This summer, when I posted on X about my lifelong conviction that the god of Mormonism is a moral monster, someone told me, very helpfully and completely accurately, that I would love God’s Monsters by Esther Hamori. God’s Monsters is the first work of religious scholarship that has made me…
Category: Bible
Missionary Chat: Origins of the Bible
I’ll admit up front, this chat was basically just an attempt to show that Mormon missionaries are ignorant. Â I wanted to know what they knew about the origins of the Bible. Â Here we go: Bailey: hi how are you? Bart (me): I’m good. How are you? Bailey: good Bailey: what…
SOME THINGS I HAVE LEARNED BY BEING GAY AND MORMON
SOME THINGS THAT I HAVE LEARNED One thing that I have learned is: although Gay people are born gay; when gays have gone through the process of: first denial, then self-loathing and other steps, and finally acceptances; then Gay people are ready to move on to healthy relationships. Another thing…
Savage bullying controversy!!
I’ll be doing my usual SiOB later today, but there was one incident that everyone is talking about that deserves separate attention. By chance, I read about it first on JG-W’s blog: The worst part was not his referring to parts of the Bible as “bullshit” in front of an…
The Virgin Birth
My parents had a copy of Mormon Doctrine when I was growing up. I don’t remember reading it, although I may have cracked it open to write a talk or two. Despite my years of early morning seminary, I don’t remember hearing about whether or not Mary was technically a…
Matthew 22:23-33
I stumbled upon this passage and found it quite interesting. Basically, a trick question is given to Jesus concerning marriage in the afterlife in order to discount resurrection. He is asked if a woman is widowed more than once and is married to multiple men over the course of her…
Taking the Bible Literally
Some years ago, a co-worker expressed her frustration to me. I don’t know how we got on the topic, but she said she just wanted someone to tell her exactly what was in the bible and what it meant. I didn’t make a comment about this, as I wasn’t actively…
An Excerpt from The Fob Bible
A few weeks ago, B10 Mediaworx released the Fob Bible, an anthology of Old Testament stories reimagined as short stories, poetry, and drama by members of the Friends of Ben–a collective of Mormon and ex-Mormon writers. (Full disclosure: I’m Ben.) Since then, the book has received a glowing two–part review…
Scripture Fights and Bible Bashing
One of the fun things about watching people try to argue religion *from an outside perspective* is that you can see the low blows people will make without feeling personally hurt anymore. Non-Mormon Christians will often point to the doubtful historicity of the Book of Mormon and then say, “Aha!”…
Hellmut’s Deconversion
I have been miserable at Church ever since my mission. I still couldn’t get out because I had to act on my testimony even though I experienced Church as toxic every Sunday. To me, the mission experience was dehumanizing and sacrilegious reducing converts to trophies and missionaries to tools. Any…