Security vs. Freedom

In the information industry, we are always battling between security and free access. Those wearing the security hats want to lock down all the ports, file permissions, system resources and user privileges. The users want things open: free access to information, programs, and resources.

From the security team's perspective, the system would be locked down so tight that no information would go in or out. Unfortunately, this ultra paranoid approach to things tends make the system more like a brick. This pleases the security team, but upsets everybody else.

What industries deal in "security"? Life insurance, health insurance, retirement plans, home security, identity protection, etc. What do all of these industries have in common? They offer peace of mind in exchange for money.

I have no argument against any of these industries, they all provide useful services. But just the fact that these industries exist speaks volumes to the state of our perception of reality. It definitely shows that we're worried about the future.

Contrast this to the mind of the righteous ancients like Abraham, who we are told: "...confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth." (Hebrews 11:13) These put their whole trust in God. He was their security. After Abraham had conquered the 5 kings in order to save his nephew Lot. He also saved the kings of the land of Sodom. But when offered his pick of the spoil, according to the apocryphal book of Jasher, he refused their lucre saying: "For the Lord my God in whom I trust said unto me, Thou shalt lack nothing, for I will bless thee in all the works of thy hands."

You see, Abraham recognized that he was a stranger here, his true home being an eternal one, therefore there was no physical possession or piece of land so important that he should worry about it's security. His primary security was the only true and reliable one.

So, do you want security or freedom? The answer is that you can have both in abundant supply, no catch 22.

Then said Jesus to those Jews which believed on him, If ye continue in my word, then are ye my disciples indeed; And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.

They answered him, We be Abraham’s seed, and were never in bondage to any man: how sayest thou, Ye shall be made free?

Jesus answered them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin... If the Son therefore shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed. (John 8:31-34,36)

... I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly. (John 10:10)

The Lord is my rock, and my fortress, and my deliverer; my God, my strength, in whom I will trust; my buckler, and the horn of my salvation, and my high tower. (Psalm 18:2)

Truly my soul waiteth upon God: from him cometh my salvation. He only is my rock and my salvation; he is my defence; I shall not be greatly moved. ... My soul, wait thou only upon God; for my expectation is from him. He only is my rock and my salvation: he is my defence; I shall not be moved. In God is my salvation and my glory: the rock of my strength, and my refuge, is in God. Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us. (Psalm 62:1,2,5-8)

Other Prophets

I found something interesting poking around on wikipedia: The entry on Zoroastrianism. It surprised me in its similarities to my own religious beliefs. Zoroastrianism is based on the teachings of the prophet Zoroaster (also called Zarathustra) from somewhere between 1700 to 500 BC.

He was a hindu priest from what is now eastern Iran or Pakistan, in charge of gathering water and psychedelic herbs for use in their rituals. Basically, one day he was enrapt in a vision of the Almighty. Where he was told that there was only one God, and one Devil (as opposed to the multiple deities and demons in Hinduism.) Sounds similar to Mohammad doesn't it?

Paraphrasing Wikipedia here:

[In Zoroastrianism, God] is the beginning and the end, the creator of everything that can and cannot be seen, the Eternal, the Pure and the only Truth.

[God] created the floating, egg-shaped universe in two parts: first the spiritual ... and 3,000 years later, the physical... [He] then created Gayomard, the archetypical perfect man, and the first bull. 

The metaphor of the "path" of [Law or Covenant] is represented in Zoroastrianism by the muslin undershirt Sudra, the "Good/Holy Path", and the 72-thread Kushti girdle, the "Pathfinder". 

[One must] choose the responsibility and duty for which one is in the mortal world ... Predestination is rejected in Zoroastrian teaching. Humans bear responsibility for all situations they are in, and in the way they act toward one another. Reward, punishment, happiness, and grief all depend on how individuals live their lives. 

... Zoroastrian morality is then to be summed up in the simple phrase, "good thoughts, good words, good deeds" 

Zoroastrianism also includes beliefs about the renovation of the world and individual judgment ..., including the resurrection of the dead. 

Zoroastrian hell is reformative; punishments fit the crimes, and souls do not rest in eternal damnation. 

In Zoroastrian eschatology, a 3,000-year struggle between good and evil will be fought, punctuated by evil's final assault. During the final assault, the sun and moon will darken and mankind will lose its reverence for religion, family, and elders. The world will fall into winter, and [the Devil's] most fearsome miscreant, Azi Dahaka, will break free and terrorize the world.
The final savior of the world, Saoshyant, will be born to a virgin... [He] will raise the dead – including those in both heaven and hell – for final judgment, returning the wicked to hell to be purged of bodily sin. 

Heavenly forces will ultimately triumph over evil, rendering it forever impotent. Saoshyant and [God] will offer a bull as a final sacrifice for all time, and all men will become immortal. 

Mountains will again flatten and valleys will rise; heaven will descend to the moon, and the earth will rise to meet them both.

Does any of this sound familiar?

Also, there was at one time a certain group of Zoroastrians called "Magi". Were the 3 kings adherents of Zoroaster?

Alexander the Great and later the Ottomans conquered the (the adherents of Zoroaster) after the Persian empire had ended. Legend has it that most of their religious texts were destroyed by the invaders.

Zoroastrian adherents still exist in our day and age.

Notice also that Zoroastrianism is not considered to be an Abrahamic religion, and so researchers have a difficult time explaining how it could share so many common traits with Abrahamic religions. Apparently, another religion like this is Bahai.

C.S. Lewis was of the opinion that religion had evolved over time and that with Christianity and Jesus Christ, we had finally arrived at the truth. But I think we believe the opposite; that true religion came intact with Adam, and has since devolved into partial truths. In other words, the ancients knew God a whole lot better than we do in the modern day. There's a scripture in the old testament where God tells Elijah (or some other prophet, I can't find the reference) that there are other prophets. I think the example of Zoroaster shows that God spoke to others besides those mentioned in the bible.

To paraphrase something I read from Hugh Nibley: You don't go off starting a University with the dumbest men you can find and then grow it from there (e.g. wait for it to evolve). Usually, you start with the most brilliant men to get it off to a good start. Doesn't it make sense that God would have done the same thing when he created the world? Adam was one of His best and brightest. Unfortunately, often after great beginnings, things begin to fall apart from there. This is the point where restoration to the original standards is necessary. Enter Joseph Smith - a prophet.

Permutations, Probability and the Existence of God

Photo courtesy Wikipedia

One evidence for the existence of God is the existence of life itself.

The popular scientific theory (which is taught in schools) that life happened by accident is widely professed by scientists, professors, etc. But strictly by the numbers, the probability of the existence of life in the entire universe is extremely low. In fact it would be crazy to think of it as anything but a miracle. I will attempt to show a short proof in the following article.

To understand the argument we need to cover some definitions:

Probability

Example:

Let's say we have a dice with six sides numbered one through six.
What is the probability that you will roll a "1"?
The answer is 1/6 or 16.67%.
 
The formula:

Probability　＝	Number of things that actually occur
	Number of things that are possible

Permutation

Example:

Let's say you have two six-sided die. What are all the possible permutations for rolling the dice where order matters (e.g. 2,1 is considered distinct from 1,2)?

1,1	1,2	1,3	1,4	1,5	1,6
2,1	2,2	2,3	2,4	2,5	2,6
3,1	3,2	3,3	3,4	3,5	3,6
4,1	4,2	4,3	4,4	1,5	4,6
5,1	5,2	5,3	5,4	5,5	5,6
6,1	6,2	6,3	6,4	6,5	6,6

There are 36 or 6² possible unique orderings or permutations.

What if we add a third die?

1,1,1
1,1,2
1,1,3
. . .
6,6,4
6,6,5
6,6,6

There are 216 or 6³ possible orderings or permutations.

Here's the formula:

Permutations in an ordered set = n^m
Where n is the number of possible values per element.
Where m is the number of elements in the set.

Putting Permutations and Probabilities Together

We can answer some interesting questions using permutations and probabilities.

Example:

What's the probability of picking 6 random letters from the alphabet; say from 6 bags with letter tokens; and randomly spelling the word CHEESE?

First, we calculate the number of possible outcomes:

26⁶ = 308,915,776

Next write down the number of correct outcomes; There's only one way to spell CHEESE that I know of.

Finally, calculate the probability:

1/308,915,776

Supposing you could draw and test the 6 letters once per second. How long could it take you to randomly draw and spell the word cheese correctly under these terms?

It could take: 308,915,776 / (60x60x24x365.25) = 9 years, 288 days

DNA is necessary for life

DNA is like a blueprint for a plant or an animal. If DNA base pairs are not in the correct sequence, it cannot be used to create life. In this light, it is safe to say that one of a number of correct sequences is necessary for life as we know it.

Below is a partial breakout of the human genome that I got from wikipedia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome

Chromo-some	Length (mm)	Base Pairs	Valid Variations
1	85	249,250,621	4,401,091
2	83	243,199,373	4,607,702
3	67	198,022,430	3,894,345
4	65	191,154,276	3,673,892
5	62	180,915,260	3,436,667
6	58	171,115,067	3,360,890
7	54	159,138,663	3,045,992
8	50	146,364,022	2,890,692
9	48	141,213,431	2,581,827
10	46	135,534,747	2,609,802
11	46	135,006,516	2,607,254
12	45	133,851,895	2,482,194
13	39	115,169,878	1,814,242
14	36	107,349,540	1,712,799
15	35	102,531,392	1,577,346
16	31	90,354,753	1,747,136
17	28	81,195,210	1,491,841
18	27	78,077,248	1,448,602
19	20	59,128,983	1,171,356
20	21	63,025,520	1,206,753
21	16	48,129,895	787,784
22	17	51,304,566	745,778
X	53	155,270,560	2,174,952
Y	20	59,373,566	286,812
mtDNA	0.0054	16,569	929

Each DNA strand is made up of 4 base-pairs, which can be put in any order, although there are specific rules such as each chromosome is made up of some number of genes, each gene is made up of a sequence of proteins which are made of sequences of base pairs. The gene is typically ordered with a protein called a "start codon" and ends with a "stop codon". There are a lot of other details which won't be covered here. but needless to say, DNA sequencing is pretty complex and specific.

So if I was to test the probability of finding a correctly ordered sequence for say, chromosome #22 "at random" I would proceed as follows:

First, calculate the number of possible combinations of base pairs:

4^51,304,566 = 3.6395x10^30,888,426

Now take the number of valid sequences and divide by the possible values to get the probability:

745,788 / 3.6395x10^30,888,426 = 2.0491x10^-30,888,421

This number is so small as to be unfathomable by the human mind. Happening upon even one sequence of this size in the correct order, is in and of itself a miracle.

A Simple Proof that Life is not an Accident

But we're talking about life, not evolution right? Nobody's saying that man "suddenly appeared". You're jumping the gun. Right. So after the "big bang", these things are supposed to have happened "very slowly" over a long, long period of time. Plus there are zillions of stars and planets in the universe, life was bound to happen on one of them eventually... Right? Right? Let's consider this point of view.

According to wikipedia, the smallest known cellular organism (as far as DNA goes) is Candidatus Carsonella ruddii, with only 160,000 base pairs. But scientists also lean toward the possibility of much smaller organisms as the first form of life. The smallest known quasi-living things are called circoviruses, which apparently can have as little as 2,000 base pairs. Whether they are alive is debatable, but for this argument, to make it interesting, we'll base our proof on a tiny DNA sequence like that of the circovirus.

Many theories base the origin of life on having the right ingredients in the right place at the right time and then adding energy in the form of electricity such as lightning, or direct sunlight, or thermal energy. Many experiments have been done with ambiguous results. For our approach we don't care where the ingredients or the energy comes from just that the perfect and ideal conditions already exist.

Modern estimates put the number of planets in the universe to about 10²⁴, but for argument's sake, let's say you have 1 centillion (10³⁰³) planets in the universe. Additionally, let's say that you have 1 centillion "hot-spots" on each planet already with DNA particles in place, energy, etc., simultaneously trying 1 centillion DNA permutations per second. Furthermore, the only goal you have is to produce one circovirus DNA set with 2,000 correctly-ordered base pairs.

The math looks like this:

4²⁰⁰⁰ (possible base pair permutations) / [10³⁰³ (planets) ｘ 10³⁰³ (hot spots) ｘ 365.25x24x60x60 (seconds/year) ｘ 10³⁰³ (permutations per second) ] = 4.144x10²⁸⁷ years

Given that the current estimated age of the universe is 13 billion (1.3x10¹⁰) years, even with the insanely contrived conditions I just proposed, the universe isn't remotely old enough to have "spontaneously" produced life in this manner. So, unless you believe in miracles it is very, very, very (add about 10²⁸⁷ "very"s here) unlikely that DNA-based life could have spontaneously occurred in our universe.

There is also one very important point I haven't made yet. Assuming that somehow all of the right ingredients for DNA landed in the right place at the right time (however improbable), AND in the perfect environment (nutrients, heat, moisture, etc.) AND all of the DNA sequences just happen to be in the correct order (very unlikely, refer to the treatment above); Even if you had ALL that, can you really say that life would occur? Would a million lightning bolts be enough to do it?

In other words, without God, the chance that life has occurred "by chance" is ludicrous.

確率と順列と神の存在

－　草案です　－

神の存在の証拠の一つは生命の存在です。

 人気の（学校で教わっている）科学者の理論では地球での生命の存在は偶然であるとの主義は科学者とか教授とかに一般に賛成しているらしいです。  証拠はあるでしょうか？宇宙全体で生命の希少性は極みに高いです。生命の存在は軌跡にしか考えられません。訳の証拠は下記で表そうとします。

僕の論理を理解できるようにまず基本のことを定義して説明します。

確率かくりつ

国語辞典で調べたらこの定義があります:

かく‐りつ【確率】
《probability》
ある事象の起こる可能性の度合い。公算。蓋然率(がいぜんりつ)。「―が高い」

例:

袋にはボールの10個があるとしましょう。 ボールは1から10までの番号が付いています。 見ずに1号のボールを出す確率は何でしょうか?
 正解は10分の1ですね、１割、１/１０、１０％です。

 方式は

確率　＝	事象の起こる場合の数
	起こりうるすべての場合の数

順列じゅんれつ

国語辞典の定義:

じゅん‐れつ【順列】
《permutation》
１ 順序に従って並べること。
２ 数学で、n個のものからr個を取り出し、順序を決めて1列に並べたもの。

例:

ボールの3個があるとしましょう。
ボールは1から3までの番号が付いています。
ボールを並べるとしたら識別できる並び方の数は何でしょうか?

1,2,3
1,3,2
2,1,3
2,3,1
3,1,2
3,2,1

6つの識別できる並び方がありいます。
4号のボールを追加したら並び方はいくつありますか?

1,2,3,4
1,2,4,3
1,3,2,4
1,3,4,2
1,4,2,3
1,4,3,2
2,1,3,4
2,1,4,3
2,3,1,4
2,3,4,1
2,4,1,3
2,4,3,1
3,1,2,4
3,1,4,2
3,2,1,4
3,2,4,1
3,4,1,2
3,4,2,1
4,1,2,3
4,1,3,2
4,2,1,3
4,2,3,1
4,3,1,2
4,3,2,1

24つの並び方があります。
5号ボールを追加したら同でしょうか？
正解は１２０です。（１ｘ２ｘ３ｘ４ｘ５＝１２０）
方式:
順列の合計=ｎｘ（ｎ－１）ｘ（ｎ－２）ｘ（ｎ－３）ｘ。。。ｘ１
この方式を略して（ｎ！）と書きます。（ｎの階乗かいじょう）と呼ばれています。

このサイトを参照:
http://www.mathsisfun.com/combinatorics/combinations-permutations-calculator.html

確率と順列をあわせたら。。。

順列と確率をあわせて面白い質問を検討できます。

トランプカードのデッキには52枚のカードが入っています。
デッキを混ぜても順序の並びが偶然に出る確率は何でしょうか?

まず、順列の数を計算します。
52枚のカードだから52!（52の階乗）の並び方があります。
52! = 80,658,175,170,943,878,571,660,636,856,403,766,975,289,505,440,883,277,824,000,000,000,000
科学的記数法で8.0658ｘ10⁶⁷です。
52枚があるのにすごい数ですね！

一億の並び方を１秒の割合で試すことにしたら全部の並び方を試すのに時間どのくらいかかるでしょうか？2.55590ｘ10⁵²年がかかります！

では、確率は？
1つの正しい順序並び方しかないので確率は1.0 / 8.0658ｘ10⁶⁷ = 0.1240ｘ10^-67です。偶然に正しい並び方を選ぶのが無理にしか考えられません。言い換えれば可能性は極みに低いですね。

生命は偶然ではない証拠:

生命にはDNAが必要です。DNAは動物の図面みたいです。
DNAには塩基対が特別な並べ方があって正しくない並び方じゃない限り、動物の生命はできないと考えられます。この話は塩基配列についてです。wikipedia参照:http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/DNA

英語版のwikipediaからヒトゲノムのページではこの表があります。(私は合計を追加しました）
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genome
http://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E3%83%92%E3%83%88%E3%82%B2%E3%83%8E%E3%83%A0

染色体	長さ (mm)	塩基対	変異	確認たタンパク	推定タンパク	偽遺伝子	miRNA	rRNA	snRNA	snoRNA	他ncRNA
1	85	249,250,621	4,401,091	2,012	31	1,130	134	66	221	145	106
2	83	243,199,373	4,607,702	1,203	50	948	115	40	161	117	93
3	67	198,022,430	3,894,345	1,040	25	719	99	29	138	87	77
4	65	191,154,276	3,673,892	718	39	698	92	24	120	56	71
5	62	180,915,260	3,436,667	849	24	676	83	25	106	61	68
6	58	171,115,067	3,360,890	1,002	39	731	81	26	111	73	67
7	54	159,138,663	3,045,992	866	34	803	90	24	90	76	70
8	50	146,364,022	2,890,692	659	39	568	80	28	86	52	42
9	48	141,213,431	2,581,827	785	15	714	69	19	66	51	55
10	46	135,534,747	2,609,802	745	18	500	64	32	87	56	56
11	46	135,006,516	2,607,254	1,258	48	775	63	24	74	76	53
12	45	133,851,895	2,482,194	1,003	47	582	72	27	106	62	69
13	39	115,169,878	1,814,242	318	8	323	42	16	45	34	36
14	36	107,349,540	1,712,799	601	50	472	92	10	65	97	46
15	35	102,531,392	1,577,346	562	43	473	78	13	63	136	39
16	31	90,354,753	1,747,136	805	65	429	52	32	53	58	34
17	28	81,195,210	1,491,841	1,158	44	300	61	15	80	71	46
18	27	78,077,248	1,448,602	268	20	59	32	13	51	36	25
19	20	59,128,983	1,171,356	1,399	26	181	110	13	29	31	15
20	21	63,025,520	1,206,753	533	13	213	57	15	46	37	34
21	16	48,129,895	787,784	225	8	150	16	5	21	19	8
22	17	51,304,566	745,778	431	21	308	31	5	23	23	23
X	53	155,270,560	2,174,952	815	23	780	128	22	85	64	52
Y	20	59,373,566	286,812	45	8	327	15	7	17	3	2
mtDNA	0.0054	16,569	929	13	0	0	0	2	0	0	22
合計	699	2,057,493,819	37,096,106	11196	369	8765	1090	337	1291	864	790

ヒトゲノムは2,057,493,819の塩基対があります。その中37,096,106の有効の変異があります。
全部の塩基対の中の有効の変異の以外は無効としましょう。
有効変異を偶然に選ぶのにどの確率がありますか？

(2057493819 - 37096106)! = 2020397713! = 1.2622ｘ10^{17,923,235,794}

ですから偶然に有効なヒトゲノムを選ぶの確率は1.0 / 1.2622ｘ10^{17,923,235,794} =  7.9227ｘ10^{-17,923,235,794}<です。考えられないくらい少ないです。一番小さい生き物にしても約5500万の塩基対があるので確率は1 / 4.8615ｘ10^401,833,755です。考えられない程、少ないです。

ですから「生命は偶然に生じた」と言う主義は笑うべきでしょう。

宇宙全体に数えられないくらい惑星があります。しかしそれぞれの惑星があってもDNAの構成自体が偶然に組み合わせることがあるとしても完璧な環境、栄養とか熱とかがあるとしても（可能性が少なくとも）それぞれのことが丁度いいにしてもDNAの塩基配列が完璧であるにしても（上記の話参照）生命が生じると考えるでしょうか?

つまり神様がなければ生命が生じる可能性は０にしか考えられないのです。

Heart, Might, Mind and Strength

Increasing is the number of people who don't "believe" in organized religion. They may believe that organizations limit their freedom to practice religion according to their individual interpretation, or that religion should be a private practice and not a public one.

I have some sentiment with this approach; I too believe that religion is intensely personal because at the most basic level, it is about an individual's relationship with God. Salvation is an individual thing. However, limiting the scope of our own religiosity to only our private life is like living two separate lives. It means putting on a secular face in public and a religious one in private as if shamed by our own feelings of piety. Furthermore, we may feel that keeping our religion to ourselves is best because then we don't "infringe" upon the rights of others, as if talking about your beliefs limits the other person's freedom in some way.??? Or maybe we fear being judged. There are a lot of reasons I suppose.

The first great commandment is to love God with all our heart might mind and strength. This means to stand as a witness at all times and in all places, ... in public and in private.

If we believe in God, we need to act like it. No more of this living two separate lives. If someone asks you what you did over the weekend, tell 'em - I prayed, I read my bible, I went to church, and I liked it. If its who you are, then don't hide it. There's One person paying particular attention and he is always keeping score.

The Paradox of Prayer

Consider these two statements by the master: "Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you."; "...take this cup from me, nevertheless thy will be done."

There's a problem with these two statements that I have been thinking about for some time. If we ask in faith, we are told that we shall receive. However, even the Master asked, and yet submitted to the will of the Father - not receiving the thing that he had asked for. Well, sort of, he also asked that the will of the Father be done upon him, - that part of the prayer was answered.

So does asking mean that we shall receive the thing we asked for? I think the answer is based  on the context.

Yea, I know that God will give liberally to him that asketh. Yea, my God will give me, if I ask not amiss; therefore I will lift up my voice unto thee...

Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

Perhaps the key to the question is that we must distill the will of God and ask for it. It may be that the bestowal of the blessing is only contingent on our asking for it. The important part (and the most difficult), I think, is finding out the will of God so that we can ask for the right blessings.

My son asked me for a toy, but instead of simply buying it for him, I told him that he would have to earn it. When he complained, I redirected his thoughts to the things he could do to earn it, and though it would take time and effort, he could earn enough money to buy the toy he wanted. So he did various chores that I wanted done and earned a little money at a time over the course of a few weeks. When he had earned enough, we went to the store and he picked out the toy he wanted, which turned out to be a different one than he wanted in the beginning, after that, he approached the counter and paid for the toy himself. I noticed later that for awhile at least, he seemed to take care of this toy more than the others.

Had I simply given him the toy, he may have rejoiced and played with it much the same, but I think because he earned it, he had more satisfaction and a sense of accomplishment. Since then, he has realized that some toys are cheap and break easily, and some cost more and are more durable. But would he care about that fact if he didn't have to earn them for himself?

If a son shall ask bread of any of you that is a father, will he give him a stone? or if he ask a fish, will he for a fish give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children: how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?

A good father gives what is best for his children. To me this means that God won't necessarily give us what we ask for, nor in the time frame in which we want it. Rather, he is more likely to give us something better than we asked for, but it will be on his own timetable, and more likely than not, we're going to have to earn it.

So if you've ever prayed for something that you think you didn't get. Think again. What were your motives? Were you willing to work for it? Did you really need it in order to become what He wants you to become? Chances are, you got something better than you asked for, but you just couldn't see it at the time. Jesus asked to be let off the hook, but instead, submitted to the will of the Father received something far greater.

Motives

Perhaps 10 years ago I attended a session of the LDS Church general conference at the conference center near Temple Square in Salt Lake City. At this time I don't remember what was presented at the pulpit that day, but I do remember feeling good about the message and generally uplifted, happy and peaceful. Much to my astonishment, upon exiting the conference center doors and approaching the sidewalk, there were mobs of protesters screaming at us. They had big black banners depicting bloody corpses, and I remember one of  them yelling something to the effect of "your works are as filthy rags before the lord." What I observed was interesting, most people exiting the conference (if not all) noticed them but I don't think anyone actually engaged them in conversation. I remember feeling that trying to engage them would only result in getting yelled at and not accomplish much else. There were a few police around, but they didn't seem to be very worried about having to deal with anything.

At the time, I felt we were sort of like sheep cowering before wolves. I remember feeling anger toward them and I actually wanted to yell back, but I don't know what I would have yelled. I know that arguing seldom gets us anywhere, nor does it convince the other side to change their mind, but as a matter of ego, I felt that we deserved to stand up for our beliefs; to let them know that we're not going to take it lying down. Of course, fighting back is not a typically Christian sentiment, as Christ himself taught - "turn the other cheek". But those were my honest feelings at the time.

Since then I have reflected on that experience and have come to the conclusion that groups who persecute Mormons, Christians or religionists in general, do so out of misunderstanding. It is not a misunderstanding of our doctrine per-se, but more of a misunderstanding of our motives for being disciples of Jesus.

Recently, I came across this quote by the Christian author CS Lewis:

The Christian does not think God will love us because we are good, but that God will make us good because He loves us.

In reflection, what I want people who scream "your works are as filthy rags before the lord" to understand is that we (Christians) aren't doing what we do because we're trying to work our way to heaven, to satisfy our ego that we're better than you, or even because we gain happiness by it. To paraphrase a quote from a recent rendition of the life of St. Nikolas by the makers of Veggietales:

I don't do it because I want to be happy; I do it because I am happy.

We do good things because, quite frankly, we can't help ourselves. We are taught to love God with all our heart, might mind and strength. And we find that when we try to do that, we start wanting to do good things.  Being human, sometimes our motives are selfish ones, and maybe a part of us will always be innately selfish. But for those who feel His love in our lives, we can't help but do something about it.

The apostle Paul said:

For though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me, if I preach not the gospel!

Our increasingly secular society often paints religious persons as stupid, arrogant, and selfish. Perhaps these are true, (nobody's perfect) but we at least got one thing right - God Lives and Jesus is His Christ - And we know it, we feel it in our bones and we ain't afraid to say it, and we ain't afraid to live it, and we won't apologize for it. We just can't help ourselves. Please try to understand. :-)