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12 20

I was talking with two Mormon missionaries this weekend. I typed the following message up and sent it to them. Some of you will probably recognize this, as it's paraphrased from the "dear believer" YouTube video by Plumbline Pictures. Enjoy!

Dear believer,
Have you ever stopped to consider why you believe what you believe? Have you ever stopped to consider why you chose the religion you chose? Why do you believe in Jesus as the only means to eternal salvation, and not in karma or reincarnation? Why do you believe that Allah is the one true God, and Mohammed is his prophet, and not in the four noble truths of the Budda? Why do you hold to the Torah as the only word of God, and not the Bhagavad Gita?

Dear believer,
Do you ever wonder why your heaven resembles a utopian earth, and is composed of the same base elements found right here on this planet? Do you wonder why your deity governs within a power structure that resembles the specific time and place in which your holy text was written? Do you ever wonder why your God looks just like you, or the animals with which you share the planet?

Dear believer,
Is the faith you practice the dominant one in your culture? Do you find it at least a little bit suspicious that the overwhelming majority of religious believers adopt the faith into which they were born, and yet they remain convinced that they lucked out, or been divinely admitted into the one true faith? Does it make you just a little apprehensive that almost every person of faith chooses a belief not based on virtues, supporting evidence, but because it was the religion they were born into? Why, given the abundance of faith choices out there, does the believer almost always choose the faith that's within arm's reach? Are you a Christian because you were born in America or Europe, a Muslim because you were born in the Middle East or Indonesia, a Buddhist because you were born in China, or a Hindu, because you were born in India? Can it be, in almost every case, that religion is just an accident of geography? Do you sincerely believe, that had you been born in another country, that you'd undoubtedly be practicing the same faith you now embrace?

Dear believer,
Is the faith you practice, that of your parents, and their parents before them? Is it the first to which you were exposed? Did you know that nearly all religious people believe that which they are taught to believe by their parents? Why is it that we scoff at the idea of labeling a child as a Marxist child, or a Capitalist child, or a republican child, understanding that the child lacks the intellectual capability of making such a complicated and nuanced decision, yet we label children as a Christian child or Muslim child? Surely this is a decision just as complex, if not more so! Could it be that there's no such thing as a Christian child, just a child of Christian parents?

Dear believer,
You are supremely confident in your faith. You KNOW that yours is correct, and all others are wrong. You are willing to bet your eternal soul on that very fact. Yet there are thousands of faiths practiced on this planet, many of whose members think and feel the exact same way as you, just with a different faith. Did you know that within Christianity alone, that there are hundreds of different denominations, all claiming to understand ultimate truth better than all the rest? Did you know that there are members of other faiths who are just as devout, just as sincere, and their conviction every bit as sure as yours? Did you know that they too, read infallible holy texts, have airtight apologetics, have experienced miracles, feel God's presence, sense his still small voice, obediently follow his perfect will for their lives, and love him indescribably? And yet, as all these religions are mutually exclusive, and contradicts each other in matters both large and small, they cannot all be right, right? You know, you JUST KNOW, that your faith is the exception. And yet, if every member of every other faith feels just as you do, what are the odds you're right?

Dear believer,
I'm often told that my unbelief is a guarantee of missing out on heaven, and ending up in some form of hell, or outer darkness. But whose heaven? Whose hell? I'm often told that, just to be safe, I should accept God. After all, what have I got to lose? But whose God? Given all these options, isn't more likely that I'll choose incorrectly? You often ask me, "what if you're wrong?" But what if YOU'RE wrong? What if, instead of Jehovah, Allah is the one true God? Or Wutan? Or some other God on the other side of the planet that we've never even heard of? Truth is, you already know what it's like to be an atheist with regards to every other faith other than your own. It's clear to you that adherence to other religions is mistaken, deluded, or deceived. But they think the same of you. The same way you view them is the same way they view you. Every devout Hindu has embraced her faith for the exact same reasons you've embraced yours. Yet you don't find her reasons compelling, or lose sleep at night, worrying about ending up in her religion's hell.

Given this, is it so hard to see how some of us just take our atheism one god further?

I wonder if religions are simply emergent properties of humanity, means by which we attempted to explain the chaotic world around us. Yet, we no longer have to live in ignorance and uneasiness about our world. We can get out there and explore, and find out what this universe REALLY is. This process of exploration will undoubtedly overturn our preconceptions, wound our pride, and humble us in awe of what we do not yet know. We will be forced to admit that we do not have all the answers.

Dear believer!
If you value the truth above all things, as I hope you do, you have to confront these questions at some point in your life. I entreat you, dear believer, to realize that you owe it to yourself to want answers to the questions I've outlined above. You are a precious being on this planet, with precious time all within your hands. In that time you have, it's up to you to take a moment and ponder these questions. Would you do that for me, dear believer?

PeterL 3 Dec 6
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12 comments

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2

Having been raised in the Mormon church, I know missionaries are trained to follow a script designed to pressure people into saying "yes", just like scripts used by salesmen.

Agreed. I was also raised Mormon and left without disassociating until about 10 years ago. Big mistake. I was followed throughout my life...the door knocking didn't stop until I disassociated on my own terms. I always wondered how they kept finding out every time I moved. I'm sure a devout relative was ratting me out!

@oc_jen Same thing happened to me for a few years. Then I told them I was gay and wanted my name removed from their records. It took them over 10 years to finally do it. However once I told them I was gay they pretty much left me alone, until finally they came an my partner at the time answered the door. They left me a note. I called and asked again to have my name removed from the records. I had to send them a letter asking to have it done. This time they did it. I have no doubt that my living with a flamingly gay Filipino, a person who wasn't white, helped them finally do it.

I know they consider everyone who was ever baptized to still be a member, even if the left the church long ago. It is a way of artificially inflating their membership numbers... which is why it is so difficult to have yoru name removed from their records as well.

@snytiger6 wouldn't it be nice if they would just honor your request without having to share things about your personal life? We have a right to associate or choose whether or not to be "members" of a faith based organization. They do not have the right to claim you as a member just because you were baptized when you were 8 years old and everyone coerced you into thinking it was the right thing to do. I followed the legal disassociation process on this website: [mormonnomore.com] I'm so glad I did.

@oc_jen They have to keep artificially inflating their numbers so their members will believe and think the church is still growing. If the church membership started to decline, then many members would lose faith.

I remember as a kid, only about 35-40% of the names on the roll sheets attended regularly, and the I pretty much never saw most of the people listed on the church rolls.

@snytiger6 I left when I was , so I didn't really know how many people were listed within our membership records. I always thought it was so creepy that they had a membership office in each chapel that was essentially a big room full of file cabinets with membership information. There was a "clerk" who was assigned to manage it and keep track of everyone in the ward / stake?? I'm sure it's handled regionally now - or maybe higher? I dunno. I"m creeped out thinking about how invasive it all is.

1

The Mormon bike twins are annoying as crap.
But I feel bad for them.
They are still just kids and during that year of missionary position they can have basically no contact with family at all.
I think a death is the only exception.
For a kid that has already led a very sheltered existence due to the very fact of being Mormon that has to be very scarring to the psyche.
Of course, cults are skilled at wounding people and fucking them up.

1

I enjoyed reading that.

Thanks!!

0

They are brainwashed robots

5

I prefer the much simpler, fuck off with your bullshit.

😁

🙌♥️🙌🙌♥️🙌♥️🙌♥️🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇🦇

0

This is all well said. Yet, there are some who claim you do not have time to try all the religions to see which one is right. They do not get it. Investigation shows that none of our earthly religious faiths could ever be right. Proper investigation shows that they all come from the same place. We call that place the human mind.

The same place atheism comes from.

5

Reduces to one question.

Dear believer. Have you ever thought of asking questions ?

😂😂😂😂😂😂🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌🙌

Sure, but what questions? Sometimes you gotta break it down

@PeterL No best not waste your time, one question at a time is usually all they can manage to reject answering at any one time. Snowball them and they will just blue screen.

0

“Dear believer,
Have you ever stopped to consider why you believe what you believe?”
Yes.
“Have you ever stopped to consider why you chose the religion you chose?”
Yes.
“Why do you believe in Jesus as the only means to eternal salvation, and not in karma or reincarnation?”
I don’t.
“Why do you believe that Allah is the one true God, and Mohammed is his prophet, and not in the four noble truths of the Budda?”
I don’t.
“Why do you hold to the Torah as the only word of God, and not the Bhagavad Gita?”
I don’t.

“Dear believer,
Do you ever wonder why your heaven resembles a utopian earth, and is composed of the same base elements found right here on this planet?”
It doesn’t.
“Do you wonder why your deity governs within a power structure that resembles the specific time and place in which your holy text was written?”
It doesn’t.
“Do you ever wonder why your God looks just like you, or the animals with which you share the planet?”
It doesn’t.

“Dear believer,
Is the faith you practice the dominant one in your culture?”
No.
“Do you find it at least a little bit suspicious that the overwhelming majority of religious believers adopt the faith into which they were born, and yet they remain convinced that they lucked out, or been divinely admitted into the one true faith?”
No, it seems pretty predictable.
“Does it make you just a little apprehensive that almost every person of faith chooses a belief not based on virtues, supporting evidence, but because it was the religion they were born into?”
No, why should anyone expect it to be otherwise?
“Why, given the abundance of faith choices out there, does the believer almost always choose the faith that's within arm's reach?”
Same reason they take the nearest bus. Duh.
“Are you a Christian because you were born in America or Europe, a Muslim because you were born in the Middle East or Indonesia, a Buddhist because you were born in China, or a Hindu, because you were born in India?”
No, I’m a Consonite Monk because I founded my own monastery.
“Can it be, in almost every case, that religion is just an accident of geography?”
Why should local culture not be expected to be local?
“Do you sincerely believe, that had you been born in another country, that you'd undoubtedly be practicing the same faith you now embrace?”
No. If I had been born in another culture, why would I expect to behave as if I had been born in this culture?

“Dear believer,
Is the faith you practice, that of your parents, and their parents before them?”
No, it is a blend of their faith (Christianity) and Taoism and Zen Buddhism and Scientific Materialism.
“Is it the first to which you were exposed?”
No.
“Did you know that nearly all religious people believe that which they are taught to believe by their parents?”
Yeah.
“Why is it that we scoff at the idea of labeling a child as a Marxist child, or a Capitalist child, or a republican child, understanding that the child lacks the intellectual capability of making such a complicated and nuanced decision, yet we label children as a Christian child or Muslim child? Surely this is a decision just as complex, if not more so! Could it be that there's no such thing as a Christian child, just a child of Christian parents?”
Why do we scoff at giving a child a real automobile at age 6, but are happy to give them a bicycle? Here, I’ll help you with that - because bicycles and stories that convey cultural values are useable and meaningful to both adults and children, but cars and politics are not useable or meaningful to six-year-olds.

“Dear believer,
You are supremely confident in your faith.”
Yep.
“You KNOW that yours is correct, and all others are wrong.”
Nope.
“You are willing to bet your eternal soul on that very fact.”
That may be true of your practice, but not mine.
“Yet there are thousands of faiths practiced on this planet, many of whose members think and feel the exact same way as you, just with a different faith.”
I seriously doubt that, but if it were true it wouldn’t represent a conflict for me.
“Did you know that within Christianity alone, that there are hundreds of different denominations, all claiming to understand ultimate truth better than all the rest?”
I know that a lot of their members do, but to say “all Christian faiths” is overreach. There are really as many Christian faiths as there are Christians, and not all believe that way.
“Did you know that there are members of other faiths who are just as devout, just as sincere, and their conviction every bit as sure as yours?”
Why shouldn’t there be? Why shouldn’t they like the foods and fashions of their culture as well as I like mine?
“Did you know that they too, read infallible holy texts, have airtight apologetics, have experienced miracles, feel God's presence, sense his still small voice, obediently follow his perfect will for their lives, and love him indescribably?”
That’s not accurate. Some “faiths” don’t even have gods. But if they all did, it would only bolster my faith, and to the extent they do, it does. And to they extent they don’t, it also does.

“And yet, as all these religions are mutually exclusive, and contradicts each other in matters both large and small, they cannot all be right, right?”
That’s a misperception on your part. Religions aren’t, anthropologically speaking, about being right or wrong, they are about being culturally authentic, and meaningful, regardless of what a majority of adherents might think.
“You know, you JUST KNOW, that your faith is the exception.”
Not true. I don’t think that way.
“And yet, if every member of every other faith feels just as you do, what are the odds you're right?”
They don’t, but if they did, we would all be right!

“Dear believer,
I'm often told that my unbelief is a guarantee of missing out on heaven, and ending up in some form of hell, or outer darkness. But whose heaven? Whose hell?”
Your own, of course.
“I'm often told that, just to be safe, I should accept God.”
I haven’t told you that. Sounds like bad advice to me. It’s not about safety. It’s about psychological and cultural development.
“After all, what have I got to lose?”
Your suffering.
“But whose God?”
The one true God, of course! 😁
“Given all these options, isn't more likely that I'll choose incorrectly?”
I’m starting to think you might.
“You often ask me, "what if you're wrong?"
I’ve never asked you that.
“But what if YOU'RE wrong?”
Then I’m a lot less happy than I think I am.
“What if, instead of Jehovah, Allah is the one true God?”
He is.
“Or Wutan?”
He is.
“Or some other God on the other side of the planet that we've never even heard of?”
Him too.
“Truth is, you already know what it's like to be an atheist with regards to every other faith other than your own.”
No, I also know what it’s like to be an atheist to my own, because I was for 67 years.
“It's clear to you that adherence to other religions is mistaken, deluded, or deceived.”
No, it’s not. They are all biologically the same.
“But they think the same of you.”
What they think of me is not under my control nor my responsibility.
“The same way you view them is the same way they view you.”
Hardly.
“Every devout Hindu has embraced her faith for the exact same reasons you've embraced yours.”
Nowhere near true.
“Yet you don't find her reasons compelling, or lose sleep at night, worrying about ending up in her religion's hell.”
Not true. Her reasons are my reasons, and my hell is her hell. Homo sapiens brains work pretty much the same in all cultures.

“Given this…”
This is not given.
“…is it so hard to see how some of us just take our atheism one god further?”
Not hard at all. I did the same when I was learning.

“I wonder if religions are simply emergent properties of humanity, means by which we attempted to explain the chaotic world around us.”
Definitely emergent, but not merely attempts to provide a cosmology. Science is better at that now. But the social cohesion, identity, and purpose functions have not yet been adequately replaced by science or anything else, and religion still serves the general population as a counterbalance to evolutionary mismatch, as well as numerous other psycho-social functions.
“Yet, we no longer have to live in ignorance and uneasiness about our world.”
Yeah, we kinda do, for the most part.
“We can get out there and explore, and find out what this universe REALLY is.”
Yeah, we can and we do, but that’s a very long-term project. It’s not going to be finished in your lifetime or mine.
“This process of exploration will undoubtedly overturn our preconceptions, wound our pride, and humble us in awe of what we do not yet know.”
Hopefully.
“We will be forced to admit that we do not have all the answers.”
Who’s this “we” of whom you speak? I don’t need forcing. It’s my base assumption.

“Dear believer!
If you value the truth above all things, as I hope you do, you have to confront these questions at some point in your life.”
I did.
“I entreat you, dear believer, to realize that you owe it to yourself to want answers to the questions I've outlined above.”
I think I’ve answered them adequately, thanks.
“You are a precious being on this planet, with precious time all within your hands.”
Aw shucks, you’re kinda precious yourself.
“In that time you have, it's up to you to take a moment and ponder these questions.”
I know. I took a good bit more than a moment.
“Would you do that for me, dear believer?”
Sorry, kiddo - each person has to do that for themselves. Best of luck.

skado Level 9 Dec 7, 2021
1

If religious people valued truth or logic, there would be no religion (paraphrasing someone here). Other than giving you some personal satisfaction, you wasted your time. 😏

I beg to differ. I was once steeped in fundamentalism, and a caring friend shared this with me. Though it didn't immediately de-convert me, it planted a seed of doubt

@PeterL go for it then Don Jaun, hopefully you'll find a windmill that reacts. My own experience is not that positive.

3

Awesome maybe I should carry some copies with me and hand them out to the religitards that come up trying to convert you.

I doubt they would read it or would be able to reflect on the points raised.

2

Mormon architecture… the land of Oz! 😂

2

TLDR. Make it shorter and easy to read.

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