A follow-up to last night's post, I thought this brief article (below the video panel) addresses the issue well. I'm not a big fan of Fuller Seminary but he notes the difference between a cult and a system that cannot be described as evangelical. Bottom line: Mormonism's doctrine of salvation (soteriology) is in conflict with clear biblical teaching but they don't demonstrate the closed and almost paranoid characteristics of a cult.
Ilsa came with four wheels and (rotted) tires, no spare. When Pat called Saturday to say the wheels wouldn't be done he asked if I had a fifth. I hadn't planned to get one now - save a few bucks - but decided it made more sense to get one now and have it painted like the others. A Beetle's spare goes in front, right behind the lid, so it's very visible every time that front hood is opened (i.e. at every gas fill up). So this morning I drove to south Phoenix and bought a used wheel and then took it out to Pat. Probably drove over 100 miles before I was home. Pat said to call him again this Saturday to make sure he got them painted. When I asked if we were still looking at the end of the month for the body he said yes. Alrighty! (But I'm not holding my breath.)
Two playoff baseball games and Monday Night Football, all at the same time. What's a person to do?
A: Switch to "Sing Off" when Pam gets home from work.
This being a wonderful husband has its downside.
The Nobel Prize in Economics was awarded today to two Americans who - if I understand this correctly - did work on how to study economies. The guy on NPR explained it by saying that in biology or chemistry you can do experiments, trying stuff out to see what will happen. In economics all you can do is study what has happened, and try to figure out the cause-and-effect relationships. These guys worked on that historical method of analyzing economies.
Economies must be really complex, almost mysterious. We're told our economy will only recover when we start spending more money buying things, even if that means buying them on credit with money we don't have. Worry about paying for it later. And the govt. needs to spend (more) money to put people to work, never mind that the money isn't there to pay them. We'll pay them with credit - money borrowed from the future. The big-wig economists talk about government spending to cure our economic ills like it's an obvious principle only a doofus would deny.
And all these years Pam and I have cut back on expenses when income faltered or costs rose. What were we thinking?? Imagine how wealthy we could be today if we'd only spent money we didn't have.
Because the worst possible fate is to have a falling income level. Today's youth may be the first generation of Americans to have a lower standard of living than their parents, an unthinkable development to hear elected officials and pundits talk. A rising standard of living apparently trumps all other measures of the quality of life. Divorce rates, crime rates, two-parent families, health... Whatever. As long as you can have a bigger house, newer cars and a bigger paycheck life is good.
Yeah, I'm clueless on how stuff works.
5 comments:
There absolutely is a closed and paranoid aspect to mormonism. Outsiders cannot go to official gatherings or into the temples. The details of their theology is also kept quiet. While I was the target of mormon evangelism some of the details 'slipped' out and it is disrutbing. There is a reason they try to associate with Christianity, the reality is that the complexity of their theology is very contrived and complex.
Plus they're not always very forthright when they come to your door. They came to us one time with two beautiful books that they wanted to give us for free: one about child safety and the other a "Bible" storybook for children. They never said what church they came from or anything about themselves. They just said that they were concerned about kids. It wasn't until we skimmed through the Bible storybook and saw things in there about Meroni that we figured it out.
I agree. Didn't explain myself well. I think of the paranoia and us vs. them of the David Koresh (Waco), Jim Jones (Guyana) types as cults. A single personality who demands complete surrender of everything...
Mormonism is indeed secretive and devious in their methods. Also very legalistic for followers. But it seems at least quantitatively different from what is now called a cult, "now" being the key word.
One of this year's Nobel winners for economics, Thomas Sargent, from what I've read does not hold that view of our economy. He would be more likely to say that our economy will recover when the government spends less and puts more money back into the hands of citizens to spend directly. Here's a short article on him: http://reason.com/archives/2011/10/10/a-nobel-for-thomas-sargent
Mike H.
Come on now...you must enjoy the Sing-Off at least somewhat. You've sung in ensembles before. (Okay, maybe you don't like it as much as sports.)
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