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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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May 28, 2009 - 12:37pm PT
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There are interesting questions raised here per what to do with, say, a gay bashing group, if that is indeed your group. Or use any group of any kind. An activist will strive to set things right, pushing off the negative group with all his might, telling the world the "truth" about the group, et al.
I'm begining to think that the best way is to show tollerence toward the group in the hopes it will rub off on them.
But I don't know . . .
To me, the Mormon angle seems based on a pretty sketchy cosmology, but that cosmology is not something people actually live - it's merely an idea that tends to drive behavior to some degree.
It's all pretty complicated, but I think the intention of most Mormon missions is - beyond recruitment - aimed at pretty decent goals.
Why do Mormons get married so young? Is it the no sex thing?
JL
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tradmanclimbs
Ice climber
Pomfert VT
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May 28, 2009 - 01:04pm PT
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I am a christian, i feel pretty strongly that jesus was and is out there trying to help us get allong. All that is well and good but organized religon is completely and totally fcked up. I don't know much about the other religions but I do know the bible is a big book of lies that were tweaked allong the way for political and personal gain to the point where it little resembles what jesus or god probobly intended.
Did you guys know that the catholics put the rule in there about priests haveing to be celibate way back in the middle ages because the priests were makeing too many babies and the church was tired of getting stuck with the bill for all those dependants. Thats right folks the good right wingers up in the vatican figured if they outlawed marrige for priests they cut cut way down on their health care and retirement pensions.
That law has absolutly NOTHING to do with gods wishes, it was clearly just the church trying to cut down on overhead.
Too bad the whole thing backfired and now they are stuck will all those sexual abuse lawsuits..
Still seems pretty clear that the mormoms organized religon is right up there in the front of the race when it comes to fabrication and lies used to control their constituants though fear, laws and ritual. Dosent mean that mormons or catholics are not good people it just means that they are misguided if they believe all the crap in their holy books.
Its fine to believe in your god but it is folly to believe all that other mortals have written down and claimed to be true about your god.
YMMV
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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May 28, 2009 - 02:06pm PT
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Circumcision optional?
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originalpmac
Trad climber
Ouray, CO
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May 28, 2009 - 02:13pm PT
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we thought of a good bumper sticker that would definitely get you pulled over and arrested in the wrong places, but we thought it was funny. "Give Utah back to the natives, put Mormons on reservations."
and I will now probably catch some flack from some uppity PC types, but who cares.
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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May 28, 2009 - 02:31pm PT
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JL-
i do see your good intentions and i respect your thoughts (may not have sounded like that earlier).
here's what i think-
the GOP took mad advantage of the evangelical christian right and their organized, motivated voters. then they gay bashed to save their own skin in the 2004 elections (anti-gay-marriage measures in critical swing states drove up turnout in their targeted communities). look where that allowed the bush/cheney cabal to take the country and indeed the world!
now look at prop.8 and the LDS involvement in funding it.
religious interests from out of state using real people's real lives, here in our state, to fight a battle about imposing their so-called values on everyone else, via the political process.
in light of both of the above, i just don't see a world in front of me where those of us who may disagree with the so-called values these groups seek to impose ought to quietly sit by and just "respect everyone's beliefs equally"- after all, THAT"S NOT WHAT THEY ARE DOING!!!
they are highly organized, well funded, and actively, constantly recruiting (thus the genesis of this very thread!). these are groups of people whose religious traditions are apparently leading them to actively try to limit the rights of many of my fellow americans. these are groups of people who seem, from my perspective, to be very highly prone to adopting a point of view that is dictated to them by the body that controls their organized religious tradition, which in my opinion does not lead to individuals thinking critically.
they want our whole culture to conform with their beliefs.
i do not.
they believe their actions are righteous.
i do not.
all that said- it's not about "ire". i believe i can love another and still call their belief system to the carpet. i believe in honesty. i believe in truth. i believe in love. they all go together. pretending is just that. i am not living in anyone's bubble, and i am not supporting anyone living in a bubble. when nobody speaks up, it just sounds as if everyone agrees.
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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May 28, 2009 - 02:51pm PT
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jennie-
too bad that angel wanted those pesky plates back!
why do you think that was? such a shame...
do you think he just wanted to give all the rest of the world's religions a fair shake? it's almost like in "scary movie", when they poke fun at the predictability of horror movies.
just imagine if their were a God, and only one God, and that God really wanted everyone on Earth to know it. would you do it via some golden plates buried on a hill side, if you were that God? and then, would you grab the plates back? why are these God types everywhere so damn cryptic? why do they plant a false fossil record to test us? why does all the DNA work for so many interesting and important stuff, but then pretend to disprove the really important stuff!?!
i mean really, if you just created the whole universe, including the marvelous diversity and beauty of all of life on earth, in all its complexity, couldn't you do better than some shiny plates in the mud in upstate new york?
(ever been to upstate new york?)
why not have a miracle every week?
why not make all the diseases go away?
why let peoples have wars at all?
and why be so damn cryptic in the 1st place...
seems a little silly when you think about it.
but no more so, i suppose, than letting your believers and non believers fight it out for centuries and even eons, only to send your son back on a 2nd visit to judge everyone, and then punish everyone eternally who was unconvinced by those who attempted to act as that God's messengers (even including potentially horrible, child raping messengers), but i digress...
edit-
and why let people all over the world worship other gods for thousands of years? weren't you God the whole time? who was this Zeus as#@&%e? didn't that bug you at all? and what about in asia and africa? why didn't you "reveal yourself" to ANY of the dark skinned people you'd ceated 1st???? are they less human? less your "chosen people"? isn't that the implication? honestly? why hide from these glaring facts?)
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Barbarian
Trad climber
stealth camping and hiding from the man
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May 28, 2009 - 02:57pm PT
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To the question of women serving missions: Yes they do. And they are not the only ones. There a are a fair number of retired seniors who serve missions as well. They may be widows or widowers, or they may serve as married couples. My mother (70+) would like to serve a mission. She and my step father will likely do so if they can resolve some health issues.
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ddriver
Trad climber
SLC, UT
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May 28, 2009 - 03:00pm PT
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bluering, if you get around to it, I've got a question they might have the answer to, and if so, come back and post it:
Ask them if god eats, and if so, what does he eat?
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Karen
Trad climber
So Cal urban sprawl Hell
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May 28, 2009 - 04:46pm PT
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Never forget the Mountain Meadows Massacre!!!!
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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May 28, 2009 - 05:33pm PT
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"JL-
i do see your good intentions and i respect your thoughts (may not have sounded like that earlier).
here's what i think-
the GOP took mad advantage of the evangelical christian right and their organized, motivated voters. then they gay bashed to save their own skin in the 2004 elections (anti-gay-marriage measures in critical swing states drove up turnout in their targeted communities). look where that allowed the bush/cheney cabal to take the country and indeed the world!"
What I've been trying to get across in this and other threads is that the "Bush Cabal" was the last dying spasm of old, Eurocentric, white, male, conservative policy that almost overnight became not so much disempowered, but irrelevant. It might take the population decades to catch up with the new shifts, but the old white, male, conservative paradigm will never regain dominion here or elsewhere. Those old values are not sustainable over the long haul. Too greedy and myopic. Too much emphasis placed on power and retaining a fixed and secure venue and too little on embracing the unknown.
Imagine how quaint it will seem in a few decades that California once voted against gay mariage and that a black president seemed a freakish departure from the old white guard. Even now, just months after Bush was shown the door, he and his staff seem light years away, like shards of a nightmere. Anyone remotely resembling GWB has no chance at credibility, nor yet true power, in today's world.
JL
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Blitzo
Social climber
Earth
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May 28, 2009 - 05:44pm PT
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Ever see "Orgasmo"?
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Matt
Trad climber
primordial soup
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May 28, 2009 - 05:46pm PT
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i would counter that gay marriage proponents also thought it was unlikely they'd loose, or need to ramp up a significant organizational effort in order to win, in today's california.
i would counter that the ever consolidating corporate television media still seems primarily right leaning, and that is a big boost to the rights hopes of resurgence.
i would counter that another terrorist attack is going to happen, the only question is when (2 months/ 2 years/ 2 decades/ 200 yrs?), and the fear mongering will be back in full force after that, wait and see- hell cheney still does it today, and certain people eat it up. will we again be torturing whomever we think looks like a terrorist?
(what if someone flys a plane into a packed NFL stadium, or a packed nascar race stand? today is just one day, it may mean nothing tomorrow)
finally, you cannot live where i live or where you live and expect to have the pulse of the whole country. things that inspire you may be upsetting others, and the opposite may also be true.
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Toker Villain
Big Wall climber
Toquerville, Utah
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May 28, 2009 - 07:17pm PT
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Not so sure that Obama is secure as the new paradigm, but he is one cagey fellow making Jon Huntsman, Governor of Utah the new Ambassador to China.
Huntsman is ONE white male (mormon) who might actually challenge him in 2012.
Instead, because the guy speaks mandarin, he recruits him across the aisle.
Very cagey, this guy.
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UncleDoug
climber
No. Lake Tahoe, CA
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May 28, 2009 - 07:33pm PT
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"Still some discussion about me running for congress in the 10th CD."
please......
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Largo
Sport climber
Venice, Ca
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May 29, 2009 - 12:40am PT
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Dingus said: "I will agree we are seeing the last dying gasps of the Boomer generation - a generation that once offered so much promise but ended up cocking things up badly, blaming everyone else, over spending by trillions on self-indulgence (I don't count myself out of this group btw) and passing the bill to their grandkids. This spans all ideologies and is a trait of the Boomers themselves... do like we say, not like we do."
There you have it. It's astonishing that we boomers "cocked things up so badly," and yet there are those who are still looking to aging, conservative white doods to clean up their own mess, as others still are talking about a resurgence of the old guard, or at any rate, those waving their flag. This boggles the mind . . .
Dingus added: "largo I wouldn't count out the aging white male dynamic till the X generation has had their spell in the command seat for a while. Let's see if they really ARE different. I think the millenials ARE different (mine certainly are) in terms of racism, I just don't know about the xers yet."
Of course they are not different in terms of basic nature, but their zeitgeist is not limited to conservative, hetero white males who were masters of the world from post WWll to about 1998, cherry picking and in many instances plundering resources, jobs, etc. (virtually always for theselves) till the cupboards were well nigh bare.
Most of all, when I reflect back on all of this, I am very saddened that my generation let avarice, selfishness and power mongering tank our coffers, our credibility and our capacity for rigorous self reflection. Accountability, the hallmark of soul and self worth, is almost totally lacking amonst the old white guard, addicted as we are to blaming everyone else.
JL
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hossjulia
Trad climber
Eastside
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May 30, 2009 - 12:46am PT
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the rest of the story, so you know that I know there are good people in the LDS church.
I did not go to his service, for fear of what would be said and what I would do, but mostly because I was just not ready. (I had 3 days notice)
I would have been surprised, it was paraphrased for an article and I got to read it.
The bishop said a lot of good things about my son, he knew him, and then stressed to the crowd that only God (the Lord, they never say G-O-D) can judge, and that we have no idea the workings of God (the universe to me) and that we should caution against judging others at all for any action. Something about you can never walk in another mans shoes. He also felt that my son was in God's hands and not forsaken. This means nothing to me, for I do not believe that dogma, but it meant a lot to me that me seemed to be sticking up for him and his actions. No condemnation, no praying for his soul and forgiveness, none of that. Indeed, he asked everyone to pray for their own forgiveness in this situation.
It renewed my faith that there are good folks in that church, and that perhaps some are trying to make a difference.
I personally believe, and have for far longer than I knew my son was gay, that people are born that way. They are not made that way by man, they are not flawed, they are not immoral, they just are. And most would rather not be. But you can not make your self something you are not. (not gay) that would be living a lie and IMHO, leads to mental health problems. Massive mental health problems.
I use God loosely here, to me it is a concept of purity and love.
We are the sons and daughters of God, every single one of us, gay, straight, murderer or saint. We are born pure, like God. Society soon twists us. How can a child who is born gay be flawed? It is society who makes him so.
"God made man in his image and likeness, and what he saw was good, very good." What does this mean to you? It means to me that we ARE God, every single one of us. How can we be "His image and likeness" and that not be so?
THIS is the truth Jesus tried to teach the world, and it got twisted by politicians and power hungry clergy.
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Jennie
Trad climber
Idaho Falls
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May 30, 2009 - 01:53am PT
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Very eloquent and sincere post, Julia. Profound truths often come to us under the weight of grief. Your son IS in the care of God. May you have peace and on the heels of sorrow....joy. And may the hour of your reunion be sweet.
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Maysho
climber
Truckee, CA
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May 30, 2009 - 10:29am PT
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Wow Julia, I am so sorry,
there are no words to assuage something like this.
I can only hope that our society is moving forward in a direction (in spite of the recent setback in California), that in the not too distant future we will all look back on such intolerance with the same bemusement that we now view segregated drinking fountains, or women having to fight to win the right to vote.
Take care, and see you at TPR week after next!
Peter
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, Ca.
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Topic Author's Reply - May 30, 2009 - 10:33am PT
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Well said, Hossjulia, I'm sorry about your son. May God bless him.
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