Santa God
I've always imagined God to be more like Santa Claus than the mean bastard most religions make him out to be. Forgiveness, love, and happiness. That's where any God I could believe in lives. He's more about healing scars than adding stripes.
Does God drink Coke? I think He can drink whatever the hell he wants.
(Apparently it's time to redesign the blog to accomodate HD video. I'll add it to my to do list. Look for an update some time in 2012.)
Quote of the Day
There’s no reason that the government should prevent homosexuals from entering civil marriages because some religions object to the concept, any more than the government should ban atheism because some religions object to it.
Lisa Pampuch
I don't know who Lisa Pampuch is. There are dozens of her on the Net. I couldn't find the original source of the quote either, but it's everywhere. I'm thinking it has something to do with how eminently reasonable it is. Of course, as this Lisa Pampuch points out, reason has little to do with the religious experience.
When asked what he would do if Camping* is wrong again, Rick LaCasse, who witnessed Camping’s 1994 failure, said: “I can’t even think like that. Everything is too positive right now. There’s too little time to think like that.”
UPDATE:This Lisa Pampuch, cited above, is the Lisa Pampuch who has thoughtfully provided links to the original article in the comments. Thanks, Lisa.
*Camping is currently predicting the rapture will occur on May 21, 2011. Obviously, it wasn't 1994.
Molly Comes Through
To say that life has been stressful the last couple of months would be an absurd understatement. My primary client unexpectedly lost his funding, leaving me several thousand in the lurch. New work has been slow in coming and my savings is evaporating at an alarming rate. Not to mention I just spent several thousand on a shiny new degree only to graduate in the worst economic conditions of my life. In other words: no. one. is. hiring. I've started applying for employment as a web developer, even though the thought makes me want to cry. Not exactly the best frame of mind for a job interview.
So when I found Molly Muses this morning and this little gem, a good laugh felt very nice.
If masturbation, alcohol, caffeine, premarital sex, smoking, sexy underwear and rated R movies are all verboten (and let’s add married sex in anything but missionary position to that list for many folks), sugar and fat are the last vices left to you. Part of the reason Mormons tend to get so tubby is that you need a lot of rice krispy treats to compensate for all that purity. But it does mean that if you ever get dragged to a Mormon gathering, head straight for the dessert table because wow.
Woo F***ing Hoo
Apparently the Mormon church set an official spokesperson to a public hearing on a non-discrimination ordinance that would protect LGBT people from housing and job discrimination. In a nutshell,
The Church supports this ordinance because it is fair and reasonable and does not do violence to the institution of marriage. It is also entirely consistent with the Church's prior position on these matters. The Church remains unequivocally committed to defending the bedrock foundation of marriage between a man and a woman.(Deseret News
Oh, gee, thanks. In other words, we'll let the gays live and work as long as their presence doesn't threaten our "standards." We still oppose society officially recognizing their relationships, we can still call them sick and mentally disturbed any time we feel like it and we can still kick them out of BYU if the mood takes us, so it doesn't matter. Oh, and (bonus!) we have just upped the ante on our victim role because: See how nice we really are?
Oh, and Michael Otterson? The Managing Director of the LDS Church's Public Affairs? In other words a hired PR gun. Where was Monson? Packer? Anyone from the Twelve? Well, except Oaks. I'll bet you won't see him in the public spotlight again any time soon. Hell, even someone from the warm and fuzzy arm of the church, The General Relief Society Presidency, would have been better than Otterson. By sending Otterson the Church was making another statement. "This is just policy. This doesn't carry the weight of doctrine, so you can ignore it if you want." What do you bet most True Believing Mormons do exactly that?
Case in point: This isn't anything they haven't said before. The Mormon church said essentially the same thing during the Prop8 stupidity as well, but when it came time to actually pass legislation on the Hill in Utah, did Utah Legislators take statements of PR arm of the church as evidence that passing non-discrimination and equal protection laws was the right thing to do? Nope. Did the Mormon church send an spokesperson to the Hill to give legislators permission encourage legislators to enact said laws? Nope.
It boggles the mind (mine anyway)
A couple of weeks ago at church my pastor said something that really resonated with me. He said, "The most important thing in the world is God's glory." Isn't that true? So no matter what I'm doing I need to be 100% that I am bringing glory to God because that's why he made me!"
Stumbled onto this while surfing photographer web sites. I just don't get this. Doesn't that make God sound like a narcissistic prick? Isn't it a grander vision of God to believe he made you for no other reason than to be yourself and give you the opportunity to learn and grow?
I could be wrong, but I kinda think the harder thing to do is to set someone you love free to be who they choose to be rather than to try and exert absolute control over them and try to make them into something you want them to be.
Why is it we seem to endow God with the worst qualities of mankind rather than the best?
From “The Onion”
If God Had Wanted Me To Be Accepting Of Gays, He Would Have Given Me The Warmth And Compassion To Do So
. . . It's a simple matter of logic, really. God made me who I am, and who I am is a cold, anti-gay zealot. Thus, I abhor gay people because God made me that way. Why is that so hard to understand?
Compassion, tolerance, understanding, basic decency, the ability to put myself in another person's position: God could have endowed me with any of those traits and yet—here is the crucial part—He didn't. Why? Because the Creator of the Universe wants me to demonize homosexuals in an effort to strip them of their fundamental human rights.
. . . So unless our almighty Lord and Savior decides to change His mind about my ability to empathize on even the most basic level—which I find highly unlikely—then everyone is just going to have to accept the fact that I'm going to keep on hating homosexuals. And I know that He will fill me with the strength to remain mindless and hurtful in the face of adversity.
You can find the rest here.
HT: MoHoHawaii
Kirby on Utah Pride
It was the most polite event I've been to since I can remember. But then I wasn't a street preacher.
On the northwest corner, a couple of preachers were telling passersby they were going to hell, and in turn being told to "[deleted] off."
The one with the "Homo Sex is Sin" sign was besieged by a dozen furious lesbians, a fact I deduced partly because of how they looked but mostly because they kept saying so at the top of their lungs.
The other preacher periodically held up two female ends of electrical cord and jammed them together to show, I guess, that the fit didn't work.
Neither did the object lesson. For me, it begged all sorts of gospel imponderables about biblically approved amps, volts, etc. Is Heaven 220 or 110? Are power strips brothels or plural marriage?
Traditional Family Values
It's funny. I was actually thinking about this very thing the other day. "Traditional" family values...well which tradition? As Betty points out, there are so many to choose from!
HT: Joe. My. God.
Color me sheepish
You remember that guy who created a beefcake calendar of Mormon missionaries and who was subsequently excommunicated from the Mormon church because of it? Turns out he's a friend of mine. In fact, when I felt like I couldn't take care of my dog Ranger any more, Chad was the one who gave Ranger a new home. In my defense I've found at least one article that called him Chris Hardy, so I'm going to blame my knowledge gap on that article. When I first heard about the calendar, I went to buy one. Not because I particularly wanted a calendar of hunky, young men, but because I wanted to support the fellow (Chris, remember?) in his endeavor. There was so much press at the time that the web site was swamped. I tried a couple of times to complete a purchase, but it eventually fell off my radar as the semester wrapped up and I was feverishly finishing my research assignments.
The saga didn't end there for Chad. Maybe some of you are more up to date on this sequence of events (wouldn't take much), but even though BYU cleared him for graduation and let him walk (post ex-communication), they subsequently decided to withhold his diploma. Chad has decided he needs to stand up for himself and is filing suit against BYU. As you might imagine, that is no small undertaking and it doesn't come cheap. You can read his story and donate to his legal fund on his web site: chadhardy.com.
Oh, and buy a calendar while you're at it: mormonsexposed.com. You're not only getting a calendar with hunky, young men and helping Chad with his revenue stream. A portion of every sale is donated to charity.