Godless at BYU

Home for the Holidays Part 2

2012-01-27T20:40:00.005-07:00

A month later I'll finish the post. I said I had a few things to post maybe, but I think I'll only post two.

Well, three, because I forgot to mention one thing. Found out a girl in my church back home got a missionary to fall in love with her, so he went home and then the missionaries were pulled out of the area. That's funny. Prior to me arriving in my mission there were a couple missionaries who had been caught swimming with girls at their apartment. Actually, on my mission I replaced an elder who basically had a girlfriend and supposedly made out with her. 19 year old boys, lol, I feel sorry for them with all the people who yell at them.

There's a "young man" back home who has talked with me about some of his separate views about the church, especially about gays and Prop 8. I don't wish to go into too many details on that but it is refreshing to see youth growing up in the church who just don't agree with hateful bigoted views that many other members may have. Either under the guise of trying to cure gayness or stop them from having meaningful homosexual relationships to outright hate crimes committed by members.

The last thing was the missionaries. They seem like some pretty cool guys. I feel sorry for them for being in the middle of nowhere, but good for them to have fun. One of them is a little rebellious, said he made a zone leader cry. Lolz. They both complained about how their 'higher-ups' were pushing numbers so much. That they needed to go door-knocking more to talk to more people. Having been on a mission, and having had an above-average number of baptisms, I still don't understand the obsession missionaries have with door-knocking. It really is an activity that should not be done.

Anyways, as I'm giving pointers to missionaries, the two of them talked about their half-rate apostasy, which is probably more serious behind closed doors. It was entertaining, and we had a lot of laughs. Shared a couple stories, complained about zone leaders, talked about the cold northern winters. Then they had to go and I decided I wanted to test the waters a little with them.

I brought them to my room and showed them one of my framed papyrus scrolls. I have a few but one of the smaller ones is an Egyptian alphabet with the phonetic sounds labeled under them. As a very subtle hint I showed them a couple things, feigned ignorance as to my intentions, and talked about Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Then I told them, in a moment of honesty, that I didn't really go to church and for where I was in life it wasn't really for me. They got quiet and listened, probably searching for the Spirit to tell them what to say. But I told them that they sounded like they were having fun and enjoying their missions but that for me there are really no people from my mission that I can just go talk to. It was all about the church and the mission for me. So since I've moved on I have little to no connection anymore and that's a little saddening. Said they should have fun, do whatever they want work-wise but make sure to have fun and build relationships with people so that they don't ever have happen what happened with me.

One of the missionaries had this look in his eye like he was piecing together the stories, the papyrus, and my conversation with them, the more rebellious one simply listened. I'd like to think that maybe I planted a seed, not so much of doubt, but showing them that it's okay to not be so crazy-obedient on the mission and that someone who has 'moved on' is still a human being. To be honest I don't really know what my overall intentions were. They probably hate me. lolz.

What I've Learned Since Losing My Faith

2012-01-22T10:20:00.009-07:00

Some things I've learned, from my own personal experience, and from others. Obviously this is how it applies to me, so long as I am truthful with myself and not suffering from observation bias.

Death is more scary for me, but I am also, paradoxically, more content with the fact.

This could be because overall I am living my life more fully than I was before. Such as going skydiving and skinny-dipping, I don't let life pass me by anymore. I want to say to the world, "Veni, Vidi, Vici!"

Having fuck buddies or 'one-night' type things don't work; someone will eventually grow at least a little attachment or accrue some expectations.

Even in the atheist "community" girls are still concerned of being seen as sluts by other girls.

As for myself I am seen as a 'rake.'

Sometimes I do a 180 on my views because I perceive them as being Mormony.

Other times I have not changed my views when in fact I only have that opinion because I was given it by the LDS church.

Often it may be best to conflate these two extremes.

I am not a fan of drinking, but a buzz can be fun.

When I am drunk I am a ranter, and I think I'm glad for that. Drinking usually seems to exaggerate a person's emotions at the time, but for me it seems to exaggerate my thoughts. I am still an iconoclast.

Like statistics show I am more likely to help out random strangers through small acts of kindness. This could be because I now feel more compassion for people, knowing we don't have a God to watch over us.

I do enjoy dancing, but wish I was better. If I'm surrounded by people I feel much more at ease.

Coffee is tasty.

I buy little things instead of saving up for larger things or trips.

On that note, paying off debt/loans is very rewarding.

Atheist books rarely give an exegesis of LDS theological doctrines and theodicy that the 'church' has set itself to.

I am loquacious.

I notice double-standards far more with sexism: such as my posts of sexism seen in feminist discussion, or how a girl can own a vibrator and we're fine with that but a guy with a flesh-light is a creep.

Apropos, I have learned a great deal about my own sexism: such as how 16 months ago I would have disparaged someone who wanted to be a stay-at-home-mom.

A part of me wants to go back to church to see what it's like, but I remember why I left and it had everything to do with how much Mormons are taught to love others and what will make everyone happy. I don't want to sit through they're opinions on that.

As my father dies and my family comes back together I have vastly improved upon our relationship. I am glad this started before I knew of his condition, and I am grateful for the push by 'ex' gave me with trying to improve the relationship in a more timely manner.

As much as I enjoy discussing sex I still find a lot of the discussion pompous and awkward. Maybe I try to talk about so I can get overall any awkwardness on my part, and so I can better understand what people's expectations are.

Many Mormon friends no longer wish to be around me, even though for most of them religion never came up in conversation.

I still keep my mouth shut on a lot of opinions because I don't see how 'arguing' with someone, who will not give any reasons for beliefs, is of any use.

When Mormon's say they've 'heard' everything or know what I know I instantly know they don't.

For me there is no going back to Mormonism or an Abrahamic God belief. With what I know now and how my critical thinking has seeped into most aspects of my life I would need to have an actual spiritual experience to go back. And not one that we taught to believe in, like a 'feeling' after reading a scripture, or simply having something good happen after living by a specifically religious standard.

In a couple months I will have moved on from belief for 2 years. In that time I have gotten my own apartment, had my first drink with my gay high school buddy, read dozens of books from an atheistic perspective or about other religions, got the best job I've had so far, went sky-diving for the first time, skinny-dipping for the first time and several times after, greatly expanded my genres of music, switched to Bluray, started shopping at IKEA, tried weed, tried adderall, switched schools, lost 24 credit hours in the transfer, learned how a parent will die, slept through the night with a girl for the first time, lost someone important because I took her for granted, spoke to my brother for the first time in years and saw him for the first time in almost 7 years, and gained a whole new group of friends.

Several people could say I've gone off the deep-end with all the 'sinful' things I'm doing or tried. I wish that the list were more expansive, more significant actually. I enjoy writing, fiction too, and I read a study years back saying that there is a correlation between the desire to write and the desire to experience a lot of different things. Writers like to experience the world in its fullness.

The Lunam Atheist Reddit Incident

2012-01-07T10:51:00.008-07:00

Here is a post I feel obliged to post. Some people may be aware of the over-sexualized reddit incident with user Lunam, a 15 year old girl who posted a pic of herself with a book her mom gave her. From reading a couple blog posts, such as THIS one, and going through her threads on reddit I feel I have a decent view on what happened. Now, though this may not seem like it sometimes, this is a PR post and a rebuke to anyone who acted this way or contributes in any way in the future to being beyond offensive online and harassing, in this case, an underage atheist girl, who some thought was older at least at first.

First, the blog I posted in the link. I did do some research, and I commented on this blog, 4th I believe, so you can see my opinion on the 'post' but it was also this post that moved me to feel obligated to also condemn the actions of those involved with the Lunam incident. So credit was due.

I did think that the other blog post brought up some issues I see. Recently I posted a video on the Mormon Expression FB group. The video was this (and is vulgar):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JA4EPRbWhQ&list=FLvJZTpVmBbiu2rDDj53rFgw&index=17&feature=plpp_video

(usually i have to fix something i did wrong to post the vid so bear with me if it doesn't work)
So, the guy has some jokes, he makes some funny ironic points, like the Iran comment, and his argument is true, and he uses one of the girls on The Talk to say it's true, but the way he does is, with his use of words for example, is not really conducive to having people listen. As to some of my concerns with the blog post, but I commented on that already. Also, as a side note, when I post things on FB that obviously are going to start a discussion full of controversy and I say nothing in the title of the post and wait half a day to comment, then, yes, I am trolling, and I want to see what happens.

Btw, her's a girl saying basically the same thing, Brittany. So for any girls who don't like hearing this from guys, and you know who you are cause you feel a little riled up with me or the vid and are ignoring what is an obvious issue, then here's Brittany's vid:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8lkYsbENeQ&feature=related

But all of that can wait till later ... like another day ... maybe, if I care.

Lunam's overview is at this link if you wish to run around a bit. Oh and that is a picture of her, btw. So her very religious mother bought her this Carl Sagan book, which i own but have not yet read (1 chapter in the middle a year ago when i got it) and she was very excited and wanted to post the pic. The following shit-storm that ensued is a little worse than what you may be guessing with comments (taken from the blog i linked!!!) like the ones below:

Bracin’ mah anus
She is fifteen years old. ABORT THE MISSION. ABORT THE MISSION.
You call it kidnapping. I call it surprise adoption.

Okay, so that last one is kinda funny, like how rape is actually Surprise Sex! But the issue here is you can make the joke, but you don't usually say it to a person in particular, especially when it is a 15 year old girl. No one sees an issue with this? Here's some more that the blog I linked posted from reddit, I don't wish to change the list in any way:

“Relax your anus, it hurts less that way.”
“Blood is mother nature’s lubricant.”
“BITE THE PILLOW, IM GOIN’ IN DRY!”
I’d put billions and billions in your pale blue dot.
I’d occupy her habitable zone
I’d go at that so hard, my entire body would appear blue on approach
Upvote for creative use of Doppler effect in sexual allegory
I’d read that book so f***ing hard to you.

It's pretty bad. And you'd think the girl would be traumatized. Luckily she isn't, but unluckily ... she is partly to blame, at least from the perspective of how this blog posted about the Lunam Incident. Don't worry though, I will be returning to the posters, most of which, I think we can all guess, were male.

So Lunam posted this, her REGARDING THE SHITSTORM post that sheds light on some things. #1 - Due to this post it seems she probably has had some time to discuss everything with some friends and this is an excellent reply to the whole incident. This is a very intelligent reply, and I say that cause it sounds like how I would have replied. And it's not me being to self-congratulatory, but that's the type of replies or comments I write, trying to take in all POV and possible scenarios.

Main issue is #2 where 'we' learn that it was HER who said 'bracin ma anus' and probably didn't really think about what it would mean to everyone, and to which comments followed. She gave the BF trump card which online does not work well but then followed it all with the comment about being naked in her penthouse. Sarcastic yes, but sarcasm doesn't carry well in written form and for most people that was the final 'open door' chime to go forward with more sexual comments. She seems to have learned from her mistake and realizes how she could have been seen as presenting herself.

Now let's set that glass of milk down and start on the meat. First, this is reddit, lots of high school college age people. Lot's of guys. This is an anonymous board. Should we expect all the posts to be from actual atheists? Or that a lot of the comments could be from horny teenage boys her age? Also, that the posters represent a very small fraction of the reddit atheist community at large and that it would be ridiculous to apply what happened here to the larger atheist ''community'' of the world? I hate calling all atheists 'one' community, that's silly, but people will, and that's why I feel a need to get on here and openly discuss what happened and give proper condemnation to the guilty.

So the final moment. Regardless if she played everyone up a little and started the sexual comments in the first place, why did it progress, or digress, to the point it did? Didn't someone get on there read some comments and think "hey, this isn't quite right?" I'm sure some did, and like I would have, promptly left. I'm sure some did better than I would have and commented, maybe saying something like ''hey, guys, you need to calm down and be more respectful, this is getting really bad." One issue is that I bet most don't even know how it started, they got on saw the comments, laughed, and joined in. Where, if in real life or if they had a moment to think, they would have been abhorred by the whole "discussion" and would have condemned their own actions.

This whole thing is ridiculous. And her comment, "A major topic of controversy was the fact I posted my face. I'm sorry I didn't realize I should have to wear a burka on r/atheism," ... seriously? I mean, unfortunately girls do run the risk of posting pics online, but is reddit so bad that girls can't do it there? What have we come to in the online community if girls can't post pics without being sexualized instantly? Did someone seriously lay out an argument for her to not post pics and it was her fault? I shake my head in a stupefied stupor.

My Purpose - And an atheist abstract

2012-01-02T15:03:00.010-07:00

As I slowly recover from being heartbroken and come to terms with where I am in life at a quarter of a century old, I am starting to hang out with people more and more. And I guess people have been concerned, or at least have noticed that I'm not too happy as of late, or not 'myself' as some would say. Having been invited, last minute, to a New Years party, with skinny dipping in hottubs an all, I had several people thanking me for all that I've done. Same with a party a few weeks ago when I was really at rock bottom. Email-wise I've had 120 separate, unique email threads started with people contacting me, though some are youtube video replies. Also one of the reasons I forget about people who contact me, sometimes.

I apologize, cause in the last few months I have really been detached, and I guess it takes one couple thanking me for helping them to come out to an event where they met each other, or one BYU student thanking me for replying to his email and helping him find friends, or another friend who thanked me for having my blog so that one of his friends could find me and then bring him into the group as well.

When I think about all the people I've helped in the last year or so, I guess I have made a difference, in many people's lives, some small, some significant, and some we may yet see. My job suffered in the last few months, getting ready for classes had taken a backseat, U-COR was nearly dropped, and for a month straight I was not there for any of my friends. But in the sense of this, my blog, I also dropped the ball in many ways. Not that I'll start to write more often, but I'll make sure to be more on top of it.

Besides this, a friend on FB asked why people in the group don't believe in Mormonism and why many of us are atheists. I made a little abstract, but I'll add to it here and lay it out, a little gift.

ps: also, I forget that I even had an angry phase a year ago, with the church, till someone reminded me, lolz. I hope I don't come off as a horrible angry depressed atheist now ... heartbroken sure, and maybe a rant here or there ... oh who am I kidding, if you don't like me then fuck off
:)

Abstract:

Arguments against existence of gods:
'Diversity problem' - with thousands of religions, some claiming they are the only true religions, many of which are in open opposition to one another, and all of which have many conflicting doctrines and beliefs.

'Hidden Divine' - where there is no actual proof given for one god or religion in particular to set them apart from one another, or to prove that there is at least one deity in existence.

'Contradictory Traits' - where we have some obvious, and not so obvious conflicts in being all-powerful, especially in the case of an Abrahamic God being omnipresent and omnipotent. If 'He' can see all things into the future but is all-powerful then he should be able to change the future, even from what he sees.

'Fact of evil' - the largest, strongest argument against gods, easily for reasons related to contradictory traits, though some religions, such as Mormonism have more clever answers. However, one basic fact is that we as a society would still hold parents responsible for not saving a child from shooting themselves with a gun instead of holding them with contempt for interfering and saving the child from suffering. Suffering does not always produce better people, often the opposite, and the pain and suffering in the world in so extreme it shatters minds, families, and nations.

'Argument against Need' - as laid out by Hawking in 'The Grand Design', Stenger in 'The God Hypothesis' and 'The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning' and physics in general, we generally know how the universe works and we have some strong theories as to how it could have begun, all of which work fine without gods.

Arguments against theists:
'Design or Fine-Tuning' - another 'a posteriori' argument. With most of these a bit of thought or research is all that is required, though some footwork will be necessary. The fine-tuning can easily be turned around to show how 'not' fine-tuned the universe is for life to exist, a night-sky is an example of space that you and I could not live in. Design arguments almost always assume A,B,C before giving their point, such as Paley's Watch and so refuting A,B, or C is all that's necessary. Nature does not have 'watches' or the like in it, underlying order does not entail design. If 'like entailed like' then God could as easily be a fruit or vegetable.

'Ontological' - an 'a priori' argument. Being an argument of logic, or illogic, the easy form of this is that the universe is too great so God did it, or God is true because the Bible says so, all of which is circular reasoning. Or that if there are infinite universes then God may exist in one, which then entails 'He' exists in all and cannot not-exist. But being all 'logic' based these arguments can be refuted by even non-logical arguments, purely on basic rhetoric, and none of these arguments do anything to actually prove that God exists, they are all 'what if' statements, essentially.

'Poor reasoning from the masses' - Guy P. Harrison's book '50 Reasons People Give for Believing in God' is the epitome of this, which is that most people give poor reasons for believing in gods. I.E. my aunt's cancer went away, my son was hit by a car and didn't suffer but died quickly, or I felt a warm feeling an hour after reading some scriptures, or I won the lottery right after I bought a friend a new TV. None of these examples prove anything supernatural and, most important, none of them belong to any one specific religion or purported God. The lottery winner could be Christian, Muslim, atheist, Buddhist, and they all could look at it differently.

'Antecedent' - any argument for God already takes a logical leap to state that God exists for us to argue for his existence. This also leaches into the discourse religions put forward, that, especially in Mormonism, we can have libraries of books neatly organizing all the rhetoric and writings into a strong cohesive whole (albeit with much double-speak) but that it all, everything, is pointless when trying to prove that God exists, or that these 'works' have any basis in reality. This is more an argument against God existence, but I feel it is more of the 'fact of pain' trump card for arguing against theists. Of course, most people who would even argue these points would not listen to this argument and would quickly disregard it.

I hope this little abstract of wisdom is helpful. I wrote the first part on FB so it was more brief than I wanted, but I hope these help people to be aware of other arguments they may not have known about and now you can go do some research. For arguments directly against Mormonism then just use my link to the right ... and up at the top.

Home for the Holidays Part 1

2011-12-27T18:50:00.006-07:00

I went home for the holidays, as if you didn't know or couldn't tell, and in a lot of ways it was a blast. I'll split this up into two parts, for convenience for any readers who still follow my blog, but really this could be done in one. I'm just gonna make it short.

First off one of my friends drove me from the airport to my humble abode and with him the discussion of religion came up. Now, he's not LDS but he and I had many discussions about Mormonism in the past. This time we talked about agnosticism more than atheism, and probably talked about specific religions more than religion, but it was fun to be open with someone who is foreign to the 'atheist culture' but open-minded and curious.

Going home means I get plenty of time to catch up on TV. Especially when I don't have a computer/laptop to use. In truth I watched maybe 6 hours while home, not very much considering, but in that time I received a barrage of atheist propaganda and agenda. On the book channel I ran into Deepak Chopra and Leonard Mlodinow having a debate about science and religion. The only episode of Futurama I watched was the one where Bender is in space, floating around, with little gnome people living on him (started into it late so I don't know how he got into this) who all worship him like God out of the OT. And he even acts like Jehova such as accidentally setting one of the villages on fire and then trying to blow the flames out and knocking them all out into space. Meanwhile everyone else is using religion to try to find him and asking for help: 'we shall pray for your friend' says the priest, "how about we do something useful instead?" is the reply.

The I watched an episode of Wifeswapping, where it was some crazy Latino lady and a crazy religion lady being swapped. Course the religious mom homeschooled her kids, canned food, had homemade milk, etc.... and the dad was right there with her. The Latino mom was all up in their faces saying their kids were robots and didn't have any friends, to which the kids enjoyed meeting other kids at the public school. The best part was the first day the Latino kids went to school while the religious mom was there ... she didn't know what to do! She was like, "I don't need time for myself," as she sat there, bored, so she decided she would make kids if she couldn't be with them at school or home. And before you think I'm referring to her trying to seduce the Latino dad, no, it's much worse. She cutout cardboard kids, life-size, put them in chairs, dressed them up, and played cards with them. Cause she's not crazy at all.

What else happened? There were a couple other atheistic/non-religious shows I saw, or brief mentions. I finally saw the Family Guy episode where Peter tells his family history, including how God farted the universe into existence, evolution occurring, and Peter stating that the Kansas State Education Board requires him to give the alternative explanation as well, where Genie comes out of the water, music an all, and everything pops into existence. Point being: i witnessed a lot of debatable things regarding religion in a very short span of time.

Another movie experience was watching The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo with the rents. Rape scene, minor hit against religion, titties, boobies, nipples, and everything in between, it was surprisingly NOT as awkward as I thought it would be. Probably because by the end my parents were rooting for Lisbeth and enveloped in the story. So I discovered that, by my current age, by virtue of an amazing movie, and maybe by only seeing them a couple times a year, some sex and nudity is permissible and won't make conversations awkward for us. Also, I highly recommend the movie, regardless of nude Rooney, but forgo bringing the parents.

That's it for now, I guess. I did have a sudden realization for my perspective on my personal romantic relationships, which came in line with some things with my family, and I had an interesting exchange with some youth and missionaries from the local church.

My Christmas List of 'Deep' Thoughts

2011-12-22T18:28:00.016-07:00

Well, Hitchens is dead, I've had a recent battle against 'woo,' holiday stirrings and stories, going home, questions about my former Mormonism, slight discussion on if parents' rules for what happens in their house or, separately, what happens in their children's lives. I've also been listening to Christian rock music from a mission cd, Team Jesus, lolz.

With all these things I will maybe make posts (such as the Lady GaGa and Patriarchal blessing posts I've promised for years) but I decided I would do something a little more thoughtful. I have, like, five different journals, and one of them is a word document where I put thoughtful insights or quotes I like, little 'one-liners' as I've dubbed them, but most are not necessarily one simple line of thought. I was wanting to post something meaningful for the holidays before I go home, and I decided this probably would be best. I was reminded about the journal when Heretic, my X, shared another blog that had several good, thought-provoking, and introspective quotes and ideas on a post. Some will most likely appear in this post.

I won't put any quotations or write the sources. I apologize for this, but I never planned on sharing these till I started sharing some of them in conversation and online, when some people thanked me for the thought. Due to this I never wrote down the authors for the quotes that are not mine. Then some of them are also paraphrases. And lastly, a good portion are actually written by me ... for me. So maybe some of you dear readers will appreciate a look into my psyche. I'm sure some can be seen as cheesy, but I hope people will get from this what they will. Take your time, come back if you have to, but please feel free to read them all. Happy Holidays!

So here is the list:

I don’t have to be the one person who feels happy all the time.

When someone has had a loss, do not offer condolences, tell them “I take part in your pain.”

Only a fool takes offense when offense was not given.

Forgiveness is giving up the hope that the past will change.

In all things strive to cause no harm.
Do not overlook evil or refrain from administering justice; but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.

Question everything, and question with boldness.

Always be learning: from books, friends, and self.

Friends are worth more than opinions.

Always be willing to admit you are or could be wrong right in the middle of the discussion to the other person: not after, alone, to yourself.

If you hurt the ones you love most, but treat strangers cordially, then where is the fissure and how do you cross it?

There are no true second chances, live with purpose and meaning.

If you were to die in a month, would you feel fulfilled? If not then you must motivate yourself to experience more. If never then you must revaluate what you value.

Doubt is a virtue.

Contentment is when you do not have to climb a hill or walk a beach, to travel.

Stop philosophizing about what a good person is and be one.

Asking “why not” can sometimes be as pointless as asking “why.”

You do not want to be the person who dies where no one at the funeral will have anything nice to say about you; treat those closest, by blood and ties, with love and care.

If you know money doesn’t buy people happiness then stop spending so much.

If you feel motivated to help yourself, then help others.

People laugh and smile in groups and in public, and they show no signs of feeling pain. And some may never understand your pain or sorrow, but they can feel compassion and sympathy and these things should not be discarded.

Be careful where you tread, you could be treading on other’s dreams.

Some things may not be the way you want them, but you must make the best of what you have.

Don’t give up, don’t blame others for your failures, don’t pity yourself, never surrender; stand up and fight, believe in yourself, and succeed.

Pay back ten-fold what you have hurt, including yourself, and pay forward any excess happiness you currently hold.

Are you taking away from the world or giving back to it?

A laugh should always be shared, and shared laughter is worth so much more.

You can buy sex, you have persons to share experiences with, you have family already, you have friends who are willing to drop what they are doing and be there for you; all of their love wholly combined is more than you can ever hope to achieve as a single person, and yet you need one single person to love you the same way for you to be happy?

You discover what matters to you most when you lose it. Learn from this, open a dialogue between your mind and your heart so that you don’t have to lose something in order to give it the respect, care, and love you truly feel.

You see things from your perspective and never from the outside.

Just because you can properly foretell how a person will act or react in one situation does not mean you know them so well as to correctly guess how they will act in any situation; you do not truly know what is in the mind and heart of your friends.

We all lie.

If you were to wait for advice from a person better than you then you would be waiting for a very long time.

The truth about truth is that sometimes the truth does not matter.

There is no pattern or miracle cure to misery; no one is ever always happy.

We are all in this together, brothers and sisters, family and friends.

What do you hope to accomplish with one cruel or insensitive act?

Divorce, in life or death, is a necessary conclusion to marriage; be willing to let go, that is all that is required.

Anger is not necessarily bad, but it must be harnessed and only as a fuel to bring about some good, and not merely a mean to an ends.

Misery is a friend everyone has but no one enjoys having this friend shared with them.

Compassion does not smother the cold flame of misery but compassion can soothe the burn.

Depression, for all its faults, is a deep and powerful emotion and can be used.

Every moment of your life you are destroying the universe, whether you wish to or not; do not be idle, but give back either through adding to the world or to your own happiness.

With all things always take a moment to appreciate the here and now to fully grasp at what you experiencing.

If someone does something truly amazing for you then you must tell it from the rooftops; never stop praising the secret, good actions of others and always respect their wishes.

If you cannot set aside an hour to walk and talk with a friend or loved one then you need to decide how important they would be to you if you lost them forever.

If others know you are critical of them do they know how critical you are of yourself, and does it truly matter if they know or should you instead be less critical?

Compassion comes from knowledge, not experience. Empathy comes from experience, not necessarily knowledge. Knowing and experiencing something are quite different but are the results, the emotions, so dissimilar?

If two things make people, oddly, miserable, those being having too many options to choose from, and not having to struggle to succeed in life, then you must cherish your trials and limitations, and find strength in your weaknesses and joy in the faults of others.

You should have only one gear: go.

Do not reach the end of your life full of regrets of the things you did not do.

Argue against the rhetoric, move against the flow of the river, be your own entity.

If you learn you were wrong about someone’s supposed offense against you then you must seek their forgiveness straight away.

This time, like all times, is a very good one.

Never criticize or make light of someone’s action that has helped another.

Some pathetic people can only express love through broken and hurtful means; you do not have to take this, but try to understand why they do this and how much they truly love you.

We all hurt the ones we love.

We all make mistakes and forgive ourselves a hundred times a day; it would not hurt to forgive others even once.

Empathy comes with experience, and sometimes that experience must be taught rather than learned.

You should daydream each and every day.

Are you good enough?

Even murderers and rapists can still love.

Never ask a friend to forgive another, it is not your place. Offer wisdom, but not advice.

If you avoid people because they tire you, then do you also avoid exercise because it wears you out? Where is your need for growth?

When you experience a black hole moment use the intensity to reaffirm your goals in life; do not go out with a whimper.

When feeling empty, friends can easily make you forget you have a space needing filling at all.

If nothing can remove the feeling of emptiness then you are keeping yourself there.

Momentary pleasures do not give purpose to life and will eventually fade, but they are not to be discarded either.

Beauty may be important but it will be her personality that can destroy you.

Somehow nothing can compare to being in love and the contentment and meaning to life that comes with it; and with so much invested is it any wonder that it will hurt you one day?

If the hate won’t suffocate the love then how do you ever get over past lovers?

If nothing will change then lean back and enjoy the show.

Even worst enemies would not wish some things upon those they hate.

Evil intentions destroy themselves eventually.

If you can’t even learn from your own advice then how will you ever improve?

Do not think of yourself as so smart as to call your advice “sage” by any means.

You will never do everything you want or could. Reel in ambition and be reasonable, but never give up your dreams to anyone or anything; live.

I am a person who says I am a realist, though comes off as a pessimist, and yet is secretly an optimist.

If you have loved and lost then at least you have tasted those emotions, felt as one with another, and graced the sky; bittersweet has only one true embodiment and many would call it a victory.

The neurons in my skull, if lined up end to end, would wrap around the earth and stretch to the moon.

I am made of stardust; the stars died so I could be here and someday I shall return.

The atoms in my left hand are from different stars than the atoms in my left hand; I am a representation of the interconnectedness of the universe and to see this I merely have to look at my palms.

When I die I wish to be buried and not burned so that my energy content can be returned to the earth so that fora and fauna may dine on me as I have dined on fora and fauna throughout my life.

If you’ve never seen the southern hemisphere night sky then you have not seen half the universe.

If a person is happy and loving their fellow human beings, then I have no reason to assault their beliefs except to gratify my own pride.

In the end it is actions that matter; I can care less why a person would do a good thing, except that they do it and keep doing so.

Worry will not strip tomorrow of its burdens, it will strip today of its joy.

If someone wants you in their life, they’ll make room for you. You shouldn’t have to fight for a spot. Never, ever insist yourself to someone who continuously overlooks your worth.

Stop berating yourself for old mistakes.

If you’re not happy with who you are on the inside, you won’t be happy in a long-term relationship with anyone else either.

How do you expect to change something if you won’t do anything about it? Stop fooling yourself.

Stop rejecting new relationships because old ones didn’t work.

Sometimes the battle is two against one: you versus the other person and yourself.

Stop wasting time explaining yourself to others. Your friends don’t need it and your enemies won’t believe it anyway.

Enjoy the little things, because one day you may look back and discover they were the big things. The best portion of your life will be the small, nameless moments you spend smiling with someone who matters to you.

If you refuse to let others know you are in pain, and put on a mask, then why would you feel resentment for others not caring when you’re simply succeeding?

If two things make people, oddly, miserable, those being having too many options to choose from, and not having to struggle to succeed in life, then cherish your trials and limitations, and find strength in your weaknesses and joy in the faults of others.

How the Church Will Collapse

2011-12-09T23:50:00.007-07:00

Seriously. This is legit. It's just a theory, with a small 't', but this is COMPLETELY PLAUSIBLE. Completely!There's plenty of ways that the Church could end, cease to exist, collapse, lose its members, but this could be how it could play out.

So, we all know that Monson is getting quite mature in years. And that Packer is second in line to receive that great great mantle. And he could totally get it! Completely plausible! Just, some things would need to happen. In fact, really, the church could collapse this next year. Really! It could! It all comes down to timing!

So, let's say the rumors about Monson are true and that he's growing senile. Just completely senile, but unlike Ezra Taft Bensen, all the other apostles won't hide him away in some hospital or home and keep him out of the view of the public. No, instead he stays in the public eye and come April he's right up front for General Conference. And Monson gets up there and just totally fucks it all up. He starts going off about random stories, doesn't follow his prompter, he's telling crude jokes with innuendos from his early teens, just completely off the deep end! After this he is rushed off to live out the rest of his days under house arrest and then dies at the end of September.

Just in time for Packer to become President cause Packer, this whole time, has been clinging to life, one hateful breath after the last. Just sitting in his chair telling himself, "I'm not gonna fuckin die! I have too much to say, I'm going to use all of this hate inside me to just cling to life and live unnaturally long due to all this pent-up hate and bigoted emotions I have!" And of course the revelations just start rolling forth. The bullshit is just spewing out from his mouth. Cause no one, NO ONE, has had the balls in the last 120 years to ever speak the words "the Lord has told me...!" but Packer would. And he would! We'd have new revelations, he'd be up there sayin, "God told me that this Church...." and it would just be in time for the October General Conference.

And he would speak at every session. Every session! Saturday morning he would remind us of his revelations, the afternoon he would talk about blacks and fence-sitters. During priesthood he would start off talking about masturbation and little factories which would quickly shift to how masturbation leads to being gay and start bashing gays. And every talk would be at LEAST 30 minutes, at least. During the women's meeting he would talk about women's rightful place in the Church, and then remind us again on Sunday and bash feminists before taking the entire Sunday afternoon session to bash the gays as if he really needed to make up for his namesake and truly try to prove that he's not a 'homophobe' who's simply projecting. And that would be Gen Conf of OCT 2012.

Then he'd die a week later. Completely plausible! All these things could happen, it's just a matter of timing.

And that would be it! It would be done! Members would be like, "wow, Gen Conf has been weird this year, it's just not the same, the church isn't true, these men aren't prophets, boy April was weird with Monson but now Packer going all bat-shit crazy in October and then dieing after being president for 2 weeks?" That would be it, the church would get 2 million resignation letters before the end of the month and poor Perry would die from heartbreak, the prophets dropping like flies.

Then the schisms would occur. We'd have the Bednarites going to Idaho. Uchtdorf would take half the women and all the gays and form his own sect, admitting to having had a brief same-gender relation with Packer. Nelson would control the main part of the church, now being the corporation president while the Presiding Bishop took the second corporation of the church and dubbed it The Corporation of the Presiding Bishopric of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. They'd start warring with each other and some breakoff would fly a plane into the conference center which would contain all the current 20,000 membership of the original Church, killing thousands and wiping out all the hierarchy down to the president of the 3rd Quorum of the 70, who would be some black guy from Africa who would become the president of the church in a dry sense of irony.

Completely plausible, totally could happen. Maybe not all of it, maybe I take some liberties, but if this happened I think I'd believe in a god. At least some kind of god, like Vishnu or Poseidon or John Frum, cause only a god could orchestrate the collapse of the church to occur in 2012 in such a spectacular way. I mean, to keep all the right men alive at the right time and to make sure they died at the precise moment, that would be a work of art! Only a god could do that.

Anyways, I'm sure this won't be how the Church collapses, but if I'm right, remember I'm the one who said it!

;P

Life in a Day

2011-11-26T21:55:00.026-07:00

I watched Life in a Day recently and have not been able to stop thinking about it. If you haven’t heard about it then let me take a moment to explain. But also realize, if you wish to watch this film, then some things I say may rob you of moments you could have if you went into it without knowing what to expect exactly. Lastly, this has nothing to do directly with atheism or BYU. This is about the human race. It is a movie to be experience.

An invitation was made for people around the world to post Youtube videos depicting their lives on one specific day on earth. On July 24th 2010 thousands of people filmed their lives, either the whole day, simple moments, or awaited the extraordinaire. All together there were 80,000 videos totaling over 4,500 hours of footage. Nearly 200 countries were represented. Ridley Scott produced the film while Kevin Macdonald directed. National Geographic had its hand in the film. The Youtube community, obviously, played a major role in the film as well. Many people did make it to the final cut, though not all. Most people were grateful they got to be a part of it, many felt it was worth just that.

The film/documentary has mixed reviews, though it leans towards the positive. For the life of me I don’t know what people would expect, going into it, and why they would be upset or say it was a waste of time. I guess if there’s no overall plot, no explosions or love scenes, and no overall moral or theme except to depict life and let the viewer take from the experience what they may, then some people will just be hopeless pessimistic cases.

Here is the trailer to the film if you so wish to view. The song at the beginning is Future Prospect, by Biggi Hilmars. The second song is, I believe, Jerusalem, by Keiran. I recommend listening to some inspiring music to get a feel for what I listen to as I write this.

Here's the first song, looped for 12 minutes, it will drive you crazy if you don't like it:

And now for my experience.

If you don't wish to have a corrupted view of the film stop reading now.
I watched the film from beginning to end in one sitting. I ordered it on blu-ray and watched it as soon as it arrived. I made dinner and was finished by the time the previews ended. So I sat back, with some Sprite and let the film start.

Right away the film put across exactly what it proposed itself to be: a collection of videos, persons, countries, perspectives, and right away began to lay out themes, starting with those people who woke up at the ungodly hours of 3 or 4 in the morning. You knew you were about to watch a day in the life of humanity. From a lady locking her door with dogs barking, to a family in a boat on the Nile, to a lady saying spirits spoke to her between 3:00-4:00, I was going to get the big picture. I was going to watch the human race for one day.

Of course some scenes are not as fun as others, though I’ll revisit this thought later. Some parts in the film were slow overall, and at 30 minutes I was like, “hmm, another hour?” But there was one scene which grasped me and motivated me to stay early on.

At one point we wake up with a father and son in Japan, Hiroaki and Taiji. Hiroaki wakes up, seemingly sleeping on a futon in his living room, or only room, and the place is a mess, stuff everywhere. Then I noticed he had a little boy, who he tells to go use the restroom or else he won’t be able to watch TV. Taiji goes to the restroom, navigating through all the items and junk everywhere. The whole time I’m thinking, “wow, this kid is going to grow up and never learn how to pick up.” I thought, “how could he show this without feeling a little embarrassed by the mess?”

Then after a moment the family make their way to the back room, maybe what would be the bedroom on the floor-plan. Bookshelves, a desk, and what I termed as a shrine with a picture of a young woman: the widowers deceased wife, the son’s dead mother.

Suddenly I felt ashamed with myself for complaining, to a video, about this father and his pigsty of an apartment. As they go through a ritual of respect, remembrance, mourning (?), my thoughts went elsewhere as I felt the human condition enter me. I use the term more freely than I should, but whenever I get the urge to partake in something, anything, that another person is experiencing I call it, to myself, the human condition. It’s just the way things are, whether happy or melancholy, and I want to be a part of it.

The broken family lighted a candle and incense, the son, Taiji, picked up a rod to ring a singing bowl, which my ex had one and which I will buy some day. I awaited the noise that would fill the speakers, knowing how it would sound. Blessed as luck would have it Taiji struck the bowl at the wrong time and had to do it twice. A thought of thanks rang in my mind.

Nick expresses his concerns about Global Warming and the changes he has personally seen.

Though, as I admitted, I found some parts boring after this, I was caught and I wasn’t going to go do anything else for the remainder of the film. Besides the beautiful images and personal moments I would share, the music was also grand. The range was wide and fitting, with recurring themes and songs, and some epic pieces here and there. One interesting part was a scene with some Angolan women working in the hot African sun while singing. I thought on how I wouldn’t sing while I worked, as they did, but I wondered how I would carry a conversation while working and decided I would probably sing. As the song carried forth the film went into a montage of other videos, their song carrying me along the way.

Ayomatty, who we watch as he works in the gardens at large mansions in Dubai, so he can send money home to his children so they can survive ....

Life in a Day has many montage scenes. The Angolan scene was the most memorable, but later in the film the piece takes a darker turn as we begin to see more violent images, looking at the inhumanity and carelessness of humanity. From a man keeping two other men from fighting, to a tragedy at a festival in Germany I had no knowledge of that took place on July 24th 2010. On this day there was a festival called the Love Parade, I’m guessing a kind of outdoor, concert, party type thing with loud music. In the film we watch from many different cameras and people as they go to the music festival, a lot of them coalescing at a long tunnel, with the background music building and building, and one group of people saying they’re stuck in the tunnel.

It ends up that someone some kind of stampede happened at this tunnel and 21 people were killed. We watch as people try to climb up out of the crowd, as men and women check people on the ground, some of which were trampled, and as some people continue partying and dancing, having no idea what had happened. From here the movie shows more violent images put against images of the seemingly ever wealthy and effluent western society.

Ron in the hospital.

The film has no overall themes, and tries to show many different ideas and perspectives. The film does have some overarching questions, like what people have in their pockets. We watch as a man pulls out a set of keys, gets in his Lamborghini, and smiles uncontrollably, while a moment later we see workers in some foreign country who have nothing in their pockets whatsoever.

Or what people are afraid of, which most of humanity is afraid of death. Kids are afraid of monsters, people are afraid of ghosts, and a man seemingly in a hospital bed is afraid to die. These question themes make up most of the film, with a young couple in the woods holding up written signs that ask the questions, segueing into the next portion.

The film has some faults, they definitely don’t represent perfectly, and push some agendas. There is a scene where we watch a cow get killed, and the first try is unsuccessful. I felt the scene is fine, but for a moment I was disengaged and felt that I had been agendadized. Also, time is spent on seeing people testify of Christ, or Gusti Kompiang Sari in Indonesia performing blessings and prayer to her Hindu Gods, but there is a lack of representation for openly atheistic viewpoints. Secular points, yes, but no one in the film says anything about not believing in god. We get a girl who says all non-Christians are going to hell and her message is to try to save them, but no atheists.

In the film there are a few very interesting characters we meet. Interesting because they either are unique, or foreign. From Teagan hoolahooping and solving a rubrics cube, and Ardilavov free-running and stealing, to Virginia climbing a human tower and David coming out to his grandmother, we meet a lot of people and get a glimpse into their world, sharing a moment.

Then there are recurring people. Some people got some extra time on screen, such as a family struggling with cancer. The Liginski family gets several spots, from when the father, Bob, and son, Bobby, go to wake up their recovering mother, Cathy, to them having some family moments during the day, real down-to-earth stuff.

Ann and John Walkley renew their marriage vows, which they wrote the renewals, and which is funny. A young boy from Peru (I have not as yet found his name) who we watch leave his home with some wood contraption, being asked questions by the camera-holder. Soon we find out the little kid is going to work, shining shoes, the wood contraption a step for clients to set their feet on. Later we visit him again, in the love portion of the film, as he says he loves his dad most because he cooks all the food all the time. Giving him a moment he explains that it’s not because of the food, but because his dad does it; he knows his dad does it because his dad loves him, and looks out for his son more than himself.

Okhwan Yoon, a Korean who, on July 24th, had been cycling around the world for over 9 years and over 190 countries also shows up multiple times. In the film he is currently in Nepal and we watch him wander around (how he affords this I have no idea). He stops for a moment as we watch a fly stuck in some soup (?) and starts explaining flies he has seen, and how this one looks about the right size for flies in Korea, which reminds him of home, and makes him emotional. It’s the little things that come out a lot in this film. Everyday occurrences.

By the time I was halfway through I was enveloped in the people’s lives. As David came out to his grandmother I braced myself for a horrible experience, only to have him keep repeating, in mild laughter, that he knows she loves him, will see him soon, and that his parents know. As Virginia came onto screen, having a good minute scene, wondering why she was getting a helmet, and why she climbed out of her home down a two-story pole.

Seeing a wife of a solider in the Middle East while going back and forth with a reporter/photographer in Afganistan who wished to show the western world that there is hope in his country and they are normal people, as he showed young girls, some with their hair uncovered, exercising and training. Watching some goat farmers, from Ukraine, as they went about their day, jokes and humor abounding. Watching as a camera person went into a large cemetery in Egypt to find a family living in a shack, a father, on his own, watching out for his underage children, saying that at least they are alive, his god hasn’t forgotten him.

By the end I wanted to see more of these people and I watched with anxiety as the clock neared 90 minutes (the length of the film). I tried to piece together the main moral of the film, but couldn’t. I was experiencing life, the human condition, and I felt I was being a part of it. I felt, as one critic said, that I was a part of, "a rousing success of an experiment: quite possibly the first large-scale, global use of the Internet to create meaningful and beautiful art," and that I had now contributed, even though I wish I could have truly contributed back on July 24th 2010. I was climbing that tower with Virginia, I was in the hospital with Ron as he choked up, thanking the staff for taking care of him, I was with Bob as he looked at his wife’s scars, and I was with Okhwan as he set out, trying to inspire and feel inspired to make a difference in the world, to unite Korea, to make the world a better place.

The violet purge and images, mixed with the Love Parade, culminate into a scene with Okhwan as he gets his hair cut, saying he is now a new man. He mentions that when his eyes are closed he can see all the different people of the world, and for him, I believe he truly can. He says his adventure must continue and he begins to walk away with his bicycle, the person who video-taped him, watching him leave. We revisit the Liginski family as Cathy asks Bob what he is afraid of. Possibly holding back some emotion he says he was afraid of her getting cancer, which she got, and then getting it again, which she did. But now that it’s all gone he has no fear. I literally rooted for him at this moment. As with most of the film, they tie scenes with voices continuing to speak though new images are in front of us, or with music. As Bob looks at the camera an orchestral piece begins to play (Fireworks and Lanterns) and we are shown fireworks and other images. Soon we arrive at a festival of lights, where a crowd releases floating lanterns into the sky (think Tangled). As hundreds of fiery lanterns float upward we watch a couple embrace. By this point I was getting choked up.

Returning to the family we saw in the boat on the Nile we watch as they prepare to sleep in their little boat, the moment I realized the little boat was their home. The camera-man takes a moment to focus on a young brother and sister as they pull a blanket over themselves. Storms begin to break out in the night sky for others on that day, and we end with a woman in a car (I don’t know who she is either) who, above the noise of rain, says she is disappointed that nothing special happened and that she had to work all that day, a Saturday. She wishes she could leave a mark on history, but she hopes that others had an eventful day.

The brother and sister in the boat.

The film ends with a snail going slowly over a small ball, or egg, that eventually resembles the earth. I sat there as the music played on and the as the snail slowly worked its way forward, pressing on. I wanted to watch it again, to experience it with someone else. I knew everyone around me had their own lives, their own thoughts, their own dreams and sufferings. I was suddenly acutely aware that I was one out of seven billion, but that each of us were unique, brothers and sisters, all partaking in the human predicament, all a part of the human condition.

I was hoping that family in Egypt was still alive, that Ron had recovered fine from his stay in the hospital, that Bob and Cathy were still doing okay. I was jumping out of the plane and skydiving again. I was with Taiji and Hiroaki as they mourned for their lost wife and mother. I was with Ayomatty as he peered at the million-dollar homes and sent money home to his children. I was with Okhwan in wanting peace in the world. And I could now see all of those different people when I closed my eyes. I wanted to know their names, to be a part of their lives. That regardless of joy or sorrow, I wanted to be a part of it, to share it.

Perhaps because I feel life is worth something more than myself when I see films like this, and perhaps because I too wish to make a mark in history, I felt completely inspired by this film, through and through. It was deeply moving. It was inspirational.

And I know some people won’t see it the same way. Some will find it boring, or that it’s cheesy, or that it’s nothing special. To that I can honestly say I do not understand. I do not understand how someone could watch this film and not feel the way I do. I admit that if someone took it lightly I would find them inexperienced, shallow, or at least missing the point in life. If something like this film cannot inspire you or cause you to have a greater love and appreciation for your fellow human beings then what hope is there? For all of us.

Notes:
I have tried to find as many of the people as I can and I stumbled across this site, though much later into my searching, unfortunately:
http://www.mongrelmedia.com/press_info/?id=2029
Besides this Wikipeida and IMDB are also good for basic info.
I purposely avoided labeling some pics as I feel you should recognize who they are now, and if you don't then maybe you should watch the film and meet them.

Some Actual Problems With Mormonism

2011-11-25T23:08:00.005-07:00

Here's some valid concerns about the present-day LDS church that I have:

#1 - "How the church advises couples to divorce their wayward or apostate spouses." We have some people like this in the group. Leaving so much 'power' to bishops is one of the faults of the church and this is one realm (most of these are, actually) where bishops can cause problems. Some bishops will advise a tender-TBM wife to dump her husband if he falls away. And some men are advised this on their wives as well, but, lets face it, more men leave the church than women so more men are seeing their families ripped apart by their TBM wives.

But where do bishops get this idea from? Well, that good old gospel of guilt the LDS church teaches, of course. If being married in the temple, being questioned on if you support apostates, and being told the greatest glory is to be eternally married, then all you need is the idea, and one person to say it, that if your spouse falls away you better find a more righteous future spouse ASAP or else you may go to hell!!! A few teachings here and there with some ambiguous doctrines and scriptures and you have a field ripe and ready to be split down the middle ... the family that is.

#2 - "Those gays sure are causing a ruckus," and for Mormons they definitely are. For the life of me I do not understand why our country is even debating the topic of gay marriage. Why is it even up to debate on whether or not 2 consenting adults and get married and have the rights of marriage? Why are we fucking dillydallying on this? But more on this in a moment....

#3 - "Sure am glad none of ma kids are apostates or gay." And oh the joys if they are. Utah, besides leading for porn use with Mississippi, is also a leading state for gay teen suicides and homeless youth. Circumstantial evidence at best, but at one the LGBT panels at the Provo library one lady stood up and stated she worked at the homeless youth center in SLC and 72% of the kids were from LDS homes and a lot of them were gay. Also anecdotal evidence, but I mentioned in the past that there was an apostate daughter who was temporarily disowned and gay son who lived with the threat of being disowned for some time. Family sure is important to these people. You can be a fucking neo Nazi but if you own a coffee maker or stop believing then you are fucked.

#4 - "Well, I'm more happy than anyone else." And maybe this slight rant doesn't help but Mormons sure have balls to say that they are happier than you or that you will never be able to have the same level of happiness they have. This teaching makes people so fucking miserable. Some people literally believe it too, they leave and are getting miserable, calling back on being told that they would be. Now, if they were simply just sad or mad then I'd be like, eh, maybe religion is good for them. But if they are sad and then say, "you know, they said i would be sad and though i KNOW i am not committing a self-fulfilling prophecy, i think they are right," (if they say that) then that apostate is just stupid.

So many people are happy when they leave behind a cultish gospel of guilt like Mormonism. Some people may be better off staying in it, but if you think you're one of those then stop and think on what that actually means. One person recently said that it is tough for her because they can't tell people, or don't wish to tell family, etc ... but think that maybe they could go back to church and be happy. So you want to go back a lie, live a lie, and be the lie, cause it makes you happy? And what is making you sad is being true to yourself, admitting to yourself you don't believe the lie, but then are continuing to lie about who you are to other people? Which is what you would be doing if you went back? Makes no sense.

#5 - read the full study report on the SEX AND SECULARISM study. Helped to confirm some opinions I held with facts. To summarize, Mormonism is self-rated to be the worst of the major religions (16 in the study) for how members view sex and how much guilt and shame is associated with it. Again, this says something of what we already know.

#6 - a minor note on the funds of the church. temples are tithing producers. the Great Britain monetary accounts being made public in some years to show that 84% of humanitarian aid goes into investments. or, as i recently found out, that the massive amounts of tons of items the church ships out is actually much smaller then we may think.

Just some minor points I wished to throw out there. Overall Mormonism has a lot of good ideas and they get good things done, but some things are just so bad, so horrible as to be atrocious. I mean, right here we see a general process of worsening the world. Any child who is gay or bi has a lot of risk, any child who leaves has a LOT of risk, and is getting close to 1 out of 4 in the church. Any spouse who leaves risks losing the rights to see their own children. Aid and money is far less than what the membership is led to believe. People who leave will be left with working out how to live better sex lives and may have some remnant views on whether or not they can be happy. Yup, but it's a good religion.

Veterans Day

2011-11-11T18:51:00.004-07:00

Thank you to all those in the armed forces and to all veterans. To those who put their lives on the line for an idea or a dream. For those who gave their lives for their loved ones, and for me. For those whose aspirations drive them to fight for the rights of others and to be involved in the condition of humanity.

Thank you to those veterans and soldiers who represent this country, who represent our culture and freedoms. To those who represent their race, their community, their family, to those who represent their religion or non-religion, to those who represent the majority, and to those who represent the smallest of minorities that our country promises to protect. Thank you for doing what many of us can't, won't, or only would when our freedoms were being threatened on the threshold of our homes. Thank you all.

Though many may disagree on war, and veterans, and all that, I find it despicable of anyone to refuse to give a just nod or mental high-five to any courageous person who would take a bullet for them if it came to it. I enjoy that atheism in the military has had a recent revival of sorts in the last couple years, helping to get rid of that annoying foxhole comment.

Random funny picture because i must.

Reflections

2011-11-10T20:42:00.004-07:00

When I started this blog it was with the intent to write out my thoughts, get others' opinions, and write about BYU in general. Now I am no longer going to BYU, and for the most part my views on the world have finished going through massive flux and are now settling in a slow-moving river. In other words, my original purposes for the blog are now gone.

Not that I can't still write about some things dealing with BYU, and I definitely can still post my thoughts on things and always like feedback, but it's so much less than it was a year ago.

And when I look at it that way it has been a pretty crazy year. Or course I have basically only one thing on my mind and taking up my energy (exgfdepressedheartbrokenwhattodoimallaloneandsad) but there's a lot to reflect on within the last year. One being the general history of the groups I'm in, though right now I'm not in much of a mood to write it out. But it is something to watch a new group get formed, with a dozen people meeting at Starbucks to reaching nearly 200 on Facebook (even with the small exodus that occurred when the group made the papers).

To be honest I haven't been involved much lately. I am busy, preparing to start the long road to finishing college, working a full-time job, etc .... My current emotional status also leaves me wanting to go home and not talk to people, which means if I have any attachments or duties outside of work then I have completely let those people down, including UCOR. But I guess that's to be expected. I was left feeling a little resentment when I discovered some co-workers didn't realize I was heartbroken; I guess they just thought I was a really depressed atheist, lol.

Also, to be honest, I've lost my drive to collect funny atheist pictures, but I still have a ton I haven't shared so I'll be scraping from the barrel for a while yet.

It has been exciting becoming involved in atheistic culture, watching the changes, seeing people go from one extreme to another. Some people in the group went back to believing in some kind of God, while others feel they are getting out of their "crazy" phase. To be honest I never entered a crazy phase to leave in the first place. I've honestly still been very much myself. I do miss the LDS culture in some ways that my current friends and even current LDS friends don't quite satisfy. But I also realize I never quite fit in to begin with. Music, group games, board games, odd/cheap dates, I guess those things matched though. I like the party scene, I need to go out clubbing more with people, and I don't know many Mormons who would go skinny dipping, but I feel a desire to go to both.

Besides all of this my work makes an interesting place for conversation, especially more recently, but I feel hesitant sharing that information on a blog. I have been more argumentative lately, which often gets trite responses. Some people state their beliefs, usually by saying how something else is wrong or bad, and I simply ask them why and usually they don't actually back it up with any real reasons. I find myself not really caring to even pursue debate over topics that don't reveal any thought beyond reciting what evidence they suspect will support their already formulated opinions. But, hey, maybe I'll post more often now as I piece myself back together.

Life: a long love lost story

2011-11-06T21:31:00.026-07:00

Disclaimer: This ended up not being the post I meant it to be, but was therapeutic and enjoyable to write so I'll post it anyway. WARNING: it's about my pitiful stance as a boyfriend and past relationships so don't read on if you're not interested. I'll at least post funny pics along the way.

Listening to Radiohead(cue Nude or All I Need[please feel free to read while listening to what I am. oh, and use youtube you lazy bum]). Music always manages to calm me down. First off I'm not dead or anything. I did stop attending BYU last year, but I guess, since I'm (or use to be as I can't motivate myself to do anything) involved with Post-Mo and atheist stuff out here I decided to keep up with the blog. Course, fewer things to talk about since I don't wish to talk about work/Mormon/atheist experiences too much, or to talk much about college outside of BYU. This and the fact that people still contact me ... I guess I'm in it for the long run.

So what to say, been pretty down lately. It's amazing actually, most of my greatest experiences, worst and best, all have happened in Fall. Or, rather, the season of Autumn. My first love started and stopped in Autumn. My mission started in Autumn. Most schools start in Autumn but that's to be expected. My birthday is in Autumn too. My first skydive, my first time driving alone (again, birthday), my second love and consequent breakup three years later, my first drink (which was not related to my bday since I never did that till 23), my first skinny-dipping, my third love and, again (you know it's coming dear reader) consequent breakup.

Now I am left to reevaluate my thoughts and values. I've done this with other things, my views on abortion actually haven't changed much since I left the church, but my views on swearing have dramatically (though my views on what's cordial and polite haven't). I'd like to think I have a good grasp on the world and maybe it's better in the sense of what's actually right or true, but I'm pretty sure I'm more lost than before. I have a habit of not finding out my views or beliefs should change until I come in contact with that perpetual and infinite opposite that makes me desist, retract, and evaluate what my mind and heart tell me now versus what I blindly believed before.

As with love I feel like something should've changed, but hasn't. I loved once in high school, a girl who was already in love, and living with said boyfriend. But I was young, enduring, pretty naive, and her and I hit it off. I have to pat myself on the back for being a sociable and confident person back then. The initial contact lasted four hours, and one revolutionary conversation later I had the biggest "crush" I had ever had and planted those tender little seeds into her mind which gave her a level of interest that would never make her cheat, but made her realize we could've been. A kiss never happened, a couple other things did, a lot of great experiences, but the whole time I knew what were doing would not lead to what I wanted it to be.

So, with that one timing certainly played its part, and of course being young, foolish, and not truly available, though in my mind it was a relationship I wished I could've seen go all the way. Thankfully she and her now husband were good sports, had a lot of patience with me, and we're still in contact.

I apologize for suddenly bringing up the age-old sad love story, but I'd rather put it here than in my journal and then feel like I'm being a complete hermit when some people, and hopefully readers, are wondering what's going on. But returning, needless to say that pseudo-relationship had me emotionally upset and drained in a few horrible ways a few times over a year, but I eventually got over it.

(cue Iris by Goo Goo Dolls, it has sentimental value for me)

Then my deepest relationship started a year later. October 3rd, 9:15 in the evening; I can name the place and which cushions we were sitting on and roughly what was said to make sure we knew it was an official relationship. Followed by an awkwardly started but tender and passionate hug. Sealed with some tears. Two months of flirting had now culminated into a relationship that I have no idea if it ever should have started.

See, I am a hopeless romantic at heart, my fictional writing is usually inspired by good movies and music, while my poems and journals are generally inspired by love. My music is a bit of both. But I've noticed how NOT like myself I am now. I've really lost that aspect of myself. Whether it has been destroyed and must be regained or simply has burrowed deep into me, afraid to come out after being bruised, cut, battered, and abused, which means I need to relearn and heal. Regardless, here I am, but I want to continue as to how I arrived.

Me and girl #2 dated for a long time. I went to college for part of that, and returned, then went on my mission. The year at college was hard, I was cheated on once during that time, and we even broke up for 12 hours. To be honest the girl had brought up a couple times after that year that she might want to date other people at some point. She was in high school, and I, like I always do, said that while I was on my mission we could count it as an open relationship. That way she could date guys, a little, but still love me. Course, now while looking back, I realize that this was a fatal mistake on my part. And if not a mistake, then a misunderstanding on what something like this would do. It also helps me realize what is important in relationships to me, namely, what is most important, but I'll get to that later.

She broke up with me in a Dear John letter, though she wasn't LDS and wouldn't know what that was. Why she didn't come to my mission, rape me, and try to steal me away from the religion, I'll never know (joke) but she left me, and I can't blame her for that. Btw, this happened between August and October, of course. I won't know if she had a guy in her life by then, but a few months later she did.

We did fight sometimes, she was a people pleaser, and because I loved her and would forgive her it also meant I was lower on the totem pole when she felt she had to choose between people, things to do, etc .... But there was a time for us, probably about months 3-9, where we thought we had found that person we would be together with, forever. We shared everything, all our darkest secrets, journal writings, our dreams and aspirations. We both did not have the best lives in high school and helped each other a lot, her most of all. Lost, confused, delirious and self-afflicting, it is hard to sometimes not think that her love for me was based on how much I helped her. Once she got better and more secure then I was no longer as important and enduring.

Regardless the next year of my mission was torment as she would come back, disappear, say we should date when I get back, then say she had a boyfriend. As my mother would say, "she was jerking my chain" and like any puppy in love it left me feeling very confused and hurt. To end this sad tale when I arrived home we met and after one awkwardly started but tender and passionate hug our conversation reached the apex with her saying in not so many words that 'she did not want me in her life anymore and I was not to contact her.'

That was pretty low. I wonder why sometimes, if it was cause what we had was so real and she wouldn't be able to remain faithful to her 'then' boyfriend; if I had really hurt her in some way that I just can't remember; if I never meant as much as I thought I should have and she really didn't want me there anymore. I probably will never know, and I'm sure her memory would suit her present beliefs rather than what she was thinking then.

With that I was crushed, which I'm hoping isn't surprising. And then I was still home for a couple months before college. With barely any friends (my high school buddies are the college types) and one very broken heart I think I festered in that plagued pool of thought till my bones were saturated with a liquid bitterness while my mind was pierced with needles of self-worthlessness. To speak more straight: I was the lowest I've ever been.

(note: i LOVE the meanwhile meme pictures, they make me lolz)
The rest of that story isn't anything new and I have little to add. When I was still having nightmares about her, and us, a year after I got to BYU, and two years after the breakup, or 16 months after she told me I meant nothing to her, I decided I had some major issues and got a therapist to help out. Sure enough I was very depressed and was reacting as if divorced. After a couple months I was released and had no nightmares till recently.

Which, I have to add, I hope those of you who haven't had a relationship end so horribly one-sided will have no understanding of what I mean by nightmares. So let me explain one thing. Regardless of what happens in the dream, the next day is ruined. I'll have the dream, wake up depressed, and be haunted by thoughts and memories regardless of what I do. I could go to work, be so busy I lose track of the time or even what day it is, but I'll be constantly handed depression and bygone years on a mental platter. Not a fun day.

In fact, that's what got me motivated to see a therapist in the first place. After having three consecutive dreams I had three horrible days missing work and classes and decided I had better move along and admit to myself I am broken.

So with the help of being nudged to move along I again was ready to date. Not that I couldn't before or hadn't tried. But now I was ready to start piecing myself together. For anyone who doesn't know my "exit story" and "how I became an atheist story" it was also 2 months after this that I finally admitted I didn't believe and it was okay to move on from the church. It took being happy to do that, or to realize that some of my misery was coming from believing.

After an end of July party I started my blog and then met girl #3. At least from my early journal writings and memory my perception was that it was very one-sided. She liked me, liked my blog, and I thought she was a weirdo and not my type. Upon meeting she ended up being "sophisticated" and a week later we were official. That week was bliss. I had stirrings before, but this time I recognized the feeling, the same feeling I had two weeks after dating #2, and a few months after #1. I loved this girl. And she felt it too, saying she, herself, was a romantic as well, and possibly as hopeless. The quencher with this was that she lived two states away and was just passing through.

(Lightning Rod by Guster is good, but so are the last three songs so cycle as you please or stick with Iris)
So the long-distance relationship started, which was difficult, leading to some fights and arguments on the phone. I grew up as one of the biggest pricks in my class so I always take the credit for saying something rude or inconsiderate, which I'm sure I did. She said I was 'not enough of a feminist' and other things, trying to make me eat better, do more hobbies, and get out and do things. We met a few times and generally those trips were wonderful. Never bad. She came back down here, we lived together for a couple months, then separately for a couple more, then she left for grad school.

I don't know why it went wrong, but it did, and I messed up, and this is why. Like I said, it began with interest on one side, and I grew to love her, but she wasn't "my type" and I was always reserved, and on top of this I'm broken. So anytime a fight happened I'd go do something by myself, or if she was nagging I wouldn't be afraid to fight back, regardless where we were. Some times I felt like, "well, this isn't permanent so if it get's worse you can leave" and this only fed my 'not caring.'

But now I get to the end of the matter and feel completely lost. Betrayed, drowned, and left behind. And I am left to wonder how I got here. It all culminates to this: if I feel this way now then it did matter to me, and it must've mattered a lot, so why didn't I act like it mattered? She will say it was all her; that it was bad timing in her life, she needed to get school going, doing that in Utah wouldn't happen, she was depressed about things. So if love matters on your geographical location then it wasn't meant to be.

But I don't think anyone believes that. Sure it matters, but at some point if a sacrifice needs to be made and someone loves another, then they will favor that person over themselves. If they favor themselves then "media love" has not brainwashed them ... or their atheistic "this life is my only life" mind takes over. They have to look out for number one.

Once it was apparent that we had issues and she may leave then I began that process of letting go, even being the one to say we should break up, much like what happened with girl #2. Of course it was not what I wanted to do, but if I couldn't make her happy then it must not have been fate, destiny, or a convenient truth or cosmological constant.

(I Can Feel a Hot One by Manchester Orchestra would be a good, mellow closer and afterthought)
And then I am left feeling this way, as I do now, as she already falls in love with another while feeling pity for me and my poor sappy self. And from this, all I have learned is that the most important part of the relationship, to me, the one thing that only happens in those rare, passionate, intense and intensive relationships that people call love, that the most important thing is that I'm the person who makes them smile, who makes them laugh. That when I am in the room or on the phone that they feel content, that the world is an outsider, one that they are ready for, that being with me is inspiring, motivating, and all they need in a relationship. That if we were the last two people on earth they wouldn't have to feel lonely.

And most likely this is because that's how I feel once I reach that point, once I truly love someone. And I've told them so; in a cloud and sky bed with girl #1, or a moss-laden clearing in the woods on May 24th with girl #2, or while lying together after an argument with #3, our essences mixing together till we could lose sense of where one began and where the other ended.

Those were happy times, but unlike Calvin, I guess it is true that I do not have to be the one person who is happy all the time. I believe that. I understand that it's not just girls who can coldly and heartlessly move on; that I only date girls who can reach that level of love and interest and then revert to being less than friends while still being cordial. I understand that it is something about me, either in the way that I am, at the core of my person, or that my yearning for that connection is so strong and so deep that it is beyond what others either want, or can give. I can return to my old relationships in a moment, I could kiss any one of them as if we never broke up. For me, once you share something, once you commit, you stay that way whether you want to or not. There's no reverting, those feelings are there to stay, they've moved in, become comfortable, and are asking favors. Best to get along with them, they gave you so much before.

I don't know how to stop loving someone, and after being so viciously treated, watching as loved ones slowly strangle and suffocate their love for me, willingly, for multiple reasons, after this a part of me shattered, hairline fractures like broken glass, hidden away deep inside. The definition of something being broken is that it can no longer function the way it was designed to, or wishes to.

I can neither move on, nor express the love I have inside me. I obviously have cared before, but didn't make it work, because I either put something else first, or I couldn't get the love I had inside out in the open, the words never came to my lips, perpetual lethologica and circumlocutory speech. A synesthesia of thoughts that synthesized and never came out in the pattern I wished to paint. I can see it too, in regular conversation, I catch myself not being open with people, as to how lately I don't really do anything, though I want to, though I try. And of course little interest from others only helps my mind to confirm how little I matter.

My brother says he only hates two things, one being a thought for later but the latter being people who pity themselves. Well, I'm certainly full of pity for my miserable self, but maybe there's hope for me if I can still feel this sort of pain. Maybe I can one day move on, looking back with a new perspective to learn from how my relationship with Kellie hasn't waned, to one day fully move on from Audrey, and to, better sooner than later, realize what Geneva meant to me and what she will have to mean to me now.

This message has my:

BYU Atheists OUTED!

2011-09-15T18:59:00.003-06:00

Not truly so, just yet. But the Daily Chronicle just put out an article about the group. Unfortunately some things were wrong. The group meets more than once a month, officially, and basically cliques in the group have events every day. Also at the time of the article it was getting close to 190 ppl, though some have left to avoid being caught, lol. The link can be found here.

BYU officially made their Honor Code less ambiguous about former LDS students. Good for them. Way to bring out the normal Mormon bullshit of making matters worse. I for one am glad this all got put out there, and i even got the honorable inference of my blog being mentioned. Course, now i expect not so many people will be contacting me wishing to join the group.

Seriously, read the article, it's good, and though BYU may be worsening their strides, this is a good stride in the right direction.

U-COR Godless Billboard

2011-08-26T21:14:00.002-06:00

The billboard is up out on I-215. Will be up for another month or so. Here is a news link! And now a blog link!

U-COR site: http://reasonutah.org/

The billboard hopefully will let the non-believers in Utah and the teens who doubt but feel trapped know that there are others in similar points in life as themselves. There still manages to be many post-mos who are leaving or have left and yet are completely alone. There's also many who 'toy' with the idea of leaving but are terrified, and maybe knowing that there are others like them out there, in Utah even, will help them to make the decision.

The billboard is also completely harmless. Some atheist billboards are aggressive, this one is not. And if someone thinks it is then they are far too sensitive or just downright stupid. Traffic has risen slightly in all the groups and on webpages, and hopefully it will continue to rise.

With all of this UCOR is also in the works of creating a newsletter, perhaps monthly. I'll be helping out with that.

10 Secular Commandments!

2011-07-29T16:33:00.003-06:00

Or more truthfully, 10 ideas to live by. This list was given to me by Heretic a couple weeks ago. Looks like it's from The God Delusion and I instantly liked and i thought i would share it with all of you heathens who tackle the mountain of forming your own moral and ethical system to live by. Enjoy.

1 - Do not to others what you would not wan them to do to you.
2 - In all things strive to cause no harm.
3 - Treat your fellow human beings, your fellow living things, and the world in general with love, honesty, faithfulness, and respect.
4 - Do not overlook evil or shrink from administering justice, but always be ready to forgive wrongdoing freely admitted and honestly regretted.
5 - Live life with a sense of joy and wonder.
6 - Always seek to be learning something new.
7 - Test all things: always check your ideas against the facts, and be ready to discard even a cherished belief if it does not conform to them.
8 - Never seek to censor or cut yourself off from dissent: always respect the right of others to disagree with you.
9 - Form independent opinions on the basis of your own reason and experience: do not allow yourself to be led blindly by others.
10 - Question everything.

And because i'm betting everyone is thinking what i thought when i read these, here are the origins of some of these:
1 - Confucius - Silver Rule
2 - Possible paraphrase of Hippocrates
10 - Euripedes or Thomas Jefferson paraphrase of question with boldness.
and I'm guessing all the rest our original, or are so paraphrased that they loose any resemblance to the inspiration.

In Cognito

2011-07-21T21:43:00.007-06:00

Small update on U-COR, they are having a BBQ with raffle an prizes this Saturday, however i'll end up being gone unfortunately and won't be able to make it. It's in Sandy UT and will be in the late afternoon and evening.

DRIFT and SHAAFT are now pretty much official, being the atheist groups down in St. George and at UVU. Counting the smaller and more unique groups in SLC there's about a dozen now that have formed into official organizations in Utah. I feel like now's as good a time as ever to come out of the closet as an atheist or agnostic or unbeliever. For Utah especially. UCOR has some 'big' plans for the near future.

At work i keep skipping around with my subtle books. Not literally skipping, but when i eat i read, just finished that Agnostic Reader book, couple weeks ago i was reading a book on human evolution, and now i've started Jesus Interrupted. Not that i don't read other books that really don't relate to religion or theism in any way, but probably half the time i have a book that makes the Mormon co-workers a little edgy. "Hey, jdog, what book you readin there?" , "Oh, a book on human evolution." , " ... " that's usually about it. Unless of course it's a co-worker who is undercover and maybe has read some of the same things as me. Starts a lively but short-lived discussion.

I don't want to sound like i don't like my co-workers though, it's just that almost ALL of them are active LDS! Sometimes it's almost like church. But they know their boundaries with the work atmosphere, and that if they can talk about religion then other people can voice their differences. Well, mostly. There's one co-worker, bless her heart, who doesn't have much tact in the way of asking personal questions. We had an interesting conversation last week:

Me "So you like science?"
Her "Yeah, i like genetics and biology."
Me "Yeah, i didn't use to ... but now my science shelf [bookshelf] is split between general and my genetics and evolution shelf."
Her, leaning in, "Oh, so you ... you believe in evolution?"
M "Well, i like to say i accept the Theory of Evolution, or rather, the Theory of Natural Selection, with a big t."
H "..."

M "When it comes to evolution there's enough facts that it's moved beyond a simple hypothesis, but what Darwin really brought to the table was a theory about natural selection, and it took a few decades but by the early 1900s we had enough evidence gathered for the theory that now it's hardly adjusted anymore. Really, for evolution it started with the Greeks, Plato and Aristotle being two basic examples [though Aristotle outlined the theory that would end up being true even though he fought against it, lol] and then those theories of course were lost [most libraries being burned by Christian sects] and not rediscovered till the Muslims found them and then the Christians dovetailed off their research and science."
H "[loosing or boring her] So, you don't believe the universe was created?"
M "No, i think creationism is just stupid. Well, let me specify young earth creationism. That's stupid, the earth is not 4 or 6000 years old."
H "No, the earth isn't 6000 years old."
M " Exactly, though America has one of the largest young earth creationist populations in the world. And to believe it you have to deny so much: evolution, biology, genetics, archeology, geology, astronomy, paleontology, basically all of science and just about everything the human race has ever learned about the world and the universe. It's just dumb."
H
M "I mean, i'm open to the idea that God or some entity started the ball rolling and then stepped aside, old creationism, but not young earth creationism[and i'm not really so open as i am more respectful of that view]"

Then at some point in all this i was asked if i also believed in the Big Bang and i explained the evidence for it, etc.... It was actually a fun conversation, and i may be one of the first non-LDS/non-believing persons she has ever had a real conversation with. If not then she must have a rote script for asking me what i do believe in cause it was almost cliched. Needless to say i need to just come out and tell co-workers i don't believe in gods to get rid of any possible confusion.

I am a little wary in talking about work because i don't wish to say anything detrimental, and i hope that comes across. I just wish there were more non-believers there ... or at least fewer Mormons ... so long as they weren't born-agains, or scientologists ... actually, i wish there were more scientologists.

Thoughts from a Former BYU Atheist

2011-07-12T18:15:00.006-06:00

So regardless of whether or not I post on here I actually have plenty of thoughts and things I could post. Here's some random thoughts I'll throw out there and maybe write posts in the future, cause to be honest, writing on the blog has somehow dropped off my top ten things to do daily list.

The group is almost to 200, and may be over counting all the people who come hang out and do things but are not on the FB page. We still need more adults, but it's finally spreading out.

I don't think atheism is a religion. It has been brought up on here before, in the group, on the FB page, and in conversation with friends. I think there's actually some merit to this discussion as religions do not have to have gods but usually exclude other religion's gods ... which already atheism fits in to on one level. However, I think when you form a criteria for what religion is when compared to, say, just being spiritual, then compare those to atheism ... then you'd see atheism as anything but a religion. But more on that later.

I did my I Am An Ex-Mormon video. So did my gf. I was surprisingly nervous and so I don't think i did nearly as well as i would have hoped but i suspect Daniel will be able to save it.

Totally watched The Prestige with the Leavitt family, awesome movie and awesome family.

In the last month i think the Utah Valley group has gotten a couple dozen new people with the advent of summer and new semester approaching.

Have a few friends who are/were/or may be disowned by their families due to not believing in the church anymore. Go Mormons for the win!

I've read some new good books I will comment on at some point soon, some not related directly to atheism. Has anyone else noticed that the Atheism section at Barnes and Noble is about to need to spread to a second shelf? 5 years ago I don't think there was an atheism section, 2 years ago it shared space with Linguistics, now it's pushing out at the seams and needs a second shelf. Yeah, I think I joined the fad JUST before it was cool, go me.

One reoccurring theme I've seen lately is how Christian's didn't start the dark ages and Christian history is full of the greatest inventions. I talked about this before. How about Islamic culture led for science, especially after rediscovering the Greeks, and then Christianity dovetailed off them, and then how most of the greatest scientists from the later ages usually were Christian but not usually very strong in their faith and sometimes openly opposed popular theologies, and often were persecuted by Christian churches, plural. I don't see the correlation that Christianity means great thinkers, how about Europe produced a lot of innovations that overtook the world. And in that sense, how about China has usually led the world except for about 200 years and may be regaining it's position of leadership, which has been the norm.

Found another atheist at work, even though most employees are Mormons.

I feel completely disconnected from the atheist group in Utah Valley, and I'm usually too busy or tired to do anything with the groups up in SLC. Still, regardless of if i post or not people still find my blog and then join the group, lol.

Read a book on Judaism where it talked about how English was designed with some mal-intent against Jews and that the English language has specific words that are derogatory to Jews or misrepresent Jews and their beliefs where if we want to understand the Jews we may need to leave the English language behind at some points. Didn't take me long to wonder if this is also true of atheists, especially with English definitions of atheism compared to, say, Asian views of those who don't believe in gods.

Asian holy books are far more inspiring than the Qur'an and definitely the Bible.

That's it for now, ciao.

Long time no see

2011-07-06T18:27:00.005-06:00

I've decided that I only want to post every other month or so. Nah, just kidding, but it has been awhile. As per the pic posted above usually it comes down to "blog post or one ... more ... turn ... on civ ..."

As anyone who actually follows me knows, Civ has won many battles. And now my computer is running slow and I don't care to keep typing and wait for my text to load every few seconds. So here's a nice spoof on that Miss America wtv evolution video. Till next time, enjoy!

math

Some Christian History

2011-06-01T17:55:00.005-06:00

Needing to post, haven't posted in quite a while, a 40-hour a week job can take up more time and energy than one may suspect. I've been doing a lot of reading until recently and I've slowed down but I've been reading steadily through several books, such as The Agnostic Reader (TAR), a collection of writings, articles, and essays, edited by S.T. Joshi. He's a big time H.P.Lovecraft fanatic and has compiled lots of books about Lovecraft and his writings, but he's also a big-time atheist figure and has three collection books, another being The Atheist Reader, which I don't even have yet.

Through TAR I've gone through about half of it already (it's long) and I'm excited to read some Mark Twain next. But one section I completed was talking about science, and Christianity, and the writings compiled a pretty incriminating viewpoint. See, I always viewed Islam as being the brightest of religions in it's early days and then swapping with Christianity in the medieval times, for the most part, and this kind of changes that view.

Many people are quick to point out that some of the greatest scientists were Christian, many Catholic, and I can agree that European Catholicism is actually pretty scientific in modern times, but I would heavily disagree that Christianity motivated scientific thought from 1400-1800. Though most of the greatest scientists happened to be Christian, usually Catholic roots, the bulk of them were hampered rather than helped by religious institutions. Bruno and Galileo are two great examples.

Also, the majority of the greatest innovations coming out of Europe had nothing to do with religion or even culture, but with needed enterprising dealing with the New World and making profit or beating the competition, such as other countries. The steam engine being one of the greatest turning points in history had to do with energy consumption and travel, mostly based in the Americas.

It seems, as I read books from the Science section, about evolution, or from the agnostic's perspective, that Christianity often was the reasoning behind holding back innovative thought, rather than producing new ideas, and that competitive markets and land wars often brought on the greatest ideas in history.

Atheists of BYU

2011-05-14T09:05:00.005-06:00

Wanted to post earlier but it seems Blogger didn't want anyone posting or commenting.

I still am underground, in a way, but I keep sticking my little atheist head up out of the hole to survey the Savanna. By this I mean I keep making comments that relate to what I'm actually thinking, and I'm doing it more often. Or that I've made my FB page much more obvious about what my views on God and religion are, or I wear my atheist shirts around town.

I'm out of Provo now, up in SLC, and it seems I may never return. I still go down to see everyone but I'm slowly getting disconnected from the whole atmosphere down there. Regardless, more and more people join the group weekly, and still more people are coming out of the woodwork at BYU. One person has made several videos, explaining his positions on Mormonism, and his doubts over the God hypothesis.

Here's his views on God, and how he debunks several arguments in a nice, short, cute little series of videos. Here's the first, you can go from there:

And this is a video explaining his atheistic views. While wearing a robe or towel and wearing shiny glasses.

He also has some on Mormonism but I'm betting he views himself more as an atheist than an ex-Mormon. Also, I wish to note that I actually do know this person in real life, even though I'm talking as if I don't, :P

As I said in an earlier post, the "I am an ex-Mormon" videos guy is coming to Utah for a bit, and several atheists from Utah Valley have approached him and he said he'd love to do as many videos as he can with all of us. I may even do one. We'll see how that goes.

PS: also, the kid in the videos is NOT me.

TBM Email Part 5- Finale

2011-05-10T18:29:00.003-06:00

Okay. Here is the final segment of the TBM email to my Atheist Friend. Let the finale amaze you.

In reply to our atheist friend saying that God is the ultimate genocidal maniac – “It is incorrect to judge a society 3500 years past through the lens of modernity.” – What? It’s God right? And God can’t tell people how to act right? We do have examples of small and large societies in history that were ethically far more advanced than other societies in their times, why couldn’t God just teach people correct principles instead of halfly correct principles? I guess this is the same reasoning of why we can't dislike apostles from 50 years ago who said racist remarks monthly about the blacks.

“Evil men and women live in all societies and generations of time, and use whatever power structures are present to do their wicked deeds. Atheism doesn't provide a philosophy to deter Mao; he was working for the 'greater good,' what did it matter if a few people died? Religion condemns Mao, because its morals are Absolute it condemns those that do evil in its name. Atheism provides intellectual cover for any deed imaginable.” – Yes, evil men and women have lived in all societies and generations but the difference here is that he won’t blame religion or religious beliefs, only atheism. Which is similar to some militant anti-theists who don’t acknowledge any good coming from religion. But then, ‘so what if a few people died,’ seriously? Like God doesn’t do this allllll the time in Mormonism theology? For the greater good? Flood, Nephite history, church history when people didn’t listen or maybe it was just a sacrifice for a family to lose their children. Atheism doesn’t intellectually cover Mao! Atheism says, “Mao, I’m Atheism and I don’t believe in any gods.” That’s it.

“Atheism can only be approached via pride. A humble and intellectually honest atheist can only 'at most be an agnostic,' admitting, "I don't know what the truth of God is.' To choose atheism is a choice of pride, it can only be believed by relying on one's intellect and reason being supreme.” – Can ONLY be … can ONLY at MOST be … can ONLY be believed … on one’s INTELLECT and REASON being SUPREME. Give me a break. This is so loaded and capricious. What kind of fallacy is this, to tell someone their unbelief in God means they have to think in these ways and nothing else? What is that? False dichotomy again? This is all beside the fact that he uses the Negative Proof Fallacy to support his beliefs and to go against atheism. True genius at hypocrisy and double standards. Also beside the fact that most people don't believe in God for emotional reasons with their reason, intellect, etc....

“Consider your statement "If this all turns out to be true, I'm not so sure I want to live with Him anyway." I don't want to step on feelings, but consider the how completely illogical this statement is. Are you truly saying, that you, a frail, puny, weak human, would tell God -by definition omnipotent and omniscient - that He is wrong and you are right? By definition you would be telling a perfect being that He is wrong!” – All I can say is that if I either can live by myself and have no more sex, or that I have to live in a mansion with all my relatives and have to have endless sex with a near infinite amount of women and then have to raise children for eternity … then maybe I’m not cut out for any of the Mormon kingdoms either.

“Many times I have wanted nothing more than to go use drugs and have as much illicit sex as I can. I try to stay true because I believe this is the truth.” – How come, in a debate, the theist always HAS to say this? 'Oh, I've been tempted by drugs,' or 'oh I've been tempted to kill people many times,' or 'oh, I've been tempted to molest little girls.' To appear more human? Or tempted by the devil so ‘he knows what you’re going through?’ How about if everyone feels this way, that they want to experience life and that maybe their life is boring or not as exciting and fulfilling as they want it to be, that they just say that these things are okay? That, sure, go try some drugs, or go have sex, everybody wants to and I’ve always wanted to. I’m sure this isn’t for everyone, but what is the harm in having a drink of coffee or having sex with a person you love? Culture certainly is to blame for a lot of the thoughts on sexuality in the world, but these things can change.

“Might I suggest one or two books that addresses your concerns far more eloquently than I am able to? I would suggest The Abolition of Man, by CS Lewis, The Everlasting Man by GK Chesteron, and Mere Christianity and The Great Divorce by CS Lewis. Dawkin's God by Alister McGrath is very good. A wonderful book is also The Language of God, by Francis Collins.” – I actually enjoyed C.S. Lewis, though I think now I agree with him most in A Grief Observed where he says his whole faith was a house of cards and if he wants to believe he better just keep believing for goodness sake. How come TBM doesn’t offer this book to our atheist friend? Seems like a reasonable book for someone doubting. I haven’t read Chesteron, and I’ve heard Collins book upsets creationists so good for him. But Alister McGrath? Again, why doesn’t TBM offer books on the new atheism by atheists? Why go to some guy who attacks Dawkins and offers this as proof that there is a Christian God? Many people realize that the new atheists are not philosophical giants, though Dennett does impress me often in the realm of philosophy. I am offering here that the books are decent choices, but it certainly rounds off the character of TBM.

“Atheism per se does not ask you to do good for goodness sake. Some atheists might. But the doctrine of atheism does not. In any event, atheism EXCUSES evil's excesses as merely the ends justifying the means” – What is this babble? (to quote Hitchens). Back to that whole religion of atheism thing, doctrine an all. Why can’t atheism excuse good’s excesses as merely the ends to justify the means? Completely backwards. Why does it have to be inherently evil now instead of good if both are of the same value, as he said earlier. Complete and utter bull. That’s what his much longer set of emails are, much more than I even quoted here. I am now dumber for having read them, and I am sad that I at any time used any of these arguments against religion.

… F***. That’s all I have to say.

Morality For Atheists

2011-05-07T23:20:00.006-06:00

Another long post. I decided to sit down and try to write out some more thoughts about morality. Here's the rough draft of what I have.

There are two towns, one named Town A, and the other named Town B. Both are purely hypothetical and nonexistent (so far as I know) and the proprietors who named them were not very imaginative. In each there are everyday citizens who go about their everyday lives. Each community is small and people generally know each other.
In Town B Larry, a normal to-do citizen wakes up and greets his Guardian standing in the corner of his bedroom writing in a notebook. The Guardian is a member of the town’s police force. See, in Town B they feel a need to watch over their citizens to make sure they all do the right thing. Of course no one really watches over the Guardians and no one is allowed to question their authority. This is partly because the Guardians are made up of other average to-do citizens as well, except for the Father Figure at the head of the order of Guardians, who no one has seen, except the Head Guardian, who speaks on his behalf (am I being subtle enough?) The Head Guardian relays the orders the Father Figure gives to his Guardians and the populace of Town B and they all follow obediently.

Larry rises and gets ready, his Guardian watching him throughout the morning, even while on the toilet, and making sure he doesn’t do anything nasty in the shower, and then they head out to Larry’s work. On the way Larry passes by Susie, another nice to-do citizen with her Guardian, making sure she lives the laws to a ‘T.’ However, Larry notices Susie fumbling with her purse and some papers when her coin purse falls out on to the sidewalk. Susie, preoccupied with the papers, and her Guardian, preoccupied with making sure she doesn’t curse under her breath, don’t notice the coin purse fall out and continue on. Larry runs over and picks up the coin purse, opening it and noticing that there are not only coins but several bills of money and for a moment contemplates stealing the purse when he meets the gaze of his Guardian writing in his notebook. Afraid of the retribution Larry calls out to her and returns her purse.

Meanwhile in Town A, Amelia wakes up and enjoys using her bathroom in privacy. See, in Town A there is no Guardian force or Father Figure that keeps watch over everyone. In fact, everyone simply keeps track of themselves and others around them. So Amelia’s morning goes by quickly without happenstance and she leaves for work. On the way she notices Frank, another well-to-do citizen. Frank, fumbling with his keys and briefcase and wallet, slips his keys into his pocket but his wallet misses and hits the ground. Rushing on, he doesn’t notice, but Amelia does. Running up to the wallet she finds several hefty bills hanging out and looks up after Frank who is getting away. Realizing that she could take the money but that Frank would most likely sorely miss the amount and be saddened, she calls out to him and returns the wallet, full of his bills, to which he thanks her by offering dinner at a nice restaurant later, where they meet, talk, get to know each other, all of which leads to an eventual marriage that ends happily ever after.

Now, all the absurdities aside with the two cases, there is one point I wish to make with this story and it is about the type of morality being displayed. In Town B the morality is enforced by an all-seeing, seemingly all-powerful being and his subordinates. The townspeople live each day knowing they are being watched and tested, and that a record is being kept on whether they do, or don’t do, the right and moral thing. Larry returned the coin purse as he was afraid of punishment. In Town A (for Atheist, it seems those prospectors may have had creative minds after all) Amelia acted out of empathy and sympathy for Frank and didn’t seem to expect any monetary or physical reward from him for returning his wallet, though the possibility was there. The question I pose is this:

Which seems more moral?

As I said, this example has only one purpose, I am not asserting that Larry couldn’t learn to be moral without a Guardian, or that Town A shouldn’t have a police force (every community needs to enforce their laws through some means), or that Amelia was incapable of doing the wrong thing (she certainly could have stolen the wallet); I am merely asking as to which action is more moral based on the circumstances?
The theist, especially with the classic omnipotent and omniscient God, cannot carry out any action which won’t be recorded by their God. Their God sees and knows all, and they are aware of this. Their ethical system is laid out as a stick-and-carrot game, a system of rewards and punishments. For the atheist the moral system requires a level of empathy and understanding, on top of the choice to simply do ‘the right thing,’ in this case “not stealing.”

Children grow up as selfish beings unless taught the joys of sharing, of understanding there are punishments for bad behavior. They also learn that good behavior can bring rewards, that sharing with a kid means that the same child may share with them in the future, or that Santa only brings toys to good boys and girls. Eventually the child will learn that other children don’t like to be hurt and eventually, though perhaps not till junior high, they will grasp an understanding of empathy; being able to put themselves into someone else’s shoes.

Religion actually is aware of this. Religious parents don’t till their children to play nice because the Bible says so, rather they will tell little Timmy that hitting Jane hurts her, or telling Gina that calling Bobby names hurts his feelings. Parents of all beliefs generally teach their children empathy rather than bringing up the validity of their holy scriptures.

Empathy is a higher moral stance than simple rewards and punishments, and though there is debate around the reality of altruistic behavior, empathy comes much closer than weighing an action based on whether you’ll get anything out of it or not. The religious moral systems rarely approach this level, and most religious zealots do not. The atheist, if she cares at all about the world (and most say they actually care more about humankind than before when they were religious) has to design an ethical system based off of empathy and sympathy, not just reward and punishment. Studies show that atheists are more likely to help strangers than the religious, and this further explains that atheist morals may in fact be stronger than the theist who simply thinks of their mansion in Heaven. Indeed, the atheist has to think about their system more, and it is no easy task.

In the end morals and ethical systems are not easy to design or uphold in any fashion. No system so far is perfect, and there is always a level of selfishness, whether it be helping someone because you may get something back or just helping someone because it helps to raise your self-esteem and you get a sense of happiness out of it. Many people, both believers and non-believers, have ethical systems that they try to live by and break daily, often without notice. We can all do well to have a little introspection into our thoughts and actions.

Also I wish to stress my point that usually religious parents are teaching their children the same set of ethics that non-religious do; that being simple empathy as the apex of ethics.

Atheist Books - The 5th Segment

2011-05-06T19:51:00.007-06:00

I will cut into the TBM email and make another post about atheist books I've read. I may soon make a post about books not found in the atheist section of your nearest Barnes and Noble, such as The Grand Design, in another post briefly covering some of the books I've read that support a naturalistic view of the world and where God is seemingly pointless or at least not necessary, as put forward in The Grand Design.

CLICK HERE!!!

For now listen to epic music and here's some more books.

God and His Demons

By Michael Parenti, this was a good book and I enjoyed it a lot. It began feeling like another rehashed 'new atheist' book and very similar to Hitchens' God is Not Great, but then it changed drastically when he went into all the historical accounts in recent history of how religion does bad in the world. And he has tons of examples. And he just keeps the punches rollin' page after page. And he hits hard. He spends about 3 pages on Mother Theresa, then Gandhi, then the Dalai Lama, and just digs up dirt on everyone with nearly EVERY sentence having a note or reference attached to it. By the end I was sad it was over.

Parenti is careful to point out at the beginnings of several chapters that he believes in 3 things that he wishes his readers to understand: he doesn't believe his points disprove God's existence, he thinks moderate religion is okay and is the norm, and he doesn't wish to attack sacred cows. But he assaults everything else. This book is heavily enlightening and gives tons of references if you wish to go read the books, studies, or articles he did in putting it together. I highly recommend this read to everyone.

The End of Faith

By Sam Harris, many people think this book is what triggered the sudden rush of devotedly atheist books over the last 6 years or so. The End of Faith was surprisingly good and I think it shows Harris is a thinker. He makes many philosophical points and uses his understanding of psychology/neuroscience to further his arguments. True to his bias one of his longest chapters is purely on Islam, which he detests more than any other religion so far as I can tell. Towards the end he brings up how eastern religion is much more intellectual than western religion (such as an understanding of consciousness), especially the Abrahamic ones, and how Buddhism is more empirical, especially with meditative practices. His views on this upset many atheists but I think he has points as the book, Destructive Emotions gives plenty of scientific evidence for the benefits of meditation and how yogis really do have some peculiar abilities in controlling their bodies.

What is Secular Humanism?

This tiny little book was okay. It's more of a pamphlet than anything, and seems similar to a religious tract you'd be given by missionaries. However, it was useful in how Kurtz explains exactly what secular humanism is by definition and meaning, and gives a brief and shallow history of the philosophy. Atheistic while promoting humanistic morals, the little thing was fun, but not worth the price, and makes me view Kurtz like some evangelist.

I've recently been reading a book about Victorian atheism and it is quite good. Besides this I've also been reading another book on atheism by Walter Kerry, which is surprisingly deep in it's approach which is nice. Most likely I will be posting more books in the next couple weeks. And, as promised, I will post non-atheist atheistic books at some point too.

TBM Email Part 4

2011-05-05T18:33:00.006-06:00

I've been busy again lately, but I should be able to post regularly for a week or so before I possibly get busy again. I'm a little hit and run with my posting, but I try to keep serving you guys and gals up.

Here is some more of that TBM email. This is really part 2, being this is the TBM's second email. I'll go through it in two more posts, and then I'm done. I mentioned before that it only get's worse, and this one proves that. To see the other parts go back to the April posts.

NOTE: What I'm doing here is replying to a TBM who emailed an atheist friend of mine. She replied on her own, and my replies have not been sent to him. In essence I'm debating him without letting him know I am debating him. Really I just pulled out the more funny or absurd things. He really seems like a nice and intelligent guy, but I have a hard time being nice by this point in his emails as he gets worse and worse. His statements are italicized.

“You say that 'we could be open to the possibility if presented proof.' Why would God, Omnipotent, have to provide you with a secular proof? … I do not find atheism an open philosophy. It assumes God is discernible via crude, man made systems of finding objective truth. It is entirely reasonable to assume that God can only be found on the terms He sets.” – What exactly is a ‘secular proof’ for God? I’m not sure even I understand what that means. If God sent Moroni, or was it Nephi, three times during the night and repeated the same message, declaring the gospel true and Mormonism correct and then again later the next day, I think I would believe. Is that secular? Is that ‘asking for a sign?’ You know, asking for Him to do what he did for Joseph Smith and what many Mormons ask for all the time with their begging for answers to prayers and to know it’s true.

“God, or the Absolute Law is the only ultimate thing that prevents a descent into hedonism, and it is not a logical error to say so.” – Well, at least he admits it. Of course I don’t expect him to do any research into secularists, atheist, nonreligious, and agnostic countries, groups, or peoples. In fact, in the last sentence he mentioned he liked Carl Sagan … how the hell was Carl Sagan such a good guy if he was agnostic/atheist?! Where did his morals come from? Why wasn’t he a hedonist? Maybe TBM would say he was.

“You say that "Religion was created..." This is an unprovable assertion; thus it is another faith based assumption of atheism.” – Religion as a whole? Perhaps he’s right. But specific religions? We have the general and sometimes specific events and times for essentially all religions in the world. And by religions I am separating them from spiritual views, such as paganism obviously. For this though we not only have the birth of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, but also Mormonism.

“The moral code of atheism is whatever the atheist says it is in the morning.” – And your moral code is whatever old white men tell you, or 150-3000 year old books and writings. Not much room for anything else. Very specific. The atheist is more open, such as to say that women have fundamental rights that need to be allowed and enforced, or that blacks are not lesser in any significant ways to whites or any other race of human being, or that it is okay to doubt in God and to entertain these thoughts and that you don’t have to be depressed in Mormonism, you can get out! Yes, the moral code of the atheist is far less than the one offered by Mormonism.

“One horrifying aspect of atheism is this: a 9 year old african girl is gang raped by 10 thugs. She's laying on a hospital bed, about to die, wracked with pain and horror. As an honest atheist, the only thing you can say, right before you fly back to materialist comfort of the west, is 'tough luck.' And you can hardly blame those 10 thugs. They could get away with it, and since they're nothing more than organic machines, they're doing what they're genetically programmed to do, namely, pass their genes on.” – My question is this: why are theists obsessed with saying that because there’s no God and that we evolved we must act like animals and no reason, logic, emotion, or intellect can tell us otherwise. We all must act in our best and most selfish interests. Holy f***! What is it with people and this statement? If you want to use logic to say:
I am a human being
Human beings need to procreate to survive
Therefore, human beings should rape

Then I will say:
I am a human being
Human beings like to be happy
Therefore, I will not rape.

Same logic, same argument. This is such a retarded argument.

“I fail to see how this is more moral than Judeo Christian teaching which teaches the opposite.” – Fuck you. Am I the only one offended by this? I think our atheist friend should be more offended by this statement, which followed his 9-year old African girl (why Africa?) example. First he says, ‘this is what you believe in the faith of atheism!’ and then says he’s better with his scriptural and doctrinal history of being a Mormon. This is hubris.

“All educated religious people I have met follow God because He loves them, and they're trying to love Him.” – All you’re educated religious friends are probably Mormon, mystery solved. The more I read the more poisonous I feel Mormonism and religion. It gets to the point that you feel nothing will get these people to look at the world in a better light = that things could change, things can get better, and that the world isn’t another Sodom and Gomorra and we should discriminate. Please refer to older posts on why I don’t think religion is inherently good.

“Atheism does not ask you to be good because being good is a good thing to be. Under atheism, the word 'good' is meaningless, it is whatever each individual claims it is. It is always open for debate. Under Judeo-Christianity or Islam, good is what God says it is. What you call 'good' is (excuse me for being presumptious) largely Judeo-Christianity morals that your parents, community, and country have taught your for the past 20 years. There's no logical reason to assume that such morals are 'right.' Religion confirms that they Absolute; atheism says they are arbitrary for all people.” – Demosthenes brought this up a while back and I still don’t buy that Christianity has been the leading moral system for the whole world and most cultures for much of recent history. Influence, yes, definitely, along with all other moral ideas! Some of which are very secular. Again our TBM guy says there’s no logic behind religion, not in morals, not in understanding or knowing God. I don’t know if he means to but he sounds as if he believes in the contradictory Nicene creed.

And that's half of his second email. The next post on this will be the last. Till then.

Atheism 101

2011-04-27T14:30:00.000-06:00

Hello students! Welcome to atheism 101 where I, your brilliant instructor will attempt to teach you some basic facts about atheism. But first, what is atheism?

Atheism is a disbelief in gods. Quite literally an atheist may say, “I don’t believe in God.” However this usually means that they don’t believe in any gods, just like all the other gods a Muslim or Christian doesn’t believe in! Atheism on its own doesn’t mean anything else except a lack of belief, this does not mean they know there is no God, they just don’t believe.

However, they could be a Gnostic Atheist, meaning they don't have a belief in God, but also know there is no God, just like how many Theists will say they know there is a God. However, most Atheists are Agnostic Atheists, meaning that they just don’t know for sure. This is usually the case for Theists since most believe faith is tantamount in importance.

So now when someone says they are an Atheist you know what they mean by that statement, and you can now press whether they are Gnostic or Agnostic Atheists! Good for you!

This is a picture of the Four Horsemen, Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens. This title wasn’t necessarily chosen by them but it fits in the Christian community who deem them as such. Of course, Jennifer Hecht, and Susan Jacoby were writing mainstream, atheistic material long before these guys, but since they were women they probably weren’t chosen by Christians to be the Four Horsemen.

Many people believe that these men are the de facto leaders and prophets of atheism, as if it’s a religion! This is an obvious stance of ignorance because if anyone listened to these four men they would realize that they do not agree on plenty of things, and in the DVD, The Four Horsemen, they actually argue back and forth some. They all may be more confrontational than the average atheist, but they certainly are not prophets.

And I must point out that Atheism is not a religion! This is absurd! Religions are belief systems that worship or revere a superhuman being or entity, particularly gods. In Atheism you can certainly assert that it has a belief system, but its belief is that there are no gods. This is the antithesis of religion, the prime opposite. Atheism a religion, please.

Atheism has its roots go back as far as religion! The most concise writings we have go back to the Indian subcontinent where Buddhism and Hinduism led some to not believe in gods, though they could still believe in the supernatural. Diagoras, Euhemerus, and Epicurus are all major atheist figures from classical antiquity as well. Before the bulk of the Bible was written there were writings denouncing the gods.

This will conclude Atheism 101. It should be noted that there are many other facets to Atheism, such as its rich history of great thinkers, the role of science, the theory of evolution, the debate on morality, and whether or not religion is good for the world!

I am an Ex-Mormon

2011-04-24T12:16:00.004-06:00

It would seem that the ex-Mormon campaign guy may come and meet some people in our group sometime in the ambiguous future. I'm still not sure I'll get in the video or not. I've been accepted to UofU again, and this time I can afford the change of location, tuition, etc... and I am now a state resident. So goodbye BYU!!! I don't know what that means for my blog though. I should probably state something like, "just left BYU" in my title or something. Who knows.

Either way, if you somehow haven't heard about the Ex Mormon ads, it's kind of a reply to the Mormon ads campaign from last year. Except these are people who all left the church. Not necessarily atheist or anything, just postmos. Here's the Youtube link and then the actual page. The guy seems pretty cool, I guess he's from Canada, and he obviously has learned how to do good interviewing/recording/editing to make his videos cause they are high quality. If you somehow didn't know about them, then enjoy the links.

TBM Email Part 3

2011-04-21T23:54:00.011-06:00

This is the closing of the 1st email from a TBM to an Atheist Friend, not me. I highly recommend at least skimming parts 1 and 2 so you can understand why I am getting annoyed by this part. Also, fyi, TBM stands for True-Believing Mormon, or True-Blue Mormon. Some people have mentioned they don't know what that means, lol.

Finally getting to the closing of this email:
“I don't expect any of what I've written to convince you of anything, nor am I trying to. I'm certainly no scholar; what I've written above is my crude attempt to paraphrase CS Lewis, GK Chesteron, and other 20th century thinkers.” – I don’t think there is a single statement here that he actually believes.

“Logical and secular arguments can never give one a belief in God-.” – No shit Sherlock, that’s why we don’t believe in God! Lmao!

“but they can expose the logical fallacies of atheism.” – Which were what exactly? Given his email it was that atheism claims to know how every electron acts, that morality is kaput, that the great thinkers were actually Christian, and that pride is at the root of all atheism … oh, and immorality is at the root too. How the f*** are these logical fallacies? I would be more cordial if I was talking to this man face to face, but at least when I sit here, copy and paste the convo, then reply to his comments, and I can’t help but think of how ridiculous this all is.

“And this is why God is always possible to know, but atheism is impossible to ever know. David Hume wrote, as he was dying-” Atheism is impossible to know … I think that’s why people admit a level of agnosticism to their atheism. I’m betting he’s a Gnostic believer. And then David Hume on his deathbed … how typical. Of course you can find statements about his deathbed on Christian sites alongside other statements, even for big-time atheists. Hume did say, quite blatantly that he did not believe he would be immortal, nor wanted it, but that he was approaching annihilation. Hume did not retract his atheistic views.

“You write that I should be happy for you, but I am afraid I cannot be happy for you.” – Right there, bold and clear. An obvious sign of religious authoritative brainwashed indoctrination is when someone says they don’t believe in your God and are still happy, and you either don’t believe them, or can’t be happy for them. At another point he even asserts that the atheist friend is still miserable, so she’s not even truly happy. Bruce, a friend, had a similar encounter when a person he knew said, “you[atheist] will be so miserable you won’t even know you’re miserable.” … Let’s allow that to sink in a little, okay?

“If you were to marry, why would a husband feel compelled not to cheat? Prototypically, Sartre the liberal, and Ayn Rand the libertarian both consciously cheated on their spouses multiple times.” – Oh those moral arguments again, you trickster you. Of course our atheist friend here will only marry another atheist, Mormon-think right there. Being that there aren’t that many atheists in the world we actually marry outside of our ‘religion’ fairly often. And how do you unconsciously cheat on your spouse?

And what does cheating liberals have to do with atheism? Now being liberal means atheist too? Or that you’ll cheat? Like Newt Gengrich [sic?] hasn’t ever cheated on anyone, or that Catholic priests didn’t abuse children, or that Joseph Smith didn’t cheat on Emma! Or have sexual congress with at least 32 women other than his wife. Lol. Or that bishops in the LDS church sometimes get a little too friendly with Relief Society Presidents or those little kids they have to interview, all alone, for 30 minutes. And on this whole bad marital relations argument, let’s not forget that time and time again it seems atheists have a much lower divorce rate than almost any theist group (I believe Catholics actually don’t divorce very often either.)

“The cold logic of atheism gives no reason why they shouldn't. Such is the morality brought about by determining it based upon one's own intellect and reason.” – So we shouldn’t use intellect and reason to help in determining what’s best for the human race or how to live ethically? This is a logical fallacy, probably several, first most likely an ‘Is-Ought Problem,’ and definitely a ‘False Dichotomy.’ Who said that logic and intellect and reason can’t help someone to understand that living with a spouse in a happy and fulfilling relationship should be nurtured and sustained for future happiness, fulfillment, and support? Is that not reasonable!? Is that not logical?! Is that not using your intellect to say ‘oh, I have it good and I’m content … should I go cheat on my spouse or should I keep things going the way they are and try to find ways to make it even better?’

What an idiotic statement. Things like this just make me more annoyed with all the morality arguments thrown at me. I’m so glad that this is the generally the type of argument you get from theists so that I don’t have to actually think half the time when I’m answering. Saying just about anything will be more intelligent than what I’ve just read and replied to. In fact, I award this person no points for his irrational thoughts.

Our Atheist Friend did reply to the pride question with taste, “What about the link between pride and mormonism? Goodness, you could replace "atheism" with "mormonism" and your argument would be just as effective.” – You earn a point atheist friend!!!

Atheist Friend, “I think you still don't quite understand what atheism is.” – Point!

Maybe this is what he thinks atheism is.

Atheist Friend, “You are obviously a very happy mormon; many people are very happy Muslims, or Buddhists, or atheists.” – True, but Mormons don’t believe that. Many actually don’t as nearly all of my TBM friends that know I don’t believe have said so and are simply following the BoM Alma teachings along with statements made by General Authorities even at the last Gen. Conf. You have to be a very liberal Mormon or doubter to admit that people outside the religion are truly happy.

And that wraps up the first email. There actually is a second, but I may avoid that one for the sake of seeming too mean to the poor TBM. Or rather, I already typed up my replies because his second email completely goes off the deep end into absurdities and I couldn’t resist. I must warn you, dear readers, that the second email is considerably worse. So much worse that I sum it up in nearly half the space as the first one.

For now, though, I will take a break from replying and do other posts till I feel like copying and pasting again. Thanks ya'all.

TBM Email Part 2

2011-04-21T00:00:00.010-06:00

Wherein I state my presumptuous opinion on this crazy guy's email.

This no longer has much to do directly with Christian morality but I’ll continue my dissection of an email to a friend from a ‘former(?) friend’. I had last replied to his comments on morality within atheism, and truly it deserves more of a reply, but I get tired trying to explain why atheists can still be moral and I’ve written about that or related topics all over my blog. Plus in reading ahead he will bring up morality again and again so we'll be dealing with it several times.

This is not an email sent to me, but to a friend. The format is I write what he wrote, and then reply. I am only taking out parts of the email and trying to keep both person's identities secret. Please understand that I don't intent for him to read this at any time. This whole process has been for me, and on some levels has made me realize a few things about my own arguments. I'll post this in parts and hopefully have things to say here and there in between, but as of now, here's part 2!!!

“Have you considered the historical record of atheism?” – Oh great, wonderful way to start off right?

“It is not a coincidence that the most murderous, barbaric regimes of the 20th century were all atheist. Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Deng, Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Mengistu.....” – Okay. And my first retort, ‘and religion has a long history of being peaceful?’ Besides the fact that religions generally are organized based on combining a new brotherhood to wage holy war against the ‘others’ and nonbelievers. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all had separating factors at their birth, stating how they were better, and that God would (eventually) crush their enemies, leaving the texts a little open as to if the members should actually do the crushing or not.

Lenin seems to have been an atheist. Stalin actually went back and forth and on his bad days believed in God. Hitler not only used religion, namely Christianity, but he even wrote in his journals as late as WWII about his beliefs in God. He was crazy, not atheist, and I don’t wish to say that he was a Christian either. Mao was an atheist. Deng seems to have been similar to Hitler – he may have had atheistic comments about God but also had very theistic comments about believing in Heaven and being guided by supernatural and holy means. Like Hitler, he was probably crazy. Pol Pot was probably an atheist, Idi Amin seems to have been a racist Muslim, and I can’t find anything on Mengistu’s supposed atheism except on Conservapedia and other Christian sites.

(On a side note, did you know that a lot of ‘death bed’ conversion stories of famous historical people can be traced back only to Christian sites denouncing the religion of atheism? It would seem our liars for Jesus could be at work again with some of these people.)

And so with this, why does it matter that they were atheist? Hitler hated Jews due to his bad logic, Idi seems to have been one of the most racist men ever alive, Stalin and these two may have actually all believed in a specific God through most of their lives. Deng should be included as well. At least half this list were not truly atheists, at best agnostics, maybe agnosticism leads to violence, right! To quote one site, “If atheism is frequently but a reaction against human abuse by religion, then in itself such disbelief may not be the cause of malfeasance."

“Have you considered the link between pride and atheism?” – This is just to prepare you.

“To declare atheism is to maintain that by one's own intellect one has explained every single muon, tachyon, and photon in the entire multiverse. Is this not hubris? By what basis do we have to believe that man/woman, who has existed on earth for some 40000 years, and in 'civilization' for but 5000; man/woman, who lives for about 80 years on this earth; what basis do we have to trust our intellect and 'reason' as the final basis for reality? This is to make the fatal assumption that human reason is all powerful.” – This is irrefutable. Okay, nvm, it’s not. First, I don’t claim to be able to explain every single muon, tachyon, photon, neutron, electron, or even the Tron movie but I also don’t see how this matters! Unless you believe God has to be the answer for every unexplained thing, action, or occurrence, and then it’s just a God of the gaps argument. What a stupid argument. Since when does the average atheist claim, “there is no God and I can explain string theory and that supports my claim! Suck it!” Maybe that last part, but I’ve never heard an atheist say that ‘because of gravity, therefore, no God.’

He seems to have forgotten his point in the middle, and gotten his facts wrong. We have not changed in any significant ways except to support a cooking diet, for almost 250,000 years. And our brains haven’t really changed at all. I guess I would also need to know his definition of ‘civilization’ because we’ve had farming communities for roughly 10,000 years and before that roaming nomad communities for much longer. Writing also would be older than 5000 years, I’m not sure why he uses these numbers. Also, it’s a pretty recent development in our history for the average person to live to be 80, and this is still not the case in parts of the world. So really I help him by saying that half the earth’s population (in history) never got past infancy, and fewer got past 30.

Lastly, on this, how does atheism claim omniscience and omnipotence? Being that he’s religious and would probably use the terms to describe an ‘’all-powerful’’ God and that he just applied that phrase to atheism … I think he’s just talking out of his ass by this point. This paragraph was not thought out very well.

“You have said you read and prayed about the Book of Mormon, and have not felt anything at all, and thus you conclude there is no God. … Is it then perhaps reasonable, for one as intelligent and so capable as yourself, to have to read the Book of Mormon more, or continue to pray and humbly wait upon God for an answer in His time? … The promise is that if we humble ourselves, sincerely study and pray, then we will be answered and we will know.” – Probably one of the most bigoted statements I ever hear from TBMs. I also do not think the atheist friend ever claimed that they stopped believing simply because their prayers were never answered, including the heartfelt sobbing ones late at night. My issue with Moroni’s promise is that it doesn’t leave any room to be wrong. Basically if you don’t get an answer it is your fault due to sin or pride. And if Moroni is wrong then he can never be called out on it. Also, the question doesn’t leave room for error, the answer you’ll get, according to the scripture, is that God is real and Mormonism is true. There is no room for ‘God said it wasn’t true’ or ‘I didn’t get an answer.’ Obviously, according to this guy here, you could live to 25 and still not have an answer, and it’s probably because you are prideful. Obviously he thinks his friend is prideful for leaving Mormonism behind and for not receiving answers to her prayers.

That will be it for this post. The epic ending of the email will come up next time, as well as some of our atheist friend’s replies. Of course, there is a second email as well ... which truly saves the best for last. This will only get better.

Christian Morality and TBM Email Part 1

2011-04-20T01:40:00.011-06:00

Subtitle - Irreligiosophy exchange, the psychology of morality, and part 1 of an email exchange with a TBM.

First I'd like to link Irreligiosophy and their recent emails with those Evidence 4 Faith people and Kirk the wonder child. For any fans of the podcast you should really take the time to go through the email that Kirk sent out. Truly a wonderful piece of literature.

Also, the new episode on Reasonable Doubts is another masterpiece in my mind. Dr. Professor Luke Galen gives a presentation on morals and where they come from and how does religion influence them. Galen gives a very balanced presentation and asserts that we have intuitive morality. I've viewed morality as an evolutionary aspect for a while now, but he lays out the argument, facts, and studies and examples very well. He also asserts that religion may not actually have very much influence on people's morality.

I wrote a literature review for a writing class on morality and found with my 3 dozen studies or so (I believe it was 33 actually, though I only used about 13 in my paper) that people may say one thing, but act another way altogether. That, people may voice their ethical systems and beliefs, but don't live by them. Often this is the case in findings in studies that people report a moral system to live by and then don't live by it. Galen quotes several studies and examples pointing out the same thing. Religion may influence a person's perspective and attitude, but not their behavior. To make sense of extreme examples, though, Galen points out studies that show the affect authoritarian cultures and organizations have on people, which is much more concise and a much higher correlation. So moderate religion and religious beliefs may not actually be that bad(influential) at all, but authoritarian religions may very well be.

Like the 'Profiles of the Godless' episode, I highly recommend this one ('Religion and the Roots of Morality').

Lastly, I wish to bring an example forward of one of those people who feels a need to debate with their friends when they find out said friend no longer believes in Mormonism or is atheist. Almost everyone in the group has an example similar to this in the group, or at least a similar example (not as extreme as the following one). And I'm betting for every one of these guys there's 10 more who don't get so vocal but just quietly delete you from their Facebook friend list. Forget our loving and fun friendship we had, you don't believe anymore so you're of the devil and no longer my friend.

"I only write and share because this is the most precious thing I know." - I think Galen would say that authoritarian religion would make someone say something like this as a prelude to the most ridiculous, conceited, and unfriendly email so far from people I know who get these.

"I'm not challenging your intellect, or your ability to come to your own conclusions. But I would want to ask you a few questions about your conversion to atheism." - 2 things. You definitely are challenging this person's intellect (which is high, mind you). And second, for any lurkers out there, never use the phrase "convert to atheism" that is not only a paradoxical statement, but a dumbass statement to boot. In the very least say "you deconverted from _ _ _ _ to atheism."

"Have you considered what many eminent thinkers hold to be the intellectual impossibility of atheism?" - I think we can slightly understand what he is trying to say here. But what thinkers exactly? Most often when an 'eminent thinker' was brought up in a class they were never Mormon, generally not religious, and sometimes downright atheist. 93% of the science academy right?

"Atheism is a belief that there is no God. ... Therefore, atheism can never be more than an act of faith." - Religious lingo for sure, from Alma most likely. I prefer the word agnosticism. I also use the word atheist because I don't think I have to conjure up a supposed entity who created everything and then doubt it to have a clear conscience on being 'fair.'

"If you're going to choose a faith, then why not choose God?" - Pascal's wager has been proven to be bad reasoning. The biggest issue, of course, being that if you decide to believe in a god, which one do you follow?

"The fact that many, if not most, of the most brilliant minds in the course of history (Newton, Godel, Kant, Einstein," - STOP! Thank you for pointing out that these great thinkers all said they believe in the God of Christianity! I never realized that, actually, wait, oh, nvm. Whenever Einstein is thrown in the list you can bet that they follow Christian sites or have taken some kind of LDS perspective class on the 'great thinkers.' Even Gant (psychology/philosophy at BYU) corrects students who say Einstein believed in God.

"Have you considered the inevitable moral corollary of atheism? If there is no God, then there is no absolute law. Why should an individual not murder another individual if he could get away with it? Why should a male not rape as many women as he could get away with? In the end, why should you not behave in the most hedonistic way possible? Life is meaningless, so what reason would one have to live in any way that doesn't result in the highest amount of dopamine and norepinephrine levels in their brain? One could say, "I choose to do that which is good for me, and to help others." But what is good? Without the Divine Absolute, there is no good, no evil, no beauty. And why should you help others? That is an old Judeo Christian teaching. It can be true if you choose it to be, but with a flick of your wrist you can make it false. There's no real reason other than a whim to believe you should 'help others.' " - And I admit that morality is a tricky area, but seriously?!

I haven't heard this a 100 times before.

This does deserve an honest reply, but I think the short answer is that he answers his own questions. If God makes the rules then it isn't absolute, it changes. If the rules exist outside of God then how did we come by them in the first place? He also points out that maybe we would do good things because they make us feel good and rewarded. Again I offer that religion and authoritarian tyranny is not a good ethic system, that we have examples of secular nations getting along fine, with actually better results than America, and Galen in the Reasonable Doubts episode points out how morality is different for the nonreligious and the religious - atheists in particular do kind acts more 'on a whim' than theists, and actually in higher numbers.

Lastly, religion does get it's morals from us. Morality is a combination of nurture and nature, and though not absolute it has correlational and causational affects on how we act, feel, think, and react. I'm pretty sure the human race has an understanding of how to make the world a better place, but habits are hard to break.

That's all I'll do for now. The email only gets better. I actually had a nice email exchange with one of my lurking theists but it was pretty cordial and he is postmo so I'll keep that private for his sake.

Gender Studies, Gays, and Religious Discrimination at YBU, er, BYU!!

2011-04-16T13:32:00.006-06:00

I finally feel I should update people on what is going on at BYU ... in general.

I could do separate posts on these as there is enough information floating around, but I'm betting some of you have already gotten wind of these, and I'll supply some links.

So first, BYU is treading down the line of getting better and being douchebags over gays and LGBT people at BYU still. For anyone who didn't, somehow, learn about the Cary Crall letter, then here's USU Shaft's post on that. They cover that nicely. I've actually met Cary and he seems like a cool guy. He also did a minor awareness or public display of supporting gays again just this last week. Some students tried to set up the display through BYU, asking permission, but of course BYU told them to wait, wouldn't get back to them, and then said to not do it. Something about not doing things like that on reading days or something. Yeah. Either way Cary and friends went out and did it anyways. I would've done it if I had known.

I'd also like to remind people of the USGA meetings every Thursday on campus (Understanding Same-Gender Attraction) in which there are many advocates of trying to help bigoted people understand homosexuality. Also Brad Carmack, who I've mentioned before, is heavily involved with this group and even has a book out about the topic.

Moving on to more douchebaggery by BYU I'm sure most people know how they got rid of their Women's Studies programs an such. But the latest news through the grapevine is that BYU is also shutting down the Gender Equality club, or something like that. It may in fact be Parity, which seems right. Either way I heard BYU is getting rid of that as well, and the reasons behind why are fishy. This of course is not completely reinforced knowledge however, and I haven't found out anything else online about BYU trying to get rid of the club, but to pull a phrase by one friend, "Basically I expect BYU to act in the shittiest way possible, and that way I'm never surprised by what they do." So I'm betting that the club is being shut down and we may hear more about it in the coming weeks.

Last, it seems BYU isn't completely bad, at least on some levels, as they published this article about religious discrimination. It seems BYU students are getting more and more aware of the fact that if LDS students change religions they are kicked out. I confirmed this with the non-LDS chaplain, but we agreed to keep our conversation private so I won't say more. However, other people are talking, mostly on post-mo discussion boards though, such as reddit and postmormon but at least people are being made more aware which could lead to eventual changes in the future. Again, Brad made a short video outlining the issue as well.

I honestly hope YBU will start changing it's policies on things. So long as they discriminate against women and men who want less sexism in the world, women and men who through genetics and environment are homosexual or bi-sexual, and then LDS students who stop believing and are honest about their unbelief, I don't think BYU will look any better to the world, and that they will slowly loose support by their own students and the membership of the church. The church isn't really moving fast enough in it's changes and is driving wedges between those middle-ground supporters and itself. A lot of people become more and more antagonistic towards BYU after having gone there, especially if they are involved in any of these three issues, which makes up literal hundreds, possibly thousands, of the current student body.

Videos Are My Way of Saying I Have No Time to Post Today

2011-04-15T10:19:00.004-06:00

But I wish to post something, it's been 4 days! So here's some short videos, that I hope will make you laugh (I picked out funny ones). And even if you've seen them before, they'll make you laugh again.

Note: Embedding seems to have disappeared so here's some links.

Family guy presenting evolution and Carl Sagan for Rednecks.

Mormon Jesus

And here is a cool little video I found. It puts together a Catholic commercial, a spoof, and then an amateur atheist video that is pretty good.

Commercial Collage

Enjoy!

Atheist Books - The 4th Segment

2011-04-12T19:03:00.007-06:00

Finally returning to my atheist book list. I'm a little behind, the first one listed here is from way back in June when I originally read it, lol. Either way, here is a small review and impression I got from 3 more books you'd be likely to find on the Atheist shelf of Barnes and Noble.

Atheist Universe

Written by David Mills, Atheist Universe is one of those montage type pieces. Looking back I don't remember much from it ... so it must not have been that eventful. Actually this book is one of those more militant ones, where the subtitle is "The thinking person's answer to Christian Fundamentalism." This book takes the layman's scientific approach, talking about how the Bible and science don't match, and how intelligent design is stupidity at it's best. The author focuses on Christian doctrines and takes some of the shallower approaches to deeper theological problems and claims. It is an easy read, entertaining, but pretty shallow. It is probably a nice book for someone 'new' to atheism looking for an overview of the New Atheist culture. It also offers a nice overview of the debate about God. But if you're looking for something deeper then this probably is not it.

Letter to a Christian Nation

My first Sam Harris read, and definitely one of the smallest of the atheist books I have. LTACN also is essentially a short overview of the New Atheist arguments, and highlights many of the arguments made by Sam Harris and the other four horsemen. It is specifically written to America, hence the title, but is it probably the best 'little' piece out of the books I've read so far. Harris gives his arguments cleanly and succinctly, doesn't pause to ramble, and covers his argument in less than a 100 pages. My version was also updated with a more recent afterword. Harris is probably the most unique one out of the four horsemen, he not only takes a different approach than Hitchens or Dawkins, but he differs with the others more than they do amongst each other. Dennet probably would be the second most different. Dawkins and Hitchens (also the two most famous and public [marketing] happen to be most similar ... possibly due to marketing schemes.

The Greatest Show on Earth

Richard Dawkins said he should have written this one years and years ago, but here it is now. This one came out more recently and is focused on giving the evidences for religion. So far this is my first and only Dawkins book I've read (now I just have to read one by Dennet) and I enjoyed his personal and humorous writing style. He lays out the whole case for evolution, starting with the simplest definitions and working up to teaching us about the inner workings in biology. Reading this book will make you feel like you took a small credit class on evolution. With that said, however, I did find 'Why Evolution is True' by Coyne to be a better book on why evolution is true and why creationism just doesn't work. I still recommend this one, but if you had to choose I would recommend reading Coyne's instead. Even Dawkins refers his readers to Coyne's book on several occassions within his own work.

I actually have some more books, but I need to finish one of the three I'm reading now so that I'll have another three to post. I have been taking time off from books, especially atheist books, for months now and I'm starting to get a craving to read again, so maybe I will. I hope some of you readers appreciate the little reviews I put up, I hope some of you find good books and podcasts from the things I post.

Links(Bomb) Pertinent to the BYU Atheist

2011-04-05T17:23:00.006-06:00

I just want to get one story in particular out there, that's cool, but I also wish to link a couple other interesting tidbits of informania.

First is this little study on liberalism, atheism, IQ, and male sexuality. Kanazawa (who may have a good record for study methods but not conclusions) confirms what we already have known for some time, that non-believers are more liberal and smarter than population averages.

What I enjoy about this study is that men are surveyed as being more exclusive with sex. My only guess is that men who are more sexually active generally have shown to be more loyal and monogamous in their sexual relationships, though they may have several relationships in only a few years. I don't really see anything new in the study that I haven't already seen elsewhere, but it's nice to have a lot of similar results all coming from one study. It should be noted that Kanazawa has a habit of finding correlations and making theories from these that are stretching reality a little bit though. Again - good with methods, maybe not so much with conclusions.

Another link I should post is this little blog by a BYU student who has a nice following and is an ally for equal rights in nearly every sense. This is an article dealing directly with the BYU policy of kicking out former-LDS students. Brad also has a book on homosexuality from a straight student's perspective. He may be setting himself up to get in trouble, and I may not always agree with him, but he definitely has some good points and is making a name for himself.

Finally, this awesome link posted by the token feminist of our happy valley group. It seems atheists are beginning to organize en masse in high schools around the country. I am all for this. I get sick of hearing that organizing atheists is like herding cats, but it's so true. Definitely not an easy task. The article claims that the number of atheist clubs in high schools has doubled in the last few months. Only to just over 20, but the SSA is planning on doubling that number again. The Secular Student Alliance is also what will be helping out with the UVU group some people are starting.

The article is a nice and fair little thing, giving some wonderful quotes, like:
“If they don’t accept Jesus Christ as a savior, they will definitely go to hell."
“My reaction is faith in Jesus Christ is not at all logical."
"There were board members who were concerned that the epic poem[Gilgamesh] included a few sexual passages." - cause we all know the Bible doesn't have anything like that!
or this personal fav. - Last fall, Breane Lyga joined both a Christian club and the atheist club. Some Christian club members thought she was doing it for a goof. Others wondered if she was a spy for the atheists, but Breane said she was just confused.

“I was kind of agnostic,” she said. “I wanted to get both points of view.” She talked with Mrs. Harrell and Mr. Creamer, two of her favorite teachers. She weighed the pluses and minuses. Around Christmas she stopped attending the Christian club meetings.

Bringing it up again, high schoolers right now are claiming to be 25% non-religious. A massive amount higher than any previous generation. Obviously many of these students will be in flux for religion, but when it comes to atheism or the like generally there isn't much flux. Most professed atheists today turned to atheism during college, or high school. Then it's all downhill from there, though it seems reaching about 50 and getting the kids out of the home also leads to a peak in deconverting to atheism. Atheism has a good retention rate. If it's truly the work of the Devil then, again, he beats God hands down. (sarcasm, please).

Either way, I think it's great that high schools will be having more atheist clubs. I think statistical studies are wrong in their outlooks on belief and religion. I think more and more high school and college students will stop believing and won't return to church and that the secular community in America will become over a quarter of the US population before 2050. But that's just me.

Why Religion Isn't Good

2011-04-03T18:12:00.002-06:00

Long post, I apologize.
A couple days ago I met a wonderful new person in the group and got into a small discussion with her. During the conversation we came to the point of whether or not religion is good or bad. She thought that it was inherently good and nothing seriously wrong, especially Mormonism. I disagreed, but didn’t have a chance to really explain, or felt that I had really thought it through. Either due to it being late in the evening and a lack of sleep, or that there were several conversations I was wanting to be a part of, we left it at that. But since then I’ve been thinking it over and decided to write it all down.

First, though, I need to explain that I don’t believe religion to be inherently bad. Certainly there are bad things about it, but I cannot say it is a root of all evil, the prime cause of suffering in the world, or that it makes good people worse. I only have to think back a year or so to when the LDS church paid my rent for two months, one month being from my bishops personal finances. For the church I’ve paid tithing in the thousands, so a little back is not a big deal to my conscience, but the bishop going out of his way, that was a big deal. I hated the fact that he had done that for me, and when I paid him back the next month, I paid with interest and told him to keep it. The moral of this is that I know firsthand that religious institutions, and religious people, are capable of doing fine things and being inspired by their beliefs to do so.

But, now that I’m done prepping the pillow, time for the hammer fall. First, religion is exclusive, and you would be hard pressed to prove otherwise. Christians won’t be accepting of Muslim beliefs, and vice-versa, Buddhists can’t even accept others beliefs. They have the possibility of accepting each other, but beliefs are out of the question. A Christian is not going to say that a good and righteous Muslim actually has it all correct. A lot of Christians will say he is still going to hell, Mormons would say he is still going to spirit prison and may not go to any higher heaven than the telestial kingdom.

Furthermore, some beliefs are in complete contradiction to each other. It is truly an ignorant belief that all religious views are just spokes on the same wheel. Most holy texts condemn the unbeliever or those of other faiths, some to death. Some have one God, others more, Christianity has the ambiguously numbered trinity God. They all have different ways of how to be saved. Even reaching Nirvana is not possible without holding some very Buddhist beliefs and practices. You can’t believe in Christ and be saved by Allah or be reincarnated in Buddhism. To mix beliefs is also to piss on the same beliefs and statements of the religions that exclude others.

Being inherently exclusive, religion then molds the way for opposition, sometimes violence. This is true of both Islam and Christianity, both of which have violent histories. By making a group an ‘other’ it makes it easier to treat that group as less than human. Differing beliefs work in this way, but also differing practices. Christianity has a history full of Christians attacking other Christians. The Westboro Baptists are a shadowy example of a more violent past. They also are a great example how some people should be sterilized.

Religion generally has been a tool by those in power, some aware of what they were doing, others using it by blind faith. It has led to an increase in wars, famines, epidemics, murder, sexism, racism, and plenty of other conditions common to man. The only reason religion would not be evil, is because any dogmatic organization can lead to these same problems. Faith, which generally is blind, always holds the risk of good people doing bad things. Religion is not necessary, but it certainly has and still helps these things to occur.

The example given in conversation was the LDS church. Being that most atheists in Utah are ex-Mormon there will always be those atheists who despise the church unjustly, and those who still hold it high on a pedestal in a delusional way. I shouldn’t even have to explain how homosexuals, women, conditioning, and lies apply to the LDS church.

The LDS church heavily suppresses women, and discourages anyone from discussing the problem openly, especially feminist views. It is possible that the last decade will lead to the church being more open, as so many women begin to leave the church and while others talk more openly online about their dissatisfaction. The LDS church, like Islam, was revolutionary for women when it came into the world, but like most religions, Mormonism clings to the past, to old views and ethical standards, that no longer fit in the present world, and only seem to damage the majority who do follow them.

In a similar thread the church is an epitome of conditioning, the nice psychology term for brainwashing. The amount of recovery some ex-Mormons have to go through, the intense amount of thinking that must be changed, and the view that you could not survive outside of the church and that you could never be happy, are clear signs of a cult-like organization. The only reason Mormonism isn’t a cult (anymore?) is because it is so big and tries to get its members to be a light unto the world, therefore putting them in it (but not of it). Luckily most members learn how to function in the world with non-LDS persons. However, this type of conditioning will lead to suffering as you are continuously faced with depreciation, falling short, and never being good enough. You can't live in the world and then be told to believe in things that just aren't true or live by standards where you will always fall short.

Homosexuals are one of the strongest examples of why the LDS church is not an overall good presence in the world. I have already written about where Utah stands in relation to gay teen suicide rates; generally over 3 times the national average, sometimes leading the country. Or how the LDS church has approached homosexuals in the past, how it still approaches them today (as to why the APA looks down on the church and one reason why BYU has struggled to make a good psychology program in the national eye.) Simply look up any of my old posts about this through the 'LGBT' word, go to the USGA meetings, or ask some of my friends - the church's practices with gays is killing them.

Lies and sins of omission are also common. The church refuses to acknowledge the plight of the homosexuals in Utah, or the statistically disproportionate amount of homeless teens in Utah, where 2/3s come from LDS homes. The church has a strong history of hiding odd doctrines, and burying evidence that is not faith promoting. The papyrus scrolls dealing with the Book of Abraham are one clean example of how the church deals with things that ‘may be true but not useful.’

Though I use the LDS church as my example, also because of the conversation, this applies to essentially any faith. It is rare where we hear a friend or family member say that “beliefs and church are important, but friendships and family are more so.” Generally it is only those who don’t have such strong faith and devotion, or those who doubt, who will continue to be friends with those who are of the complete opposite in their outlook on the world, religion, or God. If not, then you better have strong skin to be told you're going to hell in nearly every conversation.

Religion has been a prime motivator for bad in the world. However, it is possible that the root of the evils in the world simply comes from inside each of us. I refuse to say that getting rid of religion solves our problems. Likewise, you cannot say that religion is the reason there is good in the world, most likely it is only a motivator, and I am unsure whether it is a prime one or not. Regardless, religion brings about good and bad, but in my experience it causes a lot more harm. The doubter will be hurt simply because of their lack of faith, while the believer will hold views that will lead to hurting others.

U-COR

2011-04-02T16:59:00.006-06:00

So some updates on my exciting life! I'm pregnant for one! No, wait, I mean my gf is pregnant! Oops, sorry again. One of my gfs' friends is pregnant, or maybe several. Not several gfs, but several of my one single gfs' friends who are girls. Okay, gonna stop having fun now.

Really, I guess the group for Utah Valley now has an open group on FB to attract new people. Most people aren't even in it, lol, but I think it has found some new people who searched for it on FB. I think it's a good idea overall. I don't think it will have the amazing dialogue, tons of video and picture postings, and all that jazz that the secret group will, but it offers an online location for fellow non-believers in Utah Valley who are on FB. It's already gotten to 40 people too (some overlap obviously) but I think it's all a good sign.

I'm also aware that in the next few months the atheist groups may try to find people in or around St. George to try to start a group down there. I have a friend down there and other groups know people too so it may be possible to start one. Once I'm at UofU I also plan on helping out a lot more with SHIFT and hopefully help to start some random hang-out parties or activities. Right now SHIFT has the discussion meetings, sometimes book reviews (which I like a lot), and a lot of involvement from the school (such as lectures and inviting people like Dan Barker) but I'm not sure they have anything like Godless Coffee in the other groups. I'm feeling a fire to try to pull out all the college-age atheists and postmos up here and try to form a community like down in Provo.

Lastly, I am now on the Board with U-COR (Utah coalition of reason) and am planning an internship with them. I'm am ubber excited, a little intimidated, but excited nonetheless. I think U-COR has good potential to become the umbrella corp-er-organization of Utah for all the secular communities. I think I will feel very rewarded if I work with them.

Here is a link to U-COR. Feel free to hang out at their site. It will take some time to get non-profit status so I'm not sure how many events there will be in the next few months, but I think they plan on keeping everyone informed on events that other groups post as well.

It's Gen. Conf. weekend. I don't think I have any desire to watch any sessions, but I'm keeping tabs on the talks to see if there's any interesting ones. This is simply a little update on what's going on in the life of jdog, (what a silly name) and hopefully my next post will be funny, exciting, or revolutionary!

ps: How come people who search for "byu orgy" and "byu jerk off party" or "hot boys jacking off byu" ... keep coming to my blog? ... Oh, it could be because I write out what they search for ... hmmm.

Videos of Why Atheism is Awesome!

2011-03-30T00:32:00.009-06:00

Here are some of my more favorite and some of my more recent videos I've found with the topic. Most are short, if interested I'd recommend coming back when you have time to watch them, or to 'fav' them on youtube to watch later. These videos help to explain why being an atheism is not only awesome, but hip!

Here's the link to the first one cause embedding is disabled, it's from that survey where atheists and agnostics did best.

And then an interesting statistical video from a while back.

A personal favorite. This has been taken down and reposted in the last two years so if it doesn't show up just Google the title (Atheist Statistics) and hopefully you'll find it.

Now I will state why these videos show that atheism is awesome:
Vid #1 - We are smarter than all religious people in every way.
Vid #2 - We're growing quickly.
Vid #3 - Simply cause the video used ''Clubbed to Death'' as the 'soundtrack.'

I'm so hoping that someone comments on how ridiculous and stupid I am and my logic is messed up. Cause then they have no knack for understanding sarcasm, or any patience to read the rest of this post.

I'd like to make some comments on what these videos actually tell us. First, the religious survey is definitely an interesting find. But it really shouldn't be that surprising. In a related video Penn Jillette points out that atheists just tend to be smarter, this has been proven in many surveys, the last video said 39 out of 43 studies done in the last few decades. As atheists or agnostics tend to be smarter we can assume they would also be above average for religious knowledge, as this survey proves.

But not only that, generally those who doubt the existence of a personal God do so because they have studied religions. The non-religious generally have a wide knowledge of other religions because before they stopped believing they generally had a desire to really know the truth and studied the hell out of the world religions, or at least their own, before realizing that they are all, for the most part, very similar in the area of 'faith.' It shouldn't come as a surprise that not only would they know their former religion very well, but some basic things about many other religions. The first video also answers as to why most Americans simply don't know much period. Not necessarily a religious issue, at least in the world arena, but most likely an American cultural phenomena.

The second video does a good job of showing how Christianity (over 70% of the American population at least 2 years ago) is shrinking and how the non-religious population is growing. This indicates people losing faith. You can't say people are becoming non-religious because Christianity is shrinking, or that atheism is literally growing because more people report being non-religious. These statistics alone could be answered for by population changes or movements. But put together they show a decent connection between the two.

The third video is very good. It has changed in minor ways over the years, usually with more concise wording and updated statistics. I actually used this video in a paper and therefore looked up a lot of the studies and searched for correlating studies. I can back up nearly all the statistics given. It would seem that studies average out to about 20% of 19-30 year-old persons being non-religious, and for teens to be around 25%. And this is only in America! The prison statistics are also true, and as far as I know it was an anonymous study so they should be representative. However there is the chance that someone would lie to fit in with a prison gang, or that maybe atheist criminals are generally smarter and less likely to get caught. I don't know if this actually hurts any claims by atheists that we're better than the average religious person.

What these videos are not saying is that atheism will take over. Most studies say that America will reach 25% secular/non-religious within 15-20 years but level out. Atheism doesn't mean solving the worlds problems, countries with high levels of atheism do have crime rates, just much lower than highly religious countries, and generally much less amounts of serious crimes, such as rape or murder. It isn't saying that religion makes you dumb either, though I think in some cases it does. It also isn't saying that atheism actually is 'hip' but this could be possible. So maybe atheism is the new 'emo.' Let's all be different by being and dressing the same! Kind of.

Lastly, these videos don't "prove" atheism is right. Most atheists acknowledge a level of agnosticism, so most don't even say atheism is 100% correct anyways. But often atheists are condemned for being more 'dogmatic' than theists. Well, atheists are more dogmatic than agnostics, but not in any way more than the average theists. Also, atheism has a way of de-converting even people who don't want to be atheists, so I think it has such a strong foothold that often people will doubt their former God more than they had believed in him/her.

Do Mormons Truly Have Compasion [sic] at BYU Towards Atheists?

2011-03-27T02:41:00.007-06:00

And I ask that sincerely. I believe some do, that some don't, and that most believe they do but do not act in such a way as to show compassion, but merely to uphold their religious views and beliefs and then force it on others.

I say this because lately people in the group are getting scared. There's always a 'scare phase' every couple months or so, but being that the group is a lot bigger and with recent events, I think it is getting worse for some.

See, the Facebook group is pretty secure. People feel safe enough to at least make fake profiles if necessary, but some are still afraid of bringing in a 'Judas' so to say. And I think I can agree. I receive emails from people and I assume everyone to be a person out on a mission to turn me in. Having been on a mission, working with bishoprics at home and abroad, and studying creationism in general, I have a deep understanding of what it means to ''lie for Jesus,'' and for every person who emails me I assume that you would lie to my face because 1.) I'm an agnostic atheist so I deserve it, 2.) I'm ex-Mormon so I'm evil, and 3.) you would do anything for your God, even if it meant lying. A simple quote of Paul wouldn't even change your mind, maybe most Mormons don't know which one I'm talking about.

I bring this up because a couple members recently spammed Reddit and it drew a lot of attention. Possibly reached out to some lonely atheists or ex-mormons, but it also drew attention from our faithful opposition. I get several emails a week from new people, who generally stop replying before I'm ready to actually give them any true information. Being an evil atheist I have no qualms about lying to protect who I really am when possible snitches are threatening me with thousands of dollars lost, being kicked out ahead of schedule, and then causing shame on my parents, one of which is dying. Members of our group grow suspicious of random people we can't vouch for who want in, of students on campus speaking about some ''underground atheist group" and of the general attention that has been coming up from comedy sketches to letters to the editor.

So my question is, for my lurkers, does BYU actually care about us, as an institution and as a body of fellow students? Cause many in the group go to BYU, and many of them follow the Honor Code except on one level - they don't believe in Mormonism anymore. Which is the norm, mind you, most people don't believe in Mormonism, not even all of BYU.

(yes, these cute cats are supposed to make everybody feel sorry for us, enemy or not)
I think there is a genuine fear that BYU will screw us over. I'm dismayed when I hear new people in the group say that they don't want to lie about God anymore to their bishops and will tell them they don't believe. This means that those of us in the 'know' have to inform them that it will mean they will be kicked out. I'm dismayed when I go back to the online Honor Code and see the phrasing that if you stop believing you do get kicked out. I'm dismayed when I hear students on campus speaking in hushed tones about an atheist group and that they should be gotten rid of. No thought on the unnecessary trouble and pain it would cause on so many more people than the one 'non-believer.'

So, does BYU have compassion? My guess is no. So far BYU and the related LDS church have been very cold and intolerant to those who differ in 'doctrines' and those who leave the fold. Homosexuals is an all-to-clear example of this, and I'm not merely talking about Prop 8, but it's still continuing use of deadly psychological ''help'' that has damaged the church's and even BYU's psychology department's image in front of the APA. It seems that the LDS religion is one of the last strongholds for reorientation therapies for homosexuals in hetero marriages who still aren't cured. 70% of these patients attempt suicide during the therapies because they don't work. They don't, and the patient is told it is their fault.

Point is, with a history like the LDS church I would've expected them to have more compassion. But it seems that a rough historical life has made the church less tolerant, more bigoted, more hateful, and ambivalent in damaging people's lives, such as kicking out students who's only 'flaw' by their standards, is that they stopped believing in the religion and then had the gall to be honest about it. The church was bullied and in response it has become a bully itself.

Why Are Religious People Happier?

2011-03-25T13:26:00.003-06:00

NOTCIE: the BBQ tomorrow is canceled since the weather forecast is getting worse and worse. Sorry peeps who were plannin ta go.

This is a guest post I am doing for the Atheists of Utah Valley. Most likely I will put some extra work into a post about every week and then post it on my blog and their's. I wish to put forth that the credit for the AoUV blog lies with ‘Horus’ who also happens to be the one who has kept the FB group going. Cheers.

And now the post.

This post deals with this article: “Why are religious people happier?” Now, the podcast “Reasonable Doubts” approached this question in their “Profiles of the Godless” episode which I highly recommend to everyone; it was a very good presentation. Following the link to this article it becomes clear right away that social bonding seems to give more quality to life, as proven by other studies and in other podcasts than Reasonable Doubts.

It does not take too much critical thinking to look at this study and see that the correlations may not be a line up between A and B (the believer and their beliefs) but rather A and C (the believer and their fellow believers). This study claims that “forging close bonds with people over mutually shared and meaningful interests might boost quality of life for anyone, religious or not.” The article continues to say that a church offers a special type of community that other groups have a hard time being able to compare to.

Friendships and support do help people to help others more. It seems that religious groups may still have a upper hand on secular groups, but the difference has been found to be minimal in several studies, at least not statistically significant. But this is beginning to wander off topic.

Getting back to the article, the question comes up whether church makes people happy or whether happy people go to church? Certainly if people are not happy they most likely won’t go to church, or if they feel guilty due to doubts they probably also won’t be going to church that regularly. Often happy people will go to the places that at least ‘should’ make them happy.

The study had a large sample, and reports to having a large questionnaire. It is interesting to note that the study reported that personal health had more influence on their happiness than church attendance making the top two areas that promote happiness (at least in this study) health and community. So far it could be twisted to say that their beliefs had major influence but this is where the article moves on to the pertinent point I am looking for.

"People who say they go to church every week but say they have no close friends there are not any happier than people who never go to church.” Now, to help make sense of this when you have two different points of interest in a statistical survey and there is no difference between two points you can say that the correlation is extremely high. Correlation does not mean causation, but high correlation means there is a strong relation between the two, even if inversely.

The article ends with the prospective comment that ‘trust’ and a sense of ‘belonging’ may be what people look for in a community, and in that community people will generally feel more happiness and rewarded from those relationships. This won’t be true for all people, but it is true of the general population, and we all shouldn’t think we’re so unique as to not be in that general population.

Conclusion

Point is; religious people are not happier than non-religious people in any significant way. Many sample studies show that religious people who attend church will be slightly higher on the scale, but not in all cases. This study shows that the cause does not seem to be beliefs, but rather community, and atheists do not have the same type of community. Obviously community of some kind has a major affect on how you view life, and, in general, the number of friendships you have also has an effect.

This post, without any forethought, can probably be looked at in two specific ways – as a call to anyone who may wish to meet more like-minded people who you can talk openly with, especially if you are surrounded by friends who you no longer agree with or consistently have to bite your tongue while around. Second, it should point out that you should be careful how you approach psychological and social studies. They are full of generalizations that may only apply to you in differing levels of influence than the next person. Also that results can be twisted to mean other things, especially when you say A causes B without considering that C may in fact cause both.

100 Post Picture Extravaganza!!!

2011-03-24T11:11:00.012-06:00

So I have had 100 posts and that means it is time for a review of my most favorite pictures from posts 51-100. I'll probably also do another Bi-annually, or wtv, Statistical Report here in a month or so. And patriarchal blessings, and my exit story, blablabla, I know, I'm horrible at keeping up with my promises.

Also, I will give you avid readers a sneak peak at our "Atheist of Utah Valley Logo Competition!!!" We have a lot of good submissions so far, including the one at the top of this post which was designed by mgghfurrrgheeted and is certainly of high quality, making this competition very intense. Okay, it's not that big of a deal, but people have been using their creativity to bring us some good ideas and I'm sad we will only be able to use one as the groups logo. For now though let's say they are all winners and enjoy their art. First though here are some funny pictures.

And now some personal favs:

And here is one that makes a great background for you desktop, discovered by Heretic:

And now to show all of you ''some'' of our amazing contributions for Atheists of Utah Valley. May the best heathen win.

That last one obviously proves that all are not created with equal artistic prowess. And yes, that is an atheist, with a goatee, flipping you off while eating a baby that is smiling.

Unfortunately I can't post the ones that are coming up with covert logos that we could possibly wear on shirts since I know you BYU dogs/sheep are lurking here and would love to keep an eye out for atheists on campus to kick us out cause for some reason you feel like you have to. Much like how someone on campus felt a need to slash Eric's tires for having a pro-gay bumper sticker. Till next time.

A List of Reasons to Doubt Mormonism

2011-03-23T01:38:00.020-06:00

Let's have another little post about Mormonism! I compiled this little list last night around 3am and I briefly looked over it again just now ... and I think it's all okay. Lol. I tried to be as open as possible being that I don't really collect books or works on ''anti-Mormon'' literature, but this is the stuff that seems about right in my mind, so here goes:

Reasons to doubt Mormonism:

Book of Abraham
1 – Joseph Smith used the old incorrect version of translating hieroglyphs. He thought one figure was a word or phrase or even sentence or paragraph. Hieroglyphs are phonetic sounds, such as “ph.”
2 – We have proofs of this in Times and Seasons (Nauvoo newspaper) and/or his personal notes where he shows the hieroglyphs and his translation, proven false by scholars for years.
3 – We have the original papyrus scrolls which show us what he was using leaving little to doubt, though the scrolls are damaged and some parts missing.
4 – Scholars said that the facsimile of Abraham is actually a burial scroll, a common and cheap gift to the dead, and stated which parts were possibly drawn in by Joseph Smith – namely the head, hands, and part of the bird. Needless to say these areas were damaged or torn out of the original scrolls so Joseph did draw them in.
5 – Given these things many of the possible theories are thrown out at the onset due to the evidence being in our possession or available to the public. Joseph Smith either never believed people would translate these or never got the chance to get rid of the scrolls.
6 – In fact all the facsimiles have been viewed and researched by scholars and not one thing Joseph Smith did with them lines up with what they really are, such as the last one being a deceased person going to hell, not Abraham on the Pharaoh’s throne.

Adam-God Theory
1 – The church and apologetics say we just don’t know enough history, or have scattered accounts, etc…. and cannot make any decisions. Sometimes these are outright lies.
2 – Brigham Young did teach this once at General Conference, and then many more times. He taught the Adam-God theory for nearly three decades.
3 – It was part of the Temple ceremony.
4 – Many apostles did not agree with the theory, and some stood up against Brigham and said it was heresy or blasphemy. This doctrine was removed with Brigham’s death.

Polygamy
1 – It may be a marriage “style” still practiced today and even more in history, but should raise an eyebrow and some inquisitive inquiry.
2 – The church never followed the declaration of 1890, and didn’t fully follow the 2nd declaration in the 1900s. It wasn’t till two apostles were excommunicated that the church officially stopped practicing polygamy around 1910.
3 – The church “stopped” when the government stepped in.
4 – The church generally leaves out the more odd circumstances with polygamy, probably following the rule of the truth not always being useful.
5 – 14 y-o girls getting married was not uncommon, but was to 70+ y-o men, which was far more common in Mormonism than other cultures at that time period.
6 – Joseph began polygamy with Fanny Alger in Kirtland, but no one seems to have known except him and her till they were caught. Oliver Cowdery said Joseph was a fallen prophet because he was committing adultery with Fanny. This eventually led to Oliver leaving the church.
7 – Joseph regularly started polygamous marriages without Emma’s knowledge, and sometimes telling his wives to not let her or others know. One being Emma’s friend, Eliza R. Snow.
8 – Polyandry was practiced at least by Joseph Smith to multiple women, meaning he married other men’s wives, such as Orson’s wife while he was away on a mission. Brigham Young and other authorities eventually took on polyandrous marriages as well, not just Joseph Smith.
9 – Brigham Young said the church would fall if it stopped practicing polygamy.

Blacks and the Priesthood
1 – Brigham Young also said the church would fall if blacks received the priesthood.
2 – Blacks received the priesthood once the government stepped in (again) and parades/protests were on the streets of SLC in support of civil equality.
3 – Many church leaders had many bad things to say about blacks, such as the Blood Atonement ‘practice,’ interracial marriage, Martin Luther King being a pawn of communism, and that blacks would always be servants.
4 – 33 years later and there still are no black apostles or presidents of the 70?

Book of Mormon
1 – Still no concrete evidence for the Book of Mormon.
2 – Different authors seem to have written different books or sections. This would agree with Mormonism except linguistic and writing style studies show that different writers authored different books together, or sections out of different books. A possible example of what this is would be the first half of Alma and 2nd Nephi being the same author. This is merely a possible example, not a recorded one.
3 – As a minor note, Joseph Smith did not take 60-70 days to translate but ‘had’ the plates for over a year and a half, making it roughly only a couple hours a week worth of work to write the whole Book of Mormon if they were simply translating at a small fraction of the average reading speed. The time ratio allows for a lot more work being done on the book.
4 – Joseph Smith did say that events took place in North America and later said Central America could be the location as well. Regardless he kept going with the best possible locations but after he made definite claims such as the white Lamanite being from the Midwest.
5 – Many inconsistencies and oddities that apologists have answers for, however, these pile up on each other.

Women
1 - Just about everything. May have been good originally, but it has gone way off kilter.
2 - Okay, don't wish to look like I'm being lazy on the women - First women gave blessings and took part in baby blessings an such, but no longer do so.
3 - Many callings were made in priesthood only callings within the last 80 years, therefore removing women from most callings in the church.
4 - Women are more pure and spiritual than men ... yet don't have any authority? Vice-versa men are just pigs and dogs and unspiritual and look at porn, the sexism is going both ways now from the same old men.
5 - The church almost exclusively does not believe porn or masturbation is a problem for women at all. Sadly (if you believe these things are possibly good) they are right in many cases since many women in the LDS faith show much less interest in sex than there fellow age category peers.
6 - Women should stay in the home, and fathers who do are 'odd.' It is beneficial for a parent to be home for the kids, but studies show it isn't always all that important especially once the kids are out of the toddler age.

First Vision
1 - Noticed I had put the 1st vision pic up in an earlier post and was like, "Hey, I should add this in, so ..." - Usually people embellish stories over the years, the folklore episode on Mormon Expression talks about this a lot. Joseph Smith did just the same thing.
2 - Like the picture says, there's some odd differences. One account I read about recently said that is was an angel, and possibly one of the characters in the BoM.
3 - At first it was simply one heavenly messenger and it didn't deal with a restoration, even after 'restoring' the church.
4 - Then it was two, but maybe not God and Jesus, then it was Father and Jesus.
5 - The age differences are a little fishy.
6 - Satan was only mentioned later I believe.
7 - Point is that the accounts get more and more extravagant just like any folklore piece, or myth, or made-up story.

I immensely enjoyed choosing the pictures.

2nd Post of Today - I Have Advertisements!

2011-03-22T01:18:00.002-06:00

Okay, so I avoid posting twice in one day but I couldn't resist this. There are videos up advertising my blog! I think.

I mean, it is my blog, and I think he's advertising, but I can't be sure. Either way, here are the vids, thank you for doing them. The guy (who kinda looks like Jesus ... very suspicious indeed) seems to have lots of Mormonism things on his page, regardless, thanks.

Godless at BYU Knows You're Lurking

2011-03-22T00:37:00.006-06:00

Well, some quick updates with life. I'm officially back to going to UofU this fall, accepted again, the coffee group had a new record of 60+ ppl if we count half of the communists group who almost all are atheists and in our group, lol. Who also might be just using our group to advertise, but I don't really care. There is a letter to the editor at the Daily Universe from a couple weeks ago talking about the religious discrimination BYU has towards postmos and that's good that it's getting out there.

In fact here's some links to it from postmo. and redditt as two examples.

I also found out BYU finally did block my blog, and now there are some students talking about my blog and trying to find me to kick some ass. I'll probably do a post on this at some point. As it talks about me and I'm so vain I can guarantee this one will happen in less than 3 months.

A Student Secular Alliance will begin at UVU sometime this summer. We now have enough people in the Utah Valley Atheists group that are current students that are interested and a professor will support it so that will be going. With that we could fund bringing in secular speakers an such so that our evil and terrible goals can spread like wild-fire. Also, U-COR (Utah Coalition of Reason) is getting in contact with some of us 'head honchos' with the group so we'll see what it means to become part of this "Umbrella Organization."

This whole post is just to throw out updates and to make you feel like I am writing something. I wish some of my TBM lurkers would make comments or send me emails or something to make my life more interesting. All I get is emails from people professing to be interested in meeting up and half of which never come out or stop replying. Maybe those are Honor Code spies who wish to catch me but then realize how nice and sweet a guy I am that they can't keep up their lying for Jesus. Or maybe when they realize I am actually a girl they begin to get very confused.

Jesus is Pissed

2011-03-16T01:51:00.004-06:00

Agnostic atheism is the way to go, with a touch of openess towards deism. That's where my bets lay. And probably should include a fictional/sci-fi interest in pantheism, or where all matter/energy in the universe has some kind of intelligent aspect. like Gaia, where Everything could be considered God.

I think when something is unknown or not answered yet, and you fill in that hole with 'god' or even a deistic god, then you are attributing an occurrence to, or answering the unknown, with an aspect of something equally unknown. Just because we don't know everything there is to know does not mean a god 'did it.' To assert that because we can't yet explain how life got started (though we know how it evolved) that it must mean there is a god is simply wishful thinking, and reflects the same kind of thinking that our ancestors did by explaining how children were born, or how the sun rotated around the earth, or where lightning came from, or why people were sick. They attributed it to a god or gods.

Nowadays polytheists are pretty rare, but the questions and answers are generally the same. And the path is also generally the same in where the actual answers come to light. Religion gives an answer, tries to support it with facts, often cherry-picking or focusing on the hits and ignoring the misses, while science comes along, offers an answer, proves it, and give-or-take a hundred years and it will rework and revise and expand it's answer. Usually through many different people, sometimes competing but arriving at the same answers, while religious people generally get their answers from one person in authority (be it a book, or a prophet, or a preacher). We haven't yet thrown out a natural law to replace it with a supernatural law. We have done the reverse countless times.

I'm not sure where this comes from, maybe all the stuff with Japan and in the background my atheist gears are working. I now get extremely annoyed with statements such as "yay, my family was saved so praise God," or "all the missionaries are okay, none of them died, God protected them," while many also believe that God caused or at least allowed the disaster to take place which killed so many others. I want to see these people go to the families of those who are dead and tell them how God saved their missionary sons and daughters and how great he is. Actually, no, cause some people might considering some statements or videos made by people who think this is one of the best things to happen in these end times.

In this sense religion is pretty sick. I've seen a decent amount of support from China, while some South Koreans are evilly antagonistic as they are raised to hate Japan due to history. This is to say that culture is the biggest influence, but I think the biggest crowd of people who are overall pleased with what happened are religious folks who either think Japan deserved it, or that this is another sign that Jesus is comin' back right quick and boy is he pissed.

Also, let me say like so many others - stop forming prayer groups and spending money on these things. If you must spend a little time and money on some prayer for Japan then just send the money over there through some religious/service group. Seriously.

"We're Sorry."

2011-03-13T15:45:00.004-06:00

I'd like to say that I am deeply sorry for not posting anything lately. In the words of one famous man ....

I have been busy like normal, probably more so right now though, or lately, than normal, but still no excuse for posting. I do have a couple of things to say though.

First, Leighton from Irreligiosophy (which has been linked on my blogroll for ages so if you haven't gone to see it, or even know who Leighton and Chuck are than you're a dumb@$$) has gotten in contact with me through my blog, and a friend through the atheists of Utah Valley group. Hopefully he will come out to party and then give all of us down here a shot-out on the podcast. I've promised him plenty of 18-22 y-o fresh, jubilant, probably virgin college chicks who may or may not have just recently left Mormonism and are itching to have wild orgy sex in front of TVs playing pornos while snorting crack off each others' backs. I hope this means he'll turn out.

Second, my blog (even though I've posted little in the last two months) still is pulling local people who feel a need to comment or send me emails. That is great guys and girls. And I like the people who send me emails who are at BYU giving me the thumbs up and telling me they are glad they found a post. But, being that I'm in a prickish mood right now I need to segue into a thought I've been having lately, which is this:

For all of you people who say "No, thanks I don't need community" ... f*** you! Not really, cause I understand, but I hope you realize that is dickish. Usually in person or through emails I offer to invite people to the group so they can laugh at all the funny pics and videos we've gathered, meet like-minded people that they can talk to openly and debate with openly without the fear of being turned in to bishops or losing friends. Also, just the fact that you could make new friends, like me, cause I never have people who want to hang out with me and I'm lonely.

So, the f u from a moment ago is not universal, just how I feel when I'm like "hey, I'd like to talk to you, debate some things, hang out, wanna be in the group or come to the next party?" and then you say "No, I don't need community" usually with some implied distaste which sometimes I take to mean "No, it sounds like you're a militant atheist or just trying to start a new religion." I did tell one person I thought he was ignorant if he thought being in the group meant you were a militant atheist, but oh well. Doesn't mean I hate these people, but I just think it's kind of lame.

Besides those people there are some who have made some friends and with the group so big now I think little cliques are forming. Oh! Status update!!! Over a 100 now. Yes, after having added the large and sturdy E**** our gay community has exploded and I think the group is actually over 50% from BYU now. Not that BYU would have any problem kicking out 50 people though. There is some slight progress being made with trying to figure out things with the Honor Code office, but I'll write on that later. Just like the Patriarchal blessings. Again, thank you to the dozen or so that submitted, I'll do that at some point, but lately I've stopped watching movies, reading books, and posting on my blog. Don't know why, but I expect my energy will be redirected back soon.

Also from my email section I got a guy trying to advertise through me ... and I'm fine with that, so long as he does a shout-out for all the atheists/agnostics/post-mos at BYU telling them that groups are forming underground. I discovered another small group of people who don't believe at BYU but haven't contacted them, it's on some discussion wall where I have to make an account blablabla and I'm too lazy for that. In fact I did make an account for another discussion board that had 3-5 ppl talking and told them to contact me and they didn't so ....

Anyways, I watched some of the vids and they are pretty funny. Here's the one on the Mormons that he did. I think I'll invest in some of those golden plates myself. I already have the toilet paper. I'll need to email him back and see where he's from ... possibly Idaho, just a guess, maybe ... but I should invite him out to things if he ever comes to Utah.

Lastly, I am quitting BYU and going to UofU. I don't know if I'll keep the blog going, I might have to change the title or something if I do. But being that people generally migrate to UofU from BYU and I have plenty of friends down there I think I'll still be involved enough to keep this going for another year.

Which, to that, I do have to thank everyone for the support and 'cheers' I sometimes get for having this half-rate blog, even you ... you people who tell me you don't wanna hang out or meet awesome people. I think some people don't need more friends than they have so they just don't care, or some don't wish to be a part of an atheist group even though they are non-believers ... which I don't get but okay, or maybe some are afraid of having their names associated with it, or going to the Coffee pod with 40 some loud militant atheists planning which church to burn. I miss one friend though, I posted his blog up on my bloglist as well, No Answers, and I wish he'd come back and hang out with us! .

Till next folks ... and I won't be gone for 2 weeks this time.

Speak Out For Your Homo Friends On Facebook!

2011-02-25T01:24:00.003-07:00

Well, USGA had another panel only this time .... at Provo! Seems that the Alpine panel from months ago probably was received so well that other regions that turned them down before, such as Provo, now accepted them. The panel itself went well, and I even felt inspired to throw a comment out there, though I had wished for more answering on it. But a couple other people picked up the ball, such as a friend and a lady behind me, and continued some of the thoughts I put out there.

One man handed out slips inviting people to a website or something about how to turn straight again. Says: "Gay. Anybody can be. Nobody has to be." You can go to www.standofliberty.org or www.narth.com or www.pfox.org if you wish to see what they're all about. I think it's an honest gesture of care, but very ignorant. Thankfully, one of my new idols who enjoys having his tires slashed was on the panel and is actually very knowledgeable about the gay community (go figure) and could throw out numbers and statistics like no other, such as saying that people who are forced into marriages or trying to change their sexuality are 70% likely to try to commit suicide. Or backing me up when I said Utah sometimes has ranked above 300% in the amount of gay teen suicides when compared to the national average.

Actually, here is Eric's page on the panel. As Erich says, it was standing room only.

With all the revolutions going on (a net benefit in my book, for the world) I'm just feeling antsy. Even some people in BYU-H are rising against the Honor Code. I invited a bunch of people to put some kind of obvious statement in their Facebook status (in the next couple days) that shows they support gays or the LGBT community. I invite all of you faithful readers, all 8 of you, to do the same.

Now, I have to be clear. For me, atheism/non-belief is more important than gays. Obviously I have personal reasons for that. But I think fighting for one minority that you genuinely care about will only further more rights for your minority. For me, this is trying to break bubbles of misconception over atheism, and the standards by BYU against postmos. Fighting for gays only helps people to be more accepting.

Survey and Nature of Existence

2011-02-23T16:15:00.008-07:00

Wow. Busy last couple of days. Did a random emergency roadtrip for a friend so now I have to recover all my lost sleep. I'm also very controlling, basically an only child, a little OCD, and so I rarely let anyone else drive my car for me ... my own fault but bllaaaaaaa tired.

Anyways. For those randomly finding my blog through certain searches - our generation, of about 16-30 year olds, is over 25% secular. And is growing. Well, secular/non-believing numbers are growing across the board. I think it goes people over 65, then 30-40, then 18-25, then teens, with 40-60 or so being the smallest growing region. At some point I may link sites and surveys, but for now take my word or simply put some damn work into it and look it up! Also, Mormons have a hard time understanding atheism and have an even harder time approaching it so, no, there are not many books dealing with atheism in Mormonism. For those trying to find those books. I read a book on faith, Holding Fast I believe, and that was the closest I came to a book dealing with atheism ... and it really didn't help me much. Back then I was really trying to believe so I speak from experience.

Also, talking about surveys, I took this one which atheists ''won.'' Got 31 out of 32 so I'm pretty dang smart, yeah? I linked the survey questions to the atheist group of Utah valley and most of us got above a 24. A couple did get 100%. I got one of the Jewish questions wrong ... mean it dealt with the Judaic faith not that it was-nevermind. I also did guess on 2 others, but since I since I thought my answers were the right ones and was right I guess I wanting guessing as much as I thought, lol. Overall, in our group, we averaged like 29-30 out of a dozen. We agreed that the survey itself was skewed for post-mormon atheists to do well. I think this is fair to say.

That's all on that. There was a big to-do about the survey a while back. It was geared towards Americans so it mainly talked about Christianity, with an oversampling of Mormonism questions, and only a couple atheistic questions. Very general overall though.

So, this little post is my plug for The Nature of Existence. I watched this with my gf a few weeks ago. I thought it was pretty good, not great, but definitely worth a watch. If you like seeing crazy people in Religulous then you will enjoy this one. I have interviews with Nygard about his film on Irreligiosophy and Point of Inquiry. Maybe Freethought Radio as well, and he seems like a pretty cool guy. He seems very agnostic and pretty atheist so it is tilted towards atheism, accounting for a third of the interviews probably, but my gf and I felt the video was pretty objective as well. From him we get some jokes, but overall he treats people and their beliefs with a lot of kindness, whereas most hard punches are thrown by other people on the show. I enjoyed seeing how even the douche preacher, Jed, showed a soft side here and there, where he says no matter what race we're all God's family, or his comments on love. I use him as an example, for those who haven't seen it, cause he is absurd in how he gets in people's faces on college campuses and tells people they are going to hell, because he literally believes in what he teaches, but he also seems to literally care about the people he's talking to. Dangerous yes, though he seems like a person who disdains violence, but I thought the film did good with showing several sides to the people involved.

In the end the film doesn't get too deep, I mean, Nygard had 100s of hours of footage to use and put it all into 90 minutes which felt about right. A lot is just speculation on the interviewees parts, but it is enjoyable. He has people like Richard Dawkins, Irvin Kerschner, Carl Sagan's wife (forgot her name, lol), an interesting guy named Aha, and even Orson Scott Card. Plus many others like his neighbor, a pre-teen atheist girl. It skips around a lot but generally it follows a path with the types of questions being asked. If you like seeing interesting people, like wrestlers for Jesus, then you will love this film.

Theology and philosophy, as I said, are, however, not that deep. If you've read plenty of books, looked at world religions, and asked lots of questions then you won't receive too much new information. I still have the Mormon mindset of going into something and trying to apply it to my life, so for this film I did gain some personal insights and gems. I tend to think happiness is pretty vital in life, and for some of the people in the film they seem to just be trying to find happiness.

Overall, I recommend it to people who think they might like it. If you're not interested then visit the site and watch a couple videos. If you like those then you will like the film. Happy huntings.

Agnosticism

2011-02-17T17:38:00.003-07:00

I apologize for not putting much work in this. Lately I've been anti-social, but it doesn't mean I don't have things to say or talk about ... who doesn't?

As such, today some of us had lunch again on campus and some guy came through asking us to go to something but was bearing his testimony and talking about the BoM. It was funny. One kid was like "that was the best thing that's happened to me all day." The guy just sat down, with the mini-fliers in his hand so we knew what was up. But then the first he says after apologizing for interrupting us (to which I said we were 'just' talking blacks and racism) is "do you guys like the BoM?"

Awkward! Lol, so great though. He just happens to do this with a table of heathens. We all looked around at each, some laughing nervously, and I'm like "It's a funny book!" Regardless he was talking about a Polynesian and Native American dance show at the De Jong and I'm sure it's good. And I'm glad he feels he can bear his testimony of the BoM through dance ... which I wonder if everything is up for grabs to use as a tool for bearing your testimony. I'm betting so.

Lately I've been thinking about agnosticism more again. I still find myself trying to be concrete and to try to find 'sure answers' to things. I use to think there is a best choice out there for all choices at a given moment, and maybe there still is, but no longer in a 'grand scheme' kind of way. I also feel dubious that, right now, atheism is a big part of my religious preference. I think it's a big part of who I am still, and that could change, but I feel like agnosticism may be the path I'm going down. So maybe I should flip my self-proclaimed stance to atheistic agnostic? Lol.

I still don't see the worth in being true agnostic though, and I don't fit it anyways. I don't believe there is a God, so I am an atheist, and I won't say I know, so I am agnostic. But I think life has no real answers, or has so many it is inconceivable. I feel I've been in flux lately again and I think the better philosophical attitude and steps to take in life is to admit a level of doubt with even the 'sure' answers. I want truth but I think making that a big focus of my life is only going lead to an eventual disenchantment. As to say, I think I'm 'enchanting' my worldview with making the 'truth' of things so important. And now I think the 'truth' of truth is that it doesn't always matter, certainly in the case of individuals.

When putting yourself as the most important thing in your life or existence (where other things are necessarily but not most important) I think happiness probably is second. Truth probably third, if I must continue a hierarchy of values and virtues. I think everyone wants to be happy most of all, or to emulate the feelings of happiness through other means (such as depressed people feeling content where they are) and I think the truth of that is that sometimes lies work, and sometimes are the 'best' choice.

Can I say that the 'villain' from Watchmen is kind of a hero in my eyes. I think I'm becoming more and more pragmatic and utilitarian.

Talking With Random Strangers - and - How Are People Finding my Blog?

2011-02-10T18:02:00.008-07:00

First an update on my blog. I still keep track of my stats and quite enjoy it, even if some people think I rub the numbers in their face. Really I'm not. I'm betting 80% of my blog hits are due to the amazing pictures I put up. Either way, I also keep track of what Google search keywords bring people to my blog, though I do not know what pages. I can only guess based on the keywords. Here's some I've had in the past:

byu atheist
underground byu party group
jacking off byu jerking off boys jerking (etc.... - all in one search)

Here's some from more recently:
byu liberal facility
nerds are atheists
things going on at byu
cognitive dissonance for stay at home mom
do mormons date atheists?
hot atheists 2011 (obviously me)
mormon food storage (im glad this has moved to be one of the top results for people)
byu men who masturbate

So obviously atheists are nerds, we're happening, i'm hot, and lot's of people have a fetish for byu boy's who beat the meat. I enjoy looking up these search results, they make me laugh.

So I was having dinner with a friend and he asked if I was an atheist and two girls by us overheard him and decided to talk to us. Yes, no segue into that and barely any information about what happened prior to this but you don't need to know that. So one girl proceeded to talk about some unconfirmed miracle of a girl being impaled by a stick in the mountains last year on a 4-wheeler and how her guts where hanging out and her stomach was torn out and everything. Sounds horrible, and perhaps this all happened, but generally unconfirmed stories like this that I can't seem to find online anywhere are either hearsay or heavily exaggerated. I'm going with the latter. The women also was able to talk about what the paramedics were saying and giving some really good details which only leads more credence to the story being a fabrication of something real. Then she finished and left it at that implying, "so, how can there not be a god?"

I had wanted to say, "so because of this one situation you will believe in a Mormon God rather than any other and you will flippantly toss out all the times people do die from much less or are in miserable situations at this very moment, all over the world?" But I didn't cause I truly thought it would be pointless.

Which, I must say, you don't die from having your skin impaled. You organs are mostly just sitting around and are quite moveable if you don't have flesh to hold them together. I mean, I know someone who had part of their intestines come out and the doctors simply stuffed it back in a sewed him up. I also know that you don't need your stomach fully intact to survive for awhile, and my medically-interested gf confirmed that you don't need a stomach at all with proper procedures. Why didn't the girl bleed to death? I can't say except people somehow live having their limbs blown off, probably something to do with shock and other people around them trying to save their lives. Of course, this is all just ideas being thrown out and I decided not to.

Ends up the main girl use to be Catholic, went on about that for awhile and then brought it back to atheism. In the beginning it was made clear by both girls that even though they were drinking coffee they were both Mormon and knew it was true. I explained that I did not call myself an atheist alone, but rather an agnostic atheist, and then explained what that meant. The story girl mentioned a friend of her's who didn't believe in a god but thought the universe heard our thoughts or some such so I explained that he sounded like a pantheistic deist, though he probably wouldn't call himself that.

Story girl went on for a while, cause my friend is Catholic mind you, about how she didn't like confession but likes Mormonisms version of repentance (which baffled me while she sipped her coffee) and how she didn't like how non-Catholics thought they worshiped Mary and the saints. Then it came back to me about how I was quiet, which I said I was still debating if I should debate with her at all, if it would be worth it, to which I didn't allow her to respond but quickly asked why it was bad to not believe in a God as she had said that in passing during her stories.

She didn't feel she could back it up so she said as long as I believe the Golden Rule I'm good. Which I said "or any modification of it" and then explained that I don't believe any moral system works, morals from religion are self-serving and enforced through the risk of eternal punishments, and morals from an evolutionary standpoint also lead down perverse paths. I compared Jesus to some other moral thinkers of the time and prior, I still like Confucius. And I said that overall I don't think it matters, most people live ethically regardless, enough so for society to function though some do better than others, such as Sweden or Japan for completely different reasons.

Overall the conversation never approached "do you believe in God" but rather I tried to show her that her thinking was leading her down a path to believing atheism is bad. Both girls admitted to having been wild sex fiends partiers and drinkers and don't go to church but still believe in Mormonism. I may not be too far behind them on those things, but I believe my morals, by their standards, are far better than what they live. We shouldn't wait for a perfect person to tell us how best to act, we would wait for a long time, but I get annoyed when people somehow believe atheism leads to ruin. America has roughly 2% of the population being 2nd or higher generations of non-believers (where their parents or one of them were non-believers or 'devout' atheists.) And some foreign countries have been that way much longer. Some may say "the prodigal son didn't lose everything at once" but I view that as sick wishful-thinking. Annie Laurie Gaylor of Freethought Radio proudly states she is a 4th generation atheist. She's probably one of the most law-abiding citizens in America, lol, and continuously points out flaws of old Christian morals and present-day ones.

Regardless, it was fun to have the conversation though the story girl was a bit intense and made me wonder if we should even talk about it. Her, like some other girls (for some reason only girls) wanted to talk on FB but hasn't replied. Usually I present my reasons, which I pick and choose as there are many, for not believing in God. Often I think they are surprised to hear that I still don't know any atheists who KNOW there is no god and that deism or agnosticism are philosophically sound in my mind though I don't live by them.

I also realized that just about any Mormon will eventually resort to "I know it's true" when the argument starts asking for evidence rather than a stated view trying to find facts that support it. Also, that, like my Catholic friend, that though many theists say "I know" they still harbor doubts. It was a fun conversation. But I'm off now, time for an USGAY meeting. Oh, and today we had a heathen lunch on BYU campus where a half-dozen of us met up for a bit. And then I ran into 2 other atheists on campus. Very fun day on campus.

Is Assaulting a Non-believer a Religious Hate Crime?

2011-02-08T00:14:00.007-07:00

This will be a quick post of something I learned about earlier today (Mitch Kahle from Hawaii) and only just finally got around to watching the videos. I recommend struggling through this post, for once I have some good things to tell. And if not, then PLEASE go down to the videos, you should really see this. First though:

More people are wanting to submit Patriarchal blessings so I'm holding off on that more. I won't be posting any, I'll just be going through to find anything interesting at all. Which may not be entertaining later on, lol. Also, watched Collision, The Nature of Existence, and now Expelled so I have several movies to talk about.

The atheists of Utah Valley FB group is growing quickly. We are almost to 80 now and may surpass 100 before the end of the month. We are also finding more people who may be able to help with approaching BYU about changing their position on postmos. Brad Carmack, who is a practicing Mormon, is a nice intelligent fellow who is currently involved with USGA and wrote a little book about gays and the LDS church. You can actually find copies at the BYU bookstore, lol. I heard through the grapevine that he is on our side about trying to change BYUs standards on this.

Which, the standards are low. God's standards are low. He is a complete dick, and the worst kind, he's a hypocrite. I don't think the God of Christianity has ever made a commandment that he didn't break in some fashion. BYU's are a lot better, but usually behind in the times with the rest of society. Well, if by society you mean a more secular society, cause I dare say theocracies of the Middle-east are also behind. Or African countries where they psychologically and even physically abuse children who are thought to be witches or gay. Oh right, they just kill the gays in some countries. And usually these things are done in the name of Jesus. Want to see what the dark ages with Christianity were like? Go to some African countries.

Sometimes, I feel I need to be reminded how religion is so good at corrupting people's thoughts and becoming more close-minded. I'm all for moderate religion and there is no doubt in my mind that the church is good for many people, and in many cases I think Mormons approach it moderately. But at the last USGA meeting a totally chill guy showed up and was so impressed with the group and so proud of us, saying it was hard for him in SLC so it must be even more so for people at BYU. Ends up his tires got slashed on BYU grounds cause he had a Pride sticker on his car. My girlfriend's car got scratched (but not keyed) for having an Obama sticker. One new girl tonight was saying how a friend is depressed, literally, cause she's over 25 and not married. I get down when I don't have a gf, but I'm sure that LDS women are far more likely to get depressed if they don't marry right away.

Religion has a way of poisoning things, and maybe this comes from Hitchens, but I tend to agree with him more and more on it. However, I don't think I'm comfortable with saying it is all bad. I'll take Dawkins' approach that 'of course religion isn't the root of all evil.' But with religion I see the happiness it gives people but generally that happiness is attached to sucking the happiness out of others either by contrary arguments or violent opposition. Jesus said, hate your family if necessary, above all else love me.

So, this story sparked this sudden mood and now I've made an actual post, as usual, lol. You dear readers should be use to that now. Anytime I start with "this will be a short post" you should realize I'm about to write a long one. And generally I'm most proud of my posts that have no forethought. And then thankful for readers like Demosthenes who write me back saying "did you really mean this?" so I can go back and be like "yeah... not really, I should reword that, lol."

So, the story! Mitch Kahle, Hawaii, separation of church and state. I listen to Freethought Radio with Dan Barker and Ann Laurie Gaylor [sic?] from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. I actually have contacted them about BYU though they sadly cannot help directly. I listened to a couple episodes today at work and came across a recent one talking about The Atheist' Guide to Christmas, which I bought for my girl and which she has loved. So I wanted to hear an interview with one of the editors and had to go through some Mitch guy who did some protest in Hawaii or something? Wow, surprised by how gripping the interview was. Here's what happened.

Hawaii, I guess, is less than a third Christian. It is also the most secular of the states. I don't have any info handy but it was brought up in the interview. But the state legislature has invocations by Christian preachers for the public meetings. Kahle sent them at least 3 emails explaining to them that it was unconstitutional and that they needed to stop. They wouldn't reply so he said he would protest. And protest he did. His wife even joined him by the end, and he had a friend record what happened. And it got ugly. Here's the video:

Wow, just wow. So Kahle was hauled off to prison and thrown in a cell with a man who had been inside for 17 years (to which Kahle said the man was very pleasant). He was released an hour later. His camera man, Kevin?, actually had to go to the hospital for a bashed head, split lip, and bruised ribs. His camera was wrecked beyond repair. I am actually unsure if anything has been done to the officers who assaulted them, does anyone know?

But we do know what happened with the courts. Kahle had 3 charges pressed against him, but lucky for us he had video evidence and a judge who understands the law:

So in the end good things have come out of this. But boy, at once it makes me afraid to do anything, and at another level I want to just run out there and be right at the front. With people getting there tires slashed at BYU over a gay pride bumper sticker I have to wonder how many people could get so riled up to punch someone in the face. Obviously, anyone, and with numbers and group-think then disaster is prone to happen, but I expect BYU security would act much like they did with the Condoleeza Rice protest = very respectfully and calm and nice.

Either way I am overall very done with 'waiting' for things to happen. Like my recent post about teen gay suicides in Utah, or postmos getting kicked out of BYU, how can I just here and be like "well, religion isn't all bad and some people are doing some things about it." NO. No no no. Not enough people are doing enough things. Some people caring is not enough for people with power to change. I am almost willing to say that it would be best for some clear evidence to come forth that the LDS church and BoM are completely false and destroyed the church if it would stop the gay suicides from occurring so frequently in this god-forsaken state. It's the LDS teachings that do it. I mean, these are not random gay or lesbian kids, the articles and writings show they come from LDS families. Gah! It's horrible, just horrible.

Well, now I'm on fire again and nobody to talk to. Am I the only one who really cares and get's fired up about these things? I hope not. If one thing I am certain on, religion separates people, it doesn't unify the human race. C.S.Lewis knew this, I know this, Dawkins knows his, and even Jesus taught it.

Not Much Happening Here

2011-02-02T10:53:00.004-07:00

I don't actually have anything to write about. Nothing exciting going on at BYU. The atheist group can't meet at the Coffee Pod cause too many of us were turning out and it was too large of a crowd. But to make up for a lack of recent posts (i am still getting a couple more Pat. Blessings so I will be starting that soon ... as well as my exit story) I shall show you some of the greatest pictures imaginable! Enjoi!

There you go, have a godless day.

"Sassy Gay Penguins!!!"

2011-01-26T16:45:00.011-07:00

Ok, so finally I am getting around to representing the rights of our neighbors and distant cousins, the gay penguins. However, first, I have a disclaimer:

For anyone who listens to Irreligiosophy they talk about the gay penguins several times, and most of these stories are the same ones they talk about. But we have to support the gay penguins and spread the message. They are just too damn cute to do otherwise!

So my first introduction to this obscene crime against animals was the cute couple from Polar Land in the city of Harbin in ''northern'' China. Since it's in the north it must be cold enough for them. And this is all besides the fact that they are probably from Antarctica and have been relocated due to the melting ice shelves. So this beautiful couple hooks up and sooner or later finds out they can't make babies. Very depressing for them. In fact, the zoo keepers were given some refugees from North Korea to do some tests in relation to solving the depression in gay penguins. This, of course, was all thanks to Kim John-Il and his love for the gays.

However, an interesting turn of events took place. The penguins, like about a third of depressed Americans just happened to pop out of their lowly downs and took action to make themselves happy. And they did this in the most cunning way possible.

With no means of fertilizing an egg and growing baby penguins in a test tube, they decided to steal the eggs of other couples! And to make sure no one would notice, they replaced the eggs with rocks! Pure genius! Unfortunately, the zookeepers and parent penguins did notice and then the penguins were harassed by their own clan, so much so, that the zookeepers had to segregate the gay couple from the rest of their kind. Think Japanese in America during WWII.

The only benefit from the separate but equal clause put in place in the zoo was that, in Chuck's own words from Irreligiosophy, the white picket fence used to separate them was damn fine. It seemed that the couple was doomed to die in seclusion with a white picket fence as their Berlin Wall ... with no children!

But the Humans For the Rights and Equality of Gay Penguins came to the rescue! The leader announced, 'It wasn't fair to stop them becoming parents and keep them apart from all the other birds just because of the way nature has made them." The leader, a large red-headed woman from Vermont just happened to be visiting China to help reverse the amount of gay sex pandas have been having which has almost led to their extinction since the males no longer have a drive to mate with females.

The Chinese zoo eventually gave eggs to the gay couple from a couple which was contemplating abortion. The zoo keeper, Ching Ton, said, "They've turned out to be the best parents in the whole zoo!" And it just so happened that the gay couple has been awarded the Best Parent Award for the whole eastern hemisphere. The runner-up couple was an Indian couple near the Ganges but when the award presenters tried to locate them they found 6,745 other couples with the exact same names and decided to not waste time trying to find them.

In other regions of the world gay penguin equality is under attack! These gay penguins are at the Bremerhaven Zoo, in Germany, also in the 'northern' part, which is good cause if the Gulf Stream stops then Germany will freeze over allowing these penguins to roam free. A hetero couple attempted to throw away their baby so zoo keepers gave the egg to the gay couple who raised it as their own, also proving how wonderful gay parents are. Once hatched homophobic zoo keepers tried to steal the baby to give to a Mormon couple in another zoo! But the fathers took turns guarding their child day and night at the entrance to their cave-home.

Also in Germany, Nazi-sympathizing zoo keepers contacted the Swedish Penguin Alliance and paid for several beautiful, sexy, escort Swedish penguins to be flown in and seduce the gay ones! However, all 6 gay penguins remained loyal to their lovers and not one gave in to the lushy-eyed vixens from Sweden. It seems that men are not as likely to cheat as all feminists believe.

In America a couple was outed after being together for 8 years and no one knew they were both male. This happened in a New York zoo, showing that the zoo keepers here are most likely not molesting the animals. However the homophobia in America is still present and a children's book about gay penguins and adoption and family love and acceptance is being labeled as Satan's work, heretical, and some Christian sects have put it on their 'burn list' when it comes time to copy the art of book burning like Hitler's Germany. The gay penguin book shared the list of burn books with works that include sodomy of 12-y-o boys, racism and lynching, sex before marriage, a book explaining the female orgasm, and Lolita which many older men consider to be a work of art.

Our poor gay friends are under attack! Please help support Gay Penguin Equality and may all our dead gods bless you. Bippity boppity boo.

References:
Gay Penguins Steal Eggs!

Gay Penguins Sequestered!

Gay Penguins Protect Young!

Anti-Hate Books in America!

Something Random!

North Korea!

Atheist Underground

2011-01-25T01:40:00.005-07:00

(courtesy of a friend and referred to later)
So today was monumental for me and the postmo/atheist community. First my gf invited me to a group she got invited to which has tons of people continuously talking about postmo stuff, and is very open to talking about the church, god, religion, atheism, and most importantly sex. And the main gathering point is being postmo so people are of all beliefs. Makes for some good and fun discussions going on, though I had 67 FB notifications after an hour ....

From this I invited a guy from BYU who I swear I've met somewhere. And then I was hoping a couple people would come who had emailed me at my jdog email. One such person has a quite hilarious blog. Luckily he came and I hope he enjoyed himself. Then some random guy showed up who found the group thanks to SLC atheists, one wonderful lady in particular, I guess, and it was nice having a 'walk-in.' Then the guy I invited showed up and recognized two girls in a booth. Who then joined our group cause they view themselves as agnostic. Then another girl, from USGA recognized a couple people and came inside. Our LessActive atheist crowd even showed up and we ended up having roughly 25-30+ today. We've been a slight annoyance before, even though most of us buy something, but tonight was probably too much, lol. I think it's time we look for a different venue. I was thinking the Provo library may be a good bet, but I'm unsure. And meeting on campus actually is surprisingly safe, but strange and inconvenient for some people.

And now we may be getting some representatives from BYU-I and Hawaii in our group online, and one girl has offered to post things from SHIFT on our page so people can see things going on up in SLC. Our group is actually growing rather quickly and reaching out. I'm beginning to fear for our secrecy, but I had the thought and one very adult guy mentioned it, that our numbers are growing so large that BYU probably wouldn't be able to do anything to us. He mentioned that we need more numbers, and I agree, but I'd say about 40 people are in the group who are currently involved with BYU and a good portion are following the Honor Code except for coffee maybe, some 100%. Succinctly, he said that if we got founded out, or tried to change BYU policy by becoming public, they would have three options:
1 - change, which is unlikely.
2 - expel us, which expelling 70+ kids (once we get there) would be horrible PR for BYU and I think we would find a few 1000 students in our support.
3 - do nothing.

Which the do nothing seems most likely. For the Honor Code we signed the waiver, or wtv, so there's no getting around that. But for people living up to the standards, or darn close, I can't see BYU expelling that amount. Which, beforehand it would be a good idea for people to get a copy of their transcripts though, lol. In all cases though, it would give us publicity, which could force BYU to be more accepting (and we could even give a plug for the LGBT movement and the church's bigotry) and with publicity we would be reaching out to anyone in the area who is just miserable, lonely, or depressed thinking that they are somehow bad for not believing anymore.

Long way to go, but it's becoming a possibility that things may start happening. And honestly I am all for it. I would like to see change, this same guy is setting up a case to bring to BYU in hopes of changing their rules on postmo students. See, if you become LDS you get benefits. If you come to campus as a non-member that's fine, they'll baptize you sooner or later. But if you leave the church, you're out.

Think I'm kidding? Think this is angry postmo propaganda? Just look at this.

Now, it is my belief that if you can find a school with a similarly good department for your major, or that you haven't invested too much in BYU, then you should get out. But for some people leaving BYU because you stopped believing is near too much of a sacrifice. For me it will have cost me roughly 2 semesters and over $4500 to leave due to religious credits and some classes which won't transfer within my major. I wish to get out, but it is a sacrifice.

In a way, I'm a little sad at all the hearts that could be 'hurt' knowing there's so many college-age kids leaving the faith. But in the end, I think some pain is needed to reach a higher level of happiness.

Something That Kept Me in the LDS Church

2011-01-23T19:17:00.005-07:00

First, some updates. I've gotten some great Patriarchal Blessings from people, thank you so much. I'll do a post sometime soon, it's in the works. As I said, there may not be anything too interesting, but I'll try to make it so, lol. A friend is in trouble with the honor code office and his atheism has been brought up, though not discussed. So I've asked him if he'll be willing to write a little about his experience. We'll see where that goes. I will get Collision in the mail anytime now, and Nature of Existence from Netflix, so I'll review those a little after I see them a couple times.

I say all this cause I only have 5 posts for this month. I am sorry. Far too few posts for the New Year. Not that I'm not thinking about being entertaining or have any thoughts, but I just haven't had too much to post on, and when I do, I end up writing it all at once in long posts. So I need to go back to spreading out topics. That and then nobody comments on my long posts and I feel sad :(
Lol.

So I went to SHIFT with a couple friends today and it was a really good discussion today, or at least I thought my comments were really good, lol. And something was brought up about Mormonism that wasn't exactly correct and made me think about an issue that comes from the outside.

I understand Mormonism far better now than before, but only because I had been in it to begin with. People who are never in it or never spend time truly delving into it, which would be volumes of books and teachings (1 or 2 books is NOT teaching you about Mormonism very well), these people sometimes try to fight against it without really understanding their enemy, and then say stupid things that any TMB knows is not true.

And that keeps them in their faith. It did for me.

And this can be said of any cult-like atmosphere, religion, or dogmatic society. They are entrenched in the culture and saturated with the doctrine and most know a thing or two about their own beliefs. So when an 'anti' comes along spouting off some anti-Mormon material that is either fabricated, untrue, or exaggerated, the common member will know it is and just think that the anti person is another tool of Satan. My favorite example is one from Rough Stone Rolling in which Oliver Cowdery was supposed to have said that he never truly believed Mormonism and it's false. Some anti-Mormon organizations still use this supposed newspaper clipping or whatever. The problem? The newspaper never existed. In fact, the town didn't exist till the 1900s, lol.

How are lies supposed to help? Regardless, a lot of this propaganda can be attributed to the liars for Jesus, other-wise known as evangelical Christians, who then wonder why so many postmos become atheists. You know why now? We see you lying to us all the time! Sorry, I spent my mission in the south and very few things thrown at me ended up being true in any way.

I bring this up cause I'm about truth, and even if I don't like something I think trying to tear it down through lies or half-truths is worst then allowing it to continue. These things only strengthened my resolve to remain in the church, they did not help. So, like today, I always try to correct misinformation, even if it holds religion or the church in a better light. I think demonizing a faith or helping to progress a lie, even if unintentionally (which is often the case), is harmful. I know plenty of people will or do agree with me on this, and I personally know plenty of return missionaries who think exactly like I do, some of which who use it as their testimony to Mormonism. So in that sense, don't lie in front of me.

Thoughts and Thermodynamics

2011-01-18T00:58:00.007-07:00

(Warning: long post about thermodynamics and theists using it against me!!!)
Sometimes I just feel an urge to make a post of talk about atheism or something similar. I've kind of been out of the 'atheist' mood for 3 months, but now I'm getting back into it.

Watched Collision, and I enjoyed it. Nice collage of Hitchen's things said with a preacher who had a couple interesting points. About to watch The Nature of Existence. Also finished reading God and His Demons by Parenti, which I'll talk about once I finish The End of Faith and whatever third atheist book before making another book post. But I have to say the book was good, Parenti basically makes his points by listing off dozen after dozen after dozens of examples from history of how religion or the idea of God is bad and used for bad things. He isn't an anti-theist; he, like me, supports moderate religion where it's good, but for him there is still not enough moderate religion and far too much fundamentalism in the world. Good read.

For anyone who believes in the Bible I don't think they have any right in trying to compare me to Hitler or Stalin or Mao. Jeremy from Reasonable Doubts in a debate humorously brought this point up and made me laugh, for someone who believes in a book and God who routinely asks for genocide, murder, and in the off-chance of not wanting annihilation, rape, to condemn atheism based on genocide is hypocrisy at its best. Second since when should atheism be compared to religion in the first place? And for new atheists isn't science and inquiry and freethought a major part of who we are, atheism being another facet of that? Another component? Why should we care about Stalin or Mao who obviously raised societies as dogmatic and close-minded as any theocracy?

And Hitler is out, at least Christian till 1939, anti-atheist till he died, was into all kinds of crazy things, both sides should give up on him, all he proves is how you can use religion to continue genocide and dogmatism.

I've been reading up on Science! and I'm enjoying it. I've been studying thermodynamics, though it wasn't my intention when I went out. I have actually had the argument of the second law of thermo. thrown at me, by my home-teachers last summer, or June, right before, or right after, the bishop came by. The argument goes something like this:

Do you understand the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics (or Law of Entropy) that states: an expression of the tendency that over time, differences in temperature, pressure, and chemical potential equilibrate in an isolated physical system. This is thanks to Wikipedia.

The question continues with "if we closed off this room and came back a million years later, would it be more ordered or less ordered than how we left it?" When I received this question nearly a year and a half ago I was like, "oh, well gee, God makes more sense."

Buzz! Wrong. But still ....

You can also read up on the law here, at this amazing very non-Christian site. Oh wait, it sounds like the site is postulating a God theory! Good gravy, how do you refute this?! There must be a way!

The quick answer is that we're not in a closed system. But I'm all about length, so ...

This is almost like Joseph Smith and the BoA with him translating hieroglyphs wrong from step 1. First, this is the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics. The first law is this: energy can be transformed, i.e. changed from one form to another, but cannot be created nor destroyed. It is usually formulated by stating that the change in the internal energy of a system is equal to the amount of heat supplied to the system, minus the amount of work performed by the system on its surroundings. Also thanks to Wikipedia. What these are saying together is that you can't make a perpetual motion machine, and you can't get more energy out of what you put in. A standard car is only working at about 30% efficiency. Sad but true. Out of the 100% energy we put into our vehicles, only 30% is being properly used, a lot being expended on friction/heat with the tires, gasoline burning and engine mechanics, and air force.

Essentially = the universe is increasing in entropy and eventually will die.
Very bleak.

But it isn't talking about order and chaos. Or law and riot. It's talking about energy and heat. After the big bang everything was pretty hot, matter and energy were full of, well, energy. One thing to note is that matter and energy, as a property, are the same thing in different forms. And all kinds of forces are working with them, such as gravity, strong force, nuclear force, electromagnetic force, blablabla. And these forces work on each other, some 'stronger' than the rest. So, in the beginning protons and electrons and neutrons were moving around very quickly, and working very efficiently.

Once these particles slowed down in speed and cooled down in temperature could we finally have elements, from that large table in biology and physical science rooms. See before these particles were working to well and with too much energy, they needed to go down in their efficiency to form more complex, but less efficient, material. With noble gases coming into the fray we could then have stars. Now, my understanding is fuzzy here, but I am led to believe that the earliest stars didn't have planets and were usually very close to other stars. The way the universe was working then it allowed for elements to make stars in nebulae. And when stars died they would form new nebulae to make new stars, albeit less efficient ones.

Also, I should note, heat is being produced by all this and heat is one of the most least efficient forms of energy.

Once stars became the norm and space cooled down well below the freezing point we got that nice range for molecules to form which needed warmth but not extreme colds or hots. This allowed planets to form. I'll skip past how iron and nickle and such come out of this, or how life essentially can form in just about any system due to the prevalence of water in the universe (and how Venus and Mars probably had bacteria life in the least before their atmospheres messed up in simple but specific ways and worked in all other ways) but let's move on down the time-line.

Our sun will die and the planets will be torn apart, and in the result a new lesser star will form and new planets, with a decent degree of probability to support life, even if only for a short time. Repeat till we get dwarf suns and eventually die out in coldness.

Now, I use to think a big crunch was plausible for the universe, an infinite loop of big crunches followed by big bangs. However, the universe is spreading out rather than coming together. This is because gravitational pulls are not strong enough to beat the other forces in effect, and will eventually lead to our downfall.

And this is why:

Planets and suns, though complex, are more entropic than the particles after the big bang. They are less efficient. Heat does not last long. We had an abundance of heat for eons after the big bang, and it's been cooling ever since. This cooling allows for elements to form, suns, molecules, then planets. But it's always less efficient. Life is inefficient, it's always about obtaining enough energy to survive till the next time, and many species didn't make the cut. Complexity does not equal efficiency.

So for the question of the close room? First, they are applying the law to something it was never really talking about. And also, they are assuming that planets and stars are more ordered and efficient than what the universe had prior. In the sense of thermodynamics, no, planets are inefficient. Metals don't do much to keep energy going, they are more akin to a final cold product. Second, the room doesn't represent our solar system or galaxy or cluster. The sun feeds the earth, it isn't closed, the system is fed by other suns that have gone supernova, or matter floating around, allowing us to gather more resources. However, the universe seems to be a closed system and that's where it's true. If the room had a light in it, and we left it on it would be more correct to say we would come back into the room a million years later and find a much more complex space and light-bulb, but it just wouldn't be as bright.

Third, you could look at as a chart with x/y lines or coordinates. Entropy was somewhere near the bottom of y (being percentage) and order or efficiency was somewhere near the top. As the two lines go down x (time and space I guess) they head towards each other, eventually pass, and then replace each other on the other side of the graph.

Eventually all energy will be reduced to heat, spread out over the infinite wastes of space, and our universe will, theoretically, reach absolute zero. Cause heat is fickle and dissipates quickly. However, if we have the influence of other universes on any level, then we have a chance of surviving. Course, by 'we' I mean the universe, not the human race, cause I'm sure we'll wipe ourselves out much sooner than that.

All of this is more theoretical than proven. It may turn out that the universe is connected to other ones, or that some unknown force is acting and will lead the universe back into a big crunch. Think what you will, but know this - the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics is no argument against atheism.

To quote Jim Jefferies, "And that's science!"

Mormonism Has Issues Part 4

2011-01-14T01:34:00.006-07:00

Just a small little post before I go to bed. I'll be busy this weekend so I want to give you readers a little something. And little it will be.

Book of Abraham.

If I had known what I know now about the BoA back when I was a TBM it would have really shaken my faith. Wouldn't have pushed me over, but it would've been a big step in that direction, possibly could've been the initial step to the process. Alas, I didn't know much accept a few things about the papyrus supposedly being found, but there are parts missing so it's okay, and blablabla.

But it's a lot more than that. However, I have to be up in 7 hours, so as I said I am keeping this short, and it deserves more justice than this but I've been thinking about the BoA today, for no reasons really, and so ... why not post. So I'll list off a couple issues, and I may some time later, months and months, come back with some good source material.

The problems with the 'boa' starts long before the book itself. Firstly, Joseph Smith interpreted ancient hieroglyphs wrong. As was common for his age, and for the uneducated nowadays, he thought the symbols represented meanings, or words, or phrases. He believed this for the Book of Mormon. I believe in the Seasons and Times he even had the hieroglyphs from the 'boa' listed with his translations next to them for the populace to read. It is my understanding that the paper has pictures of some of the parts we have found and listed next to them is his 'translation.' Being that he thought they were words and phrases his translations often were much longer than the hieroglyph sections.

But Egyptian hieroglyphs, in particular, are not words and phrases, but phonetics. They represent sounds, forming words. Ever learn yourself any Latin? Some of the phrases are lengthy and only translate to maybe three words in English. The amount of letters used is often much more than used in English. This is a quick generalization, doesn't carry over all languages, but old languages generally took a lot of time cause they didn't have a 'tight' language to write. Egyptian hieroglyphs are an example of this. I have the Egyptian alphabet on papyrus framed on my wall. It's all sounds, and modern-day writings are much easier to accomplish than the small picture to make a 'ph' sound.

So first, Joseph Smith had the whole process wrong. Second, the scrolls were found later. Joseph Smith hadn't been interested in the mummies at first, possibly felt obligated to go see them, and then to find another ancient writing like so many before. He then took a long time to translate the 'boa' and never even got to the Book of Joseph of Egypt. It probably never even crossed his mind that those scrolls might actually be translated at some point.

But they were. Cause they eventually were found, and could be known to be found because not only could the hieroglyphs be put alongside examples written on paper or in the Seasons and Times, but the pictures were found. One favorite story I find is that scholars had said that the sacrificial picture was supposed to have a priest grabbing the dudes 'phallis' or dick, for whatever reason, and it was a burial writing, like a eulogy or something. Everyone who was cool was getting them back in Egypt. Even when I was young I had issues believing the pots under the table were gods when I knew that they potted organs and things for burial. It just looked like it was supposed to be a burial picture. Scholars also said that the heads were wrong.

Sure enough, pictures found, and there's holes in it. One on the head of the priest, and down to where he was giving the dead guy a hand. So Joseph filled in the pics with what was 'supposed' to be there. The same head as the other guy, and his hand, not around his shaft!, but around a knife trying to stab poor Abraham. Please tell me I'm wrong at any point, about any of this.

But some of the scrolls were missing, and it's my understanding it could be anywhere from 3 to 15 feet. So Joseph could have used those parts. ER! Wrong, he put some examples in the local paper. The scrolls were a catalyst for his revelations. Isn't this just a fancy, spiritually-supporting way of saying that the scrolls helped his creative juices in making it all up?

Also, lastly, no one ever said that he translated it correctly. As to why the 'boa' isn't in the Articles of Faith, because as far as we can tell, it has NOT been translated correctly. The scholars said he didn't come anywhere close, and the church even tries to get their own scholars to say so, who also said that Joseph did not translate the scrolls, and if he thought he did then he was wrong.

So there you have it. 1 - Joseph Smith had an old-school idea of translating and was wrong. 2 - We have examples of his translations. 3 - We have the book and facsimiles, the end product. 4 - We find the scrolls to compare with modern knowledge of translation. 5 - Nothing lines up. 6 - BYU professors won't even try to line it up. 7 - Church essentially buries the whole thing.

As has been said before, within the church you never get to the meat, it's always the milk or honey. I love you all, goodnight.

Planes, Protests, and People Who Walk While Texting

2011-01-11T19:58:00.005-07:00

Okay, feeling the juices flowing out now, and I'm talking about the creative ones. Uh, the thoughtful creative ones, not the reproductive ones (this deserves to stay on here). First I'd like to put a plug out for a protest happening on BYU campus. We recently decided to have coffee night on Mondays for FHE but only 8 of us showed up so now we're wondering if we should go back Tuesdays. But, call it luck, chance, fate, or the Spirit, we happened to run into a bunch of liberal people who some of which happen to be atheists/agnostics/non-religious going to BYU. And they were meeting at the Coffee Pod to organize a protest against Condoleezza Rice for being a war criminal!

The link is here.

Now, I'm not one for protests, but I'll show my support for their cause by rushing out of class to take pictures of them, lol. The protest will be Thursday morning. It's a peaceful protest, with some LDS views being used in support of it. Show up at the parking lot by the Brick Oven or just be down by the south of campus and wait for the picketers. Most likely they will get thrown off, but I'm wondering how far they will get across campus, lol. Maybe some lurking BYU person on here will make it stop before it starts if they read this, but hopefully not. Free speech and beliefs right? Oh yeah, nvm, not at BYU.

So, go support this if you want.

On my last post I mentioned that there were some interesting people on the plane. On a short flight to my layover I happened to sit right in front of some tall guy about to go to Bangladesh on a mission for God. He had some old guy with him, who didn't talk at all. Not Mormon at all, though during the conversations I looked for similarities between the different people involved and Mormonism. There were quite a few, which still makes me believe that Mormonism is a part of Christianity, but definitely not mainstream ... whatever that is.

Well, the guy across from the tall guy happened to be some eastern religion nut. Not in a crazy sense or religious sense, but he was all into it and learning about it and looking for practical application. So Gigantor begins speaking with Buddha Lover about meditation and prayer, Jesus and spiritualism, medicine versus the sacred field of alternative medicine, and people being healed through miracles. Usually the later are famous evangelical preachers who had an experience no one knew about and then share it with everyone, making lots of money on the way. (Or, so Gigantor explained, though he didn't realize how ridiculous he sounded.)

They talked about how some person got cured from cancer because of a prayer, which probability and a skeptically raised eyebrow is all I need to doubt it had anything supernatural occurring or possibly wasn't even true. (Again, friend of a friend type thing.) Eventually the Buddha Lover went to his music and the guy BEHIND HIM began talking to Gigantor. This new third party was a Christian from another sect and began debating Bible scriptures, which Gigantor was as good as any Mormon missionary who has been out for a year (which I mean to say is that he was actually very good.) They went back and forth on whether Paul meant this or that, and eventually got to the faith versus works discussion, which Gigantor was all about faith and grace, works don't mean nuth'n! The new guy didn't agree but couldn't sway the big guy by any means.

Sitting in front of them and by the window I couldn't really contribute without turning awkwardly around and facing the whole plane while kneeling on my chair. I had really wanted to get in on it and start discussing the intense amount of logical fallacies they were drowning us listeners in. Especially all the pseudo-medicine talk. It was completely ridiculous. It came off as if Gigantor was completely adamantly sure he was right, and that Buddha Lover didn't know much but wasn't open-minded to anything except what he had recently been discovering. And from my point of view I just wanted to tell them everything they were saying was third-hand or further in distance, not supported by any evidence except that some person said so, who was momentarily benefiting from it, and that if alternative medicine worked then it would be proven to work! Medicine corporations are a business, and if something could be proven to work, cheap to make, and expensive to sell, they would. Oh wait, that's right, a lot of natural and alternative medicines are actually produced and sold by medicine companies!(no links, but do some research into this, it is a little surprising, except I just stole the punchline.) (And if you're too lazy then just look at bottles and who they are made by and connect the dots with some of these products.)

So I had meant to listen to music but ended up eavesdropping and finding it fascinating how smart they sounded up front but how unscientific and unfounded and fallacious everything they were saying truly was. I mean, some preacher says his wife had some disease no doctor could help with and goes to Asia and was cured by a shaman? And now they make money off preaching new age stuff to people? Suspiciooouuus.

My row-mate had fallen asleep but woke up later. After Gigantor and the new guy had been going at it about the Bible we both chuckled and began discussing religion ourselves. He made the comment that they all think they're own version is right, and I said that the problem is that they think everyone else is wrong. After making some more comments I decided he was non-religious, but I wasn't sure if he was an atheist or not, and now I'm wishing I had probed some more. Regardless, it was fun to agree on some things, probably made him happy to see a young man like myself agreeing with him, and we had a pleasant exchange of farewells.

Of course I should've written about this sooner, would've helped my memory, but I think y'all get the picture.

Lastly, at campus today some girl (and it could've been a guy) was walking down a crosswalk while texting. Only she was doing the 'texting walk' like you'd see some young kid who doesn't know how to walk and chew gum without going real slow or stumble-walking. So she holds up traffic, gets to the other side, and the car waiting turns right just as she obliviously turns out into that crosswalk and continues to hold up vehicles now sitting in the intersection. What a dumb c***!!! Holy hell, I'm sure I've done something stupid while texting, but nothing like that. And she was oblivious! She was going to the sports building and may have been blond. I better stop before I roll out more stereotypes.

Oh, also, I have collected several patriarchal blessings, so probably in the next couple weeks I'll make an 'educational' post about them. Lol. Thank you for everyone who has sent them to me. This is nothing new, other people literally have gathered hundreds and found deeper template foundations for the blessings, I'm just doing mine for fun. Very second-rate. Like most of my blog ....