The God Delusion

[_Aristotle Smith]

Here's where you're missing the point. The people who leave because of the Book of Abraham don't just realize that the Book of Abraham isn't true. They realize that the Book of Abraham isn't true, but they used to know that the church was true, and they realize that if the Book of Abraham and these other things you pointed out were valid evidence that the church wasn't true, then there was a problem with why they used to believe the church was true.

With all due respect, you are still thinking like a Mormon. Mormons tend to assume that personal feelings with regards to religion are both epistemically secure and interpretation free. Further they assume that this is the royal, nay the only, road to knowledge of the divine. So when you find out that's not the case, that's the only thing you have found out. You haven't touched any of the objects of your beliefs which you came by through this method. In short, just because you had a method of discovering truth get crushed doesn't mean that it actually touched any of the truths you used to hold. Only if you still assume that Mormons have this 100% correct does the following make any logical sense:

P1: I have a spiritual witness that the church is true.
P2: The church is not true (as evidenced by whatever).

Since I reject the idea that the Mormon "spiritual witness" is the only guide to divine truth, I am open to other avenues of finding truth about God. It appears that you still believe it's the Mormon's way or the highway. Given that choice, I guess the highway is the only logical choice.

You are arguing theology. There are certainly some Mormons who leave over theological disagreements, and go evangelical, or Catholic, or whatever. The ones we're talking about here, those who go atheist, are not having fundamentally theological differences. At least this is my own experience.

When I consider your case, I consider the case of a guy who realized that the Book of Mormon isn't actually true, and the other Mormon claims, but who still considers the Bible to be the word of God, at least it is except all the parts you don't believe in anymore, and the parts that you've studied up on and figured out how to interpret differently, and so forth and so on. You jumped out of the frying pan and into the fire.

I'm actually not arguing theology. I'm just saying that most Mormons seem to be ignorant of Christianity. If I say most Americans are ignorant about evolution am I now arguing biology?

That you think I have jumped out of the frying pan into the fire just adds more evidence to the fact that most Mormons (and ex-Mormons) are completely ignorant about how Christianity is practiced, what it's history is, and how it is completely different than Mormonism.

[_Jersey Girl]

Exmormons don’t flock to Christianity for the same reason that other non-Christians don’t—they just don’t have a very convincing message.

I agree.

In your view, sock, what is the message of Christianity?

[_Sethbag]

It doesn't take a PhD. You either believe in God or you don't.

Well, most or at least some of us LDS who have left the Mormons and become atheists did so because everyone else that we knew who believed in God did so for recognizably bad reasons - the same bad reasons, or similar enough, that kept us Mormon for so long.

You seem to be saying hey, maybe all the theists you know, or have ever met, were thinking badly this way. But here's a library of serious theologians or PhDs in the Philosophy of Religion, and if only you'd immerse yourself in their writings (and the prerequisites required to understand them and discuss them with the likes of yourself) for as long as it takes to come up to speed, you could figure this God thing out after all.

This will seem incredibly shallow to you, for very philosophically deep and sophisticated reasons, but I dismiss that idea pretty much out of hand. I will call this my argument from the unlikely amount of rigorous philosophical training and discipline God would require us to undergo in order to be able to view his existence as perhaps plausible.

Literally billions of people living today, and tens of billions previously deceased, have not ever had a realistic chance of receiving the kind of sophisticated philosophical training you seem to believe could justify God's existence. This raises all kinds of red flags for me. I'm sorry if that's not philosophically sophisticated enough for you.

[_sock puppet]

There are three simple notions at play. First, logically, just because one discovers that Mormonism is not true, it does not necessarily mean that Christianity is not.

Second, psychologically, if your belief in Christianity was via Mormonism, when you discovered that Mormonism is not true, Christianity got jettisoned as well.

Third, apathetically, Christianity is not of itself appealing enough to command in-depth investigation by many ex-Mormons, so without a compelling motivation to do so they never analyze Christianity separately.

[Guest]

Jason,

Below is an excerpt from a lecture by Sam Harris. This text shown below deals with Harris' take on Mormonism and starts at 13:30 in the video.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ODz7kRS2XPs#t=795s

The problem is that the concept of atheism imposes upon us a false burden of remaining fixated on people's beliefs about God and remaining even-handed in our treatment of religion. But we shouldn't be fixated, and we shouldn't be even-handed. In fact, we should be quick to point out the differences among religions, for two reasons:

First, these differences make all religions look contingent, and therefore silly. Consider the unique features of Mormonism, which may have some relevance in the next Presidential election. Mormonism, it seems to me, is—objectively—just a little more idiotic than Christianity is. It has to be: because it is Christianity plus some very stupid ideas. For instance, the Mormons think Jesus is going to return to earth and administer his Thousand years of Peace, at least part of the time, from the state of Missouri.


Why does this make Mormonism less likely to be true than Christianity? Because whatever probability you assign to Jesus' coming back, you have to assign a lesser probability to his coming back and keeping a summer home in Jackson County, Missouri. If Mitt Romney wants to be the next President of the United States, he should be made to feel the burden of our incredulity. We can make common cause with our Christian brothers and sisters on this point. Just what does the man believe? The world should know. And it is almost guaranteed to be embarrassing even to most people who believe in the biblical God.

The second reason to be attentive to the differences among the world's religions is that these differences are actually a matter of life and death. There are very few of us who lie awake at night worrying about the Amish. This is not an accident. While I have no doubt that the Amish are mistreating their children, by not educating them adequately, they are not likely to hijack aircraft and fly them into buildings. But consider how we, as atheists, tend to talk about Islam. Christians often complain that atheists, and the secular world generally, balance every criticism of Muslim extremism with a mention of Christian extremism. The usual approach is to say that they have their jihadists, and we have people who kill abortion doctors.


Our Christian neighbors, even the craziest of them, are right to be outraged by this pretense of even-handedness, because the truth is that Islam is quite a bit scarier and more culpable for needless human misery, than Christianity has been for a very, very long time. And the world must wake up to this fact. Muslims themselves must wake up to this fact. And they can.

______________
From a thread going on over at post mo.

[_EAllusion]

No it isn't, it's a small industry (at best) that gets an inordinate amount of attention.

This simply isn't true. The largest body of Christians in the world, Catholics, are still fairly wedded to natural theology in their educational system.

[_EAllusion]

No it isn't, it's a small industry (at best) that gets an inordinate amount of attention.

This simply isn't true. The largest body of Christians in the world, Catholics, are still fairly wedded to natural theology in their educational system. It's not like "natural theology" is the same thing as "creationism." It refers to any empirical basis for believing in God.

[_MrStakhanovite]

This simply isn't true. The largest body of Christians in the world, Catholics, are still fairly wedded to natural theology in their educational system.

wat

Catholics have produce more work on Liturgical theology alone, than natural theology.

[_sock puppet]

Exmormons don’t flock to Christianity for the same reason that other non-Christians don’t—they just don’t have a very convincing message.

I agree.

In your view, sock, what is the message of Christianity?

I am too apathetic regarding religion and theology in general to care what or have a view of the message of Christianity might be, much less care to attempt to articulate "my view" of the message of Christianity. I don't give it much thought in terms of a 'message'. It's not even as interesting to me as Mormonism remains, though I admit Christianity is somewhat intriguing in a sociological way and even the psychologies that surround the seductiveness of the Jesus myth that draws many into it.

I don't believe Jesus, if there was such a character historically, was deity. I think 'Jesus' was the object of myth making, to which several well meaning people attributed a number of good, civil characteristics, and rolled them all up into one and voila, Jesus was 'born'.

Many seeking power and riches, have used the Jesus myth as a tool to pursue those goals. JSJr was one who used the Jesus myth in just that way.

I doubt this is the type of response that you may have anticipate, if not been looking for. But this is the most honest answer I can give to your question.

[_Ceeboo]

If I were to look at the entire collection of my participation on these Mormon boards over the last few years, I would be hard pressed to suggest anything that has given me a deeper understanding, and/or clearer view of my LDS friends as the last few pages of this thread has.

Wow!

For clarity, it strikes me as enormously valuable and informative only (I do not judge at all)

Peace,
Ceeboo