This is it!

I haven't been to church in a couple of weeks.  And I don't think I'll be going back...

This is awesome! I'm... "less-active!"  I'm a wandering soul, an apostate, a seed who sprung up but was choked by the lying weeds of the world!  Wooo!

Honestly, despite all the hype, I don't feel much different.  It's just an annoying thing I don't have to drag myself out to every Sunday.

So... personal inventory time:
Am I offended?   Well, sometimes, especially at really stupid stuff, but not recently.
Am I sinning?    Not going to church is in itself a sin, right?  As is speaking evil of the lord's anointed?  So yeah, I guess... but that seems like a chicken/egg problem.  Naturally, if leaving the church is a sin, all those who leave must be sinning.

I hope I don't become the center of any "rescue efforts."  I'll just have to learn to politely and firmly tell people that "Oh, I'm not interested in coming to church."

Why is Suicide "Not the Answer?"

When you see discussions about suicide on the web, you always get folks saying it's "not the answer."  That it is "not an option."  Like they know what they're talking about.

I will bet you $100 that not one of these people has succeeded in committing suicide.  That's the problem, no one knows if it's a good option, because frankly anyone who's done it is unavailable for comment.
Sure you can talk about failed attempts and the misery they cause, but I feel like that's beating around the bush a little.

People talk about how permanent suicide is, but usually the discussion doesn't go into the fact that death is always permanent.  And we will all die.  Sometimes it seems to me that the only way to escape our utter powerlessness in the face of our own mortality would be to choose the time and manner of our death, and take care of it immediately.

"Things will get better" is another thing people say.  Will they?  How do you know?
"You have so much to live for."  Do I?  How the hell do you presume to know that?

I find more and more that I admire the stigmatized and pitied in society... the ones who took their own lives rather than try to force themselves back down into a delusional dream of immortality and relevance.

Teaching Elders' Quorum Tomorrow

Yup, you read it, I am teaching in church tomorrow.  Chapter 13 from the manual, about sharing the fucking gospel (pardon my fucking French).

I feel like I have to blaspheme here on my blog, just to balance it out.  But that seems pretty cowardly.  I'm really sick of my complete lack of integrity.  I can't live by any of the principles I believe in, just by what I believed once.  Damn my past self for getting me into this mess, and damn my present self for being a coward.

Shit shit shit.  There's nothing... nothing to do about all this.
I don't even really care enough to hate the church now... I think I'm done with that.  Sure, I disagree with a bunch of stuff the church says and does, but really, whatever.
I just want to be gone, and done, and away from all the expectations that I'm something or I believe something or anything like that.

Oh good god, I just want to die.  Yes, I just took the lord's name in vain, and if he's up there keeping score, he can add it to the pile of my offenses, go ahead.  If you, imaginary person who reads this blog, are offended, sorry, but that confuses me.  I didn't take your name in vain, after all.  And if it's your god, well, I'll bet your beliefs specify that his powers include the ability to take care of his goddamned self, so don't mind this little blasphemer pouring obscenity into his own little godforsaken corner of the cloud.  Seriously, if you don't like that or gay sex or booze or blood transfusions, awesome, just don't do it, motherfucker!  Nobody is trying to make you do it.  Just go away, imaginary critic, and leave me to my damnation.

Anyway, I'm tired.  Tired of being nothing drifting through a life of broken promises and the shattered bits of goals and dreams past.  Blah blah blah, I'm so tired and shit and all that totally original stuff I always whine about.

Anyway.  I'll probably teach a very normal Elders' quorum lesson tomorrow.  There's probably a 5% chance that I freak out in the middle and just walk out, leaving my unfortunate EQ president with 10 minutes of time to fill because it's not about substance at church, oh no, it's about FILLING EVERY MOTHERFUCKING SECOND FOR THREE GODDAMN HOURS, BITCH!

Losing my Mind?

I've wondered recently whether my outlook hasn't reached a ridiculous level of pessimism.  I can't really see good in anything.  I know depression can inspire an inaccurate view of one's self and the world, and in some cases can even lead to delusion.  What worries me the most is that I often feel convinced that the way I see things is the absolute most correct way, and basically everyone else is deluded.  Not usually a good sign of mental stability or objectivity...

Am I just a few bad days away from disconnecting with reality?  Will I snap one day and just go out and set fire to things?

A part of me is perversely delighted to know that I'm basically perfect supervillain material.  I'm smart, creative, technical, nihilistic, unstable, and sometimes wish I could destroy the whole world.  I'm a menace just waiting to happen!

I don't think I'm off my rocker yet, but sometimes it seems like I can feel my mind being bent by the constant pressure of my desperate dissatisfaction, boredom, and self-loathing.

Things Have to Change

This is it, I'm going to drop out of school.  I'm going to go discuss my options with an academic adviser in a few minutes, but I just can't keep this up.  I can't keep going to BYU, and I'll need a break from school in general.  I also can't keep going to church.  It's going to kill me if I stay stuck in this situation any longer.

I should have done this a long time ago, instead of wait until my very sanity started circling the drain.

I don't intend to go out with a fuss, just quietly walk away from all this.  Maybe I can finish my degree soon at UVU or Utah or something.

Several folks I've mentioned my intentions to have expressed surprise and disapproval, especially since I seem so close to graduation.  But I've come to believe that my approach toward graduation is currently asymptotic; I will never actually get there from here.

What do I intend to do with life?  Hell if I know.  For now, just survive.  I'd love to say this was all about some high-minded ideal, but mostly it's just survival.

UPDATE:

I'm so close, but so far.  The adviser thinks I should either finish or take a break and come back, but either way I have to go to church.  I think maybe I should kill myself, that will solve all of the problems.

Still No Answers!

I've been writing in this blog for more than 2 years.  At lot has happened in that time.  Thankfully I'm almost done with my degree, and then I can finally leave behind BYU with the accompanying rut I've dug myself into.

Still, I don't know that things are clearer now than they were, then.  Life still seems without meaning much of the time, an unwanted burden thrust upon me be either an uncaring universe or some perversely-cruel "supreme being."

I don't think there's a higher intelligence responsible for everything, but far be it from me to claim any more than that.  I know almost nothing, and I dare say I'm smarter than the average bear.  I don't find comfort in even the remote possibility that there is a god, though... if there is, he's the wanker who decided to bestow consciousness on the chunk of dirt that happens to be me.  Who knows what else this diabolical monster is capable of?  Making me continue to live after death, perhaps!?  Perish the thought.

I am reminded of Tantalus... the poor sucker from Greek mythology who angered the gods and was therefore trapped forever in a pond with luscious fruit hanging on branches above him, only to have the fruit or water withdraw beyond his reach every time he went for either one.  Human beings are given inquisitive minds capable of asking deeply abstract questions about our own existence, then the answers to said questions are always apparently just out of reach.  Even religion doesn't have answers, it only promises more later.  Case in point, how many times in Sunday School have you asked a question and been told that maybe we'll have to wait until the Celestial Kingdom to know about that?


So, I know I sound like I'm super-depressed.  And yeah, I am.  But it occurs to me over and over... does that make anything I say less valid?
 People imply that my view and conclusions are affected by my depression, and therefore are wrong.   Now, the first one I'll give them, they are.  But the second?
For all we know, optimism or happiness are results of a healthy human mind drugging itself enough to ignore the void of meaning and impending ruin and decay that loom over them all the time.
Doesn't that sound like something that might evolve in a keenly self-aware species?
What if those with depression see the world as it is, and a healthy mind is the mind more deluded?  What then?  Which would you rather have???


This isn't even red/blue pill, because in The Matrix there was a tiny bit of hope that outside the matrix there was still something to work for.  What if knowing is accepting that there never was and never will be meaning?  Which would you choose?
Happiness or awareness?

Without awareness, what are you?  A rat with its pleasure centers wired to a machine, oblivious of that actual logic behind its ecstasy?
With awareness, what are you?  A mind trapped in a fleshy little jar, able to see just long enough to glimpse the universe slowly devouring itself with entropy, where good and evil end up rusted together in a pile of dust with no one to even observe it?

No wonder there are lots of people out there who claim to have the answers, and even more people who flock to them at any expense.
Damn those charlatans, though.  Damn them for promising answers and then telling cute stories to distract from the fact that they have none!!! 


Sometimes I don't feel like there is an adequate way to express the rage I feel at this, our beloved human condition.  It makes me wish I could believe in a creator, so I could then try to find a way to get revenge on him/her/it.
Heh, so basically, I wish for a living god just so I can go kill him.  Maybe I'm just insane after all.

Skepticism

I need to get a rant off my chest:  I used to love the History channel.  I watched it whenever I stayed home sick from school.  Yeah, yeah, I'm a nerd, I know.

Now... the stuff they show on there!  It's sad!

What used to be a channel where I was sure to find something like "The Sinking of the Bismark!" is now a non-stop parade of shit like "Why Aliens Built the Pyramids!!!"

Aliens built the pyramids?  Really?

I am all for considering every viable option, but this one seems to need a bare minimum of consideration before it's up for complete rejection.

The whole argument seems to go as follows:
1. The pyramids are big and huge and awesome.
2. It would have been tricky for ancient people to build things that we think are big and huge and awesome.
3. Therefore, aliens!

The first thing I would like to point out is that the pyramids, and yes, Stonehenge and the Easter Island heads  too, are not that incredible in composition or form.  I mean, the pyramids were made out of mud.  Mud!  And they are nice geometric forms, yes, but pretty simple ones.
Sure, they would have been hard to build, but I think some people underestimate the potential of megalomaniac kings unafraid to bankrupt their kingdoms in order to erect some monument to themselves.

So, if we go with the alien explanation, aliens came and did what?  Decided to impress future generations of humans by building some big monument?
And they decide, instead of building some giant monolith covered in their strange writing, made of space-age ceramics or something of a nature we can't reproduce, hovering 200 feet in the air.... they build some angular piles of dirt?
...a circle of rocks?
...a big, handsome head carved out of a stone?

If these aliens have crossed interstellar distances to get to Earth and build big stuff to mess with our heads, seems like they could have built some more impressive stuff.  We could right now!

Furthermore, it seems like a real slap at our ancestors to say "the rocks from Stonehenge originated really far away from the site!  there's no way our ancestors could have moved them, because they were too dumb!"
Just because we don't have ready solutions of how to move lots of big rocks with bronze-age technology doesn't mean they didn't come up with something.


So basically, I'm angry that the History Channel spends all its time on either reality shows about foul-mouthed people operating heavy machinery or an utter horseshit interpretation of history.

The Messiah

In the LDS church, as in all (that I know of) the Christian world, Jesus is acknowledged as the Messiah prophesied in Jewish scripture.  That's what "Christ," means, actually, it's just the Greek form.

Why didn't the Jews accept their Messiah?  Well, goes the LDS interpretation, they became so hung up on certain things they hoped for in their temporal lives that they failed to recognize the real mission of the Messiah (the Atonement).

The Jews hoped for the Messiah who would liberate them from Rome and all other captors, but Jesus did not do this.  The LDS theology attributes this to their undue concern for their well-being as a nation.  They missed their chance because they wanted their Messiah to come solve all of their worldly problems.

Fast-forward a couple thousand years.  The LDS church anxiously awaits the return of Jesus, who will kill all the sinners, clean up the Earth, and create an authoritarian system of government based on absolute truth that rules over an ecstatic utopia for 1000 years.

Time out!!   Isn't this almost exactly the thing  the Jews were waiting for from their Messiah?  The thing for which the modern LDS church condemns them?!

Frankly, this seems a bit hypocritical to me.
"The Jews were wrong to want their Messiah to save them temporally.  Meanwhile, Jesus is coming to show the world we were right all along and solve all our problems, yay!"

An Explosion in a Print Shop -or- Elder Nelson sets the Church back 100 years intellectually

I'm starting this post before the silly talk has even ended, but I'm ticked.

So far, General Conference (or General Nonsense, whichever you prefer) had been relatively benign in my eyes, many of the talks even surprisingly pleasant and accepting.  And then this!

In his talk on gratitude, Elder Nelson ridicules those who assume life began as the result of "a Big Bang somewhere!"  He suggests that this scenario is analogous to an explosion in a print shop producing a dictionary.
His basic argument is that the human body is amazing (I agree with this), and so cannot have arisen without design (but not this).  Even if it had, our healing capacities would never allow us to die, but mercifully (!), God invented aging to kill us off so we could begin our eternal lives.

Where do I begin?!

First off, I won't go into detail about the watchmaker argument, which I've covered before in both qualitative and quantitative examination, but it's a load of hokum.  Okay, yeah, life is amazing.  But to suggest that it had to be designed denies the elegance and beauty of the theories on the origins of life that have developed so magnificently from Charles Darwin's first innocent suggestion that the diversity of life might have something to do with inheritance and selection.  There is a whole century of scientific progress that tackles one puzzle after another in evolutionary biology.  Sure, not all the answers are yet available.  But for Elder Nelson to demean all of the best truth-seeking work mankind has done with an offhand comment simplifying centuries of scientific progress to a poorly-conceived metaphor about a print shop and a dictionary is infuriating.

Without comment like this, faith and rational inquiry could coexist.  But no, Elder I'm-A-Heart-Surgeon-So-I-Can-Comment-On-Cosmology Nelson couldn't keep his trap shut, so now the intellectual potential of millions of faithful LDS individuals has been stunted to a level found among subsistence farmers in the 1800s!
Why must leaders in the church do this?!

Now, on to aging: WHAT?!
So... a slow decline in physical and mental facilities, culminating in the loss of independence and, ultimately, the death of every human being is a divine gift?
This is not much better than regarding disease as God's wrath, and therefore rejecting treatment.
Never mind that there are plenty of biological reasons aging happens, not least of which is the fact that a limited life-span is actually an evolved characteristic maximizing the survival of the genes of an organism.
Aging as a gift is like... 9/11 as a gift!  Who are we, the Westboro Baptist Church?

Elder Nelson is an educated man, an accomplished doctor, leader, and orator.  Despite this, he has decided (in his talk on gratitude!) to ridicule the educational establishment and its most carefully-crafted ideas and theories, essentially stabbing the very organization that has helped him to success in the back.
That, my friends, is ingratitude.

Is the LDS Church a Cult?

The short answer:  No

I know many of my good friends would disagree with me, but I don't think that the church (in its current form) lives up to the brainwashed compound stockpiling weapons, mass suicide sort of image that "cult" carries with it.  In most respects, the behavior of the church is no more nefarious than any (other?) Christian denomination.  Church members are entitled to their own opinions, and can even criticize church leaders a little bit (not super-publicly, mind you) without being punished.  The authority figures aren't even that charismatic. (some will disagree with this, and I ask them... have you SEEN General Conference?!  It's about as emotionally rousing as a bunch of old paper bags blowing around the parking lot.)
That being said, I think the early church was definitely a cult of the most bright-kool-aid colored variety.  Charismatic central figure?  Check.  Strange and erratic church doctrine and mandates?  Check.  Blowing up stuff they didn't like?  Check.
No real mass suicides that I know of, but that might be because Joe Smith died young.


Is the LDS Church a cult?

The long answer:  Yes.

Frankly, I think that the basic attributes of a cult are shared by all organized sects, Christian or otherwise.  The same we-are-special us-vs-them mentality, the strange obsession with running the lives of others, the willingness to, nay, obsession with denying rational inquiry and appeal to facts in favor of embracing implausible truth-claims...
Most people stay in because they are already in, frankly.

So, when other religions call the LDS Church a cult, I say they are wrong to do so.  Or at least it's a case of the pot calling the kettle black.  But frankly, a cult is nothing more than a religious organization, and the negative connotation of the word comes from, well, the crazy things fundamentalists of all persuasions do in the name of their beliefs.