I had a strong desire to write about sexual abuse after listening to Sam Harris’ introduction to one of his episodes. I had been following and participating with the Protect LDS Children movement started by Sam Young. In the recent past, I had a conversation with someone close to me about the Netflix series The … Continue reading Abused by The Church
God is all-knowing, all-powerful, and all-good. In the Christian belief, he created the universe and the earth we live in. He placed Adam and Eve upon it and through their progeny we are here today. Presupposing that this world was created by this omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent God, would we expect it to be the … Continue reading The Best of All Possible Worlds and Voltaire
Bart D. Ehrman is a distinguished Professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Professor Ehrman completed his M.Div. and Ph.D. degrees at Princeton Seminary, where his 1985 doctoral dissertation was awarded magna cum laude. An expert on the New Testament and the history of Early Christianity, he has written or edited thirty … Continue reading Misquoting Jesus | From a Mormon Perspective
Do you ever have long form arguments in your head about topics you deem important? I certainly do. Who am I talking to? Why am I do this? How come I seem to win every time? I find myself in this internal dialogue often. It happens on the car ride to work, on a walk … Continue reading Argument in my Head
What is truth? Does utility, goodness, and flourishing equate to truth? What is real? How do we know something? Is there a scale of belief, from orthodox fundamental to ‘nuanced’ but believing that is 'valuable’ to work out? It has been a little over a year since my spiritual awakening. My views of the Mormon … Continue reading Truth, Postmodernism, Neo-Apologists
I recently had lunch with a good friend. For context this friend is not Mormon, but grew up in Utah. We spoke of the idea that atheism is not a kind of declaration of knowing there is not a god, but a lack of belief in a god or gods because of insufficient evidence. We … Continue reading I am Korihor
This is the final piece for my faith crises series. Part one, two and three are here for greater context. On May 25, 2012 I received the phone call that my mom had suddenly died while I was at lunch 1,500 miles away. I remember saying, “oh wow.” I remember looking around the cafeteria and seeing … Continue reading Picking up the Pieces After a Crises of Faith
Read part one and part two of my spiritual journey for better context if you have not already. Part three of my spiritual journey moves into the end of July 2017. I was working through my church assignment working with the youth (Young Men’s president). I was charged with the spiritual teaching of 12-18 year old … Continue reading Does Truth Matter?
Read part one of my spiritual journey for better context first if you have not already. The month of May 2017 had passed and June came with the enlightened podcast Mormon Stories. While talking to Kirk about some of the things in the book I was reading (Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind ) and how … Continue reading The Trenches
It was April 12, 2017. My friend Kirk shared with me a book he has been reading titled ‘Sapiens, a Brief History of Humankind' on Audible by Yuval Harari. Kirk had mentioned interesting statistics on mortality rates of children/infants in the royal bloodlines in the 15th and 16th centuries. I thought it sounded interesting. My … Continue reading Faith, Reason and Peugeot
Sapien Curiosus 