The Church on the Wrong Side of History Again
 

I believe SU started a thread not long ago about the Church consistently being on the wrong side of history. Joe Vogel, and LDS writer for the Huffington Post, has an excellent piece on the same theme:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-vo..._b_138037.html

Wow. That's quite an article.

Who is this Vogel guy? The name sounds familiar.

wow. Incoming!! Salt Lake is gonna turn their guns on this guy real quick.

He is right though.

I wonder if he's related to Dan Vogel.

I think this is him - http://www.josephvogel.net/id2.html

Can you really get a BS in English (not a BA)?

I wonder if he was on his mission about the same time as Mike Waters.

who?

Joseph Vogel.

The link Solon provided mentions that he served a mission in Micronesia, which is where Mike served.

who is Mike Waters? Sounds familiar.

He's a guy who may or may not be real.

What's the over/under for "number of days left in this kid's BYU career"?

(according to his website, he's currently a graduate student)

Has the LDS church really donated $19 million to fight prop. 8? Or is this money LDS members have contributed?

This argument is a gigantic leap of faith:

Screw him.

If he wants to make an argument or arguments, many of which I agree with, then do so, but to turn it into a socialist rant, screw him.

I'm guessing it must be the latter, since in all the news reports I've seen on Prop 8 fundraising, I've never seen the LDS church at the top of any list.

Cue Cali Coug ... 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

If Utah County had a homeless shelter miracles like people petting spitting cobras would abound!

Amen, Brother Archaea.

He directed The Divided State.

You raise an interesting point. Go to http://mormonsfor8.com/ and check the donor rolls to see how many of the FP or Q12 have personally donated their own money to this effort. I think it speaks volumes that they have not put their own money where their mouths are on Prop 8.

The First Presidency donated under the names Stalin, Pol Pot, and Saddam Hussein.

I'm not sure what names the Twelve used, but I heard a rumor that Packer got dibs on using Osama bin Laden.

They could have just used "TEX" instead.

Already taken. I donated under the name Tex Bigot. Look it up.

Wow- that is actually a bit surprising. Maybe now when I am asked to donate, I will just say I will donate the same amount of money that the 12 have donated.

Aha. Now I remember.

I have no comment on those who don't donate, but looking over the small donors list I was touched by several donations from people I know can barely make ends meet. These people are not motivated by any antipathy toward gays (indeed, one of them works as a hospice caregiver, frequently with AIDS patients, and is a kind of a local Mother Teresa), but rather out of devotion to the Church and its leaders. The Anti-8's who tar such donors with accusations of hate and bigotry are wrong, at least in the case of these donors. I'll be happy for their sakes when this thing ends next week.

I agree. I had some of the same thoughts. I don't know a lot of the donors on the lists, but I do know a few. I think it is like any political movement. You have some people who have bad reasons for doing something, and some people who have good reasons for doing something, even if I don't agree with their conclusions.

Two comments. First, the church has not donated. Instead, the 19M is from members. My guess is the 12 don't donate because they do not want to try to draw the distinction between themselves and the church in the press. Note, I said that is a guess.

Second, the linked web site actually understates the number of members donating. At least from my area, as I recognize many names that are not identified as members who are , in fact, members. Thus, the number of donating members is certainly higher

I also concur with PAC's observations.

This is an interesting article on the toll taken by the Church's involvement in Prop 8:

http://www.sltrib.com/utah/ci_10797630

Some quotes:

Other comments from Morris Thurston, Todd Compton and Armand Mauss. Check it out.

Didn't I see a similar quote about opponents to Prop 8 siding with Lucifer on CB?

I haven't even taken a stand against Prop. 8, but after saying nice (and accurate) things about my BIL, Morris Thurston, I was informed by one mullah that I would have to choose between the Church and my BIL.

I'm thinking, I'm thinking....

CB has plenty of zealots who "look beyond the mark." They think they know what Church leaders *really* mean and feel they have license to impose their views on others.

I've said this before. The LDS Church is on the wrong side of history because that's what it is, at a cellular level. It sprang up and grew in popularity at the juncture between the late Enlightenment and onset of the modern age. If it's not on the wrong side of history it's nothing. It's laughable that anyone should suggest, for example, that the LDS Church is not a creationist sect. Its romance with the Masons is totally understandable; the Masons represented the start of a move away from the starkness of the Enlightenment; you see this confluence in the pictures by Napoleon's artists in Egypt. Precise, but starting to get abstract at the edges and as time passes. The LDS Church even tried to give new life to an Old Testament outlook of prophets, visions and miracles. the LDS Church grew as part of the Romantic age. Leo Tolstoy admired Joseph Smith because they shared the same nostalgia for belief, for miracles. This is what Harold Bloom is saying in noah's signature, if you decipher the Bloomspeak. It's why so many intellectual or disaffected Mormons are so drawn to postmodernism, the contemporary iteration of Romanticism.

If the LDS Church stops being on the wrong side of history, on that day it will cease to exist. That's what it is, why its followers love it. They don't want to be on the right side of history.

Last time I said this my friend LA Ute told me I'm making a fool of myself here. So if I'm doing that somebody plase confirm and I'll try to stop.

and this never happens with the "intellectuals."

Hey, when are you going to post that LSAT score that you hinted about? That's pretty cool that you are really an intellectual masquerading as a dumbass. (quite convincingly, I might add)

I don't try to impose my views on anyone. CB just happens to have some true pieces of work when it comes to the pharasaic approach to Mormonism.

You deserve a lot more credit than I do cause personally I think it's a greater feat to be a dumbass masquerading as an intellectual.

I bow to your greatness.

Well done.

I don't disagree.

I think both sides of the extreme, as evidenced on CB and CG have many of their own works of art.

I'm guessing you're right. Kind of amusing, though, to see who's willing to point the finger at their leadership and yell "hypocrite!"

I don't think you make a fool of yourself, in fact I might be alone but I find myself being persuaded by your insight. Well maybe not.

I still think you are an asshole, however. You are drawn to postmoderinism, Non-Sequitar is drawn to scantilly clad women with oscillating man made hooters. I think disaffected mormons are quite a diverse group, reflective of the overall religion IMO.

For the record I much rather hang out with Non"bown-bicha-bown-bown"Sequitar.