Our stake has a problem. (more…)

As the next post in my mini-series on the Garden of Eden story as an allegory, I will respond to an interesting set of questions Tim J. posed in one of my posts over at T&S. He asked:

I think to follow the Fall as an allegory, I would need the allegory to be pretty well spelled-out. What I mean is such things like:

What does the Garden represent?
Is Satan’s role allegorical-if so what is he representing?
Why was Eve first to partake of the fruit?
Why did Adam refuse the fruit (if we are to believe the narrative that he was offered beforehand)?
Is the Atonement (which is inextricably linked w/ the Fall) also purely allegorical, or literal?

(more…)

There has been all sorts of talk about happiness lately in the ‘nacle. (See here, here, and here.) I think these happiness discussions dovetail nicely into my recent posts and comments about the Garden of Eden story being allegorical. Since I promised I would flesh this idea out better, I figured I could start that process by looking at how an allegorical Fall of Adam and Eve could or should affect our expectations for happiness in this life. (more…)

Well kids my time at camp is coming to a close. It has been loads of fun and I met lots of super cool kids, but I have missed y’all back here at the Thang too. (more…)

In this installment of my reading club for Sterling McMurrin’s 1965 book The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion I’ll cover pages 13-18. By doing so I am only 18 months behind Clark and Dave who did the same thing in the summer of ’04.

On Universals and Particulars

In my last post I noted that McMurrin places the Mormon concept of reality firmly in the ever-moving becoming camp (as opposed to the static, timeless being camp). In the next section of the book he asks whether there is place in Mormonism for “anything that is genuinely stable and unchanging”. His answer is yes. But he notes that the unchanging absolutes in Mormonism are principles or ideas. For instance, he suggests that the moral will of God or his divine purpose is considered absolute in Mormonism. He also mentions that in Mormonism natural laws “are at least stable if not absolute”. (more…)

In this second post of this reading club I will cover pages 11-13 in Sterling McMurrin’s 1965 book The Theological Foundations of the Mormon Religion. (The original plan was to cover pages 11-18 like Clark did in his reading club but the post got too long.) I think this series might be helpful to lay the groundwork for the philosophical terms that become required as we discuss Mormon theology here at the Thang. I’m hoping I can refer back to this series of posts when discussing theology in the future. But beyond that, I think these subjects are interesting and worthy of discussing in their own right as well. (more…)

I don’t read a lot of fiction. It’s not that I don’t like reading good fiction – more that I have trouble stopping. When I get a book I really like I have trouble sleeping or concentrating until I finish it. For that reason, I tend to read my fiction on vacations and holidays. Last Christmas I was inspired by a post by Kaimi to get a copy of Enders Game. I loved it and powered through it in a day or two. Last week I decided to try the sequel, Speaker For the Dead, and couldn’t put it down either (causing me to drop out of a few hot blog debates here and elsewhere…). If anything, I think Speaker For the Dead might be even better than Ender’s Game. I’m on to the third in the series now, Xenocide. I’m about half way through and it is not shaping up to be as good as the first two books, but it does give me some good fodder for a blog post. As it turns out, the universe Ender and friends live in is apparently built on the theology and metaphysics (ideas about the nature of reality) of 19th century Mormon apostle Orson Pratt. (more…)

Date: Tuesday, December 27
Time: 7:00 PM
Place: The Johnston’s house in Queen Creek (SE of Mesa)

We got a note from Kaimi Wenger letting us know he will be in town for the holidays. We decided that it would be a good opportunity to throw the first Arizona bloggernacle shindig. If you are interested in hanging with the Johnstons and Wengers and any other Arizona ‘Nacle citizens that can make it, just email me at geoff at newcoolthang.com for directions. We hope you Zoners can make it!

One of the things that remain a mystery to the world is the nature of the soul. I have already written a couple of posts on this subject, the first was called “Are we eternal or is it just our parts that are eternal?” and the second was my recent post on the Sterling McMurrin book. McMurrin put it pretty well when he said the question was one of what our spirits are made of – are they necessary or contingent; are they made up of irreducible parts or are they “simple”, irreducible, and indestructible themselves. When he wrote his book in 1965, McMurrin felt that the parts model was dominant in Mormonism. (more…)

I like the idea of writing posts in the series. I’ve tried on several occasions. The problem is that after the first post or two, I usually lose interest and the series peters out. Well I’m going to try it again with this “Feed My Sheep” series.

One feature I have recently added to the Thang is categorization of my posts. You’ll notice that under the title of every post there is list of the categories in which the post fits. If you are interested in posts on Eternal Progression then just click on that category and all the posts discussing that will pop up together. I think it’s a pretty nifty feature. I’ve given this miniseries its own sub-category as well. (more…)

An interesting recent comment got me a thinkin’ again (and as you know – that means trouble). The part that got me thinking was that the commenter was questioning the value of our online discussions here at the Thang and in the Bloggernacle in general. He hinted that we would be much better off (and that we could better serve God) by putting down the laptop and spending more face to face time with our needy neighbors. The gist of my response was to question why spending time face to face with neighbors was so much better than spending time in engaging “keyboard to keyboard” religious discussions here on the blog. My theory is that here at the Thang I can add much more value to my distant Web neighbors than I can with the folks I happen to live next to because here we have an opt-in conversation about important topics that we all actually care about. For instance, my next door neighbor has zero interest in discussing the strengths or weaknesses of various parables describing the atonement. But I do, and so do other people in the world. The problem is that the other people who want to talk about these things live hundreds of thousands of miles away from me. By discussing those things here at the Thang, the relatively small group of us becomes virtual neighbors who can teach, uplift, enlighten, and edify each other. It also lets us stretch ourselves by raising the level of the discourse far beyond the often superficial level we encounter in conversations with those we live near or worship with locally. (more…)