The answer to that question is. . .

The answer to ESO's question is just a tad too obvious.

Instead, I'll let Adam Greenwood describe the attitude most people in the 'Nacle have about church. His first two paragraphs are concise and accurately summarize 99% of the discourse in the 'Nacle.

In other words, ESO asked the wrong question. The true question to ask is:
"Just how much more self-righteous and despising of your fellow saints at Church have you become because of reading the Bloggernacle?"

Then why are you blogging?

Me, I'm an abstract, non-corporeal, immaterial, redundancy using being that exists only on the internet. What's your excuse Ronan et al?

I know I just correlated Wilifred two posts ago

But this smackdown was so hard, and so complete, I had to take note of it.

Wilifred, who is the font of all wisdom, the European sage who sees clearer than we benighted Americans, who constantly tells long, well-written stories intended to lambast white American Mormons for their narrow mindedness, lack of critical thinking, and parochialism -

Wilifred, the man everyone in the 'Nacle loves and who constantly compares America to some ideal version of Europe that really only exists in the heads of the privileged European elite (which Wilifred either belongs to or aspires to) -

well, he posted an approving link to one of the most fradulent, idiotic, and silly stories to come out of Time magazine. Why? Because it appealed to his liberal, elite European biases.

Adam Greenwood almost immediately shows that Wilifred suffers from all the same problems Wilifred pretends only Americans have.

That, combined with this lovely fisking of the Time article by GetReligion (a good quote: "it’s beyond absurd, for anyone who knows about the legislative process and how quickly a bill can become a law (particularly with this Congress!) to suggest that groups are only allowed to lobby once a bill is in committee") -

Well, it's clear Wilifred is just like the rest of the 'Nacle: Self-absorbed, willing to believe almost anything that confirms his own biases, and too judgmental of others (especially conservatives). The big difference is that Wilifred is an elite European, whereas most of the rest of the 'Nacle merely want to be one.

UPDATE: Showing himself to be even more clueless and close minded than I thought, Wilifred insists that he's right on this issue, despite all the evidence to the contrary. Seriously, Wilifred. Go read intelligent stuff by people other than your ideological peers. It does exist, even though you keep ignoring it. Apparently you wouldn't want to upset your world view.

Special Sidebar Edition

The sidebars/sideblogs that link to supposedly interesting links, especially when they show that someone at the blog has a pathological agenda or clearly lets the pundits do their thinking for them. I actually like Times and Seasonings and Mormon Mentalcases because they at least put the name of the person adding the link. BCC and M* do not, though this is understandable, as their sidebar links tend to be the most insane.

Here are some recent ones that highlight the permafrosters inability to critically think or analyze:
* At BCC, a link to an article built on a falsehood. There are two Sarah Palins out there: 1). The real one, which has never claimed abstinence only education is the only way to go (“I’m pro-contraception, and I think kids who may not hear about it at home should hear about it in other avenues,” she said during a debate in Juneau) and 2). the one the loony left has invented in order to justify their misogyny. Guess which one of those Palins someone at BCC believes in?

* I have no idea why Marc at T&S would think anyone cares about "calendar guy." That loser has already had his 15 and a half minutes of fame. He's not a heroic martyr or a persecuted artist - he's a frickin' loser. Marc must have stock in the guy's company or something.

* At M&M*, a contradiction in terms. It's likely a tax dodge or something. I hate socialism, but realize capitalism is built on greed. As Orson Scott Card once said, capitalism is the most evil of economic systems, except for all the others. "A good capitalist" is a contradiction in terms. The best we can hope for is "not too evil." Read up on what the scriptures say about wealth sometime, people.

* Triplespeak alert! When DKL links to something, it usually an extreme outlier case that he wants to portray as typical and ordinary (sort of like DKL himself - he's an extreme outlier who thinks he's normal - though it may be relative. Compared to Dan the double plus ungood Democrat, DKL is a font of normalcy).

The Church is doomed.

The six scariest words I've read so far this year:
"As I taught seminary this semester" - from Dan "the insane Democrat."

If he's teaching seminary, we're doomed. There's no way someone that pathological can keep his insane political ramblings out of the seminary classroom. Combined with Wilifred's deceleration we need to embrace (and teach about) Obama as a prophet and that missionaries should stop having conservative political opinions because European elites like Obama . . .

Well, it's pretty clear we're really, truly, and royally frakked. Our kids (those that aren't driven away by the frothing at the mouth of Dan or the haughty condescension of Wilifred) are going to become Democrats in need of medication and then go into the missionary field preaching the gospel of Obama and the European elites.

Who needs the Savior of us all when you've got THE ONE who made our planet heal!

Old School Thing Thang Walla Walla Bling Blang

Well, they're a lot like M* over there, having few posts and a small pool of commentators, so I don't always notice what's happening until a few weeks later.

As with this beauty of a post from Geoff J., which can be summarized this way:

"Nevertheless, fear God — he will justify in committing a little sin . . . there is no harm in this . . . if it so be that we are guilty, God will beat us with a few stripes, and at last we shall be saved in the kingdom of God."

I especially love his deceleration that that Finding Nemo is a good guide for how to live. Those scriptures, on the other hand, actually expect you to repent and keep commandments and stuff. Better an animated sea turtle than a living God, I guess.

Oh, and Geoff's statement he's becoming "more mellow, more accepting, more loving, less anxious in general. I think that is a good thing so I am not fighting it these days" - what does that remind me of? Oh, yes. This:

"And others will he pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well"

I'm not sure what Julie means by this -

There are two ways, methinks, to interpret her bizarre comment here:

1. She doesn't realize she's just condemned herself and 99% of the Bloggernacle, being completely blind to the fact she and her cohorts are constantly holding themselves up as authorities while pointedly ignoring any and all legitimate criticisms of their narcissism.

2. She believes you have to destroy the Church in order to save it.

(Me, I think the answer is all of the above).

A Rare Moment of Praise. (no - really)

Amazingly, I'm going to praise someone here. Every so often, someone in the 'Nacle actually does something right, and shows that if the egos were checked at the door (or web browser log in screen, I guess) and the Gospel really was the first priority (rather than whatever hobby horses they have), the 'Nacle might actually be a place worth visiting.

So, I give you Rebecca J., a rare voice of sanity at BCC (I have no idea how she wound up there). Why do I praise her? Not because I agree with her (at times I agree with almost everyone in the 'Nacle on something, most of the time I don't - which one of those this is this time is irrelevant), but because

SHE ACTUALLY SHOWED RESTRAINT AND CHANGED HER MIND WHEN PRESENTED WITH NEW FACTS!

That is so rare on the 'Nacle as to be deserving of praise when it does occur.

It's too bad the rest of the BCCers decided that if Rebecca J. wouldn't play along with their "we are so much smarter than the GAs" game, they'd just pretend the new facts don't exist.