Yes, Britta has declared her independence from the CoJCoL-dS! I found her blog through her Irreligiosophy interview — along with a couple other exmo blogs that I hope everyone will welcome to the Outer Blogness community! Andrew S has written an interesting series comparing this community to other blog communities.
Can an online community be considered a real community? Perhaps. Here we have a warm and colorful story of some online MoHos meeting up in real life to attend NYC pride. (I wonder if they saw the St. Francis Xavier Church group.) In (cold) IRL community news, a family of faithful Mormons actually sold their house and moved — just because their neighbors left the church (and have tattoos)!! Wow, ouch! (For another interesting contrast, check out these warm and cold family chats…)
Anyway, it turns out that it’s also the 4th of July today. However, apparently, it’s not Independence Day in Utah, despite the popular penchant for blurring Christianity and US nationalism. (Though, interestingly, despite gross inequality in most of the US, Utah turns out to be a bit of a Socialist utopia.)
Of course, other countries have their own-church-and-state quirks — have you been following the royal wedding in Sweeden? (It’s been all over the popular press here in Switzerland.) Things look promising for secularism in neighboring Denmark, though. (Secularism is not a religion, BTW, says a public service announcement from BCC.) Oh, and did you know that Australia’s Prime Minister is an atheist?
Wow, we’ve come a long way since Bible, Book of Mormon, Book of Abraham, and even Joseph Smith‘s days!
And now for this week’s helpful tips: Remember that an analogy is not meant to be taken literally, a picture of Jesus is not actually Jesus, and polygamy is the hottest new trend!
p.s. I should also mention that Arnold Friberg died this past week. Anyone interested in discussing his contribution to the Book of Mormon beefcake genre?