For some reason someone thought it would be a good idea to invite Dallin Oaks to Harvard to talk to students. First mistake. Dallin Oaks went. Second mistake. Dallin Oaks said something. Third mistake. Quick summary of what Oaks said: People in the US, generally, are ignorant about religion. He…
Category: Theology
Oldies but Goodies: Testimony of a Dissident
A while back another blogger asked me to submit an essay about my Mormon experience. Probably, for good reasons he changed his mind and never published it. Since it is already written and might shed some light on my argument at Times and Seasons, I might as well publish it…
The Boiled Seed and Honesty
A while back, I heard a rather innocuous story about honesty at stake conference (ok, so it’s not as prestigious as general conference…). I didn’t care much about the choice of story he used, since it seemed trite (it was some Chinese feel-good fable), but as I read a passage…
Let’s present scriptures for our edification
I’m going to ask you to do something. Something you may not have done in a long time. Pull out a set of scriptures, wherever you can find them, and search for a scripture. This is my clever way of getting people to confront the scriptures. But don’t think I’ve…
Every exmember a missionary.
These days, I don’t talk religion that much with people offline that much, and even when I do, I keep my religion/lack thereof cloudy until someone asks outright (it’s amazing how many people will talk and talk presuming you’re Christian and never ask you if you feel otherwise…but maybe that’s…
The church: not spiritual enough?
So, when I was checking through the list of scheduled posts at Mormon Matters, I was excited because I saw a post about the “Role of the Church in the Pursuit of Righteousness: Why it works for some and not for others.” And oh boy, I was so excited, because…
On the church’s uniqueness
…Sometimes, these blog entries just take too much time to set up…anyway, I was reading Mormon Matters and getting into the discussion there, and Bruce had said something that I found intriguing: …John Dehlin suggested that it was a mistake for modern Mormons to down play what he calls “19th…
Your Sunday School Lesson: The First Vision
According to the philosopher Mircea Eliade, of whose work I learned at BYU, every community, tribe, or nation requires an origin myth. The account of a community’s or practice’s origin has far reaching consequences because it implies how they relate to the cosmos, which is necessary for human beings to…
Sure, I’ll tell you why there is no god…
So, I’m minding my own business being an atheist and not talking to anyone about it when I get a note from my TBM sister-in-law. Here’s what it says: I have a question for you. I have to do a presentation on “does God exist?” I have to use both…
Black White thinking
I left active mormonism when I was a teenager during a great deal of personal growth and change. Looking back on it, it’s hard to say what belief systems were part of mormonism, and what were just part of maturing (growing up). I would argue that there are many mormons…