Australia?????s prime minister pimped out for PR by LDS INC.

[_Boaz & Lidia]

Inactivity in Oz is very high. It's probably the biggest problem facing the Church here. I think the 40% activity is somehow exaggerated. It's more like 30%. Both wards where I live have nearly 700 members of record, and weekly attendance of around 100-120. When I was on the high council I noted similar problems in other areas. The area where I live has been trying to become a stake since the late 1960s, and it's still attached to a Sydney stake today.

Thank you for your honest and straight forward answer Ray. It is obvious you don't need any church to be an upstanding man.

[_Daniel Peterson]

Thank you for your honest and straight forward answer Ray. It is obvious you don't need any church to be an upstanding man.

Which, translated, means that you posted something that pleased B&L.

[_Boaz & Lidia]

Thank you for your honest and straight forward answer Ray. It is obvious you don't need any church to be an upstanding man.

Which, translated, means that you posted something that pleased B&L.

Was that translation done with your fat head stuck in a hat full of pretend magic rocks?

Big difference between you and Ray. He no longer has an explicit need to believe. No son's going on missions, no job at a school owned by LDS Inc, not married to a TBM woman, nor is he a bishop. To put it shortly, he is not entrenched in Mormonism like you.

Nope just a fine upstanding and probably downright friendly cabbie from Oz.

You are wise to stay hunkered down in your trench. As soon as you jump up and attempt to run for the land of free thinking, your own will shoot you in the back as your fumbling feet trigger many career, family, and life destroying bombs all around you.

You are not pinned down by the so called enemy antis, nope, you are pinned down by those that you defend.

[_Trevor]

I don't get all the anger over an organization doing the PR thing. That is what smart organizations do. So they delivered some genealogy to a politician in Australia. What skin is it off my nose? None.

[_The Nehor]

Well, we've established now that any time anyone in the LDS faith or the Church itself does anything nice or kind to anyone it is entirely for selfish reasons. There is no goodness in the Church or in anyone in it.

If that's true, I can be an utter bastard and it won't matter. That would be wonderfully liberating and at the same time depressing. The gift-money I gave my sister, the help I gave my brother in finding something, the preparation for my Sunday School Lesson, the extra money I gave as a Fast Offering, volunteering to babysit for my friends, taking my friend out to dinner, even the smile I wore when I want shopping today were all selfish calculating moves designed to enrich myself at other's expense. Mwahahahahahahahahah.

Unfortunately if they're wrong then they're getting a scriptural woe for calling good evil.

[_GoodK]

Well, we've established now that any time anyone in the LDS faith or the Church itself does anything nice or kind to anyone it is entirely for selfish reasons. There is no goodness in the Church or in anyone in it.

Doing something "nice or kind" because you think a bearded sandal wearing racist in the sky will reward you is entirely selfish. We don't need bad reasons to be good.

Unfortunately if they're wrong then they're getting a scriptural woe for calling good evil.

I would think that if someone does something "good" - for the right reasons - they wouldn't need to alert the media or list their good deeds on the internet for all to see.

[_aussieguy55]

I met Kevin Rudd when he was present at a the opening of a new education facility in Brisbane. Very approachable man. He wrote two articles on Dietrich Bonhoeffer in the journal The Monthly and saw Bonoeffer's Christian commitment as something to study. Interesting when Bonhoeffer was in New York studying at Union Seminary, he was teaching sunday school on Sunday's in the black church in Harlem. Meanwhile the LDS church was not enthusiastically going after black converts those days. Perhaps Rudd is like Obama is some ways, young, articulate, smart and motivated.

[_Ray A]

In regard to the inactivity problem in the Church (which includes Oz), I wrote this earlier blog post in March this year: http://spotlightonmormonism.blogspot.co ... dwide.html

[_The Nehor]

Well, we've established now that any time anyone in the LDS faith or the Church itself does anything nice or kind to anyone it is entirely for selfish reasons. There is no goodness in the Church or in anyone in it.

Doing something "nice or kind" because you think a bearded sandal wearing racist in the sky will reward you is entirely selfish. We don't need bad reasons to be good.

Unfortunately if they're wrong then they're getting a scriptural woe for calling good evil.

I would think that if someone does something "good" - for the right reasons - they wouldn't need to alert the media or list their good deeds on the internet for all to see.

I've never met this bearded sandal wearing racist in the sky. Might want to lay off the hallucinogenics.

Well, that sucks. By your logic I didn't do any of those things I did for the right reason because I mentioned them online. Man, I'm an evil bastard.

[_Ray A]

Present him with some new underwear?

You won't believe how close you are to the mark.

Like many Australians, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd's convict past has caught up with him.

Today it was revealed that the Premier is a descendant of a child underwear thief and a man sent to Australia for stealing a bag of sugar.

Daily Mail UK

Times Online

The Age (Melbourne)

The POMS will be killing themselves laughing at this.