What Makes Us Happy?
Joshua Wolf Shenk, The Atlantic, June 2009

I’ve long been intrigued by people and how they relate to one another. I have considered ad nauseum the source of human happiness. Since I was quite young I realized happiness could not be derived from riches alone; there are simply too many who are either happy and poor or sad and rich. When I became an atheist I realized happiness does not derive from god or faith in a higher power. Happiness, I’ve understood well, is all about relationships. It turns out I am correct.

Arlie Bock—a brusque, no-nonsense physician who grew up in Iowa and took over the health services at Harvard University in the 1930s—conceived the project with his patron, the department-store magnate W. T. Grant. Writing in September 1938, Bock declared that medical research paid too much attention to sick people; that dividing the body up into symptoms and diseases—and viewing it through the lenses of a hundred micro-specialties—could never shed light on the urgent question of how, on the whole, to live well. His study would draw on undergraduates who could “paddle their own canoe,” Bock said, and it would “attempt to analyze the forces that have produced normal young men.” He defined normal as “that combination of sentiments and physiological factors which in toto is commonly interpreted as successful living.”

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defense mechanism · grant study · happiness · harvard · psychology · relationship · Science · study · the atlantic

Native Americans Descended From a Single Ancestral Group, DNA Study Confirms
University of California – Davis, April 28, 2009

[The Book of Mormon] is a record of God’s dealings with the ancient inhabitants of the Americas
…
The record gives an account of two great civilizations. One came from Jerusalem in 600 B.C., and afterward separated into two nations, known as the Nephites and the Lamanites. The other came much earlier when the Lord confounded the tongues at the Tower of Babel. This group is known as the Jaredites. After thousands of years, all were destroyed except the Lamanites, and they are among the ancestors of the American Indians.
~Book of Mormon, Introduction

Mormons claim the Book of Mormon is true because, among other things, despite nearly 180 years of trying, nobody has proven it false. The problem with this claim is that it has been proven false. Archeological and DNA evidence long ago proved that Native Americans emigrated from East Asia. Mormon apologists then posited that there may have been multiple groups in the Americas at the time. The DNA evidence, however, was so overwhelming that the leaders of the church updated the Introduction to the Book of Mormon.
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book of mormon · cult · dna · lds · mormon · religion · study · uc davis · university of california