Confessions of an LDS Free-thinker (3)

This is the third of my confessions. I think. Lately, one of the things I have been wrestling with is the meaning of the words sustain and emulate. This is simply because my Bishop of my Church congregation (called a ward) has been giving me some grief over what sustain and emulate actually mean. As a free thinker, I'm an agent unto myself and I am capable of creating as God does. Same as any other human on the planet.

However, in my quest to learn more, I am frustrated by my Bishop's understanding of what it means to support the Leaders of the Church. I support the leaders of the Church, I really do, but as far I understand things, my support can go only so far as sustain is defined. However, my bishop is only interested in "sustaining" the Leaders as so far as emulating them as examples of how we aught to live our lives. And this gives me a headache since I do not believe in blind obedience.

sustain

Transitive Verb.
Pronunciation: \sə-ˈstān\

Function: transitive verb

Etymology:

Middle English sustenen, from Anglo-French sustein-, stem of sustenir, from Latin sustinēre to hold up, sustain, from sub-, sus- up + tenēre to hold — more at sub-, thin

Date:

13th century

1: to give support or relief to
2: to supply with sustenance : nourish
3: keep up, prolong
4: to support the weight of : prop; also : to carry or withstand (a weight or pressure)
5: to buoy up <sustained by hope>
6 a: to bear up under b: suffer, undergo <sustained heavy losses>
7 a: to support as true, legal, or just b: to allow or admit as valid sustained the motion>
8: to support by adequate proof : confirm sustains our contention>

Now, emulate.

emulate

Pronunciation:

\ˈem-yə-ˌlāt, -yü-\

Function:

transitive verb

Inflected Form(s):

em·u·lat·ed; em·u·lat·ing

Etymology:

Latin aemulatus, past participle of aemulari, from aemulus rivaling

Date:

1582

1 a: to strive to equal or excel b: imitate; especially : to imitate by means of an emulator
2: to equal or approach equality with

So, are we supposed to bear up our leaders, to buoy them up, and to support them as legal and just? Or are we suposed to imitate them? Really, I have no idea at what my bishop is trying to get at. If it is the former, I do that wholeheartedly. The latter, I'm not to sure about. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, we are taught that Jesus' life is our example, and that Jesus is our exemplar. Jesus is the Master of all the masters; His teachings supercede Buddha's, Lao Tzu's, Confucius', Moses', and Joseph Smith's. These other masters all complement their Master in their teachings on how a person can reach his or her fullest potential. So, why is emulating President Hinckley more important than living the Life of Jesus? I have no idea; but I'm beginning to feel that I'm being pulled this way and that way with my relationship to my bishop.

Jiang Hu Hong Kong (and Salt Lake City)

After my censure by ICE, I decided to work on a few things that would prove that I'm capable of originality. The first thing is an adventure designed for strong action in a world of Shadow and Martial Arts; a shared world known as Jiang Hu (which means "Rivers and Lakes").

In this first, adrenaline charged, high octane adventure; our intrepid band of adventurers start in Salt Lake City and fly to Hong Kong to retrieve an artifact stolen from the Utah Museum of Fine Arts.

The adventure should contain lots of explosions and be a good, all around can of action and adventure. A high FX Adventure, the adventure is based on the d20 Modern System.

Stage of Draft: Rough.

Working with the Youth

I'm working with the Youth in my Church Group and have volunteered to join the Boy Scout Troop on the merit badge council. Although I have to wear those stupid swimsuits when I go swimming with the youth (a naked leader with the youth doesn't come with good consequences); it's a set up I have to deal with.

I'll save the swimsuit arguement at a later time.

Anyway, as secretary, I pass boys off for their Scout advancements and merit badges. Although I thought that I'd be doing something else. I'll probably will. The fun hasn't really kicked off yet. :) I was called as Young Men's Secretary earilier this month. I haven't been updating my blog; mostly because my MS Windows computer has been giving me distress. I want to shoot it with a 12 gauge shotgun (BLAM!).

Writing for ICE

My dream for writing for Rolemaster has been dashed mostly because I have a problem coming up with original stuff. Well, the problem is simple. I do have a hard time coming up with original stuff. This is simply because I agonize over it. I fuss and fuss and don't let the gear work turn. ;)

However, the gear works have turned, actually. I did think of something original. It's an idea that will work nicely.

School

Sorry about the relative quietness, but I'm making preparations to go back to school. As of today, my computer has been going haywire lately. A windows ME machine, it has been trying my patience. I scream at it every time I get a fatal error. It's just insane to buy another Windows Machine.

So, I've decided to stop the insanity and pick up an Apple MacBook Pro. It's mainly for school, and it's been fortuitous to get ready for school and get a private education loan. So, it's a plus.

We Are Responsible for Creating Pornography

Simple as that. We created the monster that lives and breathes on the Internet.

In all actuality, we created Pornography for the very reason why we abhore it. Most of the US does not like naked bodies. Nevertheless, we created Pornography any way by giving it definition. In Victorian Times. Yes, it was Victorian Times when pornography was conceived. The Victorian Prude, found everywhere, was instrumental in creating Pornography. By making the body a forbidding thing, only between man and wife was pornography given a form, identity, definition, and a function.

Now that bastard child of Victorian times invades our homes via the Internet and everyone can see the Frankenstein we've created. Yet, even now, anti-pornography organizations have sprung up to combat the monster. "We must defeat or destroy pornography!" they cry. "Kill the ogre!"

By rallying against pornography we are creating even more pornography! It is the Law that what ever we fight against must needs expand so that it will always exist for us to contest against. We are effectively giving pornography power in order to do this. However, there is hope.

The hope is that Pornography continues to spread like wildfire so that people will finally recognize Pornography for what it actually is. And then, they will recognize it's opposite: Wholesome Family and Social Nudity; and discover that Nudism and Naturism provide the best way to defeat the ogre. Wholesome Family and Social Nudity truly opposes Pornography in a most perfect and bright way.

By participating in Wholesome Social Nudity, a man or a woman can counteract the lessons they've learned. That the body is a wholesome creation of God; and therefore sex itself is wholesome. By focusing on Wholesome Social Nudity, Pornography can actually lose its steam. It can run out of firewood to burn and become eventually harmless.

In fact, the signs are encouraging. Wholesome Nudity is on the rise: nude recreation is one of the fastest growing industries in the U.S. today. Married couples are spending more and more time in the nude. Scientific research is encouraging this: stating that it is actually healthy to sunbathe. Nudist parents are raising nudist children who are well adjusted and balanced. So, as pornography grows, so does it's Opposite. And the future is bright in this regard.

The Campaign for Natural Beauty

One of the worst things about the Fashion and Entertainment Industry is what they do to average looking models. They take the model, and sit her in a booth. Then they put all the make up on her and blow her hair to make it look attractive and beautiful. After the photoshoot, they digitally scan or take the digital photo in photoshop and alter the image to erase any look of average that you can recognize. Creating a totally hypocritical and bogus picture of beauty. Like the poster below. Her breasts are artificially enlarged and her legs probably altered.


Posters

Blech! What a terrible thing to do to a beautiful woman like that. Men should campaign for more natural looking beauties, and women should fight for less hypocrisy in the Fashion and Entertainment industry. One of the best ways to start is to see the video below.

Looking back

Hello fellow bloggers and greatful readers. I've been looking back at my High School days and at my Year Book for the Class of '93. Its surprising how handsome I actually looked like at 18. I was, as I am now, a beautiful sort of person back in '93. And I just now realize that.

I really do need to exercise. I also looked at my High School crush, a girl that I'm still in love with; and I realize what attraction is. And I'll get into my theory on attraction later; actually it's truth as I understand it. Beauty is an important principle of the Universe, and we need mathematics to understand the concept of beauty. Mathematics is the key to understanding this beauty.

To show you what I mean, I'm going to upload a beautiful picture in honor of Nude Blogging Day. :) And believe me, she is beautiful. Not as beautiful as my Love, but beautiful still. It's the picture of a family, going at least three or four generations.

Atlantis Design Diary: Heraclitus

It is time for Heraclitus. As a native a Ephesus, Heraclitus was a nobleman at birth. Heraclitus taught that everything has an opposite. Life and Death, Sin and Happiness, Success and Failure. These all existed in the world as opposites, according to Heraclitus. He also saw the great majority of human beings as lacking true understanding.

Some Teachings:

• “All things come into being through opposition, and are in flux like a river.” -- Heraclitus. Like Xenophanes, Heraclitus rejected the anthropomorphism of popular religion, but what is peculiar to Heraclitus is the sheer sweep of his vision of the world-order as a dynamic equilibrium of opposite movements.
• The life of the world-order lies in continual change.
• The tension of opposing forces which Anaximander calls “injustice” are part of the cosmic process itself; without them there would be no alteration of summer and winter. These “injustices” which the opposites commit against each other are as essential to the well-being of the whole as the reparation which they make to one another. In the eyes of the gods, therefore, they are not injustices at all, for their occurrence is necessary to the functioning of the cosmos.
• The modern humanist might take issue with Heraclitus’ sanctification of war, but it must be acknowledged that, since he turned his attention beyond explanations of natural phenomena — beyond physics — Heraclitus was in a sense the founder of Greek metaphysics, even though his successor, Parmenides, is almost universally regarded as the founder of this branch of philosophy.
  

Commentary: Heraclitus was correct to say that we live in a world of opposite forces. Lehi revealed this fact in the Book of Mormon, in second Nephi:

For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my first-born in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.

Wherefore, it must needs have been created for a thing of naught; wherefore there would have been no purpose in the end of its creation. Wherefore, this thing must needs destroy the wisdom of God and his eternal purposes, and also the power, and the mercy, and the justice of God.
2nd Nephi 2:11-12.

However, Heraclitus was only half-right in saying that every man shared the same soul. It is true that we do, however, as much as we are connected, everyone has a separate and distinct personality. And as much as we are separate from each other, we are all connected. I'm you and you're me; yet I have a different personality from you so that you can gain perspective on your own life.

External Links:

• Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy's article on Heraclitus.
• Heraclitus' highlights on Hypatia lovers dot com.
• Wikipedia's entry on Heraclitus.
• Some of Heraclitus' quotes.
  

Finding a way to get ahead

A lot of people are angry in Utah that housing costs are up 300%, gas is up 300%, and food is up 300%. Plus the fact that salaries in Utah are not catching up. A lot of people find it hard to stay in the black. However some are making it by themselves.

High gas prices, food costs, home expenses and huge debts are making it hard for many Utahns to make ends meet. Some say the government needs to help more. Others say they are making it work by themselves.

But the Hardings aren't waiting for society's help. They are doing it themselves. "We save first. We pay ourselves first. We have a great budget," Lori says.

Lori and Charles Harding say they have found saving has helped their family of five make ends meet.

Lori says, "It's the little steps. Not stopping at 7-11, or bringing your own lunch. Renting a video instead of going to the movie theater. Every step in the right direction gets you there."

Read the Entire story here:
KSL newscast.

Information: Vitamin D may Fight Cancers

The Buffalo News for Buffalo, New York has reported a study on how manufacturing Vitamin D may fight many types of cancers. From the article:

Research suggests vitamin D helps regulate cell growth and differentiation, the process that determines what a cell becomes. This is important in cancer. Cells should change normally, such as the way skin cells form throughout life, and not proliferate wildly to produce a malignant tumor.

As such, vitamin D is seen both as a protectant against cancer and as a potential treatment.

“Vitamin D may inhibit cells from growing and dividing and may kill tumor cells in some cases. It may also cause cancer cells to change into more mature, harmless cells,” said Dr. Candace Johnson, senior vice president for translational research at Roswell Park.

In recent years, the cancer center has put together a large, well funded vitamin D research team.

The researchers have demonstrated in laboratory tests that several forms of vitamin D control cells in ways that can prevent cancer and regulate proteins that affect tumor growth.

The institute also recently started a clinical trial of high-dose vitamin D replacement in individuals with high risk of lung cancer, and other scientists there are looking at boosting the effect of chemotherapy by adding vitamin D.

Read the full article here.

Birthright Campaign Setting

I've been reading an old favorite AD&D campaign setting. Birthright is one of the best campaign settings to come out of TSR in a very long time. The idea about Birthright is roleplaying High Fantasy with a bent on politics and intrigue. In Birthright, you play kings, queens, counts and contessas, barons and baronesses, earls, lords and ladies, and princes and princesses. You can also play pontiffs in a mighty theocracy; or be adroit corporate businessmen and merchant princes.

Fighters, Rangers, and Paladins manage Law holdings and make war. Clerics, Priests, and Druids manage Temple Holdings, theives and rogues manage guild and trade holdings, while sorcerers and wizards control mighty source holdings. Finally, the cultures are based on real world analogues: The Anuireans are based on Early Renassiance England and France (i.e. around the time of Henry Tudor VII); the Khinasi are based on the Spanish Moors at the hieght of their power; the Brechts are based on the Hanseatic League, the Rjurik are based on the Viking and Pictish cultures; and the Vos are based on the Mongol culture with a strong Russian influence.

In the Campaign Setting, which is taking some ideas from the Highlander franchise and turned them into an interesting campaign setting. The game is based on Richard Baker's old novel manuscript: Kingmaker.
It's awesome to be reading about it again. I'm looking forward to playing it as Atlantis is shaped.