At 10:00 PM EST, Sadam Hussien died a quick and painless death, a privilege he denied hundreds, if not thousands, of victims. After more than a year of imprisonment and a year-long trial, Hussien received more deference and fairness and humane treatment than most of those who ran afoul of Hussien’s own warped sense of justice.

I am reminded of 3 Nephi 4:28:

And their leader, Zemnarihah, was taken and hanged upon a tree, yea, even upon the top thereof until he was dead. And when they had hanged him until he was dead they did fell the tree to the earth, and did cry with a loud voice, saying: May the Lord preserve his people in righteousness and in holiness of heart, that they may cause to be felled to the earth all who shall seek to slay them because of power and secret combinations, even as this man hath been felled to the earth.

My hope is that Saddam serves as an example, and that the people of Iraq will be preserved in righteousness and in holiness of heart, that they will kill all those combined for insurrection and against peace in Iraq, even as they have killed Saddam tonight.

Update: Saddam has been executed. 

According to the news about the Iraqi death penalty and the failed appeal that took place, Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Takriti has to be executed sometime in the 30 days that followed the sentencing.

This means there is not a specific date or time for this special event. Executioners could show up and roust Saddam out of his cell on any day or any hour between now and January 27th. He must get nervous every time he hears footsteps outside his door. For all we know, the sentence is being carried out this very minute.

Psycho genealogist, I know you are out there. Someone post a guard at the IGI.

note: this began as a lengthy, thread-jacking comment on Wayne L’s insightful post on the PR impact of proxy-baptism for famous Jews.

The topic is proxy temple ordinance work for Jews, or, as the press prefers to say (inaccurately), baptizing dead Jews into Mormonism. Many Mormons, leaders included, are inclined to accommodate outsiders with misgivings about the peculiarities of Mormonism. I urge, “Not so fast.” I see no reason to be defensive or apologetic about how we conduct the most sacred ordinances of our religion.

The real problem is that many Jews harbor a strong anti-Christianity prejudice Read more »

Well, we have the shrimp and the fire.  Bill is in his green apron, doing most of the cooking.  I’m in the red, doing the ordering around and deep sighing.  Company is coming for prime rib and shrimp and new red potatoes, mashed with the peels on.  We have apple and cherry pie.  Tomorrow, it will be Bill’s buttermilk pancakes for the grandchildren and sundry relatives.  In our tiny kitchen.

 We’ve borrowed a table from the church, which we will set in the front room and after dinner, they are planning to break out the poker set I got Bill for Christmas.  We celebrates ‘em the best we can.  Merry Christmas, everyone.  Only 40 more hours and my life can go back to semi-normal.  Eat your hearts out!

One thing that I can count on is that if anything about Mormons is in the news, then I will have to answer questions about it to my many non-Mormon friends.

According to a Reuters report, “In life, Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal was among the most famous Jews of the 20th century. In death, he wound up on a list of people eligible to be posthumously baptised as Mormons so they could enter heaven. Bowing to protests from Jewish groups, The Church of Latter Day Saints said on Tuesday that it had removed Wiesenthal’s name from its International Genealogical Index, a database of names of people who be could be baptised after death.”

One of the themes that seems to have been kicked around Mormonmentality a bit is the question of how Mormons are perceived by the outside world. It is something that interests me a great for a variety of reasons. First, I have never really had too many close friends that have been Mormon, other than the ones I met on my mission and the ones that I met at BYU. However, none of them live near me now so, obviously, I don’t hang out with them. Except for going to church or engaging in a church activity, I do nothing with Mormons on a social level. I mostly hang out with people who are academics and their perceptions of the church are, generally speaking, rather uninformed. However, I don’t hold that against them. I don’t know much about Sikhs, for example, and yet there are more than twice as many Sikhs in the world than there are Mormons. We can’t know everything about everyone. I spend a considerable amount of time answering questions about Mormonism, most of which deal with Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and their involvement in polygamy. They are surprised to find out aspects about Mormonism such as Joseph Smith claims to have received the gold plates from an angel, or that Mormons believe that individuals can become gods in their own right at some point, etc. They are also very surprised to hear that we perform religious ceremonies for dead people.

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Jacob Weisberg’s recent article in Slate continues Slate’s assault on reason in order to justify religious bigotry. Weisberg rightly notes that voters are correct to disqualify candidates for fanatical religious beliefs. Then Weisberg goes on to claim that Joseph Smith was an obvious con-man, and concludes that literal belief in his prophetic mission makes a person patently irrational. From this surprising non sequitur, Weisberg concludes not only that it’s OK to vote against Romney because he’s Mormon, but that rational people should vote against Romney because he’s Mormon.
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I was browsing through the children’s section of the library while the boys were reading about dinosaurs and looking for books on magic tricks when I stumbled on Death Warmed Over in the cooking section. Read more »

Ok, this is a silly subject, and I was hoping to see it treated elsewhere, but a quick look at LDSelect didn’t turn anything up, so I am asking here. Has anybody else heard the rumor that four full time missionaries have been called to China? We heard a friend of a friend story in church on Sunday and my brother heard a similar one a week before.

Anybody got actual facts here? Or do we need an LDS version of Snopes?

Update: Shields has a mini LDS version of Snopes that has all the details I’ve heard about this rumor and declares it to be false. Thanks to Mike Parker for the link!

I got to teach EQ last week. It was lesson 24 in the WW manual on the Second Coming. Two things grabbed my attention. One is that the editors selected four paragraphs in which President Woodruff says, “the signs in the heaveans and the earth all indicate that his coming is near.” Or something very similar to that, but it never says what those signs are. Hooray for vain repetition! I blame the editors.

Secondly it seems to me from reading the lesson repeatedly that the point of talking about the Second Coming is often to scare people. Watch out! The Second Coming could happen tomorrow! You’d better be good!

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I’ve been reading the Book of Mormon and am almost finished with it. As I’ve been reading, something has niggled at the edge of my brain. I’ll try to articulate it enough to be understandable.

First, and related, Bill and I went to see Apocalypto Saturday night.  I enjoyed it.  I didn’t think it was all that controversial.  It was bloody, but not nearly as much as hyped.  It was sort of a typical “good man saves family” drama, actually.

The main reason I agreed to go see it was to see if there were any similarities to the Book of Mormon stories and it certainly did seem to echo what I’d been reading.

What has troubled me — no, not troubled — I can’t think the right word. Curious is a better word.  How can I put this?

The people of Israel in Jesus’ time, after his death, did not deteriorate into live sacrifices and war, killing each other off in barbaric fashion.  Christianity progressed, albeit not smoothly. Still. They progressed.

What was different in the lives of the Lamanites that after they’d seen Christ, en masse, perform miracles, after they’d been converted, by the thousands, that they dwindled totally into unbelief and paganism?  It doesn’t make sense to me.  Those people in the Americas actually had more visible proof of Jesus’ divinity than the people in the Holy Land, yet they eventually lost their faith, while the others grew in faith. Why?

I fly a couple of times a week and when I am not working on the plane, I usually read.  I will bring various reading material — both Church related and non-Church related.  When I read religious material, I have found that I have a very different reaction when I am reading the Ensign versus some other Church material (e.g., scriptures or Dialogue).  I find I can read a book, either religious or not religious without any concern or embarrassment.  However, when I read the Ensign, I often feel embarrassed and a bit like a religious fanatic.  While a book is very text heavy with minimal pictures, the Ensign has a lot of pictures and some that take up the entire page.  I feel like a religious fanatic with all of these pictures staring me in the face and in my fellow traveler’s faces.  The pictures are much like those found in the Watchtower (Jehovah’s Witnesses magazine) — a bit tacky and overdone oftentimes.  The models tend to be white and beautiful, not reflective of the Church as a whole.  So I will admit I am sometimes embarrassed to read the Ensign in public because of the pictures and graphics in the magazine, not because of the actual text.  I feel that it will reinforce the strange stereotypes people already have of Mormons — white, conservative and fanatical — basically the graphics and pictures one sees in the Ensign.  I should note that I usually enjoy most of the articles which is why I read it every month diligently (except occasional ones which have been known to result in the magazine being thrown away in a huff).

I couldn’t help myself with the title. (One of my favorite titles for a book is Dwarf Rapes Nun, Flees in UFO.) I know, I seem obsessed. Two posts in the same day about the same guy. Well, it could be the case that I suffer from a severe lack of original thought. (This is something that I am willing to entertain.) However, I think that we can gleen very interesting insights into how the rest of the world, or at least those that many Mormons consider to be the natural allies of Mormons, views Mormons and Mormonism. I consider this to be something that the General Authorities are also concerned with. Consider, if you will, President Hinckley’s book Stand for Something. In this book Hinckley tries to make the case that Mormons are Christians. As I recall he does not even cite the Book of Mormon in this work, but uses only passages from the Bible. (I could be incorrect in my recollection. It has been 5 or 6 years since I have read the book.) He also published a book in 1947 called  What of the Mormons? in which he tries to answer questions about the nature of Mormonism and Mormons. Obviously this is something that has been on his mind for some time.

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Everyone goes to Starbucks, right? Even Mormons.

But (newsflash) we don’t drink coffee. So what do you buy?

A recent LA Times poll found that 14% of registered voters would not for Mitt Romney for the single fact that he is a Mormon. There have been other polls, using broader groups than only registered voters, that suggest that as much as 20% of Americans would not vote for a Mormon for the mere fact that a person is a Mormon. Several questions: why is this? Is this tantamount to Anti-Semitism? (In fact, Americans seem to be more favorable towards Jews than they are towards Mormons.) Is this something that will face over time? Is there anything that we can do about it?

It’s the holiday season. This is a time when people are looking for good gift ideas. It’s also a time when families and friends often find themselves sitting together around a table. So that’s at least two reasons to talk about favorite board games, card games, puzzles or other activities. Read more »

In the December issue of Atlantic magazine, a group of ten eminent historians (4 Pulitzer Prize winners) placed both Joseph Smith (#52 – ahead of Bill Gates, John Quincy Adams & Robert E Lee) and Brigham Young (#74 – just ahead of Babe Ruth and Frank Lloyd Wright) on its list of the 100 Most Influential Americans of all time.  See www.theatlantic.com/doc/200612/influentials
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Let’s play a name and scripture verse association game. I’ll say a name and you associate a scripture with it.

The name is “Hitler.” Read more »

This one might require some background. In simple terms the Technological Singularity is a time in the future of unprecedented technological progress. It will mark the begining of a new era in history. I’d like to know how MM readers think it will impact Mormons and Mormonism.

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Jeane Kirkpatrick, the first women to serve as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, died at the age of 80 of congestive heart failure on Thursday, December 7th. Arguably the finest foreign policy thinker of the late 20th century and among the most accomplished political scientists of her generation, it is fitting that she is no hero to most feminists. She is certainly one to me, and I hope she will be to my daughters as well.
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Yesterday Amira wrote a post titled “Liking Islam.” Discussion followed and I shared some critical perspectives and concerns of Islam. At least a few people expressed strong reservations about the nature and tone of the arguments being made and wondered whether LDS people should debate these things publicly. Read more »