Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Soup On a Stick

As per tradition, I attended the Priesthood Session of this past LDS General Conference with the male side of my family.

At the meeting, I decided that the Church would, indeed, one day extend its fellowship to gay couples. It's simply the most natural, logical, and conclusive thing to do when the decision is based on the core Gospel principles.

Now, I'm not using the word 'core' the way the Church uses it.

To us an analogy:

Some (most?) say that water is a core need.

I say that more hydrogen and oxygen are more core of a need than water -- and, further, still protons, neutrons, and electrons are more core of a need than hydrogen and oxygen.

That is to say, the existence of water is dependent upon the existence of hydrogen and oxygen. The existence of hydrogen and oxygen are dependent upon the existence of protons, neutrons, and electrons. Etc.

The principle of eternal marriage, in my opinion, is not core to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Through Mormon lenses, I would argue than anything not explicitly found within the Book of Mormon can be core to the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

That's not to say that such principles aren't true -- just that they aren't fundamental but are built upon the actual core principles which are found within the Book of Mormon.

Going back to the example of eternal marriage, such can be traced to the principle of making temporal works eternal, the sealing power -- which is taught within the Book of Mormon.

So, when I'm considering a possible doctrinal principle, I prefer to start with the principles taught within the Book of Mormon and to work up from there. Starting with secondary or tertiary principles (meaning principles which are dependent upon other principles) is flawed.

I wish most of you understood object oriented programming and were specifically familiar with the Actionscript 3 (AS3) object hierarchy.

Maybe it will make sense if I use it as an analogy anyway:

Saying that homosexual marriage is not ordained of God because heterosexual marriage is ordained of God is like saying that a Sprite is not a DisplayObject because a MovieClip is a DisplayObject.

Those of you who may be familiar with AS3 will note that not only are Sprites and MovieClips both DisplayObjects, but a MovieClip is actually a Sprite simply with a few extended methods and properties.

On that note, saying that homosexual marriage is inferior to heterosexual marriage because heterosexual marriage can produce children in and of itself -- a.k.a. because of its extended methods and properties -- is like saying that a MovieClip is superior to a Sprite because of the MovieClip's extended methods and properties.

A good programmer knows that casting an object inappropriately could have some significant consequences on performance -- such as memory and CPU usage.

In fact, with AS3, it can be EXTREMELY ineffecient to cast an object as a MovieClip instead of a Sprite when the extended functions aren't needed (yes, yes, I know, in marriage the extended functions are "needed" ; however, I've yet to see anything but circular logic to prove the need). My inference being that I think it's EXTREMELY ineffecient expecting homosexuals to be heterosexual. I mean, it can be done... but not without sacrificing a significant amount of resources.

With AS3, the program will crash if you try to cast an object as a Sprite when it's needed as a MovieClip. My inferrence here being that heterosexuals casting themselves as homosexuals is where I believe the sin of pairing with the same-sex lies, where the fatal error occurs.

God frowns on heterosexuals acting homosexually. It "crashes the system."

Using the patented Mormon justification of God's timetable: Would it not make sense for God to be extremely strict and threatening about that which causes a fatal error while begrudgingly allowing that which is inefficience until the hearts of men are ready for optimization?

Granted, I find that sort of attitude to be lazy -- it's definitely what I think when I'm being lazy as I code. I doubt God is lazy.

Homosexuals make up an estimated 2-8% of the population. So, using the AS3 code optimization analogy, for each 100 MovieClips, I would only need to go in and recast 2-8 as Sprites.

I would personally do this one of two ways: 1) Going in and manually changing them; or 2) Coding a process to find the MovieClips that should be Sprites and recast them accordingly.

This -- and you may see where I'm going with this -- would parallel a couple of God's options as far as homosexuality: 1) Personal revelation; or 2) Revelation through the General Authorities.

Now, if I'm dealing with billions of MovieClips, I would personally code up a process to find and recast the MovieClips that need only be Sprites.

I personally believe God has already "coded up a process to optimize life's code" and is constantly trying to run the program; however, until His "main processor" (the General Authorities) is able to actually receive the commands, I believe He's also going in by hand and personally revealing the appropriate object casting to those who are ready.


... if that makes any sense, I don't know...

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