Ethical Hedonism, Consent, & Antinatalism

You may also be interested in 

• Constructive Complexity, or Posthuman Ethics and Value Systems, which explains hedons, terminal values, and the idea of constructive complexity. 
• Constructive Complexity: Follow-up Notes

Today we're going to talk about

• What hedonism is
• Why "consent" is integral to any form of hedonism that we can coexist with
• How this means that hedonists must also be antinatalists

I'm a Mormon, and... I think that "Reign of Judges" is a horrible movie

There are a lot of problems that I have with this movie, Reign of Judges. The whitewashing, for instance.

I cannot tell you how frustrated the whitewashing in this film makes me. If for one instant the filmmakers are taking the Book of Mormon seriously as a historical document, as something that tells the stories of people that actually lived, breathed, and died, then it is an indefensible whitewash.

But there's something else that gets me, too. A few things, really, but the biggest of all is that it's promoting the idea that you have to kill in order to have peace.

Revisiting Bedbug Haven

In the eight weeks from the middle of June 2012 to July 2012, I and seven other missionaries lived in what was referred to by the mission office as "bedbug haven." It was an apartment built for four but, as mentioned before, there was twice that number living there. Plus bedbugs.

Quarters were cramped. There were three rooms, none of them very big, and connected them was some sort of hallway that managed to have kitchen appliances, a sink, a washer, a dryer, and an ironing board stuffed into it. Common it was to need to squeeze by someone (or several someones) as they were working food or laundry in order to go from one room to another. Eventually my companion and I relocated to the third room, along with all its weight equipment and other random junk, but before that change I slept on a couch and another missionary slept in a large closet.

And there were bedbugs. Can I stress that enough?

Understandably, tensions were high, and all of us did at least one thing that we later regretted. I carried a chip on my shoulder against some of them, and so did they, until a little while later when we were able to get some fresh air and reflect. One by one we bumped into each other again and saw that we were very different from how we had remembered each other, and we apologized and moved on.

There are two missionaries from Bedbug Haven that I have yet to bump into and may not ever have the chance to (both went back home before I was able to) but I don't- I can't- hold anything against them.

What I'll always remember from this episode in my life is that people get better, and even when you live with them for eight weeks you still don't always see the best side of them. People are who they are, but when their circumstances get the worst of them don't mistake that for who they would be in a better situation.

The Redemption of Shemesh

Note: I apologize for my lateness in posting this. I was caught up in wanting perfection for this story. 

There once was a young man, or a horror shaped in the likeness of a young man, whose name was Hastur. He was the moon, or, in other words, his light was not his own. He had light, but it was only a light that had been taken from others, and he gave nothing of his own in return to she that had loved him. His true name, spoken only in the wild places and in terrified whispers, was Darkness, and the name of his dominion the same.

What a rickshaw driver has to offer you

When Bai Fang Li was about to retire from his occupation as a rickshaw driver at the age of seventy-four, he saw a group of children working in the fields because they were too poor to afford schooling. He immediately returned to the city where he worked and continued his labor. Besides what little was necessary to sustain his spartan lifestyle, all of the money that he earned went to support the schooling of the children in his hometown. He did this for almost twenty years, working until his body couldn't keep up with the strain, and in so doing supported more than three hundred students.

Despite the poverty of his own situation, Bai Fang Li was able to see how much he was still able to offer others, and by so doing directly blessed the lives of hundreds. How much more can we, whose opportunities are not so limited as Bai Fang Li's, offer to those around us?

The Golden Rule and charity

"Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets." Matthew 7:12

More than any other law, I think that the Golden Rule is very relevant to emulating God's selfless love for ourselves and others. The glory of God is intelligence, and His supreme understanding leads him to have selfless love for every existing thing. Together these are His chief attributes, but just how often do we take for granted His love for us?

We are commanded to treat others as we would like to be treated; does this not include how we would like to be treated by God? As one prophet put it, "You should forgive and overlook: Do you not like God to forgive you?" We are all beggars, but if we squabble between each other for scraps how is it that we will be looked kindly upon by our Lord?

God exercised tyrannical dominion, if He exploited our flaws, if He removed Himself from us forevermore after impatiently counting out the four hundred and ninetieth time, how few of us would remain alive in the furnace of His wrath? And yet how quick are we to abuse our power, and how slow to forgive?

If we want others to love us- if we want, at least, for God to love us- then truly we should have love for others. God's love is not conditional upon it, but that is the only kind of love that we would want above all others, and we should act accordingly.

Can I refute myself?

Follow-up to: The Pillar

In the post What will your mansion look like? I brought up the idea that we are continually changing so that, from one period of time to the next, we are not genuinely the same person.

The Pillar gives me the opportunity to contradict myself and support a different point of view that I find to be as defensible and, even to myself, preferable.

The idea, quite the opposite of the concept that we change so thoroughly as to lose ourselves, is that we don't change. Or, rather, we don't change, what is us does not change. Because what is good and just in us, what is virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, is a permanent jewel. It may be obscured for a time but even if it is lost we will find it replaced in time to come. Your mercy, however small; your love, however weak; your hope, however struggling: these and all other virtues shall never leave us throughout the eternal duration of our progression in Heaven. Wisdom will receive wisdom, light will cleave unto light, and every good thing that we hold will be added upon.

But what is corrupt in us will be scoured away as the eons pass. What is imperfect, or frail, or weak about us is temporary, and if your heavenly future belongs to you, and not to some power that descends from but nevertheless is not you, then it is more "you" than you are today. Now, you are a pillar of stone, but one day the sculpture that is within you will show forth, and it will be seen that all of the dust and rubble was only there to be carved away.

I hope they call you on a mission

"And now, behold, I say unto you, that the thing which will be of most worth unto you will be to preach repentance unto this people, that you may bring souls unto me, that you may rest with them in the kingdom of my Father. Amen." D&C 15:6

And again, "He that findeth his life shall lose it: and he that loseth his life for my sake shall find it." Matthew 10:39

There were several reasons that I had for going on a mission. The most prominent was that I wanted to kill the natural man in myself, or discard my demons and leave them behind for something brighter. I am a better person than I was twenty months ago, and the path that I am now on is not the path that I was on before I left.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said that every good thing that happened to him in his post-mission life can be found to have originated, in one way or another, from his mission experience. I have not even finished my mission and, simply in the choices that I will be making as opposed to the choices that I would have made in a different life, already I can attest to the truthfulness of this. What sort of woman I will marry, what I will do with my life, what college I will be attending and what degrees I will be working toward, are only a few of the things that have been affected by this. Even my writing has been affected.

Spiritual retreats are undertaken in order to draw closer to God and recenter oneself on Him. The most example most compelling to me is seen in the "formation" of Jesuits, who more than once withdraw from the world to one degree or another in order to refine themselves in a kind of short-term monasticism. Going on a mission is sort of like my regency stage or perhaps the Spiritual Exercises, to liken it unto Jesuit formation.

Am I now remade wholly pure? Am I without spot at this moment? Certainly not. But when the journey is over even the slightest of errors can have lead to a great divergence between where one wished to be and where one is, and my mission was a course-correction. Moreover, I know the path like I did not know it before. Where I once had only heard of the Mountain, and had some intellectual acceptance of its existence, I had, I now realize, little will to follow the trail laid out for me no matter the obstacles.

And this is something that I want for more than just myself. If you're not sure about serving a mission, I implore you to get down on your knees tonight and ask your Father in Heaven what His will is- and I guarantee you that, if there is love for mankind in your heart, He will call you on a mission.

Symphony and Flood

Follow-up to: Song and Rain

"The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?" Luke 13:15

"Don't let yourself get distracted by the small stuff; cut through to the meat of what must be done" is how I could summarize the idea put forth in Song and Rain.

The Pharisees were not wholly bad folk. Despite what they may have transformed into by the time of Jesus Christ, for most of their history at least they were deeply concerned with social justice and even in His day enjoyed mainstream support among the Jewish people. It was a Pharisee, Hillel, who famously stated the maxim, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary." The group arose out of the turmoil following the Exile, concluding that Israel had suffered so because they had neglected to properly follow the commandments of God Because of this they sought to raise the bar and fill the profane life entirely with the sacred: there was no room in a properly holy life for impure things.

Phariseeism anticipated the Church of Jesus Christ in these latter-days with this focus. Their intention was to make Israel live up to its calling as a "kingdom of priests" by laying down the temple ritual onto everyday life. The name itself derived from the Hebrew word pārûsh, meaning "set apart." Over generations they apparently degraded into straining over gnats while swallowing camels, however, and herein we see a warning sign provided us by history and the scriptures: When we forget the principle behind the law and follow the law blindly for its own sake we make are left holding a corpse. The principle is the spirit and the law is the body, and though the spirit is ennobled by a tabernacle of flesh it is nevertheless the superior partner. Without the body there is still intelligence in the spirit, but without the spirit there is only death in the body.

Fiction: Song and Rain

A training missionary and his son were walking on the dirt road again one day when, without any permission whatsoever, or even a polite advance notice, the storm clouds gathered and the rains descended. And so fiercely did they descend that after a few minutes the younger missionary looked too and fro for a handy ark, observing that circumstances were looking as if it would be necessary. If nothing else, his feet were certainly drowning by this time.

And of what concern of yours is this?

Follow-up to: They called him Judas, after the dagger

"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." 3 Nephi 14:2

But story isn't entirely about Judas, you know, even though I could say an awful lot about him. It's about all of us, "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of  God." Judas betrayed his Savior, Peter betrayed his Savior, and so has every other soul in all of the worlds of Creation. As President Uchtdorf repeated in last year's April session of General Conference, talking of a bumper sticker that he had seen, "Don't judge me because I sin differently than you."

We have all done things that we aren't proud of. When the Son of God was in such agony as to bleed from every pore, such agony that even He, who healed the sick and raised the dead, shuddered at the thought of it and asked His Father to take, if it were possible, the experience away from him- how much of this pain was on our own account? How much does it matter that one of us was responsible for one drop, and another of us for another drop?

We don't know what their circumstances are. But we do know that we're all unfinished products, and if God has forgotten their sin then surely we have no justification in remembering it ourselves. Every time that we do so we make a mockery of the Atonement, and the greater sin may well be on our own heads.

I could do no better than to again repeat the words of President Uchtdorf again: "This topic of judging others could actually be taught in a two-word sermon. When it comes to hating, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm, please apply the following: Stop it!"

Have a good day, folks.

Giving comfort to those in need of comfort

"O Lord, my heart is exceedingly sorrowful; wilt thou comfort my soul in Christ. O Lord, wilt thou grant unto me that I may have strength, that I may suffer with patience these afflictions which shall come upon me, because of the iniquity of this people." Alma 31:31

In my very first area, serving in the Holladay North and Olympus Stakes, I had occasion to meet a young woman who had grown up in the LDS Church but had fallen away almost as soon as she had left the nest, going straightway from Rome to Vegas, so to speak. Some years later she chanced to get a glimpse of her lie from the outside and decided that she needed to put it back in order.

Meeting with the missionaries was one part of her journey back, and I was fortunate enough to work with her for almost the entire time that she received lessons from us. In that time we also received some insights from her. On one occasion she told us of when she had come to work and found that her schedule had been changed without her knowledge: she would be starting an hour later that day than she thought. Because of her tight budget she decided to stay rather than go home and come back later.

While waiting for her shift to start she sat outside on a bench. Shortly thereafter a homeless man sat down beside her and began to talk. There wasn't much direction to it: He would talk about his current problems, then his childhood, then again to something else. And she listened, and she responded with words of comfort, with whatever she could give, and that she responded at all was comfort to him, to know that someone was listening for the first time in so long.

And she realized that she was acting as a proxy for Christ at that moment, that she was His hands there. We are all prodigals and sojourners from our eternal Home, but it wasn't until she related that story and her realized that I grasped that image in my mind and realized, myself, an aspect of His mission and how to follow Him in this aspect. Sometimes, to lift a burden, you just need to listen.

Your turn: When have you had opportunity to help someone with something little and only later realized how much they needed it?

Love is a celestial motivator

"Therefore, if you do not remember to be charitable, ye are as dross, which the refiners do cast out, (it being of no worth) and is trodden under foot of man." Alma 34:29

On an online community called Less Wrong, where folks try to improve the way that they think in order to be, well, less wrong, a returned missionary named Calcsam discussed his idea for the "governance structure" of a rationalist community whose members would, on a regular basis and in person rather than over the internet, support each other in all spheres. The entire thing was explicitly modeled after the LDS Church, right down to the manuals.

Less Wrong is a predominantly atheist community, notwithstanding the presence of such members as Calcsam, and one poster responded with something to the effect of "Sure, Mormons would sacrifice all that time and money to this kind of thing because of the perceived rewards and punishments, but atheists never would." I don't think that this is quite true, to begin with. A man named Eliezer Yudkowsky is the most prominent member of the community and himself an atheist. He is also someone that cares an awful lot about everybody, which fact hit me most strongly with a single sentence that Brother Yudkowsky used at the end of one of his blog posts: "I want you to live."

But this is merely the clearest expression of a love for others that I detect in Brother Yudkowsky across the board. He does not want any person to die or suffer, and he is willing to put in significant work to this end. You could argue that it is the purpose of his life's work, in fact. And that love, the potential to have which is part of our divine birthright, is why an atheist could do it. Fear shouldn't be a part of it, nor greed.

But this brings us to, well, us (that is, the LDS). Why do we do these things? I can't say for everyone, only myself, but even if I could there would be little point to doing so. What I want to do is ask. You see, there's no point to doing any of it if you don't do it out of love, and as Latter-day Saints we need to hold ourselves to as high of a standard as anyone else. When the two great commandments are centered on love, how can we think to get into the Celestial Kingdom of God by living for that purpose? That is to say, Jesus Christ lived not for the glory that we give Him but for others, and had He lived for the glory He would not be worthy of it. Similarly, our own motives must be not for reward but out of love, and so I ask you to look inside yourself and determine where you fall, and if necessary get onto the Lord's side of the line.

Fiction: They called him Judas, after the dagger

A soul met with Peter to thus sojourn with him at the gates of Heaven for a time. Their conversation came to turn to Judas, and the soul mentioned its pity for him, that he was cast into outer darkness for betraying the Son of Man.