Truth and truth (part 1?)

So, in a relatively older article about my not believing the prophets are infallible (geez, that’s not a shocker: Mormons don’t believe in prophetic infallibility ANYWAY), I have been having a great discussion with Mormon Heretic (I think he’s more Mormon than Heretic, but that’s ok with me!) regarding the potential culpability of the church for some of its past actions. MH has also written on his blog a great historical analysis of the relationship between Sidney Rigdon, the church, and Joseph Smith, which I admittedly haven’t gotten through all of the articles in the series (I actually have gotten a life and now it is filled with interviews and pre-interview dinners each night of the week as well as preparationi for fencing club nationals). However, I did read the final article in the series, because it related to the discussion we were having and the discussion I’ll try to have now.

The Relief Society: An offensive and not serious post

Relief Society

I used to wonder about the plight of women in the Mormon church. And I used to think…it sure is a great travesty that women don’t get the priesthood. What the heck is this relief society thing anyway? It’s no complete analogy to the priesthood, that’s for sure!

But then I realized…*egads*, the church is right. Social conservatism is right. Feminism is evil.

The Relief Society has it all right there — relief. Society. Women are relieved of all of the troubles of life so that big strong men can do all the work for them. This is the way things Should Be, obviously, because men are stronger and waaaay smarter. That’s why we have to counsel women to avoid stable careers on their own because although they (and the secular, godless world) think that women would actually be as successful or more successful than men at it, fortunately, us XYers know better.

Feminists want to destroy the order of things. How DARE women fight for equality, when we currently treat them much better than they deserve? While guys toil and struggle to win the bread for the family, we let women intermingle in RELIEF SOCIETIES! We open the door for them and give up our seats for them and the way they repay us is to say that we patronize them and take away their opportunities to be independent, rational humans. What do people want?!

…

Wow, I definitely don’t understand how peole tout this stuff full time.

If this is all Mr. Phillips has, I *cry* for him

So, making its way around some of the smaller sites of the Bloggernacle (complete with a parody) has been an article where some pastor “tackles” Mormonism.

Now, seriously, I recognize that there are definitely some spots that people could have some disagreements on. But I mean, this article…geez, I cry for journalistic integrity.

Anyway, I like the first part of it:

Today, many people generally view Mormons as a people with strong family values and clean living, according to one pastor at McLean Bible Church. Some also believe they are just one of many Christian denominations.

But that view is the result of a multibillion dollar campaign over the last couple of decades by Mormons who have attempted to present themselves in such a way, according to Todd Phillips, teaching pastor at Frontline, the young adult ministry of McLean in Virginia.

Many Americans, including Christians, see Mormons as “just another branch of Christianity who talk about Jesus all the time and likely do a better job at adhering to family values than most Christian do in churches in America,” Phillips told hundreds attending service and watching over the Internet on Sunday.

The thing I’m not getting is Phillips response. Instead of looking at how Mormons are currently seen (e.g., as a group that “likely do[es] a better job at adhering to family values than most Christians…”) and then deciding that he has to change the way his church acts (protip: start adhering to your so-called family value better)…he jumps on this idea that what *really* matters is if Mormons are “historical Christians.”

That’s great, guys.

Should “God” be capitalized? What about “atheist”?

A post from the Friendly Atheist made me think about a completely different thing.

Personally, I agree with commenters such as mikespeir on the issue:

I realize “god” is a description, but long ago “God” came to be used effectively as an name for the Judeo-Christian god. (That probably had its genesis in the Jewish aversion to actually uttering or writing YHWH and then the rather arrogant assertion that, “Our god is the real God,” but still….) Consequently, I’ll continue to capitalize it along with Zeus, Odin, and Nergal.

In particular, this one seems like a lame issue to jump on.

Lauren’s grammar consciousness also makes me smile a bit:

I capitalize it when it’s used in place of a name, the same way I would refer to my maternal parental figure. “I saw God walking down the street” or “I saw Mom walking down the street” vs. “I saw your god walking down the street” or “I saw your mom walking down the street.”
It’s not out of respect for religion, just our of respect for grammar.

Now, some think that capitalizing God affords him respect he does not deserve. Yet, I feel I already am being edgy and disrespectful just from capitalizing God.

Self-conscious blogging no. 5

This is another useless post that you can skip about blogging.

Cutting ex-Mormons some slack, eh?

So, Jeff Lindsay with his site Mormanity is one guy I don’t really spend too much time reading…and I don’t know why…he doesn’t enrage me with nearly everything he says (which is kinda the feeling I get from reading Millenial Star), but somehow…I dunno…just incompatible, I suppose.

Regardless, from his twitter @mormanity, he advertised a post of his about “cutting a little slack for ex-Mormons.” I clicked to see this post, realized it was from 2006 (I just get this bad sense about commenting on posts that are so old, you know? but it seems to be super popular so instead, I make a post here about it), but I read it anyway.

The thoughts I get while I’m reading this are what I get whenever I read something that’s speaking about ex-Mormons…does the person understand ex-Mormons? Is he trying? Does he take some awkward stereotypes for granted? And finally…does his faith prevent a concession?

What privileges should an atheist Mormon have in church?

So, I had just a wonderful discussion at Mormon Matters beckoning liberal members to come out of the closet. This has been an idea I’ve been reading up on for a while, based on the ideas of Seth Payne that I wrote about before (that chanson doesn’t like too much). I not-so-secretly hope that I can make it one of the top 10 posts at MM for this month (yes, really, I am so easily motivated just by traffic ranking).

My point was that the church should be a place where different kinds of believers can come together. It shouldn’t just be for conservative, orthodox members. There should be some room for different kind of thought, and it shouldn’t simply be relegated to a Sunstone conference or whatever.

Oh no it’s a TRAP!

I don’t even know…

I was reading a few articles about people who got invited to various “interfaith dialogues” — whatever that is. And in just these few cases, these were cases of traps — where one party thought that it was going to be one thing and then prepared for that, but didn’t realize that it would be so much more than that.

I had that experience once…except it was a friend inviting me to his church. I probably should have seen it coming, since it was a Pentecostal church (not an allegedly neutral school activity) and they had some very weird ideas about meeting and greeting. I went because he was going to give some kind of sermon or lesson or whatever (and I said that I’d go if he’d come to some combined Young Men/Young Women’s activity at my church soon). Anyway, when I went, he did have a good sermon (I forget what it was about)…but AFTERWARD, I was taken to the backroom and interrogated on all the ways my Mormonism was of the devil.

Musing on missionaries (again)

I guess I’ve had a few articles here about what I like about missionary work, what I dislike, how I wish it would be, and how I don’t wish it would be. I guess it’s been something of an interest to me since missionary-work is a rather large example of advertising in the religious world…so I feel like it relates to my business-y interests just a touch.

Primarily, my problems with missionary work is that they are trying to sell a product that people may not necessarily want. Instead, I would think a more effective way would be to serve others regardless of the message, just because it’s a good thing to do, and through light of such a great example, that would end up making more people interested in the gospel in the first place. As that quotation says, someone won’t care about how much you know until they know how much you care…Perhaps this is idealistic, but that’s just my two cents.

Congrats FD on a good first year…or…I like my cynicism.

Faithful Dissident had a post commemorating her first year anniversary of blogging. And I thought…I could spend a bunch of time saying congrats (congrats, if you’re reading this FD, by the way)…or I could be super-petty and point out one tiny little thing that gnawed at my toothe (and inadvertently [or maybe I planned it all along] send her oodles of traffic.)

Yes, I think the latter option is just too good to leave.

It was something she had said that was thought provoking.

The decision of whether or not to remain active is really quite simple. Am I better off with or without it? Is it going to influence me for better or for worse in the future? My way of answering those questions is to ask myself yet another question: who and where would I be today if I had not been raised in the Church? I’d like to think that I’d be much the same person that I am now, but I tend to believe that the uniquely Mormon perspective of who God is and the Plan of Salvation — as lacking in details and specifics as I think these doctrines still are to us — are what have kept me from losing all hope and becoming very bitter and cynical about this world.