Thursday, March 14, 2024

Gamergate 2 is on, and I want no part of it

 This will not be a long post, but I just want to make clear, as someone who was involved in the first go-round of Gamergate, I want no part of any notional sequel.

For starters, I already found my niche as a games reviewer for ChristCenteredGamer, a place where I feel free to review games on their merits with no chains on my work save our Christian focus and my own conscience, and that is enough for me. My only service to the world as regards gaming is to continue to review games as honestly as possible on their technical merits, unbiased by anything else, and I'm pleased to remain doing so as a reviewer for CCG.

That aside, I want to make perfectly clear I do not want to get in the trenches of any sequel (which appears to be on right now). For those that do, on any side, you do you, but I found my place in the world, I shall stay uninvolved.

Tuesday, March 5, 2024

Review of some Italian and Gouda Cheeses

 It's been awhile since I and my mother got some cheese to review, but we recently sampled four different types of cheese, two of Italian extraction, two being wildly different Gouda-style cheeses.


First, let's start with the cheese I got free thanks to my regular cheesemonger Murray's tossing it in free with my order. That being a Parmigiano-Reggiano, aka that cheese most people have put on their Italian dishes in powder format.

I got a fresh if aged by 5 years slice of said cheese, and the taste in general is not much different from the powdered variety. Like the powdered version, it is a raw cow's milk cheese given a protracted aging process and made with a high density of salt to promote the flavor of Parmesan-style cheese most are familiar with. However, in its fresh state, it lacks much of that concentrated tanginess the powdered, condensed variety often has, while still retaining a gentler flavor despite being a hard cheese. If you want to have Parmesan without it being super tangy and dry as a bone, it goes great with meals, as a snack, or can be crumbled atop your Italian dishes as a fresher alternative to it's dry, powdered version.


The other Italian cheese we tried was SarVecchio Satori. Despite the name, it's actually made in Wisconsin, not Italy, though it's heavily steeped in the same processes as Italian-made Asiago-style cheeses. It's made from pasteurized cow's milk and around 2 years old worth of aging.

As far as I'm concerned, where I didn't like the dry, unrelenting grit of Asagio d'Allevo, this had a similar flavor profile but was far less dried out and more pleasant to chew and savor. My mother noted it was quite salty, as Asagio and Grana style cheese tend towards, and both of us concur it's best served as part of a meal and only usable as a snacking cheese in small portions at best.


The Goudas I got are practically polar opposites of each other, and I'll cover the milder of the two first.


Honey Goat Gouda is a super approachable, creamy even by Gouda standards pasteurized goat milk cheese. With an age of 6 months, it is very soft and not at all hard to eat. It's a farmstead cheese from Holland and its name comes from the infusion of honey into the flavor profile.

To be frank, this is the creamiest, sweetest cheese you are likely to eat that isn't the consistency of flat-out cream cheese, and it's perfect as a snack cheese and very sweet and gentle to the taste. As a washed rind cheese, it's strongly lacking in an acidic taste profile, practically the polar opposite. If I had to rate the various Goudas I've tried, this is at the far end of the shallow end in terms of taste when it comes to tanginess. Both I and my mother enjoyed this one immensely.


Noord Hollander Gouda is basically the Mirror Universe doppelganger of the first one I mentioned. It's pasteurized cow's milk cheese aged to around 4 years, which is pretty long by Gouda standards. It's a PDO (Protected Designation of Origin) cheese specific to the Noord-Holland region. It's a washed rind cheese like the Honey Goat Gouda, but since it's aged a lot longer, it develops an acidic flavor profile as it ages instead of having one earlier on. This makes it have quite the adventurous and tangy flavor profile.


My mother commented it's like if Parmesan was made by Gouda cheesemakers to be as tangy and flavorful as possible, and I can't disagree. It still retains a high amount of the traditional creaminess of Gouda, but this not a cheese that is so gentle on the tongue you can snack on it without getting a lot of flavor as you savor. It can be snacked on if you want something adventurous by Gouda standards, but it's best paired with a meal or as a cooking cheese if you want dilute some of the tang while still enjoying the taste.


Wednesday, February 21, 2024

Because I Feel The Need To Clear The Air On My Take On The Beliefs of Mormons Part 2

 In my last post on the Mormon faith, I established why I consider their doctrine heretical, inconsistent, and so full of contradictions I believed it and still believe it to be lies. In that post, I mostly pointed out where it contradicted the Bible it claims its own literature is deuterocanonical too.

This post is going to point out the flaws in in it's "brick and mortar" arguments, specifically, the real-world facts it does not line up with as regards historical plausibility and where it cannot possibly make logical sense when compared to its own logic with real-world fact.

For the Mormon reader, no, I am not going to going to go for the low-hanging fruit and attack Joseph Smith as a charlatan (though I believe he was). I will not go after any "picky points" about real-world Mormon practices, we could argue the validity of that for years and get nowhere.

Instead, I'm going to show why, by Mormonism own logic and that of the Christian faith it claims to be a perfection of, it cannot be as it claims.


1. The backstory is riddled with "dated" flaws and logic issues.


One of the key reasons I believe Mormons are believers in a lie is that it was very clearly a product of its time. It bears a lot of artifacts of Joseph Smith's day and age that would have made sense by the knowledge then but by contemporary standards the cracks are beyond obvious and the contradictions beyond resolving.


The Book of Mormon claims the true Jerusalem is in America, specifically, the North American continent. In fact, this focus on North America as special is not a new idea. Further, the Book of Mormon hinges on this concept to make sense of itself. If any physical location on the planet is ultimately important in the long run to God's agenda, then they might have a point.

The problem is that their own doctrine states before we were born, we existed in a spiritual state of grace we need to return to and that their idea of Heaven is multi-tiered, with this world and its physical environs nowhere near the top of the list of places you want to be in their concept of the afterlife.

Of course, Mormon doctrine also does not believe this world came from nothing, essentially rejecting the idea God willed this world into existence. In fact, according to their own theology, everything existed in some form before it attained a physical substance as we know it now.

To be fair, the Big Bang theory postulates a similar concept to explain why all we have all physical reality as it exists today, ironically the invention of a Catholic in 1927.

The problem is that their logic smashes headfirst into how both God and his Son made clear this reality is temporal, as is our mortal shells, and even the heavens and earth as we know them will one day pass away to be replaced by something else. This renders their concept of how this world fits into their concept of an afterlife patently absurd.

Worse, it also just recycles the early geocentric theory (which stated Earth was at the center of everything and everything else was in orbit around it) differently. Rather Mormon doctrine states this reality is but one ring in a multi-tiered afterlife, yet oddly places God's own place in the universe near a star called Kolob.

This leads me to question their entire premise because the logic here is tortured. By their own logic, they claim the Bible (at least in its KJV form as clarified via Mormon deuterocanon) is true. They also claim God has a physical reality, so does his Heaven, which by their own logic is on another plane higher than this physical reality (where Earth sits), but somehow exists in the same tangible universe we do. If both Jesus and God made clear this world is a temporal thing and God made it exist by saying, in the very first verse of the Bible, that the heavens and earth as we know them did not exist until He willed it be by His own effort, then how did God exist in a mortal plane like us before it existed by His own words?


2. Their claims their deuterocanon and the Bible match up are absurd due to basic knowledge of history.


Mormon doctrine states everything after the original apostles of Christ died cannot be trusted. In fact, all of the early church history past the original disciples of Christ is a crock. Catholicism and Protestants until Joseph Smith got it wrong until Joseph Smith filled in the blanks to fix that.

With this premise in mind, they oddly, for some reason, still trust the Bible as truthful, albeit it must be accompanied by their deuterocanonical Book of Mormon and other related Mormon-specific additions.

The translation of the Bible favored by Joseph Smith was, like many others, the King James Version. This presents the first logical problem.

The King James Version was compiled in 1604 by King James I for the use of the Church of England. This is a synthesis of earlier efforts dating back to 1525, with at least one of those earlier efforts being Roman Catholic in origin.

Bear in mind, in turn, that the KJV version is based on earlier efforts dating back to the Council of Nicea. Mormons do not consider anything by the Nicean councils valid, nor do they accept anything from any other Orthodox, Catholic, or Protestant sect valid. To them, the Church was a podperson parody of itself until Joseph Smith restored it.

Unfortunately, the Book of Mormon and other documents like the Pearl of Great Price quote mine the KJV extensively, with the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price being a largely recycled version of Genesis as dictated by God to Moses according to said source.

This leads me to one basic question: If Joseph Smith was not lying about the Church being invalid after the original apostles and we cannot trust the Catholic nor any other Protestant take on things, why did he base his own work on the KJV Bible written for the Church of England which in turn forked off Catholicism?

One would think he'd rewrite the original Bible to be correct instead of using a translation from a church he declared illegitimate to base everything else Mormons believe on.


Frankly, just these two points alone massively undermine the very idea their beliefs are in any way consistent and effectively dismantle the validity of everything else by proxy.


Now, I am but an amateur scholar. For a far more in-depth analysis of Mormon documents by someone who did far more extensive scholarly analysis, I would highly recommend the following link, they go into exhaustive detail comparing Mormon source documents and claims to actual reality, written by someone in that faith who, while I do not agree with some of their conclusions, nevertheless points out far more logical errors that make a hash of all it claims.


I recommend getting the free PDF version of the book at this link for optimal reading on desktops and laptop computers.

Saturday, February 17, 2024

Because I Feel The Need To Clear The Air On My Take On The Beliefs of Mormons

 Recently, I had a little incident where I offended a devout Mormon by throwing shade on the Book of Mormon as a fanfic that does not withstand the light of scrutiny. Out of respect for the party in question, whom I apologized to for being unduly rude, I shall not name names nor discuss exactly where it happened or the circumstances. However, because this is my personal blog, I shall set forth my views on Mormonism, with no evasion or sugarcoating, just to clarify my beliefs. If any devout Mormon wishes to offer a rebuttal, I shall accept that maturely and welcome it. 

The only caveat I ask is that the rebuttal give evidence for its views from secondary sources to back up the TANGIBLE claims made by Mormon doctrine (such as geological facts and historical events that should be provable by historical evidence of some kind or backed up by a secondary source). The reason I make this distinction is that Christians and Jews can easily meet this test with their holy books and beliefs, and secular historians of all shades can confirm to varying degrees facts of a non-faith-based nature such as persons, places, and historical events mentioned in the Old and New Testaments that involved other civilizations and peoples who confirmably existed in the historical record. Matters of faith I will not dispute except where I can prove via the Bible (which Mormons claim albeit filtered through their own interpretation via their own deuterocanonical additions) there are clear contradictions.

That all said, let me be absolutely clear. Those who subscribe to Mormon beliefs I have no issue with as people. I know Mormons who are nice people who I respect as human beings with intelligence, conscience, and the free will to choose their own beliefs. However, I have come to the conclusion, frankly, their beliefs do not have any foundation in logical consistency, the tangible evidence cited by their doctrine cannot be falsified (the historical process of confirming or denying its authenticity), and that while they may believe to some extent in actual matters they have common ground with Christians over, that Mormon doctrine is fundamentally a false doctrine that wears the title Christianity as a skinsuit, a cult with well-intentioned people who have been deceived for the most part, and just because their beliefs may be sincere and long-held, it is at its core false teachings that I cannot respect as having any moral value on equal standing with mainline Christian doctrine as considered basically acceptable to most Protestants or Catholics.


First off, let me start off by saying I revere the study of history, and since Mormon belief posits as a foundation of its core concepts an extensive retcon of actual real-world history to retroactively make it line up with both doctrine and history otherwise canon to the Bible and real-world secular history, then I believe if it cannot be made to square with either, then it's fundamental beliefs must be lies.


1. First off let us examine core Mormon doctrine. I shall refer to this site for the basic arguments and my take on them.


A. Mormon doctrine essentially repudiates everything after the death of the original apostles of Christ as illegitimate. While Jesus did say that Peter would be the rock he would build his church, that did not mean Peter nor any other apostle was any more special than any other mortal for determining the continuation of the Holy Word or the spread of its message. Mormon doctrine essentially claims until Joseph Smith came along, humanity was stumbling in the wilderness with a flawed, perverted version of the actual beliefs in God until Joseph Smith and his successors had the perfected version restored.

Frankly, this is not a new argument. Islam also claims to be the perfected version of the revelations of God, given by the Prophet Muhammad, and that Jews and Christians had an imperfect version of the actual truth.

Mormons (though of late they have come to not want to be called this anymore due to negative historical associations they wish to distance themselves from) are frankly making a gigantic ask here, basically saying past the life of the original apostles' everything between then up until the 19th century was a perverted, twisted version of the truth, essentially recycling the same argument as Muslims, just in the 1800s instead of in the 600s of the AD calendar. As they make an extraordinary claim, this requires extraordinary evidence, which I can prove, citing the very Bible they claim to adhere to, does not match up with their take on things.


B. The Mormon view of the Bible is that is it not inerrant nor complete. Again, this is an argument many like Muslims and many splinter cults from the early church like Montantism made to "retcon" the Bible and add newer content down the line without the messy problem of repudiating the old.

However, this presents the first logical problem. If Christianity was a flawed, perverted shell of itself after the original apostles of Christ died, and the first canonization of the scriptures which even they largely accept was done by the Council of Nicaea a few hundred years after those original apostles passed (and later translated to English in the first form they accept as the KJV version), then how can they accept the current Bible as considered canonical by most Protestant denominations (with Mormons defaulting to the KJV version as a base) a remotely accurate basis for their deuterocanon? If they suspect anything after the original apostles died, and the canonization of scripture was not done by anyone they considered proper Christians, then their core premise that the Bible is not inerrant nor complete means one of two things. Either they need it to be true because it's the only way their retcons can be justified, or they are being inconsistent and giving the canonization of the Bible some degree of legitimacy, which undermines the core of their argument they cannot trust anything after the death of the original apostles. I respectfully contend their arguments don't wash.


C. Mormon concepts about the nature of man I find entirely incompatible with Christianity, let me cite the description from the above-linked website, and then I shall present my analysis. (original in italics, my commentary in regular font)


According to Mormon theology, men and women are the spirit sons and daughters of God. We lived in a premortal spirit existence before birth. In this first estate we grew and developed in preparation for the second estate. In this second estate we walk by faith. A veil of forgetfulness has been placed over our minds so we don’t remember what we did and who we used to be in our premortal existence. Our purpose in this life is to grow and mature in a physical body to prepare us for our final eternal state.


Mormons do not believe in human depravity. We are not implicated in Adam’s fall. We are basically good in our eternal nature, but prone to error in our mortal nature. The human is a being in conflict, but also a being with infinite potential.

For starters, the first sentence I won't split hairs over. The next two sentences I do not see proof in the Bible for and frankly, I won't argue too much YET. The fourth sentence is where the first major contradiction crops up.

Mormon doctrine argues our premortal existence was essentially blanked out so we live our lives without a conscious remembrance of it, rendering it superfluous. This does not mesh with how the Bible says it was appointed unto man only once to live and die, and how upon reaching the age of accountability will our actions for or against God be weighted against us.

The Mormon concept of a premortal existence we are not aware of has seen use in another form in the beliefs of Scientology, which has a variant on the concept being memories of a past life. Again, if this premortal state is effectively irrelevant to how we are judged in the eyes of God, then its mention is effectively without a point. The entire concept falls apart on this basic logic error.

The last sentence after this part I won't split hairs over, but the next paragraph is full of contradictions.

The essential concept of salvation is that humanity CANNOT save itself. By the fall of Adam, man became marked as unregenerate without the intercessions of God to save us from our own inquiry. Mormons accept the basic backstory of the Garden of Eden and the events of its resulting aftermath, yet essentially reject the key result of Adam's action reflecting on humanity. If we take this logic at face value, humanity has nothing to prove, atone for, or have to accept we are flawed beings in need of outside intervention.

Mormons essentially argue that the Garden of Eden was a failure of the direct participants in those events and affected no one else. This, despite God in the very same event making clear Adam and Eve's fall from grace, would place the curse of their sin on their descendants having to endure suffering and being denied eternal life free from toil and hardship such as was enjoyed in the Garden.

If the Garden of Eden is just a burden on the direct participants alone, then that means Mormons argue God lied about the curse of sin having a knock-on effect on the descendants of the first man and woman. In short, their argument we are without innate depravity does not make sense.

The rest is even more confusing. If we have an eternal nature that cannot be flawed while our mortal side can be flawed, they are effectively arguing for two entities in the same flesh, one of a mortal nature, and one of a divine, coexisting in the same mortal shell. Given they basically deny the innate sinfulness of man, this two-party entity in a mortal shell thus cannot be flawed by human weakness or evil, and thus renders any need to atone for sin irrelevant by their own doctrinal standards. The very last sentence is rather vague and also contradicts their own argument, saying we are in conflict with ourselves (which makes no sense if we cannot have our souls err and thus our mortal aspect is irrelevant to our immortal aspect) while also possessing infinite potential.

D. I shall again cite the above-linked website, then present my analysis:


In Mormon thought, God has a physical body. According to Doctrine and Covenants, “The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also;” but “The Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit.”

We already run into a contradiction of massive proportions here. God is supposed to be an omnipotent being, by His own admission, outside the limits of mortality. God's entire premise of supremacy of over all creation rests on this premise. If God is confined to a mortal shell of any sort, that makes the being the Mormons worship NOT the same God Christians worship. Jesus, as God's Son, adopted a mortal shell but had a spirit untainted by the seed of Adam. Mormons thus argue the same discredited heresy of Arianism, which rejected the concept Christ ever had a mortal form of any sort, given their take on the Garden of Eden. About the only thing they agree on Christians with is the Holy Spirit's form.


Whether God the Father is self-existent is unclear. There was a long procession of gods and fathers leading up to our Heavenly Father. Brigham Young once remarked, “How many Gods there are, I do not know. But there never was a time when there were not Gods and worlds.” What is clearer is that the Mormon God is not a higher order or a different species than man. God is a man with a body of flesh and bones like us.

Again, Mormons are at direct cross-purposes with the Bible. The very first line of the Bible said God created the heavens and the earth and before that the corporeal universe as we know it did not exist until He said so. This is rendered an absurdity under Mormon doctrine. Further, God made clear multiple times humanity was NEVER at any level equal or approximate to Him. If God is as they say, he is NOT an omnipotent being without mortal limits, and thus I contend they do not worship the same God as Christians.


Mormons do not believe in the Trinity. They affirm the unity of three personages, but the unity is a relational unity in purpose and mind, not a unity of essence. The three separate beings of the Godhead are three distinct Gods.

We've already established their own doctrine makes a hash of the very content of the Bible, and this part is even more absurd. The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit are a triune entity in Christian thought, but Mormons declare them all separate beings with a shared vision, which is logically absurd on its face. The Holy Spirit is supposed to be what leads men to God, the Son made clear he only spoke in the name of his Father, and the Father (God) is why the other two exist. They are three separate entities yes, but of the same being incarnate in three forms that share the same inherent essence according to the scriptures of which I am aware. Again, Mormons are recycling Arianism's discredited canards despite the logical errors they present.


E. Their views on Christ first, then my analysis:


Mormons believe Jesus is Redeemer, God, and Savior. He is endless and eternal, the only begotten son of the Father. Through Jesus, the Heavenly Father has provided a way for people to be like him and to live with him forever.

So far, so good.


But this familiar language does not mean the same thing to Mormons as it does to Christians. Jesus was born of the Father just like all spirit children. God is his Father in the same way he is Father to all. Whatever immortality or Godhood Jesus possesses, they are inherited attributes and powers. He does not share the same eternal nature as the Father. Jesus may be divine, but his is a derivative divinity. Mormon theology teaches, in the words of Joseph Smith, that Jesus Christ is “God the Second, the Redeemer.”

Again, Mormons recycle the canards of Arianism. Arianism just could not accept how a sinless spirit could coexist in a temporary mortal shell, so they claimed his mortal form was also divine because such a concept they could not resolve in their own minds, hence denial of his being born in a mortal form. The fact this makes his death in said mortal form an inherent absurdity is obvious and makes for a logical error they cannot resolve.

Jesus made quite clear he had to die in his mortal form to redeem us, made it clear multiple times in the Gospels and it played out exactly as he said God intended. By Mormon theology, this was just an elaborate live-action roleplay exercise devoid of any actual meaning, making Jesus a liar and God one by proxy by their own logic.

F. Now to cover their view on atonement, then my analysis:


Mormons believe Jesus died for sins and rose again from the dead. The atonement is the central event in history and essential to their theology. And yet, Mormons do not have a precise doctrine of the atonement. They do not emphasize Christ as a wrath-bearing substitute, but emphasize simply that Christ somehow mysteriously remits our sins through his suffering.

I am already flabbergasted. If they accept everything up until the original apostles passed away, they should KNOW this is absurd. Christ died in his mortal shell on the cross to be the perfect sacrifice for all sin that no mortal could otherwise offer because their spirit was tainted by original sin. According to Mormon concepts already established, Jesus just suffers pain, and that somehow cleanses humanity of the burden of sin without elaboration. Even in the Books of the Law, God made clear no mortal sacrifice could ever truly wash away sin without his sanction of the sacrifice being worthy of doing so and even then it would not be permanent if one sinned again. Jesus' death on the cross, as Christ was also God, would have thus been the only logical sacrifice that would be eternally acceptable.


While the atonement itself is not overly defined, the way in which the atonement is made efficacious is much more carefully delineated. Salvation is available because of the atoning blood of Christ, but this salvation is only received upon four conditions: faith, repentance, baptism, and enduring to the end by keeping the commandments of God (which include various Mormon rituals).

In this, they do not agree with Catholics or Protestants AT ALL. In Catholic and Protestant traditions, only God's grace through faith is the only sure guarantee of salvation. No good work will ever save someone on the basis of the work alone, no ritual will ever make one ceremonially clean before God entirely on its own, and if one dies hoping these will help without faith in the promises of God, then one is LOST. Protestants and Catholics have a lot of disputes over the proper sacraments and their meaning, but if either were denied any and all sacraments, such as the thief on the cross who was still saved through faith ALONE, they could still be saved by divine grace,

Mormons are just recycling "you must do certain procedures and rituals" in just another form for another generation to be deceived. Worse, by making the exact nature of atonement not dependent on the eternal sacrifice of Christ for our sin, yet not establishing clearly what IS the proper sacrifice to make up for it while saying certain rituals are absolutely required, they do not walk the same road any Protestant or Catholic does on their way to salvation. Again, I emphasize in this regard Mormon doctrine is irrationally vague whereas Protestants and Catholics have a far more specific concept based on prior logic for how it works.


Finally, it should be noted Mormon theology stresses the suffering in the garden rather than the suffering on the cross. Atonement may have been completed on Golgotha, but it was made efficacious in Gethsemane.

This seriously confuses me. How does Jesus being scared and nervous like anyone would be of death and pain do anything? Jesus still died on the Cross for us, which even they will concede, even if they reject the end result as following the same logic of standard Christian doctrine. Since they reject the core point of Christ's sacrifice despite claiming as canon all that was in existence until the passing of the original apostles, who themselves backed up the Protestant and Catholic view Christ's sacrifice was essential, this is illogical on every level.


G. The final part is going to cover their view of salvation, followed by my commentary, and be warned, this part is far longer and will require a lot of commentary:


The goal of Mormon salvation is not about escaping wrath as much as it is about maximizing our growth and ensuring our happiness. Salvation is finding our way back to God the Father and recalling our forgotten first estate as his premortal spirit children.

I'm already stunned. Freedom from the penalty of the taint of sin on the human soul caused by Man's fall at the Garden, that's actual Christian doctrine. Mormons are using the same logic of Scientology that we have a past life we need to reconcile with our current one.


Mormon theology teaches that we cannot receive an eternal reward by our own unaided efforts. In some respects, salvation is based on what we have earned, but what we earn is by grace. How this plays out in Mormon life may differ from person to person, but they stress that the gift of the Holy Ghost is conditional upon continued obedience. Mormons must keep the First Principles and Ordinances, which consist of the Ten Commandments, tithing, chastity, and the “Word of Wisdom” which prohibits tobacco, coffee, tea, alcohol, and illegal narcotics.

More I'm stunned by. In Acts, which took place as Peter was STILL ALIVE (remember, Mormons accept everything up until the original apostles died), God struck down the ceremonial and ritual prohibitions that separated Jew and Gentile, and the early church while Peter was still alive concurred on this. If Mormons are actual Christians, fine, make your own personal rules for what you consider permissible, but your personal dietary restrictions are NOT canonical to actual scripture. Further, while I commend the following of the Commandments and chastity, and tithing when done by a genuinely giving spirit who does not believe salvation can be earned by doing so, the very last part is Mormon-specific and has no basis in Scripture.


Temples are also important in Mormon doctrine and practice. Couples must be married in a Mormon temple to have an eternal marriage, and every Mormon must be baptized in one of their 135 (and counting) authorized Temples. Because of the importance of baptism in the Temple, baptisms for the dead are extremely common. Mormons keep detailed genealogical records so that their ancestors can be properly baptized. By one estimate more than 100 million deceased persons have been baptized by proxy baptism in Mormon temples. Those who received this baptism are free in the afterlife to reject or accept what has been done on their behalf.

I cannot facepalm hard enough. Jesus made the point the dead are beyond saving, they had their chance to accept God's grace while alive, as recounted in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. Ergo, this concept is heretical and absurd.

Speaking for myself, and let me make clear this is speculation on my part, but the Mormon aversion to the concept of being denied the kingdom of Heaven strikes me as fear they can be denied Grace, hence all the dodges around the idea of the need for an eternal sacrifice and that even the dead who died without Grace can be redeemed. Frankly, the fear of dying unredeemed is understandable, but when you have to make up something not supported by scripture to give yourself an "out" to avoid this, then that tells me you don't like the fact Grace is something you can die without. 


Death in Mormon thinking is seen as another beginning, complete with opportunities to respond to postmortem preaching in the world to come. We will live in the spirit world, and at some point our spirit and body will be reunited forever.

We have entered the realm of outright heresy. Our mortal bodies mean NOTHING. Humanity was made from the dust of the earth, our mortal shells, like this world, are temporal, they will pass away and in the end they will be replaced by something eternal. Mormon concepts and Christianity entirely part company on this point.


There are four divisions in the afterlife. The Lake of Fire is reserved for the Devil, his demons, and those who commit the unpardonable sin. The Telestial Kingdom is where the wicked go. It is a place of suffering but not like the Lake of Fire. Most people go to the Telestial Kingdom where they are offered salvation again. The lukewarm-not quite good, not quite evil-go to the Terrestrial Kingdom when they die. This Kingdom is located on a distant planet in the universe. The Celestial Kingdom is for the righteous. Here God’s people live forever in God’s presence. We will live as gods and live with our spouses and continue to procreate. This is the aim and the end of Mormon salvation.

Mormon concepts of the afterlife is just Catholicism with extra steps that make sure no one can truly die without a chance at Grace. By their own concepts, they have spit on the words of Jesus, who said we not marry or be given to marriage, but will be like the angels in Heaven. They also assume that they can rise to level of godhood, another heresy that assumes we are in any way equal to God.



I may write future posts on this topic to further share my issues with Mormonism and why it cannot claim to fall under the umbrella of Christianity by any definition that would be even broadly conformant to that known to Protestants or Catholics. In the meantime, now that I have finished, this should hopefully express with good reason and civil words my reasons why I consider Mormon doctrine heretical, unworthy of being called Christian, and why I believe those who are sincere believers in it have been deceived and that they should turn away for the sake of true repentance and salvation.

Friday, December 8, 2023

Geth Reviews an Okay Gun: The Type 100 Submachine Gun

 Now, I reviewed two weapons prior that were pretty terrible, the Chauchat and the Type 94 pistol. Both of these weapons had so many flaws I was forced to give them bad reviews. The Type 100 SMG of Japanese WW2 fame was far from the best gun deployed, but on the whole, it was quite good for what it was made for and the limitations its sponsor nation had.


First, a little background. Japan was oddly late to the idea of incorporating SMGs into their arsenal during World War II. Despite having battlefields ideal for their deployment and being well suited for the mission they needed them for, they showed oddly little interest until very late into the war, and they never deployed the gun in question in very large numbers even after they proved their worth, likely due to shortage of materials over any other reason.





Like many Japanese weapons of the period, it is a product of Kirijo Nambu, who made and/or refined practically every weapon the Japanese would carry as small arms. While some of his designs were pretty horrible, like the Type 94, this was actually a pretty decent weapon design. After a few false starts with some earlier prototypes that never saw much use beyond proof of concept prototypes, the Type 100 (formal name 一〇〇式機関短銃, Hyaku-shiki kikan-tanjū) was finally accepted for deployment in 1940.


Before covering the gun features, it bears noting this was a very late time to consider submachine guns compared to every other force in WW2. It would have been far more useful to their arsenal several years prior, as SMGs were ideal for use in the jungle and for close-quarters assault missions as opposed to rather ungainly long rifles and machine guns.



Here is the list of features common to the original model:

  • The ammo used was the standard, slightly underpowered 8mm Nambu pistol cartridge. While not as powerful as the rounds used by other nations, it was more than adequate for the limited mission needs of the Japanese.
  • The design takes a LOT of cues from the German MP18 of World War I fame. Given it was the basis of many designs of the period, including the Beretta SMG the Italians used, this was not a bad choice for the base concept. The gun was a mix of wood and metal, with wood making up most of the furniture of the weapon.
  • The feed mechanism was a good idea in theory but not so great in practice. It was designed so a round had to be fully chambered before it would fire. While an ideal safety feature, this meant you couldn't even do a dry fire to check the cycle of action, you had to have some sort of round fully loaded. This also hurt the fire rate, it being a rather paltry 400-450 RPM (Rounds per minute) at best on a good day.
  • It was plated with chrome for easier cleaning around the barrel. The barrel also had an integral compensator.
  • It had adjustable iron sights.
  • It had a curved box magazine with a 30-round capacity.
  • The firing mechanism was a blowback action. While adequate, the complex safety features hobbled the firing rate.
  • It had support for a bipod, muzzle brake, and bayonet lug,




The paratrooper variant was more or less similar to the original, except the stock was made for folding via a metallic hinge. While a practical idea, given the need for portability, it did slightly weaken the integrity of the gun due to the fact it effectively loosed the front and back ends of the stock, making for slightly worse recoil.




To cut costs, a lot of features were cut down, removed, or simplified:

  • The adjustable tangent iron sight was replaced with a fixed welded peep sight. This was arguably the biggest downgrade since this meant the sight could not be adjusted and if it was welded crooked, you were basically stuck with a bad sight that was already marginal at best.
  • The finish and quality took a nosedive. The wood and metal were not finished, lots of welding was used wherever possible, and this was not very fun to hold with ungloved hands.
  • The muzzle brake attachment was deleted and a much simpler integrated version was done by drilling a port hole or two into the barrel end.
  • The bayonet lug was replaced with a much simpler attachment point. The bipod attachment was deleted.
  • The stock was reverted to the non-paratrooper version, which was actually a good idea, the paratrooper version was less sturdy.
  • The complicated fire control mechanism was removed and the rate of fire increased to 800 RPM

Essentially, this late war version wasn't that much of a downgrade in overall performance aside from the sights and it did see some use in many of the latter campaigns. It's only real flaw aside from the inherently low powered ammunition is the limited number produced, as Japan did not have the ability to make these in numbers that would have made any real difference.

That said, it was overall a weapon that "too little, too late", but that could be said of a lot of their war efforts, so this gun alone was not going to make or break the Japanese forces any worse than they were historically. Regardless, it was one of Kirijo Nambu's more competent designs despite it's flaws, and while I'd prefer something better, it was, at worst, acceptable for the mission assigned to it, just never produced in quantity that mattered.

Friday, November 3, 2023

Reviews of Jarlsberg, Appenzeller White, and Asiago D'Allevo Cheese

 This month, I chose to go outside my usual selections for cheese and get some things outside my palate, just for variety.

To that end, I got three cheeses, all of wildly different flavor profiles, and below are my reviews of them all


Jarlsberg


Jarlsberg is Norwegian cheese, trademarked in 1972. It's a Swiss-type cheese made from cow's milk. Its origins date back to the 1850's. It has "gas holes", the traditional eyes of Swiss-type cheeses due to propionic bacteria, a harmless bacterium used to culture the cheese, and causes the eyes due to the buildup of CO2.

According to Murray's, it was sold as a mild, even mild fruity cheese, and in my and mother's taste testing, this is generally true, being very gentle and even slightly sweet for a Swiss-style cheese. It's a cheese I would easily recommend as a snack and cooking cheese, and I'm normally not a fan of Swiss cheese in general.

This, however, is something even I'm going to concede is pleasant to eat despite my own bias.



Appenzeller White


Now, this cheese is really out of my comfort zone. It's a somewhat stinky (albeit mildly) cheese made in an herbal brine made with raw cow's milk in Switzerland. It is the 'White" brand of Appenzeller, as it has many other sister brands named after colors.


Now, for a cheese with a stinky smell, this one is not overpowering. My mother, who has an aversion to Limburger, was able to eat this one without feeling overly ill, and even I could do so, so while it does have an unmistakable herbal odor, it's not overly cloying. The taste is definitely creamy milk mixed with a definite hint of spices and various herbs. If that sort of thing floats your boat, then this is a good cheese to enjoy, particularly as part of a meal to play off the flavor with complementary food items. It's edible on its own but not my choice as a snack cheese.


Asiago D'Allevo


This may be the first Italian cheese I did not overly enjoy. This is a hard cheese from the Veneto region of Italy. It's rather hard and I got cheese that was nearly a year old, more suitable for grating. As opposed to the milder Pecorino Romano and Grana Padano, both quite edible on their own even when aged, this is not the easiest to chew after it gets a certain age. It is less bland and certainly more piquant, someone wanting a grating cheese with more kick to it and less of a dry grainy or flaky and more fresh taste would enjoy it, but I found it wasn't to my palate.

Thursday, October 19, 2023

I'd like to extend a warm thank you to Shirogane of Fundies Say the Darndest Things

 I've arrived. For having the audacity to say, LE GASP, maybe the transgender lobby might need to moderate their approach and quit demanding all of humanity deny their own eyes, brain, and personal conscience to accommodate them, I have gotten an entry on the "hall of shame" (really not ashamed at all, I think I'll take a picture of it and frame it) that is Fundies Say the Darndest Things


Original here: https://fstdt.com/@Shirogane

On top of editing out the rest of my post and selectively curating one section out of context for other like-minded people to seethe at (and Shirogane, you can be honest, you were the anon who left a comment calling me crazy in response and ran to FSTDT to post what made you mad as some childish revenge), they also seem to think I'm some horrible transphobic bigot because I refuse to be a mindless lickspittle for their every demand. I'm actually pretty moderate on that. Do your thing without harming me or anyone else and I don't care what you do with your life, it's your business, just don't shove it into mine, and don't demand I kiss your ring lest you try to publicly pillory me for refusal.

And with that noted, Shirogane, well, if you were hoping to make me feel bad when I discovered your attempt to cancel me, well, I'm just going to dig in my heels and laugh. I knew what I posted would be free for public consumption and comment, so being attacked for calling something I deemed wrong as me being the bad guy because I hurt feelings does not bother me. And Dunning-Kruger, really? I admit I could possibly be wrong, but instead of trying to reason with me, you instead did the cowardly move of talking about me behind my back. Protip: A civil attempt to change my mind would have worked a lot better.


That said, I bear no grudges and take no offense. I forgive this because it's not worth getting upset over, and being an unshamed Christian, earning the scorn of the world is nothing to be surprised by. If anything, thanks. Glad to know someone actually reads this blog, I graciously thank you for the support.

Gamergate 2 is on, and I want no part of it

 This will not be a long post, but I just want to make clear, as someone who was involved in the first go-round of Gamergate, I want no part...