Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Exmormon Skeptics' New Home
by: Jon
We had created the ExMormon Skeptic blogspot page as an alternative to the blogs on our original website, exmormonskeptic.com.
However, we quickly realized that blogspot would do everything our own page was doing, plus it looks a lot nicer, and it's easier to use.
So we decided to simply redirect exmormonskeptic.com to here. Our original site still exists, and will continue to host pages and files as needed. The podcast feed will also remain the same.
So now you can either to go exmormonskeptic.blogspot.com, or keep going to exmormonskeptic.com. They're essentially the same thing. Thanks!
We had created the ExMormon Skeptic blogspot page as an alternative to the blogs on our original website, exmormonskeptic.com.
However, we quickly realized that blogspot would do everything our own page was doing, plus it looks a lot nicer, and it's easier to use.
So we decided to simply redirect exmormonskeptic.com to here. Our original site still exists, and will continue to host pages and files as needed. The podcast feed will also remain the same.
So now you can either to go exmormonskeptic.blogspot.com, or keep going to exmormonskeptic.com. They're essentially the same thing. Thanks!
A Cute and Cuddly Bedtime Story of Mass Extinction
by: Jon
Just how does mass genocidal extinction become a cute and cuddly bed-time story?
When it's a bible story, that's how.
There are hundreds of children's storybooks, puzzles, games, videos, wallpaper, and toys all depicting Noah's Ark with all his happy smiling animals friends... oh, look! Cute furry bunnies!
Somehow, the rest of the story just doesn't matter. You know, the part where everyone else on the planet DROWNS TO DEATH.
Here is my more accurate portrayal of the flood story:
Sure, 40 days and 40 nights of rain that covers the globe would have eroded every mountain down to a nub, never mind wherever the water came from or where it all went. Forget the fact that such a deluge of water would have diluted the saltwater oceans, destroying the ecosystems and turning them into a barren waste. Don't concern yourself with what the animals ate after they got off the ark, either, since all the plants around the world would have also died... and the carnivores would have finished off everything in the ark in a matter of days. And it isn't important to figure out how the marsupials got back to Australia, the penguins to Antarctica, and so on.
Of course the story makes no sense, but that's not the point.
The point is that this is a story where God comes right out and KILLS everyone because they aren't doing what he wants them to, and then this story is turned into a lovable and cuddly cartoon. This is the bits of the story they don't include in the childrens videos. It's all there. Go read your Bible.
Genesis 6
Angels and humans are getting awfully "friendly" and the resulting half-breed offspring are called "Nephilim." Sounds like something from a L. Ron Hubbard novel.
God sees that everyone is wicked and violent, and he doesn't like violence... so he decides to murder everyone.
But God likes Noah, so he tells him to build an ark, tells him how many animals to put on it, and to put his family aboard. Also, Noah is 600 years old.
Forgetting for a moment the blind hypocrisy of Gods action here, it's interesting that his plan will kill all the animals, too, who are, after all, only doing what he created them to do.
So the waters come, everyone jumps in the boat, the entire earth is covered, and everything dies. EVERYTHING.
The wind started to blow and the water gradually began to disappear... off the edge of the earth, I guess, I don't know.
It takes several months, but they can finally see mountain tops. Noah sends out a dove who brings back an olive branch, and that's how Noah knows there's dry land.
So they land, and the animals scamper out of the ark. God never seems to notice that the animals still eat each other and such, but whatever. Noah kills some animals and offers them as a sacrifice... because God hates violence, remember. God says the barbeque smells really good (Yes, it's there: Genesis 8:21) and now he feels bad, so he promises that he'll never kill everything again. I guess he learned a valuable moral lesson!
He tells Noah to go ahead and eat anything he wants. Since God hates violence, he tells Noah to enforce capital punishment, eye for an eye, etc.. God again promises not to kill everything, but this time he says he won't *flood* everything again. Ah-ha! A loophole! Next time, it's FIRE! Suckers!
But God seems worried he might forget that he promised not to drown everyone, though, so he invents rainbows. Apparently the physical laws of light defraction didn't exist until that moment. Now, every time he sees a rainbow, he'll remember he isn't supposed to drown everything.
Noah plants a vineyard, makes wine, and passes out naked. His youngest son sees him and tells his two older brothers, who go to great lengths to cover him up without ever having to actually look at his 600 year old nakedness. Noah wakes up and, in what seems to be a drunken rant, condemns his youngest sons family to slavery for... whatever it was he did.
Yup... Noah was a drunk, his family dysfunctional, and their inbreeding repopulated the planet. Noah dies 350 years later, now nearly 1,000 years old. It's surprising he didn't leave a bigger footprint in history.
The end.
-----------
So... how is this a good story, much less a reasonable one? God doesn't like the way people turned out, so he can just wipe them out? Isn't this a lesson of terror and intimidation? And it's being sent straight to our kids, as if it's no big deal.
I was raised with this story as literal truth. I can't imagine that this is how we want our kids to grow up... to be afraid and terrorized. Christians talk about their God of love... but I don't actually see much of him in the Bible.
Just how does mass genocidal extinction become a cute and cuddly bed-time story?
When it's a bible story, that's how.
There are hundreds of children's storybooks, puzzles, games, videos, wallpaper, and toys all depicting Noah's Ark with all his happy smiling animals friends... oh, look! Cute furry bunnies!
Somehow, the rest of the story just doesn't matter. You know, the part where everyone else on the planet DROWNS TO DEATH.
Here is my more accurate portrayal of the flood story:
Sure, 40 days and 40 nights of rain that covers the globe would have eroded every mountain down to a nub, never mind wherever the water came from or where it all went. Forget the fact that such a deluge of water would have diluted the saltwater oceans, destroying the ecosystems and turning them into a barren waste. Don't concern yourself with what the animals ate after they got off the ark, either, since all the plants around the world would have also died... and the carnivores would have finished off everything in the ark in a matter of days. And it isn't important to figure out how the marsupials got back to Australia, the penguins to Antarctica, and so on.
Of course the story makes no sense, but that's not the point.
The point is that this is a story where God comes right out and KILLS everyone because they aren't doing what he wants them to, and then this story is turned into a lovable and cuddly cartoon. This is the bits of the story they don't include in the childrens videos. It's all there. Go read your Bible.
Genesis 6
Angels and humans are getting awfully "friendly" and the resulting half-breed offspring are called "Nephilim." Sounds like something from a L. Ron Hubbard novel.
God sees that everyone is wicked and violent, and he doesn't like violence... so he decides to murder everyone.
But God likes Noah, so he tells him to build an ark, tells him how many animals to put on it, and to put his family aboard. Also, Noah is 600 years old.
Forgetting for a moment the blind hypocrisy of Gods action here, it's interesting that his plan will kill all the animals, too, who are, after all, only doing what he created them to do.
So the waters come, everyone jumps in the boat, the entire earth is covered, and everything dies. EVERYTHING.
The wind started to blow and the water gradually began to disappear... off the edge of the earth, I guess, I don't know.
It takes several months, but they can finally see mountain tops. Noah sends out a dove who brings back an olive branch, and that's how Noah knows there's dry land.
So they land, and the animals scamper out of the ark. God never seems to notice that the animals still eat each other and such, but whatever. Noah kills some animals and offers them as a sacrifice... because God hates violence, remember. God says the barbeque smells really good (Yes, it's there: Genesis 8:21) and now he feels bad, so he promises that he'll never kill everything again. I guess he learned a valuable moral lesson!
He tells Noah to go ahead and eat anything he wants. Since God hates violence, he tells Noah to enforce capital punishment, eye for an eye, etc.. God again promises not to kill everything, but this time he says he won't *flood* everything again. Ah-ha! A loophole! Next time, it's FIRE! Suckers!
But God seems worried he might forget that he promised not to drown everyone, though, so he invents rainbows. Apparently the physical laws of light defraction didn't exist until that moment. Now, every time he sees a rainbow, he'll remember he isn't supposed to drown everything.
Noah plants a vineyard, makes wine, and passes out naked. His youngest son sees him and tells his two older brothers, who go to great lengths to cover him up without ever having to actually look at his 600 year old nakedness. Noah wakes up and, in what seems to be a drunken rant, condemns his youngest sons family to slavery for... whatever it was he did.
Yup... Noah was a drunk, his family dysfunctional, and their inbreeding repopulated the planet. Noah dies 350 years later, now nearly 1,000 years old. It's surprising he didn't leave a bigger footprint in history.
The end.
-----------
So... how is this a good story, much less a reasonable one? God doesn't like the way people turned out, so he can just wipe them out? Isn't this a lesson of terror and intimidation? And it's being sent straight to our kids, as if it's no big deal.
I was raised with this story as literal truth. I can't imagine that this is how we want our kids to grow up... to be afraid and terrorized. Christians talk about their God of love... but I don't actually see much of him in the Bible.
Saturday, May 26, 2007
The LDS Church Stands or Falls on a Literal Global Flood
by: Kay
Mormonism stands or falls on a global flood. Joseph Smith taught Adam and Eve dwelt in
A global flood can be written of by other theists - who see the geological nonsense supporting it - by saying it was a symbolic flood, or only a limited area was flooded, which seemed like the entire Earth from Noah's perspective.
To believe in the
Before anyone tries to say Joseph Smith was speaking as a man, and this was only his opinion, not revelation, please note Noah’s flood is in fact doctrine. It is canonized in the BoM, PoGP, and the D&C in the following versus:
Moses 7:42
Abraham 1:19
Alma 10:22
Ether 6:7
Joseph Smith-Matthew 1:41-42
D&C 84:14-15
D&C 133:54
3 Nephi 22:9
These cannonized scriptures are revelations from God and all mention Noah as a real actual person, and the flood as a real actual event. The BoM and other revealed scripture of the Church are all supposed to be 100% accurate, true, and literal. Never has an LDS leader stated Noah and the global flood are mythological.
"There was the great Flood, when waters covered the earth and when, as Peter says, only 'eight souls were saved'" – Gordon B. Hinckley, If We Are Prepared Ye Shall Not Fear, 175th Semi-Annual General Priesthood Meeting
"In spite of the world’s arguments against the historicity of the Flood, and despite the supposed lack of geologic evidence, we Latter-day Saints believe that Noah was an actual man, a prophet of God, who preached repentance and raised a voice of warning, built an ark, gathered his family and a host of animals onto the ark, and floated safely away as waters covered the entire earth. We are assured that these events actually occurred by the multiple testimonies of God’s prophets."
1998 Ensign article
The Church has excommunicated members for taking a stance against the literalness of the BoM. Everything in the BoM is supposed to be read as true, without question. Any evidence against the BoM will later be refuted and shown to be wrong. Never mind the continuously mounting evidence against it. Perhaps in this lifetime, perhaps in our children's lifetimes. Someday, someday...just you all wait and see.
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