Mormon Expression

This recording is one of John’s final as a regular host of Mormon Expression. John takes the microphone alone, and the audio engineer Charles chimes in along with participation by the studio audience. In this podcast John argues that because of the full body of Mormon theology, the Mormon Church will be unable to reform on the issues of gay acceptance in Mormonism. Notable Quotes: “The Church cannot and will not change it’s position on homosexuality.”–John “You have left one echo chamber and entered into another.” –John “I will give you a thought exercise. Suppose I have on my desk here research. And I took the top researchers in the world. And we went through and analyzied the top 200 religions of the world–every religion with more than 50,000 people. And we analized them on health living, longevity, happiness, and childrearing. We took every possible psychological and measure of life for quality of living. And we determined which religion is the best. In this thought exercise I have on my desk the name of that religion. You know it is one of the 200 major religions. It could be scientology or it could be Hinduism. You don’t know. But you do know that they came out the top. The scientists looked at it through and through and the scientists say there is statistically significant evidence that this religion is better at life than every other religion. Without having me reveal the name of the religion would you seriously consider joining that religion without knowing what it was? No one would. And the minute I revealed the name of the religion if it wasn’t yours you would immediately began to construct these long justifications to dismiss the religion. ‘They say they are happier but they aren’t REALLY happy.’ ‘They say they live longer but who wants to live past 80 anyway?’ ‘They say they are good at raising kids, but I hate kids.’ You would immediately, line by line start to deconstruct that.”–John “There is a bias that believes the liberalization of Mormonism is driving the dialog. And I think it comes from a place of hubris.” –John “Mormons love when everyone is against them. It gives them a sense of identity and purpose. When they achieve political power they get lost in the woods. When they can play them minority persecution card they love it. The idea that the US move to more tolerance of gays will drive a theological change is ridiculous.” –John “People who are really into tolerance don’t make good revolutionaries.”–John “You cannot have a recognition of marriage unless you ordain women also. Those two things have to go hand in hand. The only way out of the dilemma is to ordain women. Otherwise it would be huge blow to females and the feminine.” –John “It really turns everything on its head. Once you make this change nothing makes sense anymore. The entire theology just goes poof and it has to be completely reconstructed. And once you have to completely reconstruct the theology, what is the point? Why even call yourself Mormon anymore? I have said to liberal Mormon friends ‘what you are describing sounds a lot like Unitarian Universalism, is that what you want?’ And they say “yes.” Why an overly complicated Unitarian Church that has all of this weird Mormon theology? Why haul that shit around when you could just go become a Unitarian?” –John “But if [gay reformers] succeed in the Mormon Church what it does is it wipes the whole feminine identity out of the religion completely. The only way to achieve this theological, doctrinally and in practice everyone becomes men. And I don’t think anyone really wants that.” –John

In this episode several individuals contribute to reflect on the individual basis of moral behavior and how religions try to seem like they are the source and arbitrator of moral behavior. John is joined by Zilpha, Brian Jolley, Zilpha, Rich Rassmussen, and Randy. Charles also pipes in for some great feedback. Notable Quotes from the podcast: “I think the best way to understand people is that they are opportunistic, self-interested, and benevolent and those three things work together.” –John “The hedonistic principle of maximizing principle can be used for social utility.” –John “You were the moral agent all along. You were deciding what was good and bad and what was right and wrong. But they were telling you that was the holy ghost and whatever was inside of [you] was wicked.” –Brian “They are going to break you down so that you don’t believe that which you know to be fundamental true, like that you shouldn’t kill, is not from you but given to you by them.” –John “The Church should be on its bloody knees apologizing for the travesty of the [Willie Martin Handcart company disaster]. Instead they are taking teenagers up there every summer and reenacting that motherfucker as if it is some sort of sign of true religion. And this is the fundamental problem with religion that I have. Religion is perverse in what it does to us because it takes away this morality that the individuals have that lead them to survive and wants it for its own.”–John

In this episode John is joined by 3 amazing ex-Mormons to talk about their own experiences and the struggle for identity for post Mormon individuals. On the panel are the therapist Jenny Marrow, Thayne Forbes who runs the New Order Mormon website and Laura, an all around wonderful person. Notable quotes from the podcast: “Mormons may not be kind, but they are nice.” Lindsay Hansen Park “The Church invades all of the personal elements of your life and makes sure you are always thinking about your relationship to the Church.” –John “You don’t know how to escape from your [Mormon] identity, but you sure as hell know how to reverse it.” –John “The ex-Mormon identity really becomes a function of Mormon identity and trying to figure out what the boundaries are. There is a healthiness to this that doesn’t appear to be so. After watching a lot of people go through this second adolescence. I think it looks worse than it is. Because these are people who for the most part keep their day job and keep being good parents.” –John “I don’t like hanging out with ex-Mormons, but I like hanging out with people who are former ex-Mormons.” –John “Everyone in the world has cultural identity. The problem with fundamentalist cultural identity is you loose yourself in it.” –John “What’s the difference between an ex-Mormon and a Jack Mormon? The ex-Mormons took [Mormonism] seriously.” –John “One of the most beautify things I learned in my journey was the sacredness of consequence. Which is realizing that actions have consequence which are often intrinsic. Sometimes they are arbitrary but usually they are predictable. And those consequences are not because someone in the sky hates you or loves you but are implicit in the action. Once you understand that you realize you can do A, B, or C and these will be the outcomes. And then you can own that.”– John “The reason church and religion is so useful to a lot of people is it reduces ambiguity. The world is a really ambiguous place. And most of the time the outcomes are not clear. And what Church does is give you a way of ignoring a lot of complex things.” –John “I think Identity really is a function of meaning. What our lives mean and what they mean to us and how we interact with the world. We have two options. You can have that meaning and identity given to you. Which is what most people in the world opt for. They want someone to say: ‘this is your meaning.’ And when people talk about the search for meaning they are searching through all of these models to find one they gel with. Or you can take the enlightened approach. Which is there is no fucking meaning out there so I have to make it. I have to supply my own meaning in this world. That is a very wonderful way to live. But it is turbulent. It is hard. Because when you fail there is no safety net. There is no redemption there is no Jesus guy who is going to come make everything right at the end. That thought is too hard for most people to swallow.” –John “Religion really gets in the deep corners of your psyche. It takes a long time, i.e. the rest of your life, to pull that stuff out. And having [faith transition groups] and doing some of this deprogramming can be healthy but you have to realize with yourself when you are going too far. It’s like alcohol. Alcohol can be great. What does alcohol do? It loosens you up so you are more likely to say what you are thinking. When you are 20 that isn’t a good thing but when you are 40 that’s a really good thing because you are kind of locked in. So it serves a purpose. But if you use alcohol to start self medicating when you are lonely or angry or you start to notice it is taking over your life or you are...

This episode was recorded on Tuesday October 14th, 2014. John was joined by the intrepid Megan who was in town from York, England where she is a PhD candidate in Archaeology. Randy, was was the producer of the podcast decided to take a turn behind the mike also. Terrell also came along for the ride. This podcasts discusses the anachronisms involved in creating a transoceanic vessel in the 6th Century BCE. It also explains why it would have been impossible given the supporting tools, technologies and industries that would have had to be employed. Memorable Quotes: “So What is [Nephi] going to do to get the seam of iron out of the mountain? Because we already know he doesn’t have any tools. Because he needs tools in order to build the boat. So he goes to find the iron in order to build the tools which he clearly does not have. But without tools he can’t mine the iron out of the fucking mountain!”–John “Charcoal is not just discovered. In the kind of quantities they would have to have, we are not even there yet. They would have to deforest acres and acres and acres of forest…I’m not kidding here…just to get the charcoal in order to get the furnace hot enough to build the hammer that he needs to go get the iron out of the mountain.” –John “It’s Gilligan’s Island Level Ridiculousness” –Randy “He’s going to need a fucking butt-load of nails!” –John “It’s a sail boat that’s how it gets powered across the ocean. That’s how they get there. They have to have big, big sheets of very sturdy material. They have to loom it. So they have build looms. Once again we are going back. Now they have to go back and build looms. And now we need a whole bunch of sheep. A lot of sheep. Like 100s and 100s and 100s of sheep. And they need sheers. And they need to keep sheering these sheep. And have the wool not rot year after year after year because they need a whole lot of this.” –John “For every square meter of sail you need at least 2 fleeces from a sheep. So you are talking about 200 sheep just to weave, not the thread or anything else. Keep in mind you can only sheer a sheep once a year.” –John “If you have 500 sheep you have to feed those sheep. You have to water them. You have to tend to their young. You have to have them fenced in. You have to take them out to pasture.” –John “If you have ever played Settlers of Katan, you know you have to have resources. But there is not that many golden spots. Think about this wonderful spot that they found. Not only does it have iron ore but it has 100s of miles of forest of timber that is sea faring grade. It has pastoral land. It has water and everything they need. It does talk about leather so they have goats I would assume. So not only do they have sheep but they have goats in quantity. This is this amazing miracle place that has every resource. Because if you go to the ship building capitals like Plymouth, these aren’t the breadbasket places. These are the places that all the materials are being shipped to…all of these materials need to be within 20 or 30 miles otherwise they would have to build transportation networks.” –John “They need a rudder. The only problem is a rudder wasn’t invented until the 12th century.” –John “They’ve got the boat built. Now the problems start. You have to navigate this boat across the ocean.” –John “They say: “we were driven back upon the water for the space of three days.” How the fuck did they know? How in the world, if you are in the middle of the ocean, do you know if you have gone back for 3 days? If you are sailing without any landmarks it can feel like you are going forward but you are ridding a cu...

Mormon Expression episode 177 was recorded on Sunday December 4th 2011. Zilpha and John were in the Studio in their house in Lehi. Jared Anderson is an Assistant professor of religion at Westminster college and he called in via Skype. Randy of Infants on Thrones fame called in from Kansas City where he lived at the time. The panel discusses the Mormon theological conundrums behind selecting either an interventionist God or an observant God in terms of Mormon Theology. The panel then discusses the value of God and miracles in religion in general. Commentary at the beginning and end recorded by John Larsen 10/10/15 Memorable Lines: “In the long strings of causality stretching way back to the creation he planted the seeds of finding your keys through natural means.”–John “God is miracling the world”–John “The Book of Mormon is very Deuteronomistic”–Randy Randy “God ex nihio created something that looked like a quarter thereby devaluing the currency”–John “I can’t find a theological description of God that I don’t find ridiculous when it is taken 2 or three leaps.”–John “Rich people’s gout of the mind”–John “It’s about fidelity”–Jared “There is no one size fits all answer”–Jared Link to the Mr. Deity episode referenced: Mr. Deity and the Evil

Join Adam, John and Brandon as they say goodbye.  Thank you for all of the support and for making Mormon Expression a success.  We hope that it has been useful and that all recorded episodes will continue to be an important resource for those in transition.  Be kind.  Be hopeful. Keep dreaming.  Thanks for listening.

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