I can’t get my head around it. Why do Mormons name their kids crazy gibberish words? Or if they go with a normal name, they have to spell it in some insane way that makes no sense? What is up with that? There’s at least one in every ward I’ve ever been in. Is it Cree-L’s fault?

No wonder missionaries all go by Elder and Sister. No one would listen to a guy named Bucket.

Just wanted to note an interesting new marketing strategy from Deseret Book.

http://deseretbook.com/free

Here you can download a complete PDF of the books for free. Personally, I probably would never read most of these, but I was pleased to see Bruce Chadwick and Brent Top’s book here, as I like Dr. Chadwick’s studies, but would never have paid for this book. (As an aside, I’ve always loved the church’s policy of giving away their books for free via the web. (I wish the Boy Scouts did the same). Deseret Book, however, is not the church, but is a for-profit business. I can only assume they are doing this for marketing purposes.)

So what do you think? Will “the power of Free” help Deseret Book increase it’s market share?

Today marks my being baptized 11 years ago. In honor of that experience, here are two lists based on my personal experiences in the church:

11 biggest challenges to my staying active 11 years

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Well, we of the Bloggernacle have been dissing people left and right of late, so I thought it was about time for the old “You have to say three nice things about that person” post.

Mr. McNaughton (more…)

My oldest is 6, and paid attention to conference quite a bit this time, with the help of stickers, the packet from the friend, and lots of snacks.

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It is halftime on Saturday for General Conference. While I watch these great men from afar, it made me think of a few close up experiences I have had. (more…)

Next year’s manual for Relief Society/Priesthood will be Gospel Principles, and chapter 2 begins with the following quote:

“All men and women are . . . literally the sons and daughters of Deity. . . . Man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal [physical] body” [1]

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I recently had the opportunity to attend some Social Media training where I work. I thought it was interesting in light of church work. The gist of the training was that if you affiliate yourself with the company online, you are representing the company, and yes you can be fired for representing the company in a bad light. (There are hundreds of examples, but I thought a good one was the example of the two employees that caused Domino’s Pizza stock to collapse after getting a million views of them doing gross things at work on a youtube video). I think the church suffers a similar risk as I, with all my good intentions, am out here shooting my mouth off. On top of this, I also suffer a great risk, as I, in a flight of fancy, forget the very public and unalterable nature of the internet. (Think of the Fedex employee who got fired for tweeting how much he hated where his customer lived). My reputation can be damaged forever based on one blog comment which I can never delete because I don’t own the blog I commented on, and google snatched it up and archived it, etc.

While the church cannot fire its lay ministry for putting the church in a bad light, and I don’t think any of us can afford to hire our own PR firm to filter our public statements, I thought I’d highlight the 1 Do and 3 Don’t Dos from the training I got at work.

1. Do be genuine, authentic, and honest.

2. Do not bash the competition ever.

3. Do not say mean or unkind things to anyone.

4. Do not disclose private information.

Good rules to live by anyway, but especially good rules as we represent the church online (whether we want to or not). I am going to try harder in the future to follow these rules. If you catch me getting out of line, let me know. For the times I have been out of line in the past, I apologize.

2010 – Call For Papers

Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology Seventh Annual Meeting
March 25–27, 2010
Utah Valley University
Orem, Utah

The Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology invites papers on any aspect of Mormon belief, including its philosophical ramifications. We particularly encourage submissions on this year’s theme.

Theme: “The Measure of Their Creation—Theological Anthropology”

Christians generally share the belief that humans are children of God, made in his image. However, this belief takes a distinctive and radical form as it is understood by Latter-day Saints. On the one hand humans are much more like God, in several important respects, than on the traditional Christian view. On the other hand, Mormons take a more positive view of human embodiment and finitude. We will explore LDS teaching on the nature of human beings, with its implications and questions it raises, including comparison with other Christian views. We will also consider how human nature’s various aspects reflect a divine intention or purpose, “the measure of its creation” (D&C 88:19). Possible topics falling under this theme include: (more…)

I’ve been corresponding with a friend regarding the nature of God. I ended my last post saying there are some questions that I am not sure we have clear answers to. Since you are a bunch of smart people, thought I’d see if anyone had a persuasive argument for the answer to any of these questions being fixed in our theology. I don’t think they are.

1. The Divinity of Jesus Christ- Is he a God exatly like Heavenly Father is, or is he divinely invested with Authority by the Father?  What are the implications of this on our understanding of the atonement?

2. The Existance of a Heavenly Mother- Do you believe or not believe in her? If she is existant, is it like J. Stapley believes and she is not equal to the Father? What does her existance imply?

3. Is there a Father of Heavenly Father? What does that mean?

4. If God was once a man like we are now, but was also always God, are we also always God?

5. What does it mean to be the Most High God? Is it just smarter than the smarties?

6. What does it mean to be an eternal being? Are we Eternal in the sense that we have always been conscious?

Recently, we’ve been watching old film strips for FHE. The kids love turning the film in the projector, and the ward library has oodles of these. I really recommend it. This one is probably the most ridiculous we’ve come across, so enjoy.

ps- I don’t really know any of the history around these film strips, so if anyone has a resource, I’d love to know.