Sometimes I like quirky shows, but something about the vibe of that one never quite sat well with me. (I also can't get into Napoleon Dynamite, even though my  Mormon relations mostly love that movie.) Have a good (conservative) friend who loves Arrested Development, so whatever.

Thanks! Getting near the end, and by this time I always start thinking, "Hmm, later on this summer I'll be able to make a sangria..." and the like. Not that you can drink very much when you have a small baby, but you know, it's the dream that keeps you going. :)

I don't think enjoying impeachment is necessarily Schadenfreude, exactly. I wouldn't wish cancer on him. I'd feel sad for him if something bad happened to his kids. I don't daydream about St. Peter expelling him at the pearly gates. 

But the thing about impeachment is, it would be a testament to his unfitness for office. That's what'd be great about it. It would be a badly needed "you screwed this one up, America." That's the thing that would feel so good.

Anyhow I'm pregnant, so, can't do Maker's.

You can't name a superhero for a handicap, Midge. You'd better be "Chronology Girl".

But did you remember who wrote it, or what you had said about it?

Google is definitely a huge asset for me. I think it does undermine cultural literacy for a lot of people, but as someone who didn't really even think to use search engines to look up random facts until I was into my 20's, and who didn't have home Internet until 25, I think  I can fairly say that my patterns of memory were not ruined by Google; they are what they are. And quite often what I need is just quick fact-checking. For my students, though, I think Google is often damaging. They never reach the level of literacy at which they could even really take advantage of a search engine.

In order to approach the matter properly (and this is analogous to many other things in life) you have to recognize that the right "birth experience" is the one most focused on the end goal. But figuring out what that involves isn't entirely straightforward. It requires a willingness, but not absolute determination, to experience the natural physiology of birth, (which is normally the safest way to deliver a baby, but may not be in some instances).  And in fact, many elements of the experience itself may be relevant to achieving the end goal. A woman who feels calm and well-supported is better able to deliver a baby successfully than one who feels harried and neglected.

As in birth, so in life generally, we often find that we can't achieve the most worthwhile things unless we respect the path by which those goals are achieved. That may require some attentiveness to experience, though we should also beware of becoming too self-absorbed along the way.

Here's how I would break it down.

We should endeavor to live worthwhile lives, and we can't do that if we're constantly navel-gazing. But the most important thing in this world is humans, and our experiences make us into the kinds of people we are. So experiences do matter, although the ultimate goal shouldn't be some ephemeral thing, like having as much fun as possible. The goal should be to become excellent human beings, and to help the people around us likewise to achieve excellence.

You used childbirth as an illustration of your point. Here's the interesting thing, though: if you look at the two major "camps" in the birth wars (roughly, the "yay-science-yay-OB" camp and the "go-go-natural" camp), both will accuse the other of focusing on the experience and not the baby. And actually, I think they can both be right. Sometimes people are willing to risk maternal and child health for convenience and to avoid pain. Others are willing to run unnecessary risks for the sake of their idealized "miracle of life" experience. Both approaches are defective. (cont.)

I actually do think attending a wedding implies *some* level of sanction of the wedding and couple... but minimal. It implies that you're willing to recognize them as a legitimate married couple, and that you don't hate them enough to chase them out of your life completely. Not much more than that. If your first cousins were marrying one another, or if your cousin had stolen your husband, maybe that'd justify a boycott. These reasons seem to fall below that bar.

Here's one of the shortest "study prayers", written by St. Thomas Aquinas:

Grant, O Merciful God,
that I may ardently desire,
prudently examine,
truthfully acknowledge,
and perfectly accomplish
what is pleasing to Thee
for the praise and glory
of Thy name.
Amen

There are some very beautiful prayers that are recommended for the student or scholar, to be uttered when embarking on any intellectual pursuit, entreating God to protect us from error and guide us to truth. And of course, Church dogma were hammered out very slowly and carefully over the course of centuries, with a great deal of prayerful consideration. 

But what we have from it all is a real intellectual tradition. This is not a privileging of human thought over divine; rather, the idea is that God may reveal himself slowly over time, working through the important questions as circumstances demand, and making use of various humble but brilliant people who were raised up at appropriate times for the purpose. What comes of this is an edifice that is as mysterious as it is thorough, and as firm as it is supple. Once one has tasted orthodoxy, there really is no substitute. Having said all that, I should also say that I myself was not swept off my feet (as it were) by orthodoxy until I had already made a pretty significant good-faith effort to find something in Mormonism that I could genuinely believe, and despaired.

That's rather a slanted way of putting the difference. No serious Christian, of course, would profess a preference for the wisdom of man over that of God. The real question is: how does God reveal himself to men? 

The methods and means of divine revelation are diverse, but too often we prefer to seize on a conclusion (desired for other reasons, perhaps) and beg God to green-light it. It sometimes felt to me, in my Mormon adolescence, that that was what I was being urged to do. Questions that were asked in good faith were assumed to be posed "in the spirit of contention" (which as we all know, is of the devil), and the impression was sometimes given that the intellect was more something to be sublimated (lest it lead us to pride) than nourished (in hopes of finding truth). 

In the Fathers and Doctors of the Church, one finds intense concern over the issue of how to conform the intellect to God's, so as to enlighten reason with the light of faith. (cont)

In my view, whenever you get people in a group and urge them to extemporize on deeply personal subjects, building emotional fervor is part of the goal. And it really isn't part of every religion's spirituality. As an adult Catholic, I don't do anything of that kind. (In fact, there's never any reason for me to speak an unscripted word in a church service.) I'm sure the youth get the worst of it, but anything involving pressure to "testify" will take on some of those powerful-group-emotion elements. Mormons have a different preferred style from Pentecostals (quieter, often weepy or treacly but never wildly ecstatic), but there are many commonalities.

Yes, but if one is genuinely uncertain about the truth of the restored gospel, that way of approaching the issue can seem a little prejudiced. I wouldn't advise a young, uncertain Catholic to pursue such an approach. I would give them books and urge them to pray for insight, but not explicitly tell them what insights or convictions God should be providing. On the theological questions, I should admit that the sorts of experiences I had ("Stop asking questions, have faith and pray") could have happened in practically any church. Sometimes that's just what people say when they don't know the answers. I do myself believe that Mormons are in a more unhappy position than others, however. They rejected the carefully crafted, beautifully balanced answers of centuries of earlier Christians, and weren't really able (unsurprisingly) to come up with adequate substitutes. At the end of the day, they just can't answer a lot of the questions. Catholics are (in my view) vastly better off on this score. Even if they can't provide a pat answer to a question, they can point you to voluminous tomes in which brilliant and holy people spent considerable energy looking for one.

On the subject of testimony meetings, again, the situation is complicated. I agree that the group dynamic can sometimes bring forward good emotions/reflections and cement healthy communal relationships. But putting people into a fervor of emotion, particularly in the context of what is meant to be a powerful shared experience, can also manipulate emotions in unhealthy ways. (This is more or less what Cornelius was saying too, I think.) I don't think there's much evidence that such meetings were held in the early Church, though it's certainly true that they're not unique to Mormons. Catholics don't really do such things (or at any rate they're not part of the tradition, though I can't speak to what happens in schlocky parish youth groups nowadays.) In any case, I do think that shepherding youth through the encouragement of regular outpourings of emotion is a worrisome strategy in some respects. And when it doesn't work for someone (as it definitely didn't for me!) people are kind of at a loss for what to do with you. It's just supposed to happen that the Holy Spirit sweeps you up and declares the truth of the (Mormon) Gospel! What's *your* problem?!

The relationship between learning and simplicity within Christianity is a complicated matter; as with many things (wealth vs salutary poverty, meekness vs just wrath and so forth) Christ offers something to challenge everyone. But in the early Church the more blatantly anti-intellectual forces (Tertullian with his thunderous "What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?") mostly lost out. This is not, in my view, anything to lament, because the intellectual heritage of the succeeding centuries is magnificent both in its wisdom and in the humble, obedient spirit in which it is proposed. But Mormons have a complex relationship to that intellectual heritage, what with their "great apostasy" and their explicit rejection of some of the central pillars of that theology (e.g. the Trinitarian formula). A lot of times they end up turning to feeling more as a substitute for answers than as a supplement to them... or so it seemed to me.