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:
religion = $$$
I know, it’s the most cynical interpretation of religion there is, but sometimes religions do things that just point so strongly to the money aspect that you can’t help but be cynical. Here’s a NYTimes article about religious leaders battling a bill in New York that would remove the statute…
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…
movie review – American Mormon
Assumption: American’s are ignorant. Premise: I belong to a small religion, Mormonism, the members of which make up about 1% of the US population. Proposition: Because American’s are ignorant and I belong to a small religion, I bet Americans who don’t belong to my religion will be ignorant of my…
I can rely on myself (O.H. contintues…)
The next morning I called up Joe and Sam to ask them if they wanted to go to the mall. Mostly I wanted to get myself a Cat Stevens album after the movie I’d watched with Andrea the night before. It turned out that Sam didn’t have to go to…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Back in Business Edition!
So, instead of cleaning my apartment yesterday as planned, I spent the morning going through the Outer Blogness list, updating and correcting it. There are still a few bugs to work out (explained here), but now the blogroll here and the Outer Blogness list have been synchronized, and they contain…
What was the straw that broke your belief’s back?
I’ve been reading an article at Mormon Matters about More Open Mormon History, and it seems to me there is a fundamental idea at play here: if you hear about “true Mormon history,” you’ll lose all hope and faith and then apostasize. OMG! The author, Mormon Heretic, tries to deflect…
two intriguing news stories on the homosexuality front
I caught this article about an email campaign that allegedly has the support of the LDS leadership to contact state representatives in Illinois on civil union legislation. I have to admit, it seems fishy to me. I don’t think the LDS leadership would sponsor an email quite like that. Does…
Orem’s not so bad when you give it a chance. (OH continues…)
“Your family moved here so that you would date Mormon boys?” “Essentially. When I told my parents I didn’t believe in God and didn’t want to go to church anymore, Dad completely flipped out. He blamed it on the kids at school being a bad influence on me. But apparently…
A reminder to be positive and upbeat, especially with members
When I left the church, I found that more things made sense to me. I didn’t have to start rationalizing things to make it fit in with doctrine, and I could just believe in the world based on how I saw and experienced it. So, I’d definitely say that when…