When I was a kid growing up Mormon, I wanted to do all of the fun, cool things the Boy Scouts got to do. It wasn’t that the scouting program was ideal so much as the fact that the boys got infinitely more resources (and recognition) for their activities than…
Author: chanson
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Conference Fallout Edition!
Did you get a chance to watch or listen to the latest General Conference? If not, you can get some of the highlights from Alex. Or listen to the Infants’ usual parody. (Or maybe listen to their ghost stories instead.) Brooke W didn’t care for the message that everything is…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: BYU Coke edition!
In my day, “caffeinated pop” was one of those sinful beverages that good Mormons avoided. Then it became a point of controversy, and then President Newsroom announced that there’s not actually any rule against it. And now Brigham Young University has finally started allowing the sale of Coke with caffeine…
What does the CoJCoL-dS offer me? — the wrap-up!
I hope you’ve enjoyed my series of articles analyzing the strategies of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints! Here they are, in case you missed any: What Does the CoJCoL-dS Offer? A little bit of nothing for everyone! Testimonies! Leadership monopoly, leadership vacuum High demands and polarization The…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Disaster edition!
I hope all of you in Florida and Texas and other disaster-stricken regions are safe today! It is time to take climate change seriously. Runtu’s daughter and son-in-law’s home was flooded by Hurricane Harvey and they didn’t have flood insurance — he has set up a fund for them here….
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Intolerance edition!
You may have noticed that there have been some racial tensions in the United States lately. Also the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has traditionally had some problems with racism (see this helpful infographic). And, yes, there’s racism in the Book of Mormon: This scripture is important because…
What the CoJCoL-dS Offers: Retro Morals
In the second episode of this series, I claimed that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints offers a lot of nothing — but then in the most recent installment I mentioned a substantial selling point: And the church will be right there to constantly pat you on the…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: **edited: forgot to add a title edition, lol
I guess it’s not Mormon news, but various Mormons had a lot to say about the recent racist violence in Charlottesville — and about racism within Mormonism. Good for the CoJCoL-dS for specifically calling out racism — something Trump couldn’t bring himself to do. I wish the atheist movement were…
My most bizarre interfaith interaction
This is something that happened to me when I was about 11 years old, and it has stuck with me all these years because it was just so dang weird. As you can tell from the title, I do not mean to imply that this is at all typical of…
Strategies of the CoJCoL-dS: The whys and hows of polarization
Any path that bills itself as the one true path for everyone is bound to lead to judgement. Naturally the path will be better suited to some people than to others, and — if it’s what everyone is supposed to be doing — that leads to the conclusion that those…