Easy to be Entreated

The following comes from a conversation on PostMo: Daniel Defoe: "The racism in the church lasted a really long time, from Brigham Youngs presidency through the early 1970's" While it is quite true that early members, and even modern ones, were racist, the same thing could be said about the american founders. Are you going to leave america because the early leaders were more racist than Brigham Young ( Thomas Jefferson had 175 human beings as property as he wrote 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness', by 1822 he owned 267 slaves). Remember gab92 said: I know it is in the past but it bothers me that they don't accept it as one of Brigham Young's many human mistakes and one of his prejudices. And therein lies the problem. America has acknowledged that its racists laws were a mistake. The LDS Church has not. Racist doctrines are still in the Book of Mormon, which they claim is...

Yes, I believe in evolution. I am often surprised by how little my fellow Americans know about it. I mean they all had to take Biology in school, but apparently many were taught by teachers who themselves did not believe in evolution and so de-emphasized the material they were supposed to teach. Many people remain willfully ignorant and will not educate themselves. The evidence is all out there and the reasoning is so easy to follow, but people would rather listen to their religious leaders who hold fast to ancient views of the world. You know, humanity has learned a few things over the past 2,000 years, but you wouldn't know it by listening to the evangelicals. Here are some links: PBS site on Evolution Understanding Evolution Evolution Exhibit Intelligent Designers want the public to think there is all this evidence that challenges the validity of evolution by natural selection (like irreducible complexity, for instance how could the eye develop when ...

I absolutely truly believed "with every fiber of my being". People often try to negate a person's "loss of testimony" by saying that "they never really had a testimony in the first place". They say this because it is less threatening to them. They think to themselves, "I could never fall like that person because my testimony is too strong". Anyone who ever knew me before my apostasy would have to confess that I really did believe probably more than most members, so if I could come to believe it is all false now, then that should shake them that there really might be something to what I claim to have learned about the Church.

There are hundreds of articles online illustrating problems with NDE's and alternative explanations for them. But, I wanted to highlight a copy, the first of which I always have the hardest time finding when I am looking for it and the information it contains is rather unique as far as I can tell: You have to read this article: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/keith_augustine/HNDEs.html Even if we disregard the overwhelming evidence for the dependence of consciousness on the brain , there remains strong evidence from reports of near-death experiences themselves that NDEs are not glimpses of an afterlife. This evidence includes: (1) discrepancies between what is seen in the out-of-body component of an NDE and what's actually happening in the physical world; (2) bodily sensations incorporated into the NDE, either as they are or experienced as NDE imagery; (3) encountering living persons during NDEs; (4) the greate...

The following came from a thread on PostMormon: Hiram: While we may disagree regarding some topics, I am interested to hear what the most influential factor was that led you to leave the church. I'm not interested in changing your belief system or world view or arguing doctrines, I just want to respectfully hear the points of view of anybody willing to share them. Hiram, your post makes me very happy. I rejoice whenever I see a person earnestly inviting others to share things that currently go against what that person believes. It is a hallmark of maturity and wisdom when we invite those kind of dialogues, for that is how we set the stage to learn. We listen and consider. It doesn't mean that we will necessarily give up our beliefs, but we will be better for at least having considered and weighed another's point of view. We might even find that we did not know as much as we thought we knew and in light of the new info must change our thinking ...

At dinner tonight, my non-believing wife was wondering why coffee and tea are prohibited by the Word of Wisdom. I said, "You know, Joseph didn't come up with that on his own; he borrowed it from the temperance movement (and the Cold Water Society) that was popular in the area at the time." She said she didn't know that, so I told her I would show her when we got back home. True to my word I looked it up and showed her. So, I figured since I already looked it up I might as well share it with you, just in case some of you didn't know. The following is from the Tanner's book, "Changing World" . It has been suggested that the temperance movement led to Joseph Smith's "Word of Wisdom." Leonard J. Arrington, who has since become church historian, provides this enlightening information: In recent years a number of scholars have contended that the revelation is an outgrowth of the...