Good and Evil — Thinking of Moral Philosophy

Thursday,January 5th, 2012 Leave a comment

I must stress my disclaimers here, especially: These thoughts are my own, if by nothing else, my adopting them because they make sense and sound right. Also, I am by no means an official representative of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Just a member with a few decades of experience on local/district (call it diocese or, stake, as we call it). Please feel free to comment, even if you haven’t read every single word here–this is, after all, 1,500 words. I love learning new stuff.

Also, if you run into any leftover spilling mistokes, please let me know and I’ll fix ‘em.

There are many, who struggle to understand good and evil from a post-modern perspective. Read more…

Rise (and fall) of rational Theology

Sunday,August 7th, 2011 4 comments

When I mentioned King James Bible in an earlier post, I deliberately left out the turmoil of Continental Europe. The 17th century brought on wars that have somewhat falsely been called religious wars, but are generally the 30 years war.

It was about formerly Catholic princes, king, dukes etc. pitting their forces against Read more…

Celebrating King James Bible

Friday,August 5th, 2011 1 comment

Some others may have read the August Ensign, and noted the pages dedicated to celebrating 400 years of King James Bible. I was sort of inspired to put my 2 cents about the Bible in ordered bits as if someone else were interested in my thoughts. Feel free to criticise/correct me; but my hope is that people would study history, so we could learn from past mistakes. Read more…

Finding the historical “Truth”

Friday,June 17th, 2011 Leave a comment

It’s interesting to notice how easy it is to misunderstand/misinterpret history. Historical “facts” arise from different sources, and it is the historian’s job to sift the documentary evidence and see what kind of balance comes out in the end. And the balance doesn’t necessarily come from the volume of the documentation. Popular lies get reported much more–creating documentary evidence–than the uncomfortable truth. Read more…

Crisis, Choice and Commitment

Thursday,May 26th, 2011 Leave a comment

So a theme I’ve been reading about lately is the crisis of faith phenomena in Mormon circles. It seems that there are endless numbers of people who 1) have been brought up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) by parents, who have taught the gospel at home and have strongly supported their childrens’ activity; 2) have also “found out” something they think is compromising Read more…

Oh, Mother!

Friday,May 20th, 2011 Leave a comment

So, I am being “inspired” to write this partially (a big part, I must confess) by an article/podcast discussion about the issue at MormonMatters.org. Not plagiarizing, but just tossing out some thoughts to consider. I encourage you to get familiar with the article and podcast.

The podcast shoots down some stuff that many of us LDS folks have heard in recent decades. An example: “We don’t talk about Heavenly Mother Read more…

The Other Major Spiritual Tradition from Middle East

Thursday,April 21st, 2011 1 comment

I am going to discuss different spiritual traditions. First of all, it is good to get the idea across, that for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints it’s an article of faith that:

  1. “…we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.” (Articles of Faith 9)
  2. “… [i]f there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.” Read more…

Rachel vs. Leah

Friday,April 15th, 2011 4 comments

I’ve been reading the Old Testament, and one of the things that have caught my eye is the rivalry between Rachel and Leah.

The basic setting is, that Jacob is more fond of Rachel, but Leah is the one who bears children to Jacob, and in their nomadic society children were an asset, not a liability as they these days seem to be Read more…

Women in The Priesthood

Thursday,April 14th, 2011 Leave a comment

Now and again I hear someone ask when women will receive the Priesthood, which I spell with a capital P to denote that I mean the Priesthood expounded in the D&C as a whole package, including all the covenants. The Priesthood is incomplete without the covenants.

It is true, that a woman does not receive ordination. On the other hand, even if a man has had hands laid upon his head, he has not received the Priesthood, or fullness of it, unless Read more…

Hierarchy

Sunday,March 20th, 2011 Leave a comment

What is “hierarchy”? Let me answer in the words of etymology dictionary:

c.1343, from O.Fr. ierarchie,  from M.L. hierarchia  ”ranked division of angels” (in the system of Dionysius the Areopagite), from Gk. hierarchia  ”rule of a high priest,” from hierarches  ”high priest, leader of sacred rites,” from ta hiera  ”the sacred rites” (neut. pl. of hieros  ”sacred”) + archein  ”to lead, rule.” Sense of “ranked organization of persons or things” first recorded 1619, initially of clergy, probably infl. by higher Read more…

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