Why I Post What I Do

I've gone through several phases of what I post on Facebook, and what I post on this blog. I think that just speaks to the phases that all people go through as they go though their lives. I've had three distinct phases since joining FB. In my first phase on FB, I posted a lot of jokes. I was getting re-aquainted with some of the people in my past. I was just beginning to wrestle with some of my feelings that something wasn't right.

The second phase was one of frustration and reflection. My life was being turned upside down by some of the people I knew and met. My world was becoming much, much wider and I was trying to take it all in. I was questioning everything and coming up with different answers than I had in the past. My relationships were changing, becoming deeper and more varied. It was a very turbulent time in my life, and the life of those with me.

I'm currently in the third phase. It is one of rediscovering some of the things I was when I was a teenager. It is one of honesty with myself and those that I am intimate with. Long talks. Long letters. My children are getting older. I am communicating with almost everyone on a different level.

When I was contemplating this blog post, I was going to respond to a post I found online about men's greatest fears. I'll see what it is like answering why I post and also respond to the article. I warn that this might give you more information about me than you ever cared to know. If you stop reading now, I won't tell anyone.

Fear #1: My sexual desires are not okay

Ever since puberty I've been ashamed of what I thought, what I felt. I was a christian. I was told by Jesus that I shouldn't look at a woman, to lust or desire. I don't know about you, but with all the testosterone being pumped in a male's body, I don't know how a boy can do anything but think of sex and girls all the time. We are, quite literally, wired to do just that. Well, that was evil. I'd never make it to heaven, would I? I spent decades being ashamed of how sexual I was. It was damaging.

I was also a romantic. I wanted an incredibly intimate relationship with a woman. I didn’t want just a girlfriend, I wanted someone I felt honest enough to share my fears and hopes. I wasn’t that interesting a person, I realize, but that is what I wanted. I wanted something that I thought wasn’t very masculine. Why would a woman want someone like me? I’m highly emotional. I’ve no looks to speak of. I have nothing to really attract a woman, did I? Yeah, I can do math pretty well, but that isn’t really a selling point, is it? And I wanted something that the bravado of youth frowned upon. I didn’t really care about what my male friends thought, I was more interested in what my girl friends thought. Even more internal conflict….

I didn’t date in High School. I didn’t feel I was mature enough, and I didn’t think anyone would really want me then. What interactions I had with girls didn’t work out very well.

Even after decades of marriage, I’m still unwrapping my anxieties. It is much, much easier now. I’m more willing to talk about things than in the past. I’m slaying my demons as fast as I can. That is why I am currently posting a lot of thoughts on romance. Many of them are things unsaid, feelings that I had that went unexpressed. I wanted to be this honest, this open when I was dating, when I was married, when I met the wonderful women in my life. They were so wanted, and I was too afraid to let them know, too afraid to show what I felt.

And really, have you read how some people can write and express love, longing, and desire? I wish so much that I had that talent. As I’ve spread out into more varied reading, oh the things I am finding. My wife bought a book of love letters a few years ago. It was a revelation. Someone else had also felt these things, and they wrote them down with such talent and art.

Fear #2: Other men will think I’m weak

Men must be tough and overcome all obstacles. Never show fatigue or fear. Do not show anything except strength and confidence, right?

To be honest, how I’m perceived by other men is the absolute last thing on my mind. Never cared. It wasn’t with men that I wanted any kind of deep relationships.

What I did care about was how women perceived me. Dating was awkward. I wanted dates to go well, sure, but I didn’t like all the pressure on me, as we were on a date “together”. I couldn’t just come out and ask for suggestions, as that wasn't, um, normal. I did try to make my dates interesting, but a lot of it was just goofy stuff, and the most memorable weren't necessarily planned. I'm not good at entertaining. Entertainment isn't what I wanted out of a date. I wanted a romance. I wanted to know the girls I was out with. How does one do that when you are also afraid of rejection, afraid of not showing confidence? The big answer, you don’t.

 

I had expectations of what kind of a person I should be, and I couldn’t live up to that. Somehow, I was to be all things to her. That is what I was told by media, church and friends. I should be strong, handy, romantic, aloof…and I couldn’t be all those things. Almost everything drove insecurity into me during my teen years. About all I could do is think. I liked to think. Plumbing or carpentry? Nope. Cars? Don’t care. Quadratic equations? Now you’re on to something! What kind of a man is that to attract women? “Hey! I know how an operational amplifier works. Does that turn you on? How about single side-band radio or differential multivariate calculus? I bet that makes your motor purr!”

All I wanted was someone to talk about what my life was like, what her life was like. To hold hands on a walk. To tell bad jokes and play horrible tennis and climb a mountain or two. I wanted someone to let me run my fingers along the side of her neck and let me whisper how much I love being with her and how beautiful she is. I wanted her to close her eyes and think of me. I wanted someone I could tell my fears and be accepted. I want to accept her and everything that she is. What I wanted is love. That is what I craved.

I never gave a damn about what a man thought of me.

Common Core

I've been seeing numerous posts about Common Core recently, mostly negative, showing math problems that students are required to solve using methods other than the standard algorithms. After reading up on what Common Core actually is and at the risk of inciting a riot, I have to say that I don't think these math frustrations have much to do with it. For the last seven years, I've been homeschooling my kids using a curriculum that met state education standards for all 50 states. This year, we switched to public school and the schools my kids are attending are already using Common Core math textbooks. The math they are learning and the methods they are being taught this year are pretty much exactly the same as what they were learning here at home in many respects. Now, I know that many people reading this put their fingers in their ears and started "La la la-ing" as soon as you heard the word homeschool. But please here me out...there is more than one way to conceptualize and solve any of the four standard math operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.) Learning multiple methods makes a lot of sense, considering we all learn differently. If I had known, as a child, that I could conceptualize long division a couple of different ways, I think I would have embraced math and not felt so tortured by it. The standard algorithms work for most people, that's why they're standard. But gaining a deeper understanding of why 56 divided by 8 is 7 may require more than memorizing that particular math fact. I advocate memorizing math facts, but I also advocate understanding the process and if there is any connection to Common Core, it's that particular nugget..

Glitter Soap

Rather than lots of little posts on Facebook, I decided to do a single post here.

The other day I was taking a shower and as I was washing some sensitive parts, I felt the soap was particularly, oh, scratchy. Soap isn’t supposed to be scratchy. I looked at the soap and realized one side was red. White soap isn't supposed to be red. So, I put that soap aside and used another bar to finish the deed. After towelling off, I looked more closely at the soap and noticed glitter in the red coloring. Since I wake up so much earlier than anyone else in my family, I just set it aside and decided to address it later. Later happened to be the next day, when I learned that Tracy already spoke to the kids about it. It appears that not one of the kids painted one side of the soap with nail polish. Must have been me, as there isn't anyone else owning up to it. So, this wrapped up another episode of strange happenings in parenting. Because I'm a parent, I washed my genitals with glitter soap.

I watched an episode of Star Trek, The Next Generation the other day and the old Scotty, James Doohan, starred. In it, Jordie and he were discussing their first starships and how much they loved them.

Scotty: Ah, it's like the first time you fall in love. You don't ever love a woman quite like that again.

I thought long and hard about that line. I think there's a lot of truth in it. The problem is, in my case, I wasn't all that good at it. I would hope that engineers in a starship are a bit better at their job than the first time they fell in love.

I sent Tracy a link to a blog post recently. Shame in LDS Culture. I only had a few thoughts beyond that expressed in the article. I remembered back to last Summer when we visited Utah. I was concerned with the current modesty culture that is underway in Utah and how it might affect my daughter. She likes wearing tank tops and I didn't want there to be any issues with any interaction she might receive there. Nothing happened that I recall. My only other thought on this is that regardless of what might be taught culturally, males will like females. In the article, it was cleavage that was what was discussed, but that is a narrow way of looking at how men view women. The curve of a breast, shape of a thigh, turn of an calf, profile of the face, depth of color of the eyes, all of these can cause a man to look at a woman. It is hardwired into the genders. We will attract each other, regardless. Men like women. Women like men. Yes, theoretically, a woman should be able to wander naked and not be leered at or looked at with an objective gaze. But, to be realistic, we should wear what is comfortable and realize that no matter what we do, we can't control what others do with it or think about it. Stop shaming our daughters into not liking their bodies, and stop shaming our sons for being attracted to girls.

"Will I Be Pretty?"

I stumbled upon this on a friend's FB post:

Will I Be Pretty?
Katie Makkai

When I was just a little girl, I asked my mother, “What will I be? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?” What comes next? Oh, right! “Will I be rich,” which is almost pretty depending on where you shop. And the pretty question infects from conception, passing blood and breath into cells. The word hangs from our mothers’ hearts in a shrill fluorescent floodlight of worry. “Will I be wanted? Worthy? Pretty?”

But puberty left me this funhouse-mirror dryad: teeth set at science-fiction angles, crooked nose, face donkey-long and pockmarked where the hormones went finger-painting. My poor mother.

“How could this happen?! You’ll have porcelain skin as soon as we can see a dermatologist. You sucked your thumb, that’s why your teeth look like that! You were hit in the face with a Frisbee when you were six, otherwise your nose would have been just fine! Don’t worry, we’ll get it all fixed,” she would say, grasping my face, twisting it this way, then that, as though it were a cabbage she might buy.

But this is not about her. Not her fault–she, too, was raised to believe the greatest asset she could bestow upon her awkward little girl was a marketable facade. By 16, I was pickled with ointments, medications, peroxides; teeth corralled into steel prongs; laying in a hospital bed, face packed with gauze, cushioning the brand-new nose the surgeon had carved. Belly gorged on two pints of my own blood I had swallowed under anesthesia, and every convulsive twist of my gut like my body screaming at me from the inside out, “What did you let them do to you?!”

All the while this never-ending chorus droning on and on like the IV needle dripping liquid beauty into my blood, “Will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?” Like my mother, unwinding the gift wrap to reveal the bouquet of daughter her $10,000 bought her, “Pretty. Pretty.”

And now, I have not seen my own face in ten years. I have not seen my own face in ten years, but this is not about me. This is about the self-mutilating circus we have painted ourselves clowns in. About women who will prowl 30 stores in six malls to find the right cocktail dress but who haven’t a clue where to find fulfillment or how wear joy, wandering through life shackled to a shopping bag, beneath the tyranny of those two pretty syllables. About men wallowing on bar stools, drearily practicing attraction and everyone who will drift home tonight, crestfallen because not enough strangers found you suitably fuckable.

This, this is about my own someday daughter, when you approach me, already stung-stained with insecurity, begging, “Mom, will I be pretty? Will I be pretty?” I will wipe that question from your mouth like cheap lipstick and answer, “No! The word pretty is unworthy of everything you will be, and no child of mine will be contained in five letters! You will be pretty intelligent, pretty creative, pretty amazing. But you, will never be merely pretty.

Will I Be Pretty?

Am I Ever Going To Change?

I'm tired of being me,
and I don't like what I see,
I'm not who I appear to be
So I start off every day,
down on my knees I will pray,
for a change in any way
But as the day goes by,
I live through another lie,
if it's any wonder why

AM I EVER GONNA CHANGE
WILL I ALWAYS STAY THE SAME
IF I SAY ONE THING,
THEN I DO THE OTHER
IT'S THE SAME OLD SONG,
THAT GOES ON FOREVER
AM I EVER GONNA CHANGE
I'M THE ONLY ONE TO BLAME
WHEN I THINK I'M RIGHT,
I WIND UP WRONG
IT'S A FUTILE FIGHT,
GONE ON TOO LONG

Please tell me if it's true,
am I too old to start anew,
cause that's what I want to do
But time and time again,
when I think I can,
I fall short in the end
So why do I even try,
Will it matter when I die,
Can anyone hear my cry?

AM I EVER GONNA CHANGE
TAKE IT DAY BY DAY
MY WILL IS WEAK
AND MY FLESH TOO STRONG
THIS PEACE I SEEK
TILL THY KINGDOM COMES
--Am I Ever Going To Change, Extreme



I listened to this song on a live CD that I recently purchased. I remember listening to it on CD ever since we lived in Phoenix. I've always felt that it was speaking to me on a very distant level. Why would I need to change? I've a pretty sweet life going on. I don't need to change.

I took a job at Motorola 20 years ago this April. I've been challenged on a lot of levels, but for the past 15 years or so, it seems that I've been doing the same job. While I tire of it, as it makes some demands on my free time, it is such a secure job. I've not wanted for anything. Again, life has been pretty sweet.

I'm getting older. Do I want to stay where I'm at or do I want to break out and do some living of a different life? I miss the mountains terribly. I wouldn't mind starting over, releasing some of the emotional and physical baggage that I've accumulated from staying in one place so long. I've made a lot of changes already in my life the past 3-4 years. My thinking has changed quite a bit, but do I make a further jump, change my life a little more? Not sure.

Damn song is starting to speak to me on a more personal level, and I don't like. it.

Am I Ever Going To Change (Live)

Clockwork Angels (The Book)

They continued ahead as night wrapped around them, smooth and quiet. The Commodore showed him how to find their course with the liquid-crystal compass, how to check the way the wind blew, how to keep them aligned with the proper vector so they could find the destination rails again when it came time to land.

Owen steered the airship right across the stars, and they flew by night into the mountains.

The proceeding quotes from the book are indicative of how this book read. The highlighted portions are lyrics, song titles or album references. While it may also be indicative of the sad life I lead, it did provide some of the joy in reading the book.

It isn’t for everyone. It ties in very closely to the album of the same name. It is a chronological telling of the album.

The ending is what caught my interest, considering my recent life changes. Owen is presented with two competing ideologies, ones that will never get along, both clamoring for his heart and soul. In the end, he leaves them behind, crosses the sea to once again find his love, to tend a garden for his children and grandchildren. A beautiful, if not fitting ending for the protagonist. It isn’t like other books. Here is the promised man to put all conflict to rest. Unlike Harry Potter or any other number of messiahs, he departs the field of battle entirely. He does what the other messiahs only wish to do. That takes courage.

It was a good book. It took me too long to read, but that’s on me. The book is a simple read, with plenty of illustrations and references to Rush’s other works.

Book of Mormon and DNA

My post is a hodge-podge of links and thoughts. For that, I apologize.
The LDS church came out with an essay on the Book of Mormon and DNA, Book of Mormon and DNA, and I must say, I'm rather disappointed. Look, I'm an engineer. I'm used to the practical. I also was involved with LDS apologetics for a time. I know the arguments. I didn't get too far into this before I noticed some problems.

The first most noticeable one was in the fouth paragraph, It hinted at agreement on the predominant theory that American Indians were from the land bridge from Alaska. The DNA is very conclusive of that. The issue is, by agreeing with that, the simple act of agreement, means that the foundations of the LDS Church are washed away. They came to America 16 to 14 thousand years ago. That throws the Adam/Eve story under the bus. The Tower of Babel, Noah's flood, Joseph Smith's and his successors' pronouncements about the Lamanites, Doctrine and Covenants 77, Most of the Pearl of Great Price...etc., all go away. You declare the world older than 7000 years old, and you don't have a prophet anymore.

The second issue came in the Fifth paragraph.

The Book of Mormon provides little direct information about cultural contact between the peoples it describes and others who may have lived nearby. Consequently, most early Latter-day Saints assumed that Near Easterners or West Asians like Jared, Lehi, Mulek, and their companions were the first or the largest or even the only groups to settle the Americas

That directly contradicts the Book of Mormon.

2 Nephi 1:9 Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever.

 I didn't go much further. Like I said, I know the arguments. They don't work. They simply don't work.

I won't go on much further, as I can let others speak to it more plainly.

MormonDiscussions Thread
Simon Southerton (He is a member that was excommunicated when he did his own DNA studies back in the 1990s and found that the science doesn't agree with the church's position.)
Doctrinal Drift and the Book of Mormon

One of the best responses I found on Facebook. Like a few other things, Facebook and the more recent people that have left the church have spawned some fascination responses to the church. I include the post below with the author's approval.

My take on the new DNA article.

Elder Oaks: "It is our position that secular evidence can neither prove nor disprove the authenticity of the Book of Mormon."

Well it certainly could prove the authenticity of the book. Just find Zarahemla with King Mosiah's inscribed tomb. Or find evidence of a highly literate American civilization that lasted about 1000 years and worshiped Jesus Christ, including a verbatim account of the Sermon on the Mount which they taught to their children and grandchildren in peace and prosperity for over 200 years. It would be very easy to prove the authenticity of the Book of Mormon via secular evidence if any secular evidence existed. Elder Oaks' statement seems to admit that such secular evidence will never be found. I agree. 

After hundreds of thousands of archeological digs in the Americas, from the Hudson Bay to Patagonia, from Bristol Bay to the Cape of Sao Roque there is not a single civilization that could be the Nephites. There was no literate civilization of millions of people who built major cities and had a developed written language including measurement system, currency system, legal system (with lawyers and judges), and a major proselytizing religion with a living scriptural tradition. 

While we will certainly uncover a new ruin next year, a new grave, a new village or city even, it is inconceivable that in all our searching mankind has overlooked an overlooked entire civilization of the size and maturity of the Nephites. 

Secular evidence will never prove the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, not because it couldn't, but because it can't. It didn't happen. 

Now the religious teachings are another story. Nothing would make me happier than to see Church leaders take seriously the teachings of King Benjamin in Mosiah chapter 4 or Moroni's voice of warning set forth in Mormon chapter 8. I would like greater focus placed on the teachings of the book (in general), not less. I find the discussions of its historicity distract from its message. 

The Book of Mormon is scripture. So is the book of Genesis. The world wasn't created in 7 days and a flood never covered the entire earth. No guy named Lehi sailed with his family to the America's and had half his kids cursed with a skin of blackness and no highly literate society spent 200 years studying and living and teaching the New Testament sermons of Jesus in the western hemisphere. Just like the vast majority of Mormons don't have a problem appreciating Genesis while accepting it is nearly all fiction, the same should be true of the Book of Mormon. It is time for Mormonism to grow up and accept the reality of the situation. 

Some of my greatest heros are fictional--Alyosha from the Brothers Karamazov, Hugo's Jean Valjean, Steinbeck's Tom Joad and Abraham and Joseph and Moses too. I have no problem adding Joseph Smith's Alma the Younger and both Moronis to that illustrious list. No one should refuse to appreciate the Book of Mormon just because others believe the story literally happened--it would be like refusing to learn from Aslan of Narnia because some people believe there really are portal holes in the back of wardrobes into fantastic worlds of magic. Don't reject the good because of other people's mistaken beliefs. 

Specifically about this DNA article: 

1. Science is never done so reserve judgment.

This is true on its face, but inapplicable here. The fact that we don't know everything doesn't mean we don't know some things. We know from the DNA that there wasn't a population of millions of people in the Americas who came from Jerusalem in 400 BC. For sure. No question about it. 

2. There were other migrations of populations from Asia. 

Yes. Thanks for finally directly admitting it. My seminary teachers insisted that the "land bridge from Asia" theory was completely false and inspired by Satan to shake our faith. Really. 

On this point, I lost all faith in any Church published book last year when I found that the book Articles of Faith by Apostle James E. Talmage had been significantly altered on this point sometime between the first printing and the 1989 edition that I had as part of my missionary library. Talmage was absolutely certain in 1901 that the Nephites and Lamanites filled the whole of North America from east coast to west coast. Pseudo-Talmage in 1989 only says that a traditional belief was that Nephites spread into some part of North America. The book contains no note/forward/appendix/introduction saying that significant passages had been completely rewritten. This is considered completely dishonest without question in the publishing industry. (I wrote a post about this a few months back with exact quotes and page numbers.)

3. There are some very few middle eastern DNA markers, and scientists don't know when they were introduced. 

Yes. This a factually true statement. But we do know that they were not introduced by a single group in 600 BC who came to number in the millions. Again, the Church uses a legitimate scientific uncertainty to suggest an uncertainty that doesn't exist. No credible DNA scholar suggests that the trace amounts of middle eastern DNA found in native american populations could have been introduced as the Book of Mormon says they were introduced. 

4. Scientists believe that small migrations probably happened from time to time. 

Yes. It is almost certain that they did. But none of them created a highly educated and refined civilization numbering in the millions with highly advanced economic, legal, political, and religious structures. Citing a sole eskimo grave in Greenland hurts your argument, doesn't support it. 

5. The Founders Effect means that maybe we don't find the DNA evidence because Lehi, Ishmael, Zoram and all the males among the Mulekites had male ancestors that didn't come from the Middle East ala Perego's long lost male ancestor from East Asia. 

Not very likely. We are talking about at least a dozen men from Jerusalem here, some of them from the royal family. What are the odds that all of them, or even most of them, had a male founder with a different haplogroup than modern descendants from those Jerusalem people who stayed behind. This is silly.

Perego's DNA shows he is European with a distant male ancestor from East Asia. The DNA of modern Native Americans show they are Native Americans with distant East Asian ancestors. Modern Jews have DNA different than either Perego or modern Native Americans. 

So, yes, we don't know the Founders DNA for the Nephite/Mulekite men with certainty because we haven't found their graves. But for this argument to have any validity, we have to assume they were all, nor nearly all, from male lines that differed from the male lines of the Hebrews that stayed behind. This is really reaching for straws. 

6. A population bottleneck could have eliminated the Hebrew DNA. 

Yes it could have. But the scriptural record they say is historical doesn't record such an event. In fact the Lamanites are so numerous they cover the land at the death of Moroni. 

The massive deaths in the 15th Century just before and after European contact among native populations might have bottlenecked out Hebrew DNA evidence. But hundreds of genetic samples have been taken that pre-date the 15th Century population crash have been found and evaluated. They do not significantly alter the DNA picture we get from the living DNA. And none of them have come back Hebrew. 

7. Genetic drift could have hidden any trace of Hebrew DNA. 

The studies I have read say that the population with a dissapeared DNA trail must be very small for genetic drift to take it out. Notice the wording of the article: "When a small population mixes with a large one, combinations of autosomal markers typical of the smaller group become rapidly overwhelmed or swamped by those of the larger. The smaller group’s markers soon become rare in the combined population and may go extinct due to the effects of genetic drift and bottlenecks as described above." They never say how small the population has to be. According to the scientists, the population has to be smaller than it ever was for the Nephites/Lamanites/Mulekites. There were millions of Nephites/Lamanites/Mulekites spread out over thousands of miles. Genetic drift would have taken over a million years to wipe them out of the DNA record. This isn't a few dozen marbles in a jar we are talking about.

Conclusion: There are ambiguities in the DNA analysis. The ambiguities do not rise to the level where the Book of Mormon story is plausible as a history. No non-LDS DNA scientist is going to look at the data and conclude that the historicity of the book is likely. At best they will say it is difficult to prove the negative and by bad luck every male child of the Hebrew line might have died at childbirth in some generation and because they can't prove this tragedy didn't happen it is possible. But they won't be joining the Church on that chance. 

Elder Oaks' fear that secular evidence will never prove the Book of Mormon is well founded. His hope that secular evidence will never disprove the book's historicity is looking increasingly shaky every year as more and more data come in. 

It will be nice when we finally move on from the endless debates about historical veracity and appreciate the beauty in the teachings, just like we do with the Bible. A hundred years ago you would be in very serious trouble if you were to try to say out loud in Mormondom that the Book of Genesis was fictional. Now you would be in the majority of educated Mormons, including the Brethren (although they would prefer the term "metaphorical" to "fictional"). Hopefully it doesn't take us another hundred years to get to that point with the Book of Mormon. 

The fact that I spent a Friday night researching and writing this shows how pathetic and sad I still am, clinging to the frustration of a faith betrayed. I really am about ready to move on. Maybe this is my last hurrah.

https://www.lds.org/topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies