Becoming Satan and devils

The whole War in Heaven story gave me a lot of grief. It's supposed to be so simple and straightforward: rebellion against God is bad, so choose Good instead of giving into temptation. But let's go back and look at this story a bit more closely.

How did Lucifer fall? He was full of pride, right? He wanted the glory of God all for himself, right? Where did that evil pride and ambition come from if not from God? Did Heavenly Father, the Perfect Being, produce imperfect seed? Is it Heavenly Mother's fault that Lucifer turned rotten?

No! the believing Mormon will tell you. Good and Evil predate God and births of all of his spirit children (but don't ask why we worship Heavenly Father instead of the Goodness that predates him). God became God because he was obedient to the laws of righteousness and Lucifer became the Devil because we wasn't obedient. But where did Lucifer's faulty will to obey come from? Who first tempted Lucifer, our dear brother Morning Star, to stray from the Father?

It doesn't matter! says the believing Mormon. It was all part of the Plan. Heavenly Father needed opposition in his plan. He needed a satan. Lucifer is merely filling that extremely important role of providing bad choices to avoid. Without Satan, we wouldn't have Good and Evil to choose from.

So why is Satan being punished for his rebellion against God if his rebellion and all his tempting are so incredibly vital to the whole plan? Shouldn't he at least get awarded Best Supporting Actor in this whole charade?

One last thought: if Heavenly Father's plan was to have us all choose between his Plan and Satan's alternate, evil plan, and everyone already knew that Heavenly Father's Plan ends with Satan getting his ass kicked, why did anyone, including Satan, vote for the alternate plan?

Pride! the true believer will say again. And I say, really? I thought the rebellious spirits all wanted a guaranteed return to Heavenly Father. Wouldn't they automatically realize their rebellion was pointless the second they heard Heavenly Father say "Hey, you little fucks, stop rebelling or I'll cast you into Outer Darkness FOREVER!"? Wouldn't that have been enough to change the minds of all of those spirits who were too scared of making bad decisions in the first place?

Can you see why I doubt the veracity of this story? It lacks rhyme, reason and plausibility.

Heavenly fatherliness #41 - Risking personal safety

According to popular wisdom, a good father will put his own safety on the line to keep children out of harm's way.

This is another attribute Heavenly Father doesn't get points for. How could he? His personal safety is never ever at risk. Ever. He's immortal and resides in the safety of perfection - he cannot in any way risk his safety, even should he want to.

However, he does let his children suffer every day and die horribly every day for no apparent reason. And he will let a good many of them live throughout the eternities alienated from him forever. The truth about the Gospel according to Mormonism is that we, God's children, are the ones risking everything. If we decide not to obey him for some reason, we're screwed.

For me, it's impossible not to doubt Heavenly Father's love and devotion to us.

*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.

Heavenly fatherliness #34 - Pride in children

According to popular wisdom, a good father takes pride in his children.

Basically Heavenly Father is only proud of us when we make righteous choices, which means we obey him. He's really into obedience. Heavenly Father is especially proud of his boy Jesus, in whom he is well pleased. He's also well pleased with a very select few other sons (sometimes). Not so much daughters, though. I don't think God's ever expressed pride for a daughter.

*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.

Heavenly fatherliness #25 - Encouraging family members

According to popular belief, a good father encourages family members.

Does Heavenly Father do this? Does he encourage us? If you're like me, you were told that God is always pleading with us to live a righteous and holy life, and doesn't that sound a hell of a lot like encouragement? And think about all of his prophets who talk to us all the time at General Conference. They encourage the shit out of us!

The thing is that God's encouragement comes via a long list of appeals that any logical person would throw out as irrelevant to righteousness and holiness. He appeals to his authority (he's The Great I Am), to bad consequences (you'll be miserable if you think and do differently), to force (he will destroy us if we disobey or are found unclean), and appeals to wealth (you'll have treasures untold in Heaven, maybe even a harem!). Even should any of these appeals prove true, they do not make God an especially good motivator, just more of a manipulator.

Then again, God's not interested in teaching his children to think. God wants obedience above all - above service and kindness and tolerance. Ignorant faith and blind obedience are worth more than thoughtful disillusionment and disaffection. That sounds like an Asshole Father to me.

*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.

Heavenly fatherliness #24 - Rewards

According to popular wisdom, a good father does not reward his children for actions that are expected of them, such as helping with chores or performing well in school.

Does this mean that Heavenly Father should not reward us for doing his will and obeying his commandments because that's exactly what he expects of us? Does that mean that offering an eternal reward is a mistake? It looks like God's really missing the boat on this one.

Then again, if we look at the real world, it's impossible to know if we're being disciplined or rewarded at all, so much so that the very existence of earthly and heavenly rewards is debatable. We have to rely on faith. 
  
Maybe God's doing okay after all.

*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.

Heavenly fatherliness #17 - Respect towards women

According to popular wisdom, a good father respects the women in his life.

The argument in favor of God respecting women I think goes something like, "He most definitely loves all of his daughters as much as he loves his sons! He's given women the amazing role of motherhood, which makes them not just beautiful but indispensable to the human race!" Sexist but respectful is the way to go.

The fact is that when it comes to examples and laws on how to treat women God has come up with some pretty shitty ideas (like giving some men many wives and concubines). Men always come first. It's clear that God thinks he has to talk to boys first and that women should be obedient to his sons.

The Creation and the Fall are two more classic examples of where a man (Adam) comes first and where a woman (Eve) gets shat on for disobedience.

A whole slew of disgusting rules and regulations have been created and persist to the present day restricting the kinds of things women can and cannot do from how to speak, how much to speak, with whom to speak, when to speak, where she can go, with whom she can go there, which doors she can use, what she can wear, what she can own, greater punishments for misdeeds, etc. The list is really quite extensive, if you care to look into it.

God's will has been one of the many excuses throughout human history for treating women first and foremost as the property of men and more recently/currently as second class citizens. You'd think that an All-powerful Father would work just a little bit harder to clarify the dignity and equality of women, wouldn't you?

And yes, even the Mormon version of God IS VERY SEXIST. In the LDS Church it begins young and follows you into adulthood. But there are some changes even conservative Mormons can get behind that would make things a little better.

*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.

Heavenly fatherliness #8 - Discipline

According to popular wisdom, a good father waits for privacy to administer discipline.

Does God wait for that private moment to discipline? If we are to believe the scriptures this answer is OF COURSE NOT. Your sins will be shouted from the rooftops, your punishments will be public, your shame will be for all to see. The Father of Humanity doesn't give two shits about your personal pride, dignity, or physical well being. If you don't do what he says, he'll tromp your guts no matter where you are. He's prepared a torture chamber for you if you disobey.

Even excluding his torture chamber, God's disciplinary tactics are really odd. He's extremely indiscriminate in meting out discipline. (It rains on the good and the bad, right?) If God actually dealt out punishment exclusively for wickedness and blessings exclusively for righteousness we might actually be more inclined to do good and be good people because we would all see and seek the immediate rewards God has for us. But He doesn't. Instead God loves to give everyone a hard time regardless of our behavior just to confuse us and make us mad. It almost seems evil.

When it comes to discipline, God's the Biggest Fatherly Fuckup I can think of. The Dude's a total mess. We should probably talk to him about it.

Dear God Father, 
You can take Your vengeance, scourges, and pains of Hell and shove them up Your ass. Straight up Your ass. Now if You want to be a worthwhile dad, I recommend You either develop a better disciplining strategy or lay the fuck off Your children, they're good enough at shitting all over each other and "teaching" each other lessons.
Love,
Your dear Son

*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.

God and the Golden Rule

GOD DOES NOT TREAT PEOPLE AS HE WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED. He doesn't treat them how they would like to be treated either. Basically God just dumps on people a whole lot and throws us a bone from time to time. But the Mormon promise is that he will treat us as equals someday if we're good enough to deserve it. Well, kind of. He'll still be our dad and demand total reverence and obedience to his rules. Good enough, right?

Living on the edge

Jesus needs our money to make his church work properly. It's as simple as that. Church's don't run on dreams, my friends! So we shouldn't be surprised when our dear leaders make these kinds of demands for our obedience to the law of tithing:

"Bishop Orellana looked at the new convert and said, “If paying tithing means that you can’t pay for water or electricity, pay tithing. If paying tithing means that you can’t pay your rent, pay tithing. Even if paying tithing means that you don’t have enough money to feed your family, pay tithing. The Lord will not abandon you.” (Ensign Dec. 2012)

Sound advice, right? But the promise is clear - the Lord will be with you. We're just not sure how.

"The Lord has commanded us to pay tithing. In return, He promises to “open … the windows of heaven, and pour … out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it” (Malachi 3:10). His blessings, however, come in His own way and in His own time and can be spiritual or temporal." (Ensign Mar. 2013)

That's a great way of saying "Want blessing? Go fish."

If it sounds like fraud to you, or a hoax, or a scam, or a pay-to-play scheme, you're not alone.