Contemplative Dexterity

In my last post I went over one of Matt Walsh’s articles entitled “Yes, Gay Marriage Harms Me Personally”. I am of the opinion, and I’m sure there are those out there who agree with me, that gay marriage does not harm anyone. But I contend that religion harms me personally. As it does everyone else who has had the misfortune (whether they see it that way or not) of being within its clutches. I had no choice in whether I would participate in a religion or not. I was born under the “covenant”, as Mormons love to say. This is their way of saying that I was born with privilege, because I was already within the grasp of the “one true church” and that much closer to achieving eternal exaltation. I was blessed as a baby by my father and baptized at 8. I attended Achievement Days and Young Woman’s. In my mind, I tried valiantly to like my Single’s Wards and to believe that my made-up callings in these wards were indeed inspired of God. I read the Book of Mormon through at least once, but af...

Matt Walsh is an Idiot: Why “Yes, Gay Marriage Hurts Me Personally” is not effective. I am a glutton for punishment where Matt Walsh is concerned. He is a pompous ass, and reading his articles makes my blood boil, and not just because he writes for Glen Beck’s network and we don’t share the same opinions. Bottom line is that he is not a great writer. If he were to turn one of his articles into any of my University English professors, he would not have fared well. Even my 11 th grade English teacher would have ripped him a new one. Why: Because he cannot write an argumentative paper. Not a single one of his articles I have read has contained any semblance of argumentation. He likes to say things like, first and second, as if he’s actually introducing solid reasons to support his opinion, but they end up being wordy and condescending with an overabundance of analogies that don’t actually provide support. The article listed in the title of my post is one of Walsh’s more recent ...

(Apologies for another long post) In a perusal of my Facebook news feed, I stumbled across a lovely article that a neighbor of my parents shared entitled “So…You Think the Book of Mormon is a Fraud” . Mr. Trimble, who authored this lovely article, uses the typical Mormon circular reasoning that states that if the Book of Mormon is true, then Joseph Smith was a prophet; and if Joseph Smith was a prophet, then the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the same Church that Christ established while he was on Earth. So in the Mormon mind, it all comes down to whether the BOM is true or not, and for this, they rely on warm fuzzy feelings to confirm that the Book is in fact, true. Mr. Trimble states that he noticed that most of the people who criticize the Book of Mormon the loudest, have not actually read it. While this may be true, I don’t think a person needs to read a book fully to understand whether it’s true or not. That’s what research is for. Reading the Book of Morm...