Thinking outside of the box

I recently attempted to engage in civil discussion about the Ordain Women (OW) movement in a forum. How did that go, you ask? Not so well. I mean I am pretty it was a waste of time and effort because everything I said fell on deaf ears. It turns out that there are some topics in Mormonism that are taboo to the point of anathema. Literally. There is a woman professor at this very moment under 'investigation' at BYU-Idaho for expressing her personal opinion on her Facebook page. A former student read her remarks and anonymously turned her in to the honor code office. Now has to talk with her bishop, department head, maybe the dean, and who knows what after that to see if she is aligned with the school honor code and church views. Yikes. If she is found to not align with the honor code and church views, her job could be terminated. Anathema.

This is how Mormonism forces people to tow the party line. You agree with us or you get kicked out (and by inference go to Hell.) Some topics are worse than others, but any outspoken idea that does not fit within the correlated doctrine of the church can put you on the outside. OW is one of those ideas. And really it is not so far fetched. Other Christian churches have allowed women (or gasp! homosexuals) become ministers or pastors holding the priesthood. But not Mormonism. It is still waiting for God to reveal to its privileged, white, male, prejudiced leadership that this is the right thing to do. But this won't happen any time soon because the patriarchy must protect its position of power. Don't even mention that SO many women could be wonderful bishops or other leaders. So many are willing and able. The church is overlooking half of its adult population for positions of service just because they are female.

[ It turns out that your experience will widely vary from ward to ward, stake to stake. The ward I am currently in, though not exactly active, has a very understanding bishop, who really is Christ-like and loving. He knows who I am and what I believe (or don't, as the case may be) and all he asks is, "Is there anything I can do for you or your family?" Awesome. Now if all wards and stakes in the church could be so inclusive. ]

Another form of sanction besides excommunication is revocation of a temple recommend. One of the questions is: "Do you support, affiliate with, or agree with any group or individual whose teachings or practices are contrary to or oppose those accepted by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints?" So agreeing with OW at this point in time is technically in violation of the questions asked to get a temple recommend. Apparently I am not worthy.

There is so much vitriol on Facebook and other social media sites against any pro-OW discussion. Only in private circles does any reasonable discussion take place. The funniest thing about this is that the people who are so anti-OW would likely about face if the prophet came out tomorrow and announced that women are now eligible for the priesthood. But until that happens, the topic is not up for discussion. Shut it down.

But who am I to talk? I opened my mind to discussion and new ideas and completely lost my faith. So maybe it is better to shut it down and push out the riffraff.

Root of All Belief

I am at root a physical thinker and learner, but when that is not possible, I think my next best learning language is visual. I can't listen to people drone on and expect to learn half of what is expected. I didn't have a physical representation of God, revelation, the spirit, priesthood, etc., to see how it all related, so how better to know what I believe that to map it out visually.

I planned this great little application (originally php, later javascript) that would allow me to add 'Tenets' and relate them to each other logically (IF -> THEN, AND, OR, NOT, etc.) to make a web of belief. It was a great idea, but really flawed at its root: I didn't have absolute knowledge of much at all in which to ground my beliefs; I really only had a belief with some certainty.

It turns out that I was not the first one to come up with the idea of probabilistic logic. When I read about it, I was amazed at how well it fit my problem. All I had to do was make my Tenets application into a probabilistic logic network. Then I could see how much I really believe.

By this time, I had already pretty much come to the conclusion that my beliefs were all rooted in the idea that God exists. If God exists, it would make sense that God would want to create wonders (earth, the universe, and mankind) and would want to talk to us through revelation. Mormon theology is deeply rooted in revelation; prophetic and personal. From there, we get all other manner of beliefs: priesthood, miracles, ordinances, church organization, etc. We can trace it all back to God. If God doesn't exist, then it is all moot. Thus my radical change from a believing Mormon to an atheist, agnostic, or whatever. It's not that I found a religion that explains my purpose better, it is that I don't believe in ANY religion. As Dawkins put it, I had already stopped believing in all the other gods (thought of them as nice, interesting, or weird myths) and just took it one step further to stop believing in the last god that I had held onto since my childhood.

Since I had ruled out the root of all belief, my religious views crumbled and I kind of found my Tenets application no longer necessary. But I was thinking that someday it might be nice to revisit and put scientific discovery in where God once was. How do I explain the universe now? Someday when I get around to it, I will dust off my javascript skillz and make something cool.