What Religion is Barack Obama?

Dear Readers,

I’d really like to know what religion Barack Obama is. Really. I mean, I know he’s officially a Christian. Officially. But what religion is our President in his heart?

Copied and pasted from Wikipedia:

Obama is a Christian whose religious views have evolved in his adult life. In The Audacity of Hope, Obama writes that he "was not raised in a religious household". He describes his mother, raised by non-religious parents (whom Obama has specified elsewhere as "non-practicing Methodists and Baptists") to be detached from religion, yet "in many ways the most spiritually awakened person that I have ever known". He describes his father as "raised a Muslim", but a "confirmed atheist" by the time his parents met, and his stepfather as "a man who saw religion as not particularly useful". Obama explained how, through working with black churches as a community organizer while in his twenties, he came to understand "the power of the African-American religious tradition to spur social change".[198][199] He was baptized at the Trinity United Church of Christ in 1988 and was an active member there for two decades.[200][201] Obama resigned from Trinity during the Presidential campaign after controversial statements made by Rev. Jeremiah Wright became public.[202]

Recently I heard that Obama held the first ever White House sponsored Seder dinner. (The Seder is the Jewish dinner celebrating the house of Israel’s exodus from Egypt, led by Moses.) Why did he do that? He’s not Jewish. I don’t know about you, but I see celebrating the Seder as a Jewish thing.

Obama recently hunted for Easter eggs, which is definitely a Christian thing.

He also recently bowed to the Muslim king of Saudi Arabia, which kind of seems like a Muslim thing.

He also invited Rick Warren, author of The Purpose Driven Life, to say a prayer at his inauguration, and he also invited the first gay Episcopalian pastor, Gene Robinson, to say another prayer.

Also, according to this article: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/first100days/2009/04/11/obamas-head-church-easter-sunday-remain-mum-details/ Easter Sunday was the first time the Obamas actually went to Church since he was the President! Gee whiz! Obama had time to go on Jay Leno, but he didn’t have time to go to Church since January?

Excuse me, Mr. President, where are your standards?

(News flash! Obama also smokes cigarettes! I’ve seen it in pictures! And he wants little kids to smoke them too! On some afternoons he hangs outside of elementary schools, luring kids from the security of their swing-sets with candy, and then when he has them in his clutches... BAM! He makes them inhale his special brand of Obama smoke, and he says, "hey kids, smoking is cool," and within minutes those kids are tobacco addicts 4 life!!! )

j/k lol :)

I have the same attitude about religion as I do about marriage: you pick one and then you stick with it!

j/k lol :)

All joking aside, I think I would be more comfortable with a President who was active in one religion- a President who went to the same church every Sunday and didn’t try to appeal to everybody’s religious beliefs. You can’t please all the Gods! Our God is a jealous God!

I have a sneaking suspicion that Obama isn’t really any religion at all in his heart. I think he acts mostly Christian (but not too Christian) because that’s what’s fashionable and that’s what is expected of a high-ranking U.S. politician.

Mr. Obama, I bet you’re reading this, (or one of your people is reading) so I’m just asking you straight up: what religion are you, Mr. President, in your heart?

And remember that question is for real! That question comes from my heart! So be straight up with me! Be straight up from your heart!

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa

Let’s Not Use “Whom” Anymore

Dear Readers,

Let’s not use “whom” anymore. I don’t like that word. Lots of people don’t like that word.

Maybe it’s OK to write “whom” in the fixed phrase, “To Whom It May Concern,” but that’s it. We definitely shouldn’t speak it out loud. It really irritates me when people use the word “whom” out loud, mostly because whenever I hear it I don’t have time to diagram the spoken sentence in my head and figure out if the person really used the word correctly or they just threw it in to sound smart. Also, the few people I have heard use “whom” out loud (excluding people who are reading out loud from a text) are usually kind of annoying or stuck-up, you know what I mean?

It’s like semi-colons, you know. Kurt Vonnegut said that all semi-colons really do is show that you’ve been to college.

See, there’s people out there who want to distinguish themselves from other people, other seemingly uneducated people, in any way they can. There’s people out there who say “whom” just to make themselves sound highfalutin and educateder-than-thou.

I bet there’s even people out there who wish there was some way to pronounce a semi-colon! There’s prideful people trying to master a certain length of pause- a pause longer than the pause indicated by a comma but shorter than the pause indicated by a break between two sentences. Oooohhh... Imagine how impressive that pause would be during a dinner party conversation!

So maybe we should stop using semi-colons.

Another thing that will change is the rule that says, “there’s three things…” is bad. Technically that’s wrong. You’re supposed to say and write, “there are three things.” But lots of people say “there’s three things,” (maybe because it rolls off the tongue easier. I don’t know) and written language reflects spoken language.

Spoken language is primary and written language is secondary. Every normal human being who grows to maturity learns how to talk, but not every human becomes literate. That’s what I learned in school.

Another thing! It’s OK to split an infinitive. The old rules said it wasn’t OK, but the new rules say that sometimes it’s OK. A famous example of a split infinitive is from the original Star Trek opening, “to boldly go where no man has gone before.” “To go” is the infinitive verb, and the adverb “boldly” splits it.

And it’s also OK to end a sentence with a preposition, such as “What are you here for?” rather than, “For what are you here?” Here’s another example: Doesn’t “That’s something I can get a handle on,” sound a lot better than, “That’s something on which I can get a handle.” ? So, even though the old rule said “don’t end a sentence (or a clause, I think) with a preposition,” the new rule says, “Ending sentences with prepositions is not only fine, but sometimes preferred.”

My favorite explanation for what a preposition is goes like this: (Thanks, Mrs. Voorhees, my high school freshman English teacher!), A preposition is anything a squirrel can do to a tree. A squirrel can go around a tree, a squirrel can go up a tree, down a tree, etc. There are a few exceptions, though. It’d be really weird to see a squirrel go of a tree, or go about a tree.

Ha ha ha. A squirrel going of a tree.

That's metaphysical, dude.

From what I understand, most linguists think that “whom” will go the way of the dodo bird pretty soon. That’s what happens, you know. Language changes. Just like the pronouns “thee” and “thy” and “thou” have fallen out of common use, so too will “whom” fall out of common use, eventually.

But I want "whom" to die now! There’s a few pesky people keeping “whom” alive. Are you one of them?

I’m just not patient enough to see “whom” gradually fade away. I’d rather actively fight for the extinction of “whom.”

It’s funny, though, I’m a little worried that this very blog post might further propagate “whom” usage! Oh no!

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa

P.S. I love everyone. Love love love. Love is in my heart. I even love people who use "whom" in their everyday speech! They're just misguided, that's all. But I love misguided people!

The Easter edition Tootsie Roll I ate.

Dear Readers,

Happy belated Easter! :)

Hey I just opened up this Easter edition tootsie roll candy and then I ate it and it was pretty good. It was sugary and brown you know, like tootsie-rolls usually are, so that was cool. It got my mouth all slobbery. Ha ha ha.

Yummy yummy!

But it was just a normal brown tootsie roll! The only thing different about the Easter edition of the tootsie roll, the only thing that separated it from all the non-holiday affiliated, secular tootsie rolls was the packaging.

Aaaarrrgghh!!!

What’s up with that? I think the actual tootsie roll, the part you put in your mouth, should have been dyed pastel pink or egg-shell blue. Or maybe it should have had some festive carvings in it, like a carving/indentation of a baby bird or a bunny or something more religious like an empty tomb.

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa

Colonialism

Dear Readers,

Right now I’m taking a class called Colonial and Postcolonial Literatures, and we use this literary theory book called Colonialism/Postcolonialism by Ania Loomba. I wasn’t too sure what "colonialism" and "postcolonialism" were before I took the class, but now I sort of know what they mean.

Colonialism means moving to a different place and viciously exploiting the resources, human and non-human, you find in your new home. Christopher Columbus, Hernando Cortez, pilgrims who celebrated the first Thanksgiving, and others are all considered colonizers. Pretty much anybody from the British Empire who went to other parts of the world (Latin America, India, Australia, wherever) and displaced the indigenous people are considered colonizers.

Postcolonialism, from what I understand, is a fancy-schmancy term that means colonialism is dumb.

One of the assigned books for the class was A Small Place by Jamaica Kincaid. It’s about Antigua, a small island in the Caribbean Sea that was under British rule for a really long time. Now Antigua is a huge tourist attraction. Here are some excerpts from the book:

“You came. You took things that were not yours, and you did not even, for appearances sake, ask first…. You murdered people. You imprisoned people. You robbed people. You opened your own banks and put our money in them…. There must have been good people among you, but they stayed home. And that is the point. That is why they are good. They stayed home.” (page 35)

It’s clear from this quote that Kincaid wishes that Columbus and the other explorers had never come across the ocean to the Americas at all. She thinks that they all should have stayed in the Old World, in Europe, and minded their own business at home. Kincaid expresses her rage at colonists:

“Nothing can erase my rage- not an apology, not a large sum of money, not the death of the criminal-for this wrong can never be made right, and only the impossible can make me still: can a way be found to make what happened not have happened?” (page 32)

But Kincaid doesn’t just point the finger at all the old-time colonizers from the British Empire- she hates modern colonizers too. And she says that modern colonizers take on the guise of tourists. She says that the only reason tourists come to Antigua is to get sick pleasure out of comparing themselves to all the poor black servants who run the hotels, run the resorts, and sell souvenirs. Kincaid writes, “…when tourists turned up they could buy all those awful things that tourists always buy, all those awful things they then take home, put in their attics, and their children have to throw out when the tourists, finally, die.” (p. 48)

Now you know the gist of the book.

Why does that book bother me so much? Why am I writing about it? (Because right now I’m upset.)

In a way I feel guilty for the sins of my ancestors. I’m experiencing white guilt. Even if it wasn’t my literal blood-related ancestors who killed Native Americans and had slaves, it was still my metaphorical ancestors who committed those crimes against humanity- it was the people of my particular race, culture and geographic origin.

The ideology driving the class, the textbook we use, and probably the whole field of postcolonial studies rails against the idea that one culture can be better than another culture. And by better I mean… hmmm… I guess I mean having more happiness and material prosperity and being closer to the Truth with a capital T.

Postcolonial studies tends to rail against the triple C's (Christianity, Capitalism, and Caucasians). My class is about how Europeans have asserted their own culture over other cultures through violence, religion, literature, and political actions. And in some ways, I’m getting the message that I, Telemoonfa, am a colonizer. I am colonizer because I am a beneficiary of colonialism, because I live on land that used to belong to the Native Americans, because I own property and plan on continuing to participate in capitalism, and because I tend to vote for politicians who wear cowboy hats.

I’m also a colonizer because I believe that my culture, especially my Mormon culture, is really really really good. I root for the home team. I have national pride. I love the pledge of allegiance and the Constitution and Mitt Romney. Does that make me a colonizer? Maybe.

Maybe I shouldn’t take these things I’m learning so personally. I’m just tired of being accused of doing something wrong, that I’m hurting people.

One of the things that bugs me is that in one way, a lot of my classes reject the idea of absolute morality. You know, they say other cultural practices are just as good as mine, and they say that I have no right to judge other cultures and feel morally superior to them. On the other hand, in a way my professors have a definite position on what’s right and wrong. My classes make it clear that the subjugation of women and other minorities is wrong. But wait- isn’t the subjugation of women a cultural practice? I thought all cultural practices were equally OK?

I’ve never been educated or enlightened enough to understand where morals come from, if not from God.

I cannot understand the idea of an innate biological human “goodness,” without first understanding that we are all children of our Heavenly Father, and that we lived as spirits before we were born, and that, in the words of Yoda, “Luminous beings are we, not this crude matter.”

OK, back to the thing that I originally wanted to write about in the first place. In my textbook, Colonialism/Postcolonialism, the author, Ania Loomba, says a lot of things that I don’t care for about Muslims and America and other things. On page 213, Loomba writes,

“Since the events of 11 September 2001, the so-called global war on terror, and the US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq, it is harder than ever to see our world as simply ‘postcolonial’.”

I’d like to discuss the rhetoric that Loomba is using here. Notice that she writes, “The events of 11 September 2001,” instead of, say, “the terrorist attacks of 9/11,” or even “the Muslim extremist attack on America spearheaded by Osama Bin Laden which killed thousands on September 11th 2001.”

Next, notice that she writes, “the so-called global war on terror.” Why did she have to throw that “so-called” in there? What does the term “so-called” do to the noun phrase that follows it? If I say, “I’m a so-called student,” that would lead others to think, “Hmmm… there’s something not completely studious about Telemoonfa. Maybe he’s not serious about his studies. Maybe he’s freeloading off rich parents who pay for his education.” I remember there was a TV show titled “My so-called Life” and it was about a teenager who was not satisfied with her “life”. You get my point. By throwing “so-called” in there, Loomba was mocking the war on terror, suggesting that it wasn’t serious, that it wasn’t legitimate.

Finally notice that Loomba writes, “The US invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq,” instead of the more neutral term “the Iraq War” or the more patriotic term, “Operation Iraqi Freedom.”

The bias (maybe I should call it a liberal bias) of our class’s book doesn’t stop there. Loomba continues,

“As the New American Empire develops, openly and shrilly advocated by policy-makers, politicians, and academics within the US and elsewhere, it is more urgent than ever to think about the questions of domination and resistance that have been raised by anti-colonial movements and postcolonial studies worldwide.”

Wait a minute. Did you hear that? The New American Empire? What is that? I don’t think I’ve ever heard that term before I took this class I’m taking now, but there it is, the New American Empire. It’s like my professor, Ania Loomba, and a lot of other people view America as an imperialist country, bent on global domination.

Loomba also writes in a pretty biased way about Islam. She says that “… Islam is commonly understood as more prone to fundamentalist appropriation (and to misogyny) than any other religion. However, other religious groupings (such as the Hindu right in India or the Christian right in the United States) are equally culpable on both counts.” Wait a minute. Islam and the Christian right in the US are equally culpable of misogyny? I doubt that. I think women suffer much more under fundamentalist Islam than they do under fundamentalist Christianity.

Sigh… there are other parts of the book that upset my Christian American conservative attitudes, but you get the point.

But hey I got my revenge though. Ha ha ha. On a whole bunch of the pages of Colonialism/Postcolonialism, I wrote, right at the top of the page, “this whole book sucks” and “Loomba likes to fart.” That way when I sell the book back to the college bookstore at the end of the semester, the next person who gets it next will see exactly what I thought of the book. Ha ha ha!

Alright, that’s enough.

Sorry if this blog post came off as angry. I really do like people, generally. People I know in real life usually think I’m a nice guy. Why just today I had a very nice chat with my neighbor.

I like to tell myself that my anger is holy wrath or righteous indignation, but my anger is probably more like an immature hissy-fit over things that don’t really matter too much in the long run. I think I have some good points though. And after all that postcolonial stuff I get in college, I have to let off a little steam. See you later.

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa

"Catholic School Girls" Review

Dear Readers,

The other night I went to an NAU theatre department production of Catholic School Girls, and it was alawhutiest woo. Like swiff.

To be fair, the acting was good, the set was good, the directing was good, the costumes were good, the lighting was good, blah blah blah, but the politics of the play was ala-quiff. The Catholic Church was characterized as a superstitious, oppressive, and sadist organization. The nuns were depicted as being either dotty or monstrous, delighting in the pain of little children.

The play followed four girls throughout their Catholic schooling. They all pretty much rebelled against the system, and the main protagonist of the play ended up renouncing the Catholic Church and God altogether, and the audience cheered.

As a people of faith, the play upset my wife and I. Now I have plenty of qualms with Catholic doctrine (ie infant baptism), and some of their history (ie the Spanish Inquisition) but overall I think the Catholic Church does more good than harm in the world. I especially respect modern Catholicism, the Catholicism that I've seen a lot of my friends practice.

I went to a mass in Tucson once with my friends in high school, and I enjoyed it. I liked the part where everybody turned to their neighbor, shook hands, and said, “Peace be with you.” I liked the way the priest sanctified the communion, and the believers ate the bread and drank the wine, remembering Jesus’ sacrifice. I enjoyed the pictures and statues all around the church depicting the life and death of Jesus. I enjoyed the way people were dressed up, out of respect for their cathedral and for their God. I liked the ceremony of the mass- the theatrical part of it all… the way the priest was dressed, the gentle handling of sacred objects.

After the mass I went to this Catholic youth group activity. We watched a cute skit about this girl saying her prayers at night. At first she was reciting the Lord’s Prayer really quickly, and then the voice of God came from offstage, (or maybe it was one of the Saints) and stopped the girl and said, “Wait! Slow down. Think about what you’re saying.” And then the girl said the Lord’s Prayer a lot slower, and talked with God about what it meant. The skit had a great moral to it: Don’t rush through your prayers- really think of all you have to be thankful for, and really take the time to take in the awe of talking with deity.

I remember after the skit, the Catholic young adult leaders had us go off alone and write a private letter to God. It was a nice activity. It really got me introspective, and spiritual.

I had an uplifting and interesting experience with my Catholic friends that evening. Of course you know that ultimately I do not believe that the Catholic Church is true. I do not believe that the Priesthood of God rests with that organization. I think that the true Priesthood and Christ’s true doctrine is to be found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. But still, my experience that night going to mass and participating in the youth activities were, overall, wholesome and uplifting.

I think that if people follow Catholicism devoutly, they turn out to be really good people. And I think that more faithful Catholics would make this country stronger.

Catholic School Girls wasn’t an isolated incident. It wasn’t the one play in the NAU theatre season that pushed the envelope. There have been plenty of plays at NAU before, and there will be many plays afterward, that treat sacred things lightly, and that sometimes downright mock religion, faith, and God.

Outside of NAU, lots of movies and plays treat religion in a dissatisfying way. Even in Slumdog Millionaire, which is a wonderful movie, there was the scene where Hindus and Muslims were fighting, and the main character’s mother gets killed in the battle. Reflecting on those events, the main character Jamal Malik says “If it wasn’t for Rama and Allah, I would still have a mother.” In other words, Jamal was saying, “If there were no religion, and we were all secular humanists, and “Imagine” by John Lennon became our world anthem, everything would be great.”

Why is it that people in the entertainment business feel compelled to attack religion? Where are the plays about how faith in God has made people’s lives better and have influenced society for the better?

Of course not all movies and plays and TV shows are rough on religion. I saw one movie recently that portrayed religion in a pretty good way. It was Valkyrie, about the plot by some Germans to assassinate Adolf Hitler. The main character, Claus Von Stauffenberg, played by Tom Cruise, was a devout Roman Catholic who always wore a cross around his neck. The movie implied that Stauffenberg’s faith inspired him to try to kill Adolph Hitler and put Germany back into better hands. It was nice to see religion portrayed in a positive way.

Of course I don’t think that we ought to make it illegal to produce plays or movies like Catholic School Girls. I honor the First Amendment. I’m just asking writers and directors and producers politely to please stop making plays like Catholic School Girls.

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa

Is Tower of Babel Part Two Coming?

Dear Readers,

A long time ago, all the people on the Earth spoke the same language. And a lot of the people got wicked, and they made agreements with each other to build a gigantic building, a humungous tower that would allow them to get to heaven without believing in Jesus- it was the Tower of Babel. God came down and looked at the tower, and he didn’t like it one bit. So God destroyed the tower of Babel and he scattered the people all over the Earth and he messed up all their languages! That story partly explains why people all over the world speak so many different languages, and live in so many different places.

Telemoonfa Time Readers, I fear that because of modern technology, people are going to build the Tower of Babel again, metaphorically. Planes and boats and railroads and cars and such have made travel from country to country easier than it has ever been before. And technology has made communication between people who speak different languages easier than ever before.

In short, modern technology and human ingenuity is undoing what God once did about 4000 years ago when he destroyed the Tower of Babel.

(Wow! I just finally got some answers about the Tower of Babel! I’ve been fascinated for a long time with the story. Have you seen my drawings of it, posted on Telemoonfa Time? The Tower of Babel story seems so crazy, but I believe in it. I believe it literally happened. But one of the things that have bothered me about the story is it says that a whole bunch of people thought that they could get to heaven by dramatically increasing their altitude.

I can hear the ancient Babylonian architects chatting now, “If we could just get this thing, oh…. about a billion cubits taller, we’ll all be sitting on thrones with God in Heaven!” Did those people actually think that exaltation and eternal life meant getting higher in the sky? It didn’t make sense to me. But this Ensign article I just found

http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.jsp?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=4a5557b60090c010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1

explains that the tower of Babel may have been a sort of counterfeit temple… Oh yes it’s very interesting and you should read it if you want to. Just click on the link and scroll down to the part that talks about the Tower of Babel. )

Which brings me to my next point.

I’m worried about a new world order. Since I was a kid, I’ve heard people whispering about a new world order. And I’ve chatted with a few members of the John Birch Society, who are fighting against the new world order (and black helicopters and zombies), and who want to get the United States out of the United Nations altogether.

I may sound like a crazy conspiracy theorist, I know, but, recently some stuff has happened that makes me think that a godless new world order is closer than ever.

First, did you hear about G20? From what I understand, they’re trying to organize a global economic stimulus plan- a global redistribution of wealth.

Second, have you heard about global warming? It’s a hoax! And what they’re really trying to do is form a world government! (Maybe, you know, I don’t know for sure, but it seems to me like this is a very viable explanation for all the ruckus about global warming.)

Third, The European Union is getting more powerful all the time. Now I just read an article that soon there’s going to be a first president of the European Union. Tony Blair is campaigning for the position. How did that happen?

Most of Europe uses the euro now… Will we soon be referring to the United States of Europe? Will we soon be referring to the Country of the World? And our currency will be the World-o? Or the renduero? (that’s a word I made up. It’s a combination of “Renminbi” (the Chinese currency) “dollar” and “euro”)

Considering these current events, my question is, is it time for the Tower of Babel, part two?

I’ll leave you with some comforting words from the Book of Revelation about the end of days. It talks about gigantic robot scorpions stinging everybody on the planet who doesn’t have the seal of God in their foreheads, and then it says, in Revelation chapter 9 verse 6:

“And in those days shall men seek death, and shall not find it; and shall desire to die, and death shall flee from them.”

Sincerely,
Telemoonfa