When it is small, we should ask God to increase our hope, awaken it when it is dormant, confirm it when it is wavering, strengthen it when it is weak, and raise it up when it is overthrown. True religion is found only where people worship the genuine and living God. The torture of a bad conscience is the hell of a living soul.  God calls some people out of darkness and into his marvelous light so that we might go back into the darkness and shine brightly unto every generation of God’s people. Many people are so anxious to be noticed for who and what they are. We have communities arising that anyone can join, so long as they conform to the particular restrictions and enthusiasm—the mindset—of the group. Again, the created community serves no real purpose other than to provide individuals a place where they can be noticed, where the narrative of their lives can be manufactured and infused with meaning. Both popular—culture and other types of communities offer assurance. Individuals receive an identity, the opportunity to perpetually reinvent and the comfort of knowing that they have a place in the World (no one can challenge, dilute, or replace). Although these types of new communities seek to give people back what they seem to have lost, a place in the World, false religion is always from the worship of untrue gods. Eternal life itself, which is the greatest of all gifts of God, is available to those only who know God. #RandolphHarris 1 of 9

It is all the rage in this modern World to worship false gods of every sort and kind. There are those who bow before idols of wood and stone, and others who lisp their petitions to icons and images. There are others who worship animals. Idolatry is nothing new, of course. Human nature is a perpetual factory of idols. People make idols of power, beauty, success, money, and celebrities. None of this is inherently evil, but they become sinful when they are treated as divine. Matthew 6.21 reports, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” People who love a certain celebrity or popular phenomenon so much that they link up with like-minded others and spend their time and money pursuing this passion are a familiar popular-culture phenomenon. The mass-culture industry encourages these fans because they individually deepen the person-product bond and, I there are enough of them, they create new secondary markets for figurines, magazines, conventions, and so on. Fan clubs offer only a partial resolution to the urgent need for self-expression, and they provide little in the way of a true creative outlet or assertion of control. As a result, people’s enduring and widening obsession with popular culture is now yielding a strange fruit: thriving subcultures that convey the heartfelt desire of the millions who long to be known. They have formulated their own truth, and answer to the lie of popular culture. #RandolphHarris 2 of 9

In the same way that some retreat to the confines of the cult or the safety of a fundamentalist community in order to be noticed, many more find refuge in popular-culture communities where they find what they crave: community recognition, spiritual meaning, and the ability to reinvent themselves. However, true wisdom consists in two things: Knowledge of God and Knowledge of self. It is the first principle of revealed religion to know the nature and kind of being that God is. “We know and testify that there is a God in Heaven, who is infinite and eternal, from everlasting to everlasting the same unchangeable God, the framer of Heaven and Earth, and all things which are in them,” reports Doctrine and Covenants 20.17. Nonetheless, some people are pioneer creators of online popular communities. They often start sites, which are like online fan magazines, dedicated to the worship of a particular celebrity and they become so obsessed that they can tell you from a picture what date and time it was taken, and they often think they know the actors better than the actor knows him or herself. As these individuals watch their profitability expand, some of them quit their jobs and support themselves from the profits they make from these online fan magazines. They are addicted to the online community they oversee and feel a sense of responsibility towards their subscribers. #RandolphHarris 3 of 9

Albeit, I imagine it can kind of be a high to attract three-quarters of a million visitors a day to something you created, and where visitors post their thoughts on their favourite television shows, movies and celebrities or products. These communities allow people to read a brief description of the main points of something that has happened or been seen. There are also incredibly elaborate overviews of what happen in an episode of a show or movie, or what a person ate and how they respond to their fans in person. Visitors also have the opportunity to read and post to the forum, where various performances are debated, and arguments rage regarding such matters as who the best couple is, and so on. The people go to the site to find like-minded individual who can validate and listen to their opinion. They look for people who can agree with them and the realm can become obsessive and bizarre. People who run these sites are not always ethical and use them to seduce pictures and try to date fans of the actors. A vice-president of marketing for one hit movie franchise actually made a statement: “We love our fans. We want them to have fun. But if in fact somebody is using our character to create a story unto itself, that is not the spirit of what we think fandom is about. Fandom is about celebrating the story the way it is.” Sometimes the fans in these communities think their opinions are gospel, and they have a very inaccurate view of what community is. Hopefully it is not the only “community” they are in. #RandolphHarris 4 of 9

The closer fans get in their online communities, the more cliquey it get. They sit around and tell each other they are great, their observations about the show are great. Ultimately, people visit these sites mainly to have their existence and their opinion validated. They are not as interested in other people as they are in reading their own posts and having their wit and knowledge admired. Not only that, but some of them seem terrified at the prospect of losing their forum, the only place—community or not—where their particular genius and knowledge is valued and recognized. Some of them definitely replace real community with their online fan magazines. These people could stand outside and make some new friends, but they prefer these popular platforms where disparate souls form instant connections because they want to be somebody, recognized and noticed the same way their popular starts are recognized and fawned over. And they also seek meaning and vestiges of tradition, a connection to community and spirituality that belies the specious allure of fame. It helps them keep the loneliness at bay by assuring them a place where they will always be understood, noticed, recognized. Where once an interest in Paris Hilton, Aaliyah, or Reese Witherspoon that lasted beyond boyhood would be considered embarrassing, today such an obsession provides a grown man with a fan base, an audience, an individuality, even a community. #RandolphHarris 5 of 9

And what I find amazing, is some of these celebrities, like Aaliyah, are so iconic that they even have several celebrity fans who acknowledge how great of a contribution they have made to the World. Magazine even have people who look like them dress up in a style the celebrity would have worn. And in the real World, even if a fan is of a different culture, has a different hair colour or skin tone, they still invoke the image of the popular star that they love and add their own flare to the style. You will see a blonde young lady going to prom dressed similar to Aaliyah (may a different color dress) with the same hair style from the 2001 MTV awards, with a boyfriend dressed in sports gear like Aaliyah’s boyfriend Damon Dash. People want to get further, deeper, faster into the popular culture that dominates their lives, and they are increasingly willing to abandon normal life to achieve what popular culture promises them. It is charming, but also remember some of these fans can be very mean and it is important not to let them diminish your love for your star and never to replace you star for God. No invented community can ever fully embody or fulfill what seem to be an inherent conflicting human need for both a particular unique identity and a sense of having a place in a society, a culture, a community that one will always be able to identify as homes. #RandolphHarris 6 of 9

We can ourselves from the bondage of having to constantly be free. In order to get the most out of our complex collection of our life roles, we must make conscious choices. People who commit to continually recreating their roles discover a new found sense of personal control and greater satisfaction in all the roles they choose to play. Our Eternal Father ordained and established laws—called the gospel of God—which enable us to advance and progress and become like him. We alone cannot save ourselves. None of us can call forth our own crumbling dust from the grave and cause it to live again in immortal glory. None of us can create a celestial Heaven whose inhabitants shall dwell in eternal splendor forever. No one, but God has the power to cleanse and perfect our human souls. The truth about God, the truth about religion, the truth about salvation—these things can only be known by revelation. Our testimony is that the Almighty God is our Eternal Father who lives in realms celestial. Come worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. Come worship the Lord, the Almighty, the king of creation. It is okay to enjoy some of the entertainment and have role models, but we must also turn to the Lord our God and repent of all our sins and seek the truth. Oh, God our Father, will you look upon your children everywhere in love and mercy, grant us repentance, and lead us in your holy way so that we may gain peace in this life and eternal life in the World to come. #RandolphHarris 7 of 9

In this mortal World, even millionaires worry, because as we all know, money cannot buy love, and money cannot buy immortality. The intrinsic rewards of your work, or of anything you do, for that matter, are your hidden assets. No global monetary fluctuation, no office politics, no invasion by strange people can take away your enjoyment and satisfaction in what you do. Your best security is the ability to get the most satisfaction from whatever tasks come your way. Ironically, those of us who get the most satisfaction from our work tend to be top performers who have plenty of self-esteem—two qualities that are associated with increased earning potential. Adulthood offers us the opportunity to remake work in ways that make it more relevant to our most heartfelt needs and desires. Mature adults are surprised to learn that they are skilled enough, experienced enough, even secure enough in their earning power to enable them to transform the work they do to make a living into more than just working for a paycheck. At the very least, they are able to see that no matter how much money they make, it is important to pursue satisfaction somewhere, too.  The gospel is not a doctrine of the tongue, but of life. It cannot be grasped by reason and memory only, but it is fully understood when it possesses the whole soul and penetrates to the inner recesses of the heart. #RandolpHarris 8 of 9

Few of us have more than a vague idea of what our personal satisfiers are. We are in the habit of gauging our work primarily by the worth it commands on the open market, not by how well it matches our inner urges to grow. Many people are unable to see that their vocations and hobbies are works in progress that add meaning to their lives, rather than ends in themselves. It is also important that our bodies should not be exhausted by long confinement, nor our minds bewildered by excessive and prolonged application. Rest also presents particular opportunities for strengthening cognitive and analytical skills. It is when we are relieved from the state of tension that we acquire the habit of thought and reflection, and of forming our own conclusions, independently of what we are taught and the authority of others. We formulate new ideas by analogy, working from what we know toward what we do not know. A mind must be cultivated. However, not too much, least it be exhausted. Human life was created on the basis of freedom of choice. God wants free people and people who serve him freely. It is therefore a challenge in everyone’s life to choose the straight and narrow path which avoids a life which lacks eternal direction. With the promise of divine guidance, we can follow one step at a time, with patience, hope, and faith. Decisions we make today will influence our future course, our future strengths and abilities. Know your destiny and follow it. #RandolphHarris 9 of 9