About

This is an orthodox Mormon, politically conservative, masculine, puritanical, sarcastic, literary, rude, bloody-minded, preening, fanciful, sober, contradictory, irreverent blog. The Mormonism isn’t really negotiable. The rest probably is if you’re being funny enough.

Okay, what does the birken head drill mean in this context?

Type real slow. I’m a girl.

Found it on wiki.
I feel properly humbled for assuming it was rude to women.
My apologies, good men.

To stand an’ be still
to the Birkenhead drill
is a damn tough bullet to chew

Gents

I’ve published a book on the Book of Mormon, and I’d like to share it with you. It’s called Plain and Precious Things: The Temple Religion of the Book of Mormon’s Visionary Men. In a nutshell, I think that Lehi belonged to an oppressed minority religious group, identified as the ‘visionary men,’ whose worship, visions and doctrines all revolved around Solomon’s Temple. 1 Nephi is a kind of charter of the transplanting of the religion of the visionary men to the promised land, in which their two central ordinances are expressed in visionary form, in 1 Nephi 8 and 1 Nephi 11-15. Once you learn to see their symbols, you’ll see that the Book of Mormon, from start to finish, is a temple book.

Here’s the Amazon link.

http://www.amazon.com/Plain-Precious-Things-Visionary-ebook/dp/B007F5DU14/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1332883787&sr=8-1

I’d love to give you guys free copies to read and consider mentioning on the blog. E-mail me.

Thanks

Dave

This blog is a vast waste of space. Ghastly.

Adam,

Are you going move over any of your now removed posts from timesandseasons over to here (it would be a shame to see stuff like “On the Efficacy of Kicking Up a Fuss” disappear)?

Or restore them there. I took them down temporarily myself for prudential reasons.

Uh, guys, you do know that Ganymede was a homosexual, I assume. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

It would be more accurate to say that Zeus was a pederast and Ganymede was his victim.

But the title of the blog is not an allusion to Greek mythology, or at least not directly. It is an allusion to British humorist Wodehouse and his Bertie and Jeeves stories. In which, so far as I have detected, there are no particular themes of homosexuality.

We are comfortable with the title of the blog because we are all red-blooded rugged he-men who are straighter then straight. Non-euclidean spaces tremble at our presence, and rainbows blanch. Think of it as counter-signaling.

I don’t think I am evil, but I am homosexual. I believe in God and Jesus Christ. I am in a monogamous relationship with a man. I have been since 1979. We love each other dearly. You have published some of my bletherings. Bruce Charlton has also published some of my bletherings on his ‘notions’ blog. Am I to be cast into the outer darkness by everybody connected with Junior Ganymede and/or by Bruce Charlton now that I have outed myself?

I don’t think anyone cares, Tony.

Speaking just for myself, and not necessarily for the other bloggers here: I’ve never been particularly keen on warming my hands over someone else’s auto-da-fe. We’re not going to vilify you here, nor block you from our discussions, as long as you are civil.

I won’t kid you, though. I think most of us regard same-sex attraction as a disorder and active homosexuality as a mortal sin. We view marriage as intrinsically a conjugal relationship, and are frankly worried about our religious liberty in a world that now views opposition to homosexual marriage as rank bigotry. I assume you see things otherwise. If you can live with the fact that we disagree on this, and that we’re going to continue expressing our views, and not try to shout us down on our own blog, we’re probably good.

I think the question if your are evil, and if that is a vice are two different questions. Our good acts do not negate our sins, but our sins don’t do that to our virtues either.

It doesn’t just average out. God doesn’t let that happen because he cherishes our virtues. He will patiently teach and show us a better way. But he can’t raise us up if we refuse to accept what ‘up’ is.

I want to treat a fine line between showing patience, mercy and love and also calling a spade a spade. I certainly have enough sins and weaknesses. Though recently married, I just spent 15 years single and I know how lonely that was. That was one of the toughest things I have done.

So while SSM is contrary to the order of Heaven, we do welcome you here.

Zen: “He will patiently teach and show us a better way. But he can’t raise us up if we refuse to accept what ‘up’ is.”

I can assure you that it isn’t a matter of ‘refusal to accept’. Oh dear, I did not think that this would be upsetting, but I find that it is. I’m sure that you have heard gay people say this before, but I have always been gay, and I’ve never been attracted to the opposite sex. I firmly believe I was born gay. If you are entirely straight Zen, ask yourself how long you have known that you were entirely straight. I would find it hard to believe it if your visceral response wasn’t “always”. It is the same for me. It’s right down deep, printed all the way through like a stick of rock.

I’m prepared to believe that God has a preference for heterosexual relationships within marriage, and that under the law (of Moses) He condemned gay people. You see I’m not one of those liberal types who likes to twist the scriptures to fit my behaviours. However, I do believe that God sent the Word to earth for those millions who transgress the laws all the time, and who cannot live ‘up’ to them like me. Strangely, God seems to me to have become more liberal over time. I can’t explain that, but there it is. I believe that the Word (the son) died for me and mine, as well as you and yours, and that the Holy Spirit and God the Father felt that pain and humiliation too. In feeling that pain and humiliation, I think He felt the pain and humiliation of all the world’s people from the beginning until the end, including mine right now. If I did not believe that I would not be able to go on living.

Go on living.

I can’t speak for any other heterosexuals, but I don’t recall being born heterosexual. It never crossed my mind to be attracted to girls until I was about 11 years old.

My first crush was in second grade. My mom said I was besotted (with the same girl, it turns out) when I was 3.

I’ve always been attracted to all the women as long as I can remember. My harem is full and it makes me happy.

I prefer not to know how many women were in Mr. Khan’s harem.

As a rough estimate, I believe all women.