Theological concepts like "The Problem of Evil" aren't just atheist gotchas. The contradictions within certain theologies can exist unawares within the minds of believers, causing dissonance that comes out in ways that perpetuate and allow harms to continue.

For instance, even if a Christian believer has not consciously considered the Problem of Evil, they will still feel this contradiction whenever it is encountered:

1. God is good.
2. God is omnipotent.
3. God allows evil to exist.

They will have many sideways methods of resolving this discomfort, which will vary from person to person and from situation to situation.

They may, for instance, lean on Just World views (the feeling that the world is automatically fair and so if someone is disadvantaged they must have done something to deserve it) when it comes to LGBTQ issues. God is good, and omnipotent, so if a queer person is suffering, it isn't because their church community has stigmatized them or because church doctrines about God's will are wrong (or further, that God might not exist or might not be good), no it must be proof that being queer is sinful and they deserve their suffering.

This same formula applies in many other areas, including towards abuse victims.

The contradictions within many popular forms of theism are not harmless. They get resolved, usually unconsciously, by organizations and individuals. When they are resolved without mindful consideration of the consequences, people get hurt.

For abusers and powertrippers? This is by design, to their benefit, and more likely to be conscious.

Oh how embarrassing. I'm looking at the update to Recovering Agency I made in 2021 (mostly just to update my name etc) and at least in the PDF version, it looks like it changed my Official LDS Replica Serif typeface on the title page to something suspiciously like Papyrus!

I'll just say, uh, I meant to do that... it's "Reformed Egyptian"!

This is the strongest statement against racism the LDS Church has *ever* officially released. Among other things, it calls racism a "sin" and tells members to call out racism when they see it.

While this is big, I still have complaints.

As with all the "essays," it's a minimum effort, published online in a little far off place so they can claim plausible deniability but reach as few members as possible. I'll feel better when they expound on this from the pulpit at General Conference, Every Single Conference, with some words From the Actual Prophet, and also get Correlation to include this as a dedicated lesson in every single lesson manual from Primary to Gospel Doctrine, churchwide. And throw in a couple of hymns and primary songs to show they mean it.

I'm going to be very hard to please on this – thanks to being raised by goodly parents, I have Very High Standards™ – but I will acknowledge this very large step in the Right Direction, especially in these times when it seems like everyone is taking a step in the wrong direction.

And I will add that they would not have taken this step without the intense efforts of activists, progressive mormons, and exmormons, including Black Latter-day Saints, putting the pressure on for well over a decade, and to a free and open internet that made such activism effective.

I wish I had capacity to write my full thoughts in a blog post on this. But my Very High Standard is this: When they speak out against racism and OTHER BIGOTRY as often as and as intensely as they speak against unauthorized sex, then I'll be satisfied. They've got a long way to go, but to quote my old ex-friend Jesus, who is now quite doctrinally NOT WHITE:

"I didn't say it would be easy; I only said it would be worth it."

(Maybe he's not white anymore, but Christ is still incredibly Smug. On this topic, he should be.)

https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/03/22/lds-church-jesus-wasnt-white/

Wayback: http://web.archive.org/web/20250323151234/https://www.sltrib.com/religion/2025/03/22/lds-church-jesus-wasnt-white/

This gross misuse of AI technology is most definitely going to get someone accidentally exiled to Outer Darkness or, at the very least, eternal banishment from the Celestial Kingdom and their forever family.

Some kid is going to ask it if masturbation is ok and it's going to tell them it is, backed by fake scripture citations, and that kid is going to fap off and it's over for them. Or they'll ask if God has a body, or if the Father, Jesus, and the HG are all the same person, or how the Book of Mormon can be true if Joseph Smith was sexually abusing his foster daughter, and the LLM is going to get confused and mislead an earnest, faithful member right on into apostasy.

Apologia for a self-contradictory set of doctrines and such a complicated, nuanced history is a delicate matter which should be handled with great care. It is nearly an impossible task for fervent faith-promoting scholars who have dedicated their lives to this precarious balance. An LLM will not be up to the task.

The data reported to bishops on the private thoughts of their congregants, so they can call struggling members into surprise interviews under the guise of "spiritual revelation" to evoke an uncanny sense of miraculous priesthood power, is simply not enough benefit to make up for the number of souls which will be led into further error by its false doctrines. This tool is spiritual negligence and reckless eternal endangerment of the worst kind. It's just handing the reigns of free agency right on over to Satan.

It's really too bad that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints doesn't have a living prophet who can offer ongoing revelation to prevent such an obvious error.

https://newsroom.churchofjesuschrist.org/article/general-handbook-artificial-intelligence-search-assistant

To Mormons: We're already gods. We're on our own. What we make of this earth is what we make of it. Daddy isn't going to hold our hand.

Dan McClellan is a BYU Bible scholar. He's chosen the correct fork in the great divide of these times. This is a good talk on empathy's role in society.

#psychology #empathy #exmo #exmormon #lds #mormon #AbuseCulture

https://youtu.be/2z8DEF6b54I

It's interesting to think of god as a scientist who created this simulation, and each of our awarenesses and memories are data-points of what it is like to experience this reality.

All of these words are really stand-ins for concepts which can't be put into human words or even human constructs. But I think this direction quite often.

god probably isn't a being the way we think of beings. Daddy in the sky is not the appropriate metaphor for this way of thinking about god.

Maybe that means there are realities where the rules are different, and then our body of experiences can be compared to the experiences of awarenesses there to understand how a higher level of reality works.

I find a lot of purpose in this, that my collection of data and the meaning I've discovered about how this reality works is of benefit to "god," in how that will be compared to the conclusions and summaries of uncountable other awarenesses.

No matter what happens to me, I've contributed. All I have to do is think an observation, and it's of value. Nothing is "correct" or "true," just another datapoint in a vast, incomprehensible experiment.

I hardly even think that such a god created any of this, but instead arose naturally, as we did, out of the mixing and matching of all the things that are possible, happening.

It also stands to reason that there are many more than just one of these gods.

Introduction

Doing an #introduction as I'm new to Friendica, which is quickly becoming one of my favorite ways to engage with the fediverse, and friendica.world. I'm always happy to meet people with similar interests, so feel free to boost / share!

I'm a human who loves weird art, all sorts of music (from Hindustani to Death Metal), tech, sunny days, green hills, incense, tea, spirits, soft couches, cats, and books. I'm a prolific vegan cook, and I design, code, write, play games, and produce, write, and play music for fun.

Some relevant tags are: #ADHD #arch #atheist #chicago #design #endeavouros #exmo #ExMormon #FLOSS #FOSS #GNU #incense #indieweb #introductionspost #KDE #LGBT #libregraphics #leftist #linux #music #scotland #tea #TransRights #trombone #vegan #vegancooking #webdev #writing

I hadn't searched myself for awhile and it looks like lots of folks have done derivatives of my religious trauma and manipulation deconstruction work. This is actually really cool! Wish I had space to listen to some of them.

#RecoveringAgency #ReligiousTrauma #exmo #exmormon https://mas.to/@tokyo_0/114099341707629649

A Would You Rather question for Mormons (in the broadest possible sense - incl exmormons). This thought always goes through my mind when writing about Forever Families, as I am in one of these groups and have to remember the other group exists to include that perspective.

You hear the prophet yet again say that if you sin, you will never be with your family in the eternities.

1. You love your family. You have sinned, and desperately fear losing them forever.

2. You dislike/hate your family. The idea of the Celestial Kingdom seems pretty great, but you'd really rather your family not be there. This fills you with unresolvable dissonance.

Which situation is the saddest?

When I was a teenage mormon girl, at church one Sunday, the teacher asked us girls what we wanted to change about ourselves. We went around the circle, each girl exposing her insecurities and how imperfect she was. 
"I want to be more patient" 
"I need to work harder at school" 
"I need to be more obedient to my parents" etc
#exmo

I fucking love art based on Mormon metaphors that isn't adhering 100% to Official Authorized LDS Doctrine.™ It's a culture rich with symbolism that manages to transform it all into literal materialistic rigidity in a way that utterly destroys any hint of beauty, individuality, or spirit.

I still have no idea what this song means (I've heard it many times) but the Mormon imagery in it is beautiful and subversive.

https://open.spotify.com/track/5xS34PRoOMWZPAARpQGakF