All of atomliner's Comments + Replies

Whatever the prophet says that doesn't match up with their own interpretation of Mormonism is false? I honestly do not know, I never thought this way when I was LDS.

I masquerade as a liberal Mormon on Facebook since I'm still in the closet with my unbelief. In my discussions with friends and family the most common position taken is that the First Presidency and the Twelve Apostles cannot teach false doctrine or else they will be forcibly removed by God. I even had a former missionary companion tell me that President Gordon B. Hinckley died in 2008 not from old age (he was 98) but because he had made false statements on Larry King Live concerning the doctrine of exaltation in which worthy Latter-day Saints can become gods.

Those are good examples. Though I guess whether this is possible depends on your definition of "forget". Speaking of the Spanish Inquisition, I am of the opinion that the Inquisitors did not forget their core tenets but that further knowledge (however flawed) gave them new means to interpret the original tenets. You could suggest that this re-interpretation was exactly what Jesus wanted to keep people from doing, of course. The question I ask Christians, then, is "What knowledge is acceptable and how should it be attained when God doesn't en... (read more)

Oh, okay, I understand how this could be seen as contradictory.

In the first case I was arguing from my own, real-time atheist self that believes Jesus was illogical in his comments on people forgetting the basic principles of Christianity in their pursuit for more knowledge. How could someone forget such simple principles like "love one another" in their pursuit for more knowledge? Note that I never said this reason was insufficient for a Mormon to hold this belief, I was only saying it was insufficient to atheist me and I wanted JohnH to provide... (read more)

Those are strong arguments for discontinuing this discussion. Thank you for helping me grok this situation better. :)

So, this whole debate is about whether your-previous-self, or JohnH, is better deserving of the title of 'true Mormon'?

That's funny. No. I don't care what JohnH wants to be seen as or what title he deserves. I just want my previous-self identified as a "plausible Mormon". In my opinion, JohnH wants me to be seen as a "fringe Mormon" whose departure from the LDS Church is unimportant in the debate over whether the LDS Church is true, because I didn't really understand Latter-day Saint beliefs. Which I did as much as any other average ... (read more)

Please show what I said (excluding the reference to Confucius) is not clearly based in scripture, Numbers 11:29 may be helpful.

I apologize. I had thought that you were using the three scriptures I quoted earlier to support the point that the scriptures confirms that atheists can be as happy, healthy, and moral as theists. In actuality, you were using them to describe how blessings come from following the commandments and not just from belief in the first two cases and in the third case you were supporting the idea that God understands it is difficult fo... (read more)

Paul saying those that didn't know God and that didn't have the law but that acted justly being justified because of their actions doesn't imply to you that it is possible to be moral, healthy, and happy without faith in God?

I don't know where you draw that implication from the word "justified". So, no.

How about this, where in "There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated— And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it

I already pointed you to Romans 2, specifically in this case Romans 2:13-15, did you want more?

Yes. I don't see anything in Romans 2 that shows me that you can be moral, healthy, and happy without faith in God.

A prophet is only a prophet when they are acting as a prophet.

But you have to admit it's hard sometimes to distinguish whether or not a prophet is acting as one.

More specifically there are multiple First Presidency statements saying Adam-God is wrong.

I never believed that Adam WAS Elohim, but I did believe that what Brigham Young and othe... (read more)

I say probably because it might not require an authoritarian government to enact such a policy. I can imagine realistic scenarios.

Outlawing religion outright in a religious society would cause some serious problems and would probably require a very authoritarian government.

I never said that I considered people different than me to not be good. What I said in earlier comments is that I liked The God Delusion because it introduced me to the concept that you can be "a good, healthy, happy person without believing in God". I believed that those who did not have faith in God would be more likely to be immoral, would be more likely to be unhealthy, and would definitely be more unhappy than if they did believe in God. The book presented to me a case for how atheists can be just as moral, just as healthy, just as happy as ... (read more)

I am going to make a prediction that you likely grew up in a smaller community in Utah or Eastern Idaho.

Wrong. I moved to Utah already an atheist. I didn't grow up in any one area, my family moved several times when I was younger. For example, I lived in Arizona, California, Georgia, and North Carolina before moving to Utah. The state I feel most confident in calling my home is California, since I lived there from 2004 to 2009.

In regards to the Journal of Discourse quote, the actual doctrine that Brigham Young is talking about it is very much emphasiz

Incidentally, I can't help wondering what would you have done if the Spirit had told you it was bunk ;)

I like to think I still would have debunked Mormonism in my own mind, but maybe not! That experience was extremely important to my deconversion process, because the only reason I believed in the LDS Church was because of the Spirit telling me the Book of Mormon was true and that Jesus Christ was my Savior. As soon as the Spirit told me something so contradictory as The God Delusion was true, my whole belief structure came crumbling down.

I was not trying to justify my leaving the Mormon Church in saying I used to believe in the extraordinary interpretations I did. I just wanted to say that my re-education process has been difficult because I used to believe in a lot of crazy things. Also, I'm not trying to make a caricature of my former beliefs, everything I have written here about what I used to believe I will confirm again as an accurate depiction of what was going on in my head.

I think it is a misstatement of yours to say that these beliefs have "absolutely no relation to... anythi... (read more)

Welcome to LessWrong!

Thank you! :)

Good for you! You might want to watch out for assuming that everyone had a similar experience with religion; many theists will fin this very annoying and this seems to be a common mistake among people with your background-type.

I apologize. I had no idea I was making this false assumption, but I was. I'm embarrassed.

I'm curious, could you expand on what you found so convincing in The God Delusion?

I replied to JohnH about this. I don't know if I could go into a lot of detail on why it was convincing, it was almost... (read more)

The arguments seemed to make more sense to me than those made for the existence of God? I don't know, it's a long book. The parts I liked the most was about the prayer experiment that showed no correlation between prayers and the recovery of hospital patients and how you can be a good, healthy, happy person without believing in God. Those were things I had never heard before.

I have visited mormonsandgays.org. That came out very recently. It seems that the LDS Church is now backing off of their crusade against homosexuality and same-sex marriage. In the middle of the last decade, though, I can assure you what I was taught in church and in my family was that civilizations owed their stability to the prevalence of traditional marriages. I was told that Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because homosexuality was not being penalized and because of the same crime the Roman Empire collapsed. It is possible that these teachings, while... (read more)

Over twenty-three years the numbers add up. I think I could easily find more than a hundred active Latter-day Saints just counting members of my extended family that I routinely encounter every year.

I've only had two of my Mormon peers/friends/relatives reveal to me after knowing them for a substantial amount of time that they are atheists. Based on that, I would guess the percentage of active Latter-day Saints that are closet atheists is pretty low, around 1%-3%?

Hello! I call myself Atomliner. I'm a 23 year old male Political Science major at Utah Valley University.

From 2009 to 2011, I was a missionary for the Mormon Church in northeastern Brazil. In the last month I was there, I was living with another missionary who I discovered to be a closet atheist. In trying to help him rediscover his faith, he had me read The God Delusion, which obliterated my own. I can't say that book was the only thing that enabled me to leave behind my irrational worldview, as I've always been very intellectually curious and resistant t... (read more)

Honestly. Let's investigate! OrphanWilde, under which circumstances would it be possible for you to divulge the location of this anomaly?