DiscussMormonism.com

huckelberry wrote:Sethbag, those are a good set of criticism to my mind. I am aware that each has been promoted by people. As a believer in God I see these suppositions to be about God not of God.

Sethbag wrote:The idea that the Creator of the Universe would choose to communicate with his creations in matters of eternal importance to their supposed immortal souls by appearing in secret to one man, and telling this man he had been deputized to represent the Creator on Earth, is absurd.

That the Creator of the Universe would intend for this one man to stand up and proclaim that he now has the Creator's own power to tell the rest of us what we have to do, to include handing over our money, and in Joseph Smith's case our wives and daughters for him to “F”, is even more absurd.

It is all absurd for a host of reasons. One of the primary reasons is that we already know, as intelligent people who have copious historical records and at least a modicum of critical thinking skills, that this "God appeared to me and told me I get to represent him on Earth and tell you all what to do" schtick has been played by obvious conmen and charlatans, pious fanatics, and despots (think: divine right of kings) throughout all of human history, and in pretty much every society. We're talking thousands and thousands of examples, if we could document them all.

The "I'm God's Vice-Regent" spiel is such an obvious, self-centered power play that to any critically-thinking person, the immediate assumption should always be that this is just another example of a guy trying to usurp power for his own elevation and gain.

Nobody who has ever used the "God appointed me to represent himself to you" shtick has ever articulated a clear, unambiguous, reliable method of determining that this claim is the exception to our historical observations about such claims.

And the Creator would know this. It is absurd.

DrW wrote:

huckelberry wrote:Sethbag, those are a good set of criticism to my mind. I am aware that each has been promoted by people. As a believer in God I see these suppositions to be about God not of God.

Once one comes to the realization that God - any god - is a pure product of the human mind, and nothing more, the suppositions listed by Sethbag's human mind do indeed become the suppositions of God.

Why is this clearly self evident reality so hard for adults (especially reasonably educated adults) to grasp?

DrW wrote:Hey Sock,

RE: your sigline # 2:

And the truth shall set you free, but first it will piss you off. is a now famous quotation from Gloria Steinem.

Mike Utah apparently failed to properly attribute this quotation on his blog.

Sethbag wrote:Here's another head-scratcher.

Take a random sampling of 100 deeply religious people from all over the world, and put them in a room.

Maybe 1 or 2 will be Mormon. Like most of the people in that room, they will be convinced that everyone else has got it wrong, but that they themselves don't.

It never occurs to anyone in the room that if the other 98 people are all convinced that they are right, when in fact they are wrong, then it's perfectly natural, even overwhelmingly common, for human beings to suffer from some cognitive or logical deficit* that blinds them to their own incorrectness.

Dunning and Krueger would be so proud.

*I guess some are self-aware enough not to make the mistake of chalking it up to a cognitive deficit, knowing that that would imply something about their own certitude; hence, it's "the Devil" blinding everyone else in the room. Once again, absurd.

Maksutov wrote:

Sethbag wrote:Here's another head-scratcher.

Take a random sampling of 100 deeply religious people from all over the world, and put them in a room.

Maybe 1 or 2 will be Mormon. Like most of the people in that room, they will be convinced that everyone else has got it wrong, but that they themselves don't.

It never occurs to anyone in the room that if the other 98 people are all convinced that they are right, when in fact they are wrong, then it's perfectly natural, even overwhelmingly common, for human beings to suffer from some cognitive or logical deficit* that blinds them to their own incorrectness.

Dunning and Krueger would be so proud.

*I guess some are self-aware enough not to make the mistake of chalking it up to a cognitive deficit, knowing that that would imply something about their own certitude; hence, it's "the Devil" blinding everyone else in the room. Once again, absurd.

As Dawkins has said, your religion is usually a matter of your geography and upbringing.

sock puppet wrote:Because we all want again a mommy to take care of us as we had when we were infants.