If you have followed the monkey video mess this morning, the Trump machine has successfully executed every step of the white fragility prayer in just a few hours:
"Racism exists, but not here, and if it's here, it's not me, and if it's me, I didn't mean it, and if I meant it, it's not racist."
Folds: I wouldn’t touch the place while it’s nuclear right now. Even if I’m just going to be a total capitalist about it, it’s like, yeah, let the market speak. How’s the Kennedy Center doing? Oops. Don’t play there. That venue can’t draw crowds. They don’t know what they’re doing there.
Someday the LDS folks will learn not to make hero’s out of any members w/ literally any level of notoriety or celebrity b/c history suggests they’ll either leave the church or be exposed as frauds via public scandal…but if they can’t pick up that scent from Nick Shirley, then today is not that day.
I am seeing advertisements for a movie titled Greenland 2. What sort of gaslighting mayhem is happening here…you mean to tell me not only was there a first Greenland movie but it was successful enough to merit a sequel, but I have no memory of it’s existence?
If the world hoped for by John Lennon in “imagine” were ever to actually be realized & someday maximized to its logical extreme…the outcome would be the society created in Pluribus. It sounded more fun when John was singing about than it from his bed with Yoko but it might actually kinda suck.
I know on good authority (read: I made this up) that the writters room for VEEP pitched an episode with a speech very similar to this and were told that it was too absurd even for satire.
Oh interesting. I am very curious if they would have published and committed to a full JST bible as the standard without the RLDS constraint. That said, I suppose they could have used the RLDS version but I suppose that would lend them some credibility, which the LDS leaders would not want to do.
How so?
It is wild that THE prophet of the restoration provided his own translation of the Bible and not only has that never been the standard issue LDS Bible, they are now moving even further away from it by permitting the use of additional versions that don’t even have the JST in the footnotes.
This is why believers insist when horrific things happen that if God did it, it must have a secret reason it is good OR God didn’t DO it he just allowed it. Otherwise you would be worshiping a monster and there is no reason for worshiping a monster other than fear he may be monstrous to you?
To worship an all powerful God that has done morally horrific things is to admit that you are actually just worshiping him out of fear that he may someday use his massive power against you if you were to displease him…not that he is so inherently good that he is deserves worship. This is cowardly.
Story Time! Story Time!
"Listen to me, Truman. There's no more truth out there than there is in the world I created for you. Same lies. The same deceit. But in my world, you have nothing to fear. I know you better than you know yourself."
Apologists regularly defend the church based on the assumption that whatever *should* be happening (according to church policy or best practices) is happening what *is* happening…and yet here is another glaring example of that clearly not happening. The removal of the annotation should be criminal.
Religion trains you to bypass your natural ability to perceive what are good/bad ideas. Even when there are brutally obvious reasons that an idea is a BAD idea & will produce bad outcomes…your own perception will always be trumped by “God said to do it = good choice w/ good outcomes” example # 9,989
Mormons perpetually insist that what *should* have happened in any given scenario is what *must* have happened and any evidence to the contrary will be discarded as some variety of lie or manipulation.
Man proves that an amateur individual can successfully fabricate a set of golden plates…and thinks this helps the argument that Jospeh Smiths plates were authentic. Truly compelling stuff
Right, it is a recipe for disaster to give good-hearted, well-meaning people the illusion that they have and should use qith confidence the-emporers-new-qualifications to provide advice and direction to people on nearly any given topic.
I know Steven pretty well, and have found him to be a very good dude. I don't see him as the problem here, but rather that he is a perfect example of how faith can lead very good people to very bad conclusions.
Nothing more quickly dissolves the faithful Mormon critiques of exmomrons than spending time listening to ex members of other faiths endure the exact same useless talking points. “Where will you go?” Is not an inspired banger…it’s an worn out trope used by those who wish to control you
If you want some insight into the subconscious culture Mormonism has built around the role of women...just watch Wendy Nelson who has spent the last 7+ yrs being a pretty big deal (speaking assignments, interviews, etc), fade into obscurity now that her husband is not around to make her valuable.
Oaks: we all knew Nelson was being ridiculous and probably just trying to give himself a legacy by announcing an unending string of temple to be built for which there was no demand…however, he was the prophet so we just had to let him do it, but now he’s dead so we’re gonna stop immediately
Mormons are (correctly) mad that, in the wake of a horrific, unwarranted, & violent attack, many evangelicals are trying to suggest that this happened b/c Mormonism is a demonic/un-Christian faith that God is calling to repent (gross take). I just want to note that this take is a THEME in the BoM.
Articulate and thoughtful as always
Here’s another fun one for 2 reasons:
1) so scholarly consensus on what is/isn’t “scripture” is reliable…do you hold that position about the long ending of mark/deutero Isaiah…or just in this case that lets you own trinitarians
2) the JST catching a stray here for not weeding this out is hilarious
Here’s an example…like so the Apocalypse of Abraham is a reliable source of truth now, we should read it as scripture and use it in gospel teaching…or are you just cherry picking this particular concept b/c it reinforces your position and the rest of it is still not reliable?
I have noticed a recent trend in online Mormon apologetics where they are starting to cite apocryphal sources as support/evidence for Mormon claims...so the apocrypha is reliable now? Mormons accept those docs as true? Or just the minute sprinkles that support Mormonism and the rest is flawed?
I forgot about that...but I am pretty sure you are right.
