Quiet Dignity

Utah's 3rd District must be so proud:

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Leg Wrestling Rematch

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Their works are in the dark, and they say, Who seeth us?

This article just floored me. Apparently, ProtectMarriage.com and National Organization for Marriage California are suing in federal court trying to keep their donor lists private. They say that these disclosure requirements are unconstitutional. I'm pretty sure this challenge has less that no chance of prevailing, but it shows a tendency in this whole fight that I found rather surprising—it seems that religious supporters of Prop 8, and Mormons in particular, don't have the stomach for being a peculiar people that they once may have done.

Being a peculiar people was an important part of my identity growing up. Mormons didn't drink, didn't smoke, paid tithing, etc. The "world" thought we were crazy because we did this, and that strengthened our resolve to do it. We were in the world but not of the world, and we expected that we would be persecuted for our beliefs when we were out in the world. The persecution meant that we were right. And wow, were we good at feeling persecuted.

Only, it turns out that persecution for these beliefs never materialized. No one seemed to care that I didn't drink in college; it meant they had a designated driver without ever putting anyone out. My college was ranked in the top 5 for most likely to forget God, and I felt peculiar, but not persecuted. I would say that most Mormons have the same experience. A person's private decisions usually don't stir up resentment among others. Mormons had been used to being viewed as a harmless oddity. That was about to change.

Proposition 8 changed being a peculiar people from getting weird looks to having protesters outside of temples. Suddenly, Church headquarters, which had previously been pleased with taking the lead on the Prop 8 fight, now said that they were a small part of a coalition (a hard claim to make considering that LDS donations were estimated at over 50% of the total yes on 8 donations). Three LDS members resigned from their jobs in fairly high-profile ways. Being a Mormon changed from weird people who don't drink to anti-gay bigots.

It's totally understandable that people don't want to be called bigots. If a person believes that her actions are motivated out of love, she may feel confused and hurt that people believe that her acts are motivated out of hate. However, this is something that I actually thought Mormons would have anticipated and even looked forward to. After all of these years of indifference by the world, here was a chance for persecution to purify and strengthen the Church like it did in the pioneer days.

Before someone flames me, let me be clear: I'm not suggesting that Mormons should gladly bear persecution without complaint. Modern Mormons found out something that their forbears knew too well: it sucks to be persecuted. As far as I'm concerned, no one should be subject to harassment for holding a particular opinion, and no one should have to grin and bear it—that isn't American. However, at the same time I feel that there is a lesson in this. A persecution complex is all about feeling superior and self-righteous. When a person takes everything as a slight, it's easy to feel persecuted. Plus, that person never has to go through any of the real anguish that actual persecution brings. It's easy and cheap, and unhealthy. How much better it is to not seek to be offended nor to interpret the actions of others as persecution. Only then can we find ourselves as neighbors and friends.

Which brings me to the point: There's a difference between having your life threatened or your property vandalized and being boycotted or protested for something you did. The former is illegal and should be dealt with via the justice system. The latter is what one should expect in politics. When a person injects herself into a public controversy, she has to bear the consequences of that action, be they praise or protest. Donating money is one thing a person can do to inject herself into a public controversy. There is only one place in politics where a person is promised privacy: the voting booth. Every other venue of the political arena, one's actions are subject to scrutiny and criticism. People in a democratic society should welcome that dialogue. If a person believes that her ideas are right, she should be able to convince others. In time, the best ideas will win, if we are willing to defend our ideas, and to listen to others.

UPDATE: Brad's comment reminded me that I didn't do a very good job of defining persecution. Let me demonstrate:

The two axes are private beliefs or a person's identity vs. Someone's public advocacy of a particular policy. The other axis is a legal act in reaction v. an illegal act in reaction. My definition of persecution is illegal behavior against a person in reaction to that person's personal beliefs or identity. I assume that some legal behavior may rise to the level of persecution (insults, ad hominem attacks), but I'm squishy on that point. If someone wants to convince me one way or another, they can try in the comments.

Just a little note...

Just in case you needed a way to ease into your workweek, here's a site that's sure to waste some of your morning. Some of my favorites:

Ohrwurm

Because it's Friday:

Have a good weekend.

DDWFTTW: empirical observation v. intuition

DDWFTTW stands for "directly downwind faster than the wind," and it has been the subject of several heated debates over the internet in the last month or so. The question is this: can one travel downwind, faster than the wind, powered only by the wind, at a steady state? For such an esoteric question, this has spurred quite a bit of outrage among many on the internet, claiming that such a proposition would violate the second law of thermodynamics and basically amount to perpetual motion. The problem with this objection is that—it actually works.

For those of you so inclined, here is a place you can research on this phenomenon further, but the simple answer is that going downwind faster than the wind is pretty uncontroversial. See, for example, this:

A sailboat goes faster than the wind because it isn't getting pushed by the wind—the sail acts like a wing on an airplane and it is propelled by the air pressure differential. Likewise, the propeller acts as a wing and the air pressure pushes it along. Counterintuitive, but well within the laws of physics.

As a science question, this isn't incredibly useful. Due to friction, the practical applications for wind-powered carts is fairly limited, and this isn't exactly new technology. However it can teach us a good lesson about the limits of relying on our intuition. Too often we end up trusting instinct rather than our own eyes.

He had thought himself a hero, But now rides commuter trains

If you are afraid of heights, don't watch this video:

Full-size version here.

P.S.—If you haven't noticed by now, a lot of my titles are referential. Here is the source of today's title.

Armageddon as Anti-Christ

This holiday season, I had some time to spend doing essentially nothing. As I am wont to do when there's nothing else going on, I tuned into the History Channel. One of the programs was on "the end times." As the bombings in Gaza seem to be everywhere in the news, I have thought again about Millennial prophecies.

Growing up, I was taught the traditional stories of the Second Coming: natural disasters, wars, and the world getting more and more evil. Some of these descriptions were taught to me in gruesome detail in high-school seminary classes. I was also taught the traditional Christian belief about Armageddon—that all nations will be set against Israel, that Jesus will appear and set his foot on the Mount of Olives and rend it in two, allowing the Jewish people to escape from their persecutors and usher in the Millennium. At the same time I was told that a true follower of Christ should pray for and look forward to the Second Coming.

Sometimes, when you grow up with some idea, you miss the fact that the idea is horrible, frightening and illogical. Yet, that is exactly what I think the Second Coming prophecies are. If you'll allow me to horrendously oversimplify the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it is two different peoples who each believe they were promised certain land by their respective Gods, and another large group of people egging them on to war with each other so that the third group's God will show himself. Evangelical Christian backing of Israel has been almost entirely motivated by the belief that Armageddon is necessary to bring about the Second Coming. The belief in Armageddon has motivated many pious Christians to become zealous agents in trying to bring the war about. Humble followers of Christ have been transformed into bloodthirsty warmongers in service of "the greater good."

This is why I think that, at its most fundamental, Armageddon is an anti-Christian belief. As I understand Christianity (and admittedly there are many understandings of Christianity), it is the ultimate humanism. Christ was God made flesh, taking upon him our infirmities and pains because he loved us. He gave us the new commandment to love one another. The doctrine of Armageddon provides a perverse incentive that overrides this commandment. By loving other people and trying to build a better, more just, and more peaceful society, one is delaying Jesus' Second Coming.

Now there are those who would say that I'm confusing is and ought. In their view, the work for peace and justice is a Sisyphean task—they do it because they are commanded to, even though they know it will fail. But let's ponder a moment on what Armageddon tells us about the nature of God. Armageddon will proceed the Second Coming either because a) God is a sadist, or b) the Second Coming is a sort of divine discontinuation of the human experiment, God stopping us because he's finally had enough. I can handle the second idea, but then why should we be hoping for the Second Coming? The whole thing strikes me as fatalistic. If we believe in free will for the individual, we can believe that we can change hearts and minds and make a positive difference in the world.

So rather than praying for the Second Coming, it seems to me that the true follower of Christ's prayer should be something like this: "Lord, give us power to promote peace and justice in this world. Soften hearts and let us create a better world. Spare us your vengeance, delay your coming, and give us one more day to create heaven on Earth."

お正月

In memory of the Japanese New Year festivities, here's your dose of Japanese culture:

All the little household gods have started crying

This is amazing:

Check out more pictures here.

New Year's Day hangover cure

That is, if it doesn't make you puke all over your keyboard: