Hey, at least I got one person, which was the bare threshold I was aiming for with this rather implausible tale. If anyone else believes it, even for a second, before reading the comments, I command you to confess.
Not bad, Tia. I might have fallen for it if I hadn't been previously innoculated by what I think of as the best prank post of my blog-reading experience. It may not scan quite the same these days, but if you read the comments at Atrios's site, you get a sense of how well it worked then. And, ya, Henley had me for about a day. Bastard.
Not me! I'm going to do a triumphant dance and never let you guys forget it!
Last year, right before I met Graham, before a second date with this law student (we'd made out a little on the first date), I told him via email that I'd just talked to the powerful New York businessman I slept with in exchange for rent, and I thought we had a previous understanding that I could see other people, but he got really mad when I told him where I'd been the other night, and I'd imprudently told the businessman his name, and he'd perhaps be in a position to damage the law student's career...
He totally fell for it. Electronic media have done wonders for my ability to pull off practical jokes.
I think I might have sent Henley a plaintive e-mail, too, Apo. I absolutely remember being shocked, SHOCKED, and composing the e-mail in my head. Bastard.
I was fooled by it. My wheels were spinning round trying to make some kind of sense of this weirdness until I read comment 3. Me! Who has already been reminded of the date a couple times today!
I fell for it. Indeed, I find the thought of Ogged making eye babies with someone he met through this site so charming that, comment 3 notwithstanding, I still believe it. The April Fool's Day thing is just Tia's attempt to walk back from her indiscretion.
Wow. I even know the story around the TiVo reset... but was *still* all perspire-y and thinking, "The bastard! He's been lying to me this whole time! Bastard!"
This is a signal that perhaps I need to up the meds again. Paranoia's so much fun. I'll be second-guessing everything today.
ps... I should add that I am pretty easily pwned. Last year, I fell for the story that scientists have found a way to make bicycle wheels more round. It had something to do with pie.
I rather prefer the illusion that on the blog, none of us knows no more than has been made public. But I'm probably just saying that because I'm turning a striking shade of green.
I'd like to remind everyone that Tia admitted at the meet-up to being the most gullible person on earth. Methinks the lady doth use the internet to get the world back for all the times she's been suckered.
Oh dear. You mean it's a joke. And here I was going to commiserate with her. Tell her that this was a very bad idea. Tell her she shouldn't waste her youth and beauty on a has-been. That she shouldn't become desperate. That there would be others.
See how my credulity has been cruelly played upon. My sympathy exploited.
And though really I just have no resistance to pranks like this (oldest child? parents lacking that devilish bent? not enough friends to immunize me when young?) I would like to think that the first paragraph, with its relative plausibility, masterfully suckered me in for the second.
I totally fell for it---- but it is April 2 here in NZ, so perhaps I have an excuse--- though I must admit I think I would have fallen for this yesterday--- and it all seemed so sweet; I was all "aaww, they have found each other" yadda yadda... Brava Tia!
I'm so glad I didn't actually publish the post I'd written about feeling gross about making all those Tia-involving lewd remarks in the comments section of Ogged's (erstwhile) blog. So, so glad.
Apo, are we ready to go public with our unholy union?
I'm a lazy lurker. With all the swimming, I had forgotten any and all small arms talk.
Though really, Matt, both your objections were parenthetical in the post, and I get distracted around parentheses. (). (Isn't that pretty?) (Though if the comments here have taught me anything, it's that the tradition 'round the internet seems to be to stuff something in between them, the more the better...)
Not only was I totally taken in, but I actually gasped audibly (and very masculinely, too) and started exclaiming to my wife, "Oh my God! This... person you don't know? And this other person you don't know? They totally hooked up!"
Of course, since both Tia and Ogged are people I don't technically know either, I'm even lamer that it appears at first glance.
Re 49, I had a professor in undergrad tell me that you only get two pairs of paretheses for your entire academic career and you should be careful how to used them. It helped my writing a lot.
Totally believed the first paragraph, even though I've been talking about how it's April 1st and being bothered by not having a good prank. Didn't believe the rest, but didn't connect its falsity to the date.
59: I've heard the same thing, in multiple contexts, about exclamation points, but never parentheses. If I ever plan on writing extensively for anything other than my own entertainment, I may be in trouble. But until then... (I also love ellipses)
The tragic part of this story is that, in the face of such impious skepticism, Tia now seems to feel obliged to denounce having felt ogged's Presence in her. Be not overhasty to retract, Tia! as the punishment for apostacy is to gnash the teeth for eternity in the Outer Darkness from which none return to his Love!
I suppose I believed the post, though I looked at the comments too quickly to be sure, but at the same time, as I read it I thought "this doesn't read like a normal Tia post." I can't figure out exactly why I thought the style seemed different. Would it make sense to say that it seemed like the spaces between the words and sentences seemed different?
73: I believed the post (being at GMT+10 handicaps me, by the time the blog pranks roll around it's April 2 here and my yearly cynicism has been exhausted) but there's something about this sentence that is stylistically off: "I told you I was capable of infidelity, although my relationship in fact ended much sooner after Ogged and I commenced a seeing each other than I let on, and I delayed the news in part to deflect attention." Too many thoughts crammed in there, too much justification.
gswift, Jackmormon, that brings up something that's been bothering me for a while. As I understand it, gentiles like me get a reasonably sweet deal in the afterlife; we get to go to the Earthly Paradise or something like that. Now we don't get sealed forever with our spouses or anything like that, but still, reasonably sweet. Whereas if we convert to Teh Church and then fall away, it's the Outer Darkness for us. So from a Pascal's Wager point of view isn't it pretty dumb to convert? Even if true LDS heaven is infinitely better than Earthly Paradise (which I kind of think of as Utah with good beer, the people opposed to it all having been raptured), assuming there's a non-zero chance of apostasy the expected utility of converting is infinity minus infinity, which is undefined. And maximin tells me to stay heathen. Please advise.
Matt, while I think you've pretty much nailed the cost-risk analysis, there are a few complications.
1. You're gonna be envious in the afterlife. That's the punishment of the lower worlds. Utah with beer might sound fine to you now, but Jesus (and your more sanctimonious relatives) will regularly visit to remind you that you fucked up your chance to become a God.
2. The I-didn't-get-to-hear-the-Word bailout Mormonism offers to nonbelievers in the first phase of the afterlife (Spirit Prison) doesn't apply so much to people who actually did get the chance in convert in their lives. And even then, every soul has to get baptized on earth, hence the whole genealogical project of finding names of dead people and baptizing them--and various Jewish groups have pressured the Church to stop doing that to their relatives, so you might be out of luck on that score too.
3. The Outer Darkness for Apostates thing seems to be an artefact of Uncle Joe's need to maintain control over his flock. In the cosmology I learned, Outer Darkness seems to be populated almost solely of Satan and his unincarnated 1/3 of the heavenly host, Judas, and those early Mormons who publicized their memories of faking the Book of Mormon. I'm really not sure how many pious Mormons truly believe in it, although the central leadership hasn't bothered to repudiate the doctrine, as far as I know.
So, my advice would be to hedge your wager by releasing your name as available for proxy baptism after your death.
We were actually talking about the I-didn't-get-to-hear-the-word thing at work the other day and trying to figure out what the threshold had to be in order to qualify for that afterlife exemption. (This flowed out of an argument over whether I was going to Hell for eating meat on a Friday.)
Obviously, someone in a tribal village that never heard the name of Jesus would get a pass and someone who has been told all about the Gospel but rejected it would suffer the consequences. But what if you've heard the name of Jesus but nobody told you that he was God? Or what if someone just came up with you once and said "Jesus is God" but never told you any more about it or why you should believe it? Would that be enough to cause you to be treated as someone who rejected Him? If that's the case and you are to be punished for not accepting that statement on faith, how are you supposed to know that "Jesus is God" is more valid than, say, "Motumbo is God", without any further evidence? My (Catholic) co-worker believed that just hearing the words "Jesus is God" and then not choosing to believe it was enough to be treated in the afterlife as if you had rejected him but I argued that one would need more information than that.
One of my mother's bizarre theological tenets (in addition to her literal interpretation of the command to forgive a man seventy times seven times) is that the true age of accountability is thirty. Why? "Because no one can be held accountable for the stupid crap they do in their twenties. No God is so cruel."
See I was going to make fun, especially of the part about the saved coming back to Utah-with-beer every so often to make fun of the rest of us–should've figured they couldn't resist&ndashbut:
In the spirit prison are the spirits of those who have not yet received the gospel of Jesus Christ. These spirits have agency and may be enticed by both good and evil. If they accept the gospel and the ordinances performed for them in the temples, they may prepare themselves to leave the spirit prison and dwell in paradise.... Also in the spirit prison are those who rejected the gospel after it was preached to them on earth or in the spirit prison. These spirits suffer in a condition known as hell.... The hell in the spirit world will not continue forever. Even the spirits who have committed the greatest sins will have suffered sufficiently by the end of the Millennium (see Acts 2:25-27). They will then be resurrected
kinda makes sense to me. Especially the parts about how spirits retain agency after death, and even the greatest sinners have not sinned enough to deserve an eternity of hell. That last part always stuck in my craw.
I may still have issues with the LDS church about not having enough respect for suffering in their theodicy (and I definitely have issues with the sexism, homophobia, and general conservatism), but this makes the church more attractive to me, in a "never ever ever gonna think about converting even for a second" kind of way.
Revise and extend: in the "never ever ever gonna think about converting even for a second" kind of way that I find versions of Christianity attractive in general (which in other demoninations is mostly a matter of being moved by depictions of Christ's suffering).
Spirit prison appealed to me, too. That way, my atheistical father could be saved after he was dead.
You make a great point about the insufficient respect for suffering. I hadn't ever thought of it so starkly, but, yeah, Mormon doctrine carries a strong undercurrent of perfectibility, and the underplaying of Christ's cruxifixion reverberates across the entire religious culture. I'll have to think more about that.
When I'd been in SLC a couple months I picked up this album. The best track by far is "Eloi," a crucifixion song with no verse about the Resurrection. (And it says "how they nailed him to the tree" instead of "how they nailed him to the cross," which I couldn't help connecting to the Black American Experience.) Not till I heard it did I realize that the LDS temple doesn't have any crosses on it as all. That's what got me thinking about this.
And of course no religion is under any obligation whatsoever to appeal to the aesthetic sense of a non-adherent like me.
But there's definitely something appealing about perfectibility too.
The literal interpretation of the seventy-times-seven thing reminds me of Rimmer's parents from Red Dwarf who, because their Bible had a typo asserting that of faith, hop, and charity, the greatest was hop, only hopped on Sundays, making soup service somewhat precarious.
And it says "how they nailed him to the tree" instead of "how they nailed him to the cross," which I couldn't help connecting to the Black American Experience.
Not Baldur, Odin, or any of the other Jesusalikes who died on trees?
SPEAKING OF "The Dark is Rising", it just occurred to me that it's pretty weird to have a YA book series whose climactic moment is the symbolic cutting-off of testicles.
Matt, LDS theology holds that the redemption of sin occurred during the night of prayer in Gethsemane. The cruxifixion is glossed as being a somehow necessary step that isn't very nice to talk too much about. (My non-Mormon grandmother's estate included a lovely little cross pendant that eventually ended up with me because everyone else just felt too weird about wearing it. Ironic, eh?)
I don't remember anything about those books, except that running water dissolved magic. I'm impressed you guys have such a grasp on books you read as a kid.
Maybe not testicles specifically. I haven't read the books in a long time, but that sounds right as the title. Doesn't Main Dude have to cut some shit from a tree with a ponderous sword?
holy sh*t.
Posted by arthegall | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 6:23 AM
the best stories??
:)
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 6:25 AM
no, no wait. of course. 4/1/2005.
damn you tia...
Posted by arthegall | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 6:26 AM
Hey, at least I got one person, which was the bare threshold I was aiming for with this rather implausible tale. If anyone else believes it, even for a second, before reading the comments, I command you to confess.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 6:32 AM
merde! merde, merde. poisson d'avril!!
Posted by mmf! | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 6:34 AM
Is the Swedish grad student part bunk too? Damn! That would have been so sweet.
Posted by Dagger Aleph | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 6:39 AM
Yeah, the whole thing was invented.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 6:42 AM
Well, I believed it. But then who the hell am I anyway?
Posted by Vardaman! | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 6:46 AM
Vardaman!?
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 6:50 AM
God, you folks are suckers. You know I wouldn't let
TiaOgged run around on me like that.Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 6:54 AM
I'm not gullible. "Gullible" isn't even in the dictionary!
I confess that I was still looking for my jaw when I read the comments. Well done.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 7:28 AM
Not bad, Tia. I might have fallen for it if I hadn't been previously innoculated by what I think of as the best prank post of my blog-reading experience. It may not scan quite the same these days, but if you read the comments at Atrios's site, you get a sense of how well it worked then. And, ya, Henley had me for about a day. Bastard.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 7:40 AM
I was so totally taken by the Henley thing. Wrote him an astonished email and everything.
He was very kind about it.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 7:55 AM
4: I hear and obey.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 7:55 AM
This was pwning.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 8:08 AM
In that it fulfilled the proper function of April Fools' Day jokes, which is to make fun of Ogged rather than me.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 8:09 AM
He was very kind about it.
Not me! I'm going to do a triumphant dance and never let you guys forget it!
Last year, right before I met Graham, before a second date with this law student (we'd made out a little on the first date), I told him via email that I'd just talked to the powerful New York businessman I slept with in exchange for rent, and I thought we had a previous understanding that I could see other people, but he got really mad when I told him where I'd been the other night, and I'd imprudently told the businessman his name, and he'd perhaps be in a position to damage the law student's career...
He totally fell for it. Electronic media have done wonders for my ability to pull off practical jokes.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 8:10 AM
i am required by law to admit, getting pwned like this totally made my morning.
Posted by arthegall | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 8:24 AM
I think I might have sent Henley a plaintive e-mail, too, Apo. I absolutely remember being shocked, SHOCKED, and composing the e-mail in my head. Bastard.
Posted by SomeCallMeTim | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 8:25 AM
I was fooled by it. My wheels were spinning round trying to make some kind of sense of this weirdness until I read comment 3. Me! Who has already been reminded of the date a couple times today!
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 8:59 AM
I fell for it. Indeed, I find the thought of Ogged making eye babies with someone he met through this site so charming that, comment 3 notwithstanding, I still believe it. The April Fool's Day thing is just Tia's attempt to walk back from her indiscretion.
Posted by pjs | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 9:16 AM
The ultimate April Fool's would be if this were all true but Tia convinced us it was just a joke.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 9:58 AM
Ha! The first April Fool's joke I've read today that actually fooled me.
Posted by Lurker | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:01 AM
Via Henley.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:03 AM
Wow. I even know the story around the TiVo reset... but was *still* all perspire-y and thinking, "The bastard! He's been lying to me this whole time! Bastard!"
This is a signal that perhaps I need to up the meds again. Paranoia's so much fun. I'll be second-guessing everything today.
Nice pwnership, Tia.
Posted by girl27 | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:05 AM
ps... I should add that I am pretty easily pwned. Last year, I fell for the story that scientists have found a way to make bicycle wheels more round. It had something to do with pie.
Posted by girl27 | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:06 AM
I even know the story around the TiVo reset.
I rather prefer the illusion that on the blog, none of us knows no more than has been made public. But I'm probably just saying that because I'm turning a striking shade of green.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:15 AM
Girl27. I remind you that you once said you cared for me. Please—end this torture.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:21 AM
Like a
Wolfsonmoth to aindiscretionflame.Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:25 AM
Nonsense! I'm very discreet. I didn't even tell anyone ogged's real name on Wednesday.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:28 AM
Isn't girl27 a blog-independent oggedfriend?
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:33 AM
Huh. The only friends of ogged (FOO) I knew of were D and Kitty Darfour. And some guy who used to post here, "Stroumpf" maybe.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:45 AM
And ex and exbeforelast.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:47 AM
I'd like to remind everyone that Tia admitted at the meet-up to being the most gullible person on earth. Methinks the lady doth use the internet to get the world back for all the times she's been suckered.
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:48 AM
Totally believed it. So gullible. Also, such an awesome story that it should be true.
Posted by silvana | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 10:50 AM
pdf23ds raises his hand shamefully.
Posted by Anonymous | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 11:43 AM
The most entertaining reading of 25 is that girl27 is the TiVo-resetter.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 11:45 AM
Dammit. And here I was getting all ready to start referring to Tia as "Yoko" for breaking up Unfogged.
Posted by M/tch M/lls | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 11:50 AM
Oh dear. You mean it's a joke. And here I was going to commiserate with her. Tell her that this was a very bad idea. Tell her she shouldn't waste her youth and beauty on a has-been. That she shouldn't become desperate. That there would be others.
See how my credulity has been cruelly played upon. My sympathy exploited.
Shame on you, Tia.
Posted by jim | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 11:51 AM
Has-been.
Posted by Standpipe Bridgeplate | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 12:00 PM
For a second I was prepared to be annoyed that you didn't tell me this last night. But only for a second.
Posted by ac | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 12:13 PM
Hook, etc.
And though really I just have no resistance to pranks like this (oldest child? parents lacking that devilish bent? not enough friends to immunize me when young?) I would like to think that the first paragraph, with its relative plausibility, masterfully suckered me in for the second.
Posted by oz | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 12:16 PM
I totally fell for it---- but it is April 2 here in NZ, so perhaps I have an excuse--- though I must admit I think I would have fallen for this yesterday--- and it all seemed so sweet; I was all "aaww, they have found each other" yadda yadda... Brava Tia!
Posted by Mark | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 12:34 PM
Implausibilities in the first paragraph:
ogged's having biceps
Tia's using Kaus style
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 1:03 PM
I'm so glad I didn't actually publish the post I'd written about feeling gross about making all those Tia-involving lewd remarks in the comments section of Ogged's (erstwhile) blog. So, so glad.
Apo, are we ready to go public with our unholy union?
Posted by FL | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 1:35 PM
unholy union
Staying away from that whole "some guy rising from the dead" thing? Probably wise.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 1:43 PM
So you didn't reset ogged's TiVo? I'm confused.
But the part about the Swedish grad student is true, right?
Posted by My Alter Ego | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 1:44 PM
Please. That was the part that included the implication that ogged has biceps.
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 1:46 PM
I'm a lazy lurker. With all the swimming, I had forgotten any and all small arms talk.
Though really, Matt, both your objections were parenthetical in the post, and I get distracted around parentheses. (). (Isn't that pretty?) (Though if the comments here have taught me anything, it's that the tradition 'round the internet seems to be to stuff something in between them, the more the better...)
Posted by oz | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 1:53 PM
(I was just being rude, and endorsing MW's 44. Ogged has perfectly respectable arms.)
Posted by LizardBreath | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 1:54 PM
I wouldn't had suspected Unfogged commenters to be so gullible.
Posted by David Weman | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 1:59 PM
LB: Please define respectable in this context. Muckies represent unsound ethics?
Posted by Austro | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 2:00 PM
This blog is the best fucking reality soap opera on the internets, bar none.
Posted by Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 2:06 PM
IHBT.
Congrats, twas the "resetting Ogged's TIVO" tidbit of verisimilitude that impelled me to bite down on that one. Anyone know if pierced cheeks are in?
Posted by Barry Freed | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 2:16 PM
Not only was I totally taken in, but I actually gasped audibly (and very masculinely, too) and started exclaiming to my wife, "Oh my God! This... person you don't know? And this other person you don't know? They totally hooked up!"
Of course, since both Tia and Ogged are people I don't technically know either, I'm even lamer that it appears at first glance.
Posted by Matthew Harvey | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 2:28 PM
Ya gots me. I was read to compliment your incredibly understated headline.
Posted by Mo MacArbie | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 2:39 PM
TBUH?
Posted by Mo MacArbie | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 2:40 PM
Apo, are we ready to go public with our unholy union?
I'm sure I don't know what you're talking about. Our union is all about the holes.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 3:02 PM
You fooled me too.
Re 49, I had a professor in undergrad tell me that you only get two pairs of paretheses for your entire academic career and you should be careful how to used them. It helped my writing a lot.
Posted by benton | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 3:40 PM
This whole thing was awesome reading.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 4:16 PM
Totally believed the first paragraph, even though I've been talking about how it's April 1st and being bothered by not having a good prank. Didn't believe the rest, but didn't connect its falsity to the date.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 4:24 PM
59: I've heard the same thing, in multiple contexts, about exclamation points, but never parentheses. If I ever plan on writing extensively for anything other than my own entertainment, I may be in trouble. But until then... (I also love ellipses)
Posted by oz | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 4:56 PM
The tragic part of this story is that, in the face of such impious skepticism, Tia now seems to feel obliged to denounce having felt ogged's Presence in her. Be not overhasty to retract, Tia! as the punishment for apostacy is to gnash the teeth for eternity in the Outer Darkness from which none return to his Love!
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 4:57 PM
Wow. Ogged=GGoed
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 5:08 PM
Also, Ego gd.
Posted by washerdreyer | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 5:16 PM
Also, Dogge, as I imagine the black judge on the Elizabethan edition of "American Idol" addressing the contestants whom he is critiquing.
Posted by The Modesto Kid | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 5:21 PM
#4
You had me going for a minute damnit.
In the spirit of the post I'd like to point everyone towards Google Romance.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 7:51 PM
the punishment for apostacy is to gnash the teeth for eternity in the Outer Darkness from which none return to his Love!
Non ex-mormons don't appreciate how funny this is.
Speaking of Mormon humor, anyone who hasn't been watching HBO's "Big Love" is missing out.
Posted by gswift | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 7:58 PM
I was suckered until I read the comments. Like Weiner, I just want everyone to find love.
Posted by Chopper | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 9:06 PM
I too was fooled. Foolish, foolish Urple...
Posted by Urple | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 9:24 PM
The punishment for apostacy actually depends on how old apo and stacy were at the time of the crime, and in what state the actions took place.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 9:56 PM
In fact, it might not even be a crime.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04- 1-06 9:56 PM
I suppose I believed the post, though I looked at the comments too quickly to be sure, but at the same time, as I read it I thought "this doesn't read like a normal Tia post." I can't figure out exactly why I thought the style seemed different. Would it make sense to say that it seemed like the spaces between the words and sentences seemed different?
Posted by eb | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 2:07 AM
73: I believed the post (being at GMT+10 handicaps me, by the time the blog pranks roll around it's April 2 here and my yearly cynicism has been exhausted) but there's something about this sentence that is stylistically off: "I told you I was capable of infidelity, although my relationship in fact ended much sooner after Ogged and I commenced a seeing each other than I let on, and I delayed the news in part to deflect attention." Too many thoughts crammed in there, too much justification.
Posted by Mary | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 2:12 AM
The punishment for apostacy actually depends on how old apo and stacy were at the time of the crime
No fraternizing with spammers!
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 8:10 AM
(Dammit, it's spelled "stacey-keebler.")
gswift, Jackmormon, that brings up something that's been bothering me for a while. As I understand it, gentiles like me get a reasonably sweet deal in the afterlife; we get to go to the Earthly Paradise or something like that. Now we don't get sealed forever with our spouses or anything like that, but still, reasonably sweet. Whereas if we convert to Teh Church and then fall away, it's the Outer Darkness for us. So from a Pascal's Wager point of view isn't it pretty dumb to convert? Even if true LDS heaven is infinitely better than Earthly Paradise (which I kind of think of as Utah with good beer, the people opposed to it all having been raptured), assuming there's a non-zero chance of apostasy the expected utility of converting is infinity minus infinity, which is undefined. And maximin tells me to stay heathen. Please advise.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 8:15 AM
(Dammit, it's spelled "stacey-keebler.")
Funny thing is, I think it's spelled Stacy Kiebler.
Posted by apostropher | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 8:38 AM
Matt, while I think you've pretty much nailed the cost-risk analysis, there are a few complications.
1. You're gonna be envious in the afterlife. That's the punishment of the lower worlds. Utah with beer might sound fine to you now, but Jesus (and your more sanctimonious relatives) will regularly visit to remind you that you fucked up your chance to become a God.
2. The I-didn't-get-to-hear-the-Word bailout Mormonism offers to nonbelievers in the first phase of the afterlife (Spirit Prison) doesn't apply so much to people who actually did get the chance in convert in their lives. And even then, every soul has to get baptized on earth, hence the whole genealogical project of finding names of dead people and baptizing them--and various Jewish groups have pressured the Church to stop doing that to their relatives, so you might be out of luck on that score too.
3. The Outer Darkness for Apostates thing seems to be an artefact of Uncle Joe's need to maintain control over his flock. In the cosmology I learned, Outer Darkness seems to be populated almost solely of Satan and his unincarnated 1/3 of the heavenly host, Judas, and those early Mormons who publicized their memories of faking the Book of Mormon. I'm really not sure how many pious Mormons truly believe in it, although the central leadership hasn't bothered to repudiate the doctrine, as far as I know.
So, my advice would be to hedge your wager by releasing your name as available for proxy baptism after your death.
(No, I'm not serious about that.)
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 5:27 PM
We were actually talking about the I-didn't-get-to-hear-the-word thing at work the other day and trying to figure out what the threshold had to be in order to qualify for that afterlife exemption. (This flowed out of an argument over whether I was going to Hell for eating meat on a Friday.)
Obviously, someone in a tribal village that never heard the name of Jesus would get a pass and someone who has been told all about the Gospel but rejected it would suffer the consequences. But what if you've heard the name of Jesus but nobody told you that he was God? Or what if someone just came up with you once and said "Jesus is God" but never told you any more about it or why you should believe it? Would that be enough to cause you to be treated as someone who rejected Him? If that's the case and you are to be punished for not accepting that statement on faith, how are you supposed to know that "Jesus is God" is more valid than, say, "Motumbo is God", without any further evidence? My (Catholic) co-worker believed that just hearing the words "Jesus is God" and then not choosing to believe it was enough to be treated in the afterlife as if you had rejected him but I argued that one would need more information than that.
Posted by Becks | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 6:04 PM
One of my mother's bizarre theological tenets (in addition to her literal interpretation of the command to forgive a man seventy times seven times) is that the true age of accountability is thirty. Why? "Because no one can be held accountable for the stupid crap they do in their twenties. No God is so cruel."
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 6:52 PM
See I was going to make fun, especially of the part about the saved coming back to Utah-with-beer every so often to make fun of the rest of us–should've figured they couldn't resist&ndashbut:
kinda makes sense to me. Especially the parts about how spirits retain agency after death, and even the greatest sinners have not sinned enough to deserve an eternity of hell. That last part always stuck in my craw.
I may still have issues with the LDS church about not having enough respect for suffering in their theodicy (and I definitely have issues with the sexism, homophobia, and general conservatism), but this makes the church more attractive to me, in a "never ever ever gonna think about converting even for a second" kind of way.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 6:55 PM
Revise and extend: in the "never ever ever gonna think about converting even for a second" kind of way that I find versions of Christianity attractive in general (which in other demoninations is mostly a matter of being moved by depictions of Christ's suffering).
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 6:56 PM
Spirit prison appealed to me, too. That way, my atheistical father could be saved after he was dead.
You make a great point about the insufficient respect for suffering. I hadn't ever thought of it so starkly, but, yeah, Mormon doctrine carries a strong undercurrent of perfectibility, and the underplaying of Christ's cruxifixion reverberates across the entire religious culture. I'll have to think more about that.
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 7:09 PM
demoninations
If it weren't for the context, I would ask if this was intentional.
Posted by teofilo | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 7:30 PM
When I'd been in SLC a couple months I picked up this album. The best track by far is "Eloi," a crucifixion song with no verse about the Resurrection. (And it says "how they nailed him to the tree" instead of "how they nailed him to the cross," which I couldn't help connecting to the Black American Experience.) Not till I heard it did I realize that the LDS temple doesn't have any crosses on it as all. That's what got me thinking about this.
And of course no religion is under any obligation whatsoever to appeal to the aesthetic sense of a non-adherent like me.
But there's definitely something appealing about perfectibility too.
Posted by Matt Weiner | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 7:32 PM
The literal interpretation of the seventy-times-seven thing reminds me of Rimmer's parents from Red Dwarf who, because their Bible had a typo asserting that of faith, hop, and charity, the greatest was hop, only hopped on Sundays, making soup service somewhat precarious.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 7:37 PM
And it says "how they nailed him to the tree" instead of "how they nailed him to the cross," which I couldn't help connecting to the Black American Experience.
Not Baldur, Odin, or any of the other Jesusalikes who died on trees?
SPEAKING OF "The Dark is Rising", it just occurred to me that it's pretty weird to have a YA book series whose climactic moment is the symbolic cutting-off of testicles.
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 7:41 PM
I don't remember that part, Ben.
Matt, LDS theology holds that the redemption of sin occurred during the night of prayer in Gethsemane. The cruxifixion is glossed as being a somehow necessary step that isn't very nice to talk too much about. (My non-Mormon grandmother's estate included a lovely little cross pendant that eventually ended up with me because everyone else just felt too weird about wearing it. Ironic, eh?)
Posted by Jackmormon | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 7:52 PM
What do you think they're cutting down from that oak tree?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 7:58 PM
I don't remember that part either, Ben. In Silver on the Tree?
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 7:59 PM
I don't remember anything about those books, except that running water dissolved magic. I'm impressed you guys have such a grasp on books you read as a kid.
Posted by Tia | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 8:02 PM
Maybe not testicles specifically. I haven't read the books in a long time, but that sounds right as the title. Doesn't Main Dude have to cut some shit from a tree with a ponderous sword?
Posted by ben wolfson | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 8:02 PM
The titular silver?
Posted by A White Bear | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 8:23 PM
You know, I am the most gullible person in the entire world, and I didn't buy this for one moment. You people are weird.
Posted by bitchphd | Link to this comment | 04- 2-06 11:50 PM
Should B and Tia have a gullible-off?
Posted by mealworm | Link to this comment | 04- 3-06 5:16 AM
This is a pretty awesome piece of April Fool's writing that I just saw.
Posted by Joe Drymala | Link to this comment | 04- 3-06 2:00 PM