Green Oasis

Lincoln sent me a link to a conference about the convergence of Mormon thought and engineering. I’m highly doubtful that there is a God, but I’m an engineer so why not manufacture one?

The Howard W Hunter Chair is interested in expanding the discussion of Latter-day Saint (LDS) perspectives on the attributes of God and the potential of man through a variety of innovative directions. One of the directions to be explored is whether there is a possible resonance between Mormon and engineering thought. The assumption is that according to LDS understanding, God is the architect of the Creation and the engineer of our bodies and spirits. Man, on the other hand, is believed to be capable of growing to become like God. The theological question is: where does engineering fit in the convergence of these two realms?

They’re asking for papers. If that’s your kind of thing, have fun.

Judging from my own experience, it regrettably looks like the amount of free time in a person’s life (T_f ) seems to follow the following equation.

I can only hope for a discontinuity at t = t_retirement (or maybe t = t_unemployment).

I took the rather momentous step today of unsubscribing from Meridian Magazine. OK, so maybe it’s not so momentous given that I disagree with almost everything they publish (with an exception here and there), but it represents something larger.

Do I want my life to be about being an ex-Mormon?

I don’t think so. For the next month, I’m going to abstain from all extraneous things Mormon (or ex-Mormon or atheist) and return and report.

I pity the clients who see this therapist who runs frightened from sexually provocative media. Rather than teaching healing and transcendence of fear, he promotes the very same trembling attitudes that lead to addiction. His essay reminds me of the world of fear that I so narrowly escaped. I join Jesus’ skeptics in demanding “Physician, heal thyself”. (Luke 4:23)

Mormonism has a long history of slandering its opponents. Witness the straw man Korihor, or those who allegedly stole the translation of the Book of Lehi. It is so easy to blame any opposition to the Mormon church on Satan’s machinations. It keeps the faithful in line.

So I shouldn’t be surprised when good Brother Lawrence asserts that the arguments for recognizing same-sex marriage are the same arguments used by Satan in the war in heaven. Aside from being hyperbolic, his comparison is inapt.

As the story goes (as Brother Lawrence notes himself) Satan’s plan was to destroy humanity’s agency, its free will, so that everyone could get to heaven. It is presumed that he would do this by making everyone obey God’s commandments so that no one could sin. If no one sinned, then everyone went to heaven.

Lo and behold! We have Mormons championing an effort to make sure that no one can sin with the blessing of the state. They want to make it as difficult as possible for homosexual people to sin. They want to facilitate, urge, cajole, even force people to marry only heterosexually. Is this not a perfect analog to Satan’s plan according to the Mormon myth?

We do not believe it just to mingle religious influence with civil government, whereby one religious society is fostered and another proscribed in its spiritual privileges, and the individual rights of its members, as citizens, denied. (D&C 134:9)

This LDS Satanic effort has irony written all over it… in big capital letters.

I just viewed this coming out story of a young Mormon man on MoHoHawaii’s blog. It shows just how poisonous Mormon culture can be. There is something twisted and tortured in the heart of LDS culture that lays impressionable people on the altar of religious dogma. It makes me hurt to watch.