Comments on: Mormon

By: Eric D. Dixon

Eric D. Dixon — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 21:04:30 +0000

Tim Lee was telling me that you suggested he name the Show-Me Institute after a purported would-be assassin of Gov. Boggs. He couldn't remember the name, but I'm guessing you suggested the Porter Rockwell Institute? Now, that would have been cool…

By: Eric D. Dixon

Eric D. Dixon — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 14:04:30 +0000

By: Jen

Jen — Fri, 26 Sep 2008 05:28:16 +0000

According to the diversity speaker at my law school this week, RLDS and FLDS are mormon, just like there are many flavors of jews. Never quite thought of it that way since, as you say, a large part of being RLDS is explaining how you are not Mormon.

By: Don Arthur

Don Arthur — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 21:17:54 +0000

So you're a libertarian now?

By: Braden

Braden — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 15:55:55 +0000

Really enjoyed this, as an ex-Kolob-Mormon atheist. Thanks.

By: Bill Gardner

Bill Gardner — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 14:01:46 +0000

I would qualify the “Brigham Young was a douche” comment (although it is more accurate than the plaster saint of the LDS literature). How about “weird organizational genius in a savage time”? If the category for judging him is “religious leader of an oppressed community”, he wasn't Gandhi, Martin Luther King, or the Dalai Lama. If the category is “Civil/military leader of a colonialist group”, he was better than Phil Sheridan or the ethnic cleaners who settled Texas (the Mormon exodus coincided with the Mexican War).

By: Greg N.

Greg N. — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:23:26 +0000

I'm not sure if we talked about this before, but my mother was one of ten children, and the only one to reject the Mormon faith (my grandmother was a believer until her end; my grandfather a de facto atheist). I'd like to think that even if she hadn't, I could've overcome the dogma and rejected it myself, but seeing my cousins I'm really, really thankful I didn't have to grow up in that church. I did, however, take a trip to Utah once (I have an aunt and uncle who live there), and visited the Temple (in which numerous cousins have been married), which I enjoyed.

I always thought the whole Mormon enterprise was ridiculous, but I didn't know other people thought it was weird and cultish until I was a teenager. Then, I often found myself defending Mormons against the charges from “Christians.” I could never understand why it was absurd to believe in some of the more out there Mormon beliefs, but not, say, Virgin births and resurrections.

I didn't have nearly the exposure to the faith that you had, but I had much more than most. All in all – and probably because my parents acted as a pretty strong buffer protecting me from the actual dogma – I think I'm better for it.

By: jehovah

jehovah — Thu, 25 Sep 2008 13:20:53 +0000

but atheist now?

its strange how many intellectual people were bible bashers in their teen years…were we attracted to the scholarly pursuit of it all, or what?