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Main Street Plaza

A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

Main Street Plaza

A Community for Anyone Interested in Mormonism.

Category: Philosophy

What Hannah Arendt can teach us about Women’s Ordination in the Church

Alan, August 26, 2013August 27, 2013

Just like the issue of accepting same-sex intimacy, Mormons are beginning to understand a good Mormon can hold the position that women should be ordained. And this means that half (okay, maybe one quarter) of the battle is won, because now Mormons talk amongst themselves about the following equation as…

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Help? Do I belong here?

Julia, July 27, 2012

How do we help “new bloggers” find their voice? Are we really a community that does? I believe we are, or at least can be. Main Street Plaza is an Internet home for people who care about their thoughts and ideas, eventhough weoften disagree. Wedon’t have the same world view,but…

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What is Faith?

chanson, June 17, 2011May 6, 2013

During a recent (perhaps ongoing) discussion of faith (among other things), we found that the four people in the discussion are using four different definitions of faith. Naturally, this led me to ask: “What is faith?” So, I used my faith in Google and in the Internet to get some…

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Respect versus Idolatry

Hellmut, January 7, 2011January 6, 2011

When Republicans read the United States Constitution in the House of Representatives, they censored the embarrassing passages of the document, you know, the part about slavery and African American being 2/3s people in Article I, Section 2. I am glad that people are ashamed of slavery. On the downside, the…

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Oldies but Goodies: Testimony of a Dissident

Hellmut, September 10, 2009October 20, 2010

A while back another blogger asked me to submit an essay about my Mormon experience. Probably, for good reasons he changed his mind and never published it. Since it is already written and might shed some light on my argument at Times and Seasons, I might as well publish it…

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Nature’s Values

Hellmut, July 1, 2009

Our revulsion at the cruelty of the Supreme Leaders henchmen is a powerful refutation of the postmodernist credo that anything goes. After the enlightenment discredited the authority of tradition and religion, the notion that reason or civilization could provide an ersatz God has also collapsed. The efforts of analytical philosophy…

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Why Mormons Are Not Conservatives

Hellmut, February 16, 2009May 17, 2011

Andrew Sullivan makes an interesting point: Most Americans have a healthy respect for religious teaching but in their lives give greater preference to common sense and practical experience. That includes almost all religious groups as well – Catholics, in particular, show conservative tendencies. The exceptions? Evangelicals and Mormons and Jehovah’s…

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Peace, Order and Religious Freedom

Hellmut, November 4, 2008November 10, 2008

In the wake of the reformation Europe was torn by religious wars for almost two centuries. France had the Huguenot wars, Britain the civil war between king and parliament, and in Germany, there was the 30 year war, which killed one third of the population. My home town was the…

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Power and Morality

Hellmut, October 26, 2008October 26, 2008

The Jesuit magazine America features an essay by Cathleen Kaveny, which discusses the concept of inherent evil and it’s political implications. This passage caught my attention: Some Catholic commentators have claimed that the certainty we have about the wrongfulness of intrinsically evil acts means that we should give their prevention…

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Sartre’s Spirit World

Hellmut, October 15, 2008October 15, 2008

Wry Catcher’s question whether the notion of spirit world addiction reminded me of Jean Paul Sartre’s Les Jeux Sont Faits, which is particularly interesting to Mormons because Sartre’s description of the afterlife happens to coincide with commonly held notions of the spirit world. Les Jeux Sont Faits is a wonderful…

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Latest Comments:

  1. termal kamerayla su kaçak tespiti on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesJune 21, 2025

    termal kamerayla su kaçak tespiti Ekip çok organize, kaça?? an?nda bulup çözdüler. https://bence.net/read-blog/25188

  2. Cara B. Klein on My conspiracy theory #2April 26, 2025

    Wow, I had never thought about it in that way before You have really opened my eyes to a new…

  3. chanson on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 16, 2025

    The haiku at the end is lovely. Sounds like a great book!

  4. Donna Banta on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 14, 2025

    I imagine anyone who has tried to change the church from within will identify with Kitchen's story. I especially like…

  5. Johnny Townsend on LDS vs LGBTQ:  Nathan Kitchen sheds false binariesApril 14, 2025

    This was a painful review to read. For many years, I held the same hope, that the LDS church would…

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