Saturday, 20 April 2019

Sin Does Not Exist (in Sunstone)

I have an article, Sin Does Not Exist in Sunstone Magazine (188).
It is a version of Zeus’s Thunderbolt, Euthyphro’s Dilemma, and the Eliminative Reduction of Sin, which was quite lengthy.
Credit to Stephen Carter for an excellent job editing it down to a length that would fit, and for suggesting and making revisions to make it more Sunstone friendly.
Edited to add--Stephen Carter described the essay as "a game changer." One reader on Reddit commented "Whoa. That sunstone article was intense. Pretty much moved me from nondenominational Christian to agnostic in the space of half an hour or so."

Thursday, 11 April 2019

Leave it Alone? No. Just No.

The perennial refrain of the faithful LDS when confronted with criticism from those disenfranchised from the Church:
You can leave the Church, but you can’t leave it alone.
We see it at least a few times a week on social media. It is typically shared in a tone of dismissal, intended to demonstrate to the apostate that their arguments are simply “more of the same” and “typical anti-mormon lies.” It is also intended to convey an understanding that the Church is the victim of persecution, and the criticism is just another instance of the sort of persecution that the Lord’s one and only has always had to endure.
I don’t know for certain how long this phrase has been employed by the faithful as a means to elude the criticisms of former believers, but after an admittedly cursory search, the earliest reference that I found to the phrase is an April 1989 General Conference address by a member of the Presiding Bishopric, Glenn A. Pace.[i][ii]
I have a few things to say about the concern that the faithful have over whether those disenfranchised from the LDS fold should, in fact, leave it alone.