An article at National Review brings out some interesting statistics here in the USA and other countries that have long had civil unions/marriages for homosexuals: First, very few homosexuals are actually getting married here or elsewhere.  Second, in Norway and elsewhere, gay men have a 50% greater divorce rate than heterosexuals. Third, in Norway, lesbians have an astonishing 167% higher divorce rate than heterosexuals, while it is very high in other nations (partially due to the fact that women in all relationships tend to file for divorce more often).

These stats suggest that the importance of marriage really is not reflected in the homosexual community overall.  To grant them equal consideration may actually diminish the importance of the marriage covenant, turning it ever more into just another “right” that has no personal responsibility connected to it.

Perhaps it is time to refocus marriage on what made it important in the first place: progeny, covenant, til death do you part (or all eternity, if LDS).

Giving marriage to another group that does not really seem to take it as serious as it needs to be, seems like the perfect way to destroy its real meaning.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/299944/gay-divorcees-charles-c-w-cooke#

Flowers blooming and grass turning green is once more a reminder that the season of Mother’s Day has arrived. Men will sing to the women in their lives and children hand out small gifts in token of those who gave them life. It would seem remiss to forget the unique Mormon teaching of a Heavenly Mother that should grace the day. The world talks of a Mother Earth, while knowing little or nothing about the Mother of our spirits.

To be perfectly honest, She inhabits a silent corner of theological abstraction. Her existence more conjectured shadow than substantive talk. Only the deep pondering of eternal truths can coax Her from hiding. She is in Scripture and doctrine the trace present absence.

Despite the little said and even less known, Her influence is like all motherhood. There is a quiet dignity that should be approached with reverence. Whatever role inhabited in the eternities, Her place of importance is assured. As the poet and lady of prophetic insight Eliza R. Snow put into words:

In the heavens are parents single?
No, the thought makes reason stare.
Truth is reason: truth eternal
tells me I’ve a mother there.

When I leave this frail existence,
When I lay this mortal by,
Father, Mother, may I meet you
in your royal courts on high?

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Mitt Romney is not my favorite candidate. I find his foreign policy dangerous and foolhardy from a financial perspective. I think his budget proposals do not provide the budget cuts we need. I am a Ron Paul supporter.

But discussing the future is always fun, and I think Mitt Romney will win in 2012, so I thought I should explain why I am making such a prediction.

Here are the reasons:

1)The worldwide economy is about to tank. You may have heard that JP Morgan is reporting a $2 billion trading loss. This sounds a lot like 2008 to me. I predict chaos as the entire banking system, which is a house of cards, begins another collapse. Meanwhile, Europe is falling to pieces and even India and China reported slowing growth today. There is no real job growth in the U.S. economy, which is on life support and addicted to Fed money-printing. Sorry to report: things are about to get even worse.

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Note the Scientific American article stating that regulations from EPA will effectively end the development of new coal-fired plants and eventually force current ones out of business.  Hey, we can replace them with cheap oil, right?  I mean, coal only manages 23% of our nation’s fuel/energy.

The good news is that we’ll be able to export all of that coal to other nations to pollute the atmosphere with, while our energy production goes down, and gas/oil prices jump up to replace coal. And of course, we’ll have to get more of that oil elsewhere, because we aren’t allowed to pump/refine it here. And the transportation of oil to USA, and transportation of coal elsewhere will also add to cost and pollution.

So, who wins?

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-end-of-coal-burning-in-the-us

Recently, someone asked me why the Church does not have a set of specific doctrines to neatly create a broad theology and foundation for all we believe. Why don’t we have an established theology, developed by great philosopher-prophets like St Augustine, Origen, More or Aquinas?

In pondering it, I believe the LDS Church intentionally does not have a set theology, but only a few core doctrines, leaving room for  lots of personal revelation for individuals to seek God for themselves.  While Mormons do not have a specific theology, some Mormons DO theology. Check out saltpress.org as an example of this.  There are LDS philosophers, BTW.  James Faulconer, Joseph Spencer, Adam Miller, Blake Ostler, Clark Goble and others are excellent philosophers.  You can find many of them blogging about philosophy and the Church, as well as articles and books from several of them (like at saltpress.org).

The real problem isn’t philosophy, but philosophy that becomes doctrine or dogma.  When we establish creeds that are imperfect, then we close off the heavens and refuse to let them shower new revelation down upon us.  So the “philosophies of men, mingled with scripture” becomes bad when we establish such as dogma, rather than keep it as theory.  For the full gospel to be revealed, it requires that we keep an open mind to the things God wishes to reveal to us. It is possible that some LDS dogma of the past (Curse of Cain, etc) may have kept our members and leaders from receiving revelation on the priesthood until 1978, when most members were ready to hear and receive such a revelation and negate the wrong dogmatic claims made for over a century.

We’ll remember that the Lord told Joseph Smith not to join any other churches, because their creeds were an abomination to Him. Why were they an abomination, when most of us would agree with at least some/many aspects of the creeds?  Because, even if mostly true, they closed off the heavens to mankind, keeping them from receiving purer and more correct truths from heaven.

So, philosophy is not necessarily bad.  Doing theology isn’t necessarily bad.  Creating creeds and dogmas IS bad, as it nails the coffin shut on receiving any new light.