Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Heidegger and Kierkegaard

Last semester I thought that Heidegger was the king of redundancy, but now I have come to realize that what I thought last semester was not true. In fact, what I learned last semester was wrong. Instead what I thought last year about Heidegger being the king of redundancy, I have come to realize that Heidegger is not the king of redundancy, for what I thought about Heidegger being the king of redundancy was wrong. Rather than Heidegger being the king of redundancy, it is Kierkegaard that is the king of redundancy. In other words, it is Kierkegaard and not Heidegger who is the king of redundancy. Therefore what I thought last semester about Heidegger being the king of redundancy is wrong because it i rather Kierkegaard who is the king of redundancy. By this I mean that Kierkegaard is more redundant than Heidegger. And it is because Kierkegaard is more redundant than Heidegger than Kierkegaard and not Heidegger is the king of redundancy. And so thus what I thought last semester about Heidegger being the king of redundancy is wrong because it is, in actuality (and I say this because Kierkegaard is more redundant than Heidegger), that Kierkegaard and not Heidegger is the king of redundancy.

Friday, September 03, 2010

"I'm a Mormon" - What do Mormons believe about “eternal life?”

After months of waiting to see why my Mormon.org propaganda profile hasn't been approved, I finally received a response from the site's moderators. In the Frequently Asked Questions section, I choice to answer the question, "What do Mormons believe about "'eternal life?'" This is something that I have thought and written much about, so I figured it would be a fun one to answer.

I answered:

I believe that eternal life is something that can and should be achieved now in the present. Eternal life is to live and love others as God does. Too often I think we are confused in thinking that eternal life is something we must wait for, or that it is something that can only be found in another life after this. Rather, I believe that it is by following Christ's example and learning to love as He did that we find ourselves with eternal life in the present.
This apparently was not what they wanted a Mormon to say, and I got this response:

Lloyd, 
This question was primarily intended to provide nonmembers with information about what the Church teaches/believes concerning life after death, and the possibility of eternal life in God's presence. Could you please include such information in your answer along with your personal views.
Thanks for making adjustments!
So here we try again, and this time I'll try to make it clear that I am pointing out what our scripture teaches:


The scriptures teach us that eternal life is something that can and should be achieved now in the present. The Book of Mormon prophet Nephi taught in the final verses of his writings that “to believe in [Jesus], and to endure to the end, . . . is life eternal”  (2 Ne. 33:4). Nephi here does not say simply that faith in Christ and enduring to the end eventually result in eternal life, but rather that faith in Christ and the act of enduring is itself eternal life. Eternal life is to live and love others as God does. For Nephi, eternal life is something experienced in the present, and is not just a result of righteous living. It is righteous living. This equation of righteous living with eternal life by Nephi correlates with his own father’s (and brother Jacob’s) teachings that we are free to choose between eternal death and eternal life (2 Nephi 2:27-29; 10:23).

Too often we are confused in thinking that eternal life is something we must wait for, or that it is something that can only be found in another life after this. Rather,it is by following Christ's example and learning to love as He did that we find ourselves with eternal life in the present. Eternal life is not a reward for keeping God’s commandments and serving others in love, but to have eternal life is to do those things and live that kind of life.

I guess I'll just have to wait and see what happens. I'm guessing that I would have a better chance of getting this approved if I wrote about Kolob, celestial baby-making (aka S-E-X), and three kingdoms of heaven.