Half-baked opinions, served lukewarm.
Today is moving day. I spent many hours last night loading a twenty-six foot U-Haul truck with all of our stuff… It’s stacked to the ceiling, and this morning we get to unload it in sub-freezing temperatures.
So much for my plan to do nothing this week.
Today is moving day. I spent many hours last night loading a twenty-six foot U-Haul truck with all of our stuff… It’s stacked to the ceiling, and this morning we get to unload it in sub-freezing temperatures.
So much for my plan to do nothing this week.
In keeping with my ongoing theme of “do as little as possible in the week after Christmas”, I bring you this quote. I have been reading a number of reviews and comparisons on various e-book readers in order to determine first if I want one, and second which one I’d prefer. Referring to a few half-assed programs on the Sony eBook reader, Nate Anderson had this to say:
In keeping with my ongoing theme of “do as little as possible in the week after Christmas”, I bring you this quote. I have been reading a number of reviews and comparisons on various e-book readers in order to determine first if I want one, and second which one I’d prefer. Referring to a few half-assed programs on the Sony eBook reader, Nate Anderson had this to say:
Let’s be clear: I would rather have these features than not have them, but it would have been nice to make them a bit more fully-assed.
In keeping with this week’s theme of “I don’t want to be bothered writing omnibus blog entries”, I give you the following quote from Penn Jillette:
Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
In keeping with this week’s theme of “I don’t want to be bothered writing omnibus blog entries”, I give you the following quote from Penn Jillette:
Atheism is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
Given that it’s the week after Christmas and nobody wants to do much of anything they don’t have to, I give you Engrish.com.
Given that it’s the week after Christmas and nobody wants to do much of anything they don’t have to, I give you Engrish.com.
What I really want for Christmas this year is to not have any toys require assembly on Christmas Eve. Thank you, Santa!
What I really want for Christmas this year is to not have any toys require assembly on Christmas Eve. Thank you, Santa!
It’s nearly here. It’s sitting in a warehouse within a couple of miles of my work.
Specs:
It’s nearly here. It’s sitting in a warehouse within a couple of miles of my work.
Specs:
Yes, it’s almost here, my new desktop-replacement laptop to replace my safety-recalled one. Yeah, OK, it’s a one-year-old model, but it has up-to-date video cards and processors! And I get to re-use the extra 130 watt power supply and battery I bought for my old computer since they will fit.
This class of seventeen-inch laptops are really designed as desktop replacement machines with some mobility. My intention is to baby this one, use an external mouse and keyboard, and keep it on a desk most of the time rather than carting it around. They are quite portable, with decent battery life on the extended-run battery (2-3 hours), but heavy and easily scuffed. However, they are the bee’s knees for LAN parties, presentations, and hardware comparisons which are the geek equivalent to peeing contests.
This geek is excited!
Apparently a response to Mitt Romney’s recent speech regarding his faith, FOX News published “21 Questions Answered About Mormon Faith“. I will cut the LDS public relations department some slack here, as perhaps there was not space enough to answer some of the questions completely. That said, there are some answers that seem downright disingenuous.
Apparently a response to Mitt Romney’s recent speech regarding his faith, FOX News published “21 Questions Answered About Mormon Faith“. I will cut the LDS public relations department some slack here, as perhaps there was not space enough to answer some of the questions completely. That said, there are some answers that seem downright disingenuous.
Most of the answers are succinct, though, and the article is worth a read. I am only going to correct a few.
Q: Why do some call the Church a cult?
A: For the most part, this seems to stem from a lack of understanding about the Church and its core doctrines and beliefs. Under those circumstances it is too easy to label a religion or other organization that is not well-known with an inflammatory term like ‘cult.’ Famed scholar of religion Martin Marty has said a cult means a church you don’t personally happen to like. We don’t believe any organization should be subjected to a label that has come to be as pejorative as that one.
Insofar as “cult” is used solely to describe religions, and to describe “a faith I don’t like”, this answer might be reasonably accurate. However, according to Steven Hassan’s BITE model, the LDS church qualifies as cult-like in a disturbing number of aspects.
A better lesson for the church to take from the use of the word describing them would be to correct those areas where they act like a cult. It won’t dissuade hard-core Christian polemicists who dislike LDS unorthodoxy, but it would persuade a lot of people that the organization is making progress toward bettering their religion. Including me.
Disclaimer: I know they’ve made some progress, but it’s slow and admits no fault for previous inaction or negative actions. This is a very corporate-style thing to do.
Q: Where is the planet Kolob? What significance does the planet have to Mormons?
A: ‘Kolob’ is a term found in ancient records translated by Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith did not provide a full description or explanation of Kolob nor did he assign the idea particular significance in relation to the Church’s core doctrines.
This is a side-step of a thorny issue for the LDS church, namely the Book of Abraham “translation”. By saying it’s not significant relative to “core doctrines”, the Church is giving a classic example of the “milk before meat” approach: don’t answer the question until the hearers are ready for further light and knowledge. Former LDS apostle Henry D. Moyle put it this way: “When they don’t ask the right questions, I just answer the ones they should have asked.”
Here’s the real answer: According to LDS scriptures, Kolob is a star or planet near the Throne of God. These whereabouts are not specified, nor is it specified whether this is a physical or spiritual location. It has no particular significance to LDS theology besides a single song in the LDS hymnal, “If You Could Hie To Kolob”.
Q: Does the Mormon Church believe its followers can become “gods and goddesses” after death?
A: We believe that the apostle Peter’s biblical reference to partaking of the divine nature and the apostle Paul’s reference to being ‘joint heirs with Christ’ reflect the intent that children of God should strive to emulate their Heavenly Father in every way. Throughout the eternities, Mormons believe, they will reverence and worship God the Father and Jesus Christ. The goal is not to equal them or to achieve parity with them but to imitate and someday acquire their perfect goodness, love and other divine attributes.
The correct answer is “yes”, perhaps followed by the explanation above. The LDS temple anoints individuals to become “Kings and Queens, Priests and Priestesses” in the next life… but what that means specifically is kind of vague. “As man is, god was; as god is, man may become” is deeply-rooted doctrine in the LDS church, though Gordon B. Hinckley dismissed it on television as “only a couplet” which we didn’t really know the meaning of. The explanation above only fits when you understand that, at the time any Man becomes as God is, God will already be far, far beyond that level.
Q: Does the Mormon Church believe that women can only gain access to heaven with a special pass or codewords?
A: No.
This answer is the reason I decided to write this entry. I dislike it when a complicated question is answered with a simple answer… because the answer is often simply wrong.
For instance, in one of the recent Republican debates, Fred Thompson and the other debaters were asked a complex question regarding Global Warming with a show of hands: “How many of you believe global climate change is a serious threat and caused by human activity?” I’m ideologically on the opposite end of this issue from Thompson’s position, yet I respect his rejection of a simple up or down vote. I personally believe it is a serious threat which we should plan on. However, it is not solely caused by human activity. I think we are substantial contributors to a portion of the recent trend.
Their simple answer to a complex question can only be justified by the LDS unique understanding of “heaven”. The LDS “heaven” has multiple levels: 1. The Telestial, or lowest heaven. 2. The Terrestrial, or middle heaven. 3. The Celestial, or highest heaven, which in turn has multiple levels. The “highest degree” of the Celestial Kingdom is reserved for those who have temple marriages and are faithful and endure to the end.
The only place for the deceased which is not a Heaven is “Outer Darkness”, reserved for those who “deny the Holy Ghost”… which at this point due to watering-down of the doctrine over time, means only those who have had a personal visitation from a supernatural entity and later deny it. The Telestial kingdom is equivalent to the non-LDS concept of “Hell”. But it’s called a degree of Heaven in LDS theology, and considered magnificent and wonderful compared to the world we live in today.
In order to ascend to the highest degree of Celestial glory, a female Latter-Day Saint provides her “new name” — a name provided her in the temple, ostensibly a secret — to her prospective husband who will be sealed to her prior to symbolically entering the Celestial Kingdom (the “Celestial Room” in an LDS temple). This is supposed to represent the order of things in the Celestial Kingdom, that her husband will lift her to glory therein.
If the question had used the right code words, they would have gotten the opposite answer. They should have asked the question like this:
“Q: Does the LDS church believe that women can only gain access to the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom with a special pass or code word?
A: Yes. And the men, too.”
As far as the rest of it goes, meh, OK, there may be doctrinal niggles here and there I’d like to deal with, but I lack the time or interest. The questions above, however, had answers which bordered on prevarication. Several clearly play upon the difference in definitions of certain terms between LDS and mainstream Christian denominations. I hope I cleared things up.
As a side note, this appears to be the opening salvo in a new LDS campaign to get members involved in Internet discussions. It was only a few years ago when LDS leaders strongly discouraged members from the same, due to the large number of participants who later became disaffected from the church. I think that as this election year warms up, if Mitt Romney wins the Republican primary, you’ll see a whole lot more news articles about this uniquely American religion.
My attention was drawn to this interview with Phillip Pulman, the author of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, of which “The Golden Compass” is, as of this writing, still raking in enormous amounts of money despite sharply mixed reviews. Unsurprisingly due to the widespread vilification of the movie by US religious leaders, the movie is the most popular movie in the world right now, but a distant second in the US.
My attention was drawn to this interview with Phillip Pulman, the author of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy, of which “The Golden Compass” is, as of this writing, still raking in enormous amounts of money despite sharply mixed reviews. Unsurprisingly due to the widespread vilification of the movie by US religious leaders, the movie is the most popular movie in the world right now, but a distant second in the US.
In this interview, Pullman elucidates his positions a bit more clearly, and surprisingly… he’s a fairly regular guy, writing the story his conscience told him to write. In my opinion, the right-wing religious whackos are way off-base on the trilogy, akin to assertions that JK Rowling was promoting witchcraft with the Harry Potter series or that Dungeons and Dragons was responsible for a rash of murder-suicides in the 1980s.
Can I elucidate my own position as far as atheism is concerned? I don’t know whether I’m an atheist or an agnostic. I’m both, depending on where the standpoint is.
The totality of what I know is no more than the tiniest pinprick of light in an enormous encircling darkness of all the things I don’t know – which includes the number of atoms in the Atlantic Ocean, the thoughts going through the mind of my next-door neighbour at this moment and what is happening two miles above the surface of the planet Mars. In this illimitable darkness there may be God and I don’t know, because I don’t know.
But if we look at this pinprick of light and come closer to it, like a camera zooming in, so that it gradually expands until here we are, sitting in this room, surrounded by all the things we do know – such as what the time is and how to drive to London and all the other things that we know, what we’ve read about history and what we can find out about science – nowhere in this knowledge that’s available to me do I see the slightest evidence for God.
So, within this tiny circle of light I’m a convinced atheist; but when I step back I can see that the totality of what I know is very small compared to the totality of what I don’t know. So, that’s my position.
Well said. I wish there was a shorter way to say it.
Looks neat… but I won’t strap myself into one of these!
Looks neat… but I won’t strap myself into one of these!
What if you found out that your sexual preference could be changed just by taking a drug? You could be straight or gay depending on whether you took a pill or not?
What if you found out your son/daughter was gay/lesbian? Would you want to get this drug prescribed for him/her?
What if you found out such a drug wasn’t that far away? And that it would just require an interested drug-maker to push it to reality? Is it ethical to modify someone’s sexual preference?
What if you found out that your sexual preference could be changed just by taking a drug? You could be straight or gay depending on whether you took a pill or not?
What if you found out your son/daughter was gay/lesbian? Would you want to get this drug prescribed for him/her?
What if you found out such a drug wasn’t that far away? And that it would just require an interested drug-maker to push it to reality? Is it ethical to modify someone’s sexual preference?
…and what would be the religious ramifications for churches which, like my former church, strongly discourage homosexual activity, to the point of disciplining members? If you could just “take a pill” to be straight, would there be ethical ramifications for religions recommending courses of medication to modify the sexual preferences of their members?
Is it possible to make an entire blog entry out questions? Maybe so?