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TAL BACHMAN - SECTION 5
Total Articles:
25
Tal Bachman is an internationally recognized singer-songwriter from Vancouver, Canada. Raised strictly in the Mormon church, Tal spent two years in South America performing missionary work and learning Spanish. Later, Tal resigned his membership in the LDS Corporation.
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It's been a pretty wild couple of years for me. I went from thinking I knew everything of importance in the universe, to wondering if I knew anything of importance at all. I lost some old friends, gained a few new ones, and retained a few who realized the church was a fraud around the same time I did. I spoke at the exmo conference, was filmed for some whitewash job of a "documentary" on the church (that's another story), helped three dozen people close to me see the fraud for what it was, and got stabbed in the back and had my heart broken big-time by three exmos close to me (thanks, you f****** bastards). I've gained a true friend in my mother-in-law since she left the church, and now can't stop hugging her and chatting with her about all kinds of things.
I've gotten emails from people all over the world asking me about the church, many of whom, after some conversation, have come to acknowledge the truth (although some have decided to stay in the church for social or family reasons). I've gotten emails from "official" and amateur Mormon apologists, who all (I found) rely on the same mindgames I used to play on myself to keep believing. Incidentally, the only one of these guys who seemed like a decent guy was John Lynch from FAIR. I know others on here have a different opinion, but that was my experience. I understand he is still doing his best to defend Joseph's untrue claims, and he may always do this; even under the most optimal circumstances, you don't just come to see that your entire life was built on a fraud in a couple of weeks, or months, or even years. Sometimes it takes a long, long time, if it happens at all. It is especially hard once you've taken a public stand; not because you consciously don't want to "lose face", but (I think) because largely unconscious forces, seeking to protect us from pain, loss of status, etc., make it almost impossible to see what's really there.
In the past couple of years, I've had my first glass of wine, my first bottle of beer, and even bought a Playboy magazine once just to see what it was like (pretty lame if you ask me, and that any of us could have thought that people left "the one, true religion" for airbrushed airhead boobs is a real testament to how stupid we were). I've tried to overcome my natural diffidence around strangers, and especially, around attractive females, who I always instinctively froze around since they represented a potential temptation. That is, I've tried to treat them like I treat normal humans, rather than as "potential tools of the adversary to destroy my life".
My passion for music, and performing, has been rekindled; come to think of it, all my passions have felt supercharged since I found myself outside the strange bubble I didn't even know I inhabited. Funny things are funnier, sad things are sadder, delicious food is more delicious, vistas are more inspiring, good stories are more compelling and meaningful...everything is more intense, as though my humanity as a Mormon wasn't so much "kept in check", as entirely diluted by some mind-dulling narcotic draught of smugness, cognitive dissonance, and unrecognized fear.
Another thing I've done is frequent this board. Especially early on, I poured my guts out on here. I never really felt anger in the way others did; I felt mostly shell-shocked, and really, just sad. It is a lie that people cease believing in Joseph's lies because they "wish" to. If anything, the opposite is true - we believe in them, because we want so badly for them to be true. There was, in fact, nothing I wanted more than for the religion I had devoted my life to, to be all it claimed. To find out it was not was a genuine horror, a nightmare become real, and one that just wouldn't end no matter how many times I shook myself. And then my wife lived that nightmare, and that prolonged my own: Where do we belong, if we don't "belong" to "the church"? (Doesn't that sound a tad chilling now?) Who are we supposed to be, if not Peter Priesthood and Molly Mormon? What are we supposed to teach our children about life, when it seems we've been wrong about most of it? Why are we married? If we weren't Mormons, would we have been attracted to each other in the first place? Now that we don't have a cult we're both devoted to...what unites us? What is our mutual passion? All these, and a million other questions, haunted us like phantoms: they were always there to torment, and impossible to bat away. What were their answers? We could no longer just open up a church reference book and read a quote from some self-styled oracle, and imagine "the thinking had been done". No - this was hard. It meant really....thinking, really pondering, really talking and inquiring...it was really hard. And that was another question: Why in the world did we ever think as members, that *leaving* was easier than *staying*? The easiest thing in the world to do would be to keep on playing the stupid mindgames, and just stay put. Just "put things on the shelf". Just keep believing we, and only we, were in the world's only true religion; we, and only we, had the true answers to life's most troubling questions; and we, and only we, were God's "covenantpeople". We were chosen. Who wouldn't want to continue believing that?
In a strange way, I had always thought that my world as a Mormon was "the universe", and that thought provided real comfort: I was in the know. But I came to see that that world was *not* the universe - in fact, it was just the opposite. That world turned out to be unmistakably tiny, and insular, and circular and vanity-flattering, judgmental and stupid for all its occasional prettiness and flashes of insight, anachronistic and even ludicrous for all the comfort it provided, in fact chaotic and capricious and devilishly self-interested underneath its patina of order, constancy, and rectitude, tribalistic and ignorant and superstitious for all the pretensions to cosmopolitanism and the cultivation of intellect, walled on all sides by grossly distorting panes of glass that filtered out any feature of reality which didn't accord with whatever we imagined "the church" still believed in. And in the moment I realized it all, it felt like there was an almighty crack of techtonic plates slamming together, like some connection was made in my brain that, before that, my brain had not been capable of making...and all those thick, warped, distorting pieces of glass that had walled my mind smashed all at once...and for the first time ever, Mormonism made sense. Yet in that same moment, I was more frightened than ever, and all I wanted to do was somehow reassemble the smashed glass and get back inside the tiny "world", or cage, that I had never before been outside of. And in that next moment, I realized that would never be possible. I was out of a "something" I'd never even realized I was in, and certainly never desired to get out of - I was only trying to study the thing so I could be a better Mormon. I would NEVER have believed, as I began preparing my first gospel doctrine lessons, that within two years I would see that Joseph could not possibly have told the truth about his experiences, and that my whole life was based on a fraud.
And now here I am posting this, feeling like I am finally flushing the last vestiges of Joseph Smith's religion out of my system, beginning a long goodbye to all my friends here on the board. I think I will post over the next several weeks a few farewell essays, if I can think of anything to say I haven't already said. I hope something I write there will help someone else through the trauma of discovering we've been wrong about everything most important to us in life.
Best to all - let me know if anyone has an idea for an essay and I'll do my best.
Thanks for all the support and friendship,
T.
| In Randy J.'s excellent thread, "We Shouldn't Judge Joseph Smith by Present-Day Standards", he notes the tendency of Joseph's defenders to claim that his modern critics are judging him unfairly by holding him to today's standards of behaviour. In fact, the opposite is true, and that any adult could make such an assertion, is only testament to how deeply our capacity for rational thought can be corrupted by emotional attachment to ideology.
Mormon defenders cannot have it both ways. Either, as say Mormon GA's, society has fallen from a far superior moral state, and we now live in an era characterized by shockingly loose morals, where chastity is denigrated and mocked, where "traditional family units" are under threat "as never before", where sexual anarchy appears to be a possibility, etc. ad nauseam - OR, our era is in no way superior in sexual restraint and order to past eras. We will call the first proposition "F" (for "fallen"), and the second, "S", for "the same".
If "S", then Mormon GA's cannot be believed when they claim "F". And if they cannot be believed, then they are in fact "leading the church astray", and if that is the case, a canonized item of official doctrine is not true (see the Manifesto page in the D&C), and if that is the case, then Joseph's church isn't the only true religion in the world.
But if "F", then illegitimacy, immodesty, sexual "looseness" and "experimentation", promiscuity, etc., were ALL far RARER in Joseph Smith's era, than now - meaning that his era was far stricter sexually, than ours is. But if that is the case, and as church defenders ask, we judge Joseph Smith according to the "standards of his time", then modern critics are NOT JUDGING HIM HARSHLY ENOUGH. And in fact, history suggests exactly this.
For, who do these genius church defenders think would best be in a position to judge Joseph according to the standards of his own time, other than THE PEOPLE WHO LIVED IN HIS OWN TIME? And how did THEY judge him?
THEY FINALLY ASSASSINATED HIM. They drove Joseph's treasonous band of cult fanatics OUT OF THE UNITED STATES. And before that, they chased Joseph out of area after area. And why? "Because Joseph's church was the only true church, and Satan wanted to destroy it!"? My member friend, just consider one other possibility.
Maybe...just maybe...Joseph wasn't exactly precise with his storytelling....and maybe, just maybe, he didn't actually meet up with back-from-the-dead Peter, James and John, etc....Maybe, like hundreds of other religious men of the time, Joseph didn't really have the experiences he claimed to have had...and keep in mind, that antebellum America was rife with innovative religious societies, most of which were patiently tolerated by their neighbours...
So maybe, all that expulsion had something to do with this, which I think even Richard "They've Broken Me and I Love It" Bushman would admit:
That everywhere Joseph Smith went, in the service of his cult of self-aggrandizement, he gave the finger to American law, American tradition, American mores, American culture, everything that those "in his own time" regarded as sacred and necessary. And as a consequence, everywhere he went, almost EVERYONE got totally sick of him and his band of deluded, obedient followers. The illegal banking, the vigilantes, the false prophecies, the mockery of a religion most Americans thought true, the bloc voting, the occultism, the furtive sexcapades, the shameless public lying, the destruction of other's private property, the delusions of grandeur ("God is my right hand man", "I have no law", etc.), announcing other's people property belonged to "the Saints" by divine right, etc., etc...
And let's keep in mind, since we're talking about judging according to the "standards of the day" - for those totally dependent on what their own farms could produce for sustenance, and the good will of their neighbours for safety and stability, dependent on the preservation of property laws, with disaster and death never seeming very far, Joseph and his cult - with their disregard for so many things their neighbours thought necessary for survival and happiness (including respect for contemporary sexual standards) - appeared to pose a danger. Like...DANGER. Like, their livestock start going missing because Sidney Rigdon and Orson Hyde start talking about how everything around them properly belongs to Zion; like, their civil institutions being overtaken by religious voting blocs (how'd you like your school board taken over by devout Muslims who start reconstructing everything according to Muslim law? Now you know how local Missourians might have felt); like their sisters - AND WIVES - getting hit on by "the prophet"...
The truth is that church defenders ought to be GRATEFUL that Joseph Smith's modern critics may be judging him by the standards of today. After all, how many RFM posters are big fans of vigilante castration and assassination? Most of us would be more than happy to see Joseph's bad behaviour exposed and reproached, and then see his lies fade into the oblivion they - and all other lies - deserve. Joseph's contemporaries were a little more pro-active. When Joseph supposedly hit on (or actually had sex with) fifteen year old Nancy Marinda Johnson, Dr. Dennison, with the encouragement of a neighbourhood mob, nearly castrated him. THAT'S how people IN his his own time judged him "according to their standards". So, I guess by the "logic" of church defenders, who say we ought to judge Joseph by 1840 standards of right and wrong, is that the RIGHT thing for us - AND them - to all be saying now about Joseph Smith is, that he deserved to be dragged out of the Johnson farm house in the middle of night, nearly castrated, then tarred and feathered by a bunch of angry townspeople. No wonder Mormon defenders are confined to publishing their inanities in church-subsidized publications - it's only there that the accidental comedy can go unrecognized...
Of course, it is too much to hope, that some church member, just as sincere as I was, could ever read this, and begin to think, "Maybe...maybe I've missed something....". But in the miraculous case that someone does, here is a final comment:
It was not considered proper in 1840's America for a foster father to secretly have sex with his teenage foster daughters - and Joseph did that TWICE (with both the Lawrence and Partridge sisters). It was not considered proper for a self-proclaimed religious pastor to secretly have sex with his housemaids. It was not considered proper for ANYONE, let alone a "prophet" who had publicly BANNED polygamy in his church charter, to secretly proposition other men's wives, even telling them that unless he could "marry" (have intercourse with) them, that an angel would murder him. It was not considered proper for ANY MAN to slander women who rejected your sexual advances, as Joseph did with Nancy Rigdon and Sarah Pratt. It was not considered proper for ANY 38 year old to secretly have sex with a fourteen year old, and in so doing, consign her to a life of loneliness, devoid of love. The truth is, according to the standards of the time, Joseph's character must be - and was - regarded by most as nothing short of loathsome.
And in case you don't believe me, my member friend, I suggest you read "Mormon Enigma", recommended by the official church historian, Leonard Arrington. It is on sale at your local Deseret Books. In it, you will find another judgment made of Joseph, one made in accordance with "the standards of his time" by one of Joseph's contemporaries. In fact, that contemporary was none other than his wife, Emma. And her judgment, after finding out later from a mutual friend that Joseph's tomcatting was far greater than she had known, was that - "he deserved to die as he did".
When's the last time you read THAT on the special Joseph website run by the church? Joseph Smith's OWN wife - that "elect lady" - the first president of the Relief Society, whose portrait can still be seen in church buildings all over the world, stated that Joseph's behaviour was such, *according to the standards of his day*, that HE DESERVED TO BE ASSASSINATED by a mob of drunken thugs.
My suggestion to Mormon church defenders: Stop asking modern critics to judge Joseph Smith by the "standards of his day". You're only making yourselves look - well...blind, in the way that only real delusion can make us look blind.
If we really needed certain proof that Joseph's church wasn't the only true religion in the world, so true Jesus was a member of it, I think all we'd really need to do is examine the arguments made in defense of it. They are enough to make a nine year old blush.
| Seriously.
This is the best I can do.
First of all, let's get one thing clear: there is no case for Mormonism being what it claims to be. And virtually every church member, including prominent defenders, at least tacitly concedes this every time they:
* Distort some point of Mormon doctrine or history in order to defend it;
* Use logical fallacies in their defenses (in particular ad hoc "reasoning", ad hominem insinuations, and red herrings);
* Employ thought-terminating cliches in lieu of coherent, on-topic rebuttals;
* Reference thinkers who deny the possibility of absolute knowledge while defending a religion which claims that all who are sincere can acquire absolute knowledge that it is God's only true religion;
* Criticize irrelevant characteristics of skeptical arguments, like typographical errors or who might be publicizing or supporting the article, while slighting or ignoring core points which appear to expose Mormon truth claims as false;
* Claim that physical evidence is essentially irrelevant to evaluating the truth of Mormonism, since "knowledge of the truthfulness of the gospel is only gained through the spirit anyway", so that manifestly disconfirming evidence should be disregarded - when at the same time, they will present ANY physical evidence which could ever possibly be construed as supporting any Mormon claim;
* And probably most tellingly, immediately switch (when called out on their inadequate defenses of truth claims) to defending the church on the basis of its utility.
And since members do this not occasionally, but all the time, I think it is fair to say that average members, and apologists, tacitly concede Mormonism is indefensible as what it claims virtually every time they try to do defend it as such.
But back to the last point in the list, expressions of the utility argument are comments like these:
* "People need religion to keep them united and moral - and Mormonism in my opinion does that the best"
* "I'm happy, my wife's happy, and all my kids' friends are Mormons - why would I want to tinker with that?"
* "Everyone has to believe in something"
* "I just really enjoy the service aspect".
* "In Mormonism, I have identity, I have consolation, I have faith - what could you give me that's better if I left?"
* "Without Mormonism, nothing would make sense".
Etc.
Of course, none of these statements has anything to do with whether Mormon truth claims are, in fact, true, so that hearing these suddenly, in the middle of a conversation *about* Mormon truth claims, is rather like seeing a called-out Wizard of Oz frantically pull back the curtain to show off his wizard machine's cutting-edge technology, right in the middle of claiming that he's a real wizard. It seems to be nothing more than an attempt at saving face; but if it achieves this, it achieves it at the cost of conceding defeat on the only issue that ever really mattered, namely, whether his claims to being a wizard were really true. Or rather, whether Mormonism truth claims really were true.
So, because there is no case that Mormonism is what it claims, and because that fact is conceded virtually every time anyone tries to defend it as such regardless of whether they realize it or not, I propose that the only possibility of defending Mormonism *in any respect* is on grounds of utility, that is, that it is useful, and more - that it is more useful than other religions, or even, all other religions. What follows is my attempt at it. I haven't seen this argument made explicitly by any church defenders, but at the same time, it is in essence made every time a member repeats one of the slogans above. And certain Mormon "intellectuals" certainly give the impression they think it has something going for it. Here it is (not saying how much of the following I personally believe - I'm only trying to present a case:
When we take a step back and really look at things, we find little, or no, evidence that a god, or group of gods, ever disrupts the normal flow of human action. One man prays for X and then gets X, another man prays for X and doesn't, the first man prays again for X and doesn't get it, the second man also doesn't get it, while a third does, and then doesn't, and on it goes...there is no discernible pattern in the occurence and non-occurence of X, or to whom X occurs, or in who gets fatally shot, and who narrowly escapes being fatally shot, or in which infant dies and which survives, or in any other event which may occur.
Animals prey on each other, and appear to have no conception of moral law. Human monsters enslave and brutalize their fellow humans, and far from being struck down by a god, can live just as long as others. If they meet justice, it is the justice instigated by human action. (It wasn't a god who found Saddam Hussein hiding in a hole, but a soldier). The wicked, in short, very obviously sometimes prosper, while the virtuous sometimes suffer, and the rain falls on the just and unjust alike. It can seem as though in reality, humans have no more transcendent moral law they need concern themselves over, than the rest of the animal kingdom, and that cosmic karma or cosmic justice is just another fiction. And claims that justice is *really* meted out in an afterlife, when we step back, seem...more likely to have arisen from our own psychological or emotional needs, than something which was ever revealed by a god living in the sky or in another dimension, to a mortal.
People speak of "true" religions, yet if any religion is true, there has been no clear indication of which one might be, from a god. There is nothing but silence on this issue from the sky. Believers claim that this absence of indication or evidence should actually ENCOURAGE our belief, since it means that a god secretly wants us to believe in things for which there is no evidence. And yet, all we have as evidence that a god secretly feels this way, is a fellow mortal claiming he does. And when we ask that fellow mortal how he knows what that god wants, his only answer can be, that he heard it from ANOTHER fellow mortal and "just knew" it was true, and so on it will go back forever. And very clearly, a mortal simply claiming to know a certain something about a silent and invisible something or other, because some other mortal told him that that certain something was true, isn't a good reason to believe that certain something to be true. It is, rather, a good reason to ignore the claim entirely.
Meanwhile, Lisbon earthquakes, Indonesian tidal waves, Vesuvian explosions, rock the earth and kill men, women, and children alike...and no amount of human imploration to a god appears to stay the occasionally genocidal forces of nature.
In short, stepping back, it appears the universe is impassive. We exist, and scientists tell us our existence is the result of chance. But whether it is or not doesn't matter here, since even if we were created by a deity, he or she or they is elusive and silent and inactive to the point of - well, for all intents and purposes, seeming not to exist. Where is that god? Why is there no communication from him or her, that a properly functioning mind could ever credit? It seems either that there are no gods, or that, if there are, they could not possibly care less what anyone thinks, or says, or does, on this planet - which amounts to about the same thing: for all intents and purposes at least, there is no god.
So, we appear to be alone in an impassive universe, on a planet, with not even any indication there are any other human beings anywhere in the universe. And that feels cold; and that feels lonely; and that feels *diminishing*. It can make you want to cry. But no matter how much you cry, no answer from heaven, or any god anywhere, ever comes.
| | | Church PR Ideas (Now With "Midnight Train To Kolob" And COB Correspondence Posted)
Article Archived: Friday, Aug 4, 2006, at 09:32 AM
Stored Under Topic: TAL BACHMAN - SECTION 5
Outside Link To Article: RIGHT CLICK - COPY LINK LOCATION
Original Author Of Article: Tal Bachman |  | |
While I'm waiting for the spirit to reveal "Part Two" of my "Case for Mormonism" essay (nothing coming yet), I thought I'd do some more pro bono work for the church and reveal my idea for a whole new PR campaign. It's based on a little idea I just thought of about four seconds ago, called "Entertainment Theory". (And since it's only four seconds old, I haven't really had time to think it through, so I'm making this up on the fly, kind of like Joseph Smith with his religion).
A synopsis of Entertainment Theory:
People pay attention to, and become devoted to, what entertains them. They generally don't care about any "moral" implications of what the entertainment consists of. No matter what they say or do on Sunday, during the week they watch trash on television, spend more time watching Jerry Springer or car-crash news, than praying or reading the Bible. (Exceptions are those involved in a religion which they find more entertaining than Jerry or CNN). People would even watch live executions for sheer entertainment value, just like they did in ancient Rome. So for a religion to thrive, it has to win in today's entertainment competition. For example, there is no religion in the world right now more entertaining than Islam: people are blowing themselves up, beheading people, fomenting revolution, kidnapping, extorting, trying to start World War Three for Allah, etc. And what's growing like gangbusters? ISLAM. NOT Mormonism. See?
So, I'm thinking that the problem is NOT what Hinckley and Edelman thought it was: "that we have to get our message out". The problem is, the message is boring. This mainstreaming thing has backfired big-time. The church's only hope is to get even weirder than it is right now (I see John Gee as the new editor of the Deseret News, for example). The only interesting thing Hinckley ever does these days is publicly lie about Mormon doctrine, and that's just not good enough. Lying goes without saying in this environment. The church needs spectacular, gruesome, horrific lies, that they can then be caught in, and then offer a spectacular, gruesome, horrific apology for, before lying again, and stuff like that. I ask you: What other action could Winona Ryder have taken to resurrect her dead career, than to commit a crime and get arrested for it? The church needs more drama, and larger-than-life characters. Say what you want about JS and Brigham Young - they sure had people around the globe talking about them. The guys running the place now are DUDS, all caps.
So, a few ideas for the church which come from Entertainment Theory:
Take a page from WWE and develop "characters": Get the GAs out of their cult uniforms and let them go kind of haywire. Immediately waive all grooming and dress standards for them. I'm sure it wouldn't be two weeks before Marlin Jensen (Democrat) was sporting a goatee, for example. The church can then play him up as a bohemian. Let Packer stay in his suit according to the "unwritten order of men's attire" - but let David Burton play the "fun-loving Chris Farley chubby guy" in the Hawaiian shirt and shorts, let Eyring walk around in a white lab coat holding a clipboard playing the studious guy, Hales can walk around in his WWII Air Force uni and, when talking about "the adversary", keep shaking his clenched fists like he's a tail gunner machine-gunning a Messerschmidt, Oaks could dress like Yul Brynner in "The King and I" or else sport his old black robe from the Utah Supreme Court. He could even put on a traditional judicial wig. ANYTHING to get people to start paying attention to the church, without really focusing on its wacko truth claims, would be in the church's best interests. In fact, the more entertaining "the show" is, the more of a POSITIVE will be the wacko truth claims.
After all, you can't even get normal members to sit through (snore) a TV broadcast of General Conference - and MEMBERS actually think that the First Prez and Quorum have SEER STONES and stuff! Contrast that with the series "Big Love". See what I'm saying? "Big Love" has gotten more people intrigued with Mormonism in the past year, than Hinckley did in the past ten with his lame, false-cutesy interviews. Why? "Big Love" has INTERESTING characters involved in INTERESTING, basically freakish, dramatic situations. Mormonism has DULL non-characters involved in nothing interesting at all, for the average person anyway.
Along with this, the GA's should stop pretending they don't have arguments, and start BROADCASTING them - even PLANNING them. (What about fisticuffs between Oaks and Packer?) They ought to bring cameras right into the First Prez Quorum meetings and turn it into a reality show. They could call it "Cult Life".
Quick start: The closest thing the church has to a freak show is FARMS, and if they really want to get rolling on this whole new PR tack quickly, they could immediately install a camera crew into the laboratory where FARMS writers, with all the invincible self-satisfaction and self-importance that only true, full-blown delusion can spawn - cook up each new ad hoc attempt to try to re-assemble the latest item of Mormon belief obliterated by unfolding reality. The climax of each show will show all the FARMS writers congratulating themselves on realizing the conceptual equivalent of a taped-together mess of disfigured, smouldering scrap metal, which they insist is a fully functioning 747. Or something like that.
Anyway, the strategy over the past ten years hasn't worked, given the declining growth rates, ongoing resignations, etc. Why not try out Entertainment Theory?
| Surprise: realizing your entire life is built on a fraud can put strain on your marriage.
You form your expectations of a spouse according to cult criteria, you search within the cult for a spouse, you fall in love with cult versions of each other, your whole understanding of how to make important decisions comes from (insane) cult epistemology, etc., etc. So one day you wake up with 20 kids and a mortgage, and "the church" (that fetishized god we all worshipped) and the cosmos it represented, has imploded, because you saw it for what it was - a fraud. When you've both been cult zombies, what then holds you together?
My wife's had a tough time the past two and a half years. The church was everything to her; to find out she'd been wrong about the most important thing in her life, to lose so many of her friends, to be left suddenly without answers to questions that tugged at her, left her unsure of herself, resentful of missed opportunities, and almost afraid to believe in anything else, since to do so might set her up for more hurt in the future.
In an effort to stabilize things and fill in the gaps, I've really tried hard to find common interests. Unfortunately, when someone is grieving, they're not always that interested in "exploring" together, so it's been tough. I did manage to find matching his and her beach cruisers, so we could go out for evening bike rides (and no, I didn't care that we looked like 70 year olds on them). And we have had some wonderful rides...but then something happened I never expected. One night, Tracy caught "Dog the Bounty Hunter" on TV...
Now, just to back up a bit, I've been a fan of Dog Chapman's since long before he had his own TV show. I can't even remember now how I found out about him, but I've been following him for like five or six years or something. In fact, when he tracked down the Max Factor heir rapist guy in Mexico a few years ago, and got arrested by Mexican authorities and put in jail for capturing him, I made a special point of calling my whole family together (I was still TBM) and having a special prayer for Dog, asking Heavenly Father to help him get out of jail. And no, I'm not embarrassed about it, dammit. It's just who I was at the time. (By the way, he got out, so I guess my prayer didn't hurt...). One other thing - last year for Halloween, my oldest three boys and I almost went out trick-or-treating as Dog and his crew. (My son Ashton called dibs on Leland. For some reason we didn't end up going in the end, but maybe this year...).
Anyway, one night about six weeks ago, Tracy comes down, and Dog comes on TV. She'd never actually seen it, and never shown any interest whatsoever. All of a sudden, she's completely transfixed. Within five minutes, she's talking about how it's the best show she's ever seen, how sincere she thinks Dog is, how sweet it is that they try to help the people they pick up, how sad it is, what a bitch Beth is though she has a good heart, all kinds of stuff. The show ends with the handcuffed bail jumper crying, talking about how he's going to transform his life because he has a new baby girl, and Tracy starts sobbing, "this is so moving...I can feel that he really means it...". I'm like "Wha...?".
So I've been recording Dog episodes for us to watch ever since. Everytime, we both sit there riveted, me still chuckling internally at this weird common interest I never contemplated the possibility of for one nanosecond. (It's especially ironic given the hours I've spent racking my mind trying to think of ways to bring us together, and the hundreds of dollars I've spent trying to spark things up).
Tonight, for some reason, they played two straight hours of Dog episodes (ending with Dog and Beth's marriage ceremony, after Barbara Katy, Dog's daughter from a previous marriage, is killed in a car crash). We sat there the whole time, ate some fine Dutch chocolate (Droste) and drank a bit of wine, and had a really good time. And I'm not really one for TV, and neither is she. But there we were, and it was a blast.
It is funny how at different times of life, the most mundane things can take on more importance than you'd ever expect. My Dad and my stepmother always lay in bed and watch "Coronation Street", and I always kind of thought it was silly. But of course, it isn't silly - it's life, and no different than loving the same football team, novelist, or musician. It's fun. It brings you together. You look through the same window at the world, and it becomes something special between you...
I was exaggerating when I said Dog Chapman saved my marriage, but every little area where Tracy and I can come together, helps, and I appreciate them more than ever. I'm glad Dog got that show!
Good luck to others in rebuilding their relationships.
| | | How Long Until Farms Publishes Its Review Of "Talladega Nights: The Ballad Of Ricky Bobby"?
Article Archived: Wednesday, Aug 16, 2006, at 06:34 AM
Stored Under Topic: TAL BACHMAN - SECTION 5
Outside Link To Article: RIGHT CLICK - COPY LINK LOCATION
Original Author Of Article: Tal Bachman | | |
Former Mormons still entertained by the embarrassing horror that is Mormon apologetics may have noticed that several BYU professors published a "response" recently to the movie "The Da Vinci Code". I admit that wasn't nearly as stupid as FARMS publishing a negative review of Carl Sagan's "The Demon-Haunted World" - but then, nothing is.
Anyway, I saw Will Farrell's "Talladega Nights" the other night. In one scene, Farrell's character Ricky Bobby says grace, directing it to "Lord Baby Jesus". An argument then ensues between Ricky Bobby, his wife Carly, his best friend Cal, and Carly's dad, about which Jesus one should pray to. Ricky Bobby says he likes infant "Christmas Jesus" best, while the others weigh in with different opinions: "bearded Jesus", etc.
Clearly, (judging from the fact "The Da Vinci Code" elicited a response from Mormon professors), church members are easily confused by movies, and church defenders are on high alert against "erroneous doctrine" being promoted by Hollywood. So I'm just wondering when to expect FARMS' 9000 word rebuttal of Ricky Bobby's take on the doctrine of prayer.
Wait...I think I'm channeling it...even before it's been written...kind of like Joseph seeing Alvin in the celestial kingdom, even though he hadn't been resurrected or finally judged yet...here is an excerpt (footnotes in parentheses)...
"Were (1) it not (2) for the impassioned yet well-reasoned protestations of Clement (3), Constantine (4), Athanasius (5), Hippo (6), St. Augustine (7), and to a lesser degree, Mohammed (8), Moses Maimonides (9), Al-Farabi (10), Julius Caesar (11), Caligula (12), Cicero (13), Nero (14), Thomas Aquinas (15), and other people who I am sure are very, very important (16), and the subsequent responses from rival religious theorists (17) in and throughout (and above, and below) the upper and lower Mediterranean region (18) pre- of course the advent of Gutenberg's printing press (19) or any or all different kinds of printing or copying technology (20) whatsoever as it would have ever applied to the status (21) quo (22) of Christianity as it then existed (23) in altered and indeed apostate form (24), as would obviously be the case by the fact that the pure authority bequeathed by Christ (25) (26) (27) (28) to his apostles in the form of the priesthood had already been lost or at most rescinded by divine decree (29) (though the details of this disappearance are of course not essential to our salvation and are therefore not worth speculating upon in this piece) (30), the age at which Jesus may be imagined most appropriately while praying may forever have been in dispute, the subject of "contention" and "endless disputations" (31), which the author believes would have culminated in a needless and irrelevant distraction (32) from the figure of Jesus himself as the object of adoration (33) at whatever age, an ageless worthiness testified to by the magi (34) and exultant angels (35) and shepherds, although it cannot be stated too emphatically that God the Father (35), not Jesus, is the deity to whom all prayers (36) should be addressed, notwithstanding Joseph Smith's Kirtland Temple dedicatory prayer to 'Jehovah' as recorded in section 109 of the Doctrine and Covenants (see footnoes 37 through 95), an exception much commented upon by anti-Mormons, yet easily explicable once we remember that...".
Just wondering,
Amen.
| I think I might have told this story on here a couple of years ago, but here goes again in case anyone missed it. It's pretty nuts.
Early on in my mission to Argentina, I was stationed in a little town called Recreo, outside of Santa Fe. My companion, Elder "Rodriguez" (alias), was a tough, muscular kid who'd grown up on the streets of Buenos Aires. He had converted to Mormonism about a year before coming out on his mission.
A few months prior to our arrival, missionaries in our area had tracted into a slightly portly, almost child-like guy in his mid/late twenties named Enrique. As I heard the story from the Zone Leader, the elders began to teach him, and were overwhelmed by his enthusiasm to learn about the gospel. He was, in a word, a golden contact. Enrique read III Nephi 11, told them he knew the BOM was true, accepted the baptismal challenge, and everything was going swimmingly, until somehow or other (I think during the fourth discussion or the baptismal interview) they discovered that Enrique was gay. At that point, the previous elders declined to baptize him or continue teaching him.
However, as I saw myself after arriving in the area, rejection didn't diminish Enrique's commitment to the church. He came to every activity, every service project, every baptismal service, and every Sunday meeting, always arriving holding his church books in front against his chest, always flitting round chatting excitedly with all the sisters, just as though he were a staunch relief society sister. During gospel doctrine class on Sundays, he always piped up more than anyone else. Everytime the teacher asked a question, Enrique's hand would immediately go up. He seemed totally unperturbed by (actually, oblivious to) the fact that he wasn't even a member, or that the guys actually running the church didn't even want him around.
Well, a few weeks after Elder Rodriguez and I arrived, a few sisters independently told us that Enrique had developed a crush on me and had talked about it in various conversations (they also said Enrique always developed a crush on new missionaries). Elder R got pretty upset by this news. His concern, like mine, was that Enrique might start talking about his crush around new members or investigators, and that they would then get the wrong impression about the church and the missionaries. I suggested we just talk to Enrique frankly and ask him to keep quiet about his crush, and his future crushes. Rodriguez didn't seem to be in much of a mood for "rational discussion" at that moment, and after a minute or two, we kind of dropped the topic. I actually thought then that we had a plan - we would just have a little chat with Enrique next time we saw him. Boy, was I wrong.
We used to show church movies and filmstrips at the little chapel on Tuesday nights, so a few nights later we met up with the Zone Leaders to put it on. Well, who showed up but Enrique, as always holding his church books tightly to his chest, chatting animatedly with all the sisters. Rodriguez began cursing quietly. I said, "Don't get weird; I'll just talk to the guy and I'm sure everything will be fine".
So movie night ends, and we're outside saying goodbye to everyone. As usual, Enrique was the last one to leave the church, so by the time he came out, no one else was around. So I say, "Enrique, come here for a minute. I need to talk to you".
Enrique came over and we walked a ways away from the door, over toward the property's metal fence. So I say something like, "Listen...we keep hearing that you're telling people you've got a thing for me, and we have to ask you if you would stop it...". As I'm talking, Enrique starts to interrupt, denying, in a high-pitched, lispy voice, that he's said anything like this. He kept repeating, "Yo no dije nada!...pero yo no dije nada!..." ("I didn't say anything"). So I'm like, "Look, if you haven't said any such thing, that's great, but if you have or you feel tempted to, just-"
Well, as Enrique and I have been trying to communicate, my comp Rodriguez has been standing there, growing more and more agitated...and suddenly, as Enrique in his girlish voice denies once again that he could EVER say anything like that, Rodriguez snaps, like a dog, and in a flash grabs Enrique by the front of the shirt and slams him up against the fence, and in a really menacing tone, says something like, "Listen you faggot (the word was "maricon")...NO ONE says anything like that about me or my comp EVER...me ENTENDES?", and then uncoils a right cross, drilling Enrique right in the jaw, knocking him down instantly.
I remember saying "stop!" in that moment, but it all happened so fast and it was so surreal...before I knew it Rodriguez had grabbed Enrique up off the ground and slammed him against the fence again, shouted some parting threat at him and then told him to get away. Enrique, scared to death and crying, frantically gathered up his scattered books in a few seconds, and ran away as fast as he could.
I'd like to say I performed some heroic deed during this assault, but the truth is, it all happened so fast and it was so unexpected, all I really did, aside from saying "stop" and "calm down!", was kind of stand there in shock. In that moment, I didn't know what to do.
We stood there in the dark, listening to the fading sound of Enrique's running footsteps and his sobs. I looked at Rodriguez and said, "WHAT was THAT?". And then...Rodriguez started crying. "What have I done? They'll send me home now...I lost my temper...Prez already warned me once..." (it turned out that Rodriguez had already punched out a previous companion - now why in the hell did they put this nut with me, a greenie? How irrresponsible is that?). Anyway...I said, "We'd better go talk to the Zonies".
So we go in to the darkened chapel where Elders E. (from Buenos Aires) and G. (from North Carolina - are you reading this, dude?! If so, post!), are chatting after putting away the projector and stuff. Rodriguez is crying. Elder E. says, "What's going on?". And Rodriguez, head down, inbetween sobs, says, "Pege el maricon" ("I punched the fag").
"Que?!", says Elder E.
"Pege el maricon". More crying.
"Enrique?"
"Si".
Silence.
Elder E was one of my MP's faves. He was 26, so a lot older than everyone else, a big athletic guy, really smart and capable, and about to turn pro I think for San Lorenzo (soccer) when he converted to the church in Buenos Aires and decided to serve a mission. He had a lot of pull with the prez, and would shortly after this incident be made an Assistant, where he remained for the rest of his mission. He ended up basically as the Deputy MP. So, I knew Elder E., out of duty, would let the hammer fall. Of course - it had to. A missionary in his zone had just punched somebody out!
So there's like five seconds of silence, and then Elder E. says:
"Well...I don't know if it's so bad...".
I'm thinking, "Wha...?"
E. continues: "I've almost punched him out a few times myself..."
Rodriguez sniffs and says, "En serio?" ("Really?")
"Si..."
The conversation ends with Elder E. telling Rodriguez not to worry, promising to "smooth this over" with the prez.
The next week prez came up for a conference and met with Elder Rodriguez. Prez asked him to promise not to do it again, which he did (I guess, just like after the first time he beat someone up on his mission). And that was it.
By then, word had leaked out and every missionary at this three zone conference knew what had happened; and if you can believe it, all the elders who came up to us to talk about it seemed really impressed, asking Rodriguez for all the details. And Rodriguez, perhaps because the reactions of his ZL and MP had amounted to a wink, with his ZL even saying he'd almost done the same thing a few times, now beamed with pride while recounting the whole incident, over and over!
***
A few final thoughts:
I am positive that any church representative or General Authority would condemn beating up gay people because they're gay. But all this means is that they've achieved "baseline humanity", you know? The truth is, that any organization claiming to have the only legitimate civil or religious authority ON EARTH, and claiming to be led by a genuine prophet, through whom God himself reveals his mind and will to the world, OWES THE WORLD AN EXPLANATION about what it says is a moral issue.
Mormon church leaders have said homosexual acts are immoral. Okay, let's say they might be - how did the Mormon prophet find that out? Can we read the revelation? Where is it? Oh - the ban on homosexuality comes from the Bible? Well, the writer of Leviticus and St. Paul both condemn homosexuality; but they also encourage, respectively, killing children for dishonouring parents, and forbidding women to speak in church meetings, both of which the church totally ignores. When's the last time the church took a public stand on the "moral issue" of legalizing execution for disobedient children, or suspended the speaking privileges of women in their church meetings? NEVER. Therefore, the church's brazenly selective acceptance of Biblical injunctions means that in fact, they have discredited the Bible as a source of authority in the very act of seeking to show they credit it as a source of authority. So, the Bible is out. So, what is there then, as a basis for this pronouncement? If it's "modern revelation" - where'sthe revelation? And if there is one somewhere, are we really supposed to believe all it consists of is, "that's bad - 'nuff said"? Call me crazy, but that sounds rather...suspicious.
I mean, if there was ever a time for some explanatory "revelation" on an issue, it would be now, on this, when the world's greatest countries are struggling with whether to reconceptualize marriage and codify that reconception into law. How does homosexuality come about? To what degree is it innate, to what degree environmentally induced? Why would God consign some of his children to a lifetime of torment, by allowing them homosexual hard-wiring but prohibiting them - on pain of damnation - from ever acting upon it? Where are the answers?
A few more questions: Since church leaders accept Leviticus' condemnation of homosexuality as immoral, do they ALSO accept Leviticus' recommendation of EXECUTION for practicing homosexuals? If yes, why aren't they publicly campaigning for capital punishment for practicing homosexuals along with their campaign against gay marriage? And if no, then why not? They certainly still accept Leviticus' recommendation of capital punishment for murderers - so why not homosexuals? After all, that the writer of Leviticus prescribes the EXACT same punishment for both murder and homosexuality is tantamount to a judgment of (im)moral equivalence between murder and homosexuality. Does the church accept the moral equivalence of a homosexual act, and murder? If so, then let them say so. And if not, then let them explain why not. (They might need the sophists at FARMS for that one. Who better to explain how two plus two doesn't necessarily equal four?)
Funny thing - church leaders don't seem to have the faintest idea about how to answer any of these questions. All they can say is, "homosexual acts are bad. Gay marriage is bad. It's bad. Gay bad." Any moron can say, "that's good" or "that's bad" when asked for an opinion. Shouldn't a guy with a seer stone in his vault be able to tell us a little more than that?
NO - because there is no such thing as a "seer stone". There are only...stones.
Just like there are no "prophets" - only people.
| | | Is Having The Right Opinion On Mormonism Really Analogous To Having The Right Opinion On Global Warming?
Article Archived: Tuesday, Aug 22, 2006, at 07:00 AM
Stored Under Topic: TAL BACHMAN - SECTION 5
Outside Link To Article: RIGHT CLICK - COPY LINK LOCATION
Original Author Of Article: Tal Bachman | | |
Is having the right opinion on Mormonism analogous to having the right opinion on global warming?
I suggest the answer is no. Here is, I think, why:
Incoherence (contradiction) of parts proves falsity. The many internal inconsistencies within Mormonism itself - in its doctrines, and as a natural extension in its ad hoc-style apologetics - alone establishes, beyond all rational contestation, that Mormon truth claims are false.
Moreover, leaving aside the examination of the internal, when we compare Mormon truth claims to what we understand about the external world, we are left with no rational option other than to conclude that those claims are false. There is now, for example, no sane way to believe that Joseph's claimed Egyptian translations are Egyptian translations. There is now no sane way to believe that the earth was unpopulated, and in an Edenic state where no creature died, until 4000 BC. There is now no sane way to believe that the sun gets its light through "borrowing" light from an-as-yet-undiscovered star called Kolob. There is now no sane way to believe that every human being on this planet, of every race, descends from one Jewish guy and his family who survived a global flood in 3000 BC, or that every single animal on this planet descends from the relatively few animals the Jewish guy could have accomodated on his boat. Etc.
For an analogy to exist between skepticism about man-made global warming (MGW) and belief in Mormonism, the arguments for skepticism about MGW would have to be just as overwhelmingly refuted by evidence, just as insane, just as internally incoherent, as arguments for Kolobian "light borrowing", 100% cotton physically protective underclothing, a planet where nothing died until 6000 years ago, or a hundred other points in Mormon theology or truth claims. Is that really the case? Even if we all believe that mankind is causing global warming, let's ask this: Who has to be crazier - a Mormon apologist at FARMS, or a climatologist skeptical about MGW claims? I think everyone would say the former; and if so, then in truth, do we not all agree that skepticism about MGW and belief in Mormonism, are, at this point anyway, not really analogous?
Here are a few interesting starter articles about this issue:
http://www.reason.com/rb/rb111004.sht...
http://www.cfact.org/site/view_articl...
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage...
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chan...
http://www.ucsusa.org/global_warming/
http://www4.nationalacademies.org/onp...
http://www.answers.com/topic/list-of-...
| Can you imagine the PR coup that would be?
"After enduring years of ridicule for maintaining that three 2000 year old men are roaming the earth performing acts of service, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has now proven its skeptics wrong...", etc.
The claim that certain persons on this planet are TWO THOUSAND YEARS OLD comes right from what is supposedly "the most correct book on earth", the Book of Mormon. The appearance of these two-thousand year old men would silence every skeptic of Mormonism. It would vindicate the marginalized oddballs at FARMS. So where is the search? Why hasn't the church brought in "The Dog" and Leland and Beth and everyone to track down The Three Nephites? Why isn't Hinckley trying to get them on the Larry King Show?
But wait...
Since the existence of two thousand year old men on this planet is a MORMON TRUTH CLAIM, and inextricable from the church's claims for the Book of Mormon itself -
Why doesn't any church leader or apologist speak of it? Why aren't these shadowy performers of Christian service lauded as great examples by General Authorities at General Conference?
When you think about it, this silence seems quite telling. What I think it tells us is, that - bizarrely enough - core parts of Mormonism are unbelievable EVEN to devout believers in Mormonism; and the way they deal with that, is to try to stop thinking about those unbelievable parts altogether, and when absolutely forced to think about them, transform them into "irrelevant" "mysteries" unworthy of serious discussion, "so let's get back to what's really important" (i.e., "other Mormon truth claims I still CAN think about without immediately doubting").
Just a thought.
| Both Joseph Smith and John Mark Karr both married and had sex with fourteen year old girls: Helen Mar Kimball for Smith, and Quientana Shotts for Karr (his first wife).
What do Karr and Smith NOT have in common?
Karr was only nineteen when he married his fourteen year old bride; however, Mormonism's founder was THIRTY SEVEN years old, and already married to his wife Emma when he "married" Helen M. Kimball.
In fact, again like Karr, who went on to marry a sixteen year old girl (Lara Knutson) after his first marriage ended, and apparently have sex with several other young girls, Smith had sex with his housemaid Fanny Alger when she was sixteen (her age by some accounts). He also had sex with sixteen year old Flora Ann Woodworth. Another Smith conquest was Nancy Winchester, apparently around fourteen or fifteen at the time of her "plural marriage" to a man who Mormons are still singing hymns in honour of every Sunday.
Can you say "cult"?
See http://people.aol.com/people/article/...
And http://www.i4m.com/think/polygamy/tee...
| | | Turns Out, Not Only Is The Book Of Mormon A "Literary Masterpiece", But "Book Of Mormon Cities Have Been Found"
Article Archived: Friday, Aug 25, 2006, at 06:51 AM
Stored Under Topic: TAL BACHMAN - SECTION 5
Outside Link To Article: RIGHT CLICK - COPY LINK LOCATION
Original Author Of Article: Tal Bachman | | |
From the magical thinking of FARMS:
"Book of Mormon cities have been found, they are well known, and their artifacts grace the finest museums. They are merely masked by archaeological labels such as 'Maya', 'Olmec', and so on."
http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?tabl...
Check out the official university faculty photo of the man heading up the church's Book of Mormon archaeology efforts:
http://fhss.byu.edu/anthro/faculty/cl...
| "You know you're a former Mormon when..."
So I and my sex goddess of a wife (can you tell she reads the board now?) went out last night. As we parked and headed toward the mall, we passed an Egyptian import shop. We ducked in.
Ten seconds later I'm standing in front of a bunch of papyrus scrolls with all these figures on them. So I say, "Hey, that's Anubis right? The jackal-headed god...". The Egyptian guy looked shocked. "How you are knowing this?". I'm like, "And he's weighing the souls of the dead to see who gets to go to heaven, right?".
The Egyptian guy looked just like Buckwheat on the Little Rascals when he's really surprised. "Yes sir! This is Anubis, he is - how is it - judging all the people - *but how you are knowing this*? No one here is knowing this!"
I just looked at my incredible, luscious Brigitte Bardot-look alike wife (mousy voice: hi dear), and I'm like, "uh.......it's a really ----- long ----- story.....!". We had a pretty good chuckle afterward.
(Instant trip down memory lane - screen goes blurry...I'm 25 again...and this is what I'm thinking...)
"....It's too bad that that wunderkind of the Egyptological universe, John W. Gee, isn't here to tell Ahab all about the "secret encryptions" and "mnemonic devices" in his dumb little papyrus scrolls, which REALLY tell the whole story of Abraham, Sarah, and Terah! Ha! Those stupid Egyptians don't even realize that their culture's famous, ancient religious documents, are REALLY all about JEWISH guys!"
Glad I'm in the one true church,
Talmage - and proud of it - Bachman
| How did we go nuts?...There are so many parts to it...here is one part, I think.
All ultimate conclusions derive from original premises. But inbetween original premises and ultimate conclusions there is often a series of links: a conclusion is drawn from the original premises, which then serves as the premise for a subsquent conclusion, which then serves as the premise for the next conclusion, and a "chain of reasoning" is built up which culminates in an ultimate conclusion.
Here is one such (short) chain of reasoning we are all familiar with:
STEP ONE:
(P1): Feeling spiritually moved reading the Book of Mormon is God's holy spirit telling you the Book of Mormon is all the Mormon church claims it to be;
(P2): You have felt spiritually moved reading the BOM;
(C): Therefore, you now know the Book of Mormon is all the church claims it to be.
STEP TWO:
This conclusion now serves as the | |
