Faithless

I really liked this thread, and am sad to see it die.

Thanks Mute and Ram. That summed up my question.

Well, it was my belief that the people who were teaching me as a child the faith that was to help me through my life were telling me things that were written in a manual by an inspired man/woman of god. However, any of the lessons I have paid attention to could have been made up on the spot, and I would not have known it. I know it's a stupid thing to believe, but I did at one time think that all of the lessons would be perfect, and that everything that came out of a priesthood holders mouth was law. Now I don't believe that, but having that crash don upon me just helped me leave the church.

Thank you. I am, however, thinking of taking my name out without telling my mom, and asking the bishop to not inform her of it. Either that or I wait till I move. And, in all honesty, if she finds out, it won't be that big of a deal. She's not going to blow up at me, she just might be saddened at being reminded of my beliefs.

Oops, I'm wrong on that. Sorry. In the evolution thread by Tyler90Az some people were saying how some prophets believed in evolution, but it was never confirmed. I do not know the church's official, current view on evolution. Sorry for the mess up.

I guess I am asking about everything here. For example, in the story where Lot and his wife are leaving Sodom. Lot's wife looks back, and turns into a pillar of salt. Did she literally look back, and did she literally turn into a pillar of salt? Was there an actual arc? Was Jesus actually born of a virgin mother? Like you mentioned, did Moses really part the Red sea?

The church's official stance is that evolution, for animals, is true, but they made no comment on human evolution.

It also depends on how you look at literature. I mean, technically, isn't the bible anti-atheism literature? And isn't anti-religion literature just pro-atheism literature (some, not all)?

I mainly left because I felt like this faith wasn't what I wanted. If anything, it just didn't feel right. I used to go to church every week, go to seminary every school day, and follow the church's teaching. But then I started questioning things. I started asking myself why I believed in god, but couldn't come up with a legit answer. All I could think of was faith, and because everything in the world looked like it was designed by him. Everything seemed to fit together so perfectly. But, I knew then about evolution and science, which was and still is a passion of mine. For me it wasn't a leaving of the LDS faith, it was a leaving of religion in general. I looked at religion in a skeptical point of view, and it all seemed so fake to me. Even the translation of the Book of Mormon seemed like it was a scam. I already don't believe in psychics, homeopathic medicine, or chi. I look at those things and need proof of why they are true. All they can do is use human emotion to try and prove they are real, but they show no evidence. I decided I would use skeptical thinking for pretty much everything in life. To me, there was no evidence for a god. The things that people used for evidence for a god were pretty much all explainable by science. To sum it all up, I guess I left the church because it wasn't fulfilling to me, and it didn't bring me the answers I was looking for. It didn't make me happy. It really did take me a long time to leave the church. Technically, my names are still in the records. I just haven't taken them out yet to make my mother happy.

Ok, at the risk of striking up an argument of some kind, what is it that the LDS faith believes about the Bible? What parts of it does it take literally, and what parts does it take symbolically? If you read the bible, and you happen upon a certain story, how do you know what to believe about it is true, and what isn't?

This is actually one of the many reasons I left the church. I had a Sunday school class dedicated to saying why evolution is false, and how we should all not believe in it. It really bothered me that someone who was supposed to be teaching me lessons of life was attempting (might I add poorly) to prove why a scientific theory was false.

Well, I originally wanted it to be about anti-religious books, but someone somewhere got us off topic, and now we're talking about something else. It's still a good thread (in my opinion), but the title is kind of misleading.

I know that people weren't just sitting there saying "I think I'll believe in a God now." I view religion in an evolutionary perspective. Religion evolved. It started with someone trying to explain the world, and evolved from there. People took ideas from other people, and changed them to fit what they wanted it to fit. Now, religion isn't under the same laws as evolution (natural selection, genetic drift, gene flow, etc.) However, it did change over a long period of time leaving us with what we see today. Some people do believe in a god in the absence of evidence. I've talked to plenty of people who, after asking them why they believe in god, come back with saying "It's just faith." Faith, by definition, is believing in something with the absence of evidence. (Sorry, I'm kind of talking about your comment in a reverse order here) You can come to the conclusion that there is no god in the absence of evidence. I mean, technically, you should be agnostic about everything that has no evidence. There isn't any proof that dragons exist, for example. Really, we should all be agnostic about dragons; however, I do not believe in dragons, nor will I believe in dragons, until I see actual evidence.

That actually is really, really interesting. I read the article at it amazed me. Thank you for showing it to me.

Actually, there are plenty of transitory fossils showing one species becoming another. However, if you have any comments, questions, or arguments about evolution, please state them on this thread: http://www.lds.net/forums/general-discussion/37267-evolution.html You didn't give me any evidence that god exists, other than give me random bible verses.