Quotes from around the bloggernacle

I might comment about what I think about these quotations…or maybe I won’t. Maybe I should just leave them up. I’ve found these from various sites within the Bloggernacle — that is, the very loose association of bloggers who happen to be faithful, believing Mormons/Latter-day Saints. The quotation comes first, and then the source, lol

1)

Mom said that she was sure that SGA [same gender attraction] was one of Satan’s greatest tools reserved for the elect in these latter days, and that she considered me one of the elect. I told her that I wasn’t sure there were any more now than in the past, or whether we are just more open about it.

^That’s from Lucky Man…Now and Then. I kinda wrote a post about straight marriage for gay people, and so it’s interesting that I’d come across a blog of someone in that situation (it’s not quite as uncommon as you might think).

2)

A commenter in one of the discussions I took part in suggested that non-believers are a needed component of God’s plan, in that there must be “opposition in all things;” that they are there to challenge and try our faith.  If that is so, were they “foreordained” to that role by not being endowed with “the gift of faith,” or have they made a conscious decision to not believe?

^From blogs about whether one is Born To Believe, (and see the original blog here)

3)

Also, say what you will, but I don’t think you can find a better Libertarian Manifesto than D&C 134. We are all allowed to interpret things in our own ways, but the text looks pretty libertarian to me.

On the other hand, I don’t know how realistic Beck is when he says that no one is damning you to hell if you march to the beat of a different drummer. While in theory he absolutely right–the LDS religion teaches that each person is to choose for themselves how to live on the basis of their own personal revelation, we all know that, in practice, there is too much horizontal gazing going on for comfort. This is unfortunate, but it’s also true.

^From Dead Seriously…personally, I’d like that D+C 134:9 to be evaluated a little bit more.

4)

In my heart I feel that the vote given to this man [Barack Obama] is a turn from the gospel of Jesus Christ. Obama walks the evil path and will take every thing that we love about this country away from us. Including the freedom to worship the way we desire. He has already started that process. Listen to his arrogance in his voice and body language how he derides his VP choice and others in public. Look at his choices in his cabinet. My word they are crooks- so much for cleaning up WA DC. He is adding [sic] and supporting the continuation of such corruption. My dad and my family has [sic] sacrificed tremendously to keep our nation free and yet [Brother X] in one vote has destroyed this work.

^A letter given to someone and reproduced at Mormon Mentality.

5)

The poll asked if you agree that evolution is the best explanation for the origins of human life on earth. It does not ask about belief in evolution itself. Rather its one of those questions that probably reads unambiguously to most people but to a Mormon is a very ambiguous question. That is can a Mormon who thinks that God is involved in creation and that the human form is “special” say that evolution alone is the best explanation for human life. Of course not.Does it thereby follow that Mormons don’t think evolution is correct? No.

Now I will say that unfortunately many Mormons are prone to say on surveys that they don’t accept evolution but I think this is more out of theological ignorance. That is they don’t quite understand what evolution is or claims. Many take it as implying that God can’t be involved on earth. But that’s just wrong. God can act just as humans can act without invalidating evolution.

^A comment on a poll that suggests Mormons have quite low beliefs in evolution.

I guess that’s it for now.