LDS Political Neutrality vs Mitt Romney vs Obama

The Mormon Newsroom released a new video explaining the Church's political neutrality.

Look familiar?

Apple's ebook model

Apple's model:

1. Make it extremely difficult and annoying for publishers to put books on their stores by:

a. Instead of having a simple website to upload books like Amazon and B&N, require your proprietary software that only runs on a Mac
b. pick arbitrary naming and image standards that can only be checked when uploading the finished ebook
c. after you accept a book, reject it for supposed errors, but only send the publisher a comment saying that "there is a problem with the metadata" without any hint of where that problem may be
d. instead of reading messages and inquiries from publishers about those supposed errors, send generalized responses that make it clear you don't give a sh**.
e.instead of doing what every other ebook software does, force publisher's to create separate image sizes for each device instead of automatically resizing to fit various devices and configurations 

2. Make it difficult for users to find ebooks by :

a. not including tags in description
b. not allowing searches by description 

3. Limit access to the ebooks users purchase:

a. unlike Amazon and B&N, don't create ebook software and apps for non-Apple devices
b. don't even make ebook software for your own Macs
c. make purchased ebooks accessible only on iPhone, iPad, and iTouch 

4. Expect customers to pay more for ebooks through their crappy product

a. When customers don't jump on the opportunity to pay more for crap they can get better and cheaper elsewhere, conspire with large publisher's to force customers to pay more for products they'd rather get from someone else anyways.

An Easter Message

The question “Why did Jesus die?" is inseparable from the question "Why did they kill him?”

-Ignacio Ellacuria

Persons who preach an exclusively transcendent Kingdom of God do not get themselves murdered. People who preach a Kingdom that is only a new relationship with God, or only “love,” or only “reconciliation,” or only “trust in God,” are not murdered. All these things may be legitimately regarded as elements accompanying the message of the Kingdom of God, but they alone do not explain Jesus’ death, and therefore they alone cannot be the central element of the Kingdom. The Kingdom of God must have had some bearing on the historico-social, not only the transcendent.

-Jon Sobrino

Passover and the Problem of Evil

     Imagine Jihan, a poor Egyptian woman in the time of Moses. Imagine Yahweh s great act of liberation through her eyes. Like other peasants, she lives in a small village, away from the cities, scraping a meager living from the soil. Her husband has been forcibly drafted into Pharaoh s army. She knows little of events in the distant capital. Life is hard for her, but she is lucky to have three surviving children, a goat,and a cow. Fruit trees are common, and with other villagers she works a small piece of land where the barley crop is close to harvest.
     One hot day all of the water in their village turns foul and bloody. Soon they are burning of thirst, drinking bloody water that stinks of dead fish. Her youngest boy becomes sick and dies, vomiting up any of the foul liquid they get down his throat. Then come frogs covering everything, in their tents and beds, dying and rotting in the hot sun. This brings gnats as they have never seen before in their eyes, noses, and mouths.
     When madness is almost upon them, the flies come. They can't eat a bite without brushing flies off. The livestock go berserk. A plague kills all the cattle in the village, leaving the villagers afraid to salvage the meat for fear of becoming sick themselves. Yet, sickness strikes them, too. Everyone from infant to elderly is covered with painful boils, leaving them in misery whether they stand, sit, or lie down. They wonder why. They have no clue what is happening between Moses and Pharaoh.
     With a child and cow dead, hail kills the goat, leaving them with no milk, and crushes the barley. The remaining grain and fruit is consumed by locusts. They endure the terror of darkness at midday. Finally, every firstborn human and animal, of every age, dies in the middle of the night. While their grief and bewilderment is still squeezing their hearts, throats, and tears, her husband is drowned with the army in the Sea of Reeds. Jihan, now a widow in a land with no grain, no fruit, and no livestock, must sit and watch her remaining child starve.
     The story of the Exodus is surely a great story crying out that the God of Israel stands with the poor and oppressed, yet, it has deeply troubling dimensions. Most theodicies are also great but troubling stories, stories about a powerful and loving God who does nothing while children burn. The Exodus story looks different when we ask: What about Jihan?

-C. Robert Mesle, Graceland University

Mormon.org profile rejection #4--or, why I am apparently not a Mormon

It had been a while since my several attempts at creating a mormon.org profile resulted in rejection (see here, here, and here). However, after an attendee at last week's Mormonism and the Internet conference at Utah Valley University claimed to be one of the profile monitors (and admitted to being one of the several college-student, return-missionary, part-time employees doing the monitoring), I opened up to the possibility that my previous rejections were merely the result of an isolated over-zealous RM and decided to give it another try.

I recognize that my previous attempts may have been a little too preachy and did somewhat attempted to present my understanding of eternal life as THE Church's "doctrine" of eternal life. So this time I decided to write it in a manner that made it clear that while I while my own beliefs did not entirely conform with the established teachings of the Church, that I nevertheless find meaning application in the Church's teachings on eternal life. Or, in other words, even little heterodox me can find meaning and a place in Mormonism. Thus, I rephrased my profile answer to the question "What do Mormons believe about 'eternal life?'" to:

Unlike most Mormons, I don't necessarily believe in a life after death. However our scriptures teach that eternal life is more than living forever, but is something that can and should be achieved now in the present. Eternal life is to live and love others as God does. Too often I think we are confused in thinking that eternal life is something we must wait for, or that it is something that can only be found in another life after this. Rather, it is by following Christ's example and learning to love as He did that we can find ourselves with eternal life in the present.

Well, it still wasn't good enough, and received the generic response:

Doctrinal Concerns - Part of your submission contains Church doctrine that could be misunderstood or may not be correct. Please update and resubmit so your response can be posted on Mormon.org. Thank you for the efforts you made in responding to this important question.

While I somewhat expected this response, this denial and the practice behind the denial bother me quite a bit. For a while now I've largely felt that the whole "I'm a Mormon!" campaign on mormon.org had become a sham. While the whole premise of the site is to say "Here, look at real Mormons!," by moderating the profiles so that only Mormons who follow a prescribed script are allowed, the realness of the profiles and premise becomes fake. It is akin to a biography that purports to present the "real" story of a person--while consciously omitting anything about the person that does not contribute to the narrative that they want to present. While all of the facts presented in the biography may be true, the omissions make the overall narrative false. In this same way, the whole "I'm a Mormon!" campaign is largely undermined by the moderators who get to pick and chose who gets to represent "real" Mormons.

There is something that bothers me even more though. The Church has been heavily promoting the "I'm a Mormon!" campaign and actively encouraging members to submit their own profiles. However, in having these self-described college-student, return-missionary, part-time employees do the monitoring, they are essentially giving these persons the authority to determine who is and isn't a legitimate (or "real") Mormon--a power that most bishops don't even lay claim to. Thus, while a believing member may be deemed worthy to have a calling and temple recommend by their bishop--or even be a bishop himself--that very member may be denied  the right to publicly proclaim "I'm a Mormon!" by a zealous mormon.org monitor.

This type of monitoring can be very detrimental to members who may struggle with finding a place in the Church. At the conference last week, the mormon.org monitor in attendance justified the practice using the example of someone who might say that he is a gay parent and a Mormon. The obvious problem with this rationale is that there are, in fact, gay Mormon parents. While it may certainly be difficult to be one in the overtly-conservative Mormon culture, there is nothing institutionally or religiously wrong with being gay+parent+Mormon. Because of the culture (and because of the less-charitable statements by some leaders) it is nevertheless a challenge to be gay+Mormon, and those who manage to maintain both identities generally do so with a struggle of feeling belonged or having a place within the faith. So when one of these members who has met up with these challenges and wants to say, "I'm a Mormon!" this over-zealous monitor--despite the ecclesiastical approval of the member--can tell that person: "No, you're not a Mormon!"

Books of 2012

A work in progress.

The Bitter Fruit of American Justice: International and Domestic Resistance to the Death Penalty

The Road to the Dark Tower: Exploring Stephen King's Magnum Opus

Damned

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

"Let the Earth Bring Forth": Evolution and Scripture

Encountering Evil, A New Edition: Live Options in Theodicy

Batman: Knightfall, Part One: Broken Bat

Batman: Knightfall, Part Two: Who Rules the Night

Batman: Knightfall, Part Three: KnightsEnd

Every Thing On It

Dear Utah State Legislature concerning HB363

You should really just come clean and admit that at the heart of the matter you want to force your religious beliefs on others in public schools. This isn't about reducing teen pregnancies (because those are factually being reduced). This isn't about reducing teen pregnancies (because those are also being reduced). This is about you believing that sex outside of marriage is wrong. Plain and simple.

While some tenuous arguments could be made about the psychological and emotional harms that can result from immature teens have sex, it is telling that you in the Utah legislature aren't really concerned about that. This is about you believing that sex outside of marriage is sinful and you want to use the state to enforce ridiculous (and harmful) means to naively attempt to pressure teens to meet your religious ideals.

If you listen to your colleague defending this bill, you will hear the nut state representative repeatedly referring to premarital sex and sex outside of marriage (and rarely actually referring to just teens having sex). This legislation is not about protecting kids from harmful consequences from sex--it's about protecting them from sex. It's not about ensuring their health--it's about ensuring their salvation.

While these latter things may be admirable. They are the duties of parents and churches, not public schools.