The game came down to the wire again this year. As with the ’06 and ’07 games, BYU took care of business in the end. Rock on Cougars.

And for your viewing pleasure, I present the last play of the game:

and of course: (more…)

Jacob’s recent post came to mind today in sacrament meeting. With Thanksgiving coming up this week we had a few excellent talks on gratitude. I was struck by how closely the stories of gratitude matched with the idea of synthetic happiness described by Dan Gilbert here. Further, it is striking that this so-called “synthetic happiness” — the state of happiness we can attain when we make peace with not getting what we want — is a form of happiness that is just as real as the “natural happiness” we feel when we do get what we want.

The interesting thing is in all the stories told today the specific method used to arrive at this real form of happiness was to consciously count one’s blessings. In other words, it seems from the stories that more grateful people are more happy people. And if Dan Gilbert is to be believed, the kind of happiness we can arrive at after not getting what we want is just as “happy” as the kind of happiness we arrive at after getting what we want.

So count your many blessings folks. Name them one by one. According to Lehi the purpose of life is to have joy, and being grateful may be the most sure-fire way to be joyful.

The football team took down AFA fairly easily today. Utah is next.

Also the men’s basketball team overwhelmed Hawaii last night and moved to 3-0.

As some of you might remember, I was participating in a Sept. 15 to Nov. 15 mustache growing contest with my five brothers and one brother in law. The contest is now over and entries are in.

BEHOLD! (and tremble)

The judging is taking place right now. (Judges are mostly extended family members on a family emailing list.) The three categories are Bushiness, Coolness, and Goofiness. While most of the bros went for bushy staches of sorts I decided to mix it up and focus on the goofiness/coolness angle. We’ll see soon how that works.

Anyhow, Kristen created the grand prize. Here it is:

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No, seriously. See here.

Oh, and the BYU football team managed a win this weekend too.

52-0. Just the way I like it.

In the absence of revelation on the subject, we are left to speculate on the nature of spirits. In this post I will to sketch out some of the possibilities.

Spirits vs. Intelligences vs. Minds

One of the first difficulties we have is with definitions. There is no clear revelation that explains whether a spirit is the same thing as an intelligence or not. There is some evidence to support the idea that spirits/intelligences/minds are all names for the same thing, or at least that Joseph Smith considered them to all be names for the same thing. But counter arguments have been made that spirits are a more complex things than intelligences/minds. (Eternal minds and intelligences are almost universally considered to be the same thing in Mormonism as far as I can tell.)

Beginningless or not?

Near the end of his life Joseph Smith taught that the “mind of man” is co-eternal with God and thus without a beginning. Brigham Young was away on a mission when Joseph Smith publicly taught this idea and Brigham taught years later that the mind of man does indeed have a beginning. BH Roberts and others later attempted to bridge this gap between Joseph and Brigham with the tripartite model of spirits where our spirits are essentially bodies (with a beginning) made of spirit matter that are powered by our beginningless (presumably immaterial) minds/intelligences. Orson Pratt speculated that spirit matter is made up of atoms or particles like all other matter and that at least some individual spirit particles have a rudimentary intelligence. He further suggested that these intelligent particles could somehow unify to create higher order minds. So in his model, only the rudimentary parts of the mind of man are beginningless while the human-level mind clearly has a beginning.

Cartesian minds?
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I’ll blog as we go.

First Quarter
– First defensive series has BYU coming hard after Andy Dalton and it really works. Three and out.
– First offensive series for BYU is a steady diet of Harvey Unga and quick passes. When Hall takes longer to pass he gets sacked.
– TCU gets the ball back and starts moving the ball. The D-line again can’t get the QB and that leads to big pass plays (like we have seen a lot this year).
– On the second series the TCU offense completely bullies the BYU D. It results in a Frog touchdown that seemed too easy.
– Three and out for BYU followed by another easy touchdown for TCU. 14-0. Something big needs to change or BYU will be blown out of this game.
– Next BYU possession — three and out again. That is just the first quarter. This could get reeeal ugly folks.

Second Quarter (more…)

BYU survived a motivated SDSU team in San Diego today and took down the Aztecs 38-28.

It was a fairly pedestrian showing by BYU but a win is a win and no one will remember the score if BYU can beat TCU next week. The good news is that the passing attack of TCU isn’t nearly as good as SDSU’s. The bad news is the TCU defense is a lot better than SDSU’s.

Since I have a degree from both schools I was pleased with how good SDSU looked today. I think the Aztecs are on their way out of the MWC cellar and ready to be at least a second tier team in the conference. They seem to have better coaches and a better culture overall than I have seen on Montezuma Mesa in a long time.

Some random thoughts on the game:

– Andrew Rich got burned on pass coverage a LOT in this game. The guy can really hit but he was a bit exposed as a pass defender I thought.
– How about that Scott Johnson? Before the half he made a shoestring tackle on a log pass play to save a touchdown and a couple of plays later intercepted the ball to keep the Aztecs off the board at all that drive. That was huge.
– Max Hall looked really good. Several touchdowns and no interceptions. But the best play of the game was his deciding to run the ball in at the goals line with the clock winding down when everyone (including his own team) thought he was going to spike it at the end of the half. That was cool.
– Look for Dennis Pitta on Sundays starting next season. The dude may be the best BYU tight end of them all before career is over and that is saying a lot.
– Manase Tonga is underrated. Tailback Harvey Unga was ok today but he is a lot better when Manase is playing fullback.
– It is nice to seen newer offensive players like Hafoka, Thompson, Diluigi, and even Ashworth really contributing. BYU has a lot of weapons.
– I loved the Jorgenson sack at the end. Not only did it finally ice the game but he added to his conference record stats.

TCU is up next week in Provo. This is a major measuring stick game for this team and season. The game has massive conference title implications.

BYU beat the UNLV Rebels tonight 59-21.

It was a fun game to watch as a BYU fan. The team looked really solid. Max threw for tons of yards with no interceptions. Harvey ran all over the the UNLV defense racking up something like 150 yeard and three touchdowns in three quarters. There were some great plays by other players as well. A tremendous interception by Jordan Pendleton, two interceptions by Scott Johnson, and some great sacks by Coleby Clausen. Some great catches as well by Andrew George, Pitta, Chambers, Thompson, Hafoka, and several of the running backs. The other running backs took advantage of the porous UNLV defense as well. And O’Neil Chambers even had a 97 yard kickoff return.

UNLV did score a touchdown on a kickoff return and punched two other TD’s in as well but giving up 14 points ain’t bad for the defense.

Did I mention that Harvey was a monster out there? When that guy is healthy he is incredible. Nice win. BYU will look to do it again next week in San Diego in preparation for the showdown with TCU in two weeks.

We know next to nothing for certain about the Divine Feminine. There is a long standing tradition in Mormonism that preaches of a Heavenly Mother to complement a Heavenly Father, but the details are lacking to say the least. So in this post I figured I would loosely sketch out a few theories that I have heard and felt were noteworthy.

Assumptions matter

Before I sketch these theories out there are several related and sometimes more fundamental issues that are also debatable which have a direct bearing on any theories about divinity. Here are some of them: (more…)