Women and the Church

Recently, a friend of mine made a post on Facebook questioning why women seem to take a secondary role in religion. Mormon Christianity in particular.

Her post was a little sad, reflecting on something I hadn't thought about. She said, as a mother, it would be incredibly sad to not have her children talk to her. That if they ever called home, they only spoke to her husband, and gave him credit for their life and achievements.

In Mormon doctrine, there is an obscure little bit about a Heavenly Mother, a partner to Heavenly Father or God. Her first mention was in a hymn entitled "Oh My Father" by Eliza R. Snow. It wasn't widely accepted at the time, or even spoken of. And even now, in LDS doctrine, members are encouraged not to speak of a heavenly mother, not to pray to her, or teach any doctrine about her. This is mainly because there is no clear doctrine, revelations, or information regarding a heavenly mother, other than if families are eternal and we seal a man and woman on earth, it only makes sense that she exists.

I was taught as a child that the reason we don't speak of heavenly mother is because it is god's way of protecting her. And keeping people from abusing and taking her name in vain. It is out of love that god has kept heavenly mother from her children.

Now, let me clarify something. I don't believe in LDS doctrine any longer. So the things I'm speaking about aren't necessarily of great value to me personally, other than to reason through some things I had enormous problems with as a member.

I always had a problem with patriarchy and male divine authority. Growing up, it bothered me severely. As a little girl, I hated not being able to go topless, having to run home to pee while my boy friends peed in the woods. How I had to sit in sacrament meeting while the boys passed the sacrament. How only men seemed to lead. And women got stupid callings, like nursery and primary and music coordinator. Sure sure, there were young woman's presidents, and relief society presidents, but who did they defer to in money and authority? The bishop. A man.

I remember having a conversation about this very subject when I was a newly married girl. I was mad, and talking to my dad about it because I thought maybe he'd understand. He gave me some counsel I thought was great at the time, and now just bugs me. He told me I'd never be truly happy until I embraced my role as a woman, wife and mother. And then he told me to quite worrying about the house being perfectly clean or how long my husband was out fishing. Those were good bits of advice :)

Having grown up LDS, my brain was conditioned to find meaning and contentedness in motherhood. So when I had my first son, I felt fulfilled. And, after some one-sided discussions about roles and jobs, I because a full-time stay at home mom. Looking back, we see the error of our ways now, but then, we were just following the prophet. Women stay home and have babies. Men work.

Having left, or nearly left the Mormon church now, I feel a little more intellectually free to think about these subjects. Like, the role of women in eternity. If what we are taught in the Mormon church now is true, families are forever, and the person you are sealed to is your partner for eternity. So, following that doctrine, and adding that man is now as god once was {King Follet discourse by Joseph Smith}, god probably has a wife, or wives. But this woman, or women, who birthed all the children of the earth who have existed, remain unspoken of. Is that the eternal fate that awaits faithful women of the LDS church?

Silent partners if you will. They make the babies, but god gets the glory. And god gets the prayers, and the authority. And heavenly mother, well, she gets to remain unseen, unspoken of, and disregarded. In fact, in most Christian faiths, she doesn't even exist.

Is that the eternal fate I want for myself? HELL NO! I don't want that for myself, my mother, or my sisters. What an incredible disservice to the intellect, talent, and unique personalities of women. We are sentient beings. We have brains. We have ideas. We can act in positions of power just as well as any man can. We can be mothers and we can have careers. It makes absolutely no sense for a woman to be successful in this life only to become a silent servant in the next.

The excuse of "god is protecting heavenly mother" is a horrible and sexist copout. It further exploits the chauvinistic view that women are weak and need to be protected. What LDS members fail to remember is that a woman deity would be above hurt, would be above sorrow, would be above offense. As a celestialized and glorified being, her name in vain would have as much bearing on her as god's name in vain has on him. She doesn't need protection. And if she is his eternal companion, she deserves recognition, particularly if she put in the majority of the work in the bearing of souls.

But, god will have no other gods before him. God is a jealous god. Makes sense. He hides his wife in the back corners of eternity, pats his daughters on the head patronizingly reminding them they are of value but only in the home and raising children, and lets men do his biding.

So I am very sorry. But even in LDS doctrine, it all boils down to sexist chauvinism, and exercising control over women. Even a perfect, glorified, deity female has to answer to a male. Where is the partnership, equality, and respect there? It doesn't exist.

Like I said, I no longer believe in LDS doctrine, but reasoning through a few of these things, I hope others will begin to see through it too. It's harmful, particularly to women. Ladies, don't let men define you. Stand on your own two feet. Joy in your success and accomplishments, be they family or career. You are important, you are valuable. And not just because you have a uterus and can grow babies. You are more than your body. You are more than your biology. Do not let anyone convince you otherwise.

Guns don't kill people, they just make it quicker and more effective

I will admit, this is a subject I'm not super knowledgeable about, but I'm very opinionated about.

I am 100% for gun control.

One of my favorite movies growing up, don't laugh, was The American President. Call me sentimental, but something about old people romance is just incredibly cute and sweet to me, even as a 12-16 year old girl. But there was always a speech that stood out to me, and when he says "I'm going to get the guns" it was so powerful. And I kept thinking, why don't we do that now? Granted, media coverage of mass shootings wasn't as avid as it is now, and violence was a little less glorified when I was a kid, than it is now. And video games are a lot more visually graphic now than when I was a kid.

But yes, I always loved the president's speech about gun control, we have real problems and we need real people to solve them. Its wonderful.

So why can't we as a nation realize we have problems and solve them? It seems like the answers are so simple, so why can't the solutions be that simple as well? I realize having a cohesive society is complicated, and new policy takes time. But this seems to be a matter of great importance, and maybe we should declare a state of national emergency. How many children need to be senselessly murdered before we make a change?

I have a friend. Wonderful person. Very kind, very sweet, very selfless. She was in a bad marriage, and eventually got a divorce. The man was literally insane, she had a restraining order against him, and she pleaded with the courts to take away his ability to own firearms. Eventually, my friend remarried. A man she loved, and felt safe with, and had a very happy marriage with. She went out one night with her granddaughter, her new husband stayed at home. Her ex-husband entered her home looking to kill her, and when he discovered she wasn't there, shot and killed her new husband.

They had been married for about two years.

There was an autistic boy, nonverbal and living in a group home. One night, he snuck out to presumably go home. He got lost, and tried entering the wrong home on his street. The neighbor, without calling the police or trying to find out who the boy was, shot and killed him.

He knew the boy as a child.

There was a little boy who was playing with his little brother. The two found their parents guns and decided to play cops and robbers. The older brother shot and killed his little brother.

How is he going to grow up knowing he murdered his brother?

There was a woman who got a gun purse for her birthday from her husband. A cute little purse she could keep her concealed weapon in. She was shopping for groceries with her two year old little boy. The little boy, somehow, was able to get into the compartment of the purse that held the gun, and shot and killed his mother in the store.

How will that father explain the boy's mother's death to him?

There have been movie theaters, malls, schools, recruitment centers, post offices, and places of worship that have been turned into scenes of mass murder, because some one used a gun.

But it's the person that kills, not the gun right?

Imagine just for a moment if in any of those instances, the murderer was using a knife, instead of a gun.

Taking away gun rights won't solve the problem. People who want them will still get them.

I can't disagree with that. But would it be more difficult? Yes. I believe so.

The second amendment was created in a different time. It was for the purpose of the people being able to form a militia in the event that the government over step their bounds. In a time when the general population could easily overthrow the government. Let's be honest, that is not possible now. Anyone who thinks their hand guns, rifles or shotguns could protect them against drones, tanks, bombs are deluded.

Then comes the self defense argument. I need a gun in case someone assaults me, or enters my home. Let's imagine for a moment, could we, if our nation had stricter gun ownership laws. Making it more difficult for people without sound mind to obtain a gun. There may be less instance of violence at gun point. As a woman, I'd carry mace or pepper spray before I ever carried a gun because if you're not a good shot, it's not going to be effective. If mace can bring down a bear, it can bring down an intruder.

But guns can kill from a distance. Yes! They can! And they do!

We have allowed our gun problem to get out of hand. Everyone and their dog owns a gun. And everyone and their dog is trigger happy. Kill or be killed. You come on my property you will be shot. Why? Why have we cultivated and allowed this mentality to grow? Why have we allowed savage video games that glorify gun violence be played by impressionable children? You can regenerate in a game, you can't regenerate in life.

Why have we allowed the media to make such enormous deals out of mass shootings? Why have we inversely created gun violence hero worship?

It's a plague on our society. It's a scourge. It is a virus. It's deadly. And you've got a bunch of rich wing conservatives clinging to their rifles on their porches asserting it's them against the world and they'll be damned if the distrustful government ever take their guns away.

I'm not calling for a complete removal of firearms. That would be impossible. Not to mention my dad hunted for our meat growing up. Guns have a time and a place. But just having a handgun in your nightstand on the off chance an intruder might enter your home is ridiculous. It's unnecessary. We need better control. We need to license ownership. We need regulations on purchasing and registering. Not anyone SHOULD be able to own a gun. It should not be a right. It should be a privilege, that should come after education, certification and licensing. We need to stop the insanity.

I am much less worried about an intruder in my home who may want to steal my TV or rape me, than I am about an insane man entering my child's school and killing everyone in the class. I am less worries about someone holding me at gun point in a back alley than I am of shopping in a mall and being shot to death by a religious radical.

I don't know the exact or the best solution. But I know that it needs to be a topic of political discussion, and that our legislators need to work towards a solution, and do it quickly before another mother has to burry her child because some insane person decided to shoot them to death.


http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2015/oct/02/mass-shootings-america-gun-violence?CMP=share_btn_fb

http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/12/16/gun_control_after_connecticut_shooting_could_australia_s_laws_provide_a.html?wpsrc=sh_all_dt_tw_top

http://www.vox.com/2015/8/24/9183525/gun-violence-statistics

https://img.njdc.com/media/media/2015/09/01/wholechart.png
http://www.latimes.com/.../la-oe-hemenway-guns-20150423...

Why Did Laban Need to Die

The Book of Mormon starts out with an interesting story about the family and life of one young man, Nephi. In the course of the first few chapters, their life is uprooted by the local's desire to kill Nephi's father, and so they flee by the voice of god. When Nephi's father realizes, oops, they failed to bring scriptures along, god sends Nephi and his brothers on a quest back to Jerusalem to retrieve the original copy of the scriptures. They happen to be in the possession of a man named Laban. Why? I have no idea. He must have been a librarian, or curator, or inherited them.

Nephi and his brothers try every method they can think of to secure the scriptures, written on bound brass plates. From asking nicely to offering money. Laban is insulted, and threatens to kill them by their third unsolicited visit to take his property. I might be a teensy bit annoyed at this point as well. So Nephi and his brothers leave, defeated. His older brothers get carried away and beat the crap out of him. And after a bit, he decides to go back and do it himself.

Low and behold, he stumbles upon Laban, drunken to the point of unconsciousness in the street. God says, okay, here is his, kill him and then you can take the plates.

"Nephi Kills Laban" photo credit www.lds.org

Wait, What? You want me to kill him? Of course Nephi was uncomfortable. Not only was this an insane request, it went against the commandments, and probably his own personal morality.  God said, it's better that he perishes than your whole people parish in unbelief. So Nephi does the deed, takes Laban's clothes, steals the plates, and takes the book keeper along.

-_-

So, god commanded murder to get a book. Ah, but not just any book, scripture. The word of god, dictated to his prophets and transcribed onto the plates.

-_-

Written down by prophets.

-_-

Anyone else seeing the irony here? God asked Nephi to kill an innocent man because he didn't want to give up scriptures, when Nephi had his very own prophet daddy at home who could have easily written down the books of scripture through revelation from god.

Nephi also had the option of noticing Laban drunk, gone to the library, created a diversion to get the book keeper out and stolen them. He ended up taking the dang book keeper along anyways, maybe he could have just lied and said Laban said he could borrow them. Or offered the guy his freedom up front and they could have left together. Or! Laban was drunk, he still could have taken his clothes and impersonated him.

So why did Laban need to die?

Obedience. God is obsessed with obedience. Not morality, obedience. God has defied what is commonly accepted as ethical and moral for the sake of obedience. 

Example: Nephi and Laban

Example: Israelites and Canaanites (The children of Cane were thought to be the a fallen race, and the children were punished for the disobedience of the father. And they were made to be slaves, killed as children outside of the covenant, and just all around poorly treated)

Example: The genocide of the Hittites (god commanded the slaughter of every man woman child infant and animal {save the virgins who were spoils of war}, which is unethical and amoral. How can we say he was a loving god when he was happy to slay babies and women?)

Example: Esther marrying out of the covenant (marrying outside of the covenant was a nono, and subject to shunning, banishment, stoning, disowning, loss of birthright etc. And yet Esther had to marry outside of the covenant to be queen and get the king to not kill her people. So it was marital coercion in which god acted out his will that time around)

Example: Young pregnant virgin (do you really think Mary had a choice in the story? not only was she unmarried, she was under age, if she was only espoused, she was near to or just going through puberty. Which means her body wasn't physically mature to carry a child. And in her patriarchal culture, she would have been legally stoned to death for a pregnancy out of wedlock. If the sanctity of marriage and sex was so important to god, why did he bring his chosen son to the world in such a repulsive manner?)

Example: death to every first born in egypt (murder is bad, especially innocent babies, not that all were babies, but how many were children under the age of accountability who had committed no wrong? all to prove a point to the Pharaoh?) 

Example: Polygammy (so many times in the scriptures it say to have more than one wife is amoral, it's also unethical and unfair treatment of women, but church members were called to obey this "law" even though it went against the current laws of the land)

Example: slavery (slaves obey your masters, where is the morality or agency here?)

Example: Job (the agency of all of the people around Job was essentially taken away and morality thrown to the wind to show Job's obedience. Why did they not have a choice? If church members believe Satan can only temp and not force, how was he able to "tempt" so effectively everyone in Job's life? It seems like god had a hand in it to prove a point that Job was in fact blindly obedient to a fault)

Example: women are property (how is this moral or ethical? Of course, this isn't current, this is biblical, but it is still sick and wrong. And it was sanctioned by god. How could a god treat his "precious daughters" as property?)

Example: the flood that killed every man, woman, child, suckling baby, animal and insect in existence except one family. (I don't think this needs explanation......)

-_-

So it has never been a question of morality. Which is strange, because LDS doctrine affirms eternal laws and eternal morality, or objectivism. When their own doctrine is the antithesis of objectivism. It's all subjective. It all changes. Well, they say, god makes the rules, god can break the rules. Which also goes against the doctrine of god is bound by eternal laws.

So what are these eternal laws? Gravity? Evolution? I always thought that god made commandments based on objectivism, like murder is always wrong. But it seems like the scriptures are littered with god sanctioned killing. Holy wars, pity killing, scarifies, punishment. Don't kill, unless god tells you to, then its okay. That sure opens up a can of worms allowing people to claim absolution in god's name.

So again, it has never been about morality. It has been about obedience to god's subjectivity. Call me crazy, but I think that is ridiculous.

Why did Laban have to die for Nephi to prove his obedience? Why was that important to his eternal salvation? Let's take it a bit further. Why is any experience necessary for eternal salvation? If god was a fair god, he'd make it the same across the board. Instead, he lets some children be raped, some nursing mothers starve and watch their children die, some people suffer through cancer, some people get shot up in a public setting by a maniac, some people go to "war" and be away from their family because the price of oil is going up. Its sick. It really is. Why are any of these experiences necessary to gain salvation? And why does one person get to have the trial of living in a lavish mansion and not being able to find the right brand of caviar, while another wastes away from cholera? 

Well, god knows what each of us need. Tell me please! Explain this to me how a 10 year old girl in Bangladesh needs to work long hours each day in a fire hazard factory getting paid less than 10 cents to sew my shirt? Why is it necessary for that five year old boy in the monastery to be assaulted by his superior every night? Why does a morbid elderly woman need to "endure" to the end as she slowly bleeds to death in her brain?

Either god is a sadistic narcissist, or he simply doesn't exist. I'd much rather not have god exist, than know that he does and happily allows and often commands the evils of the world. 

Do I believe the Book of Mormon is true? No, so I don't believe the story of Laban and Nephi. I do believe it points out a very sick part of religion though, particularly the LDS religion, where obedience to god (the prophet in charge at the time) is what secures your salvation. And we mustn't forget the gobs of money required to fuel god's empire and build multimillion dollar malls and invest stock in word of wisdom fails like Burger King.

Lean Not Unto Thine Own Understanding

Human understanding has been in a constant state of flux, of growth. Where originally, early hominids may have ascribed natural phenomenon to superstition, now we are able to understand with remarkable clarity how the world works around us. Is it perfect? No. Are there some things we still don't understand? Yes. Should we immediately jump to faith based claims and answers? Let's think about it for a minute.

One of my very favorite episodes of Avatar: The Last Airbender happens in season 1. It is called "The Fortune Teller". It features a new character, Aunt Wu, who makes predictions about her village. Main character Sokka, who believes whole heartedly in science and reason, can't stand the blind ignorance of the people in this village, and thinks Aunt Wu is a crack pot. He meets someone who asks if science and reason can explain why is rains. He says yes it can. Another person says Aunt Wu told him he would be wearing red shoes when he met his true love. Sokka asks how often he has workn red shoes. And the man answers every day since the prediction. When Aang discovers the long dormant volcano above the village is about to erupt, he tries to tell the village. They respond that Aunt Wu said the volcano would not destroy the village. So Aang and his friends resort to trickery to get the village to believe in a false prediction by Aunt Wu. Eventually they save the village, and the villagers respond by saying, well, Aunt Wu's prediction came true.

So there is a little bit of both sides here. Katara, Sokka's sister, maintains that there are just some things that cannot be explained. Sokka, believes there is an explanation for everything. While Aunt Wu made a vague prediction that did eventually come true, it was self fulfilling to those who understood it. They made it happen because they were told it would happen. The explanation for the village not being destroyed is simple, they made a plan and kept the village safe.

There are things that cannot be easily explained, either because we don't have the tools to understand it, or we haven't discovered the answer yet. Example, gravity. We know it exists. We can feel its effects. We are pretty sure it will continue to exist. What we don't know is how. Or why. We have ideas, and hypothesis', but we still cannot explain it. 

Religion has taken these "unexplainable" things and filled in the gaps of our understanding with deity.  We can't explain, therefore god. We don't understand why, therefor supreme being. We don't know how, therefore creator. It's an easy way to explain things we simply can't fathom. And it's a comforting thought as well. 

Vikings had an interesting way to explain the eclipse. They thought a wolf creature swallowed the moon, and that a god made him spit it back out. Ancient Greece and Rome had a plethora of gods to explain the good and horrible things that went on in the world. Zeus was a crazed eternal being who enjoyed wreaking havoc on humanity and sleeping with it's maidens. Ancient Israel had Jehovah, a warrior who would save them from their enemies. Different cultures have nature gods to explain volcanos, rain, the harvest etc....it is a common ideology throughout the history of mankind. It was our way of explaining the world around us in the best way we could. But as our brains evolved, and our understanding improved, and our ability to research and think expanded, we have been able to solve in part many of the mysteries aforeto ascribed to deity.

However, as we have trended away from supernatural superstitions, there have always been those in religious power who have feared what this would do to their positions. Think about it, if you will for a moment, what those in religious power stand to lose. The dark ages, for instance, were "dark" because of religion. There were theocracies that kept the people in a stagnate constant of ignorance. Then, the Renaissance, when men began to question and move away from the church. Scientific knowledge exploded in the 19th century with men like Darwin and Edison. 

Still, the trend in religion is that the knowledge of man is prideful. And to have faith in god about things we can't understand, instead of finding a way to explain them. "My ways are not your ways, neither are my thoughts your thoughts" coins a famous scripture in Isaiah. In the Mormon church, there is a scripture that states "lean not unto thine own understanding" and another in the Book of Mormon that says " O that cunning plan of the evil one! O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken notunto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore, their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. And they shall perish. But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God."

Basically, the Mormon church counsels against education while advocating for it at the same time. It's a paradoxical problem that lands a lot of otherwise faithful members into a stereotype of prideful. To think you understand something of your own merit is frowned upon, and all the credit must go to god. Though it is taught that god frowns upon excessive education because then it makes you question his existence. And then that is bad, because the business of religion will lose its patrons, which will lose it money, and ultimately lead to its demise. So one thing, in the Mormon church, they are sure to reinforce is "read from the best books". Meaning the ones they say are okay. And not to put much stock in the knowledge of man. Which is completely ludicrous because the knowledge of man is what has made technology and medicine for example what they are today. There was a time when devils were being cast out of children who had mental retardation. And when homosexuals were stoned. Now we understand biology and that it's not a devil that causes down syndrome, but a chromosomal problem. We understand that evolution is responsible for earths diversity. We understand gravity is what makes the sun rise and set in our sky. We understand the earth was not created first, and we also understand that people can be easily swayed by the promise of eternal splendor, which is what makes it such a successful business.

I suppose that is another thing that bothered me severely. The very obvious aversion to knowledge, particularly knowledge that is employed on a daily basis to make our world function. And the way some religious people look down on the scholarly because of their academic success. It's unfortunate that an ignorant person's first response to the theory of evolution is "I don't come from no monkey". This demonstrates how little the understand about the concept, and how poisonous religious counsel can be in keeping otherwise intelligent individuals from understanding the world around them.