I'm a native of Denver. As a kid I could remember throngs of kids moving from door to door in the annual Halloween Trick or Treat. I also lived in Oklahoma and California.
Here in Utah, there are very few kids.
Apparently, local LDS Churches have huge Halloween events. There was a flyer on our door discouraging kids from door to door trick or treating and ushering them to the local ward.*
I assume this is because parents think door to door trick or treating is dangerous. After all, you never know what gentiles* might put in the candy they give kids.
Anyway, I turned the TV on yesterday and ended up watching an anti-polygamy show. The show featured an ex-polygamist who was discussing the occult practices of her particular polygamist clan. She also discussed the many indications that Joseph Smith was actively engaged in the occult.
It is generally accepted that early Mormons, like the good people of Salem two generations before, held a magical world view and that Joseph Smith was a treasure hunter and that LDS Temples are adorned with bizarre occult symbols from a wide range of sources and that Temple ceremonies are largely based on Masonic and Occult ceremonies.
But to actually hear an ex-polygamist talk about being negatively affected by occult practices in contemporary America was kind of a wake up call.
Anyway, there are very few trick-or-treaters out tonight; so I am sitting here, munching on Halloween Candy, thinking about how a church that has origins in the occult is using candy to lure kids up to some big event at the ward house.
hmmmmm......this could be a good start to a Grimm Fairy Tale or modern horror flick.
I am not LDS. I dislike both the theology and ideology behind the LDS Church. For challenging this ideology, I've been called a "Servant of Satan."
I put the words "Servants of Satan" in quotes because I've heard neighbors and coworkers use those exact words to describe me.
So, on this All Soul's Eve, I am left wondering about the huge Halloween event hosted by a group that has strong occult ties.
Anyway, if you want to scare yourself, you can Google "Joseph Smith and the Occult." You will find many interesting things. There are not just anti-Mormon articles. Mormon Apologists are chiming in acknowledging the occult and magical world view.
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*The LDS call their churches "wards." They call people who are not LDS (including Jewish people) "gentiles." LDS doctrine teaches that people who are not LDS are Servants of Satan.
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Friday, October 31, 2014
Saturday, October 18, 2014
Is Marriage an Institution of Hatred?
I just read an blog post that matter-of-factly stated that the Christian tradition of Marriage was all about hatred and that the sacrament of matrimony was contrived by evil people with the single minded purpose of oppressing women.
The line that marriage is all about oppressing women is not new. It was what they were teaching when I was in school. I am not married and I never really considered getting married because I do not want to be that horrible person who is oppressing a woman simply by existing. I never once considered having children because children exhale carbon when they breath.
Back in the 1980s, before it was the cool thing to do, I was a big supporter of Gay-Marriage.
Quite frankly, I still have no problem with people in same sex unions and believe that secular laws about monogamous civil unions should apply to same-sex marriage.
Having seen the terrible things happen to people in Utah because of polygamy, I am hesitant to say laws applying to monogamous relations should apply to groups.
Anyway, I want to repeat why I am opposed to the Marriage Equality Movement.
I was a supporter of gay-marriage back before it was the cool thing to do. I had some progressive friends who were opposed to all forms of marriage as artificial. We went to a lecture by a progressive lawyer.
The progressive lawyer then explained that by reframing the campaign for "gay-marriage" to "marriage-equality" that they could use the movement to attack the church.
A gay-marriage is not equal if it is not recognized by all churches.
I suspect that most most supporters of gay-marriage feel like I felt back in the 1980s and are simply seeking recognition of a civil union, but the title of the movement is now marriage equality.
Gay-Marriage is not equal to hetero-sexual marriage until the Catholic Church has been sued and is either forced out of business or forced to submit to progressive dictates.
The sacrament of marriage, of course, is not about sex, it is about the children produced by sex.
The marriage equality movement flies squarely against the fact that heterosexual couplings naturally produce children and homosexual couplings do not.
That natural inequality is not the contrivance of some evil pope in the third century.
Sexual reproduction is the basis of evolution of most multicellular forms of live on this planet including all the creatures in the Mammalia Class along with most fish and trees.
The claim that hetero-sexual couplings are equal to homosexual couplings goes against basic biology and the fundamentals of evolution.
My direct personal experience involves being in a room with people who were opposed to gay-marriage then started supporting it when they realized a marriage equality movement would provide a legal means to attack churches.
As for claims that the Christian tradition of marriage was contrived in the third century by evil popes who hated women, I want to start by pointing out that neither I nor most* of the the people involved in the current debate were living in the third century.
I counter this claim because there is a solid logical argument for the Christian tradition of marriage. Hetero-sexual couplings produce children. Same sex couplings do not.
This is basic biology. When there is a clearly logically statement for a position, I will take the logical statement over psychic claims about the ability to see into the minds of others.
I have met married women who claim that they favor monogamous marriage because it provides a stable basis for raising their children. I have met multiple women escaping from polygamous situations who were in dire straits and single moms who were struggling and having a hard time lacking support.
Looking at churches, my observation is that women tend to be more actively involved in the church than men.
From grade school to present day, I've heard progressives repeating the talking point that marriage is all about evil popes who hate women conspiring with with evil men who want to oppress women, but I really have never seen it.
Progressives claim to be intellectually and morally superior to their neighbors, but my direct experience with people living in different situations keep telling me that the progressives are wing nuts.
When I look at the marriage equality movement, I don't see a movement driven by love. I see a movement of movement led by power mongers seeking to force their opposition into submission.
I do not have the ability to see into the minds of others, but if I were forced to identify which group was driven by hate: (The Christians who supported the Sacrament of Marriage) or (Progressives demanding marriage equality); I would point to the progressives.
In this case the Christians appear to be driven by reason and science, while those demanding marriage equality seem to be driven by a desire to force others into submission. BTW: the name for efforts to force others into submission is called oppression. The Marriage Equality Movement is a movement is an anti-science movement driven by a desire to oppress an opposition.
The line that marriage is all about oppressing women is not new. It was what they were teaching when I was in school. I am not married and I never really considered getting married because I do not want to be that horrible person who is oppressing a woman simply by existing. I never once considered having children because children exhale carbon when they breath.
Back in the 1980s, before it was the cool thing to do, I was a big supporter of Gay-Marriage.
Quite frankly, I still have no problem with people in same sex unions and believe that secular laws about monogamous civil unions should apply to same-sex marriage.
Having seen the terrible things happen to people in Utah because of polygamy, I am hesitant to say laws applying to monogamous relations should apply to groups.
Anyway, I want to repeat why I am opposed to the Marriage Equality Movement.
I was a supporter of gay-marriage back before it was the cool thing to do. I had some progressive friends who were opposed to all forms of marriage as artificial. We went to a lecture by a progressive lawyer.
The progressive lawyer then explained that by reframing the campaign for "gay-marriage" to "marriage-equality" that they could use the movement to attack the church.
A gay-marriage is not equal if it is not recognized by all churches.
I suspect that most most supporters of gay-marriage feel like I felt back in the 1980s and are simply seeking recognition of a civil union, but the title of the movement is now marriage equality.
Gay-Marriage is not equal to hetero-sexual marriage until the Catholic Church has been sued and is either forced out of business or forced to submit to progressive dictates.
The sacrament of marriage, of course, is not about sex, it is about the children produced by sex.
The marriage equality movement flies squarely against the fact that heterosexual couplings naturally produce children and homosexual couplings do not.
That natural inequality is not the contrivance of some evil pope in the third century.
Sexual reproduction is the basis of evolution of most multicellular forms of live on this planet including all the creatures in the Mammalia Class along with most fish and trees.
The claim that hetero-sexual couplings are equal to homosexual couplings goes against basic biology and the fundamentals of evolution.
My direct personal experience involves being in a room with people who were opposed to gay-marriage then started supporting it when they realized a marriage equality movement would provide a legal means to attack churches.
As for claims that the Christian tradition of marriage was contrived in the third century by evil popes who hated women, I want to start by pointing out that neither I nor most* of the the people involved in the current debate were living in the third century.
I counter this claim because there is a solid logical argument for the Christian tradition of marriage. Hetero-sexual couplings produce children. Same sex couplings do not.
This is basic biology. When there is a clearly logically statement for a position, I will take the logical statement over psychic claims about the ability to see into the minds of others.
I have met married women who claim that they favor monogamous marriage because it provides a stable basis for raising their children. I have met multiple women escaping from polygamous situations who were in dire straits and single moms who were struggling and having a hard time lacking support.
Looking at churches, my observation is that women tend to be more actively involved in the church than men.
From grade school to present day, I've heard progressives repeating the talking point that marriage is all about evil popes who hate women conspiring with with evil men who want to oppress women, but I really have never seen it.
Progressives claim to be intellectually and morally superior to their neighbors, but my direct experience with people living in different situations keep telling me that the progressives are wing nuts.
When I look at the marriage equality movement, I don't see a movement driven by love. I see a movement of movement led by power mongers seeking to force their opposition into submission.
I do not have the ability to see into the minds of others, but if I were forced to identify which group was driven by hate: (The Christians who supported the Sacrament of Marriage) or (Progressives demanding marriage equality); I would point to the progressives.
In this case the Christians appear to be driven by reason and science, while those demanding marriage equality seem to be driven by a desire to force others into submission. BTW: the name for efforts to force others into submission is called oppression. The Marriage Equality Movement is a movement is an anti-science movement driven by a desire to oppress an opposition.
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Formation of the Republican Party
Conservatism traces to the Tories. The Tories are the people who fought against the US Founders. Conservative intellectuals tend to trace their partisan ideology to Edmund Burke or to Machiavelli.
Machiavelli preached that the prince must appear religious without actually being religious. When the words that flow through your lips are lies, you can puff out all sorts of sanctimonious spittle while playing the political game of rewarding friends and punishing enemies friend.
The people who believe the rhetoric that loosely flies from conservative lips are considered useful idiots who simply find themselves holding an empty bag of promises when the dust of politics settles. For over over a half century, the GOP has been electing "Conservatives" who promise to decentralize government. Instead they find the Right side of the aisle lined with people aptly described as "Republican in Name Only" (RINO).
This happens because of the Machiavellian nature of Conservatism.
To recap the previous post. The Conservative Party was established in England in the 1830s from the Tory Party. Tories, you may recall, were the people who fought against the US Founders.
The people who founded the Republican Party would be shocked to find that their party adopted the conservative view. Both in 1830 and today, Conservatives are Machiavellians set on preserving the class society of the ancient regime. If you call yourself a conservative you are standing with the Tories who leveled their musket rounds at the US Founders and who immediately set in on undermining the American Experiment in Self Rule.
The Republican Party of the United States, in contrast, was founded in 1854 by members of the Whig Party. The primary concern of the Republican Party of 1854 was to stop to spread of slavery and the plantation model in the West. The plantation model of society is one with a very small number of aristocrats who control society with the bulk of humanity impressed as wage labor or slaves. On nominating Abraham Lincoln, the GOP set its focus on preserving the Union.
The founders of the Republican Party were adamant defenders of the world view of the US Founders. They chose the name "Republican," because the US Founders loved the name.
The US Founders had a liberal arts education based on classical logic and steeped in Christian Ethics. They fought in a Revolutionary War with the banner of liberty. The founders created a Constitutionally limited central government whose primary focus was the protection of liberty.
The founders lived before the age of ideology, but I like to call their approach to society and governance "Classical Liberal." Modern Liberalism is a paradoxical approach to governance that appears to have accepted Hegel's modern logic as its foundation. Hegel believed freedom was slavery and slavery freedom. The Democratic Party was formed in the South with the bizarre belief that a plantation based society with a few phenomenally wealthy individuals and the bulk of humanity held in slavery or wage labor positions was a higher form of society. The plantation mentality (aka Progressivism) is still the driving fantasy of the Democratic Party in many urban areas.
The Liberal Party of England was founded in 1859. The Liberal Party of England pushed a radicalized definition of Liberal derived from modern logic (Hegel) which saw freedom as slavery and slavery freedom. In the English Parliament, the Conservatives defended the social structure of the ancient regime while the Liberals advocated social change through political and economic centralization.
In 1867, a German Philosopher living in England wrote a tome called "Das Kapital." Das Kapital described a society in which a ruling elite use control of the banking system to create a class society. Marx's capitalism is not a free market as envisioned by the Adam Smith, the US Founders and the classical liberals that established the GOP. Marx's capitalism is distortion of a market created by centralized banks and centralized financial exchanges.
Conservatives fell head-over-heels in love with Marx's Capitalism as Marx defines a direct path of re-establishing class rule in an age of revolution. To this day, Conservatives blindly defend Marx's Capitalism despite the fact that Marx's Capitalism is one of the greatest threats to freedom ever devised.
If you call yourself a "conservative," I beg you to please tell me why you blindly defend capitalism (Marx's distortion of the free market)? Why do you stand shoulder to shoulder with the Tories who leveled their muskets at the US Founders?
Are you really so stupid as to think that we can restore the greatness of America by blindly following the enemies of liberty?
I beg you to read the history of Conservatism. It is an ideology that flows from Machiavelli. It holds Edmund Burke in esteem and belittles the US Founders as neophytes. Conservatism pushes the economic theories of "Das Kapital" to the detriment of the honest free market envisioned by the founders and Classical Liberals such as Von Mises and Hayek.
In every election for the last fifty years, the GOP screamed the words conservatism. Every single conservative administration has favored economic and political centralization over the principles of freedom.
The Party of Lincoln was founded on the same solid principles as the US Founders. The Founders had a liberal arts education based on classical logic and steeped in Christian Ethics. I like to call this approach "classical liberalism."
IMHO, Abraham Lincoln and the US Founders were among the greatest political thinkers who ever lived. Look at the great things the founders and Lincoln did!
Conservatives, in contrast, wallow on the ground before Machiavelli. Modern Conservatives accepted the perverted system of thinking called "modern logic" by Hegel and support the economics described by Karl Marx in "Das Kapital"?
If you are a conservative; Please, I am on my knees begging, tell me why you think we should turn our backs on the US Founders and Lincoln to follow the ravings of Machiavelli, Hegel and Marx?
If you are one of the blind idiots who follow Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck without bothering to research the history of Conservatism; then you have no right to complain about the RINOs because the RINOs that control the modern GOP are a direct product of conservative thought.
The Party of Lincoln was established by people who truly believed in the ideals of the US Founders (classical liberalism). Conservatives (the Tories) are a traditional enemy of these ideals. Conservative Republicans who are true to the conservative ideology (Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Edmund Burke, Hegel, etc) are inherently Republican In Name Only. To expect conservatives to be something outside the nature of conservatism is naive in the severest form of the term.
Machiavelli preached that the prince must appear religious without actually being religious. When the words that flow through your lips are lies, you can puff out all sorts of sanctimonious spittle while playing the political game of rewarding friends and punishing enemies friend.
The people who believe the rhetoric that loosely flies from conservative lips are considered useful idiots who simply find themselves holding an empty bag of promises when the dust of politics settles. For over over a half century, the GOP has been electing "Conservatives" who promise to decentralize government. Instead they find the Right side of the aisle lined with people aptly described as "Republican in Name Only" (RINO).
This happens because of the Machiavellian nature of Conservatism.
To recap the previous post. The Conservative Party was established in England in the 1830s from the Tory Party. Tories, you may recall, were the people who fought against the US Founders.
The people who founded the Republican Party would be shocked to find that their party adopted the conservative view. Both in 1830 and today, Conservatives are Machiavellians set on preserving the class society of the ancient regime. If you call yourself a conservative you are standing with the Tories who leveled their musket rounds at the US Founders and who immediately set in on undermining the American Experiment in Self Rule.
The Republican Party of the United States, in contrast, was founded in 1854 by members of the Whig Party. The primary concern of the Republican Party of 1854 was to stop to spread of slavery and the plantation model in the West. The plantation model of society is one with a very small number of aristocrats who control society with the bulk of humanity impressed as wage labor or slaves. On nominating Abraham Lincoln, the GOP set its focus on preserving the Union.
The founders of the Republican Party were adamant defenders of the world view of the US Founders. They chose the name "Republican," because the US Founders loved the name.
The US Founders had a liberal arts education based on classical logic and steeped in Christian Ethics. They fought in a Revolutionary War with the banner of liberty. The founders created a Constitutionally limited central government whose primary focus was the protection of liberty.
The founders lived before the age of ideology, but I like to call their approach to society and governance "Classical Liberal." Modern Liberalism is a paradoxical approach to governance that appears to have accepted Hegel's modern logic as its foundation. Hegel believed freedom was slavery and slavery freedom. The Democratic Party was formed in the South with the bizarre belief that a plantation based society with a few phenomenally wealthy individuals and the bulk of humanity held in slavery or wage labor positions was a higher form of society. The plantation mentality (aka Progressivism) is still the driving fantasy of the Democratic Party in many urban areas.
The Liberal Party of England was founded in 1859. The Liberal Party of England pushed a radicalized definition of Liberal derived from modern logic (Hegel) which saw freedom as slavery and slavery freedom. In the English Parliament, the Conservatives defended the social structure of the ancient regime while the Liberals advocated social change through political and economic centralization.
In 1867, a German Philosopher living in England wrote a tome called "Das Kapital." Das Kapital described a society in which a ruling elite use control of the banking system to create a class society. Marx's capitalism is not a free market as envisioned by the Adam Smith, the US Founders and the classical liberals that established the GOP. Marx's capitalism is distortion of a market created by centralized banks and centralized financial exchanges.
Conservatives fell head-over-heels in love with Marx's Capitalism as Marx defines a direct path of re-establishing class rule in an age of revolution. To this day, Conservatives blindly defend Marx's Capitalism despite the fact that Marx's Capitalism is one of the greatest threats to freedom ever devised.
If you call yourself a "conservative," I beg you to please tell me why you blindly defend capitalism (Marx's distortion of the free market)? Why do you stand shoulder to shoulder with the Tories who leveled their muskets at the US Founders?
Are you really so stupid as to think that we can restore the greatness of America by blindly following the enemies of liberty?
I beg you to read the history of Conservatism. It is an ideology that flows from Machiavelli. It holds Edmund Burke in esteem and belittles the US Founders as neophytes. Conservatism pushes the economic theories of "Das Kapital" to the detriment of the honest free market envisioned by the founders and Classical Liberals such as Von Mises and Hayek.
In every election for the last fifty years, the GOP screamed the words conservatism. Every single conservative administration has favored economic and political centralization over the principles of freedom.
The Party of Lincoln was founded on the same solid principles as the US Founders. The Founders had a liberal arts education based on classical logic and steeped in Christian Ethics. I like to call this approach "classical liberalism."
IMHO, Abraham Lincoln and the US Founders were among the greatest political thinkers who ever lived. Look at the great things the founders and Lincoln did!
Conservatives, in contrast, wallow on the ground before Machiavelli. Modern Conservatives accepted the perverted system of thinking called "modern logic" by Hegel and support the economics described by Karl Marx in "Das Kapital"?
If you are a conservative; Please, I am on my knees begging, tell me why you think we should turn our backs on the US Founders and Lincoln to follow the ravings of Machiavelli, Hegel and Marx?
If you are one of the blind idiots who follow Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck without bothering to research the history of Conservatism; then you have no right to complain about the RINOs because the RINOs that control the modern GOP are a direct product of conservative thought.
The Party of Lincoln was established by people who truly believed in the ideals of the US Founders (classical liberalism). Conservatives (the Tories) are a traditional enemy of these ideals. Conservative Republicans who are true to the conservative ideology (Machiavelli, Thomas Hobbes, Edmund Burke, Hegel, etc) are inherently Republican In Name Only. To expect conservatives to be something outside the nature of conservatism is naive in the severest form of the term.