Monthly Archives: April 2011

Teenagers vs. Youth: “I am Not a Teenager!”

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If you are tired of teenage attitudes and problems this is something you will want to know.  http://www.iamnotateenager.com/has a free book preview written by youth for teens. The book shows teenagers there is a different way to be.  They can be “youth” instead.  There is a difference. 

Have you noticed that the brethern of the church refer to people ages 12- 18 as “youth” or “young men and  young women?”  They don’t call the “young adults” teenagers.  Teenagers are a different kind of person than a youth.  Youth want adult responsibilites and strive to live adult like.  They value family relationships and are engaged in purpose filled learning.  Teenagers want the “perks” of being older, but don’t want the responsibilities or the study. 

Each week I teach a class for youth ages 12-16 Continue reading →

Philosophy: The Value of Sticking Your Neck Out

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I recently read (or listened to anyhow) a book called The Dream of Reason: A History of Philosophy from the Greeks to the Renaissance by Anthony Gottlieb. Now I am not that interested in ancient philosophy and philosophers, or at least wasn’t before this book. My general point of view is (was?) that we owe ancient philosophers a huge debt of gratitude for their dream of using reason to understand the world. But I also believe that their theories were all just shy of 100% hogwash and no rational person today (thanks to our scientific knowledge) would ever choose to be ‘an Aristotelian’ or some other follower of one of the ancient schools – unless they were doing it for purely religious reasons. (I tend to give people a pass if they are doing it for religious reasons.)

I’m probably wrong in this opinion, since there are many very smart and sincere philosopher’s today that are Aristotelians. But, given my bad attitude, I’m not likely to give them the time of day to convince me otherwise.

With this attitude, is it really that surprising that I have made little effort to study philosophy? But here I think I’ve erred. For after reading a book like The Dream of Reason, I can see that there is immense value in understanding the historical problems that these philosophers were grappling with and to look, with 20/20 hindsight, at what their graspings eventually led to.

And one of the key lessons of the book, if I were to pick one and call it the main theme, is that no matter how wrong you are, if you at least try to use reason, you are probably on the right track. In short, the book screamed to me “Stick your neck out and be wrong! Only the Rejectionists (i.e. people that point out all the problems of other’s beliefs but advance none of their own) truly fail in the realm of Reason!”

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Values: To Each Their Own?

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The following is a paragraph from a Salt Lake Tribune article entitled “The fake uproar over Harry Potter’s ‘nude’ scene”

And why would parents be upset now over a 3-second bit of sensuality (which, in context, is integral to the story and to the development of Ron’s character) when they weren’t upset about the PG-13 bloodshed and violence that has already been seen in two of the previous six movies? Particularly when the MPAA is notorious for being much harsher in its ratings regarding sexual content than regarding violence?

After reading this article, I told my wife to not worry about all the hoopla and we took our older kids to go see Harry Potter.

But there was something about this article and it’s tone that bothers me and I wish to express it.

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Budgeting 101

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For this post, I’d like to ask readers to put themselves in the position of an LDS family with the following circumstances.

–The husband and wife are in their late-30s. They have four kids.
–The husband and wife have decided that it is better for the husband to stay at home and watch the kids these days because the wife has a law degree and she wants to go back to work. The husband is working on a book but has not yet found a publisher.
–The wife has just been fired by her law firm which is going out of business. She was making $120k a year before. The only job she can find is one making $90k to start.
–The family has $120k of combined student loan debt. It is paying faithfully. There is about $20k of credit card debt, which is being paid down every month. There is a mortgage on the house, but the house is under water (they bought it five years ago for $250k and they have a $220k mortgage, but the house was recently valued at $170k).
–The husband and wife sit down and go over their debts and their income. They see they have a $1000 hole between their new income and their current expenses. They have some difficult choices to make. Let’s look at what responses would be smart and credible and what choices wouldn’t fly.

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