Blesséd Knight

He deeply marréd in his present mire,
Not knowing the danger of what binds tight.
See this great knight in sin is but a sire.
Thinking himselfe great and Law out of sight,
He chose to live his life by his own might.
Swourd was his silver and battle his gold,
But it is all winde for Law wins the fight.
The Great Covenaunt rises from of old
To humble man with his true worth of worms and mold.

In the court of Lawe man hath no homage;
Such muck hath no excuse for things so grim.
Resigned to himselfe man is in bondage.
This castigation called for cherubim
To seal fallen man to fiery brim.
All men have failed to meet the Law's gloury,
Subject not to truth but to dungeons dim.
Alas, it is a loathsome hateful story,
for sinne to lash man with weight to make him hoary.

But blessed is this knight for a King reigneth,
Who has humbled Himself in love for men.
Help from the mire is for him who asketh,
But first the King troubles to awaken,
That sourrowed knight who by sleep has taken
Himselfe away to keep from the King's eyes.
Now awake, he sees a body broken
Before him to be received as a prize.
Shaken and afraide he joins Honor's glory cries.

He with a new name and Kingly armour,
Was given graciously a swourd of flame,
To wield in warfare and weld hearts to Wonder.
In battle he was sent as battle came,
Seeking to tell of that great King's great fame.
At a table round lauding this his Lourd,
Forevermore on serf's shield penned His name.
Known to this knight is the strength of King's sword;
He is altogether free but bound in accord.

Vienna Sausages

The other day I was at CVS buying some food for the few days I was to be without a cafeteria. CVS isn't really a good place to buy groceries because it pretty much has only junk food and food that is junk. I spent quite some time there trying to decide which of my culinary choices was the least evil of the foods in purveyance. I bought a pizza, microwaveable bowl food, and shockingly, Vienna Sausages. I was suckered into buying these meaty consumables for two reasons: One, they are very cheap; Two, eating meat from a can has always intrigued me. I was saving this can for the end of my weekend without a cafeteria so I could better enjoy this triumph of food processing. In case you didn't know modern canning is one of the biggest achievements of the industrial revolution; it has helped to win many a war over the past two centuries. I picked up these little weenies from the shelf, tore off the wrapper so it wouldn't burn when I put the can on the flames and then I waited for them to get nice and hot. They looked so cute and innocent sitting in their little can; however, things were not as they seemed. I must have somehow upset the gods of long life foodstuffs: Louis Pasteur, Nicholas Appert and Peter Durand. I skewered one with my fork, lifted it up to my mouth and leaped back because of it's startling terribleness. These little weenies unleashed a furry that has not been felt since the bombing of Vienna in the second world war. If only that were the end of this story, but for some reason I felt the gravity of this situation and saw that I was the chosen hero; chosen to fight those canning colossi of evil. I ate those sausages. I won the battle and live to fight another day.

You Stupid Itch

Oh itch, damnable skin,
Why doest thou harm harmless men?
Flick of light, airborne pathogen,
Sight: the cause for it all to begin.

So I stay away and yet you find
Me tucking away for fear of you.
You mean no harm yet you are in view,
The heart no eyes as honed in the mind.

Oh persistent thing, hateful itch,
Left me feeling with my nails.
Relief? No, run before it fails,
Shut it out, save the stitch.

I Wrote a Limerick?

Yellow kitten orange hair,
Question of why skin so bare.
Around the neck a baby lies,
Swift kick to stop before kitty dies.
Meet Ginger's gaze only if you dare.

God

I can only think of a god so true that all reality rings out with its falseness. The mind is so pure and the world so foul that a great schism exists between the two. How can the god of the mind be the god of what we actually see? This is where the problem lies: What we dream of as perfect cannot be. So what then supplants out dreams? It must be something greater than ourselves and our world.

Faulty Appeal to Authority

Answers in Genesis always provides me with a steady stream of irony. Here is the latest in their series on Logical Fallacies called Faulty Appeal to Authority. This logical fallacy basically says that it is wrong to argue that something is true simply based upon the authority of the one making the argument. In the other parts of this series AiG seemed to at least make the pretense that they were considering that creationists make logical fallacies at times. But in this one they do not; all the blame is on the evolutionists. They do acknowledge that appealing to authority is not always a fallacy. If a source is good and credible there really shouldn't be much problem with believing it; however, people should always examine issues of importance and not just believe them outright. This is often a criticism lobbed at evolutionists by creationists who think that they haven't researched the issue. At any rate AiG gives us common ways this fallacy presents itself.

1. "Appealing to an expert in an area that is not his area of expertise."
Obviously asking a professor of ancient history to do patient care in a hospital is not a good idea. We all should be weary of charlatans trying to convince us of things that they have no idea about; we should get our information from reliable sources. Though this doesn't seem to be the point of AiG. Somehow in their mind a person who has a PhD in Biology can not speak on anything historical in the world. They say that "He has no more direct observations of the ancient past than anyone else today." It is true to say that no one has observed ancient history themselves, but it is not true to say that persons learned in history have nothing insightful to say about it. Biologists can speak on our origins because history still exists in geological and paleontological evidence and evolution is based upon that evidence.

2. "Failure to consider the worldview of the expert and how this might affect his interpretation of the data."
Anyone who has read a conspiracy theory will know that someone who believes weird things will produce weird facts. When reading a scientific theory you should be convinced by the facts and not the argument. This point that I have quoted up above is a good example of the contortions that AiG goes through to protect its ideas. The don't mention that there is a bias in a creationist worldview, but say that an evolutionist because of her evolutionary ideas can not be trusted.

3. "Treating a fallible expert as infallible."
There are always limitations in the amount of books a person can read and things they can know, so nobody knows everything. However, this is not a problem when you consider the source, weigh evidence and know your limitations. Let me quote something from AiG: "The Bible claims to be such an infallible source—a revelation from the God who knows everything and cannot lie. Thus, there is no fallacy in appealing to Scripture as absolutely authoritative." I've also heard it said that urinal graffiti is a fount of faultless inspiration. Who told me this? Why urinal graffiti of course. There is a problem with this: We can never trust a statement of inerrancy. Truth should be considered truth on the merit of the facts presented.

I know that this is a creationist site writing to creationists to increase their faith, but this blind faith coupled with the error mentioned in number 2 troubles me. To see the errors in other people, but not in yourself is a serious problem. There is no hope for truth only ignorance.

The Plague

"The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the more incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clear-sightedness." - Camus.

Worship?

Let's be clear here: This is awful, but is it worship? Eh, probably not.

Hooligans

Shakespeare's Sonnet 23

As an unperfect actor on the stage,
Who with his fear is put besides his part,
Or some fierce thing replete with too much rage,
Whose strength's abundance weakens his own heart;
So I, for fear of trust, forget to say
The perfect ceremony of love's rite,
And in mine own love's strength seem to decay,
O'ercharg'd with burthen of mine own love's might.
O let my books be, then, the eloquence
And dumb presagers of my speaking breast;
Who plead for love, and look for recompense
More than that tongue that more hath more express'd.
O learn to read what silent love hath writ:
To hear with eyes belongs to love's fine wit.

I FOUND IT!

Just now I have found the stupidest idea ever put forward by a creationist. I know this is a very bold claim considering the things on YouTube, but just read this:

"A debate over biblical creation is a lot like a debate over the existence of air. Can you imagine two people debating whether or not air exists? What would the critic of air say?

Whatever his arguments, he would have to use air in order to make them. Not only is air crucial to the survival of the critic, but air would have to exist in order for his arguments to be heard and understood . . . . In order for the critic of air to be able to make an argument, it would have to be wrong.

Likewise, the evolutionist must use biblical creation principles in order to argue against biblical creation. In order for his argument to make sense, it would have to be wrong. Ironically, the fact that evolutionists are able to argue against creation proves that creation is true!"

You can just feel the ignorance and the rape of logic trickle down your spine to the seat of your pants only to burst out in steamy irony. Oh yes, this is good, but don't think that this came from some off the wall, backwater creationist site; it came from Answers in Genesis, the big name in creationism. More than that, the quote up above is from a book, The Ultimate Proof of Creation, that has been published by a man who has a doctorate. Dr. Lisle certainly has given us the ultimate proof against creationism, since the same argument can be used to "prove" evolution.

What lesson can we take away from this? Following Lisle's logic it would be that every idea ever proposed and subsequently refuted is correct. So yes, there are unicorns, hobbits and beer volcanoes.

Lisle also says on the AiG site that "with the arguments presented in this new book, I demonstrate that biblical creation absolutely must be true because it is a prerequisite for knowledge and science." I bet it is. He then gives us three examples:

• "Orderly, mathematical laws of nature that describe the consistent clockwork operation of the universe are exactly what we would expect given that Christ upholds all things by the Word of His power (Hebrews 1:3). If the universe were really the chance product of a big bang, then why would it obey laws?"
• "The fact that the human mind is capable of rational thought and that our senses can reliably probe the universe makes sense given that God created the human mind and sensory organs (Genesis 1:27; Proverbs 20:12)."
• "An absolute, universal moral code by which we have knowledge of right and wrong only makes sense if there is a sovereign God who has created rules for us, and to whom we are accountable."

Oh, I really want to buy this book and give it a good going over with my red gel pen. I'm sure that second and third century theologians who had an even more literal view of scripture wouldn't make such egregious logical mistakes. I really wish Christians would just admit that they are being very presumptuous, meaning there is no evidence to support the conclusion that God exists, and just get on with their lives.

Finally, a word from Ken Ham:

"I believe this is one of the most important creationist books available today to teach people how to think biblically and how to argue logically in the defense of the Christian faith.

If only churches and families had taught this material to their congregations and children, there would have been much less compromise in the church. People would have been less likely to have been led astray by compromise and would have readily recognized the illogical arguments of believing in an old earth and other supposed “evidences”—ideas that have caused so many to question the authority of Scripture, leading many of them to leave the church."

Forget all your "evidence" and just believe!

Loch Ness Monster

I found this gem on Pharyngula, you should read it. PZ Myers quotes a creationist textbook that is actually used in the UK, it's pretty amazing. Here's the quote:

"Have you heard of the 'Loch Ness Monster' in Scotland? 'Nessie,' for short has been recorded on sonar from a small submarine, described by eyewitnesses, and photographed by others. Nessie appears to be a plesiosaur.

Could a fish have developed into a dinosaur? As astonishing as it may seem, many evolutionists theorize that fish evolved into amphibians and amphibians into reptiles. This gradual change from fish to reptiles has no scientific basis. No transitional fossils have been or ever will be discovered because God created each type of fish, amphibian, and reptile as separate, unique animals. Any similarities that exist among them are due to the fact that one Master Craftsmen fashioned them all."

So, to creationists the 'Loch Ness Monster' is real, but evolution isn't.

Cool

Cool science, http://www.physorg.com/news167925273.html/?:

"Oxford scientists have created a transparent form of aluminium by bombarding the metal with the world’s most powerful soft X-ray laser. 'Transparent aluminium' previously only existed in science fiction, featuring in the movie Star Trek IV, but the real material is an exotic new state of matter with implications for planetary science and nuclear fusion."

AiG Logic

Answers in Genesis is starting a series on logical fallacies so that they can spot evolutionists making them. This should be good; I really want to see where AiG goes with this. Here's the link. I see one fallacy in this already: There are evolutionist Christians; Which means, the Creationist worldview is not the Christian worldview, its the creationist worldview.

I Found This Entertaining

Grand Canyons

Answers in Genesis had this to say on a recent event in the UK where flood waters created a mini 'Grand Canyon:'

"Daily Mail reporter Neil Sears concludes, “It is an extraordinary illustration of the power of nature—and shows that enough water, flowing with enough force, doesn’t need decades to carve a path through the earth.” Whether intentional or not, his comment—and the physical fact of the Grand Canyon of Durham—is profound evidence for the plausibility of the worldwide Flood carving out many of the world’s geological features. If 120 acres of runoff from a day of rain dug a 14-foot-deep gorge in the earth, what would happen when enough water to cover the surface of the earth from 150 days of water from above and below (the “fountains of the great deep” and the “windows of heaven”) retreated (even if through solid rock, rather than soil)?"

Answers in Genesis: Look for "1. BBC News"

BBC News: Floodwaters create 'Grand Canyon'

Poo Poo Post

I am a follower of Ray Comfort on twitter because I like to see what he posts on his blog. This post that I've read just now is the worst thing I've seen him write on his blog. To be honest I haven't read much, but I imagine there isn't a whole lot worse than this. I'm not sure what his point is in this post. If I had to guess I would say the point is, "Science is stupid because it states the obvious." That is science makes claims that are backed up by testable, observable, quantifiable facts; although, Ray would say that science is anything other than fact. I'm going to post the whole blog here because I'm not sure even Ray can stand the sure to be embarrassment that it will bring. The blog post is called Modern Science.

A recent news item said, "Scientists have detected that New Zealand was moved about 30cm (12 inches) closer to Australia by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in the Tasman Sea last week."

There was another report saying,

" . . . on the west coast of the South Island and a 2-inch tsunami reported in the Tasman Sea to the north of the epicenter, according to the U.S. Pacific Tsunami Warning Center."

A whole country moved 12 inches, and a two-inch tsunami. Wow. And people wonder why we lose faith in modern science when they come up with such silliness.

Think of the incredible achievement of landing a man on the moon. When it happened, it was a huge deal. What do we have to show for it 40 years later? A cure to cancer? A cure for the common cold? A permanent solution for starving nations? Nope. We have rocks. Moon rocks.

Now they are talking about landing on the moon once again. The estimated cost for more rocks--$100 billion dollars.

However, knowing the Creator and what He has in store for those that love Him, helps bring all this into perspective. There’s no hurry to check out the universe. We will have eternity to do that.

Diatoms

The Goat and the Goose

I feel like there is an Aesoptic fable in this picture. Maybe its a story warning it's readers against living too lavishly because goats who bathe in wine get licked by geese.

Oldest Bible

The Codex Sinaiticus is a Greek manuscript of the Bible written in the fourth century. This manuscript has for many years been in fragments, but as a part of a collaborative project between the British Library, Leipzig University Library in Germany, the Monastery of St. Catherine in Mount Sinai, Egypt, and the National Library of Russia in St. Petersburg these fragments are being put together to make a complete manuscript. This manuscript will be available for everyone to read.

Telegraph Article:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/5749555/Worlds-oldest-Bible-published-in-full-online.html

Kitty Kitty

I had a kitty cat once, but he died or something. My cat would walk around, eat stuff and sometimes would allow himself to be petted; the usual cat stuff. Sometimes he would meow and I would tell him to shut up and he would become greatly offended and meow again; repeat. He was a great cat; although, perfectly ordinary. Now this cat, I've named him Mittens, is very strange.

The cat isn't strange of its own accord, but is because of that of its owner. I'm sure that there are some ethical complications of tying balloons to a cat. Did the cat ask for balloons? Probably not, unless you know something about cats that others don't. It is a very cute picture and the cat seems to be alive. I suppose it's OK to tie balloons to a cat, probably shouldn't do it too often though. After a while the strings would probably cut off some circulation and make the cat's legs fall asleep.

Maybe we should be concerned for the dresser, kitten scratches can be quite unsightly.

Something to be Wary About

I have a lot of time on my hands at the moment and I've been spending some of it on Richard Dawkins' website. It's a great website and it's amazing how much stuff Dawkins puts on it for free, there's an archive full of stuff. Anyway, I just read a correspondence between Edwin Cartlidge who was (or is) a journalist for the Templeton Foundation and two notable atheists. The Templeton Foundation puts on an annual conference in Cambridge where they attempt to bring science and religion together. Edwin Cartlidge emailed both Anthony Grayling and Daniel Dennett asking them to speak at the event; they both declined. I found something Daniel Dennett said interesting:

"Many years ago I made the mistake of participating, with some very good scientists, in a conference that pitted us against astrologers and other new age fakes. I learned to my dismay that even though we thoroughly dismantled the opposition, many in the audience ended up, paradoxically, with an increased esteem for astrologers! As one person explained to me “I figured that if you scientists were willing to work this hard to refute it, there must be something to it!” Isn’t it obvious to you that the Templeton Foundation is eager to create the very same response in its readers? Do you really feel comfortable being complicit with that project?"

This is something that Christians should be wary of: A false sense of superiority. One example would be Ray Comfort's attempts to get into a debate with Richard Dawkins. Comfort is not interested in discussing theology, he is only interested in debasing science to "prove" Dawkins wrong. While I would like to see the spectacle that such a debate would bring, it is much better that Dawkins steer clear of it for risk of validating Comfort's feeble attempts.

Link to RDF post: Correspondence Regarding the Templeton Foundation.

Oh, Brave New World

"Because our world is not the same as Othello's world. You can't make flivvers without steel - and you can't make tragedies without social instability. The world's stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can't get. They're not afraid of death; they're blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they're plagues with no mothers or fathers; they've got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they're so conditioned that they practically can't help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there's soma. Which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr. Savage. Liberty!" He laughed. '"Expecting Deltas to know what liberty is! And now expecting them to understand Othello! My good boy!"

-Aldous Huxley

Ray Comfort

Ray Comfort is a... well, lets just says he's not very good at whatever it is he does. This afternoon I read through a blog. On this blog was another blog by Ray Comfort and that blog, the second not the first, was incredibly irritating. Comfort has a penchant for keeping old arguments going long after they have been proven false and yes he has been proven false a number of times. Here is the link to the blog about another blog, here, Ray Comfort's has been removed and so is only available on the link above.

One thing I did find a little surprising is that Comfort quoted more of Darwin than I expected him to. I have seen this quote used before and it stopped sooner. Here it is:

“To suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of Spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree."

That's where it usually stops, but he goes on.

"When it was first said that the sun stood still and the world turned round, the common sense of mankind declared the doctrine false; but the old saying of Vox populi, vox Dei ['the voice of the people = the voice of God'], as every philosopher knows, cannot be trusted in science. Reason tells me, that if numerous gradations from a simple and imperfect eye to one complex and perfect can be shown to exist, each grade being useful to its possessor, as is certain the case; if further, the eye ever varies and the variations be inherited, as is likewise certainly the case; and if such variations should be useful to any animal under changing conditions of life, then the difficulty of believing that a perfect and complex eye could be formed by natural selection, should not be considered as subversive of the theory.”

I'm not sure why Comfort would quote more because Darwin doesn't seem to be helping his case much. The last bit of the quote, "should not be considered as subversive," answers Comforts argument. The argument for Irreducible Complexity is an argument from theists that proposes that some structures in the natural world can not be broken down into smaller parts and thus can not have come about by the process of natural selection. This argument is very much a stall. Irreducible Complexity says God exists because the alternative hasn't sorted itself out yet, but the problem for theists is that it inevitably will. In fact one of IC's main arguments, the bacterial flagellum, has been reduced. You can watch an interesting video here where Kenneth Miller talks about this big problem for the IC guys. So really, if you can't understand evolution that doesn't mean it's wrong, it means it's strange and strangeness is what our universe is known for.

The Awful Little Dot on the Map

Alturas is not a place you go to; rather, it is a place that you drive through to go someplace else. This drive is usually done very quickly. I live here for the time being and I was walking around this evening. I felt so many things, really I did. I felt scared because some red necks yelled things and had an ominous looking pick-up truck. I felt depressed because the paved road I was walking on didn't seem to be paved anymore. I was beguiled by some tall, pretty looking trees only to stub my toe while looking up. I was struck mostly by the feeling that this place would be quite nice if people actually cared enough to do something about the general "broken-in-ness" that is very much everywhere. The old shops, old houses and barns would be a nice place to be if you needn't worry about gravity and the various other critters who seem to like things "broken-in." However, mountains are something to see. The Warner Mountains still have snow on them even though it is summer as does Mount Shasta which can still be seen even though one hundred miles away. Things aren't so bad; it's good enough for now.

Impossible Gospel

(Excerpt from a paper of the same name written for Christian Theology II)

"Convince us of our errors of Doctrine, if we have any, by reason, by logical arguments, or by the Word of God and we will ever be grateful for the information and you will ever have the pleasing reflections that you have been instruments in the hands of God of redeeming your fellow beings."
- Apostle Orson Pratt

The Impossible Gospel, as presented by Daniel Thompson in The Mormon Scrapbook, is a method of evangelizing Mormons which uses LDS scriptures to show how Mormon soteriology is internally incoherent. The intent here would be the same: to prove to the reader that there is no means within the Restored Gospel by which man can be saved. First we will do a proper exegesis of the text and look at the significance of that exegesis and then survey what Mormon doctrine actually makes of that particular text.

Moroni 10:32
Yea, come unto Christ, and be perfected in him, and deny yourselves of all ungodliness; and if ye shall deny yourselves of all ungodliness, and love God with all your might, mind and strength, then is his grace sufficient for you, that by his grace ye may be perfect in Christ; and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can in nowise deny the power of God.

We must come to Christ in order to become perfected in him, but we must also deny ourselves of all our ungodliness. And by denying our ungodliness and loving God his grace then becomes sufficient to save us and make us perfect. This is all done by the power of God. This passage here really seems to chase back around itself: Grace allows you to be perfect, but you must deny unrighteousness and, by doing that, grace becomes sufficient to make you perfect, its all jumbled up. So, we must turn our attention away from the cyclical argument to avoid further confusion and to the linear argument or the if/then statement.

This sets some pretty definite priorities on how one might go about being saved. First, the antecedent makes clear that all ungodliness must be rejected. By a lack of further explanation and clarification it must be assumed that this is an all encompassing statement; all really means all. This goal must be achieved to produce grace that is sufficient. Work as defined by the Merriam-Webster dictionary is an "activity in which one exerts strength or faculties to do or perform something." The definition fits, sadly, and grace loses all meaning. Grace as defined by the Baker Evangelical Dictionary of Theology is, "undeserved blessing freely bestowed on humans by God.1" Works destroy grace by making it something that is earned not something that is an expression of the love of a Creator (1 Tim. 1:14).

Increasingly, who is good enough that they would be able to put behind them their sinful nature in full and never sin. This is an impossibility; no one can be perfect on their own (Rom. 3:23-24). The mention of grace in this Moroni passage mucks things up quite a bit. The inattentive reader will assume that grace is the instigator not works, but we know better than that. We also know that grace on the basis of works is no longer grace its a contradiction (Rom. 11:6). This maybe enough proof to say nay to Mormonism, but we shall press onward to remove all doubt.

2 Nephi 25:23
For we labor diligently to write to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.

Here Nephi is speaking to his people about the Christ who will be coming 600 years later to save them. Belief in Christ reconciles you to God and it is by grace that we are able to have such belief. This is completely Christian. Forgetting the strangeness of this text, meaning the New Testament language used during pre-exilic times, there really aren't any criticisms to be had. The problem is a small statement that changes everything. "After all we can do" is not about how man falls short even after trying very hard and that grace swoops in and saves him. It is works.

"The word grace, as used in the scriptures, refers primarily to the divine help and strength we receive through the Atonement of the Lord Jesus Christ.2" This is an odd statement for Christians, not because we don't think of grace as helping us, but because of the lake of totality this quote gives to that help. A common couplet might give a better sight of what this looks like, "we do our best and Christ does the rest." There has to be effort on your part; you must do something to instigate this grace. In order to have such a doctrine as this, Mormons must forget the depraved state of man. Consider Ephesians chapter two. We were dead doing nothing but the dead things that dead people do; incapable of doing anything that might bring ourselves out of this spiral. But, God saved us by his lonesome and gave us life by the free gift of grace. Pointedly, this was not of our own doing, not a result of works, but it was a gift from God. Grace is not what helps save you, it is what saves you.

Spencer W. Kimball wrote:

"The gospel is a program of action - of doing things. Man's immortality and eternal life are God's goals. (Moses 1:39.) Immortality has been accomplished by the Savior's sacrifice. Eternal life hangs in the balance awaiting the works of men. This progress toward eternal life is a matter of achieving perfection. Living all the commandments guarantees total forgiveness of sins and assures one of exaltation through that perfection which comes by complying with the formula the Lord gave us... He would never require anything from his children which was not for their benefit and which was not attainable. Perfection is an achievable goal.3"

The preacher of Ecclesiastes would be upset at what Kimball is building up here, it is very windy indeed. What is the need for Christ if you are already perfect? Christ is reduced to something like Ghandi who did great things to inspire his people, but he was only a initiator not a Savior. Remember that Christ is who saved you, he is not what gave you the ability to save yourself. Books such as Kimball's clearly show that ideas of work based salvation are not based upon a clever and misguided exegesis of a text, rather it is a doctrine put forth by the church's leaders.

Alma 11:37
And I say unto you again that he cannot save them in their sins; for I cannot deny his word, and he hath said that no unclean thing can inherit the kingdom of heaven; therefore, how can ye be saved, except ye inherit the kingdom of heaven? Therefore, ye cannot be saved in your sins.

It is not possible for man to be saved while in a state of sin. Yet, man is inherently sinful and desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9). There's a pretty obvious problem with this; how is man supposed to pull himself out of sin? The Mormon reasoning for this is that Christ's atoning sacrifice wiped away man's original sin, thus leaving him able to strive to be perfect. This reasoning makes a bit more sense, but it still isn't biblical and has some inherent problems.

Lets looks at the gospel reference True to the Faith:

"...you cannot be saved in your sins; you cannot receive unconditional salvation simply by declaring your belief in Christ with the understanding that you will inevitably commit sins throughout the rest of your life... To receive this blessing, you must exercise faith in Jesus Christ, strive to keep the commandments, forsake sin, and renew your repentance and cleansing through the ordinance of the sacrament.4"

The opposite is true, you do receive unconditional salvation simply by belief in spite of the fact that you will inevitably commit sins probably every day of your life. Romans 5:8 tells us that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, meaning that his sacrifice was for sinners who were still sinning.

1 Nephi 3:7
And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: 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.

By the power of God, man has the ability to do all things. This applies to keeping the commandments and ordinances. But, what does it mean if you are not perfect? This view that Mormons hold does not make sense. If you sin then God must not have commanded you to be perfect, which either means that you don't have to be perfect or that salvation isn't for you. Since the Lord has commanded man to be perfect, man should be able to be perfect. Let us consult the gospel reference again:

"As you ponder your progress on the 'strait and narrow path,' be assured that eternal life is within your reach. The Lord wants you to return to Him, and He will never require anything of you that you cannot fulfill... Remember that as you give your greatest effort and repent of your sins, the Atonement of Jesus Christ will compensate for your weakness and for the inequities, injuries, and pains you experience in this life...5"

So, it seems that Christ's death was only to aid you in a never ending quest for perfection. This doesn't seem so bad. If you stumble, Christ comes along and picks you back up and points you in the right direction again. We shall see the problem with this later.

Doctrine and Covenants 58:42-43
Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more. By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins - behold, he will confess them and forsake them.

We are given a definition of repentance here. It is more than sorrow for sin and more than attempting to pay back whom you have wronged: It is acknowledging the sin and never doing it again. A repentant heart is a heart that has completely turned away from the evil it once loved. This is true repentance. What makes this so hard is that no one has ever been able to achieve this. Yet, we must. Kimball gives a story of how this plays out:

"An army officer called a soldier to him and ordered him to take a message to another officer. The soldier saluted and said, 'I'll try, sir! I'll try!' To this the officer responded: 'I don't want you to try, I want you to deliver this message." The soldier, somewhat embarrassed, now replied: 'I'll do the best I can, sir." At this the officer, now disgusted, rejoined with some vigor: 'I don't want you to try and I don't want you to 'do the best you can.' I want you to deliver this message.' Now the young soldier straightening to his full height, approached the matter magnificently, as he thought, when he saluted again and said: 'I'll do it or die, sir.' To this the now irate officer responded: 'I don't want you to die, and I don't want you merely to do the best you can, and I don't want you to try. Now, the request is a reasonable one; the message is important; the distance is not far; you are able-bodied; you can do what I have ordered. Now get out of here and accomplish your mission.6'"

In short, you must do what you very well might not be able to do. Attempting with everything you have is not enough; if you die without delivering the message, that's it, you've failed. There's no hope in that, no grace. Trying is not sufficient and doing your best isn't nearly good enough, "you must do better than you can.7" Gospel means good news right?

Doctrine and Covenants 82:7
And now, verily I say unto you, I, the Lord, will not lay any sin to your charge; go your ways and sin no more; but unto that soul who sinneth shall the former sins return, saith the Lord your God.

What is interesting about this passage is that the one preceding says that "none doeth good," which makes the events of this one inevitable. As we have seen in previous verses this one starts off good then gets a bit weird toward the end. The seemingly free forgiveness at the start is betrayed by the return of sin upon sinning again. Sin isn't forgiven then; it is put in a back room, waiting for your next mistake. "Forgiveness" is conditional, if you sin and sin again from time to time they all pile up.

"To return to sin is most destructive to the morale of the individual and gives Satan another hand-hold on his victim. Those who feel that they can sin and be forgiven and then return to sin and be forgiven again and again must straighten out their thinking. Each previously forgiven sin is added to the new one and the whole gets to be a heavy load.8"

Maybe the full weight of sin isn't felt until you enter such a system as this. When the burden is on your shoulders you can see the impressive weight of the cross and see that there is no way that you'll ever be able to carry it.

Alma 34:32-35
For behold, this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors... I beseech of you that ye do not procrastinate the day of your repentance until the end... Ye cannot say, when ye are brought to that awful crisis, that I will repent, that I will return to my God... For behold, if ye have procrastinated the day of your repentance even until death, behold, ye have become subjected to the spirit of the devil, and he doth seal you his; therefore, the Spirit of the Lord hath withdrawn from you, and hath no place in you, and the devil hath all power over you: and this is the final state of the wicked.

If you do not repent before you die you belong to Satan and, as we have seen, repentance is quite a feat. Since this is such a strong proposition we should default to a prophet and use his words to help describe what is going on here.

"Because men are prone to postpone action and ignore directions, the Lord has repeatedly given strict injunctions and issued solemn warnings. Again and again in different phraseology and throughout the centuries the Lord has reminded man so that he could never have excuse. And the burden of the prophetic warning has been that the time to act is now, in this mortal life. One cannot with impunity delay his compliance with God's commandments.9"

Because of the sinful nature of man, man is warned not to sin. Warnings and rules will do no good to aid man, it will only show him how far short he falls (Rom. 7:13). Nonetheless, man must move to action and flee from sin and to the commandments of God.

"This is the state of those who knowingly fail to live the commandments in this life. They will bring upon themselves their own hell.10" If you willingly break the commandments you're obviously not keeping them, but more than that if you set out to break what God has commanded you you can't have a high view of God in the first place. This is in keeping with mainstream Christianity. The mention of hell is strange as far as Mormon doctrine goes seeing as how most Mormons don't really ever mention it. The hell talked about here is outer darkness and, suffice to say, it isn't a pleasant place and is reserved for the most loathsome of people, heretics. Outer darkness is reserved for those who have heard the truth of Mormonism, but have turned away from it11. This doctrine is often used to keep people in the church by making them afraid of becoming sons of perdition (Heretics) and doomed to outer darkness.

Helaman 13:38
But, behold, your days of probation are past; ye have procrastinated the day of your salvation until it is everlastingly too late and your destruction is made sure; yea, for ye have sought all the days of your lives for that which ye could not obtain; and ye have sought for happiness in doing iniquity, which thing is contrary to the nature of that righteousness which is in our great and Eternal Head.

This is a very disturbing part of the Book of Mormon, not because of the demons swirling about their heads (verse 37), but because this is the end all men must face. You have sought all the days of your life for that which you could not obtain. The shocking truth of Mormonism, the impossible gospel, is that you will never obtain what you are looking for. It will always be just out of reach no matter how hard you search for it. "Do or do not, there is no try."


Foot Notes:
1. Walter Elwell, Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, P.E. Hughes, "Grace," (Grand Rapids: Baker, 2001), p. 519.
2. True to the Faith, "Grace," (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2004), p. 77. (Emphasis Added).
3. Spencer W. Kimball, The Miracle of Forgiveness, (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1969), p. 208-209.
4. True to the Faith, p. 151.
5. True to the Faith, p. 53.
6. Kimball, p. 164.
7. ibid, p.165.
8. Ibid, p. 170.
9. Ibid, p. 9.
10. Ibid, p. 14.
11. True to the Faith, "Hell," p. 81.