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Happiness After Mormonism: Be a Drag Queen

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When one is outside the faith, interesting personal stories are ones of people leaving the faith. It's all but impossible to be interested in people who found happiness by going deep into Christianity or any other religion. This one is about a man who tried his best to leave homosexuality behind be doing every Mormon duty assigned to one who grew up Mormon. He, like so many others, thought the deeper they dove into their religious indoctrination the better the chance their same sex attraction would disappear. Instead, he found happiness in a hobby of drag performing and giving away the money he received. I've read about and known quite a few same sex attracted people who tried over and over to stop the attraction by use of prayer and faith. Once in a while one reads about someone who lives as a heterosexual because homosexual acts are sin. If such people are happier living this way let them do so. The only foolish part of it is believing homosexual sex is a sin. This is made-up...
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What is a "Healthy Society?"

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Pope Leo is not in DC now at the annual "March for Life." The Vatican press office released some remarks he made recently about abortion, creating the image of him being on board with the program. Some things are changing, however, in anti-abortion politics and fund raising. At the end of the press release it is noted the Pope is not demanding laws against abortion which has been the decades-long message. That backfired with the overturn of Roe and made abortion increasingly available in some states. The new narrative is that the public needs to be "persuaded." The Pope's view that anti-abortion is part of a "healthy society" could rightly be called political misdirection. He does not say equal treatment and opportunity for women is part of a healthy society. The practice of treating women as second class members of society, no women clergy, will forever be a part of the decline of Christianity, Catholic and Protestant.  An anti-abortion post in the Na...
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The Entire ICE Thing is Political and Unnecessary

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The huge amount of money being spent on poorly trained ICE agents and the deaths and turmoil they cause is so unnecessary. With enough money and will the numbers of people entering our country illegally can be stopped. I've read it has already been largely stopped.  There are currently a large number of people in the U.S. who are here without citizenship papers and are not in the process of getting them. What should we do about them? Mostly, nothing. Let's let demographics take care of the issue. They will live out their lives and not be replaced with other illegal people. Eventually the numbers of people without legal status will be much smaller. The problems caused by illegal people is tiny compared to the problem caused by trying to track them down.  When I make this argument that the issue of undocumented people will solve itself, I'm guilty of leaving out the most important variable. That is politicians getting elected. To the politician, especially Trump, this is not ...
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Non Denominational Churches are on the Rise

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When I think about religion I think of what happened to TV networks. I grew up with three of them. Then there were a dozen. Now, if we include You Tube and its knock offs we have thousands of content creators each with a following. Each has many characteristics of a TV network. It has viewers and sells something giving it an economic base.  If our interests are so varied why would not the same thing happen in religion? It is happening. Non denominational churches are replacing churches of the various denominations. Each of these will surely drift in its own direction of rituals and beliefs. I've mentioned here many times that Paganism is not united under one god but many. The trend toward non denominational churches was discussed by a demographer who studies trends in religion. He thinks this tread is an important one and I agree. Let's remember that state legislatures in every state as well and DC have lobbyists. This requires a lot of money. Large religious groups like Cathol...
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A State Prison Bans the Hindu Holy Book, Bible is OK

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How could it be that a state prison could ban one holy book read by millions of people while allowing another, the Bible? Such a law has been in effect in Florida for several years.  So many people are incarcerated in the U.S. it has become a huge political, social and business industry. When it got big enough, Christianity decided to go into prisons to recruit followers and hopefully reap donations and later members. From federal prisons down to local jails people were paid to pray. I've heard over and over again from jail wardens that having a chaplain and volunteers in Christianity come in to preach and pray the level of stress and intensity of inmates was reduced.  This is exactly the argument made by clergy in the Hindu faith in Florida. There is testimony that reading the Hindu religious tome and doing Hindu religious rituals helps Hindu prisoners cope with their incarceration. I suppose the Christian jail wardens and chaplains worshipping in the Hindu faith is the pathw...
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Why is there so Little Understanding of "Church Attendance"

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Many times a month there are posts on the web about the " benefits to society of church attendance." One can learn that the church has been a place where people of different political views became friends. You can learn that those who attend church live longer and divorce less. There are entire books devoted to why society and democracy are better off if most people attend church.  I suspect every one of these articles and books was written by a person who attends church. They enjoy church and cannot imagine someone sitting in church and being miserable. If these authors/speakers could understand that church is voluntary and people normally do not do something voluntarily that makes them miserable they would understand why pointing out the societal benefits of church is pointless.  I pointed out in the discussion following the link above that going to church is for some like going to a restaurant and ordering a dish you dislike. People just don't do that. Then there is th...
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Catholics Will do a Big Study on Why Young Priests are Leaving

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It not hard to see the reasons a young priest might get discouraged. There are failing parishes. The average age of priests is rising. This inevitably loads younger ones with more work.  While there are lots of parishes with crowded masses, the general trajectory of the denomination in the U.S. is down. There are regular stories of combining parishes and selling buildings. On top of that are the bankruptcies caused by abuse court cases.  The Catholic hierarchy, and perhaps a large portion of Catholics in the pews, refuse to recognize that priests are part of the labor market. To attract and keep employees of any kind an employer needs to pay market wages and provide a reasonable work environment. If the salary is not high enough to finance the training necessary to apply rational prospects will not apply. They may leave the job is they don't see a good financial future. In the case of priests, celibacy is also required. Maybe evenings sitting around with some boring guys is no...
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