Current state

I don't know myself the way I'd like to.  The older I get, the more I realize this.  I know what I value and what my priorities are, but physically, mentally and emotionally, it's hard for me to see a red flag pop up internally like many others do.  When I'm in a low place, sometimes I don't realize it.  When I need something to heal, or recover, I don't often realize it until later stages, or until something comes along that is good for me and I realize how therapeutic it is.  The older I get, the more I also realize how unhealthy I am in some ways.  I don't think I have always been unhealthy in certain aspects.  I don't think I was this depressive my entire life.

Current affairs have really made a big impact on me.  It isn't all black or white.  When I look to see other's reactions to things, I see more and more shades of grey than I used to think there was.  I also know that humans can agree on so much if a subject has an opportunity to be discussed on a deeper level than just face value.  Just for an example, we can take big vs. small government.  No responsible citizen wants the government involved in every aspect of our lives.  What people want is accountability.  If there isn't an entity holding irresponsible citizens accountable for reckless behavior, we as a society regress.  Another one. Nobody is pro-abortion.  People that fight for the choice to abort a baby cares about the mother more than the fetus.  They care about quality of life.  They care about women being treated as human first, giving them the opportunity to choose what happens with her body and her child.

When discussing sensitive issues in an ideal world, we learn and grow from what others have to say.  The tricky part is when emotion gets involved.  Humans are heavily susceptible to logical fallacies.  We like to think our perspective is right, so we'll use trump cards over someone that disagrees with us to win.  Trump cards are rarely sound.  The problem is, we rarely take the time to examine our arguments to see if they hold water or sink.  We partly ignore inspection because we fear the derailing of our perspective.  We end up yelling at each other, burning bridges and never rise and grow from our interactions because we don't want to listen and we don't want to give the other side an inch.

I have experienced a lot of rage over the past few days because from my perspective, certain things have been said that are subhuman.  Things such as commenting on Michelle Obama being a man.  Not only is it despicable to make snide remarks about her, it tells those around you that you are ignorant and you are being willingly ignorant.  Add to it the fact you are racist.  Racism isn't ideal for everyone, but it is ideal for some.  Some humans want to be and feel superior to others in different ways.  Religion does that.  Whether you believe it or not, many major religions teach that.  They encourage gaslighting and ethnocentrism.  They train believers to not fully accept outsiders until their thinking is in line with yours.  Racism persists partly because we allow it to.  Racism exists because we try and shut down others fighting it because we don't agree with how they fight it.

Mental gymnastics to try and rationalize someone's behavior or words should be a red flag from the get-go.  An enemy of your enemy is not always your friend.  This goes back to the black or white fallacy.  Just because someone disagrees with your enemy doesn't mean you should agree with them.  If a person absolutely didn't want Hillary Clinton to be president for whatever reason, that doesn't mean her main opponent is qualified in the smallest degree to be.  Granted, our two-party system and electoral college isn't the best example.  We have been told for decades that we have a choice between two people.  This isn't democracy.

Why do we accept things when they go against our better nature?  Why do we accept things told to us by people in certain positions and prioritize the calling rather than the soundness of the content of what they are saying.  Every single thing should have merit based on the content, not on who said it.  This is the genetic fallacy in part, and an appeal to authority.  Americans have padded themselves with such a comfortable lifestyle that privilege trumps decency and rights trump knowledge and understanding.  In the year 2017, we have groups of people that still think vaccinations cause autism, the earth is flat, and/or the earth is only 6,000 years old.  Any rudimentary studying into the Old Testament will tell you the stories were never meant to be literal.  Yet, we have entire groups of people that base their whole worldview on this idea.  This idea impacts not only quality of life, but it can also be a matter of life or death.  Call that an extreme position if you like, but it's true if you have a legislator who passes or kills a law based on this position.  A law which then gives authorization to law enforcement to go out among the citizens and negatively impact members of society.

What is frustrating to me currently is the fact that countless individuals are willing and blatant about their own ignorance.  They don't want to learn or be objective about anything.  They wish to stay ignorant, plug their ears and shout from the rooftops their myths and half-truths, not caring the impact it has on other, unsuspecting ignorant individuals.  This isn't going to stop anytime soon.  We aren't going to see a society governed by science and responsibility in our lifetime.

To my children

Dear children,

I want you to know that I love you.  More importantly, I hope you know that from our relationship. I want you to know a few things about me, how I view the world, and how I view you.  I want you to know I worry about your lives every day and I know I fail you as a father in many ways.  After my transition away from religious faith, I have adopted a nihilistic view of life, so the framing of what I say is a view of this life as your only chance to do whatever it is you want to do in life.  Once you die, your legacy and other's memories of you is all that is left.

I was always introspective and curious.  I've always wanted to know the origin or creation of things.  I knew thoughts, ideas and beliefs all originate somewhere, somehow.  As a missionary for the LDS church, this deep seated curiosity flowered and bloomed.  A fellow missionary introduced me to F.A.R.M.S. (Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies), and I subscribed and started buying books and publications from them.  As a 24/7 missionary, my goal was to be armed with every answer possible to questions and concerns from not only investigators, but from members as well.  I quickly learned that Utah Mormonism was quite different than non-Utah Mormonism.  Members outside of the homeland, so to speak, tend to lack much of the culture of Utah that is often associated with the church.

The first thing I learned was that Hugh Nibley was a sort of demigod within the F.A.R.M.S. and apologist world.  He could go off on a historical tangent to support a lesson or teaching for pages and pages with this immense knowledge base, on a topic you, while reading about, are wondering how on earth he is going to connect to the point he is trying to make.  The Book of Mormon classes he taught at BYU is full of these tangents and his teaching style was very lecture-based, much of it was stories and tangents to lessons from a Book of Mormon scenario.

I soon branched out, including reading other authors that contributed to F.A.R.M.S. growing my apologetic library and knowledge base.  I felt more and more confident as a missionary and as a member in general, being able to speak with a background in historical and doctrinal accuracy.  After my mission, the studying tapered a bit as I was expected to do adult things like college and starting a family, but I persisted in my interest, as Mormon history is complex and bigger than a 2-year mission could cover satisfactorily.

D. Michael Quinn was the next big author I stumbled upon.  In the second half of my mission I saw his hierarchy series on a bookshelf of a man who had "lost his testimony," and had gone inactive.  This turned me off at first, but I had to know the validity of the author and the curious publisher, Signature Books.  I soon found an alternate library of knowledge outside of F.A.R.M.S., where authors had a little more freedom in their research and writing. I soaked up everything by Quinn, despite some subtle warnings from your uncle Andy.  Many of the things Quinn touched on only fueled the fire within to learn as much as I could about anything and everything Mormon.  The left fields and rabbit holes were endless and fascinating.

I started to gain a perspective of modern Mormon history and how much of what I was learning was largely unknown only a couple decades ago.  Leonard Arrington as the grandfather, then the rise of the internet soon had this modern Mormon history spreading like wildfire across the globe.  My shelf was stacked to what I thought was its breaking point for a while.  I tend to view my shelf material as a bit stronger than average.  Whether that correlated to stubbornness, patience, suspended judgment, or a combination of all three, I am not sure.

What I do know is that I grew up in a pretty good environment.  I had no reasons to dislike or even question the church.  My ward family was awesome.  I knew all the members and remember them today fondly.  Leaders led with love. Teachers taught with love.  I took this for granted a lot.  My initial cracks in my shelf were academic, supplemented with personal experience.  I was able to dismiss many experiences and chalk them up to emotion and my inherent naive outlook.  I held on to what I considered a handful of personal, sacred experiences that I had a hard time denying without further knowledge.  That knowledge eventually came. I now view these experiences with fondness, but without giving them as much weight or meaning.

I think my shelf was ultimately structurally compromised through personal experience.  The church adopted the view that people get 'trapped' in compulsive viewing of pornography, and label these poor souls as addicted to this form of sex.  They would even adopt a lot of terminology that was damaging to these individuals.  Terms like trapped, addiction, self-abuse, sin, plague, epidemic, etc. produced massive shame and dissonance within a person.  This shame directly and instantly produced compulsive behavior.

My curious nature showed through much earlier than my mission when I learned about sex.  I wanted to know everything about sex and human physiology. Because much of it had a shame association, it made my curiosity worse.  What was it about human nature and sexual acts that was so sinful?  I had certain topics in an Encyclopedia Britannica set in my room secretly bookmarked, as well as certain terms in a dictionary.  Eventually, my curiosity and self-gratification got out of hand.  I started looking at pictures. It weighed heavily on me.  The shame was like a giant thumb, pressing on me constantly.  Everywhere I went, everything I did, it was at the forefront of my mind.  I felt extreme guilt from every religious lesson.  The closer I got to turning in my papers for my mission, the more I was determined to be honest about it with the bishop.  As a priest, I was mortified by the prospect of having this interview as the bishop didn't exactly come across first as loving.  He seemed quite kind, understanding and thoughtful, but I knew I would shun this responsibility with him.

Luckily, it was time for the bishop to be released.  Six months before my interview, I got a new one.  His prevailing trait was love.  I knew I could go to him with this thing hanging over my head.  His response was to kneel in prayer and ask for help in overcoming this.  He thought, after meeting with the stake president, that I should not delay in going on my mission as planned.  I also loved the stake president.  I met with him and I could tell he was concerned, but I could also tell he thought highly of me and didn't think I should delay in going.  I left on my mission without changing and without feeling much fortitude in stopping.

Because the suppression messages were so strong, it became part of who I was.  The shame cycle eventually went from unbearable to mind numbing.  I became dead to the emotional roller coaster of getting high, then feeling massive amounts of remorse and shame, then slowly recovering, resolving to be better, only to find myself back on step one to start all over.

When things got serious with your mom and me, I was determined yet again to come clean.  I sobbed like a child telling her.  I knew I wasn't living up to the standards of a priesthood holder or even temple recommend holder.  Like the bishop, she wasn't quite sure how to handle this information.  We considered delaying our temple wedding, but in the end, mostly due to the culture, we kept our date.  Delaying a temple wedding would only mean one thing: sin.  We didn't want to reveal any notion of sin to our temple recommend holding family, let alone extended family.

If you have a basic understanding of the shame cycle, it is easy to also understand what it does to an emotional and social animal that is a human.  Isolation and projection are primary indicators.  I isolated myself from your mom, and I projected my feelings toward myself onto her.  I was angry, depressed and ashamed of who I was.  That was expressed outwardly and the primary target was your mom.  She often suffered in silence, only to blow up at me every now and again.  I revealed to her my unceasing problem a few times, but she had never been given the tools to deal with it as a spouse.  The church also tells its women that this is unacceptable, that a wife ultimately owns the sexuality of their spouse, and that their husband isn’t fit to lead their household with the priesthood with this problem.  Because it didn't help either of us, I soon gave up in confiding in her.

In 2010 I stumbled upon a new outlet.  I was never one to seek out someone else to share in my sin.  I shun from being social and I am naturally introverted.  Yet a girl from my past reconnected with me and we soon started having inappropriate conversations over the phone and via text message.  It was a stimulus overload.  I couldn't believe anyone else would desire me and it rekindled something within.  I felt new energy and hope not only in everyday living, but also with my wife.  It didn't last long though.  Your mom soon found out. She went into severe shock.  She was inconsolable.  I was willing to do anything.  We went to the bishop and I confessed everything.  The bishop put me on probation with the threat of disfellowship. I started going to the LDS 12 step addiction meetings.  They adopted the 12 step AA model.  I met with a dozen other men in the area on a weekly basis and we would share our feelings and focus on the steps.

I was sober for six months mostly out of shock.  Eventually the program plateaued.  It didn't help anymore.  The same depressing stories repeated every week.  The stories wreaked of hopelessness, even though people stated they had hope to merely manage their addiction.  Yet their shame and depression over the relentless cycle told the story of hopelessness.  Their wives or loved ones were in a similar place as your mom.  Some went to the spouse support group where similar struggles told had the same spirit of hopelessness to them.

A good friend told me of a non-LDS program, Sexaholics Anonymous.  Going there with fresh faces and less shame gave me new hope.  It was here that allowed me to be sober for the six months.  I felt more connected to the others that struggled.  Your mom and I was able to grow together from all this, even though it took her a long time to get to a good place.

Amongst all this, I was still on my spiritual journey and had to make all this fit into my belief system.  I still didn't know any better and believed what the church taught: that I had a sex addiction.  I had books on it and learned that my brain was equivalent to being on hard drugs.  This led to the belief that the problem would stay with me throughout my life.  The craving would always be there to combat and manage.  This is depressing news to someone who thinks there is inherent shame in it all.  So depressing that it makes the rest of life also something to manage.

We got orders in the Air Force that took us to Virginia.  It was also time to renew my temple recommend.  I had gone through a 'council of love' while still in Colorado and had taken the steps necessary to get back in good standing with the church.  There was a significantly negative meeting I had while doing so with our local bishop.  It soured me permanently toward leadership in general and how they aren't given adequate tools to support their members.  Because of this, they do more damage than repair.  I played the game regardless.

In Virginia, the outcome was the same.  The bishop was ill equipped and by this time, I was so emotionally and academically separated from the church I called home for 33 years that I decided I was done.  There was no way I was going to willingly carry their shame on my shoulders any longer.  I couldn't stand idly by while they put me in one of their boxes and told me how to think or what was wrong with me.  I went mentally inactive.  Although I still went to church with your mom and you, I didn't believe.  The experiences I went through were an inevitable compromise to my shelf.

I slid deeper and deeper into solitude.  My six-month sobriety relented and I distanced myself from your mom again emotionally and physically.  She went crazy internally.  She was at her wits end and couldn't be around me any longer.  Her mental and emotional health had deteriorated to the point of desperation.  That is when she took you and moved to Utah.  I was unintentionally abandoned by some of my few remaining allies.

Soon after you left, I was faced with a huge setback with my career.  I allowed my problem to seep into my professional life.  That fall (2014) I was due to have my security clearance renewed.  Because of the nature of where I worked, I required a polygraph.  I told the truth and was soon facing disciplinary action for what I did alone in a back room in the quiet hours of a midshift.  While waiting for the disciplinary action, they took my access to the building away.  It was determined by the superintendent to have me sit in a chapel on an army base 30 miles away.  My world went dark.  I came home to an empty house every day after sitting quietly in an army chapel all day doing nothing.  I had no purpose and very little meaning in my life.

I learned to drink heavily.  It was my escape for four months.  I had to force myself to eat anything, let alone anything healthy.  The actions against me soon concluded and soon thereafter I got rushed orders back to Colorado.  I was given a job in a closet where other misfits are relegated to.  Although my future didn't look too bright, I was given purpose through a job.  I had something to do.  I was determined to work hard again and put my negative record behind me.  For 18 months I worked hard and showed my leadership my competence.  They quickly viewed me as someone who knew what they were doing, was trustworthy and professional.

With new found energy for life, I moved back into our Colorado house and had a fresh view.  I started working on the house.  Your mom was planning on moving back after school had ended.  It had been too long.  I saw you over Christmas of 2014, then for a short week over spring break.  I missed you badly.  When it came closer to the end of school, your mom told me she wanted to stay in Utah through the summer and come back sometime in August.  Something triggered within me.  I couldn't take the negative news.  I wanted to be with you again and I was fixated on this light at the end of the tunnel.  I told her that was unacceptable.  I told her she was keeping you from me and it made me mad.  It was a difficult situation and she didn't have much choice when she first left.  Part of me couldn't get over it though.  My life was so dark and I missed you so badly I even mentioned divorce to her for the first time.

Since my clearance was put on the shelf in Virginia, it still needed to be renewed.  Once my package was submitted in Colorado, my past came back to haunt me.  The decision authority didn't like what my past had shown in my file and determined to take away not only my top secret clearance, but my secret clearance as well.  This meant I couldn't work in my office anymore.  It was another blow to my career and my outlook.  Just after gathering myself and trying to put a semblance of a life together, the Air Force decided to knock me down again.  Like my punishment 18 months ago, I took responsibility for what I had done, even though I knew the punitive system was broken.  It is inevitably so in a bureaucratic government agency.

Back to the shame cycle.  Only about a year ago (fall of 2015) did I learn that my sex addiction was bogus.  It boiled down to be a construct or method of control.  Without associating sexuality with shame, compulsive behavior disappears.  Without having this compulsive behavior, my whole countenance (to borrow a religious term) started changing.  The suppressive thumb constantly applying pressure had faded.  At this point in this dialogue, the ethics behind viewing pornography hasn't even been addressed.  Regardless of whether it is acceptable or not, unnecessary shame and misdiagnosing the problem as an addiction is the foundation of the problem.  By shifting the paradigm and viewing this behavior as normal, it fades into the background.

Once you and your mom moved back to Colorado, I hadn't yet realized this.  We found a counselor to focus on our marriage, but things didn't get any better.  The counselor only helped a little before we stopped going.  The wall between us had added a different color brick.  The divisiveness was growing with bricks of religious difference.  The bricks that founded the previous wall from my problems were growing irrelevant.  More and more I was viewing religion as a control device, full of abusive patriarchal, misogynistic, fear based and outdated or reactionary based policy or doctrine.  At best, it is a great way to network in a community anywhere you go.  At worst, it suppresses the intellect, your emotions and your ability to delineate your self-worth and your autonomy in the world.  Integrated into your individuality is ownership.  Relying on an imaginary person to save you from their opposite imaginary friend teaches one to partially blame an outside influence for your own actions, then teaches one to rely on another outside influence to save you from mistakes you made by allowing the influences of this dark, vague entity, never fully owning up to those mistakes, which, ultimately are all on you.

It is hard to articulate my atheism compared to how I view organized religion.  Enough reading on the details forced me to look at the bigger picture.  Sure it is easy to see the scripture for what it is: a collection of stories eventually written down and codified, derived from verbal tradition to standardize the story and pass down to future generations as the story of past generations as a chosen people.  Many of the stories were borrowed to glorify their selection by their god as the chosen people.  Once Jesus came along, some gifted writers wrote stories about him and the celebrity status grew.  They wrote him to parallel the rantings of Old Testament prophets to fulfill the role.

A similarly gifted writer came along during the 1800's (there were others, such as Muhammad, etc. that aren't necessarily pertinent to this story).  He had a gift of storytelling and it clicked with a lot of people.  He wove a fascinating tale and connecting it to the chosen people.  Eventually this organization grew into a corporation and modern day revelation faded into the background as only a concept, not a practice.

The bigger picture perspective is looking at the world for any evidence of a loving Heavenly Father.  Sure, I see beauty everywhere I look, but beauty in and of itself is not evidence of a creator.  The look at humanity is even weaker evidence.  Without engaging with people, believer and nonbelievers have no outward difference.  Their successes and failings are similar.  The way they treat others are in the same spectrum. Believers and nonbelievers alike could be seen as loving or hateful.  Religion just gave believers an excuse.  Don’t love people or hate people because you are human, love them or hate them because religion teaches to do so.  Not just an excuse, religion also justified and armed believers with self-appointed authority from a higher law and higher being.  Abuse of power follows religion inherently.  There is no indication that a supreme being is blessing believers while cursing nonbelievers.  Mercy is another reason for me not to believe.  A merciful being doesn't let millions suffer by genocide, pestilence, starvation, disease or natural disaster just for an object lesson for his believers.  The problem of evil in the world is answered least adequately by religion.

To look at my personal life has similar conclusions.  Since leaving, I have only felt like I have broken free of something. My experiences as a believer only went south within the last year or two.  I wasn't about to throw away 30+ years of positive religious experience just because I was in a bad place.  But it wasn't that simple.  There was no reason to cling to a belief that wasn't doing me any good.  I was given the tools to think for myself, act for myself and answer for my own actions.  I didn't need to pray for good feelings or rely on some vague idea of salvation through perfect blood.  I could live my life and look at life and interpret or extract meaning through things however I chose.  Life is more beautiful than ever.

I also learned that people the world over can have special experiences.  Not all attribute these to a higher power.  The mind also has powerful capabilities that allow you to see things that are only in your mind.  The human psyche can be heavily influenced by confirmation bias.  Thanks to this knowledge, I have been able to dismiss every experience I have had.  This is not to say they are no longer special to me, but I have been given the freedom to view them as they are and not attach external meaning to them.  Also consider the 4000+ religions in the world having spiritual experiences that tell them 'without a doubt' that their religion is true because of those personal experiences. If one god is confirming to this many different religions' believers, why?

After pondering this letter and the messages I want to convey to you for a week now, I want to say a few things about experiencing life.  The Mormon bubble is most prevalent in Utah, due to the high concentration of believers, as well as the heavy influence the church has on state legislation.  I clumped many things together that were forbidden into the same category.  Casual sex, along with crack cocaine fell in the same bucket, for example.

I want to stress to you with clarity and importance about many things the church deems off limits, which are not 'evil' or bad in the slightest.  A word of caution about this list though:  I still believe in moderation in all things.  When someone grows up in a strict religious home, then experiments with one or more of these things, binging or excess is often a step taken. For instance, when first trying alcohol, experiencing heavy inebriation to the point of losing bodily functions or consciousness is often a tendency, trying something new that was previously prohibited and off limits.  This is not advised except rarely and in the safety of your own home.  Enjoying a good buzz while keeping intact bodily functions and consciousness is ok.

Other 'sins' on the list include coffee and tea (which are actually quite healthy in every consideration), tobacco, marijuana, mushrooms, cocaine, and sex outside of marriage.  The same rule applies: moderation.  Keep in mind also that two substances on this list are more addictive than others: tobacco and cocaine.  Don't just go try these things for no reason.  Do your research.  If something doesn't appeal to you, don't do it.  Mushrooms, it is said, can enhance a spiritual experience.  Tobacco gives a mild buzz.  Cocaine can give someone intense focus and energy.  Pharmaceutical companies have exploited many of these drugs and others to put in pill form.

Regarding casual sex.  Like anything, sex should be taken seriously.  If you find someone you care deeply for, sexual compatibility cannot be talked through by two virgins who have been given a very superficial education regarding sex, sexual behavior and human physiology.  Your sexuality is your own.  Your partner, nor your parents, nor your religion has or should have any say regarding how you share it, or who you share it with.  Like everything else, take this seriously.  Be careful.  If you don't want children with that person, talk about that. Use birth control and protection.  If you don't want STD's, talk about that and use protection.  It's that simple.  Being intimate with someone doesn't mean you want to spend the rest of your life with them.  After taking that step with someone, if after a few months you love them more than ever, only then should you consider marriage.  Yet, marriage isn't for everyone.  Marriage is a social construct and has many benefits.  There are arguments on both sides of the coin.  Not getting married also has benefits.  You can even decide to build a life with someone and even have children with them without getting married.

Other experiences in life that the church frowns upon cannot enumerated.  You saw my tattoo. I love it. I plan on getting others.  If you find something you like or find meaningful that you want tattooed on your body, take some time, give it some consideration, and then do it if it feels right.

Having children can be a sensitive topic.  The Mormon Church stresses to members that they should desire having children, it is their responsibility, and that there is no higher calling.  If you truly feel that way when you are older that is fine, but don't let religion tell you how to think in this matter, just like any other.  Not all humans should procreate and not all humans can.  For as long as I can remember, I wanted to adopt.  Adoption is a noble choice that offers a possibly better life for a child than they otherwise would have.  Some individuals simply don't want children, either their own or adopted.  There is no universal highest calling for humans.  You have to do what you feel is best for you.  Some people don't do well as a parent.  In all honesty, it is hard to tell if you will be a good parent until a child is dropped in your lap and you are asked to be their primary caregiver.  You don't know what you don't know.

Along this same way of thinking, the church also feels the same way toward assisted suicide.  They say, since your life was given by an unknown creator, to which you shall return, your life is somehow not your own.  Terminally ill are asked to suffer because it is somehow the will of their god.  This is, quite simply, inhuman.  Your life is your own.  Although suicide in general is a permanent solution, it may or may not be to a temporary problem.  Don't adopt the adage that it will get better.  It doesn't always get better.  Some people suffer throughout their entire lives. I don't encourage anyone to end their life, but I cannot tell anyone that it isn't the best solution.  I wish I could tell people that it will get better, but no one knows that. What is the point to life if it isn't enjoyed, but rather managed?

All of this leads me to write some thoughts about the nature of the god that humans have constructed. What type of god concerns itself with these temporary, arbitrary rules? Why is this god so anthropomorphic? If it is so it can be relatable, why doesn't it then relate to us?  Religions tell us that god is personal and loves us, but where is the difference between a believer and nonbeliever in their feelings of belonging and being loved?  Shouldn't there be a notable difference in quality of life? The truth is, there is no difference because there is no god handing out blessings to believers while allowing nonbelievers to suffer.  Suffering is relative and dependent on the person.  Quality of life is also relative and dependent on the person.  Third world countries experience the full spectrum of peace and joy just like first world countries.  Third world countries also have a wide array of belief and non-belief, just like first world countries.  

Another reason I find it hard to believe in a god is the reactionary way religions interact with the world.  The Catholic Church burned scientists at the stake for heresy, feeling their precious god being threatened by new evidences that seemed to them contradicting Holy Scripture.  How would an all-powerful god be questioned by first revealing one way the world works, only for us to find out that the world didn't work that way?  Wouldn't this all powerful being explain things correctly the first time?  If it was supposed to be allegory, why is Holy Scripture not written explicitly that way? 

Other significant reactions rather than actions can be seen within Mormonism.  When Utah wanted statehood, they had to get rid of polygamy to do so.  When a non-Mormon started the prohibition activism, Mormonism jumped on and decided to mandate the word of wisdom for believers.  When the civil rights movement showed prevalence throughout the country, the church finally relented and gave blacks the priesthood and temple admission.  When it was shown that personal family decisions were highly complex, the church quietly took themselves out of the decision making with a couple deciding when to start having children, how many to have, and so forth.  Before, they stressed having children soon, having as many as you could, not worrying about income or education regarding starting or number, and refraining from contraceptives. These are just a few highlights.

Another reason for me deciding I am better off autonomous is emotional, spiritual and mental health. Upon freeing myself of religious bias, I found I was better able to view people as they were.  I saw many people suffering from negative impacts of religious belief.  Some more than others suffered emotional, spiritual or mental growth stunts.  Relying on an unseen or seen, control mechanism over your life inherently stunts growth as an individual.  Learning to express emotion, learning to truly think for yourself over all aspects of your life and learning that personal spirituality has as wide a spectrum as there are people on earth isn't a tendency within organized religion.  They tell you how to think, how to view the world through their lens, how spirituality only works through their construct, and how any intellectual endeavor should be framed within the confines of their religious worldview. This is quite limiting.  They may use language that indicates otherwise, such as god’s ways are not our ways, neither is his timing, he knows us better than we know ourselves, etc..  This helps organized religion monopolize many concepts that ought to be left alone, and allows them to have the answers, even though believers have to wait until the afterlife to have them explained.  If scientists adopted this way of thinking, progress would have ended centuries ago.

Regardless of how you choose to live your life, regardless of your belief system, I want you to be happy.  I want you to know that my love for you is truly unconditional.  I am not bound by religious rhetoric that demands my loyalty and love for you come in second or third.  Religion inherently puts up walls between family members who act, think or feel differently.  Religion demands complete submission so those that choose not to submit are labeled as lost, sorrowful and missing out on real joy or happiness.  Knowing happiness comes from within, as well as peace, I have been able to realize genuine, personal happiness, as I have freed myself from the conditions that enable these feelings.

This rhetoric is another big issue I have with religion.  Threatening rhetoric comes from insecurity.  If a religion is insecure about their faith or beliefs, that should set of a red flag.  Should god need apologists and defenders to stave off the secular evils of the world? What is actually threatening religious survival? Some say things like same sex marriage threatens it.  If the world were to allow the LGBTQIA community to marry whomever they wish, what would the religious landscape look like? Are they turning the entire human population to identify as LGBTQI or A?  How does allowing them marriage rights threaten your heterosexual families? In truth, it doesn’t at all.

The threat to faith really boils down to indoctrinating youth.  If the religions aren’t allowed to indoctrinate children at a young age, they would lose a significant number of believers who aren’t tied to a specific faith-based culture.  Why do we lose our belief in Santa Clause? Because our parents and our society supports that transition.  Why not so with god? Because our parents and the religious culture we were attached to at a young age doesn’t support that transition.  Children are inherently atheist.  Atheist sometimes has a certain connotation, as ‘theist’ is part of the word.  If a child is raised without any mention of religion, faith, or god, the child doesn’t eventually ask its parents to teach them about god.  Of course this is to not consider factoring in the internet, books, school, etc., where they would inevitably hear about those concepts from external sources.

Not only are religions concerned about indoctrinating children about their god, they want to frame the world a certain way so as to not question that authority, and so they consider their specific worldview as the ideal, or god’s intended worldview.  God tells us to think a certain way, they say.  When in reality, church leaders use this as a control mechanism to protect their interests.  If they can get a child to agree with them, they have an ally in that child and it grows up to take their place as defenders of the tradition.

Ethnocentrism is a significant concept when it comes to religious rhetoric.  Why are religions based primarily on geography?  Why does ethnicity or environment play into your god’s plan if your god is the god of the whole earth, let alone universe?

If I seem overly fixated on religion it is because it plays such a huge role in people’s lives to impact relationships, career choices and worldview.  I do not wish to ramble on about something when it seems like I have an axe to grind or something.  I see it for what it is and I think its usefulness has run its course.  If I could eradicate all religious belief from the earth I would.

When I returned from my mission, I immediately applied for acceptance at the University of Utah.  Back then, I considered Brigham Young University, but the admission requirements were a bit more stringent and I couldn’t live at home while attending.  Uncle Andy and Bryan had or were currently going there and they loved it, so it seemed like a natural choice.  I eventually settled down back in my old job at Dick’s Market in the produce department, working with Uncle Alex.  He was the one that suggested asking your mom out, as she worked in a different department, managing prices and sales throughout the whole store.

I still didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life regarding a career.  I had always been fascinated with human flight and history, so I was bouncing between becoming a history professor and going into aeronautic engineering.  Without getting much guidance, I eventually settled on the engineering course.  I had a decent grasp of calculus, but physics was getting the better of me.  During the first and second semester I dated your mom and had a temple marriage date.  We married in August and I continued into my third semester.  We got pregnant with Connor in my fourth semester, but I had left my stable job and hadn’t found much luck with stability for a while.  With a baby on the way, and my work prospects uncertain, I found myself struggling with my studies.  My grades dipped and I lost my Pell grant.  I couldn’t pay for school, but I knew just dropping out was a bad idea.  The thought came to me to join the Air Force.

On a whim, I visited the recruiter.  Everything sounded too good to be true, but I needed a good job, while somehow paying for school.  After the first visit, I liked what I heard enough to take your mom back.  She wasn’t certain, but she supported me in whatever decision I thought was the right one.  We decided to do it.  Your Sheffield grandparents seemed more supportive than my parents.  My dad masked his true feelings with humor.  This never sat well with me.  As a child, he took me to Hill AFB all the time to look at the jets.  He fostered a love of warplanes in us.  I went to basic training in January 2004, 2 1/2 months after Connor was born. That was rough for your mom and Connor, especially since my follow-on training at tech school was an additional 4 months.  After tech school, we moved to Ellsworth AFB in South Dakota.  We built a new life, isolated, over 600 miles away from family.  Your mom struggled with the transition, but took this challenge with a great attitude.

I cross-trained out of aircraft maintenance after I deployed once and realized the flight-line life and the deployment tempo was not a good fit for me and our family.  I fostered many irreligious ideas there, as I had started to question the ultraconservative mindset that is so easily adopted within the church.  I tried to embrace mutual ground between religion and many secular or progressive ideas that I was finding I was in agreement with. Seeing live bombs being loaded on the B-1 in the desert, then seeing the jet come back empty, along with seeing videos loaded on the network by the army or NATO forces, had an impact on me that would stay with me.  It was a big factor in my decision to cross-train out of that career field. 

I narrowed my choices down to the intelligence career field, or space operations.  I knew intel works on every base and also deploys often.  Space ops were limited to a handful of bases, some close to Utah, some not, yet they didn’t deploy nearly as much.  I decided on space ops.  I went back to tech school in May of 2009.  Connor, Orson and Tensley went to Utah to wait.  We packed up our house and put most things in a storage unit for two months.  During that time your mom visited Colorado to look for houses with Aunt Tiffany.  It was a new and exciting stage in our life.  

I shelved my disaffection with my career choice of the military, hoping my new career field would help me stave it off.  Deep down, I knew I was disagreeing more and more with U.S. foreign policy and our methods of intervening or interfering in other countries.  It all seemed to have a bottom line of oil interests.  I soon started to recognize fear tactics.  The DoD rhetoric of fearing terrorism and other countries who wanted nothing but to bring the United States down was becoming more and more obvious and tiresome.  We were a world superpower bully who took what we wanted and gave little in return.  Defense contracts and overall defense spending I saw as job security and unnecessary allocation of a massive amount of funding that could otherwise improve the quality of life and technology in other vital departments of government.

So here I sit, in the fall of 2016, nearly 13 years in the Air Force.  I love satellite operations.  I love the technology and the capabilities of the human race to put tools in space for the benefit of mankind.  I love the idea of going to the moon and mars.  I am fascinated we sent a satellite beyond our solar system.  Today, I have leadership all the way up the chain that believes our dominance in the space domain is under imminent threat.  Cyberwarfare and counter-space are top concerns they are addressing.  Considering the nature of our enemies, their capabilities and their end goals, I find most of these fears laughable.  The U.S. are decades beyond most countries regarding space, and those that are closer have coexisted in orbit for a while now.  The perspective of a bully always seems to be on the defense, protecting its position of authority and control.

I tell you all this because I have concluded I am a man of peace.  Today’s wars are completely unnecessary.  I am not fighting for freedom or liberty, let alone peace.  Humans today are probably like humans throughout history, too quick to fight, seemingly incapable of utilizing other resources for peace and cooperation.  World peace has only been a concept in my lifetime, and the words don’t even have meaning, rather becoming cliché.  I still struggle with my desire to embody peace, while working for the department of defense.  It may be a dichotomy I can never resolve.

I would have hope that you choose careers you are passionate about.  Don’t get stuck doing something you hate.  I know it is hard sometimes.  You will have bills to pay and loved ones to support.  This concept is often framed with the idea of being true to yourself, or living with integrity.  Everyone is different, but I feel like I have already portrayed the notion that I can without that kind of personal integrity.  If I could walk away from it all, I would.  We would take a whole year off and travel the world.  We could experience different cultures, different foods, volunteer in third world countries.  The education you would receive from that would be priceless.

These words are as much for my daughters as they are for my sons.  I want you to be independent and happy, free to think and do as you wish.  The world is yours for the taking.

Elusive Happiness

I have mentioned before how I feel about divisive and damaging rhetoric that comes from religion.  Instilling the idea in believers that anyone that doesn't agree with them is in need of what they have creates walls and barriers.  It automatically puts conditions on those relationships.  The dichotomy to these conditions comes from the other belief that the believers imaginary friend wants to love them, so believers argue that their outreach to save is out of love.  The big picture does not support this.  The big picture supports relationships established for the sake of mutual benefit of the two parties present.  I develop a friendship becuase we enjoy each other's company and the support we give in each other's lives.

These religious ideals to save souls makes another aspect of those relationships tiresome.  From the religious perspective, I am miserable, or at least not fully happy.  "True joy" is a common phrase they use.  I can never experience true joy without pretend Jesus by my side, washing my soul white with his magical blood.  After being mentally out of religious belief for a couple years now, I can state with 100% assurance that I have never experienced more consistent internal peace with myself.  The imposed guilt and shame whithered away, a cloud lifted and I see the world with less angst.  I see others as fellow humans with unique perspectives and value, rather than viewing them as people somewhere on an arbitrary salvation scale, trying to get through this 'test' to get back to some elusive sky-daddy.  I experience true joy when I see humans showing their humanity, not in correlating warm-fuzzies to an outdated religious text that tells me I am worthless.

My own personal dichotomy occurs with happiness.  Some that are close to me may not believe that I am much happier as a non-believer, and it is hard to articulate on the fly why they are wrong. Many of my struggles is with my children.  Watching them adopt these religious beliefs from mom and dad, just like I did from my parents, who adopted it all from their parents and so on.  Religous belief is mentally and emotionally crippling and it pains me to see that in my children.

Because religious belief is so divisive, it is an unavoidable wall in a marriage.  Some manage to poke holes in the wall, or even tear most of it down, but it is a pervasive, thick, tall and wide wall.  There is plenty of struggle in a marriage, so the addition of this wall doesn't make all of the other struggles very manageable.  This is one reason why it is a huge fallacy to attribute sadness or misery to a lack of religious belief in one's life.  Joy and self-worth isn't found in imagined relationships. Rather, it is found personally.  Whether it be found in real relationships, things you love to do, or somewhere else, joy is personal and cannot be judged or monopolized by external sources.

Jeffrey Holland at it again.

Bound by Loving Ties

By Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles

The following is the text from the address Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles gave during the 2016 BYU Campus Education Week devotional on August 16, 2016, in Provo, Utah.

One of my BYU professors of yesteryear—actually quite a few yesteryears—was Edward L. Hart, who wrote the text of a much loved hymn in the Church. The second verse of that hymn, Our Savior’s Love, reads this way:    

The Spirit, voice
Of goodness, whispers to our hearts

A better choice
Than evil’s anguished cries.

Loud may the sound
Of hope ring till all doubt departs,
And we are bound
To him by loving ties.1

An omnibus word familiar to us all that summarizes these “loving ties” to our Heavenly Father is religion. Scholars debate the etymology of that word just as scholars and laymen alike debate almost everything about the subject of religion, but a widely accepted account of its origin suggests that our English word “religion” comes from the Latin word religare, meaning to “tie,” or more literally, to “re-tie.”2 In that root syllable of ligare you can hear the echo of a word like ligature, which is what a doctor uses to sew us up if we have a wound. So, for our purpose today, “religion” is that which unites what was separated or holds together that which might be torn apart, an obvious need for us, individually and collectively, given trials and tribulations we all experience here in mortality.

I see the goal here to establish a black or white narrative. The implication is that you need Mormonism.

What is equally obvious is that the great conflict between good and evil, right and wrong, the moral and the immoral—conflict which the world’s great faiths and devoted religious believers have historically tried to address—is being intensified in our time and is affecting an ever-wider segment of our culture. And let there be no doubt that the outcome of this conflict truly matters, not only in eternity but in everyday life as well. Will and Ariel Durant put the issue squarely as they reflected on what they called the “lessons of history.” “There is no significant example in history,” they said, “of [any] society successfully maintaining moral life without the aid of religion.”3

This is an articulation of the black or white, extremist narrative where religion ‘addresses’ the conflict. The implication is that religion may not be immune from the conflict, yet can somehow solve, or fix it with their institution.  What is puzzling here is the quote from the Durant authors.  They clearly write their history from their atheistic standpoint and argue that, history does not even support a belief in God, so whatever religion Holland thinks he is referring to, Durant intends it to be a human construct only: “Does history support a belief in God? If by god we mean not the creative vitality of nature but a supreme being intelligent and benevolent, the answer must be a reluctant negative.” (Chapter 7).

If that is true—and surely we feel it is—then we should be genuinely concerned over the assertion that the single most distinguishing feature of modern life is the rise of secularism with its attendant dismissal of, cynicism toward, or marked disenchantment with religion.4 How wonderfully prophetic our beloved Elder Neal A. Maxwell was clear back in 1978 when he said in a BYU devotional: “We shall see in our time a maximum … effort … to establish irreligion as the state religion. [These secularists will] use the carefully preserved … freedoms of Western civilization to shrink freedom even as [they reject] the value … of our rich Judeo-Christian heritage.” Continuing on he said: “Your discipleship may see the time come when religious convictions are heavily discounted. … This new irreligious imperialism [will] seek to disallow certain … opinions simply because those opinions grow out of religious convictions.”5

I agree that it is a fallacy to reject an idea out of hand due to its origins.  We have yet to see any ‘shrinking’ of religious freedom per se though.  Christians enjoy more freedoms and have historically for hundreds of years.

My goodness! That forecast of turbulent religious weather issued nearly 40 years ago is steadily being fulfilled virtually every day somewhere in the world in the minimization of (or open hostility toward) religious practice, religious expression, and even in some cases the very idea of religious belief itself. Of course, there is often a counterclaim that while some in the contemporary world may be less committed to religion per se, nevertheless many still consider themselves “spiritual.” But frankly that palliative may not offer much in terms of collective moral influence in society if “spirituality” means only gazing at the stars or meditating on a mountaintop. Indeed, many of our ancestors in generations past lived, breathed, walked, and talked in a world full of “spirituality,” but that clearly included concern for the state of one’s soul, an attempt to live a righteous life, some form of church attendance, and participation in that congregation’s charitable service in the community. Yes, in more modern times individuals can certainly be “spiritual” in isolation but we don’t live in isolation; we live as families, friends, neighbors, and nations. That calls for ties that bind us together and bind us to the good. That is what religion does for our society, leading the way for other respected civic and charitable organizations that do the same.

He continues to build a strawman here in favor of religion. He is also dismissive here of any form of spirituality not connected to religious adherence, as if he can authoritatively do so for all current and past generations, no matter their form of spirituality. Furthermore, he confines contemporary spirituality to a specific form taken in isolation when clearly that is cherry-picking in a world where there are as many forms of spirituality as there are people.

This is not to say that individual faith groups in their many different forms and with their various conflicting beliefs are all true and equally valuable; obviously they cannot be. Nor does it say that institutional religions collectively—churches, if you will—have been an infallible solution to society’s challenges; they clearly have not been. But if we speak of religious faith as among the highest and most noble impulses within us, then to say so-and-so is a “religious person” or that such and such a family “lives their religion” is intended as a compliment. Such an observation would, as a rule, imply that these people try to be an influence for good, try to live to a higher level of morality than they might otherwise have done, and have tried to help hold the sociopolitical fabric of their community together. 

This if/then argument takes an unjustified leap at the end.  Religious people here are being classified together as all attempting to live a higher morality and all attempting to be involved in their community both socially and politically. In reality, a generally religious person is more likely to err on the side of piousness, and may or may not be interested in their community.  On the contrary, influences for good, his first descriptor, would be more accurately described as a follower of Christ, not a religious person.

Well, thank heaven for that because the sociopolitical fabric of a community wears a little thin from time to time—locally, nationally, or internationally—and a glance at the evening news tells us this is one of those times. My concern is that when it comes to binding up that fabric in our day, the “ligatures” of religion are not being looked to in quite the way they once were. My boyhood friend and distinguished legal scholar Elder Bruce C. Hafen frames it even more seriously than that:

“Democracy’s core values of civilized religion … are now under siege—partly because of violent criminals who claim to have religious motives, partly because the wellsprings of stable social norms once transmitted naturally by religion and marriage-based family life are being polluted[,] … and partly because the advocates of some causes today have marshalled enough political and financial capital to impose, by intimidation rather than by reason, their anti-religion strategy of might makes right.”6

I find it highly ironic that this quote calls out advocates of anti-religion in a Western world that has been dominated for centuries by powerful people advocating privilege for specific religions, i.e., Christianity.  When the tables turn (not saying it is justified), Religious people like Holland and presumably Hafen, whine about their privilege (not freedoms) being taken away.  Furthermore, vague references to an unknown strategy against religion is a fear tactic, nothing more.

There are many colliding social and cultural forces in our day that contribute to this anti-religious condition, which I am not going to address in these remarks. But I do wish to make the very general observation that part of this shift away from respect for traditional religious beliefs—and even the right to express those religious beliefs—has come because of a conspicuous shift toward greater and greater preoccupation with the existential circumstances of this world and less and less concern for—or even belief in—the circumstances, truths, and requirements of the next.  

Bottom line: tradition and heritage don’t help make something true. Additionally, humans should very definitely be more interested in this world rather than the next.  Once you prioritize the theory of an afterlife, every aspect of mortality comes second.  This is where religion capitalizes on humans and real relationships are then founded on a shaky, cracked foundation.

Call it secularism or modernity or the technological age or existentialism on steroids—whatever you want to call such an approach to life, we do know a thing or two about it. Most importantly we know that it cannot answer the yearning questions of the soul, nor is it substantial enough to sustain us in times of moral crises. Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, formerly Chief Rabbi of the United Hebrew Congregations of the British Commonwealth for 22 years, a man whom I admire very much, has written, “What the secularists forget is that Homo sapiens [are] meaning-seeking animals, [and] if there is one thing the great institutions of the modern world do not do, it is to provide meaning.”7 

  

This is monopoly rhetoric. Religious people always take an extreme. Here the extreme is that “meaning” cannot possibly be found without us.  This sets the stage for control out of fear.  We humans cannot possibly have the power within ourselves to find meaning in our lives so we must turn to religion. This is, to put it bluntly, a very pompous attitude to have.

We are so fortunate—and grateful—that modern technology gives us unprecedented personal freedom, access to virtually unlimited knowledge, and communication capability beyond anything ever known in this world’s history, but neither technology nor its worthy parent science can give us much moral guidance as to how to use that freedom, where to benefit from that knowledge, or what the best purpose of our communication should be. It has been principally the world’s great faiths—religion, those ligatures to the Divine we have been speaking of—that do that, that speak to the collective good of society, offer us a code of conduct and moral compass for living, help us exult in profound human love, and strengthen us against profound human loss. If we lose consideration of these deeper elements of our mortal existence—divine elements, if you will—we lose much (some would say most) of that which has value in life. The legendary German sociologist Max Weber once described such a loss of religious principle in society as being stuck in an “iron cage of disbelief.”8 Noting even in his day the shift toward a more luxurious but less value-laden society, a society that was giving away its priceless spiritual and religious roots, he wrote, “Not summer’s bloom lies ahead of us, but rather a polar night of icy darkness.”9And that was in 1904!

Another black or white fallacy here. He makes it seem as if science is the only other option we have when secularists know full well science doesn’t currently give us clear answers regarding morals.  But fear of not having other options, people will naturally turn to religion, as his correlation dictates. Addressing the quote: Weber wasn’t speaking of religious principles in politics, but principles in general.

But of course not everyone agrees that religion does or should play such an essential role in civilized society. Recently the gloves have come off in the intellectual street fighting being waged under the banner of “The New Atheists.” Figures like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, and the late Christopher Hichens are some of the stars in what is, for me, a dim firmament. These men are as free to express their beliefs—or in their case, disbeliefs—as any other, but we feel about them what one Oxford don said about a colleague: “On the surface he’s profound, but deep down, he’s pretty superficial.”10 Surely, Rabbi Sacks says, it is mind-boggling to think that a group of bright secular thinkers in the 21st century really believe that if they can show, for example, that the universe is more than 6,000 years old or that a rainbow can be explained other than as a sign of God’s covenant after the flood, that somehow such stunning assertions “will bring all of humanity’s religious beliefs tumbling down like a house of cards and we are then left with a serene world of rational non-believers,”11 serene except perhaps when they whistle nervously past the local graveyard. A much harsher assessment of this movement comes from theologian David Bentley Hart, who writes, “Atheism that consists entirely in vacuous arguments afloat on oceans of historical ignorance, made turbulent by storms of strident self-righteousness, is as contemptible as any other form of dreary fundamentalism.”12

Strawman? Bandwagon? So you point the finger, build a strawman and dismiss out of hand because of the narrative of religious historical precedence? Not to mention adding the words “self-righteous” and attaching it to individuals, even though religious institutions practice bigotry and hatred behind such titles. What is truly mind-boggling is the blind obedience you demand in the face of such logical reasoning questions based on literal interpretations of borrowed stories from older pagan societies.

We are grateful that a large segment of the human population does have some form of religious belief, and in that sense we have not yet seen a “polar night of icy darkness”13 envelop us. But no one can say we are not seeing some glaciers on the move. Charles Taylor, in his book with the descriptive title A Secular Age, describes the cold dimming of socioreligious light this way. The shift of our time, he says, has been “from a society in which it was virtually impossible not to believe in God, to one in which faith, even for the staunchest believer, is [only] one human possibility among [many] others.” In the 21st century, he writes, “Belief in God is no longer axiomatic.”14 Indeed in some quarters it is not even a convenient option, it is “an embattled option.”15

Can you conveniently reason away the Dark Ages, dominated by the Catholic church? If anything could resemble a “polar night of icy darkness,” it would be that huge time period where the church suppressed science and silences all opposition. I think I already answered why it was impossible not to believe in God: because religions killed you for that.

But faith has almost always been an “embattled option,” has almost always been won—and kept—at a price. Indeed, many who have walked away from faith have found the price higher than they intended to pay, like the man who tore down the fence surrounding his new property only to learn that his next-door neighbor kept a pack of particularly vicious Rottweilers. David Brooks hinted at this but put it much too mildly when he wrote in his New York Times column, “Take away the rich social fabric [that religion has always been] and what you are left with [are] people who are uncertain about who they really are.”16 My point about “too mildly” is that a rich social fabric, important as that is, says absolutely nothing about the moral state of one’s soul, redemption from physical death, overcoming spiritual alienation from God, the perpetuation of marriage and the family unit into eternity, and so forth—if anyone is considering such issues in a post-modern world. 

Vague, anecdotal untruth? Sure many don’t intend to pay such a high price, but why is the price so high? Could it be that religion has something to do with that because of irresponsible, preposterous rhetoric that is indoctrinated into its followers? Such as, ‘your family member is going to hell if they leave our religion,’ or, ‘you might consider divorcing such a rebellious irreligious person for the spiritual safety of your young children.’  These are dangerous and divisive words that are found all too often in the sanctimonious halls of religion found the world over. Speaking of anecdotal evidence: I have personally found myself after freeing my life of an over-controlling religion that doesn’t allow to explore who I really am, only who they think I am or should be, as is the case for most people who leave religion.

In fact, religion has been the principle influence—not the only one, but the principle one—that has kept Western social, political, and cultural life moral to the extent these have been moral. And I shudder at how immoral life might have been—then and now—without that influence. Granted, religion has no monopoly on moral action, but centuries of religious belief, including institutional church- or synagogue- or mosque-going, have clearly been preeminent in shaping our notions of right and wrong. Journalist Will Saletan puts it candidly: “Religion is the vehicle through which most folks learn and practice morality.”17

So what of societies before Christ? Organized religion has only existed since then and arguably is even younger than that. Israelites didn’t have ‘organized’ religion.  What of the far east? Their societies have flourished morally without ‘organized’ religion in the same sense.  Sure, religion is a primary vehicle because so many are entrenched in it.  That doesn’t mean there would be a vacuum of morality if religion was taken away.  This is to imply that irreligious people don’t know how to behave, aren’t contributing to society, and are fundamentally immoral.  In effect, Jeff Holland is extending dangerous religious rhetoric that paints anyone who disbelieves as monsters to be feared.

I am stressing such points this morning because I have my eye on that future condition about which Elder Maxwell warned, a time when if we are not careful we may find religion at the margins of society rather than the center of it, where religious beliefs and all the good works those beliefs have generated may be tolerated privately but not admitted (or at least certainly not encouraged) publicly. The cloud the prophet Elijah saw in the distance, no larger than a man’s hand,18 is that kind of cloud on the political horizon today, so we speak of it by way of warning, remembering the storm into which Elijah’s small cloud developed.19

The word ‘political,’ almost came out of nowhere here.  Again, Holland uses a go-to fallacy: black or white.  All the good works will disappear if religion is marginalized.  He is using fear to rationalize keeping religion at the center of society.  Also, religious beliefs don’t generate good works.  Love in humankind generates good works.  Whether you are religiously motivated or not, humans have self-preservation built into their DNA, contrary to religious labels such as ‘natural man.’

But whatever the trouble along the way, I am absolutely certain how this all turns out. I know the prophecies and the promises given to the faithful, and I know our collective religious heritage—the Western world’s traditional religious beliefs, varied as they are—are remarkably strong and resilient. The evidence of that religious heritage is all around us, including at great universities—or at least it once was, and fortunately still is at BYU. Just to remind us how rich the ambiance of religion is in Western culture and because this is “Education Week,” may I mention just a few of the great religiously-influenced non-LDS pieces of literature that I met while pursuing my education on this campus 50 years ago, provincial and dated as my list is. I do so stressing how barren our lives would be had there not been the freedom for writers, artists, and musicians to embrace and express religious values or discuss religious issues. 

The existence of something does not make the alternate ‘barren.’  That is like saying, “If I hadn’t been born, nobody would have any of the original ideas I came up with.” In reality, ideas grow and stem from others all the time.  Philosophies are sharing seeds of an idea until concepts and theories are materialized from multiple sources.

I begin by noting the majestic literary—to say nothing of the theological—influence of the King James Bible, what one of the professors I knew later at Yale called “the sublime summit of literature in [the] English [language],”20 the greatest single influence on the world’s creative literature for the last 400 years. I think also of what is probably the most widely read piece of English literature other than the Bible, John Bunyan’sPilgrim’s Progress. Five decades after I first read them I am still moved by the magnificence of two of the greatest poems ever written by the hand of man, Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy and John Milton’s Paradise Lost. Certainly the three greatest American novels I read at BYU were Herman Melville’s Moby Dick, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter, and Mark Twain’s The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, each in its own way a religious text and all more meaningful in my reading of them now than when I was a student on this campus so long ago. So, too, of my encounter with Russian writers, especially Fyodor Dostoyevsky and Leo Tolstoy. Then you add British giants like George Herbert and John Donne, William Blake and Robert Browning; throw in Americans like Emily Dickinson, William Faulkner, and Flannery O’Connor; then an American who became British like T. S. Eliot and a Britain who became American like W. H. Auden; for good luck throw in an Irishman like W. B. Yeats—to name only a handful—and you have biblical imagery, religious conflict, and wrenching questions of sin, society, and salvation on virtually every page you turn.

Not to mention bigotry, slavery, misogyny, abuse, infanticide, adultery, rape, murder, ethnic cleansing, racism, incest… what did I miss?  Just as easily can one create a list of brilliant irreligious authors and poets who have influenced society over many years.

Having mentioned a tiny bit of the religiously related literature I happened to encounter as a student, I now note an equally tiny bit of the contribution that religious sensibility has provoked in the heart of the visual artist and the soul of the exultant musician.      

[Audiovisual Presentation]

Brothers and sisters, my testimony this morning, as one observer recently wrote, is that “over the long haul, religious faith has proven itself the most powerful and enduring force in human history.”21 Roman Catholic scholar Robert Royal made the same point, reaffirming that for many “religion remains deep, widespread, and persistent, to the surprise and irritation of those who claimed to have cast aside [religious] illusion”22—those who underestimated the indisputable power of faith. 

Arguably, what was underestimated is stubborn ignorance handed down as part of the heritage of ancestors.  Religion thrives in ignorance.  When a control mechanism can give [incorrect] answers to legitimate fears of people, they are then under their control.  When some outside influence offers a rational explanation, i.e., where the sun goes at night, then we can start to defrost the real icy darkness religion has created. Holland here again appeals to longevity which is no basis for holding on to an ancient religion.

The indisputable power of faith. The most powerful and enduring force in human history. The influence for good in the world. The link between the highest in us and our highest hopes for others. That is why religion matters. Voices of religious faith have elevated our vision, deepened our human conversation, and strengthened both our personal and collective aspiration since time began. How do we even begin to speak of what Abraham and Moses, David and Isaiah, Jeremiah, Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni have given us? Or of what Peter, James, and John, the Apostle Paul, Joseph Smith, and Thomas Monson mean to us? 

You can begin by realizing they are just a handful of influences for [possible] good in the world.  The problem with some of these examples are fundamental character flaws: adultery, murder, malfeasance, fraudulence, just to name a few.  I admit, this is a logical fallacy in its own right, as the ideas that come from someone should not be dismissed based on their personal character. Yet Mr. Holland didn’t specifically speak of what they said, only what they have ‘given.’ If one takes Joseph Smith for example, one might argue that he ‘gave’ us a lot of good and a lot of bad, as his actions directly disaffected many close friends and associates, whose names were then dragged through the mud as they dared speak out against Joseph and his manipulative practices.  Personally, I like to invest in myself.  I believe in myself and I find inspiration in my own way, through multiple sources that tell me that hope, meaning and human connection is found from within, not from a manmade religion.

It is impossible to calculate the impact that prophets and apostles have had upon us, but, putting them in a special category of their own, we can still consider the world-shaping views and moral force that have come to us from a Martin Luther or a John Calvin or a John Wesley in earlier times, or from a Billy Graham or a Pope Francis or the Dali Lama in the current age. In this audience today we are partly who we are because some 450 years ago men like Nicholas Ridley and Hugh Latimer, being burned at the stake in Oxford, called out to one another that they were lighting such a religious fire in England that it would never be put out in all the world. Later William Wilberforce applied just such Christian conviction to abolishing the slave trade in Great Britain. As an ordained minister Martin Luther King Jr. continued the quest for racial and civil justice through religious eloquence in the pulpit and in the street. George Washington prayed at Valley Forge, and Abraham Lincoln’s most cherished volume in his library was his Bible, in which he read regularly, out of which he sought to right a great national wrong, and from which, in victory, he called for “malice toward none [and] charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right.”23

One could also argue that those religious convictions of those people were more a correlation rather than a causation, as their belief system didn’t change who they were as compassionate or convicted people.

So the core landscape of history has been sketched by the pen and brush and words of those who invoke a divine creator’s involvement in our lives and who count on the ligatures of religion to bind up our wounds and help us hold things together.

Leaping from ‘religion,’ to personal divine creator? Now we are definitely talking about a specific religion.

Speaking both literally and figuratively of a recurring feature on that landscape, Will and Ariel Durant wrote: “These church steeples, everywhere pointing upward, ignoring despair and lifting hope, these lofty city spires, or simple chapels in the hills—they rise at every step from the earth toward the sky; in every village of every nation they challenge doubt and invite weary hearts to consolation. Is it all a vain delusion? Is there nothing beyond life but death, and nothing beyond death but decay? We cannot know,” they say, “but as long as man suffers, these steeples will remain.”24

Again, the irony is that they aren’t complimenting religion, merely acknowledging its existence and longevity.

Of course, those of us who are believers have very specific convictions about what we can know regarding the meaning of those ubiquitous church steeples.

Common abuse of the word, ‘know.’

In that spirit may I conclude with my heartfelt apostolic witness of truths I do know regarding the ultimate gift true religion provides us. I have been focusing on the social, political, and cultural contributions that religion has provided us for centuries, but I testify that true religion—the gospel of Jesus Christ—gives us infinitely more than that; it gives us “peace in this world, and eternal life in the world to come,”25 as the scripture phrases it. True religion brings understanding of and loyalty to our Father in Heaven and His uncompromised love for every one of His spirit children past, present, and future. True religion engenders in us faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and hope in His Resurrection. It encourages love, forbearance, and forgiveness in our interactions with one another as He so magnanimously demonstrated them in His. True religion, the tie that binds us to God and each other, not only seals our family relationships in eternity but also heightens our delight in those family experiences while in mortality.  Well beyond all the civic, social, and cultural gifts religion gives us is the mercy of a loving Father and Son who conceived and carried out the atoning mission of that Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, suturing up that which was torn, bonding together that which was broken, healing that which was ill or imperfect, “proclaim[ing] liberty to the captives, and … opening … the prison to them that are bound.”26

“…truths I do know…” is irresponsible and misleading. I have peace. Demands of loyalty don’t appeal to me. Being free from religion has also opened my eyes to how truly deep and delightful all my relationships can be. Enjoy the here and now. Don’t wait for empty promises of eternal life to enjoy your relationships.

Because my faith, my family, my beliefs, my covenants—in short, my religion—means everything to me, I thank my Father in Heaven for it and pray for the continued privilege to speak of it so long as I shall live. May we think upon the religious heritage that has been handed down to us, at an incalculable price in many instances, and in so remembering not only cherish that heritage more fervently but live the religious principles we say we want to preserve. Only in the living of our religion will the preservation of it have true meaning. It is in that spirit that we seek the good of our fellow men and women and work toward the earthly kingdom of God rolling forth, that the heavenly kingdom of God may come. May our religious privileges be cherished, preserved, and lived, binding us to God and each other until that blessed millennial day comes, I earnestly pray in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

He acknowledged privileges! Thank you! (Privilege: special right, advantage or immunity).

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1.    “Our Savior’s Love,” Hymns, no. 113.

2.    See “Latin Dictionary and Grammar Aid,” s.v. “relig are” and “lig are,” University of Notre Dame,http://archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/lookup.pl?stem=relig&ending=are and http://archives.nd.edu/cgi-bin/lookup.pl?stem=lig&ending=are.

3.    Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (1996), 51.

4.    See George Gallup Jr, “Americans’ Spiritual Searches Turn Inward,” Gallup.com, Feb. 11, 2003,pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/03/5-key-findings-about-religiosity-in-the-u-s-and-how-its-changing/; David Masci and Michael Lipka, “Americans May Be Getting Less Religious, but Feelings of Spirituality Are on the Rise,” Pew Research Center, Jan. 21, 2016, pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/01/21/americans-spirituality/; Michael Lipka, “5 Key Findings about Religiosity in the U.S.—and How It’s Changing,” FactTank: News in the Numbers, Pew Research Center, Nov. 3, 2015,pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/11/03/5-key-findings-about-religiosity-in-the-u-s-and-how-its-changing/.

5.    Neal A. Maxwell, “Meeting the Challenges of Today” (Brigham Young University devotional, Oct. 10, 1978), speeches.byu.edu.

6.    Bruce C. Hafen, “Religious Freedom and the Habits of the Heart” (2015 Oxford Conference: Magna Carta and Freedom of Religion, June 21, 2015), 10, iclrs.org/content/blurb/files/Elder Bruce Hafen Oxford 2015.pdf.

7.    Jonathan Sacks, “How to Defeat Religious Violence” Wall Street Journal, Oct. 2, 2015,wsj.com/articles/how-to-defeat-religious-violence-1443798275.

8.    See H. H. Gerth, C. Wright Mills, ed., From Max Weber: Essays in Sociology, 128.

9.    John Dreijmanis, Max Weber’s Complete Writings on Academic and Political Vocations (2007), 206.

10.   Jonathan Sacks, “Chief Rabbi: Atheism Has Failed. Only Religion Can Defeat the New Barbarians,” The Spectator, June 15, 2013, spectator.co.uk/2013/06/atheism-has-failed-only-religion-can-fight-the-barbarians/.

11.   Jonathan Sacks, “Chief Rabbi: Atheism Has Failed. Only Religion Can Defeat the New Barbarians.”

12.   David Bentley Hart, Atheist Delusions: The Christian Revolution and Its Fashionable Enemies (2009), 4.

13.   John Dreijmanis, Max Weber’s Complete Writings on Academic and Political Vocations, 206; quoted in Bruce C. Hafen, “Religious Freedom and the Habits of the Heart,” 10.

14.   Charles Taylor, A Secular Age (2007), 3.

15.   Charles Taylor, A Secular Age, 3.

16.   David Brooks, “How Covenants Make Us,” New York Times, Apr. 5, 2016,nytimes.com/2016/04/05/opinion/how-covenants-make-us.html?rref=collection/column/david-brooks&action=click&contentCollection=opinion®ion=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=20&pgtype=collection.

17.   William Saletan, “When Churches Do the Right Thing,” Slate.com, May 8, 2014,slate.com/blogs/saletan/2014/05/08/is_religion_evil_on_guns_terrorism_and_civil_liberties_these_churches_did.html.

18.   See 1 Kings 18:44.

19.   See 1 Kings 18:44–45.

20.   Harold Bloom, The Shadow of a Great Rock: A Literary Appreciation of the King James Bible (2011), introduction.

21.   R. R. Reno, “Religion and Public Life in America in the 21st Century,” Journal of Faith and War, Apr. 30, 2014,faithandwar.org/index.php/component/content/article/42-god-and-human-nature/181-religion-and-public-life-in-america-in-the-21st-century; italics added.

22.   Robert Royal, The God That Did Not Fail: How Religion Built and Sustains the West (2006), x.

23.   Abraham Lincoln, “Second Inaugural Address,” Mar. 4, 1865, bartleby.com/124/pres32.html.

24.   Will Durant, The Pleasures of Philosophy: A Survey of Human Life and Destiny (1953), 407.

25.   Doctrine and Covenants 59:23.

26.   Isaiah 61:1.