with them, mostly out of curiosity, and to deepen the conversation, but inevitably I upset people and then I feel bad for weeks/months/years...).

I am also grateful for the example my mother set, of reading, studying, digging deeper - seeking context, motive, understanding.

I have concluded the most (if not all) persecution comes from ignorance. And from a lack of personal conversion.

I believe that in all religions (and many groups who think they aren't religions), there are those who are converted and those who are brainwashed. The converted recognize their group as one filled with both truth and flaws. They recognize that most if not all others are ultimately seeking, stumbling toward greater truth, and they are thus willing to share, co-exist seek, common ground...

The brainwashed are weakly connected to an ancillary idea, a person, a group... They have no foundation, no real confidence, so they cling desperately to it, and consider everything else - no matter how different or similar - a threat. They must therefore attack it, belittle it, destroy it, minimize it, subdue it, assimilate it. Only their way of thinking can be tolerated.

This ramble probably has a couple endings, and probably should have ended paragraphs ago. So to close? We are more alike than we are different. We can find a way to co-exist. We are better off for the diversity, we don't always have to agree - or even support each other - to co-exist. We can find a way to compromise. It is either that, or more blood.

Proving God: Math and Personal Science

I think I have exhausted my thoughts on this (at least for the near to immediate future). It has been an interesting process, Just one last post to close out the sequence of thoughts

Here is a list of the posts in order, in case you wanted to review:
1. Dis/Proving God: Math, Science and a Checkerboard.
2. Dis/Proving God: Anecdotes, Logic and Water.
3. Dis/Proving God: The Facts.
4. Dis/Proving God: Science and Faith.
5. Dis/Proving God: Patterns.


So the basic conclusion I draw from my thoughts is that it isn't practical or possible to prove or disprove through formal scientific process the existence of God, and that it is in fact harder to disprove than to prove the existence of God. There is nothing about science or scientific process or faith/religion or religious process that prohibits the two from coexisting. In fact the two can be very compatible.

I believe that, while dis/proving God on the public level is not feasible, it is entirely possible to apply scientific processes in one's own personal search to prove - and understand - God.

There is a cool word used in Mathematics which provides the starting point for this.

"Assume"

Yes, that is a valid word in mathematical proof, used in proof by exhaustion, proof by contradiction...

 It has been used in science before. Atomic theory began with a belief that atoms existed. Based on that assumption, mathematical models were created.Over time, as tools became more sophisticated, those models were refined.

You can apply the same process to religious discovery.

Assume God exists.

What does that mean? Who is God? What is God like? What is our relationship to God? Study what is known, search for the patterns, and develop your theories. Test them against what is known and what 'makes logical sense'. Hang on to what fits. Discard what doesn't.

Assume God exists. Either he loves us, or he doesn't.
If he doesn't, then he is irrelevant, is he not?
But, since you find repeated through nearly every religion and mythology, the idea of a 'savior' - of one sent by God to rescue mankind from everlasting doom, then it seems safe to assume that God does in fact love us.

Assume God exists, and he loves us. Then why do bad things happen? There are really only a few possible explanations that fit, when one considers the big picture.
1. This short earth life is so insignificant in the grand, infinite scheme of things, that all the horror that we are experiencing simply... doesn't matter.
2. This life, while perhaps insignificantly short to God, matters, but it is ours to experience. As such he is "un-involved". Not in the sense that he doesn't care, or doesn't listen to us or answer many prayers or grant many requests, but that he doesn't interfere.

If God loves us this life must have meaning, must have a purpose. So option 1 really doesn't make sense.

Assume God exists, and he loves us, and this life is for us to experience.
Then clearly he has a plan for us,he wants us to learn, and grow, and become better. So we can safely assume that as we search for answers, as we seek to treat each other with love and kindness, we will find the answers we seek in time, with patience and persistence.

It simply... makes. sense.


Prepare to be wrong sometimes. At one time, scientific thought was that heat/cold was due to a tasteless, odorless colorless particle called the caloric.After decades, new evidence disproved this idea, and a new model was developed.

Remember of course that being wrong about one thing doesn't mean you have to discard everything. Science is an iterative process. We work our way toward the truth in tiny steps. The more we learn and discover the more our model may change, and the closer our assumption about reality- based on our observation of a relatively small piece of the puzzle - will come to matching things as they really are.

It is possible to perform scientific experiments on religious matters. A prophet named Alma gave excellent counsel on this topic.

Perform an experiment. Study the words of prophets, apply their instructions in your life, be patient, be persistent, be observant. What is the outcome for you personally? How does it change your life? For the better? Hold on to it. For the worse? Re-evaluate.

It is okay to not have a complete picture. It is okay to not have all the pieces fit.

And it is okay that each person's journey may be slightly different. They might use different names, different terms, rely on different explanations... That's okay. It doesn't mean they are right, and you are wrong. Most likely it means they have some things right, some things wrong, and you have some things right and some things wrong. Scientific progress requires discussion, cooperation, sharing, a willingness to learn.

Finding truth is a journey, not a destination. It is a process. One that will fill a life time. And more.

Proposing Some Gun Violence Solutions

Gun talk is everywhere again, and I am sitting here not sleeping because my mind is going crazy with thoughts, so I might as well get them down.

First, the assumptions - please let me know if you think I am off base:

The key factors driving gun violence are (in no particular order):
1. The comparative effectiveness of firearms - They are better at killing things.
2. The availability of firearms - The are cheap, easy to acquire, and readily available
3. Lack of education about, and respect for firearms - A key factor in accident shooting and gang incidents.
4. Mental health - Mental health care stinks
5. Desensitization coupled with classical and operant conditioning - Violent Movies, Shows, Games etc... (not saying they make everyone violent, only that they are significant contributors to the propensity toward violent acts. See the info at this link for more info.
6. Nihilism - Rejection of moral principles. I (unscientifically) claim it is on the rise, and clearly contributes to the problem.


Now the proposals:

1 and 2 are where most of the focus/debate is. I have seen no headway. I don't foresee that changing.

3. I propose we make basic firearms safety training a required part of middle-school curriculum. We teach kids proper care and handling of the kitchen cutlery, shouldn't we also teach them to never play with a gun, how to make certain a gun is unloaded? safely stored?

I further propose that we implement an "Advanced Firearms Safety license". This would be voluntary, and would be a reward based solution. By completing this , which would include background checks, advanced firearm safety training, training in proper defense and engagement tactics, etc... you would qualify for certain additional privileges, like concealed carry to many otherwise restricted locations, Airplane carry... Not sure what, the point is to make it rigorous and rewarding.

4. It is funny how readily we accept the fallibility of every organ in the body except the brain. Limbs, eyes, ears, heart, liver, kidneys etc... wear out, break and degenerate. We know this, we accept this. we are sympathetic to those who suffer from various conditions, and we have all kinds of tests to help detect them. Many insurance providers offer free coverage for an annual health check-up, they look in your ears, they listen to your heart, they draw blood, looking for indicators of a number of health problems, which when detected early can be prevented, treated, or managed.

Yet most people seem to still believe that the brain is somehow infallible (With the exception of a few various obvious birth defects, or strokes). How dumb is that?

I propose we offer a tax credit or other incentive for a free annual mental health checkup. Tests could include blood draws, brain activity scans, psychological questionnaires... At first, much of the information would have limited use, but after a few decades of collecting information from the entire population (or most of anyway), we would begin to establish useful correlations which would allow for appropriate preventative programs to be implemented. The sooner we start, the sooner we will get there.

5. I propose that a risk tax be placed on movies, shows, music, and games which contain excessive violence, or glorify/represent the misuse of firearms (improper stance, firing into crowds, unlimited ammo, mass shootings, "trick shooting" etc... Tax the shows, and the tax the actors/actresses. That may reduce the quantity of violent content to a more manageable level, and the taxes will help fund the previously proposed education and health check-ups.

I further propose (This one won't be popular) that parents can be fined if they allow their children to view or play content which is rated for mature viewers only. And they can be tried as accessory to murder if it shown shown their underage child perpetrator was allowed access to mature content.


6. I don't have a practical proposal here. The community at large has to make the choice to reverse this trend. To take responsibility and teach their children to "Love one another".


Okay, I think I'm done. Thoughts? Comments? Suggestions? I'm going back to bed.

Dis/Proving God: Patterns

I feel I should take a moment to explain this series of posts - I realize I probably sound a bit lecture-ish, that is not the intent. Yes, I'm a nerd, yes, I read encyclopedias as a kid, so yes, I know quite a few words. I try really hard to pick the right words to be as precise as possible, in the hopes that it will lead to less misunderstanding. Communication is a tricky thing.

Secondly, I am not writing this to preach to anyone, this exercise is for me. It is an effort to take a series of random thoughts swirling about in my brain and solidify them, organize them, and clarify them. It is an effort to understand myself, my understanding. That said.


Patterns are an important feature of scientific analysis and discovery. Science constructs mathematical models to describe the behavior of the universe, by observing and quantifying patterns. That you hold an apple up, let go, and it drops to the ground every time is a pattern which leads to an understanding of gravity. If the apple were instead to go off in a different random direction each time, it would be difficult to derive much useful information.

But there is a pattern. It falls. What's more it falls, and accelerates. And it does so with a great degree of consistency, which allows us to come up with numbers and equations to describe the effect of gravity.

Observing a pattern is not enough in itself to definitively establish something as a truth of course, but it does certainly give one reason to consider the thing further.

Apply this to religion, Can we see patterns? Consistencies?

Have you ever played the telephone game? Where one person whispers a story to one person, that person repeats it to the next person, and so on through a line of people. The last person then talls the story they heard, and it is usually nothing like the original story?

It is a good example of why gossiping is a bad idea, but it also carries an interesting idea about stories from the past. They change over time as they are told and retold. Consider the Old Testament, particularly the first 5 books, which also make up part of the Torah, and the Quran. they were written by Moses (Are we absolutely certain the texts we have are in fact penned by Moses, or is it possible they were copied by someone else, from writings Moses made?) How long after Moses wasn't alive for the events of Adam and Eve, Cain and Abel, Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph ... thousands of years of history, thousands of years of people going their several ways, thousands of years of stories being passed down from one person to the next. It is not at all surprising then to find the stories have changed... drastically.

It is then very compelling when patterns, consistencies are found from one mythology to the next. I was, as I said (am, actually) a bit of a nerd. I was big into Mythology, as a youth. Greek and Norse were my favorites, but I also learned a bit of African, Babylonian, Egyptian... There are some stories which show up in nearly every human mythology.

The Creation - okay,big deal, who wouldn't wonder where they came from and make up a story?

A great Flood - Now this one is very interesting.

• The Chinese called it Gun-Yu.
• The Greeks tell of the Gods flooding the earth to destroy the wicked, leaving only Deucalion and Pyrrha alive, 
• In East Africa the Masai say it was Tumbainot, his wife, and three sons. 
• The Lakota tribe tell the same story of destroying the wicked by a flood, noting that the rainbow was given by the great spirit as a sign that there would be no more great flood.
• The Coctaw tell of a prophets sent to warn of a coming flood
• In Arizona, the Papago have a story of Coyote who foresaw a flood, gnawed down a great tree,  crawled inside and sealed it. Montezuma took coyotes warning and built a canoe. The story goes on to say that he later became wicked and tried to build a tower to heaven.m The great mystery destroyed the tower with an earthquake and change the languages so people could no longer understand animals or other tribes.

These two aren't the only two repeated themes.

Most mythologies talk of two (or more) great destructive events. One of a water event (the great flood), the second is a fire event.

Most every Mythology includes a supreme being, a father god.

Most every mythology has some reference to a great tree (yggdrasil, tree of life?)

There is nearly always a conflict between forces of good, who quietly encourage people to be kind and good, and forces of evil, who use subterfuge and deception to trick people into being selfish, contentious... evil.


Most every mythology has a story of life, death, and rebirth, usually involving an individual who is part god, part mortal (Consider Hercules as one prominent example, his father was Zeus, the Supreme God, and his Mother was a mortal woman, he performed many miraculous feats, including taking the place of Promethius, who was sentenced to eternal punishment for stealing fire from the Gods and giving it to humans. Hercules also bore the weight of the world, and descended into and returned from the underworld. Another example is Thor, Son of Odin, and Joro, who was a giantess (and whose name means "earth"), whose greatest foe, Jormungandr,  is a serpent. At Ragnarok (The apocalypse) the two slay each other. Early american mythologies includes stories one who defeated death and brought a "gospel" of peace, promising to return some day. Some of the early Spanish explorers were mistakenly thought to be this returning god, which gave them great advantage over the natives in their conquest of the Americas.

Every Mythology has an apocalypse event, in which the earth/universe is destroyed and reborn.

So which story is the real one? Are any that we have the real one? Scientifically, it would be very difficult if not impossible to come to any certain conclusion. But the consistent recurrence of certain themes should not be cast aside lightly. If a pattern emerges, it usually means something.

Dis/Proving God:Science and Faith

I think we often forget that science is not the antithesis of belief. Science often depends upon belief in order to progress.

In around 400 BC, Democritus Posited That matter was composed of atoms and empty space. He had no tools to see an atom. He was acting on belief. And educated belief, based on observation and keen analysis, but a belief nonetheless.

In 1803 John Dalton proposed "Atomic Theory", going beyond the original hypothesis of Democritus, and Isaac Newton (1700'ish), to give detail about the role mass played in atomic composition.

In 1873 James Clerk Maxwell proposed that the empty space was in fact electric and magnetic fields. In 1894 G.J. Stoney, based on prior experiments with Cathodes rays, concluded that electron were particles.

Moving forward to 1903, and H. Nagaoka suggested that Electrons orbited positively charged particles in flat rings.

Niels Bohr in 1922 Modified this model to present electrons as orbital shells around a nucleus.

None of these individuals saw and atom, or an electron.

They acted on a belief, performed experiments observed and measured. There were times when experiments or theories were wrong. The first experiments using cathode rays to prove negatively charge particles failed. That didn't cause all of science-dom to declare electrons a myth (Though there were scientist who did not accept atomic theory as valid). Instead they reevaluated their model, discarded some theories about the properties and behavior of the particles, developed new tests, and moved forward. Electrons behavior changed from flat orbit, to spherical orbit, to sort of smeared out in a shell above a nucleus.

Today their are scientific theories, beliefs regarding other as yet undiscovered (much less seen) particles, such as the graviton - a theoretical particle responsible for gravitational force.

Belief is an entirely acceptable, even necessary facet of scientific discovery.

Religion makes an equally foolish mistake in attempting to ignore or discount science. Or basic logic.

I have on occasion asked a question, because it is one I find interesting to discuss... "How do you reconcile the Old and New Testaments? Specifically, in the Old Testament, God seems very wrathful, and quick to punish: examples include Lot's wife who was turned to salt for 'looking back'. To boys were eaten by a bear for making fun of a prophets bald headed-ness, A prophet chastises the king for not killing every man, woman, child, cow, etc... Then in the New Testament, Jesus, spend his time among sinners, inviting them to follow him, teaching everyone to love one another, and forgiving the very people who crucified him."

I have received some very thoughtful responses to this question. I have also received responses like "Who are you to reply against God?" and "They don't need to be reconciled". If I as a religious person, see a discrepancy in scripture, or teachings, etc... It does not prove that God doesn't exists, but it does say that there is an error either in the scripture/teaching, an error in my understanding of the scripture/teaching, or an error in my understanding of the nature and/or character of deity. To ignore the discrepancy is... blind faith... stupid faith.

So then, we accept the possibility that one or more deity may or may not exist.We recognize that, as we have insufficient resources to prove any case, we must therefore consider all possibilities. That doesn't mean we believe all possibilities, but we accept that each individual has the right to believe as they will. We respect the beliefs of others, seek common ground where possible, accommodate where possible.

How then can we hope to find any truth, personally or collectively. By utilizing a scientific principle of seeking patterns, commonalities, threads of truth.