I’d be a Mormon even if one of the most poetic, influential, and “let’s bring keyboards and saxophones back” rockstars of the last decade wasn’t.

Plus, if I wanted to align myself closer with celebrity thinking, there are a lot more popular, less demanding belief systems in existence to boost my status.

Still, it doesn’t hurt to have Brandon Flowers of The Killers publicly casting his lot with mine. If anything, he rocks a religious promotional video better than other celebrities.

Of course, religion, following Christ, or believing in God will never be cool. Nor should it be. Depending on the community, persecution rightfully comes with the territory. (How else would deity test the faith of its followers?)

Nevertheless, it’s nice to have backup.

See also:

• “You rock too hard”—the greatest compliment I’ve ever been paid
• “Hey, I’m in the band!”
• I’m pretty sure this is the best Promise cover you’ll ever hear

A three year examination of what happens when we die, conducted by a doctor who wrote a book on the subject.

The thesis found that phenomena occur after we die, such as the mind retaining verified memories for prolonged periods of time, even after the brain stopped receiving blood.

Findings should be fun.

Hallelujah, fatty! Your religious beliefs may give you greater peace of mind and self-worth. But it might also be blinding your ability to detect love-handles.

Says a new study by Northwestern University, “Young adults who frequently attend religious activities are 50 percent more likely to become obese by middle age as young adults with no religious involvement.” A thirteen year-old study by Purdue said the same thing: “Religious people are more likely to be overweight than are nonreligious people.”

Not only that, but Mormons tend to be five pounds pudgier than other believers. The reason? Religious folk are more accepting of their bodies and tend to be more content with their lives. Therefore, they’re more likely to overlook gluttony, summarizes the Mormon Times. As for Mormons being more obese than other devotees, Mormons are asked to abstain from even more stuff than most. With food being one of the exceptions, they engorde on it, said a BYU professor in 2006.

Ironically, the Northwestern study also supported the long-held belief that religious folks tend to live longer, largely because they don’t indulge as often in alcohol, drugs, and smoking. Go figure!

Your blind if you don’t see the Egyptian revolution (and its peaceful and unified protests) as a beacon to the world.

“During the fiercest clashes on January 28, I found a guy about my age guarding my back, who I later found out was a Christian,” Yahia Roumi, a 24- year-old protester from Cairo, told IPS. “Now we’re best friends; we never go to the demonstrations without one another.”

Unity.

Happy Sabbath, all you crazy believers!

From the Associated Press:

A new survey of Americans’ knowledge of religion found that atheists, agnostics, Jews and Mormons outperformed Protestants and Roman Catholics in answering questions about major religions, while many respondents could not correctly give the most basic tenets of their own faiths. Read more…

A self-fulling prophecy, at least in Christianity.

2 Muslims travel 13,000 miles across America, find an embracing nation

An excerpt: “After 13,000 miles, I think that America still exists, and I’m happy to know that it does,” said Tariq, a 23-year-old American of Pakistani descent. “It’s really made America feel like home to me in a way that I’ve never felt before. The America that we think about [as immigrants] is still actually there. I’ve seen it! And I’m seeing it still.”

1. Perspective

2. Most powerful colors

3. Dumb

“My own experience has given me the conviction that, quite apart from any such terrors or imaginings, the religious sentiment tends to develop as we grow older; to develop because, as the passions grow calm, as the fancy and sensibilities are less excited and less excitable, our reason becomes less troubled in its working, less obscured by the images, desires and distractions, in which it used to be absorbed; whereupon God emerges as from behind a cloud; our soul feels, sees, turns towards the source of all light; turns naturally and inevitably; for now that all that gave to the world of sensations its life and charm has begun to leak away from us, now that phenomenal existence is no more bolstered up by impressions from within or from without, we feel the need to lean on something that abides, something that will never play us false—a reality, an absolute and everlasting truth. Yes, we inevitably turn to God; for this religious sentiment is of its nature so pure, so delightful to the soul that experiences it, that it makes up to us for all our other losses.”—My favorite passage from Brave New World

I finished reading the popular Life of Pi last night. In sum, it’s a clever endorsement for zoos, storytelling, and the existence of God, either allegorically or literally.

Author Yann Martel’s use of metaphors is inspired and makes me feel inadequate as a writer when it comes to creatively describing objects, emotions, and experiences. For that, I was in awe — and laughing at times. Overall, I give the book four stars out of five for dragging a little in the first and second acts. Chapter 97 is my favorite.

If I were a disoriented high school or college student, and were forced to answer the following discussion guide questions for a homework assignment, these would be my answers:

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