Apparently, LDS President Gordon Hinckley and Elder Boyd Packer have taken the occasion of the latest multicast stake conference on Sunday, October 21 to rally around Relief Society President Julie Beck whose conference address has been widely discussed on the ‘nacle and the Damu. While I admire Hinckley’s and Packer’s…
How not to invite Mormons to your church, part 2
Recall we learned in part 1 that discrediting Joseph Smith, the Book of Mormon and the Book of Abraham is a dangerous tactic since the Mormons who are swayed by such evidence have an annoying tendency to continue this same line of reasoning and ask hard questions about Jesus. The…
Could I really love a man who could do something like this?
Today’s installment of Exmormon, Part 3: Saturday’s Warrior is the one that most requires the warning. If you’re okay with it, you may proceed to the story, otherwise skip this chapter and tune in next week!
Brainwashing
There was a discussion at the last Salt Lake Atheist Meetup where we talked about brainwashing. Some well-trod comments came forward, i.e., the Mormon lifestyle is brainwashing, etc. I was about to state my case for my views on indoctrination, but I held back. I think that I need to…
In which I ponder the nature of existence…
Watching a special about Christopher Columbus a few weeks ago, I was struck by the importance of names. What a place is named – who decides what something gets to be named. In Christopher Columbus’ case, he renamed places that already had names – giving them European names. Some of…
Ken Jennings interviewed by “friendly atheist” Hemant Mehta
Be sure to check out this fabulous interview! My favorite highlights:
Atheist pride . . .?
Normally I hate it when I see atheism accused of being just another religion (or worse: just another faith) because of, well, the usual “is bald a hair color?” (or “Is ‘not collecting stamps’ a hobby?”) argument that I won’t waste your time repeating here today. Yet I was perversely…
Mormon Politics Time Out?
Mark Brown would probably like George Orwell’s aphorism: “To see what is in front of our nose requires a constant struggle.” In the wake of Harry Reid’s speech at BYU, ‘naclers have been struggling with the role of politics in our religion.
Church to Privatize, Switch to “Managed Faith”
LDS Church officials announced today that the church is beginning a transition to a privately held corporation in hopes of more efficient and profitable operations. Church spokesman John LeFever explained, “In today’s world of rising testimony-care costs, we felt that it was in the best interests of the church and…
Should the LDS church “raise the bar” to exclude liberals and NOMs?
We got an interesting comment from Remeny the other day regarding the ‘Naclers (including us) who have criticized President Beck’s talk: The church has raised the bar for missionaries to serve. Since then the number of missionaries have decreased, but the quality of missionary has increased. So it should be…