How Firm a Foundation, Hugh Nibley Style.

I LOVE HUGH NIBLEY.

I love how blunt he is. 

I love the funny words he uses.

I love how much of a hippie he is.

I love his glasses.
I love his love for learning.

So far I love all of his essays that I've listened to or read, and that includes this gem:

How Firm a Foundation! What Makes it So 

"Apostates usually become sometimes feverishly active, determined to prove to the world and themselves that it is a fraud after all. What is that to them? Apparently it is everything—it will not let them alone. At the other end of the scale are those who hold no rancor and even retain a sentimental affection for the Church—they just don't believe the gospel. I know quite a few of them. But how many of them can leave it alone? It haunts them all the days of their life. No one who has ever had a testimony ever forgets or denies that he once did have it—that it was something that really happened to him. Even for such people who do not have it anymore, a testimony cannot be reduced to an illusion."

Just look at all of that ticky-tacky commercialism! "Father Flanigan doesn't have the money to pay for that!"

Oh, here's a gem about St. George, Utah, "Those delightful old stakehouses, bishop's storehouses, schools, wardhouses, homes, and even barns have been steadily replaced by service stations, chain restaurants, shopping malls, motels, and prefabricated functional church and school buildings right from the assembly line: admittedly more practical, but must every house and tree and monument be destroyed because it does not at present pay for itself in cold cash? The St. George Temple is now lost in a neon jungle and suburban tidal-wash of brash, ticky-tacky commercialism. One can only assume that it bespeaks the spirit of our times. God has said that the Saints must build Zion with an eye to two things, holiness and beauty: "For Zion must increase in beauty and in holiness" (D&C 82:14)—with no qualifying provision, "Insofar as an adequate return on the investment will allow."

LOVE THIS:

"[A question-period followed this presentation. The questions were in the nature of practical objections—very sensible and reasonable. For example: "People now moving into Utah Valley must have somewhere to live, therefore the orchards must go."
Response: What could be more sensible and to the point? In such a spirit a friend says to me, "I must have my two cups of coffee every morning; otherwise I cannot get through the day." Perfectly sensible; what is the answer? What do you mean by getting through the day? "Well, I have to go the office—the old rat race, you know, a real strain." Must you go to the office? Is there no other way? Who tells you there is no other way? The more completely committed you are to a prescribed way of doing things, the fewer options you enjoy, until you end up a helpless prisoner to your precious "way of life." If you are resigned or dedicated to a regime that you do not really like, or that wastes your talents, then you are a prisoner indeed—in Satan's power. In short, when you say, "There is no other way," the game is lost and he has won. The number of possible solutions to any problem is legion, limited only by our own mental resources, and God is anxious to give us all the light and guidance we are willing to receive in solving our problems (D&C 88:32-33). The mental paralysis of our times strongly suggests that God has withdrawn his Spirit from among men, as he said he would. Quite recently the newspapers and journals have been full of the alarming decline in mental capacity and learning among the rising generation, in which, I sorrow to say, Utah leads the parade with its appalling 26 percent drop in Scholastic Aptitude Test scores and the lowest rating in all the land in mathematics—the one subject that requires some real discipline. Can such people ever be independent? We lamely submit to atom-bomb tests, weteyes, and the MX maze, we inhale the dust of vitriol tailings for years on end and rally to the support of the nation's No. 1 polluter in our midst, as we surrender that last wilderness heritage on earth in the name of "unlocking" it to private land-grabbers. Satan has us where he wants us—helpless, scared to death: "If we leave his employment, what will become of us?" For he has us convinced that there is no other way, nothing to do but go along. Ah, but there is another way. If you and the rest of Adam's children will only listen to the gospel, you will soon learn that ample provision has been made in the providence of God through his law of consecration.]"