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.

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.