Contemplative Dexterity

A random thought occurred to me while at work regarding an individual's gender. Well, it wasn't quite so random, but without getting into TMI details, let's just say that I've often had the thought that I just hate being a girl. There are many reasons for this, and many of these reasons led me to have some semblance of an identity crisis from about 5th to 10th grade, so a large part of my childhood. Anyway, I'm off track a bit.  I have memories of people in past wards and my own mother even, explain why each person has the gender that they were born with. None of the explanation had anything to do with hormones in the womb or gestation in general, it all had to do with the Mormon concept of the Pre-Existence. They basically reiterated what exactly happened before we came to earth, but they put particular emphasis on the belief that we were the exact same people in heaven as we are now on earth. Translation: I was a girl in heaven, therefore I had to be a girl o

This last week was the LDS General Conference. In every conference, Church leaders like to go over statistics of the Church: numbers of members, numbers of full-time missionaries, lists of new missions opening up and the number of operating temples. I'm sure I'm missing some of the stats. The leaders also like to announce how many temples are currently under construction and whether there are new temples to be built. In the case of this conference, there were 3 new temples announced: Ivory Coast, Thailand and Haiti.  In an article on mormonnewsroom.org , in an article entitled "The Process of Building a Temple" they "explain" what it takes to bring one of these buildings to fruition "It's important to note that Mormon temples are built using Church funds set aside for that purpose and that the Church pays for the costs without a mortgage or other financing.... and temple sites are generally located in areas with enough members to warrant constr

                I suggest that the extreme horribleness of hell, as portrayed by priests and nuns, is inflated to compensate for its implausibility. If hell were plausible, it would only have to be moderately unpleasant in order to deter. Given that it is so unlikely to be true, it has to be advertised as very scar indeed, to balance its implausibility and retain some deterrence value.                                 Richard Dawkins, God Delusion, pg. 361  I began the first part of this post because of a comment on Facebook and the article that it linked to. I was frustrated by both because they contradict the doctrine I was taught throughout my relation with the Church and they blatantly ignore that it was the same for every member up to the publishing of this article. Not only this, but they make it sound as though the members who believe that we had a choice in heaven between Satan and Jesus (almost every single member) misinterpreted these lessons, and they are the ones at fau