Crazy Comes Full Circle

Several years ago I listened to a book on tape The Crisis of Islam: Holy War and Unholy Terror. I hope any readers of this blog and the author will forgive me for any mistakes I make in referencing that book.

That said, there was a fascinating part discussing how the ideas of Millennial Rule propogated from one group to the next. The idea isn't new, but the most common thread starts with the Book of Revelations in the Bible. It goes something like this:

• There's going to be a time of great trouble.
  
• The world is divided into The Good and The Evil.
  
• Eventually, the Evil will be destroyed.
  
• Once all evil has been eradicated, there will follow 1,000 years of happiness and joy for the Good people left over.
  

In the case of the original story in Revelations, this was tied into the early Christian church and Yahweh worship. Eventually, everybody would believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of Yahweh and the Redeemer of the World, all the bad people would be cleansed off the earth, and everything would be awesome.

Ever since then, various groups tried to use this idea, only with changes, and with each adaptation the concept, the Good and the Evil was changed. You start off with Christians being The Good and everybody else being The Bad.

Then came along people like Lenin and Stalin. But in their view, it was the bourgeois (aka the rich and powerful) versus the proletariat (aka the regular/poor people). Once you got rid of all of the rich people and destroyed their power, then you'd have a utopia that would last for at least a thousand years.

Then the Nazi's came along, and they said "Oh, no no no. You guys have this all wrong. See, it's the Aryans who are the Good and the pure ones, and the Jews/gypsies/homosexuals/anybody but Aryans who are the Evil - especially the Jews. So if we just kill off all of the Jews, then anyone else non-Aryan, then we'll have a 1,000 year Reich where everyone will be happy."

Then, if my recollection of The Crisis of Islam is correct, this idea was then picked up by the Baathists. Certain scholars were in Germany as World War II was starting up,and when they returned to the Middle East they said "You know, these Germans have a great idea - only they got it all wrong. Clearly, the Arabians (or the Persians if you were in Iran) are The Good, and everyone else (especially the Jews!) are The Evil. So if we just get rid of all of the Jews and then the non-Arabians, only Good people will be left and we'll have a thousand years of peace."

Guess what happened when Al-Qaida popped up? In their case, The Good were Muslims (at least, their brand of Islam which was much more strict and something like you see the Taliban go by), and the Evil was everybody who wasn't Muslim - or their brand of Islam. Originally, they were attacking other Muslims in the Middle East, since if they could get rid of the "not strict enough Muslims" then they'd have peace. But then they decided that they had to get rid of the non-Muslims first, then go after the not-strict-enough Muslims - so Al-Qaida shifted its attention to the United States.

So where am I going with this? Well, it turns out that this crazy, stupid notion that if only you could get rid of (really, kill off) The Evil and then everything will be wonderful has once again returned to Christianity.

OK, it never really left it - there have been groups that have been looking forward to The End Of The World and the Destruction of the Non-Believers since at least 50 CE. This has been true in the United States, between the Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses and so on.

That said, those groups have been fairly benign compared to the other groups I mentioned. However, the US is now facing a new round of crazy. Take Hawaii, where a candidate for governor who's a member of a church that is campaigning against witches.

Witches. In the year 2010. And not just witches, but they want to go about and "If you have any idols in your home, we're gonna burn 'em! If you have any witchcraft items in your home, we're gonna burn 'em!" It's what you see in the Tea Party/David Barton/Glenn Beck historical revisionism that tries to convince people that the United States was always meant to be Christian, that the Founders didn't want any other religion than Christianity - and if you're of any other religion, or believe set, or even don't have a religion other than Christianity: then you must be evil.

It's a notion that seeks to replace all knowledge such as in the Texas schoolboard system to get rid of the ideas of The Evil (aka - non-Christian), because if we could just get rid of those, then we'd have a perfect country and have 1,000 years of peace and happiness. It's the same thinking that produces people like Christine O'Donnell, a Senate candidate who doesn't believe that the 1st Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits government from establishing religion. It's what leads people to make stupid comments like "Not all Muslims are terrorists, but all terrorists are Muslims.".

The stupidity, the rank fearmongering isn't astounding. What's astounding is how many people are falling for it, and willingly embracing it.

It's the same old tribalism that "if only The Other" would

Blond and Pabst declare secularism has failed. By ignoring history, science, reason....

I thought I'd take about, oh, 5 minutes and show why the Blond and Pabst article is full of fail.

The article itself is in the Opinion section of the New York Times. If this is the level of quality for the New York Times opinion section, it may explain why newspaper readership is down.

Or, they were hoping for some sensationalism to drive traffic, like John C. Dvorak.
Either way, it only takes a few minutes to see how they have major failings in their argument.

This was a profoundly secular move: It simply denied natural knowledge of God and thereby eliminated theology from the sciences. Religion, stripped of rationality, became associated with a blind unmediated faith — precisely the mark of fanaticism. Thus religious fundamentalism constitutes an absence of religion that only true religion can correct.

I would say that secularism argues that there is no supernatural or divine beings in the absence of evidence. Even Richard Dawkins, in a recent podcast, mentioned that you can't say "there absolutely is no god", the best you can say is "there is no evidence of a god."

That's all secularism asks for. Rather than assuming that X exists, it first starts with "what is the evidence for X", and if the evidence does not hold up, then secularists are free to assume X does not exist. Provide evidence for unicorns and leprechauns and I'll believe. Until then, I'm not running after every rainbow to get a pot of gold.

Richard Dawkins's barely literate polemic "The God Delusion" declares that religion is irrational without ever explaining the foundations of reason itself.
This, to be blunt, is simply asinine. I don't need to go into a history of the background of reason and logic to explain why there's no Santa Claus.
Sam Harris's diatribe "The End of Faith" has to falsify history by claiming that Hitler and Stalin were religious in order to make its case for the malign influence of faith.

I'd say the job of falsifying history by claiming that Hitler was an atheist when he spoke of Christianity often, had his soldiers wearing Gott mit uns during World War II. Or ignoring Stalin's educational training at Greek Orthodox schools. Either way, trying to deny these facts and put them into the "atheism" box is disingenuous. Nobody knows what these two monsters really felt about religion, but it's clear - as Sam Harris has said - that what they lacked was not overfill of reason and opinion opinions, but a more - if I may say so - "faith based approach" that went out of its way to assert the dogma of Communism and Nazism was correct against all evidence.
One more, and then I don't know if I can keep up my gag reflex in the face of this much stupidity.

Darwinism is close to being completely rewritten. Hitherto, it had been assumed that forms of life are the product of essentially arbitrary processes, such that (as Stephen Jay Gould put it) if we ran evolution again life would look very different. However, evolution shows biological convergence. As Simon Conway Morris, a professor of biology at Cambridge University, has argued, evolution is not arbitrary: If it ran again, the world would look much as it already does.

How often does it have to be said: evolution by natural selection is not random, it is not arbitrary. It follows rules that were first discovered 150 years ago by Darwin and refined since then. Saying "evolution is random" is no more true than saying "plate tectonics are random" or "germ theory is random." If the clock was run back and run again, things would look the same because the same environmental pressures upon the species would be there to make them adapt in exactly the same way.
This doesn't mean that some power sat from above to push things that way. If I set up a series of dikes and channels, then ran water through it, the results would be the 99.9999% the time each time I ran the clock back and did it again.

This is only getting halfway through the article. I don't know who Blond and Pabst are, but they're clearly people that can be ignored as either ignorant of science and reason, or lacking the brain power to tie their shoes, let alone make statements regarding Secularism or, well, anything.

Anyone else sorely tempted to go to Ireland - and start blaspheming things?

I'm usually rather nice about respecting other people's religion. I may not believe in divine beings, but I don't go wandering into their churches and insulting them (if anything, I try and interview them for a show in a very nice manner so people can see we don't have to be afraid of each other).

But this law passed in Ireland is tempting me. I want to go there now, to walk the green fields and stony paths. And blaspheme the hell out of everything. I want to make jokes about how we know that Jesus never married, or how Brigham Young would have killed for a Viagra, or who would be most insulted by a double bacon burger - a Muslim or a Hindu.

Not because I want to really insult anyone but the people who made this ridiculous blaspheme law. I'd love to see legions of people, wandering Ireland like Gandhi or Doctor King, being arrested in the name of blaspheme to show what a ridiculous law it is.

I'm probably just being an ass, but stuff like this makes me want to do things, even if its just insult the hell out of the people that are creating ridiculous laws that the world doesn't need.

How can you be a Democrat if you're a Mormon?

I get asked this sometimes. I even had an experience at church today when someone said "Oh, don't you know that you can't get a temple recommend if you're a Democrat?"

They were joking. Mostly.

As for me supporting a Democrat, I guess it was an odd combination of my examination of conservative cultural values and economic realities. I think that government should not legislate morality - it should (and does) have the power to influence incentives in order to move common goals.

For example: roads. Everyone agrees that roads are important. Good roads make driving safer. Good roads mean that people save more money because you spend less gas and wear and tear for your car. The quibbles come in on how much to spend on the roads. Do we just pay for inner city roads, or do we take care of the roads in rural areas too that don't have as much traffic? Do we want to have super great roads, or roads that are "good enough", then let individual areas pay for better roads? Or should we ignore roads in general? There are people - mainly in the libertarian belief - that hold that private business would just build roads themselves without government help, since they have a financial incentive to do so. (Which ignores pretty much all of recorded history from the Roman and Chinese empire on down that shows when governments that build better roads tend to be more powerful empires - those that leave it to "someone will do it" don't do nearly as well.)

However - I have a serious issue when people want to legislate morality. I know - I shouldn't be a Mormon democrat. But the 11th article of faith states:

"We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may."

Based on that, I find it fascinating that the Republican party - which used to espouse the view that government should have no role in people's lives, switched during the early 1970's to a party that, over the next 20 years, became dominated with worrying about abortion, gay marriage, prayer in school, and whether the 10 commandments displays should be paid for by governments. Before 1970, any given Republican would have said "hell no" - and I would have agreed *based on the tenants of my faith not to allow government to interfere with people's individual religious beliefs*.

Then, after the 1972 supreme court decision regarding the ability for government to tax religious business assets, the Republican party got in bed with conservative business religious leaders. Note the distinction between "religious assets", which are non-taxable, and "religious business assets". A church is non-taxable. A church that owns a business garage and charges people to park there Monday through Saturday (when the church is not in operation) *is* taxable (depending on the state you live in).

After that, the Republicans - party of business - decided to hop in bed with religious leaders to espouse their views of "less government taxation" - a viewpoint I can understand. But by the 80's Reagen area and then the 2000 election, those cultural issues that religious leaders care about had far outstripped the traditional conservative values that had existed in the Republican party prior to the 1970's. I read through speeches given in the 1980 Republican convention speaking out against sodomy laws in Texas - laws that the Supreme Court later ruled were unconstitutional. By 1990, no Republican spoke out against anti-gay laws.

In the end, I supported that I couldn't support the Republicans on cultural issues, because I believe that church should stay out of state. And vice-versa.

The second issue, however, is economics. I like what works. I still have a scientific mind. If someone works, do that. If something doesn't work, stop doing it. The model of the sun in the center of the solar system worked, and though Galileo was tortured, eventually the Catholic church had to admit that yes, he was right, no matter what the dogma says.

During the 1900 - 1920's, the model was "business will control itself". Then came the 1929 crash, and suddenly the entire world learned that no - business *can't* control itself.

Economics is all about incentive. It's not about money - though we measure money by incentive. Is the incentive to spend money wisely - or to spend it on short term, riskier gain?

During the 1920's stock market, there were little to no controls, especially over banks. Banks were playing in the stock market with their customer's money. This is what made the collapse so harsh - banks that had $1,000 in their customers savings might have had $50,000 invested the stock market - so when the market fell, so did their customer's savings.

In the 1930's, Roosevelt and others sat down and figured out how to structure things. Banks couldn't invest money in the stock market - they could invest in loans and such, and only a certain ratio. (For example, $1,000 in customers savings and maybe only $5,000 in loans outstanding.) This way when things fall apart, customers won't be hurt too bad - and then there's the FDIC that all banks must pay into so if they do screw up, people don't lose their money. Banks weren't allowed to get bigger than a certain size. The stock market became more transparent.

I like to compare the economy to Nascar - I know, I've used this analogy before, but here it is again. Nascar used to be a lot more dangerous than it is now - there weren't concrete barriers, just people watching in stands. The cars could go as fast as possible, and there weren't pace cars. There were news reports of "car spins out of control and people get killed" - not often, but just enough that it was part of the excitement. Drivers actually found they were blacking out on some tracks because the turns were too sharp.

So rules were instituted. Engines couldn't be bigger or accelerate faster than a certain value. Drivers had to have protective harnesses. Concrete blocks protected the stands. There are pace cars so if there's an accident, everybody can slow down long enough to fix the problem, then the race can begin. It's still exciting, there are still crashes, there are still winner and losers - but not nearly as many people get hurt or killed as before.

During the 70's, 80's, and especially in the last 8 years under Bush, those rules have been relaxed. Phil Gramm - McCain's economic adviser - lobbied for language that removed the protection between "investment banks" (which are banks that don't do checking/savings, but just invest in the stock market), and commercial banks (the banks you and I use). With those protections down, banks could now have more debt than cash on hand. Banks could get super huge - "too big to fail." Then the failure of the housing market - which is another issue entirely, but it was done with the attitude of "let's not regulate this stuff - it'll fix itself", an idea that was championed by Republicans.

It's as if the Republican party said "OK - at Nascar races, get rid of the rules. The crowds want to get involved - so take down the barriers! Drivers want to go faster - let them do whatever they want to the cars. If it's too dangerous, they'll just slow down by themselves. If there's an accident, don't worry about pace cars - people will know if they don't slow down they'll get hurt."

The exact same scenario as what used to happen in the older unsafe Nascar days - only now we have even faster cars. So now we have a situation where there's a massive accident, cars are on fire all over the road, cars have crashed into the stands and people are bleeding and dying - and the question is "What happened? How could this have happened? We don't understand!"

I do. And I hate to say it, but the blame is 80% on the Republicans - and that's why when I started getting involved the studying the issues, I decided that I had to support the Democratic policies. Because, as a guy with a scientific mind, I was able to observe what worked and what doesn't. We tried it the Republican way for almost 30 years now starting with Reagen. Republican promised if they had more control of government, they'd make government smaller, leaner, more efficient and less involved in our lives. More fiscally responsible.

Instead, under Reagen, Bush I and Bush II, it's been worse. More deficits. Spending out of control. Spending - especially in Iraq - geared towards making the rich even richer by paying them taxpayer dollars. More infiltration of the government into our daily lives (like the NSA spying on our phone calls without warrants, or expanded powers of the TSA into our airline travel - expansions that security experts like me say just don't work compared to old fashioned police work).

And that's why I support a Democratic candidate. Even though I'm LDS.

The first Matthew 25 ad

Anyone else detecting just a *bit* of snark here?

Ever wonder what happens at a John Hagee bible retreat?

Evidently - vomiting. Vomiting into paper bags and speaking in tongues. An undercover investigation by Rolling Stone lets it all out into the open, and it's creepier than you can imagine.

OK - maybe trashing God's planet isn't such a good thing

About a year ago, the Southern Baptist Convention made a big stink about how global warming, even if it *was* real, wasn't man's fault and we should just leave it up to God to fix.

Evidently, they're starting to wake up to the idea that maybe, just maybe, you should clean up your mess before God gets mad about it.

It's funny its taken so long - heck, in Genesis, God is telling Adam he has "dominion" over the Earth. It's not "domination", or "dictatorship", it's "dominion", as in "you are responsible for it - don't screw it up".

Proof I am a jerk - religious jerkitude

Minister:  Hi, we're going door to door giving out light bulbs, to remind people of the light of God!

Me:  I can not accept that light bulb.

Minster:  Why not?  It's free?

Me:  It's incandescent.  We believe in using compact flourescent light bulbs, because they use less energy.  That way, we don't contribute to the destruction of the Earth by burning more fossil fuels.  After all, if we truly loved God, wouldn't we try to reduce the harm we cause his creation, instead of encouraging people to burn more energy?

Minster:  Uh - it's just a light bulb.

Me:  Thanks, but by their fruits you shall know them.  Sorry - and have a nice day.

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Mitt Romney: You are a bad Mormon

I just heard the Mitt Romney consession speech.  And as a Mormon, I am incredibly offended.

We are taught from youth to "do what Jesus would do".  That when you are in the service of your fellow man, you are only in the service of your God (as taught by the Book of Mormon).  The words of Jesus that even as much as ye have done it unto the least of these my bretheren, ye have done it unto me.

Instead, Romney's campaign ending speech was full of hate.  That those who are poor should suffer - it's they're own damn fault for being such lazy sots.  Ignoring again the words of King Benjamen:

16 And also, ye yourselves will succor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the beggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.

17 Perhaps thou shalt say: the man has brought upon himself his misery; therefore I will stay my hand, and I will not give unto him of my food, nor impoart unto him of my substance that he may not suffer, for his punishments are just-

18 But I say unto you, O man, whosoever doeth this the same hath great cause to repent; and except he repenteth of that which he had done he perisheth forever, and hath no interest in the kingdom of God.

(Mosiah 4:16-18, Book of Mormon)

Romney's last speech in his campaign was against the evils of Liberalism, and how it would expand Medicare, Medicaid, and the ways we try to help the needy, those who either can not provide for themselves (single mothers, those with ailments), or can not do so because of a lost job or other reasons.  He talked about how countries that do well do so because of their culture, while ignoring that in places like Canada, Britain, France, and the like have health care and systems to provide aid to all who need it - and enjoy a higher standard of living than in the United States, were we allow *millions* to go without health care.

He spoke about the need to continue the War on Terror, and peddled fear.  Ignoring that perhaps we have caused our own oil dependency, and blamed it on Chavez and Putin and others - and his solution?  Well, use coal!  After all, going from one dependency to the next doesn't fix the problem.  Changing the structure of our cities so more people can use public transportation (oh, noes, teh evil - public works!) actually does.  I saw it in Utah, the most conservative state, embrace public transportation - and the entire state benefited.

Romney spoke about protecting marriage and stopping the evils of pornography.  Ignoring the 11th Article of Faith, given by the Prophet Joseph Smith to explain our beliefs to the world:

We claim the privilege of worshiping Almight God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may

Instead, Romney would force his religious beliefs upon others in the name of "protecting marriage", once again scapegoating someone else (teh gays, oh noes!) instead of having people look and decide for themselves what they will believe and worship - or not.

It's ironic - in part of his talk me mentioned how we have never taken land as part of our wars.  Well, other than Texas, and the mid-west I guess, if you don't know your history.  But then to blatantly ignore Iraq, and how we *have* claimed land, and property, and oil, and businesses, and forced the new Iraqi government so sign contracts that gave away their resources to US companies.  Yeah, we didn't take land for ourselves during the 20th Century - instead, we waited until the 21st and used the War on Terror to justify taking what we wanted from a country that had never attacked us.

So I'm sorry - but if his speech is the center of Conservative ideals, then I'm proud to be a Liberal.  I'm proud not to demonizing people for their beliefs.  I'm proud to let people believe how they will.  I'm proud to be willing to give up some of my income - even with three children to support - to help those in need.

And if Mitt Romney is going to speak out against those ideals, then yes, I believe he speaks against the faith he and I profess to believe in.  And I am ashamed to have him count him as a fellow member.

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Mitt Romney is Wrong: Religion requires freedom

I've been thinking about Mr. Romney's speech.

First of all, I'm Mormon. Which means that I'm about to be followed by a bunch of comments regarding holy underwear and wives and plates and whatever. To which I'll only say: whatever. Just as weird as believing that a piece of cracker turns to blood in your mouth, or that you get 70 virgins if you die defending your faith. Yes, we had a problem with racism up until the 1970's, and the whole polygamy thing is good for a laugh. Every religion "grows up", and mine is pretty young that suffered some trauma early on.

Second: Mr. Romney was wrong when he said "Freedom requires religion". He's wrong logically, he's especially wrong when it comes to the tenants of the Mormon faith. What he did was throw out a bone to the religious right who want to see separation of church and state brought down. Yet when you ask any Mormon (or at least, any one that I've talked to down here in Florida), they think that's a terrible, terrible idea.

Why is Mr. Romney wrong based on Mormon faith? Mormons like myself believe that God inspired the US Constitution. He didn't write it, but he inspired the people behind it. Why? Again, by Mormon belief, so that there would be a nation conceived in liberty that would allow religious freedom to allow the conditions of the restoration of the church.

Think about that a second: Mr. Romney said "Freedom requires religion". But right away, according to Mormon faith, he runs into a major problem: the history of the church believes that the Constitution was created with freedom of religion, in order to allow free expression of religion to occur.

Therefore, one could only conclude by the Mormon faith that it is not that "Freedom requires religion", but "Religion requires freedom"! Without free expression of religious beliefs, you can not have complete expression of any religion.

Then, look at other countries. Do they have religion in China? Sure. Do they have free expression of it? No. Therefore, people having religious beliefs haven't magically made China a flourishing democracy.

Mormons believe strongly in the separation of church and state. The 11th article of faith reads "We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may."

I might have added "Or not, as they may", but hey, it was the 1800's, atheists were a crazy idea to some people. Then again, so was the idea finding plates that said that Jesus visited America, so forgive him. Mormons know what happens without complete separation of church and state - you get a situation where your religion gets murdered just because you have crazy ideas that Jesus was the son of God (literally) or something, and then you run to Utah.

Trust me - the vast majority of Mormons that I've talked to strongly believe in the separation of church and state.

I haven't met a single Mormon in my area that wants to vote for Mr. Romney. I don't want to vote for him. I would have supported him if he kept his "beliefs" that gay marriage was fine, and his pro-choice statements (yes, there are Mormons like myself who are pro-gay marriage and pro-choice because of my beliefs in constitutional freedoms, which are separate from my religious beliefs). By dropping them once he ran for president, he's only proven to me he's a guy who will say anything to get elected, so I don't know *what* he believes, save in power.

So, Mr. Romney is wrong - Freedom does *not* require Religion. Free expression of Religion requires Freedom of expression, separation of church and state to ensure that no other religion can enforce its beliefs on others. To say otherwise only proves that not only is he a bad candidate, but also a badly thinking Mormon.

Of course, this is all just my opinion. I could be wrong.
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Hm. Religoius recital

My daughter has been taking guitar lessons for the last 6 months or so. She's learned to read music, and though I have to remind her to practice, she's at least getting musical proficiency.

Within the last month we've switched guitar instructors to someone more local - saves me a 20 - 25 minute drive down to about 5 minutes. So that's fine.

Yesterday I didn't take her - I had a long day at work, and My Lovely Wife offered to take my daughter to practice instead. That was fine. I kept working on dinner so when they came back it would all nice and hot.

After dinner was served, my daughter told me in breathless tones about how she would get to play in a recital. For a Christmas recital. At a church!

"Hmmm." I said. Not very nicely, to be honest.

My wife looked at me. "What's that 'hmmm' about?"

This is where I mention that the music shop where Emily gets her lessons is a music/Christian book store. I know what you're thinking. "John, aren't you a Christian?"

Yeah. I am. I'm also a gamer, but you don't see me hanging a Game Boy around my neck either. I take very seriously the idea that "let not your left hand know what your right hand does" - the stuff that Jesus talked about that said you don't wear your religion on your sleeve for the praise of man, but just do your job. Be nice to people. Help the poor and the sick and the needy.

The idea that you'd wear an instrument of torture around your neck to show off how much you believe honestly offends me. That you need your own branch of music and literature to be "pure enough" bugs me as well - we're suppose to live in the world, not separate ourselves from it.

And to be honest, some of my own personal history coming through. I was plagued as a teenager by people trying to "save me" from being a Mormon (since evidently believing in Jesus as the Son of God, the resurrection, the atonement, and that the guy walked on water isn't good enough for some people out there). They'd bring up the stupidest things ("Do you really believe women are eternally pregnant in heaven?")

Now, up until this point, I kind of ignored the store's secondary function. I noticed the cross earrings and the video tapes of cartoons for children taking them on a tour through the history of the bible. It was there, I didn't care. I was there for my daughter's guitar lessons.

And then, she's invited to play at a church.

Yeah. I have a problem with it. I have a problem because now I'm worried the first time my daughter says "Uh huh - I was baptized and my daddy did it in California".

Then someone says "What church do you go to".

And my daughter says "I go to the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints."

And then someone gives me The Look, and they try to "convert" my daughter, or my family. Or tell her she doesn't go to a "real" church. Or start arguing about whether their God is bigger than my God or some stupid crap like that. Those that know me know I won't just be able to let it go. Odds are, I'll be sarcastic at first as a warning of "Hey, let's not discuss this, I'm not going to get into your arguments." Then if they get pushing I'll use reason as a "Does it really matter, let's just focus on something else."

Then I'll get mean.

Maybe I'm worrying too much about it. Maybe I'm projecting my own negative experiences onto the situation. Maybe I should just go, not worry about it, and let things fall as they may.

Dr. House and the Mormon Doctor

Last night I was up late enough to watch "House". By now, the formula is pretty clear: someone has an illness, and either they're hiding something important - or the disease is throwing up a lot of red herrings.

To give them credit, the writers seem to get that the formula has to be tweaked every so often to make things seem fresh. For example, last night you had a patient who wanted all of her tests "off the record" so her job (and dreams) wouldn't be ruined. And, at the same time, House had to reduce a potential crowd of 40 would-be assistants to just 3. Let loose the cat fighting the nastiness, people!

What caught my eye though was the portrayal of one of the doctors as a Mormon - an ethnic minority. Compound that with the same doctor being black - a racial minority, and a minority within a minority (not that many black Mormons, though the number is growing).

Being a Mormon myself, I was kind of apprehensive. For some reason, Mormons usually don't get great billing time on TV. We're usually weirdos who won't touch a woman (even if their a paramedic - that was one show I recall), or we're cultists (like "Angels in America" I think it was, where Mormons were pretty much homophobic jerks).

But here, we had a Mormon who was more like me. There was a moment where House had to determine if Patient X had a failed liver without doing a biopsy. The solution: get her drunk. If she goes into toxic shock, then she has a liver problem. To test, they needed a control group of a hard drink (House), a moderate drinker (one of the other doctors), and the Mormon (who doesn't drink at all).

At first, Mormon guy wouldn't do it - wrong to drink alcohol. And then House asks a question: Would you help an ass out of a pit on the Sabbath. For religious people, the question is clearly a reference to when Jesus stated that the Sabbath was made for man, and not the other way around. Therefore, it was perfectly all right to do some work or good deeds even when they conflict with commandments.

Mormon guy then decided well, that a good point. If my drinking can save a woman's life, then it's no longer sinful. When later challenged by House about why he was abandoning his beliefs, Mormon guy gave the same answer I (or hopefully any other decent Mormon would have):

You have a convincing argument.

I hope they keep him around. Yeah, self serving becaue he's a Mormon, but because he's one of the few on a show who isn't portrayed as someone weird. He's got beliefs, but as he says, people in the Mormon faith are free to make their own decisions. Yeah, we've got our own jerkoffs who think that they should set the rules for all other, or who judge others because they drink or some stupid reason like that.

Maybe, if nothing else, it will be a reminder to other Mormons as well that we are suppose to have our own minds. The thing I always remind people when they say to "Follow the Holy Ghost" is to remind them of the advice Joseph Smith gave to Oliver Cowdery: First *reason it out in your mind*, *then* ask God if its correct. Too many Mormons seem to forget the first part and expect the answers to just come.

House had a good, reasonable argument, and for once, I don't feel embarrassed to see how my faith is portrayed on a TV show.