HeartSell (TM)

Church-owned Bonneville International has done it! They've found a way into your heart! Not only can they get in there, they know how to move and motivate you to action. They've even given this communication strategy a creepy, trademarked name.

It's almost like you don't even need the Holy Ghost to feel the truth anymore.

WoW - meat eating

It's time to address the explicitly clear part of the Word of Wisdom that everyone hates. 

"Yea, flesh also of beasts and of the fowls of the air, I, the Lord, have ordained for the use of man with thanksgiving; nevertheless they are to be used sparingly; And it is pleasing unto me that they should not be used, only in times of winter, or of cold, or famine." (D&C 89:12-13)

In other words, God's cool with us eating a little meat if it's either (1) the cold season or (2) a time of famine.

If I had to guess, the justification for eating a little meat in the winter is that you can't grow crops when it's too cold and you're completely reliant on your most recent harvest; the justification for eating a little meat in times of famine is probably the same: you don't have crops growing.

Did God not foresee our day of global trade? We're no longer a bunch of do-it-yourselfer farming types. Did he not see the advent of industrialize agriculture? Did he somehow miss that science labs would produce super-hardy varieties of fruits and vegetables? We have fresh produce year round, brothers and sisters! The cold doesn't stop us! There are no more famines in the rich developed world! Who even needs meat anymore? Eat meat sparingly? Don't you worry, Lord, we no longer have to eat any at all!

The only problems is that we have all been seduced by the $1 hamburger menus across America. That's probably what God saw coming down the pipe. He probably saw the "evils and designs" of the "conspiring men in the last days" (D&C 89:4) running the vast majority of meat produced in the United States. God's just trying to protect us from extremely powerful men who want to cash us out, right? It's so clear!

And yet that's not what you'll hear in church. Ask any member about the "meat sparingly" bit in the Word of Wisdom and chances are you'll be informed that that advice is out of date and has been since the invention of the freezer/fridge combo. You see, back in the day they would never harvest an animal when it was warm because the meat would go bad so fast. Besides, the warm months are when grass grows and livestock can feed and fatten up. You want to get to butchering after the animals are fat, not before.

But what about the whole "sparingly" thing even when it was winter? It sounds an awful lot like God's trying to minimize the killing of animals. It sounds like God might be one of those PETA assholes. Let's not be ridiculous, we all know God's Kingdom invests in ranching.

Thus vote the Brethren!

Remember how in all of LDS scripture God essentially taps a dude on the shoulder, tells him he's now a prophet, and sends him off to tell everyone else what it is he (God) wants? I'm not sure that process was the most efficient considering the prophet to non-prophet ratio and the tendency for huge portions of the population to be skeptical of what one man has to say, but I think that process would be much more convincing than what we have going on today. The Church leaders (our dear prophets, seers, and revelators) no longer do things Moses' way, or Isaiah's way, or Jesus' way, or Samuel the Lamanite's way, or Joseph Smith's way of wielding all decisive power and authority on a matter; now they sit around in board meetings and vote like businessmen. And nothing passes unless there is a unanimous vote in favor. It sounds a bit Catholic, but such is the business of revealing God's Will for us today. I'm just curious what happened to the traditional method of prophecy, in which men had much less say in what the message would be.

Oh say, what is the LDS Church?

What if there is no legal entity called The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints? What if that name is nothing more than a trademark? Would that surprise us? Would it be worth looking up who's in control of some of the Church's legal holdings?

Large and spacious

Mormons fear large and spacious buildings unless they're temples where they can imagine ascending into Heaven, a conference centers from which they can judge and mock the world, or a mall.

I don't understand it either.