A while back another blogger asked me to submit an essay about my Mormon experience. Probably, for good reasons he changed his mind and never published it. Since it is already written and might shed some light on my argument at Times and Seasons, I might as well publish it…
Category: Family
Contradictions
In this post, I wrote that I was really happy for the older relative of mine who wanted to work in the temple. And in the comments to this post, Jonathan compared baptism for the dead to flag desecration, which I agree with. I think his comparison has merit.
If it makes you happy…
A close relative of mine wrote me the other day about the various things she’s doing in her life. She is gardening and hanging out with the great grandchildren who live near her. Then she mentioned that she’s excited to try and work at the LDS temple near her home….
Nature’s Values
Our revulsion at the cruelty of the Supreme Leaders henchmen is a powerful refutation of the postmodernist credo that anything goes. After the enlightenment discredited the authority of tradition and religion, the notion that reason or civilization could provide an ersatz God has also collapsed. The efforts of analytical philosophy…
SLC: This is the place to be queer!
So Cleve Jones wasn’t joking when he thanked the LDS church! Now Lisa Duggan (of The Nation) explains why Salt Lake City’s LGBT community is an inspiration for the whole country: At the Pride Center, a broad range of local activist groups and LGBT individuals actually talk to each other–in…
Following the rules or Seeing the Forest Through the Trees
I’m not someone who is particularly good at following the rules, at least some rules. And believe it or not, depending on who you talk to, Mormonism had a lot of rules. What type of soda/pop to drink, what kind of music to listen to, etc. What always astounded me…
The Nature of Sexuality
Todd just found a youtube video of the documentary Legacies about the treatment of Mormon gays by their church: Spencer Kimball’s attitudes about sexuality, unfortunately, can only be characterized as superstition. In the Mormon case, superstition is intertwined with claims to personal revelation. The latter is defined such that the…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Big News Edition!
Everybody‘s talking about the big news items this week: Secularism is rising dramatically in the U.S., and HBO is showing the Mormon temple ceremony! Let’s have a look:
a solution to the FLDS PR problem
I’m not sure why, but an idea has been floating around in my mind the last couple of weeks. I’m not usually in the mood to help a religious group survive, but I figured this thought was worth putting into the public domain for criticism at the very least. The…