Showing emotion

A recent Infants on Thrones episode got me thinking once again about my internal response to the tears of general authorities in General Conference and other venues. I WOULD CRINGE.

My response had nothing to do with masculine insecurities about crying in public or anything like that; instead, it had everything to do with the seeming lack of authentic emotion in the tears. In other words, IT FELT LIKE THEY WERE FAKING.

Only slightly less convincing than a general authority.

Even if my gut told me I should be suspicious of a leader sharing his tender side, my brain told me I should believe. I blamed myself for not feeling what the speaker was feeling (the Spirit, of course) and buried my skepticism. These men were on a higher plane than me. I needed to trust them. Why would they be faking it anyway? What would these men in high leadership positions, with hundreds, thousands, or millions of people following their every word, possibly have to lose?

"United to persecute me"

 

"Soun's like bullshit, son. I'm gonna go excite the public mind agains' ya!"

Why, oh why did Joseph not say anything about being persecuted until many years after his First Vision? Why, oh why did no one in Joseph Smith's family (or anyone else, for that matter) talk about Joseph suffering persecution at the hand of the community?

It looks to me like Joseph, in an effort to turn himself into a new Paul, concocted a narrative of persecution for his followers to latch onto. A little pathos goes a long way. (Maybe he was persecuted but it wasn't quite as bad as he later made it out to be.)

But why worry about the early persecution at all? How does persecution logically indicate you're right about anything? Answer: because Satan.

Heavenly fatherliness #3 - Coping with emotions

According to popular wisdom, a good father must be able to express his feelings in a healthy, balanced way.

Talk to your typical Mormon and he'll tell you that the Heavenly Father feels love, pity, disappointment, wrath, and maybe a couple of other emotions, and because he's perfect he certainly never behaves badly when in a particular mood.

I say no way. If we take the stories of the Old and New Testaments as representative of God's standard behavior we have to conclude that he's anything but stable. It takes every effort you can muster to keep the Big Man from flying off the handle. Remember when he killed everyone on Earth except Noah and his small family? Remember how he killed Uzzah for trying to be helpful? Remember how he's supposedly responsible for earthquakes and pestilence and famine and all that sort of thing because that's how he expresses his anger toward people who don't obey His Holy Laws? When's the last time you met a father like that and didn't call the cops on him? Or at least think he was a total piece of shit?

But we should back up a bit here because I have a problem with the whole idea that God the Father feels anything at all. How can an omniscient being with a perfect spirit/soul (and a perfect body) be effected by any event or collection of events taking place in the universe that he himself made and utterly controls? If God has known since literally forever everything that we will have done in our lives doesn't that kind of soften the punch, if not totally neutralize it? If God's being is so complete (i.e. perfect) and integral how could anything we ever do move him in any direction, either towards happiness or sadness, peace or violence, contentment or frustration? What exactly is an omnipotent being supposed to be susceptible to?

Whether Our Father's the abusive shithead you read about in Scriptures, or the untouchable self-subsiting One beyond our petty emotions, I can only conclude that he doesn't sound like any dad I'd like to have.

*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.

Whittling our wicks

Even though Jesus supposedly fulfilled the Law of Moses and the uncircumcised have been initiated into God's covenant people since the days of Paul, Mormons in the United States still think it's a very good idea to have their newborn sons' prepuce paired down a tich.

I'm really can't imagine why God thought circumcision was a good practice in the first place. Or why it would be necessary. Didn't God create our bodies just the way he wanted them? So why'd he come back at us with a design adjustment?

 (Circumcision comes at the end...)

For some strange reason, God thought circumcision might be an effective sign of fidelity to him even though the only people who would see this physical sign were the circumcised men and their wives. It would have made more sense to trim down earlobes or something more visible and less functional. Oh well, God's not exactly known for his logic - mystery is more his game.

Let me ask you this: WHY WOULD YOU WORSHIP A BEING WHO SAYS "IF YOU LOVE ME  CUT YOUR PENIS!"? That's pretty messed up. If this reminds you of any of your intimate relationship I recommend you get out of them before you incur any further abuse.

Moving now to modern Mormonism, why exactly it is that members are so okay with this painful and presumptuous practice puzzles me. My guess is that it has more to do with being a part of American culture than than it does God's culture. (Then again, maybe God's insecure enough that he requires all his boys' penises to look like his.)

Mormons (and Americans in general), please stop cutting your sons. If they want the snip they can decide for themselves later. InthenameofOiledJoshua,Amen!