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Archive for the ‘Theology’ Category

What happens when journalists don theology hats?

01.24.2011 · Posted in Atheism, mormontimes.com, Theology

You get arguments like Lane Williams’s in the MormonTimes this morning.  Williams begins by lamenting the fact that atheists occasionally receive media attention: Reporters have provided a great deal of attention to these atheists, stoking the controversy over the existence of God. Even if reporters had no purpose to question religious faith, doubts have become ...

Sunday in Outer Blogness: Theology and Doctrine Edition!

11.21.2010 · Posted in Sunday in Outer Blogness, Theology

What do Mormons believe? Seems like nobody really knows. I could swear they were once the church of modern-prophets-filling-in-the-Bible-gaps-with-concrete-answers. Then “correlation” came along and stamped out all of those (controversial!) specifics, and replaced them with a short list of vague warm-fuzzies like “faith” and “tithing”. But that hasn’t stopped the folks of Outer Blogness and ...

Dallin Oaks tries to remain relevant

02.27.2010 · Posted in Apologetics, Law, Science, Theology, Truth

For some reason someone thought it would be a good idea to invite Dallin Oaks to Harvard to talk to students. First mistake. Dallin Oaks went. Second mistake. Dallin Oaks said something. Third mistake. Quick summary of what Oaks said: People in the US, generally, are ignorant about religion. He says that’s bad.  Oaks then ...

Oldies but Goodies: Testimony of a Dissident

A while back another blogger asked me to submit an essay about my Mormon experience. Probably, for good reasons he changed his mind and never published it. Since it is already written and might shed some light on my argument at Times and Seasons, I might as well publish it myself. It might help some ...

On the church’s uniqueness

…Sometimes, these blog entries just take too much time to set up…anyway, I was reading Mormon Matters and getting into the discussion there, and Bruce had said something that I found intriguing: …John Dehlin suggested that it was a mistake for modern Mormons to down play what he calls “19th century doctrines” (as he interprets ...

Your Sunday School Lesson: The First Vision

According to the philosopher Mircea Eliade, of whose work I learned at BYU, every community, tribe, or nation requires an origin myth. The account of a community’s or practice’s origin has far reaching consequences because it implies how they relate to the cosmos, which is necessary for human beings to imbue their world with shared ...

Sure, I’ll tell you why there is no god…

12.19.2008 · Posted in Atheism, Theology

So, I’m minding my own business being an atheist and not talking to anyone about it when I get a note from my TBM sister-in-law. Here’s what it says: I have a question for you. I have to do a presentation on “does God exist?” I have to use both sides and I can’t think ...

Black White thinking

12.06.2008 · Posted in Appearances, Suffering, Theology, Tolerance

I left active mormonism when I was a teenager during a great deal of personal growth and change. Looking back on it, it’s hard to say what belief systems were part of mormonism, and what were just part of maturing (growing up). I would argue that there are many mormons (and adults, for that matter) ...