NOM

Oh, bleah. The succession crisis, especially BY's transfiguration, is probably one of the most verifiable examples of outright making crap up. He gave a good speech and won in a landslide. Didn't consider himself a prophet. End of story? Nope, we need to spice it up with a good myth, so HE WAS VERIL...

I think the best synonym for faith is trust . I've found that replacing every instance of "faith" in the scriptures with "trust" makes the scriptures make more sense. Trust means voluntarily acting on a proposition as if you believe it 100% even though you don't . Trust and doubt exist in the same ...

Yeah, I end up mentally translating a lot. Fortunately, "faith" tends to have a consistent meaning, even if "believe" tends to jump around among meanings like a grasshopper with ADHD. Hagoth, the thing that bothers me most about the word "knowledge" is that Mormons use it to mean "certainty." But ce...

My favorite example of the mind affecting physiology in a religious context is now this one.

I'm going to get precise, because I think many of our problems with belief and faith come from conflating the two and not understanding them. I think of belief in a proposition (statement of truth) as a probability. "I believe there's a God" might mean "I think the probability that God exists and ha...

All us men are destined for TK smoothies, that's for sure.

It's possible that he does see parallels, but can't let on.

I find it more likely that he's mastered doublethink, though, just like every other member of every fundamentalist religion, ever.

This is full of great insights: http://geekychristian.com/spiritual-abuse/ Here's something I hadn't thought of before: Insecurity is dangerous thing for a senior pastor.  Insecure leaders typically build a protective structure around themselves to keep themselves safe.  These “yes men” uncritically...

they're a lot better at finances than they are at being hip in front of a camera . Dang the video got taken down by "Intellectual Reserve, Inc." Is that the church's bully division? It's the holding corporation for the Church's intellectual property. So... yes, for some things. Every company that w...

My favorite sentence: Complacency, in effect, is a form of pride where we believe our way is best or our view is the correct one. Ayup. May I hold your mirror for you? Nah. It's only pride if a lowly peon holds view that isn't in harmony with today's doctrine. Here's a fun idea I had. Ask an ex-JW t...