Unhallowed Hand

I am a Brigham Young fan and have quoted him on this blog before, but I think he may have been THE Antichrist. How can I still be a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (LDS) if I think Brigham Young has been the most effective instrument of the devil for attacking LDS? It starts with something in The Wentworth Letter that I suspect was a prophesy regarding Brigham Young:

"The standard of truth has been erected. No unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing; persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, calumny may defame, but the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent till it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear, till the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the great Jehovah shall say the work is done." —Joseph Smith, 1842

Unhallowed has two definitions: 1. unconsecrated, secular, or 2. unholy, wicked. A hand in this context means an individual with an agenda working to achieve an objective, or in other words an agent. So the Unhallowed Hand would be a Unconsecrated Agent or an Unholy Agent. The succession crisis after Joseph Smith's assassination happened because it wasn't expressly clear to everyone who should be the leader of the LDS if both Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed simultaneously (as they eventually were,) so that Brigham Young could then be considered the Unconsecrated Agent leading the LDS. However I suspect Brigham Young has played a far more sinister role in the history of the LDS, and that the title of Unholy Agent or Antichrist may apply to him.

What is "the work" that will not be stopped from progressing? From Joseph Smith's personal view it could be only one thing: the LDS religion Jesus founded through Joseph. Why were people mad at Joseph Smith and wanted to have him killed? No matter how you look at it, the biggest factor was rumors of polygamy, and more than anything else was causing mobs to combine, persecutions to rage, and eventually in the case of the Utah War (1857-1858) literally the US Army assembled against the LDS . To this day Brigham Young's calumny, in accusing Joseph Smith of pedophilia and adultery in the form of a rewriting of history to justify Brigham's own foul sexual practices, is one of the biggest philosophical problems holding back the growth of the LDS faith. 

Another mess left over from Brigham Young that we still have to address is his overt racism. However before him Joseph Smith was NOT racist. He and his wife were close friends with escaped slaves, and he had the first black Elder ordained to the LDS priesthood in 1836. But once Brigham Young was in control of the LDS, LDS prevented blacks from holding the priesthood or entering the temple.

Brigham Young also introduced other false doctrines LDS have since totally rejected in favor of what Joseph Smith taught before.  Let's look at how Brigham Young's Antichrist doctrines confused the plain and precious truths of the Gospel:

1. Throughout my entire adult like the Temple Endowment ceremonies have evolved to be less and less like what Brigham Young established, generally rejecting much of the following ideas. 
2. Adam-God theory degraded Jesus Christ's (same as Jehovah in the LDS) role in the Universe, placing Adam somehow above Jesus. In Joseph Smith's view and in the LDS view today, Jesus was the principle creator of the world including the human species. Brigham Young taught that Jesus was something less.
3. Brigham Young's "Blood Atonement" doctrine taught that adultery was so serous that Jesus Christ's atonement alone was not sufficient to save someone from that sin, and that the adulterer would have to pay with their life in order to be saved. Adultery would be a surprisingly common sin for Jesus's sacrifice to not cover, so that again we see Brigham denying the power of Christ established in the Bible, Book of Mormon and teachings of Joseph Smith.
4. Racism is clearly against the Gospel of Jesus Christ, as racism is not kind or even respectful to those you are being racist against. Brigham Young falsely claimed his racist views were doctrinal and of God.
5. The most obvious sign of a benevolent all-knowing God is he would tell you to completely abstain from alcohol and tobacco, because of the suffering caused by the health and social consequences from the recreational use of these substances. IF Jesus is God, you can pretty much tell what church is His by looking at who takes this rule the most seriously. The LDS rules around forbidding these substances were revealed in 1833, "...adapted to the capacity of the weak and the weakest of all saints, who are or can be called saints..." clearly intended for all LDS members. However Brigham Young went so far as to make and sell whiskey, which has about 4 times the alcohol content of any wine ever described in the scriptures. Brigham Young refused to promote the LDS rules regarding substances established by Jesus through Joseph Smith, and instead encouraged members to break those rules.
6. Since the time of Adam and Eve, including the times when populations needed to grow rapidly such as immediately after the flood or when the Lehites reached America, the commandment from God has always been one wife for each man, no concubines allowed. This creates the basic family and societal structure that successful civilizations are based on. Brigham Young fought against this basic family structure beyond anyone else I know of through his doctrine of polygamy.
7. Today the LDS and most other believers highly frown on divorce, because of the consequences it has on individuals and society as a whole. Jesus in Mathew Chapter 5 vs 31-32 describes divorce as a form of adultery. After all the huffing and puffing Brigham Young did over the importance of marriage, Brigham had 10 divorces!
8. Brigham Young twisted specific verses of scripture to mean the opposite of what they obviously meant. For example Jacob Chapter 2 is part of a huge sermon against polygamy, where "seed" has been established as "righteous people" and "things" have been established as various sins or abominations. Verse 30 reads "For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things." In context this clearly means "I command you to be monogamous, otherwise you will sin." However Brigham Young considered this verse to be an exception allowing polygamy, undermining the intention of the entire sermon.
9. Today in the LDS community we have high expectations of our leaders, and though everyone is a hypocrite sooner or later, we really expect them to do their best to live the gospel. We also expect them to refrain from judging people as much as possible, only enforcing the most important rules in the LDS faith. This is all reflected in Mathew Chapter 7 where Jesus warns us about being hypocrites and to tread lightly when we judge others. Brigham Young on the other hand pretty much just made up the rules as he went along to suit his whims, constantly threatened people with an adverse afterlife for not going along with his Anthichrist schemes, and (as per this list) was probably the biggest hypocrite in the history of the USA.

If the LDS is a religion that is primarily about following modern prophets, then this means that the LDS religion was completely derailed at the time of Brigham Young, right? Not according to the prophecy above from The Wentworth Letter, which specifically said any such Unhallowed Hand would not stop the LDS religion from spreading throughout the world. Let's look at LDS spiritual practices to see how high priority "following the prophet" actually is. In order to even become an LDS member in the first place, you have to embrace the "First Ordinances and Principles of the Gospel", which are:

1. Faith in Jesus Christ
2. Repentance
3. Baptism
4. Gift of the Holy Ghost

That last step, #4, The Gift of the Holy Ghost is to enhance your personal ability to get revelation directly from God yourself. Which of these 4 says to "follow the prophet?" Yes of course following guidance from prophets both ancient and modern is wise, but it is fundamentally more important to establish your own personal relationship with God. The LDS is then a body of people who have embraced these Principles and Ordinances.

Perhaps this is why over 75% of LDS ignored Brigham Young's ranting on polygamy and never practiced it themselves. Even if Brigham Young was the Antichrist, he did not successfully lead away most LDS members to do polygamy, as they had the Gift of the Holy Ghost for themselves. Brigham Young himself said:

“The First Presidency have of right a great influence over this people; and if we should get out of the way and lead this people to destruction, what a pity it would be! How can you know whether we lead you correctly, or not? Can you know by any other power than that of the Holy Ghost?” — Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 6:100

Yes indeed Brigham, yes indeed. LDS reject the "Trinity" creed, and believe that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost are separate individuals, so then why is the name of LDS not "The Church of Heavenly Father of Latter Day Saints," or "The Church of the Holy Ghost of Latter Day Saints," or "The Church of the Prophets of Latter Day Saints?" The Unhallowed Hand has shown us that regardless of who sits on the throne in Salt Lake City, Jesus Christ is the true leader of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. 

Ranking Martial Arts

Ranking Martial Arts videos are extremely shallow and uninformative. First they are nowhere near specific enough. Second they have poorly considered critieria. Third the scales they use on YouTube are pure trash.

Specificity

A classic example of how these "ranking" videos are not specific enough to be meaningful, is they tend to put all Chinese Martial Arts into one or two categories, typically called "Kung Fu." Tai Chi, just one family of Kung Fu systems, is so vast that more people do Tai Chi than all other martial arts and combat sports combined.

So how specific would you have to get for these ranks to be meaningful? Even Kung Fu critic channel Fight Commentary Breakdowns has come to acknowledge that Choy Li Fut (CLF) is one of the premier fighting systems in traditional Chinese Martial Arts. But not all CLF schools are into free sparring, because of the vast encyclopedia of techniques within the system, there are hundreds of forms to the point were you either have to sacrifice forms practice time for free sparring, or free sparring time for forms practice time. 

In the late 90's, the Twin Tigers CLF school in Bremerton WA produced various combat sports fighters including Margaret McGregor. Meanwhile an hour away, the White Snake CLF school in Seattle WA didn't believe in free sparring because it created "sloppy technique," and sulked about not being invited to perform at Chinese cultural events. About 5 minutes away from White Snake, a Mak Fai CLF club dedicated Friday evenings to free sparring, even though they were more recognized for their Lion Dancing.

All quality control issues within Kung Fu aside, these Ranking Martial Arts videos have similar problems when describing other martial arts. They frequently consider Boxing to be a cohesive fighting system when in fact we see drastically different training methodologies, techniques, strategies and definitions from gym to gym within the same cities* (for example Bumble Bee's Boxing [side stance, jab-centric, everyone fights orthodox, spastic hard free sparring] vs Cappy's Boxing [more front stance, safer free sparring] in Seattle.) Another common mistake is considering "wrestling" to be a cohesive martial art without specifying weather they are talking about American Folkstyle, Greco Roman, or Freestyle, which all have very different implications for self defense strategy. This failure to specify continues as they consider Aikido, Karate, "kickboxing," etc.

Criteria

Typically what they are ranking, regardless of what they say they are ranking, is how effective these martial arts are in MMA. However MMA is not very appropriate for self defense because it doesn't address self defense issues outside of the cage or defending yourself with legally viable options. MMA is a horrible lens for evaluating martial arts when MMA strategy is so different from what you need for self defense training.  

Very little consideration is given to the types of grappling that is useful for self defense. The Internal Skill is taking people down while you remain standing and able to maneuver under hostile conditions. Escape Grappling is getting out of an entanglement on the ground if you get taken down or end up on the ground on accident. Most people making these Ranking videos do not even understand these self defense grappling issues in the first place.

Little consideration is given to the health aspects of how these martial arts impact the practitioner. Is being a brown belt in BJJ better than no training at all for self defense, if in your BJJ training you have earned yourself various back and joint problems? Is boxing helping you defend yourself if your speech is becoming slurred and you are developing potentially fatal neurological problems?

I have said this before, but more consideration needs to be given to weather or not the martial art teaches physical and practical skills of value in the first 100 lessons. Most of these Ranking Martial Arts videos are being made by life long martial artists who can devote a large amount of time to training. This makes it harder for them to see things from the average martial art consumer's view, who has considerably less time to devote to training. Judo can make you deadly in 5 years. Cool story, most do not want to do anything close to as dangerous as Judo, nor do they want to devote all of their spare time to learning any martial art for 5 years.

Scales

There is only so much of YOUR personal opinion that OTHERS find meaningful, and only so much precision actually matters. The scale they have been using in these videos is trash: S = Super, A = top grade, B = Good, C = mediocre, D = bad, F = total waste time. Some also include an "E" in there, being generally unfamiliar with the American grading system, though there's no "S" in that grading system either. Notice how they just can't settle with an A, they just have to have that extra special higher-than-A. That is the level of intellectual discipline these childish videos adhere to.

A Likert scale would be the appropriate way to scale in videos like this. Likert puts things on a 1 to 5 star scale, where agreement is what is being measured. Agreement is key because it is literally what is being evaluated (the opinion of the creator.) 1 to 5 is appropriate because any more precision then that (say "5++") is not actually meaningful to anyone besides the creator. 1 = I can't agree with this in any way. 2 = I think this is incorrect. 3 = This could be correct, but I am not convinced. 4 = This appears to be correct. 5 = I know this is correct.

When multiple authors come together, their scores can be averaged to give us a familiar 1 to 4 scale rating. Let's say I do a Ranking Martial Arts video on grappling styles, and include BJJ, Freestyle Wrestling, Judo, american Folkstyle and Greco Roman. Let's say I rate American Folkstyle at 5 stars, but the other person making the video ranks it at 4 stars. Now we have a shared ranking of 4.5 stars. This then translates to the following comprehensible evaluations: less than 2 stars = trash. 2+ stars = mediocre. 3+ stars = Good. 4+ stars = Amazing.

Conclusion

*If you are going to make a martial arts ranking video, use a Likert scale, use meaningful criteria, and be specific:

Why Not Combat Sports?

All martial arts have blind spots. As a martial arts consumer advocate, it think it is important to look at the reasons why people do NOT train, and then look at issues with specific popular "combat sports" that are popularly recommended because of their practical hands on fighting skills they teach. In general combat sports provide built in training motivation and quality control as the next match or tournament is always approaching. Far more importantly combat sports always incorporate the most important aspect of martial arts training, free sparring.

Why Not MMA?

However there are universal problems with virtually all combat sports:

1. Risk of Injury: As Penn & Teller described in 2010, virtually all martial arts, though I would add especially combat sports, come with a much higher risk of injury from participating in them than not participating in them. Without any self defense training at all, you probably won't have an encounter in a self defense situation that will injure you as badly as participating in combat sports probably would.

2. Sacrificing long term health for short term performance: training in a health practice like Tai Chi or Weight Lifting usually keeps longevity in mind, but when training for sports your top priority for training is doing whatever it takes to be victorious in your next competition. You might be surprised at how bad that actually can be for you:

3. Huge time commitment: when you are training for sport, you are in an arms race with other athletes, and the main personal resource you are spending that can give you a competitive advantage is how much time you spend training.

4. Basic self defense questions unanswered: there are three basic self defense problems that have to be answered by any self defense system. First there is getting attacked by someone with a knife. Second there is being attacked by someone much larger than you are. Third there is getting attacked by more than one person. Combat sports generally disregards these questions because these questions are not important for the next upcoming competition.

Now lets look at individual combat sports we see frequently referenced in Mixed Martial Arts (MMA,) and why not:

• Wrestling?
• Boxing?
• Muay Thai?
• BJJ?

Why Not Wrestling?

American Folkstyle Wrestling is probably the best martial art for someone who has to fight another person where you are both unarmed, and there is no possibility of other people interfering, because it is one of the few and rare martial arts that competitively train Get Up Grappling. But aside from the universal problems with combat sports: 

• Good luck finding wrestling clubs that train adults. 
• Wrestling is even more injury prone than most other combat sports, because of the high emphasis on landing on top of the person whom you are throwing. 
• While most of the wrestling in the USA is American Folkstyle, some is not American Folkstyle nor is most wrestling outside of the USA, and as such does not train Get Up Grappling, while being just as injury prone as American Folkstyle, including: Greco Roman, Free Style Wrestling, Judo, etc.

Why Not Boxing?

Boxing is one of the best martial arts of all time for self defense against multiple attackers, because of its high level footwork and practical, potent strikes. But aside from the universal problems with combat sports: 

• Most boxing gyms prefer "hard sparring" which is the least safe type of free sparring, and training boxing casually long term can lead to neurological health problems. 
• Boxing has more blind spots than most martial arts, with no strikes allowed besides your fists and virtually no grappling or take down defense. 
• Third boxing relies heavily on closed fist strikes to the head, which puts you in danger of boxer's fractures and infections from teeth lacerations on your hand.

Why Not Muay Thai?

Muay Thai is probably the best martial art for most martial arts consumers, because of it's high emphasis on practical techniques like low kicks, tripping throws, knee strikes and elbow strikes, as well as it's high emphasis on very safe free sparring. However, besides the universal problems with combat sports: 

• There is a high level of pressure on people who are getting good at Muay Thai to compete, and the intense training for that fight and the fight itself is far more injury prone than casual Muay Thai training. 
• Muay Thai has some reliance on closed fist strikes to the head, which puts you in danger of boxer's fractures and infections from teeth lacerations on your hand.

Why not BJJ?

BJJ has the best quality control of any martial art because of their ranking standards being tied to tournament performance: if you are a higher belt, you are expected to win against any lower belt in a BJJ tournament. However, besides the universal problems with combat sports: 

• BJJ is highly specialized and seriously lacks relevance to self defense situations: most of the submission holds can easily accidentally kill someone (potentially creating worse problems for you than getting attacked in the first place) OR trades injuring the attackers limb for you being down on the ground with the attacker being angry with you. 
• BJJ is even more time consuming than other combat sports over the long term: to reach black belt you can expect to train 10 hours a week for 10 years. 
• Though BJJ is better at avoiding the big injuries found in Wrestling styles like Judo and Greco Roman, BJJ's free sparring doesn't have the same longevity benefits as the safer free sparring in Muay Thai, and usually BJJ practitioners are experiencing joint or back problems long before they reach black belt. For self defense, is it better to be a black belt with back and joint problems or to have no self defense training at all?
• BJJ is somewhat socially destructive because it discourages the practice of other martial arts. Two popular MMA gyms within 90 minutes of where I live were started when BJJ organizations forbade the practice of Muay Thai and/or FMA at locations that were already teaching multiple martial arts. The whole point of UFCs 1-3 was to try to show that there was no reason to practice any other martial art besides BJJ.

So with this all said, even though combat sports for the most part have good free sparring practices and quality control, they are insufficient for the needs of the average martial arts consumer as explained above. This is why it's important for us reconsider older options and construct new options as we move into the future.