Literate Perversions

Jesus loves you…

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but He absolutely adores atheists. Why? Because they're the only people who don't ask Him to take sides in a war, particularly a war based on religious beliefs. Do you want to know who is His favorite atheist? Sam Harris, author of The End of Faith: Religion, Terror and the Future of Reason. Too tired at the end of your 12-hour day as a corporate lackey to read anything more than a catalog? Then go to the website of The Sun Magazine to read an excerpt from Bethany Saltman's interview with Harris. If you're too tired to click on the link, allow me to give you an example of why you should read this interview. In answer to Saltman's question, Isn't religion a natural outgrowth of human nature? Harris gives this reply:

It almost certainly is. But everything we do is a natural outgrowth of human nature. Genocide is. Rape is. No one would ever think that this makes genocide or rape a necessary feature of a civilized society. Even if you had a detailed story about the essential purpose religion has served for the past fifty thousand years, even if you could prove that humanity would not have survived without believing in a creator God, that would not mean that it's a good idea to believe in a creator God now, in the twenty-first-century world that has been shattered into separate moral communities on the basis of religious ideas.

Sy Safransky, editor of The Sun Magazine will even allow you to get a free trial copy of the magazine, just in case you feel as though you cannot give up those Grande Mocha Frappucino's to pay for the subscription. (Maybe next week?) Or, while getting that daily dose of caffeine and sugar, you can visit Sam Harris at his website www.samharris.org.

Guest Post: On September 11, almost one hundred fifty years ago

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“…And the first thing a principle does—if it really is a principle—is to kill somebody.”
From Gaudy Night by Dorothy L. Sayers

In his post Welcome to the Dungeon, Chris included an excerpt from Mistress Matisse’s account of her encounter with two young men from the Church of Latter Day Saints. Her description of those two nervous missionaries reminded me of the experiences of a friend, a non-Mormon, who lived in Utah for a year. After she arrived in a suburb of Salt Lake City, she quickly learned that the black slacks, white shirt and tie was the required male dress code for card carrying members of the LDS. Yes, the LDS does require membership cards.

My friend also told me about certain events in the history of the Mormon Church that are deserving of remembrance. In a few days, numerous memorial services will be held to commemorate the five year anniversary of the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York. Those who lost their lives on that day should be remembered in services that are solemn and respectful. For those who think that these services are the perfect setting for patriotic fervor, I would recommend that they remember another massacre which occurred in September, almost one hundred fifty years ago.

September 11 is the date of the Mountain Meadows Massacre which took place in Utah in 1857. At the end of a five day siege, Mormon militia and some members of the Pauiete Indian tribe killed 120 unarmed men, women and children. The victims were farming families known as the Baker/Francher party, traveling from Arkansas to California. Only seventeen children under the age of six survived. What was the cause of the massacre? In the summer of 1857 troops of the U.S. Army were marching towards Utah, and the Mormons feared that the persecution which they had experienced in the previous decades was about to resume. In 1838 the Mormons had been driven out of the state of Missouri, and six years later, Joseph Smith, one of the Mormon founders, and a few of his followers were murdered by a crowd in southern Illinois. After Smith’s martyrdom, the Mormon Church added the following language to the initiation ceremonies, and it was not removed until 1927:

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Guest Post: Pictures At An Exhibition

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In her post Lifestyle Choices, orchidea painted a disturbing triptych of three images: a roommate, her daughter and that which she “will never become inured to.” The first image was the memory of a roommate, a girl who stood 5 feet 9 inches tall and weighed 88 pounds: “a cushion of bones held together by flaps of skin.” The center panel is her daughter, healthy and beautiful, fortunate to have a mother who celebrates her child’s beauty. The third panel is blank, reserved for the images that orchidea wishes did not exist. Images that she hopes will not harm her daughter: young women, so thin that they no longer menstruate, who consider their quest for thinness a lifestyle choice.

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