I AM A CHILD OF GOD - LDS Hymn Parody #28

Such a nice picture.  Although I consider myself an Agnostic now, I still acknowledge the fact that pictures like this one give people a sense of comfort.  After all, believing in God or a higher power of some sort is very reassuring.  The idea that God is watching over you, and that He is there to answer your prayers, is a very comforting thought.

Unfortunately, though, there is the possibility that whatever comfort is received from believing in God or a higher power may be coming from a false sense of security - because although there are a lot of Christians in the world, as well as many other religions who have a belief in a higher power, that doesn't mean that what they believe is absolutely true. 

After leaving Mormonism, I began to consider the possibility that there may not be a God at all.  Of course, I want there to be a God, someone watching over me, the promise of an Afterlife where I will see and be with my loved ones.  But my wanting that to be the case doesn't make it so.  The reality is that there is a possibility that God does not exist.  It may be that when we die, that is it.  But does that make any difference in the long run?  In some ways, thinking this way has helped me to live life more fully, to consider the fact that since this life may be all there is, I should be doing all I can every day to make my life more fulfilling and this world a better place.

And with those thoughts in mind, I wrote this hymn parody. 

I AM A CHILD OF GOD

LDS Hymn Book, #301

I am a child of God,
Or so the Christians say.
But I don’t know if God exists,
They say I’ve gone astray.

(Chorus)

Reasoning has got me thinking,
Questioning it all.
Blindly just accepting it,
For that, I will not fall.

Am I a child of God?
The query gives me pause.
There’s nothing wrong with questioning
Religion and its flaws.

(Chorus)

Reasoning, not just accepting
Everything that’s said.
Going down the garden path,
I’ll use my brain instead.

So if there’s not a God,
No higher power there.
Would knowing that destroy your life
And fill you with despair?

(Chorus)

Reasoning and analyzing,
Thinking on my own.
Not believing what I’m told,
I will not be a clone.

I am a woman first,
On me I can rely.
So whether there’s a God or not,
Myself I can’t deny.

(Chorus)

Reasoning, no blind acceptance,
Not belief by force.
Using my free agency,
The best and safest course.

© Diane Tingen, 7/8/2011

MORE CRITICAL THINKING - LDS Hymn Parody #20

Burying your head in the sand.

The meaning of this phrase is:
"Refusal to confront or acknowledge a problem."

See: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/80800.html and http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/hide+head+in+the+sand

So in essence, "burying your head in the sand" is the typical response to people who don't want to face facts.  They would prefer to simply pretend that the facts don't exist.  Kind of like, "If I refuse to accept or acknowledge the situation, then it doesn't exist."  As in accepting the Mormon Party Line without question, study, research or any type of critical thinking whatsoever.

The theme of the last few ExMormon Hymn Parodies I have written have been the fact that in my opinion, Mormons need to do more actual thinking and utilization of their brains.  Basically, in my opinion, they need to stop burying their heads in the sand.  Accepting things that you are taught simply because you're told to believe is not wise.  Neither is blind faith.  Critical thinking needs to enter the picture. 

The song I Believe from the Book of Mormon Musical says in several places, "I'm a Mormon... and Mormons just believe."  To me, that is a frightening stance.  In essence, they are saying, "I believe because I believe."  Or "I believe this or that because I was told to believe it."  Or "I believe because when I think about these things, I get strong feelings that it is true."

But those are not adequate reasons to "believe."  No, what a person needs to be able to say is, "I believe because the evidence points in that direction, and from all indications, it is true."  Unfortunately, though, in Mormonism, the evidence actually points in the opposite direction, away from any type of truth.  But because Mormons "just believe," they accept a lot of the teachings, doctrine and history based on either lack of information or blatant misinformation.

Believing by faith is all fine and good, but when the actual evidence is stacked against the validity of the premise, it is not faith anymore but rather denial. 

And so, here is my latest hymn parody...

MORE CRITICAL THINKING

Sung to the tune of More Holiness Give Me, #131

More critical thinking,
More use of your brain,
More research and study,
More issues remain.
More questions to sort through,
More judgment involved,
More facing the quandaries,
More problems resolved.

More real independence,
More freedom to choose.
More options considered,
More seeing the clues.
More voicing opinions,
More free agency,
More investigation,
More lies they will see.

Less marching in goose-step,
Less toeing the line,
Less blindly obeying,
Less thinking it’s fine.
Less feeling exhausted,
Less doing the dance,
Less worn-out and weary,
Less caught in a trance.

Less mind-numbing teachings,
Less going along,
Less fraudulent doctrine,
Less shading what’s wrong.

Less trapped in denial,
Less scared just to think,
Less Mormons conforming,
Less close to the brink.

Less wading through bullshit,
Less dealing with crap,
Less stuck in the middle,
Less caught in a trap.
Less sorting through garbage,
Less on the defense,
Less going in circles,
Less nervous and tense.

More quiet reflection,
More feeling at peace.
More calm introspection,
More turmoil will cease.
More joyful and happy,
More blissful and free.
More sense of fulfillment,
More time to be me.

© Diane Tingen, 6/22/2011

TYPICAL OSTRICHES...
STICKING THEIR HEADS IN THE SAND,
THINKING THAT IF THEY CAN'T SEE THEIR ATTACKER,
THEN THEIR ATTACKER CAN'T SEE THEM...
OR IN OTHER WORDS...

JUST USE YOUR BRAIN - LDS Hymn Parody #18

Although I left the Mormon Church a little over 7 years ago, there are many aspects of it that still puzzle me. After doing my own independent research, and discovering that what I once thought was the "one and only true church on the face of the earth" is actually built on a stack of lies, I have continued to find it very puzzling as to why there are so many intelligent people who strongly believe in its tenets. And that is one of my main remaining fascinations with Mormonism and its hold on people. Why do they continue to believe when it is seems to be very clear that it is not true? Why do they simply accept it, right down the line, relying on blind faith rather than actual reasoning? Why do they cite "feelings" as a supposed valid reason for their belief when there is a mountain of evidence against it being true? Why do they assume that "Anti-Mormon Propaganda" is the explanation for whatever negative stance is taken against the Mormon Church when in actuality what is being stated is valid information against Mormonism? Why don't members do their own independent research instead of just going along and deciding to "just believe"?  Very puzzling.

The membership of the Mormon Church is made up of a diverse array of people - and includes a wide spectrum of very educated people with advanced degrees (undergraduate, Master's Degrees, Ph.D's, Juris Doctors, Medical degrees, etc.) and people whose professions include doctors, lawyers, teachers, professors, and so on. So if the church is actually an elaborate web of lies, why do these types of obviously intelligent people continue to believe in it? For me, that is the ultimate question - and it fascinates me.

What it seems to come down to is that these types of people, who are true believers, apply one type of reasoning to their lives in general, and another one to their religion. Although they obviously apply critical thinking skills to situations in their careers and lives in general, the same degree of scrutiny is not applied to their religion. They very simply "just believe" without examining and/or analyzing their belief system. One example of that is a Mormon man who I have exchanged several messages with on Facebook - first in commenting on a friend's thread, and then in several PMs. He is a lawyer, and is obviously very intelligent. He writes very well, and obviously puts a lot of thought into his comments and messages. But he is also a very devout Mormon who does not, by any stretch of the imagination, apply the critical thinking skills that he was taught in law school to his religion. He cites the Mormon Party Line down the line, and defends each and every precept as if his life depends on it. I have asked him why, since he was taught critical thinking skills in law school, he does not give Mormonism the benefits of such skills and look at it with an examining eye.

In fact, in one of my comments, I asked him, "...you're obviously a very intelligent man, evident not only from your writings but also from the fact that you have a law degree and a clerkship at the USDC. I'm sure in law school you learned how to analyze and dissect information... to scrutinize ideas and concepts. I'm curious as to why you haven't applied that scrutiny to Mormonism, particularly since from the evidence, it appears to have been a hoax from the get-go."

And this was his reply: "@Diane: Well, someone did their homework. There are two answers to your question: When it comes to my unquantifiable testimony, I can’t scrutinize it adequately. If you can’t tell, I’m obsessed with having good information and properly identifying what assumptions are being made to make a premise hold or fail. Regardless of what you believe, there are some real complexities to the human experience that simply can’t be analyzed rationally because the occurrences that happen would otherwise be irrational, except that they really happen. What that means for me is there is information that is unavailable. There’s stuff that I can’t sort out in my head. And in all the teachings of the Church, etc., I have found a certain degree of comfort that all these unquantifiable happenings accurately translate into a testimony. Now, that means nothing to you. I get it. But it means something to me, and it’s very persuasive. Second, if you want to examine truth apologetically, I am intellectually convinced the Church is true. That’s not to say there are no holes. But taking everything together and looking at all the evidence, my judgment is that the preponderance of the evidence swings toward a conclusion of truth. Now, the important part is that although we can disagree on the result, we cannot, however, disagree on the presentations of the evidence. And a big problem in the critical arguments against the Church is that they are premised on bad assumptions. For every issue you can raise, there is a bad assumption (I think). For example: Why did God change his mind about black people? There are multiple major false assumptions in that statement. And so applying “my scrutiny,” I take a step back, analyze the question, dissect it, and realize that the question is a bad one because it improperly begs a variety of questions. Once I can identify the fallacious portions, the analysis is actually really easy. So the question is: can you see the false assumptions? Something that magnifies the problems of this critical analysis is that Mormon culture really, really gets in the way. If we take Brigham Young at his word that most Mormons are going to hell, then we can’t very well rely on the idiosyncrasies of the membership to accurately reflect doctrine. And if we are critically analyzing practice instead of doctrine, the conclusion is wholly illusory. Problem is that many of these idiosyncrasies take on a life of its own. I think a perfect example is the Salt Lake City Council and how close they were to throwing the gay-rights ordinance to curb before the church stepped in and said it should pass. The same thing has happened on immigration, etc. Church members have misinterpreted the church’s (conservative) actions in one sphere, and become zealots for a false cause in another. As far as affirmative apologetics, there is a lot. But since I’m in the court system, let me give one example that resounds quite strongly for me: The three witnesses. Now, I’m aware of the holes (generally based on false assumptions and contexts). But the uncontroverted evidence is that each died with a dying declaration that what he said about the Book of Mormon was true. And that includes Whitmer, whom never came back to the church. Sure – they generally disliked (if not hated) Joseph Smith at some point, and even thought of him as a fallen prophet. But they never denied their experiences and affirmed what they had previously seen with their dying breath. As a policy matter, such evidence is very reliable. And the critics have been completely unable to explain it away. Being part of a team that sits, listens, and weighs evidence, I can’t objectively conclude anything else except to say there’s probably something to it."

Interesting response - very well thought out and expressed. The fact is that this man is obviously very intelligent, but the way in which he analyzes information about the Mormon Church seems to always end up putting him on the side of belief, even though there are (it seems to me) some very flawed methods in his "analysis." Circular Reasoning. Beginning from the pre-conceived notion that the church is true, and framing everything that he "analyzes" to that end. After this, we exchanged a few PMs, and his take on it all continues to puzzle me.

So although I've put Mormonism behind me, I still like discussing it and blogging about it, mainly because I am puzzled by why so many obviously intelligent people buy it, lock, stock and barrel. But I am convinced that if these people would just use their brains and their critical thinking skills instead of simply accepting the Mormon Party Line, they might actually see the lies, deceptions, cover-ups and contradictions embodied within Mormonism.

And this is the theme of my latest hymn parody.

JUST USE YOUR BRAIN

Sung to the tune of Do What is Right, #237

Just use your brain,
Your reasoning powers,
Inquiry with your own mind just makes sense.
Don’t follow blindly and simply accept it,
Don’t be a sheep, let your thinking commence.

(Chorus)

Just use your brain,
Let your reasoning powers
Tell you what’s right and what you should believe.
It makes more sense to use critical thinking,
Blindly obeying, don’t be that naïve.

Just use your brain,
Your rose-colored glasses
Simply obscure what reality shouts.
If you believe it without proper study,
All you are doing is squelching your doubts.

(Chorus)

Just use your brain
Let your reasoning powers
Tell you what’s right and what you should believe.
It makes more sense to use critical thinking,
Blindly obeying, don’t be that naïve.

Just use your brain,
Don’t just shelve your issues,
There is no wisdom in stifling yourself.
Don’t stuff it down, and then suffer in silence,
As you place more and more there on your shelf.

(Chorus)

Just use your brain
Let your reasoning powers
Tell you what’s right and what you should believe.
It makes more sense to use critical thinking,
Blindly obeying, don’t be that naïve.

© Diane Tingen, 6/19/2011

FAR, FAR AWAY - LDS Hymn Parody #9

Far, Far Away...

Of course, this phrase conjures up images of the movie Shrek (and its sequels) these days.

Far Far Away (as you probably know) is the land where Princess Fiona is from, and where her parents live, who are the King and Queen of Far Far Away.  Quite a transition from Far Far Away to the swamp, where she eventually goes to live with Shrek after they get married (and have cute little baby ogres). 

The theme of the Shrek movies, as I see it, is being true to yourself, the real you.  And that's what Princess Fiona did when she embraced her real self as the female ogre, falling in love and uniting with Shrek's male ogre.  And that is a very important life lesson - being true to yourself.

What great movies!!  True modern classics, IMO.

And then there is Star Wars.

"A Long Time Ago
In a Galaxy Far, Far Away..." 

Also great movies!!  And also, true modern classics (again, IMO).  And the fact that Princess Leia is a strong, competent woman in the original Star Wars trilogy is a definite plus.  As is Princess Fiona in the Shrek series.

But actually, the main reason this particular hymn came to mind for parodying is because I received a request from a woman on Facebook to "let my amazing creativity go to town" (and I have to thank her for such a great compliment) on two hymns that were written by her great great grandfather, John Menzies Macfarland (1833-1892).  The two hymns she mentioned in her comment were (1) Far, Far Away on Judea's Plains, #212; and (2) Dearest Children, God is Near You, #96.

So here is the first hymn parody... and I'll work on the other one next...

FAR, FAR AWAY FROM THE LIFE I ONCE KNEW
Sung to the tune of Far, Far Away on Judea’s Plains, #212

Far, far away from the life I once knew,
Opened my eyes and the truth came into view.
Mormon no more, Mormon no more,
Mormon no more, I have closed the door
On the lies they fed to me,
On the lies they fed to me.

For many years, I believed what they said,
But then I started to use my brain instead.

Mormon no more, Mormon no more,
Mormon no more, I have closed the door
On the lies they fed to me,
On the lies they fed to me.

Told to have faith when I started to doubt,

But as I struggled, I just wanted to shout

What a buffoon, what a buffoon,

What a buffoon, I must be a loon
To believe the lies they teach,
To believe the lies they teach.

Now I'm upset that I stayed for so long,
Not realizing the party line is wrong.
Mormon no more, Mormon no more,
Mormon no more, but I know the score,
It's not what it claims to be,
It's not what it claims to be.

© Diane Tingen, 6/6/2011

TIME OUT!!!

I've been on TIME OUT from the Mormon Church for over 7 years now, but my fascination with "all things Mormon" is still very strong.  Mainly, though, what fascinates me is trying to answer the question of why people believe in it when it is so obvious to me that it is a pile of crap.  Believing in something by faith when there is nothing to actually substantiate it is one thing - but when there is so much evidence against Mormonism being true, it is not faith anymore, but rather denial.

My main question at this point, though, is why can I see the validity of that differentiation between blind faith and actual reason, but others who remain escounced in Mormonism can't... or won't.  But then, as I've heard said, "There are none so blind as those who will not see."  (Per a Google search, that idiom is paraphrased from the Old Testament of the Bible, Jeremiah 5:21 - "Hear now this, O foolish people, and without understanding; which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not.").  As far as I am concerned, this scripture includes all those who accept things at face value and dig no deeper.  Those who do not think for themselves.  Those who accept what they are told, blindly and without any real thought.

I don't see any indications that my interest is going to wane any time soon, but perhaps at some point, all of this won't be quite so fascinating to me.  Seeing younger people who have left the church being able to move on quicker than I have makes me yearn for that, but perhaps the reason I haven't "shed the skin" so quickly is because I spent 52 years in the Mormon Church and therefore it was very deeply engrained into my life and psyche.  Even though I began to question some things when I was a teenager, I still stuck with it for many more years until I (finally) began to research church history (prior to going on a Mormon Church History tour in July 2001).  That was the beginning of the end for me because I began to see how many lies are laced throughout Mormonism, and much of it I simply couldn't rationalize out.  As I studied more and more, I began to feel almost physically ill because I had based my entire life on what they told me I was supposed to believe - and how I was supposed to live. 

Of course, the Mormon Church uses a great deal of guilt to control the masses.  Are you praying enough?  Are you reading the scriptures enough?  Are you doing enough service?  Are you striving for perfection?  And, of course, since the answers to those questions is often No or Maybe Not, the guilt ends up pouring over a person to the point of saturation.  While I was Mormon, for those 52 years, I never felt like I was good enough... and the quandary of whether or not I was going to make it to the Celestial Kingdom was a constant struggle for me.  If I didn't make it there, then I would be denying myself an eternity of blessings, of being with my parents, of having a forever family.  And whose fault would that be?  Mine per Mormonism.  And I found it very debilitating to constantly feel that way.

For instance, I never liked (or understood) the temple ceremonies.  But of course, since I was basically given the message that if that was the case, it was my own fault, that source of guilt pervaded my consciousness.  And of course, when that sense of guilt invades your being, it can cause not only feelings of inadequacy but also deep depression.  During my years in Mormonism, there were many times when I struggled with depression.  But interestingly, since being on my TIME OUT, that has not been an issue for me at all.
 

Back to the temple.  For many years, I just figured that I wasn't worthy enough to understand the temple ceremonies.  Apparently, like "they" inferred, I wasn't righteous enough - but as I was told, if I prayed more, read the scriptures more, studied more, and just plain did more, then I would come to understand it.  But that never happened.  Of course, now I realize that the reason that never happened is because it never had anything to do with me.  The Mormon temple ceremonies were lifted from the Masons.  From what I've been able to discern, Joseph Smith apparently needed something seemingly awe-inspiring to take place with the temple walls, so he joined the Masons - and 7 weeks later introduced the very same ceremonies in the Nauvoo Temple.  How convenient.  Of course, since I am convinced that all of Mormonism is "made up," it's apparent that Joseph Smith was just doing more of what he had already done... and lots of people bought it, hook, line and sinker.

And of course, there are many other aspects to Mormonism that disturbed me for many years.  Like the Book of Abraham.  It has been proven not to be translated correctly per modern-day Egyptologists.  The papyri that Joseph Smith purportedly translated has been shown to simply be Egyptian funeral papers, and not the writings of Abraham from ancient times.  And yet Mormons continue to cling to its validity, continuing to hold it up as canonized scripture.  They rationalize it out by saying that scriptural things can't be reasoned or examined with earthly eyes, that only God knows the truth.  And God, they say, has revealed to them that not only is the Book of Abraham the word of God, but so is the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine & Covenants - and of course, the Bible, but only as far as it is translated correctly.  To me, it is now clear that Mormonism in its entirety was made up by Joseph Smith.  But TBMs still hold on to the ridiculous notion that it is all "true."


So why didn't I turn on my critical thinking skills prior to the Summer of 2001?  That question still haunts me, and probably will continue to do so for many more years to come.  It all is very clear to me now.  I have no doubt but that the Mormon Church is not true.  I have no doubt but that Mormonism was entirely made up by Joseph Smith and was perpetuated by others.  I have no doubt but that there are so many lies and deceptions laced through Mormonism that it is actually a pile of garbage.  What it came down to for me was that in order to continue to be a "good Mormon woman," I would have had to turn my back on all I had discovered against its validity, and simply buy the whole Mormon Party Line by faith.  And I simply couldn't do that.

Naturally, it took me a couple of years to actually leave the Mormon Church after discovering what I did about church history and the lies laced throughout Mormonism.  I kept thinking that perhaps I was missing something.  Perhaps (as they would have me think), I wasn't worthy enough to understand the whole thing.  I'm sure that's what TBMs all think of me now (including many of my TBM family members).  But that's okay.  I found the truth - the real truth.  Not the white-washed version of the truth as touted by Mormonism.  My discoveries about Mormonism are not a passing phase or a changeable opinion, but rather a fact.  And knowing that for certainty has made all the difference in my life.


So the TIME OUT from Mormonism I called for myself a little over 7 years ago still stands. 

I'm still on TIME OUT, and will be in that state for the rest of my life... and if there is an Afterlife, then to infinity and beyond...

COME, COME YE SHEEP - LDS Hymn Parody #4

Well, these ExMormon hymn parodies just keep popping into my mind.  Someone recently left a comment on this blog saying that I should use my "talent" for revising the hymns in a more positive way, but clearly, I can't do that.  At least, not now.  Too many parodies still bouncing around in my brain for anything "positive" to take hold...  LOL

So here is my latest one - Come, Come Ye Saints ExMormon-ized.  Can't you just see the Mormon Tabernacle Choir singing this version?  Now, that would be priceless...

COME, COME YE SHEEP

Sung to the tune of Come, Come Ye Saints, #30

Come, come ye Sheep, just follow what we say,
Do not think for yourself.
It makes no sense, but throw your doubts away,
Put it all on your shelf.
Tis better far for us to voice
What you shall do, you have no choice.
So just shut down your brain and say,
Just obey, just obey.

Why should you be allowed to speak your mind?
We know best, just believe.
Though it is lies, you probably will find
It’s all meant to deceive.
Accept by faith what makes no sense,
And always come to our defense.
So follow close whate’er we say,
Just obey, just obey.

Don’t listen to the Antis who will say
It’s not true, don’t believe.
They may have found some stuff that we downplay,
But they work to deceive.
Apostates all, that’s what they are,
Detecting lies won't get them far.
And they’re all doomed, they’ve lost their way,
Won’t obey, won’t obey.

The Mormon Church, a cult right down the line,
But they say that’s not true.
It is God’s church, and so it is divine,
Gospel truth, through and through.
So if you pray, the light will come,
And then it won’t seem quite so dumb.
You must believe, don’t go astray,
Just obey, just obey.

© Diane Tingen, 5/31/2011

FAITH vs. REASON

I've noticed the "vanity cards" that Chuck Lorre has put at the end of his TV shows over the years, but I recently became fascinated by them (during the time when 2-1/2 Men was cancelled for the rest of the 2010-2011 season, and the multiple interviews with Charlie Sheen).  Reading an article about Chuck Lorre in which it was stated that on 2/28/2011, a vanity card appeared at the end of the Mike & Molly episode, addressing rather esoterically the drama surrounding the "situation" led me to actually go to his website (http://www.chucklorre.com/) and read many of these vanity cards.  There's some very interesting thoughts on there, going back to 1999 when he first began writing them during the production of Dharma & Greg.  Most are humorous to a certain degree, and many are filled with some very thought-provoking statements.

On 11/2/1999, the following vanity card (#42) appeared after that evening's episode of Dharma & Greg.  It talks about faith, and in reading it, I began to consider the topic of faith in a broader sense.  Here's the wording from that vanity card:

Thirty thousand feet in the air. Strapped into a seat that doubles as a flotation device. Thinking about faith. Faith in airplanes. In jet engines. In pilots. Faith that the sullen, unshaven guy across the aisle isn't the mindless pawn of a master terrorist with a deep hatred for America, the Great Satan. Then, assuming a safe landing, faith that the cabbie didn't have a fight with his adulterous wife who hides her deceit behind sly jokes about his unremarkable sexual prowess forcing him to soothe his anguish with that fifth of Jim Beam he keeps stashed beneath the seat. And, of course, faith that the doorknob leading out of the public bathroom isn't tainted with a flesh-eating bacteria that came to Earth imbedded in a small, flat meteorite that some unsuspecting child picked up to skip across the surface of a lake. Yes, faith is a wonderful thing. Without it, this world would surely be a fearful place. Once again, thanks for reading my vanity card. Have a nice day.

Faith is a fascinating subject.  At first when I read Chuck Lorre's vanity card, I thought that what he was talking about wasn't really faith.  But actually, the word faith has a much broader meaning than I realized.

Here below is the definition for FAITH from Dictionary.com:

FAITH
- noun
1.  Confidence or trust in a person or thing; faith in another's ability.
2.  Belief that is not based on proof: He had faith that the hypothesis would be substantiated by fact.
3.  Belief in God or in the doctrines or teachings of religion: the firm faith of the Pilgrims.
4.  Belief in anything, as a code of ethics, standards of merit, etc.; to be of the same faith with someone concerning honesty.
5.  A system of religious belief: the Christian faith; the Jewish faith.
6.  The obligation of loyalty or fidelity to a person, promise, engagement, etc.:  Failure to appear would be breaking faith.
7.  The observation of this obligation; fidelity to one's promise, oath, allegiance, etc.: He was the only one who proved his faith during our recent troubles.
8.  Christian Theology.  The trust in God and His promises as made through Christ and the Scriptures by which humans are justified or saved.

Interesting.  So in Chuck Lorre's vanity card, where he talks about having faith in airplanes, jet engines, and pilots, as well as his talk about cabbie's dispositions or issues related to terrorism, are all a form of faith.  The word faith actually has a much broader definition that I realized.

Of course, the reason for my confusion probably has to do with the fact that my main connection with the word FAITH always had to do with Mormonism.  But of course, Mormons are are essentially told to have "blind faith" since they are to follow everything without question -- suspending all reason in the process.  To me, having "blind faith" is not wise in any sense of the word.

I believe that when facts are shown to contradict what you are being told to believe, it is not faith anymore, but rather denial.  That is where I found myself in relation to Mormonism.  Once I discovered the truth about Mormonism, having faith in it anymore became an impossibility.

The following quote by Patrick Overton denotes a form of blind faith:

“When you have come to the edge of all light that you know and are about to drop off into the darkness of the unknown, faith is knowing one of two things will happen: There will be something solid to stand on or you will be taught to fly.”
 

That type of faith is baseless, having no foundation in any kind of reality.  To me, it is unreasonable to have faith in that form.

On the other hand, the following quote by Galileo Galilei makes a lot more sense to me: 

"I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forego their use."

This is  exactly how I feel about Faith vs. Reason.  Why would God give us a brain if he didn't intend for us to use it?  It simply does not compute for me.  Why does the Mormon Church even have any educational institutions (like BYU) if they don't want people to learn to use their brains?  What a paradox.

The following is an excerpt from an article entitled "Is Blind Faith Immoral?  On Faith vs. Reason" by Robert Kaiser, which is contained on the Religious Tolerance website, http://www.religioustolerance.org/: 

Many people, like this author, require a firmer basis for their beliefs than a blind appeal to authority. In fact, one can go further, and point out that it may well be immoral to have beliefs without a logical basis. Theodore Schick, Jr. and Lewis Vaughn discuss why this is so:

'Everybody's entitled to their own opinion' goes the platitude, meaning that everybody has the right to believe whatever they want. But is that really true? Are there no limits on what is permissible to believe? Or, as in the case of actions, are some beliefs immoral? Surprisingly, perhaps, many have argued that just as we have a moral duty not to perform certain sorts of actions, so we have a moral duty not to have certain sorts of beliefs. No one has expressed this point of view more forcefully than the distinguished mathematician W. K. Clifford: 'It is wrong always, everywhere, and for anyone to believe anything on insufficient evidence.'

Others of similar stature have echoed this sentiment. Biologist Thomas Henry Huxley, for example, declared, 'It is wrong for a man to say that he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty.' And Brand Blanshard has proclaimed that where great human goods and ills are involved, the distortion of belief from any sort of avoidable cause is immoral, and the more immoral the greater the stakes.

These men think it wrong for belief to outstrip the evidence because our actions are guided by our beliefs, and if our beliefs are mistaken, our actions may be misguided, As Blanshard indicated, the more important the decision, the greater our duty to align our beliefs with the evidence, and the greater the crime if we don't. Where not much hangs on the belief, it might be thought that what one believes has little importance. But Clifford claims that even in trivial matters we have a duty to proportion our belief to the evidence:

'Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence. We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to.... But a greater and wider evil arises when the credulous character is maintained and supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons is fostered and made permanent.'

According to Clifford, responsible believing is a skill that can be maintained only through constant practice. And since responsible believing is a prerequisite for responsible acting, we have a duty to foster this skill.

["How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age (second edition)", p.102, Theodore Schick, Jr. and Lewis Vaughn, Mayfield Publishing Co., 1999]

While this line of reasoning goes against what most religious people believe, I am firmly persuaded by the logic. Thus, we should not believe in God without reason. It seems, then, that we would be obligated to search for reasonable arguments to believe in God. Finding such reason we would be obliged to believe in God; lacking such reason we would be obliged to dismiss God's existence as a unproven hypothesis.

What Mr. Kaiser states here makes a lot of sense to me.  Finding a basis for belief through the use of such means as thought, research and analysis is a very reasonable approach for any person in arriving at a conclusion.  Simply believing because you are told to believe something is not reasonable to me.  It defies all logic. 

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Naturally, in the end, my mind always turns to humor -- my defense mechanism, I suppose.  Can't be totally serious for too long.  So in a humorous vein, I also have to share these other great quotes about faith:

"Faith is what you have in things that don't exist."  Homer Simpson

"It ain't supposed to make sense; it's faith.  Faith is something that you believe that nobody in his right mind would believe."  Archie Bunker

MY RANT FOR THE DAY

I posted something on the discussion board on PostMormon.org today that I still feel like ranting about. 

This was my post:

It's NOT as though there are only two or three things... or even three or four... there is a mountain of evidence against TSCC being "the one and only true church."  If there was just a couple areas of concern, perhaps it could be accepted as "true," but when there so many fraudulent areas, it stands to reason that it's actually false.  It is simply not possible to put aside the fact that there are differing versions of the First Vision; that polygamy was obviously put into play by Joseph Smith to cover-up his philandering; that the Prophet of the Restoration committed adultery with teenager girls and married women; that he was actually a criminal and not a religious martyr; that he created and/or plagiarized the BoM and the BoA; that he paved the way for 150 years of blatant racism to exist in the Mormon Church; that he bent everything to his goal of being "all-powerful" in everyone's eyes so they would do whatever he said they should; and so much more.
 
I was thinking about this earlier, and I couldn't help but ask myself how anyone who knows the truth behind so many of the doctrines and so much of the history of TSCC can remain associated with it.  It just doesn't make sense.  Accepting everything blindly and by faith is somewhat possible when you don't actually think about things, but it requires so much rationalization, so much overlooking evidence, so much burying your head in the sand that it boggles my mind how anyone can not think that it is simply a fraud and a scam.
 
It reminds me of being married to my second husband.  If I could have overlooked the fact that he was abusive to me, I still had to deal with the fact that he was mean and abusive to my daughter, and saw how that was affecting her.  For a while, I overlooked both of those facts and tried to focus on the positive aspects.  But as time went on, I realized that whatever "positive" aspects there were, the negative ones were so overwhelming that they over-shadowed whatever benefits I may have derived from being married to that man.  Once I realized that, remaining in a situation that was clearly destroying both of us was a no-brainer for me.  In the same respect, it became a no-brainer for me to finally realize that TSCC is not what it professes to be, and to see what being a member of that church was doing to me as an individual and as a woman. 
 
In essence, every member of TSCC is in an abusive relationship with their church.  They take what TSCC dishes out, and they bury their heads in the sand, in essence pretending that TSCC truly is "the one and only true church on the face of the earth," and that they are deriving good benefits from their membership.  But in reality, TSCC is killing each and every one of them... it is killing their spirits, their individuality, and their zest for life.

Ok, rant over for now...

I got a few really interesting responses:

OldSoul posted this response:

The deconversion process for any religion follows a similar pattern.  Belief isn't rooted in a single doctrine or idea.  It's more of host of ideas connected by a supportive web.  Counter any one idea or belief and the entire belief structure still survives.  Most people encounter one or two things that will challenge their beliefs. It takes a person willing to examine many points of belief to have a chance of deconverting.  One by one you must put these ideas to the test.  Are they real?  logical?  is there evidence?  Not many people are able to do this.   
 
I'd think most people having gone through a full deconversion would feel like there were 100s of problems with their previous belief system.  You feel this way because you've put your belief structure to the test and point by point it failed.  I can't think of many religions that would really stand up to this kind of analysis.  It's pretty much all a bunch of hooey.

And LDS Truthseeker posted this response:

Yeah, if it was just a matter of having no evidence to support the Church's claims, then that would be one thing.  We would just need a certain amount of faith to accept the Church's claims.  However it is not the lack of evidence but rather the contradictory evidence that makes the claims of the Church so hard to believe.
 
If it was just a couple irreconcilable items that needed an extra measure of faith, then that would be a hurdle most of us would be willing to shelve until the next life.  But the sheer accumulation of significant issues that contradict what we've been taught makes it seem inconceivable that all of these things somehow have some sort of extraordinary explanation.
 
Maybe none of the individual items is in itself an absolute deal-breaker.  But the sheer volume of significant issues makes it inconceivable that the Church is really what it claims to be.
 
Maybe there really are fantastic explanations to explain all these things like God changed the American Indian's DNA from Jewish to Asian, Egyptologists don't really understand Egyptian, archaeologists just haven't found the steel swords, horses, and elephants mentioned in the BOM, Joseph didn't really know where the Hill Cumorah from the BOM was, the scribes were responsible for all the errors and misquotings of the prophets, blacks really are cursed from God through Cain, Joseph's brothers sleeping in Joseph's own bed with him just slept while Moroni visited him all night, evil men really did steal the lost 116 pages but just decided to destroy this valuable document, the Masons really did have the original temple ceremony from Solomon's time, God brought all the dinosaur bones from other planets to the Earth, etc.
 
If these and many, many more fantastic explanations for all the numerous problems were really true, then that would be even more amazing and unbelievable than the story of the restoration itself as taught by the Church!  What are the chances that ALL of the damning evidence against the Church will suddenly reverse itself?
 
I think that anyone that knows the complete, true, historic details of all of these events, and many others not listed here, and is then asked to still believe in them as taught by the Church, is asking for more sheer faith than anyone should be asked to have.

And then howdidimissthat posted this response:

I could have excused a handful of historic omissions but when EVERY "fact" I thought I knew ended up being a lie everything changed, I had no more respect for their dishonest system.  Some "facts" were omitted from history, others were distorted and rewritten.  The intent was dishonest when it happened and it is dishonest to continue lying.  The leaders will never step up and do the right thing.  They will never tell the truth as the truth not as an excuse or an apologetic explanation.  The big 15 have too much to lose if they present the true facts and apologize for years of lying, they don't give a rat's ass about the members.  They are cowards. 

Very interesting discussion.  My rant for the day culminated in me writing a poem... which I posted in the Poetry section of this blog...