Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Mormonism as a Country Club

Let's imagine Mormonism as a very exclusive Country Club which you are invited to join. Membership, you are told is very egalitarian. Everyone pays a membership fee of 10% of their income, so no one pays more than their fair share.

You decide to join and start paying your membership.

After a while you decide it would be nice to enjoy some of the facilities of the club. Can you use the gymnasium? No, you are told, you cannot use the gymnasium of the club.

Well, can you use the steam room? No, you are told that you cannot use the steam room.

Could you use the library of the Country Club? That too, is off limits to you.

Could you have a massage in the health suite? No, that is not available to you.

There is, in the brochure, a high quality restaurant. Can you book you and your family in there for a meal? No, with regret, you are informed that the restaurant is not available, either.

By now you are more than a little frustrated by this. You ask what facilities you CAN use? You are told that you are able to attend weekly presentations as to the benefits of membership of the Country Club and also you can attend special sessions of the Country Club when members who CAN access the facilities denied to you tell you how marvellous being a member is, and how you should live your life as a member of the Country Club.

You ask, with a sense of rising anger, if there is a two tier system of membership at the Country Club? The official who you approach is scandalised by this. But when you question him it transpires that he has never enjoyed any of the facilities of the Country Club, either! But he did once meet someone who knew someone who did enjoy the facilities.

"So, we are expected to pay our membership fees whilst an elite group of members actually enjoy the facilities of the Country Club and we get nothing in return?" you ask. "What are you? Some kind of rebel?" is the shocked response.

Now, at this point, most people would cancel their membership and quit the Country Club. For many people in the Mormon Church this is not an option. Because Mormonism really IS a Country Club for a few very, very few, lucky members (with many more facilities than I have outlined above) who have managed to convince several millions of people round the world that Mormonism is a church and not a Country Club.

Why Mormonism is worse than MLM

Some people have likened Mormonism to MLM. I know where they're coming from, but I think Mormonism is worse than MLM. Far worse.

Let's look at it this way:

If you work seven days a week with Amway (or most other MLM businesses) there is a possibility that you might earn a decent income.

But if you work seven days a week at being a Mormon the only people who do well are the very small amount of people in the Mormon Church who are the the top of the Mormon pyramid.

So no matter how much time and money you give to the Mormon church, you will never earn a penny from all your efforts. And that, in my opinion, is worse than any MLM that is not 100% crooked.

Sunday, August 28, 2011

Here's a link to some Exmo cartoons!

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,281413,281413#msg-281413

I hope you will enjoy them!

You can create your own, using the Red Meat cartoon creation engine!

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

The "cry for help"

Mrs Beagley, the hot sauce torture Mormon mother,has been convicted for what she put her adopted child through.

The narrative, however, has changed. It has changed from bragging about her child rearing methods to a bogus 'cry for help'.

I left this comment on the site of fellow blogger Alexis:

"It was only after she (Mrs Beagley) saw the expression on Dr Phil's face and heard/saw the outraged and horrified reaction of the studio audience that she or her legal team claimed she had gone on the programme as a "cry for help."

It is my memory of that segment of the Dr Phil programme that she (Sister Beagley) had gone on the programme to gain bragging rights for her super-duper child rearing methods.

I honestly believe that she only began to get a slight inking that perhaps her child rearing methods did NOT meet with universal approval (as she expected them to) when she noticed that Dr Phil was NOT impressed and that the entire audience was somewhat hostile toward her.

Sister Beagley is NOT the first Mormon found guilty of such a crime

http://exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,40474,41607

Is this a common Mormon child abuse method? I mean discipline?

Monday, August 15, 2011

Wow! Old radio broadcasts I made in 1985 and 1987

There's a website that I found that has archived radio broadcasts I made when I was working as a pirate radio DJ in the mid 1980s!

Here's Boxing Day in 1985 https://www.rapidshare.com/files/415461271/WRShropshire-PaulKaye_JohnTurner-26-12-85.mp3

And two years later, September 1987 https://www.rapidshare.com/files/2513233677/WRShropshire-PaulKaye_JohnTurner-25-10-87.mp3

I was using the name John Turner for the broadcasts. I am the second presenter on the first recording.

I mainly presented Progressive Rock.

I had been out of the Mormon church since 1981 or 1982, I forget which, now, it's all so long ago.

Sunday, August 14, 2011

"There are two religions in the world" A Salt Lake Tribune article you might like

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/opinion/52371397-82/faith-god-arrogant-humble.html.csp

The above article by George Pyle is one of the best articles on religion that I have read in my life. I hope you will enjoy it, too.

A fun writing exercise

Be That Writer is offering a fun writing exercise! To find out how to take part, please visit the following link:-

http://bethatwriter.blogspot.com/2011/08/be-that-writer-update.html

And DO have some fun!

Update

The protests passed fairly uneventfully.

Apparently the police were able to keep 1,000 protesters away from town by not letting their buses reach the town and routing them in such a way as they went home again, instead!

Some people were arrested for a variety of incidents (some public order, bail offences, etc) but events passed off peacefully. Someone did try to cause a riot, but it was stamped on very firmly by the police before it got out of hand.

All praises to the police for handling the situation so well.

Tuesday, August 09, 2011

Still safe!

Yes, still safe at Matt Towers!

Though it is possible that there could be a riot locally on Saturday (a pre-arranged march which will almost certainly turn nasty) so we are NOT going out and will be battening the hatches over the weekend.

Will keep you updated.

Monday, August 08, 2011

Looting

The so-called riots in Britain are nothing but looting fomented by some agitators who should know better!

The middleclass agitators are causing problems in poor working class areas, but what would they care for the poor people they have caused to be jobless and in some cases, homeless, too, as they caused their homes to be burnt to the ground?

I hope the agitators are jailed for years. But they probably will get away with a slap on the wrist.

Thursday, August 04, 2011

How you can promote your blog, spam-free

Please follow the link to the post that you will find and you can start promoting your blog, spam-free, within minutes and it will not cost you a penny.

Be That Writer

'Mormon' leader guilty

Wednesday, August 03, 2011

The After-Life. Is it a colourful place?

“Science can help us understand the existence of the After-Life more closely” says Regressionist to the Stars, Nicolas Aujula who claims to have uncovered a scientific understanding to where we go after death.

Having Regressed hundreds of clients including British and Hollywood celebrities to past-lives over the years, some of them were able to take themselves to the space between lives known as 'Life Between Lives' described as the After-Life existence.

“I'm going through the tunnel and seeing white light” is a usual statement to hear when exploring 'Life Between Lives' - however the ground-breaking point that many people make is the existence of colours in the After-Life that they have never seen before.

This is where science can help as physicists agree on the fact that there is light and colours we cannot physically sense, we only see a small portion of what is known as the visible electromagnetic spectrum.

Dr Tom Field from Queen's University Belfast comments “There is light beyond the visible spectrum we cannot see and cannot appreciate the colours”.

Nicolas Aujula says “This is a clear sign that the place we go to after death lies at a wavelength invisible to us”. The afterlife interpenetrates the physical world as infinite parallel realities exist holographically everywhere at once.

Just as we create our own experiences in life through our beliefs, expectations and interpretations of our experiences. Similarly, we create our own experiences in death.

Nicolas is now hoping to demystify the After-Life and make it a more understood subject.

You can visit Nicolas Aujula's website - www.inspired-artisan.com

(EDITOR: These are interesting claims. Anyone got any comments? If so please submit them.)

Tuesday, August 02, 2011

BBQ with red wine

Yesterday evening my wife and I enjoyed a barbecue which we finished off nicely with a bottle of red wine that we shared together.

It was a nice evening, not to hot, not too cold. We ate our food, toasted some bread and reminisced until long after the sun had gone down and the garden was illuminated by our solar lights, which slowly changed colours which made our garden with its statues -including a large Buddha's head- look like a fairy glen, rather than a garden.

It was a perfect moment, as we listened to our African Grey Parrot and our Cockatiel conversing in pure Cockatiel, as our car dozed on the doormat.

Afterwards we went in doors and played Michael Jackson for our African Grey Parrot.

Sometimes, life is beautiful.