Author Archives: J. Max Wilson

About J. Max Wilson

J. Max Wilson is one of the founders of the Millennial Star. You read more of his thoughts about Mormonism and other topics on his personal blog: http://www.sixteensmallstones.org.

Get General Conference Links on Facebook

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Just wanted to let everybody know that you can get links to mp3 audio and mp4 video of general conference right in your Facebook News Feed by becoming a fan of Nothing Wavering on Facebook.

As the files become available from the official church, links will be posted automatically.  You will also get links to other content from official LDS websites as well as unofficial LDS blogs, including M*.  Having the links right in your News Feed makes it really easy to share and discuss them with Facebook friends and family.

For more links to General Conference resources see my post a Sixteen Small Stones.

Posts from the Past: Mathemagical Power vs Priesthood Power

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Both the Applied Scientist and the Magician are similar in that they each practice an art that purports to control or forecast natural events, effects, or forces. The Scientist invokes the powers of materialism and naturalism while the Magician invokes the immaterial and supernatural, but each seeks control.

…I call this kind of power through technique Mathemagical power, and it stands in contrast to Priesthood Power, though we sometimes forget it.

The Priesthood, contrary to Mathemagical Power, is inseparably connected with the powers of heaven and can only be controlled or handled upon principles of righteousness.

Read Mathemagical Power vs Priesthood Power, originally posted on July 19th, 2005

Alice in Nurseryland: Weird and Scary Toys in LDS Nurseries

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[Cross Posted from Sixteen Small Stones]

We don’t belong to the “leave’m crying” nor the “sneak out when they aren’t paying attention” schools of parenting.  As a result, I spend a lot of time in the nursery with my two-year-old during church on Sunday, even though I am not currently assigned to work in the nursery.  A few years ago, when our older children were this age, my wife and I were called as the nursery leaders.  My parents never did successfully get me to go to nursery as a child, but I have certainly made up for it as an adult.

When my grandfather passed away last year our family held a viewing at the local meetinghouse.  Among the cousins, some of the young parents and their children ended up in the nursery room.  As the kids played, one of the dolls caught my attention.  The scowling face glared fiercely with a look much too mature for its little body.  It was the ugliest doll I had ever seen!  I wish that I had a picture of it.

Let’s face it, there are some bizarre and scary old toys out there, lurking in LDS nursery closets and cupboards.

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On The Arrogance of Circumscribing God With Man’s Logic

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[Thank you to the folks at the Millennial Star for inviting me to participate here by cross posting some of the content from my own blog.  It has been several years since I last participated here and I look forward to contributing in a small way. – J. Max Wilson]

One of my favorite definitions of logic comes from Ambrose Bierce’s satirical Devil’s Dictionary: “Logic: n. The art of thinking and reasoning in strict accordance with the limitations and incapacities of the human misunderstanding.”

History is a testament to the nearly limitless incapacity of the human misunderstanding. And while each generation reserves a regular chuckle for the naiveté of its ancestors, it is often just as blind to its own errors.

I believe that our minds are not only limited by lack of experience and information. They are fundamentally limited by mortality. Our two eyes can only extrapolate three dimensions, though with some effort we can conceive of a tesseract even if we cannot visualize it in its true form. We can only perceive colors of light within about 380 to 750 nanometer wavelengths, and as a result plants and flowers that exhibit intricate ultraviolet patterns and designs appear to us quite plain and ordinary to our limited vision. Technology allows us discover their patterns by translating the ultraviolet into our visible spectrum, but we are incapable of actually seeing them as they really are.

Reality is not circumscribed by your or my ability to comprehend, conceive of, or perceive it.

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Alternate Voices: Why I Am Abandoning the Bloggernacle

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* The contents of this post are my own and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Millennial Star or its contributors.

Before anything else, I want to apologize to the folks at By Common Consent for the harsh criticism I insensitively levied against them a week ago. Even though I think that my underlying concerns are valid and deserve to be considered, my presentation was too contentious and personally hurtful.

I would like to explain those underlying concerns, which are really more about the bloggernacle in general than about any specific blog or individual.

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