Sorry about my last post. I've been informed that it doesn't make any sense. I still like it, though, so I'm not changing it. Instead, I'll just offer my apologies to anyone whose IQ was lowered because of reading it, and I'll try to give you a serious related post to try and make up some of those lost brain cells.

I'm not very far into Stephen Hawking's "A Brief History of Time", but I have noticed something about the way he explains some of the more controversial scientific ideas (such as the big bang). He never insults or discredits religious ideas because of scientific discovery. He is especially courteous and careful about it, trying to be clear that science does not discredit religion, but just adds new understanding.

Take the following excerpt for instance. Hawking has just explained that we can observe that the universe is expanding. From that we know that the universe was once closer together than it is now, and from that we can deduce that there was once a time when the universe was "all at exactly the same place". Now the big bang (when the universe started expanding from being all in exactly the same place) is often treated as being at odds with the idea of divine creation, but Hawking doesn't explain it that way at all.

One could still imagine that God created the universe at the instant of the big bang, or even afterwards in just such a way as to make it look as though there had been a big bang, but it would be meaningless to suppose that it was created before the big bang. An expanding universe does not preclude a creator, but it does place limits on when he might have carried out his job!

I'm very impressed that Hawking doesn't try to say that the big bang discredits the creation, and even offers an explanation of how they can both be true.

One of the reasons that this is so thought-provoking to me is because I realize that the scientific community seems to be much more considerate of the religious community than we are of them. Hawking (himself an atheist) is very careful not to discredit the religious views of his readers, but it seems common to me that religious people are eager to discredit science as "just a theory" and to disbelieve the whole of scientific discovery rather than figure out how to reconcile their beliefs with the new knowledge that mankind is developing.

Nightmare Before Christmas

Tonight I bought the movie that has become my favorite: Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas. I love the music and the richness of the atmosphere, and recently I've come to love the theme of the movie.
The main character, Jack, is dealing with an emptiness in his life, and he goes through the same kind of search for meaning that a lot of real people deal with. During this, he stumbles upon Christmas Town, and becomes enamored with it. Jack says that he feels "the warmth that's coming from inside", and he has a hard time both understanding and explaining what he feels, but he at last decides that "just because [he] cannot see it doesn't mean [he] can't believe it."
The beginning of the movie makes it obvious that there is a message about spirituality, mostly because the words that Jack uses to describe his experience are so typical of phrases used by people, especially Christians, of their spiritual awakenings. I was never quite sure what the story was trying to say about spirituality, however, since Jack makes such a mess of things in his excitement. I think I have it figured out now.
The message is about not taking religion to the point of fanaticism: Despite his spiritual experience, Jack is still the same person as he always was. Rather than completely changing who he is, his new spiritual side becomes a motivation for him to be better at living his normal life. I think that's a good lesson. People don't change their personalities when they become converted; they grow and become better, but they don't become different people, and in the end the best application of their religion is in their daily lives, and not in fanatic replacements for their lives.

Anti-Mormon

I used to have this idea of the typical RM guy (his name might be "Peter"), and I hated him: He thought he was so righteous, and that if you didn't dress the same way that he did, he would think that you were a sinner or a bad influence, and he wouldn't be your friend. All he ever talked about was his mission, and it often seemd as if he just wanted everyone to know how spiritual he was, so he had to remind them all of the time. It's hard to be the punk kid around people like that, but I eventually realized that I was judging him just as much as he was me. It's funny, but it's possible that I was inventing that RM guy, because now I can't find him.
I think most of the time people choose whether to be happy in a situation or not to be. It's rare that a situation inherently makes you unhappy. Take Provo for instance. It's easy to have a negative impression of Provo: that everyone is all stiff and nerdy, and that there's nothing fun to do here and no cool people to hang out with. I don't actually think that anymore. Provo's pretty cool. I can do pretty much anything here that I can in the outside world if I want, and it being a college town adds up to a lot of cool people (both Jack and Peter) to hang out with that are in a similar stage of life as me (for the most part, anyway: I guess I am the oldest single guy in Provo).
I think the problem is that at some point people have decided that the Mormon culture is nerdy, and so they've decided not to be happy in it. No one can be happy if they've convinced themselves not to be.
Here's what nerdy is: when you're so into something that you can't deal with people that aren't into it as much as you are. I think that can apply to anything (computers, sports, music): I'm only a nerd if I belittle or otherwise can't get along with other people that aren't nerdy about the same thing as me. It is nerdy for people to not associate (well) with others that don't share their religious (or other) views, but it's not nerdy to live your religion. You can be happy with it, but it can't make you happy or unhappy. That's a decision you make about it.

Have you ever seen Grosse Point Blank? There's another one for your list, Loyd. You know what's gonna suck about hell? That it's exactly what you deserve. Like, when you get treated unfairly, you can complain about it or try to avoid it, but you can't fight a punishment that you deserve. So what do you do? Maybe its just too late to do anything by then, and you just have to take your medicine.