The Scale of the Galaxy.

The above screen shot was taken from the great open source astronomy program Celestia. It allows you to move around the galaxy and view the stars from any perspective. The shot above was taken as if on the surface of the earth looking up towards the constellation Cassiopeia. Now take a look at this shot.

That one was take from the nearest star system to us, Alpha Centauri, looking at the same portion of sky. 

Our sun is visible as a bright orange dot in the center of the picture. None of the planets are visible at all. This system is over 4.3 light years away from us. It would take the Voyager spacecraft 19,000 years to reach this place, if it were pointed in that direction.

But notice the differences between the screenshots. The night sky has only changed a little. The distinctive "W" shape of Cassiopeia is still clearly visible, even though the shape is slightly distorted.

It's the galactic equivalent of crossing the street to your neighbor's house, except it would take years to get there, even with technology that is only science fiction right now.

Given all this I cannot wrap my head around the idea that the whole thing was created for us. In fact it is a downright preposterous suggestion. 

One Fact

It's been a while since I've written about religion. I thought I would give it another go.

I promise this one isn't too negative, just a call for understanding.

There is one simple fact that I wish everyone knew about me. This fact applies not only to me but to every person I know who has left the Mormon church.

The fact is this. I did not turn my back on any covenants or promises.  From my point of view the covenants were never real.

Now, before you stop reading. Again I promise I am not going to be negative.
But we do have to be honest about some things.
The simple fact is that if you are reading this and you are a believing Mormon then we have very different views on the world. I believe that your religion is just as false as all other religions. And you believe I am an apostate.

These facts do not bother me. I am happy to live and let live and embrace our commonalities instead of our differences. I have no desire to change your mind on the subject of religion. Although I have to be honest, it wouldn't ruin my day if you did.

At the same time I am perfectly accepting of the fact that you probably do desire to change mine. After all, if what you believe is true I can understand why you would feel that way, it's perfectly reasonable.

I am grateful to literally every single Mormon friend and family member I have for being amazingly tolerant and understanding of my loss of faith.  I haven't had a bad reaction yet, and I have had many great open and honest discussions.

So back to the one, simple, important fact. From my point of view the covenants were never real. I know from your point of view that sounds harsh. I know what that feels like to read something that conflicts with what you believe so deeply. I have been where you are.

I am not asking you to agree with my position. you don't even have to acknowledge that it's a reasonable position. But I would like for you to acknowledge that it is an honest position.

You see, sometimes I get the feeling that people look at it like us apostates made a conscious decision to go against something we knew was true. It isn't that at all, at least not for me or anyone else I have ever discussed this with.

I simply look at your religion, in a way my religion, as being the same as every other religion. In my studies I have made what I think is the most reasonable and rational decision about religion. I could be wrong. But so far I haven't seen anything to convince me that I am. That's as as much as any man can do.

So all I ask is for understanding. Understanding that even though you disagree with our conclusions, those of us who leave Mormonism, or even religion in general, are not doing so out of negative or immoral motivations. We are doing so out of the desire to be as honest and truthful as we can.

At least as far as I can tell.

Apologies for anger and offense.

While I still consider myself Mormon in many ways, I am no longer a member of the religion of my birth. It has been a fairly tough road from true believer to apostate. Losing faith is never an easy thing to go through.

As many of you know, in Mormonism your religion is a huge part of your identity. To lose that identity leaves huge holes in who you are that need to be filled. A huge variety of emotions come out, many of them negative. One of the most common emotions is anger. Some of the anger may be justified but I am sure that much of it isn't.

One other common feature of losing faith is the strong desire to get others to see what you do. Some of that desire is selfish. When others agree with us it tends to help justify the belief in our minds. So, many of us feel the need to get others on our side. A lot of that desire to convert others isn't selfish though, a lot of it is actually motivated by good intentions. Forgive my possibly offensive analogy, but if you were duped by a con-man that you also knew those you cared about had talked to, wouldn't you want to let them know. The irony of how close that sounds to missionary work doesn't escape me.

I find after time the anger slowly fades away. That isn't to say that it won't come up when certain hot button issues come up, or maybe if I am just in a bad mood. But the anger is less and less.

I also find that as time goes on, my missionary zeal has also faded. I find that I am perfectly willing to let you believe what you want.

Another very surprising discovery is that, although I still cannot make myself believe, I am filled with a huge nostalgia and longing for the religion of my birth.

I love Mormonism. I really do. I am fascinated by it. I find it one of the most interesting things about America. I seriously think that it is one of the most important movements in American history, and certainly the most important American-born religion. And I am lucky enough to have been born a part of it. So I talk about it, I bring up issues, I enjoy discussion about it. I enjoy talking to Mormons. I enjoy being around them too. I miss being around them.

Mormons have a persecution complex. I know this because I am one. Our history has been about persecution since the beginning. We are getting better as a people but many of us still cringe when we hear criticism. Even I still cringe. You might be surprised by how often you would hear me defending Mormons. Because, as I have said before, In many ways I am one. People at my work actually consider me Mormon, even though I have told them I no longer believe.

I say all this to really say two things.

First, I apologize for the times in the past when I have let my anger get the best of me. I am going to try not to let that happen any more. I will fail at that I am sure.

Second, I want to ask a favor of you. Please know that, even if my opinions may sound harsh, I never mean them as an attack on you or your beliefs. This isn't to say that I will never disagree with your beliefs, you already know I do. But know that I never judge you in any negative way whatsoever for those beliefs. I may still think I am right about a lot of things, but so do you. And that's okay. We have all lived different lives and made different decisions. One of the few beliefs I have that I really have to take on faith is that all people, or at least most, are doing the best they can with what they have. Which is all I am trying to do.

So please try not to take offense, and I will try not to give it.

Not this subject again....

Yep, sorry. We are going to talk about gay marriage again. I promise this won't last long. I just wanted to make one quick argument and see if I can get some responses.

Whether you like it or not most gay people were born gay. Most have no desire to reproduce with the opposite sex. Many are going to pair off into bonds with the same sex naturally. Some of these bonds will be very short and others will last a lifetime. Some will yield trouble, pain and hurt and others will be pure bliss. Most will probably be somewhere in the middle. Some gay people will choose to not get into serious relationships. None of that is any different at all, from a practical standpoint, as marriage.

It isn't as if there are gay people just waiting to commit to each other but can't because the law won't let them. Gay people are already in these relationships. Do you know what they call them? Marriages. They call their spouses Husband and Wife. They live in committed relationships just like many of you do. They are married.

Whether or not you give the same legal status to these bonds does not change the fact that they exist. It is only a question of whether or not you want to give the same legal status to them.

That being said, it seems to me that the only way you should deny these same legal rights is if it could be shown that doing so would be extremely harmful to society as a whole. Or at least harmful to someone. So. I have a simple question to ask those who are opposed to gay marriage.

What is the harm?

My mom taught me that it is better to tell the truth, even if it hurts.

I am a Mormon. I am an apostate Mormon but I am a Mormon nonetheless. Mormon history is my history. Nearly all of my ancestors at least four generations back are Mormon. It is not a conicidence that my last name is Harris and I am Mormon. I am a direct descendant of the brother of Martin Harris, Emer. He is mentioned by name in the D&C. He served as a scribe for Joseph Smith, Helped build both the Kirtland and Nauvoo temples, and practiced polygamy, a fact which I find fascinating. I wonder what went through his mind when he was told about polygamy. I wonder how he chose his wives. Were they chosen for him? Was he commanded by anybody to practice polygamy? Was it hard for him to accept the idea?

I am not unique. A high percentage of Mormons of all kinds, especially ones born in the United States and Canada, are descended from Mormons going back generations.

So you see, Mormon History is my history. It may be your history too. And I want to be able to know about my history. I want the church to tell the truth.

I am not saying they have to make an announcement about it. I am not saying they have to change doctrine or policy. They can quietly open their archives to scholars and historians and stop trying to hide the truth.

The Church has made some progress in this area. Their Joseph Smith papers project is a great step in the right direction.

But they need to do more. They need to give access to everything. Everybody knows about the vaults that The Church has and that they hold at least some items if historical significance. It is not known how extensive this collection is because The Church will not allow anyone access, or even give an inventory of the contents inside it.

They simply need to allow access to everything they own on Mormon history. Because the history belongs to Mormons, not The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

There is one thing else they need to do, and this might be the most important. The Church needs to stop excommunicating it's members who attempt to write open and honest history.

Is that too much to ask?

Facts

"Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence." -John Adams

I have heard it said that you are entitled to your own opinions, but not your own facts. I do not debate facts. I am happy to discuss facts. I am happy to show you the evidence for the facts. But I will never debate facts with anyone.

The following are facts

Joseph Smith did not always have the gold plates in the room when he was translating The Book of Mormon.

Smith practiced polygamy. Smith married at least 34 women, some as young as 14. Some of the women he married were married to other men.

Smith coerced one of these 14 year old girls to marry him by promising eternal life to her entire family if she would do it.

Smith's translations of all three facsimiles from the Book of Abraham completely contradict the interpretation of their meaning by Egyptologists.

There is no DNA evidence for any people of Jewish descent ever being in the America's at the time The Book of Mormon claims.

There is no archaeological evidence for The Book of Mormon.

Until 1978 the LDS church did not allow black men to hold the priesthood or black women to attend the temple. Many of the church leaders at the time said this was because blacks had the mark of Cain on them. Others said that blacks were being punished for being less valiant on the pre-existence. Brigham Young said that the penalty for intermixing of the races was death.

These are all facts. And there are many more interesting facts as it relates to Mormonism.

You can interpret the facts however you like. You can ignore facts you don't like. You even have the right to not believe facts. I cannot do that.

So,

I will not be called "Anti-Mormon" for stating facts.

I will not be told I am hateful for stating facts.

I will not be called a bigot for stating facts.

I will not shut up just because facts make you uncomfortable.

I will not apologize.

Love; Grief; Legacy

Love

In November of 1983 I was five years old. I have a very clear memory of my Mom receiving a phone call around dinner time. I have a very clear memory of watching my Mom's face turn to grief as she was told the news that her Mom had died. My Grandma was a beautiful woman. She was the kindest, most loving grandmother a kid could have. I was lucky enough to live close by, so I got to spend a lot of time with her. I remember her helping me learn to read and write. I remember her showing us how to make little roses out of clay, a skill that I still remember. She used to call me her "root-beer eyed" kid. I don't think that she loved me any more than any of her other grandkids, but she had the amazing ability to make me understand how special I was to her. The short five years I knew her made an enormous impact on my heart and I miss her every day.

In April of 1998 I was twenty-one year's old. I had been on my mission for 18 months. I was awoken by a phone call from my mother. The simple fact that she was calling was suspicious, but as soon as I heard her voice I knew before she told me that my Dad had died. Me and my Dad were very close. After my parents divorce me and some of my siblings would spend most summers and Christmas breaks in Utah with him. My Dad had a tender heart and a propensity towards anger. Two qualities I can relate to. He was at the core a man who cared deeply for his kids. Me and my Dad were very close. We shared interest in too many things to list. But his heroes became my heroes, and his loves and interests became mine. I always felt as if he was what I would become. I never had any doubt that my Dad loved me. I knew it broke his heart to be so far from his kids after the divorce. I knew this because it broke my heart too. I looked forward to and cherished all the time we spent together.

I did not go home for the funeral. Nobody told me I couldn't. I never asked. I regret that decision. I was doing what I thought was right at the time. I was even doing what I thought my Dad would want me to. But no person should have to deal with the death of a parent without their family. I miss my Dad every day of my life.

Grief

When I left the church and eventually became an atheist I had to come to terms with truth. I had to come to terms with my own cognitive dissonance. I knew I didn't believe in any kind of afterlife, but yet I held on to the belief that I would see those I loved again. I had to come to terms with the fact that I knew I didn't believe.

I had to grieve them again. I could no longer tell myself that their death was just a very long separation. I had to admit the fact that their death was the end. I will never see my Dad again. I will never see my Grandma again. I will never see any of the other loved ones lost.

But more important than the grief, or possibly one of the steps of grief, I needed to find a way to make them live on. I do not want someone I loved so much to not matter anymore to the world. I needed to find a way to make them matter.

I haven't been able to do that yet, at least not to the degree I need. Maybe it isn't possible.

So I still grieve. But I no longer have the option to return to believing the fantasy. Once belief is gone it cannot be returned, not without a huge sacrifice in honesty. My Dad taught me to be honest.

Legacy

Both my Dad and Grandma were Mormon. They both came from a long line of Mormons. Nearly all of my extended family are Mormon. Mormonism is a huge part of my family story. I have said before that I am proud of my Mormon heritage, and I am. I can't help but wonder, then, how my Dad and Grandma would feel about the decisions I have made. I can't help but wonder what their reaction would have been. Would they have reacted angrily like the horror stories I hear from others? Or, would they have reacted with disappointment and love like my living family has? I like to tell myself that they would react with acceptance. But that may be just another fantasy. In my wildest dreams they would tell me that they always shared the same doubts and understand exactly where I am coming from. I think that might just be possible about my Dad.

One thing I do know is that in my mind I am still following what they taught me. I am trying to live by what I think is true. I am trying to be loving and kind to others. I am trying to fight for the rights of everyone and build a just society around me. I am trying to be courageous and valiant in fighting for truth. I am trying to live up to the legacy of my pioneer ancestors. But I can't blaze my own trail by always following theirs.

A religion that I could believe in.

# lived in the void. # was the void. # needed consciousness. # needed thought. So # became the universe. # woke up somewhere, someplace as the first conscious being. # was conscious for an instant before the consciousness stopped. # became conscious again, and witnessed the death of the first consciousness in the second consciousness. But, # did not remember this. # needs to slowly experience every possible consciousness in the universe. # will never remember any past consciousnesses. We are all #.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Apologists

While perusing an LDS apologist site I ran across this article that was a response to the movie 8: The Mormon Proposition. I have no interest in taking apart the entire article or even discussing the movie, except to make a point about apologists.
The article first makes this claim about the movie

17:37
Claim
A woman who is claimed to be a "former Mormon" states that in the temple "we promise to give of our means and our time to defend the Church and to forward its mission, and we're told that we will lose our eternal salvation if we don't keep that promise."

The apologists are being accurate here, this is word for word what is said in the movie.

The problem is their response

Response
There is no promise made in the temple that includes those words and no place where it is stated that anyone will lose their eternal salvation if they do not keep their promises. That having been said, there can be no question that to enter into any covenant with God and then to knowingly and purposely break that covenant must certainly disqualify the individual for the blessings that God has promised to the faithful.

I don't wish to get into any specific details about the LDS temple ceremonies, but anyone who has been through the temple knows that what the former Mormon says in the above quote is accurate. To claim otherwise is a blatant lie. But notice the full quote above by the apologists. Let me point out a couple of huge problems with their tactics.
First, they complain that

There is no promise made in the temple that includes those words.

Well of course it doesn't use those exact words. The woman wasn't claiming to be quoting the temple ceremony. Either they are deliberately being dishonest here, or they have the listening skills of a five year old.

Then they say

and no place where it is stated that anyone will lose their eternal salvation if they do not keep their promises.

This has got to be one of the most dishonest things I have ever seen a Mormon say. Yes it is true that there is no place in the temple where it states those words, but to claim that the Mormon temple doesn't teach that is absolutely a lie. Any Mormon who has been to the temple knows those are the most important covenants you can make. To claim that your eternal salvation doesn't rest on the covenants you make in the temple would be in contradiction with the LDS church itself.

Then their little game of deceit gets even better, because notice what they do next.

That having been said, there can be no question that to enter into any covenant with God and then to knowingly and purposely break that covenant must certainly disqualify the individual for the blessings that God has promised to the faithful.

This part is astounding to me. This entire paragraph completely contradicts the preceding one and agrees with absolutely everything that the former Mormon said. So they first attack what she says because she didn't use the exact wording that the temple uses, and then use wording that agrees with the exact intent of what the woman said.

I use this example, not to discuss gay marriage or the temple ceremony, but to point out how dishonest apologists are. They don't care about truth, they care about defending a position. Here is how an apologist works
1-Assume all the truth claims of the church are true.
2-Find any possible evidence you can to support those claims
3-Reject out of hand an evidence that contradicts it
4-If the evidence against becomes too overwhelming to deny, just assert that it doesn't really matter because proposition 1 is true.

I hope you can see that those tactics, while useful for maintain belief, are not the way to discover truth. You don't assume the conclusion prior to even gathering any evidence.

The real truth though, is that apologists don't exist to convince people like me. Apologists exist to give people who want to believe justification for doing so. If someone runs into a tough question but really wants to believe they can go to an apologist and get an answer. It doesn't really matter to people like this what the answer really is, just that there is an answer. All they need to see is that a bunch of smart people looked at the issue, found an explanation, and are still believers. That is all the believer needs to maintain faith.

I do have to confess one thing. I wasn't just perusing an LDS apologist site. I actually had a goal in mind when I went there. My goal was to go to the home page of FAIR and see how long it took me to find a blatant lie or misrepresentation by an apologist. I found the one discussed above in less than two minutes. It's just too easy.

A dose of anger and offense.

I have discovered something recently. I have discovered that no matter how much I restrain myself in expressing my opinions about religion or Mormonism people will still take offense.

No matter how fair I try to be to people, no matter how many times I make sure I differentiate between religious beliefs and religious people, no matter how often I use soft words and polite ways to make my point, it just doesn't matter at all.

People will still take offense.

I have been accused of having no morals, leaving religion because I wanted to sin, and lacking integrity. I have been accused of being stupid, ignorant, lacking reason, and playing the victim.

And that's just within the past week.

It just doesn't matter how nice I try to be, I am seen as an asshole and a bigot. So today I am going to be an asshole, I'll let you decide about the bigot part.

I am about to offend you. If you don't like being offended you should stop reading and close this page now. Seriously.

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Are you sure you want to read this?

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Last chance

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Fuck religion.

Fuck all religion, and fuck the ignorant, brainwashed people who believe in it.

Fuck Mormonism.
Fuck Mormonism for making me think I was committing a sin barely less than murder for masturbating.
Fuck Mormonism for using your political weight to take away rights from American citizens.
And Fuck the Mormons who support such bigotry.
Fuck Mormonism for not allowing me to attend my own father's funeral.
Fuck Mormonism for teaching women that their only real purpose is to raise kids.
Fuck Mormonism for excommunicating anyone who actually asks questions.

Fuck Catholicism.
Fuck Catholicism for teaching people that condoms are more evil than AIDS.
Fuck Catholicism for enabling child rapists.
Fuck Catholicism for persecuting people like Galileo, people who actually cared about truth.

Fuck Islam.
Fuck Islam for using your violent religion to justify murder, rape, mutilation and bigotry.
Fuck Islam for attacking my beloved nation blatantly and without provocation.
Fuck Islam for demanding free speech rights while calling for death to others who demand the same.
Fuck Islam for their unforgivable treatment of women, including genital mutilation of children

Fuck Christianity for undermining science education in this nation, and endangering our future.
Fuck Christians who claim that we are a "Christian Nation" Which is true only in the same sense that we are a white nation. (I bet that one gets taken out of context).
Fuck Christians for putting the words "under god" in the pledge of allegiance.
(Incidentally, Fuck the pledge of allegiance. We don't need loyalty pledges to be patriotic.)
Fuck Christians who claim persecution when atheists put up billboards.
Fuck Christians who tell me there are no atheists in foxholes. Yes there fucking are! I was one!
Fuck Christians who think religious belief and patriotism are one and the same.
Fuck Christians who scare little children into being "good" by stories of hell.
Fuck Christians who tell me I am going to hell. If hell is real, (spoiler alert. It isn't), I hope you go there and spend eternity burning for your ignorant, backwards views.

And Fuck whatever religion you believe in that I haven't mentioned yet. And whatever stupid, irrational, ignorant, backwards, unscientific, unsupported, and just downright silly beliefs you hold.

FUCK!

Fuck me for not thinking of more things to be angry about.

And Fuck me for using so much fucking hyperbole!

Do I have to care if you are offended?

If I posted on Facebook saying how much I dislike the writings of your favorite author, would you get offended? Would you tell me that I should just shut up and leave it alone? If I posted an argument against your chosen political party would you demand that I have no right to post such mean things? Would you demand that I just shut up because you really like those things and my arguments against those things are offensive? I don't think you would.

But yet invariably nearly every time I post anything at all even vaguely against religion or the ideas of religion I am constantly told to be quiet. I am told things like,

"Why can't you just leave it alone?"

"Why do you have to be so mean?"

"You are being offensive!"

And various other things to try to shut me up.

In every other context other than religion, discussion and argument are an expected part of our society, but as soon as religion comes up I am supposed to shut my mouth.

I am not naive as to the reason for this double-standard. The more seriously people take their beliefs, the more their beliefs matter to them, the more they are going to feel offended when those beliefs are challenged. It is a natural human response.

But I think it is also an immature human response, and one that we should fight against.

I am sure I fall into this trap myself, but I try to be aware of it and try to not allow myself the luxury of thinking I am always right. If I am being stubborn and blind to the evidence I want to know. I want my beliefs to conform to reality. This is, of course, easier said than done.

If we get immediately offended whenever something we think is challenged than how can we ever know if we are wrong? There really is no other good way to determine the truth of something than to submit it to the full light of questioning, doubting, and scrutiny.

On the other hand, there is something to be said for basic human politeness and compassion. Would I ever go into a church and challenge anyone's beliefs in person? No. I wouldn't even think to do such a thing. In fact if you know me in person, try to remember a time where I challenged your religious beliefs in person. I bet you can't. There have been a few times where I have discussed religious ideas with some of you, but I always felt like the conversation was welcome by both parties. If I was wrong about that than I apologize.

Almost all my anti-religious activities are done online. If something I said offends you than I cannot help that. I feel I have a right, and an obligation, to say what I need to say. The issues I talk about are important to me. I think these issues are important for the future of humanity.

If the things I say on the internet offend you than you are welcome to not read them.

I welcome debate, discussion and argument. I welcome challenges against my positions. How else could I know if I am wrong if nobody challenges my beliefs?

However if your only contribution is to try to shut me up then please just ignore me instead.

Do I care if you are offended?

Not one bit.

How the church could get me back

John Larson of Mormon Expression recently proposed the idea of starting a new community for people like me, people who have left the LDS church or aren't true believers anymore. You can read his ideas in detail here.

John Dehlin of Mormon Stories recently gave a talk about the future of uncorrelated Mormons. You can check that out here.

I love the idea of building communities like that. I fully support both John's in what they are trying to do. But it did get me thinking. In my last post I wondered if I should even consider myself Mormon at all. Now I will explain what the church could do to get me back.

First and foremost is this one thing. It is not negotiable at all. If the church cannot fully commit to it than it doesn't matter what else they do. I will never return.
The first thing the church must do is stop involving itself in political activities. No supporting parties, candidates, or political campaigns of any kind.

No urging members how to vote on any issue whatsoever. No donating money to any political group of any kind.

And certainly no Prop 8 type debacles ever again. All the church should ever do politically is urge their members to participate in the political process in whatever way they see fit and leave it at that.

If you are still with me than let's move on. Some of the next few ideas are negotiable, we could tweak some of the details here or there but the general idea should stay the same. So here are the rules.

The first huge change, and the one where I will probably lose most of you if I haven't already, is this. There will be two Sunday School groups, two Relief Society groups, and two Priesthood groups. One of these groups will be considered orthodox and one considered liberal.

If you choose to go to the orthodox group you should stick generally to discussing official LDS teachings and ideas. Essentially what happens now in most wards and branches.

The liberal group would be much more open and free to ask questions and discuss controversial ideas. What group any person goes to each week is up to them, they do no have to commit beforehand and should not be judged either way.

Nobody will ever be told that they must believe any specific thing to be a member.

Sacrament Meeting stays the same with one big difference. Sacrament meeting talks and testimonies should be kept uplifting and humanistic. Talks on love, compassion, family and general human values are encouraged.

Talks about LDS history and our shared heritage and ancestry are also encouraged. Quotes can be from current and former LDS leaders or from great thinkers outside Mormonism. Talks specifically attacking Mormonism are not encouraged. On the other side, Dogmatic talks are also not encouraged.

All of these will be general guidelines that people will be asked to follow. Nobody will ever be pulled from the pulpit or chastised for anything said.

Basically Sacrament meeting should be a chance to come together and celebrate our shared heritage and worship God, or not, according to our own beliefs.

These guidelines should not be interpreted to stop people from saying what they believe. It would be okay, for example, for me to say I am an atheist or for someone else to say they know The Book of Mormon is true. As long as the talks are positive than it's okay.

Because of this, those in the pews should be respectful of opinions that may differ from their own. Discussion afterwards is fine but interruptions during any talk would probably be inappropriate.

Again, these are general guidelines, not strict rules. Everyone should try to give others the benefit of the doubt if they feel the guidelines are being broken.

The same general guidelines that exist for Sacrament Meeting talks would also apply to Stake Conference talks and General Conference talks.

Music in Sacrament Meeting would be essentially the same except for one thing. The rules against certain types of instruments that exist now would be removed. Any instrument can be uplifting. All types of musical expression should be encouraged.

The three hour block stays but is breaks down differently. 1 hour of Sacrament Meeting, 30 minutes of Priesthood/Relief society, 30 minutes of Sunday School, and 1 hour of socializing. How the socialization goes is totally up to the local unit. Creativity is encouraged.

Tithing changes from 10% to pay whatever you think the church is worth to you. Donations will be anonymous and nobody will ever be told what to pay.

There will be only one temple recommend question. Do you feel comfortable going to the temple? In fact we could just get rid of that and make the temple rituals open to anyone. I think there is a lot of beauty in the rituals, and the chance to escape from the chaos of the world is always good.

Callings will be volunteer first and then if they are not filled it would be okay to ask people. But people should never be made to feel guilty if they don't feel they can fill the calling for whatever reason. Callings should never be made up just to give someone something to do. If it doesn't need to be done don't make someone do it. Also, meetings that don't really need to be held will not be held. Family time should always take precedence over church time.

The church will rehire it's custodial staff and stop asking normal members to do that work. It would also give back those jobs to members who lost them.

The business interests of the church can remain, as long as the financial statements are available to anyone who wants to see them.

I think that's about it. Do I think that this idea is realistic? Not at all. I do think something like this is possible, maybe even inevitable. But certainly not in my lifetime. Probably not for at least a few hundred years. But I man can dream can't he?

What do you think? What ideas do you like or hate? If you are a believer now would you still go to this church? If you aren't, would something like this make you come back?

I promised to talk about MorCon in this post. But I think I will wait and do that one next time.

Am I a Mormon?

I want to be a Mormon. I just thought I would say that. I am no longer a member of the LDS church. I no longer even believe in God. But I love the ideas of Mormonism. I love the people. I love how they care so much about families. I love how they take care of each other and band together so well in emergencies. I love their ideas about thrift and self-reliance. I also love how they take care of the people who aren't good at implementing those ideas. I love their mythology, their cosmology, their music, sense of humor, and food, especially funeral potatoes. How can you not love funeral potatoes? I am sure I could think of more. But most of all, as I said before, I love the people. They are my people.
But yet I use the term "they" instead of "we". Despite how much I tried, I just could not ever get myself to believe in any of the truth claims of religion. It wasn't for lack of effort, I tried for 30 years, it just didn't work. And unfortunately Mormonism tends to be a fairly dogmatic community about believing it's truth claims. If you don't believe that, just imagine standing up in Sunday School and asking about other possible theories of Book of Mormon authorship. How well do you think that would go over? I want to stay part of Mormonism but I don't think Mormonism wants me.
There is one other possibility though. Couldn't I just attend and enjoy the social aspect and stay quiet about what I think about the beliefs? I certainly could do that. I know for a fact that many do. But it is a very hard thing to do. It is hard to listen to things you disagree with over and over and not be able to give your point of view. and I don't think I am the type of person that could pull it off.
So I try to stay part of the larger Mormon community by socializing as much as possible with people like me. But as awesome and great as those people are, I still feel like I am missing out on full participation in a community that I love.
Coming in my next post
What the church can do to fix this and get me back, seriously.
Preview....... MorCon. Better than DragonCon?

Cosmic Purpose

One of the most common objections that I find when I tell people that I am an atheist is the idea that without God there would be no purpose for life. Without God, life would be meaningless.

I both completely agree and disagree with this idea. It all depends on how you define meaning and/or purpose.

Is life meaningless? Does life have no purpose? In a sense, yes. Life on this earth has no meaning. If our star went supernova tomorrow (Don't worry, it won't),and every life form on this entire planet was obliterated, it would barely be a noticeable event in the universe. It simply wouldn't matter, it would just be the universe going about it's normal movements. Stars explode every day. I would venture to guess that you don't spend a lot of time caring about any life that could be orbiting those stars.

Scientists expect that the star Betelgeuse, a red giant, is going to go supernova sometime within the next million years. Meaning that it is actually possible that it could happen tomorrow, or that it has already happened. If it did happen and we could somehow know that it had destroyed a civilization similar to ours, would you care? Would you feel any empathy for them? If we saw Betelgeuse explode tomorrow I don't imagine there would be any response other than scientific excitement.

Your life does not really matter, at least not to the universe

But it does matter. It matters to me. Life matters to those that live it.

It may not be of any cosmic or theological significance whether or not I take care of my children. It is true that if I didn't take care of them and they died of neglect that it wouldn't make much difference in the universe, or even maybe the world. But it would matter to me and to them. As a parent it literally hurts me to see my children hurt. I cannot imagine consciously causing them pain. I have caused them pain before inadvertently and didn't enjoy it at all. It made me and my children both worse off.

 Life may not matter in any sort of cosmic sense, but since I am here and living it I may as well make it the best life I can. I may as well not hurt myself and the people I love and try to give them the best experience I can. I may as well try to make the world better for the life that is on it. I may as well do the things that I enjoy and the things that make me happy. I may as well be the person that I feel I am and not live a lie.

Let me give an analogy. Suppose your parents take you to an amusement park when you are a child. They tell you that if you are really good, if you don't fight with your siblings, if you don't beg for things you can't have, etc, that they will take you to your favorite restaurant every day for the rest of your life.

So you do your best to do exactly what your parents say. Everything seems to be going well and you are having a great time.

Around lunchtime you overhear your parents talking to each other about the fact that they have no intention of ever paying out the promised reward. They are just manipulating you into being good. (I know, your parents in this scenario are evil, but just go with it.) What do you do now?

You could get angry at your parents and demand to be taken home. You could be mean to your siblings to get back at your parents. You could refuse to enjoy the amusement park anymore. Or, you could just enjoy the fact that you are in a fun place and have a great time the rest of the day and worry about getting angry afterwards.

Even if there is no real reward after this life, even if there is no afterlife and the only thing that happens to us after death is that get buried in the ground and literally turn back into dust, we can still enjoy the life we have here.

We can try to make it a good life for as many of us as possible.

We can love each other, not because we think we will be rewarded for doing so, but because we want to live in a world where people love each other.

We can take care of each other for the same reason.

We can enjoy beauty, art, music, nature, science, and anything else that we enjoy. We do not need an afterlife or a god to have purpose. We should, instead, worry about finding our own purpose for the life we know we have already.

“If we crave some cosmic purpose, then let us find ourselves a worthy goal.” - Carl Sagan

Can God be proved with logic?

There is a fairly well know argument for the existence of God called the Ontological Argument. It has a lot of forms but generally it goes like this.

1-God is the greatest imaginable being.
2-All else being equal, a being or entity that exists is greater than one that doesn't.
3-Therefore, God exists.

When I first heard this one I thought something like. "This actually convinces people?" It just seemed so ridiculous that you could define God into existence. But yet, It is hard to see what the problem is with the argument, it seems to be logically sound.

Respected theologians like William Lane Craig use this argument all the time, they see it is a slam dunk proof for god.

But it isn't. There are a lot of problems with the argument, I won't go into detail on all of them here. If you are interested there is an entire explanation and breakdown of the argument here. But one easy way to see how this argument is wrong is to try to apply it to other things. The technique is called Reductio ad absurdum. All you need to do is use the exact same logical steps to see if you can get to an absurd conclusion. If you can, then the argument has problems. Although it doesn't necessarily tell you where the problems are. So let's see if we can do that in this case.

1-Shangri-La is the greatest place on earth.
2-A place that exists is greater than one that doesn't.
3-Therefore, Shangri-La exists.

1-Sasquatch is the most fearsome creature imaginable
2-A creature that exists is more fearsome than one that doesn't
3-Therefore Sasquatch exists.

But here is my favorite one

1-God is the greatest thing that can be conceived.
2-Two Gods are greater than God.
3-1 and 2 are in contradiction.

Do you see where the logic breaks down? The trick is that the property of existence is being implied, although not actually stated, in the first premise. So in effect, the Ontological Argument is simply a fancy way of begging the question. Begging the question in logical terms does not mean "brings up the question, like most people use it in normal conversation. It means to assume the conclusion in the premise. Here is a simple example

1-God has done good things for me in my life.
2-Therefore God exists.

The existence of God is being implied in the first premise, otherwise how could he do good things for you?

So how is it that a high-school educated person like me can figure out in less than an hour how ridiculous this argument is, but supposedly intelligent theologians like Craig seem to be convinced by it?

Carl Sagan and the Pale Blue Dot

Carl Sagan has always been one of my heroes. I still enjoy reading my dad's old illustrated copy of Cosmos. That book is actually one of the things I received when my dad died that I prize the most. In this video he refers to the Pale Blue Dot. He is referring to a picture taken by the Voyager I spacecraft in 1990, 13 years after it was sent into space, from 3.7 billion miles away. This photo was taken at the edge of our solar system, well outside the orbit of Pluto, and shows the earth as just a tiny blue dot caught in a ray of sunlight. I don't have the eloquent writing skills of Sagan so I will stop and let you watch this video. The audio is taken from the audiobook version of his book Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, The voice is Sagan's

The internet is the greatest advancement in the history of humanity

The internet is the greatest advancement in the history of humanity. It has already changed our lives in amazing ways and will continue to do so. Think of all the things that have changed since around 1995 when the internet was just starting to catch on. Just the fact that you could be reading this just a few minutes, or even seconds, after I finish writing it is groundbreaking. This would have been unthinkable just a few decades ago, at least without the use of expensive technology unavailable to normal people.
When was the last time you went inside a bank? I personally haven't been inside one in years. I conduct nearly all of my financial transactions online. The internet allows for the nearly cashless economy that we are becoming, without a high speed global data network it just wouldn't be possible to have such a system.
But much more important than a better financial system is the way the internet is creating communities. To illustrate my point I will tell you that I participate in a lot of online Mormon discussion boards and communities. The kinds of communities that welcome apostates like me. It doesn't matter what you think of such communities, all you need to know is that they are important to me. I have met and talked to great people. I have received support from these people and hopefully helped give some support to others. I have never met any of these people in real life, yet I feel like I know them and they are my friends. Without these communities I would know about a half dozen adults who are apostate like me. With these communities I can interact and get to know thousands. Not all of them believe exactly what I do about Mormonism, but they all welcome me and my thoughts. So these friends may not be as good as having someone that can actually come over, but can you really say that they aren't better than no friends at all?
But, possibly even more important that creating communities is the possibility of the free exchange of ideas. I have debated and exchanged ideas on the internet with people for years. Many of you are those people. The amazing conversations that we exchange would never happen without the internet. We would barely even know each other's opinions. And we would be worse off for it. But there is a danger. When we use the internet we are our own curators. We decide exactly what we read and watch. We decide exactly what opinions we hear. So ironically it is possible to have access to nearly the entirety of the worlds knowledge and opinions and still be ignorant. We have to be very careful to guard against the tendency to only access the parts of the internet we agree with. This is a very hard thing for every human to do. We tend to love hearing our beliefs and opinions confirmed. I have learned much more when I have been challenged on my beliefs than when everyone agrees with me. There is almost always another side and I should want to hear it.
But really the vast store of knowledge is probably the most useful and obvious advantage of the internet. The Library of Congress and the Alexandrian library combined pale in comparison with the knowledge found on the internet. In fact, I suspect that libraries are becoming obsolete.

How does an apostate view faith promoting experiences?

Faith promoting experiences. Mormons love faith promoting experiences. They show up in General Conference, Sacrament meeting, Sunday School, Relief Society, Priesthood, and in virtually every other place that Mormons gather. They are given as evidence of all sorts of things, and they can be very versatile. There are some famous ones and some infamous ones. I imagine that every Mormon has a few that they hold dear.
I have had a few myself. I have had experiences that I viewed as evidence of a loving God or even evidence that The Church was true.
One particular summer, when I was a teenager, we were headed on a vacation to Oregon. We had just left my Dad's house in Provo when I started to feel very, very motion sick. It should be noted that motion sickness is not at all unusual for me. I am the type that gets motion sick playing video games. As I have grown up this tendency has lessened a little bit but it still catches me off guard sometimes. This particular time being motion sick was pretty bad though, so much so that I didn't feel I could stay in the car. We had only been on the road for an hour or so and just happened to be near my Grandparent's house. So my Dad decided to stop there and let me rest for a while.
As soon as we stopped the car and got out we saw a huge bubble on the sidewall of one of our front tires. My dad quickly went to get it fixed and by the time he was done I felt better and we were on our way again. I used to see this as God's way of keeping us safe by making sure that my Dad saw the problem before it turned into a dangerous blowout while traveling at freeway speeds.
Now? I view it as a simple coincidence. If you are thinking to yourself, "How could that be just a coincidence?" My answer would be, which is more likely, that God purposely made me sick so that I would get my Dad to stop the car so that he would see the problem, or that it was a lucky break? Wouldn't it have been easier to just stop the tire from developing a problem? Coincidences happen all the time. In fact there are so many things happening all over this world at any one time that it would be strange if there weren't weird coincidences.
Here is another example.
When I was 8 years old my mother accidentally put a gardening fork through my hand. We were weeding and she thought I was done and just casually threw the fork down, into my left hand. It entered about a half inch below the ring and little fingers. It went right between the two bones and missed all major nerves. Other than a cool scar I have no negative effects from this incident. This was always put out as a miracle. That God saved my hand from major damage by making the fork go right where it needed to go. If you are still with me this far you will know that I don't view this incident as miraculous at all. I view it as lucky.
If God wanted to impress me he could have easily stopped the fork in mid flight before it hit me. Or how about a simple prompting to my Mother to not throw the fork in the first place? The reason I still have full use of my hand today isn't thanks to God. It's thanks to good doctors, medical science, and luck.
Here is a good summary of why coincidences should not only not be surprising, they should be expected.

Why aren't you afraid of the Muslim hell?

I am going to start this post with the assumption that you are not a Muslim. If I am wrong in my assumption than just substitute the word Muslim for Christian and the point will work just as well.
It is a fact right now that millions of Muslims think you are going to hell. They are convinced of it. Their holy book tells them so and all of their leaders confirm what the holy books say. They are convinced that Islam is the only true path to god and that anyone who does not follow Islam will end up burning in hell for the crime. (I know not all Muslims think this is true but that doesn't change the point). These people are also convinced that the best world would be one in which every person on the planet were Muslim.
Now think for a second about how easily you dismiss these claims, how easily you can see that Islam is not true and is obviously not the best way for humans to live. Think of how little sleep you lose worrying about whether or not you are going to burn in the Muslim hell, how little desire you have to go to a mosque and pray to Mecca five times a day. Why is this the case? Why haven't you looked deeply into the claims of Islam to see of they are true? Why haven't you read the Koran? Incidentally, how you view Islam is very similar to how I view your religion. Which is why telling an atheist he is going to hell is akin to telling your teenager that Santa isn't bringing any presents, but I digress.
The obvious answer to why you are not a Muslim is that your parents weren't. You were born into a Christian family and were taught it from birth. With some exceptions of course, very few people who are Christians came from a non-Christian background, it just isn't very likely to happen. From an outsider's point of view though, there is nothing any more plausible about the claims of Christianity than there is about the claims of Islam, or any other religion for that matter.
Author John Loftus has proposed what he calls "The Outsider Test for Faith". Basically the idea is to try to approach your own faith with the same skepticism and critical thinking that you automatically do all others. Attempt to look at your own religion the way an outsider would.
This can be a very scary thing to do. When your religion is wrapped up into your entire life it isn't easy to face the fact that it just might possibly be wrong. It is hard to even entertain the thought. Maybe the first question you need to ask yourself is this one. "If it isn't true, would I really want to know."

Abortion and Gun Control

Abortion and gun control. Two of the hot button issues in our society that just don't seem to want to go away. After all these years we don't seem to have made much progress in solving them. How is it that we haven't been able to find any common ground on these issues?
Most people think of these issues all wrong. People identify as either pro-choice or pro-life, for or against gun control. These labels are only stopping us from finding common ground. Let's look at the gun control issue first and see where we are going wrong.
First we need to make a change in definition. We are not really talking about gun control, we are talking about weapons control. I would venture a guess that nearly everybody is in favor of weapons control of some kind or another, I imagine that if you found out that your neighbor had a small nuclear bomb in his basement that you would promptly notify the authorities. I would probably wait to hear the story of how the hell he got the thing in the first place, but I digress. I think I am also probably right in assuming that nobody is in favor of outlawing box cutters. Yet we all know that given the right scenario those can be as deadly as guns. So the question isn't whether we want our government to control deadly weapons, I think we all clearly do. The question is where to draw the line. If knives are okay, what about swords? If a rifle is okay for hunting what about a semi-automatic rifle that clearly is never used for hunting? What about grenades? explosives? machetes? RPG's? guided missiles? An aircraft with a 30 millimeter high explosive gun? I think you get the point.
The truth is that most of us would agree on this issue when applied to almost any conceivably deadly weapon, except guns. Guns fall somewhere near the middle of the deadly weapon spectrum. They are certainly deadly but they also have practical uses, and they sure are fun to use.
The abortion issue presents a similar problem. I highly recommend this article by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan which explains the problems with thinking of abortion as a black white issue. To summarize, basically think of it like this. Almost all of us would agree that birth control is not murder. We would probably also all agree that aborting a full-term baby is murder. The question is at what point does potential human life become actual human life. It is not an easy question to answer, but polarizing ourselves into two camps that seem completely opposite of each other is not any kind of solution.
We live in a pluralistic society. One in which we are going to disagree in issues. The solution is to throw away the black and white thinking that we love so much and move into the grey areas.

Of Frodo and Jesus

I am a fairly open and militant atheist. I am doubtful that Jesus even ever existed and if he did I am fairly certain that he didn't do most of the things that are attributed to him... and yet I love the story. I love the idea that someone would suffer infinitely for the whole world. I feel a similar way about Mormonism, and yet I enjoy the myths, the hymns, the stories, and even enjoyed the temple ritual sometimes. I realized recently that all of that is perfectly okay. I can enjoy all of that stuff without believing any of it is true. I am a big fan of Tolkien, especially The Lord of The Rings. I enjoy the books, the movies, the art, the music, language, etc. And yet I am perfectly well aware that it is all made up. I know Frodo Baggins never lived, yet I can still appreciate the things that he did. I think that many times when we give up a belief we think we have to give up the cultural aspects of it. There is a lot of beauty in my religious heritage, whether it be Mormonism or Christianity. There is no reason to throw all of that out the window simply because I no longer take it literally. After all, I still hang stockings on Christmas eve even though I don't believe in Santa Clause.

Pragmatic Morality

I have had a few discussions recently with friends, and on the usual forums, about morality. More specifically about whether or not a god is the source of all morality. I have no intention to rehash that debate here, because I have come to the conclusion that we have been asking the wrong question and looking at it all wrong.
The question about whether or not morality comes from god is an interesting one, but one about which there is simply not any evidence to support much on either side. In any case I don't think it really matters.
I am willing to grant, for the sake of argument, that god is the actual source of all morality. But my next question then becomes a problem for believers. What exactly does god have to say about morality?
If you are believer you probably view your particular set of morals as the ones god has commanded, but how is an outside observer to tell the difference?
Consider a thought experiment. Let's say that first contact occurs and that an alien but very human-like species lands somewhere on earth. Think Star Trek aliens, but hopefully more vulcan than klingon. They have no prior knowledge if human culture, thought, or religion. How would they know which version of morality to follow? To what books or people would you refer them?
Would you have them read the Bible? I have no intention of getting into detail about this but if you think the bible is a good source of morality you should read it.
The Koran? I assume most Muslims would say so, but if that is true I urge them to read their own holy book as well.
The Book of Mormon? A better attempt but still has plenty of problems.
I could go on and on but I think we can easily see that any religious book someone proposes is going to present problems, mostly for the people who don't belong to that religion.
What about religious leaders?
Most of these sources would say similar things about the vast majority of moral questions. The question of whether you should murder your children has a nearly unanimously agreed upon answer. These aliens could get the answers to the majority of moral questions from my kindergartener.
It is in the fine details where they differ. But within those fine details they have such a wide variety of views that it is impossible for any impartial observer to say which one of them is really speaking for god.
Which brings me to pragmatic morality. Since we cannot ever realistically use god to answer our questions about morality we are just going to have to do the best we can on our own. If there is a god I assume he would know the situation and understand.
So how do we pragmatically answer these questions? I think we use the most valuable tool that we have as humans, our intelligence. We use, reason, logic, and evidence to determine what moral behavior is healthy for humans and what behavior isn't. While at the same time being tolerant of honest differences of opinion. There doesn't have to be just one answer about how to live a moral life.

The dream of a 7 year old.

My Dream,

I have a dream
It will come true for sure.
It is free free.
I love my dream.
I will live in peace with my family.
Don't worry I will have fun.

I have a dream to be free,
Free as can be.
Peace, love, fun
It will be great
This dream will lead people to peace.

The End