Showing posts with label Definitions. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Definitions. Show all posts

Saturday, February 10, 2007

GBH, GHB and Other Acronyms

Mormons love acronyms. The origins of this acronym love arose during the 1960s when the baby boomer Mormons took a perverse sense of pride in the fact that Latter Day Saints could be reduced to the acronym, LDS, which was oddly similar to the acronym for Lysergsäure-diethylamid, or LSD. The nearness of the church acronym to a psychedelic drug acronym gave the righteous a sense of consciousness expansion and spiritual awakening without having to sin and actually take the drug. You could listen to the Grateful Dead and take your LDS.

A similar phenomenon is occurring with the current generation of young Mormons, who think it is cool that the leader of the church and prophet, Gorden B. Hinckley or GBH for short, sounds an awful lot like the mind altering, date rape inducing rave drug, Gamma hydroxy butyrate or GHB for short. They can listen to electro-techno pop and follow the words of GBH. You want to be in the world, but not of it, but you should also try and be cool -- even if it means you have dyslexic acronyms.

Crafts are Forever


Every Mormon household has a handcrafted, needlepointed or tole painted "Famlies are Forever" wall hanging some where in the house. No mention is ever made in these sayings on what exactly happens if your family is dysfunctional. Given the absence of any type of meaningful hell in Mormon theology, maybe "Families are Forever" is the closest Mormons come to a traditional concept of hell. Imagine being stuck with some members of your family forever. It makes you wonder if anyone ever thinks these things out.

Crafts are Forever


Every Mormon household has a handcrafted, needlepointed or tole painted "Famlies are Forever" wall hanging some where in the house. No mention is ever made in these sayings on what exactly happens if your family is dysfunctional. Given the absence of any type of meaningful hell in Mormon theology, maybe "Families are Forever" is the closest Mormons come to a traditional concept of hell. Imagine being stuck with some members of your family forever. It makes you wonder if anyone ever thinks these things out.

Ensign



The Ensign is the magazine of choice for Mormon families. The magazine is sanctioned by the Church and periodic magazine drives are held to insure everyone subscribes. Often given as a gift by TBM parents or grandparents to progeny whose faith seems to be slipping, possibly because someone in the house, instead of signing up for the Ensign, has opted for the Mormon Playboy instead: Cosmopolitan.

A logical syllogism may help explain Cosmo's relationship to the young Mormon Male's universe:
Cosmo is to Playboy as Diet Coke is to Coffee.