05.24.08

Know Your ‘Mo’ Part 1

Posted in Lindsey Fay at 6:18 pm by Lindsey Fay

I tried to write one giant post that said basically everything there was to say about Mormonism and guess what?
It’s impossible. And my head started to ache and I began speaking in tongues and had to pop some Lorazepam and it wasn’t pretty.

So instead, I’ve decided to break it down into a series of posts called “Know Your Mo” with each post discussing a part of the Mormon religion.

Today’s lesson is on The Articles of Faith, which are essentially 13 basic points of belief for people of the LDS religion. They describe exactly what Mormons believe without necessarily getting too much into the history of the religion (which we’ll be doing later, I assure you. Joseph Smith will not go unmentioned.)

They are as follows (with my own remarks in parenthesis):

We believe in God, the Eternal Father, and in His Son, Jesus Christ, and in the Holy Ghost. (We aren’t one of those religions that believe they’re all one entity. We’re pretty sure they’re all seperate people with seperate jobs and stuff.)
We believe that men will be punished for their own sins, and not for Adam’s transgression.
We believe that through the Atonement of Christ, all mankind may be saved, by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the Gospel. (This basically means that, ok, Jesus Christ died on the cross to atone for our sins, right? So, if we repent of our sins and live the commandments, God will forgive us for all the stupid stuff we do.)
We believe that the first principles and ordinances of the Gospel are: first, faith in the Lord Jesus Christ; second, repentance; third, baptism by immersion for the remission of sins; fourth, laying on of hands for the gift of the Holy Ghost. (In order of importance we should have faith, repent of our sins, be baptized and then confirmed. That last one is tricky. It’s pretty much like this: when someone is baptized into the LDS church, they are ‘confirmed’ afterward, which means that a whole bunch of the priesthood holders stand in a circle with their hands on the new member’s head and say a special prayer during which the new member ‘receives the Holy Ghost’ which in turn makes them privvy to the promtings of the spirit.)
We believe that a man must be called of God, by prophecy, and by the laying on of hands by those who are in authority, to preach the Gospel and administer in the ordinances thereof. (This one insures than not just any looney toon can say ‘hey guys, I’m totally the new prophet.’ The man has to be called of God by the current prophet and by the laying on of hands by the priesthood guys we talked about earlier.)
We believe in the same organization that existed in the Primitive Church, namely, apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, and so forth. (We believe in the original set-up of things. We fear change in a big way. Ha, that last one isn’t the literal translation, don’t quote me. I don’t want the church all down my throat for preaching false doctrine.)
We believe in the gift of tongues, prophecy, revelation, visions, healing, interpretation of tongues, and so forth.
We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God. (Pretty self explanatory, no?)
We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God. (We don’t think God kids around. We try to take him pretty seriously.)
We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory. (This is all about the LDS interpretation of the second coming of Christ.)
We claim the privilege of worshiping Almighty God according to the dictates of our own conscience, and allow all men the same privilege, let them worship how, where, or what they may. (Ah, a little thing called ‘live and let live.’ We’re big on that. And of course, we have the few jerks that make us look like judgemental morons, but so does every religion. Most of us really aren’t that way. We fear confrontation about as much as we fear change.)
We believe in being subject to kings, presidents, rulers, and magistrates, in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law. (We OBEY THE LAWS OF THE LAND. Which is the main difference between us and the FLDS people. The law says ‘hey, stop that polygamy thing’ and we go ‘ok.’ Done and done. We follow the rules, people.)
We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men; indeed, we may say that we follow the admonition of Paul—We believe all things, we hope all things, we have endured many things, and hope to be able to endure all things. If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things.

Stay tuned for Know Your Mo Part 2, in which we’ll be discussing…. JOSEPH SMITH!

05.14.08

Questions, anyone?

Posted in Lindsey Fay at 12:27 am by Lindsey Fay

First off, let me apologize for being an absentee writer… not that anyone lost any sleep over it… *sigh*

If you only KNEW the week I’ve had.

Anyway, I got a shitload of questions after my last post, and I decided that answering them all could turn out to be an awesome introduction into my religion and my views. So, uh… here goes:

Q- I’m 16, and discarded my religious believes of the LDS church when I was 15 . Are you still religious? - the ever famous ‘anonymous’

A- Why yes, I sure am still religious. I went through a stint where I was like ‘eff religion’ but I was engaged to a controlling ass and kind of let myself focus on other things. But I soon came to my senses, called off the engagement, and decided to reassess my life. The God and the religion that I’d sort of forgotten about was something I wanted back. I’d seen myself living with my faith and belief in God and I’d seen myself trying to manage on my own. The truth is, I like myself better when I know there’s something more. When I know that I’m working toward something bigger and better than life and then death and then nothing. So the answer is yes, I am still a very active member of the LDS church.

Q- The new GIRL? Pics? -Sssssnake

A- Sssssnake, you know I’d never leave you hanging. So here. But really, good luck, because I look like I’m 6. Also, this really isn’t religion related at all, but whatev, it was still a question.

Q- Hi Lindsey, like your blog, but i’m very confused about the LDS thing; all i know of mormons is from books and t’internet (it’s not big in britain), and tbh it sounds like it just adds another layer of wtf to the already bizarre oddity of christianity. are you going to post about what being a mormon means to you? -Ash
I must agree with Ash; I too, am very interested in what being a LDS means to you. I’m always interested in people justifying their beliefs and I’ve never heard a LDS’s reasonings. -Tee

A- Ok, to answer both of those questions, yes, I’m definitely going to discuss what being LDS means to me, although I’m first going to define it in a really general sort of way, just so that everyone gets what mormonism even is. But I think that those definitely deserve a post of their own, so expect to read more about that in my next post.

Q- From the use of “would,” and “He’d be” I gather that you believe in a God, but one who is either no longer around, or lacks omniscience, as he has never heard of knock-knock jokes? - Autumnal Harvest

A- Ah, touche, Autumnal Harvest! I guess I just think that God has more important shit to do than sit around and listen to our total insanity, you know? Like he’s probably way more concerned about like, wars and poverty and that train wreck, Britney Spears. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure he loves us and cares about what’s going on in our lives, but it’s unlikely that he gives a flying f-bomb about keeping up to date on our slang words and our ‘that’s what she said’ jokes and our prayers about ‘please let me win the lottery.’ That God has bigger fish to fry, my friends.

05.04.08

The new girl

Posted in Lindsey Fay at 2:20 pm by Lindsey Fay

When I was first asked to contribute to this website, I was completely ecstatic. I even jumped up and down and yelled the words ‘HOLY F, MOM, GUESS WHAT?!’ And she literally fell over and died when I mentioned the word ‘atheist’ but was immediately resurrected after I explained myself.

However, anxiety soon set in, but only after reading the other dudes’ bios. Hellooo? Have you read their credentials and stuff? We have Hemant who’s like the chair of the secular student alliance board of directors or something and he wrote a damn book, not to mention he’s good at math, which practically makes him God anyway. And then Mike who is the founding pastor of a church, studied philosophy and stuff in college and has a master’s degree in something . And then Richard who has two master’s degrees and did marriage and family counseling. Also, he said the words ‘temple of science’ which, wow.

And then there’s me. Seriously, guys, I’m a 21 year old college student who works at a coffee shop and who’s been LDS her whole life, but has only recently started trying to get good at it. I find poop jokes and cuss words positively hilarious. I’m mildly obsessed with the lives of celebrities, especially that nutcase, Amy Winehouse. Also, every time I read the word ‘ass’ in the Bible, I get the giggles. And I sometimes like to wonder how God would react to knock-knock jokes and gangsta slang. I think He’d be secretly impressed by how clever we are.

My point is this: I’m kind of an idiot. So, I guess what I’m trying to do is warn you all, and ask you to bear with me. Because I’m still in the middle of finding it all out for myself. You have already missed the ‘lightbulb moment’ when I realized that I really and truly believe in the LDS teachings, however I still have a long way to go. I still need to discover the person that I really and truly am.

But until then, expect an extreme amount of semi-coherent blather and occasional lists.

I’m so excited to be a part of this awesome site and for the opportunity to grow and learn from some amazing people!