Is Mormonism Christian?

I regard the question as academic and not worthy of serious consideration. I think this way because after Jesus' death the Jesus teachings took many forms, and many interpretations until becoming codified into the orthodoxy it is today. Centuries after Jesus' death, Constantine's Council of Nicaea, after days of wrangling and debate, decided what would be accepted as official Church doctrine, and what would not be. In the 19th Century, Joseph Smith's ideas came far too late to be accepted or rejected as orthodoxy by Council members--that's all. In short, the matter of orthodoxy was decided by men, some wise, some foolish. Barring his polygamy and other possible heresies, they might have accepted some of Joseph Smith's claims had he and his ideas been of the times and assimilated by the culture. Still, I offer the writer's comments below as they are interesting.

" . . . there has been more smoke than light, particularly about the fundamental question of what Mormons actually believe. Journalists, never particularly interested in doctrinal matters, tend to focus on the contemporary influence of the church or on intriguing chapters from its past history—most prominently the practice of polygamy, which officially was ended in 1890. Scholarly studies do little better, in part because they tend to focus on the history of the church, particularly its formative era from 1820 to 1890, or on its contemporary sociology and culture.

All this has led to considerable misunderstanding about what Latter-day Saints believe about the central subject of Christian religion: Jesus Christ and his atonement for sin. One can find innumerable assertions that Mormons do not believe Jesus was the messiah, that they do not believe he atoned for the sins of the fallen human race, and that they believe salvation comes by works.

All of these statements are false, and they reflect incomprehension of Mormon beliefs and doctrine." More

Penn and Teller On The 7 Basics of Magic

Holding a cigarette, Teller wants his tricks to expose how we construct reality. Every day of our lives we perpetuate fraud on ourselves, unaware of our self-deception. T.S. Eliot said mankind cannot bear too much reality and he apparently was right.

Our brains were adapted for evolution. A rock could be a bear, a stick a snake, and too much stimuli could overload the brain. Instead it pictures "reality" for us. It is wired to reveal to us how things are supposed to look.

Although not psychologists, magicians have an intuitive grasp of our ability to deceive ourselves. "Every time you perform a magic trick, you're engaging in experimental psychology," Teller says. "If the audience asks, 'How the hell did he do that?' then the experiment was successful. I've exploited the efficiencies of your mind."

We can gaze open-mouthed as the lady emerges unscathed after seemingly being sawed in half. We know it was a trick. We knew we would be deceived, but we cannot see how it was possible. We trust our vision, our hearing, our common sense, which deceive us each time a magician steps on stage.

Watch the video below to understand the basic rules of deception in magic.

Psychopaths I Have Known

I can count psychopaths among my acquaintances. They committed no crimes and had never been in prison, but psychopaths they were. One acquaintance was the most notable. He rose to become head of a large organization and those who worked for him suffered greatly from his callous disregard for common decency. Numerous formal complaints were lodged against him, but somehow he manipulated the perceptions of those who received the complaints so that either (1) his bosses were afraid of him or (2) they truly believed his employees simply had grudges against him.

Herman Goering, Hitler's Luftwaffe Marshal, was a psychopath. Like so many of his kind, he was likable in superficial meetings, but was vain, indifferent to others' feelings, and the super hero of his own story--so much so that he thought everybody else must admire him as much as he admired himself. Under-appreciated at the Nuremberg War Crimes Trial, he was shocked to discover the judges considered him a criminal. He hanged himself.

Estimates vary for male psychopaths in the population, from one out of ten to one out of a hundred to four out of a hundred . An estimate for women is one out of three hundred. The essential point is this. They are more common than people think. Your next door neighbor may be one. The statistics would include some readers of this blog.

"It is well observed that psychopaths (a.k.a. sociopaths) are found both in prison and in managerial positions. In The Sociopath Next Door, Martha Stout analyzed many individuals with psychopathy and most of them were not part of the offender population. I think that leadership researchers have somehow overlooked these types of "leaders" or organizational psychopaths who have inflicted pain to many but succeeded in maintaining their positions (even been promoted). More

I found a checklist by Robert Hare for psychopathy. He lists the following traits:

(1) interpersonal or affective defects (e.g., glibness or superficial charm, grandiose feelings of self-worth, conning or manipulative behavior, lack of remorse or guilt, shallow affects, callousness or lack of empathy)
(2) social deviance and antisocial (irresponsibility, parasitic lifestyle, impulsivity, and unstable relationships, criminal versatility).
(3) other attributes.

Number 3 leaves the door open and such characteristics as irresponsibility describe criminals rather than those who have careers. Quoting the checklist, the writer, Key Sun, says he has "encountered about three or four psychopaths in organizational settings in the past. I observed they were frequently abusive, disregarding the feelings and rights of others; they caused disasters to everything they put their hands on. However, they appeared to never be found responsible for the harms they did. I always wonder how those who are neither emotionally nor socially intelligent (namely, they lack the basic leadership qualifications suggested by some researchers) operate so well, whereas nice people in the same settings are frequently reprimanded or punished."

Note "they appeared to never be found responsible for the harms they did." That was precisely my experience in observing my former acquaintance.

The writer has "tentative explanations:
1. Psychopaths know how to ingratiate themselves with people of higher status.
2. They prey on nice victims who they know are unlikely to jeopardize their positions.
3. They know how to take others' achievements as their own credits, and blame their mistakes on others.
4. They are good at using both fear and tear to menace and confuse others.

Here are excerpts I found while surfing for information on psychopaths:

Only 20-25% of those in prison are psychopaths.

When asked a question such as “What does remorse feel like?” for instance, the typical psychopath will become irritated, deflect the question, or attempt to change the subject.

Psychopaths “know the words but not the music.” Those that turn to crime are generally considered “unsuccessful psychopaths” due to their failure to blend into society. Those who do succeed can do so spectacularly.

While it may sound like a cynical joke, it’s a fact that psychopaths have a clear advantage in fields such as law, business, and politics. They have higher IQs on average than the general population. They take risks and aren’t fazed by failures. They know how to charm and manipulate. They’re ruthless.

It could even be argued that the criteria used by corporations to find effective managers actually select specifically for psychopathic traits: characteristics such as charisma, self-centeredness, confidence, and dominance are highly correlated with the psychopathic personality, yet also highly sought after in potential leaders. More.

And More. In the interest of brevity, I did not want to include this, but it eloquently captures the problem of psychopathy, so here it is:

"The high incidence of sociopathy in human society has a profound effect on the rest of us who must live on this planet, too, even those of us who have not been clinically traumatized. The individuals who constitute this 4 percent drain our relationships, our bank accounts, our accomplishments, our self-esteem, our very peace on earth.

Yet surprisingly, many people know nothing about this disorder, or if they do, they think only in terms of violent psychopathy - murderers, serial killers, mass murderers - people who have conspicuously broken the law many times over, and who, if caught, will be imprisoned, maybe even put to death by our legal system.

We are not commonly aware of, nor do we usually identify, the larger number of nonviolent sociopaths among us, people who often are not blatant lawbreakers, and against whom our formal legal system provides little defense." More

Does Spontaneity Promote Happiness?

"Despite considerable research on the topic, I've discovered very little explicitly relating spontaneity to happiness. Admittedly, it's doubtful that any straightforward, one-to-one correspondence actually exists. Still, what various theorists have said about this ideal state of consciousness suggests that, however indirectly, spontaneity does play a crucial role in its achievement. For whether these writers talk about the importance of living in the moment (or 'mindfulness'), liberating oneself from self-consciousness, or even 'being in the zone,' the underlying notion of living more spontaneously to foster a greater state of well-being is generally not far below the surface."

Spontaneity. Hmmm. Long ago when I took French, I read a novel by Andre Gide, Lafcadio's Adventures (in French Les Caves du Vatican, or The Vatican Cellars), in which the protagonist tried to do a completely gratuitous act--something undetermined by him. Without premeditation, so he thinks, without a plan, he murders a man, by shoving him off a train. But the act was not gratuitous, for at the last minute Lafcadio Wluki had intent. He could not escape the cause and effect which informs our lives. For Gide, this was a philosophical novel on what the novelist regarded as the conflict between human freedom and determinism. So much for literature vis-à-vis neuroscience, which cannot find a ghost in the machine.

Which raises the question, Is anything ever spontaneous? Yes, says Robert Burton (On Being Certain: Believing You Are Right Even When You're Not). Yes, by implication in the sense that we think we know something because a conscious thought (our belief) arose as a sensation produced by the unconscious mind. The conscious thought that we are right is produced by an unconscious association and is therefore spontaneous. Burton has an interesting argument and from a neurological perspective he is dead on about many things, but it is too long for my purpose here. Read the book if you want to understand more.

Burton, though, was a neurologist, now retired to write novels, and his book is not about happiness. For a psychologist's perspective on happiness and spontaneity, read on. More

Anterograde Amnesia

What would it be like to be Rip Van Winkle every thirty seconds? That is, to remember at most in thirty second segments, and to forget everything beyond that time span? According to the video below, it is like continually waking up. It is like a repeated surprise. Oh, so this is new! Oh, so that is new! Soon, the continual newness gets old.

The movie Memento puts a Hollywood spin on the condition. The lead character suffers from anterograde amnesia and searches for the man he believes raped and killed his wife during a burglary. His brain incurred severe trauma during the attack on his wife and he cannot store new memories. To compensate, he takes copious notes and photographs, as well as tatoos, to keep information about himself, others, and his wife's killer.

"In most cases of anterograde amnesia, patients lose declarative memory, or the recollection of facts, but they retain non-declarative memory, often called procedural memory. For instance, they are able to remember and in some cases learn how to do things such as talking on the phone or riding a bicycle, but they may not remember what they had eaten earlier that day for lunch. In addition, patients have a diminished ability to remember the temporal context in which objects were presented." More

In brief, anterograde amnesia applies to those who can't remember after the event that caused the memory loss. Retrograde amnesia applies to people who can't remember what happened before the event. Some people suffer both kinds.

The man in the video below cannot remember beyond fifty or sixty seconds. He tells the woman that each time he feels like he has just awakened. He feels continual amazement. He cannot remember dreams, or what he did five minutes ago. He knows he is aging and by listening to him you understand he feels that without memory he is losing his life. As soon as he wakes up he makes a diary entry to the effect that he has just awakened. Then he wakes up again and crosses out the previous entry because he believes he has just awakened this time instead .

Myths of What Makes Us Happy

We think we know what will make us happy, but do we? Extensive research on happiness reveals a rather surprising conclusion. Few people know what will make them happy. Most people think they know, but really don't. This failure to understand themselves leads them into lives with unfulfilling careers and relationships.

One explanation for the failure to understand can be found in the natural tendency to cognitive bias. Cognitive bias sneaks up on us, even though we know it exists. We try to be objective in our decision making, but often don't have a clue as to how we are prejudiced in our reasoning criteria. Our brains are hard wired for cognitive biases and we often cannot see through that fact. This had an evolutionary advantage. If it moved and was as big as a boulder, it probably might eat us. Our ancestors ran. They didn't have to think about it. People tend to believe a certain way because others do. This, too, had an advantage, for those who didn't fit in were cast out into the wilderness. Then there is confirmation bias, the tendency to look for explanations that fit our preconceptions. This may have facilitated decision making when life was simple, nasty, brutish, and short, and decisions had to be made quickly.

Interestingly, many people think fame would make them happy. This is a relatively new phenomenon, one rare in communitarian societies, as well as in America and Europe as recently as the nineteenth century. I regard it as due to alienation in modern society. People want recognition that closer social connections once offered. As an example, self-esteem once came from love, concern, and warm relationships with others in close-knit communities.

The video below discusses the myths about happiness and points out what has been found to make people happy. A very brief commercial precedes it.

Living With Epilepsy

In High school, walking between classes, I saw a group of kids standing around something. When I got to the crowd, I saw a boy on the lawn, his legs and arms jerking spasmodically. He was wholly unconscious. Fourteen years old, I didn't know what to do. I had never seen anybody behave like that and had no idea how to help him.

Suddenly, two teachers and the school nurse pushed through the crowd. We went on to our next classes. They took care of the boy. That afternoon, I learned that he had an epileptic fit. I didn't know the boy but I felt sorry for him. As a teenager, he had been publicly seen in a very un-cool situation. I didn't understand that was the least of his worries, although I am sure he felt stigmatized. Much later, I learned the terminology. The boy had what was then called a grand mal seizure. That was a big-time problem.

Seizures are strange things. "Depending on the part of the brain affected, seizures can produce hallucinations, anxiety, feelings of religious ecstasy or bizarre psychological tics such as 'hyperfamiliarity,' a delusional sense that you're already acquainted with everyone you meet."

I wonder if the boy is still alive, or how long he lived. "There is some debate about the long-term risk from repeated seizures." Some scientists believe seizures can cause brain damage. Most certainly uncontrolled seizures can lead to "lasting memory problems, cognitive deficits, personality changes—and death."

Curiously, specific recurrent events can cause seizures. Oliver Sacks described a woman who went into a seizure whenever she heard Neapolitan music.

Nowadays some epilepsy can be controlled by electronic devices such as the vagal nerve stimulator. It sends an electric signal to the brain through the vagus nerve in the neck. More

Were The Essenes Authors of The Dead Sea Scrolls?

Discovered between 1947 and 1956, the Dead Sea scrolls altered the historical view of Biblical times and were of great importance in our understanding of Christ and antiquity. Found in eleven caves at Wadi Qumran on a shore of the Dead Sea, the roughly 900 documents include copies of Biblical documents. Written on parchment or papyrus and in Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek, the manuscripts range in date from 150 years before Christ to 70 years after his birth. The scrolls are most commonly identified with the ancient Jewish sect called the Essenes.

Scholars have put forth many well-reasoned doubts as to whether the Essenes existed, or were invented by Greek and Laton historians. Rachel Elior is one of them. More

Caloric Restriction & Long Life

It happened long ago, and yet popular culture lacks knowledge of ground-breaking experiments on how to live longer. The year was 1934. The scientists were Clive McCay and Mary Crowell of Cornell University. The experiment was simple. McCay and Crowell fed laboratory rats a diet with severely reduced calories while insuring nutrition remained adequate. This diet resulted in life spans twice as long as otherwise expected. In humans, a calorie-restricted diet could lead to life spans of 115 to 120 years, the maximum that longevity evidence indicates. That increase in years would be attended by relatively good health until death.

Roy Walford and Richard Weindruch conducted similar experiments on mice. In 1986, Weindruch reported that restricting the calorie intake of laboratory mice proportionally increased their life span compared to a group of mice with a normal diet. The calorie-restricted mice also maintained youthful appearances and activity levels longer and showed delays in age-related diseases. Walford and Weindruch summarized their findings in a book, The Retardation of Aging and Disease by Dietary Restriction (1988).

The findings apply to more than rats and mice. Many people have taken up the practice of caloric restriction (CR) and there are web sites dedicated to it. Because life is short, they have chosen not to wait for research on the possibility of parallel physiological links in humans.

The findings have been significant. In 2002 at Washington University, 30 participants were engaged in trials on longevity and caloric restriction. Dr. Luigi Fontana found that the practitioners appear to age more slowly than the general population. In the caloric restriction group,with a mean age of 55, systolic blood pressure had a mean of 110, about that of a 20-year-old. More here and here.

Cloning Neanderthals: Within Our Reach

Let's say that our cousins the Neanderthals can be cloned and brought back to life. Although our ancestors wiped them out, rendered them extinct, we modern humans allegedly have found a way to bring them back. That is, "a team of researchers led by geneticist Svante Pääbo at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany" have. They have "completed a draft sequence of the genome of Neanderthal humans."

Mind you, they won't be brought back because of compassion for having rendered them extinct. Rather, "evolutionary biologists believe that comparing the Neanderthal genome with our own will throw considerable light on the genetic changes that gave us our big brains, language, and the ability to create culture."

How much will it cost? Some say about $30 million, peanuts with the right grants and sponsors.

There is an ethical problem in all of this. "Neanderthals are human beings, too. The ancestral lineage that led to both Neanderthals and modern humans diverged from the chimpanzee line nearly 6 million years ago.Archaeological evidence also indicates that Neanderthals behaved in ways similar to modern humans. They controlled fire, wore clothing, made and used tools, and buried their dead."

The same laws that protect us, must protect them. They would not be chimpanzees in a laboratory. More.

Military Dogs Returning to Multiple War Tours Suffer Stress, Nightmares

In WWI they called it shell shock. In WWII it was combat fatigue. Today, soldiers experience Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Dogs also go to war.

Timi, a 5 year-old German shepherd, is an Iraq war veteran, and "according to his medical file, he has nightmares 'characterized by violent kicking.' His veterinarian says he has had 'readjustment issues' since coming home--although not severe enough to prevent him from returning to the field. Timi started thrashing about in his sleep. . . . . 'He was kicking the . . . kennel down. . . . When I got him out of it, he'd have that bewildered look, and it would take him a minute to know where he was. Then he'd fall back asleep, and it would happen again and again.' For two years, Walter Burghardt, chief of behavioral medicine at the Department of Defense Military Working Dog Veterinary Service, has been studying the effects of combat on dogs. More

Consciousness (Not) Explained

For most of us, our emotions are stirred, powerful feelings arise, and that is what we are likely to remember.

"Bill Noonan hasn't suffered any obvious physical damage to his brain. Yet for more than two decades after his return from Vietnam, he has re-experienced the most terrifying event of his life several times a week as a waking dream. 'It was a night ambush,' he remembers. 'The first seven guys to my right were machine-gunned down. My gas mask was shot right off my hip. That was my first fire fight.' Bill knew his flashbacks weren't real-but they seemed so real that it made no difference. 'I didn't know what was happening,' he says. 'The biggest fear I had was that I was crazy. ' "

Not so, all of us. Far from traumatic experiences, Marcel Proust sought a kind of metaphysics in memory. He found his most meaningful events in the taste of a cookie, or the angle of his feet while he gazed at a building. "The past," he wrote, "still lives in us . . . has made us what we are and is remaking us every moment!" He says, "it is a vase filled with perfumes, sounds, places and climates! . . . So we hold within us a treasure of impressions . . . that become certain moments of our past." (Formerly Remembrance of Things Past, now In Search of Lost Time.)

In either case, Proust's or Noonan's, the mind is the mystery. It is the source of our sense of self, our sense of being in the world, our sense of choice. Some say it is merely a function of consciousness, which in turn arises from the brain, an emergent phenomenon, physical at its root. Others argue that to insist on only the physicality is to deny a spiritual aspect to our lives.

Long before Descartes came up with his "I think, therefore I am," Buddha had said, in effect, "I am, therefore I think." Consciousness itself remains a mystery, arising as Eastern sages say, out of the great I AM.

In the West, science hopes to explain much of it. Nonetheless, as they study it, they understand that the victims of mental disease or brain damage provide "stark demonstrations of how fragile reality can be. Most people agree, within limits, on the objective character of the world around them. Yet while the victims of mental disorders are certainly conscious and aware, their worlds are profoundly different from those of most of us." More