On the Plurality of Worlds, by David Lewis#

"This book is a defence of modal realism: the thesis that our world is but one of a plurality of worlds, and that the individuals that inhabit our world are only a few out of all the inhabitants of all the worlds."

If I swallow the philosophic modality pill, then I find myself in much agreement with Lewis in various debates. However, I find the whole subject to be mis-guided. I think of possibilities as branching from free-will decisions and (potentially) non-deterministic physical laws. Anything that did not actually happen is only possible if these branchings could have given it---i.e., the physical laws are fixed, as is free will. And, these possibilities are not linguistic or abstract constructions, but mathematical configurations of choices.#

In my mind, many things that these philosophers find possible, I find not to be, such as talking donkeys. Based on LDS theology, i.e., my belief in co-eternal intelligences (separate from spirits, bodies, and souls); you could say I believe in haecceities and other essential properties.#

Some parts of Lewis' argument I found very intriguing: non-world beliefs (p. 28); doublethink (p. 35); how imagination and possibility are not the same (p. 90); "Whatever the truth may be, it isn't up to us" (p. 114); his argument that modal realism does not promote scepticism, it merely gives the old argument new form (p. 116), along with an interesting "proof" about primes (p. 119); and egocentric properties, again (p. 125).#

The Act of Marriage, by Tim and Beverly LaHaye#

Libby and I read this book based on a recommendation. It is a frank discussion of sex from a Christian perspective. It was a great read. Something I found very funny about it was the author's use of "Christian." He tacks this word onto anything to imply that it is good. Similarly, he uses "humanistic" to mean "bad." The dichotomy this creates for the reader, that Christianity is anti-human, is very unhelpful.#

Naming and Necessity, by Saul A. Kripke.#

This books discusses the meaning of names and how understanding this is influenced by counter-factual reasoning. It is less `exciting' than it would be if I had previously had an opinion on this matter. Given that I did not, I had no horse in the race, so to speak.#

A basic part of the argument is that speakers may not know the "properties" of the referent of the name, nor may the properties they do know be correct. Further, in these cases the properties may be used to fix a reference, rather than create a synonym.#

The Myth of the Rational Voter, by Bryan Caplan.#

Extraordinary insights in this book. The ingenuity and incisiveness of Bryan's blog, but lasting for two hundred pages. It is a pleasure to read, and there are new insights constantly. I would highly recommend the CATO book forum about this book, by the way.#

On preferences over beliefs:#

Suppose your friend thinks he is Napoleon. It is conceivable that he got an improbable coincidence of misleading signals sufficient to convince any of u. But it is awfully suspicious that he embraces the pleasant view that he is a world-historic figure, rather than, say, Napoleon's dishwasher. [p. 119]

The chapters on supply side and market fundamentalism are great.#

On immigrants:#

If an Indian desperately wants to move to the United States but is unable to get a vise, voting to make India more like the United States seems like the next best thing. But there is a crucial difference between the two actions. A migrant who leaves his homeland gives up psychological benefits, such as the belief that his nation is the best in the world, in exchange for a big jump in his material well-being. A voter who turns his back on his nation's political tradition gives up psychological benefits but---since policy is beyond his control---is not a penny richer. [p. 206-207]

The House of the Lord, by James E. Talmage.#

A classic, although I was not terribly impressed. The book is very useful as evidence that the general layout, purpose, and outward form of the temple ordinances are not secret. I suppose it would be a fabulous introduction to the Mormon conception of temple worship for a non-Mormon, or recent convert, but it does not have the meat I anticipated. Nevertheless, I cannot fault it for not being what it never intended to be.#

The Plague, by Albert Camus.#

An interesting book. There were some very good parts, but overall, I didn't connect very well with the characters so it was not as enjoyable as it could have been. Nonetheless, I find this a fault in myself, rather than the book.#

The Lovely Bones, by Alice Sebold.#

In the first few pages of this book, Susie is raped and murdered. The story recounts how she watches her family grow and crumble and grow from heaven. It is excruciating. A particularly horrible moment is in the week after, her sister starts working out intensely, as if to be prepared if she is ever attacked. The book just makes you want to rip out your heart as you feel so much pain for these people and despise them for their choices. So sad.#

The Man of My Dreams, by Curtis Sittenfeld.#

This romantic comedy book is filled with clever little comments and many sad, stupid actions by the protagonist. At times it is painful to read because of her stupidity and other times because of the sadness of her situation. The end advice:#

If a man wants to be romantically involved with you, he tries to kiss you. That's the entire story, and if he doesn't kiss you, there is never a reason to wait for him. [p. 256]

Contact, by Carl Sagan.#

I read this book, because I very much enjoyed the movie. The movie is significantly different, but I think that they changes made in the movie make the story better. I make the distinction between things that were absent (e.g., the debates and scientific details) and the things that were changed (e.g., five passengers rather than one, etc.)#

When I read this book, I interpret a major theme as Sagan's internal conflict with faith and his crusade against "organized" religions. While I have no critique of his handling of his conflict---although I would refer him to read William James again---I do have a problem with his attacks on religion.#

First, he does not attack the strongest religious people, but rather the weakest. While these caricatures are surely somewhat accurate, and represent people one could argue with, they do little to convince. I cannot fault him for not knowing how I reconcile faith and science, but I do fault him for obviously not doing his research on the groups he chooses to attack. For example, consider this non-sense comment: "The Mormon Church declared it [the Message] a second revelation of the angel Moroni." (p. 128) Any one with an even rudimentary knowledge of Mormonism would recognize this as an absurd thing to say: we have a whole book of revelations from God to Joseph Smith and his successors and we receive revelation daily. Such comments do not create trust in his comments on other groups.#

There is a continual argument in his book that goes like this: "If God wants us to believe in Him, why doesn't He show Himself, or provide better proof?" Sagan even offers a very clever method of proof: Give Moses (etc.) a statement like "There is no privileged frame of reference" or other scientific statements that could not be known in his time, but could be verified later. (p. 163) However, it is an ancient understanding in theology that such proof would be paramount to coercion and deny humans the ability to exercise faith and free agency. I think it represents a fundamental misunderstanding of God: He does not want us to "behave", but wants us to "grow" and the various commandments are pursuant to that.#

Despite these complaints, I recommend the book.#

I found very enjoyable Hadden's discussion of Earth and a 'control' planet to show to 'apprentice gods' to warn them of what a bad job is. (p. 286) Also, his idea that immortals are extremely risk-averse (p. 293), of course by immortality, meaning great ability to cure the body, but still fundamentally vulnerable.#

Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, by Frank Miller. This comic book is as good as everyone says it is. Very intense story and awesome ending. I can't wait to read "... Strikes Again."#

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, by J. K. Rowling.#

I was hoping very much for a different ending... more sinister (particularly given the growing wickedness of our protagonist... pp 435, 508 and 531), but I was happy with what we got, although the epilogue was a bit cheese-ball, and worrisome about potential sequels in the Wizarding world.#

I thought there were some great innuendos in the book (pp. 52, 113), great cleverness (pp. 97, 125--126), humour (p. 140), sinisterness (p. 242), absurd deus ex machina (Chapter 19.)#

I hope I'm not the only one to realize that page 328 allows us to place the timing of all these events.#

I thought page 355 was a bit absurd given that is essentially a random part of the "book."#

A recurring thought was how great the movie will be given the enormous amount of action in this movie. Hopefully it will be like Kill Bill: two parts.#

The Castle in the Forest, by Norman Mailer.#

This book is Norman Mailer's fictional narrative history of Adolf Hitler's family, including his father's life. The book is narrated by a devil who is assigned to young "Adi" Hitler.#

A few remarks about the book before I pick out my favourite quotes and topics.#

First, this book can be very obscene at parts---and not because of its subject matter (Hitler) but in a deliberate attempt to shock and create disgust and a debasing image of human life. Thus, I cannot recommend it on those grounds. (Although, this is much more pronounced before page 80 than after.)#

Second, the book feels like part one of a trilogy, except there is no indication of forthcoming parts. The book ends as Hitler is a teenager and one feels slightly let down that there was little pay-off for reading about such sexual deviance. So, if you want to read the book, don't go in thinking it will cover his entire life, as I did.#

Even so, there is a much fore-shadowing of what Hitler is known for. There is much emphasis on the "war games" he played as a child. Then there are section such as these:

[His father said,] "In the home of the bees, there are no good Christians. No charity whatsoever. You will not find one bee in any hive who is too weak to work. That is because they get rid of cripples early. They obey one law and it sits on top of everything." [p. 165]

The thought of a beehive so affecting Hitler is striking to a Mormon with the history of the beehive state and Orderville work ethic.

Consistently, my favourite part of the book is when the narrator discusses what it is like to be a devil. One gets little snippets of an alternative world that (I believe) does exist in some sense---obviously placing no faith in Mailer's knowledge. In particular, Mailer is great at imagining how devils would be view (and be taught about) God.#

When it comes to turning a child into a client, we follow a reliable rule. We move slowly. [...] The child may not live. We lose so many. [...] [Investing] in the newborn is an unbalanced gamble for both the Maestro and the Lord. [p. 74]

The first element of mutual recognition in the struggle between the D.K. (as we shall now often call Him) and our leader---the Maestro---is their mutual understanding that no single splendid human quality is likely to prevail by itself, unaltered by His power or ours. [p. 74]

Humans have become so vain (through technology) that more than a number expect by now to become independent of God and the Devil. [In contrast to the Middle Ages; p. 76]

I see it as my duty to be ready, indeed, to know more about godly sentiments than all but the most gifted of the angels.

That may be why the Maestro encourages us to speak of God as the D.K. [...] So D.K. stands for Dummkopf. It is not that we look upon God as stupid [...] Our use of th word Dummkopf comes, I expect, from the Maestro's determination to wean us from our greatest weakness---the unwilling admiration we feel for the Almighty. As the Maestro never allows us to forget, God may be powerful, but He is not All-Powerful. Hardly so. We, after all, are also here. If the D.K. is the Creator, we are His most profound and successful critics. [p. 93]

The last line is amazing.

After discussing the requirement to be present at sex acts and the difficulty therein, the narrator writes:

It seems---I dare to speak here only for myself---as if the E.O. has never been able to accept his failure to be present in the hour when Jesus Christ was conceived. [p. 109]

The narrator is very particular to point out the D.K.'s faults---including, he writes, His hope for the brontosaurus, he continues:

While it must be admitted that He never gave up, even if He was not always in firm control of the earth He had fashioned, it is also incontestable that earthquakes and ice ages brought many an interruption to His experiments and savaged many of His pursuits. Why? Because He had incorrectly designed this globe of earth in the first place. [p. 152]

It is interesting to read Mormon theology into this and imagine the repercussions of eternal progression: If God progresses eternally, then he could be better at His job today than He once was; and, what is the qualification for starting a world, is it necessarily the case that to progress to that point one must not be capable of such "mistakes"?

Later, D.T. writes about how bodily odors were placed as a mark upon the clients of Satan, but that devils solved the problem by the twentieth century by encouraging clients to invent bathtubs, cleansing oils, soaps, and deodorant. (p. 153-154)

D.T. remarks that both angels and devils try to influence people through dreams but "the average dream becomes a whirligig, a strew, a chaos left by the melee between the Cudgels [angels] and ourselves." (p. 158)

I made a request to the Maestro: Could I devote my efforts to learning as much about Nicholas as was possible? "Do what you can" was the reply. I could hardly decide whether I was being promoted or abandoned. [p. 216]

Indeed, the Maestro always spoke well of the Trinity, as if he knew something others did not. [p. 235]

What a slight and scathing remark!

Most of our clients either cease to exist---no soul is left!---or are reincarnated by the Dummkopf, who does not like to give up on any of His creatures, large or small, wise or foolish---which may be one reason the world becomes more and more over-run by mediocrity. [p. 271]

Such a comment is expected of an august author.

History [...] is seldom recalled as all-fascinating. It is such a bed of lies. That is the only reason I could recommend the life of a devil to would-be aspirants. We know so much about how it happens, how it really happens. [p. 334]

God was everywhere, [and], so was the Devil. As long as one did not oblige oneself to follow every thought, then the Devil could have no access. God would be there to protect your ignorance. [p. 355]

Something very entertaining about these sequences is how Dante-esque the narrator's side comments are. It seems as if everyone in history that Mailer has a slight dislike for is under demoniac influence. I wonder if he realized he was doing this, or it is too great a temptation when writing about such a subject. Included: Oscar Wilde (p. 178).#

I would not that many of us are well versed in literary classics. I cannot speak for the angels, but devils are obliged to be devoted to good writing. [p. 75]

On wine:

'You are cruel to grapes. You stamp all over them with your dirty feet and then, when the poor things are feeling very sour from such mishandling, you add sugar and pretend to be connoisseurs. You sip your sour juice and sugar and try not to make a face. Beer, at least, comes from grain. Its feelings are not so tender.' [p. 441]

The book is very conscious of it being a book and there being a reader. For example, after discussing how Adi went from being bullied at school to being in charge of the games played, he writes:#

Some [readers] may have felt uncomfortable, therefore, to discover that they were enjoying these first successes of the child, Adolf Hitler. Be assured. To read about the skills or triumphs of any protagonist is bound to elicit happiness in just about all who follow the story [p. 113]

And how true he was, although I was not conscious that I was enjoying Adi's success until I read this line. It is very awkward to be reading and being happy for him, then the narrator calls you out on it, as if it is either sinful to be happy for him, or even worse, to not realize you had been.

A particularly great example of the consciousness: as the narrator diverts the story slightly, he suggests to the reader what page Adi's story will pick up on! (p. 214)

The Will to Believe and Human Immortality, by William James.#

These essays are primarily about philosophical justification of faith and free-will, as opposed to "science" and determinism. In the preface, James writes:#

To some rationalizing readers such advocacy will seem a sad misuse of one's professional position. Mankind, they will say, is only too prone to follow faith unreasoningly, and needs no preaching nor encouragement in that direction. I quite agree that what mankind at large most lacks is criticism and caution, not faith. [...] But academic audiences, fed already on science, have a very different need. Paralysis of their native capacity for faith and timorous abulia in the religious field are their special forms of mental weakness, brought about be the notion, carefully instilled, that there is something called scientific evidence by waiting upon which they shall escape all danger of shipwreck in regard to truth. [p. x-xi]

Faith:#

He who refuses to embrace a unique opportunity loses the prize as surely as if he tried and failed. [p. 4]

When the Cliffords tell us how sinful it is to be Christians on such 'insufficient evidence', insufficiency is really the last thing they have in mind. For them the evidence is absolutely sufficient, only it makes the other way. They believe so completely in an anti-christian order of the universe that there is no living option: Christianity is a dead hypothesis from the start. [p. 14]

Scepticism, then, is not avoidance of option; it is option of a certain particular kind of risk. Better risk loss of truth than chance of error, --- that is your faith-vetoer's exact position. [p. 26]

On scepticism has a principle of thought:

[A] rule of thinking which would absolutely prevent me from acknowledging certain kinds of truth if those kinds of truth were really there, would be an irrational rule. [p. 28]

The universe being larger than we recognize:

My terrier bites a teasing boy, for example, and the father demands damages. The dog may be present at every step of the negotiations, and see the money paid, without an inkling of what it all means, without a suspicion that it has anything to do with him; and he never can know in his natural dog's life. [p. 57-58]

This is practically from the Book of Mormon:

Faith means belief in something concerning which doubt is still theoretically possible; and as the test of belief is willingness to act, one may say that faith is the readiness to act in a cause the prosperous issue of which is not certified to us in advance. It is in fact the same moral quality which we call courage in practical affairs; [p. 90]

We cannot live or think at all without some degree of faith. Faith is synonymous with working hypothesis. [p. 95]

There are then cases where faith creates its own verification. Believe, and you shall be right, for you shall save yourself; doubt, and you shall again be right, for you shall perish. The only difference is that to believe is greatly to your advantage. [p. 97 --- he uses the example making a jump from a cliff.]

Morality:#

A moral question is a question not of what sensibly exists, but of what is good, or would be good if it did exists. Science can tell us what exists; but to compare the worths, both of what exists and of what does not exists, we must consult not science, but what Pascal calls our heart. [p. 22]

There is a compelling refutation of evolution as a morality around page 99.

Hardship:#

Are we not bound to take some suffering upon ourselves, to do some self-denying service with our lives, in return for all those lives upon which ours are built? [p. 50]

Determinism:#

James says that the essence of determinism is that possibility is a false idea. Anything that is, is the only way it could be, so possibilities do not exist. There are only a priori uncertainties. (p. 151)

He also writes that science cannot decide determinism, because it is only concerned with things that happen, and can say nothing about things that do not happen. (p. 152) This has implications for regret and "ought", because if there is only one possibility how can we rationally regret or hope for anything? (p. 175-176)

In this particular essay, he mentions the intriguing idea that the purpose of the universe is not to produce good ends, but rather to learn what good and evil are. "Life is one long eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge." (p. 165)

James writes about how indeterminism does not prevent God from being all-powerful, because he could have an infinite number of contingency plans to meet his ends, each depending on some particular set of indeterminate outcomes. He compares God to an expert chess player who is facing a novice. (p. 181)

Historicism and Great Men:#

In these essays, James argues that ignoring individuals and focusing on environments and trends, is like ignoring gravity and focusing on air turbulence, the position of Saturn, and Western Civilization when asking what will happen to a falling bowling-ball. Those are certainly components of a complete explanation, but their effect is miniscule compared to gravity and our finite brains cannot consider them all. (p. 216)

Conan: The God in the Bowl and Other Stories, by Kurt Busiek, Cary Nord, Thomas Yeates, Tom Mandrake Dave Stewart is a fabulous graphic novel. Amazing visuals and an interesting story. Janissa is intense.#

Everyman, by Philip Roth.#

This book is the biography of a nameless man; whereas most biographies recount someone's life, instead this one feels like it is recounting his death. The man's life revolves around his health and associated operations once he has aged; and, around women and divorces when he is young.#

To me, it is startling portrayal of what life is like when one is consumed in temporality, rather than in the everlasting. I highly recommend it, despite the profanity on occasion in the book.#

A short excerpt of when his wife discovers his affair and divorces him, and he marries the woman:#

It was not long afterward that he discovered that Merete was something more than that little hole, or perhaps something less. [...] He had replaced the most helpful wife imaginable with a wife who went to pieces under the slightest pressure. But in the immediate aftermath, marrying her had seemed the simplest way to cover up the crime. [p. 124]

The Piano Shop on the Left Bank: Discovering a Forgotten Passion in a Paris Atelier, by Thad Carhart.#

My mother-in-law has started teaching me to play piano and gave me this book, because it talks about the love of pianos and how they work. It is a very entertaining book, once you get past the annoying French-ness of the characters.#

Talking about piano tuners:#

Luc chuckled and said that the principal eccentricity of tuners these days was their inclination to play around with their clients in bed. All the jokes about plumbers and postmen could as easily be applied to tuners: they come to your home during the day, they need to be there for a considerable amount of time, the work is complicated or, at least, unfamiliar to the layman. And the client is often at home alone. When I sketched out this formula, Luc---practical as ever---observed: "Sure, some tuners are there for four hours when it really takes fifteen minutes. And they're not exactly just polishing the piano. But those guys"---he turned his palms outward and shrugged his shoulders in the universal French signal that the world is a strange place---"they don't make any money." [p. 153]

Mormon Polygamy, by Richard S. Van Wagoner#

I bought this book expecting it to primarily be about polygamy in Utah in the 1800s, with emphasis on how the average polygamist actually lived---rather than about the origin/development of the practice and its theological underpinnings. There was a bit of this in the book, but not as much as I expected. (Chapter Nine is probably the best source of this sort of information.)#

There was an interesting comment made by John Rigdon, Sidney's son: "[My father] was not a leader of men... the Mormon Church... made no mistake in placing Brigham Young at the head of the church... if Sidney Rigdon had been chosen to take that position the Church would have tottered and fallen." (p. 74)#

Chapter Nine indicates that the author did research about courting patterns and living relationships, but he gives no anecdotes or data, so one feels very empty after he writes "courtship manners were not well established", and leaves it at that. (p. 90) I found it interesting the disparity in number of polygamous families in different areas: 40% in St. George, but only 11% in nearby Harrisburg. (p. 91)#

It was interesting to learn that women were not discouraged to divorce their husbands, that men could not divorce their wives, and they were responsible for their wives and children's welfare perpetually. (p. 93)#

In a discussion on the law of Sarah:#

A novel though unsuccessful attempt to get a second wife was initiated by an elder from southern Utah. Young reported that the fearful man hesitated to ask permission of his feisty wife. "Finally, he told her he had had a revelation to marry a certain girl and that in the face of such divine instructions, she must give her consent." He had obviously underestimated the ingenuity of his wife, who announced the next morning that she had received a revelation to "shoot any woman who became his plural wife." He remained monogamous. [p. 96]

Also mentioned was Brigham Young says that "a Man may embrace the Law of Celestial Marriage in his heart & not take the second wife & bee justified before the Lord." (p. 104)#

Note: The book is printed very well on nice, thick pages.#

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Volume 2, by Edward Gibbon.#

Beautiful irony:#

The careless glance which men of wit and learning condescended to cast on the Christian revelation served only to confirm their hasty opinion, and to persuade them that the principle, which they might have revered, of the Divine Unity, was defaced by the wild enthusiasm, and annihilated by the airy speculations, of the new sectaries. The author of a celebrated dialogue, which has been attributed to Lucian, whilst he affects to treat the mysterious subject of the Trinity in a style of ridicule and contempt, betrays his own ignorance of the weakness of human reason, and of the inscrutable nature of the Divine perfections.(11) [p. 9]

On the new converts of Christianity:#

The new converts seemed to renounce their family and country, that they might connect themselves in an indissoluble band of union with a peculiar society, which everywhere assumed a different character from the rest of mankind. Their gloomy and austere aspect, their abhorrence of the common business and pleasures of life, and their frequent predictions of impending calamities, (16) inspired the Pagans with the apprehension of some danger which would arise from the new sect, the more alarming as it was the more obscure. " Whatever," says Pliny, "may be the principle of their conduct, their inflexible obstinacy appeared deserving of punishment."(17) [p. 11]

The desire of early Christians to become martyrs:#

The behaviour of the Christians was too remarkable to escape the notice of the ancient philosophers, but they seem to have considered it with much less admiration than astonishment. Incapable of conceiving the motives which sometimes transported the fortitude of believers beyond the bounds of prudence or reason, they treated such an eagerness to die as the strange result of obstinate despair, of stupid insensibility, or of superstitious frenzy.(95) "Unhappy men !" exclaimed the proconsul Antoninus to the Christians of Asia, "unhappy men! it you are thus weary of your lives, is it so difficult for you to find ropes and precipices?"(96) He was extremely cautious (as it is observed by a learned and pious historian) of punishing men who had found no accusers but themselves, the imperial laws not having made any provisions for so unexpected a case; condemning therefore a few as a warning to their brethren, he dismissed the multitude with indignation and contempt.(97) Notwithstanding this real or affected disdain, the intrepid constancy of the faithful was productive of more salutary effects on those which nature or grace had disposed for the easy reception of religious truth. On these melancholy occasions there were many among the Gentiles who pitied, who admired, and who were converted. The generous enthusiasm was communicated from the sufferer to the spectators, and the blood of martyrs, according to a well-known observation, became the seed of the church. [p. 41]

On Constantine's move to the new capitol:#

Many opulent senators of Rome and of the eastern provinces were probably invited by Constantine to adopt for their country the fortunate spot which he had chosen for his own residence. The invitations of a master are scarcely to be distinguished from commands, and the liberality of the emperor obtained a ready and cheerful obedience. [p. 97]

The repercussions of the early understanding of baptism:#

The sacrament of baptism was supposed to contain a full and absolute expiation of sin; and the soul, was instantly restored to its original purity, and entitled to the promise of eternal salvation. Among the proselytes of Christianity there were many who judged it imprudent to precipitate a salutary rite which could not be repeated; to throw away an inestimable privilege which could never be recovered. By the delay of their baptism they could venture freely to indulge their passions in the enjoyment of this world, while they still retained in their own hands the means of a sure and easy absolution.(68) [...] The example and reputation of Constantine seemed to countenance the delay of baptism. (70) Future tyrants were encouraged to believe that the innocent blood which they might shed in a long reign would instantly be washed away in the waters of regeneration; and the abuse of religion dangerously undermined the foundations of moral virtue. [p. 272-273]

The relation between Constantius and Julian:#

A part of the letter [from Constantius] was afterwards read, in which the emperor arraigned the ingratitude of Julian, whom he had invested with the honours of the purple; whom he had educated with so much care and tenderness; whom he had preserved in his infancy, when he was left a helpless orphan. "An orphan!" interrupted Julian, who justified his cause by indulging his passions, "does the assassin of my family reproach me that I was left an orphan? He urges me to revenge those injuries which I have long studied to forget." [p. 381]

How Julian tolerated possible threats to his authority:#

A citizen of Ancyra had prepared for his own use a purple garment, and this indiscreet action, which, under the reign of Constantius, would have been considered as a capital offence, (68) was reported to Julian by the officious importunity of a private enemy. The monarch, after making some inquiry into the rank and character of his rival, despatched the informer with a present of a pair of purple slippers, to complete the magnificence of his Imperial habit. [p. 400]

Julian and the Law:#

During the games of the Circus, he had, imprudently or designedly, performed the manumission of a slave in the presence of the consul. The moment he was reminded that he had trespassed on the jurisdiction of another magistrate, he condemned himself to pay a fine of ten pounds of gold, and embraced this public occasion of declaring to the world that he was subject, like the rest of his fellow-citizens, to the laws, (75) and even to the forms, of the republic. [p. 402]

Julian's character:#

The generality of princes, if they were stripped of their purple and cast naked into the world, would immediately sink to the lowest rank of society, without a hope of emerging from their obscurity. But the personal merit of Julian was, in some measure, independent of his fortune. Whatever had been his choice of life, by the force of intrepid courage, lively wit, and intense application, he would have obtained, or at least he would have deserved, the highest honours of his profession, and Julian might have raised himself to the rank of minister or general of the state in which he was born a private citizen. If the jealous caprice of power had disappointed his expectations; if he had prudently declined the paths of greatness, the employment of the same talents in studious solitude would have placed beyond the reach of kings his present happiness and his immortal fame. When we inspect with minute, or perhaps malevolent, attention the portrait of Julian, something seems wanting to the grace and perfection of the whole figure. His genius was less powerful and sublime than that of Caesar, nor did he possess the consummate prudence of Augustus. The virtues of Trajan appear more steady and natural, and the philosophy of Marcus is more simple and consistent. Yet Julian sustained adversity with firmness, and prosperity with moderation. After an interval of one hundred and twenty years from the death of Alexander Severus, the Romans beheld an emperor who made no distinction between his duties and his pleasures, who laboured to relieve the distress and to revive the spirit of his subjects, and who endeavoured always to connect authority with merit, and happiness with virtue. Even faction, and religious faction, was constrained to acknowledge the superiority of his genius in peace as well as in war, and to con fess, with a sigh, that the apostate Julian was a lover of his country, and that he deserved the empire of the world.(85) [p. 405-406]

The "weakness" of polytheism:#

The weakness of polytheism was, in some measure, excused by the moderation of its claims; and the devotion of the Pagans was not incompatible with the most licentious scepticism.(12) Instead of an indivisible and regular system, which occupies the whole extent of the believing mind, the mythology of the Greeks was composed of a thousand loose and flexible parts, and the servant of the gods was at liberty to define the degree and measure of his religious faith. The creed which Julian adopted for his own use was of the largest dimensions; and, by a strange contradiction, he disdained the salutary yoke of the Gospel, whilst he made a voluntary offering of his reason on the altars of Jupiter and Apollo. [p. 411]

The "miracle" of the true cross:#

The custody of the true cross, which on Easter Sunday was solemnly exposed to the people, was intrusted to the bishop of Jerusalem; and he alone might gratify the curious devotion of the pilgrims by the gift of small pieces, which they enchased in gold or gems, and carried away in triumph to their respective countries. But as this gainful branch of commerce must soon have been annihilated, it was found convenient to suppose that the marvellous wood possessed a secret power of vegetation, and that its substance, though continually diminished, still remained entire and unimpaired. (66) [p. 435]

There is a truly scathing account of St. George that ends:#

The meritorious death of the archbishop obliterated the memory of his life. The rival of Athanasius was dear and sacred to the Arians, and the seeming conversion of those sectaries introduced his worship into the bosom of the Catholic church.(123) The odious stranger, disguising every circumstance of time and place, assumed the mask of a martyr, a saint, and a Christian hero;(124). and worshipped as a saint and martyr and the infamous George of Cappadocia has been transformed(125) into the renowned St. George of England, the patron of arms, of chivalry, and of the garter.(126) [p. 453]

After a discussion of the natives of Scotland:#

If in the neighbourhood of the commercial and literary town of Glasgow a race of cannibals has really existed, we may contemplate in the period of the Scottish history the opposite extremes of savage and civilised life. Such reflections tend to enlarge the circle of our ideas, and to encourage the pleasing hope that New Zealand may produce in some future age the Hume of the Southern Hemisphere. [p. 567]

The Millennium Problems: The Seven Greatest Unsolved Mathematical Puzzles of Our Time, by Keith Devlin#

On the subject of mathematical thinking in general:#

Mathematics is almost entirely cerebral---the actual work is done not in a laboratory or an office or a factory, but in the head. Of course, that head is attached to a body, which might well be in an office---or on a couch---but the mathematics itself goes on in the brain, without any direct connection to something in the physical world. This is not to imply that other scientists don't do mental work. But in physics or chemistry or biology, the object of the scientist's thought is generally some phenomenon in the physical world. Although you and I cannot get inside the scientist's mind and experience her thoughts, we do live in the same world, and that provides the key connection, an initial basis for the scientist to explain her thoughts to us. [...]

Mathematics does not have this helpful link to reality. [p. 10-11]

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire: Volume 1, by Edward Gibbon, with introduction by Hugh Trevor-Roper, Lord Dacre.#

For most of my life, when I thought of a long scary book, I thought of this book. Now, it has been my privilege to read it. Something interesting about the book, actually surprising, is that Gibbon assumes you know a lot about the Roman world. It is definitely only about the decline of the empire, rather than the empire or the republic in general.#

In the introduction, Lord Dacre quotes this understatement by Gibbon regarding his trip to Rome during his youth: "I do not despair of being able one day to produce something by way of a description of ancient Italy which may be of some use to the public and of some credit to myself." (pp. lxvi-lxvii) He continues about how moving it was for him: "If it was difficult before to give you or Mrs. Gibbon any account of what I saw, it is impossible here... I am really almost in a dream. Whatever ideas books may have given us of the greatness of that people, their accounts of the most flourishing state of Rome fall infinitely short of the picture of its ruins. I am convinced that there never, never existed such a nation, and I hope for the happiness of mankind that there never will again." (p. lxviii)#

A few years ago when I decided to take a trip by myself to Europe, the only place I even considered for a second was Rome. I normally uninterested in scenic tours and the like, thinking I can get more out of a book, but with Rome it was different. There is something appallingly awing about being there. The grandeur of what happened in Rome is just so fabulous. Standing near where Caesar was assassinated... wow. The closest experience I can imagine, that I've experienced, is being in the Sacred Grove in Palmyra, New York---where God and Jesus Christ appeared to Joseph Smith.#

On the plausibility of the barbarian destroyers: "'If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West.' It had been rotted from within." (p. xci)#

In particular, as a cause and symptom of corruption, Gibbon singled out monasticism. Some of his most brilliant chapters, and his most sustained irony, are reserved for the spread of this Egyptian plague, as he called it, over the Roman Empire. [...] Monasticism, he wrote roundly, had, in a later age, 'counter-balanced all the temporal advantages of Christianity.' For monasticism, he believed, was parasitic not only on society but also on the Church, whose `temporal advantages' --- i.e., whose constructive social function --- he would admit. It withdrew the resources of society, both human and economic, from that free and useful circulation on which progress depended. It condemned men to idleness, immobilized wealth, kept land in mortmain. And it positively undermined the very idea of civic virtue. [p. xcii]

[...] Instead of active participation the early Church preached, and the early monks practised, deliberate withdrawal from public life. Such withdrawal was not then justified by any other useful activity. The monks were not learned, they did not teach, the fulfilled no social function, they founded no industry, they tilled no land, they cleared no waste. Their retreat from activity was absolute, and to Gibbon it was contemptible and disgusting: a degradation of the human spirit, a denial of social duty, a refusal to face the challenge of the time.

[...] At a time when the fate of civilization hung in the balance, the Christian clergy `successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of the military spirit were buried in the cloister.' Later Western monks might use the cloister as a means to preserve, through a dark age, the relics of ancient literature; but the Eastern monks of the fourth century had no such redeeming virtue. [p. xciii]

The virtue of the Roman Republic:#

That public virtue which among the ancients was denominated patriotism, is derived from a strong sense of our own interest in the preservation and prosperity of the free government of which we are members. Such a sentiment, which had rendered the legions of the republic almost invincible, could make but a very feeble impression on the mercenary servants of a despotic prince; and it became necessary to supply that defect by other motives, of a different, but not less forcible nature; honour and religion. [p. 13]

On the legions:

Active valour may often by the present of nature; but such patient diligence can be the fruit only of habit and discipline. [p. 21]

Religion in the Empire before Constantine:#

The policy of the emperors and the senate, as far as it concerned religion, was happily seconded by the reflections of the enlightened, and by the habits of the superstitious, part of their subjects. The various modes of worship, which prevailed in the Roman world, were all considered by the people, as equally true; by the philosopher, as equally false; and by the magistrate, as equally useful. And thus toleration produced not only mutual indulgence, but even religious concord. [p. 34]

Gibbon discusses how Augustus consolidated power, but never took the name of king:#

The title of king had armed the Romans against his life. Augustus was sensible that mankind is governed by names; nor was he deceived in his expectation, that the senate and the people would submit to slavery, provided that they were respectfully assured that they still enjoyed their ancient freedom. A feeble senate and enervated people cheerfully acquiesced in the pleasing illusion, as long as it was supported by the virtue, or even the prudence, of the successors of Augustus. It was a motive of self-preservation, not a principle of liberty, that animated the conspirators against Caligula, Nero, and Domitian. They attacked the person of the tyrant, without aiming their blow at the authority of the emperor. [p. 83]

Many a man would relate this to the American Presidency, but I would not.

On the horrible Commodus:#

Commodus had now attained the summit of vice and infamy. Amidst the acclamations of a flattering court, he was unable to disguise, from himself, that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of every man of sense and virtue in his empire. [p. 108]

The imperatorship of Pertinax is very sadly recounted. (p. 112-115)

A proconsul's progeny:#

Twenty-two acknowledged concubines, and a library of sixty-two thousand volumes, attested to the variety of his inclinations, and from the productions which he left behind him, it appears that the former as well as the latter were designed for use rather than ostentation. (By each of his concubines, the younger Gordian left three or four children. His literary productions were by no means contemptible.) [p. 196]

An intriguing remark on the junta:#

Perhaps, indeed, it may be laid down as a general rule, that a military government is, in some respects, more republican than monarchical. Nor can it be said that the soldiers only partoke of the government by their disobedience and rebellions. The speeches made to them by the emperors, were they not at length of the same nature as those formerly pronounced to the people by the consuls and the tribunes? And although the armies had no regular place or forms of assembly; though their debates were short, their action sudden, and their resolves seldom the result of cool reflection, did they not dispose, with absolute sway, of the public fortune? What was the emperor, except the minister of a violent government elected for the private benefit of the soldiers? [p. 213]

Recalling the barbarian traditions: "In the general festival that was solemnised every ninth year, nine animals of every species (without excepting the human) were sacrificed, and their bleeding bodies suspended in the sacred grove adjacent to the temple." (p. 268)#

Diocletian's remarks on the problems of a prince:#

`How often,' was he accustomed to say, `is it the interest of four or five ministers to combine together to deceive their sovereign! Secluded from mankind by his exalted dignity, the truth is concealed from his knowledge; he can see only with their eyes, he hears nothing but their misrepresentations. He confers the most important offices upon vice and weakness, and disgraces the most virtuous and deserving among his subjects. By such infamous arts,' added Diocletian, `the best and wisest princes are sold to venal corruption of their courtiers.' [p. 429]

The legendary chapter on Christianity really is quite awesome.#

The Jewish religion was admirably fitted for defence, but it was never designed for conquest; and it seems probable that the number of proselytes was never much superior to that of apostates. [p. 492]

Tertullian on the persecutors of Christians:

The condemnation of the wisest and most virtuous of the Pagans, on account of their ignorance or disbelief of the divine truth, seems to offend the reason and the humanity of the present age. (70) But the primitive church, whose faith was of a much firmer consistence, delivered over, without hesitation, to eternal torture the far greater part of the human species. A charitable hope might perhaps be indulged in favour of Socrates, or some other sages of antiquity, who had consulted the light of reason before that of the Gospel had arisen.(71) But it was unanimously affirmed that those who, since the birth or the death of Christ, had obstinately persisted in the worship of the daemons, neither deserved nor could expect a pardon from the irritated justice of the Deity. These rigid sentiments, which had been unknown to the ancient world, appear to have infused a spirit of bitterness into a system of love and harmony. The ties of blood and friendship were frequently torn asunder by the difference of religious faith; and the Christians, who, in this world, found themselves oppressed by the power of the Pagans, were sometimes seduced by resentment and spiritual pride to delight in the prospect of their future triumph. "You are fond of spectacles," exclaims the stern Tertullian, "expect the greatest of all spectacles, the last and eternal judgment of the universe. How shall I admire, how laugh, how rejoice, how exult, when I behold so many proud monarchs, and fancied gods, groaning in the lowest abyss of darkness; so many magistrates, who persecuted the name of the Lord, liquefying in fiercer fires than they ever kindled against the Christians; so many sage philosophers blushing in red hot flames with their deluded scholars; so many celebrated poets trembling before the tribunal, not of Minos, but of Christ; so many tragedians, more tuneful in the expression of their own sufferings; so many dancers - " But the humanity of the reader will permit me to draw a veil over the rest of this infernal description, which the zealous African pursues in a long variety of affected and unfeeling witticisms. [p. 518]

On conversion

The careless Polytheist, assailed by new and unexpected terrors, against which neither his priests nor his philosophers could afford him any certain protection, was very frequently terrified and subdued by the menace of eternal tortures. His fears might assist the progress of his faith and reason; and if he could once persuade himself to suspect that the Christian religion might possibly be true, it became an easy task to convince him that it was the safest and most prudent party that he could possibly embrace. [p. 541]

The reputation of Christians:

When the new converts had been enrolled in the number of the faithful, and were admitted to the sacraments of the church, they found themselves restrained from relapsing into their past disorders by another consideration of a less spiritual but of a very innocent and respectable nature. Any particular society that has departed from the great body of the nation, or the religion to which it belonged, immediately becomes the object of universal as well as invidious observation. In proportion to the smallness of its numbers, the character of the society may be affected by the virtue and vices of the persons who compose it; and every member is engaged to watch with the most vigilant attention over his own behaviour, and over that of his brethren, since, as he must expect to incur part of the common disgrace, he may hope to enjoy a share of the common reputation. [p. 525]

Clearly, Mormons are in a similar situation. This is an idea that is commonly preached actually.

Tertullian on shaving:

[The] practice of shaving the beard, which, according to the expression of Tertullian, is a lie against our own faces, and an impious attempt to improve the works of the Creator. [p. 528]

The best and most ironic ending ever:

But how shall we excuse the supine inattention of the Pagan and philosophic world to those evidences which were presented by the hand of Omnipotence, not to their reason, but to their senses? During the age of Christ, of his apostles, and of their first disciples, the doctrine which they preached was confirmed by innumerable prodigies. The lame walked, the blind saw, the sick were healed, the dead were raised, daemons were expelled, and the laws of Nature were frequently suspended for the benefit of the church. General silence concerning the darkness of the passion.But the sages of Greece and Rome turned aside from the awful spectacle, and, pursuing the ordinary occupations of life and study, appeared unconscious of any alterations in the moral or physical government of the world. Under the reign of Tiberius, the whole earth,(194) or at least a celebrated province of the Roman empire, (195) was involved in a preternatural darkness of three hours. Even this miraculous event, which ought to have excited the wonder, the curiosity, and the devotion of mankind, passed without notice in an age of science and history.(196) It happened during the lifetime of Seneca and the elder Pliny, who must have experienced the immediate effects, or received the earliest intelligence, of the prodigy. Each of these philosophers, in a laborious work, has recorded all the great phenomena of Nature, earthquakes, meteors, comets, and eclipses, which his indefatigable curiosity could collect. (197) Both the one and the other have omitted to mention the greatest phenomenon to which the mortal eye has been witness since the creation of the globe. A distinct chapter of Pliny (198) is designed for eclipses of an extraordinary nature and unusual duration; but he contents himself with describing the singular defect of light which followed the murder of Caesar, when, during the greatest part of a year, the orb of the sun appeared pale and without splendour. This season of obscurity, which cannot surely be compared with the preternatural darkness of the Passion, had been already celebrated by most of the poets(199) and historians of that memorable age.(200) [p. 565-566]

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann#

An overview of this book would go like this: Everything you thought you knew about Indians is wrong.#

An early comment about the mounds in America that contain pottery:#

The mounds cover such an enormous area that they seem unlikely to be the byproduct of waste. Monte Testaccio, the hill of broken pots southeast of Rome, was a garbage dump for the entire imperial city. Ibibate is larger than Monte Testaccio and but one of hundreds of similar mounds. Surely the Beni did not generate more waste than Rome [p. 7]

On early reckonings of Native Americans:#

It was as if [they] had come across refugees from a Nazi concentration camp, and concluded that they belonged to a culture that had always been barefoot and starving. [p. 10]

On the Mayan disintegration:#

Incredibly, some of the last inscriptions are gibberish, as if scribes had lost the knowledge of writing and were reduced to meaningless imitation of their ancestors. [p. 26]

On trade with Indians:#

[They] would exchange [European goods] for cheap furs of the sort used by Indians as blankets. It was like happening upon a dingy kiosk that would swap fancy electronic goods for customer' used socks---almost anyone would be willing to overlook the shopkeeper's peculiarities. [p. 34]

There is an interesting discussion (around p. 46) on the importance of property lines to the Patuxet and other tribes. I find this appealing, given that so many people say that when Europeans bought the land, the Indians thought they were joking.#

You can tell I think like a Libertarian Economist when I read this:#

The Inka did not even have markets. Economists would predict that this nonmarket economy---vertical socialism, it has been called---should produce gross inefficiencies. These surely occurred, but the errors were of surplus, not want. The Spanish invaders were stunned to find warehouses overflowing with untouched cloth and supplies. [p. 81]

This is a fallacy. Since people have limited resources, they have to decide between doing A or B. By choosing A, they will have less B. Thus, those overflowing, untouched warehouses represent a lack of something. This is an example of a Seen and Unseen fallacy.

Another example of their inefficiency:

Because the Inka believe that idleness fomented rebellion, ..., he ordered unemployed work brigades "to move a mountain from one spot to another" for no practical purpose. Cieza de Leon once came upon three different highways running between the same two towns, each built by a different Inka. [p. 84]

On Inkan ruler worship:#

Minions collected and stored every object he touched, food waste included, to ensure that no lesser person could profane these objects with their touch. The ground was too dirty to receive the Inka's saliva so he always spat into the hand of a courtier. The courtier wiped the spittle with a special cloth and stored it for safekeeping. Once a year everything touched by the Inka---clothing, garbage, bedding, saliva---was ceremonially burned. [p. 82]

When the Inka died his panaqa [lineage] mummified his body. Because the Inka was believed to be an immortal deity, his mummy was treated, logically enough, as if it were still living. Soon after arriving in Qosqo, Pizarro's companion Miguel de Estete saw a parade of defunct emperors. They were brought out on litters, "seated on their thrones and surrounded by pages and women with flywhisks in their hands, who ministered to them with as much respect as if they had been alive."

Because the royal mummies were not considered dead, their successors obviously could not inherit their wealth. Each Inka's panaqa retained all of his possessions forever, including his palaces, residences, and shrines; all of his remaining clothes, eating utensils, fingernail parings, and hair clippings; and the tribute from the land he had conquered. In consequence, as Pedro Pizarro realized, "the greater part of the people, treasure, expenses, and vices [in Tawantinsuyu] were under the control of the dead." The mummies spoke through female mediums who represented the panaqa's surviving courtiers or their descendents. With almost a dozen immortal emperors jostling for position, high-level Inka society was characterized by ramose political intrigue of a scale that would have delighted the Medici. Emblematically, Wayna Qhapaq could not construct his own villa on Awkaypata---his undead ancestors had used up all available space. Inka society had a serious mummy problem. [p. 98-99]

On pre-Columbian population:#

When Columbus sailed more people lived in the Americas than in Europe. [p. 104]

On this note, there is an interesting discussion on how there is no conceivable way to have quarantined the New World from the Old, so the disease disaster was basically unavoidable. (p. 118)

Most people know that the Spanish destroyed much Mesoamerican writing. What few people know is that the Mexica destroyed their own writing, probably to hide their past as poor. (p. 133)#

Mormonism: The Book of Mormon is mentioned once (p. 159, middle of the page, in a discussion on origin of Native Americans), but the whole book makes me think about it. In particular, the fact that are so many different civilizations, helps me see how reasonable it is for the Book of Mormon civilization to have existed in the New World (the main question would then be about the supernatural happenings and the voyage.) Furthermore, given that almost none of the writing systems are extant or deciphereable, I am a nay-sayer on finding secondary evidence of the Book of Mormon's validity. And I think that is a good thing: it will keep faith a necessity.#

The Atacama Desert, just south of Peru on the Chilean shore, is the driest place on earth---in some places rain has literally never been recorded. Space researchers use the Atacama as a model for the sands of Mars. [p. 199]

An interesting discussion of how the Norte Chico people invented government, but there is no appearance of common indulgences of states: monuments, etc. It seems that people could easily get out of the power sphere, so the state had to stay useful and out of the way. (p. 206-207)#

On temples:#

Using a network of concealed vents and channels, priests piped loud, roaring sounds at those who entered the temple. Visitors walked up three flights of stairs, growls echoing around them, and into a long. windowless passageway. At the end of the corridor, in a cross-shaped room that flickered with torchlight, was a fifteen-foot-high stone figure with a catlike face, taloned fingers, fierce tusks, and Medusa hair. Nobody today is sure of the god's identity. Immediately above it, hidden from visitor's eyes, say a priestly functionary, who provided the god's voice. After the long, torchlit approach, walking straight into the gaze of the snarling deity, mysterious bellows reverberating off the stone, the oracular declamation from above must have been spine-chilling. [p. 269]

Nice map of mounds on page 289.#

On the difficulty of studying monuments:#

Piecing together events from these sources is like trying to understand the U.S. Civil War from the plaques on park statues: possible, but tricky. [p. 303]

On the Mayan environment:#

So toxic is the groundwater, a U.S.-Mexican research team remarked in 2002, that the Maya realm was "geochemically hostile" to urban colonization. Its occupation "more resembled settlement on the moon or Antarctica than most other terrestrial habitats." [p. 306]

Until Columbus, Indians were a keystone species in most of the hemisphere. [p. 353]

Indians actually sought out pregnant or nursing does, which hunters today are instructed to let go. They hunted wild turkey in spring, just before they laid eggs (if they had waited until the eggs hatched, the poults could have survived, because they will follow any hen). The effect was to remove competition for tree nuts. The pattern was so consistent, Neumann told me, that Indians must have been purposefully reducing the number of deer, raccoons, and turkeys. [p. 356]

Adventures of a Church Historian, by Leonard J. Arrington.#

We must not use history as a storehouse from which deceptively simple moral lessons may be drawn at random. [p. 237]

The setting:#

General authorities of the church and general church officers, for reasons of policy or personal preference, have chosen not to leave autobiographical public records of their dealings and associations with each other, so that church members have no way of knowing what goes on inside church headquarters. Do general authorities ever disagree? What are they like as human beings when they shed their official status as prophets, seres, and revelators? Along with their significant strengths are there also weaknesses---or at least misunderstandings? [p. 3]

"The words of truth [may be] hard ...; but the righteous fear them not, for they love the truth and are not shaken." [p. 6, 2 Nephi 9:40]

I saw no reason why a scholar should not have access to [private records]. I could see no evidence of private abuse of public funds; on the contrary, the accounts seemed to be complete, honest, and evidence of the sincere and devoted service of church leaders and members. [p. 17]

I summarized, "it is not that they disapprove of me as Church Historian; they would disapprove of any professional historian, any intellectual, and independent-minded writer. They want someone who (1) has written little history; (2) saturates history with scriptural allusions and references; and (3) obstinately refuses to mention controversial episodes." [p. 156]

A man in Holland read The Mormon Experience and decided to join the Church. (p. 194)

There is an amazing account of receiving the revelation on the priesthood in 1978 in chapter 11.#

Funny vignettes:#

Joseph Fielding Smith said King David was constipated:

He explained that in the Book of Kinds it says that King David sat on his throne for forty years and was not moved. [p. 16]

Other church services:

Once a Logan Stake president invited me to speak in his stake priesthood leadership meeting on the Church Welfare Plan. He then proceeded, during the next half hour, to tell me what I should say. Certain that he did not want me to deviate one iota from his instruction, I finally excused myself: "Sorry that I cannot make the appointment; why don't you give the talk?" [p. 41]

David O. McKay:

The [Utah State student stake center] was dedicated in August 1959 by David O. McKay. On that dry-as-dust day, the eighty-sex-year-old president was assisted up a plank to an observation platform by Bullen and the president of the university, Daryl Chase. When McKay began his talk he said he was "fit as a fiddle" but had experience some difficulty getting on the platform because he had to drag two others up with him. [p. 46]

A speaker at a meeting took too long before Arrington could close the meeting:

The time was up but Bullen, out of loyalty, called on me for concluding remarks. I had a prepared talk but I left it in my coat pocket. "The gospel is true," I said, "and we will all be blessed by living as we should. Amen" There was a short prayer, and the conference was over. Few dared tell me they liked my sermon best. [p. 51-52]

Joseph Fielding Smith authorized a bishop in the Logan Stake to use grape juice for the Sacrament! (p. 53)

On Joseph Anderson, an assistant to the Twelve:

He had a gentle demeanor and quiet style and his thin mustache was a trademark. When he was first employed, facial hair was not uncommon: Grant, George Albert Smith, and others had beards. As styles changed, he found himself the only general authority with a mustache. He worried about it. When he was called to be an assistant to the Twelve, he asked for advice, and was told to shave. [p. 98]

Said of his biography of Bishop Woolley by warehouse employees of Deseret Book: "We loved it..... It was the perfect size for packing." (p. 137)

Interesting notes:#

Alvin Dyer was ordained an apostle, but not a member of the Twelve in 1967. Odd. (p. 80)

Arrington compares general authorities to officers in the army with different privileges and separation---like a class system. (p. 172-173)

Brigham Young does not think children should be disciplined extremely:

When children are bound too tightly and rigidly to the moral law, he said, duty will become loathsome to them, and "when they are freed by age from the rigorous training of their parents, the children are more fit for companions to devils than to be the children of such religious parents." [p. 205]

There is an informative account of the Mark Hoffman affair in chapter 14. (p. 219-224)

The Viper on the Hearth: Mormons, Myths, and the Construction of Heresy, by Terryl L. Givens#

On the idea that the dehumanize opponents can be a bad strategy:#

[Peter Hulme:] "Humans beings who eat other human beings have always been placed on the very borders of humanity. They are not regarded as inhuman because if they were animal their behaviour would be natural and could not cause the outrage and fear that `cannibalism' has always provoked." [p. 15]

He notes that in 1537, Pope Paul III issued three bulls that Native Americans "were in fact rational creatures and therefore `human beings'." [p. 15]

The best chapter, in my opinion, is Orthodoxy and Heresy in American Religion.#

On the perennial question.

Harold Bloom is correct in saying Mormonism's hallmark is its deliberate obliviousness to two millennia of Christian tradition. So Mormonism could be considered, in the context of ecclesiastical history, emphatically not Christian. [p. 81]

The insight that something distinctive about Mormonism is the universal access to the divine. In contrast, Elizabeth Johnson writes:

The history of theology is replete with this truth: recall Augustine's insight that if we have understood, then what we have understood is not God; Anselm's argument that God is that than which nothing greater can be conceived; Hildegaard's vision of God's glory as Living Light that blinded her sight; Aquinas's working rulethat we can know that God is and what God is not, but not what God is, ... [p. 82]

Whereas, in Mormonism: "The church is reintegrated into the ongoing flow of human history, origins are concrete and proximate, the process of doctrinal formation is laid bare." (p. 83) And quoting Sterling McMurrin on the Mormon world-view, "from the perspective of God there are no miracles." (p. 85)

I found it very interesting when Givens takes a list of "behavioral traits" of destructive cults and compares them to Christ:

It can hardly go unobserved that the New Testament portrays a Christ who preached imminent apocalypse (Matthew 24:15), reproved the scribes and Pharisees as hypocrites (Matthew 23:13), commanded his followers to preach the gospel to all the world (Mark 16:15), commanded the rich young man to give away all that he had (Mark 10:21), proclaimed himself the Messiah (Luke 4:21), exhorted his disciples to fast and pray always (Mark 9:29; Luke 18:1), and so forth. And yet here Christian heresy is defined in those very terms.

...

It is most curious that a "cult's" emulation of early Christian forms is itself taken as prima facie evidence of heresy, rather than as potentially suggestive of authority. [p. 87]

The idea of God in time again:

What Mormonism and similar heresies did challenge---implicitly---was the fantasy that religious belief can circumvent its own historical conceiving: the notion that God spoke to man, but never in an actual moment in time or to a man who was anyone's contemporary; the notion that the canon records Gods word, but God never spoke a precanonical utterance.

... Popular Christian thought seldom encompasses the notion that the Apostles were Christian (that is, disciples of Christ) before there were councils, creeds, or even a New Testament. [p. 89]

The reality of Mormonism is striking:

Smith's unrelenting anthropomorphosizing; the chronological and geographical specificity of his encounters with the divine; his commitment of heavenly revelation to the process of transcription, publication, and marketing; his enactment of prophetic restoration through the medium of legal incorporation---these and related aspects of Smith's work rendered religious allegorizing of his message impossible. The stone cut out of the mountain without hands and seen by Daniel might have been an allegory, but its fulfillment was not: It occurred "one thousand eight hundred and thirty years since the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ in the flesh" (to the day) when the Kingdom of God was "regularly organized and established agreeable to the laws of our country" (and the state of New York). When God commanded Hosea to take a harlot as a wife, the act presumably symbolized something about spiritual apostasy and devotion (Hosea 1:2). But when God commanded Joseph Smith to have Sidney Gilbert "establish a store, that he [might] sell goods," it was fruitless to search for other levels of moral significance. [p. 90]

Interesting episodes:#

The history of anti-Mormonism has much to distinguish it, both in the intensity and variety of its manifestations and in the uniqueness of its object. In no other case in American history has a governor signed an order for the expulsion or extermination of a segment of his state's own citizenry (Governor Lilburn Boggs of Missouri in 1838), a state militia forced the evacuation of a city of thousands (Nauvoo, Illinois, in 1847), the United States sent an occupying army against its citizens ("Buchanan's blunder", 1857-58) or dissolved a church as a legal corporation and disenfranchised thousands of its members (Edmunds-Tucker Act, 1887). [p. 41]

During his presidency, [Brigham] Young granted 1,645 divorces. [p. 144]

Givens recounts how after writing Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe went on to attack Mormonism. (p. 146-147)

Absurd Quotes:#

It is said that an altar of sacrifice was actually built ... in the temple block, upon which human sacrifices were to be made. - Senator Aaron Harrison Cragin, on the U.S. Senate floor, May 18, 1870 [p. 13]

Alexis de Tocqueville's traveling companion, Gustave de Beaumont, was equally unimpressed. "Nothing," he remarked, "is more unusual than to see a Protestant minister with white hair. The major goal that the American in the ministry pursues is his own welfare and that of his wife and children. When he has materially improved his conditions, his end is achieved; he retires." [p. 47]

"This is an interfaith chapel, not an intercult chapel," [a] minister told the Rocky Mountain News. [p. 80, referring to Vail, Colorado]

"They ain't whites ... They're Mormons." [p. 135, quoting Jack London's Star Rover]

In a refreshingly unscientific version of the ethnicity theme, humorists found distinctive physical commonalities of their own to fill the function of distinctive racial characteristics. Mark Twain, for example, claimed that he had been an advocate of reform in Utah, until he "saw the Mormon women. Then I was touched, ... and as I turned to hide the generous moisture in my eyes, I said, 'No---the man that marries one of them has done an act of Christian charity ... and the man that marries sixty of them has done a deed of open-handed generosity so sublime that the nations of the earth should stand uncovered in his presence and worship in silence.'" And Oscar Wilde, in a letter to Mrs. Bernard Beere (April 17, 1882), described the Mormons he encountered on a visit to Utah: "They ... are very, very ugly." [p. 137]

"[T]he one lesson to be learned from the morals of Salt Lake City is that polygamy and immorality are quite incompatible. The man with five wives behaves himself with exemplary propriety. It is the man with only one who spends all his spare hours looking for the five he has not." [p. 149, quoting a non-Mormon visitor]

Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years among the Mormons, by Jan Shipps#

This book is a collection of essays about Mormon history and culture.#

Early in her career, Shipps decided to use the research methodology of the Kinsey Institute to study perceptions of Mormons. She comments:#

Most of the populations whose opinions I would need to track were no longer living. Notwithstanding that stumbling block, I reasoned that if I could find a means of accessing the sources of information from which perceptions would have to have been fashioned, there would be no reason why I could not make use of survey research methods to examine the history of American perceptions of the Mormons across time. [p. 46]

She writes a deal about how the Mormons were a "model minority" --- more American than America. But not so any longer.#

There is simply too much information being published about what local Latter-day Saints are doing (speaking at the Kiwanis Club, coaching Little League teams, winning beauty contests, sitting on school boards, being fined for speeding; and so on) for members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to retain their status as a "model minority." Unquestionably, Mormonism is rapidly losing the protection of minority religious status. [p. 112]

Are Mormons Christian?#

[If] the members of one group of people gathered into a community that calls itself Christian are permitted to decide that a person or everyone gathered into a different community that likewise calls itself Christian is not Christian, then some pretty un-Christian defining is going on. [p. 340]

I don't completely agree, but I like the principle.

Quotes:#

To put it another way, the early descriptions of Salt Lake City are much like the witty Irishman's reply when he was asked if Port Said was the wickedest spot on earth. "Oh, my dear," he said, "it's really a great deal wickeder than that." [p. 72]

Since the church's full program involved the Saints in so many meetings that a popular definition of a Mormon in those days was "someone who is planning a meeting, going to a meeting, sitting in a meeting, or coming from a meeting," [the new chapels] were in use day and night, practically seven days a week. [p. 269]

The Apprentice: My Life in the Kitchen, by Jacques Pepin#

This book contains so many interesting stories about his life as a chef, growing up in France and then moving to America.#

Some of my favourite stories: still an apprentice, he prepared a wonderful meal at the hotel and surprised the guests with his age (p. 62); the structure of a later restaurant's kitchen staff structure (p. 89); the absurd meals made for a general (p. 100); the perks of cooking for the French Prime Minister, such as a limousine with police escort for last minute shopping (p. 119); the requirements for employment in America: being French (p. 136); turning down being the White House chef (he had been the French's chef with little publicity) for Howard Johnson's (p. 153); being on the forefront of franchise cooking development (Chapter 10); receiving lobed off calf heads from a meat manufacturer (p. 175); meeting his wife (below, p. 187); buying ducks from a hippy couple for eating (p. 208); her daughter asking for hollandaise as a toddler at a friend's house (p. 208); eating a fried fish in China fried so fast it was still breathing (p. 237-238); and, cooking food from the trash bin at an interview, because he hadn't brought anything (p. 263).#

"You want to get together for a drink?" I asked.

After accepting my invitation, Gloria skipped lunch and called a friend to walk the dog that evening, certain that "drink" was a euphemism for drinks, dinner, and who knows what else.

I had something more literal in mind and escorted her directly to my apartment, uncorked a bottle of red wine, poured us each a glass and then drank. When our glasses were empty, I checked my watch and said, "I have to get to a class in ten minutes. You can make your way home by yourself, can't you?"

Gloria promised herself never to speak to me again. [p. 187-188]

The Mormon Way of Doing Business: Leadership and Success through Faith and Family, by Jeff Benedict#

This book profiles some high-position CEOs who are Mormon and talks about their life and how Mormon values have helped them. In the beginning, there is a lot that I think is accurately attributed to their religion, but near the middle and end, a lot of the book becomes more about the guys, than their religion, which is fine.#

Some aspects of the book seem thrown together: There were a few (5 or 6) typos and there was a lot of duplicate use of quotes in different chapters. This last problem might come from the Mormon tendency to regard the Scriptures and quote the same ones in many contexts, but to me it is a faux pas in such a short book.#

If it's a problem that can be resolved with money, it's not a problem.#

One morning sixteen-year-old Katie Checketts was running late for seminary class when she hurried to the garage, started up the Chevy Tahoe, threw it into reverse---and rammed into the garage door that she had forgotten to open. Instead of going inside and reporting the accident to her mother, she pulled forward, hit the automatic door opener button, and raised the wooden door. As the door came up, the broken door destroyed the metal tracking, sending splintered boards and metal everywhere. Then she backed over the debris and left for seminary.

Checketts returned home from an out-of-town business trip later that day. He had undergone a particularly difficult week at work and arrived home in a bad mood. The first thing he saw was a heap of wood and overhead metal tracks lying in the garage. He burst into the house and demanded to know what had happened to the garage door.

The family assembled and his daughter recounted the story. Checketts could feel his blood boiling as he listened. His daughter and the other kids could see the anger in his eyes. Then he remembered Bill Bain's words: If it's a problem that can be solved with money, it's not a problem.

"Honey," Checketts said to his daughter, "it just occurred to me that when I took driver's ed many years ago, at no time did anybody ever say to me: `Before you back out of the garage, open the door.' And I'm sure no one ever said it to you. Well, now you know."

There was a pause. Then the entire family burst out in laughter and cheers. The problem had gone away. [p. 111]

Disgust:#

Checketts' mother also encouraged him to seek leadership positions in school. When he ran for class president, his mother wrote his campaign speeches, calling on words from Franklin Roosevelt and John F. Kennedy. One of the speeches she wrote for her son began: "Ask not what your school can do for you, but what you can do for your school." [p. 165]

Really? I think that's the first time that had ever been used in a school. I am appalled that this is cited as a good thing.

Everyone in this book is quite admirable. Two thumbs up.#

God in the Dock, by C. S. Lewis, edited by Walter Hooper#

One of the essays is about dogma and naturalism:#

It is a common reproach against Christianity that its dogmas are unchanging, while human knowledge is in continual growth. Hence, to unbelievers, we seem to be always engaged in the hopeless task of trying to force the new knowledge into moulds which it has outgrown. I think this feeling alienates the outsider much more than any particular discrepancies between this or that doctrine and this or that scientific theory. We may, as we say, `get over' dozens of isolated `difficulties', but that does not alter his sense that the endeavour as a whole is doomed to failure and perverse: indeed, the more ingenious, the more perverse. For it seems to him clear that, if our ancestors had known what we know about the universe, Christianity would never have existed at all: and, however we patch and mend, no system of thought which claims to be immutable can, in the long run, adjust itself to our growing knowledge. [p. 38]