Boolean thoughts

So I'm on a quest for information about gifts of the spirit, and I definitely ran into one today, but I also ran into a thought on a completely different subject.

I remember bible bashing - even when I knew that we weren't supposed to do it - with people who wanted to disprove me while I was in the mission field. I hated it, and I knew that it wouldn't accomplish anything, but some part of me insisted that if I just showed them one more scripture, they'd straighten out their thinking. It never worked and of course, it always left me somewhere between upset, disgruntled, unsettled and without the guidance of the Spirit for a while. I knew what I knew, but what seemed so clear to me couldn't get through the other person's closed door.

As I remember it, if you talked about one of various hot button issues: the nature of the Godhead, baptism, salvation, there would be a battle of the scriptures. What a shame that is to think about it - being heated with someone while quoting the words of the God of love.

So Joe would say "well, this is what scripture A says" and Jane would say "well this is what scripture B says", and back and forth. Like scripture A contained all of the truth and B somehow was meaningless. Then the counterpoint: scripture B contains what needs to be known, and A is lesser.

I'm working today on sending out facebook ads to promote my business - the real estate edge. It was a refresher course on Boolean logic. In short, it means that there's a very distinct difference between "and" and "or". I was looking for people in Utah who had listed their occupation as "Real estate agent" or "Real estate broker" or "Broker/agent" or even "Real estate professional". I didn't need them to have selected all of these, just one of them for them to be my target market. That is the "or" condition: either A or B or C or D. If any of those traits is a hit, they're my target market.

But I also wanted them to live in Utah and be in a certain age range. So now facebook knows that they had to have a geographic requirement and an age requirement and a professional interest requirement. This of course is "and", not "or". All three requirements must be met.

Here's my thought: the bible is the word of God. All of it. To use or assume "or" logic when discussing scriptures can only result in error. Conclusions will be incomplete, and a person may be misguided - or worse.

The thought occurred to me this way: truth 1 is that my office has a wall with replica swords on it. Truth 2 is that my office has a wall with a whiteboard on it. Both are true - but these are different walls. To argue whether truth 1 or truth 2 is more accurate than the other is frivolous and wrong.

Here's the gem, it's simplicity is both obvious and hidden: it's "and" - not "or". Scripture A is true, and scripture B is true. They're both the word of God. The question then is to meld the scriptures - all of them - to give us the guidance that the Lord intended.

Doctrine and Covenents 6:28 Which Father, Son and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite and eternal, without end. Amen.

Here's a scripture indicating exactly what many on the other side try to tell mormons when a discussion of the godhead comes up. They say they're one person, or one thing, or one cloud, or one consciousness. And here's a scripture to prove that we believe that too. Yet there are others - so many others - that indicate that there's more to the story. Wisdom is gained when one realizes that both are correct.

We can choose to look at our world through a straw with "or" thinking, or we can allow our souls to expand. "And" thinking might be more of a stretch, especially at first, but in the end it's much less difficult. Far more rewarding.