I'm not leaving the Ship of Zion

I have mentioned it before, but it bears repeating, I am conflicted many times in Church. But something mentioned in an earlier Relief Society lesson really spoke to me. It was something former President Lorenzo Snow said:

Stick to the ship of Zion. If boats come to the side, showing beautiful colors and making wonderful promises, do not get off the ship to go to the shore on any other boat; but keep on the ship. If you are badly used by any of those that are on the ship, who have not got the proper spirit, remember the ship is allright. We should not allow our minds to become soured because of anything that the people on the ship may do to us, the ship is allright, and the officers are allright, and we will be right if we stick to the ship. I can assure you it will take you right into the land of glory.

This really spoke to me. There are so many times that I hear things that bother me. That seem to fly in the face of Christ's teachings. I so often go back to what Christ taught in the 22nd chapter of Matthew:

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment. 

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

So many things I hear in church and in the news from Christians seem to fly in the face of this. My reading of this is that God wants us love to all His children. Not just those that look like yourself. I feel that one of the reasons there are so many different peoples on this Earth is because God is testing us. If everyone were the same, it would be easy to love your neighbor. But when your neighbor is different, whether a different sex, race, gender, or sexual orientation, it shouldn't matter. 

The other problem I have is when they condemn all those outside the church. There are so many good people that are not just not Christian, Jew, or Muslim, but they are violently anti-religion. Yet they have some (if not most) of the same ethical mores as the rest of us do. Why is this? Perhaps it's because some of the things churches teach are in conflict not just with their ethical viewpoint but also conflicting with the things that the prophets and the Savior teach in their holy books. 

Was Christ intolerant? Is God a respecter of persons? No. He is not. The Bible does not teach that. Not at all. 

Many Christians state that the world today is immoral and the family is being harmed by these godless atheists and liberals. Well, this god-fearing liberal says no. The problem is very simple. It's when men and women put material concerns and money ahead of God. It's when men and women put their carnal comforts and pleasures before God. Why do people commit crimes if not for their own personal comforts and pleasures, after all?

I will say, of course, that belief in God and the acceptance of Christ as your Savior will help in this. But beyond that we need to be teaching the correct things in our churches. And we need to stop teaching things that God would not thank us for spreading in His name.

There are many people on my "ship of Zion" that are spreading things that I believe are not in God's nature, but I'm sticking to the ship regardless. 

Click and get a free Book of Mormon

Complaints from the right

I don't seem to blog nearly as much as I ought. I do spend a lot of time on Google+ these days. But I've decided I'd like to spend a little time answering and publicizing comments that I get on there that just leave me flummoxed. 

I read some things on line and just wonder how can anyone think that? It's just insane! How can you look at the world around you and conclude that?

Anyway, the first one is to be found here: 

Google+ Thread 1

Anti gay?  Marriage "equality" is not anit gay but pro Biblical marriage.  You must be anti Christian, Jewish, and Muslim as they all promote the idea of man and woman.

Okay, this is my first problem. Biblical marriage? That implies that the government is putting the Christian church at the center of government. That is what is wrong. I am a Mormon. I accept Christ as my Lord and Savior. However, I also support keeping God and all religion out of government. You need to accept Christ, Buddha, Mohammed, Jehovah at the center of your religion of your own free will. Any time you use your religious doctrine to tell others what they can or cannot do, I have a problem with that. 

Anti women?  obama's administration has less women working and getting paid less than during Bush's terms.  Also, until Hilary's appointment they were nearly no women in high positions and there are still few.

Yes, there are far too many white men in Obama's Administration. But that's not the point. The Republican Party is anti-woman. Let me count the ways:

• Opposition to the Violence Against Women Act
• Opposition to contraception and a woman's right to choose
• Opposition to the Lilly Ledbetter Act
• Denial that there is a pay inequity by gender

You need to re-read the Constitution because Separation of Church and State is not there, and do not bring up the Federalist Papers or some Treaty that has no real bearing.  The fact is the Framers only did not want a State Established church as is in England.

Sorry. The Separation of Church and State is there. (I suppose I could bring up the 2nd Amendment and bring up that personal ownership of guns for self defense or pleasure shooting isn't in there.) However, the issue is that the First Amendment doesn't just guarantee freedom of religion, but also freedom from religion.

That means we should not use any religion to make public decisions. That means marriage equality, abortion and contraception, women's rights, and our blind support of Israel.

A First Amendment Primer

Good job seeing through my disguised name and seeing that I am a man (sarcasm).  I saw plenty of racism during the last election, most from a population that believed that voting for a black man simply because he was black was alright or from many on the left that would call out any opposition against obama as racism because that would be the only reason right?  So you must be racist against latinos because you do not like Rubio. You need to go back and look at history, Jim Crowe Laws written by democrats, Civil Rights was passed with a higher percentage of the GOP voting yes as opposed to a lower percentage of democrats.

Insane. Just insane. What can I say? Jim Crow law written by Democrats. Yes, I suppose. You can talk about all the bad things Democrats did in the past, and all the good things Republicans did in the past but what does it mean? What really matters is what they are doing now. And the more I watch what Republicans are doing now all I see is hate, racism, and intolerance.

You seem confused and lost, I am glad that you go to Church, hopefully you will connect to Jesus, accept him, and realize how far the left has taken us away from his teachings and God's Word.

What can I say? All I can really respond with is this from the Book of Matthew:

 37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

 38 This is the first and great commandment.

 39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

The Tragic Comedy of Dogs

“A dog reflects the family life. Whoever saw a frisky dog in a gloomy family, or a sad dog in a happy one? Snarling people have snarling dogs, dangerous people have dangerous ones.” 

― Arthur Conan Doyle, The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes

 

 

This is Misty. Poor, dear, darling Misty. She is full of character really. First thing, she is a lady. She is full of dignity and poise. She is afraid of "being bad". She is such an introvert and doesn't want to be caught doing something that might embarass her. (Reminds me of me, actually.) She loves playing ball. 

But, unfortunately, she is paranoid. Paranoid of pills and medication. It is incredibly frustrating and - at some level - hurtful. When she refuses to take certain foods, it hurts me. It depresses me. So, yes, on some level, I am as neurotic as my dog!

A week ago, she came up lame. I tried to give her a painkiller - and, since then, she will not eat from her dog food bowl! Never mind the fact that I tried to sneak in an english muffin with jelly (!!), but still she won't eat from the bowl. Aaaarrrrggghhh!!!!!!! I can still feed her, though. I just put a scoop of the dry food in front of her on her pillow. Simple!

Still, it is incredibly frustrating. I keep on thinking any day, she'll eat out of her bowl again. Or is this permanent? The vet wants to put her on supplements. But that's impossible! She is just so obstinate. 

Do we get the dogs we deserve? Or do the dogs change to resemble us? 

If anyone has any suggestions, I am welcome to them!

What I've Read and Listened to in January

Starting this month, I'm trying to stay true to a reading challenge I took called the TBR (To Be Read) Double Dog Dare.

So, apart from my book club reads, all books will come from my backlog. I'm looking forward to clearing some of it up!

So without further ado, here goes.

The audiobooks I listened to this month are as follows:

Echo Burning (Jack Reacher #5)

Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex

Shards of Honour (Vorkosigan Saga #1)

Barrayar (Vorkosigan Saga #2)

The Warrior's Apprentice (Vorkosigan Saga #3)

The Vor Game (Vorkosigan Saga #4)

Cetaganda (Vorkosigan Saga #5)

Dracula

The books I've read on  my Kindle:

Strange Bedpersons (MIRA)

What The Lady Wants

Manhunting

Trust Me On This

Books I've Read the Old-Fashioned Way

Messages from Music and the Spoken Word  

127 Hours: Between a Rock and a Hard Place

The Time Traders (Time Traders/Ross Murdock #1)

Not too shabby? Hope to read more in February!

Happy New Year 2013!!

i

Happy New Year!! May 2013 be a "barking" good year!!

I wanted to come up with some wishes I have for the New Year! Some may be serious, some facetious, and some may piss you off. But these are *my* wishes, if you have any of your own, please leave them in the comments!

May I have a year without Kardashians. 
And any other reality "star" thank you very much. Remember when being a celebrity required some background? You were on tv or the movies. You were a singer. You were an athlete. Now you just have to make an ass of yourself on reality programming. Speaking of which...

May I have a year with much less reality tv. 
Have you noticed just how much of this crap is on tv? I miss the days of sitcoms, dramas, sci-fi, soaps, etc. Even if the show was dreadful, at least it may have been entertaining. One of my pet peeves is this show:
Locked Up Abroad I'll tell you why. The set-up is this. Person goes abroad. Person gets locked up in foreign prison. Person is tormented. Person gets 15 minutes of fame by doing program. But... 9 times out of 10, person was smuggling drugs. Into places like Turkey? Are you mad?
Others I dislike are the ones where they may be hurt or injured doing something clearly dangerous. Aren't we just encouraging these idiots by giving them a show.

May I have a year where the news is actually news. 
Here's where I'm going with this. Who gets knocked off the island on Survivor -- that is clearly *not* news! Who Kim Kardashian is dating -- not news! 

May I have a year where I do not have to hear an argument whether a rape is "legitimate" or not. Do I really have to explain this?

May I have a year where less Americans deny science. 
All science. Any science. Scientists follow something called the scientific method. (You should have studied this in school.) They have something called peer review. That means that their calculations and studies are backed up and studied and critically reviewed nine ways to Sunday. You can Google any scientist. You can request the papers. Please. The earth is *not* 6000 years old. We are experiencing climate change. Your religious beliefs should not be mutually exclusive from this.

May I have a year where I do not have to hear about firemen, paramedics, or other rescue personnel dying or being badly injured because someone did something stupid. 

Anyone remember this? In 2002, a Blackhawk helicopter flown by the USAF reserve crashed on Mount Hood trying to rescue some climbers. Mt Hood claims its share of climbers and rescuers. But what really irritates me is when a storm is known to coming in, it's the middle of winter, etc, and they still go climbing. And expect to be rescued!! 

Years and years ago, in my home town of Kennewick in eastern Washington State, some idiot was lighting fires up in the Horse Heaven Hills and started a fire. One of the volunteer firemen died when his vehicle rolled on him on the hill. If you're stupid and kill yourself, that's one thing, but why take the best of humanity with you?

May I have a year with less hip hop, rap, and dubstep.
Please. May I have something that makes me hum or sing along. Something that makes my toe tap. Something with rhythm and a melody!

May my dogs have a healthy and happy year!

May there be less right wing nut jobs in 2013.

May Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, and Ann Coulter become unemployed or at the very least voice less and irrelevant.

May every person that states that they are a follower of Christ learn to follow in his footsteps.
I usually hate to go on about religion. I don't like talking about it much. And many Christians really irritate me. Christ would not approve of using his message to discriminate and persecute minorities, women, and those that are different. He would not approve of using violence to achieve your ends. Remember, what he said, the second commandment is to "love your neighbor as yourself". Most of the Christians I see don't do this. In fact, many of the Christians I see in the news are just one step removed from some of these Islamic sects. 

May we stop all this fracking and drilling for oil in places like the Arctic. 
It disturbs me to see my fellow citizens putting a potential job or boost in the economy ahead of things like clean air and clean drinking water. 

May I see some sanity in the gun owners and gun rights crowd.
People say "oh, you're a liberal, you want to take my gun away." No, I want to see some common sense. Gun deaths have become a public health crisis. No other country would have let it get this far. Even Australia took care of it. So many people that defend their right say I'm being emotional. But it seems to me to be the opposite. Gun owners that rush out after every gun death or Democratic Presidential election to buy more guns when I'm sure they already have plenty. Gun owners who say their 2nd Amendment rights are sacrosanct, but are never bothered when people's other civil rights are violated. When free speech is suppressed, where were they? When people were being tortured and held without legal representation where were they? When people were threatening the right of e they of a woman to make decisions about her own body where were they?

May I see less attacks on great institutions like PBS and NPR.

May I see less cat videos and more dog videos.

May I not hear another end of the world scenario for at least a year.

May I have some excellent books in my future. 

May President Obama and the government stop using drones in the Middle East. 
 It's not helping!

May we have a more sane Israel policy.
Here's my thing. Our Israel policy is based on the Book of Revelation. Therefore, it is a violation of the separation of church and state. How do I figure that? Israel is allowed to do whatever it wants. After all, Christ will not come until the Temple is rebuilt in Jerusalem right?? That's why we don't care when the Israelis continually violate basic human rights. After all, if *any* other country did what they're doing, the UN Security Council would be called together to discuss sanctions.

So why do they get away with it? Well, one, because we feel guilty for not protecting the Jews better from Hitler. Two, because the ev aevangelical lobby, wants to speed up the Second Coming. WhicWhich brings me to...

May Ma


May the evangelicals just chill...
I am so sick and tired of people talking about these are the end times. (And it's not just the evangelicals, I hear this all the time in my church.) People have been harping on this my whole life. I don't doubt that Jesus will come again. But, here's my view: God has a plan. You need to be ready. But it will happen when it happens. I've always thought that God would be pretty pissed if someone tried to speed things up. Also, it's the journey that counts.  

Can I have a little romance this year? 

Maybe even a little travel? Especially by train! I'd love to take a train trip!

  Finally may I have a year with less contention, more discovery, and more laughter!