Gospel Doctrine for the Godless

An ex-Mormon take on LDS Sunday School lessons

Category: abusive relationship with God (page 2 of 2)

NT Lesson 20 (Hypocrisy)

30 May 2015 / / 2 Comments

“Woe unto You, … Hypocrites”

Matthew 21–23; John 12:1–18

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To help readers to avoid hypocrisy, and to point out the kind of hypocrisy that the church deals in.

Reading

This lesson is about hypocrisy, and that really is a terrible thing. Pretending to be one way while being another way leaves you feeling split down the middle. I think a lot of us know what this is like.

And I don’t want to say that people in the LDS Church are a bunch of hypocrites. It would be hypocritical of me to say so. We all have trouble living up to the ideals we espouse, and our implementation won’t always be perfect. The best we can do is keep trying to improve, and to try to make the inside match the outside. Ironically, this task has been much easier for me since leaving the church.

Here’s why: as a kid in a Mormon family, you kind of get your moral system handed to you. How to live, what’s right and wrong — that’s what church leaders are for, to tell you that stuff. Morality is for them to know, and for you to find out, like in General Conference. You’re encouraged to study things out in your own mind, and get “personal revelation”. But if you get a different answer than the one you’re supposed to get — well, that doesn’t get you too far in a church where they tell you what kind of underwear to put on, and where wearing a blue shirt instead of a white one is considered daring at best and an act of rebellion at worst.

So you get this moral code issued to you at birth. It’s not negotiable, and you’re constantly reminded that obedience is the first law of heaven. But sometimes the code doesn’t make sense, and maybe it doesn’t really fit you. You notice that other people have to think about their moral choices, and they seem to do mostly fine, even though their code differs from yours. And your code excludes a lot of normal stuff that isn’t so bad, but you’re supposed to feel bad when you do it.

What’s a young person in a Mormon setting to do, besides obey the phoney moral code? There are basically three choices:

  1. Rebel. Make your own code. Not the favoured option for someone who wants to be a “good kid”.
  2. Give up. I saw a lot of kids do this. Eventually you forget what was in your own heart.
  3. Sneak. This was very popular, too. It’s a way of keeping peace with the adults, but still having some latitude to live your own way. But it turns you into a hypocrite. And then when you hear lessons in church about the danger of hypocrisy, you feel bad for engaging in that pattern of behaviour. But you might not realise how the imposition of this artificial and nonsensical moral code contributed to your behaviour.

Ask: What is hypocrisy?

My computer’s dictionary defines hypocrisy as: the practice of claiming to have higher standards or more noble beliefs than is the case.

By this definition, the LDS Church commits a lot of hypocrisy of its own.

  • LDS leaders work tirelessly in the service of bigotry, working to deny the validity of the relationships of LGBT people, and bemoaning the consequences if such marriages have legal recognition. But then they decry the lack of tolerance afforded to their bigotry — moaning that for progressives, tolerance is a “one-way street”. How to respond to this? My response is that it’s hypocritical for them to renounce tolerance by persecuting LGBT folks, and then to demand tolerance when it’s convenient for them — especially when they intend to use such tolerance… to promote intolerance.
  • It claims to have the standard of truth against which all others can be evaluated. But as we’ve seen in lessons, its own teachings — on evolution, the history of the earth, and (as we’ll see next year) the origins of the native peoples of the Americas — are demonstrably false. They teach that the Book of Mormon is “the most correct book upon the face of the earth”, when it is actually not even a correct book. In addition, the church promotes a counterfeit method of “knowledge from feels” that does not lead to truth. It does this while calling out “counterfeits” of its own — counterfeit families, counterfeit belief systems, and so on.
  • It demands honesty from its members — the temple recommend interview asks if a member is “honest in their dealings” with other people — while the church itself has always been less than forthcoming about its own history and origins. Facts have been routinely dismissed as “anti-Mormon lies”, and then when the church has tried to make a belated show of clearing the air, it quietly publishes anonymous (and therefore retroactively deniable) essays, showing some of the facts that will reflect best on the church. Members are instructed not to tell potential converts about its strange and potentially off-putting temple ceremonies.

Now where did I get the idea that it was okay to shade the truth and present oneself in the most positive light? How easily I slipped into it, and how long I kept that up!

I want to explain how I try to avoid hypocrisy. I’m a university lecturer and a presenter on my language podcast Talk the Talk, and so there’s a temptation for me to want to be the Smart Guy. But I’m not, not really. I feel like I hardly know anything! And pretending I do is really destructive. When you pretend to know more than you do, it keeps you from learning more. And then it’s all about you and reputation and protection, and not about what’s true.

My advice: The antidote to hypocrisy is humility. Intellectual humility is not only an appealing quality in a thinker, it’s repulsive when it’s absent. So here are my tips.

  1. Say “I don’t know”. We sometimes get allergic to saying “I don’t know” in academia. But that’s something that you have to say! Saying “I don’t know” is the beginning of knowledge. But the next thing out of your mouth should be, “How can we find out?” or “How would we know the right answer if we saw it?”
  2. When you’re wrong, cheerfully admit it, and update. No one is going to get it right all the time. And just about everything we think is true is going to be a little bit wrong. There’s no shame in admitting that. I actually love it when someone can tell me when I’m wrong. That means I don’t have to believe that wrong thing anymore! What a great thing! And if I know people are able to get back to me about mistakes, it means the feedback system is working, and that means I probably got everything else right. Right?

Here’s a recent episode of Talk the Talk where I corrected a mistake, and used it as a springboard for further discussion. Have a listen.

Main ideas for this lesson

Mary and the ointment

At the start of this lesson, Jesus is eating with friends. Then things get weird. Right in the middle of dinner, Mary starts anointing.

John 12:2 There they made him a supper; and Martha served: but Lazarus was one of them that sat at the table with him.
12:3 Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.

I’m trying to imagine what this would have been like, if this happened at a dinner with friends. One of the guests starts rubbing something on another guest’s feet, and rubbing their hair all over them. I’m thinking ‘awkward, inappropriate, and uncomfortable’.

John 12:4 Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon’s son, which should betray him,
12:5 Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?
12:6 This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.

Apparently John could read minds. This must be what they call the “gift of discernment”.

The LDS lesson manual says:

Mary’s actions were criticized by Judas. What did he say should have been done with the ointment? (See John 12:4–5.) How was Judas a hypocrite?

Because people who say they’re concerned about the poor are hypocrites! That means that a hypocrite probably created this meme:

and this one:

and this one.

Pointing this out doesn’t sound hypocritical to me — it sounds like a fairly valid criticism.

Anyway, what’s Jesus’ response to Judas? Well, that you’re always going to have poor people.

John 12:7 Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.
12:8 For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

Jesus saith: Poverty is an intractable social problem, even if you’re an all-powerful being. Embrace inevitability, and don’t spare the ointment!

Think I’m being unfair? Nope — this idea is used by political conservatives to justify poverty.

Despite a significant rise in income inequality in Texas, Gov. Rick Perry (R) is arguing that it’s not something the state ought to be worried about.

“We don’t grapple with that here,” Perry told The Washington Post in a recent interview, while acknowledging that the state’s richest residents have seen the greatest spike in earnings.

“Biblically, the poor are always going to be with us in some form or fashion,” he added, an apparent reference to Mark 14:7. While Perry takes the message from the Bible to mean poverty is hopeless and therefore not worth grappling with, Jesus Christ was actually delivering a different lesson: “For ye have the poor with you always, and whensoever ye will ye may do them good,” the Son of God advises in the King James version of the Bible.

Triumphal entry

Over to Matthew. You know Matthew, right? He’s the one who seizes onto everything Jesus does, and claims it’s a fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy. To which I’d respond: Prophecies are easy to fulfil when you know about them.

Except sometimes he gets it wrong. Here’s a passage in Zechariah that Matthew claims Jesus fulfils:

Zechariah 9:9 Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion; shout, O daughter of Jerusalem: behold, thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

There’s a literary device in the Old Testament called parallelism, where things get repeated twice. It sounds nice, and gives the passage some heft.

We see this kind of thing in Isaiah 2:3.

…for out of Zion shall go forth the law,
and the word of the LORD from Jerusalem

Or Amos 5:24.

But let judgment run down as waters,
and righteousness as a mighty stream.

So notice the parallelism in Zechariah: he starts with

Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion;
shout, O daughter of Jerusalem:

and finishes with

riding upon an ass,
and upon a colt the foal of an ass.

Except that Matthew somehow misses the parallelism. He says that Jesus was actually riding two animals at the same time, an ass and a colt.

Matthew 21:1 And when they drew nigh unto Jerusalem, and were come to Bethphage, unto the mount of Olives, then sent Jesus two disciples,
21:2 Saying unto them, Go into the village over against you, and straightway ye shall find an ass tied, and a colt with her: loose them, and bring them unto me.
21:3 And if any man say ought unto you, ye shall say, The Lord hath need of them; and straightway he will send them.
21:4 All this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying,
21:5 Tell ye the daughter of Sion, Behold, thy King cometh unto thee, meek, and sitting upon an ass, and a colt the foal of an ass.
21:6 And the disciples went, and did as Jesus commanded them,
21:7 And brought the ass, and the colt, and put on them their clothes, and they set him thereon.

That’s some fancy riding, Jesus!

Palm Sunday – Good Friday Conflict

The always-comprehensive kyroot points out a plot hole in this story.

Jesus is adored and worshipped as a King as he enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. He then proceeds to work miracles, heal the sick, and demonstrate his supreme wisdom, making him even more a figure for adulation. But five days later, without explanation, he is abruptly hated so much by his own people that, given a chance to have him released, they chose to free a common criminal instead. There is something seriously wrong with this story.

God hates figs

Here’s one of the truly bizarre stories about Jesus.

Matthew 21:18 Now in the morning as he returned into the city, he hungered.
21:19 And when he saw a fig tree in the way, he came to it, and found nothing thereon, but leaves only, and said unto it, Let no fruit grow on thee henceforward for ever. And presently the fig tree withered away.
21:20 And when the disciples saw it, they marvelled, saying, How soon is the fig tree withered away!
21:21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done.

Mark adds that it wasn’t even the time for figs to be ripe.

That’s some psychopathic behaviour there. You can take Jesus out of the Yahweh, but you can’t take Yahweh out of Jesus. Or something.

You should check out this video, because it really is quite funny.

Parable of the marriage feast

Speaking of psychosis, Jesus tells a great story about how his father will kill loads of people at the last day.

Matthew 22:1 And Jesus answered and spake unto them again by parables, and said,
22:2 The kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king, which made a marriage for his son,
22:3 And sent forth his servants to call them that were bidden to the wedding: and they would not come.
22:4 Again, he sent forth other servants, saying, Tell them which are bidden, Behold, I have prepared my dinner: my oxen and my fatlings are killed, and all things are ready: come unto the marriage.
22:5 But they made light of it, and went their ways, one to his farm, another to his merchandise:
22:6 And the remnant took his servants, and entreated them spitefully, and slew them.

Okay, well, killing people is not good. But really, the only thing that most people did wrong in this story is not going to a party.

Matthew 22:7 But when the king heard thereof, he was wroth: and he sent forth his armies, and destroyed those murderers, and burned up their city.

Whoa! Disproportionate response, God! I wouldn’t destroy a whole city. About the most I’d do is unfriend someone.

Matthew 22:8 Then saith he to his servants, The wedding is ready, but they which were bidden were not worthy.
22:9 Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.
22:10 So those servants went out into the highways, and gathered together all as many as they found, both bad and good: and the wedding was furnished with guests.
22:11 And when the king came in to see the guests, he saw there a man which had not on a wedding garment:
22:12 And he saith unto him, Friend, how camest thou in hither not having a wedding garment? And he was speechless.

He was like, “I was out on the highway, and someone brought me here. I don’t even know anybody.”

Matthew 22:13 Then said the king to the servants, Bind him hand and foot, and take him away, and cast him into outer darkness, there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth.
22:14 For many are called, but few are chosen.

Whoa again! Outer darkness is pretty harsh for just having the wrong garment on.

So there it is. If you don’t believe in him, God is going to kill you (perhaps symbolically?). And if you do believe, but you have on the wrong garment (perhaps symbolically, perhaps actual garments), it’s OD for you.

This is a good example of something I’ve been mentioning during our New Testament year: People think Jesus is all about the love, but really, he’s the same old psychopath that Jehovah was. Obviously views on the Trinity differ, but if you were looking for evidence that God the Father and Jesus were the same person, all you’d have to do is show them the terrible scriptures from the OT, and then these scriptures from the NT, and you’d have to admit, “Yep, that’s totally the same crazy angry guy.”

Render unto Caesar

Here’s another area where some churches show more than a little hypocrisy. Jesus is having another bash with the Pharisees. They say:

Matthew 22:17 Tell us therefore, What thinkest thou? Is it lawful to give tribute unto Caesar, or not?
22:18 But Jesus perceived their wickedness, and said, Why tempt ye me, ye hypocrites?
22:19 Shew me the tribute money. And they brought unto him a penny.
22:20 And he saith unto them, Whose is this image and superscription?
22:21 They say unto him, Caesar’s. Then saith he unto them, Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s; and unto God the things that are God’s.
22:22 When they had heard these words, they marvelled, and left him, and went their way.

Good call, Jesus. Religious figures should be giving Caesar his due, and in our day this means paying tax.

Currently, religions are tax-exempt. When churches don’t pay tax, the rest of us have to pay their share. That means we’re forced to support religions we don’t even believe in. Lately, religious organisations have been screaming because they’re being forced to kick in for employees’ birth control. They argue that they shouldn’t have to pay for things that run counter to their beliefs. But when it comes to the rest of us funding churches contrary to our belief, somehow it doesn’t rate a mention. Talk about hypocritical!

And this is way bigger that the relatively trifling amounts for contraception. How much is this costing us?

April 29, 2006: Tax exemptions to Australian churches are costing federal, state and local governments more than $500 million a year, new figures show.

Half a billion dollars.

That’s Australia. How about the USA? Better sit down.

While some people may be bothered by the fact that there are pastors who live in multimillion dollar homes, this is old news to most. But here is what should bother you about these expensive homes: You are helping to pay for them! You pay for them indirectly, the same way local, state, and federal governments in the United States subsidize religion — to the tune of about $71 billion every year.

Churches are businesses. They should pay taxes like every other business. If they do charitable work, fine. Treat that like any other business that does charity work. But letting them get away without paying their fair share hurts all of us.

Compulsory love

Finally, Jesus talks about the first and great commandment.

Matthew 22:35 Then one of them, which was a lawyer, asked him a question, tempting him, and saying,
22:36 Master, which is the great commandment in the law?
22:37 Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
22:38 This is the first and great commandment.
22:39 And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
22:40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

Christopher Hitchens pointed out that the commandment to love someone is a horrible commandment.

What is it like, I’ve never tried it, I’ve never been a cleric, what is it like to lie to children for a living and tell them that they have an authority, that they must love—compulsory love, what a grotesque idea—and be terrified of it at the same time. What’s that like? I want to know.

I’ll tell. Having to love an absent father figure who knows your thoughts and can sentence you to eternal isolation is a terrible emotional ordeal. You have to read about how he’s killed those who didn’t obey him, and you have to try to admire that — to love it. It can’t be done without warping a person’s idea of what love is.

Love is a great thing, and yet commanding love is twisted. You can’t command someone to love, especially not to love everyone. It may not be appropriate or helpful to love everyone, including people who are doing you harm. If there’s contact with abusive people, what may be required is to cut off contact and get away from them before they drain you. This is okay to do.

That was quite a lesson. Until next week, be well, and I hope you have a match between the way you present and the way you are.

NT Lesson 19 (Prayer)

24 May 2015 / / 1 Comment

“Thy Faith Hath Saved Thee”

Luke 18:1–8, 35–43; 19:1–10; John 11

LDS manual: here

Purpose

To show the futility of prayer, and the contradictory and convenient rationales used to explain away its failure.

Reading

Ask the class: According to this reading, which of the following is a reason to pray?

  1. To ask God for things we need
  2. To pester God into giving us stuff
  3. To feel better about not getting stuff
  4. To remind ourselves of how unworthy we are
  5. As a way of displaying our relationship with God to other people

    Answer: All of the above, except the first one.

    Surprised? Let’s just do a bit of review.

    Back in the early days of Jesus’ ministry, prayer was simple. You asked God for stuff, you got stuff — just like in that first answer above. If you only had faith the size of a mustard seed, you could have it all. There was no indication from Jesus that it was supposed to be any other way.

    Matthew 7:7 Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you:
    7:8 For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened.
    7:9 Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone?
    7:10 Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent?
    7:11 If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?

    Mark 11:23 For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith.
    11:24 Therefore I say unto you, What things soever ye desire, when ye pray, believe that ye receive them, and ye shall have them.

    But as anyone who’s ever prayed for a pony — or a loved one to get better — knows, it really doesn’t work. People started noticing that God was giving out a lot of serpents. So Jesus added this dodge:

    Matthew 17:19 Then came the disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
    17:20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

    If you didn’t get it, it was because you didn’t have enough faith. Which is a great way of blaming the victim when prayer fails. Nice move, Jesus.

    And now, Christianity and Mormonism are teeming with qualifications, hedges, and rationales to explain why prayer really works — just not how you think. If prayer doesn’t seem to work — well, it’s because:

    • you didn’t blah blah blah…
    • you’re not supposed to blah blah blah…
    • God doesn’t blah blah blah…

    Here’s the complete chart, just for reference.

    That being the case, this lesson is about some of those other — in my view, less worthwhile — reasons for prayer.

    Main ideas for this lesson

    Pestering God into giving us what we want

    Here we have the parable of the Unjust Judge and the Widow.

    Luke 18:1 And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint;
    18:2 Saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
    18:3 And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
    18:4 And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
    18:5 Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.

    This is one dodge to justify why prayers don’t get answered: Oh, well, they will eventually.

    The LDS lesson manual elaborates.

    • How is persevering in prayer an act of faith? What should we do when we have persevered in prayer and feel that we have not received an answer?

    Elder Richard G. Scott said:
    “It is a mistake to assume that every prayer we offer will be answered immediately. Some prayers require considerable effort on our part. . . .
    “When we explain a problem and a proposed solution [to our Heavenly Father], sometimes He answers yes, sometimes no. Often He withholds an answer, not for lack of concern, but because He loves us—perfectly. He wants us to apply truths He has given us. For us to grow, we need to trust our ability to make correct decisions. We need to do what we feel is right. In time, He will answer. He will not fail us” (in Conference Report, Oct. 1989, 38; or Ensign, Nov. 1989, 30–31).

    Ask: How does Mr Scott justify the lack of answers to prayers?
    Answers:

    • God will answer your prayer. Just not yet. Well then, when? Juuuuust a little longer.
    • Prayers require effort. Submit your request again, and continue paying tithing.
    • Sometimes God answers no.

    But what good are these excuses? We could get the same results by praying to a jug of milk.

    You might as well ask a rock! Which some people do, and they think it works great.

    Pick up your stone and hold it firmly in your hand to feel its power and purifying abilities. Ask it to soak up any negativity from your office space and send out strong, positive energetic rays around your computer to keep it virus-free.

    You may chuckle, but at least rocks exist.

    By the way, why would we need to ask an omniscient god for anything, when he already knows what we need? Blonde Hot Surfer Jesus has an answer:

    To sum up, the moral of this parable is that you should keep asking. Weary the Lord with your pleadings.

    Except when you’re not supposed to keep asking. You might remember the story of the first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon, which were lost by investor Martin Harris.

    The seminary guide for the Doctrine and Covenants relates the story:

    By mid-June 1828, the Prophet Joseph Smith, with Martin Harris as scribe, had translated 116 pages of manuscript from the gold plates. Martin asked Joseph to allow him to take the manuscript to “read to his friends that [perhaps] he might convince them of the truth” (Histories, Volume 1: Joseph Smith Histories, 1832–1844, vol. 1 of the Histories series of The Joseph Smith Papers [2012], 15). Joseph approached the Lord with Martin’s request but was told not to let the manuscript out of his possession. Martin convinced Joseph to ask again—which resulted in a second refusal from the Lord. Martin prevailed upon Joseph to ask once more and, on this third request, the Lord gave permission for Martin to take the manuscript if he agreed to show the manuscript only to his wife and a few select family members. However, Martin broke his oath and the manuscript was lost. Because Joseph had not accepted the Lord’s initial counsel but delivered “that which was sacred into the hands of a wicked man” (D&C 3:12), Moroni took the plates and the Urim and Thummim from the Prophet.

    Considering what you know about Martin Harris and all that he had done for Joseph Smith, why do you think Joseph persisted in asking God if Martin could take the manuscript even though God had already given a clear answer the first two times he asked?

    I don’t know; maybe because Jesus said to persist in asking? The rules of whether to persist in prayer or leave it alone are confused and contradictory. This is not the work of a god who’s all that bright.

    Reminding ourselves of how unworthy we are

    You know what people tell me when I say that religion is harmful? They tell me about the comfort it brings them. So comfort. Wow.

    Well, how comforting is it when you’re told what an unworthy wretch you are? That’s the next purpose of prayer in this lesson, as in the parable of the Pharisee and the publican.

    Luke 18:10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.
    18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
    18:12 I fast twice in the week, I give tithes of all that I possess.
    18:13 And the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner.
    18:14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

    In other words, you’re supposed to proclaim your unworthiness at all times. This graphic is an actual meme that Christians are sharing with each other.

    This is not a system that builds confident people. It celebrates and encourages brokenness.

    Displaying your relationship with God to others

    Lazarus gets sick and dies. Like the man born blind, it’s an example of God making people sick so that he can show how great he is for making them well.

    John 11:4 When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.

    Then Jesus says something a little unusual in his prayer to raise Lazarus:

    John 11:41 Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid. And Jesus lifted up his eyes, and said, Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me.
    11:42 And I knew that thou hearest me always: but because of the people which stand by I said it, that they may believe that thou hast sent me.

    From the LDS Gospel Doctrine manual:

    • What can Jesus’ prayer before he raised Lazarus teach us about his relationship with his Father? (See John 11:41–42.) How can we follow Jesus’ example in our personal and family prayers?

    Answer: By praying as ostentatiously as possible. Suggestion: Over food in restaurants.

    On that: Would you believe that some restaurants offer discounts for customers who make a display of mumbling over their food?

    A diner on business travel received a 15 percent discount on her check for simply praying over her meal at a Winston-Salem, North Carolina restaurant Wednesday.

    Jordan Smith stopped for breakfast with two colleagues at Mary’s Gourmet Diner where they publicly prayed for their food, and later were surprised with the deduction.

    ” … The waitress came over at the end of the meal and said, ‘Just so you know, we gave you a 15% discount for praying,’ which I’d never seen before,” said Smith, according to HLN TV.  “The three of us at the table talked about how wonderful that is and what a cool thing it is that they do as business owners.”

    Except that Jesus said we’re not supposed to make a show for others.

    Matthew 6:5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
    6:6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

    Again, the advice on prayer is confusing and contradictory.

    Does prayer do anything?

    As we’ve seen, believers have taken Jesus’ original instruction to pray for things, and larded it up with justifications and out-clauses for when it doesn’t work.

    So does prayer actually do anything? Well, it’s pretty good for making you feel better.

    I will pray for you

    My favourite passive-aggressive Christian jibe is when people say “I’ll pray for you.”

    Do I answer in the way that this guy does? No, I do not.

    Often I say, “And I will reason for you.” But here are some other ways to respond.

    The God of Small Things

    Many people will say yes, prayer works. They base this on personal anecdotes, and I have to say, some of them are pretty trivial.

    That’s not a pretty picture, I know, but there are a lot of starving kids in the world. If God is helping wealthy Westerners find parking spaces, while choosing to leave problems of massive systemic suffering alone, then he truly is the God of Small Things.

    The Divine Plan

    Of course, when prayer doesn’t work, people try to make themselves feel better by saying it “wasn’t in God’s plan”.

    As always, George Carlin had the best answer to this.

    Again, on Bill Maher.

    And of all people, Mr Deity knows what’s up. He’s got a plan! And when doing nothing gets people to believe in you, why screw it up?

    Can’t answer ’em all

    Complicating the whole prayer idea is the fact that people send millions of contradictory prayers and requests that are mutually unfulfillable.

    Ask: What does John Steinbeck mean by this quote?

    All of which should be enough to tell us that prayer is futile.

    If, as people say, prayer is really for you, then there are better things for you to be doing.

    Additional lesson ideas

    Faith healing

    On his way somewhere, Jesus healed another blind guy.

    Luke 18:42 And Jesus said unto him, Receive thy sight: thy faith hath saved thee.
    18:43 And immediately he received his sight, and followed him, glorifying God: and all the people, when they saw it, gave praise unto God.

    Perhaps you’re not impressed by this story, written down as it is in this 2,000-year-old book. Would you be impressed if you saw it in real life? Many people are; these so-called miracles are duplicated by fakes and con artists everywhere.

    SCEPTICS are warning people to be wary of a self-proclaimed “miracle healer” who claims to have cured blindness and is bringing his “healing” tour to the southeast.

    Hungarian pastor Laszlo Magyari, who has claimed to have healed people of conditions from cancer to blindness, will perform his “healing” services in Bentleigh, Springvale, Noble Park, Narre Warren and Endeavour Hills over the next two weeks.

    But Australian Skeptics Victorian Branch president Chris Guest said it was important to remain vigilant of the claims of faith healers.

    “Even faith healers who are sincere in their beliefs and offer their services without fee are still capable of doing harm,” he said.

    “Their followers may be dissuaded from getting timely medical attention from serious illnesses or continuing with promising orthodox treatments.”

    Derren Brown explains how they do it.

    Until next week, I hope you are well.

    NT Lesson 18 (Lost)

    17 May 2015 / / 3 Comments

    “He Was Lost, and Is Found”

    Luke 15; 17

    LDS manual: here

    Purpose

    To show how Christianity demeans people who believe differently as “lost”, and how it demeans its own members as “unprofitable”.

    Reading

    For this lesson, Jesus has a few parables about how to treat those who are “lost”.

    Right off the bat, I have a problem. As an ex-Mormon and ex-Christian, I don’t think of myself as lost, and I find it insulting that Christians learn to portray me that way. I could think of Christians as “lost” — what else am I to call someone who ignores and denies the good in this life because they’re busy working for the next — but I don’t really think that. I think we’re all doing the best we can with the knowledge we have. Isn’t that a more respectful way of working through our differences?

    Anyway, what advice does Jesus give on how to treat the “lost”? According to these parables:

    • Parable of the lost coin
    • Parable of the lost sheep
    • Parable of the prodigal son

    we’re supposed to be happy for them… when they come back to church. But that’s about it. Until they do, Jesus doesn’t have too many ideas. Could this be why Mormons are usually so bad at relating to former members?

    Main ideas for this lesson

    Lost sheep

    Let’s start with the Parable of the Lost Sheep.

    Luke 15:4 What man of you, having an hundred sheep, if he lose one of them, doth not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness, and go after that which is lost, until he find it?15:5 And when he hath found it, he layeth it on his shoulders, rejoicing.
    15:6 And when he cometh home, he calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me; for I have found my sheep which was lost.
    15:7 I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentance.

    Ask: Why would members esteem one person who comes back over ninety-nine who never leave in the first place?
    Answer: When someone leaves, it places members in an awkward situation. They either have to think that the person was wrong to leave, or perhaps — gasp — acknowledge that they had a point. But if that person comes back, the conflict is resolved. Of course that person was wrong to leave — by coming back, they’ve admitted it themsleves! It must be tremendously validating when someone returns.

    The LDS lesson manual continues this theme.

    • In what ways might a person be “lost”? What is our responsibility toward those who are lost? (See Luke 15:4–5, 8; Alma 31:34–35.)

    Possible answer: Someone might be lost when they masturbate to porn, and our responsibility is to rat them out to the bishop! That’s according to the LDS video “Wounded on the Battlefield”, here hilariously sent up by Dusty. (Language warning, of course.)

    Ask: What do we call a religion in which members monitor and report each other for trivial infractions?

    Children

    This next part concerns child abuse. It’s not something I’ve been through, but many people have, and worse, the abuse has happened in a religious setting. I’m going to try to be as sensitive as I can about this, but please be aware if this is a triggering issue for you, and I’d appreciate seeing your thoughts in comments.

    Jesus speaks of offenses against children, saying that they’re inevitable. He’s only an omnipotent being — what can you do?

    Luke 17:1 Then said he unto the disciples, It is impossible but that offences will come: but woe unto him, through whom they come!
    17:2 It were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the sea, than that he should offend one of these little ones.

    Nice try, Jesus, but these are just words, not deeds.

    Ask: If you were an all-powerful being, and you saw that this was happening to a child, what would you do?
    Possible answers: Drop the offender with a non-suspicious heart attack, cause amnesia, change the offender’s mind like God did to Pharaoh.

    Ask: What does God do instead?
    Answer: Sits and watches, and threatens the offender with punishment later.

    Tracie Harris from the Atheist Experience expressed it rather tersely:

    When I bring this up to believers, their answer usually revolves around agency. It’s regrettable that this happens, says the believer, but God refuses to abridge the agency of the offender.

    My question then becomes: What about the child’s agency? What about their agency not to be abused? Why is the offender’s agency the only one’s that gets respected here?

    If this isn’t good evidence that no god exists, then it’s definitely good evidence that this god isn’t worth worshipping.

    While I’m on this topic, could I put a word in about bishop’s interviews. LDS bishops — generally men from the community with no training in counselling — routinely interview adolescents in closed-door sessions, in which the young people are quizzed about their sexual behaviour, including masturbation. This needs to end.

    We could also argue that religion itself is a form of child abuse. Taking the mind of a child, and diverting it toward supernaturalism is a terrible path that can take years to undo. That’s not to equate sexual abuse and spiritual or intellectual abuse — given the choice, I’d take the spiritual / intellectual abuse I got, instead of the sexual abuse I didn’t get. But it’s worth pointing out that there are different forms of abuse, and even the non-sexual kinds can be damaging.

    Unprofitable servants

    So it appears that Jesus has no trouble disparaging people who believe differently as “lost”. But he also doesn’t have very much encouragement for those who do believe.

    Luke 17:7 But which of you, having a servant plowing or feeding cattle, will say unto him by and by, when he is come from the field, Go and sit down to meat?
    17:8 And will not rather say unto him, Make ready wherewith I may sup, and gird thyself, and serve me, till I have eaten and drunken; and afterward thou shalt eat and drink?
    17:9 Doth he thank that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I trow not.
    17:10 So likewise ye, when ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say, We are unprofitable servants: we have done that which was our duty to do.

    In other words, don’t think you’re good just because you did what you were commanded. You’re still unprofitable.

    This idea has a function. After all, we want people in church to feel good, but not too good. That why we hear so much about avoiding ‘pride’. So Latter-day Saints are hearing this in church this week, and thinking, yep, I sure am unworthy.

    Keep them down. That’s how you keep them coming back. Treat ’em mean, keep ’em keen. This is classic abuser behaviour.

    I’d like to offer some good news to my Christian friends. You don’t merit the abuse that Jesus and your religion dish out. You’re better than this.

    Additional lesson ideas

    The kingdom of God is within you

    This scripture was left out of the lesson:

    Luke 17:20 And when he was demanded of the Pharisees, when the kingdom of God should come, he answered them and said, The kingdom of God cometh not with observation:
    17:21 Neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you.

    This scripture seems to imply that one can find spiritual answers inside oneself. That’s very dangerous to a hierarchical top-down model of spirituality, which is why Bruce McConkie fought it so hard. Watch as he turns it into an affirmation of the church system.

    “One of the heresies which prevails in a large part of modern Christendom is the concept that Jesus did not organize a Church or set up a formal kingdom through which salvation might be offered to men. This poorly translated verse is one of those used to support the erroneous concept that the kingdom of God is wholly spiritual; that it is made up of those who confess Jesus with their lips, regardless of what church affiliation they may have; that the kingdom of God is within every person in the sense that all have the potential of attaining the highest spiritual goals; and that baptism, the laying on of hands, celestial marriage, and other ordinances and laws are not essential to the attainment of salvation.

    “It is true that men have the inherent capacity to gain salvation in the celestial world; in a sense this power is within them; and so it might be said that the kingdom of God is within a person, if it is understood that such expression means that a person can gain that eternal world by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. But it is also true that Jesus did organize his Church and did give the keys of such kingdom to legal administrators on earth. (Matt. 16:13–19.)

    “Even the marginal reading in the King James Version changes the language here involved to read, ‘The kingdom of God is in the midst of you,’ meaning ‘The Church is now organized in the midst of your society.’ The Prophet’s rendering of Jesus’ thought, as such is recorded in the Inspired Version, is of course the best of all. Its essential meaning is: ‘The Church and kingdom has already been organized; it is here; it has come unto you; now enter the kingdom, obey its laws and be saved.’” (McConkie, DNTC, 1:540.)

    Oh, Bruce. Is there anything you can’t turn into a reification of your authority?

    Old Testament stories and the end of the world

    Rather threateningly, Jesus refers to the Flood and Lot’s wife as though they were real events — thus reaffirming that he still intends to kill a lot of people at his return.

    Luke 17:26 And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man.
    17:27 They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all.
    17:28 Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded;
    17:29 But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all.
    17:30 Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed.
    17:31 In that day, he which shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not come down to take it away: and he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.
    17:32 Remember Lot’s wife.

    Rapture

    And that leads us to one of the first scriptures that will eventually be wound into a doctrine known as the Rapture.

    Luke 17:34 I tell you, in that night there shall be two men in one bed; the one shall be taken, and the other shall be left.
    17:35 Two women shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken, and the other left.
    17:36 Two men shall be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left.

    Two men in a bed? Two women grinding? Thunderf00t once had the opportunity to interview two members of the Westboro Baptist Church, and when the interview inevitably went south, he threw this in as a last chance to offend them.

    I’m posting this video, not because I’m a fan of Thunderf00t, because I found it amusing and relevant to the scripture. I actually find his anti-feminism off-putting and misguided. But here’s the clip. The relevant part starts at 15:52.


    Well, that interview went down the tubes, so now let’s have a closing hymn. As so often is the case, this one’s from Morrissey, and it’s “Lost”. The relevant lyric: “Everybody’s lost. But they’re pretending they’re not.”

    See you next week.

    NT Lesson 17 (Hell)

    10 May 2015 / / Comments Off on NT Lesson 17 (Hell)

    “What Shall I Do That I May Inherit Eternal Life?”

    Mark 10:17–30; 12:41–44; Luke 12:13–21; 14; 16

    LDS manual: here

    Purpose

    To encourage readers to reject bad advice given by Jesus, along with the immoral doctrine of Hell.

    Reading

    Here are the main themes for this lesson:

    • It’s bad to be rich
    • Don’t plan for the future
    • You will be tortured with fire forever if you are bad (or rich).

    The first one is maybe a bit iffy, the second is just plain terrible advice, and the third one is the most immoral doctrine in all of Christianity.

    In other words, the scriptures in this lesson are the blurst. Let’s take them by course.

    Main ideas for this lesson

    The rich young man

    We start with a rich young man who wants to follow Jesus.

    Mark 10:17 And when he was gone forth into the way, there came one running, and kneeled to him, and asked him, Good Master, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?
    10:18 And Jesus said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God.

    Burn!

    Mark 10:19 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, Do not kill, Do not steal, Do not bear false witness, Defraud not, Honour thy father and mother.
    10:20 And he answered and said unto him, Master, all these have I observed from my youth.
    10:21 Then Jesus beholding him loved him, and said unto him, One thing thou lackest: go thy way, sell whatsoever thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come, take up the cross, and follow me.
    10:22 And he was sad at that saying, and went away grieved: for he had great possessions.
    10:23 And Jesus looked round about, and saith unto his disciples, How hardly shall they that have riches enter into the kingdom of God!

    Christians tend to gloss over this scripture, and they’re certainly not keen to give all their money away, as nonstampcollector has pointed out.

    The creator of Russell’s Teapot has also lampooned the Christian tendency to take everything literally, except that one scripture.

    And even though I have my views on income inequality and how bad it is for society as a whole, I still have a hard time condemning all wealth as evil. I think of Elon Musk, who’s doing a lot to help humanity in the areas of energy, transport, and space travel, and not coincidentally making a pile of dough off of it. I suppose most rich people aren’t Elon Musk.

    But what I really want to point out here — once again — is that this scripture is evidence that Christianity was an end-of-the-world cult. Believers were taught that the end was coming very soon, within the lifetimes of people who were alive then. It makes no sense to say, “Sell everything, give it away, and follow me” if you have to then go on to live a normal life. But it makes a lot of sense if you think the world is going to end in a few years.

    The end-of-the-world theme continues in Jesus’ next discourse.

    Don’t care for your life, and don’t work

    Luke 12:22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.
    12:23 The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.
    12:24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?
    12:25 And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?
    12:26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?
    12:27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
    12:28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?

    Again, this advice makes no sense in a normal life plan. It’s terrible advice! But if the world is going to end, it makes a lot of sense.

    The good news is that the world isn’t going to end, as least not in ways that doomsday prophets have anticipated. Many have predicted the end of the world (with an unsavoury amount of anticipation), and they’ve always been wrong.

    So what are believers supposed to do about this? Again: sell errything.

    Luke 12:33 Sell that ye have, and give alms; provide yourselves bags which wax not old, a treasure in the heavens that faileth not, where no thief approacheth, neither moth corrupteth.

    Cough it up, Christians.

    Jesus is come to divide families

    Jesus explains that he’s more important than family. This is SMO for a cult leader.

    Luke 12:51 Suppose ye that I am come to give peace on earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division:
    12:52 For from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three.
    12:53 The father shall be divided against the son, and the son against the father; the mother against the daughter, and the daughter against the mother; the mother in law against her daughter in law, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

    We’re even supposed to hate our family — and our own lives.

    Luke 14:26 If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.

    Is it any wonder that members treat unbelieving family so awfully sometimes?

    This is why it’s wrong to say that the church supports the family. As I’ve said before, its aim is to supplant the family. And this goes back to Jesus.

    Rich man and Lazarus

    But even that’s not as immoral as his teachings about hell. As in many other scriptures, Jesus teaches about torture in hell with actual fire.

    Luke 16:19 There was a certain rich man, which was clothed in purple and fine linen, and fared sumptuously every day:
    16:20 And there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, which was laid at his gate, full of sores,
    16:21 And desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table: moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.
    Ew.
    16:22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
    16:23 And in hell he lift up his eyes, being in torments, and seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.
    16:24 And he cried and said, Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water, and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.
    16:25 But Abraham said, Son, remember that thou in thy lifetime receivedst thy good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things: but now he is comforted, and thou art tormented.

    Mormons, like many other denominations who have found the idea of eternal torture distasteful, tend to soft-pedal the doctrine of hell — and ignore the words of Jesus in the process. They say it’s something nebulous like “separation from God”. (Can I just say that separation from God is amazing, and everyone should try it.)

    On the other hand, you’d be amazed at how many Christians I’ve talked to who, in confidence, have admitted that they do believe in the reality of hell with fire and torture and ouches. Think of that. They believe that the punishment for lack of belief — not misbehaviour, but misbelief — should be eternal torture. They think I deserve pain for the rest of eternity, because I don’t believe the same as their god does. How moral is that?

    And let’s not pretend that the doctrine of hell is entirely absent from Mormonism. It’s still there.

    It doesn’t matter for this discussion whether hell is literal fire or just solitary confinement. Both are cruel. Both are immoral forms of punishment. A punishment of infinite duration for crimes of finite duration is not moral.

    When I mention this, Christians and Mormons tell me, “No, but you see, you’re missing the point. God provided Jesus as a way of avoiding hell. He doesn’t want you to go there!”

    Which doesn’t help. Who created the punishment in the first place? It’s like an arsonist who starts fires, puts them out, and expects a great reward for rescuing people from the fire. God is only trying to save people from a punishment he created.

    Here’s another angle. Who is the doctrine of hell designed to work on? Not unbelievers — threatening someone with hell who doesn’t believe in it is quite ineffective.

    No, this idea is designed to frighten the people who are already on board. I could understand if Jesus were threatening those who oppose him. But it’s a singularly despicable move for Jesus to threaten the people who believe in him.

    And here’s the kicker: This being — who tortures people for eternity — isn’t reviled as evil. No, he’s hailed as the ultimate good guy.

    No only that — he’s meant to be worshipped. Not just tolerated and welcomed into polite society, but actually worshipped for this.

    If anyone else did the things that the Christian god is going to do, you’d lock him up. But since it’s capital G God, he gets a pass.

    Imagine also: You’re supposed to be happy in heaven, while those you love are [ broasting in hell | sentenced to isolation | relegated to servitude ] for eternity. How would one be able to enjoy eternity knowing this?

    Russel’s Teapot again:

    The concept of hell is damaging to children. It is a form of mental abuse — different from sexual abuse, but still damaging. Richard Dawkins writes:

    I received a letter from an American woman in her forties who had been brought up Roman Catholic. At the age of seven, she told me, two unpleasant things had happened to her. She was sexually abused by her parish priest in his car. And, around the same time, a little schoolfriend of hers, who had tragically died, went to hell because she was a Protestant. Or so my correspondent had been led to believe by the then official doctrine of her parents’ church. Her view as a mature adult was that, of these two examples of Roman Catholic child abuse, the one physical and the other mental, the second was by far the worst. She wrote
    “Being fondled by the priest simply left the impression (from the mind of a 7 year old) as ‘yucky’ while the memory of my friend going to hell was one of cold, immeasurable fear. I never lost sleep because of the priest – but I spent many a night being terrified that the people I loved would go to Hell. It gave me nightmares.”

    Fortunately, the concept of hell is recognised by many people for the immoral doctrine it is. Robert Ingersoll, a pioneering atheist in the late 1800s, wrote:

    THE idea of a hell was born of revenge and brutality on the one side, and cowardice on the other. In my judgment the American people are too brave, too charitable, too generous, too magnanimous, to believe in the infamous dogma of an eternal hell. I have no respect for any human being who believes in it. I have no respect for any man who preaches it. I have no respect for the man who will pollute the imagination of childhood with that infamous lie. I have no respect for the man who will add to the sorrows of this world with the frightful dogma. I have no respect for any man who endeavours to put that infinite cloud, that infinite shadow, over the heart of humanity.

    If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant.
    — Robert Green Ingersoll, “The Liberty Of All” (1877)

    And Christopher Hitchens pointed out that this was an innovation that starts with Jesus.

    Not until gentle Jesus, meek and mild, are you told if you don’t make the right propitiations you can depart into everlasting fire. One of the most wicked ideas ever preached and one that has ruined the lives and peace of mind of many, many children…preached to them by vicious, child-hating old men and women in the name of this ghasty cult.


    Transcript for people who can’t watch videos

    Well, it’s here that we find something very sinister about monotheism and about religious practice in general: It is incipiently at least — and I think often explicitly — totalitarian. I have no say in this. I am born under a celestial dictatorship which I could not have had any hand in choosing. I don’t put myself under its government. I am told that it can watch me while I sleep. I’m told that it can convict me of — here’s the definition of totalitarianism — thought crime, for what I think I may be convicted and condemned. And that if I commit a right action, it’s only to evade this punishment and if I commit a wrong action, I’m going to be caught up not just with punishment in life for what I’ve done which often follows axiomatically, but, no, even after I’m dead. In the Old Testament, gruesome as it is, recommending as it is of genocide, racism, tribalism, slavery, genital mutilation, in the displacement and destruction of others, terrible as the Old Testament gods are, they don’t promise to punish the dead. There’s no talk of torturing you after the earth has closed over the Amalekites. Only toward when gentle Jesus, meek and mild, makes his appearance are those who won’t accept the message told they must depart into everlasting fire. Is this morality, is this ethics? I submit not only is it not, not only does it come with the false promise of vicarious redemption, but it is the origin of the totalitarian principle which has been such a burden and shame to our species for so long.

    I do not like being threatened. And while you may be able to threaten someone into behaving, you can’t threaten them into being good.

    Any moral behaviour that results from threats and coercion is not real morality.

    Additional lesson ideas

    Camels and needles

    LDS culture doesn’t seem to mind prosperity, and yet Jesus was rather unambiguous about how rich people will fare in the next life.

    Mark 10:25 It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.

    Does that mean it’s bad to be rich? Usually in Gospel Doctrine, there are some noises about how people need to help the poor, but there’s nothing wrong with being rich per se. And that’s where it gets left.

    But this scripture reminds me of a formative experience on my mission.

    As a missionary, I read the Ensign magazine a lot. I really liked “I Have a Question” because it was kind of myth-busty sometimes. So I liked this article:

    Jesus once said, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” (Matt. 19:24.) Can you give me some background on this statement?

    John A. Tvedtnes, specialist in ancient Near Eastern studies and instructor at the Brigham Young University–Salt Lake Center. Over the years, biblical commentators have taken three approaches in exploring the meaning of this scripture. The first of these has found wide acceptance among Christians because of the beauty of its teachings. It holds that in ancient times there was a small gate cut inside the larger gate of the city through which one might enter after nightfall, when the city was closed. Although this small gate—termed the “eye of the needle”—could readily admit a man, a camel could enter only by first being relieved of its burden and then by walking through on its knees. The imagery here is that of the sinner casting away his faults (or the rich man his worldly possessions) and kneeling in prayer.

    Unfortunately, there are problems with this beautiful explanation. One is that the camel’s anatomy does not permit it to crawl on its knees. More serious, however, is the fact that there is absolutely no evidence whatsoever of the use of such small inset gates in the time of Christ. One may see them today in Jerusalem and Damascus, where the local tour guides will call them by the term “eye of the needle,” but there are no such gates dating prior to the twelfth century A.D. Moreover, the guides have taken the term “eye of the needle” from modern commentators of the Matthew passage and not from an authentic ancient tradition.

    Soon after reading this, the bishop gave a lesson in Elders’ Quorum, and what do you know, this scripture came up. However, the bishop seemed unaware of the above Ensign article, which I and a few other elders had read. So he spoke of a book by Spencer W. Kimball, in which he supposedly told the whole camel story, complete with the camel hobbling through the gate on its knees. He was so impressed with the symbolism.

    You can imagine what I did, as the smart-alec punk kid that I was. I raised my hand and said, “Um, actually, I read that that wasn’t true,” and then I explained what was said in the foregoing article. A few other missionaries hesitantly nodded along.

    The bishop didn’t seem to taken aback, though. Instead he just said, “Well, I still believe it, because Spencer W. Kimball wrote it in his book, and he was the prophet when he wrote it.” And the lesson moved on, and that was that.

    Now I don’t know if Kimball really did write any such thing in one of his books. Perhaps he didn’t, and the bishop had the whole thing wrong. But that’s not the important part.

    The important part was that I watched how a man could have a mistake explained to him, and then choose to persist in his mistake. It was a classic Appeal to Authority. And I realised, “Here is a man who does not want to know what is true. He would rather be wrong and believe in his leaders.”

    Leaders could be wrong, and people would defend them and go right on believing. I never forgot this. How could I, when I was confronted with this attitude in church so many times in the decades to come?

    Just to be clear on the fallacy of Appeal to Authority: it’s good to listen to people who have expertise in their field. I’ve even seen some people call the fallacy the Irrelevant Appeal to Authority, implying that not all appeal to authority is fallacious. Listening to people who know more about an area is how we learn. But there are a few caveats:

    1. Someone with authority can be wrong, even in their area. What matters is the evidence for the idea, not the status of the person.
    2. Expertise in one area does not guarantee expertise in another. Smart people can be smart, but still be prone to naive ideas outside their area of expertise. There’s at least one Nobel prize winner who’s a climate denialist, and needless to say, they didn’t win the Nobel for their work in climatology.

    And of course, we need to update when we find out we’re wrong, even if it’s some know-it-all punk kid who tells us.

    Everything shall be revealed

    There’s a Mormon joke:

    Q: Why do you always bring two Mormons with you fishing?
    A: If you only bring one, they’ll drink all your beer.

    The joke works because of the well-known tendency on the part of Mormons to police each other’s behaviour.

    Well, here’s one scripture that works toward this.

    Luke 12:2 For there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; neither hid, that shall not be known.
    12:3 Therefore whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in closets shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.

    Many times when this scripture would come up in church, people would flutter. Imagine all your secrets being broadcast from the housetops! How awful!

    I always wondered how this would work. Would it be one person reading out everyone’s misdeeds? Or would there be multiple houses? Maybe it would be like a music festival with different stages. You might hear someone say, “They’re reading out Brother Midgley’s sins over on 5th Street pretty soon. Shall we wander over?”

    I suppose the idea might hold some appeal for people who are obsessed with other people’s peccadillos (and perhaps their sexual adventures?). But in the end, this is a way for a community to get its members to police each other’s behaviour. The housetop scenario is a fiction. There are secrets we take to the grave, for better or worse.

    Blasphemy

    Jesus reiterates his comments on blasphemy against the Holy Ghost.

    Luke 12:10 And whosoever shall speak a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him: but unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.

    With all the immoral and harmful ideas we’ve seen in this lesson, I have no trouble saying:

    Fuck the Holy Ghost.

    Even if the god of the Bible were real, and you were to prove his existence to me, I would still fight him for being a sadistic asshole.

    I am more moral than God, Jesus, and the Holy Ghost put together. (Trinity joke.) And so are you. Never let someone treat you as less than you are because you refuse to accept this immoral system.

    OT Lesson 40 (Trito-Isaiah)

    26 October 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 40 (Trito-Isaiah)

    “Enlarge the Place of Thy Tent”

    Isaiah 54–56; 63–65

    LDS manual: here

    Reading

    Finally, we’re into the third of our three Isaiahs. Trito-Isaiah (as he’s known) likes writing about the destruction and death that will characterise the end times, but along the way, he writes some scriptures that Mormons like because they’re about church and stuff.

    First up: Why did God abandon his people? Because he got a little bit angry for a while. But don’t worry, Israel; he’ll totally make it up to you.

    54:7 For a small moment have I forsaken thee; but with great mercies will I gather thee.
    54:8 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.

    There’s going to be a thousand years of peace on earth. The hills will be alive with the sound of music — they’ll be singing, of course — and handclaps will be provided by trees.

    55:12 For ye shall go out with joy, and be led forth with peace: the mountains and the hills shall break forth before you into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.

    Trees got hands?

    Death to pagans and nature-worshippers, though.

    57:3 But draw near hither, ye sons of the sorceress, the seed of the adulterer and the whore.
    57:4 Against whom do ye sport yourselves? against whom make ye a wide mouth, and draw out the tongue? are ye not children of transgression, a seed of falsehood.

    As kids, we used to joke that this was about French kissing. But this is no joking matter; it’s death for anyone who doesn’t serve Jehovah / Jesus.

    60:12 For the nation and kingdom that will not serve thee shall perish; yea, those nations shall be utterly wasted.

    There’s currently a debate about whether Christianity or Islam is more violent, and I’d just like to toss these scriptures onto the bad pile for Christianity.

    There are some nice ideas promoted along with fasting, though.

    58:6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke?
    58:7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh?

    Main points for this lesson

    The Second Coming?

    Through cherry-picking and tormented interpretation, Mormons (and Christians in general) have taken these Jewish scriptures — originally about Jehovah coming to save his people — and have somehow retooled them into a story about the Second Coming of Jesus. From the real lesson manual:

    The closing chapters of Isaiah’s record present a beautiful picture of the Millennium, the thousand-year period of peace that will be ushered in by the Savior’s Second Coming.
    Which I doubt was on Isaiah’s mind; if anything, he would have been focused on the First Coming.

    Here’s a particularly egregious example from the manual:

    3. Christ’s Second Coming (Isaiah 63:1–6)
    • The Second Coming of the Savior is described in Isaiah 63:1–6. What color will the Savior’s robe be when he comes in his glory? (See Isaiah 63:2; Revelation 19:11–13; D&C 133:46–48.)

    Oooh! I know this one from one of those Mormon trivia games. The answer is “red”.

    63:2 Wherefore art thou red in thine apparel, and thy garments like him that treadeth in the winefat?

    Yay, ten points. Then the manual asks:

    What does the red color symbolize? (The blood that he shed when he suffered for our sins in Gethsemane and on the cross.)

    No, no, no. You don’t have to read very far to see that it’s not his own blood. In the very next verses, he says it’s the blood of everyone else that he treads on in his fury. That’s right; at the last day he’s going to kill everyone, and he’s going to get their blood all over his clothes!

    63:3 I have trodden the winepress alone; and of the people there was none with me: for I will tread them in mine anger, and trample them in my fury; and their blood shall be sprinkled upon my garments, and I will stain all my raiment.
    63:4 For the day of vengeance is in mine heart, and the year of my redeemed is come.
    63:5 And I looked, and there was none to help; and I wondered that there was none to uphold: therefore mine own arm brought salvation unto me; and my fury, it upheld me.
    63:6 And I will tread down the people in mine anger, and make them drunk in my fury, and I will bring down their strength to the earth.

    It’s this kind of clueless and dishonest reading that typefies Christian attempts to retcon Jewish scriptures into Christian doctrine. However, it does put a new spin on this Minerva Teichert painting.

    Look out; it’s Jesus coming to trample us! HELP! auuugghhhhhhh… crunch

     

    God’s ways are not your ways, and your ways suck

    Here’s a scripture about the sabbath that’s definitely in the Mormon Top 40.

    58:13 If thou turn away thy foot from the sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my holy day; and call the sabbath a delight, the holy of the LORD, honourable; and shalt honour him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words:
    58:14 Then shalt thou delight thyself in the LORD; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father: for the mouth of the LORD hath spoken it.

    It seems that on the Sabbath, you’re supposed to do the things God wants. Fine and dandy. But there’s something troubling here. According to Isaiah, you’re not supposed to find your own pleasure, do your own ways, or even say your own words. Isn’t this kind of odd? There’s an assumption here that doing things your way is wrong. If you want something, it’s either wrong or inconsequential.

    And this is something that I was constantly told: “You want the wrong thing, but God wants the right thing for you. Don’t do your thing; do his thing.” You are wrong, and your desires are wrong. And in this way, you’re taught to mistrust your own instincts about what is right, to second-guess your innate human sense of right and wrong, and replace it with whatever the church says.

    I don’t think this is so. I think I want good things. More so than God, in fact; I want people to be kind, have a nice life, get enough to eat, and God wants to bespatter his clothes in the blood of heathens.

    Just to continue this theme, here’s what I think is #3 on the list of Worst Scriptures of All Time:

    55:8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the LORD.
    55:9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

    I’m counting this scripture as one of the worst for a couple of reasons. First, it has the aforementioned “God is good, you suck” meme. But second, it’s so often used as a thought-blocker. If God’s ways are not our ways, then we can’t rely on our own intuitions for how a god would do things. And that means that if something in church history or church doctrine is absurd, contradictory, or just morally repugnant, it doesn’t matter — God does things different! It excuses everything, and there’s nothing more to say about the matter.

    But, the Christian says, what’s wrong with the idea that God knows more about morality than we do? Aren’t we really just demanding that he conform to our way of morality?

    Well, let me respond this way: I’m just a regular human, with regular human morality, and even I can see that God’s way of doing things is fucked up.

    If these are his ways, then I want no part of them. I am more moral than the being that’s described in the Bible.

    The big news at the time of this writing is that the church has released an anonymous essay about polygamy in Nauvoo and Kirtland. This is the most overt admission from the Church that Joseph Smith married 14-year-old girls, and other men’s wives.

    I love this bit:

    Although the Lord commanded the adoption—and later the cessation—of plural marriage in the latter days, He did not give exact instructions on how to obey the commandment.

    Isn’t that just like Jehovah? It’s important enough for him to send an angel with a flaming sword to force Joseph to fuck a teen, but when it comes to details of implementation, he’s like, “Eh, do whatever.” What a colossal doofus!

    (“Mental note to Myself: Do a better job when explaining who’s supposed to be president of the church after Joseph.”)

    I discussed this essay with a Latter-day Saint, and they gave the expected rationales:

    • This isn’t new information.
    • It happened a long time ago.
    • The important thing is that they stopped polygamy.

    But the ultimate thought-blocker was:

    • I don’t understand why Heavenly Father would do that, but I’m sure I will when I get up there.

    And that was really the end of the discussion. You’re dealing with a hyper-intelligent being who you can’t possibly comprehend. So don’t try. Essentially, it’s like saying “A wizard did it. Don’t think about it. A wizard did it.”

    Out of all the people God could have chosen to found his church, why did he pick a known swindler and story-teller like Joseph Smith? Someone who he knew in advance would bed 14-year-olds, mother-daughter pairs, and other men’s wives — in short, someone who he knew would act like, to all appearances, a 19th century sex guru? Why would he go to all the trouble of making his church look dodgy? Well, God’s ways are higher than your ways. There’s no inconsistency or flat-out con job that you can’t excuse with this idea.

    The irony here is that it’s this claim that God is super-human that is meant to distract us from noticing that his church and his modus operandi are actually very human. Everything we see about the Morg is exactly what we should expect to see if humans were running it. The problem is not that God’s ways are higher than our ways, but that his ways mirror ours too closely. We should expect more.

    Everything you do is terrible

    This one is a favourite scripture for the Pentecostals I’ve met:

    64:6 But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away.

    Again, same old story. No matter what you could ever do, it would still be awful. If you’re going to be worth anything, it won’t be because of anything you do. It’ll be because you attached yourself to someone else.

    Have a look at these graphics that Christians use to illustrate this point.

     

    Ask: How do they make you feel about your efforts? Do they encourage you to do your best? Or do they encourage you to shrink into reliance on someone besides yourself? What effect might this have on your self-esteem? Why would it be beneficial to a church for its members to feel helpless in their own efforts?
    Possible answer: The helplessness engendered by this idea keeps you coming back for more.

    This is not an idea that builds self-reliant people. It creates broken people.

    On reflection, I should point out that Mormons aren’t that big on this scripture, probably because it rubs up against their ideas on the importance of personal righteousness. I actually never heard this scripture until I got into the mission field. So this criticism belongs more to other sorts of Christian folk.

    Additional teaching ideas

    Stakes

    The lesson is big on stakes. The manual even helpfully says:

    If you use the attention activity, bring a tent stake.

    This is if no one has seen a tent stake before, or in case a vampire shows up to Sunday School.

    For the lesson manual, Isaiah’s exhortation to “enlarge the place of thy tent” means: missionary work!

    Isaiah’s Counsel

    • Stretch the tent curtains and lengthen the cords.
    • Strengthen the tent stakes.

    What We Can Do

    • Serve as full-time missionaries; share the gospel with friends and neighbors.
    • Strengthen our local stakes.

    I’m having a bit of a beef with missionary work these days. The old slogan is “Every member a missionary”, but in my experience, very few missionaries or members are familiar with the more uncomfortable areas of church history. That Joseph Smith used a magical rock in a hat to translate the Book of Mormon, or even that he had multiple wives, isn’t on their radar. The new essays, anonymous and unannounced, haven’t penetrated into the awareness of the membership.

    What that means is that people are serving missions — sacrificing time, money, energy, and opportunity — for a church they scarcely know, and without full knowledge of what they’re representing. Full, informed consent is still lacking.

    Common phrases

    I noticed two phrases in this reading that have worked their way into our lexicon.

    Game. Which phrase actually appears in the Bible?

    • There is no rest for the wicked.
    • There is no rest for the weary.
    • There is no peace for the wicked.

    Answer: None of them! Here’s the actual scripture.

    57:21 There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.

    Yes, it’s always the prepositions that trip people up. This is a bit of evidence to show how prepositions have changed since the King James Translation of 1611.

    The phrase “holier than thou” also appears in this reading. Jehovah / Jesus is talking about the kind of people that really piss him off.

    65:5 Which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me; for I am holier than thou. These are a smoke in my nose, a fire that burneth all the day.

    I hear ya, Jehovah.

    Male lactation

    Finally, a look at what Israel’s diet will consist of in the Millennium.

    60:16 Thou shalt also suck the milk of the Gentiles, and shalt suck the breast of kings: and thou shalt know that I the LORD am thy Saviour and thy Redeemer, the mighty One of Jacob.

    Probably a metaphor. Yeah, that’s it.

    OT Lesson 34 (Hosea)

    7 September 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 34 (Hosea)

    “I Will Betroth Thee unto Me in Righteousness”

    Hosea 1–3; 11; 13–14

    LDS manual: here

    Reading

    This chapter is about Hosea. We’ve seen some unusual behaviour from prophets — genocide, hacking oxen to pieces, bear maulings — but this is one of the stranger ones. To hear Hosea’s side of the story, Jehovah / Jesus commanded him to take a wife that would be adulterous. Her name was Gomer. A popular name, apparently.

    1:2 The beginning of the word of the LORD by Hosea. And the LORD said to Hosea, Go, take unto thee a wife of whoredoms and children of whoredoms: for the land hath committed great whoredom, departing from the LORD.
    1:3 So he went and took Gomer the daughter of Diblaim; which conceived, and bare him a son.

    I have to say something here. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. But in this book, plus Job and Jonah recently, we now see that God’s going through a phase where he’s just dicking with people.

    Anyway, having married an adulterous wife, Hosea writes an entire book of the Bible excoriating her for having lovers, threatening Israel with death and destruction, and asking the Lord to exact a series of frighteningly specific punishments on his wife and Israel alike.

    The picture I’m getting here is that Hosea’s wife had an affair, and he handled it monumentally badly.

    Presently, Hosea’s wife has children, and Hosea gives creative names to these adorable tots:

    • a baby son Jezreel, so named because God was going to kill lots of people to avenge the killings of Jezreel. Charming!
    • a baby daughter Loruhamah, which means ‘unloved’. What a cutie!
    • a baby son, Loammi, which means ‘not my people’. Aw, he’s adorable.

    Apart from the psychological damage inflicted by these names, the main problem is that it’s just impossible to find personalised baby stuff for them.

    Then Hosea tells his kids that their mom is a whore, and that he’s not her husband.

    2:2 Plead with your mother, plead: for she is not my wife, neither am I her husband: let her therefore put away her whoredoms out of her sight, and her adulteries from between her breasts;
    2:3 Lest I strip her naked, and set her as in the day that she was born, and make her as a wilderness, and set her like a dry land, and slay her with thirst.

    I hate when people bring the kids into it.

    And, in an extra twisted touch, he’s not going to be merciful to them because they are — as they say — brothel sprouts.

    2:4 And I will not have mercy upon her children; for they be the children of whoredoms.

    Way to go, Dad. Ironically, this lesson is being taught on Father’s Day all over Australia.

    At this point, the text becomes a little unclear, but it appears from commentaries I’ve read that Hosea goes and buys his wife back from someone. In other words, she’s become a prostitute.

    3:1 Then said the LORD unto me, Go yet, love a woman beloved of her friend, yet an adulteress, according to the love of the LORD toward the children of Israel, who look to other gods, and love flagons of wine.
    3:2 So I bought her to me for fifteen pieces of silver, and for an homer of barley, and an half homer of barley:

    Read the following scriptures with the class. What does the Lord threaten to do to those who don’t worship him?

    9:14 Give them, O LORD: what wilt thou give? give them a miscarrying womb and dry breasts.
    9:15 All their wickedness is in Gilgal: for there hated them: for the wickedness of their doings I will drive them out of mine house, I will love them no more: all their princes are revolters.
    9:16 Ephraim is smitten, their root is dried up, they shall bear no fruit: yea, though they bring forth, yet will I slay even the beloved fruit of their womb.

    10:13 Ye have plowed wickedness, ye have reaped iniquity; ye have eaten the fruit of lies: because thou didst trust in thy way, in the multitude of thy mighty men.
    10:14 Therefore shall a tumult arise among thy people, and all thy fortresses shall be spoiled, as Shalman spoiled Betharbel in the day of battle: the mother was dashed in pieces upon her children.
    10:15 So shall Bethel do unto you because of your great wickedness: in a morning shall the king of Israel utterly be cut off.

    13:7 Therefore I will be unto them as a lion: as a leopard by the way will I observe them:
    13:8 I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and will rend the caul of their heart, and there will I devour them like a lion: the wild beast shall tear them.

    13:15 Though he be fruitful among his brethren, an east wind shall come, the wind of the LORD shall come up from the wilderness, and his spring shall become dry, and his fountain shall be dried up: he shall spoil the treasure of all pleasant vessels.
    13:16 Samaria shall become desolate; for she hath rebelled against her God: they shall fall by the sword: their infants shall be dashed in pieces, and their women with child shall be ripped up.

    This has implications for the abortion debate.

    No word on whether counselling was effective for Hosea and Gomer.

    Main points for this lesson

    Similitudes

    Why in the world would Jehovah / Jesus command one of his prophets to marry an unfaithful wife? The real manual has it that J/J was getting Hosea to act out an allegory, in which the adultery of Hosea’s wife was meant to symbolise Israel’s apostasy.

    Explain that in addition to these smaller comparisons, Hosea also used extended comparisons, which are called metaphors or similitudes (similitude is the word used in the scriptures). The book of Hosea contains several comparisons to help us understand the relationship between Jesus Christ and his people.

    Hosea’s quite a short book, but within its pages are some of the ugliest metaphors in scripture. If you’re an ex-member who no longer worships the Abrahamic god, the LDS Church offers these metaphors to help you understand your situation.

    • Worship is like sex
    • People who turn from worshipping God (read: ex-Mormons) are like prostitutes
    • Believers are like property that God has bought, and owns
    • Believers are like animals

    Let’s look at each of these.

    Worship is like sex

    The Book of Hosea hinges on a metaphor that worship is like sex. There’s an explicit connection drawn between idolatry and adultery.

    Ask the class: How is worshipping God like having sex with God?
    Endure several minutes of uncomfortable silence. Then answer the question yourself:

    You see, the church is like a woman. And God gets mad if she has sex with anyone else. But ‘sex’ is standing in for ‘worship’. Which makes you wonder if the sex around God’s place is really boring, like Sacrament Meeting, or if the worship is actually pretty hot and steamy. I’m guessing the former.

    As for me, it’s bad enough that I was born into a church that expected me to worship the Abrahamic god for the whole of my life. Now I find that it’s meant to have a sexual element, too. This seems unimaginably creepy, as though not only my mind but also my body was required, and no need for my consent. I suppose the worship / sex thing is an apt comparison, after all.

    People who turn from worshipping God are like prostitutes

    Let’s consider the central metaphor of this reading, and see what its implications are supposed to be:

    • Hosea’s wife Gomer has left her husband, gone after other men, and become a prostitute.
    • She explicitly represents Israel, which has stopped believing in Jehovah / Jesus.
    • If we are not faithful to God (the church, Hosea, what have you), then we are acting in the role of Gomer.

    In other words, insofar as we are intended to connect this metaphor to a modern situation, people who have left the church are cast as the whore. I don’t really see any other way that this could have been intended.

    And let’s be clear: I don’t think most Mormons feel this way about ex-members. Yet the church offers this “whoredom” metaphor as a way of thinking about people who have stopped worshipping. Is this respectful? Is it accurate?

    I don’t actually have a problem with sex work, so I don’t mind this kind of criticism. Maybe it’s apt: I’ve left someone who was pimping me (the church), and gone into business for myself. However, if I went around saying that Mormons were like prostitutes, not only would I evoke howls of protest from Mormons, I’d probably have ex-Mormons telling me I was going a bit far. Yet here we have the reverse situation, posted not by some weirdo on Facebook, but proclaimed openly in every Mormon Sunday School class this week, using the church’s official teaching materials.

    One thing the church has always done very poorly is understanding the motivations of those who leave. Over and over again, we have lessons about the Dangers of Personal Apostasy, and it seems to be beyond their comprehension that people might have good reasons for leaving.

    • The claims of the church turn out not to be true.
    • Prophets do not act with anything resembling inspiration.
    • The church teaches a white-washed and distorted version of its history.
    • The church acts less like a church and more like a corporation that works to advance conservative political views.

    I think these are good reasons to leave, but what we hear in church is that ex-Mormons leave because “they were offended” or “they wanted to sin”. These rather trivial reasons are given as a way of invalidating the experience of ex-Mormons.

    Check out Jen’s great list of terms she once used to describe ex-Mos.

    Inactive, struggling with faith, lost testimony, fell away, gave in to temptation, led away, allowed Satan to have influence, lost the spirit, not truly committed, not truly converted, not obedient enough, having a crisis of faith, didn’t endure to the end, didn’t keep covenants, relied too much in the understanding of man, proud, offended, wandered off the path, focusing on the wrong priorities, complacent, selfish, not worthy, chose to sin, blinded by arrogance.

    I hear ya, Jen. I had the same list.

    If any readers want to find out why people really leave, you couldn’t do much better than this video from John Dehlin, on why people leave the LDS Church.

    Believers are like property that God has bought, and owns

    In chapter 3, Hosea buys his wife back. The real lesson manual has this to say:

    In Hosea 3:1–2, the husband purchased his wife from her lover (you may want to explain that in Old Testament cultures, women were often considered property and could be bought or sold)…. In what sense has Jesus Christ “bought” each of us? (See 1 Peter 1:18–19.) What does Christ require of us in return?

    Hey, we can do better than 1 Peter. Let’s turn to 1 Corinthians 6.

    1 Cor 6:19 What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own?
    6:20 For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.

    That’s right — you don’t belong to yourself, and you don’t (or shouldn’t) have control over your own body or your own self. And why not? Because someone allegedly bought you two thousand years ago.

    This gives the game away. Christianity purports to set us free, but in actual fact, Christianity requires slaves, and the Bible says this over and over. And if you try to escape, then some very graphic punishments will ensue.

    I think slavery is wrong, no matter who the owner is, and I don’t allow myself to be owned. Throwing off religion has served as a reclamation of my freedom and personal autonomy.

    Believers are like animals

    Finally, the lesson manual offers another — equally unappealing — metaphor.
    Another similitude often used in the scriptures to describe the relationship between the Lord and his people is the master-animal relationship. This similitude is used briefly in Hosea 11:4. What do we learn about the Lord’s feelings for his people through this comparison?

    Let’s see.

    11:3 I taught Ephraim also to go, taking them by their arms; but they knew not that I healed them.
    11:4 I drew them with cords of a man, with bands of love: and I was to them as they that take off the yoke on their jaws, and I laid meat unto them.

    Ask: What do we learn about the Lord’s feelings for his people through this comparison?
    Answer: God feels like he gets to lead his people around like an animal. But he feeds them and takes off the yoke — after putting it on, of course.

    Believers are often characterised as sheep, but in this scripture, they’re beasts of burden. And as I remember the things I used to do in the church:

    • attend hours of meetings
    • work at my callings
    • clean church buildings and temples
    • support activities
    • promise to give everything I had to the church

    I think the ‘burden’ idea is appropriate. Church activity is a burden, and an unnecessary one at that. It ties us down with bands, and then claims that they’re “bands of love”. But we all have better things to do with our time than prop up an organisation that exists for its own perpetuation.

    To conclude this section, the real lesson manual asks:

    How do the similitudes in the book of Hosea help you understand how the Savior feels about you?

    Oh, they speak volumes, I can tell you.

    Additional teaching ideas

    Is God loving and merciful?

    The real lesson manual thinks so. In fact, this one point is the entire purpose of the lesson:

    Purpose: To help class members understand that the Lord is loving and merciful and will forgive us when we repent and return to him.

    But the god of the book of Hosea shows a distinct lack of these qualities.

    Ask: Imagine someone said to you, “If you don’t worship me, I’ll kill you. But if you do worship me, I’ll be kind to you.” Would you consider that person loving or merciful?

    Answer: This is not love or mercy. If someone is kind to me, then that’s nice. It’s kind of the minimum that I would expect from a normal person. But this does not mean that they’re worthy of worship. And adding threats into the equation just compounds the unacceptability.

    The book of Hosea shows us that Christianity is an abusive and immoral religion. It’s abusive to require someone to worship or love you, and it’s immoral to someone them with death and destruction for refusing to love you enough. Jehovah / Jesus is a violent asshole, and worshipping him is a bad deal. Don’t accept it.

    OT Lesson 32 (Job)

    24 August 2014 / / Comments Off on OT Lesson 32 (Job)

    “I Know That My Redeemer Liveth”

    Job 1–2; 13; 19; 27; 42

    LDS manual: here

    Reading

    Whereas in earlier books, Jehovah-worship has been fairly straightforward — worship Yahweh or be killed — now we’re seeing a more nuanced and thoughtful view. Job is a guy who endures undeserved suffering, and leads us to ask why. It’s almost as though someone noticed: hey, the consequences of faith are not always unambiguously good. Why, it’s almost as though there’s no correlation between what a person is like, and how their life goes! Almost as though God didn’t exist! How is that possible?

    According to the real lesson manual, the Book of Job is intended:

    To help class members develop strength to face adversity by trusting the Lord, building their testimonies of him, and maintaining personal integrity.

    That’s right! You’re facing adversity because God has a plan for you! Trust him.

    Isn’t that what people always say? You’re going through adversity, and it’s hard to understand, but hang in there! It’ll all make sense one day! God has a plan!

    Unfortunately if you’re Job, God’s plan is to kill your family, afflict you with boils, and then bully you afterward by bragging about how great he is. But I’m getting ahead of the story.

    Read the following story, or play the following video for the class.

    Job was a pretty good guy, just the kind God would have been into.

    1:1 There was a man in the land of Uz, whose name was Job; and that man was perfect and upright, and one that feared God, and eschewed evil.
    1:2 And there were born unto him seven sons and three daughters.
    1:3 His substance also was seven thousand sheep, and three thousand camels, and five hundred yoke of oxen, and five hundred she asses, and a very great household; so that this man was the greatest of all the men of the east.

    But one day God and Satan are hanging out for some reason, and they make a bet whether Job really loves god or not.

    1:6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them.
    1:7 And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
    1:8 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?
    1:9 Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, Doth Job fear God for nought?
    1:10 Hast not thou made an hedge about him, and about his house, and about all that he hath on every side? thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his substance is increased in the land.
    1:11 But put forth thine hand now, and touch all that he hath, and he will curse thee to thy face.
    1:12 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD.

    So Job’s children, his animals, and his servants are all killed, and Job is understandably upset.

    1:20 Then Job arose, and rent his mantle, and shaved his head, and fell down upon the ground, and worshipped,
    1:21 And said, Naked came I out of my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return thither: the LORD gave, and the LORD hath taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.
    1:22 In all this Job sinned not, nor charged God foolishly.

    That’s not enough for God, though.

    2:1 Again there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them to present himself before the LORD.
    2:2 And the LORD said unto Satan, From whence comest thou? And Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.
    2:3 And the LORD said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil? and still he holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst me against him, to destroy him without cause.

    Yes, here God admits that he destroyed Job for no reason.

    Here’s Dan Barker commentary, using the Book of Job to show how morally compromised believers are. (Thanks to David.)

    Anyway, Satan responds:

    2:4 And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
    2:5 But put forth thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will curse thee to thy face.
    2:6 And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; but save his life.
    2:7 So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.

    I really like how this commenter breaks it down.

    What Satan is baiting God with is the prospect of receiving unearned worship and adulation. You see, if God is good, and people worship him for being good, then his ego-strokes only come because he’s living up to his end of the bargain. But Satan tempted God with the chance to receive Job’s adulation and praise regardless of his actions. God wanted to be able to throw all morality to the winds and be literally demonic in the cruelty of his deeds, and still be worshiipped as the ‘perfect, just God’. He doesn’t merely want unearned praise–he wants his worshippers to be so mindless, so utterly servile they will praise him to the skies even as he tortures them. Or, as Job put it, “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him.”

    The Book of Job makes it plainly, indisputably, blatantly clear that God cannot be trusted as a Protector, and that he has no ethics at all.

    Job’s wife isn’t much help.

    2:9 Then said his wife unto him, Dost thou still retain thine integrity? curse God, and die.
    2:10 But he said unto her, Thou speakest as one of the foolish women speaketh. What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil? In all this did not Job sin with his lips.
    2:11 Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that was come upon him, they came every one from his own place; Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite: for they had made an appointment together to come to mourn with him and to comfort him.

    Job’s friends aren’t sympathetic, and they hurl accusations against Job in various ways. Eliphaz the Temanite, unaware of God’s bet with Satan, thinks God is just dandy.

    4:7 Remember, I pray thee, who ever perished, being innocent? or where were the righteous cut off?

    Bildad the Shuhite also argues that God is fair.

    8:3 Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?

    Zophar the Naamathite wishes that God would come down and shut Job’s wicked mouth. If only he knew about the bet.

    11:4 For thou hast said, My doctrine is pure, and I am clean in thine eyes.
    11:5 But oh that God would speak, and open his lips against thee;
    11:6 And that he would shew thee the secrets of wisdom, that they are double to that which is! Know therefore that God exacteth of thee less than thine iniquity deserveth.

    They all have the same idea: that God is good, and Job must have done something terrible to merit such suffering. But we, having read Chapters 1 and 2, know that — nope — God’s a shit.

    Job seems to have figured it out.

    9:22 This is one thing, therefore I said it, He destroyeth the perfect and the wicked.

    He blasts his friends.

    16:2 I have heard many such things: miserable comforters are ye all.
    19:19 All my inward friends abhorred me: and they whom I loved are turned against me.

    Nevertheless, he maintains his faith in a god who is allowing him to be destroyed.

    13:15 Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
    13:16 He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him.

    Another guy, Elihu, joins the discussion and keeps up the pressure on Job.

    34:12 Yea, surely God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert judgment.

    God must be feeling pretty stupid at this point. All these men are extolling God’s righteousness to Job, who is suffering undeserved torment at God’s hands — again — for no good reason.

    So at this point, God breaks in, and to me he sounds rather defensive. His answer, in summary is: “Who the fuck are you? I ain’t gotta explain jack shit to you.” He taunts everyone for not being as strong or as mighty as him.

    38:1 Then the LORD answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said,
    38:2 Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge?
    38:3 Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.
    38:4 Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
    38:5 Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
    38:6 Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
    40:1 Moreover the LORD answered Job, and said,
    40:2 Shall he that contendeth with the Almighty instruct him? he that reproveth God, let him answer it.

    God also likes his arms and his voice, so — you know — good self-esteem there, God.

    40:9 Hast thou an arm like God? or canst thou thunder with a voice like him?

    God also makes reference to many mythical animals he invented, like unicorns, behemoth, and leviathan.

    39:10 Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee?
    40:15 Behold now behemoth, which I made with thee; he eateth grass as an ox.
    41:1 Canst thou draw out leviathan with an hook? or his tongue with a cord which thou lettest down?

    Read more in “God refuses to explain his cruelty” in the Brick Testament

    And now we get to the ending, and I think it’s the worst way to end this story. God gives Job more sheep, camels, and oxen — and more children! So everything’s all right, right? He won’t miss his dead children now!

    42:10 And the LORD turned the captivity of Job, when he prayed for his friends: also the LORD gave Job twice as much as he had before.
    42:11 Then came there unto him all his brethren, and all his sisters, and all they that had been of his acquaintance before, and did eat bread with him in his house: and they bemoaned him, and comforted him over all the evil that the LORD had brought upon him: every man also gave him a piece of money, and every one an earring of gold.
    42:12 So the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning: for he had fourteen thousand sheep, and six thousand camels, and a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand she asses.
    42:13 He had also seven sons and three daughters.

    Click to go through to Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal

    I have to confess that, besides the way we’re supposed to act like there’s no harm done, I really hate this ending. The Book of Job is an exploration of why bad things happen to good people, and this is a serious issue for believers. Some people are harmed and never restored. Some people worship Jehovah / Jesus all their lives and never get the goodies. But the Book of Job blows it all by… giving Job the goodies! So what was the lesson here? I thought it was “Worship God, even if you don’t get the goodies.” But no, I was wrong; it appears the lesson is: “Worship God, and eventually you’ll get the goodies!” As far as tacked-on happy endings go, this is up there with the Joad family finding jobs in the movie version of the Grapes of Wrath. It blows the whole thing.

    There are lots of ways to deal with adversity — get help from friends or professionals, do things that make you feel better — but this lesson promotes probably the most unhelpful way of dealing with adversity: trust in a cruel and capricious deity.

    Main points from the lesson

    Satan, and the Problem of Evil

    People have always asked: If there’s a good god, why do bad things happen? We could use Epicurus’ formulation:

    There’s an entire branch of theology devoted to this called theodicy.

    Follow through to Jesus and Mo

    I’m ashamed to say that, maybe because I hadn’t suffered much in my life, the Problem of Evil was never a problem for me in my believing days. What, do you want God to run around fixing everyone’s problems? How are we supposed to grow? and so on.

    My view changed when I read “The Tale of the Twelve Officers“, who witness a crime, and refuse to stop it. Each officer gives a rationale — more morally callous than the last — that exactly mirrors an excuse believers give for God’s failure to help people, in a way that any of us would do if we could.

    It was, of course, sad to hear that Ms. K had been slowly raped and murdered by a common thug over the course of one hour and fifty-five minutes; but when I found out that the ordeal had taken place in plain sight of twelve fully-armed off-duty police officers, who ignored her terrified cries for help, and instead just watched until the act was carried to its gruesome end, I found myself facing a personal crisis. You see, the officers had all been very close friends of mine, but now I found my trust in them shaken to its core. Fortunately, I was able to talk with them afterwards, and ask them how they could have stood by and done nothing when they could so easily have saved Ms. K.

    Let’s back up. It was easy to explain evil in the polytheist days: There are good gods and evil gods, and an evil god did it.

    It was sort of easy to explain evil in the early monotheist days as well: God did all the good and the bad stuff, and he didn’t really care what you thought. For example, we have these scriptures that reflect the idea that God does everything, good and bad:

    Amos 3:6 Shall a trumpet be blown in the city, and the people not be afraid? shall there be evil in a city, and the LORD hath not done it?
    Isaiah 45:7 I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the LORD do all these things.

    But having God do bad stuff conflicted with the notion that he was loving and merciful, and as those latter aspects became more and more important to people, something had to give. So the victim-blaming rationale became popular: You deserved bad things to happen to you because you’d done something bad. But eventually even that answer seemed unsatisfactory to many. A new answer was needed. And now — what a coincidence — just at the time that Bible writers were grappling with the reason for undeserved suffering, they were developing a new character to explain it: Satan. And the new explanation is: God is good, but there’s a devil who messes you up.

    Satan hasn’t been a character in the Old Testament until now. Oh, sure, there was a talking snake in the Garden, but he was just a snake. The word satan (Hebrew ‘stn‘) just meant ‘an adversary‘. In the story of Balaam (Numbers 22:22), the angel of the Lord that was meant to turn Balaam away from the king was a ‘satan’. In 1 Samuel 29:4, the Philistines debate whether to help David, lest he be a ‘satan’ to them. The idea of Satan as a adversarial supernatural being appears to be an innovation in the Book of Job. And notice how he’s pretty chummy with God at first, dropping in, chatting, and of course making bets.

    Admittedly, the Satan explanation for evil isn’t that much better, because why would God allow an evil being to roam about mucking things up? But at least it absolves God of the direct responsibility for doing evil things. It even allows the semblance of free agency — you have God and Satan; which one are you going to follow?

    Satan is an evolved explanation for the Problem of Evil, but one that causes more problems than it solves.

    People are better than their god

    Elihu taunts Job, asking if he has the audacity to think he’s more righteous than God.

    35:1 Elihu spake moreover, and said,
    35:2 Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God’s?

    My answer is a resounding “yes!” In church, we’re accustomed to hearing how great God is, and how we are nothing, less than the dust of the earth. It’s time to shake that off and realise that the reverse is true. We — all of us — are more moral than God. This should be obvious to anyone who’s been following these lessons, but let’s just have a quick recap.

    Ask the class which of these actions they would perform:

    • Condemn humanity to suffering for one couple’s disobedience
    • Drown all but a handful of your children
    • Allow slavery, but be angry when your own people are slaves
    • Kill the firstborn child of a group of people
    • Have all knowledge of medicine and science, but only reveal details of animal sacrifice and furniture building to your chosen people
    • Instruct your people to commit genocide
    • Kill your way out of every problem you created and foresaw
    • Demand first, last, and always, that you be obeyed
    • Know in advance about every atrocity that’s happening or will happen, but do nothing to stop it
    • Condemn some of your children to an eternity of any the following — torture, isolation from family, separation from you — for not believing in you or loving you enough

    The god of the Bible is claimed — by his followers, no less — to have done or to do each of these things, and yet instead of hunting him down and purging him from their society like you would do to any human that did them, they somehow account him worthy of worship. It’s really breathtakingly perverse when you think about it.

    Check out this blistering litany from Matt Dillahunty to a caller.

    You are moral than the god that they forced you to believe, that they’ve conned you into accepting! You don’t believe that I necessarily deserve to go to hell for exercising the “free will” that you think your god gave me. You don’t think that the dictates of a conscience — whether or not somebody believes — is a sufficient justification for eternal torture…. You are better than your god. You are better than your religion. So am I, so is Don, so is damn near everybody on the planet! I wish people would wake up and see this! Stop apologising for this (holds up Bible)! It’s not the Good Book! There’s nothing good about it! All it does is poison minds!

    Amen.

    Resurrection

    In the Old Testament, resurrection was never really on the cards. Job seems to take the prevailing view that people just die, and then nothing happens to them.

    7:9 As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.

    And yet, in Job, we start to see glimmers of the idea that people will have some kind of existence after death.

    19:25 For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:
    19:26 And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God:

    Christianity is going to need this when it gets invented. Without a wonderful tantalising afterlife to look forward to, this religion lacks something in the motivation department. With Judaism, who cared if you were motivated? It was your ethnic religion, you were born into it, and you’re stuck with it. But for Christianity, which had to attract converts, a nothing sort of afterlife wasn’t going to cut it. And this is why we find Christianity seizing upon such scriptures in a hope for a heaven — an innovation that started right here in Job.

    My father died in 2004 or 2005. We’re still not sure which. (No, it’s nothing that mysterious. In his sleep on New Year’s Eve.) It wasn’t funny at the time, but now to me, it is, just a little bit. Sorry, Dad!

    Dad’s death was a bit of an earthquake that wrenched a lot of my calcified belief free. Questions of existence and afterlife took on a new urgency. I was the adult now. No older generation acting as a buffer for life’s uncertainties. You’re the next to go. So if I was wrong in my belief, and there was no consciousness after death, I damn well wanted to know. I think this “wanting to know” is probably the beginning of the end of belief for a lot of people. If you’re content to go back to sleep, and hang on to faith — take the blue pill — then you can believe anything forever, be wrong for the whole of your life, and never know it. But if you really want to know… then you can start to investigate a little more stringently. Which I began do to, and I did not like what I found.

    At Dad’s gravesite, I found myself speaking aloud this verse from Job:

    14:14 If a man die, shall he live again?

    My sister, also present, immediately told me, “Yes.” Which is her way. Always cuts straight to the faithful answer. Love her to pieces.

    In the weeks and months to come, leading up to my deconversion, I began to realise that this question — do we live after death? — is really the critical question that all the others hang off of. If the answer is yes, then it’s logical to live one way. If the answer is no, it’s logical to live another. You can’t live halfway between.

    So it took me a while to answer Job’s question: “If a man die, shall he live again?” And looking at the evidence, I had to admit that the answer was: Probably not. It’s time to admit that we’ve never seen any evidence of anyone coming back from being really truly dead. Oh, sure there’s no shortage of people telling us that heaven is real, and it’s usually people selling books about how heaven is real. But really, all we know is that this life is all we get. And if you’re reading this on a computer, then you’re one of the lucky few for whom life is the easiest, the longest, and the most luxurious it’s ever been for any group of people on earth. Yes, there are struggles and challenges. But there’s food and sex and art and music and people.

    It’s all happening right now, and it’s too precious to waste in a church that promises that if you give them your money and obedience now, you can live in heaven when you die. Make your life better today.

    Additional teaching ideas

    Good things in the Bible

    Withholding food and clothing from the poor is specifically mentioned as iniquity several times in Job.

    31:16 If I have withheld the poor from their desire, or have caused the eyes of the widow to fail;
    31:17 Or have eaten my morsel myself alone, and the fatherless hath not eaten thereof;
    31:18 (For from my youth he was brought up with me, as with a father, and I have guided her from my mother’s womb;)
    31:19 If I have seen any perish for want of clothing, or any poor without covering;
    31:20 If his loins have not blessed me, and if he were not warmed with the fleece of my sheep;
    31:21 If I have lifted up my hand against the fatherless, when I saw my help in the gate:
    31:22 Then let mine arm fall from my shoulder blade, and mine arm be broken from the bone.

    Science in the Bible

    Bible adherents like to quote Job for this tidbit of scientific wisdom:

    26:7 He stretcheth out the north over the empty place, and hangeth the earth upon nothing.

    See? The earth hangs on nothing! Proof that the Bible is accurate in its knowledge of the universe.

    Except that just four verses later, heaven has pillars:

    26:11 The pillars of heaven tremble and are astonished at his reproof.

    So far, no efforts have been made on the part of Christian scientists to find the pillars of heaven, because everyone knows that’s metaphorical.

    Also metaphorical in Job is the idea that the sky is some kind of strong glassy barrier.

    37:18 Hast thou with him spread out the sky, which is strong, and as a molten looking glass?

    And that men lactate.

    21:23 One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
    21:24 His breasts are full of milk, and his bones are moistened with marrow
    21:25 And another dieth in the bitterness of his soul, and never eateth with pleasure.

    Enjoy that mental image, and I’ll see you next week.

    OT Lesson 16 (Genocide)

    27 April 2014 / / 3 Comments

    “I Cannot Go Beyond the Word of the Lord”

    Numbers 22–24; 31:1–16

    LDS manual: here

    Reading

    Let’s start with a bit of review, just to see where we are in the narrative.

    God’s been on a particularly blood-thirsty tear lately. He’s already commanded the slaughter of the Amorites, kicking off the waves of genocide that will typify this part of the Old Testament. But he hasn’t just caused violence against outsiders; he’s also killed the men of Korah by swallowing them up in a great hole, and then killed those who questioned it.

    Let’s just pause for a moment, and look at the purpose for this lesson in the real manual:

    Purpose: To encourage class members to submit to God’s will without hesitation.

    Ponder that for a moment. “Submit to God’s will without hesitation.” Perhaps because of what God’s going to do to you if you hesitate to submit.

    I can’t help but think there’s some Stockholm syndrome at work here on the part of believers. What else could be going on in your mind when you worship a murderous jerk who’s got a hair-trigger and a reputation to protect? You hear stories in church every week about how he kills people who get in his way, and you know that unbelievers are going to cop it, but you just try to make sure it’s not you. You’ll be happy eternally in heaven, while others are going to be suffering, but it’s good and just that they’ll be suffering, and God wouldn’t make that happen unless it were the right thing. There’s got to be some numbness going on in the part of your brain that does empathy. There’s a brokenness.

    Add in the fact that “submitting to God’s will” translates into “submitting to the will of leaders” and you’ve got a potentially toxic formula. Psychologically, it would be a lot healthier to tell this god to fuck off. Have nothing to do with him and his works of murder.

    Ch. 22: Balaam was a prophet, but he was copping some flak from his boss, the Moabite king Balak. Balak had gotten the news about the Ammonite genocide, and wanted Balaam to curse Israel. But Elohim appeared to Balaam, and put a little heat on him. Balaam was no fool and saw which way his bread was buttered; He decided to bless them instead.

    Now to the famous story: In the morning, Balaam saddles his ass (LOL semantic shift) and heads off to see the king. Standing in the way is an angel that only donkeys can see, apparently. Balaam thinks the donkey’s just being an ass. After three smotes, the donkey’s had enough, and complains to Balaam using human speech, asking why it’s getting beaten. Balaam takes this with equanimity, and has a bit of discourse with the animal.

    This is, of course, not the first inter-species communication in the Bible; that would be the talking snake in the Garden.

    Chs. 23 & 24: Balaam refuses to curse Israel, even when the king offers him a houseful of dosh. Instead, he predicts a win by Israel, in bloodthirsty terms:

    23:24 Behold, the people shall rise up as a great lion, and lift up himself as a young lion: he shall not lie down until he eat of the prey, and drink the blood of the slain.

    And:

    24:8 God brought him forth out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn: he shall eat up the nations his enemies, and shall break their bones, and pierce them through with his arrows.

    Ch. 25: God’s brand is threatened, so it’s time for more murders. He plans a plague…

    25:3 And Israel joined himself unto Baalpeor: and the anger of the LORD was kindled against Israel.
    25:4 And the LORD said unto Moses, Take all the heads of the people, and hang them up before the LORD against the sun, that the fierce anger of the LORD may be turned away from Israel.
    25:5 And Moses said unto the judges of Israel, Slay ye every one his men that were joined unto Baalpeor.

    But then someone puts a spear through a couple who are (one supposes) having sex. God thinks that’s pretty cool, so he calls off the plague.

    25:6 And, behold, one of the children of Israel came and brought unto his brethren a Midianitish woman in the sight of Moses, and in the sight of all the congregation of the children of Israel, who were weeping before the door of the tabernacle of the congregation.
    25:7 And when Phinehas, the son of Eleazar, the son of Aaron the priest, saw it, he rose up from among the congregation, and took a javelin in his hand;
    25:8 And he went after the man of Israel into the tent, and thrust both of them through, the man of Israel, and the woman through her belly. So the plague was stayed from the children of Israel.

    The guy who committed the murders gets a special treat: the Priesthood! (Gee, all I had to do was turn twelve. It’s like God gives it to everyone these days.)

    Didn’t this happen in one of the Friday the 13th films? I forget which one. No, wait, it was “Bay of Blood”. If you don’t like horror, don’t watch this link, but remember: it’s fine to throw a Bible with the exact same scene to children because it makes them more moral.

    Brother Brigham felt that such a course would in some cases have salubrious effects.

    Possible irksome question for those trapped in a real Gospel Doctrine class: Ask if this is a justification of body piercing.

    Chs. 26, 27, 28, 29: God is going to show Moses all the land he’s giving to the Israelites, and then Moses will die. But not before some more burning lamb! Mmm… smell that sweet savour.

    28:6 It is a continual burnt offering, which was ordained in mount Sinai for a sweet savour, a sacrifice made by fire unto the LORD.

    Ch. 30: Any vow a woman makes has to be okayed by her husband or her father.

    Ch. 31: The Midianite massacre: see below.

    Chs. 32 and 33: Aaron dies. God tells Moses that they have to conquer people and destroy their religions, or else…

    33:55 But if ye will not drive out the inhabitants of the land from before you; then it shall come to pass, that those which ye let remain of them shall be pricks in your eyes, and thorns in your sides, and shall vex you in the land wherein ye dwell.
    33:56 Moreover it shall come to pass, that I shall do unto you, as I thought to do unto them.

    Ask: If you were the supreme being of the universe, would you be a little more secure in your supremacy? Wouldn’t you think you could ease up on the brand dominance? After all, since you knew everything, you’d know that other gods were non-existent. Yet, Elohim doesn’t seem to know this. He acts like he’s the number-two dog. It seems likely, then, that at this point that’s what he was.

    Main points for this lesson

    Balaam, unlike modern LDS prophets, rejected the profit

    You can say what you like about Balaam’s state of mind, talking to donkeys and all, but what you have to admire is his refusal to say what the king wants. Balak offers him loads of dough if he’ll curse Israel, but he won’t.

    Compare this to modern so-called prophets, who are willing to tone down unpleasant doctrines if it keeps people coming in. In 1988, when church leaders were mulling about changing some of the stranger and more off-putting parts of the endowment session, they sent around a survey to thousands of Latter-day Saints.

    Discussion at Mormon Curtain | Exmormon | LDS-Mormon | MormonThink

    We don’t have access to the results of the survey, but we do know that the penalties — in which temple attendees would mime their own murder in various grisly ways — disappeared in the 1990 revision.

    We’ve seen the same pattern more recently: tone down the anti-gay rhetoric when it doesn’t fly, adapt doctrines about race that are distasteful, and do whatever it takes to keep the bottom line from being affected.

    So Balaam certainly had more integrity than prophets today. Too bad he doesn’t survive past chapter 31.

    The Midianite genocide

    God commands the wholesale slaughter of the Midianites. First, they kill the men — including boys.

    31:7 And they warred against the Midianites, as the LORD commanded Moses; and they slew all the males.

    They take captives, burn the cities, and take the booty.

    31:9 And the children of Israel took all the women of Midian captives, and their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods.
    31:10 And they burnt all their cities wherein they dwelt, and all their goodly castles, with fire.
    31:11 And they took all the spoil, and all the prey, both of men and of beasts.

    But Moses is pissed, because they didn’t kill the women.

    31:14 And Moses was wroth with the officers of the host, with the captains over thousands, and captains over hundreds, which came from the battle.
    31:15 And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive?
    31:16 Behold, these caused the children of Israel, through the counsel of Balaam, to commit trespass against the LORD in the matter of Peor, and there was a plague among the congregation of the LORD.

    So they kill all the male children, and all the non-virgin women.

    31:17 Now therefore kill every male among the little ones, and kill every woman that hath known man by lying with him.

    The female children become sexual slaves, or at best, victims of forced marriages.

    31:18 But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

    Verse 34 counts 32,000 women.

    For as long as I’ve been an atheist, people have asked me where I get my morals from — even wondered how someone could be moral without religion. And religion is often recommended as a way of instilling ‘good moral values’.

    This one lesson, all by itself, obliterates any claim that the Christian god is a moral being. Not only is he not the source of all morality, he’s not even a moral being. There are not many moral decisions that are easier to make than “Is genocide okay?” The Bible gets that wrong. And if it gets such an easy question wrong, how is it going to do on the hard ones?

    Naturally, Christians have many explanations for why Old Testament genocide is actually fine. Christians of many denominations have cheerfully explained to me that God commanded it, and that means it’s just fine by them. Here’s what happened when I brought the issue up with a couple of very nice Jehovah’s Witnesses.

    Here are some of the arguments apologists offer for this repugnant deity:

    • The Midianites were bad people! They sacrificed their children to Molech.

    There’s some disagreement as to the extent and the origin of child sacrifice in Canaan, but it’s hardly a remedy for child sacrifice if one kills every available male child. I find it highly likely that just as Bible writers demonised the Moabites as the result of incest, they demonised the Canaanites as child murderers. This allows a community to externalise their enemies as subhuman ‘others’, at which point you can do as you like to them.

    • ‘Destroy’ doesn’t mean ‘entirely eradicate’.

    This is a case of redefining words, a favourite apologetics tactic. If the Israelites didn’t wipe out tribes person for person, it was contrary to the commands of Jehovah, and that’s the real problem here.

    • It was better than other cultures at the time.

    This is an odd argument. Is God a transcendent being, outside of space and time, presenting an unambiguous and absolute moral code? Or is he not? This line of reasoning reminds me that sometimes if you push a religious absolutist, they inexplicably turn into a moral relativist. They have to. There’s no other way to justify this slaughter.

    • God gets to judge. Everything he commands is right, and he made us, so he gets to decide what to do with us. I’m just going to keep believing, and trust that he knows all.

    This is chicken shit. It’s moral abnegation. If someone takes this view, they’re trying to feel okay about something that strikes a normal person as deeply wrong. They are in the process of removing the part of themselves that feels compassion, and replacing it with submission. To say, as in the title of this lesson, “I cannot go beyond the word of the Lord” is really a form of moral cowardice.

    I had an experience when preparing for this Godless Doctrine lesson.

    I’ve always been kind of haunted by a sense that I wouldn’t have handled moral controversies in the church very well. I’ve never had the chance to be tested in a big way though; I was too young for the ‘Race and the Priesthood’ issue, and I was out of the church by Prop 8. So would I have passed the test? Or would I have sung myself to sleep, convinced that the church was right, no matter what?

    Well, when preparing for this lesson, I found something. I went through my old Sunday School notes on the computer, and found the file for this lesson when I taught it in Gospel Doctrine so long ago. And I noticed this sentence:

    Does anyone else have a problem with the genocide besides me?

    And then I remembered how I agonised over this issue as a Gospel Doctrine teacher. I really didn’t have an answer for it, and it really bothered me. Usually I was good at coming up with rationales, but this one was so obviously wrong.

    So this was the question I dropped right in the middle of the lesson.

    Does anyone else have a problem with the genocide besides me?

    It caused the class to shift uncomfortably in their uncomfortable seats. A few people volunteered that, yes, they did. Others offered weak explanations. One RM ventured that the winners write history, which I suppose is true in this case. In the lesson, I left it as unresolved.

    So when I read that entry in my lesson plan, I felt relieved. I almost cried, in fact. No, I hadn’t left the church over this issue, but it was a crack in my Mormonness. I knew the Bible was wrong on this issue, and in time I would find more things wrong. The religion had not dulled my sense of what a normal person would see as right. I felt like I was not ‘utterly cast off’.

    The other thing I noticed from my lesson notes is that we used to do a whole lesson on Leviticus, but it’s been cut from the current manual. Obviously they didn’t do any of the bits I talked about in the previous lesson.

    Additional ideas for teaching

    ‘Revelation’ can come by petition

    The ‘Ordain Women’ movement has been on my mind and in the news lately. Again this year, women asked to be admitted to the Priesthood Session of General Conference, and again they were turned away.

    The response to ‘Ordain Women’ from many Mormon men has been a colossal ‘harrumph!’ Why, those women think they can counsel the Lord. They think that revelation comes through them, and not through the prophet. And so on.

    I don’t think Mormon women need the priesthood; they need atheism. But things would certainly be better for many Mormon women if they were taken seriously on an administrative level, on an equal footing in the priesthood.

    So it was interesting to see this story where women petitioned Moses for property rights for daughters.

    27:1 Then came the daughters of Zelophehad, the son of Hepher, the son of Gilead, the son of Machir, the son of Manasseh, of the families of Manasseh the son of Joseph: and these are the names of his daughters; Mahlah, Noah, and Hoglah, and Milcah, and Tirzah.
    27:2 And they stood before Moses, and before Eleazar the priest, and before the princes and all the congregation, by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying,
    27:3 Our father died in the wilderness, and he was not in the company of them that gathered themselves together against the LORD in the company of Korah; but died in his own sin, and had no sons.
    27:4 Why should the name of our father be done away from among his family, because he hath no son? Give unto us therefore a possession among the brethren of our father.

    And God says “Oh, that’s a good idea; I hadn’t thought of that.”

    27:5 And Moses brought their cause before the LORD.
    27:6 And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
    27:7 The daughters of Zelophehad speak right: thou shalt surely give them a possession of an inheritance among their father’s brethren; and thou shalt cause the inheritance of their father to pass unto them.
    27:8 And thou shalt speak unto the children of Israel, saying, If a man die, and have no son, then ye shall cause his inheritance to pass unto his daughter.

    Actually, Mormons should be able to think of lots of cases where a revelation has come because someone asked a question. This is one of the earlier cases that worked to the benefit of women.

    Unfortunately, women are put back in their place in chapter 30, when God says that any vow they make has to be approved by their husband (or father).

    Unicorn?

    This is the first Bible verse where unicorns are mentioned —  the first of nine times in the Bible. With nine mentions, this is something to deal with.

    23:22 God brought them out of Egypt; he hath as it were the strength of an unicorn.

    So did the biblical unicorn exist? Come on down to the Unicorn Museum and find out!

    Oh sure, we could explain the biblical unicorn away by saying it’s a fictional beast, like God or Satan.

    But the folks at Answers in Genesis think that since it’s in the Bible, it’s totes real.

    The Bible describes unicorns skipping like calves (Psalm 29:6), traveling like bullocks, and bleeding when they die (Isaiah 34:7).

    It might be extinct now:

    The absence of a unicorn in the modern world should not cause us to doubt its past existence. (Think of the dodo bird. It does not exist today, but we do not doubt that it existed in the past.).

    or it might have described a real animal.

    The elasmotherium, an extinct giant rhinoceros, provides another possibility for the unicorn’s identity. The elasmotherium’s 33-inch-long skull has a huge bony protuberance on the frontal bone consistent with the support structure for a massive horn.

    This post shows two of the biggest tricks that apologists use when confronted with something foolish in their scripture:

    1) Appeal to ignorance: Just because you can’t find a unicorn doesn’t mean it’s not real!

    I suppose there might have been unicorns and they might have pooped Lucky Charms,

    but with no evidence — no photos, no sightings, no bones, no scat — there’s no reason to believe in them. The same thing goes for leprechauns, genies, or gods.

    2) Redefine words until they mean what you want. A unicorn can be a rhinoceros, and a horse can be a tapir.

    Isn’t it nice to know that apologists are pretty much the same everywhere you go?

    OT Lesson 4 (Adam and Eve)

    25 January 2014 / / 7 Comments

    “Because of My Transgression My Eyes Are Opened”

    Moses 4; 5:1–15; 6:48–62

    Links to the reading in the SAB: Genesis 1, Genesis 2
    LDS manual: here

    Background

    This lesson’s about Adam and Eve, a talking snake, and the Fall.

    Suggestion from the real manual:

    You may want to ask a class member to prepare to summarize the account of the Fall of Adam and Eve.

    Okay, I’ll have a go.

    • Adam and Eve had no knowledge of good and evil.
    • God allowed them to choose anyway.
    • With no knowledge of good and evil, they chose the wrong thing.
    • God then punished them for it.
    • This punishment extended to everyone who will ever live.

    Sounds fair.

    I like to examine religious tenets by what function they bring to the religion. Think of it: every religion that exists today has made the right moves — done enough to keep enough people believing so far. And just as an individual perpetuates itself through its genes, a belief system perpetuates itself through its memes — the individual beliefs that make it believable. So let’s look at what the Fall meme brings to the religion.

    1. It accounts for evil.

    For polytheists, the existence of evil (for want of a better term) is easy to explain: There are competing, capricious, or downright evil gods. But for monotheists who believe in a good god, it’s a tough problem. Does your god create and/or allow the evil? Then he’s not good. How does Mormonism (and Christianity) explain this? There are three solutions, and they’re all right here in the garden.

    1a. Blame humans.

    The doctrine of the Fall takes the blame off of God — he introduced humans into a perfect world, which they then screwed up. So, as always, it’s the humans’ fault.

    1b. Blame the serpent.

    The serpent, for his part, would eventually find himself retooled as Satan, the adversary. Early Judaism didn’t have a Satan, at least not as we know him today. A satan was an opposer or an accuser — not even a specific person. Satan himself wouldn’t show up until after the Hebrews had run into the Zoroastrians, with their Manichean belief of good gods and bad gods. Even then, Satan was pretty chummy with God, dropping in whenever he felt like it, and making bets (see Job).

    Only in the New Testament would the Devil find his fullest expression, infesting herds of swine, tormenting demoniacs, and so on. The more people looked for a devil, the more they found. Let’s just say he grew into his role.

    But there’s a third party who’d be copping some blame…

    1c. Blame Eve.

    The Fall legend has Eve taking the forbidden fruit first, so she (and her daughters) would be getting a larger share of the punishment. Everything’s been put on Eve, from childbirth to lack of priesthood. This doctrine justifies the misogyny that Mormonism (and just about every other religion) has in spades.

    2. It creates the idea of sin

    Before you can sell the cure, you have to sell the disease. The disease Christianity wants to sell you is sin — or rather, the idea that you’ve already sinned. This induces a sense of obligation. The best part: you can’t opt out — Adam’s fall means you’re born into original sin. Soften that up however you like: a condition of sinfulness, a tendency for sin; it’s all the same thing. You’re on the back foot now, and you’ve only just been born. Poor kid.

    3. It creates the need for a saviour

    Gavin de Becker in his book The Gift of Fear has some warning signs to help recognise dangerous or abusive people. One of them is loan sharking. A loan shark exploits his victim’s sense of fairness by giving some unwanted and unasked-for assistance — and then expecting to be paid back.

    Loan sharking operates in Christianity by
    – telling you you’ve sinned and making you feel guilty, and what’s more,
    – telling you that a perfect person suffered and died for your sins. You’re not going to throw that wonderful gift away, are you? Only a terrible person would do that.
    This is loan sharking. It’s designed to get you in line. Your sense of obligation keeps you there. The way to respond to a loan shark is to say, “I didn’t ask for your help. I don’t want it. Go away.”

    Mormons are intended to take the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall literally.

    There’s a great range of belief among Latter-day Saints on the reality of the Fall of Adam. Some Mormons are theistic evolutionists — they think evolution’s true, but that Godiddit — and some argue that Adam and Eve weren’t real people, but just types. I’ve heard it claimed that humans evolved, but then Adam was just the one that God decided to talk to. In short, there’s a range of belief among Mormons.

    What a surprise, then, to do the research for this lesson and find that this range doesn’t exist in approved Church materials. According to the Church, the whole thing is as unambiguously literal as can be.

    The late President Paternoster (how I miss him) pointed out that according to LDS-approved materials,

    Adam and Eve are literal people

    Joseph Smith claimed to see Adam in Doctrine and Covenants 137:5

    The Apostle Paul certainly thought Adam was a real person.

    Adam and Eve are the ancestors of all humans

    Some great sources on the MormonThink.com page — but beware: time vortex.

    They lived 6,000 years ago

    Hey, anyone remember this bookmark from Seminary? Click for a big PDF version, straight from the Church’s website.

    Link on the Church’s website. Thanks, hoserb2k!

    Here’s another version that ran in the Ensign.

    It’s well-organised, and very chronologically specific, wouldn’t you say? There’s Adam, starting off right around 4,000 BCE.

    And in fact, D&C Section 77 says that the Earth’s temporal existence has a 7,000 year run.

    6 Q. What are we to understand by the book which John saw, which was sealed on the back with seven seals?

    A. We are to understand that it contains the revealed will, mysteries, and the works of God; the hidden things of his economy concerning this earth during the seven thousand years of its continuance, or its temporal existence.

    There was no death before the Fall

    Book of Mormon, 2 Nephi 2: 22–23:

    2:22 And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

    2:23 And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.

    And most surprising of all, the LDS website entry on Death

    Latter-day revelation teaches that there was no death on this earth before the Fall of Adam. Indeed, death entered the world as a direct result of the Fall.

    Assignment for those trapped in a real Gospel Doctrine class: Read the statement from the Church website, claiming that nothing died before about 6,000 years ago.

    Latter-day Saints who accept evolution (and there are many) would be surprised to find that a major mechanism for evolution — population pressure — did not exist for millions of years before Adam and Eve did their thing. Evolution just would not work if Church teachings are true. The two are simply incompatible.

    No doubt there are a lot of Latter-day Saints who understand that all of the above cannot possibly be true. It’s very strange, then, to browse the lesson manual and all the available Church materials and find that they take the story completely at face value. No mention of the possibly metaphorical nature of the story is ever touched on. I’ve never seen anything semi-official from the Church that takes the non-literal view of Adam and Eve.

    And there’s a very good reason for this: If the Adam and Eve isn’t literally true, the gospel story falls apart. If Adam and Eve didn’t fall, then no one brought sin and death into the world. No sin and no death means no need for Jesus to bring about forgiveness and the Resurrection. Simple as that. So the doctrine of the Fall puts Mormon doctrine in kind of a weird bind: the gospel only works if the story is literally true, but the story cannot possibly be literally true. One could relax the literalism and go metaphorical, but what happens then? Would you accept metaphorical forgiveness? How does metaphorical resurrection sound? Mormons who take the metaphorical view are ignoring vast amounts of their own scripture.

    The Church doesn’t sell any of this as a metaphor; it’s intended to be straight-down-the-line literal. LDS missionaries do not say “We have a great metaphor that we’d like to share with you today!”

    No thinking person should believe this.

    The Atonement is a weird idea.

    God could have forgiven everyone — because he can do anything. Instead he chose to kill his son, so that he could stand to have a relationship with us again. Isn’t that kind of weird?

    Video: Dan Barker of the Freedom from Religion Foundation, and a former preacher, explains the atonement:

    The Garden of Eden has a positive message

    Let’s end with something positive.

    The metaphor of leaving the Garden of Eden is a great one. We grow up in a state of innocence — well, some of us do, if we’re lucky. I had very loving and very sheltering parents. But at some point, we have to make a decision to step out and gain knowledge. Once you do, you can never go back. That’s how some of our life’s choices are. Going to uni or getting a job, getting married, deconverting from your religion of origin — all of life’s major crossroads entail a choice: are you going to partake and have your eyes opened? Or will you continue as you are? Leaving the Garden and entering the lone and dreary world is difficult; you get knocked around. Stuff happens out there.

    But one thing I do value from my Mormon background is the idea that leaving the Garden — like taking the red pill in The Matrix — is a positive step. Leaving the religion of my youth was the most difficult and disruptive thing I’ve ever done, and by far the most worthwhile.

    OT Lesson 1 (God)

    4 January 2014 / / 4 Comments

    “This Is My Work and My Glory”

    Moses 1

    Link to the reading in the SAB: Moses 1
    LDS manual: here

    Background

    The Old Testament is the longest and most involved of the four volumes of LDS scripture, so we’re going to get started this week by not reading any of it. Instead, we’re going to start with some OT fanfic, the Book of Moses. In Joseph Smith’s time, it was widely thought that Moses had written the first five books of the OT, which made him a natural choice for a protagonist. That turned out wrong, but at least this is a less-obvious blunder than the Book of Abraham, which we’ll tear into in the next lesson.

    Main points for this lesson

    The Old Testament: Wow, it really is that bad.

    The Old Testament is a work of cruelty, discrimination, misogyny, and homophobia. Its protagonist, a primitive Hebrew deity, is largely concerned with cementing his own reputation as a major player in the world pantheon, while caring surprisingly little for human well-being. Despite being (allegedly) all-powerful and all-good, he allows (and in some cases, encourages) a shocking array of atrocities, including rape, child-murder, and genocide. If the Bible were any other book, it would carry a warning sticker.

    The fact that the events of the Old Testament are largely fictional hardly mitigates its barbarism, since Christians all over the world routinely defend its contents, and are shocked, angered, or disappointed to be informed that they have no factual basis in reality.

    Jesus is the god of the Old Testament.

    From the real manual:

    Note: Class members should understand that Jehovah, not Heavenly Father, appeared to Moses in this vision. Jehovah was the premortal Jesus Christ and the God of the Old Testament.

    That’s something to keep in mind as we trawl through the carnage of the Old Testament this year — it’s actually Jesus doing it.

    One popular dodge that Christians (including Mormons) use to excuse this cruelty is “But that was the Old Testament!” While this does explain away the archaic and unpleasant Mosaic rules, it doesn’t do much to excuse the inexcusable conduct of Jehovah, and the fact that Mormons think these atrocities were authored by Jesus himself makes explaining them away even more problematic. Christianity has set up a good cop/bad cop duality in the form of God/Jesus (even though they think the two are the same person), but with Jesus and Jehovah being the exact same person, Latter-day Saints cannot reasonably avail themselves of it.

    Moses 1:6

    And I have a work for thee, Moses my son; and thou art in the similitude of mine Only Begotten; and mine Only Begotten is and shall be the Savior, for he is full of grace and truth

    In this scripture, Jehovah has apparently forgotten that he’s Jesus. Perhaps the Mormon view of the pre-mortal Jesus was still evolving at the time the Book of Moses was written, or perhaps God was having some trouble grasping the whole Godhead concept.

    The manual explains it like this:

    His words are those of the Father, and sometimes, as in Moses 1:6, he speaks in the first person for the Father.

    Why would Jesus sometimes say that he’s the Father? Why would he not communicate clearly who he is? This is confusing, and God is not supposed to be the author of confusion. This is simply a clumsy dodge to explain away an inconsistency.

    Object Lesson

    Have a class member read the following paragraph:

    Hi, I’m Steve! Well, I’m really Dave, but me and Steve are really close. In fact, we’re so close that sometimes I don’t realise I’m Dave, and I call myself Steve! But I’m really Steve! Whoops, I did it again! Dave! No, wait, Steve! Wait…

    Ask: How would you respond to someone whose identity was so poorly defined or possibly compromised?

     Possible answers: Gaze upon them with pity, back away slowly, don’t give them any money.

    Moses 1:7–11

    In these scriptures, God visits Moses, and tells him he is a son of God.

    Ask: How does it make you feel to be told you are a child of God?

    Possible answer: It appeals to my sense of vanity and need to feel significant.

     

    Then, when God goes away, Moses collapses.

    And it came to pass that it was for the space of many hours before Moses did again receive his natural strength like unto man; and he said unto himself: Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.

    Ask: Is a person a child of God, or are they nothing? Which is it?

    Answer: Whichever the Church needs to emphasise at any given time. It wouldn’t do to rip people down all the time; they’d get sick of it. It would be a better idea to build them up sometimes, so they feel like you’re the source of their good feelings. Then they’re ready for you to yank the rug out from under them when needed.

    Make sure you saddle them with arbitrary moral rules that they’ll be unable to observe. This will keep them locked into an orbit of failure and redemption, with you at its centre.

    1. They feel great because of their relationship with you
    2. They inevitably fail to maintain your impossibly high standards, and feel like they’ve betrayed you
    3. They come to you for forgiveness, and feel great again.

    Lather, rinse, repeat.

    Here’s another problem with the whole ‘child of God’ idea: it’s meant to give you self-esteem, not because of who you are, but because of your relationship to someone else. Your worth doesn’t come from anything related to you; it’s because of who your father is. As this scripture says, you’re nothing. Your worth always ties back to someone else. This is not the way to build a lasting sense of self-worth; it builds dependency.

    Some believers might read this post and think, “well, that’s actually right: I am nothing, God is everything, and I am dependent on him.” If this is the case, ponder how amazingly well this strategy has worked on you. You are hooked.

    Additional Teaching Ideas

    Do a Google search for “signs of an abusive relationship”. This list is like many others. Take a look at these warning signs.

    1. He pushes for quick involvement.
    2. There is jealousy.
    3. He is controlling.
    4. He has very unrealistic expectations.
    5. There is isolation.
    6. He blames others for his own mistakes.
    7. He makes everyone else responsibile for their feelings. 
    8. There is hypersensitivity.
    9. He is cruel to animals and children.
    10. His “playful” use of force during sex.
    11. There is verbal abuse.
    12. There are rigid gender roles.
    13. He has sudden mood swings.
    14. He has a past of battering.
    15. There are threats of violence.

    How many of these warning signs does God show? (We’ll be revisiting this list throughout the year.)

    Show the following graphic:

    Ask: If your friend was in a relationship where their partner told them these things, what advice would you give to your friend?

     Answer: If you were any kind of friend at all, you’d be encouraging them to dump the jerk, if not offer to go and get their things for them.

    If your relationship with your god does not resemble this description, good. Your concept of god is probably healthier than the one presented in the Book of Moses.

    Conclusion

    The relationship described in Moses 1 is a bad deal. Relationships are difficult when there’s a significant power imbalance, and this would be the ultimate power imbalance. We should wish to have nothing to do with a being who can read our thoughts, demands our loyalty, and who can impose eternal consequences for our compliance (or non-compliance) to their wishes. As Christopher Hitchens points out, we should be grateful that this is not true.

    from 2:13
    The reasons why I’m glad that this is not true, would I suppose be the gravamen of my case. Some people I know, who are atheists, will say the wish they could believe it. Some people I know who are former believers say they wish they could have their old faith back. They miss it.
    I don’t understand this at all. I think it is an excellent thing there is no reason to believe in the absurd propositions I just… admittedly rather briefly rehearsed to you.
    The main reason for this I think is that it is a totalitarian belief. It is the wish to be a slave. It is the desire that there be an unalterable, unchallengeable, tyrannical authority, who can convict you of thoughtcrime, while you are asleep.
    Who can subject you — who must indeed subject you — to a total surveillance, around the clock, every waking and sleeping minute of your life, — I say: of your life — before you were born, and even worse, and where the real fun begins: after you’re dead. A celestial North Korea.
    Who wants this to be true?! Who but a slave desires such a ghastly fate?

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