Easy to be Entreated

Hamlet, disgusted at his partying, murderous, adulterous uncle, makes a mental note that "one may smile, and smile, and be a villain". One of the difficult things people face as they try to reconcile the two images of Joseph Smith (God's spokesman and coniving fraud) is how can one man produce both the majestic, loving scripture as found in the D&C, and the evil deeds post-mo's are all too familiar with. I think that huge contrast is one reason why so many TBM's have a hard time believing the awful truths about Joseph Smith. Here is Joseph "smiling": "Let thy a bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let b virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy c confidence wax strong in the d presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the e dews from heaven. " And "smiling": "Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go...

The following paragraph comes from a recent article in the UUWorld magazine entitled, " Three in a thousand : A new survey estimates that 0.3 percent of American adults identify as Unitarians—a lot more than belong to our churches ". In it, the author refers to the recent U.S. Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Forum. Gaps between self-described and formal membership are common, said David A. Roozen, a sociologist who tracks religion trends as director of the Hartford Institute for Religion Research, in Hartford, Connecticut. For example, 25 percent more people identified themselves as Episcopalians and 33 percent more people claimed to be Methodists than either national body counts. The gap works the other way for some traditions, however: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints counts almost 33 percent more people as members than reported themselves to be Mormons in the Pew study. Most churches don't count s...

Since there are a number of us non-theists here, I thought we might share things we have found to help raise our kids to be skeptical and ethical. (Some of the religious parents might find these resources helpful, too). Books - I haven't read all of these, yet. " Parenting Beyond Belief: On Raising Ethical, Caring Kids Without Religion " " Maybe Yes, Maybe No: A Guide for Young Skeptics " " How Do You Know It's True?: Discovering the Difference Between Science and Superstition " " Life on Earth: The Story of Evolution " " Our Whole Lives " - A series of books for teaching children about healthy sexuality Summer Camps Camp Inquiry Camp Quest Blog Secular Parenting Blog Parenting Beyond Belief forum

Jahedgpeth wrote the following on PostMormon: from wikipedia: In the natural sciences, abiogenesis , or origin of life , is the study of how life on Earth emerged from inanimate organic and inorganic molecules Basically, I can't believe that we could ever get to a viable single celled organism and have that organism reproduce without some sort of "god" x-factor to begin the process. It never has made sense to me. Here is how I get past the probability issue. First, it must be clear that we are not talking about pure chance. There are organizing forces at work. Electrostatic attraction organizes atoms into molecules, and molecules into protein stuctures. Spheres (the shape of the cell membrane and the neucleus) are very stable due to the laws of physics. That is why soap bubbles take the shape of a sphere. So, we are not saying that all of these atoms just randomly aligned out of pure chance. Chance played a large role, b...

Someone named Draconis posted the following on PostMormon: I was talking to someone today and the subject of religion came up. It turns out that he is an atheist who has never really been taught much at all about religion. What was interesting to me is that his world view seems to be very naive, based on lack of reason to believe anything in particular. He's never given it much thought, never been too concerned about it, and only knows that he disliked Christianity because to him they are "too pushy." Beyond that, he has never much pondered the mysteries of the universe at all. In stark contrast, while I don't necessarily disagree with his conclusions, I almost found it offensive that he reached them so callously. He's never pondered the big questions. He has never yearned for the truth. He was totally ignorant to the reasons why somebody might choose to be an atheist and instead just never chose NOT to be an atheist. In short, he has no good reason ...