My brother posted a vid of Eddie Izzard. I made a joke about him not avoiding the appearance of evil but spreading it. And that that video could land him in the bishops office. He said he didn't know how avoiding the appearance of evil comes into play and that he thought it was hilarious. So I decided to drop a few quotes from profits about loud laughter. Then I remembered the temple covenant and dropped that in there to. That's when he decided to drop a line on me that was pure comedic gold.

"Why did you think this was a good place to preach about your religion?"

He knows I'm an atheist so he was being a little ironic. But I'm now going to use that line on every mishie that approaches me.

So I decided to drop a thought bomb on him. And I'm going to drop this bomb many more times when the opportunity arises.

"Don't take it seriously. If you do then you will miss the entire ironic point. The point is that very few people actually take it seriously. People won't drink tea because it was advised. But they will actively seek out things that make them laugh their guts out in direct opposition to a covenant not to do so. That's funny and ironic."

If they don't take their temple covenants seriously then they can't expect others to take their temple seriously. It's just a meaningless costume party.

No comments?

I didn't realize until I lived in SLC in the mid-90s, how much Mormonism is a culture. A pick and choose culture at that. You can't drink coffee but a 62 oz Mt Dew with even more caffeine is OK. The WoW says to eat very little meat and it's completely ignored. You promise in the temple to obey your husband as far as he obeys the Lord. Yet the jackass of a bishop is supposed to be followed, no matter what, because he is the bishop. Even if I know he is wrong! The Savior is supposed to be the center of Mormon worship, yet you can give the middle finger to his teachings and judge others for not living the letter of the law as well as you or, if you prefer, you can just feel really proud of yourself for being better than your weakling neighbors who sleep through Sac meeting, ignoring a Savior that taught against pride. That same Savior admonished his followers "do not fear" many times in the New Testament but if you are LDS, you can use fear (of losing your family forever, of not being worthy etc.) to keep your family in line.

The list goes on forever. The rules are open to interpretation but once it's been decided which to follow and which to ignore, you better knuckle under and follow them and not question the irony of doing so.