Zombies

This idea was suppose to accompany the post I just made public about our brain but I thought it best to divide them up and give my brain a little rest. Recently the United States of America media has seem to have become obsessed with zombie and apocalyptic movies, shows, and video games. Its the new big thing wether its suspenseful romance and see in Warm Bodies or absolutely terrifying nail bitting horror in The Walking Dead. Similar movies and shows create within most viewers  a feeling of almost claustrophobic helplessness, a suffocating dread that for some strange reason we entertaining. My roommate Ethan is a avid news reader and zombie fanatic (that might be taking it a bit far... strike that and reverse it) and a few days ago he was telling me about something he read which analyzed this zombie obsession. I'm pretty sure it was from the Times magazine but I can not be sure. The gist of what he shared was that the article determined that this sudden and intense interest in zombie and apocalyptic movies is indicative of an unsatisfied society. Personally I have tried to connect the two dots but I have not been able to make the jump yet in my mind. However, I have come up with my own idea as to why we all seem to have become undead fans and are each gathering our zombie response teams and planning apocalypse escape routes. Aristotle I believe taught that the reason why we find tragedies entertaining is that we have within us sadness and viewing a tragedy allows us to become a part of it and release from within us pent up sadness. We enjoy this so that we don't have to carry that sadness with us. The point he made was that we seek entertainment which causes negative emotions so that we can feel and release those emotions without it directly interfering with our lives. Now let us apply that to our zombie obsession. How do we feel while watching these movies? Trapped, suppressed, hunted, hopeless, helpless, like almost like we are struggling for a breath of fresh air is a sea of stress. Well at least that is how I feel. Now to go on a tangent which will connect. Remember how I thought that the brain is the relay to the spirit? How it connects our spiritual world with our mental and physical world? Remember how this connection goes both ways? Sometimes we receive spiritual communications through our mental and physical experiences in a way that is familiar. As a missionary in Basildon Essex I was teaching a girl who did not make any claims to be devotedly religious. The lesson went well and towards the end I had this idea to ask this girl if she would be baptized. This was a bold move for a first lesson, especially since I was not really able to determine her level of acceptance. However I decided to ask her. Immediately I could feel a change in the atmosphere (I would have said room but we were outside) as she thought about it then said "You know what? I'm going to do it. I'm going to be baptized!) I was absolutely shocked. It actually worked. We will receive direction  from our Heavenly Father who will speak to us spirit to spirit. Just as a father will speak to a young son is simple words that he can understand these spiritual communications will come in a way that is familiar to us. In this example it was a simple idea to do something I normally would not have. For her it was the gut feeling that told her to go for it when I invited her to be baptized. I am convinced that the spirit is the center of our moral grounding. This is why I believe all human beings are inherently good. Because each of us have a spirit to serve as a moral compass. Sometimes our spirit will speak to our body to encourage and warn us regarding this moral compass. Have you ever noticed the automatic guilt that comes when you do something wrong? Even when no one is watching? This is to the spirit what pain is to the body, it warns us that what we are doing is destroying our good character and thus wounding our spirit. Controversly have you experienced the euphoria that come after you have sacrificed a little to help someone in need? Even if the act went unnoticed? That is our spirit once again using our emotions to encourage us to do something right. So what does this have to do with zombies? Its all about the emotions this form of entertainment creates. Panic,  overwhelming fear, claustrophobia, hopelessness, these are all common everyday emotions a survivor in a apocalyptic setting experiences. These are the 'feelings' that our spirit has. These are the emotions that our body and mind what to feel and release in an alternative reality created by media. So why is this? People look around you. We are living in an apocalyptic world. Spiritually and morally speaking. Everyday we are surrounded by those who are 'living dead' and decaying spiritually. Every day there are less and less of us and it seems that we are fighting a losing battle. That we are all walking dead doomed to suffer that same rotten demise as those who once lived with us. Can you not see this? Can you not feel this when every where you turn you become victim to salacious, degrading, inappropriate, and morally damaging videos, pictures, and talk? These kind of media are like radiation to our soul. Exposure, slowly and surely, will eat us away, leaving us with cancerous addictions and fascinations for cheap and low imitations and imaginations, which will ultimately prove our demise. Every movie and zombie story have a scene or moment when the characters look back on how it use to be with a great longing. In order for us to survive we need to do very much the same thing. We need to look back on the warnings and admonitions that our Father in Heaven has given us. Think about it our very own Moral Zombie Apocalypse Survival Guide! He has a response and relief team. And the best part is that if we are bite or scratched we are not doomed to become brain sucking corpse. The is One Physician who can heal any wound and mend any injury sustained in this survival. All we have to do is come to him. Just as in Warm Bodies we can be transformed by learning to love again and feeling loved. There is always an abundance of love at the Saviors feet. Come to him, and show him all you injuries, bruises, and scratches and He will heal you.

Brain and Spirit

I noticed that I have a handful of drafts sitting in my archives just waiting to be finished hopefully I can do my original ideas justice as I revisit them and try to expound and share them. I'm not a genius or even an 'intellectual' but I do my fair share of thinking. Six months ago I took a history of philosophy class so I am familiar with the concepts and concerns that have occupied, plagued, and entertained the greatest of minds throughout the last three millennia or so. One of the greatest debates has been the question of the body and soul. Plato believed that our souls existed before this life and came down to inhabit our body and St. Augustine of the Catholic church believed the soul to be our life source of light and knowledge I find it fascinating that with each of these philosophers theories we find shreds and bit of what was revealed to Joseph Smith concerning our eternal natures. Eventually as scientific knowledge developed and people began to rely more on what they could test and observe philosophers began leave the debate of the soul up to religious professors and today the question has changed to finding the connection of the mind and brain. Neuroscientist have developed theories of this connection by watching which part of the brain 'lights up' during different mental activity. However most of there finding have only reviled which areas govern sensation and perception but have little to offer for cognation. ( At least that is what my limited studies have found.) I find it amazing how the brain and body work together to monitor and sense the world around us. Sensory nerves transfer physical stimuli into neurotransmissions which are sent from neuron to neuron is a lighting fast chemical and electrical rely to the brain. The brain then transforms these messages into a cognitive experience that we evaluate and understand with our mind. It is a very fascinating thing for me to study. Now most of my ideas come straight from my thinkings and have little scientific value because of my lack of research and experimentation having said that I would like to purpose the idea that the brain works in a very similar way as does our sensory nerve cell. Nerve cell convert physical stimuli into neuro/mental messages and I purpose that the brain then converts these messages into spiritual knowledge to be processed by the spirit inhabiting each of our bodies. In essence the brain is the spirits liaison to not only our body but tot he physical world around us. In my readings both of scripture and prophetic commentary and scientific research I feel that there are two basic building blocks that make up all matter. I'm talking about the stuff that makes up the sub atomic particles that we think we know about. For simplistic reasons I will simply call them dark and light matter, or depending on what point I am making physical or spiritual matter respectively. According to Joseph Smith spirit is matter but is just more refined and undetectable to human observation. Also from the Doctrine and Covenants we know that spirit is light. We know from the accounts of the creation that there exists 'matter unorganized' from which the Lord created the earth. It is interesting to note the the first thing created was not light and dark or rather the light was not introduced to the dark. First the world was organized and light waters separated from the land. Further notice that life forms such as plants, animals, and finally man were not created until first light had been introduced? Dark matter can exist independent of light matter but life cannot. Life is contained in the light spiritual matter and the fullness of life is the hybrid combination of the two. Perfected life is when life is completely sustained by the spirit, an experience that we do not yet have but are promised through the Atonement and Resurrection of Christ. So why am I sharing this? The brain works and the only organ which bridges the gap between the two matters. I find it interesting that the neurotransmissions travel through the nerve cells as an electric pulse but bridge the gap between cell using a chemical reaction controversy in the brain as it communicates with different areas of its self it only uses electronic pulses. These pluses seem to 'light up; the active part of the brain. The only chemicals used in the brain are by the adrenal system used to regulate the emotions and functions of the body. Which tell the body what to tell the brain. It may be bold of me to assert this idea but I believe that the brain uses light matter to communicate with the spiritual entity which is responsible for our cognation, reason, and moral grounds. I believe that the question of how the body connects with the body and how the brain connects to the mind can be answered with the idea that the brain is a relay or sorts  which communicates our physical experience to our spirit and forwards its commands to our body.