Here’s another, though admittedly a corner case … but really, aren’t they all?

“My brother’s mission companion’s ex-girlfriend’s mother’s patriarchal blessing says that she’ll live to see Jesus which sends tingles down my spine ’cause she’s waaaay older than me which means I’ll probably be around too… and the church is so true!”

-or-

My high school seminary teacher’s son’s mission companion’s father who is serving in a secret mission to the Jews in Jerusalem had a vision of a yellow dog roaming about the streets of Nauvoo which means the second coming already took place … in fact, the council at Adam-ondi-ahmen must have taken place before the Nauvoo temple was resurrected from the ashes … such beautiful symbolism … and now we are living in the millennium as further evidenced by George W Bush and … and … I’ve heard that Jesus meets with the brethren in the holy of holies of each temple on a rotating basis … oh, the church is so true.

You may think I’m just being silly, but these are the kind of stories that thrilled me as a kid, and even as a young adult. My mother, to this day, believes that the millennium is already underway.

See, even Mormons get weary of waiting for Jesus.

I know how you feel. I felt a little dizzy just putting myself in my old frame of mind to write this post. I’m not joking. I really did feel a bit woolly-headed after I finished writing. Maybe I should only do this kind of thing in moderation.

Excellent addition. Three Nephites, miraculous healings, visitations of spirits: I heard it all, though I’ve never heard the one about the Second Coming already being underway, except from the Jehovah’s Witnesses. Just goes to prove that there are many different Mormon folk doctrines. My theory is that the folk doctrines are centered in families and locales like what happens in the Catholic church.

JR,

Mormonism is a moving target for exactly the reason you gave: Mormonism can’t be nailed down and crucified for its own teachings. I’m guessing that the neo-orthodoxy of the last few decades may be a mistake because it will only make things worse when the true history leaks out. I think the only way the LDS church can avoid catastrophe is to fess up and take the medicine. That’s probably just my wishful thinking.

While on my mission, I talked to an LDS member who wanted his girlfriend and her son baptized (they wanted this as well). He wanted her to be baptized before they got married. They were living together, so you can see how this would be viewed by LDS standards. To this day I still could not recount the words I said to him that convinced him that the order in which he wanted to proceed was not proper, especially for one who was already a member of the Mormon Church. But, whatever I said worked. Was it me? Well, the words came out of my mouth even if I don’t recall what I said. Even my companion was stunned and claimed a little enlightenment by what I had said. But, I honestly don’t think I could convince anyone quite the same way again. Was it the Holy Spirit? Possibly. Can you tell me that I’m full of shit and weak for thinking that it was some outside force instead of my own deceitful salesmanlike intellect? Sure you could. Does that mean it didn’t mean anything to me because you say so? Hell no. It’s an experience that I can’t fully explain mathmatically nor have I been able to duplicate in similar situations. I”ve had other experiences that I feel more inclined to see an unseen outside influence other than my own at work. So while you are all discounting the “my friend’s cousin’s neighbor’s best friend’s bishop’s distant friend had this experience” which even I sometimes will scoff at, I have had my own experiences.

Does this dictate the Mormon Church is true? No. Does it mean that there definately is a diety or higher power? No. Should I discount my own personal experiences as something to consider when discovering who I am and what the universe is about? Hell no. I wouldn’t expect any of you to discount your personal experiences on your paths of self enlightenment. As I know Jonathan would have to agree with me on that peticular point.

Enjoy

I tried my best so to be fair in my post to how I thought as a Mormon. Not all Mormons think this way, but I truly did. I’ll respond to your examples.

The Earth is round, so there is no god.
The Earth isn’t the center of the universe, so there is no god.

Those examples are some good evidence that religion is unreliable.

I can’t see god, so he/she must not be there.
Science can’t prove there is a god, so there must not be one.

Lacking evidence for a god who answers prayers and creates universes, I choose to refrain from believing in such a god. There are lots of things that I believe in without proof. Those things have met a threshold for likelihood. God isn’t one of them.

There are too many different religions, so there is no god.

Given all the religions in world history, religious believers are 99.999% likely to be wrong about their particular religion assuming that there is only one true religion and that all religions are equally likely to be true.

There are those who don’t believe in god, so there must not be one.

Peer support is certainly one source of cognitive bias. Human beings feel comfortable in numbers. Something to watch out for.

History can’t prove whatever religion I belong to, so there is no god.

History can provide evidence that our religions were not divinely inspired or that our religion’s history is not accurately presented by believers.

God doesn’t talk to me despite my inquiries of him/her, so there must be no god.

Depending on the sincerity and desperation of the inquiries, and given the consistent lack of a response, it is reasonable to conclude that if there is a God, he doesn’t care.

Bad things happen to good people, so there is no god.
Good things happen to bad people, so there is no god.

The Mormon God, being more limited than other religions’ concepts of God, is actually pretty resistant to this argument. This argument is devastating for an omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent God.

Wars are fought by believers, so there must be no god.

This is only valid if wars are motivated by religion. War is rarely that simple. Religion has a hand in many of the wars of history, but so do many other factors like ethnicity, wealth, population pressures, and so on. I agree that pointing to the Crusades (for example) and saying that religion is therefore evil is too easy.

God’s laws seem so binding and restrictive, so there must not really be a god.

This may be true in some cases, I don’t know, but it’s almost always untrue. As such, it qualifies as a false stereotype. It would be best to assume that this is untrue of any godless person we meet.

I don’t need a god, so there isn’t one.

It depends on how you define needing God. We don’t need God to explain things for example, and when we do resort to God, it doesn’t end up explaining much. Looking at need in another way, it doesn’t seem that there is an interventionist God aiding humanity. We seem to be alone whether we like it or not.

I chose not to believe there is god, so there must not be one.

There is a legitimate danger among atheists of believing with absolute confidence that there are no gods. That’s not justified in my opinion. There is a chance however slim that there is a God. It has been demonstrated pretty well, however, that any God that does exist isn’t the God of any of the major religions, so I’m not too worried about my atheism.

The universe in infinitely small and infinitely large, so there is no god.
I have a free will (except when my wife tells me otherwise), so there is no god.
History is written by the winners, so there is no god.
Religion can’t explain science, so there is no god.
I have a limitted understanding of the universe in all it’s vastness, so there must be no god.
I am responsible for my own actions, so there is no god.
I have a mind and can ration and reason, so there is no god.

I don’t recognize any of these reasons as being part of atheist thinking.

Somehow I missed your first comment before I responded to your second.

I had a similar experience on my mission. I and my companion were called in by the sister missionaries to give a priesthood blessing to a woman in the ward. We were told nothing about why she wanted a blessing. My senior companion deferred to me to give the blessing. I thought then that he did it to help me learn. I wonder now whether he chickened out—I wouldn’t blame him.

I don’t remember exactly what I said as I laid my hands on her head, but I zeroed in on what was troubling her: marital problems. She somehow ameliorated her marital problems after the blessing that I gave her. She always had a special smile of gratitude for me after that.

How did I know? No one had told me, but there were subtle hints. It was one of those A Beautiful Mind moments when subtle, apparently unconnected trivia add up to a pattern. I thought at the time that God had inspired me to notice all of the circumstances that pointed to marital problems in this woman’s life.

Now I chalk it up to the amazing power of our minds to gather and recognize patterns. Our minds can do amazing things without or conscious awareness of their workings, especially when we get our critical, judgmental mind out of the way in the best spirit of Zen.

So experiences are important and shouldn’t be discounted, but more important than the experience itself is our interpretation. Every experience passes through interpretation. No experience has an inherent message which can survive untransformed when it passes through our interpretation.

Your reply at least is the first real, but not to me entirely convincing, effort to explain such. The earth is round really doesn’t dictate whether there is a god or not regardless. It could easily prove the fallibility of both science and religion, since both have made preposterous claims in the past. Yes, science is ever-changing and evolving. Religion in general seems to be as well, although a bit slower and more reluctant.

Also, unfortunately even John Forbes Nash Jr. saw stuff that wasn’t there. I wonder if that would clarify some prophets brilliantly intelligent?

Depending on if you believe in the whole UFO/Area 51 thing. George Knapp‘s interviews recounted one person who saying that the aliens indicated there was a “Universal Religion” and that the universe is God. Hmmm…. That’s an interesting thought; it would make god something physical and the creator of all things there in. Unless you’re of the notion that this is all in our minds (or just you the reader) and none of it is real to begin with.

Perhaps there is no god. However given humanities past, I don’t think the humanist philosophy is achievable or realistic and that mankind is doomed to destroy itself. I feel the only thing that could save us is genetic manipulation and selection of the human species as a whole for those superior qualities of intelligence, strength, agility, stamina, etc (and I’m not talking race exclusion cause each race possesses valued genetic qualities – we could end up purple for all I care). And once the genetic frailties of humankind have been breed out, we can continue to progress unhindered as a species. And math could help us accomplish this.

Of course, this is the fatalist, Machiavellian, neuromasochist Cybr speaking and not the cute, soft, cuddly, Mormon, “Wish I was much more masculine” Cybr that we all know and despise.

End Of Line.

I believe most prophets in the world had real experiences that led them to believe and say the things that they did. There are some charlatans, but I still believe most religious leaders are sincere.

Pantheism is the belief that the universe is God. I plan to post about pantheism soon.

Mankind may indeed be doomed to destruction, but all we can do is try (Yoda notwithstanding). I came to Humanism because of my dawning awareness that we are alone in the world. To me, it seems that Humanism is a reflection of how things truly are. Whether or not it will help humanity achieve success or even mere survival is irrelevant.

The question of whether humanity truly needs religious beliefs (whether or not they are true) in order to be happy and work together is another question. It’s hard to test this, but it doesn’t seem that religion has helped us to achieve world peace despite having thousands of years, and I’m not waiting around for Jesus to come again to bring peace to the world.

There are inherent weakness in humanity that we may be able to correct through technology, but we need to be extremely careful because down that road lies eugenics. I doubt that we understand ourselves enough yet to alter ourselves effectively.

Thanks for the inspiration for this post and for your kind words. I have a pretty liberal policy about linking to my site. I won’t complain.