Sunday, December 30, 2012

responses to continued mobot (Mormon) fear of sex

Recently I discovered that Miracle of Forgiveness is available at the mobot distribution centers, in several different languages. In each language section they have the BOM, maybe a bible, but always this POS book.
http://www.lds.org/braille/The%20Miracle%20of%20Forgiveness.txt

Very appropriate responses to this book can be found in the form of one star reviews at Amazon.com:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Miracle-of-Forgiveness-ebook/product-reviews/B002JQK1VG/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0

Since the Mormon Church apparently considers this book to still be highly relevant, then every despicable thing Spencer Kimball & Boyd Packer have done relative to negative portrayals of human sexuality to the youth & adults in the church is relevant also.

On oral sex, Spencer wants to get into your bedroom:
http://lds-mormon.com/worthy_letter.shtml
http://lds-mormon.com/worthy_letter1.shtml

On masturbation, Spencer & Boyd both want to have a look:
http://www.zionsbest.com/only.html
http://mormonthink.com/QUOTES/masturbation.htm

Also Spencer really is concerned about "petting" and "heavy petting." Oh my, that f-ing old fart must really have been hyperventilating when he wrote his Miracle of Forgiveness book. Necking. Petting. Heavy Petting. Tell us more Spencer, about all the things you dream about at night but also hate yourself for thinking of.

But people say he was such a nice man. My father has said this, as did my mother who worked as a nurse in the COB. But the guy was really not so nice after all, after you read all hateful the trash he put out.

Here's a related blog post:
Subverting normal human sexuality: Mormon Church's principal crime
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2012/12/subverting-normal-human-sexuality.html

Anyway, with my new wife seeing the pretty white shirts and the pretty buildings, and with my more recent research into the issue of Kimball's trash book being widely promoted in different languages by the mobot church, I decided to put on youtube a reprise of a song I created some time ago:

We were all just sperm in god's balls, a parody of the song Seeds:
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2012/12/we-were-all-just-sperm-in-gods-balls.html

And, with Joseph Smith's nutty view of heaven in the form of Kolob, and "Kobol" entering the common consciousness in the form of the much less campy newer Battlestar Galatica version, the following newer song came out of a recent morning shower singing session:

Launch a Mission to Kolob...
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2012/12/launch-mission-to-kolob-and-blow-place.html

Joseph gets to have a 14 year old wife & wives who are still married to other men.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Joseph_Smith's_wives

Brigham gets a 15 year old & wives still married to other men.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Brigham_Young's_wives

But, Spencer & Boyd really were/are obsessed with that you and your children are up to at home, at night, in the privacy of your bedrooms. What's up with that? And since Spencer's piece of trash book is *very* relevant for the Mormon Church, as per their having it readily available in many different languages at their distribution centers, (and reportedly since it's required reading for new missionaries) it's clear that they are still very interested in transmitting this human spirit destroying set of memes onto everyone they can.

What is up with the Mormon Church & sex? Their horn dog founder created a religion whose god, apparently, has to have an orgasm every 4.6 minutes to create 107 billion people in one million years.

107 billion people may have lived on Earth so far:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2097038/Are-really-people-alive-today-lived-Earth.html
...and that number doesn't account for "worlds without end."

Perhaps the Mormon God is rather like a giant space termite:
http://www.termite.com/images/queenking.jpg
...that would be more fitting.

Is your god an alien?
http://corvus.freeshell.org/psittacus/three/tract/kolob_tract.htm

...and yet, now they want to very much control even the mere thought of sex in their members. Why? Because once a person actually allows themselves to be open to the possibility of sex being fun, normal, natural, empowering, and liberating, they can more easily find they have no use for the Mormon God or for the supposedly good feelings you get during Mormon Church meetings or from reading the lies of Joseph in the form of the Mormon scriptures.

The Mormon Church tries to hijack people's basic emotions, and to subvert & control & misinterpret them for their own nefarious ends. Some other religions do this also.

In any case I get much better feelings of validation from the love of my wife & new son than I ever got in mostly boring Mormon Church meetings, and from the occasional good feelings they claimed "proved" their church was correct. There's a price to be paid for pretty white shirts and pretty buildings.

If feelings can be used as a form of validation, then that means the much better feelings I've had since leaving indicates that their lies were incorrect.

Jonathan

Current blog: http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/
Legacy website: http://corvus.freeshell.org/psittacus/one/jonathan.html
Youtube channel: http://www.youtube.com/user/chinadreams888

Tuesday, December 25, 2012

penis found at Arches National Park - December 23, 2012

An intriguing rock formation we found at Arches National Park, on December 23, 2012...


More recently I've been saying that the only god worth worshiping is sex. And sex leads to babies... So be it.

Fellow humans who also agree:


Japanese fertility festivals:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanamara_Matsuri
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C5%8Dnen_Matsuri


and in Pompeii:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erotic_art_in_Pompeii_and_Herculaneum

Happy Christmas, tossing out the bad nuts, Islam, Unitarianism, being a 'progressive,' and fighting sociopathy and psychopathy

Merry Christmas. Happy Christmas. Merry Solstice. I don't have a problem with these really.

After leaving Mormonism around 1994 I did have more of a preference for the solstice idea, and I made note of Saturnalia and Mithra. Here's a related video by Stephen Fry: 



Recently I happened across the facebook page for the First Unitarian Church in Salt Lake City. Back in August there was some rather high unpleasantness at a Sikh church in Wisconsin. 

In response to the violence by some nut a lady named
Shahla Khan Salter posted an article on a Candian Huffington Post site. Then this Unitarian person found the article & posted it.

This is from a fellow Unitarian and our Muslim sister for Progressive Values and friend, Shahla Khan Salter, 
"And many of us believe, that in creating all of humanity God placed upon us responsibilities to our fellow human beings regardless of faith -- a duty to love and look after our neighbours and not just our neighbours of the same faith, a duty to speak out for justice and not only to help those of our own faith, a duty to work towards peace for all of humanity and put an end to war, famine and oppression, without regard to faith.
God doesn't care if you are Muslim or Christian, Jewish or Hindu, Jain or Buddhist, B'hai or Sikh -- or any of the other classifications by which we categorize ourselves to better understand our journey here on earth.
God only cares about the way in which we treat one another.
"Do you know what is better than prayer, fasting and charity? It is keeping peace and good relations between people." -Prophet Muhammad
So to our Sikh brothers and sisters in North America and beyond we say this: The shooting of members of the American Sikh community at gudwara in Milwaukee, Wisconsin yesterday was a tragedy that has shocked us all. We offer our condolences to you at this time and hope and pray that your communities -- your loved ones, families, friends, priests, and places of prayer and reflection -- remain safe now and in the future. 
Sat Sri Akal. God is the Ultimate Truth. Yes. Salaam. Peace."
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/shahla-khan-salter/miliwaukee-temple-shooting_b_1747360.html
And here's an additional article by the woman:


http://sjpaderborn.wordpress.com/2012/09/21/no-banning-innocence-of-muslims-is-not-the-solution-by-shahla-khan-salter-on-the-huffington-post-canada/

...where she says: 
1. Merely because the depiction is suggested doesn’t make it true;
2. Because there is no coercion allowed in Islam according to the Holy Quran, human beings are free to believe as they choose; and
3. Our Prophet Muhammad practiced a virtually super-human degree of patience, which we are supposed to emulate.
----


Response:


There's always a certain number of nuts in the world. It is rather unfortunate that Sikhs were targeted as noted. But, it's also important to not conflate & whitewash & mix things up in confusing ways. Nor is it good to use the crazed acts of some nuts as a means of glossing over actual history about a separate religion from Sikhism.

Unitarians don't have a creed, supposedly, and so as a 'member' of two local congregations I'm not bound to any dogma that states that I have to adhere to the Reza Aslan school of Islamic thought.

A related blog post from the past:
Unitarian Universalist fawning appreciation of Mohammad and Islam
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2010/12/unitarian-universalist-fawning.html


With the more recent violence at a school, here's some more recent thoughts:
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2012_12_01_archive.html

As for Islam, one need only click on what he wrote as shown in the Skeptic's Annotated Quran, on the following categories:
Injustice
Intolerance
Cruelty and Violence
Women

As an atheist having a certain god threaten to burn off your skin, put it back on, and then burn it again, is not a particularly pleasant prospect. Quranic quote:

"...4:56 Lo! Those who disbelieve Our revelations, We shall expose them to the Fire. As often as their skins are consumed We shall exchange them for fresh skins that they may taste the torment. Lo! Allah is ever Mighty, Wise..."
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/4/index.htm#56

So, I'm definitely against nut jobs hurting people. Baring genetic manipulation of future generations there's always going to be a certain percentage of potentially violent nut jobs. Maybe we can spot them easier and fight them more, and keep guns away from them. But let's not mix apples & oranges, ok?

And, here's an interesting video about charismatic charlatans taking advantage of people:



So, as for Muslims for progressive values, it seems to me it's a bit easier for Christians to redefine Jesus into a nicer guy since a.) Jesus probably never existed (additional site), and b.) Jesus never went on theocratically inspired war campaigns. Mohamed did on both fronts.

Maybe being a 'progressive' religionist involves just as much whitewashing as the people who painfully try to apologize for the evils in the Old Testament of the Bible? When I read the words of people who actually believe that Mohamed was such a great progressive, I am not only shocked and amazed, I'm also saddened, because I know what the words in the Quran actually say. Death and murder are very hard to transmute into peace and love. The words are right there, in the Quran. The increasingly more frequent violent actions of psychopaths at chuches & schools has nothing to do with "religion only being about love." Religion, much of it, hasn't been about love at all. And being a "progressive" shouldn't mean being a liar nor a whitewasher about a charismatic charlatan who had sex with a 9 year old and who engaged in religious warfare, peace be upon him.


Anyway, as for Christmas, really it's about the Real New Year - with the days getting longer after winter solstice. Gift giving. Love. Family. That's all good. But we aren't going to be children either, not solely. So let's tell the truth also.

Photos and videos through December 25, 2012

November and December photos, and additional December videos:

Several new photos have been added at http://public.fotki.com/petcrows-December-2012/

Photo subjects to date in this section:

Antelope Island visit 11-4-2012
home in the snow
Tracy Aviary, Utah Museum of Fine Art and later of Contemporary Art, Black Rock - Great Salt Lake, Thanksgiving, Neff's Canyon, Park City - 11-13 to 24, 2012
lights downtown, Salt Lake Valley Atheists meeting, 11-27 to 12-12, 2012
Tree festival & Atheists of Utah Winter Solstice party - 12-12 to 18, 2012
Park City, Bear River Bird Refuge, Golden Spike National Monument, Arches National Park, Christmas breakfast 12-21 to 25, 2012
Videos:

Bear River Bird Refuge & Golden Spike National Historic Site - December 22, 2012:


Hiking up to delicate arch, Arches National Park - December 23, 2012:


driving from Moab back to Salt Lake December 24, 2012:








Saturday, December 22, 2012

comments on gun control - December 17, 2012

comments on gun control

December 17, 2012 comments on gun control and keeping nuts away from schools. 

Since conservative judges will at present block more regulation of guns, we need to increase the social pressure on nuts who have a lot of guns at home - readily available for the certain percentage of humans who are sociopaths & psychopaths to use.
 
There's always going to be a certain number of nuts around (barring more genetic intervention so as to prevent them from ever being born in the first place). So if gun nuts are going to leave deadly weapons around where the crazy nuts can get them, we need to loudly call them out on this.

Genocide in the Bible, in-group & out-group morality in the Bible & Quran - December 20, 2012

Genocide in the Bible, in-group & out-group morality in the Bible & Quran - December 20, 2012


God Kills 24,000 Israelites

http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/num/25.html
and
http://www.bricktestament.com/the_wilderness/god_kills_24000_israelites/nm25_01.html

Isn't god nice? He's even a very good father to his preferred tribe of humans.

Hostile Alien indeed:
http://corvus.freeshell.org/psittacus/three/tract/kolob_tract.htm

Evil actions of the Islamic God in the Koran:
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/quran/index.htm
...on the page click on Injustice, Intolerance, and Cruelty and Violence to find verses relevant
The same can be done for the Bible at
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/index.htm
and the Book of Mormon at
http://skepticsannotatedbible.com/BOM/index.htm
and the Brick Testament is good:
http://www.thebricktestament.com/home.html

Good responses to all this:
By Steven Pinker - on the blank slate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ef3Re2IRXvM&playnext=1&list=PL65561D60421CA2CC&feature=results_main

on the history of violence
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_gGf7fXM3jQ
and
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hBpetDxIEMU

Sam Harris - Moral Landscape
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTKf5cCm-9g

Daniel Dennett - Breaking the Spell, Religion as a Natural Phenomenon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WhQ8bSvcHQ

My own pages:
http://corvus.freeshell.org/corvus_corax/two/life_path/life_path.htm
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/

We were all just sperm in god's balls - a song parody


We were all just sperm in god's balls - a song parody

We were all just sperm in god's balls - a parody of the song "Seeds."
Other song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61D5AU3SG7A

In the Mormon Church they teach that their god, Elohim, has many wives in heaven. They have endless sex to produce spirit babies for worlds without end.

This song parody is by a former Mormon missionary & temple worker.
More info:

Recent baby play, December 17-20, 2012

Recent videos of our baby playing, December 17 to 20, 2012


 Mr. Bebe plays with Lady - December 17, 2012
 

Mr. Bebe plays with his parents - December 18, 2012
 

play with baby on the floor - December 18, 2012

Mr. Bebe dancing and having fun - December 20, 2012


Launch a Mission to Kolob, and blow the place up!

Three videos expressing an interest in launching a mission to Kolob, the Mormon God's homeworld, and blowing the place up:

December 14, 2012:


December 17 version & addendum:

December 18 reprise:

Let's launch a mission to Kolob baby, and blow the place up. Launch a mission to Kolob honey, before it's to late. There's no oral sex on Kolob, and no one named Rex. There's also no masturbation, and no one named Nate. The Mormon God lives on Kolob, with his many wives. The Mormon Jesus is there too... Hostile aliens all. Joseph Smith is there also, with his 14 year old wife & the wives of other men. Brigham Young is there also, with his 15 year old wife & also wives who are still wives of other men. Spencer Kimball, that fucking old fart, is there also, helping everyone know the evils of oral sex, masturbation, petting, and "heavy petting" (OMG WTF LOL). They're all there on Kolob my friend, with the Mormon God. So let's launch a mission to Kolob, before more people's core being is quashed & destroyed.

More info:
Is your god an alien?
http://corvus.freeshell.org/psittacus/three/tract/kolob_tract.htm

More info on Mormonism from a former Mormon Missionary & Mormon Temple Worker:
http://corvus.freeshell.org/corvus_corax/two/life_path/life_path.htm

More recent thoughts, observations and rants:
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com

The principal crime of Mormonism - subverting normal human sexuality:
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2012/12/subverting-normal-human-sexuality.html

Kolob homeworld meme set initiated message prohibiting oral sex:
http://lds-mormon.com/worthy_letter.shtml
page two:
http://lds-mormon.com/worthy_letter1.shtml

Responses from others on the issue of the Mormon approach to sex:
http://www.amazon.com/The-Miracle-of-Forgiveness-ebook/product-reviews/B002JQK1VG/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0

So, it's not all about "white shirts" and "family." If you reject having to kiss the ass of their leaders & their hostile alien god, you may well get kicked out of & rejected by your "family." They put their church & their god above family - so that's not real & true family values my friend.

Friday, December 21, 2012

Subverting normal human sexuality: Mormon Church's principal crime

Problems with Mormonism that the never-been-a-Mormon media has no concept of & needs to be educated about:
"The First Presidency has interpreted oral sex as constituting an unnatural, impure, or unholy practice. If a person is engaged a practice which troubles him enough to ask about it, he should discontinue it."
http://lds-mormon.com/worthy_letter.shtml
page two:
http://lds-mormon.com/worthy_letter1.shtml

The author of the above policy wrote the following book:
http://www.lds.org/braille/The%20Miracle%20of%20Forgiveness.txt

In mobot distribution centers they have, in several prominent languages, the Book of Mormon, maybe the family home evening manual, but always this POS book.
"...Steps to Fornication
Among the most common sexual sins our young people commit are necking and petting. Not only do these improper relations often lead to fornication, pregnancy, and abortions all ugly sins but in and of themselves they are pernicious evils, and it is often difficult for youth to distinguish where one ends and another begins. They awaken lust and stir evil thoughts and sex desires. They are but parts of the whole family of related sins and indiscretions. Paul wrote as if to modern young people who deceive themselves that their necking and petting are but expressions of love: 'Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves.' (Rom 1:24.) How could the evils of petting be more completely described?"

"Too often, young people dismiss their petting with a shrug of their shoulders as a little indiscretion, while admitting that fornication is a base transgression. Too many of them are shocked, or feign to be, when told that what they have done in the name of petting was in reality fornication. The dividing line is a thin, blurry one, and Paul probably referred to these sins ranging from petting to fornication when he said: 'For it is a shame even to speak of those things which are done of them in secret.' (Eph. 5:12.) And the Lord perhaps was referring to this evil when in our own time he was reiterating the Ten Commandments: '... Neither commit adultery, nor kill, nor do anything like unto it.' (D&C 59:6.)
Our young people should know that their partners in sin will not love or respect them if they have freedom in fondling their bodies. Such a practice destroys respect, not only for the other person but for self. It destroys the ultimate respect for virtue. And it ignores the oft-repeated prophetic warning that one should give his or her life rather than to yield to loss of virtue."

"Too many have lost themselves completely in sin through this doorway of necking and petting. The devil knows how to destroy our young girls and boys. He may not be able to tempt a person to murder or to commit adultery immediately, but he knows that if he can get a boy and a girl to sit in the car late enough after the dance, or to park long enough in the dark at the end of the lane, the best boy and the best girl will finally succumb and fall. He knows that all have a limit to their resistance."

"Those who have received the Holy Ghost after baptism certainly know that all bodily contacts of this kind are pernicious and abominable. They recognize too that the God of yesterday, today, and tomorrow continues to demand continence and to require that people come to the marriage altar as virgins, clean and free from sex experience..."

"...Almost like twins,'petting' and especially 'heavy petting' and fornication are alike. Also like twins, the one precedes the other, but most of the same characteristics are there. The same passions are aroused and, with but slight difference, similar bodily contacts are made. And from it are likely to come the same frustrations, sorrows, anguish, and remorse."

"All those who have slipped into the disgraceful and most reprehensible habit of transgressing through petting should immediately change their lives, their habits, and their thought patterns, repent sorely in 'sackcloth and ashes,' and by confession get so far as possible a clearance from the Lord and the leaders of his Church so that a measure of peace may accompany them through their lives. To those who have been properly taught and who have properly appraised the evils and have restrained and protected themselves from these foul acts, God bless them and help them to continue their virginity and cleanness, that they may never have the remorse and anguish which has or will come to their brothers and sisters who have indulged..."
...what a load of hate filled human spirit destroying garbage.

Apt responses found online from your fellow humans:

"Because this book is a crime against humanity and he should have been tried for ever releasing it upon the world. Hundreds of thousands, perhaps a million or more people have suffered terribly as a result of being A) Human and B) manipulated or in some cases forced to read this pile of filth. Save yourself the 8-10 hours it takes to read it cover to cover and go to your nearest Mormon 'priesthood' holder and ask them to punch you in the face several times. It will be less painful."
http://www.amazon.com/review/R18WLDDC75NVFK/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#R18WLDDC75NVFK

"I want to burn this book... This is by far the most deplorable book i have ever read. I wanted to burn it so no one else could ever read it, but instead i keep it hidden as a reminder to why i have no desire to ever be a lds, morg bot... My husband was born and raised lds i was seriously considering a full conversion and having our marriage sealed in the temple... That is until i found this book amongst his things..."

"The sin next to murder are you serious!!! 'A woman who has be raped should wish herself dead.' 'A parent should wish their child dead rather than have them commit the sin next to murder'"

"As i woman how has been through a rape I feel it is deplorable that anyone would ever suggest such a heinous thought to someone who is already struggling and dealing with the emotional ans psychological damage that last forever... Shame on you spencer kimball shame on anyone who would ever recommend or even suggest someone read this book..."

"I am human therefor i have sinned... Not one person on this earth Spencer Kimball included is with out sin..."

"I am worthy and i don't need to pay the lds corporation 10% of my gross income for their stamp of approval, nor do i need to enter the waste of money temple and buy their magical underpants..."

"Thank you Spencer Kimball. Had it not been for this horrific book i most likely would have become another lds drone."
from http://www.amazon.com/The-Miracle-of-Forgiveness-ebook/product-reviews/B002JQK1VG/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0

"Destructive fear- and hate-mongering...
In Kimball's book, everybody is evil, including the coffee drinker, but none more so than the homosexual. Kimball finds it regrettable that today's society is more tolerant towards homosexuals than in Old Testament times when homosexuals and other fornicators were stoned to death. No wonder gay mormons are driven to suicide, and not only gay mormons, but all mormons will inevitably fail to live up to Kimball's impossible moral standards (one possible reason people in Utah consume so much antidepressants). This book is guaranteed to cause lots of despair, hopelessnes and crushed self-esteem among many readers. It's just about the worst book you could give to someone who's struggling with any type of personal problem (statements like "one should give his or her life rather than to yield to loss of virtue" could even be interpreted as to encourage suicide, althouh that, too, is a sin as we learn in a later chapter). He also describes 'sins against the Holy Ghost', which are unforgivable, even if repented."

"'The Miracle of Forgiveness' is an example of religious propaganda at its worst. It is designed to keep the flock in line by preventing critical thinking (which is denounced as the sin of rebellion) and demanding obedience to religious authorities (ie the LDS church leaders, including the author); even failure to pay tithes is a sin. The author also spends a lot of time complaining about the declining morals of modern society, where women wear shorts in public and work instead of being housewives and people play golf instead of observing the Sabbath. It's written with a holier-than-thou attitude and the author's contempt and dislike for humanity in general and "sexual deviants" in particular, is evident throughout the whole book. Kimball likes to give examples of people who have come to him seeking help and these meetings inevitably end with him giving them a condescending lecture about their moral failings. I knew the LDS church was strict but I didn't know they had the type of misanthropic, cold-hearted, taliban mentality they must have to promote this fear-and hate-mongering book."

also from amazon.

And another:
"Criminalization of all things sex...
This book almost killed me. I became suicidal because of ordinary masturbation instincts because I believed in this charlatanism.
The author is preoccupied with sex. Actual criminal conduct is given token mention, then the book dives into the deep end of an anti-sexual preoccupation that would make Kinsey turn over in his grave. It equates homosexuality to beastiality, and makes clear that sexual "sins" are next to murder in severity. This book is the source of the infamous lore in Mormonism that they'd rather bury a child than see them lose their purity."
"Thousands of mormon youth and gays have committed suicide because of sheer psychological malpractice like this. I denounce this book in the strongest terms I can. I have no doubt whatsoever that this book has cost lives. Mine was spared by only seconds.
Shame on you who recommend this book to anyone, but especially youth where it does the most damage."

This page,
http://www.amazon.com/The-Miracle-of-Forgiveness-ebook/product-reviews/B002JQK1VG/ref=cm_cr_pr_hist_1?ie=UTF8&filterBy=addOneStar&showViewpoints=0
is a great example of why W-H-Y there are problems with being an adherent Mormon. Read it closely when considering the costs to having pretty white shirts and pretty buildings.

Some have even died as a result of Kimball's toxic dogma:
http://web.archive.org/web/20120701205227/http://www.affirmation.org/suicide_info/sin_and_death_in_mormon_country.shtml

And yet, horn dogs Joseph & Brigham got to have all the wives they wanted, 14 & 15 year olds, even those who were married to other men:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Joseph_Smith%27s_wives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Brigham_Young%27s_wives

my own related pages:
http://corvus.freeshell.org/corvus_corax/two/life_path/life_path.htm
and
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/
and
http://www.youtube.com/user/chinadreams888

and for this topic, here's a relevant video found:

Keep your Jesus off my penis...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHjsaEK4vnw

Friday, December 7, 2012

Rationalism, Naturalism, Cultural Relativism, and having an accurate view of the world

The rationalist may not enjoy admitting to the biological evolutionary naturalistic roots of what he concludes is "rational." A good analogy is how Spock was portrayed as viewing the world: logical until mating season came around, but even then his actions were in the end logical to him.

It's is indeed rational to eat, breath, have sex, love, make babies, have fun, and so on - so the rationalist will naturally conclude because his brain and being are coded to conclude as much. So be it. Humans aren't fully rational though, whatever the fuck rational may actually mean.

In any case, the idea that we can divorce ourselves from emotion is an illusion and is in many ways a potentially damaging self deception. Go without food long enough, or other of our primary biological needs, and the supposedly strict rationalist will very quickly go right off the rails. Pretend like you've got a "rational mind" divorced from your "emotional mind" and you're frankly drive yourself and others crazy.

On cultural relativism: I don't have a problem with judging how people acted in the past. There's a limit to my own tolerance regarding past behavior, and I believe everyone has a limit. My mentioning of Mohamed's 9 year old wife was to show one example. Maybe people did marry at 14 in the past more, but there's all sorts of things that used to happen which we now have concluded were incorrect actions. Incorrect now, and, incorrect then. For example: slavery, the oppression of women, having kings rule with an iron fist, and so on.

Pinker has spoken of an progressing moral zeitgeist as has Dawkins. Also Harris has some good ideas on a science of morality. Thank goodness we now have a much wider scope for our in group morality.

Down at BYU in the psychology & religion departments, they may strongly decry the "hedonistic" nature of "the world," and try to get their students to be wary. They go to their churches on Sunday where Mormon bishops interrogate youngsters about masturbation, and where all the youngsters learn to fear normal natural human sexuality. But, meanwhile, their founding prophets have been reasonably documented as doing things which the Mormon Church would excommunicate people for. So that's the point. Hypocrisy.

Don't masturbate Johnny, but meanwhile worship a god who had literal sex with the wife of another man. Don't have oral sex, Julie and Jim, but meanwhile Brigham & Joseph got to have sex with the wives of other men and with under age girls.

My own experience with Mormonism has made me more of a strong naturalist, on both sides of the cultural spectrum. So for example I'm all for people having as many babies as they want - if that's what deep down they feel like doing. The exuberance of the gays has a companionship with the exuberance of a large family. I try not to disparage either course of action because deep down people are doing what they feel included to do as animals. So be it. And, as rather intelligent animals maybe in the long term we can engineer and way to stay alive when the sun gets 10% hotter.

http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2010/12/funeral-talk-that-i-gave-in-february.html

The bottom line is that I don't think everything is relative. All societies past & present can for example be evaluated against the following yardstick: How well did each help humans be happy & thrive, and how much did each hold people down & make them unhappy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_of_morality

Thursday, December 6, 2012

What was it like, when God had sex with Mary?

Today I found a Family Guy clip about the conception of Jesus, and that reminded of the following question:

What was it like, when God had sex with Mary?

Even in Catholicism, how did the Holy Ghost overshadow Mary's vajayjay?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vajayjay

Here's Mormon references for your spiritual and humor-bone edification:
http://www.mormonwiki.org/Conception_of_Jesus
http://www.exmormon.org/mormon/mormon385.htm

Here's the relevant Family Guy clip:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=2fhb16QP-dA

And my own video commentary is attached below.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OymNAUmVUBY

Relevant clip from an older film, showing Elohim knocking on the door of Mary:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgBNVcY6ro8&t=2m58s

Also, whodathunkit, Joseph Smith thought Jesus was married also?

The whole video is interesting and is mostly accurate.

Here's more on the Catholic version, where a guy in a sheet gets to have sex with her...
http://www.thebricktestament.com/the_life_of_jesus/jesus_is_born_02/lk01_35.html

The Mormon oral sex letter stating it's bad:
http://lds-mormon.com/worthy_letter.shtml
http://lds-mormon.com/worthy_letter1.shtml

And yet, Joseph & Brigham had 14 & 15 year old wives & also wives who were still married to other men:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Joseph_Smith%27s_wives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Brigham_Young%27s_wives



Additional thoughts, regarding the issue of marrying young & whether people in the past married at 14 or 15:

In this case I would have a slightly easier time sympathizing with 17 or 16. There are some older looking 14 year olds. Both Joseph & Brigham took other men's wives as brides. Also consider Aisha:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aisha
and the lego version of Moohamed's meeting with her at age nine:
http://mattseanbachman.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/mohammed-lego.png


Relevant quote: "...According to traditional sources, Aisha was six or seven years old when she was betrothed to Muhammad and nine when the marriage was consummated..."

Maybe on a Fiddler on the Roof type of scenario 14 is ok, if one or the other are 14 or 15 are they are in love. But some older cult leader took taking a 14 year old to wife, that's when the icky poo factor comes in more. Also Moohamed having a 9 year old one was not so good.

Moohamed was a great man though, nine year old fully consummated bride and all, according to the national Unitarian organization:

http://www.isna.net/uploads/1/5/7/4/15744382/uu_muslim_interfaith_guide.pdf
[previously at: http://www.uusc.org/files/BBToolkit_uu_muslim_interfaith_guide.pdf ]

But Islam is about social justice, right? According to muff brained Unitarians, Amy Goodman, and Reza Aslan. Sometimes we go to Unitarian meetings, but we don't go to the congregation where they said Mohamed was a "great man who cared about women & treated them well," and for the one we do sometimes go to we'll be monitoring any religious education curricula to ensure it's not whitewashing dogma. Liberals can have dishonest religion too...

Related blog post:
Unitarian Universalist fawning appreciation of Mohammad and Islam:
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2010/12/unitarian-universalist-fawning.html

I'm personally all for "marrying young" and evening having babies young if a couple feels so inclined, but when when at least one of the parties is under say 18 or 21, then the age difference should be less than can be common for people over 18 or 21. And the whole cult or warlord leader taking yougin' to wife is a different scenario from similarly aged youngsters hooking up.

Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Crazed old fart virgins don't know shit - and keep them away from your children

From the BBC today:

"...Pope Benedict reaffirms the importance of the Christian belief in the virgin birth, that Jesus was not conceived through sexual intercourse but through the Holy Spirit."

Isn't that nice.

Back to the sex is evil gig of a bunch of crazed old farts.

An apt response from Andrew Sullivan:
"...The Catholic church does not condemn a whole class of human beings, regardless of their acts, as deemed inferior by God for all time because of their biological nature, having to wait even in the hereafter behind all other groups to become gods themselves. It condemns non-procreative sex for all, and by that teaching uniquely singles out gays for lives of loneliness, celibacy and repression, while permitting the infertile and the elderly to be full members of the church even as they too have non-procreative sex..."

Also check out:

http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/04/its-celibacy-stupid/188420/
and
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2010/apr/01/why-celibacy-should-be-abolished/

Now, then there's the perverse alternative from Mormonism, where we learn that God the Father (Elohim) had sex with Mary the Mother of Jesus.

Didn't they teach you that in Sunday School?
http://www.mormonwiki.org/Conception_of_Jesus

And, once again my friends, Joseph & Brigham, they like'd'em young, and also women who were simultaneously married to other men:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Joseph_Smith%27s_wives
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Brigham_Young%27s_wives

But then, later, it's the f-ing old farts again, who screw things up. Spencer Kimball's hate filled book: http://www.amazon.com/review/RTF9W8850RNTE

Boyd KKK fudge Packer comes out with his anti-masturbation little factory pamphlet:
http://www.lds-mormon.com/only.shtml

Spencer Kimball tells Mormons that oral sex is bad:
http://lds-mormon.com/worthy_letter.shtml
http://lds-mormon.com/worthy_letter1.shtml

So, what's the bottom line?

Crazed old fart virgins don't know shit, AND keep them away from your children.

Saturday, November 17, 2012

Response to Sam Harris's 'Science on the Brink of Death'

In Sam Harris's recent blog post "Science on the Brink of Death" it's worth noting that Steve Paulson is interviewing the guy in question. Paulson is a "Templeton wonder boy," and host of the Wisconsin Public Radio program "To the best of our knowledge."

Paulson's connection to Templeton:
http://www.templeton-cambridge.org/fellows/showfellow.php?fellow=6

Paulson's got a lot of smoke to help blow, everywhere he can. But mention of Paulson & public radio reminds me of another public radio host with a Templeton connection, Templeton wondergirl Krista Tippett.
http://www.templeton.org/what-we-fund/grants/krista-tippett-on-being-pursues-the-big-questions

My current responses:
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2012/11/nobel-prize-winner-harry-kroto-michael.html

And a response video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nj4KIix2vI

Steve Paulson is very interested indeed in blowing smoke about "spiritual realities" and Templeton loves him for it.

Here is a great website I just found on the whole issue:

http://www.skepdic.com/essays/templeton.html
"...The subtext is clear: secular science alone can’t solve our problems. We must seek our answers in a realm that includes the non-secular..."

"...The TF’s anti-secularism is also evident from the fact that Taylor was nominated for the Templeton prize by the Rev. David A. Martin, Ph.D., emeritus professor of sociology at the London School of Economics and author of A General Theory of Secularization, which, among other things, laments the way religion has been marginalized by sociology and pushed to the periphery of significance in some quarters. (Taylor wrote a blurb for the back cover of Martin’s follow-up: On Secularization: Towards A Revised General Theory, published in 2005.) Taylor’s latest work, A Secular Age, was published last September by Belknap Press. It is being promoted as “the definitive examination of secularization and the modern world.” At 896 pages, it is certainly the heftiest examination of religion in a secular world..."


"...Those who argue that our only hope for peace on earth is to become purely secular will never win the Templeton prize. To win the Templeton Prize, one must be selective and focus on those aspects of 'spirituality' that don’t involve bigotry, hatred, ignorance, or superstition. If you ignore many religions, many religious beliefs, and many religious practices, you can come up with a fine set of ideas showing how spirituality must move back to the center from the periphery if we wish to live free in a new golden age. I look at it a little differently than Charles Taylor does. In my opinion, secularism is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for peace on earth and for understanding the things of this universe. Religion, on the other hand, is a sufficient but not a necessary condition for continued misery and obfuscation of even the simplest truths..."

"...For a million dollars, I'll tell them why that’s so. For another million, I’ll do it in 900 pages..."
Additional links:

On this blog:

Watering down science: Templeton, KCPW & KUER
http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2012/11/watering-down-science-templeton-kcpw.html

On other blogs and sites:

On Templeton money

http://evolvingthoughts.net/2010/06/on-templeton-money/

The 2009 (not prestigious) Templeton Prize Winner is....

Mormon funerals - how they usually go down

Yesterday my wife and I attended a viewing for one of my uncles. I was trying to explain Mormon funerals to my wife. Here for example is how they usually go down:

http://marklynnhigbee.blogspot.com

...with it being a session where people get up and bemoan the fact that the only way to see the person who's died is to become a good Mormon - even if the person who died wasn't a particularly faithful or adherent Mormon themselves. Mormon funerals are often morbid demeaning sales pitches that can have little relevance to the life of the deceased person.


At my own mother's funeral I did manage to shed a bit of light though:

The talk I gave at my mother's funeral - February 2010:
     http://jonathanshome.blogspot.com/2010/12/funeral-talk-that-i-gave-in-february.html

Related posts found by others:

http://mormoncurtain.com/topic_funerals.html

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,699868,699891
"...Even as a TBM, I felt like they were a sales pitch, designed to peddle a religion to those in mourning and to take advantage of their grief..."
http://kaylanamars.blogspot.com/2012/02/ultra-sad-disease-that-is-mormon.html
"...Mormon funerals are only for proselytizing. They are using one of the most vulnerable times like a death in the family to promote their church..."
So, while my wife and I were happy to attend a viewing, and to see again a cousin who I played with as a kid & his family, we won't be attending the funeral because I can in about 10 seconds play in my mind exactly what is going to be said & happen at my uncles funeral. It will be a demoralizing and belittling sales pitch - demoralizing to those who aren't Mormon and who have no intention of becoming Mormon again.

So anyway, today, Saturday, we'll be doing more useful & fun things... And, at least some of my uncles children and grandchildren are clearly not true believing Mormons. That's a good legacy we can all be proud of... Same goes for my own mother, especially with regard to many of her grandchildren. Leaving Mormonism is like growing up psychologically.