A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.
Just like the issue of accepting same-sex intimacy, Mormons are beginning to understand a good Mormon can hold the position that women should be ordained. And this means that half (okay, maybe one quarter) of the battle is won, because now Mormons talk amongst themselves about the following equation as opposed to just dismissing whoever […]
Continue ReadingHow do we help “new bloggers” find their voice? Are we really a community that does? I believe we are, or at least can be. Main Street Plaza is an Internet home for people who care about their thoughts and ideas, eventhough weoften disagree. Wedon’t have the same world view,but it helpsus tobe able toarticulateour […]
Continue ReadingDuring a recent (perhaps ongoing) discussion of faith (among other things), we found that the four people in the discussion are using four different definitions of faith. Naturally, this led me to ask: “What is faith?” So, I used my faith in Google and in the Internet to get some ideas. First off, Google told […]
Continue ReadingWhen Republicans read the United States Constitution in the House of Representatives, they censored the embarrassing passages of the document, you know, the part about slavery and African American being 2/3s people in Article I, Section 2. I am glad that people are ashamed of slavery. On the downside, the efforts to depict the Constitution […]
Continue ReadingA 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 myself. It might help some […]
Continue ReadingOur 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 could neither remove the ambiguity […]
Continue ReadingAndrew Sullivan makes an interesting point: Most Americans have a healthy respect for religious teaching but in their lives give greater preference to common sense and practical experience. That includes almost all religious groups as well – Catholics, in particular, show conservative tendencies. The exceptions? Evangelicals and Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses – who are trained […]
Continue ReadingIn the wake of the reformation Europe was torn by religious wars for almost two centuries. France had the Huguenot wars, Britain the civil war between king and parliament, and in Germany, there was the 30 year war, which killed one third of the population. My home town was the seat of a Nassau principality. […]
Continue ReadingThe Jesuit magazine America features an essay by Cathleen Kaveny, which discusses the concept of inherent evil and it’s political implications. This passage caught my attention: Some Catholic commentators have claimed that the certainty we have about the wrongfulness of intrinsically evil acts means that we should give their prevention priority over other acts, which […]
Continue ReadingWry Catcher’s question whether the notion of spirit world addiction reminded me of Jean Paul Sartre’s Les Jeux Sont Faits, which is particularly interesting to Mormons because Sartre’s description of the afterlife happens to coincide with commonly held notions of the spirit world. Les Jeux Sont Faits is a wonderful drama by Jean Paul Sartre […]
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