In the comment, the author (who identifies him/herself only as Prime) says the following:

“Live life abundantly, god or no god, faith or no faith it matters not. The single most important thing is to treat your fellow humans with respect and kindness that is all. You do not need god to be good.”

So, here’s my question to Prime and all others who hold to this particular belief system: How can you have anything good without God?

Let me explain.

The concepts of “good” and “bad” are moral concepts and are entirely relative.  The real question is relative to what?  It’s only by defining what is “bad” that anything can be defined as “good” and vice-versa.

So who defines “bad?”

The historical answers to that question are as varied and the philosophies that have tried to answer it, but they all generally fall in to two camps.

In one camp, morality is determined by public opinion.  A thing is morally correct if the majority of citizens of a community agree that it is so (atheists typically pitch their tents in this camp).  In the other camp, morality is an expression of static, unchanging truth.  Only one of these camps can ever be correct.

If morality is subject to public opinion, then really anything goes.  There is no law at all under those circumstances, because there is no basis upon which law can be built.  For example, a law that ascribes illegality to murder on the presumption that murder is “bad” is only valid until such time as public opinion sways enough to say “murder is not bad” or maybe more subtly, “the termination of a life is agreed to be acceptable inasmuch as said life can be demonstrated to present undue inconvenience or stress on a qualified individual or society as a whole.”

You think my example is silly or unrealistic?  Ever heard of Sharia?  Obviously it doesn’t use such distinct “legalese” type language, but Sharia law recognizes such a thing as “honor killing.”  So obviously when a society degenerates far enough to accept the practice of murder, whatever the justification (including religion), according to the philosophies of camp one, it becomes morally acceptable, even “honorable.”  The most devastating scourges in the history of humanity have taken shelter in this camp.

The alternative is that morality is only valid inasmuch as it is based on truth.  Things are defined as “good” or “bad” relative to the static and unchanging truths of the universe.  Things that are good adhere to truth and are therefore qualified to endure, while things that are bad break one or more of the laws of the universe (truth) and are therefore immediately consigned to eventual but certain destruction—in time they will break down and cease to exist.

In the latter case, the definitions of “good” and “bad” are not subjective.  They are based on an absolute: truth.  Our obligation, then, is to discover truth and adhere to it.  We discover truth by appeal to the beings that have utterly mastered and become synonymous with truth: God.

In the interest of time, I have made a pretty big leap from truth to God (not really, but I can see where the arguments will come from and I’ll address them in future posts).  Regardless, my initial question to Prime and others of the same mindset still stands:

Without some kind of moral absoluteness, some static definition of “good” and “bad,” by what standard can a person know if they are being good?

My daily Book of Mormon reading is currently in the book of Helaman.  This morning I was effectively slapped in the face by one of the most obvious examples we have in scripture illustrating the difference between prophets who are called and given the gift of prophecy for the delivering of important instructions and messages, and prophets who are similarly called, but also have the mantle of ecclesiastical authority for the administration of the ordinances of salvation.  Granted, there is a thin line between them, which is why in the case of the former, the Lord always calls someone righteous and obedient enough not to overstep it.

Beginning in chapter 13, just prior to the chapter title, it reads as follows:

The prophecy of Samuel, the Lamanite, to the Nephites. Comprising chapters 13 through 15 inclusive.

Then, in the actual heading for chapter 13 it speaks of Samuel’s prophecies to the Nephites concerning their impending destruction if they do not repent.  The pursuant chapters tell the story of Samuel’s calling by God, the assignment he is given, his prophecies about the birth of the Savior, the destruction of the Nephites, and the subsequent reaction of the Nephites.

There is much to be learned from these chapters regarding the nature of the calling of prophets and God’s methods and order of delivering important messages to His children.

In the opening verses of Helaman 13, we learn that Samuel was already a righteous man because, as far as we know, he took it upon himself to preach repentance to the Nephites.  Being a Lamanite, he obviously had become converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and was more than likely led by the Spirit to begin preaching repentance.  The point of all this is that Samuel was obviously a righteous man and obedient to the direction he was given by the Holy Ghost.  For a Lamanite to place himself, for the sake of preaching repentance, in such peril among those who were historically the sworn enemies of the Lamanites must have taken exceptional courage and faithfulness.  Surely he must have thought that his very life could be in danger, but he went anyway.

Meeting with no success in spiritually reaching the Nephites, however, he decides to return back to his own land; but the Lord has other plans for him.  In verse 3, the Lord speaks to him and tells him to return to the Nephites and prophesy according to the dictates of the Spirit.  Being obedient, Samuel returns.  He is turned away at the gate, so to speak, meaning that he isn’t even allowed to enter back into the city.

Samuel knows he was given a divine charge, however, so he doesn’t just give up and leave.  He climbs up on the wall of the city and shouts the message he is given by the Lord to the Nephites.  In the end, some of them believe him, but most of them get angry and actually try to kill him before he jumps down and flees, never to be heard from again as far as we know.

Now, this isn’t intended to be recounting of the story of Samuel, but rather an illustration of an important point of understanding.  The interesting thing to note here, at the end of Samuel’s part of the story (as we read in chapter 16) is that those of the Nephites who believe him seek to be baptized, but who do they seek out?  Not Samuel–the prophet who delivered the message that led to their conversion–but Nephi, the prophet who held the authority to perform the ordinances of salvation.

So this becomes a pretty obvious example (one of many, I would argue) that the Lord calls whomever He will when He needs them and by whatever means He deems necessary.  Their calling is always given explicitly, including the constraints and limits of their authority.  Though these chapters don’t explicitly record what the Lord said to Samuel in calling him, it’s safe to assume that either he was told very explicitly and those specific instructions were simply abridged out of the Book of Mormon record that we have (it is an abridgement after all, don’t forget), or at least that Samuel understood the nature of his own calling and the limits of his own authority.  These assumptions are safe to make because he at no time tries to gather followers to himself, he does not invite them to be baptized by him, and when the converts seek to be baptized, he is nowhere to be found (as far as the record shows).

So what do we learn from this story?

At this particular time in history, there were at least two prophets: Samuel and Nephi.  Only one of them—Nephi—had authority to baptize and administer the ordinances of the gospel.  Samuel understood this.  Still, Samuel’s calling was as a prophet.  He was specifically called and given authority to deliver a message to the world (specifically the Nephites).  This is not a case of someone receiving the gift of prophecy for their own benefit; this is a very obvious case of someone being given a stewardship that pertains to a broader collection of God’s children, but is still limited in scope not to include religious ordinances.

Now, it’s pretty apparent that Samuel’s message was very much “religious” in nature.  He prophesied specifically about repentance and the birth of the Savior.  So this doesn’t exactly match up perfectly with the movement of The Higher Law and those who have been called to start it—or does it?

Much of the fear and objection being directed at the movement and the author of the blog is that it claims to be non-religious while dealing with religious things (like visions, revelations, facsimile 2, etc.); and yet, apart from the source of the movement, which is claimed to be from translation of facsimile 2, and the experiences that are part of translation (according to the author), there is no religious instruction whatsoever in any portion of the messages on the blog.  There is no call for “followers,” there is no claim of religious authority, there is no evidence of what would normally be associated with apostate or sectarian movements (i.e. subjugation of followers to the “new prophet,” calls for sacrificial offerings of money, property, etc.) , and there is nothing in the messages that detracts or changes the core doctrines of the LDS church in the least.   The author is very adamant that his calling is non-religious, by design, for the purpose of uniting the people of the Earth as much as possible in a common goal, which is more the opposition of political and economic tyranny than anything religious.  In fact, the notion of religion—or at least any one religion—is conspicuously absent from the messages except whatever connections we make ourselves.

On the contrary, consider Samuel.  The prophet of the church in his day was Nephi (or as close an equation as one can make in those circumstances); yet he was called as a prophet to deliver an expressly religious message, unbeknownst to Nephi (as far as we know).  Even if Nephi was aware of Samuel (and I wouldn’t doubt it), he made no comment of it and Samuel’s calling was not given through Nephi, but by God directly to Samuel for a specific, limited purpose; but that purpose was still very much “religious.”  (I quote that term because the reality is our historical human compartmentalizing of religion, science, etc. is actually very myopic and narrow-minded).  So in comparison, according to the objections being raised on The Higher Law, Samuel actually would have to be considered to have been more dangerous than the author of the blog.  He would have been the one on the road to apostasy (not if, but when see comment #8), because he was claiming prophetic authority that stretched into the realm of religion.

The point of all this should be clear: While there is only one prophet, seer and revelator for the Church on the Earth at any given time, by no means does that preclude the possibility of other prophetic and divine callings with specific intention and limitations, for specific purposes that apply to a community or the world at large (not just the individual).  Further, considering the consistent and overt specificity of the author in expressing non-religious intent and scope, I would think that he would be considered even less of a danger to anything pertaining to the LDS church, including personal testimony of it.

‘Nuff said.

I had expected to have it ready by now, but I’ve decided to go big with it, so in conjunction with the author of thylibertyinlaw.com, I’ve decided to produce some multimedia to go with the challenge.  So it might take longer than I first thought.  Nevertheless, it will be posted, so keep watching.  Best bet is to subscribe to my RSS feed (and don’t worry…I produce about 1 post per year, so you certainly won’t be over-loaded with crap from me.)

* I use the term “friend” here somewhat loosely, as Craig and I are not “friends,” per se.  In fact, I don’t know him at all and our only interaction has been more adversarial than friendly; but I don’t hate him and he kept his debate civil, so I’ll consider him a friendly opponent rather than an enemy.

One of the great contributions that Newton provided for the world of science–the world in general, really–was the presentation of the Laws of Thermodynamics.  The second of these laws deals with entropy, specifically stating that the amount of entropy of systems tends to increase over time, and that the more complex a system is, the stronger this tendency is, due to the amount of useful energy required to maintain the complexity of the system.  In other words, the longer a system operates, the more it tends to break down, and the more complex the system is, the faster it will tend to break down.

Entropy increase is caused by the tendency of heat (energy) to disperse, spreading from the point of origin out to the cold regions surrounding it, thereby warming the colder regions, and cooling the warmer regions until the system reaches a point of energetic equilibrium, or in effect, status quo.  At this point, the system still has energy (see the first Law of Thermodynamics dealing with the conservation of energy), but absent the dynamic tension provided by the disparate temperatures (hot and cold), the energy of the system becomes increasingly useless, that is, not useful for actual production (work).  The system becomes stagnant and begins to decay and die.

The concept of entropy is not unique to physics.  Information theory, mathematics, medicine, and sociology all identify the phenomenon of entropy within the context of their respective disciplines.  It’s reasonable to deduce that entropy is not simply a characteristic of physical or social systems, but is the description of a characteristic of immutable natural law that applies to all levels of organization.

Given that sociology recognizes the inevitability of social entropy, we should examine all social constructs to understand the energies that power them, and thereby be prepared and able to overcome the inevitability of entropic decay.  One such social construct is economics.

Economics has as its “fundamental concern…the material standard of living of society as a whole and how that is affected by particular decisions made by individuals and institutions” (Sowell, 2007).  So, if we are to understand what makes economies strong or weak, grow or recede, work or not work, we have to examine the decisions being made by those in positions of economic influence, bearing the tendecies of systemic decay–entropy–always in mind.

So, how does entropy apply to economy? First, we have to identify the systems involved.

Despite the foul-crying of liberals and socialists (which cries are deceptions meant only to hide their true intent, but we’ll come back to that), the systems of economy are the classes of society.  Much debate can be waged over definitions of classes and the thresholds that separate one class from another, but for the purposes of this argument, we’ll identify only two, separated by an age-old standard: the haves, and the have-nots.  Obviously this is also grossly oversimplified, because depending on perspective and the specifics of what (i.e. have what, or have not what), anyone could rightly be identified in either class.  That being understood and conceded, regardless of the what, there is in human society always a division between those who have and those who have not.

Now, given these two classes, lets examine the decisions that might be made by those in governing positions relative to each of these classes.

In the first case, we’ll look at socialism, which has as one of its defining characteristics the redistribution of wealth. In other words, socialists believe that the natural separation between haves and have-nots is actually not natural, or if it is natural, that it is not fair to the have-nots.  So, in the interest of balancing this inequity, they feel they are justified in taking some portion of the what from those who have and giving it freely to the have-nots.  Now, no matter how much of the what is given to the have-nots, there will always be something that they have not : they have not earned that which they now have.  They did not work to produce it, it was simply taken from those who have and given to them.

And thus begins the decay.

Economic energy–heat–originates with those who produce.  Their having is directly correspondent to their production.  Given that any individual, no matter how productive, is still only one person, there is an inherent physical limit on that person’s productivity, and therefore a cap on how much they can earn (have).  If the person hopes to break beyond that limit, he/she must involve others who are also productive, and hopefully create a synergy, in which the output of their combined productivity is greater than the sum of the parts, and they can all share in the fruits of their production and have together.  All are benefited, their productivity (work or useful energy) grows, and with it increases the “material standard of living” of those involved.  As long as they remain productive, and continue to increase productivity, they will remain a source of economic energy, an economic “hot spot,” so to speak.

If, however, socialist policy is in place, this growth cannot take place.  In these circumstances, as soon as the haves have grown beyond a certain threshold (as defined by the socialists, of course), the fruits of their productivity are no longer their reward, but are removed from them and become the reward of those who are not producing on their own, i.e. those in economic freeze.  The socialist belief (so they say) is that by “spreading the wealth around,” those who are in economic freeze will thaw and become productive and begin to create their own warmth.  This may be true in some cases, but only on the smallest of scales.  The new-found what that the have-nots have been given may provide means for them to acquire goods that they would not have had if left to their own ambitions (or lack thereof), and that infusion of capital into the market may provide some small measure of warmth; but as with the ice melting in a glass in a warm room, the cold of the ice does emanate outwards from the glass, but only for a matter of moments and centimeters–an imperceptible amount in a room even as small as a few square feet.

Economic entropy increases.

Heat is removed from its place of origin and infused into the cold regions, slightly warming the cold and cooling the hot until the entire system is “equal” (the proclaimed but fraudulent goal of socialism).  Never mind that the system which was once hot and dynamic and growing is now stagnant, useless and at best, lukewarm…and gradually cooling.

This won’t matter to the socialist governors who were the originators of this decay to begin with, because they will now be at the top of the social food chain as they reap the fruits of what they have sown, extracting increasingly more in “administrative fees” (i.e. taxes) for distributing the wealth of an ever decreasing productivity base.

This is the socialist agenda, and this is the inevitable result.  It matters little if the socialist is truly motivated by power-greed, laziness, or is simply misled by hyper-emotional blindness, the end is the same.  The only difference being that the lazy and misled ultimately end up under the thumb of the power-greedy that they voted for.  The division between the haves and have-nots is still intact, only now its insurmountable–a formidable wall of concrete and barbed wire. Some might call it an Iron Curtain.

One need only study the socialist societies of the past to see that the result is always the same.  There has never been a socialist regime in any form that has endured.  They have either stagnated and died, been overthrown by revolution, or degenerated into fascism, totalitarianism and ultimately, destruction.  In point of fact, they are all on this same continuum, only differing in the measure of their decay, which as we now know, even in economics, has a name:

Entropy.

References

Sowell, Thomas. (2007). Basic Economics: A common sense guide to the economy (third edition). New York:Basic Books

I do understand the intent of Aristotle’s assertion, however: simply that law is not prejudiced, or at least is not intended to be, and should not be subject to the erratic mood swings of unbridled passion. In that sense, he is correct, though he did not go far enough in his commitment to his own idea. Law is beyond passion, and by that same notion is also beyond reason. Law is truth, and truth is constant and universal and exists regardless of any human reasoning however passionate or dispassionate. Instead, our reasoning, driven by our passion for truth, should lead us to understand, accept and ultimately obey truth as it is–law–and not to try to shape law to fit our present passions. Given sufficient time and honest pursuit, with passion that burns ever hotter on a course constantly corrected by reason, we eventually learn to live in harmony with all truth, thereby becoming one with truth. In essence, we become truth. We become the law. The law does not bend to us, but rather we take on its characteristics and nature.

So where Aristotle claimed that law is “reason free from passion,” the truth is that law is reason eternally joined with passion in perfect balance and harmony.

Obviously such a state of existence does not occur in the span of mortality. Thankfully, there is a perfectly designed, perfectly reasonable path that arrives at just such a state.

On one hand we have Darwin’s theories of evolution and natural selection.  I need not get into specifics about this theory; it has been posited in schools world wide for decades, so I’ll assume that most are generally familiar with it. A summary of the theory will suffice for our purposes here.

Darwinism is built on the assumption that, due to apparent similarities among the species of Earth, the origins of species can be traced back to a single ancestor, specifically a single-celled organism that spontaneously sprung to life through some unknown process in some sort of indefinable “primordial soup.”  Over the course of millions of years, and for no apparent reason given thus far by “science,” this single-celled organism evolved into increasingly more developed and complex organisms, eventually finding its way out of the soup and onto land, through amphibious and reptilian stages and finally into its primate stage.  In simplistic terms, according to evolutionary theory, man is the highest form of primate, having evolved from apes.

The evidence to support this theory is weak at best.  There is certainly scientific evidence of evolution over time within a given species; but, after all the years of evolutionary study, there is yet to be uncovered even a single shred of scientific evidence to support the theory of evolution across species, that is, evolution from one species into another.

The genesis of life is still unknown to evolutionary biologists, theorists and other scientists.  Also unknown is any reason why our supposed single-celled ancestor would have needed to evolve at all.  What was the impetus for evolution?  As far as the pro-Darwinist scientific community can explain, our single-celled parent sparked to life with a serious java jones and began evolving in hopeful anticipation of getting to the nearest Starbuck’s a few short millions of years down the road. 

Equally unknown is how one species evolves into another.  With no evidence to examine, science doesn’t have any idea how one species knows what to evolve into or how to evolve into it.  Development of tissues, organs, etc. is all based on instructions provided by DNA.  So how a species knows to overcome its own DNA and instruct its own development is as yet unexplained.

All of this says nothing about the collection of conditions required to create, support and sustain life, whether or not it evolves as Darwin purports.  The best explanation that science can come up with, so far, is randomness.  (Don’t get me started on the impossibility of randomness, that’s for another post).

On the other hand we have God.  Not God as defined by most religions–i.e. the unknowable, nebulous super-being whose relationship to man is the subject of endless speculation and debate–but God as He really is.  A perfectly evolved being who was once as man is now.

Is this definition of God so hard to swallow?  Look at it this way: Man has existed for generations spanning at least thousands of years.  During that time–a relatively short span relative to the age of the universe–man has progressed in discovery and innovation in tremendous, even miraculous ways, and this with limited resources and brain function (which science still can’t explain, by the way).  Now project man a hundred million years into the future.  Is it not reasonable to assume that such progress would continue?  Is it not reasonable to assume that man’s understanding of the laws of nature and universe would continue to purify, allowing him to overcome many of the limitations that we now face?  Now suppose that progress continued eternally.  Suppose that man’s intelligence and identity continued eternally, not only man’s, but a man’s, each human’s intelligence and identity.  Suppose life continues in some form or another after the life that we understand and observe as mortal life.  If each individual’s life continued for eternity, would it not be reasonable to assume that, given an endless amount of time to continue learning and progressing, man would achieve a state of existence so elevated that to humans such as us, such a being would appear in every way divine?

How is this difficult to accept?  On the first hand we are expected to accept the notion of cross-species evolution.  Why, then, would not the end (or at least the future) of that evolution for mankind be something akin to godhood?

If, then, it is true that the simple answer is better or more reliable than the alternatives, why would science be more than happy to jump to the conclusion that man has evolved from an ultra simple single-celled organism into a highly complex species? If nature tends towards simplicity, why would natural selection and evolution move a species from super simple high efficiency to super complicated high maintenance?

Further, why would life have evolved into separate sexes, male and female, if certainly the simplest and most efficient method of reproduction is asexual? It could be fairly argued that the dynamics of human male-female interrelations are among the most complicated in nature, and yet that is how “nature” has designed the species, and according to Darwinists, per natural selection and evolution, this complicated way is superior to the alternatives; otherwise it would not have survived the generations of evolution, much less been the result of the generations of evolution.

So either science is completely wrong about the principle of Ockham’s Razor and they cling to it out of complete lack of anything else of substance from which to base observational conclusions; or science is completely wrong about evolution.

Don’t get me wrong: Science is not bad or inherently evil. But the science being pimped in the press and institutions of the world is obviously grossly lacking in power and substance.

Maybe it’s finally time to admit that science as the solitary pursuer and provider of truth is not, as they say, a perfect science.