How I joined the Mormon church.

For the adult onset atheist the transition from refusing to be identified with something to identifying as a member of some reason-driven group like the humanists does not translate well. Being something is only as well understood as the group one is being is.

People tend to understand the label “Atheist” despite the fact that it is just a special label for putting religion onto the impressive pile of things that I am not. Sometimes I try to liven up being a simple “Atheist” with colorful trimmings of secular ethics or humanist ideology, but the fact that simple Atheism is just not being something bleaches them out.

It is easier for many people to resolve my atheism as not being a particular thing. I live in Utah so I am not a Mormon.

For some reason people who feel the need to tell me that “they are not an atheist” don’t understand me when I tell them that their statement is a double negative.

Not being something creates a description of what one “is” using details of what one is not. In many parts of the US the Mormons are less interesting than local crazies, and little is known about them. I know that my relatives would know more about Mormonism if the quorum of twelve wrangled rattlesnakes or insisted they had cloned Jesus Christ from UFO-supplied DNA. Not being a Mormon simply means that I am: “some guy who lives in Utah, doesn’t drink or smoke, says he is not a polygamist, and reads the disjoint ramblings of some dead guy from New York” except for the part after “lives in Utah”. Unfortunately for this description I don’t drink or smoke, and moved to Utah with two print copies of HOWL. So, unless I start dating heavily, I am a Mormon.

This puts me in the strange position of communicating details of Mormon belief to identify myself out of that group. In order to effectively communicate a subject it is important to understand it, which means, given the nature of Mormon beliefs, that I may remain a Mormon for some time.

In Utah it is not at all uncommon for a stranger to ask if you “are LDS”. In the hopes of finding a way out of the Mormon Church I’ve taken to answering “I’m apparently an inactive Mormon, do you have a daughter who is at least 18 years of age?” Judging by people’s reaction it is also not uncommon in Utah for people to ask this question though I’ve yet to score a phone number.

I am not the only person who is having trouble leaving the Mormon Church. It is even worse if the official church authority has recognized you as a member. The church apparently only excommunicates people who want to remain in the church. In order to be separated you have to write a letter to someone and have them approve your separation. Since many people are recognized as members simply because of family ties there are potentially hordes of people who do not even realize they are members; you may be a member!

Do you think you are safe because none of your relatives were Mormon while they were alive? They may have converted posthumously. You may now be the spawn of a long line of Mormons. Just ask Anne Frank. I think she talks about her conversion in a newly revealed addendum to her diary discovered by translating from its original “reformed Yiddish” a long buried golden scrapbook discovered in Provo.

I suppose I should become more comfortable with my position in the Mormon Church. It looks like I have little choice. I should accept the gift of this Ironic priesthood. Perhaps I can develop some new-age-Mormon fusion spirituality involving full-contact-Reiki or start a trade in slightly used seer stones.

Chantilly Lace

I get those e-mails. I get many about interesting things from people who are bringing them to my attention, but I also get those emails. I also get way too many from list servers specializing on specific topics that I had a passing interest in once yet can’t really remember why. I also get LOLcats; lots of LOLcats for some reason.

Those e-mails are the ones presenting anecdotal evidence that either an extremely interventionist deity or a political conspiracy to undermine the USA exists. Judging by the impressive forwarding headers some of those e-mails have they have each circled the globe quite a few times. You know about those e-mails because you have gotten them also; probably lots of them like I have.

I usually delete them. Sometimes I check Snopes or something. It is amazing how long a discredited e-mail will continue to be forwarded in cyberspace. I am convinced that many people just forward the most amazing stories to as many people as they can in the hopes of finding out if they are real.

I got this one once about how “scientists” had proved that the earth really did stop rotating for several days as told in a minor old testament story. The story did not mention the terrible calamities that would occur if one were able to just instantaneously stop the earth’s rotation. For several days I imagined minor aspects of the devastation that would occur.

In the middle of a cup of coffee with good company I would burst out with something like: “And the tsunamis!!”.

I am still a little concerned with how difficult it was for my various companions to tell the difference between these outbursts and my normal conversation.

Sometimes I investigate those e-mails myself. This can be embarrassing.

I do like the awkward god story e-mails more that the conspiracy ones. Unfortunately, since this is an election year, the political conspiracy e-mails have become the norm. These are usually simply deleted.

Despite being expunged from my inbox the same lies keep popping up over-and-over like tap-rooted weeds. They also pop up on facebook pages and blogs.

The teabagger e-mail lie machine appears to work like this:

1. Truth is based on belief. If you want to believe something it can be true.
2. Things that support your belief should be sent to as many people as possible, and widely publicized.
3. People who think the information is wrong are probably lying because they believe something you don’t
4. If someone successfully proves that the lies you are spreading are wrong they are providing uninteresting information, which there is no need to share.

I just don’t care to even read much of the hyperbolic nonsense about how Obama is penning some new socialist executive order mandating gay marriage or forcing Christians into concentration camps. OK…maybe I do read some of them, if something really outrageous in it catches my eye

It depresses me, however, to read what was tagged onto bills like the 2012NDAA and realize some of the fascist hyperbole is a little too close to reality.

Some of those e-mails come festooned with pictures of of scantily clad young women.  Pictures of scantily clad young women in my inbox have a tendency to catch my eye. This will be a real problem when they finally do mandate gay marriage.

A few weeks ago I got an e-mail with a photo of a woman in underwear contorted into some yoga pose I did not recognize. When I got around to reading the e-mail it stated first lady Obama spent $50,000.00 in a couple hours at a lingerie shop called Agent Provocateur. It went on to describe TFL’s shopping trip as some sort of babe-bonding outing with the Queen of Qatar; another not-unattractive middle-aged famous woman.

I spent a couple moments imagining TFL and QoQ modeling skimpy underthings for each other while making bawdry remarks and giggling.

The e-mail went into the level of detail usually only seen on outright lies or actual truth. Detail, however, makes it easy to fact-check a story so I decided to investigate this story.

First I found out that the shop in question exists. It even has a website with more yoga-esque posing young women; though no pictures of TFL or QoQ. They apparently specialize in bondage-themed lingerie (accounting for some of the yoga poses perhaps), and one article about the incident mentioned a handmade Calais lace corset that went for around a thousand dollars. Would anyone really need a different corset each day for two months?

Next I found a couple of articles describing the event in more detail. There appeared like there could have been a single originating source: the UK’s Telegraph. The Telegraph’s webpage for the story features a picture of a fully clothed Michelle Obama, and another picture of a mostly unclothed woman wearing dark sunglasses.

The QoQ and TFL apparently even closed off a whole city block so they could have privacy while shopping. Privacy maybe, but that is not very inconspicuous.

So, like the memorable photo of god’s goatse, this story initially appeared to be accurate.

On February 10th the Telegraph issued the following retraction:

Further to our article “First Lady’s luxury buys boost Agent Provocateur” (Jan 30), we would like to make clear that the “shopping spree” involving Her Highness Sheikha Moza and Michelle Obama that we referred to in fact never occurred, and that Her Highness has never been shopping with Mrs Obama, at Agent Provocateur or otherwise, and has never sought to have any part of New York closed off to enable her to shop undisturbed. We apologize for the distress and embarrassment this article caused.

So they just made this up. Total fabrication, and of course it made it onto e-mail.

It is interesting to note that, upon further digging, I came across an official white-house denial of the story. Upon issuing a categorical denial of the story (“100% incorrect”) the white-house spokesperson was asked to provide proof. What do you think the reporter wanted as proof to show that TFL did not buy her underwear from Agent Provocateur?

Shikshapatri

One hundred and eighty-six years ago today, on February 11th 1826, Ghanshyam Pande wrote the 212 line Shikshapatri. the Bhagwan Swaminarayan, as Ghanshyam was called by his friends, turned out to actually be an incarnation of the Hindu god Narayana.

A large amount of the Shikshapatri concerns itself with sex; mostly about not having it.

They shall never touch nor speak with nor show their faces to any male who is not their nearest relative. – Shikshapatri verse 134

They shall take food once a day only, shall sleep on the floor and shall never knowingly look at any living beings in coitus. -- Shikshapatri verse 168

Narayana and Nara are twin male gods. The story goes like this: Nara-Narayana was -as the Supreme Being- talking up a bunch of folks outside their home when Shiva came in deressed up in his incarnation as Durvasa. Nobody notice him in his fancy flesh suit so he curses the whole lot. After some negotiation Shiva agrees to be satisfied with requiring Narayana being reincarnated in human form. He comes back as Swaminarayan, writes up the Shikshapatri, and a sect if born.

The twin likenesses of Nara-Narayana are often found in temples of the Swaminarayan faith. When Ghanshyam died on June 1st 1830 The sect was estimated at 1.8 million devotees in size. In 2002 the size of the sect was estimated at five million devotees; this despite numerous splits in the lines of accession.

No one shall ever here sermons or religious discourses or philosophical talks from a person whose words are likely to lead one astray from the path of devotion to Lord Krishna and/or from the path of one's own Dharma. – Shikshapatri verse 25

One proof of Ghanshyam’s divinity as an incarnation of Narayana is that he told Reginald Heber (Bishop of Calcutta) that he was divine. Reginald Heber is best known as a hymn-writer. One of his famous hymns is called: “The Son of God goes forth to war” and starts with the line : “The Son of God goes forth to war, a kingly crown to gain”.

They shall never keep close relation with a woman who has any kind of relation with a king. -- Shikshapatri verse 137