NOM

What I've seen seems to fall into one of two main categories: Those who try to present evidence that's difficult to refute for traditional religious claims. Proofs for the existence of God, for example. Even if I don't buy their arguments, they can be interesting and at least exhibit some boldness ...

I've heard this monologue mentioned many times and I knew it started with a story about Sweeney meeting some Mormon missionaries, but I'd never got around to actually listening to it until now. Many of the things she discusses are relevant and relatable for anyone who has been through a faith ...

For me it wasn't so much the Mormon concept of God that led me to have a hard time buying into any alternative framing of deity. It was more about coming to understand why I held my beliefs in the first place. If I were to take on some new understanding of God, it wouldn't be based on tradition and ...

I saw Heretic the other night. The friend I went with is active but pretty nuanced and liked it as far as I could tell, though it was a late show and we didn't discuss it too much. There were a few scenes that made me instinctively feel slightly uncomfortable, maybe just because I was there with ...

In my opinion, the best thing by far to come out of that Mormon movie window was the sequel to God's Army, States of Grace . https://letterboxd.com/film/gods-army-2-states-of-grace/ I've just about given up hope on seeing Dutcher's Falling , but I'll be happy if it appears one day. https ...

I've been looking forward to this one and plan to watch it later this week with a (still fully active) friend. Glad to hear it's worth seeing.

That's a good summary of the experience. I sure identify with a lot of it, including the part about hiding the extent of my heresy in some relationships. The article mentions cases in which someone holds religious teachings up to some external standard and finds religion lacking. (It mentions ...

Nice to see the forum back up. Thanks to those who work to keep it alive.

How many planets will it take to provide all the matter needed to resurrect everyone who lived on Earth? How about the animals? Insects? Bacteria?

This is something I think about a lot. Do I believe in anything at all anymore? If you define believe as living as if something is true, then yes, I play along with all kinds of societal conventions, feel strongly about some moral issues, and even continue to follow a number of teachings I learned ...

How do you physically force a being who can't die to leave or not enter a place, anyway? For example, the one-third in premortal life and those in the afterlife who might want to visit family in a higher kingdom even though it's against the rules. (If they followed every little rule they'd have been ...

Hagoth wrote: ↑Tue Jun 25, 2024 8:02 pm Here's another thing. Nephi chopped off Laban's head to prevent his descendants from dwindling in unbelief. But that is exactly what they did eventually anyway.

It's interesting to talk to people in other religious traditions about this, too. At least in Mormonism you can visit lower kingdoms and there are rumors that you just might be able to progress from one kingdom to another after death. (But don't talk about that or people won't try hard enough here ...

It's interesting how some things leak into Mormonism to greater or lesser degrees from wider Christianity. My parents would have had no problem at all with Dungeons and Dragons but face cards were off limits.

Hagoth wrote: ↑Tue Jun 04, 2024 10:48 am . . . conversion of Paul. Bunyan turns . . .

Now I can't help wondering what the Book of Mormon might be like had it been inspired by the stories of Paul Bunyan. Probably just a few years too late, unfortunately.

It's interesting to ask what Jesus would do in the context of the Book of Mormon. In 3rd Nephi, Jesus personally destroys a bunch of cities to usher in his visit, obviously not sparing innocent children. Of course, it's even worse in the Bible where the humans are commanded to raid a city and kill ...

The beauty of AI is the ability to combine gigabytes and gigabytes of data - to combine the voices of all the diverse groups of the world, and with the right prompt, create a combined voice that best represents all of humanity. I do see a lot of potential for many types of collaboration on a large ...

https://www.mormonstories.org/portfolio-items/confronting-nihilism-after-mormonism/ I've been listening to Mormon Stories since it started (though not quite as much in recent years). As relatable as many of the episodes have been, I think this one comes closest to matching my thought processes as I ...

An idea that's sometimes thrown around is that Lucifer rebelled not out of pride but because he sincerely believed that Heavenly Father's plan was flawed. That the types and degree of suffering baked in just weren't worth it and there must be a better way. This also makes me think of the part in ...