Boycotting Babylon Business...

[Stephen]

The other day I was speaking with another LDS person and mentioned an ad by McDonalds that promotes the homosexual lifestyle among teens...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBuKuA9nHsw

While I do not generally eat at McDonalds...I have been known to stop in with the kids to pick up some 39c cones on hot summer days. I mentioned to my friend that I would be buying my ice cream elsewhere.

His response surprised me. He said "That is just as bad as what the homosexuals did to LDS businesses when the prop 8 thing was going on".

Personally...I don't think it apples to apples as he said it was. The homosexual activists went after people to harrass them. This is a business...using their logo and money to support bad things. I am not harrassing anyone. I simply will just not give them my money while they are riding shotgun with satan.

I have long believed that we can actually support evil by buying the widgets that their factories manufacture.

If we put our money towards businesses that support the causes that we believe in...those businesses will thrive and promote goodness.

When Carls junior came out with their softcore porn ads...I wrote them a letter saying that I would no longer eat their food.

Anyways...your thoughts?

[Jason]

Grindr: a new sexual revolution? Grindr is a free phone app which lets gay men instantly pinpoint each other using GPS technology. It has already transformed the sex lives of 700,000 men around the world. But could it work in the straight market? And would it mean the end of monogamy?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/ju ... revolution

I don't buy Apple products....but they are just one of a thousand! Also picky about my movies and books....despite whether the author/producer is LDS or not....

Teens taught about sex ... by vampires
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.pr ... eId=174553

OTTAWA, June 29, 2010, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Wednesday’s release of "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse" promises to be a blockbuster success, if last week’s premiere in Los Angeles, where hundreds of fans camped out for days in advance to get a glimpse, is any indication. The film’s massive popularity comes as no surprise to Canadian novelist and author Michael O’Brien, who analyzes the Twilight series in his latest book. O'Brien argues convincingly that the vampire novel series dangerously twists evil into good and may even be demonically influenced.

Commenting today on the film’s release, O’Brien told LifeSiteNews, “Unprecedented cultural phenomena such as the Twilight series, Harry Potter and Phillip Pullman’s Dark Materials series represent a sliding scale of familiarity with evil. It is time for the people of the West to awaken to the fact that we are in the midst of a cultural revolution that is reshaping our understanding of reality itself in powerful ways. It succeeds in this by rewarding us with copious sensual pleasures stimulating the imagination in all the wrong directions.”

In his book, O'Brien points out that the Twilight books have garnered immense popularity, having sold more than 85 million copies and having been translated into 38 languages. The films are now dwarfing these successes. "This, despite the fact they are poorly written teen romances, pulp fiction with a twist of supernatural horror combined with racing hormones and high school boy-girl relationships," writes O’Brien.

Explaining the root of "how such a thinly plotted bloody mess has managed to obtain such an enormous worldwide following," O'Brien suggests that it is driven by romantic fantasy charged with powerful stimulation of the senses.

Quoting E. Michael Jones on the subject, O'Brien notes that Vampirism is the anti-thesis of Christianity, "Both Christ and Dracula deal with blood and eternal life … Whereas Christ shed his blood so that his followers could have eternal life, Dracula shed his followers' blood so that he could have eternal life."

But beyond the evidence in the books, O'Brien points to Meyer's own accounts of the inspiration for her novels to warn of its questionable revelation.

Meyer said she received the main characters in a dream, and that they were "quite literally, voices in my head" as she wrote the novels.

O'Brien also cites author Steve Wohlberg, who drew out the eerie similarities between Rowling's inspiration for Potter and Meyer's for Twilight, both of which began with an unusual dream. "The character of Harry Potter just popped into my head, fully formed," Rowling reflected in 2001. "Looking back, it was all quite spooky!" She also stated to inquiring media that the Potter books "almost wrote themselves."

Writes Wohlberg: "When those mesmerizing tales first burst into the brains of these two women, neither was an established writer. Both were novices. They weren't rich either. Now they are millionaires many times over. Their experiences are similar, with common threads. Both of their novels are permeated with occultism. Based on this, it's appropriate to wonder, is there a supernatural source behind these revelations? If so, what is it?"

O'Brien quotes Meyer for a clue to the answer. "After her unexpected rise to stardom, she later confessed: 'I actually did have a dream after Twilight was finished of Edward coming to visit me - only I had gotten it wrong and he did drink blood like every other vampire and you couldn't live on animals the way I'd written it. We had this conversation and he was terrifying.'"

Twilight's embedded spiritual narrative, O'Brien concludes, is this: "You shall be as gods. You will overcome death on your own terms. You will be master over death. Good and evil are not necessarily what Western civilization has, until now, called good and evil. You will define the meaning of symbols and morals and human identity. And all of this is subsumed in the ultimate message: The image and likeness of God in you can be the image and likeness of a god whose characteristics are satanic, as long as you are a 'basically good person.'"

"In this way, coasting on a tsunami of intoxicating visuals and emotions, the image of supernatural evil is transformed into an image of supernatural good."

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10062912.html

Meyer, a wife and mother of three from Phoenix, who is a faithful member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and graduate of Brigham Young University, says she has become accustomed to people asking her, “What’s a nice Mormon girl like you doing writing about vampires?”

But as she told one Mormon-themed Web site, “Unconsciously, I put a lot of my basic beliefs into the story.”

http://www.sj-r.com/beliefs/x466663776/ ... books-film

Nearly impossible to set free yourself from all of them....but I reckon there is a possibility if one is willing to pay the price.

[shadow]

Anyways...your thoughts?

I seee no problem with it. I never eat at McDonalds anyway. I decided to boycott Quizno's because of their stupid rat commercials a few yrs back. It's unfortunate too, I liked Quizno's. Why would a food establishment use rats to promote their food??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZrks-BPeLQ

[Col. Flagg]

Anyways...your thoughts?

I seee no problem with it. I never eat at McDonalds anyway. I decided to boycott Quizno's because of their stupid rat commercials a few yrs back. It's unfortunate too, I liked Quizno's. Why would a food establishment use rats to promote their food??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZrks-BPeLQ

I loved that rat... (in a scratchy, low whispy voice): 'they got a pepper bar'!

[SmallFarm]

I haven't ate at McDonalds since they found that dead body in the machine that makes the big mac sauce.

[ChelC]

Anyways...your thoughts?

I seee no problem with it. I never eat at McDonalds anyway. I decided to boycott Quizno's because of their stupid rat commercials a few yrs back. It's unfortunate too, I liked Quizno's. Why would a food establishment use rats to promote their food??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZrks-BPeLQ

Oh my gosh! I LOVED those commercials!

My Dad thought he'd raised a heathen when he saw me cackling over one. Quizno's makes a dang good sandwich - and "they got a pepper bar"

[ChelC]

About the boycott. I agree with you Stephen, but I do think it's becoming increasingly difficult.

Personally, I'd like to boycott McDonald's because their food is disgusting. Chick-fil-a has better food and the kids meals actually come with useful things. Aside from cardboard food, McDonald's kiddie toys are often promoting PG13 movies to five year old children! It's ridiculous.

[Scarecrow]

Although I haven't eaten there for over a year because of the vile ammonia laden "meat" they use, I'll add McDonald's to my ever growing list of establishments I choose to boycott:

United Way - for their opposition to Boy Scouts
McDonald's - nasty food and promotion of gay lifestyle
Levis Jeans - for their opposition to Boy Scouts
Apple - can't remember, but it was a good reason (other than the fact that Mac's suck)
Wells Fargo - for their opposition to Boy Scouts (it sucks my mortgage was sold to them)

There's a bunch of others I forget, but when I come across them I remember.

[ChelC]

Although I haven't eaten there for over a year because of the vile ammonia laden "meat" they use, I'll add McDonald's to my ever growing list of establishments I choose to boycott:

United Way - for their opposition to Boy Scouts
McDonald's - nasty food and promotion of gay lifestyle
Levis Jeans - for their opposition to Boy Scouts
Apple - can't remember, but it was a good reason (other than the fact that Mac's suck)
Wells Fargo - for their opposition to Boy Scouts (it sucks my mortgage was sold to them)

There's a bunch of others I forget, but when I come across them I remember.

Hadn't heard the Levis connection. Bummer, I like Levis.

You forgot the homo depot.
http://www.thefoxnation.com/business/20 ... e-kid-deal

[p51-mustang]

Anyways...your thoughts?

I seee no problem with it. I never eat at McDonalds anyway. I decided to boycott Quizno's because of their stupid rat commercials a few yrs back. It's unfortunate too, I liked Quizno's. Why would a food establishment use rats to promote their food??
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZrks-BPeLQ

You have it wrong, they were called "sponge monkeys" I always got a kick out of that commercial.."they got a peppa barrr..."

So you quit thier food over them using sponge monkeys? Man....sensitive

[Stephen]

Interesting to see other businesses being boycotted. More to add to my list.

I never saw that quiznos commercial before... I feel more inclined to eat there now.

[ktg]

Although I haven't eaten there for over a year because of the vile ammonia laden "meat" they use, I'll add McDonald's to my ever growing list of establishments I choose to boycott:

United Way - for their opposition to Boy Scouts
McDonald's - nasty food and promotion of gay lifestyle
Levis Jeans - for their opposition to Boy Scouts
Apple - can't remember, but it was a good reason (other than the fact that Mac's suck)
Wells Fargo - for their opposition to Boy Scouts (it sucks my mortgage was sold to them)

There's a bunch of others I forget, but when I come across them I remember.

I gave up on levis many years ago because of this:
http://www.pinkpistols.org/antigun.html

I knew there were other reasons, and their commercials seemed a little ..... 'feminine', if you know what I mean.

[p51-mustang]

Heres the sponge monkeys in action:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZrks-BPeLQ

Cracks me up big time!

[Geeswell]

erm...well i hate to rain on you here, but Quiznos has some of the most inuendo laden commercials ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LQpRQh2KSQ

and not to mention

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9WT8tSj ... 1&index=11

also, (and this is driving me insane) they have commercials saying something about finding your Q spot. i cannot, for the life of me find ANY videos. there are a couple of sites that mention it when speaking about the first video i linked.

so yeah...I feel kind of ashamed of myself for eating at quiznos when I do.

and i'm all for boycotting those places the OP mentioned. the levis one and mac one are difficult for me tho. oh and mac doesn't suck. people who think that are living in the past

[Wiikwajio]

Polishing the brass on the Titanic.

Are you using FRNs to buy those things?

Are you calculating your voluntary income tax using divers weights and measures? FRNs are not dollars so why are you claiming they are under penalty of perjury?
http://thetruthnews.info/dollardef.pdf

Prov. 20: 10 Divers weights, and divers measures, both of them are alike abomination to the Lord.

An abomination that Mormons embrace Divers weights, and divers measures penalties of perjury every April 15th.

Would it not be less restrictive upon your religious beliefs to calculate your alleged income in silver dollars that are not Divers weights, and divers measures and that Congress has said are dollars and are silver as the Constitution demands?

Does the Religious Freedom Restoration Act not require the government to use the least restrictive means of enforcing laws?

Did The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints not fully support the RFRA before Congress?

The head of the snake is constantly staring Mormons in the face and all most can do is to discuss how they are nibbling at the tail of the snake and feel proud of themselves for doing it.

In conclusion, I repeat that no greater immediate responsibility rests upon members of the Church, upon all citizens of the Republic and of neighboring Republics than to protect the freedom vouchsafed by the Constitution of the United States. Let us, by exercising our privileges under the Constitution:
1. Preserve our right to worship God according to the dictates of our conscience,
2. Preserve the right to work when and where we choose...
3. Feel free to plan and to reap without the handicap of bureaucratic interference.
4. Devote our time, means, and life if necessary, to hold inviolate those laws which will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life.
David O. McKay (“Free Agency... A Divine Gift” 367, 378

Do you control even your #1 property...your labor, or does the IRS take 20% to 50% from you just because of the use of Federal Reserve Notes that are not dollars to calculate the number of dollars in income you have?

Is not the establishment of a form of money that is an abomination the Lord not an establishment by the government of an irreligion or a civic religion?

[ChelC]

erm...well i hate to rain on you here, but Quiznos has some of the most inuendo laden commercials ever.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LQpRQh2KSQ

and not to mention

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d9WT8tSj ... 1&index=11
I didn't catch any innuendo, please explain it to me. Just kidding! That's the first time I've seen any of those commercials before. It is true though that Subway doesn't like to put any meat on their sandwiches. They are terrible and their bread is always dry. Plus they always cut your sandwich in half with a mustard smeared knife which is enough to make me come unglued!
also, (and this is driving me insane) they have commercials saying something about finding your Q spot. i cannot, for the life of me find ANY videos. there are a couple of sites that mention it when speaking about the first video i linked.

so yeah...I feel kind of ashamed of myself for eating at quiznos when I do.

and i'm all for boycotting those places the OP mentioned. the levis one and mac one are difficult for me tho. oh and mac doesn't suck. people who think that are living in the past

Are you speaking of McDonald's? Just what is good at McDonald's besides french fries if you are starving? I choked down their "deluxe" chicken sandwich the other day when my four year old begged for McDonald's while his brother was at Lagoon (I felt sorry for him). It was clearly supposed to be a copycat of Chick-Fil-A except that it tasted wretchedly disgusting. Like it was pumped full of broth to make it edible. That destroyed Wendy's and Dairy Queen's chicken sandwiches, too. They don't even taste like chicken anymore, they taste like "chicken flavor."

[ChelC]

Oh yeah - but the past McDonald's was good. They had real ice cream shakes, birthday rooms, AND my Dad swears under penalty of perjury that when he worked there as a teen they actually peeled, cut, blanched and fried their potatoes on the spot.

If you want a real burger and fries you have to sell your oldest child and go to Five Guys or make it yourself.

[shadow]

If you want a real burger and fries you have to sell your oldest child and go to Five Guys or make it yourself.

Real burgers are only sold at Crown Burger. In Logan we have Logan Burgers and Sandwiches which is close to being as good as Crown and it's less expensive for most people (Mike at Crown doesn't allow me to pay for food when I'm there 8) )

So you quit thier food over them using sponge monkeys? Man....sensitive

Very sensitive! Actually it was my wife that thought it was gross enough (you can call them monkeys, but they look like rats) that she wouldn't eat there anymore so it only follows that I don't eat there either (we eat together). She used to work at Quizno's when she was going to USU. Besides, Quizno's is on the other side of town so when we want a sandwich we go to Grist Mill.

[ChelC]

Crown burger is good while you eat it... but once you're done, you get that "crown burger feeling" as my husband and I like to say. Tasty but you pay for it in regrets.

[Fiannan]

Jason, I have to say that while I have mocked Twilight I admire the success Meyers has had. And is is merely a coincidence when Mormons have been getting a lot of bad PR from Prop.8 to our most powerful political figure, Harry Reid, that Meyers has given people an image that is quite positive? Her fans know she is a devout Mormon, and so now their image of a Mormon mother is not of an overwieght woman making green Jello with carots, it is of a creative and independent woman who could combine motherhood and a career that did not take her away from her kids.

Maybe she was indeed inspired, and not from the bad guy.

[Jason]

Jason, I have to say that while I have mocked Twilight I admire the success Meyers has had. And is is merely a coincidence when Mormons have been getting a lot of bad PR from Prop.8 to our most powerful political figure, Harry Reid, that Meyers has given people an image that is quite positive? Her fans know she is a devout Mormon, and so now their image of a Mormon mother is not of an overwieght woman making green Jello with carots, it is of a creative and independent woman who could combine motherhood and a career that did not take her away from her kids.

Maybe she was indeed inspired, and not from the bad guy.

....maybe.....or she's just another wolf in sheep's clothing! I have a very difficult time accepting that Meyers received righteous inspiration for an occult series of novels......just never seen it work that way. Perhaps you or someone else has a different experience?

Her inspiration for Twilight came in a dream. In the follow up dream her vampire becomes terrifying and ends up being evil and not the good that she portrayed.....

Interesting and ironic that one of the latest works "The Host" deals with possession.

Twilight's embedded spiritual narrative, O'Brien concludes, is this: "You shall be as gods. You will overcome death on your own terms. You will be master over death. Good and evil are not necessarily what Western civilization has, until now, called good and evil. You will define the meaning of symbols and morals and human identity. And all of this is subsumed in the ultimate message: The image and likeness of God in you can be the image and likeness of a god whose characteristics are satanic, as long as you are a 'basically good person.'"

"In this way, coasting on a tsunami of intoxicating visuals and emotions, the image of supernatural evil is transformed into an image of supernatural good."

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/jun/10062912.html

Based on Mormon, Stephenie Meyer’s 4-book “vampire romance” series, the Twilight movie was released last week (Nov 21, 2008) in 3419 cinema theaters across the nation and grossed over $70 million its first weekend. It’s the hottest pop culture phenomenon since Harry Potter mania.

In only a few short years I’ve watched the occult addiction mushroom amongst teens and develop aggressively into a yearning that they’d even sell their eternal souls for. Think of it, the love of a vampire, a being the Bible describes as demon possessed, musters the longing to remain lost for eternity – the very state Jesus Christ died to save sinners from. How diabolical is Satan’s message to our young innocents luring them, through a lust-filled romance, to spend eternity with him and away from the presence of our God of love?

Twilight takes occult darkness, introduced in Potter, to deeper, decadent fathoms: overt vampirism, acceptable blood-sucking (in this movie its only animal blood – later? Wait and see!) and sexual lust for the possessed soul (made appealing in its fictionalized form!). The books, akin to the Potter’s series, promote and familiarize their audience with magick, Wicca, supernatural powers and demon possession.

But what is beyond alarming is that Christians are seduced by satanic deception and have succumbed to Twilight’s fascination of dark wisdom, a power Scripture warns against – loving evil more than good (Psalm 52:3), and placing what the world admires before what God requires.

http://pjmiller.wordpress.com/2008/12/0 ... the-coven/

When we produced our documentary on Harry Potter, we warned of an ensuing occult revival as a result of such nefarious productions. While many claimed that Harry Potter was somehow safe, the tragic result was a mass recruitment of our youth into Wicca and other godless, neo-pagan, occult constructs. Incredibly, the evidence is now glaring amidst a neo-pagan revival… even MTV acknowledged that our ministry and others who had provided such warnings proved to be correct!

In an MTV news report that cited a study conducted by the City University of New York, it stated that, “Wicca is one of the fastest-growing religions in the United States.” MTV also admitted the following:

“A surprising number of young witches MTV News spoke with also said that they became curious about their faith through misguiding pop-culture fare like the camp Neve Campbell vehicle "The Craft" and the "Harry Potter" series. (Guess a few conservative Christian groups were right about that one.)”

There you have it! MTV is now admitting that movies like the "The Craft" and "Harry Potter" have proven to be gateways to the occult, even admitting, “Guess a few conservative Christian groups were right about that one.”

Such a tragic revelation should give any parent who is concerned about the eternal destiny of their children great concern. May God grant us grace and diligence to be wiser and better equipped in regard to what we allow our children to be subjected to in popular culture. There is no doubt that Hollywood is transforming many once innocent children into narcissistic, demon worshipping, wand wielding, neo-pagans, who have been led to believe that they can be little gods who can manipulate the forces of the universe like Harry Potter.

Very few people are aware of the shocking truth that both Stephenie Meyer, who authored the Twilight saga, and J. K. Rowling, who authored the Harry Potter series, appear to have channeled their novels as evil spirits directed them. Like Rowling, Meyer has set her sights on our vulnerable youth; the Wall Street Journal reported, “Twilight has targeted the collective soul of teenage America, and will surely have its way.”

Meyer claims that she was compelled to write Twilight after the story was first communicated to her through a dream in June of 2003. Meyer admitted:

“I woke up (on that June 2nd) from a very vivid dream. In my dream, two people were having an intense conversation in a meadow in the woods. One of these people was just your average girl. The other person was fantastically beautiful, sparkly, and a vampire. They were discussing the difficulties inherent in the facts that A) they were falling in love with each other while B) the vampire was particularly attracted to the scent of her blood, and was having a difficult time restraining himself from killing her immediately… I typed out as much as I could remember, calling the characters ‘he’ and ‘she.’” (Source: http://www.stepheniemeyer.com)

This dream was so significant to the Twilight saga, that Meyer produced a transcript of her dream in Chapter 13 of her book, Twilight, entitled "Confessions." Meyer claims that sometime after she “received” the revelatory dream she heard incessant voices in her head that wouldn’t stop until she would type, "Bella and Edward [the vampire] were, quite literally, voices in my head. They simply wouldn't shut up. I'd stay up as late as I could stand trying to get all the stuff in my mind typed out, and then crawl, exhausted, into bed … only to have another conversation start in my head.” (Ibid)

So furiously did Meyer’s dark occult story pour forth that she said at times, “I couldn't type fast enough.” She finished the dark tale, though it was her first book, in just three months. Meyer has also said, “I'm greatly looking forward to finally having Twilight on the shelves, and more than a little frightened, too. Overall, it's been a true labor of love, love for Edward and Bella and all the rest of my imaginary friends, and I'm thrilled that other people get to meet them now.” Meyer also stated that the characters in Twilight “were so real to me, that I wanted other people to know them.” (Ibid)

Sadly, if the truth was known, and Twilight fans were truly aware of the dark and malignant nature of the ‘real’ forces behind the Twilight saga, they would run – and not walk – to the nearest exit! It appears as though the spirit entity appearing as Edward to Meyer in her dreams, and communicating to her when she was conscious, revealed more about his true nature than Meyer had bargained for.

Meyer confessed to EW.com:

“I actually did have a dream after Twilight was finished of Edward coming to visit me — only I had gotten it wrong and he did drink blood like every other vampire and you couldn't live on animals the way I'd written it. We had this conversation and he was terrifying.”

A demon by any other name is still a demon! Rather than being the “good” vampire demon that is able to restrain from drinking Bella’s blood, like the demons of the past that demanded the blood of children through child sacrifice, it is apparent that the spirit entities behind Twilight are the same old devils after all!

http://www.goodfight.org/a_co_twilight_harrypotter.html

What’s interesting about this article is that it really does illustrate the principle that our foundational premises profoundly shape our worldview. Almost none of the LDS commentary, positive or negative, that I’ve seen on the Twilight books or movie has raised concerns about the occult, Satan, or vampires, and I have seen no suggestions that Meyer might have been inspired by, helped by, and directed by evil spirits in writing these books. For that matter, I haven’t seen any LDS commentators suggest that Meyer was inspired by the Holy Ghost, either. Instead, we treat her as an author who came up with the concept for a book, spent the time to actually write it out, and managed to break through the various barriers to publishing to achieve success. We see her Mormonism as informing some of the symbolism and themes in the novels themselves but not as having anything to do with how she wrote the novels and got them published.

http://adventures-in-mormonism.com/2009 ... -twilight/

When the world praises a Mormon....they fall off my hero wagon. Is "success" in the world what we are about? Is it to be admired? Does it matter one iota in the eternal scheme of things?

[ktg]

If you want a real burger and fries you have to sell your oldest child and go to Five Guys or make it yourself.

Fuddruckers for me. I've never had another burger anywhere close to as good as theirs.
Five Guys is good though.

[Stephen]

IN-N-OUT in California!!! YUM!!!!

[Fiannan]

Jason, I am not sure...I do not know Mrs. Meyer personally, but I do know that it is easy for some conservative activists to twist someone's words in such a way to make them look like what you would get if Obama and Satan had a baby together. I still maintain that she has done a lot of good for the image of the Church -- hopefully more than all the years we have had to endure Marie Osmond specials, and any good those might have done.

[Jason]

Jason, I am not sure...I do not know Mrs. Meyer personally, but I do know that it is easy for some conservative activists to twist someone's words in such a way to make them look like what you would get if Obama and Satan had a baby together. I still maintain that she has done a lot of good for the image of the Church -- hopefully more than all the years we have had to endure Marie Osmond specials, and any good those might have done.

Well obviously to each their own opinion....

from the horses mouth...

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/twilight.html

http://www.stepheniemeyer.com/thehost.html