I have seen some members of the Church express concern over the fact that Islam — as a religious faith — is not being recognized for the violence that it leads people to commit. There is a sentiment that Islam, as a religious system, should be treated with suspicion as a catalyst for violence. I just wanted to address this briefly.

On the Numbers

I don’t have numbers, and I don’t really know where to find them. But I do know that there are 1.6 billion Muslims in the world. I also know that there are around 15,000 or so known members of Al Qaeda, perhaps 60,000-100,000 members of ISIS (exact numbers are in dispute). That’s just two groups, sure — so let’s be super generous, and assume that there’s about a million known members of violent groups who use their religion as the primary pretext for terrorist violence (the real number could be a lot more, and my analysis here would be largely unaffected, so exact values are not at issue). If that’s the case, perhaps .06% of the Muslim population is part of these groups — or, in other words, 1 in 10,000. Now, my numbers could be WAY off. But even if we doubled the numbers, or tripled it, I don’t feel like my analysis here is completely off-base.

However, the daily behaviors of the 10,000 never make the nightly news. Only the behaviors of the 1 do. And so it’s easy, without realizing it, to get a lopsided impression of Islam as a faith. Many, many people say that driving is safer than flying, because every plane crash is plastered on the news for weeks at a time. But in reality, when the statistics are done, mile for mile, flying is far, far safer than driving. But our impressions, our perceptions, are sometimes skewed by the media reporting. Similarly, our perceptions of Islam have been twisted by this lopsided representation of Islam in the media. Stories of violence get more viewers and sell more advertising spaces. And so we begin to associate Islam and violence in our minds, forgetting the fact that we live and work among Muslims every day and often don’t even know it, because they are — by and large — a peaceful people who condemn violence just as much as we do.

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Yesterday, the new House of Representatives were sworn into office.  On today’s docket, the largest Republican majority in almost a century began discussing three key programs to increase jobs. Continue reading →

Coming at the scientific community like a ton of bricks, it has been revealed that Native American’s are not of exclusively Eastern Asian heritage. As the National Geographic states, “Native American genes come from west Eurasian people linked to the Middle East and Europe, rather than entirely from East Asians as previously thought.” The discovery of 24,000-year-old Siberian youth and a second 17,000 year old human remains nearby contain a third of western Eurasians genomes related to Middle East and Europe ancestry.

Needless to say, the discovery has been shocking to scientists who have for years insisted that there was only one DNA explanation for Native Americans. In the linked article, co-author and ancient-DNA specialist Eske Willerslev, of the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, says, “These results were a great surprise to us . . . I hadn’t expected anything like this. A genome related to present-day western Eurasian populations and modern Native Americans as well was really puzzling in the beginning. How could this happen?” Not that there weren’t clues that indicated things weren’t what was expected long before this discovery. According to the scientists, it answers some long standing questions and anomalies. The mysterious Kennewick Man, who to some doesn’t look either East Asian or Native American, might not be a complete anomaly. In fact, it has always been something of a puzzle why, “no contemporary East Asian populations really resemble Native Americans,” Willerslev said. The evidence is growing from genetic, linguistic, and physical evidence that America has ancient migrants from multiple peoples.

Despite all the evidence, there are some things that can be concluded and others not about The Book of Mormon and the DNA discoveries. It is not as clear cut for both sides, no matter how strong feelings are about the issues. What does this mean? That question will be answered in response to relatively standard comments already made by others. Continue reading →

You may have heard that TLC is planning on running a show on Mormons with same-sex attraction, some of whom are happily married to somebody of the opposite sex. As anybody could have predicted, some champions of “tolerance” are intolerantly calling for the cancellation of this show, which simply has these people telling their stories. The show is called “My Husband’s Not Gay.”

I would urge M* readers to visit this post, which has a great summary of the situation. I would also urge charity and compassion for these brave Mormons trying to balance their sexual desires with prophetic guidance. These people truly are modern-day heroes.

Here is the teaser for the show on TLC:

I want to tell you about my friend Tom. Tom went to college but graduated a few years ago and could not find a good job. After months of searching, he ended up working as a bartender. He worked five days a week from 6 p.m. to 2 a.m.

Tom didn’t like the hours of his job and he didn’t like working in a bar. But it was a job and he did his best. After tips, he made about $35k per year.

Six months ago, Tom got offered a job by an oil company. It just so happens that I live in northern Colorado, where there is an oil and gas boom of epic proportions. Tom’s starting salary? $50k per year, with the potential to make $70k within a year or so. Tom’s working hours are 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., and his company gave him a brand new truck to drive on the work site.

Tom’s story is not unique. I know literally a dozen people who are either working for an oil company or working for a company that provides services to an oil company. They all tell the same story: starting salaries are great, working conditions are great, and they feel part of something that is growing and has a future.

In Tom’s case, he recently got married, and he says one of the reasons he was able to make the commitment of marriage is that he now has a stable job making more money. He plans on buying a house soon. Importantly, he feels his marriage will be more stable if he is not working at a bar until 2 a.m. but instead is home for dinner every night.

People seem to forget that good jobs make for good families and for stable communities. From a Gospel perspective, it seems obvious to me that we should favor policies that allow the creation of new high-paying jobs in the private sector.

Unfortunately, many people seem to favor the latest left-wing cause rather than having compassion for the American worker. Make no mistake: most of these causes are favored by people who work in academia or government. Most of these causes claim to want to “save” one thing or another. But the proponents of these causes could care less about Tom and the literally millions of other people who need a good job today.

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