In a career twist I would not have predicted, I have somehow become somewhat of an expert on the subject of mortgage refinances, loan modifications, and foreclosures over the last two years. Anyhow, odds are that you or one of your family members or friends is facing foreclosure on their home right now. I figured I could write some general advice about this subject in the hopes it might help someone.

Here is a scenario:

An LDS family in California is facing foreclosure. They bought their home at the height of the market in 2005 and now the home has dropped in value by more that $200,000. So between their first and second mortgage they owe $200,000+ more on the home than it could sell for right now. In the meantime the income of this good family has significantly decreased with the contracting U.S. economy. The upshot is that this family has no chance of being able to make their current mortgage payments over the long run. They made the full payments as long as they could, draining most of their savings in the process but now are up against the wall.

This is a fairly common situation these days. My advice to this family would be as follows: (more…)

Those of you who have been around a while may remember this post from three years ago where I was seeking suggestions for the all-Mormon cover band I had joined at the time. There were some really funny band names there so that thread is worth re-reading. Anyhow, the band eventually settled with the largely meaningless and safe name “Copper Rocket“. We practiced a lot and gigged a little over the next few years. When we did gig we mostly ended up playing outdoor events like block parties.

Copper Rocket was a fun band but we never really achieved liftoff. First, we could never settle in on a genre so the set list ended up being all over the place. The bigger problem was that we all have grown-up lives to lead and no one was able or willing to get out there and find us gigs. So we held on for a quite a while because we became friends but a few months back our drummer had to quit and that gave the bass player an out to call it quits too. At that point Copper Rocket finally crashed to earth for good.

But since we did slap together a quick demo I figured I would immortalize our little all-Mormon cover band in Arizona here at the Thang by posting those songs. (As usual I played sax in this band and handled most male lead vocals) Here they are in MP3 form:

Secret Agent Man (The band joked that we should call it Secret Asian Man because I slurred the title line. Over time the joke kinda stuck)
Back on the Chain Gang
Obladi Oblada
Video Killed the Radio Star (We sort of morphed the orginal version with the The PotUSA version)

Rest in peace Copper Rocket.

I may get the itch and start a new band again some time, but then again maybe I won’t…

Ok, I’ll come out and say it. I never really liked the Niblets and was disappointed to see them claw their way out of their rotting grave again this year.

I have some right to say such a thing since if I remember correctly it was my Mormon Archipelago pals and I who started and named the stinky little awards at the end of 2005. (You can mostly blame Ronan).

To me the Niblets are like another tradition I don’t like — white elephant gift exchanges. The odds of hurt feelings (especially when there are desirable gifts) makes the risks of ruining the party higher than the potential fun of the game. See this thread to decide for yourself how the latest iteration is panning out.

What say you? Do you love the Niblets or are you with me on this one?

My sense is that there are a lot of Mad Max Mormons in the world. Now admittedly I just made that term up, but what I mean by it is there seem to be a lot of Mormons who expect the world to get worse and worse until some massive calamity nearly wipes humanity out and just as we are in the verge of being forced to live like Mad Max in a post-apocalyptic dystopia Jesus will return and fix the world. And who could blame Mormons for such a world view? Not only are there plenty of prophesies in the Bible that seem to indicate that’s how it will come down prior to the second coming of Jesus, there are supporting modern revelations saying the same things in even more detail. The term “Latter-day” is in the official name of our church for cryin’ out loud. To most people that indicates that these are the very last days of the world. (more…)

I finally started reading that copy of Truman Madsen’s Eternal Man that has been sitting on my bookshelf for the last couple of years. Eternal Man is an interesting little set of short theology and philosophy essays aimed at laymen. It was published in 1966. In the second chapter of the book Madsen makes the following assertions about the minds/souls/intelligences/spirits of all people:

The quantity of souls is fixed and infinite.
There is no beginning to us.
Mind has no birthday.
No one is older or younger than anyone else.
We have always been separate from, and coexistent with other intelligences.
Creation is never totally original.
Immortality is not conditional — it is inevitable and universal.
Death does not destroy the self.
Suicide is just a change of scenery.
No self can change completely into another thing.
No one will ever lose their mind or consciousness.
Nothing is something we never were and never will be.

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The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand is one of those books that a lot of people talk about so I figured I should get around to reading it. I finally did recently. Here is my review.

Grade: B

The Good

The book is a real page turner (even when you have it on your ipod). Weaknesses in prose notwithstanding I found myself really wanting to see what would happen next. That is a good sign with any book. It is heavy on philosophy and while others might not appreciate that I dug it.

The Bad
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I have recently picked up a new habit. I started checking books on CD out and listening to them when I can. I figured I’d post my thoughts on some of the books I read as a new series here at the Thang. My first book was Great Expectations by Charles Dickens.

I was a little surprised by this book. There were parts in that book that were really funny. I was shocked when I found myself laughing out loud as Dickens amusingly described the adults surrounding young Pip (the main character) in the early parts of the book. I didn’t expect that at all going into this book written in 1861.

Grade: A-. (more…)

Our regular readers know that I have recently been teeing off on Calvinism around these parts in posts and comment threads. Of course in those discussions various Calvinists have tried to defend Calvinism in spite of the narcissistic and cruelly sadistic God it paints. After not having much logical ground to stand on in their attempts some of these Calvinism defenders have plaintively protested: “Well how do you reconcile real free will with God’s foreknowledge then?” My answer is simple: I don’t. I reject the idea of exhaustive foreknowledge because exhaustive foreknowledge requires a fixed future and a fixed future is fundamentally incompatible with real free will.
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Ok I spent about on hour on the phone with everyone’s favorite anti-Mormon, Aaron S, today. It was a follow up to my last post about his motivations for being such a zealous anti-Mormon (aka, card carrying member of the Fluffy Bunny Nice Nice Club) which have long baffled me. My goal was to try to figure out how he reconciled his anti-Mormon zeal with his Calvinism. (If you are in the mood to be bored for an hour you can listen to the discussion here.)

The obvious disconnect between Calvinism and missionary work of any kind is this: Calvinists teach that God predestines all souls to heaven or hell before He even creates them. Therefore the story of our souls is over before it starts. Therefore missionary work won’t save anyone since the outcome is determined regardless of the hard work of anyone. Therefore, why bother?

My paraphrase of the answer from Aaron: God made me do it. (more…)

My favorite evangelical anti-Mormon, Aaron Shafovaloff, recently published the following explanation of his zealous anti-Mormonism (I have replaced his bullets with numbers for easier reference):

Some of you might wonder why those of us in the countercult ministry keep on keeping on. We persist because:

1. we love the Mormon people
2. we want our Mormon neighbors to have a warranted assurance of permanent and comprehensive forgiveness and secured eternal life
3. we are not of this world. Jesus prepared us (read John 15) for a negative response from those who are of this world (more…)

By now surely you’ve heard the term wingnut. It is the snarky term for people with hard line right wing political views. (I was interested to learn that the left wing equivalent of a wingnut is called a moonbat). Anyhow, Mormons more often than not lean to the right politically and with millions of us in America it should be no surprise that there are plenty of wingnuts in our ranks. Heck, in the last 50 years we’ve even had some serious wingnuts in our top leadership at times.
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