April 2013
6 tags
LDS Correlation: Its Strengths and Weaknesses
The priesthood correlation program in the LDS church gives rise to challenging questions that are not altogether easy to answer. With its filtering mechanism to select, shape, censure, and simplify important doctrinal issues, I am led to ask—
What are the costs and benefits of this program? What are its strengths and weaknesses? How might a broad, unifying curriculum damage the...
6 tags
When does watching media become a sin?
“Looking for some perspective from my religious friends: When does watching TV become a sin? (Not in quantity watched, but content viewed)”
—Adam
————————————————————
Adam,
I think the heart of your question—When does media consumption become sinful?—is deeply...
March 2013
5 tags
Damaged Testimonies
Among the countless reasons why people leave the LDS Church, one of them relates to the discrepancy people sense between ideal and real narratologies found in church history. The stories people learn in Sunday school, for example, do not always fit congruently with the historical narrative; or, perhaps, the historical narrative itself reveals things that cause people to feel uncomfortable, to...
故郷へ: God – To Be Limited, or Not To Be Limited →
Today in Sunday School the teacher began the class by asking the question, “Did the Great Apostasy have to happen?” I’m pretty sure he was fishing for an affirmative answer, but I was squirming inside. Answering “yes” to such a question would affirm belief in an “interloper God,” for lack of a better term, who carefully micromanages history towards a predetermined end. That phraseology sounds...
4 tags
LDS Apologetics
Is there room enough for apologetics in LDS discourse? And if so, how do we distinguish between good and bad apologetics?
On one side there is the notion that anti-Mormon speech acts need to be vigorously responded to, and defended against, while on the other side there are challenging and problematic concerns raised by critics of the Church who deserve sympathetic reactions.
One question for...
February 2013
Google Glass →
What was a total oddity a year ago, and little more than an experiment just 18 months ago is now starting to look like a real product. One that could be in the hands (or on the heads, rather) of consumers by the end of this year. A completely new kind of computing device; wearable, designed to reduce distraction, created to allow you to capture and communicate in a way that is supposed to feel...
December 2012
WatchTumbling Down the LA Rabbit Hole
Upon reflection, I find it curious that no pictures ever taken, or words ever spoken, can truly capture the whisperings of the human heart.
Dedicated to a special friend, her depth and quiet charm, here’s looking at us.
(DMS)
WatchThe Glory of Love
My 15-year old self thought he was pretty amorous.
Not much has changed 15 years later.
I’m thinking a redux may be in order, like maybe filmed in 7D and sporting a GQ suit.
(DMS)
November 2012
Salsa and Chips: Thanksgiving Break →
Celebratory. Need I say more? Yes, because it was oh so very celebratory. Not only did I get to spend time with my family, eat some pretty fantastic food, indulge my love affair with Pumpkin, but I had a special visitor. This is what we did.
It all started at about 7:30 Tuesday night, and ended, well at about 5:00 Saturday morning. Scandalous, I know.
However, at about 7:30 Tuesday, I was...
WatchDonaMajicShow’s Demo Reel
Ray Kurzweil's Dubious New Theory of Mind →
The deepest problem is that Kurzweil wants badly to provide a theory of the mind and not just the brain. Of course, the mind is a product of the brain, as Kurzweil well knows, but any theory that seriously engages with what the mind is has to reckon with human psychology—with human behavior and the mental operations that underlie it. Here, Kurzweil seems completely out of his depth. The main...
Rejoinder to Mr. Davis: Mormonism In Dialogue with...
Nathan, thank you for your response. I, too, apologize for what you took as ad hominems on my previous post. I also apologize for how long it’s taken me to respond to you (work has had its stranglehold on my time).
In response to “A Note to Brandon Habermeyer,” I would like to keep you company when I am in agreement, dialogue with you when I am hesitant, and not be reluctant to respectfully call...
Anonymous asked: Since you contemplate the meaning of life, have you found an answer to it? if so what is it?
To the Esteemed Mr. Davis
An impassioned young man by the name of Nathan Davis responded to a recent post of mine entitled “On Apostates.” His response was, well, to say the least, a noble attempt to mask arrogance as argument, as evidenced by his own Facebook comment: “Argue with me about religion, and you will lose.” Surely such a mindset represents the type of illumination we all should be positively desperate to know...
October 2012
On Apostates
I have a difficult time taking any advice—or worse, criticism and pseudo-intellectual thought—from anyone who uses eloquent invective to mask hate speech against the Mormon Church, or any religion for that matter. A common trend among these apostates is that most of them are extremely bitter, unhappy, marginalized pedants who can’t quite seem to leave the church alone, so in order to feel...
Human Value
If we try to base our love and acceptance upon the precondition of conformity to a certain category of deeds that is or is not acceptable, we are only setting ourselves up for a terrible disappointment in the future because perhaps the only certain thing about human nature is that our choices, our futures, and our actions are not certain until the moment in which they come to pass.
—Kufre...
Kindness Is My Religion
Only when our testimony transcends what is in our mind and burrows deep into our heart will our motivation to love and to serve become like unto the Savior’s. It is then, and only then, that we become deeply converted disciples of Christ empowered by the Spirit to reach the hearts of our fellowmen.
M. Russell...
Imperfect Me
When I picture times in my life when I have fancied myself intellectually clever and have been critical of the church I attend—while failing to serve and love its imperfect people, failing to take the practical and tangible steps to transcend the offenses, the trivial, the routine, or the errant, failing to alchemize what seemed to be blatant contradictions of scriptural writ, and failing to...
Smile
Today a miracle happened.
I sit in my car, in traffic, peering into the windows of other cars and see one funeral procession after another. Everyone is dead around me. You can tell just by the look on their faces that something is lost. Something is searching. And the windows are just more TV. It is a puzzling thing. I suddenly desire a trumpet, and so begin to stare at a face that is worn and...
Oh, Sweet Death
Years back, I stand in a post office waiting in a long line of ants. A child, 2 maybe 3, is held by mother just up ahead. Her precious little hand holds tightly to a pen—you know, the kind with the chain attached to the table? I watch this child. Her tenacious grip on that thing. The desire to cling. To own what’s rightfully hers! Right? The line begins to move, the ants march according to rhythm,...
No One Really Dies
Personal identity is guaranteed forever.
Death, like all events, is lived through.
Death is, as the poets say, nothing but a comma, a pause, that separates life from life everlasting.
My task here is not to argue for or against this kind of “wishful musing.” Nor is it to examine the credentials which would be presented if the questions were raised, “Why is this believed?” or “How is this...
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.
—Lao Tzu (via fawun)”
– (via mysticmementos) 