EmilyS wondered why there is so much focus on marriage in Mormonism: What is it really good for? When I pointed—too abruptly—to scripture defining exaltation and godhood in terms of eternal procreation, she clarified by asking what is so special about reproduction that salvation should be defined in terms of it. (more…)

This is the fourth and final installment of a talk entitled Our Pioneer Heritage, delivered 23 July 2006 in the Clinch River Ward, Knoxville Cumberland Stake.
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Some of us cherish such stories from literal pioneer ancestry; all of us can adopt them as our rightful inheritance. And many of us have an even more exciting opportunity: to be such a pioneer, in being the first to make a necessary break with past history and open a trail to new and better ways. Blessed are those who are able to pay the personal price required to do so without feeling the need to count the cost to themselves. (more…)

This is the third installment of a talk entitled Our Pioneer Heritage, delivered 23 July 2006 in the Clinch River Ward, Knoxville Cumberland Stake.
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In the midst of this condemnation of his people, what does Isaiah offer by way of remedy? One thing he finally does is point their attention back to their originating forebears. He reminds Israel of their ‘pioneer heritage,’ so to speak: look unto the rock whence ye are hewn, and to the hole of the pit whence ye are digged. Look unto Abraham your father, and unto Sarah that bare you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him (Isaiah 51:1-2). (more…)

This is the second installment of a talk entitled Our Pioneer Heritage, delivered 23 July 2006 in the Clinch River Ward, Knoxville Cumberland Stake.
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But this likening of Isaiah unto ourselves we undertake, following Nephi’s example (1 Nephi 19:23-24)—this discerned prophetic fulfillment of Isaiah’s words in ‘modern Israel,’ as the Church conceives itself—is not really the point I wish to make from Isaiah this morning in connection with pioneers. The point I wish to make has to do not with Isaiah looking forward in time, but at his own time—and then backwards in time. (more…)

This is the first installment of a talk entitled Our Pioneer Heritage, delivered 23 July 2006 in the Clinch River Ward, Knoxville Cumberland Stake.
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Brothers and sisters, tomorrow is the 24th of July. It is the 159th anniversary of the arrival of the Mormon pioneers in the Salt Lake Valley under the leadership of Brigham Young. Accordingly, I have been asked to speak on our pioneer heritage. My intention is to rivet your attention on this subject in the same way Nephi hooked readers near the beginning of the Book of Mormon: with extensive quotations of Isaiah. (more…)

My various Church leaders are aware, to varying degrees, of the status of my faith; but they also know I am not wont to cause trouble in official discourse. (I save that for blogging.) Ours being a very small ward desperate for bodies, in a pinch I am still retrieved from the bottom of the barrel to give the occasional talk or lesson. Such was the case this past Sunday; my assigned topic was “Our Pioneer Heritage.” Over the next few days I will post this talk in four parts. (more…)

Nate has a post discussing constitutive and regulative rules and their manifestations in the Church. I have a question as to which is considered more fundamental—and therefore presumably more normative—but there is a question of praxis beyond this. Each of us, by virtue of our behavioral choices, ultimately votes with our feet on what we consider normative. But in Mormonism there is another sense in which what is normative is none of our business, but that of the authorities. I am fascinated to understand how a few souls are able to accept the authorities’ norms in the absence of conviction in the doctrine they promulgate. (more…)

Dave has an interesting post on his definition of the ‘Bloggernacle.’ Any definition delineates boundaries, and the labels Dave has chosen to define this boundary are ‘relatively faithful’ (inside) vs. ‘disaffected’ (outside). He also considers a term from the Sunstone world—’borderlands’—to describe a gray area. I suggest an alternative pair that seems a little more germane, a little more nuanced, and a little less charged: ’sympathetic’ vs. ‘unsympathetic,’ where these refer to a predominant tone towards the institutional Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I informally motivate this alternative with a couple of hypotheticals, and then describe what I think are two dubious claims about the Bloggernacle, based on my experience. (more…)

The most seductive mistresses are, of course, those that offer occasional flashes of intense excitement and fleeting moments of ecstasy while otherwise remaining agonizingly coy, mysterious, elusive, and distant. Such has been the case with an occasional distraction of mine—freemasonry, which I fancy for its intrinsically esoteric nature, as well as its stunning but maddeningly tangled connections to Mormonism and its sacred ordinances. (more…)

In comments here and here, Mark Butler decries the notion David Bailey formulates as “Render unto science the things which belong to science; and unto God the things which belong to God.” Mark rails against science as being “determined to rule out the world of the spirit as an article of faith,” and criticizes BYU for failing to blend science and religion sufficiently. I have my own discomforts with overly strong forms of the notion of ‘non-overlapping magisteria,’ as my critiques of Bailey make plain; but here I leave those aside and contest Mark’s criticisms of science generally and science at BYU in particular. (more…)

David Bailey, a mathematician of some note who happens to be Mormon, was the speaker at the Miller-Eccles Study Group in southern California last week. I was not there, but Matt Thurston was kind enough to send me his thoughts on the presentation and a link to the slides Bailey used in his talk, entitled “Mormonism and Intelligent Design.” (more…)

After reading my comment on how my previous post may have been influenced by John Brooke’s The Refiner’s Fire, Michael Quinn’s Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, and especially a chapter on Renaissance hermeticism in David Stevenson’s The Origins of Freemasonry, my old friend Matt Thurston asked me for the sources for my thinking in that post—and, indeed, “a future post listing all Mormon/Faith/Religion related books you’ve read thus far”! I cannot fulfill the second request, but even my attempt at the first became so long that I decided to make it a post rather than a comment. (more…)

While possible Enlightenment fingerprints on the Book of Mormon like those described in the previous post may reflect the inroads of modernity into Joseph Smith’s milieu, it is also the case that much of the Book of Mormon—and indeed the Restoration as a whole—remains un-Enlightened. (more…)

It seems to me that apologists need to work harder to show that the Book of Mormon is completely un-Enlightened. (more…)

Responding to a post by Taryn Nelson-Seawright complaining about incoherence between various uses of the term ‘left,’ I responded that “What usages of ‘left’ in political, economic, and Mormon contexts have in common is that they denote a desire for changes in the traditional power structures, and the ideas they have historically promulgated, in those various spheres.” RoastedTomatoes replied that by my definition, “the evangelical Christian Right today would be a prime exemplar of the ‘left.’” Here I explain why I, a political know-nothing, am right; and RT, a genuine political (or at least some sort of social) scientist, is wrong. (Not really, of course: but it is interesting to discuss the sense in which he is right.) (more…)

Kaimi posts, tentatively, wondering about Endowment Effects, Women, and Priesthood Envy. Despite Nate’s ginger steps in the immediately preceding post to gently warm T&S readers to the subject, they remain skittish, bashful, and reticent: in its first several hours Kaimi’s post only garners five comments, while others rack up dozens. Nevertheless, five seems to be enough to tell us all we need to know. (more…)

After a couple weeks’ hiatus, the heading “Temporalia (Week of 10 July)” on the sidebar once again contains a growing list of links to things I stumble across that momentarily pique my interest this week, but for which I do not have sufficient time, or interest, or insight, to provide the degree of value-added content that the high standards of the The Spinozist Mormon require of a separate blog post. This post provides a place to sound off on one of the links I provide, whether it be the content of the link, or my witty description of it, or my exquisite taste and selectivity in the offerings provided. You can see the most recent installment’s list of links and comments thereon here. (more…)

Adam Greenwood asks some interesting questions related to the validity of ordinances performed by non-priesthood holders vs. unworthy priesthood holders, and to what he accepts as the validity of a spiritual experience a friend of his had in connection with a Methodist baptism. One simple explanation—attribution error, that is, that non-Mormons, or Mormons, or both, are ascribing meaning to their experiences that do not correspond to ontological reality—has been ruled out by Adam. Even leaving this possibility off the table for the sake of discussion, however, there are some interesting ways to approach Adam’s questions. (more…)

One of the joys of working at a national laboratory is the opportunity to participate in all manner of bureaucratic nonsense, including regular online training modules. A component of this training expired while I was on vacation last week, with the result that I had to finagle my way into work yesterday. Naturally, I forgot to take care of the training after finally getting into my office, and even after going home; but I did remember on the way to work this morning, resulting in a stop at the local Panera, whose free Wi-Fi access allowed me to complete the training and avoid another frustrating situation upon arrival at work.

Panera is not an unpleasant place to be, but the silver lining of this particular unplanned errand carried extra glisten, in the form of inspiration for a possible new blog name and blogging handle. (more…)

It seems that, especially through the lens of authorized hindsight, the Restoration ends up conceptualized as a pristine system of doctrine and authority bestowed in almost prefab perfection through Joseph Smith. The immaculate textual recovery of lost “plain and precious things” suggested in 1 Nephi 13, for instance, seems to foster this paradigm. But I think Jacob 5 may be a more realistic touchstone, both in terms of how the Restoration proceeds and what exactly it is that is being restored. It also has implications for what the stance of a believer should be. (more…)