Anubis says: “hey, what happened to my head?”

what do you make of this?  are the apologists slowly retreating from defending the Book of Hor’s holiness as canonical scripture?

http://www.ldschurchnews.com/articles/57738/The-Book-of-Abraham-The-larger-issue.html

my favorite:

so, just bat your eyes in ignorance at your critical friend/family member and defend instead these six things.  if the critic insists on looking at the scientific evidence, point out they are caring more about man’s “evidence” and “science” rather than god’s holy church.

oh, also amazing is how the church’s most prominent BOA defender, Gee, totally distances himself and the LDS Church away from accepting the BOA as an important part of mormon doctrine:

*i say “the church’s” retreat because i don’t see anyone else alive today who could be considered as the main apologist of the BOA, other than the author of the church news’ article, john gee.

mormonthink‘s take on this story:  http://www.mormonthink.com/boaweb.htm#latest

It sure sounds like Gee is trying to cut a whole in the wall, to make a door to escape from having to defend the Book of Abraham any longer.   “The Church does not rise and fall on the veracity of the BOA.”  That sure sounds like an escape hatch the church would be happy to use. Could this be a foreshadowing of how the church will someday treat the Book of Abraham?

Part of me wants to just fake it for sake of the familial relationships but I can’t do that for a couple of reasons.

First off, thats such a cop out. It’s the easy way out. Treading your own course in the unknown wildereness is harder than just going down the beaten path so well trodden by my parents and ancestors. It’s harder to be an apostate among family and community. It can be hard! But do I really want to half ass it giving religion it’s unspoken reverance and then have my own children one day develop relationship-destroying beliefs and personlities? Do I want hem to go thru what me and my wife have to go thru with our parents? Do I want that same possible scenario for my grandkids?

It’s the harder path but it’s what has been ingrained in me for three decades of church membership: integrity and standing up for the truth! I can’t fake believing or even putting up with (I know there’s a better word I’m not thinking of) the church or religion in general. Like John Dehlin said “if u took the Mormon out of me I would be like takin the framin out of a house” and that’s why I must be true to myself and my integrity. And as bob McCue has said (alluding to he fact that it’s a hard path to go down being an apostate) “I’d rather tak these arrows now than have my children take them later”. I respect that so much and always remember those words. It’s what keeps me from being a NOM or sunstone Mormon.

Integrity. What else do u have?

“all I’ve got is my balls and my word and I don’t break em for no one!” – quote from a mob movie.

Penny:  okay, if you’re going to drink on this date, promise me you’re not going to overdo it.

Rajnesh Koothrappali: overdo what?  happiness?  freedom?  this warm glow inside of me that promises everything is going to be hunky dunky?

i LOL’d.

I feel that I need to write this now while I am still enraged. I just had one of the worst conversations of my life with someone very close to me- maybe a parental figure even (I don’t want to say who). I came home from a nice weekend night having watched a terrible movie (Evan Almighty) albeit in good company so it was still fun. I visit my parents on the way home, I sit on the couch, talk for a good couple of hours, B.S.’ing with them, we laugh, joke, enjoy each other’s company, and then one of my parental figures does it- he starts to ask about my belief in Christ, the afterlife, etc. I tell ask him nicely to please not go down this path of conversation because it always ends up in hurt feelings… he does not oblige. I feel the urge to get up nicely and leave, but I sense that in doing so will have him think that I must “fear the truth” or some other bullshit, so I answer his question quickly and change the subject- kind of like this: “well, I have my doubts in Christ… just like you said you did too, until you were much older-[change of subject] so mom, hit up any cool garage sales today?”

But my strategy fails. The good conversation has just taken a jagged turn. The driver did not signal. He did not check his blind spot. He carelessly takes the caravan on a wrong-way road with a semi coming head on. Okay enough of the lame analogies- the next half hour of my life went from delightful to a kick in the balls. Both balls. He insisted on me explaining my skepticism. I said there is as much evidence to believe in Christ as there is to believe in Muhammad. Just applying faith could take me to either deity. Just add faith. They both have their own scriptures, neither holy book was written by them, at least Muhammad’s was written in the same year or at least the same generation as the prophet [which after reading God Is Not Great, I've learned that Hitchens argues to the contrary], Christ’s earliest writings of his followers didn’t come until at least 70 years after his life. That’s just a story passed down through Gnostic generations, and has nothing to do with what one would consider evidence.

He smiled and said that I was acting just as I did when I was a small boy. He explained that when I was a child we went to the zoo- yes, the famed Zoo of Hogle itself. Apparently we went to see the giraffe exhibit. We climbed the concrete stairs to the second floor where we could get a head-on view of these large spotted creatures. After we got next to one of them, his head eating straw right next to us, I opted to look down at the ground and carefully analyze a stick- the giraffe’s head did not intrigue me. So daddy’s now saying that I’m being like that little boy, looking down when I could be looking up! “Just look up and you will find your evidence you are seeking!”

To that I obviously reply, “looking up is going to give me that evidence I am looking for? The evidence of Christ? Oh, I get it, you’re going to explain to me that I need not look with my physical eyes but instead my spiritual. Ahh. How vague”.

He explained, “no, just look around you,” he stretches out his arms in a prophetic motion “the creation testifies of him, the stars and this planet”.

Now instead of explaining how natural this world appears- in the naturalist of the sense- just that- natural, or instead of explaining some of the very logical points that Astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse makes below which show how this world appears as it should appear if there had been no god who had intervened, (see video below- but wait till your done reading the rest of my story!)

instead of pointing him in the direction of literature which is hot off the press which scientifically argues how the natural world testifies of no god in the mix; instead of going down any of those roads (because I wanted to avoid this whole conversation from the beginning) I simply tell him that I have studied for hundreds of hours on the subject and that it has shown me I do not need to believe in a divine creator to take in this marvelous creation. This world. As amazing as it is.

…Let me backtrack- I have so much awe and respect for this world! In our previous two-hour conversation, I had just barely told them about a hike I went on today up Big Cottonwood canyon. I told them of the gophers and squirrels we saw on the trails. I told them how I had been contemplating how 99% of the history of the world’s species have gone extinct and how we have this “small” selection of animals left- a mere thirteen million (or potentially 30 million one day if we were to discover everything out there). I told them how so many animals have gone extinct and how when I see even a simple gopher, that creature is precious to me- it is a gift even. The Dodo bird very recently went extinct. It was a big dumb bird that would not run away from men with big sticks and very quickly and sure enough- *poof* extinct. How easily could that gopher be something only of the past- only in history books- it could be extinct right now. But it’s not. A couple were right there in front of me today, their chubby bodies running back and forth in and out of their holes. Our not so distant cousins, actually. I told my parents how yesterday I went to a local pet store and just stared at the small animals for over an hour. It was more interesting than the zoo! I told them how I saw some absolutely incredible little birds. One which was so white and pure with a light hue of blue towards the bottom part of its body. Absolutely gorgeous. I must have stared at him for twenty minutes just taking in the pureness of his coat of feathers. Next to him I marveled at the Love Birds who I found out yesterday are extremely social animals. With three or four vacant branches available, the Love Birds like to cozy up next to one another on the same branch, nesting a head in the shoulder of another, kissing occasionally. This was so intriguing to see in contrast to another cage of smaller birds who were crowded fighting and chirping loudly at one another.

I took in the other incredible creatures there like the snakes and amphibians, and puppies. I came out of the pet store with such admiration for animal life. Such amazement. But not once did I need to suppose that these were “God’s creations”. I understand how evolution works and can therefore understand where these creatures came from. But even with all of this awe and wonder, I still see the world as a natural place and there’s no evidence for me to see it otherwise.

So after going back to the story, I told my dad that I’ve studied sufficiently to not accept the mere existence of nature to testify of Christ. And I called him on it. “How do you connect the two together?” He said that it is in the scriptures. I don’t even need to go into what I said about the scriptures and how there is no reason to put any credence to them. The ridiculous stories, millions of species of animals in a large boat- their food and caca as well. Room for all! He stopped me right there- I really didn’t need to go into the ridiculousness of the Bible. It speaks for itself and he knows that and he didn’t want to hear it.

To skip some of the boring parts of this eventually heated conversation, he asked again if I believed in Christ. I told him there was no reason to. He was then inspired to grab an Ensign that, like on every good Mormon’s coffee table, it was within arm’s reach. This is where the conversation went to shit real fast. This is where for the first time I called a prophet’s words B.S. to my parents face- yeah: that puts me in the category of “Apostate” as one who speaks against the Lord’s anointed. I should have pulled out of the conversation earlier but I had endured to the end. It went something like this:

My dad: “Thomas S. Monson had something to say about skeptics in this talk. [To paraphrase] he said that Skeptic’s are fools. And they are those who would re-crucify Christ if he were here today.” He then asked me, “would you been one of those who would crucify Christ?”

Okay one eyebrow went up, the other chilled low as I looked at this man like a lunatic. “Dad, if someone came here in town doing miracles do you really think I would murder this man- that I would nail his hands to a cross? You don’t honestly believe that, do you?”

He then explained, “well, how would one crucify him today? Who would do that?”

I replied very slowly, “a…mur-dur-er. That, is what we call a murderer. Am I a murderer? I am a skeptic, yes, but I care for the well-being of my fellow man more than I would care about killing someone who professed to do miracles. The worst I would do to him would be skeptical of his claims- I wouldn’t kill him.”

He then softly threw out the word “adulterer”. I said “Whaaa??! Did you just call me an adulterer?? Is that because Joseph Smith once said”- he interrupted, “no, it was Jesus Christ. He said that ‘one who asks for a sign is wicked and an adulterer’.”

Thanks to my dad this was the first time that I saw Jesus as full of shit (thanks, dad).  No offense Jesus, if that was some jacked up things the scribes did to make it look like you said that, but I don’t care what you say- a skeptic, or one who seeks a sign (or evidence as we call it nowadays) does not mean he is an ADULTERER. Now I was getting enraged. First, Tom Monson calls all skeptics fools and “re-crucifiers” (or murderers), then apparently Christ said we’re adulterers as well. Ummm, the only thing worse I could fathom to come out of my fathers mouth as he called me names would be “baby-eater” or “grandma-raper”. Seriously! I told him, “I’m sorry, but Thomas “S” Monson was wrong”. And I said it just like that- I italicized my words as I went. And I said “and Jesus was wrong when he said that as well! That’s just B.S.!” I seriously had to hold myself back to not cuss at him or spit in his face. Across the room I saw Al-Jihad’s leader, going on faith, spitting horrible obscenities and labels in my direction. I mean what’s worse than a fundamentalist? Another kind of fundamentalist? Right there in front of me. Crazy dude. But yeah I had to hold myself back. If I got mad (which I did later) it would be “the devil in me” or “the truth hurting me” (which he said later).

I said, “do you really believe those things? Because that makes me sick that someone would say something like that about me- you know me and I’m a nice guy!”

Now came the twisting and turning of logic and interpretation of what was just read. “no son, he was only speaking about some skeptics in this story”. I said, “I am a skeptic. I fit in that group. I demand a sign or evidence in order to put my trust in something. Don’t sidestep this- he is talking about me, your son! Do you believe what they said about me??”

Now he didn’t want to take literally what he just read. I asked him to read it back so that we could apply this simple equation to me (a=b or skeptic equals fool and murderer) but he didn’t want to do it. I wanted him to either accept the prophet’s words or reject them entirely as ridiculous. He wouldn’t do either now. But I was offended like hell. I’ve never heard anything spoken to me like that before. I wanted to leave and told him how offended I was and how he was acting like a crazy fundamentalist Muslim with talk like that.

He then got very snideful and said very slowly and condescending, “let me explain this to you so you can understand. You may be crucifying your savior without even knowing it and yes you are a fool because of your supposed skepticism.”

I said I couldn’t believe this and that I had told him we shouldn’t have started this conversation. He saw how upset I was and said “look at you, the devil’s got to you”. Wow, I wanted to knock him out right there but I controlled myself once more and said, “you know what, don’t ever talk to me again about these subjects- you scare the crap out of me” and I tried to give him a hug goodnight to show that…- I don’t know, I guess just to get out of there, really. He said that why I took those words as offensive is because “it hurts for the guilty to hear the truth” or some shit like that, I don’t know. I tried to get out of there- my mom on the other couch was saying over and over for him to calm down and to just let it go.

I left to my car and just sat there for a few minutes not believing the crazy family and religion I belong to- it was hard to take in those words that my own father said to me. It hurt just that he would opt to accept old men’s words as truth over what he knows about his own son. How stupid!

To make the story actually end on a good note, which it almost did, my father came out to my car after a few minutes. He said he wanted to apologize for anything. I called him on his own contradiction and said, “you said that those words weren’t meant for me, but you also said that the truth hurts the guilty- so those words were meant for me”. He twisted it around once again and said that he meant that it was my conscious in general that was making me feel hurt, not that I fit those labels or anything. I didn’t want to hear his b.s. and said, “whatever, good night- promise me to never bring up these conversations again like I had said earlier”. He said “promise me to never bring up that skepticism crap again”. I told him how I still couldn’t believe the things he had said earlier and he said that I shouldn’t have taken it personally. I was fed up with the roundabout we had going and shut the door “good night”.

Then, as he came to me to apologize I went back in the house and said, “okay, no more debates. In five seconds or less this will be done. Did you mean those labels you said earlier to apply to me (which, obviously he did or he wouldn’t have said them)”. He said “no”. I said alright well that’s good enough for me, I don’t want to hurt our relationship over this and gave him a big hug “love you dad!” yeah as weird as a scene as that must have been, we had actually made up after all, instead of a potential long period of not talking with one another.

For the first time, however, I couldn’t believe some of the shit that came out of Monson’s mouth or what Christ said, as well. I mean, did he really think that everyone that demanded a sign (ie looked for evidence) was “wicked” and “an adulterer”? If he did then fuck him. If not then we cool, Jesus! It hurts me too, to be so damn critical about Jesus and Monson- it really does but today their bullshit hit home for me- a classic skeptic. I was their target and the vehicle for their hurtful words was my very own father. I hope to never have a conversation about religion with my dad again.

I’ve got some other drafts that I just haven’t posted yet so stay tuned for those…

(video via)

Ever since my wife and I went inactive in the church, things have been going pretty well for us “blessings”-wise. But we have been kind of leery of the day that anything would go bad for us because our two TBM families would probably jump at any opportunity to point out any lack of blessings (my mom actually told me last fall that I would “surely pass through some difficulties and hardships as a result of not following the Gospel”). I knew from then on out that they would be watching us like a hawk for any visible failings.

So on Saturday someone stole my wife’s purse. Like i said, it had a lot of valuable stuff in it. Naturally, my wife told her mom, and naturally her mom gave my wife a lesson on paying tithing and how we would be more blessed if we were following the gospel. Then, she continued, “these things probably wouldn’t be happening to you if you were strong in the faith”. Now this is very funny because for the past year or more of inactivity and apostasy, we’ve had more positive “blessings” in our life than we’ve had in a long time, financially. For example, I just had a surgery a month ago where the doctor’s removed a nice little organ which was great for my plant-eating ancestors, but worthless for modern man. Yeah, that little remnant of evolution called the apendix. If you ask my dad, he’ll tell you “we just don’t know what it’s there for but one day we’ll find out, since it was made by God”. If you ask me, I’ll tell you it’s just a vestigial organ, or worse yet, nothing more than a potential time bomb in all of us- doing nothing other than potential harm or death. So anyways, after that surgery, I told the doctors to bill me directly because the insurance from my last job had just run out a month ago. Yeah, bad timing (or you could say it was God’s doing) to get stuck with a bill for $12k. What horribly bad timing to have a surgery the month you don’t have insurance. I was sure everyone would pounce on this one (i know i would have back when i had the mormon mentality).

but… Good news! Naw, screw that.. AWESOME NEWS!!! …when I called my insurance company a week after the surgery to see if they could do anything at all to help, they said that i was actually still covered for a month longer than I had expected! I had no idea. We were blessed in the area of oh, say around $11-12,000 (CHA-CHING!). Yeah, then I found out we were able to get a hefty sum back from my school tuition via the same job (cha-ching!). And then tax returns this year were extra bless-ed. The funny thing is, each time one of these things happened this year, if we had just paid our tithing prior to the event, we would have given credit to tithing. that would have been tripping my mind ’till today, seriously. Come to think of it, i now see “the blessings of tithing” likened to when someone has a backache, seeks alternative medicine or some New-Age help, gets better (regression fallacy) and then gives credit to the woo-woo treatment.

Anyways, I’m so sidetracked now. The main reason I wanted to write about this today is that my mother-in-law just told my wife how we needed to be going to church and then these things wouldn’t be happening since she got her purse stolen. I hate that!

[UPDATE!!] As I was writing this, I had just re-purchased my wife’s $200.00 phone on eBay and then the mall called us and said they found her purse! I quickly canceled my order of the phone too because whoever stole the purse left her phone in there! Yeah, count my lucky stars, huh! It’s kind of funny because i actually asked the thieves if they would be kind enough to leave the phone for us (since they wouldn’t even be able to use it anyways!) They also left all of her id’s, important documents, and credit cards (they kept the iPod and camera). Oh well, the story turned out a lot better than i was counting on! Lucky us.

god, what do you think about all of this? to me it makes since but just say the magic words and i’ll do my best to throw out everything i’ve recently learned and go back to blind faith if needs be.

as i was losing my faith in mormonism, i was growing a newfound love and respect for people of all races, sexual preferences, belief-systems, etc. i started to not see gays as sinners and bad people. i stopped seeing blacks (even if just sub-consciously) as less-valiant fence-sitters in the pre-existence. i wasn’t seeing non-lds folk as “lost”, anymore. so i prayed to know if this was “okay in god’s eyes”. yeah, it sounds weird that i had to pray about something like that but those ideas conflicted with what i had learned in church and in my own private study of the doctrine.

when i prayed about this, the words came to my mind, “love one another”.

That’s it. that’s what it all comes down to. love one another with no biases or judgments. this video does a good job of portraying that with some thoughtful quotes:

click to see a diagram of the golden rule throughout the religions and minds of the world

Kullervo said:

As I’ve said before, I do not deny the existence of God, but there are some things that I do deny. Many of them actually assume that God exists, so what I mean then is that “if there is a God, I deny that he is like x.”

Agreed. He continues:

I deny the existence of hell. That an even marginally good god would damn people to eternal punishment and torture for finite sins committed in virtual ignorance is absolutely preposterous. That some people do believe this makes my mind boggle.

I deny the infallibility of the Bible (or any other religious text), of human religious leaders, of religions, and of philosophies. The claim of infallibility is unbelievably arrogant, and reality usually shows the truth.

I deny the existence of Fossil-Hiding God. What I mean by that is that I deny that God would create a world that looked like he didn’t create it as some kind of test of faith. I deny that God would say x, and then purposely hide all evidence of x and in fact plant all kinds of counter evidence against x. “Test us,” my eye.

See? Kullervo’s freakin on a roll. Really, though- “a fossil-hiding god”- that doesn’t make any sense at all, does it? DOES IT! It doesn’t, you and I know it and any apologetics just procrastinate the inevitable. Any religious pseudo-science that attempts to embrace science as they twist it to fit their theology is really just tailgating main science. What I mean by that is that they love to accept science- just a couple or so decades after it’s been overwhelmingly proven to the masses (such as believing that evolution occurs between species instead of evolution occurring only inside of a certain species; the literal 6000 year old earth to “well a day could be pretty much anything, couldn’t it?”, Noah’s arc becoming a great “alegory” but impossible otherwise; losing Cumorah’s Hill and other Book of Mormon landmarks; Losing a Lost Tribe- DNA and the Lamanites; and the slow but eventual equality in gender/race).

So stop tailgating and embrace the times and understanding that we find ourselves in now. Don’t wait until twenty years later when the apologists finally come up with a way to twist science to weakly fit their theology- open your eyes now. You’ll see we know a whole lot about the world we live in.

I deny the existence of any one “chosen people.” I deny an ethnocentric God.

I deny that morality is based on God’s decree. I deny that the only line between moral and immoral is the whim of deity. I deny a moral system that is ultimately based on “because I said so.” That’s elementary school morality. God is certainly better than that, if he indeed exists. And we have the potential to be better than that, and I hardly believe that God simply wants us to behave according to the lowest common denominator. At the very least, it would make God an arbitrary and capricious God, and that takes me to two sub-denials:

I deny arbitrary commandments, i.e., things that are not inherently, intuitively immoral. This is of course a subset of the above denial, because the only thing that makes homosexuality immoral, for example, is “God said so.” Or tea and coffee in Mormonism. Being harmful to people doesn’t naturally equal immoral (otherwise getting in a car would be immoral), and the only thing that would make the Word of Wisdom a moral issue would be the fact that God said do. And I deny that God ever said such a thing.

I had an (intellectual) problem with this as a TBM. Never rang true to me. Add to that that Joseph, Brigham and everyone else drank in their times; Joseph had wine in his cell before he died; Brigham had a bar in his house; and that the WOW only talks about “hot drinks” and “tabaccy for cattle wounds” doesn’t sound like an inspired law of health at all to me. How about “thou must partake of as many calories as thou shalt burn that day; any more and you will gain weight, have back/knee problems and risk of heart disease” or “a healthy diet low in saturated fat, and exercise will make a man walk and not be weary, run and not faint”. Re-reading the WOW now, knowing what we know now in 2007 makes that “revelation from God” amazingly ridiculous. Plain and simple.

There are more nit-picky things I deny, but those are specific religious doctrines that I reject, as opposed to these kinds of overarching universal denials.

I think I’ll quickly add to the list that I don’t believe in a god who’s so hung up on being worshipped and glorified- just sounds like an eleven-year-old’s mentality playing with toys or something but not an extremely intelligent being. What would someone so intelligent get out of that, anyways? Wouldn’t it just be better to just lay down the laws and not worry if people are kissing your feet or not? What gives?

Speaking of “laying down the law”, what kind of vehicle would a supremely intelligent being probably use to relay to us the most important message to mankind? An ancient book to which we do not even have an original copy? Or of which we have thousands of different “original versions” and hundreds of modern translations ? Couldn’t he have chosen a better method (such as the question posed in the video at the bottom).

What else needs be said? I agree with Kullervo’s thinking. That’s rationalism, to me, and I can’t fathom how a god would hold me or anyone else to the test of irrationality (also known as “faith”). It just DOESN’T MAKE SENSE. Done. Over. Fin. The only argument left is the arguments coming from ignorance, wishful thinking, or delusion, and these arguments have more holes in them than your grandma’s Sunday pantyhose.

I find this video to be pertinent to the discussion:

Although I find myself still talking to god and doubting if I’m an atheist just like angrymormonliberal said here. I’ve had a lot of little nice spiritual experiences that could pretty easily be explained by science but one spiritual experience was very profound for me. It was too big for me to ever dismiss just like that. It may keep me in agnosticism indefinitely but I keep thinking to myself, what about 99.9999% of the people in this world that didn’t have that strong experience like I did. How are they supposed to believe? And I don’t want to have special rights over my brothers and sisters in this world. I don’t believe god would work that way.

Another great thing about embracing doubt and uncertainty is the relief from Cognitive Dissonance that anyone religious must go through on a day-to-day basis. Leaving organized religion and embracing science gives you a great feeling of relief and elation. I can’t tell you how wonderful (for me) it is to be able to learn about human evolution and simply accept it wholly and also to be able to accept what that means to me in the big picture. I don’t have to be anti-science anymore, I don’t have to accept the evil selfish homophobic killer of a god of the bible.

I still have a space in my heart for a loving, extra-biblical god, though. but he hasn’t been answering my prayers lately. But I’ll hang on to that experience that I had until I die. That mystical experience you were looking for? I had it. seriously, big time. but what does that mean if the vast majority of people don’t experience one? Who knows, it’s probably just psychological or biological. think about it: even if you do have some kind of experience tonight or tomorrow you still gotta admit it could be a chemical imbalance or hypnagogic or hypnopompic hallucinations or many other explanations. It’s time to embrace uncertainty and take advantage of this life that we have right now with the loved ones we have.

It’s time to take a dip in the “clear-thinking oasis” of reason and rationality.