Conflicted

I'm as the title says. I don't know how I feel about this. I read it, and I thought the guy was wrong and deliberately obtuse. Then I read this, which is the article he responded to, and I thought the person described within was also wrong and idiotic. I wanted to write something about the whole thing, but all I can think to say is that everyone is wrong and bad and should learn how to think outside of the realms of their special little cult. I'm afraid to criticize any specifics of either post, for fear that I might accidentally lend support to the other, so I'll just advise the gentle reader to visit both, and see for themselves.

Stand for Winter Holidays

In case you've missed it, Christmas in under attack from the secularist left who hate our freedoms and the baby Jesus. Even capitalism has fallen under their violent, strident offense. Fortunately, there's help. These brave souls have made a website to help you decide to whom to give your money this holiday season as you buy overpriced stuff for relatives.

I find it endlessly hilarious which two businesses are most "Christmas Friendly":

("Friendly", "Negligent", "Offensive" respectively)
Pro Shops 97% 3% 0%
Cabela's 90% 5% 5%

Feeling Worthy?

I'm not sure how I feel about this. Targeting mormon women specifically seems weird and somewhat sleazy. On the other hand, although mormonism is oppressive towards everyone, it's especially oppressive towards women, so it's hard to complain about something targeting those who most need out (in general). On the gripping hand, the group doing this is a conservative Christian ministry--a group that doesn't exactly have an impressive record on the issue. Jumping from one oppressive environment to another is not an improvement.

This article does quote some LDS apologists, providing an opportunity to pick apart some bad argumenta, which satisfies my boredom.*

It mentions the Mental Health America (MHA) study which found Utah to have the highest depression rate in the USA and . That was fine, the fallacious part was the statements they provided afterwards for "balance". The first is from Sherrie Mills Johnson, a BYU sociologist**, who authored a paper "Religiosity and Life Satisfaction among LDS Women". She says

[T]o date, no conclusive evidence has been presented that proves that LDS women are more depressed or take more anti-depressants than other women.

Working from the assumption that her conclusions are accurate, this still does not address the MHA study or the conclusions drawn from it (that the LDS church/culture has a share in the blame for Utah's high depression rate). Firstly, her study was national, so it includes more than Utah. If mormon culture and/or religion is (partially) responsible for Utah's depressed (and depressing) status, then it's not unreasonable that mormons living in a population with less LDS dominance (i.e. not Utah) wouldn't suffer depression as much as those who live in a population with heavy LDS influence (i.e. Utah).

Additionally, Johnson's paper only looks at LDS women. That's only approximately half the population of Utah. Even if the depression rate among Utah women is in line with national trends, that merely means the depression rate among Utah men is what causes Utah to have the highest overall rate. In many ways, this is even more worrying.

Research appears to support this interpretation. A study about depression and religiosity among those 65 years old or older in Cache County, Utah found that although church attendance had a negative relation to depression in women, the opposite was true for men: increased church attendance corresponds to higher prevalence of depression. Also from that same paper:

LDS church members reported slightly more depression than non-LDS individuals, and after we adjusted for age, marital status, and health status, this difference became statistically significant at roughly twice as much depression among LDS members as among non-LDS members.

This gives more credence to the idea that mormon culture's contribution to depression is strongest in high LDS population areas (approx. 90%, in the case of Cache County), while it's not strong in areas with low LDS influence.

The article then mentions how "local psychologists agree with those findings"--well, one psychologist. No one else is mentioned. According to Reed Stoddard, said psychologist and director of the BYU-I Counseling Center,

Properly understood, our religion does not contribute to depression or anxiety. In fact, the church can be helpful in overcoming stress and depression.

That's even worse avoiding the issue. Whether the LDS church helps cause depression in Utah is an empirical question; hand-waving away responsibility by saying that, implying that depressed mormons are only depressed because they don't "properly" understand their religion, doesn't answer the question.

The remaining quoted mormon apologist continues this No True Mormonism theme, while casually mentioning the protection racket the LDS church has set up to help these people.

The restored gospel of Jesus Christ is fundamentally liberating. By definition it offers salvation from guilt, sin and weakness -- but he (Christ) provides those on his own terms. He requires our allegiance, our loyalty and our faithful obedience to his commandments and ordinances because they help qualify us to receive the highest manifestations of his grace.

So you can feel all happy and liberated, but you have to do it on Christ's (read: the mormon church's) terms. If you don't give your loyalty and obedience then he (we) can't (won't) help you. He then quotes James E. Faust, one of the highest ranking in the LDS church until his death a few years ago:

Transgression is so devastating to self-esteem. After transgression so often comes rationalization and even lying. This is what makes justice so violent to the offender. Fortunately we have the great principle of repentance whereby sins that are 'as scarlet' can become 'white as snow.' I am grateful for this principle and pray no one will hesitate to find the peace that comes from repentance.

In other words, you can get rid of all the guilt you have (from being told the various ways you are wicked and unworthy, etc.) by taking the processes that the selfless LDS church has set up to help you feel better (after they cause you to feel worse). How charitable of them.


*This sentence is funny to me, after spending hours researching information for this.

**Searching around, I found she's not listed at the BYU Sociology Department (she's not on the faculty roster and her name only shows up on one page on the BYU sociology website, where she's listed as a co-author on one paper (on religious views on abortion) with one of the BYU sociologists). She has a PhD in sociology and is listed as having been the "Chair, Part-time Faculty" for BYU's Faculty Women's Association from 2005 to 2009 (link).

Aside from the two papers mentioned above (the religiosity and life satisfaction one being her dissertation for her PhD), the only publications are a collection of poetry and religious writings. She teaches at in the BYU Department of Ancient Scripture--most assuredly not sociology. I know this is a minor point, but to me, it's somewhat unethical to label her as "Brigham Young University sociologist Sherrie Mills Johnson" when she's apparently not a professor of sociology at BYU, let alone an active researcher in the field.***

***I'm reminded of the common tendency among creationists to try to get graduate degrees and publish a few papers that kind of support their ideology (if you squint a lot) to wave around as "support" for intelligent design/creationism (after all, most journalists and the majority of the public lack the will or ability to verify the story told by the creationists, so it's relatively easy to get something out you can use as a talking point), but don't actually contribute anything further to science (not that what they do do is much of a contribution at all).

Do what you want 'cause a pirate is free, you are a pirate

When not pillaging or hijacking cargo, how about starting a stock exchange? [insert joke about everyone in the stock market being thieves]

Possibly the greatest review ever, on possibly the greatest product ever

The product.
The review.

Area Man Passionate Defender Of What He Imagines Constitution To Be

The Onion has the full story.

Yet Another Example of how the GOP is Evil

Are your senators on the list?

Cory Doctorow is an Insightful Man

(Again, as usual.) Read for yourself.

We're men, real men! Real manly men who are manly!

Morehouse College, a male-only college, is such a manly manly place for men that they have a manly manly dress code for men. How manly manly is it? So manly manly that they forbid hats in buildings. And crossdressing. They are so manly manly that anything that smacks of not being a straight, cisgendered, man is something they "do not expect in Morehouse men". It's true! Putting on a dress makes you less of a manly manly man. If you do so, you are a disgrace to your manly manly college full of manly manly men.

So remember kids, if you do anything that squicks out the conservative douchetards who want to control your life, then you aren't a real manly manly man.

Obama’s Humanist-Atheist Non-Beliefs

According to Thomas Roeser, Obama is not Christian, as he has "humanist-atheist non-beliefs" (I think it's adorable how he calls them non-beliefs). You see, rather than base his policies directly upon religious ideas, he doesn't chain his ideology directly to one religious sect. Roeser then starts raving about how Obama's a Marxist and is an "atheist clothed in humanist philosophy" because he thinks the State is the new god. We also get this gem:

Among intellectuals there are two ways of looking at the purpose of human life. One is to begin with the world and allow one's intellect to soar after that to God. That is what's called philosophy. The other is to begin with God and allow one's intellect to explore the world.

Oh, what was it that Obama did to incite this rant? This:

When asked why I am outspokenly anti-Obama, here is a main reason. Last April 9 at a news conference in Turkey, he said that while there is a great number of Christians in the United States...

"... we do not consider ourselves a Christian nation or a Jewish nation or a Muslim nation. We consider ourselves a nation of citizens who are bound by ideals and a set of values."

Mormon is the new black

At least, according to one Dallin H. Oaks.

Atheism has always been hostile to religion, such as in its arguments that freedom of or for religion should include freedom from religion. Atheism’s threat rises as its proponents grow in numbers and aggressiveness. “By some counts,” a recent article in The Economist declares, “there are at least 500 [million] declared non-believers in the world — enough to make atheism the fourth-biggest religion.”

Atheists are trying to take away our rights! We're going to quote a world-wide (as opposed to USA-wide, where any of this is relevant) statistic of 500 million non-believers (which is not the same as atheist, although atheists are a subset of them) to show that they are totally going to oppress us and stuff! Freedom to practice your religious beliefs (or lack thereof) doesn't mean you have freedom to not have mine forced upon you!

A second threat to religious freedom is from those who perceive it to be in conflict with the newly alleged “civil right” of same-gender couples to enjoy the privileges of marriage.

We have endured a wave of media-reported charges that the Mormons are trying to “deny” people or “strip” people of their “rights.” After a significant majority of California voters (seven million — over 52 percent) approved Proposition 8’s limiting marriage to a man and a woman, some opponents characterized the vote as denying people their civil rights. In fact, the Proposition 8 battle was not about civil rights, but about what equal rights demand and what religious rights protect. At no time did anyone question or jeopardize the civil right of Proposition 8 opponents to vote or speak their views.

The real issue in the Proposition 8 debate — an issue that will not go away in years to come and for whose resolution it is critical that we protect everyone’s freedom of speech and the equally important freedom to stand for religious beliefs — is whether the opponents of Proposition 8 should be allowed to change the vital institution of marriage itself.

The marriage union of a man and a woman has been the teaching of the Judeo-Christian scriptures and the core legal definition and practice of marriage in Western culture for thousands of years. Those who seek to change the foundation of marriage should not be allowed to pretend that those who defend the ancient order are trampling on civil rights. The supporters of Proposition 8 were exercising their constitutional right to defend the institution of marriage — an institution of transcendent importance that they, along with countless others of many persuasions, feel conscientiously obliged to protect.

And the gays! The gays are trying to take away our religious freedom! If we don't have the right to oppress them, we're being oppressed! The issue of whether people have the right to marry whomever (consensually) want--even if they're the same sex(!)--isn't an issue of homosexual (and bisexual) rights, it's an issue of religious rights! Waah!

It was the Christian principles of human worth and dignity that made possible the formation of the United States Constitution over 200 years ago, and only those principles in the hearts of a majority of our diverse population can sustain that constitution today. Our constitution’s revolutionary concepts of sovereignty in the people and significant guarantees of personal rights were, as John A. Howard has written, “generated by a people for whom Christianity had been for a century and a half the compelling feature of their lives. It was Jesus who first stated that all men are created equal [and] that every person . . . is valued and loved by God.”

Professor Dinesh D’Souza reminds us: “The attempt to ground respect for equality on a purely secular basis ignores the vital contribution by Christianity to its spread. It is folly to believe that it could survive without the continuing aid of religious belief.”

Religious values and political realities are so interlinked in the origin and perpetuation of this nation that we cannot lose the influence of Christianity in the public square without seriously jeopardizing our freedoms. I maintain that this is a political fact, well qualified for argument in the public square by religious people whose freedom to believe and act must always be protected by what is properly called our “First Freedom,” the free exercise of religion.

And let's wrap it up with the paradoxical claim that freedom only exists when society is dominated by Christianity; if people used their freedom to choose not to join Christianity, and Christianity no longer ruled, then their freedom would magically disappear! Freedom exists so that you can conform to us!

LDS General Conference

The official text of the talks aren't being posted until Thursday, but until then, I have some quotes gleaned from various news articles about the conference.

Jeffery R. Holland (link): "For 179 years, this book has been examined and attacked, denied and deconstructed, targeted and torn apart like perhaps no other book in modern religious history -- perhaps like no other book in any religious history. And still it stands. If anyone is foolish enough or misled enough to reject 531 pages of a heretofore unknown text teeming with literary and Semitic complexity without honestly attempting to account for the origin of those pages ... such persons, elect or otherwise, have been deceived and, if they leave this church, they must do so by crawling over or around or under The Book of Mormon to make their exit."

Strange that he doesn't mention anything about the Book of Abraham, like that it's complete bullocks and demonstrably so, since we have the original papyrus Joseph Smith "translated" it from. (Also, I've seen this reported on various sites as being "stirring" or "passionate". Why can't we have a rational argument, rather than a happy-happy-feel-good-don't-notice-I'm-lying-to-you-because-I-can-manipulate-your-emotions argument?)

Thomas S. Monson (link): "Those who live only for themselves eventually shrivel up and, figuratively, lose their life, while those who lose themselves in service to others grow and flourish — and in effect save their life."

I'd be more impressed if this wasn't a blatant plea for church members to spend more time giving service to the church he leads.

"We are the Lord's hands here upon the earth, with the mandate to serve and to lift his children. He is dependent upon each of us."

So much for omnipotence...

Vicki F. Matsumori (link): "We can help others become more familiar with the promptings of the Spirit when we share our testimony of the influence of the Holy Ghost in our lives. By sharing testimony of the Spirit in our lives, those who are unfamiliar with these promptings are more likely to recognize when they have similar feelings."

Brainwashing! If enough people constantly tell someone how much they believe, they'll wear down their defenses! This works especially well on children, who are far more impressionable.

(Link) Speaking Saturday morning, [Russell T.] Osguthorpe compared how his son, a physician, saved lives by sharing his knowledge of medicine.

I wonder how much of that medical knowledge relies on evolution, which, although the LDS church doesn't officially deny at the highest levels (bishops and such seem to have no trouble denying it though), Mormons overwhelmingly reject.

D. Todd Christofferson (link): "[The recession] was brought on by multiple causes, but one of the major causes was widespread dishonest and unethical conduct, particularly in the U.S. housing and financial markets."

Yet your church actively works to support the conservative cause (despite your constant denials of such, and even if you usually phrase things to appeal more to social issues than economic), which includes deregulation of the markets, which led to the crash.