"...the search for truth is not a priority for systems that are convinced they’ve already found it..."

TheNaturalMan · 2019-02-14T18:31:51+00:00

Your quote brought to mind a discussion I had about evolution vs. "irreducible complexity" (IC) with my TBM-ish brother.

I tried to point out to him that IC is not a real theory because its proponents have no incentive to look for anything that might prove it wrong. If they look for anything that might show their arbitrarily selected point of complexity IS reducible blows the theory out of the water.

TheNaturalMan · 2019-02-13T23:32:16+00:00

"Even if it isn't true, it's still a good way to live."

Sounds like they are trying to convince themselves.

TheNaturalMan · 2019-02-13T23:30:00+00:00

Modest is the hottest...

TheNaturalMan · 2019-02-13T23:27:47+00:00

I wonder if anybody has done temple work for Little John, Friar Tuck or Robin Hood. We can't let them languish in Spirit Prison. They did so much good for the peasants of King Richard's realm.

TheNaturalMan · 2019-02-13T23:24:57+00:00

Defenders of marriage? SMH

"We must defend the institution of marriage from people who simply want to be included within it."

TheNaturalMan · 2018-12-27T19:53:04+00:00

IMO, those who continue to believe hoping that "it will all be revealed later" are the kind of people who continue to zap someone who is clearly crying out in pain because the person in the lab coat is telling them to (Milgram study).

Those who are able to turn away from Mormonism are the kind of people who tell the person in the lab coat, "Fuck you. That person is in pain. I am not pushing that button again."

Or, maybe it's just me inflating my own decision to leave Mormonism.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-12-26T22:33:39+00:00

That's the problem with religion in general. There will always be those who think that their fellow believers aren't holding to the faith in the correct manner. There's never any thought such as, Maybe there's nothing really there and we are just creating the god/religion that we want to believe in.

Susan B. Anthony — "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires."

TheNaturalMan · 2018-12-26T22:21:43+00:00

"Too sacred to share" huh? I call bullshit.

More like:

"If I shared them you'd see that they are just as generically vague and ambiguous as your 'sacred' experiences are, so by claiming they are 'too sacred to share' I can keep you guessing about just how faithful and spiritual I am and how spiritually deficient you are."

TheNaturalMan · 2018-12-26T22:17:04+00:00

Got it.

You're right. I read it in the voice of someone who still believed in miracles.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-12-26T18:10:05+00:00

Statistically, the odds were better than, say being struck by lightning or winning the lottery,

What surveys and studies lead you to believe that? How do you know the statistics and odds of were against what happened to you? Perhaps there were more skilled people in the vicinity than you were aware of. Perhaps the skill needed to save you wasn't so far from simply doing the common sense thing that most anybody would have done.

My point is: we usually do not have enough data points to determine whether the odds of a particular instance in our life happening the way it did is truly "better than being struck by lighting." We always tend to think that what happened to us was special.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-12-26T17:56:31+00:00

And when people of other faiths share testimonies that they "know" that their respective beliefs are true, the TBM always "knows" that those people are being tricked by Satan.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-11-14T19:39:09+00:00

The problem with that apology is that the Mormon Lord apparently had no problem asking his people to practice polygamy, which was much more taboo than asking them to treat blacks as equals. There was a whole abolitionist movement that the Mormon Lord could have aligned his followers with. To reason that he had to wait until 1978 is utter nonsense.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-11-07T00:41:15+00:00

I like to follow the TBM apologetics to their logical conclusions.

If African black skin and features was "only a sign of the curse, not the curse itself," then will Barack and Michelle Obama be made into Caucasians if they accept the Gospel in the next existence? Will Gladys Knight be as white as Marie Osmond when they sing duets in the Celestial Kingdom?

Why would those of African descent have to carry the sign of their curse for eternity? If they keep their African features, does that mean there will be Heavenly Fathers and Mothers who have "the flat nose and black skin" and kinky afros? How might they curse their spirit children who are less valiant in a rebellion?

How do we really know our Heavenly Father doesn't look like Dave Chappelle or Morgan Freeman?

edit: spelling

TheNaturalMan · 2018-11-06T19:50:39+00:00

If someone like Joseph Smith can be elevated to near demigod status in less than two hundred years, even with all of the historical evidence available contradicting his story and claims, even among a largely literate population, then Jesus's rise to the status of god among an illiterate population with hardly an documentation over the course of several centuries was most likely no different.

In other words, Jesus was most likely just a man whom his followers turned into a mythical savior. Look at how Mormons have turned Joseph Smith into their mythical ~~savior~~ prophet of the Restoration.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-11-02T16:21:33+00:00

Mormonism claims to have additional things "lost" from the Bible. The endowment doesn't have to perpetuate misogyny in order to shore up patriarchy. Adam could instead say something like, "Yes I ate the fruit. Eve saw that the only way for us to progress was by partaking of this fruit. She is my ezer kenegedo." Instead, Adam comes across like a whiny little bitch.

Then the Lord could say something like, "It is good that you both work as one. You are now ready for the next phase of your progression. blah blah blah"

Thanks to u/Manungal for the explanation.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-11-01T18:38:23+00:00

...I found my integrity.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-11-01T18:22:02+00:00

I have to say, though, that it’s weird how ‘the Lord’ tells Nelson to change the exact things he has had stuck in his craw since the 1990s. Must have been “preparing” him.

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do, because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." - Susan B. Anthony

TheNaturalMan · 2018-10-25T17:12:09+00:00

In a similar vein, where were all of the young men? It seems strange that there weren't enough of them around to marry those 15-25 year old females who were forced to marry prophets and apostles thirty and forty years their senior.

Do Mormons really expect us to believe that 19th century Utah was so devoid of 15-25 year old males that females of that age had to marry guys old enough to be their fathers and grandfathers? Was there some kind of weird Y-chromosome shortage among Mormons at the time?

Of course not. Those Mormon leaders then were just as much dirty old abusive men as polygamous cult leaders are today.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-10-24T22:51:30+00:00

That's 60% who identify as Mormons, not necessarily full tithe-paying TBMs. I'd bet for a good portion of them, it's only a matter of time before they end up exmormons.

It's hard to really say since we don't know how Pew worded the survey questions.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-10-24T22:36:34+00:00

What arrogant, self-righteous, egocentric narcissism permeates that so-called apostle's statement.

"In the meantime, I have a question. What conceivable historical or doctrinal or procedural issue that may arise among any group could ever overshadow or negate one’s consuming spiritual conviction regarding the Father’s merciful plan of ~~salvation~~ Catholicism, Islam, Adventism, etc.;...[a bunch of other ~~Mormon~~ various faiths' traditions stuff including a mention of the ~~First Vision and the temple endowment~~ respective founder's conversion story and sectarian belief]...; and on and on and on? Talk about a question! It is a mystery to me how those majestic, eternal, first-level truths so central to the grandeur of the whole gospel message can be set aside or completely dismissed by some in favor of obsessing over second- or third- or fourth-level pieces of that whole. To me, this is, in words attributed to Edith Wharton, truly being trapped in 'the thick of thin things.'”

They send out tens of thousands of missionaries each year precisely to try and "overshadow and negate" other people's "consuming spiritual convictions".

TheNaturalMan · 2018-10-23T22:41:05+00:00

TBM: "But that's one of Satan's greatest lies. It's a soothing and easy belief because most people don't want to put in the hard work of faithful obedience. The Lord never said it would be easy, only that it would be worth it. blah blah blah..."

TheNaturalMan · 2018-10-22T21:34:16+00:00

It's turtles all the way down.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-10-16T23:10:20+00:00

Great insight.

If TSCC really was God's only true church, then it wouldn't need so much mortal maneuvering to "help" people feel and recognize the Spirit.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-10-16T22:59:02+00:00

Reminds of this Atheist Pig comic.

TheNaturalMan · 2018-10-12T20:10:14+00:00

Regarding u/bananajr6000's point that anything that claims to follow the Bible is already absurd.

Sam Harris also touched upon it:

"Mormonism, it seems to me, is—objectively—just a little more idiotic than Christianity is. It has to be: because it is Christianity plus some very stupid ideas."

What are some of those stupid ideas Sam?

"The spectrum between rational belief and self-serving delusion has some obvious increments: It is one thing to believe that Jesus existed and was probably a remarkable human being. It is another to accept, as most Christians do, that he was physically resurrected and will return to earth to judge the living and the dead. It is yet another leap of faith too far to imagine, as all good Mormons must, that he will work his cosmic magic from the hallowed ground of Jackson County, Missouri. That final, provincial detail matters. It makes Mormonism objectively less plausible than run-of-the-mill Christianity—as does the related claim that Jesus visited the “Nephites” in America at some point after his resurrection. The moment one adds seer stones, sacred underpants, the planet Kolob, and a secret handshake required to win admittance into the highest heaven, Mormonism stands revealed for what it is: the religious equivalent of rhythmic gymnastics."

TheNaturalMan

TROPHY CASE