Author Archives: Bruce Nielson

Discussion: Revelation vs. The Philosophies of Men

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In my post on The Case for Christ one of the commenters (David) made a comment that raised concerns from another commenter (SmallAxe). David quoted a number of scriptures that suggest that human wisdom does not compare to God’s wisdom. Then he said:

We should not easily give up our convictions, especially when we have a personal witness that these ideas have God as their source. The “philosophies of men” can’t compare with the wisdom of God. We simply should not allow them to in our minds. If we let our own intellect prevail over what we have come to know by the Spirit, we are letting our natural man becoming an obstacle to our reception of God’s wisdom, which is infinitely greater than our own (or any man’s).

This statement then led to a substantial sub-thread in the comments, mostly between myself and SmallAxe. This is obviously a point SmallAxe has great passion for. I, perhaps, have half a notch less passion for it, but obviously I care about it a great deal as well.

If I might attempt to summarize SmallAxe’s position, as best that I can. (Bear in mind that I am biased and he will ultimately speak for himself.) I think it is as follows:

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My Political Views – Introduction: Apostasy from Ezra Taft Benson’s Politics

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More than once, while recruiting people to M*, the first thing they say to me is “I disagree with your politics.” I’m not surprised. I am, without a doubt, the black sheep politically. On the other hand, when Joanna first met me at M* she wanted to know if I was some sort of right wing political nut. I assured her that no one would mistake me for a right wing political nut.

I’m sometimes not even sure what I am. I once told Geoff that I’m ‘politically agnostic.’ But, of course, that’s not really true either since I’m quite passionate about what political beliefs I do hold. Is there such a thing as a politically partial agnostic?

Most of the time I just tell people I’m a moderate conservative and leave it at that. My employer at work, upon hearing me label myself that way, asked “what part of your political beliefs are conservative?” On the other hand, I’ve had a number of conversations with John C at BCC and I’ll bet he’s wondering what part of my political beliefs are liberal.

I really don’t think my political views are that hard to pin down, I just think they aren’t quite within the ‘norm.’ But isn’t that sort of true of everyone’s political beliefs? Is there anyone out there that says of themselves “yeah, I pretty much don’t think for myself, I just go with the party line.” Even if it were true, no one would admit it.

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What If Everyone Found Out the Mormon Plan of Salvation Was True?

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Another reprint from Mormon Matters. This is one of my favorite posts. It caught the eye of an Evangelical minister who seemed to appreciate the fact that it was a very straightforward explanation of Mormon beliefs. It seemed to make at least one Evangelical mad, this idea that if you have a loved one in hell they don’t have to burn there forever and ever. I’ve also considered doing the opposite of this post and asking “What would it mean if it wasn’t true?” But there was no point doing such a post on Mormon Matters because we got one of those posts twice a week. 🙂

Let’s perform a thought experiment. Pretend like there is no Mormon Church at all. But one day Jesus Christ returns and the Millennium beings. Christians around the world rejoice! They were right all along about Jesus being the Son of God. But after Jesus has been here for a while, word gets out; it turns out that many of the doctrines of all Christian religions weren’t true after all. For example, substance theology turned out to not be true. Instead Jesus and the Father are separate people that share a common will. Their oneness is complete, but so is their physical separateness. The Trinity is a social Trinity. It is true that there is only one God made up of three persons, but in another sense, but only a lesser sense, it might be appropriate to say there are three Gods.

Then word comes again: there isn’t just a single heaven or  hell as tradition held. There are actually three kingdoms or glories that people can attain to. And against the traditional beliefs of most Christians, it turns out that all good hearted people of all religions go to the second heaven which is called the Terrestrial Kingdom. Even an ethical atheist can go to that heaven if he accepts Christ now. The Atonement of Christ saves all good people of all religions. The Terrestrial Kingdom is everything Christians have hoped and dreamed for; they live with Christ forever as angels and servants of God! Continue reading →

The Case for Marriage

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Another reprint from Mormon Matters.

I’ve enjoyed a book by Linda J. Waite and Maggie Gallagher called The Case for Marriage: Why Married People Are Happier, Healthier, and Better Off Financially.

This book is, in large measure, a response to earlier research done by sociologists and family scientists, like Jesse Bernard, that wrote influential books “proving” that marriage was good for men and bad for women.

It makes an interesting read to see how one set of “evidence” that seems so overwhelming suddenly appears to be dicey at best and dangerously wrong at worst through a simple re-slice and reapplication of the same set of data. It is things like this have gone a long way towards convincing me that we know so much less than we think we do.

But what I found the most interesting was their carefully thought out definition of marriage and their well expressed concerns with our ongoing attempts to redefine marriage out of existence. Continue reading →

Review of “The Man from Earth” – Treatment of Christians Considered

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The Man from Earth is the final story written by the famous science fiction author Jerome Bixby. Probably best known for his episodes of the original Star Trek – though that is by no means his best work – he was truly one of the luminaries of the science fiction field. [1]

I have mixed feelings about his final story, which was filmed as a movie and is available on NetFlix as a streaming movie. Be warned, this ‘review’ is an analysis and will contain major spoilers. Stop reading and go watch the movie first if you have interest in seeing it without having the plot ruined.

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