BYU professors are not general authorities

I thought about adding this to my blog post "Mormon cultural myths debunked," but I figured most people wouldn't notice this addition, so I created a separate post for it.

BYU professors are general authorities, and therefore we should believe them. Please note, the vast majority of BYU professors are not general authorities; most general authorities are not BYU professors. A handful of professors aren't even Mormon. BYU professors are teachers, plain and simple. Most are well meaning, most are members of the LDS church in good standing (which is the kind of person BYU wants working for them). Most of them are right about most things, especially within their academic specialities.

But occasionally they're wrong. Sometimes they say things that are a little off, and every once in a while they say things that are flat-out apostate. So if a BYU professor says something that you feel doesn't really jive with the teachings of the prophets, you're probably right. Take what they say with a grain of salt.

Will chess die?

Technology has made leaps and bounds over the years. We have taught them how to play chess, and they can already beat us at our own game (it's gotten to the point where even the world chess champion can't beat a computer).

Computers have gotten so good at calculating the best moves that it appears that eventually they will "solve" chess. In other words, they will be able to determine the absolute best moves for either side to play in any circumstance in order to guarantee a victory or a draw (there's some debate about whether both sides playing equally as smart would lead to a draw or a victory; I won't go into that in this post).

This possibility leads to an interesting question for debate: when computers solve chess, will chess die? Will people become bored with it and stop playing it?

In my opinion, absolutely not! There are several factors that I think will save the game:

Displays of raw human strength have always intrigued audiences. For example, there is no question that machines can easily outlift human beings. Yet we are still in awe at the astounding strength of muscle men. Compared to other human beings, no one is better. The possibility of outperforming such people still attracts audiences and makes for enjoyable competion.

The same can be said of Olympic runners, like Usain Bolt. Even a crummy clunker car can outrun him, let alone the most advanced racecars and airplanes. Yet the whole world loves to watch him race because his speed compared to every other human being in the world is an awesome feat that we can all admire.

So it's reasonable to predict that the relative strength and weakness of our fellow humans at the chess board will still be fascinating to watch and take part in.

Here's another consideration: Even when computers solve chess, humans may never catch up to computers in a) memorizing or b) understanding all the possible moves it would take to win every single time. A human with either capability would be a genius. A human with both would have god-like powers at the chess board. Such a person would certainly captivate audiences.

It's extremely unlikely that more than one such person would exist. Let's say that happened. What then? It would be an even more intriguing display of talent. Even in the hypothetical, unlikely situation where they always draw every game, chess enthusiasts would still find many moments of instructive brilliance to appreciate.

Let's hypothesize again and assume that one day people completely lose interest in chess.

There is still an ace in the hole for chess, and that is VARIANTS.

A chess variant is any game that puts a new spin on conventional chess. It doesn't necessarily have to be a radical alternation of the familiar game (although there are lots of those). One rule change would be enough to change the outcome of the entire game to keep it interesting.

In fact, that's already been done. Chess has a lot of relatively new rules: in ancient times, the queen used to only move one square at a time diagonally, the bishop moved two squares, castling and en passant didn't exist, etc.

So it's not unreasonable for the international community to agree to a new rule (or several) to change up the game. For example, changing the set-up of the pieces (as in Fischer chess), capturing one's own pieces (useful in a handful of circumstances), no promoting the pawn on the 8th rank, going back to ancient rules, etc.

If people were still thirsty for more variation in chess, there's no shortage of radically alternative variants.

Many of those variants are waiting to be caught on to.

Heck, we could even play chess's cousins, descended from the same ancient game but which look different from "Western chess." For example, Xiangqi, or "Chinese chess."

It appears that computers will not be able to solve chess in our lifetime, maybe even several lifetimes. That's because it has 10^120 possible moves to hash through. Take a second to write a 1 with 120 zeros behind it, just to get an idea of how astounding that number is. No one has yet created a formula that can calculate and solve that puzzle, so right now they have to guess and check all possibilities, one move at a time.

This means that we can be confident that it may be centuries before a computer can solve chess, and even longer to solve all variants. So between the time it will take for computers to solve chess and the countless variants available, you and I can breathe easy knowing that we and our descendants (many generations of them, too) will be able to enjoy chess.

But what happens when computers solve all chess variants (who knows when that would happen)? I guess we'll just have to come up with some other game to play (as if there weren't a million to choose from right now).

Which kind of begs the question: will computers be able to solve every game we come up with? That's a debate for another day.

To my single friends

I ask for  your forgiveness as I indulge myself and speak about
marriage. Specifically, I want to offer a message of hope to those who feel like they may never get married.

To you I testified that the Lord hasn't forgotten you. He has
them graven upon the palms of his hands. He knows what it's like to go
for months without getting asked out or to get rejected again and
again.

Remember that the brethren have made it clear that all who are
faithful l will be blessed with a spouse in this life or the next. However long the wait is, it will seem like a brief moment. When the Lord makes a promise, it's as good as done.

Here's an important reason not to get down on yourself: I believe that discouragement is one of the tools of
the adversary to make us lose faith in the Lord's promises. If you feel like you'll never get married, you might just give up on looking for a spouse altogether.

My favorite example of someone who had to a long time to get married was Elder Oaks' wife. She must have been lovely young lady, but she waited patiently until her 50's. And she married
an apostle. How much worthier of a husband can you have than that?

Now, it might seem easy for me to say that since I'm married. But these thoughts I share with you came to me after 3 years of anxiety and frustration as a an RM itching to get married. So I know what you're feeling.

But when I came the realization that there is always hope for finding a spouse, all of those maddening feelings disappeared. It took another 2 years to find my wife, but,
with the patience that the Lord blessed me with, I felt like I could have waited many more years. But I'm grateful the Lord didn't make me wait :)

Marriage is ordained of God and that it is a commandment. And, like Nephi of old testified, the Lord always prepares a way to fulfill his commandments.

Putting your faith in the right place

I think it's troubling when people have a crisis of faith after reading some comment or blog post on the internet. Come on, are you really going to believe the words of some random internet troll and ditch your faith in God that easily? Dieter Uchtdorf, a prominent leader of the LDS church, said: "Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith."

A lot of people say, "I can't see why you belong to a church that has terrible people." What makes you assume I go because of the people? I don't go because I think that it automatically makes me, or anyone else who goes, better than everyone else. I go because I honestly believe God wants me to. I admit there are more dirt bags in my religion then there should be. I also assert that my religion has TONS of wonderful people, which people should be just as eager to point out.

But my faith is completely independent of anyone's actions. Which is actually quite liberating, because I'd be stressed if my devotion depended on the actions of 15 million people spread out across the globe; or if I let myself be influenced by the 7 billion people on this planet with their endless variety of opinions.

Plus, God is reliable: maybe some of those people are right about some things, but God is always right about everything. I'd rather trust in His all-knowing and perfectly-loving powers than in the partially-knowing, sometimes-but-not-always-friendly opinions of other people.

Trusting in God is a win-win situation: Only one person whose opinion should matter to you, and he knows everything and loves you perfectly. That's awesome, if you ask me.

By the way, if you were to completely disassociate with every group of people (religious or not) that had bad people, you'd probably end up living by yourself on an island: every country, business, religion, race, club, etc. has terrible people. But they all have wonderful people, too.

So quit being so judgmental, and quit letting other people's actions be the barometer for your own behavior.

Some people are never happy

During my mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I met hundreds of people from all walks of life with every imaginable (and unimaginable) opinion. I came to realize the reality of this simple truth: you can't please everybody.

I reflect on this truth whenever a group of people whine that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints isn't exactly they way they think it should be. And a lot of times those are random, silly things that people are viewing through the lens of the latest cultural fads, instead of with the eye of faith.

What's next, vegans picketing the BYU and MTC cafeterias for serving meat products?

Environmentalists picketing the Church office building for producing too much trash?

Cheapskates picketing Deseret Book and the Distribution Center for charging money instead of handing out items for free? 

Hollywood critics saying that Mormons are lame just because they don't always produce good movies?

When the LDS church was young, Joseph Smith started a bank in Kirtland. He was a prophet, not a professional banker. So it should have come as no surprise that his bank failed. But, consequently, many people who invested in the bank had a serious crisis of faith, seriously questioning Joseph as a prophet.

But it wasn't enough for them to stop attending church, or to disbelieve his sermons. They joined mobs that wanted to kill him. All because they were rudely awakened to the fact that even if this man was chosen by God, he still didn't know how to run a bank; they strictly adhered to the foolish belief that a divinely appointed prophet should also be a good banker. Then they became guilty of things that were much more damning than starting a failed bank.

Anyone who has a chip on their shoulder can find, or imagine, any grievance they want.

To the leadership of BYU

Dear BYU leadership: Pestering a single person about why they're still single is just as insensitive as pestering an unemployed person about why they haven't got a job yet.

And would you tell an unemployed person, "You're not trying hard enough"? Even though that person has been submitting dozens of resumes and been to several interviews and has been rejected by all leads? Then why would you say something like that to a single person who's been diligently putting themself out there?

I was frustrated with all my bishops and stake presidents at BYU who operated under the assumption that anyone who was single wasn't trying or didn't want to get married. I lost count of how many times a religious leader looked at me dumbfounded when I said, "I've asked lots of girls on dates for years and nothing has worked. What should I do?" It was even more frustrating that they didn't have a satisfying answer, which tells me that such an idea never occurred to them. If they paid attention to the lives of the people around them, they might have been aware of this fact.

And you know what the irony is? We believe in eternal marriage. So in the grand scheme of things, what's the difference of getting married at 20 instead of 30? Or 40? Or maybe not until after you're dead? The prophets have made it clear that the faithful will be blessed with a spouse, either in this life or the next. So why stress out BYU students by making them believe that if they don't find an eternal companion during their 4 years at BYU that they'll never get married?

Story of my deployment

During my fourth year in the Army, I got promoted to 2nd lieutenant. My first assignment was a deployment to Afghanistan.

I thought it was ridiculous that I got that assignment because supposedly we were already gone from there. Kristina was upset about it, too.

Most of the deployment went off without a hitch. In fact, it was boring. Mostly desk work and some manual labor (I didn't see why I couldn't do the same thing at Camp Williams, but I didn't want to frustrate myself by thinking about it too much). Kristina was happy to see me during my leave halfway through.

During the last month, I was ordered to lead a supply convoy through Kabul.  I wasn't scared because there hadn't been reports of casualties there in years. Turns out my convoy had the dubious honor of being the first in that many years.

A rocket propelled grenade hit the first jeep which I was in. The driver was killed. I was hit with shrapnel in my left shoulder and thigh; the two soldiers in the back were unscathed.

I didn't feel my injuries at first. I was too adrenalized and pissed off. I thought to myself, "Really? I'm in this stupid country that I shouldn't even be in; I'm almost done with this deployment, and these thugs couldn't respect a simple SUPPLY CONVOY! I want to go home and see my wife, goddammit."

Enraged, I hopped out of the busted humvee, yelling like a psycho gone berserk. I took cover behind the front driver's side, whipped out my .45 and shot at anything that moved. I don't know if I hit anybody, because they were far away, and because the Humvee behind us was laying waste to the bastards with the .50 caliber machine gun.

After a few seconds, I felt a sudden tug on my right shoulder and I hear, "Get in the Humvee, Lieutenant! Now! We're outta here!" I hobbled to the back of the second Humvee, practically thrown in there by the Sergeant. As we flew out of there, my injuries finally started hurting. It was a miserable combination of needles and burns that I felt. I couldn't focus on being glad to be alive. All I could think of was the pain. The medic bandaged the wounds, stopped the bleeding, and gave me some Morphine. I passed out.

Next thing I knew, I was in a hospital. It didn't look familiar. "Morning, Lieutenant. You're in Rammstein hospital." "In Germany?" I asked in a daze. "Yes. And my name is Captain McNamee. I'll take care of you." That's Lucy Bednarz's husband. Later, Lucy (also an Army nurse) came in, commended me for my bravery, and says it's bittersweet to reunite with a friend after all these years in this way.

I got another surprise: the Army paid for my wife Kristina to fly to Germany and visit me. What a joyful reunion. I hadn't seen her beautiful face in too long. It made my heart feel good. "I lost weight, honey!" I laughed that that's the first thing she reports to me. "I went with Suzanne to do Zumba at the gym and I've been sticking to my gluten free diet. I wanted to look good for you when you came home."

"Honey, you didn't have to do that. You were always beautiful. But I'm proud of you for exercising and eating healthy."

"I know, now I'm hot and I can finally fit in my old clothes." We both chuckled.

"Kristina!" I laughed, embarrassed, "I don't care what size you are."

"I do." She smiles.

She caressed my arm, "Why did they do this to you? I wish I could talk to those bad guys and punch them in the face." We laughed again.

"They're probably dead, honey."

"I know, I just wish I could tell them, 'You know what? My husband is coming home soon and he's just delivering supplies. He's not here to kill anyone. Just leave him alone.'"

"You're so sweet."

"And why did the Army even make you go in the first place? You're not supposed to be fighting on the front lines."

"Believe me, honey, I've asked myself that a million times. But I guess since other guys are dying it's not fair to keep the rest of us out of harm's way."

"I know. Do you have to do this every time?" 

"Probably not, especially with these injuries." 

"Ok. Just please think about getting out, alright? I enjoyed it while it lasted. It's time for you to be a daddy."

My jaw dropped, "You're pregnant?"

"Yes. I wanted to surprise you. Did you like the surprise?"

"Yes!"

*This post is a work of fiction and is dedicated to the brave men and women in the armed forces.