I just noticed that I haven’t posted here at The Thang in the last 5 month. I guess it finally happened. After more than six years I finally got completely sick of blogging about Mormonism.

I guess it was inevitable. And it’s not like I am the only one who just got bored of this hobby. Jacob seems to have burned out too and our other contributors like Kristen and Blake and Kent sort of drifted away.

Maybe the itch will return some time. Or maybe I’ll just put up posts on BYU sports during the season… In the meantime Matt has done a terrific job keeping us afloat over here.

Anyone want to discuss their experience with bloggernacle burnout? Do tell.

(I can’t promise I’ll have enough motivation to chip in much though… (I kid, I kid!)).

My 40th birthday is coming up this Tuesday. These birthdays that end with a zero are landmarks so I figured I should post something. (Plus I realized I haven’t written very many posts here this year.)

I was 34 when I started this blog. That doesn’t seem all that long ago but in some important ways I am a different person now than I was then. That is the beauty and danger of digging into metaphysics and philosophy I think; when you tinker with the very core of your beliefs you are adjusting the lens through which you see the universe. Making changes to the lens through which you see the universe (sometimes called shifting paradigms) is interesting in that it may not have immediate and obvious consequences but it will inevitably have massive long term implications.

I’m reminded of this famous quote attributed to Henry David Thoreau:

For every thousand hacking at the leaves of evil, there is one striking at the root.

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Today is The Thang’s five year anniversary. An awful lot has been discussed around these parts in five years. What do you think the odds are that we’ll still be going in another five years? (I think they are pretty high…) Happy new (blogging) year everyone.

Kent (MC) is the online moniker of Kent White, the creator of MormonConferences.org (hence the “MC”). He also created and maintains the sites smpt.org (The Society for Mormon Philosophy and Theology) and BlakeOstler.com.

While serving a mission in Mexico, Kent happened to read Hugh Nibley’s “Approaching Zion,” which changed his life forever. As a result of Nibley, Kent took a Hebrew class and ended up graduating from BYU in 2000 with a degree in Near Eastern Studies and a minor in Spanish (though his Hebrew is now in pretty sad shape). He thought he would teach seminary until he realized that he hated kids. He now has five children with his wife of nearly twelve years and works for a charitable organization that helps children. He cites as those authors who have been the greatest influences in shaping his current world-view (in addition to the prophets): Hugh Nibley, Orson Scott Card, Terry Warner, and Blake Ostler. (more…)

The Thang turned 3 years old this week. Happy birthday to us.

As our regular readers know, a focus of the posts here at New Cool Thang has always been trying to more deeply understand Mormon doctrine, theology, and scriptures. We have spent a lot of time trying to better understand things like the atonement of Jesus Christ, free will/agency, foreknowledge, personal revelation, eternal progression, and all sorts of other intriguing but difficult theological and philosophical subjects. Along the way there have been many wonderful comments and discussions. My life has been greatly enriched by these discussions and I feel simultaneously more knowledgeable about the things of God and more acutely aware of how much I/we really don’t know about God and the eternities. (more…)

Alright, I just installed a new YouTube plugin so I figured I share it with y’all. Here are a few clips from Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. My older brother told me about this movie and he was right — it is really really bad and yet I couldn’t stop laughing when I watched it. It was done by Steve Oedekerk — the same guy who brings us much joy with Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. I guess he took a bad kung fu movie and inserted himself in it then changed all the dialogue to make this film. So without further ado…
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Ok, we’re back on a new server and with an upgraded look to match the recent WP upgrade. We may tweak the template a little for a while but I think we are pretty close. Welcome back to the Thang.

(Don’t forget to read and comment on Jacob’s last post. It got cut off in the change over.)

As a wise man once said: There ain’t no party like a West coast party, ‘cuz a West coast party don’t stop.

After a few weeks of having Jacob guest post here at the Thang we decided that having a talented additional blogger like him around is a good thing. Besides, every blog could benefit from an Oregonian touch… So Jacob has agreed to join us permanently around here. Welcome Jacob!

Well things have slowed down here at the Thang a bit this month. For the first 28 days of June we only managed to come up with 5 posts between the two of us. It might be a slow down due to the blog muse avoiding the heat of the Arizona summer or that we are simply experiencing a little blog burnout. Whatever the case — the Thang has hit a slow patch.

It’s not like I don’t have plans… Here are some of the posts I hope to get around to: (more…)

No, I haven’t forgotten that I started a series of posts on Stephen Covey’s The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. We’re on to Habit 2: Begin with the End in Mind. I mentioned in the introductory post of this series that I think this is the hardest of the 7 Habits to pull off correctly. I actually think the difficulties associated with this habit are what cause many people to throw in the towel on the whole 7 Habits model. Further, I think that Covey does not (perhaps can not) provide enough assistance and guidance on this habit in the book. (more…)

I just finished installing radio.blog in my sidebar and oddly enough it appears to work. I figured this would be a nice addition here at the Thang since we are sort of a blog about Mormon theology, Mormon life, and of course, Rock ‘n’ Roll. Not that I anticipate a lot of posts specifically on rock ‘n’ roll but the subject comes up often enough that I figured this might be a good idea for our blog. (more…)