colbert on the mormon murder conspiracy

some of you may choose to be offended by this. if so, just pretend it's about the pope or some other religious figure

*update* on previous post

last night a friend told me that i was a smart ass jerk. that hurt - mostly because its a harsh truth that i have yet to remedy. you see, i don't want to be a jerk. i just want to be a smart ass.

after thinking over my jerkiness for a few hours last night, i decided that perhaps i was too quick to judge, in my previous post, the owner of flix club who was arrested for paying minors for sex and illegally distributing pornography. perhaps there was a logical explanation to everything.

unable to sleep, i decided to research pornography on the internet. (i've heard the internet is a good source for it). after four or five hours of research, i came up with some possible explanations for the large amounts of pornography found in his store. first, perhaps daniel thompson of flix club was trying to hone his editing skills. think about it, if you're in the business of editing offensive and immoral material out of movies, what better way is there to practice then to edit the sex, nudity, and language from pornographic movies - the harder the porn, the greater the difficulty (do i have the makings of the next great playstation game here?). the only better practice i could think of would be to edit the offensive content out of snuff. but snuff is hard to come by (which is why i usually make my own).

the other possible explanation i could think of was perhaps daniel thompson was planning on adding family-friendly pornography to his list of available movies at flix club. i think this is a great business idea. usually, pornography has been limited to adults, college students, and teenage boys. the porn industry has totally left out the family and children from their possible paying consumers. by editing, thompson is opening up a completely new market where entire families and children can sit together and enjoy pornography.

as far as the whole paying minors for sex goes, there isn't any logical moral explanation. thompson is just a sick %&*#.

can mormon youth watch anything?

this is just a quick side note to the discussion of rated r movies and other media at various stages of mormondom.

according to the church's for the strength of youth booklet, lds youth are told to "not attend, view, or participate in entertainment that is vulgar, immoral, violent, or pornographic in any way"(emphasis added). the problem with this is that the 'in any way' virtually bans all movies. because any movie with any bit of violence... for example, simba fighting his uncle scar in the lion king... contains violence in any way.

ironically, the church's film about joseph smith actually has a warning because of the violence in the movie (people are shot, beaten, tarred and feathered, kicked, etc!!). "some scenes depicting events surrounding the early history of the church may be too intense for small children." here, the church is asserting that it's own production has violence (and vulgarity) in some way.

so does that mean that lds youth are not allowed to watch church movies? and let's not forget those hyper-violent seminary videos with people being shot, cut, and scalped - complete with scenes of blood and gore. i remember a video about moroni with scenes of blood and dead bodies flowing through a stream.

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on a side note, the owner of 'flix club' (orem's distributor of family-friendly edited movies) was arrested today for paying minors for sex and illegally selling and distributing pornography. oh the irony.

vsom - Thou Shall Not Watch Rated-R Movies

Thou Shall Not Watch Rated-R Movies

of rods and mothers of gods

the following comes from my sunday school lesson which i gave in my ward today.
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in lehi and nephi's vision of the tree of life, the common interpretation of the tree itself is that the tree represents jesus christ, while the fruit of the tree represents eternal life, salvation, or some other gift offered by the savior. however, by taking a closer look at the text itself i believe this is not the intended interpretation by the authors.

in the eleventh chapter of first nephi, nephi is given the opportunity to see the same vision that his father lehi saw in a dream. however, in nephi's case he is also accompanied by the spirit of god to give him a hand in interpreting the vision. nephi gives four descriptions of the tree. he describes it as possessing "beauty . . . exceeding all beauty" and "whiteness . . . exceed[ing] the whiteness of the snow" (vs. 8). the tree is "precious above all" (vs.9). and finally, the tree "bore the fruit" which lehi had tasted in his vision (vs. 7).

what exactly does it mean to be "precious above all"? in moroni 9:9 this exact phrase is used to describe the chastity and virtue of the daughters of the lamanites. in proverbs 3, which nephi would have been well read in, wisdom (also the name of a feminine deity) is described in the feminine form as being "more precious than rubies: and all the things that thou canst desire are not to be compared unto her" (vs 15). furthermore, "she is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her" (vs. 18). finally, in proverbs 31 the price of "a virtuous woman," like wisdom, is " far above rubies" (vs 10).

after seeing the tree, nephi asks for the interpretation of it. as soon as he's done asking, he looks again and the tree is replaced with a vision of jerusalem and mary, jesus's mother. nephi describes her as a virgin (vss. 13, 15, 20), "exceedingly . . . white" (vs 13), and "most beautiful and fair above all other virgins" (vs. 15). finally, she is "bearing a child in her arms" (vs 20).

to sum things up...

tree .................................................. mary
very white .......................................... very white
very beautiful ...................................... very beautiful
feminine, virtuous, chaste ........................ female, virgin
bears fruit ........................................... bears a child

it should seem clear from this that the tree of life in this vision is not meant to represent jesus, but is rather meant to allude to mary the mother of christ bearing the christ child. however, i am not advocating any kind of catholic maryology. the importance of the tree is dependent on the fruit it is bearing, likewise the importance of mary is signified by the child in her arms. this is made clear when the spirit asks nephi, "knowest thou the condescension of god?" (vs. 16). what the tree represents is just that - the all-powerful god of israel who divested himself of his divinity, becoming a man, to save his people.

to further show this point, when the book of mormon was first translated by joseph smith, the short phrase 'the son of' was not in the original texts of verses 18, 21, and 32. these additions were made in the 1837 second edition of the book of mormon as joseph smith (somewhat anachronistically) changed the texts to match up with his modern conception of god. in they're original form, these verses better reflect the strict monotheism of nephi's judaism and the utter-powerfulness of the vision of the messiah that he envisioned.

"behold the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of god, after the manner of the flesh." (vs 18)

"and i looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms. and the angel said unto me: behold the lamb of god, yea even the eternal father." (vss 20-21)

"and i looked and beheld the lamb of god, that he was taken by the people; yea the everlasting god was judged of the world; . . . he was lifted up and slain for the sins of the world." (vss 32-33)

i think too often in mormon culture, we have reacted too sharply against the trinity of traditional christianity and have unfortunately had a tendency to de-emphasize the divinity of christ. and in the process have lost much of the importance of who jesus really is. for nephi (and as it should be for all of us) jesus wasn't just the son of god, but is - for all intents and purposes - god. jesus was the judge and lawgiver who spoke to moses on mount sinai. jesus was the all powerful god who stepped down from throne to be born as a mortal child. jesus was the allmighty god of israel who set that aside to be judged, beaten, and crucified by his very people.

it is this "condescension of god" that the rod of iron leads to, by bringing others to a knowledge of the love exemplified through this act. as the iron rod is the word of god, this is also one of the primary messages of the book of mormon as expressed in the title page, moroni writes that the book of mormon was written for" the convincing of the jew and gentile that jesus is the christ, the eternal god, manifesting himself unto all nations" (title page).

finally, in what the introduction to the book of mormon calls the "crowning event recorded in the Book of Mormon," jesus himself declares:

"arise and come forth unto me, that ye may thrust your hands into my side, and also that ye may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and in my feet, that ye may know that i am the god of israel, and the god of the whole earth, and have been slain for the sins of the world." (3 nephi 11:14)

like the spirit of god asked nephi, we must ask ourselves, "knowest thou the condescension of god?" the affirmative answer to this is more than a mere acknowledgement of certain predicates - like knowing that columbus is the capital in ohio - but is the existential recognition and internalization of gods act of love for each of us.


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as the title implies, this post was going to include a brief discussion of a different view of the iron rod - specifically that the rod of iron should not be understood as some handrail of iron, but fits better within the 19th century folk use of divining rods. but as this post has already gone too long, i'll leave that for another day.

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republicans apparently don't like caution and reason

i somehow accidentally turned my television to the fox news channel tonight and caught a short analysis of tonight's republican debate. apparently the boys of murdoch have this set-up where they have several people watching the debates with a small dial which they turn to indicate their approval or disapproval of whatever the current person in the debate is saying (rated zero to one hundred). they go on to show the highest and lowest responses of the night - which happened to be responses to the same question dealing with the recent incident in the persian gulf with iran.

huckabee responds that the iranians should be prepare themselves to see the gates of hell. ratings jump to almost 90.

thompson gives an witty and elderly i-belong-in-an-old-folks-home mumble of agreement. again, ratings jump to almost 90.

ron paul says 'wait a minute' and questions why everyone is so quick to jump into a war. says we should show some reason and caution and be sure that we have the facts are right befor acting. recalls the gulf of tonkin incident. ratings drop to 8 - the lowest ever in a republican debate.


you can all make your own conclusions...

a happy valley cookie-cutter political narrative

roommate's friend comes in as i'm watching the new hampshire primary results.

him: "oh flip. clinton won? i do not want her to be president."

me: "why?"

him: "she's totally dumb and i disagree with almost everything she is for."

me: "such as?"

him: ....

me: ....

him: "i dunno. it's hard to explain."

me: "well there's gotta be something you can point to."

him: "i just don't like her."

me: ....

him: "oh crud. romney lost to mccain!"

me: "why do you want romney to win?

him: "everything romney stands for are the same as the things that i do."

me: "like what?"

him: "well... just everything."

me: "such as?"

him: ....

me: ....

him: "i just really like him."

OBAMA WINS IN IOWA! - thoughts after the iowa caucus

after hearing clinton's jumping on the 'change' bandwagon during her speech tonight, it became even clearer to me that she just doesn't get it and obama certainly does.

clinton's 'change', like a simplified political hegelian dialectic, is not the type of change that america wants. her 'change' is simply the other side of the nauseating and stalemated coin of partisan politics. what america does not want is another polarizing and politics-as-norm democrat to replace the polarizing and politcs-as-norm republican who currently reigns in office. instead america wants a change of politics.

and that what obama has to offer. huck, mitt, and the gop's want to offer the new bush. clinton wants to offer the anti-bush. obama is offering the anti-politics-as-norm.

this was so clear in comparing clinton's and obama's speeches tonight. clinton saw the democratic turnout as a sign that the democrats can win the office. obama sees the great turnout as a sign that america is ready for a new kind of politics. the former's speech was riddled with democrat vs republican rhetoric; while on the other hand, the latter's speech focused on bringing democrats and republicans together to end the divisive and unproductive battles that have put our great nation in a rut.


however, to damper the evening, huckabee beat romney. now i am no romney fan. while i think the moderate and brilliant romney could great things for this country, the ultra-conservative and poll-minded romney that has emerged in these elections is not what i want implicitly representing my faith in the global sphere. what bothers me about huckabee's win over romney is that huckabee is retarded - and by that i mean mentally retarded. in the last several weeks this guy has proven himself oblivious to the world around him. pakistan... what? the nie report on iran... huh? he claims he was too busy campaigning to keep in touch with the news, yet he had plenty to say about brittany spears' pregnant sister. huckabee the idiot won the republican iowa caucus by playing the 'i am a christian' card and it worked... and that's a scary thing.

clipless urban trials

clipless

+

urban trials

=

so i decided that while the mountains are covered with snow i'd take up trying out urban trials on days when i'm not able to go snowboarding. (for those of you who don't know, urban trials on a mountain bike basically consists of hopping around on things and doing little freestyle tricks.) the problem is that i ride my bike clipless. i have a set of crankbrothers eggbeater pedals (pictured above) which i click into with my biking shoes. this means that my feet are locked onto the pedals and only release when i twist my feet to either side. while it works great and gives me a lot more control and power when i'm riding on the road or trails, they don't work so well when i'm about to crash and need to bail.

so today i get home from boarding and realize that viggy (my bike) has been rather neglected for the last couple weeks. it was still light outside, so i decided to throw on my cleats and take him out for a quick ride around the neighborhood. big mistake.

while dropping of fa small 2 foot embankment (which normally isn't a problem), i didn't take into account that my front tire would stop dead in its tracks as it buried into the hardened snow. i endo'd (end over end) into the snow with my still-attached bike endo'ing right after me, quickly popping my shoulder out of socket.

after putting my shoulder back into place, i started off back home. at the curb outside my apartment i tried hopping onto it in reverse. i managed popping and twisting my rear tire over the curb, but while trying to follow it up with the front tire, i took yet another spill. again my feet remained attached, twisting my knees and adding a pair of gashes into my right leg (also pictured above). worst of all, 4 or 5 neighbors witnessed this pathetic exercise.

the moral of this story? attempting urban trials (or my sad attempts at them) with clipless pedals is completely stupid. don't do it.

(by the way, the biking photo above is not me. that guy is good. i suck.)