My latest project is a website designed to help beginner to intermediate Internet users better understand the world of computers. While I do want to provide something useful, I’m not opposed to serving two masters through my use of advertising. Although I have a great domain name, at this point I’m trying to gain exposure and seek quality feedback and, if appropriate, get other sites to link to computers.net. What better place to ask for feedback than the Bloggernacle? If you get a chance, check it out and give me your take on the ads, content, and design.

Earlier today I was browsing at one of my favorite group blogs when I ran across a post that made the following claim: “Without transcendence of some kind, however, it is difficult to see how to avoid nihilism: there is no source of meaning if there is no transcendence.” The claim is that materialism lacks “a coherent notion of transcendence” and thus any adequate ground for meaning. The problem with this claim is that there are plenty of materialists around but not many that are card-carrying nihilists. People seem quite capable of attributing meaning to life and adopting values to live by with complete disregard for the lack of transcendence they ascribe to the Universe. How can they do this?
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There is a pseudo-doctrine that has been floating around the Church for several decades now. Every time the General Authorities of Church find out about it, they make some semantic changes, but typically allow the activities to persist.  What is the doctrine, you ask? Covenanting Committing with the Lord. (more…)

We are getting married later and later.  My wife, Kathryn, and I are part of this
trend.  I was 24 when we got married; she
was almost 26. There are a lot of good
reasons to get married sooner rather than later (celibacy abatement being high
on the list), yet I have had some recent experiences that remind me of a belief
that later is best.

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We’ve added a new blog to the roll, Banner of Heaven, under "An Army With Banners" (as in, terrible).  Please let me know if you spot any incorrect or defunct links.

I know what most of you are thinking:  "BCC is such a profound fountain of wisdom, a stellar source of religious insight, and a crucial pillar of my faith!  I can’t believe I get to read it for free!  It seems too good to be true!"  Well, guess what.  It is too good to be true.  For there’s a catch.  All BCC commenters are required to perform periodic community service for us permabloggers.  (It’s all laid out in the fine print of our comments policy, folks.  I promise.  If you’d have just read more carefully, you’d already know that.)

So here goes.  Today’s task is relatively simple:  You need to help me write the talk I’m giving this coming Sunday.

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As part of his weekly e-mail, my younger brother serving in Sweden mentioned that he has lost forty pounds! I think he’s been in "the field" for almost five months now. That’s nearly two pounds a week he’s been shaving off. I bring this up because, at least in my family (five of us kids having served missions), the mission weight dynamic has varying results.

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Round One was a great kick-off to the topic — thanks for all your insightful comments.  I think that those of you who enjoyed Round One will love Round Two (think Star Wars vs. Empire Strikes Back).

Anyways…

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Perhaps nothing has signaled my descent into middle-aged bourgeois womanhood more than my recent interest in new appliances.  We need to get a new stove and I will admit to being fascinated by all the new bells and whistles that one can purchase in the name of good cooking.  The choices seem endless.  There are wall ovens, and warming drawers, convection or standard ovens, smooth or coil cooktop surfaces, and self-cleaning options (yes, please!) to name but a few.  However, I think that the most interesting feature on my new range is something called "Certified Sabbath Mode".

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Even a cursory reading of our early history yields the fantastic weaves of God’s power and lives of the saints.  Speaking in tongues, Adamic and others. Prophecy. Miracles, real miracles – like raising the dead. Commensurate readings of contemporary Mormonism is a tapestry quotidian in comparison. There is a disparity and I submit that it is us who have fled, not the gifts of the spirit. (more…)

As Geoff B. over at that less reputable blog is a little embarrassed from all his previous Schiavo ranting and hasn’t posted on the autopsy, I thought I’d create a forum where we can hash some things out.

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In October Conference 2000, Elder Oaks stated that "The commandments, ordinances, and covenants of the gospel are not a list of deposits required to be made in some heavenly account." He was explaining that more important than what we accumulate or have is what we actually become. However, I believe his analogy also carries forward to imply that there is no straight, temporal quid pro quo in the gospel. It is not a bank account where we store up good works that equal a certain sum of blessings to be withdrawn when needed. By which I mean, if you pay your tithing you can’t always expect that mystery check to arrive the very next day.

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An offhand comment of mine on the recent Word of Wisdom thread prompted a request from a BCC reader for more on Paul H. Dunn. No problem—I can whip up a good Paul Dunn story on the spot! But seriously, does anyone else miss him? Can you think of a Conference session you’ve seen in the last ten years that wouldn’t have been given a badly needed shot in the arm by a talk from a storyteller-entertainer like Elder Dunn?
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Answer:  It wasn’t.  The Word of Wisdom was not ahead of its time in any way whatsoever.  Of course, longtime readers of the Bloggernacle already knew this (given prior discussions of the topic here and at T&S).  But I’m actually not interested in revisiting this issue in excruciating historical detail.  Instead, I want to point out something I learned in Church today, that came as a bit of a shock: It turns out that the title of this post is — rather than being the query of a jaded blogger, waiting to pounce on the ignorance of his co-religionists — the first "suggestion for study and discussion" at the end of Chapter 11 in the David O. McKay manual.

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The latest issue of National Review sports a grinning, full-body shot of Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney on its cover with the words “Matinee Mitt” scrawled across the photo.  The article introduces NRODT readers to Governor Romney as a serious presidential contender for the GOP in 2008.  We are treated to a description of Romney’s stellar, social conservative credentials, notwithstanding what some might consider his “questionable” comments or positions on abortion and stem-cell research.  As the author, John J. Miller, puts it, “a good case can be made that Romney has fought harder for social conservatives than any other governor in America, and it is difficult to imagine his doing so in a more daunting political environment [i.e., Massachusetts].”      

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I have posted regularly at the old Soleil Splendide on women and the administration of the Gifts of the Spirit. I am preparing several more posts on related topics; however, I have received several emails requesting information specifically on women anointing and their laying on of hands.  I consequently offer this outline of some historical teachings on the subject. Women also participate in similar ordinances, related to the temple, which will not be discussed in this post. While some of the material here presented has been overviewed in my antecedent posts, most has not. (more…)

Some of you may recall our prior Round Table, on Women in the Church.  Encouraged by the interesting conversation and great commenting from that event, we decided to replicate the experiment, this time with a different cast of characters and a different topic: "Historicity and Revelation."  Sounds fun, no?

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I come from a fairly orthodox family.  Yet, as long as I can
remember, I’ve thought
CES was a little sketchy. I remember as
a teen reading in the Book of Mormon about priestcraft and thinking, "sounds
like CES."  Now, I know that I shouldn’t
disparage an institution that serves such a great purpose in the
Kingdom. Moreover, there are plenty of individuals, so employed,
that I greatly respect: Robert Millet, Keith Lane, even our very own Ben S. and
John C.…but the antipathy remains.

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J. Stapley has agreed to join our merry band of heathens as a permablogger.  It’s not a strategic partnership with BYU Studies, but it’s darned close.   All give a hearty welcome to J.!  All Hail the new Permablogger!

Your fellow Church-members are really ticking you off.  Sister So-and-So is making the same tired comments in Sunday School that you’ve heard a thousand times before.  Brother Whats-his-Name is advocating the same silly understanding of Doctrine X, Policy Y or Scriptural Interpretation Z that more enlightened Mormons (like you) discarded years ago.  Your co-religionists, as a group, are pre-occupied with some silly notions that they’d quickly jettison, if only they understood the Gospel better.

But what should you do?  You could take them all to task of course, but that would make you look uppity, judgmental, self-righteous.  It also wouldn’t win you many friends at Church.  And to think that so many of your brothers and sisters are confused only serves to raise troubling questions:  What does it mean that so many fellow Mormons don’t understand the Gospel?  Is there something wrong with the Gospel?  Is there something wrong with the way it’s being taught?  Or is it something else?

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My wife, Amy, and I have been fixing to move for a while here. I think the day is actually at hand. (We’ve got our eye on Williamsburg, but we’d love to hear suggestions if you’ve got any.) Oh, there are the reasons we give people, like "it’ll be a shorter commute on the Subway", and "with the money we save on tolls by living closer to Amy’s work we can get a better place for the same monthly expense". But let’s be honest here: the biggest reason we’re moving is that we don’t think we can stand our ward much longer. I know this is somewhat taboo in the Church, and I hope we can all still be friends.

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There seems to be a growing undercurrent in church culture of treating single women with careers with a certain amount of suspicion.  I’ve noticed the following, or been part of the following conversations in the last six months or so.  1) Someone in the Bloggernacle linked to a letter to the editor to the Daily Universe by a male student’s mother.  She lamented the number of women who seemed uninterested in having families, and instead were pursuing their careers.  She suggested that the women spend more time pursuing an MRS. degree at BYU.  2)  I was having a conversation with a  favorite cousin of mine in Utah.  He wants to get  married and was looking for girls to date.  I asked him what he was looking for and he said "Well, you know, not the Hillary Clinton type."  Intrigued and amused, I pressed him.  "You know, women who don’t care about their families."  3)  The very helpful talk by the local bishop at the annual Duck Beach phenomenon for singles in North Carolina.  Basically, "I know your single life is so fun, but you really should want to get married."  4) The apparently controversial cover article in the Ensign this month mentioned this same observation.  Overall I liked the article, but bristled a little at the suggestion that staying single and having a career was "glamorous. "  Perhaps assuming that the glamour was outweighing the desire to get married and have children,  women were choosing to turn their backs on having families.

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Yesterday, on my way out of the testing center, a young man stopped me and asked, "Hey, do you need employment?" To which I answered, "No, I’ve got a job, thanks."

"Well, if you sell these alarm systems over the summer you can make thousands!" Sorry folks, thousands just doesn’t do it for me (maybe millions) let alone alarm systems. So I replied, "I’m really not interested." But he continued.

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It’s a little late for spring cleaning, but we’re going to take some time over the next few week and clean up the links on the blogroll, etc.  One new item of note: yet another group mormon blog has sprung up — Banner of Heaven.  Nice looking blog (though their content leaves much to be desired, in comparison to the mighty BCC).