Comments on: More Mormon Missionary Fun

By: @alysdexia

@alysdexia — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:37:20 +0000

"atonement for the Fall of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden."

Test them. "What do Adam and Eve hav to do with me?" "Are you aware of the content in the commandments' verses?" "Then how long would guilt for sin last in a line?"

By: @alysdexia

@alysdexia — Sun, 30 Aug 2009 04:05:47 +0000

http://wiktionary.org/wiki/nice

By: James Tracy

James Tracy — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:49:23 +0000

Not sure what you are getting at, exactly. When I do ask why somebody would say X it is usually because that person actually believes that X is true. If you remove the definite claims about reality from religion you are not left with much that is coherent or meaningful. I have not met any Christians who believe that Jesus died and rose again only in a story so that they could take comfort in a fictional heaven.

By: MennoMo

MennoMo — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:15:45 +0000

Try setting aside the reductionist approach to religious doctrine. As you have noticed, it leads to conclusions that are about as interesting as 2+2=3. Why spend any of your precious life trying to critique or disprove it, when you already know that 2+2=4? Just use your competitive advantage here to profit, if you can. The more interesting problem is to try to understand: why would somebody say this? why would 1000 generations say this? is there something deeper being grasped at, maybe imperfectly? Given the context, what does it lead to?

By: Darthcynic

Darthcynic — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 22:54:41 +0000

I can honestly say that I had no bad experiences or trauma borne from any religion. It was in combating the doctrines of Mormon missionaries that eventually led me to ask the same questions of my Roman Catholicism. It too failed to stand up to reason and so I lost any faith that may have been present.

I realise that your experience did have a more profound effect and drove you from the LDS, but that is not quite the same as turning reason on the doctrines, claims and supernatural characters of religion.

By: James Tracy

James Tracy — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 17:33:43 +0000

You seem to want to reduce religion to mother goose stories that provide little moral lessons for oneself. Or perhaps I am misinterpreting what you are saying. Either way, religions make specific claims about the nature of reality that are taken to be true by their adherents. When the missionaries tell me about the spirit world and the various kingdoms of heaven they are not telling me stories that they hope I can identify with. They actually believe these are real and that the fate of my "spirit" body depends on doing the right things and having the right beliefs here on Earth.

This is ultimately what I am critiquing and what I mean by true religious doctrine. Many religions could "speak to me" if I hoped for an eternal afterlife. But embracing any of them with no evidence that what they preach is a true state of affairs seems useless and a waste of time to me.

By: MennoMo

MennoMo — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 12:04:18 +0000

That depends on what we mean when we say 'true religious doctrine'. It sounds as if you think that the point of religion is to provide history or science lessons, and that it fails in that point. I think of religion as 'stories told in past tense that are really about our identity and future'. Does a doctrine speak to your identity and what you hope for? That's your religion. Is your hope true of the future? If so, then it was true doctrine when you were just hoping it. What you identify with, and what you hope for are inseparably connected to 'issues … going on inside of oneself'.

By: James Tracy

James Tracy — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:48:54 +0000

Whatever issues or non-issues are going on inside of oneself has no bearing whatsoever on the truth or falsity of the doctrines of any religion.

By: MennoMo

MennoMo — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:36:45 +0000

scary stuff – appeal to emotions – isn't it? Its really easy to reason about all of the facts that are outside of yourself. Much trickier to deal with the facts inside of yourself. At least that's what I've found.

By: James Tracy

James Tracy — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:18:15 +0000

I can only speak for myself, but I have never been a member of any church group. Nevertheless, this is essentially an appeal to emotions rather than an appeal to facts.