Summer reading - the best of books

Summer's almost here and I know you're all looking for some quality literature to keep the kids' brains afloat. Nothing keeps the mind sharper than reading, so let me suggest the finest of books you could possibly hope for. It's a good long read full of powerful, uplifting stuff like beheadings, theft, the electrocution of threatening siblings, rumors of wars, fort building, city fortification, vigilante justice, dirty prostitutes, deceptions, stratagems, spearing people, dismembering people, rivers of blood, sibling rivalry, family feuds, cousin killing, patricide, fratricide, infanticide, genocide, fear mongering, demonic possession, Satan, devils, magic curses, rape, endless war, cannibalism, torture, threats, coercion, murmuring, conniving, the wrath of God, divine death threats, burning people at the stake, poisoning, conspiracies, government corruption, evil freemasons, guilt mongering, talk of eternal torment, unprecedented amounts of copulation, and more.

What is this fine book, book you ask? The Book of Mormon, dear brothers and sisters!

And for any of you out there who are worried all this might be a little too much for your kids, don't worry! The fact is The Book of Mormon is written so poorly that the boredom of reading such tedious gibberish will certainly have your children zoned completely out while moving through the pages. By the middle of Alma they'll have absolutely no idea of what exactly they're reading or why.

For those of you who aren't concerned about disturbing content but are more concerned about engaging literature, read something else, like Game of Thrones.

Sex changes - The Family Is of God

General authorities have a lot to say about the innate qualities of women and their divinely appointed role here on earth. What happens if we flip the sexes in what they have to say about the topic? Do we have a nonsensical statement because the logic is gender dependent, or do we end up with a statement that still agrees with LDS thought because gender is irrelevant?

Let's look at the special musical number from last night's General Women's Conference that opened up the session. It's called "The Family Is of God" and it came out in 2008 as an anti-Proposition 8 propaganda tool to be applied in LDS primaries across the United States (and now the world). It picks up on the gender assignments found in "The Family: A Proclamation to the World", so predictably switching the gender references in the song will look a bit like my previous post. Here it is:

1. Our Mother has a family. It’s me!

It’s you, all others too: we are Her children.

She sent each one of us to earth, through birth,

To live and learn here in fam’lies.

[Chorus]

God gave us families to help us become what She wants us to be—

This is how She shares Her love, for the fam’ly is of God.

2. A mother’s place is to preside, provide,

To love and teach the gospel to her children.

A mother leads in fam’ly prayer to share

Their love for Mother in Heaven.

[Chorus]

3. A father’s purpose is to care, prepare,

To nurture and to strengthen all his children.

He teaches children to obey, to pray,

To love and serve in the fam’ly.

[Chorus]

4. I’ll love and serve my family and be

A good example to each fam’ly member.

And when I am a dad or mom, so glad,

I’ll help my fam’ly remember:

[Chorus]

First off, changing "Our Father" to "Our Mother" gives LDS Mormons a big headache because the Church teaches next to nothing about Her. In fact, we don't know if it's a "Her" or a "Them" (every orthodox Mormon has to admit that Heavenly Father might be a polygamist). This possibility - that God has at one or more wives who are banished from showing their faces around their children - already screams sexism. On the positive side, changing "Our Father" to "Our Mother" somehow renders the song just that much more poignant and pleasing. I honestly prefer it.

As for the second verse, I say why the fuck not? Mothers can be just as good as managing people and earning money as father can. If that's where a mother's skill set lies, why not let her use and develop those skills? Denying women that opportunity based on their having a vagina is sexist and culturally damaging.

The third verse makes just as much sense as it did when it addressed mothers. What does that mean? That the gender reference is poorly conceived. There is no truth to be learned from it. What is should say instead is that the purpose of a "parent" is to care, etc. Then again, aren't we all supposed to be caring about and strengthening each other?

The only problem with the fourth verse is that it assumes every child will become a parent one day. That's not how it works. Some people never find a partner, some couples are infertile, other couples don't want children and other couples are simply too irresponsible to properly look after children (I have several relatives who fit this last category). The amazing thing about all of this is that the rest of the session was spent pointing out many of these very exceptions.

Where is the wisdom in memorizing and singing this song? Why should we bother teaching it to children when it's sexist and not logically sound? Why be part of the Church's knee-jerk reaction to homosexual marriage being legalized in California? We can think for ourselves.

Sex changes - "divine design"

General authorities have a lot to say about the innate qualities of women and their divinely appointed role here on earth. What happens if we flip the sexes in what they have to say about the topic? Do we have a nonsensical statement because the logic is gender dependent, or do we end up with a statement that still agrees with LDS thought because gender is irrelevant?

"By divine design, mothers are to preside over their families in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Fathers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, mothers and fathers are obligated to help one another as equal partners." From "The Family: A Proclamation to the World," 1995.

Restricting an individual's participation in work and family according to his or her sex is sexism. You cannot subscribe heart and soul to "The Family" and also claim you are not sexist. Either embrace the fact that you are a sexist or the fact that you disagree with this proclamation.

Sex changes - Heavenly Mother's husband

General authorities have a lot to say about the innate qualities of women and their divinely appointed role here on earth. What happens if we flip the sexes in what they have to say about the topic? Do we have a nonsensical statement because the logic is gender dependent, or do we end up with a statement that still agrees with LDS thought because gender is irrelevant?

"A three-year-old had wandered off on an adventure, shedding her clothing as she went. When she realized she was lost as well as cold, she knocked at the home of this young man. He saw a little girl standing on the step; she was wearing only soiled underwear and was crying her heart out. He took her in, and while they waited for the police to find her father, he wrapped her in a blanket and held her on his lap and sang songs to her. He made her clown faces on home-dipped ice cream cones and drew pictures with her so she could surprise her mother. He made her feel marvelous.

"When at last the girl's father arrived, she started for the front door. Then suddenly she stopped, maybe remembering what a special time she had had with the young man.

"'Hey!' she asked. 'Are you Heavenly Mother's husband?'

The young man was startled - and sobered. At last he replied, 'No, but I am her son.'"
Elaine A. Cannon, "Voices," New Era, Jul. 1980, 13.

Besides being a sappy, poorly told story, there's nothing in this modified version that should offend LDS sensitivities. We might be caught off guard at first by a story about a naked little girl spending an afternoon with a young man, but I think that's mostly because American culture - disgustingly - has hyper-sexualized children. The most offensive aspect of this story is found in the original, where Heavenly Mother is called "Heavenly Father's wife". You know there's a problem with gender inequality when a woman's identity relies entirely on a reference to a man.

Alien gods

Joseph Smith, Jr. revealed a great many amazing things about God. For example, he taught that

1. God is a physical being
2. named Elohim

3. who lives on or near a planet or star called Kolob;
4. he has billions and billions of offspring (the spirits of all mankind)

5. that he implanted on an empty planet (Earth),

6. where they would have to face the wrath of natural disasters, disease, hunger, doubt and mutual violence

7. all in an effort to determine which of these billions of offspring would worship him enough to become the next generation of ultra-intelligent gods.

A later prophet named Lorenzo Snow put it this way: "As man now is, God once was; as God is now, man may be."

Lorenzo, confident enough to sport the godbeard early on in the program.

In other worlds, for Mormons, God is a super-powerful, mega-smart alien who colonized a planet with his larvae and turned the world into a kind of jungle boot camp as a sort of test. He's currently out there in the Universe somewhere watching us and waiting, waiting to see which of us will qualify to join the ranks of the GODS! It's called the Plan of Happiness, guys!

"HA!" "HA HA HA!" "HA HA!

I can't wait to meet God's god, our Grangod, and all the rest, all the way back to the Very First Colonizer, Alpha. Or did he have a heavenly father as well?

It's all fun stuff to think about!

Quick Guide to Continued Belief

This comes from the Internet.

"[T]hose who have been led by the Letter to a CES Director to abandon their faith, should, in my view, reconsider those Mormon claims and the abundant historical support that’s available for them. They simply haven’t studied enough." -Daniel C. Peterson, fairmormon.org. 

Mormonism: a gospel "so simple even a child could understand" but so nuanced only a person with the equivalent of a PhD of study of church history could actually convince themselves was true. But what do I know? I'm just another apostate.

P.S. If you're not following Just Another Apostate on Facebook, you probably should.

Anti-Nephi-Lehies and war

Once upon a time there were some wicked Lamanites who had killed a hell of a lot of Nephites. One day they realized their evil ways, converted to the One True Church, and buried their weapons of death and destruction, promising to never ever touch them again. Isn't that amazing? They were so afraid that killing just one more person would assuredly and irreversibly condemn their souls to hell, that they knew it would be better for them to die than to fight ever again, even in their own defense.

Fortunately for the Nephites, this now entirely pacifistic clan of converts, the Anti-Nephi-Lehies, wasn't entirely against killing other people. Instead of taking up arms again, these folks sent out 2000 of their boys to slaughter their unconverted and overly-agressive cousins.

They totally kicked ass. And not a single one was killed in battle. So righteous sexy!

"Don't mind the swords, we got lot of Jesus love to share, neighbor."

Jesus and the infinite atonement

How does it make any sense whatsoever that because Jesus suffered for our sins and shortcomings everything will one day be restored to perfection? How does it make any sense that one event that took place thousands of years ago is making things right today? Try anticipating your great-great grandchildren's debts and having the money ready for them in their exact moment of need. Try doing something today to absolutely guarantee your house will be clean in 100 years.

You can't do it, can you? Well God did. He did it for everyone. It was easy. He just had to kill his demigod offspring.

It works that way, promise! I know you don't have any demigod children of your own, but I'm sure that sacrificing one of your regular mortal children should at least take your mind off dinner for a week or two. Just make sure to burn the fat for Jehovah.

Eternal progression

Like so many other aspects of Mormonism, eternal progression was one of those things that sounded great on the surface but got weird enough fast enough that I had to stop thinking about it. I've already brought up the conundrum of eternal learning in another post. We don't know how we're going to learn everything in the Universe, but we have faith that we will. And after we've become all-knowing beings, just like God, we'll be fully progressed and ready to build our own perfect universes, right? Who knows?

The real problem here is that once we've become like God, who is perfect (complete) in all things, what progression is left to be had?

The idea that had been conveyed to me was that because saving human beings is God's work and glory, the more people get saved the more glory God gets. So, in a sense, God, despite his perfection-completion, is somehow becoming ever more glorious by making us, his children, like him, and when we, in our perfect, completed state, make and populate our own worlds, and save the human inhabitants of those worlds, we will be not just adding glory to our own perfect selves but also to God's glory because we wouldn't be saving anyone had he not saved us first, so really everyone we saved was saved by God. Then when the humans we save become like us (and God) and start saving their own human children the glory still goes straight back to God to glorify him all the more.

In other words, eternal progression is equivalent to the endless perpetuation of God's salvation scheme. The more people you bring into the club the more respected you'll be. The more obedient children you have the more impressive you look to your neighbors.

Pyramid scheme? No way! This is a sacred law of the Universe.

Babies and the Veil

It's often said in the LDS Church, as it is in others, that newborns and very small children are very close to God and enjoy greater spiritual perception than adults, teens and older children. In Mormon speak we say the Veil of Forgetfulness that keeps us from remembering our pre-Earth life is very thin for new arrivals here on Earth. I don't think it's official doctrine or anything, but it is a widely held belief. I always thought this special sensitivity was an awesome baby power that deserved our admiration and respect. Babies were closer to God than the rest of us. They didn't have to doubt about God and his plan. They remembered things. Special things.
 
But I also couldn't help but wonder why the hell they didn't seem to have a clue about what we were doing when we prayed as a family. It seems like they would at least show some excitement about our attempts to commune with God and even more excitement for God's attentive listening in. Instead of smiling up at Heavenly Father's loving face and basking in the window of spiritual bliss we've just opened, babies act like total heathens during prayers. In church too. They cry, they scream, they play, they eat, they shit, they hit, they sleep, and many other non-spiritual things. It was enough to make me doubt they had any connection to pre-Earth memory at all.

Heavenly fatherliness #14 - Affection for Mom

According to popular wisdom, a good father illustrates the importance of affection by professing his love for his children's mother in front of them.

Most of Christianity get's its panties in a bunch anytime Mormons suggest that Heavenly Father has a Heavenly Wife (or two). While Mormons believe very strongly in Her/Them, there's just not much of a scriptural basis to believe in a Mother in Heaven. Not that a scriptural foundation matters! The prophet could simply inquire of God to know a bit more about Heavenly Mother. We have modern-day revelation!

Instead we get decades of hearing that Heavenly Mother is too sacred to talk about (but at least the Church mentioned her in this Gospel Topics essay).

I guess we'll just have to be happy knowing that Heavenly Father loves Heavenly Mother so much that he won't give her any visibility at the moment. Is God affectionate towards Goddess? Um... sure. Of course. I mean, why should we doubt it? He's perfect, isn't he?

*These attributes represent the popularized and popularizing thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father. 

Heavenly fatherliness #13 - Quality time

According to popular wisdom, a good father spends quality (daily) time with his children.

Growing up Mormon I was told more than once that God is always watching over us, but I find that to be very wishful thinking. If God's there at all, he's doing a great job of staying out of sight. Imagine a father who simply watches his children via hidden camera, or who occasionally whispers something to you from down the hall or from the other side of a wall. I don't think that kind of behavior counts as quality time.

Let's not forget that we somehow have the ability to offend God and that the list of things that offend him is nothing short of enormous. He's just about the worst playmate anyone could hope for - the kind that will pick up his toys and stomp of at the drop of a hat. And this despite the fact that he knows us perfectly and already knows what we'll do before we do it! He can read our minds and then has the nerve to complain about our thoughts. Relax or butt out, Buddy!

Let's also revisit the concept of God waiting for us to come to him. Maybe he's just sitting around waiting for us to call or open the door or whatever, but that's really not what a good father's supposed to do. Come on, God, come entertain us a bit! Learn to appreciate what we like to do!

*These attributes represent the popularized and popularizing thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father. 

Heavenly fatherliness #5 - Support and loyalty

According to popular wisdom, a good father is supportive and loyal.

You might have heard that Our Father in Heaven will lift us up in our time of need. If that's all there were to it we could probably say that God's getting a thumbs up on this thing, but there's more. The thing is God will only sustain and support you if you're following his wishes and desires (i.e. Commandments). If you're not trying your hardest to do what he wants and being loyal to his standards, he'll make you pay. In this life and the next because the plan is you either do it God's way or you can face the consequences.

Instead of the All-powerful Father supporting his children, he calls on his children to validate and support him. Now what kind of father would act that way?

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.

Consummation

One of the most horrible ideas I grew up with had to do with making a matrimonial union official. It's a practice called consummation and the idea is that a couple has to have sex to make their marriage legitimate. The man must "take" the bride for her to "be his" in very fact. No sex, not a real marriage.

It's not a Mormon-born concept and I'm not sure if it counts as Mormon doctrine, but belief in it was alive and well in the Church during my formative years (but probably even more alive in the years Joseph Smith was prophet). My friends and I would sometimes talk about how soon after being sealed we were going to go consummate the marriage. Sometimes we would joke about doing it right away because we'd obviously be so horny right after the ceremony, but just as often we would choose the ASAP option because, according to our logic back then, you wouldn't want a terrible tragedy to happen and not have the marriage count. Either way, there was no time for delay.

Let's get some virgin blood on the sheets!

Nancy Mariah Winchester (Smith) Kimball Arnold - wife #35

Nancy Winchester (August 10, 1828 - March 17, 1876) moved to Kirtland with her recently converted parents and older brother at the age of about five. She herself was likely baptized three years later at the "age of accountability." The Winchesters later moved to Missouri, but by 1842 were in Nauvoo.

Nancy was fourteen or fifteen when she was secretly married to Joseph Smith. When he died, she and other wives of Joseph were married to Heber Kimball. Nancy separated from Heber and married Amos George Arnold after arriving in Utah. They had one son, George, together.

Elvira Annie Cowles Holmes (Smith) - wife #29

Elvira Holmes (November 23, 1813 - March 10, 1871) joined the Church in 1835 at the age of 22. Her father Austin Cowles had joined earlier.

Austin moved his family to Nauvoo in 1840 where Elvira gained employment at the Smith residence.

It was there she met Joseph Smith's long time friend Jonathan Holmes, to whom she was married (by Joseph) and with whom she bore two children. Six months after her marriage to Jonathan, Elvira was sealed to Joseph. Jonathan deeply resented that his children with Elvira would be given to Joseph in the Celestial Kingdom.

Elvira's father Austin disaffected from the Church and helped with the Nauvoo Expositor, the paper denouncing Joseph's secret polygamy and contributing to the local anger felt towards Joseph.

Elvira moved out west with the saints. Her husband Jonathan married his second wife, Sarah Ingersoll Harvey Lloyd, in 1862.

Elvira died in Farmington, Utah.

Sylvia Porter Sessions Lyon (Smith) Clark - wife #8

Sylvia Sessions (31 July, 1818 - 12 April, 1882) and her parents converted to Mormonism and left Maine for Missouri in 1837. Sylvia married Windsor Lyon, with whom she would have three children, all of which would die in infancy or childhood. Joseph Smith officiated the marriage. The young couple moved to Nauvoo in 1839 and by the beginning of 1842 Sylvia had joined the secret ranks of Joseph's plural wives.

Sylvia remained with Windsor, who likely did not known of his wife's polygamy.

Within about a month of burying her last surviving child with Windsor, she had a fourth child, Josephine Rosetta Lyon, whom she later claimed was the daughter of Joseph. The results of DNA testing are not available to confirm or discredit Sylvia's claim.

   

Josephine could be Joseph's. Her nose resemble's Sylvia's 
but her eyes and especially her mouth look more like Joseph's.
Her jaw looks appears to be a nice genetic compromise between the two.

Six years later Sylvia married Ezekiel Clark. They eventually moved to Utah.

With Sylvia's marriage to Joseph we encounter the same problem as seen with other marriages: Sylvia was not an eligible virgin and Emma had probably not given her consent to the marriage. However, this might be the rare marriages that might have actually produced "seed" unto dear Joseph.

Presendia Lanthrop Huntington Buell (Smith) Kimball - wife #6

Zina's older sister, Presendia Huntington (September 7, 1810 - February 1, 1892), also married Joseph Smith about two months later. Like Zina, Presendia was already married. She and her husband Norman, with whom she would have seven children, had been following Joseph Smith since joining the Church together in 1836.

Again, Joseph deserves a little credit for being upfront with Presendia about plural marriage (even if he was going behind Emma's back). To his discredit, it seems as though this marriage was likely part of a salvation bargain with Dimick Huntington, the brother of Zina and Presendia who officiated the marriage. That's right, Dimick gave off his sister in exchange for a place with Joseph and the Smith family in the Afterlife.

Dimick Baker Huntington, brother.

After the marriage Presendia continued to live with her first husband, Norman, until 1846 when he couldn't handle the Mormons anymore. She left him and one of her two surviving children, 16-year-old George, and took the other child, six-year-old Oliver, to go live as Heber C. Kimball's plural wife (his sixteenth at that point).

"I think no more of taking another wife than I do of buying a cow." (actual quote!)

Heber Chase Kimball, good man

Unaware that she had already married Heber, Norman tried to get back with Presendia only to be denied. Presendia and Heber had two children together: Presendia Celestia Kimball and Joseph Smith Kimball.

Presendia is yet another example of someone who according to the rules of polygamy should never have taken on a second husband. In the case of her marriage to Joseph Smith, she was not a virgin and the two never produced children; in the case of her marriage to Heber Kimball, she still wasn't a virgin and she was definitely sealed to another man.

But you don't need the rules to get a sense of how messed up the marriage game was in Nauvoo. If there is any righteousness in Presendia's story, you'll have to help me find it.