We Are Not Saved

In this episode I talk about a recent article I encountered which explored the orthodox-progressive divide in Mormonism. I talk about how, while excellent, the article may not have gone far enough. I provide some additional examples of things which really worry me, and then go on to discuss some of the issues with diversity in the wider world.

In chess notation a "?!" indicates a speculative attempt to complicate. A move that throws a wrench into things, and mostly comes up when someone is losing and they hope by creating some chaos they can turn things around. The same thing happens historically, desperate attempts to take a losing position, throw in some chaos and turn it into a winning position. In this episode we examine how this took place immediately preceding the French Revolution, and how it may be about to take place again in an eerily similar fashion.

There are lots of very smart people who tell us we don't have to worry about the national debt, despite the fact that it recently passed $20 trillion. Is this true, are we over-reacting? Or is this the classic case of deciding that because something is not a problem now that it will never be a problem? The US can borrow at historically low rates, there are countries worse than us, but what is the endgame? How long can we keep this up?

There are many trends which shape our world and the political landscape. These trends can either be getting better or getting worse (and often that depends on the person) or than can stay the same. Sometimes this the metaphor of a pendulum is used. Things go one way, until they hit some kind of maximum and then they reverse direction. Is there any evidence current events are reaching some kind of maximum, or do we still have a long way to go.

There are only two paths to potential salvation: Religion and Science. Most people have placed their bets on science, but they may be overlooking some of the downsides attendant with relying on science, primarily the fact that science doesn't care about things like morality or kindness. And if you really have decided that we're going to be saved through science then you have to grapple with these downsides. Featuring another appearance by Fermi's Paradox...

In this episode I tell the story of the Melanesian Cargo Cults, and I after relating some of the ways this story has been used as a cautionary tale by people in the past, I turn it on it's head and use it to illustrate how close members are to prophets and how close prophets are to God. Consider this my attempt at a General Conference episode.

In this episode I continue to examine the Moderate Manifesto, and how even the recommendations of moderation end up being pretty conservative. Specifically, this time around I look at the seven assumptions of centrism, and in most cases the left is far more guilty of extremism than the right.

In this episode I talk about DACA, how it may not be quite as hateful as people make it out to be, and how it is especially not kicking someone while they're down or dancing in the endzone as a continuation of the last episode. From there I discuss the Moderate Manifesto, and how all of the things the author advocates for as a moderate are actually fairly conservative these days. Finally another appeal to slow things down.

Is there a cold civil war taking place? If so which side is right? Or if they both have some truth and some good people how do we limit the damage from this war? How do we keep the cold civil war from turning into a hot civil war? These are the questions we grapple in this episode, using the recent events in Charlottesville as an example.

My aunt directed me to an article about an appalling video. It seems like more and more, what was unimaginable 20 years ago is now completely normal. The question is why? What is the underlying motivation behind the appalling video and things like it?