Ethics of Belief

If you are someone who is waiting for evidence to justify your beliefs in and practicing of Mormonism, take a few minutes with William Clifford's short essay "The Ethics of Belief". His beard is so prophetic!

Gay Mormon Husbands on TV

The Daily Beast had a good article the other day questioning the ethics of a new reality TV show featuring gay men married to straight women. Read it up. The brief summary of homosexuality in Mormonism is worth it.

Heavenly fatherliness #38 - With the times

According to popular wisdom, a good father does not try to maintain some gold standard of his own time - he allows his children to be citizens of their day and age.

Out of date parents and grandparents are an extremely common comic trope. Technology's a bitch to keep up with. Pop culture is impossible. Political correctness is a huge headache. There's a lot to keep up on.

Asking anyone to stay completely up to date is, I think, a very tall order. We spend our whole lives trying to figure life out and by the time we hit a certain age or place in life we like to think we have a certain understanding. We know what we like and what we don't like. We find good things, work hard and made sacrifices to get them. We become interested in preserving what we have instead of deciding what we want. We go through a lot of shit and learn a lot of life lessons. We see people get hurt, hurt a few ourselves, and develop an idea or two about how to be nice. We might even feel clear on what's right and wrong. How are we supposed to give that up? How do we stay loose and adaptable?

Thankfully Heavenly Father's standard of being is an eternal standard. We just don't fully understand those standards, that's why he defines earthly, cultural standards according to the immediate needs of his children - so we can understand them. Kind of. He's a little hard to figure out, as the number of doubts expressed on this blog might indicate.

What we understand to be godly changes constantly. Much of what is considered to be godly is by today's standards horribly unethical. I doubt the whole "eternal standard" argument is a good approach any more. How do we arrive at ethical behavior through observance of  God's standards when they're so clearly man-made?

*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.

Heavenly fatherliness #30 - Work ethic

According to popular wisdom, a good father has a strong work ethic.

We all know that God worked very hard when he created everything and declared it all to be very good. Then he rested a lot. He also works to bring about our eternal happiness. Works... Worked. Well maybe not him, but Jehovah-Jesus worked. God kind of delegated everything to him, remember?

Jehovah (who is pre-mortal Jesus, according to Mormon doctrine) created the Universe and was the god of the Old Testament. Then, when Jehovah took on a tabernacle of flesh, he changed his name to Joshua (a.k.a. Jesus) and took a couple of hours to die for everyone, at which point he declared "It is finished." Work's over, time to go home.

But we can't say Heavenly Father's not pulling his load just because Jesus gets to do the all the heavy lifting: creating, self-sacrificing, and final judging. Let's not forget that someone had to come up with the blueprints, the plan, and the laws. That's a lot of big brain business. I'd like to see you orchestrate something as detailed and time sensitive as setting up a purebred Joseph son of Joseph (descendant of Joseph, who was sold into Egypt) finding ancient scriptures before anyone else. I'm sure he really had to sit down and think that thing through.

Then again, how hard can this kind of organization be for God? Can we really believe the Man who knows everything and has all power does anything that he himself might call work? What kind of effort would actually register on the scale of God's infinite abilities?

I'm not seeing how this adds up.

*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.

Brainwashing children

By the time I hit high school I started realizing how sickening the Primary songs were. Primary is the name of the Mormon Church's Sunday school program for children ages four to twelve a healthy chunk of which is dedicated to learning and singing songs. 

A few of the songs are about things like a tall snowman melting in the sun, apricot trees blossoming in the Spring, a spider crawling up a rain pipe (not included in the Songbook), and a kind of Simon Says-type number, but those sorts of songs are mostly for the youngest kids only. The older children get to enjoy an exclusive diet of songs that clearly classify as heavy-handed indoctrination efforts.

By far the most beloved of all Mormon songs for children young and old is "I am a Child of God", a little number with intimidating lyrics like "help me to understand His words / Before it grows too late" and carrot waving lyrics like "Celestial glory shall be mine / If I can but endure". This is where it all begins for Mormon children. Kids have to know that they have a Very Real Daddy in Heaven who's more awesome than the one hanging around the house and that if they behave themselves He'll give them a Very Big Treat. Kid's love this song. The music is so earnest. Parents love it too. It's a sure-fire tear jerker when the Primary kids sing it together in front of the whole congregation.

Other classic Mormon brainwashing songs included hits like "I Know My Father Lives" (they know no such thing), "I Hope They Call Me on a Mission" (they have no idea what a mission is or what it's like), the very spooky "Follow the Prophet", the similarly themed "Keep the Commandments", and a bizarre song about loving to see the temple (when they have only the vaguest idea of what goes on in the temple). There's even a song about happily giving money to the Church (little children don't make any money)! Browsing the Children's Songbook will quickly offer up a good many more examples of how Mormons hone passion and dedication for concepts and practices in children long before those concepts can be understood or the practices can be put in place. Mormon children never have a chance of formulating their own opinions or working through independent thoughts because they're taught to keep these songs on repeat in their head at all times.

My teenage self was the truest of true believers when it comes to True Believing Mormons. I was all in and pitied anyone who couldn't see just how clear and simple and perfect the Gospel and the Church were. But I was also considering not allowing any child of mine to go to Singing Time. I seriously doubted the ethics of placing a child inside the brainwashing machine. But, instead of exploring the implications of unethical treatment of children in the Church, I moved forward with faith, went to the temple, and served a mission just as the primary songs taught me to do.