God sometimes tells us no when we ask him for assistance or intervention on various things. Sometimes the “no” answer is very clear. Sort of like the big ol’ “no” that the ancient prophet Mormon got when he prayed that his people might repent and be spared:

2 But behold, I was without hope, for I knew the judgments of the Lord which should come upon them; for they repented not of their iniquities, but did struggle for their lives without calling upon that Being who created them. (Mormon 5: 2)

(more…)

Today we covered John 9 in Sunday School. I’ve always admired the man who was blind from birth in this story — partially for his faith but more for his belligerent attitude toward the prideful and conniving leaders of his community. Let’s look at some of the relevant passages. First, after the man’s sight is restored the people are astonished and ask him what happened:

10 Therefore said they unto him, How were thine eyes opened?
11 He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay, and anointed mine eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.
12 Then said they unto him, Where is he? He said, I know not.

(more…)

So Q-Dog is five years old now and we have made our first foray into the world of little league baseball. I gotta tell you folks — I’m not liking the looks of this so far. (That’s not him in the pic BTW — just some random tee ball photo I found)

Doggy has two older sisters so I already have experience with some sports and activities for kids. We have done the dance thing, gymnastics, swim team, and I even helped coach the volleyball team for Number One (that’s our oldest who turned 10 yesterday). At most those activities required one practice per week and perhaps an hour long game on a Saturday. Not bad.

Enter Tee-Ball.
(more…)

I have been diverting myself by debating with several of Zelophehad’s Daughters and their friends over the past few days. The ZDers are mostly a group of intelligent and well-educated Mormon women (many of whom are actually sisters) who like to talk about, well, Mormon women’s issues. After two too-long threads we arrived at a disagreement on what what the ultimate “trump card” (their term) is when it comes to understanding metaphysical truths (aka the ultimate realities of existence).

The general topic of the latest debate specifically was this subject: Is God a sexist? In other words, does God see women as the property or possessions of their husbands?

(No, I’m not kidding. Some of them really are deeply concerned that this is the case. I can only imagine how distressing taking such a metaphysical nightmare seriously would be.) (more…)

Ok, it won’t really be shown in conference — but it sure could be. Click here to see the skit called “Don’t Buy Stuff”. (Hat tip BCC). Nothing like a little comedy (starring Steve Martin no less) to make a point about provident living. Reminds me of a comedian I once saw pitching his revolutionary “stop eating so much” diet.

“Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” (Gen. 2: 24; Matt. 19: 5; Moses 3: 24; Abr. 5: 18)

This verse is one of those rare scriptures that was quoted by Jesus himself. Modern readers usually view it as a simple endorsement of marriage, but many ancients viewed it as being much more literal than that. For thousands of years there has been a view that Adam and Eve (and thus perhaps all humankind) were once literally joined as male and female into a single being in the beginning and that returning to a similar fusion is a goal for humans in the end. In this post I’ll list some of the sources that lend themselves to this idea starting with canonized scriptures then moving to a few non-canonized ancient texts and finally pointing out some modern LDS comments along these lines. I am not arguing for the truth of this idea here — my goal for now is simply to lay out a few sources for readers to ponder and perhaps discuss. I don’t know whether this notion has any validity or not, but I definitely think it is fascinating. (more…)

Alright, I just installed a new YouTube plugin so I figured I share it with y’all. Here are a few clips from Kung Pow: Enter the Fist. My older brother told me about this movie and he was right — it is really really bad and yet I couldn’t stop laughing when I watched it. It was done by Steve Oedekerk — the same guy who brings us much joy with Jimmy Neutron: Boy Genius. I guess he took a bad kung fu movie and inserted himself in it then changed all the dialogue to make this film. So without further ado…
(more…)

Infinite time is a headache-inducing concept. No matter how far back we can conceive of an event happening there is always an infinite amount of time that preceded it. Philosophers have wrestled with this issue of infinite time and beginninglessness for thousands of years. Since Mormonism rejects creation ex nihilo we don’t even have the luxury of believing that only God is beginningless; we also must try to wrap our minds around the idea that all matter (including spirit matter) has no beginning. (more…)

So my new band has not gigged yet. Here is the problem: Our guitar player flaked out on us around Halloween and we have had no luck finding a replacement. Rick, the founder of the band and our trombone player, made a funny crack on the band email list this afternoon:
(more…)

One of our readers, CEF, asked me to read and review a book by Philip Yancey called “What’s So Amazing About Grace?“. In fact, CEF even sent me a copy of the book. I have been promising to review it for months now so I figured I had better get to it. I am admittedly only five chapters in at this point but I figured that if I started reviewing the book I’d have more motivation to finish it. (I have a dozen or more books that I have started but not finished — I’m not sure what that reveals about me…) Anyway, in this post I will give some general impressions about the book so far and address some issues about the word grace that have been on my mind in recent months.
(more…)

Everyone loves being complimented. I know I do. And I like sincerely complimenting other people too — everybody wins with a good compliment.

Jesus knew people love being complimented too. In our Sunday school lesson today I noticed an odd compliment that Jesus seemed to pay to some rather trollish Pharisees. Here is the passage from Luke 5:
(more…)