My take on mormon photos – and a hard look in the mirror for TMV
In short, I’m shocked. Unfortunately, my time is scarce for blogging these days. When I came back to blog here after a recent and extended leave of absence, I quickly and easily noticed a less moderate tone. Every coblogger that posts with any regularity offers an extensively left-wing viewpoint, and (here’s the real offense) often stooping to ridiculous levels to claw at the knees of the Republicans. As evidence, let’s turn to a man for whom I hold great personal respect, our host Joe Gandelman:
And maybe if the administration works as hard and effectively as it has so far, it’ll break those records, too.
Really, ANY member of the U.S. government WANTS more servicemen to die? They are WORKING to keep our troops there longer?
I’m appalled. This site is too rapidly becoming an echo chamber like those we once were proudly able to sneer down at.
I guess we shouldn’t be surprised to see religious bigotry from a new coblogger who wrote on his own blog the following gem of “moderation” :
Just do me a favor: If someone tells you how proud they are to be an American this Thanksgiving, don’t bother to get tangled up in some long winded discussion about what The Decider has wrought. Just ask to have the cranberry sauce passed to you and throw it at them.
Well, Shaun, the Moderate Voice once used to stand for civil debate (“long-winded discussion”) and not so much for throwing of food. But I guess acting like children is in vogue now – it just doesn’t seem so moderate to me.
Okay. Let’s post pictures of what others consider sacred for a cheap laugh because “it was coming anyways.” Let’s be ashamed of being Americans. And let’s devolve our debate to the point where we’re arguing that the Administration plans for the maximum casualties.
I love this site and what it has stood for. I really do, and that’s why it sickens me to see us take this path. Because if we continue along our current trajectory, a name change will be in order.
Shadow blogger two, out. May we please live up to our masthead.
UPDATE: I’d like to preempt any criticism or calling me a “neocon,” a Halliburton puppet or anything similar by saying that I supported Kerry in 2004, supported mostly Republicans in 2006, and that this post was not based on any specific opinions but rather a yearning for the educated and civil debate we used to have here. Not a forum where cobloggers respond to intelligent criticisms of their work by calling respected lawblogger Ann Althouse “Annie Pooh.” Is this a joke?
82 Responses to “My take on mormon photos – and a hard look in the mirror for TMV”
This site has jumped the shark.
Thank you Andrew for putting some of the moderate back into this blog
Folks, there are photos of me in the world which are more revealing than the highly inoffensive Wikipedia temple underwear shot and, should I ever run for office, I expect that they will appear in public in short order.
You guys don’t need to ‘chill’ – you need to enter reality.
“highly inoffensive Wikipedia temple underwear shot”
It just isn’t up to us to determine what others should or should not find offensive. We should be sensitive to that, just like when Kramer doesn’t think “nigger” should be offensive to blacks he is not granted the right to say it.
“you need to enter reality.” Your views are reality, while those of the people WHO HOLD THOSE GARMENTS SACRED must be false?
Who really needs a reality check? He who says “this may not offend me, but we should be sensitive to those who it does affect” or she who says “anyone who disagrees with me is in fantasyland, regardless of the fact I have no position of authority from which to opine on this issue” ?
How moderate.
Andrew,
Left wing and right wing are entirely relative positions. The people currently in power in Washington and on Wall Street have succeeded in making even the most basic tenets of our Constitution seem “ultra-liberal.”
If you let Rove &Co. define left wing it now includes support for personal privacy, Habeas Corpus, bans on torture, adequate supplies for our troops, science, fiscal responsibility… the list goes on.
Democrats in this country aren’t left wing. The left wing is made up of people like Ralph Nader, Noam Chomsky and Howard Zinn. People like Clinton, Kerry and Gore are just painted as left wing.
We all need to be intellectually honest with ourselves, and that might mean that moderate center is not halfway between the Republicans and the Democrats.
To me the point isn’t that people aren’t taking the sacredness thing seriously, it’s the BS that was launched at the post. Shaun was listing a bunch of issues that will arise regarding Romney. It was explicitly written from the viewpoint of what the religious right Republicans (who in recent years have dominated primaries) will ask about him. For this, he was instantly called a bigot. His post was completely mischaracterized and twisted.
That said, I agree it’s up to Mormons to decide what they find offensive and not offensive…but it’s up to other people to decide whether they want to change their behavior. The garment picture is completely irrelevant to the post, and if some mormons wrote a comment that said “this issue is important to me and the tone about the garments wasn’t appropriate and I would appreciate it if you removed the picture” along with a link to a LDS explanation about the sacredness of the object (or not, I’m not sure if that’s appropriate. If it isn’t then a mere “there are some private aspects that all religions have” would suffice, although I’ve read it already so I’m pretty sure it kosher to talk about), any decent person would have to reevaluate the post. However, when the post is completely non-hostile except out of ignorance, then going into attack mode is way out of line and of course it got people on the defensive.
I’m not saying that the people who complained did this on purpose either, it could have been a simple misunderstanding. Maybe there were even buzzwords in there that I’m not aware of that signifies it was anti-Mormon on purpose and if so that should be pointed out.
I do think that Shaun’s responses are greatly lacking and if anything that is a show of “unmoderation” because he didn’t attempt to understand the situation when it’s his responsiblity to.
In my sweeps I came on this site via the article regarding under clothing. I have to say it gave me a great chuckle to see the words “themoderatevoice” in my browser’s address bar. Were the cartoons published here too? Is this “moderate” super relative? Because as anti-Mormon sites the photo would land this in a relatively moderate category. But then a better name would go along the names of “themoderateantimormonvoice.com”
Reality is that, if Mitt is a serious candidate for president, we’ll be seeing photos of that rather boring lingerie almost daily.
DeseretScion, come back on a different day when people aren’t having a hissy fit about underwear.
“lines” not “names”
Posting too quickly here. Sorry.
Ohh. and the phrase “…as anti-Mormon sites the…” should be “…as anti-Mormon sites go the…”
Maybe, but I’d say that it’d be much farther from people who claim the Administration is working hard solely to keep American troops in harm’s way than people who disagree with, say, affirmative action.
I’m pretty offended when you assert that anyone who doesn’t identify themselves as a liberal hates habeas corpus (which the MCA didn’t suspend for citizens like Keith Olberman tells you) and science.
Also, the people you name as “left wing” are left-wing extremists, but Kerry and Clinton are still lefties, definitely. Even they wouldn’t deny that – but I guess you’re the lone true discoverer of a giant Halliburton conspiracy to skew the public consciousness that has in fact infiltrated both parties, right?
You don’t mention that your ultra-liberal views include racial preferences, forced charity, socialized medicine, etc. – let’s not pretend today’s left is any more Constitutional than today’s Right.
So we’re abandoning our goal of being an island of civilized and moderate debate and now striving to best represent the future of UNcivilized debate?
We aren’t some crystal ball of what the sensationalized media will do in six months, we rise ABOVE that entire level of dialogue.
Or, we used to.
Apparently, biting sarcasm occasionally overwhelms vainglorious dreams of moderation.
You “moderates” sure have your panties (mormon or otherwise) in a twist today.
As usual, Joe is about the only one with humor and perspective.
I feel to point out here, if it’s not been seen by those reading in my comment connected to a previous blog, that the whole LDS/Mormon Garment incident is viewed by the LDS/Mormon community as something very much along the lines of what Belshazzar did in taking the vessels of the Temple and using them at his own discretion. If you can conceptualize the revolt and outrage that should be in the hearts of orthodox Jew’s views upon imagining the profaning of such items, potentially the singularly most sacred physical objects of their faith, then they might get some sense of the severity with which this is viewed by those, like myself, who are adherents of the LDS faith.
For further realization of the ramifications remember that the popular phrase “read the writting on the wall” was something that proceded directly from this act of profaning items seen sacred and originating in Temple worship.
The writting on the wall signified the fall of the Babylonian Empire and the death of king Belshazzar the very night after the profaning of said vessels.
I’m not saying you’re all going to be over run tonight by arabs while the poster of the phots dies, but I hope this can convey some sense of the scope of this infraction, whether or not it’s seen as such by those outside our faith.
Andrew I thought your post was not moderate in the slightest. To me one of the tenets of moderate politics is to always try to understand the meaning of what people are saying. Whether people are spouting lies behind PR buzzwords or truths through mangled speech, then a moderate will try to highlight the underlying meaning and how it relates to (their understanding of) the world so everyone can see (and of course there will be a debate about if it’s true, but that’s a different story).
To say that Joe’s sentence “And maybe if the administration works as hard and effectively as it has so far, it’ll break those records, too” means:
is either wildly off the mark or dishonest (I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and go for the former). How any non-partisan could try to spin it that way is beyond me, but I’ll ask: have you been reading many blogs lately? That was clearly sarcasm about how dysfunctional and outright insane our current Iraq policy is and has been for a long time. On this site you’ll find that the Iraq commentary has almost dried up because no one knows what else to say, but there is disagreement about whether we should stay or go and have been rational explanations behind each and an attempt to “feel out” which is more realistic.
If you want to read some real “leftist” rants try Balloon Juice or the Belgravia Dispatch for anger so seething that if John Cole and Greg didn’t wrap it up in outlandish disbelief at what was actually happening to our country then they’d have an aneursym. These guys actually were self-identified Republicans unlike Andrew Sullivan — another person that’s obviously a Communist because he’s gay and is against torture in all forms.
I think this site is still moderate and it shows clearly when people come picking for a fight and stick around for a few weeks. You can see a palpable change in both the liberal and conservative commentators who find out there is a lot they can agree on even though they came in with fists aflying. You probably haven’t seen the history, but the fact that Rudi and Marlowecan can actually have productive conversations is a testament to the nature of the site.
yeah. because we say snide, truculent things like:
You can redefine the word moderate all you want, but it doesn’t mean anything about never misinterpreting words. It means, politically, not being an extremist. I never claimed that my post was the exemplary “moderate” post, but I’m curious why you find my post so immoderate (According to your made-up criterion) but don’t think ANY of the posts from hardcore left-wingers are immoderate at all.
I guess it’s all in the way you look at things, and I’m referencing the way this site used to provide itself as being moderate: blending both sides of the debate in an informed fashion and not towing the party line. Whether my post was moderate or not, I still see plenty of fists flying at this site. They’re now just all flying in the same direction.
Oh, I hurt your feelings? But wait . . . I didn’t mean to! I didn’t find my words offensive – thus, I was completely justified?
Or does that only apply when we’re mocking a Mormon minority?
Given your hyper-sensitive opinion about being considerate of others, I’m surprised to see you didn’t append your criticism of me with an emphatic agreement with my calls for a return to high-brow and civil debate.
Hello DS: As I pointed out below, your story from the Book of Daniel is not a good analogy. This is one of the least important books in the Bible and is not publicly read, therefore most Jews won’t even recognize the story. There are certainly far worse profanations in Scripture.
Additionally, I don’t find my pointing out lunacy as being offensive in and of itself. My words were a pretty accurate paraphrase of what the poor guy really thinks is going on – sadly, while I would have liked for my imitation of his super-paranoid tone to be snide or truculent, I basically reflected what was written to me 1:1.
DeseretScion that was exactly the short of explanation that I personally feel should have been offered to Shaun and all the other people that are talking about this around the internet right now. Thank you. If someone knows that and chooses to trivialize it then they “deserve” whatever scorn Mormons feel is appropriate.
Personally, I hold nothing sacred, but your reaction earns respect and so I’m more apt to side “with you” in arguments about the situation. (After all, to people on the outside, it’s only underwear, so what’s the point in NOT respecting it.) However the reaction on the other thread made me feel more like what Holly’s said and the reaction over the Mohammed cartoons was enough for me to actively engage Muslims over the fact that their sacred items were being used to pervert the religion and perhaps they should reevaluate what things mean.
Andrew- I think I agree with Chris- the Republican party has moved much further to the right under Bush 43, then say, a moderate like Bush 41. In doing so, they may have appealed to a lot of conservatives, but lost some of the moderate middle of Independents, moderate Republicans and Reagan Democrats, while not picking up minority voters. That, in a nutshell, is what the last election signified. The country as a whole, is less conservative than our governing party, and elected Democrats, not because they agree with liberal causes, but because they disagreed with the direction we were headed in.
If two-thirds of Americans think the war has been badly managed, and that we will be unable to obtain a military victory, that means that those opinions do not belong solely to liberals, but to mainstream Americans.
I still see this as a moderate site, because unlike other sites TMV has bloggers from a wide-ranging political spectrum, and they don’t agree on plenty of issues. Neither do the commenters, which is what makes it interesting. If you have an opposing point of view, to what you see as the prevailing one here, convince us otherwise. But you won’t be able to convince anyone if you attack us for being too liberal.
The point is not that they are working hard to kill American troops, but they just don’t really care. Or at the very least, don’t put their money with their mouths are. Our government didn’t care about the evidence for going into Iraq. They didn’t care enough to come up with a plan for after we invaded Iraq. They didn’t care enough to supply our troops with the proper armor. They don’t care enough to stop war profiteering at the expense of our troops by companies like Halliburton. This is the truth, not left wing.
I’m offended when it’s asserted that because I think Habeas Corpus should be preserved, that I am a supporter of terrorists. Sure, the MCA doesn’t touch citizen’s rights but if you’re declared a non-citizen, even if you were, how are you supposed to challenge your detention?
As for science, our government has been systematically rewriting scientific and economic reports from NASA and other agencies that say anything negative about the state of the environment or our economy (read about government studies on outsourcing).
Like I said, left wing as defined by America’s right. But take a look at politicians in Europe. They would laugh at what we call liberal in the United States and rightly so.
I’m not sure what you mean by racial preferences, but I think you mean affirmative action. Did you know that half of your countrymen think that affirmative action is a good idea? As for forced charity, I’m assuming you mean taxes. Well, I’m not sure how many people think it’s feasible to remove all taxes, but the I do know that universal health care is supported by 62% of the country.
You see these aren’t radical left wing ideas. They are supported by the majority of Americans.
I guess this blog has strayed from it’s roots. Nice Mea Culpa Andrew.
Holly I do agree it’s immaterial whether it’s a good analogy or not. Do you disagree that people have the right to decide adhoc what is and isn’t important to them?
I’m not getting into a big debate over this. I obviously disagree and have made wisecracks about Democrats, Republicans and all kinds of things. If you read the masthead and description of the site, in fact, I don’t do it as much as I should on a lot of issues. I really don’t have the time to get into a debate over whether people think its too much to the left or right because anyone who visits TMV every day knows that its character changes depending on who is posting, what the subject is and what their take on it is. See the post above which is my answer to this and other things. I have gotten emails complaining about virtually every coblogger — and me — wanting me to ban them because they are “too left’ to be moderate or “too right” to be moderate….which usually means they don’t agree with THAT person, who only wants to see things that he/she agress with. One person stopped leaving tips in the Tip Jar and emailng me because I woudn’t halt posts by someone who wrote posts to the right. We lose some readers due to this but there is a diversity of opinion. My post above is all I have to say on it because those who don’t like the site will still not like it but just in case you haven’t noticed the blogroll also offers readers a wide variety of viewpoints — and we link to all kinds of sites. I read posts by cobloggers all the time that I don’t agree with and I shrug and move on and do my posts.Someone is more to the left of me? So? More to the right? So? And if someone asks me to drop a blogger because they are “too liberal” or “too conservative” I politely note that we have divergent voices and have in most cases do not even bother telling the blogger about it…because his/her opinion is his/her opinion. Those who are angry over some posts here will think Andrew is a on target; those who don’t, won’t. And my leaving comments and debating people won’t change anyone’s view who wants to read or not visit this site. So we’ll continue as we’ve been doing (TMV is NOT linked on a good many sites on the left and right for this reason — because it is not perceived as being in solidly in one camp)
Holly, regarding your following two posts (the first from the other thread)
“1) underwear is not obscene
2) the photo was obviously not posted as an “object of derision”"
“Hello DS: As I pointed out below, your story from the Book of Daniel is not a good analogy. This is one of the least important books in the Bible and is not publicly read, therefore most Jews won’t even recognize the story. There are certainly far worse profanations in Scripture.”
First off I’d like to know how one determines the importance of the Book of Daniel AND what relevance it’s acceptance and ‘importance’ has with regard to the analogy.
Do you think that the removal of Temple symbols from the Jewish Temple or tabernacle, and the use off such by those unconcerned, unfamiliar with, unauthorized, and alltogether considered ‘profane’ (meaning of course ‘not holy’) in ANY instance, in
ANY account of Jewish History would be less significant or seen as non-egregious in the minds eye of those considering even the possibility of such an event? You see the noteriety or heed given to the book of daniel is a non-sequitor. It’s the offensiveness of the idea, rather than the acceptedness or pervasiveness of the account, that matters in the analogy.
Next with regard to your two provisions to counter the prospect of an image of the results of circumcision–
“1) underwear is not obscene
2) the photo was obviously not posted as an “object of derision”"
First off neither are cups and vessels of the Temple, in fact the contents of the ark of the covenant are not considered obscene, but for anyone outside of the dictates of Jewish Law to go into the ark (heck, to even touch the ark) would be considered an offense.
Secondly, with regard to it not being an “object of derision” it certainly, at the very least, was meant as an object of purveying malintent. The obtainment and display of those objects is an act that inherently goes against the proscriptions of our faith. Meaning that to get that there was a need for either explicit and intentional lying on the part of those obtaining and displaying them, or there was blatant and open betrayal of commitments made by one who’s completely left the faith. Either way it’s not a friendly act.
Andy there is an active debate (not just on this site but all the moderate/centrist ones) about comparing/contrasting moderation and centrism. There’s not really any agreement so all definitions are made up anyway, but a general theme is that centrism is a political adjective and moderate is more of a philosophical one. I’ll agree this site ain’t centrist.
But I’ll say it again, in my completely made up and arbitrary definition you’re not being moderate. The number one reason why is you are putting words in people’s fingers. chris was talking about the Administration and you go and say you’re offended that anyone that isn’t a “liberal” is tagged with those things. He never said that. I know tons (and growing every month) of conservatives who are equally pissed off about the exact same things he said in nearly identical language — to the point where they are becoming “anti-business” because they are rightfully equating K Street and Corporate subsidization as being unconservative! There is a huge swath of “moderates” that have the same feelings in spite of VAST policy differences and ideological underpinnings. You said that I think any of the newer posts weren’t moderate. I never said that, I said the site as a whole still was and even that Shaun’s reaction was not moderate.
Secondly, you are using gross characterizations spouting off about what the ultra-left believes in an association that the current stuff is ultra-left. I seem to have missed the posts on how corporations are merely devices to control the populace, or that GM foods were made to enslave the poor or that Republicans rigged the vote with their new machines or anyone of the real ultra-left beliefs that are actually spouted on inane blogs. The closest “socialized” medicine reference is that we need a national plan with a positive reference to MA — where it merely requires insurance and isn’t anywhere close to the definition of government run health care.
For all I know, chris is some leftist and I’ll even say that the comment wasn’t moderate because it had the same weaknesses that all of yours have had so far (although his follow up was better) but your mocking instead of active debate is the same thing you’re complaining about.
FYI, no one actually “knows” whether Habeus Corpus applies to citizens or not. If you read Balkinization you’ll see that it strips it from enemy combatants and that the bill let them declare anyone an enemy combatant. They then listed a few reasons why citizens would have it still for Constitutional considerations, but that doesn’t mean that the bill itself preserved it (which personally I am more concerned about because if Congress is really to the point where it’s doing such things that is where a line needs to be drawn). Furthermore, I looked long and hard on sites liberal, centrist and right and didn’t find one effective refutation of any of their points. In fact, most of them agreed that it was up to the President to decide what the law actually does.
“I guess this blog has strayed from it’s roots.”
I don’t think it has strayed – it’s growing and adapting (evolving!?) as more cobloggers participate and more semi-regular browsers stop by. Just look at tonights repeated bantering over defining “moderate” or “offensive” or “liberal”, etc. When it was just Joe and a few regulars it was no biggie. Now, everyone is joining in and things get less obvious and less familiar – much like our national debates turn. Let’s call them “growing pains” and remember that maturity and wisdom follow soon after!
On a personal note, I browse by several other sites (Balloon Juice, Thinkprogress, Swordscrossed, etc.) and I must say that TMV still seems quite moderate to me (and informative!). I don’t always agree with the postings but the tone is a welcome change. Take Shaun’s underwear post – he wasn’t ridiculing Mormons he was pointing out that it will be an issue and it will get ugly. That’s a sad fact of our current political/media age.
Seems just yesterday we were unaware of Mormon underware, or ‘garmies.’ Now it’s all over the blogosphere, same picture. BTW, there are around 18,500 webpages on “mormon underwear,” many with pictures so it’s hardly a secret.
Shaun, you must be astonished by the whole thing. For what it’s worth, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with your raising this issue, or posting the pic (bet you’ll be more careful in your comments, though). Still, all this made your point. Running for president invites very close scrutiny, and the more, uh, unusual aspects of the Mormon religion will be aired in public.
Someone who wants to run the country should not revere a man (that would be Joseph Smith, central figure in LDS lore) who married around 40 women, one of whom was 14 years old when Smith explained to her that God demanded she marry him or be eternally damned.
Smith wrote the Book of Mormon, or rather, he channeled it with his face buried in an old hat into which he had placed his “peepstone” (or “seerstone” as the church terms it). This was after he had already sold his services (and that of the stone) around the neighborhood to find treasure chests, lost objects and such with the peepstone in his old white tophat. He confidently found vast treasures with his mystical skills, but as workers were digging for it, it always ‘sunk deeper in the ground’. Read the story yourself.
Now I’m sorry if it’s starting to sound like I’m mocking someone’s religion here. It’s the Mormon story. It’s relevant to me that someone running for national office reveres Joseph Smith and takes his words as gospel. To me, beliefs are less relevant than positions and policies, but to many, it’s a very big deal. We get to choose the issues on which we base our votes.
Holly wrote:
In Ezekiel, for instance? Do Jews read that publicly?
DeseretScion, being an Eastern Orthodox Christian, the best Christian analogy that I can find to the profanation of the Temple vessels in the book of Daniel is if someone were to take a Chalice and use it as a wine-goblet at dinner. It’s a pretty direct parallel. For context, the only time that a layperson would touch the Chalice is to kiss it after receiving Communion. (And the Greeks don’t even do that for fear of profaning the Eucharist, in case there should still be some residue upon their lips.) Perhaps I shouldn’t mention these customs to those outside my faith for fear that they might look askance at us for this or make fun, but there is nothing wrong in someone outside the Faith seeing a Chalice (or other sacred vessels) and being given an explanation of the significance of it.
Our clergy wear vestments to serve in which are sacred and which are not put on without special prayers being said as each piece is put on in it’s turn. We treat those vestments with great reverence, but when they get soiled, they get sent to the dry cleaner. (Actually, even the everyday outer clothing of a priest or deacon has spiritual significance to it, as well.)
I guess that I’m having trouble getting my mind around the idea that it is a profanation equal to someone using a Communion Chalice as a dinner goblet for unbelievers simply to see a picture of Mormon Temple Garments. Can you help me out here? Was it just becuse these are inner garments?
I certainly wasn’t laughing about the garments in any way. I’m thoroughly used to the idea of special garments in various religious trditions.
DS – no “malintent” whatsoever.”
It is a simple fact that the Book of Daniel is very important to Christians and NOT very important to Jews. Daniel isn’t even part of Prophets but rather Sacred Writings. Believe me, nobody gives a hoot about Belshazzar’s story. The Book of Daniel was written much later then it is set and isn’t even about the oppressors it describes. Perhaps I should invite my scholar friend to comment on it.
In Judaism, we do not worship objects. Therefore your analogy does not hold up.
Holly — didn’t DS mean that the malintent was from the people that orginally took the picture and put it on the internet, not the end displaying of it?
Yes, many parts of Ezekiel are read regularly as the portion from the Prophets at a Sabbath service.
The chalice stuff doesn’t make much sense to me either as I have and use a Kiddush cup. I certainly don’t worship it and could find losts of photos online.
“On a personal note, I browse by several other sites (Balloon Juice, Thinkprogress, Swordscrossed, etc.) and I must say that TMV still seems quite moderate to me (and informative!). I don’t always agree with the postings but the tone is a welcome change. Take Shaun’s underwear post – he wasn’t ridiculing Mormons he was pointing out that it will be an issue and it will get ugly. That’s a sad fact of our current political/media age.”
Intention and end result can have very wide discrepancies. If adaptation is not made in light of end result responses it can then reveal either bigotry OR indifference OR arrogance.
A case in point. Some time ago UN humanitarian workers decided to start a campaign in an Iranian village to promote better hygene and more sanitary food preperation. They got an array of visual teaching devices detailing the dos and donts of cleanliness and food preperation. Shortly after seting up this campaign and revealing it to the populace of the village they were working in they were run out of town. Why? Because in making their visual aids in the proper butchering of meat they placed a pig as the subject in their photos detailing proper cleaning and preping of the meat. Now to bring this full circle the arrogance, bigotry, or indifference would have been manifested if these same UN workers decided to make exact replicas of their works and put them on leaflets to be dropped into the village they’d been sumarily booted out of.
I think the same will hold true here in terms of manifesting the intent and character of those who posted. Now as a member of the LDS/Mormon faith I’ll defend your right, even to post the photos you have, to the death. But the continuance of it’s presence on this site will, in my view, be indicative of one of those three elements I’ve presented with regard to at least one blogger on this site. Arrogance, bigotry or indifference. If the blogger is fine with me viewing him in that light then more power to him. I’m not going to go riot and destroy things and lives over it. But I’ll make it a point to publish my perception of the individual and their actions when and where I deem proper. That’s democracy. That’s the free market of ideas.
You can learn more about reading the Prophets in the Synagogue by reading Hananel Mack in Haaretz: What happened to Jesus’ haftarah?
Holly. I’m aware that the Jews don’t worship items, neither do we. But to say that they’ve never held objects in high regard seems to me an inane statement. With no Temple today it’s easy to dismiss but you, as I understand it, would be rather misportraying things if you saw the Temple and the items in it as utterly unimportant in Jewish belief. If they found the Ark of the Covenant you think it would be ignored or not seen as special or important by Jews around the world? You destroy writting instruments after using them to write a single name. I find this attempt to disown any tie to anything material as special to be off of what I’ve learned of Jewish belief and practice.
DS – the chances of that photo being removed are better than the chance that LDS members will stop trying to convert my dead ancestors. If I EVER find out that you’ve touched my late father, then I’ll be as angry as you apparently are over the underwear.
DS, you may perhaps be a literalist. Yes, objects can be holy in the sense of tuma and tahara, pure and impure. If they are profaned, they sometimes can be made holy again and sometimes are destroyed. Today NOBODY would see such an object as being more valuable than one human life. Nearly ALL commandments can be transgressed in order to save a life.
Here, we talk about Darfur and you don’t say a word. But underwear???????
How about someone who married several women and concubines and claimed he was told by God to kill his only son from one of his wives? And said God promised him children as numerous as the stars in the heavens.
Or what about those who believe a man was commanded by God to have a nation execute the genocide of an entire ethnicity/nation?
That would throw out anyone who thinks Abraham was a man of God or Moses a mouthpiece for God. A substantive number of individuals.
Not his only means of translation but the primary one given in accounts. There was also the Urim and Thummim. Again this compared to talking donkeys and wine to water is suppose to more daming to one’s capacity to govern how? Fire from heaven consuming a calf, twelves stones, wood and a good quantity of water. A man treating the sea of Galelie like it was so much non-newtonian liquid sans the need for constant impact to make it walkable.
A man back from the dead after almost two days being dead?
If the point is that someone with ideas that seem absured to you personally should never be a leader than I suggest you get on the stump getting Mr. Harry Reid out of his place at the helm of half of one of this nations governing branches.
…Just saying…
Celsus’s derisions of the early Christians comes to mind, in both content and implicit accusations.
Certainly we do. Frankly I find it funny that the general concensus is that a world leader should be willing to sacrifice the American (and by extension the global economy) on the alter of the assurance we’re given that 1-We are the primary cause of global warming (a stance that flys in the face of all the millenia of climate studies and world wide fluctuations) and 2- We can do something now and be certain to be able to push it back significantly and measurably.
Never mind that either point is no more provable or disprovable than the accounts treasure hunting of Smith with his seer stone or his translation.
It’s rather interesting how these two points come together.
With both their existance at present is not disputable. We have a book with the title of The Book of Mormon and we have an increaseing trend in global temperatures overall.
But also the causation and requisit actions needed because of their presence is not provble in a quantifiable, absolute, communicable and empirical way.
We have two items and people on both sides on both items proffering claims of veracity and falsehood with regard to the emergence of these items. And ditto on the response end. “Ignore it” some say, others “Heed our recomendation regarding it!” and others “NO! Heed OUR recomendation regarding it!”
No touching required in that practice. Unless writting their name and vital info is considered to be a virtual equivilant.
This does bring us to a potentially signifficant comparison.
Do you personally take offense to the use of your ancestor’s names (no touching whatsoever of actual bodies!)? If you do then we’ve potentially found an object in your minds eye to give some perspective on this issue.
“DS, you may perhaps be a literalist. Yes, objects can be holy in the sense of tuma and tahara, pure and impure. If they are profaned, they sometimes can be made holy again and sometimes are destroyed. Today NOBODY would see such an object as being more valuable than one human life. Nearly ALL commandments can be transgressed in order to save a life.
Here, we talk about Darfur and you don’t say a word. But underwear???????”
How do you view the command Moses, the law giver, received with regard to executing genocide in the name of God? In being an observant Jew, and with a comment on the crises in Darfur, one would think that such a question, and your answer, would be of great significance in light of this.
Or what of Abraham? Would he have been more justified and considered more worthy to have rejected God’s command to sacrifice Isaac outright? What is your take on that? Clearly Abraham, the Father of Judaism (and I believe of “Mormonism”–we believe we are litterally of the tribes of Joseph (Ephraim and Manassah)) holds a key place in your theology. You say that “Nearly ALL commandments can be transgressed in order to save a life.” Where do you get that view? What of the priest who tried to steady the ark (is that history to obscure also?)? What of the infants who were to be killed by Israel’s armies under the command of Moses and, by extension, God?
You see one could slam the very foundational texts of Judaism with the same accusation. God commanded Genocide and now he’s moved on to talking about what fabrics they can and can’t mix?
Don’t you see the disjointed nature of your attack combined with it’s appeal to your practice of Judaism?
DS says “Certainly we do. Frankly I find it funny that the general concensus is that a world leader should be willing to sacrifice the American (and by extension the global economy) on the alter of the assurance we’re given that 1-We are the primary cause of global warming (a stance that flys in the face of all the millenia of climate studies and world wide fluctuations) and 2- We can do something now and be certain to be able to push it back significantly and measurably.”. I added the italics. Does anyone else see what’s wrong?
I say to DS the same thing I say to most people who say things that betray a deep ignorance of science. If you think that something else is causing the current warming then tell us where someone has provided a valid explanation of what it is that has stood up to scientific peer review. Do not whine about how it might be something else. Show us where someone has proven that it currently is another cause besides those things that we have been “contributing” to the system since we started burning lots of coal.
I don’t want this thread to go on even more of a tangent, so DS you can see a rundown on this thread.
It just isn’t up to us to determine what others should or should not find offensive. We should be sensitive to that, just like when Kramer doesn’t think “nigger” should be offensive to blacks he is not granted the right to say it.
I think that’s a ridiculous statement, Andy.
None of us can be expected to know what another will find sacriligeous or offensive. A reasonable standard would be that of the country at large. Ethnic slurs are universally regarded as hostile while pictures of people in their underwear are not. The latter are posted in storefronts on main street and in ads sponsoring prime-time news.
You may be offended, most of us are not. We cannot start censoring ourselves at every protest or there would be no debate at all.
Ok, first of all, you need to understand that we don’t worship objects either, but it can sometimes look that way to outsiders. Anything that is holy, we give honor to, very often by kissing it and also by bowing. This isn’t worship, unless you are using the very old original meaning of the English word “worship”. God, we worship, in the commonly understood sense of the word, many other things we venerate. There is a huge difference in intention between the two, but the physical manifestations might look very similar to the outsider. (BTW, I’m sure that I could find a multitude of photos of chalices online, too. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.)
I think I may have figured out why it doesn’t make sense to you.
I looked up Kiddush on wikipedia, and it appears to be blessed wine. We also have blessed wine, blessed bread, and other blessed comestibles depending on the season or occasion. The blessed wine and bread are only blessed. (Because they have been specially blessed, they are consumed and not thrown out. We treat them with respect, but they are only blessed.) What is contained in the Chalice, once it (not the chalice, the bread and wine in it) has been concecrated is the direct equivalent of all the various types of sacrifices made at the Temple, and also the Passover lamb. It’s holy in a very different way, and the cup which contains it bcomes holy from contact with it, and those who consume it are made holy, just as the worshippers at the Temple were made holy by consumption of the sacrifice. (And just as no-one would partake of Jewish sacrifices without appropriate prepartion, we don’t either.)
The thing is, the contents of the Chalice are directly equivalent to those sacrifices, but it’s also more than that. It’s the body and blood of God-made-man. It would have been incomplete not to have mentioned that aspect of it, but because I know that the idea of God as Trinity rather than unity (much less the idea of the second person of the Trinity becoming Man) is something that Jews find really blasphemous, I’ll happily leave it at that.
But if you just think of the contents of the Communion chalice as being roughly the same thing as the sacrifices from the Temple, I think (I hope I’m right here: it’s late, and I may not be thinking clearly) that you’ll be able to see how the Chalice differs from the Kiddush cup.
LOL I will be sharing this with my husband when he wakes up. He’ll appreciate this even more than I do as he was the one who first taught me about colloids.
Andrew, are you calling me, me, left wing?
Yes, yes he did. Ironic how easy it is to label those you perceive as your opponents with the worst labels you know isn’t it? Even when they couldn’t be more wrong… lol.
Folks, there is a difference between commandments 3000 years old and mediated through more than 2000 years of rabbinic tradition and situations today. Please learn to read and understand the Bible.