For me, religion has been a lifelong struggle. I was born in a community where there where lived only two families which were not associated with one particular faith. This community was located in a state, Utah, which was founded by that same faith. My father grew up in this same town into which his father, a non-Mormon, had moved years before, seeing it as a potential ground to build a new and unusual future. A new frontier as it were. Grandpa Bill was originally hired by one of the largest businesses in Utah at the time, ZCMI. A business associated with and essentially owned by, that same faith. An interesting irony is the fact that it was his ring that got him hired. It was actually a Masonic ring which, in this case, was mistaken as being symbolic of the faith which directed the company, ZCMI.
As an aside, the founder of the faith in question was also a Freemason. Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon were both members and were both raised to the third degree of Master Mason, the sublime degree, the highest degree in Freemasonry, on sight, which is highly unusual. For numerous reasons the dispensation of the Nauvoo lodge was revoked. So, perhaps it could be said that grandpa’s ring was indeed symbolic of the LDS church.
By the time I came along the Nivison family had been in Utah for over 2 decades. My father having been raised in the same non-Mormon community. My family chose to raise me as a Mormon (which my mother indeed was), in order to avoid various aspects of religious prejudice through which my father had gone. Thus, I didn’t know there was such a thing as a non-Mormon until I was around six years old. I was baptized as a Mormon and even came to be a holder of the Aaronic Priesthood, if not a faithful one.
On my way home from church one Sunday, I got involved in a discussion with my Grandma Marie who was marvelously intelligent and somewhat of a rebel. She had outlaw roots which included the James (Frank & Jesse), her mother being a member of the James family. The paternal side of the Nivison family goes back to the days of Robert the Bruce who was an associate of the first recognized member of the Nivison family, who was involved in the revolution (freeing Scotland from the Catholics?). Yes a rebel from the start, and the Nivison family history is a trail of outlaw tales, the collection of which would make pretty entertaining reading, but I’ll spare you that, for now. In any case, my discussion with Grandma Marie that day included me bitching about having to go to church, to which she responded, “why do you go?” She pointed out the fact that my father NEVER goes, which directed my mind to the obvious answer, “I don’t know.” Along with the obvious solution, “I’ll go no more.”
And thus it was that I became a full fledged member of the local “outlaw” tradition, paying all the traditional dues, growing my hair out, buying a motorcycle, smoking and drinking and drugs! I pretty much followed the local outlaw tradition, led off, of course, by not going to church, nor considering any potential value in doing so.
Following in the footsteps of my father, I married a faithful Mormon girl who was the granddaughter of our next door neighbors who were a very traditional, “our family crossed the plains with Brigham Young,” faithful Mormon family. I expect it was somewhat of a horror to that family that she took an interest in me. I also suspect that a large portion of that interest was because I was somewhat of a forbidden fruit. However, the family never showed any sign of discontent and treated me, in spite of my outlawic tradtions, with complete respect. Indeed, fine folks!
One of the interesting traits of religion is the fact that it continuously plays on our conscience. One simply can’t know the “truth.” Thus, for all of us, it becomes a lifelong mystery. Many of us choose our truths, but none of us actually knows anything about it other than what we’ve purchased from the words of those who were selling the concepts we were considering. “I KNOW this church is true! and here’s why…”; Special underwear stops bullets; prayer brought Uncle Albert back from the dead; I felt abandoned and alone but I opened the bible to …” and so forth.
In my own case it was a matter of having developed some form of faith early in life. At first it was simply a belief in God, which evolved into a belief in the LDS church, which crumbled for many reasons but became replaced by a need for a belief in something that atheism nor agnosticism was able to provide. The challenge I always fell up against was an old and common challenge, God doesn’t talk to me. All the stories I’ve been told of religious awakenings. The “I was on my knees when suddenly the feeling that came over me was overwhelming and I knew it was the spirit of God.” Nope, not for Bacon. Bacon was left to wonder and speculate, which he did!
One of my lifelong friends who was also probably the most intelligent human being I ever knew, and who shared my outlawic proclivities, called me on the phone one day after years of being apart, he getting a degree somewhere in Idaho, and me managing a shipping & recieving department in S.L.C. We had both moved back to Cove, UT. He told me he wanted to come visit and I scolded him for imagining that permission might be required. Shortly after that he and his eldest son appeared on my front porch. “Bacon, you won’t believe why I’m here.”
“Nothing you can say would surprise me.”
“I’m your Home Teacher.” (One of the priesthood functions of the LDS church).
“OK, you got me!” I didn’t believe him.
That evening’s discussion led to a series of religious discussions over the next few months in which he used none of the traditional techniques of conversion. No scriptures, no suggestions of meetings, no testimonies of his own conversion. Rather he directed me toward the writings of previous skeptics of the faith. Writers like Hugh Nibley, Cleon Skousen and others who were considered great authorities by the Church, but who also obviously struggled with many of it’s principles, and who wrote volumes to explain what they saw as the truth behind the mysteries. In any case, the hook was set and my wife and I were soon all in. Wearing the weird underwear, getting “sealed in the Temple,” teaching lessons in “priesthood” meeting, giving talks in church, home teaching, the whole catalog.
My intent here is not to dissuade members of any particular faith, particularly this one. Society is chuck full of folks, standing in line, to do exactly that. My intent is to fertilize the concept that there is indeed some deistic foundation for the mystery around which religion hovers. Holding happiness and contentment as a principle desire and goal, it is impossible to find a better avenue, ideologically speaking, than that founded and fostered by the Judeo-Christian tradition. Volumes have been written in this regard, but one of the finest and most universal evidences is far from a volume. It is the boiling down into Ten Commandments, the volumes worth of principle towards successful, happy lives the concept of a Godly existence can provide.
One of the principalities that drives people away from appreciation of the Ten Commandments, is the concept that they were delivered to us from God. Which brings us directly to one of the most important aspects of the Commandments, which is that they were delivered by God! The idea of there being a God, particularly one we can believe in, relieves us of the insurmountable justification for behavioral controls. We can argue all night about the idea of anything being sinful, or what sin is, but if we place that argument into the hands of God, it doesn’t matter, and leaves us only with the consideration as to why the Master of Everything would issue such commands. “You shall have no other Gods before me.” Well, other than leaving us with the question, what does God want, there goes a huge chunk of the troubles we are facing today. (I) “am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My Commandments.” Motivation indeed, but what does God want?
“Honor your father and your mother;” “You shall not murder;” “You shall not commit adultery;” “You shall not steal;” “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor;” “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” It’s all pretty damn simple! What challenges to humanity would remain, if these commandments were followed? I know, I know… but would there still be democrats if they weren’t striving to take your freedom? Would the technocrat still be stifling free speech if they weren’t after your freedom and your stuff?
The Ten Commandments are perched in the lap of one of the greatest ironies of all time. The ultimate reward offered is freedom, but for that freedom you must pay a price. “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:31-32). Freedom?
Freedom turns out to be far more complex than we imagine. Freedom is far removed from the simple ability to do what one chooses with no restrictions. We are wading through absolute nonsense in the concept that freedom is a matter of being able to choose your gender; that abortion is, in any way justifiable; that we can allow drag queens to be involved in teaching our grade school aged children; that anyone who disagrees with Peddo-Joe and his ilk are white supremacists (regardless of their actual race or the situation involved)…Each of these is the antithesis of freedom as is almost every bastion of modern liberal thought, which tends toward what many of us see as Satanic inspiration.
What freedom is involved in parents deciding on the sexual future of a child who has no capacity to even contemplate such a mystery, let alone to establish a life-long contract, selling themselves to a distortion of reality. Yes, my fine-feathered friends, girls are girls and boys are boys and no treatment, psychology nor hormonal deviation can change that baseline reality which God instilled in us all, We can turn people into imitation gender fixations, but the baseline will always remain. The boy with a surgically created inside-out penis remains a boy, and the girl with her breasts cut off and genital prosthetics remains a girl.
No matter the mistakes, misunderstandings or even crimes involved in the generation of a pregnancy, at the instant of conception a separate life has been created. The spark which makes an organism a life of its own, is a spark which cannot be generated by science nor mechanics. No matter what led up to the existence in question, the spark we can’t define, let alone create, delivers a life and the termination of it, through whatever means used, accidental or otherwise, is the taking of a life. If we remove the accidental, we are left with the intentional, or is it murder? No, it’s not all that complicated. It is as simple as thou shall not murder.
One of the elusive factors of freedom is the simplicity of life. It can be convincingly argued that God provided us with a very simple existence. Follow a very few, very simple rules and the whole thing is a piece of cake. Unfortunately it’s not our nature to leave simplicity alone. Sadly, many of us want to infect those around us with our own complexities. Thus, among other things, we end up with fat, old, homely men wearing women’s clothing and acting like imbeciles, entering the presence of our youth, in schools and otherwise. Drag Queen Story Hour??? Children are not political props and there is no conceivable benefit for demonstrating complexities of this level to children for whom sexuality is not even a consideration. But don’t worry, the technocracy and propagandia have a whole list of reasons: “What Intolerance Looks Like,” “This Sexual Behavior Is Part of Natural Development,” “Children and Gender Identity: Supporting Your Child,” “Young People Need Their Sexual and Reproductive Health Rights, “Gender and sexual orientation diversity in children and adolescents in schools.” Yes and indeed!
A whole bunch of jabbering, has lead us to nothing but frustration. The one thing that holds true, regarding religion (Christianity at least) is that historically, since it’s it’s beginning, wherever Christian Godliness flows, so does human decency. Statistically speaking, it is obvious. Regardless of the studies done and findings analyzed, wherever Christianity prospers, crime levels are down. This truth resonates throughout all reality. Go to a serious Christian community, Mormon, Protestant, Catholic, whatever, the crime levels in these communities are down and the humanitarian aspect of loving and caring for one another are up. This is a simple, clear and ever present reality. It requires no study, nor investigation for verification. It’s such an obvious truth it’s almost painful. In fact, maybe it is painful to those who push the imagined benefits of secularity. The propagandia and technocracy is literally filled with ad campaigns to sell secularism in spite of the truth. “FACT CHECK: Data Shows Less Religion Equals Less Violence;” “Think Religion Makes Society Less Violent? Think Again.” “Does Religion Cause Violence?” “Is Secularism Less Violent than Religion?”
While the truth is slapping us upside the head, Satanic/Marxist insanity remains on the rise. Funny how this all falls back on the Bible. The warning was and is there.
~Bacon
ibaconi 