I have a complicated relationship with holidays, one that predates my abandonment of religious belief. I have a hard time understanding rituals; I need to understand the logic underlying the holidays. The link between Christmas trees, gifts, and the birth of Jesus always seemed too tenuous for credibility. In graduate…
Category: Testimony
Symbolic beliefs can counter cognitive dissonance, but at a cost
Anything but a Harry Potter Christmas!
A few nights ago, my husband and I were putting our children’s Christmas gifts into separate piles, trying to make sure each of them had the same number of items. When we’d finished dividing up the gifts, I looked at the three or four items each child had and declared…
LDS Knickers in Knots Over LDS Sisters in Pants
A Facebook group called All Enlisted (as in “we are all enlisted until the conflict is o’er”) states on its about page that It is intended to be a place of action where active LDS men and women can engage in acts of peaceful resistance to gender inequality in the…
news roundup – Temple ceremonies, pestering Mitt, and more
If you didn’t catch it and – assuming you were temple endowed at one point – you’re looking for some creepy flashbacks, check out the secret recording of a Mormon temple ceremony that is still on youtube: httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VrsFEiTpsQ For those who weren’t temple endowed, well, now you, too, can learn…
Truth is . . .
I dont like you My stomach cramps whenever youre around. You think Im clueless, that I dont see you. Wrong. I know what you are. Your kiss is soft, your mouth breathes poison, and as I sit on the loveseat, looking into my mothers eyes, I cringe at what I…
site issues
Hi Everyone. So, you may have noticed that MSP was temporarily down this morning. That was due to some MySQL database issues (bloat from past plugins). I think I’ve resolved the database issues at this point, so the site should be up and running fine now. You’ve probably also noticed…
Book Review: Book Of Mormon Girl
In the first chapter of her book, Joanna Brooks writes “I grew up in a world where all the stories I heard arrive at the same conclusions: the wayfarer restored, the sick healed, the lost keys found, a singular truth confirmed. And an orthodox Mormon story is the…
Sunday in Outer Blogness: Chicken Edition!!
The most popular topic in Outer Blogness this week was the political act of eating chicken!! Andrew H pointed out that the Christians weren’t exactly following Jesus’ example or even doing themselves a favor: Suddenly, my religion is alien to me small, petty, reactive. My faith has lost its bearings….
Sunstone 2013: Mormon Bodies: Literal, Metaphorical, Doctrinal
Sunstone 2013 will be held Wednesday, 31 July through Saturday, 3 August, on the Weber State Campus. The theme will be “Mormon Bodies: Literal, Metaphorical, Doctrinal” and the description published in the program reads as follows: One of Mormonism’s most distinctive attributes is the emphasis on embodiment, including the belief…
Better to laugh at yourself, or someone else?
I was talking to a friend, who stopped by to visit and see how I was doing. We got to talking about some of our favorite blog posts. We came up with a list of things that we thought make for memorable posts. I will do posts over the next…