Update: I'm not dead.

I just got really busy.  And religious thoughts slid to the backburner.  Wait, I'm still really busy, so this isn't going to be a long post.  This summer is going to (and already has) involve a lot of traveling, so chances of updating often are slim.

Although I haven't been writing in here, as I'm sure anyone who's reading this knows, religious pondering is a never-ending state.  There is always something being thrown at you- comments from your parents, encounters with evangelists, a best-selling atheist manifesto.  Something for you to chew on.  Something that keeps your brain from ignoring the big questions completely.

These last few months, as busy as things have been, I've had my share of religious musings.  For one, on a train trip I took with blog reader Teresa, my parents implored me to read Dinesh D'Souza's What's So Great About Christianity.  I'm about a quarter of the way through it, but get frustrated with D'Souza's false logic and emotional, unbiased tone.  I know it's hard to find truly objective, rational authors when it comes to anything having to do with religion, but when someone claims to be objective, then accuses atheists of strategically trying to secularize church-goers children and rip the nation from any moral grounds, I get annoyed.  I am trying to be open-minded, however, and look at this question from more than secular sides.  I think more than frustration with the book itself, it's my parents' firm desire that I read it that tears me apart.  Before my mom came out and asked me to read it, she'd leave it sitting out in obvious places, awkwardly and unnaturally propped open to chapters with titles like "Pascal's Wager and the Reasonableness of Faith" hoping that I'd be drawn in to read it on my own.  After ignoring her traps for a couple of weeks, she honestly asked me to read the book.  I told her that I would read it, but that I didn't want her to get her hopes up and think that one book was going to change my mind and trigger some sort of reconversion.  She said with all the conviction in the world "I just know that if you read this with an open mind, you will have to believe."  No pressure.  Obviously, I'm a quarter of the way through and am not convinced.  I swear I'm being open minded!  Anyway, religious musing #1.
 

The second major religious theme that's been on my mind Mormonism!  The last stop of Teresa and my train trip was Salt Lake City.  I have to be honest- all of the quirky religious energy in that city completely charged me.  I loved it.  Teresa and I visited Temple Square and were sucked into a land of below the knee skirts, almost too-sweet missionaries from abroad hoping visitors would have questions, modern day prophets, ancient Israelite trips to America, golden plates.  It was definitely a bit of information overload, but the kind of information that excites me.  I was looking in on a religion from a purely secular point of view, finding in it similar to Christianity faith-based, but not history-based teachings.  I found in it claims of ultimate joy, just like Christianity.  There were witnesses who wanted to attest to the changes the "restored church" made in their lives.  There were loop-holes built into the theology that would keep doubts at bay.  Here are some pictures of our discoveries in Temple Square:

 Baptism of dead ancestors so that they will get to live on your planet with you.  Woo!

 The Temple was a gorgeous building.  It took Mormon pioneers over 40 years to build.

Time for some history of the world, according to Latter Day Saints.  Sometime before the time of Christ, Lehi and his family, who were Israelites, felt that God was calling them to build a boat and sail to America.  Yes, this means that Columbus did NOT discover America.  Jews did!  2,000 ish years before Columbus ventured across the sea.  It also means that, yes, there were two- not one- two boats built in the Old Testament times.  

 A large part of the Visitor's Centers, which were really quite like museums of Mormon history and beliefs, covered basic Christian historical teachings, but sometimes with a Mormon twist.  Like this here statue of Jesus... in Space.  Because he has his own planet.  I mean, if Jesus rose into the sky, I can see how people would think that meant he just kept going, and going, up to a planet of his very own.  Oh, but before Jesus rose into the heavens, he made a stop in America to see the people that Lehi  had taught. 

Here's Moroni writing down the teachings of God onto gold plates.  He would later bury these under-ground, and then be a part of a fight that killed off all of the Christian/Mormon Americans.  Hundreds of years ago.  The plates, however, survived...

Only to be discovered in the 1800s somewhere in New York by young man, Joseph Smith.  Here's angel Moroni telling Joseph Smith where to find the plates.  Joseph, after digging these up, was able to visit them (but not take them home), working over the next four years to, with God's help, translate the mysterious language into English.  Once he had the translation, the angel Moroni took the plates with him.  They are nowhere to be found.

 And the rest is history.  Joseph Smith started this church, "the restored church."  They were persecuted.  Joseph Smith was killed.  Brigham Young became the next leader and led the Mormons to SLC, which was not yet part of the United States, and said "this is the land."  They settled there, and now it is the Mecca of LDS.  Man, was it ever fun to be there.  I should add that much of what I learned (and some of it could be off a bit- correct me if that's the case) came from both the visitor's centers and the SLC library, specifically the children's section.  Cause in kids books, they tell it like it is. 

Last musing.  Am I incapable of writing a short post?  This thought goes along with our visit to Temple Square.  Just a few days ago, I decided to check out The Book of Mormon myself (oh, the musical!)  I think the soundtrack is available on amazon.com for $1.99 until today, the 13th.  Do yourself a favor and download that sucker.  Hi-freaking-larious.  I especially appreciated the songs after being in Mormonland for a day.  I leave you with the show's anthem, sung by one of the missionaries doing work in Uganda, who has been fighting off doubts since arriving there and seeing how difficult the work is and how the LDS answers which he had been taught would fix everything seem peuny in comparison to issues like AIDS, female circumcision, and evil warlords.  I would see it if I could.  It's won 9 tonys for Pete's sake.  It successfully makes fun of a religion in the way the show's creators make fun of anything on South Park- by telling the truth about it.  Enjoy!