Ex-mormon badges not available, yet

Sorry if you were expecting to see some ex-mormon badges available.

I can't create them at present as the site I use for creating badge designs has a failure on that section and might be down for a few days.

Folk i Norge, jeg er så lei for den fryktelige tap som du har opplevd

Folk i Norge, jeg er så lei for den fryktelige tap som du har opplevd.

Mitt hjerte sørger for de som har mistet familie og venner.

Min unnskyldninger for det ufullkomne grammatikk.

Excuse me, but does this film contain a ghost?

Here is a video recording of a stage school performing outside a new pub. It is based on the site of a much older building which was, amongst other things, a pub.

Although nothing was noticed whilst the film was being recorded, a blue orb suddenly makes an appearance floating above the heads of the singers.

What do you think? A ghostly apparition or not?

What is Mormonism? What is the Mormon Church?

Although the Mormon Church would like people to think it is a church, the truth is that rather than being a church it is in reality a large business corporation.

If the president of the Mormon Church decided to close down every Mormon chapel and temple tomorrow, the Mormon Corporation (dozens of different businesses and firms) would in all probability still be able to function without a church membership.

The above is unlikely to happen as the existence of chapels and temples brings in a great deal of money in tithing receipts and, as with all MLMs (legit and non-legit) there is a need for a constant income stream to keep the whole thing afloat.

The difference is that traditional MLMs need money in order to pay income to its members, whereas the Mormon Church/Mormon Corporation does NOT pay the members in its downline a single penny!

With a traditional legit MLM, everyone who works hard will receive some income. But with the MLM that is the Mormon Church/Mormon Corporation only a very tiny number of people actually get any recompense for their time, effort and input.

Would you be a hard-working member of an MLM downline if only the person at the very top got an income? Of course you would not! The idea is utterly unreasonable!

And yet that is exactly how Mormonism works.

If only we could see us as others see us!

As the Scots poet Robert 'Rabbie' Burns wrote:

"O wad some Power the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!"

Or

"Oh would some power the gift give us
to see ourselves as others see us!"

I find it remarkable, pitiful, some times, that there are some people who see the people arround them as some sort of giant distorting mirror.

What do I mean by that? They can see their own faults reflected upon the faces of other people, they project their own faults on to other people.

The bully sees other people as being a bully to them, the person who is quick to anger sees other people as being quick to anger, the person with a problem cannot see that problem in themselves but they can see it in other people.

I once knew a hopeless alcoholic who, when he saw someone have just two glasses of wine, said: "You are drinking far too much! You should watch out! You obviously have a problem with drinking!"

Somehow he had reflected his own problem behaviour on to someone else, seeing his own problems reflected back toward him. But he did not have a problem (of course!) and became offensive to anyone who suggested otherwise.

Jesus mentioned this problem. He spoke of people who can see a mote in the eye of someone else, yet who cannot see the beam in their own eye.

They are always so very helpful to point out your faults and problems and yet they cannot see their own faults and problems. Or is it that they are really aware, at some level, that they are a -for example- a control freak, a bully, or have an abusive personality?

But that somehow, they can turn this around against people who are nearest to them so that they genuinely and honestly believe that they are the saint and not the sinner?

That they are surrounded by other people who are bullies, control freaks, have abusive personalities, etc., etc?

There's an old joke that mocks this type of behaviour: "It's not me, it's the rest of them!"

How many lives and relationships, how many families, how many otherwise promising careers are spoilt, damaged or utterly laid waste because someone, somehow, has learned that to survive one merely has to develop the ability to project one's own faults and weaknesses on to other people?

California or not?

The proposed trip to California is looking a little bit iffy at the moment.

I should be in California in mid-September but for a variety of reasons -all logistical- that is starting to look a little less likely, now.

It might happen, but it is no longer certain.

Oh, well.

The Joseph Smith Dilemma: Well, would YOU have done it?

If someone gave you an opportunity to get riches, respect, authority, leadership and just about ANY sexual partners that you wanted, and as many of them as you could physically cope with, would YOU succumb to the temptation to actually do it?

To actually get those riches? To get the respect? To take that leadership? To have just about any and every sexual partner that you could physically cope with?

Well, yes, morally we would hope to say that we would not do any of those things.

But put it another way. If you could have anything that you wanted, anything that you desired and you knew that nobody would mind, nobody important that is, that you could do whatever you wanted to do with no possibility of any comeback, are you saying that you would be able to shrug your shoulders, smile and say: "No thank you!"

To be honest, I do not know if I could. And that was the dilemma that Joseph Smith found himself in.

But ultimately Joseph Smith found that there was a price to pay.

How about that, then?

How about that, then?

Here we have the Lord Jesus Christ, who died on the cross for us,
Here we have Saint Peter who also died on a cross, for his Lord,
and here we have Martin Luther King, who died, in the cross-hairs, for his Lord and his people,
and here we have Joseph Smith, who died in a gun-fight. Oh, dear, oh dear, oh dear!

More poetry

I fear for them,
I really do,
the Mormons,
trapped,
in the dream of Joseph Smith.

But that wicked dreamer is dead.
So how will those trapped in his dream, escape?

For it is written, 'what of the dream, when the dreamer dies?'
For how can they escape the wicked man's lies?

Some exmo poetry

It's here, at last! A little exmo poetry.

Mormonism, is like a distant thunder,
awaiting the destructive power,
the wind,
the rain,
the family washed away. Gone.