I would like to use Genesis 12 (and an interesting post by Aaron B from BCC) to examine the inverse of Elder Oak’s famous talk ‘Good, Better and Best’. Simply stated Abraham was married to Sarai (who was apparently pretty hot!) and Pharoah was going to want to marry her. His choice: either die as her husband and have his wife forced into marriage (in effect raped) or live as her ‘brother’ and have his wife forced into marriage (and in effect raped). What to do? Continue reading…
Squaring the Circle is a geometry problem and a spiritual puzzle. It dates back at least 4,000 years. All of the great cultures that expressed advanced mathematics and philosophy approached this problem and had a mythology to give it meaning. On one hand, it is a practical, geometric exercise exploring approximations of PI and Phi. On the other hand, it is a philosophical puzzle to combine opposites and find the perfect balance. Can a human find their way through the maze of different extremes that we encounter in our mortal experience? We must navigate between light and darkness, health and sickness, pleasure and pain, life and death, good and evil. The greatest minds in history have expressed pleasure and enlightenment from this geometry exercise. A famous Greek philosopher included a statement in his work “On Exile” referring to one of his fellow countrymen who worked the squaring problem:
“There is no place that can take away the happiness of a man, nor yet his virtue or wisdom. Anaxagoras, indeed, wrote on the squaring of the circle while in prison.”
-Plutarch
An article from the Salt Lake Tribune listed in the Mormon Matters sidebar sometime ago noted the official elevation of “care of the poor and needy” to the status of a “purpose” of the Mormon (LDS) church. Church news sources are noting how LDS resources are being mobilized from both the United States and the Dominican Republic, in coordination with partners such as Islamic Relief, CARE, Food for the Poor, and Healing Hands for Haiti.
All of its missionaries are reported to be safe, and the church is using nine meeting houses to provide shelter for members and an even larger number of non-members. There have been casualties among the membership, however.
The immediate need in Haiti is, of course, for emergency supplies and medicines, which the church is attempting to help provide. Continue reading…
A few weeks ago I wrote a post on suffering. Resulting from a thoughtful critique of that post, by An
drew S, and a recommendation (in the following discussion) to read Emmanuel Levinas’ essay on ‘Useless Suffering’, I have decided to present a re-formulated version of my comments; because my thinking has moved on. I hope that this is not redundant, it certainly has not been for me. I actually hope to write a third post based on a more detailed survey of Levinas’ arguments but that will be in the future.
Continue reading…
Recently I drove up Little Cottonwood Canyon with my brother and nephew. This is the canyon in which many of your ancestors pulled out the granite for the construction of the salt lake temple. As soon as we passed the granite facings on the side of the canyon my nephew played a song on his iPod by Corb Lund Brother Brigham Brother Young and it brought mental flashes into my mind of men working on the side of the mountain blasting granite out of it. It made me think of the struggles that men and women had even back then with the faith in many ways very similar to our day. From what I have read Mr Lund isn’t LDS but has relatives that are. Im assuming one of his relatives is a historian buff? Its probably safe to presume this song will never be played in a chapel 
but I can’t help liking it! You can listen to his song Here Continue reading…
It might just be the posts that I read, but Boyd K. Packer is not the most popular of Apostles in the Bloggernacle (or 
perhaps among liberal Mormons more generally). I acknowledge that this is a speculative impression. At the very least, I have heard Elder Packer criticised at Sunstone and on the Bloggernacle on a few occassions at least. I was therefore surprised to find one of his sermons published in full in an issue of Sunstone. The talk was insightful, challenging and thought-provoking. As a result I wanted to reproduce some of his comments here that I found most interesting and/or inspiring. The address was originally given March 30th 1990, to a Regional Representatives Seminar. Continue reading…
John Remy posted an interesting blog/video where a man, speaking about his concern with the Church’s practice and policy during the Prop 8 debate, was asked by the Bishop to stop. The man protested and was allowed to finish but the Microphone was turned off. What would make you ask someone to sit down? Continue reading…
As a fan of Mormon Studies I value the opportunity to discuss and, sometimes, disagree. In this regard, I have been particularly inspired by the vision of J. Bonner Ritchie. He has repeatedly argued for openness and honesty regarding the Mormon Experience. However, I wonder whether Mormon thought really has space for this kind of openness when we retain the LDS version of the pre-mortal Grand Council as our archetypal council meeting? Continue reading…
The Church have just published (although I wrote this from a draft that I had access to before it was published) the new CES Book of Mormon Institute manual and my previous post asked some questions about what people hoped for in content. This post is aimed at trying to develop a brief comparison of the most recent two. I have tried to search topics, compared content and appendices and focussed on searching authors. There are some interesting changes and some interesting constants. Continue reading…
Hear me out.
I was talking with a friend recently about addictions. Things like alcohol, caffeine, meth, and heroin (among many other substances) all seem to rob the addict of their free will to some extent. At some point in the conversation we started talking about mythology, and he mentioned how vampires could be viewed metaphorically as heroin addicts. (There is even a movie with the vampire/heroin metaphor, “The Addiction” staring Christopher Walken as a vampire who abstains from blood through fasting and meditation.) Continue reading…
There have been several attempts over the years to categorize Mormon “belief-styles”: Orthodox Mormon versus Liberal Mormon, Iron Rod Mormon versus Liahona Mormon, and so on. In the online world of LDS blogs commonly called “the Bloggernacle”, Mormons are often categorized as being TBMs (True Believing Mormons) or NOMs (New Order Mormons).
One evening when my wife and I had the opportunity to reflect on the timeless story of Adam and Eve, it struck me that their different responses to God’s commandments, and to Lucifer’s “temptation”, perfectly exemplified the different mindsets of TBMs and NOMs, and symbolically portrayed the age-old struggle between Orthodox and Liberal in any faith. And as I meditated on their dramatic dialog with Lucifer, with each other, and with God, it donned on me that Adam and Eve were the perfect TBM-NOM couple.
Here is a modified excerpt from a 60-page writing that I made for close friends and family members when I decided to leave the church a few months ago. It was my attempt at helping them understand my view. I think most of them didn’t bother reading it. I wasn’t looking forward to the conversations that I would be having with them, but I was surprised to find myself not having those conversations.
Today’s guest post is by Michael. In the spirit of Mormon Stories, he was invited to share his experience. Continue reading…
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