Thomas Paine speaks the truth

 “Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course or that a man should tell a lie? We have never seen, in our time, nature go out of her course. But we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in the same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie.”  

The Age of Reason

Ethics of Belief

If you are someone who is waiting for evidence to justify your beliefs in and practicing of Mormonism, take a few minutes with William Clifford's short essay "The Ethics of Belief". His beard is so prophetic!

The Color Purple

I read Alice Walker's The Color Purple when I was in high school. I had heard praises for the book from somewhere and so when I ran across it on a teacher's shelf I asked to borrow it. I was disgusted by it from the first page to the last, but I couldn't put it down.

Why was I so utterly disgusted by it? I was scandalized by the sex and horrified by the domestic violence. But most of all I was furious about how it spoke of God and religion. I found it blasphemous and I couldn't stand it.

So why was I so enthralled and read in two days? The narrative and writing style were recognizably compelling. And so were the arguments against God and male privilege.

The Color Purple made me recognize some of my doubts (which is why the Church doesn't recommend such reading) - doubts I buried as best I could, even though I knew deep down that I agreed with so much of what the author was saying.

Quick Guide to Continued Belief

This comes from the Internet.

"[T]hose who have been led by the Letter to a CES Director to abandon their faith, should, in my view, reconsider those Mormon claims and the abundant historical support that’s available for them. They simply haven’t studied enough." -Daniel C. Peterson, fairmormon.org. 

Mormonism: a gospel "so simple even a child could understand" but so nuanced only a person with the equivalent of a PhD of study of church history could actually convince themselves was true. But what do I know? I'm just another apostate.

P.S. If you're not following Just Another Apostate on Facebook, you probably should.

Heavenly fatherliness #9 - Giving comfort

According to popular wisdom, a good father is the person his children turn to when things go wrong.

Mormons believe that God wants to truly and completely comfort us. Through the Holy Ghost, God's love can fill us and makes us better.

I agree that people who find themselves in horrible, terrifying, intimidating, and desperate situations tend to turn to God. "God, help me, no one else can!" I've been there, but I have serious doubts about the comfort I received. 

Plenty of people blame God for their hard times and turn away from Him. And plenty of people don't give two shits about God to begin with and learn to deal with their problems on their own or with actual living beings like their earth dad, other family, friends, pets, coworkers, therapists and therapy groups, etc.

We don't need "God" or a holy spook, we need each other.

*These attributes represent the popular thoughts of Ask Men’s Jullian Marcus, examiner.com’s Tanya Tringali, and Open Talk Magazine’s Glenn Silvestre as per their respective articles on what makes a good father.