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  • Wendy

    So Zion is in Texas now? Interesting.

    It’s the Second Coming, y’all!

  • Lisa

    That’s some crazy shit. That “temple” is ridiculously large. I wonder how long it’ll take the Texans to burn it to the ground (like it deserves)

  • Marcie

    I just finished reading ‘Under the Banner of Heaven’ a few weeks ago. Black and white, self-righteous people scare the shit out of me no matter what the religion. Also, I think I remember reading that you believed polygamy shoud be legal as well as gay marriage. I agreed with you when I first read that, but after reading the Banner book it gave me a little pause. Polygamy seems to have a high incidence of abuse to women and children.

  • http://NA kim

    For further insanity:

    I thought you would appreciate this link. It aligns the macintosh with the devil due to their new OS.

    “The real operating system hiding under the newest version of the Macintosh operating system (MacOS X) is called… Darwin! That’s right, new Macs are based on Darwinism! ”

    and my fave:

    “It is now Apple Computers offering us temptation, thereby aligning themselves with the forces of darkness4.”

    http://​objective​.jesussave​.us/​p​r​o​p​a​g​a​n​d​a.html

    Please check out the creationist science fair too. apparently prayer works as a catalyst for cells to produce “anti-bacterial” properties.

  • http://datinggod.typepad.com Katherine

    … oh man, I read that and think: in america??? and then think of all of the other insane things that are occurring. But child brides? “wives” who now are only allowed out when accompanied by a chruch member because of escape attempts? so bizarre …

  • http://www.livejournal.com/users/makingmywayhome Kristina

    Oooo, scary. Grassfire​.org is always good for a laugh. Or you can go to good ole Fred Phelps’ website and get worked into a foaming masochist liberal outrage, if you’re into that sort of thing. That’s my boyfriend’s usual route. Foaming at the mouth, muttering under his breath, etc.

  • http://www.livejournal.com/users/makingmywayhome Kristina

    P.S. I would post the link to F.P.‘s website, but I dont wanna. Just typing the name of it offends me. If you wanna get to the site, go to Google, and type in Westboro Baptist Church.

  • http://lindamar.blogspot.com Hank

    Re — the Macintosh == Darwinism comment:
    And OSX is based on BSD; what is the mascot of BSD? Why a demon of course!

  • http://www.blurbomat.com dj blurb

    I support consenting adults being able to marry as they wish. Consenting means that the parties are not forced. The adult part means people over the age of 18. And straight monogamous people have their share of abuse and freaky shit as well.

    I know my views are not in the mainstream. And it doesn’t mean that I think the nutjobs are right. It’s a fascinating study in fundamentalism. In some ways, I come from people who lived like this. Just over a hundred years ago. For me, this is a way to see my past and the dynamics of how those family members who broke away lived while staying surrounded in the secular world by those who left the church.

    The Jeffs polygamists will either emerge stronger and more viable or splinter and diminish. The constant end of the world proclamations are fascinating in that people in these organizations seem to give the benefit of the doubt to their leaders and never question them.

  • http://www.xanga.com/hardtoplease HardToPlease

    Jon–

    Would you be willing to say where your beliefs lie now? Atheist? Agnostic? Buddhist? Satanist? (kidding, of course)

    I was raised catholic and am now an atheist. My family is generally respectful of my choice, although they do get in a jab from time to time.

    Just curious. If it is too personal, ignore this.

  • Marcie

    I totally agree that consenting adults should be able to marry as they wish. What makes me worry about the polygamists is that they have this religious sanctioned dogma that keeps women in the rank of property and unfortunately this also includes people under the age of 18.

  • http://www.rebeccacampbell.net Rebecca

    Education, education, education.

    I grew up in a family where dad was bishop, mom was relief society president and all 7 kids followed along like sheep. Until that is, my mother saw inconsistencies in doctrine and made the mistake of doing a bunch of reading to steady here faith. Of course the outcome of that is easy to predict. The reading ended up doing the exact opposite.

    Extremist of any ilk get there control by restricting information. The Mormon church tells you what to read, watch, and say. The fundamentalist Mormons keep even tighter control over what information their followers have access to by isolating them geographically because they have even crazier ideas they need to preserve. If a person doesnít have contrary information to consider you can make almost anything seem reasonable.

    My mom took a left turn and reads everything from Sarte to Dr. Phil, my dad keeps his ìfaithî by restricting his reading to Desert Book approved rubbish, even though he is brilliant engineer. There is a trade off though. If you have ever been ìfaithfulî you know it comes with an amazing sense of peace because you donít have to worry about anything. There are answers for all questions and a plan for everyoneís life. There are probably a lot of happy people in Colorado City. If you lose your ìfaithî you might trade your sense of peace for a depth of experience. There is no longer one truth but a million truths and they often totally conflict with each other.

    So to bring it back to the point, consenting adults should be able to do whatever they want including marry a whole gaggle of people but what protects against abuse and indoctrination is access to information.

    Anyway so sorry to go off. I guess it is pretty obvious that this touched a nerve eh?

  • http://www.rebeccacampbell.net Rebecca

    Sorry, I just reread my rant. No more long boring comments I promise.

  • http://www.joh3n.com joh3n

    dayam, all I know is that I think I want to start my OWN religion now. why? Cause I want my own QUARRY!

    (see http://www.myeldorado.net/YFZ%20Pages/YFZ021005.html)

  • Marcie

    That was a very good post, Rebecca. What’s amazing to me is that you could insert any religion in there and it would still be the same. One thing I gained from reading Under the Banner of Heaven was a respect for the LDS (not the FLDS) church. Growing up Catholic, my info regarding Mormons was limited to believing they were weirdos who knocked on your door. The Catholic church does not accept the Mormon baptism, meaning that if you are a Mormon who wants to become Catholic you have to be baptized all over again, if you are, say a Methodist, you don’t. To me that’s a pretty big statement to make. After reading the book I was struck by how much persecution there was of the Mormons and how much their church is like every other church out there. The only exception being, as Jon Krakauer sp? brought up, that the LDS church came about in modern times thus making it so much easier to trash. Maybe a better way to put it is that I realized every other church is just as weird if you think about it. So anyway like Rebecca said, knowledge is power.

  • http://www.lompyville.blogspot.com marsha

    The mormon church is not like all the other churchs. My friend is a catholic jew and having her ask me questions and me answering them I realize mormons believe the weirdest most made up crap. Even as I answer her questions I can not believe I am saying this stuff.

    Although I just had this lamb of god stuff explained to me by a catholic/lutharen and it’s pretty primative as well. Basically she said that Christ was the final sacrifice to the big god so we wouldn’t have to keep doing things like sacrificing sheep and, I guess, foreskins. We just killed that guy, god’s son, that one time, instead.

    Or they did, I’m mostly astheist these days.

  • http://girlsetsfire.com renee

    Catholic Jew?! Is that even possible?? That seems like a HUGE paradox. I mean I’ve heard of the Jews for Jesus movement and that also seems like it is a conflict of interest. If you are Jewish and believe in Jesus than doesn’t that make you well, not Jewish? Unless you are labeling yourself Jewish as an ethnicity and not a religious identity.

    I was raised Catholic and I find it to be the most fascinating religion on an academic level. Actually many Christian sects, like the born again or non-denominational churches that go strictly by the bible, do not believe that Catholicism is truly Christianity. If you want to join one of these churches and are Catholic then you have to be baptised all over again, just like you would if it were the other way around. They don’t believe in baptism at birth like Catholicism and other sects do. It is definitely primitive, I mean its been around for hundreds and hundreds of years. Oh and weird made up crap? Like say the immaculate conception? Most religions have their fare share of weird made up crap.

  • Jenny

    Great, another site I feel compelled to keep up with.

    I’ve been reading about this on and off but hadn’t seen it all contained so neatly until now.

    Thanks Jon.

  • http://www.livejournal.com/~picklecakes Krista

    Rebecca:
    I just had to thank you for your “long, boring rant.” I have been struggling to articulate in a simple way what you just said for months now. I especially liked the trading faith/peace for a greater depth of experince. Nail right on the head!

    Jon:
    You’re intelligent and thoughtful and fair. I respect you a lot–just from checking in on (yeah, ok, stalking) your blog from time to time.

    Mormons:
    Damn. You creep me the hell out.

  • maggie

    I’m not Catholic (I’m Eastern Orthodox), but grew up going to Catholic schools and so I learned A LOT of Catholicism…anyway, I just have a pet peeve about what most people think is “the immaculate conception.” The Immaculate Conception is NOT the same as the Virgin birth–i.e., it is not how Mary got preggers with Jesus without having sex. The Immaculate Conception actually refers to Mary being conceived and born without original sin. When you are baptized, you are relieved of original sin (i.e., the sin of Adam and Eve) and get to start anew. So, Mary never had to be baptized.

    The reason this whole “Immaculate Conception” thing came into being was because people couldn’t reconcile the idea that the Jesus, the Son of God, could be born to someone who had not been baptized, and thus was still stained with original sin. So the people in charge of what everyone is supposed to believe decided that Mary should have been born special–without original sin.

    Geez, sorry for that long rant, but Sister Marie Claire would be really proud of my explanation.

  • http://www.lompyville.blogspot.com marsha

    Ok, first religion in NYC is more cultural than spiritual. My friend has an Catholic Mother and Jewish father? Or the other way around? And has been influenced by both religions. But they aren’t just religions, they are cultural identites. My catholic/lutheren friend was raised italian catholic and turned away from it because of the horrible guilt and misogyny of the times.

    I understood the idea of Virgin Birth came from a poor translation somewhere. That it was orginally a description of Mary’s Fairness of skin and hair and got turned into pure and virgin instead of blonde.

    I like the fact that mormons don’t believe babies are born as sinners. The whole default, “People are sinners to be saved.” stuff creeps me out and seems very disempowering.

    But the idea that the men can marry as many women as they want and are the head of the family pisses me off too. Not to mention that all the temple sacrements are completely ripped off from the Masonic Lodges high pooobah shennanigans.

    Then there’s baptism for the dead, celestial kingdom where we get to be gods, that there’s a star where god lives, and if you look up the old church documents Joseph Smith actually wrote down “prophecies” about people who dressed like quakers who exsisted on the moon.

    Polygamy is about child molestation. It started Cause joe smith wanted some teenagers related to his wife who were staying with him. He “married” them in private. He also took other men’s wives as “commanded by god.”

    Speaking of rants:)…Education is the key, they never should have taught me to read.

  • http://www.lompyville.blogspot.com marsha

    Oh, sorry it stopped making sense in that last comment. I try to fit everything in and forget about connecting explaining words. :) Mormons creep me out. Napoleon Dynamite creeped me out (and I laughed) but my nyc friends were oddly comforted by it. As though that kid wouldn’t have had his butt cheeks duct taped together often.

    Mormons are creepy due to their perfect stepford like facade. Mom and sisters still doing it. Being Perfect.

  • Marcie

    Marsha, Marsha, Marsha!

    Sorry, I just had to.

  • http://thefathousewife.blogspot.com/ Mrs.Strizzay

    I didn’t read every article, but any type of religous freak is scary.

    Most things preached aren’t true to the “word”. The word of God? Umm no. The word of the guy who INVENTED Mormonanism (hmm maybe).

    The bible itself is not a word directly of God. It is a work made my men who put in it what they felt they wanted to or perhaps needed to. And WHO knows how many times the people in charge have edited changed and redefined the book itself.

    Religion = power. And sadly many people use this to their own personal advantage and many people are all to willing to follow like a herd.

    I personally struggle with my religion. While I believe in God, and Jesus and many thing Catholic I can’t help but point a finger at the establishment and say that THEY are not the all knowing. THEY are not the all powerful. THEY may be no closer to any of them than I am while I am alone in my room saying a prayer.

    It only takes a few rotten apples.…..
    And that frigging thing is HUGE! All I think of when I see it is Waco.

  • http://thefathousewife.blogspot.com/ Mrs.Strizzay

    Yeah, typos blech. My best one of all time is TP ASS.

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