Mythologies

Back when we learned that Big Love was planning to show scenes of the temple ceremonies, I remembered some less than respectful jibes I had taken a few years earlier toward Scientologists. And I felt bad about that and decided never to do anything of such a nature again.

One elective I took and enjoyed while in college was a Classical Mythology class. Our professor told us not to regard the myths as true or false; in fact, he posited that even the Greeks and Romans didn't necessarily see them that way. Instead, we were to regard them as neither true nor false but as a third category altogether: myth. This is hard for me to really do conceptually. Maybe for those people who don't believe in objective truth and right it is doable, but that is not a part of my religious tradition. There is absolute truth and there is absolute  right. And while some things are matters of opinion, most are either true or false.

Of course, there are other mental gymnastics that others can't see a solution to where I don't even see a problem. I recently started reading a book of my father's, Mathematics in 10 Lessons by Jerry P. King. It teaches the basic concepts behind mathematics, from counting through calculus. Just the concepts, no formulas or processes. In the very first chapter, he briefly discusses whether mathematics is created or discovered. He himself favors the idea that mathematicians create mathematics, saying "Obviously, you can discover only that which already exists. The Platonist (one who claims that mathematics is discovered) must then provide for mathematics a creator other than a mathematician... I have none to offer. Neither have the Platonists. Mathematicians create mathematics."

Well, I see no reason for mathematics to need a creator. Matter has always existed. So has God. So have I, in some form. And so has mathematics.

But back to myth.

Although I have a hard time conceptually allowing a grey area between truth and fiction, I can express it perfectly well. So I have decided that when presenting other people's religious stories that I do not believe, I will treat them as myth. I will not claim that they are true. But I will also not say that they are ridiculous, strange, silly, or even merely false.

I will present them as mythology. Which, in the dictionary definition of the word, they are.

Friendly Dilemma

One of the regular posters on a message board I sometimes visit (I will call her Cat) was talking about a girl she used to be friends with but has grown away from. This other girl still feels very close to Cat and tries to keep the connection strong, including trying to get together with her in person frequently. But Cat is busy and does not particularly want to hang out with her old friend, but doesn't want to hurt her feelings by saying so.

When I read this, I worried about whether I am being the other girl in any of my relationships, annoying someone who I think really does appreciate my friendship but is really just trying to figure out how to get me to leave them alone.

Later that day, one of my friends said something about how she sometimes feels unwanted by her friends. I've felt that way too, especially when it seems like nobody has put in any effort to contact me for a while. And I don't want any of my friends to feel like I don't still care about them or want them in my life. The best way I can think of to keep them from feeling this way is by reaching out to them, calling or texting or writing.

But if they don't want to still be my friend, I don't want to be the annoying former friend who won't leave them alone.

So how do you tell which friends really want your friendship and which would rather you just move on with your life without them but are too polite to say anything? Especially when the friendship is long distance.

Unscientific Assumption

I've read in more than one place that women, overall, are more attractive than men. And that just seems like a pretty ridiculous claim to me. I, for one, find men much more attractive.

The thing is, at least one of these claims was made in a book explaining some evolutionary biology ideas to the general public. As in, they were trying to explain why women are more attractive than men. In that context, I would want the basic claims made - the things that they are trying to explain - to be supported by solid scientific data. But how would you measure that? Most men find women more attractive. Most women find men more attractive. What did they do, see whether people primarily attracted to men are more likely to find women attractive as well than people primarily attracted to women are to also find men attractive? If so, they really ought to mention that research in the book. And I know they didn't because I would have remembered that sort of study.

Focusing on Christ's Life

One of the speakers in my ward today was raised Catholic and he talked a bit about the significance of the cross as a symbol of Christianity. He then told that when he asked the missionaries why we don't display crosses, they asked him which he would use to remember his hypothetical dead brother: the knife used to kill him or a photo of the brother happy and healthy. We do talk about the crucifixion, of course. If Christ hadn't died, he couldn't have been resurrected, for one thing. And the death was a real sacrifice. But we would rather focus on the living Christ.

When I was still Primary age, I thought of another reason to focus on things other than Christ's death: a lot of men die for others or for a cause. At the time, I had thought I would be willing to die for others myself. Since that time I have become more attached to the idea of living, but I hope that given enough cause I would still be willing to die for the right cause, though it is hard to imagine why I would ever be in such a situation.

But I thought that the focus should be more on the fact that Christ lived a perfect life for us than that he died for us. Nobody else has ever managed that. Just as nobody before Jesus Christ was able to break the bonds of death. Putting the focus on Christ's life, before and after death, tells much more about how He is special than does focusing on his death.

Archaic Language

Ever since I can remember, my family read scriptures together (usually Mom or Dad reading aloud to us all, although sometimes one of the kids would take a turn) almost every day. And not from a recent translation.

In high school English, we read one of Shakespeare's plays every year. Some of the other students had trouble understanding the Shakespearean language, but it always seemed very clear to me.

I've sometimes wondered whether these facts are connected.

Nature of the Holy Ghost

Actually, the missionary does not convert anyone; the Holy Ghost does the converting. The power of conversion is directly associated with the Holy Ghost, for no person can be truly converted and know that Jesus is the Christ save by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Spencer W. Kimball

On Thursday, I was thinking about missionary work in the Spirit Prison when I remembered this principle and wondered how that works there. Because the missionaries and investigators are also spirits, they would be able to see the Holy Ghost if He just sat in on their lessons. And what would keep the investigators from thinking He was just another guy?

Then I realized that the Holy Ghost cannot be actually present in every place He is felt on earth at one time, so he could probably be physically, for lack of a better word, absent from Spirit World discussions.

My basic understanding of spirits has always been that they have definite forms and are only able to be in one place at a time - like physical beings but less sturdy (There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; D&C 131:7). But I have also understood that one reason the Holy Ghost doesn't have a body is so that He can be present everywhere He is needed, which Heavenly Father and Jesus can't do with their physical bodies. Those understandings really do not work well together.

So maybe something about lacking a body helps in the spiritual communication from a distance - with bodied and unbodied spirits, so he can confirm truth to the spirit investigators in a way other than another guy in the room talking directly to them.

But then I think about how we pray to the Father, and He hears us, even if we do not pray vocally. Maybe it is more to do with His special ability than our own ability to transmit spiritual messages. but it does seem likely to me that inspiration and prayers are transmitted through similar means. Maybe being without a body makes it somehow easier to talk to many at once?

Or maybe the Holy Ghost could work perfectly well having a body, and the only reason He doesn't is so that He can be available to us throughout our lives. I think I actually really like that idea.

Of course, that does bring me to another question I have on occasion entertained for a while before setting it aside - when does the Holy Ghost get His body, and when and how does He get tested?

The Real World

Related to my most recent post but on a much more serious note, I have noticed that when people talk about living in the real world, or bringing somebody back to earth, or anything like that, they mean seeing the painful, hard aspects of life. And those are important parts of life in this real world. "I'm sure no life can be properly developed and rounded out without some trial and sorrow," as Anne Shirley says in Anne of the Island.

But the real world also involves joy and beauty. Note that Anne did not say that life can't be properly developed without much trial and sorrow - she said some. And she also said that no life can be rounded out without it. The rounding out of a life implies that there is variety - not all joy; not all pain. Lehi speaks more authoritatively on the subject in 2 Nephi 1, where he says, "And if there be no righteousness nor happiness there be no punishment nor misery." So in order to really experience the hard things that make up real life, we have to experience the good times, too. Otherwise we wouldn't realize things were so hard. This sort of idea is also expressed in the same chapter of Anne of the Island that I quoted earlier, saying "[Gilbert] could not connect the idea of sorrow with the vivid, joyous creature beside him, unwitting that those who can soar to the highest heights can also plunge to the deepest depths, and that the natures which enjoy most keenly are also those which suffer most sharply."

And from my own life experience, the greatest happiness and the greatest hurt I have ever experienced came pretty near to each other in time. This was not coincidence.

Anyway, I can understand saying that somebody who does not see and acknowledge real trials and suffering isn't living in the real world. But only if we can also say the same about somebody who does not find the joy. And if you look for it, you can find something good just about anywhere.