As I was listening to a fascinating BBC broadcast about the secret life of plants I was intrigued by the statement that humans need plants but plants don't need humans.

As I ponderized the implications of that little nugget of truth it occurred to me that the same relationship applies to Mormonism:

The members don't need the church but the church needs the members.

I'm sort of envisioning the church members as fruit trees in an orchard, all lined up, perfectly neat, and carefully trimmed down so that they can harvest the most out of each tree. The trees are horribly stunted from so much pruning, but they produce a lot for the orchard grower.

If the world were to destroy itself by fire (fill in the blank how that could happen,) what would be left would be vegetation, bugs, insects, and other creepy crawlers, after all the dust settled.

We're just travelers passing through occupying space while we're here, like temporary lodgers.

Plants, like trees, will be here long after we've departed.

Someone once said what if God's only purpose for creating humans was to glorify him, and nothing more? That if our sole purpose was only that, as he could exist without us as easily too. If that were his only purpose, that in itself would be enough reason to have created us in his likeness.

Compare that to the church, and I've a hunch if it were filled with only robots who performed the same duties as those who occupy its pews do now, it would run just like it always has. They say the right words, do all the right things. Maybe no need anymore to have bishops courts, because robots don't have sex, not yet anyway. They can come in all sizes and age groups, from the youngest members to the oldest apostles.

I doubt the real living bodies would notice anything was missing. So long as their tithes kept rolling in, the church would continue to proliferate.

Isn't a supposedly omnipotent/omniscient being already as "glorified" as it can be?
Does it have any ego to stroke, and if so, doesn't that mean it's NOT omnipotent/omniscient/"perfect?"

Hmmm...

As I awoke early and tuned into the words of some savvy English bird explain how plahnts feed and nurture each other in colonies, the size of a whole forest sometimes, I never knew that certain pine trees were interconnected by a vahst root system.

Anyway she went on to say how they could sense each other's needs and exchange vital minerals and nutrients.

A veritable underground united order.

An ordered system operating united as nothing Bloody Brigham could ever dream of, one based on true compassion and mutual sharing for the greatest good of all concerned.

Prophets and plants, apples and oranges.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2015 06:08PM by Shummy.

Shummy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> As I awoke early and tuned into the words of some
> savvy English bird explain how plahnts feed and
> nurture erch other in colonies, the size of a
> whole forest sometimes. I never knew that certain
> pine trees were interconnected by a vast root
> system.
>
> Anyway she went on to say how they could sense
> each other's needs and exchange vital minerals and
> nutriets.
>
> A veritable underground united order.


Yes!!

This is one of the most fascinating and thought provoking things I have learned in the past several years.

I have been thinking this through (the highly varied, interconnected networks...the consequences...the implications) ever since.

Thanks, Shummy!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2015 06:12PM by Tevai.

Most welcome milady.

I had known that mushrooms colonize, the largest known being the size of a small country.

Plant cities and plantation nations.

If we gotta eat plants we gotta love em too for their wisdom, without which we wouldn't be here.

:o)

BTW Tevai, in case you don't get the BY allusion, Horny Joe was the author of the United Order but it was BY who put it into practice.

My own grandfather once lived the United Order commie life in an AZ colony.

Shummy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> BTW Tevai, in case you don't get the BY allusion,
> Horny Joe was the author of the United Order but
> it was BY who put it into practice.
>
> My own grandfather once lived the United Order
> commie life in an AZ colony.

No, I didn't get the allusion...Thank you!!! :)

Where (in Arizona) was the colony your grandfather lived in? I know about the colonies in California (San Bernardino, etc.), but I don't know anything about the ones in Arizona (although I have been going to, and through, different parts of Arizona from soon after I was born, up to about ten years ago...I haven't been to Arizona in the past ten years).

The Forest:

No Prophet to Follow

No Tithing to pay

No Meetings to attend to

No Moral consequences for natural biology

No restrictions on Food or Beverage.

Sounds like Heaven to me.

Oh, one other thing, I couldn't hear God's voice telling me how Sinful or worthless I am.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/29/2015 09:01PM by cognitivedissonance.

The now deserted colony with the unlikely sounding name of Brigham City was located in northern AZ on the Little Colorado river just north of modern day Winslow.

Despite Mormon historian's attempts to paint a rosy picture of utopian communal life, my Mom let slip a few stories that weren't so glamorous.

Shummy Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The now deserted colony with the unlikely sounding
> name of Brigham City was located in northern AZ on
> the Little Colorado river just north of modern day
> Winslow.
>
> Despite Mormon historian's attempts to paint a
> rosy picture of utopian communal life, my Mom let
> slip a few stories that weren't so glamorous.

"Standing on a corner in Winslow, Arizona...and such a fine sight to see..." :)

I know that area, and I thought I knew it fairly well, but I never knew there was once a utopian Mormon community there.

That would be some interesting history...and your Mom's stories would be fascinating to listen to.

Thanks, Shummy...I will never go through Winslow again without thinking of you, and of the Mormon commune that once was there.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/30/2015 10:14AM by Tevai.

Well the thing is that the unflattering anecdotal accounts were deemed unfit to be recorded in the biography my Mom co-wrote with her sister, as were certain unseemly stories of their childhoods spent in polygamous households. Therefore all I have to go on is my memory of her verbal accounts.

The one I remember best deals with the one underlying factor that doomed the grand experiment to fail from the very beginning, that of human greed.

At community mealtime there was one particular elder would had the habit of grabbing the butter dish as soon as blessing was said and helping himself to way more than his fair share.

My grandfather accordingly resolved to call the offending elder to repentance.

As soon as the amen was said and the offending elder's hand shot out, my grandfather was waiting with his own butter knife in hand and delivered a mighty crack across the knuckles with the handle.

I was always puzzled about all that whenever I'd hear my folks rail against the evils of communism.

Great observation Shummy.

Without humans, plants still have the insects to carry their pollen on their fuzzy legs, birds to gobble their seeds, fertilize them as they pass through their systems and relieve themselves in flight,and, don't forget hirsute animals to traffic their prickly burrs to fall to fertile new earth as some deer scratches them off on the bark of a tree.

As each member walks away from the Mormon church into a new life, they find the riches of more growth, more spiritual awakening, and a world of opportunity at their fingertips while the church loses another 10% of someone's income, another 50% of someone's time, and another 100% of someone's subservience.

No one NEEDS that church, like you say, and they seem to know it too as they act ever more desperate to retain their 'hosts' that feed the parasite.

Plants have gotten us to do their dirty work. Growing in the wild is hard work, but if you provide what humans want, they will coddle you and destroy your competition.

Take the cherry. Humans love cherries, so if a tree produces nice cherries, we will plant them in our yards and orchards. The flowers are lovely and the fruit is delicious. We will clear out other plants, protect them from bugs and disease, and keep planting them to grow more. All the tree has to do is make flowers and fruit and it has an easy life.

Plants use animals all the time. They grow berries for animals to eat. The birds eat them, and then poop their seeds all over. I have pulled out dozens of mulberry seedlings, honeysuckle and holly seedlings that birds have "planted" in my yard.

A wise plant can manipulate humans to give it lots of space to grow. The wheat plant would not dominate fields across North America without humans killing off its competition.