For people deciding to lose weight, it is important to eat enough food to ensure that you get 100% of the vitamins and minerals needed, as well as sufficient protein, and essential fatty acids. This post illustrates how this may be done by eating a whole-food plant-based diet of about 1,000 calories. Most of us need more calories than 1,000, but using this as a base, one can be assured that they are getting the nutrients they need and adding more calories will simply increase the nutrients. This base has about 21 g of fiber as well. The foods used are broccoli, spinach, mushrooms, and brown rice. Using the free software CRON-o-Meter, we can play around and make substitutes. To begin with, we need to figure out how many calories we need daily to maintain our existing weight, to maintain our goal weight, and to lose weight to reach our goal weight.

Quick Rule of Thumb for Calories

If you multiply your present weight by 15 this gives you the approximate number of calories you need to eat each day to maintain that weight. For example, if you weigh 200 pounds, then you need 3,000 calories to maintain your weight.

To lose about 2 pounds a week, you multiply your weight by 10. For example, if you weight 200 pounds, then to lose 2 pounds a week (approximately) you would need to reduce your caloric intake to 2,000 calories.

Another way to look at this is to use your goal weight. For example, if you presently weigh 200 pounds, but would like to weigh 150 pounds (“goal weight”), then you multiply your goal weight by 15. This results in 2250 calories per day. Theoretically, using these rules of thumb, you should just eat 2250 calories per day or less to lose weight and then maintain that weight at 150 pounds for the rest of your life.

These rules of thumb are from the text Nutrition for Health, Fitness, & Sport, Ninth Edition; Melvin H. Williams (hereinafter referred to as “Nutrition“).

Protein

We need to eat a diet that provides all 20 amino acids — keep in mind, however, that humans can synthesize some amino acids in their bodies but cannot synthesize others. Nutrition, p. 213. Nine amino acids cannot be manufactured by the body: these are called essential, or indispensable, amino acids, and must be supplied by the diet. Those that may be formed in the body are called nonessential, or dispensable, amino acids. Id. Six of the dispensable amino acids are conditionally indispensable: they must be obtained through the diet when endogenous synthesis cannot meet metabolic demands, such as in severe catabolic states. Although nutrition scientists prefer the terms indispensable and dispensable, I will use the terms essential and nonessential since these terms are commonly used. Id.

The essential amino acids are: histidine, isoleucine (branched chain), leucine (branched chain), lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine (branched chain). The nonessential amino acids are: alanine, arginine (conditionally essential), asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine (conditionally essential), glutamic acid, glutamine (conditionally essential), glycine (conditionally essential), proline (conditionally essential), serine, and tyrosine (conditionally essential).

All natural, unprocessed animal and plant foods contain all 20 amino acids; however, the amount of each amino acid in specific foods varies.

How Much Dietary Protein Do We Need?

Humans actually do not need protein per se, but rather an adequate amount of nitrogen and essential amino acids. However, because all nine essential amino acids and almost all dietary nitrogen are derived from dietary protein, it serves as the basis for our daily requirements.

Here is the daily RDA for the essential amino acids for an adult male (70 kg or 154 lb):

Histidine — 980 mg (or 14 mg/kg)

Isoleucine — 1,260 mg (or 19 mg/kg)

Leucine — 2,940 mg (or 42 mg/kg)

Lysine — 2,660 mg (or 38 mg/kg)

Methionine plus cysteine — 1,260 mg (or 19 mg/kg)

Phenylalanine plus tyrosine — 2,310 mg (or 33 mg/kg)

Threonine — 1,400 mg (or 20 mg/kg)

Tryptophan — 350 mg (or 5 mg/kg)

Valine — 1,680 mg (or 24 mg/kg)

Total — 14,840 mg

Strength Training

Individuals involved in strength training, such as weight lifters, bodybuilders, and football players, are usually interested in increasing muscle mass and decreasing body fat, as well as improving strength and power. Other than water, protein is the main component of muscle tissue, so strength-trained individuals have valued dietary protein as a key nutrient for centuries as a means of maximizing muscle protein synthesis. Nutrition, p. 223.

Unfortunately, there is very little scientific information about the specific protein requirements for the development of lean muscle mass in weight-training programs. Protein balance is usually positive during these programs, and research studies have suggested that weight lifters could retain between 7 and 28 grams of protein per day, a range of about 12-50 percent of the RDA for an adult 70 kg male. Although it might be assumed this protein would be assimilated as muscle tissue, this has not been determined. A number of respected investigators have recommended that weight lifters and other athletes training to increase muscle mass and strength, particularly the developing adolescent athlete and those in the early stages of training, consume more protein.

The National Academy of Sciences notes that although athletes commonly believe they need a higher protein intake to maintain optimum physical performance, few studies have evaluated the protein needs of individuals engaged in strenuous physical activity such as resistance training. The Academy has criticized the available studies and concluded the available data do not support the conclusion that the protein requirement for resistance training is greater than that of nonexercising subjects.

Michael Rennie, an international scholar in protein metabolism, has noted that muscle contractile activity enhances the anabolic response so that habitual training makes individuals more efficient users of dietary protein, suggesting that physically active people probably do not need to eat more protein and could likely manage perfectly adequately on less.

Let’s look . . . at the young resistance-trained athlete who wants to gain body weight, preferably in the form of muscle tissue, through a weight-training program. The protein RDA for an adolescent male is 0.85 gram per kilogram. [Keep in mind that the RDA contains a safety factor and actually provides more protein than required by most individuals. Nutrition p. 234.] At moderate activity levels, the average 70-kg adolescent male would be in protein balance with about 60 grams daily. However, according to the suggested upper recommendation of about 1.7 grams per kilogram, he would need about 119 g daily, if involved in a strenuous training program. Is this a reasonable amount?

One pound of muscle tissue is equal to 454 grams, and its composition is approximately 70 percent water, 7 percent lipids, and 22 percent muscle tissue. hence, one pound of muscle contains about 100 grams of protein (454 x 0.22). If the desired weight gain is one pound of lean body mass per week, a reasonable goal, then this young male would need to assimilate an additional 14 grams of protein per day (100 grams/7 days) to supply the amount in one pound of muscle tissue. A gain of two pounds per week, although probably more difficult to accomplish, would require the assimilation of 28 additional grams of protein per day. Let us be liberal and estimate an additional 22 grams of protein per day to cover losses due to exercise. In summary, assuming that a portion of these protein needs are not covered by the safety margin incorporated in the RDA, this young athlete would need approximately 110 grams of protein per day (60+28+22) to gain 2 pounds of lean body tissue per week, or about 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram body weight. This value falls within the recommended range for resistance-trained athletes.

The average caloric intake for a moderately active young male averages 2500 to 3000 calories per day. It is important to note that adequate energy intake, primarily in the form of carbohydrates, will improve protein balance. In essence, an increased energy intake appears to decrease protein requirements somewhat. Nutrition, p. 225.

If the protein portion of the dietary Calories averaged 12 percent, a general recommended level of protein intake, then the intake of protein would approximate 1.5 — 1.7 grams per kilogram of body weight, which parallels the amounts estimated in the examples previously cited. Currently, the protein content of the average American is 12 to 16 percent, and Walberg-Rankin recently noted that most athletes consume this much or more in their daily diets. Consuming a diet with a protein content of 15 percent could provide a value of 2.0 grams or more per kilogram body weight, and other surveys among strength-type athletes indicate they obtain this amount. These values approach or exceed the higher amounts recommended by some investigators for individuals in training.

Consume protein, preferably with carbohydrates, before and after workouts.

Be Prudent Regarding Protein Intake

Whether or not athletes in training need additional protein is not clear at this time. Two experts in protein metabolism, Kevin Tipton and Robert Wolfe, noted that given sufficient energy intake [carbohydrates], lean body mass can be maintained within a wide range of protein intakes. They note that there are few convincing data to indicate that the ingestion of a high amount of protein (2-3 grams per kilogram of body weight) is necessary. Based on current literature, they conclude that it may be too simplistic to rely on recommendations of a particular amount of protein per day because the amount depends on energy intake, type of protein, and timing of intake.

Example of the Minimalist Diet

Alright, having discussed protein needs, its time to look at a minimum base diet that is healthful and that meets more than minimum needs of protein, carbohydrates, fat, fiber, vitamins and minerals. This is just an example, and one should substitute according to personal taste preferences.

One pound of broccoli flower clusters — 127.1 calories

1 cup of rice cooked — 684.5 calories

14 whole pieces of crimini mushrooms — 61.6 calories

One pound of spinach — 131.7 calories

This is about 1,000 calories. It provides 51 grams of protein, 197 grams of carbohydrates, 9 grams of fat, and over 100% of the RDA of vitamins and minerals.

Histidine — 1,000 mg

Isoleucine — 2,000 mg

Leucine — 3,200 mg

Lysine — 3,100 mg

Methionine plus cysteine — 1,300 mg

Phenylalanine plus tyrosine — 4400 mg

Threonine — 2300 mg

Tryptophan — 900 mg

Valine — 2600 mg

From the above, this minimalist meal provides a complete protein for a 154 lb male. Adding additional whole plant foods would increase the amount.

As for vitamins:

A — 55,907 IU

Folate — 1,057 mcg

B1 — 1.8 mg

B2 — 3.1 mg

B3 — 25.3 mg

B5 — 9.8 mg

B6 — 2.8 mg

C — 217 mg

E — 19.4 mg

K — 1,692 mcg

Minerals:

Calcium — 785 mg

Chromium — 117 mcg

Copper — 2.8 mg

Magnesium — 744 mg

Manganese — 12 mg

Phosphorus — 1,474 mg

Potassium — 4,713 mg

Selenium — 157 mcg

S0dium — 488 mg

Zinc — 11 mg

Essential fatty acids:

Omega-3 — 1 gm

Omega-6 — 2 gm

Fiber: 21 g

There you have it. If you want to lose weight and ensure adequate intake of nutrients, this is one diet you can follow with confidence. If you are a weight-trainer and eat 3,000 calories a day to bulk up using the above foods, then your protein intake would increase to 150 grams of complete protein — and that is plenty!!

I’m beginning to think that today’s atheists are complete fools when compared to those atheists of the past.

 

From what I have read, it seems that atheists in the past understood that the nature of the average person was basically selfish and brutish, and the purpose of religion was at least two-fold: (1) provide an economic and emotional safety net for those in need, and (2) scare believers into at least acting virtuously on average (obviously, there were and will always be scoundrels who cannot be scared into a fear of Hell or the promise of some reward in Heaven to get them to act virtuously).

 

For the most part, religious belief never helped those who were virtuous by nature and prosperous, but religious belief did seem to make nasty people act less nasty — so religious belief had value and past atheists recognized this. As an aside, it does seem that atheists were able to temper religious belief so that over time it became more tolerant of in pertinent part atheists. For the most part, a belief in God by a majority of the people protected those were could wink at religion and keep silent about persuading the weak-minded that there was no God and ipso facto “virtue” was man made.

 

Those past atheists understood that if they convinced the average “Joe” that there was no “God”, no “Hell,” no “Heaven”, then there was no safeguard protecting the weak in the society from the strong and ruthless.

 

Moreover, during the political enlightenment, it was necessary to come up with a theory justifying the notion that liberty does not spring from the state but some transcendent force called a Creator.

 

Now for atheists, the term “Creator” meant “Nature” but for theists the term “Creator” meant “God.”

 

Nevertheless, the theory was that life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness were based on natural law and not the State.

 

Hence, for example, in the US Declaration of Independence we find justification for revolting against the State based on “natural law” — we are endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

 

Atheists of old were all in on this — unfortunately, today’s American atheists have been raised in a society tempered by a more tolerant Christianity in the US and they seem to think that people are good by nature and the poor would never think of rising up and taking from and killing the rich, and just raping, pillaging, and plundering in general.

 

Atheists of old, understood what Hobbs meant when he opined that without the ameliorating effect of Christianity (through a conflation of church and state) the state of nature was solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short. 

 

Today’s atheists, are living on borrowed time as they continue to destroy a belief in a Creator, and ipso facto natural law. Better to understand that it is better to strengthen tolerant religious beliefs based on a Creator?

 

Successful civilizations have been based on “myth,” and once the myths were destroyed the civilizations collapsed. Today’s atheists are ignorant of the reasons why religion plays a key role in a society and in particular the protection of the few who choose to not believe.

 

A Sufi wrote this and I like it:

“Four thousand years before God created these bodies, He created the souls and kept them beside Himself and shed a light upon them. He knew what quantity each soul received and He showed favor to each in proportion to its illumination. The souls remained all that time in light, until they became fully nourished. Those who in this world live in joy and agreement with one another must have been akin to one another in that place. Here they love one another and are called the friends of God, and they are brothers who love one another for God’s sake. These souls know one another by smell, like horses. Though one be in the East and the other in the West, they still feel joy and comfort in each others’ talk, and one who lives in a later generation than the other is instructed and consoled by the words of his friend. -Sufi shaykh Abu Sa’id ibn Abi’l-Khayr (967-1049); source: N. Hanif, Biographical Encyclopedia of Sufis (New Delhi: Sarup & Sons, 2002), pp.48-9.

For 912 1/2 days in Japan, those I met kept pounding into my brain that “things” are not black and white – they are somewhere located in a grey area — or “things” are not right or wrong – there is just too much uncertainty about a priori assumptions taken as “right or wrong” – “things” are not “true” or “false” which is a false dichotomy. Eventually, I finally got it and understood the concept of “faith” versus “knowledge” and learned to distinguish the two as partners in what I think of metaphorically as our “Dance of Life” – the only question to answer is which one, “faith” or “knowledge” is the lead partner.

See Alma 32.

In Alma 32, an argument is presented regarding a technique for deciding whether a particular lifestyle (religious philosophy) is subjectively correct for a particular person. The argument recognizes the necessity of faith. 

Neither must you lay aside your faith, for you have only exercised your faith to plant the seed that you might try the experiment to know if the seed is good. . . . If you will not nourish the word, looking forward with an eye of faith to the fruit thereof, you can never pluck of the fruit of the tree of life.

Alma 32: 36, 40. The first step, therefore, having a “desire to believe,” is critical (see verse 27), and this desire in my opinion is rooted in the condition precedent we call faith. Thus, in my metaphor of the “Dance of Life” the controlling partner must be faith and not knowledge.

In verse 26, we find:

Now, as I said concerning faith — that it was not a perfect knowledge — even so it is with my words. [We] cannot know of their surety at first, unto perfection, any more than faith is a perfect knowledge.

This is where Alma gets interesting in my opinion when he discusses “knowledge” philosophically. Alma gives us a worldview that defines our place in it, and a possible relationship of mankind and God. Alma 32 may in my opinion be argued to be a spiritual learning and instructional theory developed in respect of a particular set of assumptions regarding what it means to know and learn about spiritual/metaphysical “things” (viz., inter alia, the existence of God and the efficacy of the “word” (meaning I am assuming “scripture” which in the LDS view includes, without limitation, the teachings of living prophets). Thus, in my view, Alma conflates epistemology, ontology, and pragmatism — which makes Alma 32 philosophically elegant. I use the foregoing terms as follows:

Epistemology: How we come to know about what exists.

Ontology: What exists in the world.

Pragmatism: The view that knowledge is derived from interaction among groups of individuals and the artifacts in their environment (here referring to and including LDS members and seekers for a spiritual witness of the existence of God, Christ, and the Holy Ghost, and the efficacy of scripture or the “word”), which together create a reality.

We do not need to distinguish whether Alma is making epistemological or ontological assumptions for example. Arguably, Alma recognized that attempting to distinguish the theoretical perspectives and assumptions of the foregoing would be trivial to sort out, and any distinctions would have little practical significance. Alma therefore relies on pragmatism as his main argument.

Alma advocates a particular activity with a tacit theory of how the nonbeliever, living in the world among believers and nonbelievers, should think and learn to become a believer. It all begins with faith — the metaphor used in Alma 32 is “planting the seed.”

Epistemology and ontology mutually support one another. Epistemology addresses the origins, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge, focusing on questions about knowledge and the nature of knowledge. Ontology addresses the nature of being and liberty (what Mormons call “agency”). An ontology defines what is real in the world, whether physical or abstract structures (we know that we only have an understanding of God existing based on a priori assumptions that we take on faith and assume are correct assumptions, but Alma says “no” we don’t need to make those assumptions, we can make a test and if the results are subjectively “good” then that is enough for us to live happy, content lives).

At this point, I think it is important to think about Alma’s approach to “rationalism and idealism.”

Rationalism is generally discussed from an epistemological view: reason is the principle source of knowledge. Early perspectives on rationalism posited that everything exists in one’s mind a priori, and in the context of Alma 32, the task for a seeker of metaphysical/spiritual truth is to discover what is already there (Mormons would go further and define this as the still, small voice we hear in our minds but claim that this voice is actually external rather than internal — while a Buddhist or Hindu might argue that through meditation we discover what is already within us). The ontological base of idealism, more pronounced than what might be implied by rationalism, holds that reality is psychological and all knowledge and experience are formed by these mental representations. Hence, through this conflation, Alma instructs us that subjectively we can know through pragmatic action (as discussed above, “pragmatism” is neither an epistemology or an ontology), and we do not need to rely on reason.

Stating the obvious (I apologize), Alma is not talking about the path to develop faith, but the path to have faith in the “word”. (See, e.g., verse 28) The “seed” is the “word.” Faith is the ability to take the first step: a desire to believe then plant the seed. “[I]f a seed grows it is good, but if it doesn’t grow then it is bad, therefore that seed is cast away.” (Verse 32) Arguably, the foregoing, and Alma 32, applies to all systems of religion and philosophy — we can find good in all the principles of differing systems of religion and philosophy which explains why there are so many different systems that adherents find “good”. (See discussion below however about “superset” versus “subset”.)

In verse 33, Alma argues that because we have tried the experiment, and planted the seed (the “word” which Alma compares to a “seed” – verse 28), and IF the seed swells and sprouts, and begins to grow, then we must “needs know that the seed is good.” And, even after the foregoing, Alma asks if our “knowledge is perfect”? (verse 34), Alma qualifies his affirmative answer to his rhetorical question: our “knowledge is perfect in that thing.” That is, our knowledge that the “seed is good” is perfect. Indeed, this is what pragmatism is all about: a subjective test, based on faith, that results in a positive experience for us — hence, we need not go further. Once we KNOW that the word (living the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ) is good, then our “faith is dormant”: we know because living the Gospel has “swelled our souls,” and our “understanding begins to be enlightened,” and our “mind begins to expand.” (verse 34) (As mentioned above, this principle applies to all philosophical and religious systems — one can test any religious or irreligious system and determine subjectively that the principles embodied therein are “good”.)

But even after experiencing the foregoing, which Alma chooses to define as “light” (which is a symbolic representation of “knowledge”), we know that this “light” is “good” (verse 35), but then Alma asks whether after we have tasted this light is our knowledge perfect? (verse 35) Alma answers this rhetorical question by saying: “No!” (verse 36) We must still rely on our faith. All we have done is to exercise our faith to plant the seed (the “word” – living the Gospel) that we “might try the experiment to know if the seed was good.” Alma DOES NOT argue that we can know if the Gospel is TRUE — only if it is GOOD.

My metaphor of the “Dance of LIfe” is, inter alia, about the dichotomy of “true or false”, “good or bad”, etc. Arguably, a testimony of the efficacy of any belief-system in a person’s life is based subjectively own the type of “knowledge” argued in Alma 32 (subjective pragmatic experiences): subjectively knowing (believing?) that the “seed” — restored Gospel of Jesus Christ — is “good”. Some examples in the LDS faith of the “word” being “good”: prayers are answered, blessing the sick who believe that such blessings can be efficacious (placebo effect?), experiencing a burning in our bosom or a stupor of thought in certain situations, feeling having heard the still, small voice actually telling the believer important truths and advising on decisions a believer should make that had not even been previously considered, feeling directed to do certain things, all of which, arguably, have blessed lives of believers– that is, applying the teachings of the “word” have worked to the “good” of the believer. The believer has felt that unique feeling — a force or power if you will — when participating in ordinances and ceremonies; bearing in mind that Alma 32 does not argue that these experiences constitute a proof that what is believe is true, but only that these experiences are proof that what is believed is good — if, indeed, one has good experiences springing from any particular belief-system (i.e., even atheists or agnostics (or both), or anyone embracing any belief-system can experience “good”. As for me, I’ll take “good” over “true” any day of the week!

 Consequently, even though personally I cannot logically argue that I “know” the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true, or that Christ’s church was restored to the world through Joseph Smith, or that God even exists, both “epistemologically and ontologically” I can argue truthfully that I understand all of the foregoing is “good for me” and ipso facto “true” pragmatically (for me subjectively). In this respect, a person may be an “intellectual atheist” and a “spiritual theist” at the same time without any mental or spiritual dissonance; viz., a “testimony” is based on my subjective metaphysical experiences — on “feelings” — and on the “good” experienced (subjectively).   

Of course, these types of religious experience, for example, are common with believers of all other religions. Hence, one may soundly argue that even though what one believes is true may not be true, since there is no objective proof, one may soundly argue that what one believes is good for them (e.g., makes them happy). We find this argument by the founder of the LDS Church:

I see no faults in the Church, and therefore let me be resurrected with the Saints, whether I ascend to heaven or descend to hell, or go to any other place. And if we go to hell, we will turn the devils out of doors and make a heaven of it.

Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church, vol. 5, p. 517. To me, this is the core of Alma’s argument (and indirectly 1 Nephi 1:1 and D&C 122) — the point of Mormonism is to improve our lives and happiness; it is, like Zen, a religious philosophy of action; it is all about improving the world and society we live in, as well as our own lives, through helping others, and being helped — it is a “plan of happiness.” 

Alma 32 goes on, however, in arguing that just because we gain this knowledge that the restored Gospel is good, that is not the end of our journey. We cannot neglect our testimonies based on the seed; that is the “tree” is our testimony based on our personal revelation through our test of living Gospel principles that the “seed is good.” We cannot lay aside our faith, because all we have done is only to exercise our faith to plant the seed that we might try the experiment to know if the seed was good. (verse 36). In my opinion, this does not mean that we try to gain an intellectual knowledge (epistemologically or ontologically) that proves what we subjectively believe is “true” rather than “good” thereby laying aside our faith and relying solely on what we perceive erroneously as knowledge. We have to nourish our beliefs pragmatically with great care and enjoy the blessings of living the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ. (Which btw includes all the wisdom and knowledge of the world found, without limitation, in the good books of the earth, which includes all the wisdom found in the “scriptures” of other good religious systems; this is one of the beauties of Mormonism — we know that truth is found in Catholicism, Protestantism, Hinduism, Buddhism, Taoism, Sufi Islam, Jainism, and other good religions, as well as in all philosophical writings; using a metaphor of mathematics, “Mormonism” is the superset encompassing all subsets (that is all other religious, philosophical, and scientific systems). This alone should persuade the seeker of truth to embrace “Mormon Philosophy” — the seeker of truth does not need to lose anything but may gain everything from an intellectual and metaphysical perspective through the study of other religions, philosophies, science, etc..) The starting point however is embodied in Alma’s metaphor, and in the decision embodied in my metaphor of deciding whether faith or knowledge will direct our lives once we have decided to plant the seed.

Those who fall away from the LDS Church, have forgotten the philosophical elegance of a religious system that metaphorically is a “truth-magnet”, have neglected their good experiences (found in all religious systems) and “take no thought for its nourishment.” In my opinion, they forget that the essence of a belief in Mormonism is not some intellectual, philosophical proof of whether, without limitation, the First Vision occurred, the issue of polygamy, whether the Book of Mormon, Bible, etc., are more historical or allegorical, were inspired by “God” or just reflect the brilliance and wisdom of the men and women who may have written them, but is simply without limitation this: are our prayers answered? have we experienced the power of the priesthood? have we studied other religions and philosophies and increased our understanding of the metaphysical and intellectual arguments regarding the nature of God, living a better life, etc.? Those who fall away have simply ignored the depth and breadth of “Mormonism”, and ipso facto have “cast” away “the tree” (their former testimonies). (verse 38)

Alma 32 argues that this is not because the seed was not good, neither is it because the fruit would not be desirable, but because the past believer’s ground is barren, and the past believer did not nourish the tree, therefore the past believer cannot have the fruit thereof.(verse 39) (Alma 32 does not argue that the foregoing is necessarily “bad” — since implicitly one may decide subjectively that the “fruit” of another “tree” is “good.”)

With respect to “Mormonism,” however, the work involved is not intellectual or seeking for some kind of sign, but simply just living a happy life based on the principles found in all religious and moral philosophical systems, all conflated into Mormonism as a single, simple source. It’s understanding that whether Mormonism is “true or false” is irrelevant to happiness.

My understanding of Alma 32 is that we may only gain a perfect knowledge of whether living the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is “good.” I may be mistaken, but I have the impression that some understand Alma 32 to mean that we can gain a perfect knowledge that the restored Gospel of Jesus Christ is “true.” I do not think Alma goes that far — moreover, I do think this is unnecessary. In my opinion, if Alma argued that we could gain absolute knowledge that what we believe is true, then this would mean “if a man knows a thing he has no cause to believe, for he knows it.” (verse 18) Alma makes it plain that he is not advocating the foregoing. A believer does not look for “a sign from heaven” so that a believer may “know of a surety” that what is believed is “true.” (verse 17)

Therefore, Alma 32 states, inter alia, blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble; or rather, in other words, blessed is he that believes in the word of God, and is baptized without stubbornness of heart, without being brought to KNOW the word, or even compelled to KNOW, before they will BELIEVE. (verse 16, emphasis not in original).

Alma 32 not is talking about “truth”: Alma 32 is taking about “good” or about happiness. In my opinion, if living the Gospel (planting the seed) grows into a testimony (a tree), and partaking of the blessings of living the Gospel (the fruit) enriches and blesses our lives, then this is “good” and we do not need to even think about some epistemological or ontological proof of the source of what we believe but merely “stay on the sunny side of doubt” and actually live what we believe. 

Alma 32 fits in nicely with the Mormon worldview that “Adam fell that men might be, and men are that they might have joy.” (2 Nephi 2:25). It is completely irrelevant whether the foregoing is “true” or “false,” but it does show that the end-goal of Mormonism is subjective happiness or joy (sounds like Aristotle’s argument). 

The foregoing are simply my thoughts shared to explain my thinking and not to convince you that I have a correct understanding. Personally, before deciding to replace one belief system with another, one has an affirmative duty to first learn all that there is to know about their existing belief system. “Better not take someone else’s religion, plenty wisdom in your own.” (Attributed to the Dalai Lama as heard by John Taylor Gatto: “Tenzin Gyatso also tossed another bitter herb into the pot for those romantic souls who expected a continuous sweet presence in their lives from imported religious teaching which they felt lacking in their own, saying, ‘Better not take someone else’s religion, plenty wisdom in your own’. http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/14h.htm)  

This soup recipe provides more than 100% of the RDA of vitamins and minerals (except for B-12 and Vitamin D), 908 calories, 75 grams of complete protein, 153 grams of complex carbohydrate, 5.8 grams of healthful fat, and 47 grams of fiber.

Ingredients:

454 grams of raw spinach

74 grams (about 14 or so) shiitake mushrooms (raw)

3 big stalks of celery (raw)

4 T Nutritional Yeast (I use Lewis Labs yeast — its not bitter)

1 6 oz can of tomato paste (no salt added)

2 cups frozen green peas

1 cup frozen yellow corn

2 cups or so of boiling water

Add vinegar and salt to taste

Blend the above ingredients in a VitaMix starting with the spinach, then add the mushrooms, then the celery, then the nutritional yeast, then the tomato paste, then the frozen green peas, yellow corn, and add in the boiling water to fill up the VitaMix and continue to blend until everything is blended and the soup is hot. This is a creamy soup green in color (you can add a raw beet if you want a red soup).

Enjoy.

At the outset, there is no RDA for lycopene. It is not an essential nutrient; however, this post discusses the benefits of lycopene found naturally in certain foods (I am not talking about wasting our money on buying lycopene supplements — too many studies show that taking supplements does more harm than good even though there are benefits when eating natural whole plants to get such) and the benefits for our health even though there is no RDA. (As an aside, there are studies showing that we should avoid taking vitamin  pills and other supplements, and just get all the vitamins, minerals, etc., needed from natural, whole plant foods; e.g., http://www.drmcdougall.com/misc/2010nl/may/vitamins.htm.)

The name of lycopene is derived from the tomato’s species classification: lycopersicon esculentum. Therefore, visually, lycopene is a carotenoid responsible for the red color of the tomato, watermelon and pink grapefruit. Interestingly, the highest natural concentrations of lycopene in food are found not in tomatoes, but in watermelon. So this summer, let’s eat lots of watermelon! 🙂 (Importantly, however, of 46 fruits and vegetables evaluated, only tomato products showed a measurable relationship with reduced prostate cancer risk!)

Watermelon contains 15 to 20 milligrams (15,000 to 20,000 mcg) of lycopene per 2-cup serving; however, most all dietary lycopene is derived from tomato products. Lycopene content of tomatoes can vary significantly, depending on type of tomato and ripening. The redder the tomato, the more lycopene is present. However, as an example, one 6 oz can of tomato paste has about 48 mg (48,000 mcg) of lycopene.

Lycopene is also found in apricots, papaya, pink grapefruit, and guava.

In plants, lycopene is similar to other carotenoids, serving as a light-absorbing pigment during photosynthesis and protecting cells against photosensitization. It has a unique long chain molecular structure containing 13 double bonds, more than any other carotenoid. This configuration is responsible for lycopene’s special ability to neutralize free radicals. Among the carotenoids, it is the most efficient quencher of singlet oxygen free radicals.

Lycopene has been linked with reduced risk of prostate and cervical cancers, as well as supporting cardiovascular health.

Recent findings indicate that lycopene is an important part of the human organism’s natural defense mechanism that protects us from harmful oxidizing agents.

Lycopene is an acyclic isomer of beta-carotene. Beta-carotene, which contains beta-ionone rings at each end of the molecule, is formed in plants, including tomatoes, via the action of the enzyme lycopene beta-cyclase. Lycopene is a 40 carbon atom, open chain polyisoprenoid with 11 conjugated double bonds.

Lycopene tends to concentrate in bodily tissues at higher amounts than all other carotenoids, especially in the testes and adrenal glands.

The health benefits of lycopene are attributed to its ability to protect cells against oxidative damage. Lycopene has the ability to quench singlet oxygen (more so than beta-carotene), to trap peroxyl radicals, to inhibit the oxidation of DNA, to inhibit lipid peroxidation, and in some studies, to inhibit the oxidation of low-density lipoprotein (“LDL”).

Daily consumption of tomato products providing at least 40 mg (40,000 mcg) of lycopene substantially reduces LDL oxidation. High LDL oxidation is associated with increased risk of atherosclerosis and coronary heart disease.

Lycopene helps prevent degenerative diseases by donating its electrons to oxygen free radicals thus quenching and neutralising them before they can damage cells. Free radicals are molecules that have at least one unpaired electron. By donating an electron lycopene can stabilise the free molecule.

Because lycopene is a potent antioxidant and seems to inhibit growth of cancer cells, it is logical that a higher intake of this carotenoid may indeed be associated with reduced incidence of cancer.

Several studies suggest that eating vegetables rich in lycopene, such as tomatoes or tomato-based products, may reduce the risk of getting :

• breast cancer;
• cervical cancer;
• gastrointestinal cancer;
• colorectal cancer;
• lung cancer; and,
• prostate cancer.

Carotenoids work to protect against cancer and aging-related diseases by acting as an antioxidant to counteract damaging effects of free radicals in tissues.

Lycopene is one of the major carotenoids found in human blood and tissues, and is found primarily in the testis, adrenal glands, liver, prostate, breast, colon, and lung.

Also, lycopene is found to:

• prevent oxidation of lipids and low density lipoprotein cholesterol (“LDL”);
• reduce the risk of a person developing atherosclerosis;
• reduce coronary heart disease;
• inhibit cholesterol synthesis;
• inhibit HMG-CoA (hydroxymethylglutaryl coenzyme A) reductase activity; and,
• upregulate LDL receptor activity in macrophages.

Lycopene helps prevent heart disease through this same antioxidant mechanism via an inhibition of oxidative damage to LDL cholesterol. The strong lipid antioxidant properties of lycopene make it particularly effective in blocking LDL oxidation and protecting against free radical activity on the arterial wall.

• Human studies conducted at the University of Toronto on dietary lycopene confirmed that it acts as an antioxidant. As lycopene levels in the blood go up, the levels of oxidized lipoprotein, protein and DNA compounds go down.

• A study of 48,000 men by Harvard Medical School estimated that consuming tomato products twice a week, as opposed to never, was associated with a reduced risk of prostate cancer of up to 34%.

• Research conducted into breast, lung and endometrial cancer at Ben Gurion University and Soroka Medical Center in Israel shows that lycopene is even more effective than its cousins, alpha- and beta-carotene, in causing a delay in the cell cycle progression from one growth phase to the next.

• A study, conducted by the University of North Carolina, compared fat samples from 1,379 American and European men who had suffered a heart attack with those of healthy men. It found that those with high levels of lycopene were half as likely to have an attack as those with low levels.

Age-related macular degeneration (“ARMD”) is the most common form of blindness for elderly people in the western world. Lycopene is the only micro-nutrient whose serum level is shown to be inversely related to the risk of ARMD.

For sun-worshipers and seekers of the perfect tan but having a paranoia of getting skin cancer (melanoma), lycopene may help reduce the damage to the skin caused by ultraviolet light during and after sun exposure. Skin exposure to ultraviolet radiation is responsible for sunburn, tanning, premature aging and skin cancer. These effects are partly due to the formation of oxygen free radicals. Lycopene has the ability to quench free radicals, which are highly reactive compounds that are formed in the body from normal metabolism, as well as from environmental pollutants and radiation.

Exposure to certain types of UV radiation can cause damage to DNA (the genetic material of the body) and increase the risks of skin cancer. The powerful antioxidant action of lycopene helps to prevent the oxidation of serum lipids, thus promoting arterial health.

In conclusion, major epidemiological studies show that those who eat at least 10 servings of tomato products per week, averaging about 6.5 mg (65,000 mcg) of lycopene per day (that is a lot of pizza btw!!), had the greatest reduction in cancer risk. Additional research shows that drinking two cups (about 540 ml) of tomato juice per day provides about 40 mg (40,000 mcg) of lycopene. This is the amount recommended to significantly reduce the oxidation of LDL cholesterol, according to one human dietary intervention study.

Eat well, live long, and prosper!

A Stoic Perspective on Agency, Determinism, and Human Metaphysical Liberty

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.” Gal. 6:7.

“But this I say, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly; and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully.” 2 Cor. 9:6.

“For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so 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.” 2 Ne. 2:11.

“And if you should be cast into the pit, or into the hands of murderers, and the sentence of death passed upon you; if you be cast into the deep; if the billowing surge conspire against you; if fierce winds become your enemy; if the heavens gather blackness, and all the elements combine to hedge up the way; and above all, if the very jaws of hell shall gape open the mouth wide after you, know you, my son, that all these things shall give you experience, and shall be for your good.” D&C 122:7.

“I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.” 1 Ne. 3:7.

This is a passage from the text “A New Stoicism” written by Lawrence C. Becker on this topic:

[H]uman freedom . . . [consists] in the determinative effect we have, through the exercise of our agency, on what happens in our lives — including what happens with regard to the exercise of our agency itself. Without our agency, things happen independently of our desires, preferences, and purposes, whether as the product of antecedent conditions or not. Through the exercise of our agency, insofar as it has determinate effects, events are conditioned upon our desires, aims, deliberation, and choice. Since we imagine that deliberation and choice are themselves the products of antecedent events, we concede that the choices we make (or do not make) are necessary in the sense we have outlined. In that sense, each step we take by means of our agency is determined transitively by antecedents to it, and working forward by stepwise induction, there is only one journey via our agency that is possible for us — the journey defined by the complete series of steps necessitated by it and its antecedent conditions.

Notice that this is not at all conducive to the erroneous idea that somehow our destinies are fixed by particular, isolated events in the distant past. Conditional fatalism thrives on that idea, feeding despair about the power of our agency to determine our conduct. But human bodies adjust moment by moment to changes in the environment — changes in temperature, light, background noise, microbes — and continue to function, often without discernible effects at the level of our gross motor activity, sometimes with discernible but trivial effects. Human agency has equally powerful adjustment mechanisms, and the causal story of what we are doing at a particular moment can never be given in terms of a few isolated events. Rather, the story of what we are doing at a particular moment is the story of one causal thread of our whole lives to that point. . . . Some such threads involve the processes described as the exercise of agency, and others do not. Insofar as agency i snot a causal factor, what we do is not conditioned upon our conscious pursuit of ends.

We certainly agree that such a life is not radically autonomous, or free from antecedent conditions. But consider, now, two alternatives: on the one hand a life in which agency plays no causal role, and on the other a life in which agency plays a persistent and pervasive part in the causal story of its every waking moment. We stoics simply report that we prefer our lives to be of the second sort, and find the idea of that kind of life more than sufficient to assuage our longing for autonomy and metaphysical liberty.

Responsibility

Moreover, we are not dismayed by the conception of (moral) responsibility that is implicit in this deterministic picture of the world. It is simply this: agents are fully responsible for their acts if and only if they (a) are aware of what they are doing; (b) are aware of the causes of their actions; (c) assent to acting in those ways from those causes — that is, are actin in accord with norms they recognize as their own; (d) are aware of the causes of their assent — that is, the causes of their own norms; (e) thereby introduce new causal factors into the determination of their actions through their awareness of the causal conditions that shape it; (f) are aware of this iterative, self-transformative causal process; and (g) assent to that , in the sense that they recognize that this process is normative for them.

This account of responsibility locates it squarely “inside” the agent — within a particular constellation of abilities that agents may or may not have. On this account, when the responsibility of an agent is diminished — when to some degree he lacks these abilities — then to that degree his conduct is determined by external factors operating either directly or only through his primal agency. When he is fully responsible, however (fully an agent), then his conduct is determined by his agency acting upon, through, and in terms of its primal elements and factors external to it. We have sometimes expressed this by making a distinction between things that are “up to the agent” (within the agent’s control), and things that are not. This is probably a tactical error, for it erroneously suggests a paradox to our critics. They charge that on the one hand we assert that every thing operates deterministically, while on the other hand we assert that agents somehow stand outside the causal chain of events and have some sort of radical (undefined) autonomy with respect to it. As should now be clear, we do not assert the second part of that at all. Rather, we assert that the agency generated in some links of the cosmic causal chain has remarkable causal powers within that chain, and that the remarkable causal powers outlined in (a)-(g) above can quite plausibly be the bases for saying that an agent (and not something else) is responsible for his acts. There is no paradox in that position.

A free life without metaphysical liberty.

We despair of finding a way to say more to solve the riddle of determinism for people who are attracted to it. We are not attracted to it in the least. In the final analysis, perhaps, the reason for our lack of interest in it comes from our few that a life without metaphysical liberty can still be a life of undiminished virtue and happiness. If that is true, then given the aims of stoic ethics, what remains of the riddle of determinism is of no ultimate importance. Here is one line of argument for that conclusion.

Negative liberty is the absence of impediments to action. Positive liberty is the presence of the means necessary for effective choice and action. So conceived, negative liberty is not a “thing,” but rather the absence of something. It is like the hole in a doughnut; take away the doughnut and it is hard to see the hole at all, let alone regard it as valuable; take away the impediments to action, and negative liberty as an “object” vanishes with them. So it may be wise to organize a discussion of the value of negative liberty by beginning with things, rather than the spaces they leave–in this case by looking at the impediments rather than at the space those impediments define. When we do that, it is clear that among impediments, as among doughnuts, some are good and some are bad, from the user’s point of view. The friction caused by an obstacle is sometimes a necessary condition for doing what we want to do, and when it is, we see the obstacle as valuable. In fact, valuable impediments provide us with another sort of liberty–positive or material liberty. If the impediment is a good one, the corresponding negative liberty–or absence of the impediment–is derivatively bad. We should be able to learn all we need to know about the derivative values of derivative things (such as holes and other spaces) by immediate inference from the things that define them.

Positive liberty, by contrast, is not the absence of something but rather the presence of it: the presence, indeed the possession, of the means necessary for action. It is the “stuff” we require in order to act in the space provided by negative liberty. The presence of social and political institutions gives us some of the means–the liberty–to lead lives that we could not otherwise have. So do friends, courage, physical strength. We ordinarily resist labeling such things as liberty, but the description of economic resources, education, and many other things as “liberating” is surely a warrant for the label, and it is unassailable that negative liberty alone is of very little importance unless one can or might be able to use it. For using it, some resources (psychological and physical) are necessary, and we may plausibly speak of them as constituting our positive or material liberty.

Now consider the question of whether liberty of either sort is a necessary condition of a good life. Why should it be? Suppose my name is Calvin, and suppose that my creator has predestined every detail of my life, every nuance of my thought and action, including the fact that through theological study I have now discovered that my life is predetermined. Does this mean that I have not had a good life to this point, or that I cannot continue to have one? I have no genuine liberty at all to do anything other than what God has planned for me. I am, in effect, a total slave to God. But I certainly think I have a good life. I remember, and feel, and feel joy, anticipation, fear, responsibility, pride, guilt, shame, and obligation. I fear judgment. I do not know how things will turn out for me, but I suspect I am one of the elect, and am glad for that. In any case, I know that whatever happens, it will be exactly as God has planned. In the meantime, I will live the life that I have been given. Given God’s will, nothing else could have happened. I was never at liberty to do other than I did in fact do. I had a life without liberty. But I rejoice in it, and affirm it anew every day.

End of story. Now what is wrong with it? It surely does not suggest that we cannot have good lives without liberty. Negative liberty, in general terms, is the space left to us by the political, social, personal, and metaphysical impediments that surround us; positive liberty is the  stuff that enables us to act in that space. What Calvin imagines is that the space and stuff available to him are enough for exactly one life–the one God has given him to live, without liberty.

Enough for one life is enough.

End of quote.

OBEDIENCE – THE SOURCE OF BLESSINGS

The topic of this post is Obedience – the source of blessings. Immediately, this raises the questions of: obedience to what? What are we talking about? Obedience to the laws of Man? Or to the laws of God? Or both?

Plainly, obedience to law does not mean submission to tyranny.  In April of 1843, Joseph Smith, Jr., among other things, gave the following instructions relating to obedience as the source of blessings in our respective lives:

There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated – And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.

And if a person gains more knowledge and intelligence in this life through his or her diligence and obedience than another, he or she will have so much the advantage in the world to come.

From these simple instructions are raised the following issues:

1. Whether knowledge and intelligence are obtained through diligence and obedience;

2. Whether we obtain blessings from God by obedience to a specific law upon which such blessings are predicated; and,

3. Whether reason and faith are related and necessary to understand irrevocably decreed laws.

The questions then become: how do we know which laws are true and should be obeyed, and which are untrue and should not be obeyed?

NATURAL LAWS

In my opinion, the first place to look to test the aforementioned instructions and to know which laws are true and which are false, which must be obeyed, and which may be ignored with impunity, is in our natural surroundings.

Gravity

For example, I believe we can safely argue that the law of gravity is one of those laws irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world. We exist on this planet in great part because of the irrevocable nature of gravity. What goes up must come down.

While Sir Isaac Newton took credit for this principle, I believe that this law was known from man’s earliest history: step off a cliff, and down you go – every time.  Through diligence and obedience to the law of gravity mankind has gained much knowledge and intelligence. Based on this knowledge and intelligence, societies have implemented laws regarding gravity to promote the general good and happiness of its communities. Hence, we have building codes to ensure that buildings will be safe structures, that bridges will be able to span vast expanses, and warning signs telling us to stay away from unstable areas or dangerous heights.

Inertia

Another example of a law irrevocably decreed is the law of inertia: bodies in motion tend to stay in motion; bodies at rest, tend to stay at rest. Mankind has learned to apply this law. To protect society, the laws of inertia have created the need to pass other related laws: such as speed limits, safe distances between moving cars, warning signs of impending curves, yellow lights to warn of an impending red light. Failure to obey the law of inertia often results in injury and death.

Manmade penalties for failure to obey the laws of physics.

Even though we have a very complete understanding of the laws of gravity and inertia, we have a tendency to disobey such. For example, speeding laws are understood. Everyone should know that if you drive too fast, you may be unable to stop before hitting a person or another vehicle, or you may lose control around a curve, or on a wet, oily surface. Unfortunately, many drivers either do not understand the laws of inertia, tend to ignore them, or believe that somehow they are not subject to such.

To protect us and others, governments post speeding laws and warning signs. Failure to obey a speeding law, however, does not always result in disaster. Many of us have exceeded the posted speed limit and nothing adverse has happened to us. It is possible to drive a Corvette or Porsche at speeds in excess of 160 miles per hour without incident. It is also possible to speed along curving highways ignoring the posted warning signs and speed limits. However, at the same time, we can read daily of disasters on our highways caused by failure to obey the posted speed limits. Statistically, the highways are exceedingly dangerous.

To protect society, therefore, law enforcement officers are vigilantly supposed to stop those who flagrantly violate these laws. Through the use of coercion by the imposition of traffic infraction penalties, most of society is willing to obey the posted speed limits and warning signs. And to ensure that those caught pay, society imposes a criminal penalty if you fail to pay the speeding fine. So the law is quite clear: you may speed and disobey traffic signals and signs if you are prepared to pay the imposed penalty when caught; however, society will only tolerate a fixed number of times you can be disobedient: after several infractions, your right to drive is revoked. And if you still choose to drive or fail to pay the tickets, then you will cross the line from an infraction to that of a criminal act.

With respect to the law of gravity, society imposes building codes that must be followed. Failure to obey building codes, however, does not necessarily result in disaster, but when disaster strikes it is so sudden and terrible that society must enforce these codes. It requires contractors, engineers, and architects to be licensed and to pass minimum competency examinations. Failure to obey building codes results in fines and liability for negligence or willful and wanton disregard for human life.

The sad fact is that society actually needs the imposition of penalties to coerce people to act responsibly vis-à-vis obeying the fundamental laws of nature.

SOCIAL AND POLITICAL LAWS

As mankind evolved, I think we can safely assume that people began to live in societies. Actions that were unharmful when a man lived alone in a state of nature became harmful when a man lived with others. Hence, man began to think in terms of moral behavior.

How should I live my life?

What is the right thing to do in this situation?

Should one always tell the truth?

Do I have a duty to report a coworker whom I have seen cheating our company?

Should I tell my friend that his spouse is having an affair?

Is premarital sex morally permissible?

Ought a woman ever to have an abortion?

The answers to such questions were addressed secularly and religiously by different societies – resulting in religious and secular laws.

As Socrates allegedly said in Plato’s Republic: “We are discussing no small matter, but how we ought to live.”

In some societies, moral behavior was motivated by, and grounded in, revelation and divine authority. In other societies, both ethics and moral philosophy were grounded in reason and human experience.

Ancient societies had legal codes. The codes that have the greatest number of similarities with the laws of Israel (the “Torah”) are the laws of the kingdoms of Eshnunna and of Babylon, both composed in Akkadian in the “Old Babylonian” period, the former by an unidentified king, the latter by the famous Hammurabi. Existing copies of ancient Near Eastern codes are the following (these dates are approximate and not fully agreed upon by all scholars):

Laws of Ur-Nammu, Sumerian, about 2100 B.C.

Laws of Lipit-Ishtar, Sumerian, about 1930 B.C.

Laws of Eshnunna, Akkadian, about 1900-1800 B.C.

Laws of Hammurabi, Akkadian, about 1750 B.C.

Laws of the Hittites, about 1400-1300 B.C.

Laws of the Assyrians, about 1100 B.C.

When one combines the laws of Exodus with those in Deuteronomy, a general similarity to the arrangement of the laws in the Code of Hammurabi may be observed. Israel, however, believed its Law, the Torah, to be at heart a religious document and thus essentially different from the legal systems of the age. The Law of Israel did not rest on custom but on divine authority. They were dogma and were based on revelation.

There are man-made laws and there are traditional habits and usages of community life which are hardened into law. Both are responsive to the changing needs of mankind, and, when they are just and long-established, they come to be regarded as divinely sanctioned. But the ideals and the ultimate moral standards are conceived as having been revealed to man. They are given to him by his Creator. They do not change. They do not ratify long-established tribal customs and time-honored practices. They proclaim that which should be done now and for all future time.

Our laws are based on Exodus (divine revelation) and the Justinian Code (moral philosophy). The impact of Exodus on Western Civilization has been incalculable and, in the history of law, without compare.

Which brings us back to faith (Exodus) and reason (Civil law).

RELIGIOUS LAWS

I would like to focus on the interplay of man’s reason and God’s revelation vis-à-vis obedience.

The real question therefore is what kind of place should reason have in our religion.

The Apostle Paul wrote: “See that no one makes a prey of you by philosophy and empty deceit.”

Paul’s warnings are directed at a certain kind of reasoning, namely, “worldly wisdom,” which is the product of a “human conceit that shuts itself up against the truth, ” not against the use of reason as such. A cursory reading of Paul’s letters shows that he frequently makes use of reasoning, analysis, and arguments in the course of his religious teaching.

The early Christian writer Tertullian asked, “What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?” By “Athens” he meant Greek philosophy; by “Jerusalem,” the Christian church. Tertullian, however, despite his diatribe against philosophy, was trained in philosophy and can be shown to have made use of it in his explanations of Christian doctrines.

In order to obey laws revealed in Scripture, several approaches have been raised vis-à-vis reason and faith:

1.  Strong rationalism takes the position that in order for Scripture to be properly and rationally accepted, it must be possible to prove that the Scripture is true. Here, rationalism in this sense implies a reliance on reason, or intelligence, in deciding our beliefs and actions. The word “prove” to be sure is somewhat ambiguous; but it means show that a belief is true in a way that should be convincing to any reasonable person. Here then obedience to any law must be predicated upon conviction.

2.  A second kind of view is commonly called fideism – faith-ism. Here, Scripture is not subject to rational evaluation. To say, for instance, that Scripture is the word of God does not depend on any evidence or reasoning and that we should refuse to have anything to do with trying to prove or disprove God’s Scripture.  For a sincere religious believer, the most fundamental assumptions are found in Scripture itself. Religious faith itself is the foundation of one’s life – one’s ultimate concern. Here then obedience to any law must be predicated on faith alone.

3.  A third kind of view is called critical rationalism, which is defined as the view that Scripture can and must be rationally criticized and evaluated although conclusive proof of such a system is impossible. Hence, obedience to any law must be predicated on the use of our rational capabilities, to the greatest extent possible. The critical rationalist is never in the position of being able to decide, finally and for good, that any discussion concerning the truth and validity of his or her religious beliefs has reached its ultimate conclusion.

As stated earlier, religious ethics are grounded in revelation or divine authority, though generally using reason to supplement or complement revelation. We therefore must use our own free will to determine the irrevocable laws that must be obeyed regardless of whether we think we must be able to prove such laws or accept them on faith alone.

In this regard, it is interesting that the Lord told Joseph Smith, Jr., in August of 1831, that:

[I]t is not [suitable, fitting, or proper] that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receives no reward. . . . [Men and women] should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves.  And inasmuch as men [and women] do good they shall in nowise lose their reward.

Arguably, this means that we have to use reason in choosing right and wrong rather than only commandments from God.

Most of us would agree I believe that we need to have faith in God, hope of immortality, and charity for all mankind if we are to live Christian lives. However, faith is lost in sight, hope in fruition, but charity remains forever. As the Apostle Paul wrote: “And now abides faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity.”

Thus, we should exercise charity by regarding the whole human species as one family, the high and the low, the rich and the poor. We should relieve the distressed, soothe the unhappy, sympathize with their misfortunes, compassionate their miseries, and restore peace to their troubled minds, to the best of our abilities. We do not need to be commanded to do this.

Also, to understand our duty and the laws which we should obey, we need to do more than study the Scriptures. Sometime on December 27th, 28th, 1832, or January 3rd, 1833, the Lord counseled us as follows:

And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; [yes], seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.

On March 8th, 1833, the Lord told Joseph Smith, Jr. that he was to finish the translation of the Book of Mormon, and from time to time, as manifested by the Holy Ghost, receive revelations,

And, set in order the churches, and study and learn, and become acquainted with all good books, and with languages, tongues, and people.

At the dedication of the Kirtland Temple, the Prophet Joseph Smith, Jr. prayed as follows in pertinent part:

And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; [yes], seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom, seek learning even by study and also by faith. . . . And do thou grant, Holy Father, that all those who shall worship in this house may be taught words of wisdom out of the best books, and that they may seek learning even by study, and also by faith, as thou hast said.

The Lord is quite plain in admonishing us to seek wisdom from the best books of this world, and to seek learning by study, and also by faith. It is evident to me that we cannot be content to study just the scriptures, but he who desires to understand the harmonious and beautiful proportions of those irrevocable laws upon which all blessings are predicated must read, study, reflect, digest, and discriminate in his or her ardent search for knowledge. The best books of the world come down to us full-freighted with the intellectual riches of the past.

Hence, to learn, to attain knowledge, to be wise, is a necessity for every Latter-day Saint; to teach, to communicate that knowledge, to share that wisdom with others is a must. The Apostle Paul wrote in pertinent part to the Saints in Thessalonia: “Wherefore comfort yourselves together, and edify one another, even as also ye do.”  This is one of the important reasons we meet together on Sundays.

By being obedient to these admonitions, we will attain knowledge, become wise, strengthen our faith, and edify each other.

It is not enough, however, that the conscience be taught by nature; but it must be taught by God, conducted by reason, made operative by discourse, assisted by choice, instructed by laws and sober principles; and then it is right, and it may be sure.

In March of 1839, Joseph Smith, Jr. recorded his prayer and prophecies while a prisoner at Liberty, Missouri. In pertinent part, we find counsel to:

[L]et virtue garnish [our] thoughts unceasingly; then shall [our] confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon [our] soul as the dews from heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be [our] constant companion. . . .

Here, God reveals an idea that has been explained earlier by Plato and, especially, Aristotle, and that received support in the Epicureans, Stoics, and some sections of the Early Christian Church: “virtue ethics.” Virtue ethics centers in the heart of the person acting, in his or her character and disposition – being a certain type of person.

For traditional duty-based ethics the question is: What shall I do?

For virtue ethics the question is: What sort of person should I become?

Virtue ethics seeks to produce excellent persons, who both act well out of spontaneous goodness and serve as examples who inspire others. Here God reveals that we should inculcate virtue into our thoughts and lives unceasingly. We should be obedient to this law.

Some of these virtues are temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice.

By allowing the virtue of Temperance to garnish our thoughts unceasingly, we will have that due restraint upon our affections and passions which renders the body tame and governable, and frees the mind from the allurements of vice. Hence, the virtue of Temperance should be our constant practice, as we are thereby taught to avoid excess or the contracting of any licentious or vicious habits.

By allowing the virtue of fortitude to garnish our thoughts unceasingly, we will have that noble and steady purpose of the mind whereby we are enabled to undergo any pain, peril, or danger, when prudentially deemed expedient. This virtue is equally distant from rashness and cowardice, and, like the virtue of Temperance, should be deeply impressed upon our minds.

By allowing the virtue of prudence to garnish our thoughts unceasingly, we will be taught to regulate our lives and actions agreeably to the dictates of reason, and have that faculty by which we wisely judge and prudentially determine on all things relative to our present, as well as our future happiness.

By allowing the virtue of justice to garnish our thoughts unceasingly, we will employ that standard or boundary of right which enables us to render unto every man his just due, without distinction. This virtue of Justice is not only consistent with divine and human laws, but is the very cement and support of civil society; and, as justice in a great measure constitutes the truly good man or woman, so should it be our invariable practice never to deviate from the minutest principles thereof.

Hence, by using reason and faith, and allowing virtue to garnish our thoughts unceasingly, we should be able to choose correctly those irrevocable laws upon which all blessings are predicated: whether physical, civil, or scriptural – and for selfish reasons we should be obedient to such.

I with one final “law” that has been revealed to us. Many people wonder why we have trials and tribulations in our lives if God loves us. In March of 1839, the Lord revealed the following principle to Joseph Smith, Jr. in pertinent part:

If you are called to pass through tribulation . . . know . . . that all these things shall give [you] experience, and shall be for [your] good.

Here, God tells us that even though we are obedient, we may still have to pass through trials and tribulations. Bad things may happen to us. We will experience anguish, abandonment, and despair at times. Accepting these tribulations and the vicissitudes of life as part of God’s love for us will bless our lives.

We have to remember that this journey on earth is but a moment in our eternal progression and that God wants us to have experiences: good and bad. We have to keep in perspective that every experience comes from God and is for our good, whether we comprehend the “good” rationally at the time or not. Obedience to law therefore is the source of our blessings.

Are You Unhappy With Your Religion? – Some Thoughts From a Freemason’s Perspective.

I think a common mistake is believing the notion that one’s spirituality derives from a group instead of from within oneself. In my opinion, you (hereinafter used in the collective sense, not referring to anyone personally) have to find your own personal relationship with God (assuming you are a religious-minded person; if not, then you have to find inner peace within yourself) regardless of whether you belong to an organized religion. Once you have developed this personal relationship (e.g., feeling the spirit, having your prayers answered, etc. (whatever it is that you are seeking from having a metaphysical relationship or experience)), then it really doesn’t matter which “church” you belong to (or whether you belong to any church).

In my opinion, the worthwhile purpose of an organized religion is not to disseminate “truth,” because “truth” to one person may be “falsehood” to another, and vice versa, but to provide relief in times of need, and traditions or a feeling of belonging to a group. As Mahatma Gandhi once said: “God appears before the poor in the form of bread.” The most important function in my opinion is the provision of relief and acts of charity. Of course, all good religions should (and based on my own comparative studies do) teach morality and ethics and to act charitably, but whether one conforms to such teachings or acts charitably depends on whether one feels compelled to so conform or act; i.e., you should have a personal relationship with God that allows you the freedom to choose how you will act or react in any circumstance regardless of the dogma or doctrine pertaining to a “premortal existence” or an “after-death existence” of any particular group to which you belong.

I will now try to use an analogy — forgive me if you find it idiotic. In other words, I do not think you can put on a religion as you can a suit of clothing and have it change you: you are who you are regardless of the clothes you wear (or the religion to which you may belong). So to declare that you are discarding one set of clothing for another set of clothing (or simply going naked) really is meaningless vis-a-vis being at peace with yourself and with God. From my experience, no two members of any organized religion believe exactly the same thing or interpret everything the same. Hence, every member of any particular organized religion wears different clothes – they may claim to be wearing the same clothing, but in fact they are not.

Continuing with my analogy (if you aren’t laughing so hard that your tears are preventing you from reading this far), what makes any religion great in my opinion is the diversity of the clothing all its members wear (of course having a common theme is nice). In other words, you have to have such a strong, real personal relationship with God that you can feel comfortable wearing anything you want when meeting with other members, and the subtle differences of opinions and understanding really make the religion strong and fun to belong to. In my own particular religion, I find myself disagreeing with most of what people say because of my education, etc., but I recognize that these are good people who would help me or my family immediately in times of distress (and consequently I do the same for others).

Now, as for doctrines, I think we have to use some common sense. The place to begin is with the proof that God exists. I find that too many believers of religion assume a priori that God exists when in fact there is no evidence that this is the case, and then they hurry on to discuss which doctrine is God’s doctrine, etc. So, any discussion of whether any particular doctrine or religion is true or false puts the proverbial cart before the horse. We simply have to begin with the proof that God exists. Now the best proof would be to see God and to talk with Him (or Her or It or Them (hereinafter collectively either “God” or “Him” or “He” with apologies to those who care), but this has never happened to any of us — or at least no one can prove to another that it did happen, if it did. In my opinion, if we can’t prove that God exists, then it is meaningless to attempt to prove or disprove whether any particular organized religion is God’s true religion. It is such a distraction from what really matters: can you study from the great books of the world in your religion and will your religion be there to help you when you need such help?

I do not believe that anyone can prove that God exists, even though many have tried. Assuming, arguendo, that someone could prove that God exists, I believe we would still have the problem of describing how God looks or His nature or His characteristics. I suspect that everyone who believes in God visualizes God differently than everyone else. Now if we can all visualize God differently, whether we belong to an organized religion, then why can’t we also all have different personal relationships with Him? I say we can; we should; we must. In other words, it is alright to accept:

• the “truth” that the existence of God cannot be proved or disproved (i.e., to be intellectually agnostic), it is especially difficult to prove that something does not exist; and,
• that spiritual (or metaphysical) experiences are something that can be experienced by all people regardless of religious or irreligious belief and such spiritual witnesses can be used to convince one that God exists (i.e., to be spiritually theistic).

One can say truthfully that one believes in God based on his or her metaphysical experiences but that intellectually he or she has absolutely no proof of such existence; i.e., your irrational belief in God is based on faith alone; but this faith must be a personal faith that springs from within, and cannot be based on any teachings of any organized religion to which you belong. The religion really should not be that important to your faith or lack of faith: your faith depends solely on yourself and your feelings about yourself. Of course, it is folly to question your faith or to attempt to use logic or stretch your imagination as much as possible in an effort to convince yourself that there is empirical evidence to support your faith: i.e., logic, evidence, and proof, are the antithesis of faith.

So, in my opinion, if one is unhappy with any particular organized religion to which he or she belongs (whether de jure or de facto), then the unhappiness does not spring from the particular religion and the person’s particular interpretation or understanding of its teachings, but from the person himself or herself. Now it may be correct that people can change religions as they change clothing but in my opinion if they find more happiness in one set of clothes than another then such happiness is only transitory, or perhaps the person actually had a real change internally and became happy with himself or herself when or shortly before she “found” her or his new religion or set of clothing, and simply mistakenly transfers this new-found happiness to the religion rather than recognizing that such happiness came from within.

Our happiness should spring from within and not from without. And, in my further opinion, our happiness has little to do with the doctrines and tenets of any particular religion (except in those situations when the idea of seeing a deceased loved one again after this life brings comfort and gives you strength to carry on). (Of course, you may find a particular system of belief that actually teaches ideas that you have always believed — if so, great — but once you have found such, you should stop looking or questioning whether the religion is “true”; it simply teaches what you believe, and that should be enough.) Basically, though, in my opinion, all religions teach the same fundamental core values (since what may have happened before this life, or what may happen to us after this life, cannot be proven, little weight should be given to these types of doctrines — if they are true, I suppose we will find out after we die; if they are not true, then maybe we will find out after we die, and maybe we won’t). What is important is now.

In summary, therefore, I suggest that the first step to religious happiness is to look within yourself and develop a personal relationship with your God, and then if you want to have a safety net look for a religion or fraternal organization (realizing that what matters is what the organization does now, not what it may have done in the past or promises to do in the future (it hardly matters if any particular organization did things in the past that were questionable)) that will relieve you when you are distressed, soothe you when you are unhappy, sympathize with your misfortune, compassionate your miseries, and restore peace to your troubled mind (all these require actual help from people and have absolutely nothing to do with any particular belief as to the nature of God, the existence of God, the pre-existence, the afterlife, eternal this or eternal that, or whether you can prove that any particular religion is “true” or “false”).

After you have developed a personal relationship with your God, then you should study the great books of the world and develop yourself. You should exercise charity and regard the whole human species as one family — the high and the low, the rich and the poor. Furthermore, you should contemplate on the divine attributes of what you consider to be “truth” and consider such truth as the foundation of every virtue, and by the dictates of such truth you should endeaver to regulate your conduct; i.e., while influenced by the principles of truth, hypocrisy and deceit should be unknown with you, and sincerity and plain dealing should distinguish you, and with heart and tongue, you should join in promoting other’s welfare and rejoicing in other’s prosperity.

Now you should be able to do this regardless of the organized religion to which you belong or were born in or associate with. Your religion should be personal to you, and be no one’s business (e.g., when Thomas Jefferson was asked what religion he belonged to, he allegedly said: “That is none of your business.”); i.e., your religion is your personal relationship with your God, and it is based on your own spiritual experience — not someone else’s. You will always keep in mind that you accept God based on faith alone; i.e., it is irrational to believe in a God that you cannot see, hear, smell, or touch, but faith was never based on rational thought or empirical evidence. (For example, read the writings of Paul or the Zen or Dao Masters.) This should give you a healthy humility that will allow you to accept the shortcomings and weaknesses of those with whom you associate (either personally or as a group (i.e., members of the organized religion or fraternal organization to which you belong)). In other words, you should be able to laugh at your belief in God based on nothing but a wonderful feeling within you and your acceptance of the stories and teachings in some books written long, long ago (or recently) by someone that you simply accept without any proof as being inspired or as being “Holy Writings.”

In short, all “Holy Writings” that you accept will be the rule and guide of your faith — it makes no difference whether these writings really came from God or were made up by men and women — if you believe they are holy writings, then that is good enough for you (if you are going to search the world for “true” holy writings, then you will be spending your whole life looking for that which can never be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, by clear and convincing evidence, or by a preponderance of the evidence). You simply accept the moral, ethical, and spiritual teachings found within them as you understand them. You could write your own book if you wanted, and it could have the same meaning to you; i.e., it could be a “Holy Writing,” if you will. So in my opinion you should not engage in the folly (as I see it) of trying to prove or disprove any “Holy Writings” as actually being or not being the “word of God;” this is an impossibility for the believer in and of such Holy Writings. Again, all religious belief is based on faith: not logic, not empirical evidence, and not the rantings and ravings or seductive or sophistical speech of others one way or the other. The values you find within these Holy Writings are what is important — not their origin. And, it should go without saying that since “faith” is irrational, you should not attempt to destroy the faith of another — regardless of how preposterous you may think its underpinings to be (i.e., pride is something to avoid). Besides, it is rude to argue with others about religion when neither you nor they can even begin the argument with a proof that God exists — talk about a waste of everyone’s time and a demonstration of prideful stupidity if one attempts to engage in such argumentation.

In other words, find a story you like and make that your religion, and the get on with living – stop thinking that it is important to believe your religion is “true.” Get on with living your life. Become focused, disciplined and dedicated to accomplish your life goals – don’t waste your time fretting about your religion.

Therefore, I think it is important to daily inure yourself with (1) habits of concentrated attention, energetic volition, and self-denial in unnecessary things (to quote William James), and (2) virtues of temperance, fortitude, prudence, and justice (to go Aristotelian here).

• Temperance is that due restraint upon the affections and passions which renders the body tame and governable, and frees the mind from the allurements of vice. This virtue should be your constant practice, as you are thereby taught to avoid excess or the contracting of any licentious or vicious habits, the indulgence in which might lead you to disclose things which you may have promised to keep secret, which would consequently subject you to the contempt and detestation of all good men and women who still believe that a man or woman’s word is his or her bond.
• Fortitude is that noble and steady purpose of the mind whereby we are enabled to undergo any pain, peril, or danger, when prudentially deemed expedient. This virtue is equally distant from rashness and cowardice, and like the virtue of Temperance, should be deeply impressed upon your mind, as a safeguard or security against any illegal attempt which may be made, by force or otherwise, to extort from you any of those valuable secrets with which you have been solemnly entrusted, by friend, organization, or client.
• Prudence teaches us to regulate our lives and actions agreeably with the dictates of reason, and is that faculty by which we wisely judge and prudentially determine on all things relative to our present, as well as our future, happiness. This virtue should be your particular characteristic, not only for the government of your conduct while with familiar associates, but also when abroad in the world.
• Justice is that standard or boundary of right which enables us to render unto every man or woman his or her just due, without distinction. This virtue is not only consistent with divine and human laws, but is the very cement and support of civil society, and, as justice in a great measure constitutes the really good man or woman, so should it be your invariable practice never to deviate from the minutest principles.

So Aristotelian virtues are in my opinion good for the soul, regardless of your “religion.” (As an aside, Aristotle wrote a great essay on the reasons a man should act morally and ethically, and in particular an essay on the reasons one should not commit adultery – arguably, most moral and ethical concepts have nothing to do with any particular religion.) Basically, respect yourself and be true to yourself: if you made any religious promises that you subsequently feel were meaningless and foolish, keep those promises to yourself and act honorably.

Perhaps, Bessie Anderson Stanley, in 1904, summed it up best when she wrote what to her constituted success:

He has achieved success who has lived well, laughed often, and loved much;

Who has enjoyed the trust of pure women, the respect of intelligent men, and the love of little children;

Who has filled his niche and accomplished his task;

Who has never lacked appreciation of Earth’s beauty or failed to express it;

Who has left the world a better place than he found it, whether an improved poppy, a perfect poem, or a rescued soul;

Who has always looked for the best in others and given them the best he had;

Whose life was an inspiration;

Whose memory a benediction.

The bottom-line is that religion qua religion should occupy about one-tenth of one-percent of your time and thinking. It is wholly subjective, irrational, and personal; you either believe in God or you do not; the bases for your belief are irrelevant to others. The truly intelligent realize that your belief is sincere and based on subjective, wonderful metaphysical experiences, and its irrationality is understood and respected in this case. You should be able to move from one religion to another and back and forth without any change to your personal viewpoints about, or personal relationship with, God; however, studying other religions and different moral philosophies may help expand your personal relationship with, and understanding of, God; hence the need to study the great books of the world.

But in my opinion once you have found a religion that provides the charitable support and teaches fundamental moral values, then that should be the end of your religious quest (but not necessarily your intellectual quest for knowledge about other systems of belief), and you should simply get on with living well, and truly become the man or woman you want to be (it may take a lifetime, and it may never happen (since our expectations have a tendency to expand as we improve ourselves, but the journey is worth the cost of the ticket if you pay attention along the way)), and this should take up the remaining 99.9 percent of your time and thinking.

So there is hope and happiness for all who have left any particular religion looking for happiness elsewhere: hope and happiness have always been within us. As a great Zen Master once said: “We are riding a water buffalo looking for a water buffalo.” And the Dalai Lama said when asked what one should do to join his particular brand of Buddhism: “First learn everything there is to know about your own religion.” I think this is good advice. My advice is that if your happiness or unhappiness springs from your religion, then something is wrong with you; your happiness should have nothing to do with the particular religion you belong to, were born in, or the God you believe in; it has everything to do with how you feel about yourself. To paraphrase a wise teacher: Religion was made for man; not man for religion. Of course, my wife says that man made religion, and Karl Marx is attributed to having said that “God did not create man, rather man created God.” So there are a lot of ideas out there, but what is important is what you believe and the reasons for your beliefs (that should always be personal to you).

My final thought:

Though there are many paths

At the foot of the mountain

All those who reach the top

See the same moon. (Author Unknown.)

So find a story you hope is true (that is, that would really be nice if it were true), then pick that path, stay on it, reach the top of the mountain, and see the same moon — it really doesn’t make any difference what organized religion you belong to, but if you keep changing paths, you may never reach the top, and you may miss a glorious moon.

I think I have used up my one-tenth of one percent of religious thinking for a few weeks.

Was hilft laufen, wenn man nicht auf den rechten Weg ist? German proverb.

Marshall McLuhan says TV opens out onto an electronic global village. It would seem, rather, that it gives us only the illusion of being. It reinforces security by presenting danger, ignorance by presenting news, lethargy by presenting excitement, isolation by promising participation. The media confines reality to itself. And it limits knowledge by giving the illusion of knowledge. In the same way that the most effective way to deflect, diffuse and terminate a social movement is to announce that it has been achieved (the feminist movement must contend with this on an almost daily basis), the most effective way to deflect inquiry is to present it as fulfilled. TV acts in this guise as a thinking presentation device which offers non-experience as experience and not-knowingness as knowing.

In the words of Mat Maxwell, “Television becomes the world for people…. The world becomes television.” The overall and cumulative effect of the media is to heighten our insensitivity to reality. Rather than breaking the chains of ignorance, political domination and illusion in our Platonic cave, something insidiously similar yet different is going on. Instead of actually turning away from the shadows to see the realities, instead of actually leaving the darkness of the cave and going up into the sunlight, we merely watch an image of ourselves doing this, we fantasize about doing it and think it’s the same.