The "Fatal Flaw" That First Sowed the Seed of Doubt

Mickey and I saw the movie Doubt a couple of days ago. It was one of those movies that didn't resolve anything at the end of the movie, but sent you on your way with new unaswered questions.

The movie opens with a sermon about a trained mariner who was a sole survivor of a sinking ship that went down at night. He was left with a lifeboat, and a sail. He had enough food and water for 10 days. He knew from before the ship sank that he was 10 days from the closest land of any kind, so he set his course by the stars. For the next several days there was changing weather and heavy cloud cover both day and night. Imagine how difficult it would be to never change your course from the one chance that you had to determine the one and only path that would save your life!

Is there any doubt in your life? What should you do about it?

In my life I can look back and see the first hints of doubt about the veracity of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and it is this: If a man lives a perfectly good life, and does every kind of "good" that the Mormon doctrine teaches, but turned away the missionaries and said that he didn't need religion in order to do good, the Mormon doctrine would condemn this man because he rejected baptism. End of story! One strike and you're out! That is the doctrine, so don't try to sugarcoat it and make it more palatable. Also, don't go and put it on the shelf as a question that will be answered in the next life. If your religion teaches this doctrine, this is a valid question that needs to be answered.

Why is a "good life" not "good enough" for your God?

Please don't try to tell me that "baptism is the door" and everybody has to pass through the door. A real heaven would not have walls to hold people out, so there is no use for a door. The Soviet Union built a wall in Berlin. China built a wall. Prisons have walls. Vaults have walls. A benevolent God would have no use for a wall.

I could never understand how the Mormon God would discredit a perfectly good life that was lived in every way according to the same teachings of good social graces and humanity that the Mormon Church taught just because the man had a chance to be baptized and he refused. It made about as much sense as the Catholic baby that would burn forever in hell if it wasn't christened before it died.

For two years, as a missionary in Uruguay, my companions and I would meet wonderful and good people who didn't want to take the discussions and join the Mormon Church, but every month in zone conference it was drummed into our minds that these people would have to convert to Mormonism and be baptized before God would open the doors of the Celestial Kingdom to them.

That is what first sowed the seed of doubt in my mind...not only with regard to Mormonism, but with regard with any organized religion.

While my siblings will use the mariner allegory from the Doubt sermon to point to my departure from God as a course correction that will cost me my eternal salvation, I prefer to think of the allegory in another way.

My parents taught me to live a life of integrity, and this integrity included a propensity to do good to all humanity. Because my parents also belonged to the Mormon Church, they augmented their teaching with the tools available to them at the time to help me set the course for my life. By 1977, after growing up in Cardston, and in ultra-conservative Alberta, Canada, the course had pretty much been set for my life and I moved away from home. I never went back to Cardston, and rarely had contact with my parents because my life took me to far-away cities.

Storms came, and my lifeboat took a beating. I knew I had been knocked off course, but was I just a little off course, or was I way off course? I had no idea, and I could no longer see the stars (my parents had died). One day, the clouds thinned, and for a moment I could discern where the sun was and its direction of movement. I adjusted my course, and it saved my life.

In my case, doubt was healthy.

One should always be prepared to question authority, and never follow it blindly. Common sense dictates that a person would seek a second source when it is available, and when doubt creeps in, allow it room to see if the information now available to you...current information...is going to prove more reliable than something based on old traditions and outmoded thinking.

My parents, and the Mormon Church in the 1970's, did not have any understanding of what made a man experience attraction to other men. It just "seemed odd" to them, so they taught that it was wrong. They set their course, and Mormon tradition dictated that they never deviate from that. When the "sun became visible" and science irrefutably supported the hypothesis that a small (but consistent) percentage of men are actually born gay and cannot change this orientation, nobody in the Mormon Church (or my family) was willing to correct their course.

That is the fatal flaw of religion. The Abrahamic religions set their course, and here we are, 5,000 years later, with billions of followers who are not willing to look up in the daytime to a fully visible sky and adjust their course based on new, current, information.

With the hope of giving you a gentle nudge toward healthy doubt, I ask you again: "What kind of God is it that you (they) worship where a "good life" is never going to be "good enough" unless a person accepts some mythical ethos that there has to be a savior?"

I just don't get it. I never have. Not even on my best day as a Mormon.

Why was I 44 years old before I looked to science for an answer to my same-sex attraction questions?

Celsus was a pagan writer in the 2nd century AD. His writing would have been lost forever when the Roman Empire became Christian because they set out to eradicate everything pagan and in the process destroyed all of Celsus' writing. Ironically, one of the Greek Fathers quoted and paraphrased much of Celsus' arguments as a preliminary to attacking them, thus reconstructing virtually all of his lost works.

In light of this, the following is a priceless quote:

"Christians usually flee headlong from cultured people, who are not prepared to be deceived; but they trap illiterate folk...Their injunctions are like this. 'Let no one educated, no one wise, no one sensible draw near. For these abilities are thought by us [Christians] to be evils. But as for anyone ignorant, anyone stupid, anyone uneducated, anyone who is a child, let him come boldly [to embrace Christianity].'...Some of the [Christians] do not even want to give or receive a reason for what they believe, and use such expressions as 'Do not ask questions; just believe', and 'Thy faith will save thee.' And they say, 'The wisdom in the world is an evil, and foolishness a good thing'...But why is it bad to have been educated and to have studied the best doctrines, and both to be and to appear intelligent?...However, there are among the Christians some moderate, reasonable, and intelligent people, who readily interpret allegorically."

I guess Celsus made room for my son Peter in that last line, but the whole quote pretty much sums up the Mormon (and fundamentalist Christian) mentality to homosexuality. When I read this the first time I kept getting an image of that wild-haired woman at the McCain rally who said in her halting, fearful voice..."I don't trust Obama! He's an Arab!" How did Celsus put it? "But as for anyone ignorant, anyone stupid, anyone uneducated...let [her] come boldly [and join the Republican Party]."

As for medical professionals and scientists...if it wasn't for the 'purple Kool-Aid' they were given as toddlers, I just don't get how they could be Christianists and Mormons. The following is copied from the NARTH web page. NARTH is the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality and virtually every Mormon psychologist is trained through NARTH workshops. When the APA (American Psychological Association and/or American Psychiatric Association) came out with various statements that recommend among other things "that schools censor all ex-gay materials", NARTH issued the following statement:

"And when homosexuality is discussed [in public schools], it must not cross the line into lifestyle advocacy. Ultimately, sexual lifestyle decisions hinge on matters of deeply held values. Schools should respect the right of families to convey their own social values to their children."

Hello! Is anybody home in the head of a NARTH therapist? It isn't 1973 anymore, and homosexuality is fully understood now as a trait at birth. NARTH leaders have been trying to recussitate the "lifestyle choice" argument at every annual APA conference and want every therapist to treat homosexuality as an "addiction" or something that can be overcome by just changing your mind about who you are attracted to. Every few years, NARTH and so-called professionals from organizations like Exodus show up with revised wording for the handbooks that will reverse the 1973 ruling that homosexuality was no longer to be treated as a "mental illness".

It isn't just homosexuality that is the target of Christianists and Mormons. They would prefer that any discussion of evolution be banned, and that the only conversation about sex would be the idea that you will go to hell if you aren't married to the person with whom you are intimate.

If any of the above does not answer all your questions, just put that thought on "the shelf" and wait until you are dead, at which point your god will answer all those questions.

What Motivates a Mormon to "Do Good"?

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus was the last of the "Five Good Emperors" of Rome, and he died precisely sixteen and half centuries before Joseph Smith founded the Mormon Church. He was affectionately known as "Marcus The Wise", and he wrote of one of the inherent flaws that plague the LDS Church in modern times. He spoke of three kinds of men:

"One kind of man, when he does a good turn to someone, is forward also to set down the favour to his account. Another is not forward to do this, but still within himself he thinks as though he were a creditor and is conscious of what he has done. A third is in a sense not even conscious of what he has done, but he is like a vine which has borne grapes, and asks nothing more when once it has borne its appropriate fruit. A horse runs, a hound tracks, bees make honey, and [the third] man does good, but doesn't know that he has done it and passes on to a second act, like a vine to bear once more its grapes in due season. You ought then to be one of these who in a way are not aware of what they do."

I was raised "keeping score" for myself, and by training me to do this, the LDS Church also taught me to subconsciously "keep score" for every member of the church around me. As an Elder's Quorum President I was keenly aware of who showed up to help people move and assist others in the quorum in doing tasks that could not be done on their own. The needs of others are front and center in the Mormon Church, but so is the "score keeping".

I think at the root of this trend is the notion that Mormon have to "earn their way" into the Celestial Kingdom. Just getting into "heaven" is not enough for a true-blue Mormon (TBM) because families are only eternal if you make it to the top-third of the Celestial Kingdom, so the self-evaluation is critical. If you sin (a minus), you have to counteract that with a good deed (a plus).

Just doing good because it is a part of human nature is very rare in a Mormon congregation. The Ward PEC (priesthood executive committee) is always keeping score. I know because for fully half of my adult life I was a member of a ward or branch PEC in more than six congregations from Edmonton (AB) to Yellowknife (NT) to Greater Vancouver (BC). I know there a "good Mormons" (like my son), but they are the exception rather than the rule.

"Lester, God told you to call!"

I have been inspired by two events in the last couple of days that has helped me formulate a substitute for people when they begin to doubt the existence of a supreme being.

The first comes from Pliny the Elder, a Roman writer who was also a military man. He was born during the period that Christians claim was Jesus lifetime, and died in the eruptions of Vesuvius at the age of 56. He wrote:

"For mortal to aid mortal--this is God."

By itself, this quote would not have inspired me to write about it in my blog, but coupled with a phone call last night, this was very powerful. You see, last night I called my very dear friend in Naples to wish him a Merry Christmas. His name is Harry, and quite honestly I can attribute almost everything I enjoy in my current life as a gay man to what I learned from him after he took me in during my first several months after coming out in January 2005. While on the phone with Harry, he said:

"God told you to call, Lester. I've been very lonely lately."

For four months in early 2005, Harry was the "god" that I needed. On numerous occasions since then, I have been the "god" that Harry needed.

A humanist understands this duty with every breath that he takes, and assumes that obligation with all the religious fervor than an evangelical claims for Jesus.

A humanist likewise recognizes the "godlike" attributes in others who have been placed in a position to help him at critical junctures in his life.

Early Christmas Present (Part 2)

This is a continuation from the previous blog. Please read this last.

In addition to the brain virus, Dawkins talks about a related symptom which a faith-sufferer may also experience. It has to do with the "mystery", per se, being a "good thing".

In the eyes of a religious-sufferer "...it is not a virtue to solve mysteries. Rather we should enjoy them, even revel in their insolubility."

This is where the shelf metaphor comes in to my life...and is something that I inherently understood when I realized that I was gay and a Mormon. Can you see why? It is because in that instant I set out to solve the mystery! This is where I get to introduce the 'word-of-the-day' to some of you. Inimical means "an enemy of" of "hostile toward".

"Any impulse to solve mysteries could be seriously inimical to the spread of a mind virus."

Did you get that?

If a man can convince you to stop trying to "solve mysteries" (which is what Joseph Smith did when he sold people on The First Vision, the Book of Mormon, and polygamy, among other things), the end result is that you soon have a "gang of viruses" running rampant in the minds of every adherent to that religion.

In closing, I encourage you to go out an borrow Humanist Anthology from the library or buy a used copy from Amazon and find out what a kind place the world would be once we eradicate the "mind viruses" that Richard Dawkins talks about.

An Early Christmas Present from Mickey

Last night I went to my second yoga class and it just happened to fall one day before the winter solstice...a big day for yoga people. The yoga master spoke about eliminating shadows, embracing shadows, and the significance of seeking light on the day when we experience the longest night (yin-yang theory).

So, when I came home and starting searching the Internet for information on "shadow dancing" as it relates to yoga and all that, it prompted Mickey to bring out one of my Christmas presents early: a book called "Humanist Anthology: from Confucius to Attenborough".

Of course I quickly leafed through the pages (it is chronologically listed - thereby the name), so toward the end I found my favorite humanist, Richard Dawkins. What he wrote dovetailed nicely with the blog I posted yesterday from Huff-Po (Huffington Post) on the "Ending Religious-Based Bigotry" blog (link here).

"A new study out of Yale University confirms what argumentative liberals have long-known: Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder."

That was a quote from a recent news story, but now read what Margaret Knight & James Herrick deemed worthy to publish from Richard Dawkins in their "Humanist Anthology":

Viruses of the Mind
Like computer viruses, successful mind viruses will tend to be hard for their victims to detect. If you are the victim of one, the chances are that you won't know it, and may even vigorously deny it.

Okay, I have to interrupt right now. The Mormon Church mastered the art of implanting mind viruses before the church was even formed. Wait...I'll go even further than that. The pilgrims had mastered the art of planting mind viruses by the time they started burning witches in Salem. The Mormons just captured the moment from the 1830's and between them and the other fundies they have kept the many viruses alive.

Along that vein, of all my brothers and sisters, Fara would be the only one who has stopped to ask herself if there is a chance that she might "have a virus". Anyway, back to Dawkins.

He suggests that a person look for the following tell-tale signs that might suggest that you are "infected" with a mind virus.

1) The "patient" will find himself impelled by some deep, inner conviction that something is true, or right, or virtuous: a conviction that doesn't seem to owe anything to evidence or reason, but which, nevertheless, he feels as totally compelling and convincing. We doctors refer to such a belief as 'faith'. [Note that this by itself does not indicate a virus...keep reading.]
2) Patients typically make a positive virtue of [this] faith being strong and unshakable, in spite of not being based upon evidence. Indeed, they may feel that the less evidence there is, the more virtuous the belief.

From a scientific perspective, can you see the paradox? This is where I have to remind you about the Huff-Po article: "Offering reality-based rebuttals to conservative lies only makes conservatives cling to those lies even harder."

Let me see if I can illustrate the connection better than Dawkins did...I had to read his excerpt a couple of times to connect it, but this is how the virus infects the brain.
a) There is no evidence, but you truly believe this inner conviction that you have. Let me illustrate with something that is quintessentially "Mormon"; like Joseph Smith really was lead to a rock on the Hill Cumorah and told to dig it up and flip it over to find gold plates.
b) Now, where normal thinking would tell you to doubt something that could make you play the fool (for example, somebody hands you six numbers and tells you to buy a lottery ticket because tonight will be the night those numbers win), in the case of a mind virus the actual lack of evidence is used to elevate the quality or importance of holding fast to this inner conviction of yours.

From an evidentiary standpoint the two qualities won't hold water because b) uses a) to support itself. It is self-referencing, but because of the brain virus (just like a computer virus often uses a programming loop to infect thousands of files in a matter of seconds), this "belief" now automatically undermines opposition to itself and the infected brain starts to malfunction and normal reasoning soon fails to find any traction.

"Why do you believe in the Book of Mormon? People dug up the Hill Cumorah for decades after Joseph Smith made those claims and found nothing. Where are all the bones from that final battle? Why haven't they been found? Why is the DNA from American Indians connected to Asians, not Middle-Easterners?

There is no evidence, and in spite of the best efforts of the Mormon apologists (trust me, I've heard all the arguments), the answer is always the same..."I believe it in my heart".

Huh? In case you missed it, here is the viral loop: "I know the gospel is true because I believe it is true."

Now, in the case of something where there is no evidence to refute it, that works, but every year science makes it increasingly difficult to be religious, and what has been the consequences of these scientific advances?

We have to fight in order to have evolution taught in American schools because the Christianists want to teach that the Earth is just 7,000 years old and was once completely covered with water...including Mount Everest.

We have to fight in order to have AIDS prevention and other sex education taught in American schools because to actually tell kids to use a condom you would have to admit that some of them might actually experience sexual intimacy before they get married.

We have to fight to afford gays their right to love according to their biological composition because somebody decided in the ancient world that it was just weird that a man would lie with another man...just like it was weird to that one single race of people to mix fibers in cloth and eat shellfish.

But Dawkins didn't end there. The rest of his excerpt is in the next post and it is even more important than these points are.

A Reprise for Ted Haggard

In honor of the documentary coming up for Ted Haggard (where he admits that he is a "loser" at this point in his life), and in light of the fact that he still admits that he struggles with his sexuality, I wanted to post a video "reprise" of the Roy Zimmerman sketch. Go figure...if you're born gay it seems logical that you would be "struggling your entire life" to live as anything but a gay man.

This song was first performed in April 2007. It is good political commentary wrapped up with a belly full of laughs. Remember, it was only 3 weeks in "straight school" when Ted declared himself "completely heterosexual".

Roy Zimmerman has also done a sketch on Larry Craig.

"Ted Haggard is Completely Heterosexual"

Bishop John Shelby Spong (retired) - a voice of reason

Bishop John Shelby Spong is a retired Episcopalian Bishop and prolific writer. I was introduced to him by the book, "Sins of Scripture". I now subscribe to his weekly email. This came yesterday:

Jeannie from Chaska, Minnesota, writes:
How do we really know what Jesus said? They get so much wrong. Is it not a house of cards?

Dear Jeannie,
It is not easy to determine what Jesus actually said or did, but I believe it is more substantial than a house of cards. Probably the reason traditional Catholics and evangelical Protestant fundamentalists try to literalize the Bible is that they recognize how fragile their grasp on truth really is and, unable to be secure in that fragility, they make incredible claims for the literal words of scripture or for the teaching authority of the church. Literalism in any form is little more than pious hysteria.

The problems are that we have nothing in writing from the time Jesus lived. The earliest material in the New Testament would be Paul's Epistles, written 20-34 years after the crucifixion and by a man who did not know the human Jesus. Paul's conversion is dated some one to six years after the crucifixion. From Paul we learn that Jesus was crucified, that he introduced the Lord's Supper and that he was perceived as alive in some way following the crucifixion and little more.

The gospels are written between 70 years after Christ at the earliest (Mark) and 100 years at the latest (John). Yet all four gospels reveal the impact of this Jesus on a variety of people. The Fellows of the Jesus Seminar spent more than a decade going over everything that the four gospels record Jesus as ever having said. When they completed this study, they determined that no more than 16% of the sayings of Jesus are authentic to the man Jesus which, of course, means that some 84% of the sayings attributed to Jesus are not historically accurate. The Seminar did not find a single word attributed to Jesus in the Fourth Gospel (John) to be authentic. The Jesus of John's gospel speaks to the concerns of the Christian Church near the end of the first century, not the literal words of a man of history.

I think I can demonstrate that all four of the gospel writers knew they were not writing either history or biography. Each was interpreting Jesus in the context of their relationship with the Synagogue and their time in history, most especially following the Jewish-Roman War when in 70 CE the city of Jerusalem was leveled by the Roman invaders.

If we looked at the gospels as portraits of Jesus painted by the second or even third generation of Christians and not as photographs or tape recordings capturing his exact deeds and words, I think we would be closer to the truth.

I believe the gospels give us insight into the impact of a man of history and they open the doors for an exploration into the mystery and wonders of God. That is why I treasure them.
– John Shelby Spong

Good vs. Evil: Contrasting the Humanist View with the Religious View

I didn't get too far in my reading this morning before my blood started to boil.

On page 134 of "The Shack", the author attempts to explain why "God" not only allows, but arranges for bad things to happen to good people. Sarayu (the Holy Ghost), is staged in a conversation with Mack (the main character) for the following dialogue:

"Let me begin by asking you a question. When something happens to you, how do you determine whether it is good or evil?"

Mack thought for a moment before answering. "I guess I would say that something is good when I like it--when it makes me feel good or gives me a sense of security. Conversely, I'd call something evil that causes me pain or costs me something I want.

"...Some things I initially thought were good turned out to be horribly destructive, and some things that I thought were evil, well, they turned out..."

He hesitated before finishing his thought, but Sarayu interrupted. "Then it is you who determines good and evil. You become the judge. And to make things more confusing, that which you determine to be good will change over time and circumstance. And then beyond that and even worse, there are billions of you each determining what is good and what is evil. So when your good and evil clashes with your neighbor's, fights and arguments ensue and even wars break out."

The author then goes into this double-speak type of logic that connects this all back to the "tree of knowledge of good and evil", and what a literal calamity it was that Eve partook of it, saying, "A problem? Indeed! The choice to eat of that tree tore the universe apart divorcing the spiritual from the physical. They [Adam and Eve] died, expelling in the breath of their choice the very breath of God. I would say that is a problem!"

This is when the author went into the most damaging logic, which is absolutely frighting to me when I realize how many people have bought into this book; hook, line and sinker. Taken from page 136:

"So there is a way to fix [mankind's insane lust for independence]?" asked Mack.

"You must give up your right to decide what is good and evil on your own terms. That is a hard pill to swallow; choosing to only live in me. To do that you must know me enough to trust me and learn to rest in my inherent goodness."

Well, since religion is primarily of interest to the uneducated, what did this paragraph just accomplish? If this is supposedly the Holy Ghost talking to Mack, and the reader has just been counselled to "only live in me" and "know me enough to trust me", then how, exactly is that accomplished?

This is how...by going to church and "learning about the Holy Ghost" through the words of a preacher...a man! You are essentially being told to follow the leaders of your church blindly, and now, worse than that, "...give up your right to decide what is good and evil on your own terms...choosing to only live in me."

I have a better idea. Rather than follow "a man" who claims to be "speaking the word of God", why don't you just trust yourself...your own inner goodness?

The following is from a new web site that people are being directed to from ads on the sides of buses in Washington DC. The website is http://www.whybelieveinagod.org/.

"Many people imagine that the only way to be good in this world is through belief in a god. But is that really necessary? Must we be bound by moral dictates set down in “sacred” texts written hundreds, if not thousands of years ago? Must we accept the authority and judgments of “spiritual” leaders and religious hierarchy? Does religious faith offer the only lens through which to judge life’s events?

The answer to these questions is no! There is another way for us to approach life. We can have ethics and values based on our built-in drives toward a moral life. And we can expand on these by adding what we have learned over time, building on tested principles while weighing consequences—all in the light of compassion and reason. Our ideals and principles can thus adapt to face the new moral dilemmas that arise in our ever-changing and increasingly complex world. Although there are few simple answers to life’s problems, we can be confident in the decisions we make—not because someone told us what is right but because we relied on our own careful reasoning and emotional reflection. We can live a life that accepts and appreciates the world as it is, and makes changes where possible, without needing to see supernatural explanations behind every event. This is a positive and uplifting approach.

Such a way of life is called humanism. Humanists use reason and the tools of science to better understand our world and the best way to live in it. Humanists understand that compassion for fellow human beings, as well as an acknowledgement of their inherent dignity and worth, must form the basis of our interactions with each other. Humanists are free of belief in any god or afterlife. We must make the best of this one life that we have.

If this is how you, also, see the world, then you are a humanist. So why not learn more about the American Humanist Association and the friendly people who are enjoying humanist activities in your area?
[end of excerpt]

My advice to you this Sunday is that you stay home from church and start living your own independent life. This web page would be a good start.

Utah Suicide Statistics - brace yourself

Joe & Russ Baker-Gorringe are friends of mine from Salt Lake City. They have been on the front cover of every major paper in Utah and are pretty much the "gay celebrities" of Utah. This is an excerpt from their Christmas Newletter:

"In July, [Utah] Governor Jon M Huntsman and his wife, Mary Kaye, graciously hosted us, along with others from the gay community, in their home. In addition to having our picture taken with our governor, first lady, Mary Kaye, told us about a gay young man she knew who had walked into his first day of the 11th grade. In the hall that first morning, he heard kids say, “Oh no! The faggot is back!” The next day, they jumped him in the hall, and threw him in the lunchroom garbage can. On the third day, a group of guys grabbed him, shoved his head in an unflushed toilet. On the fourth day, a group of his peers told him not to sit with them at lunch, calling him “a Queer, faggot, freak.” On the fifth day, this same young man took his own life.

Mary Kaye’s comments tugged at our heartstrings, as we have done some outreach and fundraising for the Utah Homeless Youth Resource Center . Utah has the highest homeless youth rate in the nation. Of the thousands of possible reasons a youth could find themselves homeless, 54% of Utah ’s homeless youth say they were kicked out of their homes because they were gay. We can’t help but feel shame for the fruit of Utah ’s “family values.” On a national scale, gay youth suicides are 5 times the national average. In Utah , it is 8 times the national average.

In addition, we have seen countless people lost to self-loathing, and destructive addictive behavior, which have been fueled by the hurtful teachings heard from too many pulpits. It isn’t homosexuality that destroys families. It is ignorance, hate, and bigotry."

[end quote]

When Good Men Do Evil...and Call It Religion

I'm up to page 132 in "The Shack", and now I see a pattern emerging.

No sooner had the author finished talking about the blue jay on page 97 (see my other blog for that post), than he started into the most convoluted logic imaginable that attempts to hypnotize the reader by going into a 34 page description of why God is so confusing to a mortal man. This twisted and misguided attempt to "explain away" every scripture that seems to contradict another scripture with who or what God is is breathtaking in what it expects the reader to toss aside with a simple "because I said so" on the part of the author (and by extension, the scriptures).

I kept reading, hoping that the author would wrap this up with something that tied it all together in an easy to swallow pill, but instead, I got the following dialogue by the character who portrays the Holy Ghost on page 132. She is in the garden behind the cabin with Mack.

"So, are there plants in this garden that are poisonous?" he asked.

"Oh, yes," exclaimed Sarayu [the Holy Ghost]. "They are some of my favorites. Some are even dangerous to the touch, like this one." She reached for a nearby bush and snapped off something that looked like a dead stick with only a few tiny leaves budding from the stem. She handed it to Mack, who raised both hands to avoid touching it.

"Sarayu laughed. "I am here, Mack. There are times when it is safe to touch, and times when precautions must be taken. That is the wonder and adventure of exploration, a piece of what you call science--to discern and discover what we have hidden for you to find."

"So why did you hide it?" Mack inquired.

"Why do children love to hide and seek? Ask any person who has a passion to explore and discover and create. The choice to hide so many wonders from you is an act of love that is a gift inside the process of life."

"Mack gingerly reached out and took the poisonous twig. "If you had not told me this was safe to touch, would it have poisoned me?"

"Of course! But if I direct you to touch, that is different."
[end of quote]

Am I the only one who sees what the reader is being set up for here? Let me take you back a few posts to the quote by the humanist Steven Weinberg:

"With or without religion, you would have good people doing good things and evil people doing evil things. But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

This is how a religion accomplishes their evil. This is why I use the "shelf metaphor". In organized religion, it is all about being homogeneous. If you have questions about the conflicts between life and the religion, these conflicts (or questions) are to be "put on the shelf" and God will answer them in the next life. For 34 pages the author is busy reinforcing how totally and utterly confusing the notion of "God" is when you try to come up with a cohesive image from the Bible. For 34 pages you are told to 'put that on the shelf', 'put this on the shelf', 'you will have the answer to that question after you die'. None of it makes sense, and the author knows this, which is why religions spend so much time telling you how to use this "shelf" concept.

And then they hit you with the coup de grace (literally translated, the killing blow in a mercy killing). After you have loaded up your shelf with questions that they tell you are "unimportant", they tell you to obey whoever it is that your religion looks up to as its leader...and to "obey without question", even if it doesn't make sense to do so.

Once again, the ending line from the quote above:
"Of course [it would have poisoned you], but if I direct you to touch, that is different."

What is it exactly that I was supposed to learn from my reading of "The Shack"?

I think I finally understand why so many churches are making this book available free of charge to as many members of their congregation who want to take one home and/or give a copy to their friends.

For the Mormons (the thorn in my side for 44 years), they didn't need "The Shack". Because they function as de facto cult anyway, their mind control is absolute by the time you are twelve years old and graduate from their version of a junior Sunday school (the Primary Organization).

Full-page Ad by Wayne Besen in Salt Lake Tribune

Full-page ad in Salt Lake Tribune by Wayne Besen.

Self-explanatory.

"A Day Without a Gay" National Day of Protest

A month ago (a few days after the Nov 15th National Day of Protest), we found out about the planned Dec 10th "Day Without a Gay". Mickey immediately booked the day off so we would be available to get involved.

After a week of waiting to see if somebody would start something, and then another week trying on my own to get something large enough for a group organized, I gave up. Mickey and I signed up (just the two of us) to work as food servers in the Broward Outreach homeless shelter here in Pompano Beach.

The turning point (when I realized that we were going to be on our own) was when Mickey picked up last Wednesday's South Florida Blade (the gay weekly newspaper) and read the following entry to me from the Datebook (community calendar) section:

"Wednesday 12.10.08

T[his will be] the first (and presumably last) "Day Without A Gay", a protest where all gay people are supposed to call in sick, to protest unfair treatment of the GLBT community. On your day off, we are supposed to volunteer for a local charitable organization. But despite the motives, is anyone going to actually do it? We at the South Florida Blade will all be here at work, as we are a gay-owned business and calling in sick would do more harm than good. And honestly, if we did call in we'd just sit at home and watch TV all day, which isn't much benefit to local charities, so...do what you wish, we make no judements either way."

Unbelievable! Don't they have an ounce of imagination? If they would have gone to the web page (http://www.daywithoutagay.org/) they would have found half a dozen alternative ideas for situations like theirs so that their gay owned business would not grind to a halt, but instead they published a high-profile statement that diminished what little effort might have been underway here by people like Mickey and I at the very bottom of the grassroots.

It is at times like this that my altruistic nature becomes tarnished and I move along the spectrum toward being a cynic like so many others before me...like the writers and editor of the South Florida Blade!

Today, in Broward County, because two gay men...a bonafide gay family...were visible outside of the gay community to a dozen other volunteers and a hundred or more homeless people, there is a broader awareness that a gay couple are indeed a family and we participate in the community as such! That is what the people in Florida needed to see more of before Amendment 2 went on the ballot, and it is the only thing that will make a difference for gay families in the future.

In spite of what our local gay paper thinks, two guys did their part today and made a difference for all gay residents in Broward County.

Another quote that captures the spirit of this blog.

“Civilization is the process in which one gradually increases the number of people included in the term ‘we’ or ‘us’ and at the same time decreases those labeled ‘you’ or ‘them’ until that category has no one left in it.”

Howard Winters - a modern-day archaeologist born in 1923

This quote formed the foundation for J. Michael Wiltbank's fine-art photography exhibit that was censored by BYU (see next story in this thread).

It would seem that the Mormon Church (and BYU) is resisting any movement toward civilization because their behavior only serves to further entrench the 'us' vs. 'them' way of thinking.

BYU In Total Denial

J. Michael Wiltbank, a fine-art student at BYU, wanted to highlight the division brought into families and circles of friends over the gay Mormon issue, so he put together a photography exhibition that highlighted the support that still exists in the face of the bigotry within Mormon leadership. The exhibit paired a gay BYU student with his/her major support person that makes life better for that student.

BYU allowed the exhibit to go up, but then after the artist left the hall they took down his exhibit and rearranged the show to fill in his space. The artist found out from a friend that his exhibit had been censored.

He apparently also felt threatened by expulsion because of the attention he received from his blog. He pulled down the page and on his photography web page asked for respect toward BYU because he "wants to finish his education there".

"The tyranny of religion is the ignorance it fosters."

A quote from David Rosen, a columnist for Alternet.

(link to story)

"Recording" History vs. "Shaping" History - you choose.

My next few posts may follow along with my reading of "The Shack" by William P. Young. There have been several little promptings lately to get me to read this novel, not the least of which is the idea that it might just restore my belief in a God. I thought I would give it a valiant last attempt, so I'm reading the book.

So far, I can't get the humanist out of my head, but I'm only on page 30.

Let me tell you how my mind is working now. On page 27 it talks about how Multnomah Falls was named.

"The tale centered on a[n Indian} princess, the only child left to her aging father. The Chief loved his daughter dearly and carefully picked out a husband for her; a young warrior chief of the Clatsop tribe, who he knew she loved. The two tribes came together to celebrate the days of the wedding feast, but before it could begin, a terrible sickness began to spread among the men, killing many.

"The elders and the chiefs met to discuss what they could do about the wasting disease that was quickly decimating their warriors. The oldest medicine man among them spoke of how his own father, when aged and near death, had foretold of a terrible sickness that would kill their men, an illness that could only be stopped if a pure and innocent daughter of a chief would willingly give up her life for her people. In order to fulfill the prophecy, she must voluntarily climb to a cliff above the Big River and from there jump to her death onto the rocks below.

"A dozen young women, all daughters of the various chiefs, were brought before the council. After considerable debate the elders decided that they could not ask for such a precious sacrifice, especially for a legend they weren't sure was true.

"But the disease continued to spread unabated among the men and eventually the young warrior chief, the husband-to-be, fell ill with the sickness. The princess who loved him knew in her heart that something had to be done, and after cooling his fever and kissing him softly on the forehead, she slipped away.

"It took her all night and the next day to reach the place spoken of in the legend, a towering cliff overlooking the Big River and the lands beyond. After praying and giving herself to the Great Spirit, she fulfilled the prophecy by jumping without hesitation to her death on the rocks below.

"Back at the villages the next morning, those who had been sick arose well and strong. There was great joy and celebration until the young warrior discovered that his beloved bride was missing. As the awareness of what had happened spread rapidly among the people, many began the journey to the place where they knew they would find her. As they silently gathered around her broken body at the base of the cliff, her grief-stricken father cried out to the Great Spirit, asking that her sacrifice would always be remembered. At that moment, water began to fall from the place where she had jumped, turning into a fine mist that fell at their feet, slowly forming a beautiful pool."

And they all lived happily ever after.

As the author writes, "It had all the elements of a true redemption story, not unlike the story of Jesus that she [the little girl in the story] knew so well. It centered on a father who loved his only child and a sacrifice foretold by a prophet. Because of love, the child willingly gave up her life to save her betrothed and their tribes from certain death."

As for me, as a humanist, I fail to see the difference between the two fables. One is from a small little-known native American tribe that relied upon verbal accounts to preserve their history, and the other from a people well-known in world history. This well-known people likewise relied upon verbal history for about 60 years before somebody wanted to organize the people (now a captured people who were ready to capitalize on their "victim status") and decided to commit a common and well-liked fable to parchment as a tool to bring the people who loved to tell that fable together into an organized religion.

Both fables were likely based on actual historical events (the wasting disease for the native Americans, and the crucifixion of a man in Jerusalem), but that is where the facts end and the sensationalizing begins.

I will never again be so blind as to not realize that the "winners" get to write history, so I now read or listen to each account of history through the prism of the author. When you read the scientific account of history that documents the New Testament time period, you can clearly understand the motives in why those scriptures were written and what those fables were intended to teach.

They were written to "shape" history, and were never intended to "record" history.

No, so far, as a humanist, I wasn't inspired to see that Christianity has any more claim to the truth than the native-American tribes of Oregon, but I am committed to continue my reading of "The Shack".

A Humanist - my new religion

"With or without religion,
you would have good people doing good things
and evil people doing evil things.

But for good people to do evil things, that takes religion."

Steven Weinberg
quoted in The New York Times, April 20, 1999, US physicist (1933 - )
Humanist of the Year, 2002
American Humanist Association

http://www.americanhumanist.org/about/humanists-year.php

Funny Or Die (an all-star cast)

Please watch this video.

Proposition 8: The Musical

Thank you.

A Quote from Carol Lynn Pearson

From the writings of Carol Lynn Pearson, directed to those who have chosen to remain with the Mormon Church:

"I remember such great lessons in Mutual [Mormon youth group] about being very careful whom we associated with. 'Don’t expect to play in the coal bin and not come out dirty.' 'You will be judged by the company you keep.' I am so grieved to see whom my church has chosen as friends in this campaign to pass Proposition 8. We have gotten into bed with some of the most extreme of the "Religious Right," some of whom are well known as hate mongers. This was not a mutually affectionate liaison. We have been raped by organizations that hate the Mormons but love our money and our energy. We have been raped, and now are we pregnant with their fear and their hate? Much of the rhetoric we use they have put in our mouths, based more in fear than in fact. I have never before in my church observed the pain and the divisiveness and the fear that I am seeing now–fear of embracing the homosexual enemy, fear of ourselves being seen as disloyal if we don’t join in. It is very hard for me to see this happen in my church."

[emphasis added by me]

From where she finds the strength to stay in the church I have no idea. She is as altruistic in her desire to "bring change from within" as I am that every gay Mormon will see that The Emperor Has No Clothes and leave before permanent damage is incurred to their soul.

Colbert Report prior to Prop 8 vote

The Colbert Report link for the Nov 3rd episode. Something of a lighter fare.

Click for link to Comedy Central video

Play the above video and learn while you laugh.

The Mormon Church and the Dehumanization of Non-Mormons

It finally hit me this morning what the Mormon Church had done to me as a child, and it explains perfectly why "they" (the collective "they" of those who blindly follow the prophet) are so befuddled by the public backlash over the involvement of the Mormon leadership in "ordering" the sheep to give of their savings and every spare moment of their time to the Yes on Prop 8 campaign.

What hit me this morning is that in my back-water cesspool hometown of Cardston, Alberta, Canada (which is 96% Mormon), there was (and still is) a systemic effort (not systematic, but truly a "systemic effort") to dehumanize the "gentile world". Now, you've got to understand that only in the Mormon Church is a "Jew" considered to be a "gentile". The Mormons consider any non-Mormon to be a "non-believer", which in Biblical terms, makes them a "gentile".

Let me use a recent example that I hope will illustrate the parallels between how the Mormons conduct themselves behind the "Zion Curtain" and how other events of de-humanization in American history have similarly unfolded.

I want to start with the treatment of the poor in New Orleans. There is a deeper connection between those "poor" and the fact that they were primarily African-Americans, but for clarity I will just refer to them as the forgotten poor of New Orleans.

The various levels of government were able to ignore these people in the preparations for Hurricane Katrina because "the rest of America" had dehumanized them. There are satellite images of the entire school bus fleet from New Orleans leaving the compound and heading out empty to the much less deserving suburban areas and high ground. The city jail workers fled the prison with the "less-than-human" prisoners still locked in their cells.

So then what happened when the only option available to "the forgotten poor" was the Super Dome? Nobody organized any concerted relief effort for days. The cameras focused on the looter who was carrying the big screen TV. Why didn't the media focus on the news that made these people more human? Why didn't they broadcast the images of the first shelves to be emptied...the bottled water? Why didn't they keep repeating the image of the empty shelves where the diapers once stood?

No, America had long ago dehumanized the forgotten poor of New Orleans. In the face of warnings from the Louisiana Hurricane Center that the levees would fail, there had been no effort to upgrade the levees. While Metarie (the "safe community" where people with money all live and commute to New Orleans) was getting money to reinforce levees to protect their homes, nobody was spending any money to protect the Lower 9th Ward. No, the people who live there had long ago been dehumanized so that they were now invisible.

In the end, the media broadcast the images of the way the forgotten poor of New Orleans treated their dead. "How can anybody just walk around the dead bodies like that...pushing the dead lady in the wheelchair up against a wall and leaving her there?" Well, my answer to you is this; "How can you just push the forgotten poor into the Lower 9th Ward and leave them there?" They didn't even have a spare blanket to cover the lady with, instead simply covering her with some of her own belongings. What's your excuse for not doing anything for the forgotten poor of New Orleans? America cannot claim that we didn't have anything to give them. In our case, you (with our complicity), consciously chose NOT to give anything.

Let me tell you how a class of people can accomplish this. I learned this technique when I was a three-year-old in Cardston.

First, you elevate your own position so that you see yourself as "more deserving" than them. For me, as a three-year-old, I was taught that God had chosen Mormons as "His Elect".

John Leland touched on this in the early 1800's when he wrote;

“The liberty I contend for is more than toleration. The very idea of toleration is despicable; it supposes that some have a pre-eminence above the rest to grant indulgence, whereas all should be equally free, Jews, Turks, Pagans and Christians.”

I learned about this "tolerance" as a child...that I was expected to "tolerate" the gentile world. God had chosen me, as a Mormon boy, to be in this position of pre-eminence that John Leland talked about.

"White America" had similarly anointed itself to a position of pre-eminence with the first landing of the Mayflower. For the next three hundred years they used this position in one of the most egregious crimes against humanity. Slave owners were among the first to master the art of dehumanizing their fellow man.

Yes, if you get good enough in the dehumanization process you can actually beat a man until he is bleeding and then put salt in the open wounds so that they will scar over more quickly. After all, a slave with an open wound will not fetch a very good price at market.

Well, this is a new century, so this dehumanization process has to be more refined, but it is still there. In Iran they proactively still teach their kids in school, and it is the official government position, that the Holocaust was just a massive propaganda campaign by Jews to garner sympathy for their faith and people.

Let me get to my point. In the minds of fundamentalist Christians like the Mormons, the gay community is said to have an "agenda". This gay agenda is their way of pitting "us" against "them", and as true followers of Joseph Goebbel's (Hitler's propoganda man), they set about repeating "the big lie" so often that now many Americans truly believe that there truly is a "gay agenda" of some kind.

Since when is "equality for all" an agenda?

Last year saw a 15% increase in crimes of violence that specifically targeted the gay and transgender community. This is a direct consequence of the dehumanization process that is the real agenda of the fundamentalist Christians (including the Mormon Church). The post-Katrina images that are forever etched in your mind were similarly a consequence of the dehumanization of "the forgotten poor".

No, when the Mormon Church is actively using $20,000,000 to fund thousands of commercial airings for "The Six Lies" ad on every California TV network, then you know that they are students of Joseph Goebbel's methodology.

"The Big Lie" today that is propagated by the Mormon Church and other "Crazies for Christ" is that if we ever reach the point where there is equality for gays, there will somehow be a cosmic shift in morals and they (fundamentalist Christians) will lose their freedom to practice their beliefs that only serve to entrench bigotry into the minds of their 3-year-olds.

Would that necessarily be a bad thing if public schools actively seek to reverse wrong-headed religious dogma?

"I Heard Steve Young and His Wife Have Left The Church!"

No, to my knowledge this is just a rumor, but it would be a juicy story.

But it is an actual post from a Mormon news thread, and therein lies the story. Many people in the church (including most of my siblings and nieces and nephews) were actually so caught up in this letter from the pulpit on June 29th that, in their minds, only a true apostate would ignore it. (Link back here if unfamiliar with the "Letter from the Pulpit" story.)

My son, out of love for his father, experienced a similar backlash to Steve & Barbara Young (read his blog post here).

Let me take you back to my June 25th post that opened this thread. In response to my appeal to walk out of church (figuratively...because not all of my family live in California), this is what was in my inbox from my older sister:

“…you are asking us to choose between our God (our Father in Heaven) and our brother (you). I cannot, nor will I, go against what I know to be true, which is this church, and that it is guided directly by God through the prophet. I will never go against that.”

The last sentence echoed in my mind. I had read a very similar line the night before in an email from one of my favorite nieces. After regurgitating the tired line about her love for me in spite of my sinful “lifestyle”, she finished the email with:

“...but I follow the doctrine and that includes the First Presidency and anything they sign in accordance with their callings as Prophets of God!”

Well, I guess in the minds of people like Jackie and Tina, anybody who would have "walked out of church" on June 29th might as well have just "kept on walking" and resigned their membership.

That is where the logic comes from that starts rumors that Steve and Barbara Young "have left the church".

I recommend that you link to the story and work your way through the 299 comments left after the story. Comments like these two I will copy-and-paste here:

Then he is not Mormon. Simple as that. I think he forgot an important part of his belief system is that Mormons believe the Prophet receives direct council from the Lord. Whoops! Perhaps he should read 'The Proclamation on the Family' and redo his [temple] recommend interview.

Posted By: Meetthekellys October 31 2008 at 10:16 PM

[Steve], it's funny that my children asked me a while back who was my childhood hero. I am embarrassed to say today that I even mentioned your name. Just because others have different beliefs doesn't mean you need to turn your back on your very heritage. You're an embarrassment to everything "we" hold sacred. Apparently, you are no longer a part of "we". Glad to see we can count on you when things get tough...I guess only on the football field, huh? Montana was always better. You're pathetic--why didn't you sign the check coward? [referring to a donation that Barbara Young made to the "No on 8" campaign.]
Posted By: scubachewy14 October 31 2008 at 11:08 PM

Link to the SFGate.com story and all 299 comments here.