Topic: I'm Sorry I believe
When I was a Mormon, I believed what the prophets taught. "The wisdom of men
is foolishness." Science could come up with whatever "theories" it wanted. But I
believed the word of God through his servants, "Whether it is by my own voice,
or the voice of my servants, it is the same." I didn't doubt, like Thomas S.
Monson taught, I lived by my faith. If God said there was an ark, there was an
ark. If he said there was a global flood, there was a global flood. If he said
he created Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, then that's what he did and
evolution could take a hike. If God said the 10 tribes were lost, in one body,
and would bring their scriptures to exchange with the other tribes, then that's
what he meant. If that means the only place for them to live is under the arctic
ice or in the interior of the earth, than that's where they live. Let science
figure out where they went wrong after the earth has been burned and the
scientists are begging for mercy at the judgment bar of God, Jesus, and Joseph
Smith. If I was going to believe 'science' and 'reason' every time there was a
conflict with my faith, what's the point of being a believer? Why not just be
agnostic and believe things as 'science' figures them out?
It's after all, not out of any virtue that one in this situation remains true to
baptism by immersion or belief in the temple. Since those things are completely
outside the realm of investigation by reason, they are under no direct threat.
It's no challenge to believe them, if that's how you'd been brought up to
believe. It doesn't take FAITH to believe Jesus died for your sins if the idea
has been hammered into your head from the time you were two years old. If
somehow, the atonement was in any way refutable by reason or evidence, and if
there were as much evidence brought to bear against it as that against a global
flood, would you still believe it? It's easy to say "yes" when such a situation
is hypothetical only and under no threat of materializing. But my belief, is
that for a very large portion of Internet Mormons, all beliefs are negotiable.
The ones claimed otherwise, have nothing to do with -- in my opinion -- being
"central" to Mormonism or their faith, but rather, being completely outside the
realm of reason to investigate.